CHAPTER 47: A BIRD IN A GILDED CAGE
The Salvatore Boarding House
Stefan Salvatore had flipped the humanity switch... again. When Natalie heard it from Elena, she felt like she wanted to scream. The last time had been bad enough, but this time they had finally been happy and it was once again just taken away from them. Caroline had told him that unless he wanted his great-niece Sarah Salvatore (who Natalie had no idea existed) to die, he had to turn it off. And he did.
She did it because she knew that, together, Stefan, Natalie, Elena and Bonnie might have been able to find some way to trigger emotion in her, them of them being her best friends. And they were also the the people in the world who reminded her the most of her mother. But when one of them didn't care about her humanity she would be able to stay the way she wanted.
But, fortunately, Stefan didn't know that everybody knew about his trip down no-humanity lane, so they thought that vervaining him and throwing him in the cellar was a good plan, like it usually was.
So, Natalie felt the weigh of the syringe filled with vervain in her pocket as she heard the sound of his motorcycle stopping outside of the house ring through her ears. She did her best to act natural, not wanting him to think anything was going on.
"Hey," she breathed, smiling at him softly as she did her best to act as love-struck as usual. He didn't even smile back at he as he walked towards her. She looked down for a moment, pretending to act hurt. "I know I did a bit of a disappearing act last night. Did anything special happen after I left?"
"No, still loud, lame and rave-like," Stefan responded, showing no emotion in the way he spoke to her. It was like he wasn't even trying to act like the old Stefan to try to fool her, like it didn't even matter.
"Are you okay?" the brunette girl asked, tucking a piece of curly hair behind her ear as she busted out some acting skills to win the Oscar for best actress. "You know, if there's anything you want to talk about, you can come to me. That's kinda the point of the whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing."
He didn't seem to care, obviously. "Where do we keep our weapons?"
"Excuse me?" Natalie asked, trying to act as though she was offended with him being a dick and ignoring her trying to be a good girlfriend and person. But, of course, she knew humanity-less Stefan, and he was a huge dick without trying.
"Crossbows, vervain grenades, all that hunter crap you used to be into?" he listed, deciding to elaborate as he waved his hand as if she needed them to understand him. He then glanced over to the most lavish chair in the house and nodded as if he remembered. "Ah! Yes! The throne."
Stefan walked over to the throne, taking off the seat to find a hidden compartment filled with all of those things he had listed off before. He brought out a bag from what seemed like nowhere, seeing as Natalie hadn't noticed him bringing one with him.
She resisted the urge to take a deep breath to calm her nerves as she pulled the vervain-filled syringe out of her pocket carefully, hoping he wouldn't have noticed. She used her vampire speed to get him, but he was too quick, grabbing her wrist before she was able to do anything.
"Elena told on me. Shocker," he sighed sarcastically as he looked down on his girlfriend with a condescending look. He could see her glare at him, and somehow that amused him greatly. "You look angry. Are you angry?"
"Stefan, come on," she tried to plead, only for him to tighten his grip on her wrist, that he was still holding in the air. She was sure that if he only added a tiny bit more pressure, he would have ended up breaking it. "You know this isn't you. You didn't want to turn it off, and you know it. So, just turn it back on. It's that easy."
"Oh come on, Nat," he chuckled. She winced at him using her nickname, seeing as he had never used it. She had always been Natalie to him, and hearing him call her anything else was not enjoyable. "To quote a no-humanity you; do you seriously think it'll be that easy?"
"I hate when people quote me," she reminded him. His smirk only widened, and he added that pressure that was needed to break her wrist, and it snapped. She sucked in a breath as she dropped the syringe.
"I know. That's why I did it." He let her go, allowing her to hold onto her broken wrist and snap it back into place. He gnawed on the inside of his lips for a moment as he studied her, he then seemed to come to a conclusion. "I think we should take a break."
