summary: Grieving turns into loving and there's such a thin line. "She doesn't know when she started to read him so well, when his every thought started to mirror hers, when one look into those paralyzing eyes told her everything."

title: "And I find it kinda funny and I find it kinda sad, but the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had." ~Mad World, by Gary Jules

note: So this started as Elena thoughts and turned into Delena, sorry if it's a bit disjointed. It's kind of just me indulging my love for post-finale Damon/Elena, but I hope you enjoy it too :D

It's not even really how much she misses Stefan.

Because she's so fucking used to missing people. Her parents, to start it all off – and not a day goes by when she doesn't wish she could get advice from her mother or joke with her father. And then even Isobel – weird to think that a woman she hadn't even known existed could be someone who she sometimes wished was still around. In the same sort of way, losing John is so hard. She never wanted to love him, but he was always in her life, always there, someone who wanted to protect her. Someone who loved her. And now he's no longer dancing on the outskirts of her life, hurting her and helping her and caring about her.

And Jenna – God, Jenna, the woman who took such control of her life, who understood how it felt to be so lost, who struggled every day alongside her – Jenna is gone too.

She's lost so much in her life, and fuck, she's only been alive seventeen years. So missing Stefan is nothing new, nothing particularly harder.

(Except she knows some version of him is out there somewhere, killing people, draining bodies of blood, and that does hurt. It hurts to know that even though technically he's still alive, the boy she fell in love with is as gone as Miranda and Grayson, Isobel and John, Jenna.)

It's more than that. It's the life he's left her with. It's the other one, whose blue eyes turn on her when she least expects it and just...just heal her. It's the emptiness on her brother's face as he stares out the window. It's the endless planning coming out of her best friends' mouths, the "Let's try checking the maps again," and "I could do a spell for that," and "Quick review of what we know," and "Do you think Klaus would take him to Europe?" and "He can't possibly be that far away," and "We're going to find him."

Maybe it's that most of all. We're going to find him. The sureness with which it's said, every single fucking day, when everyone knows there's nothing sure about this whole goddamn situation. We're going to find him. She hates that Caroline chirps it, that Bonnie looks into her eyes and says it so sincerely, that Alaric paces while he grits it out, that Jeremy struggles to say it calmly, that she even finds herself repeating it sometimes when there's nothing left to say.

We're going to find him.

The only one who never utters those words is him, him, the only one keeping her sane. The only one who gets it.

Because he knows there is no We're going to find him, no assurances. Not in this game. So he never says it, never bullshits it, never tries to cover up the truth:

Stefan might be gone forever.

It's there, hanging in the air, and everyone can feel it. We're going to find him doesn't dissipate it, but it distracts from it, and they're all so good with their distractions.

But he – he knows better. He knows that distractions don't help a thing in the long run. He knows that no matter how hard you try to ignore it, truth will always haunt you. And there's no hiding from the truth.

So he never says either thing. He never sugarcoats anything with We're going to find him. He never ruins the tenuous peace they've found in plans with a shattering Stefan might be gone forever. He lets them have their distractions and he quietly admits to himself.

She doesn't know how she knows that he's preparing himself. She doesn't know when she learned to read him so well, when his every thought started to mirror hers, when one look into those paralyzing eyes told her everything.

But it's the truth, because she knows him so well now. She knows him so much better than she knows herself, and that probably adds to the shittiness of her life.

See, because it isn't how much she misses Stefan.

She's pretty screwed now because there really isn't any going back. There is no returning to pre-"I love you", pre-kiss, pre-cure. There is no blissful ignorance (or is that innocence?) There is only now, and knowing, and those eyes.

Engulfing her. Drowning her. Embracing her. Loving her.

She doesn't know what she did to be the one who got him out of his cynical shell of a person in the aftermath of the Katherine mess. She doesn't know how she is deserving of his endless, all-encompassing, insanity-riddled, passionate love.

But it doesn't matter if she doesn't think she's worthy. It doesn't matter if she sometimes wishes with all her heart that he didn't feel so fucking much for her. Because he does, and there's nothing either of them are able to do to change any of it. And she knows, for every moment she spends hoping that his love will somehow disappear, he has spent hours, berating himself and reasoning with himself and suppressing himself, to no avail.

When she thinks like that, she knows that she doesn't want him to stop feeling. She knows that it really doesn't matter why, because it's this way now and it's kept her alive and it's kept him with a purpose. He wants this less than she does (which is saying something), but they're both stuck with it.

A part of her is grateful, too. Because as much as she hates how much of himself he's given her, she adores it in equal measures. She loves that he is giving for her, that he tries for her, that he wants to be someone better, all for her. She loves that he has learned how to feel again, that he is still breathing in and out every day, that this love has somehow kept him upright.

(She's grateful that he loves her and she's aware of how wrong that is, but it doesn't stop her.)

And she appreciates him. She's grateful for more than just the love – she's grateful that he exists, that he's there when she needs him, that he understands in a way that no one else ever even dreams of.

Because he's there. He's standing in her bedroom when she thinks she might slit her wrists (and she's never been that angsty teenager type but really wouldn't it all just be easier?) and he's looking at her with so much in his cerulean gaze that she just cries and cries and cries and it cleanses her, it splits her open and she bleeds and then she's somehow inexplicably better.

And he's there. His arm is around her waist and her face is hidden in his shirt and her throat is so raw. He never asks her to say anything or do anything or be anything; he just holds her, holds the pieces of her fractured existence together and cares despite it all.

He's there, when she's finally done he's still there. And he doesn't even comment on his soaked black polo in the way that she expect him to (in the way that he knows will just make her cry again), he just achingly slowly reaches over to her face and swipes the pad of his thumb along her wet eyelashes and cleans her. Clears her.

He's there. He ever-so-slowly unbuttons her shirt and slips her out of her jeans, and there are no words because this moment is too dark and too much for words. He still asks nothing from her, just helps her slip back into a long silky nightgown that still smells like her mother because she hasn't worn it in so long. He takes her hand and palm-against-palm, wrist-against-wrist, he leads her to the bed and tucks her in like she's still small (and at that moment she feels so young and cherished and safe that she knows there must be wonder in her eyes). He pulls the covers up around her and strokes his hand against her cheek.

And when he finally turns to go, she makes the smallest of sounds and he's there again, next to her, in the blink of an eye, face immediately covered in concern. She doesn't need to say anything (she never has). Almost of their own accord, her arms reach out to him and he comes closer so that she can embrace him fully. She pulls him gently down next to her and he lays on top of the covers and lets her snuggle against his chest as his hands go around her waist. And she knows this must be so many kinds of torture, being so close and having her want so much out of him but never getting anything in return, and she knows she shouldn't – can't – ask this much out of him but she has and he's still here.

So she just doesn't think anymore. She curls closer into him as though she can make their bodies one if she gets near enough and she puts her arms around his neck and holds on for dear life.

He doesn't leave in the morning and she doesn't ask him to.

And it really isn't how much she misses Stefan – it's how much she is starting to feel in his absence.