A/N: Thank you so much for all the beautiful reviews! :)

Disclaimer: TVD belongs to LJ Smith & CW.

Chapter 2

Elena was sitting motionlessly in the passenger's seat, staring through the windshield into the night. The world would look the same if she was not here. She tried to find reasonable consolation in the thought, but it made her sad instead.

Very slowly, she drew a breath and let go of it. Then she raised her hand and after looking at her outstretched fingers for a moment, placed her open palm on her heart.

The driver's door was pulled open and Elena's hand quickly slid off her chest landing with her other hand in her lap. Damon got into the car and slammed the door shut.

"I couldn't get in," he said, squinting. "It looks like..." he stopped for a second before uttering the name in a slightly lower voice, "Ric provided the Council with the up-to-date undead residents list. The hospital is guarded." He surveyed her face, waiting for her reaction but she was looking straight ahead. "We don't have enough time to drive to another one."

"I miss him," Elena said barely above a whisper.

Damon looked away from her. "Me too," he said under his breath, starting the engine, his words almost drowned by the noise.

Elena thought that it must have been a vampire thing that she was able to tell what he looked like right, how he felt, and what he was thinking, even though she did not look at him.

But then she remembered she was not a vampire yet.

"So what are we going to do?" she asked, dragging herself back into the present, hoping that somehow Damon would say something else than what she expected him to say.

"I'm afraid it means we'll have to do this a traditional way."

Elena's mouth twitched and she quickly turned toward the window willing herself not to start crying again. "I can't," she whispered shakily. It was a childish thing to say, and she did not even want to say it, but somehow she needed to say it, if only to hear his answer.

"Of course you can." Damon said dismissively, the certainty in his voice wrapping itself around her like a warm blanket. "You're not going to kill anyone, Elena," he continued with his eyes fixed on the road. "You'll just drink a little bit of blood and then the lucky stranger will be back on his or her merry way with not a single unpleasant memory." He glanced at her hoping to see a flicker of a smile, but sadness was written all over her face, and it was clear that fake lightheartedness was not going to work.

Elena leaned her head against the car seat and squeezed her eyes shut. Damon looked between her and the road. He doubted it was the best time but then again no moment would be good for telling her about that...

"Speaking of memories."

Elena opened her eyes and looked at the dark road ahead of them.

"When you complete the transition you may- you will remember... things that you were compelled to forget." Damon's voice was slightly strained but this alone was not alarming enough.

"I know. But I don't think I've ever been compelled," Elena said slowly in a blank voice.

Damon looked at her out of the corner of his eye, but she seemed to consider the subject as dealt with.

"I might have compelled you to forget something once... or twice."

Elena stiffened, and quickly turned her head to look at him. "You what?"

"Don't get your hopes up too high. I didn't do anything," he tried turning it into a joke, but Elena's expression did not encourage that at all. "I just compelled you to forget... some stuff I was saying."

"I want you to get everything you're looking for."

"Why?" Elena asked in a voice that was almost her regular voice that she used on a regular basis when she was regularly angry with him. It was almost a relief to hear her use that voice again. He would rather have her angry than sad.

"I just have to say it once. You just need to hear it."

"Do we really have to discuss that right now?" Damon asked, rolling his eyes at her. "You will judge for yourself once you remember it," he added under his breath.

Elena stared at him, taken aback by the revelation, but she felt too tired to demand an explanation right now. Not to mention that he was right. She would soon remember it herself anyway. She could get back at him for this then. If he would still deserve it, she thought with a sigh.

Damon shot her an assessing glance and when she shuddered he began taking off his jacket while driving, and she was about to tell him to pay attention to the road but the words froze on her lips. There was no point.

They were dead.

She was dead.

Staring into the darkness in front of them, Elena all of a sudden contemplated the concept with detached serenity. She had so much time now. Whatever conclusion she would draw, it did not matter. Nothing was final. She could not undo what had happened, but everything could happen in the future. She could still refuse to complete the transition but she was scared to let go. She had time, but she did not have a choice. Because she did not want to let go.

