**Grammatical Errors corrected 05.02.11**

A/N: Hey, guys! So, this is the first story I'm publishing here, and I hope you like it. It's set post episode 2x21. (Even though we don't yet know what happens in 2x21. haha) Klaus is dead, and everyone's survived... so far. I intend for this to be a short, but we'll see how it goes. :) I'll try to not take too long between uploads! Promise. Feel free to R&R if so moved. hehe :) And beware - this story will, by most odds, include a bit of smut. So if that's not your thing, you might not want to read this! Consider yourselves forewarned! haha

Oh, and one last thing, this has not been Betaed, so there may be mistakes I haven't yet caught. I'm in search of a Beta Reader, so if anyone would like to volunteer their services, let me know! :)

***DISCLAIMER*** I do NOT own Vampire Diaries or the characters associated with Vampire Diaries. This is simply my way of paying tribute to a wonderful storyline. No copyright infringement intended.

Chapter One

The threat was over. Klaus was dead. And everything in Elena's life was turned upside down.

She supposed she should be glad she still had a life. True to form, Damon had gone off the reservation and complicated things all to hell. As a result, Aunt Jenna was now being thrust into a form of life she'd only just discovered existed. And Elena was still human.

Elena pulled her jacket tighter around her as the cool, spring wind picked up on top of the waterfall. She'd asked Stefan to bring her back here. She'd also asked him to leave her for a while. She needed to be alone; needed to think. It seemed to her like every time she got her feet back under her and started to feel halfway in control of her life, something happened to knock them back out from under her. She needed some time to figure out where she stood on everything that had transpired, and to start to deal with it.

Damon.

It all came down to Damon. She tried to be angry with him, tried to hate him. But she couldn't. He'd terrified her when he'd forced her to take his blood, when suddenly her fate seemed to be leading her toward a life of vampirism. But she understood why he'd done it. Even as he'd held his wrist against her mouth, even as she'd cried to Stefan about how she'd never wanted to become a vampire, she'd understood. Love, especially that of the obsessive quality, could make the most sane person in the world do the unthinkable. And he did love her. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that Damon loved her. Fiercely. Knowing it had made her uncomfortable; especially on the occasions when it seemed like the force of it was pulling her steadily toward him against her will. But at the same time, she admitted now, it gave her comfort. Elena knew, without a doubt, that Damon would always do whatever it took to protect her. And in this, they were the same. No matter the price, even if the price was her life, she'd do whatever she could to protect those she loved.

And she loved Damon.

Elena had long ago admitted to herself that her feelings toward the elder Salvatore brother were anything but platonic, but fear of hurting either him or Stefan the way Katherine had had made her determined to hide it. And she'd done so, successfully. Perhaps that was why, when everyone around her thought that she should hate Damon, she simply couldn't. How could she hate him for wanting to save her life? It was true, his actions had had consequences; consequences that left Aunt Jenna in limbo somewhere between life and death. And, for that at least, she should blame him. But what would have been the alternative? To have let Caroline and Tyler die? No. Risking her life to kill Klaus was one thing, but never the lives of her friends. If Damon had never tried to interfere with Klaus' plans, they might never have known Klaus had intended to use Caroline and Tyler in the sacrifice until it was too late. Her friends could have died that night.

Elena took a deep, cleansing breath of the air that was whipping her hair around her face, and gazed out over the tree tops, green again with new, spring leaves. From up here, it seemed like the world was at peace. It's amazing how deceptive appearances can be. Elena wondered what it was like for all of those people living under the rooftops she could just barely see peeking out from below the forest canopy; what it was like to live in complete ignorance of all the supernatural elements of the world. So much had happened in the last year and a half, it could have filled a lifetime, and she no longer could remember what it felt like to be blissfully ignorant of vampires, werewolves, and witches, oh my. One could argue that if she hadn't met Stefan she might have continued to have lived unaware of everything going on around her. But Elena knew that would never have been. For good or for bad, this was her destiny. Her life's path was intricately woven with the supernatural.

Hearing Stefan's footsteps behind her, she looked back at him over her shoulder.

"Are you ready, or do you need some more time?" His expression was warm and supportive, yet cautious, too, as if he'd expected her to have some sort of epiphany during his absence that would shake his world even more than it had already been shaken. She hadn't made any life-altering decisions over the last 30 minutes, but she had this uneasy feeling in her stomach that seemed to be prophesying that there was still something looming in the near future that would change everything all over again.

"I'm ready…I think."

"If you need some more time…" Stefan's concerned expression had the feeling of premonition intensifying, and suddenly she was anxious to return home, to the boarding house.

"No, I'm ready."