A/N: Okay guys, this is gonna be a big one. (At least it is to me.) I sincerely hope you enjoy!

All my devoted, sappy, snuggle-happy love to my beta, Trogdor19, who always somehow finds time to make me smile and laugh despite what's going on in her whackadoodle life, and mine. COME PLAY WITH ME. I'LL BRING THE TVD EPISODES AND THE SCREWDRIVERS. I'LL EVEN RENT A BLOWTORCH. YOU KNOW YOU WANNA...

Chapter 23: The Truth Behind the Pictures

I can do this. I'm a grown man and that fickle woman isn't going to rule my world anymore.

I swipe my badge at the door and go inside, strolling in at a comfortable 8:53 a.m. I'm a little grouchy, probably because I'm crazy hungover after drinking away my weekend. Ric was happy to participate and enable me while I spilled my whiny little guts to him about me and Elena meeting in the bathroom of the gym, how close I thought I was to having her back and then how it all went to shit two minutes later. He listened when I explained to him how stupid I felt about the whole thing, and instead of giving me crap about it and calling me the pussy that I feel like, he told me that if it had been him, he'd have done everything the same.

Because little did I know, there was a moment not long after Ric and Jenna got together that they split up for a while. He wasn't ready to settle down and she was getting closer than he was comfortable with, and he gave her the boot. The reason I didn't know about it was because he said it took him all of five seconds to realize that he was being a complete dumbass, and he didn't want to admit the lengths he went to in his attempts to get her back. Calling her, "bumping into her" where he knew she would be, talking to her sisters. Your basic creepy stalking.

As the night went on and gritty honesty started flowing as easily as his whiskey, Ric confessed that he'd never imagined a woman could bring him to that level, that he always considered himself too much of a badass for that flowery, romance bullshit. But the trick to being a moron and a whipped sucker and still being able to call yourself a man, he said, was that it was fine to be as sappy and emotional as you wanted, as long as it was only for one specific pair of legs.

I told him that was all great, but how many beatings can you take before you cut your losses in the interest of self-preservation? And you know what that asshole told me? That if it was him, he'd let Jenna kick his ass seven times a week as long as it meant she was standing right in front of him.

That shit just sounds unhealthy to me, but I guess I see his point.

Although not that theoretical sight even matters because holy shit, all I can actually see is red.

Summer is winding down, and since a cold front blew in last night it is now fifty degrees outside, and as I walk down the aisle towards my desk the only thing in my line of sight is red and white and black and she's doing this on purpose, I know she is. Because Elena is walking towards me like she's coming back from the break room, wearing that goddamn red trench coat with the big black buttons, and to top it off the front is open so I can see that her hips are wrapped in that high-waisted black pencil skirt and when I risk a glance, she's got on the red stilettos to match.

I glance back up at her eyes and when she blushes, I shake my head at the level she just stooped to. I turn left into my cubicle as she pauses beside my desk, our shoulders barely missing by an inch.

"Good morning, Damon," she says quietly as I take my seat, and it takes her a second after I don't respond before those red heels slowly make their way into her own cubicle. I see from my peripheral vision as she shrugs out of her coat and hangs it on the back of her chair, but then she changes her mind and folds it up, placing it in her bottom drawer. "Hi Ric," she says, trying to sound cheerful, but it's too forced and it doesn't fool me.

"Good morning, Elena," he tells her while I fire up my computer. "How was your weekend?"

I take a sip of my coffee and try not to listen, scanning my emails and praying there's one from Camden that says that they need me to start training new hires right away.

"Nothing too wild, stayed home. How was yours?"

I can't hear anything. La-la-la-la-la.

"Fuzzy," Ric says with a chuckle and I go to peek over my shoulder at him, but my sight snags on Elena smiling apologetically at me.

"Since neither of you have noticed," I snap and point to the monitors that are lit up with calls holding, "we're too busy for swapping campfire tales right now."

I jerk on my headset and hit my Auto In button, praying we stay slammed for the rest of forever because I have no desire to listen to either of their voices anymore. "Claims reporting, this is Damon…"

"I need to report that my mother was killed in a wreck last Thursday…"

It's official, life can't get any worse.

I take it back.

Because as I straighten from grabbing a drink out of the vending machine, I find Elena leaning against the counter in the otherwise empty break room. Today it's back to the normal church clothes since trying to seduce me with that skirt and coat was a crash and burn, and now her cardigan is buttoned all the way up and the pinstripe pants are back in play and she keeps tugging the hems of her sleeves down over her hands like she's self-conscious about her appearance.

