"If only I screamed or shouted to you and Stefan, maybe she would still be alive." Damon shook his head in frustration and placed his hands on my shoulders so I had to look at his face. He stared into my eyes and cupped my face.

"Elena, Tyler would have snapped your neck the second you stepped out of line. I don't know what I would've done if I lost you, too."

He kissed my forehead for an usually long time while I stood in his room draped in a large towel. While I waited for Damon to get dressed and help me dry off, he walked over to his dresser and pulled out some clothes. I closed my eyes and rubbed my hands over my face. When I opened my eyes again, he was walking toward me in only a pair of black jeans. He stood in front of me and gently started patting me down with the towel, avoiding any bruises along the way. After what felt like hours, he strolled over to the chest of drawers and got out a very comfortable outfit for me. A pair of tight grey sweats and a red and white striped jumper were thrown on the bed next to me. He leaned in close and took ahold of the towel, letting it drop in a heap on the floor.

His hand reached into his back pocket, pulled out a black of lacy thong and stretched them with his thumbs. He had a very mischievous smirk on his face.

"Your blood will have healed me by now. I can dress myself."

Without breaking eye contact, he knelt down right in front of me and slipped my feet into the thong before slowly dragging it up my shivering legs.

"Well, where's the fun in that?"

"You're making me uneasy."

He kissed my forehead, my nose and then my lips before sucking gently at my neck, leaving a subtle love-bite.

"I can tell."

He continued to attack my neck before I quivered and pushed him off of me forcefully. Lust and arousal flashed in his eyes and he bared his pearly white fangs at me, his fists clenched at his sides. He strutted towards me, his goal clearly present in his stance. Just before he could touch me, I held up my hand and he froze with a single word.

"Stop."

Lust quickly turned to confusion, then anger, then compassion.

"I'm cold."

With that, he picked me up with his arms under my thighs and rushed us over to the bed, landing me on my back. I gasped at him with wide eyes.

"Don't move."

I sighed, irritated but obeyed, only folding my arms over my bare chest. When I noticed the lack of activity from Damon, a wave of anxiety washed over me and I was overcome with the intense fear that someone was here to kill me. My heart rate elevated quickly and I jumped off the bed and raced to the corner of the bedroom. I slid down the wall and buried my face into my knees.

There's nobody here, there's nothing there. There's nobody here, there's nothing there.

"Elena?"

I lifted my head up and only noticed now the tears streaming down my face. I was shaking violently and I had goosebumps up and down my body. My vision was blurred and I could only make out a manly figure walking towards me. My eyes grew wide and I tried to push myself further away only to find that there was a wall behind me.

"Elena, baby it's me, you're fine. I'm not going to hurt you."

His voice pushed its way into my head and my vision cleared. Seeing his face immediately calmed my anxiety and I jumped up into his firm embrace. My legs wrapped around his waist and I buried my head into his neck while closing my eyes.

"I just went to light the fire downstairs, baby."

I tried to answer but my voice still quivered in fear at the possibility of Tyler's return.

I felt him lean over and grab my clothes from the bed.

"I'm taking you down to the living room, then we are going to spend to rest of the night in front of the warm fire. Sound okay?"

I nodded my head in response, unable to form coherent sentences. I grasped onto his hair, petrified that he was going to drop me and had the hem of his shirt in my mouth, rolling it in between my teeth.

When we reached the sofa, Damon sat down and moved my legs so I was straddling his waist. My arms were still wrapped around his neck and my face still in the crook of his neck too. The heat of the fire still hadn't warmed me up and my whole body shivered. He gently started rubbing my arms and cooed softly in my ear.

"Elena baby, if you let go of me for just a second then I can get this jumper on you and you won't be cold anymore."

I slowly released my arms and held them up for Damon to slip the jumper on my freezing body.

He let his hands hold my waist for a moment before moving them up my back and gently enticing me to lay on his chest. I cuddled up right under his chin, where he rests his head on my chestnut hair.

"Tyler won't ever be able to hurt you again, Stefan made sure of that."

