Unfortunately, my fears about Bonnie not waking up anytime soon came true.

Elena and Caroline sat by her body for hours, patiently and speechlessly, each holding one of her hands between theirs, watching her chest go up and down ever so lightly, elegantly. She's breathing with ease and to a casual observer she would look like she's just sleeping. But even the casual observer, judging by the faces of the people around her, would know that's not the case. She's sleeping for far too long, too tightly, too deeply, so that her eyelids didn't flutter, not even once. She didn't stir, of snore, if Bonnie indeed snores.

Wherever she is, I hope she's safe, trying to find her way home. I hope she's having happy dreams.

I still don't understand why they want to keep her here, instead in one of the guest bedrooms where she would be far more comfortable, even after Caroline explained to me that, this way, when she wakes up, someone will probably be there, as it is the most visited room in the house. She won't be lost, and someone will be able to take care of her right away and, even now, in this sleepy state, she will always have some company.

Jeremy is keeping his distance from her but, what surprises me more, is that Damon is by her side. Probably because he has nowhere else to be. Elena is still ignoring him, and he's giving her space. She seems to be ignoring all of us, though. Sometimes I think she's going to say something, but then, in the last minute, she chooses not to say anything.

There's a storm inside of her, I can see it in her eyes. Thunder chopping trees, blocking the road, keeping here trapped there so she doesn't escape.

"So," Caroline's cheerful voice awakens me from my heavy thoughts, "How was it?"

Caroline asked me to walk to the town with her so she can buy some more coffee. We ran out of it after just few days and she's the only one who drinks it. She refuses to admit her coffee drinking habit is becoming a problem.

I agreed because I wanted to get away from everyone. From the sound of Bonnie's chest rising and falling, from the questioning look in Damon's eyes in the rare times he decides to raise his head. Somehow his look always finds a way to meet mine. Maybe because I'm the only one paying attention. From Jeremy's loud exhales and the distance Katherine keeps between us and Elena's sudden lack of words.

Sudden to me, because for quite some time her voice was my constant companion. For everyone else it's just a part two of her silent treatment she began even before we left.

"How was what?" I can hear my voice and it's blank, uninterested.

She notices it. I know because she flinches, but doesn't say anything about it. "Wherever you were," she replies calmly, asking the question that has been hoovering over us for quite some time. No one wanted any more information than we gave them after we arrived. Everyone are interested in Bonnie and how to wake her from this state she's in. Caroline's curiosity never withered, though, she was just waiting for the right moment. If I know my brother, and I do, he probably wants answers as well, but he's too afraid to ask for them because they might lead to why Elena's been so distant since we came back. I can see why he might think that has something to do with me, but it's also sad how he thinks I would ever do that to him. I don't think Elena would either. It probably worries him, though, what this means for them. Her jumping after me, her behavior now. If my girlfriend jumped into a time hole after her ex, I'd want answers as well.

Damon doesn't know what I know, though. The true reason why Elena did it.

But I have to admire his patience. I've never seen him this patient about something he's so hungry for.

I really don't want to talk about it. To give her a review of an indefinite time of confusion I spent with a person who's a source of it. But this is Caroline, she needs it. By understanding every single detail in our lives, she's trying to understand us, and most of the time we're too complicated to understand. So I sigh quietly, internally, and try to find the best words to answer her question.

"I would love to tell you it was a torture," I look at her, watching her eyes go wide with curiosity as she meets the fact that she will finally get her answers. "But it wasn't," I smile at her shocked expression. I guess she expected gory details. "Well, it was, at first," I correct myself when I remember the unpleasant contradicting feeling, "There was this place, basically a center of time, a spot where everything that ever happened goes through, and I was trapped there. Time moves so fast there, and then, it doesn't move at all. You feel lost. It was maddening," just talking about it gives me the chills.

Her expression is a mix of shock and curiosity and pity. Her eyes are asking million of questions, but her lips are just quivering, unwilling to speak. "How did you get out?" she finally manages to ask, her eyes locked on mine, keeping them from moving away.

My lips form into a smile without my knowledge. I guess it's what her name does to the muscles in my body - it makes them levitate with happiness. "Elena found me," such a simple sentence, so many meanings.

Upon seeing me smile, she smiles as well. "Elena, huh?" she asks, as if I had any other choice with who I spend my time over there.

I break our eye contact and lower my head, keeping my look on the ground as we walk so she doesn't get the wrong impression when I say, "Yeah, Elena.."

I can hear her grunt, clearly annoyed with the lack of information I'm willing to share, "So, she went after you - "

"It's not like that," I interrupt her in the middle of her sentence.

Our looks meet again and I can see her frown. "Then what's it like?"

"It's complicated," I know how this sounds but it's the truth and there's no other explanation, "You'll just have to trust me."

She cocks her eyebrow at me, a devilish smile painting her lips, "What did you do then? Talk?" she says as if that's so preposterous. As if it's impossible.

