Elena couldn't feel anything. She hadn't said much since they'd returned from the sacrifice, and as she watched Jenna's and John's coffins being lowered into the ground, the pain she had felt earlier disappeared. Stefan squeezed her hand, but she took no notice as she continued to stare at the coffins. Her friends surrounded her—Caroline, Bonnie, Ric, Damon, Jeremy, even Tyler had shown up—but she'd never felt more alone as she viewed the expansive record of deaths in the past two years. Her family's tombstones were adding up, one next to the other in an impenetrable wall of sorrow that threatened to crush her.

She wanted to turn everything off. Her emotions. Her commitments. Her life. Just take a break—a vacation, if you will—but seeing the tears glistening in Jeremy's eyes, she knew that there would be no break. Elena had to stay strong for her brother….she just didn't know how. When she wanted to crawl into a hole and die, how could she support someone else?

Her life seemed to be spiraling out of control. She lost the last two parental figures in her life, and she'd lost a part of herself at the sacrifice. Elena couldn't quite place when it happened—maybe when she killed Klaus, or maybe when Klaus killed her—but the miniscule part of her that was still the innocent, naive high school girl died in that forest. And now, no one even knew if she was alive. She didn't drink blood, but she had all of the powers a vampire had. But even those powers seemed to be amplified to an extent that Stefan and Damon couldn't comprehend; even Klaus hadn't understood it before she…killed him.

A few minutes after her family had been lowered into the ground, Elena stole away to think. Sitting on a cement bench under a grand oak tree, she watched as the rest of her posse filed away from the graves. Stefan walked over to Elena, sitting down and taking her into his arms. She said nothing. He said nothing. Instead, he just held her, knowing that no words could help the grieving girl.

The couple stayed like that for a while until Stefan brought his hand away to reach for his pocket. Elena backed away, watching intently as Stefan pulled out an envelope along with John's ring. She pulled in a sharp breath, and Stefan turned to meet her eyes.

"We found this in John's car," Stefan said gently, holding her hand tightly as he gave her a reassuring and sympathetic face, "I haven't read it, but I think you'll want to."

Elena took the envelope and ring out of Stefan's hands. Stefan slowly stood up, walking back towards the graves to meet up with Damon—who'd returned after realizing Stefan and Elena weren't with the group. As she stared at her name, elegantly scrolled onto the front of the envelope, she could only imagine what was in the letter. If John had time to write it, he'd known that he was walking to his death; part of her wanted to kill him again for getting himself killed, but part of her was grateful that he'd left her one final item of her father's. Of course, if that item was a letter condemning her for her involvement with vampires, she wasn't sure she'd appreciate the sentiments.

Her hands shook as she gently pulled the seal apart. Elena slowly tugged the letter out of its confines, and as she unfolded it she was faced with a page of emotions—and she wasn't sure she could handle it. But instead of pausing to think, she read the letter, silent tears already beginning to roll down her face.

Elena,

It's no easy task being an ordinary parent to an extraordinary child. I failed in that task. And because of my prejudices, I failed you. I'm haunted by how things might have played out differently if I'd been more willing to hear your side of things. For me, it's the end. For you, a chance to grow old and someday do better with your own child than I did with mine. It's for that child that I give you my ring. I don't ask for your forgiveness, nor for you to forget. I ask only that you believe this. Whether you are now reading this as a human or as a vampire, I love you all the same. As I've always loved you and always will.

- John

Tears streamed down her face as she felt her heart break, yet again. The veil of darkness she'd thrust herself into after the sacrifice returned ten-fold. Every emotion that she had kept buried since the accident, every fear, came back and crushed her so much that it knocked the breath out of her. But surprisingly, the tears stopped. Instead of breaking down as she had in the forest, she simply shut down. It was as if she really had become a vampire and flipped the switch, and she no longer saw the graveyard or the Salvatore brothers—though she was sure that they had come to check on her. It was as if she was a living corpse—alive, but unthinking, unfeeling.

Elena had always kept her emotions hidden, comforting instead of informing others. Even when she was sobbing on the inside, she wore a mask of strength for the people she loved.

That Elena was dead.

Stefan and Damon tried breaking through to her over the following days. Jeremy came over to talk to her; Ric even made a concerted effort to help her out. But Elena simply sat on the window bench in Stefan's room all day, except at night when Stefan would hold her, praying that when he woke up she would be back to normal.

