Rendezvous

Later that evening…

Dear Diary,

Okay, I know I've said this before. Countless times before. But I just can't shake this awful feeling that something horrible is going to happen again. And I have no idea what's causing it.

Also, though I hate to say it, I have this feeling that it's something to do with Damon. And I hate to accuse him. Especially after all he's been through- everything he's told me, and especially all that he keeps hidden. Of course, I know that Damon has a whole other side to him that even I haven't found and his life is full of secrets that he apparently is willing to do anything to keep hidden. But what if that secret is something bigger than anything that I, or even Stefan, could ever have imagined?

I can see how it hurts him, and I can clearly see why he wants to forget. To reopen those five hundred year old wounds, for him, can't be any less painful than ripping his heart out… And I do care about him and I want to help him… because I hate to see him so hurt, but I think- he just might be beyong helping now. I just don't know what to do…

Stefan is with him now, I'm at the boarding house and Stefan said that Damon needed to vent in a safer area than in here; I'm just too breakable now… It's been about three hours since they went downstairs-

Friday, August 23-late afternoon

Elena put her pencil down and looked up from her spot at the writing desk in Stefan's room at the boarding house as the door opened. Stefan himself finally emerging through the door, closely followed by Damon-who immediately took up his pacing again. Stefan stopped only a short distance from her by the shuttered window. A single lamp illuminated the room, giving off an eerie golden glow that made the space feel smaller and heavier. Stefan said nothing, and he did not speak to her, only catching her eye in the instant he entered the room, his eyes apologetic. His stance was wide, his hands clasped together behind his back at rest as he watched Damon pace from wall to wall and only breaking his silence when he could get a word in between Damon's ranting. They had been at this for a while now, but they had been downstairs away from Elena while Damon released the majority of his frustration at a safe enough distance that he couldn't really hurt her or anyone particularily close to that area.

"And how could she know about Katherine in the first place? She was in Paris throughout the duration that Katherine had been with us!" Damon exclaimed, he seemed to be almost panicked in a way, Elena was confused. He must mean that girl from this morning, she assumed as Stefan spoke.

"Yes, but I was not aware of any vampires being near Florence in 1543, and certainly not in the late summer… it just does match up. Who could have changed her?" he questioned. Damon shrugged indifferently, shaking his head in thought before resisting his pacing,

"She didn't say… only that he-" suddenly his face lit up like a light as a thought occurred to him. "Klaus," he said, then quickly adding as Stefan almost interrupted "Klaus had been in the area at that time, I think somewhere around Venice… or maybe it wasn't even Klaus, but another of the originals. Because I played a major roll in those free companies at that time, remember that? And we made sure that there were no bred vampires in various locations, but an original cannot be tracked!" the excitement in his eyes was brilliant, like a child on Christmas, thought Elena. She could vaguely remember Klaus, it had been so long ago now- a different lifetime.

Stefan looked concerned. "Does that mean that we are dealing with another original?" he could remember everything from when Klaus had come to Fell's Church bloodthirsty and hungry for revenge… it had almost cost him his last connection to Elena- who had already been dead for six months by the time Klaus was discovered. But Damon disagreed.

"No. Lizette said that this man was killed sometime in the nineteenth century- sometime before the American Civil War I'm sure because she only came here from Europe in the winter of 1860… and by then, he was already cold in his grave…" he paused. "so to speak."

Lizette… that was her name. Elena noted as she struggled to keep up… she turned to look back at her diary entry and reread it again. Now she was certain that she'd hit the nail on the head about Damon's secret. But what could it be…

Tuesday evening-sundown, August 27

Lizette wandered aimlessly through the Old Wood as the sun began to set over the horizon- she could see the pinkening sky through the thick canopy of trees overhead. Her intentions for coming here were not clear to even her, and she was not sure what she was searching for- though she knew she was searching for something… but she knew she needed something right now… though she refused to give in to the pain and admit it, she needed her baby… it was August 27 at sundown… the exact time that she had given birth… today was his birthday…

And this year, just like every year, she wept. Alone. She had escaped to be alone, no matter how much it ached because she refused to allow her own suffering to bring pain to anyone else that she cared about. And she just wandered until she was far too deep in the forest to hear any of the noises of the town and she was left alone in a peaceful silence for a long time… until she came across something that she should have seen coming but somehow had missed… and it was just what she needed right now…

Two figures struggled beneath a great oak tree in the dim lighting let in through the forest canopy. Lizette felt a momentary and sudden pang of painful tension and recognition upon seeing this. One of the figures was only slightly taller and slimmer than the other, his wide eyes rivaled the rage of a firey torch as they locked on his opponent… but he was just a boy; they both were. And they looked alike too. They were not identicle, heavens no. But the resemblence there was striking, much like that of brothers, but they were not brothers.

"I am warning you now, boy," spat the older of the two rivals. "I will kill you."

The boy's lips drew back from his teeth in fury as he mirrored the older man's every movement, countering a snarl. "You are the fool here sir, not I. Do your worst." He challenged, the elegant, lounging grace of his body was gathered in a predator's crouch identicle to his opponent's as he leapt through the air directly at him, teeth bared in a menacing cry.

"NO!!!"

A sudden rush of anger and protectiveness sped through Lizette like a powerful race of adrenaline and she dashed forward and intercepted the advantage of catching the attacker off guard as he and the boy fought like wild animals. Lizette grasped a choking hand from the boy's throat and fought to pry the fingers from him. Throwing her entire weight to the side and with all her might she broke the stranglehold lock and wreched the man away from the struggle to the ground on his back as he lunged for her throat.

