Humanity 3 "The Renewal"

Chapter 17

I’m in the hospital with Meredith and Elena as we wait for Alaric to be finished with his MRI.

“What are you looking for?” I ask Meredith as she watches her computer screen.

“I don’t know. A tumor, vascular anomalies, anything physical that might explain his behavior. If it’s medical, I can treat it.” She explains to us.

“And if it’s not?” Elena asks nervously.

“Well, then we’ll deal with that too.” She says calmly.

“When did you suspect him? That it was Alaric who was killing all of those people?” I ask her.

She stands up from her computer and faces us. “It was after he told me about his ring. I remembered a story my grandmother had told me about Samantha Gilbert and her secret journal. I don’t know if you know this, but we Fells are notorious busy-bodies.” She smiles a little bit.

“But then, why did you protect him?” Elena asks her.

“Because I’m a doctor. I don’t like to see someone hurt by something they have no control over. And because when he and I first met, I felt like…I don’t know. I—I just kind of wanted to help him.”

***

Elena and I wait for Ric outside in the waiting room. He finally comes out grabs his things.

“Meredith says that everything is normal.” Elena says.

“Yeah, well, everything is normal, because there is nothing wrong with me. I didn’t kill Brian Walters. I didn’t kill Bill Forbes. And I sure as hell didn’t shove a hunting knife into my stomach.” He says, bitterly. He looks down at his ring lying on the table. “Or I did and I’ve gone insane like your ancestor who wore that ring.”

“Look, we’re gonna talk to Bonnie. The rings were made by a Bennet witch so maybe a witch can reverse the damage.” I tell him but she shakes his head.

He walks over to Elena and hands her the ring. “Take it. I don’t want it anymore.”

She holds the ring in her hands and looks at me a second before the door opens. Damon walks in and the room immediately fills with tension.

“You ready to ditch this house of horrors?” He asks Ric and then frowns. “You look terrible.”

“Yeah, let me…let me check out of here.” Ric says quietly and he walks out of the room. Elena follows him and I look at Damon for a second.

He doesn’t say anything and I don’t want him to. I walk past him and see Elena and Ric checking out of the hospital. I decide to give them some space and I walk out to my car.

“Don’t worry about him. Take him out for chicken soup. Get him a martini. Make sure he doesn’t kill anybody.” I hear Damon say from behind me.

I can’t take this anymore. I stop and spin around to face him. “What is wrong with you? How could you just go out feeding with Stefan like some vampire pub crawl?” I snap.

“Oh right, I thought we were talking about Alaric, but of course we’re talking about Stefan.” He says as he rolls his eyes.

Why does he always have to make comments like that? I walk over to him so that no one hears our conversation.

“You stood there and let him feed on an innocent girl.” I state firmly.

He takes a step toward me so that there is barely any space between us. “I didn’t let him do anything. If you want to get nit-picky about it, I made him.” He smirks.