The Chase
DG32173

Sarah: I was thinking of making this a Karaoke chapter or maybe even a chapter for 100 Moments. But as I got to writing the ficlet, I realized it would make an excellent storyline. I never liked how Damon was treated like trash in the end of Season 1 and beginning of Season 2. This is what I've finally come up with. Enjoy.

DISCLAIMER
I don't own Vampire Diaries, the cast, Mystic Falls, the setting, or anything you might recognize from the real world. All that stuff is owned by the respective copyright holders. If I own a scene or idea as it is portrayed, I will claim it before the chapter it appears in. If a reviewer inspires me to write a scene or idea, I will write a credit section and give credit to that reviewer for inspiring me before the chapter it appears in. If none of the above apply, it is safe to assume it is so widely used I don't know who originally came up with it. That being said, this story as it is written belongs to me.

WARNINGS
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE! Rated with a big fat M for mature content throughout the story. Alternating viewpoints between Damon and Elena. Starts with Damon.

SUMMARY
What if Damon hadn't put up with everyone in the know treating him like trash in the beginning of Season 2? What if he decided to hell with all of them and took off? Who would look for him? Damon/Elena

Chapter 1
It Starts With Goodbye

I wait by Elena's window as she finishes up in the bathroom. Even though she hates me for snapping her brother's neck in my fit of rage and anguish, she still deserves a proper goodbye. I stare out at the pouring rain, thinking about where I should go first. I just keep coming up blank because there are only two categories to consider: Near Elena and Away From Elena. I can't stay near her, not with her treating me like something nasty she found on the bottom of her shoe. So it doesn't matter where I go, really.

"Damon," she snarls when she comes out.

I turn to her, keeping my expression closed to her for the first time since she betrayed my trust in going after the grimiore with Stefan behind my back. "I came to say goodbye," I tell her before she can start yelling.

That shocks her so much that she stumbles back a step. "What?" she asks, her anger instantly gone.

I shrug. "I quit, Elena," I tell her, meeting her eyes. "No matter how hard I try to make amends for what I did when I first got here, no one will acknowledge anything positive about me. I try to do a good deed and heal Caroline so that she doesn't die and Katherine forces her into transition by killing her. Bonnie tries to kill me in a fit of rage without bothering to find out who really turned Caroline." I point a finger at her. "You know damn well I was right that night. You know damn well you're lying to everyone about how close we had become. I start showing the humanity you were bound and determined to drag out of me, you turn the other way, pretending that I'm still the same bastard who came to this town to set Katherine out of a tomb she was never in." I narrow my eyes at her. "You don't even bother trying to find out why I was such a mess that I actually lost control of myself from emotional overload. I thought we had been friends, but you didn't try to talk me down and get me to talk about what the hell got me drunk and upset in the first place." I raise a hand to stop whatever she had opened her mouth to say. "I don't want to hear it, Elena. I've come to explain things and say goodbye. And that's what I'm going to do. Don't worry, I won't come back. Not until after you are dead and buried. Because, Elena, Stefan will never turn you. You are seventeen now but you will grow older, becoming twenty, thirty, fifty, seventy. One day you will die of old age. That's if something, supernatural or natural, doesn't kill you off first. Stefan can't protect you on the animal diet. And he is a mass murderer on human blood, feeding so deeply and so hard that he rends his prey limb-from-limb, starting when they were alive." She turns ghost white but I don't stop. "Earlier in the evening on that night, Katherine came to me. She wanted a roll-in-the-hay with yours truly. I wanted one little question answered first. Had she given the right answer, I told her I'd forget the past hundred-and-fifty years and she and I could start over. I was lying on that part. But I wanted an honest answer. The question was simple: did she ever care for me." I use my perfect vocal control to mimic Katherine's voice: "I love Stefan. It was always Stefan." Elena's eyes widen and flood with tears while her hands fly to her mouth as she realizes what set me off.

