Phantom Page 0,58

mildew: She couldn't remember ever having smel ed anything in a dream before these visions of Damon.

When she sat down, the mildew smel got stronger. She nestled close to Damon anyway, resting her head on his shoulder, and his leather jacket creaked as he put his arm around her. Elena closed her eyes and sighed. She felt safe and secure within his embrace, feelings she had never associated with Damon, but they were good ones. "I miss you, Damon," she said. "Please come back to me."

Damon leaned his cheek against her head, and she breathed in the smel of him. Leather and soap and the strange but pleasant woodsy scent that was Damon's own.

"I'm right here," he said.

"Not real y," Elena said, and her eyes fil ed with tears again. She wiped them roughly away with the backs of her hands. "It feels like I've been doing nothing but crying lately,"

she said. "When I'm here with you I feel safer, though. But it's just a dream. It won't last, this feeling."

Damon stiffened. "Safer?" he said, and there was a strained note in his voice. "You aren't safe when you're not with me? Isn't my little brother looking after you properly?"

"Oh, Damon, you can't imagine," Elena said. "Stefan..."

She took a deep breath, put her head in her hands, and began to sob.

"What is it? What's happened?" asked Damon sharply. When Elena didn't answer, just continued to cry, he took her hands and tugged them gently but firmly away from her face. "Elena," he said. "Look at me. Has something happened to Stefan?"

"No," said Elena through her tears. "Wel , yes, sort of... I don't real y know what's happened to him, but he's changed." Damon was looking at her intently, his nightblack eyes fixed on hers, and Elena made an effort to pul herself together. She hated acting like this, so weak and pathetic, sobbing on someone's shoulder instead of cool y formulating a solution to the problem at hand. She didn't want Damon, even a dream Damon who was just part of her subconscious, seeing her like this. She sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

Damon delved into an inner pocket of his leather jacket and handed her a neatly folded white handkerchief. Elena stared at it, then at him, and he shrugged. "I'm an oldfashioned gentleman, sometimes," he said, straight-faced.

"Hundreds of years of linen handkerchiefs. Some habits are hard to break."

Elena blew her nose and wiped her cheeks. She didn't quite know what to do with the soggy handkerchief - it seemed gross to hand it back to Damon - so she just held on to it, twisting it between her hands as she thought.

"Now tel me about what's going on. What's wrong with Stefan? What happened to him?" Damon commanded.

"Wel..." Elena said slowly, "I don't know what's wrong with Stefan, and I don't know if anything happened to change him that you don't already know about. Maybe he's just reacting to your... you know." It suddenly seemed weird to refer to Damon's death when he was sitting next to her - impolite somehow - but Damon nodded at her to go on. "It's been hard on him. And he's been even more tense and weird for the last couple of days. Then, earlier this evening, I was visiting my parents in the cemetery..." She told Damon about Stefan's attack on Caleb. "The worst part is that I never suspected this side of Stefan existed," she finished. "I can't think of any real reason he had to attack Caleb - he just claimed that Caleb wanted me, and that he was dangerous, but Caleb hadn't done anything - and Stefan seemed so irrational, and so violent. He was like another person."

Elena's eyes were fil ing with tears again, and Damon pul ed her closer, stroking her hair and gently peppering her face with soft kisses. Elena closed her eyes and gradual y relaxed into his arms. Damon held her more firmly, and his kisses got slower and deeper. Then he was cradling her head with his strong, gentle hands and kissing her mouth.

"Oh, Damon," she murmured. This was more vivid than any dream she'd ever had. His lips were soft and warm, with just a little roughness to them, and it felt like she was fal ing into him. "Wait." He kissed her more insistently but, when she pul ed away, let her go.

"Wait," Elena repeated, sitting up straight. Somehow she had lain back until