ELENA

The new week started anything but smoothly. Too many things were still unsettled and waiting to be dealt with. Firstly, there was this non-relationship between Bonnie and Stefan. Given that they had both admitted how they felt about each other to me, I'd expected them to have their talk and be riding off happily into the sunset by now. Yet they weren't.

Stefan was behaving funny, and it was getting worse as the week went on. He almost seemed to be avoiding both of us, and I found it hard to believe that he had that much work to do all of a sudden. Besides, who cared – it's not like there was any time pressure on him to get done with college – I knew by now that he had already majored in Economics and in Chemistry, so his whole being here was just pretense.

Determined to get an explanation for his strange behavior, I went to see him in his room, not bothering to knock and wait for permission for fear he'd either pretend not to be in or send me away again.

Seeing him with the petite brunette in what almost seemed like a compromising situation at first glance stopped me dead in my tracks. On second glance, I saw that the girl who was standing with her back against the wall was in our biology class and that this was clearly not a romantic setting.

"Stefan? What's going on here?" I asked, taken aback at the scene in front of me. I had no idea what Amy Bradley was doing in his room. Certainly, she had not expected to find herself cornered by her much taller and right now very menacing classmate, who looked like he was ready to pounce on her any second. He probably was. His gaze was transfixed on her neck, his eyes glassy, as if he was in trance. Amy, who held a stack of books pressed to her chest, looked scared and confused.

At the sound of my voice, Amy looked up, relief in her face. She made a move in my direction, but she didn't get far. Only now I did I see that Stefan was holding her wrist in a tight grip. It looked painful.

"What are you doing? Let her go!" He still gave no sign that my words had even registered with him. "Stefan, do you hear me?" I repeated more forcefully and crossed the room to pull at his arm. "Let. Her. Go!" The physical contact seemed to tear him out of his trance, but not in a way I had expected.

"No!" he roared, shoving me forcefully away from him. A bit too forcefully, as I flew into the drawers and sent a lamp crashing to the floor. For a moment, the shock of seeing him act this aggressively and the force of the impact knocked the wind out of me.

Stefan seemed shocked, too. Obviously, he hadn't anticipated his own reaction either. He immediately let go of Amy's arm, who rushed to my side to help me up. "Oh my God, are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine."

"I'm so sorry!" Stefan gulped. "I shouldn't have.. I don't know what got into me.." I carefully avoided his gaze for the moment, afraid of what he might see in my eyes. It was more important to deal with Amy. "What about you? Are you alright? What happened?"

Nervously, Amy threw a glance at Stefan. "I honestly don't know. I came here to borrow some books, and we talked, everything was fine – until all of a sudden, Stefan started giving me this weird look and didn't react to anything I said anymore... it really freaked me out."

"I'm sorry!" Stefan repeated, sounding contrite. But his voice was also tense, and his hand, raking through his hair and betraying his upheaval, was trembling ever so slightly. "I didn't mean to scare you, Amy." Yet the fact that he was pacing nervously back and forth like a caged animal and still looked tense did nothing to calm either of us.

His eyes shifted back and forth between us, clearly perturbed by something. I thought I saw the same torn expression in his face that I had seen last Friday – first, when he'd had to choose between protecting me or Bonnie, and second, when he'd realized he'd have to bite me to undo any damage Damon might have done. He looked like he was going to lose it any second. I needed to get Amy out of here, fast.

"It's the medication he's taking..." I quickly said the first thing that came to my mind as an explanation. "He's been having migraines, and the doctor gave him this prescription. In rare cases, it can make people just blank out like that... We'll have to get something different, I guess..."

"Yes, you better..." Amy murmured, throwing a last suspicious glance at Stefan when I gently moved her to the door.

"I'll take care of it, don't worry. It won't happen again."

She left the room and I closed the door, exhaling deeply. "Something tells me that the poor girl just made a very narrow escape... Please tell me that you weren't about to feed on her!"

"I wasn't! I mean, I surely was never intending to... It's just that... she was standing very close and her scent was so intense. And all of a sudden, I couldn't concentrate on anything else but... No!" His hand shot up in a warning gesture when I made a move towards him. "Don't come near me!"

