Hello to all!

Thank you for all your lovely reviews yet again. It's good to know people are enjoying this story as much as I am writing it!

Okay so this chapter is allllll Damon. Again, apologies if he seems OOC, but this is AU and i've adopted the more human side of our Damon. Because lets face it, how adorable is he back in 1864? *squee*

The next chapter is going to be a BIG ONE. The one i've been itching to get out to you guys, but it would have just been waaaaaaay too soon. I'll explain more after this chapter, so on with the story!

Once again, I do not own anything of TVD (but I would STILL love to own Damon... werewolf bite, or no werewolf bite.)

Damon's POV

The days were dragging on by at a painfully slow pace. It was thursday, fucking thursday and Damon had to grit his teeth at the thought, wishing monday would come along already.

Sat at his desk, watching thirty, fourteen year olds work away at their tables allowed Damon time to think. Rent should have been the first thing on his mind, followed closely by his lesson plans for the next couple of weeks and to fix that incessant drip from the shower head in his apartment that continued to keep him awake on a night. Yet they were floating around in the back of his mind while still, after not seeing her since their first encounter that monday morning, Elena Gilbert remained at the forefront of his mind. She was on a constant, blissful loop in his head and he couldn't get rid of her.

And worryingly, he was starting to think he didn't want too.

Ignoring the shudder that riddled his spine, Damon checked his rolex on his left wrist. As if on cue, the school bell blasted through the room indicating the day was over. Again, like controlled robots, the kids jumped out of their seats, stuffed their work into their bags and prepared to leave.

"Okay, don't forget to read chapters 3 through 5 in your own time!" Damon shouted sternly, though he knew it had probably fallen on deaf ears.

While the kids made their way out of the room, Damon began his own ritual of packing everything away in silence. His ice-blue eyes sub-consciously glanced up to where Elena's seat was, where he could still see her glance up to him as she packed away to leave on Monday morning, wishing he could have that again right now, as opposed to waiting another few days to see her.

"I've lost it" he said to himself in a clipped tone as he moved to shut his briefcase.

He then remembered he needed to collect some papers to complete his lesson plans and he'd been told they were kept in the faculty lounge. Good job he remembered, otherwise he'd have wasted another evening of not actually sorting them out. Elena Gilbert was turning his brain into pureed mush.

Smoothing down his tie and white shirt, Damon exited his classroom and quickly made his way to the faculty lounge. He wanted to hurry up and get what he needed to avoid the school traffic on the way home. Yesterday was a total nightmare and he liked to keep his road rage streak to a very minimum. Rounding the corner and snatching on the door handle, Damon swung open the door and almost froze in his tracks to find Elena inside the faculty lounge on her own. He wondered if he wore the same expression as her, because she looked as though she'd just seen a ghost float into the room.

Damon quickly composed himself, remembering he was the teacher here and not some love-struck teenager. As he clenched his jaw and made his way inside, she looked down to her clasped hands on the table, taking a great interest at her twiddling thumbs while he wordlessly rounded the table towards the filing cabinets.

To talk, or not to talk. With a furrowed brow as he stood before the endless rows of pigeon-holes, he toyed with the idea. Why was she here in the first place? He assumed after a couple of days in the job that only misbehaving kids were sent to the faculty lounge. And Elena certainly didn't fit into that category. That, and it was the end of the day. No one was ever in here once school was out. Odd indeed.

As he found the papers he was looking for he came to his conclusion - to Hell with it.

"Rough day?"

There was a brief pause before she answered.

"W-what?"

Damon raised his eyebrows to look at her. She looked as timid as a mouse and he found it quite adorable. He smirked, and he secretly loved it when she couldn't keep eye-contact with him. Her eyes darted back to her cupped hands on the table. Damon noticed how she lowered her head when she began to blush.

"Well I can't imagine you're in here for anything good," he replied playfully, hoping it would loosen her up a bit. She looked - tense.

He expected her to answer, and it concerned him slightly when she made a determined effort to look up at him and reply, only to find she had to look away because she was fighting back tears. Damon frowned hard, his mouth fused into a straight line as he studied the fragile girl in the seat before him.

'Way to go, dickhead' mocked his brain. Damon mentally punched himself for behaving so laid-back with her when he had no idea why she was sat in this room. He knew he should have remained authoritative and he did the exact opposite. And now here she was holding back tears.

"Miss Gilbert I..."

"Right, Elena..."

Damon snapped his head up to find Jonathan Gilbert strolling into the room. He hadn't looked up, as he was busy rooting through some files in his hands, which meant he hadn't noticed Damon stood directly beside Elena straight in front of him."...now I have finally managed to get hold of you for longer than five minutes we can get down to business about the property your father left to you and Jeremy in his-"

As John's eyes raised upwards only to land upon Damon Salvatore, Damon shot him a stern look and glared with his stony, blue eyes. It caused John to falter in his stance, but he quickly regained himself and cleared his throat.

"Why, Mr Salvatore, how can I help you?"

