The lamp next to my bed was on. I opened my eyes and blinked a few times to adjust them to the fake light. I look down at myself and see that I had fallen asleep in my clothing. There isn't any light coming through my curtains so it must be nightfall already. Standing at the edge of my bed is Damon. I look up at him. He is adorned in black jeans and a tight fitting black shirt. I see a faint trace of a scratch on his arm. It was probably a lot more earlier but he is already healing by now. The only thing that I can think is that he got the wound from Stefan, I immediately frown at the thought.
"It took you a few minutes to get up." Damon says breaking the silence between us.
"I didn't want to leave." I mean all of it. I hope that he knows that. After everything that has happened, how I used to act towards him, I don't know if he does.
Damon sits down on the edge of my bed and I decide to move closer to him so that we are sitting by each other. This time he doesn't move away from me like he did in his bedroom.
"What you did early Elena, was beyond stupid." I should have known that a speech was coming. I can't blame him though. The moment in that room when I realized how Stefan was acting and what he was up to, I knew it too. I was beyond naive.
"I know Damon." I say to him and he jumps up off of the bed, quickly turning around to face me.
"No I don't think that you do. I wasn't home. Stefan could have killed you and I wouldn't have been there to protect you! I would have gotten back and Stefan probably would have been hundreds of miles gone by then and you? You would be dead." His words started out harsh, it was easy for me to hear the anger behind them. I flinched when he said that he wouldn't have been able to protect me. His last sentence though held more sadness to it.
"You were there though and you did save me." I say to him as I stand up. I am only a few inches away from him. My body starts to get the same feeling that is has the past few days. Where I feel like every fiber in my body is being pulled towards him. I keep repeating him my head the one part where Damon talks about protecting me. I can feel something more behind it.
"It was pure luck that I got back to the boarding house when I did. I had to calm down before coming here tonight. I was so mad, you could have really gotten yourself hurt. I needed to talk to you though." Damon has opened himself back up to me. I don't know what to say to him. I feel so guilty now for going down in the cellar. Damon has been more than I could have asked for to me lately.
"Damon, I really am sorry." I begin to say to him. I've reached beyond my breaking point. My voice starts to crack as the tears start to slowly fall. Damon's mood completely switches again. He was just opening up to me a moment ago and now I can see an irritation in his face.
"There's no use in crying over Stefan right now. I know what happened earlier…" Damon is trying to talk to me but this time I cut him off, fed up.
"I'm not crying over Stefan!" I practically snap the words at him. Damon looks at me confused. "You've been the only good thing in my life that past few days and its killing me when you act this way towards me. You said that you would try. I understand that you're mad about what I did but I don't need this right now, especially not from you Damon!" The tears are still streaming and I take a hand to wipe them off of my cheek. I close my eyes for a moment.
I feel Damon's arms wrapped around my back. My eyes snap open in shock. I'm standing there with my arms hugged up against my chest. The hug is awkward at first but I start to feel Damon's muscles loosen around me as he eases into it. Damon rests his head on my chin. The shock slides away as I wrap my arms around his waist. I just admitted so much to Damon that I didn't even realize until just now.
"I'm sorry Elena." Damon whispers. The tears have stopped flowing and my heart has stopped aching.
"Damon, why is it, in my dreams, that every time you are there, the place seems so beautiful but when you're gone, the place is empty and cold?" He has been there with me, he must have a reason. I know he says that he can't control it but I don't have any explanation for it.
"I just assumed that it always looked that way, with the stars. It looks different when I'm gone?" Damon says, still resting his chin on the top of my head.
"Its horrible when you aren't there with me." I don't mind that he enters my dreams. Not when its that wooded area. "I was waiting for you to come tonight. It was just a really different place when you weren't there." I hug my arms around Damon just a little bit tighter. I don't know if he will ever hug me like this again and I want to take as much of it as I can. "It was so strange, when you came tonight, all of the stars appeared. Then when you were leaving me, their lights started to dim and some of them disappeared all together. I woke up though before I could watch the whole sky disappear. What do you think that it means?" I ask him, my face pressed up against his chest.
"I'm not quiet sure. I know that I have no effect expect for coming and going. Whatever it is, its linked to you. You must be controlling it somehow."
I keep my arms around him, one of the only comforts that I have had recently. Its strange to think that hugging Damon Salvatore would bring me such a huge comfort. I keep thinking about it. I'm relating Damon to the beauty of the wooded area. I guess I should really call it our wooded area. When I am just there by myself, its so dark. When Damon comes there though, the whole area lights up. I smile at the thought of the other night. Damon must mean a lot more to me than I can realize right now for him to effect my dream in such a dramatic way.
Damon lets go of me and I slowly loosen up my arms from him. I sit back down on the edge of the bed.
"Your necklace…" Damon starts to say but I cut him off for the second time this evening.
"I don't want it." I say flat out. I don't want anything that Stefan gave me. I am starting to wonder how I ever fell for him.
"I figured as much. Take this for now." I look at Damon as he slides his ring off of his finger. My eyes widen in shock. "Just until we can find you something that we can put vervain in."
"What will you do though?" I ask. I'm still staring at him in shock.
"I'll take Stefan's ring until then, I'm sure that he wont be going anywhere for a while." Damon grabs my right hand and slides his ring onto my index finger. I look down at the ring. The silver glistening in the light. I'm so wrapped up in the fact that I have Damon's ring on that I almost forget why he is here.
"Elena, did you ever manage to get the rest of the story?"
"What story?" I ask Damon, completely wrapped up in everything that just happened.
"The story of how Stefan and I got turned. How Stefan used to be." The words echo in my head right after I hear Damon say them. I stop looking at his ring and look up at him. His face looks like it is etched out of stone right now.
"Tell me." I say to him. I know this is the moment to hear about all of it. I want to know what Stefan used to be like. How him and Damon really got turned.