I decided to split this one up, since this is the first half and it's still over 3,000 words. The other half (with luck) should be up before the end of the year, but not before December.

Anna's sitting like she likes to with her knees held loosely to her chest, smiling up at a boy that looks like Jeremy before standing with her usual grace to kiss him. She hops up to sit on the top of the blocky stone pillar that had appeared nearby while Leesha wasn't paying attention. White wings sprout from her thin shoulders and curl around Anna to hide her from view before the fog that swirls around Leesha's ankles swallows the vampire.

Jeremy's voice. "Anna said that vampires don't have to feel pain; that they could turn it off if they shut out their humanity."

Damon, almost echoey, like she's hearing his end of the conversation from the end of a long tunnel. "It's very true."

"Is it easier that way?"

"Is what easier?"

"Life..." Jeremy's voice fades away into the fog.

He's barely visible through the thick swirling mist, but Leesha can see him sitting with his back against Anna's pillar with a vial of some liquid in his hand. Blood, Leesha realizes with a chill.

Anna's voice whispering through the fog. "Help him."

Leesha can't turn around, but there's a crackling behind her and a dancing light that casts ruddy shadows on the fog. There's something awfully familiar about the way the reflections move, like...

"Help him, please," Anna whispers again.

Leesha woke with the sounds of a fire echoing in her ears.

Something bad was going to happen today, and knowing that without knowing what or how made her snappish and irritable. Damon noticed within a few seconds.

"Come on, purge, get it all out. What's wrong?" Damon said.

His tone made Leesha grin just a little before she sobered and said, "Weird dreams. I have a bad feeling about today, like the shit's going to hit the fan, and I hate knowing that without knowing what exactly is going to happen so that I can stop it before it does."

Damon put a hand on her shoulder and made her turn to look him in the eyes. His thumb smoothed out the lines that her frustrated frown created. "You'll get wrinkles," he told her.

Leesha looked at his mostly earnest expression and laughed. "Thanks. I needed that," she said after her chuckles had ended.

"You have no idea what's going to happen?" Damon asked.

She shook her head, frowning again. "Not a damn thing, except that Anna's gonna be caught up in it and Jeremy's hurting afterwards. Be careful today, please?"

He nodded and stepped away to pay attention to the parade. Leesha smiled and clapped with everyone else, but she still shook her head worriedly when she noticed which float was coming up. Elena. "Why do you do this to yourself?" she whispered too quietly for her friend to hear.

Leesha wanted Damon to be happy, God knows he deserved it, but she didn't think that Elena was ready yet. Not when the girl had had trouble acknowledging that Damon loved her after Isobel spilled.

But it was Damon. Which meant Leesha would help him any way that she could if it meant him being happy.

It had really been almost a good day, Leesha decided as she wandered the square with Damon. It had been way too long since the last time she'd gone to a parade, and if Damon was in one of his rare good moods, so was she.

Then everything started going to hell.

"They're already here, Damon," Anna said.

"Then we don't have time to hunt them down or get all the Founding Families out of here," Leesha said. "Ideas?"

"Rip out John Gilbert's throat?" Damon suggested.

"Make sure to warn Stefan and Elena about what's going on first," she told him before squeezing his arm and turning back to Anna as he disappeared into the crowd. "I'm going to warn the Sheriff. We might need her help. Are you going for Jeremy?" Anna nodded. "Be careful." Anna nodded again and slipped off towards the Grill.

Leesha hurried toward the police station. Someone knocked into her as she walked, making her stumble. She aimed a glare over her shoulder at the man before stopping to put a hand to her temple, suddenly and unexplainably dizzy to the point that she fell when she tried to take another step.

"C'mere sweetheart," a man muttered as he hauled her up, slinging her arm around his neck and wrapping his own around her waist. Leesha went with him helplessly, unable to control her own body as he turned them around and headed towards where she'd left Anna.

"What did you do to me?" she breathed out as he settled her in a chair. She could barely twitch her fingers if she focused.

He smiled faintly and unfastened her bracelet before answering. "Nothing that you should worry your pretty little head about, it'll wear off soon enough. I just needed you off balance so that you would stay still for a minute." He almost looked sorry about it too, Leesha thought before she realized that he had taken away her vervain.

"No," she whispered, trying to reach for her bracelet. She could make her hand move in the direction she wanted now, just a little. "Why?"

He smiled again and gently stroked a piece of hair out of her face with cold fingers. "You can't get involved in what's happening tonight. And I can't have you remembering me."

Leesha shook her head. "I won't tell, I promise I won't," she said weakly, still trying to get her bracelet. That was all the vervain she had on her, he couldn't, please, she couldn't be compelled again. "Please, don't-"

"Shhh, precious, I know," he soothed. "I'm not worried about you telling someone. You keep secrets far too well for that."

"Who are you?" she whispered.

