Hi Delena friends! I have so much fun reading everyone else's stories, I thought I'd take a shot. This is my first fic, I'd love to know what you think!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries, the characters, or their likenesses. No copyright infringement is intended.

"2 am!" Damon grumbled to himself as he clumsily swiped across his nightstand searching for his ringing phone. "Damnit," he knocked over a glass of water. He had another late night out with Alaric at the bar and had stumbled home and fallen asleep only a half hour earlier. He swiped his finger across the homescreen on his phone in a huff.

"What?!" he answered gruffly without bothering to check the caller ID. He figured it was probably Ric drunk dialing him anyways, trying to talk him into coming back out.

"Da-Damon?" a sniffling voice questioned at the other end of the line, surprised at his tone. Damon instantly softened, cursing himself for not looking at the screen before answering. "So-sorry, I'll call you in the mo-morning."

"No wait! Elena? Are you ok sweetheart? Where are you?" he asked in rapid fire, already out of bed and searching his dark room for the clothes he had tossed off before passing out. She was upset, that much was clear from her scratchy, hiccoughing voice and he was hoping she wouldn't hang up. Elena Gilbert was his best friend and the one constant in his life.

"I can't s-sleep, every time I close my eyes I think about…." She sobbed, "and I see it all over again. I'm all alone, Damon." Elena's parents died in a car accident last spring, she tried so hard to put on a strong face when her older brother, Jeremy, was home for the summer but now that he was back in California at grad school the past six months had caught up with her. She put up a front during the day in front of her friends and coworkers, she was stubborn and proud and she didn't want people to see how broken she was. Secretly she crumbled every night when she went home alone to the house she grew up in and had always been filled with so much love. Damon had offered to move her in with him and his brother, Stefan, at the boarding house but she declined, saying she wasn't ready to leave her home just yet. He still brought it up every couple of weeks, hoping that she would eventually change her mind. Her aunt had an apartment in town, and decided to move in with her but it was a long process since Jenna spent a lot of time traveling to conferences and lecturing for psychology classes at the local university.

"I'm on my way over," he said, slipping into his leather jacket and already half way out the door. When Elena called, he answered—always.

The front door of the Gilbert house swung wide open when Damon knocked. It drove him crazy that she always left her door unlocked, Mystic Falls might be small-town safe but there were no guarantees. The thought of her living alone didn't exactly thrill him, and he constantly worried about the countless things that could happen if he wasn't around. He and Elena had been best friends since she was a toddler and he was used to looking out for her; he made a mental note to resume Operation: Deadbolt as soon as Elena was feeling up to it. He made his way upstairs and found Elena curled up on her parents' bed with her face buried in a pillow that her mother had embroidered with small flowers. Damon gently sat next to her quivering form and rubbed her back reassuringly.

"Hey you," he whispered. She moved to wrap her arms around him. He hugged her tightly against his chest and rested his chin on the crown of her head. She tried to say something in reply but her sobs stole her voice straight from her lips. Her red, puffy eyes and tear-stained face told Damon that she had been crying for a while and it broke his heart to see her like this. He hated that his smart, funny, beautiful, strong girl was reduced to heap of sodden tissues every night and there was nothing he could do about it. He held her tightly while she cried, running his hand over her smooth hair and whispering words of comfort to her.

When her shoulders stopped shaking he pulled slightly away from her so he could look at her face. She stared back at him, her big brown eyes churning with a tempest of sorrow and pain. He hated this. If there was anything he could do to take away her suffering he would do it in a heartbeat. He wished he could carry her burdens, even if only for a short while. She was the only person, except for maybe Stefan, for whom he would gladly sacrifice his own happiness; if he thought staking himself would make her smile, he'd sign up for Whittling 101 tomorrow. A stray tear fell down her cheek and he wiped it away with the pad of his thumb and pulled her back in a tight hug.

