Matt hunched his shoulders miserably. He had come to the pledge meeting because he didn't want to stay in his room alone, but now he wished he hadn't. He'd been avoiding Elena, Meredith, and Bonnie - it wasn't their fault, but so much violence had happened around al four of them in the past year, so much death. He'd thought it might be better being around other people, people who hadn't seen how much darkness there was in the world, but it wasn't.

He felt almost like he was swathed in bubble wrap, thick and cloudy. As the other pledges moved and talked, he could watch them and hear them, but he felt separated from them; everything seemed muffled and dim. He felt fragile, too, as if removing the protective layer might make him fal apart.

As he stood in the crowd of pledges, Chloe came over and stood next to him, touching his arm reassuringly with her smal , strong hand. A gap appeared in the bubble wrap, and he could real y feel her with him. He put his hand over hers and squeezed it grateful y.

The pledge meeting was in the wood-paneled underground room where they'd first met. Ethan assured them this was just one of many secret hideouts - the others were only open to ful y initiated members. Matt had discovered by now that even this pledge room had several entrances: one through an old house just outside campus, which must have been the one they brought them through that first time, one through a shed near the playing fields, and one through the basement of the library. The ground beneath the campus must be honeycombed with tunnels for so many entrances to end up in one place, he thought, and he had an unsettling picture of students walking on the sun-warmed grass while, a few inches below, endless dark tunnels opened underneath them.

Ethan was talking, and Matt knew that usual y he would have been hanging on his every word. Today, Ethan's voice washed over Matt almost unheard, and Matt let his eyes fol ow the black-clad, masked figures of the Vitale members who paced the room behind Ethan. Dul y, he wondered about them, about how the masks disguised them Wellenough that he was never sure if he recognized any of them around campus. Any of them except Ethan, that is. Matt wondered curiously what made the leader immune to such restrictions. Like the tunnels beneath the campus, the anonymity of the Vitales was slightly unsettling.

Eventual y, the meeting ended, and the pledges started to trickle out of the room. A few patted Matt on the back or murmured sympathetic words to him, and he warmed as he realized that they cared, that somehow they'd come to feel like friends through al the sil y pledge bonding activities.

"Hold up a minute, Matt?" Ethan was next to him suddenly. At Ethan's glance, Chloe squeezed Matt's arm again and let go.

"I'l see you later," she murmured. Matt watched as she crossed the room and went out the door, her hair bouncing against the back of her neck.

When he looked back at Ethan, Ethan's head was cocked to one side, his golden-brown eyes considering.

"It's good to see you and Chloe getting so close," Ethan declared, and Matt shrugged awkwardly.

"Yeah, Well..." he said.

"You'l find that the other Vitales are the ones who can understand you best," Ethan said. "They'l be the ones who wil stand by you al through col ege, and for the rest of your life." He smiled. "At least, that's what's happened to me.

I've been watching you, Matt," he went on.

Matt tensed. Something about Ethan cut through the bubble-wrap feeling, but not in the comforting way Chloe did. Now Matt felt exposed instead of protected. The sharpness of his gaze, maybe, or the way Ethan always seemed to believe so strongly in whatever he was saying.

"Yeah?" Matt said warily.

Ethan grinned. "Don't look so paranoid. It's a good thing. Every Vitale pledge is special, that's why they're chosen, but every year there's one who's even more special, who's a leader among leaders. I can see that, in this group, it's you, Matt."

Matt cleared his throat. "Real y?" he said, flattered, not knowing quite what to say. No one had ever cal ed him a leader before.

"I've got big plans for the Vitale Society this year," Ethan said, his eyes shining. "We're going to go down in history.

We're going to be more powerful than we've ever been.

Our futures are bright."

Matt gave a half smile and nodded. When Ethan talked, his voice warm and persuasive, those golden eyes steady on Matt's, Matt could see it, too. The Vitales leading not just the campus but, someday, the world. Matt himself would be transformed from the ordinary guy he knew he had always been into someone confident and clear-eyed, a leader among leaders, like Ethan said. He could picture it al .

"I want you to be my right-hand man here, Matt," Ethan said. "You can help me lead these pledges into greatness." Matt nodded again and, Ethan's eyes on his, felt a flush of pride, the first good thing he'd felt since Chris's death.

He would lead the Vitales, standing by Ethan's side.

Everything would be better. The path was clear ahead.

Indeed, Keynes posited that economic activity was determined by aggregate demand. For the fifteenth time in half an hour, Stefan read the sentence without beginning to comprehend it.

It al just seemed so pointless. He'd tried to distract himself by investigating the murder on campus, but it had only made him more anxious that he couldn't be by Elena's side, seeing to it himself that she was safe. He closed the book and dropped his head into his hands.

Without Elena, what was he doing here?

He would have fol owed her anywhere. She was so beautiful it hurt him to look at her sometimes, like it hurt to stare into the sun. She shone like that sun with her golden hair and lapis lazuli eyes, her delicate creamy skin that held just the faintest touch of pink.

But there was more to Elena than beauty. Her beauty alone wouldn't have held Stefan's attention for long. In fact, her resemblance to Katherine had nearly driven him away.

But under her cool y beautiful exterior was a quicksilver mind that was always working, making plans, and a heart that was fiercely protective of everyone she loved.

Stefan had spent centuries searching for something to make him feel alive again, and he'd never felt as certain of anything as he did about Elena. She was it, the only one for him.

Why couldn't she be as sure of him? No matter what Elena said about Stefan being the one, the fact remained: the only two girls he'd loved in his long, long life both loved not just Stefan but his brother, too.

Stefan closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his fingers, then shoved himself away from the desk. Maybe he was hungry. In a few quick strides, he crossed his white-painted room, through the mix of his own elegant possessions and the cheap school-issued furniture, and was out on the balcony. Outside, the night smel ed of jasmine and car exhaust. Stefan reached tendrils of Power gently into the night, questing, feeling for ... something ...

there. A tiny mind quickened in response to his.

His hearing, sharper than a human's, picked up the faint whine of sonar, and a smal , furry bat landed on the balcony railing, drawn in by his Power. Stefan picked it up, keeping up a gentle thrum of Power between his mind and the bat's, and it gazed at him tamely, its little fox face alert.

Stefan lowered his head and drank, careful not to take too much from the little creature. He grimaced at the taste and then released the bat, which flapped tentatively, a little dazed, then picked up speed and was lost again in the night.

He hadn't been terribly hungry, but the blood cleared his mind. Elena was so young. He had to remember that. She was stil younger than he'd been when he became a vampire, and she needed time to experience life, for her path to lead her back to Stefan. He could wait. He had al the time in the world.

But he missed her so much.

Gathering his strength, he leaped from the balcony and landed lightly on the ground below. There was a flower bed there, and he reached into it, feeling petals as soft as silk.

A daisy, fresh and innocent. He plucked it and went back inside the dorm, using the front entrance this time.

Outside Elena's door, he hesitated. He could hear the slight sounds of her moving around in there, smel her distinctive, intoxicating scent. She was alone, and he was tempted to just knock. Maybe she was longing for him, just as he longed for her. If they were alone, would she melt into his arms despite herself?

Stefan shook his head, his mouth tight. He had to respect Elena's wishes. If she needed time apart, he could give her that. Looking at the white daisy, he slowly balanced it on top of Elena's doorknob. She would find the flower and know that it was from him.

Stefan wanted Elena to know that he could wait for her, if that was what she needed, but that he was thinking of her, always.