Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries or any of its characters, dialogue or plot. Warnings for explicit sex, violence and adult language, for this chapter and the whole story to come.


ELENA POV

Damon has apparently been preparing. Before I got here, he moved two chairs and a little side table into the dungeon below the boarding house. It looks bizarre, like patio set meets the Spanish Inquisition.

I can't hold back a smile. "Are we having a tea party?"

"No point in sitting on the dusty floor while we wait for our hitman to wake up."

With little ceremony, he slides the dagger out of Elijah's chest and nods toward the door.

"What?"

Grimacing with impatience, he takes my arm and half-guides, half-pulls me out of the room, shooting the bolt with a clang.

"I am going to hide the dagger, and you are going to stay out here in the hall until I get back."

"Why? I thought the whole point was that Elijah wasn't going to be inclined to kill me."

"Getting daggered is a thirsty business, Elena, and you are not his breakfast," Damon says grimly. "Be a smart girl and stay in the hall."

When he returns, he brings two brimming crystal glasses of blood and sets them on the table.

"So you still haven't told me what I'm supposed to do," I remind him, tearing my eyes from the curve of his collarbone above his thin black sweater.

He settles into the chair with less than his usual lazy comfort.

"With him, it is going to be more about manners than flirting. Don't curse. Don't be clumsy or spill things. Be mindful of how you touch and handle objects," he demonstrates with the cup. "Pretty much anything American and casual is good to avoid."

"What? Why?"

"Because," he says tightly, his eyes rocketing between the coffin and the blood and his leg, which is bouncing twitchily. "For most of the last few centuries, casual meant rude. Manners used to be…it's kind of hard to explain. But people thought you were acting very purposefully, so being casual was insulting to the person you were with because you were showing that they were not worthy of your good behavior."

He nods once, as if satisfied. "Yup. That's pretty much it. So the more formal you can be, without being stiff, the better."

"That doesn't sound much like seducing," I say dubiously, though I certainly wouldn't mind if it didn't.

"With a couple of exceptions," he says, his lips twisting. He shifts in his seat and watches the coffin. Elijah is still grey, still motionless.

"Eye contact. Now a lot of eye contact is polite, and then, it used to be the opposite, especially for women. So do both, and use one to emphasize the other."

"What?" I'm already frustrated. "What the hell does that mean?"

His eyes flash to mine for the first time since he removed the dagger. They are intense, and uneasy and surprisingly serious. He only holds my gaze for a second, but it isn't until he looks away that I realize I have stopped breathing.

"Right. Got that one," I say dryly.

It is appropriate that his eyes are such a dramatic color. When he looks at me, I feel the full force of that all-or-nothing personality like a blow.

"Have you ever noticed that eye thing Katherine does?"

"Hmm, the one where she looks like a catty bitch?" I say uncharitably.

His lips quirk. "Yeah, I know that one, too. No, I was talking about where she keeps her eyes at about half-mast, sort of intimate, but then she looks up at you through her eyelashes."

He demonstrates, and when Damon does it, it doesn't look the slightest bit feminine. His eyes are forceful, masculine, and I feel the muscles low in my belly squeeze and release in response. I glance away and cross my legs.

"Anyway, it's a good trick. Use that too. And say his name. Most of the time he's been alive, people used surnames, unless you had a very intimate relationship. I am willing to bet it still gives his geezer heart a thrill to hear a pretty girl say his first name," Damon says, propping his elbows on his knees, the tension in his shoulders so apparent that it looks like he is going to leap out of the chair any second and choke someone to death.

"You haven't made a single sarcastic comment this entire time," I say. He's making the air vibrate with stress and I think of the two of them, the mostly dead vampire might be the better company right now.

His lips curve into a sneer. "Isn't it enough of a joke that I'm giving you lessons on etiquette?"

"You know you don't have to wait with me. You're not exactly Elijah's favorite person, anyway."

Damon gives me a look that makes it clear he doesn't regard this as an intelligent suggestion.

My heart goes out to him despite myself. Yes, this is his stupid plan, but he's so obviously suffering for it, and Bonnie was right. He's convinced himself that I can make Elijah fall in love with me just by being polite. It's nice that one of us has that much faith in my charms.

I reach out to touch his arm. "Damon-,"

Elijah chooses that moment to gasp awake, sitting up and looking around with wide eyes.

Damon gives him an insincere smile and holds out a glass of blood. "Drink?"

He rises and moves between Elijah and I, making it clear what the acceptable drinks in the room are.

"Katerina." Elijah blinks once or twice and then his composure begins to return. "Elena. I apologize."

