A/N: The beginning of a series of one shots based on those in between moments we don't get to see on the show. This one is from the ending of The Return, when Damon has left Elena's bedroom and she is dealing with what has almost happened to her brother.

A much needed shout out to the lovely kristenjamaya from livejournal for bringing the idea of the in between moments fresh into my mind again.

She doesn't know how long she sits there for. Cradling her brother's head in her hands, weeping into his hair and begging for him to wake up.

But it's like she's in this fog, this welled up, familiar fog where her throat just aches and she's blinking through tears and hours could've gone past without her knowing.

But the time, it didn't really matter. She didn't want to think about it, question it. How long it would take for him to start breathing again, how long until he moved again, how long she would keep crying for and how long she would remember this.

Forever. She would remember this forever.

Like that sound her father had made as he had tried to take control of their car, the way her mothers hand had felt as she reached back for her from the front seat and the high pitched hysterical scream she had let out, that had escaped from her when someone, some Doctor had told her they were dead. Both...just...dead.

And for some reason, these sudden thoughts, memories she hadn't allowed herself to hash out in her mind in what felt like forever, make her come back to it all. The light in the hallway, the dripping tap in the bathroom and her cell phone on the bed.

Stefan.

She needed to call him, hear his voice, lean on him, be held by him. She needed Stefan. The thought is comforting yet overwhelming and she fumbles with Jeremy's head, dropping him a little heavily too to the ground in order to grab for her phone.

Her hands are shaking so hard she drops it three times onto the comforter until, after the third time, she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly through her mouth, sniffing up snot and tears.

It rings only once.

"Hey honey," He says softly, sounding like he had been sleeping, having sat by the fire maybe. She thinks of the image as she swallows and tries to find her voice.

"Elena? What is it? Is everything okay?" He frantically now asks, sounding like he was ready for the worst already. But she thinks, after the horrific multitude of events today, it's normal, actually, that trouble would be his first thought.

"Stefan…" She manages and she cups one hand to her mouth when she looks down at her brother, "It's Jeremy….I need you..I really, really need you." Her voice breaks and she starts to cry holding her forehead with one hand, her hair matting against her face.

He doesn't ask her what's wrong or to explain or to calm down but hushes her and tells her I'll be there soon and okay, okay over and over again as she kneels back down onto the floor. He has been with her in these private moments of emotional defeat enough by now to know, to just know what she needed.

And she needed calm and quiet, so for the time it takes him to rush over to her house, he stays with her on the phone, hardly saying a word.

When he does get there, he speeds up the stairs and rushes towards the doorway but stops immediately when he spots Jeremy's laid out body on the floor and Elena's folded down one beside him.

"Elena," He gasps and he's helping her up off the floor and holding her before he can register in his mind whether it was the right thing to do. Her breathing is too rapid and too unstable for him to feel comfortable with but she balls her hands into his shirt and pushes herself further against him and it's absolutely the right thing to do.

"He's alive, he was wearing John's ring."

"How did he….what happened?" He asks as she moves herself carefully back down to the floor but he knows, can sense it coldly, unwillingly and as she looks back up at him, her eyes smaller and harder than he's ever seen them, it spreads into his veins and stings, the answer.

"Damon." She practically spits and he begins to pace the floor, needing something, anything to do, to control the wild thoughts racing across his mind.

"Da..Damon?"

She cradles Jeremy's head better in her arms so that he's close to her chest, "He was here, waiting for me."

Stefan stops pacing.

"He was drunk and upset….he was saying these things that I told him were never going to happen and they were things he didn't want to hear and…and then Jeremy came in to see what was wrong and that's when he just did it…he snapped his neck."

Stefan sighs deeply and shuts his eyes, letting his head hang for a moment before speaking, trying to think of his brothers thoughts, emotions and understand them better in order for this to make sense. For her…for himself.

"He saw the ring that's why he did it. He knew." He says lowly, automatically almost, the need to protect his brother an automatic, overpowering irrational thought.

"He didn't see the ring." She croaks back, shaking her head a little against it. There was no excuse for this, for any of it.

