A/N: It may be implausible that a new vampire could resist feeding, but Elena's a lot more stubborn than most human beings. I figured that characteristic would only be heightened after she transitioned. Reviews are always appreciated. =)

Chapter 2

Damon turned a page of the novel he was attempting to read and scowled at the nonsensical plot line. The bedroom door creaked open and he looked up from his spot sprawled in the chair directly opposite the room.

Elena's gray face peered out at him, cheeks drawn to the point of being emaciated. She looked so desiccated that if Damon hadn't personally witnessed her completing the transition, he would have worried that she'd somehow pulled a fast one and managed not to drink Matt's blood.

"Going somewhere?" he inquired, raising an eyebrow and deliberately using sarcastic inflection to mask his deep worry. Even though vampires couldn't technically gain or lose weight—that would require a metabolism—the lack of blood in Elena's system had caused her to wither, to the point where it looked like her body was caving in. Usually lustrous and full, her hair lay flat, dull and matted against her scalp, the product of too many days lying on a pillow refusing to even brush it. Her lips were a thin blue line, compressed tightly against pain. But the worst part were her eyes, so blank, staring through him devoid of anything except exhaustion mingled with disbelief.

Damon steeled himself, refusing to give in. More than anything he wanted to take her in his arms, tell her she wasn't alone, that he loved her and they would get through this as a team. He and Stefan had both tried some version of that, although Stefan's distraught condition had required almost more comforting than Elena did.

The approach hadn't worked, to say the least. Ever since transitioning, Elena had refused to do more than take the smallest sips of blood, not enough to sustain any vampire, much less a baby. After two weeks Damon had called time and insisted on a new approach.

Finally seeming to process his question, Elena mumbled, "Bathroom."

"Something wrong with the one in your room?"

He searched for a flash of her former temper, some spark of anger at what she'd once called his "caveman" ways, but there was nothing. Elena took a step backwards and closed the door softly.

"Do you have to be so mean?"

He looked over his shoulder and encountered Caroline's livid face. No lack of emotion in that one, anyway.

"She's hurting, Damon." The blonde stalked over, her own personal fog of fury preceding her by at least three steps. "Maybe you don't remember what it was like at the very beginning—"

"Don't go there, Caroline," Damon warned. "Elena has sympathy in spades. You could dig a graveyard with them. What she doesn't have enough of is bullies."

"Bullies?" Caroline repeated acidly, arms crossed in front of her so tightly he was fairly certain she was contemplating breaking his neck.

"She needs someone to bully her out of that damn shell of self-pity. Someone who will hold her down and pour blood into her throat until she gets over it. But … since nobody will let me do that …" Damon jerked his head at the closed door, "this is the next best thing. Soon as she feeds properly, she's free to leave." He eyed the shower caddie Caroline was toting, crammed with all manner of hairbrushes, combs, shampoos, nail polish. "What's with the beauty salon to go thing?"

A proud smile touched Caroline's lips. "First, we get her looking more human," she explained. "Then we can work on the vampire side of things."

Damon contemplated her from his seat for a long moment, unfamiliar emotions working their way through his weary defenses. Neurotic control freak that she was, Caroline had more than proved her worth as a friend these last weeks. Her utter devotion to Elena had confirmed her in Damon's mind as that rare thing—a worthwhile human being. Slash vampire.

He got to his feet and cleared his throat. "I—uh—I owe you an apology."

"For what?" Caroline's blue eyes were immediately suspicious. "What did you do, Damon?"

"Elena's lucky," he said quietly, ignoring her predictable question. "You're a good friend, Caroline. The way I treated you when we first met. It was … wrong of me."

She pursed her lips at the memory and glared at him. "It was."

He nodded stiffly at her, unable to find anything else to say, and headed into the library.

Stefan's bleak voice greeted him from the depths of an armchair where he had basically taken up residence. "Still nothing?"

