I wake up from the feeling of somebody's lips on mine.

The kiss is soft, a mere brush of lips, a hand caressing my hair lovingly. I hum in contentment and inhale deeply. I love these quiet mornings when everything is slow and peaceful and beautiful, when I don't need to brace myself for troubles the day is inevitably going to throw at me and can just enjoy it all instead – the sense of calm, the softness of the sheets and his loving touch.

I pull back slightly to look at him and meet his piercing blue gaze.

Damon.

I hold back a scream and my eyes fly open as I wake up for real. I blink a few times before I look around and recognize my dorm room. This is reality. I'm in my bed, alone, and Damon Salvatore is dead.

I never woke up next to him, I never kissed him, at least willingly, and I certainly never loved him. I would have never done any of those things.

Except I can still feel his lips on mine.

Crazy. I'm clearly going crazy. Near death experiences and the loss of your best friend can do that to you. I just need to get some sleep and I'll be fine.

I close my eyes, but sleep doesn't come until dawn.

It's Saturday. A good day, because even though I love my classes, I could use a break, and the party we've been planning sounds really good. I even convinced Caroline to go there with me, and that wasn't easy. It's like she'd rather mourn Bonnie 'til the end of time than try to actually move on and have some fun.

It's not that I don't miss Bonnie. I do, and it hurts that she's gone, but I know grief. If I choose to focus on it, it'll ruin me. It'll never stop. I've lost my parents, I've lost Jenna, I even lost Ric and Jeremy at some point. So I'd rather try to live than let Bonnie's death ruin me.

Or maybe Caroline misses Stefan. It seems like they were better friends than Stefan and I were a couple, and I'm strangely okay with that. But I can't blame him for leaving everything and starting over far, far away from here. Maybe Damon was a jerk and made his life miserable, but they were still brothers, and Stefan still loved him. I know all too well what he must be feeling.

Anyway, I'm relieved that I managed to get Caroline to be here. Maybe she'll see that it's possible to forget about everything and have some fun, if only for a day, and relax a bit.

The thing is, Caroline is acting weird today.

She looks awkward, uncomfortable, as if we just met and don't quite know how to be around each other yet. I even talk about the party that's about to start, but Caroline – Caroline, the party queen – doesn't seem excited at all.

"By the way, I had the weirdest dream," I tell her, if only to break the tension, and she throws a quick glance my way before looking away again.

"What was it?"

"I woke up with somebody else in my bed, feeling all happy, and then I realized it was Damon. Damon Salvatore. Can you imagine that?" I shake my head. "I woke up right away, but it just felt so weird," I chuckle, expecting her to join me.

To my dismay, Caroline doesn't even look appropriately appalled. She only attempts a rather unnatural half smile.

"Yeah, that's just crazy." And by the sound of it, she doesn't mean it at all.

I sigh and look at her intently. "Care, what's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Come on. This is not you. The Caroline I know wouldn't miss an opportunity to bash Damon, and yeah, I know he's dead, and it's disrespectful, but you've been strange the whole day, so I'm kind of worried here."

"Yeah, you're right, I'm sorry." Caroline smiles and pats my shoulder. "It's just, you've been so sad, and now you're all like, let's move on, and I guess it freaks me out a bit."

"Yeah, I know, Care. I can't be sad for the rest of my life. Neither can you." I look at her intently, and she nods.

"I know. Sorry. I just… I worry about you."

Yes, I worry about you. Why do you have to hear me say it?

I remember saying the words, but I don't remember who I was talking to.

"It's all right, Care. We're going to be fine." I give her a hug and she returns it. "Now, let's go. That party won't start without us." I wink, and she smiles, this time sincerely.

"Sure."

The party is going well until I see Jeremy with a bottle of whiskey and a girl I'm pretty sure I don't know standing a lot closer to him than I, being his sister, would like to see.

"Hey, Jer," I wave, and he makes some noncommittal gesture, as a way to say hello, I assume.

