A/N: All My Children marks the 50th episode of The Delena Diaries (excluding my author's note from a few weeks back) and as such I would like to take a second to thank all of *you* for sticking with me, for helping me turn this into the story it's become and for making my day with your reviews, every single day. Candy Momo, itwillalwaysbedamon, sharpie78, Trinimex, jairem, Jenny-Jay-21, and every single other person who has reviewed even just once, you are all the reason I'm still writing this. So, mushy stuff over, here's the next instalment.
All My Children
"I dreamed I was missing, you were so scared
I'm strong on the surface, not all the way through
I've never been perfect, but neither have you"
No. Too early phone. Go 'way. Ah, it's Elena.
"What?" – "Hey I called you ten times last night" ye-ep I know, got your messages too. "We need to talk" hah! No thank you. "Sorry I've been busy" – "If you're mad at me Damon you need to get over it" I need to 'get over it'? Honestly, girl really needs to brush up on her apologising skills. "Oh I'm over it"
I am not over it. Don't think I'll ever be over it. If I live another 100 years I don't think I'll ever stop hearing those words which is just, great. Sometimes having the memory of a vampire truly is a curse.
It's time for Barbie Klaus to leave, who the hell knows why I thought that was a good idea. Blame it on the copious amounts of alcohol I imbibed last night. Not that it wasn't good, with me it's always good. Better than good, mind-blowing.
"I expect you'll come calling soon enough" she says as I walk her to the door, well it wasn't that good, "let's not hold our breath". I'm fairly sure Elena has ruined me for all other women. Doesn't matter what she does, what she says, when I'm with another girl, a lot of the time all I can focus on is the fact that I'm not with her. That it's not Elena.
But that is. Shit. Elena. Oh god that wasn't supposed to happen. Yeah. There's not gonna be any talking my way out of this one. And all the sex I'm not gonna be having with Elena probably just walked out of my front door with Rebekah.
I turn to Elena and open my mouth to speak but nothing comes out because really, what can I say that doesn't make me look like the world's biggest asshole. For her part she just looks confused as hell so I move aside for her to come in and head upstairs quickly to change.
"Did you stop taking the vervain?" she asks when I come back with my complete mask of indifference firmly back in place. "You think Rebekah had to compel me?" perish the thought.
"What's wrong with you? She tried to kill me less than...48 hours ago" – "Can we just, move past that Elena?" seriously, why is she the one that gets to be pissed off in this situation? It's not like I cheated on her. I'm not your boyfriend honey.
Logically I get it, she's hurt, I had sex with Rebekah who just tried to kill her which is just, perfect Damon, way to fuck my shit up. But she's the one who threw my love for her back in my face like it means fucking nothing so she can forget me grovelling for forgiveness for this.
"So is that how it's gonna be now? I hurt your feelings and...this is how you lash out at me?" what? Sleeping with Rebekah is 'lashing out' now? "Well maybe, for once, something I did had nothing to do with you" lies. It had everything to do with her. She gives me a look that suggests she knows fine well I'm lying. Girl knows me better than I know myself.
Why is she even...oh. Oh. Wow. Um. Okay. I get it now. She's jealous. Man am I slow on the uptake today or what?
"You should know that Esther's planning on killing her entire family. She's linked them all together with a spell; whatever happens to one happens to all of them" brilliant! So we get rid of all of the Originals in one go? That's the best news I've had in...decades.
"That's great! Klaus'll finally be dead. We win" she doesn't look quite as impressed as I feel though, "Why do you look like someone shot a panda bear?" I mean, it's cute and all but what's the problem?
"Because to kill Klaus she has to kill all of them" yes Elena I heard that part, again, problem? "Including Elijah and he doesn't deserve this" what? "I'm supposed to care about Elijah?" you do remember the part where he stabbed us in the back at your sacrifice, right?
"Shouldn't you at least care about Rebekah?" she asks the question so cattily that it makes it very clear that she doesn't care about Barbie Klaus, and I wonder how jealous would look on her if she actually was my girlfriend. 'Cause this? Kinda hot.
"Two seconds ago you were pissed that she attacked you. It's a win-win" I say as I walk closer to her. I think possessive Elena might be up there in my top 5 favourite looks on her.