He climbs out of the coffin with more grace than I could have managed. He looks back at it with a hint of distaste on his lips and then accepts the glass from Damon with the slightest bow of acknowledgement, though I notice his eyes are cold.

He takes a sip and veins flutter under his skin, so subtle that if I hadn't watched it on Damon's face I wouldn't be sure what it was. I can see the muscles in his throat contracting harshly, betraying how much he wants to gulp the blood, but he doesn't. There isn't so much as a drop smeared on his lips despite his thirst.

His eyes flick to the coffin again. "I presume this means I have my dear brother to thank for my most recent interment."

Damon nods and smiles tightly with half his mouth. "Yup. He daggered you pretty much as soon as you removed your hand from his chest. Quick karmic turnaround from stabbing Elena in the back."

His eyebrows pop in irritated emphasis and he shifts his weight to put even more of his body between Elijah and me, as if he's is unwilling to stop insulting the older vampire, but aware that it could end badly.

Elijah looks uncomfortable, and he turns to me. Caught off guard, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell him it's ok or go for the guilt trip. Fortunately, Damon's not done being provoking.

"If it's any consolation, he did reunite you with your family," Damon says with artificial cheer.

Elijah takes another very calm sip of blood. "Explain what you mean, please."

"He put you in a coffin and kept you all together in a nice family vault. Sponsored by Mack truck."

"Mack truck?" Elijah asks.

"A truck for moving large things. Like your family," Damon says conversationally. "Which Stefan and I stole. So don't even consider trying to bargain Elena to Klaus for your siblings." His eyes flare as he leans forward a way that is distinctly threatening. "Again."

It is fascinating to watch Damon when he's forced to interact with Originals without trying to kill them. It almost makes me feel sorry for him. He treats them with the same casual irreverence as he does everyone else, but the tight jerkiness of his movements gives away the fact that he's fully aware that they can kill him or anyone else in less than a second. He obviously hates being around anyone stronger than himself but I kind of love that he's still a jerk to them, even if it might get him killed one of these days. Or today, if I don't intervene.

I stand up, reminded that there's a reason I'm supposed to be the one getting Elijah on our side. "You must want to clean up after um, all of this. There's a spare bedroom upstairs, and I'm sure Damon could find some fresh clothes for you," I give Damon a look and he shrugs ill-temperedly.

Elijah nods to me. "That would be very nice. Thank you."

On our way out, Damon presses the second glass of blood on Elijah with the coldest of his false smiles.

"What I have is sufficient," Elijah says, looking faintly irritated.

"Iinsist," Damon informs him.

I take Elijah to a guest suite in Stefan's wing of the house and leave him with a fresh towel and a promise to drop off some clothes.

As I turn to leave, Elijah says, "Elena," but then stops and looks pained when I tilt my head inquiringly.

He bows his head slightly forward. "I am at a loss to express how deeply I regret breaking my word to you and your friends. I was very relieved to find that they had found a way to keep you alive and still human according to your wishes. I know your plans all rested upon me." He pauses. "My word is very important to me."

He's stuck again. It's kind of nice to know that even after hundreds of years of practice, you can still have trouble expressing yourself. Or maybe that's actually depressing.

"Elijah, I understand why you did that. It's hard to trump the power family can have over you." I can't watch him flounder anymore. Damon would probably want me to play up the guilt. I probably should, but I really do get it. I mean, if Klaus had Stefan and Damon and they were the kind of dead that could be revived, I'm sure I'd be his servant until I got them back. Stefan was his servant, for exactly that reason. I hadn't thought before of how similar the situations really are.

"Nonetheless, the longer you live, the more disproportionately important some things become, as a natural corollary of the search for a meaningful existence. My word is one of the things that I fear I have become most rigidly attached to. I assume there must be some service you wish from me, since you and Mr. Salvatore were the ones to choose to wake me?"

"I think you can guess, unfortunately," I told him, feeling like a terrible person. "Klaus is wrecking everything, to say little of the fact that I'm practically his slave-,"

Elijah's eyebrows climbed at this statement and I realized he had no idea that doppleganger blood was necessary to create hybrids.

I waved my hand. "You should shower. There's a lot to catch up on, but I'm sorry. I wish it were something different. I wish it didn't have to be you, but yes, we desperately need Klaus dead."

"I understand. You may count upon my full cooperation as some payment toward the debt I owe you, with hopes that someday I might have redeemed my honor in your eyes."

I opened my mouth to say that I already forgave him, and then realized that Damon was almost certainly listening in from down the hall.

"Thank you, Elijah. That's admirable of you." I was trying for polite and not too casual but to my ear, I just sounded like a big fake.

