AN: This is literally a year in the making, wow. So basically fuck the S6 finale, I didn't even watch it because why the fuck should I? This is my fix it. I still haven't seen s6, so I don't really know anything about it, so this won't fit with canon perfectly, but honestly fuck canon. So enjoy.

Breathe and Begin Again

"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a brand new ending."

–Maria Robinson

"Hey Ric, do you have a minute?"

Alaric looks up from the papers he's grading. Framed in the doorway, Elena looks nervous but determined; her fingers are wrapped white-knuckle tight around the strap of her bag. Her hair is pulled back into a neat ponytail and she's dressed casually in jeans and light blue t-shirt. It isn't hard to still see her as that grieving high school student with the weight of the world on her shoulders when physically she is still only eighteen. Slowly, he puts down his pen and nods.

"Sure Elena, what's up?" he asks uneasily. There was something in the way she holds herself that makes him feel apprehensive.

She walks into his office, but she doesn't sit down. Standing in front of his desk, she plays with the delicate chain of her necklace with the hand not clenched around her the strap of her bag like it's the only thing holding her to this earth. An exquisitely crafted silver feather pendant sways from the chain and he tries to remember if he's ever seen it before. They are silent for several minutes, but then she drops her hand from the necklace and forges on.

"I've come to say goodbye," she tells him. His heart drops to his stomach.

"What?" he croaks. She works her jaw, but stands firm.

"Goodbye, I'm here to say goodbye," she says with resolve.

"Elena—" he begins, ready to protest, but she holds up a single hand, effectively silencing him.

"I—I can't stay here, Alaric," she says, turning her head to the side, eyes sad but decided. "You know as well as I do that this no place for a human, it won't end well if I stay." He coughs, hearing what she doesn't—won't—say. It isn't safe for him either. She looks back at him again.

She doesn't tell him that he should leave too. It's his choice to stay just as much as it's her choice to leave. He clears his throat, feeling undecided. He wants her to be happy, but he doesn't want her to go where he can't be there for her, can't protect her.

"It's not safe out there either, you're not just any human Elena, you're the doppelganger," he tries, guilt heavy in his gut. Playing on fear isn't something that comes naturally to him, but he can't just let her leave. Elena smiles and touches the silver feather at her throat. She holds it up for him to see.

"Bonnie," she says simply. "Anyone that comes looking for me will suddenly find themselves very, very lost."

He laughs, but it comes out more like a sob. She drops the feather and lets her hand fall to rest at her side.

"That's it then? I don't even get to know where you're going?" he asks. For a moment, she just looks at him.

"You'd tell him," she says at last. He swallows, knowing who she means and unable to argue. "He doesn't really want to be human, we both know that. He'd only grow to resent me. I want this so badly, Ric."

He nods, feeling defeated.

Slowly, she slides her hand into her pocket and pulls out her phone. She lays it on his desk and smiles at him. He stares at it.

"How will I reach you? Am I even allowed to?" he asks. She nods her head.

"Jeremy and Bonnie will know how to reach me," she tells him. He stands up and walks around his desk to envelop her in a hug. She hugs him back fiercely, and when she steps away there are tears in her eyes.

"Goodbye Ric," she says, and then she begins to walk towards the door. In one last-ditch attempt, Alaric calls after her.

"This is your home Elena," he tells her. She turns back and looks him directly in the eyes, spine straight and proud.

"When children leave home for the first time, Ric, they learn to call a new place home, what makes you think I'm any different?" She smiles sadly. "I can't keep living like this," she admits bluntly. "I can't go on dying, because if I stay, sooner or later, it's going to be permanent, no take backs, no second chances," she tells him, her voice raw. "I won't do that to myself, I deserve better than that," she says with conviction, and there is something hard and determined in her gaze that tells him there will be no changing her mind. Still, some part of him wants to try.

She smiles at him one last time, and then walks out the door.

