AN: Well okay…..this is my first attempt to write for the Vampire Diaries…it's a rather….odd idea, if not slightly out of character, but just go with it, okay? I hope you like it, please enjoy and review!
Aberrant
Adj. departing from accepted standard.
Part One: The Left Behind
Elena disappears the night Jenna dies.
It goes like this. Damon rushes to dig the splintered wood out of his brother's back, as Klaus writhes in pain at the edge of the clearing. Damon passes Elena's unconscious (dead) body, so he knows she was there. But once he's liberated Stefan from the splintered stake, and moves towards the altar to gather Elena's body, she's gone.
For a second he thinks the damn werewolf bite is fucking with his head, but as he scours the clearing it becomes clear that she is really gone. He watches as Elijah betrays them, and whisks Klaus away, too numb to care.
Where did she go? He wonders numbly, even as Stefan shakes him, asking him the same question over and over. Where did she go?
Damon looks into his brother's eyes, full of hurt and confusion and gut-wrenching panic. And he knows. Perhaps it's because they have that thing (an understanding) or maybe it's because he expects less from people, but he's the first to get it. She left us.
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They bury John and Jenna on a clear day. Damon waits for her to show up – to say goodbye. He sits on the tombstone across from her parents' grave and waits. Maybe she left them (him), but she'd never leave without saying goodbye to Jenna, or Jeremy.
Stefan finds him at 3 AM and grabs his arm to drag him home. When Damon hisses upon contact, Stefan rips up his sleeve to reveal the werewolf bite and swears under his breath. Stefan tells him over and over again that he's going to fix it but all Damon can think is why the hell didn't she say goodbye?
Stefan leaves and Caroline takes his place. Caroline sits next to him and shivers. But she never says a word, and Damon wonders if she's as hurt as he is because fucking hell why wouldn't she say goodbye? The sun starts to rise and Damon fights off a spasm of pain just as Caroline finally speaks.
"Do you think we made her unhappy?" Her voice is small and hesitant, like she's afraid he might scream at her if she says a single wrong word. Damon sits there as her words sink in, did they make her unhappy?
"I don't know, Caroline. I don't know why she – left," Damon says gruffly, and Caroline nods. She stands up and drags him to his feet, supporting his weight easily on her smaller frame.
"Come on, you need to get some rest," Caroline says gently even as he resists, "she's not coming back Damon, not today."
He gives in and lets her drag him back to the boarding house and tuck him into bed. She busily bustles around, feeding him blood and pressing cold wash clothes to his burning skin.
A cold fear sets in as he lies there. What if he never sees her again? He could die –soon– and never see her beautiful face again. He wonders if he'll ever get a chance to really apologize for forcibly feeding her his blood and killing her brother and letting her aunt die and just generally not taking the best care of her.
His fear is unfounded. Katherine appears and offers up the cure as Caroline hovers at the door. Katherine feeds it to him and he devours her face with his eyes, trying to make them softer, more human.
"Don't try to make me into her," Katherine murmurs almost tenderly as she strokes his cheek. She presses a lingering kiss to his forehead and later he'll swear he imagined it, but he thinks she whispers I'm sorry people keep leaving you against his forehead.
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Damon finds out that Stefan sold his soul to the fucking devil through a thirty-second phone call. He swears and hisses and throws his phone at the wall, as Caroline screeches at him to calm down.
It's always him and Caroline now, because Bonnie is obsessed with the idea that someone took Elena against her will, refusing to acknowledge what Damon knows. (Damon knows Elena, and Elena left them.) Little Gilbert keeps trying to tell Damon something, but Damon doesn't want to hear it, because all he feels when he looks at him is guilt.
Alaric drinks and searches for Elena but it's like she vanished into thin air. She's reported a missing person and her picture becomes a permanent fixture on billboards and telephone poles. Occasionally there's a lead, but it all comes back to Katherine, Elena is gone. It's as if she never existed at all.
Damon searches for Stefan because at least it's not like searching for a ghost. Caroline trails after him complaining about everything and looking like a little lost girl without Elena around to make her strong.
The only bit of evidence Elena left behind hangs around Caroline's neck. Her locket is Caroline's constant companion, and Damon's afraid of what Caroline might do if she loses it. When they stop to sleep Caroline wraps her hand around the beloved locket and then curls her whole body around it, whispering Elena's name like a prayer until she falls into a fitful sleep.
