A/N: Sorry it took so long to update, school got crazy. Next chapter will pretty much just be full of fluff.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
PRESENT DAY
I fall through the front door of the coffee shop and make a quick left towards the hospital. I throw my cup of coffee in a passing trashcan, not in the mood for the comfort it usually brings me. I try to keep my shaking hands pressed close to my body and focus on getting my breathing under control. My feet are walking for me, almost as if subconsciously taking me in the direction I need to go. I haven't seen him in eight years. Eight years since I watched him walk away from me; the last image I have of him being his back fading into the distance. Now, I've left him with the same thing, abandoning him back in that coffee shop.
"Elena!" I hear from behind me. My blood freezes and my brain stops working. I'm a jumble of shaky unorganized thoughts. "Elena, please!" I hear again. His voice is getting louder and that familiar hum of vibration that would always run through my body when I was with him is getting stronger. I put my head down, watching my own feet move swiftly over the sidewalk.
It wasn't my smartest move, especially when I knocked shoulders with a passing businessman, sending my purse off my shoulder and spilling the contents of it onto the Chicago sidewalk. I quickly drop to my knees and gather as much stuff as I can. When a pair of feet stops right next to me, I'm afraid to look up. I know who they belong to, of course, but I don't want to see him. I watch as his feet are replaced with his knees and he grabs a couple of the things that fell from my purse. I watch my shaking hands and will them to stay still.
"Elena," he whispers and I suck in a breath. I know he heard it; it would've been impossible not to with him being so close. "Elena, please," he says again. "Baby, look at me." He says, barely audible. My head snaps up and I'm met with the emerald green eyes I fell in love with as a seventeen-year-old girl.
"Excuse me?" I snap. "Don't call me that."
"Elena, you're being irrational," he says, handing me the things in his hands.
"I'm being irrational? Leave me alone." I quickly shove my purse full and stand up, effectively leaving him kneeling on the sidewalk. I look back as I turn a corner to the hospital and see him in the same position I left him in. I take a deep breath and turn my gaze towards the sunrise gleaming against the skyscraper's windows.
I walk a few more blocks until I enter the hospital and head up to the surgery floor. I reach in my purse for my identification card and find the pocket I usually keep it in completely empty. I rummage through my purse and it comes up empty. I'm assuming my card fell out onto the street when I dropped my purse and that by now it's been picked up and thrown away or kicked into a sewer drain. I walk to the front desk and smile at the secretary, Bonnie. Her and I have become pretty good friends since I started working here a few years ago. She knows everything about every secret - every boring detail and me. My best friend from back home, Caroline, would walk to Chicago and beat the shit out of me if I ever tried to replace her, if we're being honest.
"Hey, Bon, I guess I misplaced my I.D. card. Can I have the book to sign in?" I ask her and she smiles, opening a drawer to her left and pulls out a large black binder.
"Here you go, Elena," she says before handing me a pen as the phone starts to ring. I quickly scribble my name down and head through the double doors to the Resident's lounge. Every day I walk down this hallway and every day I have the same thought. I'm so young to be a Resident, most people are still in their end years of school at this age, but that's where hard work, dedication, and not sleeping for three days straight at least once a month gets you. Now this is where I am, about to turn twenty-seven years old, a surgical resident at the best hospital in the city, and engaged to the man I love more than anything.
A dark cloud moves over my happy thoughts. The one person I never wanted to see again is jumping in on my perfect life in this perfect city and I'm afraid it's all going to come crashing down. No. I stop that train of thought right there. Just because he lives in the same city as me does not mean he's going to ruin my life. I wouldn't let him close enough to even try.
I put my purse in my cubby and pull my phone out to send a quick text to Aaron, needing just a little comfort. I love you.
I set my phone down and put my hair up in a ponytail and grab my scrub cap from the hook in my cubby. When I pick my phone up, there's a reply from Aaron. I love you more.
I take a deep breath and smile, locking my phone and sticking it in my purse. I make sure not to forget my pager and clip it on my pants, then I'm out the door and heading towards the OR board to see when, where, and what kind of surgery I'm performing today.
