Enjoy and please read the author's note at the end of the last chapter.
How am I alive? That's the question running through Damon's mind over and over again. The last thing he remembered was being on the other side, holding hands with Bonnie, waiting for certain death; he asked her if she thought it would hurt, and then it was like a blankness swallowed him whole. He blinked and was met with the familiar woods of Mystic Falls, not a soul in sight, not a heartbeat for miles. He decides against using his super speed, because he doesn't want to miss a single second of the landscape surrounding him, in case his eyes catch something familiar—or someone.
After walking for an hour around town searching for any trace of human life, he arrives at the boarding house and stares at the magnificent structure from outside, looking for any sight of his brother or Elena, but is met with nothing except gravel on the driveway, Elena's familiar car nowhere in sight, nor Jeremy's truck; hell, he would donate a liver for a reassuring glimpse of his baby brother's ugly and monstrous red car—some remnant of the world he knew.
Finally gathering the courage required, he opens the door and attunes his vampire senses to anything out of the ordinary, and finally, he hears it. A heartbeat, slow and fading, but a human heartbeat nonetheless; excited by his discovery and by the possibility of being greeted by his baby brother or Elena, he vamp speeds to the place where it is coming from, realizing only when he stops that he's now in his room. His hope grows stronger since his brother and Elena's annoying friends know better than to touch his bedroom; there's only one person who could be in his bedroom…Elena, his Elena. Maybe this wasn't hell after all. A thought strikes him; if Elena is here, that would mean she died with him, and with that thought, panic suddenly overwhelms him. He vamp speeds to his bathroom where he is met with none other than…Katherine Pierce, lying unconscious in his bathtub.
"You gotta be freaking kidding me…Hell it is." He muttered with disdain in his voice.
Damon leans closer to inspect Katherine's form. It's curious how he didn't mistake her for Elena, not even for a second. Even when she's sleeping, Katherine's facial expression is hardened, as if even when lost in her own dreams, her walls are still up. Elena's, however…her face is kind, her eyes hold a lightness that Katherine's never did, even when they're closed. He snaps out of his thoughts because of the ache he feels in his gut; it's only been a couple of hours and he already misses his girl like crazy. And speaking of his girl, he remembers everything the bitch lying in his bathtub did to her, and he feels his fist closing up in anger. She stole her body and almost got her killed with that virus, left a trail of mayhem behind her. It would be so easy to choke her…He can hear her heartbeat, so that means however she ended up there, she ended up as a human. No one would ever know. Suddenly, he shakes his head and relaxes his fist. This is not the man he is anymore, and even if the bitch did everything to make Elena's life miserable, she wouldn't support him killing anyone in her name, not under any circumstances.
He cursed himself out loud and bit his wrist, then put it over Katherine's mouth, her heartbeat almost non-existent, so he coaxed her head a little in order for her to drink his blood. Once he decided it was enough, he stood up and went back downstairs. He settles the couch in order to make it a decent place to sleep; there was no way he would be sleeping in his bedroom with that bitch in his bathtub and no chance in hell he would carry her out. He had already done more than enough by feeding her his blood. Her heartbeat was faint, so that meant she wasn't taking care of herself. He chuckled to himself trying to picture the great Katherine Pierce cooking scrambled eggs or any other food. Who knows how long she had been in this place. Deciding it was time to put his brain to sleep, he closed his eyes and pictured the woman he would fight heaven and hell if he had to, just to get back to her….Elena, and with that final thought, sleep finally reclaimed him.
The next morning, he was awakened by little things being thrown at him. He blinked once, then twice, trying to block whatever was landing in several parts of his face and chest; he finally opened his eyes and looked down to his chest where several little balls of bunched paper rested. He furrowed his brow, shook them off and then stood up, turning around to head for the kitchen, only to be greeted by his new reality leaning on a wall with her arms crossed, attempting to showcase her cleavage.
"Did you miss me?" said a playful Katherine Pierce with a Cheshire cat grin.
Damon groaned, "I liked you better when you were half dying and unconscious."
She pouted and eased closer to where he stood.
"Oh come on, Damon, don't tell me you didn't miss me. I've been losing my mind here all by myself the last weeks. I finally get a roommate, and what a roommate," she said, shamelessly running her eyes over from top to bottom, scanning every visible inch of his body, making Damon roll his eyes to the back of his head, which brought his awareness to yet another paper ball in the back of his neck. He stretched his arm to get it, and then threw it to the floor.
"Did you seriously wake me up by throwing a bunch of paper balls at me?"
