Author's Note:
I know I promised you to finish this story, or at least give you a summary chapter to wrap things up, but I have honestly been in development hell.
I stopped watching TVD halfway through season five because I got annoyed at how they handled Elena's character and didn't get into the Originals either. I mean after it was clear that Elejah wasn't happening, what was the point? But as I've pointed out, I'd hate to leave anything unfinished or at least without a semblance of a conclusion; so after three years, and nine years since the publication of the first chapter, here's an outline of the story's conclusion.
As for future stories if one's interested, please note, there are going to be some changes in 2020, hopefully, I will be actively publishing again and instead of starting and stopping numerous ideas I can begin publishing full-fledged stories.
However, I'm still undecided if I'll be using this platform to do it. I'm been favoring Archive of Our Own immensely for the last three years, and I find its publisher is far more advanced, allowing for images and audio to be embedded coupled with the site's far more extensive filtration system, I'm better able to read stories that cater to my preferences and interests, but also better reach my target audience.
I'll let you know, and now... on with the show.
In the months following their engagement, Elena participates in the VS fashion show. The Mystic Falls gang arrives in New York along with Katherine, John, and Isobel. The latter two joining when Katherine told them Elena had been found. Compelling their way into the show, they sit at the very back, outsight of the camera and runway as Elena opens the show. Blowing a kiss to Bruce, who is in attendance with Matt, Alaric, and Jenna, she involuntarily exposes the trio to Mystic Falls gang.
At the VSFS after-party, once again compelling their way in, the Mystic Falls gang confronts the trio, mostly Alaric and Jenna before they're forced to stand down as they begin to attract the attention of the other attendees and Elena and Bruce. Elena's is happily reunited with her brother, though there is some tension due to her absence/silence over the years. As for the others, Elena refuses to have such a public confrontation and rebukes John and Isobel as they try to assert themselves as her parents before she and Bruce leave.
Following the fashion show, the pair spend a few days in New York, briefly reuniting with Lee and Natasha before they leave for Europe. Elena has private meetings with her brother with the help of Matt and Jenna as they begin to reconcile before she and Bruce return to Gotham.
In the next few weeks and Elena and Bruce plan their wedding, which will take place at the newly restored manor. Bruce, though initially intending to restore the manor as it was before, he instead allows Elena to take over the furnishing of the manor, allowing her to truly make it her home as well. Meanwhile, the Mystic Falls gang, minus Jeremy, follows the couple to Gotham.
Though Elena does initially manage to avoid them, she and Katherine do have a confrontation, as the latter used her likeness to get into Wayne Tower. Katherine tries to play on Elena's former insecurities in regards to Damon and Stefan's obsession with her, but Elena knows whats she's doing and makes it known that she's moved on and that the brothers need to, Katherine leaves dissatisfied.
Eventually, the confrontation that Elena hoped to avoid happens. Elena makes it known in no certain terms that though she has missed them over the years, she likes her life, preferably without their presence and interference. Bonnie, Caroline and to a lesser degree, Tyler is hurt by this admission but they respect her feelings and leave Gotham without a fuss. However, the brothers, don't take this very well and try on numerous occasions to 'change' her mind, but Elena resists and it isn't until Damon goes as far as to try and attack Bruce, thinking him unaware of the supernatural that Elena and John respond with the extreme retribution. Damon's life is only spared by Stefan's pleading and the promise to go away, which Stefan enforces.
Isobel leaves when Elena makes it clear that Isobel's fondness and friendship with Katherine will always divide them, but John's willingness to help fend off the Salvatores, not just because they're vampires, but because they are threating Elena's happiness places the father and daughter on the path to truly building a relationship.
With her past behind her and the streets of Gotham becoming safer, and the crime rate lowering, thanks in no small part to the Dent Act, the future newlyweds move into the manor in time for Christmas, where they are joined by their friends and family, blood and otherwise.
By May of the new year, the wedding has finally arrived. The wedding is international news as security is tightened around the manor to ensure now unwanted guests, human or otherwise, attend. The likes of Oliver Queen and Jim Gordon are all in attendance. Jim's daughter, Barbara is the flower girl and his son, the ring bearer. Jeremy walks Elena down the aisle as John's status her biological father remains widely unknown. Jenna takes the position of mother of the bride as Adriana, Alessandra and Natasha are her bridesmaids and Tony Stark, Matt and Lee are Bruce's groomsman. Bruce and Elena are happily married before leaving for their honeymoon as Mr. and Mrs. Wayne.
Jumped ahead eight years. Bruce and Elena have two sons, Thomas 'Tommy' Grayson (age 7) and James 'Jamie' Alfred (age 5). The Dent Act has ushered in a new time of stability for Gotham City as Elena, having retired from modeling runs the family's charity organization, the Wayne Foundation as Bruce took an active and public role in the company following their honeymoon, sharing duties and responsibilities with Lucius Fox, helping to minimize the monetary loss following the failure of their fusion reactor project. As Bruce's wife, Elena has a seat on the board of directors but rarely gets involved, officially.
The Wayne Foundation is holding a charity event at Wayne Manor when Jim Gordon contemplates revealing the truth about Harvey Dent's death when Selina Kyle breaks into the family wing disguised as a waitress. As the Waynes are downstairs, Elena politely rebuffs Daggett and Miranda Tate when they attempt to get her to influence Bruce in company matters as she does not trust them, especially as the latter, reminds of her Katherine.
