A/N: To all my lovely readers: Thank you so much for sharing your time with me, and HUGE THANKS to all of you who have been so kind to leave a comment. Specials thanks once again to Dreamthrower, who is much more than just a beta - I'm really happy that I got to know you. Your help has been invaluable!

I'm still working on a sequel for which I have written already about 15 chapters, and I really have the intention to keep going. Due to my non-chronological way of writing, I'll only be able to start publishing the story once it's entirely completed, so you'll not get stuck with an abandoned story. I can't make promises as to how soon I'll manage to finish it, though.

If you're interested, keep this story on your alert list. I will post the prologue of the new story as an epilogue to this one. It will pick up right where 'What Lies Beneath' stopped, and it will definitely have Klaus in it ;)

ELENA

- flashback -

I took a deep breath of fresh air and enjoyed the silence. There was nothing to be heard but a slight breeze rustling in the trees and the chant of crickets; a sound I found very relaxing. Appeased and loaded with oxygen I climbed back into bed, tossing and turning restless for a while, before I slowly drifted off. I must have barely fallen asleep when something woke me with a start.

My eyes flew open to meet a pair of deep blue ones that were staring at me. "Don't scream," a quiet, yet very commanding voice ordered, and though I wanted to do exactly that when I saw the dark clad figure sitting next to me on the bed, I found that I couldn't.

I just closed my mouth shut and stared back into the truly beautiful face of the dark haired stranger with those incredibly captivating eyes. This must be a dream. Admittedly, it felt like an awfully realistic and scary one.

"Katherine?" The face displayed a myriad of conflicting emotion – quickly shifting from shock and disbelief to wonder, elation and relief. Whoever this stranger was, he seemed utterly shaken. "Katherine!" he repeated, still thunderstruck, but his jaws tensed and a hint of pain and cold anger seeped into his voice.

"No. My name is Elena," I clarified, swallowing audibly. Surely he had mistaken the room number. Still, my voice sounded apprehensive in my own ears, and my heart was beating in my chest as if it had sprouted wings. Being woken in the middle of the night by a dark clad stranger sitting on your bed could do that to you.

"You're human..." he uttered in complete bewilderment. "How is that possible?"

Now, that was really a very strange thing to say. Yet he didn't really appear drunk. Which only left one explanation. The guy must be totally nuts.

"I'm sorry... I don't know what you are talking about..." I kept my voice carefully neutral, hoping not to trigger anything that would probably be beyond control. Not that I felt very much in control of the situation right now, half-naked with a truly intimidating stranger sitting on my bed.

"You're not Katherine..." he muttered, still torn between confusion, disappointment and badly concealed anger. The latter was getting more and more palpable, though. "Just who are you?" he demanded to know.

"My name is Elena, like I said!" I stupidly tried to reason with him. "Look, you probably got the wrong room..."

His eyes were flashing dangerously. "Don't you dare play games with me!" he snapped, leaning in and forcefully grabbing my shoulders. "Tell me what's going on!"

Since I had no idea, I didn't know how to respond to that. I was just frozen with fear. "You're scaring me..." I said feebly, my whole body trembling now. Surely he had noticed. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to bother him much.

"Has she sent you? Where is Katherine? Why do you look like her?" He shook me slightly, as if he could make the answers come tumbling out of me.

"I don't know anyone of that name," I winced. His grip was hard and unrelenting and would probably leave bruises.

"You're lying!" he hissed. "How come you're wearing her face? Tell me the truth, before I find less pleasurable ways to make you!"

I was really panicky now. He must be mad, that was the only explanation for all his senseless questioning and his emotional upheaval. His fingers dug painfully into my flesh, his eyes were glowing with barely contained fury.

"Please, you're hurting me!" I felt tears flooding my eyes. "I don't know what to say!"

His expression seemed to soften a bit. "Just answer my questions," he demanded with a more controlled voice that still cut like steel. There was something strange happening with his eyes. I was unable to look away. His penetrating gaze seemed to reach straight into my soul. "Who are you? Where do you come from? Who sent you here and what do you know about Katherine?"

His eyes held me paralyzed. "My name is Elena Gilbert," I said mechanically. "I'm from Mystic Falls. No one sent me, and I don't know anyone named Katherine."

Looking at me with a puzzled expression for a moment longer, he suddenly let go of my arms. "She must have compelled you..." he muttered. "This can't be coincidence. It's been 150 fucking years – why now? Is this supposed to be a message?"

