He carried her all the way from the house to his dorm room, not even thinking about taking her to hers room, considering her roommates brother just tried to rape her. He didn't want her to be alone, either. Her head was placed in the crook between his neck and shoulder, her breathing silent and low, but her heart was pounding wildly. She was silent, her arms thrown around his neck, but she wasn't clinging onto him. It was like she was afraid to touch him, but at the same time she had to do so. He thought she fell asleep, but she didn't. She couldn't see how she will ever fall sleep again, or at least in the time approaching, when every time she blinked she would see his face, and feel his breath on her skin, as well as his sharp touch and the musky smell he wore. Blink was so fast, and falling asleep was so slow, it's like blinking for million of times in five minutes. So much darkness, so much room for him to invade.

He carried her up the stairs. Luckily, Seth wasn't in the room, he went with the rest of the football team to celebrate the victory. He doesn't know how would he even explain what happened to her, not with Elena there, being able to hear everything. She stayed quiet all the way to his room, and he respected her silence by staying silent himself.

He lowered her on his bed, slowly, and she instantly straightened her body up in a sitting position. Her eyes were dark as the night surrounding them, and she looked like someone sucked all of the life from her. Someone did.

"Do you want to take a shower?" he asks, thinking how she probably wants to get his touch, his scent, his everything off of herself.

She nods at him, like a robot, or maybe like a mannequin someone else is controlling.

"Do you need any help?" he asks, even though he doubts she needs someone else's hands on herself, even if they're his.

She shakes her head, as he expected, and after few minutes gets up from the bed and walks into the bathroom. After some time the water starts running, and he throws himself in his bean bag, burying his face in his open palms. He goes through a phase of denial, moving on to a phase where he blames himself, until the phase of planning revenge comes. When he fails to think of a proper punishment, he realizes it's not about that, it's about helping her. Forget? He doubts she ever will. Move on?

Yes, move on.

After 20 minutes he realizes the water is still running, and he gets concerned, so he heads over to the bathroom, where he can see her crouching on the bottom of the tub.

"'Lena?" he swallows, "Are you okay?"

He doesn't get an answer.

"What are you doing?" he asks when he notices the fast movement of her arm behind the shower curtain.

"I have to get it off," she says through closed teeth, hissing those words out.

"Get what off?" he frowns, moving her clothes from the bathroom floor to the cupboard by the sink.

"Dirt," the rush of water kills the silence of her voice, but he knows he heard the word correctly.

He moves the curtain in a hurry and notices her crouching with a sponge in one hand, rubbing the other with it maniacally. Blood is pouring down her arm, mixing with water. There's extra redness on her skin, or what's left of it, since on some places she got the first layer off.

"Stop," he grabs her hand and tries to take the sponge from her.

"No, I have to clean it off," she fights him off and continues rubbing her skin, creating more bruises and scars on it, "Why won't it go off?" she cries out loud as he takes the sponge from her and throws it into the sink.

She whimpers as he turns the water off. He takes her arm and wipes all the blood off, wrapping it into a towel.

"There's no dirt," he says as he watches the blood protrude through the towel.

"There is," she cries out, "It's inside of me, under my skin," she raises her look and locks her eyes with his, "Please Stefan, I have to get it out, please let me get it out."

It takes all the strength he has in him not to cry. He wraps his arm around her, making her stand up from the tub. "We will get it out tomorrow. Right now, you need to rest," she's so lost she listens to him, even though he's not happy about it since she seems like she has no will of her own.

He takes her out of the bathroom and gives her a pair of his boxers and a shirt to sleep in. She gets dressed and instantly falls on the bed. He makes himself comfortable on the bean bag, waiting for her to fall asleep.

But she doesn't. In two, three, four hours, she's still awake, and so is he. He will stay awake as long as she's awake as well, even if that means forever. She keeps staring into the blackness, too afraid to close her eyes, and sometimes her eyes lock with his, but he sees nothing in them. Nothing but fear. After few hours she turns her back to him, and when he's sure she fell asleep, he allows himself to cry.

The next couple of days pass mostly in silence. He gives her time, and with time she calms down. She doesn't jump to every sound, nor does she twitch when people brush against her anymore. She even lets him sleep in the bed next to her without waking up screaming when he wraps his arm around her in his sleep. He often asks her is she okay even though he knows how stupid that questions sounds, to which she replies she is even though she knows it's a lie. Once he asked her did Lucas hurt her to which she flinched before telling him he got there just in time before he did her any harm. They try to avoid saying his name.

