Chapter 27: Sometimes We Cry

Damon

He was playing some car-racing video game with the boys. That Olaf thing got a little old as he did not know any of his lines and Honey got annoyed by his uselessness. Elena kept laughing at his struggles the whole time. Well, at least he could provide her with entertainment, he thought.

To be honest though, the sound of her giggles was music to his ears and he felt like laughing just by hearing her laugh.

He did not think she could be more beautiful but he was wrong because that look of pure joy on her face, like she did not have a care in the world made her look entrancing.

She fit right in with those kids. They all adored her but her relationship with Honey was something else entirely. She was one of the youngest kids in the home and Elena explained her situation to him. As a three-year-old diabetic, she was one of the most fragile kids there and she needed extra care and attention.

As the game was loading, Damon looked to where they were sitting in the corner. Elena was letting her play with her hair and Honey looked like she was unwrapping presents on Christmas day, with the careful way she was brushing every single strand of Elena's hair. She looked like she was attached to Elena on a much deeper level than any of the other kids.

The game voiceover counted down from 3 and as it shouted go, four cars shot forward and the screen was split in four to follow each of their cars as he and three boys raced each other, each trying to complete 3 laps before the others.

This was fun.

She was right. This proved to be an amazing distraction from painful memories and thoughts. Being surrounded by those kids, playing video games let him for once forget about the world and just be.

He was allowed to just exist and do something he genuinely enjoyed without any concerns of what anyone would think or any pressures to act a certain way. He was not surrounded by the usual pretenses and lies. There were no fake masks or facades.

They were all just children who in spite of having been through more than most adults were still able to play, laugh and trust. They were able to move on and they were strong enough to face life with a smile.

Elena

They left Jenna's after playtime was finished and the kids had to go prepare for bed. Elena made sure to read a bedtime story for Honey and her roommate and kissed her goodnight before she left. She was still going to miss her until next time.

They walked the couple of blocks to her apartment building in silence, each of them in their own thoughts. When they arrived at her building, she stopped and turned to face him. He had not told her what he thought about Sommer's but it seemed like he had fun. She smiled at the thought of his lost expression every time Honey had to tell him his lines.

During the evening she saw him play video games with some of the boys and at some point they decided to have a loud wrestling match where he taught Jeremy, a 9-year-old boy who was a bit smaller than the other boys, how to fight out of a hold and pin someone down. He let him win the match.

It was a bit surprising how well he handled kids. He was a whole different person around them, somehow freer, more like the person she had come to know rather than the one everyone else thought he was. None of his nastier traits were anywhere to be seen, no sarcasm or biting comments.

Somehow, today ended up being amazing considering its horrible start and she did not want the day to end. She looked into those startlingly blue eyes of his and her mouth spoke before her thoughts could catch up.

"Do you want to come up?" She asked and she did not wait for his reaction before she went on. "We can order a pizza and watch a movie or something." He opened his mouth about to say something but she did not let him. "Don't worry, Caroline's with Stefan for the weekend and Bonnie's at the hospital so it's just me and…"

"Okay," he interrupted stopping her babbling. God, that always happened when she got too excited.

Then she remembered what he had said and she saw the smile in his eyes that he was failing to keep hidden. "Shut up," she said as she punched his shoulder playfully but she could not stop the corners of her own lips from pulling upwards.

She heard him let out a snicker as he followed her up to the apartment.

Damon

"I need to freshen up and change out of these jeans. Will you order the pizza?" She said batting her eyelashes.

"Sure, go ahead," he said and fished his phone out of his back pocket.

He made the call and ordered pizza for the both of them. She liked hers with lots of pepperoni and pineapple which to him was the strangest and least appealing combination of foods ever.

He took a seat on the couch to wait for her but then his attention was caught by a collection of picture frames on the wall next to the TV. He got up and went to study the pictures.

He had never been inside of her apartment before. He had waited for her outside her door a couple of times but he had never been inside. He would never admit it but he was a little scared of her friends. He already knew Blondie with the judging stare but from what he had heard the other friend sounded just as scary, maybe even more so.

He could not believe that Stefan was with one of them and was on great terms with the other but then again he was a saint and they were probably much nicer to him.

There were a lot of pictures. Most of them of the three girlfriends but there were some older ones with other people too. There was this one picture where a younger version of Elena was wearing this cute little Christmas sweater and sitting on a couch with a man and a woman on each side. He thought they might be her parents. The woman had the exact same hair and the man had the same eyes. She looked happy and carefree.

