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"Was it worth it?"
She looks over at Stefan, his beautiful figure silhouetted against the glorious sunset of a summer evening in Paris, the setting sun making a blaze of his bronze hair. He's affected a careless stance, his hands clasped lightly behind his back as he looks down at the city before him; his voice is nonchalant, as if he doesn't much care either way what her answer is. Her throat aches at the sight, because she knows that he does care, because it's Stefan and he will always care, about his brother, about his friends, about strangers drowning in a care miles away. He cares about everything, about everyone, even knowing from centuries of experience that it's inviting hurt and pain and grief - he cares despite it all, despite himself, just like she does, and it's what makes him vulnerable and so, so beautiful.
She moves closer until she's standing beside him, reaches over to lace her fingers through his. His hands are worn and calloused, the palms criss-crossed with faint scars that shine silver in the fading light. There's a story behind every scar; some of them she's seen unfold before her eyes, scars that are twin to those that mar her own skin, some of them he's whispered to her while she kissed them late at night, appreciating each scar, each story that helped mould the man that he is, the man that she's fallen in love with and stayed in love with for so long.
He leans down and kisses her, his lips feather-light against hers, and she marvels at how after countless kisses, countless embraces and touches and whispered endearments, the softest brush of his lips can still send thrills and shivers winging through her body. She wants the kiss to last forever - she always does - but he pulls away almost immediately, his face somber.
"This," he says quietly. "Was this worth it?"
His hand is still tucked safely in hers, and she squeezes it as she looks earnestly into his face. "I love you, Stefan. You were my first love. My last, too," she adds, striving for some levity. "I fell for you when I was a girl who had no idea what love really means, what it entails, the price that it carries. I learned what love really means because I love you, I learned all that it entails, good and bad, because I love you, I paid its price, because I love you. And through it all, I never stopped loving you, never stopped being in love with you."
He smiles down at her, a crooked smile that only accentuates the sadness in his eyes, and she feels the certainty flash through her that he's seen Katherine again. She always shows up from time to time, always sees Stefan when he's alone, always tries to break him in the only way she knows how: by making him doubt his own value and worth. Last time she had brought up Damon, this time it seems that she's picked Elena. Elena hates Katherine in that moment, for stabbing at Stefan where he's most vulnerable, for picking the one subject that she's scared she can't articulate clearly enough to make him believe her.
He touches her cheek, drawing her attention back to him. "I know you love me," he says slowly, as if savouring the truth of those words. "But is it enough? Is it worth losing the others you loved?"
She closes her eyes as the tears burn against her eyelids, seeing those cherished, beloved, lost faces in her mind. She sees her brother's face, the way it changed through the years as he aged, remembers the way he would press his cheek against hers as they looked into the mirror together, her face youthful and beautiful and unchanging beside his. She remembers kneeling at his bedside and kissing the papery skin of his cheek, struggling not to cry as he wheezed and forced out through quivering lips, You take care of my sister, Stefan, or you'll have me to answer to. She visits his grave each year, and every time there will be fresh flowers already laid there, proof of how her brother is remembered and missed and loved.
She sees Matt's face, remembers rushing into his hospital room and ignoring the disdainful look his wife shoots her, remembers pretending not to notice the way his children and grandchildren stare at her as if she's a monster, remembers the way a twinkle reappeared in those faded blue eyes as he beckoned for her to lean in, remembers the laughter in his voice as he breathed, You're as beautiful as you were the day I first fell for you, do you remember that? Stay this beautiful forever.
Her friends used to think she was being so brave, so noble and stubbornly, maddeningly selfless in her desire to sacrifice herself to protect them, to die for them. Only Stefan knew the truth, only he knew, as she did, that dying and letting those who love you grieve and mourn and hurt over your absence is the most selfish thing to do of all. Only Stefan knew, and only Stefan let her be selfish, because he loved her too much to refuse.
