Midnight

"Open your eyes, Damon,"she said, flushing, because that was what he wanted her to say. He real y was the greatest manipulator of al . "Open your eyes, I said!"Now she was real y irritated. "Don’t play possum, because you’re not fooling anyone, and we’ve real y had enough!"She was about to shake him hard when something lifted her into the air, into Stefan’s line of vision.

Stefan was in pain, but surely not as badly as Damon, so she was looking back to curse Damon when Stefan said harshly,

"Elena, he can’t!"

For just the tiniest fleeting instant the words sounded like nonsense to her. Not only garbled, but meaningless, like saying someone couldn’t stop their appendix from doing –

whatever it was an appendix did. That was al the respite that she got, and then she had to deal with what her eyes were showing her.

Damon wasn’t pinned by his shoulder. He’d been staked, just slightly to the left of center of his torso.

Exactly where his heart was.

Words drifted back to her. Words that someone had once said – although she couldn’t remember who right now. "You can’t kill a vampire so easily. We only die if you stake us through the heart…."

Die? Damon die? This was some kind of mistake…

"Open your eyes!""Elena, he can’t!"

But she knew, without knowing how, that Damon wasn’t dead. She wasn’t surprised that Stefan didn’t know it; it was a hum on a private frequency between her and Damon.

"Come on, hurry, give me your axe,"she said, so desperately, and with such an air of knowledge that Stefan handed it over wordlessly, and obeyed when she told him to steady the curving spider-leg branch from above and below. Then with a few quick strokes of the axe she cut through the black branch that was thick enough in circumference that she couldn’t have clasped her fingers around it. It was done in a spurt of pure adrenaline, but she knew it awed Stefan and al owed him to let her continue doing it.

When she was finished, she had a loose spider-leg branch that drooped back to the tree, anchored to nothing – and something that looked more like a proper stake in Damon.

It wasn’t until she began pul ing upward on the stake that a horrified Stefan made her stop.

"Elena! Elena, I wouldn’t lie to you! This is just what these branches are for. For intruders who are vampires. Look, love –  see."He was showing her another of the spider legs that was anchored in the sand, and the barbs on it. Just like the backward-facing tines of a primitive stone arrowhead.

"These branches are meant to be like this,"Stefan was saying. "And if you pul ed up on it hard enough, you’d just –

just end up pul ing out chunks of – his heart."

Elena froze. She wasn’t sure she real y could understand the words – she couldn’t al ow herself to, or she might picture it.

But it didn’t matter.

"I’l destroy it some other way,"she said shortly, looking at Stefan but not able to see the true green of his eyes because of the olive light. "You wait. Just wait and watch. I’l find a Wings power that wil dissolve this – this –  damned abomination."She could think of many other words to cal the stake, but she had to stay in some sort of control.

"Elena."Stefan whispered her name as if he could barely get it out. Even in the twilight she could see the tears on his cheeks. He continued, nonverbal y, Elena, look at his closed eyes. This Tree is a vicious killer, with wood like nothing I’ve ever seen, but I’ve heard about it. It’s…it’s spreading. Inside him.

"Inside him?"Elena repeated stupidly.

Along his arteries and veins – and his nerves – everything connected to his heart. He’s – oh, God, Elena, just look at his eyes!

Elena looked. Stefan had knelt and gently pul ed up the lids of Damon’s eyes and Elena began screaming.

Deep in the fathomless pupils that had held endless night skies ful of stars, there was a glimmer – not of starlight, but of green. It seemed to glow with its own hel ish luminescence.

Stefan looked at her with agony and compassion. And now, with one gentle pass, Stefan was closing those eyes – forever, she knew he was thinking.

Everything had become strange and dreamlike. Nothing made sense anymore. Stefan was careful y laying Damon’s head down – he was letting Damon go.

Even in her fuzzy world of nonsense Elena knew she could never do that.

And then, a miracle happened. Elena heard a voice in her mind that wasn’t hers.

All this is rather unexpected. I acted, for once, without thinking. And this is my reward. The voice was a hum on their private frequency, Damon’s and hers.

Elena ripped herself away from Stefan, who was trying to restrain her, and fel , grasping Damon’s shoulders with her hands. I knew it! I knew you couldn’t be dead!

It was only then that she realized that her face was dripping wet, and she used her soft leather sleeve to wipe it. Oh, Damon, you gave me such a scare! Don’t you ever, ever do that again!

I think I can give my word on that, Damon sent – in different tones than his usual ones – sober but at the same time whimsical. But you have to give me something in return.

Yes, of course, Elena said. Just let me get some of my hair off my neck. It worked best like this when Stefan was lying down – when we were carrying him out on his pallet from the prison –

Not that, Damon told her. For once, angel, I don’t want your blood. I need you to give me your most solemn word that you will try to be brave. If it helps at all, I know that females are better than males at this sort of thing. They’re less cowardly at facing – what you have to face now.

Elena didn’t like the tone of these words. The dizziness that was making her lips numb was traveling al over her body.

There was nothing to be brave about. Damon could stand pain. She would find a Wings power that would obliterate al that wood that was poisoning him. It might hurt, but it would save his life.