When the last of the applause begins to die down, Damon has a good feeling about today's lecture. The whole set, the auditorium design was well thought out, he marvels. The acoustics are very good and the stadium seating is ideal. There's always a few people who hang around afterwards to have a few words with him. It's part of the job.
Most of the time, it's just kids wanting him to autograph one of his books for them but there are benefactors among them. He may regret that he didn't book more dates for his west coast trip after today's success.
Right after he started speaking today, he happened to notice Elena's young friend Kol sitting in the very first row. Beside him is a man who looks like an older version of him, possibly the altruistic brother he mentioned the day they met. After taking a few glances at him, Damon remembers why he looks so familiar. The man was in a movie that Vanessa was dying to see so he quit resisting and tagged along with her. It wasn't awful, he must admit, it was a drama, not really his cup of tea but she was swooning over the man who's now sitting in front row observing his every nuance and mannerism. Elijah Mikaelson, that's his name. Enzo mentioned something about a donation?
He puts his water bottle down then turns his attention back to the audience. There's really no point in thinking about the guy now but he can see the determination on Kol's face. There's no doubt in Damon's mind that he will approach him as soon as he finishes up.
When he's concluding the Q and A, that's always part of his lectures, he can't help the lazy smile that forms. It's easy to see that Kol has the attention span of a gnat. He's probably only here in the first place at the behest of his brother.
"Any more questions?" he asks, looking around to see if any hands raise up. "No? I've already ran over my allotted time, thank you for your attention and please consider supporting the project either financially or with your voice."
As usual, he lingers, waiting for the few people that come after the lecture to exchange a few words, there are always some, Kol and Elijah being among them.
"Damon," Kol addresses him and Damon fights the urge to roll his eyes. They always do this, showing off their friendly or rather their people nature, hoping to attract more attention. They try to make believe they're just like everyone else but they're not. Most of them are snobs who forget their roots and look down on less fortunate people. That's why Damon only ventures out to California when his book publisher or his Dean demands that he comply.
"Kol," he shakes his hand vigorously and turns his attention to Elijah himself.
Kol does the introductions. He and Elijah engage in short yet rather intelligent conversation, the guy knows what he's talking about, Damon realizes, much to his surprise. Kol interrupts it a few times, but otherwise he seems more decent than at Elena's the other day.
"Thank you for the inspiring lecture, professor and the interesting conversation now. Here," he pulls out a business card, "you can call me when you have time to discuss whatever project you have in mind, I'm willing to listen to anything you consider worth my attention."
"Thank you, Mr. MIkaelson, I'll be in town for several days yet, I'll surely give you a call."
Kol smirks at him, "See? I told you my brother is the right person to talk to."
Does the man have any sense of tact or is he completely clueless?
He pats Damon's shoulder which he finds inappropriate but what else could he expect from a Hollywood player?
He says goodbye to the men and considers going for a lunch before he continues onto Elena's but then to his dismay another familiar figure crosses his path.
"Shane, what on earth would someone in your field be doing here? Are you considering switching your livelihood? Or were you just curious about true art versus the gilt?"
Atticus Shane doesn't know why but he has a feeling there's a story somewhere in this remarkable triangle around Elena Gilbert. He doesn't want to anger Enzo or Elena anymore than he already has but the good professor is another matter altogether. He's not exactly enthusiastic about art history but he is very interested in the A list group that seems to surround Damon Salvatore. It happened again today with the Mikaelson brothers. Elijah is well known for his interest in art history and the sciences but Kol? He is one of Elena Gilbert's inner circle though same as this professor. He's determined to find out how this man fits in with the rest of that group.
"Stranger things have happened, Professor Salvatore, I admire all kinds of art..."
Damon snorts, did this guy just compare Hollywood pinheads to history's greatest artists?
"I have no doubt that's true. However, if you're thinking that if you dig around long enough, you'll come up with a story for your tabloid, you can throw in the towel now. It's not going to happen. There's no story there. It's all about the art." Damon quickens his pace, hoping to leave the annoying scribbler behind.
Shane doesn't try to keep up with him, not this time. "We'll see about that, professor!"
When Damon pauses slightly, he adds, "See you around." If he's not mistaken, there was one other guest he noticed by sheer happenstance this morning. That person was none other than Elena Gilbert herself.
After finishing up at the college, Damon drives back to his hotel to shower and change into some casual clothes. He forgoes shaving because she always loved running her palms against his cheek. What are you thinking Damon?
