Setting Things Right
DG32173
Sarah: here's chapter nine, which was started around the middle of chapter seven being written. I hope you enjoy. Also, I don't own the song "My Everything" by 98 Degrees. Also, the racial oaths are something I made up for my TVD fanfics. Ask before using and wait for a reply before posting any stories you use them in.
CREDIT
I've now got another new beta reader, since I've lost all contact with my last one. crzykittyfangirl, thanks so much for agreeing to both beta for me and help me with my muse when she gets stubborn.
REVIEW REPLIES
Guest of Chapter 1: I haven't seen very far into Season 5 and nothing of the later seasons so I don't know who Henry Wattle is. As for saving Harper, there wasn't enough portrayal of him in the show for me to feel comfortable writing about him, even as a reference. And Elena knows nothing about those two at this point in the story so she wouldn't be able to get Sheila Bennett to agree to spare them. Sorry. I wish you had left a name to call me by. Glad you like the story, though.
Tweeky: a Pearl/Alaric pairing isn't gonna happen, sadly. Alaric falls for Jenna in Seasons 1 and 2 and I'm going to stick with that. As for the other part of your review, you'll see what happens when it happens. I don't like giving spoilers. Glad you have enjoyed it so far.
Guest of Chapter 8 (what the site calls Chapter 9): here's more.
menna. : thank you for the compliments. Here's the update.
crzykittyfangirl: I replied to you in a PM but I'm reiterating how glad I am for your review here. Thanks.
Chapter 9
Convincing Jenna & Moving In
I take a deep, steadying breath. "Let me face her with this," I tell Damon, who's watching me from the driver's seat of the Camaro. We're parked in my driveway. "You wait on the porch. You'll be able to hear everything from there and she won't feel like she's being tag-teamed."
He snorts. "Okay," he says dryly. "I wait on the porch while you go face mama bear and tell her that you, one of her cubs, wants to move in with the guy you've been dating for a week. That'll go over real smooth."
I roll my eyes. "At least we aren't facing my parents with this," I point out. "If anyone was ever a mama bear, it was Mom. We'd have to tag-team her first and then she'd pass us over to Dad, who would be even harder to convince. Jenna, I'm quite certain I can win over to the idea on my own. After all, she likes you. Not to mention she's pretty low-key when it comes to the legal guardian stuff. Which means as long as we aren't doing something illegal, Jenna lets Jer and I get away with just about anything. Not to mention, she's actually letting me date you. She knows your older than me, even if she doesn't know how much older. My parents would have been a lot harder to win over to the idea of me dating an older guy. So, let me deal with Jenna. You wait on the porch. Or at the very least wait in the living room and pretend not to be listening in."
"I can handle the living room. The porch is a no-go," he says before climbing out.
I quickly climb out as well and Damon locks up after I shut my door. He follows me up the porch stairs. I test the door knob on the front door and find that it's unlocked. I open the door and walk in. Damon comes in behind me. "Jenna?" I call.
"Kitchen," she calls back.
I pause in the living room and point firmly at the couch while glaring at Damon. He raises his hands in surrender and obediently flops on the couch, crossing his legs at the ankle and putting his feet on the coffee table. I roll my eyes and continue into the kitchen to find Jenna sipping at a glass of cognac. I feel a very weird sense of déjà vu sweep over me because this is remarkably similar to when Damon brought me home after our trip to Georgia. "Jenna, Damon asked me to do something and I'd like your permission to go through with it," I start.
"It's not marriage, is it?" she asks, wrinkling her nose.
"No," I assure her. She relaxes and takes a sip of her drink. "Damon wants me to move in with him."
Jenna nearly spits out her drink at that. Thankfully, she forces herself to swallow it. "Okay, wasn't expecting that one," she says. She runs a hand through her hair. "Why?" she asks.
"Well, I've been spending pretty much all my time with him when I'm not in school, so he wants me to move in with him and make it official," I explain.
"Make what official?" Jenna asks.
"Our relationship," I reply.
