AN: The wait is finally over. The final and fourth installment of the Fifty Shades of Salvatore series is here! Fifty Shades Bloodier ended back in September and I know I kept pushing back the release date for a while. Can't say thank you enough for being incredibly patient with me. Over these past two and half months, I've been contemplating how long this story will be and I still haven't come to the conclusion yet. It will definitely be shorter than FSOS and FSB, but more than five chapters long. This first chapter I put a lot of thinking and emotion into. You'll get to see Elena's point of view from the final chapter of FSB. I listened to "The Other Side" by David Gray while writing this and recommend you check it out. It was featured in an episode of TVD this season. Hope you guys enjoy it and thank you for reading, supporting, and being just the best fans of this fanfic series ever! Make sure to leave your review since they encourage me to write faster and better.

If you are happening to stumble upon this story randomly, please go read the three priors stories leading up to this one. The order is Fifty Shades of Salvatore, Through His Eyes (Damon's POV of FSOS), and Fifty Shades Bloodier.

Follow me on Twitter at MYSTFALLSFANFIC and FSOSFANSITE. Leave your account names in your reviews so I can follow you guys!

CHAPTER 1. INTO THE DARKNESS

One shade of darkness was met by another engulfing black abyss. With no vision she swam and struggled through the dull stream she traveled along. Her body was floating like an out of control raft being slammed against rocks and heavy currents. Every time she reached out to grasp something, anything only emptiness met her hand. She did not welcome this feeling and fought it hard only to be swarmed with a hot flash of pain coursing through her veins. The pit of her stomach flopped, flipped, and turned inside out. Whatever was happening to her wasn't pleasant.

Elena opened her mouth to cry out for help, but with no voice it did nothing of assistance. Even if she were able to speak she wondered if it would do her any good. She was alone. The darkness was the only company she had.

The last memory she had and glued permanently to her brain was horrifying and yet overcome by joy. What she had just went through, what she had just witnessed no person should ever have to deal with. But she had gone through it and she had seen it all. The last bit of hope she held on to let her know all the evil had been lifted off the Earth and her conscious.

Another gust of violent and invisible wind thrashed past her as she huddled in the darkness wondering when she would find light again.

"Elena." The three-syllable name belonging to her whispered loudly, surrounding her and driving her mad. For however long she had been trapped in the unknown, it was the first sound of humanity. She searched for the source, but was only met with the same darkness already surrounding her. Panic was setting in.

A similar chant of her name echoed and she mouthed, "hello" in response. Inside her head she heard her voice, her thoughts, her plea for help, but without a sound she was mute. No one could hear her here, wherever this was. Wrapping her arms tightly around her frail frame, she bowed her head and cried. The feeling of lost hope and standing in the unknown territory she had entered was beyond any emotion she had ever felt. It was new and not welcoming in the least.

Just when she thought things couldn't get worse, she felt her body flying forward. The pain returned and her veins were cold. The fiery flow was gone and now she felt chilled to the bone and numb. She moved rapidly again and her body was spinning like a mad teacup at a child's amusement park. Her mouth hung open urging to let out a terrified scream, but all she could do was mimic the action. Closing her eyes shut, she knew whatever was about to come next wouldn't be pleasant.

A hard surface pushed against her back and more sounds filled her ears. She cringed not knowing what was happening. With her body tense, she opened her eyes slowly only to find a familiar sight. No more darkness, no more unknown. Elena was back where she had last found herself, on the cold grassy patch of land she fell upon. Bouncing up like a spring, she looked around in panic wondering one simple question: Am I alive? The answer to that was puzzling. Her body moved like normal and she spoke a simple word out loud only to hear her voice plain as day, but something was off. Her head turned to the right as she saw a figure lying only a few feet away. She got up slowly and walked over to it cautiously.

