A.N.: Hello, lovelies. So we begin the second instalment of Giulia Salvatore's drunken shenanigans! You'll be delighted to know, this means a lot more Elijah. I'm tingly just thinking about it.

Dangerous Beauty

01

Caroline

"My name is Katherine," Elena said softly, leaning over Caroline. Those dark curls Caroline was so unused to seeing on Elena glistened in the lamplight. She noticed Elena was wearing makeup – like actual makeup, eyeliner and lashings of mascara, her contouring was phenomenal. She frowned up at Elena, who was saying her name was Katherine. "I was hoping you could give the Salvatore brothers a message for me."

"What're you talking about?" Caroline grumbled, half-asleep and confused and getting very annoyed. What was Elena doing here? Couldn't she just text her boyfriends herself? She pushed herself up in the bed, backed against her mound of pillows, and frowned inquisitively up at Elena/Katherine. "What message?"

Katherine smiled sweetly. "Game on."

She was crying.

It was the only thing that cut through all her screaming impulses, the supercharged senses fighting for her attention, the sounds, scents, urges driving her toward the edge she might soon plummet over, the flashing-lights, the sickly aroma of sugar-syrup and hot-dogs, the screams and laughter piercing her ears like out-of-tune dog whistles, the churn and squeaks of metal as the rollercoasters thrashed past, the tilt-a-whirl spinning, even just stepping on the freshly-mown lawn caused a tsunami of scents to bombard her as her stomach churned, her teeth ached, her heart was squeezing and turning over and she wanted to burst into tears and laugh hysterically as thoughts of Matt bombarded her, her nausea and grief, her guilt over the dead man on the flatbed suffusing every cell in her body as she had sobbed silently to herself, miserable and confused, memories throwing her off-balance whenever they snuck up and took over her mind, behind the wheel of her car, in the locker-lined hallway full of pounding heartbeats and other scents overwhelming her – cigarettes, cloying vanilla body-spray, blood, she could smell a couple having sex in one of the bathroom-stalls, heard everything, could see so many more millions of stars above, the flickering imperfection of buzzing light-bulbs, the epic failure of matching foundation to complexion on half the girls grinning and completely unaware of how awful their flat-ironed hair smelled, her irrational irritation at Matt being so concerned about her, smothering and such a nice guy, her heart squeezed and she wanted to burst into tears again, distracted from it by the way her clothing scratched and rubbed against her supersensitive skin, and now, startled by the flames flickering three-feet high, mesmerised by the glorious colours, drawn to the heat washing over her chilled body.

"I told you what would happen if anyone else got hurt," Bonnie said coolly, glaring at Damon as he yelled and writhed on the ground.

"I didn't do this!" Damon shouted, through his pain.

"Bonnie, it wasn't his fault," Elena protested lamely.

"Everything that happens is his fault, Elena," Bonnie said vengefully.

She could smell Damon's flesh starting to burn as Bonnie's tear-streaked face glowed in the firelight, her expression glazed and venomous; she remembered the way Bonnie had looked at her after grabbing her hands, how she'd run straight to the dead guy in the flatbed, crying. That look had hurt, she had felt Bonnie's disbelief morphing into hatred within a second, picking up the scent of her anger even as Caroline suppressed confused sobs. Watching, hypnotised, as that deliciously-warm inferno started to engulf Damon – Damon the vampire, Damon who had fed on her, abused her, manipulated her, left Giulia powerless to protect her – Caroline was dimly aware she should be doing something – someone was on fire and her First Aid training told her she needed to smother those flames, extinguish the oxygen supply to defeat the fire. But it was so warm.

In her mind, her senses were on overdrive, the sounds of the carnival bombarding her, the scents washing over her in an unappetising stench of perspiring bodies, old hot-dogs, candy-apples and oiled metal, the glittering lights and flickering leaves of the trees sighing in a scented breeze fighting for her attention as the fire hypnotised her, and she bawled at the sight of Bonnie, so vengeful, crying at Damon screaming and flailing on the ground, covering her mouth with a squeal of anger mingled with lust she tried to quench for the scent of blood thick where the dead man lay prone on the flatbed, the scent of Elena's anguish as her pointless doe eyes gazed imploringly at Caroline as if she could do anything about this situation.

