AN: It's a really long time (seems so, at least) since I've uploaded on here. I've been on fictionpress, mostly, and recently Uni has taken every moment of my time. Anyway, I got into the Vampire Diaries, then decided I should read the book (because I prefer reading in general). Long story short, I prefer the TV show, love Damon and felt my heart break in the episode 'Rose'. I honestly am praying she had vervain hidden somewhere, because...damn.

Either way, I had to fix it, so this is what I kinda wish would happen. First time actually writing VD, and it's a slightly diffferent style to my norm, so it was a bit of a learning curve (and I know - I could have chosen an easier setting...)

Elena stared at the fluttering sheer curtain before the still open window beyond her bed. Her mind felt like it had hit a brick wall; fallen down a black hole; was trapped inside a white room with no walls. Nothing was processing.

Distant, and almost as though they were sounds in someone else's ears, she could hear an owl calling dolefully from outside; the occasional passing car and the hard, erratic thumping of her own heart.

It felt like a jackhammer in her chest; her ribcage far too small. Breathing was difficult; like something was choking her, hard enough that it would leave her throat bruised.

Her fingers jumped up, trying to work out, without the engagement of her mind, why the air had chosen today to succumb to gravity. They landed on the cool silver of the vervain necklace; the one she had thought gone forever that had not been back in its rightful place long enough, yet, to have stolen the warmth of her skin.

Suddenly, its place didn't feel so rightful.

Her mind kicked into gear. The sounds outside, the dim lighting in the room and the overpowering sensation of suffocation were all so much more real. Fuelled by an emotion she really didn't know how to identify, her fingers curled around the pendant and tugged it. Obliquely, she noticed the clasp had snapped, landing somewhere on the carpet. She threw it onto the bed.

Breathing was easier suddenly, as though the innocent necklace glinting up at her really had been fixing about her throat. And yet, her heart pulsed harder; painfully so, fighting as though it knew what she had not yet deduced. It didn't want to be here – inside her chest. It wanted to be somewhere else. With someone else.

A shaky sob wracked her body and she pressed a shaking hand over her lips too late. The noise echoed in the stillness of the room, so late at night, but it had been barely louder than a whisper. Her legs buckled, and she curled on the foot of the bed. She didn't break the silence again, but tears coursed down her cheeks until her eyes throbbed with dull pain and her skin had lost the pallor of fear that had clung to her no less surely than a newborn cub to a mother bear.

Finally, she had no tears left to fall, and she returned to the bathroom to splash cold water over the dried tear tracks. She was too tightly wound to sleep. Everything that had happened that night was just like brick, after brick and despite the long soak in the bathtub, she still couldn't relax. Though, given everything that had happened, she supposed it was somewhat expected.

Expending all her tears had, unexpectedly, left her feeling revitalised. Her mind was quiet now; the breakdown had, inadvertently allowed her to take stock of the things that mattered. She just had to decide on where to go from here.

She returned to her room, tiptoeing across the floor, aware that Jenna was still awake and downstairs. She was probably staring at the ceiling light for the slightest quake that would indicate either Elena or Jeremy might even be turning in their sleep. Frankly, Elena could not hold that against her; Jenna had no idea of the things happening under her own roof – a murder, for one – and it wasn't a far stretch to guess Jenna was probably a little paranoid.

Elena slid under her covers, curling on her side and clutching the pillow. Her other hand tucked around her stomach, fingers grazing the smooth, cool metal of the necklace, that still lay on the sheets as though unsure what it had done to upset her.

Elena didn't know either. She just knew she couldn't put it back on.

She closed her eyes, focused on levelling her breathing and the now steady beat of her heart. Now that she had thought everything through – despite needing to fall apart because of it – she found it much easier to breathe and be calm.

Still, an hour later, she was no closer to sleep. Focusing on everything had lulled her into a state, almost, of meditation where she was fully aware that Jenna was now climbing the stairs to bed and the curtain still swayed with the breeze in the window she had not been strong enough to approach.

She heard her door creak open, and the hallway's orange light shot across her bed, gold blossoming on the inside of her eyelids. She waited, thankful that the state she was in appeared to be sleep as finally, she heard Jenna sigh gently and close the door again.

The light left, the room was dark and the owl resumed its bleak call.

A moment passed, in which Elena truly wondered if she would sleep again; maybe she would just lie awake every night knowing that so much of the world was backwards – twisted.