I allow my voice to return to normal for the rest of my little speech. "So I got drunk and came here. I didn't actually need an answer from you, Elena. What I needed was for you to calm me down, get me to talk, and let me know that someone I care about cares about me in return. You could have done that so damn easily." I sigh, raking a hand through my hair. "But you didn't. You had always known the right thing to do or say to help me overcome the roughest edges of this extreme emotional rollercoaster I'm on now that my humanity is back. But for some reason, that night you just didn't do it." I meet her eyes. "I honestly didn't know Jeremy had been wearing the Gilbert ring. I had just wanted to hurt you as deeply and painfully as you had hurt me. But I have never been able to raise a finger to you with true intent for harm. The night I forced my blood on you, if Stefan hadn't handed over the grimiore, I wouldn't have turned you, not against your will. I would have done something, but not that." I pull my left hand from behind my back and set the vase of a dozen roses on her nightstand. "The day the last rose in this bouquet dies, that will be the day I stop loving you, Elena," I tell her. I let a weak smile light on my lips. "I'll let you in on a secret: one rose is a very realistic fake. It will never die. It may break or degrade, but it will never die. I will never stop loving you, Elena. But I'm only going to love you from afar. I refuse to allow myself to be treated like trash by the people around me. The only one in our group who isn't treating me like trash is the one who has the most right to, since I did snap his neck without knowing if he'd come back from it or not. This is goodbye, Elena. You're the only one getting one because, even now, you're the only one worth the effort."

She takes a step towards me, opens her mouth to say something, but I use my vampire speed to flee out her window. In the Gilbert driveway, I climb in my car even as Elena cries out for me to come back and talk. No, Elena. I'm through talking. I'm through having the people I care about treat me like trash. I'm through having my overtures of friendship thrown back in my face spitefully. I'm through with this Godforsaken town. I'm out of here.

As I take the turn off Elena's street that will take me to the highway, I glance in my rearview just once to see Elena trying to chase me on foot. I hesitate just briefly before continuing with my decision. As much as it hurts to leave her, it hurts even more to stay.

Elena

I stare at the spot the taillights to Damon's Camaro had disappeared around the turn that will take him to the highway, tears streaming down my cheeks as I sob helplessly. How could he tell me all that and not let me speak? How could he tell me goodbye? I vaguely hear someone calling out to me but I ignore them. A massive black hole had opened up inside of me when I realized Damon was seriously going to leave.

Suddenly, firm hands grab my shoulders and turn me around. I twist my head to keep staring at that spot but the hands shift from my shoulders to my cheeks to force me to meet Stefan's worried green eyes. "What's wrong, Elena?" he asks, openly astounded at seeing me so grief-stricken.

"Damon left," I sob. Saying the words acts as a blow to the gut. My legs give out and I raise my hands to my face. "Damon left, Stefan."

"What do you mean, he left?" Stefan demands.

"He showed up in my room, made this big goodbye speech, left me some roses, and now he's gone!" I manage to get out between sobs.

"He wouldn't just leave," Stefan denies. "Not with Katherine here. Not when you're still in danger."

"But he did! He left, Stefan," I say, my voice cracking in my grief. "He said he wasn't going to let any of us treat him like trash anymore. He said that's why he was leaving." Stefan bites his lower lip and turns his face to the side while dropping his hands. Suddenly, he seems to come to a decision. He pulls out a white velvet jewelry box and hands it to me. I scowl. "Stefan, now is not the time," I snap.

"Elena, the jewelry in this case belonged to mine and Damon's mother," he says. "He never leaves this behind. But he left it on my bed with an envelope addressed to you and a letter telling me to give you the jewelry and the letter as soon as possible. That's why I came over. He never has people pass messages or gifts to someone else unless he has a damn good reason for it." He pulls out a sealed envelope and hands it to me. "Maybe the letter will give you a way to track him down. Since Damon's not here, you'll be safer on the road than in Mystic Falls with Katherine in town. Since you're the only one who got an actual goodbye, you're the only one capable of convincing him to come back."

Suddenly, Stefan snatches the necklace he gave me from my neck. I gasp. "Stefan!"

