A/N So I took a few liberties in this story about what happened when Elena was 18 compared to the show, but you need to assume that Season 3 ended with Ric not dying, Klaus being sunk into the ocean indefinitely, and Elena remaining human and no longer in danger. HUGE thank you to morvamp for betaing this for me. Her help was invaluable.
I thought my muse had totally left me as far as writing for this couple goes, but this story idea has been simmering in my brain since summer and I found that I *could* actually write this one. I know it's melancholy but I hope you like it anyway. Please, if you can, leave me a review to let me know what you think. Reviews just make my day.
*DISCLAIMER* I do NOT own Vampire Diaries or the characters associated with Vampire Diaries. The show would have gone a lot differently after "Our Town" if I did. No copyright infringement intended.
December
"Bye, Grammy!" The young, slim brunette leans in to kiss one dry and wrinkled cheek, before rushing out the door and down the stone walkway to her car. She's in a hurry to get somewhere - to her boyfriend, to her friends, to whatever next experience awaits her. Always in a rush. Never enough time in the day.
The older woman closes the door after she watches her granddaughter speed off down the boulevard. The arthritis in her wrist aches when she twists the knob, but that's nothing new. So many things ache now and - as much as one can, anyway - she's gotten used to it.
She smiles wistfully as she remembers when she was young and spry like Portia, when her hair was long and silky chestnut brown, instead of short and wiry silver, when her back was straight, her eyes bright, her skin smooth and things still up where they should be. Back when there was always something to do, people to see, danger to escape, lives to be saved. No one would believe her if she tried to tell them what her life became for a few years back when she was in her late teens. They'd surely assume she'd grown senile and next thing she'd know, she'd be drugged up on meds and living in a home for the elderly. So she doesn't tell. She's never told. Not the truth, anyway.
Years ago she did write it all out, novel-style, changing the names and many of the personal details to protect the actual people involved, should it ever be read. It had crossed her mind a few times that she could probably send it to a publisher. It was certainly filled with excitement, danger and romance, and the supernatural element was fantastical enough to be palatable young adult fiction. But in the end, she never did. The experiences from back then and the friends she'd gone through them with ultimately felt just too personal to share with the world at large.
Now that she's all alone, the passing hours have slowed to a snail's pace again, like they used to stretch out when she was a small girl. It's funny how that works. In so many ways we revert back to children again as we reach our final years. Time creeps along incrementally, though she knows its now nearly up for her.
And she's found that she thinks about those years when she was seventeen and eighteen so much more than she ever used to.
A coughing fit bends her nearly in half as she makes her way back to the kitchen and she has to brace herself on the doorframe to prevent falling to her knees. When it passes at last and she straightens up, she hears a knock on the front door and assumes Portia must have forgotten something. She pulls open the door expecting her impatient granddaughter, and is stunned to instead find herself face to face with a tall brunette boy who greets her with a huge and happy smile.
Those green eyes that she hasn't seen in at least seventy years twinkle as he exclaims her name. "Elena!"
"Stefan!" she manages to choke out, her shock making her voice sound even scratchier than is her new usual. "Why…what are you doing here?" And is it really a coincidence that I was just thinking about you?
"So you remember me?" he teases, as his grin stretches impossibly wider. He reaches to envelop her in a gentle hug.
When she pulls back from him, she smiles and swats his arm. "What kind of a question is that? My body may be going but my mind is just fine, thank you very much." She takes a step backward away from the doorway. "Please come in and tell me everything. I want to hear it all."
"There's someone else here to see you, too," he says, his smile never faltering, and her throat instantly tightens as her heart skips a beat. Even all these years later, just the thought of seeing…
"Elena!" A bubbly blonde suddenly appears at her doorstep. She's nearly bouncing up and down in her excitement. "Invite me in right now so I can hug you!"
She feels the damp itch of happy tears welling up in the corners of her eyes at the sight of her high school best friend, who will always be perfect and perky and perpetually seventeen years old.
"My God - Caroline! Yes, come on in!"
Suddenly she finds herself the peanut butter in a Stefan and Caroline hug-wich. "Okay, guys," she gasps, "one of us still needs to breath!"