Damon spared him a cold glance on his way to the bar. He hadn't even begun to deal with his anger at Stefan yet. Staying stoic for Elena was consuming every shred of limited human emotion in him. His baby brother's hopelessness only further infuriated him. He didn't have the right to lose hope. Stefan had killed hope, therefore, he had to find a way to resurrect it. Instead, he was currently ensconced in a cloud of martyrdom and misery so deep he was practically creating his own microclimate.

"Nope." Damon searched for his most expensive bourbon and came up empty. "Bags, mugs, shot glasses, tea cups, tumblers—how else can you package blood besides in a human neck?"

"She shouldn't be able to resist," Stefan muttered.

"She's resisted me all these years." Damon frowned and started through the bottles again. "How much more difficult can blood be?"

"Maybe being a doppelganger changes things."

"Didn't stop Katherine," Damon shrugged. "Elena's supernatural talent has always been her ability to drive me completely insane with her stubbornness. Among other things. Hey, have you seen the third of Martin Mills bourbon left over from—"

A clink alerted him and Damon turned, eyebrows raised. Stefan clutched a glass tumbler in one hand and the bottle in the other.

"Really?" He stalked over and snatching the empty bottle away. "That stuff goes for $100 a shot, Stefan. If you need more than bunny blood to soothe your guilty conscience, can you at least use Wal-Mart whiskey? Not like you can tell the difference anyway."

"I went back to get her immediately," Stefan whispered, staring at his feet.

"Well, thanks to you the world now has one more quarterback," Damon snarled, the fury from the last weeks finally beginning to come to a head. Only his pledge to Elena kept him from tearing Stefan limb from limb. She'd barely spoken since transitioning, other than to plead for peace between the brothers. She'd finally dragged a promise out of him and Damon intended to honor it, if only because Elena had already lost so much. He couldn't add Stefan to that carnage.

"I did what she asked," Stefan said dully.

"Yeah? How'd that work out for you, Stefan?" He hurled the empty bottle against the wall. "Remind me."

"It was her choice, Damon. You've never understood—"

"No, you've never understood!" Damon swept half the bar's contents onto the floor. He kicked at an ottoman, putting it on a direct collision course with a sidetable that held several priceless antiques. The loud shattering didn't begin to punctuate his rage.

"All those choices I took from her, the ones that made her hate me—those were choices she wasn't supposed to have to make!" He upended a table covered with books, sending several straight into the blazing fireplace.

"A girl her age should be choosing her clothes," he sent a sculpted bust flying and was disappointed when it didn't brain Stefan, "electives, boyfriends, sports, colleges, makeup, books to read, girlfriends, earrings, jobs."

A lamp and an entire bar setting died next. "She should be choosing what fights to pick with her brother. She should not be selecting strategies to survive close encounters with the undead or deliberating who lives or dies!"

"What is going on in here?"

Both brothers looked up, Stefan from his position paralyzed in the chair and Damon from a bookshelf he was about to reduce to wooden smithereens.

Hand on her hips, Caroline radiated indignation. "I was finally getting somewhere when we heard all … this." She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Is Bonnie here?" Damon demanded.

"Huh?" Caroline sputtered. The witch had stayed away since Elena's transition. "No. Why would you—"

"Matt? Meredith? Jeremy?"

Before she could start to reply, he was beside her, insisting, "Who's with her, Caroline?"

"You can't keep her a prisoner forever, Damon," she spat. "She's fine. As fine as she can be with everything she's dealing with. I'm just going to go get her a fresh bag of blood and she promised—"

Damon was already long gone by the time she finished her sentence. He sped down the hallway and pulled up short as he found the door wide open for the first time in 17 days. "Shit!"

Another burst of speed and he was inside the room, scanning the empty bed, couch, closet. The windows were nailed shut, after Bonnie had refused to spell them. He rushed into the deserted bathroom and back out again, nearly colliding with Caroline and Stefan as they came after him.

It took him roughly 60 seconds to blitz through every room in the house, basement included. He finally stopped on the front porch, scaring the life out of Jeremy when he raised his hand to open the front door and a gust of wind in the shape of Damon bulldozed past him, eyes wide with panic and trained on the empty street. He clenched his fists and roared,

"ELENA!"