Because I could not stop for Death
AN: Rated T for mentions of suicide, though probably not the usual kind. By way of a disclaimer, I'm not making any money off of this, etc. The title is of course borrowed from the lovely Emily Dickinson poem of the same name.
Lastly, a standing ovation for CreepingMuse, who did a fantastic job beta-reading.
The first time I caught Elena looking at babies was a warm July evening just before her thirtieth birthday. She had a duffel bag full of pilfered blood bags in one hand and the other resting gently on the glass window of the hospital nursery. She was standing so close that her slow breath fogged the glass as she gazed, unblinking, at the tiny, oblivious creatures.
I felt a deep pull of sadness in my chest, the kind I felt every time Elena was denied some uniquely human experience. It wasn't that I'd really ever wanted a squalling brat of my very own, but I knew it was something she had always anticipated.
"Were you planning on grabbing a snack for the road?" I asked, hoping a witty remark might diffuse the situation. No sooner had the words left my mouth than I regretted just how callous they sounded.
"Damon!" She admonished, not at all amused. "No. I… Let's just go."
"Elena…" I said softly, expression softening. I went to her and curled an arm around her shoulders, but she shrugged it off.
"Don't. I don't want to talk about it."
She started striding towards the exit, and I followed several paces behind. "We can talk about it whenever you're ready," I said, so quietly that a human could never have heard me. Elena pretended not to, but I know she did.
Not long after that, I spied Elena researching nursing schools. She thought she was being sneaky so I didn't say anything because I didn't want to discourage her. One day while she was out, a letter arrived from Johns Hopkins. Despite the fact that she was keeping this from me, my chest swelled with pride as I unashamedly ripped open and read her acceptance letter.
She got home a few hours later and went straight for the pile of mail strewn haphazardly on the coffee table. Her face fell as she found her search fruitless.
"Looking for this?" I asked, leaning casually against the doorframe, opened letter in my hand.
Her eyes widened and she rushed me with her vampire speed and snatched the letter out of my hand. "You opened my mail?" she snapped, distressed.
"I forgot how that's considered socially unacceptable… just like you forgot to tell me that you were, oh, I don't know, applying for nursing school in Baltimore?"
Elena sucked in a shaky breath and her anger faltered. "Look, I'm sorry Damon. I just… wanted to see if I could get in. It's a stupid idea anyway."
She looked so crestfallen that I went to her and trailed my fingers softly down the side of her cheek. "Hey, hey. It's not stupid. I mean, it might be tough working in an all-you-can-eat buffet without doing a little grazing, but if anyone can do it, it's you, Elena."
She rolled her eyes a little at my corny joke but then became serious. "We can't stay in Mystic Falls much longer, Damon." It was a subject I'd been trying to broach with little success, but now it seemed she couldn't put it off any longer. Questions about Elena's miraculous skincare routine were becoming more and more frequent.
"We'll be back someday," I told her, without adding my internal addendum of 'when everyone you know here is dead.'
"Baltimore, then?"
"Anywhere," I replied, and she finally smiled as I kissed her gently.
In Baltimore Elena threw herself single-mindedly into school. She aced her classes and joined as many extracurricular activities and societies as she could possibly fit into her schedule. She headed the nursing students' society, ran track, and spent so much time studying I'd hardly seen her in weeks.
Elena seemed to resent the fact that I wasn't as ambitious. After what must have been a particularly harrowing day, she walked in, dumped her bag on the couch next to me and gave me a withering look. "What?" I sighed redundantly, completely sure she would enlighten me in her own time.
"How can you just sit at home all day and do nothing?"
"I don't do nothing," I retorted, feigning hurt. "I clean the house and do the hunter-gathering! I am the model house-husband." I didn't feel like explaining to her how I'd been alive almost 200 years and I'd had enough adventure for the foreseeable future. I was truly content to relax and enjoy spending quiet moments with her, though I wondered if her busy schedule was an attempt to distract herself from the new and unsettling notion of a potentially immortal life.
She rolled her eyes and plopped down on the couch next to me, a yawn overtaking her features. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm just tired." She nestled into the crook of my arm and a wave of tenderness overtook me.
"You know, Elena, you're going to live forever. You can slow down and enjoy it a little."
