"Emily," he called. From her spot on the ground near Vicki's grey body, Emily's eyes snapped to Damon, who was stood opposite her for some reason.

She barely acknowledged his presence as she re-faced the body. "…I killed her," she quietly says, tears streaming silently down her stained cheeks, her hands open-palmed in her lap, covered in half-heartedly wiped blood.

Damon took in her words, her state, and felt his heart pinch him in a minor form of guilt. He ripped his eyes away from her and shook it off. "Go home. I'll take care of this," he said.

She didn't reply, just sat there, as if as dead as the body opposite her.

Damon clenched his jaw from tension and inhaled tiredly. He approached her, crouching down beside her. "Emily," he called firmly. She shook her head repeatedly.

"No…No, I did this. I killed Matt's sister," she gasped and quivered as more tears fell. Damon rolled his eyes.

"For fuck's sake, Em. You were protecting your sister. Besides. I turned her, remember?" he told with a hint of sarcasm.

Emily snapped to face him, feeling anger boil up in her chest,

till she realized she didn't have it in her to yell.

Damon refused her glossy, red-eyed gaze, and looked instead to the body. He noted how it had happened. Seemed Emily finally did what she'd threatened to do to him. He was kind of impressed, but she obviously didn't want to hear that.

Emily didn't overlook that he couldn't look her in the eye,

as though he knew what he'd done was wrong.

"Go home. I got this," he repeated. Emily sniffed and took a minute, her tears finally freezing. Damon stole a glance before she got to her feet alas, but slipped on her high-heel boots, and nearly feel till Damon shot up and grabbed her arm. "Easy there," he spared her a smirk to mask his spark of concern.

She ripped her arm free, her nose scrunched up as if in disgust or resistance. She didn't face him, and said nothing as she turned away wordlessly, leaving Damon more uncomfortable than he ought to be.

XXX

"Emily!" exclaims Elena, who was covered by a brown blanket and stood near Stefan at her house's front porch. Elena rushes forward as Emily climbs the step to her. She throws herself into her arms, and Emily embraces her tightly, letting out a small sigh of relief. Elena sniffs back tears as she pulls back to face her "Are you okay?" she asks. Emily nods and forces on a brave smile.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," she calmly assures. Elena doesn't believe her, but at least her sister was physically unharmed. Emily clears her dry throat before asking: "How's Jeremy?" Elena's frown deepens.

"He's…a mess, Em. It's just like when mom and dad died," she tells sorrowfully. Emily eyes her sympathetically, sharing her pain for their younger brother. "He can't. He can't go through this again, Emily! He-He's crying! and he keeps telling me that he doesn't understand, and to make it stop," tears fall from her sister's eyes. Emily shushes her as she gulps down the lump in her own throat and brings her back into her arms.

"Wait," Elena says after a few seconds. She faces Stefan with a glimmer in her eyes. "Can you make him forget?" she asks, then faces Emily, whose brows were furrowed as she considered this.

"Elena," Stefan uttered uncertainly. She faced him again.

"Stefan, please. I don't know how he'll ever get past this. I want him to forget everything that happened. Right? Emily?"

Emily didn't reply as she looked to the ground and approached them.

Was it the right call?

Why did it feel wrong?

Yes, when their parents died, Jer was a mess, they all were, but maybe he was most, being the youngest and finding it difficult to process.

But there was something else, something more important.

What he saw.

He saw her turn.

He saw Vicki turn.

He didn't need this.

He must have already been confused out of his mind.

"If I did it," Stefan speaks, snapping Emily out of her train of thoughts, "there's no guarantee that it would work…because of who I am…because of how I live…I don't have the ability to do it right," he says with great disappointment.

"I can do it," they all turn at a familiar voice.

Damon.

He steps up the porch, and nears the three. He glances at all of them, then faces her. "If it's what you want, I'll do it," he says to Emily, who was eyeing him strangely, as she was uncertain what he was doing there.

For a moment, there was silence as she attempted to comprehend his presence, and he somewhat patiently awaited an answer.

Stefan looks at Damon almost in shock.