"The jewelry in that case is loaded with vervaine, even more so than the necklace I gave you. I can smell it through the closed lid," he says, clenching the necklace in his fist while staring at it. He raises his eyes to mine. "I'm letting you go, Elena. And I'm not just talking about letting you go on a road trip."

My jaw drops as I realize the significance behind his words. "Stefan?" I ask weakly, a trace of hope in my voice.

He meets my eyes and I'm surprised to feel a gentle but firm grip on my mind. "I can't properly compel someone because I'm not on human blood, Elena," he says. "So compelling you to follow your heart won't work if you don't want it to. But I'm going to try, anyways. Follow your heart, Elena. Find my brother and bring him home. Don't come back unless he's coming with you."

Stefan releases my mind from his mental 'hands' and I feel the compulsion take root in my mind. I raise a hand to his cheek. "How did you know?" I ask.

He averts his gaze. "You know that every contestant and escort in the Miss Mystic Falls pageant is given a video of the event," he says. "I saw the way you two looked at each other that day. You got lost in each other and the music. The rest of the world had disappeared to the two of you … including me. Watching that video confirmed a suspicion I had had since you and Damon returned from Georgia." He meets my eyes. "You're his humanity, Elena. He needs you more than he will ever admit to. As much as it hurts and as much as I don't like it, I can see that you need him, too." He glances down. "Otherwise you wouldn't be out here in the middle of the night barefoot in your pajamas trying to chase him down," he adds wryly.

I glance down to see that he's right. I sigh. I don't remember the trip from my room to where I'm standing half a block from my house, that's how frantic I was to stop him. I'm wearing a flimsy camisole top and short-shorts, the kind of outfit I sleep in. I raise my eyes to Stefan. "I'm sorry," I say softly.

"'The heart wants what the heart wants'," he quotes sadly. "Your heart wants him. His heart wants you. It's time we stop fighting the inevitable. Let's get you back home so you can get ready for your trip. Every second that passes is another second that he puts distance between you and him."

I sigh and let him take me back home. "Do you know how I got out?" I ask. He glances at me in surprise. "I don't remember anything except the need to stop him from leaving. I don't know how I got out of the house."

"You must have a lot of practice sneaking out your window, then," he says. "You were almost as nimble as a vampire as you took the most direct route from your room to the street."

I sigh. "Can you get me back to my room fast, then?" I ask. "I don't want to spend a second longer than I have to before tracking him down."

Stefan obediently scoops me up and vamps me back to my room. "Be careful, Elena. As much as knowing that you love my brother more than you love me hurts, I still would rather take my ring off in the sun than have something happen to you."

I hesitate before speaking. "To be honest, I can almost understood the predicament Katherine found herself in back in 1864," I tell him. He raises an eyebrow. "Two absolutely gorgeous young men turning the undeniable Salvatore charm on her? I know it's had me trying to figure out who I loved more. You and Damon keep telling me everything about a vampire is heightened to the max, including emotions. Maybe Katherine had as much trouble figuring it out as I did. The difference is that she was a selfish bitch who didn't give a damn who she hurt so she toyed with you both." I lower my gaze to study the peeling nail polish on my toes. "I didn't want to be selfish so I did my damnedest to be loyal to the brother who won my heart first."

Stefan sighs. "I may have won your heart first, but Damon won more than just your heart. He won your soul over as well." I raise my head, my mouth opened to protest. Stefan instantly covers my mouth with his hand. "Elena, I'm the liar in this relationship, remember?" he says somberly. "Don't start lying to me now. Damon won you, heart and soul. I only won your heart. I have seen just how much more relaxed you are in his presence even when you don't know he's anywhere nearby. You trust him, completely and unconditionally. He has only betrayed your trust when you betrayed him first. You keep placing your trust in me and I keep betraying you, no matter how good my intentions are." He steps back and spreads his arms helplessly. "I'm setting you free, Elena. Bring my brother back."

With that, he disappears out my window. I take a shaky breath and look down at the jewelry case and envelope in my hand. I decide to read the letter first. I open the envelope and pull out several sheets of stationary, trimmed with roses, covered in Damon's unique handwriting.

