A/N: I just wanted to make something a little clearer here because otherwise it could get confusing, Elena *did* accept her love for Damon in The Departed, but at no point has she admitted to being *in* love with Damon, so just, keep that in mind. Also this one is superbly long because baby-vamp Elena just did not want to shut up! I hope you enjoy our kick off to S4.
Growing Pains
"One more kiss could be the best thing
One more lie could be the worst
And you're not something I deserve
When all the pieces fall apart you will be the only one who knows"
After a short lapse in time in which my brain seems to completely stop functioning and accept that Elena is alive all at the same time I find the will to move again. Elena. I find her, and Stefan, in the morgue, where Stefan informs me that she woke up briefly before I arrived and then promptly passed out again.
Judging by the heavily guilt-ridden look on his face I am not going to like the story he has to share about how Elena managed to die while he was supposed to be taking care of her. Then again, Stefan's face looks eternally guilty so it could be nothing. Right now though it's more important that we get Elena out of here and back home.
Stefan picks her up and after I compel the necessary people to forget all of this madness we take her back to her house and settle her in the bed.
It occurs to me that when Elena wakes up again we're going to face yet another problem. Elena's choice. And I think we all know how great she is at making those. This time though, I'm not talking about the choice between us brothers. No, that decision has already been made, in a way that is still too painful for me to rehash. This time, it's her eternal choice. The choice of forever. The choice of death. The choice of eternity. The choice of non-existence.
It terrifies me that I can't predict what choice she'll make. It terrifies me that if she chooses to die, I don't know if I'll be able to let her. It terrifies me that for the very first time I truly understand why my brother made that fateful choice that he made all those years ago.
Aaand she's awake, well, this should be fun. She wakes up gasping for air and fighting to breathe and although it's been a fucking long time, I remember that feeling well. But Saint Stefan is beside her, ready to lead the charge on the moral high-ground I'm sure, while I have relegated myself to the window seat.
"Stefan?" – "Hey, I'm right here, you've been in an out for hours" yes, hours in which I have been fighting the overwhelming urge to reach down my brother's throat and pull his heart out through his nose. Which I'm pretty sure is impossible but hell I'd like to give it my best shot.
I take another swig from my trusty bottle of bourbon because right now it's the only thing stopping me from acting on my darkest impulses.
"What...what happened?" yeah Stef, tell her what happened brother.
"You were in an accident" fucking Rebekah. I fucking helped her. Hell I saved that bitches life and this is what she does?
"Oh my god, Matt is he?" – "Alive?" oh she's finally been alerted to my presence in her room. "Ask Stefan, the hero" yeah, Saint Stefan to the fucking rescue. Of his 'one true love's' ex-boyfriend.
"He's fine" Stefan assures her. Yeah he's fucking fine. Because instead of saving our, I'm sorry, his girls life, he saved Matt. Because she asked him to. Please, let me introduce you to my brother, the village idiot. The world's dumbest brother. I need more alcohol.
"Oh thank you. I thought that I...how did you?" – "Save you? He didn't" kill him. I'm going to fu-ck-ing kill him. Who knew my brother had such a thing for the quarterback?
"When Jeremy brought you to the hospital before all this happened, your injuries were worse than anyone knew. Meredith Fell made a choice, she used Damon's blood to heal you" Stefan explains.
"And when Rebekah ran Matt's truck off the road, you had vampire blood in your system Elena" there's a unique sense of justice I feel, rightly or wrongly, I don't care, in that it was my blood. In the end, if she chooses forever, and after Stefan uttered the name Jeremy, I'm pretty sure she will, then in the end, I'll have been the one to save her. And that will always be a part of her. Honestly, I'm just looking for the positives in this otherwise unholy mess of a situation.
"Oh my god, does...does that mean that I...am I dead?" yeah, yeah you kinda are. But I'll let you in on a little secret, all the best ones are.
