A/N: I marked this a Crossover only after having revised the entire story about two years after publishing it. Originally, I haven't written this with Twilight in mind, but I couldn't help notice that there are quite a few similarities, even if they were coincidental (or rather subconscious) at the time. I did read the first book of the series (which I liked) and only saw the movies of the other parts (which, frankly, I didn't like at all). As you might have guessed, I'm not a fan of love-triangles, and Edward and Bella were a bit too melancholic for my taste. I much prefer Damon's sarcasm, which he so carefully honed to hide his emotions. Well, in this chapter, Elena scratches at his mask, and we get to see a glimpse of the Damon behind. (You'll see much more of him later, promise!)


ELENA

Despite Stefan's and Bonnie's obvious dislike of the person the advice had come from, they ended up doing exactly what Damon had suggested they do. Though Alys was always hovering close by, just in case, her intervention hadn't been necessary so far. With every day, Stefan grew more confident and relaxed and started behaving more his old self.

Back in Mystic Falls, we even went out to have dinner at the Grill together, which we hadn't done in a long time. Caroline and Matt joined us, still a little miffed that we had snuck away from Klaus's party. Bonnie and Stefan were soon forgiven, though, as they confessed their romance – it was one of the best excuses they could have come up with. Romances were altogether something Caroline approved of – even that slightly weird thing between Jeremy and Alys. Unfortunately, the obvious lack of a love life made me a charity case in her eyes, especially since even my aunt was blissfully in love with Alaric.

Maybe it was a good thing that I at least had my wits and pants still on. Literally. Slightly blushing, I remembered last night, when I woken up thirsty and gone down into the kitchen for a glass of juice – and had run into Alaric, who had just opened the fridge to retrieve some ice cream – stark naked. With a gasp, I had quickly averted my eyes, not really knowing where to look when he, overwhelmed with the situation, had known no better than to stutter something like: 'I – ehm, I just came for some Chunky Monkey. Want some?' Which of course made me look right back at him out of reflex. Hit by the absurdity of the situation and thinking how lucky I was that Alaric was actually not my professor, I had started giggling. Ric, embarrassed and totally at loss, had just concluded his awkward speech by stating the obvious: 'Well, I'm naked – I'm gonna go.'

Just a little later, I heard Jenna in her bedroom – laughing her head off. This had been another moment where it hit me how different my life with her was from the life I'd probably have had with my own parents still around. Not that I didn't still love her dearly.

Alys had come back to Mystic Falls, too, to meet with Jeremy. After he had confided his interest in her to me, I had carefully addressed the matter with Alys, just like he had asked me to. Alys had looked as if she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Quite obviously, there was interest. I just wasn't sure what to think about that. We clearly could do without more vampire drama, and I feared a little for Jeremy's safety. Which was kind of strange, come to think of it. Bonnie had to be watched around Stefan, Jeremy was probably not safe around Alys, whereas I had always felt perfectly at ease around Damon, the only officially devious and dangerous of the three.

Well, maybe 'ease' didn't exactly describe it. It was more something along the line of either furious, aghast or stupefied, mostly combined with jittery, flustered and strangely excited. All rather untypical feelings for me, since I had always thought of myself more in terms of well-balanced, calm and slightly melancholic.

I had reassured Alys that I was not judging her for feeling that way, and that I was okay with them hanging out. From what I knew, they had gone to the Grill earlier that evening, when the place was still relatively empty of people, to play some pool.

It was anything but empty now, so the opportunity for talking was restricted by background noise and lack of privacy. We were mainly just joking around, listening to whatever gossip Caroline felt competent to dish out about last week's party. However, I couldn't help but notice that Bonnie was partly absent-minded and that her cheerfulness appeared a little forced. Something troubled her, and in silent communication honed by years of practice we agreed that we would talk about it later, in private.

Stefan dropped us off at Bonnie's house, and with a brotherly kiss for me and a slightly more passionate one for Bonnie he bid us good-night.

"So, how are things with you and Stefan?" I asked, finding the kiss a little bit lacking.

