Driving through the little town of Mystic Falls brings back so many memories. Most are good. The rest, not so much. With the top down, my little silver Porsche catches the eye of everyone I pass. I didn't come here for the people and I didn't come here for the memories. I came here looking for someone in particular.

I keep driving until the thick build-up of the residential area begins to give way to tree and vegetation. I stop in front of the familiar house, turning off my car.

"What are you doing?" I whisper.

I can't seem to find an answer to my question. I reach to turn the key and start the car back up, but I can't. I came here to face this, to face him. I take a deep breath and get out of the car. With my head held high, I walk up the driveway and to the front door. Before I can think about it, I knock on the door three times. I hear movement inside the house. I watch the doorknob as it begins to turn. I want to run. The survivor in me says I need to run. My feet won't move.

Then the door opens and there he is. I find myself looking into his eyes, those same blue eyes that won my heart all those years ago.

"Aria."

"Hello, Damon."

"What are you doing here?"

"I honestly don't know. Originally, I wanted to find you but now I think I should just go."

I turn away but before I can take a step, he grabs my wrist, "Wait. Something brought you here. What was it?"

"I'm not telling."

"Come inside."

"No, I_"

He smiles and pulls me into the house, successfully cutting my sentence short. I pull away from him and back away. Still, he smiles and something about it bothers me. I sigh and turn my back to him, which proves to be a mistake. His arms wrap around my waist and he kisses the back of my neck.

"Stop, Damon."

"You used to love this."

"Used to…"

"And then you left me."

"You left me first. As a matter of fact, you left me when we were living here. Why did you leave?"

"You ran off and when you didn't come back, I decided I didn't need to stay. What's your excuse?"

"I don't have an excuse for why I left, but I was going to come back." He moves away from me, "Why did you come back now?"

"I found something. It wasn't until I saw it that I realized I needed to see you. I needed closure."

"What did you find?"

I reach into my back pocket, removing a picture. I set it on the table in front of me and take a few steps away, keeping my back to him. I can hear him pick it up.

"I remember this. I had just gotten back from World War II and you were waiting for me."

I want to hide the fact that I'm crying so I don't speak. The picture is one of me in his arms. He's holding me high off the ground. We both have tears falling from our eyes as we kiss. He turned me that night.

"This was one of the best days of my life." He mutters, more to himself than to me.

Still, I refuse to say a word.

"Aria, are you okay?"

I nod.

"Then why won't you say anything?"

I shake my head.

"Aria, look at me."

I shake my head again.

"Please, just look at me. There are things I need to say and I need you to look me in the eye when I say them."

Slowly, I turn around. His eyes are clear, but I know him better than that. He wants to cry but he won't. He steps toward me. I want to move away, but, once again, my feet won't move. He puts his hands on my waist.

"Are you ready to hear this?"

I nod.

"For nearly a decade, I looked for you. Eventually, I gave up. I thought you were running from me and you didn't want to be found. For the next few years, I hoped you would show up on my doorstep like you did today. You never came. Do you hear me? You never came! My heart broke over and over. I didn't want to feel anymore so I turned off my humanity. I killed so many people in the beginning. I left this place and never thought about it again. I'm only here now because my brother needed me to be. As for that picture," He reaches into his back pocket, taking out his wallet and pulling the picture out of it, "I've carried around my copy since that day."

He puts his hand against my cheek and brings his lips closer to mine.

"Damon, no, that's…"

"You wanted closure. I'm going to give you closure, but I need it too. So I'm going to kiss you and then you have to make a choice. You either stay or you can leave. I'm not going to make that decision for you."

I put my hand over his and nod. My eyes meet his again and in his eyes, I find myself all over again. I find myself falling in love all over again. This isn't what I came for, but as his lips touch mine, I can't help but accept what's happening. If I want to be honest with myself, I didn't come here for closure. I came here to find out if he still loved me, if he ever loved me at all.

He pulls away but I don't open my eyes. I bite my bottom lip as my mind tries to find the right words so I can speak. I can feel his thumb moving against my cheek and I know he's waiting for me to say something. I think I may be waiting for him say something.

In a whisper, he says, "Aria, it's up to you now to decide what you want."

That is not what I wanted him to say. I can't make that decision, not on my own. I still can't find the words. Two words come out in a whisper.

"I can't."

