I'm back! And starving for a new episode of TVD, the rerun didn't do much for me this past week, how bout you guys? Heard a rumor that Damon has a potential new love interest (!) and she's supposedly pretty cold. Damn, that makes me mad. I mean I love Damon being all sexy, but I didn't think he'd give up on Elena so fast. I thought the writers were slowly building Delena back up, not twisting the knife further in. Ah well, you know how they like to psych us out. On the other hand, thank you SO much for the amazing feedback yet again! It never fails to humble me and motivate me to write more. I promised a long, juicy chapter this time around, so I hope this doesn't disappoint. Let the Delena commence! And I promise the recap will be short this time ;)

Chapter 7: Falling Slowly

Falling slowly, eyes that know me

And I can't go back

Moods that take me and erase me

And I'm painted black

You have suffered enough

And warred with yourself

It's time that you won

Take this sinking boat

And point it home

We've still got time

Raise your hopeful voice

You had a choice

You've made it now

Previously:

…"I hate to be the bearer of bad news on this fine morning, Elena, but when I woke up this morning I went down the road to get your stuff and check things out, your car was gone."

"Gone?" she repeated flatly, her eyes widening. Damon nodded curtly.

"Probably stolen. I looked around town for it, but I didn't see it."

Damon turned onto a secluded road that wound into the woods.

"Where on earth are we?" Elena asked, about to die of curiosity.

"Patience, young grasshopper," Damon shot back in an infuriating tone. He pulled the car up to an impressively tall pair of wrought iron gates, gilded with an ornate "V" in the center. Elena craned her neck to look past the gate, and spotting something in the distance, her jaw dropped.

"Welcome to the Biltmore, Elena," Damon informed her somewhat smugly, smirking at her facial expression.

Elena's jaw remained slack as she took in the house in the distance. If you can even call it a house, she thought incredulously. Castle sounds more like it. It was possibly the most beautiful place she'd ever seen. It looked at least 4 stories tall and over 5 times larger than the boarding house, with all of its towers and windows and balconies. It was built of stone, gilded with copper, and in its backyard laid majestic, sweeping blue mountains. The front lawn itself was the size of a football field.

"Nice, huh?" he remarked flippantly. "Not bad for the largest house in America." Elena blinked rapidly in an attempt to recover her wits. By then Damon had parked the car and was motioning for her to follow him. She quickly got out of the car, shivering at the snow as she joined him. She tugged her knit hat on as they walked across the lawn, the magnificent structure growing ever larger upon their approach. Damon smoothly approached a ticket booth, purchasing admission for them easily thanks to his charm. They shuffled through the grandiose front doors, Elena stamping her feet before stepping onto the marble tiles in the foyer. Her eyes widened in wonder as she took in the sheer richness of the place, gazing up at the elaborately painted high ceilings and brushing her fingers along the dark woodwork near the stairs. Damon watched the show of awe dance across her face intently, smiling to himself. They crossed the room to join the tour group, following the guide into the conservatory. Elena was dumbstruck by room after room, remarking delightly on the beauty of the place quite frequently to Damon. He pretended to be unimpressed for the sole reason of provoking her, telling her he'd seen bigger. She merely rolled her eyes and walked on. As the group passed the grand staircase, Damon suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the tour.

"Damon! What do you think you're doing?" She demanded, but didn't pull her hand away.

"Come on, Elena. Live a little," he advised her exasperatedly as he pulled her to a narrow staircase nestled in the shadows. She sighed loudly, but clutched Damon's hand as he pulled her behind him up a narrow, winding stone staircase.

"How do you even know where this leads to?" Elena inquired skeptically, plodding up the seemingly endless staircase.

"I've been here a few times in my undead life, and I guess you can say curiosity got the better of me after a while. And I needed a place to…have a snack where I could be sure no one would interrupt us," he answered slyly, turning back to grin at Elena, his eyes flashing malevolently.

"Sorry I asked," she muttered, shaking her head.

"Aha. Here we are," he remarked suddenly, slowing his pace abruptly.