Another picture showed a slightly older Elena, this time with her aunt Jenna as well as Blondie. They were both smiling widely but Elena's smile did not reach her eyes. Instead she looked sad, like she carried the whole weight of the world.

"That was graduation-day. Just before we went to school to receive our diplomas."

He was so captured by the pictures that he did not notice her before she was standing next to him looking at that picture. He turned to her and for a moment, he forgot to breathe.

She had changed out of her skinny jeans and shirt combo in favor of a pair of grey sweatpants and a slouchy white T-shirt. Her hair was thrown carelessly up in a bun on top of her head. Now, Elena was not the type of girl to always be heavily made up or wear her clothes and makeup as a steel shield. She did not wear much makeup at all and her clothes were simple but seeing her all unwound and comfortable was mind-blowing. It was even flattering that she felt comfortable enough around him to just be herself and did not feel the need to put on her public persona for his sake.

The sound of the doorbell jerked him out of his little daze as she went to get the door.

As expected it was their pizza. Elena grabbed two cans of coke from the kitchen before they sat to eat by the coffee table. They small talked while they ate and kept the atmosphere light and easy.

His mind kept straying back to that picture where her usually bright eyes were sad and dim. She said it was right before graduation but then where were her parents? Graduation day was a big deal. They should have been there… unless they could not.

They had talked a lot about her upbringing and she had told him about herself when she was a kid. She told him she was an only child but she never seemed to talk about her parents.

Today, she took him to the foster home and told him it was her distraction but she never said why she needed one in the first place.

He was not stupid and he was able to read her more than any other person. He knew there was a piece of her past she had not disclosed yet. The piece she was not ready to talk about and he understood that too well but today, she took him to her sanctuary. That foster home was a place where she felt safe. She took him there knowing full well it would lead him to the question he had never dared to ask before.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," she said in a light tone taking another slice of pizza from her cardboard box.

"Why do you need a distraction?"

She froze with the pizza halfway up to her mouth. She put it back down and gave him a look he could not decipher.

"You're not the only one dealing with painful memories, Damon." She looked into his eyes and he saw the echo of that sadness in their brown depths.

Elena

She knew it was coming. She had prepared herself for that question since she came up with the idea of taking him to Jenna's. Still, he took her by surprise when he finally asked and she was not sure if she wanted to answer. But she figured she owed him that much. If she wanted him to open up to her, she had to open up about herself in return.

"Do you remember how I told you I was a cheerleader in high school and that Caroline was our captain?" It was an odd start but how does one start talking about this stuff? She thought, she should take it from the beginning and slowly ease herself into the dark parts.

"Of course. I'm still waiting for you to show me that uniform," he said with a wink.

She gave him a stern look to remind him that they were having a serious conversation.

"That was inappropriate, Damon. You asked me a question, remember?" She scolded.

"Sorry, please carry on," he said sounding anything but sorry but this was Damon. She knew he could not help himself sometimes.

"So yeah, I stayed a cheerleader for nearly two years but junior year, I started going out with this guy." She was immersed in her story and almost missed the strange look that passed over his features. She dismissed it though and carried on. "He was what you could call… troubled, you know, ran with the wrong crowd or was the wrong crowd. Anyway, my parents didn't approve but I was in my teen rebellion phase. I was stubborn and I thought I was in love. I quit cheerleading and started spending all of my time with him and his friends. We partied, we drank and I broke every rule and disregarded every curfew put by my parents. I was a nightmare.

One day, I was at his place. His parents were out-of-town for the weekend and we were…doing… you know…" She cocked her head and cleared her throat, her cheeks heating up as she went on. "I found a bra, in his bed. Obviously, it wasn't mine. I broke up with him right then, put my clothes back on and stormed out."

She stopped talking and took a deep breath, to calm her wildly beating heart. She had not told this story in a very long time and even though she often thought about the events of that night, saying it out loud was a completely different thing. It was hard, having to put everything into words and relaying them to someone else but it was also healing. She was finally at a stage where she was able to talk about her past without crumbling and falling into pieces that took her weeks to gather back together. It was painful, no question but bearable.

"All this time, I'd hurt my parents, abandoned my friends and lost myself thinking that he loved me as much as I loved him when he was screwing around with other girls…" She trailed off as the images of her past played behind her eyes.

She took another breath and braced herself for the next part of her story. Damon sat quietly listening to her talk as she dove back in.

