Having finished with his patient appointments for the day, Elijah is busy typing up reports on his computer. Pausing for a moment to take a drink of water, he leans back in his chair to relax for a little bit. His office is painted in white with pictures of nature on the walls as well as his diploma and numerous awards and commendations he's received throughout his career. His book shelf is stuffed so full with various journals and other psychiatric books that he knows that not another one will fit into it. He'll have to find room for a second one in due time.
Lifting the bottle to his mouth, he takes a long pull, licking his lips when through. After screwing the lid back on, he stands up to move around a bit. He takes a few deep breaths while he stretches his arms. Just as he's about to sit back down and return to the task at hand, he is interrupted when the receptionist buzzes to tell him that he has a caller. Once she tells him who it is, he tells her to forward the call. As soon as it rings, he picks up the phone.
"Mr. Salvatore, how can I help you? My receptionist tells me that you are unhappy with us for keeping your wife from you. I can assure you that it's not our intention, we only try to help her in the best way possible. If she declines to speak with you, I, nor even you can force her," he says gently but firmly.
Caught off guard by the polite tone of the doctor's voice as well as the trace of sympathy that he can read into his words, he rakes his fingers through his hair. "
Dr. Mikaelson...," he starts, pausing to take a deep breath to try to gather his composure, "my apologies, I haven't seen or talked to my wife since she's been conscious. I'm going mad with worry..., I need to talk to her... It's vitally important."
"I understand your frustration, Mr. Salvatore. You are always welcome to call me for updates on your wife's condition, that is unless she forbids me to share any information which she has not. But you must understand that we cannot force her into a confrontation that might be more detrimental than beneficial. She needs to come to terms with what happened, find out why it happened and what it means for other aspects of her life and her future moving forward."
Although it feels like he's talking to a brick wall, he realizes the man only has Elena's best interests at heart but he also knows he can't give up, not again. Throwing in the towel in the beginning is what spawned this entire nightmare. He has so much to atone for.
"Dr. Mikaelson, I should be the one standing by her side. I want to be there for her. I want to help her overcome any and all doubts and worries that she may have and I am powerless to do so when she refuses to see me. I know all of this is a mess of my own making... I know that I may have forever lost her trust but I can't not try. How can I prove myself when I'm not even being given the chance to explain? Now she has presented me with divorce papers and yeah, I can see the irony of it all but it's so, so wrong. I don't want this."
Hearing the desperation in the young man's voice, Elijah weighs his words carefully. He pauses for several seconds before beginning, "Can I give you some advice, Damon?"
"Anything, I'll take anything," Damon adds in resignation, his voice sounding lackluster at best.
"Try to be patient for a little bit longer. I know it's agonizing but Elena needs this time. When she's ready, she will reach out to you and when she does, don't hold yourself back. Her ego is fragile, she was burnt and she's questioning if everything she believed was no more than a lie. It's up to you if you're able to be frank with her and begin to rebuild something even stronger. Hopefully the wounds that you both carry will heal. She told me what happened to you. I know that it was out of your hands but going forward, what happens next is completely on you, on both of you really. I told her the same, there are things that she has yet to share with you too. Can we agree to give her some time to process it all? Perhaps you can use this time apart to prepare yourself to fight, to come out of your shell. If you can do this, then perhaps you can help each other."
Feeling his heart pounding wildly in his chest, Damon takes a few shuddering breaths, hoping to get his bearings. When he can speak, he croaks, "Yes, thank you, Dr. Mikaelson."
"No, I thank you, Mr. Salvatore," he says, a hint of a smile forming on his lips. He can only hope he got through to the young man. "And before I hang up, you are welcome to call anytime. Your wife is safe here, you have my word." With that, Elijah ends the call.
After greeting her parents with hugs and kisses, she entwines her hands with theirs to lead them to the patio area in the back of the facility. The view is outstanding. It's a warm and beautiful day, the sun is high in the sky and clouds are wispy. It's blue as far as the eyes can see. The picnic table they choose is under the shade of a big Oak tree. Surprising even herself, Elena feels happier, lighter even than she has in a long time. She's truly excited to see her mom and dad. Their rapport comes easily and it's refreshing quite honestly she thinks.
