I feel like so much of D/E is unexplored. This is shameless drabble, something I felt like I just had to write.

I do not own anything, and I'm not so sure what caused me to think of the title. I guess we'll see ;)

So please enjoy, and I beg you guys to not favorite or story/author alert without reviewing. I do want to get some constructive criticism ;)

When you cried, I'd wipe away all of your tears

When you'd scream, I'd fight away all of your fears

And I held your hand through all of these years

But you still have all of me

My Immortal – Evanescence

There comes a day when she realizes that her world now depends on tears. There comes an hour when she realizes that she's drowning; slowly, but it's coming. There comes a minute when she realizes that an "epic love story" is always doomed for failure.

So she just lets herself drown in love. She lets herself drown in pity, in hope – hope destined for nothing –and barely a week goes by before she feels like she's already tipped a hundred and eighty degrees. So she blocks it out some more - she blocks out her demons, her sorrows, her past beliefs.

(She blocks out the man in the leather jacket; the man who has kept her standing all these months.)

She doesn't know why she's doing all this; she doesn't know why she hasn't even gotten her ass up and started looking for answers. She doesn't have a clue why she has cried herself to sleep every night this past week and she has done nothing to solve the problem that got her in sobs in the first place.

(Part of her is scared of what she might find if she does.)

She lets all the tears go down in the drain simply because they're able to. She lets the days flow by because for her, time carries on. She lets herself muse and wonder and fantasize; imagining a life where you don't live for time, but clearly, you live for no purpose. You live for blood, for lack of emotion.

(Clearly, it's a life that's not for her.)

His face has become such a familiarity now – he just lingers in the corners of shapeless rooms, watching her, those eyebrows furrowed. She likes to think that he's listening into her thoughts, listening to her heartbeat, tending to her fears. He tries talking to her sometimes; he brings up topics that don't want to be discussed, topics that need to be forgotten. Topics that involve her lips and his lips and a bed too comfortable for both of them. And ironically, topics that haven't gotten off her mind since they occurred.

He's tried holding her, soothing her, bringing her out to places that don't depict her mood at all. He's been a block, someone who has come so far from who he originally was. She doesn't refrain him – she instead pretends that it's no big deal. She tries so hard to mask the fact that she is so, so thankful.

(She's always been thankful of him.)

Weeks start to trudge by, and still, she is broken. She's been torn, cut, shredded; those pieces of her heart so long gone, so carefully hidden, sealed and sent away like horcruxes. People start to worry; people start to notice. Bonnie demands that Elena is to be watched at all times. Caroline throws slumber parties on a daily basis – a part of Elena's wardrobe thrives in Caroline's clothing. Even Jeremy, her poor, precious little brother, starts to notice. She's always been able to hold a strong face for him – after all, she's put him through enough. She preserves that plastic smile only for him that now, whenever she sees him, it's a natural instinct. She can only keep that up so much longer.

"This house is so big," she thinks aloud one day, maybe a few weeks later, when skies are getting only slightly bluer and the fog is starting to only slightly clear. They're at the Salvatore mansion (the only piece he'sleft behind) and she's pouring through the Gilbert journal, perhaps for the fifth of sixth time. Her ancestor has always had a knack for writing. The words are so beautiful, so full of truth but so distant that they've returned to just a jumble, a series of letters she comprehends but cannot fathom, cannot take to heart. It's like deciphering song lyrics – you fall into them with pride only to come out confused and clueless. Damon is opposite her, his smile upturned, his face drawn into his glass. She's not actually sure what he's doing. She's never sure, she realizes – it's one of the most puzzling, most dashing, most wonderful things about him. She always has to play the guessing game, and boy does she enjoy it.

He doesn't reply, but the answer lingers between them, clear as the bags under her eyes are, clear as the sweat that trickles down his face because of restlessness. She sucks in a breath, unsure of whether or not she ought to talk, to rephrase that statement she has only just made.

She settles for silence instead.

(After all, he reads through her so well.)

This house is too big for the two of us.

Without Stefan.

He arches an eyebrow, as if he has just heard her head speaking. This silence between them – it's so comforting, yet inevitably wrong and just needs to be broken. There's so much to be said, so many phrases out there lingering and getting eaten up by the wind.

(Part of her knows, though, that they understand each other best when no words are spoken at all.)

She thinks that perhaps her relationship with Stefan has always been built on exchange of words, while with Damon it's reading between all that; it's like filling up the voids, settling on an understanding that words can't reach. She's not sure which one she likes more – it's obviously easier with Stefan, like taking a deep breath and letting everything out. With Damon it's more like sucking in and letting some of it get stuck inside.

(It's part of the reason why she can't open up to him.)

"Are you thankful, Damon?"

She doesn't know why she's asking him this. It's the first thing she's said in weeks that's directed athim, rather than around him. Perhaps she feels the need to push him, to twist him round a bit, just because she hasn't slept in forty-eight hours and her mind needs some refreshing. She wants to straighten him out, to get to the bottom, even though she's already sinking below it.

"For what?" he puts on an innocent face, his voice dripping with snark.

(She notices the drop of exasperation lining in his voice.)

"That you're alive, Damon. That Stefan has saved your life.That you owe him for eternity."

She sees him thinking this over, because that's exactly what vampires do. She knows she's the only one who can ask him this type of question, and get an honest reply.

(She doesn't want to use him for her advantage.)

It's perhaps a whole five minutes later that he replies. She's almost forgotten she's asked him it, almost forgotten their short exchange of meaningless words.

"Thankful isn't something I normally am, Elena."

Her eyes widen a little bit, and she looks at him, just drinks and drinks him in, until the blue of his eyes have seemingly lost color and the spark is used up. She should be angry at him, should be angry at his answer, his lack of enthusiasm, but she can't bring herself to it.

(These days, she thinks she can never be angry with him.)

"But areyou?" she says, and she's not sure whether that phrase should've been constructed 'but you are' or not, because either way, it would've made no difference.

"I almost died, Elena," he reminds her.

As if she'd forgotten.

In a weird, twisted, and completely Damon way, it's his way of saying yes.

But it's resurrecting a conversation that never needed bothering. Because every time she thinks of him on that deathbed, her heart sinks a little deeper - she's falling a little more.

She thinks maybe, just maybe,they finally need to talk.

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Millie x

Millie x