Damon had continued to stare at him with a hard expression for a few more seconds before looking down to Elena in her seat. He knew she could tell he was looking at her, but she refused to look at him. Damon shot back to John who had now dropped his files onto the table and had his arms cross over his chest in a defensive manner. Damon grinned a little, keeping in mind that John was, however unfortunately, his superior and with the right reasons, could probably have him out of a job like 'that.'

"I just came in to collect some lesson planning papers," Damon said monotonously, waving the wad of papers in his hands nonchalantly. "I hope I haven't interrupted anything."

"No you haven't.. not quite anyway" said John with his usual clever tone which irritated Damon to no end.

Damon suddenly heard the breath hitch in Elena's throat. Oh he so badly wanted to jump to Elena's defense. She was shaking like a leaf in her seat, but he had to remember where he was, who he was, and what he could and could not say. Not to mention he had no idea what was going on. But he just knew Elena was the victim.

However Damon couldn't resist playing with fire. Just enough to burn the very tips of his fingers at least.

"Well I'll stall your meeting no further," he said to John. And just as he made it clear he was about to leave by taking a step forward, he looked away from John and back down to Elena in her seat, making her notice he was still there beside her. "I hope everything is alright, Miss Gilbert." As her hazel orbs blinked up to meet his face, he noticed them linger on his lips for the slightest of seconds before finally looking into his eyes.

"Thank you, Mr Salvatore" she whispered hoarsely.

"Yes thank you Mr Salvatore, but that will be all" pushed John, clearly wanting his pest of a new teacher to leave the room.

Damon bowed his head and swiftly left the lounge back to his classroom.

It bothered him. Everything about those few minutes in that room with Elena made him feel uneasy. Why was she so upset? And what the Hell was John talking about? Damon shook his head and began to pack his things away into his briefcase. It was none of his business and he wasn't going to meddle to the point where it was. He snapped his case shut, threw his jacket casually over one shoulder and made to leave the room.

But with his final step towards the door, he found his hand frozen firm on the door handle. The image of Elena looking up at him with tears on the verge of falling between her thick, dark eyelashes made him stop. He could not leave without finding out why she was...

'Stop right there - just open the door and leave' warned that inner voice.

With a hard grip on the handle, Damon yanked open the door and made his way down the hallway. This was getting beyond ridiculous. She was a fucking student and was fast becoming a waste of valuable time in which he should be focusing on his new job. A pretty sixteen year old who knows nothing of the world wasn't going to ruin that for him. Period.

As Damon made his way past the faculty lounge, he slowed down at the sound of raised voices.

"No, I've told you, I'm not discussing this with you anymore!"

It was Elena, her voice uneven and distressed.

"Elena you need to understand that I only want to do the best for yourself and Jeremy"

At this point Damon stopped. The temptation to listen was just too much.

"The best? Since when did you want the best for us?"

Her voice had grown louder, indicating she had made her way over to the door to leave. On the verge of being caught, and remembering how he said this girl was not going to control his every thought and move only moments before, Damon forced himself to leave the building.

Thanks to his prying and eavesdropping, Damon landed himself right in the middle of rush hour. He cursed under his breath as he crawled forward in the slow moving traffic, just wanting to get back to his apartment and unwind for the evening. He rested his hand lazily on the steering wheel while he propped his arm on the open window, using the other to flick absent-mindedly through the radio stations.

"Great, this is going to be a long..."

He stopped in his own musings when his sight landed on Elena Gilbert in his rear view mirror, walking down the sidewalk with her arms crossed firmly around her sides and her chin tucked down to her chest, completely avoiding eye-contact with the world around her.

Even from a distance, Damon could tell she had been crying. Her eyes were red raw. As she slowly crept out of sight in his mirror Damon cocked his head to the side to watch her walk past.

He could practically feel the words 'Elena, would you like a ride?' trying to burst from his parted lips. She would hear, there was no question about that. But knowing any one of her friends or his students could be around in the car behind or in front of him could risk raising a few eyebrows, even if his intentions were just to give the girl a ride home. But once again, the dangerous desire to be that one step closer to the beautiful creature walking by his car, was just too much of a good thing to avoid.

As he cleared his throat, Damon made to call after her,

"Ele-"

BEEEEEEEEEP!

The car from behind blasted their horn. Damon, almost jumping out of his skin at the sound, looked forward with wild eyes to find the traffic in front had all but disappeared.

BEEEEP! BEEEEP!

"ALRIGHT!" Damon yelled, feeling his road rage curdle within "fucking prick."

With one last glance, Damon watched Elena walk out of his sight, and then quickly sped towards his exit a few yards away, all the while thinking to himself...

..."When will Elena Gilbert get out of my fucking head?"

And so ends chapter 5!

So to all of you lovely Delena fans out there - be amazing and clickety-click on the review button to leave your thoughts.

As I said before, the next chapter is pretty explosive on the Delena front. So if you want to see Damon playing hero, a fun-loving Elena and a very alcohol induced Alaric Saltzman, leave lots and lots of reviews to get me updating quicker!

Anna x