"No, no, no, no...that wasn't supposed to happen" what does she mean it wasn't supposed to happen? It's better than dead-dead, right?
"Maybe it doesn't have to, I talked to Bonnie, she said she's stronger than ever, there might be something she can do to help you" but there's not. Of course Stefan is on a martyr quest to rival no other but there is nothing the witch can do in this situation and giving Elena false hope is just going to lead to a million more dramatics and she is running out of time.
"No, the only thing that's going to help is for you to feed and complete the transition" Elena looks like she's going to faint or throw up from the shock and I know I'm being blunt but come on people! Let's just get on with it; we all know how this story ends.
"We have all day before she has to feed Damon, that's a day to exhaust every possible way out of this" you've gotta be kidding me? Elena's looking at me as if I have all the answers to her questions but I really don't, I only got one. "There is no way out of it, we all know the drill; you feed or you die...there is no door number three"
"I was ready to die. I was supposed to die. I don't wanna be...I can't be a vampire" yeah honey, you can. And one way or another, you're gonna be, because I can't...I don't think I can let her die.
"If there's something that Bonnie can do we have to try" – "We will, we'll try everything" god why does no one ever listen to me? This is only going to end badly, as usual.
"Your choice Elena, as always" I stand up and leave them to it. I've said my piece and Stefan the fucking good can sit around all day and wait for a miracle that'll never come if he wants to but not me. I go and hunt out another bottle of bourbon from Ric's stash. Guy had bottles hidden all over this house but I head straight for the open one in the kitchen cupboard. Yeah, I'm gonna need a lot of alcohol to get me through this day.
"Way to get her hopes up for something that's never happened in the history of vampirism" I say as Stefan comes stalking into the kitchen.
"You know what, you weren't there the day Elena looked me in the eye and told me she absolutely never wanted this" yeah, well that probably says more about you than it does her brother.
"Then you shouldn't have let her die" and there's that desire to rip his heart out clawing back at me again. I drink. "I never meant for her to die. She asked me to help Matt first and I did" yeah because you're so fucking weak that you couldn't save them both like I would have. Pathetic.
"And now the world has one more quarterback, bravo brother" your stupidity, astounds me.
"I made a choice that I will regret for the rest of my life. Now let me try to fix it" well good luck with that Stefan. Be sure to let me know how that pans out for you.
Compulsion. Ah shit. Hm, yeah, so Elena's gonna remember that now, both times, and I don't think I really wanna be in the house when she does. So I'm gonna go, kill something now. I decide to track down Barbie Klaus because yeah I'm feeling that destructive. Really I just need to take my rage out on someone and my stupid brother isn't really an option right now.
I find Rebekah indulging in some destruction of her own at the Mikaelson mansion. "Tragic, about Elena. Not to make a grey cloud greyer, but does Matt even have automobile insurance?" she turns her back on me, stupid girl and I race for her with the White Oak but clearly I'm not that stealthy because she spins around and grabs my arm before slamming me into the wall.
She twists my hand and I drop the stake and then someone shoots her. There are others here, so I push her off of me and run. Who the hell? What was that? God I need to find out what's going on! I try calling Stefan, Bonnie, Blondie, no response. Finally I phone Meredith who actually picks up the damn phone and tells me that Pastor Young came by the hospital to seal the place up.
Evil-Aric outed us all to the Council and the pastor is the new man in charge apparently. I call Stefan and Elena again but still nothing and now I'm sure something is wrong so I go to Elena's and sure enough they're gone. That's when I phone Liz.
"They're gone" I tell her as she walks through Elena's front door, "whoever nailed Rebekah took them too. Please tell me you have something? Anything"
"I can't. The Council locked Carol and me out of our offices. Files, computers, everything" this, is a bad situation. "So the Mayor and the Sheriff never contemplated a back-up plan Liz?" a very bad situation.
"Damon relax, when Caroline called to say she got away did she know where they were planning to take her?" Meredith asks Liz. Wait, Blondie got away? Where is she? Why didn't she call me?
