The phone rang just after midnight.
Sam didn't need to see the screen to know who it was. Only one person called him at this hour and meant it.
He picked up, already bracing himself.
"Jenna."
"Sam…" Her voice cracked, hollow. "It's—there's been an accident."
The words felt slow, like they had to crawl through static and cold air to reach him.
"Grayson and Miranda," she continued, "they—there was a crash and Elena was in the car. The bridge. Wickery. They didn't make it."
Sam stared straight ahead, his knuckles tightening on the wheel.
"Elena?" he asked. One word, barely audible.
"She's alive," Jenna whispered. "She… she's in the hospital. Banged up, but alive. Somehow."
Alive.
But not whole.
Sam didn't reply. He ended the call. Tapped the phone screen to black.
Then he slowly pulled the car to the side of the road.
A gravel crunch. A breath.
He stepped out into the night air, Alabama's thick humidity clinging to his coat as he moved into the field beside the empty stretch of highway. Wet grass brushed against his boots. Crickets chirped softly. Somewhere distant, a train howled its passage through a forgotten town.
Sam stood there.
Just stood.
The stars were faint above him, muted by thin clouds.
For a long while, he didn't move.
It wasn't shock. He didn't do shock.
It wasn't denial.
It was the aching realization of something too late.
Grayson Gilbert. His brother—not by blood, but in all the ways that mattered. The one who tried to do things by the book. The doctor. The father. The one who had always fought for second chances.
And Miranda—strong, clever Miranda. The kind of woman who saw through you even when you tried your best to be invisible. She had laughed like she carried fire in her chest and loved like every day was running out.
They were gone.
And Sam was still here.
His fingers twitched. His shoulders tensed. The hurt hit in slow waves, crashing up from somewhere deep, somewhere too stubborn to heal.
He'd never said goodbye.
Never fixed the mess he made.
All because of that one night.
The night he walked into Grayson's little storefront pharmacy, Enzo half-conscious on the basement, bleeding out under floodlights and iron chains. The vampire had been staked, starved, collared. Grayson had been clinical. Efficient. Focused.
"It's not as simple as you think. People like Enzo are monsters, You saw what you did back in 1864 - what they still do," Grayson had said. "They don't get to walk free."
"I'm done," Sam had replied, jaw clenched, fists trembling. "Done watching you turn into something worse than the things we are supposed to fight ."
Grayson put up his fist and found himself embedded into the wall a second later.
He never returned after that.
No phone calls.
No apologies.
Just silence.
And now they were dead.
And he hadn't been there.
He should've been there.
If he had stayed, maybe—just maybe—he could've pulled them from that car. Could've turned the wheel before it swerved. Could've smelled the coming rain or felt the blood in the air.
But that was the past.
And Sam didn't get to have regrets. Not anymore.
The pain settled low in his chest like coals buried in ash.
He turned, stepped back to the car, and slammed the door shut behind him.
No tears.
Just action.
He revved the engine.
The Mustang snarled like a beast let off its leash.
He punched it, tires spinning on gravel before gripping, and then he was flying down the road, heading east, leaving the field and the ghosts behind him.
He reached Mystic Falls in less than five hours.
Freya said nothing during the drive.
She sat calmly in the passenger seat, fingers laced over her lap, eyes scanning the road ahead. She had changed into something modern—dark jeans, boots, and a storm-gray wool coat—but she wore her ancient presence like a second skin.
She felt everything.
Sam didn't talk. Not because he didn't trust her, but because words would've made things real—and right now, he needed to stay steel.
He had a window. A narrow one. If he was going to save Elena from the curse she didn't know she carried, he had to act before fate noticed she'd survived.
Because the wheels were turning.
Klaus. The travelers. The Originals. The doppelgänger lineage.
The prophecy.
It was all creeping closer.
And now, they'd have to rewrite it.
He pulled into the back entrance of Mystic Falls Hospital just as dawn began to edge the sky in violet-gray streaks.
Enzo was already on his way to the cabin outside town to grab their equipment—the ritual kits, the prepared salts, the forged sigils, the binding threads and protection oils.
That left Sam and Freya.
Jenna met them in the waiting room. Her eyes were puffy, her hair pulled up in a messy bun, her expression hollow. She stood up the moment she saw him.
"Sam…" Her voice cracked. "She's upstairs. Room 219."
He didn't hesitate. He gripped her shoulder gently. "I'm sorry. For Grayson. For Miranda. I should've been there."
Jenna's chin trembled, but she nodded, saying nothing.
"This is Freya," Sam added. "An old friend. A specialist in ancient healing techniques."
Jenna blinked. "Like… medicine?"
Sam nodded once. "Better. She might be able to help with things that regular doctors can't see."
Jeremy appeared from the corridor, face pale, sleeves stained with dried tears. His teenage bravado had shattered, leaving only raw confusion and grief.
He looked at Sam, like a boy trying not to ask for help but still needing it.
"Is she gonna be okay?" Jeremy asked.
Sam crouched to his eye level, placing a hand on his shoulder. "She's strong, Jer. Like your mom. Like your dad. She's going to be okay."
Jeremy nodded silently.
They entered the room.
Elena lay asleep in the hospital bed, tubes running to her arms, a heart monitor blinking steadily behind her. She looked peaceful,
Freya exhaled softly. "She's about to wake up."
Sam moved beside her, pulling a small leather pouch from his coat. "We don't have time to wait. Do it now."
Freya nodded, already reaching for the bedrail.
She placed her fingers lightly over Elena's forehead and whispered in Old Norse. Her eyes fluttered, glowing faintly silver. A pulse of air shimmered around the room as Freya's spell sank into Elena's mind, putting her into a deep sleep—one that left her body still and soul untethered.
Sam moved quickly, producing a sterile blade.
He cut Elena's palm gently, catching three drops of her blood into a glass vial.
Freya added her own blood—thicker, darker, ancient.
She placed strands of Katherine's hair, harvested from a witch archive Sam had infiltrated years ago, into the vial.
Then came the herbs—camphor, mugwort, sage—bundled into a small cloth bag and burned in a ceramic bowl at the foot of the bed.
The scent was sharp, earthy, and filled the room like incense.
Freya whispered again, this time her voice rising in rhythm.
She walked around the bed clockwise, forming an invisible circle of protection with her fingers as she drew sigils in the air.
"Blood calls to blood," she intoned, "but this one is hers no longer. Let fate forget. Let prophecy sever. Let the tether break."
The vial glowed red. Then white.
Elena's body shivered once.
Then—
Silence.
Freya's hand dropped.
The magic faded.
Sam stepped forward and touched Elena's forehead. No more pull. No more supernatural hum beneath her skin.
She was human again.
No longer part of the doppelgänger line.
He looked at Freya.
"It's done," she confirmed. "Elena Gilbert is no longer the shadow of another."
Sam exhaled, shoulders finally relaxing.
Phase one was complete.
But the storm was still coming.
And now they'd have to face it on their terms