AN: Hey guys, time for chapter two. Thanks to everyone who's read the story, and a special thanks to Alex Bee, xAlternativexMusicxGirlx, EtherealDemon, sunshine2006578 and Vya-sama who also took the time to review – it made my day. And a special, special thanks to sunshine2006578 who has agreed to help me out with this story buy being my beta. OK, that's all the thanks for now, on with the story!

Disclaimer: The characters of The Vampire Diaries are the property of L.J. Smith and the people at The CW. I'm just borrowing them.

Chapter two

Alaric glanced at his watch when he heard a car stop outside the house.

"What?" Jenna asked, looking away from the television.

"I should probably get going," he said reluctantly. He didn't really want to leave, but he had to talk to Damon. The vampire hadn't been gone nearly long enough to track Stefan down; something hadn't gone according to plan.

"Oh, right, sure." A look of disappointment flashed across Jenna's face – or at least he hoped it was disappointment – as she stood up.

"No, stay, watch your movie," he insisted, and she sat back down again. "I'll talk to you soon, OK?"

"Sure."

He thought she sounded a little dejected and wanted to explain why he had to go, but it wasn't the right time for that conversation – a conversation that it wasn't his place to have with her anyway – so he just pressed a kiss to her hair and left, closing the front door behind him.

Damon was walking up the driveway, having parked his car in front of the house across the street.

"No luck?" Alaric concluded as he approached him.

"He's gone," Damon replied and Alaric frowned.

"What do you mean 'gone'?"

Damon thrust a piece of paper at him and Alaric took it, reading the hastily scribbled words. "He's really left," he said after a moment. "Do you think he'll come back?"

"I'm fairly certain he will," Damon replied. "Doubt he'll be able to stay away from Elena forever."

That made sense. "How long?"

"I guess that depends on how long it'll take him to get over feeling guilty about killing that girl," Damon concluded in an off-hand voice. "But I know my brother, and wallowing in guilt is what he does best. So it could be a while."

"And you?" Alaric's eyes narrowed as he watched Damon think about what to say to that.

"This town has started to grow on me, so I think I'll stick around, at least for a while," he said after a moment. "Besides, it seems like there's always something happening around here. Wouldn't want to miss out on all the fun."

Alaric nodded; Damon had confirmed what he'd suspected. "What are you going to tell Elena?"

Damon frowned. "Haven't figured that one out yet," he admitted. "I'm counting on a couple more hours of her sleeping to come up with something."

"She'll be devastated," Alaric pointed out, and Damon looked away from him.

"Yeah, I know," he said, sounding … frustrated, Alaric thought.

"Anyway, I'm gonna get going," Alaric announced, moving towards his car. "You sticking around?"

Damon nodded, glancing at the living room window.

"Jenna's watching TV, I would suggest climbing through the window," Alaric said as he got into the car.

"Thanks, teach."

Alaric started the car, but didn't immediately pull away from the curb. Why was he helping Damon? The guy had tried to kill him. He had killed his wife for all intents and purposes. Though, to be fair, Alaric had already put that behind him, at least as much as he would ever be able to. He didn't really blame Damon anymore. The vampire hadn't been the problem; he had just been Isobel's solution to whatever the problem had been.

Alaric shook his head as he saw Damon disappear into the shadows, probably looking for a place to climb through Elena's window without drawing too much attention to himself.

The only explanation Alaric could offer himself was that he had seen something of himself, back when he met Isobel, in the look that had been in Damon's eyes earlier that day, when he had danced with Elena.

Elena was still asleep when Damon slipped in through her window without making a sound. Looking at her face, relaxed in sleep, and the teddy bear clutched to her chest, all his reasons for staying went out the window. It wasn't because he was sick of going from place to place or because John Gilbert was a problem he hadn't quite figured out how to deal with. It wasn't even the fact that the tomb vampires were still running around town or that he was sure that, sooner or later, Isobel would make an appearance. It was much simpler than that.

He didn't want to leave her.

Sure, hanging around Mystic Falls and Elena had started out as a way to piss Stefan off, but somewhere along the line … he had started caring about her. He wasn't sure when – maybe when she had saved his life back in Atlanta – but that didn't matter; the point was that he did.

