ELENA

"No, no, no!" I cried, kneeling on the withered leaves where Stefan had gently lowered her body to the ground. "Is she dead? Please, oh God, don't let her be dead!"

"She's still breathing, but barely," Stefan said, checking her pulse. "Her heartbeat is very slow. Katherine must have drained her." He frowned, bent closer and slightly turned her head to the side. There was a savage flesh wound on her neck, and in the middle of the bite marks two deep puncture holes.

"Looks like she fanged her, too," Damon said, crouching down next to him and inspecting the wound. He lifted Caroline's limp hand, bit into her wrist and tasted her blood. "It's tainted," he said. "If I can already taste it here, it has spread."

"What does that mean? You need to do something!" Pleadingly, I looked from Stefan to Damon, refusing to accept the inevitable. "Try to suck it out! Please! This can't be happening!"

"It's too late for that, Elena," Stefan said soberly, pain etched in his features. "There's nothing we can do at this point, except to feed her some blood and help her through it." He sliced his wrist with his teeth and put it to Caroline's mouth. At first, nothing happened, then her eyes briefly flew open as she instinctively grabbed Stefan's arms and held on for dear life, sucking hard. I could barely stand to watch it.

Grimacing, Damon dug two fingers into the open wound of his left shoulder and poked around in it, until he pulled out a walnut sized piece of wood that he carelessly tossed away. The bleeding lessened, but didn't entirely stop. "It's not the end of the world, Elena," Damon said in between clenched teeth, while fumbling for the bullet that had torn a visible hole in his stomach. When he had managed to retrieve it as well, his features visibly relaxed. "She'll survive this."

If that was supposed to be an attempt at comfort, it totally passed me by. In fact, his nonchalance made my hackles rise. Caroline was becoming a vampire because I had come too late to save her. Damon hadn't let me.

"You did this!" I cried, my anger just fueling me with enough energy to jump to my feet and face Damon. My eyes swelled with burning tears. "This is your fault!" Desperate to find an outlet for the guilt and the grief that was boiling inside me, I shouted my fury at his face and shoved him, hard. He didn't even budge. When I lifted my hand to slap him for good measure, he caught my wrist in mid air, gripping tightly.

"Caroline doesn't matter to me," he stated bluntly. "None of them do." He looked at me as if he was letting me in on a secret. I didn't get it.

"She's turning! How can it not matter?" I yelled, torn between anger and an overwhelming feeling of loss. "It matters, and you know it!"

"Tell it to someone with remorse."

I would have slapped him again if he hadn't still been holding my wrist in a powerful grip. I turned away from him, not wanting to look into his face. Damon's hand, which had briefly loosened, tightened again as he pulled me back, making me look at him once more. "If I hadn't stopped you," he said gravely, "you'd have happily handed yourself over to Katherine, meaning that it'd be you instead of Caroline now. Blame me all you want, if that makes you feel better, but if I have a choice of saving either her or you – I will always choose you!"

His eyes were burning into mine with that intensity that always caused my heart to skip a beat: deep passion, unwavering conviction and fierce determination. Yet there was something else in his features, too... something feral. I only realized then that a fine line of veins had appeared underneath his eyes, enhancing their glow with the deepening of the shadows. It was the first time I'd really seen his full vampire face.

"You need to leave..." Damon briskly said, managing to smooth his features again. It was the reason why I didn't get his message. "I'm not going anywhere!" I stated firmly, not intending to leave Caroline's side.

Damon caught my arm again, more forcefully this time. I raised my eyes to his face. His irises had an eerie shine, his jaws were clenched and his mouth was pressed into one thin line. "I am wounded," he said slowly and forcibly, enunciating every word. "And thirsty. And you are bleeding. You. Need. To leave!"

"Come on, Elena," Stefan said, suddenly at my side and quickly taking my arm. "Let's get you out of here. Damon will clean up this mess and then we'll get Caroline someplace safe."

