CHAPTER 35: BLACK HOLE SUN

The Salvatore Boarding House

From what Natalie had seen, Kai was a lot of things, but he wasn't boring. She wasn't sure how long he had been there, but she suspected that eighteen years was a good guess, seeing as 1994 was eighteen years from back when she died the last time. He had a few fun stories about how nobody was there to help him do things he had no idea how to do. 

He was still taped to a chair in the living room, but he and Natalie were speaking while Damon was drinking and looking at them in what seemed like bitterness. "And, of course, I broke into the Oval Office and took a picture of myself at the window, looking all JFK. But then, I was, like, wait- how am I going to get these photos developed?"

"Did you ever get them developed?" Natalie asked, leaning her chin in her hands and speaking like the story was the most interesting thing she had ever heard. She was so bored that she was just humoring him while he was speaking, it didn't mean she liked him anymore, considering that he tried kill her. 

While Natalie knew that she didn't actually care about Kai or anything he actually had to say, Damon wasn't liking the way he was speaking to her so casually. "Natalie, don't encourage him. We don't even know him."

"We already know he's a better conversationalist than you," she retorted with a smile. She could see Kai smile and open his mouth as if he was going to thank for the compliment, which it wasn't. "Don't worry, it's not a compliment. It doesn't really say much."

Damon smiled bitterly again at the interactions between the two and glared over at Kai, finding him more unlikable with every second. "Can you just answer the damn question? How are we going to get out of this Twilight Zone?"

"I got a question for you, first. Why do you think we're stuck on a repeating loop of May 10, 1994?" Kai asked with a smile, causing Damon to raise his eyebrows as if to say he had no idea.  "Doomed to relive a solar eclipse forever and ever, and ever."

Natalie was getting worried that Damon would actually start killing Kai. "How the hell should I know?"

If Kai could have shrugged, he probably would have as he smiled casually. He almost seemed like he didn't care that he was tied up. "Well, I heard you tell Natalie and Bonnie this place was your own personal hell. I'm kinda curious why."

"Now that you mention it, I am too," Natalie agreed, shoving a piece of stray hair behind her ear. Damon glared between them, finding them teaming up extremely repulsive. He almost felt like he had to puke. 

Damon was saved from giving any explanation as Bonnie entered the room, carrying a whole bunch of things Kai had asked for. "I found everything you asked for: can-opener, shower drain, grinding wheel, jam, pocket knife, volume O of the encyclopedia, a nail and a black marker. Now what?"

"Can't show you with my hands taped," Kai smiled, causing Bonnie to grab the pocket knife she brought, ignoring Damon saying her name warningly as she cut his restraints. He rubbed his wrists, although he didn't seem too bothered. "Thank you."

"Now, how is this pile of junk going to help us get out of this weird hellhole place again?" Natalie asked, narrowing her eyes at the newly released guy with a grimace. He only told them what he needed, not why. 

"I'll explain..." Kai assured, but turning to Damon with a tone of voice that usually told someone that a but was coming at the end of the sentence. "As soon as Damon tells me what he did on May 10, 1994."

If Damon hadn't disliked Kai already, he definitely did now. "What difference does it make?"

"Let me put it this way- Bonnie's magic is one part of the equation. My as-yet undisclosed knowledge is the other. And Natalie's getting to come with because of her great conversational skills," he smiled at her shortly, to which she smiled tightly back. "Which means you would be hitching a ride home for free. I just want to know if you deserve to come along."

The pocket knife that Bonnie had been holding was snatched out of her hand by Damon as he stalked over to Kai. He grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, holding the knife against his neck with no reluctance whatsoever. "Or I could just torture you until you say something useful."

"If you torture me, I'll get mad, and then I won't want to help you," he spoke in return, doing it slowly as if he was speaking to a small child with no idea what was going on. "What kind of person needs to have that explained to them?"

Damon's glare intensified, but Bonnie was having none of his stupidity. She went back and ripped the pocket knife out of his hand, making the vampire drop Kai harshly. "Play nice."

"Stop trying to impress the new guy," he hissed at the no-longer-former witch.

Natalie rolled her eyes, wanting for him to just get on with it, because honestly, she was kind of curious too. "Why can't you just tell him and get over with it? Because, weirdly enough I'd like to get the hell out of here and take you with me."

"Maybe because I don't wanna talk about the worst thing I ever did, Natalie!" he responded, his words coming out a whole lot harsher than he probably intended for them to be. He was rarely that harsh with her. 

She didn't seem to be bothered by harshness and decided to just hit back with a few words of her own. "This has got to be pretty bad, I mean, you did turn my mom into a vampire and killed her in front of me. Oh, and let's not forget the time you killed me. Ah, such wonderful memories."

"Seriously? It's been like six years since I turned your mom, and three years since I killed you. And you came back," he responded, seeming bitter about her bringing up more things he had done wrong. "And this was a whole lot worse."

Kai smiled widely as he opened his jar with jam, starting to eat it with his fingers. "Oh, now I'm listening." 

Flashback, 1994

Damon smiled as he stood outside the door of the familiar Salvatore boarding house he had gotten to visit a few times. He pushed the doorbell, hoping that a very special person would end up being the one to open it. 