I heard her quiet sigh. "I love you, Damon, but forever sounds exhausting."
The second time I caught Elena looking wistfully at a baby was when she held her own brand new baby nephew in her arms.
Bonnie was sleeping peacefully in her hospital bed while Jeremy had gone off to forage for coffee despite the late hour.
Elena gently stroked the baby's soft cheek and rocked it gently as it gurgled quietly in her arms. "Do you want to hold him, Damon?" she asked softly.
"Nooo. No no no," I whispered, throwing up my hands. I don't do small and helpless and fragile. But Elena was already up out of her seat and pressing the squirming bundle into my chest.
"Hey, it's ok, you can do it," she assured me, arranging one of my hands to support the baby. She smiled indulgently and rubbed slow circles on my back.
"I guess they're pretty cute when they aren't pooping and screaming," I conceded.
"He's going to be doing a lot of that too," she laughed, but it trailed off into a small hiccough. I turned to her only to see shiny tears in her eyes, threatening to fall.
I shifted the baby into one arm and wrapped the other protectively around her. "We can have one, if you want. I mean, adopt one, or something."
Elena smiled sadly and shook her head. "I- I've thought about it Damon. It wouldn't be fair to a child to have to get uprooted every few years, to be in constant supernatural danger. This one," she sniffed and hastily wiped her eyes, "is half warlock and half vampire hunter, so I think he'll be able to take care of himself."
I nodded in silent agreement, simultaneously relieved and saddened by Elena's revelation. "We can get a puppy if you want. We'll just keep it away from Stefan when he comes around for Christmas dinner."
Elena laughed a little, but the mirth didn't quite reach her eyes. "Alright," she agreed.
Almost thirty years and four towns later, I convinced Elena to quit her job at the hospital to go see the world with me. She left the (latest) dog with Jeremy and Bonnie, happy to look after him now their children were gone. Elena looked back wistfully at the middle-aged couple as we stepped off of Jeremy's porch and into the car.
Those were truly the happiest years of my life so far. We drove for endless hours and saw the continent in its entirety. When we ran out of road, we boarded a plane and flew east and combed the world. Sometimes we stayed in one place only for a few days, sometimes for months if it pleased us. Elena sent dozens of postcards to Jeremy and Caroline and everyone she'd ever known and loved. She even sent a few to Stefan, who met us every few years for lunch or a glass of wine but never stayed long.
Elena radiated happiness as she discovered what the world had to offer. She met every experience with a pure, joyous delight that I could never muster but was content to experience through her. She studied art history in Paris and dragged me to the to the Met and then the Louvre and the Hermitage. She always learned enough of the local language to get around despite my stubborn insistence on using English, partly because I was lazy and partly because a two-hundred year old vampire should probably know French better than I do.
We got to Sicily and stayed at the Salvatore family estate and swam and made unhurried love every day. There, Elena graduated from studying paintings to creating them. She appropriated a room for her canvases and supplies and spent hours coaxing colours onto the bright white cotton.
Then one day the inevitable happened. Jeremy, then in his nineties, had a stroke and passed away. We flew back to Virginia as quickly as possible. At the funeral, Elena wore a dark veil and practically snarled at anyone who tries to approach her or make small talk. Bonnie and Elena clasped each others' hands as prayers were said and I couldn't help but notice the stark difference in their profiles: Elena, perpetually strong and ethereally beautiful, and Bonnie, now a shrunken grandmother, trembling as her husband was lowered into the ground. Somewhere, another potential vampire hunter was called.
Bonnie hosted a small reception afterward where I helped myself to crystal glasses full of bourbon. Elena disappeared from my side at some point and didn't reappear, so I went in search of her. I knocked on the closed bathroom door and when no one answered, I called out, "Elena?"
She didn't answer, but I had an inkling that she was there. I tried the doorknob, and surprisingly, it wasn't locked. Tentatively, I pushed the door open and slipped inside as soon as I caught a glimpse of long chestnut hair.
Elena was transfixed by her own image in the mirror, veil dangling perilously off the edge of the sink. One of her hands gently probed the skin on her forehead. Her hair was in curls and for a moment, her uncharacteristic display of vanity reminded me of Katherine.