DAMON

After having drained the bodies of the three hunters of the blood they still had in them, I felt much more in control again. At least enough to safely face Elena, though I hoped she had stopped bleeding by now. It had been a long time since I had last almost-lost it like this. But this evening had really brought it on: First the heat of passion on the dance floor, then the shock and fear at discovering that Elena had run off on a reckless rescue mission once again, not to mention my seething fury at discovering that someone had set hunters on our trail – hunters that obviously knew about Katherine. Otherwise there was no explanation as to why they had taken aim at Elena – twice. I still shuddered thinking of how close a call that had been. Add to all that the wounds inflicted by those nasty weapons and the energy expended in fighting, and you had all the ingredients for disaster.

For once, I was grateful for Stefan's presence and quick reaction. Though I was pretty confident that I wouldn't have drained Elena dry – I liked to believe that I would manage to hold on to the shreds of my sanity even in dire situations – feeding on her like this was not how I wanted it to happen. She sure as hell wouldn't have let me touch her ever again... provided there was any chance at all that she would overcome her past experiences.

I squeezed the ghostly pale bodies of the dead hunters into the trunk of Stefan's car to bury them later. No time to dig graves now, and no tools, either. I made a mental note to put a shovel into my Camaro permanently. Better to be prepared.

Leaving his car on the side of the forest trail, I picked up Caroline and moved towards the street where Stefan had left Elena to wait for him. He was already back, having picked up my car from the Mikealson's place.

We put Caroline on the back seat, her head cradled in Elena's lap. It was hard to say who looked worse of the two. Caroline resembled a slaughtered Barbie doll, whereas Elena might well have passed for Snow White, being all blood red, white and ebony. The drive to Greenville, though at record speed, was long and silent.

It was way past midnight when we pulled into the driveway of the boarding house. The lights were on, so Alys must still be up. I opened the back door and got Caroline's limp body off the back seat. Stefan helped Elena out of the car. She still had tears in her eyes and was shivering slightly, and he thankfully had the presence of mind to wrap his jacket around her shoulders. It also spared Alys the sight of Elena's blood stained dress when Elena threw herself in her arms, sobbing.

"Stefan – can you help me out here a little?" I asked irritably, when Stefan just stood there helplessly, not knowing what to do with himself. I motioned with my head towards the wide open car, calling to his awareness that I had my hands full. He instantly complied.

"Oh my god!" I heard Alys's startled gasp when I walked up to the door and she saw the limp body in my arms. Caroline's telltale long, light blond hair was trailing down like a curtain.

"Caroline!" she exclaimed in shock, and stared at the lifeless body as I walked past her into the living room, lowering her onto the sofa. "Is she dead?"

"On the contrary," I proclaimed with mock cheerfulness. "She's about to start a very long and healthy new life."

Alys stared at me in disbelief. "Are you totally insane? What have you done?"

Me? Seriously? Why was I always the one who got the blame for everything? "I didn't do anything," I said, feeling the slightest bit offended. "I've already had my taste of her, thank you very much. This is Katherine's work." I twisted Blondie's head to the side and showed her the deep, raw wounds on her neck. Even though it was obviously already in the process of healing, it still looked ugly.

"What? Why? Why would she turn Caroline?"

"Her plan was to turn Elena, for obvious reasons. She just used Caroline to blackmail Elena into sacrificing herself. I prevented that – sort of. Elena arrived too late and she turned Caroline – to make sure we all understand she means business. Not that she wouldn't have done so anyway."

Elena walked to the sofa and checked on Caroline. She pulled a blanket from the chair and wrapped it around her, brushing the hair out of her face. But her movement was stilted, mechanical. "How long before she wakes?" she asked quietly, obviously struggling to keep it together.

"She probably won't be totally conscious for a couple of days," Alys softly explained. "Until then, while her body is transforming and healing itself, she's going to be a really sick girl."

"Is it going to hurt?"

"Like hell," I said, naming the ugly facts before anyone could come up with a white lie, sugar coat it and nicely wrap it up.

"Damon!" Alys stared at me, mouth agape. Clearly, she thought me to be utterly insensitive again.

"What – you want me to lie?" I pointed to Elena with an incline of my head. "Knowing Elena, she'll be staying to watch, anyway. And mind you," I said, addressing her with my warning, "it's going to be ugly."

"You should go take a shower and then get some sleep, Elena," Stefan quietly suggested. Impressive. He could be intuitive at times. "This is not something you can help her with. We'll watch out for her."