"Wear it," Damon dropped his jacket onto her lap, and Elena shifted her eyes to it as if she saw it for the first time.

"I'm not cold." Elena straightened slightly in her seat, drawing her hands from under his jacket and placing them on top of it. Not yet. "I don't think I can do this, Damon." Stubbornly, the words kept coming back to her, like the last shreds of something she was familiar with, last shreds of what she could actually understand.

"So don't think, Elena," Damon said, glancing at her hands that were now clutching the jacket in her lap. "Just do what I tell you. It will be over before you know it," he attempted a small smile but her face remained pale and still.

His forehead wrinkled in a quick spasm of compassion. Maybe he could make it easier for her; maybe he could make it less terrifying, less repulsive, less atrocious, less lonely, less dangerous. But he could not make it seem right to her.

"Have you ever imagined this?" Elena's voice was quiet and toneless. She was not looking at him.

Instinctively, Damon wanted to pretend he did not understand her question but he did, and if they shared one secret it was that they never lied to one another.

"I have," he said, his eyes darting from one side of the road to the other. He could feel her eyes move to his face but he did not turn his head to look at her.

"How did you imagine it?"

He tried to guess why she was asking him about that. Maybe she wanted to relate to something. However, relating to his reveries seemed like a particularly poor choice.

"I've never imagined you to go through this against your will," he said hoping that this would end the discussion.

And it did. Elena sank into her seat hugging the jacket to her.

"You should wear it," he repeated. "It will be cold outside."

She glanced at her short-sleeved dark green t-shirt and at last flung Damon's jacket over her shoulders, wiggling her hands into the long sleeves. She wanted to ask him if now she would not feel cold anymore. But she decided the question was stupid.

"It's not quite against my will," she said instead, looking through the window to her right.

"Yes, well. You know what I mean," he said brusquely, taking a sharp turn into an empty, desolate road that led into the forest, and after a minute he stopped the car and turned the lights off.

Elena drew a hasty breath and exhaled quickly. The tears gathered in her eyes despite the fact that she had spent the last few minutes willing herself not to cry.

She almost lost her breath altogether when leaning toward her Damon propped her chin with his hand.

"Everything is going to be alright. Stay in the car and wait for me." He let go of her chin. "You will be fine, Elena. And no one will get hurt," he said, picking up on the lingering fear in her eyes.

"How do you know?" she asked immediately in a faltering voice, proving all his suspicions right. "What if I won't know when to stop?"

"I will tell you when to stop."

"What if I won't listen to you?"

"You will listen to me, Elena."

"What if I won't?"

"You will."

"What if I won't be able to stop? What if-"

"Then I will stop you, Elena," he cut in, the tone of his voice acquiring that note of insistence that always terrorized her into agreement but now served as the source of comfort. "I will be there with you. I will tell you when to start and when to stop, and if you won't be able to stop, I will make you stop. You won't hurt anyone. I promise," his mouth twitched into a faint smile and she made an effort to return it.

He drew back when she nodded and got out of the car.

She watched him walk toward the road, away from the car. There was something so painfully familiar about the image of him walking away. It seemed embedded in her memory like a scar. She thought back to all those moments when she had seen him walking away and she was surprised by how many times it must have had something to do with him feeling like he had no reason to stay, like no one wanted him to stay.

The forest was dark and soon his silhouette disappeared between the trees. Wrapping her arms around her, and sliding deeper into her seat Elena looked intently at the darkness in front of her waiting for him to come back.


"Maybe she did change her mind," Caroline argued, trying to call Elena for the tenth time, but then Matt handed her Elena's cell phone and Caroline threw back her head with an exasperated sigh. "Of course. Why should she take her phone. It's not like she could expect me to worry about her. It's not like I worry about people."

"At least you know she isn't ignoring your calls," Matt observed with a humorless smile.

"They are probably still in Mystic Falls." Stefan grabbed his car keys and headed for the door, but to his surprise Jeremy blocked his way.

