Title: Vampire Diaries: EartH AngeL

Author: Jamie Carlson (aka: Cardinal Syn)

Contribution: Section One: The Fledgling, Part One

Rating: 15, PG13

Warnings: Some strong language and violence

Spoilers: Vampire Diaries series; Vampire Princess Miyu series; Hellsing series (not immediately though)

Disclaimers: Vampire Diaries and all copyrighted characters thereof are © L J Smith; Vampire Princess Miyu and all characters and ideas thereof are © Narumi Kakinouchi and Toshiki Hirano; Hellsing and all characters thereof are © Kouta Hirano; "Cadence", Arthis Mendall, Nocturne, Yoruno Megami and other OC characters are © Jamie Carlson.

Summary: After the events of Dark Reunion, Damon was planning on leaving the inhabitants of Fell's Church far behind. When he gets involved with the care of an abandoned vampire fledgling, and said fledgling vanishes, will Damon be able to handle the escalating events on his own, or will he be forced to rely on people he would rather forget?

Special Thanks: Thank you to everyone who enjoyed the original story. I've decided to try again with the same premise, and many changes, such as the removal of the self-insert character in favor of an OC. I have also modified the structure a little, and will be combining this with ideas for a Hellsing fanfiction I may never bother to write.

I will leave the old version up.

Comments: Please either Review or Send Comments To: liliumnoir at gmail dot com

Woods. Why was he always drawn to the woods?

Because, his mind taunted, that was where you last saw her. Saw them.

The velvet black of a moonless night surrounded him. His vampire eyes could see clearly enough, as a moonless night was not truly without light. As he slipped silently between the trees, running as if to escape from his thoughts, his mind wandered back to that moment.

Elena. Whole, shining, still enveloped in the joy and peace of the Other Place, the afterlife, reaching out to him, acceptance in her eyes. Stefan, whole, healed, still a vampire but no longer dead in the grass, reaching to him as well. 'Stay with us', their eyes said. But even as Damon Salvatore stared down at them, even as he knew the walls he had built up around him were crumbling, he knew he couldn't stay.

Damon would always want what Stefan had – the relationship with Elena that Damon had never managed to achieve. Could never have stolen from Stefan, no matter how hard he tried.

He was not willing to allow them to humanize him, no, but nor was he willing to continue the path of taunting and fighting and bitter rivalry. He was tired of it. Elena was alive, he was no longer bound to the promise to take care of Stefan. He had her now.

He had come across the country to a small town in Oregon, whose name he couldn't even remember, just to get away from them. And now, even here, he was drawn into the woods.

Damon froze, poised to listen, at once motionless and still. His head tilted to the right as he listened to a sound coming from somewhere to his left, maybe half a mile into the woods.

Ah, yes. Bleating. Panicked struggling. Crunch.

Someone was hunting. And doing it rather roughly.

Damon gathered his energy, imagined it as a net thin and light as a spider web. He cast it out toward the sound, seeking, probing, searching for the mind that belonged to the hunter.

Jumbled images. Waking in an unfamiliar room, stumbling from an unfamiliar bed. Drunken wheeling, weaving, so hungry.

Blackness interspersed with flashes of color and sound. A small flame and a burning smell. Huddling in the corner. Daylight out a half-open window fading to darkness. Tumbling out the window, pain as a bone breaks, more pain as it mends.

Delirium, uncertainty. First kill – a stray dog. Revulsion. Second kill – a man, scraggly and unkempt, oh the sorrow he feels, he wants to die, and now he's dead and self-realization, horror, disgust. Despair.

Woods, soft ground, digging, sleeping.

Smaller images now, broken. Out of the ground. Cleaned off at a steam. Stolen clothing.

Damon took crow form and flew toward the thoughts. The owner of the memories still wasn't aware of him yet, too intent on feeding.

When he landed on a branch over her head, she dropped the head of the buck. She had killed a deer. A young male from the looks of it. Its head lay at an angle – she had broken its neck before feeding.

The girl sat on her heels, looking down at the ruined animal. She twisted to her left, coughing, spitting up some of the blood. A shaking hand clamped over her mouth, perhaps trying to hold it in whether it disgusted her or not.

