******* Authors Note:*******

Thanks everyone for bearing with me, I promise things will start to make sense very soon! I'm still developing the story as I go, so please feel free to add or suggest anything you might like to see as the story progresses, just keep in mind that this WILL eventually be a Delena story and I've got a surprise 'kitten moment' saved up for just the right spot, lol. Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed this story so far, *****please review*** so i know people at least find this story interesting and I can keep trying to turn these chapters out :) thx all!

Translations:

Mio bello... mi amore.. = my beautiful one, my love

Mia casa = my house

.ooo. .ooo. .ooo.

Wakefulness is slow to come. He's not exactly sure when he realizes he's awake, only that he's starting to register in small moments, the soft sounds of traffic a little in the distance, approximately 10 meters due East his Vampiric brain calculates without even thinking about it. Just one of the many thousands of calculations his enhanced brain was constantly working on. It configured, matched and filed everything around him into two neat little piles; Threat. Not Threat. His brain registering no immediate danger around him, Damon takes his time in waking. The whirring of a fan and the soft breeze it sends his way brings his attention to the beads of sweat forming on his heated skin. Suddenly he feels the soft mattress beneath him...when had he gotten into bed?

Moaning, Damon blinks an eye open as he rubs at the back of his neck, registering the slowly spinning fan on the armoire his brain told him would be there. A patch of sunlight streams through the drawn curtains, stretching across the smooth and polished wood. He blinks into the light, slowly rising on his elbows not understanding why his thoughts are so slow to connect this morning. He turns his head to see a familiar figure seated in a rocking chair across the room and suddenly the memories of last night's phone call come crashing back.

"Oh my God, Elena!" Damon's scream is hoarse and catches in his throat as he bolts from the bed. He pauses suddenly, his eyes scanning everywhere around him but not really seeing anything. For the first time in his life he doesn't know what to do, which move to make. Scream? Cry? Kill something? Yes, killing something would help. Killing something always helped when Damon's emotions were threatening to consume him. He needs to do something. He needs to move. His eyes search the room in a panic, unsure of what direction to take and yet totally sure that the panic rising in his chest is about to have violent and ugly repercussions. He grips his chest, trying to keep from swaying as shock spirals across his face, Oh my God, I'm having a heart attack and the irony of such a death only half registers as the other half of him is totally certain that he's about to break down and totally loose it, if.. if.. he can't say the words.. Can't even think of the possibility that they might be true.. No.. God no, please no, not, Elena.. she… she, can't be. Damon rubs his face with his hands not surprised at how badly they're shaking when a touch at his chest has him looking in the eyes of a once familiar face.

"Dami-ahn," she says his name softly, calmly as if she's trying to approach a startled animal, and perhaps she is. It's the "ah" of his name, that sound more then anything, that is enough for his scattered mind and volcanic emotions to reach out and clamp onto. A life line of calm and the promise of peace as he turns to lock eyes with the beautiful vampire before him. Her reassuring gaze settles over him and slowly he begins to feel his heart calm as the pain in his chest recedes.

"Mio bello, it is ok mi amore, you are ok", she speaks with the utmost compassion as she touches the side of his face, reassuring him, begging him to believe her.

Closing his eyes, he uses the sheer force of his will to draw himself into a place of calm and balance. He knows he will be useless for whatever might need to be done later on if he can't hold his shit together now. He takes a deep breath and speaks slowly.

"What happened to Elena, I need to know".

"She is ok Dami-ahn, they all are," she smiles reassuringly up at him.

What? His brain hiccups for a moment. Elena.. Elena was alive? She was ok? She hadn't been hurt or worse in that horrible explosion? The explosion he'd been unable to stop because he hadn't been with her, because he needed his fucking 'Damon time'? Mountains of grief and layers of guilt and self-recriminations threaten to lift from his shoulders but instead he narrows his eyes in a way that clearly shows his skepticism but that he is willing to believe her if it means she can wave some magic wand and make this horrible nightmare of a morning he was having, to just simply, vanish. Gods if she could do that, he was pretty damn sure he could fucking fly.

