7Title: Never Will I Ever Not
Set: Post 4x08
UPDATED A/N: Okay, had some time. Revised it a bit. Thanks to everyone who decided to fav and review. You're all beautifully awesome!
Hope you all like it! ENJOY!
It was almost fact that finding Katherine Pierce was harder than finding a four-leaf clover in a vast green field. After all, she did have a half millennium track record under her belt.
No, Katherine Pierce wasn't one to be found—if anything she would find you.
So when Damon set out to find the ex-loveofhislife he wasn't too optimistic for any immediate results. He just knew that if anyone would find her he could, if not eventually.
It had been a while since he and Stefan had trekked to New Orleans in search of sire bond answers that didn't come from a biased hybrid original. They had found a witch and an unwilling one at that, but even then she had offered an answer. One that had made his undead heart skip a beat; though after she was done he couldn't help dread all the baggage that came with her information.
Elena had feelings for him—he knew that already—but the confirmation that it was enough to bind her to him, even after death, left him elated. He just wished that that tie wasn't something as complicated as a sire bond. And of course that wasn't the best part—no, the real kicker was that to break it he would have to let her go.
He would have to look her in the eyes and tell her to leave. To forget about him and to never look back.
And for the second time he had felt nothing but hopelessness. How could he tell the woman that he loved to go away? How could he let her go when he had just begun to have her? And why the hell did the sire bond have to exist?
As questions similar to those ran over and over in his head he knew he would never be able to just let her go. At least not by himself. Elena had no free will, but that didn't mean she didn't love him. She was devoted to him entirely and wasn't that what love was?
He'd shaken his head then as he tried to convince himself because even he knew that wasn't true.
Damon parked his car down the road from a small house with a single number eight on its mailbox. He gave the white picket fence a once over as he walked towards it.
He had successfully ignored Elena for a day before something he hadn't even been thinking about hit him.
Somewhere in his head something had instantly clicked in place and he felt like a bus had run him over and then backed up on him for good measure. His whole undead life, the past 145 years of his existence, had been devoted to one person and one person only. It couldn't have been coincidence that he hadn't stopped looking; that every fiber of his being and every thought after that dreaded night had all been centered on her. He had been so shocked he hadn't done anything until Stefan, oblivious, had come into the study.
The question that popped into his head was something he wanted to ask in person. And if he was being honest, he wanted a distraction (if he could even call this that).
Damon surveyed the neighborhood he found himself in and frowned, it definitely did not scream Katherine Pierce, and therefore he must be at the right place. After knocking on the door twice, he snuck in, settled himself into a couch in the living room and waited.
He was a bit surprised that he didn't need an invitation. No humans lived there and no one else was home, otherwise he would've been attacked already, but as soon Katherine came through the door, she would find a little surprise.
A long moment later, the front door opened and shut.
There were the toss of keys and the click of heels that paused in the foyer just before the living room. Quickly, Damon got up, speeding to where she was, intending to grab her.
A slight shift in air passed by him and he stood in the foyer by himself.
"Damon," Katherine spoke from behind him and he turned, "I thought I smelt desperation."
"Oh ow, that hurt," he feigned, placing a hand over his heart.
"What do you want, Damon?"
"Well, hello to you too. Though, you're right, I do want something," he said moving in, in order to meet her with an even gaze, "I want answers."
"Don't we all?"
He sighed deeply, "You're the only one that can answer them for me."
"Hmm," she purred, her eyes wandering.
He could see how that made the wheels in her head turn.
In theory this had been easy, but a part of him was still a bit apprehensive of what she'd say.
"Well?" she inquired.
"Klaus is gone," he began. It was as good a start as any.
"So I've heard," she said, moving away towards the front window and peering outside without touching the curtains. "Send Alaric my thanks by the way."
"So you know about Elena," he stated rather than asked.
She turned back to him, "What about my lesser self?"
She knew, he could tell but he reiterated anyways, "Elena died and was turned."
A corner of Katherine's lips lifted, "I may have heard something about that."