Within a fraction of a second, she realised she was human and would have to sleep. She must be tired regardless of how energised she felt. Her mind was pacing, waiting, almost, and she was so quiet and still that it was like her consciousness was not even in her reposed form.

In the next second nothing changed; she didn't feel a breeze, a sound or perceive any kind of alteration in the room at all. And yet, she knew without a shadow of a doubt, that she was not alone any more.

Damon was there.

There, in the shadowy recesses of her room, stealthy and quiet as a panther on the prowl. It was just something she knew.

Stefan and Damon always had a different aura. Stefan had never tried to scare her, or tease her, and she had never learnt to seek him out in the darkness. Damon…he had loved to taunt her, leap out when her guard was down and as a result, without even realising until that day, she had honed the instinct to know if he was around.

Trapped between the cold, calculating affixed smirk of Elijah and the both timid and ruthless countenance of a wary Rose, it was Damon that Elena sensed in the halls of that old manor.

Her skin tingled, prickling the way skin does if the smoothest of silk whispers over it. The tingling made her feel warm, wanted…even beautiful in a way she had never believed such a simple sensation capable of. The tingling slowly encompassed her body, and she found she had to fight to keep her consciousness away from her relaxed form as she realised in a belated second what the tingling was.

He was watching her.

She didn't move a muscle, or allow her breathing to hitch even as her heart thudded once a little hard. He would assume it was a dream – and why shouldn't he? As though waiting for her consent – and taking it in the form of her lack of response – she felt him move closer. Not a sound was made and Jenna could do everything short of standing in the open doorway and never even have an inkling of her late night visitor.

Finally the warmth suffusing her body as his gaze lingered on her grew so that she had two choices.

She dropped the fight against the state of meditation that, within only a few moments of his attention, had become so hard to maintain…or, she confronted him before he got the chance to flash speed away as though she had dreamed the entire thing.

And she knew she hadn't.

Decision made, her eyes flew open, determined that he would realise he'd been caught and damn his pride enough to let her vent. She needed to talk to him.

Her eyes collided with his; the aquamarine blue fierce and soft all at once; hot and quietly intent. The only indication she had surprised him was in the faintest widening of his pupils; darker than the night itself. She would not have noticed had she not been staring so fixedly back at him.

She didn't move for a long moment until finally, she moved her curled hand across the bed spread and turned it up, unfurling her fingers so that the delicate circular pendant could catch the dimmest rays of moonlight and glint up at them as though it were not the elephant in the room.

Damon's eyes levelled on it, misted and hesitant but shimmering in frustration. He didn't like that it was not around her neck as, he had come to accept, it should be.

Elena was done with the silence.

"How could you?"

The whisper had barely left her lips with the force of speech. It had almost been a simple breath, the words ghostlike. Still, their impact was as tangible as the strongest declarations of war.

His eyes widened again, and then darkened, turning to burning cobalt as they narrowed at her. She could see the misplaced anger in them and inwardly smiled. She knew his first instinct would be to be pissed off. What had happened had been out of his control.

He cleared his throat quietly, adam's apple bobbing enticingly under his smooth skin. "How could I what?"

Elena sat up slowly. She was feeling the overload of emotion power through her veins; making her want this confrontation more than before, but she kept her movements languid and precise, unwilling to shatter the tenuous hold of peace the night still held.

He was uncertain, but trying to mock her, because, Elena knew, it was what others expected of him.

She didn't.

Elena set the necklace down and pulled herself back, curling up with the blankets in her lap.

"What happened today," she started, voice only a little louder than before, but knowing he'd hear it as easily as he would hear the same owl moving on it's branch outside. "scared me. They wanted me; my sacrifice for something I barely understood. El- He was stronger than both of you together and as much as I was relieved to know that you had come for me…I was terrified to think you might have come just so I could watch you killed…"

Her voice trailed off.

Damon's eyes flashed with discomfort and possibly even pain; a pain that wasn't his own and he sank with his usual grace and lack of care on the foot of her bed. Both he and Stefan had assured her – many times – that they would protect her. They had almost failed before, but they had always come through. Reassuring her of that was not what this conversation was about. Though he didn't know what it was about, yet. He remained silent.

"Anyway," Elena said, clearly fighting with the memories to keep on track. "I realised today how fragile I was."

Here, Damon opened his mouth to argue. Elena fell silent for him, but she knew he could say nothing to disagree and was not surprised when he remained quiet.

