These Moments Pass and We'll Be There
Summary: Companion piece to This Dance Will Last Us Forever. Damon and Elena face the truth as death nears and the sacrifice is upon them. This is from Elena's POV.
Spoilers: Anything up to 2x19 Klaus is fair game, but this fic is based on the Damon/Elena still from 2x22 "As I Lay Dying," as well as the episode summary released by the CW. Everything I wrote is pure speculation on my part, but if you haven't seen the picture, read the summary, or don't want to know what it could possibly mean, now is probably a good time to stop reading.
Author's Note: Somehow Elena's thought wouldn't leave me alone and I just had to write this. So here goes. It feels good to be writing for this fandom.
This is it.
Elena remembers the last time she came face to face with death with painful clarity. Her parents were driving her home from cheerleading practice, teasing her about Matt Donovan being too quiet for her. Elena was busy arguing that Matt and her made perfect sense when their car went off the bridge and plunged straight into the dark waters. The car sunk in a matter of seconds, and Elena's lungs filled with water before she could unlock her seatbelt. She knew this was the end.
Tonight is a slow motion, horrific replay of the last breaths Elena took on that fateful night.
She has known that this day was coming for months now. Death has been looming over her head ever since she learned that she was a doppelganger Klaus planned on bleeding dry during a dark, twisted sacrifice. She honestly thought that she could stay strong in the face of the storm called Klaus that was destroying everything she knew, but nothing could have prepared her for how helpless she feels as her life dwindles down to a handful of minutes.
She is ready to fight for the lives of the people she loves until her very last breath, but she can no longer pretend that they will find a way out of this tragedy. The battle has barely begun and it feels like they have already lost. She agonizes at the choices she knows she will have to make as much as the ones she won't get a say in. She will either lose loved ones, or watch them die to save her. Maybe both. Either alternative leaves her gasping for air.
She already lost her father earlier today. John stepped up in a final act of courage and gave her one last chance to escape from Klaus. All she could think as Damon dragged her away from his lifeless body was that this counted as her fourth dead parent. She guessed it was a nice, rounded number. A lump formed in her throat as the number etched itself in her mind. She let Stefan gather her in his arms and whisper words of comfort, but she couldn't feel anything. She thought of Jeremy and Jenna and how their lives could just as easily be lost.
Later, Elena didn't even flinch when Matt died at the hands of one of Klaus' warlocks. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, swallowed hard, and asked if someone would someone please stay by Caroline's side. Stefan stepped in, and she loved him all the more for it. She stood motionless as Stefan wrapped Caroline in his arms while she screamed and cried and sobbed.
Eventually, they had to keep moving and leave Matt's body behind, but Elena found that her muscles were frozen in agony. She didn't want to keep moving anymore because she knew only death would follow. Stefan's reassuring touch did nothing to get her body functioning again.
A few seconds lapsed before Stefan stepped aside, and a pair of bright blue eyes found her. Damon didn't try to touch her or convince her that it was going to be okay. He looked into her eyes, and simply said, "Let's go," with more conviction than she had seen in anyone since this interminable day had started. Damon wasn't giving her a choice – he was making it for her.
It was all she needed in that moment. Elena followed him out of the clearing where the body of the first boy she had loved lay.
She hasn't left Damon's side ever since.
Damon and her separated from Stefan when he went to retrieve Bonnie from her hiding place. But the sacrifice is going to happen any minute now, and they have yet to get here. It's just her and Damon now, and the hundreds of innocent bystanders fleeing in panic at the sight of the screen playing Gone With The Wind burning up in flames.
Elena isn't sure how her feet are even carrying her across the square. She thinks that a lot of it has to do with the fact that she is following in Damon's footsteps. Without him, she would have collapsed in agony long ago. But she knows he won't let her, and that's the only thing preventing her from letting hysteria take over.
She sees him look down at her and notices that his eyes are almost midnight blue now, filled with so much fear that she is afraid it will break him, too. Then he says her name as if it's the only sound her was ever meant to speak, and Elena's heart stops beating for a full second.
"Elena."
She ignores his silent plea and keeps moving. In the face of death, she is starting to see things so clearly that the mere sound of her name on his lips overwhelms her in ways she didn't know were possible.
But Damon won't let her have her way, and she hates him for it. Except she is no longer sure where to draw the line between love and hate amidst this chaos. Maybe she's never known where Damon is concerned.
Damon grabs her arms forcefully and traps her between his body and the lamppost behind her. His touch is rough and desperate and she welcomes it. All she can handle is violence and death and threats. Anything else would break her.
