Hello all!

As it happens, I wasn't as finished with this as I thought I was. I had to add a scene and extend a scene in this chapter before it was what it needed to be (or as close to that as it's gonna get). I'm much, much, much happier with it now and I hope you enjoy it. :)

Disclaimer: I own jack squat.

Happy (hopefully) reading!

Her awakening the next morning is an unexpected relief—in two senses. Damon had honestly expected never to see her eyes again, and he's still uncertain why he cares that she lives.

As she sits up, he holds a mug of blood out for her from his lounge in the bedside chair. "Drink this." She accepts it, and gulps the liquid down quickly, crinkling her nose. "Gah. It tastes stale."

"It is," Damon tells her. "Stefan went on a blood bender a few weeks ago. It's from a hospital a few towns over, so crappy quality to start with. Humans," he shrugs in a whatcha-gonna-do way, "not picky about saving lives."

Rose drinks again, her swallow loud in the silence.

"It helping?" Damon asks, jerking his chin towards the bite.

"I don't know," she answers. She rolls her shoulder, huffing a breath with the pain it causes her.

"Let me see," he demands, standing up to lean over her. He pulls her forward, close to his chest, her cheek brushing his shirt, and pushes the sleeve of the shirt she borrowed from him down her arm. The patch of desiccated skin has grown toward her spine and down, scraps falling away from her body at his gentle touch. He hisses at it, and at her shudder as her skin peels off.

"This shirt's rubbing it, is there anything else I can wear?"

"Wouldn't bother me if you went around shirtless," Damon half-jokes as he sits back down in his chair. "Elena might have something stashed away in Stefan's room. If not, I'll have her bring you something."

"Thanks." Rose looks down at the cup in her lap, her head titled to the side, hair flat, skin paler than usual.

"Finish that," he orders, in a tone that reminds him of talking to Elena.

She tilts the cup back, nose wrinkled, and gulps. Then repeats the process to appease him before licking her lips and setting the cup on the nightstand. She sits back as she faces him; she can tell that he's unsure why he's still here (knows the feeling herself) and gives him a reason to stay: "Now, since I'm your friend, I'm going to pry." He raises an eyebrow at her, amused. "How did you get involved in Katherine's mess?"

Across the room, where he'd retreated after hearing her question, his jaw clenches.

Wise from past experience, she says, "She did to you what she did to Trevor."

"Katherine, the eternal slut," he acknowledges bitterly. He's sunk into the shadows with his arms crossed and his eyes are barely visible.

"Stefan?" she asks.

"Love of her unlife."

Suspecting that doppelgangers don't fall too far from the tree, she voices it gently, "Is Elena more similar to Katherine than she seems?"

"Yes." He speaks through his teeth, body rigid. "And no."

"Caring gets you dead," she reminds him.

"Yeah," he says, pushing out of the shadows, "I know."

~V~

"Where's Elena?" Damon asks Stefan, as the younger of the two comes down the stairs after suitably comforting an Elena slightly traumatized from Damon's off-the-cuff, but honest, response to her "Is she gonna die, Stefan?" question.

"With Rose," Stefan replies, brow furrowed to read his brother.

Damon doesn't notice. "Hm. They've got this weird ex-captive/captor vibe. I dunno that I'd let Elena be with her alone, little brother," he admonishes, wagging a finger at Stefan. "I'm kinda disappointed that you haven't ripped Rose's head off for that kidnapping stunt actually."

Stefan cocks an eyebrow at him. "Elena's forgiven her, Damon, so can I."

Damon shrugs distractedly, heading for the scotch. Stefan narrows his eyes at him—it's daylight and he knows there's no way he'll ever get Damon to AA meetings though the thought is amusing, usually more so than now. "Have you tried blood?" he asks.

Damon nods over his shoulder at him. "This morning." He turns his full attention back to his brother, setting the decanter stopper on the table. "Blood doesn't always work, Stefan. Sometimes vampires die."

"We won't let that happen to Rose," Stefan promises, eyes wiser than Damon's still watching his older brother as Damon picks up the stopper and puts it back in the decanter without pouring a drink.

"I have a date with a werewolf to insure that it doesn't." Damon swings his leather jacket off the back of the couch and over his shoulder, walking past Stefan again. "What are you doing?"

"Meeting Ric. We're gonna go over Isobel's research to try to find something that may shed some light on a cure for Rose."

Damon nods again, eyes unfocused. "So Elena's on Rose duty."

"Yeah."

Damon turns and bounds up the stairs, headed for his room. "Hey Rosebud," he greets the stricken vampire from the doorway as Rose turns on her back to face him, "how do you feel about having Elena here babysit you while Stefan and I go fact-finding? It'll be a nice bit of role reversal."

