AN: Briefly: I work at a retirement community. My actual job is preventing covid positive people from entering the building and potentially infecting the residents. I screen employees, residents, and visitors for symptoms and possible exposure. In addition to that, I also do the data entry for the staff testing. That is, our staff of hundreds is tested for covid every single week and I spend 6 days a week entering that data in between screening. This is not a low stress job, so please try to remember that the next time you feel impatient and think I should've updated already. That's just not reality. As long as this pandemic is happening, my job is the most important thing in my life.

Now, onto the chapter. This is the long-awaited flashback chapter. I can't literally rewrite an entire season of tvd in one chapter so I just picked a few episodes. A lot happens off-screen simply because it didn't fit. This is mostly about establishing why Elena left with Dean and John and also the foundation of Dean and Elena's friendship. This is quite a bit longer than I intended. Originally the only episodes I had picked out were 3.01, 3.14, and 3.22. I had an idea that I wanted more but I didn't intend it to be 7 episodes, I was thinking more like 5.

Guesty: If you had an account I'd give you a heads up which chapter would be a good chapter to tune back in for, but alas.

With that, into the chapter. Enjoy!

Addendum

(n.)

A thing to be added; an addition.

Chapter Fifteen

Two Years and Eleven Months Earlier

aka

Everything You Touch Surely Dies

Mystic Falls, Virginia: June 22, 2015

"I'm sorry, Elena. You're 18 now, you can do it all alone now; and you can do it better than me." With that, Alaric is gone.

For a moment Elena can't quite breathe. Turning away from the door she looks around the empty house. Lately, it seems like there's less room for living in this house, too much space occupied by ghosts.

She's caught on the edge of that thought, moments away from drowning in it when her phone rings. She answers without looking to see who it is.

"Hey there, Birthday Girl."

"Dean?" She tries to cover up her surprise but she can't quite manage it. They've talked a few times, usually when Elena isn't feeling up to talking to his dad, but this is the first time he's called her and not the other way around.

"What? Did you think I forgot? You are officially an adult, congratulations, my dad is no longer your guardian."

Now that she's overcome her shock at hearing his voice, she can't help but smile.

"Right, I almost forgot."

He snorts. "I'm surprised you haven't been counting down the days."

She shrugs, forgetting that he can't see her. "Just because he's not legally responsible for me anymore doesn't mean he isn't going to continue micromanaging my life."

"He's concerned, you've been through a lot." His voice is warm enough that it takes the sting out of his chiding.

She sighs. "You don't know the half of it."

"No, I really don't," he says with a significant amount of curiosity.

When she doesn't respond, he forges on. "I'm glad you're still awake, I'm on the west coast, so I wasn't sure."

Kicking off her heels she collapses into the closet chair.

"Where are you?" she asks, genuinely curious but also eager for distraction.

"Salem – I know what you're about to say, but it's actually the capital of Oregon."

She raises an eyebrow. "I didn't know that. What kind of case is it?"

"Poltergeist, not particularly interesting though. Did you do anything fun today?"

Clearly he doesn't want to talk about work. Shrugging off her disappointment – she really is curious about hunting – she answers as cheerfully as she can.

"Uh, yeah, my friend Caroline threw me a birthday party."

"Did you have a good time?"

"You know, it was the usual: underage drinking, praying no one breaks anything too expensive. There was cake."

"You don't sound like you had a good time."

Her breath catches in her chest. It takes a moment for her to be able to speak again.

"I guess I'm just in a weird mood."

He surprises her. "I get that. Birthdays are always weird."

Something swells up inside of her. She's been trying so hard to ignore it, to focus on what she can handle.

"My mom used to let me eat cake for breakfast every year on my birthday." Her voice is small.

"She sounds like fun."

A tear slides down her face. "She was."

He clears his throat, giving himself away.

"You know what the trick is to making it through the big days?"

She swipes at her face needlessly. No one is around to see.

"There's a trick?"

She can't see him nod. "Yeah, the trick is pretty simple – universal, even: fake it."

She laughs bitterly. "I do that a lot," she confesses easily.

"Yeah, I thought so, I recognize a fellow fake when I see 'em."

She snorts.

"The trick is, you gotta fake it even when no one is watching. Sometimes you even manage to trick yourself."

She considers this.

"Everyone just wants me to get over it." She knows they all want her to move on from Stefan, she just can't believe none of them see that focusing on Stefan is the only way she can keep her head above the water. If she can find Stefan alive then there's still a reason left to hope. She can't change what happened to Jenna or John or her parents. She still has a chance with Stefan. It's all she has.

"Well first of all, fuck 'em. Second of all, give 'em a show."

She laughs at that. She can't see how that makes him smile. It means a lot to him, knowing he can help her.

"Seriously, do something fun for yourself. I won't tell you to have a drink because that's illegal, but if you have one I won't ever know. At least make one good memory of this birthday."

She shakes her hide, smiling. "I already have one."

He smiles. "I'm glad."

She's alone in her living room, he's alone in a motel room hundreds of miles away, both of them smiling at nothing; at each other.

"And buy a lotto ticket or something, you're 18, you have new power at your disposal. Unfortunately you won't be able to drink in a bar for another few years."

Elena laughs. "Dean, I already drink in bars."

"Who gave you a fake ID?" he asks with joking alarm.

She shakes her head. "I don't have a fake ID, Dean. I don't need one."

He frowns, slightly confused. "Everyone gets carded, even pretty girls."

She laughs. "I've never been carded. It's all about the attitude."

"Seriously?"

She shrugs. "If you have great hair and a killer smile, they'll tell themselves you're 25."

"I'm concerned now."

"What a responsible adult," she teases.

"Seriously, how long has that worked?"

She shrugs. "I dunno, freshman year?"

"Damn," is his only reply. He recovers in a moment. "Well clearly you don't need any help with the underage drinking."

"Probably not," she agrees.

Every vampire she knows seems perfectly willing to give her underage-self booze whenever she wants it, so there's really no point in going to bars now, but sometimes she misses the thrill of it. How simple it use to be.

Toss your hair just so, smile like you know secrets they've only dreamt of, take your shot with a little salt and a slice of lime, hold the bar in the palm of your hand like the fruity cocktail the bartender swears you'll love. It was so easy back then. The biggest thrill in her life used to be the possibility of being caught drinking underage. Now she knows the taste of real fear. She longs for the simple days of fifteen.

"All right, well, at least I don't have to feel bad for corrupting you."

She laughs. "Nope, I only look nice and sweet." She grins, caught up in memories. "That's the other half of the trick, being just good enough that no one believes it when you do get caught."

He laughs at that. "Yeah, you're definitely trouble."

She agrees. "Unquestionably."

Her phone beeps. "I think I have another call, hold on."

Glancing at her phone she frowns.

"It's a blocked call."

"Don't answer it," is his immediate reply, sounding more serious than he has for their entire conversation.

"I won't," she promises easily.

She tucks her legs underneath her.

"So I've seen the horror movie, but what exactly is a poltergeist?"

He hesitates. "Uh, it's not that interesting."

Elena scoffs. "You hunt monsters, don't be humble, that's badass. You're a badass, Dean Winchester."

He smiles, shaking his head. "Yeah, I know." He doesn't even try to hide how cocky he is.

"Now tell me about poltergeists."

He hesitates again. "Are you really sure this is what you want to talk about?"

She nods, too eager to remember he can't see her. "Yes. It's my birthday, and I want you to tell me about your job, Dean."

"All right, I won't make you ask again, Birthday Girl."

She settles in, not the least bit lonely with him on the other end of the line.

September 6, 2015

Dean's just got his ass kicked by a particularly nasty water wraith and he's contemplating finding the nearest bar to drown his sorrows when his phone rings.

"Hello?" He winces at how gruff his voice sounds.

There's a pause and then an impossibly sweet voice speaks. "Dean Winchester, this is a drunk dial."