Luckily, that very special person did open the door, watching Damon hold a newspaper in his hand with the front page dedicated to Kurt Cobain's suicide, which almost saddened him. "Ready for some bad news?"

As his younger brother just leaned against the door, Damon tried to enter. He then found an invisible barrier keeping him from entering his own family's boarding house, meaning that a human now had the deed in his/her name. "Barely seen you in fifty years, Stefan. You could invite a brother in."

Stefan didn't seem like he was in the mood to humor Damon and his idea of what he might decide to end up calling brotherly bonding. Damon's idea of bonding often ended in murder. "Give me one good reason why."

Damon smirked as he shrugged in hope of his leather jacket fitting a bit better around his broad shoulders. It was a bit tight, not that the ladies minded. "Check your answering machine, I'm trying to turn over a new leaf."

Stefan knew exactly the message he was talking about, but he didn't seem to take it seriously. "Oh, I heard your message. I also heard you sent Lexi some flowers, seventeen years after you left her to burn to death on a rooftop." Damon was about to say something but Stefan cut him off before he had the chance. "It's a little late, but I see you're trying to make amends. I just want to know why."

Damon hesitated, not seeming like had prepared himself to answer that particular question. "Uh, well, I can tell you this, Stefan- I'm tired of tearing up New York City. And, maybe it's the partying, or maybe it's my conscience-"

"Well, I believe that would require one," the younger of the brothers quipped. 

He ignored his brother's words and just kept going. "And then, I had this moment of clarity, and I said: wouldn't it be great if I just woke up in my own bed and could have a fresh start?"

A too-young-to-be-old-but-too-old-to-be-young man walked up behind Stefan. He usually had a kind smile on his face, but seeing the notorious older Salvatore brother soured up his expression a whole lot. "You must be Damon."

As Damon saluted the other man, Stefan decided to start the introduction. "Damon, this is, uh, Zach Salvatore. He owns the house now, he knows the family history, and I told him if you got out of line, I'd take care of you myself." 

Damon grinned lazily, his expression easily fitting the bad boy persona he had been going for after what had to have been a century. "Why are you always expecting the worst out of me, Stefan?"

"Oh, I don't. Otherwise, I wouldn't allow this," he responded, still hesitating on whether or not he was supposed to allow his brother into a house full of humans, who could easily be fed on. It could end terribly. 

Damon raised an eyebrow at his brother, who was still reluctant to give Zach any kind of sign that he should let him out. Finally, he sighed in defeat, nodding over at their great-great-great-great nephew. "Come on in, Damon."

"Huh," the eldest of the three Salvatore boys smiled as he was able to take a step into the boarding house, brushing his shoulder against his brother's. "Thanks."

Stefan gnawed on the inside of his lip, still not entierly convinced that it was a good idea, but it was too late to suddenly reject him wanting to turn himself around, so he plastered a smile on his face. "You ready to start over?"

"Hell yeah."

▹▹▹

No matter how much Kai kept bugging him about it, Damon resisted telling him about the story of why the 1994-hell-dimension was supposed to be his own personal hell. Kai had even got so far that he had eaten a whole jar of jam, so he was opening a new one, which was making a whole lot of noise. 

"I need to be entertained while I work. Hell story please," Kai sang the last three words as he stretched himself over the whole couch, leaving Damon, Natalie and Bonnie to stand in front of the fireplace. 

Damon, who had been pinching the bridge of his nose, sighed and turned to his two female companions with a demand that seemed less than sincere. "Remind me not to kill him."

Natalie stroked her chin as if she was considering it, but quickly shook her head as if that idea was completely repulsing. "I would if I liked him."

Bonnie couldn't deny that she was a little bit curious about the so-called hell story, and was also getting tired of Damon's need to antagonize Kai at every moment. "Maybe telling him your story will take your mind off of it."

"Whose side are you on?" the male vampire turned to the dark-skinned witch with a glare. He didn't like how Kai was getting to them, it was like he was trying to replace him. He didn't like that. 

"The side where we get to go home to the people we love?" she stated, although it came out more like a question. 

"Fine," he sighed after an intense stare-down with Bonnie, with Natalie watching them curiously, finding there to still be a whole lot of tension there. "On May 9, 1994, I was living here. I'd come home to walk the straight and narrow."

Flashback, 1994

The Salvatore brothers had a long history together, and it was complicated to say the least. Whenever the two got together at any point in history, the endgame always seemed to end up catastrophic. But, for the small while Damon had been back in Mystic Falls, it had actually been going quite well. 

The pair had been shining Damon's blue Camaro on the outside of the boarding house, Damon looking bored as his younger brother did most of the actual work, with a few short breaks where he downed the contents of his flask. 

While he hadn't been doing much, the older Salvatore sighed, feeling like he hadn't fed in years, even if he had fed only an hour before, and it happened to be secretly a random resident of the house. "Can I have a sip of that? I'm starving."

"Sure," Stefan replied, trying to keep the smirk that was begging to come out under wraps. He handed him the flask without any hesitation, waiting for what he knew was going to be an hilarious reaction. 

He grabbed the flask in a flash, unscrewing the cap before taking a quick swig without second thoughts. It didn't even a take a second before he pulled it away from his lips, his face as white as a sheet. His eyes narrowed at the flask in disgust with his tightly mouth closed. 

