Disclaimer: Refer to the first chapter please :)

The Descent

Los Angeles, 1977

"I wish I could stay, I do." Delia planted a tiny kiss on her boyfriend, Peter's, lips as she headed for the door of her hotel room while slipping on a bright orange leather jacket and flipped her long, dark hair out of the collar. The human was in their rented bed, naked with just the cover sheet wrapped around his bare waist and a pout sat on his lips. "But there's something I need to take care of."

"Is it vampire related?" he asked her, straightening up in the bed and putting his arms behind his head. "Because I'm right here for the taking."

Delia smiled. "Yes, it is vampire related. No, it is not blood related." She blew him another kiss. "I will be back soon."

"Don't hurry or anything, it's not like I'm getting any older!" With a soft chuckle, she closed the door on him and he sighed, banging his head against the headboard. "Nope, just the other way around."

Delia, however, was equally as peeved that she had to leave the sanctity they called their hotel room to go take care of things. It was ridiculous, what was happening in Los Angeles lately, and she knew exactly who was responsible for it. She saw the girl everywhere, on the streets, in the bars, out in plain daylight without a care in the world, draining whoever crossed her path and leaving a trail of bodies in her wake. It was starting to become unpleasant for Delia every single time she and Peter went out on a date; a normal, human date that was, because every time there would be something vampire-related brought up. Los Angeles hadn't seen so many mountain lion attacks in...well, ever!

Whoever this reckless vampire was, she was going to blow Delia's cover. Delia's and every other godforsaken vampire who had stopped to rest in the city of LA.

Luckily for her, Delia had always been good at tracking movements. When she was a child, she went hunting, and as a vampire she knew how to catch her fair share of game. But for this specific purpose, Delia knew exactly where this reckless vampire would be and when she would be there. For instance, on the night that Delia left her boyfriend sitting in their hotel room all alone, this vampire would be hitting the local bar, Rudy's, up for a few quick meals before hitting another one.

Sure enough, Delia found said vampire inside of Rudy's as the speakers blared loudly and the disco lights inside of the club darkened the room. But right underneath the disco ball that accompanied the cheesy music of the era, there was a vampire, plain and simple, feeding right in the middle of the dance floor with no thoughts of being caught. Her pale blonde hair was masked by the strobe lights and Delia, determined to end the atrocity in her city once and for all, stormed right up to the vampire, who had the sense to pull her teeth back and lick her lips free of the blood on them in ecstasy. It was all timed very perfectly, for Delia rushed up and compelled the human in the other vampire's arms.

"Get out of here. Forget what happened." The human scurried, like a mouse running from a cat, and Delia looked at the vampire before her. "Do you realize what a pain in my ass you're being? Who the hell are you?"

"Me?" The vampire licked her lips again, but there was still dry blood coating her pink mouth. She lifted her hand and wiped it away with a smile. "The name's Clarissa. Clarissa King."

"Unmade bed..." Claire marked as she walked into Stefan's bedroom with curiosity, hoping to find him inside to talk to him about what she'd learned from Katherine in the tomb. She walked further into the room, looking around for clues. "Unopened drawers...cold temperature...Gee, if I didn't know any better—"

"Right here." Claire turned around and found Stefan entering his bedroom, and she crossed her arms with a cocked eyebrow as she surveyed him and his caught smile. "Sorry. Hey! You're...you're out of the..."

"Tomb?" Claire filled in, watching as he walked towards her, seeming out of it. She was hesitant to speak. "Um, yeah. Elena made a deal with Elijah to get me out."

Stefan's eyes widened. "Why...why would she do that?"

"Because she felt the need to. Don't worry, it was a harmless deal. Actually, it sort of prevents herself from going on her little suicide missions so that's good." Claire shrugged, but then let herself get distracted by Stefan's appearance: the less tense frame, his fumbled words, his messed-up hero hair. She gasped, suddenly coming to the realization. "Stefan Salvatore! You got laid!"

Stefan snorted. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Oh, don't give me that load of horseshit. Your hair's messed up, you've relaxed, and you're wearing the clothes you had on when you came to visit me in the tomb yesterday morning." The blonde smiled as her best friend huffed, realizing he'd been caught. "Oh my God. You and my sister totally had sex. Wait a second, I should probably be more grossed out about this, shouldn't I?"

"Yes, Amelia and I spent the night together." Stefan rolled his eyes. "Honestly, that's probably not the most important thing we should be talking about." Claire, again, raised an eyebrow at him, and therefore he clarified, "Claire, you were released from the tomb! At least give me a second to appreciate that my best friend's not trapped anymore with my ex-girlfriend before you start bombarding me with details about my sex life."

"As your best friend, I am entitled to details about your sex life." She paused. "Which, upon further reflection, I don't want to know about. It's weird. I don't want to think about you and my sister that way. Kind of gross."

Stefan pointed at her. "Now you know how I felt when Katherine told me you kissed Damon."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, well you're not going to have to worry about that anymore. You know, I'm still waiting for a welcome home hug." With a smile, Stefan stepped forward and embraced her in a hug, where she returned it with an equal amount of strength. When they pulled away, Claire wrinkled up her nose. "You kind of stink, Stef."

"Fine. Then let me shower and then you can tell me all about this deal that Elena made with Elijah, okay?"

Without waiting for an answer, Stefan started towards his bathroom and Claire was left to wander around his room for a good ten or fifteen minutes before he finally came out of the shower, fully clothed, with a wet towel slung over his shoulder. Once he was out, she told him everything he needed to know about the deal Elena made and had told Claire about later last night when Claire had left the boarding house and had gone back to the Gilbert house, opting out of sticking around to deal with Damon and Delia. In addition to informing him about Elijah and Elena's deal, she also told him about everything that happened with Katherine inside of the tomb before Elijah showed up and also the little detail that Elijah compelled Katherine to stay put inside of the tomb even though the spell had been lifted.

