THIS IS IT! I'm so sad! I'm going to miss this story so much. Every single one of your reviews have made me smile, and I want to thank all of my followers, everyone who favorited this story, and everybody who like it enough to comment. Every time I wake up to an email telling me one of you left another review, I get excited. I hope that you all enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, and look for more stories on my account. I'm going to try to put another up.

Delena forever!

Xoxo—Cora.

I tugged the last suitcase closed, wincing at the high pitched squeal the zipper made. Jeremy watched me from the doorway of his bedroom, his arms crossed over his chest. He wore a loose fitting t shirt and athletic shorts. I threw him his jacket. "Here. You'll be cold on the plane."

He caught the fleece easily, and put it on without argument. "Are you sure about this, Elena?"

I put my hands on my hips. Jean short clung to my legs, and underneath my own warm sweat jacket, I wore a tank. "Jer, we have to get out of here, and you know it. Not only is it unsafe, but…it's hard." I took a deep breath, and sat down on Jeremy's bed. It had been stripped of his sheets, and his walls were bare. Not a picture was left hanging in the room. "I would love to stay here and pretend that everything's the same; that Mom will bump into me in the hallway as I'm on my way to the bathroom in the morning, or that I'll smell Dad's coffee before I even walk into the kitchen." I stopped to catch a few tears that had gathered in my eyes. "But I can't stay here, Jeremy. Jenna, Mom, Dad, even Bonnie, they're all parts of this house, of this town. I'll go crazy if I stay here and write journal entries from where I sit next to their graves in the cemetery."

He nodded. "I know, I just…" he trailed off.

I put my hands in my lap and cast my eyes down to them. "I'm going to miss Matt and Caroline more than anything in the whole world, but it's safer for them if we leave." I swallowed hard. "We won't miss anything; if they find Tyler, we'll get a call." Our theory was that Tyler had somehow escaped, and had high tailed it out of town. That was probably smart; there had to be some werewolf-pack around for him to join. I just hoped that wherever he was, he was safe. His mother, the mayor, was going nuts. But the thought of the mayor brought back images of the speech she'd made at Jenna and Bonnie's funeral, and that was exactly why we needed to skip town as well. In my carryon, I had two tickets to L.A. It was warm, sunny, and by default, vampire free. Damon, Stefan, Caroline and I were really the only ones who had the daylight rings; not many knew about them, and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to find witches to make them some. No, in L.A. we'd be safe from almost all thing supernatural. The Salvatore brothers and I would be the palest people in sight, but besides that, no one would be crazy enough to suspect our secret. Outside of Mystic Falls, the world would be different; less heavy, and brighter. Jeremy and I needed that change.

Damon was to meet me at the airport. He held tickets for him and Stefan both. When we got off the plane, we'd have nowhere to go, but that was nothing a bit of compulsion couldn't fix. Who knew, maybe Jeremy would meet some new friends when we enrolled him in high school. Maybe he'd develop a talent for volleyball, and have bikini clad girls chasing him around. Maybe I would try swimming. Vampires hated water, but I could change that, right? I didn't have to be miserable. I'd spend some time on the beach with Damon and pretend that I could get a tan. Maybe we'd even adopt a golden retriever to play Frisbee with. The possibilities were endless.

I picked myself up and grabbed the suitcase. Jeremy went to take it from me, but I shooed him away. "Vampire strength, remember?"

He reached over me and took it anyway. "Come on Elena, let me carry the bag. I don't want to look like the douche bag that makes a girl carry his stuff."

I gave a small smile, and it was smooth—easy. That felt good. "Alright, go ahead, be chivalrous." I let go of the handle of the suitcase. His arm flexed as he swayed, trying to regain his balance. When did my brother get muscles?

