Elena Gilbert broke the surface of the water and took in a gasp of air. Cold, fresh air.
"Damon!" she slapped the hard surface with both hands, and then swam to the muddy bank.
"Chase me onto the bridge," she pulled Honoria Fell's newly soaked dress over her head, and spat out more water.
"Make me crash Matt's car," she tossed the tattered piece of clothing aside. Maybe she would bury it later. Or burn it.
"Cause me to almost drown," she pulled off her camisole, and, shivering in just her bra and panties, wrung it out before pitting it back on.
"What am I going to do about pants?" she looked down at herself.
"Oh, my God... Elena!" screamed Bonnie.
"Bonnie!" Elena called, standing up. "I'm over here!"
"Oh, my God!" Bonnie shrieked again. "How did you get over there?!"
"A storm chased me into the river!" she yelled.
"Well, how are you going to get back over here?" Meredith's voice broke as she tried to scream.
"Well, I can't swim across! The water's frozen!"
But then, without a flash, Stefan jumped across the lake, gathered Elena in his arms, jumped back, and started peppering her with kisses.
"Wait, wait," Elena freed her face of her fiancé's lips. "Wait, I still need pants."
And then, as if to relieve all of the tension surrounding them, her friends started to laugh.
"What? I'm serious," she crossed her legs as if to keep her dignity.
"We know, Lovely Love," Stefan stifled his smile.
Elena huffed.
"Here," Meredith started unbuttoning herself. "I'm wearing shorts underneath." She pulled off her pants, and Elena took them gratefully. She then took off her jacket, which she also gave to Elena to hold just long enough to take off her sweater. She put her jacket back on, and then wrapped the sweater around her waist like a true 90's kid. She pulled the whole look off with her olive-legged gracefulness.
"Thanks," Elena said. Once she put Meredith's pants on and rolled them and rolled them and rolled them up, Stefan slipped his jacket over her shoulders.
She turned back to him, "Can I stay at your place tonight? I'm afraid Aunt Judith and I got into a fight, and I think it will do her some good to worry about me a little.
"Lovely-"
"I think," Meredith broke in, "that we should all stay at your place tonight, just to be on the safe side."
;
Elena ended up falling asleep as soon as they got to the boarding house, curled up in the long pants and leather jacket.
Meredith was sent on an errand to pick up clothes for the three girls, and Matt, because they needed to keep him safe too, and, also... he needed to know about his car.
In the morning they were all up early to discuss everything, including Stefan and Damon being a vampire. Elena's friends weren't as surprised as she thought they'd be. They'd just jumped right into the conversation as if they'd been talking about a high school football game.
"So, Damon is definitely behind the killings," Elena said as she accepted a cup of coffee from Meredith.
"I still can't believe that douchebag crashed my car," Matt gritted his teeth.
"Technically, I crashed your car," Elena said to him. And then to everyone else, she said, "We have to figure out what he wants."
They all looked at her.
"What?" she sipped her coffee.
"Well, no offense," Bonnie said reluctantly. "But we all kind of know what he wants."
"How?" Elena leaned forward. "Did you have a vision?"
"I didn't have to," she looked down.
"It's kind of obvious that he wants you," Meredith spoke up for her.
"What? Why?" Elena narrowed her eyes at her.
"You're the light to his darkness," Stefan muttered.
Matt looked away.
"What?" Elena asked.
"Do you ever wonder why people fall so easily for you?" Matt turned back to her.
Elena shook her head.
"It's just that you're so, just so," he groaned in frustration. "Good. You're just so good, Elena. You make everyone else want to be good."
Bonnie abruptly turned out of the room.
Elena barely watched her go. "Are you saying that I make Damon want to be good?"
Meredith said, "I think that Damon may be attracted to you in the same way that dark is attracted to light."
"You think Damon came here because he was attracted to my light? Like I'm a lighthouse or something?"
"I do," Stefan said.
Bonnie came bouncing back into the room with a fresh cup of coffee, but Elena saw that her face was wet as though she'd had to wash it. "You do what?" she sat down next to Stefan.
