HA! Finished another one. I spent the first couple of weeks of Christmas break working on t-shirt designs for teefury. I'll let you guys know if they accept any of them for printing. So far, I have a Buffyverse one and an Avatar: The Last Airbender one. I'm way psyched.

Anyway! Here's the new chapter. I'm especially happy with how it turned out, and I hope you guys enjoy it. Thanks again to Mara for letting me bounce all my ideas off her even when her internet is driving her insane with all its glitchiness.

Oh! Also, after what we found out about Grayson and Damon's history with Whitmore College in episodes 5x09 and 5X10, I went back and tweaked a few details in the earlier chapters. I think most of the changes are in chapters 3-5, and they're generally in scenes from Damon's or Grayson's point of view.

"Elena! Oh, God. Don't you dare die on me."

Damon raised his other hand to his lips and slit his wrist open on his fangs, then pressed the bleeding wound hard against Elena's mouth. For a few seconds that felt like the longest in his life, nothing happened, but at last, she swallowed. He watched the ugly bite mark on her neck close and quickly pulled his wrist away. He was still too weak to spare enough to heal her fully, but at least she wouldn't lose any more blood. He gathered her up in his arms and ran as fast as he could—nowhere near his usual top speed, but still much faster than a human—up the stairs, across the main floor, out the front door, and to her car. He buckled her into the passenger seat before speeding around to the driver's side. As he pulled out of the driveway, he eased her phone out of the right pocket of her jeans and flipped through it until she found her dad's number.

After three rings, Grayson picked up. "Elena! Wha—"

"Grayson, it's Damon," Damon interrupted.

"What are you doing with Elena's phone?" said Grayson, his tone suddenly cold and threatening.

"Elena's with me. She's hurt, but I can't use my blood to heal her. She needs a transfusion. Meet us at your office as soon as you can."

He drove into town as fast as he dared—normally, he would just compel any cop that pulled him over into letting him off, but he couldn't afford any delays now, so he only went ten over the speed limit. Instead of parking in front of Grayson's building, he pulled around to the back, where he was much less likely to be spotted carrying a blood-smeared teenager. He raced inside, carefully navigating the narrow halls with Elena in his arms until he reached the office. No sooner had he laid Elena gently on the exam table than pain lanced through his back. He staggered forward, then spun around to see Elena's father, red-faced and furious, advancing on him with a loaded crossbow.

"What have you done to my daughter?!" he roared. "I trusted you to protect her, but you've made her like you!"

"What?" said Damon, angry and bewildered. "I did not!" Grayson paid no attention to his words, merely taking aim with the crossbow again. Damon darted forward and knocked the weapon out of the man's hands, but before he could get another word of explanation out, Grayson punched him right in the face. Weakened as Damon was from vervain, starvation, and the crossbow bolt in his back, it actually hurt quite a lot. He took a split second to reflect that he probably should have cleaned the blood off of himself and Elena before coming here so that Grayson wouldn't have made the assumption he had, but it was too late to fix that now.

Grayson tried to throw another punch, but Damon was done playing around. He caught Grayson's fist in one hand and squeezed hard enough to make the bones creak and shift. "Listen!" he snarled through his fangs, his field of vision going crimson as blood filled his eyes. Grayson still wasn't interested in cooperating. He tried to land a blow to Damon's stomach with his other fist, but Damon shoved him hard, and the next second, he had him pinned to the wall of the office.

"I didn't turn her!" said Damon. "But I did heal her wound with my blood, and if she doesn't get a transfusion now, she could still die with it in her system!"

Some of the rage faded from Grayson's expression, to be replaced with fear, and Damon released him. He hurried over to Elena and pressed his stethoscope to her chest, then felt her pulse in her wrist and checked her eyes. "She's showing all the symptoms of hypovolemic shock. What happened to her?"

"It's a long story," said Damon, "one that can wait until after you get a needle hooked up to her arm."

