Chapter Twenty-One: Promises

"He cares about you Elena, I know he does. That's why I thought I could trust him with this." That was her last coherent thought as her car hit the man in the road and went spinning out of control. It rolled over and Elena could hear herself screaming. Vampires might be bloodthirsty monsters but this was her worst nightmare- a car wreck, an accident all over again. Upside down as the car landed on its roof, she could see the man she'd hit lying in the road. After the screeching and crashing of the car it seemed eerily silent now. She'd only been heading to see Damon, he had asked to see her. She had snuck out of the house; if she died then nobody would know where she'd gone.

And then, the man moved. Slowly, he got up and she watched as, with audible crunches, he clicked his bones back into face. He was no ordinary man, Elena realised: he was a vampire.
She started screaming again, terrified. What if it was Logan? He was drawing closer to her. Elena watched his feet getting closer and closer as she struggled with her seatbelt, but it was jammed. He stopped, and she saw his knees bend, and then…. He was gone. A second in time passed and then Damon appeared, making her jump as he bent down to look at her.

"How're you doing in there?" He asked her, sounding nonchalant although his face looked concerned.

"Damon," She breathed.

"You seem to be stuck."

"My seatbelt… it won't… I can't get it…" Elena mumbled pathetically. Tears were falling up her face, dotting the ceiling of her car, and sobs ripped from her throat.

"Okay," He hushed her soothingly, "I'm going to get you out, alright? We can do it. I want you to put your hands on the roof. Can you do that?" Elena nodded and put her hands on the roof as instructed. "Alright, on three. One… two… three…" He ejected her seatbelt and she had a moment where she was falling, but Damon caught her and managed to get her out of the car without a single graze. "I got you. You okay? Anything broken?"

"No," Elena said. She felt lightheaded, looking up into his bright blue eyes where she was cradled in his arms.

"Can you walk?" She nodded, and Damon set her gently on her feet, but Elena's legs went out from under her immediately and he caught her. "Okay, focus, Elena, you're gonna be okay. Focus on me. Look at me, Elena." She tried, she really tried, but everything around her was fading away faster than she could hold onto it. He held onto her face, moving it so that she was looking right at him.

"You care about me…" She mumbled, and then everything went black.

Damon picked Elena up, holding her carefully in his arms. The accident had obviously given her the fright of her life, and he wasn't surprised after what she'd been through when losing her parents. And then there was that creepy vampire that had been following her… he wasn't Logan. Although Damon hadn't got a close look at the guy, he could tell that much. He kept Elena close, trying not to get distracted by looking at her. Despite the circumstances, she looked beautiful and peaceful whilst she was unconscious. He was pondering the meaning of the last thing she'd said by the time he got her back to his car. If one thing was clear, it was that both he and Elena needed a break from this town.

He drove all night, thinking about what Logan had told him, about the key to unlocking the tomb being in the Founders journals. He could check for his father's at home, and failing that he assumed that the Gilbert's probably had all of theirs- specifically, Johnathon Gilbert's 1864 entries would be useful. Damon wasn't even sure, though, that he wanted to open that tomb anymore. He had been devastated when Emily had destroyed the crystal, and angry beyond reason… but when he glanced out the corner of his eye at Elena, he wondered how much he needed Katherine with him. Stefan might be right- she might have just compelled Damon's love. It had felt nothing like, well… this.

He didn't love Elena Gilbert, Damon told himself that as he tore his eyes away from her. She just reminded him of Katherine… well, that was feeble, he thought; he didn't think of Elena as remotely reminiscent of Katherine. They were not the same person. What did he do? Did he open the tomb? He had to get Katherine out. The rest of those vampires- he hoped there'd be a way to keep them inside.

Elena stirred as the sun grew bright in the sky. She frowned, groaned, and tried to stretch. That was when she glanced over at him and realised they were in his car, surrounded by unfamiliar territory. Damon smiled: "Good morning sunshine."

"Where are we?" Elena asked, looking out of the window and then back at him.

"Georgia." He replied, grinning even wider.