She was smiling happily, though. "We're doing just great – taking one step at a time. It's not easy, holding back all the while. I'm starting to get frustrated... We haven't really done anything yet..."

"Why not?"

Bonnie sighed. "Because Stefan is still afraid of getting too passionate. He's afraid he might lose it after all. But he also says it's getting easier to stop every time he takes my blood. So I'm hopeful that eventually, he'll be convinced that he won't ever hurt me. It's been barely a week, after all."

"And how are you coping with that – being bitten every day?" I asked, still unable to understand how she could tolerate that.

"It's okay." She shrugged. Probably having read the doubt in my eyes she touched my arm reassuringly: "Really, Elena, I'm fine! It's not so bad – actually, it doesn't even hurt. I'm just concerned about what grams will say once she learns that I'm hanging out with vampires and even allowing one of them to drink my blood. I know how she feels about the dark ones. And she's already upset because she thinks I misplaced one of her grimoires."

"What's a grimoire?"

"It's a sort of spell book. The one she is missing contains pretty advanced magic, so why would I even be looking into it? I'm busy enough trying to figure out the supposedly easy spells – like giving vampires a migraine."

I felt a shiver run down my back. I knew someone who might wish to have a look into a spell book like that... someone with an interest in pretty advanced magic. "Do you think Damon might have taken it, hoping to find the spell in there that was used to seal the tomb?" I asked, hesitantly.

"Damon?" Bonnie gave me a surprised look. "How so? He wouldn't even be able to get in here. The house is protected, and I'm not talking standard alarm systems. Vampires can't enter it without being formally invited in by it's rightful owner. They simply can't. And Damon wasn't invited."

"You mean your grandmother cast a spell on it?"

"Sort of. It's a pretty simple ritual though – almost anybody could perform it. In former times, people would call priests to have their house blessed or put up symbols to keep evil out. Nowadays, people put up alarm systems and feel protected. They don't know that there are far greater dangers out there than burglars."

Still, this had Damon's handwriting all over it. He probably had lulled us into complacence pretending that he had given up on his plan. If I knew one thing now about Damon, he didn't give up on anything easily. And he was the only one who had expressed a fervent interest in the grimoire and would be audacious enough to steal it.

Knowing that Damon always kept an ace up his sleeve, I was pretty sure I knew what had happened to the grimoire, and where I would find it. And I decided to get it back.

Having set my mind onto something, I could pursue a goal with the same determination Damon usually displayed. I headed back for Greenville early on Sunday, telling Jenna that I had homework to do.

During the one-hour drive, I had ample time to think about what I thought had happened previously, and it became all the more clear that Damon had led us on. He had a plan. He always had a plan. And somehow – probably by manipulating Bonnie while her protections where down – he had made her an unknowing tool in his scheme.

He had surprised me with unexpected kindness a couple of times now, and that had made me soften towards him and ignore his other, utterly ruthless side. Once again, he had gone behind our backs, which just showed that Damon couldn't be trusted.

I was starting to feel righteous anger at him – or maybe at myself for being so naive as to fall for his manipulations. By the time I arrived at the boarding house, I had pretty much succeeded in getting myself all worked up about his lack of morals and decency.

When he didn't immediately answer the door on my knocking, I suspected he knew that he had gotten busted. "Just open up, Damon!" I shouted, hammering the door again. "I know you're in, and I know what you have done! I'll not let you get away with it this time!"

Just about a second later, the door opened and I stood right in front of him, my clenched and raised fist almost pounding on his chest.

"And good morning to you, little miss I'm-on-a-mission!" Damon said ironically. "Would you like to come in, or do you prefer to keep shouting at me from outside?" With his signature smirk, he beckoned me to enter. "So – to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit – or should I rather say 'visitation'?"

"Shut up, Damon! You know perfectly well why I came here. A plain answer will do: Did you, or did you not steal the spell book of Bonnie's grandma?"