"She was turned with my blood and because of that she became sired to me."
"Oh yes, I think someone did tell me about that. But you know, word of mouth isn't as reliable as it used to be."
She smirked and he rolled his eyes.
"She does what I want. Every word. Even unconsciously. Right down to only taking blood the way I say to."
After a moment she asked, "And what, pray tell, does this have to do with me?"
"According to a witch the sired will do anything that makes the sire happy. And it's no secret I always wanted Elena's love."
Katherine's gaze drifted, uninterested, "Please get to a point."
"Was I sired to you?" he asked seriously.
She met his gaze with an indecipherable expression.
Damon paused. His heart stopped at her gaze.
She burst into laughter.
Damon barely held back his shock as anger set in.
"Just answer the question, Katherine. Was I sired to you?"
Her laugh subsided but her eyes sparkled with amusement, "That's why you came here? That's your million dollar question?"
"Answer the damn question," he took a slow step closer that, to anyone else, would've appeared threatening.
Katherine tilted her head, her amusement dissipating at his tone. She stared at him for a long time before responding.
"Yes."
Damon couldn't figure if he was shocked.
"You were sired, Damon," Katherine said as her eyes softened, "The past one hundred forty five years was a lie. You never loved me. And I never loved you. That was the sire bond."
He stood a bit straighter. That wasn't true. Being sired didn't mean he never loved her. But that wasn't what was getting to him now. His eyes darted across her face, searching for her tell.
"You're lying."
Katherine's eyes narrowed, "And how's that?"
"You would never be so forward about the truth. Lies, you could spew out one after the other, but the truth?"
She shook her head.
"Believe what you want, Damon but I'm not lying. That is the truth," Katherine said.
"As much as I want to believe that; the whole truth? From you? If I really was sired why didn't you just send me off? Tell me to stop trying to find you?"
"That doesn't sound very selfish of me. Why would I do that when I could claim your love—your life for eternity?"
"No," he shook his head at her blatant lie, "You said so yourself, my love for you has been so inconvenient. If I had been sired, why didn't you just tell me to stop? Distract me with something other than my goal to find you? To kill myself even?"
Katherine frowned, "Stefan would've never wanted you dead."
"What? You're going to hide behind that excuse?" Damon scoffed. "As if you couldn't have found a way to do it without incriminating yourself. We thought you were dead remember? No one would have named you."
"Why did you bothering asking if you wouldn't believe me anyways?"
"I would understand why you wouldn't want to keep me with you but to let me roam around freely? Looking for a way to free you? Possibly alerting your enemies to a way to bring you back? That doesn't sound very self-preserving of you."
Katherine laughed, "What are you even trying to imply here? That I cared about you? That somehow I couldn't bare the thought of seeing you dead even if all you've done is get in the way of my plans for the last century?"
"You tell me, Katherine," he said challenging, but she could tell he wasn't as confident as he sounded.
"I didn't do anything because you weren't worth my time," she spat, but he didn't stumble like she expected him to.
"Like I wasn't worth your time when you gave me Klaus' blood when I was bitten?"
She raised a brow, "You got me the vervaine to help me escape. As I said. We were even."
"Just settling scores, huh?"
"Yeah, but it seems you read too much into that sort of thing..."
"Or," he emphasized, "what about when you told Stefan to care and managed to actually have him flip his switch and save me?"
She paused, her brows furrowing. She regarded him with a look of utter confusion, "What are you talking about?"
"There's no use denying it, I know about that little stunt of yours. Stefan told me," he spat, "Why did you do it, huh? Because it was always Stefan?"
Katherine shook herself out of her surprise, "What the fuck do you want, Damon?"
She sighed sharply, but he learned long ago to read between the lines.
"For godsake, I know better than to expect any truth from you," he spoke, tired, "but I am begging you. Just this once."
