A/N - Hi there. I know I just started a Delena story (The Embargo, if you want to check it out ;)) but I got the idea for this in my head and I was so excited, I couldn't wait to start writing it. So I'll just have to make time to write for both stories. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this first chapter. Let me know what you think with a little review at the end. Gracie x
Chapter 1
"Gunshot victim. Male. Twenty-four. Wound to the lower left of the abdomen" The paramedic told the cluster of white-coated doctors swarming around the patient who was being wheeled briskly through the corridors towards theatre. "Heart rate already low and dropping."
"Name?" Asked Jo Laughlin, the darked-haired doctor in charge.
"A Damon Salvatore." The paramedic answered. He had his driver's license in his wallet but nothing else. Looks like he was robbed."
"Was he conscious when you arrived?"
"No. By the amount of blood he's lost I think we can assume he must have been out some time before he was found by a member of the public."
"Where?"
"Alley just off East 13th."
"Guess that number was pretty unlucky for the guy. Any family contacts?"
"Like I said, he only had his license with him."
"Thanks Matt." Jo nodded. "We've got him."
Matt Donovan removed his hand from the bed and wiped the sweat off his forehead. The heat outside was stifling and rushing his way along the corridors had done nothing to help the way his uniform was sticking to his body.
"Tought shift already ?" He heard a voice ask. Turning around, he met Elena Gilbert looking fresh as a daisy grabbing a clipboard from the nurse's station.
"That was the second gunshot victim I've brought in today." He replied. "And he didn't look like the kind to be messed up in gang stuff."
Elena offered a smile. "I have a break in fifteen minutes. Buy you a lemonade?"
"Can you make it a beer?"
She laughed. "Not while we're on the clock I'm afraid. But if you can wait three days until Tyler's birthday drinks, I'll see if I can stretch."
Matt gave Elena a wide smile. "Deal. I'll see you out on the back picnic benches in fifteen?"
"Sure."
He watched as she made her way along the corridor towards the elevator. From what Matt could remember, he'd been under Elena's spell the moment she stepped into the hospital on the first day of her residency. She was beautiful and kind and intelligent but after a few shared lunch breaks, he'd discovered she had a boyfriend with whom she'd been in a relationship since high school. Steven or Stefan, or something. Still, Matt found himself spending time with her anyway as she was simply the best person he'd ever met.
X
If this was death, Damon thought, it was more serene than he'd imagined. The sun was warm but not suffocating and the sky was the clearest blue he'd ever seen. A soft breeze fanned the strands of dark hair around his face as the tiny waves lapped against the swathe of white sand.
"Here you go." Katherine's voice filled his ears. Except, it wasn't Katherine's voice. It sounded like it at first, but as the soft sounds of the waves and rustling palm trees faded out, the differences seemed to echo. The voice was sweeter, kinder. It wasn't tinged with flirtation or sarcasm. It was just...pure.
Damon turned his head in the hammock and took the coconut from the brunette's outstretched hands. It was Katherine. But it wasn't. She looked like Katherine but there was something... different. Her hair was straight and her feet weren't encased in heels. Her eyes were soft chocolate, not hard brown. Her skin was olive but with a splattering of freckles on each shoulder. She was Katherine. But she wasn't.
Elena popped the chart back into its holder at the end of the patient's bed.
"Still not ready to wake up Damon Salvatore, huh?" Her voice was soft as she looked at the man lying in the bed. He'd been like that for five days now and the fact that he hadn't woken once was beginning to concern Jo, her supervisor. He'd had scans to check for brain damage, though each one had come up negative, much to Elena's relief. It wasn't easy to see any patient left with brain damage, but for someone so young, she always found it even more depressing.
"Any change?" Caroline Forbes, the other med student working in Elena's department joined her in Damon's room.
"Nope." Elena replied.
Caroline moved closer to Damon. "Come on sleeping beauty. We're all dying to see what you look like when you're awake."
