A/N: Hi! So, the 150th reviewer happened to be VampCaroline, so, darling, PM or review and tell me your request, and I'll try to incorporate it! Thanks for reviewing, dear, so I'm willing to try anything you have in mind as long as it isn't totally plot-changing. I mean, I could put in a specific line, a detail, a conversation between two particular characters…anything. I love all of you, and thank you so much for putting up with my long hiatus!

Also, hint: A few of our favorite characters are gonna show up next chapter. *wink wink nudge nudge* Try to guess, guys!

Disclaimer: Wow, I haven't done one of these in a while (yay). Um. I don't own? (Not yay.)

hold me in your standstill ground – Rachael Yamagata, "Over and Over"

After about a million years of awkward silence pass, Caroline takes in a deep breath, crosses the room, and throws herself onto the one queen-sized bed. "I'm not taking the floor," she announces, her voice muffled into the pillow, and she hears Damon snicker quietly to himself as he sits down next to her prone form.

"Neither am I," he mumbles, and she feels the vibrations echo through the bed as he lies down. "God, I'm tired."

"Me, too," she replies, except her voice doesn't actually sound like she's speaking English since the pillows are swallowing up all her words, and she hears that stupid, smug, sweet snicker of his, and God she hates him for being so damn attractive when all she wants to do is sleep and tease him about his sex dreams. Her fingers clench the sheets around her and she tries very, very hard to fall asleep.

It really doesn't work, but then again, he is sitting up right next to her. What did she honestly expect?

He breaks the silence a few minutes later when he asks her, quietly, "Do you think things are going to get better?" He doesn't know why he asks her, except it seems like Caroline should know because Caroline knows so much—how to be so badass and so trusting and so kind and so strong all at once, and he doesn't understand how she hasn't been broken all the way yet, except maybe it's okay to be broken halfway because that just makes her more beautiful.

Time passes as she seems to consider his question, and he looks down at the back of her head, curls tossing in the air slightly as she shakes her head in confusion and exhaustion. "No idea," she mumbles into the pillow, and he knows that, despite her "badass stranger" reputation, despite the fact that he hardly knows her…he thinks he understands her. He thinks he understands that she's just as confused and terrified as she is, and that she's just as tired as he feels, and that maybe they all just want to go to sleep for a whole year and wake up to have no zombies milling around.

But he's Damon Salvatore and she's Caroline Forbes and he's rapidly beginning to understand that both of them rarely get what they really want.

And while he's thinking all of this, while he's trying to string coherent thoughts together past his fatigue, he watches as the rise and fall of her shoulders becomes steadier and listens as her breathing paces itself slightly and drinks in the sight of her peaceful, calmer, asleep. She rolls onto her side, facing his waist so closely that he can feel her warm, comforting breath on the strip of skin where his shirt has ridden up. He slips down slightly so that he's not resting against the headboard anymore but instead lying down with his head resting on the pillow next to hers, all-too-aware of the fact that he could just lean forward and their lips would touch. All too aware of her breath on the back of his neck when he rolls onto his side, facing away from her, and all too aware of the fact that he wants to kiss her much more than he wants to sleep.

He forces himself to shut his eyes anyway, too tightly, and tries to think of anything but the girl behind him as he wishes for no more dreams.

He doesn't get his wish. As usual.

She wakes up breathless, the image of Tyler burned into her retinas again.

His spiky dark hair, crunchy to her fingers. His almost black eyes, which could be alternately the coldest or warmest things you ever saw. His hands—long, scarred, rough, callused, and familiar, comforting as he touched her. His dark skin, always warm. His lips, dark and sacred and dry on hers, tongue wet and pushy and unyielding. Tyler, laughing. Tyler, smiling at her. Tyler, yelling and then apologizing for it. Tyler, having eye sex with her. Tyler, sneaking out to meet her. Tyler, kissing Elena. Tyler, kissing her. Tyler, drunk. Tyler, hung-over and with the tendency to growl at anyone who made a noise. Tyler, beautiful; Tyler, dead but still alive in the sickest way imaginable; Tyler, with blood dripping from his lips; Tyler, with a bullet to his head that she put there. Tyler, Tyler, Tyler.