"Please don't, please." She whispered taking the tiniest steps in the direction of the motionless figure. At first glimpse she felt her knees buckle and she was kneeling on the ground in a river of tears. She saw her face. She saw the life gone behind the glassy eyes that stared up into the night sky. She saw blood staining the chest. She saw a round, dark red object lying helplessly next to the figure. The tears stopped and she breathed in quickly only to find herself rendering exactly what she was seeing. It wasn't her. What she claimed as her dead body laying on the ground was in fact her enemy who had a strikingly similar resemblance. Elena quivered as she understood she was viewing Katherine's dead body and not her own.

"Oh my god." Elena breathed.

Falling back on her heels, she reached out to touch Katherine's body, but was only met with air. Her hand swiped again at her lifeless figure only to find no contact could be made. The shallow breathing and the tears returned. Why couldn't she touch her? Something definitely wasn't right.

Elena rose to her feet and searched for any clue of why she was feeling this void. Not a soul in sight only left her scared and lost. It was like she was in the darkness all over again, but with vision and sound. She didn't know which one was worse. Her legs directed her away from Katherine's dead body and toward the road at the edge of the property. Unable to defy what reason she was heading this way or why she was even walking, she just let herself go. All she wanted was to get away from the scene of the crime, to get away from the place she died or didn't die at after all. This was all so confusing.

Her legs guided her down the edge of the street. Elena mumbled insanity as she walked briskly in a direction she knew was right. As she continued on, she felt a pull like a force dragging her regardless if she wanted to or not. That's when something registered and Elena stopped in her tracks. Looking back over her shoulder, she tried to focus on reality and the present for the first time since she opened her eyes. Her hand shot up to her neck and that's when the haze finally began to clear.

The memories were there, but fuzzy. She had died. She remembered drifting away, but now she was awake and different. It was like she was here, but she wasn't at the same time. The only explanation for what was going on was she was in limbo. Elena was on the other side.

Like a breath of fresh air, she saw a pair of headlights coming toward her. She peered down at her arms, chest, and legs. If she were stuck in this limbo as a ghost or spirit or whatever you wanted to call her form, there was only one way to find out for sure. Taking a step out on to the pavement, she stood in the middle of the lane the car was in. The engine roared louder and louder as she saw the lights grow brighter and brighter. In five seconds she either would be fine or mutilated into many pieces. The car did not hesitate as it came in her direction, but she still squeezed her eyes shut. Her hair whipped in the gust of wind and she peered one eye open only to see a dark street ahead of her. The speeding car was gone and behind her. Elena sighed deeply knowing what her fate was now. She had died and now she was roaming the Earth in a ghostly form, but why? This was her next question.

No longer walking along the edge of the road seeing as nothing could hurt her, she felt a depression take over her. Why hadn't she moved on? Why was she stuck? Why was she here? It didn't make sense. When you die you move on, but she hadn't. Only one other possible solution came to mind and as much as she was sure she wasn't going down that path, Elena had a strange feeling about it. Moving her hands up to her mouth, she got glimpse of the stone on her left hand. Pausing for a moment and ignoring the force pulling her in the direction she was headed, she admired the beauty of the diamond ring encompassing her finger. Tears flooded down her cheeks.

"Damon." She whispered.

Through all her searching and coming to terms with what was going on post death, she had almost forgotten about him. Her head was so consumed with the thought of death and the other side; she hadn't realized what this meant. Damon, her other half and her husband was alone. She had left him. How could she do this to him? Even knowing this now, she could feel the sorrow he endured. She felt the anger, the rage, and the pure horror of her death rising inside him. Wait, she felt this? How could she feel this? In her despair, she felt her emotions, but these other sorrowful, mad emotions were not her own. How was it possible she was feeling someone else's emotions?

Elena froze feeling another moment of enlightenment strike her. Her body back on the property was nowhere to be found. She hadn't realized this then, but the void she was feeling before and still was the disconnection of her body and soul being separated. As she roamed, her body lied elsewhere. This place where it occupied must be with Damon. It was her only explanation for why she could feel him emotions too.