I sniffled and sighed, unable to respond straight away.

"What do you mean, Damon?"

He moved one hand up to stroke my hair and kissed the top of my head.

"Stefan dealt with him. We'll put it that way."

I pushed myself up and held my hands on his chest, giving him a stern expression.

"What. Do you mean. Salvatore?"

His hands returned to my waist and he squeezed my hips gently, hoping to calm me down.

"Fine. Well if you MUST know-"

"Yes, I must know what you did."

"Okay, let's get one thing straight: I didn't actually do anything to him, Stefan did, I only merely gave him the idea-"

"What did you say to him Damon!"

"Alright Elena."

I braced myself for what Damon was about to tell me. He closed his eyes, sighed, and opened his eyes again.

"Tyler is at the bottom of the quarry in a metal safe. Before we threw, sorry, before Stefan threw him in there, Tyler was injected with a shit ton of wolfsbane. There's enough in his system to keep him weak for a few days but by then, he'll be too weak to do anything because of the lack of food. We reckon he'd gone about a week without food before he came to... see you."

I became more and more worried the more he spoke.

"And you honestly think that nobody's gonna find him? Nobody's gonna be looking for him or anything? Tyler has connections with people all over the US. As long as he's still alive, they will be able to find him and they won't stop until they do."

He kissed the top of my forehead.

"Elena, I'm telling you, you are completely safe from him. Tyler won't be able to lay a hand on you ever again.

"And I'm telling you, that the second you start to believe that he's out of our lives forever, that is when he'll show up again and wreak havoc. This is what he does. He has you convinced you're safe and that is when he attacks."

He goes to hold my face in his hands but I can't dare to look him in the eye. I can see him staring at me out of the corner of my eyes with those massive blue orbs of his.

"What can I do or say that is gonna make you feel safe again."

At this, I stare directly into his eyes, a neutral face expression and I answer as blankly as possible.

"I want his head in your hands.."

Damon stares at me with a new, horrified expression on his face.

"Elena-"

"No. That is what I want. To see his dead, rotting head decapitated from his lifeless body. I want to hold it in my hands and feel the power that comes with it. I wanna be able to spit on his corpse and call him every bad name in the book for what he did to me."

Before I knew, I was stood up, huffing in anger and desperate to do something reckless. He stood up and matched my stance, ready to take on anything I might do.

"He killed my baby, Damon. Our baby. Our only chance at a family is gone because of that despicable monster."

I ran my hands through my hair and closed my eyes, trying to stop the tears.

"Elena, nobody hates him more than I do, trust me. But you really need to calm down baby. Just sit down and talk to me."

I shook my head as he was talking.

"No. No, I need to get outta here."

He held his arms up in a defensive state.

"Okay. Let me help you."

I marched over to the sofa and grabbed my sweats, pulled them on and headed to the door. I slipped on my converse and had my hand on the door handle, ready to sprint.

Damon quickly followed behind me and placed his hand delicately on mine, I froze at the intimacy of such an innocent touch.

"It's late, dark and cold. We can still go out if you need some fresh air but I'll need you to bundle up and stay very close to me. I'm not about to lose you in the front garden, alright? What? Elena what are you doing?"

All I could do was stare at my hand being covered by his. I placed my other hand on top and squeezed it gently, then I picked up his hand and dropped it by his side.

"Um, I'm going to get a drink."

I took off quickly and headed into the kitchen where I leaned over the sink and closed my eyes tightly. My stomach suddenly felt really small and I started to feel nauseous. I had my arms crossed on the edge of the sink and my head buried in my arms. I groaned in pain and I heard Damon walk in and stand behind me.

"I don't feel well."

"I know baby."

I heard him reaching over my head to a cupboard of cups and plates. I looked up and saw him biting in to his hand, slowly filling up a shot glass with his blood. He passed it to me and went to wipe his hand.

"Here, drink this."

I picked up the glass and took a little sip before taking it with me to the table. I tipped it over a little to see the blood slowly slide down the side and I immediately jumped up and ran to the bathroom to throw up.

