"Welcome back to Chicago, Stefan."
They've arrived at an uncivilised hour of the night but the wonderful thing about cities is that they never sleep. Chicago is bustling with lights and sound, flowing blood and pumping hearts, humans living their meaningless insignificant lives as Stefan looks on from afar. It's been his story of the past two months, lurking in shadows, watching, following the orders of evil, completely estranged from the world of the living.
"I know how much you loved it here. Bringing back memories of the good old ripper days."
There are no clear memories in his head of those early days in Chicago. The pictures are tainted red, sounds filter in and out of the recollections, resonances of failing hearts, of screams. Women blur together, faces blank and generic, lacklustre female humans he'd screwed or eaten, sometimes both, sometimes at the same time.
"Blacked out most of them. A lot of blood; a lot of partying. Details are all a blur."
"Well, that is a crying shame. The details are what make it legend."
Elena turns in her bed and there's a warm body lying next to her. She smiles softly and snuggles closer to her lover, curling toward him, nestling her head on his chest.
"Rise and shine, Sleepyhead."
It's not her lover. She's rudely disturbed by a drawl that doesn't belong to Stefan and she looks up and sees Damon and thinks her heart might have just shot out of her mouth and through the wall as she yells and scrambles away.
"What are you doing? Get out!"
Damon is clearly amused.
Elena isn't. It reminds her horribly of a dream she'd once had one night after the dinner date with Stefan and Bonnie that was crashed by Caroline and, unbeknownst to her at the time, a scheming Damon. It had been a wonderful dream, things getting heated with Stefan until Stefan took his shirt off and he suddenly turned into Damon and she woke up with a scream.
She doesn't really have much time to dwell on her irritation because Damon is telling her that Stefan is in Chicago and she's trying to get her head together while stopping Damon looking through her underwear drawer (pervert) but she's used to putting up with his misconduct by now.
Damon's car speeds down the highway, scenery merging as they drive, trees distorting into each other, like Elena's remembrance of the days since Stefan left, a seamless haze of life continuing around her while her own world is still, having stopped spinning after that night. She stares out of the window as they drive, recalling waking up with Stefan, not Damon, remembering his arms around her, his lips at her ear. Some mornings she'd wake up first and she'd watch him, the creepy, besotted teenage girl that she is; just loving the way his eyes twitched beneath the lids if he was dreaming or how peaceful and steady the rise and fall of his chest was as he breathed. Other days, he'd wake before her and he'd either lie patiently snuggled with her until she stirred or he'd stir her himself, greeting her with gentle kisses and caresses, tactile whispers of love on her skin. She knew he would wake up with her forever if she let him; that promise went unsaid.
Now she wakes up without him and that promise is broken, and his whispers are only distant echoes in her head that slip away from her with every passing day, washing away in her tears and every time she tries to stop them, they fall harder.
She rejects the diary, partly because she knows how she'd feel if someone read her diary without her knowledge and partly because she's so belligerently determined to do things her way and not Damon's.
She doesn't like the mention of Stefan with other women. It's childish, she knows, but she feels even more possessive of him now that he's been torn away from her. That and the fact that like Stefan always used to treat her like the only girl on Earth.
Damon's just being annoying now and enjoying it. He makes a sarcastic comment about Stefan's sexual activities and Elena rolls her eyes at the subtle jab at Stefan and their relationship, knowing full well how much he's had to put up with hearing when Stefan and Elena slept at the boarding house.
Despite herself, she reads his diary when she's alone in Stefan's old apartment. She had explored the place for a while. The wardrobe and drawers were empty and there was no smell of him lingering among the dust after all the decades of vacancy. She's a little disappointed. She'd hoped for some sign that he'd lived here but it wasn't personal at all, not like his room at Mystic Falls. An indication, perhaps, that the Stefan that had lived here was not the Stefan she'd known.
