ELENA

Alys's suggestion to move in with her and Damon came as a surprise. Granted, her reasoning was sound, but living under the same roof as Damon – that was begging for trouble. I wasn't even going to suggest it to Bonnie, she'd have a fit. With her memories of the attack removed from her mind, I was lacking a convincing argument as to why she should still feel in danger. According to her altered memory, the guy had attacked us randomly and was therefore unlikely to strike at us again. Bonnie thought that she'd be perfectly able to protect herself with her witchcraft, now that she was prepared. She seemed even thrilled to have finally have found a good use for her abilities and had her nose in her magic books every single minute – probably learning to call a firestorm or a whirlwind of feathers in case another emergency situation should arise.

Yet the fact that Bonnie wasn't overly concerned was exactly what clinched it for me. Stefan couldn't possibly watch out for both of us constantly. With me out of the equation, he could better concentrate on keeping Bonnie safe.

I had once again tried to convince her that he and I were just friends, and that he had only been sleeping in my room because he was concerned for my safety, but I somehow doubted that she believed it. Without the knowledge that he was a vampire with super powers and also my brother, it didn't make a whole lot of sense. I wouldn't have allowed Matt to sleep in my room under the same circumstances, so yes, I couldn't blame her for not buying it.

There was another issue I could solve by moving to the boarding house: Stefan could continue to sleep in my dorm room, and thus have an eye – or rather an ear – on Bonnie. At least that way Stefan would get a few nights of undisturbed rest, even if I couldn't. He'd been woken from my nightmares most of the nights he'd spent with me, though being a vampire, the lack of sleep clearly troubled him less than me. Hopefully, my moving out would also lend support to our claim that we were not a couple.

Still, it was weird.

"Are you really sure that this is a wise thing to do?" I asked Alys, just to reassure myself. "You always warned me away from Damon, and now you invite me to live under his roof? Does that mean you are more trusting of him now?"

"Let's just say that he has convinced me at least that he's not a threat to your life. With the kind of control he has demonstrated by saving you, I'm no longer afraid that he might harm you unintentionally."

"Wow. On a scale of trust ranging from 1-10, with ten being the highest, that declaration would probably make a solid two."

Alys sighed. "I thought that lately I've been catching glimpses of the brother I once loved, which makes me hopeful that underneath all that scorn and bitterness and disdain there is still something human in him."

"I know there is. I have seen it."

She smiled at me. "You somehow bring it out in him."

Did I? I doubted that I had that much power over Damon. "Maybe it's the fact that I remind him of Katherine."

Alys gave me an astonished glance. "He told you about her?"

"Why do you sound so surprised?"

"Because I haven't heard him talk about her for over a century."

"He showed me a picture. Why did you never tell me that I look almost exactly like her?"

Again, Alys's eyes lit up with surprise. "Because I had no idea, I never met her. Damon said you ressemble her, though. Do you really?"

"Yes. It was uncanny. How come you never met her if she was Damon's - girlfriend?"

"I lived in Fells Church when Damon joined the confederate army. He got wounded on a special mission and somehow ended up in Mystic Falls, where he was taken in by Katherine's family and nursed back to health. Damon and I didn't hear from each other until after it was all over. He never told me much about her – just that he had fallen in love with her, that she had vamped him, and then left him without so much as a word of goodbye."

"Even in this short version it's a truly sad story," I said. "Damon must have been heartbroken."

"Raving mad is more like it. He was pissed with Katherine for over a century. So if seeing you brings back memories of her, it should trigger his anger. But obviously, that's not the case. So whatever it is that's been happening in his mind since he came back, I think it's good for him, and I want to keep pushing that. If he starts feeling for people again, then maybe it's possible for me to feel for him again, too."

"Well, I'm willing to give this flat-sharing a try. If anything, it'll be interesting."

*'*'*'*'*'*

Interesting didn't even begin to describe it. I moved some essential things over to the boarding house the very next day – to one of the guest rooms Alys had prepared for me. I guess a girl could get used to that kind of luxury. And that's not only talking about the en-suite bathroom and the walk-in closet that I didn't really use to it's full advantage for lack of clothes, but also the fact that Damon usually prepared dinner for all of us in the evening. Just as he had claimed, he was a very accomplished cook.

