A/N: I published an original O/S called "In My Arms" on fictionpress, and this is the fanfiction-turned version. The story is the exact same except for the names of the characters. Go read and review that one instead if you would prefer to read my original work. It wouldn't let me copy/paste the link, so just type in my penname or the name (both the same as appears here) of the story on fictionpress to read it.
"In My Arms"
Summary: Elena Gilbert met her true love, Damon Salvatore, at age sixteen, but over the years, the struggles of life tore them apart time and time again. Now, at age ninety-three, as Elena lays on her deathbed, she remembers Damon and the promises made so many years before. A/H
I met Damon Salvatore in the summer of 1936.
As a young girl, I was still very naïve to the ways of life, and I didn't quite understand that the term 'Happily Ever After' never really meant the same thing for anyone. In my mind, I pictured a beautiful wedding dress, flowers everywhere in sight—a garden, perhaps—and the love of my life before my eyes when I thought of a "happy ending".
The day I met Damon, the whole scenario flashed before my eyes, as childish as it sounds. There was just something about the gleam in his icy blue eyes that took me to places I'd never dared to imagine before, and I was drawn to it like nothing else. His dark hair hung over his eyes slightly, making them appear mysterious. His skin was tanned from working long hours in his father's fields, and his hands were large and callused. He was rugged, but to me, he was beautiful.
His family moved to Mystic Falls, Virginia, my hometown, when he was seventeen years old. I met him while walking down the main street through town the very day he arrived. His father was struggling to make ends meet because of the Depression, and he moved the family to his parents' old farm to tend to their land. Damon was his dad's right hand man.
On that particular day, I was very sad. My then-boyfriend, Matt Donovan, had broken up with me after I caught him kissing another girl. Oh, if only those kinds of things could've been the worst of my problems for the rest of my life . . .
When Damon first saw me, he smiled, waved me down, and walked across the street to speak to me. I brightened up instantly. He told me I was the first person he'd seen that looked relatively close to his age and that he was seizing the opportunity to speak to me. My strange sense of humor made him laugh, and we took an immediate liking to each other.
He asked me to court him only an hour after meeting me, and I agreed. I felt like a princess in a fairytale and that nothing could've been better. To be truly honest, in my lifetime, almost nothing ever was, with a few exceptions. I learned to enjoy things for more than what they probably were, but that was because I had to do something to override the constant pain of not being by his side. It felt as if . . . I were being stabbed in the ribs repeatedly with every breath, and the little things that made me smile were the temporary morphine.
Over a course of nine months, we fell in love like no two people I'd ever known of. He could be brought to tears just by seeing me smile, and he touched my face the way a butterfly would caress the petals of a flower. We uttered the words "I love you" with the same full meaning each and every time, and we held each other like each embrace would be our last.
I was often afraid of losing him, and he was fully aware. Towards the end of the ninth month, he began to grow weary of my jealousy, and we often argued over little things. We got on each others' nerves quite often, but we would always patch it up. Until one day, I went to Damon's house, and he answered the door with a stone-faced expression. I would never forget the coldness in his eyes that had never been present before—something that chills me to the bone even as I lie here in my warm bed—and I knew in that moment that my last burst of anger had sent him over the edge.
It was rather ridiculous, really. The things that broke us up were mistakes that young adolescents often made—jealous fits, a bit of mistrust, a controlling edge on my part, a stubborn one on his.
To this day, I still wish I'd fought him harder the day he left. I never wished to be one to hold onto the past, but when your heart finds love like that, it never completely lets go. I find myself tearing up now just thinking about it . . . Oh, how I wish he were here.
Not too long after we went our separate ways, he found another young woman. Her name was Katherine Pierce. I won't lie and say he didn't truly love her with all of his heart for a time because I know he did, and it tore me to pieces. I spent day after day picking myself apart and replayed every scenario time and time again until I found a better way that I could've handled each situation leading up to our break up. I should've been more trusting, less jealous, less demanding and controlling . . . The only thing that kept me from losing my mind was the fact that I was nearly a child at the time, and I didn't know much about staying in a relationship. I only knew of love and that I never wanted to let it go.
His relationship with Katherine only lasted a few months, and then we ran into each other again—same spot as the first time, believe it or not—and we reconnected like no time had passed at all.
We were eighteen and nineteen when we made love to each other for the first time.
