Fifteen minutes later there was a rattle at one window and a minute later Damon was stepping through. He had several paper bags with him and Elena felt unaccountably pleased and homey. She had provided coffee, which was rather good even if it came with dried cream substitute, and Damon had supplied...
"Gasoline," he said triumphantly, raising his eyebrows significantly at her as he set the bags on the table. "Just in case they try to use plants against us. No, thanks," he added, seeing she was standing with a full cup of coffee held in his direction. "I had a garage mechanic while I was buying this. I'll just go wash my hands."
And he disappeared, walking right past Elena.
Walking right past her, without a glance, even though she was wearing her only clean pair of clothes left: jeans and a subtly colored top that looked white at first glance and only in the brightest light revealed that it was ethereally rainbow-shaded.
Without a single look, Elena thought, feeling a strange sensation that somehow her life had just lapped itself.
She started to throw the coffee away but then decided she needed it herself and drank it in a few scalding gulps.
Then she went and stood by her diary, reading over the last two or three pages.
"Are you ready to go?" Damon was shouting over the sound of running water in the bathroom.
"Yes - in just a minute." Elena read the diary pages from the previous entry, and began skimming the one before that.
"We might as well go straight west from here," Damon shouted. "We can make it in one day. They'll think it's a feint for one particular gate and search all the small ones. Meanwhile we'll go on heading for the Kimon Gate and be days ahead of anyone tracking us. It's perfect."
"Uh-huh," Elena said, reading.
"We ought to be able to meet Mutt tomorrow - maybe even this evening, depending on what kind of trouble they cause."
"Uh-huh."
"But first I wanted to ask you: do you think it's a coincidence that our window is broken? Because I always put wards on them at night and I'm sure - " He passed a hand over his forehead. "I'm sure that I must have done that last night, as well. But something got through and broke the window and got away without a trace. That was why I bought all the the gasoline. If they try something with trees, I'll blast them all back to Stonehenge."
And half the innocent residents of the state, Elena thought grimly. But she was in a state of such shock that not much could make an impression on top of it.
"What are you doing now?" Damon was clearly ready to get up and going.
"Getting rid of something I don't need," Elena said, and flushed the toilet, watching the torn-up bits of her diary swirl round and round before disappearing.
"I wouldn't worry about the window, though," she said, coming back into the bedroom and slipping her shoes on. "And don't get up for a minute, Damon. I've got to talk to you about something."
"Oh, come on. It can wait until we're on the road, can't it?"
"No, it can't, because we've got to pay for that window. You broke it last night, Damon. But you don't remember doing it, do you?"
Damon stared at her. She could tell that his first temptation was to laugh. His second temptation, to which he gave in, was to think that she was nuts.
"I'm serious," she said, once he had gotten up and started to pace toward the window with a distinct look of wanting to be a crow flying out of it. "Don't you dare go anywhere, Damon, because there's more."
"More stuff I did that I don't remember?" Damon lounged against the wall in one of his old, arrogant poses. "Maybe I smashed a few guitars, kept the radio on until four A.M.?"
"No. Not necessarily things from - last night," Elena said, looking away. She couldn't look at him. "Other things, from other days - "
"Like maybe I've been trying to sabotage this trip all along," he said, his voice laconic. He eyed the ceiling and sighed heavily. "Maybe I've done it just to be alone with you - "
"Shut up, Damon!"
Where had that come from? Well, she knew that, of course. From her feelings about last night. The problem was that she also had to get some other things settled - seriously, if he would take them. Come to think of it, that might be a better way to go about this.
"Do you think that your feelings about Stefan - well, have changed at all recently?" Elena asked.
"What?"
"Do you think" - oh, this was so difficult looking into black eyes the color of endless space. Especially when last night they had been full of myriads of stars - "do you think that you've come to think of him differently? To honor his wishes more than you used to do?"
Now Damon was openly examining her, just as she was examining him.
"Are you serious?" he said.
"Completely," she said, and, with a supreme effort, she sent her tears back where they were supposed to go.
"Something did happen last night," he said. He was looking intently at her face. "Didn't it?"
"Something happened, yes," Elena said. "It was - it was more of a - " She had to let out her breath, and with that almost everything went.
"Shinichi! Shinichi, che bastardo! Imbroglione! That thief! I'm going to kill him slowly!" Suddenly Damon was everywhere. He was beside her, his hands on her shoulders; the next minute he was shouting imprecations out the window, then he was back, holding both her hands.
But only one word mattered to Elena. Shinichi. The kitsune with his black, scarlet-tipped hair, who had made them give up so much just for the location of Stefan's cell.