Chapter 5

- Stefan -

It's funny how people who hurt you the most are the ones that swore they never would.

'Elena?' Meredith asked again gently. I turned and stared at Elena as she struggled to find the words.

I could recognize those signs from a mile away – her breath would quicken, she would start fiddling with her hands, and would look generally uncomfortable. A little frown would appear on her forehead, and there would be absolutely no trace of the person I generally knew.

I started worrying as I saw her anxiety attack building up inside of her.

She had suffered from these attacks ever since... No, I didn't really want to think about that. Not here and especially not now.

I had been with her ever since whenever she went through these attacks – they were gruesome to watch, as it tortured her not to be in control of herself. Over time she stopped confiding in me but I had grown so used to all her little habits that I knew her inside out. I wanted to help, I truly did, but I knew that trying to help her in front of someone else – especially a stranger like Meredith – would annoy her. She was a very proud person – proud and stubborn. With a great deal of character.

As I observed her struggling to talk, I couldn't help but have a flashback. It only took a few seconds but it brought back so many memories - all at once and all too quickly.

October 1999

I still remember the first day I met Elena – she walked into the Mystic Grill with her head held high and a big smile on her face. She was holding Damon's hand and beneath that confident facade I realized that deep down she was utterly nervous. It was the first time Damon would introduce her to someone in the family. Knowing Damon, he had probably told her how important family was to him. And the pressure of meeting me was visible in her behavior – but she did beautifully.

'It's lovely to meet you, Stefan' She kindly said shaking my hand and smiling. ' Damon has told me a lot about you.'

'All bad, I assume.' I joked trying to lighten the mood. I was nervous myself surprisingly – it was the first time I'd ever heard Damon referring to a girl as his 'girlfriend'. Damon had a good heart deep down but he was the kind of guy who would date, not the kind of guy that you would see in a relationship.

'Probably not as bad as the stories you are going to tell me about him.' I laughed out loud and turned to face Damon who was dreading me opening the secret box of 'Damon stories'.

'She's a keeper.' I told him sincerely.

She was a true gem – she was beautiful, smart and had a sense of humor. Somehow, despite the differences between her and Damon they seemed to fit together perfectly, like they were made for one another. I don't think I'd ever seen Damon so happy like the moments when he looked at Elena.

It was strange seeing my little brother all grown up – I was used to the crazy party-animal Damon, not the Damon who would act so gently and considerately towards a girl. Certainly not the Damon who would sneakily kiss his girlfriend when he thought I wasn't looking.

When Elena excused herself to go to the bathroom Damon and I were left alone. I couldn't help myself.

'What I want to know is how you got a girl like her.' I said and knew right away that I was teasing him. Damon shifted in his seat, smiling more than I'd ever seen him smile.

'It just happened.' Yet I knew that was a lie - he hadn't just gotten her, he had probably fought very hard for her.

'Did you trick her into dating you?' I carried on teasing.

'This might come as a surprise to you, Stefan, but she fully agreed to go out with me without me pulling any tricks.' His defensiveness told me one thing, that he cared about her - I smiled realizing that.

As I said goodbye to them that night I couldn't help but feel like I envied my little brother. He seemed to have found the perfect match in Elena. It was still early days but I could tell he was completely smitten with her. I couldn't blame him one bit. She was indeed a keeper.

Two days later I woke up to a knock on my apartment door. I thought I was dreaming and turned one the other side, yet the knocking persisted. I looked at my clock and instantly felt annoyed as I saw it was 3am. I groaned as I got out of bed and looked through the peephole to see Damon standing on the corridor. He looked disheveled and not himself at all.

I opened the door in a rush and he just stared at me looking completely lost.

'Damon, what's wrong?' I asked in a panic.

'I think I love her.' He said sheepishly.

It took me a while to process that information and realize that nobody had been injured or was dying, and that Damon was just going through an emotional turmoil.

'Come in.' I let him walk in and slammed the door behind me.

'Do you want something to drink?' I asked and went straight to the bourbon I knew he liked. I didn't feel guilty giving him alcohol anymore as he would soon turn 21.

'No, thanks.' He said, all too seriously. I turned around questioningly and suddenly woke up from my sleepy state altogether.

'Ok, this is serious.' I said and put down the bourbon.

'This is not the time for jokes, Stefan.' I looked at Damon and realized this was really important for him. I sat down next to him and struggled to be as patient and understanding as I possibly could in this state.

'I'm not joking, Damon... I'm listening.' I said and hoped he would trust me enough to talk to me about this.

Damon wanting to open up to me was indeed a rare occurrence. We had always been close ever since we were kids. We were like the three musketeers, but two instead of three if that makes any sense. We shared everything with each other, though when it came to emotional matters I was more open than Damon. I was only five years older than Damon, and counter-intuitively it should've been the other way around, but it felt like he was the older brother sometimes, always giving me advice about girls. Well, not anymore. Apparently the reason he could always give me advice was because he wasn't emotionally involved.

Damon sat on the edge of my sofa with his fists clenched together and all of a sudden he looked at me with the most dumbstruck expression on his face.

'I love her.' He stated and looked like he was in shock.

'That's normal, Damon.' I said in a gentle tone.

'We've been dating for four weeks.' He sounded almost incredulous.

'Sometimes you just know straight away.' I said from experience. 'It doesn't take a lot to get you to fall in love with someone.' It had happened to me before. And now she just wanted us to be friends.

'I've never felt like this about anyone...' I knew that all too well – this was indeed a first for my little brother.