Rolling over, she reaches onto the nightstand for the pill bottle that Elena gave her that second night. She really needs to sleep. She needs to forget.

But then she remembers that she gave the pill bottle to Alaric and it's probably in the living room right now. They're probably almost out anyway, having given almost all of them to Elena or Katherine (and maybe Stefan to get him to finally sleep and stop brooding).

So for tonight, she'll just have to deal.

She's not gonna sleep anymore at all tonight, and she already knows it.

She can hear Damon's breathing, soft and oh-so-close from right next to her, troubled and light, almost echoing hers as her breath hitches. She frowns and closes her eyes.

It's funny. Tyler wasn't always that big, strong, tough, invulnerable guy you'd expect from his bad-guy persona. He had his rare moments of open, hesitant vulnerability, as though he expected her to laugh at him for it but he still trusted her with it anyway: the day his mom got in that harmless-but-they-didn't-know-it-yet car accident; the night she threatened to break up with him over Elena; their first night spent together that way, his lips soft and unsure on her newly-touched skin as she told him for the millionth time that yes, she was sure.

Oddly, those moments of tentative openness just made (make, a sneering voice whispers in her head) him seem stronger in her eyes. And it made him trust her more too with those weaknesses.

And now she definitely won't be sleeping tonight, and it's not like she wants to wake Damon up with her fidgeting (and possibly crying, but she won't ever admit to that).

So she walks out and down the hallway and pushes a random door open to some sort of den, like another living room. She studies it, deciding it'll do for her purposes, striking up a fire in the fireplace that conveniently has firewood in it, and curling up in the loveseat closest to its warmth and light in the otherwise cold and dark room.

Damon wanders in from the bedroom sleepily about twenty minutes later, coming into the den and finding her there, bent over her knees on the loveseat, elbows resting gently on her thighs. She's staring blankly at the wall.

(Thinking of Tyler's image, but he doesn't know that. Then again, she's also thinking guiltily of the image that kept interrupting her dreams: a face with dark blue eyes and barely-parted lips, looking down at her, elbows braced above her head, leaning in to maybe kiss her…)

"You okay?" he asks gruffly, and she startles, but she can hear the timid gentleness behind it, and she wonders just what made Damon so damn afraid of being tender, because she knows he's almost definitely capable of it. He just rejects it, like he's allergic to being human in this zombie-filled world. And who knows, maybe it's a defense mechanism. Who knows. She's not one to judge when she's got her own defense system.

"What happened?" he asks, still softly but not too gently, moving in closer to her when she doesn't answer.

She shrugs in response this time, hypersensitive and all-too-aware of the fact that he sits extremely close to her when he reaches the loveseat. His leg bumps her knee and she doesn't have the energy or the fear required to pull away, so she just leaves it there. "Woke up, couldn't go back to sleep. Didn't want to wake you up with my tossing and turning, so I came out here." She flashes him a smile they both know is fake. "Why? Is that why you woke up, 'cause I left? Didja miss me, snuggle bunny?" she mocks.

Damon chokes out a harsh, unexpected laugh, crossing his ankles and leaning forward until his hands just barely feel the warmth of the fire in front of them. "Maybe a bit," he smirks, teasing her right back, and she discards the urge to blush. "Maybe it was the whole sleeping-in-jeans-and-boots things. I sorta forgot to take my shoes off. Damn uncomfortable."

She lets a small smile show. "I'll bet." Luckily for her, she'd thought to toe off her sneakers before collapsing onto the bed. A minute of silence passes, and she begins to think that he's possibly waiting for something. "Did you want something?" The words come out sharper than she intended.

His head jerks up a bit at her voice, as though she's woken him up, and she realizes guiltily that he'd been falling asleep sitting up right next to her. Warm fingers squeeze around her chest area and she pushes away the feeling, knowing that it leads to nothing good to feel this safe and warm and untouchable in this world that she lives in now. It'll just knock her off her game, and nobody needs that. "Um, no," he stumbles, words slightly slurred by sleep, and his eyes are drooping and it really shouldn't be quite this adorable, "just…tired, Ca'line."

Caroline rolls her eyes and absolutely does not inhale too sharply at the feeling of sympathy and empathy and attraction rising up in her chest. "Me, too. Go back to bed."

