Author's note: I own none of these characters. I am simply borrowing them for my own purposes. Enjoy. And I won't bite you for giving feedback... Just so you know :)

The rain pelted her face as she ran, obscuring her vision. The sound of the rain pouring down around her combined with the pounding of her own feet on the pavement and her audible, racing heartbeat created an ominous soundtrack for her desperate search. Her breathing was becoming increasingly ragged, and her legs felt heavy beneath her.

A dangerous thought entered her mind- she didn't know how much longer she could keep running; her body had reached ints physical breaking point. But as soon as the thought came into her mind, she pushed it back out again. Stopping wasn't an option, because she knew that when she stopped, it would be over. She would lose him. Forever.

The thought of this possibility brought tears to her eyes, but she fought them back forcefully. Between the rain and the inky darkness of the night, her vision had more than enough to contend with already. She choked back a sob and screamed his name into the all too empty blackness for the thousandth time that night.

"DAMON!" Her voice cracked and she shouted his name again and again, willing him, wherever he was, to hear her. She prayed, more than she had ever prayed for anything before, for some sign that there was still a glimmer of hope, the slightest chance that the most important person in her world was not lost and gone forever.

She had been running for hours in what she could only hope was the right direction. Stefan had told her everything he could to try and put her on the right path. He did, after all, know Klaus better than anyone. Or at least anyone Elena trusted. The fear had been itching at the back of her mind that Elijah or Rebekah would have been able to help her, give her more reliable information about where to look. But the question hadn't been whether they could give her that information; it was whether they even would. But it was too late to wonder about that now. She had come so far that it was useless to think about other possible paths anymore.

The rain was letting up now. This brought Elena a minuscule amount of relief, since it was one less obstacle she had to overcome. Within 10 minutes, the rain had stopped altogether. The absence of the rain allowed Elena to take in her surroundings more fully than she had before. The pavement of the road carved a winding path through the woods. These woods, which were set back from the road by only a matter of feet, were thin enough to see a good distance into them, and yet dense enough to hide what she was so desperately looking for. She slowed her pace to a jog, trying to look more closely into the woods around her, while also attempting to regain her breath, which was now coming in short, sharp spurts.

She felt her cell phone vibrate in her pocket. She was soaked to the bone, so the fact that her phone was still functioning struck her as miraculous. She slowed to a walk as she pulled it out and answered it after seeing the caller's identity.

"Caroline," she said through still ragged breathing.

"Elena! Any news? Where are you? Are you alright? Have you found him? Have you heard from Stefan? Or Katherine? Or anyone?" Elena didn't know if it was the lack of air in her lungs or all of her best friend's panicked questions, but she felt her head spinning and thought her knees were going to give out beneath her. But she willed herself to keep walking. There was worry in Caroline's voice that sent a fresh wave of grief washing over Elena. There was also an edge of desperation that told Elena unmistakably that even Caroline, the eternal optimist, was quickly giving up hope. Elena was, after all, trying to do the impossible.

The gravity of the situation hit her for the first time and Elena crumpled to the ground, her body wracked by violent sobs. Yet again she struggled for breath, and for the first time that night it had nothing to do with the physical strain of running. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt why she couldn't breathe: her world was quickly crumbling around her. And here she was, running blindly through the middle of nowhere toward a destination that she didn't know in order to try and keep it from completely crashing to the ground. It terrified her that she was so close to losing everything, but it terrified her even more that her everything was so wrapped up into one person. One arrogant, beautiful, impulsive, loving, reckless, witty, protective, sarcastic, sometimes unbearable, perfect person. And now her perfect person, her everything, was god only knows where in god only knows what condition. Even if, by some miracle, she found him, how did she even know that he wouldn't be past the point of saving? Everything just felt so hopeless.

"Elena? Are you there? Are you alright? Where are you? I'm coming to find you." Caroline's voice snapped Elena out of her thoughts. She fought to control her breathing enough to speak.

"I lost him, Care. What's the point? He could be anywhere. I was so stupid to think I could find him. And now I've lost him forever and I don't know what to do," Elena choked out through her sobs.

"Elena. Listen to me. Try to breathe. Where are you?" The panic in Caroline's voice was even more evident now. Elena looks up to try and get some sense of her location. She looked around and could find no sign of where exactly she had ended up. All she saw was the road, the trees, and the seemingly infinite darkness. She couldn't even remember the last time she had passed a road sign that would give her some indication of where she was.

And then she saw it. A burst of color at the edge of the dark woods, so out of place in these otherwise colorless surroundings. It had no reason to be there, other than someone putting it there. She rose unsteadily, her legs screaming in resistance against supporting her. She walked slowly to the strange spot at the edge of the woods. She bent to touch the soft purplish blue flowers and knew instantly what they meant. She finally realized that Caroline was practically screaming her name on the other end of the phone.

"Vervain," Elena said, but it came out as barely more than a whisper.

"What?"

"Vervain," she repeated with more confidence. "There's vervain here. In the middle of nowhere. Caroline it must mean something. I must be close. I have to go." She vaguely registered Caroline frantically asking what sounded like a million questions before she ended the call and slipped her phone back into her pocket.

She straightened up and looked intently into the woods before her. She didn't know how she hadn't noticed it before. Almost the entire forest floor was covered in vervain flowers. Areas the size of football fields with only small, random patches of vervain-free ground poking through to separate them. Her heart was racing again, and she took off running into the woods. Suddenly, she felt as if she had a fresh pair of legs, and her breath came easily. With no idea whether it was adrenaline or a newfound glimmer of hope propelling her forward, she ran deeper and deeper into the woods, frantically scanning every inch she could see as she ran.