Was it genuine concern he saw in his eyes?

How was that even possible?

Elena found it awfully strange too, but the image of an in-tears Jeremy was still frozen in her mind; it was all she could think of.

"Emily?" she called, snapping her out of it. She gazes off.

"…Jeremy shouldn't get involved in…all of this…Vicki meant a lot to him, and the last thing he needs, is to remember…the way she was…before she…" she trailed off, then faced Damon once more. "Do it," she nodded.

"…What do you want him to know?" he asked. She was still confused as to why he was helping, but answered regardless.

"…Tell him that…Vicki left town…and she's not coming back…That he shouldn't look for her or worry about her….He's gonna miss her, but…he knows it's for the best," she sniffs and faces away, refusing to shed any more tears.

She felt numb inside,

and she knew it wouldn't last.

Damon nods at her words. "Okay. Let's go," he says, pointing his head at the door. Emily opens it and enters with Damon after her.

XXX

It was done.

Emily had to remove his leather bracelet, and let Damon in to speak to him as she supervised from the door's threshold.

Once he was finished, he rose from Jeremy's bed and approached Emily. They exited the room, and she closed the door on her brother. With hand still on the door knob, Emily noted it was still stained in blood, and for a moment, she froze at the sight. Her hand came off the knob and was hovering in the air before her. She then crossed her arms and hid her hands beneath her armpits.

Damon observed the whole thing. He looks to the side and grimaces irritably for reasons even he was unaware of. "When you have the guts to protect someone you love," he says. She faces him. "Don't cry about it," he strictly tells. Anger flashed across Emily's face.

"Yeah? Is that what you call it, when you kill people?" she retorts.

"No, I do it cause I want to," he shoots back, the step he took forward forcing her into the wall behind her. She kept her features firm as she eyed him with a heart racing in slight fear.

"I don't believe you," he cocks a brow at her. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't feel remorse, Damon," she boldly says. Damon's lips curl with annoyance. She stands straight then. "And if you don't want to hear it, that's fine. But don't lie to my face and take me for a fool," she demands quietly. Damon takes this in, and gives his head a tilt.

"I wouldn't make that mistake," he lightly smirks as though in some form of victory.

He turns then and heads down the stairs.

XXX

"Emily?" Elena called. After checking up on Jeremy and finding him asleep, Elena searched for her other sibling. She stopped by the bathroom,

and heard heavy sobs coming from within.

Her eyes went wide and she rushed open the door.

Opposite her, was Emily, at the sink, her red-tinted hands beneath the jet of water, wiping vigorously at her skin as she tried to rid it of the stubborn liquid.

She gasped and cried heartedly, simply unable to stop.

All she could see was Vicki's teary face right after she'd impaled her. Vicki's fall. Vicki's sickly grey body. Vicki's death. The death she caused.

She killed someone.

"Oh my god, Em," Elena softly called, pulling her sister into her.

She knew that nothing she said would help as she switched off the sink and wiped at her sibling's hand with a towel that also grew red. It didn't stop her from trying though.

She held her.

That was all she could do.

She held her sister in her arms, wishing Damon had erased her memories too,

but she knew Emily never would have agreed to that.

XXX

The next day, Emily, who had an incredibly hard time falling asleep and eventually passed out from exhaustion, awoke with a twisted stomach.

She felt horrible.

She literally got up, and hurled into her bin, shocking Elena awake from beside her.

Elena suggested Emily not go to college that day either, and offered to stay with her.

Emily told her to go to school, and that she intended on sleeping most of the day regardless.

She just didn't have it in her to face the day.

How could she?

For a moment, it actually felt as though the gut-wrenching feeling of guilt would never preside.

She tried heartedly to shut out the image of the deceased body that persisted on appearing before her every few minutes. All day felt like a battle in her mind, and chest, with the occasional distractions presented by Jenna, whom Elena had told that Emily was simply not feeling well, and Jeremy.

Jeremy was a whole other story.

He came to her after school was over and flopped down next to her on the bed to do 'homework,' something that shocked her awake a little as he seemed to be in an eerily good mood.

