Hello again, here is my third addition to the LJ A2A Delena Xmas Exchange. This one was written for AlwaysElisabethian. I hope you enjoy it, girl.

Prompt: Damon and Elena's relationship are not going very well - they've been fighting, screaming at each other and been miserable for months, until Damon decides to make a change. He wants to show Elena just how exciting their relationship used to be and how good they were together, before they started fighting. He starts putting every second of his day into their relationship, making this Christmas the best one Elena has had since her parents died.

Points for Damon giving gifts, a fight ending up in lovemaking and the happy couple decorating a tree together!

As always let me know what you think.


The first thing that happened was a bouquet of flowers sitting on the bedside table. After months of screaming fights, make up sex, more fights, more sex, feelings of betrayal, more sex, and more fighting this was a weird thing to have happen. It was a massive bouquet of red and white roses and there was no card, though that didn't matter they could only be from one person, despite how strange that is. There is no reason there should be flowers sitting on the table considering all we've been doing is fighting. The sex doesn't count because it was sex to cover up a problem. It never fixed the problems, it just covered them up until the next problem. It was almost every day and even the sex stopped a couple weeks ago. We fought, he left to drink it away at the Grill and I stayed here and wrote in my journal. Over the past couple weeks I hadn't written anything good at all. It had all been why I was sticking around when it's clear he doesn't want me. If he wanted me, he would be trying and then suddenly this morning there were flowers on the bedside table. I had no idea what was going on. I didn't want to get out of bed. I just wanted to snuggle under the covers and let my confusion go. It felt like our relationship was about to die but then these flowers show up, alive and well. There had to be some explanation.

"Are you hungry? I made breakfast." A voice in the doorway said and I groaned and opened my eyes again.
"What are you doing?" I asked more confused than ever.

"I wanted to make you breakfast. Is that so bad?" He asked.

"Not bad, just strange." I told him as I accepted the plate from him. He came around to the other side and sat down with me with his own plate of breakfast. We didn't speak, we just ate. If things were on their way back to normal-ville then we would be speaking. Things still weren't good.

"So what are our plans for Christmas? It's only a few days away and we haven't decided anything." He asked and I stared at him like he had two heads.

"Why are we talking?" I asked and he shook his head.

"Forgive me for trying to find out what's going on." He said shortly and I turned back to my food. The pancakes with real maple syrup were delicious. I just wish I knew what was going on.

"I haven't figured anything out for Christmas yet. I haven't heard anything from any of our friends." I told him. It was beginning to look like everyone was just doing their own things which worked for me. At least if it was just us we wouldn't have to pretend we were doing okay. Pretending was getting exhausting.

"Well just let me know when you figure it out." He said and I nodded. When I nodded we lapsed back into silence. We used to be able to fill any silence with small talk but now we had no idea how the other was going to respond to something. I didn't want to fight so early in the morning, a fight would ruin the day. Especially since make up sex was now off the table. Eventually we figured out that make up sex was not solving any problems. I didn't know how to solve our problems. They ran too deep and now I feared there was no way to get out of the hole we dug our relationship in. When we finished eating Damon stood up and took his plate and mine before leaving the room without a word. When he was gone I lay down again. This day had already exhausted me to the point where I couldn't imagine getting out of bed. I rolled onto my side so I could stare at the beautiful flowers as I fell asleep again.

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A couple more days went by like that, where he'd randomly leave small gifts or breakfast in bed before completely shutting down again. It was probably because I showed absolutely no gratitude for the gifts. I didn't understand them and I didn't understand why he was doing it. But I knew if I started enjoying them, he would pull them out from under me. I wanted to understand what was going on but he wasn't giving me anything that even sort of resembled an explanation.

This morning there a box on the table and when I opened it I saw a simple white gold tennis bracelet. It was lovely, I just still didn't understand it. I got out of bed and stood up just as he came in with breakfast.

"What are you doing? I was bringing you breakfast." He said and I stopped him by holding my hands up.

"Put the food down Damon, we need to talk about this." I told him and he sighed but he did what I said anyway.

"What's wrong now Elena." He said seemingly bored of the conversation we haven't even had yet. We needed talk about this and we needed to do it now.

"What the hell is all this? Why the hell does it keep happening?" I demanded knowing I just had to spit it out. I had to just get to the point. It would be over that much quicker if I did.

"What?" He demanded.

"The breakfasts, the gifts, the jewelry? There is nothing but fighting for months and now all of a sudden there is gifts and all of this shit." I yelled. I was getting worked up and that was never a good thing. If I got worked up, he shut down.

"Whatever, it's clear that you don't want all of this "shit."" He said before starting to walk out of the room.

"No I want you to explain it! Why all of a sudden are you doing this?" I demanded.

"Clearly you have no idea why I'm doing this." He said before turning on me once more.

"No, I don't, that's why I asked." I said unsure of why he was getting so upset about this. He was getting angry and I was trying to understand. This is why it felt like our relationship was pretty much over. We couldn't even communicate effectively. Communication was an important part of any relationship. It was one of the most important parts and we couldn't achieve it.

"If you don't know why I'm doing this, then maybe it's just time to call it quits." He stated, simmering down. He wasn't angry anymore, he just seemed resigned.

"Just tell me please. I've been getting a lot of mixed signals lately." I told him calming myself down too.