He traces a finger down the ridge of her spine now, and she shivers despite herself. "Worth everyone you hurt?" he asks.
The words come to her like an age-old melody, I love him, Damon, floating back into her mind. She remembers how desperately he clutched her that one night after she turned, the smell of wine heavy in the air between them as he searched her eyes with his wild blue ones, remembers but you remember now, I was first, you met me first, it's supposed to be me, me, remembers I love him, Damon, it's always going to be Stefan, he's always going to be first.
She looks back up at Stefan. "Love isn't supposed to be worth it or not worth it," she says softly. "Love just is. It's grand and it's simple and it's fiery and burning hot and it's sweet and gentle and it's fast and tumbling head-over-heels and it's slow kisses in front of a fire. It's epic and it's spanning centuries and millennia and it's passion and it's fever and it's tender and quiet and it hurts and it soothes and it's terrible and it's so beautiful that it aches. It's crazy, it's madness, it's utter madness, and it's the only thing that keeps us sane. It's indescribable and it's everything in the world and it's epic, and Stefan, it's - "
"It's us," he finishes for them both, and there's a light now in those beautiful green eyes. "It's what we are and what we have."
"I don't love you in a way that can be measured, that can be stopped. I don't really think about it, I mean, I don't question it, because it's as natural as breathing, as falling asleep," she says hurriedly, because it's important that he understand, he has to understand, has to know that he never needs to question it. "I love you like the tide loves the moon, it's inexplicable and unquestioning and it's forever, Stefan, I know it is."
This might be the real reason she chose Stefan in the end, although she often thinks that there was no choice, that it had to be Stefan. Damon made her blood sing, he burned and blazed like fire and she was drawn to him like a moth to flame, knowing even as she stepped closer that the story would end with one of them - both of them - being burnt. They had passion and fireworks and sparks; he infuriated her and challenged her and spun her round and round inside her own heart until she was dizzy and lost, until she just wanted the world to stop spinning, until he was all that she could see.
The world always stopped spinning eventually, and when it did, she was drawn, inexorably, continuously, forever, back to Stefan. She did love Damon, once upon a time, and perhaps in a world where vampires did not exist, where she had not fallen in love with Stefan first, where Stefan did not exit at all, perhaps there she and Damon could have worked. But vampires did exist, and Stefan did exist, and she had fallen in love with Stefan first. And she thinks maybe this is what soulmate means, that you are perfect for each other and that circumstances work out for you and there are no what ifs in your love story.
Damon's love was exciting and wild and as heady as champagne, but it was also volatile, unpredictable, and violent as a thunderstorm. Stefan's love is different: it's constant and pure and easy, not in that it lacks passion or fervour, not in that she doesn't have to fight for him and their love, but in that she can know and trust that, even though they will fight and hurt and crumble before finding their way back to each other, even though he can and has hurt her worse than anyone else in the world, she can trust in his love, trust that they will find their way back to each other.
Loving Stefan is slow and sweet and rich as coffee, it makes her want to slow down and savour each moment. Their passion doesn't come from a pendulum swinging madly between the extremes of love and hate; there will always be love between them. It comes from the way he looks at her when he thinks she's preoccupied, it comes from the way he breathes her name like it's a miracle, it comes from the way the two of them fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, all that the other needs to be whole and complete. She never has to struggle for his love, it's always there for her to take, as freely given as her love for him.
The night that Stefan kissed her in her bedroom, whispering in case there is no later before striding out the door, was also the night when she finally decided between the brothers. She made her choice then, as she stood there with the imprint of his lips on her mouth and her heart, as she tried to calm her racing heart, as the blood pounded in her ears like thunder, and she couldn't think anything except no, no, no, there has to be, there just hasto be. She realized then that Damon might change the way she looks at life, but Stefan is the one who makes her life worth living.
