title: we're strangers in this land
summary: they stood there, miles apart, aching to be together, separated by guilt.
notes: awkward, half-family-like dinner and some mushy ramblings. i really can't get enough of these two and their trying position they've found themselves in.
.
.
.
She smiled at him across the table, her and him and Alaric. Damon tilted his head, cast a glance at the other man and saw his eyes focused on his food. He then looked back at Elena, eyes questioning, for this was an awkward dinner with little to say because, well, Jeremy's wasn't there and someone had just died and Alaric was starting to question him and Elena a little too much.
But she just wiped away her smile as quickly as it had came, ducking her head to take a bite of dinner. He kept his eyes on her out of his peripheral vision, unsure of where this was going.
"Well, I'm done here," Alaric said finally after the strung-out silence and the questioning glances Damon kept shooting Elena. He avoided eye contact with either of them, took his plate away, and disappeared. Clearing her throat, Elena placed her fork down, and looked up at Damon.
"That was amusing," he quipped quietly, still unsure of the grounds on which Elena had decided to tread. She merely shrugged, her eyes trailing to the window, to the candle, to her plate, and then to him. She shook her head again, opened her mouth, and closed it.
"All this is just so surreal," she said. "I mean, I know Jeremy wasn't around for family stuff much before he left, what with Tyler and what not, but… he's not here and you are, and I just don't know what to think about anything anymore."
"So don't," Damon replied, as if it was the most logical answer, like he did it all the time. But Elena seemed doubtful. "The more you question yourself and everything, the faster you'll start to lose what was never there."
And she stared at him, waiting until he clarified the last sentence, because it sounded like he was speaking from experience.
But he didn't clarify it. He stood up, taking his plate and hers and placing them by the sink.
"There is no black and white anymore, Elena," he said without facing her, and somehow that made it all the harder to hear.
"But it's not fair," she argued back, but even that made tears prick in her eyes, because she was going down a road she didn't want to. "Everything tells me not to be happy because of what has happened, but sometimes I just find myself smiling! Like tonight. And then I think of Jeremy and Klaus and…" She avoided the name with a wave of her hand. "And I feel guilty. I feel like a bad person."
Damon just shook his head and gave her a pained smirk.
"You seemed to have forgotten who you're talking to."
And she did that thing again, her mouth opening and closing, and lapsed into silence.
"Well, it's you, you know," she whispered finally, eyes shining, and she knew that she cried too much around him, that she let her guard down a little too easily. "Sometimes it's you I find myself smiling about."
"Elena, it's okay to be happy…" But he didn't sound convincing because these were dangerous waters, the name that had not been mentioned ringing in both of their ears. It shouldn't be okay for either of them to be happy when he was concerned.
More often than not, but less often lately, Damon didn't say the right things. And once in a blue moon, Elena said too much.
"I can't stop it, and I can't go with it… I don't know what to do, Damon."
They stood there, and it seemed miles apart; they were aching to be together, but separated by guilt.