A pinch of sadness passed through me. He was too young yet. I was nowhere near ready for him to grow up. "Thanks, Jer," I said quietly. He smiled as he backed up, straightening with some effort. On our way out, I flicked out the light. I let him go downstairs. "I'll catch up with you," I promised. His footsteps disappeared down the stairwell, and I turned away. I opened the door to my room one more time, the familiar smell washing through me. My window was left open, and on the sill sat a familiar black crow. It didn't scare me the way it used to; in fact, now it brought a sense of safety. I smiled at it weakly, and then let my gaze slide over the rest of the painfully empty room. I sighed and stepped in slowly, running a hand across the dresser that we'd left. The bed was empty of a mattress, the windows cleared of curtains, and the walls stripped of pictures and mirrors. It was hard to see this place that way; I'd grown up in that room. Over in the corner by the window was where they'd kept my rocking chair until I hadn't needed it anymore. That closet, no longer filled with clothes, was where my childhood dolls had been stored when I hadn't been playing with them. Those came with us in a cardboard box labeled 'memories', but I realized that most of the memories existed in this house. And that was all fine and well, except for along with the good memories, there were also unbearable ones. I breathed in slowly and looked over the place sadly.

Was I making the right call?

If I left here, I was taking Jeremy away from the place where he'd grown up. I was putting hundreds of miles between our friends, our parent's graves, our school…all of it. It would all disappear the minute we boarded that plane.

A loud voice in my head shouted, 'Good riddance!' and I knew that my choice was a good one. We simply couldn't stay here; this was a dark, sad place. It brought death and danger and depression. I was going to lose my mind if I spent one more night in the house. So, I blew it a kiss and I shut the door behind me.

I eyed my parent's room. I hadn't been brave enough to go in there; Damon and Stefan had packed all their stuff up for me. I almost opened the door, just to see if their smell would still be there, to see if I'd be bombarded with happy childhood memories, but I caught myself. It would smell like mold in there, and dust would assault my nose. The room would be bare, and there would not be a trace of who they were left in there. The room would not remind me of them; it would remind me of losing them.

So, I turned and I trailed my hand along the stair railing for the last time, as the moving van beeped their horn in the driveway. Using the key from under the mat, I locked our door ceremoniously, and placed the spare key in the mailbox, along with the note Jer and I had written to the people who'd wanted to buy our house from us. They had a baby girl and the mother was pregnant with a boy, which seemed ironic because that was exactly how my parent's had bought the house so many years ago.

I got into the car next to Jer. He wanted to drive, and that was good, because I wanted to take in the town for one last time. I'd already said a tearful goodbye to Car and Matt; I was ready to leave. Jeremy turned to smile at me from the passenger seat, and I returned the gesture. Everything was going to be okay. I turned up the radio and sat back to watch my town streak passed me in all different, mesmerizing colors.

…

Damon met me at the gate, moments before our plane was meant to depart. I ran up to him and hugged him like he was my soldier come home from the army. He laughed into my hair as he swung me around. "Are you certain about all of this?" His question held a very serious edge, but my answer was light, quick.

"One hundred percent."

So, hand in hand, we showed the girl our tickets to get in. Jeremy helped roll our suitcases through the tunnel to the plane. When we reached the doorway, Stefan patted the surface of the plane. "For good luck," he told me, and winked.

I could feel a friendship forming between the two of us, and it brought a sense of happiness to me.

My seat was next to Damon's, and Stefan sat beside Jeremy, a row behind us. I could hear them discussing their music taste. That brought a tiny smile to my lips.

The air marshal came over on the loudspeaker, announcing our destination and all the rules to follow, should the plane go down. I snorted at the irony. God, that would suck.

About ten minutes later, we took off. A whistling noise sounded in my ears, so I popped a piece of gum and passed the pack around. Damon had let me take the window seat, and I watched out as the ground disappeared, light, fluffy clouds taking its place. The sky was completely blue above the clouds, and sunshine dove through the window. I placed my hand against it, felt the warmth on my palm. The light caught my ring, and it gleamed. Damon's smiling reflection surfaced in the window, and I turned to him, beaming. The expression felt nice on my face, and I think Damon liked it too. I leaned my head against him and closed my eyes tiredly.

This was where I needed to be; whether we were going to L.A. or Antarctica, I just needed Damon, Stefan and Jer next to me. As long as I had that, everything would be alright.

And it looked like everything was going to be just perfect from now on.

...

The End