"It wasn't just me," she continued. "It was this." Both of them looked down at the necklace. It had been through so much in a year. When Elena had accepted it, she had no understanding of Stefan's ulterior motives. When she learned of them, she came to cherish it as an amulet of protection. Katherine had never gone for it, preferring to toy with her emotions outside of mind compulsion. They both knew this, and after a moment, Elena continued. "Elijah didn't play games. I realised today how unreliable it is to carry vervain like that." She was so tied into the play of patient but heartfelt emotion on Damon's face, and her own feelings in her memory, that she didn't even realise she had said the monster's name.

The silence stretched and Damon's eyes flashed again with the barest spark of intrigue. "What's this lovely tale got to do with the accusation on my head?"

The tone he had been going for; antagonistic and mocking, fell half flat. Elena knew this was it.

"Because it scared me enough I knew something had to change. I came home and I had to get everything off of me – the blood, the grime…him...I ran a bath."

Damon looked up at her, eyes steady and wondering, Elena returned it, feeling her eyes sting with the promise of tears.

"I put vervain in the water."

For the second time that night, she had surprised him.

His eyes darted around her face, as though the slightest twitch of a muscle would indicate she was lying; that she was using this ruse to get him to confess to something she was simply guessing at.

Finally, his eyes searched hers, burning and fierce, the softness from before almost as though it were being held back; as though the emotions in her own eyes could scar it should it come closer.

"I ask again," she barely croaked out, throat feeling like it was closing up again. "How could you?"

He remained silent, apparently at a complete loss how to deal with this. He was used to using compulsion to solve problems; altering memories, changing events…or forgetting them entirely. His faithful tool had failed him at this crucial juncture, and Elena watched him battle over how to deal.

"No matter what's happened," she said in the face of his continued shock. "No matter what broke between us… I always trusted you to tell me the truth. And that's sort of the problem, isn't it?" Elena shook her head at herself. "You did, you just didn't expect…"

She fixed her eyes on him. He was at the far end of her bed, she huddled by the pillows and up until this second, when he felt an ocean away, she could have sworn they were sitting much closer. The slow rise of anger in his eyes that she had been expecting was already fading, replaced with pain that seared deeper than just his face, deeper, maybe, than even his soul. Elena felt a fissure line form through her heart as she watched him; again, it was as though the pain were not simply his own, and it took the feeling of devastation in her own chest for her to realise, stunned, that he was feeling hers.

"You compelled me," she whispered, trying to be angry, and realising she couldn't damn him for it when he'd done such a good job himself already. "You wanted me to forget. I can't believe- Why would you want me to forget?"

He looked up at her. Elena was amazed that the pain she'd seen in him only a moment before was being slowly, heartbreakingly, hidden behind a wall that was picking up its splintered pieces behind his aquamarine eyes as she gazed at him. The indifference he so relied on to save himself would be all that was left, and soon.

Elena wondered if it would spook him, if she tried to get closer – then inwardly smiled at the idea she would be the one to spook a vampire. And Damon non-the-less. She stayed still, realising only then she wasn't sure she'd deal with him vanishing on her. Not now.

"Damon," she said, as softly, imploringly as she could. She begged him with his name alone to give her answers.

"Because," he finally said, and his voice sounded rough, as though he had not used it in a week. "I don't deserve you; no matter how much I want to…I thought if you knew it would tear you apart. I know you, Elena."

"But shouldn't I have been given the choice to-" she didn't finish. Elena realised as she'd spoken she never would have asked to forget. On one hand, asking Damon to erase such a confession would have hurt him badly, however much he denied it and, on the other…maybe, just maybe…she wanted the conformation of what Isobel had suggested so crassly so long ago.

Damon raised an eyebrow. Elena nodded once, consenting that he was right. He did know her, he knew what she would have decided, and how it could have eaten at her…but there were things he didn't know…and therefore things he was wrong about.

Damon continued, suddenly, "Besides, if you had no idea, it wouldn't hurt so much that you chose Stefan. If you didn't know…there was still…"

He didn't say it, but the words 'a chance' hung between them.

'A chance you would have chosen me'.

Elena didn't answer for a long moment. She watched him, seeing the way the ease spread back through his leanly muscled form; the way the discomfort and tension started to roll off him because such things could never hold onto him for long.

She watched him try to shut himself away, and realised she couldn't let it happen, because of what would be lost.

She took a second to send a prayer up; an apology; a plea. She and Stefan parting had been hard, tumultuous in some cases, but it had been right.

