Elena walked quietly past them and slipped into the back of the car with Bonnie and Meredith. The door shut with a satisfyingly heavy clunk, and the black leather bench seat creaked and groaned under her.
Bonnie's red curls were soaked straight, wet tendrils hanging down over her shoulders and sticking to her forehead. Her face was smudged with ash and her eyes were red, but she gave Elena a genuinely happy smile. "We won," she said. "It's gone for good, isn't it? We did it."
Meredith was solemn yet exultant, her gray eyes shining. There was stil a smear of Stefan's blood on her lips, and Elena stifled the urge to wipe it away for her. "We did win,"
Meredith affirmed. "You both did so amazingly. Bonnie, it was real y smart of you to start casting off jealousies as fast as you could. It kept the phantom off balance. And Elena..." She swal owed. "Plunging into the fire was so brave of you. How's your hand?"
Elena held out her hand and flexed the fingers in front of them. "The incredible powers of vampire blood," Elena said lightly. "Very useful for the aftermath of a battle, right, Meredith?"
Meredith flushed at Elena's teasing, then smiled a little. "I don't know," she said. "It seemed sil y not to use al our... advantages. I feel better already."
"You were terrific, too, Meredith," Bonnie said. "You fought like you were dancing. Graceful and strong and beautiful and so supertough, the way you used your stave."
Elena agreed. "I never could have gotten the rose if you hadn't cut the phantom."
"I guess we're al terrific," said Meredith. "The first meeting of the Robert E. Lee High School Alumni Mutual Admiration Society is now cal ed to order."
"We'l have to get Matt in and tel him how wonderful he is," Bonnie said. "And I guess Stefan also counts as an alum, right? I think now that the world's changed, he might have graduated with us." She yawned, showing a smal pink tongue like a cat's. "I'm just worn out."
Elena realized she was, too. It had been a very long day. A very long year since the Salvatore brothers had come to Fel 's Church and life had changed forever. She slumped down in the seat and rested her head on Meredith's shoulder. "Thank you for saving the town again, both of you," she said sleepily. It seemed important to say it.
"Maybe tomorrow we can start working on normal again."
Meredith laughed a little and hugged them both. "Nothing can defeat our sisterhood," she said. "We're too good for normal." Her breath hitched. "When you were both taken by the phantom," she said quietly, "I was afraid I had lost you forever. You're my sisters, real y, not just my friends, and I need you. I want you to know that."
"Absolutely," Bonnie said, nodding feverishly. Elena reached out for both of them. The three friends squeezed one another tightly in a laughing, slightly tearful group hug. Tomorrow would come, and maybe normal - whatever that was at this point - would come, too. For now, Elena had her true friends. That was a lot. Whatever happened, that would be enough.
Chapter 37
The next morning found them al back at the boardinghouse. After the previous night's rain, the sunshine had a fresh quality to it, and everything felt bright and damp and clean, despite the smel of smoke that permeated the boardinghouse and the charred remains of the garage that could be glimpsed through the windows of the den.
Elena sat on the couch, leaning against Stefan. He traced the burn lines, nearly entirely faded, on the back of her hand. "How do they feel, heroine?" he asked.
"They hardly hurt at al , thanks to Damon."
Damon, on the other side of Stefan, gave her a brief, blinding smile but said nothing.
They were al being careful of one another, Elena thought. She felt - and she thought everyone else probably did, too like the day looked: shining and freshly washed, but slightly fragile. There was a lot of quiet murmuring back and forth, exchanged smiles, comfortable pauses. It was like they had completed a long journey or a difficult task together, and now it was time to rest.
Celia, dressed in pale linen trousers and a silk dove-gray top, elegant and poised as always, cleared her throat. "I'm leaving today," she said when they al looked up at her. Her bags sat neatly on the floor beside her feet. "There's a train to Boston in forty-five minutes, if someone wil drive me to the station."
"Of course I'l take you," Alaric said promptly, getting to his feet. Elena glanced at Meredith, but Meredith was frowning at Celia in concern.
"You don't have to go, you know," she told her. "We'd al like it if you stayed."
Celia shrugged expressively and gave a little sigh.
"Thank you, but it is time I get going. Despite the fact that we destroyed a priceless rare book and I wil probably never be al owed on the Dalcrest campus again, I wouldn't have missed this whole experience for the world."
Meredith grinned at her and raised one eyebrow. "Even the brushes with death?"
Celia raised an eyebrow of her own. "Was there a part that wasn't a brush with death?"
They laughed, and Elena was grateful to see that the tension between them had evaporated.
"We'l be glad to have you anytime you want to come back, dear," Mrs. Flowers said to Celia earnestly. "I wil always have a room for you."
"Thank you," Celia said, looking touched. "I hope I can come back and see you al again someday." She and Alaric left the room, and soon the rest of them heard the sounds of the outside door shutting and a car starting up.
"Good-bye, Celia," Bonnie chirped. "She turned out to be okay in the end, though, didn't she?" She went on without waiting for an answer. "What are we going to do today? We need to have an adventure before summer ends."