THE CHOICE
"I'll always be with you. No one is alone."
Those words came from Elena's mouth. Or, actually from her mind. She was holding Damon in her arms, his limp form covered in blood seeping from the branch protruding from his heart.
A heart which, for a very long time, she had thought, along with everybody else, was cold and black, and could hold no love. She had been proven wrong so many times before, but in this moment more than ever, she knew exactly how much love was in that heart, and who it was all for.
With Damon fading in her arms, she forgot about Stefan. Nothing else mattered except for the man dying in her arms. All she wanted was to be with him.
Recklessly, she hacked at her throat until scarlet blood spurted from it. She tried to make Damon drink, to regain his strength but his form was too lifeless for even that small act.
She tried with all her strength and will to bring forth a Wings Power, but nothing would come, she still couldn't control them at her will.
And then she knew, Damon had faded to nothing, he was gone. Forever.
"NO! NOOOO! DAMON!" she screamed, but nothing could produce a reaction for he had no reaction to give. No emotion. Just emptiness.
"DAMON!"
Elena sat up in bed, still screaming, sweat dripping from her body, gasping for air.
Stefan sat up and put his arm around Elena.
"Hey. Are you okay?"
Elena nodded, but she couldn't help the tears from falling from her eyes. Stefan smothered her in a tight hug.
Elena felt terrible for doing this to Stefan. She had been having that nightmare every time she fell asleep since it had happened two weeks ago. It was a memory Elena wished she could forget. But to Stefan it was the moment he'd realized exactly how much Elena cared about his older brother.
It was the moment she had broken his heart.
She had tried to make him understand that all the love he had witnessed her confess to Damon, was equally matched for Stefan, but he was filled with doubt now.
She knew he had always felt overshadowed by Damon and he felt Damon could give her more than he could, and no matter what she said she could not convince him otherwise.
"It's okay, lovely love. It was just a dream."
Elena pulled away slightly to look at Stefan in his shining, green eyes.
"But that's just it, Stefan. It's not just a dream. It's a memory. A horrible, horrible memory. And I know it was terrible for you too, but you didn't feel what I felt. You weren't in his mind, holding that little child, trying to make him think that everything would be okay, while at the same time feeling his life just disappearing from him, and there was nothing I could do."
Elena burst into uncontrollable sobs and Stefan held her tighter.
"And – I can't – can't make myself – forget. It's haunting me." She stuttered through sobs and whimpers.
Stefan sounded, for a second, like he was going to say something but then he hesitated. Elena pulled away once more and they held hands as they stared into each other's eyes.
"What is it?" she asked him.
He was silent for a long moment, and she waited, and then he finally spoke. "Lovely love, I could do that for you. I could make you forget. If you wanted, I could erase all memories of Damon, as if he never existed. You wouldn't be pained by him anymore."
Elena considered the offer and weighed her options. If she forgot Damon, she wouldn't be haunted by this nightmare any longer. She wouldn't feel this longing for him anymore. And Stefan's mind would be put at ease.
She made her decision then, because she couldn't bear to think of her other option. She couldn't bear to think of it as a betrayal to her beloved Damon.
"Yes." She whispered. "Yes, Stefan, I want you to do it, please."
Stefan nodded solemnly and placed his hands on either side of her face. He planted a soft kiss on her forehead and then stared into her eyes intensely.
"I don't have a brother." Stefan drawled. Elena's pupils contracted and dilated.
"You don't have a brother."
"You've never met anybody named Damon"
"I've never met anybody named Damon"
"Damon doesn't exist."
"Damon doesn't exist"
Stefan broke her gaze and Elena blinked and looked around her, confused.
"It was just a dream, lovely love. Come back to bed." Stefan said without looking her in the eyes.
"Okay. I hope I didn't wake Aunt Judith."
Elena and Stefan lay down next to each other and went back to sleep.
A week had passed since Elena had awoken in the middle of the night, sweaty and scared. She still couldn't remember what she had dreamt, but Stefan had been there for her.
