A/N: This is part one of three of this story. Each will be about one of the girls, but there is content relevant to all of their story lines in every chapter. I have never written Stelena before. I hope it you like it. Reviews are very appreciated.
The Rose
May, 2009
Elena used to hate her tattoo. She would stand in the boiling shower and scrub at her arm, watching her skin turn pink and furious. The black ink remained to taunt her.
Her parents were as perfect as perfect came.
Grayson was the young genius. He had a sharp jawline and sharper wit, born to a strange yet significant small-town celebrity in his surname. His successful private practice afforded his family the necessities of life and additional luxuries including a spacious, modern lake house. It flaunted a wine cellar, tasteful mute wood floors, and large, smudge-less windows serving a fine background for holiday cards. Their beautiful nuclear family sat in front of the tree donning wide grins and matching plaid pajamas.
Miranda was the beautiful history major who assimilated seamlessly into her new husband's pseudo-royalty. Armed with genuine intellectual curiosity and an endless supply of social energy, she helped decorate the town's events in ribbons and appropriately quiet suit-clad caterers.
Elena could never bring herself to resent their perfection. Another teenage girl might have elbowed the invisible edges of the idealistic image, but she knew they were good parents. They were kind and affectionate, encouraging but never pressuring. Elena stepped into her designated cookie cutter without complaint and became a cheerleader, strapped herself to the quarterback, and made average if not decent grades. Her brother was artistic, bright, and untroubled. In her eyes, their cares were few and far between.
Only one thing tainted them.
Elena imagined it often. Her mother glistening with a thin layer of sweat and her father, wide-eyed and petrified, hands clutched in a hospital room, waiting for their first child. She envisioned the horror on the heels of their relief when she arrived healthy, dark hair and darker eyes, all fingers and toes accounted for, marred with a black rose on her upper arm. The tattoo that would grow with her, proportionately and perfectly, never to fade.
Of course, her parents never treated her poorly for having it. They knew she didn't choose it. She did, however, feel the gravity of their shame.
Everyone had a soulmate.
There wasn't a manual, but scholars in the field had come to a majority consensus on its definition: the person one was destined to meet who would join them on a shared path to their happiest future. Some soulmates met they were elderly and widowed, some as children. There was only one way to identify them with certainty. Anything written or drawn in ink on one soulmate's skin was written or drawn on the other's simultaneously. When one cleaned the marks they made off, it would wash away from both bodies.
Cultures all over the world had different attitudes toward this truth. In some countries, it was most commonplace to carry markers on your person, drawing a line on your arm after shaking hands, a near subconscious litmus test practiced over generations. In the American South, however, soulmates were treated relatively casually. Some people married their soulmates, others didn't. One was not expected to wait for nor speak to the person on the other side of the connection if they didn't want to.
There was only one norm practiced with unwavering seriousness: soulmates were never supposed to attempt to find each other. It was acceptable to exchange first names, to speak to each other as frequently or infrequently as they wanted, but they were never to exchange information that could point to their locations. A large, generational wave of divorces, the product of rushed meetings, inspired the cultural quirk. People were meant to wait until they were ready for each other.
Parents typically didn't mind young, curious children doodling on their arms with their mysterious other, so long as surnames were not exchanged. As a child drew hearts on their arm, the other would draw stars, and they would share giddy, harmless fun.
Elena's tattoo, however, meant her soulmate was substantially older than her. Someday, her family conceded, when Elena was much older, this age difference would be rendered meaningless, but seeing a tattoo on their child unsettled them, so as the other children drew their favorite cartoon characters on their hands, and as teenagers exchanged sweet nothings about their someday, Elena was forbidden from communicating with the man on the other side of the intangible yet omnipresent connection.
At least she wasn't alone.
Elena laid across her bedroom rug, erupting in drunk giggles. Caroline sat back against Elena's bed, her own large tattoo shining in the warm light of the bedside lamp. A feather on her arm broke into a series of tiny birds flying into her collar bone toward her bright smile. The mark made Elena feel grateful hers was in a place as easily concealed as her shoulder, though certainly Bonnie had the best luck with placement.
The three of them were a strange anomaly in Mystic Falls, bonded intimately as their parents gifted them long-sleeve shirts and professional grade makeup to cover the marks at cheer practice. The three of them would bounce between their homes, shed the layers, and hang out in their tank-tops, liberating themselves from the suffocating Virginia humidity.
"Your dad's booze is way better than my dad's," Bonnie commented as she took a swig from the bottle of gin. She poorly hid her subsequent shudder as the alcohol ran down the back of her throat. She held it out to Elena as she sat back against the dresser, poking through the nail polishes in Caroline's manicure kit.
Elena and Caroline both felt a bottomless affection for Bonnie. Her tattoo was in small, neat writing across the back of her shoulder: AUG Subject No. 06. They gave up wondering what it meant long ago.
Hers was so small she might as well have not had it at all, aside from opting out of razorback tank tops. She holed up with the girls, nonetheless, and they loved her for it. Everyone wondered why the trio was both so social and so guarded, why they appeared at every party until they collectively no-showed bikini car washes and hangouts at the swim hole with the same transparent excuses.
"Yeah, he's pretentious about it," Elena replied, tipping the bottle back.
It was two nights before their final exams began. As their sophomore year came to an end, the girls quit studying early to indulge in a sleepover before the storm. Caroline had her nose in her phone, queueing songs to play softly out of Elena's speaker as the evening breeze blew in from the open window.
"Blush or... canary?" Bonnie asked, reading the bottom of the nail polish bottles as she held them out for inspection.
"Blush," Caroline said firmly. Elena nodded, and Bonnie replaced the yellow in the hot pink kit. The silvers sparkles, once vibrantly contrasted against the magenta case, had rubbed off after years of use.
"I think it's time to upgrade your set, Care," Bonnie remarked at the cheap, hard plastic shell. Caroline swiped it back from her suddenly.
"Hey, hey. Don't talk about her like that; she's sensitive," she said, giving it an assuring pat. Bonnie smiled and laid a paper towel on the ground.
"Do you wanna call Matt and Tyler? I doubt they're studying," Caroline asked.
Elena grimaced, and Caroline's eyebrows shot up so high Elena was shocked they didn't fly into her hairline.
"Still awkward?" she asked.
"Oh yeah," Elena said, trading Caroline the alcohol for the nail polish.
"Isn't the idea of a break that you'll eventually... unbreak? Or break forever? What's with the limbo?" Caroline asked.
"You haven't talked?" Bonnie asked, softening Caroline's bluntness.
Elena sat back on her hands, sinking slightly into the rug.
"Nope. He just can't figure out..." she trailed off.
"What the problem is?" Bonnie offered. Elena nodded softly, tucking her hair behind her ear.
"How can he get it when I don't even get it?" she whispered.
"So why the break then?" Caroline asked, separating two sour belt candies in their thin plastic packaging. Elena closed her eyes, letting the gin in her blood stave off her bubbling irritation. She looked up into Caroline's concerned eyes and softened. This was just her.
"I don't know. It's good; it's always good. He's perfect for me. He makes me laugh, and he knows me well..."
"Sounds awful," Caroline said, digging her teeth into the sour candy, pulling it in two.
"And he doesn't care about the soulmate thing," Elena continued, "He said whoever it is isn't real to him, but I'm here, and he loves me, and he wants to be with me forever. For him, it's clear," she raised her hand and counted on her fingers. "Graduation, football scholarship, marriage, kids, grandkids, retirement, death."
"Nice and structured," Bonnie said.
"I don't know. How am I supposed to think that he's perfect for me when there's this person out there that's supposed to be exactly that, and he's not him?" Elena asked.