"No. I'm staying," Elena stubbornly said, her voice strangely devoid of emotion.

I threw Alys a meaningful glance that hopefully carried the message 'I told you so!' and refocused my attention on Elena. Her eyes were glassy as she sat there motionless, staring at her friend's body. She was probably in shock. I took her arms and made her turn and face me. "Elena," I said, trying to sound serious and determined. "You're a mess. You need a shower. Come on." When she made no attempt to start an argument for once, I took her hand and pulled her to the stairs. She offered no resistance and let me lead her like a puppet. Definitely mild state of shock.

"Get some blood bags ready," I told Alys with a brief look over my shoulder. "And someone had better make coffee, too. Lots of it. I have a feeling we will need it!"

Still on auto-pilot, Elena climbed up the stairs. She had a forlorn, empty expression in her eyes that I found deeply disturbing. In my room, I slid Stefan's jacket off her and gave her a brief once-over. She really was a mess. Her dress was torn, muddied and blood stained, her legs and feet badly scratched and bruised. Every part of her skin that wasn't bloody or dirty was pale and clammy, and she was trembling and cold to the touch. I needed to get her warmed up.

I gently steered her into the bathroom and turned on the shower. As she still made no attempt to move by herself, I helped her out of her dress, easing the fabric off her body. Given that she was still in her underwear, I hoped she would forgive me for taking these liberties later. After all, it wasn't the first time I'd undressed her. Though I couldn't help wishing that for once, it would happen under different circumstances, and that I wouldn't be inspecting her body just to assess the damage it had recently suffered. Thankfully, none of her injuries looked as if they needed medical attention or vampire blood. Even the wound resulting from the arrow that had grazed her hip had stopped bleeding by itself. I gently ushered her under the shower, where she immediately sank to the floor, resting her head on her knees, her shoulders shaking as she silently started to cry.

"Hey," I said softly, stepping out of my shoes and into the shower myself without bothering about still being dressed. I crouched down beside her and lifted her face, which was drowning in rivulets of tears and water. I wish I knew what to say to comfort her.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, surprising and confusing me yet again with her reaction. "About what?" I wondered, relieved to have her talk.

She raised her head and looked at me, finally with awareness in her sad, brown eyes. "For saying what I did earlier. I didn't mean it. It wasn't your fault. It was mine." Of course she would say something like that. Silly, compassionate girl.

"No, Elena, it wasn't," I said firmly. "Now listen, and let me tell you something for once. If the situation was reversed, you'd be the first to tell me to stop feeling guilty. This mess is none of your making. The only one to blame is Katherine. She did this. Not you. Taking Caroline hostage, she had all the aces up her sleeve. If you had made it in time, it would be both of you on the couch now, provided Katherine hadn't staked you right after initiating the change. Caroline will get through this, Elena. We'll help her. She'll be alright."

Elena gave me the ghost of a smile and threw her arms around me, seeking comfort. I was most willing to offer her a shoulder to cry on and returned her embrace. "Thank you, Damon," she whispered into the crook of my neck. "For taking that arrow for me. For always saving me. Even from myself."

"You're most welcome." I nestled her head under my chin and pulled her to my chest, wrapping my arms around her tightly.

Who would've guessed. Sitting in the steaming shower in slacks and a dress shirt with the water soaking me down to my socks – with all the mess we had somehow created and hunters and a vindictive vampire at our heels – I actually found a moment of profound happiness.

When the water finally started to cool, Elena had stopped sobbing, and we stepped out of the shower. A little self-consciously, she wrapped herself in the towel I offered her. "I'll be waiting in your room," she said, pointing at my thoroughly ruined attire. "You probably want to take off whatever is left of your clothes and get a proper shower, too..."

I couldn't help teasing her a bit. Following up on her advice, I pulled the totally ruined shirt over my head and enjoyed the expression on her face. She obviously couldn't help staring, yet seemed incredibly embarrassed about it at the same time. It seemed silly that she would be all flustered now – after practically making out with me on the dance floor tonight and after just sharing a shower with me – sort of.

