Three months earlier...

Elena heard the sirens, but she didn't think anything of it. She was almost late to work. She didn't really have anything but on her mind. She skipped her morning cup of coffee, opting for the bland stuff that Sheriff Forbes supplied in the break room. The taste was a bonus, but the caffeine was the important part. Damon's keys, as always, sat right by her purse in a muddled heap. She rolled her eyes. He only did it to make her angry. She knew it. And he did it because he knew, no matter how busy she was, she would take the time to put them back up where they belonged. His subtle way of a teasing effort. Wordlessly, she hung them on the key hook next to the door and went out. "Later," she mumbled.

On the way to the station, she began her mental list of what was needed for supper. Bonnie was coming over for dinner with Jeremy at six and she hadn't so much as decided what they were having. Damon had /refused/ to let her think for herself last night, another thing he was on her list for. She shivered in glorious recall for several moments of those touches and steamy lip-locks until finally she had to make her mind take its own reins again.

"Dinner, Elena, dinner. Think. Damn," she hissed at herself, frozen was stranded behind a line of waiting cars. Up front she could see the emergency vehicles she had heard on her way out. Only their lights were going now. Elena could see a figure making on-coming traffic turn around in the parking lot of the old theatre and avoid the wreckage up ahead. Elena silently wondered if Tyler Lockwood had been out at it again, and this time really landed himself in a spot. He was always getting jailed for public drunk. He hadn't been the same since his mother's death six years ago. She doubted he ever would.

Elena's turn finally came to use the lot, but she was stopped instead.

Matt Donovan was the director. He wasn't an officer, just a civilian who was guiding the traffic. He was an old friend of Damon and Elena's, one of Tyler's buddies before his derail. Now he drifted towards them now, in attempt to keep himself out of trouble.

When he saw Elena, his eyes bugged out of his head. He didn't tell her to turn. He made her park.

"Lena, where have you been?" He sounded angry. A distressed angry.

"I'm running late. What is the matter, Matty?" she frowned. Matt shook his head sadly, his blue eyes glancing across the roof of her car to the scene in the background.

"Liz said she couldn't find you. The deputies are out looking-"

"What? What are you talking about, Matt? I'm fine." He really wasn't making any sense. Why would they be looking for her? She wasn't missing. Not unless leaving the lid off the sugar bowl was a new misdemeanor she was unaware of.

"Lena, it's Damon." Now she was confused.

"What do you mean?" Matt pulled Elena from her car.

"I mean, this is Damon." He pointed over her where a crew of police were documenting and tagging and writing things down like busy bees, never lifting their heads. "Mrs. Flowers—someone wasn't watching her enough. She found her car keys-" Elena's body suddenly went numb. Across the intersection, Mrs. Flowers' old gold Cadillac was in the middle of the city square, belly planted in the daisies Caroline's volunteer committee had just planted last Thursday. He always ran the square. Every morning. The ambulance was loading a gurney piled with a menagerie of detectors and monitors hooked to boxes.

"Is he dead?"

"I'll drive you to the hospital." He avoided her question. She started to ask again, but she had to sacrifice her voice to make herself walk. Finding her feet, she got back into the car, only on the opposite side. Her heart pounded in her chest. Was he dead? God, what if he was?

At the hospital, she was stuck in an empty waiting room with Matt and left to fear the worst. None of the nurses could tell her anything. She couldn't even see him. Elena couldn't stop herself from cursing each of the medical staff that trekked through the room as they awaited the ER doctor to emerge, whether they were on Damon's case or not. The next hours were like watching water boil, and it was beginning to send her into a point of breakdown. Matt stayed, trying to comfort her the best he could. Bless him, she was just too out of it to be reached. So instead, he kept two paper cups filled with coffee from the nurses' desk for them both.

Finally, the door opened and an older man came through. Elena had never seen him before. He wasn't a regular doctor in town. Elena and Matt were the only two people in the waiting room, so it was no question he was Damon's doctor.