"Everyone feels a little weird about dating outside the soulmate. It's normal," Bonnie said with a soft, assuring tone.
"Do you think he's like Matt?" Elena asked. "Like- his personality, but just...?"
"Better?" Caroline asked.
Elena stared down at the rug. Just because it wasn't the word she would have chosen didn't mean it wasn't the word she would have meant.
"There's only one way to find out," Caroline said.
"Heeeere we go," Bonnie reached for the bottle.
"What!? You're born to love this guy, right? If you're feeling all doubt-y, you should just talk to him," Caroline shrugged. She had a special talent for boiling down seemingly complex decisions into simple components. Like a boy? Ask him out. Not allowed to go somewhere? Sneak out. Curious about your soulmate you have been theoretically destined for since birth? Just say hi.
In moments like these, Elena and Bonnie would seek each other's eye for assurance that Caroline's suggestions were ludicrous, that nothing could ever be so simple, that their caution and thoughtful approaches to conflict were obviously the correct ones. Sometimes, though, Elena idly wondered if Caroline's way of looking at the world was the right one. Were she and Bonnie holding each other down in pragmatism? Were they overthinking or simply thinking? With Caroline's way of life came disappointment, but never regret. She reached out to her own soulmate a handful of times over the years to silence in return. Though she nursed the stinging wounds of rejection, she would never think herself in circles wondering if she had tried at all. Elena imagined that clarity and a tranquility that came with it.
"Fine, I'm curious! Maybe yours will actually like you," Caroline huffed.
Elena crawled over to her side instantly and wrapped her arm around her shoulder.
"He just doesn't deserve you yet," she said, leaning her head on the curly mop of blonde hair.
"Damn right," Bonnie said, blowing gently on her first coat of polish.
Suddenly, a large phone number began to manifest on the back of Bonnie's left hand. The sevens were written the French way with a line drawn through the middle.
"Ugh, shit," she muttered.
Elena and Caroline were at her side in a second in a burst of drunk, excited energy.
"Ooooooh!" they said, pawing at her hand.
"Wet nails!" Bonnie said, pulling it back to her chest.
"His handwriting is... feminine," Caroline remarked.
"It's not his. He's right-handed," Bonnie sighed and grabbed the clear coat in front of her.
"Did you talk to him?" Elena asked.
"Last month. 'Oil change 2:30 Friday'. Very romantic."
"So that's a girl's number? And he had her write it knowing you'd see it!?" Caroline asked, gearing up to be offended for her.
"Not the first time," Bonnie said, ambivalence coating her tongue. "I don't think mine exactly wins in the considerate category."
Elena wanted to comfort her, but it didn't seem she thought it was something worth comfort. Caroline grabbed her phone off the rug and started frantically typing, raising her finger in the air.
Suddenly, Britney Spears' "Womanizer" began blaring over the speaker. Elena's eyes flew open, ready to reprimand her for the insensitivity, only to find Bonnie erupting into manic laughter. She doubled over in hysterics, the tips of her curly hair grazing the tattoo on her shoulder. She sat back up, clutching her stomach. Elena grinned with happy surprise. Bonnie and Caroline had a connection she wouldn't always understand, but it didn't make her feel alone. It made her feel warm.
Elena took the phone from Caroline and started typing, occasionally glancing at Bonnie's hand.
"What are you doing?" Bonnie asked, as Elena brought the phone to her ear.
"Oh, I'm calling her," she said calmly.
"Elena!" Bonnie yelled, tackling her to the ground.
"Hey, mystery girl!" she yelled, holding the phone far above her head. Bonnie dove for it, hitting the end button before rolling onto her back.
"You're both evil," she said.
Her grin gave her away.
Elena was the last one awake. She stared up at the ceiling with bleary eyes looking for patterns in the shallow divots in the plaster as Bonnie mumbled gibberish in her sleep beside her. The gin created warm static in her mind and artificial boldness in her gut. She peered at Caroline, the tiny birds on her chest rising and falling as she breathed deep in her sleep. They were both dead to the world.
Elena's climbed out of bed and grabbed the blue ballpoint pen from atop her journal on her bedside table. She closed the door behind her before turning on the light to the jack and jill bathroom. She squinted as her eyes adjusted and she locked the door leading to Jeremy's bedroom. She sat on the edge of the bathtub, tapping the pen against her forearm.
It was easy to imagine the soulmate as a perfect person, to picture the way they would read your expressions, listen to you speak, and anticipate your needs. If the number on Bonnie's hand or Caroline's silent soulmate showed her anything, it was that the soulmate was just a person, flesh and blood with their own flaws, insecurities, and passions. As she rolled the pen in her hand, a voice in her mind she identified as Sober Elena, reminded her of this. Whatever she was looking for, he probably wouldn't be it. He would just be a person, no matter who or what decided they would complement each other, perhaps at a time far from now.
She didn't care.
She clicked the pen and hovered it over the blue veins running down her arm.
I think I want to know you now.
A perfect opening line, she thought. The tiny Caroline on her shoulder gave a firm nod of approval at her impulsivity.
Apparently, you're some old guy, though. But I don't really care anymore. I've been covering your stupid tattoo my whole life, you know. It's kind of a douchey tattoo. I wonder how old you were when you got it. At least it's not an anchor or the wrong translation of the word "peace" or something like that. I like roses. I do. They're nice. But I think I want to know you. I feel like there's a gap where you're supposed to be. Is that in my head? Does everyone feel that way?
Elena felt her nerve fade with the passing minutes without a response. Her mind started racing. What if he's married? What if he's proposing to another woman, right now, in a t-shirt, and she's ruining his life? What if she had deeply and truly offended him? She nearly tripped over her feet launching herself toward the sink, scrubbing feverishly at the words with her peach soap until they disappeared completely. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he hadn't seen it.
Then, Elena watched as his words manifested in real time where the microbeads washed her still-pink skin.
I'm sorry about the tattoo. I didn't realize that would affect you.
He stopped writing for a moment, and Elena deflated. Should she even respond?
I've gotten so used to the gap I forgot it was there. But I'd like to know you, too.
Elena swallowed hard and vaguely realized she was not in the headspace for this. She stared at the words, enchanted by his handwriting, as her mind began racing. Where was he? What time was it for him? Both questions she was not supposed to ask.
She winced, realizing how many of her first words to him were uncensored insults. She walked back to the bathtub and picked up the pen.
Sorry- I'm a little drunk. Can we start over?
Don't worry. I can know drunk you first. I'm Stefan.
She ran her fingers over the words delicately, though she rationally knew she could not smudge the ink. How strange to think he may someday know every version of her: a faceless witness to her drunk, laughing, crying, screaming on a roller coaster, dancing in her underwear, burning dinner. She racked her brain, tossing his name around in her memories. There were no Stefans in her life. None of her parents' friends or her friends' parents had the name. She'd remember it. It was a nice name. Romantic and soft. She practiced mouthing it to herself in the silent bathroom. She liked the way it forced her to bite her lip, then felt profoundly stupid for thinking it.
I'm Elena, she wrote back. What are you doing?
She sank to the ground, pulling her knees near her chest and resting her arm on her thighs, staring down at his pen strokes.
I'm writing. I keep journals. If I don't write things down, I'll forget them.
Must be my old guy brain, he added.
Elena grinned. Stefan had written down to her elbow, so she drew an arrow akin to one she'd draw at the bottom of school notes and began writing at the top of the back side of her arm.
I keep journals, too. I like having a space to just be. No expectations.
Is there a lot expected of you? he asked.