But Stefan was more hung up on what Katherine said than anything else. "Isobel, huh?"

"Yep." Claire reached into her pocket and grabbed a small vile of vervain that she had snagged earlier in the morning and walked over to the alcohol tray by the window where Stefan kept his rarely touched alcohol. She swore there was dust on it. When there was no sound from Stefan, Claire groaned. "Oh, Stefan, please do not tell me you think that's a good idea."

"Claire—"

"Don't 'Claire' me." She looked over her shoulder while she split the vervain in the vile between two glasses. "It's a bad idea, Stefan. I get it, Katherine was trying to help, but no one—least of all me—wants that goddamn bitch back in our town."

"But if she can help get answers to how to take Klaus down, we've got to take the risk."

"Stefan, Elena made a deal with Elijah that prevents this verything from happening."

"Yeah. She made the deal. She should stick to it." Stefan shrugged. "I, on the other hand, did not, so I don't have to."

Claire poured bourbon into both of the glasses she held and walked over to Stefan with a groan. "Jeez, Stefan, do you have to be so difficult all the time?"

"Ah." He grinned. "You are literally living a day in my shoes, my friend." Stefan looked down at the glasses and shook his head. "I saw you slip vervain into those. If you're trying to kill me, can I at least know the reason?"

She frowned at him. "I'm not trying to kill you. I slipped vervain in mine, too. You said Amelia told you that Katherine built up a tolerance to vervain...obviously since she quit drinking it recently, she was able to be compelled, but we have vervain and we need to protect ourselves. I told Caroline to do it and Amelia's already keeping a steady dose."

Stefan took the glass reluctantly. "And Damon?"

"Damon can get compelled by an Original vampire to go throw himself off a cliff for all I care." Stefan frowned. "Relax, I've already let him know what to do." The blonde smiled sourly and tapped her friend's glass. "Bottoms up."

With a heavy sigh, Stefan and Claire both downed their drinks at the same time, the taste of vervain and alcohol sliding down their throats with an extra burn. It wasn't until a few seconds after the vervain had settled into their bloodstreams that the two vampires began to cough, and it practically brought Stefan to his knees. Claire was able to sustain the tiny dose a little better, but once their coughing fits were over, she wiped her mouth with her hand and coughed one last time.

"God, that did not go over well," she hissed. Stefan straightened with a heave and she patted his back. "You're okay, Stefan. You're okay."

Eventually, he straightened and became better, too, and the two vampires stared at each other. Stefan shook his head. "How is it even possible that a vampire could compel another vampire?"

She shrugged. "Maybe it's because he's an Original."

"I don't really know what that means." Stefan leaned against his desk with another sigh. "I don't think anybody really knows what that means. Well, except...maybe Isobel. I'll be sure to ask her."

Claire scowled. "Stefan! I told you that little tidbit of information so we could laugh about it, not actually go through with it!"

"I've got to go." Stefan reached into his dresser and pulled out a shirt to button up over his white undershirt. "Promised your sister I would meet her back at the King house once I showered and changed. Don't worry about it, Claire, I'll handle it. You won't have to worry about a thing."

"I doubt that!" she scolded as he walked out of the room with a wave to her, leaving her extremely frustrated.

Delia sat by the fire in the Salvatore study, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. It wasn't cold to anyone else, but to her, it felt like the entire house had been submerged in the depths of the ocean. Cold sweats were already forming on her brow, and Rose was sitting beside her with a concerned, nail-biting look on her face as she desperately attempted not to freak out at her sister's pale look. Damon walked into the study, joining the two sisters with a bag of blood in his hand from the basement.

"You know, Rose and I are nearly 560 years old," she said loudly to Damon as he walked in on them.

"If you were a bottle of wine..." Damon mused. Delia sighed.

"560 years is a very long time, Damon." She looked over at her sister with sad eyes. "It's sad that I'm scared it isn't long enough."

The dark-haired Salvatore reached down and grabbed the empty glass that had previously been filled with bourbon Damon kept supplying for the older vampire. With a snide tone, he poured the blood from the bag into the empty crystal. "You know, if you're just gonna be maudlin, I'm just gonna kill you myself. Just to put me out of your misery."

Rose sighed heavily. "Damon, you are doing the opposite of helping right now."

"Oh, come on! It's just a little werewolf bite," he said lightly. Delia started to chuckle softly, despite her pale look.

"Exactly! I mean, seriously, Rose...it's only a werewolf bite that has been told to be fatal to vampires, right?" said the vampire sarcastically, looking up at Damon with a smirk and tauntingly sad eyes. Damon, however, countered her.

"Well, according to a legend, which is a notoriously unreliable source." He handed her the glass full of human blood. "Drink up. Blood heals."

Delia drank a little bit of the blood from the glass, earning impossible stares from the vampire sitting around her in the study, and once she managed to get the blood to slide down her throat, she felt a bit of relief flood over her. With a nod, she looked at her companions. "You're right, it kind of feels better."

"Well let's have a look. Let me see." Delia turned her body as Damon let his fingers slide over the blanket on her shoulders. Rose stood up from her seat by the fire and she looked over Damon's broad physique to see the bite on her sister's skin had not only gotten worse, but was spreading down the right side of her back. Rose covered her mouth with her hand and tried to keep from crying while Damon couldn't take his eyes off the wound, feeling an enormous amount of guilt eating away at him. From her oblivious standpoint, Delia asked them, "How is it?"

Damon hesitated, then lied, "D-Definitely...better. Right, Rose?"

"Yeah..." Rose trailed off, unable to be the one to admit that the wolf bite was going to be the inevitable act that killed off her sister. Damon nodded.

"Yep. Yeah. It is getting better, isn't it, Claire?" The Salvatore looked up to watch as the unpopular blonde walked into the study cautiously, eyeing the wound on Delia's back that she had seen the night before and knew, like all the other vampires, was getting worse. Claire didn't want to coddle Delia—she wanted the exact opposite, actually, but it seemed unfair to ruin the life of an already sick person.

