Author's note: I wanted to quickly address a few things some of you lovely readers have mentioned in the comments:
(1) This story has been completely finished even before I started posting it. I'm only editing/cleaning it up and deciding where to add chapter breaks. Seeing as it has been a finished piece of work, I can't/won't change, add, or re-write parts of it to work in some of your suggestions, no matter how good they are. Sorry about that.
(2) We are probably looking at 5 to 6 more chapters until this story is done.
(3) I have never read the TVD books, have no idea where or how the storyline deviates from the show.
(4) Thank you to everyone who's reading and especially those who take the time to comment. I love reading your thoughts and appreciate every review I get.
Elena turned over onto her back and sighed softly, staring at the ceiling. It was one of those typical southern nights that one immediately associated with hot, sultry summers when the heat hung heavy in the air and nothing seemed to move. They had left the balcony door open and the occasional gust of a breeze caused delicious pebbles across Elena's heated skin. As beautiful and comfortable as the Salvatore boarding house was, it suffered from a serious lack of air conditioning.
Elena's silky negligee had ridden up, revealing her lacy panties and a broad stripe of stomach, but she didn't bother pulling it down, enjoying the licks of air on the exposed skin. The blankets were pooled at the foot of the bed where they had kicked them off before falling asleep.
"Can't sleep?" Damon asked.
She turned his head towards him, careful not to move too much to not break a sweat. Damon was lying on his front, facing her. In contrast to Elena, he had chosen to sleep in the nude.
"It's too hot to sleep," Elena replied.
"Wanna have sex?" Damon asked, without having the slightest intention to move.
"Would I need to move for that?"
"Probably," Damon replied. "Well, one of us would have to."
"Then no. It's too hot for sex."
After a long silence where both of them just lay there listening to the sounds of the night, Elena suggested, "Let's go for a ride."
Damon raised his head slightly. "With the top down?"
"Naturally," Elena answered.
They got up and quickly threw on some clothes – Damon just a t-shirt and jeans, going commando and Elena exchanged the negligee for a breezy and short summer dress, foregoing a bra. They made their way quietly through the house and out to Damon's car where he pushed the button to release the top before they sped off into the night.
Without a destination in mind, they drove through the empty streets of Mystic Falls and out and beyond the town border where the only light was the almost full moon above. Talking about nothing in particular, they had been driving for over an hour when suddenly Elena yelled at Damon to stop.
"What?" Damon asked. "What is it?"
"Pull over, right now!"
As soon as he stopped, Elena got out of the car and ran out into the middle of the road, spreading her arms wide and spinning in a circle.
Damon slowly got out of the car and watched her with a wary expression, completely bewildered. "Are you… okay?"
Elena turned to him and smiled wide, waggling her eyebrows. When Damon's only reaction was more of the same confused staring, she huffed out, "You don't remember?"
Damon scrunched up his face in concentration and took in his surroundings. A smile slowly spread on his face. He walked towards Elena and took her in his arms. Thankfully, the heat and humidity of the night was more bearable out here in the woods, among the trees.
"This is where we met," Elena murmured as she leaned into Damon's chest.
"It is," Damon confirmed, kissing the top of her head. For a while they just stood there, looking out into the night until Damon reached for Elena's hand and laced their fingers together. Pulling her with him, they climbed on top of the hood of the car and leaned back against the windshield.
"Can you not leave me again, like ever?" Elena asked, in a wistful tone.
Damon frowned before answering, "I wasn't planning on it."
"No, I mean… Can you just be there to hold my hand. Like… literally all the time?"
Damon chuckled and pulled said hand to his lips for a kiss. "I'm sure your psych professor would have a field day with you."
"Don't care." Elena pouted which Damon absolutely did not find adorable. At all.
"What's with the sudden co-dependency?" he asked.
Elena paused for a long time before answering. "Jo is pregnant."
"Oh. Uhmm," he hummed, thinking of the appropriate response to the non-sequitur. "No. I got nothing."
"When she told me," Elena explained, "I… I saw eternity stretch out before me and it looked… bleak. I could see the world changing around me, it is already constantly changing and I… am not. It's like I'm frozen in time. And it scares me. But being here with you, looking at the stars, I see the future – lifetimes upon lifetimes – and as long as I hold your hand, it's not scary. You give it meaning. In this life that has no expiration date, you're the only thing that makes sense."
Damon lay still as a statue, barely breathing, trying to take it all in. Elena tried for levity as she sensed his inner turmoil. "It could be cute, you know. You could go to classes with me, be there when I do my residency program, when I treat patients, when I babysit Alaric's and Jo's kid. Like my own personal shadow, only, you know, more corporeal."
She smiled teasingly at him but Damon didn't return the smile.
"I have the cure, Elena."
Elena felt like the bottom had dropped out from beneath her. Her smile slipped and she pulled her hand from Damon's, thousands of thoughts waring for dominance. She slid off the hood of the car and took a few steps back. Damon let her.
"How? How is it possible. It's… it's gone," she stuttered.
"Bonnie brought it back from the 1994 world. Look, it doesn't matter how. The point is I have it."
"Bonnie brought it back?" She paused, thinking feverishly. She had so many questions racing through her head. Her mouth opened and closed; she couldn't decide which thought to voice first. "But then…"
Damon dreaded her next question. He knew she would arrive at the only logical conclusion.
"How long have you had it?" And there it was.
"Weeks? A month. Maybe longer."
