Transition

'Because you hurt me, Elena, and I'm done trying. I'm done with yours and Stefan's bullshit.' After Elena's transition, Damon refuses to interrupt her and Stefan's new life. But with her heightened emotions, she's begging for it more than ever. Set right after 3x22.

…First Vampire Diaries fan fic! Drop a line would you? I was SO sad about the finale. As awesome as it was, it left me super curious about how Damon would handle Elena's 4,568 attempt at rejection. Well, to me, I think he's had about enough. This fic will be a multi-chapter Delena centered deal.

I had never felt pain like this before. Sure, there were a few close calls, but nothing, nothing could prepare a person for being stuck at the bottom of a lake, watching someone you love fade away...again.

My last memory is Stefan dragging Matt away from me. It's my own fault, really, I wouldn't let Stefan take me first. All I could think of in that moment was the act of selflessness my father had done for me. Gesturing for Stefan two years before to save me. Not him. Me.

And so call it looking up to my father's prime example, but I felt no remorse at being left at the bottom of the lake, lungs bursting, fear racing through me so heavily that my heart felt as if it would pound it's way out of my chest. I deserved this.

Even so, I struggled feebly against the confines of my seat belt, already knowing I didn't have enough strength to swim after Stefan and Matt. The water was crushing me, and the harder I fought, the less noticeable my movements were.

There were so many things I had yet to do. So many things I should've said to people and countless scenarios that should have gone differently. Funny how when you die your mind narrows down to the one most important thing you could have done.

As the lights dim in my mind and the terror consumes me completely, reminding me that I'm about to die, and I'm letting so many people down, I can only think of one thing I truly regret.

I should have told Damon I loved him.

Air. All I can think is how much I need air. Greedy gulps make other sounds fade into the background as my hoarse, wet windpipe takes center stage.

"Elena!" I hear someone shout, both relieved and scared, off to my left. My head struggles feebly to look at the sound of the voice, but my head is so heavy...my limbs feel like logs...

I lick my lips, willing myself to get some sort of noise out of my chapped and scratched throat, and come out with a feeble whimper.

Great.

"Elena..." the voice soothes me, and my eyes shoot open. I know this voice. Stefan's voice.

The events of the night all come back to me, hitting me with loud sounds and emotions, every detail seems hemmed in and straightened out. Heightened. I feel a sharp pang shoot through me as I realize that I'm in fact not at the bottom of a lake, dead, but alive. Alive. For whatever reason, I'm alive.

And Stefan is here, and I hear voices outside, and it appears that I'm in a hospital bed. I feel the prickles of the coarse comforter and grimace. It feels woven and fake under my fingertips, but looks like the kind of comforter I would've thought as heavenly soft. It confuses me, and I glance at Stefan as if he somehow would have the answers to all these loud noises and sensations.

The look on his face is all I need for the pieces to fit together.

"Oh god." I croak, and then, because I'm already healing, I manage to say louder, "NO."

Stefan collapses in his chair, hands covering his face, running fingers through his hair. "Elena I am so, so sorry..." he begins to mutter, but I don't want to hear it. I don't want to focus on what's going to happen to me.

I'm in transition.

"Where's Matt?" I have the urge to leap out of the bed, to run out of the hospital and curl up somewhere to die alone. Everything I had decided with Stefan before I had died seems senseless now.

"Alive. Intensive care...but alive." Stefan raises his head from his hands and eyes me carefully. I squirm under his gaze. He's thinking about what we're both trying to not think about. What will happen to us, now that I'll be here literally...forever.

Unless, of course, I die again.

"Damon is on his way." Stefan murmurs quietly, and the words hang in the air.

I swallow morosely, feeling sick to my stomach. Damon.

"What are we going to do?" Stefan sighs heavily, reaching forward and clasping my pale, wet hand. I smile at his effort for teamwork. We. Us. Stefan and I. And Damon, a little voice in the back of me says, but I quiet it immediately. There is no way I can afford to go there anymore. I don't even deserve it.

"I...I should transition." I breathe in heavily and shakily, gripping his hand tightly, searching for that familiar feeling of anchor I always have when I'm with Stefan.

"Elena," Stefan's eyes are on me and his cold, dead heart is beating as fast as it can manage, his hands are warm against mine and he keeps saying my name and I hate it. I hate all of it and I don't know why. "You don't have to. I would understand..." Stefan trails off, because what he's saying isn't entirely true. He wouldn't understand why I'd choose to leave him.

"No, Stefan," I shake my head, "I have to. I can't leave."

