AN: My best friend was hit by a drunk driver and died a week later from injuries from the collision. I just managed to sit down and write this chapter, but it might be a week or so before I update this again.
Dedicated to Caitlin.
It seems like they waited forever just to be here, just to have this moment. She smiles at him through shiny eyes and he looks concerned. He's about to ask, she knows so she just tells him.
It feels so unreal to be there, in the ice cream shop with technology she's never seen. So much time has passed but if she closes her eyes she could pretend it was decades ago. She almost didn't think they'd ever get to this, or that they'd be a couple so quickly after she woke up. The happiness is tinged with guilt.
"Bonnie loved you. She knows you loved her, and it's okay to grieve, but she wanted you to be happy." Elijah murmurs.
"It feels so weird to be so happy and so sad at the same time. She's not in pain and she lived a full life, and you love me so I'm happy. But she's also gone and it feels wrong to be so happy while she's not here." Elena admits, her spoon pushing around her raspberry cheesecake ice cream. They've waited so long to be here in this place, doing this and she can't help but feel like she's ruining it.
"No one grieves in the exact same way. You and Caroline are very similar and you both love Bonnie. She's still going to grieve in a different manner than you and it doesn't make it wrong or disrespectful. She told you she wanted you to be happy, and you are not forgetting her." Elijah begins.
"Bonnie will be someone you think about for a very long time. It's okay to be happy in times of grief, even just a little bit. Bonnie admitted to Matt that she felt guilty for feeling happy while you were in a coma. Even if she could be mad at you for being happy, she would have understood. You can feel however you want to, but I do not think Bonnie would ever hate you or disprove of you being happy from wherever she is-wherever we go after this life ends." Elijah says quietly and she nods as a tear escapes.
"I keep thinking I'm almost fine but there are moments that remind me I won't be. I keep wanting to tell her about things and then I remember she isn't here and I feel like I have to start all over again. I'm going to grieve for a very long time." She tells him, as she looks at his melting ice cream.
"That's completely acceptable and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. There is no set time frame to feel okay about losing a loved one. Sometimes it never feels okay. There are some losses that always hurt and that's just the way it is. Some deaths are easier to grieve through than others. I will be here for whatever you need, Elena. Don't rush yourself." He says, his hand finding hers.
A few tears escape, and she asks if she can talk about Bonnie. She knows he didn't like Bonnie like he liked her other loved ones, but she thinks talking to someone who didn't know her well might help.
She begins with when they first met, around spoonfuls of melting ice cream. He listens and eats his own lemon ice cream. They get more ice cream when they finish, and Elena tells him about the time they all dared each other to eat flowers. She wants to celebrate Bonnie's life, but she's still trying to wrap her head around the fact that she'll have forever while Bonnie had a few decades. She talks and talks and talks until she can't talk anymore and the people working disappears, fresh faces appear without her notice.
"I feel like my eyes are leaky faucets. Every time I think I'm over crying, I start crying again. I feel like I should be past this. " She confesses and he nods.
"Grief is a complicated maze. It's only been a few days, you have more than that to grieve. Some people slowly grieve over years. Some people grieve intensely for a short period and then they feel better about it. Some are a mix of both. It doesn't matter how others grieve but how you do." Elijah sounds like one of the books her mother had given her on grief when her grandparents died and she tells him that.
He merely raises an eyebrow and she feels a laugh escape.
"I shouldn't be laughing." Elena schools her face quickly and he opens his mouth to tell her it's okay.
"It felt wrong. I should be sobbing. I should feel worse." She says and he sees that she has a long way to go with her grief. He knows she's not using him, but he does offer himself in any way she needs him. A shoulder to cry on, someone to listen, someone to tell a bad joke, a reminder to eat, anything she needs.
Grief is not beautiful, it's just a mess. Elena knows better than most. They should check into a hotel, but she asks him to drive her to the Mystic Falls cemetery. He doesn't ask questions, just drives and leaves Elena to her thoughts.
"I'd like for you to come with me." She says but it's his choice. He gets out of the car at the same time she does. There are so many new graves that she's almost startled, but he watches her close her eyes and walk to where her parents are buried.
She knows it's odd, but she's always needed a place to talk to the people she's lost. She talks to them and he doesn't listen, but she introduces him. Elena likes to think that wherever they are, her parents can hear her talk to them.
"I wish you could have met my parents. I wish I had a longer time with them. I think they would have liked you." She says tearfully and he nods. Despite the fact that her parents were on the Council and disliked vampires, he's sure they would have gotten along swimmingly. He doesn't make a joke like he usually would and she knows that they wouldn't have if they knew he was a centuries old vampire who was interested in her. If they were both human, her parents would have loved him. If they were human, they would have already been married. If Bonnie was human, they would have had their entire lives to spend together. She doesn't dwell on that thought. She can take a lot of pain, physical and emotional, but that hurts too much. She sits by Jenna's grave and begins speaking, and he carefully sits next to her as she does.
"Where do you think they are?" She asks and he shrugs as he pulls back their comforter.
"Are you worried about them at all?" Caroline asks and he shakes his head.
"Why not?" She wonders. She's worried about them since they left while she mourned for Bonnie. He turns off the light that they don't need.
"One, Elijah will never let anything happen to her. Two, Elena might need her own time and space to grieve. Three, you worry enough for the both of us, love." Klaus murmurs before he presses a kiss to her exposed shoulder.
"I feel like a part of me died with her. I mean, I knew it was coming. We'll all die someday, I just thought we'd have longer with Bonnie." Caroline admits as tears form in her eyes.
"Everyone thinks they have longer than they do." Klaus whispers sagely and a few tears escape her eyes. She wipes them away as more race down her cheeks. She lets Klaus pull her into his arms, and neither of them say anything as her body shakes with the force of her sobbing.