"Georgia?" Elena repeated, "No. No we're not. Seriously, Damon, where are we?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Georgia," He said again, "Seriously. How are you feeling?" Elena frowned, apparently starting to accept the reality of the situation. Damon simply kept them flying down the open road, waiting for her to speak.

"My car… that guy… what happened? Who was he?"

"I'd like to know too. Elena," He took one hand off the steering wheel in order to touch her wrist. He heard her heart skip a beat when he did that, but he gave no indication that he knew of this, "Are you hurt? I checked for broken bones and there were none but if you need healing…" She looked at him as if she'd only just noticed that he was there. Her eyes travelled from his face to his hand on her arm and then to the speedometer.

"I'm fine, we won't be if you don't slow down though!" She gaped. Damon knew they wouldn't crash but he could understand why she was currently spooked, so he slowed down to just below the speed limit accordingly. Elena's breathing seemed to ease a little. She licked her lips and then asked, "Where's my phone? Nobody knows where I am. I need to call home."

"You don't want to go back?" Damon asked softly. He watched the thought cross her mind- he'd expected her to demand to be taken back immediately, but she hadn't.

"I… don't know. I just, let me have my phone. And I need to get out for a minute, get fresh air, okay?" He sighed and pulled over to the side of the road. Elena got out and he followed suit, whipping around the front of his car; Elena was limping a little.

"You okay?" He asked her carefully. Elena nodded, giving him a strange look. Apparently the full version of last night's events was coming back. He felt in his pocket, where he could feel the cool metal of the necklace Stefan had given her. He'd taken it off in case he needed to calm her down, with no idea how she'd react to finding herself miles away from home after he'd let Logan go. At that exact moment, Elena's cell phone started ringing.

"That might be Jenna, I'm supposed to be going to school today-" Damon checked the name on the phone. It was Stefan. He held it out for her to see and her eyes went wide when she saw this. Elena shook her head. "He'll ask too many questions- it was hard to send him away last night." Damon nodded and picked up the call.

"Elena's phone," He couldn't resist taunting his brother a little.

"Damon, where the hell is Elena? I came back to check on her this morning and she's gone. Where have you taken her?" Stefan sounded angry and panicky at the same time.

"Elena is fine. I'm with her." He heard Elena gulp as if nervous when he said that and he tried to look at her to gauge her expression but she turned her face away from him.

"Where are you? Let me speak to her," Stefan demanded.

"She doesn't want to speak to you Stefan, so that'll be a no." Stefan paused after this and Damon could hear him let out an annoyed breath, but he resigned:

"Fine. But you should know that somebody staked Logan last night, even though you didn't." Damon was a little surprised to hear this, but he wondered at something- the guy he had taken the second stake from in the Grill, Alaric Saltzman, husband of Isobel.

"Forgive me if I don't shed a tear. Now, toodle-oo, baby brother." He hung up and Elena looked at him. Damon relayed the last piece of news to her and he saw a little relief cross her face. Obviously now she knew that Jenna and Jeremy couldn't be hurt she had less to fear by being away from Mystic Falls.

"What did Logan tell you?" She asked him in a low voice, watching his face. Damon had rather hoped the interrogation would wait.

"Elena, I promise I will explain everything to you. We're nearly there, and then I will do that. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter because today we both need to take a step back from our lives. And, you know, have fun. Okay? So just… stop being yourself for a little while. Everything is going to be fine. I will keep you safe." Elena sighed but nodded. He smiled and opened the door for her to hop back in the car, before closing it and speeding round to the driver's side. He slid in beside her and started the engine.

"So," Elena sounded a little resigned, "Where is 'there'?"

"Just a little place outside of Atlanta." He smirked. Today would be a good day, that he had already decided.

Elena watched Damon closely that day. She watched him give the bartender, Bree, a sloppy kiss on the lips which made her stomach turn over with jealousy despite her current bad mood with Damon. She watched him knock back shots and beers and even swallow a hamburger almost whole when he remembered that she needed to eat. She had been hoping to watch him for any signs that he was going to yield on the subject of Logan and explain about the supposed new way of opening the tomb, but eventually her observation just turned into watching. She hadn't seen Damon laugh so much back home. He laughed easier than Stefan did, sure, but he hadn't done much of that since the night Emily had destroyed the crystal. It was nice to see him with his eyes sparkling and his laugh was contagious.

