CHAPTER 12 – THE REAPING

-Caroline-

God what a day! If there is anything I hate more than covering the traffic – hello, it's rush hour, there's traffic… shocker! – it's bad weather.

I mean, don't get me wrong, the news room is all excited and we get loads of free coffee and the deli downstairs keeps us supplied in the best double dark fudge brownies that you've ever tasted, but it's like my day doesn't end until the very last bit of rain falls in our coverage area!

Because of our vacation I've been behind most of the week so I'd been coming in a bit early as well as staying late to try and catch up, but it's going on 8:40pm and I've been here since five this morning… so, I'm freaking tired. I almost don't answer my phone, but decide it might be Klaus wondering if I'm ever coming home, or maybe Stefan as I've called him a few times this week with no answer. Its funny – Stefan and I were together nearly every day for four years, then totally separated for two, but leaving him was so hard… he's truly the brother I never had or even knew I needed.

The moment I see that it's my mom I feel relief – a smile coming to my mouth even though it's full to the brim with my third brownie. Shut up, I'm pregnant, remember?

"Hey mom!" I say through the bulk of dessert, licking a bit off of my thumb as I lean back in my desk chair and kick off my heels. Let me be the first to tell you, after fifteen hours, even Louboutin's make your feet feel like they are bleeding.

"Hey sweetie, I wasn't sure if you'd answer." By her tone of voice, I can tell she's still at the station – until the past couple of years, I'd never realized how similar my mother and I are with our work ethic. I used to resent her for it, but now that I've moved up to the morning anchor with only two years under my belt, I know how much I owe her for instilling such commitment in me. "I heard on the scanner that Dallas was having some inclimate weather. Tornado's?"

Ugh – I do not want to talk about this more! I've heard that word – inclimate- more times in the last five hours than my entire life combined! "Yea, rain, wind, hail, lightening… the works."

"And everything's okay?" She says to me, then speaking away from the receiver, she rattles off a few commands to one of the deputies. I'm barely paying any attention until I hear her say CCIR.

I wait for her to finish, then quickly ask, "CCIR? The Cold Case place?" I worked with them for months last fall when they were going through all of the files at the Dallas Crime Lab – as a matter of fact, my 'in-depth' coverage is what helped land me the anchor job.

"Yes." Mom sighs, I can hear the fatigue in her voice and wonder how many hours she's put in today. I can almost guarantee you that if I am beating her, it's not by much. "Believe it or not, Mystic Falls had a high murder rate back in the seventies. That was before the Mayor sent out the call it an animal attack directive to the medical director and police force."

I know it's terrible – I mean, people died. Real people at the hands of vampires… my friends, my husband, me… but still, I can't help but laugh at my mom's sarcastic tone. I can almost bet you that she and Mrs. Lockwood have been at each others throats today.

I'm about to crack a joke about her and Lady Mayor, when mom adds in a quiet, frustrated tone, "I swear, if Carol doesn't get out of my office I am going to hand over my badge!"

"Mom, she's just trying to be helpful." I lie through a laugh. Everyone in town knows she's a control-freak.

"You'd think she'd want to be at home, with Tyler back in town," Don't ever tell anyone, but at the drop of his name my heart skips a beat and I don't know if I'm happy to hear that he's in town or just shocked to hear his name. "but no, she's been riffling around with the interns going through all that old evidence!"

"Tyler's home?" I try in a cool, hey whatever voice that sounds more like a little girl asking if she's getting a pony for her birthday. "Um, so like, how is he… and stuff?" I roll my eyes as the teenager inside of me takes over my vocal chords.

She doesn't answer me right away – talking to a deputy or an intern or maybe even Mrs. Lockwood while I'm left to try and push away images of a very fit, very brown skinned, very tasty Tyler Lockwood. Finally she comes back to the phone and I've opened up my email for no other reason than to distract my thoughts, "He's fine. Brought a girl home that Carol doesn't care for… but that's not surprising. Listen, I need to go – they need me to show them how to use our database and then I'm heading home. I'll call you sometime tomorrow. Ok?"

I'm a little disappointed about her getting off the phone without giving me more details about him and about Tyler bringing home a girl – What the hell is wrong with me? – but I have a few emails to check so I tell her I love her and we hang up. I open up Elena's email and shove a huge bite of brownie into my mouth at the same time.

