I've had a few people ask about the spell and I just wanted to clarify in case anyone else was confused on the matter. I know I kind of threw it at you quickly in the end of the first chapter, so I figured it might help if I re-explained a bit. Every chapter of this story, except the first and very last, is going to be a future memory down Elena's currently set timeline. Present Elena is living them out exactly like her future self would be. She doesn't have any control over what she says or how she reacts and she doesn't have any outside emotions other than the ones her future self has. She knows what has happened in between moments since she is her future self during the process, but the spell is picking out certain moments to magnify. And when she gets back to present time at the end of the story, she'll have the opportunity to change this particular path of her future if she wants to. Hopefully, I cleared up any remaining confusion, but definitely feel free to pm me or whatever if you still have questions.

Also, I was lazy this time around and only proof-read the chapter once, so I'm sorry in advance for the remaining typos and mistakes.

Other than that, enjoy!

- June 9, 2012 -

I walked down the pier with my arms crossed over my chest. They were held this way more out of familiarity than anything else, considering it wasn't exactly cold outside. It was actually a blistering hot 97 degrees, which felt much worse considering the normal temperature average in Virginia this time of year typically hovered in the low 80s. We we're experiencing one of those crazy heat waves that so rarely occurred here, so when Jeremy suggested we head to the lake house for the weekend I had gladly supported the idea.

With college right around the corner, I figured I needed to cherish these last getaways with my friends before they all headed up north for the school year leaving me behind. I hadn't exactly chosen not to go to college, but rather forgot about the pile of applications I had stashed in my top dresser drawer. With everything that had been going on, it was just too difficult to write the eight essays on why I was a better applicant than say Bettie Richardson. Because honestly; at that time, I hadn't been a better candidate. I had been a fucking train wreck. So the applications were slipped into that drawer and the back of my mind until Caroline shrieked that she had been accepted into the liberal arts program at NYC.

By that time, all of the submission deadlines had passed leaving me only one option; Mystic Falls Community College. It didn't bother me really since Jeremy still had one year of school left, Ric wasn't going anywhere, and Damon would be here. But I still felt like I was being left behind while everyone else moved on with their lives. It wasn't a terrible feeling, just a bit of a nagging sensation; one that had started to grow when the chatter of excited futures erupted in the house.

So I came out here into the hot muggy air to escape, because this pier always had a way of calming my nerves when I was growing up. And it was proving its effectiveness tonight. The water was a dark sheet of glass, but every so often a light breeze would blow causing it to move just slightly enough for the top to twinkle, mimicking the vision of a billion black diamonds. It was one of those images that appeared on the front of postcards and I was lucky enough to be witnessing it first-hand. It was breathtaking and I had no fighting chance of resisting my smile against its aesthetic power.

That smile only widened when I heard the familiar footsteps behind me. Without turning around, I already knew who was encroaching on my personal moment and I didn't mind a bit.

"Please tell me you haven't already checked out for the night. We were having so much fun in there." Damon muttered sarcastically, although I knew it was just a front. He would never admit it, but those people in there were important to him; not nearly as important as I was, but important. And the way his pure laughs had filled the air, revealed how much enjoyment he gained from spending time with them.

The reverse of this stood true as well. That's right; Damon had solidified his spot in our group. My friend's skepticism towards his intentions had been replaced months ago by an acceptance of who he was. And as much as I'm sure it pained him to admit it, he loved every minute of the approval. But I decided not to call him out and instead replied, "I just wanted to enjoy some fresh air."

He settled beside me and said, "Nothing like leaving the comfort of air conditioning to experience the full brunt of the tropics."

I bumped my shoulder lightly against his and countered, "Oh shut up. You didn't have to come out and it's not like the heat has any effect on you anyways." It was true; he was the only one dressed in a long-sleeved button down shirt and jeans without a hint of sweat glistening over his skin, whereas the rest of us were in tank-tops and shorts completely drenched in our own perspiration.

"But you we're out here and apparently it's having quite the effect on you." He lifted his hand to slide the pad of his thumb down my cheekbone and wiped a drop of sweat from my skin, leaving an icy burn along the line of contact. He then motioned his head toward the water and suggested, "If you're too hot we could always jump in."

I glanced at the twinkling sea of diamonds and realized how inviting the option was, before I turned back to him and countered, "Tempting, but my bathing suits all the way upstairs."

He then shot me his signature smirk and lifted his brows before suggesting, "There's always the option of skinny dipping."

