I think your comments and reviews last chapter were some of my favorites yet. I'm aiming to write as realistic of a story as I can and I love that you all seem to appreciate that - thank you so much for commenting and letting me know what you think so far!
I really enjoyed some of the Rebekah speculation as well... :)
Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Diaries.
Elena awoke with a gasp. She sat bolt upright in bed and listened, her ears straining for the sound she was sure she hadn't dreamed.
She heard it again.
Someone was on her front porch. Her heartbeat quickened.
Just as she started to scramble out of bed in search of something – anything – she could use to protect herself, she remembered it was Rebekah who had called earlier to say she was running even later than expected and not to bother waiting up. She laid back down, blowing out a relieved breath as she heard her front door open and close quietly. She was already starting to drift back to sleep when a shadow fell across her doorway.
"Hey, Bex," she mumbled without rolling over to face her. She paid no mind to the fact that the footsteps, heavier than they should have been for Rebekah, were making their way towards her bed, confident it was her friend and no one else. Her eyes popped open as the side of her bed sunk down. Her sleepy brain finally put the pieces together, telling her that whoever was in her home wasn't Rebekah. "What…" she started, kicking her legs furiously in an effort to untangle herself from her blankets, her flight or fight instincts kicking in.
"It's just me," came a voice that made her heart skip a beat as a pair of strong arms encircled her. A moment later, she was pulled against a familiar well-defined chest, a pair of lips leaving a warm kiss on her cheek. "It's just me."
"Damon?" she breathed in surprise, turning in his arms. Even in the dark, his blue eyes were vivid. Her own eyes widened in surprise. "Damon!" she scrambled into a seated position, hardly able to believe what she was seeing. She reached for the lamp and soft light flooded the room.
Damon Salvatore was lying on her bed, dressed down in jeans and a t-shirt, his leather jacket and black boots still on, his hair messy. He looked tired but happy, even as he blinked his eyes rapidly in order to adjust to the sudden brightness.
"Hey," he said with a smirk. He felt his breath hitch when he realized Elena was wearing his t-shirt which she had claimed during her last night in New York. He was sure that faded Redskins tee had never looked better.
"What… You… How… What are you doing here?" Elena asked, shaking her head, confused as she continued to take in the sight of Damon before her. "You're not supposed to be here until tomorrow night. And Rebekah is on her way…" She had no idea why she mentioned Rebekah, but she was confused by Damon's sudden appearance and Rebekah felt important to the moment for some reason.
"Surprise," Damon said slyly, propping himself up on his elbow. He reached out and cupped her check with his other hand, pulling her down to him so he could kiss her. "And for the record, the Brit isn't coming."
"What?" Elena asked. She kissed Damon again, still not quite believing he was there, in her bed, even as she felt his kiss down to the tips of her toes.
"Bex isn't coming," he said. "I put her up to doing me a favor. I wanted to surprise you."
"A favor?" Elena repeated. She shook her head as Damon's hand drifted along her cheek and then tangled in her hair. "I'm confused."
"You were so disappointed when we couldn't work it out for you to visit me week before last," he reminded her. "And we haven't been able to talk much lately. I moved some things around so I could get here a little earlier."
"You're really here," Elena stated as Damon's hand brushed through her hair. "You're here, in my bed."
"I am," Damon confirmed. "Really, Elena, catch up. You're having a hard time seeing and believing." Elena shook her head as though to shake off the disbelief.
"You surprised me," she confirmed, a smile forming as she placed her hand on his chest. "I'm so surprised that my mind hasn't caught up to the fact that you're really here." She leaned down and placed a soft kiss on his lips. Damon made to pull her down to him, but she pulled herself back. "Wait," she said. "What does Rebekah have to do with any of this?"
"I knew you probably had a spare key around here somewhere and I needed the location of it. I didn't want to scare you, so I put Rebekah up to pretending like she needed a place to sleep and asking about a key. Caroline would have sung like a canary and ruined my surprise. And speaking of that key, we're going to need to discuss your hiding place. Above the window? That could not be more obvious, Elena."