He drew in a deep, unneeded breath and then slowly let it out. There. He had admitted it to himself. Admitting it was the first step to recovery, right? Or that was AA, probably didn't apply to this … whatever it was. Feelings. He didn't like them. But, somehow, he couldn't bring himself to flip that little internal switch that would make them go away, not even remembering the way it had ended the last time he had let himself care about someone. But Elena wasn't Katherine, of that much he was certain. Sure, they looked the same, which was eerie, but as far as personalities went, there really weren't two people who were less alike than Elena and Katherine. Like fire and ice, light and darkness … good and evil. The last comparison would have made him laugh out loud if he hadn't been worried about waking Elena up.

Convinced that she would have a fit if she woke up and found him in her bed – and when exactly had he started to care about that? – he searched her closet and came up with a couple of blankets which he spread on the floor on the side of her bed that didn't face the door, just in case Jenna decided to check on her niece before going to bed. Snatching one of the pillows that Elena wasn't using he lay down and pulled another blanket over himself. Not the most comfortable he had ever been, but not the least, either.

Before he had a chance to figure out what to say to Elena in the morning, how to tell her that her boyfriend had skipped town, her even breathing lulled him to sleep.

As she slowly started to wake up, Elena stretched and yawned. She could hear Jenna in the kitchen, making coffee. A moment later, the smell made its way up the stairs and she opened her eyes. She was starving.

Pushing the cover aside, she sat up and threw her feet over the side of the bed … and came in contact with something that definitely wasn't her floor.

"Ow! Watch where you step!"

She looked down at Damon on the floor, and annoyed expression on his face as he rubbed his ribs, which she had just stepped on. "What the hell are you doing?" she demanded, grabbing her robe from the bottom of the bed and wrapping it around herself.

"No need to cover up on my account; I got a good look last night," he told her, smirking. "And I was sleeping."

"On my floor?" she questioned.

"I said I wasn't letting you out of my sight, didn't I?" he reminded her, sitting up.

"I guess I thought that meant you'd stick around until I fell asleep," she replied, getting out of the bed on the other side. "I wasn't expecting a full-blown watch-my-every-step scenario. It's a little stalkerish, to tell you the truth."

He just shrugged in response.

She paused on her way to the bathroom, hesitating a little. "I guess that means you haven't had a chance to find Stefan?" she assumed after a moment, not turning around as she spoke.

"About that …" he started, and she spun around.

"Yes?" she asked eagerly.

Since he hadn't had a chance to make up a likely scenario, he had to improvise.

"I went back to the boarding house after you fell asleep last night, and he was really wallowing in guilt. He said he had to get away for a little while, deal with everything and get himself back under control." He watched her carefully as he spoke, saw her face fall more and more. When he finished speaking, she slumped back down on the bed.

"He left?" she said incredulously. "Without even talking to me?"

"I told him it was for the best," Damon lied quickly. Anything to get that look off her face. "I told him I'd talk to you, explain."

"Explain what? That he can't be around me?" Tears were starting to form in her eyes.

"It's for the best right now," he tried to reason with her. "He needs to get himself back under control, he doesn't want to risk your safety, you understand that, right?"

She nodded, but a few tears still escaped.

"I guess. But I can't even talk to him?"

Why was he trying to defend Stefan? He should just show her the note and let her draw her own conclusion. But no, he had to be all noble and try to protect her feelings.

"I'm sorry, he needs to focus on getting better." That sounded good, right? "I'm sure he'll get in touch with you when he feels like he's getting back on track." A little white lie; leaving his phone behind showed pretty clearly that Stefan didn't have any intention of doing that.

"Yeah." She nodded, wiping at her cheeks.

"Great, so no more tears?" he concluded, and she looked at him through narrowed eyes. "And might I suggest a toothbrush? Because, frankly, my dear, morning breath is not attractive, not even on you."

Like he had hoped, she slapped him on the arm and rolled her eyes.

"Sorry, I'll stop tormenting your heightened senses right away, don't know what I was thinking." She got up off the bed and went into the bathroom.

As she brushed her teeth, Elena tried to think.

Stefan had left. She wasn't sure how long he would be gone, or – she tried to be realistic – if he would come back at all. He could decide to just stay away.

"OK, if he doesn't come back, then what?" she asked her reflection. She could feel a constriction in her chest, like just a moment ago when Damon had told her that Stefan had left. She forced herself to ignore it. If he didn't come back, she'd deal. She wouldn't be one of those girls who went to pieces over a guy, that wasn't her. The fact that he had left in the first place really pissed her off more than anything; the reason she had almost started crying had more to do with the fact that she was still on the emotional rollercoaster that had started last night.

