Rebel Yell: Chapter 1: I Always Kill The Things I Love

Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries. I'm not making money off of writing this.

AN: I'm not sure which parts of this I'm happy with and which I'm not at this point, but I'm sure I'll come to a conclusion at some point in the near future. This is mostly set up and takes place more or less right after the second season finale.

Enjoy.

Vicky was dragging him towards the woods. He hadn't seen Anna since they had left the house, he had no idea where she was, and Vicky wasn't saying anything to him. He was pretty sure she was hungry. The feeling was coming off of her in waves. He didn't even know what that meant, but he knew it was true. Vicky was hungry and speeding them through the woods and he couldn't stop himself from remembering what it had said in Elena's journal about the last time he had seen Vicky.

But he still couldn't bring himself to believe that she would hurt him. Not now. Even as she was dragging him through the woods, the veins beneath her eyes pulsating, her fangs bared, and a low growl escaping her throat, Jeremy knew that Vicky wasn't going to hurt him.

He heard them before he saw them. He had been too focused on his thoughts to notice that flickering light appearing over the rise, but it was hard to miss the sound of the pack of rabid teenagers partying in the middle of the eerily quiet woods. His eyes shot up and he spotted the fire, the beer cans strewn everywhere, the telltale wisps of smoke, and the group of kids just a little older than himself dancing around the scene.

His eyes fell on a girl right in the middle of the action. Her eyes were closed. Her mind obviously lost to the world. Her arms twining above her head, seemingly providing some offering to unseen spirits or gods, or just needing to be free of the constraints of her arms at her sides. He knew Vicky was watching her too. Knew that she was thinking about how once upon a time this girl had been her.

No, Jeremy knew that Vicky wasn't going to hurt him.

She was going to hurt somebody else.

Damon knew she was there before she had entered his room, but he didn't bother to shift from his position in bed. The cure had set in, but he was still tired, still ached in places that hadn't ached since he was human, and he knew that, if he had to exert himself, he'd never be able to cover up how weak he was. So he lay there and he waited.

The knob turned, the door opened and he heard footsteps entering the room. The steps were light, if he had been human he might not have even heard them, but they were there and he couldn't hold back the smirk that spread over his lips. Was she actually trying to pull off a silent entry?

"Hello, Liz," Damon didn't even bother to open his eyes.

Sheriff Forbes paused, still standing in the doorway, and looked warily at the vampire laying very still in his bed in his bedroom in the dark.

"You come to try to kill me?" he asked and then added as an afterthought, "Again?"

"No."

"What do you want?"

Liz stood in awkward silence, unable to look directly at the vampire lounging comfortably in the bed in front of her.

Damon sighed.

"Our vervaine supply is-" Damon's bark of laughter interrupted the Sheriff's speech.

"I'm sorry. That must be very inconvenient for you. Did all that running around sticking needles in me and my friends, convincing busboys to do espionage work on your daughter for you, and not bothering to deal with the real problems," Damon finally opened his eyes and looked at the Sheriff, "Did that all deplete your supply?"

"I-,"

"I've been stabbed by your deputies and dragged off to die twice. Do you want to know what will deplete your drug supply real fast?"

"It's not a-"

"You buy it on the sly, take it regularly, mix it in with your tea or coffee or juice or dot dot dot so that nobody will ask any questions about it, you wear the paraphernalia, it has an effect on how your mind would normally operate, and it has harmful side effects that present themselves in a percentage of the community. I'm your dealer, Liz. I have the only supply in the area and I bet you've already figured out that I've hidden it pretty well. So back to the question at hand. Do you want to know what will deplete your drug supply really fast?"

"Damon-,"

"No. Stop. I'm your friend, Liz. I've been your friend. You've been a threat for so very long, longer than I've had someone to convince me to keep you, specifically, alive, but I haven't killed you. As I mentioned before, you've tried to kill me twice and yet most of the time I still like you." Damon laughed, "You have spunk..."

"Caroline has been telling me about you," Liz said softly before Damon could continue, "I'm not going to be coming after you anymore, Damon. I believe her when she says she's my daughter. I believe her when she say you're my friend. She says you've been looking out for her. She says she wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you."

"And clearly she's been abridging that story," Damon chuckled, "If that's what you're backing off to let me do, you should probably know that I'm probably not going to be able to do that anymore, Liz."

