Author's note: Hi everyone! Happy June! The best month ever – and not only because it marks the official start of Summer – my very favorite season! :D It's also the birth-month of my two fave TVD characters, so there's that. ;)

I wanted to thank everyone for the lovely response to this story. I'm utterly floored – and so very flattered and honored and touched and pleased and happy. Thank you, truly.

Jeremy's head was downright pounding. So far, in the last few hours, Katherine destroyed seven crystal tumblers, one painting, one window, two lamps, and she somehow managed to carve some very crude gestures into the living room couch, all while screaming obscenities at both him and Bonnie. As an artist, he had to give her credit – she certainly made good use of her fingernails for maximum visual expression.

How Bonnie – who recently came back from the dead – managed to look so calm and collected was honestly beyond his comprehension. He could certainly use some of that bourbon that Katherine-the-poltergeist had been eyeing with a threatening gleam in her eye.

"When are you going to answer my questions!?" Katherine roared at the two of them, though Bonnie only responded with a raised eyebrow, clearly unwilling to move an inch.

"When you start acting even a twentieth of your age, Katherine," Bonnie scolded pointedly. "Enough with the temper tantrum."

"I died," Katherine huffed, deflating when her efforts to unsettle Bonnie and Jeremy weren't having the desired effect.

"Join the club," Bonnie shrugged, to a wry nod from Jeremy. "Everyone in this room has at some point."

"Fine!" Katherine cried petulantly, crossing her arms over her chest. Why was everyone so nonchalant about her ordeal? "Then I died twice." When she saw that they were determinately unaffected, she further elaborated her angst. "And it takes this ridiculously enormous amount of effort to be corporeal – to touch something – even for a few seconds," she whined, on the verge of tears. "Am I dead? Am I not dead? What am I?"

Bonnie softened slightly, knowing firsthand how unsettling it was to be a ghost – though Katherine seemed different. For one thing, she could touch and be touched, if only for a few seconds. For another, both she and Jeremy could plainly see her. Emily warned her that the two would be connected now, so that could be the reason. They needed to test this on an unrelated participant.

In reality, acting calm in the face of Katherine's bombastic display was all that kept her own feelings from spiraling out.

From her near-miraculous return to the land of the living; to the palpable relief she felt when she learned that Elena and Damon were putting considerable physical distance between themselves and Whitmore University; to the cavernous aching of her heart when she thought of that man – that mysterious man – in Whitmore Hall's basement. Her heart longed to rescue him from the most terrifying place she'd ever seen. He'd been so brave…

But rushing in there would do no one any good. They needed a plan. From what brief intelligence she was able to gather during her ghostly investigation, the operation seemed to be a sophisticated one and they needed an elaborate rescue plot to avoid falling prey to the same sinister organization. Perhaps the corvid familiars that Damon and Elena brought back with them could be of some help.

If that weren't enough, apparently Silas was now free, as well – which raised the question: where's Stefan?

Unlike many of her friends, Bonnie prided herself on not being impulsive – except when she was, she frowned with realization, thinking of the events that led to her initial loss of powers and then death. Perhaps everyone is impulsive when it comes to saving the life of someone they love, she reasoned.

She was enormously grateful that at least her magic was back, which she realized when she successfully managed to prevent Katherine from destroying her eighth tumbler. She was both dreading and looking forward to the train wreck that would be Damon discovering what happened to his precious living room furniture.

"Look, Katherine," Bonnie finally appealed, after taking a deep and settling breath. "We have to work together on this; and to do that, you're going to have to curb your nature and cooperate, at least a little," she reasoned.

"Like hell –"

"Which means," Bonnie continued in a louder tone, pointedly interrupting Katherine, "that we will try to help you, if you try to help us. So, we have a series of questions that we have to answer. First, why do you seem to be physically tied to me?"

"Yes, that's the most important question," Katherine scowled.

"To answer this question, we'll probably have to try a few things, to test the limits of this connection."

Katherine rolled her eyes, seeing the logic in Bonnie's suggestion, though she refused to give her the satisfaction of agreement.

"Second, Emily Bennett told us that Silas is back, which means that Stefan never threw him into the quarry, so where –"

"What?" Katherine balked, paling, despite being a specter. "What do you mean Silas is back?"

"Stefan was supposed to lock him in a safe and throw him into the quarry," Bonnie explained. "Obviously, he didn't do that."

"Oh my God," Katherine murmured, her eyes growing wide with horror. "The man who killed me – he looked exactly like Stefan – but he was absolutely, decidedly, positively not him. If Silas is back, and it sounds like this Silas bastard is masquerading as him, then I think I know where Stefan's been all along," she all but whispered, her voice breaking with profound worry for the only man she ever truly loved.

