Sorry for the long delay on this one. It seems I have an incredibly contrary muse. She only likes working on fanfiction when I have something else that I really should be giving top priority. Like my thesis or final papers or lesson plans or my students' essays to grade. After I graduated, there was suddenly nothing but free time ahead of me for the entire summer, except for AP grading in July. So as much as I would have liked to crank out tons of new chapters, my muse wasn't interested. Instead, I wrote 50,000 words of an original vampire novel (which I hope to finish this year so I can get it published), did a comprehensive Marvel Cinematic Universe rewatch, including all three shows and both new films, and blew through most of the Dresden Files books. But then, earlier this week, my little brother spent a couple of days at my place and wanted to get caught up on TVD and Originals. Watching those episodes with him was just what my muse needed to get back on track, so here's the chapter. It's even a bit over my usual 10,000 word limit for a chapter. Enjoy!
Previously on "Off by a Single Degree": Damon was bitten by new werewolf Richard Lockwood in the process of protecting the Gilbert family from his savage onslaught. Grayson survived thanks to his Gilbert ring, but now Damon's starting to feel the effects of the werewolf venom. At about the same time that Grayson voiced his determination to cure Damon, Richard (back in human form) was running around in the woods in search of his car, Jeremy met Anna in the public library, and Tyler got kicked off the football team for breaking Coach Tanner's nose. Thanks to Miranda and Jenna, Sheriff Forbes is now on the trail of the werewolf.
Tyler was still in a towering temper when he got home. Screw Tanner. His life might actually improve if there was one less arrogant, short-fused jerk yelling at him all the time, and unless Tanner was unusually lucky, his nose wouldn't be the same shape anymore. That could be Tyler's consolation prize whenever Matt and the other guys were at practice or playing a game without him.
He was so distracted by his anger at Coach Tanner that he didn't realize that his dad's office wasn't empty until he'd already slammed the front door behind him and stormed towards the stairs. "Tyler!" came a sharp voice from that direction. "Why aren't you at practice?"
A spike of fear lanced through Tyler's stomach, stealing away the fire of his rage. "There won't be any more practice," he muttered. He intended the words to be too quiet for his dad to hear, but a hand suddenly seized him by the shoulder and jerked him around.
"What did you say?" Richard snarled.
Tyler flinched, rather startled that his dad had gotten over to him so quickly. This was going to suck. It would have sucked no matter what, but his dad looked like he was already in a bad mood—and that, for once, he had a good reason for it. His clothing was disheveled, his skin was grimy, and his usually perfectly neat hairdo had gone wild, with what looked like bits of leaves in it. He gave off a noticeable smell of sweat and dirt, and something like…wet dog? Most unsettlingly, there was a rusty brown substance crusted over the lower half of his face. Tyler tried not to think about what that might be. Hoping to get the worst over as quickly as possible, he fessed up immediately. "Coach kicked me off the team," he said, not meeting his dad's eyes.
"Why the hell would he do that?" said Richard, surprise coloring his tone—though it was still dominated by fury, and his grip on Tyler's shoulder grew painfully tight. "You're the captain." His grip tightened even further. "What happened?" His voice was a growl.
"He crossed a line, so I broke his nose," said Tyler. Given his horrifying suspicions about what had really happened to Vicki, he didn't want to explain exactly how Coach Tanner had crossed that line.
Tyler fully expected his dad to begin shouting at him, and he braced his jaw in case the first volley came paired with a sucker punch. Instead, his dad said in a low growl, "I'm going to go get cleaned up, and then you and I are going to go have a few words with Coach Tanner." Without another word, he released Tyler's shoulder and jogged up the stairs.
For at least a full minute, Tyler simply stood there, too stunned to move. Eventually, he went upstairs too. He very much doubted he was off the hook, but at least his dad seemed angrier with Coach Tanner than him right now.
X
Liz's brow was deeply furrowed with lines of worry. Neither the deputies nor Johnson (the K-9 handler in charge of the German shepherd whose nose was leading them through the forest) was on the Founder's Council. They had all been flabbergasted when the large wolf tracks they'd seen whenever the trail passed through muddy patches in the lower parts of the terrain suddenly vanished, to be replaced with bare human footprints. The first time Johnson had noticed this switch, he'd pulled Rex back to try again from the last point with pawprints, but the experienced police dog seemed quite certain that the two trails were the same. Liz was the only one who understood what it meant.
Miranda's suspicions had been correct. There was a werewolf in Mystic Falls, and it might even be someone on the Council. She wasn't sure she was fully on board with the Gilberts' theory that Vicki's killer and the werewolf were the same person, but it was a little strange that the Gilberts would be attacked so soon after Grayson had presented his evidence to the Council.
The trail went cold when they reached one of the roads that wound through the woods, just at a spot where the grass and dirt were ripped up in two long furrows made by skidding car tires. Liz thanked Johnson and the deputies for their assistance and dismissed them. She called the station and had another deputy drive the big van out to pick them up and take them back to their vehicles in the Gilberts' neighborhood.
After that, the other three officers resumed their regular duties, but Liz went to the station only long enough to collect the plaster of Paris. Until she could learn more about werewolves, she wouldn't know any way to test for them, but she could at least compare the size of those human footprints with the feet of Council members, and the tire tracks with the treads on the cars they owned. Evidence like that might not be good enough for a court of law, but it would be good enough for the rest of the Council to start a wolf hunt. That didn't mean she considered the case closed yet. She would keep digging. If it was in her power to get closure for Kelly and Matt, she would do it.
X
Stefan watched Dr. Gilbert intently as he bent over his microscope. The two of them were in the office on the main floor of the clinic, while Damon and Elena remained downstairs. Despite the fact that Stefan hadn't interacted with Dr. Gilbert much since the crossbow incident, he found that he had a lot of respect for the man. He was a good father, a good husband—two things Stefan's father had not been. He worked hard to protect both his family and his town, and he was smart. What was more, he was a doctor—the profession Stefan had once wanted to pursue, before vampirism had made that an impractical career path.
At the moment, Dr. Gilbert was comparing a sample of Stefan's blood to that of Damon's. On the counter beside them were two Eldoncards—index card sized pieces of cardstock with four quarter-sized circles on them and instructions for doing a blood type test. While Grayson worked with the microscope and slides, he'd left Stefan to complete blood type tests for both himself and Damon. He'd finished that a few minutes ago. Both cards had blood smeared in each of the four circles, and while the "Control" and "Anti-A" circles still looked like normal blood, the circles labeled "Anti-B" and "Anti-D" now resembled maps of the coastline of Norway, which meant that he and Damon had type B-positive blood. He hadn't realized that blood type was still a thing once you became a vampire, but apparently it was, and Dr. Gilbert had been very happy to find that he and Damon matched.