That's just ridiculous. She looked amazing yesterday, but that's not what this is about. And yeah, the woman can certainly still turn my head, but it doesn't mean that I'm suddenly fine with everything else. If she thinks she can erase the last few weeks with a pencil skirt and some high heels, she couldn't be more wrong.

At least she seemed to get that memo, but now she's pulling out the sad little smiles and bringing up dangerously sensitive subjects. I guess she's trying to remind me that for about five minutes I had a mushy, gushy heart, but that has now been locked away and the key to it destroyed. Because the burns she leaves behind are third degree, and even if I did decide to give this another shot, she's only going to change her mind about it six times in the first five minutes. Too bad for her, I've learned my lesson.

"Your mom wants you to call her," she tells me timidly, and I scowl at her.

"Don't talk to her about me," I say harshly, and Elena sighs.

"I didn't call her to snoop, I just wanted to say hi. She's the one that was insistent on telling me—"

"Stop."

"How you won the district spelling bee when you were in seventh grade." She bites her lip with a blush, and I narrow my eyes at her. Then her expression softens, her voice dropping lower. "And how you got suspended from school for fighting during your junior year, and then again as a senior."

"Is there a point to all this?"

"How about…" she says, then pushes off the counter so she's standing right in front of me, her voice so private it's barely above a whisper, "the fact that you didn't start baking with her until after Devon died?" My eyes flare in fury, but she doesn't stop. "She says you never left her side for a minute the first few months. And when you eventually moved out, it was because she made you, because you didn't want her to be alone."

"That is none of your business," I snarl, and she tilts her head at me.

She waits a moment before saying, "Can I tell you something?"

"Is there anything I can say to stop you?"

She steps a little closer and places her palm over my heart in the tiny space between us. "You did everything you could for him," she tells me gently, and my body jerks. "It was not your fault."

"Who the hell do you think you are to say that shit to me?" I seethe, and the confidence in her eyes falters as her hand falls away from my chest. But as I stare her down, something else flashes over her face that reminds me of all the times she's asked if I was in trouble, and her chin lifts.

"I'm the person that's qualified to tell you that, and you need to hear it from someone that cares enough to make you listen."

I lock my jaw, and she takes a deep breath.

"You need to reevaluate the man that you think you are. Because the only person who is putting you down, is you."

I startle when I feel the soft bump of her knuckles brushing over the back of my hand, and after I jerk away from her touch I stand a little taller and cross my arms. Her eyes close with a tremble of her bottom lip, and I try not to notice when she tugs her sleeves back down so just the tips of her fingers are exposed.

She opens her eyes and looks up at me like she's steeling herself, squaring her shoulders. "Want to come over for dinner tonight?" she says hopefully, and I look at her like she's as crazy as she's acting. "There's something I'd like to show you."

"No."

She ducks her head, tucking her hair behind her ear as she nods. "Okay," she says softly, and then she swallows as though she's determined to push past my rejection. She looks back up at me, her voice a little stronger when she says, "If you change your mind, I'm making eggplant parmigiana." She gives me a strained smile and then starts walking out of the break room, but her hands are fidgeting restlessly by her sides.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

I mosey into work confidently on Wednesday, because thanks to the scheduling gods I know I have an entire day of not having to hear her voice wish me good morning. I won't have to deal with her asking me if I want her to grab me something to drink from the break room when she gets up to stretch her legs, and even though I tell her no, she'll bring me back a finger sized bottle of some weird vitamin-enhanced red goop, telling me that as far as pick-me-ups go it's just as effective as a Monster, but it's a lot better for me.

I know she's trying to show me that she cares, and if I was a better man I would hear her out, but…I can't. Because she's the sun on a cloudy day and when you step outside at first, everything is fine. It's bright enough to see and you don't notice anything is wrong, but then the clouds part and light rains down and it's everything you didn't realize that you were missing. But then suddenly the wind shifts and the sun goes back into hiding, and filtered through the dense gray, it's all a thousand times darker than it was before.

I don't need that in my life. It's dark enough to begin with.