Damon dropped from the branch, taking human form as his feet touched the soft earth. The girl heard him land and jumped, twisting in the air with the grace of a startled cat. She landed in a more defensive crouch, fangs bared.

She looked young, her face heart-shaped and her eyes looked like they would be round and innocent if they weren't filled with a hunter's light. They gleamed silver as she hissed at him. The blood smeared on her face made her look like a child who had played with her mother's lipstick. Her straight hair stuck to her face where it had gotten bloody, and hung lankly around her, unwashed. There was still some dirt in it.

Damon walked toward her calmly. She skittered backward, crab walking as her hands hit the mossy ground behind her. When she collided with the trunk of an evergreen she froze, startled by the impact. Somewhat impatient, Damon began the process of soothing her with his mind as he continued walking toward her, hands up, palms toward her to show he wasn't holding a weapon. Not that it mattered, as he wouldn't really need one against this pathetic waif of a fledgling.

The light slowly faded from her eyes as she began to calm. Fear and rage gave way to uncertainty, then shame as she glanced to the dead deer behind Damon's approaching form. He crouched slowly before her, palms still out.

"Now now. You don't need to feel badly about killing it," Damon offered, grinning at her in a disarming fashion. "It's fine.. what's left will be eaten by forest critters. It won't go to waste. And you needed the blood."

"Who are.." she coughed, cleared her throat. It sounded raw, like she'd not spoken in days, or perhaps screamed it raw She tried again, "Who are you? Are you... you smell kind of.. like.. me."

Damon arched an eyebrow at her. "I would hope I smell better.. I got to use soap when I took a bath today."

The uncertainty was temporarily lost to surprise. Damon laughed inside, endlessly amused by the number of ways he could surprise simple women.

"I'm not simple."

Now Damon started. He'd forgotten he still had his mental net around her, but he hadn't expected her to pick up on his thought. He had certainly not been projecting.

"No, apparently not." Disarming grin. Now she just looked suspicious.

"What, if you wouldn't mind telling me, is a pretty little Fledgling vampire doing out here without a bigger, stronger vampire to protect her?" He noted the pain in her eyes when he said the word 'vampire'. "Come now." He stood and gestured grandly to the animal carcass. "I already told you not to feel badly."

He bowed and offered her his hand. She stared at it, then looked up at him, mistrusting. She stood on her own, albeit shakily.

"What bigger, stronger vampire?" she almost snapped. "I was alone when I woke up in that empty house, and alone when I climbed out the window, and lone when I k-kill... killed..." Her composure crumpled. Damon remembered the flashes of the homeless man in the street. She turned away from him, huddling into herself. She was just a half inch shorter than Damon standing, but as she hugged herself, she seemed much smaller.

Damon watched her quietly, taking in the oversize men's T-shirt and jogging shorts she had pilfered to replace her muddied nightgown. If her fragmented memories served him, they had been left forgotten on a clothesline with a motley of other random garments, after dark.

Gently, Damon touched her shoulder. She moved away, straightening her spine and wiping tears from her face with shaking hands. No lapis ring. No jewelry of any kind that could contain a protective charm. Not even earrings.

As she stood before him, defiantly ashamed, he marveled. How had she ended up in an empty house, changed into a vampire, with no sight of her sire? On instinct she had managed to feed and then hide herself.

"As I'm sure you can tell," Damon began, cooly surveying her, dropping the charming pretense, "I've been a vampire for some time. It's unusual for a vampire to leave its fledgling after Changing it, unless it hadn't intended her to live. Which within itself is rare, since it takes quite a process to change a human into a vampire. Who changed you? Can you tell me that?"

Silence from the young woman, and, Damon saw, a woman she was – she wasn't a budding woman like Elena, but had made her transition. Perhaps twenty or twenty-one. College aged, filled out, without any childish angles, except in the shape of her face. She seemed to size him up, then shook her head.

"Don't know.. don't remember. I saw the date on a bank marquee... it's been a week since my last really clear memory. Everything seems.. broken up." Her face screwed up in concentration, she continued: "I remember going to a small nightclub with one of my co-workers. There was a singer there who's been drawing in crowds... amazing voice. I met her manager, an older man – maybe thirty.

