Today

I took each carpeted stair one at a time, aware that I was wobbly on my feet. I focused on the muscles in my legs, feeling them contract as I climbed each step. I thought even the most unpleasant feelings felt wonderful right now, knowing I soon wouldn't feel anything anymore.

At the top of the stairs the hall was dark. If I hadn't walked it so many times I may not have been able to navigate it in its darkness. I think sometimes Damon and Stefan forgot that I couldn't see as well as they could. But I had walked the hall many times. I knew that Damon's door was the first I'd pass on the left, followed by several vacant ones before reaching mine on the right side. Stefan's room was up another flight of stairs at the end of the hall. When passing Damon's door I stopped, drawn to the big wooden barrier. I hadn't knocked on his door many times in the past. So much of my time here I'd been scared of Damon, and then afraid to be around him for different reasons. But every time I had stood in this exact spot he'd done or said something that made it harder to hate him, harder to keep him out.

I hovered for many moments trying to talk myself out of knocking but ultimately, between the bourbon and my erratic emotions, I failed. If my days were explicitly numbered now, I wasn't sure I could afford to take liberties with my own wants. And I found that I didn't really care to keep him out anymore. I mean, what was the point anyway? I tapped the wood lightly with my knuckles, knowing he'd hear me no matter what. After a few moments the door came ajar but there was no other response. I took that as an invitation and pushed the door the rest of the way open.

Damon's room was more modern than the rest of the house. His ensuite bathroom and bedroom were open concept, leaving the shower and bathtub exposed to the rest of the bedroom. The only thing indicating where the room ended and the bathroom began was a giant barn door that could slide closed if preferred, but I imagined most who came into this room did not prefer that. The large four poster bed was angled in the middle of the room, standing as tall as my waist, and dressed with black satin sheets. Dark wood furniture littered the room and a large window on the far wall was covered with black out curtains.

At the moment, the shower was running and the steam coming from the room told me that was most definitely where Damon was. I wandered over to his dark maple wood nightstand and scrutinized the items on top of it. There was a framed picture of him and Stefan. Their smiles were bright and their arms were wrapped around each other. The picture was angled towards the head of the bed and I wondered how many nights Damon spent looking at it as he layed there. What was it that he saw in the image? What did it give him? Next to the picture was a sleek looking alarm clock with blue LED numbers, completely opposite the old analog bell alarm clock in my room. His phone sat charging just in front of the clock. Near the back of the table I spotted a folded up piece of paper. I scrutinized it, thinking it looked a bit out of place on the neat tabletop. I plucked it from its resting spot and unfolded it. My eyebrows raised when I realized what it was. It was the note I had left him, thanking him for my bedroom when I had only been sixteen. I had slipped it under his door the night after I had first arrived, when he and Stefan had given me my room. I had been too afraid to say anything directly to them, but I was grateful all the same, and had wanted them to know. Stefan had gotten a similar one. Why had Damon kept it all this time?

"It's not polite to snoop," Damons velvety voice scolded from behind me. I jumped at the sound and hastily put the note back where I found it. I turned to face him. He had a pair of black sweats on and nothing else. His hair was dripping diamond droplets onto his cheeks. I did my very best to avoid glancing at the lines of his chest and abdomen.

"I wasn't snooping," I lied. My chin jutted out defensively. His mouth pulled into a crooked smile but he didn't push the issue. Seemingly unbothered, he merely turned his back to me to go to his large dresser which matched his nightstand. With his eyes safely away from mine I ogled his sculpted back, enjoying the way the muscles rose and fell until they disappeared past his waistline. Where Stefan was boy like, Damon was built distractedly like man. He was almost feline in his masculinity. He pulled a grey cotton t-shirt from the top drawer and slipped it over his head. Sad as I was to lose the sight of his bare chest, I was stunned because I had not even known he owned anything as simple as a cotton t-shirt, and I certainly had not expected him to look so good in it.