He was pleading, and he found that he couldn't care less. He needed this resolved. His confusion, his hate—he needed to finally close the centuries long chapter in his life that was Katherine Pierce. He needed to be able to look at Katherine—and physically, by extension, Elena—and not feel that tiny minuscule piece of his heart chip off at what they could've been.
He needed to move on, and that wouldn't happen without some closure.
Some explanation.
"What do you want me to say? I already told you, you were sired. It's not my problem that you won't accept it!"
Before she knew it his hands were on her face roughly pulling her into a kiss. There was a moment where Katherine froze as his fingers ran through the roots of her hair and then she kissed him back.
With a shove Damon flew into the opposite wall.
Katherine's chest rose as she took a deep breath, her eyes glaring at him.
"You really think that for 145 years that you loved me? That you were spoken for? That was the sire bond, Damon. I'm not lying. Your love wasn't real and it's ridiculous how much that sire bond still has a hold on you."
Damon clenched his jaw, and curled his fist, "I wasn't sired."
"You were, Damon. I don't know what you really came here for but whatever it is you're not going to find it here. I never loved you," she chuckled. "That's your problem, you always confuse lust with love. Newsflash, Salvatore! It's not the same thing."
"'You were,'" he repeated her words as he stood, not bothering to straighten his jacket, "You said I was sired. Past tense. You're lying, and you know how I know that?"
"If you haven't noticed I don't really care what you think, Damon."
He ignored her, "If I was sired to you then when you came back the first time, you let me go when you said it was always Stefan," he shook his head, "And a conniving bitch like you wouldn't have the balls to do that. You're selfish, like me. And if you didn't care you would've never let go when you had that much power over me."
He wanted the truth, and even as she told him her "truth"—the truth that he had been expecting—he couldn't shake this feeling. He couldn't ignore that every fiber of his being, that every logical thought he was getting was suddenly telling him she was lying about the sired bond.
Katherine raised a brow, and for the first time he noticed the subtle way her shoulders lowered, "Projecting, are you?"
"What?"
"Is that what you're doing to Elena? Not letting her go for your own sake?"
His face scrunched up, "This isn't about Elena."
"Oh, but it is," she pushed, "She's sired to you and you won't let her go. Did you come here wanting to know how to do it?"
"Jesus, Katherine, this isn't about Elena!"
"It's easier than you think," she came closer to him, tilting her chin up to stare at his face, "Just look her in the eyes like this, and tell her how worthless she is to you."
"I never loved you."
Damon recoiled, flinching under her gaze as the night he bore out his soul flashed back into his head.
"It was always Stefan."
It had been a lie because contradictory to those words she, at the very least, cared for him. But even then the memory still hurt.
"Like I said," the same voice brought him back to the house, "ridiculous."
Damon's breath came out shaky as nerves rattled through him.
Katherine turned and walked away as if having said her peace, leaving him standing alone in the hall.
There was only so much resolve a man could have before someone finally shook him, especially someone as harsh as Katherine. She—she was lying. She had to be. He hadn't realized it until they were in the heat of their argument, as he looked her in the eyes and she feigned ignorance over her own actions. Katherine had done some selfless things. Selfless things that didn't fit the twisted picture of her that had grown and festered in his head.
One hundred and forty-five years of the perfect picture of the perfect woman shattered in a couple months—no, one night. And yet, as much as he hated to admit, even if she wasn't perfect that didn't mean he loved her any less for it.
She was lying, because despite the way she had ripped out his heart and stomped it flat his love hadn't died away like it should've. And he knew this only because he hated himself for it. How could he be so weak when it came to hating her after everything she had put him through?
He bit the inside of his cheek, tasting iron moments later.
With those feelings in mind he couldn't have been sired previously and it would be impossible for him to be sired now. Damon Salvatore loved Katherine Pierce and the selfless things she had done for him behind his back made him realize he hadn't asked the right question.
He heard the fridge slam shut just as he pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen.
"You're still here?" Katherine uttered in exasperation.
He observed the open duffel bag in front of her as she dropped a blood bag inside.
"Where are you going?"
