Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just like playing with their little lives.

Chapter 3

Alaric drank, rubbed at the spot between his eyebrows with the pad of his thumb, thought about things he would rather do than tell Elena what he thought about the first three chapters of the book she was currently working on.

So far, he'd come up with: Justin Bieber concert. Dogfight (him against a dog. Him against Mason Lockwood). Parent-teacher conference. Explaining to Jenna's ghost what he's doing with her niece.

Driving nails into his own eyes.

Driving nails into Elena's eyes.

Suddenly, she was there, tugging at his belt. He held her wrists. "Don't."

Her face collapsed onto itself. "Is it terrible?"

"It's not terrible."

"But it's not good."

"Elena…" She shifted her weight, collapsed onto the couch.

"It's terrible."

"I already told you, it's not terrible."

He fiddled with her hair, separating the strands. "I don't want to upset you when you have to work tonight. Can we talk about this tomorrow?"

"No." She was irritated, resolute. "Tell me now."

He drew her into his lap, knowing she wouldn't resist. If he'd learned anything by now, it was how to tell when Elena Gilbert wanted to be comforted.

"You have to write what you know, Elena. Or be prepared for a lot of gruelling research. You don't know enough about normal, mundane, human life to write this character."

"I'm a doppelganger, Ric. My last boyfriend was a vampire who tried to kill me. I was sacrificed so that a thousand year old werewolf-vampire hybrid could break a curse. I've been dead. Forgive me if I don't know about college romance." She tried to pull away. "Sorry that I'm not mundane enough for you."

To Elena's surprise, Alaric laughed.

"You're not mundane enough for anyone, Elena." Against her protests, he covered her mouth with a kiss. Deepened it, made her feel it, didn't pull away until she relaxed into his embrace. "You're not mundane. Fuck, I'm not mundane. Things have been quiet, the last few years, but it's not that long ago I was fucking the vampire who killed and turned my wife. I have an underwear drawer full of weapons."

She curled into the curve of his body, tucking her face into his neck.

"I only know one story, Ric."

"So write it."

"Matt said that." She stretched her neck, rubbed her cheek against the stubble on his chin.

"Matt was right."

Every second that Elena wasn't working at the Grill, she wrote. Sometimes she made love to Alaric, waited until he was asleep, and returned to the computer.

One night, he stopped her, amused. "Elena." She was about to return to the study.

She relaxed back into his arms.

"You don't have to write the whole thing in a month."

She disappeared, again, left her cell phone, and this time, like every time, Alaric checked the boarding house first. What he saw surprised even him. A 'sold' sign and evidence of construction work.

"Damon's sold it?"

Elena nodded. She was sitting in her car, drinking gin again. Distilled tears, Alaric's mother used to tell him, because you drink it when you want to cry.

Elena wasn't crying.

"It's going to be a bed and breakfast. I spoke to the real estate agent." She took another mouthful.

Sitting apart on the couch an hour later, they tried to talk.

"Do you still miss him?" Elena asked. She stared at his face, looking for any hint he might be trying to lie.

"Yes." He exhaled. Brought the bourbon to his lips. "Do you?"

"Yes." She curled into his side. "Every day. Do you still love him?"

"Elena…"

"It's okay if you do."

She took his glass, drank deep. He poured another.

"Yes. I still love him. Do you?"

She was crying, now, as she took the bourbon from his hands and drank again. "Yes. I still love him. But I never had him, not like you did."

As she said it, she reached for the scar on his hip. The scar that burned sometimes, when Alaric thought about Damon.

"Do you wish he'd turned us?"

Alaric shook his head. "No."

Elena, who could read him like a book, said "so do I, some days."

Maybe it was the taste of bourbon on Elena's mouth. Perhaps it was all the talk of Damon, the symbolic breaking of his last ties with Mystic Falls – selling the boarding house – or perhaps it was something else entirely. But that night, he turned Elena onto her side, put his thumb over her anus. Paused, to see if she'd object.

She didn't, so he carefully stretched her, with one finger, then two, then three, and then he lubed himself up and carefully entered her. The sensation was at once completely new, and sweetly familiar. She tensed briefly, but accommodated him, and he kissed her shoulders and back as he found his rhythm.

Their rhythm. His and Damon's. He hated himself for this, a little, but when he came, it was Damon's face he saw.

He withdrew, but she stayed lying on her side.

"We're sharing this bed with a ghost," she said sadly.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She rolled towards him, placed her head on his chest. "I am, too."

He swore to himself he'd never do it again. Treat her like a substitute. (He never did.)

Founder's Day. They decided to go, for the first time in years.

Alaric accepted their invitations with all the grace he could muster. Elena wore one of her shiny dresses and it was a sight so familiar and forgotten that Alaric felt giddy.