"How did you two meet?" Elena asked Bree. She'd warmed to the lady right away- she was older, probably in her late thirties or early forties, though she supposed technically speaking that Damon was a lot older than that himself.

"College," Bree smiled.

"You went to college?" Elena looked at Damon with surprise- she hadn't had him down as the college type before now. Confirming this, Damon grinned:

"I've been on a college campus," He corrected her. Elena nodded.

"Twenty years ago, when I was a sweet young freshman, I fell in love with this beautiful man. He told me his secret and that just made me love him more, because I have a little secret of my own of course." Bree smiled mysteriously.

"She's a witch," Elena jumped when Damon whispered this in her ear. His breath had tickled her. Elena looked at Bree with renewed interest. The only witches she knew were Bonnie and her Grams and even then she knew very little about the actual practices. Bree seemed more of a free spirit than either of them, too.

"This one here, he changed my world, you know." Bree indicated Damon, who smouldered at her.

"I rocked your world, you mean." Elena shifted uncomfortably. She didn't like Damon flirting with anybody else, even when it was somebody older and with whom he seemed to have history. In fact, that made it worse because it made her suddenly, painfully aware how little she knew about Damon's life before the night she had met him.

"He is good in the sack, isn't he?" Bree asked Elena, working on assumptions, "But mostly he's a Walk-Away-Joe." As she flounced away to serve another customer, Elena looked around at Damon, only to find he was already watching her. He seemed to be sitting very close, and his eyes were pinned on hers.

"You came here to ask her about opening that tomb." She hadn't managed to get out of Damon what was needed to open the tomb but it could be no coincidence that he'd taken her all the way here to visit his witch ex-girlfriend. Damon moved his hand up to her cheek. He held it there, stroking his thumb along her jawline. His hand was cool against her skin.

"Do you hate me, Elena?" His voice was very quiet.

"What? I…" She frowned, confused, "No, of course not."

"Will you hate me if I do this?" She knew he meant opening the tomb. Elena thought about it. She still didn't want those vampires out, and she didn't think she could stand to meet Katherine and see her and Damon go off into the sunset, happily ever after. But on the other hand… he had been determined to do this for over a century. It was never going to be easy for him to give up, and there was no guarantee that Katherine really loved Damon. There was still the Stefan element of this story to factor in- no water-tight promise of a happy ending here, but Elena also didn't want to see Damon unhappy.

"No." Elena spoke this word decisively, "I won't hate you, Damon. I… I think I can understand, kind of. I just… why do I look like her?" The question came bursting out of her, though she'd held it in since she'd first seen the picture of Katherine, "It doesn't make sense. How are we connected?"

"I don't know." Damon replied seriously, tucking her hair behind her ear, "I don't know but maybe she does." Elena nodded, not believing what she was about to say:

"I'll help you, Damon, if I can. I'll help you get into that tomb… as long as the other vampires don't get out." Shock passed over his face, but then he smiled. He laughed. Damon kissed her cheek than pulled her into a bone-crushing hug, not something Elena had ever believed him capable of. She made to let go of him but he just held her tighter, not moving.

"You're my best friend, Elena…. My only friend. You know that?" He murmured into her hair. She closed her eyes and breathed in his scent, happy. Damon always smelt clean and natural. "I promised you fun today, though, so fun you'll get. But you should probably call your Aunt Jenna first and tell her you're alright." He let go of her at last and handed back her phone. Elena felt a strange emotion she couldn't identify as she turned and headed to the door where there was better reception outside.

Elena didn't know what exactly she'd agreed to, but she would follow through on her promise no matter what.

A/N: So things are changing around these parts!

It's about time I thanked everyone who has given me feedback so far. So shout-out to Candy Momo, Megan Schmidt, CBoth, Nataras, and every other person who was dropped me a review along the way.