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: I am so sorry for the extra long wait on this one. I would love to blame this on work, but honestly I got stuck. I started this chapter about five times, but I just couldn't get into it. I needed something and couldn't figure out what it was. It turns out I needed a break and to get out of the Forbes' house for a minute. I introduced a new POV here which I wasn't expecting. I hope you guys approve. I am also really nervous about how you guys will take the second half of the chapter. I know I can't please everyone, but I hope you guys aren't disappointed. I had to stay true to what I felt needed to happen. Please let me know what you think. I really appreciate your feedback.

Also…I will be replying to your feedback from the last chapter. I just didn't want to make you wait any longer on this.

Chapter Sixteen

Katherine scoffed in disgust as she tapped out a quick reply to the urgent text from Damon. Whipped puppies, she'd lusted for two dark princes to spend eternity at her side and she'd turned a pair of fucking whipped puppies. "That's what I get for being greedy. Anthony Fell was not this big a pain in the ass." Then she smirked to herself. Of course, he also wasn't nearly as hot.

"Katherine, are you even listening to me?"

Rolling her eyes, Katherine looked up from the phone to meet Stefan's irritated gaze. "Not even remotely." She internally snickered as he ground his teeth together. Changing her tone as if she were speaking to a two-year-old, she smiled at him. "If I don't listen to the bullshit that pours out of your mouth, it helps me resist the impulse to kill you just for fun."

He took one rash and foolish step toward her before reality reasserted itself and he remembered who he was threatening. Katherine cocked her head to the side and blew him a kiss. Stefan groaned and lifted his hands to rub his eyes. "I should have gone with Damon."

Her eyes quickly dropping back to her phone, Katherine choked on a laugh. "Trust me, baby, you wouldn't be enjoying yourself right now." The flash of pain that crossed his face had her rolling her eyes again…fucking whipped puppies. She took a breath and smiled sweetly at him. "Now what were you whining about?"

Stefan forced his angst away for the moment. He tried to reason with Katherine seriously. "You can't just threaten the humans like that, Katherine. Bonnie and Caroline don't handle your particular brand of humor well."

Katherine crossed her arms over her chest and glared. "What do you want from me, Stefan? I didn't kill the idiots. I even gave Bob and Dave popcorn with their movie."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about!" Stefan growled. "Their names are not Bob and Dave!"

"Who the fuck cares, Stefan?" Katherine growled back. "They're not important. They're just in the way." She was quickly losing patience with this entire situation. Why did she get stuck in this damn house with Stefan? He was a constant reminder of the epic FAIL that was her love life. He was supposed to be her destiny…her eternity, and instead he was nothing more than a bitter disappointment. He had no problem running around behind her little doppelbitch while she apparently chewed on half the town, but nothing Katherine did was ever right. Nothing she ever did would be good enough for Saint fucking Stefan.

Damn it, why didn't she fall for Damon when she had the chance? Why couldn't she appreciate what she had when she had it? Oh no, she had to fall for that boyish smile and those clear innocent green eyes. Now Stefan actually had himself convinced he'd never loved her at all and Damon had her stuck firmly in the friend zone.

She could already see him gearing up for another lecture on the appreciation of precious human life. Katherine was over it. "UHH!" Spinning on her heel, she stormed out of the room and toward the kitchen. She paused long enough to check on the humans. They were still happily munching away and she smirked. "Enjoy the movie, boys."

The one she'd dubbed Bob turned and smiled at her before looking back toward the blank screen. Dave looked less satisfied. "Can I have something to drink?"

Katherine nodded sweetly. "That popcorn is salty, huh?"

"KATHERINE!"

She focused her eyes on Dave's and pushed her will into him. He smiled and lifted his hand and sipped at his imaginary drink. "Thank you, Katherine."

She chuckled. "You're welcome, sweetie." Turning her head she saw Stefan glaring at her again in disapproval down the hall. She grinned at him smugly. "Dave likes me." She pranced away before he could comment.

