Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries and the characters represented and mentioned in this story aren't mine and never will be. If they were Elijah would already be alive.

AN: So this chapter has a bit more Stelena in it, but Elena loves Stefan right now and I don't intend to ignore that just because I prefer her with Elijah.

O0o0O Sleeping Awake O0o0O

O0o0O The Cloudy Sky Dream O0o0O

It's been two months since Stefan left her to save the life of his brother, and the longer he's gone the more distant she becomes. The only thing stopping her from tracking him down is the lack of leads to follow. Sometimes she feels almost dead.

So when Elena falls asleep she doesn't expect life to be blown back into her veins when she inhales the cool air of her family's forest cabin that somehow still smells like pines and childhood memories. The sky reveals to her it's somewhere around twilight, but the clouds are completely covering the sun and making her guess uncertain.

Despite the dreary atmosphere she can breathe without the now familiar constricting pain in her chest that follows her almost everywhere.

"You know the last time I was here I was with Stefan." Elena barely whispers. After all the words are meant more for herself, but she isn't the slightest bit surprised when she gets a response. She knew he would be there somewhere.

"Yes I know, after all you killed me here. Things like that I do not tend to forget." His tone implies dry humor his words would otherwise overlook. She turns around and sadly looks at the last man she should find any comfort in. But Elijah never did follow her expectations, even when she wished nothing quite as much as for him to do so.

He is wearing the dark suit she ruined by piercing it with a dagger, but here it's just as intact as the night she first saw him in it. His eyes are as sad as she imagines her own to be.

"I had no choice. And I already did apologize." Yet somehow guilt still seeps through her resentment. She stands on the wooden planks built over the tranquil lake, covered in a blanket that's keeping her warm and refuses to show him how sorry she actually is for that one act. After all it is one of the mistakes she will always remember, it cost the lives of two people who just wanted to reunite their family.

"You did." The way he says that and the smile that she finds in his eyes tell her he saw right through her unconcerned act. It is frightening just how well they can read each other, even when they do everything to hide the thoughts filling their minds.

"I miss him." The words escape her and for a second she isn't sure if she means Stefan or the Original the being in front of her represents, but then the agony of being apart from the man who holds her heart returns and there is no question.

"You love him, if you didn't long for his return I would think you to be more like Katerina than I thought." Elijah looks on at her in sympathy and the understanding his eyes convey destroys the wall that has been holding back the weeping girl hiding in her soul. Tears travel down her face revealing the injuries bleeding otherwise unseen and untreated.

"You used to follow Klaus the way he is now, you know everything that entails. Could you tell me what Stefan is doing now?" And she wants to know, the question has been keeping her awake for hours on end. She's afraid the answer won't let her sleep at all.

"Do you really wish to know? I could tell you, but it wouldn't make you feel better and it will not help you with getting him back." Elijah slowly steps closer and uncertainly as if unsure how to do it wipes the salt from her cheeks with his thumb. The gesture is so touching exactly because she knows how alien it comes to him, and it warms some little part of her heart. The sky above clears the slightest amount and a weak ray of colored sunshine illuminates them both giving a rosy tint to the otherwise gray world.

"I guess not." Maybe despite the loneliness that is eating her whole she doesn't actually want to know everything Stefan is going through at exactly that moment, maybe later when he is there in front of her and she can help him deal and heal she will be ready for those answers. Right now her life is heavy enough, but she does need to give someone a bit of that weight before she is crushed beneath it. "It's just… ever since I met Stefan, he's always been there, even when Katherine broke us apart I could always count on him. And now he's gone and I have no one to talk to, at least no one I can say anything to and know they would understand."

"And yet you are talking with me now." She looks up and is struck by the wonder contained in his eyes, he looks enraptured by her very sight.

"In a dream, not in reality. You're gone too." And some part of Elena knows she says that to remind herself that nothing happening there is real, everything is conjured up by subconscious desire to see him. And she still doesn't know where that need originates, but she knows she can't let it have free reign. She looks at him and forgets why.

Both of them are silent, neither breaking the connection looking at each other has spelled around them. Until she can't stand it any longer without doing something she would regret and looks away.

"It's funny I'm going through every moment half asleep and yet now it's the most awake I've felt in weeks." Elena doesn't truly realize the truth of that until she says it aloud. In the waking world she is constantly tired, as if the sleep she gets isn't enough to deal with the life she leads. Here her spirit seems to be able to roam free even with broken wings.

"You shouldn't abandon life Elena, human's have so precious little of it and yet you always have opportunities to do more with every minute than us immortals have with entire centuries." There is sadness and undeniable knowledge wielded by those words, if anyone would know that it would certainly be him and yet she is not ready to listen.

"But when Stefan isn't here with me, when I know he's somewhere out traveling with Klaus doing things he would never justify how can I just move on?" She can't do that, he has ruled her heart for too long, has too much of it with him for her to just ignore and forget. And for some reason she needs for Elijah to understand.

"You don't have to, I'm the last person to make you let go of the people you care about. But maybe you should wait for the opportunity and still treasure the best moments of right now."

"I can't." Without Stefan those moments are too pointless.

Elijah doesn't try to argue, maybe because he sees that it is too soon for that. Maybe because there is nothing he can say.

Instead he takes her hand and warms it between both of his. It relays more than some meaningless words anyway.

"You could have become a friend." And Elena can't help the pang of sadness that envelops her because they didn't have enough time for that to become a reality.

"I haven't had a friend in a really long time, I don't know if I still remember how to be one." Elijah has never uttered something that was so honest and as big of a lie as the words that follow next. "Elena? You are the closest thing to a friend I have right now."

And somehow Elena wakes up a little less depressed than when she fell asleep.

O0o0O Further Dreams Coming O0o0O

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