He half-shrugs with one shoulder. "Rather stay out here with you, Care Bear."

A small smile forms on her face as she forces herself to remind him harshly, "Quit it with that nickname. It sucks and you know it. Asshole." She tacks on the asshole part for good measure, well aware that there's a line that they almost crossed earlier tonight at the gas station (or was it yesterday? She's lost track of the time) and that she shouldn't be touching it any time soon, if ever.

A returning small smile appears on his face as he looks at her like he's drunk and she's a princess and they've known each other for ten years instead of a few weeks. "G'night, Care Bear," he mutters out rudely, and then his eyes close and his breathing slips into a soft, unceasing pattern.

Though she scoffs and tries to prod him awake and eventually declares she's going back to the bed without him, Alaric still finds them four hours later curled around each other, her head on Damon's shoulder and their breathing in sync. Bed abandoned and fire dying, warm skin and fingers curling around each other's.

Stefan's on watch—Alaric's officially been declared AWOL and is probably asleep with Jenna at the moment—when Katherine stirs. By the time her eyes flutter open, he's bent over and curling his fingers around her unharmed hand. "Stef'n?" she mutters, eyes and throat still thick and unused from sleep and fevers, and he nods, clearing his throat just as she does.

"You're gonna be just fine," he promises, hardly even aware of what he's saying, only knowing that she looks so lost and confused that it hurts him, only that she's looking up at him with slowly-clearing gigantic doe eyes, only that one of her curls is in her face. He brushes it away absentmindedly with his free hand but leaves his fingers tracing outlines on her face. "You're okay, Kat, you're okay."

"Don't…call me Kat," she mumbles, leaning up slightly. He bends down to accommodate her, and she whispers in his ear, "Get me some fucking drugs." And then she drops back down onto the pillow, eyes closed but breathing too hitched with discomfort to be asleep so quickly. Besides, her fingers (from her unharmed hand) are tightening around his.

She's in pain. He reaches over for the sleeping pills and drops them into her waiting open mouth before pulling her to lean against his chest with a bottle of water to her lips. She rests easily with his heartbeat thudding into her back, and she's asleep again before he's laid her down.

She's getting better. He can hardly keep the hopeful smile off his face.

(Elena's asleep just a few feet away, and is it bad that he hardly even notices?)

A couple of weeks pass and things are becoming less intense. There have been only a couple of zombies sighted for about three days (they take shifts on the roof with a gun) and everyone's actually falling into a bit of a domestic routine. Caroline and Damon cook, Matt and Bonnie take shifts, Alaric and Jenna…make out like teenagers and do little chores around the house, Stefan patiently watches over Katherine and Elena, and Jeremy and Anna just kind of stare into each other's eyes and talk.

Thankfully, Jeremy and Anna are getting past their lovebirds, soul-melting-gaze stage, for which Bonnie is super-grateful (or so she whispers to Matt, which makes him smile a little sadly). It's been decided that the person that has the worst of it, so far, is Stefan. Not only does he have to deal with sarcastic, pained Katherine, but also with Elena, who has elected to give Stefan the mostly-silent treatment over their unofficial breakup status.

But Katherine is getting better. Her fever is completely gone, she isn't complaining anymore of phantom pains, and the infection is gone as well. She's no longer trying to use fingers that aren't there when she insists on making coffee or changing clothes. Stefan doesn't have to help her with the little things anymore.

Even though he secretly kind of wants to.

Jenna pauses by the door, axe in her hand. She smiles, hand braced against the halfway-open door, as Alaric turns to acknowledge her as he bends over the stove, making sure the spaghetti's heating up nicely. "I thought I'd go get more firewood. We're almost out and it's nearly dark, so better get it done now." She gestures to the fading daylight.

Alaric nods. "Okay. See ya in a minute." He leans towards her and they brush their lips together lightly.

There's a gagging sound across the room. "Spare me," Elena objects, hobbling on the crutches they'd managed to find a couple miles off near a clinic that had been thronged with zombies…but it had been worth it, or so Damon had claimed, to make her stop whining about her immobility.

"Just 'cause you're not getting any doesn't mean they shouldn't have to," Caroline grins as she and Damon enter. "Hey, Alaric, how's dinner coming along?"

