Author's note: Here's chapter one. Chapter two will hopefully be up sometime next week, but the young ones are on holiday, so I can't promise anything. I hope you enjoy it!

Warnings: language, alcohol use, Stefan

Caroline's lips formed a thin line. Her forehead wrinkled as she continued to stare at Elena from across the room. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Elena nodded, running her fingers through her hair, pulling it over her shoulder. "It's just been a long day. I think I'm going to take a shower."

"Sure." Caroline continued to look at her with an expression suggesting she thought Elena was about to break…or worse.

Elena didn't want to dwell on what she must have done to warrant this kind of careful inspection from Caroline. As she gathered her basket with her shower supplies, she had to admit that everyone had been walking around her like they'd been stepping on broken glass. But not just since Damon came back. The odd behavior started earlier.

Still thinking back on just when she noticed it, she walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. They'd been acting weird for weeks, if she had to admit it. Studying her. Watching her. Scarcely leaving her alone.

Caroline even sat with her while she waited for Liam to meet her for coffee.

Only one conclusion made sense. They were afraid to leave her alone. Afraid of what she'd do – to herself…or were they afraid she'd hurt someone else? She stepped into the stream of warm water, and with each passing moment, her thoughts grew more troubled.

She thought back on the note she'd written herself in her journal. If she ever wrote a note to herself as she prepared to make some sort of life-altering decision again, she definitely needed to be less cryptic. What if the note wasn't saying she was lucky to have the chance for a fresh start? What if…

Why would Ric have compelled the memories away in the first place?

What had she turned into when she lost Damon?

A fresh wave of fatigue washed over her. Five days ago, she was on the cusp of having everything she wanted. Or at least she thought it was what she wanted. Without her memories, how did she even know herself?

Steam wrapped around her in the shower, and she relaxed into the welcome warmth. She tipped her face up into the water, trying to fight the urge to panic, trying to just relax. Whatever had happened in the past was the past. It was gone. It couldn't help her or hurt her any longer. It was all gone.

Even Damon.

She tried not to think about the look in his eyes tonight as he'd stood at the door. The hollow shadow of sadness was unfamiliar. The man she'd been with tonight hadn't been the same one who'd stood in her doorway, drunk, after just snapping her brother's neck.

What changed?

Unbidden, snippets of conversations over the past few days flowed into her head. She'd wanted Damon to take her to the last place she'd told him she loved him. And so he'd taken her to the edge of town. A place where they'd experienced something that Damon replayed his head countless times while he was trapped and alone.

A memory of a meteor shower that didn't happen. A memory of them getting wet and muddy. A memory of Elena getting upset and just wanting to go home.

That made no sense. When he'd first mentioned the memory while they were dancing. He was smiling. Would a night like that make him smile?

She tipped her face up, letting the water ease her tense muscles.

And then she wasn't in the shower any longer. She was standing back on the edge of town. Darkness enveloped her like she was wrapped in black velvet. But she wasn't alone.

Damon sat on the hood of his car, smiling. Those infinitely blue eyes looked at her, crinkling at the edges in full amused-smirk-mode. The first drops of warm rain pelted them.

She heard herself laugh.

And then so did he.

"I don't think we're going to see any shooting stars."

"We have to."

But even as she said it, the rain picked up. What was a few raindrops turned into a deluge. He raised an eyebrow, even as he squinted through the downpour.

"Tell you what. I'll make sure to bring you back during the next meteor shower."

Elena couldn't hide her disappointment. "But that won't be for 100 years."

He slid off the hood of the car, reaching for her waist. His hand found skin between where her shirt met the waistband of her jeans. His lips curled as he cocked his head to the side, leaning down closer to her face. She felt his breath on her cheek.

And nothing.

She couldn't remember anything else.

The memory stopped, dead in its tracks. Just like she almost was when she was drowning on the border before Damon pulled her back. If she'd only had 30 more seconds…or even 20…she would have known what came next.

