Chapter Twelve.

I woke up, still on the floor, with just a thin blanket covering the pair of us.
I looked over to see Damon, still asleep. He looked so peaceful, I just laid there watching him breathe for a few moments.
"What are you staring at?" He asked, softly.
I looked up and his eyes were still closed, but he had a small smirk on his face.
"Just witnessing the rare occasion where Damon Salvatore looks oh-so innocent and vulnerable." I giggled, laying my head on his chest.
"I've never heard of such a time." He replied.
It was now dark outside, so we decided to go downstairs and grab some blood bags before watching movies in Damon's room.
When we got down there, Stefan was in the den with Caroline, talking about whatever it was they talk about when they're alone.
"Good evening brother and blondie." Damon said, practically skipping into the room.
"Someone's chipper tonight." Stefan raised an eyebrow, smirk drawn perfectly on his face.
"Well, brother mine, I have everything in the world to be chipper about." Damon smiled, bouncing onto the couch opposite the pair.
"And why would that be?" Caroline asked, clearly knowing full well.
"Damon and I are now a couple." I chuckled, sitting in Damon's lap as he wrapped his arms around my waist, kissing my shoulder.
"Yes! I told you he'd do it tonight!" Caroline laughed at Stefan, who pulled ten dollars from his pocket.
"Fine. As promised." He sighed, handing the money to her.
She looked all too smug for her own good.
"You guys had a bet to see when I'd ask Alex to be my girlfriend..." Damon more stated than asked.
"I bet you'd do it tonight, but Stefan thought you'd wait it out a bit." Caroline said.
"Who knew our love life was the talk of gamblers?" I chuckled.
"Okay, I have to say. You guys look soooo cute together." Caroline cooed.
Damon and I simultaneously scoffed.
"Cute? No. I don't do cute." I grimaced.
"No... Neither do I..." Damon looked as disgusted as I did, possibly more so.
"Well get used to it, because you do." Caroline stuck her tongue out.
"Oh and next time you sleep together; maybe try not to scream the whole house down. I still want good memories of this place and not mental scarring." Stefan added.
"I've told you before, brother. Eternal stud." Damon winked, kissing my temple.
"Don't wanna hear it." The younger brother scowled.
"Aaaand on that note, Damon and I have some blood to be drinking and movies to be watching." I sighed, getting up off Damon. "I'll go get the blood."
I gave him a quick peck on the lips before Vamping downstairs to get some bags.

When I came back up, no one had moved.
"What did you end up doing with Gio, by the way? I saw he wasn't in the cell." I asked Stefan, suddenly growing a little weary.
"I'm not sure you want to know the answer to that question, Alex..." Caroline looked concerned.
"I wanna know. I just need closure." I sighed, sitting back down next to Damon.
"We killed him. He's buried in the woods." Stefan said, carefully.
I nodded. "Okay..."

We'd stayed up the entire night watching movies. Everything from Taxi Driver to the entire Twilight Saga...
"Did we have to watch all of them?" I groaned as we finished up Breaking Dawn part two.
"I wanted to see if they got any better as the saga went on. I mean, that plot twist with Carlisle dying and then actually not was pretty good. I almost felt bad. Almost." Damon replied.
"That was awful. Who's idea was it to make Vampires sparkle of all things?" I scoffed.
"Stephanie Meyer, I'd assume." He shrugged.
I smirked, grabbing the pillow and throwing it at him in Vamp speed.
"Hey!" Damon playfully scowled before throwing one back, making me shriek.
"Ass!" I laughed, jumping on him.
He groaned as I crushed him.
"But you love me anyway." He winked.
"Very true. I do." I smiled, leaning down to kiss him.
"I love you too." He murmured, connecting our lips.

We'd ended up waking at about two in the afternoon, getting some much needed sleep after our movie marathon.
"Last one to the kitchen has to make coffee." I smirked, rolling over in bed.
"Oh, you're on, hotness." Damon scowled, playfully.
In Vamp speed, we got dressed and got downstairs, me beating Damon by a fraction of a second.
"Ha! I shouted.
Damon pouted at me, dramatically.
"How the Hell do you do that? I have less clothing to put on than you."
"I'm nine hundred and fifty seven years old, Salvatore. I know how to dress myself." I chuckled.
"It seems I have a thing for vastly older women." Damon smirked, coming up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist.
"None taken." I laughed, fraining hurt.
"Oh hush." He huffed, failing to hide the smirk still on his lips.

