Author's Note:

So I know I said that I would expand this, but after this chapter I just can't think of how to further the storyline. So I think this will end the fic, and I'll start focusing on my Delena story, Five Minutes. Thank all of you guys so much for your reviews and support!

Damon

I walked in to the boardinghouse after dropping A.J. off at her house, only to find Extra Broody being, well, extra broody.

A.J. had wanted to get some of her stuff to bring to the boardinghouse for when she was over here, just like Elena had a drawer of her clothing and such in Stefan's room.

"Damon, we need to talk." Stefan said, folding his arms.

"Well, we have an excellent start, seeing as our lips are moving and words are coming out." I said, cocking an eyebrow.

"Don't get smart with me, Damon. This is serious."

"Serious? When I signed up for being a vampire, 'serious' was not in the job description." I replied sarcastically.

"You turned an innocent girl into a vampire. You doomed her to a life of-"

"Do not pulled the whole tortured soul thing with me." I cut him off in exasperation.

"This has nothing to do with me. This has to do with a healthy human girl having immortality forced on her."

"Healthy? Forced? Not hardly, my brother." I said, bristling at his assumptions. The aggressively protective streak A.J. brought out in me flared and widened when Stefan started making accusations.

"What are going to tell me, Damon? That she wasn't healthy? That it wasn't forced?" He said, and lifted his eyebrows as if to say "point proven."

"That is exactly what I am going to tell you. A.J. had terminal cancer, and she wants this." I snarled, closing my fingers around my brother's throat. Stefan looked totally disbelieving.

"Liar." He choked out.

That was what did it. That was what made my already fragile temper snap. I threw him into the wall with the force of the infuriated vampire I was. I felt my face transform as I heard him slam into the wall.

He lunged at me, but I grabbed his wrist, twisted it, and forced him to his knees. His face was transformed as I forced him down, but I was so furious that I didn't really care.

Quick as a snake, he lunged forward and buries his fangs in my lower arm. I cried out involuntarily as he ripped my flesh. Just as I was going to try to pry him off, he was pinned to the floor by a vampire even more viciously protective than me, from the looks of it.

A.J.

I grabbed Stefan's wrists and pinned them above his head as I held him to the floor, the weight of my body preventing him from moving.

"Look here, you little brooding pain in the ass," I started, trapping both of his wrists in one of my hands and curling the fingers of my free hand around his throat, "If there is one thing you should have figured out over the centuries, then it's not to mess with a vampire, let alone a vampire's vampire girlfriend." I snarled, slamming his head into the hardwood floor. My fangs were bared and my face was transformed completely.

"So if you know what's good for you, then do not ever touch my Damon again." I hissed, easily using the possessive term on Damon.

I think he tried to nod, but I was holding his throat too tight for him to speak or move.

"And trust me, if you do ever hurt him again, I will not hesitate to hurt you very badly," my voice dropped to a dangerous whisper as I leaned close to his ear, "and you know why? Because I learned from the best." And then I released him and turned to Damon.

I looked at him, truly taking him in. Yes, I had most definitely learned from the best.

I walked over and stood at his side, and we watched Stefan shakily climb to his feet and disappear to his room.

"Sorry. I guess I should have warned you, I have a protective streak." I said, almost shocked at how easily I had threatened the much older vampire.

"You have nothing to be sorry for." He laughed.

"What's so funny?" I asked, turning to him.

"I just love getting my little brother get put in his place by a girl." He said, shaking his head and laughing softly.

"Well, I think he got the message."

Damon

I was coming downstairs the next morning when I ran right into Elena.

"Hey. I was about to come looking for you." She said, brushing her hair out of her face. She was still being decent to me, so I had to assume Stefan hadn't told her about what A.J. and I had done to him yet.

"What might I be able to do for you?" I asked, leaning against the banister.

"Look, I'm sorry about the way Stefan and I reacted about A.J.. So to clear things up, I think we should go on a double date."

"A what?" I asked, trying to drop my jaw. Double dates were just so…human.

"A double date." She said, looking matter of fact.

"Um…" My voice trailed off and I stuffed my hands in my pockets. I had a feeling this would be a disaster.

Elena saw my hesitation and pounced on it.

"Great. We'll all four meet at The Grill tonight at six." She said with a smile.

I pursed my lips and watched her leave, trying to figure out how I had just ended up getting talked into going on a double date with Broody and Mrs. Broody. I picked up my phone and called A.J.

"Hey. What's up?" Her voice answered.

"A double date. With Broody and the Broody Mistress."

"A what?" She said, and I was amused to find that her reaction was identical to mine.

"Yeah, well, once Elena makes up her mind, changing her mind is nearly impossible. Trust me, I know." I said, remembering the time I'd spent chasing after her.

