Bet Me; Chapter 9; Care For an Aphrodisiac?
Huge thanks to my beta readers; Bex (parnassides) and Lauren (lauren3210).
Chapter 9 - Care For an Aphrodisiac?
"Cut the crap, Kat," Damon said. "What are you doing here?"
"Shh," Katherine motioned as she grabbed them both by the arms and pulled them around the side of the building they'd just walked out of.
"You're undercover," Damon said smugly.
"I'm supposed to be. You'd better not ruin this for me, Damon. Do you have any idea how long I've been working on this case? What are you doing here?"
"Working," Damon said to her. "Of course."
"You work in Chicago. Or at least you did two years ago." She stood back. "I recall you saying you'd never move back here."
"And I haven't," Damon said. "I go back to Chicago at the end of the week."
Katherine turned her attention to Elena. "Elena Gilbert," she said slowly.
"Katherine," Elena said coolly.
"It's been a long time."
Not long enough, Elena thought. Could today get any worse? So far they'd discovered the things they'd bought from Slater's Spies didn't work; she'd been given a crappy homework assignment from their marriage therapist, and now she'd managed to wind up on the same property as Damon Salvatore and Katherine Pierce. The two had obviously seen each other since high school. What could be worse than ending up working with her old high school crush? Running into the person he'd crushed her heart with.
And Katherine was undercover? Undercover as what? If she was some kind of law enforcement, Elena supposed she should be a little relieved, but the fact that it was Katherine Pierce, didn't make her feel any joy at all.
"I can never resist the lure of a big story," Damon told her with a smirk. "You know that."
Katherine smirked back at him. "I do."
"And the fact that you're here investigating Von Gruber means this story is every bit as big as I suspected," Damon said to her.
"As we suspected," Elena corrected. "So you're a cop?"
"God no," Katherine said, clearly disgusted by the notion.
"Katherine's FBI," Damon explained.
Damon hadn't really thought twice about his high school girlfriend when he'd left Mystic Falls for Chicago, but when he'd been looking into a drug ring a couple years back, they'd crossed paths. Despite the fact they'd had no contact in eight years, she'd seemed pleased to see him. They'd hooked up a couple times while she was in Chicago, and she'd given him some information he knew she probably shouldn't have.
Katherine was part of the Narcotics Investigation Unit, which meant they thought Von Gruber was involved with drugs here. This was one additional detail that could blow the story out of the water. He had to find out more, which would be easier if he were in a position to sleep with Katherine, and flatter her a little. He wasn't. While he was here he had a 'wife' and they were being observed. Still, running into Katherine like this was extremely fortuitous. The fact that he knew who she was gave him the edge on the story. Jules and Brady didn't know the FBI were sniffing Von Gruber out for drug use, and neither did Elena.
"We go back with the same information, and then it all comes down to the way we write. If we look out for each other, Von Gruber won't get the best of us."
He was going to have to tell Elena who Katherine was. He'd promised her they'd share information; that they would work together. He couldn't go back on his word. And after things had been less than smooth between them since he'd arrived in town, he knew that Katherine's arrival on the scene wasn't going to be appreciated by the woman he was working with. He might have apologised for prom night, but it wasn't lost on him the fact that the last time they had all been standing together like this he'd dumped Elena on the steps of the gym so he could go into the prom with Katherine.
"So, can you tell us anything about what's going on here?" Elena asked.
"What Elena means," Damon corrected, turning on the charm, "is that we'd be happy to help you with your investigation, wouldn't we, Gilbert?"
"Right," Elena muttered.
"You know I can't share any details about the investigation with you, but I can tell you that if we're right about what Klaus Von Gruber is up to, you're in danger. You shouldn't be here."
"We can handle it," Damon said.
"Don't say I didn't warn you. I trust the two of you will keep your mouths shut about my identity. I'm Katerina - the massage teacher here."
"Massage?" Elena asked worriedly.
