A/N: I'm putting this next chapter up quickly, because the first was just the prologue, using all the lines from the show, and this is the first real chapter. I'm so happy you think this might be a story you are interested in, my brain certainly is, it seriously won't leave it alone! This is going to be a very angsty story, so you may want to grab a box of tissues, just in case. I cried while writing it, although I have to admit I am a bit of a sap - I cry at my kids' tv shows, like, daily LOL! Anyway, here is the first proper chapter, and I hope you like it :)


Denial: Disbelief in the existence or reality of a thing; refusal to recognise or acknowledge the truth.


I don't know how long I lie there. My eyes are clenched tightly shut, waiting for the moment when he will wake up and make some lewd comment about how my body is plastered over his. The room is silent, the only sound my own heartbeat. I stay where I am, because he needs to be able to hear that, so that he can find his way back to me. I need him to find his way back.

Because that is all this is. Damon isn't dead, he can't be. This is some weird vampire coma he's in, that's all. After all, we never saw the very end with Rose, Damon staked her to take the pain away before it ever got to that point. So maybe she wouldn't have died either. Maybe that had been a mistake. My heart clenches at what Damon will think when he wakes up. He'll blame himself, because he should have waited. We shouldn't have taken the whole myth surrounding werewolf bites so seriously. I think of all the ways that he will hurt himself for not giving Rose the chance to recover, and I resolve to be there for him, every step of the way. No matter how hard he tries to push me away, this time I will be there for him.

I'm still laying there, my legs wrapped around him, my head on his chest and my hand clutching his, when I hear footsteps behind me. I know who is there, but I still don't open my eyes.

"You're late," I say quietly. "The cure had better work. He's in a really bad way."

The bed depresses slightly next to me, and I feel a hand stroke my hair. A quiet sob echoes through the otherwise silent room.

"Don't just sit there Stefan," I sigh, irritated that he seems to be moving too slowly. Can't he see the state his brother is in? "Give him the cure, now."

"There isn't one." Stefan's voice is barely above a whisper. "I couldn't find Klaus. He'd already left." His sentence ends on another choked sob.

"Then we need to find something else," I say, stroking Damon's cheek with my thumb soothingly, telling him with my actions that it's going to be okay. "Call Bonnie, maybe she can think of something."

"Elena," Stefan moves his hand from my hair to my shoulder, and pulls gently. "It's too late, he's... he's gone."

Does he think I'm stupid? I know Klaus is gone, I heard him say that less than a minute ago.

"That's why I said to call Bonnie," I say with exaggerated patience. He's obviously having trouble concentrating. "Maybe she can do a locator spell or something. He can't have gone far. And Damon needs whatever cure Klaus has."

Stefan's pulling on my shoulder gets more insistent, and I get close to losing my temper.

"I'm staying here, Stefan. I promised him I would be here until the end. I'm not going to break that promise." I clutch Damon's hand tighter and pull my shoulder out of Stefan's grasp.

"Elena..." I feel Stefan's fingers fluttering over my face. "Elena, please, look at me."

"I can't."

"Elena?"

I shake my head slightly, because I can't do what he asks. If I open my eyes, I'm going to see the defeat written all over his face, and I know I won't be able to handle that. This is his brother, he is supposed to keep fighting for him, not give up.

He is quiet for a moment, and then I hear him sigh softly. "I'm going to go call Bonnie."

Finally, I think. She will know what to do. And if she doesn't, maybe one of her ancestors will. Relieved that Stefan is actually trying to help now, I snuggle closer to Damon, letting my heartbeat fill the empty space inside his chest. I concentrate on taking slow, deep breaths. Until he is conscious again, I will breathe enough for both of us.


I may have drifted off, because I suddenly become aware of voices in the hallway. I hear Alaric, and I am glad he's here. Damon needs people who are on his side right now.

"She won't let go of him."

"Have you tried talking to her?"

"How long has she been like that?"

"She won't talk to me. A few hours, I think."

Are they talking about me? I don't understand; they should be discussing what to do to save Damon, not wondering how long I've been here. I don't matter. Why don't any of them understand that?

"'Lena?" Bonnie's voice is closer to me now, as she leans over the bed. "Sweetie? We need you to sit up now, okay?"

Why is she talking to me like I'm a child? And do they need me to sit up so they can see to Damon? I stay where I am, trying to work it all through in my head.

"Stefan, you're going to have to move her," Alaric says, his voice thick with emotion. He can obviously see how bad Damon is.

A pair of hands suddenly glides beneath me, and before I can even think to protest, strong arms pick me up and carry me across the room. It startles me, and my eyes finally open.