Dear Elena,

You're reading this, so I've probably already stopped by to tell you that I'm leaving town. I'm leaving this envelope and the jewelry case holding three pieces of the four-piece set of jewelry that once belonged to my mother. I'm leaving you with the locket and earrings. I never take off the pendant. I'm hoping you're reading this before you put on the jewelry because the jewelry is enchanted and I want you to know what you're getting into by putting them on.

Once you put the jewelry I left you on, only you and I will ever be able to touch them again. So don't ever take them off once you put them on. Once you are wearing the earrings and locket while I'm wearing the pendant, we will be bound together by a magical empathy link. You now know damn well how much I trust you that I'm willing to submit to such a bond with you, considering I never share my emotions on a subject unless either they're pried out of me or they've overpowered my self-control.

The next enchantment is probably going to tear my plan to leave to ribbons. Using the necklace, the pendant, and a map, we can locate the other piece. It's sort of like dowsing for the location. Once we're in the general area, we can use the pendant or the necklace as a kind of compass, the other piece being the 'north pole'. Now that you know this, I'm quite sure you're going to try to track me down, if you can talk St. Stefan into letting you, that is.

Be warned, Elena. Even if you do find me, I'm not going back. I'm sick and tired of being treated like something disgusting found on the bottom of a shoe by everyone in our circle. And, yes, Elena, even you treated me like that on occasion. Constantly after the night I lost control, to be honest. You didn't even bother finding out what had me so on edge that I could lose control like that. You knew I had been trying to become a better man, more deserving of your trust and friendship. Sure, I flirted with you and did that 'eye thing' we both know you secretly love. That was me showing affection, kitten, since I don't do the whole 'wear my emotions on my sleeve' Emo crap that Stefan and Jeremy are so fond of.

You knew I was trying to overcome my past. You knew. But you obviously didn't care. Some friend you proved to be. You knew I was trying to better myself and yet you didn't try to find out what had gotten me into such an emotional state, a state that you have only seen me in once before. Remember the opening of the tomb and the days following? All that blatant emotion? Those days and the night I put Jeremy in a temporary death are the only two times I have ever shown so much emotion without regard to my image. Couldn't you have realized that Katherine Pierce had to have done something to fuck me over to put me in such a state? Or were you so damn determined to be the 'Good Girl' who would never betray her boyfriend that you couldn't be a friend when I needed one desperately? You were the only friend I had, Elena. I thought I could turn to you. Sure, I was emotional. Sure, I tried to kiss you. You didn't have to be a heartless bitch in your refusal.

Anyways, the enchantments I listed above were added after I became a vampire. Centuries before the jewelry came to me, some witch had enchanted the jewelry to become immune to damage. Hell, they and the case have even survived an explosion while in my possession, so that should tell you something.

Also, since you and all your friends are so determined to cast me as the 'evil Salvatore brother', tell Stefan that I left his journal from 1924 in Bonnie's room. No need for a special invitation when she leaves her window wide open. Little Miss Witch thinks I'm bad? Wait until she gets a load of what's in that journal. Suddenly, I'll start looking nearly as good as you. In case you're wondering: in 1924, Stefan was on human blood, what Lexi and I had decided to call his Ripper benders. That was the height of his worst bender ever.

Quick question: if Stefan's such a saint, why does he rip babies apart while feeding on them when he's on human blood? And, young lady, don't make the mistake of thinking the babies are dead when he starts tearing off body parts. I've walked in on him feeding on babies only a matter of weeks in age, the child wailing as its blood spurts from the stump wear a hand had been. By the time I managed to tear him off the child, poor kid was dead. Think of that next time you decide to wrap your arms around his neck and kiss him. That incident was at the end of his twenties Ripper bender. Your saint of a boyfriend is no better than I am. In many ways, he's worse. The youngest human I've ever fed on was sixteen. In my day, that was the age of adulthood so that's not all that young.

