Katherine Pierce

Within the hour, Damon and Lizette came across a vacant house along the outskirts of town near the Old Wood. It was remote from the rest of Fell's Church and fashioned the

appearance that it had not been occupied in at least fifty odd years. Lizette stumbled up the steps of the front porch and retracted a hairpin from her raven waves to pick the lock and in a

matter of seconds, the door swung open.

"Are you sure no one lives here?" Lizette asked as she looked through the doorway and inspected the sheet-covered furniture in the parlor adjacent to the entrance hall.

"Trust me, Lizzy; if anyone has lived here in the past few decades, I think I would have noticed." He said as he removed her carry-on bag from the trunk of the Mustang and slammed the

hood.

"Will you be careful? It's not exactly vampire-proof you know!" Lizette hissed back at him. He held up his hands in an "I surrender" manner and snickered. Lizette rolled her eyes and

turned back to the doorway. She placed a hand on either side of the frame and looked down at the hardwood floors on the opposite side. Countless times had she not been able to enter

through a doorway and quite frankly, she was tired of it.

"Will you just go in already?" Damon snapped impatiently, startling her and causing her to stumble through the doorframe and down to the floor with a muted thud.

"Oof!" she massaged her tailbone and glared back up at the snickering Damon as he closed the door shut behind him. "Was that necessary?" she growled as she got back to her feet, still

rubbing her sore backside.

"Well if you didn't have to be so goddamn paranoid, then maybe I'd wait for you to go first. But until then, Lizzy, you're gonna have to move a little faster than that."

"Well maybe you should learn to be more patient. And stop calling me Lizzy! I've always hated that name and you know it!" she retorted. It had been cute when Stefan called her Lizzy

when he was three and couldn't pronounce her name properly yet, but when Damon had started calling her that just to pick on her, it wasn't quite so cute.

"Arrogant bâtard..." She mumbled as she turned toward the old staircase to explore the house.

Damon snickered and dropped her bag by the door, but he froze when he heard something that sounded like breaking glass…

Lizette's head snapped up at the sound as well and in the next second, she was kneeling by the bag and quickly retrieving several papers and folders from it, looking for the source of the

sound. Damon was about to assume that perhaps it had been a false alarm when he heard her breath catch in her throat and he winced, turning to see what had broken.

He was confused at first and couldn't tell just what it was that Lizette was now cradling in her arms, but he knelt across from her to look closer and saw that it was an ancient document

of some kind framed in an antique casing. But he had only caught a glimpse of the document inside before she held it to her breast.

"Lizette… I… I'm sorry, I… I didn't realize…" he rubbed the back of his neck as he struggled to form a coherent sentence.

"It's okay… it's only the glass that broke… it didn't tear…" her voice shook with her nerves as she tenderly fingered the shattered fragments of glass now falling into her lap and she

delicately placed the aging document in her lap to further examine it. This gave Damon a proper opportunity to observe it…

Once again, he was shocked by it. He didn't know what he might have been expecting it to be, but it certainly was not this; It was a baptismal certificate…

"Nel nome del Padre e del Figlio e dello Spirito Santo."

Il Duomo di Firenze

Denominazion: Damon Pierét Salvatore

Data du Nascita: Il 27 di Agosto, 1543

Battezzati

Data: Il 31 di Agosto, 1543

Firma: Prete Giulio Romano

"Lizette…?" Damon suddenly felt as though he was being suffocated and he tugged on the collar of his shirt and swallowed. "Damon… Pierét-Salvatore…?" his voice cracked on the last

syllable and he swallowed hard against the lump in his throat as Lizette nodded.

"He was your son… and mine…" she whispered as a single tear leaked down her cheek. Absently, Damon reached up and gently wiped the tear away, his touch as delicate as though

scared she might break. "He was so little…" she continued as she sobbed. "and so fragile… and so… beautiful… I never knew a newborn babe could look so like his father… until I saw

him…" her voice shook as she spoke and it made Damon's heart ache to hear it.

"Where were you?!" she suddenly cried. Damon started, shaken by her sudden change in tone. He opened his mouth to respond but he did not know what to say. Where had he been?