Katherine pouts again and does her best effort to look cute, "What? I was bored. You were good enough to save my life, but not gentleman-y enough to carry me out of that uncomfortable bathtub. Very poor manners, Mr. Salvatore. Color me shocked when I woke up and realized I wasn't dead. Oh no, instead, I had blood on the corners of my mouth…And Lover, I might be human, but I can still recognize the taste of your blood anywhere."
Damon sensed this conversation wouldn't be short, nor would he want it to be. He needs answers after all, answers maybe only Katherine can provide, so he sits down on the couch again and motions her to do the same on the opposite one.
"So, tell me, Katherine. How on earth did you end up here?"
Katherine leans back in her seat and contemplates the possibility of toying with his patience for a while longer, but she didn't lie when she said she almost lost her mind. She's been craving for contact since she got to this place, and now that she got her wish, she'll have to play nice with Damon, at least for a while. She was Katherine Pierce, afterall, queen of mind games. She feels herself getting excited with the idea of sharing the house with Damon, unable to suppress a playful smile.
"Would you believe me if I told you I don't know? The last thing I remember was that pesky little witch doing something to drag me in that church. I felt myself being swallowed down by a…darkness, and then I woke up here, on the outskirts of town. At first, I thought the elusive Katherine Pierce had avoided death yet again, but then I started walking, and after a few minutes, I noticed my unusual shortness of breath, and I realized I was still a human, tragically." She paused and looked up to the ceiling, addressing whatever powers that be, "Thanks for that, by the way." She scoffed and continued with her story, "Anyway, I knocked on houses, visited all of the so-called hot spots in Mystic Falls, hoping to find…someone, but it was like a ghost town. I even went to Elena's house. I had read a paper, and that's how I deduced I was stuck in 1994. I suppose I found amusement in the idea of the Gilberts taking a poor orphan into their home without having a clue that the baby girl in their arms would grow to look exactly like her. Don't look so hopeful, though. No such luck. Like I said, ghost town."
Damon nods to himself, processing the information and noticing that everything Katherine is saying rings true, since he checked the town himself, as well.
"And how did you end up half dead in my bathtub? Was Saint Stefan's room occupied by squirrels?"
"I survived a couple of months by stealing food from the super market, all junk food though." She makes a sound of disgust. "Being on the run for so many years with the compulsion powers at my disposal meant that I never found myself in need of learning such mundane tasks like cooking, so yeah, basically I survived off the frozen stuff."
"Well, obviously you didn't eat healthy enough if your body gave up on you."
Katherine suddenly gets a panicked look that she manages to mask quickly enough, but not before Damon's watchful eyes notice; he makes a mental note to figure out what was really going on later.
"Yes, I guess I was careless," She said in a clipped tone, signaling to him that all attempts of conversation were over.
Damon shrugged, stood up and put on his leather jacket.
"Wait, where are you going?" She asked with a slight quiver in her voice, unnoticeable to regular people, but not to Damon.
"I am going to get some blood bags. If there are no people, I have to survive off something, and even if that's usually not my diet of choice, it'll have to do for now."
"Well, Damon, seems like we're stuck together," She says, raising an eyebrow.
"I guess so. The only proof I needed that this is, in fact, Hell," He says with a mocking tone and sardonic smile.
Katherine pouts and starts walking toward him while swaying her hips, stopping only when she is inches away from his face.
"Aw, don't be like that. We're gonna have so much fun," She says with a smile as her index finger plays around with the collar of his jacket.
Damon groans, frowning at her, and snaps her finger away from him almost violently to later open the door and vamp speed away from her, far enough that he does not hear the throaty chuckle that escaped her lips.
Katherine walks in on Damon, humming an annoying song while he heats up his blood in the microwave, and she groans knowing what awaits her for breakfast.
For the last three weeks, Damon had been making a weekly visit to the blood bank and to the supermarket to get human food for her, except what he was getting wasn't food at all; she was certain he had an evil plan of making her fat. He was only bringing her trans-fat junk food that tasted like rubber, because, oh yes, on top of everything, it was frozen food. Last week, he had gotten her frozen pizzas for all seven days of the week, claiming she needed some meat on those bones. This week, he might as well have worn a McDonald's uniform, because he had gotten her frozen hamburgers that tasted like feet and some really unimpressive French fries. Katherine couldn't believe that she was living with an Italian who refused to cook her real food. She was starting to get cranky; that bastard was testing her, and she would not put up with it any longer.
Damon heard the sound of the microwave that indicated his breakfast was ready and made a move to open the thing when a hand snapped it back shut.
"What do you want, Katherine?" He asked with a tired expression on his face, rolling his eyes, "If what you wanted was to piss me off, mission accomplished. Now, please keep your hand away from my O-negative. You know fragile little humans don't get blood."