To: Bonnie Gilbert, Jeremy Gilbert, Caroline Mikaelson, Pepper McAfee, Jennifer Cotton, Kennedy Dexter, Damon Salvatore
From: Elena Salvatore
Subject: News!

Hello all – hope you're doing well! I know some of you have called in the last couple of days, but Stefan and I have been a little preoccupied and haven't been able to work out a suitable time to give you guys a call back… time zones and all.
Anyway, I just wanted to give you all a heads up! Stefan and I have decided to sell our place here in Thailand and move back home! *YAY* We really want Allie and Grayson to know you all like family and we put the house up for sale on Monday as we saw no need to wait. Three days later and we have a wonderful offer from a developer who's most likely going to demolish the house and build a resort, but the offer is too good to turn down! So, Stefan just left to go meet with him and work out the deal… after their last discussion, he got the feeling that they'd want us out ASAP, therefore I'm thinking that we should be back in the states –for good- by the end of the month… three weeks at the latest!
We haven't quite decided if we're moving back to Mystic Falls or Wilmington, as we love both cities so very much and have loved ones in both locations, but in the meantime, we're hoping to rent an apartment in Mystic Falls long enough to make that decision and get all of our stuff shipped over from Thailand.
I'll contact you all just as soon as I have a more definite timeline/plan – but wanted to say hello and share our very exciting news!

Allie is thrilled to be moving home – and honestly, so am I

Bon/Jer – give Lola & Liam kisses from us.
Caroline – hope you're doing well and not working too hard during your first trimester!
Damon – We know you're still traveling, but if you get a chance, call Stefan on his cell. He needs to speak with you.

Love you all!
Elena, Stefan, Allie, & Grayson

Half way through that email I was so excited that I actually clapped! When I see the second email… I don't know how to explain how thrilled I am… overjoyed even, my cheeks hurt from the huge grin on my face.

To: Caroline Mikaelson
From: Tyra Hilton - HR, Roanoke CBS
Subject: Congratulations!

I don't even finish reading the body of the email before I've got my phone to my face and Klaus' wonderfully sexy accent floating into my ear.

He sounds sleepy, but a little horny at the same time, "Caroline, darling, tell me you're on your way home."

I'm too excited about the job and Stefan and Elena moving home to counter his flirty tone. Instead, I give a quiet squeal into the receiver as I try and not tell the entire office that I'm leaving for Virginia. "OMG! I got the job, babe!"

-Stefan-

I sit outside in my SUV for a long while – maybe half an hour, maybe more – I'm not sure. I just want to imprint the frame of the building and the color of the siding into my mind, secure the memories of playing hide and go seek with Allie and teaching her how to make smores. Every inch of this place holds huge, life-altering memories for me. I know, I'm being dramatic again in your eyes… but for me, this house, this life, my wife and my children, this was all impossible three years ago.

The window into the guest bedroom was broken by some fireworks that Elena had shipped in from the US so we could celebrate July 4th. I remember Allie thinking sparklers were the most magnificent things she'd ever seen – her round, green eyes wide and full of that child-like amazement that one seems to lose when they grow up.

The coconut tree in the front yard… it was the first time Elena ever had a fresh coconut. We were up late, just lounging on the couch together after Allie had gone to bed and we'd both had kind of rough days, watching that Tom Hanks film where he gets stuck on an island and lives off of coconuts for a while. When Elena said she'd never had a fresh coconut, I laughed – I don't know why it was funny, maybe because I knew how horrible they taste. But before I knew it, I was climbing the tree at a little after eleven PM and retrieving a coconut for her… waiting on the ground for me with her sexy giggle and growing pregnant belly.

We've made love on the front porch. Yea. The front porch… the deck in the back. The kitchen, the bathrooms, the laundry room, the garage… everywhere. Pretty sure Grayson was conceived in the back of her Land Rover during a lightning storm last summer.

I guess I hadn't realized how much this house meant to me until I signed it away and promised to vacate by next weekend.

Twelve days.

I'm replaying the meeting with the developer and counting the American dollar zero's on the check when my phone rings through the Bluetooth – Caroline.

Only because I've been avoiding her and really, everyone since they left, I answer.

"Hey." Immediately, I feel guilty for talking to her.

I don't know how she's done it, but Elena says she's forgiven me for sleeping with Katherine. Even says she didn't blame me at all once she learned that Katherine pretended to be her… I don't know, it's just not sitting right.

She doesn't want to talk about it… but I hear the cold underlying tone of her voice when she mentions Caroline's calls.

