2007- New York City

It had literally been the week from hell. Thanks to an unexpected vision quest drawing marathon that took up almost the entire weekend I had missed a shift and now my manager Tony was scheduling me for doubles and giving me hell for it. I couldn't say no because New York was ridiculously expensive and I was barely scrapping by as it was. Not to mention not a lot of people were willing to look the other way and hire a 16 year old to work full time at a bar.

On top of all that I was going to spend the weekend catching up on some of my coursework but spending three days straight in a trance didn't let me get any of it done.

"Nora!" Tony shouted as I finished busing the tables at the back.

"Yeah?" I called back.

"Take out the garbage it's starting to pile up!" Tony yelled.

"I'm still cleaning tables." I said.

"Well pause that and take the garbage out it's like I have to do everything around here" He grumbled.

I sighed reminding myself how much I needed this job and liked having a roof over my head. I took the trays back to the kitchen, dropped them off in the sink before taking out the garbage. It was heavy and of course Tony had opted to cheap out on the garbage bags so just as I was about to swing them into the bin the bag tore open.

"Shit." I cursed before grabbing the broom and dustpan I had left outside to start cleaning them up. Just as I was finishing up one of the drunk regulars let out a whistle.

"Look at that sweet ass." Connor the perve said.

I was no stranger to drunk idiots but this guy just couldn't get it through his head that I wasn't interested.

"Bar entrance is on the other side." I said.

"Aw don't be like that babe." He said grabbing my arm but I pulled it back.

"Don't do that." I said.

"Come on." He said grabbing me again and pinning me to the wall.

"Hey. Get off of me!" I said struggling against him but he wouldn't let go.

"Give me a chance, I can show you a good time." He said.

"Get off of me." I said fighting back scratching his eyes.

"You bitch!" He said going to hit be before he was yanked off of me and pinned to the wall.

"The lady said no." the dark haired man said before Connor cried out in pain as the man bit into his neck.

"Whoa." I said before the dim light fell on his hand and I saw the very familiar and gaudy ring on his left middle finger.

He dropped Connor probably dead before turning to me.

"Now's the part you try to run." He said.

I just looked at him still in shock.

"Well that takes all the fun out of it." The dark haired stranger with piercing ice blue eyes said. The same blue eyes she had also drawn.

"I've seen your ring before." I said not knowing what else to say.

"Let me guess, the guy wearing it was yay tall, brown hair, broody and self loathing not as handsome as yours truly?" he said.

"What? No." I said confused before I felt the very familiar pressure on the back of my head. "Oh you've got to be kidding me."

"Yeah hate to tell you but you're…" he started before it all went blank. Well at least my vision of reality before I was hit with visions of people and places I had never even been to.

Meanwhile…

It had been an off night for Damon who was in New York following a lead on his new baby vampire that had mysteriously disappeared after he turned her. He normally wouldn't have bothered but he didn't have anything better to do.

He was just out looking for a snack when he heard a girl scream. He dealt with the assaulter quickly but the girl… well she was not what he expected.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me…" She said as he walked over ready to compel eat erase when her eyes just went blank. Literally.

She started carving things into the brick wall on the bar using a broken beer bottle and when that wasn't working she started finger painting with her assaulter's blood.

"Hey." Damon said trying to stop her but she ignored him. "Hey stop."

And that was the moment his life changed. Because when he did she pushed him into a wall so hard he cracked the bricks. This was the same girl that couldn't fight off a guy minutes earlier.

"Ow." He groaned. "What the hell?"

The girl didn't react just started drawing. He could hear the bartender call out for her and that was when he made a split second decision he picked up the girl tossing her over his shoulder and carrying her as he ran off.

The second he put her down in the brownstone he was currently staying in she started all over again.

"Hey hey no finger painting on the afghan!" he said running around grabbing a pen and a note pad and tossing them in front of the girl. She immediately grabbed them and started drawing.

The Next Morning…

I just kept at it, not taking a break from what I was doing or even aware of what was going. Damon just watched the entire night waiting for me to stop at some point but it wasn't until the next morning when I finished the wall mural that I suddenly just dropped the pen.

I blinked a few times before looking at the mural in front of me. It was of some town, old looking with a welcome sign that said Mystic Falls.

"What the hell?" I said.

"That's just what I was about to say." Damon said and she turned finally realizing she had no idea where she was.

"You're…" she started before she remembered what had happened last night and it clicked. "It happened again."

"If by it you mean your witchy trance where you started finger painting on the rug with blood and graffitied the wall then yeah it did. Speaking of how do you know about this?" Damon said picking up a drawing of him feeding on a woman with black hair up in a pony tail while a man watched obviously distressed about it.

"I didn't." I said suddenly realizing that my rescuer was a vampire that liked killing.

"I don't buy it. Who are you?" He said.

"I'm Nora." I said before I remembered a drawing of the same woman he killed holding a file. "And you're Damon Salvatore."

"We've never met before." He said. "So how do you know me?"

"I just know." I said.

"I'm ten seconds away from snapping your neck so you're going to have to do better than that." Damon said.

"I'm telling the truth. I don't know how I know I just know." I said waving to the mural and drawings scattered around the room.

"Okay witch…" he started.

"I'm not a witch." I said.

"Well you look pretty witchy to me." Damon said.

"I think I'd know if I was a witch don't you think?" I retorted.

"Fine you're not a witch tell me about this." Damon said holding out another drawing of the same woman from before sitting at a bar with another woman with long curled hair and mischievous cat like eyes handing her a necklace.

"That's… That's the woman from the other drawing and she's… older like you." I said. "A vampire. I draw her a lot for some reason."

"You've drawn her before?" Damon said.

"A few times. Look I don't really know how to explain it. Sometimes I get these episodes where I black out and just start drawing thangs. Sometimes I know the people in them, most of the time I don't. they don't really make sense until it either happens or it's just a complete mystery." I said.

"This happens to you a lot?" he asked.

"Since I was a kid. It's random and most of the time I can pass it off as doodles but occasionally like right now it really freaks people out." I said.

"Well you just drew my girlfriend who's been trapped in a tomb since 1864 giving my one night stand from last week a daylight necklace." Damon said angrily.

"I don't know what to tell you, I guess she's just not that into you." I said and he ran at me pinning me to the wall. "Ah!"

"You're lying!" he snarled as his eyes wet black.

"I don't know who she is I just know that what I draw always happens. When I was five I drew my foster parent's dog getting run over by a semi, drew everything exactly like it happened even the license plate, two days later we were at the park and that same truck killed Sparky." I said and he glared at me trying to see if I was lying but he knew I was right and he let go of me. "I'm sorry."

"Get out." Damon said.

I knew better than to argue with an angry vampire. I grabbed my things and ran out of there as fast as I could though I had a feeling this would not be the last time I saw Damon Salvatore.