Down a Crooked Path - Chapter Twenty-Three - Part Two
Walking arm in arm with Stefan, Katherine approached the front door of the Salvatore house with a mixture of excitement and trepidation over what she’d find inside. The sun had long since crested the horizon and it had been hours since Elena had run away from the Founder’s Party with Damon hot on her sexy little leopard print heels. They’d had more than enough time to work out their issues - or at least get a head start on the physical ones.
The only question Katherine had was whether or not they’d made their way up to Damon’s bedroom first.
Stefan didn’t seem to share her concerns, however, opening the front door without even knocking and walking inside. Lingering on the front step, she peered into the shadowy foyer, listening carefully for any sounds of life in the form of raw, unbridled sex.
The only thing she heard was silence.
“You look disappointed,” Stefan observed, closing the door behind her as she finally crossed the threshold.
“They’re not here,” she said, looking into the living room with a frown as she noted the cold grate and undisturbed furniture.
“They might be,” Stefan shrugged. “Maybe they’re asleep. It is early.”
Katherine made a noncommittal noise as she did a quick circuit of the first floor, equally relieved and dissatisfied. As much as she would have enjoyed being an eye-witness to the success of her plan, she really didn’t need to catch Damon and Elena in the throes of passion.
“Did you really expect to find them going at it on the floor or something?” Stefan asked with a chuckle as she met him at the foot of the stairs.
Raising a brow, Katherine flipped her hair over her shoulder and began to ascend the steps. “Maybe,” she admitted. “At least that would have proved that Elena isn’t a complete prude.”
“I’m glad we didn’t find Damon surrounded by empty bottles of liquor,” he said, following her as they headed to his room. “That has to be a good sign.”
Entering Stefan’s room, Katherine raised a brow in acknowledgement, her attention already focused on something else as she stripped her dress over her head and let it fall to the floor. Making her way toward the dresser, she opened a drawer and retrieved her favorite travel clothes - a pair of figure hugging black jeans and a black, scoop-neck top that fit her like a second skin.
“Katherine,” Stefan said, standing by the foot of the bed and watching her as she pulled on the jeans.
“Yes?” she replied, putting her arms through the sleeves of the shirt and pulling it over her head.
“Are you…going somewhere?” he asked as she located her knee-high boots and balanced precariously on one foot to put them on.
“No,” she said, offering him a smile as she returned to the bed and crouched down. Reaching underneath, she pulled out two suitcases and lifted them onto the mattress as if they weighed nothing. Lifting her chin, she locked eyes with him and left no room for argument as she announced. “We are.”
Eyeing her warily, Stefan walked around to the side of the bed and unzipped the suitcases. Katherine smirked as his eyes widened in surprise at the contents. “When did you pack?”
“Yesterday while you were in the shower,” she explained. “There’s just a few things left in the dresser, but otherwise we’re ready to go.”
“Katherine-.”
“We are going, Stefan,” she insisted, gripping the lapel of his suit jacket. They had done all they could do - more than she would have bothered to do for anyone else. If Damon and Elena couldn’t figure their relationship out now, there was nothing they could do to help them. “We did everything we could short of locking them in the cell in the basement for a century. It’s up to them now. You’ve paid your debt. We both have.”
Stefan sighed, staring at the packed suitcases as Katherine waited for his response. She was prepared for a fight, but she wasn’t prepared to lose. One way or another, she was leaving Mystic Falls that morning - and Stefan would be with her, even if she had to knock him out and stick him in the trunk of the rental car.
“You’re right,” he said finally, surprising the hell out of her as he stripped off his suit jacket.
“I am?” she blinked, watching him as he went to the dresser to find something more comfortable to travel in. “I mean, of course I am.”
“We’ve done everything we can,” he continued, more to himself than to her as he changed into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. Carefully, he folded the suit and placed it on top of the open suitcase. “As much as I need to make sure that they’re okay, I know that I can’t force Damon to do anything - or Elena for that matter.”
“You figured it out,” Katherine said, taking his shoulders and physically turning him to face her. Holding his face between her hands, she gently caressed his cheeks with her thumbs. “How to deal with your own demons - you may have had help, but in the end, you did that, Stefan. Now it’s Damon’s turn.”
Nodding, he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close. “Thank you,” he said, brushing a kiss over her lips.