"I don't," she responded sternly. Yeah, maybe no-humanity Stefan wasn't her favorite Stefan, but he was still Stefan. She needed him to be him, to be who he was and not the evil kind that was standing in front of her. "What I think is that you and I, we need to get you back. Because this Stefan isn't the one I'm in love with. This is some empty shell devoid of emotion."
"Isn't that the point of turning it off, though?" Stefan asked, and decided to put his hand back on her. He grabbed her upper arm harshly, pulling her closer to him so she was only centimeters away from his face. Actually, their noses were brushing against each other. "You'd know, wouldn't you? You did it once. Too bad you can't do it anymore, because then you wouldn't be so damn weak. You were a lot more fun. I should have appreciated that."
"I'm not weak, Stefan," Natalie spat, pulling her arm out of his grip. She sent a heated glare his way as she put her hand on her arm, where it had already started getting bruised before it healed because of her vampire-healing. "You don't get it right now, but this is me beings strong. Me not giving up on you makes me strong."
"Oh, it's so funny how you actually think that's true," he chuckled without humor. At least she wasn't acting as desperate as human-Natalie did when he was forcing himself to act like he didn't feel. He reached out to pat her cheek in a patronizing way. "Now you, my lovely girlfriend, need do yourself a favor. Stay out of my way today."
She opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say something. But she quickly closed it as she realized she had nothing to say. No witty remark or quick retort that would make up for the fact that she couldn't help but think about his words and feel they were correct. You wouldn't be so damn weak.
He sent her a tight smile that was obviously fake as he brushed past her, bumping his shoulder against hers as he walked towards the exit with a bag filled with their most dangerous weapons thrown over his shoulders.
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Natalie let out a laugh, the loudest laugh she thinks he had ever let out. What was just said was probably the funniest thing she had ever heard, because it was so damn stupid for anyone to think that what was asked of her would ever be done.
She then looked at him and her smile faded as she saw his very serious face. "Oh, you were serious," she looked at him as if he was an idiot. "Yeah, as if I'm ever going to help you again. I can't believe you."
"Natalie, come on-" Damon tried to convince her but she gave him a blank look and tried to shut the door to her and Stefan's usually shared room, but he put his foot by it before it was closed. "We need Kai to go to the prison world and get my mom and he won't go unless he can talk with you and Bonnie."
"You still haven't learnt your lesson? How stupid can you be? Do you see this face?" she asked, gesturing and pointing to her own face who had a huge glare on it. "This is the face I make when I'm pissed off at you. And you know that, and you're still doing the exact same thing I'm mad at you for."
"I know, I thought we established that I'm an idiot years ago," he responded dryly, his foot still being in front of the door in case she was thinking about smashing it in his face again. "And I'm sorry, okay? I've said I'm sorry a million times now, to both you and Bonnie."
Natalie furrowed her brows at him with pursed lips, showing that she wasn't about to go and forgive him right at that second. In fact, she looked pretty done with the whole conversation already. "And both me and Bonnie have said we don't forgive you a million times now."
He sighed, knowing the conversation wasn't really going in his favor. "Actually, I've talked to Bonnie and she said she's going to meet with Kai, but he wants to see both of you. He's feeling pretty sorry for both you and himself. It's pathetic."
She chuckled bitterly. "Kai is incapable of human emotion. I don't under stand how anyone can think he's changed. Especially you. For part of the time we were with him in prison world, you were there and saw how bad he was. You know that he kept me at the high school and tortured me for hours."
"And you know I'm sorry. But you want Stefan's humanity back, right? Isn't he the love of your life or something cheesy like that?" he asked, getting a disbelieving look from him using her love for his brother against her. "If we get my mom out of the prison world then we can get him back too. You can have the love of your life back."
Natalie looked down for a moment, remembering how it felt to have Stefan look at her as if he didn't know her, like she didn't matter at all to him. She had never hated the way someone looked at her more. "Okay. But this doesn't mean I forgive you."