I get to my desk and sit casually in my chair, my shoulders lighter but also more tense at the hollow space across the aisle from me. I clear my throat and go to drop my keys and phone in my desk drawer, but I startle when I see a CD case in there. My brow furrows as I pick it up, nothing to identify it on the front or the back. But when I open it, written on the disc in Elena's loopy cursive, I see the words "Die Hard 6: Holly Gennero's Race for Redemption."

And despite the fact that it's a little weird that she must have snuck in late last night to leave it in my desk, I feel the corner of my mouth turn up. Because that means she watched the rest of the series and discovered that Bruce Willis' character's wife did divorce him, even after all the times he fought for her. I wonder if that hit a little too close to home for Elena.

So I sit and stare at my desk drawer all day long. I fumble more claims than I did when I first started, and Ric has to ask me twice when he needs to borrow a pen. The minutes drag, and over the next crawling ten hours I change my mind upwards of seventeen times about what I'm going to do with that CD case. Throw it out the window on the way home, take it over to her apartment and leave it on her doorstep so she knows that I'm still sticking to my guns, bury it in Devon's golf bag where the rest of my skeletons live, or just suck it up and watch it. Someone should probably give me a daisy to pluck the petals off of.

In the end, I stall. I get home and take a shower, change clothes. I reorganize my movie shelf. I break out my putter and practice rolling the golf ball into my single, bachelor cup until I can't remember the last time I missed. But it's no use.

I sigh, putting up my putter and grabbing my laptop, sitting on my bed and propping up the pillows behind me. I put in the disc and scrub a hand over my face, not sure why I'm being such a pussy about this. I've heard all the worst things she could ever say to me, and I survived them. I can deal with this too.

Her face fills my laptop screen, and a sharp twang of something sour jolts through me. She's still disarmingly beautiful, especially with no makeup and her hair in a messy ponytail, wearing a t-shirt with a picture of Minnie Mouse on the front that says "Big Ears Are Beautiful." And just because I can't be with her doesn't mean that I don't still love her, despite the fact that on the worst days, I wish I didn't. But I've never been in control when it comes to how she makes me feel.

"Hey, Damon," she says with a smile, and I feel myself return it. It's not like there's anyone here to see me do it. "So, I'd really appreciate it if you wouldn't turn this video off right away. Although I wouldn't blame you if you did," she says guiltily, glancing down. But then she looks back up and takes a breath like she's gaining her resolve. "But anyways, I thought this may be a little easier. So here I am, in my bedroom…" She leans to the side to display her headboard and the abundance of pillows that are arranged behind her, and then she leans back to the focus of the screen. "And talking to a computer. Yep."

Her mouth twists to the side like she's unsure of what to say next, and I can't help but to chuckle a little.

"Now, I know I promised you a Die Hard movie, and by the way, wow about John McClane's kids. Craziness," she says all adorably and I grin a tiny bit wider. I can't believe she watched those movies. "But, I may have fibbed a little. Sorry."

She wrinkles her nose, and I blow out a breath. Fuck, I've missed that. I run a hand through my hair, hardening myself to anything she's going to say. It's not going to change anything.

"Instead, I am going to completely embarrass myself and give you tons of ammunition to use against me the next time you see fit. Deal?"

She waits a second and then nods like I answered, and I settle a little more comfortably against my pillows.

She holds up a photo album, her name written in big glittery letters on the front.

"Introducing," she says dramatically, "the evidence of how much of a geek I really am."

She smiles brightly and opens the book, and on the first page there's a massive photo of her as a baby with her mom. She must've just been born because she's all red and crying and there's a big tuft of brown hair on the top of her head, and her mom looks completely exhausted and like she's never been happier.

"My first photo," Elena tells me, a soft smile on her face. She glances down and then back up at me. "This is my mom, Miranda. She's pretty much my hero, but she also drives me a little bit nuts. Like all moms do, I guess."

She turns the page and it's another baby picture, but her dad is in this one and they're all posed together with her mom holding a bundled Elena in her arms.

"See this handsome, slightly scary man?" she says teasingly. "That would be 'Papa Ranger' as you have taken to calling him. His name is Grayson, and yes," she says and rolls her eyes, "I look just like him, except shorter. And I am totally and completely a daddy's girl, which I'm sure is no surprise to you."

She flips through a few more pages, pointing out her grandparents and aunts and uncles, a polaroid of a kindergarten-aged Elena holding her newborn brother, telling me how when he was born she made her dad promise to always love her best. She blushes and rolls her eyes at herself, telling me sarcastically that she's oh so meek.

