Disclaimer: I don't own TVD, even though I'd love to!

Previously, on Learning To Love Again….

Getting back to the long corridor, I narrowed my eyes, focusing on Stefan's bedroom. I shuddered, realizing that it was quickly becoming one of my least favourite places ever... Then, a thought crossed my mind, and running there, I violently opened the door.

A loud gasp escaped my lips, as I took everything in.

The doors of the cupboards were open, the desk was overthrown, resulting in the books that I had stacked up just three days ago to be scattered on the floor. The various trinkets that had previously occupied the shelves were now shattered in pieces on the floor. The curtains were no longer hanging in front of the window; instead, they were tangled in a tight mess along with the bedspread, and thrown far away from their original positions. Feathers, and torn pages were covering almost every surface of the room. It was pure chaos.

And in the middle of it, was Damon. He was sprawled on the floor, several –empty- bottles around him, and was that a piece of paper clutched between his fingers? What the hell happened in here? I approached him slowly, trying hard not to trip on anything.

"Damon?" I whispered, gently dropping my hand on his back. "What happened?" It took him a few moments to respond, but his head was still turned away from me, and I couldn't look into his eyes. I could only hear his voice.

"She never loved me. It was always Stefan." He sounded broken. And it wasn't hard to guess the reason. As far as I knew, there was only one person, one woman that could affect Damon so much.

"Katherine."

"Get out of here, Elena," Damon mumbled, and I could practically see the wall rising, I could feel it against my skin, pushing me away.

"No."

"You don't get to bitch about this, Elena," he growled, turning on his back so that he could openly glare at me. "I let you drown in your self-pity."

"What are you even talking about?" I demanded, beyond confused. He rolled his eyes. It was pretty amazing he could do that even with his eyelids closed.

"You think I didn't hear you moping around the other day?" my jaw dropped as I figured out what he was talking about. He hadn't been asleep after all. "You broke a glass, Elena. I am not the sleeping freaking beauty. I am a vampire. Super-senses, remember? I can also rip your throat apart, before you can even blink. And believe me, right now, I really, really want to." He stared hungrily at my neck, and if it were a month ago, I probably would have run away screaming. But I knew better now. I knew him better now. I knew what I had to do.

I exited the room hastily, and fetched a bottle of bourbon from downstairs, along with two tumblers. When I got back, Damon hadn't moved a muscle, and I approached him, purposefully holding the bottle high.

"You could do that. Or you could join me for a drink." Damon looked at me through narrowed eyes. I had gotten his attention. Point for me. "Come on, Damon. You know you want it!" I shook the glasses in the air, theatrically. In response, he groaned, and started struggling to push himself off the floor. At least that's what I think he was trying to do. After several minutes of failed attempts, he let his head fall on the floor with a thud, and finally spoke.

"Are you going to just stand there, or are you helping me get up so that I can have my fucking drink?" Suppressing a smile, I approached him, and helped him throw his arm over my shoulder. With some effort, I managed to get both of us to stand, and I started walking out of the room. Damon had apparently a different plan, since he planted his feet on the ground, and refused to move.

"Where the hell are we going?" he demanded.

"To your room?" Damon drunkenly grinned at that.

"Well, well, Elena. Are you making a move?" I gave him an eye-roll, and placed a tumbler in each of his hands. I needed to distract him. And anyway, I couldn't carry both booze, and Damon at the same time.

"You think you can hold those?" He winked, and nodded.

"Honey, I'm holding onto them for dear life."

"Good for them. Come on, now, one foot after the other."

It was no easy feat making it all the way back to his room, and when I finally let him drop lightly on the bed, I could feel a faint ache starting to build at my waist. Huh. He couldn't walk in a straight line, but he still hadn't let go of the glasses. Typical. Shaking my head, I took possession of the tumblers and filled them with the amber liquid. I offered one back to Damon, who took it, and drank. Drank most of it, actually. The rest went down his chin, soaking him, and his bed. He carelessly left the glass fall on the ground, and moaned lowly, shifting until he was on his side.

