A/N: I do not own The Vampire Diaries
Damon stood in the corner of the bedroom, arms and ankles crossed and leaning on the wall with one shoulder. It was eerily silent, neither of the occupants had anything to say. The vampire had spent a good portion of the night where he was, keeping watch over the form of his young friend. Her rest had been fitful and filled with nightmares despite the sedative he'd injected into her bloodstream to calm her. It seemed that as soon as she fell asleep, he would hear the screams and whispered moans and he would cross the room to the bed to wake her. Her eyes would take forever to focus and recognize him, but after they had, she'd slip back into unconsciousness only to repeat the process over again.
Now that it was morning, she sat up on the bed, staring out the window. She hadn't said a word to him, he wasn't even sure if she knew that he was there. He'd grown accustomed to observing her in the relatively short time since she'd come into his unlife, and she had always known when he was doing it. But right then he didn't feel as if she was actually in the room with him, that she was miles away, lost in her own mind.
He should be asking her what had happened for him to find her barely clinging to life the night before; he should ask whether she was alright. Heaven knows he wanted answers. He wanted a name and a face, the cause of the injuries that were burned into his mind. Her bones had healed, her jaw reset, the cuts faded into scars, but it wasn't the physical damage that concerned him. Something else had transpired in the time she'd been beaten and it left an unpleasant feeling in his gut.
He wasn't good at this kind of thing; comforting people. He preferred to leave that to Stefan, the more sensitive Salvatore. But Stefan's humanity was gone, and the witch had no one but him. Not that she'd let anyone else near her anyway, he mused. For some reason she freaked whenever Rick had come to see her, had even shrunk away from Rebekah, who she hadn't minded last night. The only one that she didn't look at with terror was him. So he waited, not leaving the room and not pushing her into a discussion that she wasn't ready to have yet. If she still had not talked by the afternoon, he would be making a call to Trent.
There was a gentle tap on the door and he turned to see that Rick was standing in the doorway, his gaze flicking between him and the girl that didn't respond at all. He briefly debated sending the hunter away, or seeing if Ryssa would object to him being there, but the witch gave no sign that she cared. Her behavior reminded him of when she'd gotten the call about Emma's death, she wasn't crying, she wasn't doing anything except staring into nothing. This worried him a little, he had hoped for some kind of reaction in her, whether it was anger or tears, heck he'd be happy if she'd just look at him. But she simply sat on the bed, her face turned to the window, her eyes empty and shadowed.
"How is she?" asked Rick when he left the room and they stood in the hall.
"No change."
"She hasn't said anything?"
"Not yet, no."
"How long are you going to let her stay like this?"
"As long as she needs," he shrugged and darted his gaze back into the room. "I don't know anything about how to handle this situation. I don't know who did this and until she's ready to talk, I'll let her stay exactly how she is."
"She should go to the hospital," Rick argued. "They have trauma doctors, she should talk to one."
"And I'll take her. If she tells me that's what she wants," he interrupted firmly. "Is there something else you needed?"
Rick sighed and pulled out several photographs and handed them to him and he flipped through them, brows furrowing. "I found these drawn on the cave walls, along with some writing. The best that I can figure out is that they tell a story, but I don't know what about."
"What kind of writing?" asked a quiet voice and both of them turned their heads to look at the witch who'd finally come out of her trance and now watched them. Her eyes were missing their usual fire and she had dark bags under them but she seemed alert. Ryssa got up off the bed and wrapped a blanket around her body and went over to Damon, holding out a hand for the pictures and he handed them over without hesitation. The witch examined each one carefully, before regarding them, her tone devoid of emotion. "Where are the rest of the pictures?"
"My apartment."
"I want to see them," she said to Damon and after a moment he nodded. He understood, she needed a distraction from her thoughts and memories, and if that was deciphering a bunch of cave drawings, then it would have to work. "Can you get me some clothes from my house? I'd go but—"
"Don't worry about it," he reassured her. "Go take a bath or something and then we'll go to Rick's," he suggested and steered her in the direction of the bathroom. His hand on the small of her back made her flinch very slightly but it passed almost too fast for him to catch it.
Damon and the hunter walked back to the front door and the vampire hesitated at the idea of leaving her alone and blurred to her house. He bypassed all of the blood and the broken stair rails and entered the room he'd found her in, his eyes straying to the spot she'd lain in before making his way to the closet. He grabbed one of the button-down shirts that had Elijah's scent on it, thinking that a familiar smell would put her at ease, and collected a pair of jeans and her under things as well as a brush and a bag to throw it all into. He added her photo of her and Emma and her phone charger and phone for good measure, should she want to make a call then left, closing the door behind him.
Ryssa gazed at the water as it poured from the faucet, warming her. She felt dirty. She turned the hot water as high as it would go and the cold off. The bath water began to sting her skin, tendrils of steam rising into the air but she could hardly feel it. She was grateful to Damon's interference and rescue, she doubted that she would be alive right now if he hadn't gotten there. Even better, he didn't force her into explaining, even though she knew he wanted to. Damon was hotheaded and impulsive, his vampire nature wanted blood for whoever had harmed her, only that was the problem; Damon couldn't kill a ghost.
