I don't own The Vampire Diaries.
I don't own Damon and Elena or any other characters used.
I only take credit for the story line and plot.
It might start off slow but things will pick up. It won't be a happy story from the get go but it will be interesting.
If any of this is copyrighted or already written tell me and I'll take it down but I don't believe it is. The hallucinating that Elena is experiencing will be explained throughout the story.
Read and Review please.
Chapter 8- You want me to what?
Okay so I had three options.
One, Johnathan Gilbert was fucking crazy and I should look for hidden cameras and people who will jump out yelling 'Smile! You're on candid camera'.
Two, I was dreaming or living in an alternate universe. When in reality I was still laying next to Damon and when I'd wake up and tell him the story he'd laugh at me.
Or three, I was crazy because I was really considering his offer.
Shit, I mentally cursed myself. I knew it was option three. I looked around at all the people in the room. Everyone looked happy except for Katherine, her gaze was almost murderous. I tried to shake it off as I turned back to Johnathan Gilbert, or my dad if I was going to trust what he was telling me. "Okay, IF I do this and that's a big if. You said there was one thing I'd have to do first, what exactly is that?" I was nervous because I had read books and seen TV shows where people who had money actually picked who you married and I didn't want to marry anyone but Damon so if that was his condition, I'd walk immediately.
"You have to get help for your drug problem." I stare at him dumbfounded. How the hell did he know about that? "Katherine told us everything." I glare at her as he continues talking. "I know that it hurt losing your parents and then finding out that the man you love loves someone else but believe me Elena, nothing can take away that pain darling." What the hell is he talking about?
KNOCK!
KNOCK!
KNOCK!
"I'll get it." Levi gets up and goes to answer the door.
What the hell did Katherine tell them? They are both looking at me like I'm a crazy person who is about to snap.
"Where the hell is she?!" I snap my head up as I hear Damon's voice. The other three people also look towards the entrance to the room and my heart starts doing somersaults when I see him.
"Damon!" I launch myself at him and he hugs me tighter than usual. I could feel that he was worried about me. I see Katherine suppressing a smirk over his shoulder. I don't have time to ask why she's smirking or ask Damon how he found me as my world comes shattering down around me with one sentence from Johnathan Gilbert.
"Elena, let go of your sisters fiancee."
Damon freezes and so do I. I see the people walking in behind him, Stefan along with three others I don't know but they all freeze too. Fiancee? My sisters...KATHERINE'S FIANCEE...what the hell?! Suddenly her smirking makes sense, she knew he'd say something. What the hell is she playing at? I don't release my arms from Damon's neck and he doesn't remove his arms from my waist. I clamp my eyes closed praying that when I open them time will have rewound itself and John hadn't really had spoken. I open them again and I see a very confused but wary Levi looking from Katherine to where Damon and I are hugging each other. Then that damn voice again.
"Elena. Your sisters fiancee, please let him go."
I slowly release Damon and growl at Katherine. "What the hell did you tell them?! He's not your fucking fiancee! He doesn't even like you! He loves me!"
Katherine doesn't answer. She just walks up and puts her arms around Damon's waist and I see him stiffen like he's been touched by a fire poker.
"Elena. Honey, it's okay." I look at John Gilbert and see his face is...compassionate. Awkward. "Everyone pretends but you need to get help so you can see what is real honey. Damon is marrying Katherine, she told us about 3 months ago."
"But he doesn't...he never...IT'S A FUCKING LIE!" I try to get him to see reason but he's still looking at me as if I'm a severely crazy person.
"Please there is no reason for cursing Elena. We will get you the help you need. You just need to realize that Damon is in love with Katherine, I'm sorry sweetie."
"I'm not! She's trying to tell you!" I turn around when I hear Damon's raised voice. He has maneuvered out of Katherine's arms and is across the room from her and holding a box, THE box. The one with the ring he got for me in it. He puts it back in his pocket and keeps talking. "I don't love Katherine, I never did. I dated her yes but I never proposed to her. We aren't getting married."
I look at John Gilbert as he is now looking very much confused. "Then why would she tell us that? Katherine has never lied to us before." I glance towards Katherine and it seems she's having a stare down with Levi. I wonder what that's about. "She has no reason to lie to us now."