“For what?” she asked coyly, blatantly fishing for compliments.
Stefan rolled his eyes. “For helping me take care of my brother,” he replied, his eyes sincere despite the smile tugging at his lips. “And for helping Elena. I know how hard that was for you.”
“Not yet you don’t,” she replied. “But you will.” Claiming his mouth in a demanding kiss, Katherine gave him a taste of what she had planned, of the ways in which he’d really thank her for everything she’d done in the past few weeks. Truthfully, however, she’d needed to do it, needed to help Damon get his revenge and see to it that he and Elena found their way back to each other - and she had every confidence that they had, even without seeing the physical proof. Helping them now, making sure that Damon was living the life that he wanted, eased the regret she felt over destroying his life in 1864.
Not that she’d ever admit that - not even to Stefan.
Pulling away, Katherine smoothed her hands down Stefan’s chest and drew a breath. “I’m going to take this one down to the car,” she said, grabbing the handle of the closed suitcase. “Finish packing the rest of our stuff and I’ll meet you down there.”
“Don’t you want to wait to say goodbye?” Stefan asked.
Katherine scoffed, grabbing her jacket from the chair by the door and slipping it on. “I’m not waiting for them to come up for air.”
Suitcase in hand, she descended the stairs and headed for the door, her excitement building as each step brought her closer to the moment when she and Stefan could say goodbye to Mystic Falls and get back to their life. Where should we go next? she mused, reaching for the doorknob. Perhaps Argentina. I haven’t been there in…
Her train of thought came to an abrupt halt as she opened the door and came face-to-face with a very disheveled and barely dressed Damon and Elena.
Katherine blinked, meeting Damon’s surprised gaze as she saw that he was wearing most of his suit - the pants and the jacket. Shifting to Elena, Katherine smirked at the wide-eyed, guilty stare - as if she’d been caught doing something naughty - noting that her doppelganger had somehow misplaced her dress and was now clad in nothing but Damon’s shirt and the leopard print heels. Standing slightly behind him, Elena clung to his hand as her face turned an even deeper shade of red.
I stand corrected, Katherine thought, taking a step closer and plucking a leaf from Elena’s hair. Holding it aloft, she let it flutter to the ground as she looked at them in triumph. Not a prude after all.
“Welcome back” she said, relishing the fruits of her labor as Damon and Elena stood half naked on the front steps. Tipping her head toward the car, she said. “Stefan and I are leaving.”
Giving them one last appraising look, Katherine filed the image away, promising to savor it later. Once she and Stefan were out of Mystic Falls, she’d have the time to feel properly smug over the fact that she - Katherine Pierce - had saved the day.
~*~
Carrying two glasses of warm blood, Damon made his way from the kitchen into the living room where Elena was waiting for him. Curled up on the couch in one of his shirts - not the one she’d nearly ripped to shreds in the forest - she stared into the fire, contemplating the flames.
“Here,” he said, earning her attention as he presented her with a glass of warm blood. Sitting up, Elena took the glass from him eagerly, holding it in both hands as she drained the contents in a single gulp. The veins around her eyes made a brief appearance, sending all of the blood in his body straight to his groin as he caught a flash of fang in the firelight.
Licking her lips self-consciously, Elena set the glass on the coffee table and murmured. “Thank you.”
Sitting next to her, Damon tucked a finger under her chin and kissed her before she could suppress all traces of her dual nature. He knew she’d get used to it eventually, but it killed him to know that she wasn’t completely comfortable in letting him see her as a vampire.
As if she wasn’t as breathtakingly gorgeous and desirable with black eyes and elongated canines as she was without.
Remembering their night in the woods, he smirked against her mouth.
Maybe more so.
Running his tongue over her lips, he tasted the blood she’d consumed and let the veins surface around his eyes as he pulled away. Elena sighed softly, her lips curving into the ghost of a smile as she studied his matching features.
Draining his glass of blood quickly - not out of hunger so much as a desire to hold her - Damon leaned back against the cushions and took Elena into his arms. She settled easily against his chest, curling her fingers into a fist over his heart. It was such a relief to be with her like this - without any stress or strain between them - that he didn’t even have the words to express it. They sat in silence for a while, relishing the quiet house. True to her word, Katherine and Stefan had left that morning, saying their goodbyes before he and Elena had even been able to change clothes.