"Lenaaa," he waved his hand as he drew my name out like he'd been trying to get my attention. I shook my head and looked into his curious eyes.

"Huh?" I asked.

"I said, did you need something?" His voice was clipped, like he was being sarcastic, but the gentle look in his eyes gave him away. He was actually concerned for my mental state. He couldn't hide anything from me anymore, but I let him think he could. For reasons I still hadn't figured out, Damon was more comfortable when he thought people couldn't see how much he truly cared. I had used to wish that he'd be more overt in his care for me, the way Stefan was, but through the years I'd grown accustomed to his way of showing love. Even grown to like it. There was something intimate about his sense of privacy, and I was always intensely honored to have received any outward display of affection at all. I thought about his question for a moment. Did I need something from him? Why did I even come in here? What was I hoping to gain?

Damon scrutinized me as I pondered our relationship and his question. His expression was intense and clouded. When i bit my lip in concentration, something seemed to shift inside of him. His eyes cleared and his mouth set in a decided line. I hadnt seen him look this focused since he tried to explain to me why he wouldn't turn me. He walked over to me slowly, as if trying not to scare me. When he was only a few feet in front of me he tucked a finger under my chin and lifted my face so I was looking into his impossible eyes. This was the second very uncharacteristic touch in the span of an hour. My heart raced out of my chest and a subtle blush colored my cheeks. He did a bad job at suppressing a chuckle.

"That's not fair," I grumbled, trying to turn my face away. He held it steady.

"I wouldn't need super hearing to hear that, Lena," he chuckled openly, warmly. I was taken aback by his demeanor. His openness was new and inviting. I struggled with staying focused on my task. I had something I wanted to say to him, I just needed to find the words. His eyes were liquid pools though, so completely different from the usual glaciers his gaze usually confronted me with. I couldn't help but drown in them. "It's okay, I haven't met a woman yet that has had a different reaction." He smiled and wiggled his eyebrows at me. I blushed harder and pulled my chin out of his grasp. This time he let me, but the motion made me a little dizzy. I wobbled in place. Damon chuckled once again and held the tops of my arms to steady me. When I was steady I scowled at him playfully.

"Damon," I reprimanded. "You disgust me," I slurred.

"Elena," he mocked my tone. "You're drunk," He chuckled. I tried to smack his chest but my arms felt so heavy I barely had the force of a swat behind the motion. It brushed his chest, more like a caress than a hit. His eyes followed my hand and lingered on his chest after it dropped away. He dropped his hands too, but only to pluck a piece of my hair from behind my ear and examine it.

"I'm trying to be serious. I have something to tell you," I said. He shook his head but he waited patiently for me to speak, content to just play absent-mindedly with a lock of my hair. I tried to push all of my feelings out of my mouth, tell him that I had never hated my fate much until I had come to know him and his brother. Tell him that I know that when the time comes his job would be to deliver me to the one thing none of us really wanted, but I didn't blame him, I understood, and I knew his heart even if he had tried to hide it from me for all these years. I knew this would hurt him too. I wanted to tell him not to waste a single moment of worrying about whether or not I hated him for what he had to do, to know I was just happy to have known his heart. I wanted to relieve him of the guilt I knew he was feeling. I tried to formulate a goodbye that would encompass all the things I needed him to know but I couldn't make a single word come out. So I simply allowed myself to stop thinking and walk through the open door he uncharacteristically left me and stepped forward and closed the space between us. I wrapped my arms around his torso and laid my head on his chest. He made a low startled noise in the back of his throat and stiffened for a half a second before wrapping his arms around my shoulders, closing the embrace.

We stood there for a long while. I listened to the steady sounds of his breaths and we both listened to my heart return to a normal rhythm. He didn't say anything, or ask any questions. He merely held me. And I wondered for the thousandth time, despite his incessant reminders that he couldn't, if he could read my mind, because the hug felt like goodbye anyway. He nuzzled the top of my head with his cheek as he inhaled long and slow.