"I'm going to start her on a saline drip to get her fluids up and some Benadryl to counteract a possible negative reaction to the transfusion," said Grayson, hurrying over to the sink and washing his hands vigorously. "I guess I should be thankful you sent me that girl last week, or I wouldn't have stocked up on everything I needed to do a transfusion here."

"Is there anything I can do?" Damon asked, reaching around and pulling the crossbow bolt out of his back. Fortunately it was in a spot he could easily reach, and nowhere near his heart. He rolled his shoulders, feeling the wound beginning to heal.

"Go down to the basement and get three bags of the O-negative from the fridge," said Grayson. Damon dropped the crossbow bolt and sped out of the office. It only took him a couple of seconds to find the stairs. The basement was sterile and tidy like the rest of the building, though it was more obvious down here that it had been built in the mid-nineteenth century than it was on the remodeled ground floor. Most of the space was taken up by shelves of file folders, but there was also a printer, a copier, and a door to another room. Something about this place gave Damon an uneasy feeling, but he focused on finding the refrigerator. It was located on the wall behind all the shelves of files. He opened it and grabbed three bags of O-negative as instructed, then an A-positive just for good measure.

When he returned to the office, Elena had an IV needle sticking out of her right forearm something clipped to her index finger that was attached to a heart rate monitor. Damon already knew her heart was beating more feebly and much faster than normal, but there was something extra disturbing about hearing the rapid beeps of the machine. Grayson was in the process of winding the clear plastic tube carrying the saline and Benadryl solution around the grooves of a cylindrical device that was attached to the metal pole above the exam table. "What's that?" Damon asked, handing Grayson one of the bags of blood.

"Put the others in the small fridge under my desk," he said. Then he noticed the extra one, and raised an eyebrow at Damon.

"You shot me. It's the least you can do," said Damon. "And you didn't answer my question."

"It's a blood warmer," said Grayson as he swapped out the bag of saline hanging from the top of the pole for the blood bag and attached the tube to it instead. Slowly, the red liquid replaced the clear in the tube, draining around and around the blood warmer and finally down into Elena's waiting vein through the needle.

"Why do you need it?" said Damon, some of the tension leaving his body now that the transfusion had started. She was going to be okay. He hadn't killed her.

"Three units of blood is a pretty significant transfusion," said Grayson, who also seemed more relaxed now. "The heater ensures that she won't get hypothermia from the new blood, and it also helps it flow faster."

"So, what, you can't just toss the blood in a microwave?" said Damon.

Grayson shot him an incredulous look. "Really?" he said. "You've been living off the stuff since the Civil War, and you know that little about how it works?"

"Hey, I always get it straight from the source," said Damon, annoyed. "What do I care about transfusions?"

This remark only made Grayson's lip curl in disgust, but Damon met his disapproval without flinching, and he regained his composure quickly. "In order for a transfusion to do the patient any good, the red blood cells in the transfusion solution need to still be alive and healthy. Microwaving it would make them burst. There was actually a lawsuit in '91 over a patient who died because the nurse microwaved the blood before administering it. The blood warmer reheats it safely."

"Huh," said Damon. Not as interested in this information as he was in sating his hunger, he ripped the seal off the bag of A-positive and drank a few mouthfuls. He wrinkled his nose. "Yeah, definitely not as good as the fresh stuff."

"You were going to explain what happened to Elena?" said Grayson coolly.

Just then, Elena's phone buzzed in Damon's pocket. He pulled it out. There was a new message from Bonnie Bennett. "Just a minute," he said. He opened the message.

"What's going on? I don't think I can keep S out here much longer before he realizes what we did."

Oh, right, the diversion. Damon typed out a brief reply and hit send, then set the phone on the desk.

"Was it you who bit her?" said Grayson, some of the earlier hostility back in his voice now.

"She forced me to," said Damon. He couldn't meet Grayson's eyes.

"Why would she do that?"

"If you're going to make me tell you the story, can I at least start at the beginning?"

