Happy Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas (Hanukkah, Kwanza, Yule, etc.) and New Year!
Soooooo, it's been a while and I've got some houskeeping to take care of before we dig in (Or, you know, if you're just reading through a while after this has been posted, you can probably just skip like most or all of it).
First, I just want to make clear, that despite the very large hiatus this story has taken in updating, I have been working on it, and am very very sorry I made you wait so long in suspense.
Just as important, I need to give some special thank yous. A big one to NorahB who's wonderful beta reading on this chapter helped me get back on the horse when it finally came to editing this chapter to be posted. If you have not checked out her post series fic, A New Normal, you should. Also, thank you to all you wonderful readers, reviewers, and lurkers. Your reviews reminded me how badly I needed to kick my butt into gear, there were a couple of you who even checked up on me to make sure I was okay, and I checked my stats a few times, so I'm also apologetically aware that many of you were frequently checking the last chapter for updates. Thank you and I love you all. Here is my not-an-excuse-but-a-rendering-of-events-that-led-to-this-painful-hiatus:
To be honest, after the last update I did get a bit stuck. And that was all on me. By the time October rolled around, I did get back to writing in an effort to prep myself for NaNoWriMo. The end of October is when this chapter should have realistically been posted, but then things snowballed. General (not disastrous or anything) life events intervened with me being able to edit what I had written, and therefore decide how to break up chapters, polish it and post it in the much better than the original format you will be able to get shortly.
And then, if any of you know about NaNoWriMo (a month long endeavor to challenge yourself to write 50k words of a novel without editing), than you will understand what I mean when I say NOVEMBER happened. I focused all my attention in November on writing this story, and was unable to update. Good news: I managed to write about 35k more words than what you're getting tonight, and so I now have that banked and should be updating more frequently. Less than good news: I burnt myself and all my lovely family and friends out on writing, and so the week of a break in December I had planned to take from writing and editing turned into a month long blizzard of catching up with all the lovely family and friends concerned after they hadn't seen me for a month and the subsequent holiday get togethers and events.
TL;DR version: It's a new year, and I'm getting my shit together. Please forgive me; thank you, and enjoy this update!
Previously on . . . : For those of you who don't feel like doing a whole reread to remember where we left off. The first football game of the season did not go that great for Elena. She got temp. booted from the squad during halftime. Bonnie joined her in solidarity. They changed out in the locker room where Elena discovered her locker had been opened. Walking back to the car, Elena realizes her keys are missing and they witness an accident using Elena's SUV that injures, the driver and their stoner classmate, and kills Zach Salvatore. Damon's been looking for Enzo, but is interrupted to help Elena through saving Chad's life and finding out Zach has died. After the police and paramedics arrive, Elena goes home and must inform Jeremy of what has happened, She's upset, has some creepy ass nightmares, and in the dark quiet of her bedroom we left off with Damon attempting to soothe her fears with a lullaby and help her get back to sleep. For frame of reference: The pep rally and football game were the first Saturday after school started, and this chapter takes place the following Monday.
It feels like there's oceans
Between me and you once again
We hide our emotions
Under the surface and tryin' to pretend
But it feels like there's oceans
Between you and me
—Seafret
September 14, 2009
Dear Diary,
My house is a tomb.
Words only spoken in necessity, eyes cast downward, the feigned stiffness with which everyone carries out menial tasks.
A sighting of Jeremy is rare. He's on the other side of a door, but I leave it in place—a bandage I haven't gathered the courage to pull away from the fresh wound it shields.
Jenna is afraid to leave us alone, and has stopped attending classes. But her struggle to feel helpful has devolved from awkwardly veiled attempts at making herself available to talk, to constant offerings of hot beverages. Now, she does homework in her room, where the pervasive sound of typing won't penetrate the stillness that has settled over the house.
Even Damon, our resident restless spirit, respects the quiet Zach's death has made a necessity for us. He's been around since Saturday, but never comes closer than an arbitrary, self-imposed distance. I don't have the courage to say anything, terrified that the house will echo my doubts, fears, and secret feelings like a cavern, no matter how I lower my voice.
My skin itches with unanswered questions and uncertainties.
Chad Carpenter got high in the athletic parking lot, stole my car keys, and decided to go for a joyride in my SUV which resulted in the accident that killed Zach Salvatore.
That's the explanation the Sheriff brought during the follow-up house call she paid us this morning.
How can it be a freak accident?
Does the Sheriff believe that?
Does Stefan?
Can my brother recover from another tragedy?
Can I trust my memory with the tenderness of Damon's lullaby and near-touches? Or have I painted over reality with the color of my own hopes?
I can no longer rely on anyone but myself to deliver the answers I once thought entitled to me.
I can't abide the silence of this house anymore.
