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Elena sank into the couch, hands extended to the fire in an attempt to soak some warmth into her tired bones, but somehow she knew the flames couldn't give her what she needed.
"Thanks for letting me stay," she said. Damon pressed a mug of tea into her hands. "I didn't want to stay at home tonight."
The empty house was crowded with memories. Every room was a complicated mess of echoes. The kitchen, home to so many family dinners, had an indelible stain of blood behind the sink where John had fallen at Katherine's hands. Jeremy's room, where they'd spent hours playing video games (Jeremy was unbeatable at Mario Kart), and where she'd seen his cold corpse fall to the ground, reanimated by magic she didn't understand. The front porch, where the whole family gathered on sultry Southern evenings to drink glass after glass of sweet tea, and where a meat cleaver left splinters.
No, she didn't want to be at home tonight.
"I can understand that. You know you're always welcome here, Elena. It is technically your house, after all." Damon busied himself with his decanters, pouring a stiff drink. Elena took a suspicious sniff of her tea.
"It's just Earl Gray, Elena. Unless you want to make it Irish?" He shook the bottle enticingly, but she shook her head. "Suit yourself." He flopped onto a seat opposite her.
They sat in companionable silence for some time, sipping at their drinks and watching the flames. More and more recently, there hadn't been a need for words between them. Damon knew that no words could comfort her against the loss of Jeremy. Yes, it was the right thing to do, even if the methods they'd used to achieve it were wrong. Yes, it sucked royally, and no platitudes could make it suck any less.
Elena couldn't hide a smile as she heard Damon start to fidget, the leather creaking beneath him. "I wondered how long that would take. Go ahead, say it," Elena said.
"What, you mean you don't want to talk about what happened last night?" Damon asked, leaning forward. "We don't have to. Especially not right now. You probably just want to go to bed-" he started to rise.
"Sit down, Damon." She pushed the mug of tea away, starting to wish she'd taken him up on his offer for something harder. "So, do you feel guilty?"
Damon lowered himself back onto the couch, eyeing her warily, like he was walking into a trap. "Do you? Are you sorry we-"
"No. Once you decided I wasn't going to run screaming and gave me a real kiss? No, I'm not sorry about that." She sighed. "But I don't know what to do about it now."
Emotions warred across Damon's face: relief she didn't regret what they'd done, but disappointment that she wasn't flinging herself into his arms again. "What do you mean? Look, Elena, if you felt something—if you felt the things that I feel for you, then there's no question about what we should do now."
"Let's pretend we survive this. It's unlikely, but let's go with it. What happens then, Damon? Are you going to take me to my senior prom, follow me to college? Are you going to be okay with me staying human, or are you always going to be looking for the first wrinkle and gray hair? You've made it clear over and over again that you're not Stefan, don't want to be Stefan. You like killing, you like being a vampire. What happens when we have a fight, Damon? Are you going to threaten to break my arm again?"
She sank back against the couch, suddenly exhausted. There. It was all on the table. Maybe now they could stop pretending that all that mattered was love. There were so many reasons it couldn't work, would never work.
Crushing, oppressive silence weighed down on them.
"I'm not a good person, Elena. Even before I became a vampire, I was selfish, vain, stupid. But every day that I'm with you, every moment we spend together, makes me want to try harder. I'll always do what I have to to protect you. And I won't feel sorry about it."
Damon rose, approaching her with steady steps. He sank to his knees before her, one hand gripping the couch on either side of her legs. He looked up at her, his face stripped of artifice and naked before her. She had never seen him so vulnerable.
"I will never be the man you deserve. I'm not sure he exists. But I will love you—as a human, if that's what you really want—for as long as your heart beats. Everything else you mentioned? That's just logistics. I love you, and if that isn't enough, then you're right. We should both walk away right now. Because I can't play this game anymore, Elena."
There was that silence again. Not the companionable, pleasant silence they'd experienced earlier, but a silence that crackled with energy and anticipation, a silence that pressed upon them both, waiting for an answer.
Three times Elena opened her mouth to speak, to end that crushing silence, and three times she closed it, at a loss for words. She slid from the couch to kneel beside him on the floor, knees touching. "I'm scared."
Damon took her hands in his, his skin dry and cool against hers, his grip strong. "So am I. None of this is going to be easy. But I'd rather fail in a blaze of glory than never try at all, Elena."
She drew a deep, shuddering breath. Then another. She disentangled one hand from his, the tips of her fingers brushing his cheeks like feathers. "Can you be patient with me? Can we take it one day at a time?"
His face split into a broad smile, not that closed-lip smirk, not that mocking quirk of lips she knew so well. No, this was a genuine, wide grin that transformed his face. "I've waited this long, Elena. We'll go as slow as you want to. I promise to be nothing but a perfect gentleman."
Elena couldn't help but laugh. "Bullshit. It wouldn't be you if you were a perfect gentleman."
"An imperfect one, then." He brushed his lips against her forehead in the lightest of touches. Electricity danced down her spine.
"I'm in."