Disclaimer: I don't own The Vampire Diaries. If I did, Damon wouldn't suffer that much.
obs.: Sorry about any spelling or grammatical mistakes as well. English is not my first language and it's the first time I dare to write something in English.
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"Hey, where are you?" Damon could hear the car's sound in the other side of the line. He was almost sure she was going to see him. Almost.
"Matt is taking me home." Elena didn't want that. She didn't want to have that conversation now. Actually, if it was up to her, she could avoid that subject forever, because it was just so damn painful. She heard the seconds of silence on Damon's side of the line and wanted to cry.
"To Stefan..." his voice sounded broken and yet no really surprised. Elena felt the urge to run from talking about that. It wasn't something to talk over the phone, even if she actually didn't have much choice in their situation.
"Not just Stefan... Damon." She denied with her head, even though he couldn't see it. She tried to make up from what she had said. "To Tyler, to Caroline, to..."
"I know, I get it." Damon nodded, feeling tired. He knew it was just an excuse. Not that Elena didn't cared about her friends, but he knew who was the main reason why she was going back home. She remained in silence, trying not to cry over his devasted voice. Yet he was so calm...
"So... since I'm a possibly dead man... can I ask you a question?" Damon tried hard no to cry. He looked up, holding back the tears, trying to control the emotions in his voice.
"Yeah, of course..." Elena was about to cry, too. She saw Damon on his darkest moments before. She saw Damon get hurt emotionally. She saw Damon just about to die. She saw his heart being broken over and over again, because of her or Katherine. And yet she never heard his voice so destroyed before. Ever.
"If it was just down to him and me..." he swallowed, putting down his nerves. He already knew the answer, but he needed to hear it from her. "And you had to make a choice... who'd got the goodbye? Who would it be?" Elena bit her lips, trying really hard not to cry. She knew it was going to destroy Damon even more. She knew he loved her. Hell, he made her know that in all the possible ways in the world.
"I love him, Damon." Elena almost felt guilty from saying these words for him. She knew she just broke his heart even more, she could almost hear his heart tearing apart. Damon breathed and looked away from the spot he've been looking at since the conversation had began, trying again not to give in to the tears.
"He came into my life in a time where I needed someone and I fell for him instantly..." She breathed the tears away so she could keep her little speech. It was just getting more and more painful. "No matter what I feel for you, I..." She regreted that. Once again she didn't knew how to express herself and ended up saying her feelings towards Damon, or vice versa, weren't a big deal, but she couldn't take that back, because it was kind of true... not that their feelings for each other didn't matter, but because of what she was about to say. "I never un-fell for him."
"Yeah, I get it." He always did. He always understood Elena's feelings. "Stefan..." He denied with his head, almost laughing at himself for allowing his mind and heart to even consider that she would've choosen him. "It's always gonna be Stefan."
"I can't think about "always"..." - he wasn't making it easier for her, at all. She knew that she had just told him she'd choosen Stefan over him, over everything they've been put through, but she needed him to understand her choice.
"All I can think about is "right now". And I care about you, Damon..." she was already crying. Damn, she shouldn't be saying these things over the phone. Damon deserved more than that. But they didn't had time. They barely had the "right now", which was even more she could ask for after everything that happened. Elena realized she wasn't crying over Damon's broken heart. She was crying over her broken heart too. Because she was lying at the two of them by saying she only cared about him. She just hoped Damon could see through this.
"Which is why I have to let you go." Damon remained in silence, not sure what to do or to say. What do you do when someone just smash your heart into million pieces that, probably, will never ever get back together again? Elena smiled bitterly, trying to get an excuse for what she had just done with Damon and herself. "I mean, maybe... if you and I had met first..."
"Yeah, maybe." But he didn't allowed himself to think about "maybes" and "ifs". He couldn't, because he had met her first and let her go God knows why. His heart could surely not bear the thoughts of it. He had too much. He just wanted to end that conversation and beg for those freaking symptoms to appear. He didn't minded to die right now.
"You're gonna be fine." Elena grew serious, like if she knew what he was thinking. Damon didn't knew if he wanted that to be true or not. "You hear me?" Damon turned around to face Alaric, who was standing a few steps away. Well, he wanted the symptoms, but a creepy fight with Evilaric would work just as good as. Elena's voice was almost desperate with Damon's silence.
"You're gonna be ok and I'm gonna see you soon..." she was almost begging for an answer. She didn't wanted none of this to happen. She didn't wanted to let Damon go. And sure as hell, she didn't wanted to tell him this by phone.
"Real soon." But he wasn't meaning his words and Elena felt that. "Goodbye, Elena." He dropped the call before she could say anything else and faced Alaric. After all that, he would fight for his life, like always. But not with the purpose he always had. Back then, he would fight so he could go back to Elena. Now, he would just try to survive, having no one to fight for.