"Wait," Elena demanded, her eyes firmly set on the back of Damon's head as he reached for a jacket. Her pulse was racing with eager possibilities. "Take me with you."
Damon feverishly shook his head. "No."
"Why?"
He sent an ice blue glare in her direction. "I said no. Look, we don't know what state he's in. We don't even know if the thing in the station is Stefan. Do you really think he just popped back onto earth exactly as he was?"
Shaking her head, Elena looked at her now empty glass, no longer feeling the buzz of the drink at all. "He's back. I can feel it."
Caroline rolled her eyes.
Damon told the girls not to get her hopes up and her stomach lurched when the door slammed. Caroline, who had been unusually silent for the past ten minutes, threw the remnants of her drink into the fire. It grew. "Do you think it's him?" Elena asked, hopeful.
Caroline twirled the empty glass in her hands and moved to rest on her back. She was suddenly very intrigued by the sparkling chandelier. "I have no idea," she replied flatly. "For my sake, I hope so. But for his sake, I hope not."
Elena, who had already begun to pace, turned to the vampire and froze. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Caroline huffed. "You know, even though he died for you, it was his choice." She took a long pause, trying to put her thoughts into words. "The world he was living in, it was pretty bad. I know you probably don't realize this because chances are, you were holed up with Damon in his room while he was telling me about all of this. He felt like he had nothing to live for, Elena. Nothing left."
Elena took a seat on the floor and closed her eyes, bringing her knees tight to her chest. "That's a lie." Her throat tightened. "Stefan's unbreakable."
"Stefan was unbreakable," Caroline corrected with an unintentional eye roll. "I know you were sired to Damon, but did you ever just stop for one second to realize that Stefan was crumbling while you watched?"
Elena thought back on her time as a vampire. First, a memory that almost felt lost hit her and sent a wave of emotions flooding through her body. They had popped a bottle of champagne together what seemed like a lifetime ago, and she couldn't stop laughing, therefore Stefan couldn't stop laughing. And they kissed. His lips tasted so sweet, like happiness and adoration; she could feel them curved up in that wide, charming smile of his. Then, another memory popped into her mind. Stefan and Elena sat together on the staircase of her house, and she told him, for the first time, that her feelings for Damon were stronger than ever. So, he set her free… but she never stopped for a second to truly tell Stefan that he himself could move on. And this wasn't even a love created by a sire. This was true, fragile love that required closure and acceptance. Stefan did not receive either from her. And, on that stairwell, the very first cracks in Stefan's foundation began to show, but Elena thought nothing of it. And there was more, too… she kicked him out of his own home the following night, went to bed with his brother without any remorse.
"How many ways can you rip my heart out?" he had cried once.
He's just being dramatic, Elena had thought to herself. At that time in her life, she truly believed that she was over him, so surely he had gotten over her too, hadn't he? Stefan gets dramatic sometimes. He'll move on.
He never did. She shouldn't have expected him to. When she was trapped under a slippery illusion of love mixed with blood and lust, Stefan was holding onto the only real thing left in her life. The chasm between them, he couldn't break it… because she didn't try hard enough. He was pulling on a snagged rope.
With a chill, Elena brought herself back into the room with Caroline, trying to shake the realization she had just made. "If I could just get another chance with him," Elena whispered, shaking from the inside out, "I'd make everything right. I'd find a way."
Caroline, for the first time in a long while, gave her friend a sympathetic look, though it quickly faded. "You do realize, if Stefan actually is alive as we speak, that you're still in a romantic relationship with his brother?"
The doors to the sheriff's station nearly broke as Damon pushed his way through them. "Where is he?" he demanded to the stranger sitting behind the desk, his fists clenched and tenser than ever. When the girl gave him a blank look, Damon slammed his fist on the table; the wood splintered. "Where the hell is my brother? What kind of a joke is this?"
Just then, Liz Forbes slowly walked into the desk area, looking awestruck and overwhelmed. "Damon," she said as calmly as she could. "You need to see this."
He didn't even bother walking around the desk. Instead, he jumped over it and rushed to Liz. "Where. Is. He?" His undead heart was beating irregularly.
As they walked through what felt like a never ending hallway, Liz kept her eyes forward. "I thought he was dead," she whispered under her breath.
"He was," Damon responded instantly. "What happened?"
Liz let out a long exhale. "One of our deputies found him in the woods. He was covered in dirt, crying against the ground. And get this: he's human."
Damon furrowed his brows. "Are you sure it's my brother?"
"He was sitting in a coffin. Right where you had buried him. He kicked himself out. We think it was an adrenaline rush, because the blood samples were just as normal as anyone's." Confused, Damon opened his mouth to ask another question, but Liz continued, "Anyway, when the deputy approached him, Stefan jumped, tried to explain that someone had tried to bury him alive."
Finally, they arrived at the holding room, and Damon's eyes instantly landed on the dirt-covered, sleeping young man. He took up two chairs and had his knees to his chest in the fetal position, trembling just slightly. Damon recognized this man's face as Stefan's, but everything about him was so… different. More timid, even in sleep. Maybe even… innocent?