"It's good, right?" Stefan smiled, holding back his laughs as Damon shook his head with a grimace, still holding the blood inside his mouth no matter how disgusting it was. "Oh, yeah. I can't remember if that squirrel was roadkill, or one I caught in the rat trap. Better hope it was roadkill, though, because the rat trap was full of rat droppings. Swish your tongue around. Does it feel like hair, or is it more of a grainy pellet?"

After struggling for a few moments, Damon finally managed to swallow the animal blood he despised so much after only one taste. He wanted to throw a few casual curses after his brother, but then Zach walked up to the house, a grocery bag in his hands as he waved at the brothers. "How's it going, Zach? What's up with all the grocery trips?"

Zach smiled a bit, scratching the back of his neck with his free hand. "Oh, uh, one of the boarders is craving blueberry pancakes."

"You know, maybe I should run the Salvatore boarding house. Take over for Zach, get in good with Gail," Damon suggested, a smirk playing on his lips as Zach was greeted by a woman with her pregnant belly bloated. 

"She's on vervain. So is Zach, which means hands off," Stefan responded to the underlying threat sternly. Damon buzzed his lips petulantly at his brother. 

End of Flashback

Loud snores filled the living room of the Salvatore boarding house as Damon glared at a supposedly sleeping Kai. Natalie and Bonnie couldn't help but exchange amused expressions at their friend's reaction to the new guy. 

Damon interrupted his own glaring with rolling his eyes at the younger male, both physically and actually. "Perfect. Our savior's insane and narcoleptic."

"No, no, no, I'm awake," he assured, opening his eyes and acting like he hadn't just snored so loudly the boarding house almost shook at the sheer power of it. "Let me guess... You killed the pregnant woman."

Damon poured himself a glass of bourbon, glaring at the new guy. Natalie and Bonnie exchanged glances, neither of them having thought of him killing her, but that mostly because they didn't want to believe it. "Shut up, Kai. You weren't listening."

Kai rolled his eyes. "I was listening, in my sleep. You were hanging out with your distant-nephew Zach, who you called Uncle Zach, because that's not confusing. Plus, pregnant lady Gail, who had a big bull's-eye on her chest. Got it."

Natalie pinched the bridge of her nose, refusing to meet Damon's gaze as she sighed. "Please tell me you didn't kill a pregnant woman."

"Oh, that's totally what happened. Why else would today be his personal hell?" Kai smirked. As Damon's expression shifted, the male vampire kneeled in front of the table and put his glass down as Kai chuckled expectantly. "Oh, here we go."

"The only reason that you're alive right now is because I thought you could get us out of here and you could help us. But you don't have any answers! You're just a man-child with jam on your fingers!" Damon hissed at him, grabbing an empty jar of jam that Kai had been eating out of and threw it across the room harshly. 

"Okay. To get home, we'll harness the power of the eclipse using a mystical relic. It's called an Ascendant, and it looks like this, Damon," Kai explained as he picked up a model of the so-called Ascendant he had made from the things Bonnie had gotten for him. He opened the encyclopedia to a map of north-west US and put it on the table. "The last time we had it was in the Pacific Northwest- Oregon."

"We?" Bonnie frowned. 

"It belonged to my family," he responded before picking up the pocket knife and slitting a part of his finger tip. "Here's a little blood to get you started. Now all we need is a locator spell to pinpoint its whereabouts."

Natalie smiled a bit, although biting her lip as she didn't want to fullblown grin and ruin the serious mood that had been created. Usually when she grinned, she also giggled a bit. A giggle would ruin everything. "So, Bonnie, you think you can finally find our way out of here."

The Bennett witch smirked a bit, looking at the other girl with hopeful eyes. "Hell yeah."

▹▹▹

Natalie knew she had to be patient, and she was usually pretty good at it, but as she sniffed the shirt she was wearing (AKA a shirt that was once Stefan's), she couldn't help but smile because she knew she would see him again. And then every other face of the people she missed flashed through her head. Alaric, Caroline, Elena, Jeremy, Matt. She felt more impatient than she had in a while. 

"Phasmatos Tribum, Nas Ex Veras, Sequitas Sanguinem," Bonnie chanted as she stood above the map with a drop of blood on it. It hadn't moved at all and for her, it didn't feel like it was supposed to. "It doesn't feel right."

"Maybe you need another map," Natalie suggested, seeing as she was the only one who actually seemed like she wanted to help Bonnie. Kai was just sitting there and watching them as if he wanted to laugh as Damon was throwing paper airplanes in the front yard.

It was in that moment Damon decided that it was time to walk in again, and, of course, he was going in with an insult to the one who could get them out of there. "Maybe she's just out of practice and she sucks at magic now."

"Ignore him, Bonnie. Pretend he's a white-noise machine. That's how I used to tune out my siblings. I grew up with a ton of little sisters and brothers. You know, all of them constantly yammering. But it taught me how to focus," Kai spoke, walking closer and closer to Bonnie. If she didn't know better, she would've thought that he was about to kiss her.

Damon smiled bitterly at the interaction between the two. He didn't trust Kai, and so he definitely didn't trust him with Bonnie. "Easy there, big brother! She doesn't know you. At least buy her a drink."

