"What are you doing?"
Stefan had walked into one of the rooms of the Salvatore house to see Riley sitting on the ground, surrounded by piles and piles of books.
"Reading," she said distractedly, turning the page.
Stefan walked towards her and picked up one of the books. "Dracula?"
She didn't look up when she answered. "It's about vampires. I thought it would help."
"Help?" Stefan asked, finally catching up. "Are you looking for a cure?"
This time, she finally looked up and met his eye. "What else would I be doing?"
Stefan sighed. "I've got Bonnie looking for something. I really don't think the cure to a werewolf bite is in one of those books."
Riley put her current book down and picked up the next one in her pile. "Before I came to this town, everything I knew about your world was in the pages of books like these. And now it's all real. Do you really think it's impossible that, maybe, one of these authors was on the right track?" she asked hopefully.
"I think Damon will probably be dead before you find out," Stefan told her bluntly. "He doesn't have a lot of time."
"Well I can't just sit here and let him die," she said, trying not to think about his condition. "He's... he's Damon, Stefan. I have to do everything I can."
Stefan glanced at her sympathetically. "I locked him in the cellar," he told her. Earlier, Damon had been determined to end his life on his own terms, before the bite could take full effect. "Go and sit with him."
"I should be doing something productive," she insisted. "I'm the only one who can. I mean, Bonnie hates Damon. And Elena and Caroline don't even know about the bite. I'm the only one who can do something."
"Ric's mourning Jenna, and I have to go find Bonnie. Right now, you're the only one who can show my brother that he has something to live for."
As well as Jenna dying, John Gilbert had sacrificed his life for Elena's, ensuring that she remained human.
Riley slowly put the book down. "Klaus is running free, Elijah betrayed us, the Gilberts lost both of their parental figures, and Elena will probably never talk to him again after what he did. What reason does he have to live?"
Stefan thought for a second, then he shrugged. "Give him one."
After a second, she nodded, standing and walking towards the cellar. She watched him for a moment, before she spoke.
"Hey," she said softly. He was lying on the ground, looking extremely worse for wear.
"Elena?" he croaked.
Riley rolled her eyes. "Do I sound like a doppelganger to you?"
He groaned without speaking, and she let herself into his cell. "Come on. The Damon that I know would never waste time feeling sorry for himself."
"The Damon that you knew wasn't dying," he said.
"And is this how he'd want to spend his last moments?" she persisted. "Being on 'suicide watch' because he tried to light himself on fire? You could have at least been inventive," she joked.
Damon cracked the hint of a smile. "How would you do it?"
She frowned thoughtfully. "Well, first of all, I'd get really drunk."
She laughed and he joined her. He sat up slowly, allowing her to fit into the space beside him. "Then... I'd write letters to everyone I love, tying up all the loose ends. And then, when I was truly prepared, I'd let someone else do it."
"You wouldn't do it yourself?" Damon frowned.
She shook her head. "Too much pressure," she said. "I'd give my best friend a stake, and tell them to get me when I'd never expect it. Because if it's a surprise, then I won't have to think about it, you know?"
Damon nodded. "Should we find a stake for Ric?"
Riley laughed. "That's the thing about having the friends that you have, Damon. They'd rather let you die while they're looking for a cure, just in case they find it in the eleventh hour. Myself included."
"Careful, Fletch," he said with a hoarse voice. "You're starting to sound like you care."
She smiled. "Oh Blue-Eyes, if you can't tell by now that I care, then you're a lost cause."
He smiled at her and she smiled back.
"Thanks," he said.
"For what?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
Damon shrugged. "Coming to town."
They looked into each other's eyes, searching for the answer to a question that neither of them knew.
Then there was a knock on the cellar door that pulled them both out of their deep thoughts.
"Riley, can I talk to you for a second?" it was Ric, looking concerned. She nodded and immediately went to him, sending Damon one last smile as she did so.
"What's up?" she asked, noticing how down and blank the history teacher looked, as if nothing in the world mattered anymore. Maybe to him, nothing did.
"What are you doing in there with him?" Ric asked. "He's not in the right frame of mind."
"He's fine," she dismissed. "I mean, yeah he wanted to kill himself, but he's a vampire with a werewolf bite – this is territory that I never thought I'd enter."
"Stefan said he's gonna start hallucinating, all he'll want is blood. You shouldn't be alone with him."
"Stefan's the one who told me to be with him," Riley argued.
"I'm pretty sure he never wanted you to actually go inside," Ric argued back. Yes Damon was his best friend, but he didn't condone his lifestyle. And there was no way he'd allow Damon to kill one of his students, even if he was dying.
"Take a look," Riley said, walking back towards the cellar. "He's fi..." she trailed off, noticing that the door to the cellar was wide open. Ric ran ahead of her.
"He's gone."
At that moment her phone rang. She answered it quickly, hoping that it would be Damon.