Stefan had to explain to Seth why Elena is staying with them, and why she's acting the way she is. He was understanding and had no problems with her staying over, he even suggested they should find the guy and cut his balls off, which Stefan considered for a shameful moment. She will have to request for another room which might take a while. He went to her room to gather some of her belongings, even though he left the most of it there, he will pack it when she gets assigned with another room. She would have went herself but she didn't want to bump into Anna.

The day after the incident had happened, she kept saying how it's all her fault. Whatever he said to her managed to get inside of her head and convince her she was asking for it. Alisson was of much better help in this area than Stefan was. Stefan was.. soft. Her pain was his pain, her words had the power to break him in half, and when she was feeling down so was he. Alisson was much tougher, and she had no problems with taking her by her shoulders, shaking her and yelling in her face. Stefan would never be able to be rough to her, especially not in this situation. She told her it's not her fault, it's never the victims fault. No one asks to get assaulted. Skirts are not an open invitation, and no means no and there's not a situation in which no means yes. Apparently, Elena gave some thought to this since she stopped blaming herself and started accepting the fact she never provoked him.

Both Stefan and Alisson tried to urge her to report him, but she refused to do so. Even though she realized none of it was her fault, she felt so ashamed of what happened to her. Of how helpless she was. She didn't want anyone to know. Her dad, aunt, Jeremy, not even her friends.

But people knew. And they talked. They kept whispering behind her back. She didn't hear them, or she likes to pretend she can't hear them.

And he can't protect her from that.

He decided to leave the matter aside until she gets better, but he certainly wasn't ready to give up on it. He would go and report him himself, but without her statement his accusations would mean nothing.

And with time she got better. She went to the office and explained why she needs a new dorm room, altering the circumstances a little, but still making them of great importance. She started attending classes regularly, when she noticed her college career is suffering, and she's always been too hardworking to throw everything away. She found her own self worth in things that used to matter to her before. She was coming back to her old self, even though she was still refusing to file any charges, because there was still a little bit of shame of what happened to her present.

Other than her studying, she realized her relationship is suffering gravely. She stopped being intimate with Stefan. In the beginning, he wasn't even able to touch her. In the beginning, he didn't want to. As much as she missed his touch, she was afraid of it. And because of that confusing feeling a new kind of sadness erupted inside of her. Then, he started making physical contact with her again, but she would flinch every time, which would discourage him and he would stop for time being. Silence was their biggest enemy.

She surprised them both when one day, before going to glass, she gave him a goodbye kiss. When that kind of an intimacy didn't scare her, she was encouraged to go for a higher level. She became more eager to touch him, and she accepted his touch with joy, even if it was just hand holding. She started kissing him more, and after she did so, he even started initiating kisses again. Then the make out sessions started, with minimum touching though, and with time, the amount of times his hands flew to her body started increasing. She even tried to initiate sex, but she could never go through with it.

It would only leave her with tears which he would end up wiping. She would keep apologizing to him, which would break his heart, because there's nothing to apologize for, it's not her fault. After so much distance between them, holding her in his arms somehow became more than enough.

The bruise on her cheek stayed there for quite some time, which he tried to mend. He made her go to the doctor to make sure nothing is fractured, and it wasn't, she only got some ointments he applied to her cheeks daily, followed by kisses. He would bring her take out from the restaurant to which they went the first day they came here, which became her favorite. He would make her tea and Alisson would bring her pancakes daily, knowing they're one of her favorite desserts. And when she started complaining how fat she's getting, and how she should go to the gym, he would uncover her stomach, which really wasn't as flat as it used to be before, but with a tiny bit of extra fat on it, and he would kiss it, saying how now there's more of her to love. To which she would smile, and that was his greatest reward, until she started laughing again, so smiling got some tough competition.

In a way, they missed their anniversary, since they did nothing special, but they barely noticed. They had bigger things on their mind even though both of them wished they didn't.

Stefan popped in a movie, and Elena made popcorn, so they made themselves comfortable with their decision on how to spend Saturday evening. When they were halfway across the movie, Elena came closer to him, wiggling herself closer to his body until her lips reached his. He thought she will give him a peck on the lips, as usual, but she didn't stop there. She started kissing him passionately, one of her hands flying to his face, cupping the left side of it, her body slowly grinding against his. Her other hand flies under his shirt, which is when he detaches his lips from hers.

"Elena, you don't have to," he says with a heavy breath.

Her lips scrape on his and he inhales her breath as she says, "I want to," and kisses him.

How long has it been? Three weeks? A month? He hasn't even dared to count, he didn't want to be that selfish.

