Jump then Fall (Stefan)

This can't be true ... She can't be honest ...

Inside of me my heart and my mind were fighting a relentless battle; and I was in the middle of it; not knowing who to trust - my mind which was telling me that this woman, this unbelievable woman in front of me who never told the truth, whose whole life consisted of lies, couldn't be trusted; or my heart; my incomprehensible heart which was fighting with the strongest weapon that existed ... love.

In the beginning it had been so ... normal. Katherine had indeed gotten on my nerves but the point was that I was used to this Katherine – to the manipulative little bitch, that implanted you nice sex dreams while you slept, that dropped one nasty comment after another, teased you until you were so far that you would love to strangle her to death immediately. I would even have loved to listen to her endless ridiculous assumptions concerning Elena and Damon. Because that was the Katherine I knew. That was the Katherine I could handle.

But not this ... sensitive, vulnerable ... woman. This woman who sounded so ... honest, so trustworthy, so ... hurt. This woman whose every instinct told her to kill me in her anger and fury but nevertheless kept her control. This woman who changed so drastically because I didn't believe her. This woman who revealed her lies, her mistakes, her regrets just to convince me; desperately, under any circumstances convince me to believe her - not that she regretted her lies, regretted that she had used one person after another without paying any attention if she might ruin his life, regretted all the people she had hurt; no; all she wanted was to convince me that she never lied about one single thing ... and that was when she told me that she loved me ...

I could react with anger, with fury, with threats to Katherine, the bitch ... but how did you react to Katherine, the human, the woman?

Stefan, you can't. If you trust her, if you believe the things she said, you are condemned to ... yeah to what? Fall? Getting hurt ... again? Die?

I didn't know anything, I didn't know what to think, what to believe. Her words, her sentences, her reveals … everything was swirling in mind ...

"I would have died ... for you!"

"I wanted you to learn to love me the way I was ..."

"I would never have turned you forcefully, Stefan."

"There is one thing I don't regret in the end ... I don't regret a single minute of the time we spend together."

"And then you came ... and suddenly I was able to feel again ..."

"I will wait, forever."

"Maybe I can change, maybe if I can proof you that I am worth trusting, worth loving ... One day I can be that girl for you again ... without lies."

Had I been wrong? Had I been so completely wrong?

In this chaotic state of my mind and my heart she had played her last trump, the trump that left me on the very edge of the cliff; not sure if I should jump or make two steps backwards and ran; ran away as fast as possible without turning around one last time …

"I love you, Stefan. We will be together again. I promise ..."

The words I couldn't remember; the words my mind couldn't remember; but words, in the moment they were spoken out, my heart remembered ... with an intensity that gave me no possibility to doubt the truth of them, no possibility to deny what I was fighting against for so long, denying for so long ...

"I have only one weak point, Stefan. And that is you ... Sooner or later you will be my death. I always knew that."

And so are you ... I whispered in my mind. And so are you ... always were and always will be ... I thought while I stared into her deep brown eyes; normally so full of disgrace and arrogance but now, now they looked at me, stared into my eyes with pure despair, pure fear, fear that I would reject her.

She was bending over me, looking in my eyes not as the evil vampire with a heart that was not capable to feel anything but as a human, as woman, who was looking into the eyes of a man, desperately begging him to love her.

I could kill her in this moment. Not with a stake, not a real one, but a symbolic one. I could be her death, right now, in this moment by telling her that I didn't believe her, that I hated her, that I never loved her. I could smash the stake into her heart; a heart I didn't believe would exist. But it did and it would break into a million pieces.

Nevertheless everything she did to me, all the pain, the suffering, the struggles, the fights I couldn't tell her that I hated her, that I didn't believe her ... and that I didn't love her ... because it would be the biggest lie I would ever have told in my entire life.

My expression suddenly changed. The astonishment diminished and was replaced by anger as I turned my head away, not able to look into these praying eyes any longer. I clenched my teeth, leaving my jaw tense, I clenched my fist as hard as I could, hoping that the anger would suppress the feelings that were rising inside me; extinguishing the fire that had started to burn in my entire body. But it was impossible.

My dead heart began to race, to beat faster than it had ever before as I faced what I couldn't deny any longer, couldn't burry any longer; so deep that I had already believed my own lie. I had loved this woman so many decades ago with all my heart ... and it was real; it always had been. She compelled me ... yes ... but she never compelled my love.

