DAY 54: GREENHOUSE (FOURTH SHIFT)
By the end of lunch, Alaric was still hungry and still stuck on the middle of a perfectly balanced scale, the only difference with the scale having a new, possibly unrelated third option: it was either some sort of conspiracy (obviously of the supernatural sort), he was actually crazy, or he’d just had the very bad luck of being kidnapped by
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"Damon? What the hell are you doing here?" Scratch that. It took the second immediately after saying that to realize that was a stupid question. A more appropriate question would have been Why did they waste the time on me when they already had you? but he would have hated to give Damon an inflated ego, though he was probably thinking the same thing... if he had any idea what was going on. Chances were that he did, considering the extent of Alaric's current bed of knowledge involved knowing there was tear gas in any passing soldier's arsenal and - well, that was about it.
Of course, before he could unleash a torrential downpour of questions that Damon was probably going to either not answer or be completely vague with, Alaric noticed the wound on the vampire's neck. Three things immediately went through his mind:
1) There was a wound on a vampire.
2) Said wound looked startlingly like a bite mark.
3) There may have been some irony there to appreciate.
And - okay, Damon was a dick, but the sight still made Alaric feel cold. What had happened last night? Had Damon actually listened to him, or had he gone after Jules? Self-consciously touching his own neck, his face turned hard. He didn't even care about the vervain at this point; he wasn't surprised it wasn't around, anyway. "Your - did you go after Jules? Is that what that's from?" Aside from that, Damon didn't really look any the worse for wear... besides, there was always a chance the werewolves had made the thing about the bites being lethal up, just like the silver weakness. He wouldn't have blamed them for it.
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But that wasn't what he was asking after.
Damon frowned. It wasn't often he allowed genuine confusion to show, but look, he figured Alaric's current brand of weird warranted it. "What? What're you going on about, who the hell's Jules?"
He'd been prepared for the amnesia. Complete nonsense? A whole other game. And it rang way too close to what had happened to Elena earlier. Alaric had to have arrived in the middle of the day, morning at the earliest (though Damon was sure he would've spotted him on the open field, so that was unlikely), but that didn't mean there hadn't been time to screw with his head.
Awesome. Well, it was either that or Rick had gone senile.
You know what, he was getting tired of this. Actually, scratch it, he'd gotten tired of it from the second he'd gotten here. But he was also tired of having things-people-on his mind because he'd spent a very long time thinking about not much else other than himself, and now suddenly he was wondering what the hell was up with Elena and if she was okay, and whether or not Stefan had snapped and lunged at someone yet because that would be bad for everyone involved. This sort of wondering was not the kind of thing he did. At all.
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Crossing his arms, the teacher leaned against the shelves that formed the rows of plants lined down the length of the greenhouse, orchid leaves shuffling as they settled into position alongside his arms. Who the hell's Jules? There was a stupid little part of him that, of all the things to happen, was annoyed that the one guy he could count on didn't even remember the woman he'd dragged Alaric into bothering. Er. Threatening. Technical term. "You don't remember Jules?" Okay. Stupid question again. "The -" he looked around, his voice becoming softer, "the werewolf, the one who marked you? That was only last night."
Well, the most that answered for him was that the bite wasn't from Jules, which was the one relatively good item of news he had heard so far today. Maybe it could only keep going uphill from here. But if a werewolf hadn't made it, why was it still there?
"What's it from, then? Why hasn't it healed already?"
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What the hell was going on. Alaric knew werewolves weren't real. Why was he bringing them up? And what was his obsession with this Jules chick? The only explanation was that yes, someone had gotten into Alaric's head-a problematic thought-but even that didn't feel right. This was different, he could tell. Isobel hadn't been mentioned, for one. And now that he thought about it, Rick had zeroed in on that bite mark like it'd been important. Why would he care? Fine, it should've healed instantly, but he hadn't even seemed to consider its unhealed state odd until after.
Damon gestured for Rick to stop talking before a black hole erupted from the sheer amount of lack of sense that was happening. "Okay, a) werewolves do not exist outside of bedtime stories; b) even if they did, I wouldn't have run into one last night because, inconveniently, I can't be in two places at once; and c) long story, text me later." He shook his head. "Where are you getting this from? Last time I saw you, we had our hands full with vampires all over the square."