"Hmm." Dr. Gilbert frowned and looked up from the microscope. "Could you take a look at this, please?" he said. Stefan moved forward and looked into the eyepiece. The slide showed a number of shriveled, misshapen red blobs swimming sluggishly past one another.
"Is this Damon's sample?" he asked, concerned. It might be rare for him to examine blood at a cellular level, but he was certain it wasn't supposed to look like that.
"No, it's yours." The slide blurred and vanished, and then another one replaced it as Dr. Gilbert switched them out. "This one's Damon's. From one of the samples he gave me before yesterday." The red blood cells on this sample were plump and round, and they moved with much more energy.
Stefan's frown matched Dr. Gilbert's when he looked up. "If we have the same blood type, then why are they so different?" He didn't like the idea that his blood was so unhealthy.
"It's your diet," said Dr. Gilbert. "At least, that's my theory. Yours is the only vampire blood I've seen that looks like this. Damon mentioned that you don't feed off humans."
"No. I live off animal blood," said Stefan. "It's been decades since I had anything else."
"And you've been experiencing some fairly debilitating side-effects because of that, haven't you?" said Dr. Gilbert shrewdly.
"Well, I'm not as strong as Damon, and my compulsion isn't as effective, but I'm not a bedridden invalid," said Stefan, feeling a little defensive.
"I didn't say you were," said Dr. Gilbert. "But as you saw, the damage is real, right down to the cellular level. There are enzymes and other proteins unique to human blood, and your body has been completely starved of them since the last time you drank it. It's like you're giving yourself aplastic anemia."
Stefan's heart sank. "You said before that you were aware of my 'track record,' so you know I don't really have many options. I can either be malnourished or be a monster, so I choose to be malnourished."
Dr. Gilbert's expression was surprisingly sympathetic for someone who'd been working against vampires his whole life. "I'm afraid that right now, it might be a choice between remaining malnourished and letting your brother die."
Stefan's whole body felt cold and numb. He had to sit down on Dr. Gilbert's chair. "Then it's fatal?" he said faintly. Even if he and Damon were about as dysfunctional as two brothers could get and had spent most of the last century and a half apart, he couldn't imagine living the rest of eternity without him.
"Not if I can help it," said Dr. Gilbert, "but according to Sheila, no vampire has ever survived a werewolf bite before."
"What are you going to do?"
"First, I'm going to do one more test. If the results are what I hope, then I think my idea will work. If not, things are going to get a lot more complicated."
"What test?" said Stefan.
"Bone marrow biopsy," said Dr. Gilbert. "I need to know if Damon's body is now manufacturing the attack cells, or if the venom merely converted existing cells. If the former, his marrow has been effectively reprogrammed to produce white blood cells that don't recognize any of his other native cells, so they'll attack until there's nothing left."
"And that's the worst-case scenario?"
"It is," said Dr. Gilbert. "We're working in a very limited timeframe. If his red marrow is infected, I would have to scrape all of it out and replace it."
"Red marrow. Isn't that just in flat bones?" said Stefan. His medical knowledge didn't go quite as far as a degree, but casual interest multiplied over a century of reading the occasional medical journal meant he could keep up pretty well with doctor shop talk.
"In human adults, yes," said Dr. Gilbert. "But one of the differences between vampires and humans is that a large percentage of the bone marrow converts from yellow back to red shortly after the transition. Normally, that's a good thing. It's part of why you can recover so quickly from injuries. With vampire metabolism and that much red marrow, you can replenish any amount of blood lost in moments, provided you're ingesting enough blood to give you the raw materials for it."
"So in Damon's case, that means there's too much marrow to extract it all before the venom kills him," said Stefan.
"Precisely," said Dr. Gilbert, "and that's assuming such a deeply invasive surgery wouldn't kill him all on its own. I'd have to crack open nearly all of his bones for that."
If Stefan wasn't a vampire, he thought he might've thrown up at those words.
Dr. Gilbert continued. "But again, that's only the worst-case scenario. And it's still possible that I could find a way to slow the venom down enough to perform that surgery if I have to. On the other hand, if it's only his blood that's infected, not the marrow, then there is only a finite number of cells doing the damage. From there, there would still be two possibilities, both of which I think we can deal with." He held up a finger. "First possibility: the venom is composed of a compound that permanently bonds itself to individual cells, turning only those cells into attack cells." He held up a second finger. "Second possibility: the venom is composed of an enzyme that roves from cell to cell, turning each one it touches into a new attack cell."
"The first one would be the easiest to deal with, right?" said Stefan.
"Absolutely," said Grayson. "But even the second one would be much better than if the venom's function is to infect the marrow."
"What's your plan if the results from the bone marrow biopsy are good?"
"I'll let you know once I've done the biopsy," said Dr. Gilbert, his tone grave.
"How do you know so much about vampire physiology?" said Stefan. "I thought all Council members cared about was killing us."
"Most Council members don't appreciate the value of having a full understanding of the enemy," said Dr. Gilbert. "But you could say that I have a self-taught doctorate in the subject."
Being a vampire himself, Stefan found that a little disturbing, but with Damon's life hanging in the balance, he was just happy to have Dr. Gilbert so close at hand and eager to help.
X
"I go out walkin' after midnight
Out in the moonlight, just like we used to do…"
Damon's eyes snapped open in panic, and the sound of Patsy Cline's voice faded from his ears. Had he really heard it? Wait, no. This wasn't Dr. Whitmore's lab, it wasn't the '50s, and he was in Mystic Falls. He struggled to look at his surroundings. As everything came back into focus, he realized that he was still in Grayson Gilbert's creepy as hell secret lab in the basement of his clinic, and every single nerve ending in his body still pulsed with pain.
Stefan and Grayson were nowhere in sight, but Elena was sitting next to him, her head pillowed on her folded arms, her shoulders slowly rising and falling in time with deep, slow breaths. Apparently she'd fallen asleep sitting here next to him. He reached up a hand, which trembled despite his best efforts, and brushed a few strands of hair away from her face. "Elena," he said. His voice came out a hoarse croak.
She stirred and blinked her brown doe's eyes open sleepily, a shudder running the length of her body. When she saw his face, a soft smile started in her eyes and spread to her mouth. For a moment, he forgot about his pain, but then her expression changed to worry. She curled both of her hands around one of his overheated ones. "How are you feeling?"
