AN: So, this is my new fan fiction and I hope you like it! So far the plan is for it to have 22 chapters, one for every episode in a season. It's set after the S3 finale and 100% a Delena story, also a little Klaroline. Each chapter gets more and more suspenseful and leaves you hanging! I hope you like it. Please read and review!

Oh and all rights go to Julie Plec and CW…I own nothing!

Dear Diary,

I know it's been a while since the last time I wrote you, but so much has happened. And I don't know if I have time to write them all down now. I want to start off by saying that you have always been there for me when I had to tell my secrets to somebody who would listen. Please don't let me down now. Well, here we go, I guess.

Elena looked up from her diary just as Damon nudged the twin bed she was laying in with his knee. Their bags sat on the adjacent bed, full of extra clothes and ready to go. And by the expression on his face, Elena could tell that Damon was ready to leave as well.

He held up his arms and then let them fall loudly to his sides. Impatient.

"I'll be ready in a second. Just go check us out and I'll meet you in the car," she said, shortly. He knew better than to say anything before he left.

As soon as he was out of sight, she leaned her head back down over the diary page.

Okay, I've decided that I have to go back a little for you to fully understand. Maybe all the way back to last month, when this all began. I'd been a vampire for seven days. I'd transitioned the normal way; with a blood bag from the Salvatore's basement, and since then was feeding in moderation, socializing with the rest of Mystic Falls, and I even donated some of my blood to Meredith at the hospital. Nothing had changed from my time as human…

Three Weeks Earlier

"So we'll need fifty balloons and a chocolate cake by Friday," Caroline directed the group that was gathered around Elena's coffee table. "I think if I cry I might be able to convince the bakery in Richmond to deliver. So does everyone know their job?"

"I've got the banner. 'Happy 17th Birthday, Jeremy!'" Bonnie laughed. "I think he'll love it."

"I'll make sure The Grill is closed from seven to ten," Matt announced.

Stefan held up his hand halfway. "I'm on drinks. Fruit punch and soda."

Caroline smiled and then cleared her throat at Elena.

"Oh right." She looked up from the point on Caroline's clipboard that she had been focusing on and blinked. "Assuming from the many Pizza Hut coupons left in my mail box this morning smelling faintly of Viva la Juicy, I'm going to guess you want me to bring pizza."

Matt chuckled.

"It's Jeremy's favorite, right?" Caroline's eyes sparkled.

Elena nodded.

"Are you okay?" Bonnie asked, seriously, leaning forward with a crease on her forehead.

Why wouldn't I be, she wondered to herself. Her brother was turning seventeen this week. When had he grown so old? It seemed like just yesterday he was Elena's annoying little brother who read her diary and had a gap in his front teeth. And now he was killing vampires and wearing magic rings and losing everyone he's ever cared about.

While his sister waited for the day that she would hear the ring hadn't worked this time…

"Elena?" Stefan called her from her painful thoughts. "We're worried about you."

She smiled warmly at him. "It's nothing, really. I just can't believe this is actually happening…Are we sure he's already seventeen because I wouldn't mind putting this off a few years."

"That sounds great, Elena," Bonnie murmured.

"But," Caroline interjected, "I don't think Jeremy would still like to be considered a minor at twenty-one."

All of them laughed. "Finishing high school with a full beard," Matt added.

Elena looked around at their smiling faces. It felt good to be surrounded by her friends. She had been so scared that becoming a vampire would be dreadful. But she felt so alive.

"Look, on the bright side," Bonnie encouraged. "Things have been so quiet since Klaus gave Tyler his body back and left town. There's nothing happening supernatural-wise. It's almost…normal. Isn't it great?"

"Yes, I am," Damon yelled proudly as he swung the front door closed behind him grandly and sauntered past them to stand between Matt and Stefan. He reached into his jacket and tossed a brown paper bag onto the coffee table.

"Sorry I'm late for the party planning party but I brought what you said and I think I did a good job with what I had to pick from."