The fact that he was almost shouting and the horror in his face made me halt. "Stefan – what's the matter? You're scaring me..."

"I know. I'm sorry. It's just that I can't tolerate any more of it right now..."

Any more of it? And then the pieces fell together. Her scent. My scent – the scent of human blood.

"It's my blood that did it to you, isn't it?" I asked, realizing what this was about. "Tasting it again after such a long time – it rekindled your appetite and now you're having trouble keeping yourself under control..." I suddenly wished that Damon was here, if only to be able to kick his ass for putting Stefan through this.

"Everything is so much more intense..." he murmured, his voice betraying how overwhelming this all was to him. "My head is pounding. I feel like my skin is on fire. I have this hunger inside of me that just won't go away, and all I keep thinking about is how I promised myself that I wouldn't even think of human blood ever again. And I don't want to you to see me like this, I don't want you to know that this side of me exists. I tried so hard to keep it together all this time, and it was working. It was working!"

The pain in his voice was hurting me more than my back, which would probably be purple by tomorrow. I shoved the thought of how Stefan had hurled me through the room to the very back of my mind. "And it will work again," I said firmly, trying to sound encouraging, as much for my own sake as for his. It was obviously working.

"Yes..." Stefan agreed, "you're right. It's only been a few days..." He stopped pacing and seemed to calm down. "I probably just need to lay low for a little while and let my body readjust."

"Have you talked to Alys about it?" I gently asked, a bit confused by his rather sudden mood swing.

"No," he admitted, contrite again. "I felt too ashamed. It shouldn't be such a big deal. She's resisting this pull all the time, too. I shouldn't be so weak."

"Alys is about 140 years older than you. I'm sure she'll understand. Stefan, you're gonna get through this, we're gonna help you pull through. It's gonna be okay."

As much as I was hoping that this was true, two days later I wasn't so positive about it anymore. Though Stefan wouldn't admit it, animal blood no longer entirely curbed his cravings. He was constantly hungry – and edgy. Yet he refused the bags of human blood that Alys offered him, insisting that he would get over it eventually. He wanted to ride it out. After all, it had worked for all the years before this, and it simply had to work again. He also still refused to see me or Bonnie – we were obviously even harder for him to resist than Amy or any other girl on campus, because our scent was either familiar and comforting or especially alluring.

Alys was at a loss. "I don't know what to do anymore. He's obviously having blood issues, and that's definitely a reason for concern."

"Blood issues?" I echoed. That didn't sound good.

"Human blood does something to you that animal blood doesn't: It enhances your senses. He must be much more aware of people now – their smell, their warmth, their heartbeats... It's probably overwhelming, given that he has been on a strict 'vegan' diet for a very long time now."

"But it was only once, and not even that much... shouldn't any effect it had on him have worn off by now?"

"Probably... I don't know. You might want to ask Elijah. Or Damon. I bet he had a pretty good idea about what would happen."

And just so, my unresolved issue with Damon was back on my plate. I hadn't seen him since Friday night, and honestly, hadn't felt like seeing him. But now, having to deal with the possible consequences of his actions, I was getting thoroughly pissed at him. Alys was right: Damon had known exactly what he was doing to Stefan – he had even told me so. I simply hadn't thought that it could be really this bad. It was my fault that, once again, I hadn't entirely believed him.

By the end of the week, when there was still no sign of improvement in Stefan's demeanor, I decided I'd had enough. He needed help, desperately. And there was only one person who had the ability as well as the moral obligation to give him that.

*'*'*'*'*'*

Nobody answered the door on my repeated knocking, but since I could hear loud music from inside the boarding house, I knew Damon had to be in. I tried the door and found it unlocked.

"Damon?" I called, not meaning to intrude on him. There was definitely someone in the living room, where the music came from. Even though it had sounded like he was throwing a party, I hadn't expected to find that he really was, else I would never have burst in like that. I immediately wished I hadn't.