She froze for a moment. Was there? Her parents never said any of it out loud, but she knew she was supposed to stay in Mystic Falls. She might go to college somewhere else in Virginia, but she was to come back, participate in the endless stream of town events, and settle with her family here. Now that she thought about it, in her idle musings about her soulmate and what he may be like, she never imagined them living anywhere but Mystic Falls. Would her parents be bothered if she took a married name, or would Jeremy retaining the Gilbert name be enough? Elena had never been bothered enough by these things to qualify them as expectations, but that didn't mean they weren't exactly that. She pressed the pen to her skin.
Sometimes it's like my life is already planned out, but I don't have a good enough reason not to go with it, so I just do.
He wrote back quickly.
Is that why you wanted to talk to the one person the universe planned out? Maybe you wanted to reclaim it- whatever this is supposed to be.
Elena felt suddenly exposed. She found herself looking around the empty bathroom, as if to make sure nobody else saw him seeing her.
I like that, she replied.
Elena didn't know how much time passed, but she knew she had to pull off her pajama pants to make more space to write as they talked. She suddenly felt silly for not realizing how easy it would be to talk to him. Theoretically, he should be the easiest person for her to talk to on the planet. She leaned back against the porcelain ridge of the bathtub, her right ankle hiked on her left knee, scribbling on the inside of her thigh.
Jane Austen, definitely. Maybe too much. I know, I know- teenage girl likes Jane Austen. The world is shocked.
She's one of the greatest for a reason.
She liked that he did this. Every time she qualified her feelings or walked back a thought or interest she had she thought was unoriginal, he stopped her. It was subtle but loving all the same.
What about you?
Tolstoy. My own cliché.
War and Peace?
Anna Karenina.
I love that one.
Later yet, Elena found herself sitting in her bathtub, her left heel perched up on the faucet, bending forward to write on her shin. Her hair was knotted on top of her head and her sweats strewn into the corner of the bathroom.
It's been weird ever since.
Tell me about him.
His name's Matt. We've been friends since we were, like, five. I kind of wondered if you'd be alike.
Are we?
Not even a little.
She found herself hunched over on her bathmat, writing in small print on her calf.
I want to be a writer. I love it. But I don't know- I want to help people like my dad, too. So I don't know.
I think your writing will help people, he said. She knew he meant it, too.
As Elena traveled the bathroom throughout the night, her drunken sloppiness gave way to excited jitters. She was surprised by him. He was unlike anything she expected. He felt so mature, like he had lived more life than anyone she knew. It made sense, of course, if he was much older than her. He was more serious than she expected, though. It was almost jarring. She was used to boys asking her to play twenty questions, ramping up to requests for nudes, and trying to impress her with tequila shots. Stefan was a listener. Thoughtfully and actively, he listened, imploring her for her thoughts, passions, and reflections.
I guess I'm introverted, he said. I keep to myself, anyway. You don't seem that way.
I have a lot of friends, but I like reading and writing and doing my own thing, too. There's kind of two Elenas sometimes. There's Cheerleader Elena. The friends and the town events and stuff. And there's Other Elena. That's who I am when I write, I think. When nobody's around.
Who is this one?
I think both.
Then I like both.
She closed her eyes, and felt a flutter spread through her chest. She knew she was circling something dangerous, something she couldn't take back. She knew she should say goodnight. She reached out to him for one reason: clarity about Matt. She certainly had learned enough for that. She should say goodbye, should promise to meet someday. She pressed the pen down on the small patch of unmarked skin on the back of her hand.
Maybe we should clean the board. Back in a few minutes?
Yes.
Elena stripped quickly and stepped into the water before it had time to heat up. She tugged at her hair tie until her long hair tumbled down her back and shoulders. She looked down at the tattoo on her shoulder and caressed the flower with her fingers. Her eyes ran down the writing covering every inch of her limbs. His black ink to her blue, his sweeping letters to her tight scrawl. She had no sense for what time it was. She only raised her arm in front of her eyes and stared at the words. Stefan was no longer only a rose.
He covered her.
She stepped into the water and watched it run blue at her feet. She thought about him, somewhere in the world, watching his run black. She dipped her head back into the stream until her hair was soaked through, and wondered if he was doing the same. She took a generous helping of the soap and ran it along her body, the suds coloring instantly.
Was he thinking, right now, about what she would feel like beneath his hands? Were they rough or comforting or somehow both? Did he smile with his teeth? Did his eyes resemble hers? What did he smell like? Did he use a body wash that would be at the store down the block? Would he tell her if he did so she could covertly run down the aisle, open the lid, and imagine him first out of the shower?
If he were here, right now, would his eyelashes brush her cheek? Would his hands be on her lower back, the tips of her hair grazing his thumbs? Would his mouth be on her throat?
Elena turned the water down.
A while later, maybe an hour, she found herself wrapped in a towel in the now-slick tub, writing on her thigh.
I go to all the events because that's just what you do here. But I'm not kidding, Stefan, they're non-stop. It feels like we throw a party or a parade every time it's raining or Wednesday. My closet is half dresses at this point.
I'm sure it means a lot to your family that you go to them.
It does to my mom. I don't think my dad cares that much, even though it's his side. But at least my brother and I do it together. Do you have siblings?
None that I talk to.
I'm sorry.
It's okay. Maybe someday.
They talked about movies, food, and their favorite candles. They touched on theology, and he walked her through making fresh garlic bread.
Elena's eyelids threatened to close on her as she lied on her side in the shower, a fresh folded towel beneath her head like a pillow. They had exhausted both legs and were now writing on the inside of their forearms. The pale light of dawn creeped in through her fogged bathroom window, the first indication of the hours that had passed. Was he in her time zone? Was he watching the same side of the sun?
All three of you, really? he asked.
Yep, all of us. I think that's part of why we all got so close. We all carry bottles of cover-up for each other and extra shirts in our lockers and stuff.
Do you ever think about giving up hiding them?
We talk about it, especially now that we're older. It just makes our parents feel weird.
I'm sorry.
It's okay. Besides, I don't hate it anymore really... it brought me closer to Care and Bonnie. It also
She winced and cursed her inability to backspace in longhand.
made me feel closer to you, wherever you were, she finished.
She watched as he replied, slower this time.
I don't think I could untangle myself from you now.
Elena broke into a wide, exhausted smile.
I'm totally falling asleep, she wrote.
I don't want to complicate what you have going on, but when you want to talk again, I'm here.
How's the second I wake up for you?
Not soon enough.
Elena fell asleep instantly, her nose brushing the promises he made her.
Since Caroline found her sleeping in a towel the morning after they spoke ("I meant introduce yourself, not swap life stories till you look like Adam Levine!"), Stefan had become a fixture in Elena's life.
She forwent writing in her journal in favor of vomiting her every burst of excitement, frustration, or anxiety onto her arm, and Stefan absorbed them with grace and affection. He helped her study for her exams, proving especially helpful with history, and she thought of him as her dad watched Seinfeld reruns in the living room, sneaking off to ask him if he especially liked the bits of dialogue she overheard. They made a game of guessing each other's favorite passages in books they loved, and he wrote her short stories as she fell asleep at night.
Before she met Stefan, Elena would have told anybody she was happy if asked. She certainly wasn't unhappy. She had the friends and the cheerleading and the parents and the nice house and the best friend turned boyfriend. Elena was piecing together, however, that there was a difference between happiness and perfunctory movement through life, and a large difference at that.
Happiness was not the absence of discontentment. Happiness was the presence of Stefan.
The conclusion of her last exam brought with it near-tangible relief. She avoided Matt's eye as she and Bonnie ran to the car, yelling with delight. They were halfway through the nightmare that was high school.
