I originally planned to write this as a one shot, but then I realized there's no possible way to fit everything in, so I decided to make a story out of it. So this story will probably have a small amount of chapters, but honestly, I can't devote myself to developing any longer until my exams are over. If I don't write I'll go crazy, though. I hope you will enjoy this story and I look forward to hearing what you have to say! :)
"Stefan, have you seen my blazer?" Elena shouts from the living room, buried under the pile of clothes she threw away from the closet while looking for her favorite blue blazer. Annoyed, she starts digging through the pile of clothes one more time. Even if she leaves for work right this instant she would arrive late. Luckily for her, her boss has been giving her some slack recently, and even though she doesn't know why, she's smart enough not to ask and enjoy the perks while they last.
"You left it on the sofa," she hears her husbands voice coming from the living room, and she throws her arms in the air out of desperation. She growls at her own stupidity while trying to dig herself out of the pile of clothes she has no time to clean now, which means she will have to do it when she comes home later today, and heads over to the living room. She picks up the blazer from the sofa and puts it on.
"What are you up to today?" she asks once she feels her husbands presence in the room.
"Oh, you know," he says casually, and when she turns around to face him, she catches him leaning against the door from on the entrance to the kitchen, watching her carefully with a smile on his face, "Same old," he shrugs.
She untangles her long, brown hair which got trapped while she was taking her blazer on in a hurry and walks over to the dresser on the other side of the room to pick up her work bag. She turns around and bumps into Stefan, her chest only few inches away from his, her arm scraping against his.
When she puts her hand on his, her fingers traveling around his, he flinches.
"Is there something wrong?" she asks silently, furrowing her brows once she notices expression of slight shock, which he's trying to hide, on his face.
His brows stay knitted together for some time, his look locked on their laced fingers, and under the intensity of it she feels like each of his fingertips has a heart of its own. Soon enough, the shock on his face gets replaced by a genuine smile.
"No," he shakes his head slightly, his smile becoming wider, "It feels so good, your touch on my skin," he swallows.
"Really?" she sounds genuinely surprised, "It seems like recently you have been avoiding me," she makes an observation.
He frowns. Oh, so she noticed. "No, I haven't," he denies the truth firmly. "When are you going to be home?" he asks to avoid further discussion on the subject.
"I'll be at work until 4pm, and then half of hour later I have an appointment with Dr. Edwards. So, I'll be home for dinner," she hums while squeezing his fingers with hers. She feels like she hasn't touched him in weeks, when in reality the last time she probably touched him was yesterday. Or last night in bed, while they were sleeping. "I'll pick up dinner on my way home. Chinese?" she doesn't want to let go of him, which is quite irrational of her. She will see him in few hours, like she does every day. He leaves for work an hour after her, and usually is home before her. In rare cases he's the one who comes home later. The perks of not having an office job like she does.
"Perfect," he nuzzles his nose against her, taking the smell of her perfume up his nostrils, the sweet smell of tropic fruit, "Speaking of Dr. Edwards, do the two of you ever talk about me? Us?" he cocks his eyebrow in her direction.
She smirks devilishly. "Wouldn't you like to know," she smiles while pressing her lips against his. He gasps a little when she does so, like it's a luxury, not an everyday thing. She tries to remember has he ever done it before. Probably, she just hasn't noticed up until now.
"I'm serious," he says casually, but there's a certain kind of tension in his voice which urges her to tell him the truth.
"Yes," she feels like someone is ripping these words out against her will, "He asks me how are we, relationship wise, how often do I see you, does our tight schedule effect our relationship," she gives in into this abuse someone is doing to her mind, making her speak about something she's not supposed to, "Our efforts to have a baby," she clears her throat with a cough. They have been trying to have a baby for a year now already, but so far, no luck. They have been to few doctors and every one of them said everything is fine with both of them, and that there's no physical reason to why she can't conceive. They know it's not from the lack of trying.