Damon wasn't alone. There were three girls with him – one lying on the sofa as if knocked out, the other two dancing around with bottles in hand. Neither of them was fully dressed. The dark one was only wearing her jeans with a bra, the other looked like she hadn't been dressed in much to begin with. It was hard to tell if part of her outfit was already missing or if it was supposed to be that scarce. Damon's shirt was completely unbuttoned, baring his chest, which, as I noticed despite being dumbfounded, was quite a sight.

He was dancing, too, only taking notice of me when a move turned him in my direction. He came to a dead stop, clearly surprised at my sudden appearance in his living room. If he was equally embarrassed – which conceivably he wasn't – he had managed to mask it quickly. "Elena!" he greeted me with one of his annoyingly smug smiles. "What a surprise! I haven't seen you in a while..."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to barge in!" I said, flustered and momentarily unable to cope with the situation. "The door was open..." I pointed back to the hallway, only realizing now that it wasn't anymore.

"Well, come in, then!" Damon suggested, as if I wasn't already standing in his living-room, feeling silly and awkward. He turned down the music, caught the still dancing girls, who were clearly oblivious to my intrusion, by their arms and whispered something into their ears. Whatever he had said made them smile. One leaned in for a quick but definitely deep kiss, the other pouted and gave me a pointed glance before passing me on her way upstairs. That's when I saw the bite marks on her – on the inner side of her elbow, on her throat and - oh my god, on her inner thigh.

Damon checked on the girl who was lying on the sofa, shaking her slightly by the shoulders. She bore marks, too. When she didn't show any reaction, Damon shrugged. "Don't mind her," he said dismissively, "she won't be up within the next couple of hours."

Without bothering to button up his shirt, he poured himself a drink and pointed question ingly to the glass in his hand. I wordlessly declined, trying not to stare at his naked torso, which looked like something ancient Greek, skillfully carved out of marble. I briefly wondered why this should have an unnerving effect on me – except for the fact that it clearly shouted 'vampire!' at my face. No mere human could ever look like this without spending every waking minute in a fitness studio, molding and toning his body.

"So – what brings you here?" Damon inquired, almost in a conversational manner. "I thought you'd never dare to come near me again."

"Why not?" I asked lightly, still trying to regain composure, but not willing to let it show.

He gave me a meaningful glance and lowered his voice. "Because last time I saw you, I scared you to death."

Well, he had a point there. Yet I shook my head in denial. "I wasn't scared," I claimed, but Damon was not one to be fooled.

"Yes, you were..." he insisted, and turned the full intensity of his gaze on me. Leaning slightly closer he gave his voice an even darker tint: "I could smell the fear on you!"

"Don't put on that bad-boy act again!" I said, narrowing my eyes. I simply refused to be intimidated by his words, his looks or his posture. "I don't buy it."

Damon's left eyebrow rose skeptically. He clearly wasn't convinced by my demonstration of confidence. "You definitely bought it then," he remarked, sounding smug.

I raised my chin challengingly. "So – you're admitting that it was all an act?" I still refused to believe that he really had injected me with his venom and risked turning me into a vampire without my consent.

Damon frowned. "I'm not admitting anything!" he said, a bit defensively, though. "You're asking silly questions again. No matter what I say, it'll still come down to believing or not believing me." He put his glass down and came nearer, purposely invading my private space to put my confidence to the test. I shifted uncomfortably, which made his mouth twitch. "Talking about you, though," he said close to my ear as if confiding a secret, "I do believe this sudden show of bravery to be an act."

I braced myself and held my ground. "Well, maybe I was scared," I admitted, deciding that honesty was probably the best course to sail. "But I'm not anymore." Fortunately, this came out as firmly as I meant it, and I was able to hold his gaze. Either that or my bold assertion seemed to fascinate him. "Now – why would that be?" he asked with piqued interest.

"Because – counting yesterday, you could have killed me, changed me, compelled me or fed on me about a hundred times. Yet you didn't. And I guess that means that there's something that's keeping you from violating my will."

Damon held my gaze, and I couldn't help noticing again how incredibly blue his eyes were. "I hurt you," he reminded me, purposefully calling to my attention what he was capable of, and contradicting even the insinuation that there might be anything trustworthy in him.

"Yes." There was no denying that, and I knew we weren't talking about merely physical pain. "But I understand why you did it. And no lasting harm was done."

