Disclaimer: Hello! Yes, the Vampire Diaries? Still not mine. I wish Ian Somerhalder (or failing that, Paul Wesley) was, though. Sadly, he's not.

However, I would like to throw a mention to both Pandora03 and g1rlanachr0n1sm as they have sent me wonderful reviews that made me smile ridiculously widely. Thank you both : )

If you pull the Book 5 (Nightfall) reference, you will get a teaser which will not be placed anywhere else. You might get one if you review, too...

Enjoy!


Across town, as he curled up in the armchair by the fire even tighter than he had before, as a precaution against the falling snow outside, Damon Salvatore most definitely felt the chill.

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2010

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Elena found herself standing at the back of a hardware store staring listlessly at one of the displays of what was either a large part of kinky foreplay or a very, very long piece of bicycle chain, whilst one of the more important men in her life stood at the counter and made vague gestures and comments about the necessary things he would need to make a clasp for a bracelet.

Why Matt had insisted on making the damn thing from scratch was far beyond Elena's understanding. She shook her head as she considered that conversation, and filed it away for a later date – where she could use it as a fantastic kind of leverage over his idiocy.

"Elena," She whipped her head around at the familiar voice, expecting it to be Stefan or Damon with the chocolate sounding voice, and almost disappointed at the fact that it was Matt, even though she knew that she was standing with him, as opposed to the Salvatore brothers, "What do you think about-"

She had tuned him out easily, because the words he was saying made no sense at all to her, simple, boring and nothing that she understood, about strength, durability, and pliability, and oh my god she did not care.

"It's fine, Matt," She said eventually, a long session of static passing through her brain over a few minutes as the men talked, and she simply nodded along, "I've got no idea what I'm looking for here – and you most definitely do." She let the subject drop, and, feeling as though she had just done the feminists of the world a great disservice, she told him that she was going to go across the road to the bookstore and see if she could find something to read while he talked shop with the owner here.

"I'll come get you soon, Elena," He squeezed her shoulder with his huge, warm hand and released her into the October chill.

She stood in the bookstore on her own, her fingers running across the goofy teenaged books that she loved to read. Stefan had never understood the desire, the need that she felt to escape reality, but in her midnight talks with Damon, the ones that she had never thought would make sense, he had told her that he knew what it was like to want to get out of the real world and into a snowglobe of her own design, where she could have whatever she wanted, because her disbelief was gone.

She liked that. She liked to believe in the good of fairytales, and how the bad was always destroyed – how the light beat down the darkness, and how the prince always, alwaysgot the girl.

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Italy, 1992 (September)

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"I just... don't know why you have so many books, Francesca." Damon had just been winded by Francesca throwing a hardback copy of something incredibly thick, possibly War & Peace, at his chest. It was a spectacular shot, made all the more fantastic for two reasons – one, because it was nearly midnight, and it was dark both in her bedroom and outside, and two, because he usually would have caught it without a second thought - only today, Francesca was mad at him, and he figured that enduring a little of that, just to make her feel better, would make him a better man... vampire... creature of darkness.

He let out a little laugh at that, deciding he liked the term and having to duck almost immediately as another book came sailing at him, whistling through the air and narrowly missing his head. He looked up at Francesca, only to be met with a furious scowl.

"Are you mocking me?" She had straightened up and slapped her hands onto her hips. Damon couldn't help but stare straight at the curves at her waist, led to the location by the movement of her fingertips. She let out a frustrated groan and clicked her fingers to bring him back to the conversation. It took him a couple of seconds, but he was almost immediately ready to argue. "Well?"

"You're majoring in Geography for god's sake!" He gestured at the array of maps and essays that were littered around the various corners and flat surfaces of her room, "You don't even do literature..."

"I know!" She retorted, "But you know, I like to read, to do stuff other than bore myself stupid by looking at maps and things, because, huh, funnily enough, when you leave to hunt, I get lonely."

"I only leave in the middle of the night. When I know you can't get lonely." He spat back at her, and suddenly her fury was gone, replaced by hurt and fear. When Francesca spoke again, her voice had dropped and she stared at her feet instead of having to speak looking straight into his eyes.

"I can't sleep without you next to me." She admitted, the blush rising up her cheeks and making her soft scent double in intensity in a matter of moments so that Damon could barely breathe without wanting to cross the room in one moment and take her in any way he could have. "I can barely breathe."

Immediately, he felt like an ass. He had supposed that it would not hurt to leave her when she was sleeping, because more often than not, she was off so far that she would not have woken had he sounded an air-raid siren right next to her ear. He had not considered that the loss of warmth, the lack of contact that was so apparent when the two laid down together, would be enough to wake Francesca.

