The days pass by in one fuzzy blur. Some days, she just lies in her bed and thinks. Of him, mostly. Sometimes it's important stuff; the things she regrets ever saying to him, all their fights, the highest points of their relationship. Other times, she thinks of things that probably don't really matter. Like the way his hair curled around his ear, or the way he always found an excuse to touch her, or how his arm curled perfectly around her waist during their short time together. The memories might seem inconsequential now, but they're all she has left of him. The small rememberences of him, like bits of brightly colored sea glass amongst an array of gray colored stones, stick themselves on every crevice of her being. Behind her eyelids, so that everytime she closes them she's forced to watch on repeat, all the while thinking of the things she could have done differently, should have done differently. But, always, she's unable to change anything. And the sick part is, she likes the pain it brings. Welcomes it, really. It's a daily reminder that without him, there is nothing but pain. Because despite what everybody else thought (and still thinks) Damon was not darkness. He was her light, her beacon. He was going to drag her through the cusps of vampirism without her losing herself along the way. And she had almost been there, had been so close to successfully juggling her human self and vampire self at the same time. But when he died, the lighthouse went dark and now she's floating away from Elena Gilbert and is almost to the shore of being someone completely different. Without Damon, there is no lighthouse, there is no dock.
There is no Elena Gilbert.
"I can't help you, Elena."
Bonnie's words go straight through her, and for a brief moment, she thinks she's joking. There was a time when Bonnie Bennett lived for being sarcastic, it was something she was always good at. Elena could never tell what was to be serious and what was to be sarcastic with her, and it had been a trait that she always associated her best friend with. But then the vampires and werewolves and hybrids entered the picture, and she lost the sarcastic edge. Elena began associating the quality with somebody else, asocciated it with smirks and sexiness and bourbon, and now she knows that Bonnie Bennett is being one hundred percent serious.
She goes on before Elena can reply. "Bringing back a human is one thing. But a vampire? Do you know the consequences it would bring, on all of us?"
Elena blinks. Yes, she has an idea. "I don't care. I know there's a way. There's always a way, Bonnie."
The witch shakes her head. When did she start referring to her as 'the witch'? "Elena, no. I'm not doing it." Her hazel eyes turn to steal and it matches the branded iron that's currently pulsating in Elena's heart. She hears a thud and feels skin under her hand, and realizes that she's suddenly got Bonnie against a wall, fingers around throat. Bonnie, her oldest friend.
She's half expecting an anyurism, half expecting to be lit on fire. But Bonnnie just looks shocked, and scared, and Elena is reminded of when Tyler and his friends scared them at their fifth grade slumber party. She loosens her grip, and Bonnie falls to the ground, gasping. "You're lucky I still remember what it was like to be friends with you." Elena murmurs, and steps back.
She's thinking that she can find another witch when Bonnie stops her in her tracks. "I'll do it, I'll help you." she says. Elena turns back and raises an eyebrow, and Bonnie holds her stare.
"But when I get him back for you, I want you to leave. Both of you." Bonnie raises her chin, "Maybe things will finally be peaceful with you gone."
If Elena still felt, that sentence would have been a slap to the face. She'd be crying for days. But she doesn't, and it isn't. And it makes sense. Alot of sense. So she nods, and leaves.
The journal is roughly grabbed from her hands and she barely raises her head at Stefan's angry, annoyed look. He wraps the leather cord back around the book and stuffs it in the bookshelf, then proceeds to make a drink.
"I was reading that." She drawls, crossing her arms.
Stefan doesn't look at her. Nobody really does, anymore. Except Matt. "I'm not letting you read my journal so you can find more things to hold against me."
True, she thinks. Really, she does look for anything and everything to hold over Stefan. But she ignores him, anways. "I especially liked the part where you flat out wrote that you would never lose me to your brother." She taunts, enjoying the way the vein in his forehead twitches. "Talk about dramatic irony."
"What do you want, Elena?" He asks, turning away from her. She wonders what ever became of them. Oh, yeah.
"I was just hoping for a bit of your time before you skip off to Caroline or Rebekkah or whoever's arms your crying in this week. Maybe Klaus?" It's a low blow, and she does feel a tiny bit guilty for it. But she hates how he looks at her now, with disgust and weariness and confusion, like he doesn't know who she is. Like he never knew who she was. Somewhere inside, Elena Gilbert screams that he doesn't deserve this from her. She thinks one word. Damon.
Elena Gilbert quickly shuts up.
Stefan huffs, looking at her reproachfully. "What?" he asks, and Elena can practically hear the rest of the sentence do you want from me.
"Bonnie's gonna help us." She doesn't need to explain more, Stefan knows what she's talking about. He straightens up, the disgusted and wary look fading to a determined one. This is the Stefan she can be decent to.
"What do we have to do?"
Elena smiles. "Well, she said it has to be done when the 'moon and sun align'." She uses air quotes, waiting for it to sink in.
His eyebrows furrow, "An eclipse...? The next one is-"
"A month away." Elena says, leaning back in the arm chair. Finally, Elena and Stefan are once again on the same page.
Sometimes she wonders if this is how Damon felt while he waited to get Katherine out of the tomb. Did he spend some days a reckless, desperate mess, clinging to every memory and detail of her until his head hurt? Did he partially blame her for leaving him alone in this state of mind with no one to understand what exactly it was he was going through? Did he ever just want to end it all? That it'd be so, so easy. Ring off, curtain open, goodbye cruel world.
