Ok folks, we're going to jump into this quickly. I've been a fan of The Vampire Diaries since 1994. The writers acting as if Elena isn't the main character has pissed me off SO much, that I am going to FIX this.

I hope you enjoy my attempt.

I do not own The Vampire Diaries. (But I do own a lot of Vampire Diaries THINGS lol)

Chapter 1

"Well, Matt lives to hate vampires another day."

Elena's head popped up from staring at the gravel below. She smiled softly as Damon approaches, a defeated look on his face. "Stefan's on Caroline duty," He continued. "And I just introduced Mom to Uber." He stopped directly in front of her and looks down with a sardonic grin. "I'm taking bets on which one goes south first."

Elena takes a deep breath before responding, unable to look him in the eye. She didn't want to seem uncaring of what he'd just said, but her thoughts were heading in a completely different direction. She wanted to take Jo's earlier advice and actually TALK to Damon about what was bothering her. That's what people in normal, healthy relationships did, right? So she ignored his comments and jumped right in, before she could chicken out. "I want to throw Jo a baby shower."

"Wow," Damon muses, nodding slightly. "Forgot to hit your turn signal for that segway." He smiles down at her.

"Jo's pregnancy is the best news we've had in a little while and… I feel like I didn't react the way that I should have." She says embarrassed. He wasn't yelling at her, that was a good start. Maybe they could have a normal conversation after all.

"Why not?" Damon asks, moving forward and taking the seat next to her on the bench. He watches her look off into the distance, the lights from Skull Bar's sign making her face glow.

She glances over at him. "Because, I think I was…" She struggles for words "I don't know…"

"Jealous?" Damon suggests.

"Yeah." She admits apologetically. "A little. I figured I'd always wanted a family. Before… you know." She smiles and rolls her eyes, not able to bring herself to say any more on the subject. "So it's kind of a bummer of a reminder that, that's never gonna happen for me."

Damon remains silent, not knowing what to say.

"But," Elena smiles at him reassuringly and leans her head gently on his shoulder. "I get to have my life with you, which is also what I've always wanted." She glances up at him, noticing that he seems so lost. She really hadn't meant to upset him. This was probably a bad idea. "So I'll be good, okay? I just had to let myself be sad for a minute."

"What if things could be different?" Damon asks. "And you can change everything."

"I don't know… I can't. Nothing's changed." Definitely a bad idea, she thinks to herself, imagining slamming her head against a brick wall. After their earlier conversation about his mother admitting to not thinking about coming back for him, she probably should have waited a little while to bring up something so serious. Although he would NEVER admit it, she knew he had abandonment issues and a somewhat low self esteem.

There's a long stretch of silence until Damon finally kisses her forehead. "I love you."

Elena smiles and cuddles closer, lifting her face to meet his. This time her smile is bright, her attempt at showing him that not having the ability to have his children was in no way going to affect the life she wanted to have with him, and ONLY him. "I love you too." She raises herself up to kiss him gently on his lips.

As they part, Damon takes a deep breath and meets her eyes headon. "I want to take you somewhere."

"Where?" Elena asks quizzically.

He smiles. "It's a surprise."

Tyler storms into his house, slamming the door angrily behind him. After leaving the hospital he roamed around campus not knowing where to go or who to talk to. Matt was the only one who would possibly understand what he was going through and he had a strong feeling that he wasn't in the talking mood at the moment. Everyone else was either dead, evil or just missing in action.

He wanted to punch something, but refrained, making his way over to the drink cart in the front sitting room. He quickly pours himself a shot of vodka and dumps it down his throat. He goes to pour himself another shot but quickly realizes that he shouldn't even bother as he leaves it on the marble and moves toward the couch, bottle in hand.

Flopping down he takes a swig and stares at his ceiling.

He hears the door click and slowly creek open.

"Tyler?"

He pops off the couch and backs up, staring shocked as Caroline stands in the entryway, covered in blood and… are those tears?

"What the hell do you want? Haven't you tortured me enough for today?" He exclaims, tossing the bottle toward her. It crashes at her feet and she steps over it to move closer.

Her arms are tightly wrapped around her midsection as if she's trying to hold herself together. "I'm so, so sorry!" She cries, her eyes blinking away the tears that continue to fall down her cheeks. He watches as a drop of blood drips from her chin onto the floor. She'd obviously stopped for a few snacks in between the bar and his house.

"I kept tearing through people, and I didn't care… and then I let myself think about what happened with Matt and I shouldn't have let myself DO that." She whole body shakes as she steps closer. This time he doesn't move away. "Is he going to be okay? Did you get him to the hospital on time?" He remains silent, shocked at the turn of events. What a day….

When he doesn't answer quickly enough she becomes frantic. "Tyler! Please, please, tell me he's going to be okay? Would the Gilbert ring even work on him if it was you that killed him? You're not really supernatural anymore, but you have the werewolf gene so that SHOULD count for something right? RIGHT?"

He moves quickly around the side of the couch to stand right in front of her, still unsure. "We got him to the hospital. Elena tried to give him some blood but he refused it." Her eyes widened in shock. He reached out and touched her shoulder to reassure her. "I left, but Elena called me later to tell me that he's going to make it. I just don't think he's going to want to have anything to do with any of us for a little while. She said he seemed pretty upset. "

Caroline stared at his hand on her shoulder, her eyes soft. She reaches up to hold it, smudging some blood onto his knuckles.