"No just that she was in some van in the middle of nowhere and she managed to escape" how? "Perfect, we've narrowed it down to nowhere" don't they understand? Elena is running out of time. I have to find her. Why the fuck did I leave her? Today of all days?
There's a knock on the door as I turn away, who is it now?
"Hey, is Elena here?" oh no. No way. I grab him and pin him against the banister.
"In what world are you the one that gets to live?" Matt fucking alive Donovan, not alive for very fucking long if I have anything to say about it.
"Damon stop it wasn't his fault" Stefan's fault. "Let him go Damon, now" fine, fine. Okay. I squeeze his throat a little bit more and then I let him go.
God dammit why will no one pick up their damn phones? I'm running out of patience and time.
"With your vervain and Alaric's weapons they could be anywhere" Liz says. Apparently the Council raided my vervain stash which probably isn't a good thing but right now is the absolute least of my worries.
"Come on guys think. Takes a lot to hold a vampire; re-enforced steel, iron doors" the quarterback finally engages his brain for long enough to let us know that the pastor has a cattle ranch, in a secluded area.
"Well guess what?" I say turning to Matt, "looks like you get a chance to prove how sorry you really are" now let's go. Get me to the right place and you get to become my new best friend for the duration of our journey. Maybe I won't even kill you afterwards. Maybe.
God I wish Ric was still here, I could really use him right about now. There were no signs of Elena having fed in her house and if they had just listened to me this morning then I would be much calmer about this whole mess but she hasn't fed and every minute that passes she's dying a little bit more and let me assure you, it hurts, so wherever she is she is dying and she's in pain and I have to fix this.
But I'd really like it if my best friend were here to help me fix it. Hell, at this point I'd like it if my brother was here to help me fix the mess that he created, but all I have is Matt the quarterback so I suppose I just have to take what I can get. This guy better turn out to be the world's best fucking football player or I swear to god.
On a completely different topic, but somewhat related to Ric, how the holy hell am I even still alive? He staked Klaus. We should all have been dead shortly afterwards only, we're not. So either something went down with the witch when she asked for her time alone, or Klaus was lying. Personally I'm leaning more towards Bonnie having some cast some witchy woo-woo but that's another problem for another day. Right now I got much bigger issues at hand.
We finally make it out to the ranch and I have to pray to a god I don't believe in that we're not too late. I don't know exactly what time everything went down last night but I know that we're fast approaching it, but now is the time for action.
"So what? We just storm the place with zero weapons?" my new buddy asks. "Nah, we don't need weapons" I am a fucking weapon. "Just bait" I dart for him and sink my fangs into his neck then leave him bleeding out on the ground.
"Yoo-hoo, anybody home? Big bad vampire out here" I don't bother returning my face to its standard human qualities until the pastor opens up and shows his face, may as well show off the goods.
"Let him go the boy's innocent" Pah! There's no such thing as innocent in our world, not anymore. "Give me Stefan and Elena he's all yours" I grab Matt up off of the ground by the neck, "come on pastor. You know I'll kill him. I wanna kill him" true story, I do. I really do. "Go away. You are not invited in and I'm not coming out."
Wooden bullets pierce into my shoulder and I guess we're doing this the hard way then. Shame, simple woulda been much quicker. On the other hand, the hard way means that I get to kill people and I'm all good with that too.
I'm lying on the ground playing dead and really people should know better but they don't and I'm not, so when they come close enough I jump up, grab their guns, I snap one of their necks because I love that sound and then I shove the other's gun into his chest. And, dead. Next?
Ah. Matt Donovan. I kick him while he's down and yeah maybe I'm a dick but I don't care. I'm fucking pissed off.
"Go ahead, kill me. You can't possibly hate me more than I hate myself" oh I think you'll find that I can, actually. I press my boot into his throat, "it should have been you" and then I'm flying on to the ground.
Elena.