It was Giulia who stepped in. All in black, a lean streak of darkness against the flames, fierce and tall, the look on her face so intense, so murderous – so unforgiving – and Caroline actually jumped, swearing to herself she might've heard bone crack, as Giulia backhanded the possessed Bonnie, so hard her head swung around and she literally flew five feet before crashing to the ground in a dazed heap. Instantly Caroline's nose twitched, scenting fresh blood, and the flames died, Elena leaped over to Bonnie lying barely-conscious on the ground by Damon – Caroline could already see a bruise flourishing beneath her skin where Giulia had struck her face, dazed and angry. Damon panted in relief, dusting off the last lingering wisps of flame clinging to his jeans, she could smell burned hair and Giulia's glorious Georgio Armani 'Sì' perfume, a powerful swell of it enhanced by sweat as Giulia, worked up and upset, shouted at Bonnie in a terrifying way nobody had ever witnessed.

"Haven't you done enough?! She's TURNED! You killed all those vampires – you tried to kill DAMON, you killed Tyler's DAD, you told KATHERINE about Damon's blood in her system, you put Caroline in the hospital in the first place – you KILLED HER!" she screamed. "I HATE you. You're NOTHING. You're DEAD to me. I never want to see you again!"

No-one had ever heard Giulia shout; they had never seen her break. And it was the tears streaking down her face that shocked her into an absurd clarity.

Jittery, upset, nauseous and overwhelmed, Caroline reached forward and took a gentle hold of Giulia's tiny waist as she advanced on Bonnie with her grazed elbow and bruised face, Elena looking wounded and useless, and practically lifted her friend away.

She had never seen Giulia cry.

Not once, in their nearly-eighteen years of friendship. The intense, irreverent Giulia who analytically ripped apart Romeo and Juliet as a warning against filial disobedience, peered intrigued into bloody wounds obtained on the playground and regarded every soccer-field injury as a personal trophy, fell asleep during The Notebook and resisted going to see The Last Song like most people did the dentist, Giulia who had sat catatonic and bone-dry-eyed at her own beloved daddy's funeral…was now…sobbing. Still functioning, still intense and ferocious, filled with a kind of vicious rage from which one did not return, but shaking all over with the silent kind of sobs that spoke of the deepest, truest grief, heart-break.

It was those crystal tears sliding over Giulia's perfect cheekbones, clear and smudging her exquisite minimalist winged eye that cut through Caroline like that sword in The Bodyguard through silk. She had never been so sharply-focused before, or shocked.

Giulia was crying.

Caroline had never seen her best-friend cry. And it was that, more than anything else, upset and confused as Damon tried to stake her when she just needed help, she needed someone to hug her and tell her it was okay, she was okay, Elena sticking up for her when Damon tried to stake her, Stefan's frantic attempts to comfort her making her flinch with irritation, that muted everything unnecessary.

This stillness came over her, calm and yet devastated, watching her best-friend cry. Letting go of Giulia's waist in surprise, Caroline gazed at those tears rolling freely down Giulia's face, ignored, as if she wasn't even aware they were there, taking with them a delicately-fine film of mineral powder foundation true-matched to Giulia's flawless moonlight complexion. In her anguish, her cheekbones were even more pronounced, so much like the pained Damon on the ground, for a moment in her bleary-eyed gaze to Caroline they looked almost twins, so different in personality she could barely believe they were related, and she had to wonder… How much of the story did she not know?

Heedless of her tears, the sobs silently racking her body, Giulia took Caroline's hand and they stumbled into the nearest building, the locker-rooms, Caroline got one glimpse of herself in a mirror and stifled a scream of anguish and frustration, crying.

"I'm a murderer," Caroline whimpered, shivering, shoving her hands under the warm stream of water Giulia was dousing handtowels under. "And I'm a monster."

