I WILL TRY TO FIX YOU
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Author
Part 3
Damon walks into the young Salvatore’s room after receiving a text from her and she looks up as he does, moving to sit up on her bed. “Hey, Uncle D.” She says, a bit nervously, and he takes notice of it, narrowing his eyes at her.
“What’s up?” He asks, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned against the framing of her bed.
She pauses. “Can I ask you a question?” Avery asks, nibbling on the inside of her cheek. Her father had given her more information than what she had previously had about her mother, but there was a newfound drive in her soul to find out more about her, about the type of person she was, and she thought that her Uncle would know at least a little bit - he had to have met her at least once.
“Shoot.” Damon says, still wondering where she was going with this. It wasn’t that he was annoyed by his niece’s curiosity, on the contrary, most of the time he admired it, and sought comfort in the fact that at least one piece of Elena remained.
“Did you know my Mom?” She asks and he notices how suddenly quiet she became, as if she almost didn’t want to know.
“Yeah, I did. Elena Gilbert.” Her name rolls of his tongue unpleasantly. “Well, Elena Salvatore. She died a Salvatore.” He says and looks at her daughter, the girl who had grown up from being the small child he’d have to cuddle and read stories to the beautiful teenager.
Avery nodded, but hesitated. Of course her Uncle would have known her mother, from what she’d been told her parents were together years before her mother was killed. Her Aunts told her every year when they would take her to Elena’s grave and help her lay flowers. “What was she like?”
It was Damon’s turn to be hesitant when he heard her question and he swallows uncomfortably, wondering just how much of her mother she wanted to know. “Elena was.. indescribable. Beautiful, stubborn, nine chances out of ten, a total pain in the ass but she was my friend. In fact, she was one of my only friends.”
She waited as Damon stopped talking, looking to the side, his features changing. She knew there was more, but she felt like he needed the reassurance that he could go on, the reassurance that she was prepared to hear whatever he was about to say. “Go on..”
“When you were born, I was at a point of my life that I thought I had genuine feelings for your mother.. she was with me when I was bitten by a werewolf; she kissed me, tried to give me the best death that a person could have. She was always considerate like that.” Damon looks at her, wishing he didn’t see Elena in her features every time he looked at her. “And for a while, I thought she liked me too, but it was always your Dad.” There’s a pain his chest as he speaks but he ignores it and looks upon his niece, her face changing from curious to somewhat hurt and he wonders if he should have shared that information with her. “I didn’t meet you until you were five, and the first words you said to me were ‘Why do you have such poofy hair? Is it soft like a poodle’s?’”
Avery laughs quietly, though she’s stunned by her Uncle’s confession. She had always seen her mother as a role model type of person and to know she had sort of cheated on her father with her uncle gave her a new perspective. “Thanks, Uncle Damon.” She says and stands up, hugging him, which he reciprocates after a moment, realizing she wasn’t going to let go of him until he did.
As she pulled away, he smiled slightly at her. “You remind me a lot of her, you know.” He says softly. “Except, by now, she would have hit me or at least tried to.”
Avery rolled her eyes and punched him in the shoulder, walking over and laying back down on the bed, not bothering to watch him leave.