Wow, I feel like I am always saying this to you, but I am SO SORRY for taking this long. I meant to finish this before school started, but I ended up getting distracted by all the books I was reading. (on a positive note I have gotten a TON of reading done this summer)

So anyway, here is the next chapter! I only have 2 more chapters after this and then an epilogue. I am so close to being finished.

This chapter has my favorite DE scene that I have ever written, so I hope you enjoy it!

As always, please review and let me know what you think. Love you all!

"So this is where you have been hiding out, huh?" Katherine stated, surveying the middle class home, empty except for one other person and a number of dead bodies scattered across the wood floors. "A foreclosure, I'm guessing?"

Stefan turned around to face his new visitor. When he saw who she was, he gave an emotionless little laugh. "I suppose you are here to try to get me to turn my emotions back on? Don't like the fact that I'm going around killing people?"

Katherine made her way into the living room, stepping over a dead body like it was only a minor annoyance. "You think I care that you are killing people?"

Stefan crossed his arms. "If that's not why you are here, then why are you here?"

Now it was Katherine's turn to laugh. She finished crossing the room to where Stefan was and cocked her head to the side, an amused smile across her face. "Honestly, I'm not quite sure I know myself." She thought about that for a moment before continuing, "You know, you should just be glad I found you instead of them." She traced up the buttons on his shirt till she reached his chin, and forced him to look straight at her. "I think you should know, your girlfriend confessed her undying love to your brother's dead body last night."

Stefan's face remained unchanged. "Katherine, you know I just don't care about that anymore."

She shrugged. "You don't care right now. But someday you will."

Now Stefan turned his head to the side to get a better angle to see Katherine's face, his eyebrows were drawn together. "What difference does it make to you?"

She pulled away from him, walking towards the front window. "It doesn't, really. I just find it fascinating that you young vamps believe that you can actually turn it off, permanently." She threw him a glance, "You can't, of course. But you try." She turned back to the window, "And then, one day, you will break and it will all come rushing back in, and you won't be able to handle it." She turned to face Stefan again, her eyes were almost sad. "I'm sorry for you, on that day." She finished.

She took a deep breath, and then headed towards the door. She paused on her way out. "Oh, by the way, your secret's safe with me. I won't tell anyone else where you are."

"Damon." Elena said his name. There was so much hanging on that name. A question, a request, a confession, an exclamation. Elena wasn't even sure exactly why she had said it, but now that the two of them were alone, the room seemed like a vast space between them, and she needed not to be so far from him.

What was she supposed to do now? He was a vampire. He was immortal, just like she was, but he was now also subject to the torture of being a monster. A torture that she had wanted him to avoid. She knew it's pain first hand, but he shouldn't have to.

But there were other thoughts flying through her head, pulling for attention. Thoughts of how deep her grief had been when she had thought he was dead, and thoughts of how she felt as if a thousand ton boulder had been lifted from her shoulders when he had awoken. Thoughts that had never been voiced before last night. Thoughts Damon still didn't know she had. Thoughts she forever wondered if he reciprocated.

Thoughts that were interrupted by a small fact. Katherine had turned him. When? How? Why? These questions and more flew by in an instant, and she was left, standing in a room with him, a vast divide between them.

"Elena." He said, the name also carrying meaning, but she wasn't sure how much, or of what sort. What did her name mean to him?

Elena was at a loss for words for a moment, before saying the first thing that came to her mind. "Katherine turned you." It wasn't really a question, or an accusation, but somewhere in between.

Damon nodded. "I asked her to. Many times."

That caught Elena off guard. "You asked her to?"

"Yes."

"You knew you were going to survive when you jumped in front of that stake."

"No." Damon said quickly. "I didn't know she had followed through. She compelled me to forget."

"Why would you ask for that?" Elena asked, quickly getting angry.

Damon had a fire in his eyes. "I'm stronger now. I can protect the people I care about, instead of sitting around, letting them protect me."

Elena took a deep breath and stepped closer to him, pointing at him. "Everything I did, I did to protect you, from this life!" She threw her arms out wide. "No one should be forced to live like this."

"By this, you mean, stronger, faster, immortal. Elena I want to protect my loved ones." He paused, his eyes begging her to understand. "I wanted to be able to protect you."

She took a step closer, her voice rising. "I don't need your, or anyone else's protection. I can do just fine on my own."

Now Damon stepped closer, his voice also rising, but with no anger in it. "You shouldn't have to. No one should have to be on there own. That's why I asked her to turn me. So I would be strong enough to protect you."

Elena threw her hands up in frustration. "I specifically didn't offer to turn you, so I could protect you from this existence." She looked straight at him. "Nothing is worth condoning yourself to a life as a blood sucking monster like me."