I know this letter is starting to be a little spiteful, but, hey, I've earned spiteful. I do my damnedest to make a turnabout in my personality. I'm going to be 170 this summer. Just a few days after your eighteenth birthday, in fact. I've been a complete asshole with my humanity switch flipped off since the fifties. That's a long time to fall into bad habits. But I was trying to turnabout, make myself a better person, overcome my past, all that jazz. You want to know why? I'll tell you. You, Elena. You placed your trust in me. The asshole I was didn't deserve someone like you to place their trust in me. So I decided I needed to change. Slowly but surely, as I'm sure you've noticed, I've been changing. I occasionally slip back into the asshole, but it's an old habit and old habits are hard to break.

But no one appreciates that I'm trying so damned hard to change from the asshole who arrived in town. No one, not even you, is willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. I've been changing. No one cares. So now I'm gone. Things are going to become very difficult in Mystic Falls. Stefan on animal blood is incapable of protecting the town. Stefan on human blood would slaughter the town himself. Bonnie is an inexperienced and untrained witch. If Katherine so wanted to, she could rip Bonnie's throat out before the witch realized it. Hell, if I so wanted to, I could have blocked the pain she was putting me through with her witchy mind trick and I could have taken her down. I didn't do that because you call her friend.

Some friend she is to you, Elena. Sure, she 'claimed' she wasn't going to make you choose between her and us. Ha! By deciding that she didn't want to be your friend just because you hung out with vampires, she was making you choose between being her friend and being friends with us vampires. What a bitchy thing to do, in my opinion. Friends don't set conditions on the friendship. They don't leave you high and dry just because you're friends with someone they don't like. That's not friendship. And you shouldn't accept it as such. You taught me the true meaning of friendship: friends are there for you through it all, no matter what, no matter the cost. No price is too high to pay for a friend, no distance too far to go. There is no such thing as "too much" in friendship.

But there is such a thing as "too little".

Time and again, throughout the years, I've done what needed to be done to protect my brother and keep him from being burned alive or staked for what he is and what he's done. I've covered up his tracks and called Lexi to get him back on the revolting diet that she and I argued about every time he fell off it. Sure, I made him miserable. I promised him I would. But I've also kept him alive to feel misery.

Time and again I've been there for you when you needed a friend you could count on. I rescued you from that crash and the vampire that wanted to make you into a snack. I took you to Georgia with when you let four little words slip before you fainted that told me precisely what had gone down in Stefan's room that night. I knew you needed to get out of town and away from him for a while. I stopped you from barging into a houseful of vampires to rescue your oh-so-precious boyfriend all on your own. The torture they had put him through would have been nothing compared to what he would have been put through had they gotten their claws on you. They could have put him, and me, through sheer agony by torturing you. It was quite apparent to me that you had not thought of that. How would you have liked to have been gang-raped by vampires as others forcefully fed on you? That's just the mildest of the scenarios they could have put you through, Elena.

You need to stop and think before running off to rescue someone you care about. If you go haring off on your own to save the world so nobody you love gets hurt, that can get you hurt or even killed. And that, in turn, would hurt those who love you. If you don't want your loved ones to get hurt, then don't go putting your life at risk because you getting hurt or killed hurts them. It takes teamwork so that nobody gets too badly hurt to recover. You are the glue that holds the circle together. Without you, we all just drift apart or even turn on each other.

I know I keep going off on a tangent, but I'm writing this as a last communication between the two of us. Sure, you'll probably put on Mother's jewelry and chase me down. Or maybe just put on Mother's jewelry to remember me. We could communicate with our emotions that way. To be honest, considering the age of this jewelry set, I don't really have a clue about just what all it can do. The four enchantments I listed are the ones I know of. But there could be others. I never bothered to find out because until I met you, I never thought I'd ever find someone I'd want to give the earrings and locket to.

Truth be told, I never even considered giving them to Katherine. That should have been a pretty big clue as to how I actually felt for her. But I'm glad I met her. In a way, I'm also glad that I got caught up in her for so long. If I hadn't, I might never have met you. And meeting you was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. In saying that, I think I'll just end this ridiculously long, entirely too emotional letter. I'll miss you, Elena. I love you more than I could ever hope to put into words. Goodbye.

