A/N: I'm not particularly happy with the recent episodes of TVD. I was listening to this song whilst writing another story, but the lyrics kept resonating with Elena's current situation. Elena acts so much on emotions, with them shut off she's a completely different person, and not one I particularly like. Although I do like the terrible twosome, and some of Elena's tricks – I don't think she would ever be able to hurt her friends, with or without emotions… Anyway – I hope you enjoy this short one shot revolving around Bridgit Mendler's song, All I See is Gold. Enjoy!
"Turn it off," urged Damon. Flipping the switch they call it. Instantly things were better. She still had all her memories, all the pain was there, but it couldn't touch her. She had no emotions anymore. She was free.
Two opposite ends of a spectrum, she could see the pain, the hurt, the grief at losing her parents, Jenna, Alaric, now Jeremy and everyone in between. It was right there, she could reach out and touch it if she wanted to – but it couldn't touch her, couldn't hurt her. It was like coming up for air after being underwater.
She looked at Damon with tear filled eyes, thankful that he had found the answer, made her flip the switch, but unable to form the words to express herself. She dropped the match and listened as the things around her, once so meaningful, were consumed by flames.
She walked out and never looked back.
She was somewhere on the East Coast, walking along the beach. She looked across the water at the magnificent colors created as the sun bounced off the surface.
I've got a sea of flowers, but all these hours are just mine alone.
No one's home. Bought me the finest china, each time I dine it's always me alone. With the heater on.
She was alone in a world full of people. Able to interact, smile, laugh, but never truly feeling it. She was surrounded by people but none of that mattered.
Left to your own devices, a master of disguises, why is that not surprising? It's like you're Midas.
Everywhere she looked, the scenes were painted gold. No pain touched her, everything looked appealing and appetizing, with no emotions to get in the way she could see everything as it was truly meant to be seen. The birds swooping and flying through the air, the fish in the sea swimming aimlessly. Everything was picture perfect when emotions no longer played a role.
Now all I see is gold, all I see is gold. Now all I see is gold, all I see is gold.
She wondered what Damon was doing now, what everyone was doing now. She felt he was close, not physically, but mentally. She could reach out and feel him there too, but that was beyond her reach, on the other side of the break where her emotions were held tightly at bay. She scoffed, even at her worst version of herself her heart still twinged uncomfortably at the thought of Damon.
You're probably somewhere sunny, and I'm here wondering if you dream of me, while you're by the sea. Of all the people passing, your face appears in everyone I see. But you're not with me. And now I just can't tell if, that's just the way you felt when we were just beginning. You've turned to Midas.
Is this all there is now? Is this how I want to live? Elena was starting to question herself and her choices. Was the picture perfect world really better than any emotion? She remembered the nights spent in Damon's bed before it all spiraled out of control. Those were some of the best nights of her life. She could recall the memories now, but the emotions weren't as strong as the memory. She couldn't remember the feeling, only that she remembered it as being the best.
Now all I see is gold, all I see is gold. Now all I see is gold, all I see is gold.
She walked in the freezing water, desperate for some feeling… surely physical pain was still in her arsenal. She walked in up to her knees, she could feel the biting cold against her legs, but whether it was her lack of emotions making her not care, or her hardened vampire body, she couldn't tell.
And when you hold my hand, I don't feel anything. All I feel is cold, and all I see is gold.
She looked to her left to see Damon standing there in the water with her. She pulled their entwined hands up to her face, staring intently. She could see he was holding her hand, but she couldn't feel it. This wasn't right, this wasn't Elena.
He dropped her hand and instead took her face in his hands. She looked into his deep blue eyes, trying to grasp what was happening, trying to find what she now realized she so desperately needed.
"Elena," he whispered, his face inches from her own. "I was wrong, come back to me."
She tilted her head, watching his tears fall from his eyes and mingle with the sea water around their legs. She touched her face and realized she was crying as well.
It's like you're Midas. Now all I see is gold, all I see is gold.
"DAMON," she cried out as she fell to her knees, her emotions crippling her. Her family, gone. Ripped away from her, all in horrible, horrible ways. She screamed as she remembered dropping the match that lit her dead brother's body on fire, burning down her childhood home. Her own life ripped away from her as well, and now, the lives that she ripped away from others because she wasn't strong enough to deal with her own grief.
"Their eyes," she cried into Damon's shoulder. "I killed so many people. How could I do that?" She whispered between sobs. "My house, Jeremy… oh my God."
"Shhh," Damon said, holding her closely. "We'll get through it, Elena. I'm so sorry I did this to you, it's alright, and we'll be okay."
As Elena got her sobbing reduced to small hiccups, she looked around from her perch in the sand – Damon pulled them both to shore as Elena collapsed – she saw the birds, no longer gold and shining, but scrounging for bits of food. The people in the distance, children crying, wind blowing garbage around their ankles.
Even with the pain eating at her heart, grief threatening to crush her, wrapped in Damon's arms she realized that without other colors to compare it to, gold lost all it's meaning.
Without her emotions, good and bad, to keep her being Elena, there was no point to her life, no way to do good, no way to exact revenge against the evil that took things from her, no way to feel good again, no way to love. Elena Gilbert is emotion, without them, she was just a shell.
As she sat there letting Damon rock her and soothe her aching head, frazzled nerves, and shattered heart – she realized this was infinitely better than everything being painted gold.