"Man, I'm wasted…" I frowned as I noticed how pale his complexion was. Much paler than usual, and definitely much paler than what is considered normal, even for vampires.

"You have to…" I swallowed audibly, struggling to hide my inconvenience "eat something." We had never exactly discussed the practicalities of his nature. I had no idea how he found the blood he needed to survive, but the image of his imprinted teeth on Caroline's body was forever stored in my brain. I didn't know any better.

"Are you offering?" Oh no. No way.

"No. And you either tell me how to get blood into you without tapping a vein, or I swear to God, I'm going to spoon-feed you a squirrel."

Sure, I wasn't an expert in nursing a drunk starving heart-broken vampire, but at least we had one thing in common; we had both been betrayed. I guess we could help each other feel better. Isn't that what friends are supposed to do? Wasn't that what we were, friends, after all the time we'd spent together?

"You really mean that, don't you?" he stared at me blankly. I closed my lips tightly and nodded. Was he finally starting to get it through his head? Wow. That was fast.

"Just grab me a couple of blood bags from the cooler in the basement," he said, and I barely kept my expression neutral. Blood bags?

"Okay, I can do that," I replied instead.

When I stepped into the bedroom, I found him sitting up on the mattress, his head resting against the headrest. His gaze immediately went at the blood bags that I was holding in my hands.

"Here," I said softly, placing them next to him. I watched him stretching out his hand, and blindly grabbing one from the pile. His face contorted in a pained grimace. Did such a small move cause him so much pain? Exactly how worn out was he? His gaze moved from the brown comforter to my face, and our eyes locked. I wanted so badly to look away, to look anywhere else but at his face. I didn't feel prepared to witness what was about to happen. I had accepted the fact that he was a vampire a long time ago, but this felt a little too much. And also intimate.

Apparently, I didn't want it that bad. Because for some odd reason, I couldn't turn around. I heard him take the lid off, and my eyes flickered to his lips, as they wrapped around the tube. I held my breath as he calmly sucked in, and the transparent material turned crimson from the blood that flowed towards his mouth. I involuntarily cocked my head to the side, and stared back at his eyes in amazement.

He was still Damon. He hadn't gotten all primal, he hadn't even changed into his vampire face. I was… awed. I guess I always expected vampires looking more like… well, vampires, while feeding. I guess I was wrong.

The blood he drank quickly brought back the color on his face, and after he was done with the third bag, he stretched his arms high above his head. His joints cracked, and he smirked like the Cheshire cat, clearly satisfied.

"A shower would be nice," I commented, wrinkling my nose. Going three days without a shower can make a person rather smelly, even a vampire.

"Sure, towels are in the wardrobe. Grab one for me too, and we're set to go."

I chuckled, shaking my head in disbelief. This was the Damon I knew. The constantly teasing one.

"I'm not coming with you, Damon," I murmured, walking towards the window, and opening it widely. I inhaled deeply, filling my lungs with fresh air.

"You're saying that you don't want to come?" Damon asked suggestively. I glanced at him over my shoulder as he unbuttoned his shirt, and carelessly tossed it on the bed. It was only natural for my gaze to wander down his toned chest. Did immortality come with perfect muscles? Or was it something he had to actually work to get?

"Get over yourself!" I chided, moving out of the bedroom as fast as I could, since I had a lot of cleaning to do. And a pair of burning cheeks that I didn't want him to see.

By the time I was back, Damon was already into the bathroom, and puffs of steam were gracefully starting to fill his bedroom, making the air thick with water vapour. My breath hitched in my throat as I lingered by the opening in the wall leading to the bathroom, and stared into the foggy room. I could vaguely make out the shape of his body, and my over-active imagination was already working hard to come up with the details.

Then, Damon started humming a song I couldn't recognise, and I jumped up in surprise. Could I be any creepier? Shaking my head, I moved further into the bedroom, forcing my self to focus on the task at hand. Tidying up.

