The strangest thing about being dead, and a vampire, was standing over my body. I looked the same as I always did, except that my skin was covered in grey veins. If it weren't for those, I would have looked as if I were sleeping. It was strange to keep saying I when I was a literal spirit and my body was laying on the bed that I used to sleep in. Okay, no. It wasn't strange. It was awkward and weird and a bit disgusting. 

   "I know you're here, Clara," someone said as they walked in. I turned to see Damon walking in, hands on his waist and eyes staring down at my desiccated body. "Enzo was here. And, well, you love me, so you're probably here, too." He took a step closer to my body, hands falling from his waist and arms resting to his side, as if in defeat. "It's been four days. At least give me a sign that I'm not talking to a corpse."

   I glanced around the room to see if I could find something to throw at him. But, then I realised that anyone could throw something at him. I wanted to find something to show him that it was me, not Enzo or any other person that he had killed. My room was full of books, the grand piano that stood in the corner collecting dust, the chair by the window, and the many things I had taken just to fill in space. There were several pieces of clothing spread around the room, from times I was too tired to pick them up and times when Stefan pulled them off without a care in the world. 

   In the four days I have been dead, Stefan had been taken by the Travelers with Elena. He didn't know I was dead, and I didn't want him to know when he returned. Even though I tried looking for him, I couldn't find him.

   I took a deep breath and walked over to the bedside table, brushing my hand against Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It was the book that held the letter that Elijah had given me from Klaus between its pages, the book that I had kept with me for a long time. I wanted t read the letter, but at the same time I wanted to keep it between those pages and forget about the Original that  From the book, I glanced over at Damon, and then threw the book across the room. It landed with a thud by the grand piano.

   Damon let out a scoff, a smile forming around his lips. "That's my girl," he nodded, glancing at the place I stood. "I'll get you back. You and Enzo." It was as if he were looking at me, but at the same time he wasn't. 

   "Oh, I do enjoy when I'm thought about when Clara's included," a new voice joined. "Makes me feel all giddy in the inside."

   "The bad thing about the Other Side collapsing is that I can hear you," I groaned, glancing over at Enzo. "And see you."

   "Is that any way to treat the person that had his heart literally pulled from his chest by your boyfriend?" he teased, a small smirk on his lips. "And, the person that also stopped that psycho witch from killing you?"

   I pointed down at my body while slightly glaring, a sarcastic look in my eyes. "Well, obviously, you did a terrible job at stopping her, because I'm dead."

   Enzo shrugged his shoulders and turned to face Damon, eyes hard. "He doesn't have a very good track record in keeping promises," he said, crossing his arms.

   I followed his eyes, staring at Damon's face. "He doesn't," I agreed. "But, the thing about him is that he doesn't give up. Not when it comes to the people he cares about." I glanced at Enzo with a small smile. "It's a Salvatore thing."

   "Does that make you an honorary Salvatore, then?" he asked, a teasing smirk on is lips. He let out a small scoff and nodded. "Of course, Salvatore's trying to save their friends, but in the end it just ends with pain."

   I took a deep breath and stood straighter, taking a step back from my body. "I'm going to go find Helen," I said, closing my hands into fists. "And I'm going to end this."

   "End what?" he asked, raising a brow staring at me in amusement. "This futile attempt at an ending of nothing. You two are dead, how are you going to kill her?"

   "I'm not going to kill her," I said. "She's already dead; you can't kill someone who's already dead. What I want to do is at least hold her down until whatever it is takes her."

   Enzo straightened his figure and looked at me strangely. "Takes her?" he asked. "You mean, the darkness. You want the darkness to take her?"

   "It's the best way to get rid of her," I nodded. "That, or wait until Bonnie does the spell, takes me out of here, and the Other Side collapses." I took a deep breath. "I can't wait that long."

   "What if the darkness, or whatever it is, took her already?" Enzo asked as he followed me out of the boarding house. "What then?"

   "Then I'll wait until Bonnie takes us out of here and try not to be taken by the darkness." I glanced over at him and stopped as I crossed my arms. "Are you following me?"

   "Someone does have to keep you in check, don't they?" He walked further than me, arms spread wide as if he were making a statement. "Come on, then. We have a witch to double kill."

