A/N: Have I told you guys recently how *awesome* you all are? Because you are. Seriously. All your reviews from yesterday were just incredible so thank you for that. Also lovely to hear from new readers so please do drop a note. Anyway - Our Town might be a little dull in parts because there's a *lot* of dialogue but I felt like it was super important to have this as a complete chapter given how heavily it focused on Elena. Hopefully you will still enjoy it anyway! Do let me know.
Our Town
"Secrets, are mine to keep
I'm not ready, I'm not ready
For the weight of us"
After a restful night spent reliving and dreaming of every priceless second of my first real kiss with Elena, I woke up in an exceptionally great mood. Well, can you blame me? I'm late for meeting Stefan and Bonnie but I don't care.
"You're late" he says as I come parading out of the shower and again; I don't care. Not even Mr. Broody Pants can put me in a bad mood today. "Relax brother, wouldn't want your hair to fall out" – "Well, would you hurry up? You know; we have work to do. Klaus isn't gonna spontaneously self-destruct" oh Stefan, for you, anything.
"Why are you all chipper?" - "No reason" nothing to see over here, I didn't kiss your girl and I'm definitely not gonna share the news anytime soon. I might be a dick but even I'm not that big of a dick. Like I said, I don't feel guilty for kissing her but I'm not about to rub it in his face.
Once I'm ready Stef and I head for the witches house where there is a distinct hybrid smell in the air. I head in quickly to check on Sabrina and make sure she stays quiet before going back up and ripping the hybrid's heart out. Man but I am getting sick of them. The one good thing is that they are exceptionally easy to kill. "Hybrids...really bringin' the neighbourhood down."
When Bonnie goes off to school I decide to take a shovel to the mysterious coffin that refuses to open while I wait for Stefan to come back but it's not working. "You're wasting your time" yeah I got that Stef, thanks.
"Did you bury the body?" he asks "yeah. Any sign of our little hybrid buddies?" – "Nope, just the dead one" well great, let's return to the problem at hand then shall we?
"Klaus has 6 siblings. Rebekah's now with Klaus" honestly, why couldn't Elena have decided to compel Jeremy before she gave Barbie Klaus back? "There was one dead kid in the Old World, one dead kid in the New World which leaves Elijah and two others. Three sleeping Originals, four coffins; so who is in the locked box?" or more to the point, what part of the life story did Rebekah conveniently fail to mention to Elena?
"No idea but whoever's in here, Bonnie seems to think will help us kill Klaus" which is of no use to us if we can't open the damn thing. "You'd think that the spirits of a bunch of dead witches that can make a coffin invisible; that they'd figure out how to open one" anyone listening? Ya there? No? Just us then. "Fine. Don't help" so fickle.
Stefan says that Klaus's hybrids need "to go away" but honestly the hybrids are the least of my problems right now and as I mentioned, they're ridiculously easy to kill. "How about you keep the peace, don't draw attention to the very things we're trying to hide" I suggest.
"No. I'm not gonna play defence when I have what Klaus wants, he does what I say or I dump his family into the bottom of the ocean" right and then "he kills you and everyone you know, like, I dunno...me?" which would really defeat the purpose of him saving my ass all the time.
"No he's bluffing; his family means more to him than anything else" –"You sure about that?" – "Well I don't know Damon, I mean I guess there's only one way to find out" o-kay. I think that Stefan might have gone a little insane on his latest Ripper binge.
"Call his bluff" oh no. No. No. No. ""Whoa, whoa, whoa...the only way to call someone's bluff, Stefan is to be willing to lose everything if you're wrong" again, like me and oh yeah! Elena.
But Stefan just walks away from me. What is he thinking? On second thought, I don't think he is thinking. At all. Now what am I gonna do? Please can we just rewind time, I don't know...maybe to last night on Elena's front porch? Pre-kiss? No? Dammit.
I head home for a drink, I may as well stick around the place, see whether or not Klaus comes to kill me after Stefan plays his dangerous little games. Seriously, how did I become the sane one around here?
There's a council meeting tonight elaborately disguised behind some fundraiser or other so I drive Ric over with me and fill him on the latest Stefan-drama. "I thought Stefan saved your life?" he asks when I'm done explaining. "He did" – "But now he's willing to risk it just to see how far he can push Klaus?" uh...apparently, yes? Ye-ep. Stefan's lost his marbles.
"Well is his humanity on or off?" – "Yeah I'm thinking there's another...option here in play; bit of a dimmer switch, which is a huge problem" – "Why?" – "Because I can't predict how far he's willing to go until somebody gets killed" and I can't predict who that somebody could be and right now that scares me more than anything.
"Suddenly you care who lives or dies?" oh come on, it's not that sudden. It's been a work in progress. "I have a small list" oddly enough no longer just filled with the names of people Elena loves, some people made it onto that list on their own merits.
