Chapter 19

"I'm so glad you agreed to come over tonight. Thank you!" Caroline and I are in the kitchen popping popcorn while the guys are picking out a movie in the living room. Caroline demanded no slasher movies and no "shoot 'em ups" so I'm guessing they'll find something featuring fast cars since I'm willing to bet that they would both think selecting a romantic comedy would instantly revoke their man card. Caroline has been pretty calm about my being with Damon ever since our heart to heart so I decided it was time to have her and Klaus over so that she and Damon would be forced to be around each other. Damon had taken my advice following our night at Suite and called up Klaus to invite him to hit happy hour at RiRah's, something that has now become a weekly occurrence which I secretly believe has played a major part in mission "Win Over Caroline".

"You seem to be happy so I figured I'd give him a chance. Well, that, and Klaus keeps singing his praises." She rolls her eyes dramatically and uses an exaggerated British accent, "Come on, Love, anybody who appreciates top shelf bourbon like Damon does can't be all bad." I giggle at her impersonation of her husband.

"Well, I appreciate it, no matter what it was that ultimately got you here." I dump the first bag of popcorn into a large bowl and hand it to Caroline. "Here, why don't you take this one and go make sure they aren't ignoring your request and forcing us to watch Die Hard. Damon's a popcorn hog so I'm going to pop another bad then I'll be right in." A few minutes later I'm about to round the corner into the living room when I over hear Caroline's impassioned voice.

"It's not that I don't want her to be happy! It's that I don't think you are the one who can do that!"

"Caroline, Love, this is their business. Don't you think you should stay out of it?" Klaus tries to defuse the situation.

"No! Elena is like a sister to me and she deserves better than him!" She snaps.

"Caroline, I'm in love with her. I've been in love with her since I was twenty-two years old so why on earth do you think I'd do anything but try my damnedest to make her happy?"

"If you've been in love with her all this time, why are you just now coming back?" Caroline questions. Half of me wants to storm in to stop them but the other half needs to hear the answer to this question. One of the reasons I had so much trouble dealing with our break up is that I never heard from Damon again. One day he was my everything and the next it was like he had dropped off the face of the earth. Did I want to see him? No. It was easier for me to pretend that he didn't exist. For the longest time, I refused to allow his name to be mentioned. But I always held the tiniest hope that one day he would come back for me. Was I crushed that he could leave me? Absolutely. Was I destroyed by the idea of him being with Rebecca? Devastatingly so. But I always held a secret hope that he would one day show up and make it all OK again. I close my eyes to listen closer. I can't believe I'm actually holding my breath eavesdropping in my own home.

"Are you really asking me that? YOU? You were the only one who knew where she was and you told me to never contact her again! For two years after I moved to France I tried to find her and you know it!" Damon raged. He had continued to try to reach me and Caroline never told me?

"Of course I told you never to contact her!"

"Hell, I came all the way from Europe when I finally got her address only to have you answer the door and tell me she was in a relationship and that I needed to go away and never come back. Was that even true?" What? Damon had come from Europe to find me? I was never in a relationship! Why did Caroline say that?

"You're damned right I told you to never come back! And, no, she wasn't seeing anyone. She was still devastated! You have no idea what she went through!" Caroline stormed back.

"I think I do since I was going through the same thing!"

"Like hell you were! Do you know that she almost died because of you?" I am paralyzed by the enormity of what I fear is about to happen as I slide down the wall and sit on the floor.

"What?" Damon is suddenly barely whispering.

"She almost died. The night you told her you were going to France she came home and found out that," Caroline trails off. "She came home, packed everything she could fit into her car and left. She called me and left me a message not to tell you where she was and that she'd explain later. She was sobbing so badly I could tell that she was distraught. She shouldn't have been driving but she just wanted to get as far away from you as she could. She was only a few miles from school when she wrecked—totaled her car and almost totaled herself. She had broken bones, cuts all over and hit her head so hard that she was in a coma for a week. It was horrible." Her voice is suddenly fiery again, "And I blame you, Damon Salvatore!"

"She almost died?" Damon's voice is hushed and it sounds like he's on the verge of tears. "I almost lost her forever and I'm just now finding out? Caroline, I had no idea. I talked to you several times during the weeks after that. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you let me go to her?"

"Damon, don't you get it? You broke her! After what you did, she didn't want to see you. You asshole, she didn't even speak for a week after waking up and even then, she couldn't stand to even hear your name so she sure as hell didn't want to see you!"

"What do you mean after what I did? All I did was offer her the time and space to start her own career while I went to France to start mine. We never even actually broke up. I had no intention of fully walking away from her. Maybe I didn't do a good job of making that clear but I was never allowed the opportunity to explain it either."

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it, Salvatore!" Oh shit! I want to run into the room and stop her but I know that even if I try there's no way that it's not going to come out. The moment I've avoided for ten years is about to happen and there's nothing I can do to stop it.