Rose raises her eyebrows at him, delighting in his easy, but fake, nonchalance. Regardless of her fear of imminent death, she smiles at this easily formed friendship, hoping to reassure him. "More time for girl talk."

"You two girls chat away. I expect my ears to burn." Damon gives his best almost-innocent-but-terribly-conceited eye-smirk causing Rose to laugh weakly at him and Elena to roll her eyes. "Ttfn," he finishes, and vanishes.

~V~

"How much do you know about Damon?" Elena asks, settling back into her chair and pulling her legs to her chin after saying goodbye to Stefan.

Rose smiles, thinking 'Little human' gently at the girl. "Lexi described him as 'not a nice person' which was Lexi lingo for a royal jackass."

"You know about Lexi?" Elena's surprise weights Rose's amusement and the vampire pushes back fangs that are getting harder to keep sheathed.

"Stefan told me."

"And you're still…?"

Rose tilts her head farther into the pillow below it and cocks an eyebrow, her amusement light again. "Sleeping with Damon?"

Elena nods, half self-conscious but too good—Stefan's kind of good—to withdraw the question.

"A vampire who holds grudges ends up miserable for eternity. I choose to forgive and forget because eternity is a long time." She shifts under the sheet, trying to decide whether she is cold or hot and fighting the itch in the veins around her eyes.

The younger—so much younger—girl places her feet on the floor slowly and then is abruptly standing, and pacing, just slightly, and without recognition of motion. "How do you forgive someone who killed someone you loved?"

Rose doesn't answer and Elena ceases to expect one as she halts with shoulders tense. "It's okay to love both of them, you know," Rose tells her instead.

"I don't, Rose," Elena replies simply, wearily helpless. "And I'm not Katherine."

With a nod, Rose agrees, but then murmurs, "I highly doubt Katherine loved either one of them."

Elena sits. "For Damon, I wish she had."

~V~

Damon saunters into The Grille, carefully searching for Jules and finding Ric. He strides over to the younger older man, so much a monster that Ric sullenly wonders how Mystic Falls is still so clueless. "What are you doing here?"

Ric looks up from the remains of what had been a peaceful lunch, French fry in hand. "Having lunch. We don't all live in a buffet, Damon."

All but ignoring his reply, Damon continues, "I thought you were meeting Stefan."

Ric stands tiredly. "I am. On my way right now." He jingles his car keys impudently in the vampire's face.

"I'm not above eating you, Ric," Damon threatens, invading Ric's personal space.

Personal space must not have been a respected norm in 1864 as it is now, Ric assumes, and says "Sure, Damon," as he pushes past him. Damon turns to watch him go (make sure he leaves) and all of the sudden the werewolf's standing in Ric's vacated spot, surprising him. Angrily, he spins back around to remind himself who the more powerful, stealthier, one of them is by towering—kind of—over her.

"Let me guess," she starts with fake enthusiasm, "you wanna talk." The way she says it makes her position on recent events perfectly clear. His features meld into his "I'm pissed and dangerous" glare as she continues. "But first, how's your friend? Rose? Was that her name?" Jules walks by him to sit down in a booth to his right. Twisting, he follows and slides in across from her.

"Tell me how to cure a werewolf bite," he tilts his head. "And then I won't kill you."

Her looks says "Whatever" over the top of the menu she's browsing. "I'm not the only werewolf in existence, vampire." She puts the menu down and places immaculately manicured hands on the top of it, dropping pretense. "My pack knows where I am."

Incredulously, he questions, "Your pack? Seriously?"

Jules sits back against the seat, crossing her arms. "I don't waltz into potentially dangerous situations without back-up. Unlike you," she adds pointedly.

"You're not dangerous today," he reminds her. "I have a month to track them down and kill them, after I kill you." He leans forward menacingly, sick of this she-wolf and her unmerited I'm-a-badass attitude.

She leans forward to meet him, forearms on the table. "You'd never find them all. And they know where you are."

Damon growls under his breath as she stands up. He wonders how wolf would taste.

"About Rose." She looks down at him, delighted. "Have the chills started yet?" Damon feels fangs as he stands. "The unbearable pain? Did I mention the dementia?" Moving closer, she says into his face, "You want a cure?" Jules starts stepping away, dark humor in her slow swinging waist. "Take a stake and drive it through her heart."

~V~

"Rose?" Elena calls, stopping in the doorway to Damon's room, the mug of blood Rose requested in her hand. The bed is empty. "Rose?"