"You're going to be late," is all he says, releasing the grip he has on her, but her brain is unwilling to make her body move away from his. She looks at the old grandfather clock on a wall in front of her to see if she has few more minutes to spare, even though she knows she's already late. When her eyes fall on the clock she notices that it stopped on 2:32 pm. Unexplained shivers go through her body. "We should get that fixed," she thinks to herself.
"We should get what fixed?" he asks confused, and she pushes herself away from him.
There's confusion written over both of their faces. Her eyes stay locked on his as his wandering look moves over the room, trying to avoid hers.
"How did you know what I've been thinking?" she whispers that question out, aware of how crazy it sounds.
His confusion gets replaced with an unwary smile. "You have been thinking too loud, Buttercup," his smile turns into a smirk.
She gives herself a mental slap for not thinking of it sooner. She probably said what she's been thinking without even realizing it. She's so comfortable, and used to sharing her thoughts with Stefan that, by now, she probably does it on instinct.
"So, are you going to tell me what needs fixing?" he gives her a quizzical look.
She gives him a nod towards the clock. He turns around and notices the same thing she did, the clock has stopped at 2:32 pm. Cold current goes through his body, making him tremble. He swallows hard.
"Do you know when it broke down?" he asks curiously, trying to keep his voice at bay.
She tries to remember if this is the first time she noticed it stopped. No, she had seen it last week, and the week before.. her memory doesn't know how far it has to reach. Come to think about it, the clock doesn't work for quite some time.
"Maybe a month ago," she says.
His shoulders get tense, but before she gets to ask any questions he says, "You should go now. It's one thing to be fashionably late, but a whole other when you're late for more than half of hour."
Somehow she manages to be only 10 minutes late, but no one says anything to her about arriving late for work. Some people smile at her, so wide that their smiles seem fake, and some keep their looks down.
Strange people. She has never been close to any of them anyway.
When she gets in front of her office, she greets her secretary, Marcie, with a warm smile, and Marcie gives her such a look, like smiling is against the law.
"I apologize for being late," she tells Marcie who keeps glancing at her boss sideways, "Clothing incident."
Marcie keeps quiet, her face only adapting more confused expression with time.
"Did anything happen in these 10 minutes I have been late?" Elena can't ignore the tension in the room, so she decides to dismiss Marcie as fast as she can.
"No," Marcie shakes her head, "Oh, Mr. Saltzman came by," she remembers, "He told me to tell you there are some e-mails in your inbox that need your urgent attention," she nods.
"Is that all?" Elena asks, turning her laptop on.
"Yes, Mrs. Salvatore," she barely gets Elena's last name out of her throat.
"You can go along, then," she brushes her off with a faint swing of her hand.
Marcie nods and disappears behind the table in front of Elena's office.
Strange girl.
Elena checked a bunch of e-mails Mr. Saltzman, her boss, sent to her, but she's done with dealing with them until lunch break. She has a tuna sandwich and a cup of coffee afterwards, and before she gets back to work she goes to use the restroom. Just as she's ready to leave the toilet, someone else enters the restroom and she hears two cheery voices which belong to her coworkers, Bonnie and Katherine, and something tells her she should stay inside until they leave.
"She's too happy, it's not normal. Not this soon," Bonnie comments as the water starts pouring out of the pipe.
"I know," Katherine agrees, and Elena can imagine her nodding her head as her big curls fly all the way around it, "Last week, when she came back she was acting like a person in her state should, like a cat on a pouring rain. This week, she's been cheery."
Bonnie gasps. "Do you think she's mentally unstable? Maybe the whole thing pushed her over the edge and she lost her mind."
"I don't know," Katherine says huskily, "But it's freaky."
"I don't even know why she's back to work this early," Bonnie huffs, blow drying her hands.
"I've talked to Alaric," Katherine says silently, almost through a whisper. Katherine is dating Mr. Saltzman. Everyone knows it, but no one talks about it. "He told me he talked to her doctor, and the doctor said she should go back to her old routine as soon as possible. It would give her a sense of normalcy or something. Staying at home would drive her insane, and she would be ripe for mental institution, if she's not already," Katherine gives her intake.