"Fine," Alaric states, "how do you feel about making some garlic bread? Stefan and Katherine just got back from that CVS a couple minutes ago, and I think they brought bread. Might be a little stale, but it should be good if I can dig out the garlic from the spice cabinet."

"Sounds good," Caroline chirps, and Damon looks down at her fondly. Animatedly discussing what breakfast should be like tomorrow with Alaric, she doesn't notice.

But Jenna does, just before she slips out to get the firewood.

Bonnie pulls herself up on the roof by climbing the ladder they'd found back in the shed. "Hey," she murmurs, settling herself next to Matt. He jumps, looking surprised. "Thought you might like some company," she offers up.

"Thanks," he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck and looking as awkward as possible. "It does get kinda quiet up here. But at least I don't have to sleep up here…Anna and Jer ask to take the nights. Which is good for me."

She nearly winces at the mention of Anna and Jeremy…but she doesn't. Which is different. A good different, she thinks. "Yeah, that's good," she says, throwing her legs off the edge of the roof and crossing her ankles. "Wow, this is high. Never been a big fan of heights," she admits at his questioning look. "I can barely stand roller coasters. That was always more Elena and Caroline's thing. I'd stand below, eating cotton candy."

"Blue or pink?" he asks, a wry grin twisting his mouth and making her heart beat a little faster.

Her eyes dart to his sky-blue eyes, a little lighter with his smile reaching them. "Blue," she whispers, and then she realizes just how close they are: thighs touching, shoulders jumping, her hair practically brushing his neck thanks to her morning frizz. Damn it, she's in her pajamas. And isn't that attractive.

Why am I so worried about being attractive around Matt? He's like my best friend…like a male Elena or something.

But he's not. He's more than that. This all-American, blond-haired, blue-eyed, baseball-playing, smile-splits-his-face-wide-open, startled-so-easily-it's-sweet man that she met only a few weeks ago…well, he's more than just a best guy friend. He's…he makes her heart race. He makes her stomach jump to her throat when he laughs. He makes her skin sizzle with electricity when they accidentally touch just a little too long.

His eyes have widened, like he's realizing the same thing as her, and then…then, their lips are brushing and it takes her a moment to realize that they're kissing. To understand that this gentle kiss has turned into something a little more passionate, as his hand comes up to tangle in her wild morning bedhead curls and hers comes up to cup his firm, strong jaw. She bites down on his lower lip, more out of instinct than anything, and he lets out a little moan.

God damn, but that is a sexy sound. She lets out a similar one and leans in a little closer until there's almost no space between them.

And that's when they hear the scream.

Alaric is out the door, arm raised above his head and murderous expression on his face, before he even realizes that all he's armed with is a wooden spoon coated in spaghetti sauce. He searches the yard frantically until he sees her.

Her hair is caked with drying blood, clinging to her neck like sweat-soaked hair only much more horrifying, and her eyes are wild like a child's after a nightmare. Her plaid shirt and jeans are also covered in some arterial sprays of blood. The zombie lying dead at her feet, half-beheaded with the axe still stuck in its neck, would explain all of that.

He hates to do it, but his hands raise up automatically when her eyes lock onto his frame. Her hands drop to her sides just as his rise up, and he feels horribly guilty for treating her like something dangerous…but she is. In this mindset, she is.

Jenna lets out a sick, harsh laugh, and something in her seems to crumple. "Ric…it hurts," she whispers past dry lips, sounding ragged and hoarse when she was smiling ten minutes ago. She staggers to him, and he catches her in his arms, letting her face push its way into the warm skin between his neck and shoulder.

"What hurts?" he asks, patting her down for any wounds. But she doesn't flinch. She's not bleeding anywhere.

"Everything," she murmurs, and Damon and Caroline are suddenly there, silent and unsure of what to say or do, just witnesses to the meltdown.

Matt runs around the side of the house into Alaric's peripheral vision, Bonnie sprinting behind him. "Oh my god, I'm sorry," Matt pants. "I wasn't paying…I got distracted—I…" he hangs his head, still trying to catch his breath. "I'm so sorry, I'm…"

A sudden hardness in his chest makes it difficult for Alaric to breathe. "I don't care," he says, and he doesn't like how severe and cold he feels and sounds. But he's not in the mood to be forgiving. "You let this happen. You were supposed to be watching."

