Damon's POV

When I woke up, Annice was lying on the couch across from the one I was in. She looked troubled, even in sleep. The muscles on her face were pulled taut, and her upper lip was turned downwards in a saddening frown. She shouldn't have to frown. She shouldn't have to have a reason to.

But exhaustion seemed too much for me, and I fell back to sleep. It was a dreamless, unfulfilling sleep, dreary and dark, as it had always been. It seemed just another vampire curse. I missed dreaming.

* * * * *

As I woke once more, I noticed instantaneously that Annice was no longer across from me. The couch and its old, fancy pillows were all aranged perfectly in their places. It was a rare occurance for things to be truly perfect nowadays.

As there was no one else in the house, for Rick had probably left with Jenna and Andie with some crap excuse, I followed the only sound there was. It was the steady scratching of pen on paper. I passed the table where a bloody dagger, my cell phone and several bottles of alcohol lay. For once, I didn't want a glass. Instead, I checked my phone. There was a missed call from Stefan, the phone told me, but I could call him back later. I had things to take care of now.

When I found Annice, she was in her old guest room, back from when she was still my Briana. Mine. She's not mine anymore. She wants me to go to hell. How could I? I am her angel. Angels don't go to hell. 

Sometimes I think hell would be better than this.

So I followed the soft scratch-scratch of her pen until I stood by the edge of her bed, and she sat at her writing desk, writing away on what looked like a letter. There was only ten feet between us, but it felt like miles.

"Yes, Damon?" she said, and there was no warmth in her voice. There was no cold in it either.

Her voice used to be so sweet. Like sugar. I guess I'm a fly, and I licked all the sugar out of it. Almost all of this was all my fault after all. Enough to make my insides burn. There was poison in the sugar.

She called me sweet once, when we were still at the beginning of everything. 

"Why'd you come back?" I asked, just putting it straight out there.

Her shoulders drooped and one of the straps from her dress fell down her pristine white shoulder. She had too much on her mind to bother to pick it back up. I suppose she had a lot on her plate. We all had this. But we all had glass plates. She had a styrofoam one with more on it than the rest of us. It would break soon.

"Because John lied to you. Or at least he didn't tell you the whole truth. You would've died." She said this all like she still had the heart to care, but she just wasn't trying to put her heart into it.

Hearts keep us living. When our hearts break, it can kill us. When they are torn out, we're dead for sure. When something important and otherwise bad happens, people look for someone to blame. In frequenting cases, it's the victim. But if someone's heart is torn out, it's no one's fault save for the person who did it. I can carry guilt. But I don't know if that has kept her from taking some of the load as well.

"But that would mean you still cared enough to save me," I replied, but not in a snarky way like I usually would. This was just a statement of fact. A laugh that had something certain but definately not humor in it bubbled from her perfect lips.

It was a rare occurance for things to be truly perfect nowadays.

"Of course I care, Damon." She turned, though she did not leave her chair, and looked at me with a mix of regret and old memories and said, "You always were kind of dense."

I pressed a hand to my chest in mock hurt, and then lowered in something more real after I'd pulled that chuckle out of her. That chuckle made the still-soreness of my jaw lessen. I sighed as she went back to her letter. It made me wonder how you can endure so much pain and just go upstairs, sit down, pick up a cheap blue pen and write a letter. 

"Even now?" I said, desperate to know. I clutched her bed post, flooded by so much emotion it made me dizzy. I'd rarely ever felt something so powerful.

It doesn't always have to be a tangible thing to make you feel an ache that needs no physical force to leave it behind. If she said no, my mind would collapse into agony. If she said maybe, my heart would clench with fear and uncertainty. And if she yes, I don't know how my body would react. I was so used to no.

It's always going to be Stefan.

"I care now more than I ever did," she murmured, and my entire body unfurled into something great and wonderful and relieved.

I hadn't realized, but it was as if my entire body had been tensed from the moment I met her, just waiting for her to say yes.

"How?" And yet I still had to ask that.

"I still care," she said, lifting her head and looking out at the nothing beyond the window, "because there was nothing that could make me stop. Not even your betrayals. Not even mine. Those were petty problems, but haven't you noticed yet?" I humored her, smiling the slightest bit.

"What?"