"She's lying." It's not Damon who speaks nor Stefan or either of the guys with him. It's Levi. He walks to stand in front of me and in doing so he also positioned me in front of Damon and it's like an Elena sandwich now. "Katherine is lying out her ass. Sorry for the language dad." He turns and looks at Katherine. "I've always been good at reading people, YOU especially since I grew up with you. I see the fact that Damon is in love with someone in this room but it's not you. He almost threw up when you touched him. In turn you got nervous and I could practically hear the gears turning in your head trying to come up with an idea, no doubt against Elena. Now, why would you do that? Let me venture a guess. You want the company. You want what you know has always belonged to Elena since the day she was born, whether she was raised by mom and dad or not. Am I right Kat?"
She looks like a kid who just got scolded for having their hands in the cookie jar. I look around the room and I assume that his parents trust him because they too are now looking at Katherine like she's lying through her teeth. She grits her teeth and steps towards me and Levi steps towards her glaring at her just as harshly. He plants his feet securely in front of me. Out of nowhere the image of a lion protecting it's cub comes to my mind.
"Levi you know as well as I do that she doesn't deserve it! She doesn't deserve anything! She wasn't raised in this life and she will run that company into the ground! She doesn't even deserve a man like Damon he's 4 years older than her did you know that?!"
"I honestly don't care how old he is. He loves her and any idiot can see that and see that she feels the same way. As for her ability to run the company leave that up to dad and she won't be on her own, I'll help her for as long as she needs. This is her birthright Kat. She's still a Gilbert. You know as well as I do what that in itself means?"
She steps closer to him. "I know damn well what that means. And you should know that Gilbert's don't give up. I may have taken Nick's name but I'm still a Gilbert and I won't stop until I get what I want." She looks at Damon as she says her next line. "Everything I want." With that she turned on her heel and slammed the door behind her.
Nobody spoke for a while. We all listened as a car started and peeled out of the driveway and down the street. Her threat hangs in the air and it's crystal clear. I've never been scared before but at that moment I'm petrified. I can see it in John and Isobel's faces, they are scared and confused. That was definitely not the Katherine that they knew. Levi looks as if he could murder a whole town before he would even let her back in his life or anyone else's lives in this room. Damon looked like he wanted to move me to the most remote island and never let me come back as long as Katherine was alive, I couldn't disagree with him. I would do what I had to do to make sure she never hurt him. Belatedly I noticed that Stefan was still standing stock still with the other three people who had shown up with him and Damon.
"Uh, just wondering. Damon who are your friends?" I'm finally the one who breaks the silence as I turn around and look at him.
This seems to jar everyone back to the present and he shakes his head like he's trying to remember their names. "Um, this you know is Stefan obviously. And that's Elijah, his sister Rebekah, and his brother Finn. Elijah and I went to college together before he transferred to a college out here instead of staying with me at UCLA."
I nod my head. "Hey Stefan. Nice to meet you Elijah, Rebekah, Finn."
I'm surprised when Elijah comes up and hugs me like I'm a long lost friend. "It's finally nice to meet you Elena! I've heard so much about you from this lovesick puppy dog behind you. Seriously, he was going crazy in LA with you all the way back in Mystic Falls. I swear I don't know how he managed to stay enrolled there so long, every day it was Elena this and Elena that and on and on and on."
I stifle a laugh as I look again at Damon and he's blushing. "Thanks a lot Elijah. Make me sound like a teenage girl." He laughs along with me until we are once again interrupted by John Gilbert.
"Elena. I'm sorry. I should have listened to you. Damon, would you like to stay for dinner? I would love to get to know the man who captured my Elena's heart. Stefan, Elijah, Rebekah, Finn you are all invited too of course" I watch silently as Damon, Stefan and their friends the accept the offer. We walk into the dining room and we all sit down to eat.
Well to say that dinner was awkward would be an understatement. We keep up the light conversations purposely avoiding the elephant in the room. How could Katherine keep something this big hidden from me? How did I not find any of this out within the year I lived with her? The answer is obvious, I never looked. I didn't really care about Katherine, not intimately or romantically or after her threat to Elena not even as a friend anymore so I never really took the time to get to know her family. The main reason I took her on as a roommate was because I needed help with rent, which she helped with, plus between her job during the day and my job at night we were barely in the apartment together. The morning that Jeremy showed up was just because I had that night off by chance. I don't know what else Katherine has told John Gilbert but he keeps looking at Elena like he's studying her and waiting for her to blow up. I remember the ring in my pocket and now seeing how happy John and Isobel are at having Elena in their home I make a spur of the moment decision.
"John, do you mind if I talk to you privately? Just for a moment." He looks up at me and nods. I lean down and kiss Elena's forehead. "I'll be right back babe. Eat your dessert." She nods and starts to eat her chocolate cake.
