A/N: Okay, I'm back, and this is a long one to help make up for the wait. Damon finally talks to Elena (sort of) and Stefan in this chapter, and we meet two other Originals. So I hope you like it! Also, if you want to picture Becca played by a different actress than the one playing Rebekah on the show (who I mostly like, but I hate the way they are writing her as a whiny brat), I think Helena Mattsson would make a good Becca - she is gorgeous enough to pair with Ian perfectly ;) Please review if you like this chapter/story (or even if you don't) since reviews help inspire me to keep writing.

Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries or any of the characters. My Rebecca is not the same as the character on the show, so I do own her and the plot.

Chapter 9

The next morning Becca slipped back into bed with Damon around sunrise. Normally Damon was an early riser and she wouldn't have to wait long for him to wake up, but today he showed no signs of stirring. Becca sighed at the evidence of how hard his body had worked to heal itself the previous day. She had been terrified when she had felt Damon attacked, had felt him lose consciousness. She had gone to his rescue, not even thinking about the others, but of course it had been about Elena. And Damon had risked his life without a second thought to protect the girl. She felt a surge of annoyance at that, but Becca thought, Damon wouldn't be who he was without that total lack of concern for his own safety, and it was very interesting to observe the way this little group of vampires and humans fought for and protected each other. She had almost forgotten about that kind of caring, of friendship or kinship, over the centuries, and she had missed it. She had missed having friends who cared. Klaus had taken that from her, and she thought that she wanted it back.

Becca reached up and gently stroked a piece of unruly black hair back from Damon's face. Yesterday had been a reminder of how easily she could lose him when they were only just discovering what they could be together. He was young, and that worried her because there were so many other vampires with more power than Damon. But she also knew that he was strong for his age, and she would make sure that nothing happened to him. What mattered now was that he was okay. She lay still, watching him sleep and admiring his beauty.

Becca wasn't sure how much time had passed when she began to hear the sounds of the other residents of the house stirring – Stefan and Elena murmuring to each other in bed over who got the first shower, the witch Amaya heading down the stairs to the kitchen – and finally Damon opened his eyes. She smiled. "Good morning, sleepyhead."

Damon smiled softly in return. His voice was rough with sleep. "Morning." Then, "Where did you learn that?"

Becca scrunched up her forehead. "I do not know. Maybe I read it somewhere?"

"Did you get into Stefan's stash of children's books?"

She matched his teasing tone, knowing that the affectionate needling was a sign of Damon's love for his brother. "Yes, that is it. And they are scary."

"Explains a lot, doesn't it?"

She laughed and kissed his hand where it rested just inches from her.

Damon sighed and stroked her cheek before interlacing his fingers with hers. "Are you still leaving to talk to your siblings today?"

Becca nodded. "Yes. Magdalena and Alexander are in Chicago, and Elijah is there with them right now."

"Do you think that vampire was referring to one of them?" He stretched, and Becca admired the play of perfectly defined muscles in his lean torso. Damon was made to be a vampire, she thought. He would have been wasted on a single human lifetime.

She kept those thoughts to herself, answering him quietly. "I think Magdalena. I do not think Alex would do such a thing. He was always a kind soul, for a vampire." She smiled ruefully. "Far kinder than me, I am afraid."

Damon gave her his endearingly crooked smile. "I think you are a beautiful soul." He shifted to lean over her, and Becca rolled slightly onto her back. Before she could answer him, Damon had begun to kiss his way down her neck to her shoulder and then to her breast, teasing the nipple with his lips as his hand sought out her other breast. She sighed in pleasure. "Beautiful," he repeated. "How long until you have to leave for your flight?"

"We have some time."

"Good." Becca felt her body igniting with desire as Damon resumed his gentle ministrations.

•••••

Damon was winding the grandfather clock early that afternoon when Elena found him. Becca had left for Chicago, and Damon was trying to distract himself from missing her by taking care of the house. He figured that was a healthier way to cope than alcohol.

Elena's big brown eyes blazed as she glared at him. "You don't even care, do you? Did you flip your precious switch again and turn your emotions off?"

Thoroughly confused, Damon climbed down off the small ladder that he had been standing on. "What are you talking about?"

"All you care about is having sex with your new vampire girlfriend. Bonnie's dead, and we're just supposed to replace her with another witch. And Jeremy and Jenna are gone, and Stefan's not himself. There's nobody left, and you don't even care." She was raging at him, her big brown eyes flashing with anger, and Damon had no idea how to defend himself. Or what she wanted from him.

He tried to stay calm. "Of course I care, but I can't exactly bring people back to life, Elena."

"So you just move on like they never even existed? Like their deaths don't matter?"