Having a deeply aggravating day, Dr. Wes Maxfield was delighted when his most promising graduate student, Nathaniel Essex, alerted him that the hospital had some news for him regarding the investigation. In truth, this entire debacle had been worrying him tremendously. The Augustine Society could only flourish in secrecy – and if the truth about their cutting-edge research reaching the public eye, he dreaded to think of the potential consequences.

They would be demonized. The world loved an underdog, and those plebeian fools would immediately rush to defend and rail against the 'plight of the vampire,' he seethed. Never mind that these were soulless beasts whose only instincts were to kill and eat. No, it was imperative that their entire operation stay as clandestine as possible. He would make sure of it.

But this was good news. Finally, some headway was being made. Wes was suddenly in such a good mood that even seeing Dr. Anthony Sloane's sour face wouldn't ruin his day. And so, he finally allowed some smugness into his smirk as the subject in question entered the hospital boardroom, where he awaited.

"We finished the investigation, and we concluded that none of your vampire blood samples have gone missing, Doctor Maxfield," Dr. Sloane reported matter-of-factly, though Wes could tell he was getting some enjoyment from delivering this bombshell.

"I don't understand," Wes replied flatly.

"Do you think that it's perhaps possible that a vampire has been healing the terminally injured patients?" Dr. Sloane asked.

"Don't be absurd!" Wes snarled. "These creatures have no souls – let alone any capacity for empathy. If an actual vampire made it into any of those rooms, all you'd find would be mutilated corpses, entirely drained of blood."

"Then what do you suggest?"

"Someone must have found an external supply. My guess is that we have a competitor, and that this is their attempt to sabotage us by drawing attention to our operation."

This was bad. If this was happening, perhaps they were on the verge of being discovered – at the very least, suspicions had been drawn. If his own, slightly-off-the-books research was ever found out, he shuddered to think of the potential aftermath. This was a wake-up call. He had to move quickly.

It was a quarter past midnight by the time Elena and Damon finally made it to their destination. Instead of going to bed, they opted to drop off their bags in their hotel room and explore nature's beauty in the peace of the night – when the throngs of tourists thinned out, and they could lose themselves in the sounds of the cascading torrents of living wonder.

The falls were illuminated by the nightly light show, and great beams of blues and pinks and violets and greens embraced the thunderous waters, as though each tiny photon swept the expanse of water's break, painting each microscopic molecule of water with its vivid hues of light.

Elena observed with the sight with wonder, her very soul alight with bliss as she leaned into Damon, who had his arms wrapped around her from behind. Their lives had been so tumultuous of late – their very reason for this small escape so steeped in chaos – that they had to really seek out, and seize, and embrace each chance at peace and serenity.

This moment, she realized, breathing him in as she turned to face him, catching the illumination's reflection – a pale imitation of the blue before the fires in his eyes – it was perfect.

But while Elena's heart was swimming in the seas of utter contentment, Damon's was a bit more pensive. He had appreciated, truly, what she tried to do. But Katherine's words kept haunting him – just as Stefan's had – right before he gave into his worst impulses and enacted the most regretted night of his life.

But his humanity was off, then – sometimes sneaking in on a light dimmer switch. He resolved that this time would be different. For Elena – for the friends he's managed to form, he would keep it together. He had to try.

"You don't have to try, Damon. All you have to do is exist."

"What's wrong?" Elena frowned, catching the far-off look in his eyes.

He simply shook his head in response and forced his features to adopt a show of happiness. "It's just been a long day," he replied. Though she appeared unconvinced, Elena elected to let the matter drop for now.

He let himself get lost in the kiss Elena pressed to his lips, desperate to will Stefan's sneering voice away. When she was the one who unexpectedly deepened it – in public no less – he had to stifle a laugh. Usually, he was the one to take matters further, but she had been growing increasingly expressive in her displays of physical passion, in a way that pleasantly surprised him.

This was not the sometimes-timid human girl who once longed for any excuse to throw her life away – whose very existence revolved around his brother. This was a woman with confidence and strength and a secret well of playful joy that he found contagious. Everything about her exuded passion.

And she chose him, and to his utter shock, kept choosing him, like she didn't know, like she couldn't really see who he was – who he really was – inside. For all her insistence on the good in him, couldn't she see what was clear to so many others – that the core of him was rotten?

"Everything inside is worthless."

His father certainly knew, and he made sure that Damon was aware of his feelings every chance he got – whether through hurtful words or other means.

"All I have is disappointment."

"You know, this is a great time to work on your snatch-eat-erase technique," Damon suggested, trying to quiet the scourging effects of Katherine's words on his psyche. "This is the perfect place for it. Quiet and dark enough not to be spotted, but there are still lots of people around, so we won't have to look very hard."

"Why? I'm fine with blood bags now. No special instructions required," she teased with a meaningful bite to his shoulder.