I rolled my eyes because I should have expected this sort of idea from him. We were incredible friends with the potential for so much more, but I hadn't even asked him on a proper date yet. Stefan still occupied my thoughts from time to time, and although the gaping hole in my chest had been filled, I was still waiting for that proper moment when I knew I was fully ready to ask. I figured that step needed to be tackled first, and eventually it would, before I skipped ahead to the getting naked in front of each other step.

So instead of allowing the moment to get uncomfortable, I kept up the playful attitude and teased, "And I'm sure you'd love that wouldn't you."

The smirk disappeared leaving a faux seriousness as he explained, "This isn't for my benefit, Elena. I'm just worried about you overheating; that's all."

He followed the statement with a conniving chuckle, when Caroline's excited voice sounded from the back of the house. "Did someone mention skinny dipping?"

I couldn't stop my laugh, but I offset it by smacking Damon across the chest because he knew this was how his plan would pan out. I hadn't known Caroline was sitting on the back deck with Tyler, but obviously Damon's sensitive ears had. And with the amount of alcohol Caroline had consumed throughout the evening, any excuse was good enough for her clothes to come off.

The pair was already making their way towards us on the pier, when I started waving my hands dismissively through the air. "No, no. You heard us wrong. We will not be skinny dipping."

"Yes we will," Damon chimed in beside me.

I turned on him, fire ablaze behind my chocolate eyes and argued, "No we won't! Unlike the rest of you, I don't see the enticement of parading around in the nude with my best friends, especially not my brother."

"You don't have to worry about Jeremy; he got sick after the last round of quarters. Bonnie's upstairs taking care of him now," Caroline explained as she settled beside me. She then pushed her lips into a pout and begged, "C'mon, Elena, live a little," before stripping down in front of my very eyes and jumping into the water.

With my eyes practically bugging out of their sockets, Tyler shot me an apologetic smile and said, "For your benefit, I'll wait to undress in the water." He then dove in as his shorts spat back out onto the deck.

I wasn't mad at Damon. It certainly hadn't been the first time I'd seen Caroline unclothed and the water was concealing all of Tyler's nasty bits, but I couldn't miss the prime opportunity to rub his failed attempt at getting me naked in his face. So, I jabbed my finger into his chest and accused, "You're ridiculous and you failed."

Damon's eyes rolled against his top lids before he cocked his head to the side and replied, "I'm only ridiculous to keep things interesting around here, and the nights not over yet."

He was certainly right about the first, but definitely not the second. The night was still young, yes, but there was nothing that would possibly drive me to strip down in front of him. But for the sake of giving him some form of hope to hold onto, I decided not to challenge his assumption and instead suggested, "Just because I'm not partaking in the fun doesn't mean you can't."

Damon looked out into the water and scrunched up his nose in disgust. "Getting naked with Barbie again isn't exactly at the top of my to-do list. I've been there, done that; not really impressed. And I'm not exactly dying to dangle uglies with her lap dog either."

"Fuck you, Damon! At least you had a choice in the matter!" Caroline screamed from the water.

Damon laughed beside me and shouted back, "Don't pretend like it wasn't worth your while, Caroline. I rocked your little human world and you know it."

"Don't flatter yourself," her voiced called back.

These moments occurred often between the two of them. It was always playful bickering and I had honestly become immune to the fact that Caroline and Damon had slept together. It was a long time ago, but that doesn't mean that I still enjoyed being reminded of the fact. So instead of listening to their meaningless back and forth, I picked my phone from my pocket and decided to play around on Facebook until they were finished.

I never got there because as my phone illuminated, my text message icon showed that I had an unread text. I clicked on the icon and saw that it was from Ric saying, "Your laptop arrived today. I put it on your bed. NICE CHOICE BTW!"

After my impulsive cringe at Ric's attempt of youthful texting behavior, I narrowed my eyes at the text. I hadn't ordered a laptop, although I should have. Mine was practically prehistoric and the keys often got stuck, but it still operated for the most part.

I shook my head back and forth and started typing a response when Damon noticed my puzzled expression. "What's wrong?" he asked; voice laced with the genuine concern I had become all too familiar hearing from him.

"Nothing like that," I dismissed before explaining further. "There's just been a mix up at home. A computer was delivered to me by accident, that's all."

Damon groaned at my response and I immediately stopped the progression of my fingers to look at him. He was wearing his irritated face, but I didn't understand why. All I had to do was ship the laptop back to the manufacturer and everything would be alright. It seriously wasn't a big deal.

He rubbed his temples with his fingers before he admitted, "It wasn't a mistake." He then let out an irritated huff before he chastised, "Leave it to Apple to ship a product early for the first time in their companies' existence."

