The weekend passed slowly but surely and it felt like the longest weekend of Damon's life.

He had spent the entire two days fretting about the status of his relationship with Jeremy. It had become very obvious to Damon that the teen neither wanted nor appreciated his attempts at getting closer to him. The thought saddened him greatly and he'd decided to try at least one more time.

When Jeremy and Stefan arrived home from school on Monday Damon had attempted to talk to Jeremy...

*FLASHBACK*

The teenagers entered the house loudly, as they usually did after a long day at school.

Damon was in the study looking over some old maps of the Salvatore property that he'd found. There was nothing really interesting in them but Damon had decided to kill some time and read them just in case there was something important there.

He looked up upon hearing them come in and gave a weak grin when they passed by the room.

"Hey, how was school?"

Stefan sent him a small, sympathetic smile. He knew that whatever had happened between Damon and Jeremy on the way over to Jenna's last Friday had deeply hurt his older brother, although he'd never admit it. Despite their not so great relationship Stefan knew that his brother tended to keep things bottled up because he just didn't want to trouble others with his problems. It was a habit that made Stefan incredibly frustrated and yet he admired his brother's determination to always put others before himself.

"It was good, thanks Damon. How was your day?"

Damon shrugged, "You know same old, same old. I was looking through some of these old records that Uncle Zach had in some boxes in the hall closet. Nothing of any real interest though."

The younger Salvatore nodded, Damon had always enjoyed reading and looking at things like that. He was naturally curious and he'd used that curiosity to absorb every little bit of knowledge he came across. That was another thing he admired about Damon (not that he'd ever tell him that to his face, of course).

Damon cast a wary look over at Jeremy, who just stood at the door with his hands in his pockets looking like he'd rather be anywhere else, "...Hi, Jeremy."

"Hmm."

"How was your weekend?"

"Fine."

With that the teen turned sharply on his heel and jogged upstairs, the telltale sound of a door shutting signalling that he'd reached his bedroom.

Damon let out a heavy sigh and slumped into the chair behind the desk in the study.

Stefan frowned sympathetically and gently clapped his brother's shoulder before heading up to his own room to work on his homework.

*END FLASHBACK*

And the occupants of the Salvatore boarding house returned to their usual routine after that: Damon and Stefan speaking to each other civilly but sparingly and Jeremy joining them for meals only and barely speaking a word, especially to Damon.

That suited Damon just fine... really, it did.

If he was being honest with himself, Damon would admit that it really did hurt that Jeremy refused to open up to him. He was just trying to help the kid, he wanted him to feel safe and have a home. And yet every time he'd tried to bridge the gap between them, somehow it only ended up getting bigger.

Nonetheless he'd decided to respect Jeremy's wish and resolved to only speak to the teen to wake him up in the mornings for school or to call him for meals.

The week passed rather uneventfully.

Damon didn't have a job- he didn't need one, what with the vast family fortune that he and Stefan were the sole heirs to- but he kept busy. He spent a lot of time in the boarding house's library, reading through various old books that had piled up throughout the generations. There was a variety of topics and genres to be found in the library and Damon rather enjoyed learning new things from them.

He exercised regularly and took walks through the woods that were on the Salvatore property. He had also recently become a member of the Mystic Falls Founder's Council. He often helped out at various functions in town like bake sales, festivals and the like; he'd even been roped into chaperoning a school dance once when Liz Forbes had been unable to.

On Thursday afternoon Damon was lazing on the couch, having just finished working out, and was flipping through the channels trying to find something good to watch. As he passed by another crappy daytime TV soap opera the phone rang, startling him slightly.

"Hello?"

The unfamiliar voice of a woman greeted him, "Hello, is this Damon Salvatore?"

"Uh, yes it is."

"Hello Mr. Salvatore, this is Mystic Falls high school calling about Jeremy Gilbert."

Damon's eyebrows shot up in surprise, "Jeremy? What is it, did something happen to him?"

"No sir, Mr. Gilbert's history teacher has requested meeting with his guardian about a matter regarding his coursework. In the past these matters have been handled by his aunt Jenna Sommers but according to our records you have recently been made Mr. Gilbert's primary guardian, correct?"

"Yes, I have. So when do I have to come in?"

"Well Mr. Saltzman said that this matter is something he wants to deal with as soon as possible so if it's possible, would you be able to make it in today?"

Damon checked the clock on the microwave and found it to be just past 1:00, "Yeah, today works fine for me."

"Perfect, I'll notify Mr. Saltzman that you'll be coming. He said that if you were able to come today he would hold Jeremy back after class until you get here."

"Okay."

"When you get here you can just come straight in to the main office and someone will direct you to Mr. Saltzman's classroom."

"Alright, thanks for letting me know. Goodbye."

"No problem, Mr. Salvatore. We'll be seeing you later."

Damon hung up, feeling very off balance after being notified that he was being called in on a matter regarding Jeremy.

He briefly wondered how Jeremy would react upon seeing him at the school later and snickered at the thought. If the kid got himself in some sort of trouble then Damon had absolutely no problem embarrassing him at his own school.

It wasn't like things could get any worse between them after all.

Damon arrived at the high school at about 2:30, he'd waited a little while before leaving so that the bulk of the traffic leaving the school with dwindle out by the time he got there.

He was truly curious as to what Jeremy had done to warrant his guardian being called but he just hoped that it wasn't something that would put the teen in danger of being expelled for the second time in a month.

As he'd been instructed by the woman who'd called the house earlier, Damon went into the main office and approached the secretary's desk.

"Yeah hi, my name is Damon Salvatore. I got a call earlier today about meeting with Mr. Saltzman to talk about Jeremy Gilbert."

The secretary- a kind looking woman with light hair who looked to be in her mid 40's- smiled, "Yes Mr. Salvatore, how are you? I'm Mrs. Brooks, the school's secretary; I was the one who called you."

Damon smiled back at the kindly woman, "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Brooks. So where do I go to get to Jeremy's history class from here?"

"Just go down the hall to your left here and turn right at the first hallway, it's the third classroom on the left. Room 113."

Damon nodded and shot her a grateful smile, "Thank you. Have a nice day."

"You too!"

Damon wandered down the hallway and looked amusedly around at all the banners and posters decorating the walls, all of them focussing on one activity or another coming up in the school. After lingering to look at them all he finally reached Room 113.

He decided not to bother knocking and just opened the door. He was greeted by the sight of Jeremy slumped down in one of the front desks with a frown on his face while an attractive man with sandy blonde hair leaned against the teacher's desk with an eyebrow raised at the teen.

Both males looked up at the sound of the door shutting behind him and Jeremy's scowl immediately melted into a comical look of surprise and confusion when he saw the dark haired man standing there.

"Damon?!"

Pulling his gaze away from the tall blonde with steely blue eyes Damon cocked an eyebrow at the teen and huffed, "What the hell did you do now, kid?"

Well there's chapter 3! I hope you guys are enjoying this so far, I'd really like to hear what you think. I'm actually kind of concerned about this story because I can't see how many hits it's been getting since FF's view counters have been frozen for me (and obviously for many others) for days, I hope they fix it soon. Anyways for those of you who have been liking the story so far I thank you for reading!