Chapter Seven

For the few days it took for angry red mark on Damon's face to fade, Elena couldn't look Giuseppe without wanting to rip his head off. If it hadn't been for Katherine's determined charm, mealtimes likely would have been spent in complete silence, with Damon and Giuseppe glaring daggers at each other while Stefan and Elena kept their eyes on their own plates. But Katherine managed to diffuse the tension enough that it was all bearable.

Something about that puzzled Elena. That Katherine could keep playing her part so flawlessly, preen when Giuseppe doted on her, even though she knew just as well as Elena did what had happened between him and Damon, was incredible to her. It was obvious that Damon was already in love with Katherine, but Katherine wasn't even angry with his father for striking him and belittling him. She really hadn't ever loved him, had she? But why had she strung him along when he cared so deeply? Even now, Katherine delighted in holding the question of whose invitation to the Founder's Ball she would accept over their heads. Did she not know she was going to choose Stefan? Did she think she liked both of them equally?

When word got around town that Damon had deserted, most people began to treat him with cold contempt, wearing tight smiles and slinging thinly veiled insults his way. To the untrained eye, it looked like Damon wasn't affected by any of this. He met his father's glares unflinchingly when he was in the same room with him, and he was his usual smirking, joking self with Stefan, Katherine, and Elena. He even smiled politely at the sneers that met him around town and found ways to fling the verbal barbs right back at those who spoke them.

But Elena knew Damon, and one thing that definitely never changed about him was the way he donned a mask of snarky indifference and pretended his issues were nothing. She didn't let him get away with that in the present, and she certainly wasn't going to let him get away with it now. So when, about a week after he came back, he failed to appear for lunch, Elena excused herself and went in search of him.

Even after over a week and a half, she had no idea what Katherine's game was, and she remembered all too well the time when Katherine had threatened to kill everyone she cared about if she didn't break up with Stefan. Still, she was sure Katherine would be quick to tell her if she ever stepped over a line, and since it had been her idea for Elena to go to the ball with whichever Salvatore was left over after she made her choice, Elena saw no harm in going after Damon. The one thing she knew for sure was that even if Katherine did shake things up and choose Damon, she would never take the trouble to be there for him when he needed someone.

He didn't take long to find—one of the many advantages to having vampire senses. After about ten minutes of searching, she discovered him standing at the edge of the lake near the road that led out of Mystic Falls, his horse tethered to a nearby tree. He must have dispensed with his coat somewhere, because he was down to his waistcoat and had the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to the elbows. She watched him for a moment before making her presence known. He bent down and picked up a handful of stones from the ground, then tossed one at the water. It skipped three times before sinking under the surface.

She walked closer. "Damon," she said when she was about ten feet away.

He turned head sharply to look at her, and his eyes narrowed briefly as they traveled over every feature of her face. "Elena," he said, looking back at the water and tossing the second stone, which skipped four times. Elena felt slightly hurt at the edge of disappointment in the way he said her name. He was already better at Stefan at telling her and Katherine apart, but he clearly would have preferred the other "twin" to come and find him.

"Are you okay?" she asked, walking closer.

"I'm fine," he said. "What would make you think otherwise?" The third stone plopped straight into the water without skipping at all, and he closed his eyes and grimaced.

"Whatever it is, you can talk to me," said Elena.

An incredulous smile lifted his lips, but he didn't look at her. "I appreciate the gesture, but you and I barely know each other." He threw another stone. Two skips.

"Is it something to do with your father?" she pressed.

"My father and I have never seen eye-to-eye, and that was hardly the worst of our confrontations. To be honest, I would have been more disturbed if he had welcomed me with open arms rather than an open hand."

He saw Elena's stricken expression and immediately withdrew behind a mask of proper, reserved gentleman. "Forgive me, this isn't the sort of thing one talks about in polite company."

"Then I give you permission to be impolite," said Elena, reaching out and touching his forearm. The contact sent a familiar surge of heat and electricity sweeping from her fingertips through her entire body, but she had a lot of practice in hiding her reactions to this man, so the only hint of it that escaped her was a slight shudder as she exhaled. Damon didn't see it; his eyes were on the delicate fingers resting on his skin. Then they lifted to meet hers in an almost quizzical way, and she wondered if he'd felt the same thing she had. She had to resist the urge to grab him and kiss him.

Damon chuckled and shook his head before looking out at the lake again. "Enlisting was the only thing I've ever done that made my father proud, and I took that away from him," he said with a shrug. "So I don't blame him for reacting the way he did."

"Why can't he just be proud of you because you're his son? He doesn't seem to have this problem with Stefan." Elena didn't want to pit the two brothers against each other, but she couldn't pretend there wasn't a real disparity in how their father treated them, nor could she pretend it didn't upset her.