"Miss Salvatore?" That stung. But she just nodded so he could continue. "Damon was hit pretty hard. He must have tried to jump out of the way, because he's not as injured as he should be. He has a severe concussion, several skin wounds that will have to be cleaned. But there's nothing broken. I do believe he'll be just fine." Relief flushed through Elena. He was okay. He was going to live. He wasn't dead.

"Can I see him? Please?" The doctor nodded his silver head, waving her ahead of him. She grabbed Matt's hand and almost ran down the hall. Matt, though, pulled her to back to calm her down.

"What is it?" she hissed, peeping through the cracked doors in search of her fiance.

"You need to prepare yourself, Elena. I know what the doctor said, but there was a lot of blood for there to be just 'a few wounds.'" She stopped then, paying strict attention to her friend. She hadn't seen the scene but from a distance. He watched it happen.

"You really think.." she said in a small voice. Matt nodded in agreement, squeezing her hand again. Reassurance. She shook her head. She just hoped he was wrong.

The last door on the hall was his. It was marked up for fall risks and close monitoring. Inside, a chorus of different machines monitored his vitals, injected him with medicine. They all had a flurry of chords channeling onto the surface of the bed, connected by white sticky pads to his skin or needles just under the edge of his flesh. He wasn't the same color. His skin was pale where it wasn't bandaged up with bloodstained wraps or ACE. The left side of his face was covered in a layer of gauze, unable to be seen. In his left hand, a tube of blood flowed back to a hanging bag on a silver caddy, dripping slowly. He wasn't awake. In fact, he was intubated. She trembled.

"Oh my god." It was all she knew to say. She ran a hand through his hair, the roots caked in dried blood.

"Elena?" The quiet voice nearly slung her out of her skin. She turned around to see Bonnie in the door, utter sadness on her face. "I'm so sorry." She instantly wrapped her arms around her best friend, squeezing her tightly.

"What's wrong with him, Bon?" Elena sobbed. "This isn't fine. That doctor lied." Bonnie shook her head.

"I know it doesn't look like it, but once he gets his meds and that blood bag, that's the beginning of it."

"Why is he on a breathing machine?"

"They induced a coma so he could rest and make sure his concussion doesn't cause any swelling, even though he was out when they got there. It might be a few days, but it's really looking good, E. I promise." Elena stared at the bruised man in the bed. One side of his face was covered in gauze. The other was swollen. His nose was broken. His eyes had already turned a sickly shade of black. Bonnie squeezed herself between her and the bed, squeezing her tightly, reassuring. It wasn't much, but coming from Bonnie it helped. It helped a lot. And if Bonnie said he was going to be okay, he really was.

Elena refused to leave the hospital. On Bonnie's next shift, she brought a bag filled with Elena's essentials, eventhough she promised her Damon would be okay for an hour. He was being monitored in every way possible. Camera, heart monitor, blood pressure, temperature, pain medicine. Nurses came and went every fifteen to thirty minutes. But she still refused to leave his side. Bonnie hadn't seen her best friend this way since Damon's first deployment. Elena didn't stay alone that night. Bonnie stayed up, brewing cup after cup of tea and helping her cope. Damon's first deployment was straight into the battlefield, and she was distraught with the idea he could die stepping off the plane. It was a harsh possibility Damon faced her with, and Bonnie wanted to slap him for doing it. But he was trying to help her. Somehow. When Bonnie set Elena's bag at the foot of the hospital bed, she was curled into the chair, watching the computer monitor mounted into the wall.

"When will a doctor be here, Bon?"

"I don't know. He's a soldier, and the healthcare system is so screwed right now."

"He's in a /coma/," Elena spat, giving Bonnie an almost evil look. "They should be here to check him!"

"Elena, I can't control them. They're doctors. When they know it's time to check on him, they will. It's only been a day."

"A day." Elena exhaled, unhappy in hearing that. She'd not slept in twenty four hours. It felt more like two weeks. She threaded her fingers into her hair. "I'm sorry. I'm just-"

"Worried. I know." She smiled sadly at her friend. "You spend your life worried." With a laugh, Elena said, "I know. But who would I be if I didn't?"

