... REDO

10

During their sparring, Damon was surprised that Bonnie didn't lose her temper at all, but apparently she was just not going to be the 'violent' mood swing type. That could change as she got older and more used to the inherent violence of the world, but he would almost rather that than the tears. At least he knew how to handle that. He put her on her ass when she missed a block and she burst into tears. "I'm never gonna get this."

Damon did the only thing he knew how to do with a crying woman and helped her to her feet to pull her into a hug. "You've been a vampire for less than a day, Bon. You'll get it. It just takes time."

"I hate being useless. No magic and I can't even vampire right," she cried against his chest.

"You're not useless," Damon assured her, running a hand through her hair, realizing that he was putting himself right back in the same position he had with Elena. Making himself her rock and giving himself the chance to fall for her. What else could he do though? "You're working to be able to protect yourself. And you will. Because you're stronger than you realize right now."

It was a long moment before she said anything else, trying to pull her emotions under control. She knew he was right. She was just having trouble feeling it right now. "I'm sorry," she sniffled. "I'm being stupid. I know." She couldn't quite bring herself to step out of his arms though.

"You have at least three more days before I'll hold that stupidity against you," Damon tried a joke.

Bonnie snorted a laugh and forced herself to step away, wiping her tears. "Thank you." For holding her and for being so patient.

"We can stop for the day if you want," he offered.

"No, I'm good. We can keep going," Bonnie assured him. "I'm together now."

Damon scrutinized her for a minute before nodding. "Okay. Back to the speed drills again." The first step was getting her used to her speed and reflexes. Then they could start working in more complicated things. He started throwing punches kicks and sweeps slow enough for her to block them, but fast enough to keep her on her toes. They'd moved to the back garden as well so anyone driving up wouldn't see them moving faster than the human eye could see. There were a few more that she missed and while Damon was good at pulling the punches and kicks back to at least glancing blows, the leg sweeps weren't so easy. She avoided any more breakdowns when she hit the ground though. Once they were done, he made sure to praise her for a good job, trying to keep the good emotions on the surface and they went inside for another drink.

"How do we get blood from the blood banks?" she asked. "Caroline said you always took care of that."

"I'm on record as a representative of a private hospital at the blood banks. Under false names of course," Damon told her. "A little compulsion to get around the ID and they give me all the blood we need."

"Can you put me as a contact person too? Or let me know the names of the hospitals you use so I can do it? It's not fair to put the whole thing on your shoulders especially now that there's three of us."

"I can do that if you want. I'll want to test your compulsions first though to make sure you've got the hang of it. We can do that while we're feeding tonight." If Caroline had ever shown any interest, he would have done the same for her.

"Yeah, I haven't actually tried compulsion yet, so that's probably a good idea."

"It's not that hard to do. It's almost instinctual. The hard part is getting the wording right to avoid loopholes," Damon told her. "Particularly for long-term compulsions like if you were to get a housekeeper to hold your deed. Like if you were to say that they couldn't 'tell' anyone you were a vampire, they could still write it down. Plus, there can be a fine line between keeping yourself protected and taking away a person's free will."