"Go ahead. You're not leaving until I know for sure that she'll be fine, and the transfusion will probably take an hour or two, so feel free to be as detailed as you want."

Damon drank some more of the A-positive. Even though this stuff was apparently only red blood cells in some ice-cold solution, he could still feel his strength returning the more he drank. He might have to grab a few more out of the freezer if he was really going to be here for a couple of hours. "Okay. Due to a long series of circumstances that were mostly—but not always—beyond my control, my baby brother thinks I have nothing better to do with my time than ruin his life. I made things slightly worse by threatening to kill Zach as payback for him trying to shoot me, so, on Wednesday evening, Stefan stuck me with vervain and tossed me in the cellar. The door was reinforced, so I couldn't get out. And that's where he would have left me for the next lifetime or so if it hadn't been for Elena. About half an hour ago, she found me and rescued me."

"And you thanked her by feeding on her?" said Grayson.

"Have you ever seen a vampire after almost four days without blood?" Damon asked, annoyed. It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but something flickered over Grayson's expression that gave Damon the same uneasy feeling he'd gotten in the basement. He pressed on, trying to shake it off. "I was delirious. She offered, I told her no, and then things got really fuzzy, and the next thing I knew, my teeth were in her throat and she was already losing consciousness."

Grayson closed his eyes, as if the very sight of Damon—Elena's drying blood still covering his mouth and chin—was too much to stomach after hearing the story.

X

Bonnie and Stefan had been scouring the woods by the school for nearly half an hour now, Stefan growing more and more frantic the deeper they went with no sign of Elena. Stefan had just suggested they double back and make sure they hadn't missed anything when her phone vibrated. She hastily pulled it out and saw that it was a text from Elena. After a quick glance ahead at Stefan to make sure he wasn't watching her, she opened it.

"This is Damon. Elena got me out. We're both fine. I owe you one."

Bonnie let out the breath she felt like she'd been holding since she first began this diversion. She slipped the phone back in her pocket and looked up. "Stefan," she said loudly. He'd gotten a lot farther ahead since she last checked.

"What is it?" he said, rushing back to her side so quickly that she jumped. "Did you find something?"

"Elena's not out here, Stefan," she said.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, looking confused.

Bonnie sighed. "She sent that text to keep you occupied so she could go to the boarding house to look for more clues about what happened to Damon."

Stefan's expression darkened instantly. "What do you mean, 'what happened to Damon'?" he said. "He left town. He told her that."

Bonnie looked him straight in the eye. It only took a second or two for his gaze to falter guiltily. "Elena found him," she said. "Whatever you did to him, she got him out, and he's fine."

He stared at her, such a mixture of betrayal, disbelief, and disappointment coming over his face that she couldn't help feeling bad for him. "So," he said, "this whole time, you've been keeping me occupied out here so she could help him."

"Basically," said Bonnie. "Look, this time out here has been enough to show me that you have good intentions, but I'm not the one you're going to have to win over. Elena doesn't trust you, and frankly, you're not making it easy for her."

"Okay," he said. "You want to know why I locked Damon up? Because he was going to murder our nephew, Zach. Our own family. By freeing him, you and Elena might as well have killed Zach yourselves."

Before Bonnie could even gasp in dismay at his words, he had vanished in a blur of motion, leaving her standing in the forest alone.

X

As soon as Bonnie was out of sight and earshot, Stefan stopped and pulled out his phone, pressing Zach's speed dial number with a shaking thumb. By the second ring, he already couldn't take the tension anymore and punched the nearest tree with all his strength. The trunk splintered beneath his fist with an ear-splitting bang. When he pulled back, there was very little skin left on his bloody, stinging knuckles.

This couldn't be happening. The last time he'd locked Damon up, he'd gone on a killing spree in revenge as soon as he got out. How many bodies would there be this time? And Stefan had taken so many precautions to ensure it wouldn't happen again. Where had he gone wrong? Perhaps Elena wouldn't have done this if he'd told her what Damon had been planning for Zach from the start, instead of just giving her vague warnings about how dangerous he was, but he'd been afraid she might have overreacted in the opposite direction and brought the Council down on them.