She peels his shirt over his head and her hands roam over his body. He doesn't dare to take any of her clothes off, at least not too fast. She gets herself on top of him and his hands fly to her hips, gently squeezing her over her pajama bottoms. Her fingers slide over the silky skin of his chest as they ravel in delicious kisses.

Then, she detaches her lips from his rapidly, her eyes shooting wide open, and she jumps off of him on the other side of the bed. Her vision got blurry, as well as her senses, and her mind became fuzzy, and she could sense him all over again. The feeling and everything that followed it kept haunting her, especially when she found herself trying to be physical with Stefan.

She backed into the corner, brought her legs up and curled them against her torso, putting her chin on her knees and saying with a teary voice, "I'm sorry, I thought I can but I can't," a tear falls down her cheek.

Stefan straightens himself up in a sitting position and comes closer to her, putting his hand on her knee, "It's okay," he says warmly.

But she doesn't miss the flash of disappointment in his eyes.

"I'll make you a deal," she raises her head and bumps it against a wall gently.

He raises his eyebrow out of curiosity.

She exhales tiredly before closing her eyes to keep the tears in. "You can have sex with someone else," she opens her eyes slowly, observing the changes on his face, from curiosity to confusion, "I'm giving you a free pass."

He frowns, but doesn't say anything.

"Come on," she says irritated, mostly with herself, "You can't tell me you don't miss sex."

"I miss you," he confesses, "I miss being with you," the lines of his face relax.

"Well you can't have me," she raises her voice, "I'm broken goods, who knows how long will it take for me to move on," she says hysterically, more tears protruding from her eyes.

"Don't talk like that, don't refer to yourself as a broken good," he furrows his brows, "You're not a toy for me to play with. I have no ownership over you and your feelings do not depend on my sexual appetite. My feelings do not matter, not in this situation. Yours do. And I'll wait. I'll wait as long as it takes."

"What if you get tired of waiting?" she wraps her arms around her knees, "I don't want to lose you because of something I can't give you."

He inhales deeply. "Do you really think that low of me? That I would leave you because of sex?" he looks more sad than angry.

She looks lost. There's a look in her eyes he can't quite define. "I don't know what to think anymore," she swallows her words, "Every time we go further, I can hear him whispering those words in my ear, and his disgusting breath and touch so rough that it makes my skin inflame, and I feel like I'm going to fall apart. All the feelings come rushing down at me, and I'm a prisoner of my own mind. My own body is my cage which I literally can't escape. I'm drowning in those awful memories, and half of the time I feel like I can't breathe properly, and I'm afraid I won't be able to ever again."

"You will!" he tries to encourage her, "I'm not going to pretend that I know how you feel, but I know you can do this, and I'll be there for you, every step of the way. We will take things slow. I'm not going anywhere," he says the last sentence silently.

This provides some peace to her mind. She nods. She trusts Stefan, but she doesn't trust her memories. Her body doesn't trust her memories, since all of the beautiful ones are buried under that bad experience. She needs to find a way to dig them out.

He takes on of her hands and kisses each finger separately. "You're so strong, you're the strongest person I know."

"I'm not strong," she squeezes her eyes and shakes her head.

"Yes, you are, you just have to find that strength."

"I wasn't able to fight him off."

"Those were the drugs, they were enabling you to even try," he squeezes her fingers with his, intertwining them, "Besides, I'm not talking about the physical strength. I'm talking about the one that lies within. You've been through so much, and you always manags to fight off the bad stuff and reach for the good. You always find the way around the sadness. Even now, after everything, you're still standing, trying, fighting your way out of it, slowly but effectively," he gives her a look of admiration, and his words make her cry again.

"I'm so scared I won't find my way back to being me," she confesses through tears, to which he lays an open palm to her cheek, making her look up.

"You're already so much more like your old self than you think," he caresses her cheek with the tip of his thumb, "I would have died for you," this makes her shoot him a look of surprise, "But I can't live for you. That's up to you," he wipes her tears away with few brushes of his thumb over her cheeks.

She keeps looking at him for few minutes before she inhales and says, "I think we should go to the police now."

"I think so too."

AN: Honestly, when I got this idea, I wanted to take it in a completely other direction. I planned for her to really get raped, and for Stefan never to come to her rescue. But after seeing how badly she was treated in the show by the writers, disregarding everything she's been through for the sake of a man who wanted to be loved, I simply had no heart to do it. I also didn't want to have him save her and all go back to being rainbows and puppies. I wanted to give her time to find the strength within herself. And of course Stefan had to be there for her, it's only natural. Also, no one should go through something like this by themselves.