A/N: Hey All! So, Here's CH.12! I hope this will answer a few questions or maybe just leave you with more.. :D

Enjoy & Thanks for Reading!

CHAPTER TWELVE-The Thin Line Between Us

She had fallen asleep when they had gotten back to the now empty house. Elena's mind raced with thoughts of him, it was getting darker as time went on and the later it got, the more she knew that it would be harder to find him, alive.

She was the reason for all of it and it hurt. It hurt to know that his words...I love you...were spoken more out of knowing that him probably would never see her again, that it would be the last time that he would tell her anything, hold her like he had in the parking lot.

Elena swung her legs over the bed and hit the cold floor hard, a dimly lit lamp shined in the room as she scanned it and noticed things that she hadn't before, like the letter that had sat on the bedside table, his hand writing clearly visible on it, making her heart sink. Elena knew why it was there and what it was, but she couldn't bear to open it...to read the words that must have killed him to write. To make this feeling more real, that Stefan was gone and that for the first time in all her life one of her biggest regrets would be that she would never tell him, what she really wanted too in that one moment...that she loved him too.

She stared it for a long time before she exhaled deeply and got up from the bed, walking into the kitchen to find Caroline sitting on a bar stool, spinning her cell phone on the counter top as tears streamed down her face.

"I'm sorry that I yelled at you earlier. Elena, it's just...this is hard on me...It's not just because Stefan and I have a deep connection, it's because he's the first person who had taught me to believe in myself, he taught me to be tough and I owe him so much more than to fail him like this." Caroline told her, wiping away at her tears as she watched Elena lean towards her embracing her tightly as they stood there, the room falling silent, both hoping that Stefan was alive and not in trouble, like their hearts and minds were screaming deep down.

He groaned as he tried to move and quickly realized that his hands were laced tightly behind him, a burning rope on his wrists with every movement he took. His face was covered with a darkened pillow case and he could hear a slow, wet dripping sound falling from the ceiling, the cold of the room made his whole body shiver as he sat in it.

Stefan could feel the cooper taste on his chapped lips and he could feel his head pounding as he tirelessly tried to get up, but fell back quickly. "I wouldn't try to get up if I were you, Mr. Salvatore. The ropes are soaked with stinging nettles, gets worse the more you move. So, how about you sit tight and then we'll chat, soon." He told him, as he got up. The chair that he had sat in creaking against the cold concrete floor. Pushing, Stefan back down to the cold and wet floor with his rough and dangerous hands.

"Where am I! You can't do this to me...I have a team out there looking for me, they'll find you...I can promise you that!" Stefan shouted, hearing as the footsteps stopped, turning around on the squeaky ground.

"Ha, Oh your such a young rookie cop. It's painful to watch really...Let's just say, You're nowhere near California anymore." He told him. Stefan exhaled deeply as he hung his head low, his eyes adjusting onto the pillow case that covered his head.

"Let's at least take the blind fold and the pillowcase off of his head, he'll suffocate and we can't have that, He doesn't want him dead...he's wants him very much alive." The voice said, a British accent coming from across the room and stopping near the door, a familiar voice that Stefan had heard a million times when he had been in New York, stuck in that shit whole of an apartment, working for him in his warehouse and then...the room that he had told him to go into, forced him to almost take the drugs that would have been his downfall.

"Elijah?" Stefan asked, his voice rough and above a whisper as he shook his head, trying to get rid of the pounding that was killing his conscious as he sat on the cold ground, feet and arms tied, his back against the cold bricks in what he assumed was a basement.

He felt a pair of warm hands pull off the pillow case, Stefan closed his eyes and finally squinted them open when the bright florescent light shined directly at him.

"Hello again, Stefan. " Elijah said, his voice just as sinister as before and his dark eyes dancing with danger and evil, as Stefan looked up at him. He was now face to face with the man that he had thought was gone, was in federal prison for a lifetime...

"How did you...I arrested you, you got life in prison!" Stefan said, breathing deeply from the burning pain in his hands, the pain that radiated off his whole body.

"Well, Hmm...Let's see...When you've got people on all sides of the country and a lot of people on the inside and outside with you..there are ways of getting out of the system. But, nice try." Elijah said, going behind him and tightening the ropes as Stefan exhaled and yelled out in pain.

"Ahhh...Please! They're going to come after you! You're going to go away from a long time if you kill me. Please, Elijah I can give you whatever you want. I can get you out of the country if you want. Please, just let me go." Stefan begged, tears in his leaf green eyes, gritting his teeth and breathing out through his nose from the pain.

"Now, why would I want to do that...I'm keeping you for ransom...You're a very valuable man and the team in New York is already buzzing about your disappearance. "One of New York's finest undercover officers...Stefan Salvatore, has been kidnapped!" Elijah said, gasping as he bent down and locked his eyes on Stefan's.

"Why would I let you go now when I like seeing that they're trying so desperately to find you...But, Ha...too bad for them, you'll be dead in a few days when I get what I want." Elijah told him, smirking as he bent down and fastened the ropes even tighter around his wrists, watching the redness in Stefan's wrists flare up, blood dripping down his face as he smiled at him.

"I'm not letting you go, until I get what I want." Elijah told him, an evil look in his eyes as he stood up and began to walk towards the concrete door.

Stefan let out a pained sigh as he lifted up his head slowly and glanced over at him, the taste in his mouth tasting like acid and blood mixed in his mouth, when he spoke above a whisper. "I'll give you anything. Please, anything you want..." Stefan begged, trying to show that the ropes on his feet and wrists weren't nearly killing him, making it too painful to think, too painful to beg for his own survival.

"No, Stefan...We both know that you wouldn't give her up that easily. It's because of you that I was in jail and she left. Now, I think we're fair... Mr. Salvatore, don't you? I've got you, the one thing that she would do anything for to save and you've got her..the only person I want back." Elijah told him in a matter of fact tone.

Stefan ground his teeth, breathing through his nose in sharp intakes of breath as he whispered, her name...the girl that he was falling in love with, the one that he would now do anything to protect.

"You're right! I will never give her back to you...She deserves much better than what you are...So, it's fine...I'll suffer to protect her, I'd anything to keep her safe. But, it's funny that you took me because you want her...You want, Elena...Because, she sure as hell doesn't want you." Stefan said, a stinging in his eyes as he heard Elijah laugh, slamming the door behind him, leaving Stefan with the realization that this wasn't about him anymore, none of it was because of him, it was all because of her...a war in the criminal world because of the brunette that he had promised that he would protect...the one that he loved.

A/N: He Loves Her! :')

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-Until Next Time-