"Think that Damon was brought here by Elena's light."
"Oh, yeah," Bonnie nodded solemnly. "I think so too."
Elena flopped back on the floor. Her head bumped against Matt's knee, and he patted her blonde curls.
Bonnie frowned.
"What are we going to do?" Elena asked.
"Maybe," Meredith picked at the rug she was sitting on. "Maybe we should just go on with life as normal until we figure out his next move, or, at least why he wanted to kill Elena.
Stefan sighed and looked around the room, "Everyone else agreed?"
;
"Wait, what are those?" Elena and Stefan went to school together Monday. Elena hadn't been back home since before the Founder's Day Parade. Stefan and she had spent a quiet evening at the boarding house alone the night before.
"Stop," Stefan eyed the new security devices warily. They were like the ones you walk through at an airport to make sure you weren't concealing any weapons on you. "Don't go through through those."
"Why not?" she looked at him.
"Elena!" Sue Carson was in line to go through one of the security things, in fact, she was next to go through hers. She waved Stefan and Elena over. "I heard you were in a car crash this weekend. How are-"
Sue stepped through the device. Suddenly, she stood stock-straight and her sympathetic look was replaced with one that was completely blank.
"What happened to her?!" Elena was on the verge of hyperventilating.
"Vampire blood," Stefan sniffed. "He's turning them all into his little drones."
"Like Vicki Bennett?" Elena turned on him with wide eyes.
"Exactly like Vicki Bennett," he replied.
"But why?" Elena really was about to hyperventilate.
"I don't know," Stefan said. "But I think we've discovered his next move."
;
"Thank God none of you went through one of those security devices." Elena had texted all of her friends a 911, and they all met up in their empty History class.
"Bonnie felt something off about them, and with luck Matt and I were both with her." Meredith was distributing hot coffee again. "We came in through the back door."
"So did we," Elena gestured between her and Stefan.
"Why does he want us like that!" cried Bonnie.
"I don't think he wants Elena like that," Matt said.
"No, neither do I," Stefan looked thoughtful. "He would've known I'd sense the mist of vampire blood coming down."
"Well, can anyone think of a reason why he would want everybody but me like this?"
"The Snow Dance is coming up," Meredith suggested.
"What?"
Suddenly, Bonnie's head turned to look out the window. "Something has happened during every main event, thus far. Something big is going to go down during the dance."
"Bonnie?" Elena asked.
"What?" Bonnie looked around in shock at all of the faces looking at her. "Oh, no! What did I say that time?"
Matt took her hand, "You said that something big will go down at the dance."
Bonnie bit her lip, and looked away.
Elena moaned, "What are we going to do?"
"I have a plan," Meredith said. "And we're gonna need help. But I know just who to ask."
At that moment Alaric K. Saltzman walked in the room, and asked bewilderingly, "What are you guys doing here?!"
"Speak of the devil," Meredith grinned.
;
Everybody broke out in shouts.
"What do you mean you're going to ask him to help us?" asked Matt.
"No, no, no," Bonnie said at the same time that Elena yelled, "He's a spy!"
And then, much more quietly, Stefan said, "He's not a spy. He's a vampire hunter."
"No, I'm not!" Alaric raised up his hands. "I'm not a spy or a hunter."
"Then what are you?" Stefan crossed the room dangerously.
"I'm just a researcher," he said. "An experimental psychologist."
"You mean you study on psychics?" Bonnie hid behind Matt.
Matt fixed Alaric with a death glare.
"No! Well, actually," he said. "I wouldn't mind doing a study on you-"
"You won't touch her!" Matt shot him down.
"Fine, I won't," Alaric held up his hands again. "But she's a great example of why I'm here. I don't need to prove supernatural powers exist, I already know they do. What I'm doing is studying the psychological effects they take on the people who have them." He asked Bonnie, "I often wonder what it does to you?"
Bonnie buried her head against Matt's back, "I don't want to talk about it."