He gave me a surprised look that soon turned into something close to begrudging respect. Obviously, I had hit the mark. Yet my indignation was lost on him. "I didn't," he corrected in a light tone. "Bonnie was so kind as to give it to me."

"That's just crap. She doesn't even know where it is. And she would never have given it to you."

"Well, it wasn't exactly voluntarily. I sort of made her do it, while she was under my compulsion."

"How? It's not like she had all the grimoires with her that evening..."

"Well, I'm clever like that. I just put the idea in her head that she was curious about one particular grimoire and would go looking for it. Provided she'd find it, she would then bring it to Greenville with her, so she'd have time to study it. She probably never got round to doing so, because I suggested she'd forget about it once it was safely in her bag. How lucky I found it there when I dropped by last week!" He actually sounded incredibly pleased with himself at telling me this.

Flabbergasted, I could only stare at him speechlessly. Some of my radiant disapproval must have shown on my face, though, because he put on a slightly ironic expression. "So I take it that it's not okay with you?" I shot him a killing glance that finally made him sober. "Look, I'm not gonna say I'm sorry, for I'm not," he declared. "I needed that grimoire to find out about how the tomb was locked, and I did."

Well, at least, he was honest about it. Honest about not minding tricking, scheming and cheating if he considered it necessary. "But it didn't bring you any closer to your goal!" I declared angrily. "You're still gonna need a witch to open the tomb! How are you going to solve that, huh? Putting Bonnie under your compulsion again by threatening me or Stefan? I don't even understand why you want to do this in the first place!"

I had raised my voice – in anger and frustration – and so did he: "Because nobody but me seems to give a damn about the fact that Katherine has been locked away in a tomb for 162 years!" Damon shouted. "Have you any idea how that must have been for her? The pain, the darkness, the loneliness? She was probably clinging to the hope that someone would come and save her. Emily told me that Katherine was saved and that she left town and I believed her every word. I left and cursed Katherine's name, for being unfaithful and for leaving me without even a word of goodbye!" There was more than frustration in his voice. It was edged with despair – and guilt.

"It wasn't your fault, Damon," I said, softening. "You couldn't have known."

"I should have known better than to trust Emily."

"Why? Has she been dishonest to you before? Was she known as someone who breaks her every promise? It's not wrong to have faith in people."

"I had put faith in Katherine and believed all this time that she hasn't been worth it. If I had dug a little deeper – maybe I would have noticed that something was amiss. That Emily had me fooled."

"Yes, maybe. But there is no use in whining about maybes now. You didn't notice much because you were hurt and angry and betrayed. Things like these happen, people make mistakes. Katherine made mistakes, or Emily and Lockwood wouldn't have felt the need punish her as cruelly as that. They are both to blame, too, especially Emily, for betraying your trust and breaking her promise. But you have to forgive them – as you have to forgive yourself."

Damon's expression hardened, hiding the hurt beneath. "I don't do forgiveness. I'll put things right and get her out."

I could understand how this must unsettle him. The guilt he felt was almost tangible. Still – he couldn't be serious, not after all this time. "Damon... this is crazy!" I implored again, trying to make him see reason. "Reviving a vampire and bringing her back into a world that has moved on by a century and a half... Why is it that everyone but you seems to think that it's insanity to even consider it?"

"You know, Elena – from you, above all people, I would have expected a little more understanding – believing in eternal love and good endings... people do the strangest things for love, don't you know that?"

He was being manipulative again. He didn't believe in love, he had told me so himself. But he knew that I did – and tried to use that to his own advantage. Just that I refused to let myself be played for a fool. "Is this about love, then? Or is it just obsession?"

"Name it as you please," he said darkly. "Just know that I'll have no one get in my way."

The idea to take his threat seriously and to reconsider before arguing with a vampire who was dead set on following through with a plan didn't even cross my mind. "So it all comes down to what you want, right?" I berated him. "No matter what the cost and to hell with the consequences! You forced Bonnie under your compulsion and used her... you hurt and threatened me and made Stefan almost lose control, smashed his hopes without even blinking... What else are you willing to do to get what you want?" It was more of a rhetorical question, so the viciousness of his answer hit me out of the blue.