"Like a Duane Eddy song," he mumbled.
A little crease appeared on her forehead.
"I guess you're too young for that reference," he said. "Forty miles of bad road," he clarified.
She let out a little laugh and squeezed his fingers. "That's a good expression. I'll have to use it somewhere in my book."
"If only it felt as good as it sounds," said Damon, squeezing back. "Where'd they go?"
"They're working on a way to help you. Dad needed some equipment he doesn't keep down here. Plus, I think they didn't want to have their conversation in front of you."
"And they left you here?"
"I didn't want to leave you alone," she said. "Dad said to call if anything changes, and…" She bit her lip, suddenly looking uncomfortable.
"And?" he prompted her. She looked pointedly at a little stainless steel tray next to the operating table on which he lay. Several injection darts were lined up on it. They looked like they had been originally intended for use as bull tranquilizers. His stomach twisted and he willed himself not to recoil violently. Vervain. This was getting more and more like his time at Whitmore. "Why'd they think you'd need one of those?"
"Dad found out more about werewolf bites from Bonnie's Grams. She said you'd start hallucinating after a while, and we might need to restrain you."
"Great," he muttered. Among all his present discomforts, the aching dryness of the back of his throat suddenly became the most pressing, and the sound of Elena's steady heartbeat grew rather distracting. "Can you, uh, grab me a blood bag out of the freezer?"
"Sure," she said, and she squeezed his hand again before darting out of the room. She was back barely ten seconds later, holding a bag of O-positive. Damon's hand shot out to seize it automatically, making Elena jump. He wanted to apologize, but his hands were still on autopilot and the bag was at his lips before he could get the word out. About five seconds later, it was empty, which was disappointing.
"Boy, I guess that poison really gives you an appetite," said Elena. "Do you feel any better?"
Damon sat up gingerly. He still hurt everywhere, but perhaps not as much as before. "I think so," he said.
"Really?" came Grayson's voice from the doorway to the lab. "I'll need to take another sample and compare it to the first."
"Is that something I can do?" said Stefan, following in Grayson's wake. "So you can focus on the bone marrow biopsy?"
"I'd like to take a peek at the new sample myself, but you can take it and prepare the slides for me."
"Yes, sir," said Stefan, which caused the corner of Damon's mouth to lift in amusement.
"What about me?" said Elena. "Can I help?"
"You're already helping," said Damon. "You're my optimism coach."
"I can multitask," said Elena with a slight roll of her eyes. He was glad he'd managed to wipe the worry away from her expression, if only for a moment.
"Actually, optimism coach might be what he needs for this next bit," said Grayson.
"What do you mean?" said Elena. The worry was back.
"Bone marrow biopsies are extremely painful."
X
Jeremy was assaulted by the sounds of a full restaurant when he opened the Grill's door for Anna and followed her inside. It looked like the whole football team had stopped by for burgers, and those guys knew how to make noise. The hostess led Jeremy and Anna over to one of the only booths left, the one closest to the bar, which was deserted except for Coach Tanner. On the way past him, Jeremy caught a glimpse of the wads of bloody tissue sticking out of both nostrils and the large ice pack he was holding against his nose while he nursed a glass of some kind of amber liquid. It was something of a struggle not to snort with laughter. Tanner would be his history teacher for at least two of the next four years, so it would be unwise to make a bad impression before class even started.
As he slid into his side of the booth, his back to the bar, Jeremy caught sight of Anna's face. Her eyes were locked on Tanner over his shoulder, and the whites suddenly looked rather red. The skin of her lower eyelids and cheeks seemed to ripple. He blinked and her face was normal again, but he knew what he'd seen. It was the same thing Stefan's face had done when they'd confronted Tyler. His mouth stretched in a wry grin, which Anna did not fail to notice.
The waitress returned to take their orders, and Anna's expression was full of trepidation the entire time. Once the girl had collected their menus and departed, Anna looked at him. "What?" she said.
"You're a vampire, aren't you?" said Jeremy smugly. There was no need to lower his voice with all the chatter and laughter of football players from every other booth.
Anna let out a squeak of protest before she could muster up a poker face. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Come on, don't play dumb," said Jeremy. "I'm a Gilbert. I know what's up." Granted, this was only true as of very recently, but she didn't need to know that.
Anna's eyes darted in every direction, apparently checking for eavesdroppers. Then they locked on his. She leaned forward and seized both of his hands where they were resting on the table in a shockingly strong grip. "You didn't see anything. You don't think I'm a vampire."
Jeremy's grin only widened. "Was that an attempt at compulsion? Because I've been drinking this nasty tea for over a month, so I'm pretty sure that's not gonna work."
Anna drew her hands away sharply. "You weren't supposed to find out!" she said, frustrated.
"Why not?" he said, suppressing a laugh. As exhilarating as it was to be one step ahead of a vampire, again, it probably wouldn't be wise to rub it in.
"Because! You're a Gilbert! Gilberts hate vampires."
"Come on, I might be a Gilbert, but I'm also my own person. I'm not gonna turn you in to that Founder's Council thing or whatever. I'm friends with one vampire—well, kinda. We threatened each other and then solved a murder together, so I guess that makes us friends. And his brother has made it a habit of protecting my family. From where I'm sitting, vampires seem pretty cool." And they were better at not treating him like a little kid who couldn't handle himself than certain humans he could mention.
"Oh," said Anna. She still looked tense, but also a little confused now.
"Look, maybe it'd be different if I'd met you right after Vicki died." All the humor went out of him, leaving him with nothing but the churning mixture of miserable feelings that had taken up residence in his stomach when he first found out Vicki was dead. "But right now, the only bad guy I can see is the werewolf who killed her. You're not on his side, are you?"
"Of course not," said Anna, wrinkling her nose in disgust.
"Then we're good," said Jeremy. He leaned a little closer. "So what can you tell me about werewolves?"
X
Once Liz finished making molds of the footprints and tire tracks, she drove back to the stretch of road where Vicki's body had been found. She hadn't been back here since Grayson had presented his evidence. According to him, the wounds in Vicki's neck had been made with a sharp rock of some kind. There was a good chance that the killer had taken the rock with him, but if he'd really believed that the Council would attribute the death to a vampire attack, it might not have occurred to him to take such a simple precaution. Perhaps he'd simply hurled the rock as hard as he could into the woods. She walked carefully over the uneven ground, starting with the side of the road where they'd found Vicki's body.
