A/N: Sorry about the long delay in updating. Work caught up with me again, and then I had to travel to a conference. To make it up to you, this is a longish chapter with lots of Damon-Elena. As always, reviews are much appreciated!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries, more's the pity.

Chapter 25

After what Damon thought was a pretty exquisite dinner for only a few hours of planning, Elena grabbed his hand to tug him into the living room. "Want to watch a movie?"

He savored the feeling of her small hand holding his. "Sure. What are we watching?" So far this little date night was going quite well, if a bit too innocent for his tastes. He was playing along, however.

"A little patience, please," Elena said teasingly. "You'll find out in a minute." Elena gestured for him to sit down on the couch, and Damon settled himself in a corner, watching Elena's backside appreciatively as she put in a DVD.

He was even more appreciative as Elena settled herself against him. "Is this comfortable?" she asked.

"More than comfortable," he said in one of his best sexy voices, nuzzling her hair as he put his arms around her.

"Movie, Damon," Elena said, giving him a light tap on his shoulder. She didn't sound very upset, however.

Once the movie started, however, Damon found himself actually drawn into watching it. Not that he would ever admit it, but he was touched that Elena had obviously put some thought into taking his mind off recent events. She had selected Little Miss Sunshine, truly one of the funniest movies of recent years in Damon's considered opinion, and even though both of them had seen it before, it wasn't long before they were laughing at the crazy antics of the dysfunctional family and dysfunctional world on the screen. Laughing with Elena while holding her in his arms was quite possibly the closest to true peace and happiness that Damon had gotten since he was a little boy, before his mother had died, he thought suddenly. Other than sex, of course, he had to remind himself.

For an hour and a half, Elena had actually managed to distract him from, well, everything, and Damon was grateful. But unfortunately the movie, and the moment, had to come to an end.

Elena switched off the T.V. and pulled slightly away from Damon, looking at him intently. He felt himself tense involuntarily at the look in her eyes. "Damon, can we talk about yesterday?" she asked.

Damon was up off the couch and across the room before his rational mind could kick in and remind him that probably wasn't the best reaction. "Not tonight, Elena," he said.

Of course, she had to push him. "It'll be better if you talk about it, Damon. And I want to understand."

Damon whirled on her. He knew his eyes were flashing crazily, but it was all he could do to keep himself somewhat under control. Damn it, he had almost gotten through the day, and she had just brought back every single emotion that he was trying desperately to suppress. And if he didn't keep those emotions suppressed, he would snap – and not even Damon knew what he would do then, but he knew it wouldn't be good by any definition of the word. "I can't" was all he said, hoping that she could see from his eyes and his body language that tonight of all nights she had to back off.

But she was Elena, and she never backed off. Under other circumstances, it was one of the things he loved about her. "You can tell me, Damon. Please don't shut me out."

He was pacing now, seeking a way to release some of the pent up energy in his body. He tried again. "I can't, Elena. I can't talk about it. Not yet." Then, being Damon, he made things worse. "And you can't understand, damn it. You have no fucking idea!"

But somehow those words seemed to show Elena just how on edge he was. She moved in front of him then, grabbing for and catching his hand. "Damon," she said soothingly. "It's okay. We don't have to do it tonight. We can wait until you're ready."

Damon jerked his hand away. He didn't want her sympathy. "I've got to get out of here," he said. His body was vibrating with the emotions that threatened to overwhelm the remnants of his self-control. He took a step toward his coat where it hung over a chair.

"Damon, don't do this. Don't run away from me," Elena pleaded. She played her trump card, then. "Please, think about what happened last time."

Damon stopped moving and buried his head in his hands. He was pretty sure that Isobel wasn't lurking outside to ambush him, and if she was, she was as good as dead. But he knew that on another level Elena was right; if he wanted to have any chance of making things work between them, he couldn't run away every time his emotions got too intense. The problem was that he was afraid that he couldn't control himself, and then he would hurt her. Again. Damon kept himself turned away from Elena and braced himself for the hug that he thought was coming, terrified that it would send him over the edge. He had broken down twice in the past day and a half, and he knew his control was even more shaky than usual. So far the only person he had hurt was himself, with that terrifying nightmare, and he wanted to keep it that way.