The scene Katherine found in the kitchen looked like a mix between a potions' classroom, a chemistry experiment, and a cooking misadventure. There were pots and vials and herbs spread out across every available surface. The sink was piled full of dirty dishes and containers. Katherine wrinkled her nose in disgust. She was not getting stuck cleaning that up.

Emily's holier-than-thou descendant and the bubble-head blonde were bent over the kitchen table stirring their latest attempt at the potion. Caroline looked up to scowl at Katherine when she heard her enter the room. Would she never get over that whole 'killing her' thing? Katherine sighed. "How goes the potion making? Am I going to have to deduct house points?"

The witch frowned but continued to stir. "We're ready to add the last ingredient. Now we're just waiting on Rebekah."

Caroline sighed. "But we have to keep stirring the stupid things until she gets here. I think I'm giving myself carpal tunnel."

"We can't let them settle," Bonnie told her.

"Well Becky needs to hurry her needy ass up," Katherine drawled. "We're running out of time."

Bonnie's face wrinkled in concerned. "Did something else happen? I thought everyone was fine."

Katherine made a face. "No one's dying…yet."

"She needs to get back before those poor guys in the living room have permanent brain damage," Caroline threw Katherine a pointed look.

"She needs to get back before my stupid little doppelbitch climbs her way into Damon's pants," Katherine corrected her.

Caroline gasped in outrage. "NOT IN MY HOUSE!"

Katherine just smirked at her.

Bonnie rolled her eyes and tapped Caroline's pot. "Keep stirring."

Caroline whimpered and reluctantly went back to stirring the potion. "I'm SO telling my mom."

GROW A PAIR! I'm stuck with your idiot brother and the Mystic Falls Cheerleading squad. I'm considering surrendering to the shades.

Damon blinked and frowned at his phone. "Is that an option?"

"Who are you talking to?" Elena asked suspiciously as she reentered the room from the hallway leading to Caroline's bedroom.

Her eyes locked on the phone in Damon's hands and he gulped and slipped it quickly into his pocket. "No one. Checking in with the boarding house. Did you find anything?"

Elena cocked her head to the side and lifted her brows in a move that Damon found entirely too familiar. "Tell Katherine I said hi and goodbye."

Damon smirked and stretched out to rest his arm across the back of the couch. "You're looking a little green over there, Lena."

She sped around the room and plopped down on the couch right beside him snuggling in close. "How do I look over here?"

Damon groaned and shook his head. "Like trouble." Having just finished off his bottle of liquor (he was really going to owe Liz when this was over), everything was looking warm and fuzzy where Damon was concerned. All those hard lines he'd drawn in between himself and this particular Petrova were getting pretty blurry. He'd never been one to stay inside the lines anyway.

A part of Damon knew that there was a very good reason he'd decided to keep Elena at a distance, but unfortunately that part really didn't know how to hold its liquor. The part of Damon waking up now had far less objections to feeling her pressed up against him. In fact, she could feel free to come a little closer. He felt his arm wrap around her shoulders apparently of its own volition.

Elena purred like a cat and rested her head on his shoulder. She held up two rectangular boxes for his inspection. "We've got 'The Notebook' and 'Dear John'."

Not even alcohol made those choices any better. Damon sat up and made a disgusted face. "Nicholas Sparks? Are you kidding me?"

Elena shrugged. "It was this, the Twilight movies, or just about every old teen movie starring Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes, or Hilary Duff." She smiled at him innocently. "I figured we could at least make fun of the mushy love stuff."

Who was she kidding? He scoffed in disbelief. "You'll be crying on me in half an hour."

Elena blinked those big doe eyes up at him and stuck her lower lip out in a pout. Damon groaned and gave in to the inevitable. "Fine, put in 'The Notebook'. If I have to watch Channing Tatum trying to act I won't be held responsible for my actions."

