Disclaimer: I still don't own anything. If I did, a freaking awesome kiss would have been just the beginning...

A/N: I'm all excited to come up with another fic. It's probably not getting as long as 'The Longest Night' is, I'm thinking about something between 10 and 15 chapters...Then again, that's what I thought about TLN, too...

Again a huge thanks to my wonderful, spontaneous and fast beta Kymberleii (yeah, yeah, I know you don't need this shout out...:-) )

Please, don't forget to push the button below to tell me what you think...

Here it goes...

Chapter 1

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Pain.

Lately this seems to be the main theme in her life and in those of all her loved ones.

And now it's what the vampire claiming not to feel for months now says he's feeling too.

If he lets himself care, he says.

Elena stares in the darkness Stefan vanished into a few minutes ago, unable to decide to turn around, go inside and close the door.

Closing the door behind him resembles the symbolical act of closing this chapter of her life way too much. And although she's working on coping with it, she still can't bring herself to make a final decision.

She just can't.

Despite everything he did to her.

And despite everything she's feeling currently.

How did everything become so messed up?

And to top it all, she hurt Damon tonight.

Really, badly hurt him.

She cringes. It's not the first time she hurt him, but it never was as bad as tonight. She knows that. And she knew it the moment the words slipped out of her mouth.

She will never forget his facial expression after she said those words. She didn't mean to hurt him; of course she didn't mean that his love for her was a problem. Although for her it definitely is a problem, but not the way he understood it. In none of the ways he understood it.

She sighs deeply, turns her head briefly to her house and shakes her head.

She can't go in and close the door from inside.

So she grabs the door knob and pulls the door shut from outside. Then, still contemplating where the hell she could go now, she walks over to her car and gets in.

She doesn't know where she's driving to until she stops in front of Matt's house, but she sees immediately that he's not at home; the windows are dark, and his truck isn't here. And all of a sudden she feels very lonely. She shuts off the ignition, leans her head against the headrest and closes her eyes.

The longing to be with her childhood friend is strong, to feel his familiar arms around her; every time when Matt held her lately it felt a little as if she was the girl from pre-parental-accident and especially pre-vampire times again, it felt like being embraced by…family. And that's exactly what she needs right now, to be caught by her family. (She misses having a family so much.)

Unwillingly the picture of the other man catching and comforting her during the last months appears in her mind, and she shudders when she realizes that behind her closed eyes, he's staring at her with the same look as at the ball, when she said those horrible words. Right after he had told her once more that he loved her.

Oh God. How will she ever fix this?

It's then when she notices that her face is damp from tears she's shedding. Wiping away the spilling drops she reopens her eyes and startles; right beside her is a face, looking straight at her, separated from her only by the window glass and a few inches space between them.

Her hearts jumps in her throat and she gasps. And then she realizes it's just Matt. She sinks back in her seat, trembling, but she quickly regains her composure when he opens the door and pulls her out of the car, hugging her gently at the sight of her wet cheeks.

After a while he lets her go and asks just one word: "Coffee?"

Still sniffing, she smiles at him weakly and nods. "That would be great, Matt. Thanks."

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Damon lay on his bed for hours now, alternately staring at the ceiling and squeezing his eyes shut, desperately trying to fall asleep, but still sleep fails to come to release him for a while. He glances over to the slender figure lying beside him and tries to decipher his feelings right now, toward the blonde vampire and otherwise.

He comes up blank. For a second there he contemplates if he has flipped the switch; then he snorts. Of course not. That's not an option. Not anymore. Besides, you can't flip the switch without even knowing it, can you?

He lets his eyes wander over Rebekah's sleeping form and thinks back to what they did a few hours ago, and he has to admit, it was hot. The hottest sex he had for ages. He can't prevent a broad grin settling on his face, until the thought crosses his mind why it had been so hot, and the grin fades away. Angry sex, that's what it was, fueled by fury on both sides.

He sighs and lifts a hand to stroke back a strand of her blonde hair, away from her face that he's studying now. She's beautiful. (It's not her fault that in his mind's eye, he saw another face all night long, a face framed by brown hair.) And, although it feels somewhat weird, he kind of likes her. She's a brat, undeniable. But she has fire, and he definitely likes her recklessness and her impulsiveness. And he also likes the humanity sometimes unexpectedly flashing; kindred spirits, that's what they are, in many ways as far as he knows.