Right for all the wrong reasons.

She didn't know how to explain it – to him or herself – didn't even know if it could be justified. She just knew that, as someone had said long ago to her, 'the heart wants what it wants'.

Her mother had always told her that being happy was a part of being in love. 'It won't be a walk in the park,' she had said. 'Troubles and trials test the strength of love, but as long as you can be happy between those times, it will be worth it, and you'll know'.

Elena felt her aching heart warm at the faint memory.

Meeting Stefan after the crash had, in some ways, saved her life. It had been spiralling out of control and, before she was sucked into the world of the supernatural, she had felt like a teenager again. She fought so hard to hold onto him because of the kick start he'd given her, but she struggled to remember a time she and he had been actually happy since learning of Katherine's non-fate in the tomb. Instead, it had just been the trials and troubles.

Guilty as it made her feel, she had been able to laugh, smile and joke with Damon since then (in fact it was since then that their 'friendship' had really taken off) and it was the compilation of all these thoughts, after his confession, that had made her re-evaluate her life.

She held onto Stefan for nostalgia and a misguided desire to be who Katherine wasn't. She wasn't holding onto him for love, and that was what would hurt them all in the long run. She would not be Katherine now by making a choice. A choice for the right reasons.

They had split up on the bank at the Lockwoods, wondering if that was it. Elena had her answer now, and it had taken Damon baring his soul for her to find her own.

She prayed that Stefan could be happy. She was sorry that of all the people she could have found, it had been his brother. Finally, she made a plea, to whichever deity that she felt she had earned to be watching over her, that he would be okay.

She hadn't even noticed that she was crying again – more tears that she didn't know she had left – until a cool, feather light touch brushed them away from her cheeks.

Elena's eyes flew to Damon's, watching the way his eyes had darkened with her misery. His eyes locked on her again, hand falling away. He had leant towards her, a fist pressed into the mattress to hold his weight. She slowly knelt up, refusing to look away as he shifted back. Any other day, he would have invaded her personal space with a smirk and innuendo; now, he moved away from her, clearly uncertain.

Elena reasoned he had watched her hug his brother for several long moments just a few hours ago, offering him only a silent thanks over his shoulder as though it were forbidden. She was sorry about that. She had raced down the stairs with the full intention of throwing herself into his arms but Stefan leaping up in her peripheral reminded her of how the chips lay.

That was then. This was now.

"You said you know me," she said quietly. "That it would tear me apart…and it has."

A flicker of something that was both accepting and resigned passed behind his eyes but he didn't interrupt.

"But you don't realise…you said it was selfish – wanting me to know. But the fact that you didn't want me to remember – that you had every intention of erasing it…don't you see how that makes it the most unselfish thing you could have done?"

"Don't, Elena," he barely breathed. He was sat back at the foot of the bed, but Elena was still moving towards him, movements slow and careful, like approaching a wild deer that had already seen the hunting knife.

"Listen to me," she nearly begged, determined she wouldn't cry again. "Why don't you want to hear this? You told me-…because you had to say it, get it out, even if only you knew. What if I have to say this too?"

With a harshly drawn sigh, through gritted teeth, she watched a seemingly impenetrable shield jump into his eyes. This time, the mocking light in them, and his voice sounded the way it usually did as he stood at the side of the bed and turned to her.

"Okay…get it out. Tell me so that I can go and find some dinner."

Elena didn't wince at the thought. She knew he was lashing out, saying everything to get her to give up, to turn away from him.

He was trying to avoid hearing the rejection that she should feel obligated to put in the clear for the benefit of her conscience.

Elena felt a small thrill, knowing she was going to shock him again.

"Okay," she nodded. "Stefan came into my life just in time to get me back on track; feel like a person again. Then my world turned upside down for the second time in a year because of everything I discovered. I'm not going to complain; it's made me stronger and led me to both of you and I can't regret that….still, everything that's been happening – today especially – I've had to re-evaluate my life. Where everything stands now…it's so different to where it was back then.

"I will always love Stefan," she said, trying to rush the words so they wouldn't hurt. He had to hear that, too. His face was blank, eyes misty but otherwise as unaffected as ever. "But it took everything for me to realise that it's not enough. That I'm in love with you."

Silence reigned again. The curtain behind Damon continued to flutter, but the sounds of the owl had ceased, as though even the wildlife could tell this was not a silence to breach. Elena waited, growing tense, sure he had either not heard her quiet but firm words at all, or that he would speed out of her room and maybe even out of town in some desperate but ultimately futile attempt to protect himself.

