The next day, the Gilberts attempt to get on with their lives like nothing had happened. They get dressed and head for school; college for Emily, work for Jenna.

It started then, just like Emily was worried. In the middle of a lecture, and all her mind I concerned with was everything that had happened. From meeting Damon, to thinking he was a nice guy, to finding out he's a two-faced ass, to discovering his vampirism!

to hearing about Katherine, and looking at him…differently…actually feeling sorry for him…

to suddenly accepting that he…was gone…

that, just like that, the supernatural chapter of her life…was over…

…Right?

Wrong.

It was just begging…

XXX

"But I don't really like that professor. She's really…vague when-" the girl to Emily's side talked on, and the Gilbert was barely paying her much interest as she nodded along,

then froze in her tracks.

Near her parked car,

stood Damon.

He smirked at her from the distance, arms crossed as he leaned back against her 2014 grey Nissan Versa.

"Oh my god, who is that by your car?" the girl to her side asked.

Emily ignored her completely as she stormed forward to face the persistent vampire at the campus outdoor garage.

Students nearby continued to steal glances at the hottie the quiet Gilbert somehow seemed acquainted with.

It had only been two days, so it wasn't all that shocking to see him.

The only thing that scared Emily

was the sense of excitement she was feeling

for seeing him again.

"Mm, Gilbert. You're looking tasty," he looked her up and down, causing her breath to hitch in her throat. She was wearing a red, above the knee, casual dress and a complimenting black button up left open and tied at the tips. The fact that her neck and chest were exposed was what made Damon seem threatening,

in a way she hated herself for liking.

She pulled her purse properly onto her shoulder and crossed her arms defensively. "What are you doing here?" she asked, more quietly than she'd expected.

Damon pushed off her car and took a step towards her, leaving only a foot's distance between them and causing her to glance away,

anywhere but into his eyes.

"Don't tell me you haven't missed me," he knowingly said. She found she was speechless to that, as a stupid part of her wanted to say she did. She quickly had to find a counter, despite visually tensing. He could hear her heartbeat.

"I thought you were leaving," she said.

"Would you have missed me if I did?"

"Damon," she sighed tiredly, finally looking him in the eye.

He didn't know why he liked to tease her so much, and it annoyed him, the fact that his heart pinched when he caught her soft gaze.

Now it was his turn to look away.

"I need your help," he tilted his head. Emily raised a non-expecting brow.

"With?" she asked.

"With a little vampire problem," he smirked, looking at her and speaking in a low tone. Both her brows rise at that.

"Is that a joke?" she retorted.

"Nope. Open her up," he slaps her car's roof. "And I'll tell you inside," he said. Emily eyed him warily. "Oh, come on, Em. I don't bite. Unless you ask me to," he winks at her, causing her eyes to widen and her mouth to part. She scoffs and looks away, then at him again.

"I have pencils in my bag. Sharp," she says. Damon laughs at the unexpected threat as Emily unlocked the car and rounded it to enter.

XXX

"Head to the Mystic Grill," he says as she starts the car. The fact that Damon freaking Salvatore, hottie/vampire, was with her in her car was very unnerving. She snaps out of it and focuses on what he'd said, her bag open in her lap just for caution.

"Why?" she asks as she drives out of parking and onto the road. It was around noon that day.

"Okay. So. New vampire in town. We need to find it," he says.

"How do you know there's another vampire in town? Did you turn someone?!" she glares at him.

"Hah. No. Which, by the way, isn't something that should put you at ease, cause, see, now we have no idea who it could be," he explains.

"Okay, so how do you expect me to help you find whoever it is?" she asks.

"Well. You're human. Which means…" he pushes his hand into his pocket, and brings something out. "You can use this," he holds it out to her, and she takes it. Her eyes widen.

"This is the Gilbert watch!" she exclaims. "I gave this to Jeremy!" she glares heatedly at Damon, a truly hostile look in her eyes that often showed when her family was involved.

"Relax, tiger. I got it off of Logan Fell. Maybe your brother lost it," he says. She processes this.