"It could have been," he insisted, "if Stefan had messed it up."

I shook my head. "You knew he couldn't. So stop trying to convince me that you're all evil. I know you aren't."

"You're amazing," Damon said then, sounding as if he actually meant it. "Why are you trying so hard to find something good even in my worst acts?"

I felt more confident now. "Maybe because you're trying so hard to hide it."

"I'm not hiding anything. Others have looked before, and came up empty."

"Like who?"

"My father. My little sister. Basically everyone I've ever come across."

God help me – somehow I had managed to drill a hole into his walls, for this came out with a hint of badly concealed bitterness – and hurt. "Katherine, too?" I wondered. "She must have found something in you that she loved..."

"Yes – but she loved only the dark parts: Everything that was devilish about me."

"So you think you need to be devilish in order to be loved? Or is it just to keep people from getting too close?" I knew when I said it that I had ruined it – not that it wasn't true, but too blunt and too obvious. I could've bitten my tongue.

"Oh, don't give me that crappy psycho-shit about childhood trauma and such!" Damon promptly replied, rolling his eyes. "Surely, you're above throwing around cheap clichés as that!"

Still, there was nothing wrong with my argument. "Actually, there's a reason for things to become a cliché," I pointed out. "It's because they happen frequently."

He couldn't argue with that, so he simply let it pass without comment. Instead, he tried to bring the discussion to a dead end by summing up the facts as he saw them: "I've been who I am since even before I got changed, and I haven't changed in the last 162 years."

I guess some of my amusement at his slightly confused explanation must have shown on my face, for he seemed irritated. "Just what are you laughing about?"

"Nothing." I quickly sobered. What I definitely didn't want to do right now was to upset him. "You know, people can never change who they were. But they can always change who they will be."

"Are you lecturing me?" he asked, incredulous.

"Do you need to be lectured?" I countered in a friendly voice.

Damon obviously had no clue what to make of that. "I told you before: You're not going to make a better vampire of me, just in case you thought of giving it a try," he said firmly, trying to get a grip on the conversation again. "So if you're here for an apology, you clearly came to the wrong address."

"I'm not. Actually, I came here for help."

"You're coming to me for help?" Damon echoed. Apparently, he found the idea pretty ridiculous.

"Yes. For Stefan."

His bewildered expression turned into a sardonical frown. "Sure. What can I do for him? Give him some advice on style and hairdo? Teach him how to be funny? Take him to the zoo so he can add something wild and exotic to his diet?" He switched back to irony – just like he always did when a topic became somewhat disconcerting.

"I'm worried about him. He says he's doing okay, but he's clearly been struggling after what happened. He has locked himself into his room since Saturday night, and has hardly ever come out. He's missing classes. I tried to talk to him, but he refuses to see me."

Damon knew immediately what I was talking about. Blood issues. "Well, that's probably wise," he said, emptying his glass and turning his back on me to get a refill. "It'll would be awfully hard for him not to jump on you if you got through the door."

"I need to understand what's happening to him, and there is no one else I can ask. Why is it so hard on him? You don't have any problems staying in control."

"Does is seem like that to you?" He set the crystal decanter down again and furrowed his brows. "Elena – if you had any idea how hard it sometimes is for me to stay in control, you'd never come near me."

"You always manage just fine."

"Well, I never denied the vampire in me its rights, whereas Stefan is taking great pains to step out of harm's way and avoid temptation. But temptation can't be avoided. It just turns up when you least expect it, and then it needs a great deal of practice to be able to resist it. It's always hardest in the beginning."

"Why?"

"Because the urge is strong in newly created vampires, especially in the years following the change."

"Was it ever difficult for you?"

"Of course it was – how could it not be?"

I was surprised he freely admitted to that, even if it came out slightly aggressive and was followed by a warning. "But don't let yourself believe that I'm only a victim of my urges, or that I feel regret for what I did. I'm not, and I don't feel remorse. I killed plenty of people in those first years. I was soldier in the war, and I was used to killing. Except that after the change, I used different weapons. I didn't mind killing my enemies, and doing it like vampires do, it was exhilarating."

