Character/Pairing: Damon/Elena, Damon/Rose

Spoilers: None.

Disclaimer: I own nothing!

Author's Notes: Future AU where Rose is alive. This is my peace offering since I haven't updated UaDM in two weeks. Sorry about that, but real life has been a pain recently. I've decided to update only on Sundays now, since the show will be back on soon and so I can post my other things; hopefully I'll get a chapter up on Sunday. Again, sorry. Also: warnings for swearing in this fic, lots of it, and it's kind of dark-ish as well. Anyways, enjoy(:

meminerunt omnia amantes

lovers remember all

—

She gets the photos, every one.

(Nevermind how she does; the point is that she does and when her heart twinges she forces a smile, shoves the photos and the wedding announcements and the family portraits into a drawer, and goes on with her merry life because what the fuck else can she do.)

Damon and Elena. Damon and Elena, together.

She knew it would end that way so she left.

—

Some days, she thinks about calling him. Just to see how he is. To wish him well. His number is on the screen and her finger hovers over the bright green call button but she can't, she can't. She won't. She knows she won't before her fingers even reach for the phone.

She thinks back to when times were simple, when they were best friends and they fucked and no one cared, when their deadly game of who-ends-up-with-who was yet to be started. She thought it would never end: the casual sidelong glances, the gentle touches, the feeling of his soft sheets pressed against her bare back, the kisses that would leave her lips burning for hours. But everyone looks for greener pastures and Damon found his, eventually.

Elena Gilbert. Her name tastes like poison on her tongue these days. It shouldn't. Damon is her friend, Elena is her friend, and she should be happy for them.

(But Rose never did do as she was told.)

Who-Ends-Up-With-Who. They could market that, a game, though she'd never buy it. She would always lose.

—

Some days, he thinks about calling her. When she left they promised to keep in touch, but he hasn't talked to her in years. He sends her the pictures, but he's not sure if she gets them and if she does, if she even looks at them. Maybe she's like Stefan, silently suffering. He knew she'd developed some feelings for him—he did, too, for her—but she left and there was no one, so he turned to Elena and it went from there.

(It was never supposed to be this way.)

Her number is on the screen and his finger hovers over the bright green call button, but somehow gravity never quite works.

—

How he finds her flat, she'll never find out.

It's a dreary March night in London and she's watching TV with a glass of red wine. There is a knock at her door. When she opens it up, the memories swallow her as she regards Damon's weary face. He looks a little unsteady on his feet but she only raises an eyebrow as a prompt for explanation, as though she's been expecting this all along (in truth, she has for a while now. Maybe 'expect' is a little extreme, but she refuses to admit she hoped).

"Elena… she, we had a fight and… it didn't end well. And we're done. I'm done. I think, I don't know. Can I come in?"

She wants nothing more than to slam the door in his selfish, selfish face (goddamn is she just destined to be everyone's second choice?) and keep trying to forget him, like she's been doing for the past five years. She doesn't though, oh no. No, she lets him in like a good little lady and immediately shoves him towards her bedroom. She tells him it's because he needs rest, "after travelling all this way", but what she really means is that she can't stand to see his face and he needs to leave now, before she bursts into tears or runs screaming.

She considers leaving. Of course she doesn't. Instead she curls up on the couch and cries herself to sleep, because what the fuck else can she do, really.

—

He's only at her flat for half a day before she wants him out. She doesn't voice it, but she wished he'd made good on his promise to rip her heart out long ago.

At least he gives her answers. The fight was that of a typical couple: not enough substance to remember the spark but enough fuel to build the fire. What she doesn't understand is why he had to come the whole damn way to London and bother her, of all people—can't he see he's doing disastrous things to her heart?

But so be it. She gives him his favorite whiskey and drinks him into happiness, and when he presses his lips to hers she doesn't resist. They have sex and afterwards she feels like a stranger in her own skin.

—

The same cycle goes for a week or so before she's tired. She's just so damn tired and by this time she's struggling to hold it together. Elena keeps calling her, maybe that's what sets her teeth on edge. Maybe it's the way he looks at her, like she's not really Rose but Elena. It sickens her to the core. She's tired. She's so tired of this game.

Their kisses become less desperate (or more, she can't quite decide) and maybe she's playing him rougher, too, but she doesn't much care. It irks her that she can't find a balance and she vows to ship him back to Elena. Soon, very soon.

So one rainy afternoon in April, she tells him to get out. She can tell he wants to say something, anything, possibly along the lines of "Can we just give this a chance?" but it never falls from his lips and he leaves without a word.

—

His number is on the screen and this time she hits the button dead on. She must be a masochist or something, because her heart is screaming and she doesn't give a damn.

(Something he said while drunk at her flat lingers and tugs at her like a fishing line. Could she be his greener pastures? Could she really?)

Ten to one, she thinks, I'll be hanging up in five… four… three… two…

—

She gets the photos, every one.

Some days they warm her heart; others, they make her want to cry at love lost and closed doors. But she forces a smile and shoves the photos in the drawer, because now she likes where she is and maybe she's seen it coming for a while.

They had got married, twice, just for shits and giggles. Then they traveled the world and she, she gets all the postcards (and she doesn't question how Damon knows her new address). When the postcard arrives from England she smiles at the ridiculous photo of the two of them, because what the fuck else can she do. She's happy for them. Really, truly she is.

This photo, though, she can't just shove in the drawer. So she shows it to him with a smile on her face and maybe a tear in her eye, and makes him laugh with her because what the fuck else can they do, really?

Well.

Stefan just pulls Elena close and smiles into her hair.