Breaking into a sprint, she knew exactly where to go. The force that had been directing her and nearly dragging her along was her body. Like a magnet, her soul was attracted to it and now she let the nature of the situation take hold. At one point she even felt her feet leave the ground and she was floating. It was beyond bizarre, but all she cared about was being reunited with her other halves: her body and Damon.

Once she caught sight of the Salvatore house, she swore she saw it glow. The emotions were stronger as she grew nearer and the ominous glow absorbing the house only told her she was at the right place. She didn't know what she was about to walk into or what she was about to witness, but she knew she had to keep moving forward.

Her first step inside the house only told her things were bad. She turned the corner to the living room only to be startled by the image of her body lying on the couch. Trembling and devastated by her corpse, Elena's bottom lip quivered. She didn't want to see this. She didn't want to see herself lying there lifeless. Why was this happening? The pain of the truth was too much to handle. Being within only feet of her body made her death all the more worse. She had really died.

The messy emotions of Damon drew her away from the sight of her body and toward him. He stood solid and statue like staring at her body. His jaw was locked and his eyes read every emotion in the book. Now seeing the sight of him made the image of her body seem like nothing. This sight was anything but cheerful.

Elena rushed in front of him and said his name a million times over, but he never acknowledged her. Damon couldn't hear nor see her. She was a ghost. The idea of touching or holding him made it even harder to accept as her hand passed through his frame. Only frustration built within her.

"Oh, Damon." She cooed.

A man of no emotions was being bombarded with humanity. She saw it and recognized the struggle he was going through. He tried so hard to push any feeling away, but she saw him go through the motions of loss. Even in his darkest days, he still was just a man. A man who led his own tragic life only to be given a second chance with her. Even though he wasn't human anymore, he still held all the qualities he once did prior to his vampire days. Elena hated watching him like this.

Streaming down his face, she saw the first tear he cried. He did not wipe it away. She felt the pride he had in shedding the tear and instantly she knew how much he loved her. If she could give anything to hug him or touch him in this moment she would. Just a simple, "I love you", but she wasn't so lucky.

"Damon!" The sound of a voice boomed through the home and Elena spun around to see his brother, Stefan and her dearest friend, Caroline rushing in. Just when she thought the crying would end, she was sent back into a rollercoaster of emotions all over again.

"No, no, no." Her best friend cried as she sobbed and fell next to her body on the couch.

In the beginning, all she thought of was how her death affected her. Now she understood how it was affecting everyone around her. She couldn't take this. She couldn't watch them mourning. The wall built up between this world and theirs needed to be demolished. They needed to know that she was okay.

"Come on, Elena. Wake up." Caroline whispered.

The compassion her friend had for her was something she always loved. Her compassion for anyone was beyond something else. She wished she would tell Caroline how much she loved her and appreciated her, but was being denied the chance and didn't know if she would get one at all considering her state.

"She's not going to wake up. She's dead." Damon voice strained.

Elena glanced over at him. Hearing his voice made her melt, but his tone made her shiver. He was so lost and hopeless. Despite how big his love was for her, he knew the truth. Damon was never one to be blinded by the little things or even hope. He accepted things for what they were and her death was one of them. The response from Caroline showed she wasn't ready to let go.

"She'll wake up." Caroline said confidently staring down at her body. "Elena will wake up."

"Caroline, she's dead. Do I need to spell it out for you?" Damon asked irritated.

Tension floated between the two just like it always had. Even in her death Caroline and Damon couldn't agree upon something. She smiled for the briefest moment, but was brought back to the dark sadness lingering around.

"I watched her die in my arms. How much more do you need to hear for you to understand that's she's gone and she's not coming back?" Damon articulated.

Watching his downfall and listening to him confess the guilt he held on to for her death made her wish she could tune out the sound of his voice. It killed her metaphorically to listen to him blame himself, curse the heavens, and scream at Caroline to get it through her thick head that she was dead. Even Elena knew Caroline was being far fetched with her optimism, but she couldn't help love that her best friend still had hope. It was who she was.

She stood next to Damon as he ranted about her death. Elena placed her hand to his back imagining his warmth and the touch of the soft cotton shirt he wore. It pained her not to be able to feel anything physically.

