A/N: This is a one-shot I decided to write after thinking about what I would like to see on TVD right now after the most recent episode.
I'm not planning on continuing this, but who knows.
Let me know what you think!
Sometimes, she told herself, all the bad things that happened to her were all part of a string of never ending nightmares. The fear. The pain. It was all in her head, haunting her when her eyes closed.
The gray night sky with the clouds attempting to hide the moon, haunted her. The throbbing of her side and the trickles of blood sliding down past her ear reminded her that she was hurt.
But one thing was for certain. This time, it was real. All of it. From the moment some man, human she thought, hit her in the head, threw her to the ground, and grabbed her purse, taking off at a full sprint down the road into even more darkness.
From the moment she had weakly rolled herself over on the cold pavement of the road, fingering her phone and carefully pulling it out of her pocket. Her shaky fingers dialed his number, the only one she could count on right now. Even if they hadn't had the best relationship as of late, he would come and he would keep calm in an effort to keep her calm.
And he did. Damon found her on the road in the middle of the night with not a single person around. He scooped her limp body up into his arms and placed her in the passenger seat of his car. He had a million questions for her. He always did. What did he look like? Why was she walking alone?
Real. From the moment she was admitted to the hospital and Damon was told he had to wait outside while they patched her up. Two broken ribs on her left side and a minor head injury. She was lucky, so they had told her. She did not see where any luck had happened tonight, but she was in no state to argue. The pain medication they gave her kicked in right away and a few hours later, Damon was taking her home. Well, back to the Boarding House, anyways.
She was still somewhat conscious when he walked her into the house, holding her carefully to keep her up but making sure not to cause her any pain. Damon had asked her which room she wanted – though he was hoping that she would say his room. She didn't though.
Stefan's. Stefan's room was where she wanted to be and although he wanted to remind her that there were six other bedrooms for her to have, he couldn't bring himself to say anything to her when she had just been through a traumatic experience. So, he tucked her into his brother's bed, gave her another pain pill, and told her he would be downstairs and to yell if she needed anything. She nodded weakly before closing her eyes.
Though sleep did not come peacefully. It was clouded with that man and cold pavement and blood and … not him.
Damon could hear her crying a few hours later. Afraid that she was in pain, he rushed up the stairs and into the room. He flipped on the bedside lamp and saw her awake, laying on her uninjured side. Her hair was matter in sweat and her face was stained with far more tears than he cared to see. "Elena" Damon said softly, kneeling down in front of the bed and placing her hair back behind her ears and out of her face. It killed Elena. The guilt, mostly. How loving and caring and kind he had been to her over the year and she never had anything to offer him in return. "What can I do?" he asked her. "What do you need?" he asked, searching her eyes for the answer, unsure if she would tell him using her voice.
He loved her. Elena knew this. He would do anything for her. Elena knew this too. Which is why the word that come out of her mouth, she knew, was bound to crush him. But it came out so easily, as if she were not even thinking about it. "Stefan" she answered. Stefan.
Damon held her eyes for about ten seconds, trying to process what she had just said. They both had not spoken to Stefan in a few weeks. Damon was not even sure if Stefan was still in town. But she wanted –no- needed Stefan. It killed him, knowing that he was here for her, giving her everything, and he still was not good enough. He was still not Stefan. "I'll find him" he said slowly, standing slowly, walking even slower out of the room.
Elena closed her eyes, succumbing to the loneliness, the emptiness, once again.
XXXXXXXXXXX
It took six calls, but Stefan finally picked up. "Well hey there, Brother" Stefan said, taking a swig of his beer and then setting it back on the bar counter. "Whatever crisis you have found yourself in this time, I'm not interested" Stefan said, feeling great that he could finally tell his brother to leave him alone and not feel guilty about it. Stefan was unwinding, having fun, for the first time in a long time.
"You need to come home" Damon said simply, fighting the urge to tell him off and hang up.
"I'm not coming home" Stefan stated. "I've got no reason to come home" he added. "Goodbye Damon" he said, pulling the phone away from his ear and hovering his thumb over the end call button.
"It's Elena" Damon said at the last second, something that only Stefan's hypersensitive hearing ability would have picked up on.
Elena. Stefan hadn't thought about Elena in weeks. Bullshit. He thought about her every moment he wasn't thinking about something else. "What about Elena?" Stefan asked, feeling his throat become dry.
It was silent on Damon's end for a moment. "She was attacked tonight" he stated simply.
"Klaus?" Stefan asked, feeling his grip on his phone tighten. Because if Klaus or someone connected to him had laid so much as a finger on her, he would end every last one of them.
"No" Damon answered. "He was human" he explained. "He mugged her. I took her to the hospital and the doctor said she should recover fairly quickly. Liz is working on finding the SOB" he explained.
Stefan nodded. "So why do I need to come home then?" he asked, trying to sound as though he really didn't care. Even though every fiber of his being wanted to find the guy who hurt Elena and make him hurt several million times more.
Damon could not, better yet, did not want to believe that Stefan would ask that question. "Jesus Christ Stefan" Damon spit through the phone. "It's Elena we're talking about" he said.
"She's got you" Stefan bit out bitterly. His jealously was crystal clear. It always had been.
"She doesn't want me" Damon said, matching Stefan's bitterness. "She wants you."
Stefan felt his heart twinge with a pang of something. Hope? Disbelief? "How do you know this?" Stefan challenged.
"She told me" Damon sighed, exhausted from the night and from dealing with Stefan. "Just come home" he told him. "Elena doesn't need any more pain" he said before ending the call.