"You will not look at her anymore," Matt seethed.
Elena lifted her eyebrows. She wondered when it was that Matt had become so protective of her little red-headed friend.
Alaric pointedly turned to Stefan, "I came across this case where this woman was all messed up psychologically from a vampire bite. She swore she could see visions, though I was never able to prove that was true. But it started this fire in me, and it was like all of a sudden that was all I could research on."
"And then Principal Newcastle called you to come check things out after our History teacher was killed," Elena put two and two together.
"Exactly!" Alaric looked around excitedly, avoiding Matt and Bonnie. "And I'm so glad he did."
"Why?" Stefan narrowed his eyes at him.
"What, a case where the vampire is still in the area?" Alaric's eyes were wide. "How could I pass that up?"
"You can't tell anyone that I'm a vampire!" Stefan shouted.
He sobered, "I was talking about your brother."
"How do you know Damon is my brother?"
Meredith raised her hand shyly, "Uhm, I kind of told him."
"Wait," Elema looked from her best friend to her sub-History teacher. "What's the connection between the two of you?"
"There isn't one," Meredith blushed. "I just figured out the brothers were vampires before you even told us the other night, and I put everything with Alaric together."
"Oh, I love you so much, Meredith," Elena threw her arms around the taller girl. "Thank you for not telling anyone else."
"Uh, she told me," Matt lifted a tentative hand.
"And me," Bonnie said in a tinny voice behind him.
"Oh," Elena was on the verge of tears. "I love you all so much."
"So, uh," Alaric cleared his throat. "What were you going to ask me to help with?"
"You have to get them to cancel the Snow Dance," Meredith said.
"I can't do that," he said.
"What?" Matt huffed. "We're supposed to trust you, but you can't do this one thing for us? People's lives are in danger-"
"It's impossible," Alaric cut in. "Newcastle thinks this town needs the Snow Dance so that things can go on as normal. I've asked him to cancel before, and he won't."
"Well," Meredith pursed her lips. "What about getting on to chaperone it?"
"I can do that," Alaric sighed, but when he looked at Meredith, he had a smile on his face.
Elena couldn't help but wonder again.
"Then none of us can go as just students," Meredith said. "We'll all have to be on the lookout for Damon and what he plans on doing at the dance."
"You mean we can't bring dates? Because I was planning on asking somebody," Bonnie's eyes wandered toward Matt.
"No, we need to stick together," Meredith said. "I'll 'go' with Alaric since everybody knows I have a crush on him, anyway."
Alaric turned bright red.
Meredith pressed on, "It's pretty obvious that Elena and Stefan will go together. And that just leaves Bonnie and Matt 'together'."
Bonnie tried to hide her smile.
Elena looked from one of her girlfriends to the other. What had she missed out on while she was so caught on getting Stefan?
Meredith asked, "Are we all agreed?"
"I think so," said Matt.
"Then we have our plan 'A'," Elena said.
;
"What are you doing here?" Aunt Judith asked.
Elena blanched, but then she remembered that she had been sent home by Alaric early. Her aunt had probably thought she was at school.
Elena sat down at the kitchen table, "Things aren't going good at the moment. I actually came home to talk to you about them."
"Okay." Aunt Judith sat down at the table as well. She took Elena's hand.
"I didn't mean to get so mad at you at the Founder's Day parade," Elena couldn't meet her aunt's eye. "It's just that I was so hurt. You called my fiancé a murderer."
Judith's eyes traveled down to the Lapis Lazuli ring on Elena's left hand.
"I told you then that I couldn't say who murdered Mr. Tanner," Elena looked up at her. "But I can tell you now. It was Damon."
"Damon?" Judith's hand tensed. "But he was such a nice boy. I thought-"
"He's Stefan's brother. That's why everybody suspected Stefan. Because Damon is a vampire." Elena swallowed, "And so is Stefan."
Judith jerked her hand back, and started spatting out curse reversing words at Elena.
"No!" Elena screamed. "I'm not a curse! And neither is Stefan!"