He had shown great amounts of love for her over the past week, more than usual, but he had seemed distant, like something was buried in his soul and she couldn't reach it.
And all her friends seemed depressed, at times even her, but she had no idea why. Bonnie and Stefan had seemed the worst, every now and then one or the other would break down crying.
And everybody kept slipping up when they were speaking, starting to say something and then stopping and changing direction completely.
It all confused Elena so much, but every time she asked Stefan what was going on he would say, "It's nothing, lovely love. Nothing you should worry about." And it probably would have fooled her, except it was exactly the same every time, like it was rehearsed.
One night Elena was in the middle of a very normal dream.
It was back in her high school days. Something had upset her, she didn't know what, and she had gone to sit by her parents' grave.
She would sit and talk to them, tell them about her day, how much she missed them, and sit and wonder if they could hear her from somewhere up above.
Then she saw two figures walking towards her and she turned and wiped at her tears.
When she saw who was approaching she felt slightly better. Not alone, loved, and cared for.
It was Bonnie and Meredith.
They sat down beside her and suddenly the sun was shining above them and they were laughing like they had no cares in the world. Like they were just care-free teenagers.
But then the scene shifted again.
She was still in the graveyard but it was dark again. Bonnie and Meredith were gone but somebody else was there, somebody she couldn't see.
She felt a chill crawl up her spine and she turned around. Sitting on her parents' gravestone was a giant crow. It squawked and flapped its wings and then it was gone.
Elena turned back around and a human body was right in front of her, so close they were touching. All she could see now were two dark, amused eyes. So black she couldn't tell the irises from the pupils. So deep she could see into his soul.
She just stared into those eyes but she could hear a whisper on the wind, you won't forget me?... Can you remember that I loved you?...
Like words from another life. Maybe Stefan had said them once.
Elena sat up and a chill went up her spine. Luckily, Stefan hadn't awoken, so she just lay down, cuddled up close to him and went back to sleep.
The next day Elena met with all her friends at the boarding house for lunch. After lunch she was in the kitchen with Bonnie and they were washing dishes.
Mrs Flowers was still pretty exhausted from their fight with Obaasan and they had insisted on her getting some rest and them doing the cleaning.
As they were standing side by side at the kitchen sink scrubbing, rinsing and drying, they were having a chat just like old times.
"How are things with Stefan?" Bonnie asked cheekily, wiggling her eyebrows.
"Stop it!" Elena laughed, "They're good. He seems to be really affectionate lately. It's kind of weird... not that I'm complaining."
Bonnie giggled and tried to whip her with the tea towel.
"So when are you going to meet a nice boy, Bonnie? You need to get out there more." Elena teased.
Suddenly Bonnie's face fell and she looked up with twinkling, wet eyes.
"Well, since Damon..."
Elena was even more confused now because it seemed that Bonnie was crying over somebody called Damon. She didn't know anybody named Damon.
"Who?"
Bonnie looked startled and her hand flew up to her mouth.
"Oh! Nobody!" Bonnie cried, and turned back to the sink.
Elena tried to meet her eyes again.
"Bonnie! Who is Damon?"
"Nobody! I don't know what I'm talking about! Ignore me! Oh look! We've finished the dishes!" Bonnie exclaimed and ran from the room, leaving Elena more confused than ever.
Elena was getting tired of being lied to. These people were her friends, her family, and her love. Surely they could tell her anything.
All their friends had left but Elena had stayed behind with Stefan. When she mentioned that Bonnie said a strange name – which she was already forgetting – Stefan avoided the subject.
"I'm going for a walk!" Elena shouted up the staircase, "Don't follow." She mumbled. She knew Stefan would hear it.
She put on a coat and wrapped a scarf around her neck. As she adjusted the scarf she felt a sting on the side of her neck. She put her hand to the source of the pain and when she looked at it there were droplets of deep red blood.
She steeped over to the hall mirror and looked at the wound. A scab she had knocked, she realized. She remembered that sore being there, but, how did she get it again?