After they’d left, he and Elena had retreated to his room, passing the day in a blur of sex and blood sharing before collapsing in an exhausted heap of tangled, sweaty limbs for a few hours. He still couldn’t believe he’d let two weeks go by without making love to her and he’d promised her that he’d make up for lost time - a promise he had absolutely every intention of keeping.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Elena asked suddenly, breaking the silence.
“Tell you what?” he asked, running his fingers through her hair, still damp from the shower they’d taken an hour ago.
“’I love you, Elena. And it’s because I love you that I can’t be selfish with you. And why you can’t know this,’” she murmured, propping her chin on her fist and watching him carefully as she quoted his own words at him. “’I don’t deserve you.’”
The compulsion.
She remembers, he realized with a start, his eyes widening in surprise. He hadn’t thought about that night in years - hell, he hadn’t thought about that goddamn necklace since the night they’d killed Klaus. Closing his eyes, he shook his head as her words from the clearing - all of the talk about him telling her he loved her for a second time and what he deserved - suddenly made sense.
“You remember,” he said needlessly in an attempt to buy himself a little more time.
Elena nodded. “So, why didn’t you tell me? Three years and it never crossed your mind to let me know that ‘by the way, I compelled you this one time’.”
“Honestly?”
“Of course.”
“I forgot,” he admitted, watching her eyes widen comically with shock. The expression looked so much like the one she’d worn at the party before she’d punched him that he tightened his hold on her.
“You…you’re kidding me,” she replied bluntly.
“Well…no,” he said, shrugging awkwardly from his prone position. At the time, the confession had felt like the most important thing in the world, but then he and Elena had actually gotten together and the longer he’d been with her, the less it had mattered. “At first I didn’t want to rock the boat and admit that I’d compelled you to forget something when you had no way of knowing if I was telling the truth.”
“And then?” she prompted after he fell silent.
“Then I started to believe we’d last and I got used to telling you that I loved you all of the time,” he said, wondering if she had any idea what it meant for him to be able to say those three words and know that he’d hear them back. “After a while it seemed…insignificant.”
“Insignificant,” she repeated, incredulous now as she stared at him. “You don’t think I’d want to remember the first time my boyfriend told me he loved me?”
“Oh, come on,” Damon replied, rolling his eyes. “The deathbed confession was way better than when I had to give you that damn necklace back - again. Why would I want you to remember the time I said, ‘hey, I love you, but you should really be with my brother.’”
Her easy laughter echoed in the room, twisting his heart in the best way possible. “You’re such an ass.”
“Speaking of confessions,” he said, propping his head up on his bent arm now that he was certain she wasn’t going to take another swing at him. “What was all that crap about me not wanting you now that you’re a vampire? Since when are you jealous of Katherine?”
Elena’s smile faltered as a blush crept up her neck, staining her cheeks a beautiful shade of pink in the firelight. “I’m…not, really, I…” Pursing her lips together, she sighed and looked away. “I was grasping at straws, latching on to whatever I could think of to explain why things were so messed up. Although…I’d be lying if I said I never wondered how I compared…”
“To Katherine?” Damon asked, knowing he was flirting with disaster in even indulging Elena’s line of thinking. Then again, she’d indulged him that day, had been indulging him for two weeks and the least he could do was be honest with her. “Katherine’s good in bed and she knows it,” he admitted, watching her carefully to gauge her reaction. “But she never loved me, Elena. When we were together, she was never fully there, and believe me, the way you look at me…what I see in your eyes…that trumps everything else every time.”
Elena stared at him for a moment, her expression guarded as he waited anxiously for her response. The words didn’t do justice to how being with her made everything that had come before - including Katherine - pale in comparison. She’d see right through flowery words and big speeches, however, so he crossed his fingers and hoped that she believed him.
“Wow,” she finally grinned, shaking her head as she chuckled in disbelief. “That …that was smooth, Salvatore.”
Relief coursed through him as he smirked, reaching for her and pulling her closer so that he could claim her lips. “Right?” he said, his eyes flashing as they broke the connection.
Still grinning, she shook her head, her warm brown eyes glowing with sincerity as she stroked the side of his face. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he replied, meaning every syllable as he kissed her again.