So, blatantly lying, Claire nodded with her lips sealed tight. "Mmhmm. It's not bad at all."

"Where's Stefan?" Damon hissed.

"He went to see Amelia, but you and I need to talk. Katherine told me that going to find Isobel would help find out more about Klaus but I, for one, think it's a terrible idea. Not only because I hate Isobel with all my heart and soul but because Elena's worried that will upset her deal with Elijah." Claire crossed her arms. "So...talk to him."

He frowned. "I didn't hear a 'please'."

"You don't get a please."

Giving up, Damon eventually sighed and shrugged at her. "Sorry, sugar. No can do. I'm with Stefan on this one. Hey, but since we're trading favors, you want to stay here for a while and play nurse while I run out?"

Rose watched as Damon started to leave the room and shook her head. "Damon, I can handle my sister alone. Claire doesn't need to make herself uncomfortable."

Delia snorted. "Right, because let's all worry about how Claire's feeling right now."

Without responding to either comments from the sisters, Claire followed Damon out of the study and caught up to him. "I'm not playing nurse, Damon. Not for her."

Damon rolled his eyes and turned around at her, whispering quietly and sourly, "Oh, forgive me for thinking that you would actually put aside your hatred for a dying woman."

"Let's be real, here, she does not want me to be the one with her while she dies and we all know that."

"Well someone needs to stay with her and Rose. Rose might think she can handle it, but honestly, I think she's gonna crack. Her sister's about to die, after all." He let out an exasperated sigh. "The wolf bite caused some kind of infection. It's getting worse."

Claire raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, like...like some kind of poison or something?"

"I don't know, Claire, I'm not an expert in the field."

She shifted uncomfortably and crossed her arms. "Well, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about what's happening to her. You two were obviously close."

"Shit happens," Damon snapped coldly. Claire snapped her eyes up to meet his erratic blue ones and she grimaced at him. "I know you're not too pleased with me for what you found out yesterday but it happened. And death happens, too. We come, we go. Sooner she dies, the better. It's gloomy as hell in here."

Right when Damon was about to turn on his heel and leave the house, the front door opened to a cautious Elena stepping inside. She looked around and eventually saw Claire and Damon standing in the hallway and joined them with a concerned look. "Hey. What the hell is going on? Claire said something about Delia..."

"Delia got bitten by Jules last night," Damon told Elena quietly. Elena widened her eyes. "Yes, it's a wolf bite. Yes, it's fatal. Yes, you can stay here and be a do-gooder. Thanks, Elena...appreciate it."

With a small, bitter smile, Damon brushed past her and walked towards the door. Elena turned back to Claire, ultimately confused, but Claire shook her head tightly. "Stay here and help Rose. Against my better judgement, I'm going with him."

And, though she dreaded the decision she was about to make, Claire stepped out of the boarding house in pursuit of the one Salvatore brother she blatantly did not feel like being around.

"You two are triggering my gag reflex."

Delia and Peter heard the sound and gasped immediately, coming up from air under the sheets of their hotel room as Clarissa King sauntered forward with her eyes disinterested and her arms crossed over her chest. It was a very typical stance and look for a vampire without emotions, which Clarissa had explicitly made clear more than a few times with her unadulterated slaughters. The couple in the bed were both lying, panting, and watched as Clarissa sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed. Delia slid forward into a sitting position and clutched the white sheets to her chest.

"Clarissa, what the hell are you doing in our room? You have your own."

Clarissa traced her finger along the bedpost. "Wow. These beds have a lot of dust on them. I never really noticed before."

"Is this normal for an emotionless vampire?" Peter asked aloud without thinking. Delia slapped her hands to her sides as Claire turned at Peter with a slick smile.

"I can show you what's normal for an emotionless vampire, cupcake, all you gotta do is ask."

"'Cupcake' is my word." Delia ran a hand through her hair. "So get out, cupcake."

"But I'm bored," Clarissa whined as she turned to the both of them and rose on her knees like a four-year-old, exasperated. "Come on, I want something to eat! Unless you're going to share him." Clarissa's eyes roamed over the naked Peter and she licked her lips. "God, he would taste delicious."

Delia reached behind her and grabbed a pillow, where she threw it at Clarissa while keeping the sheet in her hand clutched to her chest. Clarissa caught the pillow mid-air, but the action did not go unnoticed. "Clarissa, I said get out!"

"You're the one who wanted me to stay in this hotel with you and your delectable boyfriend, in case you've forgotten."

"Yes, because you're terrorizing the entire town and if I hadn't told you to knock it off, another vampire would've just killed you. And I'm still waiting for a 'thank you'."

Peter frowned. "But she's emotionless, which means she doesn't feel gratitude, which means—"

"Baby, I love you, but shut your goddamn mouth," Delia snapped, looking over at her human boyfriend and compelling him quickly. He remained quiet while Clarissa smiled.

"I like him. I like him a lot."

"Hands off," Delia swung herself out of the bed and grabbed her robe hanging on the bedpost. She tied it up before standing up and walking over to the blonde vampire. "Look, we can go out tonight, okay? Where I can keep an eye on you and go on a date at the same time. You can feed from...two people tonight, how does that sound?"

Clarissa grimaced as Delia pulled her towards the door. "It doesn't sound very fair. I want to kill, not feed."

"But if you kill, you'll blow our cover."

"But who cares?"

"I do!" Delia snapped as she opened the door and pushed Clarissa onto the other side, who rolled her eyes. "From now on, anyone you feed from, you leave alive!"

"Fucking emotions," Clarissa hissed under her breath as Delia closed the door in her face. She listened to inside the room as Delia was too caught up in finishing what she had started with her boyfriend before Clarissa interrupted. "I want food."