"What else am I supposed to do?" Damon refrained from mentioning that most of those people wouldn't have exactly mourned his death, after all. "Elena, people die. I'm a vampire. It's not like I haven't seen death before. I've seen more than 170 years of death."

Elena cut him off. "I thought we meant something to you, Damon."

Damon stared at her. Where was this coming from? He was starting to feel his own anger rising. "What do you want from me, Elena?"

"I don't know – maybe a sign that all of this has affected you, at least a little."

Damon found himself still staring in confusion. Did she just want him to be miserable with her? His very ability to fall for Becca, to feel any kind of positive emotion again, had come from these months in Mystic Falls. It had come from his relationship with Elena, in particular, and her ability to draw out what was left of the humanity that he had thought he had cast aside forever. But he didn't think that answer would satisfy her right now.

Elena wasn't happy with his silence. "Fine, don't answer me." She turned away from him and took a step toward the door before turning back. "Have you even talked to Stefan yet?"

"No." Damon suddenly wished that he hadn't been such a coward and that he had a different answer to that question. But Damon would rather face down a pack of werewolves on a full moon than talk about emotions and feelings and relationships. He guessed that was probably a personality flaw in Elena's book. "I will talk to him, Elena."

Her voice was scathing. "Don't let it interfere with your busy schedule." She stalked from the room.

Damon sat down heavily on the couch. What the hell was that all about? He needed a drink.

•••••

It was Stefan who found Damon for the dreaded conversation later that day. Damon was in the library with a book and a drink when his brother found him. He was still in a bad mood from Elena yelling at him earlier and Becca being gone.

"Damon, Elena is worried about you and Becca. Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Stefan's voice was thoroughly serious and Damon could see the lines deepening on his brother's forehead.

"So Elena sent you to talk to me?" What was going on in that girl's head?

Stefan had the grace to look a bit abashed. "Yeah. I'm worried about you, too."

"There's nothing to worry about."

"Damon, Becca is an Original. She's unbelievably strong and . . ."

Damon felt his indignation rise on Becca's behalf. "She saved Elena yesterday, Stefan, and she probably saved us as well. What more do you want?"

Stefan looked only slightly chastised. "I know that, but the Originals always have their own agendas. Do you know what Becca's agenda is, because I don't? Not yet."

Damon rolled his eyes. "I'm her 'agenda.' Is it really so hard for you and Elena to believe that somewhat might actually want to be with me?"

Stefan sighed. "Of course I know she likes you, Damon. I just want to make sure you're keeping your head about you through this. She can compel you . . ."

Damon interrupted his brother. "Actually, she can't. I'm still drinking vervain every day." He realized that could be taken the wrong way, so he continued hurriedly. "Although that has nothing to do with Becca, and everything to do with Elijah and the rest of their siblings." Damon didn't like that anyone held power like that over him. He had no intention of ever being compelled, or being vulnerable in that way, if he could avoid it. "Becca and I are happy, Stefan. Is that really so hard to believe?"

"I know it seems that way, Damon, but you've only been together for a few days. Don't you think you're moving awfully quickly? You've always been one to jump in with both feet without even checking for rocks."

Stefan's tone of superiority was getting on Damon's last nerve, and he fought the urge to destroy the civility of the conversation. He failed. "Shouldn't you be glad that I'm no longer after your girlfriend, brother?"

"Don't make this about something it's not."

"Really? How's life in your Elena-scented bubble, Stefan?" Damon knew he should stop before he went any further, but once again he couldn't stop himself. "Shouldn't you two be busy looking at college brochures together? Or traveling to Europe to grow up and find yourselves? Maybe this time, it will take."

"Shut up, Damon." Stefan turned away. His voice was low when he continued. "She doesn't want to turn."

Damon's anger melted away. "You knew that, Stefan. She never has."

"I don't think I really thought about what it meant until the sacrifice, until you forced her to drink your blood." Damon flinched slightly at the reminder of one of his many mistakes, but Stefan kept going like he hadn't even noticed. "And then when I had to choose between you and her when you were dying. I didn't want to think about it. It won't be long before she leaves me."

Damon was silent, unsure what to say. He had accidentally gotten to the crux of at least part of what was bothering his brother. "Stefan . . ." His brother turned back to him, and Damon knew he needed to find some words of wisdom. He owed his brother for saving his life, after all. "You need to take her out, show her something other than how long and hard you can brood." Thinking of Elena's sneak attack on him earlier, he added, "She's wound a bit too tight right now, that's for sure."

"She wants a normal life, Damon."

"Normal doesn't have to be quite as boring as you make it. She wanted me to get you guys tickets to the music festival last weekend, but obviously I had an agenda other than saving your relationship. . . ." Damon knew he was smiling at the memory of his perfect weekend with Becca, but he didn't care. Once she got back from Chicago, he decided he would take her somewhere else. Maybe New York. Or somewhere in the Caribbean. He still hadn't seen her in a bikini.