"Yes," I confirm.

She comes to a halt. "Really?" she asks as if the answer of confirmation might send her to her happy place.

So I say once again, "Yes."

I was right, it really sends her to her happy place, as she starts jumping up and down and clapping her palms like a seal. "That's wonderful!" she exclaims as if us talking means more to her than any sexual advance between the two of us. "What did you talk about?"

I raise my eyebrow in that wouldn't you like to know manner, because really, it's a little personal, but she just rolls her eyes which is when I know I'll spill the beans. "Literally everything," I give her a vague answer and in return she gives me that look which tells me I know you can do better than that, "In time, there are these life cords. Each person has one and it holds everything you lived through, alongside all the possible ways your life could have turned out if you took a different path. We took a peek."

"And?" she asks excitedly.

"And it gave us something to talk, and think about."

"Oh," she seems a little disappointed by my answer, "Is that why Elena's acting so weird since you came back?"

I shake my head no. "I don't know why she's acting the way she is. At one moment she just decided we have to go back urgently," I shrug.

After few moments of reconsidering this, Caroline nods and we spend the rest of the walk to the town in silence.

ELENA'S POV

Everything is too heavy. The air is too heavy, cold blood running down my throat is even heavier. My thoughts are heavy and so are these words stuck inside of my throat, preventing any other words from reaching the surface of my lips.

Now, those words got settled on my tongue, and they're too heavy for me to bare. I have to get them out.

Once I do, everything will change. From this point on, everything will be different. In his life, and especially in mine.

I'm a bird, stuck inside of an iron cage with rusty doors and ugly windows for my beady eyes to look through. There are metal bars around my wings, chaining me to my prison. They feed me with thoughts about freedom, but they never hand it to me.

I want to be free. I need to be free. I want to fly away, far away from this place, so I can be as brave and courageous and independent as I think I can be. I want these thoughts to be more than an unpleasant weight in the pit of my stomach.

I stand in front of his door for quite some time, my jaw sore, my toes clenched, my heels heavy from tapping the ground with them. I've seen him go in here about half an hour ago. He's probably taking a shower, it helps him relax.

He must have so many questions. I admire his patience. I'm also grateful for it as well, because I've been pondering over this for quite some time, waiting for the right moment and looking for the right words.

Every moment is wrong for a thing like this, and even the sweetest words sound sharp.

I put my hand on the doorknob and clench my fingers around it. I start counting without setting the limit, I'll push the door open when I feel brave enough to do it.

There's no bravery without the constant fear of losing something. It's what makes you brave, that urge to fight, to go forward.

I turn the knob and push the door open. He's sitting on his bed, like he's waiting for me. Like he knew I would come today. Maybe he heard me standing in front of the door, gathering courage to face him. His dark, coal black hair is wet from the water, sticking to the skin on the back of his neck.

"Damon," his name gets stuck in my throat.

I'm not even sure I said it out loud, so when he turns his head around, it takes me by surprise. His eyes are the same color as his hair under this light, black, black, black, instead of beautifully, sensually blue.

The corners of his lips go up. Not a lot, just a little, just enough for me to take a step back. When Damon smirks, he's defending himself, but when he smiles like this, he's completely open to whatever may come. His heart is completely bare, unformed, ready for your fingers to poke and protrude and shape it into whatever form you would like.

No one should have such power over another, let alone me.

My name leaves his lips gently, like it did so many times over the past few months. "Elena."

I always wondered how my name sounds in someone else's head. What it means to them when they say it internally. To Damon, my name meant a lot of things. I was his enemy, a painful reminder, his brothers girlfriend, object of his desires, a friend and, finally, a lover. I took many forms in his life that sometimes it feels like we lived through more than one lifetime together.

When Stefan says it, it's always the same. It starts loudly, but ends quietly, in the form of a whisper. In the beginning it's a wrecking ball and in the end, a feather. To Stefan, I always represent the same thing - myself. To him, I've always been just Elena, his Elena, someone else's Elena, Elena who belongs to everyone and no one and to herself. I'm this constant in his life, that last, quiet note in the chorus, one you barely notice but it holds such weight and importance because without it there would be no end. The chorus would go on and on and you wouldn't be able to make a difference between it and the rest of the song.

I pull my lips into a thin line. "We have to talk."

And just like that, his smile withers. "Yes," he pushes himself to his feet, suddenly standing in front of me, "We do."

I freeze for a moment as his eyes fall on mine, adapting it's usual color of blue.

"Damon, how long it's been since we had a normal conversation?" I ask. My question surprises him, I can see it in his eyes, which isn't weird at all because it surprises me as well.

"I - " he starts, but I interrupt him after the first time he stammers.

