Chapter 11

Damon sat in the driver's seat of his signature baby blue car driving down the road towards Mystic Falls. They had been driving for most of the night and by now it was early morning. Beside him in the passenger seat, Charlotte laid passed out with her head resting on the glass of the window, her breath periodically casting a cloud of condensation on the cold glass. She had fallen asleep long before they had even left the city. As much as she had been trying to hide it, she was exhausted. They laid together for a while by the lake but it didn't take long for her to fall asleep on Damon's chest. Although he wanted more than anything to just stay in that moment, Damon couldn't help but notice that they had overstayed their welcome. He carried Charlotte to the car and drove away a couple hours past midnight. If they were found, neither of them were in any shape to run or fight.

The entire night replayed itself a hundred times in Damon's mind as he drove towards Virginia. Damon could barely believe how peaceful she looked as he listened to her deep breathing. Was this how she would have looked if he hadn't walked into her life, if he hadn't brought all this trouble? Even after their argument and Charlotte told him that he saved her, Damon still couldn't believe those words could come out of anyone's mouth. At least they were never about HIM. Damon didn't save people, he didn't care. Yet you saved HER, a voice in his head spoke. How could anyone believe that he was anything more than a monster? He ruined people's lives he didn't save them. Yet when Damon heard those words come out of her mouth all he wanted to do was kiss her, and there was nothing stopping him. What it was like to KISS her. Out of all the girls he'd been with, none of them had ever kissed like that. Or maybe it was Charlotte, her bravery, her eyes, her lips. Or maybe it was the fire she had and what it ignited in him. For a moment his mind reminded him of Katherine, and the fire she ignited in him too. But this was different somehow, Damon couldn't quite understand why. It was perfect, almost too perfect, and for some reason Damon couldn't quell the feeling that he would ruin it.

A small groan escaped Charlotte's lips beside him distracting Damon from his thoughts. She slowly began to open her eyes and he could see the confusion in them as she looked at her surroundings.

"Where-"

"Mystic Falls" Damon replied.

"Oh," Charlotte sat up rubbing her eyes a bit "Yeah, you said that earlier. How long have we been driving?"

"About, 4 hours" Damon replied with a slight smile as he met her brown eyes, somehow they seemed a bit more open as if a part of the wall that she kept up around herself had been taken down.

"Wait," she paused her brown eyes filling with realization "Damon but what about my things? My clothes?"

"It was too risky," Damon told her apologetically. "We needed to leave as soon as possible, we can get anything you need there."

"But-"

"I'm sorry" Damon told her and he was truely was.

Now that they were actually this close to his hometown, Damon realized that he wasn't completely sure what he was going to do. He didn't really have a plan. Well, the plan was to eventually going to return here, yes, but that was for Katherine. Now...everything was all messed up. He wasn't sure what he felt anymore. More importantly, what was he going to say to Stefan? The last time he had seen his brother, Damon had turned off his humanity. As much as he tried to pretend he hadn't, Damon didn't truly feel anything in that time period where he returned looking for forgiveness and a fresh start. He had promised his brother an eternity of misery, and Damon was hoping to show him a betrayal almost as big as the one Stefan had made when he sold out Katherine all those years ago. Damon didn't feel anything then. When he returned, he didn't feel anything as he killed all those people. As he drank his fill and more before finally killing them, he didn't feel anything. When his humanity finally began to return, steadily, slowly, he didn't feel anything either. Everything he did, he pushed it aside, forgot about it. He had killed people before, right? It was nothing new. Unlike most other vampires, Damon's humanity didn't return instantly, he didn't feel the rush of emotions that overwhelmed him all at once. It was almost like a river steadily flowing downstream, one feeling returned, then another. At times, he still wasn't sure that he truly felt. Most days, he still just felt numb. Until last night. Damon thought. Last night was the first time Damon had ever felt anything strongly. He wasn't even sure WHAT he felt. But for a moment, however brief, he felt less numb. Part of him couldn't help but yearn for a moment like that again. In that moment, he felt alive.

"So," Charlotte broke the silence. "What's so special about Mystic Falls?"

"It's my hometown" Charlotte's eyebrows traveled up slightly.

"Your hometown?"

"Yeah, and the place I was turned a vampire." If possible Charlotte's eyebrows shot up even more. It was one of the things Damon liked about her. Her curiosity, how she looked at things around her. She didn't just see them, she seemed to see into them.

"How…. what happened." She finally asked.

"It's a long story." Damon explained deciding what to tell her. "My brother and I fell in love with a girl, we died trying to save her life."

"What happened then?" Charlotte's questions began to make Damon a bit uncomfortable, for some reason. It didn't feel right talking with her about Katherine, the way she was a vampire and how they both fell for her. How strongly Damon felt for her. Felt? Didn't he still feel? Damon wasn't sure about anything anymore. His mind was a mess of thoughts. As if noticing his reluctance, Charlotte changed the subject.

"Why are you going back?"

"Because in the spur of the moment, it was the first place that came to mind." Damon told her truthfully.

"And I believe it's time to say hello to my brother."

No matter how much she probed, Damon was not ready to give away all the details regarding his relationship with Stefan. How could he possibly recount all the gory details of the number of times he made Stefan's life hell, the number of times he'd killed. If Charlotte knew half of the things he'd done, she might finally see him as a monster. And after last night, after she ignited something in him, he wasn't quite ready to throw it all away. Sooner, rather than later as Damon was hoping, they past the sign that welcomed them to Mystic Falls. No matter how many years he had been gone, Damon could still always recognize familiar landmarks, the places where things used to be and the new things that were built on top of them. As much as he tried to deny it, this was his home, and always would be.

"Listen, there's something I need to do first, alone. Take this," Damon fished a credit card out of his pocket and handed it to Charlotte who stared at it with wide eyes. "There's a store over there," he gestured to a shopping center. "Get whatever you need, I'll come back for you in an hour." Damon promised.

"But," Charlotte began to protest, then saw the look in Damon's eye and decided against it. She took the credit card from his hand, their skin touching for a moment longer than necessary before opening the car door, stepping out into the warm Virginia sunlight while Damon quietly drove away. It didn't feel completely right leaving her there, but Damon knew that he needed to talk to Stefan alone. Another part of him, after everything that he had done to his brother, wasn't quite ready for Stefan to know about what had happened with Charlotte. For now, he decided, it was better if she was a secret.

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Not fifteen minutes later, Damon drove his car and parked it nearby to the old Salvatore boarding house. It was probably one of the oldest buildings in the town yet it hardly looked any different than it had when he turned. As he began to walk up to the front door of the house, something stopped him. What if his brother had found a way to keep him from coming back, what if he was ready to stake him the moment he saw him for what he had done. They hadn't exactly parted on good terms. After all, his humanity had been off. To be safe, Damon decided not to use the front door, he did like to make a grand entrance. With that last thought Damon turned around and instead walked up to the side of the house. Using his vampire abilities, he jumped up onto one of the ledges and opened a window in an upper room. Slowly, he climbed in. The first thing he noticed were the voices. Damon could tell that someone was home because he could make out the subtle tones coming from downstairs. Probably just Stefan and Zack talking about something boring. Damon thought to himself. He continued walking until eventually he could make out individual words.

"Hello," a voice called out downstairs "Stefan, is anyone here?" Damon froze in his tracks, the voice was distinctly feminine and oddly familiar, but Damon couldn't quite remember where he'd heard it before. Slowly Damon continued to approach until he reached the top of the stairs and what he saw shocked him. Standing in the middle of his living room, was Katherine Pierce.