"But I—" Matt tries to say, but gets cut off.

"She could have died," Alaric hisses, holding Jenna tighter. She whimpers, but it seems to be more out of emotional pain than anything else. "And you would have let her. If she hadn't been holding that axe…"

I'd have killed you. The words are unspoken, but Matt seems to understand them. His eyes widen in shock, almost humorously, and he backs away slowly. He turns, but Jenna speaks, croaking, and it makes him turn back around. "It's okay, Matt," she rasps, pulling herself away from Alaric and brushing her tears away angrily out of frustration with herself. "You didn't mean to. Alaric, don't be hard on him."

"You could have died," Alaric repeats, placing weight on the dreaded word. "And it would have been his fault."

Jenna gestures to the distraught Matt a few feet away, Bonnie touching his arm comfortingly. "And you think he doesn't know that? He's learned his lesson. Be gentle with him. Please." She leans forward, placing a hand on Alaric's arm similarly to Bonnie calming Matt down. "Alaric, I'll be fine."

He notices too easily how she says I'll be instead of I am. And God, he wants to punch the hell out of this kid he's taught for two years. He wants to kick his ass for having the swollen lips of a recently-kissed person that match Bonnie's. He wants to hurt Matt for scaring him with this. But Jenna's hand on his arm calms him, and he settles down a little. "Go away, Matt," he says tiredly, now more exhausted than angry. And it's only five in the afternoon. "Get back to your shift."

Matt scrambles away like a scolded boy, head still firmly bent so low that it almost touches his chest with guilt, and Bonnie slowly walks after him. Alaric takes Jenna into his arms, and she lets him, relaxing into his hold as he tenses up even more in hers. "I'm sorry I left you alone," he murmurs. "I know you—"

"Know what?" she snaps, and her tone sounds playfully angry but he knows that underneath it's dangerous. "Know that I'm crazy? Know that I'm irreparable? Is that it?"

"I know that you're hurting," he emphasizes, and sees Damon and Caroline reentering the house awkwardly out of the corner of his eye. "I know that you're scared and sad and traumatized. And I'm sorry."

Jenna sighs and turns so that her back is braced against his chest. His arms fold over her stomach as she leans back into his warmth. "Sorry for what? Not babysitting me while I cut some firewood? That's stupid, Ric, and you know it. I'm a grown woman and I don't need you peering over my shoulder while I can stand to be on my own for five minutes. Just because this happened," she gestures to the corpse, "doesn't mean I can't handle myself. I think it just proves that I can."

He tightens his grip. "But—Jesus, Jen…your eyes…" He can still see the terrified, frenzied look in them, when normally they're so calm and loving and his.

She sighs. "I'm sorry. But…I can take care of myself. Maybe I'm a little messed up…" she grins that rueful, lopsided grin that's now more sad than funny these days. "…but hell, at least I can survive this. I'm a goddamn survivor."

"I know," he breathes, lips pressed to her hair. "Believe me, I know." And I'm sorry you have to be this way.

"What the hell happened?" Elena demands as soon as they reenter the house. "That scream—"

"It was Jenna," Damon states tiredly. Funny how easily they're all exhausted by just one incident these days. Elena flinches at was and he hurriedly amends the statement. "There was a zombie, but she took care of it. She's okay."

"I thought Matt was on watch," she asks more than says.

"He is," Caroline answers. "Guess he got distracted or something." She leans back and her back collides with Damon's chest from where he's standing just slightly behind her. She jumps forward, as though startled to find him there. As though startled that she didn't notice him, when she notices everything these days…like he's getting past her radar, becoming a normal thing in her life. And oh God, that freaks her out.

Damon's eyes are widened in shock similarly, but for him it's about how natural it felt for her to be pressed up against him like that, like how Jenna and Alaric—an actual honest-to-God couple—were outside.

"Um…" she rubs her arm. "I'm just gonna…go fix…yeah." She practically runs off.

"Smooth," Elena snickers, whose new purpose in life is to tease the romantically-involved.

Damon sighs. "Screw you," he mutters, and then the spaghetti on the stove catches fire. He reaches for a dishtowel. "Perfect. Just perfect."