"Are you done?" Caroline snipped.

"No, I'm not done!" Damon pushed his chest out and licked his lips. He rushed up next to her only inches away from her porcelain skin as he shouted. Elena tried to stop him, but knew it was no use. "Elena is dead. How many times do I have to say that before you believe it? Elena's dead. Elena's dead."

"Stop it." She begged of him.

"Do you believe me now? You're best friend is gone." He glorified in her sensitivity.

It made her blood boil watching him act like this. Damon was always one to get the last word. She saw it in Caroline's face that she understood what was being said, but still didn't want to believe it. Elena screamed for all of them to stop fighting. No one heard her. Why should they? She wasn't even really here after all.

"Stop it, Damon! Do you hear yourself right now?" Stefan finally spoke up. He was the voice of reason, as she liked to think.

A mumbled apology came on Damon's behalf, but it didn't relieve the tension in the room. What Stefan said left her on edge and in fear of what she had contemplated before walking along the deserted street.

"There's something you should know." He stated followed by an irate response from Damon. "It's about Elena's accident, from when the car drove through her house. She lost a lot of blood. The doctors said the impact of the crash caused some internal bleeding."

The caution behind Stefan's voice was prominent. Elena peered over at Damon who was beginning to fume. Already worked up from fighting with Caroline's denial, she could see the wheels turning in his head. She could feel his anticipation and fear of the subject.

"She looked fine, beat up, but fine when I got there." Damon stated.

"That was a few hours afterwards, Damon." Caroline interrupted. Her hand touched her cheek and she wished she could feel the contact, but she couldn't. "When I arrived that was her diagnoses."

"What are you trying to say?" He uttered.

In the pit of her stomach, Elena knew what was about to be said. She wasn't ready for this. She was just accepting her death and this other world. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be possible. How did she not know this? Stefan went into detail about that night of the accident. She remembered it well. The lights followed by the crashing and the debris on top of her. It was all too fast and yet when she woke up after it she felt better than she should have. Then and there she should have known what had happened. You don't walk away from something so disastrous with only a few scratches and bruises.

"What did you do?" Damon whispered severely.

"I fed her my blood." Stefan confessed.

The rage inside Damon was beyond boiling point and now she was beginning to lose it as well. There was vampire blood inside of her. It was inside of her when she died. "No." She gasped. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. Not now.

"I thought she was dead or dying." Caroline screamed. "I was the one who told him to do it. I didn't trust the doctors to help her, not completely. If you want to scream and blame someone then do it to me. Stefan was only tying to save her and he did."

Fighting unfolded around her. She heard their exchanged words that turned into a screaming match. Elena walked over to her body and stared at it. Was she really ready for this? Did she have a choice? The tingling in her veins proved that she wasn't entirely pure anymore. Something else flowed through her veins now. She was being given a second chance even if it wasn't the right time like she had hoped for.

"She might wake up." Stefan's voice brought her back. Might? "From the time of when I fed her my blood and until now, it could have passed through. I don't know if she will or not."

"How long does it take? If it is, when would she wake up?" Caroline urgently questioned.

As they all contemplated her awakening, she knew that in fact Stefan's blood was in her veins. She had felt it all along. In the darkness she floated through prior to waking up on the other side, she felt it then too.

"Maybe an hour, maybe more or less. I don't know." He explained and paced the room. "I'm so sorry, Damon. I just…"

"If she wakes, so be it." Damon hushed them. "But if she doesn't…"

Her heart if it were still beating would have stopped. Why couldn't Damon believe that she was going to wake up? She didn't know when, but she was going to. They would be reunited. The expression on his face was just so pathetic that she fell to the ground and leaned up against the couch watching him.

"Please just go." He asked of Caroline and Stefan.

The departing sobs made her bow her head. Seeing people mourn from this side was something she never wanted to experience again. A part of her wondered if this was what she looked like after she found out her parents had passed. Unlike them, she had the possibility of returning from death. This was all so crazy to comprehend.

