Author's note: This one was inspired by a Chambre de Chasse AU within A Midsummer Night's Dream in Mystic Falls (albeit a much happier version, where Damon is very much alive). At the insistence of some friends, I decided to explore it as its own story!
As the title suggests, this story will explore different kinds of love and their respective relationships, while asking the question: what is both necessary and sufficient for true love? I've been on a bit of a re-reading Plato kick lately, and thus this story was born! And who wouldn't want to explore love?
"Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. … My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free."
– Tom Robbins
On a late Spring night in May, Elena woke up gasping in a hospital. The stark lights; the clinical coldness; the deeply impersonal feeling embedded in its very walls, in the paint, the icy metal slabs, the mobile beds, the very essence of the place where lives change in an instant – and any semblance of control is so minute and so illusionary and so treasured for the spark of hope it can provide for the one capable of saving a life.
Her father had been a doctor, and the idea of being able to save lives – to heal the sick, the wounded, the hopeless – filled Elena with ardent romance. What better feeling in the world could there be than returning health and safety and hope to one who thought that all was lost?
As she shivered in her flimsy hospital bed, under her thin blanket, lying on threadbare sheets, she wondered who the lucky doctor would be that would return health and hope to her parents. After all, they had to live. Surely, if she survived, so did they.
Because they had to – because she and her rebelliousness and her disobedience and insistence on sneaking out on Family Night were the only reason that they were out on that bridge in the first place.
Because it was all her fault.
She'd tried to warm herself – her endeavor futile as her shaky breaths from her damaged lungs could scarcely create the requisite conduit of warm air that her icy fingers desperately craved. Regardless, Elena wouldn't lose hope.
The last memory she had was of the water – her father desperately gesturing to someone outside of their overwhelmed and drowned automobile. Her lungs rapidly filling with liquid; the pain of it all shocking.
Any minute now. Any second, and someone wearing a white robe would enter the room and tell her that everything was fine – that the miracle of modern medicine struck again, and they would recount this whole sordid tale as an adventure over dinner, playfully lamenting that the car did not survive their quest home.
And then someone did enter, with a mournful, pitying expression on her face. Her anxiety was palpable – the young physician was clearly not one adept or comfortable with delivering anything other than happy news. Elena watched her take a few deep breaths, and struggle to speak. She changed her position several times, pacing in the small hospital room.
The words seemed to lose all meaning as Elena struggled to listen.
Dead.
No, this had to be some kind of mistake. Surely, this Doctor Melson meant to enter another room, find another girl. Her parents had to survive – they had to. Her father saved people – surely he would be saved, too, right?
They couldn't be dead, because she's the reason they were out there in the first place. Because she had to go to a party. Because she had to be a silly, selfish girl who couldn't miss Beltane.
Please, please. They had to be alive. Please.
This was a nightmare. That's it. She was just having a very bad dream, and any second now, she would wake up, warm in her bed.
Elena pinched herself brutally, creating great bruises on her skin, but her surroundings refused to change.
Drowned. Two dead. One survivor.
She scarcely felt the time pass, as her mind dissociated, her knees pressed to her chest.
They were dead, and she had killed them. She went to the party, she called them, they were dead.
It was all her fault.
Suddenly, within seconds or minutes or hours or eons, that same sympathetic head peered into her room. How she couldn't stand that nervous gait. Expecting her world to crumble even more, Elena gathered what little courage she had left and looked up at the unwelcome intruder.
"What?" she asked, surprised at the hoarseness of her own voice. It sounded like it hadn't been used in thousands of years.
"I'm sorry, honey," Dr. Melson visibly fretted. "But your friend, Anna, is here to see you. I'll send her right in?"
Kind of a short (and depressing) chapter, which is why I'm posting chapter 2 tonight, as well! I know – I know I have WIPs. But! I just finished a relatively lengthy Midsummer, so I decided to reward myself with a new story. :D And I've a few fun subplots planned for this one, so I wanted to get the ball rolling. I also wanted to post chapter 2 right away since this one gives the impression that the story is perhaps a bit more depressing than it actually is. I'd say it's a mix of angst and silliness. I'm a big fan of genre-blending (a la Our Flag Means Death), and I always find that both angst and humor hit better when you have a healthy mix of the two coming in waves.
I like to make all my stories part of the same multiverse, and in Chaotic Good, Elena revealed that they were having a belated Beltane party on that night.
Although the story starts off in a very sad place, I don't expect it to really stay there for long. I love healing arcs and I love playfulness, and I really think that the latter is a requirement for the former.
I'm going to try to wrap up With Great Power next, since I think it'll likely be a lot shorter than Timey Wimey – which is going to be long. Very long. I've barely scratched the surface of everything I plan to cover.
But this one's a little different. Eros and Philia is going to be an ode to love and friendship.
Much love, everyone! Please be sure to leave a comment, since I very much love to hear all your thoughts and feelings. :D