Who Truly Loves Me
DG32173

Sarah: a one-shot that will definitely end in Delena but Stefan's going to make a valiant, if futile, attempt to keep her. I only own what I write as t is written. I do not intend on turning this into a full-blown fanfic. But if I get enough requests begging for more, I will consider doing so anyways. I hope you enjoy.

WARNINGS
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE! Rated T for my sanity, not that I have any. Elena's viewpoint.

SUMMARY
Elena sits the Salvatore brothers down to put an end to the battle for her heart by quizzing them on trivia about her that she hasn't revealed to either of them herself. She tells them that the brother who bothered to actually get to know who she is, how she thinks, what she likes, and grew to love her for every little thing about her will be the brother she will spend the rest of her life with, even if she lives for eternity. Damon/Elena

STORY

I take a deep breath before letting myself into the boarding house. As I pass through the entry into the living room, I see both brothers seated in the living room, Damon in his chair and Stefan on a couch.

"Elena, what's going on?" Stefan asks, starting to rise.

"Stay seated," I say in a tone that tells them I'm not in the mood to argue. Stefan immediately sits back down in his spot.

"What are you up to, kitten?" Damon asks curiously. "You asked us to be waiting down here for you and that you'll explain everything when you get here. Well, you're here. Start explaining."

I rake a hand through my hair. "I have decided that the power struggle between the two of you over me has got to stop," I tell them. "And since neither of you are willing to stop it yourselves, I'll have to put an end to it once and for all. I'm not Katherine. I don't take joy in having people fighting over my heart. I care about you both in similar ways that are also rather different. I decided that tonight I'm going to make my choice of who I'm going to spend the rest of my life with, even if I live for eternity. But to do so, I need to know just how much the two of you bothered to get to know about me before going and falling in love with me. I need to know that the man I spend my life with knows exactly who I am and loves me because of it rather than in spite of it or, worse, doesn't know much more about me than I've let slip these past several months. So, I'm going to quiz you both intensively on subjects I haven't told either of you personally. And each question will first be asked of you, Stefan, since you're supposed to be my boyfriend. Then you'll get the same question, Damon. Once you've both given me what you think the answer is, I will reveal the real answer. But first I want Damon to compel me so that I do reveal the real answer. That way neither of you can say that I favored one of you over the other. Or, if you don't trust him to do it properly, Stefan, I could have Caroline come in and compel me to tell the truth. She's right outside. She's the one who pointed out to me that I had to be the one to put an end to your feud."

"I say get Caroline to do it," Damon says. "She's unbiased these days."

"Alright. Caroline, come in," I say.

She comes in side and stands in front of me. I take of my vervaine necklace and pass it over to her. She locks eyes with me and I feel her gripping my mind to make the compulsion stick. "Elena, when each of the brothers have told you their answer to your question, you will reveal the real answer and not be swayed by any outside influences," she commands, her eyes dilating and contracting rapidly as she compels me.

Then she releases her grip on my mind, causing the compulsion to take root in my subconscious, and passes the vervaine necklace back to me. I fasten the necklace back around my neck. "Why do I remember what you compelled me?" I ask curiously.

Caroline grins. "Because I didn't force you to forget the compulsion as I placed it," she replies. "I want you to know exactly what I compelled you to do so you couldn't get mad at me later if things turn out biased towards one of them. So, can I stay and watch?" she asks. "I have a hunch who is going to end up with you and I want to see if I'm right."

I shrug. "You can keep a tally of who's getting the right answers," I tell her. "Just keep it to yourself unless I ask for an update."

"Good thing I got a notepad and pen in my purse," she says, slinging it off her shoulder.

I take a seat on the couch facing Stefan's so that the brothers and I form an equilateral triangle. Caroline sits in a vacant chair, pulling out her notepad and pen and creating a tally board on the top sheet. "I'll start off simple: what foods do I think go into the perfect breakfast?" I ask. "Stefan?"

Stefan looks baffled already. "I really don't know," he admits.

I turn to Damon. He smirks. "Chocolate chocolate chip pancakes, hard scrambled eggs with a light coating of salt, and bacon that's cooked to the point of the meat being crisp but the fat is still soft," he replies. "You prefer me to fix it because my pancakes are made from scratch. But you will settle for IHOP's when we're on the road."