Although she knew it was petty, Natalie couldn't help but cross her arms over her chest as Kai moved away from Bonnie. There was one thing she had remembered today, and she was going to be as petty as she would like. "Did you buy my mom a drink?"

"Why are you suddenly on about that today?" the elder vampire asked, rolling his eyes at her interrupting him protecting Bonnie from a guy they barely knew anything about, except that he liked pork rinds and jam. 

She narrowed her eyes at him. "I was reminded!"

"You reminded yourself," he retorted, before deciding to actually answer the question she had asked. "And yeah, I did."

Natalie tilted her head as she flashed back to the first day she had ever seen Elena since they were newborns, the two of them going to some kind of bachelor's auction. Damon had been bragging about getting a drink with Isobel before insinuating he had a drink from Isobel. "Oh, yeah."

Flashback, 1994

The whole town of Mystic Falls knew that there was going to be some major eclipse happening. Zach decided that he would be a nice person and part of Mystic Falls society and throw a party for the inhabitants of the town to be together while they were waiting for something that cool. 

"Your daughter is so adorable," Damon complimented the picture of Elizabeth Forbes's two year old daughter. He had never been a kids' person, but he still found them cute because they weren't as annoying as adults yet. 

"Yeah, Caroline's high maintenance, but she's worth it," Liz giggled, smiling at the thought of her young, blonde daughter in the picture. If there was one person she loved in this world, it was Caroline. 

Right by the the two, Zach was smiling as he took a polaroid of Gail, who didn't seem very fond of it, even before she was shown it. She laughed afterwards. "I'm so getting rid of that photo! Stefan, come, take a picture of Zach and me."

Stefan smiled as he grabbed the camera, allowing Zach to run over to Gail, throwing his arm around her shoulders happily. "Thanks, Stefan."

Once the picture had been taken, Gail was quick to go back to doing what she really wanted, her mouth almost watering as she looked at the table full of cupcakes and different kinds of pastries. "And back to my cravings."

As she reached out to grab a cupcake of the table, Stefan frowned as he noticed her exposed wrist having two very obvious puncture marks, the kinds only given by a vampire. "Hey, what happened to your wrist?"

She looked at him in confusion, as if she couldn't remember anything ever happening to her wrist, but then she glanced down at it and noticed the wounds, but she couldn't remember anything happening. "I don't know."

Liz looked at the device she had in her hand, the one she had brought with her to watch the eclipse, even if she couldn't understand what she was actually supposed to do with it. "So, how does this thing help us watch the eclipse?"

"You put it in between you and the thing that is too hot to look at," he smirked as he pointed it at Liz, making her giggle. "Ah, it works."

"My husband would get a kick out of you," she smiled, thinking about her husband, who was staying home to watch over their two-year-old daughter. "We should you invite over to dinner sometime."

Their conversation was swiftly ended as Stefan marched up to his brother, a firm glare on his face. There was only one real explanation on who had taken a bite from Gail. "Damon, what did you do to Gail?"

"Is everything okay?" Liz frowned, wondering what was going on between the two and Gail, who she knew, even if they weren't best friends or anything. 

"Looks like the jig is up," Damon shrugged before turning to Liz with his pupils dilating, deciding that she wasn't supposed to know about them. "Hey, look at me. Go home. Forget you ever met us."

The moment she had started walking away, Stefan grabbed his older brother's arm with a warning look, although it was also a bit of a confused one. "How the hell did you feed on Gail? She's on vervain."

Damon scoffed as if he was underestimating him. "Yeah, in her coffee. I swapped it out last week. Same for Zach."

There were many times that Stefan had wanted to kill his brother, whether it be temporary or permanent. And that was one of them. After the life he had started to build, he was haunted by his brother like always. "These people are my friends. Zach is family. They trust me."

Damon didn't like how he was talking about only himself, wanting to be apart of that equation. "And they'll trust us both! Look, no feeding inside the house, right? Snatch, eat, erase. It's all completely functional, Stefan. I told you, it's a new start!"

He turned to walk away, wanting to end the conversation at that. But Stefan had another idea, which he went through with as he rushed forward and snapped his dangerous, older brother's neck. 

End of Flashback

Bonnie had gotten a new map to start chanting over, trying to find the Ascendant. Only, this time she was using a map of the entire US, instead of just deciding that the northwestern part was enough.  

"Phasmatos Tribum, Nas Ex Veras, Sequitas Sanguinem. Phasmatos Tribum, Nas Ex Veras, Sequitas Sanguinem," she chanted in deep concentration, watching a drop of Kai's blood travel across the map. 

"The spell's moving towards Virginia," Natalie realized as she saw it get closer and closer to where they currently were, in Mystic Falls, Virginia. She just hoped it wasn't at the other side of the state. 

"Hm, the spell's working. It's showing me Mystic Falls. It feels so... close," Bonnie closed her eyes, turning to Kai. With a moment's hesitation, she put her hand on his chest and the flames around her intensified. "It's right here."

The flames suddenly went out entirely. Kai couldn't help but smirk as he shook his head at her. He fished the real Ascendant out of his pocket, almost seeming like he was proud of Bonnie. "Very good."

Bonnie resisted the urge to reach out and touch it. "That's the Ascendant?"

"The one and only."