"Leave him alone" she growls at me.
Wow. Oh. My. God. She is fucking mesmerising. Magnificent. Beautiful. Aaand, pissed off at me. Oh well, what's new there?
"You were gonna kill him" I see vampirism hasn't done much to change Elena's righteous indignation, 'course there's always time.
"Yep, guy just won't die" – "It was my choice to save him, why aren't you seeing that?" oh I see it honey, I just hate it.
"It's a little hard to keep track of all your choices lately Elena" I stop and turn to face her but she looks at me with pity and fuck that because I don't need or want anyone's goddamn pity so I turn and start walking away again.
"I remember everything" well that stopped me in my tracks. She remembers. Everything. Of course she does, I knew she would. And I hate that once again there's a flutter of hope rising inside of me but nope! That needs to go away. Right fucking now. But dammit if it isn't that crazy bitch hope that makes me turn back around and walk towards her again.
"One of the highlights of my transition, remembering everything that you compelled me to forget" she sounds kinda pissed off with me which yeah, I guess I understand, I messed with her mind and all. But come on, the girl left me to die alone, last night!
So while there's hope, there's also a little anger.
"Like how you and I met first" regret.
"You were a stranger that told me you wanted me to get everything I wanted from life" fear.
"Damon why didn't you tell me?" resentment.
"Would it have made a difference?" hope, again. More so than I'd like and enough that I can't even bear to look at her and figure out what she's feeling but I force myself to look anyway.
Acceptance.
"I didn't think so" hopelessness.
"You asked me to make a choice Damon so I did. If you're gonna be mad then take it out on me, not on Stefan or Matt, or anyone else. Me" I can't look at her. Won't look at her. Because if I do we'll have to add 'broken' to that list of emotions that I'm feeling.
"Are we done here?" 'cause I need to drink more. There needs to be a lot more alcohol involved for me to even begin getting over the last 24 hours.
"If it had been you on the bridge last night" now I do turn to look at her because seriously, is she really about to ask me what I think she's about to ask? "And not Stefan and I begged you to save Ma-"– "I would have saved you in a heartbeat, no questions" because that's what you do for the girl you love. For the girl who is your everything.
"That's what I thought. And then Matt would be dead because...you couldn't let go. Matt would be dead" actually, to get technical about it for a second. Matt would be alive. Because I would have saved them both.
"But you wouldn't be. And you would've gotten to grow up and have the life you wanted, the life that you deserved. And I know I didn't use to get that, but I do now and I wanted that for you Elena. And I would have gladly have given it to you and let Matt die because I am that selfish.
But you knew that already. First night we met's not all that you remember" she doesn't say anything, she just searches my face, my eyes, with hers, looking for something that I don't know and most assuredly can't give her.
I need to leave. Only, I can't. Because the girl I love is a vampire now, a fucking magnificent, stunning creature of the night and there's not a chance in hell that I'm leaving it to Stefan to teach her how to be one.
Welcome to the dark side baby. It's a hell of a ride.
Dear Diary,
How did my life get so complicated? It all started so simply, I met a boy, we talked all night and it was epic. And it was all downhill from there. I'm a vampire now. The one thing I never wanted to be, it was a choice that was taken from me, a choice that should have been mine to make if I ever decided to.
I understand why Meredith gave me the blood, of course I do, and nobody could have predicted that my own brother would try to kidnap me and that Rebekah would run Matt's truck off the bridge. How very ironic, that I die for real in the spot where I was supposed to die the first time.
It was very surreal, when I woke up from being dead, oh god, does one wake up from being dead? Or is one simply, dead? Or not dead? I felt alive, is my point. Damon was there and he said that I had to feed, or die. That there was no door number three, he thought that Stefan and me were being stupid for having hope that Bonnie could do something to stop it, and I guess he was right. I should have just fed this morning.
I told Damon, when I phoned him last night to 'let him go' that maybe if we had met first it would have been different, and as it turns out it wasn't even a lie, because we did. We did meet first and I think it would have been different.