They're not asking her questions that she can't answer, they are simply here to give her support. Thirsty, Elena excuses herself to get them each a bottle of water. While she walks away, she feels a pang of guilt begin to jab at her. Damon is still her husband, should she have called him first.. perhaps? But in giving him what he wanted, she rationalizes that he may need time to process the fact that she signed his papers.
Although her heart hurts at the thought of losing him forever, she knows that they can't keep on the way they were, it would destroy them both. She's just not ready to face him yet. Brushing those thoughts aside for now, she grabs three water bottles and then goes back outside to join her mom and dad. After handing one to each, she sits back down beside her dad, her mom is on the other side of the table.
Smiling at her daughter, Miranda places her hand on top of Elena's to give it a loving pat. "I'm glad to see with my own eyes how you are spending your days. It is truly beautiful here. I can see how it would be conducive to healing."
"I'm okay, mom. Given the circumstances, I feel like I don't deserve it but they are very, very good to me. Still, I want to come home soon. I had a nice phone visit with Caroline yesterday," she starts to laugh while twisting the lid off of her water bottle. She takes a drink then adds, "I think she's getting tired of leading not only her own groups but also mine."
Eyeing her carefully, Grayson links their fingers together. "Did you talk to anyone else? Damon?" Knowing his daughter as well as he does, he doesn't miss the shadow that he sees to cross over her face, of course it's Damon.
"I... not yet, dad.. We may be getting a divorce after all," she says, picking up her bottle to take another swallow.
Sharing a look with her husband, Miranda once more takes her daughter's hand. "Sweetie, is it something that you want to talk about?"
Sighing, she smiles uneasily. "No, not really. He just.. I might have tried to do the right thing but maybe it really wasn't the right thing to do? I mean, look at the mess I made. He was trying to tell me but I think I needed to see it for myself..."
Frowning, Grayson tries not to make assumptions but he wonders if Damon may have convinced her that he was done with their marriage. "Elena, you know we'll support you in any way we can but please be sure you're doing what you want to do. It's been a rough several months so maybe you need a little distance to decide what is right and what is wrong. We'll all be there to catch you, that is if you need us to."
"I know, daddy," she replies, forcing a tight smile. This is the one thing that she is absolutely certain about, that her parents will never abandon her.
Since the bar is fairly empty right now, Damon walks outside to have a cigarette. Lighting it up, he takes a long drag, blowing out rings of smoke. Starring at the stupid thing, he knows Elena hates them. She just never understood the kind of stress he lived under both while chasing Galen Vaughn and his whole prison experience. If only he had talked to her, maybe they wouldn't find themselves at cross purposes now.
It scares the mother loving hell out of him to think that she could possibly still end up in prison. It would be all his fault, "Why am I such an asshole?" he says aloud, kicking a decent sized rock that's laying near his foot. He hears it clang against the steel dumpster. How would he ever live with himself if she is imprisoned? She'd never come out of there alive, he knows that. She's beautiful and kind and.. he can't even voice the words..
His mind drifts back to his conversation with Elena's psychiatrist. He doesn't quite understand why but he does feel just a little bit hopeful for the first time in a very long time. Dr. Mikaelson seemed to believe that maybe there's still a chance or why would he have cared enough to even offer him a piece of advice? The more daunting task is coming clean with Elena, not only about Ruby but about all of it, all of the things that haunt him, sometimes day and night.
He'll never ever forget seeing the life drain out of little Faye's eyes right in front of his face, nor Charlotte's hauntingly empty ones, Vaughn's black ones, Rocco, Luka, they all blend together to rob him of everything that he used to hold dear, Elena most notably. God, he loves her so much. How does he even begin to drop all of that on her shoulders?
Doesn't she have enough to deal with right now? Yet he knows that he doesn't stand even a snowball's chance in hell of reuniting with her if he doesn't come clean. Shaking his head, he takes another puff, startling when he hears the door creak. Looking up, he sees Ric. His friend, his employer, someone that maybe he can confide in.