"It's because I'm not him," said Damon. "I'm the eldest, the heir. I'm supposed to be my father over again, but I'm not. Stefan, on the other hand, is the baby. He's free to be whatever he wants and is guaranteed to have Father's blessing."

"What do you want to be?" said Elena. She knew Stefan had planned on becoming a doctor before he was turned and everything changed, but she had no idea what Damon's plans had been.

"I don't know," he said. "Before the war, I had a notion of doing something in politics. It wasn't business, so it made Father angry, which made it all the more appealing to me. I graduated from the University of Virginia with a law degree, and I was thinking of starting in the city council here in Mystic Falls, but...well, now I'm a deserter, so I'll have to reconsider my ambitions."

Elena had to stop herself from chuckling. The idea of Damon doing something as normal and boring as pursuing a political career was so strange to her, and yet she was sure he would have been wonderful at it. He'd managed to become head of the founders' council in the present in less than a year, despite being one of the creatures the council existed to destroy. He had all the charm and charisma of a politician and the strength to make the hard choices even when it made him unpopular.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask you," said Damon, his tone much lighter than before, yet somehow also oddly stiff.

"Oh?" said Elena, feeling her pulse kick up a notch.

He turned to face her and took both of her hands in his. "Would you, Miss Elena Pierce, do me the honor of allowing me to escort you to the Founder's Ball next week?"

Elena's mouth fell open in surprise. Unfortunately, it took her brain longer to recover than her voice. "But I thought you wanted to go with Katherine," she blurted. His jaw tightened. "She's taking Stefan, isn't she?"

"She's taking Stefan," he repeated hollowly.

So that's why he was out here. It hadn't been about Giuseppe after all. She nodded slowly and swallowed, looking down at their hands. "So you asked me before she could make a big game out of pairing up the leftovers." The bitter taste in her mouth was strong, and she pulled her hands away. "What is this to you? Am I just a spare so you don't have to go alone, or do you mean to make Katherine jealous? Or since I look like her, are you just going to pretend I am her?"

"I'm sorry," he said, looking bewildered, "but you made no objection when Katherine said Stefan and I should each take one of you, so I assumed—" He broke off with a wince. "I suppose you were hoping she would choose me so that you could go with Stefan."

"No!" said Elena, seizing his hands again. She was on the brink of confessing to Damon just how badly she wanted to go with him, but he'd only known her a week and was most definitely still in love with Katherine. At best, such a confession would earn her his pity, which she didn't want at all. "I have no preference, but I do not wish to be anyone's consolation prize. If I am to go with you, then I need to know that you'll be going with me."

Damon's eyes widened and he stared at her for a moment. "Forgive me," he said, squeezing her fingers slightly. "I'm afraid I failed to consider your feelings, but I will not make that mistake again." One corner of his lips twitched upward and his expression became rather shrewd. "I take it this sort of thing happens rather often to an identical twin."

"You have no idea," said Elena ruefully. "For example, you and your Father both said 'Two of you?' when you first saw me and Katherine together, as if we're only two copies of the same person, and it's happened before. Katherine thinks it's all very amusing, but I want to be Elena, not merely one half of the Pierce twins whole." Pierce twins, Petrova doppelgängers—there wasn't much difference, really.

"Well then, Elena," said Damon, his smirk returning, "I would be delighted to accompany you to the ball, if you'll have me."

She smiled. "I would love to have you accompany me, Damon." His smirk turned into a full smile, and again she was visited by a powerful desire to kiss him. The knowledge that she could just compel him to forget again did nothing for her self-control in that area, but she managed to resist somehow.

"I think I should probably return now," he said, looking back the way they'd come and releasing her hands. "Would you like me to escort you back?" he added as he went over to retrieve his horse from where he'd tied it up, then returned to her side, leading the horse by the reins in his right hand and offering her his left arm.

"Thank you," she said, looping her own arm through it.

They walked together in comfortable silence for a while, before he said, "Anyone who's really looking should be able to tell you and Katherine apart at once."

She smiled at him again, but it was forced. Both "first" times he'd met her, he'd thought she was Katherine. Logic insisted that she couldn't hold either of those times against him, because he'd had no idea there was another option to choose from, but it still hurt. Would he have noticed her at all if it hadn't been for Katherine? Would Stefan, for that matter?

It wasn't until later that afternoon that she realized how much she liked being Damon's friend, whether it was in the past or the present. Even if nothing else could happen without changing the past beyond repair, she knew she'd never be able to prevent herself from being his friend.

And it wasn't until she was beginning to drift off in her bed that night after another successful zero-casualties hunt with Katherine that she realized she had been able to seek Damon out on purpose without the slightest resistance, as if the sire bond had never existed. Maybe because it didn't exist yet, or because Damon wasn't a vampire yet.