I maneuver between people to get closer to him and look at the girl.

"I'm sorry, I need to talk to my brother. Would you mind..?"

"Sure, no problem." She swims away, leaving me with Jeremy. He doesn't seem to even acknowledge it, so I grab the bottle from his hand, and he yells indignantly.

"Hey!"

"I don't think you should be drinking that stuff."

"I don't think you're my keeper," he snaps, and I back away a bit. I did expect him to be difficult, but now I'm not sure how ready I am to deal with it.

"Jer, I know you're still grieving, and I get it. It's hard to lose somebody you love."

"Tell me something I don't know," he grumbles, but it seems better than anger, so I continue.

"I cannot imagine how much losing Bonnie hurt you, but drinking yourself into oblivion is not going to make things better. Trust me, I know what you're going through."

Somehow, my attempt at being understanding infuriates him.

"You know what I'm going through? What the fuck do you know? You chose an easy out, and you don't give a fuck about my problems, do you?"

I step back. "An easy out? What are you talking about, Jer? Of course, I still miss Bonnie, and I care about you, and I want to be a good sister to you, just tell me what I can do."

He looks away for a moment and takes his bottle back while I'm still too shocked to react.

"I don't think there's anything you can do, Elena. I'm sorry for what I said, but you can't help me. You least of all people."

It hurts so much because he's right. I haven't been a good sister to Jer, not when it counts. When he was going through a hard time after Mom and Dad died, I didn't find the right words to support him. When Jenna died, I was too focused on looking for Stefan. When I was supposed to protect him, I sent him away to Denver.

Somehow, I can't remember how he even agreed.

When I go to sleep, the memory of my too-real dream comes back to hit me full force. It's disturbingly easy to imagine Damon next to me, his hand grazing mine lightly, stroking my fingers, listening to my breath hitch. It's so vivid that I don't remember at what moment it ends and the dream starts, but I suddenly see a hallway and a vending machine, and I recognize the motel we stayed in when we were in Denver.

I remember going into the hallway because I needed to get some fresh air while Damon sat in an armchair, drinking whatever alcohol he found. I remember being annoyed that I had to go there with him of all people, snapping at him for making fun of my brother, waiting for that whole trip to be over.

But in the dream, I feel him behind me, looking at me, and every cell of my body is hyper aware of it. Before I know what I'm doing I'm in his arms, and my lips are on his, my hands pulling at his hair, his on my waist. We're falling, or maybe flying, and the next thing I know is that I'm pressed to something solid and his impatient lips are on my collarbone, on my breasts where the top reveals them, and I still need more, want more, so I pull his face to mine, kissing him deeply before we break the kiss to look each other in the eye – and I eliminate the distance between us once again. Our hands are everywhere, demanding, exploring, the kiss fueled by lust and hunger and something I don't have a name for, but I want to find out.

That's when I wake up, my breathing uneven, my feet tangled in the sheets and the taste of him still in my mouth.

I've never wanted Damon Salvatore, but right now, I crave him.

Which is a clear proof of my progressing insanity.

Damon tending to my cheek with longing in his eyes, so close that I want to kiss him.

Damon holding me and kissing my hair as I cry at Bonnie's funeral.

Damon cupping my face and promising we'll handle everything.

Throwing me on the bed and kissing me deeply, passionately, pinning my hands to the bed so I can't touch him, though I'm dying to do just that.

Holding my hands.

Shaking in my arms as I embrace him.

Promising that he will always choose me.

Helping me cook.

I don't tell anyone about the dreams. They're usually vague and distant anyway, slipping away the moment I wake up until they're nothing more than flashes.

It's probably better that way.

It's raining outside.

I love rain. It doesn't need to pretend it's happy. It won't stop just because people don't like it. It's like overwhelming never-ending grief.

We're friends, rain and I.

