Okay so I'm actually back with an update. My life has just been so busy lately and I lost inspiration but I promise you this story will get finished. I'm trying to do better. The song is I'd Come For You - Nickelback. I really hope you enjoy the chapter!

Thank you for all your reviews for this story! I can't believe I reached 50 that's just amazing and I want to thank each and every one of you that read this story that review, favourite and add it to their alerts. I want to thank those who tweet me about my stories because that means the world, it amazes me that you like something I created. So thank you so much!

Time to be honest,

This time I'm pleading,

Please don't dwell on It,

'Cause I didn't mean it

"Elena you have no idea what you're asking!" I paced around the room for the fifth time now as Elena continued to demand me to compel her memories that I had stolen from her and replaced. "You're lost in the moment. What about Stefan?"

I had been throwing her so many arguments as to why she shouldn't be doing this yet because she wasn't ready. Hell, I didn't even think I was ready for to know all this because I wasn't ready to let her go yet. It was entirely selfish of me not to want to do it but I didn't want to lose her again. I had already lost her once before and I wasn't sure if I could survive it the second time around. Yet as much as I didn't want her to remember there was a larger part of me that knew she had the right to remember but not only that I also wanted her to remember because then she had the option of choosing me. And, if she chose me then maybe we wouldn't have to hide in her family's Lake House wondering when Stefan was going to show up and rightly ignite a fight between the two of us but we could be in each other's arms, loving each other and catching up on the time we had missed with each other.

"Damon." Elena snapped, jumping up off the couch and walking towards me. Her bare feet pressing hard against the floor as she made her way towards me disbelief all over her face. She sighed exasperated, holding her hands in her hands before raising her brown eyes to meet mine. I gazed down at the floor ashamed at my actions because I should be more than willing to permit to her wishes but I just wanted her to be ready. I couldn't risk putting her through more pain at my own expense.

"I just want to make sure you're ready for this, Elena." I whispered, grasping her hands in my own. "I just want to make sure you're going to be okay."

"Damon," She laughed half-heartedly, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Have you not listened to a word that I have said? I want to remember. I need to remember. Even if I didn't want to I would have to because I don't want to remember a lie and live with this ache for the rest of my life. Please Damon, I need this."

Elena took her hands in mine and gazed up at me with those brown eyes that would no doubt be the death of me for they would make sure that I wouldn't deny her anything. She gave my hands a soft squeeze trying to comfort me and let me know that she did believe that she was making the right choice. I sighed in defeat, allowing myself to do the right thing for once.

"I'll do it." I whispered. "But please remember that I am not the same person anymore."

Elena sighed but still a smile remained on her lips and like always I couldn't help but mirror the smile on her face either. She walked towards me and her breathing started to accelerate once again, her heart racing in her chest threatening to burst as she took one step closer to me. How could I have this effect on her? Why did she even want me? I didn't doubt her affections for me but still even after all this time and everything we had been through I couldn't help but wonder why me? How could this beautiful angel in front of me actually want to be with me? How?

"Damon." She whispered, taking my face in her hands as she leaned up close to me.

I closed my eyes unable to look at her now that we were so close together but as my eyes slowly drifted shut I noticed that she did the same. One of her hands drew a path from my cheek to the back of my hair whilst the other remained on my cheek, igniting a fire as it did so. My arms without warning slid around her waist pulling her as close to me as to possible and she didn't pull away from me. Elena's breath was hot on my lips and her nose touched mine briefly, our skin burning from our close proximity. Her name was being chanted from my lips in nothing other than a pleading whisper like a dying man's prayer.

"I'll do anything for you." I told her honestly, my arms around tightening around her as though I was protecting her from something but really I wanted to protect her from something that was not in my control. All I had was to hope that she would come out of this as strong as ever.

"I know." She whispered, her hand softly pulling my head down to meet hers. Her brown eyes sparkling with love, glistening with hope and admiration and I couldn't believe it. Somehow I kept expecting her to push me away or for someone to wake me up from this because none of it seemed real to me.

"Elena, I-"

"Oh, I'm sorry, brother. Am I interrupting your declaration of love?" A voice that I had known all too well came from the door causing Elena to shriek in embarrassment and practically jump from me.

"Impeccable timing as ever, brother." I whispered, glaring at my brother who was leaning against the door frame with his arms folded across his chest.