The only thing she was certain of was that she didn't seem mad, they weren't muddy, and it didn't appear that they'd immediately jumped in to the car.

Even in the warmth of the shower, Elena felt cold. He'd lied to her. He'd lied to her, and she didn't fully understand why.

Damon sat on the hood of his car, miles from nowhere. His hand slid over the hood – not a single dent or scratch. He didn't know Stefan had it in him. Even after all these years, he still had moments where he realized how little he knew about Stefan and what made him tick.

When his brother tossed him the keys without a word of explanation, Damon had been stunned into silence. He'd never thought he'd get behind the wheel again. At least not in the present. He loved this car.

He hated this car. Not quite five months ago, he sat behind the wheel, and Elena slid into the passenger seat beside him. As they sped to their certain deaths, he felt the warmth of her hand in his and that made everything okay.

He'd give anything to feel that again.

The way her hand molded perfectly inside his. The way she seemed to know just how to hold onto him. The smoothness beneath his thumb when he didn't even realize he was stroking her. In all his years on this earth, he'd never found his matching puzzle piece. At least not until he met Elena.

And now she was broken.

And so was he.

He looked up at the sky and downed the last of the bourbon he'd brought with him, trying not to think about how many bottles littered the back seat of the car, destined for the recycle bin later. If he'd been human, he'd have been in the emergency room by now. Of course, if he'd been human, he would have been buried almost a century ago, probably as a nameless soldier on a battlefield somewhere.

Bleeding to death from a war wound would have been less painful than what he was enduring now.

He wanted to kill someone. He wanted to go off into some tiny town and leave it without a single citizen left standing. But he wouldn't, that was Stefan's thing, and Damon had never been that messy or that careless.

At least he wanted to go kill someone. Tear into a vein and feel the life trickling down his throat as it left its owners.

But he couldn't do that either.

Because as much as he hated it, he wasn't that guy anymore. Whether or not she remembered it, Elena had made an indelible stamp on his life. He'd always veered left, and she made him turn right. She brought him back into the fold of humanity. He might have been kicking and screaming. He might have had some hiccups along the way. But the damage was done.

He wasn't that kind of monster anymore.

His time with Elena had changed him. And Bonnie had seen it. That's why she made sure he was able to come back, even when it meant she'd be staying behind with a real monster.

No. He couldn't do what every instinct in his body longed to do in order to lash out…to forget…to make himself not feel anymore.

He owed that much to Bonnie.

And to Elena, even if she didn't remember it.

A car rolled up behind him, slowed, then parked. He was only half-surprised when Ric stepped out from the driver's seat. "You okay?"

"How the hell did you find me?"

Ric held up his phone, inclining it in Damon's direction. "Used your Find my iPhone ap."

"Remind me to change my password on my computer."

"Yeah. Elena wasn't that hard to guess."

"Probably should think of a new one anyway." Damon hadn't been able to stomach logging on to his computer since he'd come back. Even typing the password to his computer reminded him of her.

"Probably." Ric approached the car with the appropriate amount of hesitation for a non-vampire not currently wearing a Gilbert Ring of Supernatural Salvation who'd also ticked off a vampire.

"What brings you out here?"

"Thought I'd come see how you're doing."

"Tonight?"

"Well, I saw you at the dance." Ric unscrewed the lid from the bottle of bourbon. "And I saw you leave with Elena." He took a swig from the bottle, not even bothering with a glass. "And then Caroline called me. She heard your conversation in the hallway."

"And what did Little Miss Eavesdropper have to say?"

"That you lied to Elena." Ric nudged him with the bottle.

Damon ignored Ric's attempt at a peace offering. "Is that any worse than forgetting every memory of someone's existence?"

"She doesn't forget you existed. She just doesn't remember the good parts."

"Ah. And that makes it so much better."

Ric took another drink. Then he looked up at the sky. Then he took a breath. From the pensive look on his face, Damon could tell he was trying to decide something. Probably trying to figure out how to explain turning Damon's girlfriend's memory into something that resembled Swiss cheese gone bad. "It was killing her. You being gone."

