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DG32173

Sarah: yet another old country song-fic written from Stefan's viewpoint. Let me know what you think.

Song: I Won All the Battles

Artist: Tracy Lawrence

Album: Tracy Lawrence

Genre: angst/regret

Pairing: ant-Stefan/Elena, hinted Damon/Elena

Note: as I said above, Stefan's viewpoint. So you might need a tissue or two, just in case. Also, AU as Elena is still human at nearly twenty-one

"Stefan, you may think you're winning every battle, but you're going to end up losing the war to keep her if you don't learn to compromise with Elena at least occasionally," Damon warned me a few weeks ago as Elena left the boarding house after I won yet another fight with her.

'Damon was right,' I realize, tears in my eyes as I watch Damon spare one last glance for me, standing in the boarding house doorway, before he pulls out of the driveway with Elena in the passenger seat.

Elena and I would argue over everything for nearly four years now and I won nearly every battle as she'd give up to keep the peace. The only thing she refused to give in on was our arguments over her friendship with Damon. I wanted her to drop the relationship and that is the only argument I could never win with her.

Looking back, I realize that I may have won nearly every battle we had, but my refusal to compromise ended up costing me the war to keep her. She asked me more times than I can count just to meet her halfway every now and then. But I felt like compromise was a solution where everyone lost and I refused to lose. Looking back, it would have been so easy to meet her halfway every once in a while and we could have both felt like we had come away a winner.

Now I've lost the war for her heart. The one thing she had wanted more than anything else we fought over was an eternity at my side, but I refused to even consider turning her into a vampire. Now, just a few weeks shy of her twenty-first birthday, she has given up on fighting to be with me in a proper relationship.

She never showed me a single tear she cried after that first year, so I never realized just how badly I was hurting her by my refusal to compromise. When all I have left to do is look back, that's when it's a bit too late to make amends.

As Damon's car turns out of the driveway, I realize Damon has known her better than I ever did. He predicted that my refusal to even compromise occasionally would cost me her heart. Turns out he was right. She had just come today to return the necklace I gave her, show me the daylight ring she had Damon design for her and Bonnie enchant, and tell me she's leaving with the man who knew how a real relationship should be.

What was it I was fighting for? 'To be the better brother'? It turns out that the real better brother was Damon as he had learned that compromise and occasionally letting her have her way was the real way to win her heart for good.

I may have won every battle, but I definitely lost the war.