My cheek feels cold when he takes away. I hear him sigh as he walks away. I open my eyes slowly and watch him as he begins to pace.

"Just listen to me. I can't make that decision. I need you to tell me what you want."

He stops pacing and looks at me, "Do you really want to know what I want?"

"Yes."

"I want to take you upstairs, strip you down, and kiss every inch of your body. I want to make you regret leaving and make up for all those lost years. I want you to tell me you love me and that you're going to stay. Most of all, I want you to decide what you want. It's not up to me! It was never up to me!"

As he spoke, his voice got louder and louder. Once he starts yelling, I shrink back and tears start rolling down my cheeks.

His voice is low as he approaches me, once again taking my face in his hands, "I loved you. Part of me has always loved you and always will. I want that to be all of me but it's not my choice. It's yours. I need you to stop thinking with your head and start thinking with your heart.

I could only think of one thing to say.

"What are you waiting for?"

"What?"

"All I've ever wanted was to give you everything you've ever wanted. Damon, the past few decades have been hell without you. I've been waiting for this moment, for you to tell me what you want and have it be everything I want. I love you, Damon Salvatore, and I'm sorry it took me so long to come back."

His lips meet mine with a ferocity I had never felt before. I can feel how much he had been holding back when he thought I would leave after. Though I don't think I can get any closer, he tries anyway. His arm is tight around my waist. His body moves against mine and I moan into the kiss. He lifts me from the floor and as if by instinct, my legs wrap around his waist. I feel a rush of air and I know we're no longer downstairs but in his bedroom. He supports me easily with one arm as his other hand pulls at the zipper of my dress.

I pull away from him but his lips continue to move against my skin. My own hands pull at his shirt. Whether I meant to or not, I tear the back of his shirt open. He breaks the thin straps of my dress and lowers the fabric from my upper body. When he runs his tongue down my neck, another moan escapes me.

"I've missed that sound." He whispers, "Do it again."

"Make me."

"You should not have said that."

He trails single kisses down my neck, down my shoulder and back up again. When his teeth replace his lips, the sensation sends a shock wave through my body. Another moan escapes my lips. He got what he wanted.

"It's your turn." I say.

I pull myself out of his arms, pushing him against the wall. I tear away what's left of his shirt. His chest is bare now, allowing me to scratch down his chest and his eyes close. I can feel him fighting the urge to reach out and grab me. I let my dress fall from my body before closing the space between us and placing several kisses along his collarbone and when I bite him, as gently as I can, at the base of his throat, a soft moan comes from him.

"There you have it."

"You win." He mumbles.

"I always do."

As he kisses me again, an inner turmoil erupts in my mind. What am I doing? This isn't what I came here for or maybe it is. Maybe this is exactly what I came here for, a second chance. Here we are, picking up right where we left off and I don't think I've ever been happier. I should be angry with him or at the very least upset with him, but I'm not. I want him to love me. Even now, I want nothing more than to give myself to him completely.

He takes control then and for once I am okay with submitting. He lifts me up again and carries me to the bed. He kneels down and sits me on the edge of the bed. He pulls his lips away and starts trailing kisses across my bare flesh, keeping true to what he wanted. The lower he gets, the more my body starts to tingle. I can feel him pulling at my underwear and I hear the soft tear as he rips them away. He glances up, meeting my eyes, before he spreads my legs and moves to bury his tongue inside me.

My head falls back as my hands grasp the edge of the mattress. I want to cry out. I want to scream his name but I can't find any real words. The only sounds that escape me are moans and low growls. He keeps it up until I have to pull him away. I need more. As he kisses me again, I quickly unbuckle his belt and remove his pants. He kicks them away and he moves me further onto the bed. Just to return the favor, I tear away his underwear.

My fingernails dig into his back, and, as he pushes into me, I moan much louder than before. Each thrust sends a shockwave coursing through me and with each wave I find myself begging for more. I think he can feel it by the way he moves faster and forces himself deeper into me. My legs wrap around his waist as my hands push against his chest. I flip him to his back and he sits up quickly, pulling me as close to him as he can. I grind against him and his hands hold me steady as my head falls back.

I find myself watching him as I move against him. His eyes are closed and he's biting his lip.

"Damn it, Damon."

"What?"

"Stop holding back."

"Okay, just remember you asked for it."

