Hey, surprise update! I know I said once a week, and then I disappeared, and then I didn't make a promise because, well, I disappeared, but now I'm here. And there is a very special occasion (besides valentine's day). You ready for it? *drum roll* I am, right now, writing the very last chapter of Singer of the Heart. You read that right. The last chapter, then an epilogue and this thing is done. I'm still a bit ahead of you guys, so no worries, it will have a dignified wrap. So here is an update, to celebrate me being almost done!

Chapter 30

Elena's pov

Coming back to the states was very weird, because it felt like we had been gone for so long. We didn't have long after we got home, until I had to start moving into my dorm room, which was something I hadn't expected to be as hard as it was. The first time Damon came in, to see me packing things into suitcases and sorting through my stuff, he had pulled an expression that told me he wasn't exactly happy about what was going on.

If I thought that had been hard, I hadn't expected what him actually driving me to college was going to be like. He was going to come and help me get settled and then we would go out for dinner together, before he would go back to Mystic Falls and I was going to be on my own for the very first time. Bonnie had in fact made it into Whitmore as well, but she wouldn't be moving in until a week after me, which meant that for the first week, I was going to be on my own, trying to make friends and be somewhat social, before term officially started.

Damon and I weren't really talking much, as we carried my stuff in and placed it around the room, so it wouldn't be in the way when we actually got around to putting things in dressers and other places. He wasn't smiling much either, and I knew he wasn't happy about this, so I felt bad being a little excited. I mean, college is the first step into adulthood and I would finally be able to focus on the things I actually wanted to do for the rest of my life - however long that was going to be, now that I was with a vampire. I had thought a lot about it while we had been in Italy, and I had just decided to go with the present, and make that decision once it seemed more relevant. Damon had been 24 when he turned, so I would still look younger than him for a few years. It really wasn't something I should care too much about, but I did. I didn't want to look like I was way older than him, just because it took me too long to decide I wanted to be a vampire. But for now, I was going to finish college and see what my life looked like after. I knew he would never force me to turn against my will.

"How are you ever going to fit all these in this tiny room?" Damon said, as we put the last box down in the room.

"I don't have that much stuff," I said, looking around. I had done my best to only pack the stuff I really thought I was going to need and leave the rest at the boardinghouse. Hopefully Damon wouldn't mind the extra clutter too much.

"Well, at least it's not as bad as the few times Caroline have gone to college. She's always compelled the dean to give her a 2 bed room, all to herself, just so she could fit it all," he said, smirking, "I could go get you and Bonnie an upgrade if you'd like?"

"That's cheating! No compulsion allowed when it has to do with my college education. I want to do this the normal human way," I said, beginning to open boxes and bags, and filling out the dresser and closets. I might as well start now, so I didn't have to spend too much time later, when I was going to try and find new friends.

I was in an all-girls dormitory, so it shouldn't be too hard to find new friends, but I was a little nervous. I'd had the friends I needed in high school, and while Bonnie was coming here later, I was all alone for now, which sucked. It made me feel more alone than I liked.

"Does that mean I can't compel the dean to let me sleep here sometimes?" Damon asked, coming up behind me and putting his arms around me. I giggled, turning around and putting my arms around his neck.

"We will just have to be sneaky in the old fashion way," I said and pressed my lips against his. He murmured his disapproval against my lips, but didn't break the kiss.

"What do you say you and I spend the rest of the afternoon christening your dorm room?" he whispered against my lips, his hands slowly going from my back, down to my ass. I smiled against his lips and started pulling his leather jacket off.

"I think that's the best idea you've had in a while," I said, finally managing to drag the jacket off his arms. His hands quickly went to the hem of my shirt and dragged it over my head.

2 hours later my dorm room was very thoroughly christened and I was lying on Damon's chest, while he was lying on the floor, both of us fighting to catch our breaths.

"That was a great way to say goodbye," I said, laughing against his chest. I had expected a laugh and a sarcastic remark from him, but it didn't come. Instead, he moved around a bit and moved my hair to the side, so he could see my throat with fresh bite marks.

"Here, take some of my blood," he said, and lifted his wrist to bite into it. I frowned and lifted my head from his chest.

"What's the matter?" I asked, as the blood dropped down from his wrist.

"I don't like seeing you look like a human blood bag. Just take the blood, Elena," he said and pressed his wrist against my mouth. I frowned, as I swallowed his blood, feeling my skin stitch up.

"I am not buying that, at all. Tell me what's up," I said, pulling his wrist away. He had never forced his blood on me like that, and I didn't like it. It didn't feel like my choice.

"Nothing, Elena. Let me see your neck," he said and pushed the hair away again. I got up, finding my clothes on the floor and hastily putting it on.