"Did you see how he looked at me?" Matt says, more to himself than to her. He's pacing circles into the roof. She touches his arm and he meets her gaze, reluctantly sitting on the edge like before, radiating guilt and sorrow.

Bonnie sighs and swings her legs over the roof like she had ten minutes ago. "Everyone makes mistakes, Matt," she tries to soothe, but that doesn't help. He looks up, wild-eyed with guilt.

"But I can't! I can't afford to make those mistakes!" he insists. "I couldn't afford it when I got into college, or when I was raising my sister, and I especially can't afford it now with all these damn zombies coming after us! Jenna could have died because of me. Alaric's right not to trust me."

She smoothes her hands down his chest, covered by his blue t-shirt. "Matt, you need to calm down. Breathe. You made a mistake. And that's okay. Nobody's hurt. See?" she gestures down the ground below, where Alaric and Jenna are softly speaking. "Jenna forgave you. Alaric's just being a worried boyfriend. It's okay."

"It's not," he mumbles. "Alaric is the closest thing I've ever had to a dad, Bon. He…protected me, when all of the other students Turned. And how did I repay him? I practically killed his girlfriend."

"But you didn't," she asserts. "And you're okay. She's okay. And Alaric will be okay as soon as he calms down a little. Besides, it's as much my fault as it is yours. I was kissing back, all right? Half of that blame is mine, Matt."

Matt bites his lip, refuses to meet her eye. "Bonnie…that kiss…"

"Do you regret it?" she inhales sharply. Getting tossed away by Jeremy was one thing, but throwing herself out there for Matt is completely different. She's trusted so many parts of her life to this guy she's only known for a few weeks. A stupid decision, in retrospect, and now she's wondering how she could have been such an idiot when he could so easily hurt her—

"Of course not!" he says, looking shocked. "Bonnie, I've wanted to do that since—" he cuts himself off, his eyes firmly trained on his shoes now. "It doesn't matter. I don't regret the kiss. I just regret what almost happened because of it. I should have been paying attention. I have ages to kiss you. I should have been watching."

Bonnie sighs, feeling a girlish thrill at the unspoken promise of ages. "Well, I'll watch with you this time. No more distractions. And, hey?" she catches his attention and a rare second of eye contact before he looks down again. "Alaric will forgive you as soon as he cools off. Promise."

He bites his lip again and takes her hand, more for comfort than romance. "I hope so."

She curls her fingers around his and hopes, too.

Jeremy and Anna are nestled into each other on the loveseat when Caroline stumbles in. "You okay?" Anna asks, lifting her head off Jeremy's shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm—" Caroline pauses, swallows, looks faintly like she's going to be sick. "Just…I'm fine. Thanks. Get back to your…soul-staring shit, or whatever." She exits, hurrying back to the room that she and Damon have failed to share for weeks. They always end up on the couch, sacked out with her head on his shoulder, and always claiming that it means nothing.

Oh my God, how stupid am I?

She can't allow this. She can't afford to get close to somebody like this, especially Damon. God, that moment at the CVS could have been brushed off, even the falling-asleep-together could have been tossed away like it meant nothing, but…being so close to him, so comfortable around him, making him a routine and a part of her life, trusting him to brace her when she fell back against him without even realizing it…that, she can't ignore. That, she can't allow, because that's just like asking for Tyler to happen all over again. It's practically a guarantee.

She swallows, throwing herself on the bed and wishing she'd never woken up this morning. Especially not to Damon's arm thrown over her shoulders. She buries her face in the pillow and hopes that things will make sense when she wakes up, because she can feel sleep tingling on the edges of her mind.

The last thing she remembers is that the pillow smells like Damon, or maybe she's just imagining things.

A/N: Hey! So, I know it's been forever, but I hope you'll forgive me for such a long wait. Anyway, um, remember, VampCaroline needs to give me her request and then I can finish the next chapter, which I've already started on (I feel so productive!). I hope you all liked this chapter. Didja like the Monnie moment? Is Caroline getting freaked over nothing, or does she have legitimate fears over getting close to someone? Comment, question, critique, anything, but please be nice and please offer suggestions! I love you all and thank you so much.