He snorts. "Seriously, Elena? I'm the top of your list for a drunk dial? Yikes."

He can't say he's disappointed that she's called, he never minds when she calls. In the months since her birthday they've talked a few times, usually when she's avoiding his dad, but he can't exactly complain. Elena Gilbert is ridiculously likable.

"Uh-huh, you're the safest person I can call, very little risk of me confessing something embarrassing." she still sounds impossibly cheerful and he can't help but grin despite his exhaustion. "Now shut up and lemme talk."

He laughs but complies.

"Oh shit, I forgot what I was gonna say."

He laughs again, sitting up from his sprawled position on the motel bed.

"Yeah, this is definitely a drunk dial."

"Shhhh, I'm trying to remember why I called, Dean!"

"You are a very bossy drunk."

Her giggle is possibly the most infectious thing he's ever heard.

"So are you bar hopping? I still think it's disturbing that you've never been carded."

"Nooo, it's the back-to-school bonfire. Duke from Duke provided the kegs."

He frowns in confusion. "Duke from Duke?"

She nods emphatically. "He is called Duke because he goes to Duke."

"Huh," is his succinct reply. "He sounds-"

"Like a douche?" she supplies easily.

"Yup. An enormous one."

"Uh-huh, an absolutely massive one. He buys the booze though."

He nods in understanding. "Well at least he's useful."

"Exactly. I'm jealous he's figured out his purpose already."

He shakes his head. "You're 18, Elena, you've got time to figure it."

"Well I hope it's something good. So far it's just been blood sacrifice and creating a new breed of monsters and it's honestly pretty depressing."

He pauses. "I can't tell if you're joking," he confesses finally.

She laughs. "Sorry, my sense of humor isn't for everyone."

He nods. "Right." He listens for a moment, trying hard to hear anything on the other side of the line beside her quiet breathing.

"It's awfully quiet for a party, Elena."

"Oh yeah, it was too loud, I left. I'm on the bleachers now."

He can't help but be concerned. "Is it safe for you to be alone?"

She snorts. "Don't worry, someone will come and find me any minute now."

"You don't sound pleased with that."

"Just ex drama, no big." She feels bad for lying, surprising herself. Dean isn't someone she wants to lie to, but John made it clear he didn't want his son to know.

"Well, if you wanna talk about it…"

She laughs. "And kill you with my sappy teen girl problems? No way. I will not be the downfall of Dean Winchester's badassness."

He huffs a laugh. "Right, I appreciate that. Seriously, though, if you need to talk…"

"That is what Bonnie and Caroline are for," she says. She doesn't want to overwhelm him with her problems.

"Right, girls are probably miles better at girl talk than I ever could be."

"Thank you for offering."

"'Course," he says easily.

"I used to know every constellation," she says suddenly.

"Excuse me?" he asks.

"Sorry, I got caught up in the stars."

He nods. "Right, I keep forgetting you're drunk."

"How could you forget the entire purpose of this call? I'm drunk and you are the safest person to call."

He's about to reply when she cuts him off.

"Ugh, yup, someone came to babysit."

He hears a half-muffled male voice asking her who she's talking to.

"I have to go, my babysitter is here – he's not as cute as you though."

Dean laughs at her shameless flirting. "Good night, Elena. Call me when you get home, okay?"

"Aww, you're such a worrywart. Good night."

Elena definitely hasn't forgotten her conversation with Dean, but she did forget to call him back after Vicky tried to car-roast her. Damon is busy fussing over her like a mother hen when her phone starts to ring.

"Oh shit," Elena mutters to herself. To Damon she says, "Hold on, I have to answer this."

"Hiiii," she says, cringing at how hoarse her voice sounds.

"You know, usually when someone asks you to call them when you get home, they mean right away," Dean's voice is warm, but there is a distinct note of reprimand.

She winces. "I'm so sorry, I'm not actually home yet."

"It's like 3 in the morning, Elena."

"Yeah, I had a taco craving." Since she really does want tacos she feels only a little bad for misleading him.

He snorts. "I hope you're not driving."

"No," she says emphatically. "Alaric is about to drive me home."

Damon watches her light up.

"Hey, I remembered why I called! Alaric's teaching me how to defend myself."

The guy on the other line has an unbelievably deep voice and Damon hated him immediately.

"Fucking finally."

Elena beams at his immediate enthusiasm. "I know, right?"

She seems to suddenly realize that Damon is still in the room.

"Hey, I have to go, I'll call you back when I'm home, okay?"

"Yeah, okay, but if you don't call in the next 30 minutes I'm gonna have to take drastic measures."

"Don't you dare call your dad."

"Then don't forget to call me back again."

Elena rolls her eyes, still grinning. "Whatever."

"30 minutes, Elena. Clock's ticking. Bye."

"Bye." She hangs up and looks up to find Damon staring at her.

"So who was that?"

She puts her phone down, meeting his eye dead on. "Dean Winchester."

Damon raises an eyebrow. "The hunter? I didn't realize you were so friendly."

She shrugs, deliberately evasive. "Sometimes I don't really feel like talking to his dad so I call Dean instead. He's a lot easier to deal with."

Damon visibly relaxes.

"Well, can't say I blame you there. John Winchester is one uptight bastard."

Elena frowns. It's not that she disagrees, but she can't help but feel defensive.

"He's just looking out for me," she says. She doesn't always enjoy talking to John, but it is something, knowing he's there if she needs him.

Damon nods. "Right, I'm sure he does. He's just an intense guy."

Elena relaxes a little. "He is."

"So did I mention how cool I think it is that Alaric is training you? Because it's kick ass."

Elena narrows her eyes at his sarcasm. "No, you were too busy groping me," she says flatly.

He flinches. "Just don't go all bigoted hunter on me, is all."

She doesn't let up. "Knowing how to defend myself isn't the same as indiscriminately killing people just because some might consider them monsters."

He nods, looking at her warily. "Right, that's what I'm saying." He adds. "I'll always be here to look out for you, Elena."

She doesn't point out that he wasn't there tonight. She knows he thinks he's better suited to take care of her than she is to take care of herself. She can't describe to him how vital it feels to learn how to defend herself. She's always been the type to fight back, it was only a matter of time before she decided to back that instinct up with actual skill.

"Damon is incredibly weirded out by you talking to Dean Winchester," Alaric tells her on the drive home.

Elena shrugs. "I like Dean," she says simply.

Alaric nods. "He seems like a good guy. You know how Damon is."

"It's just a lot easier to call Dean than it is to call John sometimes, you know?"

Alaric, having had many conversations with John Winchester over the summer, nods vigorously. "You're telling me." He grins over at her. "Maybe you should give me Dean's number, I'd like an easy phone call now and again."

Elena snorts. "Please, it's bad enough that I annoy him all the time. I'm not sic'ing you on him too. Plus I have to be vague when I talk to him because John doesn't want him knowing anything. I know John makes you talk about it in way more detail. I just have to prove to him that I'm not dead or actively in danger."

Both of them sober for a moment, fully aware that they haven't told John Winchester the whole truth in a long time. They'd never discussed out loud the decision to lie to him, but as soon as the summer had gotten more complicated they agreed without a single word exchanged between them that John Winchester doesn't need to know exactly what's going on in Mystic Falls.

John will make Elena leave if he knows how bad it really is. With Klaus back and Stefan eating sorority girls like their charter's been revoked, not to mention Elena's blood being used to make an entirely new breed of monster, it's a virtual horror show. John would probably kill them – Stefan and Damon at the very least, if not Caroline and Tyler.

"Don't let me forget to call Dean when we get home."

Alaric nods. "You know, the Winchesters have quite the reputation in the hunting world."

Elena looks over at him, eyebrow raised. "Yeah?"

"Hunters talk – things I've heard about them, they're light years outta my league."

