"You are going to need an industrial stove," Rebekah said, taking a tour through Stefan's imaginary kitchen between the bar and the garage. It was small, but with some tidy, clever planning, Stefan and Damon could make it happen. "I know where you can get one cheap."

"Where do we put the fridge?" Damon asked. She pointed to the corner and Damon boxed off a square, just like he had boxed off the place she had said he should put the stove and the fryer.

Stefan, leaning against the studs, looked like he was going to pass out.

"I can't afford this." Stefan shook his head. "I mean, not all at once."

"I can help." Damon took out his tape measure. He was being downright jaunty with it. Rebekah had just closed the café, and Stefan had called and asked her if she could come over and help him figure out what to do with the kitchen.

She hadn't expected Damon to act like he had so much invested. And she certainly hadn't expected the jaunty tape measure.

Stefan, however, looked stressed in a way that made her want to pulled him into her arms and let him rest his head on her lap.

Honest to God, after that scene today in the café and then later when she brought the nachos to Stefan, she sort of thought she had run a pretty large gamut of emotion towards the guy—but nope, add a little late-afternoon empathy to the list.

"I don't want to keep running to my big brother every time I need money," Stefan said. Damon stood and the tape measure slithered and snapped shut.

"Your big brother has money. A lot of it." Damon wrote a few more things in his notebook and then shoved it in his back pocket. "I think I have got a handle on this. Thanks, Rebekah."

"My pleasure," she said. "I didn't know you were a builder."

"I'm not, I just play one on TV." Rebekah blinked at the joke and Damon immediately calmed his smile, as if it were something he needed to be embarrassed of.

"I am planning on building a patio behind the café," she said. "It would—"

"I'm not looking for work," Damon said. "I probably won't be around to finish this."

"Oh God," Stefan groaned and rubbed his forehead. "Now you tell me?"

"I will make sure whoever takes over can do the job, don't worry, Stefan."

Stefan turned and hugged a two-by-four, banging his head against it. "Why did I let you talk me into this? I'm not ready."

"You are ready, Stefan. You are totally ready," Rebekah said.

Not entirely sure of her welcome she reached out and patted Stefan's shoulder, prepared to leave it at that, but he grabbed her hand and squeezed her hand hard.

Rebekah smiled at him and swallowed a giddy giggle. That is very nice indeed, she thought.

Damon didn't act like anything was different. Judging by him, Stefan and Rebekah went around holding hands all the time. She on the other hand felt like a balloon, grounded only by his hold on her fingers.

"So what is the story with Elena?" Stefan asked.

Damon shrugged, but his nonchalance didn't fool anyone. He was wired. "She is talking to her brother."

"What are you going to do?" Stefan asked.

Rebekah remembered her mum when the sheriff asked her that after Dad died. What are you going to do now? Mum hadn't yet figured out that her life was about to get better. Because at that moment, she just looked sad. Like a kid who had been left behind. Alone. A little scared.

Damon looked the same way.

But he smiled and said: "I'm going to go check on Dad. And then maybe take Elena for ice cream."

Stefan couldn't seem to lift his jaw up off the floor to say anything.

So Rebekah said, "Sounds good."

Damon walked out the door, waving goodbye to the few Saturday afternoon regulars who were coming in the door.

"I don't think I have ever seen him happy," Stefan said, watching him go.

"That is happy?" Rebekah asked, because at best Damon had seemed bittersweet.

"It is for Damon."

"He needs more practice," Rebekah said.

Stefan pulled her close to him. "Do you want to go watch a movie?"

Rebekah was breathless. "Just the two of us?"

"Yes."

"Sounds interesting."

x x x

Elena sat down on the sofa and finally, after two weeks and roughly twenty-seven years, she faced the music.

Jeremy picked up on the second ring and she imagined him with this cell phone on the edge of his desk, waiting for her call.

"I swear to God, Damon—"

"It is me. Elena."

There was a pause, a long sigh. "Elena. Are you okay?"

"I am. I'm good. But you should know, a picture of me is going to surface in the next little bit."

"What kind of picture?" His voice went all stern and serious.

"A guy took a picture of me in a café. Very innocent, but he sent it to some TMZ place? I don't have any clue what that is."

"Heavy-duty gossip show and website."

There was a brief pause.

"I guess it is time for me to come out of hiding."

"I can have a car pick you up and—"

"No. No, that is…I'm going to stay here."