Her thoughts wandered to Elijah and she sank down in the water until it reached her chin, her body comfortably numb from the hot temperature. She had no doubts that if Elijah were to find out what she'd gone through that heads would roll. The fact that a ghost had been the culprit was irrelevant. He would have hunted down whoever had a hand in letting the ghosts have a foothold and expressed his fury at her mistreatment. Or would go on a rampage and hunt until he'd calmed enough to take care of her. Despite that, she wished he was there with her, if only for the sensation of being safe that she experienced around him.
She remembered Rick coming in after Damon had brought her to the Boarding House but her head had screamed at her that he was a male and males were threats. Her instinct to flee had gotten too strong that she'd become too afraid to let him check over her injuries. Rebekah had been there too, talking to her softly and she wondered why. In retrospect, it struck her as odd that the blonde Original had even bothered to come see her. But then again, she'd also looked in on her that morning when she woke, before leaving after a scowl from Damon.
Damon... Damon she wasn't afraid of, he had somehow gotten to her in time to feed her his blood and she'd witnessed the very real vulnerability in his piercing ice blue eyes when he thought that she was going to die on him. His touch was soothing and kind, his expression tender as he'd kept an eye on her. He'd been there to wake her from the night terrors as well, and it came back to her what she'd heard her heart whispering to her head when he'd come too close. It's Damon, she'd heard. Damon is your friend, he won't hurt you. You're safe with him. Yet at the moment, she was skeptical that she would ever feel safe again.
How would she react to Elijah when he was un-daggered? That question bothered her the most right then. Would she be able to listen to her heart that he would never harm her, or would her head scream at her to run? She would have to find the strength within herself to explain to Damon what had happened in the simplest of terms. He was biting his tongue out of respect and concern for her but she knew that it wouldn't be long before his patience would snap and he'd want answers. How was she to say that it had been a ghost that had tortured her, beaten her, thrown her down a flight of stairs, then raped her?
The creak of the door opening was her only clue that the vampire had returned, and she heard him placing her things on the bed and the sound of his boots stopping outside the bathroom door. She listened, expecting him to walk away or say something but it was quiet.
"I'm fine, Damon," she said hoarsely. Her voice was scratchy due to screaming but luckily she didn't need to raise it. With his enhanced hearing, he'd heard her and the footsteps faded as he left the bedroom and went somewhere else in the house.
Ryssa wasn't fine, she was far from it. But she could pretend to be.
Damon didn't bother knocking before he threw open the door to Rebekah's room and the vampire glanced up at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Was Klaus behind Ryssa's condition?" he demanded.
"No, he's gone. I'd know if he sent someone to do that."
"Did you do it?"
"Of course not," she huffed indignantly. "I was here the whole time."
"How do I know that I can trust you?"
"I wouldn't have hurt the witch that badly," she replied.
"Why not?"
"She's in love with my brother," she answered and when he made no comment she went on, "Nik may not put much stock into love but I do. She's done nothing to warrant that sort of beating from me and she's important to Elijah. I wouldn't hurt her unless I had no choice or she provoked me into it."
"You expect me to believe that you won't go after her just because she loves Elijah?" he scoffed, eyes narrowed. "So help me, if I find out that you're lying and had something to do with this…"
"I'm not lying. We talked at the bonfire, she let me in on her plan to wake Elijah and retrieve her daughter. She promised to not go after Nik if he gave her back and would talk Elijah out of revenge. I have no reason to want her dead."
"Then who does?" he muttered to himself.
"My father," came the whisper from behind him and he turned to find that she'd again overheard the conversation. She was dressed in the clothes he'd brought for her, her damp hair braided and hanging over one shoulder. She'd also pulled on a sweatshirt that he recognized as one of his from his room and she refused to meet his gaze.
"Who?" he asked.
"My father came to me yesterday as a ghost," she repeated. "I don't know how, I didn't even realize that he was dead. He said Elijah killed him, but he never told me he did that. How pathetic is my life that I got abused by my father even after his death?" she laughed harshly.
"Bonnie screwed up by creating a door to the other side when she brought back Jeremy," he said and her eyes widened. "Anyone with unfinished business was allowed through; its how Mason got to us before. She fixed it though, he won't come back."
"Good," she mumbled. "Can we go to Rick's?"
"Yeah," he agreed and led her out of Rebekah's room and to the car. She lapsed back into silence on the drive and he didn't press for details, though he did want to.
When they reached the hunter's, Damon went to talk to Elena while she trained and Ryssa walked over to where Rick was sorting through pictures. She didn't acknowledge him and to his credit, he didn't ask the age-old question of how she was doing, instead let her study the photos. They worked together to label them and one made her pause. She brushed her fingertips over the runes in the photo that spelled his name, the ache making an unsurprising return inside of her at the reminder of his absence. She wrote his name on the sticky note and pressed it to the picture and set it aside.