Bonnie removed the contents from the bag and held up a bottle of strawberry flavored tequila. "Really? This is tequila, Damon. You grabbed this from the back of your mini-fridge and didn't give a crap about Jeremy."

He snorted. "Course I did, Bonnie. The little guy's going to love it. God knows he could use some alcohol in his life."

"Well it's too bad," Caroline sneered. "Because while you were three hours late, we made the executive decision to give your position as beverage supplier to Stefan."

Damon looked sideways at his brother with hateful eyes. "Stefan, huh? And who made this executive decision?"

Caroline sat up straighter and looked to her right. "Elena."

"Elena?"

"Yeah, I did," she said emotionlessly, grabbing the bottle of tequila and moving toward the kitchen. Damon stepped so that as she passed, their bodies were merely centimeters apart. He stared down judgmentally at her with his blue eyes.

She threw away the wrinkled paper bag as Damon walked into the kitchen without making a noise. How could she forget he moved as gracefully as wildcat and as silently as a ghost?

To distract herself from his presence, she began unpeeling the green foil wrapped around the bottleneck. But with her shaking fingers and the added pressure of his watchful gaze, she only managed to rip the end off into little pieces. He sighed and replaced her hand with his. Somehow, he managed to pull it off quickly and with ease.

Damon lifted the bottle to his nose and inhaled in the scent before giving it back to Elena with a cruel smile. "So a man's a little late to party planning committee and suddenly," he put his hand on his heart and frowned teasingly. "Well it's like you forgot I have feelings, Elena."

"Can you be serious for one second?" she demanded, as she emptied the contents of the bottle down the drain. They didn't need more alcohol around the house of two underage children. "Or do you act so childish all the time to hide the fact that secretly you do care and every weeknight you tape an hour of One Life to Live?"

"Wow, I'm impressed. That was cold-hearted and judgmental," he replied, appraising her up and down. He pointed a finger at her. "You have been drinking, haven't you?"

She rolled her eyes and made a show of dropping the empty glass bottle into the trashcan. "No, but ever since you walked in I've been considering it."

He thought about what she said and nodded. "I have that effect on people."

She smiled a little, and then sighed. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to plan a birthday party for a boy still trying to get over the death of his guardian. I mean you can't on move on from something like that. At what point does it hurt him more by pretending like everything's all right, even though it isn't? And they," she pointed towards the family room, "They just want me to forget, but I can't. You can't just forget someone who's changed your life for good. Can you?"

He pursed his lips for a second and then shook his head.

Elena tucked a piece of hair behind her ears and cleared her mind. What was she thinking, bringing up Ric now? It wasn't going to help anything. It wasn't going to bring him back. She almost laughed at the thought.

"Listen, I know you couldn't handle bringing the drinks but I have another job for you," she told him.

"Really? And what would that be?"

She opened her mouth to speak when Caroline suddenly shouted from the other room.

"Um, birthday boy about to walk in, people! Get this stuff out of here!"

Damon and Elena exchanged a look of mock bewilderment and then raced each other into the living room where people were stuffing their assigned schedules from Caroline into potted plants and under the couch cushions. Stefan watched Bonnie and Elena try to pick up every piece of the hand-made confetti and finally nudged Damon to help him lift up the coffee table and dump the confetti under the rug that Matt and Elena had lifted.

By the time Jeremy walked in, everyone had hidden behind the couch and out of Jeremy's sight except Elena, who stood with a big smile on her face as Jeremy hung his jacket on the hook beside the door.
"Yo, Elena, how you doing?" he wondered casually.

She looked around the seemingly empty room and shrugged. "Oh gosh. I guess I just sat down here this morning and never got up."

"So you didn't go to the grocery store? 'Cause I see bread and chips over there in the kitchen and we've been out of those for a few days."

As he spoke, Damon, who was apparently closest to her on the floor, stuck his hand up inside the hem of her jeans and tickled her leg. Caught off guard, she gasped and stumbled backward. Trying to steady herself only made her trip over her own feet more.