"I don't know what's wrong with you, but I don't like the way you're acting right now," I said, pulling on my shorts and shirt.

"What do you mean?" he said, following my lead and getting dressed. I sighed. I knew he knew what I was talking about, but I had no idea why he was playing dumb.

"Alright, so that's the way you want to play it. You just forced your blood on me, and something set you off and for some reason you aren't telling me," I said, turning around and looking for my hairbrush, to get my hair under control.

"I forced my blood on you? Last time I checked, you were the one swallowing," he said, ripping his shirt from the bedpost so hard it ripped in half. I rolled my eyes and opened the closet, knowing the t-shirt I had stolen from home, to have something to remind me of him, was in there. When I found it, I threw it to him and kept looking for the hairbrush.

"Yes, Damon, but you pushed your wrist against my mouth. You have never done that before and I don't like it. So don't give me that crap. I don't get it, Damon. I thought we were past this," I said, finally finding the hairbrush at the bottom of a box. I then started brushing my hair furiously in front of the mirror at the end of the room. Damon's bloody hand print was in the top of it, giving me flashbacks to what had just happened.

"Nothing is wrong, Elena. I'll see you next weekend."

And just like that, he was gone.

It took me a while to calm down enough to start realizing what had happened and break down crying. That was not how I had pictured our goodbye, on my first day of college. It was supposed to be a bittersweet "see you soon" down in the street, while kissing him goodbye and waving as I saw his Camaro drive away.

Instead we were fighting, I was crying in my room and I had no idea how we were going to make up. Was I supposed to just wait until next weekend, go back to Mystic Falls and hope everything was alright again?

I wasn't sure how to handle it. Damon had never been able to run from me like that before and when we'd had disagreements, we'd always made sure to solve them. This time, he had just taken off and let me sit here and cry.

I was missing him already. It had only been an hour and a half since he left, and yet I felt like a part of me was missing. I had missed him before, sure, but not like this. Maybe it was just because I knew he was a 2 hour drive away from me by now.

I knew I couldn't let it control me, though, so I wiped my tears away, got up from the floor and found my makeup bag. I would just have to distract myself by meeting people and get out. I knew that if I stayed in my room, I was just going to have too much time to think about him and miss him. I wasn't the problem in this case, so I wasn't going to think of a way to solve it - it would have to be his initiative this time.

I grabbed the papers I had gotten when we arrived and looked through the plan of activities for the first few weeks. Apparently there was a mixer going on, which would be perfect for distracting myself. So, I decided to put the rest of my clothes in the dresser and at the same time tried to find a perfect outfit for going out. Then I got my curling iron out and putting on music.

As soon as I was all dolled up, I grabbed my purse, made sure I had everything and I was just about to walk out the door, when it opened and a defeated looking Damon stood there. He was wearing the same clothes as last time, but his hair was looking funny and in his hands were a box of chocolates and flowers.

"Move in with me?" he asked, his eyes begging and his posture was saggy. My mouth dropped open, as I took in everything, and then it hit me what he had just asked me.

"W-what?… Damon, I-"

"I don't want to spend more than 9 hours apart from you and I don't know what to do when we're 2 hours from each other, so I got an apartment right next to campus, where we can live, and you can decorate it and we can go shopping, but just, please, don't make me go so long without seeing you," he blurted out in one go. It finally sunk in, and I dropped my purse on the ground to jump in his arms, making him drop both flowers and chocolate.

"Yes, Damon, of course," I said, kissing him hard on the lips, letting him carry me inside, so we could re-christen the dorm room I was going to be leaving less than 10 hours after I had moved in. In the back of my head, I was wondering what Bonnie was going to say about it, but I really couldn't think too much about it, because Damon's fingers were ripping my panties off.

It turned out the apartment Damon had gotten us, was a lot more luxurious than I had imagined. I knew he had money, but I hadn't imagined he was going to blow this kind of money on an impulse buy.

"This is amazing," I said, as he showed me around.

It was very light, more light than I had expected Damon to like, since the boardinghouse was so dark and old. This was the complete opposite, which made me wonder if he had gotten this more for me than for him. It was prettty big - the kitchen and living room was one big room and it had a small guest bathroom, one guest bedroom, the master bedroom and bathroom. The living room had one big glass wall in the back, which gave us a very nice view of campus.

"Do you like it?" he asked, nervously. I smiled at him.

"I love it. When can we move in?" I asked, imagining furniture in here. That was another problem - unless Damon wanted to move all his furniture from the boarding house, we had nothing.

"Immediately. We just have to go shopping for furniture," he said, a smile finding it's way back to his lips, now that he knew that I liked the apartment.