"I love you Elena and I wanted to make this work. I thought maybe I could make you want it too." He said and I instantly hurt. All he had been doing was trying to make me want him too. Didn't he see there had never been a day that I didn't want him? I just didn't know how to make him believe that.

"I never stopped loving you Damon and I never stopped wanting to make this work. I just didn't know how." I told him.

"Well you had a shitty way of showing it." He said. I could see now how hurt he was. It was easy to see when he wasn't covering it up with anger.

"I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't know what you were trying to accomplish. If I had I would have accepted it eagerly." I told him and he half smiled.

"Where did we go wrong?" He asked and I shrugged.

"I think we stopped communicating. We stopped talking and whenever we started talking we always ended up having sex which was spectacular but it was part of the problem." I told him.

"Are you saying us having sex is a problem?" He asked and I laughed slightly.

"No, us having sex constantly when we should be talking is a problem. I still love you and there is nothing that could stop that." I said.

"I love you too. I guess I could have just told you that instead of going to all the trouble I went to." He said and I took his hand in mine.

"I liked it all. If I had known why it was happening I would have loved it more but then I would have stopped you. I would have told you that I didn't need all of that stuff to prove that you loved me." I told him and he smiled.

"I know that's what you would have said so that's why I didn't tell you." He said and I fully smiled for the first time. We were still for a second, not sure where to go now. I knew what I wanted and I know he wanted it too. There was no way for us to feel together again unless we were physically together. We needed that physical connection to finally put all of this behind us.

"I want you Damon. I know you want me too." I said to him and he turned to me.

"What about all of that sex is the problem stuff?" He asked and I shook my head.

"It won't be a problem this time." I told him. He turned to face me fully and cupped my face in his hands before lowering his lips to mine. This was the first kiss we'd shared in a long time. The sex before this was all about fucking. It was always from behind so he didn't have to look at me, so he never kissed me. This was different already. I willingly went into his arms, crawling so I was in his lap and his arms were wrapped around me. I needed to be surrounded by him. I needed to be wrapped up in all of him. He kissed me and gently lowered my back to the bed. My legs fell open reflexively as if they knew what to do when he was there. My hands snuck under his shirt and over his back. I needed to feel skin. I hadn't felt him in so long. We were in a king sized bed, it was easy not to touch at all through the night. He hadn't stopped kissing me yet, his hands were wrapped around my hips, pulling me closer to him. I started tugging on his shirt and he raised himself so I could pull it all the way off. After I got his shirt off the removal of clothing started at a much faster rate. My shirt and bra went first before his pants and my shorts and panties. He moved above me but never entered me. I needed him and he knew that but I understood that he was trying to make it last. We kissed and touched, when he finally slipped inside me I almost cried. It felt so good and I needed this connection. I grabbed his shoulders as he slowly started moving inside me. He thrust in such a way that caused his pubic bone to graze my clit on every thrust. It was such an exquisite pleasure and it was better than every other time over that past few months.

"Oh God, I missed you." I whispered with my face by his neck. I was kissing and sucking at his neck while he moved inside me. I needed to do something. He was biting into my shoulder with blunt teeth to stop himself from calling out. He never was very vocal in bed unless we were doing naughty things. This was simply making love, even though there was nothing simple about the way he made me feel.

"I love you." He whispered and that only propelled me closer to the edge. I needed to hear it over and over again to really believe it. I needed him to show me that I was the only girl he loved even though I knew it. I needed all of him and he needed all of me. After only a couple more thrusts I came around him and he followed me directly over the precipice. We held onto each other until we both came back to Earth.

"That was wonderful." I told him and he pecked my lips gently before kissing me deeper. I kissed him back for a minute before he suddenly pulled away and pulled his clothes back on. He left his shirt off and handed it to me along with a pair of panties.

"Come, I have one more surprise for you." He told me. I smiled and slipped the panties and the shirt on before following him downstairs. When we got into the large family room of the Boarding House I saw a huge tree dominating the space.

"Wow, did you do this?" I asked.

"All I did was bring it into the house, we are going to decorate it together." He told me and I wrapped my arms around his neck in response and kissed him quickly.

"This is perfect." I told him.

"Well we better get to work, lots to do. As you can see this is a massive tree and we have a ton of ornaments to put on it." He said walking over to haul three large boxes out of a closet. I grinned and opened up one of the boxes, in it were several kind of garlands to wrap around the tree. The next box was full of glass ornaments that I immediately started picking through. The light was pre-lit which was good because I hated stringing lights. It was a pain in the ass.

"Come help me." I insisted.

"In a minute. You can't do this stuff without hot cocoa." He told me as he walked into the kitchen. On his way by he flipped the stereo on to play classic Christmas songs. I smiled and started hanging the glass ornaments on the tree. The silver and blue ornaments were going to perfectly compliment the white lights that the tree had. Damon returned a few minutes later with two steaming mugs of cocoa that he put on the table. He helped me with the ornaments and when we finished decorating he grabbed a beautiful star from the final box.

"Do you want to do it?" I asked him and he shook his head.

"You should do the honours." He said and I smiled in response. I reached up and put the star on the tree and then stood back to appraise our handiwork.

"We did good." I said as I sipped my cocoa.

"We sure did. It's spectacular." He agreed. I leaned in for a kiss and he wrapped both arms around me.

"I think we should spend Christmas, just us." I told him and he grinned.

"You do now?" He asked and I nodded.

"I can't imagine anywhere I'd rather be than wrapped up in you for Christmas."