Chapter title and two lines from 'Watermark' by Sleeping at Last, and the last line is from 'Bloodstream' by Stateless.

The second part of 19 will be posted on Monday, and the epilogue on Wednesday. Thank you for all the reviews, favorites, and PMs!

I'm just going to take a moment out here and point y'all in the direction of Toriblue's fics, because they are fantastic and if you were aggravated by the fade to black, she's got that sort of stuff covered.

The inner gears of the timepiece on the mantle grind over dust and patina, pushing the minute hand on its face forward, dragging time, reluctant, onwards. Floorboards shift under anxious pacing feet. The heartbeats of your worried friends flutter. Every sound echoes and assaults the ears.

It has been seven hours since you died, Elena, and the house itself feels empty without your presence.

For all my days on this earth, I will not forget how ferociously beautiful you were as you went to your death, unwavering in your determination. Every step you took shattered another vision of your future that I had hoped for: you, surviving unharmed; you, leaving me to have a happy life with some human man; you, swollen with child (oh, how I wished I could have given you that, my lovely Elena – to tell you that I dreamed of such things would only have hurt you); you, growing old and gray and wearing every wrinkle as a sign of your victory over your fate. It was your desire to live, and by extension, to die, and I would have done all I could to ensure you did that with all the honor and dignity you deserve.

(You would have deserved the burial of the warrior, a funeral pyre, and never before would it have been so fitting. I am not a jealous man, but to watch the earth slowly reclaim you would not be something I could stand.)

Your friends have come and gone, some silent, others vocal, some angry, others sad. They cannot bare to see you as you are now – still and dead – and yet I keep vigil. They are still too shocked by your death to feel anger at your duplicity; I know this will come with time, and I shall defend you.

Matt is beside himself with grief, but your little Maggie tries to comfort this stranger, to explain to him he holds no blame. Bree and Lucy cannot bare to look upon your lifeless form, but remain just a room away, waiting. Caroline and Bonnie come and go, shadowed by Stefan and Tyler in the doorway.

It is the elder Salvatore who has spent the most time beside you, after myself. He stood at the foot of the bed and looked down on you, his eyebrows drawn, as if he was trying to bring you back by sheer will alone.

Emotions flickered over his features faster than even I can ascertain, and in the end, he suddenly walked around the edge of the bed to lean over you.

"I'll forgive you," whispered Damon into your ear, "I would forgive you for all of the bullshit you put me through, if you just came back."

And while there was anger somewhere inside the husk of his voice, his fear and grief threatened to drown him. Your concern over him was always obvious, Elena, but I can assure of this: with time, he will heal. With time, he will find peace, and calm. He will always feel the pain but time will provide him steady legs and a mask to wear. He left and once more, we are alone.

I am weaker than you thought, Elena. I claim my possession of you with an ever present hand in yours; I refuse to leave your side (you own my every thought and emotion, every last inch of my body, my love – no outward mark declares this but I know). I guard you as you continue to grow colder and hope dwindles.

I held you and had you and heard you say those words of love, only to feel your warm fingertips drag across mine as you left to face your death a moment later. Your friends demand an explanation as to what has occurred, why I let you go.

Give me but a lyre and a way, and I would bring you back, if that was your wish.

Instead I sit beside you, powerless, and as time is dragged forward, we are all being forced to conclude the worst: You are not returning.

And what is it that I feel, my love? Anger. The deepest, blackest sort that can possess a soul. I will not lie and say I did not decimate any of Klaus' men who tried to attack us in the aftermath. My hands were too bloody in the end to carry you into the house, and Matt refused to let you go. Were I to lay waste to this place, this earth, would my actions bring you back to scold me? Would you approve? If I try hard enough, will you come back and haunt me?

You already do.

There is balance to nature, and it is because of this that I cannot understand why you have been allowed to pass. You have given your life; your death should have been returned to you.

But if it is that you are at peace, my love, then remain so. I shall guard your family, and your friends, until they pass, and their children pass, and so on. I shall do this and walk this earth alone and give this life of mine meaning.

For oh, but you were mine.

You were precious. You were radiant. You were everything good in Tatia, in Katerina, in Charlotte, and all the others. They were but fragments of you, Elena, some soul I must have known before.

It is no stretch of imagination to believe that you were made by nature; others can waste their breath describing your fair features, your dark eyes both innocent and wiser than your years. There are few, I think, who knew of you.

Others would have heard the myths and tales, and tried to hide from the destiny that inevitably would await them. But you were not them (the stories you've been told have made you brave).

I heard your heart's frantic beats even as you walked towards your death; never had you been so frightened. I saw your shoulders shake even as you squared them. And yet it was that same heart and its strength that pushed you forward. Your shoulders were drawn back like the string of an arrow, taught, and aimed at my brother, and yet they shook. My praise of your courage was not false.

And with this courage, your loss was your victory. You chose your death. You defeated my brother. You pressed down upon fate and bent it to your will. And you did all of this in the name of the compassion that filled you.

It was a gift and you carried it with you to your dying day. Your honor could humble the most proud, my love.

Will I be capable of the same, someday? When your loved ones are buried and gone, when there is no longer a use for me, will I be able to follow you? I possess the means now, my love, to follow you. Will you welcome me with open arms, or hate me for my cowardice?

I banish the idea almost as soon as it occurred to me, because it is your voice I hear in my mind, chiding me for such thoughts (already, you haunt me).

I hear Jeremy speaking with the others. He's saying that he wants you buried in the Gilbert plot in Mystic Falls, that after so long, you deserve to go home. He speaks bravely but I hear the boy beneath the voice, alone and lost, and I know the others are the same. I do not know how I will begin to fix them to be able to protect them. You meant to protect them and yet your death has broken them, Elena.

There is no fairytale. (Neither Damon's words nor mine bring you back.)

There is no miracle. (Prayers have gone unanswered for hours.)

There is only you, my lovely Elena, you with your unending compassion.

Your brother barely finishes speaking before you wake up, and look me in the eyes again.