He shakes it off, slips into a pair of jeans, a V-neck tee shirt and a pair of Birkenstocks. Vanessa raised an eyebrow when he brought them home from the store. She said they really weren't his thing. Although he felt a little disgruntled, he let it slide off of his shoulders. After spraying on some Armani cologne, he grabs the keys to his rental car and leaves his room to face his past.
Two hours later Damon pulls into her driveway. He takes a deep breath then steps out of the car and walks to her front door. He raises his finger to push the doorbell but pauses a minute when he feels a slight jab in his belly. Yet he knows he can't put it off any longer so he reluctantly pushes the button, taking a step back when a strange woman opens the door. Damon feels a little uncomfortable under her scrutinizing gaze but then she steps aside to let him in. It's been some time since Damon felt so small. He greets the woman moving his head.
"Hello, I'm here to..."
"I know who you are, Professor Salvatore, Miss Elena told me that she was expecting you. I'm Angela, I'm their housekeeper."
Damon has no idea how to respond to this polite but not exactly friendly welcome and walks around her to step inside the house. He's barely through the door when he sees her. Elena is trotting down the staircase to greet him. She looks freshly showered, her hair is wet and she's dressed in a light comfortable housecoat, no make up and she's just lovely.
"I'm leaving now Miss, if you don't need anything else...?"
"No that's it for today. Thank you Angela, you met Professor Salvatore, Damon, this is Angela, our guardian angel." The women share a smile and Damon can't help but think what brought them together.
Angela runs her eyes over him again before turning her head to the side to meet Elena's. "See you on Friday," she adds and then leaves, closing the door behind her.
Elena leads him to the living room and tells him to make himself comfortable. It's an airy large room with glass door connecting it with the patio. Damon never really paid much attention to it the other day but today, he's mesmerized. The size of the room is nearly as big as his house. One side is all windows and the sliding door that leads to her swimming pool and to the Pacific ocean itself. He feels a little twist in his stomach when a brief thought of walking on the beach with her pops into his head. He quickly pushes it away.
There's a big fireplace, a large TV, huge sectional couches and paintings on the walls. He has to get a closer look at one of them. "This is a remarkable reproduction of one of Botticelli's Madonna's."
"It is. I like it a lot and since the original is priceless I had to settle for a copy. But it is quite good don't you think?"
"Yes. It's very nice.
"Kol painted it." She pauses when she sees the skeptical look on Damon's face. "Well... it was paint by number but he's very good at it." Elena tries hard not to laugh when she sees the scowl on his face.
Shuddering that he actually gave it a second look, Damon steps away from it. "Since when do you have a fascination for the arts?"
"Since I married a professor of art history of course," she adds, without turning to look at him. She pours them each a drink.
"It's too hot outside, we can go to the pool later if you'd like." Then she hands Damon his. He nods and accepts the glass of bourbon, a little surprised to see that Elena's just having a mineral water with a slice of lemon.
She settles on the couch across from him and takes a breath. "I think we're stuck here, Damon. I thought we needed to talk about..."
"Why do you think I never loved you?" he finally gets to ask the one question he's been keeping inside since their last... what did Enzo called it, session? He contemplated mentioning it to Ric but somehow it felt too private to discuss it with anyone else.
Elena is caught of guard by the straightforwardness of it but then again, Damon has never been a coward. Usually if something was bothering him, he'd try to solve it right away so he could move onto the next thing. Except her.
It's probably her own fault she let things just... flow. She takes a sip from her glass and then meets his stare. "Because I don't think you did. That's how it feels to me."
"How can you say that? I will admit that I probably didn't handle it well, hell, I know I didn't, I mean... the baby. I was an asshole." Even now it's fucking difficult to just think about it. "But you just took off and never looked back, you broke my heart. And yes, Elena, I did love you very much."
Elena holds her breath at the change. He talks. He fights her. He's clearly given it some thought. And he hasn't taken the easy way out that she offered him. He's here. Right now. With her. Sadly, it doesn't change anything.
And just like that the lightbulb illuminates in her mind. The fatigue. The years they wasted to get to this point. She can see clearly that she should have let go the first time she realized that they will never be on the same page. She should have seen it from the beginning. But she didn't want to see it then. She was in love.
"Damon... I know you were crazy about me. You tried to do the right thing when you married me after I'd found out about the pregnancy. I know you thought you couldn't resist me, you told me so and I also know how hard you tried to make it work..."
Damon's looking at her dumbfounded. Is she saying she saw all of this and still left?
"... but did I, really? Or was I just solving your problem for you? Was it just your pride that was hurt? I'm not talking about... the baby now, although it was then that I knew I was fighting a losing battle..." She pauses to take a breath.