Confusion had made its way to my expression when I questioned, "What are you talking about? I didn't order a computer."

He turned to look at me and confessed, "I know you didn't, but I did. It was supposed to arrive Monday when you got back."

"You bought me a laptop?" I asked, dumbfounded over the gesture. It was sweet, but completely unnecessary.

"It was supposed to be a big surprise, but I guess now is as good a time as any." He paused for a moment and I was very well aware of the silence that came from Caroline and Tyler's sudden interest in our conversation, but the only thing I could focus on was the crystalline blue of Damon's eyes.

He shrugged his shoulder and explained, "I figured you'd need one that actually worked when you went off to Columbia in the fall."

I held up my hand and asked in a high pitched voice, "Hold on a minute, did you just say Columbia?" I shook my head through the thick air and argued, "I never applied to Columbia." Of course I'd wanted to. It had always been one of my dream schools, but its application was buried in my drawer along with the others I failed to submit and my grades were nowhere high enough for acceptance anyway.

"I know you didn't," he simply responded.

I threw both of my hands into the air because I was quickly losing my patience, and asked, "Then how did I get in?"

He cocked his head to the side, shot me a wicked smile, and toyed with me once again. "Well, I didn't forge your application if that's what you're asking."

"But if you didn't, then how…" I let my sentence drop midway as understanding began making its way through my thought process. I was still putting the pieces together when Damon completed the puzzle for me.

"If you have to ask that question, than you're seriously not smart enough to be attending." He rolled his eyes before he continued, "Come on, Elena, you've been in this world long enough to understand what I'm capable of. All it took was a nice chat with the head of admissions to have her falling all over herself ready to welcome you personally into the writing program."

I should have been thanking him and I was fully aware that I hadn't yet, but a more important topic needed to be addressed. "How did you know that I like to write?"

Damon shrugged his shoulders and explained, "My brother and I did talk from time to time. Occasionally, you were the topic of interest."

Miraculously, the mention of Stefan had no effect on me. However, the challenge of writing again had my pulse accelerating to an ungodly speed. "But I haven't written anything since before my parents died. I wouldn't even know how to pick it back up again."

Damon nonchalantly lifted his hand into the air and countered, "I'm sure you've seen enough in the past two years to give you a spark of inspiration. If anything, you'll soar above everyone else in the creative writing category."

"And we'll only be a twenty minute cab drive away from each other! Isn't it exciting, Elena?" Caroline interrupted from her position twenty yards away in the water.

Damon rolled his eyes at the blonde's intrusion and muttered, "Yeah, they've known for a few weeks now."

It was all just so much to take in. A few minutes ago, I had been convincing myself that community college was an alright life choice and now I was headed to Columbia. I should have been surging with undiluted joy, but all I could think about were the reason's I shouldn't go.

Continuing my thought process out loud, I deflected Caroline's excited tizzy and glared back at Damon. "But what about Jeremy? With Bonnie headed off to Berkeley, he's going to be left by himself."

"I've already talked to him about it. He's behind this 100%, which you, apparently, are not." His words slowed towards the end and his eyes seemed to have lost their enthusiastic glow.

I should have flinched at Damon's observation. He had put a lot of effort into this for me and I was throwing it back into his face, but I couldn't stop the words from spilling out. "And Ric?"

"Is a grown man who can take care of himself," Damon finished with a roll of his eyes.

"And you?" The words came out unexpectedly and as they did, I realized they were the most important.

That question seemed to have brought the vampire back to life. His eyes squinted as his lips lifted into a conniving grin and he answered, "You didn't think I'd let you go off to the big apple on your own did you? I'm coming with you of course."

I should have expected the answer, but it somehow managed to rocket through my limbs, sending a feeling of elation pumping blood through all of my extremities. "You're attending Columbia with me?"

"Hell no," he spat out and I immediately felt my facial features fall. But as they did, his hand lifted and cupped the side of my cheek before he explained, "I've already earned enough degrees to cover an entire wall of the boarding house. I'm coming along to act as your bad influence and make sure you experience what college is really about."

"But…" I started to get out before he shook his head and interrupted me.

Damon obviously had no idea that I was only going to argue how much of a positive influence he had become and not my attendance to the school of my dreams, because he refuted, "No more buts, Elena. You're attending Columbia. Your annoying girlfriends will be a few blocks away. Your brother and Ric will be just fine back here. Tyler will be, well I'm not sure what the wolf's doing next year, but does it really matter? And I'll be right next door making sure you enjoy and only partially remember every minute of it."

