The doorbell rang and Elena went to open it, after seeing a grinning, big-eared man in the eye-hole. She opened it, her fingers on the wood of the door, prepared to close it again if need be.
"Hello, um, who are you?" She asked suspiciously. Soon she heard Damon come in the room from their bedroom.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor." The man replied, sounding out the syllables in his name with a vague accent, and looking at Elena as if he knew her.
"Hi, I'm Elena." Elena said, Damon came around the corner and came into the Doctor's sight. "This is my boyfriend Damon." She introduced. The Doctor looked from Elena to Damon with surprise, seemingly meriting Damon's suspicious look as well.
"Boyfriend? Lovely. Boyfriends are good." He replied happily. Damon smiled
"First time I've heard that." Damon said. The Doctor looked at him.
"Why?"
"Well, everyone around here seems to think I'm a dick." Damon replied. Elena looked away in begrudged silence for those people. The Doctor looked at Damon seriously.
"Well, I'm not from around her." He said.
"That's obvious." Elena noted, and after receiving a weird look, gestured to his clothes. The Doctor pulled on his leather jacket.
"What is this not in style anymore?" The Doctor asked in concern. Elena laughed again and Damon smiled.
"Leather jackets are always in style, my friend, if not I don't want to live on this planet anymore." He replied.
"You and me both." The Doctor said with a grin. Elena and Damon looked at eachother and the Doctor looked at the both of them. "Sorry," He began, attracting Elena's attention again. "but can I come in?" He asked. Elena and Damon looked at eachother again.
"Are you a vampire?" She asked in confusion?" The Doctor looked at them like they were crazy.
"What, do I have to be one to get in?" He asked. Elena shook her head and gestured him inside, Damon turning the other way so the Doctor had enough room to get in the entrance. They turned to eachother and Elena stared at him.
"So, you're alright with vampires?" She asked, Damon looked at her guardedly and she stuttered on her words. "That's if you even believe they exist." She laughed. The Doctor grinned and nodded.
"Yes I'm alright with vampires, and yes I believe they exist. I've met some actually, besides the two of you." He replied matter-of-factly.
"How do you know we're vampires, The Doctor?" Damon asked, emphasizing his name in condescension. The Doctor looked to him.
"Well, it's obvious really." He turned to Elena. "But first I need your help with something, you and your boyfriend." He said to Elena. The Doctor went off to the kitchen immediately; provoking Elena and Damon's suspicions further and he laid a newspaper down from 1739 on their counter.
"Here." The Doctor said. "This is going to happen in three days, I want you two to come with me and help me stop this before it happens." He told them.
"Okay, wait." Damon began. The Doctor looked up at him. "I think we can deal with the fact you're alright with vampires, I think we can deal with you knowing we're vampires. But one thing, if not just that, that we're uncomfortable with –"
"You know what the inside of our house looks like." Elena interrupted. The Doctor grinned and looked at the both of them.
"It's adorable that you finish eachother's sentences. The Doctor noted. Elena smiled but looked at him seriously. "Why do you know what our house looks like from the inside?" Elena asked again.
"That's not important." The Doctor began.
"Yes it is! What if it turns out we can't trust you, and we can't feel safe in our own home?" Elena asked. The Doctor looked at her.
"Now that's one thing, Elena. If there's one thing you should do, it's trust me. Even if I give you a reason not to trust me, I wouldn't hurt you two. Not unless you deserved it, and from what you two do in your lives, I don't think you'll be getting justice for your sins."
"Well that's the thing, isn't it?" Damon protested. "We've done some pretty bad things, and all the people we've met are capable of inflicting a lot of damage. We just got settled into a really good life, we're happy, we're actually having good days with no crap to bring it down, and then you waltz in and automatically we should trust you." He said. The Doctor nodded as if it were obvious. Damon looked at Elena and then took the Doctor's shoulder.
"You don't remember being in here, you don't know me, or Elena. You're going to leave right now and forget everything that just took place." Damon told him. The Doctor looked at the both of them.
"I'm pretty sure I'm going to remember all of this." The Doctor replied. Damon's eyes widened.
"What the hell are you?" He muttered after a minute
"I'm uncompellable, that's what I am, so you're not getting' rid of me. Deal with it." The Doctor commanded hem. Elena looked away in annoyance and frustration, the Doctor just grinned at them. "Now, can we get back to the crisis?" He asked.
"No, not yet." Elena protested. The Doctor looked at her in frustration.
"Prove to me that we can trust you." She decided. Damon looked at her in skepticism but Elena stared right at the Doctor, asking for a reason not to be called naïve. The man sighed.
"Fine." He said, and tromped off to Damon's closet, them trailing behind, almost telling him not to touch things but also not knowing if the warning would do any good. The Doctor took out an article about Stefan's bloodlust murders.
