"What happened?" Damon said, barging through Elena's front door. He found Elena sitting on her sofa, she stood to meet him. "Stefan just blew out of town and said he didn't know where he was going or if he'd be coming back."
"I know." Elena said quietly, not quite able to look him in the face. Her fists were clenching, shaking them on occasion.
"You know? Well what happened? He wouldn't tell me a damn thing. You better not even tell me he's gone all errand-boy for Klaus again." Damon warned.
Elena looked him in the eyes, feeling for the first time the real potential of being this close to him. "He's not with Klaus, Damon." Elena breathed.
"Then what the hell is going on? Cos last time I checked, we don't get vacations." Damon asked incredulously. The look on Elena's face moved Damon to realise that this was serious. "Elena, why isn't Stefan coming back?"
Elena inhaled and turned round to get some space. Where was she to start? How could she start? "Damon…" She turned to face him again; he searched her face for the answer.
"Don't tell me you two are having another lover's spat? I thought I fixed this, Stefan was just trying to protect you – " Damon began.
"It's more than that Damon. It wasn't just keeping Klaus' secret from me, it's everything. Since I became a vampire, things just haven't been the same. Everything changed, I changed." Elena began, she looked to Damon imploring him to understand without her saying it, having no idea how to tell him after everything the three of them had been through, after everything she had put him through.
"Stefan just needs some time to adapt, Elena, you both do." Damon offered.
Elena closed her eyes in disbelief and smiled, "This isn't something that needs to be fixed, Damon. That's the difference here, this is something…" She inhaled and looked him dead in the eye. "This is something that I don't want fixed." She let those words hang in the air for a few seconds, searching Damon's face, though it remained impassive.
"You broke up." Damon concluded. Silence filled the space between them, the whole house seemed to hum. "You broke up with Stefan."
Elena did not dare drop Damon's gaze; that was something in herself she immediately knew was different. In her human days, Elena would have dropped his gaze in a second the moment she had that feeling in her chest and head; a light-headed, heated feeling. Now, as a vampire, that feeling had grown, magnified; it had turned into this passion that Stefan was right about, that she couldn't ignore anymore as much as she had wanted to for Stefan's sake. It made her Damon's equal, it made her keep his gaze. Neither one of them said anything; yes, Stefan and Elena had been back and forth in the last few years but now it was definite, now it was final, and the scary thing was they all knew it.
"It's more than that." Elena took a step towards him. "I broke up with Stefan… for you. I want you, Damon." She took his hand in hers; the move so foreign to him, he watched her do it as though it were in slow motion, as though it were all a dream.