She turns away from me to leave and I dart in front of her, yep, still love the way her heart jumps around when I do that. "Don't do anything to screw this up Elena" – "Why are you doing this?" because they need to di-
"He's right you know, Klaus has to die, they all do" ah brother, so nice to have someone on my side for a change. "See? It's democracy in action" Elena sighs and glares at Stefan before shoving me and stomping out. Spilled my drink and everything! Yeah she is pissed. And she's probably gonna screw it up, great.
"Join me for a little victory drink?" I ask my brother, but he seems more interested in being morose and depressed. Well it's nice to see sane Stefan's back. Sorta.
"We should wait until Klaus is dead" – "Ugh. Why are you being so extra broody? Didn't you see the way we stood up to Elena? I liked you on my team, must've driven her nuts" well it's not like I'm suddenly not pissed off with her anymore. I just happen to like jealous Elena. She's sexy.
"You still think she's gonna screw this up, don't you?" yep. That'd be where I lay my money. Come on, it's Elena.
"Think somebody needs to talk to her. She's not gonna listen to anything I say" so maybe you'll have better luck getting through to her.
"Is it because of your little sleepover?" probably not. It's not like she listened to me all that much before it. "It's not my fault she decided to get jealous" – "well given who you chose to sleep with I would say it's 100 percent your fault" yeah, uh he may have a point there, actually.
"Whatever. I did you a favour. Now you can come in, sweep her off her feet" and all will be right with the world again.
"Nah. She's better off without me. Sure as hell better off without you" huh. Remember, when I said that I liked being a fully-functioning vampire now? I think I changed my mind. Can I have a dimmer switch please? No? Shit.
"Fine. Neither one of us gets her. Just make sure she doesn't screw up Esther's plan" I leave my glass of blood on the desk. It's a test. Stefan's been behaving a whole lot more, Stefan like these past few days, you know, all brooding, depressive martyr style and I think he's off the people stuff. We'll see if I'm right later but for now I need to call Elena.
She's not answering her phone, surely she can't be that mad at me? Anyway I call Ric to see if he's at home and then he can put her on the phone but he says he hasn't seen her since this morning. "She's not answering her phone" where is she?
"Well I'm surprised that you have time to call what with all this Original sex you've been having" huh? She told Ric? "She told you?" maybe she really is that mad at me. I wonder if she's more pissed off that I chose Rebekah, or if it's just the fact that I slept with anyone. If it's one of those; I don't want you but no one else can have you either type situations.
But trying to solve the riddle that is Elena Gilbert will only put my head in the spinner for a month so I return to my conversation with Ric, one problem at a time.
"Oh really, did she also tell you that she's having an attack of conscience about the whole Original murder thing?" 'course it wouldn't really be the Elena we all know and love if she didn't. "Hey listen I'm not gonna judge her for having a conscience" yep there it is.
"Well you don't have to judge her. Just, tie her up, lock her in her room til' this is over" oh god I should not have said that. Now I have exceptionally indecent images of Elena, tied up, dancing around my head. I end my phone call because Ric clearly doesn't know where she is and he's out with the psycho doctor.
And then I glance at the desk. Well whadd'ya know? I was right. Glass of blood is still sitting there, untouched. Which only means that I have to add Stefan and his drinking issues to my list of problems.
Problem number one being where the hell is Elena? I send Stefan out to search for her because right now I'm guessing she's actually more likely to speak to him than me and when I come up from the basement I find an Original Elijah in my living room.
He took Elena.
"I can't find her anywhere" Stefan says as he comes rushing in. "Hello Stefan" – "He has Elena" I tell my brother. God dammit why did I un-dagger him again?
"Actually she's with Rebekah" oh great. News just keeps gettin' better. "As you can imagine my sister's just dying to tear her throat out" fuck! This cannot be happening. We need a plan.
"So if you want to save Elena's life" did he seriously include an 'if' in that? He does know us, right? "I need you to help me stop my mother" well of course you do. Why can't you kill your own damn mother?
"I'm a little embarrassed to admit but when it comes to killing thousand-year old resurrected witches; I'm a little rusty" and as Elijah wisely points out, she's been dead before. She came back!
"So what are we supposed to do?" Stefan asks. Elijah explains that she's drawing power from Sabrina's bloodline and that bloodline needs to be broken.
"Broken?" – "Yeah he means..." I draw a line across my neck in the centuries old gesture symbolising death. Dead. He means dead.