"These were the times he was with Klaus, am I right?" He said, staring at them. "Klaus wanted to bring Elena with after a while as to make Stefan never want to go back again but I informed him he didn't need to. I already knew by that point that you two would happen so it didn't make much difference anyway."
"Wait, you knew about his bloodlust and you didn't tell Damon or me?" Elena asked.
"What would've been the point, eh? You have enough to go through." The Doctor said, and shushed her before she could open her mouth again. The Doctor went to Elena's bed stand and looked at the letter Caroline sent her of a famous landmark in Louisiana.
"Caroline's in New Orleans now, with Klaus the hybrid, am I right?" He asked, and Damon and Elena were staring at him. "Klaus has a hybrid daughter with a werewolf who turned into a hybrid as soon as her daughter was born because a pack of witches wanted to kill the baby before it could ever grow up so they had to prevent her from protecting the baby."
"Wait, what? How did you know that?" Elena asked.
"Did not see that one coming when blondie told us." Damon admitted.
"I heard a call for help from Klaus. And from Hayley the werewolf, basically anyone who as in the situation who didn't know what in the bloody hell to do." The Doctor explained. "Turns out when I got there, there were twenty times the witches there were when Klaus fought them, they were coming from all over the world to stop the baby from being born, just because they heard a prophecy of the baby's power trumping and destroying theirs." The Doctor set the letter down and sat on the bed. "I took most of the witches with me and imprisoned them where they couldn't do the magic they desired to."
"What about Caroline though?" Elena asked.
"Caroline went to Klaus as soon as she and Stefan broke up. She knew Stefan wasn't right for her and he knew it too and so they went to different states. Stefan's still fixing cars in Tuscany and he has no reason to come back, has a girlfriend, and this one's a vampire too. Klaus introduced Caroline to his daughter Hope, and they took to eachother like a duck to water, or ducks to water, whatever. Klaus took Caroline and Hope around the world in a year and now they're living happily ever after in Klaus's compound."
"How old's Hope now?" Damon asked, knowing the answer.
"She's probably around 113 by now I'd think." The Doctor replied. Damon smiled and held out ah and to the Doctor, and he shook it in respect.
"So what's this trouble from two thousand years ago that we can't do anything about yet need to stop?" Damon asked
"It's a wedding, between Mr. Carolous Linnaeus and Miss Sara Elisabeth. They get married and he goes off to be a taxonomist. I found this paper from back in their time and learned that if we let what happens three days from now happen, everything Mr. Linnaeus did would never have happened."
"Wait, this guy dies?" Elena asked.
"Give the girl a medal." The Doctor replied happily. Damon stared at him still.
"Why do we need to care about something that happened way before even I was born that neither of us can do anything about?" He asked. The Doctor looked at Damon and glared at him.
"How do you think I know all this stuff about your friend when it's happened centuries ago, Damon?" The Doctor asked in return. Damon shrugged.
"You do your homework, I don't know. You're not a vampire, so you can't be immortal."
"Oh, can't I be?" The Doctor asked with a hard look on his face. Damon looked back at him in surprise. "I've survived much worse things than you ever did, Damon. I lost many loves, many more friends, and I lost my own planet. So don't question my motives anymore, do you understand me?" The Doctor asked. Elena shook her head in confusion.
"Okay I'm confused." The Doctor looked at her. "So, you're an alien?" She asked. The Doctor nodded.
"Yep."
"And you've been through so much, so, how old are you? A thousand years? Two?"
"I'm getting close to a thousand years." He replied.
"But, we fought people that were definitely a thousand years old. Do you know about them? Did you meet them?"
"Yeah, sure. Not the warmest people but not all people are." The Doctor replied.
"So how you can be younger than them and still outlive them?" Elena asked.
"It's a time-thing. I'm time-travelling, to put it frankly. And so I'm getting to be old enough to outlive these people yet I'm not older than them." The Doctor replied. Elena looked away and opened her mouth again.
"Wait, Elena." Damon cut in, she looked at him.
"If he can't explain it in one go who's to say he can explain it all?" He suggested.
"Thank you, my friend." The Doctor replied.
"So who's this dude we have to save?" Damon asked. The Doctor shook his head and began explaining, skimming down the paper with his fingers, telling them what he needed them to do and what he'd do in order to stop the bad thing from ever happening.
"Wait, there's going to be a giant bee that's gonna try and kill him? Why would a giant bee kill him and how is there such a thing?" Damon asked.
"Oh, you're an immortal vampire that knows a werewolf-vampire hybrid family and a witch or two but you can't believe there's a giant bee out there?" The Doctor asked. He shrugged.
"It's a bit of a leap, don't you think?" Damon suggested in annoyance.
"Well it's not going to change Carolous's death any, stop your nagging." The Doctor told him curtly.