Shortly afterwards, Katherine came back and wanted Damon for herself once more. He then admitted to me that his love for her was stronger than his nostalgia for me; therefore, he wished to return to her. Again, I still wish I'd fought just a bit harder.
I watched desolately as they progressed for another month, but I wasn't all too surprised when I learned that they'd broken up again. Katherine was a free spirit and didn't wish to be tied down so early in the game. I was definitely still betting on the day she would come running back with a desire for a comfort zone.
Desperate to have some sort of place in his life—even if it wasn't near his heart—I offered myself as a crutch to lean on. We grew very close as friends, but I listened to him reminisce about how much he missed her, and how unfair it all seemed. Now remember, I said I loved him, not that I could particularly stand him a lot of the time. It didn't matter to me, though, because he was always there when I needed anything. When I was feeling depressed, he would tell me how wonderful I was and how beautiful I was on the inside and the outside. On the inside, I still cried because I wished so terribly that those feelings could've been enough to make him love me again, but sadly, that was never the case.
As I had predicted, Katherine came back for him again once she'd livened up her youth a bit with a variety of men. And of course, Damon tearfully apologized to me once more and took her back.
They married when Damon was twenty-six, and their marriage lasted four years. He ended up filing for divorce after he caught her in bed with one of his co-workers. In that period of time, I only once found myself in bed with someone, and it happened to be a man whom I'd known since childhood—Matt Donovan. It was a confused and grief-filled night for me, and his mind was clouded with alcohol. Just under three weeks later, Matt was killed in a train accident. Not too long after that, I discovered that I was pregnant. Later I would find out I was expecting twins.
By that time, Damon had secluded himself from a lot of the world—including me—and made his way to Richmond to bury himself in the world of business. He didn't know anything about Matt or the pregnancy when he left. Several months later, I was blessed with two beautiful baby girls, whom I named Damona Elizabeth and Elaine Marie, after Damon and myself.
When the girls were five, I saw Damon again for the first time since before I got pregnant. I was in Richmond taking my daughters sight seeing, and I tracked down his business, aching to see him again. You could only imagine the shock on his face when he saw me come in with two shorter, identical versions of myself. I could've sworn I saw a tear escape his eye when Damona introduced herself. My aunt had come with us to Richmond and agreed to watch the girls so that I could have a night to myself.
My aunt didn't realize the night was going to be anything but to myself. In a beautiful hotel room that overlooked the city, I made love to Damon Salvatore for the second time in my life. It could've been my imagination, but I was almost certain I heard him start to say, "I love you" before he caught himself. A small set of tears rolled down my cheeks in response.
I visited him periodically after that, and it always somehow turned out to be romantic. For some reason, he never wanted to make a commitment to me despite his growing feelings that came with each visit. When he was thirty-five, he told me he loved me again for the first time in almost eighteen years. It sounded different—with a bit of hardness, but much more desperation—yet it still sounded the same. I've always thought that a big reason he was never able to take us back completely was because he never forgave himself for leaving, and he didn't find it fair to me that Katherine did hold a part of his heart as well.
When I turned thirty-five, I found myself pregnant once more, but this time, it was Damon's child. It's very hard to believe, but it was only the sixth time I'd made love in my life—once with Matt and five times with Damon. In very technical terms, I got pregnant one out of three times of doing the deed. I probably could've had ten children if I'd really wanted to.
Damon cried when he found out—with joy and sadness—but told me to do the unthinkable, which was to keep the child away from him to avoid being hurt like I had. I decided that I'd rolled over for him one too many times and fought for our child's right to have a father. After several hours of arguing, he agreed to at least see him or her. He still held back from any promises or commitments. I always wondered if he internally punished himself for breaking the promises he'd made the first time around and if that was another reason he stayed away.
We both wept the day Fallon May graced the earth. In a way, she was the only remnant of the beautiful love we shared when we were so young and full of hope. We named her after "our" town of Mystic Falls—a reminder of the days when we both believed in 'Happily Ever After' and everything it entailed.
The year the twins turned fourteen and Fallon turned five, Damon was transferred from Richmond to New York on business. I was forty, and he was forty-one. I'd officially spent sixty-percent of my life loving that man with all of my heart, and he was leaving. The day he said goodbye, Fallon asked me why her daddy had to leave. The only thing I could think of telling her was that Daddy wanted to explore more of the world and that he'd come back with plenty of stories to tell.
