A/N: Hey everybody. I meant to put this up on Sunday, but I got busy and totally forgot. Then yesterday my poor little Mac got sick. I can turn it on but there is no display. I had to edit this chapter with my screen projected onto my T.V., so please excuse any errors that this chapter might have. For some reason it is much harder to edit on a television. Because I have to take my dear computer to the doctor (aka the apple store), I probably wont update either of my stories till this upcoming Sunday, so please be patient. If you miss me too much and you haven't started to read my other TVD fanfiction you could always do that! Lol

Sorry for my rambling… Enjoy!

The sun was shinning through the tall windows in the sitting room when I woke up with the taste of whisky in my mouth. I tried to move but was stuck under what seemed like a mess of limbs. When I moved the arm that was lying across my chest, I realized that the mess of limbs was really just Damon. We were laying on the floor in-between the couch and the coffee table. I pushed him to the side and sat up, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes. I tried to remember what happened the night before.

I knew I had drank a lot with Damon, I had asked to see his teeth, and-. It was then that I had remembered telling him about Jenny, about the crash that had killed her. Crap. I bet that had been great conversation.

I pushed the thoughts of my sister to the back of my head where they had stayed safely until last night. I needed normalcy, anything that would calm my nerves and make me forget about the crap that had been going on. It was then that I knew exactly what I needed.

I scurried for a small sheet of paper and pen and wrote Damon a quick note explaining where I would be. I didn't want him to think that I was ungrateful for his help and had run off yet again. Once that was lying beside him for when he woke up, I hurried upstairs to where I had found my suitcase of clothes and belongings last night after my shower. Damon must have gone back for my car sometime while he had me in the cellar or when I was with Klaus.

I threw on my athletic shorts, a tank top, and my running shoes and left the house, starting out jogging down the block.

As my feet sped up on the pavement, the stress of the past month melted away as I knew it would. Running had always been a way for me to relax, to sort out my life. When Jenny had died, it became more than that. It was a way to run from my problems without actually leaving—a way to escape the blank stares of my mother and the curt comments of my father.

Before I knew it, I was in downtown Mystic Falls, if you could call it that. It was a small town. Almost picturesque. It had the necessities of life—a courthouse, post office, small town grocery store. It even had a small grill, the one I had met Klaus in on that fateful day that I had run from the boarding house.

Contrasting the small town feel was the money that some of the homes obviously consisted of. The boarding house and the Lockwood's home were only a few of the big homes that lined the nicer streets. They were old, some probably dating back to the late 1800's. Landscaped yards were prevalent with these homes, and I could see fancy parties being held frequently on them.

The great thing about the town, though, was that everyone seemed so friendly. I was a stranger to this town, yet almost every person that saw me waved; whether they were watering their huge lawns or struggling with their children at the local grocery store. I smiled and waved back at each one, and I realized that this could be a place where I could stay for a while, somewhere where I could start over.

After running about five miles, I decided to return to the boarding house. My stomach was growling angrily at me when I finally arrived. To my surprise as I opened the door, the smell of homemade breakfast wafted towards me. I made my way to the kitchen to find Damon cracking eggs in a frying pan as waffles cooked in the iron.

"Glad to see you came back this time," Damon said with his back towards me.

"How did you know I was here?"

He turned towards me and smiled.

"Vampire hearing….one of the many perks." He walked over to the waffle iron emptied the contents of it onto a plate with an egg and slid it onto the table where a glass of orange juice was waiting. "A peace offering for me being dick last night."

He obviously felt bad about bringing up my sister so harshly last night. I smiled.

"Just last night?" I jabbed playfully.

"Ok, so for being a dick ever since you arrived. And for that I am truly sorry."

I could tell that he meant it, so I decided to sit and accept his offering. I was starving from my run anyways.

As I started to eat, Damon poured more batter onto the waffle iron and cracked another egg.

"Whoa!," I said. "This is plenty for me. I don't need anymore than this."

"So I'm not allowed to make myself anything?"

My chin dropped, and I didn't know what to say. Vampires eating waffles?

"Didn't think I could eat any other way than by tearing the throats out of innocent young girls?" he asked jokingly.

"Ummm…. Actually yes."

Damon chuckled.

"It's no O negative, but I can eat it." He paused for a moment, as if contemplating his next words carefully before continuing. "To answer the question that I was too rude to answer last night—about killing people—I'm abstaining from that… currently."

This shocked me a bit. How could a vampire not kill to live? As if reading my mind, he continued.

"Sometimes the hospitals get a little confused about why their blood supplies are low, but the bags of blood in the fridge can be a tasteless substitute."

"You seem happy about that," I joked.

"Ya, well lets just say it's a new diet for me."

His words sounded final, so I didn't pry. I personally didn't want to anyway. I would rather not hear about the people that had lost their lives to his hunger in the past.