Stefan snickered as he walked towards me, his leather clad arms swinging by his sides as though he was taking a calming stroll down the beach. He was wearing his black leather jacket with a navy blue shirt and jeans that seemed too lose for my brother's taste. Stefan's brown eyes were shining with something other than hatred for me but with a hint of something else that I couldn't quite put my finger on. His footsteps were quiet against the wooden floorboards, too quiet, much like a predator stalking his prey. Automatically, my fists clenched at my side as I pushed Elena behind me. I wouldn't let him hurt her.

"What do you want, Stefan?" I asked him through gritted teeth, our eyes meeting both of us thirsty to continue the fight that had finished too abruptly at the ball.

"Stefan, please." Elena pleaded from behind me, her voice weak and filled with guilt. "You just don't understand."

Stefan snickered at Elena's words and walked over to where my jacket rested on the sofa from where Elena had worn it last night. I was still dressed in my trousers from the ball but I had replaced the shirt with one of Elena's father's shirts whilst Elena had put the other to be washed. Stefan's eyes scanned over my jacket on the sofa and back up at me before his eyes retreated to Elena, his dark orbs burning with anger for the both of us. Elena hadn't done anything wrong. She was a victim of our love and she didn't need this above everything that she had figured out in the last few days.

"Stefan." I warned as his eyes were fixed on Elena getting ready for something that I didn't know which only made me more alert and in tune to my vampire senses.

"Don't understand." He mumbled under his breath whilst playing with his fingers, his eyes dropping from Elena and onto his hands. A small smirk was on his face as though he was in on some joke that Elena and I weren't. "I just don't understand. You're right. I don't understand how could you spend the last few nights with him, Elena. He's manipulating you just like he did with Katherine because he can't stand the fact that I'm the better brother, the one that everyone adored. I'm the one Katherine really loved after all, I'm the one father preferred, the one that Mother made you promise to protect with your life when she died and I'm also the one Elena really loves and you can't stand that, can you Damon?"

He was closer to us now, his eyes landing on mine once he had finished his perfectly laid out speech that he had no doubt wrote in his journal a thousand times. His smirk was still firm on his face and there was a sparkle in his eyes that he had already won. Stefan's words had been true. All of those things had happened between us and all of it was true but Stefan's was twisting them out of hatred, out of jealousy that I was the one with Elena right now and he wasn't.

"Elena," Stefan said sighing dramatically as he came to a halt a few steps away from me. "Do you really believe that he loves you for you?" He turned his head towards me. "I bet you weren't even here in Mystic Falls before I was plus I thought you wanted to free Katherine from the tomb. Was Elena just something for you to play with until you got the real thing? Did you stick around when you found out she wasn't in the tomb? Is that why you left Elena to go and find Katherine? I bet you only came back because Katherine didn't want you."

The anger started to build in my chest, rumbling and groaning inside me to break out and unleash its power on my brother. How dare he? How dare he think that could be true? He was putting thoughts in Elena's head. He wanted to turn her against me. But did she really believe him? After everything that I had said and confessed too, did she really believe I was capable of playing her like this? I glanced around at her and she was looking at me with curious filled eyes that held the smallest fragment of doubt but that's all I needed to charge towards Stefan.

I ran full speed ahead before wrapping my arms around his waist and grabbing him, and then throwing him outside onto the dirty road that surrounded the Lake House. I could hear Elena's footsteps follow me towards the door but I didn't turn around to face her because I couldn't bring myself to see the doubt in her eyes again. Only once had she ever looked at me like that and that was when I had left her standing outside the Grill, in the wind with her hair blowing as I told her to forget about me and everything else that we had shared. Only then had the doubt appeared in her eyes because she had doubted my feelings for her.

Stefan rose from the ground, blood dripping from a new cut on his face that was slowly healing but it was healing far too quickly for him to still be on animal blood. No, he was back on human blood. Sighing, I watched him stand hoping that he would get that the hint that he was no longer welcome, no longer welcome to poison Elena's mind and to try and destroy us. He wasn't welcome here.

"Brother, where's your hospitality?" Stefan whispered, his hand wiping away the falling blood from his lips.

"It left along with your humanity." I told him, sure in my head that he was officially back on human blood and back to the monster that always fought to control him whenever he let himself slip just a little.

"You know," Stefan whispered, his eyes shining with even more hatred. He took a step towards the door and I felt Elena flinch behind me and I could almost picture her brown eyes shining with worry as they took in the scene around her. Her feelings were conflicted much like her mind because what was she supposed to do in this situation when two brothers were fighting over? When one had been entirely selfish making you forget the love you wanted to remember and the one you had learned to love ever since his arrival to Mystic Falls who was now nothing more than a bloodthirsty vampire that you were the reason he had fell off the wagon? How could Elena pick a side when there was no right side?

