"Tell me a story?" Elena asked.
"Do you have me confused with a professional storyteller?"
"Come on. I've been waiting for this sequel you promised."
"I didn't promise a sequel. I just said there'd be one."
"Same thing. Now stop being evasive and start telling the story."
Elena sipped on her milkshake, motioning for Damon to begin. They had left the diner a while ago and found a spot next to the water with a few picnic tables and benches. Like a bunch of teenagers, they sat on one of the tables, reclined backwards to better watch the stars.
Damon sighed. "I would. Only I don't know how it ends yet."
"Why not?"
"Still working out some kinks."
"Like what?"
"Like relationships formed in high-stress situations usually don't last."
"Okay, first – you got that from a movie." Damon shrugged off being busted and Elena continued, "Second – we beat the odds so far, so I'm confident. And third, realism has no place in a fairy tale."
"I never said it was a fairy tale."
"Well, it felt like one. It has all the makings of a fairy tale – a hero, trials and adventure, a princess. Love. All that's missing is the 'and they lived happily ever after'. So, get on with it."
"You can't rush the creative process," Damon protested.
"Come on, give them the fairy tale ending they deserve," she cajoled.
"Maybe that's the problem," Damon replied. "What you want is a love story with a happy ending. I'm better at tragedies and drama."
Elena paused in thought, staring at Damon and studying his face intently. Eventually, she pushed up and elbowed Damon. "Make room. I'm going to tell the rest of the story now."
"And you need to sit where I do?"
"Yes," Elena replied. "It's the storytelling throne."
"Well, you can suck it. It's my throne and my story."
"Nope, not anymore. I've been listening to your story and I determined that it suffers from a serious case of existential angst and male chauvinism. You need a female protagonist. So, I'm taking over."
She pushed on Damon's shoulder until he was forced to slide over onto one of the benches, leaving her perched on the table. Taking a deep breath, she began, "Once upon a time in a land far, far away there lived a princess. She was very lucky because she had parents who loved her a lot. But she felt very lonely. Everyone treated her with a respectful distance and because she was a princess, she didn't have any real friends. So, whenever she could, she liked to ride out into the countryside where she would pretend, at least for a while, to be one of the normal people.
"Every day she would make sure to pass by a farm where an old widower lived with his two sons. And every day without fail a handsome, dark haired young man would be working outside. He'd greet her and she would greet him back, hoping he'd speak to her and start a conversation. But even though his eyes were really, really blue and pretty and his smile was kind of hot, he didn't seem to be a very smart specimen."
"Hey!" Damon exclaimed and tried to pinch her.
"Why are you getting offended? This is a fictional story and any similarities to persons living or dead are purely coincidental, right?" she threw his own words back at him with a huge grin on her face.
Damon grabbed Elena's ankle and attacked her in her most ticklish spots. She tried to fight him off but he was stronger and faster and soon they were rolling on the table in a mess of limbs.
"Okay, okay, I surrender," Elena gasped out through peals of laughter. When Damon let off, she said, "I take it you would like to add something to my story?"
"I can't know for sure, of course, but it is possible the handsome hero was simply too intimidated by the princess's beauty and felt himself unworthy of her to strike up a conversation. Maybe he thought she deserved someone better."
"Well, I don't know about the girl in your story, but the girl in mine knows exactly what she wants. And she definitely wants the dark, handsome, idiot brother, god help her. And since she's a princess and this is a fairytale, the plot demands that she gets what she wants."
Damon shook his head. "For someone who once considered writing a career choice, you lack a certain talent for storytelling."
Pressing a hand to her hear, Elena let out a gasp, acting thoroughly offended.
"Yeah," Damon doubled down, "just look at the mess of it. Your story is all over the place. You're jumping ahead, leaving out key scenes. I'm afraid to tell you – but you suck at this. You should definitely stick to medicine."
Elena laughed and snuggled closer to Damon as they both rested on their backs. "Do you think they'd be disappointed in me?" she asked, out of the blue. "My parents?"
"Because you're a vampire or because you're in love with one?" Damon asked.
"Because I'm going to be a doctor," Elena clarified. "My mom always wanted me to be a writer. She got me my first diary. She encouraged me to write."
"She wouldn't have if she knew how much you suck at it," Damon joked.
Elena laughed, despite herself and turned serious. "I mean it, Damon."
Damon rolled over to take her face in his hands. "You're the only person I know who'd ever think their parents could be disappointed because you want to be a doctor. No, Elena, I'm one hundred percent sure they could never be disappointed in you – no matter what career path you choose for yourself. I do believe however that they would have a few words to say about who you chose to spend your life with."