If she's honest with herself, she's more than curious about his journal. For as much as he's told her about his past, there's thrice as much he hasn't and she doesn't blame him for that – how can one hundred and forty-five years of history possibly be told in just ten months of a relationship? She flips through the pages, skimming over the words because she's seen his brooding before; it's not new to her. He used to talk about it late at night when they lay together so wrapped in each other, so close (in every sense) that she wasn't sure they were even two separate people. He'd talk about the hardships of the bloodlust, of living the life he was cursed with. She knows all that. She's only looking for clues as to how he-and she- will pull through the struggles that face them. She's still a little guilty for delving into his private writing, and she doesn't want to nose into every word.
She closes the leather-bound book slowly after smiling a little at the mention of Lexi's ambition to make Stefan laugh. She looks distantly at the rest of the room. Reading his thoughts had been so eerie; she could imagine him writing them, hear his voice in her head as if he were reading the words to her himself. It had felt like he was right there beside her. But she looks at the empty flat and he's not there. She's alone again, in his abandoned stale apartment thinking about how much she missed him, how his absence could be felt to her, like she was missing a vital organ and even though it was constantly on her mind, it doesn't get any less painful. She knows how difficult this journey to rescue him has been and she has the sinking feeling that it wasn't going to get any easier.
Klaus' voice pierces her thoughts like a nail through soft wood. At first she thinks she's imagining it, memories of before flashing through her head: rings of fire and wooden stakes and cold eyes and "Are you ready, m'dear?" But then his voice is louder and closer and he's right outside the door. Her blood feels like it goes cold and starts bubbling in fear and the air suddenly turns to dry ice all around her.
"Do you feel that?" Klaus asks, his voice low and dangerous. "Is anybody here?"
Stefan feels it. A warmth in the room, the unmistakable air of a human body that is, or was, in close proximity. He can hear a nearby heartbeat too, a fast one, the person it belonged to was scared or excited but there are other heartbeats all around the building, from neighbours or other visitors and it's difficult to tell where they're all coming from.
In the closet, Elena is quaking silently, too scared to breathe.
"It's been vacant for decades; people must break in all the time."
That was it. That was his voice. That was Stefan and she hasn't heard it for over two months but it stays with her like he's breathing sweet nothings in her ear and it's warm and soft and all the things she remembers it to be. She's trying not to cry from the sadness, from the love, the fear, the pain, all swarming thick in the air around her in this musty old cupboard.
The secret door to her hiding place opens and when she'll think about it afterward, she won't know how she stayed standing, trembling uncontrollably, holding her breath, the fear making her head spin and the floor rock and tremor beneath her feet.
Then he's there. Stefan's there, in front of her and as she sees him, the room centres and steadies again and air is suddenly flowing in and out of her lungs once more.
Their eyes lock. He's shocked at first and confused and a little bit angry – what the hell is she doing here? Then his expression softens as he takes her in and sadness seeps across his eyes, washing away the rest as he looks at the woman he loves, the woman he used to have and she's looking back at him, her eyes suddenly bright and hopeful, a cautious smile almost forming.
I'm here, I've found you and I've come to take you home is what she's saying and his heart aches, strong searing throbs because she's within touching distance but her being here is futile and above all, terribly dangerous. Her beautiful curves are all the same, her open, honest face so bright and optimistic despite the darkness beneath her eyes which he knows he's probably the cause of.
He looks stronger, she thinks. He's put on some healthy weight and it suits him; his skin has a clarity and a freshness and a glow to it that she hasn't seen before. But there are deep shadows behind his eyes, the shadows of a tortured man and all she wants to do is hold him and tell him she loves him until those shadows go away.
"Look what I found."
For a second, for one second she's not sure what he's doing and she's scared. This is what it's done to her, his absence. His absence and broken promises, newspaper clippings, unascertained guesses, Damon's defeated words, journal entries, tales of a ripper: it's all made her paranoid and fearful that even the surest things in life are void and Stefan really could be that far gone but he takes a bottle and he takes Klaus and leaves. He's kept her safe as he always does.