After gathering the empty bottles, and throwing them in a huge garbage bag I had found downstairs, I decided to change the sheets of the bed. It wasn't hard to find a clean set, Damon actually had several of them stored on a shelf inside the wardrobe. Everything from black to white, meticulously folded, and making me wonder if he took care of the laundry himself.

Still smiling at the mental picture of him unloading the washing machine, I leaned down to remove the old pillowcases. That was when the piece of paper in my peripheral vision grabbed my attention. I bit down on my lower lip, while I contemplated the situation. The paper was crumpled and old, and the exact same page Damon was holding earlier. Whatever had caused him so much pain was written in there. Somehow, I doubted he'd be even remotely willing to share it with me. Chances were, as soon as he was out of the shower, he'd pretend that everything was all right, that he hadn't just gone through hell, and back in three days. But this wasn't right. He would never get over it, if he simply pushed it under the rug. And I wanted him to get over it, because he deserved it so much. He deserved better than a woman who would toy with his heart.

My mind was set.

November 26th, 1864

Stefan,

I am writing this letter, as you are peacefully sleeping right next to me. I look at you, and my heart breaks at the thought that I will have to leave you behind.

For years... for centuries I have wandered this Earth. I have seen it in all its might, and yet it seemed so meaningless, and distant.

A long time ago I made a promise to myself. I promised I would never love. Nothing and no one.

Love makes you weak. It is nothing but a liability. When you are a vampire, you can't allow yourself to indulge in such fickle pleasures.

Then I met you, and everything changed. Day after day, without me noticing, you crept your way into my heart, and somehow made it yours.

You, Stefan. Only you. Always.

The thing is, for humans, always is just an expression. Something abstract, a mere word, used in poems and ballads. You cannot grasp the depth of it.

That is why I am making this choice. To share eternity with you, my love. And with Damon. Yes. I have been making him compliant, by giving myself to him. He loves me, I think. And I do know you are upset by that.

My sweet, young, jealous Stefan. You have to understand. I am 400 years old and loyalty and love have come to be complex concepts, to me. Have faith. He means nothing. He is nothing.

Yet, I know how deep the bond of family is, and I fear that you will one day regret his mortality. By granting him the gift of immortality, I am giving you a choice. That is the one and only reason why I have been doing what I you have seen as betrayal. For you. For your happiness.

The town knows about us now.

The people are getting smart and I am afraid that very soon I will be forced to leave.

I promise you, we will meet again. When it will be safe for the both of us, I will find you and we shall be blessed with the beauty of our eternal love. Anytime, anywhere, any place.

I love you, Stefan.

Eternally,

Katherine.

Despite my shaking hands, I put the letter back where I had found it. My expression was hard as I let everything sink in. Katherine had been using Damon from the first moment. She had never cared for him, he was just a mean to an end. The love of her life… I scoffed, plopping down on the bed, and pulling my knees up to my chin. I couldn't begin to imagine how hard it was for him, realizing that you've spent over a century waiting for the return of a single woman, only to find out that she had betrayed you.

We had both been played.

Now everything made so much more sense, especially the time Stefan had decided to leave town. After it was perfectly clear that there was no way of opening the tomb, no way for him to get Katherine back, he couldn't find it in him to stay here, and keep pretending. I was apparently too much of a reminder for him. Since that was all I had ever been to him. In Stefan's eyes, I was never me, I was never Elena Gilbert. In his eyes, I was just a human, lucky enough to be blessed with the perfect looks of the perfect Katherine. Tears blurred my vision.

I didn't deserve that. Nobody deserved that. But life was never fair, and it would never get fair. All I could do was learn from my mistake with Stefan. Learn to never trust people so easily again, learn to get to know them better before stupidly believing I was in love with them. Learn to be strong, learn to be careful.