Damon doesn't sleep. He sits and holds Caroline's free hand and soothes her when she awakes from nightmares she refuses to talk about. He's frittering away, but he holds it together as best he can. Finding Stefan seems like the first step in finding Elena, but they're always one step behind Klaus and Stefan and the wake of bodies they leave behind them.
Caroline becomes adept at cleaning up these messes, and Damon would almost feel proud if it weren't for the fact that she should be at home with Elena, going to parties and flirting with Tyler, not burning bodies to cover his brother's sloppy kills, sleeping in the woods on the cold hard ground and consuming next to nothing as she wastes away.
He tries to make Caroline go home by enlisting Liz and Tyler, but she slams her phone into a tree when they start to call too much, and tells them she hates them when they come to visit in person. He gets the message. She's here to stay.
When Klaus realizes there's something wrong with his hybrids he leads them to Chicago. Caroline and Damon stay tucked into a dark corner of Gloria's, waiting for them. When they come in with a prissy blonde who screeches for her necklace, Caroline's hand jumps to her neck inquisitively. Damon looks into her wide blue eyes, and reaches the same conclusion she has.
Based on the guilty look on Stefan's face, Elena's locket was what the bratty blonde – Rebekah – was what looking for. Caroline and Damon try there best to slip out of the bar unnoticed, but Klaus catches a glimpse of Caroline's bright gold hair, and drags them both back in.
Rebekah (the whiny brat) tears the necklace from Caroline's throat viciously and Damon has to wrap his arms around her tiny breakable waist, to keep her from launching herself at the Original. Caroline falls to the ground with a banshee-like sob and Damon goes with her, shushing her as Gloria performs some spell on the necklace.
Caroline turns her face into Damon's neck and he can feel her lips moving against his collarbone.
"Elena, Elena, Elena, Elena, Elena, Elena," she chants under her breath, and he rocks her back in forth as her hot tears slide down his neck disappearing below the collar of his shirt.
The spell reveals what is driving Caroline to the brink of insanity. Elena is alive, and far, far away. Klaus paces back and forth, muttering, before he rips Damon from his place on the ground, sending Caroline to the floor with a thump. He pins Damon to a wall and slams his head against the wall like a rag doll.
"Where is she?" Klaus demands, shaking with barely suppressed rage. Damon meets his eyes coldly, and leans forward.
"I don't know," Damon says, his eyes widening and his jaw set. Klaus let's out a harsh laugh and glances at Caroline who stares at the witch holding the necklace. Her eyes are empty and unseeing and Klaus seems to almost believe them. Then he slams Damon against the wall again.
"I don't believe you, now tell me where she is or I swear to god I will kill you and your little Barbie girl," Klaus snarls as Damon stares back at him impassively. "Come on then, stop looking at me like that and speak up!" Klaus demands hotly.
"I. Don't. Know." Damon says through clenched teeth. Klaus slams his hand into Damon's chest and clutches his heart in his hand. Damon groans in pain and Caroline takes her eyes of Gloria to glance at him with fear in her eyes. "She left," Damon finally gasps. Klaus drops him to the ground suddenly and glares down at him, waiting.
"After the sacrifice, while I was digging a stake out of my brother's back, Elena woke up, because Bonnie did her little witch juju so she lived, and she left. No one knows where she went, or why she left. She left us all," Damon says as he pushes himself off the ground and makes his way to Caroline, who grasps his arm and pulls him in tight against her slight frame.
"So I'm supposed to believe she just left everyone she loved behind and ran off to join the circus?" Klaus says with disbelief. Caroline lets out a shuddering breath and meets his eyes dead on. Damon holds onto her frail wrists to keep her from flinging herself at the Hybrid.
"Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!" Caroline screeches as she struggles against Damon, and Klaus actually takes a step back, wary of her rage. "You don't know anything you stupid selfish bastard!" Caroline seethes as she tries to push herself away from Damon who holds fast to her malnourished body. The veins stick out around Caroline's eyes and her whole body shakes. Klaus takes another step back, glancing at his sister who watches the younger blonde with perverse fascination.
"Now calm down darling, you can't expect me to just believe that Miss-Family-and-Loved-Ones would just leave," Klaus says, trying his best to calm the hysterical blonde. She lunges at him one more time, and then stops moving, stops breathing, just stares at him.
