A/N: Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews! :)

Beta: arabian – Thank you so much! *hugs*

Disclaimer: TVD belongs to L.J. Smith & CW + one line borrowed from Robert Frost ;)

Chapter 8

Elena's breath caught in her throat and she uttered a stifled a cry of dismay at the sight of the stranger's face changing in a flash, his fangs extending. But before she was grabbed by him, Damon shoved her aside, and when she looked up she heard a snap, and the stranger fell to the ground. Damon glanced at her over her shoulder.

"A vampire," Elena gasped.

"Too bad it doesn't take one to know one," Damon muttered, stepping over the body. "Let's go before he... bounces back." He gave the stranger one more displeased look before taking Elena by the hand and fast-moving to their car.

"Are you OK?" he asked, glancing at her when they were out in the street, speeding toward the main road.

"Yes," Elena brushed her hair behind her ears. "It was just... unexpected." She exhaled slowly. "Why did he attack us?" she continued, trying to resume a calmer tone. "Couldn't he just say he was a vampire?"

"Attacking us might have actually been his attempt at socializing. Besides," Damon continued after a pause, "some people just get offended when someone tries to compel them, regardless whether they are vampires or not." He looked at Elena. "You were. My favorite slap," he said with a smirk. "Up to date."

Elena glanced at him uncertainly, only after a moment understanding the reference. "I didn't know you tried to compel me then."

"It bothered me later on a little," Damon spoke in a low, melodic voice that blended so well, too well with the dimly lit road outside, with her mood, with her. "If you were wearing vervain, then why, for a few seconds, you looked like the compulsion was actually working?"

Snorting under her breath, Elena averted her eyes from him. "I was just confused because of that dream you gave me earlier." She exhaled, thinking back to that night, to that strange sense of trepidation that he had brought into her life, that she had secretly found thrillingly pleasant until she had realized he was playing a game. She had not slapped him because he had tried to kiss her. She had slapped him because he had tried to kiss her for reasons that had nothing to do with her.

"What dream?"

Damon's words made her give him an incredulous look, but she could not tell from the expression on his face whether he was joking or not. He must have been. She could not have possibly dreamed that on her own. Not then, not like that. Turning her head to look away again her eyes widened at what she suddenly saw in front of them-

"Damon, watch out!"

Damon's foot hit the brakes and their car skidded to the side of the road. It was an almost surreal sight, a small bike in the middle of the dark road, but despite horror movies-inspired thoughts they got out of the car hoping that the toddler trying to ride his bike across the road was not an evil ghost.

Moving toward the child in the blink of an eye Damon, swept the toddler off the bike a few moments before a truck coming from the opposite direction smashed it almost completely.

Elena ran to them in a regular way along with a dismayed mother who emerged from a very small, dimly lit road. Damon promptly and gladly handed the terrified child to her, and then both him and Elena listened patiently to exclamations, explanations, the mother having "no idea how", and everything else in between, concluded by a heartfelt "thank you" and a late dinner invitation that they politely refused.

"It looks like we're on a roll," Damon said, walking back toward the car.

Elena smiled to herself, following him, and finding the moment strangely bewitching. She looked at the stars above and at his dark silhouette. She felt her heart beating in her chest, and she wondered if it was not evidence good enough that - somehow - she was alive.

"This could make living forever matter," Elena said thoughtfully when they were back in the car. "Don't you think?" She turned in her seat and looked at Damon expectantly, but he didn't seem to understand what she meant. "People are afraid of vampires, but if... we would let them see the good that-"

"Elena," Damon cut her off, starting the engine. "If you currently have any Batman and Robin ideas running through your head, please throw them out of the window now," he said, lowering the window on her side.

Elena's smile turned into a frown. "Don't you think-"

"No."

"Why not?"

He gave her a sidelong glance, and she drew a breath, and hastily turned on the radio. The car drowned in the loud music and Elena slumped deeper into the car seat, crossing her arms over her chest. Damon turned up the volume even more and when her eyes shifted to him, he gave her a smirk to which she reacted by closing her eyes.