Katherine rolled her eyes. "Seduction skills and tantric massage are part of the couples skill building Klaus promotes."
"Great," Elena mumbled. "This keeps getting better and better."
"I trust you'll keep our identity safe," Damon said to her.
Katherine looked between the two of them curiously. "You two are here together?"
"We're working together," Elena told her.
She nodded. "I need to go, before Klaus comes looking for me. Damon, I need to talk to you about something. Elena, excuse us."
"Wait here," he told Elena, walking with Katherine.
Damon was well aware of the fact that Elena was watching him - or rather glaring at him - as Katherine started talking to him. He would feel worse about leaving her if he wasn't trying to get more information about the story they were both working on.
"I'm not at liberty to discuss the details of the case with the general public," Katherine told him.
"But I'm not the general public," Damon said to her with a smirk.
She smiled at him. "Exactly. I may need information from you later. You scratch my back. I'll scratch yours."
"What do you know?" Damon asked her. "Why are you here?"
"If I tell you this, you'll owe me."
"You can't just tell me for old time's sake?"
"No."
Damon shrugged off the uneasy feeling he had about agreeing to that. If he could get them a real lead on this story it would be worth anything Katherine would ask him, wouldn't it?
"A favor for a favor then," Damon said casually.
"Okay," Katherine said. "You didn't hear this from me. We think Klaus is illegally transporting a substance from Indonesia and adding it to the food here," Katherine told him. "At this stage we don't know much about it for sure. What we do know, however, is that the substance is derived from Lima Flowers. These flowers are pink, fragrant, and they taste sweet. They work like an aphrodisiac; intensifying sexual desire."
"He's using an illegal drug as an aphrodisiac?"
"As well as increasing the sex drive significantly, we think they weaken the mind, making it easier to plant suggestions."
Holy shit, Damon thought. He'd known Von Gruber was up to something, but he hadn't been expecting anything like this. A "marriage therapist" drugging his patients so he could brainwash them? A new drug which increased the libido and made the mind weak? Whittleman was going to love it - if Damon could avoid being drugged and brainwashed during the course of the week; and if Elena didn't bolt out of the retreat the moment she heard Von Gruber might drug them. He felt sick as he thought of something.
"Then there's a possibility we could have been drugged already?" Damon asked her.
Katherine chortled. "Why, are you and Elena having sudden trouble keeping your hands off each other?"
"Something like that," he said vaguely.
"I wouldn't be sure anything you feel here is real," Katherine told him. "Klaus is a master manipulator. He's exceptionally good at working with couples, and making them believe they're in love. If I didn't know what he was up to, I'd be impressed. That said, I wouldn't have expected Klaus to drug you on the first day."
"But he could have?"
"I guess it's possible."
Elena was going to freak out about this when he told her. She would probably be convinced that was why last night had happened. It was true he had been feeling this crazy kind of lust for her since he'd arrived here, but that was because he'd kissed her in the car park of the retreat yesterday. He hadn't been drugged then. He hadn't consumed any food or beverages on the property at that time.
"How long do the…effects last for?" he asked.
"We think a few hours, give or take," Katherine told him. "In general people don't seem to notice they've been drugged, however, headaches and vomiting have been a reported side effect in some cases."
Damon hadn't had a headache, and as far as he knew, Elena hadn't had one either. Damon was sure they hadn't been drugged. Even so, he was probably going to have to spend the rest of the day trying to convince Elena to stay. He wrestled with his conscience as he deliberated withholding a detail or two, before it wrestled back and told him what was right.
"Thanks for the tip."
"No problem," Katherine said to him, with a grin. "Are you going to the reunion?"
"Don't know if I'm going to stick round yet."