She turns more pages and pretends to gag when she shows up as a pre-teen in a sparkly leotard, posing against a pink curtained backdrop and proudly holding a baton with a great big smile on her face. She grimaces more and more as I continually laugh harder, because there's an endless string of pictures with her dressed like this: team photos, her proudly holding trophies next to her parents, one of her sitting cross-legged on a gym floor and putting on makeup with one hand while eating a slice of pizza with the other. They last all the way until she's in high school, her smile the same from the beginning to the end when she finishes with a picture of her in a cap and gown, her parents on either side of her as she holds up her diploma.

"God, that was embarrassing." Elena sighs in the video, and she puts the album down beside her on her bed.

I shift a little as she picks up another, and then she seems to change her mind as she places it in her lap.

"Damon, what I'm about to show you means a lot to me, and it's a big part of who I am, so I'd really like to share it with you. I understand if this is going to upset you," she says and my brow furrows, "but you said that you believe in full disclosure, and I want to be honest with you. So I'm going to be."

She picks up the album again and opens it, and when I see the first picture, my jaw locks closed.

"This is me and Matt when we were about six," she says gently, showing me a picture of them playing in her room as a kid. "Our parents met at church, and we ended up being in the same class at school, so we spent a lot of time together."

She's not kidding. There are dozens of photos of them together through the years, birthday parties and holidays and joined-family vacations, the standard stiff poses before school dances, a few of them in white robes as they sing side by side in a church choir. There's even one of him in a football uniform and her in that glittery baton outfit while they stand in a line on a brightly lit football field, linked arm in arm while both wearing sashes like it must have been for homecoming.

"He was a really good guy," she tells me. "Very into volunteering, very active in the community. He led the peer counseling program at our high school and our chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He even led petitions on trying to get the school to implement a healthier lunch menu." She pauses and laughs a little. "Matt was crazy about it, and he started wearing armbands with a picture of a cow inside a circle with the line through it. He actually got in trouble for badgering the lunch ladies about how they should stand up to the school board and refuse to cook anything that wasn't a nutritionally balanced meal made from organic products."

She shakes her head with an affectionate smile, and all I can think is to wonder what the hell she ever saw in me when she was married to Captain America. I don't think I've ever volunteered for anything a day in my life, except to be the first one in the line for free alcohol.

"Honestly, I'd never thought that much about the whole animal thing, but it meant a lot to him, so that's why I'm a vegetarian."

My eyebrows shoot up at that, and she shrugs.

"I could go back to eating meat, I suppose, but I'm just used to not doing it now and…" She takes a deep breath. "Honestly, I always felt like I should try to be better, like Matt was, and I respected him so much for all those things he did and believed in. And after he died, I tried really hard to be the best person I could because I didn't want him to be disappointed in me."

She shrugs again, looking at the picture.

"I guess it sounds stupid, but I didn't want to let him down." She peeks at me and then away again, the corner of her mouth tugging down like she's ashamed to confess something. "But just between you and me, Damon, it's exhausting trying to be perfect all the time."

I sigh and cross my arms over my chest, and I get it, but I also hate the idea that anyone ever made her feel like she wasn't good enough. I don't know if I've ever heard anything more fundamentally wrong than that.

"I'm…um…I'm going to skip over the wedding," she says quietly and I bite the inside of my lip, trying to rein in my jealously. "And that brings us to…" she says and turns to a marked page towards the end of the book, and I flinch.

She doesn't say anything, just steadily looking into the screen as I absorb the picture. An adult Matt is in a leather recliner, but instead of looking like a model for Tommy Hilfiger like he does in all the other photos, his hair is gone and an IV is hooked up to his arm. His eyes are closed and he's thin and pale, but there's a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as he gives a thumbs up, a gold band on the ring finger of his left hand.

I close my eyes and shake my head, hearing Elena turn another page.

"And then this…"

I make myself open my eyes and it's a self-shot that she must have taken, the camera looking down on them as they lay in a hospital bed. His body looks completely wasted away with how sunken his cheeks are under the nebulizer, his eyes closed and face turned towards Elena as she forces a smile beside him, a tear rolling back down her temple and into the pillow they're sharing.

"He died two days after I took this," Elena tells me quietly, closing the book and setting it down beside her. "I don't have any pictures after that for a long time. It all kind of just…stopped."