It happens so quick, I can barely comprehend his movements. In that instant, I'm on my back and he is giving me everything he's got. In that instant, I feel over fifty years of love, lust, anguish and loss. If this is what I missed out on then I'm looking forward to making up for it.

Eventually, he collapses. To be honest, I don't think I could have gone on too much longer. We lie there next to each other. I stare at the ceiling, but I can feel his eyes on me. Beneath the sheet, we had somehow found our way under, he takes my hand.

"What does this mean?" he whispers.

"I'm not going anywhere, Damon."

He releases my hand before reaching over and pulling me close to him. I pull my hair to the side just before he kisses the back of my neck.

"Are you going to tell me the real reason you came back?"

"I already told you."

"No, you're lying. You didn't know I was going to be here but you were hoping. If closure was all you wanted, there are easier ways to find it."

I sigh, rolling over and meeting his gaze, "You're right. I didn't know you would be here, but I hoped. Closure was also not what I was looking for. I wanted to know if you still loved me," I put my hand on his chest, lowering my eyes and voice, "if you ever loved me at all."

"There was never a time I didn't love you."

"But why? Why did you pick me?"

He smiles, "I picked you because you didn't pick me."

I smile, "What?"

"Stefan and I saw you at the same time. You looked over at us and smiled. I approached you and you shot me down. I watched you walk right over to him before you spent the night dancing with him. I decided that night that you would be mine."

As he speaks, he takes my hand in his, flipping it over and tracing the lines in my palm with his fingertips.

"How do you know that wasn't part of my plan from the beginning?"

"Because you slept with my little brother."

"One time in like 1930-something and you never let me forget it."

"Well why did you do it?"

"We've talked about this. We were both a little drunk and things got a little wild. Okay, it happened. Let it go. Because if I remember correctly, by 1940 you and I were together and couldn't get off of each other. Then you went off to war and I was one of those girls hanging around here waiting."

"I wrote you every week."

"That's the only reason I was okay with waiting. Do you remember Allison? Her fiancé shipped out with you."

"I think so, but I don't remember her being there when I shipped out. Why?"

"She would come over all the time to check on me. She couldn't believe how calm I was with you being gone. It was maybe a year or two after you left. I had a box full of your letters and she came just as I was putting away the most recent one. She told me that she'd never heard from him. I felt really bad."

"I remember that. You wrote me asking about him."

"And you told me that he wasn't in your regiment. I just remember thinking how lucky I was to have you. I mean you were gone but you were missing me. He just ran off, used the war to his advantage. I told her and she didn't believe. So when you came home, I brought her with me."

"How could I forget? She could barely stand when the truth finally sunk in."

"I felt so bad running to you the way I did."

"We had been apart for six years. We were lucky to see each other on holidays. There was no reason for you to feel bad."

"He left her, Damon. Then the moment I got the chance, I ran off leaving her alone while she cried her eyes out."

"It's over now. That was nearly sixty years ago. You don't have to feel guilty anymore."

"I don't feel guilty. I never felt guilty, just bad. Even that didn't last long. I mean, we went home, had sex and then you turned me into a vampire. There was no guilt to be felt. She wasn't even really my friend. She was just looking for someone to feel worse than her but she was stuck with me."

"Hey," he says, caressing my cheek, "I'm glad you didn't feel the way she did."

His hand moves to the back of my neck and pulls me closer. He kisses me once before putting his forehead against mine.

"What are you thinking about?" he whispers.

"I kind of want to go for a round two but I'm hungry."

"Human hungry or vampire hungry?"

"Take a wild guess."

"There's a stash in the basement but you're going to need clothes. What did you bring with you?"

"There's a suitcase in my trunk."

"I'll get it. You can borrow one of my shirts for now. Just make sure it's long enough to cover everything."

"Whatever."

I watch him walk to his closet. I smile and whistle. He looks back and winks. I voice a few catcalls and he laughs.

"Keep that up and we'll go right for round two."

"That's very tempting but I haven't fed in like a week."

"So you came to a town crawling with humans as a blood-starved vampire."

"Not starved but a good feeding wouldn't hurt."

He gets dressed as we talk. He takes a black dress shirt from a hanger in his closet and brings it over to me. I reach out to take it but he pulls it away. He touches his index finger to his lips. I shake my head.

"We can either do this the easy way or the hard way."

"Give me the shirt."

"Hard way it is."

