Disclaimer: Rrahhh. I wrote the last little bit to Johnny Cash's version of Hurt. Do you think LJ Smith did that with TVD? Obviously I Don't own it.

But You guys own me.

You're amazing, your reviews are stunning, and for that, I give you this chapter. It's early. I'm not posting until Tuesday afternoon, if I have time. If I don't, it'll be Thursday.

Feel free to mull this over.

Feel free to hate it.

Let me take you back. And Let me make it hurt.

"If I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself, I would find a way." - Hurt.

I think it qualifies as a little part of Damon, too.

Enjoy.


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2010

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Damon watched Elena watch him for all of thirty seconds, as he held the box in his hands. Her vibrating form soon got to him, however, and he felt the need to speak, just to still her activity.

"What is this, exactly?" He pretended that he didn't know. He didn't want to know. But he did. He didn't open the box, but stared at it, instead. He didn't get presents often, and the enormity of this one... it unnerved and irritated him.

"Open it," she said simply, a smile growing on her face because she knew he would like what he saw. "Open it, and you'll find out."

"I don't like surprises, Elena." Damon said softly, "Surprises are..." He shook his head and raised his hand out to her, the one holding the box. A moment later, he raised his head and looked at Elena as though he were a child, "Open it for me?"

"I... okay," Elena nodded and slowly opened the box, rotating it slowly so that he could see what was inside.

He stopped dead, and Elena feared for a moment that whatever was left of his heart had ceased to beat, because of what laid on the soft tissue paper inside the box.

He was right. And he hated it.

"Where did... Where did you get this?" He managed after a few seconds, "H- how?"

"You left it in my room. I couldn't - you clearly... You need it." She pressed the box into his hands and stepped away.

"No." He murmured, "I said I didn't want it! You weren't supposed to-" he raised his hand and let out one of the strangest sounds Elena had ever heard. For a moment, he looked as though he were about to explode, then, he dropped his head into his hands and let out a short growl.

Well, she hadn't expected that.

"What? Damon, you said that this was your most... That you..." She was immediately stricken, lost for words. This was supposed to make it better. This was supposed to make it okay between them. She knew she had been cruel, and horrible, and distrusting, but she really needed to make it better. This was supposed to be it. The catalyst.

It was. But not in the way she wanted it to be.

"You weren't supposed to-" Damon felt his chest constricting and picked up the leather bracelet, holding it in front of him. "Who... Who made the clasp? It's different, isn't it?"

"Matt spent a week trying to make it himself." Elena spoke softly, trying to tame the tiger as he nearly roared. "Caroline fixed the braiding... It unwound, see, and-"

"Why?" His voice was just as hoarse, as though he was about to cry, and for a moment, he felt the kind of hope that somebody other than Elena cared for him, that they would do this for him...

He thought they hated him – they had never given him the time to prove he was a good person. They had never... and yet, they still did it.

His heart swelled with a little bit more goodness, at least until Elena spoke again.

"Well, Caroline just wanted to get me out of there as fast as possible, you know? She still doesn't trust me around Matt... And Matt, well," Elena smiled tiredly as Damon's heart sank, "Well, Matt would do anything for me, wouldn't he?" She topped it off with a smile, but Damon didn't see it. He did not see past the surface of her words - they would do anything for her.

For Elena. Not for him.

He was wrong again. Nobody wanted him here, apart from Elena, and honestly, if he looked at it objectively, that was only because he occasionally helped out Stefan. Every shred of thanks drifted away from his heart and he stared at Elena with a dark scowl on his face.

He felt betrayed, he felt hurt, and as he picked up the bracelet and wrapped it around his wrist, he felt more alone than he ever had done before.

It hurt, so much.

But nothing ever hurt like her.

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Italy, 1990, November

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Damon was nervous about the coming moments. Their conversation was going to be awkward, and he honestly feared that it might end with somebody dying, but it had to be done. He was wrapped up in a sheet on her bed, half dressed, half-undressed, as she stood in the bathroom, brushing her teeth and watching him watch her in the mirror. He liked her backside in those knickers, he decided, in a moment of sheer distraction before the panic gripped him again, and Francesca came through into the bedroom.