"How did you…Why did Logan have it?" she asks, tossing it onto the dashboard and focusing on the road. Damon sighs.

"I'm not…very comfortable telling you," he gives with a humorous tone. Emily cocks a brow at him. "Point is. He was hunting us with it a couple weeks back. I killed him, and I got it."

"A couple weeks? I just saw him yesterday," Emily says. Damon's eyes widen.

"What?" he asks in disbelief.

"Yeah, he came over, and kept asking Jenna to…" she drifts off, and drives to stop at the side.

"Asked what?" Damon pushes.

"To be invited in," Emily faces him, a dread-filled look on her face. Damon's fixes in realization. His gaze drifts.

"Well. Wasn't expecting that."

"Oh my god," Emily breathes. She scours through her bag and brings out her phone, speed-dialing Jenna.

"What are you d-" Emily places a hand on his shoulder to quiet him as she answers.

"Hey, Jenna," she removes her hand and Damon listens in on the conversation.

"Hey. What's up? Done with the lectures?" she asks.

"Uh, yeah. Hey, listen…Did Logan drop by again?"

"Uh, I'm at work, so…no. Why?"

Emily notices Damon trying to tell her something beside her, and furrows her brows at him. He seemed to be referring to Jenna in urgency, and Emily shakes her head in confusion, then says: "I'm gonna call you back." She hangs up, and faces him. "What?" she asks irritably.

"If she can get him to the house, I can take care of it," Damon says.

"Uh, no way. I'm not using Jenna as bait!" Emily states. Damon rolls his eyes.

"She already is. Look, Logan is a fresh vampire, meaning his emotions are all over the place, and if Jenna is what he wants, he'll keep coming back, or worse. Maybe he'll pay her a visit at work, and ask her out for lunch," Damon smiles creepily. Emily's eyes widen, catching his meaning.

"Alright, fine…I'll see what I can do," she says.

"Good. Before he comes over, call me, and I'll be there. I'll take care of him," Damon opens the car door, and leans over to take the Gilbert watch from the dashboard.

"Wow, hey!" she calls. He faces her with one leg out the door and the watch in hand. "That isn't yours."

"Finders keepers," he smirks.

"Damon! It's my brother's! What do you want it for anyways?!" she asks. Damon puts his leg back in and closes the door.

"It's a supernatural-detector," he pops it open, revealing its inner workings transformed into a golden compass, pointing at himself. She notes this, and asks:

"Can you even use it?"

"No. That's why I came to you, but now we don't need it," he opens the door again.

"Wait!" He rolls his eyes.

"What?" he irritably asks.

"Since you can't use it, don't you think I should have it?"

"I knew you'd say that. Fine. But, if I ever need it, I'm taking you with it," he winks again. She rolls her eyes and snatches it from him. He steps out. "Bye," he muses, closes the door, and zooms away before her eyes.

XXX

Elena arrives home later and tells Emily that Stefan had been keeping an eye on her because of the 'vampire' in town.

"Yeah. I know," Emily replies as she rummaged the fridge, then came out with ingredients for a sandwich.

"You know?" Elena asks in confusion from the counter. "How?"

With her back to her sister as she washed a tomato at the sink, Emily decided to avoid the truth. "Stefan told me," she says.

Telling Elena about Damon didn't sound like a good idea to her. Maybe it was because neither Elena nor Stefan liked Damon.

Maybe she didn't want her sister to get the wrong idea about them,

as if she hadn't already.

"He did?" Elena retorts.

"Yeah," Emily replies with a straight face as she turned back to the counter.

"When?"

"He called me. Look," she faced Elena finally. "Point is. Just stay in the house until…" she was gonna say 'we take care of it,' then refrained, "it's taken care of."

Elena felt something was off, but couldn't tell for sure, so she left it at that.

XXX

Exiting the bathroom in her room that afternoon, Emily stumbles on her feet and gasps, slapping a hand on her chest. "Holy shit!" she breathes, attempting to calm herself at the fact that it was only Damon, who'd popped into her bedroom from the window.

"Jumpy, are we?" he tilts his head at her and smirks.