"Oh, right. Um…Er-yes! I went shopping today. And I got groceries. And nothing else," she promised. "Just groceries."

Very subtly, Elena threw her foot into Damon's shoulder. She heard a muffled cry.

"What was that?" Jeremy asked, taking a step forward.

"Nothing," Elena said and blocked him before he could get too close. She grabbed his elbow and dragged him halfway up the stairs. "Go change out of your work clothes and get cleaned up. I'll start dinner."

"Ooh, what are we having?"

"Um," she really hadn't thought about that before she said it. "Soup."

"Alright! With those little crackers and the—"

"Yes, yes. I will put out crackers with the soup," she interrupted quickly, pushing him up to his room. She waited till the door was shut before she sighed heavily and went back down stairs where everyone was coming out of hiding.

Elena immediately pushed past a stretching Bonnie to smack Damon in the chest.

"You're such a jackass!" she spit.

He snickered.

"I guess we better get going then," Stefan murmured. He kissed Elena on the cheek and whispered, "Bye."

She smiled to Caroline, Bonnie, and Matt as they gathered each of their individual schedules and left. Damon was last to go. As he prepared to walk out the front door, Elena glared.

"Oh c'mon," he chided. "You got to admit, I got you good."

She didn't answer. He sighed.

"Okay then. Guess I'll see you at Jeremy's party." Damon stepped out onto the porch, but Elena grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Wait, Damon," she called softly. "Don't you want to know what your job is for the birthday party?"

"Let me guess. DJ?"

She laughed. "No. Caroline has just about everything planned down to the last streamer but in her planning she forgot just one little tiny detail," she paused as he waited. "We need someone to bring Jeremy to the party. As in, keep him preoccupied for the morning while we set things up."

Damon blinked at her. Finally, he smiled. "You are drunk."

"Ugh, Damon please! It's the easiest job. Just make sure he's not at the Grill before seven and then Matt will call with an excuse for him to come down there. That's all you have to do and then I swear I won't ask for anything else."

"But you will," he sneered. But Elena could see it in his eyes; he'd already given up. He would surrender. Of course he would grit his teeth, but he would surrender, nonetheless. "Okay, I'll do it, but no batting cages. I've learned enough from Denver."

She smiled in relief. "Thank you, Damon. He might not know it, but this is very sweet of you."

For a moment, Damon said nothing. He simply stared at her face long enough for her whole body to freeze into solid ice. Maybe it was something about the color of his eyes and that every time she looked at them she remembered the time when those eyes made her afraid. It wasn't that long ago, really, that Damon was set on antagonizing Stefan and everyone he knew in Mystic Falls. Especially Elena.

But was it really that different now? She wasn't saying that he was still the evil brother he used to be, but that didn't mean he still didn't scare her, because he did. It terrified her how much a part of her he was now, how tight of a hold he had on her morals. She wasn't fully aware of how strong her feelings were for him, and that was a reason all on its own to make her hands shake.

Fortunately for her, Damon dropped his gaze rather sharply and turned to stare at the empty street.

"Goodnight," he whispered. And then he left so abruptly that it left Elena reeling.

Elena rounded the corner of the hospital wing with Stefan on her heel.

"Thanks for giving me a ride here," she said over her shoulder.

"No problem," he looked around for the dark-haired doctor but she wasn't in the waiting room yet. "So what's up with the ominous phone call for you to meet Meredith here? She didn't give you any sort of clue as to what this was about?"

"None. All she said was that I needed to come down here because there was a complication."

"Complication?" he repeated. "What kind of complication?"

"I think I'd rather not talk about it out here in public," said Dr. Fell, coming up from behind them in her white lab coat with a clipboard tucked against her chest. "But there's something you need to see."

Stefan and Elena shared a glance before they followed her into nearby room.

Inside the small room, there was only space for one hospital bed and the necessary curtain and plasma screen setup. Even before she could see the elderly man sleeping in the bed, Elena could distinctly hear him. His breathing was so raspy and uneven that she guessed the poor man had to have some kind of asthma or lung disease.