"Ok. I'm driving in like pouring rain so I can't talk long but Oh My GOD Stefan this is the best news ever! I am, like, thrilled! You're moving back and we're moving to Roanoke and the whole gang is going to be back together!" Despite my downward spiraling mood, Caroline's high-pitched rattle of happiness makes me feel better.

I lay my head back on the headrest and close my eyes – I haven't been able to sleep well in the last few days. I do not want to talk about why… "So you got the job? That's great!"

I hear her hearing me – that's an odd sentence… what I mean is, I can hear Caroline getting either concerned or annoyed by my less-than-thrilled tone of voice.

"What?" Caroline has a very honest voice. Whatever she's feeling she just lets out… no tact, no discretion whatsoever. That what is not a question really – more of a command to tell her what's wrong.

I lie. Immediately. I don't even think about it. "I'm sick, I think." I give a fake cough for good measure. "I think Allie picked something up at school."

And just as quickly as I lied, Caroline calls me out on it. "Oh okay. So now tell me what's really wrong."

I can't.

I can't tell Caroline that I had sex with Katherine… no way. I'm thinking up another lie or maybe some sort of details of having a cold, but I've not been sick even once since I turned human again and to be frank, I don't really know what all goes on with a common cold… that cough was my best put on.

Thankfully, my phone beeps an alert that I have a second call and I use that to get off the phone with Caroline, though she makes me swear I'll call her later and tell her what's going on.

I won't. But I say yea, ok, sure. Then switch over to Damon.

"Hey."

"Hey." Pause. Pause. "It's Damon."

I huff, "Yea, I know."

More pause. Finally, after a long enough silence for me to begin to feel awkward about holding the line, he says, "Elena emailed and said I'm supposed to call you. We're about to board our flight home, but I thought I'd check in real quick."

I'm confused for the slightest second, just long enough for me to put the pieces in place and for Elena to step out onto the porch with Grayson on her hip and a strange smile on her face… a somewhat victorious-Katherine like smile.

Before I left for the developer's office we had a serious argument about this… telling Damon. I'm guessing this is her final ploy at getting me to fill him in on what happened.

"Oh, yea." I'm grasping for anything to say, then remember the money. "Did you get the money?"

Damon releases a loud sigh right into the speaker, "Yea, got it. Spent it. Great strippers in Tokyo." I laugh, Damon is just so Damon and it's nice to hear as Elena has been very not-Elena and I've been feeling like a damaged piece of myself. First Caroline being cheerful, bossy Caroline and now my brother being as I always remember him being… it's comforting. "Really, Stefan. First class."

I feel like I'm glaring at Elena, but she's still smiling at me as I speak to Damon and get out of the truck. "Just making sure customs didn't run off with it or something."

"Sure, Stefan. I'm an idiot and left a couple thousand dollars wrapped up in a crayoned paper for a poor customs agent to steal…" Damon says something to her, then adds, "Give me some credit, brother."

"This coming from a man who spent three grand on hookers in Tokyo?" I joke, coming up to Elena and kissing Grayson's soft, fat cheek, then moving to take Elena's free hand in mine- I'm not one hundred percent sure, but when she brings her hand up to slide her hair behind her ear, it almost seems like she is avoiding my attempted touch.

"Strippers, baby bro."

"Not a lot of difference, I'd imagine." Elena's brow furrows, realizing we're not talking about Katherine I assume.

"Tell you what, little brother," I can almost see Damon's eyebrows moving all over his forehead, eyes widening the way he does when he's feeling ultra-sharp. "Once you and the old ball-and-chain get back to Mystic Falls, I'll take you out and show you the difference."

I'm still scrutinizing the timing with her moving her hand and can't invest a lot of thought into a witty comeback to Damon's joking, "I'll have to pass."

"Suit yourself." He sighs, sounding as if he's stretching and I wonder if his shoulder is still bothering him… our weakened, human bodies are beginning to pay for the rough lives we led as vampires. Damon has shoulder problems, I'm got an issue with my wrist and if I don't run regularly, I start to feel like my muscles are freeze drying. "Look I've got to go. Boarding."

As per usual, Damon and I don't really say goodbye, and I slip my phone into my pocket without any kind of salute to him.

Elena is still frowning at me – almost disappointed that I didn't get stuck in a situation in which I had to tell him about Katherine.

I was going to… just like I knew I would tell Elena, I planned on telling Damon, too.

