- 2009 -

dark paradise

Damon left my downstairs for hours and it was boring. I thought about looking for Katherine alone - but that idea was short lived. She was much older then me and always had a plan for everything. Plus she was a good runner. I needed help. So instead I rummaged through their bookshelf and found a diary. I expected it to belong to Stefan but it turned out to be Damon's. That suprised me. Damon always teased Stefan for keeping one. But here he was, keeping one. I skimmed through it and realized that it was kept between 1861-1863. When he was battling at war.
That made sense of it, a lot of soldiers kept secret diaries while in war. I started to actually read it out of curiousity but I heard the stairs let out a groan from pressure and I knew Damon was coming from upstairs.
I quickly sat down on the couch, flicked on the tv and stuffed the journal under the cushion. So I could read it later.
"You look suspicious." Damon said, raising his eyebrow and giving me a questioning look.
"What are you up to?"
"Nothin', and even if I was, that smouldering bad boy stare isn't going to get me to give it up."
He gave up then, sighing. He took the remote from me and sat in a chair across the room. He poured himself whiskey, and then he was so quiet it was just like he was upstairs again.
Damon was not the same man I once knew. It could've been the war, but I knew better. It was Katherine.
"Did you get my last letter?" I asked randomly. Damon had been ignoring me, just concentrating on his drink and some dumb sitcom. I'd been wondering this question for one hundred and forty five years.
Damon looked up at me. "What one was the last one?"
The last one contained how much I missed him and hoped he was okay. It also told him how I was marrying Sebastian, I sent it two months before I died and I had never gotten a reply.
"The one about my engagement."
Damon cleared his throat, so right then I knew he was about to lie. Damon was a good liar, but when he lied to me he had a tell. He always got nervous and cleared his throat.
"No, it must have gotten lost."
"Odd," I also lied. "I had gotten a letter back from the post that it was successfully in your hands."
He narrowed his eyes at me. "No you didn't."
"You're right, I didn't," I agreed. "But you also got the letter."
He kind of grinned. "Oops, caught me."
I rolled my eyes at him, something that happened commonly. "So why didn't you? I thought you were dead, asshole."
"I was busy. I didn't have time for petty letters." He replied passively.
I shrunk back in the couch, hurt. I don't care, I told myself.
"Oh." Was all I said and then I zoned into the television show. I shouldn't be hurt, he was at war. He probably really didn't have time for my petty letters I was always sending a century and a half ago. I was being ridiculous.
"So, Katherine, do you know where she is?" I ask, trying to make conversation again. It was a bit awkward.
"Here in town, wrecking havoc."
Anger filled me. "Stupid bitch."
Damon looked at me in surprise. "Yes, I curse angrily at stupid bitches now. The love of your life and death is one of them."
I wanted to punch Damon then and there. How could he love someone like that? He loved me first and back then I was kind and caring. How can you go from loving that to loving someone like Katherine Pierce? I felt like my old self was being put to shame. I also felt a bit of jealousy.
This was stupid. Jealousy isn't something I should be feeling and I can't judge him. I fell in love with someone almost as bad. I was just lucky he fell for me.
"You aren't even like Eleanor at all."
"Things like that change people," I shrug. "You of all people should know."
"True," He nodded, sipping his whiskey. "But you, you were always so proud if who you were. You didn't care if you drank a little too much or got caught being muddy after a game of football."
I laughed. "Still that girl. Just meaner."
"Same goes for me." He chuckled.
Stefan takes that moment to walk in, along with Elena and some man I did not know.
"The whole crew is here. Yay." Damon says sarcastically. All three of them roll their eyes.
The man I did not knows gaze stops on me. "Elle," Elena says. "She grew up with Damon and Stefan."
The man gives her a look. "Long story."
He accepts that. "I'm Alaric." He tells me.
"Nice to meet you." I smile at him flirtatiously. He was attractive for his age.
Damon coughed loudly. "Okay, could you guys just get to the point of why you're here?"
Elena spoke first. "We wanna find out more about the Lockwoods. If werewolves exist then..."
"If there's werewolves where the hell are they?" Damon interrupts in disgust.
"They're real." I say and he glares at me.
Elena and Alaric turn to me. "Do you know much about them?"
"No, sorry." I apologize. "But I know they exist. My friend, Dawn got killed by one in 1923."
All of them look surprised. But then continue their discussion.
"Isobel researched them," Alaric reveals. "All her research should be at her office at Duke. We can go if you want?"
"Count me in." I tell them, excitedly. "This should be interesting and you guys need help and I know you guys want Katherine gone, too. So we might as well form an alliance."
"Plus, I'm a bit lonely." They all laughed, expect Damon. He rolled his eyes. Again.
"If she's going, I'm going."
I didn't miss the cold stare Stefan gave Damon once he said that.
"Someone needs to stay here and help Caroline." Stefan points out.
"You can." Damon says, smirking smugly. All of them looked beyond pissed off. I didn't know what he did but they all seemed to not like him that much at this moment. That happened a lot when we were growing up. Damon knew exactly how to get under anyone's skin. At least that hadn't changed, even if it was one of his more annoying traits.