Damon hadn't received his invitation to the reunion before he'd left Chicago, but an old classmate who was on the organizing committee, had tracked him down when she'd heard he was in town. He'd told her he was a maybe, because he hadn't seen it as a good enough reason to stick around Mystic Falls. The reunion was on the day after they would get back. He'd had every intention or flying back Saturday morning, sure that he would be entirely sick of the town by the time he was done with the story. Now, however, he wasn't so sure. He looked at Elena. Was she going? He hadn't asked her; mainly because high school was a sore spot between them.
"You should," Katherine said, smirking at him. "It'll be my first day off in a month. We'd have fun. Just like old times."
He smirked. "I'm sure we would."
"I'll be in touch about that favor," she said to him.
He still felt uneasy about owing Katherine a favor, but it had been worth it for the information she'd given him.
"Well, they say it's a small world," Damon quipped as he re-joined Elena.
"Too small," she replied. "What did Katherine want?"
"She had some information about Von Gruber."
"Information she wanted to share with you, and not me?" Elena asked, unable to keep the irritation out of her voice.
If Katherine had information to share, she should have told both of them, Elena thought. It was like being in high school all over again. She was less than impressed he'd left her alone so he could talk to Katherine. While they were here, they were supposed to be "married," and even if what they were doing here was pretend, it couldn't look that way to the outside. Elena didn't want him being distracted by another woman, or being tempted to flirt with her while they were here. They didn't need to attract any more attention from Von Gruber than they had already.
"So what did she say about Von Gruber?" she asked him, trying to suppress her annoyance over the whole situation.
"Not here," he said to her, taking her arm so they started moving.
Elena looked around, spotting a clearing a little way from the reception building. "Over there then," she pointed.
"You've seen Katherine since high school obviously," Elena said to him as they walked.
"A couple of years ago I was working on exposing a drug ring in Chicago. Our paths crossed."
Damon waited to see if those words would have any affect.
"Oh," Elena said.
When she said nothing further, Damon continued. "Katherine belongs to the NIU - Narcotics Investigation Unit."
"Then why is she here investigating Von Gruber?"
"Why do you think?"
Elena stopped walking, and he stopped with her. "There are drugs here."
"Mm-hmm," he said.
"Von Gruber is crazy, but I never picked him for a drug user," Elena said, starting to move forward again.
"I don't think he's the one taking the drugs, Elena."
"But-"
"Katherine thinks he's drugging his patients."
She stopped again. "Wait. What?"
"They think Von Gruber is using a substance that they don't know all that much about just yet."
"A substance?"
"Derived from the Lima Flowers in Indonesia. They're not sure about the side effects yet."
"What do they think the side effects are?"
"Katherine said it's supposed to work like an aphrodisiac. They think the drug enhances sex drive and weakens the mind, making it more susceptible to suggestion."
"Oh my god," Elena said.
"Yeah," Damon agreed. "We've hit the jackpot, Elena."
Damon knew he had to talk her round before she could panic. He had to make her see this information and development as a good thing.
"The jackpot? Damon this is-"
"Dangerous. I know."
Elena started pacing.
"This is big Elena," he said to her. "It's massive. We already know more than Jules and Brady do. We can't be in too much trouble with the FBI around. If Katherine's here undercover, her back-up won't be that far away. Katherine knows us. She'll know if anything happens to us."
"Forgive me if I'm not reassured by the idea that Katherine is our saviour."
"Fine," Damon said. "All I'm saying is that her people are going to be close by, and she'll probably say something if either of us are acting weird. We're going to be okay."
"Providing we're not drugged," she said, before she stopped pacing. "We could have already been drugged."
This was what Damon had been waiting for. Considering how much effort she'd put into denying she was attracted to him yesterday, it had been obvious to him that she'd jump to the conclusion that she'd been drugged. Well, he wasn't going to spend the day arguing with her about whether they had or hadn't been. She could make up her own mind on the subject. If she did believe they'd been drugged, it would actually make convincing her to stay a little easier, because they could assume then that they'd faced the worst possible outcome and survived it.
"You're right," he said to her. "We could have been. Katherine said it was a possibility," he told her.
