AN: From now on, I'm going to make sure the chapters I post are at the very least 2,000 words. I feel like the chapters I've recently posted have been too short…they might not have been but I know sometimes I prefer longer chapters and a somewhat shorter story than very short chapters with a super long lasting story. As always, I love you all and thank you so much for liking and reading this story! It means sooo much to me! So..here's the next chapter! Hope you all like it! :D

Chapter 9 (Elena POV)

I'm still going to take the cure.

The moment Damon said that, I felt like I'd drank a million energy drinks and ate as much junk food as physically possible. It was a bit silly that I got so excited and energized when he said that. The idea just excited me; there was just no other way to put it. I was like a pre-teen dreaming of growing up with the perfect boyfriend and the perfect life, and I was actually going to have it.

I opened my mouth to say something, and then closed it. I really didn't know what to say, I mean, I could try to put into words the utter excitement and happiness I was feeling but I think I would've sounded like a major idiot.

Then I decided I was going to finally say something. I was apparently entertaining Damon by doing nothing.

"I was not freaking out. I was just… thinking. I'm allowed to think."

"Yeah. You are," Damon looked ahead at the wall, "Is it normal for someone that's nineteen to look like they're a little kid who just ate a crap ton of ice cream? Or are you just going a little…nuts?"

I narrowed my eyes at Damon and smacked his arm as hard as I could, "I hate you."

"Sure you do," He seemed to drag out sure for as long as he could.

I wanted to smack him again but I didn't.

"You know, I was 25 when Katherine turned me, so you're lucky. At least you won't be thirty as quickly as I would." Damon whined, "I don't want to get old. I heard it isn't very fun."

"Oh, shut up. At least you'll be able to legally drink!"

Damon snorted and started laughing.

"It's not funny!"

Damon looked at me and pressed his lips together to stop laughing. "Yeah, it is."

"Whatever. You may physically be twenty-five but we both know you'll be much older, Grandpa."

"Hey, at least you'll have a hot grandpa for a boyfriend."

I rolled my eyes.

"You know you should really figure out where we're going to live or whatever. I don't really care. You're the one that's gonna have to find a job and finish college or…Wait? Did you finish college yet?"

"No, I still have a year or two left to finish. Now instead of focusing on me, what are you going to do? You can't sit around Damon, you'll get bored."

He sighed, "I don't know. I'll figure that out later."

"What did you want to do when you were human?" I was curious. Damon rarely mentioned anything about his human life unless it was somehow needed. He was more forthcoming when I asked him of it than he would be with anyone else.

"I didn't really know then, either. My mother had always wanted me to go to college so I had done that, I just never finished. I'd started a year or two before I went into war. Plus, my father had wanted Stefan to take over the family business anyway. If he hadn't then I may have been the one to take it over had my father actually somewhat liked me. But by the time I'd come home, Katherine was already there. You obviously know what happened after that."

"Well," I said, thinking about the things I'd seen Damon do and say. "you're not into writing like Stefan and I were, but you do somewhat enjoy reading. Plus, you love to correct people and bad grammar irritates you just as much as it does me. You don't really care much about medical stuff and I can't see you being a teacher. You can cook, though." I grinned. Damon's cooking was amazing. Especially since I love Italian. I could cook, but I was better at baking then anything else. When it came to actual food, I had to be able to follow a step-by-step recipe whereas Damon knew exactly what he wanted or needed to do.

Damon shrugged his shoulder and pulled me closer to him, "Like I said, I'll figure it out. It's not a need to know thing right now. I was thinking we could go stay with Stefan and Caroline for awhile if you want. I promise not to try and kill my brother, but I'll be very seriously tempted. We could go back to Illinois and Stay in the loft. There's a hospital right around the corner. Your choice. We can very literally go anywhere."

"Haven't you been in Illinois a lot anyway?"

"Yup. It's just an option; One where we already have somewhere to live and everything. We wouldn't need or have to stay there for the rest of our lives; it could just be a starting point until we really figure out where we want to go."

I hummed. I wasn't sure about Illinois. I remembered that Jenna had stayed there with a friend for awhile and hated it. I just wasn't very interested in it. Damon didn't care but I'd make him help me pick. South Carolina could be a good idea but I didn't really want to go and stay with Stefan and Caroline. I was ready for it to be just Damon and me.

I hadn't really been out of Mystic Falls very much until Stefan and Damon had come to town. My parents didn't care to vacation out of state for whatever reason they had, so we never went anywhere unless it was to the lake house.

I didn't want to stay in Mystic Falls, or even Virginia, but I did sort of want to be close to it. It was home and while I didn't want to stay in it, I wanted to be near it. Besides, the Boarding House would always be here. Damon and I could come here anytime we wanted to.

"Is there anywhere you haven't been?"

"Hmm…I'm pretty sure that I've been in all fifty states. I've also been in most of the major countries. Italy was one of my favorites." He paused again and took a drink of coke. "Yeah, Pretty sure I've been almost everywhere if I haven't been everywhere."

"What about…Georgia? Or Florida? We could be close to wherever Stefan and Caroline are, that way. We'd also be close to here, if we'd want to come back."

"We could do either. Caroline and Stefan will probably only be in South Carolina for a few more years. They've already been there for five or six. I'm sure wherever we go, Caroline will drag Stefan along and follow."

"That's not a bad thing. Caroline's my best friend and Stefan's your brother."

"I've spent over sixty years around her and around or close to a hundred with my brother. But when I was in Georgia with them, Blondie tried to make me her new best friend. My opinion mattered all of the sudden. I didn't like it."