He wants to call her back, to tell her that she's wrong, that she's different, that the earth of this place has soaked into her bones from all the times she's laid on its floors, bleeding into the earth just as it was twining around her bones and holding her together.

He wants to tell her that she could live for fifty years in a place and it would never be a home to her the way Mystic Falls is. He wants to remind her that she's stayed here through everything, every catastrophe and every loss that followed. He wants to ask why now? Why did it take her becoming human again for her to finally leave this place behind?

He wants to say so much, but she's already gone.

There's a car parked at the curb and Bonnie tosses her the keys. Elena smiles, tears shining in her eyes. Bonnie beams back at her, something like triumph gleaming in hers. She pulls her into a tight hug. Elena squeezes back.

"I love you so much," Bonnie chokes out, tears sliding down her smiling face. She has never been happier or sadder in her life. Elena sniffs back tears, lips still curled into a happy grin.

"I love you," she says, arms wrapped tightly around Bonnie's shoulders. When her arms start to go numb she finally lets go of the witch. Elena swipes away the tears that had fallen despite her best efforts.

"So um, here I go?" Despite her best efforts, her words sound more like a question than the declaration she intended. Bonnie rolls her eyes affectionately.

"Yes, here you go, off to live your beautiful, vampire free, human life," she says pointedly. Elena laughs and nods, feeling steadier.

"Yeah, all of that," she agrees. Bonnie smiles and pulls out a brand new phone, tucking into the back pocket of Elena's jeans.

"It's already got my number in it, and Jeremy's, Caroline's, Ric's," she tells her and Elena smiles gratefully and takes her hands between her own. Bonnie squeezes her fingers. "You're gonna be just fine, Elena Gilbert," she predicts, smiling. "You'll be better than fine, you'll be great. I know it."

Elena nods. "I'll call you when I get there," she promises.

"Yes you will," Bonnie agrees solemnly.

Elena gets in the car before either of them loses it, she's already said her goodbyes to Jeremy and Caroline, promised to keep in touch. Alaric was her last stop. There's a letter in Bonnie's purse for Damon, and one for Stefan too, and she has to hope that they'll understand that for the first time, she's picking herself, damn the consequences.

Things can't stay the same; she knows that, it is a part of being human. This time, the thing that must change is her involvement in their world. She's washed her hands and declared her independence.

There's a whole world out there, and it's hers for the taking.

Savannah College of Art and Design is just far enough away that it feels a little bit like breaking her chains. While she's spent the last year bound and determined to follow in her father's footsteps, becoming human again has given her a chance to take a step back from those choices. Physically she is still only eighteen, young enough to start over at a new college—get in touch with the girl she used to be.

Elena will always want to help people, it's just in her nature, but in her heart, she is a writer—she's always been.

Both Jeremy and Bonnie volunteered to accompany to her new home, but this is something she has to do on her own. It's the beginning of the summer; classes don't start until the beginning of September, so she has a whole summer to get acquainted with the town.

She finds a small apartment above a bakery and quickly gets a job working there. She might not need the money, but it's something to pass the time, it's something that a normal person would do, and Elena relishes in every normal act of living.

Getting up in the morning, going to sleep at night, no more holding her breath, no more waiting for teeth to close around her throat.

It's not an easy adjustment; she still wakes in the middle of the night, waiting for the bottom to drop, waiting to find herself back in the belly of the beast. Still finds herself looking over her shoulder, around every corner. She flinches sometimes, when the bell above the bakery door jingles merrily.

She uses her necklace from Bonnie like a worry stone, her thumb tracing the delicate ridges of the feather, reassuring herself that it's there—she's safe, she's fine.

Still, there is joy—there is relief, because at the end of every episode, every nightmare, she opens her eyes and sees that she is in her little apartment above the bakery—she's in the kitchen, rolling out dough, and no one is coming to get her.

They wouldn't even know where to begin to look. She is safe—finally.