"You're not," Giulia whispered. Panting, Caroline stared in horror at her blood-stained reflection, black veins flickering beneath her even darker eyes glowing red with blood, her fangs aching as they pierced her lower-lip, unused to them.

"God! And why does this keep happening to my face?"

"It's part of your transformation," Giulia said, her voice unnaturally hoarse, almost deadened. "Your emotions are heightened, it's completely normal."

"I'm hideous!" Caroline whimpered, hiding her face in her blood-stained hands. She could still smell it, her fangs throbbed and she cried harder. Giulia seized her hands with that strange strength she had always had, the one that was completely internal and had nothing to do with weights, and pulled them away from her face. Blinking through her mascara-stinging tears, Caroline choked and sniffed, focusing on the face in front of her.

Caroline had never seen her like this, and stood, stunned and heartbroken as Giulia, choking on silent sobs, her entire body shaking, hot salty tears pouring down her face, her makeup smearing and bleeding, irritating her eyes, those exquisitely-shaped lips trembling as tears dripped off the end of her nose and pooled at the corners of her mouth, dripping off her chin onto her décolleté, her low, tiny-strapped racerback tank spotted with tears as her hands shook, and she patted delicately at Caroline's chin and mouth with the damp handtowels, trying to get rid of the blood smeared there.

Heartbroken, and still looking after Caroline.

It was so unbelievably heart-breaking in itself that Caroline's eyes burned and she felt yet more tears stream down her own cheeks, hot and salty, smearing the shimmering black eye-shadow she had put on so it stung, and Giulia just gazed at her face, taking in those monster eyes, the freaky flickering black veins, the shining glimpse of fangs amongst the blood-stained mess of her mouth. She reached up neatly-painted fingertips, warm and wet from the handtowels, gently touching those unnerving black veins.

Standing in the restroom, blood-stained and disoriented, watching the best-friend she had never seen cry fall apart even while she took care of her, calmed her down. It was so out-of-character, so unusual…this was Giulia devastated. And yet here she was, taking care of Caroline, gently wiping off the blood, the evidence of Caroline's murder, not balking or crying at the sight of Caroline's changed face, not narrowing her eyes in a glare of hatred or accusation.

"You're beautiful," Giulia said, her eyes spilling over with tears, her voice so low and sad, Caroline would do anything not to hear her sound like that again. "You've always been beautiful." Caroline sobbed again, but this time it was out of relief, the tension and terror inside her sifted away like dandelion fuzz in a breeze as Giulia wiped away the blood on her face, regardless of her shaking hands.

She was dead. A vampire. Elena – Katherine?! – had killed her.

And Giulia was still taking care of her. Still reassuring her of the person she saw when she looked at Caroline.

Car would give anything to see the way she looked inside Giulia's head.

All of a sudden it didn't matter what was happening to her. What had happened. She forgot that she was seventeen, a new vampire, and terrified, horror-struck by her own mauling of that man, unconcerned about Bonnie's reaction as much as she wanted to roll her eyes, suddenly, at Elena's pitiful attempts to actually contribute anything to the situation. All that mattered was that Giulia, who never cried, was sobbing.

She had always been the rock, the ego-boost, the encouraging one, Caroline's personal life-coach and cheerleader, pushing her into new and extraordinary things, reassuring her, the only one who had ever seen Caroline as the person Car wanted to be. The tough bitch who always sensed when a line had been crossed, when feelings had been hurt, who never made waves except if Caroline was being hurt by others' thoughtless actions, the hyper-intelligent, tough, emotionally-detached girl Caroline had always looked up to as the epitome of independence, the true definition of a loyal friend, her rock and best-friend, the one who had snuck cheat-sheets to her during Algebra tests, backed her up with everything, put all her efforts into making sure Caroline was happy and living the life she had always pictured for herself, answered every phone-call no matter the time, dropped everything for her…

Caroline had broken her. Her death – her rebirth as a vampire – had shattered the extremely delicate grasp Giulia had on everything. The last few months since her father's death Caroline knew Giulia had not been herself – she had been struggling, but never let it show to anyone who wasn't, well, Caroline. She'd known Giulia would get through it, she was tough and had no-one to rely on but herself so, how could she let herself down by continuing to live her life in a permanent state of drunken irreverence?