We didn't sit down like a family and share meals, though. Usually, Damon would leave whatever he had concocted sitting on the stove or in the oven, so that Alys and I could serve ourselves whenever we felt like eating. We didn't really see all that much of each other in the first two days. I almost had the impression that Damon was intentionally avoiding me.

This evening though, when I came down, I found Damon rummaging in the kitchen.

"Sorry, dinner's late today," he said, looking up when I entered. "Alys is always out for her drama class on Thursday evenings, and I usually don't cook just for myself. I forgot our human guest depends on solid food." He gave me smile – a genuine one, not the one that he put on to express either scorn, smugness or disdain. I felt strangely touched by it, maybe because he wasn't very generous with those.

"Don't go to any trouble just for me. A sandwich will do just fine."

Damon frowned. "You need to eat properly, and you can't do that with the stuff they serve in the cafeteria. Am I really the only one around here who values a healthy variety in his diet?"

I hopped onto a bar stool and sat down at the counter of the island, where Damon was busy chopping tomatoes. With the kitchen towel thrown across his shoulder, he looked deceptively domestic. "Good question – why do you? Eat and cook, I mean. You could live on blood alone, right?"

"I could survive on blood alone," Damon corrected, "but I wouldn't call that living. I'd still be hungry for food, although that kind of 'hungry' it a totally different craving compared to the hunger for blood. Just a nagging discomfort, not a driving need. It would still make me grumpy, though." Another simple, almost endearing smile, not a smirk. I couldn't remember having seen him so relaxed. Except in Fells Church.

"You really seem to enjoy cooking a lot," I mused, wondering if it was the thing that did it for him. "But since you're doing it mostly on my behalf: Can I help you with anything?"

"Sure, you can chop the onions!" Damon suggested. I made a face and he chuckled. "Forget it – there are no onions in anything I cook. No garlic, either." He twitched his brow. "You can lay the table, if you want to make yourself useful..."

"Will do." I hopped down from the chair and headed for the dish cabinet. Just when I rounded the kitchen island, Damon turned and accidentally walked into my path, avoiding a full body collision only by bending slightly sideways and brushing his body against mine. Only I didn't think it was accidental.

"Oh. Hm..." He made a soft humming noise and I caught a whiff of his scent as he finally moved by.

"Don't do that!" I chided, feeling that I shouldn't be putting up with him getting naughty.

"Do what?" he asked, innocently.

"You know what! That move was deliberate."

His expression was sober, but I could see that his eyes were glinting with amusement. "Well, yeah... I was deliberately trying to get to... the sink."

I huffed. Sure. That's why he was standing in front of the fridge right now. I shook my head disapprovingly and made sure my face showed a matching frown. Of course, he couldn't simply just behave for the length of an evening. I probably was playing with fire again, getting too familiar or amiable with Damon. Yet, when I had laid the table, I resumed my position on the other side of the counter, watching him. "So, what's for dinner?"

"Chicken Parmesan with pasta and grilled vegetables. If you still want to help, you can chop the cucumber and some peppers for the salad."

"Sure."

Damon slid me the chopping board and an enormous knife that looked professional, yet intimidating. Gingerly, I started working on the peppers.

"So – how is it going, with you and Alys getting reacquainted with each other?" I enquired, trying to concentrate on my task.

"I guess that depends which of us you ask."

"I'm asking you, now."

"Believe it or not, I care for my little sister. Always did. It's just that... things became complicated somewhere down the line."

"And do you think you can de-complicate them?"

"Possibly. It's just not so easy with me constantly disappointing her."

I raised my gaze and gave him a surprised look. "You think she feels disappointed with you? Funny – because I think she feels exactly the other way around. That you disrespect her for her lifestyle."

"It's not so much disdain as concern. Alys and Stefan are in denial as to what they are. They're trying so hard to be decent that they refuse to have the tiniest bit of fun in life. Have you ever asked yourself why Alys never goes out in crowds? It's because it's so hard on her to hold on to her civil self if in the middle of a herd of prey."