"What I'm trying to say is.. that you hated it, you hated every minute of it because I was a constant reminder that even the great Professor Salvatore is a mere mortal just like the rest of us when it comes to women and attraction. You hated that you were helpless, caught up in a current I believe you said once... You needed me despite the fact you're still trying to rationalize this mess in your mind, the mess I caused. You were ashamed of it and you were ashamed of me," she has to stop when she feels her emotions beginning to overwhelm her.
She swallows past the lump in her throat adding, "I was just an actress and in your mind, we're a sorry lot, subhuman, probably a notch above Neanderthal. Just because I'm not an intellectual doesn't mean I'm a fool either."
Elena tries to catch her breath and takes a sip from her glass, the water falling into her parched throat. She can feel it makes its path in her stomach, roiling on the inside but somehow she chokes back the nausea.
Damon feels sick at her words. Shock is slowly creeping into his system, he wants to say something, anything but his vocal cords are paralyzed, so he just looks at her, waiting and wishing for her to take those biting words back.
"You never considered me an equal, Damon. You didn't like who I was so you chose to ignore it and pretend I was someone else. I tried, I swear I did. But it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. You didn't actually want me to change but you want the power you believed I had over you to disappear. When I realized this, I gave you what you needed. That time it was... everything was so emotional, I blamed myself for what happened to her, you blamed me too. I knew you married me just because of the pregnancy and... then... the reason was gone. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be. Just like us. Our marriage."
Isn't this the same thing he's always thought, only it's her saying it? It didn't feel so wrong back then, when it was born in his own mind. But now, coming from her mouth... Why does it hurt so much?
"Elena, you can't actually believe all this nonsense."
"It's nonsense to you," Elena adds bitterly, standing up to pour herself a drink now.
"No Elena, please don't try to twist my words, I just can't understand how could you come up with this fable? Your recollection is not what... I remem..." his voice trails off as he drops his eyes to the drink in his hand. The ripples in the amber colored liquid momentarily hypnotize him as he struggles inside to get back some semblance of control.
"Damon?"
"We... were happy once?" he insists, meeting her eyes when he looks up.
Elena sadly shakes her head. "I thought so too. I wanted to believe we were, that we could be. But... I don't anymore. I didn't break your heart Damon, you broke mine."
He feels numb. But the anger's coming. It's bubbling just below the surface and he can do nothing to prevent the explosion. How dare she just throw all of this at him, making him the bad guy here?
He opens his mouth to ask just that but at the exact moment Elena's phone rings and he's simply blown away by the wave of nostalgia when he recognizes her ring tone.
"You're kidding, Damon?" she shrieks excitedly. "You really like this old song?"
Damon's not happy to share this detail about himself, but she caught him off guard when she decided to put him through a music history lesson. Just by happenstance, she played Glenn Miller's "In the Mood". He remembers his mother played it often, she had plenty of those old recordings from his grandmother. Their 'swing sessions' became one of the few fond memories of his childhood. As luck would have it she heard him humming the melody in the shower and he unwillingly admitted he has a soft spot for the song. However he soon regrets it.
"Really Elena? You don't have to do this do you?"
"On the contrary," she smirks. "I finally found my new ring tone," she doesn't hesitate to add it to his name.
"Oh, come on, Elena..., You're never going to let me live this down are you?"
"Nope. When you call me, I'll always know it's you. And you won't hear it anyway because it will be you calling me, so shush..."
Elena ignores her call but when she sees him looking at her phone perplexed, she blushes. She fucking blushes.
"I... guess I just got used to it and kept it on the phone..."
He can't do this. He can't do this now. Without a word he finishes his bourbon and moves to the door.
"Where are you going? Damon?"
"You've had plenty of time to think about everything you needed to say and now you've said it. At the very least, you can give me some time to think about all this, to dig my way out of the blast crater. I'll call you later.. you have my word."
"Damon, I..."
He doesn't wait, instead he hurries through the door, hoping she won't follow because he needs space. And bourbon. A lot of it. He slips into his car and drives off, nearly flooring the gas pedal.
Elena doesn't try to stop him. Hidden behind the curtain, she watches him drive away. She's aware that she can't blame him, not now. How ironic is it that after she finally told him how she felt when they were together, he runs away now just like she did then. She has no expectations and even more strangely, the good feeling that she expected is surprisingly absent.
But she did what she had to do. That must count for something right? Now she can finally move on or can she?
She drops to the floor and sits next to the window, her palm pressing on the carpet.
After years keeping everything bottled up, she cries.
