AN: I've been working on a poem about temperature and this came out. Whoops.
The older Salvatore uses his sire bond to turn it off. Elena Gilbert has limited, if any emotions. He thinks it's too much for her. It isn't.
Still, he's surprised when she approaches him. He's leaving town, and she wants out. She suggests a deal so they make one. She is to travel with him, the only string is that she has to tell him if she wants to leave and before she does. She agrees, that's easy peasy.
Warm was one word he always used to associate with Elena Gilbert. Now she's cold. Not because she's a vampire. It's her lack of emotions. He travels to deal with what he calls business. Elena isn't sure what to call it. He does so many things it's hard to put a label on it. Not that she cares. Her emotions are behind a wall. She can't find a door or a window to release them.
Sometimes, she stares at him. Cold eyes meet warm. She almost makes him feel foolish for having emotions. He's not warm, his emotions rarely run hot, he considers himself lukewarm. A nice balance.
It's also foolish to consider moving away from his emotions, especially considering how many he has involving her.
He could compel her to turn her emotions back on, but she tells him she likes being like this. He wants to track down her sire, but she's told Elijah she's done with the Salvatores. They have too many emotions, she tells him. He wonders what she thinks of him, then.
She tells him that for almost her entire life, she was told she made decisions with her heart and not her head. And that was stupid/foolish/idotic/dumb/selfish. Same message with different variations. She was overemotional, took things too seriously. Over and over she had been told her emotions had affected her and made her weak. She tells him she lost track of how many times she had cried in her life. Too many. She had always been weak, she tells him with a shrug.
He can't correct her like he wants to because she might leave, and at least while she's with him she's not doing anything bad. She isn't killing or maiming, or flying off the rails. She's sitting next to him in a Swedish airport.
She's the woman he loves, he admits to himself one day. But he tucks the emotion away, and waits. Her eyes used to be so warm. Not they're like two pieces of ice, watching him clinically. He runs warmer, for a few years.
Then she gets word that her brother is in emergency surgery, in Mystic Falls. He tells her he has business there, not a technical lie. Elena is business, she's also emotions he's carefully hidden away. The fact her brother is injured affects her, and by extension, him.
They don't rush, not really. One of them is aloof and the other is pretending to be. They move with a slight sense of urgency. That's what Elena calls it.
He watches her, he always does. But when she sees her brother with an IV in one of his arms and a tube down his throat, bruises decorating his visible skin-he can only compare it to a glacier melting. He sees her blink rapidly and her face contort with the first emotion he's seen on her face in years, and tears come out of her eyes.
She asks him to compel a nurse, she wants to add vampire blood to his IV. He hesitates, but she tells him that she won't let her brother become a vampire. He doesn't want it. He deserves that choice, she tells him. You did too. He wants to say. He doesn't, but busies himself with finding a nurse. He can tell she wants to be alone with Jeremy.
She doesn't breathe except for when she thanks him. She doesn't breathe until the bruises begin to fade and she hits the button for a nurse to take the tube out of his throat. Neither of them are allowed in the room for that. Elijah compels the nurse to not question his recovery rate, when he gets the chance. Elena won't look at him. He wonders why. He sits in one of the hospital chairs outside of the room.
When Jeremy is able to, he escapes his hospital bed so Elena can hug him. She apologizes and says things to Jeremy that Elijah tunes out. He doesn't want to intrude and he really should just leave, but he can't bring himself to. When he gets up to go get coffee, the door opens.
Elena looks crestfallen. He pauses.
"Were you going to leave? Without telling me? Again?" The hurt on her face is the same as her voice.
"I'm sorry. I'm not a good person without my emotions and I totally understand if you want to leave, I basically used you and I-" She's interrupted by his lips on hers. She kisses him back.
"I was going to go get coffee. But I've also wanted to do that for a long time and a lot more than I wanted coffee." He says and his voice is a little rough. She feels a little proud she did that.
"I love you." He admits. He is ready for an array of responses, he isn't ready for the one she gives. A smile.
"Good." He's the one pressed against the hospital wall this time.
"I'm in love with you too." She confesses against his lips before she kisses him. When they break apart, her eyes are warm.
FINIS