"I don't care if she changed her mind or not," Jeremy said under his breath, looking intently between everyone.

Caroline and Matt exchanged a look.

"Jeremy-" Stefan took another step but Jeremy did not move.

"I don't want her to die," Jeremy said, his voice and eyes filled with such intense, sad sincerity that it seemed strong enough to resist anything. He looked at all of them as if they did not understand something very simple.

"I know," Stefan said soundlessly, taking another step. "But she is already dead, Jeremy," he said so gently and quietly that the words were barely audible. It all felt surreal. It was as if the past was happening all over again. Looking into Jeremy's eyes filled with grief he did not know how to explain to him that he understood him better than anyone, that it was because he understood that he did not want this to happen. Again. He did not want to do to Elena what he had done to Damon. If she did not want to complete the transition, he would not make her. He would not commit such a selfish iniquity again.

Jeremy quickly closed his eyes but the tears managed to escape from under his eyelids anyway. He angrily wiped them off with his sleeve. "But she doesn't have to leave," he said, opening his eyes.

"Jeremy, it's not up to us to decide," Caroline said carefully. "You know I tried to convince my dad to complete the transition," she said with a grimace. "I wanted him to complete the transition so much but I couldn't make him do it," she said in a faltering voice, her eyes shining with tears. "If Elena doesn't want this..."

Stefan looked from Caroline to Jeremy whose face twitched but after a moment of silence he just shook his head.

"Yes, yes, exactly. You couldn't make your father do it," Jeremy hesitated for a split second fearing that his words would hurt them or at least not be understood the way he meant them, but then he continued, overtaken by grim hope ignited by Elena's disappearance. "But maybe Damon can make Elena do it, and if he can make her do it, I want him to do it, because I don't want to lose her." He looked between Stefan, Caroline, and Matt, challenging them to interrupt him, but they listened to him in silence. "I don't want to lose her more than I hate the fact that vampires ever came to Mystic Falls." He said in a loud voice strained with tears, accusing and apologizing to them at the same time. Stefan looked at him unblinkingly and Caroline thrust up her chin, trying not to cry. Jeremy grimaced and added, his voice low and shaking: "I don't want to lose her more than I hate her becoming a vampire." He abruptly turned around and ran out of the boarding house.

"I don't want to lose her either," Caroline said in a frail whisper and started to cry when Matt pulled her into a hug, his eyes fixed on Stefan, who shifted his eyes from them to the car keys in his hand, and after a moment of staring at them, dropped them onto the table.


Elena's breath caught in her throat when she saw Damon walking back toward the car. A moment ago she had prayed for him to come back immediately but now, knowing what the sight of him meant, she wished she could just stay alone in the car, in this dark silence forever.

Damon opened her door and held out his hand. Elena did not move but instead of telling her to hurry he just waited, with his open palm extended toward her and his eyes fixed on her.

"It's not like I'm going to grow old while waiting for you," he said with a ghost of a crooked smile flickering across his face.

She smiled tiredly, and for a moment she just looked at his hand, following the lines with her eyes, each line reminding her of all the roads that were going to be closed for her. She would never age. She would never be a mother.

She would never die.

With all its amazing possibilities, there was such an inconsolable sadness to eternity, and she doubted it would ever leave her.

Reluctantly, Elena put her hand in Damon's, and got out of the car. He shut the door after her and squeezed her hand. She looked up at him.

His hand was astonishingly warm around hers and somehow it made her mind conjure up an image of all those closed, dead-end roads blend into one, long, scintillating path that actually led somewhere.

Just like she had thought earlier, the world would have looked the same if she had died. But even if she did not mean much to the world it was alright - as long as there was someone to whom she meant the world.

"It's your choice, Elena," Damon said, looking straight into her eyes, his voice intense and sincere but the grip on her hand suddenly became much stronger, contradicting the effort he had made by uttering the words.

With what was almost a smile she nodded, even though she knew he would not let her do anything else anyway.

And she doubted she would ever admit it to him or to anyone, but it was an immeasurable relief to be certain of that.