Strange as it was, she was struck by how peaceful she suddenly felt, speeding across unfamiliar roads, deafened by the music she didn't like, overwhelmed by everything that had happened – not knowing what was yet to happen.

Except that she could kiss him if she wanted to. She wanted to kiss him now but that would be silly. Stop the car because I want to kiss you. She smiled a little, and tilted her head to the side, looking at him out of the corners of her half-lidded eyes.

"I want you to get everything that you're looking for."

She pondered the words again. They haunted her. She tried to make sense of that meeting. She tried to make sense of him making her forget.

She tried to make sense of him.

Of them.

In the faint, flickering lights of the cars that were passing them by, she watched his face, his eyes fixed on the road, his mouth set in a concentrated but neutral expression that for some reason scared the hell out of her. She could define herself against his emotions as long as they were extreme, good or bad, it didn't matter. It was something she could imagine, fight, understand.

But the expression that he was wearing right now, that signified no particular mood that was just him – she had no idea what to do with that. If she crossed the line, and let just her meet half way with just him... what would happen?

Subconsciously, she knew it had always been a little bit that way. She had always been more herself with him, and he had always been more himself with her. A little bit more. No. Too much. Always too much. And maybe that was the secret, the true appeal. Maybe it was never about the attraction, but it was about the allure of being loved unconditionally. It was not right or just, it did not fit with her system of beliefs. It was possible to love because and despite. The concept deprived of some reasons, any reasons – scared her. It scared her to be loved like that.

It scared her even more to love like that.

She did her best to keep this sane, to set some rules, to disagree, demand, reward, scold. She found consolation in all the "ifs." But at the end of the day... it was always just him. And it was OK with her.

It wasn't true that she wanted to change him, or turn him into... someone else. All of that wasn't true - one of those rare, unconscious, emotional schemes of hers that he didn't get. What she was trying to do was to make sure that it was the same, that there were obstacles that it mattered what he was doing, what he was saying. Because it should. It should matter. It ought to matter. She didn't know the world in which it didn't matter. She didn't want to endorse that kind of reality because it was wrong, and fixing things, making them right was all that she had left.

But how could she fix something that was not broken? Something that refused to break despite a thousand and one attempts to break it. It would not break or go away, and maybe, maybe, if there was something worth holding on to at all cost it was something as unbreakable, as invincible, as inexplicable, as inevitable as what they had?

An understanding.

No. No. She understood nothing. She would never understand.

"Damon."

She turned off the radio.

"Damon."

He kept shifting his eyes between the road and her, trying to guess what she was going to say.

Not this time, she thought, strangely exhilarated by the prospect of saying it out loud, of seeing his face when she would say it, both prospects somehow liberating even if she was not quite able to tell why.

The revelation seemed new and old, so powerful and so fragile. It was a moment to be torn out of time, three words that belonged nowhere but between them. For a second she felt as if the world was about to collapse, but she knew it wouldn't.

"Damon, I-"

She stared at him dumbfounded when he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. Her head was so full of her own thoughts she couldn't even hear the phone ring.

Damon glanced at the phone and then, in a slightly delayed gesture, handed the phone to her. Elena looked down at the screen.

Stefan.

It reminded Stefan of a heartbeat, the way in which the phone was ringing in his ear when he waited to hear a voice on the other side. Every moment of silence was a memory, every sound was a ray of hope. If he could only hear her voice, make sure that she was well, that she was safe, that she would be back, it would make him feel that she was alive. The way it was now – she died, and he didn't see her since then.

He should not have let her go like that. He should have gone with her. It had been a mistake; he should have fought for her to change her mind. Jeremy was right. But it was not too late. Bonnie should be able to locate her, and he shouldn't be wasting time calling her instead of going to her.

Putting the phone away Stefan smiled, thinking back to all those moments when Elena had been there for him even when he wasn't there for himself. There was still hope. An eternity of hope. She would be fine. They would be fine. It could be a new start for both of them.

He was going to hold on to that.