Damon looked at the picture of him and Elena dressed like they were in Carolous's century, Elena in a low-scoop dress with a cute hat, him in a tight suit with the knee-high socks, he didn't miss those clothes he wore. Elena's on the other hand…but it was fun to dress up with her, pretend they'd been together that long. The Doctor just needed a picture or two of them, because for some reason when he stepped in before his psychic paper, whatever the hell that was, wouldn't work. The odd thing was the Doctor kept humming a song, when they were getting their work done, when there was a quiet moment. Odder still was Elena was humming along with him, as if she didn't realize she was doing it. Wasn't concerning to him by any stretch, although trusting the Doctor fully was as wise as trusting a Ripper Stefan. But Damon still had a ring in his pocket the whole time they were on their mission. But he did want to know what that was all about.
'What's going on with you and the Doctor?' He'd asked. Elena had looked away, as if she was worried he'd go off the deep end and be the Damon he wasn't any longer.
'I guess I knew him before. I don't know how, but I did.' Was all she'd said, staring at him expectedly.
'Okay.' He'd decided. Elena had looked him up and down.
'Really? You're not jealous? I mean, I honestly don't know if we had a thing or not.'
'Well, if he was a good as I am, then you wouldn't be with me right now, would you' He said matter-of-factly. 'Besides, you're the love of my life, don't you think I'd trust you?' He asked. Elena smiled, and he did as well, cherishing the moment for the both of them. Not to let them have more than a minute, the Doctor came back and was looking at them expectedly.
Since the Doctor needed their help they'd gotten married, finally. After a nervous conversation in the living room where Damon couldn't figure out where to put the ring and Elena was trying to figure out what was wrong with him. It only took him dying and regaining her love and all the other things they went through, and a new mission for them to get this far. Stefan has actually been okay with being the best man, although Damon wouldn't have forced him to anyway. Jeremy came back from art school to be his second, and the ring bearer. Obviously Caroline and Bonnie were Elena's bridesmaids, and surprisingly Enzo was Bonnie's date to the thing, Klaus came as well.
Care and Bonnie almost looked as gorgeous as Elena did in that dress. Ooh, that dress. And the fact that she was wearing that dress, and walking down the aisle to him, made him feel like his fulfilled life became more than he'd ever dreamed times a thousand. Damon pulled out the wedding picture of them together and noticed how different they looked from their first encounter to their wedding day. He remembered how he couldn't believe he could ever be happier, but by god he was, during the honeymoon. He smiled at the memory and congratulated himself. He got the girl.
Elena came in the room with a look on her face.
"Hello, my bride." Damon greeted with a grin. She grinned as well.
"You're in a good mood."
"I always am, you said yes." Damon replied, and she giggled, standing before him.
"Well, I have some news for you." She said.
"Report away." He said, then pulled on Elena's arm and she fell in his lap, giggling. He laughed with her and she held onto him while he kissed her neck and face, up until someone cleared their throat. Damon looked up from Elena's jugular and saw a familiar face.
"You." He breathed. The Doctor nodded. "You're the news?" Damon asked, looking from him to Elena. She nodded and held onto his shoulders still.
"I have to tell you something." The Doctor said.
"Well, go ahead." Damon replied, Elena staring at the Doctor as well. He looked down and Damon could tell from the look on his face this was not going to be good news and his expression darkened. "And we were having such a good day." He murmured under his breath. Elena looked at him in surprise and then at the Doctor.
"I'd prefer talking about it in your study." He told Damon. Elena slid off his lap and he held onto her hand as they let the Doctor lead the way into their study as if he'd never forgotten the way.
"I didn't know for sure but I wanted to ask you to see what your opinion was." The Doctor replied.
"Well you know what my opinion is now." Damon replied. Elena stared at Damon's pained expression.
"Damon, what are you talking about?" She asked.
"It's us." Was all he would say. He leaned on the table and Elena shook his arm. She took a breath a put her head on his shoulder.
"Well, okay if that's us, then at least we would die doing the right thing." She decided. Damon looked at her. She stared back at him. "At least this time we'll die together, right?" She asked. He nodded and kissed her forehead, taking her into his arms. The Doctor let them have this moment. He didn't know if it was one of their last, but if they could be in love the way they are now till the day they die, he would not regret it. Elena turned her head and she cuddled onto Damon's chest and looked at the Doctor.
"How long do we have?" She asked. The Doctor's eyebrows rose
"About twenty years." He said. She picked her head up from Damon's chest and Damon let Elena go.
"You decide to come tell us we're going to die in twenty years so we can tiptoe around the subject on eggshells for the rest of the time?" Damon accused him
"Believe me, I wasn't trying to make you look over your shoulder for the next quarter of a century, but I had to warn ya, if I didn't I would never forgive myself. I thought I was closer to that time than I was, but I had no control over the time." The Doctor replied.