After more than an hour, she gave up on that side and crossed the road to search the forest there instead. Her radio went off. "This is Sergeant Dawes, requesting two additional cars for a 10-16 at the cemetery. Got a few 10-50s and their merchandise. Over."
Liz sighed. Probably that gang of druggies, most of whom were high school dropouts. The cemetery was one of their favorite haunts—no pun intended.
She held the radio up to her mouth and clicked it on. "This is Sheriff Forbes. I can be there in three minutes. Over." Another officer responded a second later. She turned to head back to the cruiser. Maybe she could continue her search out here once this was resolved.
Liz had only gone a few steps when a cloud of black feathers flew out of a bush directly at her. Letting out a startled yell, she fell back. The raven kept flying, croaking loudly. Liz groaned and rolled to her side to push herself back up, when she froze. Not six inches away from her hand was a jagged piece of gray stone. One end of it was rather savagely pointed, as if it had been broken off something larger in the past. The sharp end was coated liberally in what was unmistakably dried blood. She'd found it. She tugged on her purple crime scene gloves so vigorously that she nearly ripped one of them. Five seconds later, the bloody rock was safely in an evidence bag and she was jogging back to the car.
X
Damon was finding it harder and harder to think straight. The searing lance of pain that went through his right hip when Grayson did the bone marrow biopsy kept him grounded for a few minutes, but every other time he blinked his eyes, he saw Dr. Whitmore's lab around him instead of Grayson's.
"I go out walkin' after midnight.
Out in the moonlight, just like we used to do
I'm always walkin' after midnight
Searchin' for you…"
He let out a whimper of protest. The lights in the operating room were so bright. Would it be electrocution today? Invasive eye surgery? Was he going to have his rib cage cracked open again? Maybe he'd get off easy and just be the guinea pig for another battery of experimental drugs. Or maybe today would be the day that Dr. Whitmore went intracranial. He'd been threatening it for a few weeks.
"You're not looking so hot there, mate." Damon looked around at the sound of Enzo's voice, but instead he saw Stefan. He'd never been less happy to see his baby brother in his life.
"No," he protested. His mouth, tongue, and vocal cords didn't seem to want to work together properly, but he tried to speak anyway. "You can't be here. They'll make you into another one of their lab rats."
"Damon, what are you talking about? What lab rats?"
"He's hallucinating," said another voice. Damon turned his head to face the second voice. It was much harder to do than it should've been. Grayson was standing there, holding the comically huge bone marrow biopsy needle, which now contained a substance the color of blood, but rather thicker. With an effort, Damon pulled his mind out of Dr. Whitmore's lab and back into the present.
"Where'd you go?" came Elena's soft voice from his left side, while Grayson took the needle over to the counter by a microscope. Damon felt Elena's fingers gently raking through his hair.
Hell, he thought. "College," he said blandly.
"Bad experience?" she asked.
"You could say that." His gaze was drawn to the pulse beating at her neck. He forced himself to look away.
"Hey, uh, could I have another blood bag?" he said. "Or five?"
X
When Grayson heard Damon asking for more blood, and the scrape of Elena's stool as she got up to go get it for him, he spun around. "Wait!" he said.
"Why?" said Elena, frowning at him. Beside her, Damon's lip curled in a snarl that didn't look entirely voluntary, his glare directed straight at Grayson.
"Are the new slides ready, Stefan?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," said Stefan. Grayson saw Damon roll his eyes. "I just finished them."
"Then do the same with the marrow," he instructed, passing Stefan the giant needle. He turned to peer into the microscope. On the one hand, the new slide of Damon's blood showed some impressive cellular regeneration. On the other, the attack cells appeared to be darting around destroying their neighbors even faster than before.
"No blood," he said.
"Aw, come on," Damon complained. "I swear I felt better after I had some. How do you know I can't just drink my way right out of this, like with vervain poisoning?"
"Because it's only an illusion," said Grayson. "It's healing you a little, which is why it feels good, but it's also supercharging the attack cells. The end result is a net loss. If you feed any more before the venom is out of your system, you'll only be making it worse."
"You've got to be kidding me."
"I wish I were. If you don't think you'll be able to handle your hunger, I'm going to have to lock you in the cell." He pointed at the reinforced steel bars in the corner of the room.
Something like fear flashed over Damon's face. He shook his head. Grayson watched him closely. He was sure there was a story there.
"Here's the first marrow slide," said Stefan. Grayson turned and accepted the small rectangle of glass from Stefan. He clamped it in place under the microscope, his hands trembling with anxious anticipation. What he saw when looked through the eyepiece would determine everything about the next couple of days. He leaned down. The marrow cells were so dark that they were more of a purplish-maroon than red. Just like in the blood sample slides, pale bluish-purple white blood cells roved around, attacking any cells they touched. He had expected that, and wasn't troubled.
He moved the slide a couple of millimeters in various directions, trying to find a cell in the middle of dividing. In humans, hematopoiesis, the process by which stem cells in the bone marrow divided into specialized blood cells, took over a week. In vampires, it took minutes. He watched one cell that was nearing the end of its division into two new white blood cells, holding his breath. A few seconds later, the last bit of outer membrane separated, and the two cells drifted apart. They brushed up against neighboring cells without incident. Then one of the attack cells came along and destroyed one of the new ones.
"Yes!" Grayson shouted, punching the air in triumph. He couldn't help it. This was fantastic. He stood up and turned around, beaming, to face his daughter and the two Salvatores, all of whom were staring at him.
"If you're giving in to your mad scientist tendencies, why not go all out and do the laugh?" said Damon, arching one eyebrow.
Grayson obliged. He didn't care how insane it looked; he had just obtained the one piece of information he needed to ensure that his plan would work, and he deserved to celebrate. If Sheila's information was correct, then he was about to pull off something unprecedented in the history of medicine. He let out a deep, rolling peal of maniacal laughter. Elena giggled, Damon smirked, and Stefan looked cautiously hopeful.
"I'm guessing this means the marrow isn't infected," said Stefan once he finished.
"That's right!" said Grayson with gusto. "But there's still a long way to go, and I doubt it'll be fun for anyone but me."
"Oh, goodie," said Damon. He groaned, doubled up in pain, and started coughing. Elena moved quickly, thrusting a bedpan under his face before the blood could start pouring from his mouth. When he'd finished vomiting what looked like the entire pint of blood he'd consumed earlier, he fell back against the exam table, pale, sweaty, and shaking, his eyelids drooping.
There was a knocking sound, and Grayson, Stefan, and Elena all looked at the open doorway, where Meredith Fell stood, lowering her knuckles from the door frame. She was wearing purple scrubs, and a red and white cooler was braced between her hip and her other arm. "I brought what you asked for. All the whole blood we had left."