Once again, however, Elena seemed to sense how precarious Damon's emotional state was in that moment. She actually kept her distance. "Just come watch the next movie with me," she said. "We still have that second bottle of wine that you brought, too."

Damon froze for a long moment, trying to steady his breathing and his mind. If he left now, he would just have to find a distraction elsewhere, he knew, and neither his house nor the Grill sounded particularly appealing. He wasn't at all sure he could handle being alone with his thoughts. "Okay," he finally said shakily, turning back toward her.

•••••

Elena had been blindsided by Damon's reaction to what she had meant to be a simple question. She really did want to understand what he had felt the previous day, the unbelievable pain that she had seen in his eyes. And she hadn't been able to forget his words when he woke up, Why did you bring me back? Why couldn't you just let me go? She felt like she needed Damon so much, had missed him so much, and it was eating at her that he might rather have died than be with her.

They had both been so relaxed at the end of Little Miss Sunshine that it had felt like the perfect time to talk to him. But instead Damon had instantly freaked out, and it had seemed like Elena was only making it worse. It reminded her of when Rose had died, and she had done her best to comfort Damon only to be left with the feeling that she had somehow failed him completely. She couldn't let that happen again, so she had changed her tone and backed off.

And at least he hadn't left, she thought, even if she could still feel the tension suffusing his entire body even though he had nearly finished the wine in about half an hour. She had settled herself against him again and put on another comedy, but she could tell that this time Damon wasn't hearing a word of the movie. She stroked his arm tentatively, trying to get him to relax.

Elena had just wanted to bring him some peace after everything he had been through, and she had wanted to rekindle their relationship tonight. It had been going well until she had tried to get him to open up, and Elena knew she was going to have to continue to tread carefully with Damon. He was so different from her friends; with Bonnie or Caroline, she would have kept pushing until they had talked through everything. And even if Stefan could be evasive at times, he would eventually explain things to her and they could talk about any problems. With Damon, sometimes she felt like she understood him perfectly and at other times she was completely confused by his reactions.

She could finally feel him relaxing a bit under her touch, and she gathered her courage again. They had been flirting enough earlier that she knew he had been receptive to getting physical, and he was Damon, after all. She just didn't know where his head was at now, and that scared her just a little. But she desperately wanted to reestablish the intimacy that had slipped through her fingers, so she turned to face him. She could see the distant, distracted look in his eyes, and she realized in terror that Damon was hardly even there with her in the room. She needed to bring him back to her, or she was afraid she would lose him. She thought she knew just how she could show him that she would be there for him, that she cared. "Are you watching the movie?" she asked.

He looked down at her at the sound of her voice, and she could almost see him pulling his thoughts back to her living room. "Hmmm, not really," he admitted.

"Wanna do something else?" Elena tried to sound as flirtatious as she could manage. It wasn't exactly her forté, she thought.

Damon seemed to have caught her mood, though. "What did you have in mind?" He definitely knew how to make even the most innocuous phrase sound dirty. She was going to have to learn that trick.

"Want to kiss me?"

"Always," Damon murmured, and he leaned forward to gently capture her lips with his. She opened her mouth a little, slipping her tongue out to tease along his lips, and he responded by urging her mouth open wider so that he could have access. The kiss quickly went from gentle to urgent, almost desperate, and Elena could feel a kind of wildness in the way Damon was touching her.

His wildness and desperation increasingly infected her mood, too, and Elena let every fear that she had lost him, every second that she had longed for his touch again, encourage her to greater urgency. She moved to straddle him on the couch, grinding herself down on him as she frantically fumbled with his shirt, finally getting it off. His hands seemed to be everywhere on her, and she moaned out his name, feeling how hard he was even though their clothes. His hands had slipped under her shirt, and he whispered a rough "sorry" as it tore in his hands.

Elena didn't care about the shirt. She tossed her head back, closing her eyes and moaning as Damon kissed his way down her neck and chest, his hands teasing her nipples through her bra. She felt his hand slip around her back to undo her bra, but to her surprise, he actually fumbled with the clasp, cursing as it defeated him. She looked down, prepared to tease him for such un-Damon like clumsiness, only to see the raw, desperate need in his eyes and on his face. It was intoxicating to realize how much he needed her, and she dropped her lips back to his, kissing him with everything she had in her.