Bonnie slammed the driver's side door and turned the music loud, lowering the windows on either side to grace the fast-emptying campus with Rihanna's Breakin Dishes.
"Sweet, sweet freedom," Bonnie said as she peeled out of the parking lot too fast.
"God, I know. No more numbers," Elena nearly sang into the sticky Virginia air.
"We should have stopped at geometry. What were we thinking?"
"About graduating, probably," Elena smiled at her.
She took off her hoodie, donning a black tank top underneath. She leaned her elbow out the window, let her head fall back against the headrest and closed her eyes, her skin humming as the sun beat down on her face and the rose on her arm. They drove along the roads that way for a while, feeling the freedom settle in their chests. Elena felt unchained. Summer was here.
"It sucks you can't come to the party tonight," Bonnie said as the song came to an end.
"I know," Elena groaned. "Mom always gets manic on the family time when Jenna visits."
The song blead seamlessly into Kanye West's Love Lockdown as Bonnie turned onto Elena's street. "A little Kanye," Stefan had said when they discussed music. She pulled a pen out of the side pocket of her backpack and uncapped it with her mouth.
808s Kanye? she wrote.
Late Registration Kanye.
Telling.
Thinking of you.
She smiled before drawing a simple heart in response. When she looked up, she found Bonnie's eyes running over her arm as she pulled into the driveway. Elena felt taken aback. She wasn't used to such blatant judgment on this friend's face.
"Wow, that was a Caroline look if I've ever seen one," she said, turning the radio down, prickles of defensiveness rising in her voice. "Okay. Lay it on me. Whatever you need to say."
Bonnie's hands clutched the steering wheel hard before they fell into her lap.
"You don't know him, Elena," she whispered.
Elena crossed her arms and sunk further back into her seat.
"You don't know what he looks like, how old he is, where he is..." she trailed off.
"He's my soulmate. I think we can eliminate serial killer."
Bonnie shook her head fast.
"I'm not saying stranger danger. I'm saying are you going to date a pen until you run into him? Because we don't know when that will be."
Elena turned her head to stare out the window. Her fingers dug into her arms. She knew it was coming, of course. It was inevitable.
The faint call of the ruby-throated hummingbirds in the yard laid over the stiff silence.
"I love seeing you like this; I don't want you to think I don't. I just- I'm worried if I don't say something now..."
"I understand," Elena interrupted. She relaxed the tense grip on her arms and looked back at her. She swallowed, her throat tight and dry, before she spoke.
"Why haven't you ever talked to yours?"
Bonnie's green eyes held hers for a moment. Elena knew the expression. She was weighing lying to her or not.
"I did once," she confessed. Elena's eyes widened.
"Really?"
Bonnie nodded.
"Why'd you stop?" Elena asked.
Bonnie's eyes flew to her lap. She stared at her fingers pensively as she picked at her cuticles. She set her jaw tight, and Elena knew she wouldn't answer. She folded her hoodie over her arm, concealing Stefan's writing before opening the car door. She slung her bag over her shoulder and stepped out onto the cement.
"Hey," Bonnie said suddenly. "I love you." She reached her hand across the divider.
Elena took it in her own. "I love you, too."
She ran up the stairs and collapsed onto her bed, overcome with a familiar anger. It was the kind of anger that only erupts when one knows they're wrong. She stewed in it, crossing her arms and staring up at her ceiling. It was a tantrum, a child responding to a parent making them go to bed early or making them parcel their Halloween candy. Bonnie pulled Elena down to get her to do what was best for her, even if it meant forgoing what felt better in the moment. The gesture was mature, loving, and infuriating. Elena didn't want to come down to Earth. She wanted to stay right where she was.
She grabbed her phone gently buzzing on the bedspread.
A text from Matt. Hey, do you wanna talk tonight before the party?
She dropped it without hesitating only to spot new writing on her the back of her left arm.
Disgrace, chapter 21.
Elena smiled lightly, though a sad pragmatism tried to nudge its way into her mind after Bonnie's wakeup call. She shut it out and pulled her copy of the book from her shelf. She skimmed the chapter, mentally flagging possibilities.
I'm guessing 'Why haven't you been in touch?' "I'm not yet fit for society."
You got it.
Your memoir, she teased.
Elena ran her fingers along the spines of her books before she grabbed a favorite.
Okay- Sense & Sensibility chapter 12.
She laid back on her bed and rested her hand on her knee, watching him write it slowly down her arm.
"It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy: it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others."
She smiled, running her fingers along the letters. He made her feel known.
That's the one.
Which are we?
"Honey, can you come down here?" her mom shouted up the staircase. Elena rolled out of bed. Stefan banished her bad mood, but she felt a persistent morsel of dread in her stomach like led. She pulled her hoodie back on, zipping it up midway before heading to the kitchen.
"Hey, you," her mother said, chopping zucchini on the island. "You ran upstairs so fast. Did it go okay?"
Elena took a seat on the bar stool across from her.
"Yeah, I think so."
"Good! Listen, I know tonight's supposed to be family game night-," Miranda began.
"But you really want me to go to the party with Bonnie and Caroline? Alright, if I have to," Elena replied, suddenly chipper.
Miranda paused and put the knife down, walking around the island to sit across from her daughter.
"Bill and Liz are getting divorced," she said.
Elena's heart dropped.
"What?" she whispered.
"She just called... I think you should go be with Caroline tonight."
Elena shook her head, sitting back in her chair.
"What happened?" she asked.
"He met his soulmate," Miranda said. It wasn't unheard of, but few things elicited such mixed feelings as this. The universe's puzzle pieces falling into place at a high cost.
"Are you okay?" Miranda put her hand gently on her knee. Elena's phone lit up with a text from Bonnie, and she picked it up from the counter.
Caroline called. Do you know?
Yeah.
Turning around. Be there in 5.
"Can I ask you something?" Elena said, avoiding her mother's question.
"Of course."
"Are you glad you didn't date anyone before you met dad?"
Elena looked in her eyes earnestly. Bonnie, her eternal sounding board, expressing her disapproval pushed her to seek affirmation anywhere else. Please, she thought. Tell me I'm doing the right thing. Tell me I can have this.
"I don't know if glad is the word. There were a lot of little things that I think could have been avoided with some experience. Communication issues in the beginning, little arguments. Learning how to be in a partnership, knowing it'd be the partnership, was hard sometimes... But, still, I don't feel like I missed out on something. I don't wish I had gotten anything out of my system before I found him or anything like that... I love your father. I wouldn't change a thing."
Elena felt a weight dissolve from her chest.
"How did you find out that he was your soulmate?" she asked, sitting up straighter. Miranda laughed lightly.
"Oh, God. Well, we were in the same dorm our freshman year at Whitmore. We had a friend. What was her name... oh, Nancy! Nancy White. She threw a party our first week, and your dad and I both went. Only your dad couldn't really handle his booze back then. He passed out on her couch maybe two hours in. So I thought it'd be hilarious to draw a moustache on him while he slept..." Miranda smiled at the memory. "Then Nancy told me to look in the mirror."
"Are you serious?" Elena grinned.
"It was really the Sharpie that was the mistake," Miranda laughed. Elena giggled with her at the image. Her mom took her hand in hers.
"Sweetheart, I know that you look up to our relationship. And I love more than anything that we could model that for you. You should never settle for less than the way your father treats me or how he treats you." Miranda's expression drew serious. "But with your... situation. He's not gonna be down the hall, baby."
Elena swallowed and nodded slightly.
"Dating, falling in love, it's all part of becoming who you're going to be. If you wait for this one magical person, you might be waiting till you're sitting by him at the retirement home puzzle table."
She leaned in closer.