A look of disappointment crosses her face as she tightens her grip on his hand. Her eyes are no longer soft and kind. "That's a real shame. Luckily I came with a plan B."

Tyler struggles, but he's not stronger than her as a human. "Caroline, get the hell off of me, right now."

Her head tilts to the side and she smiles evilly. "Are you going to make me? I was stronger than you even when you were a werewolf. I brought you a gift."

Yanking his hand, she guides him out the door and onto the porch. A girl around the age of fifteen sits on his porch swing, the tips of her blonde hair dyed red with blood and shaking in terror.

Caroline turns him so he's facing her again. Her eyes dilate and he can't help it, he just can't turn his head away.

"You're going to walk over to her, kiss her and then choke her to death." She pushes him toward the girl and he lands on his knees in front of her.

"Please, please don't do this!" She begs. "Please don't listen to her. Why are you doing this to me?" She frantically tries to leave the seat but it's like she's glued to the spot.

Tyler leans toward her wrapping his hands around her neck. "I'm so sorry," he whispers. "I'm trying to stop but I just can't." He pulls her face towards his and devours her lips with his own, tightening his grip on her neck until his hands reach all the way around. He can feel her try to gasp out a scream, but it doesn't make much of a sound as he's kissing her.

They both struggle, him kissing, her dying, but it's no use. His hands slip occasionally, because of the blood coating her throat, clearly Caroline had used her briefly as a snack. After a few minutes, he can feel that she's not breathing into his mouth anymore, and the pulsing against his hands through her arteries has stopped. She dangles limply from his grasp.

Behind him, he can hear Caroline start to clap slowly. He drops the girl and she slides down from the swing and onto the porch. Tyler keeps checking for a pulse even though he knows it's been long gone.

"Bravo Tyler, that was SEXY!" Caroline says happily. He turns around to look at her, still in shock. "Oh come on, you'll thank me for this later, really. Were you really going to spend your life as a stupid police officer, trying to follow in my mother's footsteps. She died and it wasn't in a blaze of glory like most cops, she died sick and in bed. I'm really just saving you from a life of boredom"

Caroline walks down his front steps calmly, throwing her hand up behind her in a quick wave. "Have fun wolf boy!"

"Why did you bring me here?" Elena said, as they pulled up to a small lake with a quaint, lit up bridge. "Is this somewhere we've been before?" He didn't say anything, only nodded as he jumped out of the drivers side and sped around to her car door to help her out.

The night was quiet and no one else was around, the stars danced happily above in the night sky. She had to admit, the place was beautiful.

"Do you remember what I told you about my favorite night?" Damon asked, taking her hand and leading her out toward the lake. There was another small footbridge, and he stopped.

She grinned. "I recall you saying that and then telling me it was a complete disaster when it started to rain. But I always suspected you were lying about the complete disaster part." She said excitedly. He was finally going to tell her the truth about that night!

"We were standing right here, when it started pouring. You told me you wanted to stay and that it would probably clear up any minute." He said, seeming to be stuck in the moment. "When it didn't, you just smiled at me and asked me to promise you forever."

He took both her hands in his firm grip. "I did. I promised you forever that night."

Elena looked at him sadly. "Damon, I am so sorry that I wiped everything away. I wish more than anything that I could remember."

He smiled down at her sadly. "I know you do."

He took a deep breath and braced himself. "I promised you forever that night Elena. And I love you, so right now, I'm giving you the choice. It doesn't have to be forever anymore. You can have the life you've always wanted." He reached into the inside of his jacket and pulled out a wooden box. "Bonnie gave me this yesterday. When she found the map she saw that I'd already made notes on it. I was planning on going there myself to get this for you. So when she went to get the magic from Silas, she also brought back the cure."

Elena stepped back, shocked. This was the most selfless…

Her thoughts went blank for a moment. She could tell that he was still talking but she couldn't hear him.

Instead, she heard her own voice in her head.

"It was my birthday. Damon and I spent the whole summer looking for Stefan. And I was trying to put on a good face because Caroline was throwing this party for me, but I was so, so sad. I was two seconds from deciding that I wasn't going to go. I wasn't going to leave the room. Until Damon walked in. He gave me a birthday gift. It was a necklace that Stefan had given me. I'd lost it. And Damon knew what the necklace meant to me. What it meant, about my feelings for Stefan. Even though he loved me….He gave me the one thing that represented hope for me and his brother. I knew how much it hurt him. But he did it. It was… the most selfless that he's ever been. And in that moment… I loved him. I didn't WANT to, it terrified me. But for that moment, I loved him."

"Elena?" Damon's voice broke through the haze, she looked up at him in confusion. "You alright there? I'm trying to do the right thing here and you're spacing out." He tried to make light of the situation, but the concern showed through his eyes.

Elena tried to shake away the new memories that were all trying to enter her mind at once, she blinked up at him. She tried to speak. "Damon, I think I-"

Before she could finish, her world blanked out and the last thing she felt was his arms wrap tightly around her.