Love is based on truth
-Damon-
Looking into those eyes made it clear for me. That was it. I was home, finally. After being on the run and on the search for what - a hundred and seventy years maybe - I finally felt like I did find my place. It was a feeling I only experienced once before. And it was a long time ago. Memories seem to be so far away, as if I couldn't really grasp them. Maybe it was because I had still been human that time, maybe because it just found my purpose right now. I was stroking her hair, her shiny brown mane falling softly through my fingers, I smiled. I saw her shiny brown coloured eyes fluttering close, she was relaxing under my touch. I felt her relaxing under my touch, still, I couldn't dare shifting my weight. She was breathing peacefully, but I continued to stroke her soft hair, it had a soothing feeling for me too. It has been a few years now but I still couldn't believe my luck. Never in my life, living or dead, did something beautiful and perfect like her happen to me, at least not without a price. Meeting Katherine he cost my life. Meeting Elena had cost my conscious and being with her had changed me. I couldn't say it was negative, but ever since we came together, I was changing more and more. My need to kill began to grow smaller. She is a vampire, and I love her in this careless way, but still, she had changed me. When did I ever think I would've stopped killing just for a girl? But she wasn't just any girl. She was it the love of my life.
Still, there might be a price. Stefan. All my undead life I wanted to make his a living hell, for bringing me into this situation. I have to admit though, as I found out his reasons, that he just didn't want to be alone on this journey, I started to feel different about him. And as soon as I had found out that Katherine had never loved me the way I had loved her, my feelings for him as my brother had started to become more and more nice again. Falling in love with the same woman as him, again, had made it very difficult to be like civilised people, but loving Elena had changed everything. She had made me see what I loved about my brother even though I had to be second in line again. It was a feeling I couldn't really describe right now...
But when Elena was turned into a vampire, he had changed too. He didn't like it, he had always wanted to preserve her humanity. Only I could see that this was who she was born to be. They broke up, but Stefan never really left her side, he kept looking out for her. Only when she did come running to me, when we knew it wasn't the sire bond anymore, he did change a lot more. He started to shut us out. He was away most of the time, not to say I wasn't enjoying having time with Elena to my own, but I also did feel sorry for my little brother. I had stolen his girl, and wasn't keen on giving her back. But he kept retreating from us and I knew I gave his strange behaviour too little thought. I assumed he would go back to his brooding self, but it was different this time. Because he stopped talking to me, he cut all contact and left the boarding house to who knew where. He stayed in Mystic Falls alright, but I didn't know where and why.
That was when the killing started. I at once assumed Stefan got back to being a ripper over the grief of losing Elena, but when I met up with him, he was his sober, brooding self, no sign of being over the edge with human blood. And then I started wondering...what happened to him? Where was Stefan, my real brother, that would never hurt the girl he really loves by totally ignoring her. Where did he go? Only when he kept throwing comments at me whenever we met up that we're so totally un-Stefan like, I started to doubt him. He wasn't really Stefan who I watched grow up, who I had been the role model to all those years...that was when I started looking for my real brother. I knew for sure he was out there somewhere, an intruder had taken his place here in Mystic Falls.
Elena stirred beneath my touch that had gotten stronger and less stroking since my thoughts ad wandered to Stefan. "Damon" she murmured under her breath, still asleep. I relaxed and slid down on the bed, closing my eyes. Stefan could wait until the morning.
Drifting off to sleep, my consciousness made me see other things. Stella, who I deliberately cut out of my waken thoughts ever since she left us...
I was carrying her half dead body through the parlor of the boarding house, placing her down on the couch. Sage tried to reach for hand but I hissed at him and remained at her side, holding both her hands. Her breathing was shallow and I was afraid. Afraid to lose after all those years I thought she was dead. I bit into my wrist, putting it to her mouth, knowing it would heal her. I didn't care that sage and Stefan were watching this imitate scene, it was my sister on the brick of death after all.
She regained consciousness very slowly after but I remained there, not letting go of her. When she opened her eyes, her gaze fell shortly onto me. But then it switched to Sage, and I saw all the feelings in it, love, longing, thankfulness and forgiving in it, it hurt that it didn't was directed to my eyes. I wanted to draw away, but I couldn't, I had to watch the two of them exchanging glances that should have been mine with my sister, I had just saved her life. But I couldn't look away, I had to watch, and feel my heart breaking all over again...