A/N: Take 2 of the after finale scenerio. She doesn't choose Stefan in this one so don't worry (about that). I hope you enjoy! Review if you feel so inclined.

"Damon," Elena brightened at the sight of the vampire in the doorway. She had swung away from the metal slab, her head in her hands as she stared blankly ahead. Until he came of course. There was something electric about Damon Salvatore. His presence set everything on fire. He set her on fire. There was something fierce about him even as he stood there. It was as though he approached even the act of existing with passion.

In many ways he and Elena were very similar. She fought hard for her family, her friends, for the right to live. It was all a little laughable now. She would let his ardor be enough for them tonight. She was too tired to struggle.

"How are you feeling?" he asked quietly as he crouched in front of her. He searched her brown eyes with his blue ones, reaching a hand to draw away a strand of hair that obscured his view of her compassionate gaze.

"Alright," she said, catching his hand and holding it against her cheek.

"I'm so sorry, Elena."

She shook her head with a laugh that she couldn't quite bring herself to feel, "Not everything is your fault, Damon. You weren't even there." She had meant the last part to be light hearted, but a pang of guilt shot through her. He wasn't there because she hadn't chosen him, because she had told Matt to drive toward Stefan instead.

Damon's answering smirk was tinged in sadness, "I notice Stefan's not sitting vigil at your bedside. Where is he?" He asked with forced lightness.

Elena squirmed, "at home, I guess."

Damon raised his eyebrows, "you guess?"

"I sent him away." Her eyes were cast down to her lap as she admitted it.

"Why?" Damon breathed.

Elena's eyes flashed up, and now they were almost accusing, "because I met you first."

Damon opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. There was nothing to say. It was the biggest secret that he had had to keep from her, and he had managed it so much longer than shielding her from the fact that he was a vampire. He felt that he could breathe a little easier now that she knew.

When he finally spoke it was not at all what she was expecting, "it doesn't have to change anything, Elena."

She stared at him, dumbfounded, "it does though! I liked you. You made me want to stay there and talk to you. What if I had? Everything would be different now!" Better now, she added silently.

Damon smiled at her fury, "you wouldn't have." He said it with such certainty.

"How do you know?" she huffed.

He perched himself on the tray beside her, taking her hand, "girls like you: good girls, smart ones, they don't stick around for guys like me. Even if we are charming and mysterious."

"I'm here with you now," Elena reminded him.

He chuckled, "because circumstances have turned you into a girl desperate for supernatural company."

"It's not just that," she persisted, but he only eyed her speculatively.

"Elena, you're too nice to me. I don't deserve it. You would have gone home then, and you should now."

"I don't want to go home." She laid her head on his shoulder and let him stroke her hair.

"Afraid you might eat Jeremy?" He joked. She elbowed him hard in the ribs.

"I was going to say I wanted your company."

She examined their laced fingers for a while until Damon asked, "do you want my advice?"

She laughed, "not really."

"Pick Stefan." He sighed. He hated to push her away when she was so close, but he didn't want her heightened guilt and some forgotten memory to influence her choice. She loved Stefan. She might like him, but that wasn't enough for him to take advantage of her turbulent emotions. His brother was better than he was. Simple as that.

"Damon, stop it. Stop pretending that you don't mean anything to me." Her voice was quiet, but fierce.

"I know you care, Elena." He said the word "care" like a curse, and she couldn't help but snort.

"I do care," she assured him as she brushed her thumb against his hand, "I love you."

Damon's body went rigid, "Elena-" he warned. He didn't want hope, not when Stefan was likely to come waltzing into the room all superman-esq and prince like, and she would be forced to renege on the deal. It was better that she knew his feelings and that was that. How could the love she bore him compare to that she had for Stefan, who had done everything in his power to deserve it? Damon had barely begun to try.

"shhh," she admonished, "just let me love you."

"For now," Damon muttered under his breath in spite of himself.