"Caroline!" Elena hissed with a small laugh. The blonde could be ridiculous at times.
"What? Like you haven't thought about how hot he is!"
"No, I haven't. I have a boyfriend."
"You have a boyfriend Elena, but you can still see."
The brunette simply rolled her eyes
"Well, there's no shame in looking, especially if there's no girlfriend of his hanging around. I take it you haven't really been on female-watch?"
"No, I haven't been on female watch." Elena replied. "But as far as I know, there's been no visit from a girlfriend."
Caroline smiled. "Good."
Come to think of it, Elena realised the mysterious patient lying in the room with them hadn't had a single visitor. Strange, she thought, for someone so young. Occasionally though, it happened. In a city as large as New York where often, you didn't know your next door neighbour, there tended to be some patients who slipped through the visitor net. What with Damon having no contact information on him when he was brought in, Elena had had nobody to notify.
Living in the city had been a huge culture shock for Elena, though that wasn't to say she didn't enjoy it. It was just different. Her hometown in Virginia was tiny; she knew everyone. And sometimes that was just as much of a problem as knowing nobody. Since taking up her residency at the hospital though, she'd met Caroline and Matt. He'd introduced them both to Tyler Lockwood, a fellow paramedic and what with Stefan at home, she was pretty sorted.
Stefan. He'd been her boyfriend since freshman year at high school. They'd attended college together and he'd even moved to New York when she'd got notification of her residency. Adapting to the city hadn't come nearly as easy for him as it has for Elena however, and she often found herself cancelling social plans with her colleagues to stay home with him in their tiny rented apartment, watching tv. He was struggling to find a job despite several interviews at different newspaper and magazine companies. She felt sorry for him mostly, though there was the odd pang of resentment. At the weekend, she'd had to text Tyler to let him know she wouldn't be able to make his birthday drinks as Stefan hadn't felt like attending and had begged her to stay home with him.
"Earth to Gilbert!" Caroline widened her blue eyes.
"Huh?"
"Fine." She replied, mock-offended. "I'll tell someone else about my kiss with Tyler."
"Wait, what?"
"Front garden when we're on break." She raised an eyebrow and smirked, leaving Damon's room before calling back, "I'll give you all the details."
Elena grinned and shook her head at her friend. Caroline was definitely enjoying the single city girl life.
X
Damon felt the swaying hammock slowly begin to still, and as he opened his eyes, he discovered that he was no longer enjoying the shade on a beach, but lying in a meadow filled with bluebells. The sounds of lapping waves and rustling palms had been replaced by sweet birdsong and the humming of a female voice. It was the same girl from earlier - Katherine, but not Katherine. He watched as she weaved a crown of daisies and buttercups nimbly with her fingers, leaning against him contentedly. He swept her hair over her shoulder so that he could focus on her face but then he was drifting again.
This time, the sky was growing less and less blue and the sun's light was becoming blinding. The soft humming was fading and a much harsher noise, high-pitched and brash was filling his ears. And then breathing became difficult. Impossible. He was choking as the light filled his vision and a beeping filled his ears, gasping for breath, reaching out for the girl who had been lying against him.
Damon's eyes burned and his throat closed. He tried to speak, to shout out but his words were swallowed by something plastic and sharp. All of a sudden, the bright light was replaced by what looked like a white tiled ceiling, though his eyes seemed misty and wet.
As quickly as he realised where the ceiling tiles meant he was, the struggle to breathe ceased and Damon felt a rush of oxygen into his system.
"Hey." A soft voice spoke, startling him. It was the voice from earlier; the one which belonged to not-Katherine. "You're finally awake."
His eyes flicked to the brunette doctor in the white coat who was placing a plastic tube - the one which moments earlier must have been down his throat, Damon concluded - onto a small metal trolley.
"See?" He heard the blonde doctor standing next to her say. "I knew he'd be gorgeous."