   The Other Side was strange. By that, I meant that it appeared as if it were always night. Even in the broadest of daylight—which I could tell by the clocks in the places I was—the Other Side was dark. It was as if a giant tree was casting a shadow, some places darker than the others. From what Bonnie told me, I was supposed to see no one. It was as if I were stuck in my own personal limbo. But, I was seeing everything and everyone. Each person that had died, I could see them walking about, confused. Several of them had been sucked in by some kind of darkness, like a pull. We could all feel it pulling us, gently. I could feel it. It pulled me gently, as if gravity was getting stronger and stronger and the grown was ready to open to swallow me whole. 

   "If I were a psycho witch, where would I be?" Enzo said out loud, glancing around with his hands in his pockets. We were in the middle of town, hoping that we'd somehow come to find Helen.

   I shrugged my shoulders at his rhetoric question. "I've checked every bar around here," I said as I stopped and glanced around. "And in every place we ever visited when she was alive."

   "She's hiding," he nodded. He sighed and took a seat in one of the benches. "Perfect."

   "Perfect?" I scoffed. "Are you serious? Why did you come if you're not going to help at all, Enzo?"

   He rolled his eyes. "And I thought you were the smart one," he hummed. He pushed himself from the tree and walked over to me. "If we don't look for her, she will stop hiding, Clara. If we don't look for her, she'll come to you."

   "Fine," I mumbled, crossing my arms and glancing around again. I stopped moving when I saw a woman standing by a wrecked car. "Who's that?"

   "Dead Traveler," Enzo answered. "Just in time." He began to walk over to her. I decided to follow, not wanting to stay alone and be caught by surprise by the one woman I was looking for. Enzo stood by the woman, hands in his pockets. "Surreal,  isn't it?"

   The woman turned back to us. "Who are you?"

   "Dead," he said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Just like you, but I've got a proposition to get the three of us out of this place."

   "What are you talking about?" the woman asked, furrowing her brows.

   The wind began to pick up, making me glance around. The town looked dead, lifeless. There was nothing, no one. Not even the living. I wondered if they were walking around, but I just couldn't see them. 

   "Markos managed to Houdini his way back to the land of the living with some crazy ass spell," he began. "Any chance you know it?"

   "I know the spell," she nodded, "but I don't know two dozen Travelers willing to overwhelm the anchor."

   Enzo smirked and took a step towards her. "See, I think you underestimate how resourceful we are. Leave the details to us. What do you say, interested?"

   The woman looked pensive for several seconds, then nodded. The wind got stronger, pushing leaves to dance all around us. It kept getting stronger by the second, pushing me.

   "What's happening?" the woman yelled over the wind.

   "Grab my hand!" I yelled back, pushing my hand in her way. She grabbed my hand, then she grabbed on to Enzo's. The wind, on the other hand, pulled even harder. The woman levitated from the ground, the wind pulling her towards the sky.

   "Help!" she screamed. 

   "Hold on!" Enzo yelled, trying to pull back. 

   "Don't let go!" she cried, shaking her head. 

   I pulled on her arm harder, trying to stop the wind from taking her. But, the wind was stronger. It pulled and pulled, until the woman was ripped from my hand and thrust into the sky. The wind died down, the leaves slowly falling around us. I turned to Enzo, eyes wide. 

   "Well, that failed greatly," a new voice joined. 

   I turned around to see Helen leaning against the wrecked car, arms crossed as she stared at us with a bored expression. My hands closed into fists by my side, the anger in me surging. "You," I spat. I opened and closed my hand, trying to calm myself. It was futile.

   She pushed herself from the car and laid her hands over her chest. "Me," she said with a smirk. "Oh, how I've missed you, Clara. I missed you so much that I wanted to spend some time with you. Which, of course, meant that I had to kill you. Sorry about that." She sucked in a breath between her teeth, then let out a laugh. "Okay, no. I'm not really sorry."

   "Come on, Clara," Enzo said, pulling on my arm. "We need to tell Bonnie that our only way of returning is gone. Forget about her."

   "Poof." Helen spread her hands wide in front of her face. "Gone. That's how you're going to leave, Clara. Sucked into oblivion. Perfect way to end a murderer, don't you think?"

   "You go tell Bonnie," I spat at Enzo, pulling my arm away from his hold. "I'm going to end this."

   "End what?" Enzo took a stand in front of me. "You two are dead. You can't end something that was finished years ago."

   "She killed me!" I snapped, sending a glare at him. "I can't kill her, but I can make her feel pain."

   "I'm so scared," Helen sarcastically said, tone full of amusement and laughter. "Come on, Clara. I know you; you're as scary as a little bee."

   "You're allergic to bees," I reminded her, taking a step closer to her. "So, how about a little sting, Helen?"