"There was something off about both of them. I've.. I mean, I have always had kind of an instinct about people. My mom called it a strong empathy." She laughed a little derisively. "Lot of good it did. I think something weird happened. I... don't remember what..."

She looked up at him then, an earnest need in her eyes.

"Why would someone change another person into a vampire, and then just leave them?"

Damon normally found pleasure in teasing people who asked him questions with such an innocent expression. In this case, however, a part of his mind had been rolling this situation around in his mind. He needed a distraction, something to help him forget Elena and Stefan and cute little Bonnie and stern, proud Meredith and the annoying blonde Matt. If he was going to be saddled with companionship, he wanted someone who could be more like him. A brand new vampire, still fresh and ready to be taught. It didn't hurt that she was cute.

He met her eyes, noting that they were a soft dove gray when not lit with a vampire's light.

"Honestly? I'm not sure." He put his hands in the pocket of his leather jacket and shifted his weight to his right hip, the picture of relaxation. "Mine left because she hadn't expected me to become a vampire. Maybe that happened in your case."

Sharpness entered her expression then. Something she could work with – this apparently appealed to her.

"You were inadvertently changed? And left alone?"

"Not technically." Damon grinned derisively. "I woke up with my little brother. She couldn't choose between us, so shared blood with both of us. We ended up 'accidentally' killing each other, and became vampires. You see... you need to die to become undead."

Her hand went to her chest. Over her heart.

"When I woke up, there was blood around a hole in my nightgown, over a hole in my chest. It was like I was stabbed in the heart."

"If someone knew you were changing into a vampire, even if you didn't know it.. they could have tried to kill you before you finished." He turned on his heel and paced around the deer's body, examining her handiwork yet again. "But even if they knew the signs of a changing vampire, they did an awful job of stopping the process. They would have needed to leave the stake in your chest and then cut off your head. Preferably," he looked up at her, a smirk playing at the edge of his mouth. "Preferably, they would have burned your body and scattered your ashes."

"In running water, right?"

"Something like that."

"But you don't remember the last week, which would have been the time leading up to and following your change. It takes about three days to change you, a night dead..."

"Which would have left the last two nights, wherein I almost got burned up by the sun, then attacked a dog and a..." she sighed, rubbing her eyes.

"I don't know why you're so upset. When I found you using my amazing vampire mind powers, I caught a portion of your thoughts – he wanted to die." Her expression went from incredulous at the mention of amazing mind powers to angry.

"That doesn't mean I should have killed him."

Mercy killing, he thought at her. She made a noise of disgust, and his mind was filled with a sudden string of curse words. Don't shout so loudly. You'll give me a headache.

Aloud, he pointed out, "You seem to have caught onto telepathy with surprising speed. However, you don't seem to be able to be quiet when killing a deer, You also apparently don't know that a lapis lazuli adornment can protect you from the sunlight."

"Lapis..?"

He showed her his heavy silver ring by holding his hand up, back facing her. She squinted at it, glanced at him surreptitiously, then took a step closer in order to examine it. He dropped his hand after she'd looked at it for what he felt was long enough, then caught her right hand with his left. She gasped and stepped back, but didn't try to fight his iron grip.

"I'll get you one. It doesn't have to be a ring. Is there a jeweler around here?"

That look of caution entered her gaze again.

"Listen..." Damon changed his grip, holding her hand more gently. His thumb slid across her palm. He felt her shiver. "I'll be honest. By modern standards, I'm a bad man. I take what I need without being apologetic about it. I take what I want without apology. I revel in what I am instead of being afraid or ashamed of it. One thing I do not agree with is allowing a new vampire to fend for themselves alone. You'll remember what happened eventually – it's likely the last week has been traumatic enough to cause you to block it out.

"Although I am a bad man," he purred, "I am willing to help you learn to live. I can even teach you how to feed on what you need – human blood, and don't give me that disgusted look. You're upset about your need to drink it, but you know it tastes good. You probably started to throw up the deer blood because it's not what you need."

