For Lack of a Better Name
DG32173

Sarah: my muse inspired me to write an absolutely insane fanfic starring our favorite couple and use what you see above as the title. Without further ado, on with the show.

DISCLAIMER
This will be the only one for the whole fanfic, so pay attention lawyers and staff of Fanfiction. If I claim a concept before the chapter it appears in, then I am quite certain the way in which that concept is portrayed belongs to me. If I give credit for a concept or scene to someone else before the chapter it appears in, then they are the one who gave me the idea for it and it belongs at least in part to them. If neither of these things occur, it is quite safe to assume that what you read is so widely used in fanfics that I have no idea who came up with it. But in saying that last line, I must also say that Vampire Diaries, its cast, Mystic Falls, and the scene that I use to start this alternate universe are all owned by L. J. Smith and the writers for the TV series. Now, there is your disclaimer. As I said, this is the only one you will see in this fanfic so don't expect another one.

WARNINGS
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE! Alters from the Season 1, Episode 7, "Haunted". In the beginning of the fanfic, Damon still has his humanity switch flipped off and Elena still hates him. So be ready for some major setbacks for our lovebirds to overcome. Also, rated M for scenes that are truly acceptable for 'mature' audiences only. This story is told from alternating first-person perspectives between Damon and Elena though will be primarily told from Damon's perspective. There will be the occasional glimpse through Stefan's eyes as the story progresses so that we know what is going on with everyone back home. You have been warned. If you keep reading, don't blame me if you come across something you don't like.

SUMMARY
Damon decides to use Stefan's call to clean up the mess he had made in turning Vicki Donovan into a vampire as a perfectly valid excuse to kidnap both Elena and Teddy before leaving Mystic Falls fading from the rearview mirror of his Camaro. And when giving his blood to Elena to heal her of the injuries Vicky inflicted on her causes Elena to become a blood addict, Damon knows he now has a very good chance at making Elena his for eternity. Damon/Elena

Chapter 1
Kidnapped

I watch the young woman standing before me as she rages at me over the outcome of my mistake in turning the druggie, whose dead vampire body is lying nearby. As she rages, I take notes on the major and minor difference between this human and my lost love. Admittedly, as time has passed, I've come to consider more and more frequently leaving Katherine in the tomb for eternity in favor of making the young woman standing before me mine. True, there is the setback of the facts that she is dating my brother and hates my guts. But I have finally come up with a plan to overcome those setbacks and the perfect opportunity to set that plan into motion.

My clueless brother had foolishly left his girl in my company in favor of taking her brother home. In doing so, he had forgotten that we are alone, unsupervised, and that if I really wanted to, I could snatch that hideous piece of junk he gave her to protect her from vampire mind games from her neck before she can blink. Unfortunately for him, he didn't stop to think that I would just take it as a challenge to charm her into my arms without using my Power. And he probably hasn't realized that there are other kinds of mind games that have no need for the use of my Power and thus she will be susceptible to.

"It matters and you know it," she hisses through her teeth in response to my pointing out that none of what she's talking about matters to me.

Cue the opening for my plan to launch. I slowly walk up to her. "Actually, you're right in that there is something that matters to me," I admit as I close the distance between us. Just as a gleam of triumph starts shining in her eyes, I chuckle darkly. "But not what you're referring to," I continue. Confusion instantly replaces triumph. "You matter," I add.

She scowls. "I'm with Stefan," she hisses.

I shrug. "I know. But surely you must realize that by being with a vampire that will never turn you into one yourself, you are allowing for the inevitable aging of your own body while his remains eternally seventeen. What will you do in ten years, when you'll be approaching thirty and look it while he is still in the body of a teenager?" I ask. The shock and chagrin on her face is proof that she hadn't thought about that. "What about twenty years? Thirty? You see, Elena, the only way to be with a vampire is to become one yourself. Otherwise you will inevitably grow old enough to look like his grandmother and what will people think about that? And as you grow older, your body will inevitably become susceptible to the ailments that come with age. Not to mention cancer or some other disease could end your life early. Or even an accident like the one he saved you from. And even if none of that takes you prematurely, you will still die of old age. And once you do, how can you possibly be sure that he will follow you into death? After all, he has to be preparing himself to outlive you even now. The problem with that kind of thinking is that too much of it will lead to him accepting that your death is inevitable. And when you do die, it won't come as a shock to him because he has already accepted that it would happen. And with accepting that he will remain young forever while you continue to age and inevitably die, when that time comes, he'll already have made himself numb to the event. And by being numb to the fact that someone you say you love has died, you will be able to move on with your life. You won't forget them, but the grief won't be nearly as strong as it should be. And, eventually, you just might find someone new. Someone you might even be able to bring yourself to turn into another vampire." I shrug again as dread, pain, and fury wage war for dominating her reaction to this news. "And if you think I'm lying about this, please, by all means, tell me what Stefan has told you about Katherine's looks," I invite.