Elena stared at the phone until it stopped buzzing. She then returned the phone to Damon and turned toward the window and away from him. He obeyed her silent command and said nothing.

"We should drive to a hospital. There is one fifteen miles away," Damon said after a longer while, and Elena was not sure why his voice sounded a bit different. "Unless you'd rather... " he glanced at her but her expression was unreadable.

She sighed, drifting away in her thoughts. That was too tempting, too easy, and not fair. She drew a breath suddenly remembering Alaric, struck by the random realization that asking Stefan to save Matt instead of her – that meant signing the death sentence for Alaric. She hadn't made a choice between Matt and herself. Even if the Alaric they knew was gone... She had still made a choice between Matt and Alaric. No matter how much she tried to save them all, she always ended up hurting someone. It seemed almost as if she was being repeatedly punished for some kind of unconscious hypocrisy. It was true she never wanted to die. But it was also true she never wanted to be a vampire. She didn't want to pick up the phone because she felt guilty about Stefan, but she didn't want to pick it up also because she didn't want to talk to him. The contradictions were illusory because they didn't function as contradictions in her head. In her head everything was simultaneously true.

"No," she said out loud, trying to break away from her thoughts. "We can... do it an old-fashioned way." She waved her hand tiredly.

"Elena, if you don't want to-"

"Stop the car."

"What?"

"Stop the car, Damon!"

They stopped and Damon watched Elena storm out of the car. She walked around it and crossed the road. Having glanced right and left she sat down on the asphalt surface.

Knitting his eyebrows, Damon pulled over, and leaving the car on the side of the road walked up to her.

"What are you doing?" he asked, looking her up and down.

"What do you think I'm doing?" Elena shot back, laying flatly on her back, eyes fixed on the starlit sky.

"I don't think that's a good idea," Damon observed cautiously, sensing the mood she was in.

"Why? Because only you can do it?" She glanced up at him.

He squinted. "Because it's a road less traveled, Elena," he said with a wry smile. "There happens to be no cars on the horizon," he added squinting in both directions.

"I have time," she replied sternly.

Damon crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at her mock-critically. "Are you upset with yourself or with me?"

She frowned. "Why would I be upset?"

"Because Stefan called and you didn't pick up?"

She stiffened and then jumped to her feet in a flash. Damon acknowledged the trick with an impressed smirk but she ignored it.

"You could've taken that call yourself," she said with irritation.

He held her gaze and she blinked quickly. "You can very well call him back," he said, gallantly presenting the phone to her. She wordlessly glared at him, and he tilted his head to the side studying her carefully. "Are you feeling guilty because of Stefan or because you're hungry?"

Elena exhaled quickly and bit her lip, feeling tears well up in her eyes. She didn't quite know if he was right or not, but regardless of that it was frustrating that he tried to explain everything she was doing and feeling by the transition. Everything she was feeling was real. She was running out of the motivation to deny that.

"Both," Elena breathed, and for a second she felt relief wash over her. But the sensation was brief because it soon dawned on her that the confession wasn't precise enough. He wouldn't judge her. He wouldn't condemn her. He wouldn't leave her. But it didn't make it any easier for her to actually put into words what she was feeling. "No, no, that's not it." Elena ran her hands through her hair, her eyes wandering around as if she was searching her dark surroundings for help. "I mean," she turned away from Damon, and then back toward him again. "It's not what I feel. It's... how I feel about what I feel."

She looked at him, hoping he understood. He was looking at her, listening to her, and it was only by his quickened breath that she could tell he was listening intently and quietly but not calmly at all. "I like it," she said with a broken smile, her voice laced with tears. "I like being here in the middle of the night. I like being here for the most ridiculous reason I could ever imagine," she snorted bitterly. "I like being here with you. I like imagining a life that never ends. I like... kissing you. I like..." she trailed off but his eyes that were so exclusively focused on her encouraged her to resume, "drinking your blood. I like spending time with you. I like... that you love me so much," she whispered breathlessly, choking on the words.