The man sighed. "We're kin," he said, and a hint of a Scottish burr slipped into his voice. "So I can't really be letting you get yourself in more danger than absolutely necessary, aye?"

"I've met you before, haven't I?" Leesha asked. Her heart had slowed a little at the revelation that they were related. She knew from experience that family could still hurt you, but he wouldn't compel her, right?

But then why couldn't she remember him?

He smiled at her and nodded before gently catching her chin and making her look him in the eye. Leesha started to struggle when she realized that he was going to compel her, but he kept her still with just his light grip on her chin. "Aye, that you have, but I still can't let you remember me." He swallowed and offered her a ragged, "I'm sorry."

"Please, don't-" Her protest cut off as her pupils dilated. The hand that had managed to clutch at his wrist went slack.

He kept his voice low. "You won't remember the conversation that we just had or me compelling you. You're only going to remember what I am about to tell you and believe that it is what happened. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Leesha said robotically. Even under the forced calm of compulsion she was nearly hyperventilating.

"The Sheriff wasn't at the station. You got dizzy and fell, and I helped you here. I'm a nice stranger, nothing more. You're tired from a long day, so you are going to go home when I suggest it, but you're going to have one of those marvelous feelings of yours before you go to bed that will make you check in with Jeremy. Do you understand?"

"Yes," she said again.

"So what happened?" he asked.

"I went to the station, but I couldn't find Liz. I got really dizzy when I was walking across the square and fell. It's probably because it's been a really long day."

A bitter smile twitched one corner of his mouth up. "Exactly, precious. Now then. Forget what I said you couldn't remember." He slipped the bracelet back on her wrist before breaking eye contact. "Are you sure that you're alright?" he asked, acting as if it was the second or third time that he'd asked.

Leesha blinked and nodded. "I'm fine," she said. "A little dizzy, but nothing too bad." She struggled to her feet, wondering what had made her dizzy enough to fall over and need help to walk. The stranger stood with her with his hands outstretched towards her in case she fell again. She waved him off. "I'm fine, I'm fine, just give me a second." She felt weird, kind of sick and panicky, like something bad had just happened. But nothing had.

"Why don't you go home?" he suggested.

"Think I will," she said. That sounded like a very good idea actually. It'd been a long day. "Thank you for helping me."

He smiled at her and shrugged. "Not a problem sweetheart. Be careful getting home."

Leesha smiled. "I will. Have a good night." She turned and walked away.

"You too!" he called after her. He let the mask that made him appear to be a normal human fall as he watched her go. "Sixteen times," he muttered to himself, disgruntled. "Sixteen times in the last five years alone I've had to intervene to keep her out of trouble. Why couldn't she have been more like her father and just stayed out of it? A nice, safe, happy life with nothing that goes bump in the night in it, is that too much to ask?"

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The sad thing was that trying to keep Leesha safe without letting her know about him was one of the easier things that he'd had to do in the seventy or so years since he'd been turned. Her grandfather, his cousin, had been a lot more set on getting himself killed on a near-weekly basis after living through Dunkirk.

Still... "This was so much easier before she met Salvatore," he decided before disappearing into the crowd. If he was going to be stuck in this backwater town for the foreseeable future, he wanted a good spot to watch the fireworks.

The Mayor finished his speech. The fireworks started. And then he was on the ground with a piercing shriek ringing through his head, clutching at his ears. It hurt, it hurt, it was too loud, please God make it stop... A needle was in his neck, injecting him with something that burned along his veins like fire. He was familiar enough with the feeling to recognize it.

Vervain.

Damon's phone went off before he'd gotten two blocks away from the flaming building. He glanced at the caller ID. Leesha. "Where are you?" he demanded.

"At home." Her voice was raspy. It sounded like she'd been throwing up. "Damon, I'm so sorry. I never saw him coming."

"What happened?"

"I got compelled," she whispered, like it was some dark secret to be ashamed of. And, Damon realized, maybe it was to someone who prided herself on staying in control the way Leesha did.

"So why are you at home?" he asked as gently as he could, trying to keep Leesha from fully breaking down. He took the turn that led to her house.

"I don't know! One minute I'm walking towards the police station, and next thing I know, I have memories of not finding Liz there and falling while I was walking back across the square. But they aren't mine, they're nowhere near detailed enough to be mine, and someone put them in my head, and I don't know what happened, and I'm freaking out, Damon, I'm literally going out of my mind trying to figure it out, and God..." The phone clattered out of her hand. Damon could hear her coughing and gagging in the background.

There was a long moment before the toilet flushed. When she spoke again, her voice was just loud enough for the phone to pick up and so calm that if Damon hadn't just heard her throwing up, he might have thought the tremble in her voice was just his imagination. "I don't know what he wanted. I don't know what I did or what I told him. I don't even remember what he looks like." Leesha sniffled as he opened her door and headed towards the kitchen. He was walking up the steps when, "I feel like such an idiot."