"Come on, Zach, pick up!"

X

"Do you need to take that?" said Mayor Lockwood, gesturing at Zach's ringing pocket.

"If you don't mind," said Zach over the second ring. "It's probably my nephew."

The Mayor and the Sheriff exchanged brief glances, and it was Liz who spoke this time. "Go ahead. I think we've pretty much settled everything. We'll alert the rest of the Council of your suspicions, but I think we should wait for the vervain before we start an investigation."

Zach nodded his approval and quickly stepped out of the office. His phone was ringing for the fifth time when he decided he'd gone far enough that it was safe to answer it. "What is it, Stefan?" he said.

"Zach! Thank God. Where are you?"

"I had to go into town for a couple of things," said Zach, shifting his phone to the other ear so he could fish his car keys out of his pocket. Stefan's panicked tone did not bode well. "What's—"

"Damon got out."

Zach's blood ran cold and he nearly dropped his keys. "How?" he said. "What happened? Didn't you give him more vervain?" He suddenly felt much better about his decision to warn the Council that there might be a vampire in town; he probably would never have gotten another chance, but if anything happened to him now, it would only confirm the suspicions he'd planted in them.

"It wouldn't have mattered; he had help from Elena," said Stefan.

"Elena?"

"Yeah, but the important thing is that he probably still plans on killing you. You've got to leave town. Don't tell me where you go; the less I know, the better. Just get as far away as you can."

"O-okay," said Zach faintly. By now, he'd reached his car, and he climbed inside.

"I'm heading to the boarding house to see if I can find out where Damon went. I'll buy you as much time as I can."

Somewhere beneath his growing sense of dread, Zach felt a twinge of remorse for how little gratitude he'd shown Stefan for the lengths he'd gone to in his attempts to keep him alive. Maybe he hadn't done much at first, but it couldn't be easy to sell out a brother for a fourth great half-nephew.

"Thank you, Uncle Stefan," he said. "I hope I'll be able to say that in person some day. What you've done means a lot."

"You're welcome," said Stefan solemnly. "And take care."

X

About halfway through the second bag of O-negative—by which point Damon had drunk two of the A-positives and washed himself up as best he could in the office sink—, Grayson announced that he needed a cup of coffee from the machine in the break room, then stood and left the office. Damon took advantage of his absence to steal the chair next to the exam table so he could watch Elena more closely. Grayson had cleaned the blood off her lips and neck a while ago, so there were no outward signs that anything had happened to her. She looked peaceful, and the beeps of the heart rate monitor had slowed much closer to normal. He brushed a few stray hairs away from her face, glad to see that some color had returned to her cheeks.

He cocked his head to the side. Grayson was still in the other room, and he could hear the sounds of a coffee maker going. There was no danger of being overheard. He took one of Elena's hands in his and leaned a little closer to her. "Thank you," he said. "I guess I should say it now, in case you hate me when you wake up. And maybe you should. Things have a tendency to end badly for people who get too close to me. I'm not the white knight. I'm not the dutiful son or the valiant soldier or the good brother or the loyal friend. I do horrible things. I treat people like playthings. I hurt them. I kill them. And I like it. But if, by some miracle, you still want me around after what I did to you, I swear I won't let anything hurt you again."

His view of her was suddenly blurred. He reached up and wiped the extra moisture away from his eyes with the hand not clutching hers.

"She trusts you with her life," said Grayson's voice from the doorway. His tone was a mixture of accusation and confusion.

Damon looked around at him, then turned back to the girl sleeping on the exam table. Trust was something he hadn't had for a very long time. "It goes both ways," he said. He frowned, thinking about what he'd said, and, more to himself than to Grayson, he added, "I'm pretty sure I'd die for her."

"So would I," said Grayson.

"I think I need to bring Stefan in on the deal," said Damon.