But this was different. Why had Caroline turning shoved Giulia over the edge, when her own father's death had…just caused her to go out-of-control, always flirting with the brink, dipping her toes over, hopping back with a rich laugh and irreverent smirk and wink.

The tears streaming down her face, her body shuddering with silent sobs, her hands shaking as she cleaned Caroline's face of blood, Caroline felt that calm sweep over her again, the clarity, and she held onto it this time. This time, she had to look after Giulia. She wouldn't give in, not again, despite the heartbeat she heard thundering in Giulia's veins, the scent of her perfume mingling exquisitely with the subtlest hint of sweat and the intoxicating scent of Giulia's blood, the vein she could just see ticking at the side of her throat – the way Giulia's hair was drawn up into a high, wrapped ponytail, wearing that low-cut black tank-top with skinny straps – all perfectly designed for maximum access to that vein, her blood… This was Giulia, her best-friend, her broken best-friend who never, ever cried, standing here sobbing and wiping away the blood of the man Caroline had just killed. That would not be Giulia. She wouldn't let it.

Caroline told herself she wasn't hungry. She muted her ears to the sound of Giulia's heartbeat, focused only on the scent of Giulia's perfume and the lingering, refreshing sweetness of a candy-apple she had eaten an hour ago on her breath, the salt of her tears, and pulled her best-friend into a hug. Careful not to squish her bones with her newfound strength, ignoring the impulse to sink her receding fangs into Giulia's throat, she pulled a shaking Giulia into a hug – the kind she now bet Giulia had been drawn into since the moment her dad had died. Could a person feel safe when they were being hugged by a vampire, even if she was her best-friend?

Pushing it all away, Caroline let herself get caught up in the simple security and comfort of a hug, the simplest and most effective of all medicines. In that moment, the calm she had experienced watching Giulia cry swept through her entire body, gentleness and concern replacing fear and confusion, and gradually, Giulia stopped shaking. They stood in the restroom for God knew how long, until Giulia sniffed, choked back a last sob, and finished wiping off Caroline's face.

"Why'd Katherine do this to me?" Caroline whispered. Giulia, her eyes becoming glassy again, shook her head, nostrils flaring delicately as she suppressed the urge to let her lips tremble and tears pour again. Depleted, upset but unable to summon the energy to keep crying, Caroline turned to the mirror with slumped shoulders, exhausted. She saw Giulia had wiped away all the blood – but they both looked a mess, their eye-makeup smeared beyond salvaging, bleary-eyed, wan, exhausted. It was her turn now, to take care of Giulia. She filled the sink with warm water, held onto Giulia's ponytail, and had handtowels ready when Giulia gasped and reappeared, having sunk her face into the water. Dripping, she re-emerged, scrubbing the makeup off her face with the handtowels. Caroline did the same, and they both yawned, exhausted, Giulia shivering slightly from the emotional exertion that had physically so drained her.

Carefully, she unlocked the restroom-door, and they traipsed to their lockers, side-by-side in the locker-room; Giulia used her toner and cotton-balls to clean up the last traces of their makeup, and massaged moisturiser into her face as Caroline ran a brush through her blood-stained hair.

"What do we do now?" Caroline asked. Vampire novels and TV shows rarely traced the actions of a new-born vampire – and anyway, she remembered Damon telling her that "I live in the real world, where vampires burn in the sun" after he'd dissed New Moon. She remembered him saying he missed Anne Rice, she was "so on it".

Giulia sounded tired and she sighed, "We redo our makeup. Damon buries the body in the woods. And I tell you everything."

A.N.: For all of you who expected Giulia to go postal…she'll always do the unexpected, I promise you that.