The doctor's report on Damon was what Bonnie had told Elena. He was okay, just sedated to reduce any possible swelling. The ventilator was for breathing, making sure his lungs didn't collapse since he was slung so forcefully beneath the car. It was possible they could remove it soon, though. He was on constant pain medication, so he wouldn't be in any discomfort while he was here, nor after he went home. Which came to they couldn't say when he would go home just yet. When he was okay to wake, get to walk, and eat. Basic everyday movements. But that could be days. Or weeks. The brain was a sensitive thing that couldn't be rushed into being well. It was its only healer.

A week passed. Damon remained the same, aside from his ability to breathe on his own now and his coma had downgraded. It was no longer induced. It was an actual coma. He probably would never have woken up after the crash anyways. His doctor had been by twice, only telling poor Elena what she already knew: He was asleep. He was the only one that could wake himself up. Until then, he would be monitored closely, and she would see the doctor return in a couple of days. And the process repeated. Stefan came everyday, offering to give Elena a break from sitting in the drab room with nothing but the sound of a heart monitor, but again she refused.

"He'll be okay, Elena. I promise. Between me and a team of twelve nurses alone on this hall, he'll be okay if you go for /just/ an hour."

"I want to be here when he wakes up." That was only ever her reply. So Stefan would sit, and talk with her to try take her mind away from Damon, even if he was just beside her. Sometimes it worked, but he was positive that most times it was the only thing she could think about. She still held the terrible possibility in her mind, despite what the doctors and nurses all told her. Damon had rubbed off on her.

Always looking for the worst.

"You have to wake up, Damon," he'd said to him one day while Elena had gone down the hall to the vending machine. He'd sprung on it, not having it in him to ask Elena to leave so he could. "If not for Elena, for me. I miss your ass."

Damon was all he had anymore. Losing him would tear him apart.

Elena unfurled herself from the second bed. The vinyl couch, after almost two solid weeks on it, she was at the point of no more. Stretching, she heard noises from the other side of the curtain. A nurse must have pulled it shut during the night. She slid it back, nearly losing her breath in the process.

"Good morning!" he turned the page of the hospital bulletin that was on the bedtable, looking rather interested in its contents. He always read the weirdest shit. She sprung across the room, elated to see him awake. She couldn't help it, and she didn't even think about his bruises or hurt parts. She took him into a hug, squeezing him to her. She was half in the bed with him.

"I was so scared you were gone." She felt his hands patting her back. She wanted to cry, but shock was damming it from happening.

"I'm just fine. You people just overreact." A smirk highlighted his mouth. Like it was nothing. God.

"I should slap you." He laughed.

"The sick guy? That's low."

"Do you know what happened?"

"I got ran over, would be my guess." There was a knock on the door, and Bonnie had a tray in her hands.

"I got you- Damon!" Her jaw fell open, and she all but dropped the food she carried.

"Bonster!" Damon grinned. "Long time no see."

"When did he wake up?" She thumped the tray onto the table and grabbed her pen, shining a light into his blue eyes as she raised each lid. She swatted her away, but she kept flittering over him and checking his vitals.

"I was up at a quarter to seven this morning, just like I always am. /Duh,/" he rolled his eyes, flipping the page of his bulletin. "I would have watched television but the remote is broken." He stabbed at the device on the table as if to emphasize his point. Bonnie shook her head, smiling almost as wide as Elena was.

"You are one tough son-of-a-bitch, Damon." She smiled at him, obviously pleased with what she heard. She checked the chart on his wall, signed off on something, then looked to Elena.

"If he can get up and walk and eat a full meal today, he can probably go home tomorrow. I mean, I'm not a doctor, I'm just six years of residency short, but I'm pretty positive that's what Dr. Tightass will tell you. I'll call, let him know Damon's awake." Elena smiled appreciatively and watched Bonnie leave. Immediately, she started opening the plates and bowls that were lidded on Damon's table. The plate held eggs, bacon, and a serving of hashbrowns. Each bowl had a serving of strawberries, yogurt, and pears, respectively, the third which Damon was allergic to. She threw those in the garbage. She unwrapped the toast, buttered it, and stuck a fork in Damon's hand. He looked at her, bewildered.