"Why not?"

"You're finally bonding with your daughter, Liz. Caroline is never going to leave willingly now, I can't afford to drag an unwilling vampire around with me on the road, and I clearly can't stay here. I was pretty out of it, but I'm pretty sure I remember you bringing a couple of deputies along to wrangle me. My choices are compel them, kill them, go to ground, or skip town and my wardrobe would SO not survive living in the woods." Damon's eyes widened dramatically as he made the last statement.

"You could compel them. You compelled me to forget before," Liz said hopefully.

"Vervain," Damon said simply, "We locked you up for three days, had you call in with the flu."

"I'm the one they call in sick to," Liz said sadly, "Neither of them have families in Mystic Falls."

Damon looked at her for a moment before silently nodding.

Liz turned to leave, but stopped at the door.

"Thank you," she started quietly, "For Caroline."

Damon chuckled, "I made her a promise. I'm not going to break it."

Liz turned to leave again, but Damon's voice called her back.

"The vervain is in a room behind a bookshelf in my blood supply room. Caroline will show you where. Take a bushel. Try using it on me again and I might rethink our friendship," Damon smirked and then closed his eyes.

He heard Liz leave the room.

He knew she was there before she had entered the room. She was silent as the grave, but he would always know when she was there. He didn't move as he felt the bed shifting under her weight. He didn't move when he felt her staring at his firmly shut eyelids. He just lay there, taking in her presence and waiting. Finally she was the one to speak first.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Going to be more specific, Barbie?" he asked, amusement that wasn't really there seeming to seep into his voice.

Caroline huffed and he felt the bed shift again as she readjusted herself so that she was sitting with her back against his headboard and her arms crossed defiantly across her chest.

"Don't be a jerk, Damon."

"That lasted all of three seconds," he muttered attempting to keep the smile from his face.

"I'm sorry that I nearly got you killed," she began and then nearly in a whisper continued, "And that I wasn't there for you when you were going through it."

"Want to make it up to me?" Damon asked with a smirk.

"No sex," she replied immediately.

"Good to know what you've got on your mind," Damon laughed, "But I was going to ask you to stop trying to get yourself killed. I've got a promise to keep."

Caroline frowned.

"I heard you mentioning that to my mom. You never promised me that you'd keep me safe."

"Mmhmm," was all he said.

She stared at him for a moment and then whispered something under her breath. Something from a long forgotten memory.

"Are you going to kill me?"

He's pretty sure that he's going to have to move. Somewhere. Anywhere. Even beyond the number of vampires that have been invited into his apartment now, it just feels...tainted. Tainted and empty and not like it's his home anymore.

Alaric remembered the last time he had lost someone that he cared about. He couldn't have spent enough time alone, buried in his work, not thinking about anything except finding the woman he loved, finding the thing that had taken her from him, finding something.

This time was different. This time he just knew that he couldn't be alone. It wasn't in him anymore. He needed to be around the people who knew him. Jeremy and Elena and Bonnie and hell even Damon. He needed a connection.

So he pulled open a closet and found the boxes that he had used to move in and started to unfold them and pack his things away in them. It might be a little too painful, at this point, to move into the Gilbert home, but he knew he had other options. The Salvatore home, after all, was a Boarding House by design and he was sure that, even with Stefan gone, Damon would be willing to cede him one of the extra rooms. If Klaus' invasion of his apartment over the last weeks had taught him anything it was that he spent more time at the Boarding House than in his apartment anyway.

It was as he was putting the last of his clothes into a box and getting ready to call Damon, that his cell began to ring. He didn't recognize the number, but when he answered it with a tentative "hello?" he recognized the voice on the other end of the line.

"Ric. The bodies. I think she buried the bodies under...,"

"Jeremy?"

"It's nothing. I'm fine," came the reply and then the line cut out.

The excited energy of his pack was palpable and Ray didn't like it one bit. When the new wolf had walked into camp and introduced himself, with that smug British accent, as Nicholas, Ray had felt his hackles rising. Something about this man just struck him as totally and completely wrong on some primal level.

And then Nicholas had changed.

In the daylight.

A week away from the full moon.

The pack was pawing all over this new miracle wolf, who claimed that he knew how to give the same power to all of them. Ray didn't like it one bit. He had the horrible suspicion that soon they were all going to die.