"What part of "go away" didn't you understand?" she zipped up the bag and briefly glanced at him, "I have better things to do than entertain your delusions."
"Just answer this, and I'll leave you alone."
Katherine sighed.
He took that as a sign to ask.
"Why did you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Save me from the bite? Help us out? Tell Stefan to save me?"
Katherine grew quiet and for the first time Damon could read her expression. He could see how it wasn't overshadowed by the mask she wore constantly—the one that switched from flirtatious to taunting, to deadly in seconds. Even if briefly, he noticed the struggle in her eyes.
Observing this left him astonished.
Her eyes closed with her sigh and when they opened, the emotion was gone.
She shook her head, "Why do you suddenly want to know, Damon? What difference is this going to make?"
"Because—"
"The sire bond, be it yours or Elena's. Let it go, Damon. That's all you have to do."
"Because," he repeated over the interruption. They weren't talking about her doppelganger. They were talking about them. What they were—What they are. "145 years, Katherine. One hundred and forty-five years. That's how long I was in love with you… or—or the idea of you. Some might think that's naïve, maybe. It sure as hell has been inconvenient, as you've called it. But that doesn't change how I felt! With or without a sire bond, it still means I loved you. You can't tell me that wasn't real, because even now, as I've tried to convince myself I've moved on...?!"
He paused in emphasis. He loved Elena, he did, but, if he was going to be honest—completely honest with himself—Katherine was and is his one.
He loved her unconditionally and that would never change.
"You really think I could just let it be? It haunts me, Kat. Not as much as before but you haunt me. And that can't be a sire bond because I can't—you're in me, Katherine," he reached out, barely touching her. "Even after everything, I—I can't get you out. It's physically impossible for me to let you go. Not without some explanation."
Now this was familiar.
Subconsciously, a fist clamped around his heart. No matter how many times he told himself it was nothing, or however many times she had taunted him for it, this part—the answer, always broke his heart. Damon may love Katherine (or Elena or anybody else) but she wasn't in love with him—no one ever was.
This time though, he wasn't asking for her love.
"I want closure."
Katherine broke their gaze, moving away from him. "I already told you the answer, Damon."
"It wasn't true."
"Who are you to decide what's true—?"
"I'm serious, Katherine," he pulled her back. He wasn't deciding what was or what wasn't true. Human or vampire, he truly had loved her. Just because she wouldn't admit it, didn't mean he had to buy her denial. "Tell me the truth. I deserve that much! And I just told you… You have a grip on me. Just let me go."
"Let you go? What do you want me to say!" she ripped away from his grasp. Maybe it was his persistence but she snapped, "What do you even want here? I confirmed your sire bond! I've already said how I never loved you! How many times do you need me to throw you away before you realize that maybe you're the one holding on?"
"No, I've tried moving on."
"Well, try harder!"
"Katherine, stop—"
"No, you stop. Stop trying to see something that isn't there. What kind of explanation would I have to have to hurt you over and over? Why wouldn't I take your forgiveness and a promise to start over? Why would I throw everything I could've had with you if not for the fact that there was nothing to be had in the first place?
You're right, you weren't sired. But that doesn't prove anything other than that you loved too carelessly. You loved a woman you never knew, a woman that never existed."
He frowned.
"Never existed?"
Flashes of 1864 came back to him.
Katherine.
Vulnerable.
He shook his head, "You told me about your life, about Katerina. You compelled Stefan but not me, because I accepted you for everything that you were. I loved you."
"And that's the tragedy of you Damon, even unconditionally you never get the girl. I never opened up to you. That was all a lie."
That's not how he remembered 1864. He didn't get the girl, he got his girl. He was supposed to spend eternity with her. That had been a promise.
"Bullshit!" he exclaimed, "As much as you love being paraded around as this untouchable woman you aren't! You may be a liar but I know you, Katherine. I am you. Don't tell me you don't have some kind of humanity left underneath all that cruel, conniving armor of yours when you've shown time and time again that you do."
He needed to stop and think.
