Cleaned up, dressed, and having kissed his girl a few dozen times (and having also kissed all of the other girls just to show his appreciation), Damon convened a council of war around the Gilbert kitchen table.

"Not enough room in here, really," Damon remarked. "But I suppose this is still a safer place to be than the boarding house." He was holding hands with Elena, who couldn't stop touching him and reassuring herself that he was real. He felt the same way. She had a bandage on one of her hands just like the last time he had been with her in the flesh, so it was almost like the past two weeks had never happened. Like he had never left her at all.

Emily had flickered back to the Other Side to confer again with her witch alliance. She was to return to the Gilbert house with news of Alaric Saltzman's location. Tatia had remained with Damon, though, and was now perched on a bar stool, staring at Jeremy in fascination.

"Such a pretty boy," Tatia crooned, as she reached over, and tried to touch his hair.

Jeremy swatted at her hand, but of course could not make contact. He looked at Damon with wide eyes. "Can you make her stop?"

"Oh, suck it up. She likes you. And it's a treat for her to be around people who can actually see her."

Grace interjected, "I think she's rather sweet."

"Yeah, but she looks exactly like my sister, so that makes this really creepy."

"Suck . . . It . . . Up," Damon repeated. "Okay, so here's the deal - I can't tell you any of the details of my mission."

"What? Why not?" Bonnie asked.

"I can't. We have to leave it at that." Damon caught Grace's eye. "But you know, don't you? You're the girl that knows stuff."

For the first time since he had met her, Damon saw the smile slip from Grace's face. She answered, solemnly, "Yes. I know. Emily and I talked about it."

Damon was quiet for a second. "Well." He looked around at everyone else. The witches, the ghosts (he was counting himself), the vampires, the doppelganger, the human. "There's been a lot of death in this town. There is always a war going on here, it seems, and I don't think we have seen the last of the casualties. So before things get all crazy again, I just wanted to tell everyone here that I appreciate what you did tonight. I've had a great deal of time to think about what it means to be alive, and what it means to not be alive, in the time I have spent away from here. And I realized that I didn't say thank you enough when I had the chance. I didn't say that I was sorry enough." Damon made eye contact with his brother, while tightening his hold on Elena's non-injured hand. "So I am taking that chance now."

"I love you, too, Damon," Jeremy said, making a kissy face. Tatia giggled at him. She reached out to stroke his hair again, and he ducked his head.

"Oh, yeah, and I totally didn't kick your ass enough times, younger Gilbert. I owe you a couple of neck snaps for all the crap you put me through while dead." Damon paused, and then said, "Does anyone know where Caroline and Tyler are tonight?"

Elena shook her head, but Bonnie said, "They definitely went off together. Caroline was bitching earlier that both of their moms are on their cases lately, and they can't get any privacy."

Damon nodded. "Well, I'll just have to catch up with them later, then. Okay, that's it. Go away and get some rest. No more excitement tonight. Not for you guys. Plenty of excitement left in the evening for Elena and myself." He held up his phone. "Elena was kind enough to program everyone's number in here for me, so if I need witchy help I'll text you."

Lucy said, "I don't understand. You only have twenty four hours, correct? Shouldn't we making plans on how to bring Alaric Saltzman here? Don't we have a lot of work to do in a very short amount of time?"

Damon tried to think of an appropriate story to tell them, one that would shut them up and make them leave so he could slip off and terminate his targets. Before he had to answer, he was relieved to notice that Emily had arrived at the table.

"Hey, it's General Bennett, herself. What do you have for us, Emily? Shove over Stefan, you're crowding her."

"Elijah Mikaleson is dead."

"No," Damon said, shaking his head. "No, that can't be."

"What is she saying?" Elena asked, tugging on his hand.

Grace answered, "Some guy named Elijah is dead."

Elena brought her hand to her mouth. "No. God, no."

Tatia slid from her chair, and began to howl on the floor.

Stefan brought out his phone, and started dialing. "Calling Rebekah." He left the table, and went into the living room area.