I clear my throat, unable to imagine what that must have been like for her. I mean, I know what it was like for me, but it's different for everyone.

"A few years went by and my parents helped me a lot, and Caroline's support has been amazing. I don't know what I would have done without her. But life insurance and savings only go so far and…" She blows out a breath, then shrugs. "Before I knew it, I was broke." Her voice is almost teasing, and it helps to unwind the knot in my chest. "So I ended up getting this job, and I want to tell you about it."

My head tilts, and she winks and holds up a third album.

"This is where I work," she says, opening the album to reveal a picture of the outside of the building we both spend our days at. A small smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, and I relax more comfortably against my pillows. "It's not bad, as far as jobs go. The pay is good and the schedule is nice, and I get to talk to people all day, which I enjoy."

She turns the page, and my eyes widen.

"But the thing about my job," she says, an eyebrow arched deviously, "is that I work with some very colorful people." She glances down at the picture and then back up at me. "These two especially."

I press my fist against my mouth, because I can't believe she actually has a picture of me and Ric. He's rolling his eyes with a grin as I stand behind his chair, acting like I'm gonna dump a cup of coffee all over him.

"The guy sitting down is Ric," she tells me like I don't know that, and I chuckle. "He's an amazing person to have as a friend. He and I talk a lot in the mornings, and he's a really good listener. I'm very lucky to know him." She smiles and then points to me in the picture, cocking an eyebrow. "The one about to ruin his best friend's clothes is Damon, and he is trouble with a capital T."

I burst out with a laugh, and she turns the page.

I shake my head slowly, in pure shock that she has another picture of me, but in this one I'm sitting in my chair with my ankles crossed on my desk, leaning all the way back with my hands laced behind my head as I smirk confidently.

"Talk about eye candy," she says dramatically and fans herself. "So, this guy, he is just…" She trails off, then seems to give up on finding a word and waves her hand over her head instead. "I'll admit," she says jokingly, "I kinda had a crush on him when I first started working there, because he is a flirt if I've ever met one and it's impossible not to melt under those blue eyes."

My eyebrow quirks up, along with my ego.

"But things were complicated," she says a little more seriously. "I was still reeling from losing Matt, and Damon was a twenty-one year old certified Casanova, and it all felt too soon and straight up dangerous to go there. So I didn't."

"You certainly didn't," I mutter, then roll my eyes at myself for talking back to my laptop. Moron.

"But it's funny what happens when you sit next to someone for three years," she says warmly, then turns the page to show another picture of me.

I'm now sitting hunched over at my desk, my head resting on my folded arms and appearing to be asleep with my headset on. Score.

"You start to see the person that's behind that smug exterior. Damon, for example, is all dirty jokes and bad language and constantly talking about his lack of celibacy," she says pointedly, and I wince. "But when he talks to customers…" She trails off and shakes her head. "He's really sweet. He's patient with them, and he makes them laugh."

She smiles a little like she's remembering something, and I wish I knew what it was, but really I just…I don't understand. Because the only thing I can think is how during all those years when she shouldn't have cared anything about me, she saw me anyway.

"He helped me a lot when I first started, and he's never made me feel like a nuisance despite the fact that I bug him a lot about things that I should already know. I really, really looked up to him, and I still do, although I'm sure he doesn't know that because I've always been a little hard on him."

I swallow, re-crossing my arms.

"One day," she says sentimentally and turns the page, and instead of a photo, she has the scorecard from when we played golf tucked in the clear sleeve. "Things started to change. We began bumping into each other outside of work, and there was an obvious connection between us that I'd been trying to deny for a while. Because the truth is, he intimidates me," she says shyly. "And it was hard to imagine ever trusting someone like I trusted Matt. Especially a guy like Damon, who is pretty much the exact opposite of everything that I ever knew."

She shifts a little and tucks her hair behind her ear, and I tighten my arms across myself.

"It was overwhelming. In good ways, and sometimes, in bad. Because Damon is the kind of guy that turns all the girls' heads, and from what I've seen, they all hope to be the one to turn his. But he is an uncatchable, confirmed bachelor," she says simply, then tilts her head and her tone perks up. "Like George Clooney."

I laugh unexpectedly, and she smiles like she knew I would.