He glanced down at where his foot met the door for a moment because he knew she would break his foot with the door. "I know that. And I'm willing to work to get back to where we were before I made that huge mistake that I very much regret."
"Good," she smiled in fake sweetness before using her vampire strength to shove the door closed, even if his foot was there. And it could have broken his foot, but, luckily, he was also a vampire and he was able to get it out in time.
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A Coffee House
Natalie had texted Bonnie, asking where they were supposed to meet Kai before he was going to the 1903 prison world. She kept reminding herself that she was doing it for Stefan. If it wasn't for him, she would have refused and snapped Damon's neck at the same time.
She ended up meeting Bonnie at a coffee house near the Whitmore campus and they both bonded over their mutual anger at Damon and hatred for Kai until the latter of the men they were talking about showed up.
Damon had asked Bonnie if she could help get them the 1903 prison world Ascendant. And so, she asked Kai for it. He had been looking overly giddy when it came to talking to them while they were just sending him disgusted looks. "You want the 1903 Ascendant? Well, sure. Just let me reach in my pocket and pull it out."
Bonnie sent her female friend a look as if to ask if she really had to do this, Natalie sent her an apologizing sigh in return. The witch then turned to the smiling siphoner. "If you're sincerely looking for a way to make up for the hell that you put us through, this is it."
The thought of them actually forgiving him for what he'd done seemed to make him freeze for a moment before he started speaking again. "Okay. The problem is the Gemini kept the existence of the 1903 prison world a secret for generations, so find the key to that particular jail cell, I'd have to navigate ancient texts, undo layers of magical cloaking spells, and..."
"Wait." He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out the exact Ascendant they were looking for. He looked at them with a teasing grin, whereas they didn't look amused. "Oh, that's weird. Haha! It was in my pocket."
"When Damon told me about Mama Salvatore, I started looking." Natalie reached out to grab the Ascendant out of his hands but he pulled it away. "And if I wanted to, I could get her out. Newly minted leader of the Gemini coven and all, I don't even need a celestial event to zap us there."
Natalie wet her lips as he put the Ascendant on the table. She stared at it, knowing that it was the only thing that stood between them and getting the Salvatore brothers' mother out of that wretched prison world. "What's the catch, Kai?"
He sent the brunette a small smile, trying to look as friendly as possible so they would agree. "I'll go if you two go. Come on. It could be fun, you know, 1903, the- the Gilded Age. Didn't you ever dream about time travel?"
Natalie chuckled bitterly at his words, finding it amusing how he thought she would actually agree to that. "I'd rather choke to death in a sea of literal crap then have to spend a second more with you then I have to."
"You're way more likely to die at the hands of your boy-toy, Stefan. I bet it will be over something stupid, like you saying that he's crushing your heart and he reaches out and literally crushes your heart. I mean, if only there were some way to reunite him with his humanity," he smiled as if what he was saying wasn't meant to be so damn manipulative.
"Side-bar," Natalie said, making her and Bonnie turn around and start speaking in hush-whispers that not even the almighty leader of the Gemini coven could hear them.
The two seemed to have a small fight with whisper-yelling before they both became quiet and turned around to face him, annoyed looks on both of their faces as they sighed simultaneously in defeat.
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The Salvatore Boarding House
Seeing as it supposedly was cold as hell in the 1903 prison world Natalie had thrown on a winter coat over her last outfit, because unlike the witches, she was less affected by the cold because of her vampire status.
Bonnie looked at the knife she held in her hands, seeing as it was going to be used to cut into her palm so they could get a bit of blood to travel over to the prison world. But she couldn't help but think about sticking it in Kai instead.
As the female witch finally got some blood out of her palm, Kai looked at the size and look of it and laughed out loud as he looked at it. "Damn. Crocodile Dundee called. He wants his knife back."
The dark-skinned girl sent him a sarcastic smile as she sheathed her knife slowly. "Yeah. You know, he's no longer a thing, and neither is that joke."