"And it's not already official?" Jenna asks, raising an eyebrow.
I blush. "It was more of a friends-with-benefits relationship," I explain. "He was focused on someone else so I made do with what I could get from him. But now he says he's serious about me. He wants me to move in so we can officially become exclusive to each other. And I really want to accept his invitation but you're my legal guardian, so I have to run it by you first."
"And you're sure he's not going to change his mind?" Jenna asks.
"I'm sure," I assure her, thinking about the mating mark hidden beneath the collar of this shirt I've borrowed from Damon. Once we realized that it was indeed a vampire mating mark he left me with, that sent all other options out the window. We're bound together for eternity by it. "He's not going to change his mind, ever."
Jenna shakes her head and looks over my shoulder towards the living room. I turn to see Damon twiddling his thumbs while staring at the ceiling. I turn back to Jenna when she speaks. "Are you sure about him, Elena?" Jenna asks in resignation.
I let a small smile grace my lips. "I've never been more sure of something in my life, Jenna. He's the one for me, I just know it. Even eternity isn't long enough to spend at his side," I tell her.
"And you've thought this through?" Jenna presses. "I mean, sure, he's hot and all, but looks aren't everything."
"Jenna, he's hot, intelligent, funny, he knows exactly who I am and accepts that. He has a temper and can be a total ass when he wants to be, but I can handle that. I need him, Jenna. And, even if he tries to deny it, I know he needs me, too. I can't imagine any joy in my life if he's not in it. Mom always told me that when you meet The One, you just know. I've tried denying it for too damn long. Then I woke up and realized just what he means to me. He's my everything, just like the song," I tell her.
"Quoting 98 Degrees, Elena?" Jenna asks with a chuckle.
I roll my eyes. "That song tells precisely how I feel about him," I tell her. I glance over my shoulder to see that Damon had pulled out his phone and is typing on it. Obviously, he's going to look up that song. I turn back to Jenna. "I feel free when I'm with him. I don't have to hide any part of who I am because I know he accepts me for who I am. Jenna, I'm hopelessly and irrevocably in love with him. I've never felt this strongly for anyone until he walked into my life."
Jenna sighs. "And how does he feel about you?" she asks.
"Damon doesn't like to wear his emotions on his sleeve," I tell her slowly. "But I know he cares about me a great deal. He's not the kind of guy who opens up to just anyone, definitely not the way he's opened up to me. I get the distinct feeling that I understand him even better than his own brother does. It may not be actual 'love' just yet, but I know he's devoted exclusively to me. And I'm exclusively his as well. And I can be patient now that I have that much. I'm not going to push him. Damon gets rather nasty when he's being pushed into something. I have time." 'I just don't know how much of it,' I think sadly.
Jenna purses her lips, examining me thoughtfully for a while before turning her gaze over my shoulder to examine Damon. "Well, if you want this that badly," she starts.
"I do," I tell her fervently.
"Then who am I to stand in your way?" she concludes. "Just be sure to keep in contact with me and your brother."
"I promise," I tell her.
"Speaking of your brother, he had a girl over last night," Jenna remarks.
"Oh?" I ask curiously.
"Yeah, her name was Anna. I didn't get her last name," Jenna says. "They were up in his room for several hours. It was nearly three in the morning when Anna finally left. She was very polite. I don't want to invade his privacy, but I am curious as to what they were doing in there."
"Jenna, that's being nosy," I tell her, smirking. "That would be like me asking if anything happened between you and Rick last night."
Jenna turns scarlet at that, so I assume something did happen. "Point made," she concedes. "So, Jeremy's in his room. He said he wanted to talk to you when you got back. And if you're going to be moving in with Damon, you should get packing. I'm sure there are a bunch of empty boxes up in the attic. It could take the rest of the weekend to get your things transferred to the boarding house."
"Just don't go giving my room away, not even if it's Rick. Rick can sleep in your room with you," I tell her. "I'm gonna need a place to crash if I were to spend the night here again."