XXX
I terminate the sentence with a forceful jab of my pen. The punctuation mark stabs through to the next page of the journal. It collapses into the crossed legs of my lap. Damon glances over from where he sits in my window seat, but doesn't say anything. Over the past two days, I've grown accustomed to his near constant presence—at a distance.
Yesterday morning, after I woke to the daylight of the new day, my heart dropped at the sight of my empty room. I returned with a cup of coffee from the kitchen to find him casually ensconced in the light pouring from my window. He disappeared again before twilight and then reappeared with my first sip of caffeine this morning as if it revived him the same way it did me.
Frustration crawls up the flesh of my arms. I groan, toss my journal away, and jump to the floor, propelled by a new urgency to do something. Damon sits up and looks at me with a question in his eyes. I shove my sneakers on, ignoring the reflexive memory of the blood-caked cheerleading pair I had to dump in the trash. I look around for my phone before remembering it didn't survive the carnage of my car.
"Elena?" Damon breaks the silence as I pull the door open. I pause in the threshold. The hall is empty and the house still grave. I rake my teeth over my bottom lip before turning back to invite him along without a word.
XXX
I creep down the stairs at a painful pace, so I don't alert anyone to my departure. I don't have to see Damon to know he's behind me. I can feel him glaring, impatient at each prolonged step. I grab a knit shrug and lift the keys to Jenna's Mini from the hook by the door.
I pull the front door open, but step back startled.
Wide, sparkling blue eyes and coiffed golden curls obstruct my path. She drops her hand back to her side from where it was poised to knock.
"Caroline?" My voice jumps. I hurry to close the door behind me and push past her onto the porch to tug the sweater on over my dark red camisole. Damon's silhouette already occupies the porch swing.
We turn toward each other. Caroline folds her arms over her chest, pulling her denim jacket taut across her shoulders and obscuring the neckline of her white, eyelet lace tank. "It's good to see you're feeling better." I smile, though I can't help but glance at the soft chiffon scarf tied above the collar of her jacket. You'd have to look very hard to imagine anything south of normal had happened to her. I frown. But it did. "Wait, what are you doing here, Care? Shouldn't you be home, taking it easy?"
"No." She huffs, dropping her arms and stamping one of her flats against the wood. "We should be at practice." My lips part in protest, because Jesus, she got out of the hospital yesterday, but— "And don't worry. I pulled one of the girls up from JV to stand in for me in routines. Which need serious work, by the way. And what am I supposed to do about that with half a squad? I had to send the girls home, and then I came to see what was up with you two." Her eyebrow arches as she provides a silence I'm meant to fill with a satisfactory explanation for my lack of dedication. My lips press back together.
"I'm sorry. Jeremy got really close to the Salvatores over the summer, and Sarah's still missing and now Zach . . . I needed to be here for him." The blank confusion in Caroline's expression stops me. "Hold on. Who else did you mean?"
She scrunches up her nose and then relaxes it. "Bonnie, of course. She wasn't at school either. I just came from her Grams' house, but Miss Sheila said she was taking a nap." There's a slight tilt of her head. Her eyes narrow as if napping were a concept entirely foreign to her.
"Bonnie wasn't at school today?" My eyes drop to the ground. I should've checked on her, but I've been so disconnected since losing my phone.
"Didn't I say that?"
"The accident was pretty horrible. She probably just needed some time," I tell Caroline, and myself. I tuck a piece of hair that's fallen in my face back behind my ear again and continue twisting the ends of it in my fingers. I'm not sure who I'm trying to convince more. I haven't forgotten the strange trance that gripped Bonnie before she disappeared in the direction of the collision yet to happen.
Caroline tips her head to give me a pointed look, and I realize I've been quiet too long. My verbal skills are rusty from the disuse of this grim weekend. I offer her a weak smile while I rub my thumb over one of the keys I'm gripping.
"But, hey—" Something dawns on her. "Where were you headed?"
Damon moves from the swing to lean against one of the columns at the top of the porch steps. He seems curious himself. My eyes flick back to Caroline, before he can take advantage of my attention.
"Uh . . ." My mouth hangs open, as I hesitate to reveal too much. "I was going to Stefan's actually," I say, because I've never been a good liar.
Caroline's eyebrows lift into her hairline. She's delighted at the prospect of gossip. But it's Damon's response I'm imagining. I can't bring myself to look and find out. Heat flushes my cheeks. Of course, I would've been better off chumming the waters of a shark tank.
"Salvatore?" She hides the rising hook of her voice in an unassuming lure of casual interest. I know better than to take the bait.
"No, Caroline." I extend the words, shaking my head. "We're friends. Nothing more. I haven't seen him since everything was going on, and my phone got smashed in the crash." I catch the edge of Damon's smirk, looking away as quick as I can manage—
Except that the mocking grin that begins as a furrow in Damon's cheek matures into an elegant and devilish curl in Caroline's—a bizarre resemblance between two people I had never thought to consider similar.