"Any problems getting it out under the radar?" said Grayson.
"The research project it was going to be used for lost its funding, so it was just going to sit there until it went bad," said Meredith. "I took it on the pretense of clearing up unwanted materials."
"Whole blood?" said Damon, who looked barely lucid. "You mean you've just been stocking that fridge out there with two percent this whole time?"
Meredith snorted. "It just means it's in the same condition it was when it was donated. Hasn't been separated into red blood cells and plasma." She set the cooler down on the counter, opened the lid, and pulled out one of the plastic pouches to show them.
"But I thought Damon wasn't supposed to drink anything until the venom was gone," said Elena, confused.
"It's not for him," said Grayson, looking at Stefan. "You up for this?"
Stefan looked pale and uneasy, but he swallowed and nodded. "I think it would be best if you locked me in the cell first," he said. Elena watched him with a mixture of concern and gratitude, but Damon's expression was unreadable. He simply stared at his brother.
"I'd better get back," said Meredith. "Good luck."
X
Anna, as it turned out, knew pretty much everything about werewolves, mostly from personal experience with them. She wasn't a fan. Jeremy wasn't either, not that he'd really needed more information to form his opinion. It might've been a cool thing if people with the gene could just turn into wolves and romp around the forest whenever they wanted, but it was a curse that seemed fun for neither the people who had it nor anyone they ran into on the full moon. And the prerequisite was murder.
"Whoever came up with the plan to punish murderers by cursing them to turn into more effective murder beasts had some very stupid ideas about justice," said Jeremy, chewing on a French fry. They'd been talking for a while now; their burgers were gone and they were down to the last few fries in the baskets. Some of the football guys had cleared out, but more had replaced them. Coach Tanner was still at the bar.
Anna laughed. "True, but maybe that wasn't the plan. Maybe a violent clan got a hold of big enough mojo to do it to themselves so they'd have an advantage over their enemies, and then it backfired in unexpected ways."
"You think so?" said Jeremy.
She shrugged. "That's what happened with vampires, but werewolves have been around for so long that I'm not sure anyone knows how they got started."
"So how long have you been a vampire?" he asked her.
"Since…1439," she said, screwing up her face in concentration.
"Holy crap," said Jeremy, impressed.
She grinned a little, then became serious. "The story doesn't start out very pretty. My mother was a concubine to a nobleman in the early Ming dynasty. He was my father. When he found out that Mama was from an ancient line of Wu priestesses, he wanted to raise her status in the household. The primary wife was furious. That was about the same time that a bunch of Europeans traveled to our town. One of them was a vampire who'd made it his mission in life to learn about witchcraft in every culture in the world. In China, that was the Wu priestesses. He befriended us, which made my father even more proud of us—and the primary wife more furious. She tried to have us killed, but the vampire turned us instead. My father wasn't happy. He didn't know anything about vampires, but he decided they ranked among the worst of the yaoguai."
Jeremy's brow furrowed in confusion.
"Demons," Anna clarified. "So he pretty much kicked us out. We could have compelled the entire household into accepting us, I suppose, but Mama thought that would have invited trouble, so we traveled back to Europe with the vampire instead. Besides, once we had vamp healing, our elegant little lotus feet began healing back to their healthy size and shape. What shame would that have brought upon the household." She rolled her eyes and grimaced.
"What, you mean foot binding?" said Jeremy, wrinkling his nose.
"Yeah. It was all the rage among the nobility. And boy am I glad that healed. Vamp-running with feet like that would've been murder. We had to re-break some of the bones so our feet would finish healing, but in the end I was a size six and managed to keep all my toes. Mama only has eight."
Jeremy whistled. "Is the vampire still alive?"
Anna shrugged. She trailed a French fry through her ketchup, looking a little bitter. "We traveled back to Europe with him, but we weren't Wu anymore. Once my mother had told him everything she knew about her people, he had no more use for us. I've seen him maybe once in the last five centuries."
Jeremy squinted at her. "You were in love with him, weren't you?"
Anna's eyes snapped to his. They flashed with anger, but it died away quickly, to be replaced with a hollow sort of resignation. "I suppose I was. He was handsome, and no more than a few years older than me when he turned. He could make me laugh so easily. But he never returned my affection, and it wasn't long before I realized how much he let his anger control him. It's probably for the best that we went our separate ways."
"What did he have to be so angry about?" said Jeremy.
"Family drama, I guess," said Anna. "He was pretty tightlipped about it, but every once in a while, he'd mutter something about his jackass of an older brother and how he'd repay him for the dagger in his back someday."
X
This time, Elena and Grayson had left the basement lab, and Stefan was alone with his brother. His eyes kept being drawn to the cooler of blood bags containing fresh, whole blood. He wanted it very badly, but that desire terrified him.
Damon succumbed to a long series of hacking coughs that sounded like one or both of his lungs were trying to escape up his throat. After a minute or so, they subsided. Stefan handed him a paper towel to wipe the blood away from his mouth, then tossed it into the little medical waste bin near the door.
"You don't have to do this," said Damon. "I know how much that stupid bunny diet means to you."
"Dr. Gilbert's pretty sure this is the best way to do it. Maybe the only way. I'll be fine." He'd be well fed for the first time in most of a century.
"It'll be hard to go back," said Damon.
"I know." It'd be difficult to even look at animal blood for months, let alone force himself to swallow it down.
"Maybe you don't have to."
Stefan shot Damon an angry look, even while the part of him that wanted what was in the cooler screamed its approval.
"I'm serious," said Damon. "Grayson says it could take upwards of a month to be sure this crap is out of my system. A month is a long time. You might have it under control by then."
"I was a ripper for ten years last time I gave in."
"Maybe you just need a better sponsor than Lexi."
"What are you talking about? Lexi's my best friend!"
Damon snorted weakly. "Friends don't let friends go vegan."
Stefan glared. "When are you going to apologize to her?"
"Pfft. I see no reason to apologize for great sex."
"You left her to burn on a rooftop!"
"Why are you so interested in getting me to apologize all of a sudden? It's been thirty-two years! Did you invite her over or something?"
"No," said Stefan. "But maybe I'd like to."
"Ugh, this town isn't big enough for more than one self-righteous vampire."
Stefan scowled. "Okay, fine," he said, folding his arms. "Let's say I am interested your bloodoholic rehabilitation idea. How long will you actually be around to help me? Until the beginning of September, when you and Katherine ride off into the sunset?"