But then Katherine told me about them trying to conceive for more than two years… it took me nearly killing her, missing her organs by less than an quarter inch for Katherine to drop the act she's used as a wall for more than 300 years. When she finished uncontrollably bawling on the floor, I got her a bandage for the cut on her side and she finally told me everything. I don't care about her or how badly she wants to have a family, but I care about Damon.

I care about my relationship with my brother and I'm very aware of the inferior thoughts he has of himself. It probably started with my parents, but Katherine's turning us both… toying with us both, and then Elena a hundred and fifty years later, Damon has convinced himself that I'm somehow better, more deserving. I know without a shadow of a doubt that Damon wants a family… a family with Katherine, so the last thing I'm going to do is yet again step in and appear as though I'm the better Salvatore.

Aggravated by her attempted manipulation, I try to sound as level toned as I can when I say, "I'm not telling him, Elena."

Like she's been planning this response, she says, "You know, you're a lot of things Stefan, but I never thought selfish was one of them."

I'm a lot of things?

I follow her into the kitchen, choosing my words carefully… I mean, I am the one who got us into this situation – I may be getting a little frustrated with her insistence on me telling Damon, but I have zero right to get angry with her.

She's walking fast – mad at me – and we're in the living room by the time I say, "You think I want to be this guy? Like I want to hide this from him? I want to tell Damon. I want to tell him what happened… he deserves to know, Elena, I get that." She sits Grayson in his bouncy seat and I have to speak a bit louder over the sound the toy jumping up and down and his coos. "But I have to wait it out and see exactly what it is I'm confessing."

I just cannot fathom the idea that Katherine may be pregnant with my child… it seems so unbelievably unrealistic, but I know that it's possible. I have to wait it out, a couple of months atleast. Hopefully, they will pass uneventfully and she won't be pregnant and I'll tell Damon what happened… If she is pregnant, then I'll decide what I'm going to do then – but the thought of emasculating my own brother, after everything we've been through… I just, I don't know.

Elena pivots in place, facing me with her arms crossed and face straight –too straight, a sign that she's very angry. "You aren't confessing, Stefan. You're telling him what Katherine did!"

Í can't figure out why Elena isn't understanding me, so as much as I do not want to actually SAY it again, I do. "And if Katherine is pregnant?"

"Then she'll be a single mom!" Elena shrugs. "Millions of people do it! Matt and I did. Damon can have the baby on weekends. Or he should get full custody, seeing as how she's a psycho!"

"Elena, he's not going to want anything to do with her, or the baby, or me for that matter." I sit back against the couch, turning my stiff neck to the side – the loud pop in my ears is somehow rewarding.

"Why would the fact that you… and…" It's like watching a building implode. That slow, methodical breakdown from the inside out. I've told Elena atleast three times now – Katherine said was ovulating – and I thought it was odd that she didn't seem to be bothered by it while I've been a little nauseated since the second the words came from Katherine's mouth. Now that I see her putting it together, I get the sense that Elena just wasn't hearing it when I'd tell her before – maybe there was too much going on, or maybe she'd blocked it for her own sake, but there's no denying it now.

"If she's pregnant, I cannot steal that away from him." I feel like I've been punched in the gut when I reach out for Elena, a tear streaming down her cheek, and she moves away from me. "Not until I know for sure that's it's not mine."

"That's great." Elena gives a sad laugh, wiping the tears from below her eyes and moving past me. I follow her into the kitchen. "That's just… that's great. Really. Katherine may be pregnant with your child… that's. Yea. That's great."

I can't stop myself from wanting to hold her – she's crying and shaking and I love her so much, I just want it to stop. But again, I reach out to take her hands and she snatches them away from me.

Trying not to look as rejected as I feel, I release a heavy sigh and shove my hands deep into my pockets as my eyes search for anything else to look at besides my very upset, crying wife who can't stand for me to touch her.

-Elena-

I don't know if time is passing too quickly or too slowly, but all of the stress involved with moving tacked onto this whole Katherine thing, I feel like I'm always on the verge of tears, or screaming, or hitting Stefan. Or all three. I'm trying so hard to not be angry with him, but my mind is playing tricks on me and each day seems like it's harder than the one before.

It's been a full six days since Stefan had sex with Katherine in our bed.

Seven since he and I have slept in the same room.