Stefan slowly pocketed his phone, his mind racing. She was hurt. She had asked for him. Why the hell wasn't he there with her? He could be in Mystic Falls in an hour if he left now though. Stefan reached in his pocket and grabbed some money to pay his bill. He grabbed his jacket and took off out of the bar.
XXXXXXXXXXXX
There she was, asleep before him. Though it was a terrorizing sleep, he knew. Years of sleeping next to her had made him very aware of when she was having a nightmare and when she was having a pleasant dream. Or when nothing was going on at all. He walked closer to her until he was leaning over her, examining the cut on her head. It wasn't too deep, but it had needed a bandage to close it up.
Elena's eyes immediately opened, sensing that someone was near her. "Stefan" she croaked out, her eyes struggling to stay open. "You came" she sighed happily, closing her eyes again, fighting against the medication, but finding herself giving into it too. Because sometimes giving in was easier.
"Yeah, I came" he whispered, taking in her pale skin and the uneasy, steady beat of her heart. The slow pace that would make him think that it was going to stop beating at any moment.
Elena opened her eyes again, but this time, her smile was nowhere to be found. "I tried" she whispered, unable to fight the tears that left her eyes now. "I tried so hard to be strong, like you said, but I couldn't" she said, closing her eyes as a muffled sob escaped her lips. That night, in the barn, as she was helping him after he had been shot, he told her that he liked the fact that she was stronger. Since that night, Elena held on to that, wanting to prove to him that she would always be strong, but secretly, wanting to make him proud that she was.
Stefan shook his head, closing his own eyes briefly. How could he spend so much time shutting off his feelings, only for Elena to cause them to come back fiercely in a matter of seconds? "You are strong, Elena" he told her, resisting the urge to touch her. "What happened tonight …" he began, unsure of how to continue. Elena opened her eyes again and they glistened with tears. "I'm going to find him and he will pay" he promised her.
Elena held his gaze for a few moments as she took in what he was telling her. But when he stood to leave, she was forced to react, despite how her throbbing head and side told her to lay still and go back to sleep. "Don't" she said, grabbing his hand and tightly gripping it in hers to stop him. When he turned back to face her, he knew it was a losing battle now. To shut off his emotions – the ones that mattered – by going on a raging revenge-filled spree. "Please stay with me" she said, letting her eyes do most of pleading.
She wasn't sure if he would stay. She could feel how tense he was, just by holding his hand. He wanted to leave. He wanted to wreak havoc on someone. She knew this.
But he did stay. Stefan kicked off his boots and lifted the blanket up, sliding in next to her. His arms went around her instinctively, like he knew it was his job now to take care of her. Maybe it always had been. But for the life of him, he could not figure out why she would want him here with her. After all the pain he had caused her, why was she allowing him in her bed? His bed, he supposed. The bed they had shared for a few years. There was nothing about him that was worth wanting. He had discovered that after returning home from his last bender, having wiped out more innocent lives than he ever had in one time frame. He was a murderer. He hurt strangers. He hurt those he knew very well. Worst of all, he had hurt her.
He was dangerous. A monster. Someone you would run from. Yet here Elena was, her head resting on his shoulder and her arm across his chest, breathing soundly as if she were finally relaxing.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
He watched her for almost an hour, debating on whether or not to wake her up so she could take some more pain medication. She just looked so … peaceful. Finally, he carefully got up, needing to go downstairs and clear his mind for a minute. Having slept next to her all night did nothing for his continuous battle to not care.
In the kitchen, he found a note from Damon saying he would be gone for the day and to call if he was needed. You had to have known Damon for quite some time in order to read that chicken scratch that he called writing. Stefan scoffed at the fact that Damon had left Stefan to take care of Elena. What if Stefan had other things to do that day? Stefan crumpled up the piece of paper and tossed it.
He went to work on making something for breakfast. Something light that would be easy on her stomach. Toast and bananas. He popped the bread into the toaster and went to work on chopping the banana into bite size pieces, placing them onto a plate. His head snapped up though when he heard her.
Elena leaned against the doorway to support herself the best she could. Her hair was messy and the pajama set she was wearing was wrinkled from tossing and turning after she got home from the hospital. He remembered those pajamas though, having removed them numerous times both when he stayed over and when she stayed over at his place.
"That for me?" she asked with a sleepy smile on her face. She winced as she shifted her weight to her other foot.
The toast popped and he grabbed both pieces to butter. "You shouldn't be out of bed" he told her, giving her no indication that he truly cared.
"I hate being stuck in bed" she said. Unless he was in bed with her.
"It's not a matter of what you like or don't like" he said, grabbing her plate and walking towards her. "It's about what you need" he added.
"And you care why?" she asked, her eyebrow partly raised.
"I'm here aren't I?" he asked before he could really stop himself. It was a stupid thing to say and he knew it.
Elena studied him closely. "Sometimes I think you are really in there" she said, her voice steady and her eyes fixated on his. "Sometimes you look at me and I remember what it used to be like, loving you" she told him. "Sometimes I think you still care."
Stefan laughed bitterly at her as he looked away from her. He was starting to feel and he knew this because it hurt like hell. "Maybe I just feel sorry for you" he said, countering everything she had just said.
It hurt. She knew it. He knew it. But she let it go. Because anything he said when he wasn't Stefan – her real Stefan – anything he said didn't matter. "Maybe" she said, grabbing the plate from him. She turned to leave, but then stopped. "Sometimes I think this is all a nightmare, and when we wake up, we'll be okay" she said before continuing on her way.
Stefan watched her struggle to make her way back up the stairs. "Maybe" he whispered.