You are my Freedom

Missed Mystic

Clara was wasting the day away trying to entertain herself until it was dark enough to safely go outside. Hopefully, she wouldn't have to live like this too much longer, Damon told her a witch he knew, Bonnie Bennet, had returned to town and should be able to help.

Clara POV:

I hate being stuck inside all day, its not that my accommodations aren't grand, its beautiful here and I live better than I ever have before. I just hate that while those I care for are out and about trying to sort through the trouble that life brings them I am stuck inside unable to help. I feel like I am watching everyone else live and I am inside studying and trying to catch up to them and sometimes it feels like I never will.

Damon had stopped by briefly, he had a bad meeting with the council, apparently, they want him to team up with John to hunt vampires.

Then Stefan came by and had a fight with anyone who suggested he had a blood problem, apparently a local hospital was robbed and Stefan was the culprit.

Then Anna came by, Pearl's daughter, and gave us more troubling news about the tomb vampires.

Everything was spinning out of control so fast and I was terrified one of them would need my help and I would be stuck inside while they suffered tragedies.

My husband's new vampire hunter partner even stopped by, he made my skin crawl. He made a loose threat to me and Damon actually ripped his finger clean off. John cried and screamed out in pain clasping his bleeding hand to his chest.

"You know there are thousands of ways I can hurt you without killing you, this was just the first to come to mind. I'll be holding on to this from now on(holding up the resurrection ring) you want it back, feel free to leave a forwarding address on your way out of town, I'll be sure to mail it! And NEVER make the mistake of thinking I would allow you to so much as breathe near my wife let alone do anything to harm her. Understood?"

John nodded

"Great now, hold still." Damon tossed me the bloodied ring and held John's finger where it used to be and bit into his wrist shoving it into John's mouth allowing him to heal. "You might want to be careful for the next 24 hours, or the next vampire you'll be hunting will be you."

Damon called me later to let me know he would be attending the Miss Mystic Falls pageant to keep an eye on Stefan, make sure he didn't eat any of the contestants.

The next call I got was very concerning, Stefan actually had attacked a girl, and he had run off when they tried to get him under control again. Damon instructed me what to do if I saw Stefan before they made it back to the boarding house.

I heard the door open and Stefan run up to his room. This was my chance to help... even if it felt deceitful I was happy Damon trusted me enough to do this.

I entered his bedroom after him and sat with him on his bed.

"Hear I missed another fabulous Mystic Falls event."

"I Am not really in the mood for company right now." He tells me but I am undeterred.

"Well, good thing I am not company, I live here. I'm your sister, come on you can talk to me. Or do you only open up when we are both strung up with vervain ropes?"

"Maybe that's what you should do, tie me up. I was going to do it to Damon once, let him dry out and then put him in the family crypt for 50 or so years. The world would be a lot safer if that's where I was, Elena would be safer."

"Take it from someone who was desiccating in a tomb for well over 100 years, that's not the answer."

"You didn't deserve that."

"And you do?" I ask.

"Yes!" He shouts as if its obvious.

I sigh and shake my head, "and who will that help? It's cowardly."

"What?"

"You want to punish yourself, you think that will make it up to your victims? It's not going to unkill them somehow. It only helps you feel better like the deluded Saint Anthony who thought the way to salvation was to starve himself to madness in the middle of the desert. Your suffering will not make up for your sins, you want to make a difference? Make restitution where you can, you need to stay alive and fight. Go to Africa, save girls that wouldn't otherwise be saved, or go to the Middle East and stop a stoning, go save children from being bombed, hell stalk college campuses right here and save young women from being raped do something with your life to save more lives then you took! That's how you make it up to your victims not by being a melodramatic eternal teenager brooding in his room!"

3rd Person POV:

Stefan was shocked by his latest tongue lashing from his sister in law. He understood what she was saying and saw the wisdom in it but didn't see how he would ever be able to do those things now that he was so sensitive to blood again he didn't make for any kind of superhero.

"And how am I supposed to save anyone when I can't even make it through a pageant. One scraped knee and I'd be the one killing those I'd planned on saving. No, it safest for everyone to put me down."