"Well she did," Caroline whispers fiercely and then she collapses into Damon's arms, sobbing desperately. Damon pushes back her messy hair absentmindedly as Stefan watches them stoically.
"She didn't take anything with her," Damon says, taking the attention away from Caroline. Klaus raises an eyebrow and Stefan looks at the ground. "She just got up from the ground and walked away. She didn't even come back for the funeral," Damon states in a calm, detached fashion.
"So we find her, I find out what's wrong with my hybrids and then I fix it," Klaus declares impatiently as Damon fusses over Caroline absentmindedly, wiping her tears from het face with his bare hands, and smoothing her tangled hair.
"That's sounds great," Damon says sarcastically as he glares at the hybrid. "Except we're not helping you find her," Damon ends flatly, his jaw clenched. Caroline looks up at the hybrid with fierce eyes, and nods her head firmly. Klaus looks down at them in stunned disbelief. Then he begins to laugh which makes Gloria, Stefan and Rebekah shift uncomfortably. His hysterical laughter continues but Damon and Caroline's fierce expressions don't change.
Klaus stops laughing abruptly and lunges down, grabbing Caroline by her hair and pulls her up to stand eye to eye with him. He grips her messy blonde hair and she bites back a scream.
"You don't have a choice," he declares coldly. "Besides," he continues, "who knows, maybe I need princess alive," he says casually, his eyes bright. "I promise I won't kill her the second we find her," he says gleefully. Caroline whimpers as he releases his hold on her hair when Damon nods his grim consent.
"There's just one problem," Gloria calls from behind him. They all turn to look at her and Klaus gestures for her to continue. "There's a spell blocking me, I can't find her with the locket," she explains. "In fact," she continues "I can't find her with anything at all, if I couldn't feel the magic protecting her, it would be like she never existed in the first place."
They all stare.
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It's nine months into their little excursion and six since the Klaus forced himself and his lackeys on them. They're camped out in the living room of a luxurious foreclosed home. Rebekah is whining about being dragged around the country looking for a girl who clearly does not want to be found. Damon hates the petulant brat more every day.
"Seriously," Rebekah whines, drawing the word out. "She clearly left by her own choosing, based on what Gloria told us about the pleasant aura coming from wherever she is," Rebekah points out for the billionth time. Caroline glares at her and Damon waits for her to try to attack the blonde for what might've been the trillionth time. She restrains herself. Damon is proud of her progress.
"Shut up little sister," Klaus singsongs in annoyance as he takes a sip of his liquor. Rebekah pouts but shuts up. Stefan holds himself stiffly, as far away from Damon and Caroline as possible. The room descends into silence.
Damon thinks back to the day that Gloria told them a very powerful witch had hidden Elena from sight, that she could only tell them if she was safe or not. She was safe.
They had gone looking for Katherine soon after, hoping she might have some answers. They had found her on Elena's birthday. She told them she didn't know where she was, and that was that. Damon knew she didn't know where Elena was, but she did know something. Katherine always knew something.
But he got distracted when Caroline disappeared and he forgot all about Katherine. She returned few hours later with perfectly styled hair and clean clothes. She was quiet when she pulled out a small red velvet box from her jacket.
She told him that she had had the town jeweler make it for Elena's 18th birthday. She handed him the box and he opened it to reveal a delicate gold ring of ivy. Engraved on the inside of the delicate circle are repeating entwined C's and E's. He stared at it for a long time and then plucked it from its velvet cushion and slid it onto Caroline's finger. It fit her perfectly.
She smiled at him and told him her and Elena had always worn the same ring size. He told her it was a beautiful gift and she nodded her head with a faraway look in her eyes.
The delicate ivy gleams from Caroline's hand as she stares into space from across the room and he wonders if it will ever be on the hand of the girl it was meant for.
"What are you thinking about?" Damon asks by way of distracting himself from thoughts of Elena. Caroline starts and then shakes her head a bit, as if to clear a fog from her mind. She locks her eyes on his face and smiles at him wearily.
"I was just thinking of the last time I really had Elena all to myself," She explains with a sad smile, and his gut twists with guilt when he remembers that he is one of the people who took up all of her best friend's time and left none for her. "I just realized that it was also the last time that she was really happy, I think," Caroline explains with a lost expression.