She had cried in front of him plenty of times: an old boyfriend, a failed exam, mean girls— the usual stuff, but this was different. All the other times, her sadness was fleeting. This happened at least three times a week and she was hurting so deeply. No one could blame her. She had been in the car with her parents when it all happened. Damon had been out with the Gilberts that night celebrating Elena's new position as an assistant editor at the Seattle Times. The Times had shown interest in Elena's writing since her junior year of college when her article about plastic waste on the Duke campus won national recognition from the American Collegiate Press. She had been out with Caroline that morning when Grayson got the call from the Times saying they had received her final transcripts and wanted to officially offer her the job. She was supposed to be leaving for Seattle a few days after that dinner, and Damon, of course, was going with her. Outside the restaurant Elena's father, Grayson, hugged Damon for the first time… ever. He told him to take care of his little girl and make sure nothing happened to her in the big city. He didn't need to be told, of course, but he promised Grayson that he would look out for her. It had been one of the happiest nights of his life… for a brief moment.

Flashback

When the phone rang at the boarding house later that night Damon didn't think anything of it until Stefan sheepishly knocked on his door. He told him that there had been an accident and Elena was in the hospital. With almost supernatural speed Damon was out of the door and in his car, driving like a madman to Mystic Falls General Hospital. He ran to the nurses' station to ask where Elena was but was distracted by the commotion in the receiving area of the ER. When he turned to see what the noise was all about, his world stopped spinning. The next few moments were a blur, but there were nurses, doctors, alarms, machines, and plenty of things he didn't recognize whirling around the tiny receiving area. He saw his beautiful Elena between the huddle of shoulders and instruments; she was unconscious and bleeding from a deep gash on her head. Her olive skin was grey and her lips were deathly pale. A steady trickle of blood began to pour from the gurney she was lying on to the floor, making a sickening sputtering sound.

"BP is dropping, she's crashing!" one of the nurses shouted. "I can't get a pulse!" A doctor had two large metal paddles out, hovering above her chest and a nurse was shoving a tube down her throat.

"No," he said aloud to himself, "she can't be…" but his mind wouldn't let him finish the sentence. A nurse grabbed him by his shoulders and tried to push him out of the room.

"Sir, you can't be in here. You need to leave." He stared weakly at Elena's ashen face and let the nurse lead him to a sterile waiting room where he collapsed into a chair. He couldn't focus and couldn't get the image of Elena out of his mind. He stared into space and lost himself in a dark tangle of "what if's." Stefan and Caroline arrived shortly after, keeping silent vigil in the waiting room with Damon. They had both quickly fallen asleep, leaving Damon alone with his thoughts once again. About an hour later the doctor he recognized as the one with the paddles came out to speak to him.

"Damon Salvatore?" to which Damon weakly nodded. He slowly stood to shake the doctor's hand but his stomach violently lurched when he saw a crimson lacing of blood splattered across the doctor's scrub top. He hoped it hadn't belonged to his Elena. "I just got off the phone with Jeremy Gilbert. He said you'd probably still be here; he is getting a flight back but won't be here for a few hours yet. Why don't we have a seat?" He knew this wasn't going to be good, doctors never ask you to sit for a Monday night football recap. Last time he was asked to have a seat he learned that his mother had passed away. Reluctantly he sat back down, and took a deep breath.

"Elena—" he began to ask, but his voice cracked. He cleared his throat, "how is Elena?"

"She's still in critical condition, but we have her stabilized for the moment. She has a lot of internal bleeding from the accident, so she's had a transfusion to maintain her circulation. The muscles of her heart also experienced extensive trauma so we had to defibrillate her twice to correct her arrhythmia. Mr. Salvatore, are you ok?" the doctor put a gentle hand on Damon's arm when she saw his face blanche at the mention of Elena's heart.

"Yeah," Damon cleared his throat again, swallowing his tears, "sorry, is that all? She's going to be ok?"

"We don't know yet, for sure. Her cardiovascular signs are within normal limits and we believe that the bleeding has stopped. She has a deep laceration on her head, and extensive bruising but we won't know the extent of her brain injury until she wakes up."

"Brain injury?" he stuttered, "like damage? What do you mean?"