Jenna's blush, which had been fading, returns full force and then some. "I don't know what you're talking about," she says evasively.
"Anyways, thanks for agreeing to this. I'll see what Jeremy wants and then I'll get Damon to help me start packing," I tell her, circling the counter to give her a hug. She returns it before shooing me on my way. I head back to the living room and tap Damon's shoulder because his earbuds are in his ears. He yanks them out and turns off his music app. "C'mon," I tell him before heading to the stairs.
"I'm impressed that you actually managed to get her to agree on your own," he says, following me upstairs.
"As I said, Jenna is pretty lenient on the legal guardian stuff," I reply, stopping by Jeremy's room. I knock on the doorjamb to get my brother's attention, since he's not wearing his earbuds right now.
"Hey, Lena, I was waiting for you to get back," Jeremy says.
"Well, I'm only back for a bit. Jenna just gave me permission to move in with Damon, so I'm moving my stuff out of here this weekend," I say. Jeremy's eyes widen in surprise. "Jenna said you wanted to talk to me about something?" I remind him.
"Yeah, I gave Anna your message last night at the dance. Then after the dance was over, she came back here with me and told me what she thought you meant by it," he says. He grimaces. "Gotta suck, being separated from your only family for so long and knowing they're suffering so much while you get to live it up, free from such a prison," he says.
I nod. "That's why I talked Grams into allowing Pearl, Anna's mother, to go free when we open the tomb. I can't imagine how hard it's been for Anna all these years, knowing what her mom's going through and being unable to save her."
"Yeah, well, I agreed to go in as her insurance that she doesn't get sealed in," he says. "I just made her promise not to use me to wake her mom up."
"I made her make the same promise and warned her that if she tries, Pearl will die, too. Damon said that it will take a while for a vampire that's desiccated that long to regain their former strength so he'll be strong enough to take down Pearl for a little while."
Jeremy glances at Damon in a silent question and I see Damon nod out of the corner of my eye. "It won't take more than a few days for Pearl to get her former strength back, but at the moment of revival, she'll be weak enough for me to take down if Anna doesn't stick to her promise to use a blood bag to revive her mom," he says.
Jeremy relaxes. "That's good. Because I don't think Anna's mom would have the ability to stop before I'm dead, not after being denied blood for so long," he says.
"She definitely won't," Damon says. "The longest I've ever gone without any blood was three days and even then, my control over the Craving was gone. A hundred-forty-five years without blood? Not even the oldest vampires in the world would be able to control themselves. And to add to that, all the tomb vampires were dosed up with vervain before being tossed in there and the pain they've been in all these years was magnified a hundredfold."
"Do you need anything else, Jer?" I ask.
"Nah, that was it," he replies.
"Okay, well, as I said, I'm gonna be moving into the boarding house this weekend, so Damon and I will be in and out until all my stuff is transferred over there," I say.
"It'll be weird not having you here all the time," Jeremy admits.
"I'll still be coming by to check up on you and Jenna, I just won't be living here anymore," I tell him.
"Yeah, it'll still be weird for a while," he says.
"Just think, when Jenna's working and you're not in school, you'll have the whole house to yourself," I point out.
A slow grin spreads across his lips. "Yeah, that is a bright spot," he admits. "Guess you should get packing, Lena."
"Love ya, Jer," I tell him.
"Love ya, too," he replies.
With that, I lead Damon to the trapdoor hiding the ladder to the attic, where I'm sure we'll find plenty of boxes to pack up my stuff. Sadly, I know I'm going to have to reveal all my hidey-holes to Damon in order to get all my belongings over to the boarding house. Oh, well. I'm betting he's already found most of them anyways, what with all the snooping he's done in my room.
Once in the attic, we grab the first empty boxes we come across and carry them downstairs to my room to begin packing. I decide I might as well start with my most secret hidey-holes. "Guess you're about to find out where all my hidey-holes were," I tell him with a sigh.
He smirks. "Found a good portion of them already. But probably not all of them," he admits.