Damon didn't answer. They were both quiet for a minute, until the question Stefan had to ask burst from him without permission. "Are you sure that's still what you want to do?"
"Of course it is," said Damon, but Stefan thought it sounded a little too automatic. It was quiet again, and then Damon said, in a much less automatic tone, "I can't just leave her down there."
X
"Have you always had that lab in the basement?" said Elena. Her dad had asked her to come upstairs with him to help him haul some equipment, but she suspected he'd really just been trying to give the brothers a moment together before the procedure began.
"I set it up not long after I bought the building from your grandpa," said Grayson.
"Why?" said Elena.
"I needed a place to work where I could learn more about the healing properties of vampire blood. I've been able to help a lot of patients with it."
"Have you ever had to deal with vampires before?" she asked.
"Once," said Grayson shortly.
"When?" said Elena, excited. She was picturing her dad locked in mortal combat with an evil vampire. He had obviously won, or he wouldn't be here today. Depending on when it had been, she and Jeremy might not be here either. If there was a cool story there, she wanted to hear it.
"Sorry, kiddo," he said, flicking her ponytail affectionately. "That's a story for another day."
Elena pouted, but he merely handed her several coils of medical tubing.
X
Anna was still with Jeremy at the Grill almost two hours after they'd arrived. Nearly all of the football guys were gone by now, as well as the few other locals who'd squeezed their way into the insane lunch rush. The man with the bloody nose was still at the bar. The bartender had refreshed the ice pack for his nose twice, and he'd drunk more whiskey than was probably wise for one afternoon.
Jeremy Gilbert was interesting. Anna never would've expected someone in his family to be so friendly and open with a vampire—although perhaps she should have seen it coming, given his sister's behavior towards the Salvatores and his parents' very unexpected cooperation with them. She'd thought Jeremy would be just one more stupid human she could use as a pawn in her plans. Maybe she still would, but he clearly wasn't stupid, so she'd have to be careful about how she maneuvered him. And now that she'd gotten a good look at him, she had to admit that he was really cute. She might be able to have some fun in the last two months before she finally got her mom back.
"So you've just been world traveler girl with your mom ever since you left China?" said Jeremy.
Anna hesitated. She'd been leaving out a lot of key details when answering his questions about her. He didn't seem to have an ulterior motive, but then, he didn't necessarily need one. He might let something slip to one of his parents or the Salvatores. She'd only told him information she was reasonably sure would be harmless. "For a few centuries, yeah," she said.
He was clearly about to ask for more details—details she very much did not want to give him—, but she was distracted by the sound of the restaurant's door being opened with rather more force than was strictly necessary, and two people walked in. The first was a man of average height in his early forties, who looked like he was barely keeping his temper from boiling over. The second was a teenage boy, a couple years older than Jeremy, who looked like he would rather be anywhere else in the world than here. Anna recognized them from the information her spies had been providing her. Mayor Richard Lockwood and his son Tyler.
"Ooh, the plot thickens," she said, pointing at them surreptitiously. Jeremy looked around too. When his gaze fell on the Mayor, his hands curled into tight fists and his shoulders tensed. They both watched as the Lockwoods headed straight for the man sitting at the bar. Jeremy ducked back down, seized a napkin from the dispenser, and produced a pencil from one of his pockets. A few seconds later, he passed the napkin to Anna.
Scrawled across the top of the napkin was, "You have super-hearing, right?"
She nodded.
He pulled the napkin back and kept writing.
"Do werewolves?"
She nodded again.
He stood up and made a gesture to indicate that he wanted to swap seats with her. She slid out from her bench and sat down on the side facing the restaurant, and he took her original place. This way, he had a clear view of the bar. Since she could hear what they were saying no matter where she sat, she didn't need to see them to be able to spy on them effectively. For Jeremy, the new arrangement would make a lot of difference.
"Tanner," said the Mayor in a falsely jovial tone. "Some of the guys from the team said we could find you in here."
"What do you want, Lockwood?" said Tanner flatly. He was impressively coherent, considering how much whiskey he'd had and the fact that his nose was broken. The words came out a bit thick, but not slurred. "Because if you came here to try to get me to put your delinquent kid back on my team, then I've got some suggestions for where you can shove that request."
Neither man was bothering to keep his voice down, and across the table from Anna, Jeremy's mouth fell open in disbelief. He obviously didn't have much experience with adults who were total assholes. Lucky him. His parents were good people.
"Do you know how much funding my family has given that school over the years?" said the Mayor. The thin veneer of fake pleasantry was gone. His voice now contained a clear threat.
"Do you know how easy it would be for me to press charges against Tyler for what he did to my nose?" Tanner shot back.
Footsteps approached the booth, and then Tyler appeared around the side of it. His face was very red, either from anger or embarrassment, or some combination of the two.
"Lockwood," said Jeremy.
"Gilbert," said Tyler.
Anna suppressed a snort. Teenage boys and their bravado.
"Feels weird, coming here now," said Tyler.
"Yeah," said Jeremy. "No Vicki."
Tyler looked at Jeremy, and some of the redness faded. "You liked her, didn't you?"
"Yeah," said Jeremy. The way he said it made it perfectly clear that he didn't want to continue the subject.
"Who's your friend?" said Tyler, looking at Anna.
"I'm Anna," she said.
"New freshman?" said Tyler.
"Maybe. I'm homeschooled."
"Oh," said Tyler. His eyes kept darting nervously to the two men at the bar, whose argument was growing steadily louder. Anna could tell that Jeremy and Tyler didn't really like each other, but the circumstances were enough to make Jeremy share a pained grimace with the other boy.
"You can't threaten my job!" Tanner shouted. "You're the Mayor, not the superintendant!"
"My wife is the president of the school board!" Richard retorted. "If I can't get you fired, she certainly can!"
"Oh, so you're going to get your wife to do your dirty work for you, huh? Then why isn't she the one getting in my face, since she's clearly the one with balls!"
Before matters could escalate even further, Anna heard hurried footsteps somewhere behind the bar, and then a woman's voice spoke in tones of strained cheerfulness. "Mr. Mayor! It's wonderful to see you here at the Grill today. What would you and your son like to eat? Pick anything on the menu. It'll be on us."
More footsteps, but these ones were receding. Anna looked to the side in time to see Coach Tanner storming out of the restaurant.
"Tyler!" said the Mayor, his voice tight with all the anger he hadn't finished venting on the coach. "You hungry?"
"Uh, sure," said Tyler.