By the time summer is over, she is itching to get back into the classroom. For the first time in years, she can focus on her studies without some waiting threat looming over her head, and the idea is almost overwhelming, in a good way. She looks forward to stressing over deadlines and finals instead of ritual sacrifices and human—vampiric—possession.

She's made tentative friendships with locals, Michelle who owns the florist's shop down the street, Theo who's a performing arts major going into his third year, and Emerson, a tiny petite blonde senior in high school who desperately wants to attend SCAD for drawing next fall.

They're all so unbearably normal and free from tragedy that sometimes it stops Elena's breath, but she grows to love them.

Her boss and landlady, Irene, is a good-natured plump woman who mothers Elena to the point of suffocation—and Elena only loves her more for it. Irene is kind and normal and human but not untouched by tragedy—her husband and three children died in a fire ten years earlier, and in their losses, Elena and Irene find understanding.

Irene invites all of Elena's friends over the night before the quarter starts and feeds them rich, thick stew with heavenly loaves of fresh bread and smiles so wide her cheeks shine like pink crab apples when every single one of them clears their plate.

Emerson sleeps over with Elena, and the two stay up far too late giggling and dreaming of their bright futures—but Elena's first class isn't until noon and Em is forever late to school so neither of them care very much.

Falling over the edge into to sleep, Elena takes a moment to think of her mother and father, knowing that they are proud, and wishing they could be there with her tomorrow. She misses them, but she knows she will survive, she always has.

Bonnie, Caroline, and Jeremy text Elena before her first class, and Alaric calls her that morning to wish her luck and remind her not to ditch too often. She laughs and promises not to and texts the other three back, bragging about the meal Irene made the night before, and laughingly telling them about Emerson trying to find her left shoe before she ran off to high school—two hours late.

She takes a deep breath before she steps into the classroom, full of nerves and excitement. She can do this.

It only takes her a week to run into Tyler. She's coming out of the library, and he's trying to find his drawing class and their collision is textbook movie meet-cute, except Tyler picks her up in a big bear hug and spins her around.

"So this is where you disappeared to, 'Lena," he teases affectionately, and she clings to his neck like a lifeline. She hasn't realized how badly she missed home until she looked up and saw his eyes and remembered all the ways they've been bonded together by tragedy and supernatural occurrences—bonded for life.

She grins into the curve of his neck, giving him one last squeeze before he puts her down and she steps out of his embrace. He keeps his hands on her shoulders, looking her over.

"Same place as you," she retorts, grinning at him brightly.

He grins back, squeezing her shoulders before he drops his hands.

"So writing for you and drawing for me," he observes, quickly guessing her major. She nods eagerly. "We'll have to tell our story together someday," he suggests.

She shakes her head.

"A better one," she insists. "We can do better," she tells him, and he nods in agreement.

"With a better ending," he adds, and she nods fervently.

"A better ending," she echoes, agreeing with him and promising to herself all at once.

After that they are inseparable. She introduces him to her friends and Irene, and they're quickly taken with him. He and Theo get along famously and Michelle quickly becomes the older sister he's never wanted. He and Emerson fight like cats and dogs but only because neither of them are any good at sharing and want Elena all to themselves.

Tyler spends most of his time in Elena's tiny apartment—he lives on campus and his roommate scares the crap out of him—a performance art major who likes to do elaborate performance art pieces that border on the creepy, so he prefers the yeasty smell of Elena's apartment and the view of the town square it offers.

They both shine in their respective majors, Elena's writing professors adore her and her honest, soul-baring writing style, and Tyler's dark, evocative drawing earn him a reputation for beautiful, fantastical art.

Without the weight of the world on their respective shoulders, they are allowed to shine for the first time in years.

"Do you ever regret coming here?" Tyler asks Elena one night. He's lying on the floor, staring at the streetlights reflecting on the ceiling, his drawing abandoned beside him.

Elena is curled up in her chair at her desk, her fingers still typing away, trying to get her story down before it runs away from her. She pauses, looks over at him, a considerate look on her face.