The phone rings, distracting me from watching the raindrops trail down my window. I look at the screen and pick up.

"Hi, Caroline."

"Elena, you're not going to believe it. Like, literally. Hold on, it's a long story, and I would've told you, but there was this thing, so I couldn't really tell you, and then-"

"Care."

"Yes. Sorry. Anyway, open up. We'll be at the door in a minute."

"We?" I ask, but she's already ended the call.

I sigh, wrap a blanket around my shoulders, because it's cozier that way, and go to open the door.

Five heartbeats. Two humans, three vampires.

I unlock the door and push it. It yields easily, revealing a beaming Caroline. Behind her, I see Jeremy and Stefan, and Jeremy's arm is wrapped around-

"Bonnie!" I run to her and give her a hug, and with Jeremy holding her, it's kind of funny, but I don't care. "You're here. You're back."

I hug Jeremy, too, because he's even happier than me, and I see tears in his eyes, though he's trying to be strong.

She's alive. I don't know how it happened, but I'm so happy to have my best friend back that I don't even have the energy to be mad at the others for keeping it from me.

And then I feel a hand touching my shoulder, a sense of calm washing over me, though I don't know why, and I feel the urge to lean into that touch.

Instead, I turn around to find Damon Salvatore looking at me.

"Elena…"

He stares at me in wonder, like he sees me for the first time, and I'm the single most amazing thing in his life. No one has ever looked at me like that. I inhale sharply and stare back at him before I remember – it's Damon. The man who ruined my life more times than I can remember. It doesn't matter that he died, it doesn't matter he came back to life – it didn't make him any less of a monster.

He takes a firm step towards me, his hands grasping my shoulders, and I recoil, pushing him away.

"What are you doing?"

He winces as his hands fall helplessly against his sides.

"Yeah. Didn't think so."

I frown when I notice Caroline, Bonnie, Jeremy and Stefan all staring at us, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"What are you guys looking at?"

Caroline, Jeremy and Stefan exchange looks, and my vampire BFF clears her throat.

"Maybe we should all sit down."

I step aside and let them in, noticing the way Damon flinches when I move away from him just a bit. Bonnie squeezes my hand briefly, and I'm grateful, because I feel like I'll need her support to get through this conversation.

"Let's start with how you two are even here," I say, sitting down on the couch next to Bonnie. Jeremy never leaves her side, Stefan and Caroline get chairs, and Damon sits on the arm of the couch next to me, careful not to touch me.

"Basically, Enzo and Ric and, well, I have been trying to look for Bonnie and Damon, and then it turned out Bonnie's grandma put them into a time loop or something, but we didn't know if there was any hope yet, because, you know, magic is complicated, but eventually Enzo managed to find a witch who helped us."

"Yeah, somehow, we read the same spell at the same time and it let us out. But…" Bonnie sighs and looks at me guiltily. "The spell needed a source of energy, and Enzo says Ric insisted it should be him."

"Is Ric- Is he dead?"

"No," Caroline says quickly. "He's in a kind of magical coma. I guess he would've died if he wasn't, you know, a freaky super-vampire. But we don't know how to wake him up."

"We'll find a way," says Damon confidently, and I get a momentary urge to take his hand and comfort him. Maybe it's just a lingering effect of my dreams.

"Yes, we will," I say instead before I do something stupid. His hand twitches on his knee, as if he's read my mind, and I remember the incident in the hallway. The way Damon looked at me, like he expected me to respond to his kiss, and my friends' uncomfortable gazes.

"Is there something else you're not telling me?" I look at him first, but he just sighs heavily, lips pressed together, so I turn to Caroline.

"Well, this is going to be a really weird conversation, Elena, but here goes…"

And then she tells me about Damon and me.

The story is unbelievable to the point where I want to tell them all to stop being idiots and making fun of me. Except everything works so seamlessly that it can't be a lie.

