WATCHING AND WAITING

A/N I have been trying to come up with a new story, but I was having trouble deciding what to write about. This one takes place after Elena has died and is in her coffin. Damon is depressed and at a loss. I know this is not the only story dealing with this subject, so I will try to make it different somehow. Damon, Stefan, Elijah, others.

Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries does not belong to me. Original characters, such as Mrs. Flowers, are mine.

He sat there, drink in hand, by the coffin, watching, waiting. She looked so natural, just asleep. Not really asleep, dead, but not totally dead. Some day she would wake up, way in the future, he assumed. But could he wait? He wasn't good at waiting, biding his time. Too much inactivity and he became restless. That wasn't good because a bored, restless Damon Salvatore could easily feel the need to do something. Hunt, perhaps. Random sex. Feed. Kill.

She wouldn't want him to turn off the caring part of his humanity, even though she had done it herself after the loss of her brother Jeremy. She wouldn't want him to do that just because he had lost her. She would feel guilty and responsible. Was she able to feel that now? Could she somehow sense his frame of mind, his grief? His anger at the turn of events? Did she somehow know he was sitting there staring at her and remembering their time together? Did her spirit watch him, as unable to come to him as he was to rouse her from her death sleep?

It was his fault. He had had possession of the vial that would turn a vampire back into a human. He had known she wanted to be human again, and he had influenced her to drink the liquid. Disaster had struck. Of course it had. Disasters followed Damon Salvatore. As a result, his best buddy Ric had held his bride Jo in his arms as she died. And Elena had lain on the floor with fatal injuries, unable to heal because she was no longer a vampire.

Humans were fragile, so fragile. It didn't take much to damage them or take the life from them. They had such a slow, often inadequate, ability to heal. Human medicine worked wonders, but it was still limited. Elena had wanted to be a doctor and to help heal people. Well, no medical school for her now. No medical miracles for her.

They had made sure that she was not embalmed at the funeral home. No embalming. No autopsy. That could have been disastrous. A vampire couldn't wake up if full of embalming fluid or if organs like the heart or brain were removed and not put back. Elena wasn't a vampire anymore, but she was expected to come alive again at some future date. She had everything she had died with, except the animation of life.

What about healing? Her fatal injury didn't show as she lay there, but what about when she awoke? Would she just die again because the injury was still there? And what if he was somewhere else in the world at that time? What if he didn't find out that Bonnie had died and Elena had come alive again?

Although pale, she looked natural. So lovely in a girl-next-door way. She had been so full of life, feisty, serious, but quick to laugh. She had lived a life of danger these last few years, but she had faced it head-on, aggressively. She could also be gentle and loving. They had spent a summer of love together and he would always have the memory of that.

He could bring her back; this very day he could do it. But he wouldn't. It would mean killing Bonnie and he couldn't do that. As long as Bonnie lived, Elena would lie in the coffin. Elena would never forgive him if he killed Bonnie, the person he had very mixed feelings about. Witches didn't like vampires. Witch Bonnie tolerated Damon for the most part, when she wasn't despising him. He found her to be an annoying young woman, but he also admired her. She was like Elena in spirit, one tough cookie.

He heard a noise behind him and knew someone had come into the space of the Salvatore mausoleum. It was his brother Stefan; he could feel that it was he without looking. His brother came up behind him and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Come on home and get something to eat," Stefan said.

"I'm not hungry."

"I brought a girl."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I didn't think you would go for anything less. But I'd rather you didn't kill her."

"I can't guarantee that. I feel so damned despondent, but I'm also angry."

"I know. Come on. Give it a try."

"Where is she? Surely not at the house where Mrs. Flowers can see what happens." He looked around and sensed the woman was not outside nearby.

"In the basement. I got her from Charlottesville so she's not on vervain. She's under compulsion right now. Come on and eat before that wears off."

"It won't wear off if you did it right."

"I did," Stefan said patiently. "Come on."

"Look at her, Stefan. So perfect. So natural." Elena's white hands lay together on her dress on her abdomen. Her long, dark hair, parted in the middle, was arranged to lie on each of her shoulders. "Do you think her hair will grow as the years go by?"

"I don't know."

"Will she age? Mother hasn't aged."

"Mother's a vampire."

"And a witch."

"And a dangerous woman. An obsessed woman," Stefan said with a snort.