"I can't believe this still fits me," she said, in front of the mirror. She wasn't a teenager any more, and some weight had settled into her curves, making her look for all the world like a piece of juicy, ripe fruit. Alaric ran appreciative hands down the length of her body, pausing to weigh her breasts, kiss her throat. She made a sound low in her throat.

"Maybe we could skip the party, just see where this goes?" she said, familiar huskiness and the curl of her lip almost enough to break his resolve.

Reluctantly, he took his hands off her hips. "We both know where this would go."

Carol regarded him like a fly regards a spider.

"It's inappropriate. Not just because of the age difference. She's the only member of the Gilbert family left standing, Mr Saltzman," she started, cornering him by the banquet.

Carol always called Alaric 'Mr Saltzman' when no one else would hear. Her way of reminding him that he wasn't part of the fucking Founding Family Tree. She knew what he'd done for the town, she just couldn't acknowledge it.

Alaric watched as Elena spoke quietly to one of the Lockwood cousins. He couldn't keep them straight in his mind, only knew that to the last, each one was unrepentant about raking their eyes over Elena's body at every opportunity.

"That's not quite true. Jeremy's in Rhode Island. It's not really that far away."

"You're her teacher."

"I was her teacher. A long time ago." He took a step back and sideways. "Liz," he grinned, grateful at last for a friendly face. "How's Caroline?" He kissed her cheek.

The Sheriff took his arm. "Can we talk?"

He made as if to follow her. "Not here," she said, eyeing Carol awkwardly. "Tomorrow night?"

He nodded, wary.

"Have you been reading the papers?"

He hadn't been. He and Elena stopped reading the paper when they realised it was an unhealthy obsession, combing the pages for evidence of animal attacks, praying they might find Damon hidden between the lines.

That night, as he and Elena prepared to go to bed, there was a knock on the door. Alaric checked the peephole.

"Who is it?" Elena whispered.

No point in pretending there's no one home when vampires can hear the hair growing on your head. Alaric opened the door. "It's Elijah."

"Hello, Ric. Elena. Are you going to invite me in?"

Elena crossed her arms. "No."

"Very well. I have information you need. After your meeting with Liz Forbes tomorrow night, I imagine you'll want to speak to me." He held out a calling card and Alaric took it.

Elijah hesitated, which was odd, because Elijah never hesitated. Every movement he made seemed to have been calculated a year or more in advance, telegraphed from a chain of similarly calculated moves, a dance only he understood.

Alaric made an irritated sound in his throat. "We haven't seen him," he said.

Elijah left.

"The Founders' Council's been running for nearly four years without me, Liz. You don't need me." Elena brought their drinks. She was behind the bar, alert, listening as hard as she could, a few steps away.

"We do. It's been four years of planning streetlights and memorial sculptures. That's not the priority any more." She rubbed at her temples. "Elena, you shouldn't be listening to this."

"Anything you say to me," Alaric said, carefully, "She's gonna hear it as soon as I get her alone. So you might as well talk."

Elena flashed a grateful smile, and stood close by. Liz groaned.

"The vampires are back, Ric." Liz was nervous and tired-looking. "And possibly some hybrids. It looks like recon. We've taken a few out, but… The Founder's Council needs a different kind of leader, right now," she said. "And we also need you back. See where I'm going with this?"

"I'm not from one of the Founding Families, Liz. I'm not even local. I'm 'from away'. They'll never accept me. Carol Lockwood hates me."

She ignored this last. "This is a new threat, Ric. You can't ignore it any more than I can."

That night, Elena made Alaric stay still while she undressed him.

"Elena…"

"Do you know what my dad would say about me dating the head of the Founders' Council?" She sat him down as she slipped his shoes off, and his socks.

"Dating?"

Straddling his legs on the bed, she started to unbutton his shirt, pausing to lick and bite at the places on his stomach and chest that could be relied upon to make him moan. She pulled the shirt off.

"If I say 'fucking the head of the Founders' Council', I see a whole different expression on his face."

He let his eyes slip closed.

(Sometimes, he hates it when she talks like this.

She was seventeen, when they met. You can't encase a girl in amber. You can't stop her from growing up way too fast, with vampires around.

Regret is a close second to hope, on the list of essential and useless human failings.)

He opened his eyes and accepted, anew, the reality of their lives.

"Your turn," she said, pupils dilated to black holes.

"Sit down."

She did. He unlaced her tall boots, peeled off the skinny jeans she was wearing.

(He hated them – knew they drew eyes to her curves – but they brought her better tips, and he couldn't decide if telling her not to wear them sounded more like a complaint from a lover, or a father or brother.)

"We're all uneven."

He still wore pants, she still wore her shirt. She removed her shirt, and he slipped off his pants.

Still seated, she reached for his hips, taking his erect penis whole in her mouth.

Afterwards, as they lay with sheets crumpled around them, he reminded her "I didn't say yes, Elena."