He grins and drops the shirt to the floor. I gasp and pull the sheet over me. I can feel him pulling on the sheet and unfortunately he's stronger than me. He pulls it away and grabs me, lifting me from the bed. Considering I'm still naked, it's kind of weird when he tosses me over his shoulder.

"Damon, put me down!"

"Nope."

"Seriously, Damon, come on. I'm naked."

"So?"

He takes me into the bathroom before he finally puts me down. We're standing in front of the mirror. As he kisses my shoulder, I close my eyes and let my head fall back against him.

"So are you sure about that second round?"

I turn around to face him, putting my hands on his chest, "Are you afraid of something that sex is the most important thing to you right now?"

"Of course not."

"Don't lie to me, Damon."

He sighs, "I just don't want you to leave."

"I told you I'm not going anywhere."

"I know, but…"

He starts to pout, making me smile. I slide my hands up and around his neck, "How about I get in the shower while you go get my stuff from my car? Then when you come back, we'll take care of my hunger issue and then we can go for round two and three if you want."

"I knew there was something else I missed about you."

"And what is that?"

"You love being naked just as much as I do."

"Yeah, I guess the sex is just a perk of it all."

He shrugs, kisses my forehead and leaves me standing there. I watch him saunter away. Once he's out of my line of sight, assuming I'm out of his, I go over to the shower, turn on the water and step inside. When the water hits me, I just start crying. Maybe those were tears of built up agony, agony that's been building up behind a wall for sixty years. That's what I did after I left. I started building a wall and I locked my emotions, my humanity, behind it. Damon probably thinks he's the only one who went on a killing rampage after we split up.

I think about the years I spent in Europe, feeding my way across the countryside of France, Spain and Italy. There were others but those were the most significant. When I came back to the states, I stayed in California, doing pretty much the same thing with a little more discretion. Then I met a man by the name of Elijah Mikaelson. He brought me back but in the end, his family was more important than I was so I saw no point in sticking around. I didn't fall back into that despair but that didn't stop me from killing on a regular basis. I took lives in private rooms of night clubs in New York City, desert biker bars and casinos in Vegas. The list goes on. In the 70s alone, I killed maybe 200 people. Most of them were stoners out on the beach in the middle of the night.

I didn't really turn my humanity back on until about five years ago. I had starved myself for too long. I stumbled on a house in the backwoods of Louisiana. I killed everyone inside, including a nine year old girl. That was when I knew I had to stop and I started looking for the one person who had always been there to keep me in check. That's why I needed to find Damon.

Once I hit that realization, I stop crying. It wasn't until that moment that I realized he turned it off too after I left. Our humanity was pointless if we weren't together. We literally make a better person out of one another.

Just as I turn off the water, I hear the sound of the bedroom door opening. I take the towel from the hook on the wall and wrap it around my body.

"Damon!"

Oh no, is that Stefan?

"Damon," he knocks on the bathroom door, "are you in there?"

I sigh and open the door slowly. Stefan looks me up and down before he smiles.

"You don't look like my brother."

"Neither do you."

"Is that your car in my driveway?"

"You can say that."

"What are you doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious? I'm taking a shower."

"Does Damon know you're here?"

"Of course Damon knows she's here."

I look past Stefan to see Damon standing by the bed, my suitcase in one hand and a glass of blood in the other. Stefan takes a step to the side, allowing me to walk past him. Damon gives me the glass. I sit on the bed and drink from it slowly, watching the two of them stare at each other.

"Well," I say, taking another sip, "this is awkward."

They both smile. Stefan nods and walks to the door. He stops and turns back to me.

"Welcome back, Aria. It's really good to see you."

"You too, Stefan."

*End Chapter 1*

Dear Readers,

I don't normally do this, but I really feel like I need to. Just a few short hours ago, I posted this story completely unsure of it. I checked my e-mail a few minutes ago (about 12:10 am on April 1st, 2014) and I cried seeing how much attention it had gotten in so little time. Everyone that favorite, reviewed, read it, and followed it (and me as an author), I thank you so much. You all have restored my faith in myself and my writing. So right here, right now, I want to recognize the people that did this for me. Everyone who reads this after I post it, I thank you all too.

So here, a special thanks goes out to:

arcangel12

demonicseer

beautifulwhiterose

Wilhem Wigworthy

AbigailLothbrok

Thank you all so much. Keep reviewing. Keep reading. You all really touched my heart.

Sincerely,

The Author