I'm Baaaack! And so is TVD, finally. Anyone else incredibly excited that Stefan's stuck in the tomb and Damon is taking care of Elena? Damn I haven't been this excited since…who knows when. Maybe our hero will finally catch a break. Also, thank you so much for showing up last update and leaving an amazing response, it was lovely :) Here we go again!

Chapter 12: All You Wanted

… … …

But we still hold on

'Cause it was all you wanted and

All I needed

But all I gave up now

Could you hold me tighter

When worlds collide and just

Hold me down right now

… … …

Previously:

…"Have you found out anything more about the shapeshifters?" She whispered nervously, as if she was afraid they would hear her. Then again, for all they knew, it could very well be a possibility.

"No, but I'm going to talk to the teacher about them in a few hours, see what we can piece together."

"Can I come with you? I want to know why they're after us. That wolf in the woods jumped at me, not you. " Elena's eyes darkened, but fear still traced her features, and Damon knew he couldn't say no.

…"I'm in love with Damon."…

That's when she noticed the thick, wrinkled plastic jutting from his back pocket, tinged with a watery shade of red…

"Oh my god," Elena whispered in a low voice, shaking her head. "What did you do, Stefan?" She backed away from him and off the mattress, her heart beating erratically. "That's a blood bag, isn't it?"

"I needed to protect you."

… … …

"So, can you tell us why the hell these shapeshifters are after us?" Damon asked bluntly, settling down next to Elena on Saltzman's couch.

Alaric faintly shook his head, sinking into the armchair across from them. "There is an incredibly scarce amount of information on these creatures, considering most of the people who encounter them don't live to tell the tale. But from what I've gathered, they're very power-hungry beings, and don't like sharing their turf. If they cross paths with another supernatural being, they'll do anything to eliminate them. My guess is the two of you are sort of like a supernatural hotspot, Damon being a vampire and Elena over here what we assume to be some sort of doppelganger."

Damon's brow furrowed, his hands slapping down over his knees. "Great. And now they're in Mystic Falls: the town that attracts supernatural beings like moths to a light." Elena scrunched her eyes shut, throwing her head back against the couch.

Damon inclined his head toward Alaric forebodingly. "And how would we kill one of these so called shapeshifters?"

The teacher grimaced. "I…I'm not entirely sure if you can. There's no record of it ever being done."

Elena lifted her head up to glance at Damon, her palm flying up to her forehead. He turned to meet her gaze, eyes wide on all sides. After a second or two, they looked away.

"Shit," they both muttered simultaneously, Elena shaking her head and Damon swallowing hard. After a few moments, Damon rose to go, Elena following suit.

"Well, thanks for telling us what you know, Ric. Not that it helped us out, but it seems like nothing can anyways."

Alaric nodded in reply, and Elena mumbled her thanks before following Damon out the door and to his old blue chevy. Elena climbed into the passenger seat, leaning against the head rest and sighing.

"This has not been my day," she groaned, staring out the window. "First Stefan, and then there's this, and Jenna…" Jenna was livid when Elena came crawling home this morning, near shouting and grounding Elena into eternity. However, Damon had decided it wasn't safe for Elena to stay alone in her own home anymore, and wanted to compel Jenna into letting Elena at least temporarily stay at the boarding house. Elena had protested at first, hating when Damon messed with her family members' minds, but eventually agreed, if reluctantly, that it was the only way.

Damon took a hand off the wheel to reach over and clasp one of hers, rubbing his thumb over her the back of her hand soothingly. "We'll make it through this, Elena. Chin up." Even he could hear the doubt threatening to show through his thin voice. Thankfully they hadn't crossed paths with Bonnie yet; they both knew she would be far from happy to see either of them.

They pulled up to the boarding house, and Elena sluggishly got out of the car, trudging around the front and slowly shuffling toward the front door through the snow. Damon caught her by the elbow, spinning her around to face him.

"Hey." He leveled her with a piercing blue gaze, his hands wrapping around her upper arms. "Look at me. We're gonna pull through this, do you hear me? I know things are looking pretty dim right now, but we can't let that get to us. Not Stefan, or Bonnie, or even these goddamn demons are going to pull us apart. Don't give up yet." Damon's eyes were burning through her, and Elena tilted her head up, her chin quivering. She nodded, pulling her arms out of his grasp to wrap them around his neck. She pushed herself up on her tiptoes to capture his bottom lip between hers, her mouth trembling slightly. He reacted immediately, his warm lips sending her brain into a clouded frenzy. She opened her lips to breathe a hot breath into his mouth, and his tongue slipped out to meet hers. Elena pulled away while she still could, her heavy breathing puffing around them visibly in the freezing air. She leaned her head to the side against his chest, letting her eyes drift shut.