"Caroline was attempting to be nice to you, Damon. That's a big deal considering its Caroline. She doesn't particularly like you most of the time."

He grinned, "I know."

I got up and went into the kitchen to grab a bag of popcorn and went back into the library. Damon had turned the TV on and was flipping through channels. He'd went out and bought a 32" flat screen because of how bored we all were. He'd bought some weird stick thing, too. It gave us cable and we could get on You Tube and all that other stuff. Caroline had made me watch a few new movies that had come out. Most of them were Disney Princess remakes. They weren't bad but Damon mocked Caroline for watching them throughout the whole day.

I sat down on the couch again and opened the bag of popcorn. I put a handful in my mouth and somehow managed to bite my tongue really freaking hard while attempting to eat. It hurt. Like really, really, bad. My eyes watered a little and I finally swallowed the popcorn that was still in my mouth.

Damon was looking at me with an amused smirk on his face.

"You're so pitiful." He reached over into the bag of popcorn and grabbed some. "It's so cute."

"Shut up."

"Make me,"

I shot a glare at him and looked at the TV. He'd apparently settled on watching re-runs of The Big Bang Theory.

And, of course, I somehow managed to bite my tongue again. I really couldn't handle eating popcorn without hurting myself. This time, I actually tasted blood in my mouth. It didn't taste good, at all. Blood tasted really metallic-y and just…weird. As a vampire, it didn't exactly taste awesome. But it was good. Drinking blood as a vamp was sort of like drinking a can of your favorite pop when you were human.

Damon had noticed that I'd bit my tongue again and had snatched the bag of popcorn out of my hands.

"You can't have anymore until you learn how to not hurt yourself."

I stuck my tongue out at him and he sneered at me. Then, he moved forward and had me on my back, tickling me.

"Damon! Stop it!" I screeched I between laughs and giggles.

I was laughing so hard I was out of breath and I was continually trying to grab his hands and smack them away every time he moved. I never could, he was moving too fast for me. I was squirming and flailing around so much that I was surprised we hadn't rolled off the couch into the floor, but I figured Damon was preventing that from happening.

He was laughing right along with me and had a huge grin on his face.

Then, one of our phones started ringing. I think it was Damon's because I didn't recognize the ringtone.

Damon looked irritated now and he got off of me after giving me a quick kiss to walk over to where his phone was lying. He rolled his eyes once he'd picked it up. He didn't say anything but I'm pretty sure it was Stefan.

"What in the hell do you want now?" Damon leaned against the table he picked his phone off of and crossed an arm over his chest. "Really? You called me because Blondie forgot a hair thing? Pretty sure she can buy a new one or you could've just sent a text. It's a hair accessory, not a human being or something."

I giggled at that. Caroline had always been one to freak out if she forgot a bobby pin, hair tie, or any other type of hair accessory somewhere. In elementary school, Bonnie and I would hide whatever had been her favorite of the week when she'd annoy us. It was mean, but it was so entertaining to watch her bounce of the walls and run around like a chicken with her head cut off while looking for it. I think we'd even got a video of it once.

Damon was still on the phone with Stefan so I decided I'd go up to our room and change out of my dress and put my jewelry away. My shoes were probably still in the Camaro. I'd kicked them off as soon as we'd got in to come back to the house after the funeral.

I went upstairs and found a long sleeve shirt and a pair of yoga pants to put on. It was sort of cool today. It had just started to warm up from winter a few weeks ago, or at least that's what Matt had told me. We were in the last week of April which had weirdly always been Bonnie's favorite time of the year. She loved the weather's changes between Winter and Spring.

I'd finished changing and taking my makeup off right as Damon was coming up the stairs.

"I can't believe you're friends with someone who can freak out about a freaking hair accessory."

"Says the one that freaks over everything. You flip out if a book isn't where you think it should be." I raised my eyebrow at him.

"I like things being where they're supposed to. That's different then Barbie flipping out about a two dollar accessory."

I smirked at him. "If you say so," I said in a sing-song voice.

I let out a squeal as Damon jumped onto the bed and kissed me.

I woke up with the sun blaring through the windows. We'd obviously forgotten to close the curtains and blinds. I was lying against Damon's left side with my head on his chest. He was asleep and lightly snoring with his head turned to the right.

I was still waking up when I noticed something odd.

Vampire's hearts were sort of weird. Instead of what you read in Twilight or just about any other fictitious book about Vampires, their heart actually did beat.

Vampire's heart beats were much slower than humans. You had to wait awhile to even hear of feel their heart beat but it did happen. I rose up and rubbed at my eyes a few time with my free arm and yawned.

The odd thing I noticed?

Damon's heart was beating almost…rapidly, compared to how it usually beat. Vampire's hearts didn't slow down or speed up, no matter what happened. They also only stopped if they were killed.

Damon's heart was beating as fast as what I'd imagine a normal human's would. Out of curiosity, I reached down to find my pulse point on my wrist and put my head back down against his chest.

Our hearts were beating at almost the same pace.

AN: I'm not evil for doing that, am I? I guess I kind of am…sorry! Don't worry though, I've already started writing the next chapter so It won't be too long before it's uploaded.

if anyone's looking for some good DE fics to read check out Restrictor Plate by sarahkwUT, The Song That Calls Me Home by Foreverfirstloves, or Auto In by goldnox. (which, just about anything by goldnox is great, in my opinion. Definitely check her out!) If anyone had any Fic Recs for me, let me know in a PM or your review! I'm always looking to read a good DE story! :)