"Ha. Talk about a humanity dimmer switch" – "Screw you" my switch is just fine. I haven't dimmed anything. I feel, okay? I feel everything these days. And yeah, that used to suck, but now? Now not so much. Now I kinda like being a fully-functioning vampire...weird.
"Can't a council meeting ever just be a council meeting?" nope, it's always about money in some way or another Ric. Fortunately I have an almost bottomless supply of the paper stuff so it doesn't really bother me all that much. Apparently tonight, my money will be helping to restore the Wickery Bridge.
"This is the bridge where Elena and Jeremy's parents died in a car accident", a car crash that has always sounded a little...suspicious if you ask me. I mean, how does one accidentally drive off of a bridge? I'll never tell Elena but I'm convinced there was something supernatural behind what happened that night.
It's also the bridge where Stefan saved Elena's life that very same night.
You know it could have been me? After we met on the road, and I talked to her, I considered following them home; just to see her again for a second. But I changed my mind and headed out of town instead.
I was still a dick back then, most of the time, and I was trying to convince myself that Elena was nothing more than a poor imitation of Katherine. That she meant nothing to me, especially not after a 2 minute conversation. Aaand we all know how well that turned out.
"You know something is up with her; Elena, something more than usual. Do you know what it is?" as much as I'd like to hope that it's me and the kiss "I'm sure it starts with a 'Stef' and ends with an 'en'" okay, time to go drink more. I leave Ric and go to find Mrs. Mayor and donate some of my not hard-earned money so we can get outta here.
Klaus is here; of course he is, chatting up Carol and everything. "Good to see you Damon. Uh, Carol and I were just discussing whether you would be tonight's other big benefactor" hmmm. Klaus and the mayor? That's probably not a good combination. I give them a piece of my mind but it looks like Klaus has firmly gotten his claws into her which is just great. More problems that we didn't need; we really need to open that damn coffin.
"All you have to do is get Stefan to stop decapitating my friends" Stefan did what now? Sweet!
"Please Damon, get your brother under control or the council will be forced to take action against him" did I just...? Did she just...? "You've gotta be kidding me" – "Oh come on mate, give peace a chance" Hah! You have never met me, have you? I don't really go in for that 'peace' crap. Nope. Not interested in peace. I am interested in you dead.
I have a chat with Liz about what's going on with Carol and Klaus and she becomes the second person to tell me to get Stefan under control tonight, so...yeah, might wanna work on that. I know he's around here somewhere so I head upstairs to find him. And I do, find him. About to de-head another hybrid, really Stefan, here?
"What are you doing? No dead hybrids at the Founders party" idiot. He's pissed off that Klaus's hybrids are still around, "have you forgotten about Elena's part in all this? Or do you not care if she's a human blood-bag for the rest of her life?" yes I'm using Elena to try and knock some sense into the boy, hey whatever works right?
"No. Protecting Elena is your problem now, see I'm not compelled by Klaus to do that anymore" okay first of all, protecting Elena is not a problem; never has been and second of all, did he hit his head on something exceptionally hard and lose his fucking memory? He's supposed to love her.
"Don't give me that no humanity crap, you can't just flip your switch. Your switch is fried Stefan, just like your brain. You wanna take Klaus? You wanna beat the villain? You've gotta be smart" something you are clearly lacking in at the moment.
"No, to beat the villain Damon, you have to be the better villain" oh god what's he going to do now? This is getting tedious.
I call Elena to check in as I haven't seen or spoken to her all day; I'm guessing she's avoiding me but – "Hello Damon" Stefan? Why does Stefan...? "Why the hell do you have Elena's phone?" – "Making my next move" huh? With...Elena?
"Let me ask you something: what's Klaus gonna do if he can't make any more hybrids?" oh good god. "Stefan leave her out of this" bastard hung up on me. Christ, he's got Elena and I don't know. I can't trust. Fuck!
I call back but it just rings and rings and as much as I hate what I'm about to do, I have to do it because he has Elena. I have to talk to Klaus. I have no idea where Stefan's moral compass is pointing right now but I know for sure it's not pointing in the right direction.
"What now?" - "Stefan just grabbed Elena" – Well he's getting desperate" I tell Klaus to get rid of the hybrids but he still doesn't seem entirely agreeable on that point. He says that Stefan won't kill her "that kind of love never dies. He's bluffing" but that is not a chance I am willing to take.
"Maybe he is; maybe he isn't. But if you don't wanna believe him, believe me. I know my brother better than anyone and right now I don't have a clue how far he's willing to take this, so if he says blink I suggest you blink" because it's Elena and if anything happens to her I will destroy. Stefan. Klaus. Mystic Falls. The world.
Fucking Wickery Bridge. That was low even for a crazy-ass Stefan. Jesus I have to get to her. Right now. Logically I know Stefan wouldn't have done it. At least...I'm fairly certain he wouldn't have done it, and it worked in our favour, but really, of all the places in town, did he have to do it on the fucking bridge?
I find Elena sobbing her heart out and make a valiant attempt at comfort which seems to work relatively well. At the very least the tears stop and I drive her home.