I could only weakly shake my head, dismissing his assumption as much as the entire situation.

"Maybe I should just kill you," he mused. "After all, killing the messenger does send a message, too."

My eyes went wide with fear when his hand was suddenly around my throat, threatening to strangle me. I clasped his arm, trying in vain to tear it away from my windpipe. He was unbelievably strong. I couldn't breathe. This was it. This is how I was going to die. In this hotel room, killed by a madman without even knowing the reason why. There probably wasn't a reason. An utterly senseless death – just like that of my parents. Staring helplessly into his cold blue eyes I felt a single tear trail down my cheek. The iron grip on my throat suddenly loosened, and he took his hand away, frowning.

"Geez – relax. I said I should kill you, not that I was actually going to do it. I'm just really confused and seriously pissed right now..."

Only now did I realize that he hadn't been choking me at all: Although his hand was gone from my throat, I still couldn't get any air. A fully fledged panic attack had simply stopped my lungs from working. He seemed to notice that, too.

"Elena?" His voice suddenly sounded mildly concerned. "What's the matter? Breathe! Come on..." Once more he shook me slightly, but this time it reminded my lungs of its job. I painfully gasped for air.

"Good girl!" He seemed relieved, yet the frown never left his face. He looked at me pensively for a moment, before he came to a decision. At least, there was a sudden look of determination in his eyes. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do... Look at me, Elena..." He lifted my chin, his eyes boring into mine. Again, there was an intensity in his gaze that threatened to take my breath away. I knew that if I kept staring into his eyes, I would lose myself in them. Yet I was unable to tear my gaze away. "Forget this ever happened," Damon ordered. "You never saw me. It was just a really bad dream..." A dream. Just a bad dream.

"Elena! You're having a nightmare. Come on, wake up!"

Again, I felt someone shake me. Gasping, I sat up in my bed. Or rather in Damon's bed. I looked around in confusion. This was not the hotel. I was at the boarding house. Yet I would have sworn I had just been back in Fells Church until a minute ago. I had clearly heard his voice, telling me it was a dream. It hadn't felt like a dream. It had felt real. I stared into Damon's face just like I had that night, about half a year ago. It had felt real then, too, and it hadn't been a dream at all.

"Elena?" Damon sounded worried now. "Are you okay? It seemed like you had stopped breathing all of a sudden, and you were shaking pretty badly..."

"It wasn't a dream," I said, mystified. "I remember..." I was still trying to make sense of the weird flashback that had struck me out of the blue.

The concern in Damon's face changed, became more wary. "You remember what?"

"The night in the hotel... when we met for the first time."

He looked cautious now. "The compulsion is wearing off," he murmured. "I was wondering when this would happen..."

"What are you talking about?"

"With you being a vampire now, all the memories I hid from you will start resurfacing..."

Oh... so I was about to find out if he had told me the truth about all of them. "I see. Just why do you look so guilty?"

Damon grimaced. "Well, I'm afraid that night in Fells Church doesn't make it onto the list of my 100 top moments... Frankly, I would have preferred if that particular memory had remained hidden."

"You scared the shit out of me that night," I agreed. "I thought you were a deranged madman when you started questioning me about Katherine."

"In my defense: I was shell shocked. I meant to... well, you know what I was about to do to you, but then I looked into your face and..."

I put a calming hand on his arm. "I know, Damon. I understand what it must have been like for you. I know you never meant to hurt me."

"I was sure that Katherine had sent you and that you were either consciously or unconsciously lying to me. But then I had scared you into a panic attack and I knew I wouldn't be able to get any answers from you that night. That's when I decided to follow you back to Mystic Falls and find out what you were hiding."

"I wasn't hiding anything."

"But you were acting pretty mysteriously. When we met for the second time, at the cemetery... I still don't understand what exactly happened there..."

At the cemetery? Just as if thinking back had triggered it, the memory all of a sudden came back with force. It felt like I was being swallowed by a black hole and spit out into a parallel dimension.

I decided that maybe the cemetery was not the best place to be given my current dark mood and got back to my feet. That's when I noted that something had changed. It was not only that the sun had hidden itself behind clouds, that the wind had picked up pace and was whirling leaves and withered flower petals around. It felt as if death suddenly was a presence here – not the quiet, peaceful side of it, but the dark, lurking threat that came before. Out of the corner of my eyes I caught a glimpse of movement – and all of a sudden, as if conjured out of thin air, there was a man leaning against the tombstone next to my parents' grave. He was entirely clad in black, the same raven color as his hair. It made his pale complexion stand out even more. The only thing colorful about him were his eyes. They were of an icy blue, with the iridescent hues of a glacier.