She thinks about the last few years of her life, all the almost death sentences and the endless succession of funerals. Of the way Bonnie's smile gleamed a little less brighter with every passing tragedy, how Caroline relied more and more on her vampirism, how Jeremy looked at Elena like she was going to disappear at any second. Damon and Stefan pass through her mind in a quick succession and she catches her breath, the truth coming to her suddenly.

"No," she admits bluntly. "Not even a little bit."

Tyler grins at her from his place on the floor.

"Me neither," he admits.

She smiles back at him and then returns her attention to her story, the threads still there, almost out of reach, but not quite.

Tyler still has trouble controlling his temper, but he is ruthlessly disciplined, exercising every day to the point of exhausting, five mile runs every morning and evening and three different kinds of sports to keep him active and wear out his temper.

Now that he knows the consequences of his curse, he will never again allow himself to lose control.

Elena goes to all of his games and runs with him in the mornings—if only so that he isn't alone.

Everyone on campus knows they are close—close in a way that cannot be explained to people who have not lived their lives. Everyone assumes it is something more than it is, but they don't pay them any mind. They're Tyler and Elena, he's known her all his life; she'd die for him. They know who they are to each other.

Tyler doesn't date, Elena does. Only one boy, for four months during their sophomore year, his name is Daniel and he is bright and sunny and cheerful and has never known sorrow a day in his life.

Elena stops calling when she realizes she can't bear to bring darkness into his life, even if it is only in the form of her own demons.

She cries and Tyler brings her ice cream and they sit on the floor behind the counter at Irene's bakery, sharing the carton and a spoon between them.

"I don't think I can be with someone who doesn't know—who doesn't understand," she admits to him. "But I don't want to go back to that world, I can't, I won't."

Tyler smiles with understanding.

"You don't have to," he reassures her. "You'll find someone or you won't, either way it's gonna be okay," he comforts her, and she smiles at him gratefully. "You'll always have me," he promises.

"Thanks Ty," she says softly. "You'll always have me too, you know," she vows, and he nods.

"Yeah, I know, Gilbert," he assures her.

It starts getting harder for Tyler to control his temper. It's their junior year, and the pressure is starting to settle in. There is a year and a half left before they graduate, and he's still trying to figure it all out, what he wants to do with his art—his life. He can feel his tight grasp on his temper slipping out of his hands, and it terrifies him.

One day he comes over to Elena's apartment, dumping his stuff by the door. She's sitting cross-legged on the floor, a mat beneath her, a stack of printed articles beside her, and a nervous expression on her face.

Bemused, he sits down across from her, crossing his legs like hers and gives her a questioning look.

She doesn't explain right away, so he is happy to sit there and wait for her to explain.

"Meditation," she blurts out suddenly. "Meditation and yoga are supposed to help with anger issues and I just thought maybe we could try them together," she rambles, uncharacteristically nervous.

He uncrosses his legs, leaning forward onto his knees until they are face to face. He takes her face in his hands and kisses her, long and slow. She tastes like lemonade and a hint of mint and honey, sweet and sour and sharp all at once—so perfectly Elena.

She stops breathing and doesn't start again until he is seated cross-legged in front of her again.

"Oh," she says dumbly.

"All right, how does this meditation thing work?" he asks her.

She clears her throat, looking over at the articles.

"Right, so um, it says we should start by focusing on our breathing," she begins.

Elena disappears for three days. Tyler has no idea where she is, Irene says she told her she has a personal emergency, Michelle says she see didn't see her before she left; Emerson says Elena was freaking out before she took off.

Elena goes back to Mystic Falls, bursting into the Forbes' house without knocking or calling ahead.

She charges into Caroline's room, where the blonde is sprawled out on her bed, paperwork spread out all around her.

"Tyler kissed me," she blurts out and Caroline blinks. She doesn't question how Elena knew she would be back in town for the weekend to see her mom.