Bonnie stays quiet for a moment, probably pondering on the idea. "Maybe it's from all the drugs they're popping her with to keep her sane. Maybe they're giving her a false sense of happiness."
"Maybe," Katherine says, even though she doesn't sound convinced.
Even though she hears the two women leaving and the door shutting behind them, Elena doesn't leave the toilet. Have they been talking about her? Is that's why everyone are acting so strange around her? Has something happened to her and she doesn't remember?
If there's something going on that she doesn't remember, and apparently no one wants to tell her, she's going to find out one way or another. Apparently Dr. Edwards is in it. Is Stefan in it as well? Is that why she can feel he's slipping away from her, why he's not so eager to make physical contact with her?
She's pretty sure Dr. Edwards isn't allowed to give out her personal information to anyone because of the whole doctor - patient confidentiality. But even if, for some reason, he had to talk with Mr. Saltzman, then Mr. Saltzman had no right spreading it along to Katherine, who is known as a biggest gossip around the office. The only secrets she knows how to keep are her own.
Bonnie mentioned some drugs, though. She's not on any drugs. If someone was popping her with pills she would have known.
She feels helpless. If something really happened, and she can't remember it. She also feels anger rising up in her because everyone are keeping it away from her. It's her life, she has a right to know.
She's going to see Dr. Edwards soon enough, anyway, so she's going to confront him about it then. And when she comes home she's going to confront Stefan about it as well.
"How was your day so far?" Dr. Edwards asks, relaxing in his leather armchair. His glasses slide down his nose and he writes something in his brown, leather notebook.
Elena crosses her arms defensively while stiffly sitting on a red sofa. It's hard to look stiff on such a comfortable piece of furniture. "Something interesting happened at work today," she says, eyeing him carefully.
His silence urges her to continue.
"I've overheard a conversation two coworkers were having in the restroom," she spits those words out like she's already accusing the doctor of something, "They were talking about someone, I think they were talking about me."
She stops, expecting him to say something in return, but he doesn't, and his silence urges her to continue once again.
"They were saying how this woman is happier than she's supposed to be, considering what happened to her. How her happiness is freaky."
Dr. Edwards looks amused. "And why do you think they were talking about you?" he asks curiously.
Elena tries to find a legit reason, a valid answer to that question, but she can't. She shrugs, "I just had a feeling they were talking about me."
Dr. Edwards scribbles something down in his notebook.
"They also said our boss talked to the woman's doctor," she continues, "One of the coworkers I've overheard is dating the boss, and he told her the doctor told him the said woman should go back to her old routine so she doesn't go nuts."
"And you think this doctor was me?" he pushes his glasses up his nose.
"One thing doesn't add up, though," she ignores his question completely, "One of the coworkers said the woman is probably on drugs to stay sane. I'm not on any drugs," she frowns, lowering her look before raising it up suspiciously, "That I know of," she watches doctors reaction carefully.
He just laughs lightly. "I'm not slipping you any drugs," he brushes her off carefully, "Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to. I'm not a part of your personal life and you don't consume anything here."
He has a point.
"Isn't breaking doctor - patient confidentiality against the law?" she asks, knitting her brows together.
The doctor lowers his pen down on the notebook and exhales, his forehead wrinkling, "I can assure you I haven't been giving your personal information to anyone. I have your best interest in mind, not anyone's else," he explains calmly, his voice calming Elena down, which is probably the effect he wanted to achieve, "The two coworkers you overheard talking were probably talking about someone else. I'm sure you're not the only person in the office who has problems," he points out.
Problems.
Does she have problems? Because she can't remember what are they, or why she's seeing Dr. Edwards in the first place. She knows she has to see him, and until now she never doubted that. She feels happy, normal, like her life is perfect, so she can't see a reason to why should would need to see a psychologist. She doesn't see a point to their conversations since there are no knots she needs to untangle. She feels fear to tell him this because he might assume she's crazy, so she decides to discuss this with Stefan when she gets home later today.