Stefan's voice drew his mind back to Mystic Falls. "She did?"

"Yeah, Stefan. She did. Take her out. Hell, take her to Europe for real. Show her that there are perks to dating a vampire."

His brother looked stricken. "I can't just go out and have fun after the months I spent with Klaus, the things I did. . ."

Damon rolled his eyes. Apparently Elena and Stefan were on the same page about the virtue of dwelling on the past, at least. "So you massacred some towns, killed a bunch of people? Welcome back to life as a vampire, Stef. It happens. You deal with it and move on."

"People are dead because of me, Damon."

"Yeah, I know. But brooding and blowing things with Elena won't bring them back."

Stefan smiled slightly. "I can't believe I'm even considering taking advice from you on my love life."

Damon couldn't help but smile back. "Yeah, hell might be freezing over as we speak."

But Stefan's smile disappeared almost immediately and his green eyes took on a haunted expression. "And I can't show her all the perks of dating a vampire. I don't have the control, especially not right now. Even traveling is probably a bad idea."

Damon hesitated, not sure what to say to that. He knew that Stefan had gone back to his animal blood diet, and in truth he had never entirely understood his brother's struggle to gain control of his addiction to human blood. Damon had cultivated his own control over his early decades as a vampire, but he had never suffered anything like the problems that plagued Stefan. He might be a bad person, but he was the same person no matter what (or who) he had for dinner.

When Damon didn't say anything further, Stefan moved toward the door. "Be happy with Becca, Damon. Just watch yourself. Don't let this turn into another situation like Katherine."

Damon cursed, all sympathy for his brother forgotten. How dare he mention Becca and Katherine in the same sentence? He knew from the blood bond that Becca was in this just as deep as he was. He broke out in a smile as he thought of that particular perk of dating another vampire. Stefan was staring at him like he was insane, so he figured he had better give his brother some kind of an explanation. "Becca and I formed a blood bond, Stefan."

Stefan looked surprised. "You did? I thought those took time to develop."

Damon smirked. "I guess ours is special."

Stefan shook his head. "Just be careful, okay?" He turned and left the room.

•••••

Becca looked around the large house in the Chicago suburbs that her siblings Magdalena and Alexander were currently inhabiting. It was nothing like the Salvatore boarding house or any of the smaller homes she had seen in Mystic Falls, but she still had very little experience with the architecture of the era in which she now lived. She spoke politely. "This is a nice place."

Magdalena shrugged affectedly. "It is barely adequate." Her sister had always been a great beauty, and she wore an elegant gold dress that went perfectly with her long, straight blond hair. Becca suddenly felt self-conscious about her own wavy hair that always had a bit of a mind of its own, not to mention her casual jeans and flowy silk tank top. Her clothes were nice – she had bought them at Caroline's favorite, and rather expensive, boutique in Richmond – and she was particularly fond of the bright pattern on the top (which she was determined not to let Damon shred in a fit of passion), but her sister had always made her feel inelegant and underdressed, and apparently that hadn't changed.

Alexander glanced at their sister with annoyance. "The house is fine." He turned to Becca. "I confess that I miss the palaces and courts of Europe in our day. This age seems so dull and lifeless. But we forget our manners. Would you like something to drink? Some blood perhaps?"

Becca smiled. "Sure. Thank you."

Her smile faded as she heard Alexander call for a servant, and a minute later, a human entered the room with a tray of glasses of blood. She was certain the man was compelled, and while she had never objected to such a thing before, she had come to find the absence of servants in Mystic Falls rather refreshing. As Becca sipped from her glass, she was surprised to realize that it was fresh. She had gotten used to the blood bags at the Salvatore house, she thought as she hid her reaction. Clearly, her siblings were living very differently than she was.

Becca was not sure how she was supposed to go about helping her siblings integrate into the twenty-first century, and she was even less sure how to go about confirming her suspicion that it was Magdalena who was recruiting vampire followers. She would far rather return to Damon and the relative peace and simple pleasures of the past few weeks in Mystic Falls, since they had defeated Klaus. Becca had never cared for family politics or power politics – often one and the same with her family – but she had absented herself from those power struggles once before and the result had been Klaus' rampage, not to mention her own death for three hundred years. She didn't think she could afford to make the same mistake again.

She hadn't told Elijah yet about the attack, finding it hard to completely trust the phone as a means of communication. She knew Damon would laugh at her for that and call her old-fashioned. And she would tell him that when you were as old as she was, you were allowed to be old-fashioned. And his blue eyes would sparkle in that beautiful way . . .

Magdalena's disapproving voice interrupted her daydream about Damon. "Rebecca, are you even listening?"