After Damon had made coffee for the both of us, we went to sit in the den.
"Good morning, love birds." Elena greeted us, winking playfully.
"Really?" I looked at Stefan.
"What?" He asked, chuckling.
"You tell-tail bitch." I laughed, causing Damon to do the same.
"Yes, he told all of us the good news. Bonnie's ecstatic. She feels like some kind of witchy match maker. Jeremy suggested making a supernatural reality TV show about it." Elena giggled.
"Match maker? She didn't do anything." Damon looked puzzled.
"Um, not true and you know it, Salvatore." Bonnie's voice came, shortly followed by the sound of the front door closing.
"How the Hell does she do that?" Damon asked us all in frustration. "How does she creep in on three freakin' Vampires?"
"Magic." Bonnie said, sarcastically, making the rest of us laugh.
"So come on, BonBon, how exactly did you play match maker?" Damon asked.
Bonnie scoffed. "Who was it again who got you out of your little problem with Alex when she first got here?"
Damon furrowed his eyebrows.
"Yeah, okay. I'll give you that one."
"What was your problem?" Elena asked.
I glanced at Damon, who appeared to be trying to figure out how to answer the question.
"Answer or I'm getting Alex to compel you." Elena smirked.
"She wouldn't." Damon scowled playfully between Elena and I.
"I wouldn't be so sure, Salvatore. Us girls have to stick together." I giggled.
Damon looked almost genuinely shocked, I was almost convinced until he ruined it by giving a cheeky smile.
"I don't even remember anymore, to be honest. I guess I just had a bad feeling – gone now, obviously. But Bonnie had never been wrong before about a person, so I decided to go out on a limb, now look at us." He smiled as he walked over to be, draping his arm over my shoulder and kissing my forehead.
"Was it a slight feeling of dread, like so many things were going to go wrong if she wasn't out of the town that very instant?" Elena asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Sorta?" Damon replied in a questioning tone.
Elena turned to Bonnie with a smirk.
"Does that description remind you of anything, Bon?" She asked.
Bonnie looked sarcastically confused. "You know, Elena, I think it just might..."
They both simultaneously looked between each other and Damon, who scoffed.
"And now look at all of us. One biiiiig, happy - if not slightly dysfunctional - family." He smirked.
"And Alex is the newest part of that." Bonnie smiled, earning a smile right back from me.
"Aww thanks Bonnie." I replied.

The day was going great. We almost felt like a normal group of people doing normal-group-of-people things.
Until...
"Guys, it's Matt." Elena suddenly said, looking at her vibrating phone before answering it. "Matt?"
The Vampires listened in.
"Elena, I need to ask a favour..." Matt replied, cautiously.
"Sure, what is it?" Elena asked.
"I need you all to come to the hospital. I'll explain when you get here."
"We'll be over in fifteen." Elena said, hanging up.
"What's going on?" Bonnie asked.
"Matt needs us all at the hospital." I answered.

