Next chapter.

Thanks for all the reviews/comments on Twitter! So glad that you all loved it :)

I really hope I can do DE justice and hit on at least some of the points that the show brushed over.

I'm going to try to keep them in chronological order (timeline wise) but if inspiration strikes I may change that.

Either way, the chapters will let you know where they fall in the timeline.

Hope you guys like this one too!


The sun shone through Elena's thick brown hair as she leaned back against her parent's headstones and closed her eyes.

There was a slight breeze in the air, making the warmth bearable, and having nothing around but the chirping of some birds was a nice shake up from what had become the norm.

It had been a week.

An entire seven days since everything in Mystic Falls had changed forever.

Elena was beyond thrilled to have her life back.

Damon was almost always at her side, Bonnie was still alive, Caroline and Ric's daughters were the most precious things, and even Jeremy had come home now that she was awake.

The passing of the ones who didn't make it through, be that Stefan, Tyler, Jo, Liz, or any other, was a painful ache that everyone would always feel to some degree, but life was starting to move again.

The Boarding House was being converted into a school for supernatural children, which Elena considered one of Alaric's best ideas, and everyone had pitched in to help with the start up.

She figured the distraction was a much needed one, though no one said so, and it was a good way for them to finally spend time all together and figure out where they went from here.

There was still so much to catch up on.

So Elena had decided to take a day to do just that.


She'd come to the cemetery alone, despite a few protests on Damon's part, with a stack of every journal her friends had written, and one by one, she read them.

She'd heard the first person account of pretty much everything that had happened from everyone, but actually seeing the words gave her mind some clarity.

Tears, laughter, fear, happiness, and so many other emotions tore her heart a million different ways as she read about what all she'd missed in her slumber.

Heretics.

Lily Salvatore's old boyfriend, Julian and the hellstone.

Damon and Stefan's sufferings.

The multiple kidnaps of her coffin.

The Armory.

The Sirens…

Page after page of so much misery that her loved ones had endured.

Sure there were happy points.

Caroline with Stefan or her girls.

Alaric with the twins.

Bonnie finding the love she deserved with Enzo…

But among everything, one particular entry stood out; Damon's one and only hand written journal log.


Dear Elena,

Yes you heard that correctly. Hell has frozen over. I'm writing it all down.
Granted, I'm half a bottle in thanks to my 1950 Chateau Cheval Blanc, a bottle I waited 65 years to open.
I used to spend nights sitting in my wine cellar convincing myself I could hear it age, tannins growing, fermenting, but appreciating its beauty didn't make time go by any faster.
The bottle just laid there on its shelf, torturing me while I waited for Katherine and time stood still. Eventually I convinced myself that no sip of that wine could ever taste as good as I dreamt it would.
And that is the story of why I drink bourbon.
I don't know who I am without you, but I know that as long as I'm with you, time will stand still. So who is Damon Salvatore without Elena Gilbert? A selfish friend, a jealous brother, a horrible son?
Or maybe with a little luck, I'll do right by you.
Because you may be a thousand miles away or a hundred years away, but you're still here with me and my heart is right there in that coffin with you.
Until you come back to me.

Love, Damon


She lost count of the number of times she read his words, wishing she could reach through the pages and assure him that she was coming back to him.

It broke her heart to know what the person she loved most had suffered.

Mind control aside, her absence from his life had been Damon's existential crisis.

But he made her proud.

Throughout it all, he'd done exactly what Stefan had said; he'd become the better man.

The best of himself.

He loved and sacrificed and held everything together the best he could, for her...and for his family. The small list of people that he'd opened himself up to.

And even though she could feel the pain he held for the loss of his brother, he also understood that he wasn't alone anymore.

When he wasn't with her, he was with Bonnie, or Caroline, or even Alaric, though their relationship was still shaky and mainly consisted of late night drinks after the twins went to bed.

It was getting better though, and she wasn't sure if that was quite a good thing or not.

Having heard about the little incident of Ric plunging a stake into Damon's chest, she wasn't the man's biggest fan, but she was trying to understand.

Damon had assured her that it was probably a deserved retribution and that, in all fairness, he'd killed Alaric before too.

She wasn't quite at that forgiving place yet, especially since Ric had known better than anyone what her life was like without Damon in it, but she was trying.

With all the seconds chances and new starts floating around, it seemed pointless to put any more effort into more angry or holding grudges.

Matt, Alaric, Caroline, Bonnie, Damon...they'd all done what they'd done, and they were moving past that.

She had to find a way to do so as well.


So for now, she would do what she had been doing all this week.

Spending time with her brother, her friends, and the love of her life, while they all worked toward a better future for children who would be forced into some of the messes they'd had to deal with over the years.

Because she had a feeling that there would always be something going on in Mystic Falls, though maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing.
Maybe they'd given up enough now that some cosmic balance would give them a break and things would be good from here.

She had faith in that.

They all deserved a happier life, in whatever form it took, for as long as they were able to live it.

Things would work themselves out.

As sheriff, Matt had been monitoring the return of all the townsfolk after the evacuation, and with the buzz of life reintegrating itself, Elena had hope that this time, it would be different.

Maybe not ever normal, seeing as they were all witches, doppelgangers, vampires, ex-vampires, vampire hunters, and so on, but who needed normal when there was a open board of unending potential just waiting to be lived.

Her life was not normal.

It was weird, messy, complicated, sad, wonderful, amazing, and above all...epic.