"I was always stronger than that," she expressed like it was blatantly obvious. Of course it was. I thought of a way to say what I wanted to.

"You were always better than that," I corrected, "no matter how many problems you've had that you think changes that." 

She ran her hand through her lucious red hair, a ghost of a smile on her lips. Her eyes were tormented, and her smoky smile wise. Those eyes no longer seemed so amber. They had hardened into something, frozen to temperatures that I don't think anything I can do would warm them back up again. That stony glare made my stomach burn with horror, and my toes curled in my glistening black shoes. 

She used to be so happy. Love was supposed to make you happy. But it just ruined all of us instead.

"Your back would break under the weight of my problems," she said in a voice so bittersweet. I thanked whatever gods simply for the fact that she still had enough sugar to put a sweet to that bitter.

I took a step closer and told her, "Yes, but that's why I do what I do. I can't take the entire load, but that doesn't stop me from taking some of it." She huffed in what I assume was the dwindling amount of mirthless laughter she could supply.

"Can you carry yourself, Damon Salvatore?" she snapped, but in a voice so airy and light it was hardly a snap but more of a brush.

I gathered her meaning. I was obviously one of the problems. That hurt. Stung. Burned. Seared. Broke me. Gave me a mind to research every synonym for pain. 

"No," I said with a secretive quietness and I walked to her side at a human pace. She didn't look up from her paper, but merely finished a sentence near the bottom, grabbed a fresh piece of heavy paper, and place that one over the other. I kneeled at her side. "But I will carry you. All you have to do is ask."

When she looked at me I almost wish she hadn't. It was a mixture of a withering glower and a fond regard, all thrown into a bowl made of a a gaze that made me think of how a widow might stare at the grave of her lost husband. I don't know what that meant. I don't understand her, and that is one of the reasons I love her. She will never fail to turn the tables. I can guess how Elena moves. I know who she is. But Annice is a lightning storm. You can predict the storm, but you can't predict when the lightning will strike.

And you don't want to get struck by lightning.

So I simply recommend not going out in a storm.

"How can I ever ask that of you?" she asked, but she already knew the answer. Her eyes full, she turned her face away briefly and bit her lip so hard that it bled. I put my hand on her chin and made her look at me once more. "I will never burden you with that."

"It's not a burden, Annice. Do you have any idea how happy you make me?" I questioned. I wasn't sure she knew that answer. With minute force, I continued, "Even when all I did to you was break your happiness."

She didn't laugh- humorless or bright- this time. 

"You are an angel, Damon," she exhaled, her voice shuddering. She shuffled the papers on the desk and abruptly stood, abruptly but gracefully, and walked to the doorway, leaving one letter there and tucking one in her boot. "You shouldn't bother yourself with the affairs of demons like us."

I was stunned speechless. I felt so much pain that I could hardly breath, even though I didn't need to. It was a slap in the face. If vampires don't need to breath, then why do they? Because it feels normal, and it makes them feel like they're still human. Because, underneath, you know every vampire still craves their humanity, even if they hated how weak they were when they had it. And Annice, if she had enough power and could fill me with such emotion to take my breath away, that made me feel more human then ever. I could feel the pulse of blood in my veins, feel the bloodlust leave the sharp prick of my gums until I had no fangs, only dark curls for hair and an Confederates uniform, staring up at a strange woman with a strange name. I didn't know her real name back then.

Annice, who had more demon in her than the rest of us, made me feel like I was a human again. I just couldn't let her leave.

But I had to.

"If I were you," she said, shattering my reverie, fracturing my heart like I was made of glass, "I would grab that dagger and head up to Elena's lakehouse. Leave that knife in this time."

And she disappeared.

Of course, when I went to the basement minutes later, niether Elijah nor his sister were anywhere to be found.

I was so sick that I couldn't throw up, so tired I would never dream of sleeping. I could never dream. I was so in love that I couldn't begin to fathom why anyone would ever want to fall into it. It hurts you, tears you into a million tiny pieces and turns you inside out, splaying your heart out there in front of everyone. Your deepest, darkest secrets put out on display. 

But it was so amazing, I can't understand why anyone wouldn't want it.

Love wasn't perfect, and it wasn't simple. It had more connections and complications than the human mind. But Annice was perfect.

It was a rare occurance for things to be truly perfect nowadays.