"You enjoyed killing?" That shocked me a bit. I had guessed it was a necessity, something vampires didn't feel guilty about. But relishing in killing... that was just cruel.

"Sure I did! We are predators by nature – the excitement of a hunt, the adrenalin that comes with the chase, the fright of your victim and the power of killing – it's beyond description. But in the beginning, when you're still close to your humanity, you try to justify your killings. During the war, that was easy – you had to kill the enemy. When it was over, I realized how much harder it was to kill if you didn't really have a valid reason for taking a life – except for your hunger. For a while, I only attacked people who deserved it..."

"Like those guys that had attacked me?"

"Yes. Sometimes, people make very clear what they are by their actions – believe me, you would have agreed with most of my choices: A stalker following a young girl into a dark alley, an abusive father or husband, someone manhandling his servants..."

"You were feeding on men, then? I thought you were only after females..."

"I can live equally well on the blood of both genders. Like I said, at that time, I was after the miscreants, and those happen to be mostly male. It was just getting awfully hard to find a murderer or rapist every time I was hungry, so that wasn't a long term solution. With time and with practice, I acquired a certain control over my urges – I knew my body, I recognized the stirring before it got out of control. You have to understand: those are hungers that can't wait to be sated. If you suppress them, they only get worse, more powerful and all-consuming. I found out that by giving my body what it was craving as soon as the need arose, I didn't necessarily have to kill."

"So that's when you started seducing women to become your dinner?"

"Oh, I didn't seduce them solely for that – I was learning fast to combine the necessary with the agreeable." Another naughty smirk.

I hunched my shoulders. "So – basically you're saying that becoming a predatory version of Casanova is the only way to live if you don't want to go round killing people?"

"No. I'm just saying it's the nicest way, in my opinion."

"I doubt that Stefan would want to live like that."

"Yeah," Damon said, disdain in his voice, "I doubt that, too!"

"So – what is he supposed to do now? When will this urge fade again?"

"It won't ever fade, Elena," Damon said resolutely. "Sooner or later he'll need human blood – otherwise he'll get more sensitive to the sun with every passing year. Without feeding from humans, he'll never be able to leave the house in plain daylight. It's just how it is – there's no sense in fighting it. It'll only get harder the longer he keeps abstinent, especially now that he has gotten a taste of it. It's probably like deciding to become a priest after you've had sex – you will always know what you're missing."

His calm and accepting way of looking at the ugly facts and the almost lighthearted manner in which he put them in words for me ignited my anger. "Don't you care at all that you annihilated Stefan's choice of how he wants to live by forcing him to taste my blood?"

"No!" Damon said forcefully. "Because there is no choice! People can't forget who they are, and neither can vampires! Constantly fighting what's natural for you – it can't be healthy. He won't be able to keep it up – sooner or later, he'll snap under the pressure, and that's going to be really dangerous for the humans around him. He should be grateful for my preventing that."

"Yeah, sure! Because his outlook is so much more positive now! Screwing around, chasing criminals or going to war!"

"There are other options. Getting access to a blood bank, getting a housekeeper..."

"A housekeeper?" I was momentarily confused, but my mind was quickly putting the pieces together. Then I got the picture, which Damon helpfully painted out for me nevertheless. "Someone for the cleaning and the meals."

"You are feeding on that woman who looks after your place?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes it's nice to eat at home."

"Meaning she's what – your mistress?"

"Marisol?" Damon was visibly taken aback. "Are you out of your mind – she must be in her sixties! No, she is what I said – a helpful spirit."

"So she knows what you are? And yet she's staying with you and accepting to be – used?"

"She's perfectly happy with that. Why should she not be? I take good care of my employees. She's been with me for decades. Sometimes I feel as if it's more her house than mine. Marisol has everything she could want for – a good salary, health insurance, a life-time's rent and a job that is not going to kill her."

"Just an employer who might!" I said, just because the opportunity for sarcasm was offering itself. Damon didn't appreciate my attempt at humor, though. Or maybe he had just not recognized it as such, for he seemed truly appalled. "I'm not going to kill her!" he said, forcefully rejecting the notion.

"I know. Just kidding." I smiled. Again, he stared at me with an almost bewildered look in his eyes. "You sure are in a strange mood today."