She was starting to hate Delia, the more she thought about it. She didn't mind her as a person, of course, but she wanted to eat. She wanted to feed. And she wanted to leave Los Angeles, kick Delia to the curb, and never think about it again. But she decided, after some thought, that there was something she wanted and couldn't have, which made it all the more fun.

Clarissa turned and heartlessly skipped back to her room, fantasizing about the different ways she could kill Delia's boyfriend.

"I just don't understand why you felt the need to climb into my car and force yourself to spend the day with me," Damon snapped at Claire as they walked into the Grill to meet with Jules, who Alaric had informed them was eating lunch at the restaurant. Claire tried to keep up with his brisk pace but he was moving far too fast for even her.

"Believe me, I don't want to be with you right now any more than you want to be with me."

"Then why the hell are you here?"

"To make sure you don't piss anyone else off in this moody state you're in and they come after me next!" Claire shouted at him, throwing her hands up in the air. But when they both spotted Jules sitting alone at a table in the middle of the Grill, and they looked at each other with intent. Claire tried to pull him back realizing what he was about to do, but Damon missed her and began to immediately sauntered towards the table. Luckily, he was able to be stopped, but by Amelia and Stefan, who joined them towards the front of the restaurant.

"Oh, hey, you're out of the tomb," Amelia deadpanned to Claire with a frown. Claire sighed.

"Sorry."

"Yeah. Couldn't even a send a postcard?"

"What are you doing here?" Damon asked Stefan and Amelia with frustrated eyes. Stefan looked at him with a concerned expression.

"Waiting for you. Listen, there's a lot of people here."

"Damn! There goes my plan to rip her spleen through her back!" Damon hissed at his brother. Stefan groaned and pulled Damon back to him as his brother tried to walk away.

"Hey! Listen, I know you're upset about Delia—"

"Why does everybody think I'm upset about Delia?" Damon scoffed.

Claire shrugged. "Maybe because the whole world knows that you slept with her."

Amelia gasped. "So you decided to tell her?"

"Did everyone but me know, Damon? Everyone?" the blonde turned to her dark-haired companion with a crossed stance and a pissed look in her eyes. Damon exhaled carefully and looked at the younger King.

"No, I did not tell her, Amelia. She walked in on us. Besides, I'm fine. I don't know if any of you know this, but sometimes vampires die." Everyone was silent upon this cold exclamation from Damon, who was obviously hurting more than he led them to believe. Damon looked at his brother. "I'm gonna have a friendly chat with lady wolf, brother. Ease up. And have no fear, for some impossible reason I can't explain, this one has decided not to leave my side today."

Damon turned on his heel, and though Stefan and Amelia wanted to go after him, Claire followed right behind while biting the inside of her cheek, wanting to turn around but unable not to follow Damon like he had described. Damon and Claire sat down at the table Jules was stationed at, and without looking up from her menu at first, Jules sighed.

"Well. If it isn't the one I meant to kill. I'll have to get that right next time." The wolf looked up at Claire while she took a sip of her drink. "I'm sorry, who are you?"

Claire scoffed. "Like I'm gonna give my name to a wolf. Please."

"She doesn't matter." Damon waved his hand in front of Claire and stared at Jules with dark eyes. "You won't live to see another full moon. Unless...unless you tell me how to cure a wolf bite. And then I won't kill you."

"Promise?" Jules asked him seriously.

Damon nodded. "Yes."

Jules took in a deep breath, and as Claire watched Damon's face turn abnormally serious and wait for an answer, Jules pulled out her purse and put money down for her meal before looking up at the vampire. "Bite me."

The wolf began to walk away from the table, but suddenly, Damon jumped up and grabbed her arm. Claire stood from the table as well, but she didn't move forward, she simply watched to make sure Damon didn't do anything stupid out in broad daylight. Jules smiled angrily and hissed, "I'm not afraid of you..."

"Then you are very, very stupid," Damon growled. But she knew the exact buttons to push.

"How's your friend? Delia? Is that her name? Have the chills started? The unbearable pain?"

"If there's a cure, tell me," he threatened, "or start watching your back."

She pushed on, "Did I mention the dementia? It'll eat away at her brain. Soon she'll be rabid!" Jules paused. "You want a cure? I'll tell you the only cure that exists. Take a stake and drive it through her heart."

Damon let her leave, watching as the wolf backed away, useless to him, and left with a smug smile and triumph written all over her face.

The two didn't talk much on their way back to the boarding house. He didn't feel like talking all that much, and if she were being honest, she felt the exact same way. There was something that Claire didn't like about the entire situation, not because Damon slept with someone else but because she felt guilty, guiltier than anyone else possibly could imagine. With Delia dying, all of the horrible memories of the things she did as an emotionless vampire in Los Angeles haunted her, and it was all beginning to build inside. The blood of the innocent was on her hands, and a ghost from one of those kills was back to haunt her. She thought she'd locked those memories deep in her mind, but it was all flooding out like the damn apocalypse was rising.

So when they entered the house, they found it immediately peculiar how the front door was sprung wide open and Elena was standing in the middle of the foyer with a wooden stake in her hand armed and ready to be used against whatever vampire attacked her.

"Elena..." Claire trailed off, causing the brunette to whip around with the stake gripped tightly and raised high. Claire and Damon both flinched away, but once Elena saw it was them, she relaxed.

"Are you okay?" Damon asked her and looked around. "Where's Rose?"

Elena set the stake down. "She went out to find Delia."

Claire cocked an eyebrow. "And...where's Delia?"

Elena swallowed. "I don't know."

Ten minutes after Damon, Claire, and Elena tried to devise a plan to find Rose and Delia since not only the sick sister but both sisters were AWOL, Damon received a call from Sheriff Forbes about none other than a vampire attack at the school. Immediately, the three drove over at top speed to Mystic Falls High and Damon and Claire met with the Sheriff a few yards away from the dead body lying by the garbage dumps.

