Somewhere, a Beating Heart
Disclaimer: TVD is owned by CW, LJ Smith etc.
Summary: 'She understands now, with perfect clarity that she is nothing and everything like Isobel.' Elena makes a deal. . Vamp!Elena. Hinted Damon/Elena. Future fic. One-shot.
A/N: My first attempt at a VD fic. It's late, I'm tired, if it doesn't make sense, let me know.
She knows the minute she makes the promise that he is the only person who will ever see it through. Making deals with the devil is nothing new to Elena; she is well versed in navigating moral grey areas and trading in absolutes. Vampire devils conduct the dance so well.
She recalls a time where she watched every parent she had jump at the chance to give up their lives, so she could live her own. She can only try to remember the depths of the lake swallow her parents. She can see and hear and smell the way Isobel would rather burn than face an eternity with the pain and guilt of betraying her only daughter.
She understands now, with perfect clarity that she is nothing and everything like Isobel. Perhaps, she too, will remove her ring and take a gentle stroll in the sunlight.
But here and now, a deal with the devil, and a little blood to seal the deal.
"Are you sure about this?" he asks.
No.
"Yes," she whispers. "I asked you once to respect my choices, Damon, and I'm asking you again."
There is little honour amongst vampires but trust, respect and love still permeates the years of more-than-friendship between them. She knows that Damon will do what she cannot.
She recalls the absolute fear of the prospect of spending forever as a vampire at seventeen. She hated Damon for ripping her future away from her in an instant of selfishness. It is the same selfishness she counts on now, close to midnight in the old Salvatore house with candles illuminating the room. She fiddles with her ring as Damon decides.
She can still smell the tiny drops of uncleaned blood from the carpet, where Stefan had scrubbed and cleaned after she died on the floor.
Eternal life at twenty-five seems brighter.
Damon clutches his glass full of the strongest whiskey and barely manages to not crush it. Elena knows she asks too much but she knows that there is no-one else left to ask. She stands and places a hand onto his face. She hopes that he remembers that it's her and not Katherine; although the similarities ended long before Elena's stomach had swelled and her body began to shift and change.
"How can you be so stupid, still?" he asks. "Elena, this isn't the life you wanted."
She knows.
"Don't you think I know that, Damon? But that was before..."
Before she died and before she made her first deal with God. A prayer to save her son and to save herself. God listened that day but she soon ran out of prayers. John and Isobel and her parents had the right idea—they never had to face the thought of watching their child grow old and die.
Elena knows that a parent should never outlive their child and facing forever with the sight of her son gasping for air is too much to bear. She had once considered turning it off; to be free.
She thinks she'd rather burn.
"Will you do it?" Elena asks. "If he asks?"
Damon pushes her against the wall. She isn't weak anymore and she can push back. "Why me, Elena? Why can't you do it?"
Elena wonders why he would ask. He knows the answer.
"You'd ask me to kill my son?"
Fangs on flesh.
Whiskey adorns the wall and shards of glass decorate the floor.
"Not even to save him, Damon," she shouts, releasing her tight grip on his shoulders.
"And what, you think you could just walk right in here and expect me to do it?"
"You'll do it because I asked. You'll do it because one day, whatever has happened, no matter how much he'll hate me, and no matter how much I don't like it, he'll want it. You'll do it because I can't," she says.
John laid down his very life for her to live her life and she would honour his sacrifice by affording her son, with John's ring on his tiny finger, with the choice.
She knows it isn't fair but Damon has been making the hard choices for long enough to know that he is the only one she can rely on. His fangs on her neck and his blood on her lips have been proof enough. She knows that one day he'll stop her son's beating heart but, eternity is forever and too long for a mother to be without a child.
She'll ask it of him, because she can.
She briefly wonders if her betrayal will be worth it, in the end.
Judas. Isobel.
Elena watches Damon's face and doesn't need to wait for verbal acknowledgement.
His eyes silently agree, honour amongst vampires.
A deal with a devil is set and Elena prays, hoping that God will finally listen.