"Bex was extremely believable," Elena confirmed.
"She was also surprisingly easy to convince to help me," Damon said. "I was ready to barter, but she agreed without incident. My guess? She wants to stay in my brother's good graces."
"It would take a lot for her to fall out of Stefan's good graces," Elena said. "But enough about Rebekah. I'm glad you're here, Damon."
"Me too," Damon replied with a soft smile. "Come here."
He tugged on Elena's arms and brought her crashing down on top of him. He wrapped his arms around her and groaned as she kissed him deeply, her tongue playing coyly with his as the kiss deepened. He rolled over so she was pinned beneath him.
"God, I'm happy to see you," he said before kissing her again. He let himself indulge in the feel of her lips against his for a few more minutes before he pulled back, placed one quick, soft kiss on her cheek, and then sat up.
"What time is it?" Elena asked, stifling a yawn.
"After two in the morning," Damon replied, shrugging out of his jacket. He tossed it towards a nearby chair and then went to work removing his boots. "I was supposed to be here two hours ago, but my flight was delayed. Hence Rebekah's phone call that she was running later than expected. Seems she and I make a well-oiled, surprise-planning machine." His boots hit the floor with two loud thumps. He pulled his t-shirt over his head, sending it in the direction of his jacket.
"You must be exhausted," Elena said as her eyes raked over his chiseled body. She wondered when he found time to fit in his workouts, but was almost willing to give up a phone call or two if it meant she got to look at those abs.
"I'm a little tired," he admitted. He stood and unbuckled his belt, then made swift work of getting out of his jeans. When he was down to nothing but a pair of boxer briefs, he slipped back into bed next to Elena.
"Make yourself at home," she said with a smirk, still sitting up on her side of the bed.
"I'm with you," Damon replied easily. "So I am home."
"You and those words," Elena stated with a bit of a blush. She reached over and turned off the lamp before she laid down next to him. She tucked herself into his side, her head on his chest. He wrapped an arm around her and held her tight.
"This feels so good," Damon said, a hand lazily trailing up and down Elena's back. "You, me, a bed. All is right in the world."
"I still can't believe you're here." Damon kissed the top of her hair.
"I'm here," Damon confirmed. "And I still can't believe you're mine."
He rolled onto his side and spooned Elena, amazed as always with how well she fit him. She let out a content sigh and wiggled a bit to get even closer. Damon closed his eyes and listened to Elena's breathing as it evened out. She was asleep within minutes.
This, he realized, was everything he had been missing in the last few weeks. He had gone about his life as he normally would have, the only real difference being that instead of chasing women and drinking expensive liquor into the early morning hours after a day of wheeling and dealing, he was holed up in his apartment, working remotely to keep the mill up and running or else playing catch up from where he had to take time out of his day for a conference call with the mill employees. But as normal as it had all been, it hadn't felt right, not without Elena.
A sense of guilt settled over him as Elena let out a content sigh in her sleep. He needed to be a better boyfriend, he realized. He was doing okay, or at least he thought he was, but he needed to be better about taking the time to call Elena, send her a text just to let her know he was thinking about her, block out some time in his schedule so she could come to New York and he actually be there. He needed her to know how much he cared, how much he wanted this to work between them. With his eyes still closed, he placed a ghost of a kiss on her shoulder and finally let himself drift off to sleep.
"When one takes a red eye flight to see their girlfriend they haven't seen in a month, one expects to not wake up to an empty bed."
Elena turned in her Adirondack chair to watch Damon as he made his way down the dock. She smiled, drinking in the scene of him as he approached her, wearing a pair of sweatpants slung low on his hips and a long sleeve t-shirt. His hair was messy and the bags under his eyes, while still present, had faded a bit overnight. He had a mug of coffee in each hand.
"When one's boyfriend takes a red eye flight to see their girlfriend they haven't seen in a month and that girlfriend knows her boyfriend hasn't been getting much sleep, she lets him sleep in," she replied.