"Thanks for coming so quickly," the Sheriff said to them as Damon and Claire approached. Damon nodded.

"No, we were close by. What happened?"

"A vampire. Luckily one of my deputies discovered the body before anyone else saw him," Liz explained. Claire looked around and shook her head.

"We need to get all of these teenagers out of here before someone sees. Secure the area," she suggested.

Liz, with a nod, turned to her deputies behind Damon's shoulder and shouted, "Don't cause a panic, but let's move this party into the cafeteria." She looked back at Damon and Claire. "I'll take the east side, you two go west?"

"Sure." Damon and Claire turned and began to walk back towards Elena, who was waiting by the car. Claire shook her head.

"Damon, I have a bad feeling about this."

"Delia just killed someone, Claire. Of course you have a bad feeling about this," he said quietly. She sighed.

"That wolf said that she's experiencing dementia. Elena said she kept rambling on about being human and tried to attack her own sister."

"We'll find her." Damon pushed her along and nodded. "We have to. Come on."

Right when they reached Elena, the human turned around and walked up to Damon and Claire with a worried look on her face, but it was more panicked than worried. "I have been trying to call Stefan for the last five minutes because I know he's trying to get Isobel back here, but he's not answering the hone. Have either of you heard from him? Do you know what he's up to?"

"Baby brother's not exactly my priority right now. Take this in case we can't have your back." Reaching discreetly inside of his jacket, Damon produced as wooden stake for Elena to take, and the human, with wide eyes, followed Damon and Claire as they set off in the direction they were assigned to find their loose vampire before she could kill another human.

Little did they know, Delia was still on school grounds, stumbling through the grass practically in plain sight. She had her arms wrapped around herself tightly and her teeth were chattering, but it wasn't cold. The dementia was, as Jules had said exclusively to Damon, eating away at her brain. The pain she endured stretched from the tip of her toes to the tip of her forehead, and it was extremely unbearable. It felt like her insides were disintegrating with every moment passed. All Delia wanted was for it to end—all she wanted, truly, was for her entire life to end. She did not want to be a vampire anymore. She wanted, she needed to die a human.

There was a voice behind her, a soft voice, pulling her out of the insanity she had fallen into. "Cordelia?"

Delia turned around, though startled, but saw the face of her sister. But instead of the Rose that was modern, she saw the face of her elder sister as a human, with long hair that stretched to her torso and features so bright that the sun behind them had no affect on her luminosity. Cordelia smiled.

"Rose-Marie," she whispered. "My, you look so wonderful. Perfect."

Rose swallowed hard, gulping down the fear that she had for her sister. Honestly, she was petrified, not only for her sister's life but for her own. Elena hadn't seen what had gone down because she had run upstairs before she could see the good part, but Cordelia had tried—and failed, thankfully—to murder her. It made Rose's eyes swell up with tears, but she tried to understand what would make her sister want to kill her so badly. All she kept hearing was the murmurings that Cordelia said, things like "we don't belong here anymore" or "Rose-Marie, it's time to leave".

"Cordelia, please stop this," Rose pleaded softly, eyeing the blood on her sister's lips. "This isn't who you are. I know what's happening to you, but it's not real."

The vision in front of Cordelia began to flicker, and Delia blinked her eyes a few times to maintain the sight of her human sister. Suddenly, the human vision before her faded, and all she saw was the vampire Rose, and she realized where she was and how she'd gotten to be there. Cordelia felt a tear streak down her cheek as she looked down at the grass.

"We were supposed to die that day." She sniffed and looked up at Rose. "In the fire, we were supposed to die. It was the end of our lives, we were supposed to die!"

"But we didn't, sister, we survived."

"No! We died! We died and became monsters. Creatures damned to the night to prey on the weak and vulnerable and suck life out of those who have it!" Cordelia sobbed, shaking her head and stepping back. She clenched and unclenched her fist nervously. "I want to die. I need to die."

"Cordelia, please stop." Rose stepped forward, still terrified, but willing to do whatever it took to be there for her sister. In the distance, she could hear the crowd chatting away. "Please, just let me take you home."

"Home?" Cordelia snapped. "What home? We don't have a home, Rose-Marie! We are orphans! We are homeless! We have nowhere to go, we have nothing to live for!"

"We have survived for too long to let it go to waste." By now, Rose had gotten to the point where she had her hand on her sister's shoulder, and carefully tested the waters by stepping closer. "You need to rest, Delia. Let me take you back."

"I don't want to be here anymore," Cordelia cried, stepping into Rose's arms. Her sister took her into the embrace without reservations, finding comfort in Delia's initiated embrace. "I deserve to die. I deserve peace."

"You can have all the peace in the world." Rose patted her sister's hair and kept in her tears as Delia sobbed into her shoulder. "Shh, sister, don't cry. We're gonna be oka—"

Rose stopped. To anyone overlooking their embrace, it would've seemed unnecessary and strange. But to Delia, who hid her face in her sister's neck and cried salted tears of misery into her sister's jacket, she knew the truth. Rose's body dropped with gravity, and Delia was left standing upright, tears streaking down her face and rings around her eyes from the paleness and purpleness the sickness had caused her. In her hand, she held the heart of her sister, and she whispered very quietly through her sobbing, "You deserve peace, too."

"Delia!"

Damon flashed up behind the whimpering vampire, who dropped her sister's dead heart in her hand and let it fall to the ground all while sobbing so hard that she couldn't see. Claire and Elena were behind them, stopping short right as they saw the scene before them: Rose's dead body on the ground, the blood covering Delia's hand and the way the miserable vampire cried. Damon fell to his knees right as Delia went to the ground, crying without being able to get a word out through her mouth. Damon tried to rock her, to soothe her, but he was shocked as well at what she had done.

"Delia," he whispered quietly. "Delia, it's me. Delia, it's Damon. It's Damon. Shh."

