This missing scene occurs after the end of Season 4, Episode 12 – A View to Kill…

It took longer than Elena hoped – longer for her to be alone with Damon. Eventually Stefan left to do whatever – if he said, she didn't hear. Jeremy and Bonnie went somewhere else to try to get a little sleep before they would have to leave. After what had seemed like forever, Damon was sitting on a couch near the fire, and her head was laying on his lap as he stroked her hair.

Still, she found her mind going back to earlier. Back to when, after days of separation or, if she and Damon were together, tension; she finally had her arms around him, they had their arms around each other and were looking into each others' eyes – only to be interrupted by Stefan coming through the door. Stefan being a jerk to her, Stefan defending Rebekah.

She knew that this moment she was having with Damon would be much too brief, and she didn't want to spend any of it talking about Stefan; but she thought it might be the only way to get him off of her mind.

"I can't believe you hit Stefan," she said. She was looking into the fire, enjoying the feeling of Damon's hand as it moved on her hair, her cheek, her neck.

"Can you believe he was being a dick?" Damon asked.

"I know," she said quietly. "I hoped for better from him, expected more of him. I hoped he would be more like Matt, still be a friend. But he's just…" She sighed and added, "You never acted the way Stefan's acting just because I was with him and you wanted me."

Damon smirked. "Glad you noticed. I'm not, nor was I ever, like Saint Stefan."

"It's hard to miss," she said, leaving her head on his lap but turning it to look into his eyes. "Not that he wants me anymore. He just wants to be jerk to both of us."

"Oh, he wants you," Damon countered. "That hasn't changed."

She sat up and faced him. "Damon, he told me to my face that he's not in love with me now."

Damon snorted. "So? Didn't he say something like that in Chicago when he was trying to keep you from following him, trying to keep you away from Klaus?"

She looked down, then leaned against him. "He didn't mention love then."

Damon's smirk got bigger. "So he's upped the ante. He still loves you. He only wants the cure because he hopes it will make you realize the error of your vampire ways, because it will make you want him back."

Elena shook her head. "Well, that's not going to happen."

Damon shrugged but did not speak.

"Damon, you believe me, right? The way he's acting now, why would I ever go back to him?"

"It's not like I don't come with baggage, Elena," Damon said, remembering what Klaus had said to him.

She pulled him into a hug. "And you think Stefan doesn't? I know a lot more about who he is, what he's done, than I used to."

He didn't return the hug, in fact he pulled back and stared at her a few seconds before speaking. "I used to think I wanted you any way I could get you. I was so tempted to just rip off your necklace and compel you."

"But you didn't," she said, looking earnestly into his eyes. "And even when I didn't have the necklace, you didn't compel me. You only compelled me to forget when you told me that you loved me."

"I didn't think you wanted to hear it."

"But you showed me, Damon. And I knew it."

He turned from her to look into the fire. "It didn't matter. You still chose Stefan."

She moved to kneel in front him. "Damon, no. I see things more clearly now. Even the cure. Don't you think I see what Stefan wants with it and what you want with it?"

He looked into her eyes, though his face remained firm. "We both want it for you."

She shook her head. "He wants it because he thinks that if I'm human, I will want him again. You don't care if I'm human or not. You want it because I want it. He wants it for him, you want it for me. I know the difference, Damon."

He looked past her, to the fire, again. "But what if he's right? What if making you human…"

When he didn't continue, she stood and pulled his chin so he was looking into her eyes again. "Where's that Salvatore optimism?"

He didn't even show the slightest hint of amusement at her reference to what he had said to Jeremy earlier.

She sat next to him and snuggled up to him again. "Is that what you're afraid of?" she asked softly.

Damon nodded, still staring into the fire.

"But you still want me to have the cure, Damon. You would still do anything, risk anything, to get me what I want."

He shrugged again, though at least he turned to face her. "I'm not afraid of much, but having you, then losing you is…"

"You won't," she reassured.

"You can't know that."

"Because of the bond." She said flatly.

Damon nodded.

She hesitated briefly, then looked into his eyes and asked, "Do you know what I'm afraid of, Damon?"

"Losing Jeremy?" he guessed.

She shook her head. "No, not with you, Bonnie and me looking after him. I'm afraid of losing what I feel for you. I have never felt this way about anyone – not Stefan, not Matt. I didn't even know it was possible to feel this strongly about someone. And though I know I had feelings for you before, I'm afraid that part of it is the heightened emotions of becoming a vampire. I'm afraid that part of it is the sire bond. I'm scared to death that something will happen, the cure or something else, and that I'll never feel this way about you, about anyone, again."

Damon hesitated, then noted "But you still want the cure,"

Elena sighed, and nodded slightly. "I want the cure, but I don't want to lose these feelings. I don't want to lose you."

He snorted. "You won't lose me. The question is if I'll lose you."

She snuggled up to him. "You won't," she said, but it was a only a whisper.

Damon didn't respond. He just hugged her.