Sinking to the floor next to her, Damon rested his head on the cushion that stuck out of the couch. Both their backs were to her body. All she felt on his end was guilt.

"I'm sorry." Damon finally sobbed. "I'm sorry I wasn't quick enough. I'm sorry I didn't feed you my blood instead of his. I'm sorry for ever hurting you. I'm sorry for bringing you into all of this."

"Damon…" She spoke knowing he couldn't hear her.

His last minute apologies were not needed. She wished somehow he could know this. Not one second of their time together did she regret any of it. Sure with the good came the bad, but that was life. She chose it and she chose him. If anything this was her fault for getting mixed up in this crazy supernatural life.

In silence, she sat with him by her side. The tingling in her veins flowed more violently and she could feel her body tugging her back. Not sure of how it worked before, she understood now that by natural force soon her body and soul would be reunited. All of this that she witnessed as a spirit she wondered if she would remember once she awoke from the dead and back into the real world. A part of her wanted to and the other part didn't. She wanted to know that the other side existed without all the memories she just formed though. It was too painful. It was too much.

As she floated her hand above Damon's, she felt his emotions change. It was like they were fading. All the pent up emotions from before were going away. It took her a minute to realize what he was doing.

"No!" She screamed at him. "Don't you dare, Damon."

He was trying to turn off his emotions. He was turning off his humanity, but it was struggle. Without it, she knew he was nasty and someone he didn't want to be. Elena asked him not to do so, but she had no say or chance of actually stopping him from doing it. Then out of nowhere, he was up and he was belligerent. Books and bottles went flying. He was tearing apart the entire living room. It was like a storm with no mercy. She cried for him to stop, but knew he wouldn't. There was only one way for him to stop it all together, for him to believe again and not turn off his humanity.

Elena stood up and towered over her body. She took a deep breath and sat down on the couch before she took a similar position as her other half. The void inside disappeared and she was met with darkness again. This time it was quick and her veins were hot. Aching pain pulsed her mouth and she felt a hunger she never had before. Tossing and turning, she felt something alter in her and any memory of what just happened on the other side was gone. Now all she knew was she was waking up in a state of confusion.

The ceiling of Damon's living room was the first thing she saw. How did she end up here? Rolling over, she saw him trashing everything in sight. She got up and held her head. Everything hurt and she felt starved. Elena watched him as he paused for a moment with his eyes on the couch. She was no longer standing in front of it, but to the side not recalling moving to this spot at all.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Damon was known for a temper, but she had no idea what had set him off this bad. Was it Katherine or Klaus? What had they done now?

A box of matches he held in his hands fell to the ground.

Looking around again from where she stood toward the couch, she shook her head and asked. "How did I get here?" The simple question left him breathless. He was acting odd. "Damon?"

The last thing she could remember was going for a run, but then more memories started to flood her head. Klaus and Katherine were to blame for this. She saw them tonight. They were trying to kill her. It was becoming all so clear as she focused on him. "I thought…" Elena said knowing what had happened and placing her hand to her neck. Two close wounds on her neck indicated that she had been bit like she remembered. A lot of blood was lost. She remembered falling to the ground feeling the life being drawn out of her.

"I thought, I thought I died." She said frightened and wide-eyed knowing something was terribly wrong. The battle against Katherine and Klaus ended in her and Damon's favor with them both being dead. She knew that in the midst of it she had got hurt and bad enough that she shouldn't be standing here. Her breathing was fast and rattled.

"You did." Damon choked out a reply.

Only one explanation could answer why she thought she had died and why she was standing in the middling of Damon's living room. Elena shook her head wanting to deny the answer because this wasn't supposed to happen like this. They were going to wait until she got older. She wasn't ready to change.

"Oh my god." She gasped lifting her eyes to him.

Somehow and some way vampire blood had been in her system when she died. She had died like she thought and now she was awake again, but not as a human. Not because she got to the ER in time. It was because vampire blood had brought her back. She was in transition.