If there was one thing Damiano hated, it was sitting around while other people took care of things he thought he should be involved in. He wasn't stupid enough to think he would have been any help with what the vampire community were doing, but that didn't stop the nagging feeling running through him. His headache was gone thanks to a couple of little pills he'd been handed just after Sofia left, but that was the best that could be said for the situation.

Stalking up and down the room was not helping. He couldn't shake the instinct he was not where he was supposed to be.

With one arm wrapped around his middle as his other hand rubbed reflexively at his collar bone, he couldn't keep himself still. Victoria was out there alone and that was plain wrong. The longer they waited, the stronger his feeling became that she needed their help.

Eventually it was too much. He walked to where Ethan and Thomas were sitting and held out his hands.

"We have to help her," he said.

"Damià, we can't..." Thomas started to say.

"We have to," he insisted.

The dread was clawing through his chest.

"Sofia isn't here," Ethan said.

"We have to try," Damiano countered. "We're going to lose her."

He could not explain it, but he felt that with every second Victoria was slipping away from them. Something in his expression must have convinced them because, finally, they reached for his hands.

The candle was on the table, pushed to the side, but they didn't have a lighter, so Damiano brought their hands together and stared at them instead. He had no idea what he was doing, but at his very core he was sure they had to do something. Throwing every other thought out of his head he concentrated on Victoria.

"Ours, not theirs," he heard himself whisper, but it was almost as if someone else was saying the words.

He felt his throat repeating the sounds again and again, but he didn't hear them anymore as he slipped into the tunnel again. There was no flame to guide him this time, the tunnel was dark, but he could feel the way. It was frightening, daunting, but he was more afraid for Victoria than of the dark. He pushed on. When he blinked and opened his eyes to see through Victoria's, it was not so much of a shock this time, but he was engulfed in rage. Pure fury and hate swamped him and he wanted to scream. Maybe he did, he couldn't tell. Only a sure and certain knowledge that they were about to lose Victoria forced him to hang on.

"See the pathetic creatures, Victoria," Tera said, pointing through the windows at the front of the building. "You want to kill them for me, don't you."

The three were in the front hall of the winery's mansion house and there were no more chains, but Damiano could feel the invisible ones lacing through Victoria's mind. This was the confirmation of the dread he had been feeling.

There were cars outside and people with crossbows and shotguns. Lights were flashing, filling the night sky all around and Damiano was sure he saw Leo as Victoria glanced past the magistra through the window. She took everything in and laughed, a high, insane sound that tried to shatter Damiano's heart. She didn't sound like their Victoria anymore.

Tera had done something to her. What, Damiano had no idea, but he had a horrible sense they were too late.

"Kill them for me, demon child," Tera said, running clawed fingers down the side of Victoria's face.

"Ours not theirs."

The words whispered in Damiano's mind. He grabbed for them even as Victoria turned towards the main doors of the huge house.

"Ours," he screamed with his whole soul as Victoria stalked towards the exit and, for just a moment, her step faltered.

Tera was old, her power was strong, Leo had explained that, Damiano could feel it as it curled through Victoria, but she had failed to take into account one thing: Damiano, Ethan and Thomas' love for Victoria.

"Fight her," Damiano cried with everything he had and everything he could feel from Ethan and Thomas.

He let go of every need, every thought, except that. He bundled it all in their desperate hope and desperate love. He gave everything he had to give even as Victoria threw open the double doors and strode onto the porch. Guns and crossbows rattled as the ridiculous tableau held for agonising seconds.

Damiano could feel the turmoil in Victoria as hate clashed with love and she stared at those she had been told to kill. He willed her strength, but he knew he had done everything he could. The rest was up to Victoria.

Vampire power ran through her veins in all its possible destructive glory. She stood on the knife edge. She could give in to the chaos, let it take her and use it to fulfil her task or she could take another path. Damiano could feel the seductive freedom of chaos, it called to part of his soul as well, but this was Victoria's choice.

"Ours," he desperately whispered in her mind, hoping she could hear him.

Victoria tensed.

"They're in there," she yelled and threw herself to the side.

Damiano could have cried. He heard a high pitched scream of rage, but it almost immediately went dim in his awareness.

"Damiano, you better fucking breathe."

He heard Thomas shout, but it seemed like it was such a long way away. He was surrounded by darkness on every side and it was suffocating. There was a sharp stinging pain for a moment, but it was faint, nothing he could quite identify.

"Why is nobody coming?" Ethan said, voice as worried as Thomas'.