"After what he did to you?" said Grayson, clearly surprised.

"He'll keep trying to interfere if he doesn't know what's going on. If there are two things you can rely on my brother for, it's his noble intentions and his complete lack of good judgment. Believe me, he'll be much less trouble if he's in the loop. And he only drinks animal blood, so you don't have to worry about whether or not he can abide by the terms of the deal. Even if it does make him useless in a fight."

"Fine, but if you want to add him as a variable, it'll cost you."

"Cost me what?" said Damon, turning a menacing glare on the doctor, but it had no more effect on him than it usually did. Why did he even bother?

"Nothing you can't do without," said Grayson. "Just a few ounces of your blood, a couple times a week. After seeing what it did for Elena when Zach shot her, I want to find out what other medical applications it could be used for. One of the new doctors at Mystic Falls General was my protégé while she was in med school. I'm sure she'd be interested in exploring the uses of vampire blood too."

There it was again. That inexplicable creep factor—something in Grayson's tone. But it was a reasonable enough request. "Are you ever going to tell me why Elena's in danger, or who from?"

"All you need to know for now is that they're older and stronger than you, and for them to get what they want, Elena has to die. I have a couple of contacts who can let me know if any of them starts to get too close."

"I'm no good to Elena if these guys can kill me because I don't know enough about them," said Damon.

"And yet you'll only be here until the comet comes and you can get what you came for," said Grayson. "I can't tell you the rest if you'll be taking all that information away with you."

"Me and Katherine leaving town was one of your terms, not mine," Damon reminded him.

"And I'm not retracting it. Katherine and Elena are identical. Nothing would draw unwanted attention faster than both of them being in the same place. Once you have Katherine, the only thing you can do to protect Elena is to leave and never come back as long as she's alive."

Damon had nothing to say to that. Grayson's words had left him with a horrible pit in his stomach. He squeezed Elena's hand tighter, then almost fell out of his chair in surprise when he felt her squeezing back. "Elena?" he said, getting to his feet. Grayson did so too, moving quickly to join him next to the exam table. She let out a barely audible groan and turned her head to the side a little, her face screwed up in something like a pout. Damon couldn't suppress a smile at the sight. After a few more seconds, she opened her eyes.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" said Grayson, switching the second empty blood bag for the third and final one.

"Dad?" she said. Her voice was thick and hoarse.

Damon started to pull his hand away from hers, thinking he'd clear out and leave father and daughter there together while she finished recovering, but Elena's hand tightened around his in a surprisingly strong grip, her gaze fixed on him now. "Stay," she said. She looked very determined. He slowly sat back down.

"Would you like something to drink, Elena?" said Grayson. "There's apple, orange, or cranberry juice in the vending machine."

"Mmm…apple," she murmured. She sounded like she was teetering on the brink of falling asleep again. "What's on my finger?"

"Pulse oximeter," said Grayson.

"Oh. 'S heavy. And m…my arm itches."

"That's the IV. Don't touch it. I'll be right back with that apple juice."

"Hmm, okay. Thanks, Dad." She gave an enormous yawn, but seemed to become a little more alert again. "Hey, Damon. You're okay."

Damon listened to Grayson's retreating footsteps until he was sure he was out of earshot. "You've gotta stop saving me, Elena," he said, his voice almost as hoarse as hers.

The corners of her mouth turned up. "You first," she said.

Damon returned the smile and shook his head. "Never gonna happen."

"You still owe me a swing ball, you know," said Elena, her smile widening.

Damon stared at her. A peculiar sensation was growing within his chest. It was full and warm and more than a little painful. After everything that had just happened, she did still want him in her life. "Your wish is my command, Miss Gilbert," he said, smirking.