Clara didn't know what to say to that but then Elena came up and asked to speak to Stefan alone, he didn't want her there... he didn't think it was safe.

Clara left and joined Damon downstairs...

Clara POV:

Damon and I heard the end of their conversation and I was happy Elena relieved me of my duty, it had to be tough for her to do that she obviously cares for Stefan a great deal.

After we hear Stefan collapse from the vervain dart Damon and I re-enter the room,

"Sure you want to do this?" I felt the need to ask her again.

"I'm sure."

After putting him in the cell in the basement Damon turns to Elena,

"There's no guarantee it's going to work." He tells her.

"It has to."

Elena decided to stay down there with Stefan, waiting for him to regain consciousness. Damon and I went up to bed, Even tho the sun had set and I was finally free I didn't want to be anywhere else but in bed snuggled up to my husband.

Damon's Bedroom

Damon POV:

I lay in bed holding my wife. Caring is exhausting, don't know how Stefan has done it all these years. A part of me thinks I should take Clara and get as far away from here as possible... but honestly I like the idea of being a family again with Stefan not that I'd ever admit that.

"Its okay to admit you know."

"Admit what?" I ask wondering if my wife is a mind reader

"That you care for your bother." Apparently, she was, I'd swear she was a witch if I hadn't seen her fangs myself.

"I thought you almost got through to him back there. It was a good try. You know Stefan actually did play the hero once... went off to war and everything."

"Really?"

"Yup, It was World War II mid-1930s."

"I am still only on the 20s so no spoilers."

"Well, it was pretty much all downhill from there sweetheart," I tell her.

"What happened, did it help when Stefan went, did you go with him?"

"I was supposed to but his bff, that means best friend forever, talked me out of it. She told me he'd be better off alone than in my company."

"Is this the one you killed in front of him on his birthday?"

I wince, "He told you about that?"

"Just mentioned it really."

"Yeah, it was her," I admit guiltily.

"A little bit glad she's dead now, stuck-up cow saying that to you."

I can't help but smile, wow I loved how blindly Clara would defend me, I leaned over and kissed her on her forehead.

"I shouldn't have killed her. Its one of the few things I am actually sorry for. I have done so many terrible things and yet I rarely feel guilty about any of them, but that's one I do."

"You should tell him, I'm sure it would mean a lot." She tells me.

"I'm not so sure."

"Any more trouble from Jonathan Gilbert?"

"Pretty sure he knows now never to threaten you again."

"But what if he turns you into the council." She asks me worriedly.

I can see how worried Clara is for me, I'm a little worried too if I'm being honest. The part of me that thinks I should take Clara and disappear is getting louder. But that's out of the question until Stefan's back on the straight and narrow at least and who knows how long that will take.

"You know the 3rd worse thing that ever happened to me was?"

"No, what?"

I tell Clara about the Augustine society never getting too graphic but not lying or sugarcoating anything for her either.

"But I know nothing like that will ever happen again, you know why?"

"Why?" Clara asks tears spilling down her face completely distraught over what I've suffered.

"Because if I was even missing for an hour I know you would come find me. So no I am not worried about John and the council, because I have the most kick-ass wife in the world and I know she'll do anything to protect me just like I will her. We'll always be okay because we have each other... alright?" Clara nods believing me.

"I wouldn't just come looking, I would rain down hell until I found you." My wife tells me making me smile.

"I know you would," I tell her holding her tighter.

"Wait, you said that was the third worst thing what were the first two? I can't imagine anything worse."

"First was waking up a vampire realizing how Katherine manipulated me into leaving you, realizing I'd be spending eternity without you after Stefan forced me to feed."

Clara strokes the side of my face lovingly.

"And what about the 2nd?"

"Mother dying leaving me and Stefan alone with Giuseppe."

3rd Person POV:

Clara held tightly onto Damon and wished nothing worse than those three would ever happen to him but Unfortunately Clara didn't know how soon her husband's life would be threatened again once Johnathan Gilbert got his hands on that invention Pearl told them about.