"I know you and Matt are rocky right now. And if he doesn't make you happy, honey, then that's okay. Don't be with him. But also... don't push something real away for the idea of something later."
Elena looked away from her and cleared her throat quietly. It was good advice. It was practical advice. Good, practical mom advice.
"Yeah," she whispered. Her phone lit up again.
"Bonnie's here," she said.
"Give Caroline a hug from me, okay?" Miranda asked. Elena smiled and nodded.
"I will. Love you," she said. Her mom pulled her in for a quick hug before she headed out. She froze in the foyer, pulled the pen from her pocket, and jotted a short note on her wrist.
Something came up. I'll write later.
She left the pen on the foyer table.
As she and Bonnie sat in the uncomfortable silence on their way to Caroline's, her mind was filled with thoughts of Stefan, Bonnie's concern, and her mother's advice. She wanted to listen to the Caroline in her head- the one who would tell her to go for it, to Hell with what made sense. She wanted to reach out to him, to find him. It was the worst idea. She'd rather wait for him than ruin what they would become by seeking him out too soon. As her mind spun, she watched two words manifest on her palm.
Be safe.
The first hour in Caroline's bedroom consisted of Elena and Bonnie holding her as she cried. Elena's arms were covered in the messages and book quotes from earlier, and as Caroline rested her head in her lap, she ran her hand through her curls soothingly. Stefan's writing, Be safe, cascaded through her blonde locks as Caroline sobbed onto her thigh. Bonnie sat up against the headboard beside them, stroking Caroline's arm with her thumb. She found Elena's eye as they sat, listening to the chorus of sobs. As Elena briefly rested her forehead on her shoulder, all settled between them, silently yet completely. There were few luxuries in life like somebody loving you enough to hurt your feelings when you needed it.
Eventually, Caroline came up for air, reaching her hand out to silently request her water on her bedside table. She breathed deeply and wiped her face, finally on the other side of her first breakdown of many.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Bonnie asked.
As Caroline tied her hair up, Elena noticed the tear streaks running down her neck, landing in a pool at her collarbone. It appeared as though the birds on her chest were flying toward her tears to will them away. She wondered where Caroline's soulmate was, if he would wipe them away if he were there. Who was the man equipped to love this girl, with her crippling insecurities and inability to censor herself? Who was worthy of it?
"I always knew they weren't soulmates, you know," Caroline whispered. "But a lot of parents aren't. I always thought they were like Bonnie... just never reached out to theirs. But I guess dad did talk to his when he was a little younger than us. And it was a boy... He freaked and quit talking to him when he realized. Just buried it, I guess, or maybe he likes both, I don't know. But he met my mom and forgot about him. Until... until he had this coworker, and last week dad helped him fix a copier jam, and the ink got on his hands."
Fresh tears stung at her eyes, but she blinked them back. She hated crying this much. Her face felt puffy.
"I'm so sorry, Care," Elena said.
"Are you okay?" Bonnie asked.
"No!" Caroline yelled suddenly as she clenched her fists together. "I'm over this. This whole stupid system. I'm over this fucking thing on my chest and—and so, what? He meets this person and now all the years with my mom mean nothing? Everything goes out the window because ink spills on them the same way? How does that work? This guy doesn't know my dad. He doesn't know him like she does. How is this worth throwing her away?"
She dropped her face into her hands, and Elena felt a lump grow in her throat. She blinked back the tears creeping into her eyes. Caroline didn't need to deal with her feelings right now.
"Bathroom," she muttered, mustering all her control to not run down the hall.
As she locked the door behind her, Elena burst into tears. Was she being insane? Talking to Stefan felt so right, but what did it even mean? She'd known Matt her entire life. He was the only person not in her immediate family, or Bonnie's or Caroline's, who knew about her tattoo, and he never told a soul. He respected the secret for ten years. He held her close and was sweeter to her than any teenage boy had the right to be. How could she do this to him?
She looked down at her arms, covered in Stefan's writing. Bonnie and her mother's words rang in her ears. Stefan, who she didn't know. Stefan, who she might not meet for decades. Stefan, who, to wait for him, meant putting her real life on hold indefinitely. And this was her life. Mystic Falls, town events, cheerleading, and Matt Donovan. This was the path she'd been set on. Not a mysterious older guy who could be halfway around the world.
Elena started washing her hands in the sink, scrubbing up to her elbows, watching the soap turn black as her mind raced. How often did people move to Mystic Falls? Not often at all. She doubted he would stumble into her life in the next couple years. Even so, her parents would never let her be with him. And she was going to college, and that was the last place she'd be likely to find him. It just didn't make sense. None of it made sense.
Elena took long, calming breaths as she stared down at her arms. Her half of their conversation was gone. Only his writing remained. She looked up into the mirror. Her reflection stared back at her. She caught the tiniest glimmer of longing in her eyes. A part of her, deep beneath rationality, begged her to allow herself this.
She walked out of the bathroom.
"We've landed on ice cream and Steel Magnolias," Bonnie said.
"Sounds like a party," Elena smiled stiffly. She sat back on the bed and noticed Stefan's words begin to fade. He followed her lead.
Elena's phone dinged again.
Elena?
"Sorry, it's Matt," she said, turning her phone face down on the yellow bedspread.
"You should talk to him," Caroline said. Elena whipped her head up, confused.
"What? Care, I'm not leaving you."
"I mean it. I'll be fine. He deserves answers," Caroline replied, looking down.
Elena moved toward her friend and wrapped her in a hug.
"Okay," she whispered. As unmistakable nausea rose in her stomach, and she pushed it down. It was just nerves.
Caroline's glass front door didn't leave anything to the imagination. There was Matt, wearing his letterman jacket, looking at her like he hadn't seen her in years rather than days. When she opened the door, she both heard and felt his relief as he let out a long breath.
"Hey," she said.
"Hey," he smiled. He put his hand on her tattoo, revealed by her tank top.
"Sorry," she said, crossing her arms. "I left my jacket in Bonnie's car. I can-," she started.
"Don't worry about it. You can have mine," he assured her, shrugging it off. Elena took it from him and put her hands through the roomy arm holes. It smelled like him. It smelled like his pillow, like scraped knees and riding bikes, like awkwardly grabbing at each other for the first time. It smelled like familiarity.
He placed a small kiss on her forehead, and her eyes flicked down to her shoes, not quite closing.
"Are you cool if we go there first?" he asked. "I told Tyler I'd stop by. But we could walk around the falls? And I can bring you back whenever."
"Yeah, that's fine," she nodded, smiling without teeth.
She lifted herself into the truck and felt the current of nostalgia sweep her beneath it. The same dead air freshener shaped like a tree hanging from the mirror, the same Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago disk in the CD player, the same small rip in the grey leather interior by her left thigh.
Elena pulled the long sleeve of his jacket back to look at her wrist but found it blank. She shook her head and shoved her hand beneath her thigh forcefully, letting the sleeve fall.
"Everything ok?" Matt asked as he turned on the car.
"Yeah," she nodded.
The ride there was filled with soft music and the roar of the engine. As they drove up to the party, she felt a kind of emotional whiplash. Her five days studying and talking to Stefan had become her new normal in that very long week. As she watched her classmates drink beer by the bonfire, she felt displacement pulling her to go back where she came from.
"Just gonna say hi real quick," Matt said, hopping out of the truck. She sat in the passenger seat for a moment longer, watching him run up to Tyler. Her body, rather than her mind, took her out of the truck, and she followed him to the noise.
Elena took her place next to Matt, where she had always been. He was doing that hug boys do with everyone in the circle, where they clasp hands and hit each other on the back with the opposite arm, and she realized how hot it was beside the fire. Wasn't it hot enough here? She felt a thin layer of sweat form on her arms beneath the leather.