I swallowed. I was only one step away from the precipice. What would happen if I jumped? Would I be caught? Or would I fall ... deeper and deeper until I would hit the hard ground? I had jumped once; more than 145 years ago and I had hit the ground. Should I risk it ... again? And maybe this time ... end up dead ... forever?

I had already stumbled back, about to turn away from the precipice, turn around and leave to save myself when I felt something wet falling onto my cheek, burning through my skin ... a tear drop. My fingers touched the place where it had dropped on my skin and it wasn't a dream. It was there, leaving a wet track on my cheek.

You were so wrong, so completely and absolutely wrong, Stefan, my heart screamed so loud that it echoed in my head over and over. Yes, I was wrong. She had lied her entire life, cared only about herself, pretended to be a person she wasn't ... but I, I was the only one who got to know the real Katerina. I was the only one she ever cared about, I was the only one she gave up lying to ... to tell me she loved me.

I felt how she tried to get off of me. This was the end. She was at the edge, too; but for her it wasn't a decision if she should jump or not. It wasn't her decision ... it was mine. I could push her down the cliff, into the precipice, letting her hit the ground, leaving her broken. Or I could stretch out my hand, drag her away from the precipice and catch her, wrapping her in my arms.

Immediately I got up into a sitting position and before I realized it my hands had jolted up and taken her face into my hands. I looked into her eyes once more, seeing the tears shimmering inside them and the wet track on her skin from the tear who had dropped of her cheek and had fallen onto my skin.

And this time it was my heart which made the decision; it was my heart which made me turn around, run back to the precipice and jump from the edge as I lowered my lips to hers.

When my lips touched hers it was as if I had been thrown back and forth in time. With the fire raging in my entire body the memories started to rage in my mind, too. Pictures appeared in front of my eyes, words echoed in my ears and feelings raged in my body.

"I have never met a woman quite like you ..."

A beautiful woman gathering her long dress, running through the darkness and kneeling down ... in front of a dead body … the hand of that same body running through the brown curls of the beautiful woman as their kisses grew more and more passionately in the darkness of the tomb.

"I touch your skin ... and my entire body ignites."

A hand wrapped in a glove touching a skin soft as silk …. a hand that was striking over a cold pale face ... my face … the same hand touching my face now, leaving burning tracks wherever her skin touched mine ...

"I look at you and I ... I see an angel."

My eyes stared into hers as I interrupted the kiss for a short moment, just to check if this was real, if she was real, still seeing an angel, the same angel.

"I kiss you and I know that I'm falling in love."

Trembling lips touching the soft lips of the angel …

"I love you, Stefan. We will be together again. I promise ... "

The same soft lips touching cold lifeless lips ... and touching the same lips, my lips right now ...

"It wasn't a lie. It never has been, Stefan. I loved you and I still do", Katherine whispered as our lips separated.

I looked into her deep brown eyes and all I saw was honesty ... and love. My heart fired three words to my mind over and over again, forcing it to tell my mouth to say them out loud ... but I couldn't. My mind didn't let my heart win. As clear as my heart was seeing in this moment, as confused was my mind. What did I do here? Was it really the right thing? It felt so right; so absolutely right ... but ... so much had happened, so much was still unspoken, so many things she had done to me and ... Elena ...

"Elena!" I gasped out loud.

"That's everything you have to say? I tell you I love you and all you say is "Elena"? Can't you forget her for just a moment? What did she mean to you? Nothing! I had always been right! She wasn't more than a substitute for me!"

"Don't talk about her like this! She wasn't just a substitute! I did love her, I still do!"

"Oh you can say that you love her but these three damn words won't leave your lips for me?" She shouted angrily.

I started into her eyes, my face expression hardening. And there she was again, the old Katherine, the angry, furious Katherine; unpredictable when something didn't work out as planned ... planned ... did she?

"You planned all of this, right? You told me all this so I would give in ...!"

"You didn't give in! YOU kissed me and don't tell me you didn't like it! Otherwise you wouldn't have forgotten the whole world around you!"

"I didn't forget the whole world around me!"

"No? So you did recognize that Elena was standing in the entrance watching us kissing?"

"She was here?" I screamed horrified.

