The newly vampiric Elena Gilbert woke up several hours later, fresh with memories of all the times she'd been compelled. Surprisingly, those new memories matched up with all the moments Damon had told her about. He hadn't left anything out. A reason to trust him, perhaps? If only the decision were that easy.

It took a moment to remember everything that had occurred the night before. For a moment, she still felt human. When the memories flooded back in, her lids closed once more, like if she just went back to sleep she could ignore everything that had gone wrong. Unfortunately, she could not hide in Damon's bedroom for the rest of her life, no matter how much she wanted to. Especially since the faint hum of soreness in her gums reminded her that she needed to feed again soon, just like Damon had said.

Reluctantly, she exited Damon's bedroom. Had he slept in a guest room? Wholly unnecessary. She could have easily moved elsewhere. But she appreciated the night of luxury—because his room was luxurious, even she could recognize that in the midst of a mental breakdown.

Being a vampire should have felt different than being a human, but for the most part, she felt exactly the same aside from her sore gums and the obvious hunger. But everything else? She still felt like herself. She had no overwhelming urge to kill, no desire to do any other monstrous acts. Not that she had been expecting such a change, but still, it was a shock that she still felt so, well, human.

Every noise was amplified. Footsteps in the kitchen, noise in a few of the guest rooms. There truly had been no privacy for her anywhere around these people, had there? Damon had always been able to hear her private conversations with Caroline and vice versa. That alone made her feel betrayed by them all over again. How on display she'd been the entire time, thinking herself too slick, so secretive, when they knew everything there was to know.

Caroline barely gave her a moment to settle the second she stepped off the last stair and into the living room.

"How are you feeling? Are you okay?" the blonde asked, walking across the room to stand in front of her, hands outstretched but not quite touching.

Elena didn't know how to answer. Everything was still so jumbled. It felt like it could take ages to unravel the wild mess of thoughts in her brain. She'd only just begun to understand the world around her, and now it'd been flipped on its head. Her eyes met Caroline's, then drifted away, looking out a nearby window. Visions of her friends arguing over her dead body flitted through her mind.

"I don't know," Elena said, and it was the absolute truth.

Caroline sighed, her fingers twitching like she wanted to bring Elena in for a hug. "I know you didn't want this." Pulling away, Caroline dipped her fingers into her pocket and produced a small ring with a blue stone on it. "I had this made for you. Just in case."

The brunette pressed her lips into a line. It had been this or death, and there was so much more she wanted to accomplish in life. Undead or not. This was just another thing she would have to learn to live with, another thing she could overcome. She just needed time. Thankfully, now she had nothing but. She took the ring, slipped it on, and looked down at it for a good long while.

Finally, Elena reached out and grabbed her best friend's hands, holding them tight, needing some kind of connection. "I didn't. I don't," she said. "But thank you. You saved my life, in a way."

Caroline would have blushed if she could. Instead, she just waved a hand like giving Elena the blood that turned her had been no big deal at all. "Please. It was purely selfish. I didn't want to lose another friend."

Right. Katherine. They'd been friends with her doppelganger over a century ago. "What was she like? Katherine?" Elena blurted, unable to help herself once the thoughts of her look-a-like bubbled to the surface.

For a second, the blonde looked mournful. Then, a smile passed over her lips. "She was feisty. A fighter. Kind of like you, she knew what she wanted and wasn't afraid to take it. But she was also selfish and sometimes I didn't know if she actually cared about any of us." The smile faded again. "I still don't know. Not for sure."

Elena nodded. Katherine's face had been imprinted upon her brain. Those tightly curled brown locks, the warm brown eyes that looked back at her. A black and white portrait, yes, but she knew those features anywhere. There'd been a glint of something more in her eyes. Something playful, fiery. A spark Elena did not recognize in herself. There were so many more questions she wanted to ask, but it felt like picking at an open wound. Speaking about Klaus seemed especially off-limits. But there'd been something there, right? Between him and Caroline? She folded those thoughts away for later, to ask at another time when everything didn't feel so raw.

"Where's Damon?" Elena asked, convinced that it was because she wanted to know where to avoid, not because she actually wanted to see him. The feelings there were too complicated still. The lingering kiss they hadn't spoken about coupled with his care for her throughout the night. Speaking to him now felt impossible.