"You can always stay for the show," I said suggestively, reaching for the buckle of my belt. I was pleased to see her blush. She looked way better with some color back on her cheeks. Unfortunately, she didn't take me up on my offer and fled out of the bathroom instead. Well, I could always hope for next time. "Call Alys and tell her to bring you some clothes to put on!" I called after her. Not that I wouldn't love to see her in a pair of my boxers and a T-shirt, but I probably shouldn't push for that just yet.

When I was cleaned up and dry again, my room was empty, so Elena had probably taken me up on my advice. Or she was now in the living room wearing nothing but a towel. Highly unlikely, but still a nice image to have in mind.

I sighed. This had definitely been the nicest part of the evening. It could only go down from here.

"How's Barbie doing?" I asked Alys when I made it down the stairs again. "Any signs of life yet?"

"She's been moaning and stirring a little. It's going to start soon."

"Where's Elena?"

"In the kitchen. Stefan is fixing her something to eat." I wished he'd been able to persuade her to go home. Or be man enough to simply grab her and take her there by force. Caroline was going to suffer, and so was Elena if she insisted on staying.

Hopefully, she'd at least get some food down. She might not feel like eating later. "Then let's get vampire Barbie up to one of the rooms now," I said. "We'll not be able to tie her down properly here."

I preferred to have that done before Elena came back out of the kitchen. Fortunately, Alys was with me on this. We moved Caroline up to the guest room that held a sturdy iron bed. Ideal for our purposes. By the time Elena came looking for us, we were all set. We had used two of Alys's scarfs and a couple of silken ties I had found in the back of my closet. They were least likely to cause discomfort. Not that it would matter.

Of course, Elena wasn't pleased. "What the hell is this?" she asked, totally aghast when she found Caroline tied neatly to the head and footboard with her hands and legs, as if we were about to practice BDSM style sex with her. It was probably a good thing Alys was there to explain. I bet she wouldn't have trusted my motives, otherwise.

"It's a necessary precaution so she won't hurt herself or fall off the bed. She might even try to run away or attack us. You never know what people will do when they are in pain."

Elena visibly paled. "It's gonna be that bad? Can't we give her anything?" Alys shook her head in regret. "At the moment, she's neither fully human, nor a full vampire yet. Human medicine doesn't work on her anymore."

"Well, I guess we could always try some bourbon..." I suggested, but before I had a chance to elaborate on my idea, Alys rudely interrupted. "Will you please shut up, Damon! Are you enjoying this very much?"

"Not really. There are certainly more entertaining pastimes."

"Then why don't you keep those sarcastic little comments to yourself?"

"I'm trying to be helpful!" I snapped. "It might actually work. Alcohol is the only substance that does have an effect on vampires and humans alike, though in different ways. You feel pain less if you're drunk as a human, and alcohol makes you feel hunger less as a vampire. Of course, I could also go and find someone drunk out there to have her feed on him, for double effect..."

"I'll get the bourbon!" Elena said, already out the room. "Wait," I called after her, "I have a stash of blended whiskey in the liquor cabinet. No need to waste a good old single malt on this – it's not like she's going to appreciate the difference in taste, anyway."

"Will you please stop being an ass, Damon!" Alys hissed, throwing her hands up in a gesture of frustration. "How can you even worry about your booze in a situation like this?"

I briefly considered pointing out that worrying about the situation wasn't going to change anything about it, either. But movement in the bed caught my attention.

Caroline, though still unconscious, had started to go into cramps. All of a sudden, her whole body was twisting and turning spastically in the binds. And that was only the beginning. Over the course of the next hours, she was either moaning or screaming in pain, slipping in and out of consciousness while her body convulsed in spasms. If the alcohol did have any effect at all, it wasn't very noticeable.

"Is it always this bad?" Elena asked, her face as white as snow again.

"When you go through the change, it's like the start of a restructuring program," Alys explained. "Every single cell in your body is being destroyed and rebuilt, one after another. And at every point where the development of an organ or body part has gone in a direction that was however slightly off, this is corrected." She gave a wry grin. "You know how they say that we all are beautiful inside? The make-up of our genes is theoretically perfect. In transition you are rebuilt – without any damage due to mutations or outside influence. That's why it's so damn painful – you go through an entire life spam of growth once again, only within a couple of days."

