To Blame

The sun was shining, birds were chirping merrily, the world was just waking up...and Damon was pissed. Not only in the emotional sense, but in the alcoholic sense as well: 8 am and he was already down two bottles of his best Bourbon.

Elena had left him.

Elena had lied to him.

Elena had hurt him.

She just left, with no note, no apology, no nothing.

He'd thought they were closer than that. He'd thought that they'd been...bonding or whatever over their grief and worry for Stefan. Because Stefan was gone: the trail of bodies him and his new BFF Klaus were leaving all pointed to it. She was doing all this for nothing; she was breaking his heart for nothing. God, why had he ever left her in? Why had he ever given a damn about Elena Gilbert after what Katherine did to him?

Because she hadn't asked to be let in. Because she hadn't been anything but herself, a woman so full of compassion and kindness and startling bravery that it made his head spin. She looked small, but she wasn't weak. She looked innocent, but she could burn like a grease fire when provoked, if someone she cared about was threatened. And she loved with her whole heart, her whole being, and all that love was for his brother, and his brother alone. Who was God knew where, doing God knew what, and Elena was traipsing around trying to find him, and she'd likely only find herself without a heart at the end of it all, either emotionally or physically, if Klaus had his way.

He should have seen it coming. Damon never did see it coming when women he loved betrayed him; it was his greatest weakness. That, and the fact that he didn't like being the bad guy all the time, that he wanted to be happy, happy with Elena. But he could never have that with her, not only because she was his brother's girl but because she'd never want to turn, and the thought of being with her for a handful of decades only to lose her and then be forced to carry on living filled him with a pain so bone-deep he could almost feel it roving under his skin. But above all that...

Above all that, he missed her. Just her. Damon just missed having her around, having someone to talk to. He wasn't exactly Mr Social Butterfly, most people either hated him with a passion or tolerated his presence because they had to. Except for-

"Well, it seems you've hit an all-time low, even for you."

Alaric leaned in the doorway to the living room, taking in the mess Damon had made with a critically raised brow. Indeed, it was quite a mess, from the scattered bottles, a few overturned side tables, throw pillows that had most certainly been thrown, and Damon slumped in a scattered pile of books, clutching his glass as if it was the only real thing in the world.

The elder Salvatore didn't say a word, just stared at the destruction he'd wrought with unseeing eyes.

"Did wrecking your house make you feel better?" Ric demanded, long stride eating up the carpet as he stood in front of Damon, towering over him with what the vampire had dubbed his 'Concerned Parent' face, an amalgamation of worry and anger and reprimand all rolled into one with a disappointment cherry on top to complete the effect.

"I'm not talking to you," Damon glared sullenly, reaching around Alaric's legs for his half-empty bottle. He took a swig. Make that an empty bottle. Getting up on unsteady legs, the room swayed as he made his way to the drinks cart -one of the only things left standing. He didn't bother with a glass, just hugged the bottle to his chest like it was a teddy bear and he was a scared toddler in need of comfort.

"I don't care what you want," he replied hotly, folding his arms across his chest. "This isn't about what you want. This about me being your friend, and as your friend I will not allow you to drink yourself crazy just because Elena left."

Damon was completely still. Still as a predator. Still as death. Then, he thundered into motion, swinging out his arm in a savage toss so that his empty bottle hit the nearest wall, the crash like music to his ears as the shards rained down around him, hardly discernable through the mess that he'd already made.

"I don't care that she left!" Damon roared, kicking the only surviving table in the room. "I care that she lied! She lied to me! To me, Ric! After everything we've been through, everything me and my brother did for her, to keep her alive, she went behind my back and disappeared into the night, going so far as to make all her friends promise that they wouldn't help me go after her. She even got a new car!"

All the air seemed to leave him at once, knocking him down like a bowling ball. Collapsing to the floor, he cradled his head in his hands, as if that would do anything for the utter agony he felt in that moment.