"You bring a murderer in this house-"
"Your boyfriend brought the murderer in this house!"
"That- That- Thing of yours is a vampire! They kill people!"
"Not Stefan! He only drinks animal blood!"
"So he kills animals," Aunt Judith's eyes were wild.
"Oh, come on, Aunt Judith," Elena said. "We're not vegetarians in this family."
"How long have you known?"
"Only since Halloween."
"The night your teacher was killed." Judith backed into the kitchen counter and reached for a knife. "He's cursed you if you think he's innocent!"
"I'm not cursed!" Elena threw up her hands, sobbing. "He is innocent!"
"Get out of my house!" Judith screamed. "You're not Elena. You're a monster that has taken her place. Get out of my house, and give me my niece back!" She held up the knife, ready to throw it.
"Stop," a chilling voice behind Elena spoke. Damon stepped out of the shadows.
Judith put the knife down, and froze with a look of interest at Damon.
"You don't want to hurt Elena," Damon shook his head. Elena could feel the Power pouring out of him. "You don't want to argue with her. In fact, this conversation never even happened. Elena never came home. She's still staying at Bonnie's or Meredith's or whoever it was that talked to you last. She's still mad at you. And all you really want to do is take a nap."
Judith walked over to the kitchen table, sat down, and fell asleep right there with her head on the tabletop.
"You influenced her."
"I had to," Damon turned around. "She was going to kill you."
"You've been killing people left and right!" Elena gasped.
"I've only killed one person," Damon swung on her. "And I had my reasons for doing that."
"Well- Well, what about Vicki Bennett and all the other students you're turning into drones?" Elena asked. "They don't know what they're doing!"
"I have my reasons for that as well."
She stared him down. "Get out of my house."
He paled. "Just let me talk to you."
"The time for talking is over. You've turned my own aunt against me."
"I just saved your life from her!"
Elena set her jaw. She wasn't scared of this vampire anymore. He couldn't do anything to her that she couldn't do herself. "You're not invited here anymore."
Something in his face broke, but he quickly covered it with a look of contempt. "There are other places I can find you. You'll be my Dark Princess yet"
And then he stalked out.
;
"Spying on your pet, little brother?" Damon stepped down from the Gilbert porch to find Stefan standing in the yard.
"I heard yelling," he answered.
"From how far?" Damon smirked.
"Fine, I was just down the road," Stefan said.
"You know," Damon circled him. "Elena doesn't like to be stalked."
"You've been stalking her."
"On the contrary, little brother," Damon stopped just inches from his face. "I've been protecting her."
"From what?"
"From you."
Stefan swung at him, but he was nothing but a dark mist as Stefan's fist connected.
;
"Is it okay to be this pretty when something terrible is going to happen tonight?" Bonnie looked at herself in the mirror. She was wearing a little strapless number whose bodice was made entirely out of pink rhinestones and skirt was made out of pink tulle.
"We're undercover, we have to look beautiful," Meredith came up beside her. She was wearing a royal purple dress whose skirt touched the floor. It was covered with one layer of elegant but sparkly tulle. She looked like the Aztec Goddess to Bonnie's mischievous pixie.
"Please stop worrying, Bonnie. You're going to give me stress ulcers," Elena said. She wasn't even dressed yet. Her simple silver silk gown was laid out across Meredith's bed.
"I think I already have them," Bonnie held her stomach.
"I highly doubt that," Meredith patted her curly red head.
"I don't." Bonnie met Elena's eyes in the reflection of the mirror. "Because of what I'm about to ask."
Elena reddened, "What?"
"Can I- Is it okay- I mean-" Bonnie huffed, "Would it totally violate the girl code if I went after Matt?"
"Bonnie," Elena looked at her seriously. "I don't think now is really an appropriate time to talk about going after any guys."
Meredith made a vicious "cut" action next to Bonnie.
Bonnie ran out of the room.
Meredith signed, "I tried to tell you."