An image flashed through her mind of herself slicing open her neck and scarlet blood spurting from it.
That was ridiculous, why would she do that to herself?
Then she saw those black eyes again, only not amused this time, lifeless.
She shook the images away and decided she just needed some fresh air. She wrapped her scarf around her neck and stepped outside into the cool winter breeze.
She started to follow the path but decided to go left into the woods. No air fresher than air surrounded by trees.
She stepped into the woods and felt the bright sun shining through the treetops. The sun was no match for the winter breeze though. She tightened her coat around herself and kept walking.
She was striding along, lost in thought, when she saw movement next to her. She spun around to see what it was and bumped into a man.
He was slightly shorter than Stefan, and strangely, bearing a slight resemblance to him. He was dressed in black on black; Black jeans, black T-shirt, shiny leather jacket.
For a moment she was scared. A strange man had appeared out of nowhere while she was alone in the woods, who wouldn't be scared? But then she saw the expression on his face. He looked just as confused and scared as her.
For several minutes they just stared at each other. Then finally he spoke.
"Do I know you?"
Elena slowly shook her head.
"No. I've never met you before in my life. Yet, you remind me of somebody. Somebody I used to know..."
The man stepped forward and looked her in the eyes.
"Yes. You seem familiar to me too. I don't know why."
Those eyes. Elena recognized them from her dream. She had dreamt up those eyes and yet here she was staring into them, real as the two legs she was standing on.
"Who are you?" Elena asked.
He studied her closely as he replied, "Damon. And you are?"
The name sounded familiar as well.
What was that name Bonnie had said before?
Darren, Damien... Damon.
But that wasn't the only place she knew that name from... she just couldn't remember...
He was looking at her expectantly.
"Oh, um, Elena. So what are you doing here, in the woods?"
He appeared very thoughtful for a moment, and then he stuttered, "Uh, I don't know. I just felt like I was meant to walk this way. Like, something was drawing me here."
He looked at her as if hoping she believed him. With a vampire as a boyfriend, a witch as a best friend and a vampire hunter as her other best friend, of course she believed him.
But it wasn't just that. For some strange reason, she trusted him. She felt like she'd known him forever. And she felt undeniably attracted to him.
She stepped forward impulsively and tripped on a tree root. She was falling forwards, but she felt cold arms grab her. She felt a hard chest stopping her fall.
And then she felt soft, sweet lips against hers.
Time and space had no meaning. Nothing had meaning.
She had no memories, no rational thoughts.
And then images flooded into her mind.
A mocking smile...
A stolen kiss...
This man called Damon holding her through the night...
Herself holding his lifeless body...
A tear slid down her cheek and she raised her arms, running her fingers through his hair, deepening the kiss.
He had one arm resting in the small of her back and the other hand gently stroking the ends of her hair. Something about that seemed so familiar, and not because Stefan did it as well, like this man had done it long ago.
The images turned to moving videos with sound and colour, and all the memories came flooding back.
The first night they'd met in the school gym...
The first signs of kindness in Damon after Elena had become a vampire...
Damon begging for forgiveness at her feet after she'd used her Wings of Redemption on him...
Damon holding her all night in the motel room...
And finally, Damon going limp in her arms, their private frequency fading to nothing, and the little boy in his mind disappearing...
Elena pulled back and stared at him, they both had tears flowing down their cheeks as they held each other.
"Damon!" she gasped.
"Elena! My sweet Elena!"
"But how?" Elena asked.
"I don't know... I just woke up with no memory of anything except my name and a little voice in my head saying this was where I was meant to be," Damon smiled, "With you."
They embraced ever so tightly, and Elena's knees went weak. Instead of Damon catching her, he fell with her, and they collapsed onto the ground in each other's arms.
They kissed again, with all the passion in the world and Elena knew her choice.
Which Salvatore brother?
Damon.
She knew it had to be him.
She knew it would hurt Stefan, but she also knew that if it was what made her happy Stefan would set her free.
It had always been Damon.
It would always be Damon.