"Great!" said the woman. Anna guessed that she was the manager. "Right over here, please, gentlemen. I'll be your server today."
She led them to the booth directly across the aisle from Jeremy and Anna, then bustled away. When the Mayor sat down, he glanced over at them, and he froze at the sight of Jeremy.
"What are you doing here, Gilbert?" he said.
"Uh, finishing up my lunch?" said Jeremy, bemused.
"Shouldn't you be with your mom and sister at a time like this?"
Tyler was looking back and forth between Jeremy and his dad in complete confusion. Anna followed the conversation with narrowed eyes. Damon Salvatore wasn't the only one who employed animals as lookouts. Ever since she found out there was a werewolf in town, she'd been borrowing the eyes of an owl, a hawk, and a fox to supplement the information her compelled human spies were giving her. She knew exactly what had happened at casa Gilbert last night, and apparently she knew more than the Mayor. It made sense; werewolves only had limited memories of their time in wolf form.
"At a time like what?" said Jeremy. "It's just a normal day. My mom's hanging out with my aunt, my sister's doing something about the Main Street decorations, and my dad's at his office."
The Mayor's eyes widened in surprise, and then his face contorted in anger so intense that his irises flashed yellow. The expression only lasted a second, but from the looks on Jeremy's and Tyler's faces, Anna could tell that neither of them had missed it. She could smell Tyler's fear from here. Jeremy only seemed angry, but he was doing a much better job of keeping it below the surface than the Mayor.
"Oh!" he said. "Did you mean because of the rabid wolf that broke our front window last night and trashed my dad's office? I didn't think anyone else knew about that. But it's nothing to worry about. My dad's pretty sure Animal Control will have that thing rounded up and shot in no time." He looked directly into the Mayor's eyes for the entirety of this little speech, then turned to Anna. "Should we go?" he asked.
"Yeah," said Anna faintly. He tossed a twenty and a ten down on the table, and they left without another word. She found it difficult to stop staring at him. He had just deliberately goaded the man who'd tried tear his dad to shreds less than eighteen hours ago. She had smelled fear coming off the Mayor in response. He wasn't sure Jeremy knew what he was, but he now considered it a possibility, and he was worried.
"What?" said Jeremy when they were a few yards away from the Grill.
"I, uh," she stammered. "I'm just trying to decide if that was the dumbest thing I've ever seen anyone do…" She swallowed, grimaced, and admitted it. "…Or the hottest."
Jeremy's face cracked into an enormous grin, his cheeks turning red.
X
"Okay," said Grayson. "Before we begin, I want to make sure you're both clear on the procedure." Stefan nodded. Grayson looked at Damon. "Feeling lucid?"
"Well, there are two of you, but I can hear you both okay," said Damon, grimacing. Elena bit down on a smile. His sense of humor might be intact, but he was covered in sweat again, and his body was now convulsing a couple of times a minute. As long as her dad was still optimistic, she wouldn't panic, but she hated seeing Damon like this.
"I'm calling this procedure 'comprehensive blood replacement therapy'," said Grayson. "There are two steps. Step one: flush out as much of the tainted blood as possible using a saline solution. Step two: replace with untainted blood, supplied by Stefan. Step one is probably going to feel incredibly uncomfortable, and you may not be conscious or capable of movement once the ratio gets around 30% blood, 70% saline, but you're a vampire, so your body can handle it."
"Is it really necessary to put saltwater in my veins?" said Damon, looking fairly disturbed at the idea. "Why not cut out the middleman and just bleed me dry until Stefan's ready to go on tap?"
Grayson raised his eyebrows and his tone became very dry. "Because that would be desiccation, which I understand is a far less pleasant option. And contrary to popular belief, it is not actually possible to completely drain the body of blood. I could get you down to about 40% that way, but the rest would be stuck in your capillaries, and still tainted with werewolf venom. But if you're really so averse to the saline, I could always give Sheila Bennett a call. She did say she knows an exsanguination spell, although it was designed more for torture than medicine."
"Fine, I get it," said Damon. "Turn me into a saltwater aquarium."
"I want you to keep me updated on your pain levels for as long as you still have motor function," said Grayson. "They should go down a little during step one and a lot during step two."
"Ooh, do you have one of those cards with the smiley faces that range from creepy cheerfulness to 'someone shot my puppy,' to help me determine what number to say?" said Damon.
Grayson ignored this, now looking at Stefan. "While I'm replacing Damon's blood with saline, I'll also be taking samples of your blood after every blood bag you drink. Once it looks about as healthy as Damon's pre-wolf bite samples, I can start withdrawing blood from you. There's roughly twice the amount of blood in that cooler as in one adult male, so it should be enough for today's procedure."
"Why can't you just hook a needle up directly from Stefan to Damon?" said Elena.
"Because it'll be harder to measure how much blood Stefan's donating that way. If it goes in bags first, then I'll know what volume I'm working with."
"Can you explain again why I can't drink any of the blood?" said Damon, shooting the cooler a wistful gaze.
"Because it will strengthen the attack cells," said Grayson patiently. "But if Stefan's the only one drinking blood, then any attack cells that don't get flushed out will eventually die, since they don't appear to be gaining anything from the cells they destroy—they get it directly from new blood you consume. Vampire white blood cells normally have a lifespan of about two weeks, but it's possible that the toxin has extended that. We'll repeat the entire procedure whenever Damon notices any of his symptoms returning, and we'll give him a couple of pints of Stefan's blood to keep his levels normal in between full treatments." He looked Damon straight in the eyes with what Elena recognized as his sternest expression. "You are forbidden to consume blood in any way except for Stefan's intravenous donations until you can go two full weeks without symptoms. Say it."
"I am forbidden to consume blood in any way except for Stefan's intravenous donations until I can go two full weeks without symptoms," Damon recited sourly.
"If it makes you feel better, you can help yourself to water, or any of the fruit juices in the vending machine. My treat," said Grayson.
Damon threw one of the vervain darts at him—length-wise so it wouldn't stab him, but it missed him by a few feet anyway and clattered against the far counter. Elena choked back a giggle and Stefan let out a suspicious-sounding cough.
"Good!" said Grayson, clapping his hands together. "Let's get started."
X
Jeremy walked Anna all the way back to the library. That was the best he could do, since she had chosen to be mysterious rather than tell him where she was staying. When they reached the doors, she turned to face him, twisting her hands together.
"Can you promise me something?" she asked.
"Depends what it is," he said, smiling.
"Can you not tell anyone else about me? Not your family, not the Salvatores. It would be bad if they found out."
"Why would it be bad?" he said, a little incredulous.