"Where is here?"

"Mystic Falls. It is a tiny town about four to five hours away from Richmond."

"Are you really okay?"

"I'm fine."

"Have you even seen a doctor again?" Jeremy asked. "What about your stitches?"

"Damon took them out."

Jeremy's silence was deep and thick.

"You can't hide forever, Elena."

"For the first time in years, I'm not hiding," Elena said. "I'm just getting on with my life."

"In Mystic Falls?"

"It is not Dadaab, I would think that should satisfy everyone."

"Mum won't be satisfied until you are back in your old bedroom at the mansion."

"What Mum wants doesn't matter anymore."

"Well, listen to you…It is about time you realized that."

"It took me a while, but I'm done running from her and from who I am."

"Good, because my office has had about a million media requests for you. The Today Show, 60 Minutes, Newsweek, Redbook, the list goes on."

Elena put her head in her hand and started rubbing at the headache blooming behind her forehead. "I don't know what to do first."

"Well, first, I think you should let me come get you—"

"Jeremy, I'm not leaving."

"Okay, then issue a statement. You are going to have some photographers there, but they will lose interest pretty fast, I imagine, once they see you are not hiding anything. I can have Jill, my press secretary, look through the requests and pick out the best ones and we can start scheduling some things."

"Forward all the requests to me," Elena said. "I can sort through them. If I have questions, I will call Jill. I can use Joanie for support."

"At the foundation?"

"Yeah. I also have some thoughts for a community project down here."

Jeremy's laughter was a sweet sound from her childhood and she was reminded that her brother had been the first really good man in her life. He had managed to keep the sterling core of himself untarnished in the business of politics.

"You just can't help yourself, can you?"

"Apparently not."

"What is the project?"

"I'm starting a senior transportation initiative."

Jeremy laughed. "Mention that in your statement and no one will bother you."

"Not very sexy, is it?"

"The important stuff usually isn't. You can take the foundation over from Joanie. It can be yours to use however you want."

"That always came with strings attached." Don't go to Africa and you can run the foundation however you want.

"You are a grown woman, Elena. You don't have to run halfway around the world to get Mum to stop controlling you. Cut the strings yourself."

"What about you?" she asked. Miranda and Jeremy were a team, of sorts. Locked in a weird symbiotic relationship.

"I entered into the family business, Elena. It is not so simple for me. I need her and she knows that."

Elena used to wish she had the relationship that her brother seemed to have with Miranda. They talked the same language, understood politics in a way that left her baffled and reeling. But now, listening to the resignation in his voice, she wondered if maybe she didn't have it easier. To not need her mother seemed like a blessing.

"I have a favour to ask." Jeremy took a deep breath and she imagined him pinching together that crease over his nose. "I could use your help on the campaign. Voters will respond to you and your story…I hate to say it, Elena, but they will be fascinated by your experience."

"By my story you mean my three weeks of horror?"

"Yes. It is ugly, I know. But it is a tight race for the seat in Congress, and I could use every bit of help I can get."

Jeremy would be an excellent congressman—and possibly president someday, if Miranda was to be believed.

Elena shifted on the steps, the need to hang up and run, to throw herself into something that was not touched by her family, something that was both simple and hard, something her family wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole was a very hard impulse to control.

But leaving Dadaab, finding her own life, meant living on the same continent as her very prominent family, and that required compromise. Compromise and backbone.

"I will help you at three different events. You pick which ones and let me know."

"Three events?"

"Yes."

"My choice."

"Yes."

"Three weeks from now, Tuesday, September 10, I have a fundraiser in Atlanta. It can be your first public appearance."

Elena looked up at the ceiling. Three weeks seemed very soon. "Mum and Dad will be there?"

"Of course."

She nodded. Then it was perfect. Well, as perfect as she could hope for.

"Okay, I will do it. But on one condition."

"This should be good."

"You come and get me."

"What?"

"You come out here and get me. Just you. No people. No driver. Just you, and stay for the weekend."

"In Mystic Falls?"

"Have you ever in your life been just Jeremy, not Jeremy Gilbert?"

"Once," Jeremy said, surprising her. "It didn't seem real."

Something in his voice made Elena feel so bad for him. Like she was perhaps the lucky one. "Come and get me in ten days and I'm yours for the fundraiser."

Jeremy promised and they said their goodbyes.