Elena cocks her head to the side, curious.

"What are you saying, Ric?"

"I'm saying, at some point, it might be in your best interest – hell, in everyone's best interest – to tell John the truth."

Elena frowns, a protest on the tip of her tongue.

Alaric raises a hand. "Just…if things get too far out of control, I don't want you to keep trying to protect everyone. John made a promise to John-"

Elena smirks a little so Alaric tosses her a scolding look.

"He'll keep it. He'll keep you safe at any cost."

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"Hello?"

"We are pulling into the driveway as we speak."

"Elena?"

"Alaric just parked and now I am unbuckling my seatbelt and opening the door to get out."

Dean starts laughing. "I did not ask for a play-by-play, you brat."

"Are you sure? 'Cause I can count how many steps it takes for me to get to the front door if that'll make you feel better."

"You know, drinking makes you extremely sassy."

"I'm southern, Dean, practically everything makes me sassier."

He chuckles again.

"Okay, I'm inside now. You've officially done your duty, I am home safe."

"Good, I'm glad. No drunken fights at the keg stand?"

"If you're asking if the rest of the party was uneventful, no, a ghost tried to burn me alive in a car, but I'm home now and we have triple chocolate ice cream in the freezer so it's all good."

"Your sense of humor is seriously fucked up, Elena."

She grins. "You're just jealous because you don't have Fudge Delight waiting for you."

"You're damn right I am."

"So I know you're in the same time zone as me this time, but where exactly are you? And what are you hunting?"

"I am in Pennsylvania and at this point I'd say the water wraith is hunting me, not the other way around."

By now Dean is used to Elena's curiosity about his job. He's secretly glad that she always wants to hear about his latest case. It's nice to be able to talk about his job without it being vague with the occasional bystander caught up in a case or talking shop with other hunters. Elena's curiosity is refreshing and her questions are often scarily insightful.

"What exactly is a water wraith?"

"A pain in my ass in this case, but in general…"

She wakes up the next morning to a text from Dean asking about her hangover.

I've never had a hangover in my life :)

I hate your guts

Did you find your water wraith?

It found me

Yikes :/

Sokay, I ganked the bitch

Ganked? I've never heard that one before

It's dead, I'm not, all is well, I can get the hell out of this hell hole.

Pennsylvania is where they signed the Declaration of Independence, Dean.

I have no idea what the Founding Fathers were thinking

You're impossible!

And you've got training to do

Hop to it, Buffy!

Ugh, Damon called me that yesterday, did not love it!

Noted, Van Helsing

Did you even read that book?

I am Mina

You're definitely Quincey

Of course I haven't read it

Why am I not Van Helsing?

Your dad is Van Helsing

Fair enough

Are Mina and Quincey friends at least?

She names her son after him

Good deal

Wait, does that mean he dies?

I'm gonna be late

Talk to you later :)

Elena, you didn't answer my question!

Elena?

I am not too dumb to live!

October 9, 2015

Elena still has to talk to John, she knows that. She can hide a lot from him, but she certainly can't pretend like Jeremy's in Mystic Falls when he isn't. She has to call and present a calm, logical argument about why Jeremy needs to be in Denver when he's the biggest reason Elena fought to stay in Mystic Falls and John knows that.

She's going to call him – in the morning.

Right now, phone in hand, mouth stinging with Damon's good night, there's only one person she wants to talk to.

He picks up on the third ring.

"Elena?" His voice is overly loud in her quiet room, but she can hear the noise from his end.

She clears her throat. "Hi, Dean, I'm sorry, you sound busy." She winces, she sounds terrible, her voice pinched high and trembling. She's not faking it very well right now. A few tears slip down her face against her will.

"What's wrong?" he asks immediately.

"No, it's fine, I'll let you go." In the background a girl laughs, making Elena's stomach drop.

"Don't you dare hang up, Elena," he says sternly. "Hold on."

There is no sound of a muffled explanation to his companion, just raucous chatter and loud music and then quiet.

"What's wrong? What happened?" He sounds so concerned that she finds herself crying in earnest despite everything.

"It's okay, I'm okay," she says, on autopilot more than anything.

"Elena, you really don't sound okay," he says, his voice low and soothing. "To tell the truth, you're kinda freaking me out."

She lets out a sob and then immediately smacks her hand over her mouth to muffle the sound. Through her fingers, she says, "Just give me a sec, okay?"

"Yeah, okay, just maybe cough twice if you're in immediate danger or something?"

She chokes, shaking her head. In her head there is a litany: Jeremy standing in front of the car, Alaric coughing up blood, Jeremy beheading the hybrid on their porch, Klaus looming closer while she tells him that his sister wants them both dead – she starts to laugh.

All of that horror and she doesn't call until Damon invaded her personal space.

"I think the laughing might be a bit more terrifying than the crying."

So of course she starts laughing and crying at the same time.

"Oh god, that's ten times worse. Elena, c'mon, what's wrong?"

She sniffs twice. "It's really stupid, you're gonna laugh."

"I can promise that nothing that makes you act like this is stupid."

She shakes her head and she can't stop, she starts rocking back and forth without meaning. She's perched on the end of her bed, shaking her head, rocking back and forth, sobbing her heart out.

"Just give me something?"

She takes two deep breaths, forcing herself to stay still. "He kissed me." She knows he has absolutely no details and no context to understand why this is the straw that breaks her.

There is a pause and then: "Do I need to kill him?"

That surprises a laugh out of her, one that is significantly less hysterical.

"You don't even know who I'm talking about." She sniffs, smiling through her tears.

His reply is immediate. "Hey, I don't need a name, just send a picture."

"I don't want you to kill him," she says definitively because she knows the answer to that question.

"Okay, I'll kick his ass then, I can be there by morning if I leave now."

Her heart drops into her stomach and then pops back up to pound against her ribcage.

"No senseless violence, please."

"It's not senseless. You're crying, my violence has a very strong sense of what's right and wrong and it hates anyone who's ever made you cry."

Something warm starts to bloom in her chest, combating the despair.

"Now send me a picture so I can spend the next nine hours of the drive imagining stomping his face in under my boot in graphic detail."

She laughs. "No way. I don't want to see that fight."

"Are you betting against me, Elena?"

She shakes her head vehemently. "No, never. I would never bet against you in anything."

"Good," he says seriously. She doesn't reply so he asks again, gently, "What happened, Elena?"

She sniffs. "Damon kissed me."

"We hate Damon, got it."

She laughs. "We don't. Sometimes he is all we have so, we really don't."

Dean frowns. "Hey, you've always got me, and my dad for that matter."

"Oh, Dean, I know. I didn't mean it like that." She wipes at her face fruitlessly. "It's just hard here sometimes. Things get so complicated and I don't really know how to deal, but at least Damon's here, you know?"

"Did I not make it explicitly clear that I could be there by morning? Because I can start driving right now."

She shakes her head vehemently. "No, I know. Your dad would probably show up if I so much as break a nail. I swear, it's nothing terrible, I'm just having a bad night, that's all."

"Because Damon kissed you."

She almost starts crying again. "Something like that." She considers the scene on the porch earlier that night. "I didn't stop him, though. I touched his hand, I think, but not like I was trying to get him to move it, not really."

"Where was his hand?" His voice sounds dangerous.

"Just on my face," she says hastily. She considers. "It was a nice kiss," she says lamely.

His voice is surprisingly gentle. "Did you want him to kiss you?"

Her breath catches in her throat. She's shaking her head long before she can physically answer.

"No," she finally gasps.

She can't see how Dean closes his eyes or how hard he clenches his jaw.

"Then it wasn't a nice kiss," he says, keeping his tone even.

He listens to her breathe in and out heavily for several long moments. Finally, he sighs.

"I think you need to tell him that you didn't want to be kissed, okay? If he's someone important to you, he needs to know that."