He wants to care…Rose's words suddenly echo in his head. He misses her, and with a pang he realizes that he begins to feel a little for Rebekah as he has felt for Rose. And yes, she was right; he wants to care. Back then he never would've admitted it, but things have changed. That's why Stefan's words affected him so much tonight. Yeah, he knows that's not what his brother really thinks about him caring. He's not in his clear state of mind, or at least he's pretending not to be, and he puts on a good show to prove it. Yet, it was Stefan's words that she didn't say, but she meant them.

The woman who always has told him to be the better man, to care, has told him he cared too damn much now. Because inconveniently he cares about her. Because, even more inconvenient, he loves her.

He snorts. He wants it to be an angry snort, but it comes out as nothing but sadness. He feels tears of bitterness pool in his eyes, and with the effort to fight them back, suddenly the world comes crushing down on him, and embarrassed he realizes that there is no way to stop them anymore. He turns around, hiding these tears, just in case she wakes up, and then he lets them flow.

Unfortunately vampire senses are heightened, and sleep usually is light. He knows it the moment she wakes up that she isn't asleep anymore, and of course she knows what is happening beside her, she doesn't need to see it.

He expects disdain, a snarky comment at least. But it never comes. What he doesn't expect is the warm hand lying on his bare shoulder, silently connecting with him. It stays there until the tears finally ebb away, and when it eventually lifts, it's all too late. The connection stays intact. And with sudden clarity he knows, he has one more person to care about.

And somehow he feels a lot better than before.

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"Wait, what?"

"She apologized." Matt can't hide his grin about the incredulity in Elena's face. And he can even top it. "And she wanted to buy me a drink. And I think maybe she wanted even more…"

Elena stares at her childhood friend, hell, her ex-boyfriend, and tries to picture him with Rebekah, the evil blood slut, as Caroline put it so eloquently. The thought makes her shudder.

"But…," she's searching for the right words, "what does a ruthless, arrogant, impulsive vampire want with you, a good, caring, selfless human?"

It takes her a while to understand the glance he's throwing her, to get why this slight smile curls his lips.

And, to her utter bewilderment, he then says "She's not all bad, you know?" He laughs at her facial expression, as if he completely has lost it; and this finally breaks the tension, and she laughs, too.

Then, against better judgment, she nods. "I know. I saw her human side right before…" she hesitates briefly, "…I stabbed her…in the back." She grabs Matt's hand and holds it firmly in hers. A familiar feeling, although long ago. "Still, Matt, she's dangerous…"

Matt interrupts her, laying his other hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, Elena. I rejected her. It's just…apart from Caroline, she was the first vampire I actually trusted, if only for a brief moment. I mean, don't get me wrong, Damon…" He cuts himself off when he sees her eyes darkening. "What was it with you and him tonight, Elena?" he asks softly. He knows something must have happened between the two of them. He saw the look in Damon's eyes after rescuing him and snapping the Original's neck, the look he has cast toward her when his brother asked him if he was crazy. As crazed as his eyes looked that moment, Matt saw the hurt lingering beneath; he's no stranger to pain, after all.

Averting her eyes, Elena pulls her hand away and rises to her feet. "You want some more coffee?"

But Matt isn't just anyone. He's known her his whole life, and he knows her well. He won't let her sneak away just like that.

He snatches her hand again and holds her back as she tries to leave. "Elena, you have to talk about it to someone. You can't really talk to Bonnie about Damon, because she still kinda hates vampires; and you can't talk to Care about him either; she's biased, because he was a dick to her back then." He watches as Elena slumps down on the couch beside him, and he knows she doesn't like being reminded about what has happened a year ago between the vampire and one of her best friends. He decides that she needs comforting words more than anything else right now. "You can't really expect her to see how much he has changed. Although I'm certain she sees it. Still…"

He takes a deep breath; he doesn't know exactly what to say to console her. So he just goes on to say what comes into his mind, until she reacts in some way. "He…I think I never met someone before who… loved someone as much as he loves you" he finally says, and it elicits a reaction, which is what he'd been hoping for. And yet it isn't the reaction he wanted toe see, because within seconds it turns her into a sobbing picture of misery. He breathes in sharply, then he just pulls her in his arms and holds her.

When the sobs cease, he pulls away cautiously and asks again.