That sounded familiar. I remembered that Alys had referred to larger groups of people as herds. Maybe it hadn't just been a saying. "Stefan is sociable." I pointed out. "And he sure isn't going berserk on humans."

"He hasn't been around that long. Humanity is still too much a part of him to change his view on humans. He still thinks he can be one of them. He won't be able to hold back forever, no matter how hard he tries. Sooner or later, reality will set in, and then he'll be struggling, just like we all are."

"I don't believe that."

"You don't want to believe that, Elena," Damon said in a grave voice. "That's not quite the same thing."

We worked in silence for a minute, and I thought about what he said. "Still, from what I see, it's mainly your food preferences that vastly differ. Why does that have to be such a big deal?"

"Because discussing vampire food issues quickly translates to questions of morals and ethics. Is it really more okay to sip blood from bags than from the vein? It's still the same kind of food, after all."

"Well, I guess I'm the wrong person to ask, considering that I'm the food in your eyes..."

"Oh, you're surely so much more than that..." He lifted a brow – giving me one of those looks. Meaningful, provocative and slightly smug. Another warning. Subtle, yet effective. Had he noticed that I had become a little smitten with him lately?

I blushed, feeling a little confused. Too busy avoiding his gaze, I didn't pay attention and cut my finger. The edge of the knife really was sharp and sliced into my flesh as if into butter. I stifled a gasp. Not successfully enough for his sharp ears, though.

"What is it?" Damon, who had turned to the sink, looked up with a frown. "Did you hurt yourself?"

"It's nothing!" Quickly, I covered the wound with a towel and hid my hand behind the counter where he couldn't see it. I remembered all too clearly the look on his face the last time I had been bleeding in his presence.

Damon raised his brows questioningly. "Honestly, you're a bad liar," he chided, making a move towards me. "I can smell the blood."

"Really, it's just a small cut. Just – stay where you are!"

He chuckled. Ignoring my warning, he casually came over to stand beside me. "Do you think I can't handle a little blood? It's not me who is fainting on its sight!"

"It's not you fainting I'm concerned about!" I said weakly. "I thought that..."

"Seeing you bleed is gonna make me jump on you?"

"That's what I've been warned about..."

"Well, I guess if you were really bleeding – and if I was hungry, or desperate... or otherwise in dire straits, having trouble keeping control of my emotions... there might be reason to worry. But I'm not terribly needy right now." He probably meant that to sound reassuring. It didn't, really. "Now, given that I'm all calm and collected, why don't you let me have me look? I might be able to help."

"What could you possibly do about it? Kiss it better?" It was meant to sound ironic, but to my surprise it came out sounding – hopeful.

"Hm – sounds enticing..." Damon gave me a lascivious glance, as his thoughts turned dirty. "I guess I could kiss you better..." he mused, pleased by his own play of words. Obviously, he was not having my bleeding hand in mind. My heart skipped a beat. Damon broke our gaze and reached for my hand to have a look at the cut. It wasn't too bad. Or at least, I had seen worse. Still, the ugly gash made me feel slightly sick all the same.

"I wonder what kind of vampire you would make if I ever turned you..." Damon said, with a curious look at my face. It couldn't be waxen. I felt too heated for that.

"A starving one, I guess."

"Probably so. Now, relax and let me handle this." He slowly brought my hand to his mouth. The way his warm lips enclosed the wound – tasting and stroking the open skin with his tongue almost in a sweet caress – should have made me recoil. But instead of thinking of how disgusting this blood fetish was, I could only marvel at how quickly the pain subsided. And wondered how his lips and tongue would feel on other parts of my body. My mouth, to start with. Oh boy. Fearful that my erratic heart beat would give me away, I made an effort to at least not close my eyes in bliss.

Damon seemed to enjoy himself, too. The low 'mmh'- sound that resonated from his chest sounded almost like a purr. I wasn't too concerned by his obvious content – after all, I had never heard of a vampire who had sucked his victim dry from a wounded finger, not even in a movie, so I doubted that my life was in acute danger. Only my self-composure.

