Author's note: Oneshot that I simply needed to get out of my system... I am now going to continue with my Queen's love story... so don't expect any other chapters on this story... I REPEAT it is a ONESHOT!

Enjoy :D

Elena took a deep breath, she was determined to see Damon today. She would go straight to the boarding house and demand that he stop ignoring her. It pained her more than anything that he had decided to stay away from her. He was avoiding her like the plague, Elena couldn't understand what he was thinking, he had spent months trying to convince her that he was better than Stefan, and then eventually he had fallen so badly for her that he was willing to give her up to Stefan. He nearly killed himself trying to save her, Elena regretted more than anything that she had let it come to that before she realized that she loved him. And she did love him. Elena closed her eyes shook the thought from her, whenever she tried to rationalize her feelings for Damon she just made herself confused. She loved Stefan but when she was around Damon there was something there that she didn't have enough words to explain. She didn't know why she didn't feel that way around Stefan, she didn't know why Damon made her melt and shiver all at the same time. She opened her eyes again, hoping that she had at least sorted her thoughts out a little but Damon was in every fibre of her being. God, he bothered her, and she hated him for that.

She smiled at her reflection, brushing her hair into submission and refusing to let Damon get to her today. She would get this all sorted out, after the party that Caroline had forced her into. Just one more thing she didn't want to do. But Elena knew from experience that the pain of losing her family would haunt her for a very long time, if not forever. Right now it was fresh, it made her want to sleep all day and cry at random moments of the day. She found herself cleaning the house and not being able to finish, she usually ended up in the bathroom, hiding her sobs by turning on the faucet or the shower, she refused to let Jeremy see her upset. She was all he had left now, and she had to keep them both together. She was frowning again, damn it! She smiled, determined to look at least a bit happy, but she found that her smile looked a little crazed. She settled for it though and turned to the door, only to find Caroline and Bonnie on the other side of it.

Caroline groped her into a hug immediately and Elena gingerly pushed her away, she didn't need Caroline's pitiful looks right now, it would send her into a world of tears and sobbing that she just couldn't deal with right now.

"Come on, let's get this over with!" Jeremy's voice bellowed from down the stairs and Bonnie sighed while Caroline just rolled her eyes.

"Well there's no need to be so enthusiastic about it!" Caroline fumed at him sarcastically as the three friends came down the stairs carefully in their heels. It wasn't until the girls were safely in Elena's car that Elena really spoke up, Tyler and Jeremy decided to go in separate cars and Elena just felt a little grateful since there were certain things that she wanted to ask Bonnie and she didn't want to spoil everyone's mood.

"Have you heard any news about Stefan?" She looked in the mirror to where Bonnie was sitting in the backseat and Bonnie looked from her to Caroline.

"No Elena, I'm sorry. Didn't Damon tell you that I can't track him at all?" Elena was quiet then, focusing perhaps a little too hard on the road.

"Damon won't talk to me."

"Oh." Bonnie didn't say anything else, and Caroline knew better than to open her mouth, Elena predicted that she probably thought she would put her foot in her mouth if she tried to lighten the mood. When they drove up to the house Bonnie and Caroline got out first and Elena realized that she was mad. She turned down her window to talk to her friends, she was frowning again she was sure but right now she didn't care.

"Do you guys mind getting a ride home with Tyler? I need to go do something." She didn't wait for their permission, before they could reply she had shifted out of park and was backing onto the road again. She was going too fast, and she knew it but it wasn't that much faster than the speed-limit and this felt urgent to her. She was angry and upset, and hurt. Above everything she felt hurt. It took her awhile, the boarding house was a ways out in the middle of nowhere on the very outskirts of Mystic Falls, and it was dark out but Elena was determined to get this over with. She didn't care if Damon had changed his mind about her, or if he was trying to protect her by staying away, it was stupidity either way. She had thought, that after everything they had been through together, after she had stayed with him when he was dying he would at least be able to talk to her but it seemed that he couldn't even be in the same room with her. She hadn't even seen him since he'd been saved by Katherine. Elena shivered the way she always did when she thought about Katherine.

The boarding house was dark when she pulled up on the gravel in front of the house. Her mood was not improving it seemed as the night went on. She got out of the car and slammed her door shut harder than she had to, as she got closer to the house her anger became infused with something else, there was a desperation to this she realized. She needed to see him, she hoped that wasn't written all over her face. She needed to get everything off her chest and she needed to yell and vent at him. She didn't need to fiddle with her keys, she knew by the weight and texture which key belonged to the boarding house but when she stepped inside she didn't know what she'd been expecting.