At first she was really weirded out, and had to act unsuspecting,

but then…she was content,

content with the fact that, unlike her miserable state, he wasn't falling apart over the death of someone close to him.

A death he couldn't remember…

It felt surreal, to know something, know that someone knew something too, but they somehow all of a sudden didn't.

It felt…not wrong, but not right either.

She was easily distracted from the contradiction upon realizing what Jeremy was doing beside her.

Homework.

When was the last time she'd seen him do that?

And why was he all smiley?

She heard what Damon said to him, so she didn't understand why fixing what he knew about Vicki also fixed…him.

She would have been more freaked out if the version of her brother opposite her…wasn't the one she was used to her whole life…This was the real Jeremy. The cheerful, ambitious, energized younger Gilbert who always had them smiling along,

the person she and Elena and Jenna had been trying to bring back ever since their parents died…

Unintentionally, Emily thought of Damon.

She thought of how it was his doing, and how much worse thigs could have been with Jeremy if Damon hadn't, for unknown reasons, stepped up to offer a hand.

'Maybe he felt guilty,' she assumed.

Somehow, Damon consumed her thoughts for the rest of the day.

She didn't…understand him.

On one hand, she thought it was very clear: a complicated past made him a bitter, but not heartless, person, who didn't like sharing feelings or showing weakness, who liked to feel in charge.

All of that could have been pointing to a vice, of a time when he wasn't so bitter, when he was more open, more vulnerable, and possibly felt his life was out of control.

…On the other hand, she was aware she did not know the exact circumstances of said time. What exactly happened to change him, if something ever had, and was it his or someone else's fault?

Was Damon responsible for who he was today, or was someone else?

…Regardless…she felt she owed him…gratitude…He gave her something back she'd tried so hard to retrieve herself, and on his own terms.

Right?

XXX

Outside the house, Sheriff Forbes questioned those related to Vicki about her sudden disappearance as Matt called it in.

They all said they didn't know, and only Elena lied the same.

Outside the station, she ran into Stefan, and told him that she could no longer see him, despite confessing to him the night before that she didn't want to forget the way she felt about him. Stefan was hurt, but understood.

After school, she heads home and naps, then is visited by Bony, who shows her her magical abilities by making the feathers in her pillow case float in the air, and confessing she was a witch.

They then head out for coffee, and talk about Stefan, and how he and Elena broke up.

Eventually, she is convinced to at least try and talk things through, confessing she was just worked up by what happened with Vicki.

She goes to see him, only to find some blonde in a towel.

Fairly upset, she heads home, and doesn't tell Emily, assuming Emily didn't need more on her plate.

An hour later, Stefan himself comes over to explain to Elena who the woman she saw was.

Lexi, his best friend for over a hundred years.

He tells her she is here for his birthday, and that he and she were headed to the Grill to celebrate it, in spite of himself.

Elena is reluctant to go, but eventually, later that night, she does.

At the Grill, she comes across Damon, and asks him what he'd done to Jeremy, who was acting very strange. He states that he took away his suffering as though that was a clear enough answer for her, and walks away.

Later, she and Lexi got a chance to speak properly this time, and Elena realized that Lexi was actually very sweet. She bought her fears about Stefan at ease with the story of how her own lover was a human too, who shared Elena's concerns, but that, at the end of the day, love that deep can't be walked away from.

Just when Stefan and Elena get to talking, the sheriff barges into, discreetly vervains Lexi, and pulls her out of the Grill.

Lexi breaks free from the two cops restraining her, and almost gets to the sheriff, when Damon appears from the Grill, and stakes her.

Stefan, who had snuck out with Elena to help his best friend, had no time to do so, when his own brother kills her before his eyes.

In shock, and in tears, Stefan waits for things to cool, and heads to find Damon. Elena is worried of what he might do, and tries to calm him down, but it doesn't work, and he leaves.

Having no choice, she goes home.

XXX

"Lena? Hey," Emily softly calls from atop the stairs after exiting the bathroom. "What's wrong?"

Because Emily was the only person she could discuss these things with, and because Emily wouldn't let it go,

she told her.

XXXXX