Steeling himself for the worst, Damon gripped her hand as she sat back down, curled up next to him and wrapped herself up in his arms.

"Listen," he murmured, "There are things you need to know about me, Francesca."

"Things?" She quirked an eyebrow at him, still nestled in his grasp, and frowned slightly, "You're not a mad mass murderer, intent on making me one of your next victims, are you?"

"Er, no?" His voice quirked at the last second and he frowned for a second, "Not... not exactly."

"What then?" She asked, suddenly impatient because he was cutting into the time they had together, "It can't be so bad, can't be terrible. Tell me."

"I'm..." He stopped and watched her for a moment, before deciding that he wouldn't lie, "I'm... A vampire."

Everything thunked into place in some kind of... twisted revelation. The horror-mask that Damon wore when he came too close to a cut or bruise, the first time they had met – his desire to taste her blood, his general distaste for bright sunlight... it all made sense.

She wouldn't let him faze her though.

"Vampiro? Tu sei pazzo! Where are your fangs?" As if to prove her point, but at the same time piecing things together in her head, Francesca laughed aloud. It was most definitely forced though – she believed firmly in the supernatural... and Damon would never lie to her.

"They retract and grow when I need them to," Damon said simply, frowning because she wasn't screaming. She wasn't confused and she wasn't... afraid?

"Okay, then." She decided to play along, still half-hoping that he was joking, but honestly not particularly worried if he wasn't.

She knew he would never hurt her.

"How can you come out in the sunlight?" She clambered over the covers to straddle his hips and run her fingers across his cheeks, "Why aren't you pale?"

"It's not like Dracula, Francesca," he murmured, "We don't change into bats... Although we do burn in the sunlight... But that's easily alleviated with this," he held up his hand and showed off the Lapis Lazuli ring which allowed him to become a DayWalker.

"It's pretty," Francesca fingered it lightly before Damon stilled her hand. There was a pause where he brought his palm up to touch hers, slightly cooler in the shade of her bedroom.

"I can however, become a crow, or a wolf... Or... I could..." He stopped again, shut his eyes and began to concentrate, his brow furrowing in the middle. "Look out of the window."

Slowly, and more than a little confused, Francesca rose to her feet and padded across to the bay window where Damon had snuck in so easily only an hour or so before. What she saw was a little more than stunning.

"You changed the w-weather?" Francesca raised her hand and felt the fog that had rolled in, thick to look at, like a sea fog, but thin and mystic, almost beautiful as it took on a very distinct path and began to swirl around her body, dampening her flannel pyjama bottoms and leaving her silk camisole stuck to her skin. It weaved a pattern around her body, twisted around her torso, made
her gasp and sigh, laughing lightly as she held out a hand, and Damon's concentration shifted to twist the feeling around her hand.

"I can control the rain, the fog, lightning..." Damon muttered, looking anywhere but at her, "it's... It's called Power, and it's-"

"Beautiful."

"Dark."

They said the words at the same time, and with her single utterance, the fog swiftly dissipated to be replaced by the blinding sun-glare that had been there only minutes before. Damon's heart lifted a little way; she did not seem to be scared. She seemed, it appeared, to be a little bit enthralled, and, if his senses weren't failing him, and he was hearing her breathing properly, a little bit more than aroused.

"You think so?" He was unsure of what she was thinking, and it irritated him... Or was it worry? He didn't know, but he didn't like the feeling of unease he got because he thought she might be scared of what he could do. "You think that bringing this kind of Power to the world is beautiful? I could influence you to do whatever I wanted you to, and you'd never know..."

"No," she whispered, "You wouldn't." The gravity of her words pushed through him and made him shake. She trusted him so much.

"I could, though, Francesca, and doesn't that scare you even just a little bit?"