Elena stopped pacing and looked at him. "You told Katherine what happened between us last night?" Elena asked him feeling anger explode inside her. She didn't care about whether Katherine was FBI, or the queen; she didn't want Damon sharing what had happened between them with that woman.
"I didn't give her any details," he said to her. "I simply asked her if it could have happened."
"And she said it was a possibility?"
"She did. The effects of the drug usually last for a few hours after taking it. She also said there are side effects, like a headache and vomiting, but they're not all that common."
She couldn't believe he wasn't denying it was a possibility. He'd spent most of yesterday trying to get her to admit she was attracted to him, and now that Katherine had suggested a drug might be responsible, he was happy enough to blame the unknown substance for her behaviour; for their behaviour - for his behaviour. She swallowed. Did he think the drug was to blame for his reaction to her?
"Did she say anything else?" Elena asked through gritted teeth.
"Just that we shouldn't trust anything we might feel here. Von Gruber is very good at manipulating people."
Well it wasn't as though Elena had believed Damon was going to think himself in love with her because they were at this marriage retreat together, but she couldn't help feeling annoyed Katherine had told him that anyway. There was nothing to suggest Katherine had changed since high school, Elena thought. The FBI agent had pulled Damon away to give him information about Von Gruber, when she could have said it in front of both of them. Now she couldn't help wondering, was that all Katherine had said to him? Had Damon accurately relayed everything Katherine had said? She suddenly felt panicked. She had no way of knowing if Damon was telling her the truth; or if he had changed the details at all.
She had to calm down, she thought. She was probably just being paranoid, but this story was getting bigger and bigger. Because of the history between Katherine and Damon she'd been disadvantaged by not being privy to their conversation, and she only had Damon's word that that was what Katherine had said. Still, he could have kept it all from her, Elena reminded herself. If everything he'd told her was the truth, he'd shared his biggest lead, and helped both of them significantly. And he had to have known she wouldn't be happy to hear about this aphrodisiac. But he'd told her anyway. He deserved the benefit of the doubt, didn't he?
"We need to work on our assignment," he said to her.
Damon sat down on the grass, in the sunshine, once they'd reached the clearing. He couldn't help thinking that Elena looked just as uncertain sitting across from him, as she had during their soul gazing class earlier. She hadn't reacted to the information Katherine had given him in the way he'd thought she would have. He'd expected Elena to immediately blame her performance last night on the drug, but she hadn't. She hadn't suggested anything between them had been drug induced; which meant that she didn't think she needed an aphrodisiac to act the way she had. She was just as attracted to him as he was to her. He felt his libido kick into overdrive at the thought.
He opened the journal, picking up the pen that had fallen out onto the grass, and tried to concentrate on writing something. He'd been staring at the blank page for a couple of minutes when Elena interrupted him.
"The drug can weaken the mind. What does that even mean?"
"I don't know," he said to her. "We need to stay alert, and watch the couples around us for changes in their behaviour."
"If we were drugged last night, then the chances are high it could happen again," she said, before she licked her lips nervously. "Like tonight."
"Well, we handled it last night," Damon said to her. "It could have gone further, but it didn't. You stopped it. You were still in control."
Barely, Elena thought; she'd barely been in control. It really hadn't been until after he'd stopped touching her that she'd come to her senses. If she'd had that much trouble staying in control without being under the influence, how would she cope if Von Gruber did drug them?
"What if we haven't been drugged yet?" she asked him.
Damon kept his eyes on the blank page in front of him. "Then hopefully we won't be."
"But if we are?"
He looked up. "The risks are obvious," he said as their eyes locked.
It was more than likely they wouldn't be able to stop themselves from sleeping together, Damon thought. He felt his blood run hot, and his jeans grow uncomfortably tight. He knew Elena didn't want to give into the attraction; but he would be lying if he said he didn't want to. He'd backed off, and was trying to respect what she'd said last night, but he didn't need Von Gruber's drug to weaken his resolve not to sleep with her. Every time Damon thought about having to go to bed with her tonight and trying to resist her again, he dreaded the frustration he was going to experience.