Damon glared at Kai from the other side of the room, finding them to have gone through a whole lot of trouble for absolutely nothing. They had gotten so many things and told him Damon's story just for nothing. "Thanks for the mind games, jackass."

Kai shrugged, finding what he had done to be next to nothing of importance. "It was just another little test."

Natalie raised her eyebrows, finding his explanation to be only a tiny bit too weak for her taste. "But why? There's gotta be a reason. Even you wouldn't just go around testing people because it's fun."

"To make sure Bonnie's magic was precise enough for the spell. I do believe you're ready," he responded, smiling at the three friends standing in front of him. "Pack your bags- we're going home."

Flashback, 1994

Damon groaned, feeling a kink in his neck. He tried to remember what had happened before he had been killed for the hundredth time in his life. Stefan wasn't the only one in the world who wasn't in love with the idea of Damon Salvatore. 

He lifted his head to see his brother standing in the doorway of whereever he was, and so found out he was in a shed. "So, here's what I don't get, Damon. Why'd you insinuate yourself back into my life and then cheat, and lie, and break all the rules?"

Damon grinned lazily at his brother, not seeming to have especially hard feelings towards his brother because of him snapping his neck. "Well, one, because I knew you'd be mad. Believe it or not, I like being here, Stefan."

He staggered up to the other male, but once he reached the sunlight, his skin burned as he hissed with pain. He looked at his hand, finding his daylight ring to be mission. Stefan resisted the urge to smirk. "You get your daylight ring back when you decide to behave. Now, answer my question: Why did you come back here?"

"Because I missed my brother. I want to have a connection to my humanity, Stefan. I wanted to feel something again. And when I decided to come back home, it all came rushing back, just like I hoped it would," he answered, although Stefan wasn't sure if he was being truthful or not.

"Oh, congrats," the younger Salvatore responded dryly. "Now what?"

Damon was not going to give up, he wanted to get out of there quickly. "Come on, man. Let's just hit the road, you and me, huh? I'll let you drive my car, I'll get you off this vegan diet, teach you how to feed again. It'll be great, Stef. Huh? What do you say? Come on! Trust me."

Stefan chuckled bitterly at the thought. "Yeah, I can imagine a road trip with you. I can imagine you feeding on innocent people and, uh, leaving a trail of bodies behind. I can image you making me drink human blood, and laughing at me while I suffer."

"Way to be an optimist, Stefan," the human-hunting brother rolled his eyes.

"Just looking at the facts, Damon," he shrugged, finding himself to be perfectly reasonable. "1912, you convinced me to drink human blood again, which is why I became a Ripper. In 1942, you almost pushed me off the rails again because you were so damn needy. 1977, you left my best friend to die after I sent her to come help you. And now, I'm finally happy. I have a new life, I'm doing well, and, uh, you just can't handle that, can you, Damon?"

"I'm not trying to screw up your dumb new life," the raven-haired vampire spat, looking insulted because his life didn't revolve around Stefan and his irritating need to be the poster-child for good vampirism. 

The younger brother shook his head. "You don't have to try, Damon. All you have to do is exist. Because no matter what I do or where I go, you will be with me forever, trying to destroy every single thing that I've built. I don't know why I thought this time would be any different. I wanted it to be different. You just keep failing."

"Guess that's a no on the road trip, huh?"

"That's a no on the road trip."

End of Flashback

▹▹▹

Turns out that getting home wasn't something you could do in a moment's notice. Kai had dragged the three brunettes outside, wandering around the front yard weirdly while looking at the sky through the Ascendant. 

Natalie sat on the ground, placing herself on a shirt she had thrown on it like a picnic blanket as the others were standing. "Why are you just walking around here? How's that gonna help but get home?"

Kai didn't even glance back at her as he responded, seeming too focused on the sky to find the time to look at her. "Looking for the exact right spot. We need to found where the power of the eclipse is focused."

"You know you could have just shown us the Ascendant to begin with," Bonnie said, still not understanding why had been playing those mind games with them when it came to getting home when he had it. 

Kai smirked, glancing back at her with a subtle wink. "Yeah, but I wanted to feel your hand on my chest." 

Bonnie didn't even seem like his flirting fazed her at all. It was almost as if she didn't notice the wink and the flirty comments he had been giving her that whole day. "There's something not right about him."

While Damon agreed with her, he wasn't going to pass ut the chance to throw some of his inevitable snark out there in the open. In other words, he saw an opportunity and he went for it. "You're just not used to guys hitting on you."

"You know, I can't wait to get out of here and talk to somebody else," Bonnie grumbled, sending an annoyed look his way. As a protesting hey came from Natalie's lips, she turned to her and smiled sweetly. "Love you!"

"Can we just have a few lasting seconds of peace while this idiot uses that thing to get the stars to align?" Damon asked, shoving a piece of hair from his eyes. He couldn't wait to get out and get his hair trimmed, because he did not trust himself, Bonnie or Natalie to do it. 

Bonnie looked at the ground, finding a paper airplane made out of a newspaper on the ground, the same kind Damon had been throwing around about ten minutes before. She picked it up and studied it carefully. 

Damon turned to Kai, getting tired of waiting for him to get done with whatever he was doing. "Hey, what's up with the nature walk?"

Kai looked back at him, before giving a long, hard look to the Ascendant in his hands, it reminding him of being there and of his family. "I used the Ascendant to figure out where we need to be standing during the eclipse."