She could deal. If she had to, she could. She would.

The determination made her feel a little better, and she put the toothbrush away, stepping into the shower.

When she got back into her room, Damon was gone. He had left a note on her pillow, and she picked it up.

Went home to change – don't want your neighbors seeing me leave in the same clothes I had on last night, do we? Try to relax, everything will be fine, and if you need me, I'm just a phone call away. Oh, and I talked to Liz, she found your purse last night, said she'd send someone over with it later today.

D

She realized she was smiling when she finished reading and shook her head when she remembered the Damon she had met last fall. When had he changed so completely? She wasn't sure.

She pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt and went downstairs in search of coffee.

"Morning," Jenna greeted her when she came into the kitchen. "How are you doing?"

Elena sighed as she took a large mug from one of the cupboards and poured coffee into it. "OK, I guess. Still a little shook up."

"I'm not surprised." Jenna watched her intently as she spoke. "Sheriff Forbes told me that you and Damon and Bonnie found Amber out in the woods. Why didn't you come find me before leaving?"

"I'm sorry, Aunt Jenna, I really just wanted to get home," Elena replied honestly, taking a sip of the coffee.

"That's OK, sweetie, I was just worried, that's all." Jenna paused, drinking some coffee from her own mug. "Speaking of Damon, what was he doing here last night?"

Elena could hear the suspicion in her aunt's voice and tried to think of some way to explain.

"He drove me home, and I was really upset so I asked him to stay until I fell asleep," she said. "I didn't want to be alone." That much was true. No need to tell Jenna that Damon hadn't given her much choice in the matter.

"And where's Stefan?"

Elena winced a little and hoped Jenna didn't notice. "He had to go out of town unexpectedly, a family emergency, that's why he wasn't at the Founder's Hall yesterday." There, an explanation as to where Stefan had been at the time of Amber's attack. Not that anyone would suspect anything; it must have been ruled an animal attack like the others.

"Oh. I was wondering about that. Then I guess it was nice of Damon to step in and help you out."

"It was," Elena agreed, nodding.

"As long as he knows that's all it was," Jenna continued, eyebrows raised. Elena frowned.

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean," she admitted.

"Oh, come on, Elena. I see the way he looks at you when he thinks you don't notice. The guy has a thing for you."

Elena couldn't help but laugh out loud. If only Jenna knew how far from the truth she was – she wasn't denying that Damon flirted with her, but the only reason was to piss Stefan off. "I really doubt that. We're just friends."

"I just call 'em as I see 'em," Jenna said, hands raised in a motion of surrender.

"Yeah, well, don't." Elena smiled to take the edge of her words.

"Fine, butting out now."

When he heard the shower turn on in the bathroom, Damon considered staying until Elena came back out – very tempting, especially if she didn't think about him being in her room and emerged in only a towel – but in the end decided against it. She was safe here, and he had things he needed to do.

He made a quick phone call to Liz, who told him that they had indeed found Elena's purse in the woods last night and that she would send one of her deputies over with it later. Then he wrote a note to Elena, telling her about the call, and slipped out the way he had come in the middle of the night; through the window. He could hear that Jenna was already up and didn't want to risk running into her in the hallway. Not that it wouldn't be fun to watch Elena try to explain what he had been doing in her room all night … oh well, maybe some other time.

When he got back to the boarding house, he went through the entire building again, making sure Stefan hadn't been there since he left last night. He thought the note had been sincere and did believe that Stefan had really left town, but it couldn't hurt to make sure. He wasn't going to be taken off guard if his little brother showed up out of nowhere.

He ended the search in Stefan's room and then went though his brother's desk until he found an address book he remembered seeing before. Flipping through the pages, he found the number he had been looking for; Henry, the British vampire who was over four hundred years old and had been the one to introduce Stefan to the idea of drinking animal blood in the first place. It was only logical to think that Stefan would turn to the older vampire in a situation like this.

He dialed the number listed and waited for the phone to be picked up. Henry should be home, since he didn't have a daylight-ring of his own.

"Hello?" Even after over two centuries in America, Henry's accent was pronounced.

"Henry, how you doing, old pal?"