"Things will be awfully dull around here without you," he murmured, so quietly I wondered if I wasn't supposed to hear it. But I did hear it. And it was in that moment I knew that my sudden fear of death had everything to do with this man. He was so much more closed off than Stefan, and I knew that was because he had gone out of his way to make sure Stefan never had to do the things Damon had had to do. It had been Damon who kept him innocent. That is why it would be him who would take me to their father on Thursday. Stefan wouldn't have to watch me die or carry the guilt of being the one to deliver me to my death. Damon tried to pretend he didn't care, that none of this mattered but he did care. I knew it, I had always known it. It was why he kept the note, its why he seemed so much warmer and more vulnerable in this moment than ever before,, and it was why he was hugging me now, when he never even so much as brushed me on accident. This was hard for him, he was saying goodbye to me too. And my heart was breaking. I never wanted to be without Damon. His quiet presence, his veiled love, his intense care, also his snarky attitude, his arrogant composure, his jackass tendencies. I wanted it all, all the time. He made me feel like my canvas wasn't blank. Like there were things worth giving meaning to, despite the clipped wings of my fate. Like the color blue and all the secrets that could hide within it. And the taste of honey when it dripped off of a voice instead of a spoon. His was the first kind face I'd encountered in this house, and he was the thing I was scared of most of my stay here, but he was also the man that put my life above everything he had control over, and he was the man who made it a priority to make me comfortable. He was the man who had retrieved a book for me that I thought I'd never see again, because I had told him a handful of years ago that I'd loved it. He'd never been the bad guy, I just hadn't understood, not in all this time. Now that I did, I never wanted him to let me go.

Of course he did pull away now. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes, searching for something. He looked for a long time, face unreadable. I wondered what he thought he would find there, what he hoped to see. I wondered if he was having a similar realization to mine, or rather I hoped he was. I reached a hand out hesitantly and caressed the side of his face with my fingers. He ever so slightly leaned in to the touch and suddenly the clouds were back on his expression. I could see the shores in his eyes starting to run dry, see the water start to solidify once again. The warmth the alcohol had provided me suddenly felt so inadequate in keeping me warm. Without his warmth I was freezing and I just wanted to feel something else. I put my other hand on the other side of his face and I leaned into him suddenly. I pressed my mouth to his softly. He pulled back almost immediately but I held on tightly to his face, hoping he wouldn't commit to the rejection of my touch. I was surprised and pleased when he didn't. His eyebrows pulled down tightly over his now shut eyes and then he was leaning in to me. His lips were strong against mine and his hands were now tightly gripping my hips. It felt like giving in. My head swam with the light and fire filling me up and I had to lean into his form just to stay upright. He wrapped his arms all the way around me and held me against him. He never pulled away and I kept kissing hungrily, drinking greedily from the only source I could think of to stop the hurt. But at the same time, I could physically feel him holding back. His arms were strong and sure but they weren't enveloping. His kisses didn't meet mine in intensity, they yielded to mine. He was participating, but he was facilitating. This realization was allowing the hurt and fear to creep back in. I opened my mouth slightly, looking for access to his, hoping for a welcoming response, a passionate one. He did deny me and my hesitant tongue explored the cavern beyond his perfect lips. When I did a small whimper escaped his chest. I froze at the tortured sound and waited for him to pull away. He remained frozen though, so I eventually leaned away from him, searching with questioning eyes for the reason behind the sound. His eyes opened slowly and they were full of pain. So much pain. I felt as if I'd never truly seen him before this moment. The vulnerability in his gaze almost cut me down where I stood. He was hurt. I wondered idly what mine looked like now, I wondered if the canvases of our lives were still stretched out next to one another again, and if he could see now that mine was no longer blank, but instead, a vivid portrait of him. It covered every inch of the surface. He was the only thing that mattered. How could that have possibly hurt him. Was this not what he had wanted? My brow furrowed.