She kept as straight of a path as possible as she carved her way through the vervain-filled woods. What struck her about the vervain "fields" was that they weren't random patches of the flower that grew by chance; they were carefully plotted, as if someone else had left them as a reminder of how to find their way back to a place Elena hoped wouldn't be far away. The real question was what she would find when she arrived there. She tried to ignore the fact that she could be following what seemed like an obvious sign and still not find him at the end of it all.

The trees were becoming more and more dense, but luckily this made the vervain stand out even more. The patches themselves were getting smaller and farther apart, and at several points she had to slow down and retrace her steps to make sure that she hadn't deviated from the vervain-guided path. The darkness had been fading quickly and she could see the faint glow of a sunrise through the dense trees. She put her hand in her pocket to ensure the safety of the item that was becoming more important by the minute. She breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the cold, ornately carved metal and stone of Damon's ring. She pulled it out and enclosed her fist around it tightly, not willing to take any risks.

She pressed on, racing toward the ever-rising sun, calling his name as she ran. All of a sudden, she burst through the trees and into a small clearing of no more than 10 feet in diameter. The flowers that had marked her path into the woods covered almost the entire clearing.

For the first time, it crossed Elena's mind that maybe the flowers that had helped her find this place served a far more malicious purpose than simply marking a path. It became overwhelmingly obvious to her that they were in place to keep someone in. Or out. No vampire could ever get through the patches of vervain unharmed. They would either be trapped in this place, or unable to get to it.

The clearing was empty, but possessed signs of not having been so for long. The muddy ground and trampled flowers showed heavy footprints, and there was a pile of waterlogged sticks that had clearly been a fire in the recent past. Elena looked around frantically, wondering where to go from here. Besides for the flowers that filled the small clearing, and the ones in the direction from which she had just come, she saw no more patches of vervain to lead her on further into the woods. This must have been the place where the flowers had been leading. But its emptiness stripped her off the last bits of hope to which she had been clinging for dear life.

She was overwhelmed by the feeling of total loss, and she sunk to her knees on the cold, muddy ground. It really was over. She had lost him forever. Everything was her fault, and she would never be able to take it back or tell him how much she loved him. She could only pray that he knew. That he was her world and everything she had done that led them to this point was out of love for him. She hoped he knew how sorry she was, for everything she had ever done and put him through.

She knelt on the ground, sinking into the mud, and tried to wrap her mind around the fact that she would never see him again, that from now on her world would be one without Damon Salvatore in it. She didn't know how to live in a world like that. She was so angry with herself for letting it come to this. She let out a scream of anger, desperation, and anguish. She opened her still clenched fist to look at Damon's ring. The physical reminder of him made her head spin, and she flung the ring as far as she could into the trees before her.

Immediately after doing so, she was filled with regret. The one physical thing that still connected her to him, and she had just thrown it away. She rose and entered the densely treed area, scanning the ground carefully for the ring, cursing herself all the while for being so impulsive. She finally found the ring about 20 feet into the woods, and she wiped it on her shirt before slipping it carefully back into her pocket. She scanned the woods trying to figure out what to do, where to go, how to move on from this. If she even could move on from this.

And then she saw him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the figure of a man lying on his stomach. Elena's heart seemed to burst out of chest and pull her through space, faster than she ever thought she could move, toward him. Within a matter of seconds she had closed the 50 some yards between them and was kneeling beside the man. She braced herself before placing a hand on his shoulder and rolling him gently over onto his back.

She was face to face with Damon Salvatore. His eyes were closed and his mouth hung slightly ajar. His body was limp and still carried the scars of vervain burns. She didn't know yet exactly what condition he was in, but he was in front of her. By some miracle, she had found him. She quickly pulled his ring from her pocket and slipped it on his hand, not wanting to take any chances with sun continuing to penetrate the dense trees more and more.

Elena ran her hands over Damon's face and body, trying to determine how much damage had been done. She didn't know what to do next. In her frantic search for him, she had never actually stopped to think of what she would do in the unlikely event that she actually found him. She was too overwhelmed with both relief and lingering terror to figure out what her next move should be. She collapsed forward, her head on Damon's chest, hugging him for dear life, trying with all of her might to discover the next step in all of this.

She suddenly realized that something didn't feel right. The eerie quiet had been penetrated by a sound that was both extremely familiar and very out of place. She straightened up and listened intently, but heard nothing. Only the sound of a few birds far off in the distance signaling the arrival of morning. And her own heartbeat. But her heartbeat was no longer the only one. She looked around anxiously, wondering how someone could be close enough that she could hear their heartbeat but not see them.

Until it hit her. It seemed impossible, but there was no other possible explanation. She slowly bent forward until her head was on Damon's chest again. It was faint and irregular, but it was unmistakeable.

The second heartbeat belonged to Damon.

Alrighty. First chapter! Cliffhanger! Gasp. Feedback/reviews are HIGHLY encouraged, and incredibly helpful. Things may seem confusing. Everything will be explained. Don't get something? Ask. If I don't flat out answer a question, it's because it will be answered in an upcoming chapter. Stay tuned! The more feedback I get, the faster I'll be motivated to continue :)

xoxo