"She didn't lie, Damon," Ric did his best to placate his best friend, shifting debris out of his way with the tow of his boot as he took up a spot beside him on the carpet, hands hanging between his bent knees. "She just didn't tell you what she was doing."

"No, she did lie," the vampire insisted fervently. "After Stefan left, after I was better, the first thing I did was make her promise that she wouldn't do something stupid, and she agreed to that promise. Ergo, she lied to me, Ric, because going after my brother while he's playing Henchman #1 with Klaus is the definition of stupid!"

The teacher reminded him, "It's her life, Damon. It was her choice."

"But I had a plan!"

Another arched brow.

"I was going to have a plan!" Damon corrected, running a hand through his hair, fisting it at the roots as if it was the source of all his problems. "I wasn't going to wash my hands of him, wasn't going to be all, 'Oh, well, guess little bro has flown the nest and I'll just sit on my ass and drink my days away until someone eventually stakes my ass!' Stefan is the most annoying, martyred, broody, wet-blanketed sap to ever walk the earth, but he's still my brother, and I'd still do anything for him. I'd never leave him with Klaus. Why didn't she believe that?"

Ric sighed, twisting his ring around his finger. "I don't think it was just that, Damon. That last week, how did she seem to you?"

Blinking at the sudden change in topic, Damon answered, "Fine. She seemed fine. Worried, maybe a bit more quiet than usual, but nothing to indicate she was planning on going behind my back and pulling this stupid stunt."

"That's not what I meant, Damon. So I guess you didn't find her crying at two in the morning, going through her family pictures? Didn't have to stand there as she said she was going to her friends' when in reality she went to the cemetery. She is heartbroken, Damon. She lost John, after realizing who he was to her...she lost Jenna, and that is never going to be okay. Not now, not ever. For any of us. Since the funeral, I've been staying on the couch, and I think I see more than they sometimes realize. Elena needed to get away, Damon. She needed to get away before it all got too much for her."

He knew it was underhanded, and dirty, but in that moment he didn't care as he argued, "What about Jeremy, then? If Elena's so big on family, why did she leave him when he needs her, or you for that matter?"

"She's doing what she always does," Ric supplied, "what she thinks is best: to leave. To put herself on the line before anybody else."

"No wonder my brother fell for her," Damon muttered darkly. "To frickin' martyrs kissing in a tree, then jumping out of it like it's the Titanic."

"That was low."

Damon shrugged irreverently. "Maybe. But you can't deny that it's true." And maybe he was a sappy bastard, too, or maybe he was so drunk he didn't even realize what he was saying. It was the only way to explain why he admitted, "I miss her, Ric. She's barely been gone two days and I feel like my heart's been ripped right outta my chest. It's worse than Stefan leaving, because that wasn't his fault, wasn't his choice. But this was hers, and if she gets in trouble, if she needs my help, I won't be there to give it to her, and if anything happens to her...I'd die for real, and stay dead."

Silence hung between the pair, heavy and palpable and weighed down by pain, so much pain caused by every woman who had ever mattered to the two of them, intentionally or not. From an outsider's perspective, the two were like oil and water in the friendship department. And yet, moments like these, they were the bricks that made up the foundation of their friendship, and when you got down to it they were more similar than they'd ever admit out loud: the two adults, looking after the kids, trying to set a good example, perhaps not always succeeding but always willing to try, and never giving up on the people they loved, to their own detriment.

And the fact that they both liked a stiff drink helped, too.

"I'm sorry," Damon admitted, breaking the ice in a show of rare sincerity. "I shouldn't have yelled. God knows no one can change a Gilbert's mind once they're stuck on something."

Alaric chuckled. "Amen to that." He then added, a shade more softly, "I really didn't want her to go, if that helps. But I thought if she went with my blessing, it would make it easier, that she'd feel more comfortable asking for help if we left on good terms."

"So, when she gets backed..." Damon trailed off with a wicked grin.

