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"Phoenix."

Phoenix, Arizona was so far away from Mystic Falls, Virginia and Elena was so emotionally and physically exhausted that she couldn't even wrap her mind around it. Instead she looked at Damon with an unreadable expression on her face and turned her face back to the window.

Damon sighed exasperatedly and thought to himself, "This is going to be a long drive."

-35 Hours Later-

"Elena, wake up. We're here." Damon gently shook Elena's shoulder to wake her up. He looked out the car window at his 'Uncle Charlie's' house. Charlie, like Zach, took was a very very distant descendant of the Salvatores and served as the necessary human being living at any abode frequented by vampires. Charlie, also like Zach, didn't particularly like vampires, and of course preferred Stefan to Damon—although how much of his dislike had to do with the fact that Damon had once attempted to seduce Renee, Charlie's wife. In Damon's defense he met her at a bar and had no idea that she was married until he went home with her and Charlie opened the door. Things between Charlie and Damon were a little strained after that, to say the least.

Elena jolted awake as soon as she heard Damon say her name and felt his soft touch on her shoulder. She too looked out the window at the little house on the end of the quiet street, though her thoughts were much different than Damon's. He opened his door, got out of the car and went around to open Elena's door, but she was much too preoccupied with the couple standing in the doorway waiting for the two of them.

On their faces Elena detected a little fear, but mostly just resignation and annoyance. She glanced at Damon, who was wearing a similar expression, minus the fear, and decided that these two people, whoever they were, knew Damon's secret but weren't too happy about keeping it.

"Where are we, Damon?" Elena asked. She already knew the answer—Phoenix, Arizona—but Damon had refused to answer any other questions that she had about her future home, so she was really just fishing for a little bit more information about the two people in the doorway, the little house at the end of the street, and the life that she was about to begin.

Damon just shushed her and said, "Inside first," grabbing her bags and walking ahead of her toward the entrance of the house.

The man and the woman—Damon called them Charlie and Renee as he walked past them into the entryway—moved out of the vampire's way, but when Elena attempted to inconspicuously follow his lead, Charlie and Renee stopped her and introduced themselves.

Renee, seemingly the more outgoing of the two, was the first to move. She stepped forward into Elena's path and stuck her hand out, saying kindly, "Hello, you must be Elena. I'm Renee, Damon's…Aunt. He's told us all about you; please, come in." Charlie just shook her hand, said gruffly, "Charlie," and followed his 'nephew' into the house.

Once official introductions were made and Damon had explained Elena's situation to Charlie and Renee, they were more than happy to let her live with them as their 'dear niece Elena.' Their one condition, however, was that Damon did not stay with them too.

"It's too dangerous, Damon!" Renee was adamant in her argument that he return to Mystic Falls immediately. "Just because this big, bad Original thinks Elena is dead doesn't mean he isn't keeping an eye on that town. If he realizes that your impromptu road trip was really an escape, he will hunt you down and when he finds you everyone around you, Elena included, will probably die. It's just not safe."

Charlie, though technically the deciding factor in the decision as he, not his wife, was the Salvatore descendant, simply agreed with Renee and then left the room, attempting, at all costs, to avoid the conflict that he was sure was brewing between his nephew and his wife. He was a little wary about leaving his wife with Damon after what happened between the two last time Damon came to visit, but he had great faith in Elena's ability to keep Damon in check and hoped that things wouldn't get out of hand.

Elena, on the other hand, agreed, though somewhat reluctantly, with Renee. "Look," she said to Damon, "I don't really know Renee at all, but she's right, Damon; you know that she is." Elena looked at Damon imploringly and continued. "You brought me here to keep me safe, but in order for that to happen, you can't be here. I'm not saying it won't be hard, and I'll miss you like crazy, but Renee is right, Klaus will find you and people will get hurt. I can't allow that to happen, not for me, not again."

Damon looked first at Renee and saw the steely determination in her eyes: she would get him to leave even if it killed her. But then he looked over at Elena. He saw how painful it was for her to ask him to go, the tears that threatened to spill over and the loneliness that would consume her as soon as he left. Deep down though, he knew that she was right. And if Damon was being truly honest with himself, he would do anything for the beautiful young woman sitting next to him, whether she was right or not.

A few hours later, after a short nap and a quick shower, Damon found himself standing next to his car, recreating the goodbye scene between Elena and his brother that he had witnessed a little more than two days ago. This goodbye, their goodbye, was different somehow.

As Elena ran from inside the house to outside and into Damon's waiting, open arms, their embrace and subsequent heart-wrenching kiss possessed all of the fervent passion that Elena's platonic hug and chaste kiss on the cheek with Stefan had lacked. If there was anything Damon needed to prove that she no longer felt anything for his brother, this moment, this bittersweet goodbye was it.

Elena pulled away from Damon slightly, hid her face in his shoulder and said sadly, "I'll miss you so much."

Damon nodded. "I'll miss you too," he replied with equal sadness. "But I'll come back; I'll always come back."

She looked up at him and said hopefully, "Promise?"

"Always." Then, because Damon Salvatore was never one to dwell much on feeling, he said, "Besides, who's gonna keep you out of trouble if I'm not around? You seem to have an unexplained knack for getting into dangerous situations so I'll be here to check in every month or so."

Then, because Elena Gilbert was much more aware of her feelings for Damon than she let on, she kissed him lightly on the lips, smirked up at his face looming over hers, and skipped away from him, calling behind her, "You better, Damon Salvatore. I'll be waiting."

Damon gazed longingly at Elena's retreating form, got in his car and with one last look at Elena, said "I'll be counting down the days," and drove away.


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