She hung up and stared at the fireplace. She missed Damon.

Three weeks. All of this would be over in three weeks.

If she was going to survive on the memories of this time, she'd better make more.

Her heart a bewildering combination of heavy and light, she stood and went to find him.

x x x

Damon carried the grocery bags through the back door to Giuseppe's house and set them on the counter.

"I don't like bananas," Giuseppe said from his spot at the table. His hand was worrying the handle of that cane.

"Then don't eat them."

"I don't like wasting food."

"I will take the bananas." This had seemed like such a good idea when he left The Grill. His father needed to eat food that wasn't beige, so he had stopped by the grocery store.

"I can't eat apples. My teeth."

Damon sighed, braced his hands on the counter. "This is what I get for trying to help."

"I didn't ask for help."

"You asked me to stay!" he cried.

"Stay. Not get me fruit. You hired that girl for this."

Damon nearly smiled, it was a good thing he never expected a radical change of heart from Giuseppe.

"The question is, where is Stefan? Why isn't he making sure you have some fresh food?"

Giuseppe's very long silence made him turn around.

"Look in the fridge." Giuseppe bit off the ends of all the words like cigars he couldn't wait to smoke. Damon didn't move and Giuseppe shoved his cane into the handle on the fridge and used it to pull open the door.

Inside there were bags of grapes and peas.

"The peas don't hurt my teeth," he said. "Stefan knows that and he brings me some every week."

"I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't know. You don't want to know anything about your brother."

Giuseppe had never said that before, and while it was true, and Damon had lived with it for a long time, and he had felt a lot of things about it, he had never been ashamed. But with Giuseppe's eyes on him, he was ashamed that he had run so far and so fast and coming back hurt like it did.

"You and your brother used to be friends."

"We are friends."

"Not like you were."

"Are you hungry?" Damon asked, dodging the subject, like it was grenade lobbed at his head. "You want a sandwich?"

"You got peanut butter?"

"No. I have turkey and lettuce."

Giuseppe made a thick noise in his throat and Damon smiled as he pulled out two pieces of wheat bread and the cold cuts he had bought.

"Stefan says you are helping with the bar."

"I knocked down a wall."

"He said you are building the kitchen."

"I'm just helping while I'm here. That is all. At some point I have to go back to work."

"I thought you were working now. Elena."

Damon made the same thick noise in the back of his throat, not yes, not no, not much more than I acknowledge that you are talking to me.

"If your job is like that, I understand why you love it."

"Love it?" Damon put some of the low-fat mayonnaise he' had bought on the bread and then carefully made sure Giuseppe couldn't see the label. Giuseppe would put mayo on everything including cardboard, but the low-fat kind would get a very turned-up nose.

Giuseppe raised his brows. "You don't?"

"Love is a stretch."

"That is a shame. You should love your job."

"Like you loved yours?" Every day at three his father had walked out that door, the newspaper tucked under his arm, the same dour expression on his face.

Damon put the second slice of bread on top, trying to hide the tomato he had slipped in there, and turned to face Giuseppe, whose dry-eyed earnestness made him pause.

"Of course I did, Damon. Did you…do you think I didn't?"

"No. I didn't think you cared one way or another about your job."

Jesus Christ, why does he look so damn hurt. Or shocked, Damon thought. On the very mysterious list of things Giuseppe loved, Lillian and mayonnaise were the only sure bets. Stefan maybe a distant third. On a good day.

"Did you think I loved you?"

The plate clattered onto the table. That look, that slightly accusing, mostly wounded look on his face was utterly repellent—it would have blown Damon halfway across the world if the counter didn't stop him.

"You should eat the sandwich." Damon turned, wrapped up the bread.

Giuseppe sighed heavily. "I did. I loved you. And I loved the bar, and Stefan. I loved Lillian." His voice broke. "I loved my life, very much. I'm a grouchy son of a bitch, Damon, but I loved my life. Everyone should."

Everyone should. Like it was a choice. Oh, you know, instead of egg salad, I will love my life, Damon said to himself.

Elena, her face of bruises, cracking jokes to the doorman, sitting on that pier, kissing him, despite parents who didn't respect her, all that she had seen in Haiti and Japan and Africa, and being kidnapped by pirates, she had made that choice.

"I don't love tomatoes," Giuseppe said. "But nice try."

There was a knock on the door and Giuseppe made a giant valiant effort to stand but Damon patted him back down.