Caroline, however, couldn't help herself. She wiggled her brows, her smile returning. "Hunting with Marcus, I believe. Why?" Such a leading question.

The brunette looked down at her nails like they were the most interesting thing in the room.

"Oh, come on," Caroline said, pushing Elena's shoulder playfully. She almost smiled. It felt unnatural. "Don't tell me you're avoiding him."

"I won't tell you, then."

"Elena," she said, so pointedly it almost made her want to lay all of her feelings out in front of them both so Caroline could pick through them. Maybe she'd be able to help sort out the ones Elena didn't understand.

"Fine," Elena said, glancing at Caroline briefly, rolling her eyes. "We kissed. A few days ago. And it's been, I don't know, weird."

"Elena Gilbert," Caroline said her name like a mother scolding a child. "You just died, and you're worried about a kiss?"

"I can be worried about a lot of things all at once."

Dying was one thing. Granted, it was an extremely large thing, but it was a thing that could not be changed. Being kissed was another entirely. And sure, maybe it was dramatic to be worried about a kiss when only hours ago he'd been attempting to tend to her post-said death, but Elena had never been known to shy away from such dramatics. In fact, they were often her bread and butter. Besides, she had the rest of eternity to mourn the loss of her human life. If she didn't speak to Damon about the kiss, however, she'd go insane. Though, she had to admit that there were much more pressing matters to worry about. Like whether or not Klaus would be particularly pleased about her inability to die in the way he wanted and why the secret society had only sent out one invitation, and why had they changed their admissions process, and what had Klaus' remarks about Katherine meant? Okay. So maybe there were a lot more important things to worry about. So many that she couldn't quite wrap her head around it all.

"Just talk to him, Elena. I've only seen him care about one other person before," Caroline said, reaching out to take Elena's hand once more. "It's obvious he feels something for you."

Now that Caroline lingered on the subject, it didn't feel so important anymore. Elena stammered, "Okay, and how do I fix everything else? All the other problems? How do I get my brother back and why do I look like her?" The dam started to break, but she knew if she let tears fall now they'd never stop and she'd be right back in bed curled up on her side.

Caroline grimaced. "Klaus is a man of his word. If he said your brother will be safe then we can trust him."

Elena pulled her hand away from her best friend. "We can trust him?"

A few cogs clicked into place and started spinning. The man she'd loved once. The betrayal she'd experienced. The way the two had talked to each other just before he'd drained Elena of her blood.

"No, I mean, of course, we can't trust him—I just mean on this one thing," Caroline said, trying to walk back her words, uncomfortable.

"You're still in love with him, aren't you?" Elena asked. It was easy to be bold when nothing had consequences anymore. When mistakes could be compelled away and death couldn't reach his hands up around her throat.

The blonde looked offended at her insinuation. "No," she said firmly. "Of course not." But there was something there, something Elena wanted to dig her fingers into.

She couldn't help it. "I don't believe you." Maybe pulling apart the threads of her friend's life took less effort than examining all of those questions that swarmed in her head. Maybe focusing on something else entirely brought relief, if only for a moment.

"You don't have to," Caroline said, sitting up straighter with confidence. "He lost my love after he killed my first best friend, and he certainly does not still have it after killing my second."

Why did she feel so dreadfully sour? Why was it so easy to say the first rotten thing that came to her mind? The grasp she'd felt on her humanity only minutes ago had slipped right through her fingers and she no longer felt like herself. "You all just replaced me, with her." It was so offhand like the words didn't even matter in the slightest. "Did she have a thing with Salvatore too?"

Caroline crossed her arms over her chest. "Elena, we don't have to do this right now, you've been through so much—"

Elena narrowed her eyes, furrowed her brows. "He did, didn't he?" Her eyes searched the blonde's face for any sign of a reaction. "Have something with her? With Katherine? I mean Klaus alluded to it, but I thought maybe he was just being an ass."

If there was any way out of answering the question, Caroline would have found it. "Damon and Stefan were both… intertwined with Katherine, yes."

Where had the days of studying gone, the days of feeling like an outsider, the days of curling up in the library in a spot where no one could find her? She longed for a time in which she did not care about the supernatural, she did not have to worry about the guy she—what, had some convoluted feelings for—had been interested in an ancestor of hers that looked exactly the same, and she certainly longed for a time in which she did not have to sort out her feelings post traumatic death.