Plucking the bottle from the floor, the man's eyes were sparkling dangerously as he took a generous gulp. "Oh yeah," he murmured around the rim of the bottle. "Elena better start emptying her piggy bank: there's gonna be some serious hell to pay."

"I'm not sure how to do this. I don't no if it'd be better to close my eyes and picture you here, but to me that seems kinda cruel, 'cause when I opened them, you wouldn't be here, and it would hit me all over again. It seems sadder to lie, to pretend even for a moment, and I don't want to do that. So, I think I'm just gonna sit."

Jeremy did just that, running his fingers through the stalks of grass, still warm from the blazing heat of he day's sun. His eyes were glued to the stones before him, to the petals of the flowers Elena had left just days before, one of the last things she'd done before leaving Mystic Falls.

He stared at the names, the script he knew by heart. Miranda Gilbert. Grayson Gilbert. Jenna Sommers. John Gilbert.

All dead, all gone within one year.

"I miss you. That sounds pretty obvious, I guess, but that doesn't make it any less true. I needed you all for different thing, at different points in my life -except you, Uncle John, I'm still kinda pissed at you, but I still wish you were here, if only for Elena's sake- and you all gave me so much, more than I deserved, more than I'll ever know what to do with."

Angrily swiping the back of his hand across his eyelids, he looked at the tears gathered there in detachment: the sight of his tears didn't have much of an effect on him nowadays, for her just cried too many of them.

"Elena...she's gone off after Stefan. When she first told me, I'll admit I was hurt. Betrayed. But I'm glad that she got out, even if it's only gonna be for the summer, even if it's only to do this. This town...it takes so much from you without you even realizing that you're giving it. I don't know if it's always been this way, and I just didn't notice, or if it's 'cause of all the crazy supernatural shit we've had to put up with, who knows? What I do know, is that I wish I could have gotten more time with you, all of you. I wish, mom and dad, that you had told me all this vampire stuff earlier, that it was a secret, burden, we could have shared and dealt with together. I wish we could be together, be happy, one last time, that you could give me the strength to keep on going, because it's getting harder," Jeremy admitted, hating himself for his weakness but being powerless to stop it, "I wish we could have been normal kids, that Elena didn't have this guilt she's still carrying around. And she's always going to carry it around; I know her, and so do you. She'll blame herself until the end of time, and there's nothing that will ever change that, although I wish to God there was."

Jeremy sobbed, fisting the grass until great clumps formed between his fingers, as if the grass was growing right out of him. "I know you'd be proud of her, because I am, and I could never ask for a better sister. The only thing I'd ever ask for would be to see you, just once. If I can see the ghosts of my two ex-girlfriends, why can't I get to see you, too?"

"I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, Jeremy," a voice said from over his shoulder. "I told you that already: they found peace. Be happy: not all are so lucky."

Jeremy hung his head, his forehead brushing the knees of his dark jeans. "I know, I am. It's just..."

"It hurts," Anna finished for him. "I get it, I do." She put a hand on his shoulder, not invading his space but letting him know she was there. "I'm sorry, for interrupting. I wasn't listening or anything..."

"It's fine," the teen waved her concern away, "it's not anything I wouldn't say to anyone who asked."

"Minus the seeing ghosts part," Anna chimed in.

He laughed. "Yeah, minus that part."

"So you still haven't told anybody?" Anna inquired stiffly, tilting her head so that eyes met, and held.

"No. I was thinking about telling Elena before she left, but it didn't feel right to put any extra weird on her plate."

"You're sweet," the ghost said softly. "After all this time, you're still so sweet."

*You sound surprised, Jeremy thought, and told her just that.

The dark-haired brunette admitted, "It is surprising, Jeremy. You're living in a town full of supernatural assholes who can flip their humanity on and off whenever they like; it's hard to stay true to yourself in the midst of that." She grinned. "Take the compliment, Gilbert."

"They're not all assholes, Anna," Jeremy defended hotly, thinking of Bonnie, of Caroline, of Tyler and Damon who, although brought varying amounts of trouble, were all people he cared about, people who had never asked for any of this and deserved more than her spite.

