Okay here we go once again I do not own The Vampire Diaries or any affiliated characters. Also, I promise I really did publish this story on 11/16/2012... and it was sitting on my laptop for longer than that. LOL.

Shout Outs:

Dannieis- Thank you for reading and reviewing and I love, love that you love it, love it :).

lloveless9: I can only hope this update is soon enough.

WHAT: Humm...I'm not sure what to say without spoilers except yeah that was a crazy episode. Loved it, can't say I didn't see it coming obviously, but I was so
out of my seat by the end of it. I can only hope everyone reading it has enjoyed this story as much as I have writing it.

P.S. I'm so not trying to go for a verbatim thing here. I'm crafting the dialogue as it suits me. But I am so looking forward to the next chapter which I have started on,
but man this one was fun.

Elena wondered how she had wound up locked in a cell fading slowly.

Oh yeah, Pastor Young had suspected she might be in transition.

She couldn't hold down the food he offered or take the dim lights in his kitchen.
She had tried to run and now she was in a cell by Stefan, across from Rebecca of all vampires
with vervain wafting through the air of the carefully reimagined barn.

"I'm dying." Elena stated.

She could not see him but she heard Stefan reply, "Damon was right, you should have fed."

"Damon will come. Damon will always come. " Elena told Stefan with a certainty.

Stefan asked, "How can you be so sure? Why do you believe in him so much?"

Elena replied honestly, "I can't explain it. I just know. I just do."

Rebecca chuckled knowingly across from them, "Well if this isn't an amusing turn of events."

Stefan said, "Fine Elena, whatever. Don't believe me that something has taken hold of you. Just rest."

Elena replied, "I guess I owe this to you. You should know why I was on the bridge that night before she killed me. "
Elena gave a pointed look to Rebecca before continuing, "I was coming back to Mystic Falls, to our friends, to everything
that was safe, to everything I knew. I chose you Stefan."

Stefan smiled in his cell and told her so.

Elena didn't stop, "But there is more I know now since I came back from where I was.
There are things I see clearer, things I remember differently. "

"Nothing has to change Elena. Things can go back to the way they were before."

Elena replied, "I died and came back. How can I not be changed Stefan? I'm already not who I was. "

Damon and Matt were in front of Pastor Young's home.

"This is the place. So what's the plan?" Matt Donovan asked.

"A distraction…" Damon replied before biting into Matt's neck, then letting him fall to the ground.

"You don't want his innocent blood on your conscience do you pastor?"

After Damon dispatched the pastor's "followers" who came at him
with a smirk he realized the pastor himself would not be coming out, he was hold up in his little shack.
Damon made an impression on the 'good' pastor. He was pleased to be such an intimidating creature.

But where was Elena? It was then he heard her waning voice on the end of a conversation with his brother.
He heard her shallow breathing and rushed to the barn.

Damon called out, "Elena?"

Elena warned him, "Damon, the air is poisoned it's full of vervain in here. "

Damon found the vervain supplying the tainted air outside of the barn and disconnected the air hose.

Damon went into the barn and pulled the locks off of Elena's then Stefan's cell door.

Damon saw Rebecca in her cage and said, "I don't know if I should be doing this, Lord knows you don't deserve it."

Rebecca stated, "If only some quarter of the vampire species left wasn't dependent on my existence. Perhaps your quarter."

Damon let her out with a growl and told her, "Leave now."

Rebecca left with vampire speed immediately.

Elena looked at Damon and somehow mustered a smile, "I knew you'd come."

Damon replied, "Was there ever any doubt?"

Matt stumbled into the barn.

Damon sped to him and threw him down asking, "Why do you get to live?"

Matt replied, "Go ahead, you can't possibly hate me anymore than I hate myself right now."

"Wanna bet?" Damon was about to shred Matt to bits.

Elena stepped between Damon and Matt.

Stefan pulled Matt away from Damon.

Matt spit to Stefan, "Would you stop saving me? Elena's a vampire because of me. I have to live with that."

Stefan replied, "You get to live with that..."

Elena touched Damon's still shaking hand to calm him saying, "Damon, it's alright. I'm here. It's not his fault.
Look at me, I'm not going anywhere."

Damon looked into Elena's eyes and sighed, "I could have lost you."

"You didn't."

"You know if it had been me on the bridge that night…"

Elena nodded, " I know what choice you would have made. And I understand now."

Damon told her, "You don't have long. Elena you need to feed now, from the vein. Your first time should be from a warm vein.
I had someone compelled and ready at the hospital and some blood bags in case you wanted more. Come on let's go find a warm body. "

Matt spoke up, "No need, why go through all that trouble when you got some warm human right here."

Elena told him, "Are you sure? Matt, you really don't have to."

Matt nodded replying, "I owe you my life. I want to."

Elena lifted Matt's wrist and bit as gently as she could letting the temperate life seep into her. Elena's eyes turned
a new shade of black while the veins around her new eyes throbbed. Elena kept drinking, and she didn't want to quit.

Damon told her, "It's alright you have control, you can stop now."

Elena dropped Matt's wrist.

Damon directed, "Stefan you'd better take Matt home. Let him sleep it off."

"But…"

Elena asked, "Stefan please. I'll be okay."

Stefan grunted and replied, "Alright."

Damon and Elena were alone together for the first time since her return from a watery grave.

Damon found himself at a loss for words for a change. Elena had to start, "It was you that night.
You were the stranger who wanted me to get everything I wanted out of life. Why didn't you tell me that we met first?"

Damon asked, "Would it have changed anything?"

Elena paused.

Damon stated, "That's what I thought."

Elena said, "You didn't let me finish."

Elena stepped closer to him placing her hand on his cheek,
"It might have changed everything, it does. It matters to me. "

Elena sighed, "Why Damon?"

She traced his cheek with her thumb as if following the trail of some long dried tear.

She continued, "Why did you take this truth away from me?"

Damon closed his eyes against her touch, "Because I'm selfish. But you knew that already.
How we met… that's not all you remember."

She didn't deny it, "One of the highlights of my transition… remembering everything you asked me to forget."

"Elena I need you to know. I may not have understood before, but I do now. I wanted you to grow up, go to college, and have kids.
I wanted that life for you and I would have done anything to give that to you. See selfish."

Elena shook her head, "That makes you selfless Damon. I didn't always agree with your methods but I get now everything you did was because you put me first;
you always put me first before yourself. You've tried to protect me, you did what you thought was best. You said you wanted me to choose Damon,
but I was never truly free to do so until now was I?"

Damon answered softly, "No, you weren't. Because you deserve everything you have ever wanted Elena Gilbert. Who am I to even dream of taking that from you?"

Elena's grabbed his hand , "What I want now is to never leave your side. It's what I dreamt about. When I was over there and everything else I knew
slipped away from me, somehow you were there. You stayed with me always. You saved me. You brought me back Damon Salvatore."

Damon squeezed her hand, "We've got nothing but time Elena. Let's go home. It's best you not be around Jeremy right now. And there are some things you should know,
I didn't just keep how we met from you. I don't want there to be any more secrets between you and me. I'll tell you everything."