"I told you I don't want that to happen between us," she said to him.
"I know," he said to her. "But suppose we can't stop it, and it does end up happening."
She flushed, and her lips parted. He heard her breathing quicken. She wasn't really sitting that far away from him. He could have her body underneath his in a second; her lips warm and pliant against his.
"Don't," she whispered, as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.
"I know you don't want it to happen, but I think we need to talk about the possibility. Last night went much further that it should have. We sleep together; what's the worst that could happen?"
"You'll win our bet," she said to him.
"Okay," he said to her. "Anything else?"
"Von Gruber tapes us having sex and watches it."
Damon nodded. "Is that it?"
"What do you mean, is that it?"
"Is there anything else you're afraid of? Say it. Let's deal with it."
Elena sighed. "I'm afraid he'll make us do something I don't want to do. That he'll take away my choice." She paused before adding, "I'm afraid I'm not going to remember what I did here. I'm afraid…"
"What are you afraid of, Elena?"
Elena took a deep breath, unsure what to say. She was doing her best to make sure she stayed emotionally detached. She couldn't do that if they slept together. She couldn't expect him to understand that. She didn't want to tell him, "I'm afraid that at any moment I might develop feelings for you, and I'm trying to protect myself before that happens, because developing feelings for you would be really, really stupid." But he was looking at her, waiting. She had to say something.
"I'm afraid what we're doing here will feel more real than it should."
"I told you what Katherine told me. Von Gruber's going to do everything he can to make us believe we're a happy couple."
"I know that," she said to him, already feeling incredibly stupid. She looked away from him. Why had she told him that? She sounded like an idiot.
"Elena."
"You're right," she said to him, studying her journal intensely. "It's stupid to worry about something like that, but there's still the matter of the cameras in our room, and who knows what he'll try and make us do."
She'd been mortified they'd been caught on video last night. She didn't want to do anything like that in front of the cameras ever again. She also didn't want to do something against her will. Not that an aphrodisiac worked like that, but if the drug could weaken the mind, who knew what Von Gruber would try and get them to do?
"You can't be made to do something you don't want to do under hypnosis," Damon reminded her. "Unless you're isolated, and have all your habits controlled by that person, they can't influence you to do things against your will. Elena, I'm not going to leave you alone with Von Gruber."
Out of everything Damon had just said, it was those words that made her feel calm for the first time since they'd bumped into Katherine.
"So, are we writing this together, or separately?" she asked him, done with talking.
"He wants us to do it separately," Damon said to her.
"I mean-"
"I know what you meant. What do you think? Do you want to make it up together, or write it separately, and then share it?" he asked her.
"I don't know," she said to him. "Separately I guess."
"Is this where we use our back story in which I'm a first class jerk?"
"It makes sense to go off the timeline we discussed."
"Fine. You write yours and I'll write mine, and then we'll read each other's entries."
* * *
"Damon. Elena. Come in, come in," Von Gruber said to them, ushering them into the office they'd been directed to for their one-on-one session with the therapist. "Please take a seat on the couch."
Damon sat down on the green plaid couch Von Gruber had pointed at. Elena sat down beside him, making sure she didn't leave any space between them. She froze, however, when she noticed there was a small television set sitting on the table to the side of them, and the TV had a video tape slot underneath it. She hoped to god, Von Gruber wasn't going to play a video of what had happened last night. She didn't know if she would survive that.
"You look worried, Elena," Von Gruber said.
"I'm fine," she told him.
Damon put his arm across the couch behind her, and Elena found herself leaning into him a little; her arm pressed against his side. Despite the fact she felt her heart rate pick up every time he was near her, it suddenly felt like the safest place to be. After everything they'd learned about Von Gruber, it was even more important that Elena made sure she acted her ass off this session; and that included pretending she was comfortable with her "husband" in every way that mattered. They'd read each other's entries before they'd gone back to their studio for a quick lunch. It had been uncomfortable writing about how she had supposedly "fallen in love" with Damon, and even more uncomfortable reading his entry, but at least they'd been able to talk about it before they saw their therapist.