"I need air," Elena said, standing up from the couch and walking toward the back door. To her shock and relief, Caroline did not follow.

Maybe it would have been better for both of them if Caroline had followed because as soon as Elena sat down on the back steps of the patio, the hunger settled in around her like a warm blanket. A reminder of all that had been lost and all that would be her future. Intelligence had always been second nature to Elena Gilbert. Common sense, however, often left her in sticky situations. Not that she knew anything about that, and certainly if anyone tried to bring it up to her—such as one Damon Salvatore—it would only end in argument.

So, what she did next was likely not the smartest decision a young vampire could have made. Her intelligence, unfortunately, often led her to decisions such as these, where she thought herself better than others who might take similar missteps. In this case, she was no better than any other newborn vampire—in fact, she was simply experiencing exactly the same thought process many did. If I'm aware of the situation, and acknowledge the fact that I'm a monster with a hunger I don't understand, then how could I possibly hurt someone?

And like many vampires before her, she discovered her strength and speed by taking one quick step in the direction she wanted to go—and the rest was a blur of trees and greenery as she moved. That was one benefit, at least. Running away felt like abandoning all of those thoughts that spiraled and spun back behind her where they couldn't, wouldn't hurt.

When she finally stopped running, trees grew tall around her, shooting up into the sky tall enough that the points couldn't be seen from the ground. Nearby, water trickled over rocks, and people walked cleared paths to a summit that probably had a lovely view. It didn't occur to Elena then, and it wouldn't until much later, that she'd run long enough to cross state lines, that she'd wound up, somehow, near the town she'd grown up in. Only a few miles west. It did not feel like coming home. Home, in fact, was such a distant feeling. Perhaps even one she'd never experienced at all.

There'd been places, moments, when she'd looked around and felt as if maybe, just maybe, she fit in. But she'd never had a loving, doting family. She'd never had friends who'd given her the whole truth. She'd never had more than a midnight lover. Damon and Caroline were her friends, yes. And even Marcus, and maybe the twins on a good day. But they'd lied. They'd been lying since the day she'd met them. How could they possibly be home?

She raked her hands through her hair on both sides, pressing her fingertips into her scalp. Only then, when she stopped running and took a wholly unnecessary breath, did she realize how tired she was. As it turned out, spending years forging home in the fire of her chest, trying to squeeze herself into places she didn't fit, gritting her teeth and bearing it every step of the way and dying because of it—truly exhausted her. And maybe, because her life was a series of maybes, if someone hadn't come along to ask her if she was alright, she would have sat down in the dirt and cried for a while. Unfortunately, that's not what happened.

"Are you okay?" A young woman, likely around the same age as Elena, appeared with a canvas bag slung over her back and a man's hand intertwined with hers.

She must have looked like quite a sight, clothes still bloodied from the night before and hands twisted in her hair, fear and pain painted on her face. For when she turned to look at the woman and the man standing happily at her side, they looked taken aback by what they saw.

Elena could hear everything. Every breath they took, the sound of their eyelashes hitting their cheeks, the blood rushing through their veins, the pumping of their hearts. It took over every sense and drowned her. She wanted it to stop. She wanted it to stop and she wasn't thinking straight and god the hunger still racked through her like nothing she'd ever experienced before.

When she moved, it was without conscious thought. And when her teeth sank into the man's neck and the woman started to scream, she could have sworn it sounded like her own voice, her own screams, echoing through the carriage months and months ago. But it didn't matter. Hot blood coated her lips, slid down her throat, and made her feel good. Better than she'd felt in days. Satisfied. For once.

And when the man went limp in her arms she struck out and killed the woman too, draining her just as easily. With both bodies at her feet, necks twisted in an eerily familiar way she could not place… only then did she feel home.

A/N: SO excited to share this chapter and the next one. They're two of my absolute favorites. Also, please check out my Hallmark-style Christmas story "A Bistro in Burlington." It features Elena as a journalist and Damon as a restaurant owner. Only 8 more chapters to go! "At Dawn" will continue after I finish posting the remainder of this story! Thanks for all your support.