Love revelations completely forgotten, Damon drove me straight to the hospital without me having to ask. I spent the whole ride drowning in a soup of explicit fear and self-blame. Was this karma biting me in the ass? Punishment for what Damon and I had done to Rose? With my thoughts running everywhere, Damon stayed silent, sneaking glances at me from the corner of his sharp eyes. However, having someone who worked at the hospital by your side helped speed up any official procedures immensely. Damon had me outside of Katherine's room before it could register with me that we had even parked and arrived.

After tracking down the right room number, Damon opened his mouth to speak but whatever he was about to say was lost when Alaric slipped out the door behind us.

"Elena," Alaric sighed while holding up his hand, the harsh lighting in the building making the dark blue shadows under his eyes more prominent. "She's fine. I didn't mean to panic you but she blacked out on me-"

I heard him utter the term 'blacked out' and the color blanched from my face. Just as I was about to elbow my way past him, Damon enveloped his arm around my waist, his fingertips rubbing the cotton of my dress between them.

"Let me go in first and look at her chart so I can figure out what is going on." He raised his eyebrows at me when I opened my mouth to argue. "And," he protested, "It'll give you a moment to calm down."

He was right, of course. I'd only make it worse if I went in losing my mind and alarming my sister.

In a maneuver that felt more intimate than a kiss, Damon tucked an escaped piece of hair from my ponytail behind my ear and cupped my chin. "I'll be right back, okay?"

He paused only for my nod of agreement before turning and walking into the room that Alaric had just vacated.

"I think the city could burn down around you two and he'd still be looking at you like that." Alaric smiled wanly and was obviously in need of a distraction, so I leant against the wall beside him.

"It's that obvious, huh?"

Dryly, he replied, "Hasn't it always been?". He glanced at me sideways, "I've been a crappy friend to him lately. I know the other day he was going through some shit with Rose and looking for you but I wasn't really available to be with him."

"I'm sure he gets it, Ric." I rested my head against Alaric's shoulder and closed my eyes for a second before continuing to speak. "I never got the chance to thank you. For being there. For deciding to stay. You make her genuinely happy and with Kat? That is something that's rare to find."

"You still haven't actually said 'thanks' amid your ramblings."

I opened my eyes again, looked up, and he shot me a smirk that pretty much mirrored his best friend's.

Before I could respond, Damon came back, shutting the door slowly behind him.

"She's doing okay. Was probably trying to do to much at once, at double speed. They're going to keep her in for a few days to run some tests and be sure."

Although my nausea was gradually abating, the thought of how next time or the time after that we may not be so lucky niggled at brain like an poisonous snake.

"She gave me the orders to send you in there so she could get some sleep," Damon looked at me, motioning with his head towards Katherine's room. "I'll wait out here for you."

I smiled gratefully at him before moving into the dim room that held my sister, closing out the world behind me.

"You ever going to stop scaring the shit out of me?," I joked weakly, pretending that I was used to the sight of my last family member in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes and wires.

Hair still astonishingly perfect, Katherine arched one eyebrow at me. "Not anytime soon."

"Kat," I exhaled, stepping across to sink down into the chair placed beside her. "You have got to slow down. I know you're trying to act like everything is normal for my sake and for Ric and-"

"You can save your breath," Katherine delayed my thoughts by cutting across my planned speech. "Ric has already had this out with me. He said that if I want us to be together I'm going to have to start listening to the people around me and I promised him I'd do my best."

Impressed that anyone could get her to agree to something she didn't like, I snorted. "Wonders never cease."

"Are you trying to imply that I'm stubborn?"

"Oh, I would never," I replied, faking aghast.

"Is there any particular reason you and Dr. Salvatore arrived together?"

Cheeks turning florid, I gaped in disbelief how even in her current state Katherine managed to needle out any gossip she wanted to be aware of.

With everything happening so suddenly, I hadn't had a second to digest any of it. Her question proved to be more difficult to answer than one might think.

"Yeah, we did." I explained weakly.

Katherine took my hand, awkwardly settling heavier onto her side so she see me clearer. "Don't let him go, 'Lena. Tell me you'll let yourself have this one thing."

I swallowed heavy, tears unexpectedly gathering in my throat. "I'm going to do everything I can."

"It's easier for me when I know you're happy. And he makes you happy."

Nodding soundlessly, I squeezed her palm tighter against mine which she feebly returned. "Now, Ric is going to stay with me at the hospital and I don't want to see you hanging around here for at least another two days."

I opened my mouth to object but she beat me to it.

"I'm serious. Go finish sorting your shit out." Katherine attempted to send me a glare before her eyes began floating shut and she yanked the woolen blanket higher up around her neck. "I'll see you soon, baby sis'."