Damon eased open a door at the top of the stairs and stepped forward, still pulling Elena with him. As they passed through the door, he dropped her hand and stood aside, allowing her to take it all in. They were standing on a long, flat stretch of roof edged with elaborate marble balustrades and surrounded by towering parts of the house on three sides. The fourth side provided an unobstructed view of the snowy dark blue mountains, which were a striking contrast to the pale white sky. There was a quiet stillness that resonated throughout the place, making them feel like they were the only two people on earth. There was a good inch or two of snow blanketing the roof already, and the flakes were still falling.

"This is beautiful," Elena breathed, ripping her eyes from the view long enough to look up at Damon.

"I thought you'd like it," He said in a low voice, studying the landscape instead of her.

Elena ventured out onto the roof, making footprints in the snow. Spreading her arms wide, she grinned and tilted her face to the sky as she spun in circles, her eyes closed. The falling snow brought her back to the dream, the blissful memory of her and Damon playing in snow. Her grin grew wider as she stopped spinning and reached down, balling up a handful of snow and cupping it in her hands. She stood up, throwing a furtive glance in Damon's direction; He had been watching her, a faint ghost of a crooked smile gracing his lips. He cocked an eyebrow at her, eyeing her hands pointedly.

"You wouldn't."

"I would," she contradicted gleefully, and hurled the snowball at him. It disintegrated into powder when it hit his shoulder, and he brushed it off disdainfully.

"You're gonna regret that," he all but growled at her. Faster than her eyes could follow, he bent down and crafted a snowball considerably larger than hers and with a snap of his wrist sent it flying into the side of her head.

"Damon!" she shrieked, clutching at her now-numb ear and brushing the snow from her hat. Frowning, she kicked up the toe of her boot, sending a shower of whiteness in his direction. He shook his head and shot her a predatory glance, his icy blue eyes flashing. Elena's own eyes widened and she turned away, running as best she could across the roof in an attempt to flee. He easily closed the distance, grabbing her around the waist from behind and drawing her recklessly close to him. Elena laughed, gulping to catch her breath in the cold air. Her eyes closed, and she made no attempt to quell her soaring heart. The dream, the one she'd been holding onto like a lifeline for the past two weeks, was real. This was it. She turned her head toward him and her eyes clashed with his, taking in the beautiful iridescent blueness of them. He straightened up, stepping back a little, feeling that he'd maybe crossed the line. He leaned against the railing, trying to read her downcast expression. He knew he didn't deserve anyone coming after him, her least of all. He deserved to feel lost and unwanted. But for some reason, God only knows, he wasn't. She was there to catch his fall.

Elena felt the sudden distance between the two of them, and spun to face him. She could almost see the wave of melancholy wash over his face, and she felt a pang deep inside herself. This was why she had come to find him. She didn't want him to feel that way. He'd had more than his fair share of misery, and somebody needed to go after him, to care about him, to choose him, just once. She leaned forward, reaching her arms up and circling them around his neck, then closed the remaining distance between them by pressing the side of her face to his heart. She didn't feel its beat, nor did she expect to, but it was comforting all the same. He instinctively held her even closer, wrapping his arms around her back and rested his palms flat against her shoulder blades.

"I missed you," she whispered into his jacket, the pit of her stomach suddenly feeling tight and full of hot air as he stroked the length of her spine. "I missed you so much."

His hand stopped moving along her back. "Elena, look at me." His voice was husky and vulnerable-sounding when it reached her ears, and she tilted her face up to his. His eyes were raw and ten thousand times more vulnerable than his voice when he spoke. "There's no way that I can even begin to…to tell you how much I missed you, I-" he broke off, at a loss for words, and leaned his forehead against hers, closing his eyes and breathing her air.

"I'm here now," she said softly, dropping one hand to the side of his face. "I'm here."

It seemed as if all the air surrounding them had been sucked away. Elena's heart pounded, the sound filling both of their ears. Elena's vision was filled with his eyes; the most beautiful pair of eyes she'd ever seen in this world. She knew she should hear warning bells. She should feel guilty about doing this with her boyfriend's brother, of all people. She hadn't officially broken it off with Stefan before she left, and that should make a difference. But this felt too right to stop, to think about anything else. Her forehead still against his, Elena brushed her lips against Damon's in a whisper of a kiss before capturing his bottom lip with hers. Damon was still against her, stunned in that first moment, but suddenly warmed up, his hands sliding up to the side of her face to tilt her head back, deepening the kiss. Elena's fingers delved into his silky dark hair, and she pulled herself closer to him. He kissed with so much sweetness and sensuality; as if her mouth was the most important thing on earth. Elena's knees dissolved into warm puddles, and she leaned against his strong form for support. When she became short of breath, he broke the kiss only to trail open-mouthed kisses from under her ear to her jaw line and down her neck. Elena gasped for air, her hot breath visible in the cold.