"She most likely has a concussion, hopefully it won't be anything more extensive. She's young and strong, so we are hoping for the best. She's still unconscious, but she sustained a lot of trauma so that's not unusual."

"Ok, ok," Damon nodded, trying to process everything. "So what you're saying is that you won't know much more until she wakes up?"

"I'm afraid not. She's doing better, but we aren't out of the woods yet."

"And Grayson and Miranda?" He had to ask, but he already knew. Two police officers had stopped by the nurse's station while he was the waiting room and left their information to speak to Elena when she recovered.

"I'm afraid Dr. Gilbert and his wife died at the scene of the accident. I'm so sorry Mr. Salvatore. I know how close your families are." Her concern was real and genuine, she had likely crossed paths with Grayson several times at the hospital and would have known how tightly-knit the Gilbert clan was. "Would you like to see Elena?"

"Yes please," he murmured, knowing that he would have to tell Elena the news about her parents.

"Of course, I'll take you to her room. Like I said, she hasn't woken up yet. But it will help to have a familiar face when she comes to. She's on several IVs right now, and has some monitoring equipment attached to her so we can keep an eye on her vitals." There was an uncomfortable pause, "I need you to be prepared for her appearance. As I mentioned, she suffered extensive blunt force trauma. She is on IV analgesics, so she isn't in any pain right now, but it can still be unsettling." The doctor explained that it may take a few hours to a few days for Elena to regain consciousness and that he was welcomed to stay with her for as long as he liked. When they reached room 7 the doctor gave him a small smile and left him on his own. He stood at the threshold for what felt like an eternity, knowing that if he entered the room it would all be real. When he did finally go inside the tears that he had worked so hard not to let fall in front of the doctor, Stefan, and Caroline came forth again but this time he didn't fight them. His beautiful girl who had been wildly chattering about the Seattle fish market and going to see the whales only a few hours before lay alone in the hospital bed in a scratchy pale green gown. Her hair was pulled away from her face and tied haphazardly with a strip of gauze, showing the deep laceration across her hairline that was being held together by a line of angry-looking stitches. The beautiful face that brightened his worst days was bruised and swollen, almost beyond recognition. Her deep honeyed brown eyes were still closed and her thick lashes lay across small bruises on her cheeks. Her pale lips were slightly parted as she breathed labored breaths. When he came to stand next to the bed, he took her small hand in his own, careful not to dislodge any of her monitoring equipment, and allowed himself to cry in earnest. He gingerly brushed a stray tendril of hair away from her forehead.

"God Elena, please wake up," he pled with her. "Open your eyes sweetheart. I need to know you're going to be ok." He gently stroked her cheek and kissed her knuckles lightly.

He didn't know how many hours he had been sitting next to her, holding her hand and watching the ECG waves roll across the screen, proving that her heart was still beating, when he felt her fingers tighten slightly around his own. His eyes darted to her face and she furrowed her brow and groaned. He jumped up and hit the call button on the wall next to bed, hoping her doctor was nearby.

"Elena?" he said loudly, running his fingers across her cheekbone, "Elena, can you hear me? Open your eyes. Please, just open your eyes."

She struggled to flutter her eyes open and he let out a breath he felt like he had been holding for hours. He found the big doe eyes he loved staring back at him, she was still his Elena.

"Damon?" she croaked, her throat painfully dry.

"Yeah," he said with a soft smile.

"I hurt everywhere," her bottom lip began to tremble slightly.

"I know," he said sadly, "the doctor will be here in a minute and can give you something, ok?"

He felt her fingers on his cheek and she looked at him with concern. "Why are you crying Damon?" He took her hand from his face and kissed her palm. "What's wrong?" She had just come back to him from death's door, and didn't understand why he was upset. She was something else!

"I'm just happy you're ok Lena," he smiled at her again, hoping to relieve some of the tension in the room.

"What happened?" she asked innocently. She couldn't remember anything about the accident, and probably had no idea that her parents were both dead. Damon sat down on the bed next to her, being careful not to jostle her too much.

"You were in a car accident, it was pretty bad. The doctor said you lost a lot of blood," he didn't know how to tell her what he needed to next.