"What are you doing?" I asked cautiously, reluctant to provoke an outburst of emotion.
"I look beautiful," she murmured, continuing her exploration of her face.
I quirked an eyebrow, thoroughly confused, and wondered just how much she'd had to drink. "Yes, you do. You're flawless."
"That's the problem!" she snapped at me.
"What?" I asked, dumbfounded, wondering what bizarre universe I'd stumbled into. Women.
"I'm almost a hundred years old. I should have wrinkles and age spots and white hair, and instead I'm… flawless," she echoed, disdainfully.
I sighed and felt that familiar pang of sadness. "Elena, people you love are going to die. It's always going to be that way. You'll outlive almost everyone you've ever known. I know," I pleaded. "It's not nice or fair and it's probably not natural, but we don't ever have to forget those people. We have an eternity to remember them."
Elena sniffed and nodded, considering my words. "But you'll never leave me," she stated, matter-of-factly.
"No," I agreed, pressing a soft kiss to her temple. "I won't."
On Elena's 100th birthday, I left a gift for her on the nightstand and pretended to read my book while my stomach churned nervously. Finally she rolled over, sleepily groping for some water, and her hand collided with the small velvet bag. "Damon!" she scolded me sleepily. "I told you no presents."
"Don't care," I said, putting down my book. "Open it."
She rolled her eyes but reached into the tissue paper, gasping as she retrieved the small velvet box. "Damon…" she warned.
"Fine, fine," I said, deliberately ignoring the meaning of her warning, "I'll do it properly." I got out of bed and moved around to her side, dropping to one knee next to her. Her hands flew up to her mouth and then she froze in shock, barely breathing.
"Is that my mother's wedding ring? How did you even get that?" she choked out.
"Jeremy gave me the heads up about the Gilbert family safe deposit box a few years ago. He wanted me to make an honest woman out of you." We had, of course, talked about marriage, but both agreed that it seemed superfluous and unnecessary. "I figured an eighty-year courtship was long enough. Just in case there was any doubt, I love you, Elena Gilbert, and I hope you'll let me marry you, even if it doesn't change anything. We don't even have to have a wedding, or, we can if you want-"
"Damon," she interrupted my babbling. I looked up and saw tears are flowing freely down her cheeks as she nodded vigorously. "There was never any doubt," she managed, extending her trembling left hand.
I surged up from my place on the floor and pressed a relieved kiss to her mouth. I felt the cool metal of the ring as she snaked a hand up the back of my neck and pulled me back down into the pillows.
Crystal shattered against the hearth and rained into the fire. Somewhere, far away, Elena was pleading with me to please Damon calm down. For once her pleas fell on deaf ears. Clutched tightly in my hand was a letter penned in Stefan's elegant script.
Dear Damon and Elena,
I'm writing to you to say goodbye. I have, beyond a shadow of a doubt, wrung everything that there is to be had from this life and now find myself wanting to move on. Despite its hardships my life has been a good one: I have known joy, satisfaction, and peace. I have also known great love, chiefly from the two of you. I know I have at times hurt and disappointed you both, but I hope you can forgive me.
Damon: I know we haven't always seen eye to eye and that we've probably spent more time hating each other than not. Despite all this, you've always been my brother and I've never been able to hold a grudge against you for long. I know I'm a coward for not being able to say this to your face, but I love you and I'm proud of the man you've become.
Elena: Knowing you has been the greatest privilege of my life. That you are safe and happy means more to me than anything that could have been. I would do it all again if it meant I could spend even one moment in your light. As always, I love you. Take care of my brother and never let him forget who's in charge.
You may not understand now, but I hope that you will in time.
Love each other always as I have loved you,
Stefan
P.S. Don't try to find or stop me - by the time you read this letter, I'll be gone.
I crumpled the paper in my hand with an agonized cry but I couldn't bring myself to let it burn. "Why are you not even upset about this?" I turned and shouted raggedly at Elena, eyes blazing with anger and hurt.
Slow tears rolled down her cheeks. "Of course I'm upset!" she yelled back at me. "But I understand why," she said, voice much softer, as if she was afraid I'd hear her.
My fist collided painfully with the mantle. I didn't understand, not then.
