Chapter 28

I'm not sure how, but I made it through the dance. Okay, the main reason I made it through was because of a young girl, I think one of the ones in the pageant. She had started the dance four places down from me in the line of women and was an infinitely worse dancer. I flubbed a couple of moves, but she was lumbering around like an elephant in a china shop, or at least when she wasn't flat on her back on the floor with her hoopskirt up in the air in a most undignified manner. Of course, it could have been worse. She was wearing these frilly white bloomers that didn't show a thing. If I had ended up in the same position, I would have shocked most of the participants with only my tiny black panties under my nineteenth century gown. Did respectable women wear black underwear back here? Hmm, perhaps the color of my underwear as much as its extremely different style is what had startled Emily when she had been helping me change.

But surviving the dance had certainly helped my self-confidence, even if I was almost gasping for breath from the tight corset. I felt ready to go in search of Stefan.

Initially, I had planned to have Damon meet me in the back garden at the start of the last dance, which would hopefully have given me time to find a moment when Stefan wasn't with Katherine to convince him to come with me. But while I was out on the dance floor, I realized we were under an even tighter time constraint than I had thought when I was just worried about getting them away before they were killed by their father with Katherine's blood in their systems.

I didn't know the exact time of the Council's move, but I knew things would ultimately end up out at Fell's Church in the cemetery. And the next anomaly was scheduled to open within sight of the church in just under two hours. We needed to be ready to be through it at the first possible moment, so Bonnie could close it before either vampires or some of the council's men stumbled through and ended up unexpectedly in Bonnie's lap. Or even worse, the council's men might not pass through, but start guarding the location so we couldn't get through any of the subsequent openings.

The only way I could see to get to Stefan immediately, if he was still with Katherine, was to have Damon convince him they needed to speak in private. And the only way to get Damon's help would be to take him into my confidence. The best way to prove to him I wasn't Katherine was to let him see both of us at once, preferably without Katherine seeing me in turn. Assuming I could convince him he wanted to be with me more than he wanted to become a vampire.

My mind was a swirl of possible plans, as Damon strode up, a big smile adorning his handsome face. When he pulled my hand to his lips for another quick kiss, most of those ill-formed ideas flitted away. More than anything, I wanted him kissing my lips not my hand.

"Let's get some fresh air, Damon," I heard myself say. "All the heat and smoke in here is stifling."

"It would be my honor to escort you to the garden where they are serving refreshments, Elena." As he spoke, he had leaned closer until the final word was whispered into my ear.

"Okay, but let's go out the front. I know a path leading around the house where we can have a few moments alone." Even though my motivation was to get us to a spot where we could see Katherine without her seeing us, I could guess how Damon would interpret my words. And suddenly I knew, if we paused along the way for a quick or not-so-quick kiss, I wouldn't mind either.

As we headed for the ballroom door, I suspected proper etiquette called for him to offer an elbow, but he just continued to lightly hold my fingers. From the corner of my eye, I saw Pearl gaze in my direction. When I turned my head more fully towards the vampire, I saw a small smile quirk one corner of her mouth and then she gave an almost imperceptible nod. I had only talked to her a couple of times during the brief interval between when she was released from the tomb and her final death, but I got the impression she was a mother first and an almost Victorian-style lady second. She only wanted long term relationships, but seemed to take an almost vicarious thrill from the way Katherine burned through men. I'm sure she was fantasizing about the depraved things Katherine would do when she got Damon alone. And I couldn't keep my thoughts away from depraved things, too. My head was suddenly feeling light again, but I'm sure it was just the overly tight corset.

However as a result, I felt almost in a daze and it wasn't until we passed through the open front door into the cooler, clean air outside that my head began to clear a little. I released a small sigh of relief; the head butler was nowhere in sight. Quickly, I turned right hoping the path I remembered around that side of the house from my visits in the twenty-first century already existed back here in the nineteenth century.

I could just hear the orchestra starting up the next number as we rounded the corner and passed from the relatively well lit area in front of the house and into the shadows. Only faint light, by modern standards, was seeping from the windows, but it was enough to find the old path. Assuming the council was still meeting, it would be behind the third set of windows I could see. I was tempted to work my way through the surrounding bushes to see if I could learn anything useful, but I couldn't do it without ruining my gown and I might still have need of it. Hopefully, we would be gone before they made their move.

"Elena," whispered Damon breaking my thoughts. Not that my thoughts had been far from him with the way his thumb had been caressing the back of the hand he still held.

I paused and looked up at him. His pale face was just visible in the surrounding gloom. But I didn't need to see it clearly to know how absolutely gorgeous it was. Without stopping to think, I stepped closer until the extremely tight bodice of my gown was pressed firmly against him and I could feel the rough wool of his jacket against the exposed upper portion of my breasts. For a second, as I felt a cool breeze on the backs of my legs, I couldn't help but think of how comical I would look to any observer with the front of my hoop skirt pressed flat against the front of my body causing the back to stick almost straight up.

