"We have to look for survivors." Bonnie jumps off the island counter of the kitchen, tossing out her pronouncement as though it's the most logical course of action ever and all others be damned. Damon supposes that somewhere in that little witchy-seventeen-year-old brain of hers it really is, but that doesn't make it right.

The vampire responds the only way he knows how. With sarcasm and a look that he hopes is as scathing as he's trying to make it. "Seriously?"

"Yes." Bonnie looks at him. Her eyes are hard and already tilting toward annoyed, which is pretty standard operating procedure when she looks at him. "Seriously."

"No," Damon speaks slowly, as if talking to a very small and very dimwitted young child. "What we have to do is decide where we're going next. Downtown Mystic Falls, is not on the list of summertime vacation destinations."

"We can't leave if there is even the possibility of there being anyone else alive here. We have to look."

Damon peers at her, pulls a face and rolls his eyes. He's in her space in the blinking of an eye, but Bonnie being Bonnie doesn't bat an eye and doesn't even take a step back. Her green eyes flash defiantly up toward him, daring him to come even closer and challenging him to make his point. Who do you think they're going to listen to? Bonnie's unwavering gaze seems to say. You? Or me?

Because at the end of the day, they both know that Bonnie's bleeding heart and do-good attitude is going to have Caroline backing her up in a heartbeat and Alaric trying to smooth things over.

"What part of flesh eating zombies did you fail to understand?" It doesn't stop Damon from saying the words or spelling out his point. "We're only safe here because we're not noisy and they haven't picked up the trail of yummy witch and history teacher eats. You are just begging for trouble by waltzing into town unready and unarmed -"

"Then I'll be ready. And I'll be armed."

"You'll be dead."

"Not as long as I can still do this." She's barely completed the last word before she's flicking her fingers and Damon feels the ground leave his feet. Or rather it's his feet leaving the ground as he sails backwards across the kitchen and slams into the refrigerator. It's not hard enough to injure him, but it knocks the wind out of him and snaps his back against the stainless steel with a loud, reverberating thunk. He waits to hit the ground, and when that isn't happening, he's peering at her with a great deal of annoyance - and a smidgen of respect for her abilities that he'll never admit to aloud - as Bonnie holds him pinned with her magic.

"Impressive," Ric says, and even though he's trying hard to hide it, Damon can hear the amusement in his voice.

Caroline makes no attempt to hide it, loosing a loud giggle.

"Only when there's one of them," Damon points out. "What if there's more than one? What if you're surrounded?" He can maintain his dignity and make his point even when being held up against an expensive and underused appliance by invisible threads. "Put me down."

Bonnie cocks her head and opens her mouth, but Ric cuts her off at the pass. "Bonnie, let go of Damon, please. Gently." The other man turns his attention to Damon and gives him what Damon likes to privately call his 'warning chaperone face.' Given that Ric really sucks as a chaperone, it's neither that daunting or that impressive. "Damon don't bait Bonnie. Let's all just talk about this - rationally - for a few minutes."

Damon strongly suspects that the emphasis on the rationally part was aimed specifically in his direction. The invisible tethers vanish instantly, and Damon drops, only catching himself before face planting on the floor by the sheer grace of his vampire reflexes.

"What's there to talk about? Did you look for survivors?" Bonnie turns from Damon to Ric, and as quick as that the most dangerous person in the room is forgotten about and relegated to the importance level of Vampire Barbie. Damon glares, because he hates being ignored and he hates being dismissed even more than he hates being ignored, and he hates that Bonnie is so full of herself and her power that she doesn't even flinch or give off the little hints of fear she once did when dealing with him.

He takes a step forward, and Caroline is in his path as subtlety as Caroline can be subtle. A shoulder and a leg, a quick glance over her shoulder as though daring him to push through her - as though Damon wouldn't if he had a reason to do so. But really, Caroline is too easy and Ric would frown and it would hardly be a point to having a hand in nursing Bonnie back to health if he just went ahead and drained her.

Besides, they might end up needing that witch's brew later.

Ric sighs, exchanges a glance with Caroline and frowns at Damon who just leans back against the refrigerator and smirks with his arms folded across his chest. "No, we didn't."

"It was getting dangerous out there," Caroline steps up, hugging herself around her midsection. "We brought you here because you weren't as sick as everyone else and by then -"

"It was Dawn of the Dead," Damon interjects, earning a glare from Caroline and another one of those supposedly warning looks from Ric. "Not a good time to go door-to-door checking for crazies with shotguns hiding in their front closets."

