"I'll see you tomorrow guys." Elena stood from the table and waved with a smile. "Thanks for dinner." Bonnie, Jeremy and Caroline all said goodbye, wishing she would have stayed for the band but she just wasn't feeling up to it tonight.
She sighed walking out of the restaurant. Her breath hung in the air, it was a cold night in mystic falls. Her boots clicked on the sidewalk as she made her way home where she had plans to cozy up to her nice warm bed with a teddy bear and fall asleep. Someone had other plans for her, however.
She heard the wooshing sound of a vampire behind her and that's all she remembered until the next night when she was waking in a familiar bed, but it most certainly wasn't her own.
Damon was on his way to Mystic Grill for a round of drinks when he heard a scream; an all too familiar scream. He knew in an instant that it was Elena and he darted off in the direction it was coming from with vampire speed.
When he arrived at the scene, Damon's eyes grew wide with shock and sadness. Elena was down on the ground with blood stained onto her shirt. He knelt down beside her and felt for a pulse; he was too late.
Sadness washed over him at the sight of her laying on the pavement lifeless and cold. He was angry at himself for letting this happen to her. If only he had been here 30 seconds sooner, he could have saved her life. Picking up her limp and emotionless body, he slowly made his way back to the boarding house.
Upon arriving there, he was very thankful they were alone. Stefan took off with Katherine and Rebecca was still as good as oak-tree-daggered dead. The house was silent as could be as Damon ascended the stairs to his bedroom where he layed Elena on his bed. He sat beside her and looked at her for what felt like forever before placing his head in his hands and sobbing. He blamed no one but himself.
When he was able to pull himself from his place beside her, he began to prep the room for her transition. He placed a few blood bags on the dresser along with a nightgown of Rebecca's so she could change out of her ripped and bloodied clothes. For the sake of sparing her any harsh lights, he lit some candles around the room. Once he was satisfied with his preparation, he lay beside her in his bed caressing her hair and waiting for the first sign of her new "life".
Damon was beside her when her eyes opened, breath filling her lungs as she gasped and coughed. He sat up and observed her, giving her a moment to regain full consciousness. She looked around the room, figuring out where she was at last. "Damon...?" She questioned as she looked at him. "Why am I in your bed? Did we... oh god, what did we do?"
Damon wished that the worst thing they had done in her eyes was sleep together. "Hey." He spoke so softly, knowing her senses were beginning to heighten even before she drank blood to complete the last phase of turning. "We didn't do anything, I promise you." In the back of his mind he still kept wishing that that was all that was wrong with her world.
"So then why am I here?" She looked confused beyond words and her stomach growled. She ignored it.
"We need to talk." He rose from the bed and went to his dresser to grab the night gown and handed it to her. "First change out of those clothes." He requested as he walked back to the dresser to prepare her a glass of blood and divert his eyes from places they didn't need to gaze upon right now.
She didn't protest the clean clothes, hers were absolutely a mess. Damon turned around holding a glass which Elena just assumed was for him until he sat beside her once more and handed it to her. "I'm sure you know how this works by now..." He didn't know what else to say to her, or how else to break the news.
"No..." Was all she could manage as she stared into the glass of blood. "I would rather die!" She shoved the glass back at him, almost spilling it all over him. She flew up off of the bed and crossed the room to the door which Damon had already bolted locked for fear that this is how she might react. "Let me out, Damon Salvatore or I swear I will.."
He was in front of her then, holding her shoulders tightly. "You will not leave this room and you will drink this blood if I have to chain you down and pour it down your throat with a funnel." He was very stern and his eyes were serious.
"Damon..." tears began to flow down her cheeks. "...I don't want to be a vampire. Why would you do this to me!" She was hysterical but didn't physically struggle with him.
He was taken aback by the confusion. "Elena, you think I did this to you?" He shook his head, taking her hand and leading her back to sit on the bottom of his bed with him. "When I found you, you were laying on the sidewalk. I brought you here because I knew what happened. You had blood on your mouth and your neck was broken. I brought you here so you could at least wake up with someone who can hold your hand through it all." He explained.