"You should have slept in with me," he countered. "Coffee?"
"Please," Elena said, placing the book she was reading aside and taking one of the mugs from him. "I finished my first cup an hour ago." Damon leaned down and kissed the top of her head before he settled into the chair next to hers and rolled his shoulders to loosen them from a good night's sleep, the first one he had had in ages. He took in the surroundings for a few moments, sipping his coffee as Elena did the same next to him.
The scenery was stunning. The trees around the lake looked like they were on fire, the leaves vivid shades or orange, red and yellow. Within a week or so, Damon knew they would be bare, all the leaves dropping to the ground practically overnight, but for now, they were beautiful, mixed in with the pine trees, their images reflected on the surface of the lake. The sky was a crystal clear blue, the air cool and crisp.
"It's beautiful out here," Damon said. "And quiet," he added as an after thought.
"It's my favorite time of year," Elena told him. She too was dressed down, wearing a pair of yoga pants and a long sleeve Columbia shirt. "How did you sleep?"
"With you," Damon replied with a smirk. Elena rolled her eyes. "I slept well," he said. "In fact, it was the best sleep I've had since you left New York."
"I still can't believe you're here," Elena said again. Damon didn't reply. Instead, he placed his coffee aside, stood up and approached Elena. He took her own mug of coffee and placed it on the table between their chairs, then grasped her hands and pulled her to her feet.
"Good morning," he told her as his arms wrapped around her.
"Good morning," Elena replied, her arms winding around his neck. He leaned down as she stood on her tiptoes, their lips meeting. Their kiss quickly turned from sweet and innocent to something much more passionate, Damon's hands drifting as Elena's tangled in his hair to hold him to her. They were both breathless when they finally pulled away.
"You're getting good at those proper good mornings," Damon teased. He sat back down in the chair, pulling Elena with him so she was sitting in his lap. He handed her her coffee and picked up his own mug. "What are you reading?" he asked. Elena looked a bit guilty as she reached for the book she had abandoned when Damon appeared. "Gone With The Wind," Damon stated with a grin of his own as she read the cover. "Good choice."
"I thought you may approve," Elena said. "Rhett just helped Scarlett and Melanie escape the Yankees. But the asshole abandoned them to go off and join the Confederacy." Damon chuckled.
"Sounds like you've got strong feelings about that," he said with a smirk. The burning of Atlanta was one of his favorite parts of the book, but he could see why Elena would think it was terrible that Rhett had a change of heart and abandoned the women on their way to Tara. She would be swept up in the romance of the story while he was drawn to the themes of brute willpower to overcome adversity throughout the book.
"You just don't abandon two women in the middle of a burning city," Elena stated. "And Melanie just had a baby! And to make it all the worse, he had the nerve to kiss Scarlett like that and then just leave!" Damon laughed.
"He's fighting for what he believes in," he argued. "And he's fighting for Scarlett." Elena looked at him with disbelief.
"I'll give you that he's fighting for what he believes in," she said. "But I refuse to agree that he's fighting for Scarlett."
"He loves Scarlett," Damon said. "And he knows she scorns the men she wins easily. So he refuses to be won."
"That's ridiculous."
"It's true." Elena shook her head in disagreement and leaned back against Damon.
"You never told me why Gone With The Wind is your favorite book," she said thoughtfully. "At the end of our first date, you said you would need a second date to tell me why it's your favorite. We've been on quite a few dates since then." Damon picked up her hand and laced his fingers through hers.
"I was fourteen the first time I read it," he told her. Elena raised an eyebrow.
"You read that book at fourteen?" she interrupted. She was a voracious reader at that age as well, but she was plowing through young adult fiction and the occasional book of poems, not stories about the Old South that were nearly a 1,000 pages long.
"Not like I had much else going on," Damon said. "Couldn't drive yet, at least not legally, didn't play sports, wasn't in any clubs. So I sat around in the library and read my mom's books." Elena felt her heart squeeze. She had only been inside the Salvatore library a few times, but she could imagine a young Damon lounging in one of the high back armchairs, a book in hand as the afternoon sun dropped from the sky.