"Lena," he whispered, leaning his forehead on mine. His new eyes bore into mine. I could feel the prickly feeling of tears. He took a deep breath and brought his hands up to cup my face. The rejection that hadn't come yet was already starting to break my heart.

"We can't," he finally said out loud. I closed my eyes against his words. Warm tears ran down the already trudged tracks on my cheeks. His gentle thumbs brushed them away. I shook my head and tried to step away from him.

"Elena," he said. I shook my head harder and took a step backwards. I bumped into his nightstand making the picture wobble audibly. My eyes snapped around to watch it, to make sure it didn't fall. Damon reached his hand through the space between us but I stepped out of his grasp.

"I'm sorry," I uttered. "I'm so sorry." And then I was turning for the still open door. Before I could get through it Damon appeared in front of me, the door now closed behind him.

"Elena, wait," he begged. I looked up at him, embarrassment and pain obvious in my expression. The pain was still in his too. Heartbreaking and immense and so utterly beautiful. My eyes locked with his as our pain spun around the room in an intimate waltz. Interwoven and twirling out of control.

"Just let me go, Damon," I tried to demand but my voice was weak. "I get it, we can't, you don't want to."

"That's not what I said, Lena," he argued.

"You didn't have to," I mumbled, looking away from his stare and the undeniable truth in it.

"You've been drinking Elena, you're under a lot of stress. You're acting out of emotion and I'm not going to take advantage of you." He explained. He held my hand firmly in his, as if he could will me to believe him.

"You honestly think I kissed you because I'm drunk?" I asked, feeling the fire in me from the kiss start to sting like anger.

"I know it's been a long, trying day," Damon offered. I scoffed. He waited for me to say something else but I just stared off in to space. My mind began to race and I could feel the crushing reality of my fate just on the horizon. The numbing affects of the alcohol were wearing off.

"You know," I started thoughtfully. "All I could think about since you took that call has been how scared I am." He nodded.

"Thats what I mean Elena," he interjected. I shook my head to cut him off.

"But not of dying. I've been wrestling with this fear all night and whether or not I was angry with you for, I don't know, for giving up on me," I continued. I was thinking out loud at this point. He had looked down shamefully when I'd mentioned giving up on me.

"But you know what I settled on? You know what I realized?" I asked. He peaked up at me through his thick lashes and shook his head no. "I realized that I am terrified to be without you. I don't know what comes next for me, or what will happen once you take me to your dad, but I'm terrified because I know you won't be there." Damon hung his head again and groaned quietly. I pressed on anyway.

"You can't feel these things, Elena," he said with a powerful ache in his voice.

"Dont worry," I said in a defeated tone. "I won't make you mess up the plan. I know what needs to be done. I didn't even mean to do all of this. I just wanted to tell you that your heart is good, and worthy of love and tenderness, and because of you I actually want to live for the first time in my whole life and for that I can forgive the really crappy timing of that," I fumbled through my words. An ironic and sad laugh bubbled out of my chest. I quickly sobered and continued. "I just know you, and I know your guilt will eat you up all week and every day after and I just don't want you to feel guilty. That's all I came in here for. I'm sorry about the kiss, I didn't mean to hurt you," I forced the words out hurriedly and tried to fight back more tears as they fought their way up. I was so tired of crying for the night and suddenly all I wanted was to be alone in my bed. He listened quietly, watching me with oddly desperate eyes, his mouth was slightly agape, and I found him off guard enough that when I tried to push past him to escape his room he let me. I ran on my toes to my room and shut and locked the door behind me. The brothers had never violated the sanctity of my room, or my privacy, since they'd given it to me. He would not follow me in here.