Damon hung up and leaned against the doorjamb. "So you didn't notice something." He shrugged. "You're human, Leesha. You make mistakes, accept it and move on."

Leesha turned her head slightly to give him a faint smile. Her eyes caught on the bottle in his hand. "Is that?" He raised it so that she could see the label and she smiled wider. "Thank God. You know me so well."

She took the Jack Daniels from Damon when he sat next to her and took a long drink before passing the bottle back to him. They drank together in silence for a while before Damon said, "I should go talk to Jeremy."

Leesha took a drink. "What happened?"

"Anna's dead."

She hissed a breath in through her teeth. "God. Poor Jeremy." Another long swallow. "He won't take it well. He's lost too many people over the last year." Leesha passed him the bottle. She'd had enough to calm down, now she had to focus on helping Jeremy.

Damon glanced over at her. "Damage control?"

She shrugged and leaned forward slightly to wrap her arms around her knees. "You've known me way too long for me to even dignify that with a response."

"You never told me that you're scared of being compelled," he said after a second. Leesha, who prided herself on controlling her own reactions to anything that happened, who was always ready with a quip or advice, so scared of compulsion that she threw up in her bathroom after realizing what had happened? He could barely fathom it.

Leesha looked away. "Not scared, Damon," she said softly. "Terrified."

If her breaking down over the phone with him hadn't been enough for him to put the pieces together, the simplicity of her words would have told him that he was seeing the most vulnerable part of Leesha, something he'd only seen once or twice in the decade that he had known her. This wasn't the bold face she showed to everyone, or even the softer but still strong one she reserved for the people she cared about. This was the weakness that she didn't show anyone unless she absolutely had to, the part that could never be convinced for even a second that everything was alright.

Human eyes never would have noticed how she was shaking, but he could easily see the tremors running down her arms and legs. Damon wrapped an arm around her shoulders, ignoring how she flinched when his skin touched hers. He waited until she relaxed before drawing her into his side and holding her there until he couldn't feel her tremble every time she took a breath.

Leesha couldn't go through the window the way Damon could, so she went through the front door. She smiled at Jenna when her friend was the one who opened the door and chatted pleasantly with her for a minute before slipping upstairs. "Is what easier?" Damon asked.

Leesha faltered when she heard Jeremy's response. "Life." She had dreamed about this conversation.

This couldn't be happening. She wasn't a witch, she couldn't be dreaming of the future. Things like that just didn't happen. She swallowed hard and shoved the connection that she'd just made away. She could deal with it later.

"…at least if you're a vampire, you don't have to feel bad about it if you don't want to," Damon was saying.

"Is that what you did?" Jeremy asked curiously. Leesha leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. She already knew Damon's answer. Yes.

Surprisingly, he hesitated before speaking. "I did it for a… I did it for a very long time. And life was a lot easier." But not better, Leesha added to herself, not better than the human life that he had lost when he had become a vampire. She'd known Damon long enough to know that he was doing the same inside his own head.

She brushed by Damon to lean against the open bathroom door. Are you okay? he asked silently with one hand on the doorframe.

Leesha nodded. I'm fine, her eyes said. She turned her attention to Jeremy as Damon walked away.

"What are you doing here?" Jeremy asked.

"Anna," she said simply before swallowing. "I'm sorry."

"Why are you here?" he repeated. Kid's eyes were sharp.

"I wanted to apologize."

"For what? Anna dying wasn't your fault." Jeremy went over to his desk and opened a drawer. He reached in to touch something. "It wasn't anyone's fault," he said quietly as the door downstairs opened. Jenna was talking to someone.

Leesha hesitated for a second. If she told Jeremy, there would always be somebody who knew. She wouldn't be able to brush it off later. But then she slowly started talking. "I saw bits and pieces of what happened today last night," she admitted. "Not enough to put the pieces together before it was already too late, but enough to worry."

"What did you see?" Jeremy whispered.

White wings curling around Anna. The reflection of a fire on fog. Jeremy with a vial in his hand. "I saw you holding Anna's blood," she said. Leesha managed to keep any inflection out of her words, not showing Jeremy exactly how she felt about that.

Jeremy looked defiant. "Are you going to tell me that I shouldn't turn?"

"No," Leesha responded immediately, "I'm not. I think it's a bad idea, but I'm not going to tell you how to run your life."

"Most people would."

And wasn't that the truth. Leesha snorted. "Jer, I'm not most people. It's your life and you can do whatever the hell you want with it," she said. She took a step forward and touched his arm. "But can you do something for me? Don't do anything without thinking first, please. That kind of change is permanent." Jeremy looked at her and nodded without saying a word. It wasn't a promise, but it also wasn't a rebuttal either.

The door downstairs opened again. "Jeremy? You up?" Elena's voice called.

Ten seconds later there was a scream.