Damon pulled her against him. He held her gently, not pressing her to himself, rather laying his right hand on her lower back and holding her left, as if he would begin waltzing with her. She stood frozen in his grasp, a rabbit in the headlights. His lips brushed her ear as he whispered to her, "All I ask is that you stop hating what you are, and put up with me until I feel you're ready to be on your own. What do you say, kid?"

She had started shaking. There was something more than fear underlying it. Warmth from the deer's blood in her veins radiated against him. She sucked in a slow, unneeded breath – human habits like breathing never really left you, which was preferable as it helped to blend in.

"Cadence." Though her body trembled, her voice was quietly firm. "I... please call me Cadence. You're... I can feel how amused you are. But.. you also feel genuine." She laughed, shaky this time. "I can't promise to start loving this new life.. but I can agree to those terms. Now.. please, um.. let me go. This is kind of...."

"Intimate?" Damon smiled his lightning smile. Her eyes shone silver briefly as she finally started to pull away.

"Awkward."

The half-truth hung in the air between them as he smiled at her with sultry confidence. She had the roiling energy of a woman who tried too hard to keep herself in check. It wasn't surprising that a vampire had been able to seduce her – Damon surmised that she lived a rather by-the-books life, and something in her had called to whomever had changed her.

---

Over the next three days, he learned that he was almost entirely correct.

He had taken her to his hotel room to clean up. He took her measurements as she protested, then shut her in the bathroom the next morning and went out to find her clothing and a lapis lazuli ring. When he returned, she had nearly fainted from the expensive brand names on the boxes of clothing.

She had elected to wear the soft cashmere turtleneck and a plain black sheath skirt, and a pair of simple soft black boots. She complained about the lack of color, then rolled her eyes when he expressed his disappointment that she chose not to wear the corset and leather pants he had brought her.

She had stared at the lapis lazuli ring for an extended period of time while he gave her a short and highly edited version of his life story leading up to the events in Fell's Church, in exchange for more information about her. She slid the ring onto her right middle finger when it was her turn to talk, eyes still on the delicate petals of the rose made of lapis lazuli.

She had grown up in a middle-income family, but as the only child, had gotten anything she needed or wanted. She had A's and B's in school, never really got into any serious trouble, though she had tried drinking once. She didn't like it. A fairly clean record overall.

"I was an undergraduate majoring in music – I played the violin. When my mother died a year ago, though, I stopped. I quite college and stopped playing the violin." She stopped talking and looked at the ceiling of his hotel room. He lounged on his bed and she sat in one of the two overstuffed chairs near the window. He could see her throat work as she swallowed. As she continued, her voice was a little shaky and her eyes bright. "I... I don't know. It all felt... fake, somehow. I had been doing it for her – she loved to hear me play. I didn't want to keep doing it anymore.

"So I quit, and I moved here – home is up north, in Seattle. Faye, my best friend, had come down here to help take over their family business – her grandmother is a florist, and Faye's mother is taking over the shop. So I agreed to work there and rent a place with Faye. And I've been here for a year now. Faye is still in college down here, so I don't see her when I'm at work. I went to the club with Jilly, my co-worker. A week ago, we went to the club, I met the manager of the woman singing there, and then... jumbles."

She had nothing else to share, and didn't expand upon her mother's death, or why she hadn't stayed with her father and family up north.

When they checked the news, Damon was correct in his suspicion that they would have a missing person report. They did. Damon noted with interest that the reporter hadn't gotten much out of Cadence's father – a wiry, tired-looking man. He said something to the effect of "They'll find her, I'm sure of that. She probably just had a another breakdown." He learned from there that her full name was Cadence Fairchild.

Cadence had turned off the television after the news story about the "old homeless man attacked by a local dog" which had "been put down" by a local man who happened to stumble upon the scene. Damon would not confirm or deny involvement in the miraculous explanation of the death of both the dog and the old man to the general public.

"What do you want to do now?" Damon asked, leaning languidly against a large pile of down pillows. He lay with one knee up, his pressed black dress shirt unbuttoned, showing a line of smooth, pale flesh down to the waistband of his snug jeans. "You're a missing person. Did you want to leave it that way?"

After a stretch, Cadence shook her head.

