Chapter 3
This time it was Damon's turn to realize he was alone in bed, and that Elena actually had left the house. He must have fallen asleep sometime after they'd had lunch in bed (almost as good as breakfast in bed, he had told her.) He stretched and looked out the window. A beautiful day. It didn't matter, though. It could have been 10 degrees and in the middle of a hurricane. Damon knew he was about to have the second best day of his life, after yesterday. Just going over the events of the last 24 hours.
Reminiscing would have to wait, though. After a brisk walk through the woods, he was at the old, falling apart mansion. He and Stefan had some plotting to do. Stefan needed his plotting expertise, and Damon wasn't about to let him down. His baby brother saved his life, and Damon repaid him by sleeping with his ex. He should at least bring something to the table.
Damon was relieved to notice that he could walk through the sunstreaks in the mansion without worrying about burning his flesh. "I guess the witches are back on my side again." Damon wasn't trying to sneak up on Stefan in what was now known as "the Coffin Room," but his entrance was a lot quieter when he wasn't running through burning sunrays.
He saw Stefan sitting in a chair, next to one of the coffins. Stefan was looking closely at something, but Damon couldn't tell what. As he got closer, it looked like it was a photograph that Stefan was holding. If Damon hadn't known better, it almost looked like that picture of Katherine that had hung around their house, their lives, for so long. But that photo was gone.
Stefan realized Damon was in the room, and quickly tried to shove whatever it was into his pocket. Instead, it fluttered to the floor. Damon took one look, and realized with a sinking stomach why he had thought it was Katherine's photo. Elena smiled back at him. But she wasn't smiling at him. She was smiling at her boyfriend.
It wasn't really clear who was having a worse moment – Stefan, who was obviously trying to hide the fact that he still thought about Elena, or Damon, who didn't need the old witches at that second. He was burning up from his own guilt. Damon looked at his little brother with slightly new eyes, and realized whatever Stefan was up to, whatever he had been going through, had to be worse than hell. Damon didn't understand Stefan's actions over the last couple of months, but he understood one thing now: Stefan still loved Elena.