"Allow me to get you some water?" Von Gruber said to her, walking over to the large mahogany desk, in the corner, and pouring her a glass from the glass jug sitting there. "Damon would you like some?"
"No thank you."
"Thank you," Elena said, as she took one the glass from Von Gruber.
Elena was aware that Von Gruber was waiting for her to drink from the glass. She didn't want to drink anything Von Gruber handed her. Still, it wasn't really any different from eating the food and drink prepared by his staff on the premises. The derivative of the flower could probably be put in anything if it was an essence. She brought the glass to her lips and sipped the water which was remarkably cool, considering it had been sitting at room temperature. It didn't taste any different to tap water, but she still put the glass down on the small table beside her, not prepared to drink any more.
"Shall we begin?" Von Gruber asked them, sitting in the green, tub chair in front of the two of them.
"Yes," she said, at the same time as Damon.
"Let's start with the easy questions? Why are you here?"
"I thought the answer to that would be obvious," Damon answered.
"Humor me," Von Gruber told them.
"We want to fix our marriage," Elena answered.
"Do you?" Von Gruber asked her.
"Would we be here otherwise?" Damon asked.
"You tell me," Von Gruber said to them. "Often coming here was the choice of one partner, and not the other. Whose idea was it to come here?"
"Mine," Elena said.
Elena and Damon had decided this some time ago, since it was more common for the woman to push to fix a broken relationship, than the man.
"Is that so?" Von Gruber asked thoughtfully.
"You sound surprised," Damon said.
"In this case, yes. Whenever I've watched the two of you, it's Elena who seems to want to put distance between the two of you."
"Things have been rough lately," Elena said, "I'm trying."
"He hurt you," Von Gruber said.
It wasn't a question. Von Gruber had made a statement, and Elena merely nodded, trying to remember everything she had discussed with Damon about their life as a married couple. As a journalist she was much better at asking questions, than answering them, but this week she was going to be forced to come up with answers to solve problems which didn't really exist, and she was going to have to improvise.
"How did you go with your assignment, Elena?"
Elena went to hand her journal to Von Gruber, but he shook his head. "I simply want to know how you found the exercise."
"In what way?" Elena asked him, feeling silly for not knowing exactly what he was asking.
"Did you enjoy it? Did you find it difficult? Was it painful? Was the memory bitter-sweet?"
"It was fine," Elena said.
"What did you write?" Von Gruber asked her.
"Several months before Damon proposed to me, he was taking part in a charity auction for a homeless shelter in town. I'd had no intention of bidding on him, but when someone else did, I found the motivation to." She paused, pasting a smile on her face that she hoped seemed genuine. "That date changed everything. He kissed me that night, and I knew I was falling for him."
If it sounded rehearsed it was because it had been. Elena had replayed the story over and over in her head. She was proud of it. It fitted right into the back story, and it sounded plausible. It was also the type of thing that would appeal to her.
"Mmm," Von Gruber said, frowning.
Elena felt the smile she'd been wearing slip right off her face.
"It's what I've written here," she told Von Gruber, not at all sure what she was supposed to say now.
"I don't doubt that."
"Damon, what did you write?"
Elena steeled herself for his answer. Reading it had been difficult enough. She wasn't looking forward to hearing it said out loud.
"High school," Damon said. "We had English class together. I suspect I felt something all the way back then. I used to notice all these little things about her, like the way she'd run her hands over her skirt when she'd get nervous; and the way she used to bite her lip when she was thinking about something."
"Tell me more," Von Gruber encouraged.
"I used to stir her. I used to love it when she glared at me."