Upon discovering that Selina had broken into their bedroom safe, not only stealing her mother-in-law's pearls but also lifting their fingerprints off of the lock, Elena, fearing the worse and knowing that their fingerprints can be used for numerous things, makes a call to Tony Stark as a safety measure.
Following Miranda Tate's party, where Bruce successfully retrieves her pearls from Selina, Elena stops Selina when she tries to steal their car. Selina tries to bait Elena calling her trophy wife, but Elena doesn't rise to the bait and lets Selina escape as security comes to apprehend her.
Still worrying about who Selina sold their fingerprints too, Elena and Alfred are very concerned when Officer John Blake, who has figured out Batman's identity informs them of Gordon's attack. Against Elena and Alfred's wishes, Bruce takes up the cape again following him meeting Gordon in disguise, who called for the return of Batman.
As Bruce tries to catch Bane following the latter's attack on the stock exchange, Elena's caution pays off when Tony stops Bane from bankrupting the family and begins looking for evidence that will hold up in court to arrest Daggett when it's discovered he hired Selina to steal their fingerprints.
Following Bane's attack, Elena pulls the boys out of school for their safety. Bruce and Elena oust Daggett from the board of directors when Tony finds solid evidence that connects Daggett to break-in in his attempt to take control of the company. Unfortunately, this allows Miranda Tate to take Daggett's place on the board of directors as he's arrested.
Having stopped the objective Bane's attack, Elena and Alfred want Bruce to leave Bane alone, thinking he was merely a thug hired by Dagget, but Bruce won't. Suspecting there's more too it, and genuinely worried for the safety of his wife and children, Bruce refuses to relent even when Alfred and Elena deliver ultimatums to force him not to put himself at risk once more and leave Gotham to its fate.
Trying to pacify his wife, Bruce promises to return, but Elena doesn't 'false promises' as she follows through on her ultimatum and arranges for the family jet to take her and children to their penthouse in New York. With Alfred in tow, they leave Gotham in the middle of the night as Bruce goes to confront Bane having tracked him down through Selina Kyle.
Unknown to Bruce, Bane (informed by Tate) has sent men to seize Bruce's family, but his men find it empty as Elena, having unwittingly heed Bruce's concerns on Bane's goals, had arranged for the jet as a decoy as she had Blake transport them out of the city to a Stark jet waiting for them on the outskirts of the city. The jet takes them to Wayne's villa in Italy.
The remaining Waynes are safe as Bruce's back is broken before the entire city of Gotham descends into anarchy. With Bruce missing, Elena and Alfred try to keep the boys oblivious to the situation in Gotham as they refuse to believe that Bruce's dead, having been notified by Blake following Selina Kyle's arrest, the stress of the situation causes Elena to faint.
Elena awakes in the villa seen to by a private doctor, where she and Alfred learn she's pregnant. Meanwhile, as Bruce's spine heals and is imprisoned within the Lazurus' Pit, Bruce has a series of hallucinations, of Ra's al Ghul, and of Elena, who demands that he fights and returns to her, honoring his promise.
The months pass, the boys are no longer placated by the excuses of their father's absence as Elena, pregnant with twin girls, enters into her third trimester. Alfred has tried to keeps the boys from becoming despondent and has minimized news of Gotham as not to threaten her pregnancy.
Bruce manages to escape the pit and return to Gotham. With the help of Selina, Jim Gordon, Lucius Fox, John Blake, and Gotham's police force, they manage to stop Bane and Tate, the latter being revealed to be the daughter of the late Ra's al Ghul, Talia, from destroying the city to complete her father's work as Bruce is seemingly killed when he flies the fusion reactor out of Gotham.
The shock of Bruce's death sends Elena into premature labor. Though a close call, Elena safely gives birth to twin girls, Melena Rose and Sofia Marie with Alfred at her side, the two are eventually shocked at the arrival of Bruce, who faked Batman's demise and got across the Atlantic in secret with the help of Tony Stark. Bruce is reunited with his family, all thrilled by his survival/return as he assures them he's given up the cowl for good.
As the family spends the next three months in Italy, before returning to Gotham to help clean up the city with the help of Wayne Foundation and other entities. Bruce and Gordon finally a conversation face to face with Gordon now aware of Bruce's alter-ego. Thanking him for all that he's done, Bruce passes on the mantle of Batman and the Batcave to Blake. And so as the months pass Bruce dedicates himself to his family, the company, and the city, though in a more public and legal manner as Batman is honored for his sacrifice as the Dent Act is revoked.
Then, one night, Elena and Bruce witness the Bat-signal in the sky. Following the chaos of Bane, crime has once again become rampant in Gotham, but it is the Nightwing who answers the call as Bruce joins his family by the fire, basking in the love and happiness that he had once thought he had lost that cold winter night when he was only eight years old.
Hopefully, you all found this to be a somewhat satisfying conclusion, I tried my best. Seriously going back to re-read these stories, there were a lot of WTF moments... like my teenage addled brain thought this was good. So closing out the decade, I have decided to leave the old writer-me behind and begin anew.
See you in 2020.