"Bonnie!" Elena ran after her friend, catching up with her halfway down the stairs, "Just let me explain."
"No, you let me explain!" Bonnie turned on her. "You did everything, everything, to make sure you ended up with Stefan even though you knew things were dangerous. You even made Meredith and me blood promise - which is entirely stupid, and I didn't even want to do it - that we would die if we didn't help you in anything having to do with him! And now I'm bound to this stupid promise. But you broke Matt's heart. And he's nice, and he's a great guy, and he would've done anything for you. And maybe you broke my heart a little bit too. You're so selfish, Elena. You take every guy I've ever wanted, and then you just throw him in the dirt! You didn't even ask if I liked Matt first!"
"I," Elena sat down, "am a horrible person."
"I didn't say that," Bonnie wiped at her eyes. "I said you're selfish. There's a slight difference."
Elena let out a dry laugh. "I was so caught up in my problems with Stefan, that I didn't even see your major heart eyes for Matt. And you," she looked up at Meredith, "I had no idea you were crushing on our sub-History teacher, which give me one quick moment to say 'Ew' over."
"It's okay," Meredith shrugged. "You did almost die."
"Oh, my gosh, you did!" Bonnie threw her hands over her mouth. "I'm a terrible, terrible person for saying those things to you!"
"Did you like Matt before I crashed his car in that lake?"
She removed her hands, and nodded.
"Then that's no excuse," Elena shook her head. "I'm the one that should be sorry. And I am. To both of you."
Meredith grinned.
Bonnie asked, "So where did we leave off on the whole Matt and girl code thing?"
Meredith and Elena both laughed.
;
That blue tie brought out his eyes so bright. Bonnie could barely even breathe.
"Are you okay?" Matt touched her hair.
"We should get inside," she swallowed. "We need to find an entrance that doesn't have one of those security devices."
"Well, the front entrances are out," Matt looked around.
"What about a window?" she asked.
"They're all bound to be locked," he shook his head.
"We could try the History classroom."
They didn't have any luck with the window to the History class, though, and after walking all the way around the school, they found only one entrance without a security device.
"This door is bound to be for Elena," Matt ran a hand against the hinge. "It's all the way in the back."
"And it's locked," Bonnie frowned.
"These aren't the kinds of locks you can break, either," he said. "They're voice activated."
"I'll have to call Elena," Bonnie pulled out her cell phone. "She's about ten minutes behind us."
"What's up?" Elena answered on the third ring.
"Okay, so, the only way in is the teacher's entrance in the back," Bonnie explained. "And, uhm, it's voice locked."
Elena swore.
"What could the password be?" Bonnie asked.
Matt nudged her arm, and pointed.
"Oh, God, and hurry," she said. "There are teachers coming around the side, and they look positively droneish."
"I don't know!"
Panic flooded Bonnie's voice, "Then ask Stefan! This is a vampire we're talking about, after all!"
"No, this is Damon we're talking about," Elena sounded a lot calmer. "My Dark Princess."
"My Dark Princess," Bonnie told the lock. "My Dark Princess!"
"No, it's programmed to Damon's voice," she said over the phone. "Matt has to be the one to say it."
"Matt!" Bonnie cringed as the teachers came close enough for Bonnie to identify them. The cafeteria lady was even among them.
"My Dark Princess!" Matt yelled in frustration.
"Listen," Elena said, still the voice of calm. "Matt has to sound like Damon. Tell him to whisper it like he would."
"Matt," Bonnie's voice shook. "You have to whisper it like this," she dropped her voice to a low, seductive whisper, "My Dark Princess."
The teachers were close enough for Bonnie to reach out and touch.
"Hurry! They're going to get us, and I don't want to find out what they want with us when they do!"
"My Dark Princess." Matt yanked the door open, and pulled Bonnie into the school with him.
They both turned, and slammed the door shut.
Bonnie started sobbing. "I thought they were going to get us!"
"You know," Matt studied her. "You are the only girl I've ever seen that still looks beautiful when she cries."
Bonnie's heart soared. That was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her.