She was suddenly aware that they were still on the couch in her living room, though. "Not here," she told him.

"Why not? Why wait?" Damon finally got the clasp on her bra undone and pulled it off.

"Damon, someone could walk in." It was hard to think, let alone talk, with his lips and hands all over her body.

His voice was low and husky. "Who? Jenna's out of town, right?"

"Jeremy could come home any time, Damon."

Damon sighed, and his gaze meeting hers was slightly calmer. "Upstairs, then?" he asked. Elena nodded and started to reluctantly slide off of him. He shook his head. "Just hold on."

Before Elena could even ask what he meant, he was on his feet as though she weighed absolutely nothing. She wrapped both her arms and her legs around him, and they were in her bedroom before she could do more than take a breath. Elena giggled at his use of vampire speed. Damon clearly did not like to wait for sex.

Damon shoved the door shut behind them, and then they were both tearing off the remainder of each other's clothes. Damon showed far less finesse than the previous time as he drove Elena backwards toward the bed with urgent kisses, but she didn't care. She was already soaking wet and more than ready for him, and she pulled him with her onto the bed. "Please, Damon. I want you inside of me," Elena moaned. She could see the urgency in his blue eyes, that hint of desperation still there.

Then he was filling her, and she lifted her hips to meet him thrust for thrust as he set a quick pace. Elena felt as though the whole room was shaking around her as Damon drove into her. "Faster," she gasped as he found the perfect angle, and a moment later she was screaming his name repeatedly as her climax started. Damon cried out too as he followed her at almost the same time, waves of pleasure rocking both their bodies until they finally collapsed together into a tangle of limbs.

•••••

Jeremy unlocked the door to his house, Bonnie's hand resting in his. The light was on in the living room, so he called out as he pushed the door open slowly, not wanting to surprise his sister on her date. "Elena? We're back."

There was no answer, and Jeremy opened the door the rest of the way and led Bonnie inside. A glance around the room showed pretty clearly how Elena's night had gone. His sister's bra – which Jeremy skimmed over quickly with his eyes – and shirt were on the floor along with a black button-down shirt. One guess who that shirt belonged to, Jeremy thought. He was just glad they had made it upstairs, since there were some things a guy just didn't want to see his sister doing.

Then Bonnie said pretty much what he had just been thinking. "Is that Damon's shirt?" She sounded horrified.

Before Jeremy could come up with something to say, Elena's cries from upstairs confirmed exactly what she was doing and whom she was doing it with.

"She's with Damon?" Bonnie repeated in disbelief. "When did this happen? Is that why she was so bent on rescuing him?"

The witch started to head toward the stairs, radiating fury, and Jeremy tugged on his girlfriend's arm. If Bonnie interrupted Damon and Elena now, he wasn't sure who would end up dead but he was pretty sure someone would, whether witch, vampire, or innocent bystander like himself. Again. "Uh, why don't we go to your house? You can talk to Elena tomorrow."

Reluctantly, Bonnie turned from the stairs and followed Jeremy back out the door.

•••••

Damon lay back on Elena's bed. She was curled against him, her beautiful chestnut hair falling over his arm as he stroked her back slowly. He listened as her breathing slowed and deepened in sleep. His body wanted nothing more than to join her, but he kept himself rigidly awake. He didn't dare fall asleep with Elena for fear of what had happened the previous night. If his dreams went in that direction again, he knew he could easily hurt her.

When Damon was sure that Elena was deeply asleep, he slipped carefully out of her bed. He quickly put on the portion of his clothing that had made it upstairs, and then looked around for paper and pen with which to leave her a note. The pen stayed poised above the paper for a long time, however, as Damon tried to think of what to write. The truth was hardly an option in this case, and Damon had never been particularly good with words. Stefan and Elena were the ones who liked to write about their thoughts, not him.

Finally, however, Damon scribbled a couple of sentences and left the note on the pillow beside Elena. He ghosted down the stairs, finding his shirt downstairs along with Elena's bra and her torn shirt. Damon grinned as an idea came to him. Heading silently back up the stairs, he hung Elena's bra on her doorknob inside the room, feeling more pleased with that message than with the note he had written.

Once downstairs again, he cleaned up both the living room and the kitchen before heading back to the Boarding House.