"Bonnie." Ric draws the witch's attention before she can throw a spell at Damon just because she can throw a spell at Damon. "Everything happened fast. People started dying, and then . . . not all of them stayed dead." A shadow flickers across Ric's face and he swallows hard. His gaze slides somewhere past Bonnie, to a nondescript spot on the wall, and then slowly returns. Damon can see the memories and the weight in his friend's eyes and it makes him shift uncomfortably, avoiding Ric's eyes - and Caroline's - as he pretends that the ceiling tiles are of great interest.

"Not everyone got sick like you, and you know I didn't get sick at all. A lot of people were bitten by those things. . . and they turned into them. We just wanted to hole up and be safe."

"But you just said it yourself. Not everyone got sick. And I got better. There could be other people out there who survived and don't know what's going on. People who didn't have friends to take care of them, and wake up to and explain things -"

"Who might have gotten chomped on by the living dead while they were mostly comatose," Damon feels the need to interject. "Who'd turn down a free and easy meal?"

"Not you," Caroline rolls her eyes and snorts.

"All that bagged blood? Not going to last forever, Blondie." Damon pushes away from the refrigerator and joins the trio gathered around the kitchen island of the Salvatore Boarding House kitchen. It's eerily lit with candles and lanterns and one LED lamp despite the fact that the sun is reaching its zenith in the sky, and it's not quite noon yet. The boarded windows stop all but a few jagged blades of light from beaming inside.

Leaning against the counter, Damon shoots Caroline a look. "You might want to think about not being so judgemental and picky in the future."

"Damon." The warning comes from Ric, a dark glare accompanies the gasp from Bonnie, and it's Caroline who's the last to get it.

"Eww. Just .. eww! Why don't you just eat a zombie -"

Damon laughs and its both amused and harsh. "I wasn't talking about corpses or zombies -"

"Just don't!" Bonnie holds up a hand. Her green eyes flash in the dim light as she gapes at him. "Do you even listen to yourself sometimes?" Beat. "No. Don't." Her shoulders roll back as she takes a visible breath and breathes it out, purposefully turning away from Damon as much as she can. "How many people do we know, that we don't know are dead? Just think about it."

"Matt," Caroline pipes up. Her voice wavers a bit. "He was ... sick. I was taking care of him and my mother and . . I went back and he wasn't there. But ... his neighbor had said she was going to drive to the hospital and would take Matt too even though the hospitals weren't taking anybody. I tried to check the hospital after my Mom -" There's a pause and a swallow and though he won't admit it aloud, even Damon feels that tugging pang of loss because he has few friends, and Liz was one he counted among them.

At least she didn't change.

At the end, so many did.

"The hospital was dangerous. There were soldiers and they were checking people and I couldn't stay," Caroline finishes sadly.

"Then Matt might be alive." Bonnie straightens, a soft smile on her face. "There. That's one."

Damon snorts derisively. "That's wishful thinking."

"It's human thinking, Damon," Ric says and there's no warning, no sharpness to the tone. It's gentle and sympathetic and tired and Damon wonders when Ric became so tired because now isn't a good time. The end of the world is here, and they can't afford to be tired if they want to survive. Really, Damon wants to survive because almost dying permanently has shown him that no matter how bad the shit is - and between having to shoot friends and bury their bodies, and having a brother who is still tearing a swatch of bloody murder and dismembered corpses along the coastline the shit is bad - he's not ready to throw in the towel yet.

"Tyler went missing," Caroline adds. "It all happened around the full moon and with everyone being sick . . . " There's a flash of guilt across Caroline's face, her gaze turning toward the floor.

"That's two," Bonnie says gently, reaching out a hand to touch Sob Story Vampire Barbie''s hand. "You didn't do anything wrong, Caroline. From what you've told me, there was a lot going on."

"But there isn't now. It's calmer. We should look." Caroline agrees and she turns to Damon with that determined look on her face that she saves for ordering around cheerleaders - none of those left - and being her neurotic, control freak of self. "It can't hurt to look."

"It can't hurt you," Damon points out. "I see two people here who can become zombie chow and I'm guessing that's not a fun way to go." Also, Damon did not sign up to watch any more people he knows become shambling card carrying members of the living dead club.

He knows though from the look of resignation and guilt on Ric's face and the set of Caroline's shoulders and the wrinkle of consternation across Bonnie's brow that he's already lost this argument. Damon wonders briefly why he didn't just get the hell out of Dodge when the shit hit the fan, after Liz, after Elena, after Andie -

"Safety in numbers. We'll stick together. We'll do this organized, periodic sweeps," Ric says in acquiescence.

That's why, a niggling little part of Damon's conscious says as he watches the group put their heads together to plan. He came to this town to tear it down, and he seems to be clinging to the only parts of it left that might mean anything at all.

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