Understanding him instantly, the vampire nods to a chair where Damon's jacket is lying unnoticed. In a blur of speed he has his cell in hand already speed dialing the first person in his contact lists. The phone rings and rings, an eternity between each as Damon holds his breath, breath he doesn't need, when he hears the sudden click on the other end followed by a rushed and exasperated voice, "Yes, Damon?" Elena's gentle voice hums across the line.

Damon's eyes widen, tears brimming at the edges..he has to cough to clear his throat of all the ebbing emotion, all the joy that threatens to bubble over at the sound of her voice.. "Hey, Elena," he manages to scrape out. "Just checking in, making sure you guys are managing without me," he says in lazy voice, feigning complete indifference.

"What, did you think we'd have blown ourselves up by now Damon?" she giggles into the phone, never seeing the way Damon suddenly stiffens on the other end, as all her annoyance towards him fades away at hearing the barely suppressed emotion in his voice. He did care, despite all his pretenses to the opposite. "You've only been gone less then a week, I think we're not so far gone as to be that pathetically helpless without you," she pretends to huff. She can't help but tease him especially since they hadn't had much of a chance to clear the air between them since the last time they had seen each other, so it was nice for her to have these moments to just hear his voice and enjoy his company. She frowns into the phone only just realizing that he hasn't responded to her comments at all. It was very un-Damon-like to not get in at least one or two snide comments between every other breath.

"Damon?" she asks softly.

"ya.. uh, I'm here." But Damon can barely register everything that she's saying and what's happening. "We uh, we didn't talk last night?" he inquires, hoping she won't hear the panic vibrating just underneath his calm nerves. The kind of calm that a wet noodle could break.

"Damon," she says his name like a sigh, the kind that immediately reveals his characteristic grin. "Were you hammered again? No we didn't talk last night, so don't worry, there are no drunken embarrassing phone calls to apologize for," she laughs softly, guessing at his fear. Though she will never truly understand the wave of relief that washes over Damon in that moment but she does hear it in the lightness of his voice when his regular, sarcastic tone rolls across the other end. "Oh I just wanted to make sure we didn't have any nasty phone sex that I was going to have to compel you to forget later on," his soft voice giving way to all the seductive ways a phone call like that might have gone. He's rewarded with the sound of Elena's voice hitching on the other end, he can almost hear her legs shake but nothing can prepare him for her response.

"And why would you want to compel me to forget?" she asks almost breathlessly.

Damon pinches his hand to make sure he's not hallucinating.. Again! He is expecting Elena to make some off hand comment about 'in his dreams' or to scold him for talking like that to her or some other rant about his behavior. But Elena and innuendo's? Involving sex.. with HIM?! Never. At least, that's what he'd always believed. But he was feeling.. motivated by her and feeling just the slightest bit drunk from his euphoria at realizing that she hadn't been blow up into a million pieces like he had first feared upon waking.

"Why else princess?" his breath puffs softly into the phone. "If you remembered how hard I could rock your world, you'd never let me leave your bed." He can practically feel the heat from Elena's blush on the other end and it's affect on his manly ego.. is, well.. Manly. Before he can give her a chance to retort or to spoil his euphoric mood, in a moment of wild emotional recklessness, he says in a smoldering heated voice, "Dream you later," and clicks off the phone. A stunned Elena looks down at the cell in her hand as the other clutches at her chest. She knows without doubt that breathless husky voice is going to follow her into her dreams and she silently curses him for his feverish effect upon her.

Damon is still grinning stupidly to himself when the shifting of a person in the room brings his attention back to the here and now. Turning, he finds the Italian Vampire seated back in her chair, slowly watching him. He can see her mind working on something, can practically see the gears rotating in her head. She had always been easy to read like that. At least for him.

"A penny for your thoughts," he smiles at the younger Vampire, not sure what else to say. She seems to come to a decision as she rises to stand before him, not yet speaking. Damon searches for words, he wants to say something but doesn't know where or how to start. Instead he releases an exasperated sigh, running a hand through his hair as he looks softly into the eyes of the quiet vampire across from him.

"I'm sorry about that, Mona," and as he says it, he knows he means it. He hadn't meant for her to hear his exchange with Elena. Hadn't meant to be that insensitive to this person who had only ever been good to him in his long and rotten life. But when Elena was in the picture, it was like everything else ceased to exist. He can see Mona watching him and she seems to read his thoughts as a soft smile spreads across her face and she gives him a reassuring nod. Damon smiles back, happy knowing that he hadn't done any permanent damage to their friendship…yet. There's still time he tells himself and tries not to cringe at the honesty of his own thoughts.

