Title: Epic Choice
Author: VampyrBarbie
Summary: Since her visit, Lexi's words have haunted Elena; with Stefan gone, she finally sees the truth, you can't walk away, but isn't that what she and Stefan have been doing from the word go?
Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Diaries; I'm just borrowing it for a little while.
When it's real, you can't walk away. Those words haunted her as she lay in Damon's bed, the vampire sleeping peacefully beside her, recovering from his brush with death. You can't walk away, Lexi said but was that what she was doing, walking away or had Stefan walked away from her when he shoes the cure for Damon over her? But she had kissed Damon before she knew what Stefan had done. She couldn't let him die without knowing that she cared for him too, that some part of her, the part she wasn't ready to face, the wild, fiery old Elena, was in love with this dark man, the bad brother.
Elena brushed the hair off of his forehead, being careful not to wake him, she knew she should leave, go back upstairs to bed, but she didn't feel right sleeping in the room she had shared with Stefan, it had never been her room, and now that he was gone, she felt like an intruder.
Damon shifted in his sleep, turning toward her, throwing his arm over her waist and snuggling his face into her belly, it should have made her feel vulnerable to have this predator, one who had so savagely bitten into her neck only the night before, so close to such tender flesh, but instead it made her feel safe, secure. She leaned her head back against the headboard and rubbed circles into Damon's back until he settled, falling back into a deep sleep. She let her eyes drift closed, her hand coming to a rest just under the neck of his t-shirt, his ward skin flush against the palm of her hand making her feel grounded, connected. Sleep rushed up to her like a tidal wave and claimed her body in an instant, all of the stresses of the past few months washed away as the dreamless sleep of absolute exhaustion took over.
Elena woke with her face against a sweat pant clad leg, her arms locked around the same leg. She could feel fingers in her fair, gently massaging her scalp, and it took her a moment to realize where she was. She looked up to see Damon looking down at her cautiously, ready for her to shout at him any second, the book he had obviously been reading all but forgotten in his hand.
Stefan never just stayed in bed while she slept, he got up and hunted and ran and had to get away from her because as soon as he was awake she was a temptation, but here Damon was, quietly reading, letting her sleep, affording her the same courtesy she had given him the night before. The look in his eyes made her heart ache, the anticipation of rejection was like a vice grip around her chest, and she had put it there. A switch threw inside of her, she would take that look away, because what Lexi had said was true, you can't walk away. Stefan had left her, and she had left him, but Damon never had, and if she was honest with herself, she had never walked from him either.
Elena snuggled back down, her face burrowed once again against the side of his leg; she tightened her arms momentarily before relaxing and butting her hand against his hand. "Don't stop," she mumbled into the sweat pant material. "It feels so good."
His fingers hesitated for a moment before resuming their work on her scalp; she could hear the rustle of book pages and closed her eyes in easy contentment. "You're going to have to let me tend to that bite soon," Damon's voice rumbled from above her, but his fingers didn't stop.
"I'll wash it off when I get up to shower," Elena had no intention of moving for at least another hour.
"You need to let me heal it, Elena, or it'll scar," Damon put the book down and moved the hair from her neck, pulling the hair that had dried into the blood away gently. "It's pretty bad." The remorse in his voice brought back the vice around her chest.
"It's okay, "she said sitting up and laying a hand against the side of his face, trying to get those ice blue eyes to meet hers. "It doesn't hurt; I'll just wash it off."
"It's going to scar," Damon pulled away from her gentle touch and went to get out of bed, away from her sad eyes.
"I know," she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, coming up on her knees on the bed. "Sometimes life leaves you with scars, Damon." She pulled him back onto the bed. "Sometimes you need to let it."
"I can fix it, you don't have to live with what I did to you," Damon lifted his wrist to bite into it, veins around his eyes darkening and his fangs elongating. Elena took his hand and pulled it away from his mouth before he could bite down, replacing it with her lips, leaving a careful kiss against his mouth, just like the one she had given him the night before.
"Just leave it," she looked into his human features and took his face in her hands, kissing him again, harder this time now that she no longer had to worry about cutting her lips. He wrapped his arms around her waist, deepening the kiss, memorizing the feel of her lips against his, her body pressed to him, before breaking it. "What about Stefan, Elena?" He didn't want to ask, wanted to live in his fantasy world, but he knew it wouldn't last and ripping the Band-Aid off now would hurt less in the long run.
"He made his choice," Elena said, looking deep into Damon's eyes trying to covey the truth she needed him to see. "I've made mine."
"It's not that easy," Damon went to pull away, but Elena wouldn't let go.
"Yes, Damon, it is." Elena sat back on her heals. "Lexi told me once that when it's real you can't walk away." She took a deep breath and prepared herself to vocalize the truths she hadn't even dared to tell herself, the ones she had been avoiding for months. "Stefan and I have been walking away since the word go, we've been locked in this tragic mess out of some sick need for it to work." She took a deep breath not wanting to say this wrong, not wanting to hurt Damon, not wanting to be Katherine. "I don't want to be another girl who played the Salvatore Brothers against each other, I was with Stefan and therefore could never choose you, but Lexi's words haunted me, I could walk away from Stefan we did it over and over again, but I couldn't walk away from you." Elena took his face in her hands again, willing him to listen to it all and not shut her out, not shut down. "Even after what you did to Jeremy, and I said you lost me, I couldn't walk away, after force feeding me your blood so I couldn't die, part of me just wanted to curl up with you and tell you it would all be okay." Elena watched a small tear make its way down his cheek and she caught it with her thumb, but didn't wipe it away. "You have done so much and I forgave it all because you have never lied to me, never hidden who or what you are from me, and I hate being treated like a fragile doll, you treat me like a person."
"I have lied to you," Damon said, pulling out of her hands. "I brought your necklace back and made you forget."
"Damon, my necklace isn't the only vervain I have," Elena told him. "It's in the tea I drink, my shampoo; you told me you needed me to forget, so I did, for you, but you never lied."
"Why?" Damon wasn't even sure what he was really asking.
"Because it was safer to be compelled, I'm smarter then I'm given credit for," Elena said. "Then you needed to tell me you loved me without the consequences of rejection, without me knowing, so it could be business as usual, so I gave you that. Because I love you, Damon. I don't know when I stopped loving Stefan and started pretending, but I started to love you in Atlanta, and it grew when I saw you at the bottom on the stairs at the Miss Mystic pageant and when you helped with Stefan's detox. I'm so scared Damon, I don't want to be Katherine."
"Then choose, do the one thing she wouldn't," Damon told her, preparing to close his heart, despite how hopeful her words had made him feel.
"I already did, Damon. I chose you, because I can't walk away, because being with you forever doesn't scare me," Elena closed the distance between them, letting her lips hover over his, hesitating before she said her final piece. "Even though I choose you, we still need to find Stefan and get him away from Klaus."
"I know," Damon said, pulling her flush against his body, their lips almost touching. "Tomorrow." His lips fell on hers and he had no intention of letting go.