"You want us to kill them?" Elijah says that he would do it but of course he doesn't know where they are. I can venture a guess though.
"You have until six minutes after nine. By nine o' seven the moon'll be full and my mother will have the power she needs to kill me and my family. If you do not stop her before then; Rebekah will kill Elena. So we all have our timeline. I suggest you get started"
And with that oh so helpful advice, Original dick number one leaves my house. And Elena is trapped somewhere with the Original bitch. Fuckin' fabulous.
However, because I am a mad genius, I have come up with a plan. A plan that could potentially result in saving Elena, not killing her friends and taking out the Originals. Seriously, how awesome am I?
After I make a few phone calls I head down to the basement where Stefan appears to be desperately contemplating taking a head-first dive into the cooler of blood bags but I simply do not have time for one of his crisis's right now.
"Clock's ticking. You gonna help me brainstorm a plan or are you too busy fixing a snack?" – "We need to call Bonnie, there's gotta be a way for her to stop Esther from channelling all that power" oh no, not gonna happen and I list all the reasons why.
"You got a better plan?" yes actually I do. "Worst case scenario simple mechanics: you can't draw power from a dead battery" – "Kill 'em" yeah, if we have to. I steal his blood bag and take a drink since he's obviously not gonna make any use of it.
"What if I told you I had a less diabolical plan?" I ask holding up the dagger. "You wanna dagger Elijah?" whoever, doesn't have to be Elijah. Any of them that's not Klaus'll do the trick.
"We don't know how that'll affect Klaus" – "Ironically enough, Klaus isn't our current problem" Stefan keeps trying to find flaws in my plan and points out that no vampire can use the dagger but "I just happen to know someone crazy enough to give it a shot."
I call Ric back and he lets me know that the Original brothers are still drinking their way through the town's alcohol supply. "So what's the plan?" he asks, "divide and conquer. First we'll need a little blonde distraction" Klaus seems to have a thing for Blondie which can only work in our favour so she steps up to the plate to play bait.
Stefan and I drive down to the Grill and pass Ric the dagger before making ourselves scarce. Please let this work.
Ric drags Kol out into the back alley where Stef and I are waiting. "Here grab him" Or. Not. Dammit! Dammit! Klaus. He yanks the dagger back out and then throws Ric into the wall. And then Stefan into the other wall.
"I should have killed you months ago" hmm. Oh. Dear.
"Do it. It's not gonna stop Esther from killing you" – "What did you say about my mother?" oh right, he doesn't know about the spell. "We have a lot in common; she hates you as much as I do" Klaus darts for me and to my own credit I don't even flinch.
"Leave him" oh great, thanks Elijah. "We still need him Niklaus" yeah, guess I'm gonna have to kill a witch now. At least I tried. Gotta be worth something right? Elijah comes down the stairs towards me, ignoring his brother's demands for answers.
"You tell me where the witches are or I'll tell my sister to kill Elena right now" but it's only half past eight! "You told me we had until after nine" – "I'm sure Rebekah will be more than happy to start her work early" fucking. hell.
We don't know for sure where the witches are but the only place that makes any kind of sense is the witch's house so Stefan and I drive over there.
"You know, if we sit this out Esther completes her spell, Klaus dies, you get your revenge. It's what you wanted the whole time. The only collateral damage is..." nope. I can't even begin to try and finish that sentence, can't say her name.
"Elena" Stefan does it for me. "You know what she'd choose" sacrificial little lamb that she is. "If we do this it'll wreck her" – "Ah she'll hate us. Thing is, she only has to hate one of us. Only one of us has to do the actual deed" – "Hmm. So who's it gonna be brother?" in the aim of at least making this look realistic I pull a coin out of my pocket.
"Heads I do it, tails you do it" but it doesn't really matter what the coin says.
"It's an awful lot of effort for someone who pretends not to care anymore" – "Pot-kettle brother" I flip the coin and the coin says tails but like I said, it doesn't matter. I'm the one who's doing it. I've been hated by Elena before, I can take it, I can handle it. My brother on the other hand, not so much.
I send him off in the wrong direction, towards Bonnie and I head for her mother. At least she'll still be alive. Sort of. But you can't be a witch and a vampire so I feed her my blood and snap her neck.
