A/N: This story idea just kind of randomly popped into my head. It's Damon/Elena and it's based off of "I Remember You" by Skid Row. If you've ever heard the song, you should kind of have an idea of where this will be going. This is TV!Verse where Damon is a vampire and Elena is human—for now. Ignore anything that happened in Season Three after Stefan came back. There will be a HEA, but it will take a while to get there. I own nothing!

Summary: Two years ago, Damon and Elena broke up. When he left Mystic Falls, he had hoped to save Elena from living the dangerous life of dating a vampire. When they finally see each other again, can they put the past behind them?

Now, away we go….

I Remember You

Prologue: Walking Hand in Hand

It was dark and stormy that night, Elena knew that much. The rain came down so hard it felt like thousands of pins sticking into her skin. The wind plastered her hair to her face and upper arms, and she constantly tried to pick fallen leaves off of her skin. She pounded on the door of the Boarding House, shivering and soaked to the bone. "Damon! Come on, open the door. Talk to me, please?"

After waiting for two minutes and not getting a response, Elena rang the doorbell. Come on, open the door. Just open the door, she begged in her mind, knowing he wouldn't be able to hear her. "Damon Salvatore! Please, let me in. Don't shut me out. It was an accident. You didn't mean it. I'm okay. Just, please…" Elena's shouting turned into sobs as her pounding on the door grew weak. After taking a deep breath and regaining her focus, Elena roughly wiped the tears out of her eyes and tried the door handle. She found the door unlocked and walked into the big house. For the first time in a long while, the space seemed cold to her.

There were no lights on, only the fire slowly dying out in the hearth. Checking in the living room, everything was where it should be—the bottles, the glasses, all of the books. But when she looked towards the couch, expecting to see Damon sitting there staring blankly at the fire, all she found was a note on the cushion instead of his familiar form. The letter was written on elegant paper. Folded in half, it sat propped up with Elena's name scrawled on the front of it in fancy script. With shaking hands, she picked it up and read it slowly to herself—once, twice, and then three times—just to make sure that what she read was true.

Elena,

By the time you read this, I'll be gone. It's the right thing to do. I'm selfish by nature, but I never should have let myself be selfish with you. You will never know how sorry I am for hurting you. All of your stuff is sitting on your bed at home, and I compelled Jeremy to bring my things to me yesterday while you were at school. Please don't look for me. Just forget me. Do whatever you have to do. Have Caroline compel you to forget me, to forget all of us. It's safer for you this way. Just know this: even if you forget about me, I will never be able to forget you and the pain I put you through. I love you, and I'm sorry.

Damon

Elena put her left hand on her heart, her right dropping the letter and moving to her mouth, trying to muffle the sounds that she thought were coming out of her throat. She collapsed onto the Persian rug, tears streaming down her face as silent sobs wracked her body. Elena could only remember one other time where she had felt this much pain and hurt, and that was when her parents had died.

Somehow, she managed to lift her phone and call Matt to pick her up, knowing that he wouldn't make her speak about it right away. She didn't want to talk right now. She just wanted to sit in her room and slowly slip into oblivion. As she waited for Matt to answer his phone, she thought she saw something—or someone—at the window out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned back to look again, it was gone.

"Hey, this is Matt. Sorry I can't get to my phone. I'm not available right now, so leave a message." Not waiting for the beep, Elena ended the call and just decided to walk home. She hoped that the cold air would give her some time to clear her mind. Maybe her tears would mix with the rain, and no one at her house would be any wiser about what had just happened to her.

Walking turned out to be a bad idea because as she walked, she thought her situation. Is this really just about what happened? I know he didn't mean to hurt me. I told him that. I thought he understood. It was an accident. He's a vampire, and I was bleeding. It was bound to happen at some point. I have to get him back. I can't do this without him.

Elena was brought out of her thoughts by the sound of a truck pulling up beside her. She turned her head and saw Matt and Tyler in the cab, both of them staring at her like she was crazy, along with concern on their faces.

Matt rolled down the window gaping at Elena, "Elena, what the hell? You do know that we're in a freaking Tropical Storm warning, right? What are you doing out here?" Matt questioned her, stopping his truck and getting out. "Seriously 'Lena, what's wrong?"

Elena just shook her head and buried her face into his chest, refusing to admit what happened, "He…he's…Damon's…" She couldn't bring herself to say it, so she just continued to cry. "Matt, can you just take me back to your house? I can't be at home right now."

Matt shared a worried look with Tyler before turning back to Elena. "I don't know, Elena. Can't you just tell me what's wrong?"

"I'll tell you later. Promise. Right now I'm just…r…r…really c…c…co…col…cold," Elena said, her teeth chattering the entire time and her little body shaking from the lack of heat.

Matt nodded and hugged her tightly. "Okay, but I have to drop Tyler off first."

Elena looked up at Matt with bleary, red-rimmed eyes and gave a slight nod. "Sure. That's fine."

Once they were in the truck—Elena sitting in between the two boys—she finally let herself really process what had just happened to her. Damon left without a word. He just left me a note. Did he really ever love me? As she started to fall asleep, Matt wrapped his arm around her tightly. Elena let out one last strangled sob before sleep enveloped her.

&&&###&&&###&&&###

Damon had seen everything, and it broke his cold, dead heart. He watched her pounding on the door, crying as she rang the doorbell. He'd heard her pleas for him to open the door and talk to her. What killed him the most was the look on her face as she read the letter he left for her. He realized it was a heartless thing to do, but he knew even better that if he tried to do it in person, one look into her big brown doe eyes and he wouldn't be able to do it. He had to leave her. It was for her own safety.

What happened that night never should have happened in the first place, and now he was making sure that it would never happen again. Elena might have believed it was an accident and that it was bound to happen at some point, but Damon knew that on some level, it wasn't a mistake. There was some sick part of him—the completely vampire part of him that had lived with his humanity turned off for too many years—that was begging for her to get hurt so he would have an easy excuse to taste her blood.

He watched as Matt and Tyler picked her up from the side of the road. Damon almost thought that Tyler was going to give away his hiding spot in the woods, but Tyler merely glared at him and growled so low only Damon could hear before helping Matt put Elena in the truck.

After Damon was sure that Elena was safe, he ran. He wasn't sure how long he ran or how far. All he knew was he was putting major distance between himself and Mystic Falls, and he would be damned if he ever went back there again.

A/N: Well, what do you think? This is just the prologue, even though it is kind of a long prologue. Oh well. The whole reason behind Damon leaving will be fully revealed next chapter. I'm thinking about having Tyler and Elena form a pretty decent friendship in this story. I really love Tyler and don't think he gets enough credit.