A/N Sorry for being so slow! This is the last part. There's a little bit of an awkward part somewhere in here, but I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it.

"So, what's the usual procedure for disposing of a body?"

Elena kind of wished she had a stick to poke the body with. Was that disrespectful? She preferred not to ponder the thought and tried to shake herself of the morbid sense of curiosity and the curious absence of morality.

Damon considered her question with a thoughtful look. "Burn it, bury it, chop it to bits and dispose of them individually..."

"Gross!" Elena wavered, but she refused to faint on a dead body. She took a deep breath and a step away.

"Well, wait 'til you have to deal with multiple bodies. That's a real bitch."

Elena threw Damon a dirty look and bent over to look at Alaric with her hands on her knees. It felt like she was on the edge of a cliff looking down, and she was too scared to get closer. If she continued she knew she was going to fall. But that was ridiculous, she told herself. "We'll bury him. Start the fire."

"Why am I starting a fire if we're burying him?"

"Don't you get snarky with me, Mr. Vampers! Just start the fire." Elena put one hand on her hip and waved one in the direction of the fireplace.

Damon looked at her for a second and shrugged. "I knew I'd get drunk, fun Elena back again." Damon grinned, referring to the time he'd sort of kidnapped her as he started the fire.

"You just said I was a mean drunk. Learn to make up your mind." Damon looked annoyed and Elena had to turn so he wouldn't see her smile. Since when was her being bossy 'fun'?

When the fire roared, Elena kicked the bloody stake from Alaric's hand and into the fireplace.

"Why couldn't we just bury it with him?" Damon looked down and kicked the hand back to where it was.

"We don't want to mess around with that. It could lead to a lot of questions, so it's better to expose of it as quickly and efficiently as possible." Elena watched in satisfaction as the wood caught fire and slowly burned.

"You're kinda paranoid, you know that?" But he smiled at her as he said it. "I like it."

Elena blushed. "Give me your jacket." Elena held out her hand.

"Cold?" Damon smirked as he shrugged out of it.

She stroked the soft black leather. "No." Then she walked over so she stood by Alaric's head and lay the jacket on the floor above his head. Steeling herself, she gripped both of his hands, did her best to ignore the disgusting feeling of dried blood she found there, and pulled him into a sitting position. Then she dragged him forward and dropped him on Damon's leather coat.

"Hey! That's my very expensive and-"

"Ruined now." Elena said smugly as she tied the jackets arms around the body so it wouldn't fall off.

"Why in hell did you do that?" He had a murderous look on his face, but Elena wasn't worried.

"I saw it on Gone With the Wind. We don't want to leave a blood trail." Then she started dragging the body towards the back door unsuccessfully.

Damon gave a sudden laugh and looked as surprised by it as Elena felt. "Are you comparing me to Melanie?"

Elena grinned. "I guess I am." She shook her head with a laugh. Bracing herself, she attempted a tug on the body using all her strength. It moved maybe a foot. Great, her heart was already pounding and she was out of breath.

"He doesn't look dead." Elena looked at the body again, deciding she needed a brake.

Damon gave her a stern look. "Have you ever seen a corpse before? Maybe we should wait 'til he starts decomposing and has maggots eating through his eyes?"

"Okay, okay." Elena pulled him another two feet.

She looked up to see Damon staring at her with a wondrous look on his face. Seeing her looking at him, puzzled, he quickly looked away and, only a second later, looked back with a dazzling smile. "You look like a warrior. Complete with face paint." Damon made a sweeping gesture with his hand across his cheeks.

"Huh?"

"The blood. You know, I could clean it for you..." he let his sentence trail off with a hopeful pout.

"No thanks. Feeding time is over at the zoo. This is now." Elena nodded towards the body. With a sigh, she tugged it another foot.

Five minutes later, Elena still didn't have him out of the living room. "Well, this is going no where." Damon swirled a glass of amber liquid. Elena tried to ignore him. Besides, it was a big living room...

"Hey, where'd that come from?" Elena saw that he had somehow gotten hold of yet more alcohol. "You know what, never mind, I don't care." Elena finally pulled the body into the hallway. Her muscles ached.

"You are really weak." Damon smiled. "Helpless, even."

Then he was behind her, lifting her hair from her neck. Elena stilled for a second, but when she felt his breath on her neck she pushed him away and he let her. "Go dig a hole." Damon left silently.

When she finally got the body to the back door, she was slick with sweat and tired as hell. She was not weak. Alaric was just really big and heavy. And he had a lot of muscle, and after all, muscle weighs more than fat. She took a deep breath and opened the door to drag him through just enough so that his body kept it open.