"Because I have…history with the Gilberts that isn't great. Same with the Salvatores."
Jeremy looked thoughtful for a moment. "Okay, I promise," he said. "But only if you promise that the reason you don't want me to tell anyone about you isn't that you have an evil plan you don't want me to ruin." His tone held no suspicion, only humor. She doubted he really thought she might have an evil plan.
"I promise," she said. And from her perspective, she was telling the truth. Sure, she wouldn't hesitate to kill any human, vampire, witch, or werewolf who tried to stand in the way of getting her mother back after nearly a century and a half. Questionable means, perhaps, but the end result would only be good.
He grinned again. "Here," he said, handing her the same napkin from the Grill. Beneath the sentences he'd already written was a string of digits.
She looked slyly up at him. "What am I supposed to do with these?" she asked.
He shrugged, still grinning. "You're nearly six hundred years old. I'm sure you'll figure something out. See you later, Anna."
X
"I go out walkin' after midnight
Out in the starlight, just hoping you may be
Somewhere a-walkin' after midnight
Searchin' for me…"
Damon tried to clear his head of that song, but it wouldn't leave him alone. He tried to move, but the effort made his limbs feel like they were on fire. He turned his head and saw Stefan sitting with his back to the wall in a cell with thick steel bars. No. Not Stefan too. He could've handled anything they did to him as long as his brother was safe and far, far away. He began to scream and thrash wildly. He didn't care if the fire in his body was figurative or literal; he had to get Stefan away from here.
X
Grayson had secured the needle that would drain blood from Damon's left arm, close to the wound site, and he was just about to push the needle connected to the large bag of cold saline into the crook of his right arm when Damon suddenly screamed and flailed his super-powered limbs around madly. Grayson dove to the side, avoiding the worst of it, but one of Damon's fists caught him on his left shoulder, and the whole arm immediately went numb.
"You can't have him!" Damon roared, still flailing. The needle tore free of his left arm, and his right sent the tray of vervain darts crashing to the floor. Two of them shattered and the rest rolled in every direction. "You can cut out my eyes and slice my insides to pieces a thousand more times, but if you touch my brother it'll be the last thing you ever do!"
By this point, he was off the exam table and on his feet, staggering towards the cage Stefan had insisted on locking himself in. Before he could make it the rest of the way there, his spine arched backwards and he let out a cry of pain, then collapsed to the tile floor in an ungraceful sprawl. Elena stood over him, tears streaking her cheeks, one of the vervain darts clutched in her hands.
Stefan had gotten to his feet inside the cell and was staring at Damon's prone form in horror.
Grayson watched all this happen while frozen in place, struggling to recover from the shock of realization as Damon's words sank in. Damon was the one that had escaped. The Augustines still told stories about him in hushed voices. The fire. The slaughter. The endless deaths and disappearances in the Whitmore family until they'd been all but exterminated. All of the pieces locked in place in Grayson's mind. If he'd been any other member of that society, it could have changed his plans for the rest of the afternoon. It would be so easy to slip a shot of that vervain into one of those blood bags. Both Salvatores would be unconscious and it would be the work of a moment to stake them, or to get them shipped off to Maxfield's lab.
But he wasn't any other member of the Augustine Society. They did their experiments because they wanted power. They took a sick pleasure in it. He did only what was necessary to obtain knowledge, to cure his patients, to protect his family. Curing this former Augustine vampire of his werewolf bite fit all three criteria.
Grayson groaned and tried to move his left arm, but it seemed to have been dislocated. "Elena, sweetie," he said. Elena jumped and stared at him. "I'm gonna need you to take point on this." He gripped his left arm firmly between the shoulder and the elbow with his right hand and jerked sharply. With a sickening popping sound that made Elena and Stefan both wince, the joint slid back into its socket. He could flex his fingers a little now, but it would be a few days at least before it was back to normal.
"What do I need to do?" she said, wiping her eyes on the back of her hand and standing up straight.
"Let Stefan out."
"I don't think that's—" Stefan began. By now, he'd already finished three of the blood bags Meredith had delivered. His eyes already looked rather feral, and his breathing was much heavier than usual.
"Elena and I are both on vervain," said Grayson. "You're doing this to save your brother. Those two facts are all you need to know for now."
Stefan swallowed and nodded. Elena took the keys off the counter and unlocked the door to the cage. Stefan stepped out and picked Damon up off the floor like he weighed nothing, then set him down on the table. Damon was still unconscious, his eyes half open. Elena and Stefan worked together in silence while Grayson gave them instructions. Within moments, they had both needles hooked up to Damon's arms. Cold, clear liquid began flowing in on one side, hot, red liquid flowing out on the other. Then Stefan pricked his finger on the tip of one of his fangs and smeared the resulting drop of blood on a slide. Deciding that now wasn't the time to give Stefan the same lecture on proper medical laboratory procedure he'd already given Damon, Grayson simply checked the slide under the microscope.
"Okay," he said. "We're good to start step two."
In case you forgot, that Patsy Cline song Damon kept hearing in his hallucinations is the one from the flashbacks in "The Cell" in S5, the first episode where we meet Enzo. That was one of the episodes I rewatched with my brother this week, and I thought including the song here would be a nice, extra creepy touch. I'm feeling particularly pleased with Damon's snark in this chapter. That many zingers don't usually come so easily, but there they were. I gave Anna a backstory I felt would fit what little we know about her background. I would offer cookies to whoever guessed the identity of the vampire who turned Anna and Pearl, but I'm pretty sure it's obvious. You can guess anyway, if you want. Having Jeremy guess that Anna is a vampire wasn't part of my original plan, but once I had them walking past bloody-faced Tanner, I couldn't resist. Jeremy has been a lot of fun in the last few chapters, and that won't be changing anytime soon. Liz has found some crucial evidence for the case! Huzzah! And then there's Grayson. Guys, I can't tell you how happy I am about Grayson's mad science. I've been planning all these medical machinations to cure the werewolf bite for months. I hope you didn't find any of that doctor talk tedious, because I worked really hard to figure out some solid logic for this cure. I'm actually pretty sure I worked harder on it than the freakin' show writers, who just had Maxfield whip out a cure in a syringe like it was nothing. Feh! Such laziness. If the cure's not coming from Klaus, then there needs to be some serious elbow grease involved.
Oh, and most importantly, the title. I have never been more proud of a chapter title than this one. You have to admit it; it's genius. Way better and more suited to the character than "Fifty Shades of Grayson" from canon.
Please review! Your feedback gives me life!