Elena was upset, tears rolled down her face as she slowly, numbly walked away from the tomb. She had no idea where she was going, she simply followed wherever her feet where taking her. It didn't really matter. Nothing really mattered anymore.
After everything that had happened, after how hard she and Stefan had fought to keep what they had together, this was the last thing she had expected to happen. She had had her doubts of course, despite his reassurances. How could some small insecure part of her not have worried that her might be tempted, but even then she did not believe that Stefan would ever betray her like that even if deep down he wanted to.
The harsh wind whipped at her hair as she continued walking, she knew it was cold but she couldn't feel it. She knew she shouldn't be walking through the woods on her own at dark, but she didn't care. It had been days since she'd seen him and she just needed to see his reassuring face and hear him say everything would be okay, even if she was there in the dark tomb behind him, laughing at her words. A deep, persistent feeling of unease had settled in Elena's gut since Damon told her Stefan didn't want her to visit him in the tomb. Now she knew why.
It wasn't like Elena would have been stupid enough to try and go in there when Katherine was also inside; she just needed to see his face and talk to him. What she did see when she finally managed to get to the tomb was something entirely else. She cried out loud as she stumbled on a raised tree route and almost fell. She bitterly wished she hadn't bargained with Elijah to remove the spell trapping her in her house. If she hadn't she wouldn't have been able to sneak out to the tomb in the middle of the night after Damon was long gone, thinking she was safely couped up for the night.
Then again, if she hadn't seen this with her own eyes, or rather heard it, which was what happened at first, would she ever have believed it and would Stefan ever have told her about it. He tried to lie to her before about being back on human blood. No, better she knew than be cheated on by him and laughed at by her.
The trees were thinning and Elena could see the road now. She stepped out on to it and kept walking. She took deep breaths and dried her eyes, only for more tears to fall. She tried to concentrate on the whistling of the wind, instead of distant echoes of her moans and his grunts from deep within the tomb, now etched forever in her memory. The giggles of Katherine as she proudly emerged from the shadows wearing nothing and Stefan's face full of shock and shame as he tried to hide behind her, unable to look up. Him calling her back, trying to apologise as Elena ran from the tomb.
"Elena? Elena? Elena!"
"Leave me alone."
"Elena, what are you doing out here?"
Elena looked up. She thought it was Stefan's voice still calling out to her in her too recent memory. It wasn't.
"Damon".
"How did you get out if the hou-?" Damon stopped abruptly when he got a closer look at her face. "What is it?"
"Oh Damon", she sobbed.
"Shhh", he wrapped his arms around her quickly, "it's okay. Tell me what it is, I'll make it better."
His beautiful face and beautiful blue eyes were full of tenderness and concern.
"Its- Its Stefan", she cried.
Damons face fell. Elena wiped away some tears and pulled back to look at him. He his usual dark, sarcastic expression back.
"Go figure, isn't it always". Damon sighed. "Well then?"
"K-K-Ka-Kathe-rine."
"What about her?" he frowned.
Elena wept silently. Understanding slowly seemed to dawn on Damon's face, followed by disgust and fury. He stepped around Elena, clearly a man on a mission.
"No, Damon!", Elena shouted. "Please don't leave me".
Damon hesitated, looking at her for a moment. She was a wreck . And Stefan wasn't going anywhere. "Alrite", he sighed, "let's get you indoors, I don't even want to know tonight how you got outdoors".
With that, he took Elena's hand in his and led her back up the road to the boarding house. The direction she had already been aimlessly wondering towards.