AN: I wrote this after watching The Vampire Diaries S5 E 12 : The Devil Inside. OK, it took me a while to digest it and I am still p****d that we have to swallow Elena playing dumb and not breaking the traveler witch's neck. But I guess that was the only way to further the plot... So I'm, begrudgingly, giving the writers some leeway.

So this is going forward from the moment Katherine overtakes Elena's body and mind just as she reaches Damon.

Haven't decided yet if this is a two shot, or whatever... But there is at least one more chapter... then we will see.

There is darkness within, there is darkness without, and there is darkness all around…

There is a sense of longing, a deep, desperate, need… It almost takes her breath away… but she doesn't feel her lungs, she doesn't feel the air… She doesn't feel a body… All she feels is just this essential want of something more vital than oxygen… Blue eyes alight at the end of this darkness…They are furious and kind, intense and scorching, pleading … She can't let go of that, she can't let go of him…

She struggles to find herself, to define herself, here, as she is trapped in a limbo that makes her feel like she doesn't exist. Maybe she doesn't… Making sense of reality, of her reality, is a struggle… She almost remembers… Remembers being more, more than this… this floating something that she can't find a name for… Her mind is foggy, does she have a mind? Her thoughts are fragmented, her sense of self almost nonexistent… The only clear things are those blue eyes, set in a handsome face that she thinks she loves… Yes, loves…

Then there is a whisper of a name… "Elena"… like a pledge falling from his lips… It means something…, it means everything... He is like an anchor…and the name tugs at some feeling of self… So Elena absorbs the name, the way the blue eyed man said it, the hidden meanings behind the syllables something that she can almost grasp… And she builds on that notion, pulling dissonant streams together, like pieces of a puzzle she can't outline… Patiently, laboriously, piecing things together in this blackness that seems to want to extinguish her…

Images float; words weave themselves into almost sentences… Elena is eager for answers, for meaning, for knowledge… for him. But the process is slow going, she can almost reach the information, but her limbs are not long enough… Does she have limbs? She has a notion of being in a body, of the blue eyed man enveloping her and making her want to melt into him… But when she searches, Elena cannot find the hard edges of herself. No surface, no touch, no skin, no eyes… no mouth. Is she dead? Is this what happens to vampires when they die? Vampire… Yes… She remembers the thirst, the pull of blood, the heady smell… the smell of his blood.

"Damon…"

The name breezes into her awareness and she holds on to it like a life raft… She may not have arms, but she will never let go of his name, of his eyes, of him… He is too important to be left behind… even if she can't remember why. With his name trapped in a white knuckled existential grip, Elena continues to lace, twist and knit. She can see patterns emerge here and there, clues to a disintegrated life… Her life?

The moments spent with him glow brighter, with an undercurrent of passion, devotion and… doubt? That confuses her… Why doubt when Damon is clearly all consuming, all encompassing and important? She feels other shadows stir… They taste of grief and heartache… they resonate deep into achy bones she does not see and make her nonexistent chest constrict painfully… She smells salty tears but they are in her memory, lost in some part of this remembrance quilt she is trying to piece together… they fall over the dead body of a boy that holds her features… Brown eyes, brown hair… dead…

"Brother…"

The word echoes and fills her with both misery and joy… and above all, overarching guilt… Then she sees a bridge, hears a car skidding and feels the cold wetness of hungry waters… The pain is overwhelming and Elena would choke and sob if she had a body to express the ache and the burning in her lungs from the awareness of death's embrace.

Death, however, doesn't come… and Elena is perplexed… Strong arms wrap around her and she feels safe… Kind green eyes meet hers… Hers are befuddled, his are bewildered, maybe even in shock? He searches her face and she can feel a stir in her soul. A flash of understanding, a hint of recognition, overtakes her… And Elena sees that he is the source of the doubt… the doubt over the blue eyed boy… They overlap in her reminiscing, side by side, at odds with each other, at odds with her, but always around… They are the same, and yet they are not… They are like magnets to her, she is like magnets to them, they all orbit around each other… They all save, soothe and hurt each other… There is love, there is pain, doubt and anger, there is want, so much want it hurts… They are tangled together and Elena can't pin point why. Not yet… All she can reason is that they belong together… the three of them belong together. Yes… she is certain of that. She belongs with them… They belong with her… In a different way that the brow eyed boy does…, but is nevertheless not optional… It just is…

She feels the green eyed boy embrace through the wetness of her clothes. She feels other embraces and… kisses… and looks from him, but the moments, the places and the notions change with each one. A necklace…, a pledge…, his eyes loving, his eyes hungry, his manner asinine… It doesn't make sense… His hand on her face as she leans in… his hands on her neck and the pain of his fangs… A car, a bridge… Panic burning her insides…

Then the panic is in his green eyes… as he lies incapacitated on a dirt floor… looking at her as if his life is about to shatter… Her body is limp, pressed against a hard and unfriendly chest… She feels no hope… only resignation as the fire rages in front of her and a hand wraps around her neck… She feels fangs piercing her skin, the green eyed boy wails, her blood gushes and she can feel herself evaporate…

A bubbly laughter and a head of golden bouncy locks catches her attention, taking her away from the horrifying memory and back towards light. The blond girl is young, then old, and then young again. She is also never changing and the concept makes no sense. There is blood pouring of the corner of her mouth… There is pink bright lipstick. There are fang marks on her neck and her back… There are tears in her eyes… She is there as Elena scrapes a knee… she brings back a colorful Band-Aid and makes it all better. She is there as Elena vomits blood, holding her hair… She is there next to her and the brown eyed boy at a… funeral? Red roses and too many graves… Graves… She is there next to the green eyed boy too… They are friends? Elena thinks so…

The blond is also next to a bright eyed, dark skinned girl… Elena misses her the moment her image swirls into her mind… Her eyes are kind, her eyes are judging, her eyes are in pain… Then there is love, directed at her, directed at her brother? And she is also young and old, all at the same time, and they play together, her, the blonde girl and another blue eyed boy. He is not Damon, but he matters too and he is constant… He hugs her… He feeds her? He is next to her in cold waters…This new boy and the two girls are constant…, older presences than Damon and the green eyed boy…

"Stefan Salvatore"

The name reverberates into the nothingness like the fluttering of wings...

AN: There is at least another chapters... after that I do not know... Please let me know what you think. xoxo