A/N: Hi folks! *Waves* Soooo, I'm not really sure whether there's much point in continuing this story, as I said I know I've been a little lax in posting and I do plan on rectifying that but if no-one is reading it then there's probably no point in finishing writing it. That being said, if you are reading it then please, pretty, pretty please leave me a review. Here be Chapter 7. I do not own TVD.

Loud Like Love

"Breathe, Breathe, Breathe, Believe
That We Are Loud Like Love"

First thing in the morning found Elena, Stefan and Katherine waiting in the living room for their friends to arrive, and for Damon to appear from wherever he had been hiding himself for the last hour. Having had a restless night's sleep he had taken himself off to a quiet part of the house, presumably to clear his head and get into planning mode.

"It's always Mystic Falls, isn't it?" Katherine grumbled while they were waiting. "This place is a death trap I swear to God. Maybe we should just stay in Italy" she said with a laugh while Stefan nodded his head in agreement.

Elena let out a puff of exasperation, she hadn't been lying when she'd said that she hoped they would get to live for a little while with no drama, sure the dramatics were exciting and had basically become the 'new normal' but it would have been nice to have gone...at least a year...without having to deal with any of it she thought to herself.

Just as Elena opened her mouth to respond to Katherine the front door burst open and their friends voices spilled into the house.

"Good morning" Caroline shouted, chipper as always. "Through here" Stefan shouted back equally cheerfully.

Elena looked around at her friends as they all took a seat and smiled at Caroline's ever present bag of tricks, or, bag of notepads, pens, post-it notes and whatever else it was she thought they needed to plan the newest 'save everyone' mission in their lives.

"Where's Bonnie?" Elena asked her brother.

Damon's POV

"Where's Sabrina?" Damon demanded as he strode into the living room and took in the faces of everyone that had arrived, noting immediately the absence of the witch.

"I'm right here Damon" Bonnie replied breathlessly as she rushed into the house clutching bags of books in her hands.

"Sorry, I forgot one of the books I needed" she explained before raising an eyebrow at him and going on "and you would think, after 3 months of only each other for company we'd have gotten to the stage where you can call me by my name" she said throwing a mock glare at him.

"Sorry...Bonnie. When I get into 'hero-mode' the nicknames come out in force" Damon replied with a strained smile, but his words had the desired effect and everybody laughed, lightening the tension in the air.

Elena patted the seat next to her, indicating for Damon to come and sit beside her but he just shook his head lightly at her and started pacing the floor.

"Okay" he said after a few minutes of restless pacing.

"The deed to the house is in Jeremy's name, which is good, great even. It means no vampire can enter uninvited, but that doesn't mean we're all automatically protected. I think that for the foreseeable future you should all move in here" he said looking at Bonnie, Caroline, Jeremy and Ric individually.

Caroline and Ric both nodded their assent but Jeremy wasn't so happy with the idea.

"No way man. Bonnie and I will stay in our house, no vampires can get in there either and I don't really...um...I mean...anyway" he trailed off looking at Bonnie for help in explaining why he didn't want to move back into the Salvatore house.

"Jeremy is right Damon" Bonnie said quietly, "we will be fine in my house, only the vampires in this room have been invited in and it's probably...safer" she supplied "for Jeremy to continue living with me anyway"

Damon was still looking at Jeremy with a bemused look on his face, what was the big deal about moving into the house? Surely he wasn't still worried that he'd kill them all in his sleep was he? But he wasn't about to get into an argument with him or Bonnie about it, if they really didn't want to stay in the house then that was fine.

"Okay fine, whatever you want. But you both need to be here first thing every morning, and Little Gilbert will still have to do 'invite' duties when needed"

"Ric, Stefan and I will be on recon; we'll spend the next few days looking around town, see if we can't find anything out of the ordinary...or out of the ordinary for Mystic Falls anyway" he grumbled.

Damon took a deep breath before adding the next part of his plan, he knew this bit probably wouldn't go down well but he had to do it anyway.

"Bonnie, Caroline" he looked at both girls "Keep looking for something. Anything. I want this spell broken" he looked at Elena briefly enough to catch the look of pure contempt that flashed through her eyes and was about to speak up again in the hopes of preventing a fight when Bonnie cut in.