"You don't know what it's like...what you're saying..."

I hate his words of doubt and I shake his hands off angrily, shaking my head even more violently than before, "No I know exactly what I'm saying. This would have had to happen eventually anyway, right?"

Stefan's face falls, and he flicks his eyes up to mine, holding his stare. "Right." He agrees.

It's obvious he hadn't planned for this.

I fall back on the bed, dizzy, nervous, sick. I'm hungry, but not craving blood. Not yet.

There's a moment of silence between us that's almost surreal and peaceful. We sit there, quietly, deep in thought, deep in despair. I want to cry. I want to laugh. I want to punch something. All sorts of emotions are buzzing through me and it's the best I can do to lock myself down and refuse to move.

The hospital room door flies open and hits the wall hard, swinging back and clicking into place almost as soon as it had opened. The noise is loud, startling Stefan and I, causing him to stand and for me to bolt upright. Damon is in the room, eyes flashing, hands clenched, rage written all across his face.

I expect him to sweep his eyes over me, for his expression to soften, but instead, he goes right for Stefan.

"Do you know what you've done?" He's like a mad man, zipping towards Stefan at the vampire speed I may soon have, gripping his neck and slamming him against the wall. Not caring who hears. Who sees.

Stefan grapples for dominance, kicking at Damon, trying to speak rational words at the same time. There's someone screaming, "no!" and I'm positive it's me. I'm out of the bed and tugging at Damon weakly, but one of his arms flies out, and I'm careening back into the hospital bed, stumbling for balance.

"Why didn't you save her?" Damon flips Stefan around so he's on the opposite wall, pinned beneath him.

"She wanted..." Stefan chokes, Damon's hands deadly tight, "wanted Matt..."

Everything in Damon's voice drips with disgust. He's repelled. My eyes sting with tears because this is not how I was supposed to see Damon after everything. Stefan shouldn't be on the brink of suffocating by Damon's rage filled hands. I should be up there, stopping him, soothing him with words I don't intend at all just so that I can save Stefan. But instead, I stay where I fell, knowing that this is Salvatore to Salvatore, and getting in the way could very well kill me right here, right now.

"And so you listened to her," Damon drops his hold on Stefan, causing Stefan to sink to the floor, holding his neck. I hear the cricks of his bones knitting themselves back together. Damon leans down, eye level to Stefan, blue eyes filled with nameless emotion, "You don't deserve shit." He spits, sitting up, kicking Stefan for good measure.

As Damon backs up, making his way out of the room, I shift uncomfortably on my knees, and he pauses, catching the noise.

His head turns and for a second I hope, I allow my self to believe, that the look on his face will be like all the other times he's looked at me. Full of devotion and love and innumerable amounts of forgiveness in his eyes. Of course the look is always carefully guarded, masked, but I've learned to look through it. I've learned to crave it like I crave Stefan's safety.

Instead I'm met with equal rage, hurt, loss, pain. Damon's teeth are clenched, making his jaw prominent. He stares at me for just a second - and he's not breathing, not breathing at all - before ripping his gaze away and disappearing as quickly as he had come.

I'm left there knowing I'm all out of second chances. The thought of transitioning is even tougher now, a thousand years without Damon is something I'm not sure I can do - seventy years with Stefan as a human? Or for however long he decides to stick around? Much more doable. Normal. Safe.

I breathe in deeply, willing myself to forget about the odds that are stacking up against me. Willing myself to bite into a warm, human neck and...

But no, the thought is still repulsive. Perhaps it always will be with me.

I hear Stefan make his way to my side, grasping my arms and stroking his thumbs down the length of my hand. "Hey," he whispers, "You okay?"

No. I'm not okay. There's a million things that are wrong right now. But because I'm Elena, and I'm the good girl, and because Stefan needs me to be the anchor just as much as I need him, I nod. "Yeah but I think Damon isn't." I smile at my weak attempt at a joke.

Stefan's eyes are clouded, "He'll be okay. He always is. Right now, I need you to feed. We have to leave the hospital before the doctors realize you've recovered too quickly..." Stefan chatters on about the plan-of-action and I nod complacently, only half listening.

My stomach feels strange and my gums ache. I know the time is coming. The make it or break it moment. God, I wish I could've had a day as a human to myself. To eat ice cream and lay out in the sun. But my emotions feel out of control, the room is buzzing with noises I would have never heard if I was still technically myself, and the longer I wait, the more my gums throb.

I nod to Stefan, cutting off his stream of meaningless words. "Alright. Bring me a bag. A blood bag."

There's no turning back now.