There was something deeply unsettling about him – even eerie. I experienced a strong sense of deja-vu, without knowing what to make of it. My skin erupted in goosebumps, and I felt a shiver roll down my spine. It was a feeling that my grandmother had always described as 'someone walking across your grave'. But it wasn't my own grave that he was almost standing on. Just that of my family.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice barely more than a faint whisper.

"That's the wrong question," he said enigmatically. His voice was smooth and velvety, but with a sharp edge to it. "The really interesting one is 'Who are you?'"

I found that I couldn't answer him. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure if I was dreaming – or maybe hallucinating. He just didn't seem real.

"You still have no clue, have you?" he asked softly. His eyes were caressing my face with a weird expression of longing. It was haunting. Who was I? It almost seemed like a philosophical question. Did I even know? Who was Elena Gilbert? The ever-sad orphan who spent too much time at the cemetery? Is that really who I wanted to be? There had to be more to me than just gloomy graveyard girl.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. "I don't know what you are talking about..." I managed to say. I had no idea what was happening. There was something about him that drew me in and scared the hell out of me at the same time. The analytical part of my mind told me that I shouldn't be having this weird conversation with a mysterious stranger, let alone at the cemetery. The subconscious and much more comprehensive part of my brain knew instinctively that things were not what they seemed. Something bigger was happening here, something that defied logic.

"The supernatural," he said, as if responding to my thoughts. "Are you a believer, Elena?" Again, I was at a loss for words. I had always believed in God. But after being robbed of every one I had ever loved, I had started to doubt his mercy. How could a supposedly loving father be so cruel?

"Whose graves are these?" he asked, reading my mind again.

"My family's."

"So many of them dead. Is there anyone else left alive?"

"Just me."

"I know how that feels... the sadness, the loneliness. Are you wondering why you were the only one left behind?"

"Yes."

He just nodded, as if it confirmed something he'd already known. Who was he? I was starting to wonder if I was talking to a heavenly apparition. Not an angel – he didn't have the air of goodness about him that I would have expected from a guardian spirit. Maybe he was just a manifestation of my subconscious. My guilt, my hopelessness, my loneliness. Or maybe I was just a crazy person, talking to herself in between graves.

"Why are you here?" I asked, wondering if I had somehow conjured a dark part of my soul – and if it would actually give me some answers if I asked the right questions this time.

"Isn't it obvious?" he asked back, raising an eyebrow. "I've been following you. I came back here because of you." Without moving, he was suddenly behind me, his arms encircling me and pulling me against him. He felt cold. I shivered as a flood of emotions rushed over me: Fear, the sudden awareness of danger, and a strange excitement – and then all of that was just as suddenly replaced by a deep calm that came with his touch.

"Oh..." I breathed, as understanding dawned on me. This was crazy. It couldn't be true, could it? But then, people never lived to tell. "I know who you are," I whispered, not really sure how I felt about it. I should be terrified. But I wasn't. Mostly, I felt relief.

"Really?" he asked, brushing my hair to the side and caressing my neck with long and slender fingers. They were cool to the touch, too.

"I just never really thought it'd be like this...

"Like what?"

"Like in 'Meet Joe Black'," I murmured. It was obvious now. His otherworldly beauty. That dark vibe of sorrow, sadness and desolation that surrounded him. The cold determination in his eyes. I had hoped they'd show more compassion, but at least there was the promise of peace in his arms. "You're death," I said, feeling myself relax into his embrace. "Just why are you so late?"

"What?" I hardly noticed that his body tensed and his hand stopped moving.

"It's alright," I told him. "I'm not scared."

"Well, then something is clearly wrong with you, for you should be." He loosened his hold on me and turned me around, making me look into his questioning eyes. "Honestly, Elena – a mysterious, menacing stranger is lurking in between tombstones with obviously bad intentions – and you don't even scream, or fight? Don't you have any sense of self-preservation? You really are an enigma..."

I looked at him in confusion. This was weird. The dreamy quality that had clouded my consciousness before was gone. "I don't understand. I thought I was going to die..."