"Did you want him to?" Caroline asks slowly.

Elena frowns, takes a deep a deep breath. She hasn't considered her actual feelings since it happened. She only thought of Caroline's reaction. So she takes a moment to ask herself if she actually wanted him to kiss her.

"Yes," she admits at last. Caroline nods slowly.

"Okay," Caroline replies.

"'Okay'?" Elena questions. Caroline sighs, climbing off her bed to grab Elena's hands in her own.

"Okay," Caroline repeats, squeezing her hands tightly. "I want you to be happy—both of you—and if you make each other happy, then okay," Caroline finishes.

"Really?" Elena asks cautiously, and Caroline rolls her eyes and nods her head.

"Really," she repeats. Elena beams and barrels into her arms.

"I love you," she whispers into the blonde's ears and Caroline wraps her arms around her, grinning.

"I love you," Caroline replies. If there are tears in her eyes—they're happy tears. If there is a subtle mix of regret and longing in her gaze—she's used to the feeling. Caroline knows what her life is going to be, and she's not going to begrudge her best friend her happiness, just because she can't get older, doesn't mean she hasn't gotten wiser.

"Now, Bonnie is also in town, so I suggest we have a girls' weekend before you have to go back," Caroline suggests, pulling out of Elena's embrace.

"That sounds great," Elena agrees, and Caroline pushes all her paperwork off her bed so the two of them can collapse in a giggling heap and call Bonnie together.

When Tyler gets back from his nightly run Elena is waiting at his door.

"Hey, you're back," he greets her tentatively.

She nods, and then, taking a page out of his book, grasps his face in her hands and kisses him, long and slow. He tastes like sweat, salty and earthy with just a hint of cinnamon-flavored toothpaste.

"Oh," he says when she pulls back.

"I went to see Caroline," she tells him. He nods in understanding.

"Girlfriend code, right," he says, understanding her sudden disappearance.

"Yeah, exactly," she agrees.

"So?" he asks.

"So she's okay with it," she tells him.

Relief unfurls in his gut.

"Okay," he replies.

"Okay?" she asks.

"Okay, I'm gonna kiss you again," he tells her and she grins and nods.

"Please," she invites, so he does.

Emerson is delighted and furious—upset that Elena didn't tell her immediately, delighted because she just knew they belong together. Michelle is pleases for them, smiling her knowing smile. Irene is pleased beyond belief.

It's Michelle who gives Tyler the shovel-talk, and Emerson who does the same for Elena, shockingly enough.

It doesn't really change anything. Elena and Tyler still do everything together—including an hour of meditation and yoga every day before their run. It does help, but Tyler jokingly insists that regaining his control over his temper is more thanks to sleeping with Elena than anything else.

Elena throws paperclips or pens at him whenever he brings it up but she also laughs so he knows she doesn't really mind.

She suggests they finally start writing a story together, her doing the actual writing and him drawing the illustrations to go along with it, and that's how they figure out what they want to do with their lives.

Graphic novels, Elena writes the stories and Tyler draws the illustrations and together they make beautiful stories—beautiful art. They don't avoid the past, but they don't dive right into it. Sometimes the stories have vampires and witches and werewolves, and sometimes they even bear a resemblance to the people they left behind—their witchy protagonist bears an uncanny resemblance to one Bonnie Bennett and her vampiric love interest and partner in crime is a tall blonde with both determination and sass in spades, but they give them better stories.

They don't bother with tragic endings or endless torture for their heroines, they've seen enough of that to last them lifetimes. Oddly enough, it is their straightforward happy endings and uncompromising feminism that gets them picked up by a publisher in the fall of their senior year.

They get married after graduation. They've published three issues of their graphic novels and already have a house picked out.

He asks her while he's lying on the floor, drawing panels for the next installment of their graphic novel and she is curled up at her desk, writing dialogue for the one after that.

