Notes: Hi there, this story is pretty much what it says on the tin, a Delena canon rewrite written by someone who doesn't like romantic Delena but is trying to broaden my understanding of where people are coming from with it. Years ago, I had a conversation with my Mom asking her if she thinks Elena and Katherine would have the same fingerprints being the same physical person and her response was "What on earth kind of question is that, what does it matter?" and needless to say I wasn't satisfied. I'd always planned on potentially writing a story about this because I found the idea of a police investigation running fingerprints and finding Elena instead of Kat absurdly fascinating but now I've decided to merge the idea with my desire to try my hand at Delena so here we are.

Special thanks to all the vampire lore threads I perused to make a decision about whether vampires have fingerprints, and the in-depth analysis of how fingerprints are tied to sweat weirdly enough. You're all odd and wonderful and exactly my type of people so thanks for your craziness! (Strangely enough, almost all of them were Buffy threads but I love Buffy fans too so that tracks.)

This is wholly dedicated to Eva - siberia21 - who doesn't know I'm doing this yet as I want it to be a surprise but who I know is going to be thrilled about it. ;)

I hope you all enjoy this!

Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries, its characters, plot lines and premise belong to LJ Smith, Kevin Williamson, Julie Plec, The CW, Warner Brothers and their affiliates. I do not own anything detailed in this story, and I make no monetary profit by these writings. All rights reserved to respective parties.


Occurrences this patently absurd should only exist in twisted, cult classic horror movies, Elena thinks as she wrings her hands together in suffocating anxiety, throat tight with nausea and dread. Her stare was vacant, empty and surely terrifying if there were a soul in the room to witness it. Luckily, her slow but maddening descent into existential crisis is – for the moment – blissfully solitary. She isn't quite naive enough to forget about the cameras dissecting her every move, cataloging her stuttered, chaotic breathing and erratic jitters but if Elena Gilbert was gold medal worthy in anything it would undoubtedly be selective dissociation and frankly masterclass delusion. The laugh that rises in her throat is definitely apropos to the genre of deeply twisted psychological thriller she's found herself entrenched in, its tone so hollow and haunting that it gives her pause and doubt against the staunch conviction she's held steadfast to for the past thirty - six hours of detainment.

A distinct sharp pain in her chest strikes so viscerally it causes her to double over in pain, the horrifying questions reverberating with potent apprehension in the back of her mind. Could the trauma of her parents deaths and her irrepressible survivor's guilt actually cause a genuine mental break severe enough to make her capable of this? Did it tarnish and corrupt something so deep in her psyche it could make her capable of murder? She wishes she were more angry at the accusation, that she could tap into some form of righteous rage to keep her from turning on herself but she's just so exhausted. Her festering self-hatred and suicidal ideation does not exactly allow for a confident and impassioned testimony on her own behalf. She can't find it within herself to profess innocence when she hasn't felt innocent in months, when the dirt, grime and deep stains of her own impulsive recklessness hasn't dissipated in the slightest, when she can still feel the filthy lake water etched into the crevices of her skin like a cattle brand, no matter how much she scrubs her skin red and raw.

Her morals, values and worth as a person are now being literally judged in a court of law as opposed to the court of her own biased opinion and she doesn't know how to fight against a ruling she might agree with. She can't even fathom having to stand on a podium, shaking with fear, being asked to proclaim the innocence of her character, to staunchly defend her lack of capacity for murder. She didn't murder this person, she knows that – as well as anyone could when the diagnosis of dissociation is carelessly and baselessly thrown around – but there's a not so insignificant part of her mind that still equates her reckless selfishness with the murder of her parents.

How do you find the strength to rebut your responsibility of one crime when you're guilty of another?

The heavy weight of the creaking metal door to her current residence – a deeply chilling and foreboding interrogation room – snaps her out of the unhelpful carousel of her thoughts, and she's met with narrowed crystal blue eyes, a haughty amused smirk that tilts her axis just that bit more unsteady and an underlying stunned curiosity in the tilt of his head. This man is intimidating, no doubt about it, and she isn't sure why it comes as a surprise. They don't exactly send the meek desk clerks in to interrogate a murder case, why would they? He's undoubtedly attractive with a sharp jawline, enticing smirk and crystal blue eyes sharp enough to cut diamond. Its a stunning look, really, in a way that makes it a little difficult to focus on much needed rational logic, but it isn't this that sets her most off guard. It's the look of fondness in his eyes as they crease in natural, stark amusement and intrigue – mostly, it's her perception that he isn't entirely aware of how he's looking at her, as though it's a long ingrained habit over many years of intimacy that he can no longer control.

It's a terrifying and confounding look to receive from a literal stranger and the chills down her spine intensify with unease.