"You wouldn't do me wrong," she said, then, with a little more conviction, "Show me."

"What?" Damon wasn't entirely sure his senses were working properly; no normal human would ask that of him. Then again, he knew Francesca was special.

"Influence me. Show me what you would have me do." She whispered, feeling all the more brazen as the seconds passed.

"I-I don't think..." Damon was at a temporary loss for words, "I don't think it's a very good idea."

"Try."

"Okay," Damon nodded slowly, and then channelled his Power into his eyes, into influencing the pretty girl in front of him. His pretty girl. "Undress," he muttered, "and do it slowly."

He blinked slowly, and she ran a hand through her hair.

"Why, do I have to be naked for it to work?" She quirked her eyebrow slightly and Damon frowned.

"No. That should have... You ought to be naked, Francesca."

"Why?"

"I tried to make you strip... to influence you to..."

"Well," Francesca was petulant now, "Why aren't I?" She was almost disappointed that he wasn't having his own fun.

"I don't know... Let me try again," he took two steps closer to her and wrapped his hand around her wrist, pulling her closer to him, making her gasp as his other hand touched her face ever so lightly, "Fight me off."

His hands dropped to her waist and her lips parted as he slowly pressed his lips to her neck, pressing open mouthed kisses all along the pulse there. She remained still, enjoying the sensation immensely as his teeth gently broke her skin and Damon did what he did best, he drank.

Seconds later, he was pulling away, taking an immense amount of control and making Francesca gasp at the loss of contact.

"You... Were supposed to fight..." He threw himself away from her, across to the other side of the room, "Why didn't you try to fight?"

"I didn't want to! It felt too... It felt too good." She ran a hand up her neck and groaned at the sensations Damon had left her with, "No marks?" She looked up at him, "it's like... Like magic."

"Magic's just a bunch of trickery and lies, Francesca, this actually works..."

"Maybe... Your conscience is holding back your Power?" Francesca offered after a few seconds, "Maybe you don't want to influence me, so no matter how hard you try, you can't."

He heard her words, but they echoed in a different way. He heard her words, but to him, they said something entirely different. They told him he couldn't do it because he... Cared.

He knew something was brewing between them. Something special.

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2010

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"Please tell me you didn't do this." He really was hoping that this was just some kind of horrific, or confused daydream, and she was not honestly attempting to hand him the first tangible piece of Francesca that he had ever owned.

"Why? Damon, you never make any sense." He thought about raising his hand and just smashing something, anything, to get the feelings of fury, annoyance and just plain hurt out of him.

"Do you have any kind of idea how painful this is?" He held the band up and just looked at it. It glistened a little in the constantly changing, flickering reflections of the firelight, and every part of him ached to be teasing the fiery Italian girl who had owned the damn thing in the first place, on the night of her nineteenth birthday, back at the beginning of the best – and worst, times of his life.

"What? I thought- Damon, I thought you'd be happy-" Elena turned her face up to look at him and Damon simply shook his head.

"Happy? Elena, I took this from Francesca twice. The first time, was the night I met her," He stopped and allowed the memory to wash over him, unable to breathe as the warm weight of Francesca became a fleeting delusion. "And the second time... it was the night I killed her."

"What?"

"You heard me. Don't play games." He stopped and looked at her, close, then, to simply running from the house and executing Q14 with immediate effect. He bit his lip and blinked away the thoughts. "I don't like these kind of games."

And yet, he knew that he was playing them with everyone he knew, every minute, every hour, every second of this life.

"You killed her?" Elena ground out the words, and he looked at her, walls, defences built up around every part of his heart, his eyes, his face, his mind.

With those defences, honed over nearly seventeen years of intense repression, he was able to say three words, get up, and walk away without falling to his knees and sobbing.

"Yes, I did."


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A/N: Review?

I'll take any and all abuse you want to fling. No actual mud, please. Computers don't like it.

Tissues for next chapter, please. And yes. You will need them.