As soon as I can see, I start to struggle in Stefan's arms. He puts me down, frightened that he may hurt me if he holds on too tightly. My legs wobble as my feet touch the ground, and I look towards the bed, my eyes wide with horror.

"No!" I scream at Alaric, who jumps at the sudden noise. "What are you doing?" I pull out of Stefan's embrace and stumble back over to the bed, ripping the sheet that Alaric had just placed off of Damon's face. I pull the sheet right off the bed and hurl it over my shoulder, my gaze fierce as I stare at Alaric, furious that he could do such a thing.

Bonnie approaches me, her hands held up in front of her like I'm a crazy wild animal that could attack her at any moment. Hysterical laughter bubbles up my throat at the thought of what Damon would say if he was awake to see this.

"Come on, sweetie, I'm going to drive you home now." Bonnie tries to put her arms around me, and I stumble back.

"I'm not going anywhere!" I shout, staring at each of them in turn. "We need to save him! What the hell is wrong with you all?"

Bonnie shoots a meaningful look at Stefan, and before I can dodge out of the way, his arms come around me again. I try to struggle, but his grip is like a vice, and I can't do more than strain against him. Bonnie comes up close and puts her hands on either side of my head.

"I'm sorry 'Lena," she whispers, as she closes her eyes and starts mumbling under her breath.

"No!" I shout, looking over to the bed, to where Damon is still unconscious. "He needs our help! He's not dead! Look at him! Look! There aren't any veins, he's not dead!"

Alaric frowns as I point this out, and he looks down at Damon. I am elated for a moment, because I think I may have finally got through to one of them, but before I can revel in my triumph, darkness descends over me.


It's the height of summer, and I'm walking through the trees, grateful for the reprieve from the burning sun. The light filters down through the leaves, dappling the ground into different hues of green and yellow. It's so beautiful and peaceful. My footsteps make a quiet squishing sound as I step on the moss surrounding the tree roots. I can hear the faint chirping of birds from high up in the trees, and the occasional scuffle as the woodland creatures scamper away from my path. The woods open up before me, and suddenly I am standing by the falls, the spray gently bathing my face. I move out into the open, the cool water keeping me from feeling too hot in the bright afternoon sun. My white sundress flutter slightly in the breeze created by the waterfall, tendrils of hair falling out of the messy bun on the top of my head, tickling my neck.

I lean against the wooden fence surrounding the water and smile widely.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" The velvety voice comes from right next to me.

I nod, not taking my eyes from the churning waters below me. "I love it here." I say.

"I used to love it too."

My smile dims slightly at his use of the past tense. "When you were human, you mean?"

His voice is gentle. "Yes. I loved it here when I was human."

"We should come here more often. Just the two of us," I say, sighing contentedly.

"I would follow you anywhere, Elena," he says, sliding his palm across the back of my shoulders, his fingers lingering at my neck.

I lean into his touch, my hands finding his as we lean against the railing. I entwine our fingers together and we both stand there, looking down at the water. Something about his hand feels different. I look down, and notice that he isn't wearing his lapis lazuli ring.

My heart jumps into my throat. "Damon, where's your ring? We need to get you out of the sun."

"The sun doesn't bother me anymore, Elena."

I turn to face him finally, and am surprised by what I see. He is wearing pale blue jeans and a white t-shirt. His feet are bare. But that's not what surprises me, although I have only ever known him to wear dark coloured clothes. I am surprised by how he looks. His face seems younger, calmer. There is a kind of innocence about him suddenly, a carefree sense that I have never known him to possess before. It's as though someone has come along and lifted off his shoulders the many burdens that he normally carries. It makes my heart soar just looking at him. He looks so peaceful.

"I don't understand. Why aren't you burning in the sun?"

He cocks his head to one side, his cerulean blue eyes glittering. "You know why, Elena."

His words resonate with something in my mind, but it's buried too deep for me to make sense of it. "I don't," I say, shaking my head.

He observes me for a moment, his gaze tripping up and down my face, before a sad smile tugs at one corner of his mouth. "Maybe you don't," he says quietly. "You'll know soon enough."

I want to know what he's talking about, but something inside me stops me from asking the questions. Instead, I wrap my arms around his waist, resting my head against his chest. His arms come up around me, and he rests his chin on my head, slowly stroking my hair.

"I have to go soon," he says, after we have been standing there for a while.

"Why? You got somewhere else you'd rather be?" I ask him teasingly.

He laughs quietly. "There is nowhere else in the world I would ever want to be. You should know that by now."

"Well I'm not ready to go yet," I reply, snuggling closer to him, bathing in the warmth of his skin. And that's when I feel it. His heart is beating.