The male vampire nodded, tapping his fingers against his jeans, wanting nothing more than to get out, to get home to the people he loved. "Great. Let's do some magic and get the hell out of here."

"Oregon," Bonnie whispered from her spot right next to where Natalie was stepping, although she was considerate enough to keep herself from stepping on her jacket, having gotten a slap on the leg before. 

"What?" Natalie frowned, tugging at her jeans, making her sit down next to her on the jacket, showing the newspaper to her and why she thought something was so weird about Kai and the things he said. 

"I read this paper like a thousand times, and there's something in it about Oregon. You know, Kai said he had all these brothers and sisters," Bonnie looked at her for confirmation, and so she got a hum in return before she started reading from the paper out loud. "Family massacred in Portland. The only one missing was the oldest boy, a 22-year-old named Malachai."

Behind them they heard the boy they were talking about scoffing as if he found something so ridiculous about what they were reading. "Who names a kid Malachai? It's like they expected me to be evil."

Natalie used her vampire speed to get up and turn to him quickly with widened eyes, Bonnie following her lead only a bit slower. "You've gotta be kidding me. These kids were all killed. Murdered!"

"Hello! Not everyone died. I had a soft spot for one of my sisters. 'Cause otherwise, I would've cut her lungs out, and not just her spleen," he spoke as if he was offended. He then saw the disbelieving looks on their faces. "You can survive without a spleen."

Damon quickly walked closer, not liking how someone with homicidal tendencies was standing so close to Natalie and Bonnie, so he walked between them. "Something tells me you're not speaking hypothetically."

Kai walked forth, pointing at a picture of two kids on the newspaper. "Look, well, these two, I, uh, hung off a stairwell railing. Then I put a hunting knife in her abdomen, and him, I drowned in the pool. But, he kept fighting me. I was like, I saved you for last, you ungrateful little..." He stopped as he realized he may have gotten a bit too intense. "Anyway, that was that."

"You just killed your whole family?" Bonnie asked, as if she couldn't imagine anyone getting angry enough to do that, with a dead father and grandmother, she couldn't imagine anyone willingly going through loss of family. 

"Coven, to be precise," he corrected. "Oh, you know, family of witches."

Damon didn't seem as angry with the fact that their new guy was a murderer compared to that he was a witch but never said anything to them. "You're making us jump through hoops, and you're a witch?"

"Sort of, yeah. No powers, obviously." he spoke, even though he just heard Damon think he had powers as a witch. "Oh, and of course, Gemini Coven did not take it too well when they heard what I did in Portland. It's why they banished me here."

"This place is a prison. They created it for you," Bonnie realized. 

Kai tilted his head as if he was looking for a way to say bingo without the word. "Yup. This place isn't your hell, Damon. It's mine."

▹▹▹

Natalie and Bonnie couldn't help but have a silent conversation  where they had come to an agreement; Kai couldn't get out of the prison world they were trapped in. They couldn't let him get out and hurt even more people than he already had. 

As Natalie knew that Damon was staring at them to try to figure what was going on inside their head, and decided to spare him the trouble. She just needed to say how they really felt about the situation. "We can't let him out, Damon."

"He just said he's a serial killer," Bonnie agreed, and rather loudly too. 

Damon narrowed his eyes, not understanding how they could let that get in the way of them getting home, home to the people they care about more than anything in the world. "I don't care! I wanna get out of here."

The younger female vampire frowned, wondering where this Damon was coming from. She thought he had grown past it, that he had decided to become someone he could be proud of being, and letting a serial killer out didn't seem like the Damon that was her best friend. "How can you not care?"

"Maybe because of the horrible things you have done? Maybe 'cause killing a bunch of kids is not a big deal to someone who's murdered a pregnant woman?" Bonnie retorted, her tone of voice not softening as she saw him look hurt at her words.  "Am I wrong?"

Flashback, 1994

Stefan walked through the doors of the Salvatore Boarding house with a frown as he realized they were open, and he was sure he wasn't the one who left them like that when he had left the house only a few minutes before. 

"Did you leave the door open?" he asked as met Zach in the parlor. Zach shook his head, telling him that he didn't when a scream rang through ever hall of the boarding house, and Stefan was surprised that none of the boarders woke up. 

Stefan and Zach exchanged looks, showing how they were both frightened at what had happened, which they weren't really sure about. But they had a theory and it wasn't a good one. 

The screams were obviously coming from the next room, so they rushed in there but stopped abruptly when they saw what was in there. Piles of bodies, the kinds they recognized. The kind that explained why the boarders hadn't woken up. They would never wake up again. 

But worst of all was when they saw Damon holding Gail in a headlock, blood surrounding his mouth from what seemed like a bit of messy feeding. "This eclipse party blows. I didn't see the sun at all when I crossed the yard! I forgot how much stronger we are when we drink human blood."

As Gail uttered Zach's name in a stage of fright, he stared at his ancestor in horror, trying to force himself to believe that Damon wouldn't do anything to hurt her. He had hope and convince himself. "Damon, please don't hurt her."

"I want my ring back, Stefan," Damon demanded, ignoring Zach's presence entirely. Stefan made sure he didn't hesitate as he fished the the ring out his pocket before throwing it at his brother harshly. "Atta boy."