"What happened between you, Elena? Talk to me. Please."

Elena tosses him a wary side glance, and all she sees is concern; and suddenly the shell around her cracks and falls off, and it leaves the scared little girl she always wants to hide from the world and from herself.

"I said something…" she whispers. She swallows and rephrases, because that wasn't where it started.

"I did something. I had Stefan, Stefan of all people, stop Damon from holding me back on meeting Esther. He…snapped Damon's neck."

"Wait, Esther, as in the original witch? You met her?" Matt asks incredulous, and Elena nods, and then it's as if a dam breaks, and she tells him everything happening tonight; she tells him about her anger about Damon's overprotectiveness and how it annoyed her that he didn't trust her to make her own decisions; about what Esther has told her, about the blood she gave the witch, about her betrayal of Elijah, and about what bothered her the most, her lashing out at Damon and, even worse, his reaction.

"I hurt him so much, Matt…" She's not able to hold back the tears any longer, and again she sits there, crying silently. She thinks about Damon, and her heart aches. And she doesn't know exactly for who it aches, for him or for her.

She thinks that it aches for both of them.

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Somehow sleep came to her tonight. They ended up in Matt's bed, tangled in a tight embrace, but neither of them felt any awkwardness about it. They are childhood friends, nothing more and nothing less. And it's the first time they both realize that finally it's only about this friendship again. He's finally over her and capable of being just a good friend again.

However, Matt doesn't fall asleep. When Elena has told him about her meeting with Esther, she has said something that has triggered a bad feeling, but he can't put his finger on it. Not yet.

He turns it over and over again in his mind, and when the sun just begins to rise, he suddenly knows what it is disturbing him, and he sits upright in a second, involuntarily tearing Elena with him a little; enough to wake her.

She sits up straight and looks around frantically, until Matt notices what has happen and calms her down.

"Shh, everything is okay, Elena, lay down again…" he whispers soothingly.

She lies down with a sigh, but examines his facial expressions warily. "What is it, Matt?" she asks him, still a little sleepily.

He spares her only a brief look and knows that he doesn't even have to try to hide his thoughts.

"I considered everything you told me about Esther's revelations. Tell me again what she said about killing her family. Try to remember every word she said."

She watches him with caution in her eyes; she knows he found out something, and she's not quite sure she really wants to know. She furrows her brows while thinking about the talk she had with Esther.

"She told me about her friend Ayana preserving her body for over a thousand years, and that holding her captured on the other side was nature's way of punishing her for turning her family into vampires; but that there was a way for her to end it…"

Matt interrupts her, and she doesn't like at all the frightened expression on his face. "Wait. Think about it; what exactly did she say?"

Elena eyes him and does as he says; she tries to picture the conversation with Esther in her mind, and suddenly her eyes go wide with fear. She looks up and her eyes meet Matt's, and the expression in his eyes mirrors her feeling of horror; and when she speaks, merely a whisper leaves her mouth.

"She wants to undo the evil she created…"

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Caroline isn't the only one of the friends tossing and turning in her bed tonight, but of course she doesn't know that.

And her reason is much different from those of her friends. She's conflicted.

Again. She just can't catch a break, can she?

She sighs, and when the first rays of sun filter through the slit between her curtains, she hauls herself in an upright position and leans against the headboard. She grabs the note from her night stand and looks at it again.

It's a little kitschy for her taste, but nevertheless she's impressed. He portrayed her well, and she knows it's more than only the physiognomy that he caught; she can detect the real her in the drawing. How could he even know her that well? Before the incident of him healing her with his blood, healing the bite he himself has caused, they had barely met. And yet…I know…He knows a damn lot about her. The Miss Mystic Falls Contest was long ago after all.

Her eyes shift to the ball gown lying over her chair, and a shiver of self loathing for wearing it at all runs down her spine. She briefly wonders why she still has to behave as shallow as a kiddie pool from time to time. Vanity first! Bonnie will despise her for this, and she's right…

Her eyes drift back to the note Klaus wrote underneath the drawing. She sighs again; she's quite sure that not many people in his long life had the decency to tell him the unwanted truth and were lucky enough to survive it. She doesn't know what gave her the courage to be so bold last night.

Then again…she knows exactly why she did it. It's all this pent up anger that broke free, the anger about the sire bond, Jenna's death, turning Stefan into a dick, the anger about Klaus making so many lives miserable.