"You really are full of surprises," she stated, earning a chuckle from Damon.
"Even then, I saw myself in Rhett Butler," he told her. "But the likeness came a lot more apparent as I got older and really understood what I was reading. He's this dark, dashing man, disowned by his family, no formal education. But he makes his own way, even if it's not exactly legitimate. He sees through hypocrisy and self-delusion. He doesn't let people get too close, keeps his heart guarded. I get him. His actions make sense to me. If I was alive in the 1860s, I'd probably be him."
Elena was silent for a few minutes. In hindsight, she should have seen why Damon loved the book. He was, most definitely, a modern Rhett Butler. Like Rhett, he was handsome and scandalous with a devil may care attitude. While Damon's family hadn't disowned him in the way Rhett's had, his relationship with his father and brother had been strained his whole life and like Rhett, Damon had loved his mother deeply. Damon too had the ability to see through people, to call them out and cut them down to size. And he did it with little concern about consequences.
And then there was their similarities in education. Throughout Gone With The Wind, Rhett, who had been kicked out of West Point and had no formal higher education, quoted Shakespeare and philosophers, proving he was an intellect in spite of his circumstances. Damon had barely graduated high school and had only set foot on a college campus if it involved bedding a co-ed, but he knew literature and history and judging by his business savviness, could hold his own in the realm of numbers as well.
And then there was her.
She was no Scarlett O'Hara, of that she was sure, but Damon was guarded and jaded when it came to relationships and often surprised her with his bluntness and his gift to see through her, challenge her, just like Rhett did with Scarlett. Damon was Rhett Butler, right down to how he adapted himself to reality but still clung, however loosely, to ideals from the past. She just hoped their story ended better than Scarlett and Rhett's. She took the fact that she wasn't hung up on another man like Scarlett was to be a good sign.
"Shall I start calling you Rhett?" she asked finally.
"As similar as we are, I wouldn't leave you on the outskirts of a burning Atlanta to go off and join the war," Damon told her. "I would at least see you to safety first." Elena laughed and laid her head back on his shoulder.
"So, what's your plan for today?" she asked him.
"Well, at some point, likely very soon, I'm going to take you inside and have my way with you," he told her bluntly, a hand sliding suggestively along her thigh. "And at another point, likely after lunch, but certainly before dinner, I'm going to stop by the mill, put in a few hours. And then tonight, I'm hoping I can convince you to let me take you to dinner in Charlottesville. It goes without saying that I'll be sleeping next to you tonight, whether that's here or at the Boarding House."
"Can I pick the restaurant?" Elena asked.
"Name it."
"Bang," Elena said instantly. "It's this great tapas place downtown. Caroline, Bonnie and I went a couple weeks ago. I think you'll like it."
"Bang it is," Damon said. "You good with staying at the Boarding House tonight?" It struck him how very domestic everything was, sitting with Elena in what was as good as their pajamas, drinking coffee and planning out their day. He liked it, being part of a couple that worked like that. With Katherine, he had usually been told where to be and when to be there. With Elena, he felt like he had an opinion, even when he was differing to her.
"I was planning to stay there anyway," she told him. "I was planning to pick up my boyfriend – who I haven't seen in weeks – at the airport tonight and I didn't exactly plan on dropping him off at the curb."
"That's my girl," Damon growled. He made sure Elena didn't have her coffee mug in her hand and then stood, Elena, cradled in his arms, letting out a surprised shriek at the sudden change. "Let's get you inside. You're wearing too many clothes."
That Rebekah... She's sneaky. Well played, Bex and Damon, well played.
Gone With The Wind is one of my very favorite books. The movie doesn't do it justice. There's an episode of Vampire Diaries where the book is shown prominently on Damon's nightstand and I believe that was because of his likenesses to Rhett Butler. Damon is very much like him, both in my story and on the show. Now I want to go read that book yet again. All 1,000 or so pages of it.
Let me know what you think!