Elena moved quickly to the edge of the bed, kneeling up so that he only had a little bit of height on her, their bodies barely two foot apart. She fumbled with her fingers anxiously.

"Damon?" she breathed. Could a vampire go into shock? It sounded ridiculous, but taking in his blank face and turbulent, wide eyes, Elena thought there could be some gravity to the idea.

"Wh-" he finally forced out. Elena wasn't sure if she was relieved he was talking or anxious at the reaction.

"I love you," she told him again, firmly, just as quiet. "You know me, Damon," she reminded him. "I wouldn't lie to you; not about this."

"Elena," he murmured, his hands rising and gently brushing her hair back as they moulded to her jaw and neck. Her name fell from his lips like a prayer; something sacred…she had never heard anyone utter anything to her in that tone, and she knew that single second, that single word, was a part of her life she would never forget.

This time, she felt a single tear slide down her cheek and Damon moved in. She held still and had the strangest sensation of her body fracturing to a million pieces as his lips pressed against her cheek. She knew, somehow, she could fall apart, and he'd hold her together for as long as she needed.

He pulled back fractionally, and Elena realised she was clutching the open front of his leather jacket in her hands.

When he spoke again, his voice was just as quiet, but with a note of steel. "Stefan?"

Elena accepted the question for what it was. Katherine had torn them apart because of her games; she could not deny him that question now or ever. He needed the answer.

"I'll always care about him," she replied, unable to bring herself to utter the word love in relation to him now. "but we broke up because I needed to find the person I'd become. That person, the one I am now, chooses you. Stefan and I are over."

His eyes searched hers once more, shields gone with no evidence of their presence only minutes before. He leaned closer again, and Elena tilted her head back, meeting him halfway.

It was the lightest press of lips, barely a whisper and offering only a hint of the inferno that would surely consume them both if they gave it the slightest chance. Elena pressed against him more surely, realising all at once how much she had craved this moment for months. One of his hands splayed over her back and a tiny mewl escaped her lips as he tugged on her lower one, drawing it into his mouth with devastating tenderness.

All at once, it was over. Elena dragged in a shaky breath, opening her eyes and witnessing another fierce battle in Damon's. His fingers slid through her hair, fingers clutching the soft folds of her sleep camisole.

"Tell me to stop," he breathed, the air he expelled close enough that she inhaled it with her next breath and she imagined she could taste him faintly in it.

She had been craving that simple contact – a single kiss – for months (only if she was utterly honest). She hardly anticipated they would be able to keep a new relationship PG 13; they would just have to be wary of Stefan. She was very conscious that this revelation would cause him pain.

Eyes locking with his surely, she shook her head.

His mouth came down on hers, firm and almost bruising in intensity, but no less welcome than the preceding kiss at the opposite end of the scale. Elena's small cry was swallowed as Damon slid his tongue into her mouth, moving it against hers.

Fire ignited in her chest, racing through her bloodstream like wildfire and blossoming low in her abdomen with aching intensity. All he'd done was kiss her. If this was a normal occurrence, she was…well…

Screwed, seemed like a good word.

Her back dropped to the mattress and his weight instantly covered her, somewhere between comforting and sensuous.

Neither of them paid the least bit of attention to the dull *thunk* of the vervain necklace hitting the floor. The moon's rays glittered off the smooth surface and caught the facets of the tiny ruby embedded there. The sheer curtain billowed around the window and outside, the owl blinked, stretched it's sleek wings and took off into the night.

I had originally intended to not actually mention the word 'love' once, but as usual with me, the characters snatch my plot and start making their own changes. The other thing I want to mention (even if people don't really read ANs) is that I hate it when characters are really not themselves. I think this one-shot is borderline because it seems like a huge turnaround but I'm working on the idea that Elena is in denial and maybe Damon's confession - if she remembers it - would be essentially opening the floodgates. Besides, she and Stefan have broken up...

I couldn't think of a good title, and this one stuck because, really, the fact that Elena still has her memory raises the question 'what does it cost her?' Essentially, another chance with Stefan but the price isn't so high, because it offers a future with Damon...(that's just my convoluted logic XD - anyone else on board?)

That's it for this one, though I will look into these two more (Sorry, I don't do Stelena). Let me know what you think, improvements, or if you think I could 'fix' any other scenes of theirs. If it calls to me, I might try! =)