STEFAN'S POV
She ran away before I got to give back her I.D. card. Now I'm left with a picture of the brown-eyed angel I had broken long ago burning a hole in my pocket.
She did it. She made her dreams come true. I remember how she would spend hours talking about how she wanted to become a surgeon at some big hospital in a big city. She never thought she was smart enough, but I did. She's the smartest person I've ever known. She's still so young and she's already accomplished so much. She's turning twenty-seven soon and it says on her I.D. card that she's already a resident? That's crazy. I wonder if she just completely skipped over being an intern or what happened that made her move forward so fast.
I'm a little startled by the amount of knowledge I remember her talking about. She always thought I was never listening to her, but boy did I listen to everything that came out of her pretty little mouth. I was just so in awe of how she spoke, the words she used, the things she knew that I made sure to tuck into a special part of my brain so I'd never forget.
I walked back to the coffee shop to get my morning coffee and then headed in the direction of the hospital she works at. I've been waiting for this moment for the past eight years - for when fate would finally be on our side and we would bump into each other. They say if it's meant to be then it will happen. Well, I don't think its just coincidence that we bumped into each other in the same mom and pop coffee shop after eight years of not seeing one another.
I walk up to the hospital and push open the door. I'm met with the smell of sanitation cleaner and hospital food. I look to my left and see a small directory. I search for the surgery level and then head for the elevators. I press the button for floor seven and grab Elena's I.D. card from my pocket. I'm looking at her staff picture and she still looks as beautiful as the day I first saw her, almost eleven years ago when we were both juniors. I rub my thumb over her picture, remembering the way she felt under my fingertips when my phone rings. I pull it out of my pocket and see that it's Liv. I press the lock button to stop the vibrations and shove the phone back in my pocket. I move my attention back to Elena as the elevator dings and the doors open.
I'm met with a young woman with light brown skin and chocolate eyes sitting at a desk directly in front of the elevators. I strut towards the desk and slip the I.D. card back in my pocket, not letting her see it and just take it from me. No, I need to see Elena again. I want to be the one to give it back to her.
"Hi there, Sir, how may I help you?" She asks in a sweet voice. I smile at her and finger my wallet in my back pocket.
I slide my scrub cap off of my head as I walk down the main hall of the surgery floor. I take a deep breath and move my head side to side in an attempt to crack my neck. I feel great. Surgery always does that to me. It puts me in a great mood - gives me an adrenaline high. I walk by the front desk and smile at Bonnie.
"How'd surgery go, Elena?" She asks and I stop walking to lean against the desk and smile.
"Great, Mrs. Corelli should recover just fine." I say, stuffing my cap into my back pocket.
"Your next surgery isn't for what, an hour and a half?" She asks and I nod my head.
"Yep, I'm clipping an aneurysm," I say a little bit too excited.
"Sounds exciting." She raises one of her eyebrows. "Oh, you have a consult waiting for you in 738," she says nonchalantly, typing away on her computer.
"Did you page me? I didn't get it if you did," I say looking down at my pager to check if it was still charged.
"No, he wanted me to tell you when I saw you," she says and I get confused.
"He?" I ask, moving behind the desk to be closer to her.
"Yeah, told me to just tell you to go see him when you have the time, which you do now. Room 738, go," she says, patting my butt.
"What did he look like?" I ask, knowing it's probably not him but just checking.
"He's a patient, Elena, just go," she says and the desk phone rings, ultimately ending our conversation. I grab an empty patient chart and clipboard from the desk and head down the hallway.
I knock twice before entering the room and stop in my tracks. Low and behold, there he is sitting at the end of the hospital bed, his leg shaking up and down like they always did when he was nervous. His head snaps up and I lose my breath a little when those green eyes land on me. They still have the same effect on me almost nine years later as they did the first time I saw them. I take a few more steps into the room and shut the door behind me.