"You need to improve your control," he stressed, smiling at her playfulness. "It's already pretty good, but you haven't had much practice – and you never know when you'll find yourself in a situation where blood bags aren't an option," he explained, knowing how tense and nervous the idea of feeding on a live human body made Elena.

"I know when to stop, Damon," she countered, looking worried.

"No, you know how to stop from going too far by taking too little. I want to teach you to find that moment – that exact moment – right before you go over the threshold," he leaned in, moving a stray hair behind her ear.

"Why?"

"Just in case you find yourself in a situation with limited options, and you need to make the most of just one human, without any unnecessary death. If you take too little, you may end up losing control on the next one."

"Okay," she conceded reluctantly. "I see your point."

"The goal is to have you not turn into Stef," he grinned, taking her hand to twirl her around, and back into his embrace. "Ever. I can only take one brooder doing his best impression of The Thinker while waxing unoriginally about every cliché under the Sun."

"I don't think you have to worry about that," she grinned roguishly. "I've been very clear with my forehead on the importance of avoiding brooding wrinkles. And it's been pretty successful. But there's a caveat," she bit her lip dramatically.

"What's that?" he asked, amused.

"My forehead – my whole head – says that you have to feed it the Dom from your cellar at least once a month, or it'll stage a revolt. And then it'll be just non-stop brooding. I'm sorry, Damon," she shrugged mock-apologetically. "It drove a hard bargain, but I'm afraid that if we want those Stefan broody wrinkles to stay away, you'll have to give up some of your stash," she sang, a decidedly mischievous smile gracing her lips.

They found a few wayward tourists exiting a rowdy bar before compelling the group of three away from the main avenue.

"I'll go first. Watch me and listen to any changes in her heartbeat. Close your eyes. Allow yourself to really hear and feel everything," he instructed, coming closer to one of the ladies in question, though never letting go of Elena's hand.

"Don't move and don't make a sound," he said to the woman. "This won't hurt."

Elena watched as he all but allowed his fangs to glide into her neck, in one smooth movement, drinking her life's essence with slow, but measured gulps. At the slightest rhythmic divergence, he quickly pulled out, licking his lips clean.

"Now you try." Damon looked at Elena pointedly, directing her to lead the show. At Elena's frightened response, he squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Don't worry. I won't let you hurt anyone," he soothed, earning a nod from his nervous girlfriend.

"Don't move and don't make a sound," Elena said to the other lady in the group. "This won't hurt."

"Try to do it as gently as possible. Let your fangs slide in smoothly. Make sure that precision, not speed, is your goal – that will come later," he instructed.

Elena allowed her fangs to elongate, slowly sliding them into the young woman's neck. Within seconds, her precious lifeforce began coating Elena's tongue, filling her with an indescribable surge of vitality, of energy – her very soul sang – teeming with life. She was about to release her, when she felt Damon's hand on her head, gently keeping in place.

"Listen to her heartbeat – really listen. You'll know that you're on the precipice of taking too much when it alters. Feel the strength of the flow. It's different for everyone, so familiarize yourself with her specific rhythm first – but when you sense a change, you stop," he whispered in Elena's ear, closing his eyes to allow his senses to extend as well, listening for even the smallest change in the young woman's constitution.

Within moments, Elena felt the difference in, she slowly pulled away. "How was that?" Elena asked nervously.

"Perfect," he smiled proudly. "But we need to repeat the experiment to make sure it's not a fluke," he continued, gesturing to the man that accompanied them. "One more time."

When Elena finished with the second demonstration, Damon began compelling them to forget what happened, ready to send them away.

"Wait!" she interrupted his compulsion, halting him. Instead, she gently placed her hands on the woman's shoulders. "What is your biggest insecurity?"

"I don't think I'm very smart," the woman replied in a dull, hazy voice. "My boyfriend always calls me an idiot and tells me that I'm lucky he even looked my way."

Feeling herself growing angry, Elena rounded on the young man in their group. "Is this your boyfriend?"

"No," the compelled woman replied. "This is an old friend."

Nodding, Elena took the woman's hands in hers. "You are so much smarter and better than you've ever realized. You're beautiful and strong and charismatic. You're going to dump that no-good boyfriend of yours and find someone who appreciates you for who you are." Then she bit her wrist and held it out. "Drink."

"What was that?" Damon laughed, though the expression on his face was nothing short of adoring.

"Just part of my Whitmore rescue package," Elena smiled cheekily. "Every save comes with an affirmation. I thought they could use it, too, especially if I'm taking something from them."

Damon hung back to watch as Elena convinced the other woman that she's brave and certainly deserving of her promotion; and told the man that he was more than worthy of being loved – that he's special simply by virtue of existing, and that he doesn't have to earn the right to be loved, because everyone is worthy of it. Afterward, she fed them blood to heal them, and they were sent away with their memories of the encounter erased.