"Oh, yes you did. Several times." She giggled. "You said, 'oh yes, Elena, right like that' and 'yes! yes! Fuck, yes!'"

He grinned, running his lips across the top of her head. "I didn't say yes to the Council."

"I noticed that." She tightened her grip around his waist, tugged gently at his pubic hair. "Why?"

Alaric tangled his fingers through Elena's. "Don't you think vampires have ruined our lives about enough? Don't you want to get on with our life together? Without…"

"Fat chance of that, while we're living here."

"Great. So let's leave." He'd wanted to get out of Mystic Falls the moment Klaus was dead. Stayed to put Elena back together. Stayed out of habit, in the end.

"But this vampire thing has to be bad, if Elijah's in town." She shook her head. "And what if… what if they all come back?"

He didn't have an answer for that, except to rub his thumb over Elena's collar bone.

"Thought we agreed we weren't sharing this bed with a ghost anymore, Elena."

She sighed. "We're not."

Alaric became head of the Founder's Council. Eyebrows were raised, but he'd been an honorary Gilbert for long enough that the eyebrows didn't stay raised for long.

He taught classes, marked papers, but burned with a new fire. He trained, made Elena train with him, every moment neither was working. She got faster, stronger. Learned to love the feeling of muscles that could carry a great weight, legs that could carry her a long distance.

When he realised that sometimes, when he was working and she wasn't, she would run, pump weights, train without him, it set him on fire. Those were their best nights. Passionate, desperate, the realisation they'd come to (separately, and together) that this was a life worth fighting for. He loved the feeling of her muscles under his, stronger by the day.

They whittled stakes, assembled vervain grenades, wolfsbane grenades. Liz captured a vampire and locked him in the Lockwood family cellar. Had to stake him before they got anything out of him.

Between breaths, Elena worked on her book.

Alaric called Elijah. Elijah helped, resentful and amused by Elena and Alaric's refusal to let them into their home. "Why are you helping, Elijah?" Elena asked mildly, one night, at a war cabinet meeting at the Lockwood's.

He leaned back in his chair. "Klaus was my brother. The hybrids are his responsibility, and he's dead, which makes them my responsibility. And, of course, because of Damon."

Elena quirked an eyebrow.

"He destroyed my brother, when I couldn't. I owe him the greatest imaginable debt. If I let his favourite humans die, what sort of a man would I be?"

Elena and Alaric lay tangled in sweaty bedsheets. "I don't know how I feel about Elijah calling us Damon's favourite humans," Elena breathed, fingers trailing slow circles on Alaric's chest.

"It doesn't matter."

Elena lifted herself onto her elbow, planting soft kisses on Alaric's face. "Oh?"

"It only matters that we're each other's favourite humans," he said.

Elena smiled, a sneaky smile, one that assured Alaric that his night wasn't over. "Well, you're definitely my favourite human," she said. "I love you."

"Yeah, you too."

Alaric sat in the sun at the Grill, waiting for Elena, when Katherine leaned in to kiss him.

"Katherine? What the hell are you doing here?" He pulled away before her lips got anywhere near close.

Katherine looked bemused, but bored. She sat down. "How can you tell?"

"Because Elena's twenty-three and built like an Amazon, and you still look like a seventeen-year old twig."

"Can't believe I bothered straightening my hair. I was hoping hijinks might ensue."

"What are you doing here? And before you lie, remember I'm packing heat."

"I bet you are," Katherine purred. "I came to help with the new big bad."

Cautious, Elena sat down as well. So focussed on the threat at hand, Alaric hadn't noticed her approach. "No you didn't, Katherine."

Katherine raked appreciative eyes over Elena's muscular frame. "See what you mean," she mused.

"Katherine…" Elena warned.

"Fine. I came to see if Damon might be here. Helping with the big bad. Since he's all about the good deeds now."

"We haven't seen him in years. He sold the boarding house." Alaric said this with no tone; no regret. Elena smiled small.

"I know. I'm staying there. It's weird, without our boys." She leaned back in the chair, blowing hair out of her eyes. "I'm sleeping in Damon's room." She threw her arm across the back of Alaric's chair.

"Don't get comfortable, Katherine." He pushed her hand away from his neck. "We haven't seen Damon, but if we do, we'll tell him where you're staying." Alaric spoke with a tone that brooked no argument.

"Fine," she said, stalking away.

In the end, it was nothing more than a poorly executed attempt to reignite the supernatural fire that had so long burned under Mystic Falls; but by the time it was over, Elena had a publisher.

Alaric made lazy love to Elena, mouths sloppy, skin quivering, thighs aflame.

"I can't believe I'm your epilogue."

Elena let her orgasm rise, fall, fill her with warmth, clamped hot, silky muscles around Alaric's cock.

"I prefer to think of you as my happy ending." She grinned against his throat.

"Then I think you should marry me."

"Okay," she said, quietly delighted as he claimed her mouth with his.