Hesitantly, Damon stepped closer to this sleeping stranger who wore the face of his brother. "Stefan?" he whispered. Gradually, Damon rested his hand on his shoulder until his dirt-covered eyes groggily opened. Although Stefan's face was dark and caked with dirt and blood, his eyes were just as vibrant as ever, the same shade of green they had always been. "Hey, Stefan," he said slowly, keeping his eyes locked on the familiar green ones. Damon tried to keep his breath steady. "You hear me?"
Stefan's emerald eyes almost looked through Damon as he spoke. Damon could practically feel the tension in the air as his brother scanned over his face, trying to find something familiar. Stefan's eyes were empty. "He…Hello?" he rasped out, turning his body so that he was sitting up.
Damon felt a strange tug in his heart, a deep, deep drop in his chest, and his eyes stung. "Stefan, do you know who I am?" he tried.
His brother let out a frustrated noise, as if a name was on the tip of his tongue but too far to reach. The face in front of him was so familiar, but so difficult to find. Then, suddenly, the word escaped his lips before he could understand it: "Damon."
Stefan ran his fingertips along the leather of his brother's car, staring at the road as they drove. "Damon," he mumbled. "Damon." The syllables rolled off of his tongue like a foreign language that he spoke but could not discern. "Damon."
Damon chuckled a bit to himself, trying to force a smirk onto his lips despite the uneasiness rising in his stomach. "Stefan, who am I?" he asked.
Stefan smiled a little bit and said more confidently, "Damon. You're Damon." He was still quiet, but no longer shaking, and because of that, Damon was more than relieved.
"Yes, I'm Damon. But who am I? How do you know me?" He looked at Stefan from the corner of his eye, watching as his little brother furrowed his brows. Frustration flicked through his eyes, followed by defeat. "I'm your brother. Do you remember that?"
Stefan shook his head.
"What do you remember?"
"I remember waking up in a coffin," Stefan replied truthfully. "Someone tried to bury me alive. And I remember that your name is Damon." The youngest Salvatore cracked a smile at those words, and Damon returned it genuinely.
"Yeah, I got that. Is that it?"
Stefan nodded.
Elena and Caroline were just about to give up and try to get some sleep when Caroline spotted headlights in the window and heard Damon's car. Instantly, Elena jumped up, her heart racing.
What was going to come through that door? Who was going to come through that door?
Hope coursed through her veins, but she forced herself to patiently wait.
Low expectations, Elena. Low expectations.
And then the doorknob turned, and in walked Damon, followed by the hunched over form of a man. He was covered in dirt, his eyes looked tired, and his clothes were ragged, but oh my god, she knew that face. She knew that face better than anyone!
Stefan.
He still looked beautiful. And despite the dirt and exhaustion, he was exactly as she remembered him. Exactly how he looked in her dreams every single night. Her heart fluttered and raced and did wild things, and without even thinking her feet were running towards him and the world around her was nothing but a blur. He was back. Stefan was alive. She'd been given another chance, a chance to apologize and make things right, a chance to show him that his life was worth living. Elation and a beautiful pain coursed through her body as she rushed to him, and she immediately wrapped her arms around him. It was him. It was really him. He smelled the same: like clouds and eternity and forgiveness. She breathed his name into his shoulder, incoherently whispering apologies and explanations and declarations of love and fate and—
He wasn't hugging her back.
Baffled, Elena backed away, wiped her tears and looked into his green eyes. They were strangely cold, void of the love that she always remembered so vividly…
Had he not forgiven her?
Looking for some sort of aid, Elena glanced over to Damon, who sent her a hauntingly apologetic look. He was frantically shaking his head.
Feeling suddenly uneasy, Elena looked up at Stefan's face, which also looked eerily sorry. And, when he opened his mouth to speak, she thought she was going to fall to the ground.
"I'm Stefan," he said slowly, apologetically. She knitted her brows for a second, baffled as his words went through her ears. Then, it suddenly clicked in her: his lack of response, the vacancy in his eyes when he walked through the door…
Oh god. No, oh god… I'm going to be sick. She felt dizzy. This is not happening. This cannot be happening.
Swallowing, she swayed and Damon started to move towards her. She brushed him off and looked this confused Stefan in the eyes, trying to fight the tears that suddenly did not feel quite as pleasant as they had about a minute ago.
"I'm Elena," she managed to say. "We, uh… We have history together."
A/N: Ooooh snap. The drama unfolds, LOL. I hope you guys enjoyed this slightly longer update. Once again, your reviews were all SO SWEET and so inspiring and helpful that I decided I had to give you another quick update! I really hope you liked it. Please let me know. You all know how much every single comment inspires me to keep going. So please, leave me a little review letting me know what you're thinking, what you loved, or even what you didn't love. If you want me to update, I will :)
So what will happen now? Stefan is human, Elena is human, but there's just a few problems. He doesn't remember her and all the things she's put him through... What will Elena do? Will she try to win him over again or will her guilt be too much? And what about Damon? What will Elena do about him! Tell me what you think! :D
Thanks!
Xoxo
Sara