I tucked myself into my own bed quickly losing the fight to keep my eyes dry. I cried until the sun rose, and I cried more after that. A few times throughout the morning Stefan and Damon both knocked on my door, anxious to know I was okay. But I wasn't, and I couldn't sugarcoat that for Stefan, or make Damon feel any worse about it. So I told them to leave me alone, and they did. Eventually, when the sun was high enough in the sky to stream down through the dust cover of the curtain unconsciousness took me and I fell into a long and hard sleep, free of dreams and nightmares.

Damon

"You have to do something about this," Stefan demanded. Damon suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, and to chuck his tumbler into the fire the way Elena had last night. Elena's cries had quieted about an hour ago, giving way to peaceful breaths as Damon assumed she'd fallen asleep.

"What do you want me to do, Stefan?" he growled. "Father would have us hunted to the ends of the earth and tortured if we ran off with her. Who knows what he would do to her if he found us. We can't protect her from him Stef, we can't even protect ourselves from him. He's too powerful." Damon downed the last of his bourbon and slammed the cup down on the cart. It was his fault Stefan believed he could fix everything, because Damon had fixed everything for him his entire life. But he couldn't fix this. He wouldn't risk Stefan's safety for it, even if it was killing Damon on the inside.

"We have Elena in our possession. The kind of help we could get with that power. Caroline could round up as many people as we needed. Hell, we are strong Damon. You never give us any credit. Why are you so scared of him?" Stefan asked incredulously. Damon glared at the floor, hearing the logic in his brother's words. Caroline could be resourceful, and sure there would probably be a large demographic of supernatural creatures who'd love to help keep Elena alive. But in the eight years his father had been out there, setting his traps, manipulating his puppets, preparing for this moment, was it possible he hadn't thought of every little thing that could go wrong? How many creatures were left now that would risk standing against Joseph after all the power he had wielded in the eight years Stefan and Damon had patiently waited and killed every person who tried to stand against them? Would he risk it? Damon looked into Stefan's eyes and he saw the pain and the fear there. He didn't want Elena to die, and he didn't want Damon to have to kill her. He was hurting and he was angry with Damon for not doing more, but underneath all of that Damon could also see perfectly unyielding trust. Stefan counted on Damon to fix all things. To do what was best, always. He knew that in this instance he had to do what was right for Stefan, not himself.

"You don't get it Stefan, father's following is already too large. The only thing Caroline could do is die alongside us and I won't risk her or you for this. We knew what our job was the moment this started. Elena knew."

"So that's it, you're just going to throw up your hands, take Elena to her death and not think twice about it? You're giving up?"

"No Stefan, I'm being smart. This isn't a battle we can win. She was never meant to be here this long anyway. You shouldn't have gotten so close to her," Damon hissed. Stefan's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. He crossed his arms over his chest and stepped closer to Damon.

"I shouldn't have gotten so close to her? Pot, kettle, brother," Stefan said flatly. His eyes grew dark. Damon scoffed and backed away from his brother.

"I don't need this right now," Damon said dismissively and turned around to walk to the stairs. He had planned to make a quick get away into his bedroom.

"You love her, Damon," Stefan called to Damon's retreating form back. He froze.

"I know you love her, which is why I can't understand why you won't fight for her," he said. Memories flooded Damons mind of all the instances Elena had etched into his unwilling heart, including the kiss from the night before. His head spun and he felt like he would throw up, if only something like that were possible. He whirled around and vamp sped up to Stefan. Their noses were almost touching, he was standing so close to him. Damon's face was calm, but rage and grief were tearing him apart on the inside.

"You have no idea what you're talking about. I would never give up on her, I would fight the devil himself if I could but I can't," Damon spat each word through his teeth. Stefan didn't even so much as blink at the sight of his brother's rage. The boy definitely trusted him without a doubt.

"And why's that Damon?" he asked.

