born from dark waters
Title is from "Landscape" by Florence + The Machine. This is a short fic set after Elena kills Connor in 4x05, after Elena stabs Jeremy at the beginning of 4x06 and also set after the scene where Damon jumps off Wickery Bridge with Elena, but before she wakes up. It's not necessarily shipp-y, but it contains both of them.
She's a monster.
Sometime between scrubbing the blood from her hands and hallucinating blood on the wall, Elena opens her closet door. She sees her clothes: simple dresses, cardigans, jeans, henleys. Remnants of a girl who isn't a killer. Isn't a monster.
She goes to grab a tank top and pair of yoga pants to (try) to sleep in, when her eyes become transfixed on the closet wall. She becomes acutely aware of another way that her closet no longer belongs to her. This wall is bare, belongs to a girl who isn't a killer or a murderer or a monster. So, before she writes in her diary, she takes her pen and scribes one name on the wall:
Connor Jordan.
After she stabs Jeremy, Elena tries not to completely fall apart. But, her brother's blood on her hands, Stefan betraying her trust and visions of the man she killed make that pretty much impossible.
Before she gets dressed, she finds herself writing another name on the wall:
Jeremy Gilbert
She thinks of him before she adds an asterisk next to Jeremy's name. She almost laughs before she finds herself writing countless other names:
Greyson Gilbert
Miranda Somers-Gilbert
Isobel Flemming
Jenna Somers
Jon Gilbert
Alaric Saltzman
Just because she didn't stab them or snap their necks doesn't mean she didn't kill them. Elena Gilbert is a monster and people died around her even before she had her first sip of blood.
When Damon brings Elena back to her bed, ring on her hand, not scorched by the sun, they are both completely soaked with river water. Elena's jeans are dripping and her cardigan drenched, so he knows he needs to find her a change of clothes before she wakes up looking like the Lady in the Water from some horror flick.
He opens her closet door, rifling through for something that looks comfy and easy to put on an unconscious person when his eyes catch a glimpse of writing on the edge of her closet.
No, he thinks as his eyes scan across the scribbled names. He thinks about how much like his brother Elena is, with her guilt and need to remember and dramatic martyr-dom. But, as he looks closer, he sees a giant, almost violently-scratched asterisk next to Jeremy's name. His mind flashes to conversations in trucks on the way to Duke and there's a big asterisk next to that statement.
He can't help but laugh. Maybe Elena isn't as much like Stefan as he thinks she is.