She says yes—actually, she says okay. It makes him laugh.

They get married at the courthouse in Savannah, Michelle providing flowers, Alaric gives Elena away, and Caroline does an emergency shopping trip to NYC to provide everyone with at least semi-appropriate apparel. She's more offended by the fact that they don't want a real wedding than anything else.

She and Bonnie and Emerson sob their hearts out and Theo flies over from London to attend. Jeremy grins so widely his face hurts, because these are the people he loves, and they are happy, and it's the best feeling in the world.

A week before the wedding Elena turns to Tyler with completely sincerity and says—

"I don't want to have kids," and then holds her breath.

He lets out a sigh that feels something like relief.

"Neither do I," he confesses, and she smiles in relief and understanding.

They both have their curses—and neither of them are willing to pass them along to innocent children.

The thought of another girl with Amara's face and all of her, Tatia's, Katerina's, and Elena's own bad luck makes Elena feel like she is choking. The thought of another child with this unbearable weight hanging over their heads, a boy or a girl who could—with one monumental mistake—be cursed to a lifetime of pain is enough to send Tyler reeling.

It's an easy decision for both of them.

Elena leans into him, and he wraps his arms around her.

"We could adopt," she suggests and he grins, liking the idea already.

They wait a couple years before they begin the process. Wait until they are settled into their house, until their graphic novel has a steady fan following and fixed publication deadlines. Until they're comfortable in their roles as husband and wife.

They both work from home, they have a steady income and both inherited plenty from their parents so they are more than comfortable. Their personal tragedies make them good candidates for older children who have been through traumatic events. On paper they're excellent choices for adoptive parents.

Most couples only want infants, but they are both perfectly happy with older children who would be shuffled from bad situation to bad situation otherwise. They know enough about how unfair life is. There are plenty of people who want innocent, untainted infants; they know how to love someone and all their sharp edges.

Two little girls, eight year old twins with buttery yellow doll curls and sharp hazel eyes, Madison and Emily, their single mother shot to death in front of them.

A twelve year old boy, Sawyer, who was found wandering the streets and never ever talks about his past and has nightmares that keep him awake for hours.

They think three is more than enough but then they meet Anthony. They're meeting with Sawyer's social worker to finish up some paperwork and he is waiting for her outside.

Tyler takes one look at him; sixteen, clenched fist—clenched teeth, and sees himself. Here is a boy with anger in his fists, and Tyler can remember that same rage trembling inside his palms, shaking his insides.

Elena takes one look at the boy, and one look at her husband's face, and there is no discussion—the decision is made.

Elena tells them stories every night—Anthony sits outside the twins' bedroom door for the first three weeks before he finally joins Sawyer at the window seat. She brushes Madison's hair and braids Emily's and tells them that she loves them to the moon and back. She helps Sawyer with his science homework and takes him to soccer practice and sits up with him late into the night when his nightmares get to be too much. She drags Anthony to the library and demands he picks out books for himself and the other kids until he's the one grabbing the keys to the car and encouraging her to hurry up, a pile of finished books in his backpack.

Tyler helps them all paint their bedrooms, flowers and unicorns for the girls, dragons and knights for Sawyer and hundreds upon hundreds of stars for Anthony. He helps the girls with their math homework and shows Sawyer how to throw a football in a perfect spiral. And Anthony? He helps Anthony perfect his jump shot and shows him how to breathe through his anger.

The kids love each other too. Emily and Madison are tricksters, attached at the hip, and completely in sync. Sawyer adores them and takes them camping in their backyard, setting up tents and telling them spooky stories—but not too spooky. Anthony is their protector—all of them. He helps Sawyer set up the tents and makes sure no one gets burned when they make s'mores.

The Lockwood kids are the happiest children around, despite their own dark pasts, they have parents who love them and who are living, breathing proof that there is a way out of the darkness.

They never quite leave the past behind. Tyler still meditates every morning and runs and runs and runs and never quite forgets the feeling of taking a human life—the feeling of going through the transformation from man to wolf.