"Well, I'm going to start with the ones I use since they're hardest to access," I say, dropping down beside my bed and crawling under it.
"Hadn't thought to search for a hidey-hole under the bed," he admits, crouching down to watch me.
"There are two under here," I tell him. "One in the bottom of the frame and one in under a loose floorboard right below the one in the frame." I turn on my back and start the struggle of extracting my passport, birth certificate, and other official papers from the frame of my bed.
"Can see why you don't get into that one very often. What do you store there?" he asks.
"All the official documents of my life other than my ID: passport, birth certificate, fake ID, that sort of stuff," I reply as I slowly extract the items one at a time and hand them to Damon. "Put these on the bed, will you?" I ask.
"Sure thing," he replies, doing as I ask.
It takes about twenty minutes of fighting with my bed to get all the official documents out of it and passed over to Damon. Then I turn over and slide closer to Damon to lift up the loose floorboard hiding the cubbyhole where I store all my old journals and set it aside. I pass these to Damon as well. "Same place as the official documents," I tell him when I hand him the first one. His eyes alight with curiosity and I feel it echoing strongly at me through our jewelry. "Don't look through them now," I tell him. His immediate disappointment blasts me through our jewelry. "We don't have time for that."
"Fine," he sighs, putting the journals on the bed as I pass them to him.
Clearing out this cubbyhole takes nearly an hour and requires me to crawl halfway in to get all the journals, even the very first one I ever wrote in, way back when I was five. I must have stored hundreds of journals in there and it was getting close to reaching maximum storage. Finally I replace the floorboard and crawl out from under the bed. Damon gently brushes dust out of my hair and off my shoulders. "Thanks," I say.
"No problem," he says with a smirk. "Next hidey-hole?" he asks.
"You're gonna have to move. There's another loose floorboard that you're standing right next to," I tell him.
He obediently moves out of the way so I can remove the floorboard hiding my most used hidey-hole. The cubbyhole beneath it is only a little wider than the floorboard I remove, about as long as the floorboard, but goes about two feet deep, ending at the ceiling of the room below mine and containing numerous support beams I used as shelves for some items I considered precious enough to hide. Damon whistles in admiration. "Another spot I hadn't found," he says.
"Considering I get into this one the most out of all my hidey-holes, I'm surprised at that," I tell him, carefully climbing into the cubby-space, using the bottommost support beam to support my weight.
I crouch down to reach the bottommost support beam I use as a shelf and start passing up my most precious belongings to Damon, starting with my current journal. "So that's where you hid it," he chuckles as he sets it with the other journals.
I roll my eyes and continue passing up my precious belongs, which include a snow globe I get from Disney World in Florida during the New Years 2000 celebration, an old, tiny felt hat that used to be attached to Teddy's head but Jeremy tore it off when he was five and I was seven in a fit of pique, an old harmonica I inherited from my dad, and the other two birthday flowers mom made for me before her death. These are the most precious of my possessions I hid in this spot, but not the only ones by far. Once I pass everything to Damon and he sets them on my bed, I brace my hands on either side of the gap in the floor and pull myself out using just the strength of my arms before returning the floorboard to its position.
"That bed's not gonna hold much more, so let's pack this stuff up before continuing," I tell Damon. He nods his agreement and we get to work. As we pack, Damon gives me some useful tips he's picked up over his decades as a vampire. By the time everything from the first three hidey-holes is packed up, we use up all four boxes we brought down from the attic. "Why don't we take this stuff over to the boarding house and come back for more once we drop this off?" I suggest.
"Good idea," he replies, stacking the two bigger and heavier boxes of journals on top of each other and picking the stack up. "It'll take several trips to get everything over there anyways and if we transfer stuff as we pack it, it'll go faster."
I stack the box of precious mementos on top of the third box of journals and carry those down behind Damon. Damon braces the stack he's carrying against the side of the Camaro so he can free a hand to unlock it. Once that's done, we stick the boxes in the backseat before climbing in the front.