"For always," she corrected him. "I will always love you, Damon."

"But Stefan…" Damon's voice trailed off, hardly believing the force with which she had spoken those words.

"Damon," she looked into his eyes, momentarily mesmerized by the blue of them, "would you love me, here, now, and forget everything else? Could you do that for me?"

His answer came in the form of a kiss. He took her lips into his deftly. Slowly at first he took the time to memorize how they felt against his. He felt the warmth of them, the truth of them. He could sense the truth of her words in her kiss. There was love there. He picked her up, holding her close to his body, feeling her thundering heartbeat against his chest.

Her hands had slipped under his shirt, her palm gliding across the plains of his body. It was under the heat of her touch that the kiss deepened. Her sweater was flung across the floor and her tank top over her head before he had even registered what he was doing. He pulled away to stop himself, to force himself to slow down, just in time to see her nod.

She slid his shirt down his shoulders and tossed it to the ground. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that this was very unlike Elena. He knew that he should stop and talk to her, but he couldn't bring himself to care as she laid her flushed cheek against his chest, planting sideways kisses along his skin.

"I could definitely do that," Damon said, remembering that he hadn't answered her question.

"hmm?" she wondered distractedly.

"Never mind," he said as he caught her lips again.

0000

Some time earlier…

Elena was crying. The tears glided down her cheeks so quickly that she didn't bother to wipe them away. Her whole body trembled as she clung to Stefan.

"Please don't hate me," she begged, "I love you."

Stefan let out a strangled sob, "I could never hate you. I'm so sorry, Elena, so sorry."

She shook her head in the safety of his neck, "no. I won't let you feel guilty for this."

Stefan nodded, but she didn't believe for a second that she had won. There was nothing she could say, really, to make him believe that it wasn't his fault.

"Do you need anything?" he asked thickly, his eyes shining as he looked her up and down.

Elena swallowed down the sick feeling in her throat. She did need something, but she was afraid to ask it, "I need you to leave." She said slowly, gauging his reaction. She saw the surprise in his features but chose to ignore it, "and I need you to take care of him when I'm gone."

"Damon," it wasn't a question, but she nodded all the same.

"I love him, Stefan. I love you, but I love him. He deserves to know, even if it is too late."

"What are you going to..."

But she cut him off, "please don't ask me that."

"You love him," Stefan whispered.

"I do." She said fervently, "but that doesn't mean I don't love you. Right now, I'm saying that it's alright to love you both."

Stefan smiled sadly, "right now, I think it is."

He kissed her forehead, "goodbye Elena."

"Hey Stefan," she called right before he disappeared from the room, "would you make sure I'm buried next to Mom and Dad?"

Tears fell from his eyes as he nodded.

0000

Damon might have let himself imagine that he would sleep with Elena. Ok, he might have let himself imagine that possibility quite a lot, but he had never envisioned that this would happen in a hospital morgue. Still, he couldn't complain. Definitely not.

Her arm was slung over him, and he ran his fingers across her skin thoughtfully. He was lost in his own world, so he didn't at first notice how clammy she was, or how still.

"Elena?" He asked in alarm.

"Don't be scared, Damon," she mumbled exhaustedly. He sat up with inhuman speed, letting her hand smack down to the floor.

"What did you do?" He asked. He couldn't stop his voice from shaking as he glared at her.

With great effort she managed to roll onto her back and stare up at him, "don't ruin this."

"Answer. The. Question. Elena." He barked out the words.

"I'm not going to transition." She admitted sleepily, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, like she were reciting the synopsis of a book, not announcing the end of her life.

"Yes you are!" Damon shot up, finding his pants and stepping back into them, "I'll go find you some blood."

Elena shook her head against the tile, looking exasperated, "I won't drink it."

"You will," Damon snarled.

"It's too late, Damon. Don't leave. Don't make me die alone." Tears sparkled in her eyes at the thought, a sight that wasn't lost on Damon.