"When? What were you doing?" He prods, curious to know of a time when Elena Gilbert did not have a shadow hanging over her. No one else says a word, but they all know that they are curious. Stefan, despite his cold distance, was very curious to know of the Elena from before. Klaus was simply bored, and always enjoyed a good story.
But Rebekah was eager, ravenous even. No one would tell her a thing about the infamous enigma that was Elena Gilbert, and she was not happy about it. Caroline twists the ivy ring around and around and begins to speak.
"It was homecoming, sophomore year. Bonnie had a date with a senior – God, I was so jealous! – And Elena had told Matt that she didn't feel like going. So I stayed home with her," Caroline explains as a slow smile makes its way across her lips. "Her parent's had taken Jeremy to some nerdy artist convention thing for the weekend, so it was just us," Caroline says with a flirtatious wink and Damon is captivated by the way the story brings back Elena's Caroline.
"We wore fancy party dresses anyway, pale pink for me, like a something a ballerina would wear, and Elena wore this gorgeous silvery dress that made her look like a goddess." Caroline describes with a faraway look in her big blue eyes. "no shoes, because heels hurt like a bitch," Caroline says with a laugh.
"And I made an ivy crown from the backyard for her to wear, because she was totally Homecoming queen material." Caroline describes and Damon finds himself leaning in. Was this the story behind the ivy ring?
"Before her dad left we had him help us put up Christmas lights – the sparkly white kind – in the trees in her backyard. We made cupcakes and pies and cookies and finger sandwiches and sat on the porch in the backyard, gossiping and flirting because we could," Caroline says with a girlish giggle. She has them all completely entranced.
"We drank too much spiked punch and sang oldies and danced. We played tag and truth or dare and cartwheeled across the yard in our underwear just because," Caroline pauses for a breath. "When our voices were hoarse and our skin icy cold, we went inside and made hot chocolate and stole her father's shirts and her mom's fluffiest pairs of socks to wear, but 'Lena kept the ivy crown on."
Damon wonders if that was Caroline's version of paradise.
"We curled up on the couch and watched old black and white movies and ate popcorn with too much butter and swapped secrets. Then when our fingers were slick with butter and the world seemed grainy and gray, we built a fort of sheets and pillows and curled up with all the blankets in the house and fell asleep all intertwined." Caroline pauses again, clears her throat and continues. "I woke up once, and I couldn't tell where Elena began and I finished. I fell back asleep before it occurred to me that we had always been that way," Caroline stops and Damon wonders if the story is finished.
Caroline is silent for a long time, lost in thought, and he glances around at the others in the room. Stefan's face is somewhere between devastation and his familiar stoic brooding. Klaus looks perplexed, and a little entranced. Rebekah's face is full of such sadness and longing that Damon has to look away. Caroline finally speaks.
"When I woke up the next morning, Bonnie was there chattering about her date, and taking up all Elena's attention again." Caroline says sadly. "But she was still wearing her ivy crown, and she gave me this little secret smile, and all was forgiven," Caroline explains. So it was the story of the ivy ring, Damon notes.
"I never had her undivided attention again. And then her parents died and she never danced or sang or lived like that night again," Caroline concludes. No one speaks after that for a long time.
Damon thinks back to every moment he had spent in Elena's presence, and realizes that he had never seen her truly happy. There was always something for her to worry about, something for her to feel guilty about. He wonders if she left all that behind when she left. He hopes so.
Caroline interrupts the silence again, saying what three of them were thinking.
"I think we made her unhappy," Caroline begins slowly, "I think, that with every little selfish thing we asked of her, we took away some of her happiness, some of her," Caroline admits, her voice laden with guilt.
"Me too," Damon says. Stefan doesn't say anything, but they know he agrees.
"She just, she made it seem so easy," Caroline says with tears in her eyes. "She never said anything when we took too much, and it made it so easy," Caroline's voice shakes. "She made it so easy to take it all for ourselves and leave nothing for her."
Damon doesn't disagree, and neither does Stefan. It's Rebekah that shames them.
"You are all terrible, selfish people, and you don't deserve her," she spits out viciously, trembling with barely repressed rage. She leaps to her feet, "I hope you never find her!" She screeches with tears in her eyes and she leaves the room quickly, before she can reveal any more. Klaus watches her go, and when he looks at them, they can see his agreement in his eyes. Even the monster of all monsters thinks they're selfish.
