Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries is the property of LJ Smith, who, personally, I think is absolutely awesome. I wish I owned it. Sadly, I got the plot... which, to be honest, I rather like anyway

Yeah, erm, I'm not Italian, so if any of the translations are wrong, please be constructive and let me know?

Enjoy!


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2010

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"I figured out the braid pattern," Matt said as he leaned against the lockers beside Elena's. She looked up at him, his wide smile making her grin back at him. "You said it was Salvatore's?"

"Not Stefan's," She said, grinning up at him, "So, you reckon you'll be able to fix it?"

"I'm gonna have a go tonight, and I'll superglue the ends for now," He shrugged, "I can get a decent clasp at the weekend, if you'd like... you could come with me?" He smiled down at her again, and she felt a little pang of guilt at the fact he was asking her out, not his actual girlfriend.

"Wouldn't Caroline want to come?"

"She's doing something with her mom on Saturday, so I figured I'd get out of her way for then..." He trailed off and smiled at her, "And you want to get it fixed a-sap, right? This way, we could sort it out, and you know what the clasp looked like, right?" He said this all very fast and she was left with a slightly bitter taste in her mouth as she remembered when he had asked her out the first time, almost four years ago. "Elena?" She shook her head back into reality and grinned up at him again.

"Of course, why not?" A pause, "And this way, I can pay for the actual material for once," She grinned.

"You're not paying!" He jumped in, "Why would I make you pay for it?"

"Because... well, because it's not yours. Because I'm doing this to make someone else happy..."

"Will it make you happy?" Matt looked at her and raised an eyebrow quietly. "I don't mind paying." She bit her lip and shook her head.

"It's not for me or you to decide. I'm trying to help Damon get some closure," She admitted as she closed her locker door and looked up into the slightly concerned face of her ex-boyfriend. "I think his past is way more contrived than we originally thought."

"Really?" Matt was a little more than sarcastic, "Whatever made you think that?"

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Italy, 1990

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"It's my favourite," She had whispered as he had wrapped his arms around her and rested his forehead against hers, easily supporting her petite frame in his lap. "And I don't think I could last a week without it." His fingers hadn't stopped playing with it, through all the time he had been talking to her.

"Well," He grinned, tugging at it lightly and opening the clasp with one hand, "You'll have to come get me to get it back." There was a laugh, and suddenly she was sitting on the chair alone, feeling distinctly cold without the warmth of his body pressed against hers. He was standing over her, grinning and holding out the jewellery with a tantalising smile.

She stood, and he danced out of her reach as she tried to grab at it, and he laughed as she tried to run after him, but nearly fell and broke her leg in her ridiculous high heels.

"I'll get you, Salvatore!" She laughed, tugging her shoes off and attempting to make her way through the throng of people to reach him. His fingertips laced with hers as he tried to pull her to him, into his arms, but as she stumbled, barefoot, through the dancefloor, and general rubble that became the aftermath of a party such as this, she trod on a broken glass that nobody had thought to clear up.

The scent of blood immediately made Damon freeze.

"You're bleeding." He hissed, a second before she could even feel the pain. "Francesca, you're... tua piede sta sanguinando." He gestured at her foot before biting down on his bottom lip and looking away.

"I..." She glanced down and screwed her eyes up tight, "Can you help me upstairs? I'll need to clean this."

"Okay," He nodded, biting his bottom lip again and trying to work out exactly how quickly he could get in, get out, and run away. "... but, I don't really... like blood." He finished pathetically, hoping it was enough of a cover to get him out of there quickly.

"Oh." She stopped and looked away, "Well, I suppose, that's fine..." His hands shot out to catch her again as she stumbled, and he realised that he was done with making her hop up the stairs. She looked sideways at him and frowned a little bit as he tightened his grip on her and lifted her into his arms. "Damon?"

"I'm carrying you." He muttered simply, "And I'll try to clean up your foot as well," He stuck out his tongue a little way and she smiled back at him, all traces of anger immediately forgotten.

"Okay," She smiled slightly, "Whatever you want." She nodded slightly, and he nodded straight back. As he set her on her bed and crouched down by her foot, the stench of blood overpowered him, and he felt the desire manifesting itself in the pain around his eyes as his face transformed and shifted his eyes into something that surely belonged only to a demon.

Chewing the inside of his cheek, and hoping that would take away all the pain he was feeling everywhere else, the hunger that was burning there in his throat, he let out a growl and began to twist his fingers around the cuts on the sole of her foot.