The wrinkle of her nose and the petulance in her voice shatters the illusion. "Ungh. I missed everything. Stupid mountain lion." I can't pause to admire the height of ridiculous her rearranged priorities reach with this statement. Instead, I focus on her imagination spiraling outward from the possibility of me and Stefan.
I shake my head and put my hand on her shoulder to reel her back in. I suspect she's already planning the color scheme of our wedding.
"Really, Caroline." I hold my open palm up between us. "He needed a friend, and right now that's all I have room for." I wince, still acutely aware that Damon is listening. I don't mean to evoke our conversation from the locker room, only to stop Caroline's rumor mill before it can start turning. Does he notice? I wish I could edit speech after it's left my mouth.
Caroline scoffs. "C'mon, Elena. You and Matt broke up ages ago—decades in high school years. It's a new year; you're ready for a new guy." I press an arm over my chest to grip the other right above the elbow and look at my hand still fidgeting with Jenna's keys. It's something Caroline would say, but there's a soft quality to her voice that lends the words a sincerity she's not exactly known for.
"Maybe," I start out loud before I mean to say anything. I drop the arm back to my side. "But I'm not interested in Stefan Salvatore," I say, raising my voice louder than necessary. I'm sure he can hear fine, but I want him to know my words are more than for Caroline's sake.
I'm focusing so hard on not looking in Damon's direction, that I don't register Caroline's expression. As I start to read the insecurity she's usually so desperate to mask, her eyes have already brightened. Her glossy lips are quick to follow with their satisfied smile.
"Good." She bounces with the rising pitch of the word. "Did you know he came to visit me while I was in the hospital? I mean, I guess he wanted to see if I remembered anything about his cousin—which of course, I don't remember anything—but then he also said he was worried about me too. I didn't want to say anything before, because—Well, Bonnie made it sound like you two might . . . you know . . . But if you're just friends—" She takes a breath, miles beyond whatever centerpiece or bridal shower fantasies I may have starred in. She must already be to retirement parties and nursing homes, wrinkled hands clasped together in a simultaneous sleep-death a la The Notebook. "You're gonna go see him now? Can I come with?"
A croaking noise fills the absence left by words I can't find. My gut is still snagged and twisted on her comment about not remembering. I block her path as she makes her way to the porch steps with her foregone conclusions. "What? No!" The force of the meager syllables compensates for the lack of more. Force enough that Caroline startles quiet for a moment, and her eyes widen.
My window closes too fast for me to discover the magical phrases to convince her against pursuing Stefan without including 'vampire' or 'almost mauled you to death in the woods before I left him alone to mess around with your head so you wouldn't remember'. "His uncle just died, Care," is the genius I land on instead.
I don't think it worked. A new possibility blooms in Caroline's mind, and the gears spin as she prepares to will it into existence.
"No, you're right—"
Wait—What?
"You think we should take a fruit basket? Or a lasagna? Salvatore—That's Italian, right? We should run by Bell's first. I have this really cool trick for transferring the ones from the freezer section to a fancy dish, and then I'll have the perfect excuse to stop by again and pick up the dish." Her smile is brilliant, restored to its usual confidence by the bright gleam of her teeth.
I finally look over at Damon, because—I'm not sure what part of me thinks it's a good idea. His lips are pursed and his brow furrowed. He turns from Caroline to me and raises an eyebrow when he catches me looking. 'Is she serious?' he mouthes as if he were in danger of being overheard.
I cover my inappropriate bout of laughter in a fake fit of coughs that make it sound like I'm choking.
Caroline's grimace tells me it's more than a curtsy short of ladylike.
"Sorry, Care" I clear my throat with a nervous hum. "I don't think it's a good idea."
"The lasagna?" she asks, contemplating other casserole alternatives. I don't have the time to gather some tact before I lose her already waning focus.
"Or Stefan," I respond.
"What?" Her pitch wavers. "But you said—"
"He's just not in a good place right now. Give it time." I swallow hard. I don't want to encourage her at all, but I have to say something. Maybe if I can distract her for a month, she'll move on.
"Because you've gotten to know each other so well? In what, a week?" She scoffs.
God. Has it only been a week? I glance over at Damon as I roll the hot metal of the keyring in my sweaty closed palm. If Caroline only knew. My short acquaintance with Stefan is a drop in his century and half deep bucket. Even Damon, with whom I've unknowingly spent more than half my life, his decade overlapping mine has only been the posthumous insult to a lifelong torturous injury my father and others like him inflicted. Who would I be kidding, trying to lay a claim to either of them?
And, yet, it doesn't change anything.
I have to help.
I blink and look up at Caroline, clenching my fist tight around the keys. "Sorry, I've got to get going," I tell her, stepping down the porch steps. "The funeral's tomorrow, but I'll be back at school Wednesday."