She clears her throat. "Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry I'm acting like a basket case. I don't think it's just about the kiss, there's a lot going on and I'm just overwhelmed."

He blinks, alarmed. "Is it anything you should be talking to my dad about?" he asks cautiously.

"No," she says immediately. "No, no, no, nothing like that. Just. School and um, Jeremy… Boy problems, obviously…but also on like, a larger scale?" She pauses, remembering one of their previous conversations. "Oh god, I promised not to bother you with this kind of stuff and here I am having a meltdown on the phone over one stupid kiss-"

Dean cuts her off. "That you didn't want," he reminds her flatly. A moment later and he adds, "And it's fine, you're the one who said we weren't gonna talk about boys. I never said that. I said you can talk to me about anything, and I still mean it. I'm not gonna pretend like this is my area of expertise, but I really did mean it when I said you could call me any time, Elena."

She nods, feeling overwhelmingly grateful for him.

"Thank you, Dean."

"Any time, Elena."

She clears her throat, slightly embarrassed. "I'm sorry if I ruined something for you in the bar."

He laughs and shakes his head. "Don't worry about it, it wasn't anything."

"Are you sure?"

She sounds so small and unsure he can't help but rush to reassure her. "Truthfully I didn't really hear her name, could've sworn it was Candy, so probably you saved me from a messy situation – maybe even getting a drink thrown at me. Those girly cocktails stain like a bitch. I should be thanking you for calling."

She laughs, knowing he's going overboard to make her feel better. It's working.

"Yup, that's me, Elena Gilbert of the perfectly timed meltdowns."

He laughs. "Maybe I'll start using it as an exit line. "Excuse me, my friend's having a meltdown. It's been fun, gotta go!'"

She laughs again, sounding lighter than when she first called and he hates to ruin it but one detail is bugging him.

"Elena, who's Damon?"

"Oh…he was at the funeral?"

He nods.

"Right, there was the black haired guy and the kid your age who I assume was your ex."

"Yup, black hair is Damon, the other one is Stefan, the ex-boyfriend."

"Okay, so how does Damon fit into all of this? Family friend? Is he another hunter like Alaric?"

Elena coughs delicately. "Um, no. He's Stefan's brother."

Dean is silent.

"Hello? Dean? Are you still there?"

He clears his throat. "His older brother?"

Elena nods and then remembers to speak. "Um, yeah."

"How much older?"

Elena picks at her jeans. "Your age." It's technically true, physically, anyway.

Dean grits his teeth. "Are you really sure you don't want me to kick his ass?"

She shakes her head. "No, Dean, it's fine. You were right, I just need to tell him not to kiss me. I need to set boundaries."

"I did say that. I still think he needs to get his ass kicked. You can't just go running around kissing people without making sure they want it."

"Trust me, there are plenty of people lining up to kick Damon's ass, Dean. The line's so long there's a V.I.P. line just for the people who deeply hate him."

He grumbles for a bit then finally concedes.

"As long as he never kisses you again without your say so he can live to see another day."

Elena smiles. "Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

"It's no big deal, Elena."

She snorts. "Please, if you were here your shirt would be covered in snot. I'm officially a basket case."

"I wouldn't mind. That's what washing machines are for Elena." His voice is warm. "Hell, that's what friends are for."

She smiles. "That's the second time you've called us friends in this conversation."

"Well duh, of course we're friends. You don't call people you hate to cry about how some jag-off kissed you without your permission."

"That's true. I guess we are friends."

"I guess? I left Candy in there to talk you through a meltdown and you repay me with this? I guess!"

She laughs. "Okay, Drama Queen, we're friends."

October 10, 2015

She's sitting on the cold bathroom floor, long after Damon brought her home, long after Stefan broke her trust in him so badly she doesn't see how she can ever recover.

She thinks about telling Damon that she didn't want him to kiss her again because it's easier than thinking about Stefan treating her like she's nothing.

She's startled out of her daze by the sound of the home phone ringing. It always struck her as old-fashioned that they still had a landline, but she hadn't had the heart to disconnect it after her parents died.

She staggers to her feet, making her way downstairs, eventually finding the phone on the couch.

"Hello?"

"Elena? Why the hell aren't you answering your phone?"

Her mind comes into focus. She clears her throat. "Dean, hi, sorry. Um, my phone broke, like a few hours ago."

"What happened?"

She doesn't mean to keep crying on him, but something about his warmth always disarms her completely. She starts crying so hard that her legs just give out and she collapses onto the floor.

Dean speaks, sounding alarmed. "I really need you stop crying whenever we talk, you're gonna give me a complex."

She heaves for air, trying to apologize.

"Nah, forget it, just tell me what's wrong. Is it that Damon guy again? 'Cause it'll take me significantly less time to get there and kick his ass now."

She whimpers, hand over her mouth as she shakes her head.

"No, not Damon," she finally manages to croak. "Hold on," she says.

"Take your time, it's a five hour drive so we've got the time."

"No, Dean, you're not coming here." The thought alone is enough to make her head spin.

"Nope, sorry, this is the second time you've cried in two days and that's two times too many as far as I'm concerned. I'm in Knoxville, I can be there by sunrise."

She braces herself against the coffee table, standing, she goes to the kitchen for a glass of water, hoping to cure the dryness in her throat and figure out something to say to stop him from walking into the middle of the warzone that is her life.

Dean would definitely call his dad if he knew – and he's not even supposed to know in the first place.

"Dean, it's not a big deal, really. I just got in a fight with Stefan and I lost it a little, that's all. You don't need to drive all the way here over that."

"What was the fight about?"

"Stefan has issues okay. He gets out of control sometimes." She winces at how dramatic that sounds, despite knowing it's an understatement.

"You have to understand why that makes me more concerned, not less."

"That's not what I meant. He didn't-" She cuts herself off before she actually lies to him. She was about to say he didn't hurt her. It's barely the truth, and it feels like a lie. She feels mortally wounded, like she's about to bleed to death.

Closing her eyes tightly, she exhales. "He did something he knew would upset me, that's all. It was a shitty thing to do but I'm fine."

"What happened to your phone, Elena?"

She cringes. "It's fine, I can get a new one, no big."

"Elena, tell me what happened to your phone or I'm calling my dad, and I gotta feeling you don't want me to do that." His tone brooks no arguments.

"Stefan threw it out of the car," she answers reluctantly.

"Why in the hell did he do that?" He sounds dangerous now.

She shrugs, knowing she can't tell him why. "He was mad."

"Why was he mad?" He's speaking through his teeth now.

She sighs, knowing she has to give him something. She clears her throat.

"Stefan has, uh, addiction issues," she says delicately. "He's not doing good right now." She can still taste his blood in her mouth. "Sometimes – I don't know why I'm still trying."

"I couldn't tell you." He exhales heavily. "Elena, you gotta know you can't save him."

She inhales sharply, an equal and opposite reaction. "I have to try," she says, hating how small she sounds. "Even if he crosses the line, I have to try."

"No," his response is resounding and firm. "No, you don't, Elena. If he crosses the line you cut him off. That's – fuck. I really don't know what's going on, but he threw your phone out your window and made you cry and that's enough for me to feel pretty damn certain that he's no good for you."

Her lip trembles, she's on the verge of sobbing again.

He listens to her shuddering gasp, it cuts through him like a knife.

"What did he do, Elena?"

She chokes back a sob. "He just – he did something he knew would hurt me. Something that would hurt me worse than anything ever could. I don't know how to forgive him for this."

"Well fuck that guy, then. Look I get that you care about him, but you don't deserve to be hurt like this. You don't have to forgive him."

"Yes I do. That's what I do." Her voice is small.

"It doesn't have to be. Not this time. I mean, isn't it bad enough that your brother is leaving and Damon kissed you against your will? Can't you catch a damn break? You're allowed to be mad at him when he hurts you, Elena."

She swallows. "So your dad told you about Jeremy?"

