Chapter 1: Ten-strike

Half conscious, Elena pressed her lips together to force herself awake on the cold stone floor. She was aware that she had been removed from Damon's favourite velvety feel carpet she had keeled over onto, she felt very uneasy and anxious to find out what had happened. The colour red was swirling in her mind forming shapes like petals and flames and inscriptions like a nightmare, no doubt resulting from a lifestyle that revolved around blood despite her not being a vampire, but she fought against the heaviness in her head keeping her down and blearily opened her eyes to find a similar half darkness around her than what held her mind. Elena blinked a couple of times somnolently clearing her vision, but the grey light remained. She froze at once however when everything came into focus, her breath catching in her throat. The brunette found she was looking straight into the somewhat troubled brown eyes of herself, or more likely her doppelgänger.

"Ah! She's quite all right," Katherine summarized her observations and looked backwards where Elena could now spot Stefan standing behind her and Damon still unconscious lying on his side further back.

"Where are we?" Elena scrambled to gather herself into a sitting position against the wall, still rather dazed and confused.

Stefan shrugged as if not caring much, "basement under the witches' house. How do you feel?" He came closer to squat beside her.

Elena frowned, then shook her head to get rid of the lingering heaviness in her head and tried to stand up. "What happened?"

"Bill thought I should have some company down here," Katherine provided, "cause I can't be a verified reconditioned vampire without bait," she nodded into the direction of a small camera in the corner of the ceiling.

"He's watching us?" Elena was ready to examine her surroundings in more detail. The space was quite big, but without much in the room at all apart from a few boxes and a tap. It was still light outside as she could see the shadows of the trees lengthening through the small window at the top, however, the window would hardly be wide enough to squeeze her arm through. "Creep. You know you could smash that camera no problem?" She looked from Stefan to Katherine and back uncomprehending. Why didn't they?

"Its for your own safety," Stefan asserted, "didn't you hear? You're the bait," he told her in a nonchalant voice.

Elena froze once more, dumbstruck to an extent Katherine felt the need to explain. She hoped once the sedative was out of the Elena's system, she will be up to her usual speed cause being this slow annoyed her. "I'm assuming he'd interrupt if we really tried to drain you completely, and abstaining would mean we could be considered successfully reconditioned. As you can see there's no food for us apart from you here, yet there's plenty of food for you," she opened one of the boxes to reveal a mixture of cans and packets from soups to fish and compote conserves.

The human stepped forward, but not in the direction of the containers. "Is Damon ok? Why's he not waking up?" She sat beside him, "did they vervain him too much?" Elena pulled at and examined his shirt for bulletmarks.

"I removed all of those Elena," Katherine assured her, "and I don't think he was shot with much more vervain than Stefan."

Elena leaned closer to Damon so she could see him more clearly in the semi darkness. It could've just been the light, or the lack of it, but she did not like the colour of him, "were the bullets causing a lot of damage?"

Stefan shook his head, "from the location, they couldn't have. Katherine says the bullets weren't that far in."

Elena sized up her two conversation partners. Seemingly they have been discussing the subject themselves earlier. Could they have been worried too? "Then what's wrong with him?"

Katherine gave an eye roll and scoffed, walking under the window and pretending not to be interested. She tried to shape the sides of her nails with her teeth, due to lack of scissors. "When was the last time Damon ate?" Stefan asked somewhat accusatory.

It reminded Elena of the time when the older brother told her that she must know animal blood is not good enough sustenance for Stefan. "I don't know, I haven't seen him having a blood bag in a few days at least..I wasn't really concentrating on that, I really don't know."

"You mean those cold, dead, defunct, disgusting, tasteless and useless things in plastic?" Katherine nipped from her corner.

Elena bit her lip. She'd never assumed blood bags would not be as beneficial for vampires as blood taken directly from the source, or more likely, was it she didn't want to think about that possibility? She turned to Stefan. "But..but..neither of you ever complained about the those before."

"It tastes like nothing as its dead, not like the horrid taste perception that comes from some animals, but in some ways, its worse," Stefan explained, "devoid, you know?"

"He's healed though," Elena established and smoothed Damon's shirt back down after having a peek under, "so when's he gonna wake up?"

"Damon would be in pain if he woke up right now, so just leave him Elena," Katherine said petulantly, still as far from them as was possible in the enclosed space.

"I'm fine," Damon mumbled, attempting to sit up.

Elena scrambled to help him seeing him wincing. She watched apprehensively as Damon leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes again. Her hand reached out to comfort him, smoothing his messy, curling locks out the way of his eyes, "why didn't you tell me blood bags were not good enough? You should've trusted me Damon."

"Could you all kids stop talking about food?" Katherine spat, turning her attention back to her fingernails, "I've been here longer than you."

Tbc