Sixty Years and Forever
By Sarah August
Notes: Based after Season 8 of TVD. Short story.
She woke up.
We knew it was soon time. We knew she'd be waking up. But who should go to her?
By the time the question was answered, it had been forty-eight hours since Bonnie Bennett-Carson had passed away. Forty-five years of marriage, and a large family, Bonnie had lived the life that Elena Gilbert had never had the chance to live.
We all had moved on. Time passed, and the relationships between those who remained, had changed with time itself. Death had closed the door on the friendships of Elena's extended family.
Matt had died on his family farm, in Kansas, far from Mystic Falls. An old man, surrounded by his children and grandchildren. Elena would have been happy for her lone, normal, human friend. He lived a happy life, making up for the hand life had dealt him, while growing up. A mother and father, who both abandon him, and losing his only sibling and sister, far too soon.
Elena had been taken to a woman's shelter. I knew we had waited too long to go to her. I shouldn't have waited for Damon. He had longed to see her. Not thinking of much else, especially these last ten years. But Damon wasn't here.
I knew what that might mean. Damon had made his decision about becoming human, or remaining a vampire forever. And it wasn't the decision that Damon had promised Elena that he would make.
Would he show up to tell her the truth, or leave it for his little brother to say? Stefan suspected he would get left holding the bag again. He always did.
He was taken to her room, by the site manager, after showing her the wallet size picture he had carried of her since their high school years. The picture was now worn, almost black and white looking. But you could still clearly make out their faces. Happy, and in love. Stefan put the picture carefully away.
"Do you know her name?" The manager asked.
Thinking nothing of it, I said: "Elena Gilbert," Stefan said.
The manager knocked at her door and then opened it. Inside, there sat Elena Gilbert at a bay window. She turned and smiled at me, expectantly. Time and space stopped, and I was back in Mystic Falls again, with that girl, with that face. "Elena," I breathed.
"You know me," Elena said, crossing the room, shaking his hand.
"I could never forget...," I spoke, and then paused. As happy as I was to see her, I remember a cruel irony. Elena, even nearly sixty years later, still wasn't mine to want.
Wait.
You know me.
Elena had no idea of who I was.
The realization was enough to make me feel faint, even sickness. After everything that she'd been through, Elena Gilbert had survived. But fate was funny that way. Even vengeful. Bonnie had warned them all, so often. They should have known.
You don't mess with the laws of nature. Nature always finds a balance.
Elena had died at the age of eighteen, turning into a vampire. She then cheated fate again when she took the cure. And then once more, when she was cast into a sixty-year sleep. Never aging a day.
Fate finally caught up with her.
She'd live, but with no memory of her life before her long sleep.
"Yes," I caught myself. "We were old friends...I heard about what happened, and I had to come. We...we went to high school together," I finished effortlessly.
I had gone, just for her.
It had all been for her.
"They say it was a car accident," Elena told him uneasily. "I was found, by the road, close to Mystic Falls."
"It was near the old Salvatore mansion," added the manager. Who then left them alone, after seeing the look on Stefan's face. One of pure regret.
They had waited too long. Elena had to crawl out of her coffin alone. No wonder she couldn't remember anything. The trauma of it all. Sixty-year sleep, and then suddenly alive again. Elena had went to that sleep knowing she'd awaken to find most of all of her loved ones dead. Maybe Elena didn't want to remember that every single person she had loved in her life almost was dead.
"Mystic Falls..." I said softly. "You were from there, you know."
Elena blinked in surprise. "I was? Are my family there?"
I didn't even know what became of Jeremy. He had left town after saying goodbye to Elena. No one knew where he had gone too. And if they did, they were likely dead.
"You said your parents died in a car accident, when you were sixteen. It had been just you, and your brother..." I trailed off. I had to tell her the truth. I couldn't let her believe that no time had passed. Even Damon...I had to tell her about my brother too.
"Grayson and Miranda," Elena breathed softly, in obvious remembrance. "They adopted me..."
"Yes," I replied, still hesitating. Would it hurt her to tell her the truth?
"And you're Stefan..." Elena reached out, touching my face.
She remembered me.
"Elena," I began, stepping away from her touch. "There's more that you should know."
She remembered.
I stop myself from caring about that. I couldn't get caught up in it. I couldn't get caught up in her, and how easy it would be to forget that my brother ever existed.
Elena had fallen in love with Damon. I remind myself. She had loved my brother despite being in love with me. Don't go there again. Damon had to know she was awake, and Elena had to know about him.
My words escape me as her lips find mine.
