Disclaimer: Not mine; it's all just make-believe.

Summary: Stefan's made his choice and it's not her that he's chosen. One-shot.

AN: It bugs me that the show started up with a lame three months later so I wrote a little something that really doesn't change the way things are on the show. It's what I imagine happened after Katherine left.

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Soon Be Found

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Elena turns her head slowly as she lets her eyes sluggishly graze from the spot her ancestral twin had stood mere moments ago. Feeling impossibly tired she sighs heavily hoping that the man in her arms will be too weak to confront her for a few more hours. As horrible as she knows that thought is, she just doesn't have it in her to twist the truth if he should ask her anything. Neither of them is in any condition to handle the truth.

She gingerly pats the perspiration of his pale face. "You should sleep; recuperate." She says praying that that is indeed what he'll do; that he will heal. She can not handle losing another loved one... and he truly is loved by her.

Glancing down she realizes that the sickly blue eyed boy in her arms is already sleeping soundly. His pale lips are twisted into a pain-filled pout and his eyes flutter under his lids.

She carefully inches out from behind him trying her best not to rouse him and... she doesn't know what, but whatever it is she somehow knows it will be irrevocable all the same. She takes a single step forward, but he instantly halts her.

"Don't leave me." He whispers so softly that she almost believes that it's all in her head.

When she turns back to him, he looks like a broken and defeated little boy... and perhaps that's precisely what the twisted angelic creature before her is in this instant.

She opens her mouth not knowing what to say so she simply closes it again.

"Stay." He pleads brokenly with celestial eyes glittering with spilling tears.

Understanding dawns on the doe eyed beauty; for the first time in over a century and a half Damon is truly alone... or so he believes. She smiles warmly as her own tears spill and tumble silently down her cheeks.

"I'm right here." She says dreading that he'll understand everything there is implied and hidden behind those simple words.

He scoots over, raises the covers and waits patiently for her to come to him... and she does. She's too tired and too beaten to fend off his affections; to fight her own.

She crawls under the warm covers and curls herself into him where she knows there's so much love and care awaiting her. "Sleep." She whispers as she closes her eyes.

"We've lost him." He murmurs burying his face in her luxurious ebony locks.

"No, I've lost him." She retorts calmly. "He chose you." It's the truth. Stefan did not desert his brother, he gave himself over in order to save his undead existence.

It's painful to know that when it was her life on the line he let her go; he let her be killed... he didn't desperately force his blood down her throat in an attempt to save her knowing full well she would hate him for it for the rest of her eternal existence.

He sighs as he envelopes her in his warm comforting embrace. "We'll find him." He says and she knows he's trying to comfort her, but it's unnecessary. She understands; she died for them after all; for him.

"We should sleep." She says not wanting to argue; to take away his hope.

She turns her back towards him finding it impossible to find rest. He follows her, as he always does, moulding himself to her and she can't help but feel that he fits there perfectly.

"Don't worry. We'll find him." He whispers reassuringly in her ear as he pulls her closer into him.

She spins back towards him in his tight hold, coming nose to nose with the painfully beautiful boy She lifts a hand and rests it on his chiselled cheek. She closes her tired eyes and inhales him as her thumb lazily caresses his soft skin and she can feel his warm breath fan gently over her face with his every exhale.

He moves minutely and now she can feel his lips ghost her own as he inhales her every exhale... and she breathes him in until her head spins and her skin tingles deliciously; until there is only him.

He listens intently as her heartbeat slows and her breaths even out; stealing a soft kiss from her dusky pink pout once he's sure she's asleep.

Silently he vows to try his damnedest to get his idiot brother back... he can stand the defeated tone in her voice even less than he can watching her happy with someone else from a distance. He's willing to have her hate him if that's what makes the wonderful girl sleeping in his arms happy.

She likes him though as he is and... he's not an idiot like his brother. Like means a lot of different things to a lot of different people and he knows that the slumbering girl loves all her little friends... so although like is a big step up from what she used to think of him it's in no way a gift wrapped key to her heart. Now that he knows he doesn't deserve, but he wants it all the same.

"Stefan." She whimpers and the sound chips away at his heart making it sting painfully. If it's because of the fact that the girl is in pain over her vanished lover or for the fact that it isn't his own name she's saying in her sleep is muddled and unclear... perhaps it's even both. Stefan should have just let him die in peace so they could have theirs.

"We'll find him." He whispers into the night as he pulls her limp form to his chest and tucks her securely under his chin. He'll get him back, but not tonight. Tonight they sleep.

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AN: People seem to want to put so much meaning into Elena's I like you just the way you are and I think Damon must have taken that exactly the way she said it since they're friends at most after those three months of searching. I figure that the worse the search went the more the tables turned. Elena became more desperate as she sunk deeper into denial while Damon had to face the hard facts about what his brother once again had become.

Like is a powerful word, but it's not exactly love now is it?

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