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"The thing is," said Bonnie, "we haven't any allies."

Of course little Bonnie would be the only one to suggest getting help; she was so helpless herself. N-not helpless, Damon corrected mentally, feeling a flare of power from both Elena and the ginger's direction; merely delicate, like a flower petal- a pretty little marigold.

She was right about allies, though.

"Stop that," he snapped, sensing Bonnie's smug satisfaction at his last thought. He immediately threw up a barrier to block her witchy little thought-theft tricks. The moment he lets his guard down and all these other minds come buzzing about, trying to get in. How he missed when shielding was an unconscious function.

"Quiet. She's right." Meredith said, unaware of the unspoken exchange that had just taken place. "And since you've no friends, you're of no use in this so your input is unnecessary." She was glaring at him. He tried not to notice.

"Allies differ from friends, m'dear," he leaned back, bored of the conversation. "Allies I do happen to have, and powerful ones at that."

Sage grunted in the background to reinforce Damon's point.

"A shame our most powerful ally was so tragically nosy." The boy was so uptight these days, whining about not being human all the time and rubbing it in that Damon was. And it wasn't as though Stefan needed further reason to wallow.

Stefan stiffened and turned to face Damon. And drunk off the power that his girlthing provided. Splendid.

Damon gracefully stood and ambled from the room. This group of downers had dampened his mood enough for the day.

(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)

Elena sighed. She knew he cared and she had tried everything to help him, to get him to realize that he did, but to no avail; his pride always barred her attempts at getting Damon to acknowledge any positive emotion.

She pulled herself from these thoughts; they had other matters to deal with. The rest didn't seem to know what to make of Damon's exit. She realized they were still used to the Damon who had infinitely more power, and had come to rely on him, trust him even. She sighed.

"Whatever, we don't need him. What we do need is allies," she said, bringing the rest of the group back to the topic at hand. She looked to Stefan and Sage. "Got any?"

"None willing to work with humans," shrugged Sage.

Stefan shook his head. Elena knew he hadn't kept much company during the five hundred some years he had been a vampire. She realized now, with a pang, how lonely that must have been.

"So we get new ones," Matt piped in.

"Right. Know any places to get some?" she asked.

"Online ally matchmaking service?" muttered Bonnie.

"Ley lines," said Stefan. "Where there are ley lines there will be the supernatural."

"But Fell's Church has the most ley lines. Where is everybody?" Bonnie peered around as though expecting a vampire to appear and offer his assistance.

"Present," said Sage.

"Eternally damned, at your service," said Stefan wearily.

"And you're forgetting yourself and I, Bonnie," said Mrs. Flowers. "With training you could become very powerful."

"Yes, but it's not enough."

"Well, there are Klaus and Katherine who are dead, though I'm sure you can find their ashes floating around around the cemetery. I don't really care where Tyler Smallwood is, but I suppose he's someone we might want to be keeping tabs on. The kitsune are probably making out in a tree somewhere, and Caroline... is likely in her nest," Matt ticked off all the creatures they had encountered in Fell's Church. Elena cringed a little at the thought of what Caroline had become, though she hadn't seen it firsthand.

"But that's no good at all!" cried Bonnie. "Those are all either evil or dead and evil anyway and what we need now is fresh help."

"The town is currently repelling creatures despite their attraction to the ley lines here," replied Stefan. "They sense that something is not right. If anything, more evil is likely to show up here now."

Sage cleared his throat. "There may be one other place whose sheer number of ley lines rivals Fell's Church's."

(*)*(*)*(*)*(*)

The creepy grey-eyed one found him first, unpleasantly enough. He saw someone do a double-take out of the corner of his eye from a cash register over as he flirted with the girl taking his order.

"She's fifteen," Meredith hissed as she dragged him away. Damon snagged his cup with a wink at the cashier. "I will not allow this blatant pedophilia in my town."

Strong for a human, he noted. They had all been so weak compared to him that the differences between humans had been insignificant. It had been such a long time that he'd almost forgotten that some were stronger than others.

"Hm, yes?" She had those eyes trained on him, he finally noticed. These humans and their babble was of little interest to him; he found himself tuning most of it out. "I'm nearly six centuries old, child; I'm pretty sure anyone and everyone is far too young for me. They never seem to mind, though."

"Has it not sunk in yet what it means to be human again?" Was she attempting to converse with him? He leaned against a table and sipped his coffee. "You will age normally as a twenty something-ish year old man." Still talking. He rolled his eyes. "You no longer have an excuse to creep on little girls."

He stepped forward. She was about eye level. Damn those short genes of the sixteenth century. "I will prey upon whomever I please."

He tried to force menace into every word, but it just didn't come naturally as it used to. It didn't help that the girl was so eerily calm all the time, as though she lacked basic instincts. Anyone else would have shrunk back from him but her gaze did not waver. Perhaps she was a robot.

"You are so full of yourself," she shoved him back with surprising force, catching him off guard. This coupled with his slower reflexes caused him to stumble for the first time in centuries. His coffee cup slipped out of his hand but she caught it.

"Breathe, Damon," she reminded him, handing back the cup.

He took a few slow breaths, trying to regain his composure, and leaned against the table again. Meredith eyed him silently. "What do you want?"

"Nothing." She was already pulling out her phone and walking away.

Before he could question her further, her phone rang.

He only heard muffled rapid speech and cursed his weak human ears for preventing him from eavesdropping.

"Yes... I will... Okay, bye." The girl's responses revealed nothing either. She snapped her phone shut as she whirled away again, hurrying out the door.

Damon caught up as she got into her car. She threw her purse onto the passenger seat and jammed her coffee into a cup holder.

"What's going on?" He hated being out of the loop.

"Complications," she said grimly.

Oh, Damon.

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