Title: Love's Fool

Summary: Elena made her choice and Damon kept up his end of the deal. He left Mystic Falls more than a year ago and he hasn't looked back since. Now the Original stake has gone missing and suddenly they need him again. But Damon has no intention of playing their whipping boy anymore and this time he has a powerful ally on his side.

Spoilers: Everything through the S3 finale.

Pairings: Delena.

Disclaimer: If I owned Vampire Diaries there would be a lot less of Damon getting left to die heartbroken and alone. As it is, I can only hope to vent my frustration by punishing those characters responsible.

Note: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last few chapters. I'm sorry I haven't been more on the ball with replies but we're going through a transition at my work and I'm just hoping to ride it out in one piece at this point. I can promise that I'm still writing. I'll get the chapters up as regularly as I can. I hope you like the latest installment.

Chapter Fifteen

"So how do you know where Caroline's mom keeps her liquor anyway?" Elena asked lazily.

She was sprawled out on the couch in Caroline's living room with her feet in Damon's lap. He was sitting sideways at the other end with his legs crossed. Elena had a half-empty bottle of Tequila clutched in her fist.

When she turned to look at Damon, his smile was wolfish. Elena made a face. "Eww…yuck. Never mind. Forget I asked."

Damon shrugged. "It's not like this is news to you. Blondie still whines about it often enough."

"I don't care," Elena shook her head, but then groaned and reached up to cover her eyes because the room was spinning. "I don't want to think about it. You and Caroline is just…icky." She made another face. "I don't understand why you even went there."

Tilting his head back against the arm of the couch, Damon thought back to the first few months after he rolled into town. He thought about the bubbly blonde with the not-so-hidden black hole of emotional insecurity inside her she was trying to overcompensate for. Caroline had been like the little engine that could. She'd believed if she just kept pushing hard enough, she'd eventually make her way to the top. Unfortunately competing against Elena meant losing every damn time. Honestly Damon had identified with that emotional angst more than he wanted to admit.

Damon winced and reached behind him to pick up his discarded bottle of booze for another swallow or three. "Blondie wasn't half bad when she kept her mouth shut…or when I kept her mouth busy," Damon mused.

Elena sat up. Her glare was fierce. "Don't make me kick your ass, Damon. That's my best friend you're talking about."

Damon rolled his eyes. The girl might claim to love him, but she would never really understand him. "She makes a fierce little vamp, not that I'd ever admit it to her. But there have been far more worthless vampires running around out there with my blood in their veins."

Elena's eyes got big at that statement. Damon wondered what ridiculous shit was running through that head of hers now. She swallowed another gulp of tequila before she spoke. "It was your blood, you know. Your blood turned me."

FUCK! Damon gulped down more booze. He didn't need to know that. He'd suspected, of course, but he'd never had the balls to actually look into the matter. Some things were best left alone, dammit. Thinking about Elena turning on his blood was one more mindfuck Damon did not need.

Realizing Elena was waiting for some response, Damon mock-toasted the air with his bottle of brandy. "Three cheers for Doctor Bloodjacker."

Elena just stared at him solemnly. "I'm glad it was your blood, Damon. I wouldn't have wanted it to be anyone else's."

Damon ground his teeth together and somehow resisted the urge to throw the bottle of liquor at the wall. He shoved Elena's feet out of his lap and stood from the couch to tower over her. "It shouldn't have been anyone's blood, Elena. You shouldn't be fucking dead! Don't you get that yet? If my baby brother wasn't so fucking useless then he would have saved both you and Matt at the same time! No matter what 'I-wish-I-was-a-real-boy' bullshit he feeds himself or how many woodland creatures he sucks dry, Stefan is a vampire! He should have pulled your seatbelt loose, grabbed Matt, and drug you both to the surface at the same time. Why can't you get that?"

Elena pushed herself to her feet and faced him. She wobbled slightly but used her new enhanced awareness and balance to compensate. "I do get that, Damon. I realized that a long time ago. But dwelling on it would destroy Stefan and you know it. It's the reason you've never thrown it in his face. You blamed him for accepting my choice and saving Matt and not me, but you never forced him to face the reality of his mistake. You don't really want to destroy Stefan any more than I do."

Sure, she would go and get all rational about it. Damon rolled his eyes and sped away to stare out the living room windows into the front yard. He waved merrily at Tanner staring back at him. He was seriously considering going out on the front porch to taunt the former football coach just for shits and giggles when Elena moved to stand beside him.

Elena cocked her head to the side and studied Tanner closely. "Does it make me a really bad person that I don't really care that you killed Coach Tanner because it got us Alaric?"

Damon snorted. "I'm damn proud of myself actually. Apparently the guy was an asshole."

"He really was," Elena frowned. "Not that it makes it okay for you to kill people." She waggled her finger at him. "Don't do that." Then she just kept staring at her wagging finger in fascination. A goofy grin curved her lips.

Damon snickered. He was having such a good time watching her losing battle with the effects of the alcohol he decided not to point out that the other shade was one of her kills. She might move from grinning drunken Elena to mopey drunken Elena and he really wasn't in the mood. "I'll be on my best behavior. I'm practically a boy scout these days anyway." Her answering look was disbelieving and Damon smirked. "You'd be surprised."

Elena shrugged. "I'm just glad you're back, honestly. I'll pretty much take you any way I can get you." She either ignored or missed the reaction that statement drew from Damon. She leaned toward the window unconcerned. "So who do you think is behind all this crap?"

Damon was still trying to pull his jaw up off the floor and resist his body's impulse to pin Elena up against the windows and give Tanner a show. He glared at her, fucking tease. "I don't know. That Jennifer chick sounds like a good suspect. I'd be pissed if vamps ate my cousin." Then he thought about that statement and grinned. "Actually, no, I WAS the vamp that ate my cousins. But it always pissed Steffy off."