And then John had helpfully dumped him in a basement and set it on fire, so Damon hadn't seen Rick after that, though given that all of the tomb vamps had been inside said basement, he figured the teacher had just gathered up his stakes and then ended up not having to do much with them. All in all, a better night than Damon had had.
Anyway, that had been, what. Days ago? He knew he wasn't exactly on Alaric's Christmas mailing list, but he was pretty sure the three of them going missing warranted an inquiring text message or two.
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For one thing, he'd been coated in vervain last night. Literally. Call it paranoia, but since the whole Isobel thing - and especially since the first time Damon had tried to compel him - he'd been carrying the herb with him everywhere. Sewed into jackets, tucked into pockets, wherever he could stash it without it being jacked off of him easily.
So in conclusion... Klaus? Elijah? Another Original? Obviously this was bigger than Katherine, because if she'd been able to compel someone like Damon, she probably would've spent less time screwing around by pretending to be Elena. It had to be vampires, though. Werewolves just didn't have the capacity to do this. Because, yeah, he was toying with the idea that Damon had been compelled somehow. By why screw with his memories? Why that amount of time?
Sighing, the teacher rubbed his face with his hands. "Founder's Day was almost a month ago."
... oh, Christ. Oh, Christ. Did that mean Damon had forgotten about Katherine? There was no way in hell he was dropping that bombshell now until he could get some idea of what Damon did know.
"You don't remember anything - the sun and moon curse? The Lockwoods? None of that rings a bell?"
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Damon scoffed. "That's impossible-"
Wait, was Rick trying to tell him that the Lockwoods were werewolves? No way. They were something, something unnatural, but werewolves? If werewolves existed, they couldn't have stayed hidden. He'd been around a long time. He would've seen one. Heard it through the grapevine at the very least. Ergo, not a possibility. Not unless they were borderline extinct or something.
And a month ago. Was Rick implying that his memory was off?
No. No, that was absurd. Elena was one thing. She was human. He wasn't. He didn't care how much they killed his preternatural abilities, compulsion was a whole other ballgame altogether. You couldn't compel a vampire. It was as simple as that. Dream manipulation was different. Screwing with someone's memories so they believed it was all theirs wasn't as easy. Witchcraft? Even Emily hadn't been that powerful.
But he couldn't shake the thought. Not now, when he'd been reduced to as good as human. Minus the remaining desire to tear open the nearest vein. Then there was Stefan, obviously. His brother's memories had been shorted a few hours, too. The mere prospect of admitting that the sure ground he'd walked on for 150-plus years was suddenly not there was...less than ideal. Violently so. But ignoring the piling evidence would make him an idiot.
Elena. Rick's question went ignored as his mind backtracked. He leaned against the ledge, specks of dirt and condensation beneath his palm. He raised his eyes to the ceiling. Shit. He hadn't even asked the question yet, and he already knew he wouldn't like the answer.
He leveled a steady look at Alaric. "Something happened to Elena last night, she's been getting these flashbacks. She saw Katherine at her house attacking John Gilbert."
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Despite not being a math teacher, Damon's mention of Elena had led Alaric to one of the basics: one plus one always equaled three. If Damon and Elena were here, there was no way Stefan wasn't. It was like the holy jackpot trinity. Who else, then? Caroline? Tyler? Kids like Jeremy, who shouldn't even be involved with this kind of crap? He wasn't surprised that Elena was the one Damon brought up first, but that didn't necessarily mean half of the population of Mystic Falls wasn't stuck in here with them.
Because that's what he was assuming. They were stuck. And something - someone, maybe - was stopping someone like Damon from getting out.
He was going to be patient because that's what the situation called for. Even if he didn't want to exactly recall the last month, it wasn't Damon's fault if he'd been compelled or something. He couldn't even hold the vervain to try to stop it. (Would that even work? Wish there was a way to test it.) "Also a month ago," he said, catching Damon's gaze and then jerking his eyes away.
No vervain. Call him paranoid, even if he mostly trusted Damon not to kill him or pry information out of him. The latter was more because he'd already been squeezed for everything on Isobel. The former was pure dumb hope.
