Title: What A Life I Might Have Led (Had I Met You Instead)
Category: Smallville/The Vampire Diaries
Genre: Romance/Drama
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 'She is the vampire he is the human.' by faramile
Word Count: 2,714
Summary: It's 1864 and Damon Salvatore has fallen for the seemingly human Chloe Sullivan. But humanity is fleeting when Katherine Pierce has a plan and a town to destroy in the process.
What A Life I Might Have Led (Had I Met You Instead)
-1/1-
The clatter of the party around them was a mixture of conversation and music; the Salvatore house was filled to overflowing with people, dressed in their most elegant, some dancing as the music swelled while others were eager to gossip and discuss business. Across the parlor, Chloe watched as Giuseppe entertained Jonathon Gilbert, who was waving his hands around dramatically as they spoke, a gold compass gripped in his fingers. She frowned, noting the terribly dark look on Giuseppe's face before he ushered the young man out of sight to continue their conversation, pausing to look around to make sure nobody had noticed or overheard before he closed the heavy doors behind him. She tipped her head, eyes off to the side and distant. Before she could focus her considerable attention and hearing on the secluded room and the suspicious people inside it, she felt a presence at her side.
"Chloe," Damon said, breath tickling her ear.
She smiled automatically and felt a warmth fill her from the inside out. She turned to face him, taking in the rakish way his hair fell across his forehead, near to his eyes. He was dressed handsomely, his clothes tailored perfectly to fit his long, lean frame; she reached across to smooth her hand over the lapels of his suit, helpless to the desire to touch him.
"There's someone you've yet to meet..." he said before circling his arm around her, his hand pressing against the small of her back, guiding her further into the crowd.
Her pale, pink pearl dress swished at her feet as they crossed the room, the corset hugging tight to her waist and pushing her bosom up, though fabric and lace rode high to give her modesty. Her long, blonde hair was draped down one side, reaching her waist in thick waves. "You're certain? I think I've made the rounds twice over," she told him, tipping her chin back to see his handsome face. "I've been through the mill with small talk."
He smiled down at her, lips curling at the corners devilishly. "And you've no doubt charmed every hoity-toity big talker you've met…"
"A few were boresome, but I've met worse…" She shrugged. "I reckon I did all right though."
"You can talk with the best of them, I've seen it done."
"Why, Mister Salvatore, are you suggesting I talk too much?" she wondered, holding back a laugh.
"You talk enough," he said, grinning.
Her eyes narrowed teasingly. "Sounds close to 'too much' to my thinking."
He chuckled, leaning into her. "Well I have someone else for you to meet, so I must think strongly of all your jawing."
"Jury's out as yet. I've met quite enough big bugs for one night."
"Trust me, it's someone you've asked after a few times…" As he saw understanding dawn on her face, he nodded. "Seems she's as popular as you, but she finally has a free moment."
"Ahh…" She nodded, dropping her chin to let her eyes wander the room. "You're sure she doesn't want to catch her breath?"
He chuckled lightly. "I think she likes the attention."
As they came to a stop just short of the woman in question, he said, "Well, I'll leave you two to properly make an acquaintance."
Chloe looked up at him, squeezing his forearm gently. "Thank you."
"Such a gentleman, Mister Salvatore," Katherine said as she turned, her attractive dress swishing around her legs and drawing the eye to how it draped stunningly around her frame. She eyed the elder brother from under heavy lashes, her mouth quirked with seductive suggestion.
"He likes to think so," Chloe said, looking at him fondly.
He nodded to them both before being dragged into a conversation with Stefan and a tipsy George Lockwood.
"Miss Sullivan," Katherine said, drawing Chloe's gaze back to her and offering a shark-like grin. "So pleased to meet you…" She shook her head and cast a fond look at the Salvatore brothers. "Damon hardly stops to take a breath, he talks about you so often…"
Chloe dipped her chin in concession. "He's mentioned you as well. I admit I've been eager to meet you."
Katherine stepped closer, her dress moving with her as if a second skin. She took each of Chloe's hands and squeezed until they hurt. "As have I… It wasn't so long ago that it seemed Damon could hardly remove his eyes from me…" She laughed sweetly, looking the picture of angelic innocence. "I'd be very interested in knowing how you enamored him away…"
Chloe grinned back and gripped Katherine's hands until she saw the woman's smile fade into a surprised grimace. "Oh, Katerina… You'd be amazed what a little vervain can do when used in the right manner…" She raised an eyebrow at Katherine's wide-eyed, fearful expression, and tisked. "You didn't believe yourself to be the only vampire in Mystic Falls, did you?"