She registered the sound of them discussing football, but the words didn't sink in.
"I told him Steven should get more play time this season."
"Yeah, well, the day Tanner figures out what works for the team... we'll be graduated. Maybe even dead."
She heard them erupt into laughter.
Elena looked around the circle, and when she felt sufficiently assured nobody was watching her, she pulled the sleeve back again. Her heart leapt when she saw his handwriting in thin, black ink.
I've been thinking about it, and I understand why it's you.
Elena froze.
She rolled the words around in her mind. He understood why it was her. Why was it him? This mysterious older guy. This mature, serious to occasional somberness, creative, funny, endlessly empathetic man. She felt physical warmth spread through her chest. Because she needed him. There wasn't living without him. There was only life.
"Elena? Elena?"
Her head whipped up to find Matt looking at her.
"Hm?" she asked.
"I said, 'Do you want to go on that walk now?'"
Elena looked around at the eyes on her in the circle- the football players, other girls on the squad, and Matt.
I understand why it's you.
He understood why the universe, or God, or whoever or whatever it was that decided these things, put that mark on her. He understood why that entity knew he could love her forever.
And she understood it, too. The truth collided into her so abruptly she felt stupid for not seeing it coming miles and miles away.
Sometimes it's like my life is already planned out, but I don't have a good enough reason not to go with it, so I just do.
If she waited for happiness to find her, by Matt's side or another's, she might be waiting forever. If she waited for Stefan, she might be waiting forever.
She knew which one she'd rather wait for.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
"What?" Matt asked.
Elena suddenly shrugged off the coat like it burned her and held it to his chest until he grabbed it.
"I'm sorry," she repeated, louder.
"Woah, Gilbert, nice tattoo," somebody in the circle said. It might have been Tyler. She didn't know. She was already running.
"Elena!" Matt yelled after her.
She didn't turn back.
"I'm at the entrance by Wickery," Elena said. To the outside observer, she looked stranded. Stranded in light rain, wet hair, and no jacket. The grin plastered on her face, however, was wide and dazzling.
"Thanks, dad. See you soon. Bye," she hung up the phone and tipped her head back, smiling into the sky. She closed her eyes, feeling the rain on her skin in the still quiet. She was surprised by how happy it made her. It reminded her how alive she felt. This is how it should be, she thought to herself. She should be with the person who made her glad to be alive.
"Katherine?"
Elena nearly jumped out of her skin at the interruption. A man, maybe in his twenties, stared at her, bewildered. She looked behind her only to realize he was speaking to her.
"Um, no. I'm Elena," she said.
"Sorry, you just look-,"
"Do you have a pen?" she interrupted. He quirked his head, as if trying to figure her out.
"No, sorry."
"It's okay," she said. Elena looked back down at the words on her wrist for the tenth time in the last minute. She found herself pacing, releasing the pent-up excitement in her steps.
"You've got that soulmate glow all over you," the stranger commented.
"Is it that obvious?"
"That or you have a really interesting arm," he said, pointing at it. She smiled.
"It's crazy. It's only been a week," she said.
"I've heard it's like that."
"You've never talked to yours?" she asked.
The man's expression faltered.
"Just once," he said. She didn't press the issue. She just kept looking back, waiting for her parents car, waiting to tell Stefan what she needed to say.
The stranger's eyes widened as they fell on her tattoo.
"My brother-," he muttered.
"What?" she asked, distracted.
"Nothing," he shook his head. "So, what are you so giddy about?"
"You really want to hear me gush about a boy?" she asked.
"Do I look busy?" he raised his hands, indicating the empty space surrounding him. Elena looked down at the words again.
"I thought that waiting for him would mean stopping my life. That I owed it to myself, or this other guy... it's just not what I'm supposed to do. Wait for him."
"And now?" the man asked. Elena broke into a grin.
"Fuck it."
He smiled back. She reminded him of himself. For one hundred and fifty years, he waited for Katherine despite all reason.
"Oh yeah? Just like that?" he implored her to keep talking.
"I don't want to kill time with anyone else. I don't want to grow with anyone else. I can grow by myself," she said, shrugging.
"Love isn't about what makes sense," he replied. The word gave Elena pause.
"You think people can love in a week?" she asked.
"In a minute," he replied. Elena nodded at his words.
"Maybe," she conceded. A honk disrupted them, and she turned to find her parents waving to her from the car.
"That's my ride," she said.
"Hope they've got a pen for you."
"It was nice meeting you," Elena said. She took off running without looking back.
Damon would have compelled her, but they never exchanged names.
Stefan walked down the damp road, the fog coating his skin. He loved being back in this town. The simple familiarity of home was the deepest luxury for a creature who had been alive as long as he had. He felt the ghosts of what he and his brother used to. He both wished he could forget them and felt grateful he couldn't. It gave him hope, albeit potentially false hope, that they would be here together again, someday.
He looked down at his wrist. Nothing from Elena yet. As selfish as it felt to bring this empathic, warm, incredible girl into his dark existence, he needed her there anyway. He had surrendered to that truth the first time they spoke. Trying not to fall in love with Elena would be both exhausting and fruitless. It would not be swimming against a current. It would be swimming against a tsunami.
His feet carried him all the way near Wickery Bridge, he realized. He should go home and make Zach dinner for his hospitality. As he turned on his heel, her words were on him again.
I can't wait to wait for you.
That's when Stefan heard the crash.
Had it come from the bridge? He ran in the direction of the sound, finding a large break in the edge. He looked down and saw the taillights create two bright red blurs at the bottom of the lake.
He hated swimming.
Stefan jumped in, the foggy lake water blurring his vision. He swam toward the lights until he saw them- a couple in the front seat. The wife was unconscious already, but he caught the husband's eye. He swam to the man's door, but he shook his head, pointing to the backseat frantically. Stefan swam to the back and spotted her: Katherine.
What? She was bleeding heavily from her forehead- she must have slammed her head on the glass at impact. He pulled the back door off its hinges and grabbed her. She was unconscious, threatening to float out of his grip. Stefan pushed off the lake floor until they broke the surface. He held Katherine over his shoulder and swam to one of the bridge's legs. He jumped up and grabbed the underside, pulling them both up with one arm until they landed on top of the bridge. He felt the animal blood in this moment, already tired.
He rolled Katherine onto her back. What was she playing at? She's in the tomb. And she didn't need air? Who were the people in the car with her? He looked down her limp body when he saw it. On her left wrist, at the end of her broken arm, was his handwriting.
I've been thinking about it, and I understand why it's you.
His breath caught in his throat.
I can't wait to wait for you.
"Oh, my God—Elena!" he screamed. He hesitated only a second longer before he was tilting her head back and starting chest compressions. He counted aloud to himself.
"Please, please, please," he whispered. He pinched her nose and gave her the air from his lungs.
"One, two, three, four... please, please, please, Elena."
She coughed up a mouthful of lake water, choking on the oxygen desperately.
"Elena," he repeated, in shock she was real.
"My... my arm," she muttered, half out of consciousness.
Stefan pressed his hand to her forehead to slow the bleeding. He didn't have a phone. Nobody was around. He'd have to carry her. If she had a concussion, him speeding her through town on foot couldn't help.
"I'm gonna get you out of here," he promised.
"My arm hurts," she said.
"I know," he said. He moved to pull her into his arms.
"Well, this is a sight."
Stefan whipped his head around to see his brother, arms crossed and vaguely amused. He saw red. He sprinted at him, grabbed him by the collar, and threw him hard onto the wood.