Nights slowly dragged into days, and it seemed as though Elena was never going to recover from the latest blow to her shattered confidence. The signs of her impending mental breakdown had shown for quite a while—after Aria died, after Peter arrived, the sacrifice—but no one had truly believed that she could fall so far. And so for days she sat in her catatonic state, responding to nothing and ignoring the outside world.

Finally, after days of waiting with no change in her demeanor, Stefan called in the big guns. "I'm worried. She hasn't talked in six days—hell, she hasn't moved from my room since the funeral!" Stefan fretted. After he'd found her unresponsive under the tree, he'd known what had happened. It had been too much; she'd snapped, the events of the year weighed down on her until she couldn't even respond to him. Of course, that had been almost a week ago—and she still wasn't doing anything. Both he and Damon had expected a few days of shock, but they'd been proved wrong.

Bonnie and Caroline had come over at Stefan's insistence, understanding his fears and his quest for advice. "Stefan, she's going to be fine. You just have to give her a few days—she'll get better," Caroline promised, but she could tell that Stefan was skeptical.

"It's been a few days, Caroline! I don't want to rush her, but the fact that she hasn't said a single word in a week scares me. I've never seen her like this," Stefan emphasized as his worry became more apparent.

"Stefan, do you know how long it took Elena to recover after her parents died?" Bonnie questioned, and Stefan shook his head. "One month. You've never had to go through this with her, but we have. She wouldn't even leave her room for over two weeks—and Jenna was doing the exact same thing as you are right now. But Elena is still Elena. She'll figure herself out, and in a week she'll be back to normal—well as normal as her life can be now."

Stefan's worry was shrinking, but Caroline quickly remedied that. "She's going to be okay, Stefan. We promise."

Although skepticism still stalked the back of his mind, Caroline and Bonnie had helped calm his frayed nerves. After watching Elena wilt for the past few days, both his and Damon's nerves were shot. There had been more than a few fights between the brothers, some with fists thrown, and some that involved screaming at each other like banshees. But they both realized that no matter how angry they got with each other, their emotions wouldn't fix anything.

So on they went, trying day after day to get Elena to respond, to bring her out of herself and back into the world—not even thinking about the amount of school she'd missed, though they knew she'd freak when she 'woke up' again.

Finally, over a week after the funeral, Elena began her long trek back to the real world. While checking up on her one afternoon like he had been every day, he noticed a hint of emotion in her eyes—not much, but more than he'd seen since the sacrifice. Hours later, he returned to go to sleep, only to find Elena already tucked in bed resting quietly. To say that was a shock to Stefan would be an understatement—Elena hadn't gone to bed alone since the funeral.

Crawling into bed with her, he pulled her limb body into his arms as he ran his fingers through her hair, hoping that she would be okay when they woke up—just like he had wished every night for the past week.

Kissing the crown of her head, he muttered, "Please, Elena. Please come back to me. I know that you're scared, and I know that you're hurting—but I need you to come back, Elena…"

He knew that she couldn't hear him—she hadn't heard him any other time he'd tried to get through to her. But as he sat musing to himself, he almost fell off of the bed when he felt tears spreading across his shirt and heard a breathy response to his quiet plea.

"I can't…"

Stefan's head snapped to Elena so quickly he thought he'd broken his neck, but sure enough, Elena was laying on his chest as tears rolled down her face. Her breath came in shallow pants, and she slowly turned her head towards Stefan's to show him how the inner turmoil she was experiencing was slowly driving her insane.

"I can't feel this way, Stefan," Elena hiccupped as she fell into wracking sobs that shook her entire body. Stefan held her as she cried her heart out, and whispered quiet words of comfort into her ear. He sensed Damon's presence as soon as his brother entered the room after hear Elena's sobs, and Damon met his brother's eyes with a look of understanding. Stefan watched as his brother slowly walked out of the room, giving Elena room to breathe and let out her feelings, but spared a quick glance back on the sobbing girl.

None of them were going to get much sleep tonight.

The next morning, Stefan woke up to empty arms. Elena had disappeared from the bed, but to his relief she wasn't at her normal perch on the window seat. Of course, after her breakdown that night, he figured she'd want to go downstairs for the first time in over a week and a half. Stefan quickly descended the stairs, he found Damon lounging on the couch in the parlor.

"Where is she?" Stefan inquired-worried about her yet again.

Damon nodded his head in the direction of the patio, and replied. "She's been out there for two hours, but I figured you'd be able to talk to her a hell of a lot better than I would."