Dismissed, I lightly kissed her forehead before rejoining the two men in the hall.

"Apparently, I'm persona non grata here for a couple of days," I announced, interrupting whatever conversation they were having in my absence.

"And she made me swear to enforce that," Alaric related, looking pointedly at me. He must have understood my expression because he elaborated, "I'm going to go back to my house and sleep when she sleeps. I won't leave her side otherwise, until she inevitably kicks me out."

"And she gave me my own rules," Damon added, sensing another rebuttal from my side. "First thing on the list is to get you home."

What home? My empty hotel room? Bonnie's?…. His place?

Bringing my racing thoughts to a screeching halt, Damon slipped his hand into mine, interlocking our fingers as if we had been doing it out whole lives. He pushed his thumb into mine as if to ask if this was allowed and I nudged his straight back to let him know that it was okay.

As Damon began to lead me down the hallway I paused and spun to talk to Alaric. "Don't forget to take care of yourself too, alright?"

Rolling his eyes, but still smiling, Ric assented with a single nod. "Hey, you two," he called out after a brief lapse of silence. "Good luck with everything. We're all rooting for you."

'Home' turned out be Damon's apartment. Despite his hand still wrapped in mine when we pulled up to the front of his expansive building, my heart started to sink like a rock.

"She's gone, Elena."

Utterly unsurprised that Damon had read me correctly, I looked out the car window, the uncomfortable feeling still crawling in my gut.

"It was my apartment before I met her, and it'll be my apartment after too."

Feeling like I was guilt tripping Damon and hating that I was making this more difficult, I smiled at him softly. "You're right. Are you sure I should stay here tonight though?"

Looking affronted, Damon released my hand and moved away. "You think I only brought you back so I could try and get into your pants or something?"

"Hey, look at me," I palmed his cheek and inclined into the sensation of the low heat radiating from him. "Will you stop, I wouldn't think that about you. I just… I don't know, we said we didn't want to do anything fast and I don't want you to feel like you have to do this."

Before jumping out the car, he covered the back of my hand briefly with his. "You, Elena Gilbert, are fucking impossible sometimes."

He was right in the end. It didn't feel wrong or out of place to be sitting on his couch with a glass of Merlot, watching him whip up something in a frying pan. For once, something felt easy.

"I lied to you," I disclosed, walking closer to the marble countertop that separated his kitchen from the open plan living room.

Damon glanced up from moving around a colorful array of vegetables with his spatula to scrunch his eyebrows at me. "Should I be worried?"

"At the shop, when I was getting my dress fixed, I told you I'd gotten my tattoo lasered off years ago." I lifted the corner of my mouth and shrugged sheepishly, "I wasn't exactly telling the truth." Dipping my index finger into my wine, I tilted my ankle and rubbed away at the mask of foundation that was covering the mark in question.

Turning the gas on the stove off, Damon walked over to me and squatted, his thumb wiping back and forth over my reveal.

"You kept it."

"I guess deep down, I couldn't even let that go."

Rising back to his full height, Damon came eye to eye with me and threaded his hands into the sides of my hair, tenderly tilting my head up.

"I know I screwed things up a lot by not telling you at the airport that of course I loved you back. And there was a million and one times I should have picked that phone up and begged you to come home. You were the only other person on this planet who could understand the terror of seeing your best friend disappear." He sighed, now gathering my hair back behind my shoulders into a loose bun, like it was soothing him to do so. "But I have to believe we were meant to go through all this and grow…Shit, I don't even know what I'm trying to say."

I did. We may have made a royal mess of everything up to this point but it felt like we had to go through it all so we could appreciate it more and have a chance of making it work.

"Stefan wants to go back to Mystic Falls tomorrow. He said he thinks it's time," Damon broke into my train of thought. "I'd prefer not to have to be away from you and, if you want, I'd like you to make the trip with us. Plus my family would be ecstatic to see that you're still in the country. I haven't exactly kept them updated with everything going on here."

As much as I loved the Salvatore's, being with them right now could be too overbearing.

Anticipating my hesitation, Damon bargained, "Just a two day escape, where we can leave most of it behind for a teeny-tiny amount of time."

Now that did sound tempting.

"Okay, I'm in," I agreed, giving him a small smile. I didn't exactly want to be away from him right now either.

He leant cautiously in, treading water to make sure I was comfortable. Breathing a sigh of relief when I pressed my lips back against his, Damon ran his hands down and around my back, tensing at the base of my spine. The sexual tension between us had always simmered nicely in the background, but now, it was unleashed, and like someone had poured gasoline over the fire an explosion was unavoidable.

