Dark Reunion

'I tried to keep my promise.'

'I know, Stefan.'

Bonnie didn't like the sound of this at all. It sounded too much like a farewell—a permanent one. Her own words floated back to her: He might go to another place or—or just go out. And she didn't want Stefan to go anywhere. Surely anyone who looked that much like an angel…

'Elena,' she said, 'can't you—do something? Can't you help him?' Her voice was shaking.

And Elena's expression as she turned to look at Bonnie, gentle but so sad, was even more distressing. It reminded her of someone, and then she remembered. Honoria Fell. Honoria's eyes had looked like that, as if she were looking at all the inescapable wrongs in the world. All the unfairness, all the things that shouldn't have been, but were.

'I can do something,' she said. 'But I don't know if it's the kind of help he wants.' She turned back to Stefan. 'Stefan, I can cure what Klaus did. Tonight I have that much Power. But I can't cure what Katherine did.'

Bonnie's numbed brain struggled with this for a while. What Katherine did—but Stefan had recovered months ago from Katherine's torture in the crypt. Then she understood. What Katherine had done was make Stefan a vampire.

'It's been too long,' Stefan was saying to Elena. 'If you did cure it, I'd be a pile of dust.'

'Yes.' Elena didn't smile, just went on looking at him steadily. 'Do you want my help, Stefan?'

'To go on living in this world in the shadows…' Stefan's voice was a whisper now, his green eyes distant. Bonnie wanted to shake him. Live, she thought to him, but she didn't dare say it for fear she'd make him decide just the opposite. Then she thought of something else.

'To go on trying,' she said, and both of them looked at her. She looked back, chin thrust out, and saw the beginning of a smile on Elena's bright lips. Elena turned to Stefan, and that tiny hint of a smile passed to him.

'Yes,' he said quietly, and then, to Elena, 'I want your help.'

She bent and kissed him.

Bonnie saw the brightness flow from her to Stefan, like a river of sparkling light engulfing him. It flooded over him the way the dark mist had surrounded Klaus, like a cascade of diamonds, until his entire body glowed like Elena's.

For an instant Bonnie imagined she could see the blood inside him turned molten, flowing out to each vein, each capillary, healing everything it touched. Then the glow faded to a golden aura, soaking back into Stefan's skin. His shirt was still demolished, but underneath the flesh was smooth and firm. Bonnie, feeling her own eyes wide with wonder, couldn't help reaching out to touch.

It felt just like any skin. The horrible wounds were gone.

She laughed aloud with sheer excitement, and then looked up, sobering. 'Elena—there's Meredith, too—'

The bright being that was Elena was already moving across the clearing. Meredith looked up at her from Caroline's lap.

'Hello, Elena,' she said, almost normally, except that her voice was so weak.

Elena bent and kissed her. The brightness flowed again, encompassing Meredith. And when it faded, Meredith stood up on her own two feet.

Then Elena did the same thing with Matt, who woke up, looking confused but alert. She kissed Caroline too, and Caroline stopped shaking and straightened.

Then she went to Damon.

He was still lying where he had fallen. The ghosts had passed over him, taking no notice of him. Elena's brightness hovered over him, one shining hand reaching to touch his hair. Then she bent and kissed the dark head on the ground.

As the sparkling light faded, Damon sat up and shook his head. He saw Elena and went still, then, every movement careful and self-contained, stood up. He didn't say anything, only looked as Elena turned back to Stefan.

He was silhouetted against the fire. Bonnie had scarcely noticed how the red glow had grown so that it almost eclipsed Elena's gold. But now she saw it and felt a thrill of alarm.

'My last gift to you,' Elena said, and it began to rain.

Not a thunder-and-lightning storm, but a thorough pattering rain that soaked everything—Bonnie included— and doused the fire. It was fresh and cool, and it seemed to wash all the horror of the last hours away, cleansing the glade of everything that had happened there. Bonnie tilted her face up to it, shutting her eyes, wanting to stretch out her arms and embrace it. At last it slackened and she looked again at Elena.

Elena was looking at Stefan, and there was no smile on her lips now. The wordless sorrow was back in her face.

'It's midnight,' she said. 'And I have to go.'

Bonnie knew instantly, at the sound of it, that 'go' didn't just mean for the moment. 'Go' meant forever. Elena was going somewhere that no trance or dream could reach.

And Stefan knew it too.

'Just a few more minutes,' he said, reaching for her.

'I'm sorry—'

'Elena, wait—I need to tell you—'

'I can't!' For the first time the serenity of that bright face was destroyed, showing not only gentle sadness but tearing grief. 'Stefan, I can't wait. I'm so sorry.' It was as if she were being pulled backward, retreating from them into some dimension that Bonnie could not see. Maybe the same place Honoria went when her task was finished, Bonnie thought. To be at peace.

But Elena's eyes didn't look as if she were at peace. They clung to Stefan, and she reached out her hand toward his, hopelessly. They didn't touch. Wherever Elena was being pulled was too far away.

'Elena—please!' It was the voice Stefan had called her with in his room. As if his heart was breaking.

'Stefan,' she cried, both hands held out to him now. But she was diminishing, vanishing. Bonnie felt a sob swell in her own chest, close her own throat. It wasn't fair. All they had ever wanted was to be together. And now Elena's reward for helping the town and finishing her task was to be separated from Stefan irrevocably. It just wasn't fair.

'Stefan,' Elena called again, but her voice came as if from a long distance. The brightness was almost gone. Then, as Bonnie stared through helpless tears, it winked out.

Leaving the clearing silent once again. They were all gone, the ghosts of Fell's Church who had walked for one night to keep more blood from being spilled. The bright spirit that had led them had vanished without a trace, and even the moon and stars were covered by clouds.

Bonnie knew that the wetness on Stefan's face wasn't due to the rain that was still splashing down.

He was standing, chest heaving, looking at the last place where Elena's brightness had been seen. And all the longing and the pain Bonnie had glimpsed on his face at times before was nothing to what she saw now.

'It isn't fair,' she whispered. Then she shouted it to the sky, not caring who she was addressing. 'It isn't fair!'

Stefan had been breathing more and more quickly. Now he lifted his face too, not in anger but in unbearable pain. His eyes were searching the clouds as if he might find some last trace of golden light, some flicker of brightness there. He couldn't. Bonnie saw the spasm go through him, like the agony of Klaus's stake. And the cry that burst out of him was the most terrible thing she'd ever heard. 'Elena!'

SIXTEEN

Bonnie never could quite remember how the next few seconds went. She heard Stefan's cry that almost seemed to shake the earth beneath her. She saw Damon start toward him. And then she saw the flash.

A flash like Klaus's lightning, only not blue-white. This one was gold.

And so bright Bonnie felt that the sun had exploded in front of her eyes. All she could make out for several seconds were whirling colors. And then she saw something in the middle of the clearing, near the chimney stack. Something white, shaped like the ghosts, only more solid looking. Something small and huddled that had to be