"Really?" I said, gaping at him.

"Yeah. I mean, I can go get some, if you want. I know there's a ton of college stuff going on, if you want to go to that," he said, shrugging and looking around.

"No, I want to go with you," I said, putting down my bag. There was going to be other mixers along the road and right now I wanted to decorate the apartment with Damon, rather than go get drunk. We could always do that at some later point.

"Alright then," he said, putting his arms around me, "I'm glad you said yes."

I smiled up at him, kissing his lips gently.

"Of course I said yes," I said, wrapping my arms around him as well, "I was missing you so much already."

"I thought you might wanted to stay on campus, instead of coming with me. Get the real college experience, you know," he said, and I could see the vulnerability in his eyes. Had that been what had gotten him so upset earlier? Me moving away?

I had always thought he was fine with me going away for college. I mean, I knew he'd rather stay with me through everything, but it was an essential part of growing up and something I had to go through.

It wasn't going to be much different, living with Damon instead of living on campus. I would just have to go a little bit further to be at classes, but that wasn't going to be an issue. It was still closer than the boarding house had been to my high school.

"I don't care all that much," I said, smiling at him, "for all I care, this is perfect. I get to live with you and still see you every day and I can still go to college, participate in all the activities and be a real undergrad. I like it this way."

Damon smiled at me and kissed my forehead, "I'm glad you think so."

Getting furniture turned out to be a lot more fun than I had anticipated it to be. Damon and I were running around, trying to find whatever fit best in with the light apartment, and he did all the heavy lifting. In the beginning I felt bad, but he quickly reminded me that he wouldn't be paying for all this, if he didn't want to. He was just as excited as I was, to start our home together.

We had to make sure nobody was watching, every time Damon was grabbing furniture he really wasn't supposed to be able to lift. I kept watch for him while he got everything down on the two carts we had brought. We had rented a trailer as well, so we would be able to bring it all home. I knew the store had delivery available as well, but we might as well bring it home on our own and spend time trying to make it all go together. We had after all never sat through the challenge of putting together Ikea furniture, without getting mad at each other before. All the furniture in the boarding house was from way before Ikea's time, and I'm sure they hadn't come with instructions and a screwdriver.

Damon didn't let me see the total and interrupted the cashier, before she could tell us, which was enough for me to figure out it was way more money than we should be spending. I was about to comment on it, but he just gave me one look and I kept quiet. It was his money, after all.

Damon drove more carefully home than I had ever seen him drive before. Usually he would drive at least 10 over the speed limit and swing around corners way faster than he was meant to, but this time, he drove carefully and even checked his mirrors to make sure we still had everything.

I had gotten my driver's license, but I hadn't been using it much, since Damon liked driving. I knew that was bound to change, because he wanted me to be able to drive - I wasn't sure if I liked the idea too much.

I had done pretty well at the test and I had passed with no mistakes, thanks to Damon's teaching, but I still didn't feel all that comfortable driving. I especially didn't want to drive across bridges - when we had gotten to the bridge where my parents had died, I had refused to drive across it. It was just too much to handle, even though it had already been a year and a half since they passed.

Lucky for me, it had only been when Damon and I were practicing, so he was able to comfort me, calm me down and then take the wheel while we drove across. We didn't have to go that way when I took my actual driving test.

This time, Damon was driving because I'd never driven with a trailer before and I didn't want to leave a trail of Ikea furniture behind on the way.

"This is weird," I said, looking out the window.

"What's weird?" he asked, looking at me. I sighed and leaned back in my seat.

"Growing up. I mean, this time, two years ago, I was living with my family and my biggest worry was whether or not I could make cheerleading practice. Now, I've almost died three times, I've lived with three vampires, I'm in college and I'm already moving out of my dorm room, to be with the man I love," I said, realizing just how much my life had changed in such a short time. It was scary, but in a way, I didn't mind it all that much. I missed my family and I didn't like missing out on so many events I should have spent with them, but my life wasn't as bad as I thought it would have been.

"Yeah, you have been through a lot over a short span of time," he said, reaching over to me and squeezing my thigh, "are you feeling okay?"

That really was a good question. To be fair, I had no idea if I was okay. I mean, most of the time, I was so focused on what was going on, that I didn't even have time to think too much about it. It was only when I had those very few quiet moments, where I actually got to think about what was going on, that it hurt and I started feeling horrible. It almost made me feel even worse, that I wasn't more sad more often.

"I guess… I mean… it's life, isn't it? It's supposed to be changing and it's supposed to be scary sometimes," I said, although I wasn't exactly sure. Damon chuckled and looked back in the road.