Stefan glanced out the window as Damon had said and saw Elena sitting on the patio looking off in to the distant forest. Worried that she'd drawn back into herself again and simply changed environments, he swiftly walked out to meet her, taking a seat next to her on the bench and firmly grasping her hand to get her attention. He could tell that she was still in pain, but her breakthrough last night had finally brought her back—and she was healing quickly from the pain that continually sliced through her.

"You're not leaving me again, are you?" Stefan asked, half-jokingly.

"Nope. I think my vacation in la-la land was long enough for now," Elena chuckled solemnly in response, gifting him with a slight smile that she hadn't shown in weeks. As soon as he'd heard her response, he knew that she was getting better—not fixed, but better. At least she seemed to have a sense of humor after everything she'd been through.

Stefan wrapped his arms around her, breathing quietly as she relaxed onto his chest. Resting his head on top of hers, he placed a kiss on the crown of her head before mumbling, "I thought I'd lost you again, Elena. When I watched Peter take you away from me, I thought I'd never see you again. And then I had to watch Klaus kill you, and I thought I'd lost you forever. So the fact that you're sitting here with me... I wouldn't give that up for the world."

Elena could hear the sorrow in his voice, and the pain that he'd been feeling over her mental breakdown shined through his emotional speech. She'd seen the relief in his eyes the second she 'reawakened'—she hadn't shared it, but she'd seen it through her tears—and she knew how worried he'd been the past few days. After a long, solemn pause, she whispered, "I'm sorry Stefan…for what I've put you through, for what I've made you do for me and give up for me. I just… I couldn't face the world again knowing that everyone I ever looked up to, everyone that I've relied on for my entire life, was dead…and that it was all because of me. Because of who I am, who I was born to be. I just couldn't do it anymore."

Gently lifting her away from him, Stefan turned Elena so that their eyes met. "It is not your fault, Elena," he assured her as he watched Elena's eyes glisten with unshed tears, "Jenna and John wouldn't want you to blame yourself for their deaths. They were part of a world that was so much stronger than them, and they didn't make it. You did. You didn't choose to be the doppelganger, Elena. You just took what life threw at you, and you still managed to come out alive on the other side. You survived. Just because they didn't doesn't make it your fault."

A single tear rolled down Elena's cheek as the two wrapped their arms around each other, and for the first time in over a month she couldn't feel an a weight on her. There was no sense of impending doom, no psychotic vampires to kill or hybrids to eliminate. And while she still felt the pain of Jenna's and John's untimely deaths, Stefan had known exactly what to say to her to make her feel better about her life. For the first time in over a year, she felt peaceful.

She never wanted to lose that feeling.

Hey everybody :) First of all, please don't kill me! I know I haven't updated in a while, but I've been so busy with school it's not even funny anymore. AP tests, finals, papers, presentations-it's freaking insane! Plus, I have three AP tests in the next two weeks that are scaring me. But after that, I'm home free for my senior year and done with school (because I have an early case of senioritis. I need to see a doctor about it)! But I made this chapter over twice as long as normal to hopefully make up for it :} I hope you enjoyed it, and I can confidently say that we are getting out of Elena's emotional breakdowns, and I'm expecting some crazy, kick-ass action in the next couple of chapters! But we'll see :) I know you're probably mad at me for not updating, but feedback is love, people! So read and review, and hopefully I'll be able to update sooner!

-kiki :)

ps: I'm so excited about the finale tomorrow that I can barely think straight. No joke, I'm so pumped I haven't shut up about it for the past 6 weeks! But I have an APUSH exam on Friday, and I'm hoping that I can concentrate on that (because if I don't watch it so that I don't freak about it during the test, I'll freak about not seeing during the test. It's a lose-lose situation-or a win-win. I'm not really sure). And all of the spoilers that I've been reading haven't helped. I saw the producer's preview with Julie Plec, and the sad score song came on at the end. You know, the when Elena was getting killed by Klaus in last season's finale (I mean, penultimate episode), and the one that's on pretty much every time something sad happens between Stefan and Elena. Meaning that I'm going to be in tears tomorrow night. I just know it, because I was in tears watching the freaking 2 minute long preview. I'm screwed. Buuuuut, on the up side: THREE SEASONS OF WAITING AND I FINALLY GET FLASHBACKS WITH ELENA! I'M SO EXCITED!