It's one of the only things that keeps her fueled most of the time; the fact that once, Damon, her Damon, went through all of this. The fact that he lived and breathed and thrived on the idea that soon, he would get the person he loved most back. Just like she is doing. Of course, Katherine was never in the tomb and nothing really ended up the way everyone thought it would, but still. Damon went decades doing what she's doing now. It's only been... about four months since his death. If Damon can do it, she can.
They are alike, after all.
Jeremy claims that he hasn't seen him. She asks, he shakes his head and looks down. This is repeated everyday.
Jeremy is lying.
It's in his heartbeat and dwindling thumbs and the inability to meet her eyes. But she doesn't press him about it. Elena doesn't have the energy to be a bitch to her brother, and most of the time, they just avoid each other. She can't be the responsible older sister and he can't be the dork younger brother anymore. Both of them have been tainted by blood and loss, and she thinks that Jeremy might be losing himself as well.
Honestly, Elena doesn't much want to talk to Damon through Jeremy. She's pretty sure he's making him lie about it for some reason or the other, thinking it's the 'selfless' thing to do. She's going to respect his judgement on this one, because even when he's dead, he's still trying to protect her. And it makes her smile, a real, honest to God smile that she lets no one see.
And also, she wants their first conversation to be real. No sirebond, no ghosts. Just them.
Real.
The morning of the eclipse, she almost feels human when she wakes up. Almost. She hums a popular song under her breath as she straightens her hair and for a moment, she almost feels like it's the first day of school before her parents died. Elena always loved the first day of school. She would see her friends, her aquaintences, her favorite teachers. It was a refreshing change to the boring, hot summer days that went by at an endless blur.
But Elena is not human, her parents are not alive, and this is not the first day of school.
But, by the end of the day, she'll have Damon back. Damon.
It's better than any first day of school. Better than any day ever.
The clearing is large, with trees circling it at every angle while the evening sun casts a red-orange glow on everything. Bonnie is busy flipping through one of her magic cookbooks with Jeremy huddled close to her. Stefan is already there, and Elena isn't surprised to see Caroline and Rebekkah flanking either side of him. Looks like there's a new triangle to choose teams on.
Damon's body is directly in the middle, under the sun. The mark left by the stake is covered by a clean shirt that she assumes Stefan put on him. He looks pale, lifeless, dead.
Bonnie straightens up when she sees her. "Elena, there's something you need to know-"
"Can we get this over with?" Rebekkah chimes, nodding to the sky. Everyone looks up and notices what's happening. The eclipse. Bonnie sighs through her teeth and shoots Elena a helpless look before walking over to the grimiore. Jeremy cuts his hand. There's jumbled words that nobody understands. A gust of wind. Jeremy squeezes the blood directly onto the spot where Damon's heart would be. Still chanting, Bonnie leans down and clutches his shoulders. Then all hell breaks loose. Elena imagines this is what a hurricane, tornado and earthquake must feel like combined. The ground is shaking, the trees look as if they might fall, the wind threatens to push her to the ground. There's blood oozing out of Bonnie nose, her ears, her mouth. But she keeps chanting. And then, it's over.
For a moment, everything is quiet. So very, very quiet. Everybody is holding their breath, until someone isn't. A gasp. Crystalline eyes open, alive.
Elena's gasping, too. She feels something connect inside her as she kneels next to him, desperately clutching him to her.
"Damon." she gasps, and she feels hot tears cascading down her cheeks, watches a drop fall on his hair.
She hugs him and he hugs her and- Wait, he isn't hugging her. Why isn't he hugging her? Why isn't he kissing her? There's something wrong.
Elena pulls back and stares at him, not understanding the confused look in his eyes. And he looks very, very confused. He furrows his eyebrows, his eyes flickering to everybody before settling on Stefan. "Stefan?" he asks, voice rough from disuse. Stefan nods, narrowing his eyes before turning to look at Bonnie, confusion dawning on him as well. Bonnie is grimacing guiltily, like she knows exactly what's going on.
Damon's eyes land back on me. "Katherine?"
She's pushing him away so fast that he almost falls back, then rounds on Bonnie. "What is this, Bonnie? What's going on?" she snaps, feeling panic and anger throbbing inside her wildely.
"I... tried to tell you. But-"
"What's. Wrong?" She asks slowly, staring unblinkingly at the witch.
Bonnie swallows heavily, "He doesn't remember, Elena. He remembers nothing from after the day he was turned."
The words slowly enter her brain, jumbled and distant. Remembers... nothing... after... turned.
She turns to look at Damon, and the look in his eyes confirm it. He thinks she's Katherine. The name Elena means nothing to him. Every moment they shared together is erased. Like when somebody draws a masterpiece on a whiteboard, and somebody comes along and wipes it away with a single stroke. Lost. Dead. Gone. Astray. Consumed.
Elena Gilbert is gone. She's no more. Elena Gilbert is not Elena Gilbert anymore.
Elena Gilbert runs.
A/N: Umm. Ok, I don't know what I'm doing here. I'm not sure why I continued this. But the possibility of Damon dying becomes more realistic each day and I know it will probably end tragically for D/E, so I wrote this as a kind of therapy. I tried to write a happily ever after, really, I did. But it just didn't sit well with me. So, I wrote this... thing, instead. It's angsty, I know. Please don't hate me. I might continue it, so I won't put the complete mark on it just yet.
Please, tell me what you think, even if it's nasty. I welcome it. And also, I apologize if there's misspellings or grammar issues, I typed this on my ghetto laptop which is a pieceofshit. Let me know and I'll try and fix it. Thanks for reading :)