"I killed her," Cordelia sobbed, letting up on her cries as she tried to get away from Damon's grasp, but he wouldn't let her for the sake of her own sanity. Her eyes went wide. "I killed my sister. I killed my sister. I killed my sister." She started to cry again, harder this time, and her words came out jumped. "I d-didn't mean to do this, I never wanted to die, I wanted peace. I wanted us to have peace, I wanted us to..."

"I know." Damon's voice was soft and melancholic. "I know."

"I'm sorry," Cordelia hiccuped. "I'm sorry...I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." Damon tried to pull her up, but she doubled over on the ground. "Please, make it stop! Please make it stop! Please!"

"Come on." Damon pulled her into his arms, unable to get Delia moving on her own. He looked back at Claire and down at Rose's body with a solemn look. He started to say something, but Claire shook her head.

"I got it," she promised. Locking eyes, he nodded at her, and then turned around with the sobbing, sick vampire in his arms to bring her home.

"Peter!" Delia shouted happily as she walked into the hotel room with two garment bags on her back. "Peter, I got us tickets to that new premiere tonight for—"

She stopped, dead cold, in the middle of the room as she looked upon the bed. The garment bags dropped to the floor, right at her feet, and she felt a scream catch in her throat. Vampires did not scream, but this was one of the times when she felt that she was not a vampire. Delia looked upon the body of her boyfriend, lying ravaged in the king-sized bed that was once white but was now stained with impossible amounts of red. She walked over to the side of the bed, tears swelling up in her eyes as she looked over Peter's corpse, covered in tiny little vampire bites. On his neck, on his wrists, on his biceps, on his stomach, on his hips...they were everywhere. Someone had drained him, ruthlessly, viciously, and without remorse.

She didn't know what to do. Delia didn't know whether to scream or cry or punch or kick or even kill. She climbed onto the bed, unaware of what she was doing, and she cried while trying to shake Peter up, the man she loved—the human she loved. The word "no" kept escaping her mouth, but she couldn't say anything else.

Just then, as she panicked and looked around for some sign that this was not real, she found a glass of champagne, freshly bubbling, on the nightstand with a card lying underneath it. But the champagne was not its regular golden color, it was tainted with blood that turned it more pink than anything. She lifted the champagne glass with shaking hands and grabbed the card as its coaster, holding her breath.

On the card, in delicate handwriting stained with traces of Peter's blood, it read:

I was right. He was delicious.

-C.K.

After the tragedy that happened at the school, Delia woke in Damon's bed to find the dark-haired vampire standing over her as she slept off the crying. His big blue eyes were waiting for her the moment she woke.

"Hi, there," he whispered. Delia swallowed thickly as she remembered what she'd done.

"Please tell me I did not do what I think I did." Damon's eyes flickered down, and she bit down on her shaking bottom lip. "Oh. So I did."

"There's nothing you can do about it now." Damon brushed a piece of sweaty hair out of her eyes. "Your sister wouldn't have lasted a single day without you, anyways. She would've done what you did...eventually."

"I murdered my own sister," Delia whispered shamefully. "How am I supposed to live with—" She stopped. "Oh. Right."

Damon was about to say something, but he realized that for once, he didn't know what to say. What could he say? She murdered her own sister, she was right about that much. What was someone supposed to say to that? But he realized that he didn't have to when another presence entered into the room, and he turned around and growled, "You shouldn't be in here, Claire."

"I need to talk to her." Claire walked into the room and looked around at Delia with broken eyes. "Please."

"It's okay, Damon," Delia admitted softly. The dark-haired vampire turned and let Claire walk over to his bed, the bed she knew too well, and sit down at the edge. He kept his back turned and listened while Claire softly sat down and hesitated for a moment.

"Delia, I wanted to come here and apologize to you." Things were quiet; dead silent, actually, and Claire took in a deep breath. "What I did...back in LA...it was terrible. I shoved it in the back of my mind when I turned my emotions on and I never thought twice about it because it hurt too much. I will never be able to forgive myself for what I've done to you, and you have every right in the world to hate me, to blame me, to tie me up and torture me, and even...even to take something that is so deeply rooted into me. I will never ask for your forgiveness, but I just need to know that you know how sorry I am for what I did."

No one spoke, not for a while. Damon stood with his back to the two other vampires in the room and he listened while Claire waited, not at all expecting Delia to forgive her. She didn't want forgiveness. Even if she had it, she knew she wouldn't forgive herself for what she did. Killing someone, anyone, was not something that she liked to do. She hated it, more than anything in the world. Because that person was someone that someone else loved or cherished, and it was never fair to them.

Delia was quiet in her response. "That's the worst part about it; the hunt, the need to kill, the thirst, the pleasure it brings you afterwards. I wasn't meant to be evil, and I'm sure you weren't, either. It hurts."

"Then stop talking about it," Damon snapped at them without turning back. Claire and Delia looked over at him, but Delia chuckled softly under her breath.

"You and Damon have a lot more in common than you both realize." Delia looked over at Claire, who let her eyes linger on Damon's back for a moment before tearing them away to look at the floor in thought. "You can pretend that you don't want to care, pretend that feelings are just an intangible thing that don't explain anything. But I've lived long enough to know that caring is a part of what makes life...life. You want to care, but the minute you do, you run away from it. That's why you turned off your emotions, Clarissa. Why you did what you did to the man I loved." A tear ran down her cheek at the thought of it. "Why I can't forgive you."

"I don't expect you to. Not one bit."

"After everything I did to you, why are you treating me with kindness when I refuse to treat you the same?"

"Because I was human once," Claire told her carefully. "And I cared. Though it's a part of me that gets in my way most of the time, I choose to live with it. Because without it, I wouldn't know who I am."

"You can never forget it," said the vampire softly. "What it's like to be human, I mean. It haunted my sister, and it haunted me for our entire lives. But it's the only thing that kept Rose from breaking." Delia's smile wavered. "And she was the only thing that kept me going."