"What do you mean 'I know'?" She said, her voice taking on an edge.

"A.J…. are you jealous?" I asked, my lips curling up in a half smile.

"No I am not jealous! I was just…asking." She said, and I did not believe her one little bit.

"Of course your not. Six o' clock. The Grill. I'll pick you up at fifteen til." I said and hung up.

A.J. and I pulled up at The Grill and walked in, looking for Stefan and Elena. My eyes sought them out and found them at a booth waving us over.

"Wow. You came. This should be marked as a national holiday: Damon Salvatore complies." Stefan said in a rare moment of sarcasm.

"Stefan has a sense of humor: alert the media." I replied, sliding into the other side of the booth with A.J.

"So, Elena, tell me more about yourself. I don't know much about you," A.J. said, to start the ball rolling.

"Well, I am seventeen, I have a brother named Jeremy, my parents died in a car accident, and I live with my Aunt Jenna." She said, wincing when she talked about the accident.

"I'm so sorry, Elena." A.J. said, looking at her with sympathy.

"Thank you."

I propped my head on my hand and sighed in boredom as the girls bonded over sad, pitiful tales. Stefan, I soon realized, was doing the exact same thing. A small smile curved my lips as I realized that we probably looked more like brothers than ever right now.

"Would you like to play pool?" I asked him, seeing as the girls were still immersed in telling each other all about their lives.

"Sure." He said, getting to his feet.

"Elena, Damon and I will be right back. We're just going to play some pool and give the two of you some, um…" His voice trailed off.

"Girl time." I supplied helpfully, and he shot me a grateful look.

Stefan got beat three times, and finally gave up on trying to beat me. I smirked at him triumphantly, and he shoved my shoulder playfully.

The double date went surprisingly well, and after the we got back, the four of us actually found we had a good bit in common. A.J. and Stefan both liked cars. We all four loved mine and Stefan's cooking. We'd all had difficult past relationships. A.J. and Stefan had both been taught to play something by their brother (I taught Stefan to play football, and A.J.'s-) Wait a minute. A.J. had a brother?

"You have a brother?" I asked, brow furrowing.

"Uh oh. Damon's brooding. This can't be good." Stefan muttered.

"Had a brother." She corrected, looking away.

"Had?" I said, confused. Why had she never mentioned this to me?

"He's dead." She said, clearly misinterpreting my questioning tone.

"Yeah, well, so am I. Is he a vamp?" I asked."No. He was human. And so were all of the other people on September eleventh, but they died too." She said, blinking away the tears filling her eyes.

"I am so sorry." I said, taken aback.

"He was four. My parents were both at work, I was at school, and the babysitter was also a secretary that worked there. She'd gotten to the house to baby-sit and realized she'd left her purse at the office. She called my mom and asked if it was okay, if she took Markus with her, if she went back to the office long enough to grab her purse and then come right back to the house. They were on the floor the plan hit. There was no help for my baby brother," she said, and had to stop for a moment to clear her throat and blink away tears again, "we lived in New York then, but we moved away when that happened. We'd only lived there three months, but after the bombing happened we were terrified." She said, and I could see the trauma in her eyes, the memories.

I was speechless. Which was fine, because there is just nothing you can say to that kind of story. "I'm sorry" doesn't really fit the bill.

And though the story was awful, once Stefan and Elena expressed their sympathies, the date when smoothly. We talked and laughed and started talking about where we'd gone and where we wanted to go.

"Remember when we went to Georgia?" Elena asked, laughing.

"Of course I remember Georgia. How could I forget?" I replied, and started to laugh too.

"I got so hammered. I remember when we'd first showed up at the bar and you started making out with Bree. I felt so awkward." She said.

Stefan looked at her with raised eyebrows, obviously not knowing she'd gotten hammered until now.

A.J. had one eyebrow cocked, and I just gave her my signature cocky smile.

"What exactly happened in Georgia?" A.J. asked, her fingers tapping on the table.

"Well, I got drunk, for one thing. Damon almost got killed. And then we came home. And I guess we bonded." She said, looking at me fondly. Apparently too fondly for A.J. to like.

"He is very easy to bond with. What's not to love?" She said, fingers lacing possessively with mine.

Elena laughed and nodded, and A.J. relaxed. I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze that told her she had nothing to worry about.

And that was the story of my life. Stefan and Elena. A.J. and I. We were a family, and the four of us had bonded in ways humans would never understand. A.J., Sam, and Elena became best friends, and Stefan and I also became closer than ever. And while I was still sarcastic, and cocky, and mocked Stefan to hell and back, I felt whole. Alive. Human. And it was all because A.J. North had saved my life.

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming, or the moment of truth in your lies. When everything feels like the movies, yeah you bleed just to know you're alive."

~The Goo Goo Dolls