Damon looked on in horror, though instead of showing how he felt, he twisted his face into a smile, which came across as a grimace. Elena looked on, unconvinced, yet Damon could barely see her face - the room was hazy, the lights swimming in front of his eyes.

Other voices from the streets below were like a beeping rumble, and he couldn't shut it out. All his skin felt itchy with sweat, the fabric of his jeans rubbed against him sharply. He couldn't concentrate, or focus. He thought he may have heard his phone buzzing sleepily, but amidst everything else and the horror that he was feeling, he couldn't make it out.

After what seemed like hours sitting in waves of discomfort, Stefan leaned up and his voice came through to Damon like a radar.

"Your phone has done that thirteen times now."

Groping his sweaty hands into his pocket, the screen danced awake and did show thirteen missed calls from an unknown number. Clearing his throat, he walked out of Elena's room, and within seconds was standing on the front porch, the cool beam pressed to his forehead, his dead heart groaning in his chest, the phone to his ears. Re-dialling.

"Damon?"

Suddenly, a warm feeling spread through Damon. Relief.

"Sky? Sky, is that you?" his voice was barely audible over his rapid breathing. The voice on the other end echoed with a sigh of relief.

"You're not dead." A blunt statement, Damon thought, and smiled into the phone.

"Observant, Sky."

"Shut it. I've called you thirty times since last night. I was worried sick, Damon. You can't do that to me!"

The occurences of last night screamed in front of Damon's eyes once again. He remembered how, in an almost drunk stupour of fear, he had jabbed his phone to call the one person left he wanted to see before his death - before the death of Klaus done by his own friend Alaric crept through his body too. He remembered how Elena had decided, last night, to go back to Stefan, his own dear dear brother, and be with him in his last final hours, and left Damon leaning against the car, and paralysed in the horror that actually he would die, this time. Not knowing what else to do, he had called Sky, leaving a shaky and patchy voice message that highlighted briefly his coming death,and a reflection of their memories. Now alive, he hadn't given it a second thought how she would be feeling

He then resurfed, back to the sound of Sky's voice.

"... and then I called James, and he said he hadn't heard from you either since '72. So I figured you were in Mystical Falls, so I got in the car and have been driving all day... Jesus, Damon, you do realise I was expecting to see a fucking body? Damon, are you even listening to me?"

Damon bit back a laugh. Sky cared. Of course she did. His oldest friend, his Lexi...

"Sky, you don't have to drive out here, I'm fine. False alarm!" his falsely bright voice didn't fool her.

"Shut it, Damon. I've already been driving 16 hours, I'm not stopping now. When I get here you're telling me everything," she paused. "I'm so glad you're alright, Damon."

He smiled, but his heart felt heavy again. He wasn't alright at all. Elena... regardless of what he meant to her now... was upstairs, with Stefan, discussing his idiotic move of saving that blockhead jock Matt instead of Elena... who would be, in mere hours... a vampire.

"Sky, there is something."

"Tell me." her voice offered no challenge, just a gentle command. An open promise to help, to understand, to listen...

"Elena died last night with vampire blood in her system. She's in transition now."

There was a silence in which Damon felt Sky said many things.

"I'll be there soon."

The phone went dead.