And after all the pain he has caused he has the gall to court her. And to plant seed of doubt in her mind about his evilness.

With a cry of sudden rage she scrunches up the note and hurls it into a corner of her room. She jumps up from her bed, rushes over to the opposite corner, as if to put as much distance between her and the paper as possible, and punches her flat hand against the wall, savoring the flare of pain stinging on her palm for a few seconds. Then she stands there, curling her hands to fists, until after a while the tension ebbs away and she weakly leans her back against the wall.

Pushing herself away from the wall after a moment, she sneaks over to the corner where she threw the damn paper, kneels down and cautiously, as if she's expecting it to bite her, seizes it and then smoothes it out on her thigh.

A desperate moan escapes her throat, she leans her head against the wall, and closing her eyes, she whispers: "Why the hell are you doing this to me?"

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Damon's just pulling on fresh clothes after taking a shower when he hears the frantic knocking on the front door. He casts a glance to his bathroom where Rebekah still is showering, pulls the hem of his shirt down and, after a brief glance into the mirror, descends the stairs. Before he even is downstairs the door opens and reveals Elena and Matt. Huh. A quick glance at the old grandfather clock confirms what he knows anyway; it's not even 7 a.m. What the hell are they doing here at this time in the morning? Why has she actually to come here at all? He doesn't want to see her now…

He breathes deeply in and out, squares his shoulders and enters the parlor the exact same moment as they come in from the other side. Damon frowns for a second when he sees Elena's face; he can see that she hasn't slept much, if at all, and somehow he knows that she has cried, too. And then something else flies over her features, something Damon instantly deciphers as fear. He wonders what has her so frightened that she can't hide it. Still, the next moment it's gone.

The snarky comment about their showing up early to his house is stuck somewhere on its way from his brain to his mouth. He has to clear his throat before addressing them.

"What do you want?" he snaps when he finally is able to say anything at all, and he regrets it the same moment he sees the pain in her eyes. He doesn't want to hurt her, no matter how much she has hurt him. And yet, part of him feels satisfaction.

He watches as Matt gently takes her arm to give her support, and again he is torn. But Elena shrugs it off, and right now Damon just feels relieved.

"We need to talk about Esther" Elena announces before anyone can steer the conversation in an unwanted direction, and again fear flickers in her eyes for a second. Damon nods, but another voice cuts in, and it makes Elena tense and a chill runs down her spine; Rebekah.

"What do you have to talk about in regards to my mother?" she asks, descending the last of the stairs and entering the parlor, and hostility is emanating off of her with every word she's spitting out.

Elena flashes Damon a brief glance and then turns toward Rebekah, and although he is quite sure that he discerns another feeling behind her demeanor (he thinks that it looks remarkably like jealousy), she seems to be calm and composed. "She asked me to help her with something" Elena says, and feeling everyone's attention turn to her, she goes on: "She asked me for my help to kill you."

The sudden silence is deafening. No one moves for quite awhile, until Rebekah says sharply, but unable to prevent her voice from shaking lightly: "What does that mean? Kill who exactly?"

And everybody, including herself, knows the answer. "Her children."

With a cry Rebekah pounces forward toward Elena, but she doesn't even come close to her; Damon lunges on her, hurling her away, but it's not lost on Elena that his move isn't as violent as she has expected it to be, since he's protecting her, and a very inconvenient feeling instantly creeps its way through her veins straight to her heart.

Rebekah regains her composure fast. "Why would my mother want to kill her own children?" she snaps out angrily. "She wants us to be a family again, after a thousand years to finally be a family again…" Her voice breaks, and Elena's eyes go wide as she watches Damon laying his hand on the blonde vampire's shoulder, squeezing it soothingly. Hot jealousy washes over her body at that sight.

Damon lets Rebekah go and turns to Elena "Spill."

For a second she flinches at the anger toward her etched in his features, but then she straightens up a little and focuses on what is her priority at the moment; right now she can't care about fixing what she broke last night. That has to wait. She hasn't even told them what Matt figured out…

And then there is something else she has to fix, another mistake she made at the ball. She takes a deep breath. "I'm going to call Elijah first; we need him to be here, too…"

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A/N: So, did you like it so far? You want me to go on? Tell me...push the button...the blue one down there...: