"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim." Bertrand Russell

The Consultant

Right in front of you

Grayson Gilbert ran through the woods, dodging branches and stones that crossed his path. Sweat ran down his forehead, he wiped it away as he fired another shot at the man running a few feet in front of him. The man stumbled, clutching his leg as a bloodstain appeared on his jeans. Grayson Gilbert quickly yelled for the rest of the team as he pointed his gun at the man's head. The leaves ruffled as more and more agents surrounded the bleeding criminal. Grayson yelled his name, ordering him to turn around. The man slowly brought his hands to the back of his head and moved to face the agent that had been chasing him. And as his blue eyes came into focus– he whispered her name.

"Elena."

Her eyelids flew open, her chest heaving, sweat drops running down her face as she fought to catch her breath, as if she had been the one to run that marathon in her nightmare. A face hovered over her, a hand reaching out to wipe the damp strands of hair from her forehead. Her heart raged in her chest like when they'd been running after him in her nightmare – like when those blue orbs locked onto her brown ones.

"Nightmares are a side effect of sleeping pills."

He stood up and moved away from the bed, leaving her there speechless, her mind still foggy and too numb to comprehend what was happening here. Then she suddenly felt something scratching her wrists, a rope binding her arms together above her head, that same rope holding her legs captured against the mattress. She pulled on them, desperately trying to get loose but only feeling them tightening more with her every jerk.

"I was a Boy Scout, I know my knots." He grinned slightly as he watched her struggle on the bed. "Maybe this will convince you to get an alarm system."

"What the fuck are you doing here?" She spat at him, eyes blazing. "How did you get into my apartment?"

"You seriously think a deadbolt is going to keep one of America's most wanted criminals from coming in?" He arched his eyebrow at her. "I'm offended."

"You could have knocked." She shrugged indifferently. "But then, you always lacked in the manners department."

"Are you trying to hurt my feelings?" He brought his hand above his heart while mock-pouting. "That's not very lady-like either."

"I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, I want to shoot you." She yanked on the ropes that held her captive. "Preferably with the bullet that killed my father."

"I'm sorry about what happened to your dad, Elena."

He seemed sincere and that made it all worse. Because he was to blame for her father's death, that bullet was meant for him. Yet, he was still standing here, holding her captive in her own home while he watched her from that chair in the corner of her bedroom. Those blue eyes made her remember too many things, they reminded her of the phone call she got when her father finally caught him, only to hear months later from other agents that her father had promoted that criminal to be his consultant. She'd hated the thought, she'd hated that he let him mock the system, she'd hated that she was in Washington and couldn't yell at him, but most of all – she just hated Damon.

"He's dead because of you." She whispered at the dark ceiling. "You better be sorry."

"I didn't want him to take that bullet." Damon clenched his teeth together. "He jumped in front of me and before I knew what was happening he was dying in my arms."

"Is that why you came here tonight?" She lifted her head from the pillow to look at him. "So you could tell me that it's not your fault?"

"No. Because I need your help to catch the guy that pulled the trigger."

"Unbelievable." Her body shook with laughter. "He's been a consultant for four years and now he thinks he's an agent. Leave catching the bad guys to me, Damon. I'll have you behind bars again soon enough too."

"Why are you so indifferent to his death?" Damon shot up from the chair. "Your father was shot, Elena. And the guy that did it is still out there. But the only thing you can focus on is putting me back in a shoebox!"

"There's always a pair in a shoebox. Maybe I should go after Ric too while I'm on it." She answered with a smug grin of her own. "We both know you can't miss him. I wonder how you survived jail in the first place without him by your side. Is that why he broke you out, because it was him that helped you escape, wasn't it?"

"I broke out because nobody is doing something." He threw his hands up in the air. "Why is nobody investigating his dead? Why doesn't his own daughter care about putting the man that killed her father behind bars? Why don't you care?"

"My father didn't care about me for seven years. Why should I care?"

"You have no idea how wrong you are about that." Damon whispered, sitting down next to her on the bed. "You were the one that didn't respond to his calls or emails, that was your choice. He still cared but you ignored him and your mom for seven fucking years, Elena. Have you even been to see your mom since you arrived?"

"I couldn't face them." She shook her head quietly. "Not after what I did."

"They don't know what you did."

"But I do know."

A pregnant silence lingered in the air as she lay there and he sat next to her side, watching the wooden floors of her apartment while she couldn't stop watching him. He'd become like a son to her father, the one he'd never had and always dreamed of, he was there to fill the empty void in her mother's heart that was left by her the day she moved to Washington. He'd been here for the past four years, squirming himself into the life of her family, wriggling himself into their hearts. And she hadn't wanted to call, because she didn't want to hear about him, she wanted to lock herself up in her dorm room and cry whole night. Because he'd been here for the past four years – and she hadn't been.

"Why are you here, Damon?" She asked gently, her voice hoarse. "What do you want from me?"

"There's a guy named Klaus." Damon shifted his attention back on her. "I want you to get me everything the FBI has on him."

"I can't just get you a file on someone you hold a grudge against." She arched her eyebrow at him. "Besides, if I see you without handcuffs, first thing I do is put them on you."

"Kinky." He smirked. "And I don't hold a grudge against the guy, the guy holds a grudge against me. That's why he tried to shoot me and that's why Grayson is six feet under. Do you see now why I want that file?"

"Why does he want you dead?"

"It's a long story."

"It's not like I'm going anywhere." She yanked the ropes again to make her point. "So how about you tell me a bedtime story?"

"I sold him out." Damon shrugged indifferently. "He used to work with me but then I started working for your father and I became a do-gooder so one day we got a case that had Klaus' work all over it."

"But he's not in jail..."

"No, we couldn't find him." Damon pressed his lips into a hard line. "But we did find his crew, two of his brothers and his sister. They're in jail because of me. Your father had no idea who Klaus was before I came along."

"So he wants to kill you because you sold him out?"

"He always had a terrible temper."

The way he shrugged it off made her want to rip his head off, make that Klaus guy's job easier. But then she would reach the opposite of what she was trying to gain. Because as much as she hated him, the thought of him dying made a lump form in her throat. She'd grown up with his name echoing between the walls of her house. She couldn't imagine a time where he hadn't been some part of her life – even though he hid in the shadows, his name was there, in her house – so he was there. He'd gotten older, becoming more part of her life with every year that passed. And the thought to replace the sound of his name with complete silence was unbearable.

"What will you do if I get you the files?" She lifted her head to look up at him. "Will you go on a murder rampage and get yourself killed?"

"Possibly."

"Damon."

"Elena." He mocked the tone of her voice. "Why do you care anyway? It's not like you wouldn't revel in my death."

"But I would hate it if someone else were to kill you." She gave him a pout. "Ruining my fun like that."

Something crossed his eyes, a shimmer she couldn't understand. He pulled his eyes away from hers and looked at the ground, smiling a sore smile that had something stab her insides. She didn't want him to die, that was the one thing she was willing to admit to herself. She wanted him in a jail, stuck behind bars for the rest of his life, for the rest of her life. Because when he was out, and they were in the same room, it made her do things she never wanted to be part of.

"I'll find you in forty-eight hours." He got up and walked towards the door of her bedroom. "Get me the files."

"You can't tell me what to do." She snarled, pulling the ropes. "I am not my father, I'm not your puppet. I won't die for you."

"You will get me the files."

"And what makes you so certain of that?"

"Because if you don't, you'll never know the answer to that question that haunts you." He theatrically waved his hands in the air. "How did Grayson Gilbert catch Damon Salvatore. And we both know you're dying to know."

He left her bound to the bed with those words lingering in the air. He knew she wondered, because nobody besides him and Grayson knew the truth, and Grayson never told her, neither did he. And she would never know if it was up to him, because admitting how he'd been caught would mean admitting a whole lot of other things he wasn't ready to fess-up.

"This is just like seven years ago." Alaric rounded the corner as he stepped out of Elena's building.

"This is nothing like seven years ago." He turned his back on his friend. "She hates me now."

"But you still can't stay away from her."

7 years earlier

"Why can't you just leave her alone?"

"She's the daughter of the lead investigator of my case." He spoke every word slowly to Alaric, like explaining it to a five-year-old. "It would be a shame if I left her alone."

"She's an innocent seventeen-year-old girl." Alaric threw his arms in the air. "What the hell would she know about your case?"

"Trust me on this, she's a daddy's girl." He cocked his head to the side with an arrogant smirk. "I bet Daddy tells her all about his new leads every night."

"And how are you going to get close to her without her finding out who you are?"

"I have no idea."

He was crossing the street before Alaric even had the chance to think of a reply. With one last look over his shoulder at his old friend, he opened the door of the bar and strode in, meeting the loud music and the smell of smoke and alcohol. He quickly scanned the room, finding her at the bar with a blonde on her right and the dark-skinned girl he remembered from the coffee shop on her left. She was showing too much cleavage for a seventeen-year-old, and that skirt was definitely not long enough, he wondered how she'd even gotten past her old man in that outfit.

"I bet your father doesn't know you're here."

He had the pleasure of watching her eyes go wide as she turned with a curious look. Those big brown eyes locked onto his and for some reason it formed a smile on his face as her mouth opened into a wide O. She stared at him, obviously curious and full of questions and he didn't want to answer a single one of them. Because not even he knew what he was doing here, he'd followed her, more than once in the past week since Alaric had given him her background check, but this was the first time he approached her – but it wouldn't be the last.

"My father doesn't need to know everything." She quickly recovered from her dazed state. "He'd probably freak out if I told him I talked to a stranger in the coffee shop."

"What if you would tell him that stranger followed you into a bar and bought you a drink?"

"He'd probably kill you." She gave him an innocent shrug. "But I can't tell him that, since my glass is still empty."

"I can change that." He smirked, biting his bottom lip. "If you promise to keep it between us."

"I can do that."

He sat down on the crutch next to her and ordered two glasses of bourbon, handing her one glass as he stared at her, watching her blush, noticing her hand trembling as she accepted the drink. She looked so confident just a few seconds ago, and now there she was, trembling like some innocent kid that had never seen the outside world before.

"So I have two guesses." He held his finger up between them. "One, you've never had bourbon before. Or two, you've never had an older guy hit on you."

"Or maybe it's number three." She laughed nervously. "A combination of both."

"I take it you don't get out much." He took a draft from his glass. "Or you'd be used to guys hitting on you."

"Is that what you're doing?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "Because in that coffee shop you didn't seem really interested."

"I'm not a morning person." He shrugged indifferently. "So what's an innocent girl like you doing in a bar on a school night?"

"I am not that innocent." She rolled her eyes playfully. "We're just trying to have fun before we go off to college."

"I thought the fun started once you're in college."

"My best friend Caroline came up with the idea. She dragged me and Bonnie into this." She sipped on her bourbon, flinching at the bitter taste. "How does anyone drink this stuff?"

"It's a process that takes year." He smirked while taking the glass from her and downing it all at once. "I'm a master at it."

She watched him down the glass, the muscles flexing in his arm, a blush appearing on her cheeks. She'd never done this before, never talked to a stranger that she wanted to get to know. And she'd never been intrigued by a guy like she was now. Maybe she had been from the second she sat down on that chair across from him in the coffee shop, or maybe the alcohol was making her stare at him like a lunatic. Whatever it was, she couldn't stop the smile from breaking out on her face.

"So what kind of fun are you girls thinking about?" He put the glass down again on the bar. "Before the real fun starts."

"We made a list."

"Oh, really." A grin crossed his lips. "And what's on that list?"

"A few things." She started counting on her fingers. "One, get wasted at a bar. Two, hit on an older guy. And three, … I'm not going to tell you what three is."

"Does it involve you naked?"

"I'm not that kind of girl."

He'd come closer, maybe too close, because her breathing started getting heavier and her heart started drumming in her chest. He stared at her, with those eyes that could make any woman's knees wobble, and hers were doing just that now. She stared back at him, captivated by his presence like she'd been the first time she laid eyes on him. He quickly waggled his eyebrows at her and it went so fast that she almost missed it. This was dangerous territory and she knew, her father had warned her about these kind of men, the older guys that want to take advantage of young girls such as herself. But her father had never told her that those guys would have this effect on her, she'd thought she'd want to run away from the type, but here she was – practically throwing herself in his lap.

"Aren't you?" He smirked dangerously. "I think every girl is that kind of girl."

"I know what my favorite piece of art is now." She blurted out, freeing herself from the prison that were his eyes. "It's a painting."

"Really?" His eyebrows knotted together, intrigued. "Surprise me."

"It's a painting by Gustav Klimt, it's called…"

"The Kiss." He filled in for her, that damn smirk still present. "Typical choice, but not the worst."

"Well, you told me to figure out what I liked." She shrugged while lifting her arms in the air. "So I did."

She'd never cared what people thought about her, but then she'd never been overwhelmed by someone's spirit before like now. His words had somehow gotten to her, and they'd been a nagging feeling all day. So when she got home that night, she got on her computer and looked at all possible pieces of art she could find – until she'd found the one that touched her.

"You're a romantic." He concluded, shaking his head slightly. "Doesn't surprise me at all."

"Because I'm a girl?"

"No. Because you're the type that believes in love at first sight."

"How would you know?"

"I just do."

He knew. Because she'd chosen that painting for a reason, she'd pictured herself in the lovers' place, she pictured that girl to be her, she saw herself getting lost in someone else. It was the optimistic choice, she saw the love radiating from the piece, the intimacy they shared, maybe even the love they made. But she didn't realize the heartache that came with love, or the pain one suffered from falling in love, she'd never gotten a part of her soul ripped out – not yet anyway.

"So Elena, are you ready to go to my place?"

Hello everyone! I know I've been away for a while but it seems like my musie is finally working with me again! Leave me a review if you like?