Mona's soft voice brings him back, "So you see, she is good, like I tell you."

Yes, she had. And now that he knew Elena was safe he could spend some time thinking about how Mona's voice always seemed to sound like she was singing when she spoke, regardless of how awful her English could be. He was actually rather impressed that she had taken to learning it, she had been adamant back in the day about not conforming to 'the ways of the west'. He laughs, giving his head a shake knowing that his brain must have finally unclogged the huge mass of information pile-up because all of a sudden Damon is starting to get blips on his internal radar that's pointing directly to the THREAT pile. Simultaneously, he realizes that the Vampire in front of him is trying to tell him something, has in fact, been trying to tell him something since he had awoken. So utterly and totally absorbed in the hell exploding in his mind he had blocked everything else out. But slowly the pieces were falling into place and understanding came in the knowledge that Mona knew something, at least in part, about what the fuck was going on.

"Ya about that," he offers gently as the gears in his brain begin their regular steady hum of configure, match, file. "Got anything you want to tell me?" he watches her with a critical gaze knowing something doesn't feel right.

"Oh, Dami-ahn," she frowns, "do you really not know?" Suddenly turning on her heel she walks from the room, confident that Damon will follow her, which he does, grabbing his jacket from the chair as he passes it.

"Where are we?" he asks following Mona down the hallway as he slips the familiar cool weight of his leather jacket over his shoulders. Turning he descends a set of stairs that open into a large library/Den where an unlit fire sits ready in the hearth to be sparked at a moments notice.

"Mia casa, Dami-ahn, I bring you here last night after I find you," she says simply, gesturing for him to take a seat.

"What do you mean, after you found me?" he asks, pausing only momentarily in his steps. Had he blacked out? He didn't think he'd gotten that drunk last night.

The Vampire doesn't respond right away. Instead she waits for him to seat himself while she walks over to a side bar and pours a half glass of some amber looking liquid into a large tumbler while plunking two heavy cubes from a stainless steel bucket into the glass. She hands it over to Damon's eagerly awaiting and outstretched hand. He smiles as he brings the tumbler to his lips, she knew exactly how he liked his drinks; chilled and on the rocks. He winces only slightly as the burn of the Bourbon flows down his parched throat.

"Better?" she smiles down at him, taking a seat in the love seat next to his recliner.

"Much" and the smile he gives her is something much more rare then the 150 year old Bourbon in his hand. This smile, was genuine.

They sit in companionable silence for a few minutes. Each just taking in the other, registering the little changes in style and hair since they'd last seen each other, which was really the only things they had to judge the passage of time giving their bodies never changed, never aged. But still, Damon's mind is a buzz whirling with the implications of everything that has happened since he set out on the road and wonders what the hell is going on with his life.

"Do you remember how we meet?" her voice pulls him back from his thoughts as his signature smirk falls into place. How could he forget. "How could I forget?" Tangled limbs, heavy grunting, blood, sex and oddly enough hay, flash through Damon's mind as he grins.

"And do you remember too, the trouble you get us into?" she smiles knowingly at him.

"I don't know about you" Damon takes a sip from his glass, his eyes never leaving hers, "but it was never any trouble for me," he gives her a wink taking another strong pull of alcohol. This is good stuff. He relishes in the heat as it burns down his throat, taking the edge off the buzzing in his head.

Mona leans back in her chair, eyeing him. "No doubt," a knowing smile plays on her lips.

"But I believe you remember, no? that not all my people were as bewitched by you as I." Damon can't help the smirk at her choice of words, just like he can't help the cold edge that steals into his gaze as he watches her, "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" he leans towards her, his brow furrowing, something it hardly ever did. Forehead wrinkles were for his super-hero little brother.

"What am I speaking, Dami-ahn?" Her eyes hold a mischievous glint and just for a moment Damon's not exactly sure which end of the cat he's holding.

"Mona, are you telling me that your x-boyfriend is fucking with me?" The growl that rises in his chest is primal and ready for a fight.

"No Dami-ahn, I'm telling you my husband is trying to kill you".