Author's note: Originally this was intended to be a longer story, but I've realized that my schedule just isn't allowing time to work on this to update it with the frequency it really deserves. So, unless something really changes, there will be one chapter after this one – and perhaps a short epilogue.

I was trying to get this up for the 319 anniversary - didn't quite make it, sorry.

Warnings: Mature – violence, adult content, alcohol, Stefan, Bonnie, Caroline, short chapter

Damon stormed through the front door and into the living room, dropping his leather jacket on the arm of a side chair. He needed a drink. He needed a shower. He needed some idea of where on earth to find Elena. He didn't really care what order he took care of each. Stefan and Caroline spoke in low conversation tones from somewhere else in the house. Damon halfway considered picking up his jacket and leaving again. He needed to be alone right now.

If this had been six months earlier, he would have called Alaric to meet him at The Grill after a night like this. If Alaric had been here, though, Elena wouldn't be out there.

Hell, his life had gone from heaven to really effed up in less time than it took for Caroline to go through boyfriends. As feminine laughter echoed down the hallway, he paused. Stefan chuckled in return. God, his brother was flirting – with Caroline. Maybe he was wrong about the boyfriend thing.

Maybe Stefan really was ready to move on from Elena. Just his luck, he'd finally be able to sleep with Elena without knowing his brother was brooding a wall away…and he didn't have a clue where she was and even if he did, she wasn't exactly ready to slide into his sheets right now.

But she probably was sliding into sheets somewhere. Hell, he remembered those days. As much as they sometimes filled him with a twinge of regret, life was just easier back then. He chuckled at the irony. Back when he didn't feel anything, he lived for the pleasure of the moment. That's what Elena was like now, and the thought made his stomach turn.

He walked to the sideboard opposite the fireplace. He pushed one decanter aside after another. Tonight called for the good stuff.

"Damon? Are you back?" Caroline's voice rose with a questioning lilt.

Who did she think was pawing through the liquor cabinet? Really big mice? Tonight called for a lot of the good stuff.

He found the bottle he was looking for and reached for a tumbler. Shaking his head, he changed his mind. He tipped the bottle up, and the amber liquid poured smooth and sweetly through his lips, leaving a familiar, desired burn in its wake.

"Things went that well, hmmm." Stefan was lucky his hands were full or he'd be tempted to wipe that smirk right off his face.

He stopped drinking and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "Just peachy." He flashed the smile his brother hated and returned to his drinking.

Stefan rocked onto the balls of his feet and looked around the room, searching for her.

Damon fought the urge to roll his eyes. As if he'd be here drinking bourbon straight from the bottle if he'd been successful in his search over the last week.

"Couldn't catch her?" There was that smug smile again.

"Nope."

"She's covering her tracks pretty well. No signs of her attacks in the paper."

Damon stopped drinking mid-gulp. No signs of her attacks? "Exactly what are you trying to say?"

"I've been reading the papers, keeping track of the news online. No wild animal attacks or new serial killers out there."

"Of course not."

"What Stefan's trying to say…." Damon cut Caroline off with a glare. This wasn't the time for Vampire Barbie to enter the conversation.

Damon thudded the bottle back on the sideboard hard enough the rest of the glass tinkled a warning to move away. "I know what he's trying to say." Damon approached Stefan with the stealth of a hunting jaguar. "I just don't understand why he's saying it." He stood a breath away from his brother. "Her humanity's off. That doesn't make her a ripper."

"Are you so sure about that?"

"Yeah." Damon leveled his eyes with Stefan. His brother might have a few inches on him in height, but he had several degrees of threatening that actually made Stefan waffle back a step. "She's no ripper."

"We can't be sure of that. That's why we have to find her."

"Because that's how you would have acted…." Damon advanced again on his brother.

"I know what it's like without your humanity." The furrow in Stefan's brow threatened to split his skull in half.

"We all do." Damon turned to face Caroline, shaking his head. "Present company excepted." He rounded back on Stefan. "But that doesn't mean we all turn into you." Damon paused, a loaded pause, purposefully waiting to watch his brother cringe. "Because that's it, really. Everything has to come back to you?"

He waited again.

"We have to find her now because you're afraid she'll turn into you."

"We had to turn off her emotions because you couldn't handle watching her in pain."

"We were looking for the goddamn cure because you needed to fix her in the first place."

Damon spat the accusations at Stefan like artillery fire. "She could handle being a vampire. She was adjusting. She was even having fun." A memory surfaced. Elena was dressed as one of Jack the Ripper's victims. A trail of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth, accenting the smile as she leapt into Damon's arms.