Other than passing Grayson back and forth, I've managed to keep him from touching me since the night we spent on the beach. I'm trying. I'm really, really trying to move past this, but every time I find him lost in his thoughts this whispered voice in the back of my mind bleeds into me the worst case scenario – Stefan's thinking of Katherine. He's thinking of what it was like being with her.

When he's on his phone, I get this surge of panic that he's talking to her or texting her.

Caroline called this morning – very early for us, late for them – she's just so excited that we're moving home, but yet, she doesn't call to speak with me… she calls Stefan. Asks him about Roanoke and the distance between there and Mystic Falls versus Wilmington. I know that it's plutonic – I swear to God I know, but when he laughs at something she says I dissect the tone of it, pick apart his voice and his response like I'm some investigator and he's a criminal.

During dinner tonight – which by the way, we haven't had our mini-tradition of him cooking and us talking since the night Bonnie and Jeremy arrived. I find something else to do… seeing him in such a comfortable, warm context, it hurts me for some reason. Anyway, during dinner, I could barely eat anything and just got up and went to take a shower without telling him or the kids goodnight.

Since then I've been laying on the extra –bed for probably two hours trying to find something to take my mind off of him… him with her. I can't focus enough to read any of the manuscripts that I'm already behind on. Listening to music is a bust because really, EVERY song reminds me of him, us… or her. So, I spent a little while flipping through Pinterest on my phone before deciding I need to unload… that's where journaling came in.

It's been more than three days since I figured out why Stefan was so dead-set on not telling Damon, and if I were being rational and not neurotic, I have to say I understand. He's trying to protect his brother. But what about me? I need Katherine to pay in some way! Something, anything! I don't know if she'd even care if Damon broke up with her, but that's about the most I can influence so that's what I want! Katherine's being possibly pregnant with my husband's child is too much for me to handle – I can't even conceive it.

Did I say conceive WTH…

"Elena?" Stefan's voice is quiet, but deep and robust as he opens the door without looking into the room. "May I come in?"

May my husband come in? How did we get to this place…

I want to say, Sure, of course. But what comes out is a curt, almost rude, "I guess." as I pull the comforter up and over my journal. I don't know why I do not want him to know that I'm writing, that I'm needing some kind of a release of all of these pent up emotions.

He steps into the room and the frequency between us feels so uncomfortable, awkward even. I can tell he's feeling the same by the way he stands at the foot of the bed, very stiff with his brow low and his face almost unreadable with his fingers pressed firmly against Allie's journal. "I was putting Allie to bed and noticed her diary," I'm half listening and half wishing that I looked as stone-faced as he does… I'm almost positive my eyes are red from a bit of crying I did a bit earlier. "Have you ever seen this?"

Extending his arm to me, I notice that he doesn't take a step towards me or even lean over to help get it closer, forcing me to move to my knees and take it from him. Annoyed, I nearly jerk it out of his hand as I roll my eyes about having to get out from under my warm covers that were protecting my not-as-hot-as-Katherine body from his very green eyes.

I barely look at the doodles before tossing it on the bed and scooting back to my original spot, still warm from my body heat. "Yea, so."

Stefan has this amazing poker face when he's not guilty or ashamed – any other emotion he is pretty great at hiding – but there are these tiny little give-aways that only someone well-versed in all things Stefan would pick up.

The slight adjusting of his chin.

The shadow on his jaw as he clenches his teeth.

And then there are those telling green eyes of his… he's getting irritated, annoyed by my moods.

I know how to push Stefan's buttons, in both good ways and bad… one thing that aggravates him quicker than almost anything else is this teenager like attitude that I'm actually pretty good at putting on even when what I really want to do is crawl over the bed and wrap my arms around his neck.

"Did you look at it?" He asks, adjusting his chin, one eyebrow raising for a fraction of a second before he regained his stone-faced disposition and take the notebook off of the bed, opening back up to the same page.

I huff, "Yes. I saw it when she did it. I don't see what's so important about her drawing a bunch of M's that you feel like you need to come in here in the middle of the night and wake me up!" I regret my shitty response before I even finish the sentence.

"Those aren't M's, Elena." Stefan's voice is getting that grit it in – the very same roughness that has always made my muscles begin to tighten… I hate how my lungs feel restricted as he continues to speak. "And it's not even nine o'clock, yet."

Because I have no other response to him disqualifying my complaint and because of how I'm reacting to his voice, as well as the per-usual desire to put an end to his being angry with me, I just roll my eyes then look down at my fingers in my lap.