It was tragic; more than tragic, actually, but Claire couldn't say anything to make it better. Before their heart-to-heart could continue, Delia began to cough, and soon that cough turned into gagging, and soon that gagging turned into screaming. Damon pushed Claire off the bed and climbed into it himself with Delia's head on his lap, but Claire refused to leave at first.

"Damon..."

"Go." Damon looked up at her and nodded. "Just go, Claire, I've got this."

He looked back down at Delia, trying to sooth her by stroking her hair and hushing her to calm her nerves, and Claire, though reluctant, decided that it was best to leave like he asked.

After taking care of what he needed to with Sheriff Forbes, wrapping up the vampire case at Mystic Falls High so that he wouldn't have to kill another vampire in the same night, Damon found that Claire had taken the entire Grill hostage for her own. He'd only gone to get a drink for himself, but then he found that the entire bar was empty, and the only person inside was a certain blonde vampire sitting up on the bartop with a bottle of tequila in her hand, pouring it straight into her mouth. With one problem gone and another arisen, Damon sighed and stepped inside against the tiny voice in the back of his head telling him to stay out.

Claire gulped down her alcohol and watched as Damon walked into the bar. She wiped her hand on her mouth and shook her head. "Uh, uh! No. This bar's mine, buddy, go find your own."

"Claire, what the hell are you doing?" Damon said, slightly irritated. "I don't have time to worry about you. Not tonight."

"Sorry I'm such an inconvenience." She swallowed another gulp of straight tequila without flinching, but keeping her eyes locked on him. Once she finished the shot, she set the bottle in her lap and bit her lip. "Delia...?"

"It's done." Damon nodded. "Delia and her sister are buried next to each other in the woods behind the high school."

"I marked it so you'd see," she whispered.

"I know."

But as she nursed the bottle of tequila in her hand, Damon lifted himself onto the bar stool beside her feet and grabbed the bourbon behind the counter. She watched him as he popped the cap open and took a leisurely drink right from the bottle like she had. Things were very quiet until she spoke, very softly, "Why'd you do it?"

"Because she was dying," Damon said in an obvious tone. She shook her head.

"I didn't mean that. I meant...why'd you do it?" He glanced up at her, still unsure of her question, so she elaborated with an exhale, "Why'd you sleep with her, Damon? Why?"

"Why do you feel like you're entitled to ask me that?" he growled under his breath and drank another swallow from his bottle. "You don't get the right to question me. You and I are not together, Claire, and you have no right to treat me like I'm yours."

She hopped off the counter angrily. "I'm not saying that you're mine, Damon, I'm asking you why you slept with her. Because no matter what we're fighting about, no matter who I want to be with, at the end of the day...you knew all she wanted was to get back at me—you knew it. So why don't you just come out and admit it?"

"Admit what?"

"Admit that you hate me!" she shrieked, more passionate than usual, but that was more the alcohol talking than her. Damon stood from the bar stool, leaving his bottle on the countertop. He watched her as she gripped her tequila bottle tight and looked at him with drunk eyes full of uncertainty. "Because I can't think of another reason why you would want to hurt me."

Damon hesitated, watching her closely wondering if he wanted to have this conversation with her while she was drunk—vampire drunk, that was, which was even twice as bad as regular drunk. He shook his head. "Isn't that what this is all about? Isn't that what we've been convincing ourselves for the past century? That we hate each other?"

"I may throw..." She waved around her bottle and breathed out, "tequila bottles at you and glasses and...I don't know, hair dryers or whatever, but I don't want to hurt you. I never have." Her eyes sparkled in the dim lighting, and he fought the urges inside of him to tell her how he felt. He had already endured enough emotion within him in one day. "I don't hate you, Damon. I don't hate you at all."

He watched as she stumbled backwards, whether on purpose or by default, he didn't know, but all he knew was that she had to get home before she did something she regretted. He walked her to his car, drove her home despite her drunken protests and mumbles of sleep and hate and whatever she was talking about, but when he got inside the house, he got tired of her dragging against him and he just picked her up in his arms and carried her up to her room. It was a long day, and he didn't feel like discussing what she wanted to discuss while drunk. He just wanted her to go to sleep and not bother him until morning.

"You know..." Claire swallowed tiredly as Damon set her down in her bed under the sheets. He pulled off her shoes as she murmured, "Everything you've done here...in Mystic Falls, I mean...everything you've done makes me think that you're not the villain you thought you were."

Damon scoffed. "If you were even going to remember that statement tomorrow, you would punch yourself for it."

"Oh, Damon, quit playing; I'm serious." He pulled the covers over her and turned to leave when she grabbed his hand and stopped him. Damon turned back at her, still unwilling to do what she wanted, but looked at her pretty blue eyes as she stared up at him in her haze. "I knew you when you were human. I know you now. I might spite you with words every...few hours, but there's little that's changed." She dropped his hand and rolled against her pillow. "Human Damon's in there somewhere. Just gotta find him."

Damon was quiet, for the longest time, when he whispered, "Goodnight, Clarissa."

"G'night," she hummed. It was the last thing she said before he heard her finally go to sleep, and he snuck out of her room with his heart pounding, his head hurting, and his emotions flooding too rapidly that he felt it like a boulder.

Elena heard the doorbell ring late at night, which instantly made her suspicious, but when she opened the door expecting it to be Alaric or someone like that, she found that Stefan and Amelia were standing on her porch step, side by side. It was an awkward sight, sure, but Elena was mature enough to handle it. She looked at them with her eyebrows knotted.

"Hey..." Her eyes shifted between them. "What's going on?"

"So, we called Isobel." Amelia nodded her head a few times. "You know, your biological mom."

"I know." Elena looked at Stefan. "I was trying to call you, I wanted you to stop. My deal with Elijah is strict, Stefan, and I can't have you going around—"

"Elena, we're just trying to help," Stefan told her. She sighed heavily. "We had to. Even if you had reached me, I still would've called her."