I was very aware that my cheek was still relaxed against the palm of his hand. Not only because the cool contact was refreshing in this weather, but also because tiny sparks of electricity had begun to ignite from the area. They had started making their way to other sections of my body, when I reached my hand to rest on top of his. "You promise to be there through everything?"

"I promise." The sides of his lips lifted into a satisfied smirk as he teased, "Especially when you embrace that all-important slut phase all college girls go through."

I pulled back and punched him in the shoulder. My eyes narrowed and I pretended to be offended as I accused, "I knew there was something in this for you."

The cocky expression disappeared only to be replaced by a teasing sense of honesty. "I know it may be hard to believe that I would do anything solely for the benefit of anyone but myself, but there you are. And apparently when it comes to you, that crazy giddy smile of yours…" His index finger reached out to tap the previously un-noticed upward curve of my lips as he continued, "Yeah that one right there, is all the reimbursement I need."

I'm not sure if it was the heat of the moment or the sincerity of his confession. I'm not sure if it was the way the moon illuminated the radiance of his blue eyes or how the slight curl made his lips fuller than I could have ever thought possible. I wasn't sure if it was the perfection of his features or the intoxicating way his aroma pulled me under. I wasn't even sure if it was the way my heart faltered when I considered everything he had given up or done for me in the past. All I knew was that I was ready.

This was the moment I had been waiting for. I was ready for Damon; for all of him. So, I took his hand, lacing my fingers between each one of his, and smiled up at him. I didn't care that Caroline and Tyler were probably watching every second of this soon to be memorable and intimate moment because all I could concentrate on was him. Every inch of my skin was vibrating in sweet anticipation as I began, "Thank you; not just for this, but for everything."

His lips moved ever so subtly and I lifted my spare hand to place a finger on top them. His eyes narrowed suspiciously as I continued, "You waited around for me for so long, even though I've given you no reason to. You never lost faith in me, Damon, and you've always supported me. I will never be able to thank you enough for everything you've done, but there is one more thing that I need you to do."

The look he gave me clearly stated that he would do anything for me. Hell, if I asked him to take his ring off and erupt under rays of sunlight, he probably would. But as his eyebrows edged up towards his hairline, urging me to continue on, I had no intention of making this brother suffer for me anymore. I had every intention of proving to him that I was worth every bit of crap I drug him through and every second he waited around helplessly for me. It was time for me to start proving that I was worthy and could eventually reciprocate the type of love he bled out for me.

So, I settled my lips into an adoring smile and asked, "I need you to take me on a real date."

The relieved smirk that lifted one side of his lips upward was almost enough to send my heart into cardiac arrest. As his hand reached up to cup the side of my face, he did his signature eye thing and asked, "Are you sure you're ready for that?"

I wasn't sure if anyone was ever ready to give themselves over the way Damon had with me, but there were no clouds of doubt shadowing the moment, only possibilities illuminating our potential future. I wrapped my hands around the back of his neck and pulled him close enough for my breath to sweep across his lips and whispered, "Absolutely," before pressing them against my own.

I'd felt Damon's lips on mine before; twice, actually. One time they had been his pressing against my non-responsive ones and the second time had been the exact opposite. But those two instances had done nothing to prepare me for how it actually felt to have both sets moving in perfect unison with one another. The action was remarkably unflawed, almost as if we could sense the others motion before it happened, and it resulted in the most satisfying kiss I had ever received.

When Caroline's supportive shrieks and hollers became our background music, I painfully pulled my lips back from his. There had been no tongue involved in the most satisfying kiss of my life and my lips immediately tingled in desperate need for more. I bit my lower lip, begging it to obtain some patience, and opened my eyes to Damon.

His face reflected exactly what I was feeling and I resisted every urge to lead him to my bedroom, when a brilliant idea came to mind. I lowered my lids and inched my face to rest beside his as I whispered, "I'm actually ready for something else."

"And what is that," he whispered in response.

I pulled my face back and slowly started to remove my articles of clothing. I felt an extremely satisfying sense of power as Damon's eyes went wide; both in startling disbelief and amazement. He practically drank me in and I probably should have felt embarrassed with his eyes ogling my body the way they were, but we both knew it was only a matter of time before he was exploring it anyway with his hands.

As my lacy underwear slid down my legs, I took a step out and quickly leaned into him. My lips pressed against his for the tiniest second, because the temptation was just too much, before I pulled away and declared, "I'm ready to get a head start on embracing my inner slut!" and jumped into the dark water.

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