Later that morning, Elena woke up to soft sunlight filtering through the curtains on the wall across from the bed.
But, when she rolled over expecting to find Damon's strong, muscled body, she just found empty air.
She knitted her brows together in confusion. Where could he have gone?
She looked up when the door opened and Damon poked his head inside.
He was glowing. There was no other word to describe his demeanor but glowing.
"Good morning, princess." He said, walking into the room, carrying a tray laden with the most extravagant breakfast-in-bed layout Elena had ever seen, and a small, wrapped box.
Her lip twitched up involuntarily as he sat beside her.
"What's all this?" she asked.
"Well, the not-so-subtle breakfast in bed a la Damon Salvatore, and a little gift I've been meaning to give you for a while."
She raised a brow.
"And why the sudden reason to give me a present?"
His eyes glittered.
"Oh!" he placed the tray on the floor and lay down beside her, kissing her forehead.
"Merry Christmas, Elena."
Her eyes widened.
"Christmas?" she cried, shocked.
He nodded.
"Oh, no! It can't be Christmas! This will be Jeremy's first Christmas without Mom and Dad and Jenna! I can't let him spend it with no family!"
Damon's smile slipped, and he tucked her hair behind her ear.
"I'm sorry, Elena. I would take you home right now if I could, but Klaus, Tyler, and Stefan are still looking for you…"
She let out a shaky sigh.
"I- I know, but…"
"But you still wish you were home."
Elena met his eyes and nodded.
He nodded in agreement.
"I understand. I didn't want to spend my Christmas being hunted by Klaus, either." He made a thoughtful face.
"Actually, I usually don't do Christmas, typical."
Elena frowned in confusion.
"Why not?"
Damon shrugged.
"Well, what's the point in celebrating the time of giving… if you never had anyone to give anything to?"
Elena's eyes widened.
"Oh, Damon… I didn't know…"
He grinned and shrugged.
"It's alright. It didn't bother me. But, I must admit," he wrapped his arms around her. "It's nice to spend it with someone for a change."
Her eyes grew sad.
"I completely forgot about Christmas. I didn't realize it was so soon… I didn't get you anything."
Damon looked like he may burst out laughing.
"Elena, you don't have to get me anything. You've already made me the happiest un-dead 145 year old vampire in the world."
He placed a kiss to her lips and pulled back, smiling.
"Besides; I happen to have had this gift for quite some time."
Elena sat up when he picked up the tray again and handed her the box. It was fairly small, wrapped in silver, shiny paper with a purple bow that he must have found somewhere in the house.
"By quite some time, you mean…?"
He grinned.
"Since 1851."
Her eyes widened in shock, and she quickly pulled the paper off the box, suddenly itching to see what gift he was giving her that he'd had for 13 years before he became a vampire.
When she pulled the lid of the box, she found a large, golden locket, which had a deep blue stone set in it.
It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry she had seen in her entire life.
"Damon… it's beautiful." She said, lifting it out of the box, watching the stone catch the sunlight and send glitters of light across the room.
He smiled.
"It was my mother's. She…" his face and eyes lost nearly all traces of happiness that had been there, and Elena frowned.
"She gave it to me the night she died." He finished, looking down.
Sympathy filled Elena. Even after 160 years, he still mourned the loss of his mother.
"Damon, I'm so sorry…"
He gave her a shaky smile.
"I was only nine when she died. I loved my mother more than anything in the world… but she hadn't been the same for about four years before that."
Elena moved closer, listening intently.
"After Stefan was born… she started acting… differently. She had always fawned over everything I did. Of course, I had expected her to pay less attention once the baby was born… but I wasn't expecting her to lose all interest in me completely."
Elena's eyes widened.
"When Stefan was born, she changed. All she cared about was her new son, and everything he did. Even when he was sleeping, instead of speaking to me, she would sit by his crib and watch over him until he woke up. My father had been in the middle of teaching me fencing when Stefan was born… and after he was, the neglect started."
"If I tried to speak to my mother, he would lash out and tell me she was busy with Stefan, and that she didn't want to talk to me. If I asked him if we were going to continue my lessons soon, he would tell me that he'd decided I wasn't old enough, or mature enough, or that I should wait until Stefan was older, so that he could teach us both together."
Damon's eyes grew glazed over in remembrance, and Elena could tell what he was about to say was extremely difficult.
"I remember one day, when Stefan was about three months old, I had been outside playing some stupid game with my friends. We were yelling and running around the estate, mock fighting each other. Apparently, I was being too loud and had woken up Stefan from his nap, and my mother was hysterical. 'If Stefan doesn't get his proper amount of sleep, he won't function! Make those boys be quite, Giuseppe!'"
Damon's lip twitched in hurt and anger.
"So, he came outside with his horse whip and beat me within an inch of my life in front of all my friends and the servants, and he told me that if I ever woke up Stefan again, he would kill me. The worst part was, he was so furious when he said it… that I believed him."
Elena tightly clutched Damon's hand.
"A few months after that, she started to get sick. My father called in the best physicians he could find, but nothing helped. If anything, the more they treated her, the sicker she got. Finally, three years later… she was on her death bed, and called me in."
