Chapter 24: Best Friend

New York 1947

Damon walked through the hotel room door and shrugged out of his jacket and peeled his suspenders off his shoulders. He hated this place. It was nothing like the last, but he had to keep a low profile. Being new to town, Damon made the careless mistake of killing the mayor out of pure boredom. He was alone…and he missed Katherine.

He spent the past eighty-three years finding the means to get Katherine out of the tomb, but all sources told him he must wait for the comet to pass…which was another sixty-three years away. He wandered farther into the room, unbuttoning the first two buttons on his white collared shirt before pausing.

He heard footsteps approaching; quiet ones. It was probably that panicky bellhop from downstairs dropping of his newspaper and messages. Damon stalked back to the door and opened it quickly, wanting to frighten the poor boy again, but was surprised by who was on the other side.

"So this is where you've been hiding." His little sister smiled prettily, looking at him from under her long wavy hair parted on the side. She was wearing a high waist pencil skirt with a white sheer blouse.

Damon smirked and opened the door wider for her. "I had a little too much fun…I killed the mayor, need to lay low for a while." He followed her to the window, where she stood looking out to the city.

"I wouldn't call this laying low." She commented, looking at the beautiful view. "You have the best few in the hotel." When Damon raised his brow, she elaborated. "I made a couple pit stops on my way up." She giggled. Lucia reached into her small purse and pulled out a cigarette and a matchbook, quickly lighting it and shaking out the flame.

Damon chuckled. "If you think this is nice, you should see my prior occupancy. Complete with two beautiful women to tend to my every need and feed." He widened his eyes slightly, as they twinkled with mirth.

Lucia took a slow drag, blowing out a plume of grey smoke. "Mm, that does sound nice." He gazed turned back out to the window. "I'm alone Damon." He voice changed automatically from playful to serious and vulnerable. "Living forever gets lonely if you do it by yourself." Her eyes swung to him, knowing he felt the same way.

Damon blinked twice, keeping his face void of emotion. "You're not supposed to do it alone."

She took another drag and nodded. "Then let's not…there is an entire world out there for us to see. I'd rather do it with you than anyone else." Her lips turned up sweetly, silently asking Damon to accept her offer. "You can pick a town, a little one in France perhaps, I know you like the Mademoiselles." She suggested enticingly. "We can paint the town red?" she continued raising a brow.

Damon smirked already sold. "I do like the way the French taste…like the finest wine, mm." closed his eyes in recollection. "Yes…this sounds like a fantastic idea!" he picked up Lucia and spun her in a circle with her giggling all the while. "Oh, let's stop in Italy first; Stefan would be thrilled to see us." He stated sarcastically.

She clapped her hands excitedly. It bothered her that Stefan had chosen to stop drinking human blood over four decades ago but it thrilled her to no end to torment him for it…and for a lot of other things. "Thank you Damon." She hugged him, feeling incredibly tiny in his arms.

A more serious voice came from her brother. "You are my best friend and my sister, Lucia…I'd do anything you'd ask." He said sincerely. Only Lucia was lucky enough to get this kind of attention, others were not as privileged.

In a way she got her wish…she got to be a child forever.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"Wake up!" a loud voice called out as it entered the room.

Lucia groaned and buried her head in the pillow. "Go away!" she mumbled.

"Not gonna be that easy." Damon stated, throwing open the drapes to let the sun in. Just as she was about to pull the covers over her head but her brother snatched them away. "Come on…Stefan and I have to tail a lead and I need you to keep an eye on the two crazy ones." He explained talking about Isobel and Katherine.

Lucia sat up and rubbed her eyes, then shot Damon a hard stare. "You mean to one I hate and the one I hate more? Great…brilliant plan!" She threw herself back on the bed, her head hitting the fluffy pillow. "I'm hung over, I'm tired and I'm not in the mood to baby-sit…can't Caroline do it?" she whined with a small pout.

"Nooo, because she's scared shitless of Katherine." He explained pulling on her leg and tugging her down the bed from the bottom. He chuckled when she flailed for freedom.

Lucia scoffed. "Yeah and I'm not?" she asked rhetorically as she kicked away from Damon before she fell to the floor. "Ugh! Fine…I'm up!" she pulled herself together and stared at her brother who was smirking at her. "What?"

"You look funny when you're unkempt…" Damon turned around to leave the room. "Fix your hair before you go downstairs…you'll scare someone." She glared at his back as he wandered out into the hallway, the brought her hands to her hair sheepishly.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jeremy sat in the kitchen staring down at his now cold coffee. He didn't even know why he came down here. He wasn't hungry, he didn't want to talk to anyone, but for some reason he found himself sitting here.

Lucia trudged into the kitchen barefoot wearing a pair of white cotton shorts and a black tank top and yawning. "Morning…" she greeted unenthusiastically.