I pull back slightly in shock. I stare up at him in wonder, and he leans forward, placing a chaste kiss on my forehead. I close my eyes at the contact, and hear him whisper to me.

"I wish I could stay."

And then he is gone. I open my eyes and lower my arms, feeling suddenly empty and unsure. "Damon?" I call, certain he has just run off, using his usual vampire speed.

I peer into the trees, which suddenly don't seem too inviting. Now, the tree roots look designed to trip me up; the vines and branches reaching for me as though to pull me into their dark embrace. The bright yellows and greens that had tripped pleasingly over the ground earlier now look sickly, off-putting. I can no longer hear the sounds of the birds or the animals. I turn away and look back at the water, but it's no longer there. A deep empty cavern has taken its place, the earth surrounding it dry and barren, a thin coating of grey dust. I feel cold suddenly, and I look up to find that the sky has turned a deep purple, with thunder clouds and lightning streaking across it.

"Damon!" I shout, because I'm scared. He always comes when I'm scared. My eyes flick from place to place as I turn on the spot, terror building inside of me.

"DAMON!"


I feel a hand patting my face, and I sigh with relief. I had obviously fallen asleep next to Damon, and any second now he's going to make some kind of sarcastic comment about how loudly I snore. I ready my comeback, and wait for him to speak. But his voice never comes.

Instead, I hear Bonnie's voice as she calls to me. "'Lena? Honey can you hear me? Are you awake?" Her voice sounds worried, and I wonder why. She's never been all that bothered by Damon's problems before. This scares me slightly.

I open my eyes, and immediately frown. I'm not at the Boarding House anymore. I'm in my room, laying in my bed, Bonnie sitting next to me.

"What's going on? Why am I here?" My throat is dry and raw, and my voice comes out in a rasp. Bonnie hands me a glass of water, and I drink gratefully.

"You've been asleep," she says quietly. "For almost a day."

A day? How was that possible? "Where's Damon?" I ask, sitting up suddenly, the room starting to spin in front of my eyes. I grab Bonnie's hand, shaking her slightly, needing her to tell me what is going on.

Bonnie looks at me, and as the room slows down, I see tears glistening in her eyes. I watch as she takes a deep breath, my eyes tracking her movements as she reaches out to touch my arm.

"Damon's gone, Elena."

I don't react. Not even a blink. Because I'm waiting for her to finish her sentence. Waiting for her to tell me that he brought me here, placed me in bed and went off for something to drink at the Grill.

She looks back at me, and then her face crumples, a tear sliding down her cheek. "He's dead. I'm so sorry, Elena."

I look at her for a moment. "And I thought Caroline was the melodramatic one," I say, and I smile slightly. Bonnie had obviously seen the bad state Damon was in and just assumed the worst. "He's going to be fine." I place my hand over hers and squeeze reassuringly. "We just need to find something to wake him up, that's all." I don't quite understand why she seems to be taking this so hard, but if an almost-deadly werewolf bite is what it takes to get rid of the animosity between these two, then I'm almost glad it happened.

Bonnie just shakes her head at me, then turns towards the door. And that's when I notice Alaric and Jeremy standing in the hallway. They seem tense, on edge, staring at me as though waiting for me to bolt out of the room.

My gaze hardens as my eyes settle on Alaric, remembering what he tried to do in Damon's room. "Where is he?" My voice is as sharp and serrated as a blade, and I see him flinch as though my words had actually cut him.

He doesn't answer, just signals with his head to Bonnie, and she gets up from the bed.

"I'll be back in a minute, okay?" She looks almost afraid of me, and I'm confused.

I sit for a moment, listening to the sound of their footsteps as they go downstairs. I wait, counting to a hundred, before slipping out from under the covers and tiptoeing towards the door. Holding my shoes in my hand, I ease the door open and silently descend the stairs. I don't know what's wrong with them, or what they think might be wrong with me, but right now that doesn't matter. What matters is getting back to Damon. I promised him I wouldn't leave.

I pause at the front door, waiting for the sound of voices to cover the noise of the lock clicking open.

"She doesn't seem to understand. It's like she has some kind of mental block about it." Alaric says.

"We have to do something!" Bonnie.

"What can we do? We've tried telling her, but she just refuses to hear it." Alaric again.

Well we have to think of something. Maybe I can find a spell."

"I don't think anything supernatural is going to help here, Bonnie. I think she may need professional help."

"Yeah, that's going to be easy to do. "Hey, doc, my sister is freaking out over the fact that her vampire boyfriend's vampire brother just died from a werewolf bite, can you help her?"" Jeremy snorts. "Somehow, I don't think that'll go down too well."

"I still think that maybe –"

"She's just grieving, Bonnie. Think about everything she's gone through recently. All the people she's lost. That we've lost. We need to give her time. She's just having a bit of trouble accepting the fact that Damon's dead."