"Point for Damon," I tell Caroline. She marks it down. "Next question: when did I get my first diary, who got it for me, and why did they give it to me?"

Stefan shakes his head. "I don't know," he confesses.

Damon rolls his eyes. "Your mom gave you your first diary on your fifth birthday as a present and she told you that every girl needed a place to store her personal thoughts and memories so that she can look back on them at a later date and remember exactly what they felt when it happened," he says.

"Right again, Damon," I say softly. Caroline marks it down. "What's my most favorite song and why?" I ask.

Stefan looks confused by the question. "I don't know that one either," he sighs.

"'True to Your Heart' by 98 Degrees and Stevie Wonder from the closing credits of the Disney movie Mulan is your favorite song," Damon says casually. "It became your favorite song when you first watched Mulan in the theatres and heard the song. You forced your parents to let you stay in the theatres so you could hear the entire song before you were willing to leave. It's your favorite because you believe that listening to your heart is the most important thing to keep you from becoming cold-hearted and cruel."

I give Caroline a look. "I'm starting to see a pattern," I tell the blonde. Caroline chuckles and marks down another point for Damon. "Those were the relatively easy questions," I tell the brothers. "One last easy question and then we're moving up a notch in difficulty. What is my favorite color and why?"

"Pink?" Stefan asks.

Caroline snorts. I sigh and turn to Damon, who shakes his head at his brother. "Dude, she's your girlfriend," he drawls. "You're supposed to at least know that her favorite color is actually many: every color of the ocean is her favorite because the ocean relaxes and soothes her. Her favorite color of the day can range from deep sea blue to sea green to tropical blue to the stormy gray of the ocean during a monster storm and every shade of the ocean in-between."

Stefan looks at me in surprise. "He's right," I tell hm. "My least favorite color is pink. I hate it. Caroline mark down another point for Damon."

Caroline does so. "I'm also going to put an X on Stefan's side for a wrong answer," she says, marking the X.

"Okay, now for some slightly more difficult question," I say. "The teddy bear Damon likes to hold onto when he's in my room is named Teddy. He was my first teddy bear. When did I get him, where, with who, and what was I told when I got him?"

"I didn't really notice your stuffed animals," Stefan admits. "I just know you have a lot of them."

"Wrong answer," I sigh. Caroline marks down an X. I turn to Damon. "Can you answer the question?" I ask.

"You got Teddy the day after your fifth birthday when your mom took you to the Build-A-Bear Workshop in Richmond. As you were picking out everything that went into him and watched the attendant put him together, your mom told you that a girl's first teddy bear is the physical embodiment of her guardian angel. The teddy bear was there for the little girl to play with, the teenager to cry her broken heart into, and the woman to look at and smile as she remembers all the memories she made with him. And, if the little girl was really lucky, if she earned it, the guardian angel embodied in the teddy bear will go out and guide her soulmate to her," Damon replies with a smirk. "Just so you know, I know the name of each and every one of your stuffed animals as well as a bit of background trivia on each one. Teddy just happens to be my personal favorite. But Ms. Belle is a close second. She's also a teddy bear but she wears a bright red dress with white lace and a red hat with white lace and a fake flower. You got her from an elderly neighbor before she passed away when you were thirteen. You were a friend to the old lady and visited her for a few hours everyday, helping out as she did her chores and just keeping her company. She gave you Ms. Belle as a way of thanking you for spending so much of your time in her company and because you were so attached to the bear. Your neighbor had named the bear when she got her several decades ago."

I rolls my eyes. "Smartass," I mutter. Damon grins unrepentantly. I turns to Caroline. "Since he bothered to find out all that as well as some stuff about all of my other stuffed animals, mark down two points for him," I tell the vampiress. Caroline chuckles and marks down the points. I'm quiet for a moment, thinking over my next question. "I'm going to jump to the second hardest question I plan on asking then I'll go back to the rest of the list. Why was I in the woods the night my parents died and why did I call them to pick me up?" I ask.

"You went to a party," Stefan says, sounding sure of himself.

"And?" I presses, confusing Stefan.

"I just know that you went to a party with Matt that night," he confesses with a sigh.