"Thanks for picking me up" – "Any time. You gonna be okay?" – "I'll survive. Somehow I always do" yes, that you do. You survive because you are the strongest person I've ever met in my life and I've met an awful lot of people. Never before, one with such bravery and determination against all the odds though.
And because I know how strong she really is, I know she can handle being told the truth about what Stefan did tonight, because a part of her will want to hate him for this; and it would be easy for me to just let her but if I'm ever going to make Elena mine, then she deserves to walk into it with eyes wide open and that includes knowing everything about my brother as well.
And let's face it; I really don't want her to be with me just because she hates my brother. I'm done being second best. I want to be her first choice. I want to be her only choice.
"You know Stefan won this round for us today. He pushed Klaus to the edge and Klaus blinked" she turns away from me before responding, "Well his method sucked" yeah, that it did.
"Still, we needed it. Klaus has been calling all the shots and Stefan beat him at his own game. He was the better villain" even if he is currently a few sandwiches short of a picnic.
"Don't sound so impressed" – "Well I can't help but be a little proud" I say with a smile because honestly, what he did tonight? That's definitely something I would have done. You know, before I was completely gone for this girl standing in front of me.
I reach out and stroke her cheek with my thumb, "really, tell me...you gonna be okay?" but she just stares at me for a really long time before sighing.
"You can't kiss me again" – "I know" I understand. It's too soon. "I can't" she whispers, her words made ironic because once again her eyes are attached to my mouth.
"It's not right" she finally says, but I won't let her do that. She knows just as well as I do how right this is, what we have, and I won't let her force herself into making that not true.
"It's right. Just not right now" but it definitely is right, there has never been anything more right, ever before. It's just the wrong timing, is all. And I really believe now, in a way that I never have before, that our time will come. I have to believe it, because otherwise I think I'll go insane.
"Goodnight" – "Goodnight, Damon" yep. It will be right. One day.
Dear Diary,
It has been a long night, morning, week, month. Year.
Yesterday was Care's birthday, only she didn't want to celebrate because well, technically she's dead. So we decided to throw her a 'funeral' instead, so she could say goodbye to the girl she used to be and move forward with who she is now.
When Care went off into the woods with Tyler, Matt and I followed her and then Stefan appeared out of nowhere, he knocked Matt out and kidnapped me. He forced me to drink his blood and threatened to drive us off Wickery Bridge and turn me into a vampire! Just so he could 'destroy' Klaus.
I don't understand how Stefan could do that to me, my parents died going over that bridge, I almost died and he knew that, of course he knew that because he's the one who saved my life. He said that Klaus had to believe that he would go through with it, that my 'fear' sold it, but I would have been scared anywhere; he didn't have to do it on the bridge.
I asked Stefan what he would have done, if Klaus hadn't believed him but he didn't answer me he just said that he has to destroy Klaus, but is he trying to destroy me as well?
It feels like he's trying to make me hate him and when I told him that he said that he doesn't care what I think anymore. He said that he lost me the minute he left town with Klaus and I just haven't let myself admit that yet but I don't believe that. I'm not in denial.
After being reminded in a horrific way of the first time I nearly died, Matt and I went back to the bridge. I told him that he was right, I do feel stuck in this life, trapped in a lot of ways and it's because I've been holding on to the girl that was supposed to die there that night, the girl that I was back then, the girl who had a normal life, normal dreams, normal friends and normal boyfriends. The girl who didn't fall in love with vampires.
That's what I said to Matt, that I was the girl who didn't fall in love with vampires. Vampires. Plural. I don't even know where it came from, it wasn't what I was thinking but it's the words I said. But I'm not in love with Damon, I mean, I would know if I was in love with Damon. It's not like you can just pretend not to love someone. I'm not.
I'm not that girl anymore, and I can't ever be her again so I had to let her go, I have to let go of the past and try and embrace the future, whatever it holds.
Damon picked me up on the bridge last night and drove me home, I'm not even sure how he knew where I was, but he did and then he was there. Rescuing me, just like he always does. I told him that he couldn't kiss me again, that I can't do it. That it's not right. No matter how much I might want to.
But Damon said that it is right, it's just not right now, he said it like it's inevitable that we'll end up together, like he's so sure of it and his complete dedication to me leaves me breathless. He said goodnight and I went inside but as I was standing there watching him leave I almost wished he would just come back and kiss me all over again.
But I meant what I said, I can't do it, it's not right and I understand now what Damon meant, it's not right now, the timing is all wrong, my feelings are all confused, I don't know whether I'm coming or going with my emotions half the time and I need a lot of time to try and figure out the depths of everything that I feel, especially for Damon. There's too much going on around us, too many outside influences and too much pressure all the time to even try and begin to sort out what it is that's between us.
But Damon's words gave me, hope. Hope that maybe one day I will be able to sort out my confused heart, hope that maybe one day I'll be able to move past all that's happened and find the place where I belong.
Elena