Chapter Text
Stefan wakes with a gasp, sitting upright and propped against a tiny wooden pillar of a shoddy shack. Immediately, he begins to unbutton his shirt, pressing and prodding the area where he had felt bullets enter his body. He finds nothing. There's no wound, no blood – simply unblemished skin.
It's baffling.
If it hadn't been for the blood staining his shirt, he would've believed that the whole series of events last night was simply a dream.
There's a ring resting innocuously on the ring finger of his hand and his attention shifts from his wound-free stomach to the large, hefty ring he'd never before seen in his life but was somehow on his fingers … his all-consuming confusion regarding his miraculous survival and healing, as well as the strange ring adorning his fingers have him oblivious to his surroundings and he nearly jumps when he hears a familiar voice call out to him.
"Katherine had me make that for you weeks ago." Emily, Katherine's companion, walks towards Stefan, bearing clothing and her ever-present slight smile that seems a bit strained.
"Where am I?" Stefan asks because even as he feels sluggish and somewhat incoherent, he still doesn't recognize his surroundings.
"A quarry." Emily answers, placing the clothes before Stefan. "Just north of town. My brother and I brought you here last night." She stands and situates herself to the left of where Stefan is still sitting, fingers delicately lifting the heavy fabric of her dress so it wouldn't touch the ground and therefore become dirty. "We found you dead in the woods."
"Where's Damon?"
At Emily's pointed glance behind Stefan, he turns to see Damon sitting shirtless on the bank of a nameless body of water. A sudden memory has him freezing, adrenaline or something similar pumping through his system, which makes him feel even more ill than before. He hopes, prays , that this particular memory was just a dream, something he'd thought he'd seen, something his confused mind had made up as he'd danced between life and death this past night.
"And Harry? W-Where's Harry? Did you see him?"
Emily looks startled by the desperation saturating his voice and it takes a moment for her to compose herself."… No. We didn't see Harrison at all. But we came only after everyone had left the clearing and we'd gotten word that Damon and yourself had followed Katherine hoping to save her."
Stefan slowly relaxes, her words only giving him a bit of peace – if Emily hadn't seen Harry there, that didn't mean he wasn't there … but it's better than nothing. Stefan holds onto those words with a hope that's most certainly naïve, ignoring the side of him that wasn't soothed by Emily's words, the side that still believes Harry to be dead, that believes what he'd thought he'd seen last night – Harry coming out of nowhere and shoving Damon to the side, taking a bullet for his older brother. The scene was simply too realistic to be a mere dream, but Stefan wants to believe, he doesn't want to think of his baby brother as dead so he focuses his attention on another question. "Am I – am I a –"
"Not yet," Emily interrupts, already knowing what Stefan was going to ask. "You're in transition."
Stefan slowly shakes his head, confused beyond measure. "But how, I –"
"You had Katherine's blood in your system when you died."
"No, I never –"
In the face of Stefan's raw emotion and confusion, Emily averts her eyes, cursing Katherine in her head. Although she dearly loves the girl, Katherine can be as cruel and selfish as any other vampire. She nearly sighs, wishing Katherine herself was here to explain her own actions and defend her own decisions. "She's been compelling you to drink it for weeks, Stefan."
Emily's words have Stefan pausing, a look of horror coming over his face as the many memories of Katherine compelling him to drink, to forget come back to him, fuzzy at first, but becoming clearer by the minute. "… and Damon?"
"No compulsion was necessary." Still, Emily isn't looking at Stefan, instead looking beyond him at Damon. "He … drank from her willingly." Emily glances back down at Stefan, the myriad of expressions crossing the young boy's face nearly painful to her. She's done all she can for the boys, she tells herself. She's done so much for them and for Katherine, for Pearl, for Annabelle. She's done so much thanklessly, but sometimes she wishes she could do more.
Stefan exhales at her words, betrayal and horror and so many emotions welling deep within his chest. Why hadn't Damon told him of what Katherine was doing to him, to both of them? Had they truly been so wrapped up in Katherine that familial ties were forsaken? With the new insight of death and rebirth, Stefan goes back through his memories with a clinical eye and doesn't like what he sees. Katherine never treated either of them as people … but instead toys, playing with them as she wished, using their lust for her to turn the brother's against one another, compelling him to forget things that had made him leery of her so that she could have a fresh start with him. She erased his fear, his apprehension, she wanted him as willing … but in the process she took away his choice in choosing her. Stefan recognizes now that his love for her was manufactured by Katherine's compulsions taking away all his negative emotions regarding her and leaving him with only positive ones. If he'd been allowed to keep those emotions and memories, he likely wouldn't have ended up pursuing her as he had. He has no doubt that she did the same to his brother.