"It's an astrological sign." My six year old daughter has no way of knowing an astrological sign – at the registering of his words, I look up to his eyes – looking at me in the same frustrated way I've seen him look at Damon when he's being especially uncouth. "Scorpio." I guess he can tell that I'm confused and concerned, as he begins to explain at the same time I move my feet for him to sit down. "October 23rd through November 21st. All this time she's been having nightmares about this sign, this M…" He swallows, licks his lips and does everything he can not to look away from me when he says, "Katherine has a tattoo on the back of her neck of this M."

"What?" I take the notebook and look over the many pointy tailed M's in different sizes scrolled randomly across the paper. "So she… Allie somehow knew Katherine was up to something?"

Nodding his head, Stefan releases a heavy sigh and put his hand on the inside of my calf – if I'd not had covers over me, separating his touch from being directly against my skin, I think this very innocent, unplanned touch might have actually sparked. Simultaneously, we both look down to where his hand is curved over the shape of my calf, then back to each other. "I think it's safe to say something is different about her… about us, even."

He's right. Our gravity, the way I react when he touches me, the connection that we've had since the very instant we looked into one another's eyes in the hall outside of the men's bathroom at school… it wasn't just me being a doppelganger and him being a vampire.

There's something more between us, something that can't be ignored or explained. Can't be destroyed.

And whatever it is, we've passed it down to our daughter.

I want to forgive him, I want to forget that it ever happened – but I just can't. Not right now. Not yet.

"We can't tell her, or anyone." I sigh, my eyes unfocused on the notebook in my lap as I run my fingers over the pencil marks and wish I could get enough nerve to run them across his clenched jaw.

"I know, but someday she's going to realize that she's different… that she has abilities." I can see the worry in his eyes, his love for our daughter is almost tangible. It's the one thing about Stefan that his misdeed with Katherine has not skewed in my eyes – he is an amazing father. "We'll have to tell her. Maybe we know something that can help her."

I nod, feeling a bit sad that my daughter is not just a normal girl, remembering how weighted Bonnie was with so many responsibilities from the moment she learned she had magical powers and the way I began to feel like a specimen as news of my existence spread throughout the supernatural world… I never wanted anything like that for Allie. I'm so emotional these last few days – way, way too easily brought to tears and almost immediately my eyes are pooled with wetness.

One escapes my lashes when I see Stefan's hand start to move – presumably to my face like he has always done when I cry – but he stops himself just short of actually moving more than just a barely-there twitch of his muscles. You have no idea how badly I wish I could let him touch me without my brain flying into comparisons of Katherine and me.

"It's going to be okay." Stefan says to me, his thumb grazing up and down the curve of my calf beneath the covers. I wipe my cheek and can't help but wonder if he's talking about Allie or us, or both. "I won't let anything happen to her. Ever." God his eyes are green. I mean, just a perfect emerald in this light and surrounded by the light sage walls of our extra bedroom. So green, so telling… truthful.

It's a very quiet whisper when I respond, "I know." And I hope he can tell that I understand what he's saying.

We spend a long moment like that – separated by the white down comforter, our eyes reading each other in a way that only we can, our frequency easing up and calming down, beginning to return to that mellow warmth that we've experienced for the majority of our two years here in Thailand. I want to tell him that I love him – that I meant what I said the other night, we'll get through this, we will make it – but I don't have the confidence at this moment to say it the way he needs to hear it.

Standing, I hear his elbow pop when his arm straightens and I want to remind him to put a pillow under it when he sleeps – something that only I would know he needs to do when the weather is starting to change and something that he always forgets unless I remind him – but I don't, I just watch him go to the door in this too slow gate as if he's hoping I'll stop him. Stefan is halfway into the hallway before I finally get my mind to work through the hurt I'm feeling and the fear of comparison.

"Goodnight." He says, pulling the door to.

"Stefan?" Lifting his head to look at me, I see hurt I his eyes, worry. "I –" My throat tightens and my heart pounds too hard and I almost chicken out, but I push through. I love him. I'm scared of him right now, and I'm hurt by what has happened to us, but I love Stefan. "This won't last forever, okay?" I try my best, hoping he knows that I'm referring to the strange distance between us. "I just, I need some time to grasp all of this."

He nods quickly, bites his lip like he does and my heart aches for him. "It's okay, Elena." Looking at me even with this distance, I can truly feel his gaze on me and for the first time in a week breathing feels a bit less strenuous when he says, "I'll wait."

*** More to come ***

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