He crashed back down to his knees, cradling her head in his arm, "why didn't you tell me?" he choked out.

Elena let out a breathy laugh that took so much energy that her eyes seemed to shut, yearning for relief, "I didn't want to fight tonight."

"You wanted to lie to me instead?" he accused.

Elena smiled at him, "no. I wanted passion and danger, a love that consumes me."

"You can't use my words against me." Damon was trembling. Her words were coming so slowly. She seemed to almost trip over them. He knew that she was right, that it was too late, and even if it wasn't, he had once promised her that he wouldn't let her become a monster.

She traced the outline of his face with clumsy, tired fingers, "not against you. For you."

"You make no sense when you're…" but Damon couldn't joke, and he could no longer pretend that there weren't tears streaming down his face and falling onto her fumbling fingers. He caught them and brought her palm to his quaking lips.

He felt like he was choking, like he might vomit or faint. He wanted to run and disappear, vanish, desiccate, but he was rooted to the spot. He pulled Elena fully into his lap, crushing her to his chest.

She swallowed hard against the cotton feeling in her throat, "listen," she rasped, "you are loved. If there's a heaven I'll be there, watching over you."

Damon sobbed, the force of it rocking her body in his arms, "if anyone deserves heaven it's you, Elena."

"And be nice to Stefan. He loves you."

"Elena, I…" His throat wouldn't let him go on. He was choking, drowning. Elena was his life vest, and now he was stranded in an ocean of tremendous waves.

"mmm," she said distractedly, as though she were retreating into her own thoughts, "what a nice way to die."

"I won't let go," he promised.

"I know."

"I love you," he sobbed, kissing her palm, her forehead, her pale lips, "don't leave me. I love you."

"Love. You." She forced the words in two treacherously ragged breaths. His tears fell against her skin, but she didn't stir. He felt her breaths slow against his chest, felt as her body went slack in his. Still, he wouldn't let go. He couldn't let his arms release her. He held her close and cried, yelling her name into the empty room, then a petrified fear crept over him and he couldn't say anything at all. She was gone. She would never challenge him again, never save him again. Her final act of salvation was over, her life was over.

He wrapped Elena in his jacket. He would keep his promise. He would never let go. He would hold her in his heart forever.

0000

Three members of the Gilbert family lay side by side in the ground. The sun poured cheerily across the two gravestones as Damon looked on. He knew that she still wore his jacket, that he had wanted her to be enveloped in something familiar and warm as she went on to whatever awaited her after this life. He hoped that she was at peace, that finally after all of the war and the terror, all of the painful decisions, she was free.

The funeral was long over. Everyone had gone home, even Stefan, but Damon was home. The words of Jeremy's eulogy still reverberated in his brain, trying to root themselves. They weren't terribly original, but somehow when he thought of them he imagined her saying it to him, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder, speaking into his ear:

Death is nothing at all

I have only slipped away into the next room

I am I and you are you

Whatever we were to each other

That we are still

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak to me in the easy way you always used

Put no difference into your tone

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow

Laugh as we always laughed

At the little jokes we always enjoyed together

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was

Let it be spoken without effort

Without the ghost of a shadow in it

Life means all that it ever meant

It is the same as it ever was

There is absolute unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind

Because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an interval

Somewhere very near

Just around the corner

All is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost

One brief moment and all will be as it was before

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again

Slowly, Damon stepped up to the tombstone and pressed his lips against it. She would be mad if he stayed here too long, she knew. She would have put her hands on her hips, her eyes challenging him. The image was so clear that he laughed.

"Alright, Elena." He said under his breath. He walked away from the cemetery, but not away from her, never away from her.

A/N: So, I thought that Stefan would let her end her life if she told him she wanted to. That's why she could tell him. I hope that she doesn't come off slutty, because that wasn't my intention. I just felt like she loved Damon and she really wanted him to know. Also, if you had to die..I mean, c'mon it's a pretty good way to go :P