(1) The Phoenix (D. Salvatore)

Chapter One Hundred and Ten

It's rubble. The entire house is nothing but rubble. It has collapsed around them. Whatever that spell did, it caused a magical backlash that decimated the building. And unfortunately, everyone inside. Damon brushes debris off of himself as he pushes himself to his feet, his eyes scanning around. It's a mess but he can't focus on that. Daphne should be here somewhere. She has to be here and she has to be okay. This is probably the closest she's come to being seriously hurt because he has to assume that a building being dropped on her would hurt her pretty badly.

"Daphne" He whispers and looks around for her as his wounds heal. Moving through the rubble, stepping over pieces of wall and roof. There is nothing left of the house but ruin. A flash of red hair catches his attention and then he rushes forward, dropping to his knees at her side. He can hear her heartbeat. She's hurt but alive. He touches her face and turns her head slightly. His worried eyes look over her before he raises his wrist to his mouth to bite into his own flesh. He lowers the bleeding wound to her mouth, pressing past her lips. Her wounds heal and he lets out a relieved breath, pulling his wrist back from her. She gasps a little when she comes around, coughing and groaning. Her eyes shift to find Damon at her side.

"Did it kill him?" She whispers as she lets out a long breath.

"I don't know" He answers, brushing her hair back from her face. She closes her eyes and then sits up, shifting closer to him to hug him tightly. Sinking into his hold as she buries her face in his shoulder. He rubs her back and then strokes her hair, brushing away dust and debris from the red locks.

"Are you okay?" She asks him and he nods. He's healed up, nothing to worry about.

"Yeah," He assures her, pulling back a little to kiss her head. "Yeah. Don't worry about me, Red"

"Daph!" Jeremy steps into the ruined house, looking around for his sister and her vampire boyfriend. "Daph!" He shouts louder, his worry and concern very clear in the shake of his voice. He saw it happen from the outside. The bright green light and then the whole building just collapsed on them.

"Here" Damon states as he helps Daphne up to her feet. "She's here" Damon adds softer. She lets out a breath and looks across at her brother who gives her a worried look.

"I'm fine" She assures him but he still moves to look over her, to check on her. "Jer, I'm fine," She tells him firmer this time. He lets out a breath and shakes his head. She knows why he is being this way because he found out about the curse. This is part of why she didn't want to tell them because he's now looking at her like fragile glass. She pushes away from Jeremy softly and starts to look around the room, trying to find signs of Kol, or hopefully, his body or a pile of ash where he was standing. But there is nothing but a bit of blood on the ground and droplets that lead out of the rubble. He survived. Injured but survived. That spell did nothing but make him bleed. That's beyond disappointing.

"No body...." She muses and then closes her eyes. Of course, it wouldn't be that easy to get rid of an Original. She is sure that if the killing curse worked on vampires, it would have been taught. They would have been told. She curls an arm around her middle and shakes her head. "He's not dead" She admits and turns to Damon. "It didn't work" She whispers sadly. It was the last card in her deck for dealing with them. And it didn't work.

"Let's get out of here," Damon tells them. "Who knows who saw what happened" She nods and lets him take her hand to pull her along as he leaves, Jeremy trailing along behind them.

..........

In the middle of nowhere, parked up on the side of the road, Daphne sits in the open passenger side of the car as Damon cleans blood from her face and neck. She's quiet but of course she would be. She tried her best and it wasn't enough. She broke wizarding law, two of the big bad three now. She might as well go for the full trifecta at some point. Jeremy stands away from the car, letting them have this moment. Plus he was sure he was irritating Daphne by being slightly over-concerned about her. She has her own things to worry about without him being overly worried. Jeremy turns his head when he senses eyes on him. He finds Rose standing at his side.

"Don't tell them I'm here" She warns, her eyes on Daphne and Damon. "I know you want to stop it" She admits, Jeremy frowns a little. "Spirits talk" She explains. "The Phoenix curse" She adds and then looks at him sadly. "It's inevitable" She offers. "It always is"

"She doesn't want it to happen" Jeremy argues.

"When did anyone in this life ever get what they wanted?" She asks him. "The others....the past phoenixes, they are all over here" She admits. "Watching, waiting to see" She shrugs and then shakes her head. "But it's a curse for a reason and she can fight tooth and nail to survive but it wants to happen. It'll push her to get involved with danger just so it can be free....." She looks back across at Damon and Daphne. "I like them together" She admits. "She makes him a better person" She smiles a little before she disappears again. Jeremy looks across at his sister, smiling sadly as he watches Damon take care of her.

................

Back in Mystic Falls, back at the Salvatore Boarding house, Daphne is not exactly feeling great about what happened. The whole trip was a disaster from start to finish really. It is a lot to happen to them in the space of like two days. She lays on Damon's bed, staring up at the ceiling, just laying there. She doesn't want to do anything else. Not today. Maybe not for a few more days. She needs to flush it all out. Take a few days of no drama. That would be perfect right about now. Hell, the rest of her life drama free would be amazing. Damon paces the room, his phone pressed to his ear. He's been trying to contact Alaric since they got back, mainly because he wasn't here when they arrived back. Where he was supposed to be so that Daphne could have another crack at his head, not that she is in the right head space at the minute to be doing anything. Damon lets out a breath when the phone finally picks up.

"Where've you been?" Damon scolds down the line. "I've been calling you all day" He glances over at Daphne who lets out a long breath, closing her eyes. She doesn't bother to listen to the other side of the conversation. There is a moment of pause as Alaric responds. "So I take it Rebekah got the stake?" Daphne turns her head slightly to look at Damon, he shakes his head back at her. He'll tell her about that later. He kept it from her because he only found out after their clash with Kol and she didn't need more bad news. "Lovely. What now?" Damon asks Alaric and then rolls his eyes listening to whatever Alaric is telling him. There is an annoyed tick to his jaw too. "I don't know if right now is the best time for you to be going on a spirit quest, Ric." He complains and then sighs, listening again to the response before the line goes dead. Damon blinks and looks down at his phone as he pulls it away from his ear. "He hung up on me" He mumbles.

"What happened?" She asks as he climbs onto the bed with her. He shakes his head as he settles himself over her, supporting his weight on his elbows beside her head. She pulls her legs up to allow him to settle between them.

"Tomorrow" He argues. "We'll talk about it tomorrow" He leans closer and presses his forehead to hers.

"Really want to postpone dealing with the fact that they got one of the stakes?" She asks him and he hums, nodding against her head. "And that Alaric is going walkabout with an evil alter-ego inside of him?" He nods and hums again. She sighs, over-dramatically, but to be honest, she doesn't care. She literally cannot feel that she cares about that right now. "Okay," She agrees softly, just wanting to sleep and forget her failure. He leans up to brush her hair from her face.

"Did you really give Klaus all of the stakes?" He whispers. She peeks at him through her eyes and smirks. He knew she wouldn't give Klaus all of them. He knows she is smarter than that.

"I told him we had nine" She admits as she touches his neck, drawing her fingers across his skin. "I gave him seven, Alaric had the eight, we used the ninth on Finn...."

"So where are the other four?" He asks, she shakes her head.

"I'm not going to tell" She answers. "They can compel you" She reminds him. "If they did find out about the last four, if someone blabs about there being thirteen, then they could make you tell them where they are...I have to keep this one to myself" He hums a little. "But don't worry, they are safe" He leans into her hand as it moves to his cheek. At least that is something. That they do have something. Even if they clearly have a habit of making good plans that go bad.