"Okay." Smiling happily, Elena hopped up off the couch and sped over to put the movie in. She was back on the couch and snuggled even closer against him before the drawer finished closing. By the time the opening credits were finished rolling she had her head on his shoulder and one hand curled against his chest playing with the fabric of his shirt.

Looking down at that hand, Damon sighed. She was not making this easy on him. Didn't she understand how hard it was for him to keep pushing her away? He was so damn tired. Coming back to this shithole of a town was supposed to be about saving all their lives. He came back with a job to do. Find the stake, save all their ungrateful lives again, and wave goodbye as he left them to keep living out their undead American dream. He was supposed to keep his distance and she was supposed to make that easy by sticking her head up Stefan's ass where she'd lived since his brooding baby bro had moped his way into town three years ago. Instead, he'd come back to find Epic Love on life support and damn if Elena didn't happily pull the plug before heading straight for Damon like she'd found her new mission in life.

This was not the way it worked. Damon kept waiting for someone in the wings to shout cut and step in to remind Elena that Stefan was the hero in this piece and she was WAY off script. Damon couldn't decide if he'd been cast as the villain or the fool, but he knew he definitely wasn't hero material.

Elena chuckled at the couple on screen. "You would so do that."

Damon reluctantly looked at the television. Ryan Gosling's character was swinging from the Ferris wheel and badgering Rachel McAdams into a date. Damon rolled his eyes. "I'm a vampire. The fall wouldn't hurt me."

Elena grinned up at him. "I know. That's WHY you would do that."

"Or I would have just compelled her," Damon said.

Elena shook her head. "Nope, you wouldn't do that."

Now Damon raised one mocking brow. "Why? Because I have such a shining upstanding character?"

"No," Elena answered as she lifted her head slightly and locked her eyes with his, "because that isn't just a girl, Damon…she's THE girl. You would want it to be real."

He did want it to be real. He wanted THIS to be real. But after putting himself out there for her time and again and getting his guts ripped out, Damon didn't know how to trust her anymore.

Whatever she read in his eyes, Elena's turned sad and as he watched they filmed over with tears. Fuck, he hated her tears. Something that beautiful should never have to cry. Damon would give her the world if she'd let him. Oh, he could talk a good game, but beneath all the anger, beneath all the hurt and the bitterness, he wanted to believe in her again. He just couldn't remember how.

"I missed you so much, Damon," Elena's voice was broken whisper. "And I know you may never be able to fully forgive me for failing you, I know I probably don't deserve your forgiveness, but I just need you to understand how much I love you and how much you mean to me." She bit her lip and slowly closed her eyes. Tears slipped from beneath her lids to train down her cheeks. "You are one of the best things that ever happened to me. You frustrated me, and infuriated me, but you pushed me and challenged me to be strong and to fight for what I wanted. You were exactly what I needed, Damon, and I would have fallen to pieces long before that night beneath Wickery Bridge without you on my side."

Taking a shaky breath, Elena opened her eyes again and Damon thought he could actually see her heart breaking. She forced a smile, but her lips quivered at the effort. "I am so sorry I didn't recognize that until I'd already thrown it all away. Trust me, it was my loss."

Gritting his teeth, Damon growled under his breath. "Damn it, Elena." He turned his body and brought his hands up to cup her face between them. He brushed his thumbs across her cheeks wiping away her tears and took in her startled expression before sealing his lips over hers. Elena gasped and Damon took full advantage deepening the kiss and sliding his tongue into her mouth. Finally catching up, Elena buried her fingers in his hair and kissed him back eagerly. She angled her head and moaned as she sucked on his tongue and arched against him.

Damon slid his hands down and around Elena wrapping her in his arms. He explored her mouth and savored the taste of her even as his mind reeled that he was here again, that this was actually happening. It had been over a year since he tasted her. They'd both changed, been through a hell of a lot since then. Yet still she tasted exactly like she always had, like Damon accepted she always would, Elena tasted like home.

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