I met Damon in his room. He was passive-aggressively not looking for clothes for Elijah to wear, so I went into the closet myself and he followed me in.

"Are you trying to piss Elijah off on purpose?" I ask him pointedly.

"What, because of the blood thing? We already went through this, Elena," he says, emphasizing my name in annoyance. He's flipping through hangers so fast that it is obvious he's not looking at all. I pick a shirt and he takes it from me.

"Not that one. It was expensive."

"I'm no Caroline, but I bet all these were expensive. It's about respect, remember?" I take the shirt back from him and he narrows his eyes at me.

"He's hungry as hell, Elena. Trust me. But a gentleman," he says mockingly, "doesn't give in to excess, especially in front of a lady. And a human, in this case. It's working. He's trying to impress you."

"Should we give him underwear?" I suddenly wonder. We stare at each other for a second, then my nose wrinkles and Damon's lip curls.

"Nope," I say as he shakes his head. I try to resist a laugh at the expression on his face.

"Watch for this one: if you sit down at a table, he'll try to pull out your chair for you. Back before condoms, anything closer than arm's length was suspect. Pushing in a girl's chair was a great ploy to get in close, maybe brush your hand against her shoulder." He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. "It's the good ol' days equivalent of copping a feel. Bet he tries it."

He turns to leave the walk-in-closet and I stop him with a hand on his arm.

"Damon?"

He looks at me, a mocking expressing already in place.

"I'm going to be fine, Damon. Nothing's going to happen," I assure him and I don't know myself if I'm talking about the physical danger or something more personal.

"Of course it'll be fine," he scoffs. "It's my plan, remember?"

"Yes, it's your plan," I say, my gaze unwavering. I'm not buying his line and he knows it. "So I don't understand why you're trying to sabotage it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you wouldn't have just given me a lesson in manners, I would really believe you'd never heard of them," I say, letting go of his arm and waving my hand in frustration.

"When you danced with me at Miss Mystic Falls, it was pretty apparent that you actually do know how to play the game, Damon, so would it hurt you to try just a little? You did try to kill him. It would be smart for you two to make friends a little. Or at least not total enemies."

Damon sneers. "He tried to kidnap you. I'm not going to apologize for skewering him like a cocktail weinie. He had it coming and he knows it."

"So you can't even be polite?" I push.

"Elena, I was bad at that even when I was human. My father would be glad to tell you exactly how bad, if the old bag of bones was still around. There's no point! When everybody's playing the same game, you all know it's fake and everybody thinks what they were going to think about you anyway. So why play?" One corner of his mouth twists in ridicule. "I lost the energy to care about what other people think a looong time ago."

"Why don't you just say what you mean?" I say quietly, folding my arms. "You don't mean people in general. You mean your father and Katherine."

"Oh yeah, let's all cry about our daddy issues. That'll be fun. Can we sing Kumbaya, too?" He takes the shirt back, grabbing it in his fist instead of by the hanger, so it wrinkles. He takes a pair of slacks off the rail without even glancing at them. "Do me a favor. Let's skip Dr. Phil and focus on the actual plan. Which would be greatly improved by you not getting eaten by Elijah because you caught him with low blood sugar."

He heads down the hall with long strides.

I sigh. I can't even work up a good mad. Or even the energy to be particularly pleased that Damon apparently hates the plan almost as much as I do. Why does he have to make everything so difficult?

It takes another nearly ten minute argument to get Damon to let me to drive Elijah back to town, where he has a rented house.

Elijah came down in the middle of it and settled it by offering to drink another pint of blood and swear an oath to do me no harm. I can tell from the way he looks at Damon that he's insulted. It's not an ideal way to start an alliance but then there's a reason that Damon's plans are normally of the lone-wolf variety.

When we leave, I tell Elijah I forgot my keys and run back inside. Damon's already two inches of bourbon into drowning his anxiety over me.

"What did you forget? Your-, huh?"

Whatever bitter sarcasm he was going to toss at me is interrupted when I bear hug him from behind, catching his arms at his sides and squeezing hard.

We've got a lot of things to sort out, he and I, but no one could ever accuse him of not caring where I'm concerned.

"Thank you. For taking such good care of me. I know I don't make it easy."

I allow myself one more squeeze, resting my ear at the base of his neck, and then take off for the door without looking back before he ruins the moment.

When we arrive, Elijah opens the door to let me inside and I try not to crowd him as I pass. Whatever I told Damon, I'm not sure if three pints of blood is enough, either. I just think he probably has a good handle on his impulses.

The house is gorgeously, simply furnished. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but he was in town what, like a week before he got daggered?

