Chapter Text
People were dead. For real this time. There was no corn syrup or retractable blades, no bruising that magically rubbed away on your fingertips, no artfully staged crime scene. There was just blood and gore and pain and raw, burning fear.
Vicki was dead. Tyler and Matt were too, as were Marcel and Lexi and Davina. Elena wasn’t sure about most of the others. She just knew Rebekah was on her left and Damon and Enzo were behind her, and she herself was still breathing, however raggedly.
Her side was split open, gushing blood, and her ankle was snapped from the heavily brought down boot of the psychopath at her feet. This despicable scum of the Earth that had slain Vicki and Matt and Tyler, and so many more of their friends.
This monster, who’d torn apart families and siblings and lovers. Had turned their spring break into a performance of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, had stained the sweet warm air with the tang of blood. A perfectly nice night had been transformed into hell on Earth, a day in the life of the Final Girl trope from Scream.
“El?” Damon asked carefully, as if sensing the fury radiating off of her. The blustery wind blew her hair off her shoulders, cooling the sweat caked on her skin, and she took a deep breath. Inhale, then exhale. She couldn’t afford to freak out and go off the rails again; she wasn’t sure Damon would bother stopping her this time.
“I’m good,” Elena answered evenly, even though she was covered in blood and tar and there were police sirens and ambulances wailing and shrieking in the distance. Nothing was good; nothing ever would be good again.
But at least things could be okay. Not great, not terrible, just decent. Just…enough. At least they were alive, even if some of them hadn’t made it.
And with that, Elena looked straight at the cut-out holes through to the eyes of the killer under the mask, hiding like a coward with the little disguise. It didn’t matter now, because they had won. The bad guy was bested.
Elena spit blood out of her mouth. “Game over,” she hissed, and then she limped aside, throwing her arms around Damon and basking in the fact that at least he was alive. She watched through half-closed eyes as Rebekah stepped forth, calm and deliberate movements disguising her disgust for whoever had killed Freya and Marcel.
“That’s right,” she smiled venomously. “We won.” She pulled the mask off with a snap of her wrist, and Enzo stepped back on instinct.
“We won,” Rebekah repeated. “You lost, Finn.” Her oldest brother flinched away from her stare, no longer so bold now that she could see his face (busted up and bruised from when Elena’s anger had gotten the better of her; Enzo’s too). Not only that, but she could see just what kind of person he really was.
Watching him struggle to find words to explain himself, Elena laughed. She laughed hysterically and maybe even borderline maniacally, not even really knowing what was funny. Blood was staining her teeth and her lips, like lipstick or paint. She didn’t care if she looked insane.
Because victory was sweet, and it felt good to come out on top. They never caught who killed John, who left him right in front of her, bleeding out on the blanket Jenna crocheted with Elena’s mom Miranda for Christmas. They never caught the person who ran her parents’ car off the road either, the one who left them prone in the water, hair floating like dark seaweed.
But they caught this guy. He thought he could steal off into the night without any repercussions, but obviously he should’ve watched How to Get Away With Murder, because he’d been defeated by a bunch of freaking teenagers!
So Elena laughed, and Rebekah did too, and the ambulances and police cars screeched closer, slipping and sliding in the tar still on the road (she guessed that was what it was for; to crash all of their cars into the woods. She found she didn’t really care).
Damon smiled a little, bitingly and cruel and perfect. “Rot in hell, Finn. You deserve it.”
Together, the four of them turned their backs on him and walked away.
They were alive. They won.
Klaus and Cami barely made it out, both having jumped into the lake and hid under the docks, water rushing into their mouths as they tried to keep their heads above. Jeremy made it too, his hand linked with Anna’s. Those two couldn’t take their eyes off each other.
Kol was taken from the camp in an ambulance, half-dead from blood loss and loopy as hell, but he flashed them a big thumbs up on his way out.
Bonnie had a dislocated shoulder, Caroline had gotten a concussion from a bad fall in the woods, and Stefan was scratched up, but mostly unharmed, unless you counted the guilt he held over the whole thing.
Damon, despite his clear annoyance over the whole prank thing, assured him that the real killings weren’t his fault; weren’t anyone’s fault but Finn’s. They had nothing to do with the Mikaelson family drama after all. Really, they were only adjacent to it all because of their friendships with Rebekah and Kol.
Enzo was being treated for his sprained wrist and the gash on his thigh from the butcher knife Finn had been wielding, after Bonnie managed to wrestle away the chainsaw and toss it into the lake where it short-circuited. He had his arm around Bonnie as they sat on the back of the ambulance.
Becky was keeping a close eye on her oldest brother as the police officers carted him away, and she shed a few silent tears as the bodies of Freya, Marcel, and Davina were wheeled by. She was obviously scarred for life, like the rest of them, and Elena wasn’t sure if she’d ever be okay now that her family was torn apart, but she hoped it would get better.