"I... didn't know." The mutual tension in the room had been replaced with those three words. He didn't know that she did not like to sleep alone, and she did not know what to say to calm the expression on his face – one of pain, embarrassment and shame.

He took her words away from her, however, as he reached forward and she found herself wrapped in his arms, his lips pressed against hers, trying to convey everything he could not bring himself to say in that moment.

Francesca had always considered Damon to be a more... physical being, preferring to kiss her goodnight, rather than say the words, to hold her protectively in her sleep – at least when he remained with her – to keep his arms around her when she was upset because he didn't know what to say.

She did not expect anything more of him, because, with him being of a supernatural, curious age; she had assumed he was thoroughly set in his strong-yet-silent-type ways. That was why, when he pulled away from her and cupped her face in his hands, she did not expect him to say a word.

Damon was perpetually full of surprises.

"Marry me? Marry me, Francesca, then we can be together forever, and I promise you... you'll never be lonely again."

Whatever she had been expecting, it definitely was not that.

"What?" She blinked twice and felt a surge of heat blast through her body.

"Marry me?" He stopped and looked around the room, "I know I should be down on one knee or something..." He stopped and dropped to the floor, "And I don't have a ring..." He glanced down at his hand and saw the Lapis Lazuli band on his finger, pulling it off without a second thought and looking up into her eyes as he held it up to her.

He had not expected her to be crying.

"Francesca?" He rose up from his knees and wiped her tears away. "Are you-did I do something wrong?" For once in his surprisingly long life, Damon felt thoroughly helpless and completely terrified he had ruined everything.

He decided that he would begin planning ahead for everything. Everything.

"No!" She sniffed heartily and rubbed at her eyes furiously, "You stupid man," Her tiny hands found their way around his neck, pulling him down to her lips, "You don't need to kneel, and you don't need to give me a ring..." She smiled and kissed him slowly again, "Of course I'll marry you."

"I love you." He whispered as he slipped the ring onto her finger, and promptly dropped his forehead to hers as she moved her hand and the ring nearly fell to the floor. "So much."

They both let out a soft laugh and Damon pressed his lips to hers again, running a hand through her hair and holding her upright as he walked the pair of them back to the bed that they shared.

As Damon pressed his hands into the mattress, either side of Francesca's head, he felt a feeling he had not experienced in a while. The soft touch of her lips to his, the not-so-gentle movement of her hands in his hair, her voice, his senses... they all exploded into a single emotion – one that grounded and saved Damon as he held his girl in the darkness.

Humanity.

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2010

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Matt could see Elena through the glass window of the front of the bookstore. He smiled at her tiny frame, which fit in with pretty much all of the smaller children around her as she tried to reach a book on the top shelf of one of the stacks. It was adorable, and it was silly, but it was ridiculously cute.

Ten minutes later, Matt was holding open the passenger door for Elena, and she climbed in and, once again, began to fiddle with the knobs and dials that controlled the radio and the heating.

"So, when I've fixed this," For Matt had never really been one to beat about the bush, "Are you going to... surprise Salvatore with it, or something?"

Elena didn't reply, mainly because she didn't really know what to say.

"I... haven't thought about it."

"You said it belonged to some girl that Damon knew, right?"

"I... I think she was more than some girl," Though Elena hesitated; she was beginning to think that her words were definitely true. "But yes, essentially, I think that's about it."

"Well, you can't just give it back." Matt, no matter how helpful he was being, would never know the idiocy that was coming out of his mouth as he suggested different ways to hand it back, the final one being probably the least appropriate of all. "Why don't you give it back on their anniversary, or something close to that?" He paused and watched Elena nodding brightly at him, then smiled to himself, "Or, even better, what about the anniversary of day they met?"

Damon liked to make a very, very small distinction between embarrassment and shame. Both of them made the person blush, both of them made you feel bad, and both of them hurt, but he was always sure that shame was more painful.

For instance, as Elena slipped out of Matt's car, falling flat on her backside, she went bright pink and buried her head in her hands in embarrassment, however, as he stood at his bedroom window and stared down at her, Damon felt a heavy sense of shame for laughing out loud at the sight of it, when he knew that she was probably a little bit injured, and he would never admit that he had been watching her.

He also knew that shame was a permanent thing – that he lived with an eternal sense of shame for what he had done – and only one person could absolve him of that humiliation...

Only, he reminded himself as he settled in for another night of passionate brooding, you don't see shame and humiliation as the same thing, do you?


A/N: Reviews and ConCrit are very, very welcome.

No Italian in this chapter either. How strange.