Her alarming hypersensativity to these defensive, almost maternal instincts were a strong as a mother's devotion to her child- a lioness willing to sacrifice her own existance for her cub's survival. It had been centuries since Lizette had felt these emotions, and never had she felt them so powerful. She felt that she must protect the boy and that no harm must come to him…

Though her surprise attack had given her the advantage of catching her opponent off guard, he was still much stronger and far from defeat. Even as her razpr sharp kanines tore his flesh and drew blood, with a quick movement of his shoulders, he had managed to twist in her grasp and then he had her pinned down in the leaf-strewn terrain that was the forest floor. For a moment, she thought he was going to kill her, even wounded. His lips were drawn back from his crimson stained teeth, less than an inch from making the killing strike to her jugular… But something stopped him as he registered her face and his black eyes closed.

"Damon!" Lizette cried breathlessly as she struggled under his weight.

"Lizette…" Damon let out a deep breath and released her from his grasp, eyes searching and confused as he watched her. "What are you doing?" he asked her as he rubbed his slightly swollen throat, wiping away a good deal of the drying blood there.

"Mother?" said the boy in a voice that shook his entire frame.

Lizette turned her eyes away from Damon slowly, almost hesitantly, and addressed the boy. He was standing between the upthrust of thick branches, panting and supporting himself against the great oak with one hand. He bore an expression of immense confusion, his face was stricken with grief and he looked almost vulnerable.

"Damon…" she whispered, her eyes glassy as she saw the pain in the boy's eyes reach a peak as he stumbled to his knees. Lizette felt something inside her shatter as she more or less began clawing at the ground as though to crawl to him.

"Damon?" repeated the elder Damon, now positioned in a crouch next to Lizette, who remained too shocked to aknowledge his attempts to help her up. He was staring at her in astonishment, "Damon… what?"

Lizette blinked back tears as she watched the boy and she said "Damon…" she choked on a sob in her throat and she gasped. "Damon… Pierét-Salvatore…"

An eerie and desolate silence blanketed the clearing as the shock of the younger Damon's sudden reappearance was absorbed. The older Damon was the first to break the silence, though even he fumbled with his words.

"I thought…" he swallowed hard against a lump in his throat. "that you said… he… he… was dead…?" Lizette gave another sob and she exclaimed.

"Il était mort! Je ne pouvais pas le réveiller! Il était mort trois jours avant, il a été enterré!" Lizette cried, she was distraut with despair as all those five hundred years of mourning came flooding back to her all at once.

"Maman…?" the boy whispered, his eyes never left Lizette's teary eyed face. " …c'est toi maman?"

"Oui bébé... oui c'est moi... mon bébé... mon bébé précieux... "

The elder Damon was dumbfounded, he opened and closed his mouth as if to speak but to no avail. He was speechless, for once. The boy had called Lizette his mother… but how could that be? The child that Lizette had carried and bore all those centuries ago had lived only a fortnight after his baptism… that child did not exist anymore. And yet… he had her eyes... Lizette's beautiful eyes… and his own hair, only it seemed darker in a way- much closer to black than his own- definitely more like Lizette's. As he examined the boy closer he was able to recognize that many more of his own features had appeared clearly in the boy's genetic makeup. Features such as his long, narrow nose, his thick brows that framed his eyes… His able body was constructed in the same build, taking on a lounging grace-like component. His high cheek bones, prominent square jawline, deep-set eyes… clearly he must be popular with the girls of all the generations he'd seen.

He was indeed a handsome boy, having inherited his classical features from his parents. His mother, Lizette, was staring at him now… in his face she could see the tiny infant babe that she had loved so dearly. She was sobbing as she saw the dozens of retrospective images of that life from so long ago of the baby boy that she had held so dear to her even after all these years…

"How…?" she gasped, a weak, delicate hand raised to her throat as she felt her heart swell to fill the five century old ache in her breast. When the boy spoke, his voice was soft, almost a whisper, and his eyes determined in an odd way. "the… pendant… you left me…" he said. Lizette gasped as she remembered… Damon had given her a pendant of blue stone, a lapis lazuli stone, encased in silver… and she had taken the chain and strung it round the babe's wrist like a bracelet. Of course this was long before she had ever needed such a stone, and she had been fortunate to come across a silversmith who was knowledgable in the craft of encasing lapis lazuli, and that was how she obtained the ring she had now… Lizette was surprised that even after centuries of repressing those old human memories, they ame clear as crystal to her mind now as if they were only yesterday…

In the days that followed little Damon's baptism, he was as happy and healthy a babe as Lizette had ever seen, and a handsome one at that. He looked so like his father that Lizette often would just watch him in adoration and awe as he would fall to sleep in her arms. But… it was only a fortnight, just fourteen days and fourteen nights… on the fifteenth morning when Lizette had awoken early and arose to tend to her still sleeping babe, she made the discovery that would haunt and torture her for the next five hundred odd years…

"Good morning mon amour… tu as faim? Souhaitez-vous un peu de lait-" but Lizette stopped when she reached the edge of the makeshift crib –which she had made for little Damon from a dresser drawer and the softest blankets she could find. He had not stirred, even to the sound of her voice.

Ever so gently, Lizette shook his tiny balled up fist and was startled that his skin did not feel right to her… it felt warm and clammy to her somehow. Lizette panicked. There was a doctor in town, but even that was a full thirty minutes on horseback, and she needed a doctor now. And what would a doctor do for her when she was an unwed maiden with a baby? She had last ventured into town less than a week before the birth and discovered that all the shops there had closed their doors to her…

Now Lizette began to sob as she shook the babe gently, she flicked a bare foot a few times on the soles, she even tickled his belly, which always made him gurgle sweetle, but all of this was no good... fore the baby did not stir. By nightfall the following evening, he was cold, and Lizette wailed in despair, praying to God to let her baby live… but the babe did not wake……