"We've covered that."

"No." Ric downed enough of the bourbon that wouldn't be safe to drive for a while. "Trust me. We haven't." He swallowed again, clearly troubled by whatever memory played in his head. "She wasn't just sad, Damon."

"I saw her after…everything happened. I remember." If Damon lived to be 500, he'd never forget those moments after everything went wrong. Listening to Elena. Hearing her beg him to come back. Hearing every tear-filled plea. Her voice breaking as she sobbed. Watching her break as she accused him of breaking his promise to come back to her.

Knowing she'd been right.

As much as the tender memories they'd shared filled his days, the pain from those too-long-but-still-too-short minutes haunted his nights. "Trust me. I remember."

Ric kindly ignored the fact Damon's voice cracked on those last words. Either that or he was too drunk to notice. "There's something you need to know, Damon."

"And that would be?"

"I was there when she lost Jeremy. I heard you compel her to turn it off. I watched her burn her house down."

"Do you have a point?"

"She was worse after she lost you." Ric paused to let his words sink in. "She was off the rails. She'd convinced Luke to give her some kind of witch drugs so she could still see you and talk to you."

"She what?"

"She was taking drugs to talk to a hallucination of you. And when she was on them, she was out of her mind. The only reason she didn't kill the last girl was Caroline showed up."

"She was…"

"She was out of control. And she couldn't stop. Even when she wanted to."

"Let me get this straight. My girlfriend was doing witch-herbs, and everyone was okay with it?"

Ric's pulse began to pound faster. "That's the other part of the problem. Damon, she was alone."

Silence fell between them.

"She didn't have anyone left to notice. Bonnie was gone. Jeremy was…well, he was being Jeremy. Caroline was spending the summer with her mom. I'm not proud of it, but I didn't notice either. I was so wrapped up in my own stuff…trying to figure out how to be a vampire, I didn't notice."

Damon rounded on Ric in the darkness, happy his friend probably couldn't see his face. Because if he'd been able to, Ric would have probably been afraid. And Damon wouldn't have blamed him. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to lash out. Elena was that out of control? And no one had bothered to mention it to him? "And what about Stefan?"

"Stefan left her too."

Elena approached the door to the coffee shop and felt oddly out of sorts. Her day at the hospital had just felt off, and not simply because Liam had been playing a game of keep away. The more she wanted to talk, the more she wanted to get things off her chest, the more it seemed he just stayed away.

Part of her couldn't blame him. Part of her was honestly glad. Because most of her knew that she didn't have a clue what to say or how to explain the fact that the man she'd told him had died actually showed up at the event … and then she left with him.

Even though almost a week had passed, she hadn't figured out how to explain that one. And Liam had oddly ended up with a schedule that had been completely opposite hers since then.

She suspected involvement from Jo. Maybe it was for the best.

The bells on the door gave a happy jingle as she closed the door to the shop. The bells were definitely in a better mood than she was. She scanned the room for Caroline…and found Damon.

He held a single finger up in greeting, nodding slowly in her direction. "Let me guess," he spoke as she approached the table, "Caroline invited you for coffee."

"You too?"

"Yep."

Elena looked at Damon, continuing the awkward almost-dance she'd had with him at Ric's two nights ago and when Stefan invited her for drinks at the bar last night. She was going to have to start texting Damon to see if he'd received duplicate invitations if her friends…their friends kept this up.

So far, she'd managed to avoid actually interacting with Damon. He'd excused himself when she arrived for dinner with Jo and Ric. And she'd kept right on walking past the bar when she'd seen Damon sitting next to his brother.

But something in his face just now made her stay.

Elena approached the table with the same wariness she'd use on a blind date, and the irony wasn't lost on her.

It didn't appear to be lost on him either. "Don't tell me. Caroline texted you?"

Elena held up her phone and nodded. "She wanted to meet for coffee. I thought that was odd, considering I literally see her every night."

