Well, I was waiting on Katherine before I started writing this part. It took a while for Kat to give me an honest answer, let me tell you. I expected this chapter to go in a different direction, and I was certainly worried about how someone would react, but I'd forgotten something. Some corniness present, but hey, this is my therapy session. I don't think Stefan lovers will like this chapter overly, but anyway, on with the story.

"Why wasn't it me?" he asked Katherine. "Why is it never me?"

Tonight We Tell The Truth: Part 3

Elena knew that Katherine's answer had the potential to change Damon; to push him over the edge so that he was gone forever. Elena wanted to look away. She cared about Damon enough; she loved him enough, to not want to watch Katherine break him again. However, she couldn't turn away. She wanted to comfort Damon; to touch him, but she knew he wouldn't welcome anything from her right now.

Katherine sighed heavily. "There was never any challenge when it came to making you love me. You loved me so easily; too easily. You never saw me for who I really was."

Damon let her words sink in for a moment. He waited to feel the anger he thought he should feel. He waited to feel rage exploding inside of him. He loved too easily; he wasn't a challenge. He repeated the words to himself.

"But Stefan did?" he asked bitterly.

"Yes."

Katherine's eyes flicked up and landed on Stefan, and Damon thought it was the first time all night she'd actually looked vulnerable. There was a flash of uncertainty in her eyes, but then it was gone. Katherine's gaze lingered warmly on Stefan for a moment, before moving along and settling on Elena.

"Stefan and I have always shared a connection. As much as he might deny it, we're connected, and we always will be."

Damon laughed humorlessly. "He'd never pick you over her."

The aim had been to exploit her one weakness, and hit her where it hurt, but Katherine just smiled at him, completely unperturbed by his remark.

"Wouldn't he?" Katherine challenged.

"No," Damon told her, fed up with her smug attitude. "I'd never let him."

"You're going to tell me who I can and can't be with now, Damon?" Stefan asked him, suddenly.

The nightmare unfolding before her was everything Elena had hoped to avoid. She didn't want to hear that Stefan saw the 'real' Katherine. She didn't want to hear that they shared some twisted love, and connection; and she didn't want to see Stefan argue with Damon that he could pick Katherine if he wanted to.

"Don't be an idiot, Stefan," Damon told him.

"This protective big brother thing comes a bit too late, Damon. Besides, you're leaving. This doesn't concern you."

Damon looked between Katherine and Stefan with some confusion. He must be missing the vital piece of this puzzle. The fact that his younger brother felt something for the vampire who had screwed them both wasn't a huge surprise; but the fact that Stefan wasn't dismissing Katherine for Elena was.

He looked at Elena. He could see the inner fight taking place withing her right now. He could tell she wasn't that far off breaking. She had come here to find out what Stefan's feelings were for Katherine, but she really hadn't expected this. As their eyes locked, Damon felt her pain acutely. Not only did he love too easily; he loved completely. Even now he was too consumed with what Elena was feeling, to focus on the anger he wanted to feel toward both Elena and Katherine.

"Wouldn't you be happy if Stefan stepped aside, Damon?" Katherine asked him now. He turned back to Katherine.

"No. Stefan wouldn't be stepping aside. He'd be picking someone who has done nothing but think of herself; who has manipulated, lied, and probably never told the truth before tonight, over someone who has done nothing but care for everyone else, whether they deserve it or not."

Elena's heart skipped a beat when Damon looked at her again. The warmth in his eyes was so great that she felt his love for her penetrating every cell in her body. He was looking at her like she was his entire world, and reason for being, and it was impossible to not be moved.

He loved her. Of course she knew he loved her. He would never have stayed and fought Klaus if he hadn't loved her; but she'd just watched the anger he felt on her behalf, eclipse the pain that she'd seen Katherine inflict upon him. He was more concerned for her than for himself. He would never stop fighting for her to be happy. Not while he was around.

"If Stefan stepped aside, Damon, you might actually stand a chance with Elena."

"Because that's all I've ever wanted; to be second best, to be picked after Stefan moved aside." Now the fury was swirling through Damon with such ferocity that he literally saw the color red dance in front of his eyes. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I stepped aside? Maybe I gave her up because it was for the best; because I thought Stefan was the better man for her?"

"No," Katherine replied, disinterested.

"You didn't need to step aside, Damon. You never had her," Stefan told him.

"I stopped fighting you for her, Stefan."

"You never stopped fighting for her."

"I never stopped fighting for her life, and I never stopped wanting her, no."

"Yet tomorrow you leave."

Elena had felt Damon's acceptance and willingness to let her go all evening. His goodbye was in his eyes right now, as he looked at her, and it had also been in his kiss. She'd just been so busy fighting any feelings she had for him; of worrying about accidentally encouraging him, that she'd missed the punishing taste of his farewell at the time. He had given up on her.

