Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries and it's characters are of their respective owners. I write FanFiction merely for entertainment purposes and I do not profit from writing these stories.

I can't wait for next season, but until October comes, we're just going to have to satisfy ourselves with fics, fan videos and re-runs. So, I figured I would contribute to the hiatus surviving. Let me know what you think, this will be my first multi-chapter story and it will probably go on until the season starts and negates all of my predictions with it's stupid unpredictability.

No smut yet, but just you wait!

Anyway, enjoy, and tell me what you think!

Damon's mind was ringing with the words he had just heard from Meredith, "I helped her," she had said, "she needed my help." The blood in his veins was pounding, and his legs were moving rapidly, propelled by a single goal: he needed to get to her, she needed him, and she was coming back.

All of his senses were on overdrive and honed in on the door at the end of the darkened hallway. Suddenly, the vampire froze in his tracks at the sound of a single, loud, strangled gasp.

Elena.

He threw caution to the wind and shot himself through the door, it hit the wall with a hard bang and his eyes connected with hers, brown, glistening, and panicked. His eyes too, were wide, his expression exuding a kind of feral fear. She was sitting up, staring at him and Damon stared back, only vaguely aware of his little brother's now-upright form.

In fact, it was that same brother that first broke the tension. He leaned forward and touched her arm, "Elena?"

She jumped a little and wrenched her head around to look at him, "Stefan?" Her reply was strangled and confused, "Stefan, what happened?"

Stefan seemed at a loss for words, he gripped her shoulders to comfort her, "You…" he trailed off, unable to break the news.

Damon spoke up, "You're in transition."

She looked up at him at the sound of his voice. It took her a moment to absorb the information, "I what? How?"

"Well," Damon walked towards the couple, "Little Miss Malpractice Mer over there injected you with vampire blood when you came in the other day. Apparently, you're little concussion was a lot less little and a lot more brain-damagey than she originally let on. But what I would like to know," he looked straight at Stefan, "is how in the hell she died under what was supposed to be your protection!"

Stefan tensed. His eyes were still teary from his brooding session over Elena's body. He looked like he was about to say something, but when he looked at his brother's ferocious glare, thought better of it. He hung his head in shame and Damon knew that he really wasn't going to like the answer.

This time, Elena spoke first. She swung her legs off the table she had awoken on and stood up in front of Damon. "I drowned," she stated simply. Damon's eyes widened in shock. "Matt was driving me back into town and we started crossing Wickery Bridge," Damon's expression had turned to one of furrowed concentration, he nodded in understanding. "Then all of a sudden, Rebekah showed up in the headlights and I panicked and Matt panicked and swerved and we drove off the bridge." Her voice cracked as she recounted the story. Her arms were wrapped around herself, and her face paled at the memory.

Damon's chest contracted around his heart and he couldn't help himself but pull her into his arms. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like, meeting her death in the same place and in the same way she had almost died only a year-and-a-half ago. He rubbed her back to soothe her, he cradled her, and leaned his cheek atop her head.

Her eyes closed, and she rested her head on his chest. She took a moment for herself to appreciate that he was alive. He made it through. And she was there to see him again. She enjoyed the moment she knew to be fleeting, after all, the end of the story was really going to piss him off.

"There's more," she mumbled. He broke them apart to look at her.

"Okay," he said apprehensively.

"When I was down there, in the water, Matt was knocked out and I kept flashing back to my parent's accident and I remembered Stefan showing up," Damon's insides twitched a little with jealousy, but she continued talking, "but then Stefan actually did show up," she breathed and watched Damon's recognition unfold on his face, "and he was about to save me," she hesitated, anticipating Damon's wrath, "but I wouldn't let him. I told him to save Matt. And he did."

She held her breath and she watched Damon's face turn from shock, to realization, to pure, unadulterated fury.

"He what?"

Stefan finally spoke up, "I didn't save her," he admitted, "I was there, but there wasn't time and she told me to save Matt, so I let her decide. It was her decision. I did what she wanted me to do." He stood firm, though his wavering voice gave away his guilt.

"Damon," she warned, holding him back with a hand on his chest, "I told him to do it. I told him to save Matt. It's not his fault!"

Ripples of rage were radiating from Damon's body as he glared at Stefan with disgust. He addressed Elena, but his eyes never left his brother, "No, Elena. It is." His voice was low and menacing. He now spoke to Stefan, "I promised you that I would protect her, brother, do you remember that?" His voice began to rise, "You looked at me straight in the eye and asked me to swear that I would protect your girlfriend and the one time, the one time we decide that you're going to go back and take your rightful place as her knight in shining armor, you just let her die?" He was yelling now. "No! You know what? Go to hell!"

Stefan looked down at his feet in compliance and remained silent.

Damon looked down at Elena, whose hands had moved up to grip his shoulders, "Elena, it is our job to protect you. That is why we are here. This is what we," he looked up at Stefan then back to Elena, "have dedicated ourselves to do and I cannot accept that he failed you." He looked down and shook his head, "I can't trust him around you anymore, Elena." He looked back up into her eyes, "Not after he left you alone in that river."

"It was my decision," she whispered, willing him to understand.

He reached to her face and held her cheeks in his hands, "I know, it's what we do," he breathed and she could almost taste him, "We live and we die for each other," a tear slid down her cheek and she stroked one of his hands, "But if I had been there, this wouldn't have happened to you—I can't forgive him for this."

"But you weren't there Damon, you had no control over this outcome," she pleaded into his eyes, "Matt's alive, you're alive, I'm…" she paused, "less alive than I was, but way more alive than I could've been." She smiled up at him in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Damon remained unaffected by her pathetic strife for humor. "No control over the outcome?" He exploded, tore himself from her grasp and raised his hands in the air, frightening Elena, "No control? Of course I had control!" He looked into her eyes, "I could have come back to you, like I should have! Shit, I can't believe I even left you in the first place, what the hell was I thinking?" In the middle of his self-loathing rant, Damon realized something, "Wait, did you say Rebekah was the one who killed you?"

Elena looked confused and nodded, "Yeah."

"Shit!" Damon cursed, "I also could've let the bitch die!" Damon's fists were clenched and growls were coming from his throat as he ranted on, yelling at Stefan and yelling at himself.

Elena was scared. Damon had never exploded like this before. He was always the sudden outburst type who threw a glass into a fireplace but then was relatively easy to calm down. But she couldn't do it this time as she gathered he was probably just as angry with her right now as he was with Stefan.

She began to think back on all the times Damon had rushed frantically to save her life at the last minute and realized this must be killing him. She knew, though she didn't really like to remind herself, how much he loved her and…Oh my god. Elena's lost memories suddenly slammed into her like a shockwave and she stood still for a moment.

"Damon," she said suddenly. Her grave, angry tone cut Damon's tangent short. "Damon, what the hell did you do?"

Stefan looked confused while Damon just looked dumbfounded.

"Damon, why the hell do I suddenly have memories of you in my brain that weren't there before?" It was now Elena's turn to be livid.

Damon was quiet for a second before he let out an "Oh…yeah…shit."