"I love you," Natalie smiled at her, feeling proud at how she had learned how to be able to roast Kai's ass out of the existence of time and space. Bonnie sent her a wink that made her smile widen.
Suddenly, Elena walked into the room, wearing a huge winter coat, although scrutinizing her own appearance, as if she wasn't sure if she could go in that. "Is this presentable attire by 1903 standards?"
Damon frowned, wondering when he had ever heard anything that would suggest anybody ever having even had the wish to think about asking her to go with them. "Whoa. Who said you're coming?"
The doppelganger raised her eyebrows at her boyfriend, wondering how the hell he could think she wouldn't end up going. "To meet the woman who gave birth to the two epic loves of my life? Me."
Natalie raised an eyebrow at how she had decided to defend herself. Kai, on the other hand, just seemed lie he didn't want her there at all. "Powerful as I am, there's a limit to how many people one witch can transport with this spell."
Bonnie didn't even care that much about whether or not Elena came with them, but every opportunity to show her dislike for Kai was a good one. "Right, which is why there's two of us. Shall we?"
Damon gave his girlfriend a long and hard look, waiting for her to back down, but she never did. He sighed in defeat and turned to Natalie, Bonnie and Kai with a shrug. "Fine. Let's go get Mama."
They all knew that to enter the prison world they'd have to hold hands. Natalie was quick to grab Bonnie and Elena's hands, not wanting to hold either of the boys' hands simply because of everything they had done to her.
Damon looked down for a moment, remembering back when him, Natalie and Bonnie held onto each other's hands while trying to travel back from the prison world. Her rushing to grab the hands of anybody that wasn't him (or Kai, but she hated him with a passion so...) was a cruel reminder that she no longer considered him her best friend.
But he reluctantly grabbed Elena and Kai's hands, looking as if he wanted to break Kai's but he somehow was able to pull through without doing it. Bonnie glanced distastefully over at Kai's hand and grabbed it as he started chanting with a smile.
For whatever reason, Bonnie kept mostly quiet and avoided chanting while Kai was given the job of getting the magic rolling. He was most likely going to just channel her magical Bennett witchy-ness. "Sangiema meam et nos mundo carcerema. Sangiema meam et nos mundo carcerema."
The familiar bright light of a prison world transition clouded Natalie's vision, and she felt, like usual, that she was going blind until she made the wonderful decision to finally just shut her freaking eyes. She felt kind of stupid for not doing it from the start considering the surprising large amount of times she had been in transition of prison worlds.
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The Woods, 1903 Prison World
She opened her eyes when she felt a new piece of snow whipping her face with every passing millisecond. She was grateful for wearing the jacket she had on, because even with her vampire stuff, she still could still feel it worse than most times there was winter in Virginia.
Damon studied the way Mystic Falls looked over at that very special day in 1903, the one where his mother was trapped in a prison world because of her ripper-ing, that she passed on to her other son. "Well, isn't this a picturesque slice of hell?"
Bonnie tried to suppress a small smirk at the what she had planned, something she hadn't even discussed with her partner in crime, Natalie. "You guys go ahead. Kai and I will start the locator spell on the Ascendant."
"And Natalie's coming with us," Kai told them, making the other witch frown for a moment because she didn't think she should have to go with them. But Kai just turned to Natalie with a puppy-eyed look. "Right?"
The vampire pursed her lips distastefully as she looked at him for a moment. "Natalie's coming with you."Kai's face was suddenly graced with a huge smile, beaming at the younger girl.
Elena, on the other hand, wondered why they couldn't just use the Ascendant they already had, only to discover it had suddenly disappeared. "But Kai just had the Ascendant. Why do we have to find another one?"
Kai didn't even turn to look over at the doppelganger as he showed off his Gemini knowledge. "The Ascendant can't travel between worlds, which means we gotta find its mirror image here in 1903."
"Page 10 on the world-jumping rule-book," Damon pointed out sarcastically, turning to his girlfriend so the two could go and find his mother and bring her back with them. "Shall we?"