"Damon, don't."
"I have to," he tells her.
He takes another step toward her. In different circumstances, she would have never let him invade her personal space this way, too afraid of the consequences both for herself and for them. But tonight, she is referring to Damon and her as a them and everything is different. "Don't you see that? I can't fight this anymore."
Elena looks away, willing herself NOT to feel what he is alluding to. She has been trying so hard not to feel anything for Damon over the last few months, but her continual, weak attempts to convince herself that the elder Salvatore brother is nothing but a friend have been wearing thin for longer than she cares to admit. She knows that she is one touch away from giving into the onslaught of emotions that he ignites in her.
So when Damon tilts her chin up with one hand and forces her to look at him – to really look at him for maybe the first time since she first laid eyes on him – she knows this is a losing battle; perhaps more so than the battle with Klaus.
Then he places his hand over her heart, and the simplicity of the touch lights a fire in her heart.
"And neither can you," he whispers quietly.
Why has she been fighting this so long when nothing her life has ever felt so right? Elena almost wants to laugh at the irony that this is yet another pain that Klaus is inflicting on her by placing her in this life and death situation. Only something as inescapable as her impending sacrifice could break down the walls she carefully built to conceal the depth of her feelings for Damon. She never wanted to let herself feel this way. It is too real and scary and big and life changing in ways that she can barely comprehend, let alone accept. But now that she finally feels all thisfor the first time since the dark-haired, blue-eyed brother came into her life, she knows that there is no going back.
Elena gives Damon a small smile and places her hand on his, her own way of capitulating. This is both the sweetest and most bittersweet surrender.
"Listen," Damon begins, "whatever happens tonight, I want you to know that knowing you has made… that it made my life worth something. You made me human again, Elena. And I wish I could have given you back as much you gave me." His hand cradles her face and Elena can't help but lean into his touch. "I'm sorry all I brought you was destruction and pain. You deserve so much more."
It takes all Elena has not to close her eyes at the sound his words. She shakes her head instead. Doesn't he see that? She's the one who doesn't deserve him. She has been pushing him over the edge for months, giving him no choice but to become the better man, and yet refusing to give him the one thing that has been his all along: her.
"No, I don't," she confesses quietly.
She watches shock register on his face as his eyes soften for her only. This isn't about the kind of man Damon is, about his dark and twisted past, or about the fact that Elena is in love with his brother. This is about the truth she has been stubbornly refusing to face for what now feels like forever. Her cowardice makes her unworthy of his honesty and intensity and feelings in more ways than she wants to know.
"You were right, Damon. There's always been something between us. And I'm sorry I broke your heart over and over again, and lied to you about the way I feel. It's just… it was so much easier to pretend it wasn't there. I wasn't… I wasn't ready before."
She still doesn't think that she is ready, even now. But she can no longer ignore the fire that has slowly been burning her up since Damon first laid eyes on her. She would start wondering what this means for her future – for their future – but she knows they most likely only have minutes to live anyways. It no longer matters that her feelings for Damon are so real that she can feel them changing her irreversibly with every passing second. All that's left to do it to tell him.
"You just… at some point, you became a part of me and I don't know what to do with that because it's more real than anything else I've felt before and it scares me so much."
She barely contains the sobs threatening to take over her body, but somehow, Damon's proximity absorbs them into nothingness.
And then he does the one thing she has been craving for and expecting and waiting for and longing for, but nothing could have prepared her for the way her body instinctively molds into Damon's as his lips claim hers.
She lets her tongue meet his and sighs into him as his hands roam over her hair and shoulders and hips.
She is so, unequivocally, his.
When their lips part, Elena is almost blinded by everything she sees in his eyes – all the emotions that are meant just for her. It occurs to her that Damon is hers just as much as she is his.
She wants to bask in that knowledge forever.
"Promise me you won't forget this," he asks.
How could she? She has been acting like a cold-hearted bitch around him for so long, but there is no going back from this, impending doom or not.
She shakes her head. "Never."
Elena almost collapses under the weight of their exchange. It gives her so much strength in the face of this tragedy that she is weak from it. Damon tightens his hold on her.
He gently wipes the tears streaming down her face. "You ready?"
She takes a deep breath and locks her eyes with his. She feels like she's never been more ready in her entire life.
She puts her hand in his. And for the first time since this horrible day began, she smiles, because in spite of the tragedy about to wreck their lives, because she knows she just got more than Klaus will ever able to take from her.
"Yes."
- The End -