And in that moment, Stefan came to a harsh realization of his life. He had hoped and convinced himself for decades that he was going to be able to live a life without his brother interrupting it, but he knew it would never end like that. "I'm never gonna be rid of you, am I?"

Damon seemed to agree with his realization. "No, you're not. 'Cause in 1912, I showed you who you were, Stefan. In 1942, I gave you your freedom, and in 1977 I almost killed your best friend because it should have been you there to help me, Stefan. You owe me, and it'll take you an eternity to pay me back."

The veins under his eyes appeared as his eyes darkened, turning red in a way that matched his blood-stained lips. His fangs buried themselves in the neck of a very pregnant Gail, draining almost all the blood in her body (and definitely enough for her not to survive). He then glared at his brother hatefully. "An eternity of misery, brother. Just like I promised."

End of Flashback

Damon seemed like he was in pain from telling the story to the girls, not thinking about the fact that Kai could easily hear him too, and get the hell-story he had begged for a few hours earlier. Somehow, a weight had been taken off his shoulder because he had never told anyone about it and him and Stefan never talked about it.

Kai scrunched his nose up, crossing his arms over his chest as he acted as though he had any kind of sympathy for the late human Salvatore. "Ouch. Poor nephew-uncle Zach."

"Stefan compelled Uncle Zach to forget about the girlfriend and the baby. But, he couldn't cover up all those murders. Founder's Council was restarted, and Stefan took off. Left Mystic Falls for about fifteen years. We both did. And when I saw Uncle Zach again, I couldn't look at him without remembering that I ruined everything. So it was a nice relief when I got to kill him," Damon seemed like he was over with speaking about that. "Okay, can we go back now?"

Kai turned to the two girls, both of whom sent them their meanest death-glares. "Oh, come on. You wanna go home to your friends, I wanna go back and give the rest of the Gemini Coven an excruciating death. Win-win."

As Damon saw Natalie open her mouth, probably to let a string of curses come through it, he decided that it was time to step in. "Look, I know this guy's not a model citizen, okay, but I gotta get back. Not just for Elena, but for my brother."

Natalie gnawed on the inside of her lip, not knowing if she was supposed to say yes or no. But then she met Bonnie's gaze, and came to the same agreement as they had before. "I'm sorry, Damon, but no."

Kai's facial expression suddenly shifted into one of absolute anger. He had waited for 18 years in hope of getting out of that damn prison world, and he wasn't about to let two 20-year-olsd keep him from it. "Sorry doesn't work for me."

As Damon saw him reach out to grab Natalie's wrist harshly, he got even angrier. There were few things that made him angrier than when someone wanted to hurt the people he loved the most, and Natalie was near the top of that list. "We may be having a bit of an disagreement, but don't ever lay a hand on her. On either of them."

Kai sighed as he looked up to the sky, finding the eclipse for the day to already have passed, which he wasn't all too pleased about. "Kind of a non-issue now. We missed the day's eclipse. Rain check for tomorrow?"

Bonnie shook her head. "No."

▹▹▹

Natalie knew that Damon would try to talk her into working with him on the whole get home and release an evil maniac into their world, to their home town that they probably couldn't enter. So, she sat herself in her/Stefan's room, waiting for him to come up and do his best to convince her. 

He did, because she knew him well enough to know what he was going to do. And Damon knew exactly where to go to push her buttons, to get her to see his side. "Natalie, look, I know-"

She cut him off as she swiftly stood up, knowing what he was trying to get a reaction out of her. "I'm not gonna argue with you. I don't think we should let him out. He's here for a reason, and he murdered his siblings. He's probably going to murder someone again. As a fellow murderer, you'd understand."

Damon sighed, walking closer to her so she couldn't look away, but still did. He didn't want her to get away, he needed her to listen. So, he moved close enough for their foreheads almost to be touching. "Hey, you were the one talking about how you needed hope to keep you going. You were trying to convince me to hope a bit too, and it worked. I'm hoping. I'm hoping that once I get out of here, I'm gonna get see my brother again, I get to be with my girlfriend again. After everything we've been through, I think we deserve to finally be with them."

Natalie could feel his warm breath hitting her face, and finally decided that she couldn't escape him and his close proximity. Her eyelashes fluttered as she met his gaze quickly whilst speaking softly. "Damon, I can't let him hurt anyone."

"Then you don't. We can ditch him the moment we know we have the right spell, okay? All that needs to happen first, is that we learn how to get home to the people we love that aren't us. You're my best friend and I love you, and I need you to support me in this," he sighed, looking at her with the kind of honesty he usually only reserved for Elena. He had a clear love for her, and he could've tried to manipulate her into it, but he had more respect for her than that. He needed her there with him, and by her own will. 

She studied his expression, finding nothing more than sincere honesty and sighed. She could feel him get to her in a way she hoped he wouldn't. "Okay, but you need to promise me. Promise you'll do everything you can to keep him from killing innocent people. Because believe it or not, you're my best friend and I love you too. So, I trust you enough to promise me that, after everything we've been through."

He smiled a soft smile as he put his hand on her upper arm silently, allowing him to promise her something he wanted to keep. Because when it came to Natalie, he thought she deserved it. "I promise."