"Damon…" Elena groaned, her voice laced with warning. She wasn't going to allow herself to get carried away with Damon, not right now, and definitely not on the snow-covered roof of a public place, for Christ's sake. Damon slowly pulled away, his lips grazing the soft column of her throat. Elena shivered, her eyes pulled to his face like magnets. She couldn't help but notice that his lips were swollen. His sensitive, perfect mouth was swollen, and his usually biting blue eyes were wide and frenzied; not with hunger, but with emotion. Elena saw bewilderment, hope, and a plea for acceptance muddled in their depths. Her heart rose in her throat, and she stretched up on her toes to give him a lingering kiss on the cheek. Taking a step back, she firmly grasped his hand and tugged him toward the stairs, offering him a faint smile. He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze, stepping up to her side.

"So, where were you planning on going after this?" Elena asked him over hot chocolate as the sun was setting. They were sitting at a booth inside the restaurant on the property, which had obviously been a large stable in a past life. Light bulbs were strung in zigzags handing from the ceilings, and a single rose graced each table. It was cozy, to say the least; it matched the warm feeling spreading through Elena at the moment, and it wasn't just from the hot chocolate.

"Honestly, I had no idea. I wasn't exactly in the mood for planning a vacation at the time. I was just…drifting." Damon was drinking from a thermos of blood that he had grabbed from the trunk of his car. Elena was thankful for the opaqueness of the container; she wasn't sure she had grown used to watching people sip blood like it was a cocktail yet.

"I understand." A beat of silence passed, each buried in thought. "So where are we going to stay tonight?"

"You ask too many questions, you know that?" He chuckled teasingly. "There's an inn up the road that sounded pretty nice, I was planning on us crashing there for the night."

Elena nodded, yawning so widely that her jaw cracked.

"We could head up there now, if you'd like," Damon offered, just now noticing the deep circles under her eyes. She seriously needed to do some catching up on her sleep. Hell, they both did.

"That would be great, actu-" Elena stopped dead mid-sentence, suddenly interrupted by an eerie, lonely howl that seemed to issue from the woods a hundred yards away. Her eyes widened.

"Well that was spooky," Damon observed in a dark tone. He saw the alarm rise in Elena's expression, and quickly assumed a lighter mood. "I expect Hugh Jackman to come bounding out of the woods at any moment now. Don't worry, that kangaroo's got nothing on me." He winked, and Elena swatted his shoulder playfully, her worries forgotten. They rose to go, and as they walked across the enormous snow-covered yard to the car, some of her concern returned as she was surrounded by the dark woods in the cold. She leaned into Damon's side as they walked, and he draped an arm protectively around her shoulders, squeezing her reassuringly. As soon as they got in the car, Elena locked her door and hugged her knees to her chest. Damon would've told her to relax, but he wasn't entirely sure she should. Something felt off to him; he couldn't quite place it. He couldn't shake the notion that as darkness descended upon them, something entirely more threatening was as well. He turned up the radio, searching for a decent station obnoxiously so Elena couldn't hear the baleful howling of that something that was out there in the woods.

I know I promised a long juicy chapter, but this week has proved yet another hectic one, and this is all I had time to write. I'm sorry :( But I'm guessing you would rather me update with what I have now as opposed to waiting several more days for a longer chapter. And you can probably tell that next chapter should be pretty interesting (Damon and Elena in a hotel room together) so we'll hope that one turns out a bit longer. Please review and let me know what you think. I can't help but feel a little off my game this week. Did it get too mushy or unbelievable? Just let me know what you think; I can't even begin to explain how much you guys' amazing response means to me. Thank you so much! Looking forward to this week's episode and that "explosive turn of events" from Katherine that the writers keep hinting at (well at least I think I'm looking forward to it. You never know what they might do to us this time around). I love all of my reviewers so much, you guys can't even know how amazing you are. See you next chapter!