Even he did not know for sure. "I died for you!" she exclaimed. Damon's heart clenched and he looked down for a moment, running a hand through his hair momentarily, unsure of what to

tell her or what to do. What could he do? Apologize? Beg for forgiveness? He had not done so in ages, and certainly not since he had seen her last more than likely…

"What do you want me to say?" his voice was quiet and he could not bring himself to look at her… fore he knew he would break.

"Tell me the truth Damon… I know about your duel with Stefan! And I know about Katherine!" Damon winced, how could she know? How could she possibly know? But she continued.

"How could you do something like this?!" she cried. "What happened to the Damon Salvatore that I've always known? The one that told me I was the only lover he would ever need; the

one who asked me to marry him?" She took his hand and placed it over her heart, her voice taking on a gentle tone. "Le Damon qui j'ai donné mon cœur à…"

Damon stared at her hand over his as it lay over her left breast, he could feel the gentle beating of her heart… a rhythm that he had so deeply ached to hear again…

At that moment, he wanted to kiss her until she was breathless. He had not once wished for mortality in all the centuries since his reawakening, but suddenly now he found himself

praying that he could once again be the man he had once been so long ago. He wanted to make love to her as he once had so many lifetimes ago… but now he couldn't… and he never

would again…

"The truth…" he began, thinking back to those last months of his mortal life… back to those memories of Katherine Pierce…

"Aw... come on Katherine, you can't run forever!" called Stefan as he chased after a giggling Katherine Pierce around the manor courtyard. She squealed as he almost caught her hand but slipped.

"Catch me Slowpoke!" she cried when suddenly Damon jumped out from behind a tall tree and caught her, making her squeal in delight.

Stefan groaned as he came to rest a couple feet away, hands on his knees in attempt to catch his breath. "I thought you wouldn't return until this late evening?" he questioned his older brother,

who still held the beautiful Katherine all to himself.

"I escaped early when I caught wind that a certain Lady Pierce would be coming to call again this fine, autumn day." Damon winked at Katherine as she hid her pinkened face behind her thin, pale

fingered hands.

"Oh Damon, siete uno di questi l'incantatore..." Katherine giggled as she stretched up on her toes to kiss his haw, making Stefan want very badly to rip the arrogant smirk right off his face…

Katherine was still giggling as she linked said in a teasing voice, "Both such handsome, charming gentlemen…" she sighed lightheartedly. "How can a girl ever decide…" she giggled once again and

linked arms with each brother. "Now boys, before you two start another quarrel over me, I'm feeling a slight headache coming on. Won't you two dears be my angels and escort me back to the

manor?" she said as she flirtatiously nudged her head against each of their shoulders, smiling innocently up at each of them…

Damon proceeded to tell Lizette of how he and Stefan had indeed quarreled over her many times before finally insisting that she make her decision. He told her how Katherine had

promised to meet the brother of her choice in his bedchambers before the clock struck mezzanotte… and of how Katherine had visited both of them that night… and of the duel upon the

following dawn and searching the manor and the grounds for her, only to find that dark pile of ash around her new gown and her ring set neatly on the grass. He told Lizette of how

Katherine had tricked him and Stefan, and how they had been fooled by her charade, and of how he and Stefan had finally found her, imprisoned in the tomb far below all of Fell's Church,

and of how he and Stefan had truly finished her off… There was not a detail he missed or left out, even of receiving and discarding of her letters…

"All but the one I found in my burial shroud…" he said quietly as he slowly withdrew the letter from his breast pocket and showed it to her. Lizette took the letter in trembling hands and

carefully unfolded the ancient parchment, rereading her own words written so long ago. Once finished, she looked back up at him and stared deep into his eyes for a long while. Damon

thought that she might kiss him without ever saying a word, but she didn't. In fact, she did almost the opposite of that…

She slapped him.

Damon grunted at the sting of the slap, but did not retaliate in any form. Fore he knew he deserved much worse than she could ever give him. But then, she shocked him again. And this

time, she did kiss him…