Elena felt her heart squeeze painfully at the thought. He was leaving because he'd decided at some point that she would never pick him. He believed Stefan was the better man for her. Overwhelmed by emotions; emotions that were too complicated to explain to herself, or to anyone else, she walked up to him.

"You can't go. I don't want you to go," she said to him, trying to tell him with her eyes, that he meant so much to her; that she couldn't lose him. "Please don't go."

Damon wanted to be angry at her for wanting him to stay; for asking him to stay, but he couldn't. While the anger and the resentment were still bouncing around uncomfortably inside of him, the love he felt for her was still at the top of the pile of emotions he felt.

"You can't have both of us," he told her simply, cupping the side of her face with his hand, and stroking her cheek with his thumb.

She took his hand from her face, and held it in hers. "I know," she whispered.

"You've made your choice, and it wasn't me."

His voice was steady, but conveyed a heartbreaking sorrow that made Elena's eyes well up. She needed to tell him how she felt, but she didn't know how to put a label on it. These feeling weren't new to her, but they had been carefully buried for so long, that trying to articulate what she felt now was close to impossible. She wanted to tell him that nothing would be right without him here in her life. She knew she was being selfish. With Damon she had always been selfish. He had let her take from him for a while now. He had accused her of as much earlier this evening. He'd stayed to protect her, even while she'd pushed him away, and told him it would always be his brother. Guilt choked at her, making her wish the last few months had been different in many ways.

Katherine coughed with the subtlety of a sledgehammer breaking glass.

"This is touching," Katherine said, without an ounce of sincerity in her voice, "but are we still playing a game, because I've lost track of who's asked what?"

"You did this," Stefan accused Damon, "this was your last ditch attempt to take her from me."

"Stefan, you don't really believe that," Elena said, turning to him.

Not only was Stefan choosing to ignore the part that all of them were playing in tonight's unfolding drama, but now he also believed Damon could just 'take her'. She didn't appreciate his possessiveness. She didn't belong to him. Clearly he didn't trust her; didn't have any trust in their relationship, and yet he was the one who had lied. He was the one who had kept Katherine under the same roof as himself, and spouted off about loving two people.

"Yes. I went to Bonnie and asked for a truth serum because I thought my boyfriend was lying about his feelings. Are you out of your mind?" Damon asked Stefan.

"Your leaving is just another manipulation designed to tear our relationship apart."

"You're doing that all by yourself," Damon told his brother, looking between Stefan and Elena.

"You wanted to drive a wedge between us; that's why you stayed. Now you've done that."

Stefan closed the short distance between them, and Damon moved to stand in front of Elena. She didn't think Damon was even conscious of the move to shield her from her boyfriend, but it was noticeable to Stefan, who now looked like he wanted to kill both of them. Stefan's face was twisted into an awful sneer. The pure hatred in his eyes was what scared Elena the most. She'd never seen him like this before. Obviously the potion was working on him, but Elena wondered how she'd missed seeing any of these feelings before. Then again, tonight had revealed she'd missed a lot when it came to Stefan.

Elena had never been afraid of Damon in the way she was afraid of Stefan right now. She had been afraid Damon would hurt her friends at times, or her family, but she never believed Damon would hurt her. Perhaps some part of her had always understood his love for her, even if she had chosen not to acknowledge the extent of his feelings until tonight.

Stefan and Damon stood nose to nose.

"You're in my way. You're always in my way," Stefan told Damon.

"You won't see me again, after tomorrow."

Stefan looked behind Damon, at Elena, who was edging closer to Damon. She was literally using him as a shield, standing right behind him.

"She wants you to stay."

Stefan's disgust was unmistakable, and Elena shivered under his icy gaze. Both brothers could be cold, but where Elena wanted to break through Damon's coldness and reach him, Stefan's made her want to run as fast as she could. Elena had the bizarre idea that with Damon she had met the monster, and discovered the man, but with Stefan, she had met the man, but she was only just discovering the monster.

"It's not her decision," Damon said calmly.

"You don't see it, do you, Damon? That doesn't matter. You've managed to worm your way into her affections, despite the fact that you've fucked-up more times than I can count," Stefan told him angrily. "Well you're right; she can't have us both. Tonight she has to choose who she never sees or speaks to again."

"Finally," Katherine muttered. "This has been coming all night. Who can't you live without, Elena? Is it Stefan, or is it Damon?"

So, when I started writing this mini-fic, I was writing without a set idea of what was going to happen. All I knew was that I wanted the truth to come out. One more part and we're done with this story. There are issues I'd like to cover, and I wanted to stick to the twenty questions format, but I haven't had huge amounts of luck enforcing my will with this lot together, so I'm just letting the characters lead, and writing what I see. Thanks for reading.

Lots of Love,

LoveEpicLove.