Elena frowns at the apparent change in topic. "You talk about her more than he does," she admits. "When I try to bring her up in conversation with him, he doesn't really answer my questions and changes the topic at first opportunity."

I chuckle. "That, my dear Elena, means he doesn't want you to know what she looked like," I tell her triumphantly.

"What are you getting at?" she demands.

I shake my head, my amusement plain on my face. "I'm saying that your darling boyfriend doesn't want you to find out just how true my words were when I told you that her beauty is a lot like yours." Her confusion is evident on her face. "Elena, I have never lied to you. I've omitted large parts of the truth when answering your questions at times, but never have I added in a lie. And what I'm about to tell you is going to rock your world because it is the most truth I have told you at one time since we met. While I was toying with her," I say, motioning to the dead girl nearby, "when I was waiting for Stefan to return my ring, I happened across a particular picture lying out on Stefan's desk, there for anyone to find if they happened to be in his room."

"A picture?" she asks, dread lacing her words because she already knows what I mean but refuses to accept it until I say the words.

"A picture labeled 'Katherine, 1864'," I reply. She sucks in a sharp breath. "And that's not the only thing that he's been hiding from you. And the next bit I'm going to share with you will be worse in a way than just the fact that he happened to have a picture of our ex lying around in the open."

"There's more?" she whispers.

I nod, almost in sympathy for her pain. "Stefan didn't want to tell you what Katherine looks like because he knows precisely what you will do when you find out. Elena, my brother only stuck around after saving your life for one reason. He only enrolled in your school and situated it so that he had several classes for one reason."

"What reason?" she asks so softly a human would not have heard her.

"When I said Katherine's beauty was a lot like yours, what I was trying to get across was that you could very easily pass for her twin," I reply. Elena freezes so thoroughly that even her breathing stops for a moment. Grief and rage war behind soft brown eyes that fill with tears. "Admittedly, I mistook you for her at first glance. But then I realized you were human. And once I realized that, I did some digging, trying to figure out the connection between a human girl of the twenty-first century and a vampiress who was turned in the fifteenth century who just so happen to share the same exact face. And as I did so, I watched you. And I've finally come to one simple conclusion."

"What conclusion?" she breathes.

"The conclusion is that I don't really care what the connection is," I reply candidly. "Because in watching you, I realized that you, Elena, may share her face but your personality is infinitely better than hers." I lean in close to place my lips by her ear. I smirk when she doesn't even flinch away. "And I realized that I want you, not her," I whisper in her ear.

She only has time to gasp before I bring my hand around to hit the pressure point on the back of her neck that will successfully knock her out without inflicting any lasting damage. I smirk as I catch her unconscious body. I stretch my senses to make sure that no one will come out in the next few minutes. As soon as I'm certain the coast is clear, I scoop Elena up in my arms and vamp her to where I left my car. I tuck her safely into the front passenger seat, buckle her in, and shut the door. Then I fetch the body of that druggie and stuff her into the trunk. After that, I climb in to the driver's seat, start the engine, and pull out of the school's parking lot.

I make sure to leave my car a good distance from the Gilbert home so that Stefan has no way of knowing that I have Elena at my mercy. Then I make my way to her house on foot. I have to suppress a smirk on seeing that Stefan is waiting on the front porch for his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend. "What are you doing here?" he demands.

I shrug. "Cleaning up my mess, as you ever-so-politely demanded that I do," I reply.

"What are you talking about?" he asks warily.

"Look, we both know damn well what will happen to Elena if her brother gets it in his head to do something stupid over what he witnessed tonight. Unlike us, they happen to be emotionally attached to each other. And we both know that if she loses another loved one, it could very well cause her to break. And if you try to stop me from doing what I can to keep that from happening, it will all be on you if her brother decides to commit suicide. Can you handle that on your conscious, brother? Can you handle living with not only the fact that whatever the kid is planning on doing in his grief could have been prevented but also the fact that that you stopping me from doing what we both know needs to be done had led to it having the chance to happen in the first place?" I ask, crossing my arms. "Because we both know you don't have the strength to make the compulsion stick even if the kid is put under duress but I do. And if you're doubting my word that I will only make it so that the kid doesn't suffer from tonight, then I must remind you that it was not my word that was broken in 1864. It was not my word being broken that made the past hundred and forty-five years begin. I must remind you that every single time I gave my word that I'd do something since even before you were born, I stuck to it. But there is someone who had not only broken his word that he would keep his mouth shut on the topic of vampires around Father but betrayed me again by forcing me to complete the transition. And we both know who that someone was. So if there's any doubt to be had in concern to someone's word once given, it wouldn't be mine because if there is nothing else about me that is remotely good, I do stick to my word once it is given."

