Immortal.
Such a lovely idea, that of never dying, never having to grow old and tired, or take your last breath while surrounded by a circle of your near and dear. The concept of immortality is one that we as humans have seen as nothing less than a blessing, an impossible dream that nearly every person walking the earth hopes to achieve. For most people, the idea of death is terrifying, but the idea of aging is even worse. To have to lose your precious beauty, not have the grace and agility of youth, that is what haunts our dreams and our nightmares. Death is simple, easy. Dying, however, is a completely different story. So we have created this idea that if we are immortal, in turn our lives will be perfect. It's the eternal sunshine of our spotted minds, the age-old "ignorance is bliss" cliché coming into play.
If only they knew. If only they understood how it felt to have the people around you wither and fade away, while you can only watch from the shadows, stuck forever in a body that was too young for your experienced mind. Youth is wonderful, but the reality is that while our bodies don't change, our minds do. How could they not? We witness new things, horrible things, and slowly our mind begins to transform into something that should never be in the body of a twenty-three year old. No young adult should experience generation after generation. But here I am, walking the earth with vivid memories of the Roaring Twenties and the Dirty Thirties, black-and-white photographs of myself doing drugs with a group of hippies in the sixties, and an original "Frankie Says Relax" shirt buried somewhere in the back of my closet. Each day of my life I break the rules of nature. I am, in myself, an impossibility, nothing more than a contradiction. Every minute that I live – even if I am technically dead – I grow older and older. Older than any person ever should have been. I was trapped in a body that no longer should have been mine, with a heart filled with heartache and sorrow at best.
My dark eyes flicker to the wooden table in front of me, and for what seems like the millionth time, I consider how easy it would be to kill myself. A simple stake to the heart, and I would be gone forever. Shifting my gaze to the windows, I consider another, easier option. The ring on my wedding finger feels like a weight, the lapis lazuli stone reflecting the sunlight that could be my easy escape if I could just gather the courage to take it off.
Making up my mind, my right hand begins to slowly reach over to my left, but before I can do anything I see him, his beautiful face clouded with sorrow as he begin to guide my hand as far away from my ring as possible. It hurts me to know that I caused that suffering to be on his face, and I realize that death was the coward's way out. If there was one thing that every person who knew me understood, it was that I wasn't a coward. It was known in my human life, and even now, in my afterlife. I played this game with myself again and again, each time slipping closer and closer to the point of no return, but it would be a while before I actually crossed it, I knew that much. I wouldn't be a coward, I couldn't. No matter how much I hated this life, wanted myself dead, I couldn't let that happen.
Because no matter what, he would always be there to pull my back again.
I don't want to talk, and he can sense that, because he just continued to hold my hand tightly. He can feel my love for him, I know he can, and he knows that he's not the reason I want to die. I'm certain that he knows that he's the reason I want to live. But he is also beginning to realize that I wasn't cut out for this life, one of killing and death. That wasn't who I was. Elena Gilbert was gentle and kind, the kind of girl who went to animal shelters and always wanted to live in a house with millions of cats. I had a heart of gold, not a heart of a predator, which was exactly what I had become.
The silence is too drawn-out, and the tension is getting too thick, so I feel the need to tell him something, anything. "Don't blame yourself. We both know that this wasn't a choice for me – Katherine killed me, not you." His jaw is tight, and the eyes that were so recently filled with sorrow are now clouded with regret and despair.
"I know, Elena, I know. I don't blame myself, I blame her. But you can make this work, I know you." I want to hug him and kiss him and tell him everything's going to be okay, but I can't, because most of me believes that it can't be. How can it be? He's an alcoholic and a sadist, I'm depressed and masochistic. Together we're the most screwed up couple in existence, but there's another flicker of hope in me that wants to believe his words. We work, him and I together. He makes me feel like I can be alive again, and I bring out a part of him that's been lost for over two hundred years. Somewhere, someone made the two of us, both people who should have no reason to live, and gave us each other. And that hopeful part of me, the tiny sliver of my heart that still believes, wants to scream and shout with joy that I've got this wonderful creation to keep me hanging on, even if it's just by a thread.
When I don't answer right away, he releases my hand and stands up, confident that I won't do anything stupid. The glass of bourbon that he must have been drinking before he stopped my plan is back in his hand, and he's got a look on his face that can only be described as torture. Once again I am shocked by the overwhelming need to hold him in my arms and allow us to comfort each other in the only way we know how – love, physical love. Sure, it's messed up, but then again, so are we.
Instead, I just stand from my chair and walk slowly over to him, wrapping my arms around his back and pressing my face into his shirt. He smells like old wood, the forest, and alcohol, and I breathe his familiar scent in deep. It's enough to calm my shot nerves, allowing me to find my voice again before I speak.
"I love you, Damon," I tell him, knowing that these are the words I need to hear. "More than anything in this world. We have a completely dysfunctional relationship, and I spend half of my days planning how I'm going to kill myself, but you need to know that I'm never going to leave you." I'm shocked by the truth behind these words, and I realize in that moment that, no matter how tempting it may become, I will never be the coward. "Our life is hard. I'm prepared to face that. But if I have to face it, I want to face it next to you. Don't you ever leave my side, you hear me?"
For a moment we are brought back to the awkward silence from a few moments ago, somehow seeming impossible more dramatic this time around. I can't see his face, but I can feel the tension in his body, and I know that when the glass is brought up to his lips he is lost deep in thought. My imagination begins to create scenarios of what is going on in his mind, all of which end up horribly. Of course they do; it's no surprise, considering the kind of person that I've become. I'm a pessimist through and through, and that realization shocks me to my core. Elena the optimist has become Elena the pessimist. If Matt could see me now, he would be heart-broken.
Matt.
Caroline.
Bonnie.
Jenna.
Jeremy.
Alaric.
Their faces flicker in my mind, and I find myself lost in thought as well, trying to think back to the last days I had seen them. Years ago, it must have been. Matt and Caroline had died in a car accident around fifteen years after I had changed the town's biggest tragedy since my "death". Jenna had died next, about thirty years after I had turned, Alaric following not long after. Jeremy was ten or so years after that, Bonnie around two years later. I had sat outside the church at all of their funerals, listening to the words people spoke about them. Matt and Caroline were hopelessly in love, Jenna was a free-spirit, Alaric was so kind and helpful, Jeremy was always a bundle of fun, and Bonnie was good down to her very core. The thought of the days of their deaths sent a pang of pain to my unbeating heart, but I flipped off the emotional switch just as Damon had taught me to do, deciding that I would face the ever-constant hurt of their loss later.
"I love you." The silence was finally broken by his voice, and I allowed my face to slip into a genuine smile, something so rare that it felt foreign on my face. "I'm going to love you every second of forever, you understand that?" Turning to face me, he took my left hand and placed his lips to the ring, giving it a gentle kiss before looking at me in the eyes. "Elena Salvatore, mia mogli, il mio amore, mia umanità, il mio angelo." I had learned enough Italian from him to understand what that meant – my wife, my love, my humanity, my angel.
Taking his face in my hands, I placed a gentle kiss on his lips, the word immortal running though my mind one final time.
In that moment, I changed my mind completely. Immortality was a curse, something that I wouldn't bestow upon the worst person to ever walk the planet Earth. But it was also a blessing, only when you had someone like Damon Salvatore to spend it with.
A/N: I know, I know, soooo short. I was thinking about just making a collection of really short Delena one-shots, how does that sound? Review if you want some better, (longer) chapters or if you think that this should just stay as-is!
Xoxo, Tiff 3