Stefan started forwards, his intention to lift Elena's dripping body into his arms, but a vice-like grip on his forearm prevented him from getting any closer. Damon was right of course, he was the stronger of the two, and Stefan wouldn't be able to fight him. It didn't seem to matter to Damon that he was the cause of this, and this was out of character.

"Maybe we could take turns?" he asked.

"No," Damon spat, his arms visibly growing tighter around the crimson bundle in his arms, "I will carry her. I will do what needs to be done to ensure she survives. I did this..." He turned his face to sneer at the hotel doorman, who's eyes were wide with alarm when he saw Elena. He was full of anger, fury – self-pity. He hadn't meant to make things worse, but it seemed as though he could do nothing right.

Stefan had never seen Damon cry before, and the sight made a feeling stir inside him. The expression on his face broke his heart; there was so much pain in those dark eyes, enough to fill an ocean. Despite finding them in the position he did, he could not summon much anger at either of them, and he let Damon suffer in piece. Perhaps the most surprising thing was that he himself hadn't shed a tear.

Damon rested his lips on Elena's cheek for a lingering kiss. She felt so cold, so lifeless, and it was all his fault

His car was parked in the front row of the parking lot, and it's shiny lacquer coat stood out among the rest of the cars around it. They managed to scratch the paint of the passenger side as the loaded Elena's immobile form, but the soft leather would have to be destroyed afterwards anyway due to blood.

Damon knew the ride to the nearest hospital would be fun. He meant that sarcastically – fun was not sitting in a confined space with a thing in the back seat that smelt like lunch. He would have to open a window or something, maybe even rip off the car door, for some fresh air. The car journey ended up being the longest of his long long life.

When he carried the crimson coated creature into the hospital waiting room chaos ensued. Those who had only a moment before seemed relatively healthy turned a ghostly shade and turned their faces away. It was just as well – the less they saw of this particular patient the better. Something would have to be done about the records.

"Oh, my," a young woman in a nurses uniform exclaimed after coming through the double swinging doors, after probably receiving a frantic phone call from the frantic receptionist, "What happened?"

"I bit her and drank her blood," Damon stage-whispered, allowing himself a grim smile.

"She fell." Stefan supplied.

"What on, screws?"

"Something like that," Damon told her, keeping his face straight, "she's a clumsy girl."

The reason for the injury must not have mattered because she waved a hand at the nearest unoccupied bed, "There's a private room she can use, I'll go and find a doctor who can see her right now."

"Thanks." Stefan said, and he followed Damon to the empty room. Once the solid door was closed, he rounded on Damon, his face creased in animal fury. "What the hell are you up to?" he hissed venomously, "And I know it's something because she would never willingly –"

"She'd never willingly what, Stefan? Let me touch her? Kiss her? Love her?"

The way he said the word love felt like a knife twisting in Stefan's chest. Somehow, he knew that the love he meant was not the kind that was limited to holding hands. Could Elena really have deceived him about this? Could he believe it? No, he couldn't. "You're lying."

"Am I?" Damon lifted an enquiring eyebrow and then let him smile a smile that he turned off in the next second. "Because I remember the feel of her bare skin against mine, the taste of her blood, the little whimpering sound she makes when I –"

"Stop it!"

"If I recall, it was you who caused this."

"Me!" Stefan was incredulous, "Those weren't my teeth planted in her neck!"

"I wasn't hurting her with them, and if you hadn't ripped her away it would have stayed that way."

They both were silent.

"Stop fighting, stop fighting..." came a haunting voice from the bed, Katherine's words.

Both the vampires were at her bedside in the time it took her to blink. Elena wondered at first if it had all been a dream, and the two faces she saw were just visions – memories, a dream. She wanted to touch her neck to enforce this idea, but Damon caught her hand before it had even lifted from her side.