"Are we going to have a honeymoon?" Elena's eyes shine with curiosity. They didn't get to have a big wedding, instead choosing to have a small ceremony at Damon's place in NOLA with only the Judge, Ric and Enzo present. They wanted to keep it small and intimate but the main reason was to keep it from becoming a spectacle. The last thing they needed was a bunch of nosy journalists, annoying paparazzi and front page headlines in large print.
Damon would gladly forego the honeymoon too or at least postpone it for the time being. He's working hard, day and night, on the first draft of his book, but he couldn't do that to her. Elena's going to be unable to travel soon, she deserves to have some fun. Seeing her enthusiasm he hesitates, wondering if he shouldn't have planned something more interesting than a small little out of the way town in bumfuck-nowheresville, Virginia.
"I actually thought we could spend a few weeks at my uncle's place. He has a boarding house in Mystic Falls, Virginia.. But... it might be a bit boring. We could go somewhere else if you'd like?"
"Really?" To Damon's surprise Elena seems excited about the prospect. "That's amazing, I actually get to meet one of your relatives, an uncle? Are you sure he won't mind?"
"Of course he wouldn't. I didn't actually tell him it was our honeymoon but he will know soon enough. He's my father's brother, I used to go there for my vacation when I was a kid. After dad re-married, I had to live with my mom but I still kept in touch with uncle Zach."
"That's why you didn't want your family at the wedding?"
Damon knows where this is going. "Elena, I told you we're not close. I have some fond memories, like swing dancing but they're few. We weren't the touchy feely type family. It was more like my mom was a drill sergeant. She'd stiffen when I would hug her and turn her cheek if I tried to give her a kiss. It's just the way it was in our house. She and especially my sister, Katherine, would drive you crazy, they do me."
"Damon?"
"If you think I'm boring, you haven't seen anything yet. They're much worse! I know you're going to have a hard time believing this but I'm actually the fun one in the family. Katherine teaches math and physics at Texas A&M and mom is the Dean. If you want the honest truth, sometimes I'm not sure that I can blame my dad for running?"
Damon pauses for a moment. She watches melancholy wash over his features but it disappears as quickly as it came. Then the corners of his lips lift, "Besides, we were eloping, no guests, no journalists, no publicity, remember?"
Elena nods but Damon's not sure what's going on in her head. In his mind, it's the best, really the only way they could have handled it. After Elena found out she was pregnant, he wasn't exactly happy, but he couldn't run from his responsibilities either.
However, neither of them wanted any publicity, Enzo advised to Elena to keep it secret for now so they won't be bothered by journalists and other gossip hounds. Damon certainly didn't want to have a mob of paparazzi on his tail, their tail. He neither wanted or needed this kind of exposure. So they kept a low profile. It worked. It's still working.
Elena and Zach become fast friends. Damon's glad. In a way he admires Elena's ability to talk with everyone about what they like, she's a good listener. Zach's a little caught of guard when he introduces Elena as his secret wife. Zach quickly makes a connection to her from seeing her current movie recently in the theater. Damon must admit it's quite fun, but that's who Zach is, he could hardly expect the same reaction from his respectable colleagues.
"Do you think we'll ever be able to go where we want, when we want, together, as two married people without having to hide?" Elena's lazily spread on the passenger seat, luckily his Range Rover offers that amenity. She looks happy and well rested, he congratulates himself mentally that the Mystic Falls honeymoon wasn't such a bad idea after all.
"I don't know? Maybe when you retire?" He jokes only partly.
Elena laughs, giving him a shake of her head; "Are you saying that you want me to give up my career?"
"No, of course not," he responds, trying to put on a happy face for her. The thought of them being in the 'same' place twenty years from now... the demands of her career, long separations while she films on location... inside he can admit to himself that it isn't the most appealing prospect.
Damon feels a bit shell shocked. A hint of what's coming in 9: Damon buys a plane ticket...
Thank you all so much. We are blown away by your response to this story. You are all simply the best of the DE universe. Eva and I will keep trying to bring fresh and new versions of Damon and Elena to you.
Eva, I love you dearly. Thank you for everything you do to help bring our DE's to life.
Chapter title: 'Love is a Battlefield' by Pat Benatar, one of my favorite 80's songs.
In case you missed it, I did post two "I Can't Escape Myself" story verse one- shots for Valentine's day. One is called "Almost Perfect" the other "Perfect". Eva and I would love to hear your thoughts.
'The Children's Blizzard' is in progress. It's the story of devastating blizzard that hit the Great Plains, my neck of the woods in 1888.
Be safe and have a fantastic day and a wonderful weekend. Thank you all again. Until next time.