Forever Is Not Enough

The Council

1864 - Mystic Falls, Virginia

The day was cold and the sky was bleak. Damon and Elena walked arm and arm through the Salvatore's maze-like garden. Jeremy walked close enough to see them, but not to hear them if they lowered their voices. "I have to tell you something," Elena said, glancing back at her brother.

Damon's eyes remained ahead of him. He had made his father especially angry the night before and his body was freshly sore. Elena was wrapped tightly around his arm, and though he didn't want her to move away, her elbow was digging into his side. The pain seeped through his abdomen, and his jaw was tensed to keep from groaning. "Yes?"

She hesitated, thinking very carefully on how to word it. "Before I tell you, you must swear yourself to secrecy, Damon. You mustn't tell anyone. Not even Stefan."

He grinned slightly. "Of course. I wouldn't think of it."

She glanced back at Jeremy again to make sure he was still at a reasonable distance. Although he was acting as their escort, he had brought along an old telescope to play with, and was paying neither of them any attention. "I am worried about my uncle. He has been behaving strangely."

Damon had an odd feeling he knew what she was talking about. When they spoke the other night, Stefan had told him the founders were getting together almost daily now. They had even named themselves The Founder's Council. They were under the impression that something was amiss in Mystic Falls - something dark. Two young men had gone missing shortly after the girl named Anabelle. Their names were Richard and Alexander, and unlike the long-missing girl, their bodies were found two days after they disappeared. Their bodies were discovered hanging from trees on the outskirts of town, drained of blood.

The townspeople flew into an uproar. Not one person in that town had ever been exposed to such depraved wickedness. It was a woman and her children that found the bodies. Their horrified screams were heard in every corner of Mystic Falls.

It was then that John Gilbert finally emerged from the shadows with his brother's books and diaries in hand. No one was ready to accept the truth when Grayson Gilbert went on a campaign to expel the evil that haunted his home. The town denounced him as a madman, spewing godless lies about the devil and magic. Now that there were men hanging from their toes with their heads halfway severed from their bodies. Now, they were ready to believe.

Following their fearless leader, Mayor Benjamin Lockwood, they began training themselves to hunt the monsters. First was the nasty business of disguising the murders as animal attacks. It took a gross amount of lying and convincing, but no one had any reason to believe that those good, virtuous men would lie. Then, they spent their time together reading the texts and learning everything they could. There were hundreds of passages about ancient demons that fed on the lives of humans. There were stories of cities and empires being caught in an invisible plague with bloodless dead bodies piling up in the streets.

The Council came to three conclusions. The first and most obvious, was that these monsters survived only off the blood of living things. The second was that they could never walk in the light of day. The third was that they were irrevocably evil in nature.

This is what Damon knew.

Elena took a deep breath, collecting her thoughts and posing her words carefully. "Uncle John has been hidden away in my father's study, missing meals, sleeping during the day. Between that and those meetings with the Founder's Committee–"

"Council."

"Yes, council. They spend so much time together, but I wonder what they could possibly be speaking of all of this time. They discovered who killed those poor boys, no? It was an animal. What more are they searching for? There has not been a disappearance in two weeks."

She paused to let him speak, but he kept quiet for the time being.

"What if he is ill? It is so much like when my father was –" She stopped short, her eyes falling to the ground.

He yearned to wrap his arms around her. He imagined her head would fit in the crook of his shoulder nicely. Perhaps she would finally be close enough for him could inhale the perfume that clung to her skin. Perhaps she would look up at him with that sweet look she got now and then, that look that made him feel he wasn't supposed to be anywhere else. Perhaps he could even kiss her. He would do anything to take that sadness from her eyes. Instead, he pulled her closer to his side – flinching only a little – and lowered his voice further. "Stefan can tell you more than I."

Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "What could Stefan know about my uncle?"

"John and our father have got on rather well, as I hear it."

"And?"

"It was no animal who attacked those people."

Now Elena was truly confused. She only wished to confide in Damon that John had caught the madness that plagued her father. Never did she expect it would have anything to do with those who died. She listened carefully as Damon confided in her everything he knew. It was ridiculous, of course. That Damon would even tell her made her think that he wasn't taking her seriously.

She looked at the ground as they walked. "Now I am certain you are playing a joke on me."

"No!" he assured her, trying to keep quiet. "Please, I am telling you everything I know."

She looked into his eyes, searching to see if anything but the truth that lay behind those blue orbs, but his expression was earnest as he gazed into her face. "I'm sorry," she sighed. "I must be confused."

"Let me take you home, Miss Elena." He reached over to pull her jacket tighter around her. "It is too cold."