He needed to press pause because his mind was scrambling.
As much sense as she was making, his brain and his heart and his everything wasn't having any of it.
Stop thinking about yourself, Damon, stop…
His eyes widened.
"Klaus," he breathed out, his thoughts piecing together so quickly he couldn't continue. He shook his head, looking to her in disbelief.
"What?" she was shaking her head too, but there was this subtle fear in her eye, as if she knew where he was heading with that one word.
What would he have done had he been in her shoes?
He had 147 years to grow as a vampire, and he'd learned that he was selfish. Incredibly so.
But it wasn't impossible for him to wrap his head around real sacrifice.
She'd been running hundreds of years before she met him. She'd sold out the 27 vampires she had known, including her centuries old friend in order to fake her death. She'd given him forever when she wasn't even going to spend it with him.
Maybe leaving him was the best option, but she was never selfless enough to let him die. Even if that eternity wasn't with him.
She was plotting. Always plotting to find a way out of some mess. A survivor.
If she didn't even have a semblance of feeling towards him, so many things did not add up. Turning him. Saving him. Katherine could always blame it on Stefan but how did she explain 1864? Taking the time to teach his human self the vampire way to live? Showing her face to him but hiding behind compulsion from Stefan? Having Emily Bennett tell him (and only him) that she was still somehow alive under the church, giving him hope?
She'd told him about herself. Her past. Long before she even told Stefan who she really was. What she really was. She never said it out loud but she hadn't trusted the younger Salvatore.
"You never trusted Stefan but you trusted me. Something someone like us would never take for granted. You were running from Klaus. You're a survivor. Not something you would ever wish on someone who you trusted or... or cared about. At the height of Klaus return, the first thing you did was claim Stefan. After over a century, why would you—"
"You're not making any sense, Damon."
"Yes. I am!"
"You're not."
"No. You once told me you didn't let love get in the way, but you're a survivor. What choice is there?"
Her expression wrinkled together.
"So you're saying that I didn't let love get in the way not because I chose to but because I couldn't?" she said to him like it was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever heard. "You're claiming that the reason I stayed away was to somehow protect you?"
In an instant her back was pressed to the fridge and Damon's hand was at her throat.
"I'm saying, you're a coward!" he hissed, "I'm saying that's exactly why you don't have any real friends. And the real reason why, even with a site bond, you would've never let me come with you. Survivors are surrounded by casualties, and I would've been one of them had I been with you all these years."
"So what if I'm a coward?" she pried his hand off, pushing him back, "Cowards aren't stupid. Cowards survive. That doesn't prove anything."
"Do you even hear yourself?"
"What do you want me to say? That I always loved you? That it wasn't just Stefan, rather it wasn't him at all? You really think that hearing me say how much you meant to me will somehow change anything? I can't give you what you want, Damon!"
"Yes, you can."
"No, I can't."
"Why not?!" he retorted, "Klaus is dead! He's gone! And it doesn't even matter if I was sired or not. I loved you. Loved you so much for 145 years that I searched for you for over three folds of my human life. If staying away had been to protect me then you have no reason not to be with me now."
She shook her head, "Be with you? I—"
"No more lies," he wanted nothing more than to step up, but he was scared. All this shouting, all this talk. He was almost certain that Katherine never not loved him but how could he still be so afraid? "The truth is I love you. You know this and I fucking hate myself for it, but I still love you despite all the shit you've put me through."
He could give out his love but when it came to genuinely receiving it back? The answer was almost always a no. And this, right now? This had to be his closest maybe yet. His best maybe yet because he'd been waiting oh so long for this.
"You weren't sired Damon," she spoke again, softly, but that confirmation was no longer satisfying to him.
It was funny because hadn't that been the only reason he'd come here at all? How had that one little question turn into the inquiry of a lifetime? The question and answer he'd so longed for to have?
He nodded his head, eager, "I wasn't sired, but why would you save me? Help me? Abandon the one time we actually could've gotten rid of Klaus before we figured out the effects of killing an original?"