"And you kept it to yourself." Elena turned away to collect her thoughts. She pressed a hand to her mouth, afraid her emotions would overpower her. Did she want to yell, scream, reason with him, throw around accusations?
Damon wasn't going to reply. There really was nothing he could have said to vindicate himself. He simply waited for her ire, knowing he deserved it. Elena was quiet for a long time. He lifted his head to look at her, but her gaze was far away, focused somewhere beyond the horizon.
"Why didn't you just keep it to yourself," she finally spoke, turning back around to face him.
Damon wasn't sure if he was meant to hear it, she had spoken so quietly. He frowned. "What?"
"I wish you'd kept it to yourself. Why couldn't you just give it away, or lock it up somewhere. And not tell me, like, ever?"
Damon's mouth opened, his confusion complete, but no words actually came out. Shaking his head in disbelief, he finally settled on, "I've been beating myself up over this. I swore I wouldn't be that guy anymore who lies and keeps things from you. These past weeks I've felt like a total asshole and you… what? Wanted me to forget I had it? Get rid of it? What the hell, Elena?"
Elena looked long and hard at him. She came closer and took his face in her hands. "I'm sorry."
"Why are you apologizing?"
Elena threw up her hands in the air, screaming in frustration, "I don't know. I don't know what to say or how to react."
"Say you'll take the cure. Then this can all be over."
Elena's eyes widened and Damon heard her heart rate pick up. "What?"
"No," Damon hurried to add, "not us. I meant this fight, or discussion, or whatever you want to call it. This can be over. Not us."
Elena closed her eyes to take a few relieved breaths but as soon as she did, a memory assaulted her. She heard her own pleading voice, "Be human with me." Elena breathed through it, all the while aware of Damon's eyes on her. When she opened them again, she knew what she had to do. It all boiled down to one single conclusion and in the middle of the chaos in her mind, this one thought stood out in perfect clarity. "I am not taking it without you."
Before Damon could protest, Elena continued, "If we learned anything from the past year it's that I'm not good at this 'living without you' thing. So don't even think about suggesting I take the cure and go on to live a healthy, normal, fulfilled life without you. Because if you're not in it, it won't be." She breathed in deeply, calming herself. "The way I see it," she calmly continued despite the chaotic uproar in her head and before Damon had the chance to even open his mouth. "Only two options remain: One, I take the cure and we have 50 to 60 years together before I die. That's assuming you'll want me when I'm old and wrinkly and you're still you. Two, I don't take the cure and we have forever together. There is no option three where you leave me for my own good." She spit his own words from not too long ago back at him like they were something foul-tasting. "So, don't you even dare think about it!"
Damon thought carefully about his reply. "You could have a good life. No more blood. No more hunger. You could have kids."
"They wouldn't be yours," she cried out desperately. "I don't want them if they're not yours." She didn't know where that had come from but as soon as she said it, she knew it was the truth. At some point in time her dream of having a family had morphed into having a family with Damon.
Now it was Damon's turn to feel like he was falling into an abyss. His kids? In 174 years, he'd never thought about kids. About being a dad. Talk about things that were scary.
"Okay, we've played the future game before. Let's try again: Tell me, after I lived this good, happy, blood-free life and I die of old age, what are you going to do?" Elena asked, unaware of his turmoil.
Damon thought he was probably going to lay down next to her grave, take off his daylight ring and wait for the sun to rise, but he didn't say it out loud. Elena didn't look like she expected an answer anyway.
"Option three," Damon said, "I take the cure with you."
Elena looked at him, shell-shocked. Then her eyes clouded over and she shook her head. "We've been here before," she quietly said. "You said you couldn't think of anything more miserable on earth."
"Well, now I can. And I don't want to lose you. Human or vampire – whether you remember it or not: you're my life, Elena," he reminded her. "Let me take the cure with you."
"But you don't want to be human, Damon!"
"No. I can't imagine being human. That's different. What I want is a life with you."
She smiled at him and kissed him softly on the lips. "That's what I want, too – a life with you. And that's exactly what we're going to have. We get to be together, forever."
"Elena," Damon began.
"No," she stopped him. She knew without a doubt that Damon would do anything, give anything for her. He would sacrifice his life, his happiness just to give her what she wanted. He valued his own life so little that what he wanted always came second. So she would put him first. "You've had the cure for weeks now, you said. And you didn't tell me before. Why?" She already knew the answer; she just wanted to make him see what she came to realize a few moments ago.
"I don't know. We were in a good place. I didn't want things to change," Damon replied with a shrug.
Elena nodded. She didn't want things to change either. She wasn't going to let them. "Perfect," she said. "Nothing has to change. We're agreed then."
"No, we are not agreed," Damon exclaimed. "Wasn't your whole point half an hour ago that the world around you changes while you're frozen in time? And I'm telling you it doesn't have to be like that anymore. You like change, Elena. You want change."
Elena stubbornly shook her head. "I don't want everything to change," she whispered.
"Everything doesn't have to. But some things can. You have that choice now."
"Great. Then I choose not to talk about this anymore."
"God, you're stubborn," Damon growled.
"You promised me forever, Damon. Remember? Unless you changed your mind?"
"Don't be stupid," Damon impatiently replied. "Of course, I haven't changed my mind. But—"
"Okay," Elena interrupted before he could say more. "I'll take forever then. There, I made a choice. And we're not going to talk about this again."
She kissed him and no matter how hard Damon tried to bring the topic up again, she resolutely refused to participate in the discussion and distracted him whenever she felt his mind stray towards it again.