Elena frowned. "I don't know. She's just one girl."

"That we know of," Damon reminded her. "She probably has help. She could be part of a coven of witches." He thought about it. "We know witchcraft runs through bloodlines. The rest of her family might be involved."

Elena gasped and turned to face him. Her eyes lit up with passion. "It could be Katherine!"

Damon stared at her for a moment in disbelief. Then he started laughing so hard he almost fell over. It was a good thing he wasn't human anymore because he couldn't fucking breathe! She was killing him. "Holy shit, you really are a jealous little thing, aren't you?" he managed to force out.

Elena glared at him. "She knows about the shades."

"She's five hundred years old, Elena," Damon told her still chuckling. "She knows about everything. She was also stuck up Emily's ass a hundred and fifty years ago. She learned everything she could about witchcraft."

Elena crossed her arms over her chest and looked out the windows again. "It was just an idea."

"Katherine was with me in Alabama when all of this started happening, Elena," Damon said. "So, no, it couldn't be Katherine."

Elena bit her lip. Her eyes welled with tears and Damon wondered what he'd said wrong now. He didn't have to wait long. "I can't believe you forgave her."

Damon rolled his eyes and turned away. "It's really none of your business, Elena. Katherine and I have a complicated relationship and it started long before you were even born." A part of Damon wanted to fess up and reassure her he wasn't involved with Katherine, but an equally large part wanted to lie his ass off and feed her fabricated stories about their recent sexual exploits. He settled for keeping things vague and telling her to mind her own damn business. Let her stew for being left out for once.

"That's not what I mean," Elena shook her head and tears escaped to trail down her cheeks. "I know I have no business making judgments where you and Katherine are concerned. I made my choice, as stupid as it was, and I can't blame you for moving on."

Damon bit back his denial of her statement. He was not going to surrender to a few tears. He lifted one brow instead. "So?"

"So, I just mean…" she shrugged and looked at her feet, "I don't understand why you can forgive Katherine for everything she did to you, but you can't forgive me."

Damon laughed but the sound was bitter even to his own ears. "You don't want that kind of forgiveness, Elena. Trust me."

She blinked those big doe eyes up at him. He could still see the tears sparkling on her lashes. "What do you mean?"

Heaving a sigh, Damon decided to give just a little. He blamed the liquor. It was softening him up and blurring his resolve. "I can forgive Katherine because I'm over it, Elena. The wound doesn't hurt anymore. It's healed over." He made a face and lifted the bottle of brandy for another drink. "I haven't forgotten what Katherine did to me. I chose to let it go. It's not worth the effort of hating her anymore. There's no point."

Elena's eyes sparkled as his words penetrated her alcohol sodden brain. A huge smile curled her lips. "Because you're over her!" she realized. She bounced up and down in place and tried to resist the urge to throw herself at him. "You're not in love with Katherine anymore!"

Damon took a deep swallow and savored the burn as it went down. He was such a sucker. "I do love Katherine," he tried to take a step back.

"But you're not IN love with Katherine," Elena pushed. "I should know. I feel the same way about Stefan. A part of me will always love him, but I'm not IN love with him anymore. I spent most of the last year not bothering to fight with Stefan because I didn't care enough to make it matter."

Damon gritted his teeth listening to that. "It didn't stop you from staying with him though, did it? You can say you love me all day long, but you didn't break up with Stefan until last night, Elena. Actions speak louder than words."

"You weren't here, Damon," Elena said. She dug her fingernails into her palms and prayed she could get through to him. "To begin with I thought I was honoring my choice. Everything felt wrong and I was falling apart from the turning and the depression, but I tried because I felt like I had to." She still had problems piecing together everything that happened during that time. It was so chaotic and she'd been such a mess. "I could barely function, Damon. It's not like Stefan and I were sharing romantic moonlit dinners and going on dates. I was fighting the bloodlust and trying to remember that breaking someone's arm wasn't an acceptable way to win an argument." She smiled bitterly. "I hated everything and everyone, but no one more than I hated myself."

"By the time I started to pull myself together months had passed," Elena said. "Stefan and I had fallen into a routine and I honestly couldn't bring myself to care enough to change it. You weren't here. I couldn't have what I really wanted. I just didn't care, Damon."

"Once Caroline, Bonnie, and I diagnosed me, we started focusing all our energy on that. I spent every day working on pulling myself out of my depression, learning to manage my symptoms. Stefan was so stubborn and determined to deny what was wrong with me. He just made me angry when we talked about it. So we stopped talking about it." She shrugged and looked back out the window to avoid his stare. "I spent more and more time at home and away from the boarding house. We stopped having sex. Our relationship felt like play acting, make believe."

She forced herself to turn and face him again. "I shouldn't have let it linger on, I know that. But I felt like I was frozen in ice somewhere and nothing could wake me up. Nothing did until Caroline showed up in my room yesterday and fidgeted her way through a confession that you were back in town."

Damon opened his mouth to speak several times before finally forcing some words out. "You could have looked for me." It sounded ridiculous even to his own ears.

"You didn't want to be found, Damon," Elena reminded him. "You even changed your number."

Technically he'd broken his old phone into about twenty pieces. He hadn't bothered to get a new one or change his number until over a month later, but he didn't see any reason to get into all that. He took in her expectant expression and groaned. "I'm not nearly drunk enough for this shit."

Elena sped across the room to pick up her bottle of tequila from the coffee table. She smiled at him gleefully as she held it up and wiggled it at him before tipping it back to her lips. "Then drink up. We've got all day."

Damon forced a smile and slipped his phone out of his pocket. He typed in an urgent text to Katherine that read one word: HELP!

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