As Damon had started walking, Elena turned to her best friend and her twin sister with a worried look, sending glances over to Kai. "I don't want to leave you two alone with him."
"We'll be fine," Bonnie assured her, getting a supportive nod from Natalie. They turned to look at where Kai was standing with his tongue sticking out as he tried to catch snowflakes on it. "He's good now, remember? New leaf."
"Plus, I'm a vampire who can kick his ass," Natalie added with a smug smile. She patted her sister's arm as if to tell her she could go be with her boyfriend. The older twin hesitated, but she saw the looks the other girls gave her and turned around with a defeated sigh.
Kai had a small smile on his face that he did his best to keep from turning into a full-blown grin. He had tried to make both girls believe in him for the last day, and even convincing one was enough to make him feel giddy. "New leaf? You believe me."
Bonnie turned to him, sending him looks as if she was asking whether or not he was literally insane. He should have known it wasn't true. "Hell no. But Damon and Elena need to meet his mom alone."
Natalie walked towards him and grabbed his shoulder, using her superior strength to turn him around to a direction she hoped was the right one with a sarcastic smile. "Now, your only job here is to shut up and find the Ascendant."
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Natalie, Bonnie and Kai had found a shed they could warm up in if they got cold, but they decided to just stay on the outside as Natalie could awkwardly stare at the witches getting ready to do a locator spell to find the Ascendant.
Kai dripped a blood from his index finger over Bonnie's palm so she could use his blood because it belonged to his family. "You have really nice palms," he suddenly blurted out. He glanced over at Natalie, seeing as he was itching for her forgiveness too. "And so do you."
Bonnie gave him a confused look while Natalie just took a long, hard stare at her palms. She thought they looked pretty normal, not really nice but they were okay. Instead of staring at her palms for a good minute, Bonnie shook it off and started chanting to do the spell. "Phasmatos Tribum, Nas Ex Veras, Sequitas Sanguinem. Phasmatos Tribum, Nas Ex Veras, Sequitas Sanguinem."
Kai looked at the two girls, neither of them looking over at him. He gnawed on the inside of his lip, wondering why they refused to believe that he could change, that absorbing Luke's magic helped him become a better person. "Do you know why I'm here? Because my guilt keeps me up at night. I don't- I don't expect you to believe me. But I need you to give me one more chance."
Natalie was still staring at her palms while Bonnie chanted, both of the girls ignoring him. Suddenly, he gained a huge glare on his face, reaching out to grab both of their wrists harshly. "Bonnie, Natalie, listen to me!"
Without thinking about it, he suddenly started drawing magic out of the two supernaturals, the two girls starting to groan in pain. His glare disappeared as his eyes widened, dropping their wrists, looking shocked at what he had done. "Sorry, I- oh my God, I didn't- I didn't mean to do that-"
Natalie started rubbing her aching wrist, looking at him with a bitter smugness. "Yeah, but you did do it. That's what matters. Not what you say, but what you do. And you doing that tells me that even if you think that you've turned a new leaf and you're a good guy, you're still that evil, repulsive, little rat I knew."
Bonnie sent him a heated glare as she started walking before speaking up. "The Ascendant is this way." Natalie followed right behind her as Kai stared at the girls' retreating figures guiltily.
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The trio of supernaturals kept walking in the same order. Bonnie in the front so she could lead them to the Ascendant, Natalie behind her because Bonnie actually liked being around Natalie, and Kai in the back because nobody liked him.
Bonnie ran a hand through her short hair for a moment, trying to pull away the snowflakes that had attached themselves to it. "The spell feels stronger. The Ascendant must be around here somewhere."
As the female witch stopped walking, Kai and Natalie were finally able to catch up with her. He frowned, not understanding how that could be where his ancestors decided to put it. "Why would the Ascendant be here?"