"I ended up stranded on a road somewhere because he'd driven us to his house and my car was back home. It was mid-December, biting cold and I wasn't wearing nearly enough clothes after our date. I called my parents to come get me. They told me they were on their way…"

Her throat closed up and she had a hard time forcing her voice out but she carried on with a small, shaky voice. She had to finish what she started. "They never came. I walked all the way back home to find the house dark and empty. Next morning the cops came to tell me what happened."

She really tried to hold her tears back but her eyes were leaking out of her control. She stood up, grabbed a tissue and sat back, now on the couch. Damon got up to join her there.

"Elena, you don't have to tell me this," he said and she could not mistake the concern in his voice and his eyes.

"No, I need to tell you," she said, looking into his eyes and hoping that he would see the truth in hers.

He nodded to let her finish.

"They told me there was an accident. On their way to get me, my parent's car slipped on the icy ground of the bridge and fell into the freezing water. They died. In one night and because of a stupid decision on my part both, my parents were dead."

She took a little break from talking and could not help a sob from wrenching out of her.

"I'm so sorry," Damon said softly and put his hand on hers.

She looked up and managed to give him just a little smile to reassure him, "It's okay. It happened a long time ago."

"That doesn't make it hurt any less." Understanding was oozing out of him and surrounding her like a blanket of warmth.

"No. It doesn't," she said, a little out of breath.

It was kind of nice that he got it but at the same time, she could not help but hurt for him too because he knew that pain of losing a parent. She wanted to ask him about it. She, like everyone else, knew the story about his mom but only he had felt that pain. She wanted him to share it with her but she knew he was not ready for something like that.

Tonight, she had decided to tell him her story and she was going to stick with that. She turned her hand around in his so their palms were facing each other as she picked up from where she left of.

"So after that, Jenna came to stay with me until I finished high school. Without her, I don't know how I would ever have graduated high school, filled in my college applications or graduated college. She, Caroline and later Bonnie all helped me through a very tough time but sometimes, the memories, the guilt, it all becomes too much and I need a reprieve from my own thoughts.

That's when I usually do more yoga or take an extra route on the food-van but when all of that is just not enough, then I go to Jenna's. I play with the kids for a couple of hours and forget about myself and my past."

She turned to fully face him on the couch and took his other hand in hers. She wanted to prove a point and she had to show him that she trusted him completely.

"The point of the story is that you're not the only one who needs a distraction, Damon. We all need one from time to time and that's what makes us human."

"Elena, I use women for sex and drink myself into a stupor to distract myself," he said and tried to pull himself back but she held on.

"Not anymore, and you can choose to change that. You can choose another kind of distraction that would give you the satisfaction and reprieve that you need but without hurting yourself or someone else."

He did not say anything but kept staring at her for a while. "Damn, you really got this figured," he said in a low tone and his gaze dropped for a moment before he took it back up to hers.

She felt the atmosphere shifting from agitated and emotional to a kind of charged silence. She realized that they were sitting very close to each other, their legs touching. Then she got aware of their entwined hands and like a switch was turned on, the empty space between them started buzzing.

"I'm not a good person, Elena," he said in that same velvety tone.

She took her right hand to his face, cupping his cheek. "You have issues, Damon. We all have issues. It does not make you a bad person," she replied stubbornly.

"Yes, but I have daddy issues, mommy issues and all kinds of issues there is," he said but now his eyes were fixed on her lips.

"I don't care," she whispered and moved the last two inches forward to capture his lips with hers.

Her mind soared somewhere above them as her lips moved against his. Her stomach felt like it was housing a butterfly riot and her heart was beating its way through her chest. But it was all over soon after it began and they did not even dive into the deep stuff. It was just a sweet little kiss but somehow it overshadowed all the other impassioned kisses they had shared before.

She smiled and let go of his hands before she got up. "So what movie should we watch?"

AN: Soooo, what do you think?

First of all, thank you for your continued support and be sure that I take you thoughts very seriously. After all, this is my first dive into the multi-chapter fanfiction and I'm mostly experimenting. I try to write chapters that keep me excited and interested and I keep from doing the stuff that annoys me about other's work. Having said that, I would love to hear any advice or thoughts from some of you, like if I'm doing something very annoying,then please tell me so I can change it and do better.

Okay, so that was a long AN and I'll leave you to it then.

Love always,

Mydarkside975

ps. The chapter is named after Sometimes we cry by Van Morrison