"She took my hand and squeezed it, and told me that she was sorry that she hadn't been the mother I deserved. I told her that it wasn't true, and that I couldn't have asked for better, but she just smiled and shook her head."
"She apologized over and over for favoring Stefan over me for close to half of my childhood, and said that she wished she had never done so. She just kept muttering, almost in a bit of a crazed way, that she hadn't been able to help it. That as soon as he was born, she had lost all interest in everything but him. It was true, too. She had stopped sewing, baking, gossiping with the other ladies of Mystic Falls."
He fidgeted with his lapis ring absentmindedly.
"Then her eyes seemed to glaze over, and she told me to fetch Stefan. That she needed to see her little boy once more before she passed. I did so, because I figured she wanted both of her sons with her when she… went. But, when I got back with Stefan and went to sit at her bedside again, she told me… she told me to get out."
Elena's eyes widened.
"I asked her why she didn't want me to stay, too, and she said it was because… because…"
Damon took a deep breath, his hands trembling.
"She said it was because all she needed was Stefan, and that it had always been Stefan. When I refused to go, she gave me her locket as a bribe. Stefan started screaming and crying that he wanted the locket, and her eyes seemed to glaze over even more, and she reached out her hand, telling me to give it back. I couldn't bear to watch her give it to him… so I ran. My father had come out of his study when he heard Mother and Stefan screaming and yelling my name, and he tried to stop me, but I ran out the door and kept running until I got into the woods."
He squeezed Elena's hand.
"I didn't come back until it got dark, and when I slipped inside, one of the servants told me that she was dead."
After a moment of silence, Elena realized he was finished.
"Oh, Damon…" she whispered, hugging him fiercely.
"I'm so sorry…" tears trailed down her cheeks; she didn't have any idea what else to say.
Damon shook his head, pulling her away slightly.
"Don't apologize. It wasn't your fault that Stefan was a spoiled brat." He gave a humorless laugh, and the sound was a bit tortured.
She stroked his cheek.
"I won't do that to you ever again, Damon." She promised. "I won't hurt you like she did."
He gave her a weak smile and took the locket from her grasp, unclasping it and fastening around her neck.
"Part of me wanted to take the locket and throw it off Wickery Bridge, just so that Stefan could never have it. But… the part of me that still loved my mother wanted me to keep it, and someday give it to the girl who meant just as much to me as she did. Because, if I find a girl who means that much to me… I might not miss my mother as much."
He gently pulled her hair out from beneath the lockets chain, stroking her shoulder.
Confused, Elena turned to face Damon.
"But, if that was the case… why didn't you give it to Katherine?"
Damon bit his lip.
"Katherine… wasn't like my mother at all. Whereas my mother had been kind and gentle, Katherine was cruel and caused pain to people who didn't deserve it. As much as I loved her… I couldn't bear seeing that symbol of my mother around her neck. I think it was partially because I knew she wouldn't understand why it meant so much to me. If anything, she would say it made me weak."
He searched around in Elena's eyes.
"But I know you would never do that." He smiled softly at her. "Sometimes you remind me of my mother, Elena. She may have been the image of purity, but she had fire inside of her, too. Especially when it came down to the ones she cared about. I can see that in you, too."
Elena smiled. Stefan had never once mentioned his mother. Was it because he didn't remember her well enough, or just because he didn't care as much as Damon had?
"I would be honored to wear this." She said, squeezing his hand, her eyes intense with the truth of her words.
He smiled, squeezing her hand back.
"I was hoping you would."
"I really do wish I had something to give you, though…"
He laughed.
"Elena, you gave me everything I could ever ask for when you said you loved me last night."
She smiled, and he passed her the breakfast tray.
"I'll be downstairs if you need anything else."
She laughed.
"Damon, practically every breakfast food imaginable is already here!"
"Yeah," he grinned. "Everything except bacon."
"Right; vegetarians."
He kissed her forehead.
"I might actually run down to the diner. Elizabeth is bound to have some kind of blood lying around, whether it be a blood bag or," he shuddered. "Raw animal meat."
She laughed.
"Heaven forbid you should have to indulge in animal blood."
He grinned.
"I'll be back in bit."
"Alright." She nodded, cutting into one of many pancakes before her. Of course, it tasted amazing. But, then again, Damon had made it, so it wasn't a surprise.
A few minutes after she heard the door below close, the seriousness of what she was getting into set in.
What was she going to do if Stefan's compulsion did break? He would obviously expect everything to go back to normal; but could it?
After last night, the answer was obviously "no". How could she ever look Stefan in the eyes again after she slept with his brother? It was the kind of low thing that would happen in a cheesy soup opera; girl meets boy, girl and boy fall in love. Girl meets boy's brother, boys brother falls in love with girl. Boy gets compelled by a psycho to obey his every whim; girl runs off on a protection mission with boy's brother and ends up sleeping with him.
Alright, so maybe the psycho/compulsion part wouldn't happen in your average soup opera. But everything else would.
Elena felt like she was no better than your average slut. So what if they were vampires and Stefan was under an evil spell? He couldn't help it, and she knew he still loved her. But, she had let Damon get in her head, and now she couldn't change her actions.
But… did she really want to change them?
She thought back to her night with Damon.
The answer was "no".