"The end of Founder's Day. She tried to kill him - or it was her way of sending a message." He figured shoving a knife in his stomach was meant to do both. She'd done the same to Jenna, after all.
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So Elena had been right. When she said it felt like a memory. It was a memory. Unless Rick had been given the same ones before popping up here, but he knew that he'd be deluding himself if he believed that. The truth tended to be the option that sucked the most.
Katherine was back. Why the hell would she return? Because it wasn't for him. She hadn't cared for a hundred and forty-five years (had she even cared before that?), he would be stupid to think that she would bother to give a shit now. Elena, then? Had to be. If she'd gone after John to send a message, then it could only mean she'd come for Elena, and Elena led to...
Stefan.
No. This was Katherine, it was impossible to say what she had in mind. He didn't know. For the first time, he had no idea what to think, and here Alaric was, standing there telling him that Katherine had been back for an entire goddamn month. Katherine, back. After all these years. Just. Why now? He felt a sudden irrational need to see her so he could-do what? Kiss her and then rip the bitch's heart out for good, maybe. (Ask her if she ever loved him.) Fuck, he couldn't even remember any of this. Katherine, John, the Lockwoods, not a second of it, though it'd apparently happened and he had no reason to believe that Rick was lying to him. The man had the lying skills of a ten year old caught stealing the last cookie. Besides, he was well aware that the ring was only effective when it stayed on his finger and that rings were notoriously easy to pull off. He wouldn't lie. Not to Damon.
No one had gotten inside his head before. It just didn't happen. Ever. Until now. His and Stefan's both.
His eyes had narrowed while he weighed his thoughts, though he hadn't moved otherwise. At a passing glance, he was still leaning as casually as ever. He hadn't missed the way Rick wouldn't look him in the eyes. Of course. Rick couldn't know. And Damon was in no mood to give him the newsflash.
The hanging silence was undoubtedly making the teacher nervous. Uncomfortable, at least. Damon didn't rush to fill it. He plucked a flower off the orchid plant, a deliberately idle movement. "Yeah, well, that's Katherine for you. She was never one for postcards." Tried to kill. Sounded like John made it out breathing. How unfortunate. Questions about Katherine were on the tip of his tongue, but he abandoned them at the last second for reasons he didn't care to dwell on, asking instead, "That sun and moon curse you were going on about earlier. What is that?"
Something to do with vampires and werewolves, clearly, but some details would be nice.
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"I would try to avoid the cliché, but," there was a pointed look aimed somewhere at the orchid, "you're going to want to sit down for this." Indicating one of the unoccupied benches pushed off to the side, Alaric situated himself close to one of the glass walls, waiting for the vampire to follow. It was no Mystic Grill - and what he wouldn't give for a drink or four right now - but it made him feel a little better, a little safer than standing in the middle of a row of flowers.
Once seated, there were a few seconds of silence for him to organize everything in his head. "I guess a good place to start is by telling you that Mayor Lockwood was a werewolf." Well, that had to be the best segway he'd ever had. "We found out about the curse trying to figure what he'd been." Should he go into detail? Damon didn't seem to know anything about the month, so maybe it would help jog his memory. Even though he knew compulsion didn't work like that. "I went through Isobel's research from her days at Duke. She'd been investigating the sun and moon curse, which is basically this: 600 years ago, an Aztec shaman cursed both vampires and werewolves, making the former a servant to the sun and the latter servant to the moon.
They can't control the transformations, by the way," he added, this time looking Damon in the eye. The chance was necessary because he needed to figure out how Damon was going to react to all this crap coming at him at once. Not to mention, there were probably more than a few things he should keep mum about for now. "Thus the curse. I asked about your... whatever because part of the legend is that werewolf bites are fatal to vampires." Thus the concern, though Alaric could bet Damon wouldn't be taking that the same as he had when it'd actually happened.
Considering everything, the curse was actually the easiest thing to explain. the other crap that followed - like why Katherine had wanted to break the curse at all - was still clouded in a lot of mystery and intrigue that no body was really looking out to fill him in on. Part of the reason was that everyone was in the dark. Part was that Alaric was okay with avoiding meeting someone like Elijah for the rest of his life. Regular garden-variety vampires were bad enough. Thinking of someone being one of the firsts was kind of beyond his realm of belief.