I turn to Damon. By the troubled look on his face, I know that he knows the answer to this one, too. "Your turn, Damon," I point out when he stays silent.

He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. "You skipped family night, breaking your promise to be there, because you were running out of illegal drugs," he says. Stefan's eyes bulge at that. "Jeremy wasn't the first to try them out: he stole yours. Your supplier had been busted for selling illegal drugs and selling them to minors so you needed a new one. You got word from Vicki Donovan that there was a supplier you should check out who was going to be at the party in the woods that night. So you used going as Matt's date as an alibi to be able to go. Matt caught you just as you made the exchange for a new drug you hadn't tried yet. He knocked the pill the suppler had given you into the underbrush. You got in a fight with him about life and the future. He had it mapped out and while you weren't sure what you wanted, you knew that wasn't it. So you called your parents for a ride home."

Caroline doesn't even need to be told to mark down a tally mark under Damon's name and an X under Stefan's, she just does it. Then she points her pen at Damon. "You're turning out to know her better than I do," she says with a frown. Then she points her pen at Stefan. "If this was baseball or Family Feud, you'd be out because you have three strikes against you," she tells him. "And that's not counting the three 'I don't know' answer." She turns to I. "Just ask the hardest question already, because this is turning into a pretty one-sided game. Damon's got all the right answers. Stefan either has 'I don't know' or a wrong answer. Pretty crappy results from the guy who's supposed to be dating you."

"Damon just knows the answers because he snoops into her personal belongings and reads her journals," Stefan snaps.

I shrug. "He wanted to know more about me than what I was sharing," I point out. "If you wanted to know more about me instead of assuming that the girl you've been watching since you saved me the night my parents drowned is all there is to me, you'd have been asking questions. You could have asked me personal questions, I would have answered them because you're my boyfriend and you have that right. While I don't condone how Damon got his answers, what matters is that he bothered to find out who I was before my parents died and learn more about me than just what I was letting slip out." I sigh. "The hardest question is actually going to be one of the deciding factors on who I spend my life with. The other questions were a lead up to it."

"Let's hear it," Damon says.

"What's the question?' Stefan asks.

"It's actually a number of related questions. Why did you decide to bother getting to know me as well as each of you do now? Why did you fall in love with me? Why do you think I'm worth fighting each other over the right to date me? And why do you think you're the one who should be with me and not your brother?" I ask. Even Damon looks nervous about these questions while Stefan looks downright terrified. "And unlike the other questions, I want Damon to answer those questions first."

"Putting me on the spot first, huh?" he asks dryly. He sighs. "At first, I wanted you because you looked like Katherine and I wanted to rub Stefan's face in it. But then you slapped me the very first time. No woman had ever slapped me in my life," he admits. "What was more, it stung. The night I let Stefan know I was back in town, he shoved a knife in my stomach and slammed me through his window. Neither of those were more than an irritation that he had ruined a John Varvatos shirt. But the slapped of a human girl stung. That was when I knew there was something different about you. It was still a game to me up until the night of your crash. I'll admit, my first thought when I heard the squealing tires followed by a crash was 'lunch'. I was pissed because someone had killed Logan Fell when the guy told me he could lead me to a group that knew how to open the tomb. I felt like ripping into someone's throat would relieve some of that rage. I had been heading back to my car to head down to Georgia and talk to Bree when I heard the crash. I changed directions to head towards the crash. As soon as I recognized your car and saw that vampire fixing his limbs, every thought left my mind but the one where I couldn't let you die. The tomb, Katherine, Logan's unexpected death, even the trip to Georgia, all of it vanished and I knew I had to save you. So I rushed forward and he fled. I got you out of the car and you subsequently fainted in my arms after whispering 'I look like her' in a broken voice. I could smell Stefan all over you and I could detect the change in your own scent that told me what had happened before you uncovered whatever Stefan left laying around that made you find out just how much you and Katherine resemble each other. I figured you needed a break from Mystic Falls, from him," Damon says, nodding toward Stefan. "So I decided to take you with me. But I couldn't have you bleeding on the upholstery of my Camaro. So I gave you just enough of my blood that your wounds healed. Then I took you to the Camaro and buckled you into the passenger seat. I drove us back to your car cause I couldn't just leave it in the middle of the road. I dragged it off the road before climbing back in my car and heading for Georgia at a much faster speed than you would have appreciated had you been awake. That's how we got down there so fast. Georgia was fun. You saved me life. Something about the fear in your voice when you were begging that guy to let me live told me you were a lot more afraid of losing me than of being stuck in Georgia." He gives her a wry grin while raising an eyebrow. "I couldn't figure out why you were so scared of losing me when I'd done nothing but make your life hell. So I figured the least I could do was at least try to be a friend to you. Haven't had many of those in my life, and almost all of them I've made since I met you. Then you tricked me," he says.