Stefan glares at me. But even he has to admit that I'm right on all counts. He grudgingly steps aside and allows me to enter the house. I don't bother making any wise cracks over it. I came to do something for Elena and I need to do it before her brother has a chance to get past the shock tonight's events have left him in. Because once the shock of something like tonight wears off, there's no telling what stupid shit he would think to do. I enter the Gilbert home and vamp up to the kid's room. As soon as I walk in I realize that Jeremy's in worse shape than I had expected. The aura of grief emanating off of him is almost too much for even me to handle. Almost.

I walk over to where he is sitting at his desk chair and tuck a finger under his chin to make him look up at me. He's so deep in shock that he doesn't seem to even recognize me. Or, if he does recognize me, he doesn't care that the guy who had set in motion the series of events that led to tonight's unfortunate conclusion is standing in the same room as him. I glance down at his right wrist, where the bracelet laced with vervaine his sister had given him takes center stage. As quickly as I can, I unclasp it from around his wrist and toss it on his desk. Even in spite of my speed, I hiss in pain as the vervaine burns my fingers.

I immediately shove the pain aside as I lock eyes with him and capture his mind with my own. "What you saw tonight never happened. You went to the Halloween part with your sister in hopes of meeting up with Vicki Donovan. But she never showed. When you got home, you received a text from Vicki. She apologized for not showing up as she had led you to believe she would but that she had to get out of this town and do so tonight. She made it clear that text will be the last contact you will ever have with her. And while you will miss her, you know that this is for the best. Vicki's life here only consisted of drugs and sex. Out there in the world she might be able to overcome her past and become the person you always knew she could be." I hesitate before continuing. "Also, you have decided that since Vicki's decided to try to get her act together, you should do the same. You will stop doing drugs and start helping your family out. Doing your homework, trying to get your grades up, and even cleaning your room will all be good ways to start making your life better." I pause again, this time to listen for what my brother's doing. Turns out he's trying to get in contact with Elena by leaving her messages on her phone. I take this opportunity to add in one last compulsion while he's distracted. "Also, when you don't hear Elena come home, you will go check on her later and find a short letter addressed to you and Jenna. While you will wish she had told you in person what she had said in the letter, you understand that she has been through a lot and that if she had tried to convince you and Jenna to allow her to do as she has done, you two would have found a way to talk her out of it. So, you will let your sister do what she needs to do even if you don't like it and even if you will miss her greatly. Now, put your bracelet back on and forget that I came over tonight."

I release his mind and allow my compulsions to take root in his mind. As they are doing so, I vamp to Elena's room and dig out a piece of paper and a pen from her desk. I have become an expert at forging someone else's writing. I grab her journal from its hiding place behind that ridiculous picture of a horse on her wall. I glance through it just long enough to familiarize myself with her handwriting before tucking it in one of the inside pockets of my jacket. Then I return to her desk and quickly write that short letter I made Jeremy believe is from Elena using her handwriting.

Dear Jeremy and Jenna,

I'm sorry I didn't say this in person but I knew you would try to stop me. And I need this. I need to get away from all the memories of my parents that are all over the town. So, I decided to take a little road trip. Don't worry; I'll be sure to call as often as I can. But I need to get away so that I can finally come to terms with everything that has happened in my life since May. And if I had tried to explain this in person, you would have tried to stop me. And we all know I would have allowed myself to be talked out of it. So I just left this letter so that you will know why I had to do this and that nothing bad has happened to me. As I said, I'll keep in contact as I can. I love and will miss both of you. But I have to do this before I crack under the pressure.

Love,

Elena

I smirk and neatly fold the paper over twice, tuck it into an envelope I fetch from one of the draws of her desk, and, still using Elena's hand writing, address the envelope to Jeremy and Jenna. I look around the room for anything Elena would have grabbed in her haste to leave town. Her purse is already with her in my car. Unfortunately, I don't know all her hidey holes just yet, so I won't know where to look for something like a passport or even a fake ID. Not that she'll need either with yours truly as her travelling companion, but still. Then I spot Teddy propped against her pillows. The stuffed bear has to come along for the ride, I decide.