"I know." I told him, watching him thoughtfully as I took a lazy step onto the gravel path that led to Elena's beloved Lake House. I felt her stiffen behind me when I stepped away from her breaking the close contact of our bodies, no longer standing protectively in front of her. However I could not simply stand in front of her whilst I waited for my brother to make a move on either of us I had to be a step ahead because I would not let him touch her. I would not let him hurt her.

Stefan smirked and nodded whilst his eyes roamed the floor searching for something. I followed his gaze but could not see anything on the floor other than dirt and fallen branches amongst the wet grass. Taking a step closer towards him I turned to have a quick glance at Elena who had tears in her eyes silently pleading for me to come back into the house, to come back and to not have this fight. Everything inside me that had been pushing me to have this fight with my brother seemed to lessen as I looked into her no longer peaceful eyes that were terrified to their very core.

"Please." She whimpered, holding her hand out towards me. "You won't win."

You won't win. She was right, it was very unlikely that I would win considering I hadn't fed since the night before the Lockwood's and Stefan was very high on human blood right now and he looked as though he had been over indulging in his diet. He would be stronger, faster and much like the predator that he had turned into all those years ago whilst my body was weak, begging me to feed and taste the sweet blood that lingered in the veins of those who lived in Mystic Falls. The funny thing was I hadn't even felt hungry up until this moment, I hadn't even felt like a vampire the last few nights with Elena. I had felt human.

"Don't show you're humanity, brother." Stefan whispered softly recalling my attention back to him. I whipped my body around from Elena and gazed at my brother who now possessed a long wooden stake in his hand, his fingers softly caressing the handle. A small smiled played on his classical Italian features but his eyes remained on the stake.

"You see," He continued. "This weapon could kill either you or Elena but of course it's much more lethal to you. It's a matter of whose life you want more than your own."

"You won't hurt her, Stefan." I told him, glaring at him but his eyes remained on the stake in his hands. "You love her that's the only reason you're doing this. You're hurt. You're hurt that I never told you about any of this and you're worried that this time the girl might actually chose me. Elena might actually want to be with me and you're terrified of that, you're scared that you will lose her. You don't want to do this because if you do this you will lose her and you know it."

Stefan chuckled and finally raised his eyes from the stake, taking a small step towards me before leaning to the left as if he was to go around me. I mirrored his actions which only caused him to laugh more and I knew that this time his humanity was far from gone, far from returning. He glanced between me and Elena and I had no idea what thoughts were running through his mind because his face showed nothing, absolutely nothing. There was no trace of emotion just the ever present smirk on his face that reminded me of a ghastly villain from one of the super hero movies.

"Elena, go inside." I told her with urgency, my eyes remaining fixed on my brother.

"No." She whispered. "I'm not leaving you."

If this had been other moment in my life and she had said those words I would feel happy, rejoiced and everything that seemed cliché to most but right now I just wanted to scream at her for being so stubborn. Couldn't she see I couldn't protect her if she was stood in the doorway watching us? Stefan never played fair in fights and if I had any chance at winning this I needed her to be safe, I needed to know that she was okay and not at risk of being hurt. Did she have to be so stubborn all the time? I sighed deeply not wanting to shout at her and just wanting her to listen to me.

"I can't be worried about your safety, Elena." I whispered, my head turning a fraction so I could see out of the corner of my eye. "Please, Elena just close the door and wait inside."

"No." She whispered again, her voice choking a little as she tried to get her words out. I sighed, the sooner this was over the better for all three of us. I hated seeing Elena so hurt because she didn't deserve to be crying right now, she didn't deserve to watch two people she cared about to kill each other and she didn't deserve to be put through this all time. No, what she did deserve was to smile because when she smiled she lit up the world, only then did her true beauty seem to radiate through the entire world. To me her smile was everything and I'm not talking about the little smile here and there, no I'm talking about that one particular smile, the one she saved for me. The one smile where she showed her teeth and her eyes shone with happiness, the smile where everything just seemed to stop for a moment, the smile that seemed to take my breath away every time she smiled at me. I loved being the reason for a smile just as much as I hated to be the reason she was crying and because of this I hated my brother right now.