And she wasn't going to waste a single moment of that by wallowing in "maybes" or "could haves".


With her mind made up, Elena pulled herself to her feet and dusted her pants.

Then she grabbed the stack of journals and for a fleeting moment, considered leaving them in the Salvatore crypt.

Ashes to ashes. Past to past.

But then she thought of her family, the old Gilbert journals, her father's documented experiments on vampires, Bonnie's Grimoire, and decided that maybe some future generations of supernaturally affected lives could find use of them.

This was all part of their legacy, and it was a way to turn all the pain and suffering into something worthwhile.

So she kept them, and carried them back to her car.

Well, technically it was Jeremy's car now, but she was borrowing it until she was able to go get one of her own.

She placed the journals in the passenger's seat and gave a final glance back at the cemetery.

"I'll visit again soon," she promised, smiling a little as she started the car and pulled out.


The Boarding House was alive with laughter when she arrived, and the sounds coming from inside made her happy.

Further proof that she was awake and had loved ones close by.

Closer than she thought, actually.

"I was wondering when you'd get back."

Damon was waiting on the short wall across from the archway of the front door and she smiled when she saw him.

"What are you doing out here?"

He shrugged, "Even without supernatural hearing, it's loud in there. You know, this might be the first time half of those rooms have been used in over a decade. We're gonna have to do some more remodeling if it keeps up at this rate. Maybe we should start charging room fees. Thoughts?"

She pursed her lips and joined him on the wall, "Deflection. Nice tactic, but you should know by now that it doesn't work on me. What's really on your mind?"

He smirked a little, reaching for her hand, which she offered to him immediately.

"You read the journals?"

She nodded.

"I guess I was just wondering if they would change your mind about things…"

"Things? You mean about us?" she asked, and his lack of response was answer enough.

"Damon," she squeezed his hand, "Look, things happened, okay? That's nothing we can change. And nothing that you did under the siren's control was your fault. And I know that, not just from reading the journals, but because Bonnie and Caroline were both sure to tell me that repeatedly when we first talked about it. No one blames you."

He shook his head, "It's more than just that. I did terrible things, Elena. Things that maybe weren't even written down in there. And during my time with Sybil…"

The siren's name rolled from his tongue with a familiarity that she despised.

Not that it was his fault, but knowing that woman had gotten all up inside his head made Elena glad she'd been sent to whatever hell she was burning in and that it was forever destroyed.

However, the guilt on Damon's face lingered.

Guilt that struck a chord within her, and a question she wasn't entirely sure she wanted the answer to made it's way to her lips.

"Damon, were you...I mean, did you and her...you know...?"

One of his brows shot up, making her blush a little, but she didn't retract the question.

Slowly, his head shook, "No. At times I think she wanted to, but it wasn't really about that with us. She needed minions, not boy toys."

Elena nodded, feeling a little relieved.

"But," he continued, and her head shot up, causing Damon to be the one with pink cheeks, "There is something else you should probably know."

"Something else?" she prodded.

He sighed deeply, his gaze dropping down to their combined hands, "I'm guessing Bonnie didn't actually write about Krystal?"

"Krystal?" Elena tried to remember if the name had ever come up, "No, I don't think so."

Damon pulled his bottom lip into his mouth as he mulled his thoughts over.

Elena braced herself, "Hey, whatever it is, just tell me, okay? It's the only way we go forward."

Finally, he looked up at her, and the guilt was back in his eyes, "You won't like this."

"Tell me anyway."

And he did.


He told her about coming out of the hellstone, about thinking he'd burned her body...about the fights and the fallout after the fact...and all about Krystal, with a "K".

Elena listened without comment, being sure to keep her emotions in check so that he wouldn't get discouraged and stop talking.

When he had finished, his expression broke her heart, and had her standing.

Damon seemed surprised when she pushed herself into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.

The astonishment furthered when she kissed him, slowly, letting their lips linger before she pulled away.

"Elena-"

"It's in the past," she cut him off, "It doesn't matter."

"It does," he insisted, "I could have killed you. I...I cheated on-"

"No, you didn't," she assured him, then sighed, "Look, obviously I'm not thrilled about what happened, but just answer me one thing. Would you have done it if you knew I was still alive?"

His blue eyes searched her face before saying, clear of doubt, "No. Never."

She smiled at the sincerity in his voice, "Of course you wouldn't. You didn't betray me Damon. You did that dumb thing you always do when you think you deserve to be punished, which is to lash out and do whatever it takes to make you hate yourself...but you didn't betray me."

She could see the relief in face; feel the relaxation in his body as her words washed over him, but his grip on her waist remained tight.

"You really are too good for me," he breathed, "I'm starting to think there's nothing you can't find a way to forgive."

She laughed a little at that, and ran her fingers through the ends of his hair, "Well, Mr. Salvatore, I guess we have the next sixty to seventy years to find out how true that is."

And Damon smiled.

A real genuine smile that would have made her weak at the knees had she not already been sitting down.

The kind that made her warm just to see and she recalled just how much she'd missed it.

"Yeah. We do, don't we?"

Then he was kissing her and she was happy in his arms.

Where she planned on staying for the rest of her life.


A little fluff there at the end, but also conversations and issues I think should have been addressed! lol

Anyway, I hope you liked it and I've loved reading all of your reviews.

Remember, if there is any scene/situation/conversation that you want to see, let me know in a review and I'll try to make it happen.

For those of you who have already made suggestions, I really appreciate them, so thank you!

Until next time :)