Becca immediately felt like a child being chastised. "Sorry." She wondered how her older sister could still make her feel that way after so many hundreds of years. Family patterns were hard to break.

Magdalena did not look mollified. "If we are boring you, Rebecca, perhaps you would like to talk about yourself. Elijah tells us that you are keeping company with a vampire."

Becca tamped down her annoyance at being treated like a small child. She would not let her sister get to her. "Yes, his name is Damon Salvatore. He helped us to pursue Klaus." She could hear her voice become more enthusiastic at the topic of Damon. Then she had a moment of inspiration. "Would you like to see his picture?" She pulled out her phone.

"You have his picture on your talking device?"

"My phone, yes. They can do all kinds of things." Becca pulled up the picture that Caroline had taken of her and Damon. She passed the phone to Magdalena, who peered at it skeptically before passing it to Alexander.

Alexander sounded excited. "He is gorgeous. Does he please you in bed?"

Becca guessed that she was probably blushing. Trust Alex to ask that question. "Yes, he does. Very much."

Alexander looked wistful. "I don't suppose you would share him?"

While Becca was imagining Damon's reaction to that idea, Magdalena explained. "Alexander is not happy with the men in Chicago."

Alexander rolled his eyes. "The humans are so fragile and so very limited in their experiences. And the vampires are not much better, and for some reason very few of them are interested in men. I have thought about turning a human, but I have not found one that is worth dealing with the new vampire phase."

Becca smiled a little at her brother. Alex had always been a bit picky, not unlike her. "Sorry, I will not share Damon."

Alexander looked wistful. "That is too bad."

Magdalena, on the other hand, looked thoughtful. "So he is your ïhsanthá?"

Becca frowned at the ancient word. It implied ownership of a lover, almost like a pet, and there had indeed been a time when she and her siblings had chosen younger vampires as their ïhsanthá. The formal practice had gone out of fashion hundreds of years before her death, and she thought even long before Magdalena's. Once again, she found herself wondering what Damon would think. She couldn't decide whether he would be amused or insulted at the idea – it probably depended on whether he took it seriously. But claiming Damon as her ïhsanthá would clearly establish him as hers and hers alone, and she thought that she had to choose her battles. "I suppose you could say that, although it is his choice, too."

"Why would you give him a choice?"

Becca shrugged. "Because it is his life." After a moment, she added, "And I do not wish to control him." If there was anything that would drive Damon away, it would be an attempt to control him, and anyway she loved his stubbornly, recklessly independent nature.

Alexander looked puzzled at that. "I do not understand that about the twenty-first century. Why do all the humans expect to be free and independent? Why do they not want to defer to their betters? The vampires are hardly better, although at least they understand power."

Magdalena interjected. "Some of the humans understand power. And wealth."

Becca frowned. She strongly suspected that it was Magdalena who was trying to gather vampire followers. It fit her sister's style, and this conversation was hardly disabusing her of that notion.

•••••

Damon poured himself another drink of bourbon and eyed his phone. He missed Becca so much, especially after a day of emotional drama with Elena and Stefan. Always his favorite way to spend a day, he thought with biting sarcasm. After another moment of hesitation, Damon picked up his phone and found Becca in his contacts. He touched the phone to dial her number, and a smile spread across his face a moment later as he heard her voice. "Hi, Damon."

"Hi yourself. How's Chicago?"

"It is . . . strange. Very different from Mystic Falls."

"Well, of course. Chicago is a beautiful city and this town is a dump. Wait a minute, why do I live here again?"

Becca giggled. "That is not what I mean. My siblings do not understand the people of this century."

"Hell, half the time I don't either."

He heard worry alongside the amusement in Becca's voice. "Not like you." A moment later she changed the subject rather than elaborate. "How was your day?"

Damon shrugged even though she couldn't see him. "Elena yelled at me. And I finally talked to Stefan."

"Why did Elena yell at you?"

"I have no idea. I don't understand her."

Becca sounded amused again. "No, I suppose you would not. And it is probably better that way."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Never mind. How did your talk with Stefan go?"

Damon decided to let Becca change the subject. He certainly didn't want to talk about Elena. "It went surprisingly okay. Well, there was some fighting, but we didn't try to stake each other or anything."

"Do you normally try to stake each other when you try to talk?"

Damon thought back on his many fights with Stefan. "It's happened a few times."

"It sounds like my family."

"Yeah, what is it about vampire families anyway?"

Becca giggled again, and Damon smiled at the sound. God, he missed her. This time he changed the subject. "So what are you wearing?"

He heard puzzlement in Becca's voice. "The same thing that I was wearing when I left this morning. What does that matter?"

Damon smiled. "It's time to teach you about a little thing called phone sex."