"Pathetic." Stefan whispered, walking around in circles with the stake poised in his hands ready to strike. "You know Elena, I loved you but do you really want to know why I loved you so much because you looked like her. You were the perfect resemblance to the woman that I had lost when I was human. Every time I kissed you I thought of her, every time you moaned I thought of her and sometimes you even sounded like her." Stefan chuckled and now the anger was building once again inside me. How dare he compare Elena to Katherine? "Of course, Katherine was much better than you but still when you can't have the real thing you must settle for the closest thing as possible." He was taking a step closer towards her now but I blocked him once again. He wasn't going nowhere near her.

"I was starting to find out though that you weren't much like her. You weren't as fun as her, wasn't as up for an adventure like she was but with him you're more than up for it aren't you? Because Damon got to you the way he got to Katherine. He can't stand the fact that the girl he loves always loves me more than him and that our own father had been disappointed in him, disappointed in his elder son so much that he relied on his youngest son to carry in his footsteps. Shame. You've took everything from me, Damon and it is only fair that I take away the one thing you love so dearly; her."

All of it happened so fast, so unbelievable fast. One second Stefan was playing with the stake in his hands and the next he used his monstrous speed to get in front of me and straight to Elena, the stake ready to kill in his hands. The next thing I knew I was in front of Elena, her gasp loud in my ears and Stefan's eyes burning into mine as a tearing agonising pain rushed through me. The stake. My mouth opened and my eyes began to close sleepily but when I opened them again Stefan was no longer in front of me and all I could hear was Elena sobbing uncontrollably, begging me to stay awake and the stake was no longer inside me. Elena must have pulled it out during my black out.

"Why did you do that?" She asked, laying me down on the cold step as she couldn't lift me. Her brown eyes were flooded with tears whilst her hand caressed my cheek; her skin even now seemed to make me warmer and more alive than I ever had been.

"I couldn't let you die." I managed to choke, my voice hoarse and barely a whisper. "I will always protect you, Elena. No matter what I will always protect you because you mean more to me than my life. I lived too long, I wasn't supposed to live as long as this but I'm glad I did because I met you." I smiled, reaching out to grab her hand. "I met you. I met the love of my life, I met the most amazing girl with this beautiful smile, this amazing smile that only emphasises how beautiful you are. I love you with every single part of me, you make me good and I never felt something as strong as this before.

"Don't." She breathed, leaning her head against mine as she clutched my hand tightly in hers. "Don't say goodbye, you're going to be okay."

"Just in case I'm not." I smiled, turning very slowly to kiss the back of her hand. "I just need you to know that I would have done everything to make it up to you. What I did to you was wrong and you didn't deserve to live the lie that you've lived. I would have done anything to prove to you that I loved you more than anything else on this planet, I love you so…so much, Elena. I would fight for you. I would do anything for you. Nothing would have stopped me from protecting you tonight. I love you, Elena Marie Gilbert with everything that I have and I will love you as long as I'm breathing and even after that wherever I am I will always love you. You were the best decision that I ever made."

"Ssh." She whispered against my lips, her tears falling down her face still and I knew that I wasn't going to be okay. Despite the stake no longer inside me I could still feel the blood pouring out of me, there must still be splinters inside me but every time I tried to say the words to Elena the words just came out as a cough.

"Damon, you don't die on me, okay?" Elena sighed. "You don't die on me because I want to remember, I need to remember and you can't leave me. Damon, please, please don't leave me. I can't lose you. Damon, I – I love you. I love you so much."

A small smile formed on my lips as the darkness washed over me again but this time I didn't fight against it, I welcomed it because she loved me. She said the words I had been dying to hear for so long now. She loved me so I closed my eyes and let the darkness come over me. There was something that I needed to say, something about a diary but I couldn't remember. My eyes closed finally just as Elena screamed my name for what would probably be the last time.

By now you'd know that I'd come for you

No one but you, yes I'd come for you

But only if you told me to

And I'd fight for you

I'd lie, it's true

Give my life for you

You know I'd always come for you

Okay so what did you think? I know all of you will be wondering why he didn't compel her there and then but all of that information will be explained in the next chapter! This chapter wasn't originally supposed to be like this but I am pleased with outcome. Do you think he will be okay?I know you have so many questions and they will be answered in the next chapter, I PROMISE!

Next chapter Elena's POV!

THANK YOU FOR READING! YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I APPRECIATE THIS!

PLEASE REVIEW!

Twitter flyingfireworks

Love Lauren,

xox