Elena glances back toward the still open front door. "Are there any more surprises?" she asks tentatively, not wanting to get her hopes up or to let her voice betray that they might already be.
Caroline and Stefan exchange a look, before Stefan quickly replies, "No, just us." He does not add, "Sorry to disappoint you," but she hears the words anyway.
It doesn't matter though. She knows what she knows and she's not particularly concerned. She'll see him again. Of that she could not be any more certain. It's just a matter of time. And there's not much left of that, no matter how slowly it feels like it's passing.
It's incredibly surreal seeing Stefan and Caroline sitting in her small living room, one the very same age as her and the other two hundred and thirty some years old, yet both still looking like teenagers. At the moment Elena feels every last one of her eighty-eight years.
She makes them tea and, for the first time in a long time, the next two hours fly by as she listens to their tales of their travels and adventures around the globe. In turn, they smile at photos of her daughter and grandkids. She tells them about her husband, who passed away more than ten years ago from a heart attack, and about the son she lost when he was only a baby. Caroline squeezes her when the memories still bring fresh tears to her eyes.
Some wounds never do heal with time.
Her guests can clearly tell the afternoon of catching up has worn Elena out and all too soon they stand up to take their leave.
After they exchange hugs and kisses in the front hallway, she asks, "What brought you both here today, after all these years?"
Stefan sighs and takes her hands in his, squeezing lightly. "We wanted to see you again. You know, before…" he trails off.
She nods. "Understood. And I'm incredibly glad you guys came. But how did you know?"
He looks uncomfortable for a moment and then she gets it. "Ah," she says with a half-smile. "Well, thank you. You have no idea how happy I am to see you both. Really. Your visit meant the world to me."
"We love you, Elena," Caroline responds simply. "We're really glad you got to live the life you always wanted."
After they're gone, she goes to the spare room and pulls out an even older photo album, this one brittle, worn and faded. It's more than seventy years old.
She carefully opens the pale pink faux-leather cover and examines the photo centered on the first page. It's a family shot taken when she was only sixteen years old. Below the picture, in her loopy teenage handwriting, is written Dad, Jeremy, me, Mom, Christmas 2008. She and her family are all dressed in their holiday best, standing in front of a fully decorated tree in their living room at the old house in Mystic Falls. This photo was the last shot of all four of them together, taken a little more than five months before her parents died. She's smiling widely at the camera and her brother looks like he can think of about fifty places he'd rather be, but all in all they make the perfect picture of a normal happy family. She's amazed at how much her granddaughter has grown up to look like herself at that age. Not exactly – she's not another doppelganger, thank goodness – but close enough that Portia-now and Elena-then could've been mistaken for sisters.
She gingerly flips through the pages until she comes to the one she's really looking for. And here it is at last – the shot of her in that gorgeous floor-length royal blue gown at the Miss Mystic Falls pageant in the autumn of 2009. The pageant she only participated in because her mother had submitted Elena's entry form before she died. Her eyes are firmly fixed on her partner's as they dance and she sighs fondly at the memory. What a beautiful couple they made that day. Anyone watching them must have surely thought they were in love.
But they weren't, at least not then.
She closes the album with a rueful smile, tucks it back into its box and pushes it under the bed where it belongs. A yawn escapes her, and she realizes just how incredibly worn out she feels. She walks slowly across the hall to her bedroom, everything aching inside her now, and deliberately unlatches her window. Tugging it open as far as she can manage, she whispers into the night, "Please come in."
Slowly and carefully she stretches out on her bed and waits. She squeezes her eyes closed and takes deep breaths to try to calm herself down. Her chest is tight again and each inhalation hurts. This is not the first time this sensation has happened and, as she's done before, she simply focuses on her breathing and wills it to pass.
Eventually the tightness and pain lessen their grip and she drifts off into a restless, dreamless slumber.
She has no idea how much time has passed when she awakens to the feel of a slight breeze dancing over her face and the sound of her bedroom window being closed. She breathes a sigh of relief because she knows exactly what this means.
He's here.
The bed sinks on her right side as he sits down beside her and his cool fingers slip over her own.
"I've been waiting for you," she murmurs, as she opens her eyes.
It's too dark in here and she needs to see his face, even if her vision isn't what it used to be. "Please, can you turn on the lamp?" she asks, dragging her body up into a sitting position. She hates that her own voice sounds so frail. She hates being so damn frail.