"Yes, Elena, it is supposed to be scary and it's supposed to keep changing. And you're meant to have these emotions about it. You've been through so much, that it would be weird if you weren't panicking about everything changing," he said, turning onto campus.

"Did you have the same feelings when you were my age? I mean, you lost your mom so young and you had issues with your dad…" I asked, once again thinking of 18 year old Damon, who had nobody to trust, except for a girl, who would rather have his brother, than him.

"It was a different time, Elena… we weren't allowed to have feelings like that. The concept of teenagers didn't actually exist back then. You were a child and then you were an adult, who had to work and make the family proud," he said, his jaw tightening. I didn't really know how to respond to that, but it did made sense.

"That sounds really tough," I said, putting my hand on his. It was currently resting on the gear shift.

"It wasn't that bad. It was just a different time," he said, trying to make it sound like it was a big deal. I almost believed him, but I knew he had a hard time with his past. If he didn't, he wouldn't have taken so long to tell me about it.

"You had a rough childhood," I said, stroking his hand with my thumb. His jaw tightened even further, as we drove into the underground parking garage.

"It's in the past," he said, parking in the space that was meant for our apartment. I leaned over and kissed his cheek.

"That it is," I whispered and got out of the car. He sat in there for a little while, before he turned the car off and got out, starting to work on getting the furniture loose from the trailer. I helped him, grabbing the smaller boxes that I knew I would be able to carry. Damon grabbed three of the bigger boxes and hoisted them up, motioning for me to get the elevator.

I pushed the button and we got in, hoping nobody else was going to get in. It would be hard to explain how Damon could carry a table, the frame for a bed and the frame for a couch, without any help at all. I didn't want Damon to compel anyone, if it wasn't necessary.

We almost made it to our apartment when someone stepped in. I frowned as I saw him, because I felt like I had seen him before.

"Elena?" he said, his mouth opening in surprise. It took me a little while to figure out who he was, but then it hit me. He was the guy who had come up to us at my family's wake. Nate.

"Nate! It's been a while since I've seen you," I said and Damon stood even closer to me. I could feel his hand near my hip. I knew he was protective, but I couldn't see how Nate would be able to hurt me. Damon would have known if he wasn't human and as far as I knew, there wasn't any other supernatural creatures that would be after me.

"Yeah, not since the wake. Are you guys living in the building?" he asked, looking at the boxes of furniture sitting on the floor of the elevator.

"Why do you care?" Damon asked, looking suspiciously at him. I rolled my eyes.

"Don't mind Damon, he can be a bit protective. Yes, we just moved in today. I'm an undergrad at Whitmore," I said, smiling at him, "do you live here?"

He smiled back and pressed the floor just underneath us.

"Yeah, I've been living here for a while. I got a teaching position at the college," he said, as the elevator started moving up again.

"Oh, really? What are you teaching?" I asked. Damon was standing behind me, his hand on my hip and he really didn't seem too happy with me talking to him.

"Drama. Will I see you in class?" he asked, as the doors opened on his floor. I smiled, knowing Damon wouldn't have to compel him.

"Sadly not," I said, as he stepped out.

"Well, maybe I'll see you around then," he said, as the door closed. The elevator went further up and Damon turned me towards him, clearly showing me how displeased he was.

"Do you have a death wish?" he asked, his blue eyes furious. I frowned.

"He's just a human drama teacher, Damon. I don't exactly think he'll try to kill me. You're being a bit paranoid," I said, as the elevator doors opened again, this time on our floor. Damon hoisted up the furniture and I grabbed my boxes and we exited the elevator.

"There's something off about him, Elena, and after all the shit you've gone through, I'm not taking any chances," he said, balancing the furniture on one hand, while opening the door.

"You can't just control who I'm talking to, Damon. You're acting paranoid and that's not going to keep me from making new friends. And he knew my parents. I have to know more," I said, putting down boxes and going back towards the elevator.

Damon sped in front of me before I could even reach the door.

"No, Elena. I'm just trying to protect you. Why don't you understand that?" he said, his blue eyes almost on fire from the frustration. I sighed and went around him.

"Don't worry so much, Damon. Not everybody is out to kill me," I said, pushing the elevator button. He didn't answer, but I knew the fight wasn't over yet.

There we are! I can't wait to hear your thoughts and what you think of Elena's moving around. The singer bond is getting stronger and we all know Damon can't keep hiding it from her...

As for the future - I already have a plot for the fic I'm going to start working on after this. Foreverfirstloves and I spent an amazing, what, 7 hours planning and coming up with ideas and I'm already so hooked on that story... let's just say it involves a prison, a hardcore Damon and a lot of smut...