I sigh. "Stefan made me promise to lie to you," I tell him, glaring at Stefan. "He half-strangled me with my vervaine necklace and the only reason I agreed to it was because I was afraid he'd rip it off and compel me to lie. The night my parents died, going to the party instead of staying for family night was the first broken promise of my life. I swore to myself I would never break another promise because I'm terrified that if I do, the consequences would be of a similar magnitude."

Damon arches an eyebrow. "I figured Stefan had something to do with your lie. I know how much you hate lying and liars," he admits. "Anyways, your betrayal pissed me off and hurt me more than I care to admit. So I snapped. After Stefan freed you from where Anna was holding you, you came to me to ask for my trust one more time. I wasn't willing to be played the fool a second time. Then you did the stupidest thing you could have done: you took off your necklace, set it on an end table, and removed your hand. Then you told me I could compel the truth from you."

"You what?" Stefan demands.

"Shut up, Stefan," I tell him. "It's not your turn."

Stefan scowls but obediently shuts up. Damon rolls his eyes at . "I was impressed by your bravado. You knew damn well I could have used that opportunity to make you do any damn thing I want you to do. I could have made you mine right then and there," he says. "I was sorely tempted to do just that. But I knew that you had just placed your full trust in me. I decided that I'll give you one last chance. On the night we opened the tomb and found Katherine wasn't in there, you came and cried for me to come out. Me, not Stefan. And your voice held that same fearful tone as when that vampire in Georgia was dead set on barbecuing me. That penetrated the rage the had fogged my mind to remind me that I so didn't want to get stuck down there. So I followed you two out. Rage quickly turned to shock and then you hugged me, apologizing for something you had no control over. When I screwed up by taunting Rick about Isobel in front of the town only to get yelled at by you, I realized that I could easily lose your friendship over that. So not a pretty picture even then. I think that was around the time I started falling for you. I'm pretty sure that what made Isobel find out was that I told her that I should kill her for coming to my town and threatening people I care about, namely you. The only thing that made me spare her life was that I didn't want you to hate me for killing your birth mother in a permanent fashion. So she goes blabbing that night and I get the whole 'Elena is not Katherine, history will not repeat itself where she's concerned' speech from Stefan. I've gotten that speech at least a dozen times since I let him know I was in town."

I turn a sharp glare on Stefan. "It is not up to you who I'm with or not with, Stefan," I say acidly. "You may be my boyfriend but that doesn't mean you control me. History won't repeat itself with me, that's true. Because unlike Katherine, I'm making a choice and I'm not going to change it. Should things tonight make me choose Damon, I won't come back to you. And the way things are going, I'm getting the feeling I made the wrong choice in the beginning."