"If anybody here would know that, it would be you. Almighty leader of the Gemini coven, was it?" Natalie retorted for her friend dryly. She sent Kai a smile, but not the kind of warm, friendly ones she gives to people she liked. This was the: I hate you and I'm not going to hide it smile.
As the Bonnie still stood with her back to him and Natalie avoided his gaze, he sighed as he spoke up hesitantly. "If you two don't think I'm capable of change, why spend an entire day with me? Why bring me out into the middle of nowhere? I could gut you all over again," he said to Bonnie before turning to Natalie. "I could turn your blood into acid again. Your friends would never even hear you scream."
Natalie raised an eyebrow at him, as if she was wondering how he could possibly try to say he was now changed when he was talking about evil things he could do. "Do you even hear yourself? People who say stuff like that aren't usually good!"
Bonnie sighed in defeat, turning to face him with a conflicted look on her face. "Because maybe you're right. Maybe, deep down, there's a part of me that believes there's a sliver of good in you."
"What the hell, Bonnie?" Natalie asked silently, turning to the girl who was one of her best friends. She was starting to wonder if she was possessed by a ghost or something. Or a demon, because only evil things loves evil people Kai.
"And, you'd be right!" Kai beamed, looking happy that at least Bonnie was getting closer to forgiving him. He could always work a bit more on Natalie later. He then decided to start looking for the Ascendant again. "Looking, looking, and... nope, they didn't hide the Ascendant in a random pile of-"
He was cut off by the sharp pain suddenly appearing on back. He fell on the snow-covered ground, Bonnie standing above him with a knife in hand. Natalie raised her eyebrows as if to say she was impressed. "Now that's what I'm talking about."
Kai gasped in pain, gripping the snow to try to crawl away, but Bonnie wasn't about to let that happen. She grabbed him and stabbed him again, this time in the hamstring. She flipped him around, straddling him so he couldn't move. "Bonnie, what are you doing?"
She looked down at him, feeling hate through her every second of having him being in the same country as her. "Gaining your trust, and then stabbing you in the back? Feels pretty sucky, doesn't it?"
"Please, don't," he pleaded through the pain. He had never been so afraid as he was in that moment. He knew she was capable of anything because of how much she hated him, and Natalie wouldn't do anything to stop her.
"Don't what? Don't-don't leave you here? All alone? Drive you to the point of wanting to end your own life?" she had spoken angrily before, but then she just exploded, nearly screaming at him. "I almost killed myself because of you!"
A hand suddenly appeared on her shoulder, and Bonnie glanced up to see Natalie there. The vampire sent her a sympathetic look as the witch nodded. She knew that she should let Natalie get her chance for a bit revenge as well.
The reincarnation didn't have a special expression on her face. She just leaned down in front of Kai, looking much like she did back when she was humanity-less. Stefan's words from earlier that day still echoed through her mind. So damn weak.
She refused to be weak. From now on, she was going to try to go back to being strong. She didn't do anything for a moment, because she was exploring her options, her mind going back to all of the horrible things he had done to physically torture her.
"Natalie, please. Please don't," Kai cried out through his panting. He would have done something, but Bonnie was pinning his arms down. Both him and Bonnie grew confused when she put the tip of her finger at the higher part of his cheek. "What are you- what are you doing?"
"Just working on my self-control," she responded, remembering when he had said those exact words to her while keeping her trapped in the Mystic Falls high school. She also remembered what he had done seconds before speaking the words.
She used her extraordinary strength to make her not-that-sharp fingernail work as if it was a knife. Blood started seeping out of where she trailed a letter with her fingernail. There, there was now a mark spelling out the letter N. The same way he had once used magic to carve in a K at her cheek once.
He cried out as she carved her first initial into his cheek. He wasn't even sure which pain to concentrate on, it felt like everything was on fire for him. "Please, please, believe me! I've changed!"
"So have I," Bonnie growled with gritted teeth. She raised the knife in the air before going to stab him with it again. Then, out of nowhere, he disappeared. It wasn't just that he was invisible, he had disappeared from Bonnie's grip.