I gasped when I heard footsteps approaching, and wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand, I shot up and turned around to… a very wet, practically naked Damon grinning at me. My breath hitched in my throat, because yes, I was hurt, but I was still a woman. A very teenage-y, very hormonal woman.

"Like what you see?" he was more, or less gloating, and I hummed thoughtfully as I took his appearance fully in. A white towel was loosely wrapped around his waist, his feet were bare, and there were drops of water almost on every inch of his skin.

"Nothing I've never seen before," I lied through my teeth, shrugging to make my point a little more believable.

"Is that so?" Damon was standing in front of me in an instant, narrowing his eyes down at me, and reminding me of the first day I had met him. Who knew how close we would eventually get?

"Oh yeah. If I see something I haven't seen before, I'll throw a dollar at it." Damon chuckled, and scanned the room. His gaze stopped on the crumpled piece of paper. He looked at me, flaring his nostrils, and then groaned.

"You have read it, haven't you?" Damon scoffed "Women. Snoopy little things." I just stared at him, at a loss for words. " Oh no. Don't look at me like that. I don't need your pity." I shook my head lightly.

"It's not pity. It's...understanding. Stefan and Katherine… They both did the same thing. They used us. I just… I… We will get through this." We will get through this, I repeated in my mind. I needed to believe it, too. I needed him to agree. I might have sounded all strong and sure of myself, but inside, I was as weak as he was. I didn't just need him to need me. I needed him, as well. "Right?" Somehow, my resolve crumbled and I ended up questioning him about what I had wanted to pass onto him in the first place. In response Damon just looked confused.

"Huh?"

"Damon," it almost came out with a question-mark. I couldn't help it, his eyes were so cold, and distant. He couldn't push me away. He couldn't. "We will get through this," I repeated firmly, and with that I wrapped my arms around his waist. Not that he wasn't strong enough to kick me out of his house, and out of his life. But in that moment, I just felt like holding onto him, and never letting go. He stiffened at first, and my insides clenched at the idea that perhaps I had been wrong. Perhaps I didn't know him as well as I thought. Perhaps he didn't want us to fight this together.

But then his arms closed around my body, firmly enough to make me feel safe. Firmly enough to make me feel that I wasn't alone, that not everyone had abandoned me. I sighed, and it was shaky, and weak, but I didn't mind.

"We will," he whispered in my ear, and I nodded. We were in this together. And I wouldn't even try to explain the warm feeling that had settled in my heart.

Later that night, when I walked into the kitchen to drink some water, I found Jenna already there, working on her laptop. "Hey," she said hesitantly, and I nodded at her general direction. I was exhausted from the cleaning spree at the Salvatore house, but I was also fed up from the repeated silences between the two of us. I couldn't take it any longer.

"Why didn't you tell me, Jenna?" I blurted out. Jenna closed the laptop, and sat up straighter.

"Your mom was going to do it eventually," she replied in a small voice, crossing her arms in front of her chest "I'd never thought I'd had to."

"If my mom were here right now, and I asked, she'd tell me the truth." She knew I wasn't lying, and she knew it was the right thing to do.

"Your dad was about to leave the office one night, when this girl showed up. She was sixteen, a runaway, and about to give birth. He delivered her baby, and he gave her a place to stay, but a few days later she disappeared. And there you were," she said motioning at me "Your parents were trying so hard to have a baby, it just wasn't happening. All Miranda ever wanted was to be a mom."

"Well, why were my parents' names on the birth certificate?" I asked confused.

"Your dad was a doctor, Elena," she replied matter-of-factly "he took care of it. They didn't want to lose you, so they kept it quiet, told as few people as possible. But if anyone ever wanted proof, they had documentation."

"What else do you know about her? The girl?" I had so many questions. How could I ever find out more about this girl, about my birth-mother? Why would she give me up? Where was she today? Did she ever have any more kids?

"Just her name, Isobel."

"Isobel," I repeated experimentally. Isobel. The name of the woman that carried me for nine months. The name of the woman that brought me to this world.