"Alright, I'm sorry. I guess I'm still a little resentful, what with getting killed and all." He felt the chill as she plunked down next to him, splaying her legs out in front of her like a rag doll. Sometimes, it was easy to forget that on the inside, Anna was still just a girl, a girl who'd lost so much and craved innocent normality, but it was little gestures like those that made it painfully obvious.

Jeremy acknowledged, "I suppose I'd be pretty pissed, too, if I was in your shoes."

"Please, Gilbert, you wish you had my Chuck Taylors," Anna drawled sarcastically, tipping her head back like a cat reveling in a sunbeam, all loose and languid and graceful. It was weird, to have fallen back into their easy rapport so quickly, for all those old feelings to come rushing back to the surface so effortlessly. He'd cared about her, a lot, and they'd never been afforded the chance to see where their relationship could have really gone. But that shouldn't matter, should it? a small voice insisted in the back of his mind. You're with Bonnie now. You love Bonnie now. You're in love with her. Anna is in the past.

It all sounded so logical when laid out like that, all so clear and easy. But when had anything in Jeremy Gilbert's life ever been easy? He was all Anna had, and shouldn't that mean something? And yet...Jeremy was many things, but he wasn't a cheater, and the thought of hurting Bonnie brought more pain than he'd ever thought possible. And Bonnie had picked him, him: he never had to doubt that he was enough, or that she'd get bored of him, or heck, even that he'd die and she'd go on living for another hundred years or whatever, fading into memory.

Jeremy and Bonnie weren't memories to each other.

So while this was strange, and confusing, it wasn't real -he couldn't even hold her hand- and he shouldn't try and turn it into something else, or let her, for that matter. So he smiled, said, "If you say so," and brushed the grass from his jeans, fingers ghosting over the script on the headstones for a fleeting second before giving her a tight smile of a goodbye and leaving his ghosts -all of them- behind.

"Too girly."

The teenager held up another video for the woman's inspection.

"*Again, too girly. I think that one's even more girly than the one you just showed me."

"Mom, it's a Richard Gere movie: it's gonna be girly!"

"Pick another."

Caroline huffed from her blanket-mound on the couch, going through the collection of DVDs she'd brought down for them to watch. Since learning of Caroline's undead condition, the two Forbes women had made more of an effort to spend time together as a mother and daughter, be it watching movies or eating lunch together or simply enjoy each other's company. It was...nice. Really nice. In Caroline's opinion, she didn't think she'd ever been so close and open with her mother, not since she was a child, not since the divorce. She understood now, from a more adult perspective, how it might have been hard to be around her daughter so much, to be constantly reminded of the love she'd had, the love that had left her. And while that was not an excuse, while it wasn't okay...she accepted that her mom had tried to cope as best she could, and at the end of the day all that mattered was that they were here, together, happy and finally free of secrets, their relationship brimming with affection and acceptance.

The blonde held up another video. "Oh, what about Rear Window? I'm always down for some Grace Kelly."

Liz sighed affectionately. "You and your old movies. I honestly don't know where you get it."

"Why, would you rather be watching the latest Fast and Furious?" Caroline arched a brow.

Her mother conceded. "Point taken."

Slipping the DVD from its case, Caroline launched herself back onto the couch, laughing as her mother gets a mouthful of her swishy ponytail. Snuggled up on the couch, a bowl of popcorn resting between them, she can imagine that she's still human, that she'll still grow old and be a part of the world rather than just watching it like a movie on a screen...but at the same time, she likes who she is now, and she won't let anything rob her of this new-found self-acceptance. Not even the fact that she knows these movie nights are limited, that one day she's going to have to face the reality of living forever while her mother does not. Not even...

"He could have been arrested for doing that," Liz mused, her Sheriff Brain always half on even when she *wasn't on the job, but mercifully halting Caroline's unwelcome train of thought. "There's a reason why we don't let civilians get involved in police work."

