Have you ever seen those army commercials in the previews at the movie theater? They're all so freaking long!!! And if someone doesn't want to join the army, a commercial isn't going to convince them!! Now, I have absolutely no problem with the army. A lot of my cousins are in it, stationed in Germany and Texas. But I just think that a 5 minute commercial isn't going to convince someone to join the army!!

Sorry. I had to do that. And now you can actually read something completely irrelevant to me or my feelings on army commercials.

A bodyguard. Seriously? Elena felt like she was a president under siege or something. Well, not exactly a president. But you get the point.

"And what exactly does that entitle, Damon?" Elena asked him tersely.

"Oh, not much, just making sure you're never anywhere alone. I don't think we have to worry about them during the day too much, but I'll be around just to be safe. And don't worry, I'll mostly be in the shadows."

"So you'll pretty much be like a stalker?" Elena asked. Damon flashed her an evil grin.

"Something like that. And while I'm being your own personal vampire stalker, Stefan will be trying to figure out who wants to cut your pretty little head off."

"Nice way to put it, Damon." Stefan told him sarcastically. Then he turned to Elena and asked, "Are you okay with this?"

Elena sighed. "I guess I have to be." It wasn't that she minded that Damon was going to be the one doing it, she wouldn't have cared either way. It was just the fact that she was going to have to be constantly watched. It was bad enough that vampires she didn't even know were after her, now she was going to be like a lion at the zoo. Always being watched. She knew it was for her own safety, but that didn't make her like it any more.

There was an awkward silence before Damon finally said, "Well, I guess I'll leave you two lovebirds alone." With that, he got up and walked out of the room. Stefan watched him walk away before turning back to Elena.

"You know, you don't have to be okay with this. I'm sure we can figure out another way."

She sighed. "I know. But I'm okay with it. Really. If I'm going to be ambushed by more strange vampires, having Damon by my side probably won't hurt, will it?" She grinned and Stefan gave her a sad smile back and stood up.

"I guess we should get you some more virvaine."

*****************

Damon drove Elena to Bonnie's. She protested on the way there, but Damon told her it would be safer if she stayed away home tonight.

"But what about Jeremy and Aunt Judith?"

"Don't worry. Stefan's got it covered. And it really doesn't matter, just as long as they don't try to go outside at all anymore tonight." And she couldn't really argue with that. So Damon drove her to Bonnie's, and she complied.

"I'll be out here all night, so don't worry." Damon told her as she was getting out of the car. He actually sounded serious for once.

"I don't know if I should tell Bonnie that. She might be tempted to come out here and set you on fire." Elena joked.

"And you were criticizing me for talking about seat belts after we were attacked. Now you're talking about me getting set on fire? Gee, Elena, break my ego, why don't you."

"Yeah, 'cause your ego can really be broken." Elena muttered as she walked to the front porch. She heard Damon laughing behind her.

An hour later, Elena and Bonnie both sat in Bonnie's room. Elena had just explained everything that had happened that day.

"What, so now Damon just has to follow you around all the time?"

Of course, that's the first part Bonnie's going to comment on. "Pretty much. Don't you want to know how the hell we're going to figure out who's behind all this?"

Bonnie just raised her eyebrows, her expression saying I'm-not-asking-because-I-know-you-don't-know. Elena sighed. Bonnie was right. Elena had no idea how they were going to figure this out.

"Do you have any idea why they want you?"

"No. And that's almost what scares me the most. There's a vampire out there hellbent on getting me. They're willing to get so many other people killed, just as long as I'm dead. The fact that we have no idea who it is....What are we going to do Bonnie?" Elena's eyes shone with unshed tears.

"I don't know......" There were a few minutes of silence.

"You know, even if we do figure this out, I don't know how we're supposed to stop it. Stefan and Damon said there were more vampires than the ones that attacked today." Elena looked up at Bonnie with desperate eyes. "We can't stop them, Bonnie. There's no way."

Bonnie smiled at her friend sadly. "Yeah, not exactly like Twilight, is it, where there's a whole army of vampire royalty who can just kill them all for us, is there. We have to do this ourselves."

"But how, Bonnie? We don't know how many of them there are, but we're severely outnumbered. And we don't even know who's doing all this!" Elena's voice started rising towards the end, and Bonnie shushed her.

"I know, Elena. Didn't you say that Stefan and Damon are going to investigate all this?" Elena nodded. "Well, I think it's time we do a little investigating of our own........"

"And how exactly do we plan on doing that?" Elena asked with an amused half smile.

"I'm sure we can find something in one of my grandma's books...." Both girls smiled at eachother, hoping that they wouldn't find themselves in any more trouble, but wondering if they might uncover a few interesting secrets.

Tada! Another chapter is done! Feel like pressing that little green button? Well I don't care if you don't! Press it anyways! Who knows, maybe my author's notes will get shorter and my chapters will get longer.........*hint hint* *wink wink*

And yes, this still is an Elena/Damon story, but I just thought that we needed to have a little fun on the way......