There is no choice. I will always choose Elena and nothing will ever change that. Not harsh words, not fighting. Not revenge, not killing Originals. Nothing. She'll hate me for it, of course she will, ridiculously enough. She'll hate me for choosing her life over the life of a woman who abandoned her daughter for 16 years. But that's Elena, it's who she is and she's the girl I love, that'll never change either.
I get home to clean up and have a drink, "she safe?" I ask Stefan when he wanders into the room. "Elijah kept his word, Rebekah let her go" well thank god for Originals and their sacred 'words'.
"I lost that coin toss Damon" well I know that brother. "Should've been me who turned Abby, why'd you do it?" 'cause you're my brother? Thought I'd even the playing field a little?
"'Cause I'm not blind, I see what's been goin' on around here. You're hangin' by a thread Stefan, barely over your last Ripper binge and all you want is to be the old Stefan again" he shakes his head at me "that part of me is gone for good" yeah he's a fucking beautiful liar my brother but I know him. I know what's going on, like I said, I'm not blind.
"Oh yeah, how long's it been since you had a drop of human blood?" – "How'd you know?" 'cause I got eyes. I'm not stupid, I'm your brother and I know you better than anyone in the world.
"Spend 146 years with someone you kinda start to pick up on their tells" Stefan doesn't really know all that much about the fact that I've spent the better part of my existence following him around the place but there it is. There I was. Gotta protect my baby bro', even when I hated him.
"Since the night I threatened to drive Elena off the Wickery Bridge" he finally answers the question and it makes a lot of sense. "See? You have enough to feel guilty about! Why add to the list? By the way, you're welcome"
"You know you're not fooling anyone either" he says as I walk away "you still love her Damon" well I wasn't trying to fool anyone brother, of course I still love her. I'm pretty sure even a blind man could tell how in love with the girl I am.
"I do. And I thought I could win her from you fair and square. She didn't want me" of course, because how could I possibly have ever forgotten the resounding, "it's always gonna be Stefan" we can add that to the "maybe that's the problem" pile of words that come out of Elena's mouth that I'll never fucking forget. Not that I forgot in the first place, I just...chose to ignore it for a while.
"It's for the best. I'm better at bein' the bad guy anyway" I raise my glass towards him and walk away.
Yep. Everybody needs a bad guy to hate. The one who makes all the tough choices. The choices no one else can make. The choices other people are afraid to make. And I guess, in this little fucked up family, that's always gonna be my role. But that's okay. I'm the only one who can handle the part.
Dear Diary,
I went to see Damon this morning, to tell him about the spell Esther did and when I got to the house, Rebekah was leaving. He slept with her! God I was so angry. That's not even true, I wasn't angry. I was hurt. And I was jealous. Maddeningly...jealous. I've never been so consumed with jealousy in my life. And I don't even have anything to be jealous or hurt by!
Damon doesn't belong to me! But in a lot of ways, it feels like he does. And sometimes, sometimes I want him to. And it's irrational, completely irrational that I'm so upset with him over this. But I am, and I can't seem to help it.
When I left the house I came home and Elijah came by and asked me to take a walk with him, he knew that I was lying to him and he trapped me in the caves with Rebekah! He told Damon and Stefan that if they didn't find a way to stop his mother's spell then Rebekah would kill me.
And they did, find a way. Damon turned Bonnie's mother into a vampire. And I don't know whether to be upset with him because of it, or grateful to him. I went to see Bonnie but she didn't want to see me. Caroline said that everything that happened tonight was to save me and that it was okay but somehow Bonnie is always the one who gets hurt and it's all my fault. Caroline didn't come right out and say that it's my fault. But it is. It's absolutely my fault.
Damon told me once that he would always choose me, and he did, he saved my life again tonight but he had to take Abby's humanity to do it, and I feel so, so bad for Bonnie. She just got her mother back and now they have to deal with her being a vampire, or not, I don't even know if she's gonna complete the transition.
You know what's even more ridiculous? I don't know if I'm more annoyed at Damon for turning Abby. Or for sleeping with Rebekah, I am a terrible person.
When I got home I had a letter from Elijah, apologising for what he did to me today and he said 'your compassion is a gift, Elena, carry it with you, always and forever' which really just makes me feel even worse because I am grateful, I am grateful to still be alive, even at the price that was paid to make it happen.
Elena