Once we get to the boarding house, Damon grabs the two heavier boxes and heads for the front door as I struggle to get the other two boxes out of the backset. Just as I finally get them out, Damon calls out to me. "Elena, I need you to hurry up and get over here."
"What's up? Why are you still outside?" I ask, carrying my stack of boxes to where Damon's waiting outside the front door.
"Turns out simply moving a living human into the boarding house made the barrier spell that keeps uninvited vampires out drop back into place. I'm going to need you to go inside and re-invite me," he tells me. A glimmer of an idea takes root in my mind. If Damon can't get inside without my invite, does that mean Stefan can't either? Before I can ask, Damon answers that question for me. "Stefan's gonna need an invite, too, when he gets back."
The idea bursts into flower and I'm filled with mischievous amusement at it. . "So Stefan can't come into the boarding house until I verbally invite him in?" I ask, stepping around Damon and through the front door.
"Neither can I," he reminds me.
"Come in, Damon," I say.
"What have you got planned, Elena?" he demands as he follows me up the stairs to his room.
"Just a little bit of harmless fun at Stefan's expense," I say with a laugh.
"What kind of 'harmless fun' are we talking about?" he asks. "He's not gonna be very happy when he finds out that moving you in has made the barrier spell drop back in place. He'll be even less pleased if you draw out the re-invite too long. As you recall, thanks to my deal with our living relatives, neither of us ever had to wait for a re-invite whenever a new human took ownership."
"I'm going to make him have to promise to keep his feelings about our relationship to himself from here on before letting him back in," I tell him. "I can't stop him from having those feelings, but I don't want to hear about it every time I turn around. Too bad I don't know a way to make him promise it in a way that would force him to stick to his promise, given how many promises he's broken in his life."
Damon is smirking when I glance at him. "Have him make the promise as a blood oath. No vampire can go against a blood oath they make, not without catastrophic consequences," he says. "That's actually a good plan. If he has to keep his feelings about our relationship to himself, then that means I don't have to deal with it either."
"Blood oath?" I ask in confusion.
"Every supernatural race has a racial oath that magically binds them to any promise they make using it. As I said, no supernatural being can go against their racial oath, not without catastrophic consequences. It's even impossible to try to find a loophole in such promises, because the consequences would be even worse, somehow, than simply breaking it outright," he explains. "So if you make Stefan make that promise under a blood oath, he will never be able to bother us with his feelings about our relationship again."
I feel a grin spread across my lips. "That's good to know. Thanks for the history lesson, Damon," I say, giving him a kiss as additional thanks. He quickly deepens the kiss, sliding his tongue past my willing lips to explore my mouth seductively.
Suddenly, just as it was about to get really good, he pulls away with a sigh. I look at him in confusion, wonder why he stopped when he was just getting me all aroused. I know he can sense my arousal through our jewelry because I can sense his. So why did he stop? "Stefan's back," he says wickedly.
Well, that explains it: time to put our plan to get some peace from Stefan in motion. I head downstairs, Damon right behind me. "Hey, Stefan, got a problem?" I ask innocently as I stop just inside the front door. Stefan's just across the threshold, unable to reach me because of the barrier spell keeping uninvited vampires out. I sense Damon's immense amusement and anticipation thanks to our jewelry.
"I can't get inside," Stefan says, glancing at Damon standing behind me in obvious confusion.
I fake a sheepish grin. "Yeah, about that. You see, it appears that when Jenna agreed to let me move in with Damon, that barrier that keeps uninvited vampires out of places occupied by the living dropped back into place. We discovered it when we brought the first load of my stuff here, when Damon needed me to invite him in," I explain.
He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. "Well, then, guess you'll have to re-invite me, too," he says, looking at me expectantly. I just smile at him, this one a little more fierce. "Elena?" he asks nervously when I don't say anything.
"Yes, Stefan?" I ask sweetly.
"Aren't you going to invite me in?" he asks.
"Hmm, that's something I'm going to have to think about," I tell him.
"What? Why?" he demands.
