Elena fanfiction set post-4x15 and before 4x16. It all comes back to Wickery Bridge.
It all comes back to the water.
The fire didn't work. She lit the match and dropped it and left everything without looking back. And for one blissful moment everything was empty in her head. No pain, no sadness, no grief. Just pure silence that is such a relief from all the noise in her head.
Until minutes later when she can smell the charring flesh of Jeremy's body and her childhood home.
So she takes it all and shoves it back down. It's off. She doesn't feel. She doesn't care. Lights out, nobody's home.
(It's okay, she's been doing this since her parents died anyway. She's fine, thank you)
The switch is a lie, this she knows. Because it worked for a grand total of four seconds and her feelings are now a little box in her head, where she used to keep her anger and her frustration and her depression. They just have much more company now with everything else she feels.
Elena keeps hoping that she'll get that glorious emptiness she had the second she lit the match. But whenever she stops for a second, lets her mind linger too long or sees something like her old clothing, it all comes back. The pain, the fire, the agony all flitting on the edge of her mind in that little box that threatens to burst open.
So she doesn't let herself stop. As long as she keeps moving, keeps feeding, keeps fighting, everything stays down and it almost feels as clear in her head when she turned it off.
She lies down in the middle of an empty road, an echo of someone she'd rather not mention that she met in this very same place.
It's been almost over an hour and no cars have driven by and Elena is getting desperate for someone to feed off of so she can get that rush of blood to help block it out.
(It feels cold here on the road, but she doesn't feel anything. Feeling is for people who have their humanity on and Elena is no human.)
But no one drives by, and Elena wonders if she could help someone meet their death in the same place she's met her own so many times.
It all comes back to Wickery Bridge.
Why burn it down when she could drown it out? Fire means anger and emotions, blazing passion and heat. Of course burning it all down didn't work. The second her old life was in ashes, all she could smell (and see and hear and taste) was everything she needed shut out. Water was death and drowning and ice, shutting everything out and dousing any last spark left in her mind
The last time she was here and hit the water, suddenly everything was clear. She knew who she was and who she wanted, she'd never felt freer or happier. Wickery Bridge is where she comes to die and be reborn, so maybe this time she'll finally kill that girl who feels and cares and grieves and only serves to cause herself and others pain.
So when she hits the water it's gloriously clear, her mind is empty. The water fills her lungs and she can see the old pain being drowned out, can no longer see Jeremy's corpse burning on the couch.
Until she sees her father's hand. Feels the water fill up her human lungs. Sees Stefan dragging Matt out of the truck and leaving her to die. Remembers Damon carrying her body as he looked for her ring.
It's all too much and she doesn't care. She takes the images and buries them deeper, drowns them in the depths of her mind. Elena Gilbert had a mother and a father and a brother (and an aunt and a birth father and a guardian) and a home, but this Elena is alone. She's stronger. She's better this way.
She emerges unscathed. The girl who died there drowned, but this time, Elena is alive and no one needed to save her.
(Except she is death. People die around her and now there's nothing left.)
This is who she is now, she's better this way. She doesn't care and she doesn't feel anything except for amazing.
The fire burned and the river drowned, but it still doesn't work. Somewhere inside Elena Gilbert is still the sad little girl who lost her parents, the girl who fell in love with vampires, the girl who had a family and lost everyone.
No matter how much she tries to cut it out or shove it down, it's all still there, waiting under the surface, begging to be let back in.
Maybe one day she'll let it.