She smiled back, biting her lower lip for a moment. She brought her own hand up to cover the one that he had on her arm in a way to show that she was on board with whatever he thought. "Thank you."

His smile only grew even larger. "Thank you."

▹▹▹

Somehow, Damon had convinced Natalie into joining his little getting home parade, but there was still one person left that they had nothing but love and trust for that still wasn't all team letting Kai murder people again. 

Bonnie looked up at the two, throwing Natalie a quick smile that was returned in a moment's notice, and only giving Damon a look as if she wasn't sure how to react to him coming over there. But, he knew exactly what to say. "Shame-eating?"

Bonnie glanced down at the batch of pancakes she had made, even if they didn't quite taste like Damon's, even if they were made from the exact same recipe. "Thinking about that pregnant lady. She had a thing for pancakes."

Damon frowned, finding that to be a bit of useless information she had gathered. There wasa a lot of things he had said that would be more remarkable than Gail liking pancakes. "That's what you remember?"

Bonnie fought to swallow another piece of her pancake, her mind being on Gail and Damon the whole time. She felt bad for the woman, but she couldn't help but see Damon as a different person than that. "You remember it, don't you?"

Natalie raised an eyebrow, not even having thought about it. She didn't even look at Damon, her gaze solely on the pancakes on her witchy friend's plate. "Is that why you make pancakes every day?"

"No, it's because I'm bored," he tried to defend his reputation as a badass. He refused to allow everyone to see the kind of good in him that would show, and so he refused to show it on his face, the vulnerability, the guilt. 

But Bonnie could see through that mask he had created for himself. She had gotten to know who he was on the inside, and she saw the good he could be. "No. Because you're punishing yourself. You call this place your hell, and it means you feel remorse. That makes you different from Kai."

Natalie bumped his shoulder playfully. He turned to her and smiled a bit, to which she grinned, the usual giggle emitting from her lips. "Well, maybe there's a little bit of hope for you after all, huh?"

Damon cast a grin back, before turning more serious as he looked at their favorite witch. "Look, we can still get outta here, Bonnie. Natalie and I already talked about it. We can steal that Descendant contraption, find out what Kai knows and we'll ditch him, because he doesn't have any powers anyway."

Their three-way conversation was interrupted by a fourth voice, this one being of the third murderer to enter the room. After Damon and Natalie respectively. "Actually, it's not that simple."

If it wasn't for the fact that she was a vampire, Natalie probably would have jumped out of her skin at him suddenly appearing in the door. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Please stop doing that."

Kai didn't even cast a glance in his direction, "Here's the thing: I have a killer effect on magic. I can't generate it myself. But, I can consume it from others temporarily. My family called me an abomination. That hurt my feelings."

It didn't even take a moment before he had Bonnie's wrist in his grip, and suddenly an agonizing pain shot through her body as she felt the magic leave her body. Somehow, Kai's little show made the stove catch on fire as Bonnie kept getting weaker and weaker. 

Natalie was getting worried that Bonnie was going to pass out, or even go as far as to quickly fall asleep and never wake up. She would have jumped to get Bonnie away from him if it wasn't for the fact that she remembered that she was a vampire, a magical creature. She wasn't as worried about the reincarnation curse (which never actually turned her into a magical creature, just a spelled human) because that had been broken a while ago. "Okay, we get it. Now, let her go."

He released the witch's wrist quickly and the fire on the stove went out. Natalie finally realized that he probably had done some sort of spell with Bonnie's magic. "You can see why my coven and I didn't get along."

Damon glared at the 40-something 22-year-old. "I smell an ultimatum."

Kai smirked. "If I consume all of Bonnie's magic I'm just gonna end up killing her. But, if we work together, we can all go home as friends. Or I can devour her magic, kill you all, and go home alone. What's it gonna be?"

▹▹▹

A/N: I would have updated sooner if it wasn't for the fact that I had an assignment at school, writing an essay. I mean, yeah, I've written plenty of essays before, but here's the thing... You guys think you have it bad? Let me tell you about this thing called Nynorsk/New Norwegian. It sucks and I want to kill it with fire. It's basically Norwegian, but it's another type and I hate it. So, it took some time. But that's to be expected with this being the second longest chapter in the whole two-book series as well, as well as the longest in this book. 

Okay, so my thoughts on the finale:

1. Nina's wigs were so bad.

2. Stefan Salvatore deserves better.

3: Damon looked so uncomfortable around Elena and that kiss was so awkward. 

4: Stelena is so beautiful, their chemistry was off the charts in that one scene. 

5: Stefan Salvatore deserves better.

6: Does this mean Klaroline is endgame?

7: Defan is the best thing on that show, I don't even care about anything else.

8: Stefan Salvatore deserves better. 

9: Those two seconds I saw Jeremy were the best two seconds of my life. 

10: Bonnie Bennett is the most badass character to ever exist. I love her.

11: Stefan Salvatore deserves better.

12: It's kinda weird to think that there's gonna be a boarding school at the Salvatore house. All I could think about was all the sex and murder that has happened there. 

13: Did Delena even say a word to each other?

14: Did I mention that Stefan Salvatore deserves better?

15: "But that is the beginning of another story." Natalie Saltzman would approve.

Votes and comments are greatly appreciated.