"You're not afraid they'll die with it in their systems?" he asked, remembering Stefan's paranoia, and assuming at least some of it had to rub off on Elena when they dated.

"They won't know to complete the transition, anyway," she shrugged. "And my opinion on vampirism has changed considerably since I became one, but the seed was really planted when I saw you save that family in South Carolina. We can use it for good," she explained, a warmth affecting her gaze as she recalled her first real glimpse into what she argued was Damon's true nature. "And if we can, then others can, too."

He smiled at her optimism and contagious zest in this endeavor, though the differences between them had become even more stark with the events of the night. He would have never thought to leave his victims better than he found them. For decades – when his humanity was off – all he saw in humans was food and amusement. And though his humanity finally fully resurfaced only recently, largely thanks to the woman before him, he still had nothing resembling her instincts to save, to improve, to do good.

She healed. He destroyed.

"You ruin things. That's why no one ever loved you."

He ruined things, as Katherine so bluntly delivered, nearly demolishing the faint control he managed to gather since the return of his empathy switch to the upright position. How long would it be until he ruined her, too? In the end, he realized, that despite any illusions he crafted for himself – about the secret good that Elena kept insisting she saw inside his rotting heart; the supposed heroism she persisted in misattributing to him; the worthwhile façade of his worthless soul – all he really was, and ever would be, was a monster.

And though he appreciated this little distraction of a road trip, Damon had the sinking feeling that all of Elena's efforts were only delaying the inevitable – whatever that turned out to be.

I always liked the idea of Elena compelling words and feelings of affirmation into those she saved at Whitmore. I started watching Legacies recently (so adorable – and soooo X-Men. As someone who grew up on X-Men comics, I certainly appreciate all the very obvious parallels. For reference, when the students were younger, it was called "The Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters." Compare that to "The Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted," combined with the similar dynamics, and the fact that MG is a comics fan, and the homage is very clear). When I saw Kaleb doing essentially that, it sealed it for me, and I decided to make it part of Elena's canon – since someone who says that healing is her favorite part of being a vampire would do exactly that.

Regarding Damon's emotional turmoil and the idea that Elena's efforts may not be enough – self-love and self-acceptance have to come from the inside. She can certainly help – absolutely – but any real change has to come from him; it has to be internalized. It's a process. I think what she's doing is going a very long way toward helping Damon love himself, but it'll ultimately be up to him. No one can fix us. We can only fix ourselves.

When I first started this story, I never really intended it to be about Damon's healing journey – but here we are. Sometimes our stories surprise is and go in unexpected directions. (Timey Wimey is becoming a lot darker and wilder than I ever anticipated, for example. We'll see if that's how it remains, or if it goes in a different direction entirely. I know the broad strokes of where that one is going, but the details are surprising me a little.) I guess with WGP exploring what it means to be good/evil/hero/monster, it makes sense. A lot of these ideas are going to be analyzed and deconstructed, in a sense.

I originally planned for this chapter to explore the connection between Bonnie and Katherine more, but then the Silas stuff had to be addressed – so maybe they could do both! (But in a future chapter.)

I wanted to elaborate on something from the previous chapter. In the last chapter, when Elucia said that "creativity is bestowed to us when we need it most," she basically meant that necessity is the mother of invention. Like the wheel showed up in various cultures worldwide simultaneously simply because it's intuitive engineering, so can another witch-cum-vampire potentially build an empathic link with an animal, like Elucia did with corvids. With that said, we may or may not meet other vampires who have this ability later in the story.

And yeah, ahahaha, Nathaniel Essex is named after Mr. Sinister from X-Men (the comics, not the movies). :D I introduced him for the very brief arc that the Augustine Society had in Timey Wimey (veeery brief). He's going to have a much larger role here. I won't elaborate on who Mr. Sinister is yet, since it might be a bit of a spoiler on what's to come, but feel free to Google to your heart's content if you want a potential sneak preview. (Or, better yet, just check out Timey Wimey! :D)

With that said, familiars next chapter – for real! Enough dilly-dallying! :D (Especially since the Stefan/Silas reveal is out to Bonnie and Jeremy, so that should speed up Damon and Elena's return.)

The reference Damon saving the family in South Carolina comes from the first chapter of Chaotic Good. It's the first non-canon memory that he compelled away.

The Thinker is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin. It's gorgeous - though very broody-looking!

Elena made her love of champagne (along with her apparent hatred of whiskey) very clear in TVD, so here we are! :D

Massive hugs to scarlett2112, Kriz03, and Florencia7 for their unwavering support.

Beautiful thanks to you all for being delightful. Please leave a review, so I can learn all your beautiful thoughts, feelings, and ideas. Please know that I appreciate you all very, very much.