Before I even got down on my hands and knees, Damon was there holding my hair back. He had his hands on my back and was trying to calm me down as I tried to throw up. Dry heaves came and went but I never coughed anything up other than the small quantity of blood. After a few more minutes of dry heaves, I put the toilet seat down and sat on it, pushed my hair back and shook my head in frustration.

"What is wrong with me?"

Damon was crouched down in front of me and grabbed ahold of my knees.

"Nothing, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You're just... sick. Not feeling well."

I took ahold of his hands and raised my voice a little.

"Then why the fuck couldn't I keep your blood down? That was suppose to make me feel better, not worse."

"Listen, you're going through so much right now- mentally- that, physically, your body has no idea how to react so it just kinda shuts down. Your emotions are all over the place, your hormones are out of whack and it's messing with how you're feeling physically. You seriously need to just... recharge yourself..."

He stopped and took a deep breath debating whether or not to continue on.

"...so as of this moment, I'm putting you on room arrest."

My eyes grew wide and my mouth dropped.

"Wha-"

He held up his finger to silence me.

"From this moment on, where ever you've been placed in the house -either our bedroom or living room, you won't be allowed to go anywhere without my permission. You'll need to be escorted to the bathroom and you'll be required to ask me for a drink if you need one. I'll be making you three meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner with dessert if you want."

"You can't do this."

He cracked a smile which ignited a flame of rage inside of me.

"I can and I will. Now, any questions?"

I crossed my arms and pressed my lips into a tight line. To show my anger, I breathed solely through my nose.

"Am I going to be left alone?"

He stood up and held out his hand, expecting me to take it. All I could do was stare at it, then him then the floor. I was enraged by his decision.

"Of course not. I'm not letting you out of my sight for a good while. I thought you knew me well enough to know that."

I stood up abruptly and pushed past him, whispering under my breath.

"Guess not."

Ignoring his calls, I raced up the stairs and slammed to door shut, throwing myself onto the king-sized bed and sobbing loudly into the pillow to muffle my cries. Obviously I wasn't quiet enough as I heard a faint knock on the door before it squeaked open. I didn't look up.

I felt the bed dip beside me and a hand slowly push my hair from my neck. It was only at this point did I turn over and cuddle the pillow in a foetus position while staring up at him with doe eyes, glazed over with tears. He stroked my jawline delicately with the pad of his thumb and wiped away the remainders of tears.

"Do you wanna go on one last road trip tomorrow before your room arrest starts?"

I sniffled and pushed myself up to lean against the headboard.

"Not if it means I have to stay on lockdown longer."

He chuckled at my response and bent down to kiss my nose.

"It'll be Christmas Eve tomorrow and we still don't have a tree to decorate. What do you say we go and get one? There might not be any great ones left but it's worth a shot. Besides, I've already got the decorations out of the attic while you were asleep."

I closed my eyes and smiled, a single tear rolling down my cheek.

"Sounds perfect."

I whispered and flipped my legs over the side of the bed, my arms reaching up to stretch. I walked over to the bathroom to stare at myself in the mirror. I rubbed my hands over my face before turning back to Damon, who was still sat on the edge of the bed with his arms crossed, his eyes looking me up and down with a soft smirk on his face.

I pulled the jumper at the hem and huffed.

"Do I have anything more flattering than this here or is it all still at my flat?"

Quick as a flash, he had his arms wrapped around my waist, making me squeal in surprise. He turned us back to the mirror and rested his chin on my shoulder, staring intently at our reflections.

"You have never looked more stunning, Elena."

I stared at myself, wondering when I lost the life I once treasured in my eyes. What was once a pair of bright, beautiful chocolates eyes, filled with hope and depth, were now just a pair of dull brown eyes with not a sliver of life or joy in them at all. I barely recognised the girl who was staring back at me. Damon caught me looking sad and lifted my chin up ever so slightly.

"Talk to me, baby."

"I just don't recognise her. The girl in the mirror, who even is she?"

He smiled and kissed my cheek many times.

"That, Elena, is the girl I fell in love with."