Once there, Elena texted Matt, asking where he was.
"Top floor. He's meeting us at the elevator." Elena said, reading the text.
"Top floor? That's quarantine only." Stefan raised an eyebrow.
We looked amongst each other, nervously before making out way to the elevator.
Once to the top floor, Matt was indeed there when the doors opened, a grave expression on his face.
"What is it, Matt?" Caroline asked.
"Follow me." He said.
He lead us through a white screen, where people dressed in HazMat gear gave us face masks.
After putting them on, one of the HazMats took us through another screen, revealing a clear screen, with a sign reading 'DANGER, QUARANTINED AREA'.
"Matt, what's going on?" Stefan asked.
"There's been an outbreak of something in Mystic Falls and surrounding towns. We have no idea what it is. We've even got a couple members of the CDC in here."
We looked amongst each other once again, starting to appear almost scared.
I looked around, seeing a desk behind me with a computer, two laptops and a bunch of files and clipboards.
I walked over and grabbed the nearest clipboard, examining it.
"Flu symptoms, vomiting, diarrhoea, random bleeds not clotting, severe abdominal pains. This seems like a violent form of the flu. Why does the CDC need to get involved?" I asked.
"We keep trying different forms of anti-biotics to treat them, but each dose makes their symptoms ten times worse." Matt explained.
"How many patients so far?" I asked.
"Nineteen."
I looked through the clear screen at all the patients.
"I need to go in there." I said.
"What? No way, Alex." Damon argued.
"I think I know what this is, but I won't be able to be sure until I get a closer look." I told him.
"Authorised personnel only." A HazMat told me.
I scoffed and stopped him, pulling out my purse from my jacket pocket.
I showed him my CDC card and his eyes widened.
"I'll get you a suit." He said before disappearing.
"What the Hell did you just show him?" Bonnie asked.
I smirked, showing my CDC ID card reading: 'Alexandra Karldόttir, Senior Rare Disease Consultant.'
"Is that real?" Caroline raised an eyebrow in shock.
"Of course it's real. When you have eternity, you get around a lot." I shrugged, putting the card back in my purse just as the HazMat came back with a suit for me.
"I'll be back in a few minutes." I said as I put on the suit, replacing my face mask with a new one.
The HazMat led me a disinfection unit at the side of the room, where I was sprayed down with disinfectant.
I entered the quarantine zone and looked back at my friends through the clear screen.
I walked over to the first patient.
"This is Mystic Falls' Patient Zero; Samantha Fell." The HazMat told me as I picked up her notes.
I looked over the extreme flu symptoms before putting it down and looking her over, first hand.
"How long has she been showing her symptoms?" I asked.
"Her father said she started getting a fever yesterday afternoon, Miss Karldόttir. Her father is the patient next to her. He started his symptoms last night."
"My God... It spread this quick?" I gasped, looking to the other patients.
Just as I did so, someone grabbed my arm, making me jump.
It was Samantha.
She choked out a word, but I couldn't make out what it was.
"What did you say, Samantha?" I asked gently.
"Pesta..." She whispered.
My heart stopped as she fell back in her bed, back to unconsciousness. "What is your name?" I asked the HazMat, turning to him.
"Harry Matheson, Miss Karldόttir." The HazMat replied.
"Harry..." I paused, looking at Samantha Fell's arms, seeing the horrifyingly familiar blackened spots on her skin. "You have a rather violent case of the Bubonic Plague on your back."
I glanced at the group behind the screen, watching as their expressions turned to that of shock.
"W-what?" Harry asked, just as shocked as everyone else.
The other HazMats looked at me as if I'd just announced the end of the world.
"You're going to need to quarantine everyone in this hospital with flu symptoms, stop treating them with whatever you're attempting because it's only accelerating the illness. For now, just monitor them. Tell your other agents in the surrounding towns to do the same." I told him.
He just nodded and everyone scurried out of the room toward the disinfection unit.
I continued to look over the other patients as they were disinfected, then proceeded to do the same as the last one left.
I was sprayed off as I took off the HazMat suit, then left the quarantine zone with the group.
"Have we seriously got the Black Death in Mystic Falls?" Matt asked.
I nodded. "Where it's come from is what I'd like to know."

We left the hospital after parting ways with Matt.
"I need to go and do some research, which means taking a road trip." I told them, once back at the Salvatore house.
"I'm going with you." Damon said.
"Fine, I could use an extra pair of eyes." I shrugged. "I'm going to pack a few things."
I left them all in the den as I vamped up to my room.
As I grabbed a duffle bag, putting it on the bed, Damon knocked on my door.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"I'm fine." I replied, simply.
"That thing Samantha Fell said when she woke up – 'Pesta'. What does it mean?" Damon asked.
I sighed and stopped packing, turning to him.
"In 1340, the Black Death came to Norway, resulting in half the country's population being killed by it. The people were scared. What do people do when they're scared? They turn their fear into something physical, so they have something to point fingers at. Thus became the legend that was 'Pesta'. She was supposedly this old woman who lurked around everywhere, but never actually being seen. The legend says one touch from her, and you were as good as dead from the Plague." I explained.
"So where are we going?" Damon raised an eyebrow.
"Grab your passport, because we're going to Norway."

K