But then my lips were pressed firmly against Damon's and all thoughts of hoopskirts were swept away.

The kiss seemed to go on forever as I felt his strong hands completely encircle the tiny waist enforced on me by the constricting corset. As our tongues dueled, he effortlessly lifted me into the air until I was, at first, just standing on my toes and then completely held aloft by his powerful embrace.

I had only ever really kissed two boys before in my life, Matt and Stefan. Stefan and I had done a lot more than just kiss, but it had never seemed at all like this. Of course, it might just be the fact it had now been over a month since I had last been with Stefan back in modern Mystic Falls before the six anomalies I had passed through to get here. Therefore, suddenly, I could imagine myself being lost forever in this kiss and I couldn't even imagine how much better it would be if we were both naked. I was here for Stefan, but now that Damon was in my arms I didn't know what I wanted, other than to have this kiss go on and on and on.

We probably didn't kiss for more than a minute, okay, five minutes tops, before I reluctantly forced myself to pull back and take a breath. We would have all the time in the world after we got through the anomaly. But as long as we were back here, we risked Katherine finding out and turning him or his father killing him for sympathizing with the vampires. I needed to get him somewhere safe until Katherine's blood was out of his system.

"Damon," I whispered to forestall his already begun move to return his lips to mine. "I have things I need to explain, but first I have to show you something."

"I know what I want to see, Katherine," he replied, as I felt his fingers begin to work at the row of buttons down the back of my gown.

Having him unintentionally call me Katherine and then the long familiar aggressive vampire Damon-like move to remove my clothing seemed to clear my head. I put my hands against his chest and pushed myself away. Then taking his hand, I started moving brusquely towards the back of the house before I lost control again.

He seemed to realize that for some reason referring to me as Katherine had been the catalyst to my reaction. "Elena, wait. I thought that is what you wanted."

We had almost reached the back corner of the house and I could hear voices in the garden beyond. It was time for our conversation before he stepped far enough out to where we might be noticed.

I pulled him close to where I could just see his eyes, but not so close I felt tempted to kiss him again. Then I spoke at a whisper.

"Damon, I'm not Katherine. My name really is Elena and I am human. I'm here to stop that bitch Katherine from turning you and Stefan into vampires."

"What are you talking about, Katherine? Is this another one of your games?"

I could see the confusion in his eyes and I could understand it. I didn't truly grasp how Katherine and I looked exactly the same until I had seen her with my own eyes. And I knew I wouldn't convince him until he saw us at the same time, too. But still I felt I needed to do a little more explaining to prepare him.

"You know Katherine's maid, Emily?" When he nodded, I continued, "Do you know she's a witch?"

"Witch?" he echoed and I could see the look of confusion in his eyes. Apparently, he didn't know that and perhaps he didn't even know witches were real. That was going to make my explanation even harder for him to comprehend.

"Witches are real and the women in Emily's family are all powerful ones. Emily's great, great, great, great granddaughter will use her gifts to open a doorway through time to allow me to travel back here.

"Damon," I continued while almost digging my nails into his hand to be sure I had his full attention. "I will first meet you and Stefan in the distant future where you will already have been vampires for centuries. And you both will be unhappy and hate your undead existence. I am here to offer you a different choice. If you stay here, you will both end up vampires before the night is over, but if you come with me to the future, you can remain human. I love you and Stefan. I want to save you from becoming vampires."

The words had tumbled out without any planning or conscious volition on my part. It was only after they were out there that I realized what I had just said. I loved him. How long had this been creeping up on me? Was it something recent or did it stretch all the way back to when I first met him?

But I didn't have time to dwell on it at the moment. I could see even more confusion in his eyes than ever. I needed to get my incontrovertible evidence in front of him.

Carefully, I pushed Damon forward until he could see the garden through a gap in the trees. I tried to stay behind him as much as possible. If Katherine spotted him, it wouldn't be a big deal. But if she spotted me, I had no idea what would happen next. Knowing how quickly she could move, I thrust my right hand into the hidden pocket in my gown until it was firmly wrapped around the butt of Abby's EMD gun.

It took me a moment to locate Katherine. She and Stefan were further back in the yard than most of the other partygoers. They were in a white gazebo and I could see Stefan playfully feeding her pieces of fruit. I could feel my blood begin to boil at the sight of my old nemesis and I felt Damon's hand tighten at the moment he had to have spotted the pair.

I glanced up into Damon's face and I could just see a vein at his temple begin to pulse at the sight of Stefan and Katherine together. It took at least five more seconds before his eyes suddenly flashed down in my direction, as he remembered there were two of us, I mean Katherine and me. His eyes darted back and forth between Katherine and me several times before he got out a strangled 'How?', as though my previous explanation was completely forgotten.

End of Chapter 28

Author's Note:

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Duane