   "Damon was right when he said you were stubborn," Enzo groaned from behind me. "And horrible at comebacks." He gently touched my arm with his fingers. "You best not be taken by that damn darkness, because that would probably earn me an earful from Damon when I return to the world of the living, and I do not want that."

   When I glanced back, Enzo was nowhere to be seen. I looked back at Helen, seeing her smirking back at me. Her curly hair moved gently with the wind, her brown eyes twinkling at me with hate. She straightened her posture and raised her hands, her fingers slowly moving with the air. "You know," she began, "if I had my magic, I would have snapped that little neck of yours from your body."

   "And then what?" I asked, taking a step closer to her. "Your bones would break, you would be in pain, and there would be no other person in the world that would like you." I took another step closer to her. "I was your only friend, Helen, because all of your other friends left as soon as you began to wonder into dark magic."

   She scoffed and rolled her eyes, her hand falling. "There is no dark or light magic, Clara. That doesn't exist," she said. "There are only witches that use magic for good or for bad."

   "And you used them for bad," I said. "How many people you killed, Helen?"

   She shrugged her shoulders. "Less than you," she said with a shrug of her shoulders. Slowly, she began to circle me. "You're a parasitic species, Clara," she said. "You rely on human blood to survive, and give nothing in return to those you feed on except forgotten memories and pain." She stood in front of me and stared into my eyes, an amused and teasing look in her eyes. "You're a disease that can't be treated. You're a protozoa that lives on human blood, transmitted by an arthropod vector, like a mosquito bite."

   "Okay, well, thanks for the biology lesson," I said, tilting my head slightly to the side. "But, is that supposed to make me feel something, Helen? You say things, but I've been through worse for those stupid words to phase me."

   "Oh, I know," she said, her face serious for a moment. Immediately, another smirk formed around her lips. "I've known you, and have been watching you, long enough to know what words will and will not hurt you. Like..." She glanced down at my stomach, her lips slightly spread as if she were ready to laugh at any moment. "How does it feel to have an empty stomach?"

   I stood straighter at her words, every other sarcastic feeling inside of me fading. "What did you say?"

   "Empty stomach," she repeated, slowly enunciating the two words. "I mean, you didn't know you were pregnant until a few months ago, and that must have been a big shocker. The thing is you're not human, and that little baby is either gone or fossilised inside of there." She poked my stomach several times, an amused smirk on her lips. "Little fossilised Forbes-Salvatore baby. Two, three months old, right?"

   I reached for her neck as soon as those words escaped her mouth, and squeezed tightly. "Each time you come back, you find something new to hurt me with," I softly said, my fingers squeezing a bit more. "Here's the thing, Helen, your words aren't special. They hurt, but I've been through worse. I was killed by the Katherine Pierce, and saw the man that I loved be in love with someone else twice. I've had my memories erased by Original vampires and been shot at by the mother of my great-niece. I have been tortured by werewolves and spent an entire summer hunting them with Klaus Mikaelson. I had my skin ripped off and my bones broken over and over again because you were angry that I killed you many years ago. So, say a bit more. I would love to hear it."

   Instead of saying something, she laughed. With each sound that came from her mouth, I squeezed tighter and tighter. Her laughter became choked sounds. She opened and closed her mouth, inhaling the little air that she could. 

    "What was that?" I asked, slightly leaning my ear closer to her. "I can't hear you."

   "I'm already dead," she choked with a smile on her face.

   "So am I," I sneered, tightening my grip around her neck. 

   At that moment, the wind began to pick up. I felt the pulling, just like when the woman was pulled by the darkness. It picked up slowly, leaves and pieces of paper beginning to dance around me in a harsh manner. I dropped Helen and took a step back, grabbing on to the car as the wind picked up more. It was then that I noticed that the darkness was not here for me. Helen was the one that was being pulled back, her eyes with the sudden surprise. 

   My eyes shifted from the darkness in the sky to Helen. "Well, I guess this is goodbye."

   She grabbed my hand and glared, her eyes burning right into mine. "If I go, you're coming with me." The wind became harder, lifting her into the air as she tried to hold on to my hand. 

   I tried to pull back, but her hold on me was strong. From my hand, I glanced at her, my smile fading. For a moment, a single moment, I considered saving her. Helen used to be my friend when I was lonely, when I had no one, when my memories used to be forgotten. But, standing before her now, I had to take in that this wasn't the same Helen as she was. She was no longer caring, or warm, or inviting, or living. This Helen was senile, violent, angry, full of vengeance and hate, dead. 