I'm not even shocked anymore. I'm not nervous and scared like the old me. Now, I'm annoyed and irritated. I was doing completely fine without him in my life and I will do completely fine again when he gets out of my life, for the second time. I just want him gone.
"What do you not understand about the words leave me alone?" I ask him in a sharp tone. "And you have the nerve to show up where I work?!" He stares at me through misty eyes for what seems like an uncomfortably long time.
"There it is," he says in a low voice.
"There what is?!" I ask, focusing on keeping my voice down low so no one else in the hospital hears me.
"The fire I brought out of you a long time ago." He moves his eyes up and down my body. I can't help but feel a small flicker of heated desire start in my stomach. Reminding me of how he once made me feel. "I'm glad it's still there," he whispers and the fire dies and is replaced with anger.
"That has nothing to do with anything so please get out and leave me alone," I say, turning around and heading for the door. "And how did you even get a consult. You kind of need surgery to be able to see me."
"There's nothing money can't do," he says as my hand reaches for the handle. "I just came to give you this."
I lower my hand from the door and turn around to see him holding out my I.D. card. I walk back over and reach for it, clipping it on to my scrub top.
"What are you specializing in?" He asks in a hushed tone.
"Neuro," I reply quickly. "Thank you, Stefan." I turn around, but his hand reaches out and grabs my wrist.
"Say my name again." He sounds like he's pleading. "Please," he whispers.
"Stefan…" He inhales a sharp breath and I feel tears form in my eyes. "You should go." I pull my wrist from his grasp and walk towards the door again, blinking the moisture away.
"Elena, please just talk to me. Let me talk. Let me explain. Anything." The words tumble from his mouth - words that I wanted to hear once upon a time, a long time ago.
"It's been eight, almost nine years, Stefan. There's nothing to talk about," I say softly.
"Have dinner with me. Let me do all the talking. Please." He begs. I turn around and look up to his eyes. He always gave everything away with those eyes. He thought he was slick and cool, but really one look at those emerald gems and I knew everything. Right now, he was desperate. I could tell because I knew him. I knew him better than anyone. There was warmth in his eyes.
"I'm engaged," I whisper. I didn't mean for those words to come out. That was the last thing I wanted him to hear. I desperately try to say something else. My mouth is left open and I'm making incoherent noises like an idiot. I look back up to him and immediately see the warmth slip from his eyes and become replaced with a calm and collected mask that took me months to break through. "I'm sorry," I whisper so quiet that I'm not sure he heard me. I don't even understand what I'm apologizing for.
"Congratulations," he replies in a voice so devoid of any type of emotion I feel as if ice water has been thrown in my face. He pushes past me and I get a whiff of his cologne, the same one he wore in high school. I inhale a big breath and then exhale.
"Stefan," I say, turning around. He opens the door and heads down the hallway. "Stefan, stop being immature and come here." He ignores me and turns the corner, heading for the elevators. I take a shortcut through an office to my right and beat him to the elevators., standing in front of the call button as he approaches.
"Move," he says coldly.
"No," I say back with just as much strength in my voice.
"Elena, you're being a child. Move, now," he says trying to reach behind me, but I swat his hand away.
"You're the one who ran away from me," I say, hoping he'll look up at me. He never does.
"Because there's nothing for me to say. You're gone," he whispers.
"You seemed to have a lot to say about five minutes ago," I say, putting my hands on my hips.
"Well the courage has fled. It was a mistake coming here," he says, making another attempt at the call button and failing.
"Stefan—," I start before a beep on my hip distracts me.
"Dr. Gilbert, they need a neuro consult in the E.R.," Bonnie says from behind Stefan.
"Yeah, I got it, Bonnie," I snap.
"Go, save lives," he whispers as I move away from blocking the call button. He pushes the down and almost immediately the elevator in front of us opens. He steps in and then turns around to face me. The emotionless mask falls from his face and I don't think he knows it. I can see everything going through his head right now. "Goodbye, Elena."
"Goodbye, Stefan," I whisper, not sure if he heard me or not.