He nods. "Yeah, he said you called this morning. Truthfully, I think he's disappointed you're not going with him."

She sighs. "Right now I can't quiet remember why I'm not."

"Go pack, I'll drive you both to the airport when I get there."

She knows he's serious but she shakes her head.

"No, I have to stay here. And you really don't need to come, I'm just emotional, it's fine." She pauses. "I just kind of wishes I didn't have to be here, even for a little while."

"Okay, well I don't know why you think you have to be there, so I'll have to take your word for it, but you can leave for a while. I'll come get you. We can go anywhere you want. Take a break from your life, Elena. Every time I talk to you, you sound more and more stressed out."

She sniffles, actually considering what he's suggesting.

"Where would we go?"

"Where do you want to go?"

She shrugs. "No idea. I can't think of anywhere. You pick."

"Okay, I'll think about it. Don't worry about talking to my dad, I'll call him. Have Alaric call the school for you. Just worry about getting a new phone. I'll see you soon, okay?"

Dean shows up only a few minutes after Matt leaves.

"Why are we meeting on a bridge and not at your house?" he asks without preamble.

She smiles at him. "It's nice to see you again too, Dean." She actually means it, even though she only says it to give him a hard time.

He rolls his eyes. "Yes, it's great to see that you're in one piece, Elena."

She takes a moment to look at him. He's definitely more attractive than she remembers – and she remembers him as really attractive.

She clears her throat, wanting desperately to get away from that thought.

"I was here with Matt." Dean knows all about her friends by now, the stuff she can tell him, that is. "We were holding a funeral for the girl I used to be."

He raises an eyebrow. "Morbid. Go on."

She shakes her head. "Just a little catharsis is all. I figured it was time I let go of someone I can never be again."

He cocks his head to the side. "Why here?"

She takes a deep breath. "This is where my parents died."

He looks at her sharply.

"It was a car crash. I was in the car, too." She looks out over the water. "I was the only survivor."

"Jesus," he says.

She nods. "Yeah. I guess, I just needed to accept that I can't go back. I can't be her again."

He considers her for a moment. He looks out over the water, sees the floating dandelions. He bends down and plucks one of his one. He lets it drop into the water.

"Who was that for?"

"Just this kid I knew a long time ago."

He cocks his head to the side.

"C'mon, let's go."

"Where are we going?" she asks.

"It's a surprise."

She narrows her eyes at him.

"Surprises haven't been universally kind to me."

He raises his hand, a pledge. "I promise to only give you surprises you'll love."

She follows him to his car.

She gasps dramatically. "Oh my god, it's the love of your life." She directs her next words to the Impala. "It's so nice to meet you. Dean never shuts up about you."

He shakes his head at her. "Get in, brat."

October 22, 2015

Klaus finds Elena at the ball before she finds her way to Esther. He steals her for a dance and really she shouldn't be surprised at the topic he wants to speak about.

"So, tell me about Dean."

Ever since she got back from spending a week in Charleston with Dean, it's been Klaus' favorite topic. It only takes one look at his face to know what he's insinuating.

"He's a friend, he could tell I was having a tough week, that's all."

He grins, ignoring everything she just said. "Is he handsome?"

She blinks. "He's my friend."

Her deflection doesn't fool him. "Hmm, devastatingly so, then."

She rolls her eyes, hating that he's right. "He's human, his perception of time isn't as messed up as yours."

He raises an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"Our 6 year age difference matters to him," she answers dryly.

He spins her around the floor with ease.

"Trust me, darling, one day he's going to fall deep into those dark, devastating Petrova eyes and never crawl back out again. We just have to keep you alive until then."

Dean answers his phone without looking. Research is spread out across the table and he's starting to get a cramp in his calf and he could really use a fucking break.

"You know what's overrated?"

He blinks, coming back to the reality abruptly. "Elena?"

"Angry love confessions: super overrated." She sounds tense.

"What did Damon do this time?"

She laughs. "You've never met him and you still know exactly who I'm talking about."

He shrugs, leaning back in his chair. "He seems like the angry love confession type."

She sighs. "God, he really does, doesn't he?"

"Did you finally tell him to fuck off?"

"Basically, I said his feelings were a problem for me."

A pause and then. "Nice one."

"I was a bitch."

"He's a dick."

This time she pauses. "Yeah, he really is."

"Elena, his feelings for you don't mean you have to be nice. If you don't want his love confessions, you can tell him."

She lets out a laugh that's far too close to a sob. "Why are you the only one who says things like that? Everyone else is just like 'Stefan is your soulmate, Elena' or 'Damon can't help how he feels about you' and you're just-" she sighs, "The only one who isn't trying to make the choice for me."

"I don't know them and I don't give a shit about them. I know you. Personally, I think your choice is clear, but I can't do it for you, Elena."

"Nothing seems clear to me anymore."

He can't help the groan that comes out of him.

"I'm sorry, was that too emotional for you? We can talk about classic rock and cars now if you want."

"Nah, I've been working on a case for a few hours, it's all research, my least favorite part, and I just realized how badly I need food." He stretches again. "I've resigned myself to the fact that we're always gonna end up talking about feelings," he adds.

"But you hate it." She sounds unsure.

"As long as we stick with your feelings and not mine, I'll live."

"I make no promises."

He snorts. "So was it just Damon tonight or did Stefan do something too?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"I dunno, I feel like they always fuck up your life in twos. Damon kisses you without your consent, Stefan betrays your worst memory. It's like they're synchronized in ruining your night."

"Those happened on separate nights."

"So you're saying I have to wait until tomorrow night to hear what Stefan did? Yikes."

"He dropped me off at home tonight, he wanted to talk, I think, but I blew him off."

"Where were you?"

"There was a ball tonight."

A long pause and then Dean starts to laugh. "You're shitting me."

"No, I'm really not. My dress weighs more than I do."

He gasps in delight. "Oh my god, you're wearing a ballgown."

"That's what a lady typically wears to a ball," she retorts primly.

"I gotta see this."

She starts shaking her head. "No, no, no, I know you, Dean. You'll make fun of me and I'm not in the mood."

"Oh, c'mon, I'm not gonna make fun of you. I just wanna see you all dressed up, Cinder-Elena," he cajoles.

"You're not gonna make fun of me? You just called me Cinder-Elena, I don't believe you."

"C'mon, what's that the thing the kids say? Pics or it didn't happen."

"Go feed yourself, Old Man."

He shakes his head. "I'm not even hungry anymore, I gotta see this dress. C'mon Elena, I've been on this case for like six hours, you in a ballgown could revive me."

"Nope, end of story. Now tell me about your case."

"It's really not that interesting. Just a classic haunting, I'm having trouble tracking down the gravesite is all."

She scoffs. "'I'm having trouble tracking down the gravesite,' like that isn't the most interesting thing you've said all night."

"If you were looking through decades of burial records, you'd be bored too."

She shrugs. "I dunno, it sounds more interesting than going to balls and going through the same old tired motions with my ex and his brother and our wonderfully fucked up love triangle."

He hums. "It doesn't really sound like a love triangle to me."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, it just kinda sounds like you're over it."

"Oh," she says, sounding stunned.

"You okay?" he asks after a period of silence.

"Yeah," she says eventually. "You've just given me a lot to think about."

He laughs. "I'm happy to help. Now, send me that picture, Elena."

"Go eat, Dean."

"You're very food obsessed right now, ever think maybe you're the one who needs to eat?"

A silence and then. "Okay, maybe we both need food."

He laughs. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

She sighs.

"What's wrong?"

She shakes her head. "Nothing really, I kinda wish we were still in Charleston."

It's his turn to sigh. "Hell, me too."

"Good night, Dean."

"Good night, Elena."

Ten minutes later she sends him a picture of her in her ballgown, glowing darkly.