   "I'll see you in Hell," I spat as I pulled my hand from hers. Just like the Traveler, Helen was thrust into the sky, sucked in by the darkness. 

   The wind calmed down, just a few rustling leaves and dancing pieces of paper falling gently to the ground. At that moment, it was quiet. I wished I could have heard the crickets chirping, leaves rustling that only meant a breeze, the voices of living people. But, it felt strange, cold, as if a great storm was about to hit at any moment. 

   "Clara!"

   I turned my head to see Stefan standing just a few feet from me. He was staring straight at me, arms dropped to his side, his lips slightly parted. I stared at him for a couple of seconds, just drinking him in. It took me that many seconds to realise that Stefan could see me, and that meant he was dead.

   "No..." I breathed as I shook my head. "No, no, no! Stefan, you're not supposed to be here!" I began to walk over to him, because I couldn't resist myself.

   "Clara," he breathed, closing the distance between us. Stefan laid his hands on my cheeks and pulled me in for a kiss. I gladly kissed him back, enjoying the sensation of his lips against mine. They were soft, gentle, and I could feel every inch of my body wake with electricity. It was just like every other kiss he had given me, full of life and perfection. 

   I pulled away from him and shook my head. "You can't be here, Stefan," I said, slightly breathless from our kiss. "You can't be here because that means you're..."

   "Dead," he finished for me, nodding. "Long story short, Julian killed me."

   "Julian?" I questioned, furrowing my brows. 

    "The Traveler in Tyler's body," he explained. "Uh, his wife was the one that helped Elena and I escape Markos. And then she was killed. He blamed me for it, so, uh, here I am."

   "Still not a good excuse to be dead," I said. "You should be back there, on the other side with Damon and Elena and Caroline."

    "I should be saying the same thing to you," he softly said, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear. "I thought I knew pain, but it hurt so much when Damon told me you were dead."

   "I told him not to tell you," I muttered, staring into his eyes. I was caught by the tender looks he gave me, the soft green eyes that seem to hold so many emotions.

   "He had to tell me," Stefan said, his hand gently on my cheek. The warmth was perfect, something that felt strange in this side of death. "How he could he keep from me that you died, Clara?" A small smile appeared on his lips. "You're a big part of our lives, so it's obvious that he would tell me, because we had to get you out of here."

   I let out a sigh and looked around, the town looking more darker and desolated than before. "What if we don't get out?" I softly asked, laying my eyes back on his.

   "Then let's find peace," he said, that same soft smile on his lips. "We've lived long enough, right? If there's something after this, something more peaceful, let's find each other there."

   "That was so romantic it makes me want to barf," someone else said. Behind him, stood a blonde woman with a nice smile. She walked up to me and extended her hand. "We haven't officially met, but I've heard so much about you. I'm Lexi."

   I gave her a smile and shook her hand. "It's finally nice to meet you," I said. "I've read a lot about you. I want to thank you for helping Stefan out."

   "I should be thanking you," she said, quickly glancing at the mentioned boy with a playful grin. "Since I've been gone, you've been keeping him in check. I'm glad he finally got you."

   "We better get going," Stefan said, taking a hold of my hand. "They're about to start the spell soon."

   "The spell?" I questioned as I followed them. "What are they planning on doing?"

   "While you were battling psycho witch," Lexi began, "the Bonnie Bennett and the twin witches came up with a plan to bring us all back." She gave me a small smile. "But, the spell begins when all of the Travelers die."

   "And how will they die?" I asked, making a confused.

   "Damon's, uh, gonna blow them up," Stefan said, clearing his throat afterwards.

   I let out a scoff and shook my head. "You have to be kidding me," I muttered.

   As I walked with them, they caught me up with everything I had missed while I was fighting with Helen. Mystic Falls was a hole with no magic, at the moment. No magic meant nothing supernatural could be there, and that meant that after we got back to life and we took a step in Mystic Falls, the magic that made us vampires would slowly be stripped away until we became humans, and then completely die as humans. 

   "So, they're planning to explode the Grill with all of the Travelers there?" I asked, glancing between Lexi and Stefan. "How, flick a match into the gas?"

   "More like Damon's gonna initiate the explosion," Lexi said with a nod. "By driving crashing his car."

   I stopped and stared at her, then turned to Stefan. "Seriously?" I asked, shaking my head. "He's... What, he's sacrificing himself for the good of humanity?"

   "For the good of us," Stefan said, stopping. "The town." He looked from me to the front.