The door closes on the man I thought that I was going to love for the rest of my life, feeling more like a goodbye than when he actually left me.
The rest of the day went pretty smoothly. I lost my last two patients of the day, which put me in a down mood for a while, but right now I'm kind of neutral. Not sad, not happy, not angry, not anything. Unfortunately, my mind has thought about Stefan more times in the last eight hours than I have in the last eight years. That's not why I lost my last two patients though; I would never go into an operating room with a jumbled head. I leave all of that outside.
Now it's two in the morning and I'm walking down the hallway to my apartment feeling like I could fall asleep at any moment. I'm emotionally and physically exhausted from the day that I just had. I unlock the front door and am met with darkness. Not even a kitchen light left on. I slowly make my way to the bedroom and slip into the connecting bathroom. I shut the door before turning on the light. I'm met with a very tired looking Elena in the mirror and decide to take a quick shower before I get into bed.
I turn on the water and quickly strip out of my scrubs. The water warms quickly so I step in and release a deep breath at the stress relieving hot water. I rub shampoo through my hair and wash my whole body. I rinse my hair and stay under the running water with my eyes closed. I let my mind drift to places it shouldn't go - ever.
I imagine Stefan in the shower with me. I imagine what life would be like if it were Stefan lying out in the bed I'm about to go to sleep in. I imagine if it were Stefan making me French toast every morning. I imagine if the ring on my finger were from Stefan. I imagine what our wedding would be like; what every day life would be life. Right now, I'm trying so desperately to convince myself that there's not even a small part of me somewhere that doesn't still love him.
The bathroom door opening jerks me out of my thoughts, thankfully, and I'm met with my Aaron. My gorgeous, loving, kind fiancé. There's no one I could want more in life. He's perfect and my life with him is and always will be perfect. I've loved him for the last six years of my life and I can't imagine not loving him for the rest of it.
"Baby, you've been in the shower for a while," he says groggily. I woke him up.
"I woke you up. I'm sorry." I say, turning off the water and grabbing my towel from the hook outside the curtain.
"No, I woke up when you walked in the room. I figured I'd wait for you but you were taking a while," he says, leaning against the counter in his boxers.
"You could've stayed in bed. I would've eventually made my way there," I say with a shy smile. He reaches out and runs the back of his hand across my cheek.
"I can't stay away from you, don't you know that?" He lays a sweet kiss on my lips and then backs away. I reach for my hairbrush and quickly run it through my wet locks.
"Go lay down. I'm right behind you," I tell him, turning the lights off in the bathroom, opting not to do my nightly ritual before bed. I quickly walk over to my dresser and pull out a pair of underwear and an oversized t-shirt. I drop my towel and slip into my pajamas. I quickly rap my hair in my towel and turn back towards the bathroom. "I forgot to brush my teeth. I'll be right back," I say, entering the bathroom.
I turn the light on, but leave the door open. I grab my toothbrush next to his, which puts a trace of a smile on my face, then grab the toothpaste. I squeeze toothpaste on my brush, put it under the water and then begin brushing my teeth. I look up at the mirror and stare directly into my eyes. I cock my head and think of what it would look like for Stefan to be behind me right now. His hands around my waist and his cheek pressed against mine. I shake my head and shut down that thought real quick. I spit the toothpaste out, rinse my brush, and wipe my mouth. Shutting the light off, I leave the bathroom, leaving behind the thought of a man from my past.
I slide in on my side of the bed and feel Aaron's arm wrap around my waist. He presses a kiss to the back of my head and hums a sigh of content. I grab the hand that's on my waist and put my fingers between his.
"I love you," he whispers in my ear.
"I love you, too," I reply immediately.
He fell right back into a deep sleep and I was left with my thoughts. I came up with a new mantra that I repeated until the words felt unfamiliar and the darkness of sleep pulled me in.
I love Aaron Whitmore. I love Aaron Whitmore. I love Aaron Whitmore.
A/N: As always, favorites, follows, and reviews are much appreciated.