I walk over, leave the envelope with the letter from 'Elena' on her pillow, and grab Teddy. I'll just tell Stefan that I want to see how long it takes Elena to realize her favorite teddy bear has gone MIA. I tuck Teddy under my arm and head back into the hall. I glance in Jeremy's room to see that he is now blaring his eardrums listening to his IPod and working on homework. I smirk and discreetly make my way downstairs.

As I step outside, I smirk with wicked amusement to the sound of Stefan leaving the umpteenth voicemail on Elena's phone. "Well, it's done," I say when he hangs up. "Now, I'll be going."

"Why do you have one of her stuffed bears?" he demands when he looks at me.

I smirk. "I want to see how long it takes her to realize her favorite teddy bear has gone AWOL," I reply. "You know how much I love riling her up. And this is sure to get her blood pumping. Speaking of blood, I'm still quite famished after my stint in lockup. So, I'll be heading off. Ciao."

With that I turn my back to him and make it to the bottom of the steps before Stefan sighs in aggravation and stops me. "Do you know where Elena is?" he asks in resignation. "She won't answer my calls."

I turn. "And why, pray tell, do you think I would know where your girlfriend is?" I ask mildly. I'm not outright lying when I'm just asking why he thinks I would know something he normally wouldn't consider.

"When was the last time you saw her?" he demands.

I shrug. For me, a vampire who embraces immortality, time tends to lose meaning because there is very little going on that forces me keep track of the minutes passing by. "You know time has very little importance to me," I point out. "Keeping track of time is for those who have only a limited amount of it, aka mortals, or those who wish they were mortal, aka you. I happen to embrace immortality and everything it entails. Why should I keep track of passing time? I have the rest of eternity ahead of me should nothing kill me off beforehand. Quite literally all the time in the universe is available to me."

Stefan sighs in aggravation. I do so love teasing my brother. "When she left you to deal with Vicki, did she say where she was going?" he demands through gritted teeth.

"Nope. She hates me, remember? Why would she tell me that when she knows I would take it as an invitation to follow her around?" I reply. Well, she didn't say where she was going when she left me because she didn't have a chance to leave me to deal with the dead newborn. "Now, if you don't mind, I still have a dead body to make disappear."

"What did you do with Vicki's body?" he asks.

"Oh, it's in the trunk of my car. I had to come here first to take care of Elena's brother. Now I'm going to go take care of the body. Oh, and if you don't see me in the next few days, I'll just be up to my usual tricks. Nothing that concerns you, really."

With that, I vamp away at top speed, not giving him a chance to ask more questions. I have never outright lied to my brother and I don't intend to put myself in a situation where I am forced to do so. Lying by misleading him through revealing only bits of the truth is one thing. But lying to his face with no hint of the truth is something else entirely. In spite of all the horrible things I've done in my long life, outright lying to the people I care about is not one of them. And I have to admit to myself at least that I do still care about Stefan. He is my brother after all.

Though our relationship has been rocky since Katherine entered our lives and turned us against each other, we still share a shadow of the bond we once had. As humans, we never had the infamous rivalry that most siblings have during their child and teenage years. We've been making up for that since the day Stefan forced me to complete transition. And I'm quite sure it will take something pretty monumental to put an end to it after all this time.

I reach my car, unlock it, and slid into the driver's seat. I glance at Elena to make sure she's nowhere near waking up. Once I'm assured of that, I start the engine and pull out of the driveway I had parked in. The house the driveway belongs to is actually vacant at this time, but somebody among the living owns it because I can't enter it. And apparently the neighbors are an incurious lot, which is particularly peculiar considering everyone else in this town sticks their nose in everyone else's business. The two houses on either side of the property I use to park my car on frequent occasions are inhabited but I have never had the homeowners of either property show up to ask questions about why I'm parking here. Peculiar, as I said, but I'm most appreciative for it.

I drive straight for Wickery Bridge. Easiest way to get rid of a body that will raise too many questions in this town is to weigh it down with something heavy and sink it to the bottom of the quarry lake. As I've returned to Mystic Falls time and again over the years, I have taken care to figure out the best ways to hide the bodies that will raise too many questions in a town where a select number of individuals know that vampires are very real. And by far the best and easiest way since the quarry flooded ten years after Stefan and I turned is to sink those bodies to the bottom of the lake. The quarry gets dragged once every twenty years at best. Considering the last quarry drag was about five years ago, any bodies that are weighted down and sunk now won't be discovered for at least another fifteen years. At which point the fish that had come to populate the lake will have feasted on everything but the skeleton. I briefly wonder if it's possible for fish to become vampires by feasting on vampires but quickly decide that even if it were possible, the vampire would have to still have their undead status at the time and only a completely desiccated vampire would be holding still long enough for the fish to start feasting on them. So the likelihood of fish becoming vampires is probably nonexistent.