"Have you ever met them?"
"No," Damon answered. "I met Liz once, back when she'd just had Caroline."
"Really? She never mentioned it."
"I compelled her to forget."
"Of course you did." Elena shook her head at him. Coming back to her parents, she said, "I don't know how they'd react to all this. They were raised to think all vampires were bad. But Liz was raised that way too, and she came around. I want to believe that my parents would have, too, eventually. I know one thing for sure, though."
"Yeah? What?"
Elena smiled wistfully. "All my mom ever wanted was for Jeremy and me to be happy. She would have been okay with you and me together, once she saw how happy you make me."
Damon leaned in for a quick kiss.
"Besides," Elena continued with a grin, "she did have a thing for bad boys. She definitely would have understood. Actually, she would have liked you, though she probably never would've admitted it."
When they got back to the house, the sun had started to rise. Still, they crawled back into bed to warm up. "Any news on the Caroline front?" Damon asked.
"Ugh." Elena groaned and buried her head in Damon's pillow. "Don't remind me. She asked for a year and I was all for it. But I'm not sure anymore that after the year is done, she'd want to turn her emotions back on. She and Stefan are in some weird spiral to out-evil each other. Bonnie and I think an intervention is in order."
"Yeah, I'm not a fan of emotionless Stefan either."
"Was I that bad when I had my switch turned?" Elena asked.
"You weren't trying to be evil. You simply didn't care. Which was scarier on some level."
"How so?"
"Let's just say emotionless doesn't go well with Elena Gilbert."
"And here I thought you would be all for an emotionless, ruthless, guilt-free Elena."
Damon eyed her speculatively. "I can't tell if that's supposed to be a joke or not," he finally admitted.
Elena's smile vanished and she thought about what he'd said. "I guess that's something the Elena without memories of you would have said, huh?" Damon shrugged which she took for confirmation. "I'm sorry. I know you're not that person anymore."
"Honestly, I don't know if I ever was that person. Though I had a lot of fun pretending to be, for a long time."
"What happened? You grew tired of pretending?"
"Not really. But I met you and well… the rest is history as they say."
"Most of which I can't remember," she reminded him.
"It's not important."
"You didn't want to pretend with me?" Elena guessed, not willing to let it go.
"Oh, I did want to pretend, probably more than ever. Tried, too. But you wouldn't let me. Saw right through my bullshit." He paused for a little while before he continued, "Can you remember that time in your kitchen better now? The one when you told me you're sorry because I lost Katherine, too?"
Elena concentrated, then nodded her head. Before, it was only a vague memory but it was much clearer now.
"That's when I knew you were trouble. You were standing there, my brother's girl, seventeen years old, completely unimpressed by my carefully crafted bad boy persona, and you cared, so much. For me, of all people. The guy everybody told you was bad news and warned you to stay away from."
Elena reached for his hand and squeezed it as Damon continued, "That's what makes you you. You care. And when that part of you was gone, it was like you were gone. But you were still there. So, no, to answer your question: I did not enjoy the off-switch you."
"Caroline has nobody left to care whether her emotions are off or not," Elena sadly said.
"She has you. She has my brother."
"Stefan's not going to be any help while he's enjoying being his ripper self."
"Then we'll get him back first."
"How?" Elena asked.
"We'll figure something out. Just please, not the Lexi method."
A few weeks later found them in a B&B at the edge of town, babysitting two parched vampires – one with her emotions switched off, one who only pretended to still have his switch turned off. And of all the things they could have been doing, they were playing the 'Five years from now' game while the cure Bonnie had given him a few nights before was burning a hole through his pocket.
When Elena mentioned children, Damon's gut clenched with guilt. He almost wished Bonnie hadn't given him the cure. In the next moment he hated himself for even thinking it.
The simple truth was, Damon was scared to death to lose her. And giving her the cure meant to lose her. Maybe not immediately – Damon was long over his insecurities; he knew Elena loved him whether she was a vampire or a human. But in sixty, seventy years? He would lose her then. And he wasn't ready for that. Because it was not even remotely long enough. He wanted her forever. And as long as they remained vampires, forever was an option. But children weren't and Damon tried very hard to justify damning Elena to an eternal life that would always miss an integral part to her happiness.
But then Damon looked into Elena's eyes, shining with happiness at the theoretical prospect of starting a family with him and Damon thought nothing in the world could be more important than to keep that happiness in her eyes, even if it meant living with a ticking clock.