"What did you do?" he screamed.
"Nothing, Stef! Chill pill."
Stefan ran back to Elena's side, pressing his palm to her bleeding head. The blood was running down her nose, coloring her eyelids.
"Keep your eyes closed, okay?" he whispered. He turned to glare at his brother, his eyes hard and serious.
"Is your car nearby?" he asked.
Damon froze, saying nothing as his eyes flicked between his brother and the girl who looked like Katherine.
"Please!" Stefan yelled.
She looked like Katherine.
"Fine," Damon bit out. "Come on."
Stefan gathered Elena in his arms, more gently this time now that he knew it was her, and kept his hand pressed to the wound.
"Close your eyes," he repeated.
The world moved around Elena, bloody and blurry.
Stefan climbed into the backseat with her as Damon peeled away from the scene of the accident. The smell of Elena's blood was overpowering in the confined space, and Stefan held his breath as he held applied pressure, unable to help the dark veins under his eyes.
"Can you do something about that?" Damon glared at him in the mirror as he drove.
"I'm sorry, is this hard for you?" Stefan snapped.
"It's hard for my interior!"
"Just drive."
The blood from Elena's cut dripped down his forearms, cutting down the messages they had written each other. God, why did head wounds have to bleed so much?
Damon's brakes squealed as he turned into the entrance of the emergency room, and Stefan was out of the car with her in his arms in a split second. He needed to remember not to expose himself, but control felt foreign. Every ounce of control he had was ignoring the blood on his hands and arms.
"Please help her!" he shouted as he nearly ran through the automatic doors.
Immediately, a woman in green scrubs ran to him with a gurney.
"What happened?" she asked as Stefan lowered Elena's body onto it.
"Her car crashed into the river. She was under for a while. She's breathing, but her head—and her arm is broken," he said. He only then noticed the tremble in his voice and hands.
"Any allergies?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said. His voice was coated in anguish at his own uselessness.
"Do you know her blood type?" she asked.
"I don't know!" he yelled at her. If she was bothered, she didn't show it.
"We've got it. Wait in there," she said, pulling Elena away with a couple other doctors. Stefan watched helplessly as they took her out of his eyeline.
He felt Damon behind him.
"Come on," his brother said, grabbing Stefan's elbow. He wouldn't move.
"Do you think she'll be back in fifteen seconds? Come on," Damon repeated, pulling him down the hall. They ended up in a dark room at the end of an empty corridor.
Stefan caught a glimpse of himself in the glass. His clothes and hair were soaked through with muddy lake water. His forearms, all week covered in Elena's writing, were now covered in her blood.
"Do what you need to do," Damon said, leaning against the back wall.
With one last wary look, Stefan caved to the adrenaline. He approached the wall and punched it. He hit it over and over. He hit it until his blood mixed with Elena's, then he hit it more. He thought somebody might have come, but Damon compelled them to forget it.
Stefan couldn't move his arm any longer. He put his palm flat against the wall, leaving a handprint of Elena's blood on the plaster. The same blood he didn't know the type of. He sank to the ground, collapsing onto his knees.
"She looks like Katherine," Damon said.
"Well, she's not," Stefan growled. He looked back up at his brother. If he felt anything about the evening's events, was doing a good job of hiding it. "Why are you here?"
"Eternity of misery, right?" Damon shrugged.
"Well, enjoy the show."
Damon's jaw twitched, and Stefan realized he had been clenching it. Damon had envisioned stabbing his brother. He imagined getting in a few good swings, maybe making him break the bunny diet. This, however, was unsettling. He wasn't his younger brother. There was misery and there was torture. This was torture.
"I bumped into her earlier tonight," he blurted out without thinking. Stefan looked at him, his expression blank and broken.
"She's in love with you," Damon continued. "Or so she said in so many words."
Stefan let his head fall between his knees, and he wrapped his arms around himself, imagining they were Elena's instead.
The brothers sat in the waiting room, but Stefan hadn't moved in forty minutes. He held his face in his hands, dried with blood, fingers interlaced, seated against the wall on the floor. A stranger would think he was praying.
Damon shook his leg, to the irritated glares of the couple in the other row of chairs. He wanted to leave and wondered why he wouldn't.
A woman in a uniform and two girls ran in the door, distracting him for a moment. Why did the cop look familiar? They rushed to the reception desk, where an irritating man held the phone to his ear.
"Elena Gilbert, please-," the woman asked him, but he held a finger out to him.
"They're with her now," he said, standing. The sheriff. A good ally.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"Damon Salvatore," he extended his hand. "This is my brother, Stefan."
He pointed to him, but Stefan didn't react. He just stared into whatever void he was taking residence in.
"Sheriff Forbes," the woman said, shaking his hand.
The girls looked at each other at the sound of Stefan's name. The blonde put her hand over her mouth. The sheriff shot her a look. Do you know them? it said. The girl nodded, and that was enough for her. Too much sheriff-ing to do, Damon supposed.
"I need to go talk to-," the sheriff caught herself. Damon watched as the professional façade broke for a moment. She knew the parents, intimately if he had to guess. "To the coroner."
"I'll walk with you," the younger blonde said. Their resemblance was striking, and pieces came together in his mind. Nothing will make you want to be with your mom like watching your friend lose hers.
"Will you wait with Bonnie?" the sheriff asked.
Damon eyed the girl with vague distaste. He looked back at his brother but found him catatonic. He groaned internally.
"Yeah, I guess," he said.
They walked out quickly, and he was left with the silent girl. She walked to one of the waiting room chairs without looking at him and sat down, staring into the wall. Great. Now he felt responsible for two entirely useless people.
Damon sat in the chair next to her and shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Her eyes were wide, and he didn't realize she was crying until that moment. She wasn't shaking or sniffing. She was just silently coming undone.
Damon looked away from her quickly. He came here to feed, fuck with Stefan, and get Katherine back, not necessarily in that order. Now he was watching the girl beside him lose her mind.
The girl, Bonnie the sheriff had called her, held her tension in her pink fingernails as she dug them into her arms. The last thing he needed was more blood in the room, he told himself, and this girl was going to break skin any second. He just didn't want to deal with it.
It wasn't the look on her face. It wasn't that eyes that color didn't deserve to be wasted on lifelessness. It wasn't that this girl was in enough pain as it was. It wasn't that she was the only one here without somebody. It wasn't that she didn't have a mom on her hip when they ran in like her blonde friend did. It wasn't the fact that, to cry that silently, you needed practice. It wasn't that you needed strength you don't find in many, and what if he could spare her this one moment's pain, just some?
It was the blood, he thought. He just didn't want to deal with the blood.
That's why he found his hand held out to her on the divider between their seats.
He pointedly looked straight ahead, waiting for her to take it, but she didn't. He clenched his jaw and stole a look to find her staring at him, surprised. He looked away in a second.
"Just do it," he growled.
He waited another few seconds before her hand was in his, and her grip was now directed at him. He didn't flinch as she squeezed his hand, so she squeezed harder.
They stayed that way until their fingers went numb, and then even longer.
"You brought Elena Gilbert in?" the doctor snapped Stefan out of his trance. The waiting room was empty. Damon must have left a while ago, and the girl with him. Gilbert? Was that Elena's last name? He nodded.
"Are you family?" the doctor asked.
"Yes," he replied automatically. "Is she okay?"
"She'll be okay. She probably won't wake up tonight-," the doctor started, but Stefan shoved past him toward the rooms.
"You can't-," the doctor said.
"Watch me," Stefan interrupted.
His head was on a swivel, the doctor's protests on his heels, until he found her room and let himself inside.