Something popped into his head, something Damon had said that he'd barely acknowledged at first. Flashbacks was one important word. Another two being last night. First of all: why did he phrase it like "flashback"? Alaric didn't doubt that walking in on John bleeding all over the floor hadn't continued to bother her, but the phrasing still seemed to pick at his brain. "What were you doing with Elena at night? Don't they separate everyone?" Not that he was an expert with asylums, but it sure didn't seem kosher to just let males and females mingle late when they'd put so much effort into separating the blocks.
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He sat straddling the bench, watching the teacher with far more disinterest than he felt. Okay, Lockwood plus werewolf, he'd already done the math on that one five minutes ago. The curse was new. Predictable, but new. As was the fatal bite part. Were they supposed to believe some magical shiny legend? Rick sure seemed to think so-and Damon suspected he must've climbed on board eventually, too, or he wouldn't have been hunting, what was it, Jules? Whatever. Her. Where did she fit in? If she was a werewolf, then she'd probably come to look into the Lockwoods, no doubt seeking her own kind. It made sense, if werewolves were as rare as he was assuming. They had to be, to have slipped under the radar for this long. And since the mayor was dead, she obviously hadn't stuck around for him. Which left that Tyler kid.
Katherine blowing into town couldn't be a coincidence then. Katherine, who knew Isobel, who just so happened to have a convenient obsession with werewolves and their curses? No. The link was obvious. The only question was, why the interest? How did it all tie together?
Granted, while he was stuck here, it was a distant concern at best, wasn't it. Everyone he gave a damn about was here with him. Even if he'd prefer Mystic Falls not go up in carnage and flames where possible. It was still his town, thank you. Only he had the right to set it ablaze.
The amount of questions he was juggling at this point wasn't even worth putting a number to, but one thing stood out in particular. He studied Rick, contemplative, and decided he should answer Rick's question first. If the teacher was going to be stuck for awhile, he might as well be useful meaning he actually needed to know what was going on.
Damon gave a what's there to say shrug. "Once the lights go, you can do whatever you want. As long as you don't mind potentially being clawed to death. It's all very Jekyll and Hyde. And before you ask," he went on with mocking patience, "you're on your own if you wanna know why you're here. Though I'm pretty sure it has something to do with that gaudy ring on your finger and your penchant for keeping company with vampires."
They'd let Rick keep the ring. Damon had figured out by now that they didn't make a habit of this. Coupled with his dulled senses and healing, not to mention Elena's empty locket, he couldn't help thinking if that ring worked at all, chances were good it came with a catch. Hm. There was one way to test it out, of course.
Not that he would right this second or anything, okay. No need to look at him like that.
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The mention of his ring brought Alaric's eyes to it as it always did when someone noticed, his other hand now spinning it on his finger. If someone cared a damn about his ring, why hadn't they taken it when he'd been knocked out or compelled or whatever? It wasn't like the ring was his. Hell, he didn't even know who it'd originally belonged to, or who'd made it, or even how. There wasn't anything about him that made it work. The part about keeping company with vampires made more sense - but since at least one of them was here, why did it matter?
He didn't really care if the short bit of insight into the hospital's nighttime activities derailed his trip through memory lane for a minute. If being clawed to death was a threat, he kind of wanted to know, ring or not. He might not die permanently, but he wasn't ready to screw around for the sake of experimentation. Besides, it still hurt like hell when he did. Also - being clawed by what?
Had he gotten thrown into the one Jacob's Ladder of asylums?
Alaric wasn't too skilled at keeping the disbelief out of his voice, but he tried. "Are there cougars in the hallways or something?" Well, it was the first thing he'd thought of: Mystic Fall's vampire population's scapegoat of choice. Of course, that had kind of been a real threat if someone camped too deep in the woods and just had bad luck. He guessed wolves were a pretty real threat now, but he hadn't honestly been looking for that kind of attack when he'd first rolled into Mystic Falls.
"And just for the sake of clearing my assumptions," he added before Damon had the chance to answer, "I'm guessing Stefan's here too?"
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"Well, if you readjust your definition of cougar by a significant portion. I don't know what they are." From Damon, the admission sounded less like an admission and more like he'd just deemed the information not worth his time, though an edge of annoyance might've given him away. "Word has it they're cooking up Frankenstein pets somewhere."