She tugged on Katherine's hands and brought her in for a hug, feigning as though they'd made a great connection for any who might be watching. "Listen to me very closely, Petrova… Damon Salvatore is not your property. He is a good man who won't be manipulated by your games. Should you try to turn his eye again, if you harm him or his family in any way…" She turned so her lips brushed the shell of Katherine's ear, her breath sending her earring rocking. "I will pluck that ring from your finger and at dawn I'll drag you through the town square by your hair, until the sun slowly burns you to ash for all to see…"
She could hear as the vampire swallowed thickly, her body shaking.
"I believe we have an understanding…"
"We do," Katherine agreed.
"Then celebration is in order…" She drew back and smiled brightly. "Damon," she called, turning her head to invite her fiancé over. He paused his conversation and moved across the room to meet her, his hand out for her to take, their fingers twining when in reach. "You were right, of course. Katherine is a lovely person…" She squeezed the vampire's hand one last time before leaning into Damon's side, her free hand moving to his chest, stroking atop his heart. "Perhaps too lively for our Stefan though… And, I'm not to gossip, of course, but… Katherine did say her heart still yearned for her fallen fiancé…" Her eyes cast back toward Katherine as she said heavily, "I trust she'll always feel as though a part of her is with Niklaus."
Katherine's fingers gripped the satin collar at her neck noticeably tight as she stared at Chloe, her eyes wide.
"Oh dear, I'm sorry…" Chloe reached across and patted her arm. "Is it still too fresh to speak of?"
"I…" Katherine's voice broke. "I— Yes. Yes, I'm still… mourning," she said, her eyes falling to the ground.
"I imagine so," Chloe said, nodding. "It was… terrible, what happened…" She stared at her thoughtfully. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone," she admitted honestly.
Katherine raised her gaze to meet hers.
"I hadn't heard of Niklaus…" Damon said, looking between them, brow furrowed. "I didn't know you were previously engaged, Miss Pierce… I'm sorry for your loss." He turned his head to smile down at Chloe. "I shudder to think what my Chloe would do if I'd been lost to this war."
Grinning brightly, Chloe turned in his embrace. "Waste away, of course… Die a bitter, old maid, forever lost in the memory of my handsome, rapscallion of a Salvatore…"
He laughed deeply and leaned forward until their foreheads touched. "You promise?"
She cupped his face in her hands, thumbs stroking his cheeks. "Nothing less," she vowed.
"Then I'll never perish," he promised. "Simple."
She shook her head. "I trust you won't."
"Are they already lost in each other?" Stefan wondered as he joined them. He smiled at Katherine conspiratorially. "They're always like this… I never thought I'd see Damon so entranced."
"Yes…" Katherine mused, looking between them. "It's indeed unexpected."
"But not unwanted," Stefan said, nodding. "If ever there was a better half for Damon, it's Chloe." He held his arm out, elbow crooked invitingly. "Join me in a dance, Miss Katherine?"
She turned a coy grin on him. "I'd be honored."
As he led her away, Chloe's eyes chased after them.
"Don't worry," Damon murmured. "If Miss Pierce's heart needs mending, perhaps Stefan is just the right man for the job."
Chloe hummed thoughtfully before turning her attention back to him. "I'd rather not waste thought on them when I could instead think of you…"
He smiled down at her. "Would you do me the honor of dancing with me?"
"So gallant," she said, rolling her eyes. "You'll spoil me early."
"We have a lifetime ahead of us, I'm only getting ahead of the curve," he said, before twirling her under his arm.
She laughed as she was drawn back in, their hands woven together. "A lifetime doesn't seem long enough…"
"It's hardly begun," he argued with a scoff.
"Time passes much too fast… We don't see it until it's too late…" They fell easily into the steps, moving through them with hardly any attention at all.
"There's no cheating it… It moves as fast and as full as we let it…"
"You are full of optimism," she said, shaking her head.
"What reason do I have for anything else?" He tipped his head, brow raised. "I'm engaged to the most beautiful and beguiling woman I've ever met, the war is sure to fall in our favor, and we have the world at our feet… If ever there was a time for optimism, it's now."
"Or perhaps skepticism over it all seeming too easy…"
He grinned. "You worry enough for the both of us… I'll be happy to prove you wrong for years to come."
"I'd expect nothing less, Salvatore," she said, her voice low and deep.
He slid his hand over her waist and cast his gaze around the room to see if anyone was watching. "What say we leave here? Spend a night under the stars."
"I can think of nothing better," she agreed.
Chloe let herself trust in Damon's word, in Katherine's fear, in the threats she let hang heavy in the air. She stood back and watched as Katherine and Stefan grew closer, sneaking away to be with each other, avoiding the watchful eye of Giuseppe. As Damon stayed untouched by Katherine's wiles, fully in control of his own thought as he and Chloe were married in mid-October. But as time wore on, the hunt for vampires grew in the small town and she knew a decision had to be made. The council was becoming suspicious and Chloe was certain that the recent rash of murderous attacks was Katherine's doing. So she wasn't at all surprised when a cry went out through the Salvatore house, startling her and Damon from slumber; Giuseppe had used vervain to poison Katherine and found her in Stefan's bedroom.