It was that more than anything that pulled Damiano closer to them. He didn't want his friends to be worried about him, they had enough to worry about with Victoria.

"Breathe you bastard!"

This time the sharp stinging pain was much brighter and he realised someone had slapped him across the face. There was light. Everything was grey not black and he could feel a burning.

"Damiano, if you die I will never forgive you," Thomas sounded frantic.

The burning seemed to be filling his whole chest. Only at that moment, as that realisation skipped across his mind, did his thoughts and body seem to realign. He took a huge, gasping breath into lungs that were starving for air. Clawing at the empty space in front of him he struggled as reality crashed down on him. It felt as if his whole torso had been compressed by a heavy weight and he dragged in oxygen over and over again as if it might suddenly be denied again.

"Damià," Thomas said, taking his face between two hands, "you're okay. Slow it down."

He looked into his friend's eyes and did his very best to follow the instruction. It dawned on him he was on the floor, half leaning against and half sitting in Ethan's lap. His head was spinning, there was that sharp stabbing pain behind his eye again, and he felt like he'd just done a full stage set about five times.

"Ours," he whispered, since it was the best he could do.

He really didn't want to, but there was nothing he could do about it as he ungracefully passed out.

~*~

It was treacle uphill time again, but Damiano had a reason to fight back to consciousness this time. He opened his eyes to find himself flat on his back on a bed once again. The pitiful moan that passed his lips was really not his fault as his head throbbed and his chest ached. The woman who had given him the painkillers earlier was leaning over him.

"Rest," she said simply and indicated the bedside cabinet.

There was a carton of blood and a couple more of the little pills she had given him last time.

"Thank you," he said.

He had only met her twice and was already aware she was a woman of few words. The look she gave him made him feel guilty, but nowhere near as guilty as the worried once over he got as soon as she left and Ethan and Thomas descended on him.

"Never, ever do that again," Thomas said so vehemently that it made Damiano wince.

He was not expecting the very awkward hug his friend dragged him into. There was no doubt he had scared Thomas one hell of a lot.

"Sorry," he said, but he couldn't say he regretted it, not even the thumping in his skull or the stabbing pain behind his eye.

Thanks to Thomas he found himself sitting up, which was helpful, but he discovered he was incredibly uncoordinated.

"What happened?" Ethan asked quietly, a sure sign that he was just as worried as Thomas.

"Vic," Damiano said, but had to stop as a particularly nasty pain took his breath away.

He moaned quietly and pushed his hand against his eye.

"Here," Ethan said and he found a glass of water and the pills under his nose.

Taking the pills, he popped them into his mouth, but he almost tipped the water all down his front, so Thomas helped him with that. He knew they would take a little while to kick in, but the water helped a little bit. When the blood was also handed to him, already opened with the straw in place, he accepted it meekly and sipped carefully.

"You were saying," Thomas said even as Ethan slipped onto the bed behind him to act as a very welcome brace.

He was in an incredibly touchy feely mood and their drummer's solid presence helped settle him.

"Did you get any of it?" he asked.

Last time they hadn't, but Sofia had been involved then. It had been all them this time.

"Anger and your desperation," Ethan said. "Nothing specific."

"Just a mess of emotion," Thomas agreed.

"I ended up in Victoria's head again," he revealed, "and for a while I thought it was too late."

He took another sip of blood as he remembered the desolation of that moment.

"Tera," he said, refusing to give in to the fear that curled in his belly even at her name, "had twisted Vic's mind. Probably what she wanted to do to all of us. Her power, fuck, so overwhelming. The house was surrounded. She wanted Vic to go out and kill people, probably as a distraction because there were so many, maybe just to make a point."

"You were right," Thomas said, "we were about to lose her."

"Yeah," Damiano agreed. "I guess I must have never quite let the connection go that Sofia set up."

"But Vic's okay?" Thomas asked. "You got through to her?"

"We got through to her," Damiano emphasised. "You might not have been able to feel what was going on, but I could and it was all of us that got her back. I just threw all our love at her and prayed. Vic did the rest, but then we all know she's the strongest."

"Yeah," Ethan agreed and Thomas nodded.

"What happened?" Thomas asked.

"Vic went outside as if she was obeying Tera, then she got out of the way," Damiano explained. "That was the last I saw."

"But she's okay?" Thomas asked.

"That's what I feel," was the best he could do.

The nagging fear was gone, replaced by a sense of waiting.

"I think we'd know if she wasn't," Ethan agreed from behind him.

Damiano couldn't quite shake the worry, after all there had been weapons involved, but he was pretty sure Ethan was right.