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Elena flops down on Damon's bed exhausted from her conversation with Stefan.

"Damon is alive. Klaus made it back in time. Turns out Caroline is as persuasive as you getting blood out of Klaus."

"Good. I'm glad. Where is he?"

"Gone."

"Gone? Gone where?"

"I wish I could tell you."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he left."

"Why would he leave?"

"Because the sire bond is broken. Because he thinks I'm going to forget everything I felt with him. Because he thinks I'm going to run back to you. Because he thinks he is always going to be second best. Loved, but never enough. Because I told him nothing was real."

"Nothing was real?" His voice laced with confused hopefulness. Hope that she's going to crush with the words she's going to speak.

"I'm sorry."

"What exactly are you sorry for? I'm confused Elena."

"I lied."

"About?"

"I lied to you Stefan, I lied to Damon. I told him that it was always going to be you, Stefan. That I was always going to love you. I thought it was true, and out of everything I've said to him that is the only thing that sticks in his mind. He was never anybody's first choice and I let him think he wasn't mine. You weren't asking for forever Stefan. You were fine with right now, and at the time it was all I could give. I knew I loved you both, but I was so scared to loose either of you. He would want it all, I couldn't give him that before. Then I turned and I remembered Damon compelling me to forget him telling me he loved me. I met him first Stefan. I told him the night I made my choice that it was because I met you first. Except I met him, and I liked him Stefan. He understood me in two minutes. I didn't get how that was possible. Until I started thinking about it. I realized that it was always like that with Damon and I. We had this understanding with one look. Only one look and we could speak a hundred words. I accepted it finally, and everything became so overwhelming. Everything I lied about, felt about, ignored between Damon and I was all there. He consumed me, and what I felt for you didn't compare. It's awful and I am so sorry, but I couldn't ignore it. Then Caroline comes at me with the sire bond and I was confused again. I knew I loved him before I turned but I didn't think it was enough. But was it because I didn't let myself or was it because of the sire bond? When I turned it off I was free. I knew what I felt and I ignored it again. I flirted with you at prom to make Damon jealous. I threw his feelings in his face because I knew if he didn't stop trying to save me he would save me and at that point I didn't want to be saved. So for every move he made to bring me back I had to hurt him. No one mattered but Damon. I never got to tell him, and I never got to explain it to either of you. He thinks you and I are going to get back together, and I know you hoped. I never want you to lose hope about anything but I'm in love with Damon. I have always needed him even when I had you. You shouldn't need someone else like that when your in love with someone Stefan. I did, and it's not fair to you but I can't let him go. I need you to help me find him. If you won't do it for me then do it for Damon. He was going to let us be happy Stefan. He was done hurting you. I don't want to hurt you any more either but we have to find him and I can't do it without you."

"For Damon." Stefan tells her, and really she didn't expect it for any other reason. They were brothers, brother who hated each other at points, who fought almost all the time, but loved each other with so much more fierceness and loyalty than they would admit.

"For Damon."

She rolls over and is so thankful that it's so late. She can't deal with anyone else at this point.

Damon's bed has got to be the most comfortable bed ever made. Well, as comfortable as the rest of the beds like this one. The thing is because this one is his makes the difference to her. If she found another one like this and laid on it Elena doesn't think it would feel the same. The sheets wouldn't be the highest count of Egyptian cotton. The bed frame wouldn't be the custom design he picked out. The most important would be the smell, so even if there was an exact replica it would never be the same.

And the smell is fading.

She showers in his shower, drinks his bourbon but still can't make the bed smell like Damon. His scent is just that...his. There is no recreating it.

She pulls the covers over her and buries her head in the pillows. Exhausted as Elena was she couldn't figure out how to shut her mind off. Nine full days and nothing. No phone call, no text message, no Damon.

Turns out the only time you watch over people from the other side is if they are loved ones. Damon and Bonnie may have reached common ground but they didn't love each other. Barely like was as far as they got.

All they knew was that Damon was still in Mystic Falls.

They got Stefan to donate a vial of blood, found a map and Bonnie did a locator spell.

Ric and Elena both thought Bonnie was crazy when she said she could pull it off but then she explained that her Grams helped her from the other side before, and when the ghosts came back they could still do things.

The real crazy thing was that it did work. Vaguely. The blood spread out all over Mystic Falls.

Which kind of helped. Except he was no where to be found, and if Damon didn't want to be found no one was going to find him. Someone was always here just in case he came back, someone was always looking.

And nothing...