"Damon...I mean, we've already been through all of the books, there's nothing"

"Then look again" he snapped angrily and Bonnie nodded her head while Caroline rolled her eyes.

"Our only advantage" Damon said with a wry smile, "Ironically enough, is Katherine" he said nodding his head towards her. "These, whoever they are, will be confused; they won't know Katherine from Elena, or Elena from Katherine or who the heck is who. Which means that Elena" he said turning to look at her for the first time since the previous conversation, "You'll have to stay inside for the time being"

"Fabulous" Katherine grumbled dryly, "I'll be the one who ends up getting staked" she moaned but the hint of amusement in her eyes gave away the fact that she was joking.

Elena's POV

Elena sat quietly, getting more and more annoyed with Damon as he went on. His plan was all well and good, at least, parts of it were. But she was getting really sick of having the same argument over and over...and over again, why wouldn't he accept that she wasn't a china doll?

"I will not be a prisoner in my own home Damon" she said jumping up off of the couch and stalking over to him.

"Uh-oh" she heard Katherine whisper in the background, "here comes trouble."

Damon raised his hand to Elena's arm when she approached him but she just shrugged him violently off of her.

"No Damon, this is ridiculous. I mean, you're plan is good and all, but first of all you can't use Katherine as bait..."

"Elena" Katherine interjected, "It's not...bait. It's just, uh, distraction" she said trying to help Damon out of the mess he'd gotten himself into.

"Shh! Katherine" Elena said throwing her friend an angry glare before turning back to Damon.

"Damon" she spoke again, trying to soften her voice a little and failing miserable. "I will not be a prisoner in my own home. I am stronger now; I'm a vampire for god sake, just like you, Caroline, Katherine, Stefan, Ric. I can take care of myself. And you know this! You're the one that's been helping Ric train me! I am not a weakling Damon" she ground out angrily, her voice rising until she was shouting at him.

"Elena please" Damon said, trying once again to place his hands on her but again she just shrugged him away.

"I know you're not a weakling, I never said that. And Katherine is right, it's not about using her as bait, I wouldn't do that, it's about creating a distraction" he threw a grateful glance at Katherine who nodded her head in response. "But you will stay inside Elena. I know you're stronger now but you're still...the youngest and I will not allow you to risk your life. I will not put you in danger"

"Oh great" Elena cried "so now I'm the weak link because I'm the youngest?" she screeched at Damon. "God Damon you are so full of shit"

"Elena!" Bonnie gasped and Elena whirled around to face her friend.

"And you" she said pointing her finger at Bonnie "will stop looking for a way to break the spell. I am so sick of this. There is no way to break it. You know that, I know that, he knows that" she paused for a minute before turning back to look at Damon, but this time the look on her face had changed from one of anger to one of unadulterated hurt.

"Unless...unless you're doing it because you really don't want to be bound to me...is that what this is, Damon? Maybe it's not even about these vampires that are trying to kill us all again. Maybe it's just you, or maybe...maybe it's just me. So tell the truth Damon, what is it? Because if it's not what you want...if I'm not what you want then I think you better tell me right fucking now" Elena knew she was being irrational, but she couldn't stop the doubts from surfacing. Every time Damon mentioned breaking the spell, and he did, frequently, those doubts crept back in again.

The thought that it wasn't because he was worried about her getting hurt or worse, but that it was actually because he couldn't bear the idea of being bound to her forever. That maybe he thought they weren't forever. These thoughts had Elena crying once more, irritated with herself she wiped angrily at her face.

It wasn't supposed to go this way, she'd just meant to say her piece and be done with it, she hadn't meant to go so far and now all of her friends were gawking at her with varying looks of surprise and shock and Damon looked at her as if she'd grown a new head all of a sudden but he didn't say a word.

For minutes Elena and Damon stood staring at each other, Damon still refusing to speak and Elena refusing to give him the satisfaction of being the first to break the silence, the longer it went on however, the more she convinced herself that she was right.

Eventually Caroline had had enough of the fighting and the tense stare-off between Damon and Elena.

"Uh guys" she said, standing up and clearing her throat uneasily. "We don't even know who we're fighting...but it probably shouldn't be each other."