And let them run loose at night, apparently. Once Stefan finally managed to feed and could get back to playing Elena's white knight, Damon could go look for a weapon or two. Too bad Rick hadn't come attached with his arsenal. He'd been useful for that. Though if they dug up the right tools, he was sure the teacher could get back to playing MacGyver.
He leaned back on his hands. "Yup. You're the first to stroll in less-than-fashionably late."
Why had they waited? They managed to snatch him and Stefan. Alaric was an easy target by comparison. They probably hadn't needed him until now, he decided, which raised the question of what they needed any of them for in the first place, a question that Damon still didn't have an answer for. He supposed that was one upside to Rick being here. Stefan was usually distracted with Elena. Relying on his brother to do some detective work wasn't always going to work.
Rick, on the other hand, was conveniently unattached which made him a perfect choice to go investigate-and for a human, he wasn't bad at handling himself. The ring didn't hurt, either. True, Damon had no idea if it retained its resurrection trick or to what degree, but a fifty-fifty gamble was still a better bet than most people ever got.
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... Frankenstein pets. Right. Was this going to turn into a high school game of telephone? Unprovable rumors flying all over the place? He'd hoped to get away from the "word" once he left the school building.
"Okay," was all he said, letting the prior matter rest, turning the eagle of his ring to the table, clicking it against the wood, then turning it to face him again. Pushing for answers wasn't going to get him anywhere at this point, and it felt more like a waste of time than anything. He needed a second to just... think of everything. He was trapped in a psychiatric hospital with kids and vampires. So it was basically Mystic Falls with more walls and less freedom. He could deal with that. The threat of potential death wasn't out of his normal horizon, either. Just another day at -
- who were they going to get to teach his class? If the board got some substitute out of the pool, chances were they were going to get one of the homegrown sprouts, obsessed with local history and teaching it in favor of the more important battles and events that actually affected the world. Great. How'd they explain his absence? Sorry, kids. Your teacher was kidnapped by vampires. You've got a three page report due on the peace-keeping importance of the Council for when he gets returned if he doesn't come back in pieces. Not to mention the fact that two of his students were also missing. That... was not going to look good.
Great. He had liked his job, too.
Well, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Stefan barely attended, anyway. Alaric was the kind of teacher who usually took that personally, but he'd gotten over it once he figured you couldn't argue history with someone who's lived over a century.
He'd better get back to the point. God, there was some sort of black pit in his stomach that felt like he'd regret this. Even in the tight, controlled environment of the greenhouse was the constant pressure of soldiers. Unidentified, unadorned soldiers. Alaric felt like, somehow, they were all distinctly narrowing in on him, even if the talk in general was going to sound like nonsense to anyone else. Despite that, he kept his head low, trying his best to not look like an obvious conspirator. "Whatever else Katherine came to Mystic Falls for, part of it was to break the curse." It sure would have been nice if Katherine had decided to become a Batman villain and just spout her every motivation before everyone had decided to trap her in the tomb.
And wow, he couldn't wait to bring that up.
Even as he thought that, Alaric was ready to plow through the next part of his summation of the month, except another thought flit through his mind. "Wait a second. Stefan doesn't remember last month either?" That had to be the case - how could Damon have been so surprised about what he was saying? He guess it made sense, compelling the memories out of both of them... but that still didn't explain why he was untouched.
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Damon made a vague gesture with his hand. "I'll fill him in." He smiled a little. "Eventually."
Well, tomorrow, he supposed. Given Elena's episode earlier, this stuff was more immediately relevant than not. He doubted Rick wanted to repeat the Q&A with Stefan and anyway, Damon always did enjoy delivering certain...news. Besides, it would be nothing novel; he'd been connecting the dots for Stefan for as long as he could remember. His brother had always had a habit of being one step behind, even when they were young. Especially when they were young. Nothing ever changed.
-Wait, what was that about Katherine? Breaking the curse. Of all the reasons Damon had weighed for why Katherine was back, that'd been the first he'd dismissed.
"That makes no sense," he said. "Katherine's not bound by the curse. Why the hell would she even care?" If anything, he expected Katherine to be interested in keeping it from being broken. Werewolves running loose, all vampires having the advantage of walking in the sun-he couldn't imagine any reason why she'd want that.