Damon came back and looked at her. "The hole is ready, sir!" he bowed and started walking slowly off into the woods so Elena could follow. Elena went out into the night and shrieked. It had chosen that moment to start pouring. She went from hot and sweaty to cold and sopping.

"Damon, get back here!" Elena screamed. In an instant he was beside her. "Get a sheet or something, wrap the body, and you carry it! I'm done!" She didn't know if it was the cool, sharp clarity of the rain, but she really should have thought of that sooner. Elena stormed back into the house.

Damon followed, leaving behind the dead guy in the doorway. "My sheets are silk! Stefan's are Egyptian cotton-"

"I don't care!" Elena yelled, still shivering from the rain. "You've never really needed me and I'm tired of coddling you!" She leaned against a wall. As soon as she felt up to it, she'd storm out of here.

"You think you're coddling me?" he sounded incredulous. He stomped off, muttering something. He came back with some sheets to find her in the same spot. Stefan's, she noticed with a roll of her eyes.

Despite herself, she ran and got a garbage bag from where she knew they were as he wrapped the body and headed out the door. Grabbing an old umbrella she found by the door, she followed him into the storm. He carried the body with ease and Elena admired him in his tight cloths, made all the more revealing with rain water as he walked into the woods. She was pleased to note that you could barely feel the rain under the cover of the trees.

When they got to the hole, she noticed he was ready to just drop him into the hole, sheet and all. "Wait!" Elena ran the little distance that separated them. "Shouldn't it be deeper?"

"But it's raining." he whined.

"Afraid you'll melt?" She retorted with that jerk look that she had learned specially from Damon. When he just gave her a look, she groaned, "Come on, it barely looks three feet!"

He rolled his eyes and grabbed the shovel that lay on the other side of the rectangular hole. He hoped in and got to work. His first shovelful of dirt hit her square in the chest, some going down her shirt and into her bra. He laughed. After her initial shock of cold earth being pelted at her, she did, too. Then she kicked some of the pile at her feet at his head. He laughed and shook the dirt from his hair.

They both stopped and he resumed digging. A minute later he hopped out. She raised her brows in amazement. He had at least doubled it's last depth. He saw her looked and gave her that unique Damon jerk look. "Practice." She scowled. He smiled, pleased. "North five feet. Happy?"

"In what world would this make me happy?" She snapped.

He sighed, as if he were the one dealing with her. He made another move to dump the body.

"Stop!" Elena walked a little closer to the body.

"What now?" Damon groaned.

Elena knelt down beside the corpse and gently pulled the sheet from under him and into the garbage bag. "Look Elena, I know I said they were nice sheets, but you don't have to try and save them." Damon's brows pulled together and he looked concerned.

"If he's found, you don't want him connected to you two." Elena didn't straighten back up, and was a little grossed out by what she decided needed to be done next.

"Ahh, protecting Stefan. Are we even going to tell him this happened or are we going to try and protect his delicate sensibilities?" Damon looked down. "What are you doing?" The question was really drawn out and Elena could hear the smile in his voice. "Either something really kinky, or-"

"Eww! I just don't want him being I.D.'ed by by his clothes or investigators to find DNA." Elena mentally gagged as she finally got his shirt off and into the bag, Post mortem was starting to set in. The sick feeling just got worse as she contemplated an upcoming inevitable task.

"So, you're undressing him." It was a statement, not a question and he got this smile on his face, one you couldn't not smile back at. "Do you wanna pull out his teeth, too?" he said conspiratorially.

"Shut up!" Elena pulled off his shoes and socks.

Damon took one shoe and held it to his foot. "Hmm. My size. They're nice shoes..." he mused aloud.

"Just put them in the bag, Damon." Elena had paused, knowing she had gotten to the incredibly gross part in undressing a dead male. His pants. God, why did he have to be face up? She put her hands at the waistband of his sweatpants. She felt around a little more and got the waist band of his boxers too. No need to draw this out unnecessarily. Thank god he wasn't wearing jeans with a belt. She slipped his pants down and closed her eyes. She opened them only when she felt she was at his feet. After disentangling them from his pants, she stuffed the last of his cloths into her garbage bag.

Refusing to look at his wounds or his other parts-it felt wrong, him being dead and all-she had to focus on his face. Her heart felt like it stopped, and the reality of the moment really hit her. He looked so sweet and angelic, just like he was sleeping. He was gone now. He was dead and dead was just dead. He'd never move again, never smile, never put on the stupid blue heart boxers she couldn't help but see before she put them in the bag. She cried a few tears, then had to look away.

Damon, ignoring her, kicked the body into the hole. Elena involuntarily felt a spark of worry for him. Was he hurt?-no he'd never feel anything again. She felt her eyes wander back to him. He had landed on his front and you couldn't even tell he was wounded from the back.