His tongue flicked around the tip of mine, and something came alive in me that had been long dormant. Hell, my knees may have even been getting weak.

"We should sit," I instructed, the sentence turning into a moan midway when Damon abandoned my lips and moved to the space behind my earlobe.

He gave no other indication that he heard me other then moving us slowly to the couch and dropping back into it, bringing me onto his lap. It began to get hazy then, his lips moving down my throat to rest in my cleavage, his spurts of breaths leaving warm spots on my skin. I hadn't even realized I was marginally dragging myself against his jeans until I felt him growing hard.

"Jesus, Elena," Damon exhaled heavily and pushed his head back into the cushion to give us some air. "Clothes are staying on tonight, right?." The increasing pressure of his hands pulling the slight roll of my hips into his exposed want he actually desired.

"Deal," I acquiesced, laughing when he eagerly moved his hand to the nape of my neck to pull me back to him.

It was just too much after too long, we couldn't control it. In two heartbeats I was shamelessly grinding on him, one of his hands inching ever higher on the inside of my thigh while only the thin cotton barrier of my panties rubbed against his trousers.

Soon, he lazily tried to stop our bodies rocking together, placing his forehead in the cradle of my neck to mumble, "We have to stop, baby. I'm going to come."

Good," I whispered into his ear, adoring being comfortable enough around him to act like this. Hips moving at a more frenzied pace, I guided his free hand up to my breast while his kisses became more desperate and feral, his erection throbbing beneath me. In another five minutes his fingers tightened on my skin and he jerked once noticeably.

Not before long he finally he broke away panting, his hands bringing a stop to any movement and a wetness that could just have well come from me as from him stained between my thighs.

"I cannot believe you just made me come in my pants like a fourteen year old boy," Damon accused, looking half amazed and half impressed.

I stood up and let my bunched up dress fall back to my knees. Holding out my hands to help him up, I giggled when he tricked me and pulled me back down onto him.

"I am in a world of trouble with you around, Gilbert."

"Don't know what you're talking about," I teased. "As promised, our clothes are still firmly on."

I slept in his bed that night but it stayed PG rated the whole time. After our earlier exploits, it was nice to just lie next to him and talk for hours about whatever came to mind. When we eventually drifted off I recognized that for the first time in a long time I felt safe.

Damon's father and step-mother were there to greet us on our arrival at Mystic Falls airport the next day and after they had been reassured Stefan was somewhat back to normal, the attention moved over to me.

"Oh, my sweet girl," Jane exclaimed, "I thought you would have gone back to Europe by now and left us all again." Her curious green eyes moved between me and her husband's eldest son, lightening inexplicably when she registered our close proximity to each other.

Giuseppe knowing his wife well enough to know an interrogation was on it's way if he didn't move quick, blessedly managed to distract her and get all of us into his car and home before the conversation could become anymore focused on my relationships.

Jane got her way that evening though, with her husband and sons cleaning out Lexi and Stefan's former apartment, she cornered me before I could unpack, and ushered us out onto the veranda.

"Wow, the last time I was here this house was all decorated for the wedding," I observed, drinking from the large glass of sweet tea she had provide me with. With the light breeze and clinking of the ice cubes in my drink I was almost content. But I couldn't really loosen up until I knew what Jane wanted to have a conversation about.

"Oh God, I'm sick to death of talking about that disaster." Jane shook her head, her brightly patterned silk scarf draped over a shoulder. "No my dear, what I am interested is why you're here with us now and not his girlfriend."

"Ex," I corrected quietly, "Ex-girlfriend."

As much as I adored Jane and counted her as my only mother figure, having this conversation-especially without Damon-was difficult, and I didn't know how to put the answers she wanted into words.

"I see," she replied. "Not that you aren't far more welcome."

She was quiet for a few more minutes before she continued.

"Damon looks at you the way Giuseppe looked at me when we met. I noticed it the first time Damon brought you home to us and it hasn't changed since."

"I think I'm starting to see that," I allowed, looking sideways at the matriarch of the Salvatore family. "I've had a lot of changes in my life lately and I don't know what I would have done without him."

Jane studied me briefly before seemingly making a decision. "I probably shouldn't be mentioning this but in case you need a final sign or push..." Staring out in her backyard, she persisted, "When you kids were staying here a while back, it must have been almost the end of senior year, Damon came to my room one night. He was drunk and convinced I couldn't tell of course, but in the end he finally spat out what it is he wanted and asked me if I could find Giuseppe's mother's engagement ring for him."

"Okay?," I questioned, not even attempting to figure out where she was going with this.

"Elena," She turned in her chair to fully look at me. "He may have been inebriated, but he wanted that ring for you. Don't ever doubt he hasn't felt like this as long as you have."