Suddenly, they were kissing. Bonnie didn't know who started it, and she didn't really care.
Matt's thumbs worked at wiping her tears, as his mouth worked at making hers one with it. Bonnie thought his lips were soft, but then she felt his tongue, and knew it was the softest thing ever.
She had always thought that kissing someone she really liked would feel like fireworks, but this felt comfortable, like going to a place you never realized was home. And she liked that much better.
Matt was the one to pull away, and he did so reluctantly. His thumbs were still under her eyes, his fingers curled in her hair. He said, "I thought Elena was the only girl I could ever love."
"I love you too," she pressed herself against him again.
;
"Okay, Elena said you have to say it quiet and seductively?" Meredith read her cell phone screen. "I guess like Damon would."
Alaric whispered the password, and they went in. The room they were in was dark, but they could make out the outline of another door.
"What part of the school is this?" Meredith asked.
"It's the teacher's lounge," he said. "Teachers use this door so they can go out and smoke sometimes."
"How responsible," Meredith rolled her eyes.
"Don't worry, I never smoke."
She grinned.
They crept outside. The hallway was empty, but partially lit.
Alaric said, "And the gym is... Which way?"
"Come on, Mr. Substitute Teacher," Meredith said. "I'll show you."
As they walked, he kept talking, "You know, after all of this is over, I have to go back to Duke so I can finish my dissertation in the fall semester. I know you did well enough on your SATs to get into Harvard, but..."
She eyed him.
"YoucouldjustaseasilygetintoDuke," he said in one long breath.
"Are you asking me to move to college with you?"
"Yeah," he rubbed the back of his head. "I guess I am."
"Let's see if we survive this first," she said.
A slow smile spread across his face.
;
"I'll say it," Stefan said.
"I have to be the one to say it," Elena pushed past him. "It's programmed to my voice as well. I mean, sure, it probably knows your voice too, but not in the way we want it."
"You know what, you're right," he said. "Go ahead."
Elena leaned into the voice lock, and almost as if she was making love to it, whispered, "My Dark Princess."
The lock clicked, and she was in. Stefan eyed her for a moment before following her.
"Do you think it's a trap?"she asked. "Putting the only entrance I could come in the farthest from the dance?"
"Only one way to find out."
;
They made it to the gym without any problem, and the first thing Elena did was locate her friends.
"Look at all of them," Bonnie was crying. "They're not the people we've always known."
Matt wrapped his arms around Bonnie, pulling her into his chest. His jaw was tightened protectively.
Elena did look at all of them. Every student or teacher in the room, minus the five people with her, we're standing around mindlessly staring at the ceiling or walls. There wasn't any emotion on their faces at all. They didn't look like the same people she grew up with.
She asked, "What did he do to them."
"I made them harmless," a voice spoke from the make-shift stage at the front of the gym.
Elena stepped forward, but Meredith grabbed her arm. She moved into the protective circle of her best friend.
"You still don't get it, do you?" Damon came out. He was still dressed in all black, but he was wearing a tux. Elena's heart jumped to her throat.
"Get what?" she swallowed around the lump.
"That all I've wanted to do is protect you."
"That's a lie!"Stefan jumped forward.
"No, you're the liar!" Damon sent out such a wave of Power that Stefan shrank back.
"Do you know about Katherine?" Damon asked Elena.
Elena was scared of not answering him, so she nodded.
"Do you know what my little brother did to her?" he spat the words out in vile contempt.
"He loved her."
"He killed her."
"She killed herself!" Elena cried.
"Because he wouldn't have her if she wanted both of us."
"Neither would you," she said.
"That's the story he always tells, isn't it?" he asked. "I loved Katherine so much it hurt. I was just a human back then. But it was the same kind of love I see on the faces of your human friends."
Elena looked around. Bonnie and Matt were practically eating at each other's eyes. Meredith's lips were so close to Alaric's they looked like they'd melted together. But had Stefan ever looked at her like that? Had he?
She turned back to Damon. He was looking at her like that...