Elena felt her heart pounding, and she rubbed the palms of her hands over her jeans before she could stop herself. Von Gruber noticed immediately.
"How did you feel about Damon in high school, Elena?"
"He was a jerk," she told him.
Von Gruber chuckled. "I don't disbelieve you. But that doesn't answer my question. I asked you how you felt about him?"
Elena didn't want to talk about high school with Damon or Von Gruber. She didn't like where this was going. These one-on-one sessions were going to be difficult enough without discussing high school.
"I hated him," she said.
"Hate," he said to her, "is such a strong word. I wonder what he did to provoke such emotion."
"I played a practical joke," Damon said for her. "I was a jerk."
Damon was regretting his decision to mention high school right now. Sure it had always been a sore spot between them, but he'd started writing something else down, and he hadn't gotten very far. As soon as he'd thought about high school, he'd had all these memories flash back to him, and he'd found it easier to write. Elena had read it when he was done. She'd been quiet when she'd finished, but he'd put that down to nerves about their upcoming appointment. She'd also said the entry was fine. Now, however, he could see she was struggling. Stupid, Salvatore, he chided himself. Very stupid.
"How did you feel about Damon, before he played this joke?" Von Gruber asked her.
"We didn't talk all that much," Elena told him.
"Again," Von Gruber interjected, "not what I asked you."
"He was smart; good looking," Elena said with as much indifference as she could manage.
"And you liked him," Von Gruber said, filling in the gap.
Liked him? Elena almost laughed. He'd been the subject of every one of her adolescent fantasies until he'd taken her to prom, and even though they'd been competing for the scholarship back then, she'd desperately wanted his attention. Even now she could remember cleaning his car, as he'd told her he was taking Katherine to the movies. She'd hated herself for wishing he would take her instead. She'd put so much effort into playing it cool, and not giving herself away. And now ten years later, things were ridiculously close to what they had been back then.
Damon was practically on the edge of his seat waiting for her to answer the question. Gilbert had not had a thing for him back then. At least he didn't think she had. Elena shrugged, but didn't say anything. Why the hell hadn't she said no?
"You don't like talking about it?" Von Gruber asked her.
"I guess I don't understand the point. High school has no bearing on our current relationship."
"I beg to differ," Von Gruber said. "I've seen more emotion in your face while we've talked about your relationship in high school, than when you supposedly fell in love with him. Normally, when a woman talks about falling in love, she lights up. Not you. I'd wager this retreat that your feelings for him all that time ago were quite significant, and that they do indeed have a bearing on the issues between you today."
"No," Elena said.
Her outright denial caused Von Gruber to frown.
"I mean I don't see how."
"I think we need to find out. With your permission, I'd like to do a regression with you. I would take you back to that time, and we could find out exactly what happened between the two of you back then."
No. There was no way on earth Elena wanted to do that. Aside from the fact that she didn't want Damon to know she'd had one giant sized crush on him back then, it would blow their cover. They'd both been working towards the scholarship for journalism. Anything could come out. She did not want to be 'regressed.'
"I'd rather not," she said to him.
Elena sighed with relief when Damon came to her defence, obviously thinking the same thing as she was.
"I don't think that's really needed at this time," Damon said.
Von Gruber rubbed two fingers over his chin and looked at them both thoughtfully.
"I'll drop it for now," he said to them, "on the proviso that you spend time tonight talking about the opinions you held of each other back then. I expect the conversation to be recorded in your journals."
Elena nodded, though Damon noted she didn't look happy about it. Damon, on the other hand, was more than happy with the homework assignment. He could hardly wait for the session to be over. The moment they left this office he had every intention of having his own one-on-one chat with Elena, during which he would ask her just how much she'd liked him before he'd taken her to prom.
"So are we done?" he asked Von Gruber.
"Not quite," Von Gruber told her, standing up and picking up a video off his desk. "There's something I want you to watch first."
A/N: Expect things to get more...intense. Thanks for reading :)