The noise Tatia was making was deafening for Damon, Emily, Jeremy and Grace. All of them covered their ears. Damon, pointing at Tatia, said to Jeremy, loudly, "Make her go away."

"How?" Jeremy asked, in a shout.

Damon rolled his eyes. "Well, how did you keep kicking me out? There's no off button for her, I've already checked. So unless you want nothing but howler monkey in your ears, do something."

Jeremy just shrugged, keeping his ears covered.

Damon went over to Tatia. "Hey there. Hey, pretty girl, it's okay. He's only dead, you know. Not a big deal."

Tatia stopped wailing. She looked up at him with a tear streaked face. "My love. I must go to find him," she said with a sob. And she flickered and was gone.

Damon stood up. "Thank God, that's that. Where did Ric catch up to him?" he asked Emily.

"Montreal. He had over ten thousand descendants. They all died an hour ago."

"Emily says Ric just killed Elijah in Canada about a couple of hours ago. So he's nowhere near here yet, if he's even coming this way." Damon told the others.

"He is coming this way, Damon," Emily responded. "Klaus was with Elijah, and just barely made his escape. The hunter is tracking Klaus, and Klaus is coming here." She inclined her head towards Elena. "For her."

"Then that thing you want me to do, we put that on hold, right, Emily? We focus on Klaus and on Ric now."

Emily shook her head. "I cannot alter the deal made with the witch council, Damon. For it to remain valid, you have to fulfill the conditions. If you want us to agree to send you back here on occasion, then you must honor the deal you made."

"Fuck." Damon slammed his hand on the table, making Elena jump. "Then we face genocide, Emily. How many descendants does Klaus have, including the ones in Mystic Falls?"

"Klaus was the most prolific of Esther's monster children. He has well over thirty thousand descendants. It was a bit of a hobby for him."

"My brother among them. Katherine, Caroline, Abby." Damon sighed. "Well, Emily, how much time do we have?"

"Klaus is trying to lose the vampire hunter. He will not come straight here. I do not know how long it will take them. Perhaps only until the morning, perhaps longer."

Stefan came back into the kitchen. "Rebekah didn't know. She knew about Kol, of course, but not Elijah. She wouldn't tell me where she was, but it sounded like it was somewhere very remote."

"Thank God," Lucy said, as she reached over for Leslie's hand. "Did you tell her to stay far from here?"

"Yes," Stefan responded. "She's devastated, and completely freaked out. I don't think she's going anywhere any time soon."

"There's no time, no time." Damon turned Elena, and put a hand on each of her shoulders. He looked her in the eyes. "I love you. I thought we would have more time. But this is how it is, and I'm sorry. Now I have to be a soldier, and I have to do things that I don't want you to see. Will you stay here for me? Can you do that?"

Elena shook her head. "Of course not."

"Damnit, Elena," Damon sighed.

His new body really was pretty incredible. With a quick, "Watch her. Keep her here, Stef. Keep them all here." Damon sped away into the night at warp speed.

He made it to the werewolf cellar on the Lockwood property amazingly fast.

Now that was cool, Damon thought to himself. I could have used this body any number of times in the past 160 odd years. He paused at the top of the steps. Damon could clearly hear Tyler and Caroline down there, talking about random things. Mostly random things having to do with prom and prom related miscellany.

Damon didn't need a weapon. All he had to do was go down there, reach into Tyler's chest and rip out his heart. That was all. And it would be one down, three to go.

Do it fast. He could do it crazy fast in this body. He could do it, and then be out of there so fast that he wouldn't even hear Caroline cry.

It was time. Time to add another knife to his night.

Damon sped into the cellar, and had his hand buried in Tyler's chest, and wrapped around Tyler's heart before Caroline had finished her sentence about how Melody Fell was majorly messing up prom planning with her ridiculous decor requests.

"Damon!" Caroline squeaked, holding a blanket up to her chin.

Damon was looking Tyler straight in the eyes, as he tightened his hold on Tyler's heart.

"Why?" Tyler croaked out, as he struggled for air. "Why?"

"Why?" Damon echoed. "Why, why, why."