“Rebekah! Kol! Niklaus!” Elijah Mikaelson was the last of the family to arrive at the party, his normal suit jacket missing, as was his tie, and his dress shirt was disheveled and half unbuttoned. He was on the phone, a voice that sounded like Klaus’ daughter Hope on the other line, but he seemed deaf to it as he raced to the aid of his surviving siblings.
Damon had made sure Stefan was alright, watching his younger brother help patch up Caroline, before being greeted by his own family, who had driven out like maniacs from a few towns over. His Uncle Zach and Aunt Gail probably wouldn’t have made it on time if they were back in Mystic Falls with their daughter and Damon and Stefan’s cousin Sarah, but they’d been out meeting with friends only an hour and a half from that stupid camp.
Elena would’ve liked to stick with him, because the night was chilly and she started downright trembling every time he wasn’t within reach (she’d probably have nightmares of him and Jer being dead for weeks), but he was with his family, and he looked finally at ease. She left him be. He’d come back to her eventually, and they’d hold hands and hug and try to mutually get over this therapy-inducing emotional luggage they’d now be carrying around. All in due time.
Until then, Elena sat on the curb and watched all her friends interact, and marveled at the gift that they were still breathing. Jeremy and Anna were wrapped up in each other, which was new but not entirely unexpected, and Caroline seemed to be reverting back to her default setting of peppy smiles, which was probably an act more than anything, but still a relief. Bonnie was laughing at something Enzo said, and Damon looked happy, and what was left of the Mikaelson Family…well, they were together.
They were happy, or at least on the road there. And if they were happy, Elena was too.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out after jumping in surprise. She’d almost forgotten she even had the device. The screen was violently cracked, an asymmetrical spiderweb arching across the picture icon of Alaric Saltzman’s face.
She clicked the answer button, trying to summon from within her the strength to have this conversation, especially over the phone. “Hey, Ric,”
“Elena?! Thank God! Your brother wasn’t answering, and the police called us!” She could imagine him getting that call, being woken at almost midnight and stumbling down the stairs in his Whitmore college t-shirt and athletic shorts, sandy hair an unkempt mess. She wondered vaguely if Josette was working tonight or if she was home too.
“Yeah, he’s…” Elena glanced over at Jeremy, who was lip-locked with Anna. “Preoccupied.” She almost laughed. It seemed out of place though, to really laugh in a joyful way. She choked on a cough instead.
“Is he alright? Are you?” Elena heard a woman’s voice in the background, chiding him for asking stupid questions because “of course they aren’t alright, they were almost butchered, Ric!”
“I’m fine, Ric. Is Jo there?” That must’ve been who was in the background; it didn’t sound like Jo’s sister Liv. She and Luke were normally still out with friends at this hour.
“I’m here, Elena,” Jo cut in, and she must’ve wrestled the phone from Ric because the resounding scuffle noises were ended with a little ‘oof’ from her husband and a few grumbled curses. She missed being at home with them more than anything in the world.
“Good, I, uh….good,” she finished lamely, clearing her throat and wiping at her teary eyes, even if Jo couldn’t see her moment of weakness.
“Sorry we couldn’t make the drive tonight. Are you gonna be okay on your own?” Elena sighed. There was an officer that would be driving her and Jer home tonight no doubt. Probably even Anna too, because it didn’t look like her mother Pearl could make it.
She wouldn’t be alone, thank God, and hopefully she wouldn’t have to try and sleep in some creepy motel (those places were the stuff of nightmares, and more bad dream fuel was the last thing she needed).
“I think I’ll be okay,” she said tiredly, her arm feeling leaden just from the action of holding her phone to her ear. “I just…I’ll just need some time.” Her voice cracked, and they both knew she wasn’t talking about the wait for getting home anymore. This was about the loss of an innocence she wasn’t even sure she’d had in a long time.
This was about the fact that she’d almost killed Finn in her effort to take him down before Damon pulled her away…kicking and screaming. She’d beaten him half to death with her fists alone, tears pouring from her eyes and sobs wracking her body. The few swings she’d taken with that baseball bat from Lexi’s stunt hadn’t helped much either.
The paramedics had said it was temporary insanity, driven by the inane need to feel safe again, and the only way her brain knew how to do that was to eliminate the threat. They assured her she wasn’t crazy…she was just desperate.
Elena definitely felt desperate. But she didn’t say this to Jo and Alaric, because there were miles and miles of power lines and mostly dead phone batteries between them, and because the words wouldn’t come past the dam in her throat.
She wasn’t sure they ever would. Not when her knuckles were still split and stained with blood (she wasn’t sure if it would ever TRULY wash away, not really).
“Alright, Hon,” Ric said, sighing. “Just hang in there then. We’ll see you real soon.” She almost sobbed again at the thought of returning home to pizza night with Jo and Ric and Liv and Luke and Jer. It would be perfect and blissful, and it felt like a scene out of an old slice-of-life movie.
She couldn’t wait.
“Goodnight, guys.”
“Goodnight, Elena.”
Just before the line went dead, she choked out “I love you.“
Elena could almost hear their smiles. “Love you too.”