Dr. Edwards was successful in convincing her that Bonnie and Katherine were talking about someone else, though.
"What are your plans for the rest of the day?" he asks once he notices Elena has calmed down.
She ponders on it. "I'm supposed to pick up Chinese for dinner, me and Stefan are staying in," she remembers their agreement from this morning.
"Ah, how is Stefan?" Dr. Edwards asks, seeming genuinely interested in Stefan's state.
"Lovely. He asked me do we ever talk about him," a smirk appears on Elena's face, dissolving when she remembers the feeling of the words being pulled out of her mouth by force.
Doctor gives her a look over his glasses, "And what did you tell him?"
She swallows. "The truth," she tries to keep her voice from shaking.
He pulls his lips into a long, thin line, obviously disapproving her actions.
"How are things between the two of you?" he takes his pen back into his hand, twirling it between his fingers.
She smiles. "Wonderful. I think I've imagined him pulling away from me. This morning he took me in his embrace willingly, he even seemed.." she tries to find the right word, "Relieved," it forms on her lips and escapes before she has any say in it.
"I see," she can't ignore a small frown on his face, "Are the two of you still trying to have a baby?"
She wants to answer the question, but somehow it doesn't feel right. The answer gets stuck in her throat, creating a bitter taste in her mouth, and a nauseous feeling in her stomach.
"Something strange happened this morning," she says to avoid answering his question, but he writes something down in his notebook nevertheless. "I have thought of something in my head, and like he could read my thoughts, he answered the question."
As she says those words she realizes they qualify her as crazy.
"Are you sure you haven't said them out loud?" the doctor doesn't seem too struck by this, which Elena finds a little odd. Maybe he hears crazier things on daily basis.
"Yes. No," she knits her brows together, "I'm fairly certain I haven't, but there's always a chance I have," she feels uncertain about her answer.
"What was the matter about?" he seems more curious about this than about her stating she maybe heard her husbands thoughts.
"The clock in our apartment stopped," she says matter of factly.
"When?"
She tries to remember, invoking the picture of the old grandfather clock in her memory. "2:23 pm, I think."
He writes the time down in his notebook. "Does the time mean anything to you?"
"No," she shakes head. It's just time of the day, how much can it mean to anyone? Maybe Dr. Edwards should seek for help, maybe he's going crazy from all the crazy people he has been working with. Is craziness contagious?
"Do you know what date today is?" he asks her, still scribbling something in his notebook.
"June 8th, 2013."
"Does today's date mean anything to you?"
"No. Should it?"
"Not so long ago today was a big day for you."
"Is there something I can't remember?"
"Yes. You're running away from the truth," he points out, "Or from reality."
So, people are hiding something from her after all.
Something that belongs to her. They have a power to make her remember, but they withhold it.
But do they?
Maybe they have a power to provide her with truth, but even if she receives it, would she remember?
If she doesn't she would be left with the feeling of something missing, of a big, black hole in her mind. She would know something is supposed to be there, but she wouldn't be able to place it.
Maybe it's better this way.
With that, she lets go of the idea of demanding the truth from Stefan when she comes home.
"Maybe I'm blocking it out for a reason," she tells the doctor, "Maybe I'm not supposed to remember," she indicates to him that she's better off this way.
At least now she knows why she's seeing Dr. Edwards. He's trying to help her remember.
What is so horrible she can't remember?
Maybe it's connected to the way Stefan has been treating her lately, avoiding her touch.
The question keeps tugging on her heart, but there's a war between her heart and her body - the unwavering, subconscious feeling she doesn't want to remember.
Dr. Edwards looks at her before closing his notebook, indicating that their session is over. "Maybe."
AN: So many questions. Is there something wrong in the way Stefan is treating Elena? Why is she seeing Dr. Edwards? What is that she can't remember?