Now there's nothing funny about that all, Elena Gilbert

You're gonna make me blush

Denver, Colorado: November 1, 2015

They're in a stand-off with Kol at the batting cages when Dean calls. Things have been growing more and more tense between Elena and John lately. Alaric's psychotic break interfering with the regularity of his phone calls with John had disrupted their fragile truce. Needless to say, John is suspicious and Elena is running out of ways to distract him from showing up in Mystic Falls. If she starts dodging Dean's calls, he'll know something's up.

She tries to sound as normal as she possibly can with Damon, her little brother, and an Original vampire staring her down while she chats with the hunter who lately takes up most of her waking thoughts.

"Dean, hey, what's up?"

"Hey Elena, not much. I'm actually in Denver right now, just finished a case and I thought I'd swing by and check on Jeremy since I'm around, you mind giving me his number?"

Elena stopped breathing as soon as Denver is mentioned. She can't help the gasp she lets out, panic blinding her.

"Elena, are you okay?"

She breathes in and out heavily, like she's just finished a really intense workout.

"I'm fine." She smiles automatically, taking in her audience.

Jeremy looks clueless while both vampires are blatantly eavesdropping. Damon looks irritated. Kol looks thrilled.

It's the look on Kol's face that forces her hand.

"What a coincidence, I'm actually in Denver. I'm with Jeremy, right now."

There's a pause and then, "Well, what a small world. Tell me where you are, I'll come get you."

She nods. "Yeah, I'll text you, just a sec."

"See you soon."

She says goodbye and hangs up.

"Dean's in Denver?" Jeremy asks at the same time Damon says "What the hell are you doing, Elena? This party does not need a hunter."

Elena ignores both of them, focusing on Kol.

"Call your brother, tell him I want to make a deal."

Dean can't fight the feeling that there is something strange about Elena traveling to Denver in order to pick up her brother without telling him.

As soon as they hung up he'd called his dad who had confirmed that he knew she was there, and that should've put him at ease. Elena's good about making sure his dad knows where she is, but it's different with him and Elena, they talk all of the time. Even if she just arrived, it feels weird to him that she didn't even mention it. Especially because she's here to take Jeremy home with her. He knows how much she's missed him, it feels like the first thing she would've said.

He picks the Gilbert siblings up at the batting cages of all places. The three of them talk easily but Dean still feels like he's being left out of the loop.

They find a place to have dinner and he tries to push aside his worries to enjoy Elena's obvious joy at being reunited with her brother.

Midway through their meal, Jeremy becomes transfixed on something outside.

"What's up, Jeremy?" Dean asks.

He shakes his head. "Nothing, I just, uh, I think I see a friend of mine outside, I'll be right back." He's out the door before Dean can ask any further questions.

Dean turns back to look at Elena who watches her brother leave with a concerned look on her face.

"All right, spill."

Elena looks over at him, startled.

"Excuse me?"

Dean shakes his head. "I know something's going on Elena. Why are you here? Why didn't you tell me you were coming? Usually I know your routine from 5 AM workouts with Ric to 10 PM ice cream dates with Caroline. It's weird that you didn't tell me you were coming, don't deny it."

She sighs. "I'm not denying it. I'm just trying to figure out what I can tell you."

"You can tell me anything, Elena."

The problem is, Elena wants to tell him everything. It's the constant problem. Since they met, Dean has been the easiest person in the world for Elena to talk to—to confide in. It's no coincidence that she breaks down crying on a nearly weekly basis on the phone with him. There is something about Dean that makes it impossible for her to pretend she is okay when she really isn't it.

She can't tell him the truth though. She will never see eye to eye with John Winchester, but she can at the very least, agree to keep his son out of her problems.

She takes a deep breath, preparing to tell Dean the only thing she can – the truth.

"Jeremy can communicate with the dead, Dean."

Or, at least, part of the truth.

He stares at her.

"He hasn't always been able to, it's only been a few months. It's been really hard for him, and I thought being in Denver where it was less likely for him to be overwhelmed by familiar ghosts – there were so many he knew before they died. I thought it would be easier for him, but I was wrong. He doesn't really have any kind of support system here and no one gets what he's going through, so I came to bring him home."

Later, Dean drops Elena and Jeremy off at the airport. He and Jeremy nod respectably at each other and Elena hugs him easily and promises to call as soon as they land.

"Do me a favor and call me next time you decide to play hooky for some road trip, okay?" Dean says lightly.

Elena cocks her head to the side, grinning. "Why? Am I only allowed road trips if you're supervising?"

He nods seriously. "Yeah."

She shakes her head, still grinning. She kisses him on the cheek. "Wish I was in Charleston."

He grins. "Hell, me too."

"Bye Dean."

"Bye Elena."

Mystic Falls, Virginia: November 7, 2015

For the record, she goes back for Caroline. Matt's driving and he's saying he can go back to Stefan or keep driving to Damon but Elena isn't thinking of either of them.

Elena is thinking of Caroline. Caroline offering her tea and vodka and taking care of her like no one has in ages. Caroline who she's known since she was 6. The idea that Stefan and Damon are somehow more important than Caroline and their 12 years of friendship is laughable. That a year and a handful of months of knowing the Salvatores can somehow compare to the entire lifetime she's spent knowing Tyler.

She'd rejected Stefan's kiss as resolutely as she had told Damon he couldn't kiss her again. He seemed to understand something that hadn't occurred to her until this moment. There had been a kiss to her forehead, and then he was gone. She might not know what she wants, but she knows what she doesn't want.

Right now, she doesn't want her friends to die. Right now, something drops in her stomach, remembering Katherine will die too. There is nothing likable about Katherine – except, maybe, Katherine is as much a part of her as anything. Being from Virginia, loving and worrying about Jeremy, calling Dean Winchester whenever she's about to lose it, knowing that she and Katherine are just 500 years away from being each other: a short list of things that make her Elena Gilbert. Elena could be Katherine, Katherine could be Elena. Their identical faces and parallel lives. She wishes she could see her once last time. Tell her she figured it out, she doesn't love them both, not like Katherine did. She wouldn't pick either, given the choice.

She calls Damon and she can't even say she's surprised when he knows too.

"Who gets the goodbye doesn't really mean anything, does it? You made up your mind a long time ago."

"I didn't know, not until now."

"It was Charleston, wasn't it?"

"No, it's harder to explain than just one trip."

"Try. Call it a dying wish."

"He always picked up the phone."

"So did I."

"I didn't call you though. Not when I needed someone."

"That is hard to explain."

Rebekah on the road, lit up in headlights. Matt swerves reflexively, but does it really matter? She would've killed them with her bare hands if it came to it. That's why she's here: to kill Alaric; to kill Elena.

There's a split second before they go over and Elena can see a straggly yellow dandelion somehow still growing on the side of the road. She remembers the funeral she and Matt had on the side of the road for the girl she used to be. It's a million things going through her mind in a split second: who will she be when this is over? Will she live? Will she die? And then, crystal clear, Dean Winchester dropping a dandelion in the water for that little boy who lost his mother and his childhood in one fell swoop. For himself, because she mourned herself. Their first common thread was loss and Elena wonders if that's all it ever was. Just that they both knew what it was like to lose something that could never come back. Time resumes, they are falling.

The truck goes off the bridge and he's the last thing she thinks about.

She fights Stefan every step of the way. She clings to Matt like he is a lifeline and not a death sentence. Stefan finally pries her off of him and drags her thrashing and kicking up to the surface. She emerges screaming and clawing at him.

"Let me go, Stefan! Let me go! It's Matt! You were supposed to save Matt! Matt!"

The look on his dad's face while he listens to his messages is unreadable, but it still makes Dean's stomach drop.

John is putting away his phone, the lines of his face taut with tension.

"Elena's in the hospital, she was in accident."

There's nowhere for Dean's stomach to go, it's already somewhere around his ankles, so he stops breathing instead.