"Eat. I want you out of here."

"Bossypants, eh?" Damon spun the fork in his fingers and speared a strawberry out of the bowl and into his mouth.

"You've been here for nearly two weeks. You have to get out." She peeled back the label from two single-servings of grape jelly and set it in front of him.

"Yes, ma'am," Damon muttered, smearing the toast with it and taking a bite. It tasted like a damn piece of heaven, but that was probably from not having real food in ages. He resisted the urge to shovel it down his throat. Elena rolled her eyes, though she knew deep down that his snark was one quality about Damon she couldn't help but love. Now that Damon was awake, she felt a million tons lift off her shoulders. She wrote Stefan, and knew he'd be just as thrilled as she, if he didn't break his neck getting here first.

Just moments after Damon finished his breakfast, a bold but sweet-faced nurse swept into the room. She was armed with what appeared to be a berber-covered strap and one hell of a exuberant personality. She pulled away the tray, and introduced herself as Robin, the physical therapist. /Excellent/, Elena thought, but at the same time, she worried that they were moving too fast. Robin wrapped the piece around Damon's abdomen and grabbed the handle sewn into the back.

"Can you stand for me, Mr. Salvatore?" she asked, bracing herself to catch this man made of solid muscle. Even Elena went to aide her. But, to their surprise, he easily swung his feet from the bed and rose. His soreness, however, caught up with him as he tried to stand straight.

"For /fuck's/ sake," he hissed, and Elena bit her tongue in scolding him, knowing he had to be sore. A '75 Cadillac, two weeks in bed without moving. He /should/ feel like hell.

"What about we just /don't/ do this part, and tell doc we did?" he fought to toss Robin a cocky but flirty grin as he struggled with moving. "Get well gift?"

"Your get well gift is going home. Which you won't do if you don't walk." Robin was snippy, but she didn't completely mask the flattery she had on her face.

"Well since little Miss Bunhead here is so ready on me to leave, I guess I better." He flicked the bundle of hair Elena had tied to the crown of her head. She narrowed her eyes at him. Robin pulled on the strap.

"I'm not a dog. I'm coming," he bit. Robin ignored him and guided him out the room.

When he returned, the doctor was waiting.

"Well hello there. It's good to see you conscious for once."

"Good to be back, doc. Now, can we talk about leaving? I did all the things the pretty ladies told me to." The doctor, Elena finally learned, was a Dr. Eaves who was also completely temporary in Mystic Falls. He was set to leave this week. Damon would probably never see him again. Elena fumed at the thought, but bit her tongue. Bonnie was a better doctor anyways. She'd rather pay her.

"I just have to do a little evaluation first is all." Eaves found the clipboard and stuck a piece of paper into it he'd been holding. Elena missed that. He skimmed down it and cleared his throat.
"Okay. First of all, I want you to state your name, where you are, and what day it is." Damon nodded.

"My name is Damon Salvatore. I'm in Mystic Falls General, and it's the fourteenth of May, 2014." He was off by two weeks, but it was good enough.

"Actually, it's June the third, but you're close enough. Alright." Eaves marked off something on the chart, then lazily pointed at Elena off to the side.

"Can you tell me who that person is over there?" Damon's eyes flicked to her, but he seemed off.

"Her?" Damon's brows were so wrinkled they began to look as one together. Elena bit her lip. She lifted her hand, waved, and gave him a smile. His expression didn't budge.

"She's a nurse here, right?" Elena rolled her eyes.

"Funny, Damon." The doctor didn't say anything. He simply watched.

"Who's being funny? I'm asking. I don't know who you are. You were just here when I woke up."

For the first time in his life, Elena could see that he wasn't joking around. Void of any sarcasm or cockiness. He wasn't kidding. He was really confused. Finally, Eaves piped in.

"You honestly can't tell me who this young lady is here beside me?" Damon thought for a moment, blue eyes drilling into Elena like it might spark something, but then he gave a slow, baffled shake of his head.

"No, sir. I honestly cannot."