Stefan files that knowledge away for later use, more backing for his reasoning behind going back on the human blood diet. While he often didn't compel people back home for moral reasons more so than limited strength, when he did - and namely with the more complicated stuff - there had been the tendency for it to wear off in the past. Compelling a carnival worker to go on break or a school official to overlook missing records was one thing; getting a traumatized teenage girl to forget that Damon had chewed on her neck was another and Vicki had broken through his compulsion of her easily enough.

Moral reasons for abstaining from human blood were starting to become more and more overshadowed by the necessity to stay strong. He's not going to voice this mirroring of her words, though. Just sit here and pull more at the poor, nearly skeleton bare branch of that bush and toss more leaves in to the lion's cage.

"Must've been hard," he settles on instead. "Running all the time. Anytime you wanted to stay somewhere, you had to pack your bags and move on. That's how it was, wasn't it?"