"What about my…?" she trailed off, staring at him. He just shook his head slightly, not knowing a way to put it into words. He moved closer to her and held her while she cried.

Present

The look in her eyes at the hospital that night was much the same as it was now and had been for several nights. "Brownies or cookies?" he asked, brushing a stray tendril of hair from her face and tucking is tenderly behind her ear. This had become something of a routine whenever Elena was upset. He would come over, they would bake together, and eventually end up falling asleep on the couch watching movies. It was a ritual that started back when they were at Duke together; he had gotten his first of many late night calls from a weeping Elena because she had failed a physics midterm and was convinced she'd never graduate. The only thing he could think of to take her mind off of school was to try to teach her how to bake (the girl was hopeless!). The mission ended in near disaster after Elena dropped the entire pan of raw batter in the stove, but he got her to smile. The calls had become more frequent recently, but Damon didn't mind in the least; he only wished he could do more for her.

A small smile inched across her lips, "brownies?"

"You got it" Damon replied while light-heartedly saluting Elena.

He went downstairs, tossing his leather jacket over the banister on the way. A picture on the wall caught his attention; it was one of him and Elena on the day of her graduation from Mystic Falls High School. The both had their arms across each other's shoulders, grinning from ear to ear. Elena was draped in every honor cord and sash that the school offered. While Elena was studious and worked hard in school, Damon enjoyed fast cars and late night parties far more than homework and SAT revision. The day that Elena skipped into his living room with the course catalogue from Duke University talking about how it would be her number one choice when it came time to apply he knew he'd have to clean up his act if he was going to stay with her. He spent Elena's junior and senior year of high school studying at the local community college to muster enough units to transfer to Duke. Much to his surprise he was accepted for the spring semester. He smiled, remembering that when he called Elena in her dorm to tell her the good news she was thrilled, but not shocked at all.

"Of course you got in Damon! How could they not take you?! The timing couldn't be more perfect either; one of the guys downstairs is going on a study abroad so his place just opened up. The roommate is a little weird, but he's clean… I think. Anyways, I already sent you a sweatshirt, so I hope you're ok with gray." He smiled at the memory of her giddy rambling on the phone. It was so Elena. Her faith in him was unwavering. Everyone else saw him as spoiled rich partier with no drive or aspiration, but not Elena. Of course, she was the only one he'd ever been comfortable enough to confide in. She knew about all of the dreams he had and things he wanted to accomplish.

"I love that picture," she said from somewhere behind him, breaking him from his reminiscing. He turned around to see a smile on her face and her tears drying. "It seems like forever ago."

"Yeah… you were such a geek," he said cheekily, knowing that she would roll her eyes and punch him in the arm; anything to try to cheer her up. "Ouch, sorry… are such a geek. Better?"

"I don't see brownies making themselves Salvatore."

"Geez woman, I'm getting to it, no need to crack the whip," he said rubbing his arm and feigning annoyance. She giggled and brushed past him in the hallway. "Unless you want to, of course," he said waggling his eyebrows at her, making her blush.

"I guess I'll have to do it myself and there's no telling what may happen…"

"Oh no no no, please Lena! I think you've maxed out your allotted fire department calls this year with the pizza incident. Just go pick a movie and let the man handle this." That earned him another playful eye roll and she disappeared to peruse the entertainment options. That was the girl he so desperately missed, the one that he could joke around with and laugh with. He loved every side of her, but playful Elena was his favorite.

Damon knew her kitchen like his own and pulled out all of the pans, utensils, and ingredients they needed. Elena came into the kitchen a few moments later setting two DVD cases on the counter.

"Love, Actually or Pride & Prejudice?" she asked peeking over his shoulder.

"Is there a third option?"

"Nope," she smiled, popping the 'p' like she had learned to do from him.

"So which Keira Knightley do I want to be dreaming about tonight…" he mused, trying to ruffle her feathers. "She's pretty hot in that off-the-shoulder white sweater thing in Love, Actually."