"Wait. Seriously!?" she screeches indignant from the threshold of my house. As I open the Coop's driver door, Caroline's mouth is agape and her arms suspended palm-up in the air in front of her. I offer her a small wave and a grimacing smile before sinking down into the driver's seat.
Cheer practice on Wednesday is not going to be fun.
Damon is already waiting for me when I pull the door shut and put the key in the ignition. He's curled into the small car with his elbow propped up on the door and his hand and forearm hanging out the window as if it were already rolled down. I'd say he wouldn't be caught dead in the passenger seat of a Mini Coop, but here he is in all his spectral glory.
I smile a little to myself at my own joke, roll the power windows down for both of us, and pull out onto the street.
XXX
Gravel crunches under the tires as I slow to a stop on the shoulder right before the Salvatores' private driveway. I wrap my hands around the steering wheel at nine and three, squeeze until my knuckles turn white, and drop them to my lap as I let out a sigh.
"So, you're just not going to say anything then?"
Damon turns away from the window. His lips part with a breath, then press together in a thin smirk as his eyes narrow.
"Was there something you were expecting?" His voice fills the small space.
"No more 'Trying to find Enzo is dangerous' or 'Walking around in broad daylight is stupid', 'You take too many unnecessary risks, Elena'?" I lift my eyebrow with the question and start to feel foolish as the silence absorbs my voice.
"Because that's been so effective for me in the past?" His harsh chuckle has me looking down at my hands. "Look. What's this really about?" I came for answers.
But Damon's right; I'm hesitating.
My stomach hardens, and pain lances my chest. I try a slow breath to relieve it. My lips tremble, and I cut the breath off to press them tightly together again.
I'm afraid.
"What you said about grief—" I start after a moment, "How it's intensified for vampires? Is that—? The switch—" A tightness in my throat strangles my voice. My heart clenches at the memory of waking up in the hospital to discover my parents were gone—forever. It's impossible to imagine it hurting more than it did. And to have a button to make it all go away? That's all I wanted for weeks. How could anyone resist?
Damon's shoulders stiffen, and he watches me with incredulous eyes. His mouth drops open, but he doesn't manage an answer. His eyes flare in a quick recovery. He relaxes back into the seat and stares ahead instead of at me. A lopsided sneer dissolves the genuine response into disinterest.
"Stefan?" His acknowledgment is flippant. "Trust me. They weren't that close."
I pull in a short breath, shaking my head. "They were family." I mean to give it strength, but all that comes out is a breathy whisper.
"Stefan's grief is for himself. As long as he gets to play hero and martyr he won't turn it off." My lip curls from revulsion I'm too stunned to mask. Damon closes and opens his eyes as he rolls them.
But when he starts again his annoyance softens. "Your Rescue Sarah Mission is the best thing for him."
I'm not sure I believe it. "And what happens if we can't save Sarah, if he feels he has nothing left?"
He shrugs. "My confidence in my brother's self righteous messiah complex is pretty strong." Damon fixes his eyes hard on mine and the contact doesn't waver. "But it wouldn't matter if it weren't." He sighs a long and heavy breath. "If I told you to turn around right now because Stefan might lose his shit, turn into an emotionless, bloodcrazed predator willing to slaughter this whole town for fun, that I've been looking for Enzo and haven't made any progress—" When did he—But I guess he's been putting my sleeping hours to use. Why doesn't he ever tell me anything? "—Would you listen?"
Despite seeming to know the answer, his eyes widen with the question. I stare at him flat and narrow my eyes at his assumption but can't bring myself to argue.
Damon nods. My silence is enough to confirm it for him. And yet, he seems disappointed by my lack of denial.
"Didn't think so." His mask of disinterest returns. "It wouldn't be the worst idea in the world if you started packing some heat—the sharp and wooden variety. Not that you'd know how to use it." I ignore his slight in favor of an unamused scowl. I drop my eyes to my lap before he can see it transform into vulnerable agreement.
Without looking at him I ask, "Can you come back from . . . Can you flip it back?"
His voice is even when he replies, "I wouldn't worry about it, Elena." He pauses. Muffled and quiet, so that I have to strain to hear, he continues, "We both know Zach and Sarah aren't Stefan's only ties to his humanity."
My head shoots back to him, but he's looking away from me, out the window.
Does he mean—? Is he willing to let me share his existence with his brother?
"Damon—?" I start, but he finishes his thought before I can wrangle my own into a tangible question.
"He has you now."
I'm struck silent by his genuine tone. It's something he's glad of. My chest clenches in rejection and wrings my heart into pulp.
Alright, so what did ya think? Take a few minutes to leave a review to let me know, or just to let me know you're still reading. I've missed you guys :) While I won't make any timeframe promises, I will say that more updates (yes, plural) will be coming soon. Thanks so much!