He feels sick.
Sicker than before.
He exhales again, feeling clammy and sore. Slowly he rises and makes his way down the tiny hill to Damon, who hasn't moved once during his entire exchange with Emily, although the man undoubtedly heard them with his new-found heightened hearing. When Stefan is close enough, his older brother begins to talk.
"When I woke up, I didn't know where I was." This is said tonelessly and Damon continues to stare out at the waves of rippling water unseeingly. The stark contrast between the Damon before him and the Damon before Katherine who let Harry climb onto his shoulders as they both gleefully shouted makes his heart clench – Stefan can hardly stand to look at what this mess has turned Damon into, but he continues staring, knowing deep within him, that some of this is his fault. "I went to the church and I watched them drag her inside." Damon continues, just as tonelessly as before.
Even though his brother clearly isn't done speaking, Stefan interrupts, hoping to stave off his own guilt that's eating away at him – if only he hadn't had that conversation with his Father, then they wouldn't be in this mess, then Harry would still be – "Did you – did you find out where Harry is? Is he –"
Stefan's words freeze Damon entirely for just a moment before he lurches forward, gasping, and his shoulders trembling. When he turns to Stefan, his eyes are wild and bright, terror stark in his expression. Although anything is better than Damon simply acting as a shell of his former self, this visceral reaction to the thought of Harry's whereabouts doesn't bode well for Stefan's hope that Harry was somehow alive, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
"I – I must've blocked. I – " Damon gets out only a few words amid the wheezing and the gasping. Stefan assumes that his words have triggered a memory in Damon, just as Emily's had in him. "I – I didn't remember when I woke up. I didn't – I saw –" Pausing, Damon turns his hands so he can see his palms, staring intently at nothing in particular, considering that his hands are clean of any blemishes or marks. "I must've blocked the memory." Damon continues, still staring at his hands and somewhat calmed down. "Harry … he followed us last night. He saw the gun aimed at me before I did and he pushed me out of the way. I saw the bullet enter his body. I – I had his blood on my hands before I died."
"No … " Stefan says, nearly inaudibly. The guilt is nearly choking him because although Stefan is certain he doesn't care for Katherine any longer, her being captured caused not only the two of them to be turned into vampires, but it might've even caused his baby brother's death . And it was his fault. His guilty conscience is nearly suffocating as he says, voice just a bit wobbly, "He could … he could still be alive, right …?"
There's a long pause, in which Damon stares at his hands in a distant sense of horror and disbelief. Behind him, Stefan begins to feel guiltier and guiltier, the darkest part of himself whispering that it was all his fault, that Harry's death was his fault, that he'd killed Harry, that it was his fault –
" … right." Damon replies, just as quietly. "He could still be alive …"
They wait until the sun sets to go into town, hoping the cover of nightfall would allow them to move through Mystic falls and to their family estate more easily.
Damon had insisted on going with Stefan when Stefan had declared he was going into town to find out more about what had befallen their youngest brother and Stefan could hardly refuse Damon – they were both wild with worry and Stefan could tell Damon was going to go into town regardless of if he went with Stefan or not ... and Stefan wanted to make sure that his brother was safe and that he didn't try anything too obvious when infiltrating a town that was on guard against vampires – a creature that the two brothers now were.
Damon and Stefan make it to the Salvatore estate with ease. It seemed that since the founders were under the impression that they'd caught every vampire in town, they'd become more lax about their paranoia, which simply made it easier for Damon and Stefan to make it to their (former) home.
"You go around back through the servant's entrance." Stefan whispers to Damon as they both eye their childhood home from behind the cover of a few sparse trees. "Harry's room is easier to access through there. I'll go through the front, you might need a distraction." It's a flimsy excuse – Stefan more wanted to talk to their father, to reason with him, to say his goodbyes, to – get closure and it's a stupid idea considering that the last conversation Stefan had with his father led to this whole mess occurring.
For a moment, the sound of crickets chirping are Stefan's only reply. With Damon's stony silence, Stefan knows his excuse hasn't tricked his elder brother and he prepares to argue with his brother on the merits of a distraction, prepares to simply just go through the front and ignore his brother, when Damon says something that surprises Stefan – nearly causing him to stumble out from behind their hiding place.