"This is going to go on for days?" Elena asked, truly horrified by now.

Alys shook her head. "No, the worst will be over in a couple of hours. But the process will go on for a couple of days. Hair and nails for instance will take a while to be fully replaced. But since cell growth is very much accelerated, it won't take weeks to outgrow, but only days. She'll lose teeth that are not a hundred percent healthy and grow new ones rapidly."

"And when she wakes up again," I chimed in, "she will also have a pair of brand new fangs, and she'll be eager to use them." I meant it as a not so subtle warning, so Elena could prepare herself for another ugly chapter in the book: 'how to become a vampire'. But of course, her mind didn't work like that.

"Will we know when this is going to happen? I need to be here when she comes round," she said, not really getting my point and just worrying about Caroline again.

"Are you planning on offering yourself as food?" I asked, more bluntly. Elena did have a tendency to blank out certain aspects about vampirism and I couldn't let her do that. Alys and Stefan were always taking pains to be considerate of her partiality: They never fed in her presence, not even on those unsavory and repulsive blood bags. But we weren't human, and there was no sense in pretending to be. Elena had to learn to accept this if she wanted to keep company with vampires.

Again, she reacted as expected – pissed. "No, for emotional support," she snapped, shooting me an angry glare. "It's a foreign concept to you, so don't ask me to explain."

I had to stifle a grin. She definitely had spunk and was never too shy to shoot back at me. It's what I really loved about her. It was easy to be brave if you were a 170 year old vampire. But being a mere, fragile human? I could eat her alive, and yet she always stood her ground. And I much preferred her angry scowl to the tortured expression that was etched into her face for most of the night. Because in the remaining hours, Caroline went through hell. If Elena had ever cherished secret fantasies about letting herself being vamped – which I seriously doubted – she was probably thoroughly cured of them by watching Caroline suffer.

It looked like she was possessed. In fact, according to the many books and journals I had read on vampire history, that's what people often had assumed when coming across a human in transition. They thought a demon was raging inside their bodies, except that he couldn't be banned, neither with holy crosses nor holy water. It always came to the same end, just like it was happening with Caroline: All of a sudden, it was over. She fell back on the sheets, gave on last strangled moan and went silent. Her limbs went limp, her skin took on an ashen color and her breathing seemed to have stopped.

I let out a sigh of relief, grateful that it was over. Until I caught Elena's panicked expression. "Oh my God – is she dead now? What happened?"

"Relax – she's alright. She just slid into death sleep, finally. I told you about it. Remember?" Clearly, she didn't. "It might look as if she is dead – in truth, the transition has just passed into the next stage. She'll remain like this for approximately three days. Until everything that was torn apart inside her during the restructuring has been repaired. When she wakes up, she's going to need blood. Lots of it. And then she'll be as good as new." To prove my point, I loosened the ties and binds around her wrists and ankles. She wouldn't be lifting so much as a finger within the next days.

"We can all go to bed now. She won't be needing us any time soon."

"Are you sure?"

"Dead sure. We've gone through all of this ourselves at some point. She'll be alright."

Elena touched Caroline's face once more, brushing the hair out of her face and straightening the sheets. She even put the blanket on top of her, as if she was tucking her in for sleep. In a way, she was. Just that Caroline wouldn't need the blankets. But she wouldn't mind them, either.

Eventually, Elena was ready to leave her be, at least for the time being. She had dark rings under her eyes and didn't look much better than Caroline. The events of the evening clearly had taken their toll on her. Yet she couldn't put her mind to rest.

"What are we going to do until she's fully back to her senses?" she worried, when I had led her to the guest room that she had used before and helped her to get some fresh sheets on the bed. "What are we going to tell her mother?"

Before she could get herself all worked up on new problems that waited to be solved, I laid my hands on her shoulders to make her calm down. "We'll figure something out, okay?" I told her firmly. "Tomorrow. Now get some sleep."

She nodded, and though I wasn't sure if it signaled obedience, conviction or just exhaustion, she finally crawled into bed. I tucked her in and her eyes fell shut even before I could get an extra blanket out of the closet and throw it over her.