The line went quiet for a moment and Damon smiled to himself. He had never been on Henry's good side and honestly wasn't trying to get on it. In fact, he quite enjoyed pushing Henry's buttons when he had to deal with the other vampire.

"Why, if it isn't Damon Salvatore," Henry said dryly. "Though I don't know if I would go as far as to call us pals. To what do I owe this … displeasure?"

"Just calling to see if you've heard from Stefan," Damon replied lightly. "I thought he might turn to you now that he's fallen off the wagon, figuratively speaking."

Henry hesitated, which really told Damon all he needed to know.

"Yes, I have talked to him, as a matter of fact," the Brit said after a moment. "He called me from a payphone last night."

"And now he's, what, sleeping it off? Wallowing?"

"Er, no, he's not here, actually."

Damon frowned. "What? He hasn't gotten there yet?" Even if Stefan had refused to speed the entire way there, he still should have made the trip to the little town outside Philadelphia in six hours or so. And it had been the middle of the night – not even St. Stefan would think it was necessary to stay within the speed limit when there was nobody around. He left Stefan's room and went into his own as he waited for Henry to reply.

"Yes, I am rather beginning to worry," Henry admitted. "He should have arrived here hours ago."

"Yeah …" Damon replied distractedly, turning the television on and flipping through the channels in search of one showing the news. "Listen, would you mind giving me a call when he does show up? I need to know where he is."

"And why would I do that?" came the snappish respons. "I don't even know why I told you he was coming here in the first place, the last thing Stefan needs right now is your influence."

Damon sighed. "Don't get your knickers in a twist, I'm not looking to undermine your attempt at getting him back to the good side. In fact, I'm all for it. But as long as he's not around, I'm the one who's going to have to keep an eye on things here, so I need to know that he's being a good little boy and staying where he's supposed to be and not running around rampant in the woods here in Mystic Falls, OK?"

Henry was quiet so long Damon started thinking that he had hung up. While he waited for a reply, he turned the TV back off and instead pushed the power button on the computer. The internet was always faster when it came to the news, anyway.

"Are my ears deceiving me, or is Damon Salvatore referring to protecting humans?" Henry finally asked, astonished, and Damon groaned.

"Don't make a big deal out of it, OK?" he said, trying to sound nonchalant. "I just know that Stefan would make my life hell if I let anything happened to … the people he cares about, and I have better things to do with the rest of my limitless existence than watch my every step because Stefan's on the warpath."

"Right, right. I am assuming that with 'people' you actually mean the lovely Elena? Stefan's told me all about her."

"Among others," Damon hedged, not sure he liked the implication he could hear in Henry's voice. "Will you just let me know when he gets there and keep me updated on how the rehab is going?"

"Fine, I will. I do not know why, but for some reason, I trust you. Do not make me regret it, because you know I'm stronger than you, even on animal blood. And, unlike your brother, I would not think twice about killing you."

Damon did know that.

"Don't worry, old man, I'll behave."

With that, he hung up the phone and sat down at the desk, opening the internet browser and making his way to a local news site. Nothing. He went to a Washington based newspaper and sighed when he found what he had been expecting.

Local girl missing after party.

Hannah Peterson, age sixteen, went missing late last night after a party at a friend's house in Dumfries, Virginia. Witnesses saw her leaving the house a little after midnight, but she never made it home. According to her parents, Hannah used to cut through the park when walking home from the friend at whose house the party was being held, instead of taking the longer way around. Authorities are searching the area Hannah would have walked through but have yet to find any traces of the teenage girl.

He didn't bother reading further. At least that solved the question whether or not he was going to tell Elena where Stefan was. If she knew where he had gone, she would find out about this. And there was no need for her to worry even more.

Later that day, Elena was in her room, trying to get some homework done, when the doorbell rang. A moment later, she heard Jenna call for her and made her way downstairs to find Caroline's mom at the door, holding out her purse.

"Thank you, Sheriff Forbes, but you didn't have to come all the way here just to give me that," she said, taking the purse from the sheriff.

"I know, but I wanted to check up on you as well," the older woman replied, scrutinizing Elena. "How are you feeling? We're setting up grief councilors at the school, maybe you should talk to one of them on Monday?"

Right, and say what? My boyfriend is a vampire that usually only drinks animal blood, but when he was hurt I made him take some of mine and then he went crazy and attacked Amber? She wasn't all that interested in spending the rest of high school locked up in a padded cell.