"Are you okay, Damon? You seem to have that far off look in your eyes today. More bad news?" He pauses, waiting for Damon to answer but he just drops his head and then takes another long drag before dropping it to the ground below. After stomping on the butt, Damon leans back against the building, not saying a word.
"Okay, Damon, tell me what's going on in that head of yours? Did you get to speak to her? And if you did, were you able to ask her about the divorce papers?"
With a heavy sigh, Damon shakes his head back and forth. "I did not. But I was able to speak to her doctor. I mean, he didn't give me any quarter... but the way he talked about us I have to believe there's a still a chance for me to fix things. It will be the hardest thing that I've ever had to do but I can't wave the white flag this time. I can't or she will be lost to me forever."
Realizing that Elena must have been thinking the same thing for years now, he hates himself even more. While he was preoccupied with coming up one way and then another to push her away, she held on, fighting circumstances and fighting him.
"I know that she was the brunt of ugly looks and innuendos for being my wife. Never once did she ever mention that. I wouldn't know myself if not for my sister's letters. Despite it all, she would make the drive every few weeks to try to lift my spirits. Instead of honoring my vows, I would barely speak to her and God, Ric, I never even thanked her for her unending support. She did so much for me, she sacrificed time and time again."
All the effort she made, all of her sacrifices should have ended when he got out but asshole that he is, he just took off leaving her all alone to fend for herself yet again. He literally chokes at the thought of flaunting Ruby in front of her. It's no wonder that she signed the papers.
Ric watches his turmoil and it's obvious to him that Damon carries many demons. Gently bringing him back, he says with utmost sincerity, "Damon, I'm your friend. You don't have to talk to me if you don't want to but you can. If you need to talk, you can tell me anything. It'll stay between the two of us. You know that right?"
Damon looks at him contemplating if he wants to get into this conversation. Reaching into his pocket, he lights up another cigarette. After taking a long draw, he looks at Ric again.
"The truth is, the doctor told me that if I still want there to be an us, I'm going to have to tell Elena everything. There are things, Ric.. that I have never talked about to anyone and I really don't want to, especially not with her because I know they would hurt her."
Dropping his eyes to the glowing end of it, he flicks off the ashes and then continues, "As much as I don't want to, the doctor is right, those things are what's keeping me from truly living. I can't share a piece of me with her, I have to be able to share all of me."
He pauses but Ric stays silent not giving him an opening to withdraw again. Perhaps it would be cathartic if he talked to Ric first and once he releases the demons, maybe then it will be easier to tell her. Maybe that's what he should do?
Tired after a hike in the sweltering heat, Elena, fresh out of the shower, is laying in bed watching an old movie on the TV. She's seen "My Favorite Wife" many times but she needs a little laughter even if it's only for a short respite from everything that's happening with her life. Hearing her phone, she turns down the volume and then picks it up, smiling genuinely when she sees who it is.
"Elena!" Bonnie squeals.
Taking her phone away from her ear for a second to save her eardrums, she laughingly responds. "Bonnie. How are you and Noelle and Enzo and my future niece or nephew?"
"It's going to be a nephew." Lowering her voice, she adds, "but don't tell Enzo! I'm telling him that it's going to be another girl so he should be prepared to be outnumbered even further."
"Of course, your secret is safe with me." Elena feels a wave of homesickness. The mere sound of Bonnie's happy voice is churning up so many emotions. She didn't even realize that it was possible to miss them all so much and she knows a thing or two about missing someone...
"How are you?" she asks, her voice turning serious. "Are you going to come home soon? I miss you something awful, girl... so do Noelle and Enzo."
"I have a little more work to do here, on myself, on what's going to happen when I get out. I don't think it will be much longer unless... I did shoot a gun in a public place. It's possible that I could go to jail, Bonnie."
"No, Elena. You were sick, you didn't know what you were doing."
"Thank you for supporting me, Bonnie," she says, her mind drifting to her husband. Elena knows that Bonnie would tell her whatever she wants to know about him, how he's doing, what he's doing, if he's alright. Although she wants to ask, she stops herself. It's not the time, she thinks and listens intently while Bonnie continues to chat.
