"I love you, Elena. And it's because I love you that…I can't be selfish with you. Why you can't know this. I don't deserve you. But my brother does. God, I wish you didn't have to forget this…but you do."

And then he was gone.

But there was no way I was letting him get away with a comment like that unquestioned.

Ten minutes later, I was pulling up outside the Salvatore mansion. With a final determined glance at myself in my rearview mirror, I got out and stalked purposefully towards the door. I didn't even knock.

He was sitting on the couch in the den, drinking. How unexpected. Elena rolled her eyes at the sight. What caught her attention, however, was the way he was sitting—slumped over, like he was worn out. Like something had been beaten out of him and he was physically exhausted. The way he stared at the flames in the fireplace was also peculiar to her. His expression was one of grief, like he had lost all hope.

"Elena." His voice was a failed attempt at his usual smarminess.

"Damon."

"Well, now that we've established that we do, indeed, know each other's names, would you like to oblige me with why you have graced me with your presence on this lovely evening?" He wasn't turning his head towards her to offer his usual impish grin. He knew she would see right through his façade.

Elena didn't say anything.

"Stefan's not here." He said in a low, more serious tone.

"I know." She said. "I didn't come for Stefan."

"Then what did you come here for, Elena?" He would have sounded annoyed and snappy to anyone else. To Elena, he sounded like he couldn't possibly bear any more hurt. He was asking her to spare him any more emotional damage. Elena's heart broke a little.

With her chin thrust outward in defiance, she finally spoke. "You love me." It wasn't a statement, really. It was more of an accusation.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't think you deserve me. But you think Stefan does." It wasn't as if she thought he needed a refresher on the conversation. At this point, she was only filling in the details to stop his denial.

In a split second, Damon went from staring at the fireplace to pressing her against the wall. His face was inches away from her own.

"I compelled you."

"Apparently you didn't do a good enough job." She jabbed, if only to show him that he was less than frightening to her, even at his most intimidating. He would never hurt her.

They both seemed to realize this at the same time, and so he released her and abruptly turned around, pushing a hand through his hair and walking back and forth, thinking intently. Elena almost smiled; she had never seen Damon actually pacing before.

He was facing away from her now, as if the embarrassment of her knowing was too much for him to cope with. As if he didn't want to look her in the eye. "How do you remember?" It sounded rhetorical, like he was baffled himself, but Elena answered anyway.

"Damon, when I lost the necklace in the house with Rose and Trevor, I thought it would be gone forever. Then you and Stefan saved me, and I told him about it. He was worried that I would be unprotected from any vampire that would try to compel me—especially Klaus." Elena held up her arm to show off a new bracelet dangling from her dainty wrist. "It's the same one Jeremy has. I guess Stefan had spares."

Accepting this explanation, Damon turned his head a little. His expression looked almost…sheepish. Like he had been found out. Like it was the worst thing in the world.

"Damon, why can't you look me in the eye?"

"Because, I—" He cut himself off and began pacing again. "I'm a mess, Elena. I have gone 145 years without caring about a single person, and then you come traipsing into Stefan's life and…God!" He threw his arms up and covered his face, groaning into his hands.

"And what?" Elena walked over to him and pulled his arms down, keeping his hands in hers and making him look her in the eye. "And what, Damon?"

"…and I fell in love with you." It was the second time he had said it in one night, but for some reason this time it became real. She heard a sharp intake of breath at his words, and realized it was her own. They stared at each other for a few brief seconds before Damon broke out of Elena's grasp began pacing again.

"Why didn't you just tell me? Why couldn't you have just said it? You didn't have to make me forget."

"Because all I could think about was how unfair this was."

"Unfair to who?"

"Unfair to everyone! I mean, let's face it, Elena. You're in love with Stefan. The only reason you two broke up in the first place is because Katherine was on a murderous rage, and now—"

"And now we still are." He looked at me, questions dancing in his eyes. "Damon, when you and Stefan put Katherine in the tomb, he came to me all excited because he thought it meant that we could be together again."

"I thought you were."

"I told him that Katherine being gone didn't change anything between us. That I couldn't be with him until I could wake up and feel like everyone I cared about wasn't in danger."

Damon furrowed his eyebrows. "So…you two aren't together."

"No."

Elena could feel the words she really wanted to say welling up inside of her, pushing, yearning to burst out of her mouth. But telling Damon would only mean giving him all the cards, handing everything over to him. A part of her didn't want to take that chance. A bigger part of her needed him to hear it, the same way he had needed her to her his declaration earlier tonight.

"But, Damon…I don't think that's the only reason anymore."

He glanced at her quickly. "What do you mean?"

Now it was Elena's turn to pace worriedly. "I don't know. I mean, it made sense as I was saying it…but later I couldn't help but think that there was more to it. That there was another reason why I couldn't let Stefan back in."

"And what would this reason be?"

She stopped right in front of him and looked up into his too-blue eyes. "You know what it is."

For the second time that night, Elena found herself suddenly pushed up against a wall. Only this time, she didn't mind it as much. And she definitely wasn't trying to push Damon Salvatore away.

When his lips first met hers, something inside of her clicked. She was right about her instincts. She was right for keeping things severed with Stefan. After all, what on Earth could justify missing out on this?

Elena's hands found Damon's hair, and Damon's found her waist. One scorching hot kiss after another, they continued their frantic pace. Elena began to wonder how she had gone without this for so long.

He broke from her mouth to leave a path of hot, open-mouthed kisses along her jaw line. As soon as Elena moaned, though, he ripped his head away from her neck and rested it on her shoulder. "We shouldn't be doing this." He groaned. "We can't do this."

"Why not?" Elena found herself asking. Who was this crazy, impulsive person that lived in her body tonight?

He raised his head wearily from her shoulder. His eyes had that pained, exhausted look again.

"Stefan—"

"—is not here right now. Where is he, exactly?"

"He's hunting. Clearing his head. Searching his soul. Something poetic."

Elena smiled. "This good guy that you're showing me right now, the one who actually cares that he's making out with his brother's ex-girlfriend, is only making me want you more."

At those words, Damon groaned again, but this time it was a different kind of groan. He resumed kissing her neck, pulling her body impossibly closer to his. "God, I love you." He said, his voice sounding muffled since it was pressed up against her collarbone. "I love you so fucking much."

"I love you, too."

And with that, the kisses stopped again. Very abruptly.

"What did you just say?" His eyes were a mixture of confusion and hope.

Elena smiled. He looked at her intently. His hands moved from her waist to her face, smoothing a thumb over each cheekbone. "Elena," he whispered, as if it were too real to say out loud, "please, please, tell me I didn't hear you wrong."

"You didn't hear me wrong."

"So, what I heard you say was—"

"—that I love you, Damon Salvatore." His eyes closed briefly.

"Say it again."

"I love you."

"God, I love you, too. You have no fucking idea how much…" And his words trailed off as his hands travelled down. "Until the day I die, Elena Gilbert, you will be mine." Elena smiled and pulled him in for another kiss.