" ... and saw every single moment ... and she did see that you were the one who kissed me and not the other way round!"

"And you damn bitch didn't say a word ...", I stated bewildered.

"Oh sorry! Sorry, that I saw her out of the corner of my eye when I was about to give up and leave you alone! And sorry that I couldn't tell you a word because you pressed your lips on mine! And sorry that my mind went totally blank when your lips touched mine and I forget the whole world around me!"

"And you are sure it was her?" I asked suspicious.

"I was only able to shoot a glance at the entrance before you kissed me ... I saw someone standing there ..."

"It could have been everyone!"

"Everyone? Who the hell should visit this damn tomb in the middle of nowhere?"

"Damon?"

"Very funny ... and Damon gasps horrified when he sees us kissing or what?"

"So you didn't forget the whole world around you, liar!"

"Stefan, I never completely forget the world around me! I am used to live in fear and precaution for more than 500 years! My senses are trained to recognize the slightest sound, slightest movement!"

"But you still can't say for sure that it had been Elena!" I asked, beginning to get desperate.

"You want to believe so much that it wasn't your precious Elena, don't you? But I can tell you, nobody would come down her and leave without a word, blindly stumbling up the stairs while sobbing so heartbreakingly and nobody would be so clumsy than a human woman who just found that her boyfriend betrayed her with her Ex who looks accidently totally like her and miss the last step of the stairs, falling onto the ground and hurting herself."

"And you tell me you forgot the world around you ..."

"Well ... you can define "Forget the whole world around you" in many ways ... for me it might be something slightly different than to you for reasons I already mentioned earlier." She hissed.

"I can't believe it. I really can't believe it. How could I have been so stupid? You planned all of this, of course you did ..." I realized bitterly.

"Oh yes, Stefan. I planned all of this. I planned getting imprisoned in the tomb with you and then I magically convinced Elena to show up exactly in the moment I had finally reached my goal and you kissed me. Do you listen to yourself? This is ridiculous!"

"Is it?" I hissed angrily.

"Yes, it is", she replied angrily and convinced. "But well ... I must admit that this turn in events isn't that bad ... Now she definitely won't be a problem anymore. After what she just saw she won't have any doubt that you love me and that you belong to me", she added and the old mean flirtatious smile appeared back on her face.

"I have been such an idiot. I really believed you, you know. I believed every single story you told me. I believed that there is a different side of you, a side only I might get to see, a side which is worth trusting ... worth loving ... but I was wrong. I have never been so wrong in my entire life."

"No! Stefan, please, nothing was a lie, okay? Nothing! I wanted to tell you the truth, all the truth and that's what I did! I didn't lie for a single time! All I wanted was for you to believe me, I promise!"

"You promise? And I shall believe that? I shall ... trust you?"

"Yes, Stefan, yes, and you can trust me ... if you can believe something than you can believe that ..."

"You should listen to yourself. No, Katherine, you won't trick me into believing you again. I can't trust you ... but I can trust Elena. She is different. And that's why I love her and I don't love you."

"That's a lie, Stefan and you know that", she screamed, a mixture of anger and despair in her voice. "You love me, I know that!"

"Believe what you want Katherine, I am done with you."

"Stefan, listen to me! You can't trust Elena! She doesn't know what I know about you! She doesn't know all your sides, the good and the dark ones! She only knows the good Stefan, the hero, the fake – Stefan. The one you pretend to be! But I, I really know you! And with me you can be yourself, you don't have to pretend!"

I didn't reply anything, I was done with her – forever. This turn of events had shown me that my first instinct had been right - she couldn't be trusted, never. And she would never change, not even for me. I gave her one last dismissive glance then I turned around and walked away.

"You will see, she will hurt you, Stefan! And I don't want that!" Were the last words I heard before the darkness absorbed me.

I let myself drop to the ground, shutting out everything - her praying words, her desperate screams, slowly turning into furious insults, the crashing sound of things being ripped apart and in the end something that sounded like silent sobs to me. I didn't hear all of that because I was too overwhelmed by the pain I felt ... and one simple fact ... that I didn't feel pain because I had hurt, maybe even lost Elena ... no ... the pain I felt because I had trusted Katherine ... the pain I felt because I had hit the hard relentless ground ... because reality had set in again.