"Well, I guess your time's not up yet!" He sounded angry all of a sudden, irritated. "I'll find out what this is all about." His eyes took on a look of grim determination again. His fingers lifted my chin, making sure that I kept looking at him. I suddenly felt like I was falling into a deep, dark well – until he caught me and held on tight. "We'll soon meet again. But until then, I need you to forget about all of this. You were at the cemetery all by yourself, until you suddenly realized it's a bad idea to be out here all alone. You need to be a little more aware of danger, Elena. Watch out for yourself!"

And just like that, I was back in the boarding house, feeling slightly dizzy. It was a strange feeling to regain a memory that had been lost before. Especially because it didn't seem fuzzy and vague like a dream usually did on waking up. Everything about it was sharp and clear, as if it just happened a minute ago. But it was intermixed with previous experiences and memories, as if I was looking back at a two-dimensional past – one with the compulsion in place, and one without it, but tinted with the knowledge that came from much later experiences. To say that it was slightly confusing was putting it mildly. I wondered how Caroline must have felt – Damon had compelled her a lot more often than me.

"Wow, that was – intense," I finally murmured, going over my newly gained memory once again.

"The cemetery?" Damon enquired, pulling me back into his chest just like he had done then. Only now he felt pleasantly warm. But just as safe and comforting and calming. "Yes, that was strange... For a moment, I had been sure that you had me fooled before – that you knew who and what I was, and that Katherine was using you to mess with my mind."

"You were going to feed on me..." I stated matter-of-factly, not sure what I should think of the fact that I had almost become his prey.

"Well, yes. I knew I was going to erase those memories anyway, so I thought I might as well get a taste."

"What stopped you?"

"You. The way you reacted... it was – unexpected. You suddenly leaned into me – totally accepting, fearless... trusting. It was disconcerting. I just couldn't understand why you acted that way. It was almost as if you were expecting to find death at my hand – and were okay with it."

"Because that's exactly what happened," I admitted a little sheepishly, knowing that I'd be blushing if I was still human. The situation and my reaction seemed utterly absurd and silly, now.

"Come again?" Damon seemed aghast.

"I thought that you were death turned flesh and that you had finally come to claim me, too. And a small part of me actually thought it would be nice... to not feel this pain anymore. Because already back then, I felt at peace in your arms. And it felt good."

"Elena..." Damon groaned under his breath, holding me tightly. "I've known you had a death wish ever since that day – entrusting your fragile, human life to the vampire who'd eventually be the cause of your death... I just never knew you had the sixth sense, too."

"But weren't the cause of my death, Damon. You are the reason I'm still alive." He swung me around so I was on my back and he could face me. His expression was raw and tender and filled with so much love that it took my breath away. He leaned his forehead to mine in one of those rare emotional moments I had come to cherish so much, because he only ever shared them with me. Being open and vulnerable – it was a big deal for him and I knew that it scared him, still.

"Then I guess we just fit together perfectly," Damon said, his voice soft, yet almost painfully intense. "Because all those years after I had lost Katherine and Alys – the only people who had ever meant anything to me – I felt dead inside. When I met you, I started living again. And even more amazing, I'm starting to be truly grateful for being given a chance at eternity. All of a sudden, it seems worth living..."

I place my hands on his slightly rough cheeks and met his lips for a slow, deep and sensuous kiss, that left no doubt that his whole heart was in it. With him by my side, I was ready to face whatever the future might have in store for me.

A/N: 'Meet Joe Black' - a romantic movie from 1998 with Brat Pitt and Anthony Hopkins. In case you haven't ever seen it, it's about Death, who takes the form of a young man, asks an elderly guy who he is supposed to take to afterlife to teach him about life on Earth and in the process falls in love with the man's daughter.

Update, August 2018

I have edited the entire story when I was reading it again, doing corrections and minor additions or changes. Hopefully, I have not added too many mistakes, too - Dreamthrower might not forgive me for messing up her good work. :)

Reading TVD fanfiction again after writing so much about Harry Potter lately put me back into the mood... I've picked up on the planned (and half-written) sequel again, which will have Klaus, Uncle John, the Augustine Society, Isobel, Travellers, Werewolves, the Mikealson family, Mason, a wedding and a funeral. I've put everything into an entirely different context, though, keeping some elements and turning others upside down.

Now, I don't know if anybody is still interested in reading about the first three (four?) seasons of TVD, but as long as I'm still having fun writing about it, I'll just keep it up and see what comes out of it. :)

Hope to see (hear / read) you all back, eventually!