   I followed his eyes to see Bonnie Bennett tightly hugging her grandmother. While searching for Helen, I had the honour of meeting Sheila Bennett, she was a gentle older woman that reminded me a lot of my grandmother. She told me to let go of this hell-bent revenge on Helen, saying that it wouldn't bring me peace. Being stubborn, I told her that it was all I wanted. 

   Sheila Bennett found peace. She walked into the light with tears down her face, but there was a smile there. Bonnie stared after her grandmother, with tears and a face mixed with emotions. She sniffed and wiped away the tears, her eyes landing on us. Immediately, she wiped away the tears and gave us a small smile. 

   "I'll be fine," she said. "She found peace."

   In the following hours, person after person came through. Luke appeared first, his face full of worry over his sister. Enzo was there, and he gave me a crooked smirk and a wink. Then, Tyler Lockwood was there. The Traveler in him had disappeared, which meant he was back to normal. We all stood around as the wind picked up, as Bonnie began to look sicker and sicker.

   Luke came running out of the mausoleum where Liv was beginning the spell. "Bonnie!" he yelled over the wind. "Hey, it's too much for her. We need to start now!"

   "No!" Stefan said, shaking his head. "We need to go together. Damon isn't here yet."

   "I don't care." Luke grabbed onto Bonnie. In the blink of an eye, he was gone. 

   Bonnie took a deep breath and steadied herself, turning to look at the young werewolf. "You need to come through."

   "What about everybody else?" He glanced around, his eyes landing on each one of us for a second.

   Enzo groaned and began to march up to Bonnie. "You don't have to tell me twice." He grabbed her, and just like Luke he was gone.

   Bonnie turned to us, then. "Come on, guys, we don't have much time. Grab my hand!"

   "Go!" Lexi yelled at Stefan and I. "Go!"

   Stefan shook his head. "No."

   "You have to go," his best friend insisted.

   "I can't find Damon!" Elena yelled over the wind as she arrived.

   "You go," I told her. "We'll wait here for him."

   She turned to me and shook her head. "No, I'm not leaving without him!"

   "This place is falling apart," Stefan tried to reason.

   Before she could say anything else, Bonnie grabbed on to her arms. Elena was forced back into the world of the living, causing Bonnie to let out a cry of pain. She stood still for a couple of seconds, then began to cough. She staggered back, Stefan catching her. Just like everyone else, he disappeared. 

   I turned to Lexi. "I'm going to look for Damon," I said, glancing quickly at Bonnie.

   She nodded. "Go," she said, steadying herself. "I can hold on."

   I nodded and quickly ran to the woods. There was a part of me that wanted to go through Bonnie and finally be in the land of the living. But, the bigger part of me wanted to find Damon and say that I forgave him for every thing he had done to me. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, and I always will. It wasn't romantic love, but a kind of love that would always cherish him. He had built a small place in my heart, one that could never be vacant of him. He was my best friend, someone I could trust and cherish and tell everything to.

   Just as I was thinking of what many words I could say to him, the familiar figure came into view. I stopped running and just stared. He had also stopped and stared, as if he couldn't believe that I was standing there.

   "Damon!" I yelled, starting into a sprint towards him. My body knocked into his, causing him to almost fall back. He held on tightly to me, in a way that almost made me want to cry. 

   "I've never been so happy to see you," Damon breathed on the top of my head. He pulled away but kept his hands on my shoulders. "I beg you, don't die in front of me ever again, okay?"

   I gave him a grin. "I make no promises," I said. "Damon, I love you."

   He stared at me with furrowed brows, confused. "What?" He stood straighter and scratched the back of his head. "Clara, I don't..."

   "Not in that way!" I groaned, smacking him in the arm. "Damon, you're my best friend, okay? And I love you like that, not in any other way or form. You've been there for me for so long, and I should have been there for you too instead of being so caught up on trying to hate you. I can't hate you; it's impossible for me to hate you."

   "I'd love to hear more about this, but I think we should get going," someone said from behind Damon.

   I stepped to the side and saw Alaric standing there with a small smile, his hands in his pockets. "Alaric!" I greeted him with a grin.

   He smiled and nodded. "Clara, it's good to see you."

   "The Three Amigos," Damon sarcastically said, laying his arm around my shoulders. "How about after we get out of here we have a nice drink to celebrate being alive?"

   "You exploded the Grill," Alaric reminded him as we began to move towards the graveyard where Bonnie was at.