"Sir—," the doctor said, grabbing Stefan's arm. He turned around furiously and pulled the pen from his jacket pocket. He drew a thin line across his palm. The doctor glanced at Elena and saw the line reflected on her own.
"Fine," he sighed. Stefan handed him back the pen then took a seat next to her bed without looking back.
Elena woke to moonlight pouring in from the window and a boy with his hand in hers. She thought it might have been Jeremy until she blinked some of the blur from her eyes. Why was her head this fuzzy? A onceover of the room drew her attention to an IV slipping her pain medicine. That checked out. Her eyes went back to the boy. His hands and arms were covered in dried blood. Some of it had flaked off onto her sheets. Beneath the blood, she saw in blurry letters from bleeding ink, I understand why it's you.
Part of her brain came back to herself.
"Stefan?" she whispered. Her voice was hoarse. "Stefan?" she said again, louder. He jolted awake.
"Elena," he said because that felt like the only thing to say.
She reached out and took his chin in her hand. She tilted it back and forth, investigating him at different angles.
"You're young," she said, letting go. Her voice was thick with pain medication and exhaustion, but the confused elation shone beneath it.
"I know. Can we talk about that another time?" he asked. She caught the apprehension in his eyes.
Then she remembered. They picked her up. They asked if things were okay. She said things were perfect. She picked up a pen. She wrote on her arm. Dad lost control. The crash. The water. Slamming her arm against the window. Her final, "I love you".
Elena sat up suddenly, wincing from the movement.
"Where are my parents?" she asked, pulling her hand from his.
Stefan's face went from anguish to resolve in a moment.
"Elena," he said. She was already shaking her head.
"No," she replied in a definitive voice.
"You were in an accident-," he pushed.
"No, no, no," she muttered. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening.
"Your parents didn't make it."
"No, no, no, no! You're lying, no! Who are you to tell me—what are you saying—what are you even-?" her voice began shaking uncontrollably.
"I'm so sorry," he whispered.
They were the last words of his she heard clearly. A long, high pitch ringing filled her head. The drugs, the grief, and that ringing. She hated that ringing.
"It's so l-l-loud," she choked out. She realized she wasn't breathing very well. God, would somebody turn off that ringing? Maybe her mom could—no. Mom was gone. Mom was in the water. Or maybe she was nearby, encased in a black bag, closed by a zipper. Gone either way.
"Elena?"
Who was that? A quiet voice. No drowning out the ringing. Oh, breathing. Not breathing. Her eyes cleared. The boy. The boy from her arm. Isn't he supposed to be old?
"Elena, breathe. In and out," he said to her, so quietly she couldn't hear. Or maybe he was yelling, and the ringing that was louder.
He sat on the edge of her bed now, putting his hands on her shoulders.
"In... out...," he said. He was patient. Calm in a crisis. He should be a doctor, she thought. My dad's a doctor. Maybe he could talk to him. Wait, no. Dad's gone. Oh, breathing.
She followed his instructions and her lungs open further.
"That's it," he said. She brought her hand up to meet his on her shoulder. Soft skin. She thinks she remembers wondering if it'd be soft. Or maybe just what it would smell like. It just smells like blood now. Is that her blood? Breathing.
"I- I think I'm in sh- shock," she said. Stefan nodded.
"Yes, you are. It's okay. You're safe. Just keep breathing," he said. This was embarrassing, wasn't it? She couldn't even talk. Her first impression and it was this. She'd have to ask mom about how to come back from it. If Mom could come back from the sharpie moustache... Wait, no. Mom was gone. She gripped Stefan's hand tighter.
The ringing was quieter now.
"Where's J- Jeremy?" Did she say that out loud? She didn't think she meant to.
"Is that your brother?" he asked.
They froze, staring at each other, before Elena burst into a fit of giggles. How little he knew her at all. He didn't know her brother's name. He put his hand on her cheek, and wait, the laughing had turned to crying. She was definitely crying. She nodded.
"He was here, I think. But someone... Jenna," he remembered. "Took him back home with her to get some sleep. Do you want me to-?" he began to move.
"No!" she yelled. He nodded and stayed where he was.
"He can't see me like this," she said. Injured? No. Dead. Dying. Inside. Why not dead outside? Stefan swimming, right.
"Okay," he whispered.
"We need to go to the bathroom," she said, clearly. The ringing was less now.
"Alright," he agreed. He helped her out of the bed, and her feet touched the cold ground. Her parents wouldn't walk again. They wouldn't feel the ground, cold or hot or in between.
"My mom likes walking in grass," she said. Liked. Liked. She had to remember that. Liked.
Stefan didn't know how to answer that, so he didn't. He put his hand on her back and guided her to the bathroom.
"I'll wait here," he said.
"No, not that," she said, waving him inside. She went to the paper towel dispenser and pushed the lever down over and over until she had a long strip. She stared down at the brown material and grew fixated on it for a moment.
"Elena?" Stefan asked. He put his hand on her chin this time. She looked at him. He was very pretty.
"We love each other, right?" she asked.
"Yes," he said without hesitation, though he wasn't sure if it was true. She needed somebody alive who loved her, she thought. There were other people, but they weren't her parents. Her parents were gone.
"You're gross," she said, wetting the paper towel under the faucet. "I'll need your help. I have one arm."
Stefan stared at her, torn between guiding her back to her bed and allowing her whatever control she felt in this moment. He held out his hand, and she began to scrub the blood from his skin.
"Do you need anything?" he asked.
"This," she said, and she continued to scrub his arms. They did this a lot this week- washing their arms. It was harder with blood. It dried in the arm hair. Pen didn't do that.
She was mostly done with the left arm when she remembered.
"Oh, my God," she said. Stefan caught her before she melted to the ground, and then she was wailing. He carried her in one arm back to her bed and laid her down gently. She grabbed his shirt in her fist.
"Okay," he said, before he laid beside her. She cried, hard, soaking the pillow, her neck, Stefan's shirt, everything around.
She cried when she kissed him. He let her, but he held her hands firmly in place. First kisses, especially first kisses with her beautiful soulmate, handpicked by the universe, who wasn't an old guy at all, were supposed to make butterflies, and butterflies could fight the other things in her head. Butterflies had to fight grief. He kissed her nice, but it didn't work. She'd have to ask her mom why the butterflies didn't—wait. No. No mom. Mom was gone.
The fog began to clear, and in its place was pain.
"Will you hold me?" she asked. He didn't answer; he only pulled her into his chest. She was in and out of sleep that night. She didn't think he ever slept. They did it again the next day, and the day after.
They would have to redo it all, of course. They'd have to redo their first kiss, and the first time he touched her face, and the first time they slept next to each other, and the first time they said they loved each other. They would, though. That wasn't worrying.
After days of not being capable of thought outside the sucking hole where her parents were supposed to be, she had her very first thought outside her grief.
She remembered lying in her bathtub, the first time they spoke. She was different then, of course. Maybe completely different. But that her, before the crash, had pondered how strange it was that somebody like him, mature and seasoned and a bit asocial, was chosen for somebody like her, free of woes or stress outside of Miss Mystic and keggers.
This was meant to happen. This event. It was written.
The grand design knew her parents would be taken from her, and it would be Stefan she needed. It knew this loss would be so earth-shattering, so life-altering, that she would never be the same again. And it gave her Stefan: the man for who she would become.
The idea this was inevitable, that every day led to this tragedy, broke her heart. But she also felt comforted. In the chaos, there was order. Stefan was order.
And eventually, when she could breathe again, she would crawl in his lap, and he would kiss her, and she would mend. Because her life wasn't resigned to small town antics and football players. She was meant for great things. She was meant for great love.
And she had it.