"There's no glass in it," He murmured, "But it's bleeding quite badly," He ran a finger around the cuts, drawing patterns in the blood and soaking his skin with the crimson liquid. She quickly, and violently tensed, her toes clenching and her body trying to pull away with an impressive jerk. He only held her tighter, however, and stopped her from withdrawing. Without thinking, he lifted his hand and found his bloody finger running along his bottom lip. There was blood dripping down his chin, and a steely, burning gaze lasering into him from above. He glanced up and saw her sitting with her mouth open, stunned and a little disgusted, and dropped his hand to his lap immediately.

"What're you doing, Damon?" She murmured quietly, then, as she wrenched her foot from his grasp, loosened because of his surprise, "Get out!" she drew her foot up against her other thigh, leaving a smear of blood against her bed sheets and screamed the words again, "Uscite!"

"Mi dispiace!" They had been the first two words he had learnt in Italian, and, as he whispered them again and again, he felt the distinct sense of loss that would come with them for the next eternity. "I couldn't help myself-"

"Uscite, Damon, per favore."

"Okay," He nodded and took a couple of steps back, leaving her to it as she sat there on her bed, feeling sick and very, very confused.

Stefan found Damon as the party began to simmer down and everyone seemed to be starting to leave. It was past midnight, and he was sitting with a glass of scotch, or something-or-other, in one hand, and in his other, a small leather braid.

It was a promise he would see her again.

"What've you got there?" He said, not entirely sure he wanted to know, "Another conquest, another prize?" Stefan's voice was harsh; he didn't seem to understand the weight that Damon had on his shoulders. The girl upstairs was alone and confused, and he wanted to comfort her, but he didn't know how – he didn't know at all. "Or did you just steal it?"

"She let me take it." His voice was strangely dead, and he quirked an eyebrow at himself as he tightened his grip on the material. "I'll see her again." He murmured, "I'll come back tomorrow. She hurt her foot, and I couldn't take the blood." He looked up at his brother, whose brow furrowed a little way.

"You... not the girl?" He raised both eyebrows, "But she's nothing like-"

"Like what? She's not bad enough for me?" Damon mocked. "I like her." He said softly. Stefan frowned just a little bit, watching him and trying to gauge what was running through his brain. Slowly, as though he were dealing with an animal that was easily spooked, he put an arm around his brother to help him up. And then, for a moment, he just held on.

Damon would come back tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that, because he wasn't exactly one to give up easily.

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2010

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"Elena, what the hell are you doing?" Stefan had found her pondering his brother's mantelpiece with a very dark look on his face. Damon was not on the roof, he was not in the house and he was not, Elena had supposed, within earshot. In fact, she hadn't seen him in three days.

"Going through his things." She replied serenely, "It's really rather interesting... do you know where he got half of this stuff?"

"Italy, I suppose," Stefan replied almost airily, as though he himself were trying to put the place behind him. "I think so, anyway."

"Weren't you there?" She looked up at him and frowned, then picked up a small ring, replacing it suddenly because she had assumed she would have dislodged a hell of a lot of dust from the artefact. She glanced down at her fingers as she pulled away, however, and realised that the only thing on her fingers was a faint smell of polish. Disregarding it, as Stefan took her hand, she looked up at him.

"Do you think we should be in here? He's going to come back and go crazy if anything's out of place..." But his voice was lacking conviction and high on desperation, and they both knew it. "Elena, please..."

"Okay, Stefan, just a second," She pulled away and left her boyfriend standing in the middle of his brother's room as she carried on looking at the trinkets scattered around Damon's fireplace. There were little boxes which she was afraid to open, and a very small notebook that looked as though it were bound shut that she made a mental note to remember.

"Elena..." Stefan's voice was a warning now, and she heeded it only because she knew her scent would be extremely noticeable to a honed hunter like Damon.

"Okay!" She followed him out of the room, and listened to the door as the latch clicked into place.

What neither of them realised was that Damon had been sitting on his balcony the entire time. He was quiet, because he had practise at being quiet, and he was still because he was holding his breath. Elena had been touching Francesca's life. He had felt a serious sense of fury as he had watched her going through her things, but he realised there was nothing he could do, lest he lose his temper and lose against Stefan.

He could not afford to lose anything again.


I'm really enjoying writing this, and would really appreciate it if those who have read this far would drop me a line, a review, or something, even if it's just to say that they're bored, or that they hate it, or my Italian's wrong. Which it probably is. Feel free to correct me, if you speak Italian?

Constructive criticism is always welcome!

Translations:

tua piede sta sanguinando - Your foot is bleeding

Uscite - Get out

Mi dispiace - I'm sorry

Per favore - please