(1) The Phoenix (D. Salvatore)

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Damon pulls on his jacket as he makes his way down the stairs of the Gilbert house. He'd ended up falling asleep in Daphne's bed. It wasn't his intention to spend the night, and yet, he slept through most of the night without incident. He's not exactly had reason to sleep soundly. He puts it down to Daphne and her bedroom. There is something about it and her that's comforting. Though waking up alone was actually rather disappointing. His eyes find Daphne, sitting on the floor. She's got her little chemistry equipment set up again, the room almost completely dark except for a few scattered candles around the room. Those magnified goggles over her eyes as she focuses on what she's going. Damon moves closer to her when he reaches the bottom of the stairs.

"What are you...?" He starts. But the look she sends his way stops him.

"Shush" She hisses a little, he gives her a look. "I need to concentrate" He mocks zipping up his lips and she goes back to whatever she is working on. Using her wand, she pulls a sliver of blood from a beaker and slides it into a vial. Damon now realises what she is doing. She's gone through that book to find something to work for Stefan. He is more interested now. He moves closer, careful of the bottles and jars littering the floor. She sets the vial into a sort of vice before looking around, plucking a bottle from the table. She pulls the cork and takes a pinch of dried herbs from inside, sprinkles it into the vial of blood. It catches fire. She huffs. Annoyed. She pushes her magnified goggles up and rubs at her eyes.

"You set the blood on fire?"

"It's not meant to do that" She defends as she waves her hand over the flames, putting it out. She then sighs and looks back at the book.

"How long have you been up?" He asks, she shrugs a little, her finger going over the spell that failed, trying to figure out why it failed and what she has to change.

"Long enough" She whispers and then pinches the bridge of her nose. "Not long enough" She corrects herself and lets out a tired breath. This is going to take time. Time that they might not have. Klaus could be on them at any minute. Stefan could turn on them at any minute. Damon touches his jacket pocket feeling his phone vibrating within. He pulls his cell phone from his pocket and checks the text that comes in.

"Elena and Stefan are meeting up at the boarding house" He reads. "They want to talk through our plan with Mikael"

"We have a plan?" She asks, surprised. He had told her that Mikael was onboard but she didn't think that meant that a whole plan was in place.

"Not yet" He argues and she looks at him. "We'll come up with one though" He assures her and then motions for her to get up. "So come on...you're coming with me..."

"But I'm not finished" She argues. "I haven't figured it out yet" He crouches next to her.

"We can deal with Klaus" He points out. "Today...." She lets out a breath. "Then deal with Stefan, tomorrow" She looks up at him and then sighs. "It can wait one day" He closes her spellbook and she pulls a face.

......

Daphne stands next to Damon in the boarding house. Mikael lingers close by. Elena and Stefan stood with them. They've been at things for a while now trying to come up with a plan to get Klaus back to town so Mikael can deal with him. To put him down for good. Without him around they are going to have a little more breathing room to fix Stefan. To fix everything else going on around them. She shivers a little, wishing she'd thought to put on a jacket or something but she figured that as they were only coming up to the boarding house that it wouldn't be an issue.

"Want me to light the fire?" Damon asks with a smirk, she gives him a small glare, but he moves to do it anyway.

"No, it's okay" She stops him. "I got it" She holds out her wand towards the fire. "Incendio" She casts and a small flame erupts from the tip of her wand and into the fire, lights up, filling the room with warmth.