"Pride & Prejudice it is then," she smiled leaning against the counter, "can I help?" She knew that he wouldn't be able to resist her puppy dog eyes.

"Sure," he handed her a whisk, "mix this together."

She took the whisk happily and shuffled to where he'd been standing. He moved over to the wine rack to find a good bottle that would complement their dessert and glanced over his shoulder. "No, no, you're doing it wrong," patting her hands as he tried to take the whisk from her.

"Well what is the right way to stir brownie mix Emeril?"

"You're not getting the stuff on the bottom, here," he stood next to her so closely the their shoulders were touching and turned the bowl to the side to scrape all of the mix into the batter, "see, now it's all mixed in evenly." She smiled at him with admiration, secretly loving how secure he was with his culinary prowess. She hopped up to sit on the counter and dipped a finger into the batter and tasted it. Damon watched her out of the corner of his eye as she sucked the gooey chocolate from her finger, his imagination running wild.

"What were you up to tonight?" she asked casually, hoping that he hadn't been out with one of his women. Damon had a reputation around town as a playboy. She had never paid much mind to his "extracurricular activities," but it had started to bother her. She didn't want to call it jealousy, but that's exactly what it was.

"Nothing much, Ric and I went to the Grill for the game and I was just getting home when you called," he said handing her the whisk so she could lick off the mix as usual.

"Just you and Ric?" she asked after a moment's pause, trying to seem like she wasn't prying.

"Mason and Tyler showed a little later, Stefan was supposed to be back from New York but he got held up in meetings. Matt saw that Brit chick he's been pining after and vanished. I don't mind Mason, but that little Tyler punk is getting pretty good at hustling me at the pool table," he knew what she was really asking, but he didn't want to tell her that he had spent the better part of the evening with some hot blonde pinned against the wall in the bathroom, wishing it had been Elena's legs around his waist instead. He knew that she had heard plenty about him and around anyone else he'd be boastful about it, but he had never wanted Elena to see him like that; deep down, he was a one-woman man, the only problem was convincing that one woman that he was the man for her. She was the only one who ever got to see the side of him: the Damon who would gladly bake and watch chick flicks in the middle of the night knowing that it wouldn't lead to sex. "How come?"

"Just curious, you sounded pretty grumpy when you answered the phone."

"I wasn't. You call, I come, I'm easy like that," he said with his trademark crooked grin. She let out a small giggle and shook her head at him.

"Did Caroline tell you that she and Stefan went to dinner when she was in New York for that book signing last week?" Elena rarely indulged in gossip, but her best (non-Damon) friend and the younger Salvatore were simply too perfect for each other. Elena and Caroline worked together at a small publishing firm just outside of Mystic Falls, Elena worked mostly as a columnist for a literary magazine that the firm published and Caroline worked with the advertising department.

"Baby Bro and Blondie stretching out the friend zone, huh?" Damon chuckled. Stefan had had a thing for Caroline since she pushed him in the sandbox in kindergarten.

"She hates it when you call her that," Elena chided, watching Damon move around the kitchen with a dishtowel over his shoulder, admiring his slim athletic build. He had never spent a lot of time at the gym, but he loved to play sports and work with his hands, which showed in his well-defined arms and shoulders. She enjoyed watching him work, whether it was in the kitchen, on his car, or in his workshop. She'd usually bring a book or magazine and sit on the bench top pretending to read, but she was really just watching him and his practiced grace.

"Why do you think I still call her that?" he wiggled his dark eyebrows mischievously like he was letting Elena in on a big secret.

"You should be nicer to her, she may be your sister someday."

"Ugh, Lena! Don't put that image in my head," he said, cringing playfully.

"How long until these are done?" she asked tilting her chin towards the oven.

"Probably about twenty minutes or so," he shrugged.

"I'm going to go get my PJs. Do you want anything more comfortable?" she gestured to his dark jeans and black T-shirt.