"I need to spill your blood."

I felt my skin turn cold. Somehow, I knew this wasn't about feeding – there was something much darker to it – something that had to do with the tomb and the spell book that he stole. Dark magic. I stood frozen and speechless, not quite able to process what I had heard. What did he want to do to me?

"I found the answer I was looking for..." Damon said, closing in on me. "Except I didn't like it. And neither will you. Katherine's tomb was magically sealed with human blood – the blood of her daughter. In order to reverse the spell, it needs exactly what was used to cast the original spell. The comet in the right position in the sky – a witch's power and the blood of a human descendant. Which means your blood, Elena."

Too shocked to think clearly I stared at him in disbelief. "You need to make a ritual sacrifice out of me to get Katherine out?"

"What?" Now Damon was visibly taken aback. Obviously, murdering me was not a requirement. I felt relief, although on second thought, I didn't believe that this was an option Damon would have considered.

His frown deepened. "You clearly are not trusting of me at all if you think I was cheerfully going to kill you in order to get her back!"

That wasn't true: I did trust him – to a certain extent. But I was also certain that Damon would use me if it suited his goals, even if I disagreed with them. "Trust breeds trust, Damon. You have to give it to get it. And you didn't trust any of us. You didn't ask for our help. You just forced our cooperation."

"Well, I found it hard to imagine you might still be willing to offer help if it comprises your blood being spilled on the sill of a tomb, even though it wouldn't require quite as much as to kill you."

"So you were going to force me into it?"

His features hardened. "I will do what I must to accomplish this," he said, his voice carefully devoid of emotion. "There is no choice in this for me, Elena."

"Why? Why are you so hell-bent on doing this – hurting people, risking lives, turning even your friends against you and using dark magic to alter the course of events that were set almost 150 years ago?"

"Because I owe her!" he said forcefully, yet his expression was still anguished, tensed as his voice.

I felt a surge of unjustified anger for the woman who a century and a half after her death was still the cause of so much suffering. From all I had heard, she didn't even deserve his loyalty. "For changing you into a vampire?" I challenged, even sounding harsh and bitter to myself.

"No! I need to atone for my betrayal!" This came out almost as a cry, full of desperation. "Don't you understand? Finding all of this to be a lie... she never left me. I left her!"

He looked at me with eyes that were dark and filled with so many emotions now that I had a hard time discerning them all. And suddenly, I understood. It wasn't just the lie about Katherine's fate. By believing it, he had lost his faith in people and in his own feelings. Finding out now that she had never left him – that her promises and her love had been true – put everything into doubt: All the judgements he had made based on this experience, the last 150 years of his existence, everything that had defined that man he had become. A part of himself was buried in that tomb. His fierce determination to right this wrong, his unwavering loyalty and his firm resolve to keep his promise to Katherine... it had me awed.

"You do love her..." I remarked, as understanding dawned on me. It was obvious. How could we ever have thought that there was no feeling left in Damon? There was so much of it that he had to shove it somewhere deeply inside, locking it away and hiding it so as not to drown in it: all his anger, his grief, his loss, hurt and guilt. And a love so great that it had surpassed time.

Damon's face was like stone. Too beautiful to be real. Too cold to be human. "It doesn't matter if I do or if I don't. I simply have to get her out, and I will! If it means that I have to do this the hard way, then so be it. Even if I have to force you to get the help I need."

"No," I said softly, refusing to even consider this option. "I can't allow that to happen." I could deal with a lot of things – disappointment, loss and pain – but not with that. Having Damon purposely hurt me – it would break something in me.

So I took a deep breath and raised my hand to my neck, fumbling with the closure of my necklace. Damon watched me with bewilderment.

"What are you doing?" he asked, frowning as I took it off and put it side on the side table. I turned back to face him. "I'm trusting you," I said, more confident now. "This is your chance, Damon. If you won't ask me for my help, then put me under your compulsion and make me do it. If you want my blood so badly, you can have it. It hardly matters – I've been giving you more than that already." Not that he had noticed.