'I've never met anyone like her before. I keep thinking I'll wake up one day and she'll be gone but... she doesn't seem to realize that she's too good for me.'

Shock overwhelmed me as I stared at Damon, not knowing what to answer. I was so used to him being his normal overly-confident-brinking-on-arrogance self that I didn't see this coming. He was doubting himself.

'Listen to me, Damon. She is not too good for you. Elena is a wonderful girl, and you two deserve each other. You have so much to offer her in return, you just don't realize it.' It took him a while to take this all in. He struggled to believe me, yet after a while he nodded and looked at me thankfully.

'I don't know what to do.' He said and reminded me of the little kid that would steal my toys and hide them to convince me to play hide-and-seek with him.

I was so grateful that he had decided to trust me with such an important moment in his life - it meant the world to me. I told him in my most sincere tone:

'Just let her in.'

Present day

'Elena, are you ok?' Meredith asked pulling me out of my day-dream. I looked back at Elena and decided to do one simple gesture to show her I was ok with her telling Meredith the truth.

I took her hand in mine.

My gesture seemed to startle her but she looked deep into my eyes and a small smile appeared on her lips, her frown completely gone. My heart swelled inside me. I smiled back and she looked towards Meredith.

'Stefan and I... we lost ourselves along the way. And we don't know how to go back to the way things were.'

'Can you expand on that, Elena?' Meredith gently asked and Elena took a deep breath.

'He cheated on me half a year ago.' I internally cringed as I expected her to either cry or lash out, or leave the room altogether. And I expected Meredith to look at me and think I was a pig – just like the rest of the world had thought and told me. Surprisingly, none of those things happened. Elena carried on and she sounded more honest than I'd ever heard her.

'But... I don't blame him for it. The truth is that I haven't been the perfect wife in a very long time.'

Somehow Elena still managed to surprise me, even after all these years.

'I know I blamed him for everything that has gone bad, but I was lying to myself. I'm just as guilty as he was.' I carried on staring at her, not knowing what to say.

'What do you mean by that, Elena?' Meredith asked seeming intrigued by this turn of events.

It took Elena a long time to respond.

'I simply stopped trying.' There was pain in her voice as she confessed.

'Elena...' I said trying to make her stop.

'It's true. I stopped trying. And I'm going to try to do better by you.' She said looking straight at me.

She looked... guilty if anything. For what, I wasn't exactly sure. She didn't give away anything else after this point in time. If I didn't know better I would've said she was trying to defend me by telling Meredith that she was to blame as well. But deep down I knew she was being honest. It was very unexpected to hear her saying all of this, especially after the last few months.

The rest of the session went by in a blur. By the end of that hour I was feeling incredibly tired and didn't want to go back to the office. But it was midday and I had exhausted my lunch break on the counselling session. On my way back to the firm I couldn't help but think about delving into the past for a split second.

Why I had been thinking of my brother in that particular moment, I couldn't say for sure. It was very strange. There were many moments during my marriage with Elena that I would look at her and she would remind me of Damon. Painful moments – moments that I would strive to forget, almost as if I was trying to erase them from my mind with a huge rubber gum. Him and Elena were so linked in my head that I could never separate them.

Despite not talking to Damon for ten whole years I could never say that I didn't care about him. In fact, I would find myself thinking about him every single day, wondering if he was safe and finally happy. Elena never mentioned him anymore and I didn't want to remind any of us about what had happened. Our marriage had been founded on Damon disappearing out of or lives and somehow we had managed to move on – torturingly so, but we had managed it. To bring him up would mean that our peace and quiet would be at risk and I had already ruined that with my affair.

Instead I rejoiced in talking to mother often about Damon – despite her disapproving my marriage with Elena, she had accepted it and would still keep me in the loop regarding Damon. It was comforting to know that he was alright but ever since mother had gotten ill I knew nothing about him. For all I knew he could be dead. I shuddered at the thought and stopped myself from thinking that.

After pulling into the parking space I took my briefcase and got onto the elevator for the 46th floor. As the doors opened the name of our firm came up 'Mikaelson Salvatore'. To this day it would still amaze me that I had made senior partner in the firm. And I would smile every day I got off the elevator and walked into my corner office.

My secretary April would generally greet me with a smile and a quick update about everything under the sun. She had been Rebekah's replacement after what had happened. And every day I saw her I thanked God that she didn't remind one bit of that woman I'd wronged my wife with.

Yet today April looked troubled as she greeted me. Even worse, she looked very pale and worried, her big blue eyes looking like they were going to bulge out of their sockets.

'What's wrong?' I asked immediately. My first thought went out to my mother.

'There's someone waiting for you in your office.'

'Who?'

'I don't know – he wouldn't say his name. He just walked in asking about you. I told him you were away for lunch but he barged into your office and has been in there ever since.'

'April why didn't you call security?' I asked, amazed at how naive and silly she was.

'Because he said he is part of the US military.'

I looked at her as she blinked a hundred times in a few seconds.

'What?!'

'I'm sorry, Stefan. I didn't know what to do...' She looked as if she was going to cry.

'It's fine – I'll deal with him.'

I walked towards my office half-dreading whatever it was that awaited me there. As I got closer, through the transparent walls I saw the back of a man wearing a blue shirt and black pants. He was very still, staring out my window. I didn't think much of it until I opened the door and he turned around, making me freeze in the middle of the office.

'Damon.' I managed to utter, feeling like I was seeing a ghost.

He smiled and his blue-grey eyes pierced mine. Strangely enough, it was as if his eyes told the story of a man who had absolutely nothing to lose.

'Hello, brother.'