Love,
Damon

I close my eyes. Tears have been trailing down my cheeks nearly nonstop since he left my room. He was right in his speech and he was right in his letter: I should have handled the night he snapped Jer's neck differently. I should have been a better friend to him once I acknowledged that he had succeeded in becoming my friend. But I was just like everyone else, holding his actions from when he first arrived in town against him even when it was more than obvious that he was trying to change for the better.

I pick up my cell phone and text Stefan that Damon had tossed some journal of his from 1924 in Bonnie's room. I ignore his immediate call back and get ready for the hunt for Damon. I'm not going to let him get away. The first thing I do is open the jewelry case Damon left me. I take just the briefest of moments to admire the jewelry: white-gold three-dimensional hearts with sterling silver inlay hanging from platinum chains. I then put them on. As soon as I attach the second earring, having started with the locket, I am bombarded by powerful, tumultuous emotions. I reel back and gasp at the powerful emotions echoing to me from Damon through our jewelry. I can tell he's so caught up in the emotional whirlwind he hasn't even noticed I've put on the jewelry he left me. Stumbling slightly as I work around the emotional backlash I'm getting from Damon, I quickly pack a suitcase with a week's supply of clothes, Teddy, my current journal, and a couple of spare journals. I dig out my passport and fake ID and stuff them in my purse. I then take a toiletry bag to the bathroom I share with Jer and fill it with my necessities. Once back in my room, I hesitate briefly before grabbing the perfume bottle Damon had given me as a gift the morning of Founder's Day and adding it to my toiletry bag after adding a dab of it to each wrist and either side of my neck. I glance around my room, trying to think of something else I might need.

Mom and Dad had won the lottery a few months after Jer was born. It was only about fifteen million, but they split it right down the middle and deposited half in a checking account in my name and the other half in a checking account in Jer's name. They had set up a clause so that we couldn't access the accounts until we turned sixteen and in that time, the funds had multiplied many times over. I now have a little over a hundred million to my name. I have never felt the need to draw on the money more than the occasional extravagant gift. Now I'm glad I had been so sparing with it. I'm going to need funds for this trip and I have no idea how long I'll be gone or how much I'll be spending before I find him. My debit card tied to that account is in my wallet, which is in my purse.

I hesitate just a moment before going to the roses Damon left me and sifting through them to find the fake one. I pull out the gorgeous silk rose on a plastic stem. I press my nose to the real roses, inhaling their scent for the first and last time. Then I tuck the fake rose in my purse.

I go to my desk to write two letters, one to Jeremy and one to Jenna. Jeremy will get the basics of the whole story and the letter will ask him to tell Rick. Jenna will be told that Damon had left Mystic Falls and that I realized I need him more than I need air to breathe so I went after him. I leave Jeremy's letter on his desk, on his sketchpad where he's sure to find it when he comes in the room. I then leave Jenna's letter on her nightstand.

With that, I return to my room and dig out one last bag out from under my bed. Once he found out that my doppelganger vampire ancestor had been invited into my home, Rick had taken Jer and I aside to give us each a bag containing a full set of slayer tools that he had made himself. He quickly taught us how to assemble, disassemble, and use each tool in the bags. Included in the bag is a great big box of dried vervaine.

I sling that bag over one shoulder, the toiletry bag and my purse over the other, and then pick up my suitcase. Jenna, Rick, and Jeremy are all out tonight, thank goodness. The quiet breakup with Stefan and shaky goodbye was about all I can handle after Damon's in-and-out goodbye.

Within twenty minutes, I'm in my new SUV on the side of the road outside of town. I have one of the overhead lights on, a roadmap of Virginia spread across my lap, and my new locket dangling over the map circling slowly outwards from my position on the map. Finally, it stops at a point on I-95 near Fredericksburg. Then it slowly continues crawling north along 95. I put my locket back on, shove the map in the passenger seat, turn off the light, and pull back on the road. Within minutes, I'm on the northbound fast lane of I-95. I'm determined to catch up to him, no matter how long it takes.

Sarah: and that is the first chapter. I hope you have enjoyed the start of this little chase fanfic. I promise, it won't be a chase throughout the whole fanfic, just the first part.