Chloe struggled with what to do before finally decidingthat Katherine had brought her fate on herself. In all her years as a vampire, Chloe had never turned anyone, and those she drank from had always lived. She'd been lucky to be sired by one who wanted her to learn control over all else. She wondered briefly where Elijah was now, but knew it was unlikely he was far from Niklaus' side, somewhere she'd been warned to stay far away from.
However, fate would not allow her to stand idly by as Katherine was brought to her rightful death. Stefan, feeling as though it were his fault that his love was sentenced to be killed, went to free her.
And he took Damon with him.
Chloe would never forget the deafening sound of Giuseppe's gun as it parted the sky with a crack, bullets racing toward their intended target and swiftly killing first Damon and then Stefan. She screamed his name, horror dripping from her shattered heart, before she was racing across the dirt, falling to her knees at his side.
"Damon?" She touched his face, his mouth, where blood had collected on his lips. "Damon?"
"I… lied…" he choked, staring up at her with wide eyes, his brow furrowed.
"Wh-What?" She shook her head.
"It… wasn't simple…" He smiled, his teeth colored with blood. "I perished."
She shook her head, tears streaming. "No," she breathed. Resolve settled heavy inside her. "No, I won't let you."
He was shaking, his breathing shallow.
"You want that I should be optimistic…" She brushed his hair back from his neck. "I'm optimistic that you will survive, Damon, and we will live much longer than a lifetime together."
He stared, confused, but then she tore open her wrist with her incisors that lengthened and sharpened, her eyes darkening and veins spider-webbing out from beneath them. "Chloe?" he choked.
"Do you trust me?"
He stared up at her, blinked, and then nodded weakly.
"Then drink," she said, pressing her bleeding wrist to his lips.
When Damon's breathing faded away, she gently brushed his hair from his forehead, stroking his damp temple, where death had collected in fearful perspiration.
Scaring the townspeople away wasn't hard; their weapons were little match for one as strong and trained as she was. She did not kill them, as it wasn't in her nature, but she knocked them unconscious and destroyed their hunting weapons, before collecting Damon in her arms while Emily Bennett swept in to watch over Stefan. She paused, staring uncertainly at the witch, before saying fiercely, "If you harm him in any way, I will destroy you and every ancestor that bares your name." She stood, Damon light as a feather in her arms. "Trust that I don't make idle threats, Miss Bennett."
"I have already made promises that he will come to no harm and I will keep them," Emily assured her, expression serious as she nodded simply.
With that, Chloe turned and disappeared, speeding through the hauntingly dark and death-filled roads of Mystic Falls, smoke billowing up from Fell's Church in the distance. She turned her back on the town and its inhabitants, her only concern over who she held. She raced through the woods before finally she came to a stop in a grassy field just short of a pond, the gnarled trees around them having already been stripped of their leaves as fall leaned ever closer to winter. She laid Damon down, his upper-half draped over her lap, as she waited, the sky slowly bleeding from black to a dreary grey-blue. She watched for any sign; a twitch of fingers, a fluttering of his eyelids, but hours passed with nothing to greet her, to soothe the fear that she was too late and death had taken him whole.
Until finally, suddenly, he jerked, his eyes opening abruptly, searching, blinking, finding her and staring up in confusion.
Chloe laughed breathlessly, a watery smile greeting him as she stroked his curling hair. "I feared you wouldn't wake…"
"How…? I…" His brow furrowed as he tried to remember, tried to make sense of it.
She nodded, swallowing thickly. "I have much to tell you," she murmured, stroking his cheek.
"A fair bit," he agreed, leaning back against her.
"You still trust me?" she wondered, searching his face worriedly.
He stilled her hand and pressed his forefinger to where her wedding ring circled her finger. He looked up at her and nodded with the full breadth of his trust.
"I will teach you," she promised heavily. "And forever will be ours."
Damon kissed her wrist, her palm, and the band of her ring, before he sat up. Still sluggish, head spinning, he fell back into her, where she caught him easily, arms gathered around him. He smiled as his head fell, dropping against her shoulder, and her long, blonde hair tickled the side of his face as it danced in the morning breeze. "I like how optimism looks on you," he murmured.
Chloe pressed her lips to his temple and sighed. "I fear it's incurable."
He smiled, closed his eyes, and stroked her arm. "There are worse fates."
Indeed, there were.
Across the pond, Stefan woke to Emily Bennett and a far worse beginning to his undead life.
[End.]