Author's Note: Just taking a shot at this...I have no idea where this is going, I'll leave it as a one-shot for now unless you guys want more...but please don't ask me what I thought when I wrote this, because I really didn't think much at all...you'll notice.

-- I've decided to continue this story...but please do leave me a line, tell me what you think. :)

I don't own anything but the pretty weird girl. (Pictures on my profile)

HIS COMPANION - The Vampire Diaries

Chapter One

Pretty Normal

It was a pretty normal day in Mystic Falls, the sun shone in a pretty normal way, the trees swayed a little with the soft breeze, pretty normal.

And, pretty normal, Damon Salvatore walked around casually around the streets of the little village, watching all these pretty normal people who all had their own guesses who, or even what he was, some of them might close to the truth, some of them might right, but most hilariously wrong. He knew them all, their names, where they lived, their secrets, their hidden desires and they bored him. Their heartaches, their money-problems, their undisclosed desires, their fiery, greedy need for attention and affection and their hilarious attempts to get it...and their hilarious failures in doing so.

They're lives sucked just as much as his which was about the only thing that could lighten his mood on that pretty normal day in Mystic Falls.

Elena wasn't Katherine. And it had been Katherine...as miraculous as it seemed, kissed him on the porch that night. Katherine was back. But it wasn't Katherine anymore, not the way she used to be, he could see that right away and it killed him inside, knowing that he'd lost her a second time, she'd become...and it was funny that him of all people used that term...evil. He'd loved her once for being so good, for being pure and true and kind-hearted, all the things he could never be. Not because he was evil but because he knew where being pure and true would eventually take you. And it wasn't a place where he wanted to end up.

He'd cringed when he realized that he'd wanted that kiss on the porch so bad to be Elena's and even more when he had to admit that she would never be his, he still felt weak in the knees. He had lost Katherine and he would never have Elena. And that was exactly why it sucked to be pure and true, because someone, most of the time people you cared about, took your innocence and purity and fed you lies to stuff you up, make you so full you couldn't move. He'd felt like that, absolutely petrified. It was pathetic, he didn't have a heart, yet it had been broken...another time.

He swore that this would never happen again, he might not go back to blood-rushed maniac but he would never, even unconsciously leave his dead heart in the hands of someone else to play with. He tried to get the stone-wall back around him and it worked somewhat well, he actually felt...pretty normal again.

He'd just crossed a street and walked down an alley, passing pretty normal trimmed gardens in front of pretty normal two story houses where pretty normal people led their pretty normal lives. None of them could walk a mile in his shoes. And then something caught his attention, not so much his human attention, more his animalistic instincts. A scent flooded his nostrils, a sweet peachy note, definitely human, innocent, thin-skinned, and a hint of rain-drops hitting sizzling hot concrete in August.

It drew him closer, hidden in the woods he quickly dived into, slowly approaching a backyard, a swing set and the origin of the intoxicating scent his vampire senses had picked up.

It was a girl, almost a child, her shimmery ginger hair framed her pretty normal face the way she sat on the swing, swaying back and forth staring into nothingness. She might have been seventeen, or eighteen but not a day older, she had not seen evil in her life.

And he had never seen her, he was sure. He would have remembered this girl, not only because of that unique smell of hers but also because of her lime green sparkling eyes that seemed to reflect the sunshine like a prism, human eyes could never appreciate the wonderful colors that were reflected from them and they would have seemed pretty normal to them but not to him, not him, who could really see her.

He'd gotten a lot closer, a lot lot closer and he almost didn't hear the stick of wood breaking underneath his weight as consumed as he was in watching her, watching her out of sheer fascination, not hunger, not lust, only...a weird sense of curiosity. She was so young.

And she was now aware that she wasn't alone. He hesitated, was he going to run? Could he? He didn't know anymore, something about this girl captivated him, drew him closer as if she was a radiating magnet, pulling him nearer. And then her diamond eyes caught his.

"I can see you", she said dryly, not even the slightest hint of fear in her voice, not even irritation, even her heartbeat, that he heard thudding in his head, changed a bit. She was calm. As if finding that a man is watching you from the woods was pretty normal.

What was he doing? It was too late to run, but could he just step out of the dim shadows? What would he say? How could he explain?

She narrowed her eyes, as if to spot him, tilted her head forward and bit her lip, trying to see through the twigs,a s if her poorly gifted human eyes could make him out if he didn't want them to.

But then again he did and it took only two steps to cross the line from wood to backyard and there he stood, weirded out.

Completely weirded out, she still showed no sign of wonder, no faint twitch of her features, just some sort of bemused curiosity. Her expression was a mirror to his.

"You're not from around here", this was the first thought that crossed his brain, the first words he somehow felt demanded to say.

"No, I'm not", still she was speaking with such poise as if nothing could ever shake her and he couldn't look away from her sparkling eyes of diamond.

With a swift movement she pushed herself from the swing, her white dress stirring only a little and her freckled skin shimmering in the gentle sunlight, she was a pretty normal girl, yet she was the furthest away from ordinary. She stood about ten feet away from him and the way she studied his face he felt x-rayed, from top to bottom and he caught himself catching his breath, what was happening to him?

"You seem sad", she said and it wasn't even a question, it was a statement.

He was baffled. This was weird. And he was a vampire, he shouldn't be finding anything weird.

She still pierced him with her glowing eyes as she came towards him, firm, secure, unhesitant steps, graceful as a ballerina and purposeful as an assassin, going in for the kill. She didn't pause until she was at an arms length away from him.

She studied his features once more, resting on his face, like digging into his soul and suddenly he felt tongue-tied and uncomfortably exposed and – like a child – she lifted her tiny hands and ever so slowly and gently, with a touch light as a feather and burning like fire, her fingers reached out to touch, traveling down from his temple, along his cheek, down to his jaw-line, where she paused, her thumb lightly underneath his chin. He wasn't breathing. It couldn't get any weirder.

When she spoke again she took her hand away from his face, eying it shortly in something that looked like surprise.

"What brought you here?", she asked.

"I...", it took him a while to find his speech again, "I have no idea"

"Well...I think I do", she said and it seemed like she was smirking...if anything...smug?

"I don't understand", this was the absolute truth. Damon felt like he'd lost complete control over the situation and he didn't like it much.

"Everything happens for a reason, doesn't it?", she said, now a smile visible on her face, "so I guess whatever made you come here was important, or maybe...whatever made me come here was important"

"Who are you?"

She didn't answer, instead she raised her hand again and gently put it on top of where his heart should have been, he felt her blood being pumped through her veins, felt it on top of his chest as if it was his own heartbeat and she caught his eye again.

"I think I can fix this", it was the seriousness that made his jaw drop ever so slightly, what was happening? What happened to him in that pretty normal background behind a pretty normal two-story house in a pretty normal small-town with that anything but pretty normal girl?

So what do you think? Too weird? Or kind of entertaining...any guesses what this girl is the hell about? (Because I really don't have any idea yet)...xx