Damon wonders when he and Stefan became Katherine and Elena their helpless victim. He wonders if that's why Elena left. Did she get sick of playing the victim? Did she get sick of being used over and over again? Did she get sick of being sad and witnessing catastrophes and losing people and breaking of little pieces of her heart? Did she get sick of loving them, loving all of them until there was nothing left herself? Did she get sick of him?
And suddenly Damon doesn't understand why they're chasing after a girl who deserves to get as far away from them as possible. Because Elena Gilbert deserves so much more than any of them could offer.
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The world ends so simply Damon's left with nothing but a few lines from a T.S Elliot poem.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
It's simple really, Caroline gets sick of not having a phone, so she buys a new one and the next day Little Gilbert calls her. Somewhere along the way Caroline got stronger, she even started eating regularly, and her nightmares were dwindling. So Damon doesn't understand why she is suddenly breaking. She curls in on herself and Stefan asks if she's okay as Damon picks up the phone she dropped. Without thinking, he brings it to his ear.
"-I'm sorry Caroline, they found her body six miles away from the place of sacrifice, it was a hit and run. The coroner says –" Damon drops the phone and sits down heavily.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
They return for the funeral. Klaus and Rebekah sit in the far corner and Caroline and Damon sit in the family pew with Alaric and Jeremy. Stefan sits a row behind them with Bonnie and the Lockwoods. People stand and talk about Elena. Jeremy makes a speech that has Bonnie in hysterical tears. Damon doesn't feel a thing; he doesn't even hear a word.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
They say she died that very night. Liz thinks she wandered off after she woke and accidently stepped in front of a moving vehicle. The body was so decomposed it was hard to get DNA, but it was the same height and build and age as her. The driver had come forward and admitted that she might've hit something on her way home from the bar. She wasn't sure when it happened, but she thought it had been in that time period. The girl was so distraught no one knew what to do with her.
How was Elena Gilbert dead? How did a car kill Elena Gilbert? How could metal and oil and plastic kill someone so alive? How do you kill someone who lived for everyone else? Damon doesn't understand, but mostly he doesn't believe.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
They bury the decomposing body of the girl who is supposed to be his Elena but Damon doubts it's really her. When everyone else is gone, he, Caroline, Stefan, Rebekah, and Klaus are left. They say their goodbyes one by one.
Klaus goes first and simply tells her he's disappointed she couldn't help him with his hybrid problem. Caroline's about to scream at him when he adds in a softer voice how much he admired her gumption.
"No one has ever told me to go to hell quite like you," he states simply. Stefan steps forward next.
His goodbyes are punctuated with I'm sorrys. He tells her how much he loved her but how he can't ever truly apologize for the monster he was and had become. He ends with a weak maybe.
"Maybe someday I'll be the man you loved," he half-promises. Rebekah steps forward next. Her words pierce Damon's dead heart.
"I never knew you Elena Gilbert. But I wanted to – I still do. Everything I heard about you, all of it, made me want to know you more. You sounded so brave, so kind, and so truly alive. I've never met anyone like you. I'm sorry we never met; I'd like to think we would've been friends. I hope it's nice where you are. I hope you're with your family now," Damon almost smiles at her earnest rambling. For a crazy Original she wasn't too bad. The next words out of her mouth shock him to his core.
"I'm going to take care of the family you have left here. From now on, Jeremy Gilbert can call me his big sister Rebekah," She finishes with a sad smile. Damon is shocked. Barbie-Klaus has a heart after all. And somehow Elena Gilbert managed to prove it from beyond the grave. Funny, how she could bring the best out in people who didn't even know her. Rebekah drops a red rose on her grave and moves back for Caroline to take her place.
Caroline simply sinks down into the earth of Elena's freshly dug grave. She twists her fingers into the dirt and presses her face to the slab of cold, unforgiving marble. She lets out a shuddering breath and Damon waits for the dam to break. Time seems to stand still. Caroline keeps her face pressed to Elena's headstone, and breathes. Damon doesn't know what to make of her non-reaction.
"I miss you," Caroline utters at last. The words are so full of longing it's like a punch to the gut. She stands and brushes the dirt from her hands and her knees and walks away. It's Damon's turn. He simply stands there and waits until they get the hint. The rest of them leave. His words are for Elena only. When they're far enough away he speaks.
