Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries and all the characters within that show belong to other people I have no dealings with whatsoever. If it were otherwise Elijah would be one of the main characters and Elena would fall hopelessly in love with him.

AN: I don't know where this comes from or how often I'll be updating it, but the chapters although chronological will be able to mostly stand on their own. I couldn't resist the thought of Elena dreaming about Elijah, you see the results of the sneaky plot bunny.

O0o0O Sleeping Awake O0o0O

O0o0O First Dream O0o0O

Elena opens her eyes to the familiar white ceiling of her room and is instantly aware that she is still asleep. She isn't sure how she knows it, because everything feels real enough, but the knowledge is there buried in her subconscious mind and available to her now that she's dreaming.

She is laying in her warm bed, her head resting against the soft pillow and the silence is so clear it could never be recreated in the waking world. As if going through predetermined dance steps her eyes travel across the ceiling downwards, rest on her family picture on the wall and then drift towards the open window. She blinks for the first time noticing that she isn't alone.

A tall man with his back to her is resting against the windowsill and looking up at the night sky. There is an exquisite elegance even to his slouched stance and she recognizes him instantly.

"Elijah." The smile he sends her after turning his head is barely there, and like always it has millions of buried thoughts hiding in its curves. And then akin to every time before she only understands the barest hint of meaning. There is a sadness to his eyes though that she sympathizes with instantly, he is weighted down with something too heavy for even him to bear. She doesn't want that empathy to be born, but the feeling lurks past her guard and nests.

"Hello Elena. Glad to see that you're awake." His voice carries the pleasant tranquility and spark of tension she has grown familiar with, but even more so. As if the dream enhances the traits she associates with Elijah until they flow around her as magic in its purest form. She doesn't know if that excites or frightens her, possibly a bit of both.

"But I'm not am I?" It's not actually a question, she already knows the answer, but she needs the steadying grounding of a conversation to clear her head from the trance like effects of his voice. If only she had been awake her heart would be beating a bit quicker than normal and the anger she knows should be there wouldn't be removed from her grasp, but he wouldn't be there is she was awake.

"No, I suppose not." He nods in agreement and Elena frowns at herself for noticing how his already striking facial contours somehow become even more appealing. Instead of thinking about that she chooses to pretend the dream hasn't robbed her of the resentment thoughts of him never fail to invoke in her now.

"What are you doing here? You didn't keep yourself to your word after all that talk about honor and trust. I shouldn't be thinking let alone dreaming about you." And Elena knows the lie in those words. She has been thinking about him almost as much as she does about Stefan, even if most of those thoughts are less than complimentary. And she misses him, a little. That's one of the reason's his betrayal hurts.

"But you have been thinking about me, I would never be here otherwise." She flinches at his comeback, she already knew that so why did a figment of her imagination have to throw it into her face too? Elena doesn't respond, instead she changes the subject.

"How are you?" Elena doesn't actually want to know, she's afraid she already does.

"Dead. But you already knew that Elena." And she did, but the confirmation creates a pain lacking after the first time he was deceased. She knew Klaus couldn't be trusted, even worse than that so had Elijah and he still decided to bargain with him. The moment Elena learned about Elijah's choice she had already known what his brother would do to him.

"I suppose so. Why didn't you kill Klaus?" Elena knows the story, - Stefan had relayed it to her right after she stopped crying about Jenna, - but she needs to hear the answer, needs him to be the one that tells her. "You had his heart in your hands and you let him live, even after everything he has done to me, to innocent people, to your family."

"You know the answer to that Elena. You would have done exactly the same as me. After all family is everything, and he promised me mine." His slightly bitter words don't make his actions any better, they have still cost her too much to be forgiven that quickly or easily, but they help. She understands.

For a moment they stay silent. Elena contemplates the man in front of her, trying to come to some kind of conclusion that would finally help her categorize him. But Elijah is too vague a concept, has gone through too many roles in her mind. She gives up and spills to him the sentence she's wanted to for two weeks now.

"You know that I will never forgive you, Stefan's gone because of you." There is no malice in Elena's declaration, it is just something that needs to be said. But his face grows cold, hiding some emotion he doesn't want her to see. He looks like the unfeeling monster she took him for on their first meeting and it leaves a stark impression in the central area of her chest.

"And Damon's alive." Even asleep, when the matters of the heart should be clearer Elena doesn't know if that should change anything. She's glad Damon didn't die, but she hates how it's exactly his life that stole Stefan from her. She still doesn't know which option is the bigger tragedy, and she despises just what it is this tells her about herself.

"That doesn't change anything, you still broke your word and you didn't know that Tyler bit Damon or that you brothers blood was the cure. I will never trust you again." Elijah looks at her the way the real version of him did constantly, as if he was reading her soul through her eyes. Then he for the first time since the start of the conversation straightens his shoulders and slowly with no quick movements walks towards her as if cornering a jittery prey. He sits down on the side of her bed, extends his right hand and runs his fingers over the brown strand of hair covering her cheek, the very tips ghost across her skin.

It's that sensation and his following sentence that follows her out of the dream and into the morning light.

"Maybe, but never is a very long time."

O0o0O Further Dreams Coming O0o0O