The place was empty. Completely dark and empty and quiet, Elena walked further into the house and her heels clicked much too loudly on the wooden floors. She turned the lights on in the sitting room and still everything was quiet, it seemed worse with the lights on. As if no one lived here, everything was tucked away and cleaned. There was no scotch glass on the table or the kitchen counter, no books strewn around, no fire blazing. Elena craned her neck, looking up at the staircase, she knew no one was home. That much was clear to her, if Damon had been here he would have come down, even if it was just to tell her to leave. She didn't know what she had hoped to accomplish by coming here, she was disappointed and now she was stuck here, alone in her misery and anger. She wished someone had been here, anyone. She put her purse down on the kitchen counter and went up the stairs in the darkness, every step she took made her feel more alone and deserted in this big house. She could have gone home, but there was no one there either, and the party was filled with people she didn't want to be around.

Elena didn't even make it to any of the rooms she saw Damon's room at the very end of the hall and Stefan's door to the right closer to the stairs and suddenly she couldn't move anymore. She sat down on the stairs, or more like she collapsed and the tears started running down her cheeks. Silent tears at first but then she couldn't move anymore and she started sobbing. Everything she'd been shielding Jeremy from and telling everyone wasn't there she now felt flooding every fibre of her body. She had been orphaned, twice and that killed her. Aunt Jenna, and that was all her fault. She buried herself into a little ball, discarding her shoes and leaning against the banister. Stefan was gone too, she didn't know what was happening to him, and Damon. Elena felt the dull ache rising in her chest, violent sobs overtook her, her whole body shaking violently as she choked on her tears.

She cried so terribly that her head was beginning to hurt and her leg was asleep from staying in one position, she felt she couldn't breathe properly and still the sobs came uncontrollably and Elena didn't care. She now could comprehend how people died of broken hearts, they died out of grief and exhaustion. She didn't realize how long she'd been crying until she heard the front door burst open and Damon was grabbing her by her arms, pulling her up and looking at her. Elena blinked and sniffed as she pushed him away. His grip was hurting her.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

"Now you care?" She didn't know how she could even string together sentences but at the sound of him so concerned she got angry again. "Do I have to be weeping to be worthy of your attention?"

"How long have you been sitting there? What the hell is wrong with you?" He screamed back at her, now that they were both steady in the hallway and not teetering on the stairs.

"You have got to be kidding me!" Elena turned to look at him, she remembered now, how angry he could make her. How impossible he could be and how completely unreasonable. "You spend months trying to steal me away from Stefan and when I finally confess my love to you, you avoid me like the plague."

"Because you don't love me Elena. You love Stefan." He sounded like he'd rehearsed the line. "You said it yourself it will always be Stefan!" That was more vindictive more angered, and she thought she was finally getting somewhere, she always had to push him a little harder before she got the truth out of him.

"God damn it Damon! Why does everything have to be so difficult with you? What is it you want from me?" He closed off again and Elena felt like shoving him, like hitting him. She was too tired too emotionally drained to deal with this right now.

"Why are you here Elena?" His voice was rough and distant the way he got when he was trying to get rid of her. Elena shook her head, she felt like giving up but she couldn't, not with him. He was all she had left right now.

"Because I miss you!" She screamed at him and the tears came back to her. "I miss you." Her breath hitched but she took a deeper breath, forcing back tears again and staring at him. "Damon you are right in front of me, and I miss you more than anything- more than anyone else and you keep pushing me away, and I don't know why. And it hurts Damon." He came closer but now she held him back. "Everything hurts, and you- You are the only thing- I- How can you not see that I need you? That I miss you-"

He kissed her, his lips fell onto hers and Elena felt the tears running down her cheeks, her arms were around him without any hesitation, the need to feel him close to her. To be in his arms meant more to her than words could express. He kissed away every tear that had stained her cheeks and then he kissed her lips again, her fingers were entangled with his hair and he had her pinned against a wall. She clung to him, afraid that he would let her go, not able to lose him, not him. He slowly stopped kissing her, but he did it slowly, kissing her cheeks and her jaw line before finally letting her head rest on his shoulder and his lips were right by her ear.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here for you. I just couldn't give you up again." She didn't really care what his reasons were. "I'm here, I'll be here. I'm sorry." Elena turned her eyes up to look at him and kissed him, gripping him tighter if that was at all possible, his jacket was scrunched in her grip and she could feel the desperation in both of them. The need to be close to Damon was so much more than she had ever expected, and his devotion to her was so much more than she could have ever hoped for. A smile slowly appeared, even as their lips were locked together, Elena felt herself breathe easier when she realized that she couldn't possibly go back to Stefan. She had given her heart to Damon, she didn't know when or why or how but she couldn't ever get it back, and she didn't want it back. Damon smiled back, picked her up and kissed her more recklessly as their anger was steadily replaced with a humming warmth that surged through them and overtook them. Elena collapsed in his arms for the first time in weeks feeling safe and comforted, she found a strength in him that she didn't know was there, but as long as he was here, she wouldn't need it. She could be herself, she could be his, wholly and completely.