"I love you," she reminded him, drinking in his warm, musky scent. He held her tighter, resting his chin atop her head, and that was all the response she needed. She pulled away all too quickly, stepping in front of him and grabbing his hand to pull him toward the front door. "Oh, and Damon?" she said, turning back to look at him as she walked.

"Hm?" he responded, a crooked grin forming on his lips.

"You can keep the picture you took from my dresser."

… … …

Damon locked the door behind them, even if he knew it probably wouldn't do much good. He tilted his head, listening for anything out of the ordinary in the house. Hearing only the TV upstairs, he grabbed Elena's hand and ascended the staircase, his eyes darting toward the windows every few seconds. They walked in a room to see Stefan slouched in front of the TV, his eyes fixated on the news flashing across the screen. Elena frowned, getting a strange feeling that she recognized the scene being showed.

"We're here at the ruins of the old Fell's Church, what was left of one of the original structures built in Mystic Falls. It was reported to us that late this afternoon, someone out jogging in the woods found the place a complete wreck. Trees knocked over, stones cracked, disturbed earth, and the already crumbling ruins strewn across the forest in this unexpected and violent act of vandalism. No word yet on who-" The screen suddenly cut to black, and Stefan stood up, dropping the remote. He glanced from Damon to Elena and down to their clasped hands, a disgusted look twisting his features. He left the room silently, knocking against Damon's shoulder in the process. When he was gone, Elena turned to Damon, her eyebrows raised in confusion and disbelief.

"What the hell was that?"

Damon paused a moment before answering grimly, "It looks like the demons are…indiscriminant in what they destroy. They went for the church because they know that twenty some-odd vampires are entombed below it. But from the looks of it, they couldn't get in. But they damn sure tried."

Elena shuddered at his words. The ruins, which looked bad enough beforehand, were nearly unrecognizable now. No telling what these demons could do to a single human.

Damon draped an arm over her shoulders. "Come on. Like it or not we better tell Broody what we found out from Saltzman. He may be off his rocker at the moment, but he still needs to know what we're up against." She nodded, leaning against him as they traipsed back down the stairs.

"Stefan?" Damon called out. "We need to talk to you." There was a blur, and the younger brother materialized in front of them. His mouth set in a hard line, he tilted his head impatiently. "So, about these little devils-"

They were interrupted by a deafening creaking noise and a blast of icy, cutting wind. All three heads snapped toward the door, which was swung open and slammed back against the wall behind it. The freezing wind whipped around them, slicing through them like a knife and wracking Elena's slender frame. Suddenly, so quickly it could've been mistaken for a trick of the light, a black shadow darted into the room, skating over the walls. Elena's eyes rounded as it leaped above them to the ceiling, and Damon shielded her with his body protectively. Two more smoky black shadows emerged, and the three forms swarmed together toward the two brothers and Elena, corralling them into each other and swirling about them in a tight circle. The lights flickered, and the cold wind intensified, whipping around them until it felt like they couldn't breathe. Elena began to hyperventilate, turning her back to Stefan, who was in a protective stance on her other side, and clutching her arms around Damon's waist, hiding her face against him.

In a split second, the lights in the house were extinguished altogether, leaving them in a dreadful pitch blackness. The wind was stilled, and the air eerily quiet. For a painfully long moment, the room was silent, save Elena's heavy breathing. Then a low, rumbling, menacing growl filled the room, accompanied by a gnashing of teeth and soft padding of paws. The paws of three wolves. The growling grew more ferocious, more urgent. Closer. Then, as quickly as they had come, they disappeared. The lights flickered back on, and the front door swung shut. The room's three occupants turned to look at each other in alarm, all pairs of eyes wide with terror. Elena was shaking violently, and Stefan sped to the cellar, presumably to get a fix and calm himself down. Damon ran a hand through his hair, mussing it even more. Elena's knees felt like water, and her eyes couldn't focus on anything.

"We're all going to die, aren't we?" she whimpered before her eyes rolled back in her head and she sank to the ground, everything fading to nothingness.

… … …

Have mercy. These creepy old things are deliciously fun (and a little unnerving) to write. Hope I'm not going too overboard for you all. Thanks for being amazing reviewers, and please continue to take a few moments and leave a review! Sorry the chapters aren't as long as they used to be, but I honestly have no time to write more. So it's either shorter weekly updates, or long ones every 2 weeks. That's all for now! Goodness, The wind just picked up outside the house. I'm going to hide now. *crawls under the table*