22. The Departed

Complete story — includes the ending

Jeremy takes Elena to the hospital where Meredith takes care of her. Elena dreams of simpler times when her parents, Grayson and Miranda, and Aunt Jenna were still alive and her biggest concern was her relationship with Matt. Stefan and Damon leave Mystic Falls together on a mission, but soon split up when Elena needs one of them. Elijah returns and asks for Klaus' body in return for luring Alaric away. Alaric convinces Jeremy and Matt to help him kill Klaus so Elena can live a happy life, but Jeremy tricks Alaric. Caroline and Tyler are forced to make a life-changing decision and flee from Mystic Falls at the urging of their parents. Stefan kisses Elena before going to deal with Alaric. Alaric surprises Damon at the storage locker where Klaus' body is stored. Alaric kills Klaus (who was revealed to have made Damon's, Stefan's, Caroline's, Abby's and Tyler's bloodline). Matt was taking Elena out of town and she decides to go back to say good-bye to Stefan, saying that he came into her life at the right moment, but maybe if she had met Damon first, it would have been different. Caroline says good-bye to Tyler as Rebekah and Elijah mourn Klaus. Bonnie made a secret deal to reincarnate Klaus in the body of Tyler so that her friends would not die, however no one else knows this, as they all believe that Klaus was lying about being the head of their bloodline. Elena and Matt get into a car crash (while this is happening Elena is having flashbacks to when she and her parents were dying in the car). It is then shown in a flash back that Damon and Elena met the night of the car crash involving Elena and her parents, where he tells her that she wants "a love that consumes you, you want passion, an adventure, and even a little danger." But after meeting her, Damon compelled her saying that "No one can know I'm in town yet." When Stefan comes to save her and Matt, she signals him to save Matt instead of her. Elena then drowns, which made Alaric go down with her. He then says goodbye to Jeremy in ghost form. At the end of the episode Dr. Fell reveals to Damon that Elena was not suffering from a concussion, but a bleeding in the brain and that she did what she had to do to save her, by giving her vampire blood. The episode ends with Elena waking up as a vampire.