He was a mysterious stranger in the road on a dark night who told me that he wanted me to get everything I wanted out of life, and I was captivated by him right from the word go. I was captivated by his beauty and I flirted with him, even though I was still technically dating Matt.
He told me that I wanted passion, adventure, danger and a love that consumed me. It was his voice, Damon's voice in my head. All those nights and all those dreams that I had after the accident, I could hear something, a voice in my mind speaking to me, trying to tell me that I was forgetting something important, that something happened that night. And it did.
It was Damon. So it wasn't a lie, when I told him if I met him first it might have been different because if he hadn't compelled me to forget then maybe it would have been. But we can't live our lives with the maybes, wondering 'what if'. He did make me forget, and now it's done and we can't go back.
And that was the first time Damon compelled me.
The second time he compelled me was the night he brought my necklace back, I remember writing at the time that I somehow just knew that it was Damon, that I felt something had changed that night and it did. He told me that he loved me for the very first time and then he made me forget.
He told me that he didn't deserve me, that Stefan did. Why does he insist on being unworthy? Love is not something that you deserve, it just is, it simply exists. He doesn't have anything to prove to me, he never did.
But he told me that Stefan deserved me and how could I have ever known anything else?
I chose Stefan, I was going back to Stefan because after everything that we went through, after everything he did to get better, to become himself again, I believe that he deserved me to go back to him, he deserved to be able to say goodbye to me. I made a choice about who to say goodbye to and I chose to say goodbye to Stefan.
Only now, now I have an eternity, and even though I know I love Damon now, I've accepted that I love Damon, I do still believe that I at least owe Stefan the chance of making our relationship work. We never really broke up, we were forced apart by circumstances out-with our control and there was never any real closure.
I can't just leap from one to the other, I'm not Katherine, so I have to give Stefan a chance, our chance, I have to see if there's anything left for us that can be salvaged now because no matter what I feel for Damon, and what I feel is love, I meant what I said to him when I called him. I never stopped loving Stefan either, I just don't know what kind of love that is now, but I'm going to find out.
I told Stefan tonight, in that barn, that I was coming back for him, that he was the reason I was on the bridge, I told him that it was the best choice I ever made. I'm beginning to question the sanity in that statement to be honest. The best choice I ever made resulted in me becoming a vampire, the one thing I never wanted to be.
But that's not Stefan's fault, because I know he never wanted me to be a vampire either, he didn't want that for me, for my life, my future, and I know he feels badly, more badly than words can describe, about saving Matt over me but the one thing Stefan has always done is respect my choices.
Damon would have saved me, I know he would have and he would have let me hate him for it because that's what he does. It's who he is. He loves me so much, sometimes I think he loves me too much, that it doesn't matter if I hate him or not, as long as I live. And tonight, he said that that made him selfish, but he's got it all mixed up. It's what makes him selfless, it's one of the most beautiful parts of him.
But the point is, Stefan feels terrible about leaving me to die, and I think I said what I said because I needed him to know that I don't blame him, I don't resent him. I don't hate him. He did what I wanted him to do, I was ready to die. I accepted it. I was supposed to, I was protecting the people I love and with my death came Alaric's and with his death came safety. Safety for Damon, Stefan, Caroline, safety for everyone.
Only then I woke up from being dead, and I had another choice, the choice to live, the choice of eternity. And when I was in that god-awful barn tonight, dying with every second that passed, and hurting so much, I realised that after all of this time, trying to sacrifice myself for the greater good, all of this time of being protected. I realised that I didn't actually wanna die after all.
I didn't ever want to be a vampire, but compared to dying? Leaving behind my friends, my family, and how could I ever have done that to Jeremy? Compared to dying, becoming a vampire suddenly sounded a whole lot more appealing.
So I did it. I drank the blood. Vampire I became. Now I just have to figure out how to be one.
Elena