Stefan looks away from the floor, "It's Katherine. She got under his skin, she undid everything that was good about him." He finishes bitterly. Katherine, the venom that crept into your system unexpectedly, was the poison, had always been, in Damon's mind.

But Elena hears these things, these poor justifications only vaguely because she can't get the way Damon had looked at her out of her eyes and it disillusions everything else, "There's nothing good about him, Stefan….not anymore. He's decided what he wants. He doesn't want to feel, he wants to be hated it's just easier that way….he got his wish," She pauses and he watches as her back shudders and moves closer towards her,"….I hate him, Stefan." She cries and he's against her, his face breaking as he kisses her shoulder and whispers, I know, I know, the weight of his brother's actions crushing them both.

She clutches Jeremy's head tighter and tears slip into his hair. She can feel the solid hand, rubbing at the base of her back and is thinking briefly, of what she would've have done without him when Jeremy violently convulses, his body suddenly retching for air, twisting in her arms.

The relief is dizzying and surging and she's gripping him tighter and asking Stefan whether or not he's okay, whether he'll be okay but it hardly seemed to matter. He was breathing, moving. He had to be okay.

Stefan clutches for his head, wringing it in his heads a little in order to get Jeremy to focus as Jeremy continued to move in her arms, Damon killed me, he killed me coming from his lips. The both of them hold him down tighter to get him to still, the best they can.

"He's okay, he's okay…shh, it's okay." Stefan urges quietly and drops him for Elena to hold tightly again and she lets the rush of adrenaline pulse through her, her heart racing, Jeremy calming in her arms.

Stefan lets out a steady breath and hangs his head between his knees, letting his own heart calm, trying no to think of how things could have ended up.

"He killed me, he killed me." Jeremy repeats a little louder and Stefan can hear Elena's gently hushes and her whispered okays into Jeremy's hear that barely seem to quiet him.

Knowing sleep would both ease him and comfort him, Stefan moves back up onto his feet and leans down near Elena's ear, his hands against her back again, "He'll feel better in the morning, sleep will help, I'll go get him something to take."

Elena nods quickly and together the two of them help Jeremy up. Elena tugs one of his arms around her neck and Stefan hovers nearby as they walk through the bathroom to his room.

It's almost nearing 1 am when Jeremy finally falls asleep. Elena stays with him in his bedroom while Stefan makes tea in order to put the 2 sleeping pills he's crushed up in to.

It doesn't take long for the sleeping pills to work but Jeremy's eyes are flickering and he's still mumbling under his breath, he killed me. He killed me. Damon, killed me and though it hurts a little too much, for the both of them, in completely contrasting ways to hear it, they sit there until it stops and he's snoring lightly.

Elena stands and he follows her slowly back to her bedroom, leaving enough space for her, enough air to make a decision, her next move. But when he's got the bathroom door shut and she's stopped walking altogether, he makes it, just in time, for her to sway and fall back against his chest. His arms immediately crossing over her.

"What do you need," He whispers, "Tell me."

She doesn't answer and he knows that was he was doing was all she needed right now. To just be held upright for the briefest of moments, to not have to do it herself. But it gets to a point where her knees start to buckle, her exhaustion taking her and he bends down, moving around her in order to lift her up and over to her bed.

It's a silent agreement that he's going to stay the night and she wriggles all the way over to the right side of the bed, her side whenever he slept with her and waits for him.

When he's finally in, they both lay there, side by side, in the quietness for a moment.

"Stefan…" She asks, breaking the silence and his hand finds hers and squeezes it and she feels tears in her eyes again as she turns her head to look at him, "Will you wait for me to fall asleep."

He moves closer and kisses her forehead, letting his face linger there, "Of course I will."

It takes almost an hour. She's restless for most of it, something unusual for her and he tries rubbing her back, giving her space and whether she's just too tired to move any longer, she ends up curled with her back to his chest.

The familiar ease of her chest rising and falling calms his mind long enough for him to be able to shut his eyes, sink against the exhaustion and fall asleep too.

Tomorrow a new day.

A/N: So if you want to see any of those in between moments written, those moments between scenes, the beginning of scenes or the end of ones that aren't shown in the episode, send me a pm!