   Damon shrugged his shoulders. "We'll find another bar," he said with a small smile, "until they build the Grill again."

   "In other words, drinks are on Damon," I said as I pulled away from him. "Come on, you two. We better hurry up."

   We began to walk back to the cemetery, the wind getting stronger with each step that we took. In the distance, I could see Bonnie standing there and staring out to the woods. When Damon called her name, she let out an elated smile. 

   "Thank god," she breathed. She grabbed Alaric first, and he disappeared with the blink of an eye.

   "Wait!" I called, turning to Damon. "I'm sorry."

   "For what?" He furrowed his brows as he stared down at me.

   "For everything that I have done," I said, giving him a small smile. "Damon, I'm sorry for everything that made you hate me."

   He laid his hands on my shoulders and gave me a very small smile. "Clara, there's nothing in the world that could make me hate you." He pulled me towards him and laid a kiss on my forehead. "Now, go."

   Bonnie's hands rested on my arms. It was like waking up from a deep sleep. There was no wind, no darkness, just an ordinary cemetery with everyone else standing in front of me. Stefan was a few feet in front of me, and he was the first person I ran to. I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him tightly, inhaling his scent and allowing his warmth to seep into me. He pulled away and kissed me, deeply. It was a desperate kiss, rough and filled with anticipation.

   I pulled away and gave him a smile, drunken from that kiss. 

   "Where's Damon?" Elena quickly asked.

   I turned her and smiled. "He was there," I said with a nod. "He just needs to..." I turned to Bonnie and my smile fell. 

   Her eyes were specked with a few tears as she shook her head. "The spell's not working," she said, her voice breaking. "It's not..."

   Elena quickly ran into the mausoleum, yelling Liv's name over and over again. I could hear the desperation in her voice as she yelled out for the witch, as she said Damon's name. 

   "It's too late," Bonnie said.

   It was as if something was pushing down on my chest, like two hands grabbing on to my lungs and squeezing them as tight as they could. Everything around me moved in slow motion, from Caroline covering her mouth to Stefan shaking his head with a solemn look in his eyes. I heard the sob escape my mouth first, and then I felt it. My hand reached for my mouth as I shook my head, as a storm of breaths left my mouth.

   "No," I breathed, shaking my head. "He can't be... He can't... This can't be happening!" I felt the tears, the breaths that raked from my chest and stung my throat. "Damon can't be gone!"

   Stefan wrapped his arms around me and pulled me towards him, allowing me to cry on his shoulder. I knew this pained him, I knew that it was even more painful for him because it was his brother. He shouldn't be consoling me, it should be the other way around. But, I continued to hang on to him, crying and shaking my head. From the inside of the mausoleum, I could hear Elena crying hysterically, in pain. And I think that's what made me cry more, her grave tone which made me continue to realise that Damon was gone.

   Stefan brought me towards a bench, sitting besides me with his arm around my shoulders as I cried on his chest. I held on to him tightly, afraid that if I let go he would also be gone. It took me several minutes to calm down, to stop crying and look up at him. At that moment, I realised that he was trying to be strong.

   "Stefan..." Even as I spoke in my softest tone, my voice broke.

   He shook his head. "I lost them," he said, softly. "Two people I've known longest in this world... Both gone."

   "Lexi's not here?"

   "She never came out," he said, his voice breaking. "Neither did Markos. I know that's not a coincidence. It was her, uh, unfinished business. And Damon—uh—he finally had everything he wanted." Tears escaped his eyes as he looked down at his hands. "He was happy. He should be here."

   Stefan put his head between his legs and broke down. I immediately wrapped my arms around him, hugging him tightly without saying a word. He was hurting more than I, because he had lost his brother and his best friend. With each cry that escaped Stefan, I held him tighter. I just held on to him, tightly, letting him cry. 

   Even after he stopped crying, I held on to him. My hand shook as I moved my thumb up and down his arm. I stared at nothing, and felt nothing, just Stefan. 

   "Bonnie!" It was the distant scream of Jeremy Gilbert. "Bonnie!"

   I sniffed and wiped away the tears that had escaped my eyes and glanced up. In the distance, I could hear Jeremy running at full speed. 

   Stefan sat up, then. He grabbed my hand, tightly, and pulled me along with him back to the crypt. Everyone was standing there, all looking confused. Jeremy stood in the centre, eyes staring straight ahead. I followed his look to see Bonnie standing in the darkness, a small smile on her lips as tears fell down her cheeks. She glanced at each and every one of us for a moment, the smile still there. And then she was gone.