It won't occur to her until much later what Damon does, the risk he takes in distracting Klaus so she can get to Stefan, that he doesn't expect to survive it. She'll realise that he was ready to give up his life so she can have Stefan back and when she'll think about that, she'll love him a little for it.
"You shouldn't be here."
"Where else would I be?"
She asks him with a hint of incredulity and he doesn't answer. He understands; he's not surprised that she's still coming after him, not surprised that Damon has been unable to stop her but it saddens him more, realising how terrible the lengths will be that he'll have to go to in order to keep her away, to make her let go.
"What do you want?"
She's slightly confused at his manner, at why he would even ask that, like it isn't obvious that she wants him. It hurts her a little, not just his words but his seeming indifference to her being there. She cups the soft skin of his cheek in her hand and pleads to him. "Come home."
His eyelashes are long and she watches as his beautiful eyes look down at her through the thick dark tendrils. They are shining even in this dimly lit street just as she remembered they used to: lustrous liquid green glass orbs that she could see even on the darkest nights when they would make love with the lights out and the curtains drawn.
Her breath is loud now as it used to be in those times. She presses her forehead to his, gently, slowly, leaning into him, cheek-to-cheek, breathing him in. It's so relieving to hold him again after all this time.
He closes his eyes momentarily at her touch but doesn't reciprocate it. He just stands there letting her have this moment and trying to gather himself. She always was his weakness and her emotion, her sadness, her love and her arms around him are close to breaking his composure.
It changes all too quickly. One moment she has him and the next, he's got her, grabbing her wrist so tightly she cries out and drops the syringe in pain.
"How much clearer can I make it? I don't want to come home!"
She stares at him, shaken. He's never looked at her that ferociously before, his sensitive face distorted in anger and he's never hurt her before.
Now he's saying things, words that stab at her as Klaus does to Damon with a cocktail umbrella but even with these tiny wounds penetrating her she's still standing and not giving in.
"I can't give up on you, Stefan."
"Yes, you can. It's done. That part of my life is done. I don't want to see you. I don't want to be with you. I just want you to go."
Stefan turns his back and walks away. Elena can only watch him leave her, standing there, feeling like he's just plunged his hand into her chest, ripped her heart and soul out of her body and thrown them across the street.
She's sitting in the car, holding her necklace when Damon returns. He looks at her, not knowing what to say or do and asks the stupidest thing possible but the only thing he can think to articulate, "You okay?"
She's numb, not comprehending anything, least of all what had happened because she's put her life and soul into finding Stefan, finding him and bringing him home only to be torn down by the one thing she never expected to thwart her, her lover himself and she's sitting there wondering what she's done wrong, what mistake she made to warrant the pain he'd given her.
"Just drive," is all she says to Damon. And Damon does. He just drives home, pretending not to notice when she finally breaks down, sobs against the passenger window and doesn't stop. He's the one who carries her to bed when they get back to Mystic Falls, tucks her in - she's too broken to stand on her own two feet.
Stefan thinks it's the hardest thing he's ever had to do, walking away from Elena. Harder than the first time he did it, because this time he really knew what he was giving up. He turns a corner on the road and then breaks into a sprint until he's in another part of the town where he screams and cries in a dark alleyway, pounding the walls with his fists until they bleed, pain rushing through his body, crippling him and he falls against the brick and sinks to the ground, tearing at his hair. Some passers-by, humans in the wrong place at the wrong time see him there and stare, then hurry on their way because he looks like a madman. Stefan goes after them in a split-second, sinking his teeth in and ripping them limb from limb while they scream and as he does, he thinks to himself that he is.
A/N: Thanks for all the lovely comments. The next chapter will have to wait a little - I want to get a couple of chapters done on Being Normal first (advice: don't try to write two stories at once) but then come quickly back to this because I want to get to recent episodes where there are things that I'm looking forward to exploring. The next chapter to this will certainly be a combination of episodes, at least "Disturbing Behaviour" and "The Reckoning" and possibly more. I don't know if this is progressing the way you thought or hoped it would (it's very angsty, I know, but there are lighter times ahead) but I hope you are enjoying it. Take care!