Katherine stared at him with a look. The same one he'd seen long before he tuned into a vampire. He had seen it fleetingly, randomly as they had laid in a field after sneaking away from prying eyes. That look made him forget about everything; his father, the war, Stefan… Elena.
The world fell away with that one look, and it was just them.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and he thought 'Good,' because he was anxious too.
His heart was beating much faster than he would admit as he spoke, a conclusion he couldn't quite believe on the tip of his tongue, "Say it."
Her lack of response gave him some confidence. She was no longer denying anything. It gave him (dare he say) hope. Could it be true?
He stepped closer, "Say it, Katherine, because if anything I do deserve to know."
"Damon—"
"You have nothing to lose," he insisted, "With everything to gain. Say it."
"Everything to gain?" she pushed at his chest, he was too close, "That's just it! How can you say that?"
"Say what?"
"I don't deserve your love, Damon! And I'm not going to claim it! I've hurt you, I know I have, in the worse ways possible. How can you think this will fix anything? How can you think I can fix you?"
"Because you're the only person who can! If you—if you…" he shook off the increasing feeling of hope, "if you loved me, then all you have to do is say the word, because, deserving or not I don't think anything will ever change the fact that… I will never not love you, Katherine Pierce."
He couldn't believe he was saying this. Hadn't he promised himself he'd moved on? Hadn't he come here for closure?
Her shoulders dropped.
"Klaus is gone. You have nothing to run from anymore. Nothing to hide from."
A look of defeat fluttered over her face, and she swallowed.
"You."
His eyes narrowed.
"You scare me, Damon," she looked up to him, reminding him of a similar scene from decades ago, "Your love scares me. How can someone love so unconditionally? How can you look at me and still think of love? I care about you, Damon—"
"Care?"
"I—" Katherine shook her head, "I loved you, Damon. In a lot of ways, I... I still do."
Damon let go of the breath he'd been holding.
Momentarily, he felt like he was dreaming. His heart was beating so loudly against his chest he thought he was going deaf. He couldn't stop from shaking.
"But I don't deserve your love. I never have."
"No!" he shouted, speeding so that his face was only inches from hers, "You can't do that!"
"I may be selfish Damon but I'm still aware of what I shouldn't have."
"Didn't you hear me? I don't care if you deserve it, I don't care what I deserve. I don't care! There is no one else I want as much as you, Katherine. Klaus is gone. You can stop running. Nothing is stopping us from being together," he pulled her to him and she let him, "I have waited over a century for you to say those words to me again and mean it. We've already established how insane I am to still love you, so what the hell makes you think I want to wait any fucking longer?"
She opened her mouth to protest but he kissed her instead.
Swiftly, he sped them around, pushing so that her back arched into the counter.
With her strength she pushed him back, holding him at arms length.
Panting, Damon stared at her, willing his expression to emit all the love and lust he was feeling, waiting for her to reciprocate.
Keeping his gaze, her lashes fluttered as she glanced down at his lips and then to jacket before gazing back up with a look he knew all too well. Her hand found the back of his neck as she pulled him to her, her lips easily meeting his.
She pulled off his jacket as he pulled away, shoving the duffel bag aside and trailing kisses down her jaw, onto her neck. She moaned softly, running her fingers through his hair and gripping them at the roots.
"Say it again," he muttered between a kiss, coming to a spot he knew drove her crazy.
She hesitated and he stopped, looking up at her and meeting her eyes again. They were aroused, excited, terrified, and vulnerable; a mix of countless emotions, probably much like his own.
He didn't blink.
He didn't want to break this moment.
"Say it," he coaxed: tentatively, or just plain gently, he couldn't tell.
Her hands came to the sides of his face, pulling him into a hard kiss—a slow kiss, "I love you, Damon Salvatore. I have always loved you."
A/N: So, it's kind of rewritten. Better I think, definitely gave me some feels in the middle, but not quite great. Hope you guys caught some kind of feels. I miss these two.