And he knew where she was.

He turned his back on Stefan and Caroline and reached for his jacket.

"Where are you going?" Stefan caught his wrist, and Damon shrugged out of his hold, the look in his eyes threatening enough that Stefan didn't fight.

"Somewhere you're not."

The man on the porch could have been an extra from a Star Wars film who'd gotten lost a few decades ago. Wearing loose fitting clothing with an ebony-black cloak, Bonnie almost slammed the door in his face. Almost. If she'd been able to slam the door, she would have, but the door stopped about an inch before it closed completely. No matter how hard she tried, it wouldn't seal.

And then it pushed itself open, taking her with it.

The hooded figure simply stood on the porch, doing a great Obi-Wan Kenobi impression.

Bonnie began to run backwards, but froze just like her door. She was pulled to the doorway, and her hand motioned of its own accord, beckoning the stranger inside. This was when she should probably scream. She should be shouting fire, help, UFO – anything that would draw the neighbors' attention, the words simply wouldn't come.

The cloaked figure moved slowly, steadily, stealthily through the doorway – not quite gliding but not really walking either. She honestly wasn't sure if he was really here.

And then the smell hit her. A mixture of mold and earthy dampness, it reminded her of the deepest corners of Grams' basement. The aura radiating off the man was just as frightening as the contents of the glass jars on the basement shelves.

This man was dangerous.

This man was powerful.

This man was the one they'd tried to prevent rising.

"Silas?" She was almost too frightened to say his name. His head turned ever-so-slightly in acknowledgement.

"You are one of the ones I need." His voice grated on her nerves like nails skimming across a chalkboard. Paper thin and raspy from disuse, his words were halting. Although his face was hidden in shadow, she could see that his lips weren't moving quite in time with his voice, as if they'd forgotten how to form words.

He extended his hand to her, she shrank back, not wanting the yellowed nails anywhere near her. As the cloak fell away from his arm, she caught the first glimpse of his skin. Blue-purple veins shone through almost transparent skin. Skin so wrinkled it looked more like a sheet that had been washed but crammed in a drawer before it was allowed to dry.

That would explain the smell.

The door slammed behind him, shaking the windows in their frames.

"Where is the other?" This time his lips didn't even move. He wasn't even trying to pretend the words were anywhere other than her mind.

"The other?" Now her voice worked.

He turned and waited. His body language saying she already knew the answer. "She should be here. They're destined to come here."

She and they? Who would he be talking about? And then it hit her. "You're looking for Elena."

"The doppleganger. I must have her." He lowered his hood, and Bonnie found herself looking into dead eyes. He might be walking, breathing, but the person standing in the room with her wasn't totally alive – not yet.

"The doppleganger. Of course you need her." What else was new?

Damon parked his car beneath the overhang of a sprawling oak tree. It was the only vacant spot he'd been able to find during the five minutes he'd just spent circling the fraternity house. He was one pass of the building short of compelling someone to come out and move their car when he spotted the parking spot on the edge of the campus. Someone must have decided midnight was their bedtime.

The bass from a song Damon didn't recognize pulsed from the house and the ground under his feet hummed along. These kids wouldn't know good music if it smacked them in the ass.

He squared his shoulders, eyeing the building. He wasn't here for the party – just one of the participants.

Co-eds in various states of inebriation lined the sidewalk and filled the front porch. Damon was reminded of the last time he'd walked up the stairs. His arm felt empty without her hand on it.

Just like the last time, no one even thought to question what he was doing there. These guys made it so easy. If he'd been hungry, he would have had a gourmet meal, but that wasn't the kind of hunger filling him right now. Now he needed to find her – to know where she was – just to see her again.

Leaving her with Stefan and Caroline had been a mistake. Just one on the ever-growing list of late.

Compelling her to turn off her emotions.

Not taking advantage of every second her eyes pleaded with him to make love to her, to hell with the sire bond.

Making her think for an instant that she ever needed the damn cure in the first place.

Ever since she'd said she loved him, he'd felt off balance. His world was spinning on its side. Because she was his world…and he never thought she'd really be his.

"This won't hurt." Smooth as melted chocolate, the voice cut through all the laughter and drunken chatter. She was here.

He snaked through the crowd. If she caught a glimpse of him, he didn't want her to run. He still hadn't completely decided what he was going to say when he found her.

"What are you doing here?"

She took care of the problem for him.

Thanks for reading! Reviews make my fingers type faster...or at least that's the general idea. I'm hoping to get the next chapter up on Wednesday or Thursday, since we don't really have a "real" TVD episode then.