The Way We Were by asesina

Disclaimer: I don't own TVD!

Summary: Elena thinks about the past, her parents, and the present.

This is a little oneshot based on the most recent TVD episode, "Our Town".

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Elena feels like she can see forever when she stands on Wickery Bridge. The autumn breeze pulls at her hair and she shivers a little. She stands resolutely against the cold, statue-still against the chill of the wind, almost as if she is challenging Mother Nature to do her worst.

Elena knows that she can handle it.

A part of her (an impossibly tiny, miniscule part) wants to break down and cry. She wants to grieve for all that she has lost and all that she has become, but Elena knows that such things are counterproductive.

A part of her wants to go back so badly. Elena wants her parents back, of course, but she knows that she will never have that normal life again.

She will never have Saturday morning pancakes with her family- all four of them- or Sunday night checkers with her mom.

She will never be her daddy's little girl, even though she desperately wishes that she could be for just one day.

Just one day is all she wants.

Elena knows that the old world is gone.

She used to long for normalcy, but it's too painful to focus on all of that now.

To Elena, normalcy is innocence, simplicity, happiness, family.

She envies the girl that she used to be and occasionally wonders if that tiny, nostalgic part of her mind is really the last shred of her former self.

Elena doesn't really have time to think about the past. She barely had any time to mourn her parents, and now all of this has happened.

Sometimes, Elena wonders if she'l l wake up and realize that all of this has been a wild, year-long dream.

Her mom will be downstairs in the kitchen, and the French toast will already be on the table. Miranda Gilbert will walk over, give Elena a huge hug, and ask her what she's doing up already.

However, Elena knows this is real. Vampires are real. Werewolves are real. Doppelgangers and curses and witches are all real.

Elena longs for the past, but she knows that she can never go back. Even in a world of so many supernatural anomalies, time travel is still an impossibility.

Elena stands against the cold, but this time, she spreads her arms out and lets the wind push them back just a little, and it almost feels like she's flying.

Elena used to think that she was stuck, but now she feels like she's moving.

She is a part of the wind, for better or for worse. Elena stands on her tip-toes and peers over the edge of the bridge before she looks straight into the horizon.

She breathes in deeply and savors the cold autumn air for a moment. As she exhales and closes her eyes, Elena realizes something.

She can't change anything, but she can do her best. She can fight.

Elena knows that is what they would have wanted.

End.