As soon as everyone is out of the door, Ric locks them and turns off the outside lights. It's two o'clock in the morning but Damon is still wide awake. He can't think of anything else but what he has to do. Although he was able to work productively tonight, it's only because the place was busy. He could push everything to the back of his mind for a while.
Sensing that maybe his friend might be willing to take him up on his offer, he motions Damon over to take a seat then reaches under the bar to bring out his best bottle of bourbon. He sets two tumblers on the bar top, fills the glasses and puts the lid back on. However, he doesn't put it away, inherently knowing that maybe Damon will need more than one drink. Tightening his lips, Damon inhales a deep shuddering breath then throws back the drink, nearly gulping the entirety of it in one swallow. Feeling the burn all the way down to his toes, Damon threads his fingers through his hair and then finally meets Ric's gaze head on.
"I was sure that there had to be some mistake. A kid like him, he couldn't belong there, in prison, I mean. He didn't look older than 17 or so... I thought that he should be at home, thinking about girls and sports and giving his parents grief. There was no way that he could be an adult, much less a criminal...," Damon starts, his mind taking him back in time.
"Hey, I'm Luka," he said, introducing himself the first time. When he extends his hand, Damon shakes it, thinking there's no way. His boyish looks and friendly behavior, immediately stirring something protective in Damon. As time passed, he learned the young man's tragic life story. They would lay awake in their bunks at night, just talking, anything to pass the time. He told Damon about him and his sister's struggle after their parents were killed in a car crash. They were taken in by an uncle they hardly knew, one who turned out to be an abusive bastard who only cared about how much money the state was paying him to be their foster parent.
Although he was grateful that another relative took in his sister, Madelyn, he was left to fend for himself against the man. Luka went on to tell him that he flew the coop as soon as he could, making a living by pick pocketing, pan handling, stealing, later selling drugs. A wallflower as a student, he blended in and kept to himself. He earned enough money to feed himself and find a run down dirty room to stay in. With no role model, he had no sense of right and wrong. When one of the people he sold too, overdosed, he was sentenced to prison along with others. Because he was tried as an adult, turning 18 just before he ended up sharing a cell with Damon.
"He was a good kid, Ric. I wanted to be able to help him when I got out," Damon says softly, his eyes somewhere far away. He takes another swallow and then continues his journey to the past. "After that, we grew close, cellmates, friends, I felt a big brother like affection towards him. I wanted to protect him but I couldn't, I failed."
It was a daily job to keep Rocco away from him. Every night, Damon would limp back to the cell, his body beaten and sore. Rocco was in the shack for murder one. He killed his wife and another woman, beating them to death because he caught her trying to escape. The other woman was someone from a battered women's support group that just came by to help get her out of that environment. If that wasn't bad enough, he also killed his disabled kid. Although Damon knew Luka was scared of him, he was afraid to show it for fear the others would brand him a coward.
"When you get out, you must call my friend Vicky. She sometimes gives me a place to stay when I need to get lost. If you tell her we're friends, she will surely help you out. I will be right behind you in four months, Damon?" Luka asks, happily chattering away. Damon wants the kid to maintain his happy demeanor but he's worried about him, wondering if he'll be able to keep him alive until then. What happens when he's released, who's going to make sure he survives then? he thinks to himself.
"You're still stuck with me for awhile," Damon mentions, giving the young man a playful shove with a smile on his lips but it doesn't reach his eyes.
"Not long after that, I was attacked in the showers, I could handle myself against one, maybe two but four of them ganged up on me. I ended up in the infirmary overnight. Elena doesn't know, I told them not to tell her. She didn't need yet another thing to worry about because of me. But with me detained for the might, Luka was an easy mark."
Picking up the bottle, he refills both of their glasses. "When I got back to the cell the next day, I found only a shell of the lively and naïve young boy that I grew to care about so much. He had a haunted look in his eyes, his body was broken, his hands were trembling. He wouldn't speak.. He never spoke another word, not to me, not to anyone. I knew exactly what they did to him. Too many times, I saw the lewd looks they were giving him, for too long, I saw the fear in Luka's eyes whenever one of them would stare at him obscenely. I could protect myself, he couldn't. When they were beating the shit out of me, they bragged about exactly what they were going to do to him. As soon as the bastards incapacitated me, that's exactly what they did."