As they approached his bedside, Elena became aware of the IV tubes transporting a clear liquid into his arm and the splint on his leg.

"Who is this?" Stefan breathed.

"Do we know him?" Elena asked.

Meredith shook her head. "And I'm not allowed to give you a name but I will tell you that this patient came in here four weeks ago after he broke his leg and hip in an accident at home."

"So?"

"Well, I knew him from around town; he's a very nice man and if you saw his medical history then you'd know there was no way he was going to survive another fall, not this time."

Stefan nodded. "So you gave him vampire blood."

"I tried is more like it."

"What are you talking about?" Elena wondered.

Meredith hesitated. "I gave him a full bottle of your blood about an hour ago, Elena, and at first he was doing fine. But then one of the residents started sending in reports of an erratic heartbeat, difficulty breathing, vomiting, discoloring of the skin… and this man has never had Osteoporosis in his life but x-rays from today show accelerated signs that he's had it for years."

"Oh god," Stefan groaned.

Elena looked around the room and felt as if everyone knew something she didn't. None of what Meredith just said made any sense to her. But why was Stefan's face suddenly as white as a ghost? And why did she feel as if the horrific expressions were driven directly at her?

"What?" she demanded, her head snapping back and forth between the two of them. "What does that mean?"

Stefan turned to look at her with his green eyes. "We're not sure, but we think it might mean that your blood is actually doing the opposite of healing him. It's killing him."

Elena began to tremble so hard she thought maybe the whole room was vibrating. Her insides dropped to her feet in the very seconds it took for her to look down into the gentle face of the man she was ending the life of.

"Murderer," she mumbled in a low voice. "I'm a murderer."

"You're not a murderer, Elena. Trust me. It could be anything else."

"Well, actually, not to point fingers at you, Elena, but," Meredith interrupted. "We figured it was something else, even though these particular symptoms have nothing in common. So I slipped him more of the same blood and he only got worse."

"I can't believe this," she gasped. "Why is this happening?"

"We'll talk to Bonnie about it, I promise. We'll figure this out."

"And fast, I hope."

But before Stefan could answer, the man in the hospital bed suddenly shot forward and coughed a tremendous amount of blood onto the clean white sheets before him. He then began to hack so uncontrollably that his attempts at stopping for air only made muffled wheezing sounds beneath the coughing noise.

Elena and Stefan watched, shocked, as Dr. Fell struggled to keep his head up and airways clear, but it was no use. What happened next made Elena's stomach churn.

The yellowish, wrinkly old skin on his arm began to turn into slime and literally fall right off. At first she thought it wasn't real, she hoped it wouldn't be. But as globs of it turned into puddles on the mattress, she realized this was actually happening and not only on his arms. The skin that used to be over his cheekbones was now dripping from the sides of his mouth. His legs looked like melted Popsicles and Elena could even see into the red cavity of his eye sockets.

What was only a small moment turned into hours as all three of them wondered when his misery would finally come to an end. And then it did. All of a sudden, there was no noise, not even a heartbeat from the old man in the hospital bed.

Meredith placed shaky fingers to the side of his sagging neck and let her eyes close.

"He's dead."

AN: Hope you liked the first chapter! If you actually did read it and enjoyed it, then I'm here to tell you that the next chapter will be posted within a few days. But right now, there's something I want to try. Just like the writers on the show, I want to give you the next chapter's synopsis at the bottom of each chapter. If this is something you would rather me not do (to spoiler-y for ya) then please let me know in the reviews or private message me!

So here's the synopsis for Chapter 2:

THE BIG BLOWOUT-As Jeremy's birthday bash approaches, everyone must come together to do their part. Damon takes Jeremy out and gives him advice he won't forget and in return is surprised at how intuitive Jeremy has become. Elena worries about Meredith's latest discovery, and everyone has his or her own input on the subject. But it's Damon who shocks them all with his theory. Finally, the party is cut short by a deadly interruption and Jeremy's life is put in danger.