"So when a guy like this starts to open up and go the distance for you, it takes over your whole life. You forget about things like your past, because he's so blindingly bright he just blocks out everything else. And when he's considerate, and gentle, charming and surprisingly respectful, you feel like the most important person in the world. Because you know that he's not like that with everyone, but he chose to be like that with you."

She pulls the scorecard out of the sleeve and sets the album down, looking at that postcard-sized piece of paper in her hands as though it's precious.

"This is where he took me on our first date," she says sweetly. "And even though Mr. I'm So Cool said it wasn't a date, it felt like one to me."

My eyes pinch closed as I remember that day, how absolutely perfect it was. How much it meant to me that she was by my side on those fairways. And knowing what I know now, how had I never considered what that must've felt like for her? Because all I can see in my mind is how she spent the entire day smiling, beautifully free under the sun.

"I pretty much fell for him right away," she says and my eyes fly open. "But I couldn't tell him that. I couldn't even admit it to myself, I was so scared," she says softly.

A breath rushes out of me, because I know that feeling: how scared I was to admit to myself that I was lost in this woman, how terrified I was that if I told her, it would ruin everything.

She sets the scorecard down and looks squarely into the screen.

"I felt like I was betraying Matt by feeling that way for someone else, even though my whole family has been telling me for years that he would want me to move on, and then I would feel bad for feeling guilty because that wasn't fair to Damon, and everything was such a mess. Then, after what should have been one of the best nights of my life, I did a very stupid, selfish, hurtful thing. Damon trusted me, and I betrayed that."

She pauses and I prepare myself, because I can already tell that whatever she's trying to get out, it's going to pack a punch.

"I panicked and I pushed him away, and I told him that I would never be able to love him because I would always love Matt more. And the real tragedy was…" she says and glances down, her shoulders shifting like she's fidgeting with her hands where I can't see, then her voice drops to an ashamed murmur. "He believed me."

My throat clamps closed and I blink too many times, everything hurting too much when I think about that fight in her apartment.

"I didn't realize it at the time, but I was already in love with him." She shrugs and smiles sadly. "And Matt will always have a place in my heart, but the truth is, I think I started to move on years before I ever recognized that it was happening. Probably around the same time that Damon first winked at me…" She tries to smile but it's all heartbreak, her eyes starting to glisten. "But after all that's happened, I don't think there's anything I can say to convince him that he's the man that I want to be with."

She sniffles and looks down, wiping at her eyes.

After that it takes her a minute to continue, and when she does, it's the most raw I've ever heard her sound.

"I'm so sorry, for everything that I've put you through," she whispers, and I scrub a hand over my face, shaking my head quickly to try to get it together. "I never wanted to hurt you and I know I don't deserve your forgiveness for the things I've said, the things I've done, and especially all that I didn't."

She looks up at me, and the pain in my chest is unbearable because it's the same as the expression she's wearing.

"I should have fought harder for you, I know that. But I'm fighting now and I won't give up, because that's what you do for the person that you love. You taught me that."

She lifts her chin as a tear rolls down her cheek, then her shoulders sag as she shakes her head and I try to swallow, but it's thick and strangled and I can't.

"God, Damon, I wish we could try to fix this. Even just that you would call me so we could at least talk about it…" Her voice breaks, tears steadily running down her face that she doesn't bother to wipe away, and then she jumps, looking to the space beside her.

My brow furrows as she reaches for something and seems to perk up, looking hopeful, then her face falls and she somehow looks even more devastated than before.

She holds up her phone, kinda laughing humorlessly at herself through her tears, and my stomach drops.

"Sorry, my dad is calling me. I have to go, but I guess I'll see you at work." She gives me a strained smile, then reaches forward as she answers her phone, her voice falsely cheerful when she says, "Hey, Dad…no, I'm fine…" And then the screen goes black.

I flinch when she disappears, and it takes me a minute, but eventually I close my laptop and lay back fully on my bed.

I turn my head and look at my phone sitting on my nightstand, and never in my life have I been so unsure of what to do.

A/N: Are we breathing? No? Deep breaths... This chapter kills me, for all the reasons. Can't wait to hear your (always wonderfully vocal) response, but don't forget to favorite, guys! Those buttons need love too! ;) See you next chapter! Oh, and happy 9th anniversary hubby! Love you, more than all the whiskey that Archer drinks! MOMP.

*Side note: on the original posting there was an error with the color of Damon's eyes. This is because of me turning this into an OF. My apologies for the error, it has been corrected.

-Goldnox