Elena bit down on the inside of her cheek, deciding whether or not to slam the door in the vampires' faces or not. Instead of doing such a childish thing, she nodded and crossed her arms. "Fine. Did you find her?"

"Not exactly." From behind Stefan and Amelia, John Gilbert emerged and walked right up to the threshold. Elena tensed, and he smiled at her. "Hello, Elena."

"Uncle John."

It barely registered with Damon what was happening until he was forced to register it in his mind. He was lying in the middle of the road, the bottle of bourbon in his hand that he had snatched from the Grill that Claire had closed for herself, when a pair of headlights shone in his eyes and someone climbed out of their car and rushed over to him. Truthfully, he didn't know how he ended up on the road or why he was there, he just knew that every part inside of him ached. Feelings felt like tiny little holes, and he had a bunch of them. He barely realized that he was being addressed by whoever had climbed out of their car.

"Sir, are you okay?" He groaned. "What happened?"

Damon paused. "I'm...lost."

"And you're laying in the middle of the road?" she filled in for him, confused.

Again, he groaned, sighing heavily, and straightened. "Not that kind of lost. Metaphorically. Existentially."

"Do you need help?"

"Well..." He brought the bottle to his mouth and took a large sip before continuing, "Yes. I do. Can you help me?"

A look of realization crossed the citizen's face. "You're drunk."

"...Yes, a little...maybe." With widened eyes, he watched as she started to walk away from him towards the car that waited for her, and he immediately fought, "No! Please don't leave! I really do need help!" She ignored him and kept walking, so Damon flashed over to her and gripped the girl by her shoulders as she gasped. His erratic eyes looked into that of the human's and he compelled her, "Don't move."

"I don't want any trouble," she huffed.

"Neither do I." The smell of alcohol and tears were unmistakable in his breath. "But all I got is trouble."

He moved away to drink more of the bourbon out of the bottle, and therefore the motionless human squeaked out, "Why can't I move?"

Damon ignored her question, threw the empty bourbon glass to the side so that the sound of glass shattering was a few feet away from them, and he placed his cold hands on her shoulders with a sly, drunken smile. "What's your name?"

"J-Jessica..."

"Jessica," he repeated. "I have a secret. I have a big one! But I've never said it out loud! I mean...what's the point? It's not gonna change anything! It's not gonna make me good! Make me adopt a puppy! It's not gonna make me be the hero she wants me to be—I can't be what other people want me to be. What she wants me to be." He gripped the human tightly. "This is who I am, Jessica."

Jessica's entire body shook as she asked, "Are you going to hurt me?"

"I'm not sure. Because you...you're my existential crisis." His hands cupped her face as he leaned in and whispered darkly, "Do I kill you? Do I not kill you?"

"Please don't," she sobbed. Damon took a step back.

"But I have to, Jessica! Because I'm not human! And I miss it. I miss it more than anything in the world!" Damon paused, his hands shaking as he stared at her with coldness in his eyes. "That is my secret. But there's only...s-so much hurt a man can take."

"Please, don't!" Jessica bursted, her eyes filling with water as she studied the madman before her. Damon stepped forward this time.

"Okay," he told her after a while. His eyes looked into hers and he compelled reluctantly, "You're free to go."

The second his tongue said the last syllable, Jessica was off, running towards her car like it would even make a difference. Damon looked back at her, wondering if he should let her go, and he was about to—oh, he was about to. Then, something crashed over him like a flood, and he couldn't help it. The monster inside of him attacked, and he tore into Jessica's throat like he wanted to, drained every single drop of blood from her body, and she fell to the ground.

Dead.

Thanks for reading! Review, please!

NicoleR85: She wasn't all that much in this chapter but she will be in the next one! Thanks for reviewing!

Ain'tEasyBeingBreezy: Aw thanks! Here's the update!

Silently Tearful: Like he kind of explained in this chapter, he really didn't feel she had a right to be mad at him. The thing about Damon is that he might feel bad about doing it, but he's not going to let her know that...especially after everything they've been through. Hahaha, that would normally be an odd statement but I know exactly what you mean! Thanks for the review!

Guest: Aw, Human Clarissa kind of escaped her and she felt a little bad about what she did. Besides, it was a pretty awful thing to do to someone...kind of string them up all cross-like on a bed and drain them of all their blood and leave a real cryptic note about it to their girlfriend. I was kind of cringing writing it, honestly...oh, she definitely made Damon feel like shit for it. Definitely. Claire's not turning anything off though...not for a very long time. Thanks for the review!

grapejuice101: Yeah, her life kind of sucks! Anyways, thanks for the review!

RHatch89: Thank you!

Momsen-xxxx: He felt guilty but kind of also pissed off because she technically doesn't really have a right...which Claire kind of knows, too. I'm trying to really emphasize her selfishness because if I'm being blatant, she's a super selfish character. But that's what makes Claire...Claire. BADASS CLAIRE IS THE BOMB. We'll see that more in the next episode when the wolves kidnap Caroline.

Tvd2014: Well here's another one for you! Yep, Katherine's like the little devil on Claire's shoulder telling her what she doesn't want to hear but knows deep down inside. Which is kind of where all this anger is coming from, you know? Claire's been sleeping with Damon since the '20s and even though she really hates to admit it, she cares about him. And yeah, she definitely didn't entertain the idea of him sleeping with another girl, that's for sure. Yep! Not all that romantic at the beginning portion but I can tell you that in 2x18 Claire and Damon will finally realize this romantic potential between the two of them.

SomebodyWhoCares: I would have Claire hit him...but she's done it way too often that it kind of seemed more effective for her to just get stupidly drunk and call him out on all of his shit. Thanks for reviewing!

ThisIsMeAndYou: Trust me on this one, Claire's not going to be turning off her emotions any time within this season or the next. Christopher WILL be coming back this season though. 2x18. Be prepared...