When she and Matt got into a car accident, and Stefan saved Matt first instead of her because she asked him to, she knew with absolute certainty that he was the one for her, he was her epic love. Because Romeo will die for Juliet and Paris will set his city ablaze for Helen, but she has Stefan Salvatore and he will give up all that he's ever sacrificed trying to keep her safe, he will give up his brother's love, because Damon will never forgive this, he will give her up, all at her request. That's the greatest possible proof of his love. He will give it all up because she asks it of him. Damon loves her enough to save her from herself, but Stefan loves her enough to let her save the ones that she loves, even though he knows it will end in broken hearts and tears and red-hot rage and eternal regret.
When she was transitioning as a new vampire and everything got too much, blood and pain and thirst pounding away at her until she couldn't take it anymore and turned it off, everyone begged her to turn her emotions back on. Caroline cried and brought old memorabilia, pleading for her to remember their friendship. Bonnie yelled at her and shook her hard by the shoulders, demanding that she do the right thing. Jeremy pleaded, asking his sister to come back with tears in his eyes. Damon raged and kissed her and wept, a storm breaking before her dispassionate eyes. Stefan came in with a rueful smile, pressed a kiss to her temple, and whispered, you can turn your emotions off, maybe you can turn your love off, but you can't turn off my love for you, not now, not ever. It was then that she realized that although she would gladly die for either Salvator brother, for any of her friends, Stefan was the only one for whom she would live.
She looks back over at Stefan, and he's watching her with a quizzical, hesitant look on his face. She leans her and presses her lips against his, closing her eyes as she melds her body against his, letting herself drown in him, knowing that his is a love that will allow her to resurface when she chooses.
"I love you, Stefan," she says again. When she was a child, she and Jeremy used to repeat the same word over and over - toast, toast, toast, toast, toast - until it seemed meaningless and alien, until it no longer seemed to represent the square object on their plates. But no matter how many times she says those three words to him, regardless of whether they're curled up in her bed in Mystic Falls or standing atop the Eiffel Tower two hundred years later, the words still ring true and bright.
"I can't think about other lives, about what ifs or what might have beens," she tells him, taking his hands between hers and stroking them as she speaks. "I can only think about this life, about here and now, about you and me in this moment, but you changed my life irrevocably when you entered it, and now we'll never know what might have happened had that not happened. We'll never know who would have died, who would have lived and loved, what would have happened instead. All I know is that as soon as you walked into my life, I was bound to love you, love you, Stefan, then, now, and forever."
She locks her eyes with his. "Love can't be worth it, or not worth it, it just is. But I did have a choice. I couldn't choose not to love you, but I could have chosen to walk away. I didn't, Stefan, not when you got out of the car that night I told you I love you for the first time, not when you pushed me towards Damon because you thought I deserved better than you, not when you told me maybe it would be better if I went with Caroline and Bonnie and left you behind. I chose you, Stefan, every time."
And then, because she's forcing herself to be honest, she looks down at her hands, intertwined with his, and says, "I don't know if it's worth it, and probably never will, because there are so many what ifs, so many tangents to our story. But I do know that every time I was given a choice, or even when I was given no choice at all, I chose you. I'll always choose you, Stefan." She realizes then that he hasn't spoken in a long time, takes a breath. "Is that enough?"
Then his hand is on her chin and he's guiding her face upwards so that she can look into his eyes, and he's smiling, slow and sweet as Southern molasses. He pulls her into his arms, wrapping his arms securely around her waist. "It's more than enough, Elena," he whispers into her hair. He kisses her, long and hard, and she kisses him back, winding her arms around his neck, and it's like kissing the sun, the way his warmth envelopes her in a dizzying, dazzling display of colour and light.
"Are you sure?" she asks, because he's given up so much to be with her, because she has to be sure that he's sure.
She feels him smile against her lips. "It hasn't always been easy," he admits, threading a hand through her hair, "but it's always been more than enough. It's always been all that I wanted or dared to dream of."
Their lips meet again, and she thinks to herself, this is the rest of my life.
Thinks, this is forever, and smiles.