He obliges by tugging the chain on the lamp switch, and, as her vision adjusts, she finds herself once again staring into a familiar pair of eyes that she hasn't seen in seventy years. Ocean blue this time, not green. He grins at her and once again her throat closes and once again tears spring unbidden to her eyes and overflow down her cheeks. Only this time her tears are from relief and utter joy.
The long years of separation between them fade as his hands frame her face and he gently wipes the moisture away with his thumbs, just like he used to.
He stares at her for a long time, not speaking, and she finds she's actually physically aching to hear his voice again.
"You knew I was there. You knew I'd come?" he finally asks, softly and full of wonder as his eyes hold hers. There's no smart-ass comments, no sarcasm, no defensive walls, not anymore. There is only the two of them in this moment, as open and honest as only they can be with each other.
Elena nods once. "Damon, I've always known."
"Always?" He tilts his head and gives her that half-smile that continually made her lower belly clench in strange and frightening and wonderful ways when she was young.
"Yes, always. You've been with me my entire life. Did you really think I didn't know? I never saw you, but I could feel you. My graduation, my wedding day, that morning in the hospital after I had my first child. All those sleepless nights after I buried my son when I cried until I couldn't cry anymore and felt like I might flicker out into nothingness like a flame as I grieved, not only for him, but for everyone I'd ever lost. My triumphs, my breakdowns, my best and worst and everything in-between, you were always there."
"You knew I was with you the whole time," he muses in amazement. One of his thumbs still absentmindedly strokes the side of her face and she flicks her eyes closed for a moment, pressing her skin more firmly against his hand.
"And now, when it's nearly over, I knew you'd be by my side until the bitter end. Cause that's what you do – you watch over me. You're my guardian angel, I think."
He can't suppress a snort at that. "Your guardian devil, more like."
Elena smiles as she leans into him and he wraps his arms around her. Instantly she's transported back to that night when she was eighteen and he came into her bedroom to say goodbye. The night he held her in his arms until dawn. The night he soothed away her tears, much like he did just now, and told her that no matter how much he loved her, he had to let her go to live a human life without him.
The night they made love for the first and last time.
"I need to thank you for what you did for me. I got to raise a wonderful daughter and watch my two beautiful grandchildren grow up. As much as I've missed you, I can never regret that."
A coughing fit has her pulling back and reaching for a tissue. She crumples it before he can see the spots of blood, but she knows he knows anyway.
The last of her energy gives out and she slumps back down onto the pillow. "It won't be long now, will it?" she asks, part of her nervous and part of her simply accepting the inevitable and the peace it will bring.
He lies down beside her and wraps her arms around her, gently pulling her back snug against his chest, like he did that night so long ago. "No. But I'll be here. I won't leave you ever again." He doesn't say the word "promise" this time. He doesn't need to.
Comfort floods over her, safe within his protective embrace. Then she frowns and gathers her dwindling strength to roll over. She can't stand to spend any more seconds of her life not looking at his perfect face.
Her palm finds its way up to cup his cheek. "But don't you see, Damon? You never did. In my darkest moments, it was knowing you were with me that ultimately got me through. You never broke your promise."
He's silent for a while, then he carefully tucks a strand of her hair behind one ear; another familiar gesture that makes her smile even as her throat tightens back up.
"You're exhausted, Elena. Just close your eyes and go to sleep. I'll be right here if you need me." The fingers of his left hand stroke soft patterns up and down her back.
"I've always needed you. Always wanted you. Always loved you," she murmurs, holding his gaze. She sees a single tear begin to trace its way down his cheek to the pillow below.
He closes his eyes for a moment as emotion overtakes him. When he opens them again, he leans over to kiss her gently.
"Love you, too." There's a crack in his voice that he's unable to hide.
"Thank you." Her words are barely audible this time, but she knows he hears her. Finally she gives in and allows her heavy eyelids to slip shut
"No, thank you," he assures her as she fades from consciousness, and she understands.
The last things she feels before she goes are his fingers on the skin of her lower back and his lips gently kissing each eyelid.
He whispers against the soft shell of her ear, "I'll see you real soon."
- F I N -
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