There was another part of Rick's words that caught his attention, though. Whatever else. Of course. Two birds, one stone, Katherine would like that. She'd have been back mostly for the curse, but while she was there, she'd obviously have a few other things on her mind.
More to the point, what had they been doing about all of this? Stefan wouldn't have let her be a threat to Elena. Damon knew wouldn't have, either-but it didn't matter how much he speculated: fact was, he didn't remember a damn thing. What had happened with Katherine's return? He'd obviously done something within that month. Rick had to know about it. Katherine had targeted Elena, and Elena involved Jenna, who naturally involved Alaric. He wouldn't have stayed out of it. No, he knew. But he wasn't saying, even though one would think what Katherine was up to was important enough to spill by now.
Whatever was going on there with Katherine, Rick had obviously decided that Damon wouldn't like it. You know, it was always so much fun when people started tiptoeing around him.
He let his teeth scrape thoughtfully over his lower lip. "So how's the body count been with Katherine on the loose, anyway? I assume she hasn't been adopting kittens."
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Okay, he'd thought about the alternative already. Admittedly, he was afraid to consider it - to consider his memory was the fake one. But why make it so needlessly complicated? Wasn't it way easier to make someone forget than to plant something new? Can't say he knew the mechanics of compelling personally, and he didn't really want to know.
"Because she's breaking it for someone else," he answered Damon's first question, already combing through his mind in how he was going to explain an Original. Elijah and Klaus would be one of the harder subjects to swallow. "Another vampire. Klaus. One of the, uh... old ones. An original." He shrugged, signaling to hold off questions for a second. "Well, it's not really so much for him, I guess. It's a bargaining chip for her. She told Elena she wanted to break the curse so this Klaus would stop trying to hunt her down."
Despite the cheery nature of their conversation, Alaric couldn't really save himself from looking skeptically at Damon. "Does that include people you killed because of her?" Yeah, stupid move. He wasn't exactly pleased as punch about the whole Jeremy incident, though, and it was, more or less, still a warning. Not to mention Mason. He hadn't liked the guy by any means, but he still didn't like to believe the only option had been to kill him. "A few kids from the school. Caroline - but she came back. I mean. She's a vampire now. He shifted in his seat, sitting back on the bench and staring at the swirls of grain in the wood, though for this he looked up to Damon's face with raised eyebrows. "Look, Damon. I wouldn't mention Jeremy to Elena for now. He's one of the people you killed. Temporarily. He had John Gilbert's ring on at the time. And another guy, a werewolf named Mason. That's the reason Jules came to Mystic Falls."
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Excuse me?
He might've been willing to take what Rick was throwing out there at face value, he was even willing to discuss Katherine, but he was not about to entertain any delving into...complications. That was between him and Katherine-and Stefan. Alaric was treading on cracked ice by even going near it.
Damon leaned forward just a touch too far into the teacher's personal space. "I kill people because I can, Rick. I wouldn't think you of all people needed a refresher course."
He sat back, as if the sudden dip in atmosphere hadn't just happened. Jeremy. What was this about Jeremy? First of all, what the hell had Elena's little brother been doing with John's ring? Why would John give it to him? Parting gift, maybe. Rick hadn't said anything about John leaving town, but Damon wouldn't be surprised if he had. When Katherine decided she wanted your head, it was a good idea to pack up and move. Second of all-
"And I wouldn't kill Jeremy," he went on, unable to keep an edge of disbelief out of his words and yeah, okay, maybe he sounded a touch defensive, too, but he didn't appreciate being accused of killing people he couldn't remember killing. "The kid has as much relevance as a VH1 reject."
He was probably moping over having yet another dead vampire girlfriend. It had to suck (and he did feel sorry for Jeremy and his sad soap opera tragedy of a life, though certainly not sympathy) but that was as far as Jeremy's involvement went. He'd dated a vampire, one who was now dead, and therefore none of it mattered in the long run.
But the implications of Jeremy's alleged temporary death was clear. Damon was well capable of reading between the lines and no, he couldn't say he liked what he was seeing, what it meant-about him, about Katherine, about any of this. Especially about Katherine.
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