"Well, you asked a number of questions," Damon says. "I explained what led up to my falling for you. But I think my feelings for you started forming from that very first slap. You're like no other person I've met in my life, human or vampire. You have a fire in you that I admire, though it seems I'm the only one who can draw it out. You're intelligent, caring, considerate, strong-willed, determined, stubborn, and a whole list of other adjectives. You and I are a lot alike, a lot more than most people want to acknowledge. I both admire and hate your willingness to risk your life if it means you keep those you care about safe. There are times I don't understand how you could have found any trace of good in me when I first got here. There are times I still don't understand how you are so willing to forgive me of anything I do that hurts you. Hell, I'm still surprised you found it in yourself to forgive me for snapping your brother's neck. The only person I can think of who had more love than you is Jesus Christ himself and you give even Him a good run for his money. Any other person on this planet would have cracked under everything you've gone through since your parents died. But you just keep going, always looking for the silver lining in whatever is thrown at you. I respect that about you. Your sense of humor is pretty much a match for mine. You stand up against even the oldest vampires in the world and make demands when they could so easily snap you like a twig. You make friends out of the most unlikely of people. You don't let anyone decide who you can and can't be friends with, not even your boyfriend," he says with a quick glance at Stefan. "I respect and admire your courage, even if I sometimes think you're being an complete idiot with your bravado. You bring out the humanity I thought I had scorched from my heart decades ago. Every single good memory I have from the second I woke up in transition involves you. I love you for all of that and more. If I listed every reason why I loved you, we'd be here for at least a week. The beauty you got from Katherine is turned from mere beauty to angelic. I feel like you're my personal angel sent to redeem my ass of all the bad I did before I met you and even of the bad I did when you and I locked horns and I happened to lose. I never took losing easily. As for why you should be mine and not Stefan's? Simple: as was just made obvious by your little quiz, he never bothered getting to know every little thing he could find out about you. You can't truly love someone who you know very little about. In my opinion, real love takes time and it means you have to grow to know them as well as you know yourself. You know me better than I know myself and you prove it constantly. Once I realized that I was falling in love with you, I'll admit it, I did some serious snooping into your stuff. I wanted to know more about the girl who was stealing my heart before I was too far gone to care. But every little thing I found out made me love you even more and made me want to know more." He sighs and rakes a hand through his hair. "But, before I let you make a choice, I have to tell you something that will make you really mad," he continues.

I frown. "What?" I ask.

"I've used compulsion to take away two of your memories," he replies. My eyes widen in surprise. "One was our real first meeting."

"What do you mean by that, Damon?" Stefan growls.

"Stefan, shut up," I snap. He reels back in shock. I turn to Damon. "Our real first meeting?" I ask.

"I was the first to lay eyes on you, not Stefan. I met you on the road as you were waiting for your parents to pick you up. We talked for a few minutes, then I compelled you to forget about it because I wasn't ready for Stefan or Zach to find out I was in town yet,' he replies. "The other is one I'm sure you are extremely confused about. The evening we got back from rescuing you from Elijah, you lost several minutes of time and ended up in the middle of your room with your necklace around your neck."

"How did you … did you compel me that night?" I demand.

"I confessed how I felt about you, said I wasn't going to be selfish, and made you forget. I returned your necklace and left the room in the time it took you to blink," he replies.

I rake a hand through my hair, shaking my head in disbelief. Then I reach my hands behind my neck to unfasten my necklace and put it on the coffee table in front of me. "Compel them back," I order him. He stares at me in surprise. "I can't make an unbiased decision without knowing exactly what went on in those minutes you took from me."

"He could be lying for all you know, Elena," Stefan protests.

"Stefan," I say through gritted teeth, "shut the fuck up already. You're already testing the limits of my patience. Don't push me any further or I'm calling off the rest of this and making my decision based on what I've been given already. It's already stacked tremendously against you. So keep your thoughts to yourself if you want a chance to convince me that you're the right choice." Stefan immediately goes into Full-On Brood mode. I turn to Damon. "Compel those memories back," I order him.

Damon sighs and pushes himself to his feet before come over to kneel in front of me. He locks eyes with mine and I feel his Power grip my mind. I marvel at the difference between the way he and Caroline grip my mind with their respective Powers. Caroline holds it tightly but with a touch of uncertainty in the feeling. Damon, however, holds my mind almost tenderly in his Power. "One memory at a time," he tells me. "Remember what happened the night your necklace was returned to you."

And suddenly I'm reliving those few minutes.

I walk out of my bathroom, a million thoughts racing through my head. "Cute PJs," a familiar voice says. I open my eyes to find Damon smiling at me.

"I'm tired, Damon," I tell him.

He gets up and walks towards me, and my eyes land on my necklace hanging in his hand. "Brought you this,," he says, holding it up.

"I thought that was gone," I say breathlessly. He shakes his head. "Thank you," I say reaching for it, but he pulls it back. I see the serious look in his eyes. "Please give it back."

"I just have to say something," he says.

"Why do you have to say it with my necklace?" I ask.

"Well, because what I'm about to say is probably the most selfish thing I've ever said in my life," he says.