I follow John as he leads the way through the kitchen and out the back door. Damn this house has a huge ass back yard. Who would have thought looking at how simple this small, homey two story house looked? He leads me a good distance from the back doors probably so we won't be overheard. He finally stops and he wants to tell me something but it's as if he's trying to gather his thoughts. Finally after some time he speaks to me.
"Is it true? About Elena and the...the drugs?"
"Drugs? It's just we...marijuana. That's it just one drug." I see him nod but continue telling him what I needed to say. "But I want to help her, I've already made plans to help her."
He looks up at me but then he sits on the grass. What the hell? This isn't the John Gilbert that Grayson always described. He motions for me to sit down and I join him sitting on the grass. "How do you plan to help her?"
I clear my throat. "There's a rehab center in Mystic Falls that can help her and Stefan. Stefan would have to stay there but Elena would be an outpatient program. She would just need a stable environment to live in, which I think she has three choices. She could continue living with Jeremy and Ric at the Gilbert house, or she could move in with me at the boardinghouse, or her and I could move into the lake house."
He takes in what I say and after a while leans back onto his palms. "How will you pay for all of this? If you're paying for your brother, which you don't have to tell me what's going on there, but how will you pay for Elena as well? Rehab costs money and..."
"My parents." I didn't cut him off because he trailed off at the end of his sentence. The message was received. He didn't know who the Salvatore's were. "They had a business similar to Gilbert Enterprises, but I had to sell it after they died. They set up two trust funds, one for me and one for Stefan. We couldn't touch the money until we turned 21. Mine became accessible 2 years ago while Stefan's is still frozen. In the trust fund is enough money to pay for both Stefan and Elena's rehab and still have some left over. I've never had a reason to touch the money until now. I love her and I want to help her."
He nods and I see a smile cross his face. "I heard about your parents and I'm sorry Damon, I really am. I'm proud of you though. My brother told me everything you did to keep your family together, you made the right decisions Damon. There is though one more thing I have to ask you." I nod for him to continue. "Katherine. She had said you were serious about her, was that ever true?"
I consider his question. Was I ever really serious about Katherine? "With all due respect, no. You see...something had happened in Mystic Falls and it nearly broke me. It took me years to pull myself together and get out of the depression it sent me spiraling into, but I got through it. I met Katherine at UCLA and I didn't know what had attracted me to her until I really thought about it. It was Elena. She had the same brown hair, brown eyes, skin color, height, she reminded me of Elena. I knew she wasn't her but I asked her to move in with me. I need a roommate to help with rent and she was more than happy to. I know that sounds bad but it's the truth. I'm being honest with you. Katherine and I were never...intimate. I couldn't go there. She kept wanting to and I know she wanted to move things faster and get to the stage that comes after the holding hands phase but I couldn't. My heart still belonged to Elena. Jeremy showed up one morning asking for help, I didn't know about Grayson, Miranda, or Jenna. I went with him without looking back or thinking about how it would affect Katherine. I never felt for her what she obviously feels for me."
"Thank you for your honesty."
I can't read his face but I know that what I told him is very different from what Katherine must have told him. Has she really been lying this much? Honesty, that word sticks out in my mind and the ring in my pocket seems to gain 100 more pounds. "In regards to being honest there is one more thing I'd like to talk to you about." I look him in the eyes and he nods for me to continue. Damn, it's almost like he knows what's coming. "Elena, she's special. I've loved her my whole life. I already talked to Grayson and Miranda about this before they passed but now...now I want to talk to you about this." I pull the box out of my pocket and set it on the ground between us. "I want to marry Elena. It doesn't have to be soon or even within a year...I just want to marry her someday. I want your permission. I see how happy you and Isobel are in there with her and I see a spark of life in her eyes that's been missing for a while and I think..."
"It's you Damon, not us." His answer takes me by surprise. He's smiling and laughing a little bit. "The spark in her...it's you that is the reason for it. Not us. Yes she might like finding out she has family and that she has a big brother but she loves you and you have my permission to marry her. I'd love to have you in the family officially and as long as you keep making her happy you're fine in my books."
I nod my head and smile at him in return. He gets up and leads the way back inside. They aren't in the dining room anymore they are now in the living room laughing. I hear Stefan finish telling them some funny story and it hits me that it's the thing we talked about in the car. Wizard of Oz character analysis. "Well if it isn't Mr. Scarecrow not using his brain. Oh wait, he doesn't have one. Good thing he lives with the Wizard then huh Lena?" I raise an eyebrow at her and she laughs at me.