"I could do some digging, that's if you want me to," Jenna suggested.

"Would you do that?" I asked excitedly, because truth be told, I would have no idea where to start at.

"It's the least I can do."

"Thanks," I said offering her a small smile "I think I'm going to get some sleep now. It was a long day." A long day, that had ended up being rather nice.

"Okay, goodnight."

"Goodnight, Jenna."

The next days passed by in a blur. My life seemed to be falling into a routine. I would wake up every morning, go to school, try to get Bonnie to talk to me again, spend the evening with Damon, or with Caroline at the Grill, and then drive back home, and sleep like the dead. I had started warming up again towards Jenna, because I realized that this mustn't have been easy on her, either. She practically had to grow up in a day, and be a parent for myself and Jeremy, when she was supposed to be nothing but a carefree college student. She found herself suddenly responsible for two other people, and for taking care of an entire household. It was a lot on her. She wasn't the one who was supposed to have talked to me about this issue, anyway.

I still hadn't gathered the courage to talk to Jeremy, though. Our relationship had been bumpy ever since the funeral, and now this whole adoption thing? I doubted it would win us the best-siblings award.

"Are you leaving?" I asked, looking up from the magazine I was reading, when Jeremy ran downstairs.

"I'm meeting a friend at the Grill," he grumbled, waving at me, and then disappearing down the corridor.

"Someone I know?" I questioned, making him stop on his tracks.

"No," his tone wasn't a happy one. "Anna is new in town. Are we done with twenty questions now?"

I wanted to apologize, explain to him that I was just trying to be friendly, not nosy. But Jeremy fled the house, slamming the door behind him, and making me wince.

"You haven't talked to him, yet?" I jolted in surprise, when I found Damon sitting next to me.

"Will you stop doing that?" I complained, hitting him playfully on the arm.

"Doing what?" he asked, grabbing the magazine from my hands, and glancing at the article I had been reading "I didn't know you were interested in the theory of multiverse."

"And I didn't know you were interested in giving me a heart attack! Stop sneaking up on me!" I explained, snatching it back, and throwing it on the coffee table "And no, I haven't talked to him, yet."

"Why not?"

"I don't know how he'll react."

"See, Elena, that is exactly your problem!"

"Okay, Sigmund, let's hear it. What's my problem?" I demanded, raising my eyebrows expectantly.

"Well, Sigmund would probably say your issues lie in your pent-up sexuality… but me? I say you're thinking way too much," he breathed resting his hand on my shoulder "You should be a Lindsay Lohan, not an Angela Lansbury. Loosen up a little, live your life."

"You know that's not how I am, Damon! I can't do that," I said in a small voice.

"Sure you can! Come on, I'll show you. Close your eyes." I raised an eyebrow.

"Why?" He made a face and shushed me.

"Just do it." I shrugged, and did as he asked. "Now, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions, and you just answer with the first thing that pops up in your mind."

"Ok..." Where was he going with this?

"Sunrise, or sunset?

"Sunset."

"Cheerios, or Lucky Charms?"

"Cheerios." Damon scoffed playfully.

"Boring. Do you like Calculus?"

"Nope."

"At least you're not a nerd. What is the thing you want to do most?"

"Get out of this town," I whispered, before I had the time to control myself. "Oh."

"Perfect! Tomorrow, you, and me are driving to Georgia."

"What? No!" I screamed "we can't do this."

"Why?"

"Because…"

"Oh shut up. You need a time-out. Trust me, your problems will still be here, when you come back home. Look, just step away from your life for five minutes. That's all I'm asking, five minutes."

"This is a bad idea," I murmured shaking my head from side to side, wondering how the hell he had managed to persuade me.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, with an ear-to-ear grin "I'll pick you up tomorrow morning at nine thirty!"

P.S. A big 'thank you' goes to my awesome beta Grace4Delena .

You can follow me on twitter: ts_eirini