Damon gaped down at his now dead little brother. Stefan's eyes, which had been laughing at his pain only moments ago, were now staring straight upward at the ceiling. Damon tore his eyes away from his face to stare at the heart, bloody and dripping onto the wet floor, still in his hand. Disgusted at what he had just done on a furious whim of pure emotion, Damon tossed it down and stood quickly, moving as far away from the corpse as possible.
Had he really just done that? Had he honestly, after 145 years of saying that's what he wanted to do but never following through… killed his brother?
Stefan's bloody heart oozing on the soaked concrete confirmed it. His brother was dead. Stefan was dead.
Breathing heavily, Damon tore his eyes away and they landed on the motionless Elena who still lay a few feet away from Stefan. She was dead, too.
Stefan was dead. Elena was dead.
Trembling, Damon sank down the wall, tears filling his blue eyes. Everyone he cared about always died, and it was always his fault. When he was young, his mother had taken ill and died because she had been out all night in the freezing cold rain searching for him when he ran away. Rose had died only a few months ago because he had gotten on the bad side of a werewolf, and she had gotten in the way. Elena's aunt Jenna had died because Klaus had needed a replacement vampire after he rescued Caroline.
Now Elena was dead because he hadn't been fast enough to save her, and Stefan was dead because Damon had let his hatred overpower his logic.
Everyone always died. Everyone always died, and it was always his fault.
Unable to hold it in anymore, Damon broke into agonized sobs, the feeling of being completely alone over coming him. He ran his fingers through his hair as he heaved in agony, pulling at the black tresses in despise of himself. He needed a way out. He couldn't take this agony a moment longer. Forcing his eyes open, he searched frantically around the room for his only form of escape from his pitiful excuse for a life.
There, a few feet away; a long, jagged, piece of wood with blue paint chipping off of it. It was lying on the floor, and he noticed that it had broken off one of the banner hanging beams above the pool. As if some other power had known he would need to off himself, and was giving him that much desired ticket out of life.
Moaning, Damon pulled himself over to the spot where the makeshift stake lay and he picked it up in his hands, examining it. As his fist clenched around it, visions of his life began to play through his mind. His mother, her black curls pulled back from her face, chasing him around the garden when he was little in her favorite lilac dress, her blue eyes shining; his mother, dead and cold, lying in her coffin as he said his final goodbye years later.
More tears falling from his eyes, Damon lifted the stake.
Stefan and himself, at Stefan's first Lockwood party, drinking champagne in a dark corner and laughing at the girls' ridiculous dresses, acting like two completely drunk and rowdy teenage brothers, which they, in fact, were; Stefan, lying beneath him, heartless and dead.
Choking back a pathetic sob, Damon poised the stake above his heart.
Elena Gilbert. Oh, Elena… meeting her for the first time in the boarding house and scaring the living daylights out of her. Watching her sleep peacefully the same night he killed that pompous ass, Mr. Tanner. Elena, terrified and begging for him to help her when her car crashed the night she discovered she was Katherine's doppelganger. Elena, freaking out at him for taking her to Georgia without her permission. Elena, who turned out to be quite hilarious when she was drunk, dancing around like a little kid when she beat him at shots. Elena saving his life from Lexi's vengeful boyfriend. Elena in his arms, dancing gracefully during the Miss Mystic Falls pageant. Elena, more gorgeous than ever on Founder's Day. Saving her from an arrow, telling her he loved her and then compelling her to forget, keeping her from rushing into the tomb with Stefan and Katherine, making her hate him, making her love him… when she had thought he was dying, and had made him feel better than he ever had in his entire life…
Elena, not responding to his frantic attempts at CPR when he was too slow to save her life.
He glanced at her, motionless, across the room and screamed in more agony than ever before; Elena Gilbert, dead, all because of him.
Holding the stake out, he began the fast decent toward his heart.
Across the pool room, Elena gasped in a sharp breath of air and her eyes snapped open as she clawed at the concrete below her.
Damon gasped and dropped the stake just as it was about to pierce his chest.
Elena Gilbert was alive.