They have it all figured out, all these crazy, impossible things. I fell in love with Damon – fell in love withhim – while I was still with Stefan. We couldn't be together because I was sired to him. We spent the best summer of our lives together, happy and carefree, and had an overall bumpy ride but, apparently, we always found our way back to each other – and when Stefan, of all people, says that, it's rather hard not to believe him.

"If I loved him so much, why did I want to forget? Why did I go through with it?"

"I tried to convince you not to do it," says Care, squeezing my hand sympathetically. I look at Damon and he's avoiding my eyes, and though we sit right next to one another, he seems to make a point of not touching me at all. "But you said that you wouldn't survive without it. You said that if Damon came back, you'd just have Ric compel your memories back, but now…"

"But now Ric's not here," says Damon bitterly, still scrutinizing the opposite wall. "And your memories are gone."

"Maybe I can call Klaus? He can compel vampires, too," says Caroline hopefully, but Damon shakes his head.

"It won't work. Klaus doesn't know what Ric had to know to make his compulsion this thorough. Ric took away those memories… and he's the only one who can give them back."

Which means that my only chance to know the truth is lost. At least, for now.

"Well, maybe it's better that way," I say, and everyone stares at me as they start talking all at once, attacking me with what-are-you-talking-about, no-you-don't-get-it and are-you-crazy. Only Damon stays quiet, staring into the distance. "I'm not that person. I don't want my life to revolve around a man, and if you say that I grieved so much that I went crazy and started attacking people… Well, that's not a healthy kind of love. It's madness."

"No, Elena, trust me," says Caroline, the last person I'd expect to want me (back?) with Damon, gesturing wildly. "If you had your memories, if you knew what you, well, knew, you'd hate the idea of not remembering what you knew. Oh my God, it's so confusing," she pauses, inhaling deeply, which prompts me that she's preparing another speech, and I don't know if I can take it.

"Caroline, listen, it's just, it's too much. I can't deal with it. You all tell me I love Damon, but I don't remember it. I don't feel it." I turn to him, because it feels wrong to speak about him in the third person, no matter how bad he is (was?). "I'm sorry I'm not this girl you expected to see, one who was insanely in love with you, apparently, but I can't just say, fine, so be it, let's go play house. I can't just take you back."

He turns to me, and it hurts to look at him. "I'm not asking you to."

I nod. "Good. Then, if you guys don't mind, just… go. I need to process everything – that you came back, that we need to save Ric, that I… that I remember the last three years of my life all wrong. I'm happy to see you, I am, but I need time."

"Maybe a lot of time," adds Damon quietly, but I don't answer. He stands up, letting out another heavy sigh, and walks away. The others follow, but I don't look at them. I'm staring at the rainy window and trying not to think about the mess I'm in.

After the crazy day, the shower feels like a blessing. At least, I'll have this. My own private piece of normal. I try to focus on the familiar routine of massaging shampoo into my hair, but the treacherous thoughts start swarming in my head the minute I relax.

It can't be a lie. My friends wouldn't do that to me. Which means that in some impossible alternative reality I fell in love with Damon and then willingly forgot about that, and until we find a way to save Ric, I have no chance to remember. Selfish as it is, I can't stop thinking about it.

So how can I ever love him again? No matter how many times they tell me everything, I won't really know. I won't have experienced those things. I won't feel what I'm supposed to feel.

I belatedly notice that the water has turned cold, so I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around myself. Grabbing a brush, I walk into my room and stifle a scream.

Damon Salvatore is on my bed.

I tense immediately, because the last time I remember him doing that, he was drunk and snapped my brother's neck. I must have forgiven him, since we were together, but I can't help the instinctive fear spreading through me.

"What are you doing here?"

He stands up and walks up to me until we're inches apart. He would do it sometimes, and I hated it. He did it to make me nervous, and I loved disappointing him every time. At least, that's how I remember it.

But this time, somehow, the situation is working out in his favor, because I suddenly cannot breathe, and my heart is beating faster than it ever has since I turned.