"I told you, I'm without fears. I feel relieved!"

"You're without fears? Well, that might help Stefan a great deal. I never got to make my third suggestion as to what he should do."

"Which is?"

Damon raised his eyebrows and gave me one of his looks – knowing, smug and very provocative. "Getting himself a girlfriend who isn't afraid of being bitten." Again, he managed to paint some really perturbing pictures in my mind. They weren't about Stefan, though. I cleared my throat. "Well, that's not gonna be me, for sure."

"So much for being fearless!"

Knowing that I had to make my confession now, I raised my eyes to meet his gaze. "No – it's not because of fear..." I said. "It's because our relationship is not at all like that."

"Not like what? Not sexually experimental enough to include a little biting?"

I took a deep breath. "Not sexual." It took a second for the meaning of my confession to sink in.

"You've got to be kidding me," Damon said, disbelief in his voice. I shook my head wordlessly. Again, he frowned. "What's wrong with the guy – apart from the obvious? Is he gay? Are you going to tell me that you're just being friends and he's like a brother to you?"

"Something like that. Except he's not like a brother – he is my brother." Damon stared at me with a totally dumbfounded expression. I was starting to feel honestly sorry for him. Never before had I seen him lose control of a conversation like this – surely not with me. But then, he was only getting what he had so generously been dishing out: Tidbits of facts that were hard to digest, served with no decoration whatsoever. Something to hit people on the head with.

"Your brother who allegedly died in a street crime?"

"It was a vampire attack. Except that he wasn't just being fed from, he was vamped. Probably just to spite my father, who was on the council, an act of revenge. Stefan doesn't know for sure. He was brought to hospital and declared dead on arrival. But Elijah saw what had really happened and decided to save him. His name hadn't been Stefan, then. It used to be Steve."

There was a moment of silence. Damon got himself another refill, probably only to have something to occupy his hands. He never even took a sip. "Well," he finally said, his voice steady. "That sure comes as a surprise. It explains a lot, though... When did you find out?"

"After Fells Church."

"You never told me." I wasn't sure if there was a hint of accusation in his voice – if so, it was skillfully hidden. Stefan and I had both been leading him on – never giving a thought as to how he might feel about it. Because I had never deluded myself into thinking that Damon might have other intentions than jumping me – be it for feeding or for bedding. I still wasn't, really. I dropped my gaze, feeling slightly guilty. "I'm sorry. He asked me not to."

"Oh, well, I have a fair idea why that is... Though why he would think I'd have scruples about trying to steal another guy's girlfriend eludes me."

"I didn't even know you were looking for a girlfriend," I said evenly. Again, I knew I had made a point there. Damon was starting to say more than he intended to. I thought of it as an encouraging step into the right direction. He tried to backpedal. "I'm not!" he said, a bit irritated and defensive, though. "I only said I would consider stealing another guy's girlfriend – not that I'd want her for myself."

Sure. Only for the feeding and the bedding. "That's probably one of the reasons why Stefan didn't want me to be with you."

"Then why are you telling me now?"

"Because I thought you'd be more inclined to consider helping him if you didn't think he was my boyfriend. I want you to stop hating him."

"I'm not hating him. It's more something like – disdain."

"Please, Damon! I don't know what to do, and neither does Alys. You're the only one around with the experience to cope with what he's facing. If not for him, would you do it for me? Please?"

His expression was hard to read when he silently held my pleading gaze. After what felt like at least a minute, he averted his gaze, slightly shaking his head, and wordlessly headed for the stairs. I felt my heart sink. Why should he even consider helping me or Stefan after what I had just admitted to? He had every right to be mad.

Damon was already half up the stairs when he called after me, not even looking back. "Why are you still standing there? Go and drive ahead – I'll meet you at the dorms."

A/N: The Amy-episode was added to an already existing chapter, just to illustrate a little bit what Stefan is going through. If I had taken it any further (with him actually hurting her), it would have required a lot of rewriting in the following chapters which I didn't feel like doing. Besides, we all know how dangerous Stefan could have gotten, with nobody there to intervene... and I didn't want to put him (and his victims) through that.