"We're going to Mystic Falls."

Elena is closed tight like a fist when they arrive in her hospital room. Every muscle is taut with anguish, tears sliding down her face into her hair, teeth barred in excruciating grief. There is only so much surviving one girl can take.

A hurried whisper from Dr. Fell that Elena won't speak to or see anyone, hasn't eaten anything.

Then they are in the room and Elena barely glances at them before she returns her gaze to the ceiling.

"Dean, why don't you go see if you can find Elena something to eat," John says.

Dean glances between his father and his friend. John is stone-faced, Elena is raw with grief. As wrong as it feels to doubt his father, it doesn't seem right, leaving Elena alone with him like this. He knows as soon as he leaves the interrogation will begin.

"I'll be right back, Elena," he says.

She only looks at him, but something in her face tells him that a look is all she can give him right now.

He reaches out and touches her clenched fist before he goes. Just his fingertips to her strained knuckles, but it is enough, for a moment, her fist loosens, goes soft, hand almost unfurling under his touch, then it closes again, knuckles white with tension.

John closes the door, making sure Dean isn't anywhere nearby.

He clears his throat, discomforted, as he turns back to Elena.

"I understand the driver didn't make it."

Elena lets out a strangled gasp.

John is aghast to discover tears in his eyes. Elena's grief is a living, breathing entity, infecting everything it touches. Standing in a room alone with her is like drowning in it. One look at her grief-raw face drags dark, ugly memories to the surface until he feels weak in the knees with the reality of his own anguish. He clears his throat again, this time in an attempt to compose himself.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Elena. But I need to understand what happened, and there doesn't seem to be anyone else to tell me. So take a moment to compose yourself, and start at the beginning."

Her throat works, she breathes in and out of her nose heavily.

"His name is Matt." She sucks in a heartbroken gasp before correcting herself. "His name was Matt."

John doesn't take any of it well. Elena is worn so thin, he manages to restrain himself somewhat when he scolds at her for keeping him so out of the loop. Still, she looks right through him.

He resents the deal she made with Klaus in Denver, but he begrudgingly understands that she'd done it to keep Dean safe. That he can understand, even if he dislikes her agreeing to neutrality. What he can't understand is why she didn't call him immediately. There are a hundred moments since he left Mystic Falls that should have warranted a phone call.

"This is salvageable. Alaric might not be human anymore, but he has the right idea. He'll take care of the vampires, or they'll take care of him."

Elena looks at him.

"The only way to kill Alaric is to kill me. Esther linked us. That's why Klaus and Rebekah both tried to kill me." She left that part out before. She watches his face.

John pinches the bridge of his nose, trying to keep calm.

"That's more of a reason to let him take care of it. As soon as word got out, every vampire in the world would be after you."

"I don't want them to die," she says in her cracking monotone.

He shakes his head. "I don't have the patience for your vampire infatuation tonight, Elena."

"I. Don't. Want. Them. To. Die." She enunciates every syllable with force.

"I don't see how you can stop him."

She looks at him. "You can."

"I'm not going to."

"You are."

He shakes his head. "Elena, I'm doing what's best for you and for everyone. We'll all be better off without vampires."

She cocks her head to the side. Her voice is dead. "Guess I'll go die then."

He shakes his head. "You'd just wake up as a vampire; I know you don't want that."

She shrugs. "I can wait."

You're not going to kill yourself, Elena." He sounds so sure, it makes her smile. His stomach drops.

"You know the last time someone tried to call my bluff, I stabbed myself in the stomach."

He stills, staring at her hard, searching for a hint of deception in her face.
She pauses, considering her own words, then shakes her head. "No wait, that was the time before." She stares him down. "Last time, I started to slit my own throat with a scalpel. And by last time, I mean yesterday."

He is staring at her hard, like he can somehow prove that she's lying with the power of his gaze alone.

"Don't ever think I value my life more than you do." She speaks through bared teeth. "My own enemies value my life more than I do."

It hits him hard, the truth of her statement. Elena is invaluable to both sides. Alaric needs her to stay alive so he won't die. Even if Klaus tried to kill her, her blood is still worth its weight in gold to him.

"We do this on my terms, not yours."

By the time Dean gets back to Elena's room there is a small crowd gathered outside her door. He recognizes most of them from the funeral but Jeremy is the only one he really knows.

Before they can exchange greetings, the blonde girl – Caroline, he knows her name now – breaks away from the group to confront him.

"Tell your dad to let us in to see her," she demands immediately.

Dean shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Caroline. He's not the one keeping you out."

She flinches, not seeming to register that he knows her name.

"She would never."

He gives her an even look. "She's not exactly herself right now."

Caroline lets out a sob, turning away from him quickly. Jeremy breaks away to follow him into Elena's room.

It's just registering to him as strange that Alaric and Bonnie aren't with the group when someone pushes past him and into the room. It's Damon.

"Elena, I know you're upset but this is just ridiculous-"

Before Dean can cut him off, his dad does.

"Get your ass out of here before I remove you myself." His dad's tone is icy.

Damon sneers at him. "I'm talking to Elena, not you, old man."

"She doesn't want to talk to you, or see you. So I'm telling you to get the hell out before I do what I've been itching to do since the moment I laid eyes on you."

Stefan steps into the room hesitantly.

Elena, until now, has been silent, staring right through Damon like he isn't there. As soon as she catches sight of Stefan, she starts wailing.

It's the most gut-wrenching sound Dean has ever heard and he's a moment from taking action when his dad draws his gun and points it Damon.

Jeremy rushes to his sister's side, brushing the tears from her face, comforting her as best he can.

"I would've done the same thing," Damon tells her flatly, but Elena can't seem to hear him.

Stefan looks pained, he hooks his arm around his brother's neck, dragging him out of the room.

Caroline lingers in the doorway.

John keeps his gun aimed on her. She glances between him and Elena's prone figure.

"Elena?" she whispers, looking stricken.

Elena does not answer.

"Elena, please," she begs. "I lost Tyler too. You're not alone. Just please talk to me."

Elena sits up, trembling. "Tell me you would've saved Matt. Tell me," she says, her voice hoarse.

It's the first thing Dean has heard her say and even though he feels lost without context, he feels relieved to hear the sound of her voice, hoarse and broken as it is.

Caroline shakes. "I-" She can't lie, not when Elena is like this. "I love you. You're my best friend."

Elena turns away, looking at Jeremy.

"You would never ask Jeremy to pick anyone else over you." Caroline sounds accusatory now.

Jeremy drags Elena to him, burying her face in his chest.

"I think you should go, Caroline," he tells her lowly, never looking at her.

"Elena," she says one last time. When Elena doesn't look at her, she leaves, finally.

John puts his gun away, moving onto the next topic as quickly as possible.

"Jeremy, I'm gonna take you home to pack, you're leaving town tonight."

Jeremy shakes his head vehemently, holding onto Elena firmly. "Not without my sister."

John raises a hand. "Elena's leaving, too; you'll both be safer far away from here."

Elena rises out of his embrace. "Please, Jeremy. Just go. I need to know you're safe." She seems overfilled with emotion, ready to burst. "I can't lose you."

Looking at his sister's tearstained face, Jeremy reluctantly nods.

"Yeah, okay. As long as you're going, too. As long as you're safe, too."

Jeremy and John take their leave. John orders Dean not to let anyone into Elena's room unless it's hospital staff. Under his breath he asks him to try to get her to eat something.

Once they are alone, Dean unloads the foods onto the table in the corner.

"We got a cheeseburger with extra bacon, two orders of fries because I know you like to throw 'em, honey roasted peanuts, Grape Vines, and Fudge Delight ice cream." He throws a handful of plastic spoons down on the table. It's all of her favorites from their road trip, he's pulling out the big guns.

"You couldn't have found any of this in a vending machine," she observes quietly.