"Elena Gilbert," he says finally after several awkward seconds of weighted silence, her name leaving his lips in an almost inappropriate caress. Again, she thinks with unease, intimately. Familiarly. She doesn't know this man, and she isn't sure she wants to because that nauseous feeling of dread is slowly making a very visceral comeback. Is this a tactic? She thinks it might be, she knows the concept of good cop, she just isn't sure she's ever heard of the variant that is distinctly flirty cop.

His eyes shine with mischief now and she amends her thought – flirty might have been an underestimation, seductive cop might be closer to the target. Lord, she's being seduced – and by a federal agent, no less. This horror movie is taking a frankly genre-bending turn and it's succeeding only in bending her to its will. No, that won't do, definitely not. She might feel wholly unqualified to fight for her own innocence, but she's far too stubborn to allow him to turn her meek and complacent simply by being attractive.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr …?" she inquires with a breezy tone of disinterest, steadying her tightly clasped hands and treating him to a placid smile. There is no way in hell she's folding to a suave man used to getting what he wants. She's almost tempted to thank whoever made the decision to bring him in, whoever attempted to try to leverage his appeal to unsteady a teenage girl. Elena enjoys being underestimated, and she takes great pleasure in dismantling those assumptions. Ironically, this is the dumbest tactic they could've possibly employed, because it would succeed only in lighting just a flicker of that tenacious spark that she'd do anything for right now, that she's always prided herself on.

Elena Gilbert is sufficiently broken after a multitude of unrelenting traumas – devastatingly so, really – but she's still her and all they've managed to do with this infuriatingly attractive man is remind her of that.

Moronic, frankly. Why on earth did she have to sit through the world's longest psych evaluation if it didn't give them even the slightest helpful insight into her character? Maybe she's a better actress than she thought she was. A better liar. Her fingers begin to drum against the leg of her rigid metal chair as she considers this and she immediately halts them and takes a long, deep, controlled breath.

Focus. He isn't an obstacle, don't let him be an obstacle.

"Patrick Matthews," he says with an endearing grin, more childlike, pure and seemingly harmless than before but god knows she doesn't buy it, not for a second. He's good, simply brimming with charisma and certainly in the correct profession but it's as fake as her adeptly mastered, even-tempered disinterest. His name itches in the back of her mind and she is no longer certain that his behavior is the only thing being currently faked. It's a leap, certainly, but his words don't feel right. There's nothing natural about the way the name leaves his lips – almost like he's trying to hold in a grimace at how they sound.

"It doesn't suit you very well, does it?" She asks, her smile teetering slightly more towards genuine despite her best attempts to stay persistently detached.

His eyes crease again in delight and his smirk turns a little sharper, a little more telling of true intention. "I most definitely agree," he says with a very potent assessment of her body language, and it takes every shred of willpower she possesses not to shake at his perusal. Despite all her protests to the contrary, his presence is more than intimidating, it's overwhelming, as intoxicating as it is unnerving and she knows without a shred of doubt he's using the full force of its weight. "I suppose my parents knew I'd be the black sheep, didn't want me to pull ahead of the golden boy so they saddled me with an unfit name."

He pauses, assessing her reaction, and smiles again – not quite a smirk this time, a little too loose to be threatening – and asks, "Do you have siblings, Elena?"

"Shouldn't it tell you that in your extensive paperwork there?"

His brow raises in surprise at the slight hostility in her tone but he brushes it off quickly. "I'm not asking the desk clerk, Elena, I'm asking you."

It seems every question he asks ends in her name, and it raises her guard just that bit higher. When he says it it's pronounced tenderly like you would sigh a reverent prayer and she wants – needs – to dissuade this behavior, to cut it off at the knees before he gets the idea she can be swayed. He has no idea who she is and she's not going to let him cast her in a role she doesn't agree to. She's not sure yet if she's ready to contest murderer but she sure as hell won't allow damsel.

"I'm the one on trial here, not them, I won't speak of my family. Ask me questions about me or don't ask me questions at all."

Now that got a reaction, she thinks gleefully, an intoxicating shiver of triumph running through her, the first pleasurable sensation she's felt in what feels like years – decades, even, with the weight of piled on trauma. She lets herself luxuriate in it for a moment, feels a deep-seated and wholly satisfactory enjoyment watching the conflicting emotions on his face. She first reads annoyance at her dismissal of his authority, but it's belied by something else – it resembles pride but that doesn't make a lick of a sense from a stranger hired to break her resolve. It even teeters on affection but hell if that's not even further out of left field. Elena is now pretty damn sure she's been in this prison long enough to be hallucinating because this man is a minefield of contradiction and chaos.

She licks her lips both in anxiety and anticipation, intrigue and exasperation fighting for predominance in a battle that leaves her sick with fear, hands now slick with the sweat of uncertainty.

"You don't like games, do you Elena?" he asks with a teasing lilt to his voice, leaning a little closer over the table to disrupt her safe space and her breath stutters a little shallower as she picks up the spice of his scent.