All too soon, Damon let go of my hand and again and bit into his own with his sharp teeth. He enclosed my finger, letting our blood mingle. When he let go of my hand, there was nothing but a thin, red line of clotted blood where the cut had been – as if the wound that had freshly bled just a minute ago, was at least a few hours old.

"Your awesome healing powers. They never fail to impress me..." I murmured. As if uncanny speed and strength, eternal youth, beauty and frightening mind powers weren't enough to make a mere human feel inferior to the point of utter insignificance in comparison.

"Primarily, they're self-healing powers. But they work on humans wounds, too." Of course. It was just another tool that enabled vampires to feed on humans. With their saliva numbing the inflicted pain, it would probably not even hurt so badly and thus make their victims offer less resistance. "Doesn't that come in handy..." I muttered.

"It sure does. I bet Elijah is using this trick in the hospital, if no one's watching." He was most likely referring to the blood clotting qualities of vampire blood - not the pain numbing effect of their saliva while drinking. I wondered if he secretly exchanged the blood bags in the hospital with his own. It was a win-win, if you thought about it.

"What about blood type issues and possible infections?"

"You mean like HIV? We don't carry it. Our blood doesn't carry any of the human diseases. And it's compatible with all human blood types – no matter what the flavor."

The food reference made me uneasy. I knew he had made it on purpose, calling to my mind what he was. Not just a differently genetically structured human. A predator. I briefly wondered why he kept doing it – handing out subtle warnings whenever I was on the brink of lulling myself into complacent ignorance. Clearly, he would have more to gain in making me feel all warm and cozy and complacent.

"You can taste blood types?" I asked, pretending not to be affected.

"Yes. Although it's just something like the head note. The individual bouquet is much richer and varies with gender, age and personal food preferences." As if he was talking of wines. "Yours, by the way, is delicate – mellow, velvety, smooth... very tempting!" He looked at me with his typical 'damonish' half-smile, that was as bold and provocative as it was compelling. His eyes flashed.

"You have to stop doing this..." I said, pitifully failing in trying to sound firm and adamant.

"Stop doing what?" He was a far better actor and actually pulled off the innocent look.

"This eye thing that you're doing. It's not fair." Meaning I didn't have any protection against the weapons he used – his teeth, his mind powers, his charms. My hand went to my throat. This stupid necklace wasn't helping.

His smile deepened. "Who said life was supposed to be fair?" he asked, unscrupulously doing the eye thing again. The message was clear. He didn't mind playing dirty, and I was fair game. "All's fair in love and war," Damon cited, leaning closer. "You can't blame a man for trying!"

Although half of my attention was distracted by his sheer physical presence, the other half of my brain was still functioning and came up with something remotely helpful. "Then tell me what you think this is – love or war?" I managed to ask, trying to tear my gaze away from his truly inviting and sensual lips. I knew the 'L-word' made him uncomfortable.

Not this time, though. The intensity of his gaze didn't even waver. "Isn't it always a little of both?" he asked, before leaning closer and adding with utter conviction: "The important thing is that I'll win in the end. You might as well admit defeat right now."

"The hell I will!" I muttered.

"So fierce and feisty!" he grinned. "I like that!"

Before I could answer to his challenge, we both heard the door open and fall shut again and Alys was standing in the hallway. On seeing me and Damon standing pretty close behind the counter and staring at each other – him smirking slightly and me probably blushing, she frowned. "Am I interrupting something?"

"No," I said, a little too quickly.

"Yes," Damon answered at the same time. He pulled the corner of his mouth up and distanced himself by putting the salad bowl on the table.

"We're making dinner," I explained, busying myself with folding the towel. "How come you're here already?"

"Well, there's a frat party tonight that everyone wanted to go to, so we cut it short." Alys said, still looking dubious. "Looks like I came just in time."

I preferred to think she meant that as in 'just in time for dinner', but I wasn't sure. Still, it was the first evening that we all sat down and had dinner together in relative harmony.