"Thanks, Sheriff, I'll think about it," she said, trying to look as if she was seriously considering it.

"And there's going to be a memorial service for Amber at the school tonight, at seven. I know Caroline's very upset, I thought maybe you could go together? Support each other."

"That sounds like a good idea." Elena nodded. "I'll call Caroline later."

"Great." Sheriff Forbes hesitated. "And promise to think about seeing one of the councilors. Sometimes it helps to talk about these things."

It probably would. Problem was, there weren't very many people she actually could talk to …

She said goodbye to the sheriff and went back to her room, pulling her cell from the purse as she climbed the stairs. No missed calls. She flipped through the phone book and hit 'Call' when she got to Stefan's cell number, but it went straight to voicemail again. Damon hadn't said anything, but she realized it was possible that Stefan had left his phone at the house. If he didn't want to be distracted …

God, this was so hard! Was she supposed to just leave him alone, let him work through this on his own? She really wanted to be there for him, but if he didn't want that …

If she was going to look at the situation objectively, things had been a little weird between them lately, and when Damon had told her about Stefan still drinking human blood, she had though that that must be the reason … but maybe it wasn't. Maybe they had just started to grow apart …

She wasn't sure how that made her feel. And that, in turn, confused her. Shouldn't she be more upset? And what did it say about her and their relationship that she wasn't?

"When did things get so complicated?" she asked herself out loud.

"Talking to yourself, never a good sign."

Her eyes flew up to find Damon sitting on the windowsill, the window open behind him. She could have sworn that she had closed that earlier …

"You've got to stop doing that," she complained, closing the door behind her so Jenna wouldn't hear. No need to put fuel on her Damon-has-a-thing-for-you fire. "One of these days, I'm going to have a heart attack, and you'll have no-one to blame but yourself."

"A likely scenario," he replied sarcastically. "Because seventeen-year-olds drop dead from heart failure all the time."

"It could happen."

"So what's complicated?" he asked, returning to the original subject. "Aside from life – or death, for that matter – in general, I mean."

Since she wasn't really interested in discussing her relationship with his brother, she went with something that was a little less complicated, but still complicated enough.

"Sheriff Forbes said that they're having grief councilors talk to the kids at school, and she suggested I talk to one of them," she told him as she sat down on her bed and pulled her legs up under her. "I'll probably have to go in, at least once, or they'll think I'm suppressing the memory or something. But what am I going to say? Yeah, I'm really upset because my boyfriend killed one of my friends? I doubt that would go down well."

"Yeah, you might want to leave out that part," he said. "Not that you wouldn't look cute in a straitjacket."

She threw a pillow at him. "Not funny."

"On the contrary." He caught the pillow without difficulty and lobbed it back onto her bed. "I thought it was very funny."

"Can you be serious for one second?" she asked, not sure why she bothered. Of course he couldn't.

"It has been known to happen." He flashed her a smile. "Seriously, though, you're right. You should talk to them, it would be suspicious if you didn't. You were the one who found the body, after all. And you don't have to talk about what happened. Aren't shrinks all about feelings and crap? Just talk about how it's affected you."

"Right, I can't talk to my boyfriend because he left after killing my friend."

He rolled his eyes at her. "Apart from that. Pretend I'm the councilor." He moved to the chair at her desk and sat down, putting on a solemn face and scrutinizing her. "So, Miss Gilbert, how are you feeling after the horrible thing that has happened?"

She had to suppress a giggle, and he shook his head in disappointment.

"You might not want to laugh when they ask how you're feeling, they'll take it as an early sign of insanity or something," he pointed out.

"I'm sorry, I just …" She forced herself to stop laughing by looking away from him, down at her hands. She took a couple of deep breaths. "I feel afraid," she then said, surprising herself a little.

"Why do you feel like that?" Damon asked, all humor gone from his voice. He actually sounded like he wanted to know the answer.

"I guess because it could so easily have been me out there," she continued, not sure where the words were coming from. But she knew that it was the truth. "And also because … next time it could be."

"Hey." She looked up to see him right in front of her, having moved so quietly that she hadn't even heard it. "That won't ever happen. Stefan's going to be fine, and even if he isn't, I would never, ever let him hurt you. OK?"

His eyes burned into hers and she had never trusted him – or anyone else, for that matter, not even Stefan – more than she did at that moment.

AN: So, guys, what did you think? Push that little button labeled 'Review' and let me know!