Later on, the all headed to Duke. Elena kissed Stefan heatedly and I smiled. None of the girls back in Mystics early days took too much attention to Stefan. Most had interest in Damon, myself included. Despite their major PDA, it was nice to see.
They conversed for a little bit, I heard Elena ask him if they should wait till he could come along and she heard Stefan tell her he loved her. I grinned to myself, alone in the car. Seconds later Damon jumped in next to me.
Elena and Alaric then got in at the same time.
"So, Elle, are you Italian like Stefan?" Elena asks, trying to make conversation. But me or Damon didn't not notice the way she left him out on purpose.
"No, actually." I loved talking ancestory. "I'm from England, the Anglo-Saxons. They created their seperate kingdoms not too long after the Romans deserted England. Wessex, to be specific. It's an ancient culture," I realized I was rambling and cut it short. "My family came to Italy in 1844. But came to Mystic Falls in 1859, alongside the Salvatore's."
"I was an honorary Italian to their mom," Elena smiled warmly at that. "I cooked the best lasagne, she said. Though I was only six at the time..."
Elena frowned, catching on. Stefan and I were six years apart and their mother had died in childbirth. Mary was much gentler than Giuseppe. She was the kindest woman I had ever met, other than Lynette.
Damon, at the mention of his mother, was now glancing out the window. Subconsciously, I took Damon's right hand in my own and squeezed it tight.
This didn't go unnoticed by Elena. She gave me a warm smile and I sent one back. She may look like Katherine, but she wasn't Katherine.
We pulled up to the university's campus and the boys got out first.
"Did you and Damon... ever date?" Elena asked quietly.
"Nicely deducted," I laughed. "But no, I loved him though."
Elena nodded with a small frown on her face and we both got out of the vehicle.
"Ah, have a nice private girly chat?" Damon mocked, throwing his arm around Elena.
Elena shrugged it off. "Better than any chat I'd have with you." then she stormed off and met up with Alaric.
"I knew he had the ring on, for god sakes. Get over it."
"What'd you do?" I asked him, arms crossed.
He smirked. "I killed her brother."
My eyes widened and I slapped him in the chest. He chuckled and I kind of laughed along. But then it got awkward when we both realized we weren't exactly "buddies" right now, even if we had a moment on ride. Then we both rushed after Elena and Alaric.
"Hi, Vanessa." Alaric greets a brunette woman. She smiles.
"Alaric, follow me." She leads us to a office full of boxes and then leaves.
They go through boxes, one each to start.
Out of nowhere I felt something painful dig into my back. I look up to see Vanessa with a crossbow, now aiming it at Elena. Too busy with my own injury I don't move, but Damon jumps in front of her and Alaric pushes her up against a wall.
"Shit," I saw trying to pull out the arrow. I look at Elena trying to take Damon's so I know I have to wait because Alaric had his hands full.
Damon muttered. "That bitch is dead." Then made a hissing sound when the arrow was pulled out of his back.
A moment later I felt another pain in my back and I knew the arrow was ripped out. Damon stood behind me with the arrow in his hand.
"Thanks." I said and he nodded.
Vanessa's crossbow was confiscated by Damon and Alaric let her free.
"Why did you shoot them?" Alaric demands.
"That's Katherine, and Damon - who died in 1864! And then that's Eleanor Whitlock, she died just months before Damon. I freaked! This can't be possible."
"You've read Isobels research. You know how possible this is."
Vanessa calms down. "You're right."
"If you're okay now, can you help us look for stuff?"
The rest of the afternoon flew by and soon were were back to Mystic Falls.
Damon and Stefan left me at the boarding house alone. That was fine by me, I still wanted to read that journal.
I lifted up the cushion, grabbed the leather book and headed up to my room.
I turned on a lamp and laid down on the bed. The book was all about the war but I had been mentioned quite a few times, along with Stefan. I never got far into it because I picture fell out and into my lap. It was a photo of me taken just before he left.
It was yellowing, but other than that it was in perfect condition. I had a blue dress on and my hair was untamed. But I was smiling. Scribbled in Damon's cursive was "Elle, January, 1861." I had no idea he had taken this to war.
I didn't hear him come in but when I peered up from the photo, Damon was at the end of my bed.
"Is that mine?" He asked look at the diary and photo, but unusually he didn't seem mad.
"Yes - I'm sorry." I handed it to him but he just shook it away.
"Keep it." He shrugged.
"Why'd you take this with you?" He took the photo from me and stared at it for awhile.
He then left. He never answered my question or said another word. I frowned at the place he once stood and put the photo back into one of the pages.
I then flicked off the lamp and went to sleep. I didn't get him, he rejects me when I be horrible and when I'm pleasant. Dick.

new chapter! And it's only been a week! Haha review? :)