"Because it's not my life I'd be risking to save hers, it would be yours. Father told me on her first night that if anything happened to ruin his plan that he'd kill you and make me watch. So I told him I'd do anything to see his plan through. Because I can't risk what father might do to you because of what I've done, because of what I feel," I said, defeated. "I do love her, okay? I love her. But I can't lose you." Stefan's mouth fell open slightly. Damon didn't wait for Stefan to get his bearings, or process what he'd just told him. He turned away from him and ran to his room, shutting the door hard behind him. He flinched slightly at the sound, hoping it wouldn't wake Elena.

Once inside the room, Damon picked up the note Elena had written him the night after she was dropped off here. He unfolded it and looked at the words scribbled there.

Damon,

Not that I am okay with any of this, or you…

But I really like my room.

Thank you…

Elena.

Damon touched the words lightly. She had been so young then. Bratty and defiant and angry all of the time. Most of the first few years she lived there she hardly even left her room. It wasn't until the morning Damon showed her the library that she really began to let them get to know her. Turned out she loved to read, and she worked her way through most of the books they owned in only a couple of years. Stefan took up teaching her then, encouraged by her love of knowledge. He would entice her with stories about the past, and with arithmetic. She soaked it all up. They were fast friends, and once she trusted Stefan, she started seeing Damon in a different light. He remembered many days, sitting with her in the library when she would kick Stefan out, tired of the quizzes, or the positivity, but she would let Damon stay. He never pushed her to talk, but sometimes she would. Sometimes she would tell him about her fear of never living, and her complicated feelings about death. Damon offered her little more than sarcastic remarks or serious stares as she did this but she was never discouraged. Other times she would just sit and she would watch him. He'd pretend to read and not notice, and she would look over every facet of his face, searching for something, Damon wasn't ever sure of what exactly.

In their quiet moments spent together she came to understand him in a way no one else had before. And he grew to care for her, compelled to erase every unsure moment, ever anxiety riddled thought. It scared Damon the way he gravitated toward her. The way he listened to her sleep, or talk with Stefan until they both fell asleep in his bed. All the times he wished it could have been him. He watched her start to care for him too. Damon had taken notice of the way she watched him, the way her body reacted to him. She never seemed to carry the same tension with Stefan, because like Damon, Elena had started to feel something for him too. Damon wanted to be elated about this, but it was always in the back of his mind, the danger his feelings could mean for Stefan, and he knew he could never allow himself to get that close. He could never grow unwilling to sacrifice her.

And as she talked about her father, and the way he sacrificed her to save his wife, Damon grew to hate himself for being exactly like him. For not loving her enough to save her instead of Stefan. For being a coward. But his brother was all he had, all he ever had, and he was terrified of losing him. He had wanted so badly to give in to her kiss the night before. To hold her in his arms the way he'd always wanted to, to deepen her kiss and give her everything she wanted, but the pain had been palpable. As hers had.

Damon pulled himself back to the present and strained his ears to hear her. The steady rhythm of her breathing told him that she was still asleep. He was grateful for that. Damon had thought the crying would never stop. He and Stefan had paced outside of her room together most of the morning, debating on whether or not they should violate the sanctity they had given her room and her privacy just to make sure she was okay. But the sobs did eventually quiet and when her heart rate slowed to an even pace they had both been glad that they hadn't barged in. If they had given Elena nothing else since she got there, the freedom of her space and how to dictate it had always been hers. But every moment had been agonizing. She sounded utterly broken, and Damon felt responsible.

Damon could still feel her lips on his. Taste the sweetness of her breath as it flew out of her in response to his touch. She had wanted him, as he had wanted her for so long. It had been a glorious moment. Gloriously wonderful and awful at the same time. The pain of losing her would not soon leave him. It felt unbearable. For a moment Damon wondered if he would die from it, if he didn't save her, and then all of this worrying about Stefan would be for nothing. It certainly felt like the pain might kill him. But Damon couldn't think about possibilities, he had to think about definites, and Stefan definitely needed me. He focused on Elena's steady breathing, hoping she was dreaming pleasant things that would relieve her of the pain she was feeling, and tried to be content with that. Only that.