It was such a terrible thing to say. It was terribly selfish, and she shuddered, wishing he would at least point that out or mind or anything at all that would make her actually feel terrible. But of course he would never do that, and so he only tugged her closer to him and hugged her, whispering words into her hair, and kissing the tears off her face.

"I'm not doing this only for you either, Elena." He tried to make her smile but she didn't.

"But it's different."

"No, not really." He tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear, and she inwardly snorted at herself for ever hoping there was even a slight chance that he would chastise her for being so self-centered.

"I'm sorry about what I said," she said, pressing her forehead against his without even thinking about it. "When you said... and I said it was a problem. I didn't mean it that way."

"I know."

She clutched the labels of his jacket and he looked at her unblinkingly. "No, you don't," she said with mocking authority, and then resumed her soft tone. "I meant that it was a problem, because it was something I couldn't ignore, not when you said it, and said it in such a casual way," she smiled a quick, nervous smile.

He sifted her hair through his fingers. "But it's liberating, letting certain things become ordinary," he said thoughtfully.

"Is it?" Elena seemed sincerely fascinated by the possibility. "Isn't it overwhelming? Isn't it terrifying?" Her gaze flickered repeatedly between his face and the sky. "Can something that becomes ordinary remain magical?"

"I think you have it all wrong, Elena," Damon answered with a ghost of a smirk flitting across his face. She held her breath. "It's not magic that becomes ordinary," he spoke in a low voice that sounded as if he was unraveling a mystery. "It's everything else that becomes magical."

He propped her chin with his hand and studied her face for a moment before kissing her, so slowly and gently that she felt more tears gather behind her eyelids, and it hurt so much, every movement of his lips against hers. She felt like everything was breaking and burning inside of her; his arm around her, his hand on her cheek, his fingers tangled in her hair – she tried to understand why it hurt like that, hurt like hell even though it felt like heaven. She held onto him in abandon, in desperate need to hurt even more, to feel more, to feel everything, to fall apart, to die... She drew back to look at him and held his face in her hands before inching her lips closer to his again, letting his mouth meet hers half-way.

The pain was fading away, but before it did so completely she understood where it had come from. Everything she had lost, it left her bereaved, and she would grieve for everyone she had lost forever. But she survived. No matter the damage, she survived.

"We always survive." That was the only truth and the greatest lie of all. Because now she was crossing the same line that he had already crossed. Together, they would always survive. But neither of them would now survive alone.

"Bonnie!" Jeremy smiled at the sight of Bonnie when he opened the door.

Bonnie returned the smile. "I just brought you something," she said quickly, breaking the eye contact with him. "Well, it's not for you. It's for Elena." Bonnie handed Jeremy a small box.

Jeremy took it from her, but then looked at her questioningly. "Why don't you give it to her yourself?"

"I figured you'd see her sooner," Bonnie said, holding his gaze, and Jeremy did not like the way she looked at him. It reminded him of something and made his blood ran cold in his veins.

"Bonnie, you're not planning on doing something-" he started suspiciously, but Bonnie cut him off with a strained smile.

"Just give this ring to Elena, OK?"

Jeremy opened his mouth to speak, but Bonnie turned around and quickly walked away.

"There is a scene like this in that movie you picked," Elena said, twisting her foot, her eyes cast to the sky.

"Only I think they were on a frozen lake" Damon replied sarcastically, still not very happy about Elena's insistence on doing what they were doing right now – laying side by side flat on their backs in the middle of an empty, dark road, waiting for a car to come. But she maintained she was in the mood, and if he wanted her to become a self-sufficient vampire he should take advantage of that.

"It would have been too cold." Elena smiled faintly, playing with the lapels of her leather jacket.

"Only they were in love," Damon said after a pause.

The stars above stared back at Elena, and she felt like she was merely reading the words written in them when she whispered:

"So are we."

The sky crashed down on Damon like a waterfall of lights, all the stars falling down in spades all over him as he stared at the brightest night sky hanging above him.

He turned his head to look at her at the same moment when she turned her head to look at him.

But then he was blinded by the lights of an approaching car.