Alys, who hadn't been feeling well all evening, came down with a bad headache and retreated to her room shortly after. If she'd been Caroline, I'd suspect she was pretending in order to give me and Damon more 'quality time'. But Alys was hardly one to play matchmaker, certainly not between me and Damon, so this had to be real.

"How can vampires even have a headache?" I asked him, joining him in the living room, where he sat down with glass of bourbon in front of the fireplace. "I thought you were immune to all these trivialities bothering humans..."

"We are." Damon said indifferently, opening a rather antiquated looking book and flipping through the pages. "Provided we feed properly. Vampires are not supposed to live mainly on animal blood."

I sighed. So we were back to that topic again. But I was starting to believe that Damon did have a point there. He at least didn't suffer from anything, but was the epitome of strength and vitality. I was about to open my own book and do some studying for my biology class, when something about the book in Damon's hand caught my eye. I had seen it before... it looked like one of the journals Stefan had given me to read. I hadn't yet, except for my mum's diary. The more ancient ones were incredibly hard to read and I was not so interested in the daily ramblings of my ancestors.

"Wait a minute – is that my grandmother's diary?" I asked, not quite believing my eyes. Damon briefly turned back to the front page and shrugged. "It does say Isobel Fleming inside the cover, so the answer would be 'yes'."

"How did you get your hands on it?"

He was totally ignorant of my swelling indignation and the alarmed note in my voice. "Hm – can we say I found and borrowed it?"

"You stole it from my room!"

"Well, technically, it's my room – and it's only stealing if I don't give it back – which I'll certainly do, eventually."

"Damon! You can't just take and read other people's diaries!" Although I had known that he had no sense of morality whatsoever, this really shocked me.

"Yes, I can – I already read yours. It's easy once you get used to the handwriting."

"You read my diary?" I asked, aghast. I thought Damon capable of many things, but that was an invasion of privacy that should be unacceptable even to someone like him.

"M-hm. I found it in the hallway of Elijah's house one day, shortly after I had come to Mystic Falls. I didn't really know anything about you then, and I was intrigued about your uncanny resemblance to Katherine. Unfortunately, it wasn't of much help."

Frowning, I remembered the day I had met Stefan at the cemetery and lost my diary – after Damon had probably scared the hell out of me and had made me forget about it. There had been some confusion later on – Stefan having left it for Alys to find, but she never seeing it... So that's what had happened to it!

"I can't believe this!" I shouted, clapping my own book shut forcefully and jumping to my feet. "How could you! It's an incredibly indecent thing to do, and you know it!" For the first time, he had me seriously pissed. I really poured my heart into my diary – all my grief, my worries, my insecurities. He had no right to know these intimate details about me. None whatsoever.

"Who said I was decent? I'm not, and you know that!"

I was not willing to let him get away with that, this time. "You can't use the fact that you're a vampire as an excuse for your behavior! It's not!" Obviously, the thought had never occurred to him. Certainly the defiant, rebellious quality in his behavior fit perfectly into the picture he had drawn of the world. Like he was doomed to be bad, not matter what he did – just for being what he was.

Could it really be that some small part inside of him was hating that? "You don't have to be an asshole all the time – Alys isn't, and neither are Elijah and Stefan. So don't give me that crap about 'I'm a vampire, I'm evil!' How you behave is your conscious choice, and not something you are born into or, in your case, made into."

Damon gave me a queer look that I wasn't able to decipher. Astonishment and a bit of annoyance, for sure – though I couldn't have said at what. At the fact that I dared to lecture him, or at the idea that there might actually be a grain of truth in my words?

"Do you realize that this is violating, infringing, hurtful and even embarrassing? How would you feel if I was privy to your innermost thoughts and feelings, your weaknesses, insecurities and fears?"

His expression softened. "You have nothing to be ashamed about, Elena," he said.

"That's quite beside the point, Damon!"

He was silent for a minute. "You're right," he conceded. "It was not okay to snoop. But I usually don't care much for other people's feelings. And that's what you were then – other people. I've been hoping to find an answer to a burning question, that's all."

His insinuation that I was no longer 'other people' to him, didn't escape my notice. I wondered if that was because of my resemblance to the former love of his life, or because of myself. "What burning question?" I inquired, somewhat mollified, not daring to ask the question that was burning on my tongue.