"I mean a normal conversation," my eyes lock on his without fear now, holding his look on mine, preventing him from turning it away, "When was the last time you told me something about when you were human, or some pleasant story from your past? When did I share something from my childhood with you? A story about my parents?" I can feel his body go stiff in front of mine. Surprisingly, I'm completely relaxed. Determined. I hold his gaze with such force that he doesn't even think about averting it. But even thought I feel this amount of power and fearlessness surging through me, the next words I choke out, "Did you ever?" I ask because I honestly can't remember. I can't remember one genuine conversation we had.

"Elena.." he says my name ever so gently like it's supposed to fix everything. So charming, compelling me to stop, to leave it alone, to let it rest like so many times before. Rather occupy myself with something more fun. Not this time. Not ever again.

"Do you know what I wanted to be?"

More surprise fills his eyes. "Excuse me?"

"When I was human," my voice weavers a little, "Do you know what I wanted to be?"

I can see his jaw clench. Certain lines of his face turn hard, stone cold. His eyes adapt a different color, color of a deep blue sea. The part where people go to die. "No," he says.

"A writer," I inform him, not caring is he interested in that piece of information or not, "I used to love to write. Your boyfriend is supposed to know that about you, right?" I ask him as if I'm not sure myself, "What you aspire to be, your dreams and hopes, books you love to read and movies you could watch over and over again and how much sugar you put in your tea," all of a sudden I can't stop talking. I was so nervous, so speechless, feeling so heavy from the inside and now I'm as light as a feather. Wind could carry me with ease if I let it. I can't even remember why I thought I lack words when it turns out I have too much of them. "And you don't know any of those things about me," I say freely, and his whole face drops, it gets filled with sadness. "Oh no!" I say when I realize what I've done, "I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. After all, I don't know any of those things about you either. It's not that I never wanted to know.." I choose my next words carefully, but I know they will sting no matter how I put them.

"You just never cared enough to ask," he finishes my sentence for me and his words sound far more cruel than mine ever would, but I can't deny them. I just never remembered to ask, so that must mean I never really cared. "Let's change that," his face lights up as a new idea builds inside of him, "Let's do it all over again."

Silence fills the room after his voice disappears and the look on my face must give him an answer because that light expression on his face disappears. "It's too late, isn't it?" he swallows.

"I don't know who I am anymore, Damon," words just keep pouring from my mouth, "When I'm with you - you make me so happy. But that happiness is fleeting, it's a grain of dust in the spec of time, and when it's gone I feel so empty. Like I don't exist when you're not there, giving me those small moments. I feel like I depend on you to exist and I can't live my life like that. I can't be your Elena - I have to be my Elena."

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what to say. I understand him, I wouldn't know what to say either.

"Do you love me?" he asks.

"Yes," I say without even having to think about it.

"How can you walk away then?" he raises his voice a little, unintentionally I believe.

I swallow hard, my throat contracting. I don't mean to communicate with him with my eyes, but obviously I do because there's recognition on his face one moment, and the next one I can hear his voice, "You're not in love with me."

"We fight all the time, Damon. When we're not fighting, we're having sex."

There's nothing left to be in love with.

"That's what love is!" his voice becomes louder, more possessing, "It's wild and unpredictable and all consuming!"

"And dangerous! It consumes you until it burns you and everything around you. It's fun for a while, but at one point the adrenaline becomes too much."

It's like a sugar rush - you stuff yourself so much that you won't even think about tasting anything sweet for a while.

"Would you rather have predictability and boredom?"

"I would rather have comfort."

He runs out of words and so do I. I don't feel heavy anymore. There's nothing pressing me from the inside. No more words choking me.

"I feel like I can't breathe, Damon," are the last words I was planning to say.

He doesn't respond.

I stand there in front of him, our eyes colliding, and he keeps quiet.

I have nothing more to say.

Then, he asks the only thing that's worse than complete and utter silence. "Is this about Stefan?"

He keeps his eyes on mine, watching me intently, every move that I make.

I exhale loudly, disappointingly. "Have you been listening me at all?" my voice is full of anger, it's seeping over the edges, "This is about us not being able to make it work. This is about me getting so lost in you that I forgot who I am to begin with," my words are harsh, but so was his question.

He looks like he's genuinely sorry for making me feel like that, but he doesn't say anything. I don't expect him to apologize, anyway.

"I'm sorry Damon," my voice sounds detached. I guess that's how it has to be. "But it's over."

He stays quiet. His expression remains the same. I stay in my place for few more seconds, giving him a chance to speak, but he doesn't even flinch, nor do his lips quiver.

So I turn around and leave.

As I walk away I feel relief.

I tear the chain that's holding me imprisoned and the old, rusty doors of my cage fall open as soon as I crash into them.

I'm flying.

I'm brave and courageous and independent and I don't know what's ahead of me. The sky is endless.

I don't look back; I fly far away.

AN: It's freaky how I planned to write their break up at the same time they actually broke up in the show. That break up was unnecessary, imo, they're going to get back together in no time anyway.

I'm sorry for keeping you wait for so long, I got really swamped up with real life things. I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)