Jeremy frowned. "It's 2:30." His voice was rough with misuse.

"Oh." She shrugged and moved to the fridge, grabbing a bag of blood, and stretching to grab a mug from the top cupboard. She fixed herself her 'breakfast' and turned back to glanced at Jeremy. "Are you going to be okay?" she asked bluntly.

He stared at her for a second, trying to decide if he was going to be honest with her. "What do you mean?"

Lucia rolled her eyes. "I mean you're aunt just died, are you going to be okay?" she reiterated frankly.

Jeremy swallowed the knot in his throat, glaring at her. "You ever heard of a thing called tact?" he asked pushing back tears.

She nodded. "Yeah…doesn't mean I use it. Look, I've been through what you've been through, I empathize, but I'm not going to sugarcoat and beat around the bush and what ever other analogy I can throw your way, because that's just what everyone else does to you." Lucia admitted taking a sip of her blood. "Just be straight with me."

Jeremy's lip quirked in admiration of her; he realized she wasn't trying to be rude, she was just direct. "I just feel empty…inside you know?" Lucia nodded. "Jenna wasn't even a part of this…it's just not fair that she had to get caught up in it." Jer responded dejectedly.

"It's usually those that aren't involved that always end up getting hurt. That emptiness…it's going to be there for a while, there's no escaping that. But I can tell you that over time it'll become more tolerable." She explained in a soft tone. She was lucky enough to be able to turn off her emotions; otherwise she would have been in the same boat as Jeremy.

"What no 'everything's going to be okay, things will look up soon' speech?" Jeremy shot at her a little more harshly than intended. That's all he seemed to be hearing lately.

"Why would I lie to you?" she replied, stating the question like a proclamation. Lucia drained the rest of her blood, putting the mug in the sink. "I'm going back to bed, if Damon asks I was up all day." She winked, and moved back upstairs leaving Jeremy alone again in the kitchen.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Elena and Caroline sat across from each other at the table in the living room, looking through Isobel's research and books…again. It seems like that's all they had been doing lately. Elena slammed another book closed. "We keep coming to these dead ends." She uttered in an annoyed huff.

"I know." Caroline agreed not looking up from the page in front of her. "Can't Bonnie do that brain popping thing?" she asked, vaguely waving a hand around her head.

"It doesn't work apparently, she already tried it." Elena responded grimly before reaching for another book. "We don't really know a lot about him, we have to be really careful. He's not just playing with us anymore…he's picking us off one by one." Elena's voice fell to a somber whisper.

Caroline looked at her friend sadly, before moving to a chair closer to her. "Elena…I didn't want to bring it up before because I didn't want to overwhelm you, but I'm really sorry about Jenna…how are you doing?" she asked apologetically placing her hand over Elena's.

Elena gave her friend a small smile that needed to be forced. "Dealing, sort of." She added as an afterthought. "There's too much going on to actually deal with it. I'm trying to keep myself busy, now is not a time for a mental breakdown." She forced a nervous laugh. "Not to mention taking care of Jeremy; who is a mess. He's already lost so many people in two years; he must be so…she trailed off losing words.

Caroline squeezed her hand. "He's a strong kid, he'll pull through." She stated confidently.

"I hope so…I don't know how much more he can take." She sighed for her brother's obvious pain and for some kind of release from this…hell.

There was a moment of silence before Caroline spoke again. "Where's Damon? I thought he'd be with you." She hadn't seen Damon leave Elena's side for more than a minute since Jenna's death.

Elena nodded in agreement. "He would be…if I let him." She continued seeing Caroline's expecting stare. "I told him to talk the day off from Emotional Elena." She rested the side of her head on the open palm of her hand. "I kinda lost it on him last night; there was crying and punching, and he was totally okay with it…he just held me." She smiled softly at the memory.

"Well he loves you Elena…what did you think he'd do hit the ground running?" she asked a little sarcastically. She knew Damon wouldn't leave her for the world, so Elena's surprise was unexpected.

Elena shrugged and shook her head. "No, I don't know what I thought. He's amazing Care…I don't know what I'd do without him." She said honestly. Her eyes widened at shot to Caroline when an ear piercing scream came from upstairs. "Call Damon." She called out as she ran as fast as she could up the stairs. She checked the rooms as she got in the hallway and halted at the door of Lucia's room. Katherine was already there snarling at the form crouching in the window.

Icarus snickered audaciously. "Two down." He sang before disappearing off the roof. Elena immediately ran to Lucia and pulled the stake out of her chest with shaky hands. "Oh my God." She whispered to herself. Lucia's body was ashen and lifeless before her.