"Because you don't want them stealing your thunder and getting their own TV shows?" Caroline teased, shovelling popcorn into her mouth.

"Partly. It's not all like..."

"It is on TV," the vampire rolled her eyes. "I know, mom. But still, I would look cute in a trench coat."

"Caroline, you know you're beautiful no matter what you wear," her mother told her affectionately, her words wrapping around the young vampire, enveloping her in with their sincerity.

"Thank you."

The two were enjoying the rest of the movie in companionable quiet but it was soon broken when Liz asked, "Have you heard from Elena lately?"

Caroline slumped backwards, tugging the bowl of popcorn to her chest like it could ward off the heartache. "No not a peep. But she'd only been gone like two days, so I'm not worried. Yet."

"Liar," the older blonde chided, but there was no real heat to her words. "I'm worried, too. She's too stubborn for her own good." She was quick to add under her breath, "It's one of the reasons you're such good friends."

Caroline pouted. "Hey, I resent that! I can't help how I am!"

"I know, I just can't bear the thought of you getting hurt; you're involved in the supernatural now, even though I tried so hard to keep you out of it. But...I might have another lead. About Stefan. I can fill you in tomorrow so you can pass it along."

Her fire banked somewhat. "Okay. Cool. I'm sure she'll appreciate it." A thought struck her. "Have you told Damon about this new lead yet?"

Liz shook her head, the glow of the TV casting half her face in shadow, making her appear older, more tired and weary than Caroline had ever seen her. Protecting Mystic Falls sure took a lot out of a person. "No, I wanted to make sure Elena heard it first."

Caroline countered with, "But Damon is his brother."

"And he'll just go charging off across the country without a second thought. At least I can trust Elena to be smart with this. Besides, I think it's good the two of them sort this out with some space between them."

The vampire raised a brow. "Just who has been filling you in on all the Salvatore drama? You're not usually this caught up," she noted with a frown.

"Matt might have let some things slip..." the sheriff let her sentence hang unfinished. "Speaking off...what's going on with you and Tyler?"

Caroline stared at the screen, watching as Grace Kelly snuck into the neighbours apartment, feeling as tense as she in that moment. God, she hoped her mother couldn't see her face: she'd know in an instant.

"Nothing," she insisted, but her voice sounded too high pitched and squeaky even to her own ears; she did have better hearing, though.

It was her mother's turn to raise the skeptical brow. "Right. Of course. So the fact that he came by the station today, looking for you, then ran out before he could even talk to me clearly supports your statement."

Her fingers fidgeted with the remote, twirling it around and around. "How do you know he was looking for me? He might have wanted to pay for some parking tickets or volunteer for the Neighbourhood Watch or-or report a missing cat or something."

Wow, lamest excuse ever. Well done, Caroline. Well done.

Her mind never went easy on her.

Taking her daughter's hand, Liz urged Caroline to look up and meet her gaze. "Sweetie, I know I've never been the first person you come to with all the boy stuff, and I know I'm to blame for that. But I'm also not blind, either. You like him, he likes you, and I know you really cared about Matt. And while it took me a long time to realize this after your dad left...sometimes people just grow apart. But that's okay; especially at your age. It's normal. So I don't want you to keep beating yourself up about something that you just can't help, okay? Matt's a great guy, and he's always been one of your closest friends, and I think no matter what he just wants you to be happy. The rest will just take time."

"You think so?"

Her arms came up around her, holding Caroline close. "Oh, I know so," Liz whispered into the top of her head. "But if either one of them hurts you, my Taser is always there waiting for 'em."

"Mom!" Caroline exclaimed, mock-indignant, because she was secretly glad that even though she was a vampire and could take anyone down, her mother still wanted to protect her from everything bad and hurtful in the world.

Even if the worst had already happened.

Author's Note: Hello, everyone! Just a quick update, hope you enjoyed it. Chapter five us back to Elijah and Elena...

Please leave a review and share your thoughts if you so wish!

All my love, Temperance Cain