"Damon, don't go there," I say, coming close to begging.

"No. I just have to say it once. You just need to hear it," he says, getting even close, right up into my personal space. I make the mistake of meeting his eyes and I feel a tender grip on my mind. "I love you, Elena," he says. I feel elation fill me as I see in his eyes just how much he loves me. "And it's because I love you that I can't be selfish with you why you can't know this." I start panicking as I realize what he's about to do, why he kept my necklace in his hand. I try to force a protest past my lips, try to beg him not to take this from me, but that tender grip on my mind tightens slightly and I find myself unable to speak. I realize that he's using his Power to keep me silent. "I don't deserve you but my brother does."

'You do deserve me, Damon!' I think frantically. 'Don't take this from me, please!' I try to make him see in my eyes that I don't want to lose this memory.

He leans forward and places a gentle kiss on my forehead and I find myself wishing he had kissed my lips instead. "God, I wish you didn't have to forget this," he says sadly.

'I don't! You don't have to do this!' I think forcefully.

He captures my eyes with his. "But you do," he compels, a single tear trailing down his cheek. My heart breaks.

I blink my eyes rapidly as I return from memory lane. "You know, I had a lot I would have said to you had you let me speak," I tell him with a sigh.

"I wasn't going to risk getting talked out of taking the memory with me," he replies. He captures my eyes again and that tender grip on my mind returns. "Now, remember what happened between us the night your parents died," he compels me.

And that memory is relived as it returns.

"I know Bonnie. You're right. You and my mom both are. I just can't bring myself to tell him," I say into my cell phone. "At least not tonight. Call you tomorrow."

As I hang up, a voice full of surprise makes me look up. "Katherine?" the beautiful blue-eyed man breathes. He's standing in the middle of the road and staring straight at me.

"Um, no," I say as I look over my shoulder, wondering if he's talking to someone behind me. But I'm the only one here. "I'm Elena,"

"Oh. You … you just look …," he says, tripping over his tongue. He sighs, obviously annoyed with himself. "I'm sorry. You just really remind me of someone," he says, walking closer to me. "I'm Damon."

"Not to be rude or anything, Damon, but it's kind of creepy that you're out here in the middle of nowhere."

"You're one to talk. You're out here all by yourself."

"It's Mystic Falls, nothing bad ever happens here." And now I know why my life has turned upside down. I jinxed it myself. I look down at my phone then return my eyes to his. "Got into a fight with my boyfriend."

"About what? May I ask?"

"Life. The future. He's got it all mapped out."

"You don't want it?"

"I don't know what I want."

"Well, that's not true. You want what everyone wants."

"What, mysterious stranger who has all the answers?" I ask, smirking at him.

"Well, let's just say that I've been around a long time. I've learned a few things."

"So, Damon, tell me. What is it that I want?"

"You want a love that consumes you. You want passion and adventure. And even a little danger," he says, walking closer.

"So what do you want?" I ask, obviously catching him by surprise. Before he can gather his wits again, I turn at a familiar car horn honking. I see my parents' car making it's way towards us. "It's my parents," I say, turning back only to find him directly in front of me. My eyes lock with his and I feel that powerful, uncompromising grip on my mind that means I'm about to be compelled.

"I want you to get everything you're looking for," he says, his eyes dilating in contracting rapidly. "But right now I want you to forget this happened. Can't have people knowing I'm in town yet. Goodnight, Elena."

I blink my eyes a few times as I return from this trip down memory lane. Then I reel my hand back and slap Damon as hard as I can. "Ow! What was that for?" he demands, rubbing his cheek.

"That was for the compulsion you added into making me forget," I snap. "Passion, adventure, a little danger. Who do we all know does that describe perfectly?"

It takes two of them exactly three seconds to figure that out while the third still doesn't get it. Damon lets a vicious blue streak, Caroline groans, and Stefan looks rather confused. Caroline rips off the tally sheet and crumples it up. "I guess it's completely obvious that this contest is over," Caroline says.

"What do you mean?" Stefan asks.

Caroline rolls her eyes at him. "Stefan, Damon met her first and pretty much compelled her to go after you while he was making her forget the meeting," she tells him. "Those three traits perfectly describe the vibes even I get off you."

