The moon was laughing at her.

How could it have shone so gently last night when she'd sat with Damon in the window seat, only their hands touching, gazing up at its cool, distant face? Sitting there, just for a moment, Elena had been happy. There were still steep mountains to climb, but for an instant, she'd thought that if they were together, they could face them all.

What an idiot she'd been.

Now the moon watched, its bloated, far-off face curled into a mocking smirk as Elena stumbled along the road, the taste of blood in her mouth, the stench of betrayal rising off of her in waves. Too stunned to cry, ghostly images danced before her eyes.

A sullen girl slouched in the backseat, buzzed and resentful. Her parents exchanging worried glances as they caught the smell of cheap beer. Her mother reaching back to squeeze her knee. A sickening lurch as the car careened and took flight. A scream that never seemed to end, but went on and on and on until it ended with a strangled gurgle as the water rushed in-

Headlights lanced her eyes. Pure panic ran through her: Klaus? Stefan? A hybrid? There were too many enemies. She didn't even know who she most feared anymore. A figure emerged from the car and ran towards her as she skittered towards the woods that lined the road.

"Elena! Elena, it's me!"

She drew to a halt as Damon approached. But when he reached for her, she pulled away, arms crossed tightly across her chest. "No. Don't. Not now." The thought of his hands on her transported her to other nights, other blood that killed and saved forced down her throat as she choked on the blackness. "Please. Can you just take me home?"

Back lit as he was by the headlights, Elena couldn't make out Damon's face. But his voice was gentle. "Of course. I'm just...I'm just glad you're okay, Elena. I heard Klaus on the phone with Stefan and..." He started to reach for her again, but stopped. "Believe me, Elena, I never thought Stefan would go so far. I never thought it would come to this."

"Yeah, well. He did and it did." She knew she should comfort him, that he was losing his brother even as she was losing her first real love, but she just couldn't. Not now. She was exhausted in body and spirit (and still a little tipsy) and wanted to put as much distance between her and the bridge as she could.

"C'mon. Let's get you home." Again, she saw him stop himself from reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder, to steer her to the car. They reached the vehicle and drove in silence for long moments, Damon casting her worried sidelong glances.

"I keep thinking I should get used to almost dying. That I'll come to terms with the fact that I'm going to die, and probably sooner instead of later," Elena said, staring straight out into the night. "But it doesn't work that way. I was so sure Stefan was going to do it, drive off the bridge and into the water just like..." she swallowed hard. "I was sure he was going to do it, and all I could think of was how much I wanted to live."

"You would have lived. In a way," Damon said quietly.

Maybe that was the solution. Maybe she should just stop fighting it and give in, let Damon slowly drain her until there was nothing left. When she awoke, she'd be safe. She wouldn't be the doppelganger, she wouldn't be soft and vulnerable. If she'd been a vampire, Stefan never could have grabbed her: she'd be fast and strong and immortal.

"If that happens one day, it's going to be on my terms. Not Stefan's, not Klaus', not even yours. Mine. And it won't be out of fear. It'll be for love."

Damon turned to her, eyes wide and dark, hope glinting in their depths. Hesitantly, she reached for him, placing her hand on his where it rested on the gear shift. "One day. Maybe. A really long way off. But right now, I just want to hide until I know all of his blood is gone," she sighed.

"I told you, Elena: we'll play this however you want to play it. I have...thoughts on the issue, but I realized a long time ago that you hating me for eternity wasn't a good long-term strategy." Damon started to turn into Elena's subdivision.

"No. God, no. Not there." Part of her wanted nothing more than to go home, run into her parent's room and bury herself in their bed, telling herself she could still smell her mother's Chanel Number Five on the sheets, still hear her father's electric shaver whining in the background, that nothing had changed. But the larger part of her knew that the ghosts that roamed those halls wouldn't give her peace tonight.

Damon flicked the turn signal off and continued on towards the boarding house. "Talk to me about something else. Anything else. I can't think about what happened tonight anymore. I just can't," Elena pleaded.

Elena watched as he considered and rejected multiple options for light conversational fare before settling on one. "How was Caroline's birthday?"

"She wasn't in the mood to party, so we had a funeral instead." That memory brought a smile to Elena's face. At least she'd done one good deed today. She hoped that Caroline and Tyler hadn't done anything too crazy in the woods. She didn't want to see him break her heart again.

"Of course. That's the obvious choice," Damon said dryly. "Judging by the way you smell, it was more of an Irish wake."

"Mexican, actually. Tequila."

Damon wrinkled his nose as they pulled into the long drive of the boardinghouse. "You kids. I'll have to help you cultivate better taste."

Elena couldn't stifle a laugh. "You're amazing."

"True. Why am I amazing in this particular instance?" Damon asked.

"Because tonight, Bonnie called me a manipulative bitch of a sister, I was kidnapped, force-fed vampire blood, and nearly died, but you can still make me laugh and think that maybe all that wasn't so awful compared to the fact that I had to drink tequila."

Damon put the car into park and turned towards her more fully. The full force of his tremendous gaze focused solely on her, he drew her hand to his lips and pressed soft kisses to the back, then to her palm. "I'm glad." He held her gaze for an instant longer, and a mischievous smirk crossed his face. "Just tell me you didn't eat the worm."

They disappeared into the house and pretended the world could never find them.