Less than 24 hours later and "the sad rejects of the Scooby gang," as Damon deemed them, were sitting on a private plane that had been "procured" by Rebekah.

Though Damon and Elena were sitting in adjoining seats, there was an obvious distance, both physical and metaphorical, between them.

Stefan looked at them from across the plane and tried to keep his smile to himself. He knew they were all remembering the moment earlier at the boarding house; the one Stefan assumed was only the beginning of the end.


Damon and Elena had both tossed and turned in bed for the majority of the night. Though they each knew the other was awake, they kept themselves in silence. The shadow of impending morality hung over their heads.

As much as Damon truly loved Elena, what he had told her the evening before was true: he didn't know how to be human anymore, and what's more, he wasn't even sure he wanted to try.

Elena, on the other hand, was kept awake with a small sense of betrayal. She had never questioned Damon's love for her. In the past year of craziness, his love had been her one constant. But if he wasn't willing to become human to live their life together, what did that mean? Did he not love her the way she thought he did? Was she not enough?

They had descended the stairs in silence to find everyone else already assembled in the parlor.

"So, have you guys all thought what you would do with the cure?" Stefan asked in a chipper voice. It was an innocent enough question but when Damon met his eyes he saw the glimmer of an evil plan in them.

Before anyone could respond, Bonnie shook her head and said, "No, you guys don't have a choice. If we feed the cure to Klaus, even if we don't kill him, you will all die within an hour."

"What?" Damon said incredulously.

"When he is given the cure, the vampire part of him will die meaning that the blood that runs through him that is a part of all of you will die too. Even though Klaus will now be a human, Klaus the vampire will be dead meaning all vampires descended from him will be dead too."

"What?" Damon said again, waving his arms furiously. "Didn't you think it might be a good idea to share that information with all of us BEFORE we got into this mess?"

"Why does it matter?" Bonnie asked, looking at Damon with supreme indifference.

"Maybe because some of us DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN!" Damon raged at her.

In the silence that followed his eyes were drawn to Elena where he could already see the beginning of tears in her eyes.

"So it looks like you made your choice then," Elena said softly before turning away and heading back up the stairs.

Stefan made a move to follow her but Damon quickly grabbed him by the throat and threw him across the room saying, "Don't even think about it, brother" before following Elena upstairs.

"Elena," he whispered into her ear when he found her crying in the bathroom. "I know this isn't what you wanted to hear and I'm sorry. I know we have a lot to work out, and we WILL work it out, but for now, we need to go downstairs, put smiles on our faces, and find this damn cure. Can we do that?" he asked, cupping her face gently.

She nodded and wiped her tears, bracing herself to face everyone in the parlor.

"I do love you, you know," Damon said, kissing her temple revertly.

"I know," she said before disentangling herself from his arms and walking down to the waiting people below.


Stefan, frankly was surprised that Damon and Elena were even sitting together on the plane. He assumed Damon must have managed to sweet talk Elena enough to convince her of his good intentions. Or maybe he had just used the sire bond, Stefan mused.

It wasn't really that Stefan wanted Damon to be unhappy. On the contrary, he thought after everything Damon had been through, he deserved someone to love him and make him happy. He just couldn't believe that that person was Elena. He knew the two of them had always had an intense physical connection.

Hell, I'd have to be blind to miss that.

But he had always assumed that it was more lust than anything, at least on Elena's side. In fact, he almost thought that them being together now was a good thing. She could work her lust for Damon out before she realized it wasn't enough. Then she would open her eyes and see that true love had been standing in front of her the whole time. Her and Stefan could pick up where they'd left off before his stint as a ripper and they could help Damon find someone to make him happy.

Stefan wasn't even sure of Damon's love for Elena. He knew Damon loved her to the best of his abilities but Stefan had never understood how far that went. Yes, Damon was willing to sacrifice himself and others just too keep Elena alive, regardless of the consequences, but to Stefan, that wasn't love. As Stefan saw it, Damon had placed Elena on a pedestal; he saw her as a perfect, unattainable goal. Damon strove to be good enough for her but half of Damon's love, at least in Stefan's mind, came from the journey of trying to earn it.

He was sure that after being together for a while, Damon would grow sick of the normalcy of a relationship. After all, he had never been in a functional one. He had spent his human life trying to win Katherine from Stefan and had spent the next 160 years trying to find Katherine. Everything he had done for love had been part of the journey but he had never gotten to the end point; he had never gotten the girl. Now that he had Elena, Stefan was sure the novelty would wear off and he'd fine another quest to go on; another girl to pursue.

It is really only a matter of time, he thought.


The plane finally landed on Prince Edward Island where they would need to hop onto a boat to take them to the nearby island that held the cure.

"I always wanted to come up here," Elena whispered to Damon as the stepped of the plane and everyone else went to grab their baggage and find the rental car.

"Really? Why's that? I didn't think you liked the cold, although you do look adorable all bundled up," Damon said, reaching out to squeeze her ass lightly.

Elena knew Damon was trying to return to their regularly scheduled banter to ease the tension that existed from their stressful morning and she appreciated the effort. "Hands to yourself!" she said playfully as she darted away. "No, when I was little my mom read me Anne of Green Gables and she lived here so I always wanted to visit and pretend to be her!"

"Anne of Green Gables?" Damon said thoughtfully. "Isn't that that book about that scrawny ginger orphan?" Elena nodded. "And you wanted to be her?" Damon asked incredulously. "That will not be a book we read to our children."

"Oh yeah? What kind of books are you gonna read them then? 50 Shades of—" Elena stopped suddenly just now registering the words Damon had said. "Our children?"

"Elena," Damon began earnestly, "I know I fucked up. I fucked up big time. But if this human life is the life I'm destined to have, I want to have it with you. I always thought we'd spend eternity being forever young and beautiful. Running all over the place fucking and feeding and having a grand old time. But instead, we're gonna get old and ugly and fat, well, you'll get ugly and fat at least," he said with a smirk. "But we'll be together and that's all that matters."

"I don't know if I can ever believe you," she said hesitatingly. "A part of me is always going to think you are just saying this now because you know you have no choice but to become human."

"And I don't know how to make that doubt go away. I wish I could. I wish I could take back every time I've hurt you. But I can't. All I can tell you now is that I would rather have one short, sweet human lifetime with you than 10,000 lifetimes without you."

"Come on, you two!" Caroline shouted from a waiting vehicle. "The cure's not going to find itself!"

"She's way too excited about this," Damon said, shaking his head and grabbing Elena's hand to lead her to the car.

"You know how she is. She's never happy unless she's got something to organize, someone to help, or the world to save," Elena laughed, nudging Damon in the ribs.

Damon smiled down at her as he opened the car door for her, "Let's go get human."