"You are."

"What?"

Damon walked the rest of the way toward her and held her face in his hands. "You are worth it. You are worth everything that you think it is to be a vampire. All the long years, all the guilt, all the pain. You are worth protecting."

"Damon." She said just his name again looking into his deep blue eyes. There was a pause, and then her eyes flew closed, and her lips were against his.

This kiss was unlike anything she had ever experienced. It wasn't like her first kiss on that porch, or any of her kisses with Stefan. This kiss was filled with burning passion. There was no question that this was the man she was in love with. She was worth everything to him, and he meant everything to her.

When they pulled apart, Elena looked into his eyes, her hand pulling back the hair from his eyes. "Damon, when I thought you were dead, I confessed something."

A smile pulled at the corner of his lips. "What, may I ask, did you confess?"

She grinned up at him and said the three words she had been dying to say to him. "I love you."

Matt's head was reeling. Everything that Caroline had just told him was spinning through his head at 100 miles per hour, and he wasn't sure what to think. The pair of them were standing outside the Salvatore mansion, the sun still shining down, but it didn't seem real. Everything Matt had known, or at least thought he had known, about his life, about caroline, about his sister's death, was all a lie.

Finally he settled on a thought. One of the many thoughts that were whizzing around in his head kept floating to the surface, trying to make itself heard. Over and over again, Matt pushed the thought away, both for his own sanity, and for Caroline's sake, but it didn't stay down.

I don't want any of this.

He knew that this thought would mean losing Caroline, there was no way around that. She was a vampire. He didn't want anything to do with vampires. So, he didn't want anything to do with her. And as much as he hated it, this thought was only strengthened by another.

She killed my sister.

The circumstances of Vicki's death had always been weird and shaky, but now that he knew exactly what had happened, he almost felt like he didn't want to know anymore. The rational part of his brain told him that it was only and accident. That, at the time, even Caroline didn't really know what was happening. But it was an accident he couldn't except. It was too big, and too heavy.

Maybe things would have been different if Caroline regretted being a vampire, but just by the way she held herself, and how she had explained her new life to him, he knew she didn't. Of course, she regretted killing Vicki, but she had power and control she had over her life now, and he knew she would never give that up, even if there was a way that it was possible.

Matt shook his head, slowly backing away from his former girlfriend.

He opened his mouth and finally managed to get out, "No."

Caroline had tears in her eyes as she watched him move away from her. He could see the guilt for lying to him about what she was and what she had done. That made it harder for him to leave, but he had made up his mind. He took a deep breath and finally said the thought at the forefront of his mind. "I don't want anything to do with any of this." He felt tears spring up in his own eyes. "I'm sorry."

With that, he turned away and ran. He didn't know where he was going, or what he planned on doing with his new information, but he didn't care. He just wanted to get back to his normal life.

Jeremy ran up to the Salvatore mansion with Bonnie, who was still a ghost, at his side. He was slightly surprised to find Caroline standing out front, like she had been there a while, crying? He was in too much of a rush to look closely.

Caroline looked up in confusion at him as he came closer, but he didn't stop to explain. Instead, he grabbed her hand, and pulled her towards the door. "Come on, I need to tell everyone something."

He threw the front door open with no warning, which, looking back on, was probably necessary. As soon as he was in the doorway, he stopped, his eyes wide, and Caroline ran into him from the back.

The moment the door had opened, Elena and Damon had jumped apart, but they were a moment too late. It was obvious that the two had making out. They looked up at him, and Elena said, "Jeremy! I didn't know you were coming over here today."

Both Elena and Damon were red from being unexpectedly interrupted, but Jeremy quickly got over his shock. He had news. He walked into the room with Caroline and Bonnie following him in.

He looked around at them and smiled. "I think I know a way to get Bonnie back."

That got their attention. Elena's eyes flew to Damon's, filled with hope. She looked back at Jeremy. "How?"

Jeremy did his best to explain. He told them how he and Bonnie had gone over to see Bonnie's Grandmother's house, and how he had explained their situation to her. "She doesn't have anyway to bring Bonnie back from the dead for good, but she said she knew of something that might be better than Bonnie just being a ghost. We would be able to see and interact with Bonnie, but there's a catch."

"Isn't there always?" Damon added sarcastically.

Jeremy glared at him, before continuing. "Bonnie would still technically be dead. She would see both worlds at the same time, the living and the dead."

Elena scrunched her eyebrows, trying to understand what he was proposing. "So what would she be?"

Jeremy glanced at Bonnie for reassurance before continuing. She nodded and did that little hand signal that means go on. He took another deep breath and then said, "She would be the anchor to the other side."