"You're not Elena," he states simply. "I don't know who you are, but you can't be Elena Gilbert," He tells the freshly dug grave and the rotten body. "Elena is alive, I know it. And I'm going to be the one to find her." He explains this calmly to the marble slab.
He pays his respect to Jenna and John, then to Grayson, but he seats himself in front of Elena's mother's grave, because she would've liked him, Elena always told him so. He tells her all about his weird friendship with her daughter. He tells her about how she always believed in him, and made him feel like a human. He tells her about going to Atlanta and dancing at the Miss Mystic pageant. He talks about killing Jeremy and trying to be her friend again and then trying to keep her safe.
Then he tells her about looking for Elena, and all the times he wanted to give up, but how he couldn't, because he was never very good at giving up on people. Not his brother, not Katherine and certainly not Elena who believed in him when no one else did. Finally he promises on the grave of them woman who made Elena so compassionate and brave. He swears he'll find Elena and make sure she says a proper goodbye to her aunt and her uncle and them, her parents.
When he runs out of words, she comes. Just like he thought she would.
"Hello Katherine, fancy meeting you here."
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"Damon. I wasn't expecting you," Katherine says with a start. She's clutching daisies in her hand and Damon is surprised to find that she knows they're Elena's favorite flowers.
"That's not really her," Damon says, ignoring her words. "But you know that, don't you?" He continues. Locking his bright blue eyes with her deep, dark hazel ones. She shifts closer to "Elena's" grave.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she says with ease, and Damon almost believes her. "I just came to bring flowers to the last of the Petrovas," she claims. Damon believes that Katherine would, family was very important to her, even if she was never exactly kind to Elena in life. But there's something about the way Katherine looks at him that makes him not believe her.
"That is not Elena Gilbert and we both know it," Damon says in a low furious voice. He's had it with Katherine's riddles. He just wants to know where Elena is so that he can bring her home. Katherine doesn't say a word, she simply holds his gaze, studying him.
"She's safe Damon," Katherine says at last. "That's all I know," she continues. "I killed 'Elena'," she explains as she gestures to the grave with the daisies, "a couple nights after the real one disappeared, just in case. And then Elena called me out of the blue and asked for my help. We met up in Portland, and I gave her some of her old school records. That's all she wanted," Katherine concludes. Damon's entire body goes slack. She's alive.
"Where's she staying? Who is she with? Did she look all right? Did she say why she just left?" Damon demands all in one breath. Katherine kneels to place the daisies in front of the fake Elena's grave, next to Rebekah's rose. When she stands she meets Damon's gaze head on. Her face is stripped of games and deceit and for once, honesty reigns supreme.
"I do not know where she is staying, she didn't tell me. I didn't ask. As far as I know, she came to Portland alone. She looked fine, happier. She didn't say anything about it. I just gave her the files and told her that I'd take care of everyone who was looking for her," Katherine explains slowly, never breaking eye contact. She's telling the truth.
"How did she get in contact with you?" Damon demands, unsatisfied. Katherine rolls her eyes and perches atop the headstone.
"I gave her my number a while ago, just in case," Katherine says with a shrug. Damon starts, he wasn't aware that Katherine had ever been nice to Elena.
"In case what?" He questions.
"Just in case she needed me," Katherine admits in a low voice. Damon doesn't have a response for that. Katherine stands to leave. "She's the only family I have left, it's the least I could do," she says in a soft voice as she begins to walk away. She stops and slides a piece of paper out of her back pocket. She turns back and hands it to him. Damon takes it hesitantly. "She gave me this, for you."
Damon takes it carefully. Katherine leaves without another word. Damon runs a hand through his hair. He knows she's alive now, but he still doesn't know where she is. He can't bring himself to open to paper just yet. But he knows she's alive now.
He's right back at the start, except he has no Caroline or Stefan or even Klaus or Rebekah, to back him up. It's just him. He contemplates telling Caroline, because she'd want to know. But in the end he decides it was better for her, if he was the only one who knew. Caroline could go back to school and learn how to be a functioning person without Elena Gilbert; Damon would spend the rest of his eternity looking for her.
He finally opens the deceptively ordinary piece of lined paper. A single sentence is written in Elena's neat handwriting, directly in the center of the page. Seven words break his heart.
It's my turn to be selfish, Damon.
AN: Please review and stay tuned for part two.
-Pixie xo