We pass a room in the front hallway that at first I think is empty. I pause when I notice that it has a meditation cushion and a small, un-embellished gong.

"Surprised that a vampire would know anything about Buddhism?" Elijah asks mildly.

He's always so composed. He must have gotten the only even temperament in that family. Either that, or it's the Buddhism.

"Not surprised, really," I lie, then try to cover it up with a truth. "It does sort of suit you."

"Yes, but it is odd," he agrees. "There is no true veganism without starvation when you are a vampire. Therefore, Ahimsa is impossible." He looks uncomfortable, as if he has just admitted that he kicks puppies. Frequently.

I decided not to mention his father's decision to drink vampire blood. Instead I ask about the unfamiliar word he used. "Ahimsa?"

"Non-violence." He looks down slightly, and then raises his chin. "It is not a precept I have ever been strong enough to adhere to, though I do see its value. The meditation, however, is very helpful. For self-control, and many other things."

I consider pretending to understand, but my ears perk up at the word self-control. God knows Stefan could use some. "I'm sorry. I'm not very familiar with meditation. It is just sort of, sitting quietly without thoughts, right? How does that help with self-control?"

There is a small table in the corner of the kitchen carved of rich dark wood. Elijah pulls out a chair and offers it to me. I sit, hiding a smile.

"May I?" he asks, and when I nod, he tucks my chair back into the table with a movement that I suspect is harder to do gracefully than he makes it seem. His knuckles do not brush my shoulders.

"Part of one style of meditation involves watching yourself and your reactions. You do not judge them, do not grasp or push them away. You simply let them be and you do not follow them. They fade, and others take their place. It is a practice that eventually makes it easier for you to see what you are doing and choose, with detachment, whether or not you want to continue that behavior."

"Why would it be easier to control your behavior if you don't judge it?" I ask. "Wouldn't it be easier if you had some motivation to change your behavior?"

"Humans are passionate creatures, Miss-Elena," he corrects himself before calling me Miss Gilbert. I hide another smile. "As I'm sure you appreciate. Vampires are even more so. If you allow yourself to feel emotions about your behavior, you lend it power. Any feeling you have about it gives it more power over you. Think of the power a loved one has over you. To hurt you, to make you feel good. It is the same with your behavior. If you have no particular attachment to it, it is easier to be objective, which neither humans nor vampires are naturally," he finishes. "I hope that wasn't too pedantic. You seemed interested."

"I am." I smile and hope it is the right kind of smile. I haven't tried to seduce anyone in a long time, and never with someone like Elijah. In a way, it feels like trying to seduce my dad.

He tilts his head, studying me. "Sometimes, if you sit quietly enough, it feels like you're not sitting in silence at all. The silence…sings."

I don't know how to respond to that, although it sounds nice enough.

"Would you like an espresso? I have an espresso maker," he says hopefully.

Now I'm really smiling. "Of course. You like espresso?"

"I have lived in Italy. Many times." He stands to get the coffee. "And while I appreciate the variety of how each country interprets non-native foods, I do not appreciate how poorly Americans make coffee. Present company excluded, I'm sure," he says gallantly.

I relax into my chair. Maybe this isn't going to be that hard after all.

After an hour's pleasant conversation, I drive myself home. I filled him in on everything that had happened, and he agreed readily to help us, apologizing many times for going back on his word the first time.

There was a sketchy moment when I told him how it turned out my blood was needed to make hybrids. I explained that it was only because of a convenient spell and John's incredible sacrifice that I managed to die and be reborn still human, allowing Klaus to make hybrids.

Elijah looked at me very oddly and I realized it wasn't out of the question that he could want to kill or turn me, so that no other hybrids could be made. The look faded, though, and I had the feeling that it wasn't because Stefan was holding his family hostage. I hoped I was right.

He walked me out to my car when I left, bowing over my hand. I thought he might try to kiss my hand, and he did, but managed to miss and hit his own thumb, which I thought was hilarious. Somehow, I managed to keep from laughing until I was four blocks away, but it was a near thing.

When I get home, I can't resist texting Damon.

Elena: When E left, he went to kiss my hand, and managed to kiss his own thumb instead. A clumsy Original? LOL

Damon: It's a compliment. Means you're classy. Everything go ok?

A second later, another text comes in.

Damon: That all he tried to kiss?

Elena: Why do you care?

I look at the text for a long time and then I delete it letter by letter and type another one.

Elena: Yes and Yes.

I wait, but he doesn't respond.


Author's Note: Please leave a comment/review and let me know if you are enjoying the story, or if there are any parts you don't like. I love to hear from my readers!