AN: This is a little something that got stuck in my brains... I wish I had more time to really go into the first 30 days but I don't so... Also, you might catch glimpses of songs and movies that were running through my head as you read...

Enjoy.

Thirty days... Thirty long and tortuous, gut wrenching fucking days since Stefan and I pleaded with Bonnie to stop magically frying Elena's brains as she writhed in my arms at their graduation dance...

Thirty days since I held Elena and watched the fleeting look of betrayal in her brown eyes when my brother injected her with vervain...

Thirty days since we shoved Elena, the woman I desperately love, into our basement cell for her own version of "Girl interrupted" - no, the irony is not lost in me either...

Thirty days and I am so fucking tired... My soul is raw from every second that has elapsed since then... My brother walks around like a hollow shell, portraying the guilt that I cannot bear to show... Because I know this is all my fault...

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We made Elena's cell as "homey" as possible, it was Stefan's idea, the martyr that he is... Caroline insisted in bringing a wrought iron bed, a mattress, pillows and a saccharine matchy-matchy bed set. I still don't know if these choices were made to inflict misery or comfort on Elena. After all, it's no secret that she and Caroline are on a BFF break and that, for now, they hate each others guts. So maybe that god awful bed spread is a way to ensure giving Elena a headache. Maybe...

Barbie wen't a step further, she painstakingly put together a compilation of old family and childhood movies. Some she found in her personal stuff and the rest she downloaded from a secret YouTube account that baby Gilbert created with Matt in preparation for Elena's first "un-birthday". Matt told us it was Jeremy's way to remind Elena of her humanity... "Wish granted kid... I just don't know if your sister will ever listen..."

For good measure, Caroline and Bonnie also added photos and songs that were supposed to tug at Elena's heartstrings - Stefan and I have had the pleasure of enduring a string of boy bands on repeat. The multimedia show has been playing on a loop since day one, like a morbid litany reflected on the dirty wall of her cell. I am not sure any of this is going to make a believer out of Elena... My Elena seems too far gone... The girl I love is still in there somewhere, buried and tucked away deep into some obscure recess of her mind... It was bound to happen... She had been so good for so long... Self-sacrificing, no regards for her personal well being, best friend, faithful girlfriend, rescuer of lost souls, bearer of unspeakable grief... It had to break her sometime... And when I gave her a way out she took it, boy did she take it... My Elena checked out to Hotel California and all we were left with were the bad parts...

Don't get me wrong... I am thankful as hell that no matter how bad she has gotten she still is not Katherine. This version of Elena is however almost as disturbing... I should know, it's been thirty days of hell.

In preparing her cell and to further the absurdity, the girls also added a modesty screen- as if this version of Elena had any left. There they placed a large barrel of rain water and a mug that Elena could use to wash her self. Clearly not the Ritz but... The white fluffy towel Caroline hung next to the pink rimmed mirror convinced me that her and Bonnie were as invested in making Elena comfortable as they were in getting even. It was all a mockery...

The funny thing was that, as I watched Barbie and Witchy decorate and prep, all I could think was "Why didn't I save her teddy bear?". How absurd can you get? I know... but he would be right at home in this "let's play pretend" world we were building around the unconscious vampire we wanted to save... The woman I loved... Love...My Elena. Let's play pretend because that comes naturally...

Since they concluded they "Better Homes" joint venture, Caroline and Bonnie have not set foot in the basement. Matt, Liz and even Elijah call sometimes... But at the end of the day is back to the three of us, Stefan, I and the broken girl we love...

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After everyone else was gone, I watched and watched Elena's still form through the bars of that grimy cell. The sleeping beauty that she was, displayed on a bed like a giant doll in her red ball dress... making this pantomime more absurd by the second; making me wish I could just yank the old Elena out from wherever she is hiding.

It took Elena hours to wake up - Witchypoo's voodoo really did a number on her insides.

Or maybe it was the vervain... Whichever it was, Elena woke up enraged -no surprise there. She stop screaming long enough to drink the single blood bag I had left for her. If only she knew then that it would be her last full meal for a while... She needed the blood to heal, but after that Stefan and I agreed on tough love, Lexi style.

Well I will tell you something, Lexi would not have survived Elena rehab. Lexi would have shed her good Samaritan ways and staked Elena after the first 3 hours. I almost did...

The girl took stubborn to new levels, she really did. Elena rattled and raged against the cell for the first week. Cursing and growling blasphemies at me and my brother with a venom that stung. She abjured us more times than I can count, pulled every precious moment apart, dragged each relationship through the mud, hers and mine, his and hers and the one we struggle between the two of us as we try to help her get better. My favorite parts were the point by point sexual comparisons, the who's done more bad things "illustrated" chart and the offer for a debauched threesome that had us both looking like deer caught in the headlights. Elena's verbal attacks were like nail bombs, the intent was to cause as much carnage as possible... Stefan and I consumed the entire contents of my liquor cabinet to the soundtrack of her virulent words and the multimedia show.

Life could be such a fucking party sometimes...

AN: Chapter two following up very soon :) Review an let me know what you think :)