"Mm-hmm and just for the record. I always thought Glenda and the Wizard would make an awesome couple." She wiggles her eyebrows.
I think back over the conversation I had outside with John. He gave me his permission. I had the ring in my pocket. Elena and I had reunited emotionally and physically at the lake house. She was openly flirting with me in front of family and friends. My mind was made up now. I knew exactly when I wanted to propose to her. "Elena. Can I talk to you for a moment?" She gets up and starts to walk towards the dining room but I grab her around the waist. "In here please."
She looks surprised. "Okay. Is everything okay Damon?"
I smile and walk her so that we are now standing in front of everyone. I see out of the corner of my eye that John whispers something to Isobel and she is seriously fighting the urge to jump up and down. I take a deep breath. Damn sweaty palms. I mentally curse myself and consider rethinking of doing this in private but then again you only get to do this once. Better do it fucking right.
"Elena. I love you. I've loved you ever since you took your first steps into my arms and said the name 'Damon' in your living room. People always said that it was wrong but to me it never was. You had my heart from the moment you turned 8 years old. I started to see you differently, and I came to learn you saw me different too. It was a miracle that someone as beautiful and wonderful as you could fall for someone like me. We fell in love and we never stopped falling. There were bumps along the way but we always came out stronger. I love you so much and I don't know what I'd do without you. I don't want to know either before you ask. I told you last night at the lake house that you held my heart and it's true, you do. I don't ever want it back Lena." I get down on one knee and take another deep breath. "Marry me Elena? Please. I can't promise that it will always be easy but I can promise that I'll always love you. I'll always choose you. I'll cherish you and I'll put you on a pedestal. Marry me? Be Mrs. Salvatore. What do you say babe?"
I don't have to kneel long luckily. After just a few seconds she nods and replies "I thought you'd never ask!" I jump up and slide the ring on her finger. The room erupts into applause and in Isobel's case crying. It's amazing that she's only just now started to get to know Elena but she already loved her so much. I guess it's true there is nothing like a mothers love.
Two more hours pass and John insists Elena and I stay the night at the house. We accept and I give Stefan money for a hotel and Jeremy's car keys. Elijah quickly gives me the money back and insists Stefan stay at his house for the night. I pull him aside and ask him to keep an eye on Stefan. He doesn't ask why but I think he gets the message because we did get close while he was at school with me. I was almost as close to him as I was with Ty.
Elena and I retire to our room, because John and Isobel insist we share because their logic is that we'd end up together anyway so why not just share a room. I can't argue with their logic. I lay next to Elena under the covers and pull her close to me. "I'm so happy you want to marry me Lena."
"Why wouldn't I want to? I love you Damon."
I sigh and place my finger under her chin to pull her up so she's looking at me. "Lena, there is something I want to talk to you about. I know you probably won't want to but I think it would be best if..."
"If I go to rehab to help me kick the weed addiction?"
I'm taken aback when she interrupts me. How the hell did she know? "How...how did you know?"
"I found the papers in your shirt pocket babe. I've already made a decision. I'll go. I'll move into the rehab center for as long as it takes."
I raise my eyebrows at her. "It's an outpatient thing Lena. You wouldn't have to stay there. But I was wondering if you'd like to move in with me? You'll need a stable living environment and we're getting married anyways and I love you."
"You want me to what?"
I stare at her. This is too fast. Shit, I'm freaking her out. I mentally curse myself for being this stupid. I just got back into town and now I've proposed and NOW I want her to move in with me. "I want you to move in with me. I know it's too soon so just forget it. It's fine. You don't..."
"I want to live with you Damon. I just didn't think you'd want me to. Not yet at least."
I hug her tighter. She couldn't be more wrong. I feel her kiss my chest and I kiss the top of her head. "Hmm lets get some sleep now baby. We've got a long drive back to Mystic Falls and you're brother is going to want to kick my ass for taking his car on a road trip without telling him."
"YOU DID WHAT DAMON!"
I smile the biggest smile and keep her head on my chest. "Shhh. Sleeping Lena. Good night."
I feel her chuckle and then we fall into a deep sleep. This night couldn't get any better. Nothing could ruin this night.
Little did I know, I had let my guard down and there was a psychopath on the other side of the bedroom door seething at the fact Elena and I were engaged and returning to Mystic Falls to live together.
