I want to thank everyone that has stuck with me throughout this story, despite my erratic posting habits.

"Yeah, uh, my house... make a, uh, make a left up here and my house is on the, the right 'bout 2 miles down. Maybe 3 miles, I donno. God, I'm so messed up right now."

The girl's voice was grating on Elena's nerves, which were already at the breaking point. She couldn't wait to get home, take a long, hot shower, curl up in bed, and try to put the entire God awful night behind her.

"I'm gonna have such a hangover to-tomorrow. But ya know what, I, it was totally worth it. God, that guy's house back there? Isn't it gorgeous? Yeah, and that guy is like amazing. I donno how but I swear his hands move so freakin fast, its like magic or something, they're everywhere at once. Oh, my God. I am so sorry. Here I am ramblin on, girl shouldn't kiss and tell. And if you were at the house you must know him. This is so embar-embarassing. I promise I don't usually get, you know, get this...," the girls voice cut off on a shriek as Elena slammed on her brakes in the middle of the road.

She couldn't take it anymore. Was this girl seriously rambling on about how great Stefan was in bed? And obviously the girl was wrong in her assumption- Elena didn't know him at all because she never would have thought he would... her mind once again shied away from the memory. Suddenly, loud music filled the car and Elena jumped. It took her a second to realize it was her ring-tone. Turning to reach into the backseat, she fumbled around, trying to get to her purse. Her hands were shaking, her heart was racing, there was a faint roaring sound in her ears, and her mind was speeding along at a mile a minute. She finally managed to get her purse into her lap just as the phone quit ringing. Elena reached into her purse and finally managed to pull out her phone. She struggled to get her fingers to function, failing twice to properly key in the code to unlock her phone. Then the phone came to life in her hand, ringing loudly and the screen lighting up with "Caroline" in big letters on the screen. She almost dropped it, then managed to swipe her finger across the screen to answer.

"Elena?" Caroline sounded panicked. "Elena, are you there?"

"Yeah," Elena's voice was barely a whisper. She tried again, "Yeah, I'm here."

"Oh my God. I think you pocket dialed me earlier and all I got was a voicemail with a bunch of yelling and screaming. Are you okay?"

"Caroline, I need you to come get me and to not ask any questions. I can't handle questions. I don't want... I can't explain, okay? I just can't." She hated the panic in her voice, the desperation.

"Yeah, okay, no problem, just tell me where you are."

Elena gave her directions and then hung up the phone to wait, praying to God that the girl would just shut up.

. . .

When Caroline finally arrived, she had already thought through a dozen different disasters that could have befallen her friend.

She rushed over to the car as Elena opened the driver side door. This caused Caroline to come to a sudden halt as the strong scent of blood poured out of the vehicle. Gingerly, she took the last few steps towards Elena. She swallowed her gasp before it could leave her mouth. Elena's neck and hands were covered in blood and under the blood on Elena's neck, Caroline could see deep purple bruises.

Elena turned away from her and walked around the car, opening the passenger door. "My friend is going to take us both home," she said to someone Caroline could not see. She heard someone step out of the car and the scent of blood became stronger. This time, she gasped aloud. The girl looked just as bad. Her neck and shirt were covered in blood and her arms were streaked with red and blotched with purple bruises. Even her hair, which was hanging limply around her pale face like a grotesque yellow halo, had blood in it. She was weaving as she walked and mumbling to herself. Honestly, Caroline was half expecting her to fall over dead at any moment. No one should look that bad and still be walking. She hurried over and helped the girl into the backseat of her car, grimacing as she did so. Her throat was burning from the smell of the blood and she was sure she would never get the scent out of her car seats, even if she could remove the stains.

. . .

It seemed like an eternity before she was stepping through her front door. She was going to sit in the shower and scrub until she felt clean again. Even if it took hours and the hot water ran out.

The hall light flicked on and Elena squinted against the sudden light. "Elena?"

Elena turned away from the stairs, trying to hide the blood. "Hey, Jer," she said, forcing a calm, warm tone. "I'm just gonna grab some water then I am heading up for a shower and bed. I'll see you in the morning, k?"

A few moments later, she heard him step into the kitchen and she winced. This was not going to be good.

"What's going on, Elena? Caroline called earlier, frantically asking if you were home. Two minutes later she called back and said never mind, she had found you, and it was a false alarm."

Elena slowly turned and Jeremy gasped, "What the hell, Elena? What happened?"

"It was just a mishap. Stefan was compelled by Klaus and has gone a bit crazy. He just left town though, so that is a problem for another day, okay? I really just want some sleep." With that, she tried to brush past him to head upstairs, but he grabbed her wrist.

Elena immediately hissed and felt her knees buckle from the pain.

Jeremy dropped her hand and she cradled it to her chest. "The only place you are going is the hospital to get that looked at," Jeremy told her.

"And how would I explain this, Jeremy?" she asked, reaching up with her good hand to tug her shirt to the side and show him the twin torn and bloody holes in her shoulder.

"Tell them you don't remember anything. It's not like they will be able to find out what happened. Or you can ask Caroline to come and she can compel everyone. You need to get checked out, Elena."

"Please, Jeremy, I just want to shower and sleep. I will make a doctors appointment in the morning."

And so the argument continued for a few minutes, until Jeremy told her that if she didn't let him drive her to the hospital, he would call for an ambulance.

As she walked out of her house to the car, she purposefully kept her mind blank, thinking of nothing. It was going to be a long night.

. . .

The next day, Elena stood in her bedroom, exhausted, holding a stack of photos and staring down at the one on the top of the stack. It was a picture of her back, the white tape wrapped around her two broken ribs in sharp contrast to the giant purple bruises covering every inch from her neck to her waist.

She set down the photos and her hand dropped to her stomach. They said that the baby appeared to be fine, although it was still too early to be able to see much of anything. Thank God for small blessings. She then ran her right hand over the wrist brace on her left. The wrist was badly sprained, but nothing had been broken, the doctors had said. Should be good as new in a few weeks.

If only she could be sure that the rest of her would recover as well as her wrist.