"Maybe if people don't magically appear in my bedroom!" she whisper-shouts. He mimics her tone as he struts towards her.

"Maybe if you took that into consideration, being in a town full of vampires, you wouldn't be so surprise," he widens his eyes for emphasize. "Did she call him?" he gets to the point.

"I called him. From her phone," she glances at her bedside table, where the phone was. Damon follows her gaze as she continues: "I told him that I thought he and Jenna should get back together, and that he should come over so they could talk things out."

"Ooh, Emily knows how to tell a story. Maybe I shouldn't believe everything you say," he smirks. She forces on an obviously fake smile.

"Maybe you shouldn't," she walks past him, to her window, and sits at the window seat, gazing out warily. Damon is about to follow suit, then decides to close the light first. She turns at the darkness and faces him in surprise as he approaches her.

"Don't want him to spot us," he explains as he sat opposite her and stalked the front street with her.

A few moments of silence passed as they just sat in the dim widow light, waiting.

Thoughts began to seep through, and soon, there was something on each of their minds.

Damon was wondering who had turned Logan. Who had fed Logan vampire blood before Damon killed him? Being a vampire hunter, Damon didn't think Logan would drink it willingly, or maybe he would.

While Damon was fussing over who else posed a threat in town,

Emily

was thinking about him.

It was another one of those moments when everything that had happened came back in pieces,

and she remembered the last time she'd seen him,

the look on his face,

that broken look.

And here he sat opposite her, perfectly fine,

or was he?

"A picture would last longer, you know," he smirks, facing her. She quickly sets her gaze low.

"No, I just…" she squints her eyes at him in assessment. "Are you okay?" she asks.

Damon is extremely confused by her question.

"What do you mean?" he asks.

"I mean," she pushes a strand of her loose her behind her ear, looking to her hands before locking eyes with his again. "With what happened…With the necklace…Katherine," she explains.

Damon's eyes widen, not as much in realization, as it was in the fact that Emily seemed to be…

sympathizing with him.

She witnessed first-hand as sorrow consumed his face wholly, and it actually hurt to see.

It was hard to recall the fact that Damon would have unleashed a squad of vampires into the town had he managed to get what he wanted,

it was hard to blame him for much of anything,

when he looked like that.

Feeling his chest ache, Damon forced his mind out of the dull memory and faced the window with a scowl. "I'm fine, and don't act like we're friends, Emily. Don't act like you care," he firmly says, harshly, refusing her eyes. Emily frowned at his tone. She wanted to say: 'I do care,' but refrained. Only, she couldn't keep her mouth shut about it.

"It's sad that any nice thing a person says to you, you find hard to swallow," she says. He turns irritably to her then. "And, you're right," she eyes the glass, "I shouldn't care," she remembered then, "because getting what you want means putting my town, my family, in danger," she says. Damon eyed her quizzically. She faced him. "Stefan told me that getting Katherine back means getting all the vampires that were saved with her too." Damon clenches his jaw from tension.

"It's your mistake to think I care," he retorts.

"Maybe not about me." He cocks a brow at her suddenly soft tone and what she'd said. She gulps, her mind stating: 'that came out wrong.' "But you do care. The last thing you are, is void of emotions," she said in mock. And though that normally wouldn't be considered an insult, to Damon, it was, and she knew that was how he'd see it. He glared at her, the feeling of his exposure all too annoying.

He is snapped out of it when he hears footsteps on the front porch. He faces the window and says: "He's here." Emily's eyes widen in fear. She rises to her feet.

"What do we do?" she asks.

"You, don't do anything," he says, opening her window and disappearing out.

She thought she would never get used to their super speed.

Just when Logan is about to knock on the front door, Damon appears behind him,

and snaps his neck.

Emily watches from the window as Damon approaches his car with Logan's unconscious body over his shoulder. He pops open the trunk, and throws Logan ungracefully into it, then closes it.

He catches sight of Emily through the window,

and sighs from an unknown form of tension.

Why were conversations with her so exhausting?

He looks away, gets into his car, and leaves.

XXXXX