The knife was stuck in the ground, where Kai had been only seconds before he had used his Gemini leader magic to disappear. Bonnie and Natalie frowned, trying to see if they could find him. They exchanged confused glances, trying to see if the other one spotted him. But he was just gone.
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The Salvatore Estate
Natalie felt like it was weird going to the old Salvatore estate, where Stefan and Damon grew up. She tried to imagine the two as children, teenagers, the kind who didn't quite understand the world's plan for them. But she could only see the men they had become, and she wasn't sure how to think about that.
When they hadn't found Kai to give him another stabbing session, Natalie and Bonnie had gone together to the estate to find Damon, Elena and Damon's mother, Lily Salvatore. They needed to go home soon, when the northern lights would appear.
As Natalie and Bonnie entered the house, feeling pretty relieved of it as they finally found a bit more heat in the house than outside, they heard Elena's voice. "Damon, look outside! Is that the Aurora Borealis?"
"AKA our ticket out of here," Natalie announced their presence to the couple. Damon couldn't help but smile a bit as she appeared. With them taking so long, he couldn't have helped but be worried if Kai did something, anything, to her.
"You got it?" Bonnie asked Elena, getting a nod in return. The doppelganger fished the Ascendant out of her pocket with a smile, happy to have been able to help them with Kai. Bonnie took it away from her with a grateful look. "Okay."
"You gotta be kidding me!" Damon groaned, making the girls turn to him in confusion. First then did Natalie notice that there was no other Salvatore in the room. Lily must have wandered off elsewere. "Go. Start the damn spell. I'll go get her."
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Bonnie, Elena and Natalie walked outside, going to the spot they were in when they arrived. Seeing as that was one of the perfect spots when it came to the northern lights and all its glory or something like that.
With every passing moment that Damon didn't show up, Natalie was getting more worried. Yeah, she was pissed off at the guy, but she did not want to abandon him. That was the last hing she would do.
Damon might not have been there yet, but Bonnie still chanted, the spell having started without two of the people they needed, both of them being Salvatores. "Sangiema meam et nos mundo carcerema. Sangiema meam et nos mundo carcerema."
In the distance, Natalie caught Damon's gaze as he walked up to them. He held onto the arm of an older woman, one she suspected was Lily Salvatore from her resemblance to the video Bonnie showed them. She couldn't help but smile a bit in relief. "Damon..."
Bonnie started bleeding a bit on the Ascendant, but that kind of thing didn't even hurt her anymore. She had been forced to use her blood for spells before, and it wasn't that big of a deal after the hundredth time. They all clung onto her, knowing they needed to for them to get home.
"Natalie! Bonnie!" a voice called out from far away. But they could still see him. He stood there, looking as if he wanted to cry from both pain and fear. Kai was actually showing some kind of emotion.
He still had an N on his cheek with blood smeared around the whole of it, stab wounds on his back and in the hamstring. But with those injuries, he felt unable to walk any further, to get to his ticket home.
Natalie and Bonnie kept their gazes on him, and everybody else acted like they couldn't see him because they knew it was a very emotionally loaded moment for the two. A smirk graced Natalie's face as she looked at him, Bonnie just looked at him with a glare as she continued her chanting.
And then, they left another prison world. With that, they also left Kai.
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The Salvatore Boarding House
Natalie tapped her finger against the bourbon glass in her hands. It wasn't because she felt guilty about what she had done to Kai, because she didn't. Well, maybe she did a bit. There was a part of her that knew they had gone too far. But she couldn't be weak. Natalie Saltzman was not made to be weak.
Damon leaned against the opening of the parlor, his guilty gaze still on her. He still remembered what she had said to him, that she didn't want to see him or look at him, she didn't want to hear his apologies. But he needed to say them. "Hey."