The last time I saw Elena with a baby is the day that she brought home Grace. We were living, once again, in Mystic Falls, where we returned as often as local memory allowed.
"Elena," I said cautiously, "Did you steal that baby?" In truth, I was only surprised it hadn't happened sooner.
Elena tutted at me and clutched the squirming eighteen month-old more tightly to her chest. "Her mother was a drug addict who died of an overdose today. The baby would have gone into foster care; she had no one. But Damon," she breathed, "Look at her nose, and her hair, and her eyes."
I had no idea what Elena was on about but she sounded so insistent that I took a few steps towards them anyway. Elena extricated the shy toddler from her hair and turned the little girl to face me.
Staring back at me, unmistakably, was a pair of eyes that I know better than the back of my hand. Every tiny fleck in the iris, the shade of brown, identical.
Elena's eyes. Katherine's eyes, too. "Do you think-" I breathe, hardly able to utter the rest.
"A Petrova doppelganger, Damon. It has to be."
"I thought the Petrova line ended with you," I commented, confused.
Elena shrugged. "Jeremy had children, and we were blood relations. Who knows? It doesn't matter – just look at her!" I nodded and hesitantly reached out to touch the baby's soft hair. It shook its pudgy little fists at me, seemingly pleased.
"I know it's selfish Damon, but I can't let her go. We have to protect her. We'll make it work, somehow. We have to."
I nodded mutely, because I never could say no to any of the Petrova women, and I had a feeling the latest tiny incarnation would be no different.
Grace grew up in the blink of an eye, and to us it was more than just an expression.
Sometimes I was a great father, and a lot of the time I was a crappy one. I had no idea how to discipline her, and when she was a teenager I threatened and even compelled some of her less savory boyfriends. When she was old enough for us to the vampire talk, she thought it was enormously cool and told us she wanted to be a vampire too. Terrified by this revelation, I was completely prepared to compel that particular desire out of her. Fortunately, Elena's cooler head prevailed. She sat Grace down and told her our very long story. Grace didn't understand right away but in time she seemed to abandon the entire notion. We moved four times before Grace went to college, but she didn't seem to mind because she was outgoing like her mother and made friends easily.
It was of course uncanny how much she looked like Elena, though Grace's rebellious fashion sense made it impossible to confuse the two. For a few perilous moments when Grace hovered around Elena's biological age, I was afraid she would just stop and be trapped in the cage of perpetual youth that Elena seemed to so despise. I was never so relieved as when Grace called her mother crying because she'd sprouted her first grey hair and Elena laughed gently and told her it was a blessing.
Elena never tried to live vicariously through our daughter but still I think it was a kind of redemption for her to see her child have the human life she was denied. In a way, it was for me, too.
At Grace's funeral, almost a hundred short years later, we cried and raged and feel deep, indescribable sorrow. Afterward, Elena laid against my chest and silently soaked my shirt with hot tears.
"I'm tired, Damon," she told me, and I knew she wasn't just referring to the day's events. We had truly experienced everything the world had to give us. We had explored its lands and peoples. We had loved and lost. We had raised a family. We had spent six hundred years loving each other, and that alone made up for our hardships. If Elena wanted to spend another millennium on Earth with me I would do so because there would always be something in the world for me if she were in it. But now, she was tired, and I would follow her anywhere.
I glanced at Stefan's photo on the mantelpiece and finally understood.
"Damon," Elena says, not long after. "Have a glass of wine with me." She takes my hand and mutely I follow her out of house and towards our little slice of the Sicilian coast.
We sit together in the sand, Elena tucked gently in front of me, and I take a sip of my wine. "I thought we were saving this for a special occasion," I say.
"It's been so cloudy lately. I hope the sun comes up today," she muses, and I nod in silent understanding.
For a long time we sit in silence and do nothing but let the cool breeze slide past and the surf lap at our toes.
"Maybe we'll see Stefan again," I murmur.
"And Jeremy. And Grace," she adds.
As the sky starts to lighten, I take Elena's hand in mine and gently pull off her daylight ring, and then my own. She turns and gives me the most beautiful, radiant smile I've ever seen.
We tell each other of our love and I hold her to me tightly as the red sun tips over the horizon.