I take a cautious step back, but he follows, and in a minute, I'm backed against a wall and he's looming over me, his lips too close to mine for comfort.

"Stay away from me," I say, trying to sound spiteful, though I'm pretty sure that's not how it came out. Then I remember that for him, the story – our story – is different, and add a quiet "please."

"Not gonna happen," he says in a low voice that seems to resonate through my body.

"Why not?" Yeah, a breathy whisper it is. "I told you before. You can tell me all you want about this great relationship we had, but that happened in your reality. It never happened in mine. I don't love you, I never did."

"Oh, you did," he argues, tilting his head and moving just a fraction closer. I shiver. "And I know you don't love me right now. Maybe you even hate me. But I'm not giving up, Elena, and you know why?"

"Why?" I echo, not even trying to feign indifference, because his lips are still too close, and I'm way too aware of his body inches from pressing into mine.

"Because I tried to let you go. Trust me, we both did." He doesn't sound suggestive now – he just sounds sad. "And it didn't end well. Not once."

I care about you, which is why I have to let you go.

I'm choosing to let you go.

I love you, but I have to let go.

They feel like quotes from a long forgotten book coming back unexpectedly, or lines from a song I once heard, but now I know those are memories, each escaping my grasp before I can even try to hold on.

"Why did I love you, Damon?" I ask, because I genuinely want to understand. He shrugs with a slight smile, so unlike his usual lewd smirks.

"Well, I can't answer that question, Elena. You'll have to find out yourself."

"But how can I find out if I don't remember? If I only know the worst things about you? If I cannot imagine loving you?"

He winces, and my heart clenches painfully. I have to remind myself how much pain he's caused me, and that what I've just said was nothing but some harsh truth.

"I don't know, Elena," he says, raising a hand to caress my face. Despite myself, I don't push him away. "But I know that I'm the same person you loved, and you're the same person that loved me, so somehow, there must be a way."

I want to tell him I'm not eager to find that way, but his touch makes it hard to focus.

"Do you remember when I kissed you on the porch?" he asks.

"Yes. I thought it was inappropriate," I answer readily. Damon shakes his head.

"That's not what happened at all."

He leans in, and before I have a chance to stop him, his hands are on my face and his lips are on mine. He's not pushing, not demanding, just letting me get used to the sensation before I give in and kiss him back, doing everything in my power to keep it chaste. I'm so lost in him that I barely notice the moment when he starts pulling back and remind myself I'm not supposed to follow.

He looks at me, and I look at him, and we're frozen in time and space; we're the only people in the universe. Damon smiles, and I belatedly realize it went precisely like he wanted it to go.

"This is how it happened," he says quietly, and I close my eyes, listening to his voice. "I kissed you, and I knew we'd both feel guilty, but in that moment, I didn't care. And you responded. You were kind of dazed after that, maybe didn't even hear me say goodnight. When I got into the car, I looked at the porch, and you still stood there, touching your lips, like you couldn't believe what you'd just done. That, Elena, is how it went."

"But I don't know why," I say. I feel tears well up in my eyes, and I hate it, but this is too confusing, it's overwhelming. Ten minutes ago I was completely sure I could never love Damon Salvatore. Now, I don't know anything any more, and it kills me. For the first time, I start really wishing I could have my memories back.

"It's okay." His hands cup my face, his thumbs caressing my cheeks, – another unexpectedly tender gesture today. "I can wait, Elena. I've mastered patience, especially when it comes to you. If I have to wait again, so be it." He takes my hands in his, cradling them. "But I won't lose you."

I can't lose you. You won't.

I almost give in, almost tell him about the dreams, because those are the only memories I have, and I'm not even sure they are real. But he breathes a quiet "Goodnight," and before I can notice, I'm alone in the room, utterly shaken and more confused than I've ever been.

Tell me what you thought, guys, and thanks for reading :)