"Well, Damon and I realized that it would be very peaceful not having you here, what with you constantly shoving your feelings about our relationship on us. I mean, it gets tiring telling you over and over that I'm not coming back to you, ever. Besides, I know you heard our conversation last night about Damon's theory about what the scar he left me with is. Today we got proof that it is a mating mark, that Damon did somehow mark me as his eternal mate in spite of my being human. So that right there should tell you that even if something were to happen to Damon, I still wouldn't go back to you. I'd die of heartbreak if something happened to him. So, I really will have to think long and hard about inviting you into what has suddenly become a sanctuary for me and Damon, a sanctuary from vampires with attitude problems," I say pleasantly.
Stefan's face contorts in a mask of mixed anger and ultimate heartbreak. Apparently, when he was listening to us this morning to find out the location of the Grimoire, he hadn't heard the results of Damon's little test. "What can I do to get you to agree to invite me back in?" he asks.
"Well, I guess there is one thing you can do to make us agreeable to letting you back in," I say slowly.
"Anything," he says instantly.
I arch an eyebrow. "Are you sure you'll do anything just to get an invite back into the boarding house?" I ask. "Absolutely anything at all?"
"Yes," he says.
"Then I guess I could tell you what Damon and I came up with as the only way we'd agree to let you in immediately, but I wasn't sure you'd agree to it. I mean, if you do this and then break it or even try to find a way around it, Damon said the consequences are, and I quote, 'catastrophic'," I say.
Stefan's brow furrows at that. "Just tell me," he says.
"Well, Damon told me about this magical thing all the supernatural races can do to bind them to a promise they make," I say. Stefan's eyes widen in shock as he realizes what I'm talking about. "He said that for vampires, it's called a blood oath."
Stefan takes a shaky breath. "What do you want me to make a blood oath about?" he asks cautiously.
"It's really a small thing for you, but will give Damon and I immeasurable relief," I say slowly. Stefan arches his eyebrow. "Damon and I just want you to give your blood oath that you will never again try to mess with our relationship, whether with words or actions." His eyes widen in shock and dismay. "That's all it will take for you to regain entry into the boarding house, Damon and I agreed. After all, it's tiring both of us out, not to mention driving us both crazy, dealing with your refusal to accept what has now been proven to be a vampire's eternal mating. We're not even asking you to give a blood oath to accept it right now. We just want you to give your blood oath that you will stop trying to break us apart."
Stefan takes his time in answering, which proves to me that he's seriously thinking our request over. Damon lays his hand on my shoulder, unequivocally showing his support to both me and Stefan with my decision to alter our request from just keeping his feelings to himself to stop trying to break us apart. Finally, after several long minutes, Stefan sighs. "I, Stefan Salvatore, hereby give my blood oath to Elena Gilbert and Damon Salvatore that I will never again try to separate them in any way," he says raggedly, his power swirling around us during his vow.
I glance at Damon to see if that's a true blood oath and he nods solemnly. I smile in relief as I turn back to Stefan. "Come in, Stefan," I say. Stefan steps through the doorframe, looking more defeated than I have ever seen him. "Thank you," I say softly, realizing just how hard that decision was for him.
Stefan grimaces. "The boarding house is my home," he replies hoarsely. "I can't lose it, too."
Before either Damon or I can reply, Stefan vamps upstairs to his room. I look at Damon, letting him see my worry for the younger Salvatore as well as feel it. Damon pulls me into a hug. "You made the right decision," he whispers into my ear. "He's going to have to accept our relationship eventually. The only other choice that mark will allow him is death by one of us, whether we want it or not. You just forced him to take the first step, which is always the hardest."
I sigh, hugging him back briefly before pulling away. "We should go start gathering the rest of my things," I say softly. He nods and follows me out to the Camaro.
It takes the rest of the weekend to move all my things to Damon's room in the boarding house.
Sarah: so, anyone recognize the inspiration for that scene with Stefan at the end? If you do, I'll give you a shoutout next chapter. Please review and take care.