Ryssa vaguely heard the vampire and Elena talking and struggled with the urge not to move away when they came up to the table, the residual skittishness rearing its head. Any sudden movements in her direction triggered the instinct to seek comfort and space, and she forcibly shoved it aside. Elena and Damon were friends, they weren't about to lash out at her unexpectedly. She did notice the worried glance that she received from the doppelganger but again pretended not to.
Not long after, Elena left to chat with Rebekah, hoping to get some information on the Original family and she was left with the vampire and hunter. When she started to yawn, Damon nudged her in the direction of Rick's bedroom, insisting that she needed to sleep and that he would be in the next room should she need him. Too tired to argue, she gave him a sleepy half-smile and allowed him to push her onto the bed and surrendered to the darkness that crept up to claim her.
While the witch rested in the next room, Damon left to go check on Stefan and to see if he could reach his younger brother but made sure to warn Rick about the girl's recent night terrors. Not long after he left Elena came back, followed shortly by Bonnie and the Bennett witch peeked inside of the room at the sleeping girl. She'd heard from Damon about where Ryssa had been while she'd been doing the spell and felt guilty for not realizing that something was wrong sooner. She had been so preoccupied with resealing the door that it hadn't occurred to her that the witch might have been in trouble, thus the missed calls.
Bonnie moved to the bed as Ryssa began to toss and turn, whimpering in her slumber. She pressed her fingertips to the witch's temples and reached out with her magic and her jaw dropped in horror as Ryssa's dream played in her mind. She watched as an unknown man cut into her body with sharp knives, and winced as she felt the phantom pain where the girl had been kicked and hit. Tears streamed from her eyes as Ryssa went down the stairs and she fought the desire to cry out when the final part of the dream unfolded. Ryssa had been through hell at her father's hands and she was amazed that she'd even survived at all. Ryssa's dream faded in and out as the girl had lost and regained consciousness then got clearer when she saw Damon's anxious face and watched his mouth forming words and holding his bleeding wrist to the girl's mouth. If Damon had been even five minutes later, the witch wouldn't have lived.
Bonnie sent healing energy into Ryssa, chanting a spell to give her dreamless sleep instead of the nightmarish memories she was reliving in her mind. She broke the connection when the witch stopped thrashing and her breaths steadied and went back into the other room, the images replaying in her head.
"What?" asked Rick when he caught a glimpse of her teary expression.
"Ryssa wasn't just beaten by her father's ghost," she informed him slowly. "She was raped."
Elena gasped and Rick's face drained of color and he pulled out his phone to text Damon on what Bonnie had discovered. Bonnie clung to her best friend, her heart going out to the witch who'd always carried an air of confidence about her. She couldn't imagine going through what she had and waking up the next day, it was too horrible. But then, she realized, Ryssa had done it for years. She recalled the other witch confiding in her about her home life before Elijah had stepped in and afterward. Her respect for Ryssa grew, and she promised to herself to try harder to become her friend.
Ryssa woke to find herself alone in Rick's apartment and was sheepish when she remembered that she hadn't eaten that day. She searched Rick's cupboards until she found a box of macaroni and cheese and made it, tensing when the door opened. She lunged for a knife from the holder and spun but her wrist was seized before she could use it and she let out a breath that it was just Damon. He calmly lowered her hand and she dropped the knife and permitted her embrace around him as her control over her emotions faltered, running his fingers through her hair.
Damon wasn't really one for the whole touchy feelly crap but as he saw the raw fear in her eyes when she'd whirled around, it broke his resolve. When he'd read the text from Rick about what Bonnie had discovered, he wanted to smash something. He knew something else had been done, and it bugged him to see the tough and snarky witch with such a broken spirit. She'd always pulled herself together, her moods switching from feisty to loyal to amused to angry quicker than he could blink. He'd been on the wrong side of that anger enough to know that she could cause some serious destruction. He admired that she held fast to her beliefs, even when it had been inconvenient for them when they'd wanted information on her Original boyfriend. Above all, she'd been one of the first people to freely trust him, that didn't use or abuse him. Elena trusted him sometimes but he would never be her first choice. He was beginning to agree with Elijah's statement that Ryssa was valuable, and that he was lucky she cared so much.
When her tears stopped, she extracted herself from his hold and he lifted her chin to look into his eyes instead of away like she'd done since she'd woken up. "I can make you forget if you want," he offered.
"Why? It's just one more memory to add to the rest of them. Even if you erased yesterday, I have the others from growing up with it every day till I was fifteen."
"I can make you forget all of them, then."
"No," she shook her head. "I dealt with them last time, I can handle this one. I just need some time I think."
"How about I call Trent?" he suggested. "It might help to have a family member around. He was there before, right?"
She considered the offer and nodded and he made the call and she listened. He gave Trent the address to the Boarding House and as little of the details as he could, but the other man sensed the urgency and seriousness in his tone and vowed to be there first thing the next day. For a second time, she allowed him to lead her out if the apartment and to the car and back to the Boarding House. As soon as they reached it, she shot him another partial smile and retired to her room with a muttered goodnight and he watched her go before heading to Elena's to share with her the plan to work with Mikael.