"I got it."

He stepped into the living room just as the front door opened and Elena walked in, holding a bag.

Damon couldn't stop himself from smiling. He felt happy.

The thought was a hand clap in a quiet field, scattering a thousand birds from a thousand branches. This feeling that came in the room with her, that walked into his life with her—this was happy. And he spent so much time building walls and dams to keep it away from the blackness that was the rest of his life, as if this light might somehow infect him.

What if he just let it happen?

What calamitous event would take place if he…if he just let himself be happy? There were months, years ahead for him to be a miserable son of bitch when Elena was gone. So why not be happy now?

"What is in the bag?" Damon asked with a smile.

"What—" Elena had forgotten she was even carrying a bag. Every thought abandoned her head like it was a crime scene the second he smiled at her like that.

Easy. Loose.

Happy.

"I brought ice cream." Elena lifted the bag.

"Did someone say ice cream?" Giuseppe yelled from the kitchen.

"Is it…is it okay that I came? Stefan said you would be here."

Damon nodded and took the bag from her. "I'm happy you are here," he said and, unable to help herself, Elena smiled back at him. "Did you talk to your brother?"

Right. Reality. She nodded. "I promised to go with him to a fundraiser in Atlanta in three weeks. But…" She put her chin up, making a declaration, putting her flag in the sand. "I'm coming back."

"I told you—"

"I know what you told me, but I'm telling you. I love you, Damon. And I will come back for you."

"What if I'm not here?"

"Then it is your loss."

x x x

"Where does Lexi live?" Elena asked on Friday morning. It was raining again, water throwing itself against the window from grey gloomy clouds. It was a day for staying in bed, but she had plans.

Damon rolled over and sighed up at the ceiling. "I just need a few hours of sleep. Just a few." But he was smiling, as much as he did.

"You weren't complaining an hour ago."

Damon turned toward her and brushed hair back from her forehead, his thumb across the scar.

"You are funny when you try to flirt," he said.

Yes, she was working on that. As well as talking dirty and getting used to this…to lying in bed with him, while the sweat dried on their bodies, while the memories of what had made them so sweaty were wrapped in paper and stored away to be taken out later.

Elena was getting used to his half-smiles, his casual touches. Just as she was sure he was getting used to hers.

"She lives outside the town centre. I will drive you."

"If it clears up I would like to walk."

"Are you forgetting the four photographers yesterday?"

Her statement had been sent out Sunday. The photographers not turned off by the words senior programming had shown up on Tuesday and taken a few pictures. They were more polite than Damon had been.

"I am." Elena grinned at his scowl. "Because who cares. They got the picture and I'm sure they have moved on."

Damon appeared dubious. "What are you doing with Lexi?"

"Oh, poor Damon, are you upset because I won't be lying in bed all day waiting for you to come home and have sex with me?"

"Yes." Damon was joking, he could hardly keep the pride out of his eyes. Out of his touch. His fingers slowly gathered the sheet, pulling it from her chest, revealing her skin in inches, starts and stops. Her heart started a tugging rhythm. "Are you meeting with her to talk about the senior programming?"

"Yep."

His fingers stopped pulling the sheet. "Suddenly my mood is gone."

"Senior art programs don't get you hot?"

Damon rolled onto his back.

"Shuttle services?" Elena straddled him, the sheet over her shoulders. "Game nights?"

"Please stop. Honestly." Damon missed his calling for the stage, he could have been the world's best straight man in a comedy duo. She rewarded his comic genius with a long, slow wet kiss.

"Something is getting you hot." She wiggled against his growing erection.

His hands cupped her hips, pressing her harder to him.

"Is it bridge?" Elena asked, kissing his neck. "Maybe some senior stretch classes?" She kissed his chest, her heart thrilling at his laughter. She kissed her way over his chest and down his belly.

She licked his erection and Damon arched up, his hand cupping her head, tangling in her hair.

"I know." She shook off the sheet, grinning up at him. "Ballroom dancing. That is what's making you hot."

Damon rolled her over, kissing her breasts, her neck, the skin of her shoulder. The man had incredible condom skills, he had the thing on before she stopped laughing, before she fully understood his plan.

And then he was inside of her, high and hard and perfect, and Elena wasn't laughing anymore.

"You," he said, grabbing the iron railing of the headboard.

And that was all he said until they both cried out their pleasure.