"For all we know, Damon, if it wasn't for your compulsion, I might not have given Stefan the time of day!" I growl, finally feeling free to embrace the feelings I have for Damon. I no longer feel the drive to stick to Stefan like a burr. "Stefan, I'm sorry, but Caroline's right," I say apologetically. "When he," I continue, pointing to Damon, who's still cursing up a storm, "returned that memory, I find myself feeling free to listen to my heart instead of my head. Cause my head kept telling me to stick to you like a burr. I'm damned certain that was the compulsion he placed on me. I've wanted to be with Damon ever since I laid eyes on him in the boarding house the first time."

Stefan groans, bracing his elbow on the sofa arm and covering his eyes with that hand. "So, let me get this straight," he says in a broken voice. "Our getting together was because of a compulsion Damon placed on you the night your parents died?"

I sigh. "Pretty much," I say sympathetically.

Stefan shakes his head and pushes off the couch before heading in the direction of the front door. Caroline cuts him off. "Where are you going?" she asks.

"I just need to wrap my head around this so I'm going for a long walk," he says with a sigh.

"I'm going with you. In the state you're in right now, we can't exactly trust that you won't turn to human blood," Caroline replies. "We only just got you off of it. I'm strong enough now to get you away from humans if you start getting tempted. And don't even try to argue about this because I promised Elena that if you weren't the one she chose, I would make sure that you didn't go off the wagon again."

Stefan sighs again. "Okay, let's go then," he says.

As they make there way outside, I turn to Damon. He's finally come to the end of his blue streak, which I'm not sure all of it was in English. "Are you done? Or do I need to slap you again to get some sense back into you?" I ask.

"I'm done," he confirms.

"Good, because I really want to make up for the time we lost because your damn compulsion kept me at Stefan's side," I tell him.

"I've found over the decades that once you lose time doing something, it's kinda hard to get it back," he says.

"We can try," I point out. "And if not, we can make the rest of eternity that much more memorable to make up for the loss."

"Eternity?" he asks, obviously intrigued by the idea.

"Well, I don't want to grow old and wrinkly while my husband stays young and handsome," I tell him with a smirk.

He nearly chokes at that. "Husband? Is that a proposal?" he asks when he's back in control of himself.

"Nope, that's your job. But if I don't find a ring on my left hand sometime before I turn twenty-one, I'm not going to be very happy with you when I do let you turn me," I tell him.

"Twenty-one?" he demands. "You're going to make me wait three years before I can turn you?"

I roll my eyes. "Do you want your immortal wife to look just like Katherine and have all her enemies chasing after me by mistake?" I ask.

"Point made," he replies. " And, since Stefan apparently failed to mention it, there is one physical difference between you and Katherine," he says.

"Oh?" I ask curiously. "What's that?"

He smirks. "You're birthmark," he replies.

I groan. "I should have known you had seen it by now," I grumble.

"You don't wrap your towels around you nearly fast enough to avoid having me get a good look at your naked body," he replies with a grin.

I smack him. "You're a jerk," I tell him.

"But you still love me," he points out, though his eyes show that he's still uncertain about that much.

"You're right," I tell him warmly. "I do love you. I even love you when I try to hate you. Now, are we going to just sit here talking all night? Because I was hoping for something else entirely."

Damon smirks and almost instantly has me pinned beneath him on the couch. "Something like this?" he asks, pressing a kiss to my lips briefly. "Or this?" he asks, pressing his hips against mine to show off the huge bulge in his jeans.

I smirk. "I was thinking a lot of both, actually," I tell him.

"I can work with that," he says with a grin. "But I don't think we should do it down here. I don't care who catches us, but I'm sure you'd rather not have anyone else laying eyes on that cute birthmark of yours."

"You're right," I tell him. "You're room?"

In a flash of movement that nearly gives me whiplash, we're off the couch and he carries me in his arms up to his room to tumble me onto his bed. "Good idea," he says, nipping gently at the juncture where my left shoulder meets my neck with blunt teeth. "Now that we've got some privacy," he says suggestively.

As we quickly strip each other of our clothes, I think to myself that if making love to Damon and being his girl is impossibly more amazing than simply being his friend, then I'm in for the wildest adventure ever and it will last for eternity.