"In the right context, I guess," she responds, more breathlessly than she wanted but still even and composed and at least her sarcasm comes out with the sharpness she's seeking – "This doesn't exactly feel like an appropriate time for charades."

His laugh is light and genuine and disturbing and she leans further back in the seat on instinct. He pulls out a few pages from a worn, tattered leather briefcase and her brow raises in surprise at the distinctly uncharacteristic state of it. She has known this man for all of five minutes, sure, but she's perceptive enough to glean his penchant for well-kept possessions and this is in stark contrast to everything else he's shown about himself. And yet, she finds herself narrowing her eyes in contemplation because what exactly does she know about him and how does she parse fact from fiction? Her entire countenance right now is fiction, in fairness.

"Allow us, then, to proceed to the point," he says in a much more brusque and formal tone but his smile stays light and endearing. We've veered away from seductive cop to land squarely in good cop, then. She refuses to allow herself to analyze why that feels slightly disappointing. "Do you understand the evidence brought against you for this murder?"

Now she frowns in genuine annoyance, their intriguing back and forth almost entirely dissolved with his quick turn towards professionalism. "There is no actual evidence against me, I'm being held for a glitch in a system," she grits out between her teeth, hostile aggression present in every shallow, angry breath. She might not be able to fight in proclamation of her innocence of character, but she'll surely fight against the name of incompetence and injustice. Perhaps if she detaches enough to play the lawyer of an innocent she can muster enough spirit to challenge this infuriatingly interesting man with the laughable fake name. She's seen enough Law & Order, she can fake the passion to defend a fictional person. In a deeply twisted way, she thinks the person her family – what's left of her family – are so determined to save from this fate is a fictional creation of their minds anyway.

He hands the papers to her and she crinkles the edges with the force of her grip, refusing to look down at what she already knows. At the match in the system, the evidence. "We found no other evidence of a presence at the crime scene, Elena, except yours. Your fingerprints are on the body, on almost every inch of it. It's been run through several of the most state of the art machines in the country, it isn't a glitch." He stops here, pauses, looks almost slightly regretful of the fear he's instilled in her, of the pale pallor in her cheeks and the stuttered anxiety of her once more trembling hands. "Unfortunately, not much more evidence is needed."

"I understand it's an insane circumstance – " she agrees, because she well and truly does, the entire situation is frankly impossible and she can't even begin to fathom an explanation – "but I didn't do this. I have no idea who this man is, I have no idea how anything of mine could've been found there, and I don't agree there's any evidence to back up the claim of a psychotic break. I know the evaluation shows that there isn't too, otherwise I'd have been carted off already and you wouldn't be here."

To her immense surprise, the man nods in assent. His tone is oddly gentle when he says, "I don't believe you've done this either, but protocol requires me to sit down with you, to make a final assessment of that. I won't lie to you, Elena, you're in one hell of a bad situation here but we will figure out who killed this man. You understand?"

A bone - deep sense of utter relief fills her that someone – anyone, even this unnerving man – doesn't believe her culpable of murder. At least of this murder. Maybe there's some tiny shred of self - preservation still present deep below the guilt because her relief is so encompassing she feels slight moisture of relieved tears forming in her eyes.

"Thank you, Patrick," she says with far more emotion than is likely advised here, his certainly fake name the last of her concerns but she's used up her allotment of detached acting skills. For all her tenaciousness, survivor's guilt and deeply concerning self-hatred she's a seventeen year old girl accused of murder. Even the slightest bit of belief in her warrants this reaction. His flinch at the name this time is so imperceptible that she wouldn't have noticed it if she wasn't already attuned to looking but it's still there – and still fascinating.

"I will be seeing you again, Elena," he says as he stands, papers back in the briefcase and posture certain and cocky. His foreboding promise and enticing, knife - sharp smirk that draws his brows down into a compelling, wicked stare is so stunning and captivating that she hates to admit it continues to haunt her far after he's gone.


Some few hours after Damon has left the police station, discarded the ugly, ill-fitting uniform, re-instated the interrogation room cameras he'd disabled, trashed the stolen badge of the now deceased Patrick Matthews and stopped at the liquor store for much needed top-shelf bourbon, he finds himself standing at the door of the Salvatore Boarding House, his moronic great - great - something or other nephew staring at him with that dopey, idiotic, vacant stare of his.

"Zach," he says with a broad grin, undercut with a sharp bite of threat and malice.

"Damon," he acknowledges with a clear tremor to his voice, "What are you doing here?"

His grin only widens, just this side of predatory.

"Research," he answers with a roguish laugh, bourbon swinging merrily at his side. "I need to borrow your address book, nephew. I have a certain brother I need to call for damage control – we have a …" he breaks off here, the slightest bit of authentic anxiety creeping through – "strange situation, of the unexpected supposed to be dead ex-lover type."

As he pushes past a startled Zach into his obnoxiously kitschy parlor room, he gives a deep sigh as he peruses the disconcertingly unchanged decor. "Time for a family reunion."