I shake my head in amusement at my own thoughts as I pull the Camaro to a stop on the side of the bridge. I then climb out, make my way around to the trunk, and open it. I pull Vicki's body out and then examine the variety of really heavy stuff I keep in the trunk for the purpose of sending a corpse to the bottom of a body of water. I finally decide that I'll use the anchor. I mean, seriously, I've been meaning to get rid of that thing for a while now because it's just not reasonable to have an anchor in the trunk of your car if you are nowhere near a body of water you can go boating on. So now that I have the perfect reason to ditch the anchor, I pull it and one of the many coils of rope I keep in the trunk out. I then truss Vicki's body up like we used to do with pigs or cows on the Salvatore plantation in the middle of the nineteenth century when we were getting ready to roast them over a fire. I make sure to weave the rope around the anchor as I do so because if you're going to sink a dead body to the bottom of a body of water, you don't want that body floating above the bottom of that body of water. You want the body to be as close to that bottom as possible so that the likelihood of it being found anytime soon is minimized as much as possible. That's the problem with so many mortal serial killers who dump their kills into bodies of water to try to get rid of the evidence: they don't realize that if the body is floating above the lakebed or floor of whatever it is the killer dumped the body into, there is a chance that the rope holding the body to the weight could be frayed so much that it snaps and then the body goes floating to the surface of the water and the murder is discovered.

With those thoughts, I grab a second coil of rope and start wrapping it around both Vicki's body and the anchor, further securing her to the weight that will keep her on the lakebed. And once I finish with that, I finally heave the whole mess over the side of the bridge and listen with a smirk as it splashes into the water and begins sinking to the bottom. I then shut the trunk of my car before climbing back in the driver's set and begin putting Mystic Falls in the rearview mirror with Elena's unconscious form buckled in the seat next to me and Teddy buckled into the middle of the backseat. I know that I'm technically kidnapping them. To perfectly honest, I don't care about such trivial technicalities. I have the perfect plan to get her agreeable to taking a road trip with me. And I already provided her with the perfect cover story for vanishing without asking permission.

As for moving things between us in the direction I want them to go, well, I'm working on a plan for that too. As well as a few backup plans in case the one I'm considering doesn't work. I'm just hoping that we're well away from Mystic Falls before she wakes up. The only way any of my plans will work is if we're far enough away from that deadbeat town that no one Elena calls will be able to pick her up without driving for many, many hours. And the only way to assure myself that we will be that far away when she does wake up is to pick up the speed.

So I press the accelerator closer to the floorboard as soon as I get on the westbound lane of the interstate. Our first big stop will be Vegas. I'm willing to bet that Elena can be a damn good gambler when she wants to be. And Sin City is most assuredly the place to launch off my delightfully sinful plans to make Elena mine for eternity. To hell with Katherine. She was a cheater and manipulative and a great many other things, too. Let her rot in that tomb for eternity. Elena is so much more appealing in the terms of becoming my eternal mate. But I'm going to have to win her over to that status. Well, dropping the bombshell St. Stefan had been trying so desperately to hide from her will certainly go a long ways to making her see just how much of a liar he is once she forces him to confirm what I told her. And if I know my brother, which I damn well do, he's going to make her have to pry it out of him before he admits that yes, Elena does bear so much of a resemblance to out sire she could pass for the vampiress' identical twin.

But for now, I need to put as much distance between us and Mystic Falls as I possibly can before Elena wakes up. Because I know there's going to be hell to pay when she finds out that I decided to kidnap her and Teddy and take them on a road trip with me. The farther we are from Mystic Falls when Elena wakes up, the better it will be for my plans. I press the accelerator even closer to the floorboard, watching as the speedometer passes 120 mph. I return my attention to the road, allowing a smirk to grace my lips. The fact that my inner vampire is not trying to get me to sink my fangs into her flesh to sate my hunger despite her rather severe injuries and all the blood that is soaking into her cute nurse outfit is proof enough that this girl holds power over even that part of me. I can see it now; life is going to become very interesting when Elena finally wakes up.