Katherine merely glared at him, not making a single action to remove her hand from the microwave that separated Damon Salvatore and his breakfast.
"You're not getting your breakfast until I get mine."
Damon smiled tightly at her, "Well that can be arranged. If you walk five steps behind you, you will locate the fridge. You just open that, and take out the goods I've so generously gotten for you."
"Goods? Damon those aren't goods!" – She exclaims, losing her temper, which was noticeable, because her voice went up a few octaves – "Those are a heart attack waiting to happen! I can't keep eating that stuff. I am human now and I can get fat!"
Damon is enjoying this far too much. He would never admit it to anyone, and maybe it was petty, but he didn't really care. Amusement was rare these days living in a frozen 1994 and all, so he would take some entertainment in any way he could; that included making Katherine Pierce lose her figure and watching her have a breakdown over it. She had always used said figure to drive men insane. Oh yes, that vixen knew just the right way to use her body, and she knew she had a killer figure, so she took advantage of that. He wasn't planning to feed her forever with frozen food, just until she would gain a few pounds and had a spectacular breakdown over it or she put her pride aside and begged him for real food, whichever happened first. Following that train of thought, his eyes were pulled to her hips, and he smirked, because it seemed like his plan had played off already.
"Well, well," He says, walking toward her till he gets inches away from Katherine's body, running his finger teasingly over her hip. "Seems like those frozen pizzas are getting to you. Tell me, Kitty Kat, you haven't felt those tight jeans even tighter have you?
He pouted mockingly at her, and then the impossible happened. Katherine Pierce actually blushed; it was just a slight tone of pale pink adorning her cheeks that might have gone unnoticed to any human, but he was a vampire. He could smell and feel Katherine's blood gathering in her cheeks; as soon as Katherine felt the blush, though, she practically ran to the opposite side of the room and put her hands over her head, attempting to control her traitorous body.
"Ugh, how I freaking hate being human!" She muttered, grinding her teeth. Damon had to literally hold back a chuckle. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
"You are an ass, Damon, you know that?"
"Old news, Honey," He says with a scoff and dismissive movement of his right hand.
"Fine, you win. What do I have to do to get some real food? I can't afford to lose my figure, Damon. I refuse to exercise and get all sweaty and gross. Tell me what you want and I'll do it," She says, crossing her arms over her chest.
Damon puts his index finger on his chin and pretends to give some thought to Katherine's proposal. Of course, he already knows what he wants. Katherine had been nothing but a pest since he got to 1994. She did nothing but complain all day every day, and if she wasn't complaining about the horrible grunge fashion of the 90s, she was complaining about the lack of modern electronic devices, and if she wasn't complaining about that, she was complaining about the fact that Damon used to be more fun; it was exhausting to live with her, and if you added the fact that she never lifted a finger to do house chores, Damon was losing his mind. He knew exactly what he wanted from her.
"Well, that's a very tempting offer Katherine. Let's see," He pretends to keep thinking just to torture her a little bit longer, and when he sees her uncrossing her arms to glare at him even harder, he smirks and decides it's time. He really couldn't wait to see her face reacting to his end of the bargain. "I want you, Katherine Pierce, to do the laundry, for both of us."
Time stood still for Katherine as she tried to picture herself doing…laundry. Even the word sent a shiver down her spine. She had never in her life done laundry, not even when she was human, always managed to charm some dumb weak girl or boy into doing it for her. She simply could not imagine it, and yet, she knew Damon was serious. He had been feeding her junk food for three weeks, and her smoking hot body was starting to pay the toll for that. She supposed she had to play nice with him if she wanted him to cook the delicious food she knew he was capable of doing.
Katherine Pierce never hated herself more than in that moment, when she almost imperceptibly nodded her head and muttered a curt "Fine."
"I am sorry, I didn't hear you, what?"
"I said fine dammit! Don't push it, Salvatore!" She screamed while grinding her teeth.
"Wouldn't dream of it, Pierce," He says with his most charming smile. "What would you like today then?" He asks while he makes his way to the cupboard to collect the ingredients.
"How about a delicious French omelet?" She asks with the flirtiest smile she could pull off.
He made a *tsk tsk* sound and then pulled out a bread from the cupboard. "Sorry, don't have any of that here. French toast is what I can offer."
Katherine groaned and almost stomped her feet, but refrained from doing so.
"Fine, fine! French toast, just get to cooking, Salvatore."
"With pleasure, Miss Pierce," He says in a softer, yet mocking tone, imitating the boy he was back in 1864 when he met her. She, of course, caught onto that immediately and gave him a smile—a real one. Except, he was too busy cooking with his back to her, and he didn't notice; she was relieved for that.