X

If this had happened as recently as two and a half weeks ago, Damon's first objective after recovering his strength would have been to kill Zach—slowly and painfully—and throw Stefan in that cell with the body for a few days. And maybe he would have done that anyway if he hadn't spent the last couple of hours with Elena. Even so freshly returned from death's doorstep, her priority was to ensure that he was okay and that he knew she harbored no ill will towards him for taking so much of her blood. Where anger and vengefulness would have been, Damon merely felt weary. Elena had overwhelmed him with her kindness, and unused as he was to his own emotions after fifty-one years without them, he was exhausted.

It was in this state that he returned to the boarding house to confront his brother and his nephew, but Zach's car was gone, which meant Stefan was likely the only one home. As it had been half a week since his last shower and he'd been wearing the same clothes and hadn't been able to shave since then, he headed up to his room first. Once he had seen to his hygienic needs, he strode down the stairs into the parlor. Stefan wasn't in there when Damon entered, so he poured himself a glass of bourbon and drank a few mouthfuls.

"Zach left town," came Stefan's voice about thirty seconds later. "And even I don't know where he went, so you won't be able to use any of your tricks to pry it out of my head."

"Good for him," said Damon, spreading his hands wide and starting to walk towards Stefan. "Seemed like his life was kind of stagnating here anyway. Guy really needed to get away. I would say what he really needs is to get laid, but as his uncle, that's a little too creepy for even me to think about." He tossed back the last of the bourbon and returned to the bar, where he deposited the empty glass.

"You're not going to hunt him down?"

"Out of sight, out of mind," said Damon indifferently. "He isn't worth the energy it would take to find him. In fact, he's not even worth the energy it would take to continue talking about him, but I know he's not what you're really down here to discuss. Spill."

"Bonnie Bennett told me what she and Elena did to get you out," said Stefan.

Damon chuckled. "For a couple of teenage girls, they sure make good allies," he said. "Better than Zach, anyway." He looked around at Stefan. "Did Bonnie mention that the rescue mission involved Elena force-feeding me her own blood so I'd have the strength to leave the cellar?"

Stefan's eyes widened, then narrowed dangerously. "Is she still alive?" he asked curtly.

"Even three days starved, my control is still better than yours," said Damon contemptuously. "She's fine. And now, the two of us need to get a few things straight. As much fun as it's been winding you up until you popped like a Jack-in-the-box, I meant it when I said I have a deal with Grayson Gilbert, and that protecting Elena is part of it. So if you try anything else that would prevent me from holding up my end, it'll be you starving in that cellar next, and I'll change my mind about letting Zach off the hook."

"What's Grayson's end of the deal?" said Stefan.

"Well, since you seem to do the most damage when you don't know what's going on," Damon began, shooting his brother an annoyed scowl, "Grayson is supplying me with the resources I need to open a mystically sealed tomb underneath the ruins of Fell's Church." He watched Stefan out of the corner of his eye, waiting for him to put two and two together. It took a few seconds to arrive, but when it did, Stefan's reaction did not disappoint. He looked as though he'd forgotten how to breathe.

"Katherine?" he rasped. "You mean she's still alive?"

"She and the other twenty-six vampires who were in the church when the founders set fire to it—although she'll be the only one left once Grayson is done. That's the other part of the deal."

Stefan staggered over to the bar and poured himself a drink.

"I'm going to get her back, Stefan," said Damon. He walked in front of the fireplace and stared into the dancing flames. "I'm going to get her back." He looked around at Stefan, shaking off the trancelike state brought on by the thought of how close he was to his goal. "You can stick around town if you want to help me keep an eye out for unidentified ancient vampires who may want Elena dead."

Stefan frowned at him. "Why would ancient vampires want Elena dead?"

"No idea. Grayson's keeping that one close to the chest."

"And why would you be willing to risk your future happiness with Katherine by getting between the girl who looks like her and unknown vampires?" said Stefan, his tone mocking.

"First, she's my friend. Second, her dad would hardly help me with the tomb if she was killed. Third, when have you ever known me to back down from a fight just because there was no chance I could win it?"

"Well, let's see. Civil War. World War II. I think that about covers it."

Damon rolled his eyes and walked away.

"Where are you going?"