"Why you look like her." His voice sounded broken, carrying a hint of his innermost feelings, weaknesses, insecurities and fears. They all seemed to circle around Katherine.

"And did you find out?" I asked.

"Yes," Damon said reluctantly, "though not through your diary. But I'm not sure if you're going to like it."

"Spill it, Damon. I've think I've been coping fine, lately."

He hesitated a moment, then he got up and searched his desk. "I spent some time in the city hall, going through birth certificates, wedding announcements and newspaper archives," he explained, coming up with a document that looked old and crumbly. "And I was able to track your lineage back to a child born in 1860 – a girl named Caitlin. The mother wasn't named. The child was marked as a foundling and adopted, by a certain Dr. Nathan E. Michaels, from some remote town not far from Greenville. You're descended from her lineage."

"How does that link me to Katherine?" I failed to see the connection.

"It doesn't. But it does link you to Dr. Elijah Daniels."

"You think he and that Dr. Michaels are one and the same? Because they're both doctors? Isn't that a little farfetched?"

"Not if you know that E. stands for Elijah – it's not a very common name. And Daniel and Nathan are both abbreviation of Nathaniel. I strongly suspect that his birthname was actually Elijah Nathaniel Mikaelson, and that he was related to the original settlers of Mystic Falls. Vampires often play around with their names, so as not to be so easily traceable. Alys used to be Alice when she was still human, and she called herself Alexia in the middle of last century."

I was going to say that a slight resemblance in names didn't really prove anything. But if it was true, it would give at least give a clue as to why Dr. Daniels, whose involvement with my family might extend well beyond his turning of Stefan, had wanted to leave Damon in the dark about Stefan's and my kinship with each other. It linked me to him, and thus him to Katherine. Obviously, he hadn't wanted Damon to know about this connection. Why, I wondered?"

Damon looked at me with an expectant expression that soon turned into a quizzical frown. "You look awfully pensive, yet not really surprised..."

"Well, it wasn't hard to figure out – with that resemblance, Katherine had to be an ancestor of mine. And Elijah has probably been taking in foster children all the time."

"So he has. But usually, vampires don't adopt human children – for obvious reasons. And it's even more weird that a single, male vampire would do so."

"So what are you making out of this?"

"I think he did because of a guilty conscience. For changing the foundling's mother into a vampire."

"You think Elijah is the vampire who created Katherine?" Was that what Elijah had meant to keep from Damon? It still didn't make much sense.

"Yes, that's what I believe. He raised her child, who got married and had children and grandchildren – and one great-grandchild named Isobel, who married a guy named Fleming – your grandparents. This is her diary."

If Damon had been going through birth certificates, he might easily have come across that of my brother, Steven. Or had he just focused on tracing my bloodline back to 1860? Obviously, he hadn't made a connection between Stefan and me yet. I pondered briefly if this was the moment to tell him. If Elijah had meant to keep Damon in the dark about his involvement with Katherine, it wasn't a secret any longer. But telling him now 'by the way, Stefan is not my boyfriend' would probably sound like an invitation that I didn't want to offer.

"So – did you find anything of interest in my grandma's diary?" I asked instead, chiding myself a coward.

"Not really. Just the usual ramblings of a woman of her time. But there's a hint at a big secret that her mother had shared with her one day. Nothing specific. She seemed all excited about when it happened, yet never mentioned it again, as if she meant to keep it even from herself."

"And what are you making out of all this information?" I inquired, postponing my coming-out to some 'better moment' in the future.

"I don't know yet. But I have a distinct feeling that it's of importance. It's all coming together too neatly: You, me and the comet returning to Mystic Falls at the same time, 150 years after Katherine vanished. Not only are you a descendant of her blood, but also a Doppelgänger. I did some research on that, and in mysticism, those are a manifestation of great power and supernatural forces. Ask Bonnie about it – your friend, who just happens to be a descendant of the witch that was sworn to protect Katherine's life, and who just happens to be coming into power just now... It's almost like the constellations of the past are repeating themselves, and I intend to find out why."