Elena was crying now. "How could I have been so careless? Damon, I'm scared. I don't want this, but.." Damon took her into his arms. ".. I don't want to die, either." Damon strained to keep his own tears from falling, he felt so sad for her and wished he could reverse this horrible thing that was about to happen to her.
"I'll help you get through this." His voice was soothing. "Elena, knowing you has been one of the very best parts of my existence. Maybe it's selfish to choose you being a vampire over death, but I just can't lose you. Not after everything we've been through." He never thought that letting his humanity back in would be so worth it and so difficult to bear at the same time; if he could keep Elena in his life, he would never turn it off again.
"I don't want to lose you, either." She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve, then laughed. "How human of me to do something so gross." She was laughing through her tears as she realized all things she would never do again as a living, breathing human being.
The past few years have been completely crazy. She learned about vampires, werewolves and witches. Elena had seen ghosts, watched her loved ones die and met her doppelganger. Falling in love with Damon's brother Stefan had been one of the most difficult things she went through; he broke her heart in so many ways regardless of how hard she fought for him. Her love for Stefan brought her closer to the man who was now holding her in his arms, readying her for the most undesired but important change of her life.
He raised the glass close to her mouth. "If you don't drink this soon, you will die, Elena." She looked deeply into his eyes, silently pleading him to take care of her; she gave a slight nod of her head and Damon tipped the glass just a little and she began to drink. First she was completely appalled by the taste and it became less and less gross as she drank. Taking the glass from Damon's hands she finished the rest with a new found hunger that she didn't understand in the slightest.
Damon took the empty glass from her and placed it on the floor. "Lay with me." He said, as he scooted up on his bed and rested his head on his pillow. Elena followed him and lay on her side, facing him. She ran her tongue over her fangs, feeling their danger-some sharpness. Damon took her right hand in his left as they lay observing one another. "You get used to them." He said.
"I feel like the same person still." She replied. The only difference being that she was acutely aware of everything surrounding her; every scent, every sound and every texture. She felt the complexity of the softness of the sheets on his bed and Damon's hand was like a fire holding hers, the same fire which now ravaged through her entire body.
"You will feel like you as long as you don't shut off everything human about yourself." A lock of Damon's hair fell over his eye. "You saw what happened to Stefan when he let himself slip away entirely."
Elena focused on a wrinkle in the fabric of his shirt, her eyes unable to continue looking at him when he mentioned Stefan. She felt overwhelming sadness over her long lost love. "You never let it happen to you, why is that? Why didn't you ever completely let go?"
"I have watched so many vampires go to that dark place. I actually liked who I was before becoming a vampire and holding on to whatever was left of that person was important to me. You can't keep all of it, but what you can keep a firm grasp on, you should."
She looked up at him again with a sweet little smile. "Thanks, Damon. For finding me before I woke up." Their fingers interlocked perfectly and his ring was cool against her skin. His eyes were so blue, it made her feel so tired laying there admiring them.
"You're welcome." He offered a tight lipped smile, not really pleased that he had to make the decision that he did. "Why don't you rest? We can talk more in the morning." She nodded and closed her eyes, together in his bed they both fell into a deep slumber.
Damon began to dream. He wasn't very sure of what was going on in his dream other than that he was laying face up in his bed with his legs crossed over one and another. A feeling of bliss washed over him, he reached up to his neck where the feeling originated when in an instant he awoke and pinned Elena to the mattress. "Stop!" He yelled. Looking down onto her face, her dark, malevolent eyes and her bloody fangs hurt him so much. "Elena, stop!" He raised his voice again as she writhing around under his grasp.
She had bit him while he was sleeping, luckily he awoke before she could rob him dry of all of his blood. It would have sent her into an even greater frenzy than she was already in. Her features relaxed and she focused on him and realized what she did. She began to cry again. "Damon, I'm so sorry, I couldn't control it."