"To bed. It's been a long, mostly unpleasant day." By then, he'd reached the edge of the room. "But first…" In the blink of an eye, he ran back to the fireplace, seized the poker, and skewered Stefan through the stomach with it. Stefan dropped to his knees, gasping and wheezing. Damon bent down so his mouth was level with Stefan's ear. "That's for the last three days. You got off lucky. Don't try it again."

X

It had been about a quarter of an hour since Jeremy and Elena had gone up to bed, and Grayson had just finished filling Miranda and Jenna in on the details of the day's events. They'd known the general stuff (such as that Elena had been hurt and needed a transfusion) since around noon, when he'd texted Miranda during his little coffee break at the office.

"Is it safe to bring the other brother in on this?" Miranda asked.

"Damon seems to think it is," said Grayson, slowly pacing the length of the living room. "And it might actually make it easier to keep track of him."

"Then you're still planning to take both of them out as soon as you get into that tomb," said Jenna.

"Of course," said Grayson. "Damon might be willing to die for Elena, but he's still a vampire, and his allegiance is ultimately with Katherine Pierce."

"Who looks just like Elena," said Jenna.

"She's her ancestor," said Miranda. "Isobel's side."

"They're both a danger to Elena, but as long as Isobel doesn't know what Elena looks like, she isn't of immediate concern," said Grayson.

"God, this is all so complicated," said Jenna, rubbing her hands over her face.

"Despite all Damon's connections to these other vampires, you really think we can work with him for the next three and a half months?" said Miranda.

"I don't think we have a choice. We won't be able to get the tomb open without his help, and if we want to be there when it opens, we have to be on his side," said Grayson. "But that doesn't mean I feel good about it. Elena almost died today. She put herself in that position to help him. For a moment, I thought he'd turned her, and I was a second away from vervaining him and handing him over to Maxfield."

"Wait, Maxfield?" said Jenna. "As in, the really hot, young, and single Dr. Wes Maxfield at Whitmore?"

Miranda raised an eyebrow at her little sister over her teacup. "Shut up," said Jenna, her cheeks reddening a little. Miranda's eyes twinkled.

"Dr. Maxfield is conducting the same kind of experiments on vampires that I used to when I was at Whtimore, then later in the basement at the office," said Grayson. "Mikael, the Original vampire who came looking for Elena when she was a toddler, had one other vampire with him. Abby Bennett desiccated Mikael, but I kept his minion on vervain in the basement, and for nearly seven years, I used his blood to treat my patients."

"That's gross, Grayson," said Jenna.

"It's worth it," he said, his expression hard. "Even after years studying the properties of the blood, I only scratched the surface. My goal was to isolate the healing factor from the part of it that makes humans susceptible to turning into vampires, but I couldn't do it. That blood is the ultimate cure-all, but with the risk of turning attached, it's still too dangerous to share my findings about it."

"You said Damon agreed to give you blood samples," said Miranda. "Maybe you'll crack it this time."

"One thing that'll make the alliance more worthwhile," Grayson sighed, finally stopping his pacing and sinking into the recliner. He looked at Jenna. "The one doctor I know I can trust to use it responsibly is Meredith Fell at the hospital."

"Wait, Meredith knows about this stuff?" said Jenna, sitting up straighter. Jenna and Meredith were from the same graduating class at the high school. They'd been best friends growing up, but ever since Jenna's relationship with Meredith's cousin Logan had imploded and she'd fled town to get her bachelor's as far away from Mystic Falls as possible, they hadn't really talked at all.

"She's a Fell," said Miranda. "The information's been passed down in her family as long as it has in ours. But she and Grayson share the same fascination for the healing properties of vampire blood, which is a little too radical for the rest of the founding families."

"Hell, it's too radical for the rest of my own family," said Grayson. "Back when I was at Whitmore, I tried to explain to Dad what the Augustine society was doing, but he basically considered it heresy to even think that something good could come of anything vampire related. I kept it quiet from him after that, but John handled it the same way. He's the one who staked my test subject before I could finish the research."