"Where are you?" Caroline's desperate voice asked.
"At the Salvatore house. Have you seen Damon?"
"He was just at the Grill," Caroline answered. "My mom tried to shoot him and she ended up... shooting Jeremy. Your dad's here, and everyone's freaking out. Can you come?"
"I'll be there," she said quickly, then addressed Ric. "Damon was at the Grill, he might be looking for Elena."
"I'll find him," Ric said. "If you see him, call me and keep your distance."
She nodded, hoping that Stefan was coming close to finding the cure.
***
"Jeremy's alive," Caroline announced, as Riley entered the Grill with her phone in her hand.
Liz Forbes let out a sigh of relief. She was sat at the table, one hand on her face and the other hand firmly intertwined with Chris Fletcher's. "I thought I killed him."
"You did," Caroline told her.
"Bonnie saved him?" Riley asked, alerting Caroline to her presence.
The blonde vampire nodded. "I don't know what she did, but he's alive. Any news on Damon?"
Riley shook her head. "Ric's looking for him. He's probably found him by now."
"So what are we supposed to do? Just wait for news?" Caroline asked. She'd barely had time to get her head around the werewolf-bite information.
"What else can we do?" Riley asked, shrugging. "We're gonna wait for Stefan to call and tell us that he found the cure and saved Damon's life. Because if he doesn't then... then I don't even know what we're gonna do."
Caroline sighed, thinking about her own relationship with the blue-eyed Salvatore. "It's weird to think about how much everyone hated him when he first came here," she remembered. "Now we're all bending over backwards to save his life."
"It's insane," Riley agreed with a small smile. "But in a good way. Because of all this vampire stuff, we're all probably a lot closer than we would have been otherwise."
"And at least you can say that our lives are never boring," Caroline agreed. The girls laughed, before looking at their parents.
"How long has that-"
"He's been holding her hand since he first got here," Caroline answered. "Now that she finally knows about me, it's nice that your dad doesn't have to hide anything from her anymore."
Riley nodded. "It's nice that you don't have to hide from her either."
"Yep," Caroline nodded. "It's weird that, with everything else that's happened, I got something good out of it."
Riley nodded, relieved when her phone rang. Maybe someone was finally giving them the news that they wanted to hear.
"Elena," she greeted. "Please tell me you guys found Damon."
"We did," Elena confirmed. "We found him, and we cured him."
"He's cured?!" she asked, repeating the only information that she actually cared about.
"Yeah, he's OK. The cure is Klaus's blood," Elena confirmed. Weirdly, she didn't sound as happy as she should have been. "But to get the cure... Stefan gave himself over to Klaus."
As Riley heard this, something tickled the back of her mind. There was something wrong. She'd only seen Klaus the one time, but when she saw him, she felt like she'd seen him before. And now that she thought about Stefan being with him, it became clear.
The picture. The picture of her great-grandmother Gloria with those people in the 20s. Stefan had been in the picture, which had allowed Riley to realize that he wasn't aging. But Klaus... she was now almost 100% sure that Klaus was in the picture too.
"You have to stop him Elena," Riley urged. "Stefan's in trouble."
She didn't know why, but she had a really bad feeling. Maybe taking Stefan had been part of Klaus's plan from the beginning.
"It's too late," Elena responded, the sadness showing in her tone. In fact, she sounded like she'd been crying. "According to Katherine, Klaus wanted Stefan."
"Well he's not having him," Riley said, making her way out of the Grill before anyone could stop her. "Not if I can help it."
***
Riley walked into the room that Klaus had been staying in, having received the location from Ric. It looked pretty deserted. In fact, the only thing in the room was a coffin, the lid closed.
She lifted the lid gingerly, hoping with everything she had that Stefan's deceased body wasn't inside it.
"Elijah?!"
His face was gray, as if he were dead. Seeing him like that brought up feelings of sadness and guilt that should have had no place in her body. After all, he was the one that betrayed them, not the other way around.
"Isn't this a nice surprise?" a voice asked. An uncomfortable chill ran through Riley's body and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she turned around. Klaus was standing behind her, Stefan by his side. "What are we going to do with you?"
She tried to ignore the fear that she felt, but this guy was the epitome of fear. Even a person who feared nothing on earth would fear Klaus.
"I think that this is the best way for you to honor our deal," Klaus said with a smirk, gesturing towards Riley. "Take a drink, Ripper."
Riley was shaking as she watched Stefan's inner-torment. He didn't want to do this to her again, but he couldn't not. If he refused, Klaus would kill them both. So he vamp-ran towards Riley, and drank from her neck, trying to ignore her screams until they stopped. When he was sure that her heartbeat was faint but still present, he dropped her seemingly lifeless body to the ground.
Klaus nodded, impressed. "Good. Now we can go."
--------------------
And just like that, season two is finished! What are your predictions for season three?
Please vote and comment if you liked this chapter!