"Not yet.. not like this, at least. Faye and Jilly may know more about what's happened. If we can get in touch with them without the local TV station catching wind of it, I'd like to do so."

"Did you want to call her?"

"No." Cadence stood up, pacing around the large hotel room. It wasn't a big enough town to have a five-star hotel, but the accommodations were decent enough for Damon's taste. She passed the foot of the bed, Damon's black eyes examining how the sleeveless turtleneck and straight skirt elongated her silhouette. The cut of the skirt and shirt managed to reveal the few curves she had – a little roundness to the rear and nice enough breasts. Not a bombshell, but he could appreciate it.

She stopped pacing as she passed by again, and gave him a quizzical look when she noticed he was staring, then shook her head.

"No, I can just go the apartment. I don't have my key – if the news report is accurate I didn't even take my purse when I left, and my keys are with Faye. I can wait for her to let me in." She toyed nervously with her new ring, then looked at Damon again. "I want to tell her. She's a sort of... eccentric spiritualist. I think she would understand. And if not..."

"If not, I can erase her memory of the conversation and you can leave town with me," Damon finished for her. He rolled off the bed and stood, making a cumbersome movement somehow elegant. "For now, let's find you a meal."

Damon led her to the hotel lobby. She had braided her long, straight hair and pinned it up on top of her head and wore a dark brown wig and a pair of fake glasses as a temporary disguise. He thought she looked better with her natural color, a light almond brown. It went better with her medium tone and pale, nearly invisible freckles.

Damon scanned the small groups of people loitering in the lobby, and decided against anyone there. He led her out into the night air.

"I'm not going to teach you any big tricks right now. I'm just going to find someone I can easily lull into a trance, and show you how to feed without killing. We'll get into the mind games later."

"Joy."

Eventually they found a pair of babbling teens sitting at a bus stop. They looked to be between eighteen and nineteen. They stopped chatting as Damon approached them. He had left his shirt unbuttoned, and smiled at them confidently. Cadence watched from her perch on the hood of Damon's car a block away, disgusted and yet fascinated by how easily he won the trust of the two unassuming teens.

After a few minutes of bantering, Damon had convinced the two girls to come for a ride in his Porsche. As they approached, she heard one of them ask Damon if the pretty lady was his girlfriend. He grinned at her reassuringly and insisted that no no, she was just a friend.

Mere minutes later, the girls were sitting quietly in Damon's car, expressions blank. One sat in the front with Damon and the other sat in the back next to Cadence. Damon had Cadence drink a small amount from one of the girls, then from the other.

"It's barely enough to make them feel strangely. The bite marks will even fade quickly, and if you tell them not to notice they have them, they won't."

After a few more feeding and basic mind-control pointers, Damon left the girls at the bus stop just in time for their bus.

They drove back to the hotel parking lot. As they walked through the hotel lot, Cadence looked up a the thin sliver of moon above.

"I still feel kind of grossed out by drinking blood," she murmured. "I have to admit though, it tasted a lot better than deer."

"You'll get over it."

They remained silent as they passed through the lobby, then entered the elevator. She looked at him again, noticed the faint rainbows in his hair for the first time. Like a crow's wing. She turned her gaze back to the elevator door, the brushed steel spotless in the dim elevator lighting. Musak hummed from the radio.

"Damon... why do you think he wanted to die?" she asked softly. He glanced over at her. She was looking sadly at some imaginary spot on the elevator door, eyes behind the costume glasses sad. He thought for a moment of giving her a sarcastic or patronizingly placating answer, but decided against it.

"I don't honestly know. I can speculate that if he was homeless and miserable, his life as he lived it didn't go well. It could have been his own fault. It could have been through someone else's actions." He turned his attention to the lighted display at the top of the door, counting up to the fifth floor. The elevator stopped and the doors slid open. Damon and Cadence disembarked as a couple slipped on, giggling drunkenly, wrapped in each other's arms.

As they took a left and walked to the end of the hallway where Damon's room was, he continued softly: "By society's standards, killing him was wrong. You feel guilty and from what I can tell, you'll always regret what you did, even though you couldn't have stopped yourself – no vampire fledgling without their master vampire present could have; even having at least another, stronger vampire available to stop them would be just barely sufficient. However..." He unlocked the door and pushed it in, waving with a flourish for her to enter first. He followed, shutting and locking the door. "... you can always remember that in the moment that he died, you were giving him the one thing he desired most."