"Then what in the hell are you talking about?" Damon bites back.

"I'm talking about Rebecca!" She yells.

"What about Rebecca?"

"Caroline, don't," Klaus warns.

"No, Klaus. He wants to pretend he doesn't know what he did? Well, let me spell it all out for him. Elena found a pregnancy test and your old lacrosse jersey in Rebecca's room. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. Not only did you sleep with her roommate but you knocked her up!"

Silence. That's the only thing I hear other than the rapid fire of my own heartbeat. Damon rounds the corner nearly tripping over me as I look up at him with tears running down my cheeks, stupidly clutching the forgotten bowl of popcorn.

"Caroline, we need to go." Klaus quietly tells her as he ushers her to the door.

"No, I need to stay to make sure she's OK," she argues.

"Love, I think you've done enough for one night," he says just before I hear the click of the door closing.

Minutes pass. Neither of us has spoken. It's as if we are frozen, me staring up at him and him frowning down at me. Finally, I break the silence that is weighing down the air in the room.

"You came back for me?" My voice sounds so tiny under the vastness of all that has been revealed.

"Of course I came back for you. I always believed in us." He sounds lost. "You on the other hand must have thought we were disposable." This snaps me out of my fear induced trance and brings me to my feet.

"Disposable? Damon, I was crazy over you," I begin as he paces back into the living room.

"You see, that's where we're different because I would never have put that in the past tense. I've never stopped caring about you. Even when you allowed your little blond minion to push me away, I was still holding out hope that one day I would be able to find my way back to you again. But you, you never even looked back."

"That is so not true! I was hurt Damon! You asked for space, told me you were leaving the country. You told me that you knew I wanted a family and you weren't ready for that then I went home to find out that you'd been sleeping with my roommate while I was busy with school! She was pregnant with your baby for God's sake! I felt like someone had ripped my heart out!"

Damon laughs scathingly, "Oh, yes, you know the whole sordid story don't you? Poor little Elena, working her fingers to the bone while her player boyfriend is hooking up with every girl on campus just to keep his dick warm. How many times do you think I was with Rebecca, Lena? How many others do you think I was screwing on the side?" He cruelly asks.

"Damon, stop it! I don't want hear it!" I cry.

"Well that's too damn bad because you're going to hear it! You wouldn't listen before. Fuck, you didn't even ask! But, by God, you're going to listen now." He catches my chin forcing me to look at him. "You had my heart and my dick on a leash from the minute you looked at me with those beautiful brown eyes. I never slept with Rebecca or anybody else. The baby wasn't mine. The lacrosse jersey wasn't mine. It was Stefan's."

"What?" I'm dumbfounded.

"Stefan hooked up with her at the lacrosse party that first time that he came to school and you two met. All those times that she was going somewhere for the weekend, they were meeting up. He got her pregnant, they eloped and by some miracle, it all worked out. She's been my sister-in-law for ten years now. Something you would've known if you'd ever bothered to ask." Damon barks out a bitter laugh, "The nephew that you helped me shop for? Yep, that's the same kid!" He let's go of me and stalks to the other side of the room as if he can't stand to breathe the same air as me.

"It was Stefan," I say almost to myself. "For ten years, I've thought that you slept with her when all along it was him."

"No, for ten years you assumed the very worst about me. You assumed that every rumor about me was true and that I could never actually be faithful to you despite all of the times that I told you I loved you. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?"

"I'm so sorry." I whisper and start towards him only to see him put his hand up to tell me to stop.

"Sorry? You're sorry?" Damon is looking at me as if I'm holding a smoking gun and really, aren't I? "Elena, you broke my heart! You disappeared and the only link I had to you refused to cooperate, apparently at your command. I never understood what happened, what I could've possibly done to make you hate me so much. Why, Elena? Why didn't you just fucking talk to me?"

"I was so scared to talk to you because I knew it would hurt too damn much to hear you tell me what I thought I already knew," I cry.

"But you didn't know, did you?" He shakes his head. "I'm going home. I need time to think."

"Wait! Damon, don't go! Please, just stay." I plead.

"I can't do this right now. Don't worry, you'll hear from me. You see, unlike you, I can't just walk away forever. I care too damn much." Without another word he walks out of my door as I crumple onto the couch and cry myself to sleep.

AN: Some of you did call it. It was Stefan. And what about Caroline running off Damon after her comes all the way from Europe to see Elena? I told you my Damon is always redeemable. So, what happens now. How does he get past being hurt by her assumptions and how does she deal with the fact that her inability to believe in him and what they had caused them both ten long years of heartache? Well, that's all to come, my friends. This is just one turn, albeit a major one, in the road for them. Thank you again for all of your reviews, follows and favorites! I'm blown away!