" ... just ... don't do anything stupid." Damon's voice is a bit strangled and the sound of his brother so emotional nearly causes Stefan to become emotional along with him. "I–I can't lose you too."
And it's immediately apparent that Damon isn't talking about Katherine, but Harry – Damon always prided himself on being a realist, which always clashed with Stefan's own optimistic nature. Because Stefan knows this, he knows Damon truly believes Harry to be dead ... and even as neither brother had paid much attention to Harry in the past few months, just the thought of him being dead is akin to having no air to breathe.
Damon and Stefan and Harry – they were perfect together. The perfect brothers. They balanced each other out so well.
The thought of Harry being dead is ... unfathomable. Knowing that Damon feels the same way regarding Harry's death (and Stefan doesn't allow himself to think of Harry as dead because there's a chance he might not be) and knowing that Stefan is all Damon has and vice versa, has him reaching to his immediate left to drag his brother into a tight hug, the position awkward but worth it in the way that Damon instantly grabs at him to pull him into a tighter hug, desperation and grief coloring his actions.
They stay there for a few minutes, leaning on one another, feeling the absence of their youngest brother keenly. Finally, Stefan lets go, stepping backwards a bit to make eye-contact with his brother, trying his best to convey every ounce of earnestness he had in his body. "I won't." Stefan says, reaching up to grip Damon's shoulder.
"I won't do anything stupid."
"I watched you die ."
Stefan halts his advance forward, his father's words stuck on a loop in his head. "You were there when we were shot?"
Here, there's a slight pause. "I pulled the trigger myself."
"You killed your own sons? You killed Harry? "
At Stefan's murderous tone, Giuseppe immediately goes for one of the pokers by the fireplace, but Stefan beats him to it, throwing him backwards and accidentally using his enhanced strength. Giuseppe hits a bookcase and slides to the ground, groaning once before falling limp.
The smell of his blood – Giuseppe must've hit his head when he hit the bookcase – and Stefan's fury sends him into a frenzy, which – when it ends, feels like it only lasted a mere second.
When he regains his sense and his reason, he's horrified to see blood dripping from his hands, caked around his mouth – his father's blood dripping from his hands and caked around his mouth. Still, when he remembers that his same father killed Harry, he feels a little less guilty for tearing into his father's throat as he did.
The sound of someone in the doorway has Stefan whipping his head, dazedly wiping at his mouth as he does so. However, when he sees it's simply Damon, he relaxes – then tenses again, wondering if Damon was going to get mad at him for killing their father. "I-I ... he killed Harry ... he –"
At Stefan's stuttered explanation, Damon's mouth presses into a thin, tight line and his stance becomes rigid and angry. "Go wash up. I'll take care of him."
"But –"
" Go . Harry's in his room. Go wash up and meet me there."
Damon's words leave him unbalanced and he stumbles to his feet and to the nearest washroom, where there's a basin of cold, and likely dirty, water with a rag draped over the rim. Stefan washes up slowly, musing over what Damon had said. Did this mean that Harry was alive? That he hadn't followed after himself and Damon last night?
By the time Stefan's wiped every trace of his father's blood from his face and hands, nearly twenty minutes have passed and he snaps out of his daze - racing upstairs and down the hall to Harry's room, pushing the door open with no small amount of trepidation.
What he finds is ... Harry laying on his bed, in a change of clothes from yesterday, motionless, with no rise and fall of his chest to denote his breathing. Damon is standing just a foot away from Harry's bed, hands crossed over his chest, an unreadable expression on his face. His cheeks look rosier and with a start, Stefan realizes that Damon must've fed from their father too.
Pushing that thought aside, Stefan races forward, peering down at his baby brother, hoping against hope that Harry was alive, please, please let him be alive. "Is he –"
Stefan reaches forward to touch Harry, only to be stopped by Damon, who gently grasps his wrist before he can make contact.
"He's dead." Damon says, his bluntness belying his grief. "I checked."
"No ..." At this point Stefan knows his optimism regarding Harry's death is absurd but he can't help it, Stefan can't even begin to imagine a world without Harry and he doesn't want to either. "No ... you're wrong, he's not –"
"Stefan." Damon sounds so close to breaking down and sobbing, his grip going slack on Stefan's hand before tightening again, yanking his brother into another hug, tight enough that if Stefan were still human, it might've cracked a rib.
"Stefan, he's dead ..."