The light on the iron lit up then and Damon removed his waffle and made his way toward the seat beside me. Before he made it, though, he doubled over in pain. A growl escaped his throat, and his plate fell to the ground, shattering on contact.

"Oh my gosh, are you ok?" I asked.

He straightened and turned away from me. Through gritted teeth he responded.

"Yeah, I-I'm fine."

I hopped down off the stool I was sitting on and went to his side to see what was wrong. As I put my hand on his shoulder, he whirled around and growled again. His eyes were dark and his fangs sharp. I gasped.

"Don't. Touch me right now." His words were fierce. I recoiled and his demeanor softened, his eyes lightening as he began to talk again. "I'm sorry. I just need to go sit down for a second."

Without looking back at me, he walked to the sitting room where we had been drinking last night, the bottles still scattered the table. He sat and poured himself something to drink, threw it back and laid his head back on the couch, closing his eyes.

Not wanting to bother him, I started to clean up the mess he had left on the floor. His voice shouted from the other room.

"Riley, I've got that. Leave it, and I'll get it in a minute."

"No it's fine. I can—" I took a sharp intake of breath as blood beaded out of a tiny cut on my index finger. "Crap."

I stood to run the small cut under the water, but before I could get to the sink I felt a hand around throat, and I crashed into the wall across the room. I screamed as I looked into the black of Damon's eyes. His words were as sharp as the shattered plate I had cut myself on.

"I. Told. You. To. Stop."

"Okay, Okay," I squeaked past the hand on my throat. "Damon, stop."

Damon roughly grabbed my wrist, looking intently at the small bead of blood sitting perfectly on the tip of my finger. It was then that I saw the hunger in his eyes, and I became truly frightened.

"Damon, please," I pleaded.

Those words seemed to wake him from a trance. He shook his head and his eyes returned to normal. He released his grip on me, and I fell to my knees.

"I-I," I started. Then he turned his back to me walking back to the living room and pulling out his cellphone.

Shaking, I got to my feet and made my way to the sink, turning on the hot water. I ran my quivering hand under the water and then pressed a paper towel firmly to the cut to stanch the bleeding. From the sitting room, I could hear Damon's muffled voice.

"What do you mean you haven't found anything, Bonnie?" He paused. "No, I'm sorry. I know your looking." Another pause. "Yeah. It's getting hard to control myself. Plus it hurts like Hell."

I walked into the room, and he looked up at me. His eyes told me I should leave until he was finished on the phone. I stood my ground. I wanted to know what was going on. He gave me a dirty look and continued talking.

"Thanks, Bonnie. Please just call my cell as soon as you find anything. If I don't answer, get here ASAP."

Damon hung up the phone and groaned. With his right hand he rubbed his eyes. His left arm lay limply, palm up on his leg.

I approached him cautiously.

"Damon? What's wrong?"

"Nothing Riley, everything's fine."

The grimace that appeared on his face following this statement made it entirely unbelievable. I raised my eyebrows in disbelief.

"Ok, so maybe it's not fine," he corrected himself.

I sat down beside him and he pulled the cuff of his shirtsleeve up past his elbow. The menacing bite mark that appeared when he did this took my breath away. It was clearly infected. What looked like black veins branched out from it up and down his arm. It looked excruciatingly painful.

"Damon! What is this? You have to go to a hospital!"

"No. I don't," he said. "Riley, it's a werewolf bite."

He said it so calmly, talking about something I didn't even know existed a couple of days ago.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means a werewolf bit me, duh," he smiled at me, trying to ease the panic that had sprung up so quickly. The smile didn't reach his eyes.

The obvious question was on my lips before I could stop it.

"I didn't do this, did I? You weren't around when—"

"No," he interrupted. "This doozy is the work of Tyler Lockwood. He was going to be used for the sacrifice, and I went to save him. He turned before he could get somewhere safe. The thing is I can't even really blame him, which sucks."

I processed what he had just said.

"So how do you make it better?"

The way he looked at me made me realize I wasn't going to like the answer. His ice blue eyes bore into mine.

"You don't."

"I don't understand," I said shaking my head.

"There is no known cure. I've got a witch looking for one, but no luck so far."

We sat in silence for a while, me looking at the infectious looking wound on his arm, him nursing his booze yet again.

I jumped when he spoke.

"Listen, as you saw before, this thing is making it really hard for me to stay away from blood right now, and unfortunately for you, your heart is sounding delicious underneath that pretty little chest of yours. You should probably leave."

"I'm not leaving," I said immediately.

He got up from his sitting position and downed the rest of the whiskey in his glass.

"Then I think it's your turn to lock me in the cellar," he said as he headed toward the basement door looking defeated.

A/N: Please consider leaving a comment to tell me what you think! It would be much appreciated! Thanks!