"And every morning, I suppose."

"Basically."

"So."

"So."

So they'd been reduced to small talk. Even worse than that, it appeared they'd gotten all the way down to single syllables.

"How are your classes?"

"How's it going at Ric's?"

The two sentences collided and neither really answered.

"Go ahead." Damon inclined his head in her direction. "I'd like to know. How are your classes going?"

"They're fine. Semester exams were last week."

"Did you study hard?"

"Yeah. Caroline made us a schedule."

Damon laughed under his breath. "Of course she did." His blue eyes locked with hers. "How's Future Doctor Wonderful?"

Elena shrugged, shaking her head. "I wouldn't know. I haven't seen him since the incident."

"The incident?"

"Since I left the dinner with my boyfriend that I said was dead."

"Boyfriend?" God, Elena hated that Damon looked like an excited puppy when he asked the question.

"Former boyfriend," she corrected herself.

An awkward silence fell between them. She'd been on blind dates that were less-terrible than this. Or at least she thought she had. "How are things with Ric?"

"Good. We put up the Christmas tree last night."

"Not quite a week until Christmas. Y'all are cutting it close."

Damon seemed to be looking anywhere that wasn't at her. "Well, neither of us were too excited about it this year, but he wanted a tree because Jo said something about it."

"Christmas is her favorite holiday."

Damon snuck a glance in her direction. "Mine too." He swallowed with an expression suggesting he'd overstepped his boundaries. Flashing a smile that would still a supermodel in her tracks, he laughed. "Of course, Ric and I fought over the lights."

Elena echoed his smile. "Why?"

"We couldn't decide on the lights. Ric wanted colored."

"Colored lights? I like white…"

"Because they remind you of growing up. Your mom always put white lights on the tree. They made her think of the icicles on her grandma's house on Christmas morning."

"That's right." Elena stiffened, suddenly uncomfortable. He knew her stories better than she did.

Damon seemed to sense it. "How about I go get us some coffee? If one of us doesn't order soon, I think the barista is going to kick us out."

As soon as Damon left the table, Elena wanted to run. What was Caroline thinking, sending her here to meet with Damon? Why didn't she just tell her that she thought she should talk with him? Why the invitation?

But even as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer. Caroline knew Elena wouldn't have gone.

Almost as soon as he'd left, he was back. He slid a mug in front of her. "Café mocha. Double the mocha. Hold the whip. Extra hot."

Elena didn't even try to hide her stunned expression. "That's what I always order. Or I think it is. When I went to the old book store, the guy behind the counter made it for me before I could even order."

"It's your favorite."

"But how do you know?"

"The old book store across from the English building. The one that has the display of Dickens books in the window?" He waited for her answering nod. "Because I was there the first time you had it. Jace, that's his name, he was trying to create a signature drink one day we went there. You love to go there on days that it rains. You like the way the old books smell mixed with the scent of the rain…and the coffee. He made the drink for you, and you've never ordered anything different since."

Elena stared at him, not sure what to say. "I…don't remember that."

"I know a lot about you, Elena."

She nodded. "I can see that."

"And I know why you did it."

Elena sipped her coffee, trying to fight back the urge to panic. She could hear her own pulse pounding in her ears. Whenever she thought too much about what she did…and what she lost…and what she'd never get back, it was almost overwhelming. Just as she almost surrendered to the panic, his hand took hold of hers.

With a practiced ease of a motion he'd done a thousand times before, his thumb stroked the back of her hand. Her heart reacted almost instantly, slowing into a steadier rhythm, and she could breathe again.

How did a simple touch calm her instantly?

For the first time that night, her eyes held his. "I don't." She sniffed, fighting back the wave of tears that wanted to come. "I don't remember why I did it."

"I know." She was lost in the intensity of his gaze. "But we'll get through this. I promise you, we'll figure out a way."

"How do you know?"

His grip tightened on hers, and for a moment, they were the only two people in the coffee shop. "Because that's what we do. No matter what. We always survive."