"I told Stefan that I couldn't fight for Katherine. I told him that it would hurt too much to lose her like that. I told him that he could have her to himself."
Elena looked back at Stefan. His green eyes were hard set.
Damon said, "But he told her that her blood had been defiled when she took some of mine, and that he wouldn't have her anymore."
"Stefan..."
"It was a long time ago, Elena," his voice was hard as well.
"But you lied to me."
"What would you have said if you'd known the truth? You would've called me a monster!" Stefan asked, "What would you have said about Damon?"
"None of this justifies why Damon killed our History teacher."
"Oh, for God's sake!" Damon rolled his eyes.
"He did it out of self-defense," Matt spoke up.
"What?"
"The mutt is right. Well, it was more defense of others." Damon gestured to Bonnie, "Your little redbird here, she was doing that report on the Celtics and the Druids, and it scared your teacher. When she asked him to play as a sacrifice he went berserk. He was going to kill her."
"Bonnie," she looked at her little friend.
Bonnie's eyes were wide and filled with tears, but when she spoke, her words came out strong, "It's true."
"Why didn't you tell any of us?" Elena asked.
"I didn't have any proof!" she cried. "I suppose I should thank you, Damon?"
"It's not in my ways to accept thanks."
"But all of this still doesn't explain one thing!" Elena said.
"What's that?" he asked. "I'll be happy to explain it."
"Why you did this," she gestured around the room, "to all of my friends."
"You think they're your friends?" he seethed. "You don't belong in this town, Elena. You know it, they know it. They don't want you here anymore than you want to be here. The only difference is, they were going to hurt you to get you out."
"They," she gestured to the circle of four humans around her, "would never hurt me."
"Of course not," he whispered. "But they're not pure human, are they? Bonnie, with her psychic powers. Meredith and Alaric know about the supernatural. And I don't know what's so special about Matt, but he's too pure to ever want to hurt you."
"Aren't they?" she was looking out at the mindless people, but her voice was weak.
"Think about it," he said. "Caroline was going to tear you down in front of the whole city at that stupid parade of yours. Vickie Bennett has been calling you "one of them" ever since I accidentally happened upon her that one day."
"That was an accident?"
"Of course it was! I didn't know anybody was actually in that Church when I sent my powers out to try to find my brother."
"That was the day he saved me," she gasped.
"Of course he saved you. He's always thought you belong to him. Just like Katherine. Because you look like Katherine."
"Damon," Stefan growled. But Damon sent out another tendril of power that made him shrink back.
Damon stepped closer to Elena, and lowered his voice so that only she could hear him, "You're his little pet, his "Lovely Love". You're nothing but a human to him. His lesser."
"We're equal," her voice shook.
"You'll never be his equal," he whispered sympathetically. "Vampires love humans possessively, even I can admit that. I know that's how Katherine loved me, how he loved Katherine. But I was never like that. I didn't want her, I wanted to be with her."
"You just see me as her."
"No, I don't," he lightly touched the ends of her golden tresses. "I've never seen you like her. She was the moon, you are the sun."
"You think I'm the sun?" tears ran down her face.
He nodded.
"I'm the light to your darkness?"
"I want you to be my equal," he touched his lips to her ear. "I don't want to keep you as a human pet, something I'll have for just a few years before I have to throw you away. I want you to be by my side forever, because I know I'll love you forever."
Elena swallowed.
"I know that you swore you'd have Stefan or you'd die, but that was before you knew who he was. And I'm telling you, you will die before you ever have him. But you don't have to die if we have each other."
Elena felt her body move closer to his.
"Tell me, princess," he said. "Did you ever really love him?"
She slipped the Lapis Lazuli ring off and let it fall with a clang on the floor.
Damon sighed against her ear, "Do you feel the same about me?"
She shook her head.
He pulled back to look at the pure love on her face. "Will you let me make you my Princess of Darkness?"
Without a word, she tilted her head back and pushed her hair off her neck.
He sank his fangs into her skin.
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