"Does this place seem clean enough?" the older brother asked, looking around.

"It's the cleanest it's been in over a century. It's been scrubbed and the marble polished. The cracks sealed. The stained glass in the windows has been replaced. It's a perfect place for her to be resting," Stefan said, looking around.

Neither Stefan nor Damon had to study the engraving on the various marble inlaid stones to know what they said. Lillian Salvatore, Giuseppe Salvatore, Damon Salvatore, Stefan Salvatore. The only person actually buried there was Giuseppe, the husband and father. The other three still walked the face of the earth.

"Come on, Damon. She'll be here. She'll wait for you to return," Stefan murmured, his hand still on his brother's shoulder. He could feel tense muscles under his hand.

With a sigh, Damon stood up from the folding chair he had been sitting on. He picked up the empty bottle of bourbon and his glass and turned to the exit. Trudging out to the dim light of a cloudy, rainy day, he didn't wait for Stefan, who closed the entrance.

The mausoleum was set in the old cemetery of Mystic Falls, the one on the hill west of town where the old Fell's church ruins remained. The burying ground, once kept neat and mowed, had long overgrown with trees that were now mature. The church had been burned down over a hundred years ago and when old Rev. Fell had died, no other member of the family had become a minister. No other minister took his place. The general feeling in town was that the place where the church ruins remained was haunted. No one rebuilt the church, and a new church and a new cemetery had been established elsewhere, leaving the old one to revert to woods and, for the most part, many plots to be poorly maintained.

But it was there that the remains of Giuseppe Salvatore lay and now Elena Gilbert in her expensive, open casket. Damon glanced back at the mausoleum and had to admit it looked better than it had in a very long time – clean and bright, even in the dreary light. He hoped no ghost of Giuseppe remained to annoy the young woman or to even gaze upon her. He had nothing but hatred for the man he had called "Father," but it was his love of Elena that gave him a heartwarming feeling about the place.

Both Damon's and Stefan's cars were parked in the cleared area seldom used. The brothers drove to the Salvatore house, rather large because it had been a boarding house a long time ago, and parked in the driveway. They entered the front door and went to the hidden panel that gave way to stairs leading to the basement, a large area under a large house. Although it was used for storage and for the big furnace and water heaters, it also housed two cells for captives and a food freezer used just to keep bags of blood bank blood cool.

Damon went to the closed door of one of the cells and looked through the barred window to the inside. The recessed light in the ceiling was on and it showed a young woman with dark blonde hair sitting on the stone ledge that served as a bed. She looked at him, a worried, confused expression on her face.

Stefan opened the door and spoke to her. "It's alright, Gwen. Damon is my brother and he needs to sip some of your blood. He won't hurt you. Don't be afraid."

To Damon, he muttered, "Drink, but don't rip her throat. Okay?"

Damon only grunted as he walked into the cell and to the woman. "Stand up, my dear," he ordered in a calm voice. He watched her as she stood before him. She was slender and almost as tall as he was. The decorated tanktop she was wearing left her neck well-exposed. He was quite hungry and was well-aware that he would feel some sort of sexual connection to her when he took her blood. Fresh, hot arterial blood was exquisite and gave something akin to a drug rush. He was ready for that.

Barely having control over his desire, he resisted grabbing her, sinking his fangs into her neck and ripping open the blood vessels. Instead, as his fangs came down and his face underwent some changes, he took her by the shoulders and leaned close. The sound of her heart beating and the smell of the blood within her caused his own heart to pound and saliva to pool in his mouth. Unable to resist longer, he drove in the fangs through her pale skin, catching the carotid artery at the side of the neck. Blood spurted into his mouth and he moaned with pleasure. Held by his strong hands, the girl groaned. She didn't try to pull away, but stood there as her blood pulsed into Damon's mouth. In a short time, she began to feel faint and to sag in his grip.

Damon made himself stop, knowing that Stefan was standing by, watching, and would be angry if the girl died. He knew the saliva on his fangs was enough to seal the artery punctures. Licking the skin wounds to stop the bleeding there, the older brother laid the girl down on the bed and stood back.

"You satisfied? I didn't rip her neck or let her died," he said with a snarky tone.

"You did good," Stefan had to agree. "I was afraid you would lose control."

"Who,me?" Damon said with a snort. He turned and walked out of the cell.

A/N What do you think? Does this story have potential?