"I'm fine. Good to know you're hoarding my clothes though," he laughed. He secretly did love it though, the thought that he was such a fixture in her life that she had carved out a space in her home for his things. The feeling he got when he was looking for something at home only to stop and think, that's right, it's at Elena's, warmed his heart in an odd way he couldn't describe. He also had a toothbrush, razor, aftershave, shampoo, a phone charger, a pillow, a tie, three books, and a bottle of bourbon at her house… not that he was keeping track. Perhaps even more secretly he liked the possessive security it brought. He had always worried that someone much more worthy than him would swoop in and carry Elena off into the sunset someday. If she ever brought a guy home, Damon's presence would be clearly known. He wasn't above a little under-handed male posturing, if it meant being her one and only.

Half a pan of brownies and a bottle of wine later, Damon was prying the remote out of a soundly-sleeping Elena's hand. She had fallen asleep curled up into his side with her head on his chest and her arm draped across his body. He had his arm protectively around her shoulders and had thrown a blanket over both of them so she wouldn't catch a chill. Still, this wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep and Elena needed a restful night for once. He shifted a little to extricate himself from underneath her and she grumbled quietly. He lifted her from the couch bridal-style, careful not to rouse her. Her thin arms tightened around his neck when he picked her up and she stirred, but didn't wake. He went slowly up the stairs to her room and laid her gently on her bed. With great care he tucked her blanket around her chin and kissed her cheek. It was quite late so he was thinking that he'd probably stay on the couch downstairs for the night, just in case she had any more bad dreams. Just when he turned to leave her hand shot out and gripped his tightly.

"Stay? Please Damon?" Elena murmured softly.

"I will Lena. I'll be right downstairs if you need anything. Go back to sleep."

"Stay in here please," she plead, pulling him closer and wiggling over to make room for him. "Your sweats are in the top drawer," she said as she looked up at him through her dark lashes. Resisting this girl and her doe eyes was futile. He muttered in acquiescence and pulled the top drawer open, smiling to see his grey sweats and a few of his t-shirts nestled next to her yoga pants and camisoles. He pulled back the blankets and climbed into bed beside her, she settled her head on his chest and wiggled her body tightly against his. He had slept in her bed plenty of times, and had even held her while she slept before, but when he wrapped his arms around her she shifted her legs to tangle with his and gripped his t-shirt even more tightly. He was growing uncomfortably hard and the feeling of her wrapped up with him and he tried to move lest she notice his current problem. The more he moved the tighter she pulled herself against him. He stopped moving entirely and just stared at the ceiling thinking of things much less sexy than Elena tangled around him like a vine. Her grip on him slackened slightly, and he ran his fingers through her hair gently.

He wasn't a cuddler by any means, but he'd give up all the things he was into if it meant getting to hold Elena in his arms every night. He loved the way she seemed to fit against him, she was so warm and soft and her hair smelled like lavender and jasmine. He was thinking uncharacteristically chivalrous thoughts about picnics and candle-lit dinners when a soft moan from Elena brought him back to the present.

"What's wrong?" he asked, looking down at her only to see that she was soundly asleep. He relaxed back into the pillow and closed his eyes. She moved lightly against him and began to breathe more heavily. He figured she was having another nightmare, and was stretching out his arm to turn the lamp on when his heart skipped a beat.

"Mmmm, Damon," she moaned quietly. His jaw dropped and he froze. "That feels good," she mumbled, but he clearly made out the words. One thing was clear: she was not having a nightmare. He felt a little light-headed as his entire blood supply rushed south at the thoughts of what was going on her dream trickled into his brain. He tried to put some distance between him and the sleeping girl next to him, but as he did her hand brushed across his lap causing his to groan in discomfort and gently pound his head into the headboard as a distraction. He moved quickly, rolling himself out of the bed and onto the floor. He sat up on the floor and looked at her carefully. The light from the streetlamp filtering through the window was enough to see a few beads of sweat on her brow and the exaggerated rise and fall of her chest. Looks like I rocked her imaginary world, he smirked to himself. He waddled painfully to the bathroom to relieve some tension. He made a mental note to ask her about her dream in the morning. Maybe the whole feelings thing would be easier than he thought.

A/N: Thank you for reading! Is it just me or does that comment box look a little empty? ;)