"Hi," she greeted, turning her head over her shoulder. She didn't smile at him, the kind of way she would have done if they could turn time back only 48 hours, when she couldn't imagine him hurting her the way he did.
"Can we- can we talk?" Damon asked, walking closer to where the brunette girl was sitting. He could see that she was about to roll her eyes at him and walk away. But he stopped her before she could. "This isn't a stupid apology. This is me wanting to talk to you, have a conversation with you about him. About Kai. And about what I did."
She turned to him, still speaking calmly and emotionless-ly. "Did you think it would be easy for me? To go around and listen to the guy who made me feel so damn weak act like what he did was just something that could be forgiven with a half-assed I'm sorry?""
Although he had said he wasn't doing this to apologize the way she didn't care to listen to him, he still said those two words that she wanted to punch him for saying. "I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking-"
She cut him off, pushing herself off the couch and putting her bourbon glass on a table as he stood up. "Exactly. You didn't think. You didn't think about the fact that maybe I wouldn't be okay with seeing him there. Because I hate feeling weak. Thankfully, Stefan opened my eyes today."
"You're listening to no-humanity Stefan? That's the worst thing you can do!" he frowned. He knew she wasn't dumb, but doing something like that, listening to someone who doesn't give a crap about you isn't a good idea.
"He may be a dick, but he's also right. I'm weak." She shrugged, sniffling as if she was trying not to have tears build up in her eyes. "I've been weak ever since that day you left the prison world. And that's why I'm proud of myself for today. Because today I remembered what it was like to be strong."
"You've never been weak. You're the strongest person I know," he assured her. He couldn't understand how she would ever believe she was weak. She had gone through so much but she always made it through, she always picked herself up again without discarding it as nothing. And he saw that was true strength.
"That's the thing, I'm not. I used to be. And now I'm just empty," she said, looking at him with a blank look, the kind that most of the time would have been clouded with tears. But she didn't feel like she had any tears in her. "I'm this empty shell who's lost herself. And there's something inside me and it's screaming. Screaming for me to wake up, just wake up. But I can't."
Damon didn't seem to know how to respond. He sucked a breath in, his jaw slacked. He had no idea she was feeling that way, so gone. He felt like he should have noticed, seen any signs of her struggling.
"And I'm just standing here and I don't know what to do. Because I look in the mirror and I don't recognize that girl anymore. I know me, and that's not me. And I know that she's somewhere waiting to wake up but it's like she's in a coma." She looked down as her voice broke with the last word. And with that, the tears finally appeared. They were easily visible in the confinements of her tears, but it wasn't a very good confinement because they started pouring down quickly.
And it feels like the longer she's gone, the more I feel like I'm dying. I can't breathe, I can't- I can't concentrate and it just... It feels like I'm dying inside because I'm so dead and I can't wake up," she spoke, running one hand through her hair and the other wiping tears away from her cheeks.
"And I'm trying to be strong but I can't. I remember what it was like, but I don't remember how to get back to that." The tears finally stopped falling as she looked at him with a begging look, one of pleading. "Can you help me? Please help me wake up. Because I'm dying."
"You're not dying," he said sternly. He grabbed her head, leading her into his arms where she buried her face in his shoulder. She didn't sob, only letting one more tear fall on his shirt. He just let her hold onto him.
Natalie couldn't help but melt into him, where she felt so safe. She never thought she would ever describe Damon Salvatore as safe, but that was exactly what he was to her. She loved him, he was her best friend. She may have been angry with him but that didn't change anything.
She still loved him, even if he hurt her. And so, she let him have a grip on her where she falling into arms. She let herself hold onto him, the one who she hoped she count on. She knew she should have been doubting him. But there was a part of her that just knew that he loved her just as much as she loved him.
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A/N: Long ass chapter galore. I know it took a while for me to get it up, but I did do it eventually. So, yay me! And I know that Damon was a huge dick last chapter, but... Datalie. I can't keep Datalie apart anymore.
Votes and comments are greatly appreciated.