Each time Damon came back to visit the girls, he met them at my aunt's house, and I steered clear. It was all too painful to face the reality that we were growing older each and every day and weren't by each others' sides.
Once Fallon turned eighteen, she was able to go visit her father herself. I silently wondered if he thought of those first nine months we spent together whenever he looked into our daughter's eyes the way I always did.
The years passed, and I only saw Damon six more times before he died at age eighty-five. I wished so terribly that I could've been by his side in his last moments, but I knew the exact moment he'd passed without being told. To be completely honest, no one had even informed me that he was dying. Fallon had hinted that he wasn't doing well, but she knew how much it would've torn me apart to tell me he was drawing near to his end. I just knew that the second my heart grew numb and cold, its reason for beating was no longer beating within his body.
There were so many times I packed my bags and almost made the trip to New York, but something would always stop me. I caved and saw him a few times when he came and visited Fallon, but his eyes were always guarded. His heart was locked away. He had a penchant for never being able to forgive himself, and he was probably the most stubborn man I'd ever met in my life. I could tell his love for me was slowly growing over the years, but he felt as if he'd betrayed me by leaving so many times, and he just couldn't let go.
I've spent the last eight years of my life very close to my daughters—my three miracles that kept me sane for the entirety of my life—their families, and my closest friends.
Today, I feel as if my time is running out. Some days, I swear I can still hear the sound of Damon's heartbeat beneath my ear, the deepness of his breathing, and the sound of his laughter echoing in the back of my mind. He was my heart . . . and I have been going on nothing but blood pumping through a vital muscle for the past eight years. I miss him so terribly . . . Much more than I ever did in the years we were apart but both still living.
I have reached the point of old age and am not dying because of any illness, but simply because my entire being wishes to go on no longer. I close my eyes and remember the three promises he made me when we were young:
'I promise that there will always be a place in my heart for you, Elena Gilbert.'
'I promise that no matter where we are, what is going on in our lives, and how well we get along, I will always love you. I will never stop loving you in some way . . .'
'When we die, whoever went first will be holding their arms open for the other when they get to Heaven, and then we'll just hold each other forever. I promise.'
I feel the corners of my mouth twitching up into a smile. My breaths are getting shallow.
I close my eyes and start to see a small star amidst the darkness behind my eyelids. I hear a voice, but I can't make out the words. I know the voice. The little star is getting closer.
I feel my daughters taking my hands, and I hear the soft sound of their weeping.
'It's okay, Mom . . .' Fallon is speaking. I'm her mother, so I can still tell she's fighting tears even though I'm losing consciousness by the second. 'You deserve to be free.' She inhales shakily. 'Daddy loved you, you know . . . And he's waiting for you. Those were his last words to me. Did you know that? He told me that he was sorry he never quite made it while he was here, but he always loved you in some way, and he would be waiting for you.'
I feel a bit of happiness overwhelm me when I hear the few words being picked out from his second promise. I try my hardest to widen my smile just a bit more—only so she knows I can hear her. The other two begin to cry as well.
'Go home to Damon, Mom . . . It'll finally be right. Like it was always supposed to be.' This is Damona.
Elaine lets out a heart-wrenching sob. 'It's been so hard to see you so sad . . . We know you've always smiled for us, but your heart always hurt . . . Thank you so much for staying with us . . . Never giving up . . . I love you, Mom . . .'
Damona and Fallon repeat those last three words. I mouth them back.
"I'm here, sweetheart . . . Take my hand . . ."
I feel my eyes open, but I am no longer in my small bedroom with my girls. I am in a place of indescribable beauty, and I'm looking into the eyes of my heart once more. They are icy blue, and they are even more beautiful than ever.
I look into his smiling face and reach my hand out towards him, seeing that every trace of wrinkles and age spots have disappeared from both his face and my outstretched arm. When we touch, I feel every ounce of love emitting from both of our beings, and I'm brought back to the summer of 1936.
He takes me into his arms, and I feel the warmth of his embrace like never before. He whispers in my ear, "I kept my promises, honey . . . It just took me some time."
For the first time, I forget what regret and loss feel like, and I realize that I am finally home. It was worth it. It was really all worth it.