It's a Saturday afternoon. Elena is there, trying to reach him as she always does. It is dark, stormy day. Lightning, thunder, pouring rain, dark clouds. He feels like a child and doesn't know why. After he says goodbye to her, he heads back to his cell. It's then that he finds Luka, hanging from the window, a bed sheet around his neck. His body is already cool to the touch.
"His eyes were still open, his face was purple. I wanted to kill.. I'll never get that image out of my mind," he adds, finishing off what's left in his glass. Looking up at Ric, he sees the terror in his eyes.
"See, look at you, you don't even have the visual to hit you in the eyes day in and day out. How can I tell Elena that?"
"I'm so, so sorry, Damon," Ric says. Reaching up, he squeezes Damon's shoulder, urging him to finish the story.
"Nothing happened," Damon adds bitterly.
"I would have killed Rocco, I should have killed him. They kept me in the hospital for the next couple of weeks, something about me having a breakdown, the shock of seeing Luka hanging. He wrapped one end of the sheets around the window bars, the other around his neck. I knew what they were doing, they were protecting me from myself. They even sent Elena away the week after telling her that I was ill and not able to have visitors. I would have done it, I would have killed him, just like I killed Galen Vaughn."
Stunned, Ric fills their glasses once more. Picking it up, Damon takes another sip, trying to ignore the gnawing thought of yet another sleepless night of seeing Luka's dead eyes staring right through him.
Restless, Elena lays in bed, shifting from her left side to her right side and finally to her back. No matter which way she turns, sleep eludes her. Since her last session with Dr. Mikaelson, her mind has been, still is heavy with thought. Rolling onto her left side, she raises up on her arm to take a swallow of water. After setting it back down, she burrows her head back into the pillow and closes her eyes. Even though she feels tired, sleep doesn't want to come. Raising up again, she pounds on her pillow and then repositions herself. Looking out through the open window, she startles slightly when suddenly a crack of thunder interrupts the silence of the night. Sucking her lower lip into her mouth, she stares outside while thinking again about what he asked her.
"Who is Elena Salvatore? Is she different now or is she the same woman? Why was she trying so hard to hold onto Damon despite every effort he made to push her away?
Although she's wan to admit it, the truth is, she had a good feeling once she signed those divorce papers. They didn't scare her anymore. Maybe she just needs to accept reality and admit they're over? Is it what she really wants though? Not that it matters anymore, she sighs. The girl in the bar made it perfectly clear, she thinks, feeling her heart split wide open. She doesn't want to see him and quite honestly, she's not sure she ever will but she does miss him, God she misses him..
And just like that, her mind clears. Everything that was shrouded in fog is now perfectly clear. She remembers his nightmares from the time before he was remanded to prison. Is he still plagued with them? She wants to find a way to banish them from his mind forever. She also wants to tell him about Jeremy no matter how painful her own memories are.
But most of all, she wants to cry in his arms and kiss his fears away. A painful gasp leaves her lips at the image of Ruby on the bar stool, her twisted smile mocking her. Damon's indifference and biting words once again begin to cloud her mind.
Just as suddenly, she has a moment of blinding clarity when she sees a streak of lightning illuminate both darkness and her mind. Yawning, she closes her eyes and buries her face in the pillow, her mind now calm as she knows exactly what to say to Dr. Mikaelson.
Huge thanks to my sister, Eva. You're are brilliant, insightful and so generous. I love you very much.
Massive thanks to all of you for reviews, follows, favorites, encouraging words, incredible support and friendship. You're all the BEST.
Chapter title: 'In My Darkest Hour' by Megadeth.
'Tomorrow' will update over the weekend. I posted a fluffy little drabble yesterday. "I Hear a Symphony".
I hope you all have a fabulous day. Thank you all again. We'll see you next time.