"He is not dead!" I burst out from my position in the hallway, and then I slap my hand over my mouth. I yank on the door handle, but they are all there before I have time to step outside.

"Elena stop!" Bonnie calls me back, pain evident in her voice. "Please just... listen to us for a minute."

I turn to face them, keeping the open door to my back, in case they try to make me go upstairs again. Alaric's phone buzzes through the silence, and he pulls it out of his pocket, his gaze flicking up to me.

"This might do it," he mumbles to Bonnie and Jeremy, before looking back at me. "Stefan's ready for us."

My eyes light up. Stefan must have found a cure. "Well what are we waiting for?" I say, and leave the house, taking the porch steps at a run.


Alaric drives us – my jeep is still at the Boarding House from when I arrived there looking for Damon – and I am confused when he doesn't take the turning for their home.

"Where are we going?" I ask, wondering why they would have moved Damon, when he was clearly so sick.

"Here," Alaric replies gruffly, the car suddenly veering off down an overgrown path I have only ever gone down once before in my life.

My confusion only grows as I see Stefan's car parked in a clearing slightly ahead of us. Alaric pulls up next to him, and I get out, staring around me. This was where I learned how old Stefan was. This was where he had hidden Damon's ring when he thought his brother might be a danger to me. This was where Damon grew up.

Nothing of the old house still remains, except a few bits of rubble, strewn across what I assume must have been a wide gravel entrance way. I listen hard, but there is nothing. Not even the sounds of birds in the trees. I shiver slightly, remembering my dream.

Alaric puts his hand on my elbow and guides me through the weeds and lumps of brick, around to where the back of the house must once have stood. I'm not really paying attention to where he is taking me. My mind is too busy trying to work out a way for me to run back to the Boarding House to find Damon.

"Elena." Stefan says my name as a sigh, and I glance up at him. His green eyes are red and slightly puffy, as though he has been crying. He looks like he hasn't slept for a week. He's wearing different clothes than the last time I saw him; a dark shirt and dark pants. I wonder when he found the time to change, when he should be looking for the cure.

Frowning, I look past him, and that's when I notice where we are. We are standing outside the Salvatore family crypt. I balk, try to dig my heels into the ground. What are we doing here?

"Elena?"

I turn, and see Caroline and Tyler walking towards us. They are both dressed for a funeral, and as I look back at Jeremy, Bonnie and Alaric, I notice that they are too. And then I look down at myself. I'm still wearing the same dark jeans and navy blue top that I was wearing when I was last with Damon. I smile suddenly, and then laugh out loud. Because all of a sudden, this whole thing makes sense, and the relief of being able to work it out makes me feel all giddy.

This is a dream. It has to be, because nobody would let me come to a funeral dressed like this, with blood stains still on the collar of my shirt. Somewhere else, somewhere where Damon is alive and the world makes sense, I am sleeping, and this whole thing is just one weird nightmare.

I look back at Stefan and hold out my hand, ignoring the alarmed looks everybody seems to be giving me. I can do this. I can be here and help him and watch as he buries his brother, because soon I will wake up and everything will go back to normal.

He squeezes my fingers once, and then we all step into the dark mausoleum. I glance around at the names. They are all here, except for their father, who, of course, was buried somewhere else, out of his need to hide his journal. The stone coffins line the room, all of them closed, except one.

One by one, the group go up to the side of the open coffin, mumbling a few words. I could probably hear what they are saying, but I'm not really listening. I'm too busy picturing Damon's face when I tell him about my dream.

Finally, it is Stefan's turn, and he pulls me along with him. I look down, and to my delight I see that he is wearing a suit. If he really was dead, he would be buried in his favourite dark jeans and John Varvatos t-shirt. Nobody who knew him would dress him like this to bury him. Stefan is crying quietly, but I'm not. There's no point, I think. Instead, I study his face, marvelling at how my sleeping brain has managed to capture everything about him. Even lying there with his eyes closed, his hands folded on top of his chest, the pure feline grace of him is evident. His inky black hair, resting on the white pillow, frames his pale face, his features as perfect as if they had been carved from marble. He is beautiful.

Finally, Stefan manages to choke out a few words, and we step back, Tyler and Alaric pulling the heavy stone lid down on top of Damon. We all head out into the sunlight, leaving him there. I don't really like it, but there's not much I can do about it. Any moment now, this will be over, and I will wake up from this dream.

As Stefan pulls the heavy door shut, I think I hear a sound coming from inside the crypt. It sounds like a heartbeat.


A/N: So, there we are, chapter 1. I hope you like it! *is nervous*