Katherine looked on with a blank stare. She was sad…but not for Lucia, for Stefan and even Damon. Her head tilted to the side in curiosity of her little revelation before shaking it off. "I'm going downstairs…make sure he didn't come back." Katherine zipped out of the room leaving Elena alone.

She could hear the door slam downstairs and she knew Damon and Stefan were back. She stayed close to Lucia's body waiting for him to come upstairs.

"Caroline what is so important, we were onto something." She heard him say loudly, annoyed by her interruption.

"It's Lucia…we heard a scream-" Caroline told him.

A few seconds later Damon and Stefan ran into the room. Damon stopped at the door looking at Elena holding Lucia's body in shock.

"No…" Stefan ran to his little sister and touched her pallid face gently.

Elena watched the expression on Damon's face, and slowly stood to stand beside him. She grabbed his hand in both of hers, and cried. "I'm so sorry Damon. We heard her scream but it was too late…" he didn't respond, he didn't even look at her. His eyes were trained on his dead sister who was now being hauled into Stefan's arms. "Damon?" she questioned.

Stefan stood with Lucia in his arms, cradling her like the child she still was. "I'm going to bring her downstairs." He choked out, not bothering to hide his tears. Despite all their differences and disagreements he still loved her, and he regretted not telling her when he had the chance.

"Fine." She surrendered starting to walk to the door before turning around. "You know Stefan, I may have been furious at you for all these years…but you're still my brother, and I still love you." When he didn't reply or even look at her, Lucia left Stefan's room to go back to hers.

Stefan shook off the memory and hugged his sister closer.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Damon stared at the same spot, as a look of fury started to flush his face. His lips tightened into a thin line and his eyebrows knitted together painfully. He couldn't even see Elena before him he was so livid. "Damon…please say something?" she begged looking up at him desperately. "Is there anything I can do?" she continued, trying to be helpful.

Damon pulled away from her roughly, walking over to the window. "Please stop talking." He bit out flatly. "You need to leave now." He repeated those same words she's heard before, spoken in the same emotionless voice.

Elena stared at his back with tears streaming down her face. "No, don't do this…please don't shut me out." She pleaded, stepping towards him.

He turned his head to the side, barely looking at her. He was visibly shaking and his jaw was tense. "Elena…I'm not safe for you to be around right now." He claimed, explaining slowly.

She shook her head stepping closer. "No. I'm not leaving!" she insisted stubbornly.

"Elena!" Damon shouted warningly. Why wouldn't she just leave? Staying any longer was putting herself in danger.

Elena continues to step closer until she's right behind him. She slowly reaches out and places her hand on his shoulder, soothingly rubbing his tense muscles. She gave him a moment to get used to her touch before wrapping her arms around him and resting her cheek on his back. "If you have to scream, scream…" she started quietly, kissing his shoulder. "Tear the room apart if you have to…but I'm not going anywhere." She persisted.

Damon closed his eyes holding back tears. He clenched his jaw tightly and pulled Elena's arms off of him. He paced in front of the window, trying to calm himself down; his eyes roamed the room unable to focus on one thing. His sister was dead…really dead. Icarus killed his sister, and he was slowly unraveling because of it. His eyes flickered to the floor where her body was before shifting away. He was vaguely aware that Elena was talking again but he had to tune her out…it was the only way he could tune himself out.

His eyes flickered to the nightstand and the picture sitting on it. He stormed over and snatched it up, looking at the self taken photo of him and Lucia. It was taken only a few years before he came to Mystic Falls. They were standing in front the Sannicandro di Bari Castle in Italy over-posing for the camera. It was a great day.

A more serious voice came from her brother. "You are my best friend and my sister, Lucia…I'd do anything you'd ask." He said sincerely.

When those words rang through his head, a hot wave of rage coursed through him. With a savage roar, Damon hurled the picture at the far wall causing Elena to jump and glass shatter everywhere. He howled loudly, his face changing, and flipped the bed and its entire frame off the floor, forcing it to hit the wall and the ground with a resounding thunder on noise.

Elena watched in horror as Damon lost it, hollering and breaking things in the room, punching holes in the wall large enough for her to fit through. But she didn't stop him. Not because she was scared, although she was, she was scared for him…but she let him do it because he needed to…just like she did. When Damon finally stopped, he shook and panted as he came back to himself.

He locked eyes with her, and there was no way he could stop the tears now. She ran to him and he melted in her arms, crying silently into her hair. "She was my best friend." He mumbled desolately in a quiet voice.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A/N: So sorry for the late update I've been having a little trouble writing a certain part. Anyhoo I pushed it out! This was a hard chapter for me to write because I loved Lucia but it's a breaking point for Damon I believe. The next chapter might be the one with the confrontation with Icarus, so be prepared! I decided to do a flashback to the 40's lol not the 80's…I hope you like it! Please review! Thank you guys, you're awesome

Vanessa