Cadence turned to look at him. She stood in the middle of the room as he lounged against the closed door, eyes half-closed. He didn't bother to switch on the light – the lamplight pouring in through the window was more light than either pair of vampiric eyes required. She stood in the pool of lamplight, a halo around her form.

"I can't tell for certain if you mean that or not," Cadence whispered. He shrugged.

"I mean it. I'm a bad man, but that doesn't mean I don't understand why you'd be upset." He pushed himself away from the door and stalked toward her slowly. "My little brother doesn't kill people. I have. I don't mind doing it. I refrain from doing it not so much of out guilt or a desire to spare lives – I don't kill them in order to not leave a trail behind me. However..." He stopped two feet from her. He reached up and plucked the glasses from her face, then gently tugged the wig off of her head. He tossed them on the dresser that sat opposite the bed. "I know you're not like me. If understanding that he truly wanted to die assuages your guilt, then hold onto that thought. The only thing I don't want you doing is dwelling on it and beating yourself up over it."

She stood still as he pulled the pins out of her hair. The braid loosened as it fell down her back.

"I'm a bad man, but that doesn't mean..." he ran his fingers through her hair, shaking it out of its braid. The braid had caused it form small crimps. ".. that you need to be a bad.. girl." A breathed the word against her ear as he leaned forward to run his left hand through her hair. It was long, to her mid-back; soft and silky, though it may not have been before her change. It fanned out into soft waves.

Cadence held very still. The taste of blood still clung to her red lips. She licked them, still remembering the strange metallic sweetness.

His lips closed on her earlobe. Pierced twice – he could feel the slight indentations where the piercings were.

She jerked away as if he had touched her with a live wire. Not yet used to her speed and power, she tumbled over the bed and ended seated awkwardly with her back against the wall near the window sill. Her eyes shone silver. He grinned at her lazily.

Cadence slid to her feet, using the wall for support. She was flushed, stolen blood rising in her cheeks. He chuckled softly as she shook herself, then wobbled over to the stack of boxes and bags on the second overstuffed wingback. She riffled through them, back tense as she faced away from him.

"Looking for something?" he purred, kicking off his boots and stripping off his shirt. Grinning to himself, he watched her freeze, somehow tensing further as he unzipped his jeans – then walked over to the dresser, opened a top drawer and snagged a pair of black sillk pajama bottoms. "I'll change in the bathroom,"

"I'm looking for... what the hell?!"

She turned sharply to glower at him incredulously. She held in one hand a silky red negligee. His grinned widened.

"You look like a damned cheshire..."

"You said you wanted a spot of color in your wardrobe."

He closed the bathroom door just as the negligee hit it.

He laughed aloud as she stripped off the jeans and slipped on the pajama bottoms. He waited a few minutes, then walked back out, still chuckling. When he caught sight of her, he stopped chuckling, grin slipping a little.

She stood by the window, face and body pensive. She wore a floor-length dove-gray Victorian-style nightgown with silk accents at the throat and wrists of the long sleeves. It was at the opposite end of the spectrum from the revealing nightie, yet was somehow more alluring than the babydoll would have been.

The previous two days, Damon had broken into the room next door; tonight however, it was occupied. The motel was full.

After an awkward silence, Damon unceremoniously flipped up the bedcovers on his preferred side of the bed and crawled in.

"I apologize for teasing you earlier," he said in a still-teasing tone. "I promise not to molest you in your sleep. I'm not sleeping on the floor, and neither are you. It's a king-sized bed, plenty of room for both of us. Get in." He thought he sounded convincing enough, even if he wasn't entirely sure if he would keep the promise.

He got comfortable and lay silently. He could hear her pacing and rustling about, agitated. Then the covers lifted and he felt her weight come to rest on the bed.

"Goodnight, Cadence."

"...."

As Damon drifted into a content slumber, he heard her voice finally respond. It had the lilt of someone smiling.

"Goodnight, Damon."