A Fresh Start (Damon, OC, Klaus)

13. The wrong one

The next morning I awoke to find Jeremy asleep on the chair at the end of my bed. He really was a sweet kid. I got out of bed as quietly as I could so as not to wake him and made my way down to the kitchen. I noticed as I passed the hallway that it was clean and a new front door had been put in. I don't know why but I was convinced it had been Damon. I put it out of my mind. I couldn't think about that now. I needed coffee, actually I needed a drink.

Elena was in the kitchen at the breakfast bar. She pointed to the coffee machine, "Do you want coffee. It's fresh!" her voice was quiet and cautious, as if she wasn't sure if I would go for her again. I just nodded, she poured me out a mug and sat back down. I went straight to the cupboard beside the fridge and took out a bottle of whiskey, I poured half the coffee down the sink and filled the mug back up with the alcohol.

I sat across from Elena and lowered the coffee. Elena never took her eyes of me. She finally spoke,

"So, did Jer stay here last night?"

"Yes, he fell asleep on the armchair in my room. Was it him that fixed my door and cleaned up?"

She poured herself another coffee and held out the pot for me, but this time I didn't bother with the coffee and just filled the mug up with the whiskey. As we sat back down she answered me, she knew I meant Damon. I just couldn't bring myself to say his name.

"I'm honestly not 100% sure Jessi, but I would bet that it was him," she paused for a second before rushing on, "Jessica I am so sorry about everything that has happened. We never meant to deceive you. At first we didn't know how to tell you to stay away from Damon without sounding crazy. He had compelled you to not believe anything negative we told you about him."

I cut her off, "I understand that. And let's face it, if you had said to me, 'Jessi, Damon is a vampire', I would have avoided you, thinking you were insane."

She moved to stand in front of me. "Jessica, you have to listen to me. The fact of the matter is Damon may have started with the wrong intentions, but he really does care for you. Stefan, in all the years he has been Damon's brother, has never seen him care for someone like this."

That got me curious, well that and the whiskey I was downing,

"Just how old are Damon and Stefan?" I asked.

Elena paused before answering me, "Do you remember your ancestor's journals?"

When I nodded she continued, "Well do you remember they talked about a Damon and Stefan Salvatore?"

I gasped, "But that would make them over 160 years old."

Elena continued explaining, "They were here when Mystic Falls was founded in 1860. For four years the town lived peacefully, until it became obvious that 27 vampires also shared the town."

"Katherine," I interrupted, "Katherine was the head vampire... or whatever you would call it. She compelled the brother's love. When the town captured her, Damon and Stefan tried to free her. Their father shot and killed them." The journals were coming back to me.

Elena picked up the story, "Yes, but what the founding families didn't know was that Katherine had, under compulsion, fed them her blood. They died with it in their system. So they transitioned into vampires. Damon found out that the vampires hadn't burned in the church, like it says in the journals, but in fact were locked mystically in a tomb under the church. He spent 150 years finding a way to get Katherine out. He thought he loved her, but a few months ago, when Bonnie managed to get it open, he found out Katherine wasn't there. She never was. She had never cared for him. It sorta lifted the century and a half compulsion she had over him."