Impersonally, Damon said, "Elena, he tried to kill me. Now he's dead and you know he won't dwell. You shouldn't either." He picked up his shovel.

Damon wasn't right of course, was never really right, but it did make her feel a little better. Elena had an absurd desire to cover him with the sheets, make sure he was comfortable. It was so cold out. But they were Stefan's blankets and she wouldn't have him involved in this.

Her eyes slid from his back down and something on his hand caught her attention. Damn! She just noticed he had a ring on. If she was braver she'd go down there and get it, but she wasn't, and she refused to ask Damon. She just wanted this over with, so she resigned herself to the mistake. She needed this over with. The crazy stupid thing was that the ring was probably the most unique thing on him. The one thing that could lead to an identification. With her luck it was a class ring or family heirloom. She shook her head, she really was getting carried away with this whole paranoid thing.

Elena's gaze roamed over him one last time and did a double take at his butt. Her eyebrows raised. It was one thing when he was in jeans and teaching, but when he was naked... She tilted her head, still gazing. It was all muscled and- she heard a cough. Elena glanced quickly up and saw Damon smirking. He opened his mouth, but she cut him off. "Don't. Just. Don't."

Then she walked away and out of the woods. She could just hear his voice in her head. "Would you like a little time alone with him?" She couldn't deal with that. She stomped out onto the lawn. It was still raining hard. She ignored her umbrella and just stood there, letting the cold water make her numb. Inside and out. She wasn't even sure why she thought about him like that. He was dead, for Christ sakes! If she thought harder, she remembered he was her mother's husband, or ex, or whatever they were.

Elena looked at her hands. They had his blood on them now. She held them out in the rain and rinsed them off until she saw only her skin, but somehow through the pouring rain she still felt that dried blood. She lifted her head and closed her eyes and mopped at her wet cheeks with her clean dirty hands until she was sure her blood was off them, too.

She finally stumbled back into the living room. It was lit with a brown rose color. Sunrise. She was so tired she slowly lowered herself onto the couch. She got it pretty wet, but she didn't care. She could pretend the place her head lay was wet because of the rain. She drifted off easily, but Damon came and awoke her with a gentle shake. "Come on, you should get out of the wet clothes. I brought you some blankets." He sat down next to her on the sofa.

His voice was soft and sweet. It sounded like the color of the sunrise, and felt like the pleasant texture of the cloth couch. She sat up and buried her wet face against his chest. He was warm and dry. She let all her weight lean against him. He slowly peeled off her shirt and dropped it to the floor. His hands drifted over her bare skin and she shuddered. His hands were so warms against her cold skin. They stopped almost hesitantly over the hook of her wet bra. Now that she felt how cold her clothes really were and how warm she could be, she wanted all of their sagging cold weight off her. She leaned more forcefully into him. He got her meaning and unhooked her bra, his fingers trailing down her shoulders as he slid it off. She hunched over into him and he caressed all of her cold skin.

He wrapped a sheet around her shoulders and nudged her so that she lay back. Damon's hands slid down her stomach to her jeans. When she didn't protest, he deftly undid the button and zipper. The tight jeans clung to her skin, wet and unyielding, but Damon was masterful and managed to get them off smoothly. He took her underwear along, much like she had done to Alaric. Elena whimpered, and Damon, believing her uncomfortably cold,not just mentally stressed, massaged feeling and heat to Elena's thighs. His hands slid to her calves and to her feet. He took off her shoes, socks, and the heavy wet denim. He held her feet in his large warm hands for just a moment, they were especially frozen, seeing as large puddles had been unavoidable.

Then he drew the thin silk sheet around her entire body. She smiled and forced her eyes open just in time to see him tuck in a thick comforter around her. She snuggled into it and reveled in how nice it felt. Her eyes closed. Damon got up and kissed her on the forehead. She felt his absence more than she heard him walk away.

"Damon?" She called sleepily. She knew he heard. "I'm still cold." Now that he was gone she could tell that this blanket provided only artificial warmth, and she wanted the real thing. She drifted for a second, but was half-awake when she felt Damon lift her up from the couch and sit down again. He lay back with his head against the armrest and lay her across him, so her head was on his chest. Warmth.

As they both drifted to sleep, content and warm, Damon's rough hand slid under her sheet and rested against her bare stomach. Elena's hand found his and curled hers around it and brought it up. His arm instinctively tightened around her, and they both fell asleep with sweet smiles curving their lips.

A/N: I now have a sequel, Alaric's Indisposed, if you're curious about what happens to Alaric next. It's all finished, and I'd love some reviews.