X

"Why were Mom, Dad, and Jenna so weird about you at dinner?" said Jeremy around his toothbrush.

Elena finished gargling and spat out her mouthful of water and toothpaste in the sink. "They were weird?" she said, trying to sound like she had no idea what he was talking about.

He rinsed and spat too. "Come on, you can't tell me you didn't notice," he said, wiping his mouth. "They were acting like, I dunno, like you'd break if they so much as talked too loud, and they kept looking at you."

Elena shrugged. "It's probably just that I got kicked off the cheerleading squad today."

"How'd you do that? Isn't Caroline the head cheerleader or whatever?"

"That doesn't mean she shows favoritism. I've missed a bunch of practices lately, and I guess my heart just isn't in it anymore."

"Yeah, well. I never understood why there's a whole sport dedicated to being a support system for other sports. Maybe you can try a real sport next."

"Jer!" said Elena indignantly, whacking him on the shoulder with her hairbrush. He retaliated by jabbing her in the side. She shrieked and jumped away, but he pursued her with a wicked grin. "No, stop!" she half-giggled, half-yelled. At last, she managed to make it to her bedroom and shut the door between them.

"It's still not a real sport!" Jeremy called through the door.

"Goodnight, Jeremy."

"Goodnight, Elena!" he said cheerfully.

Elena rolled her eyes and walked over to her bed. She was about to climb in when someone knocked on her door. "Come in," she said.

"Hey, sweetie," said her mom, poking her head inside. "How are you feeling?"

"Fine now," said Elena. "Kinda tired, maybe."

"It might be a good thing that you're off the squad. You should probably take it easy for a few days."

"I will," said Elena.

"Sleep well."

"You too."

Miranda reached her arm in to shut the light off and closed the door gently. Elena rolled over under the covers until she was facing the window Damon had used to enter her room the other day. She'd left it open, and a raven was sitting on the sill, looking at her with one beady eye. "So you're back to stalking me vicariously through Edgar, huh?"

Edgar croaked in a way that sounded a lot like a chuckle.

"Thanks for checking in. I'm fine."

Edgar shifted on his claws a little and bobbed his head in approval.

Elena yawned, her eyes drooping. It had been a long day. "Are you going to stay and make sure I have nice dreams?"

If Edgar did anything in reply, she missed it. She'd already fallen asleep. The next thing she knew, she was in an enormous ballroom where a Glen Miller band was playing with gusto on the stage, and she was surrounded by dancing couples, the women in swing dresses with their hair in pin curls, the men in waist coats and saddle shoes. She hardly had a chance to take it all in before someone caught her hand and spun her around, making the skirt of her own black and red polka dotted dress flare out.

"Damon!" she cried happily as she collided with his chest. He looked like James Dean. "Did you do this?"

"Of course I did," he said smugly. They joined in with the rest of the dancers easily. "But don't worry," he dipped her and pulled her up again, "I'll take you to a real one soon."

I did a lot of research in an attempt to make the blood transfusion as medically accurate as possible. I've known for years that you can't microwave blood without ruining it (thankfully nobody in TVD ever seems to toss blood bags in the microwave, but they did it with pig's blood in the Buffyverse all the time, and it drove me nuts), but I didn't know a lot of that other stuff, like that there are actual blood warming machines. I thought that was pretty nifty. As usual with this fic, I particularly loved writing everything with Grayson. He's a ruthless, cunning mad scientist vampire hunter who's fiercely protective of his family, and that's just awesome. Still, I think my favorite part in the whole thing was Damon explaining Stefan to Grayson. Bahaha. Silly Stefan. And I love the idea that Jenna and Meredith used to be best friends, but the whole mess with Logan kind of destroyed that. Oh! And Zach! When I was writing the earlier chapters, I just kept having him go on "errands" because I needed him out of the way, but then I realized he might actually be up to something, and that just made it so much better.