Damon closed his eyes. He felt the weight of Tyler's heart in his hand, fet the pressure of Tyler's rib cage. So easy to end it. Too easy. "Good question. Excellent question." Damon looked away from Tyler, and at Caroline. At her face, so full of horror. So like the faces of his victims, the ones he saw when night came for him on the Other Side. The fear. The despair. And he knew. He knew this wasn't going to happen.

"Fuck this. Fuck this shit," Damon said, as he stopped squeezing. He relaxed his hold. Carefully, gently, he pulled his hand out, and watched as Tyler's wound healed.

"What is going on?" Caroline asked, "What the hell are you doing?"

"I don't know," Damon replied. He looked down at the blood coating his hand. "I don't know what I am doing." Damon sank down to his knees. "This can't be me."

Caroline's eyes were wide, as she held Tyler around the shoulders. "Did you come back evil?"

Damon laughed, a harsh sound. "No. That's the problem."

Tyler was looking down at his chest. "Dude. What the fuck."

"Exactly," Damon said. "Exactly. Now what, Emily?" He raised his eyes to the ceiling of the cellar. "Now what?"

Emily came down the steps slowly, her long skirts trailing in the dirt.

"You can't do it, can you? Now that you know what death really is, you can't send anyone else there."

"I was supposed to be the unteachable one, Emily. But I have come back changed. What the fuck happened to me?" Damon asked her, tears in his eyes.

Emily's tone was gentle. "Damon, the great killer. Do you know how many knives you face when the night comes for you?"

"Who is he talking to?" Caroline whispered to Tyler, who shrugged. "I am so confused."

"No. Hard to keep track when you are so busy having your guts spitted and split."

"Four more knives would have been nothing to you, in the larger picture. Four among several hundred."

"Have I really killed as many as that? Hundreds, in the multiples?"

"Yes, you have."

"But I am refusing to kill these four. For most of my existence, I killed casually, for pleasure, for kicks. There are just these four more in between me and what I want. Between me and being with my girl." Damon shook his head. "But I can't kill these four when it really matters. Hybrids, no less. What is going on with me? I don't evolve. I don't grow and I don't change. That's why I am so damn charming. Have I developed morality? Did I become Stefan, for fuck's sake? Is this what you were trying to teach me on the Other Side?"

"It doesn't matter to me if you are a moral man or a wicked one. I am only concerned with your usefulness. If you cannot be the soldier we need, then you have ceased to be useful as far as the witches are concerned." She paused, and then asked him. "Did you fail only because you know this one? Perhaps the others will be easier."

Damon shook his head. "No. I failed because I couldn't answer his question. Why?"

"You could. It's just that the answer would have been a selfish one."

"Why kill him? Why kill them? I don't give a fuck that the witches think hybrids are an abomination. They have hopes and lives and people who love them just like anyone else. They have to go to fucking prom. I can't kill Caroline's boyfriend right before fucking prom." Damon laughed harshly again. "Monsters are people, too, Emily. We are. We so fucking are."

"Seriously, dude," Tyler said, looking around. "Who are you talking to? You are freaking us out."

Caroline whispered, "I think he's having a psychotic break. Being dead must have fried his circuits or something. Call Stefan."

"So you are not our soldier. We chose the wrong champion. I'm disappointed, Damon."

"Do you hear yourself, Emily? You are disappointed because I won't kill people. How did it come to this? Did you ever stop to think that maybe you're the bad guy here? You were willing to end Ric so your girl Lucy wouldn't have to say goodbye to her girlfriend. But you would take Tyler away from Caroline, and not lose a second's peace over it. So fuck you, Emily. I'm no longer your foot soldier. Not your errand boy." Damon stood up. "Yes, you still have your champion. But I'm doing it my way - and I still have over twenty hours left."

Damon turned to Caroline and Tyler. "Up. Get dressed." He pointed at Tyler. "I spared you, Lockwood. That means your life belongs to me, now."

"Um . . . what?"

"I need an army, and you just signed up. Welcome aboard, recruit."