Damon stood motionless for a second, probably not believing that I was making myself vulnerable to him. His face was a tangle of emotions so raw that it almost made me hurt to look at him. I still wasn't able to decipher everything I saw in his eyes, but among the guilt and the defiance, I could also read bewilderment, awe and regret.

Slowly, Damon closed the distance between us, picking up the necklace from the desk and eying it thoughtfully for a second. Then, in a gesture that was totally unexpected after the aggressive tone of our discussion and the threats he'd been making, he took an end in each hand and gently brushed my hair aside to put the necklace back on. His hands lingered in the back of my neck, slightly caressing the sensitive skin below my hairline. My heart missed a beat at his nearness.

"I know," he said softly, and for a second I had the feeling he was answering to my unspoken reproach. "Believe me, I know. And if I hadn't also had my doubt as to whether opening the tomb was the right thing to do, I'd have asked for your help. But even if it isn't, I still have to do this. I just have to. I could never forgive myself if I didn't – just as I could never forgive myself if I forced you into it. So – please – Elena, will you help me with this?"

His one hand slid to my cheek, gently cupping my face and making me look at him. Never had I seen him so open, so raw and vulnerable before. I was frozen in place, unable to even blink for fear it would destroy the incredible intensity of the moment. Once more, I felt like I was drowning in the abyss of his ocean eyes.

"Of course I will," I whispered, lacking air to breathe. His touch still branding my skin, he slowly leaned in and tenderly brushed my lips with his. It was a chaste kiss that might have been judged an innocent expression of gratitude – if one of us had drawn back after that. But neither of us did.

For the length of a heartbeat, our lips hovered almost touching, only inches apart. Our breaths mingled and I was enfolded in that rich scent of his that made me yearn to dive in and savor it fully. For one agonizing moment I was at war with myself. This was what was making it so damned hard. I didn't want Katherine back. She would take him away from me before I even had a chance of admitting that I wanted him.

Knowing this, I should have backed off, before it was too late, before I was hurt too much. But then I thought 'to hell with it' – because this was now or never, and just like him, I wasn't willing to think about consequences just now.

With almost desperate determination, I leaned into him and returned his embrace. Both of his hands now framed my face, and when our lips met this time, there was nothing careful or chaste about it. It was a hot, deep and devouring kiss, that made my head spin and my entire body spring to life. Feelings that had been tightly bottled up for a long time burst free, catching us by surprise with their intensity. His scent, his taste, the feel of his hands... I could have cried out with the unfairness of it all – because it wasn't for me.

So I slowly distanced myself from him – gently, regretfully – trying to find my composure again. I was also trying very hard not to start crying, because deep inside this felt like saying good-bye already.

We both were breathing hard, but neither of us knew what to say. Damon gently brushed my cheek with his thumb, looking at me with a bewildered expression, as if he didn't have a clue as to what had happened.

"I'd better go..." I said faintly, the words almost getting stuck on their way to my lips. I cleared my throat. "This is just getting a little too much to take in right now."

He simply nodded, probably agreeing wholeheartedly, and slowly withdrew his hands. Whatever it was that had happened, he clearly hadn't been prepared for it. Neither had I. In turmoil, I turned my back and headed for the door. When I had almost reached it, Damon softly called me back. "Elena?"

I turned. "Yes?"

"It really means a lot to me. Thank you." I wasn't deluding myself into thinking that there might be a double meaning behind his words – that he was referring to the things left unspoken. He was only thanking me for agreeing to help getting Katherine back. And for saving him the guilt incurred in forcing me.

I nodded slightly, blinking away the sudden moisture in my eyes. "You're welcome."


A/N: Just in case you were wondering about some of Elena's convictions: Just because the story is mostly told from her point of view, it doesn't necessarily follow that every conclusion she arrives at is right. A lot of her reasoning is sound, but she erred in one point...