Elena still remembers the feeling of drowning and drowning and drowning, and the taste of stomach acid and blood in her mouth and the pain from all her lost loved ones. She still wakes up from half-remembered nightmares, still feels phantom teeth in her throat and the blackness of death that followed.

They continue on though, every morning they get out of bed and go one with their lives. They have each other to lean on, and children who depend on them. They don't have the time or the inclination to fall apart.

They don't leave everyone behind either, Alaric comes to stay with them every summer and the children adore him, Jeremy is their favorite uncle and he's there for every Christmas and birthday. Bonnie bounces between Christmas and summer vacations, bringing smiles to everyone's faces with her calm, soothing presence.

Her magic still protects them, no supernatural beings can find their house unless they have been invited and if they somehow find themselves at their door without actually intending to be there—well, fire is involved.

Caroline stays away for a long time, conflicted. She's stuck in one place and the whole world is moving around her. Her friends are growing up and raising children and she is still only a teenager—physically at least. Caroline will be seventeen until the world crumbles beneath her feet and even then her face will not surrender to time.

Eventually she can't bear missing them anymore and finds herself at the Lockwoods' door in the middle of the night. She's surprised when she doesn't even have to knock; she crosses the threshold like she's been there hundreds of times before.

Elena is in the kitchen, drinking tea in her pajamas, and she looks unsurprised by Caroline's presence.

"Hey Care," she greets her softly, gesturing her over to sit beside her.

Caroline sits down next to her tentatively, feeling like a little girl staying up late with her older, more mature sister. There are delicate, almost invisible laugh lines around Elena's eyes and mouth. She is beautiful.

"I don't understand," she whispers. "I've never been here before, how did I cross the threshold?" she asks. Elena smiles.

"Bonnie," she tells her and then she pours Caroline a cup of tea.

"God bless Bonnie," Caroline murmurs, blinking away the sudden rush of tears.

Elena hums in agreement. They sit and drink their tea, and when Elena reaches out her hand to hold Caroline's it is the most natural thing in the world for Caroline to tuck her fingers into the spaces between Elena's.

The next night she comes, it is Tyler in the kitchen and he pours her a nice stiff drink. They reminisce about high school, and Caroline talks about her job—ignoring the fact that she'll have to move again soon and find a new job before people begin to get suspicious.

She never comes when the kids are awake, but she ghosts into their rooms on silent feet to watch them sleep and marvel at their perfection.

When Emily tells Elena that she saw a beautiful blonde haired, blue eyed ghost in her room, Elena takes her hands in her own and tells her that she shouldn't be afraid, that she isn't a ghost, but an angel.

"She's there to protect you and give you sweet dreams," she tells her daughter with a smile and Emily stares back, eyes wide as saucers as she nods her head.

"Was she your angel too, Mama?" Emily asks, a touch of awe in her tone.

Elena remembers Caroline, kicking Mason's ass when he threatened to break her neck, offering her tea and vodka when she was sad and lonely.

"Yes baby, she was," she tells her solemnly.

Starry-eyed with the magic of it all, Emily tells Maddy, Sawyer, and Anthony about their mama's angel who is now theirs and even Anthony feels a trickle of belief fighting against his teenage cynicism.

If anyone could have an angel, it would be their mother.

When Elena was eighteen years old, she couldn't see anything but death and tragedy in her future.

When Tyler was eighteen years old, he couldn't see anything but hardship and pain in his future.

Sometimes, they laugh at those poor sad orphans who had no idea how strong they really were—didn't know the world can be as kind as it is cruel.

They know better now.

"Today is never too late to be brand new."

-Taylor Swift

"Innocent"

fin.

AN: So there it is. Maybe not the happy ending you might want for them, but a good one nevertheless. There's also a fan mix that goes with this on 8tracks under the same title. Review if you please.

xoxo

-Pixie