Chapter Eight
Journal

February First 2113

It's been one week since I've slept, and each day that passes is making it more and more difficult to keep going. Vampires don't need to sleep, but that doesn't mean we will function as well as we should.
Now, everything is a blur. I thought that once we had Elijah back things would fall into place as they usually did when he was around. Everything would make more sense and maybe then the witches would listen to what we had to say, yet for some reason after hoping to be on a better path since, I still have this…strange empty feeling. It could stem from so many other events that have taken place before getting Elijah back, the death of Amelia being the most recent, but I know what it is…deep down.
I know her death was not at my hands, but it was still caused by me. I can see it on her face, Caroline is broken…but I have nothing I can say. There is nothing that I can do for her even though I wish I could help. I know why she did it, I can understand and relate. We have all had to do things we didn't want to, and would never have done twenty years ago.
We have all suffered, even the witches. There will never be a winner here. "

Most importantly, there was still Stefan. He needed our help and while I thought I was helping I only screwed everything up. Damon and Caroline have left to go and save Stefan without me, this was the friend that I had forced Damon to save Elijah for, this had all been my own cause.
My doing, my fault. I risk getting him killed.
Now I am wondering, (or knowing) that while looking back on the past day (onto my own actions first and foremost) I wonder if I was wrong, or If I was just selfish in my need to save Elijah.
This was what I should have expected.

Now I'm sitting here, alone in the dark, the sun is going to rise in a few hours but not soon enough. My friends have left me, Elijah doubts me and my own morals are shattered to the ground while I am struggling to pick up the pieces.
With each word I speak, each moment of grief, my fingers cut only to add lemon juice to the wounds.

This is not how things were supposed to be.

Regardless, here I am, still alive. So maybe I had to change a little and rip my own heart from my chest (as dramatic as it sounds, I can't help how I feel) and apparently of all of those around me simultaneously. They told me I was wrong to bring Elijah back now, (even if in some ways it remained unspoken) but is it so wrong to not want to be alone?

I miss having the feeling of being around someone who understood my intentions, never questioned my motives…or me. Sure we danced around the tone of death before, sure we have betrayed each other for our own morals and nearly gotten the other killed (technically we have both succeeded). Is it such a bad thing to say I need someone to just…get me? Do I risk sounding like a whiny teenager when I say it? Sure, does it matter?
Not anymore.

Nothing else seems to matter anymore but survival.

I guess I am selfish, I guess everyone is alone in this.

We are all alone in this together.

Over the past hour I came to figure that this is where I stand when it comes to Elijah.
I needed him, and he was my guidance, both my sword and shield to wield on demand. But most of all, I believe I once had feelings for him. It's not easy to explain (is it ever?) but that is the only reason I could come up with to account for what is happening. So much has happened between us, but where we left off right before everything turned upside down? I don't know if I could ever forget it. He was more important to me than I would ever have admitted in the past, and even after what happened between us, he will always have a place in my heart.

This is just something I have come up with when trying to rationalize why I would want to save him in the first place, and while it may not be as rational as I would like to believe, it helps me sleep at night, and we all need sleep.

It festered for the past twenty years anyway. The feelings for him (becoming worse when I realized my decision, that was made much earlier on, then I had realized that it was too late), and missing him only turned to hatred as I remembered he left me without even a bedside note.

I guess I sound a lot more confused than I need to. I guess Elijah and I were just much more complicated than we needed to be.
I have a feeling Damon was right, and while I could never let him see just how right he was, it had to be true. I pushed him away, and most likely drove Elijah, one of the few friends I thought I had left, away as well.

I guess it doesn't matter anymore. Everything had changed, and to be honest I don't imagine life ever being the same again. Caroline will forever be haunted by Amelia's death, and while I doubt I will be getting over it anytime soon (ever), I will always hold on the brave front. It's not fair to push this all on her when she did it to protect me. What else could I ask for?

Of course I will do it, but that doesn't mean that I am not sick and tired of being brave.
I am sick and tired of fighting.
I thought it would all be over now that the doppelganger line had been severed, I thought we could all live remotely normal lives. Hell, even Jeremy refused to have children of his own in fear of his ancestor being hunted down by Klaus or his hybrids. It ended his marriage in the long run, but he promised me it was worth it.

They all suffered for me, and that is wrong. He told me he never wanted anyone else to go through what I had to and for that I was silently grateful. I had never wanted to be anyone's Katherine, and most of the time I never wanted to be my own Elena but the idea of another Petrova doppelganger?
No thank you.

So was I wrong to think the drama would be over? I didn't think so, but apparently I was more wrong than ever.

It didn't help that, while knowing this was not about me, I could have prevented it all which Elijah not so politely reminded me.
Maybe I needed his wake up call more than I thought, and of course, as they always seemed to when I get lost in my thoughts, all of the roads lead back to him and now I don't know which direction to take.

I feel too cold now, and my own desperate need for sleep is driving me. Only I know what will plague me once I close my eyes, all I need is to find my comfort zone.
I thought that I had, was it taken away that quickly?

Okay so...I am apologizing now for the atrocity of this chapter, but I found a journal entry in Elena's point of view ( a bit more direct than the usual point of view) to be important to explain a little deeper to what is happening in Elena's mind as all of this is happening since I know she is coming off as cold or having "changed" and also the next chapter is giving me a really hard time so this is a nice...lighter (but slightly angsty) change for me. I apologize ten thousand times over for how short it is,and also how irritating my first person POV is, because let's be realistic...it sucks.

Anyway, leave a review if you feel like being kind lol I'm not sure when the next chapter is going to be up but I am thinking it will exceed this horrible rendition of a journal entry.

Oh and just a side note, this will probably be the LAST journal entry. I didn't realize how horrible of an idea it was ha ha

In the next chapter we will have a strictly Elijah/Elena scene with some flashbacks, then the chapter after that will most likely be strictly Caroline and Damon with some more flashbacks. look forward to those, and possibly hope you enjoyed this one!