He scoffs. "I'd never try to feed you vending machine crap. You're too classy for that."

She can't quite pull off the smile she attempts.

He looks over at her. "Where do you wanna start?"

She looks at the food with distaste.

"Now c'mon, are you really gonna say no to Fudge Delight? You once claimed it was the definition of nirvana and inner peace, 'Lena. How could you pass that up?"

She shrugs helplessly. "I guess I'm not in the mood."

"What about a burger? I even made sure they made the bacon extra crispy so it crunches. I know how you hate rubbery bacon."

"You like bacon cheeseburgers more than I do," she says softly.

He grabs the Grape Vines, coming over to sit on the end of her bed.

"You know when my dad gives me a job, he expects me to do it. He was pretty serious about getting you to eat."

Opening the box he holds it out to her until she takes one.

Reluctantly she bites down and chews. She eats like it's physically taxing, but she manages to finish one.

"How'd it taste?"

She shrugs. "Salty."

He almost laughs, barely catching himself. "Yeah well, that's why you shouldn't eat and cry at the same time."

"Guess I'm gonna starve to death then."

He lets out a snort before he catches himself this time. "I forgot how morbidly funny you are."

She gives him a smirk. "Yup, that's me, Elena Gilbert, funniest sad bitch you'll ever meet."

"Eat another vine, Elena," he says with perfect seriousness, so she complies.

He makes her finish the box and then manages to get her to eat a few spoonfuls of ice cream even though its consistency is closer to soup than ice cream.

"If I try to eat anything else I'm gonna throw up," she says abruptly.

He nods slowly. "Okay, no more food then."

"You should eat," she tells him. "Seriously, eat the burger, I'm not gonna."

He nods. "Yeah, okay."

They don't speak while he eats, but Dean knows better than to force it.

"So you know where Jeremy is going?"

She nods. "Yeah, your dad said he knew another hunter in South Dakota that Jeremy could stay with."

Dean looks at her, taken aback. "Bobby Singer?"

Elena nods. "Yeah, that's the name."

"Bobby's great. He used to look after Sam and I when we were kids."

She just nods again, looking exhausted by their conversation.

He hesitates, but plunges in anyway. "I'm sorry about Matt."

Elena goes still. "Me too," she says faintly, barely breathing.

"What, uh, happened?" he asks hesitantly.

"We went over the bridge."

He blinks. "The same bridge?"

She nods. "Same bridge." She inhales and exhales like it takes effort to breathe, effort to be alive. "Stefan saved me, not Matt. I was still conscious, he wasn't. I tried to get him – Stefan – to take Matt and not me, but he wouldn't. He grabbed me instead."

Dean knows very little about Stefan and he likes even less about him, but he can't help but empathize at how difficult of a decision that must've been.

He does know Elena, and he vividly remembers her reaction to Caroline refusing to say that she would pick Matt over her, so he doesn't say anything.

He's trying to think of something to say when someone opens Elena's door. It's Damon.

"I just want to talk to you, Elena." He pointedly ignores Dean who is sitting at the foot of her bed and holding her hand between both of his.

Dean is prepared to kick him out when Elena stops him.

"It's okay, Dean. Just give us a second."

He can't read anything in her face or her voice. He wants to protest because his dad had been pretty clear about who was allowed in her room, but Elena sits up, squeezing his fingers.

"I could really use a drink, actually."

He raises an eyebrow. "I know you can get your own booze."

She answers dryly. "I was thinking ginger ale."

He nods slowly. "Vending machine's just down the hall, if you yell, I'll shoot him."

This time she finally does smile at him, but he can't count it as a victory when it looks like it exhausts her completely.

He leaves reluctantly.

Damon came to say something else, but he's not surprised by what comes out of his mouth instead.

"So Dean is the guy you went to Charleston with, huh? When did that happen? Did you seriously hook a new guy at a family funeral? Real classy, Elena."

He's been dying to ask her about Charleston since Klaus spilled the beans at their little impromptu dinner party. He can't hold it in anymore, now that she is looking at him like he's nothing.

She keeps staring at him like she's never seen him before in her life.

"Matt is dead," he voice cracks, "and you wanna talk about Dean?" She stares at him with disgust.

He blinks, it's like she doesn't remember their phone call at all when she practically admitted the truth.

"All I'm saying, Elena, is that it's weird that you kept him a secret if he's just your friend."

She looks right through him, and it's worse than anything Katherine ever did to him.

"I want you to leave, Damon."

He shakes his head. "Not until we talk about this. Is he why you didn't want me to kiss you?"

"We're not going to talk about this. I want you to leave, I never want to see you again."

He barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes.

"Elena, we've been over this, I'm sorry you're upset about Matt, but I would've made the same decision as Stefan."

She exhales sharply, it's almost a laugh.

"Yes, I know," she says evenly. "You pick me. You'll kill Bonnie and Jeremy and Caroline and Matt and Tyler and any-fucking-one but me, and you call that love." She sneers. "I am so sick to death of how you love me, Damon."

He reels back like he's been hit.

She ignores his reaction, continuing, "You don't care at all about what I feel or think or want. You just want to keep me here, safe and exactly as I am and the rest of the world could burn and you wouldn't give a damn if I lost everything as long as I still had a pulse."

His jaw is tight. "Yes. I'm sorry that's not what you want, but it's how I feel."

She shakes her head. "Don't you get it? Your feelings for me don't matter at all, what matters is what I want. That's how relationships go, Damon. You can't have any kind of relationship without the willing participation of both parties. If I want it to be over, it's over." Her lips turn up into something resembling a smile, twisting his guts up inside of him so tightly he can't breathe.

"And I really want this to be over. You want to make me happy? Leave."

He gasps. "Elena-"

"Get. Out." She speaks clearly, never taking her eyes off of him.

He leans forward like he's going to take a step closer when he notices Dean Winchester standing in the doorway with a gun trained on him.

"You heard her, leave."

Damon looks between Dean and Elena in disbelief.

"So this is how it's going to be? I'm forced out at gunpoint by your new hunter boyfriend?"

He looks over at Dean again, loathing clear on his face.

"Give me a reason, I'm begging you," is Dean's only reply.

Damon shakes his head. "Elena wouldn't-"

"I would." She cuts him off. "Maybe I'll be sorry later, but right now, I wouldn't stop him if he set you on fire."

Damon can only stare at her, for the first time understanding why she can't stop looking at him like he's a stranger.

"Have a nice life, Elena."

Life outside of Elena's hospital room keeps going. John speaks with too many originals for his comfort. His skin crawls every time. Alaric lurks on the edges, trying to find his way to Elena's room or persuade John to his side.

John's trying his damndest to respect Elena's request to wait until she is out of the hospital to make big decisions, but he knows his choice. John is used to calling the shots. He'd let Alaric massacre them all in a heartbeat.

He speaks with Elena's school, she doesn't seem intent on going back, but knowing the Gilberts like he does, he knows her diploma will mean something to her someday.

Klaus finds his way out of Tyler's body and back into his own with the help of Bonnie Bennett. Kelly Donovan comes home to bury her son next to her daughter. Pastor Young murders the Founders' Council with the exception of Mayor Lockwood and Sheriff Forbes.

John does his best to keep Alaric focused on Elena and the hospital, despite the fact that it goes against all of his instincts. He wants to call her bluff, but Klaus and Elijah quickly inform him of their own experiences with Elena's willingness to commit brutalities against her own body without hesitation under the right circumstances.

It's something he almost wants to admire, the steel it must take to do the things she has done, except that it's beyond horrifying to think of any 18 year old girl who drives a knife into her gut like it's nothing.

"I hear you get to leave tomorrow."

Elena is wearing the PJs Jeremy packed for her before he left, looking restless after so many days confined to her hospital bed. She nods. "Yup, I get to go home and pack."

"Did Dad finally decide if he's sending you to Bobby's or not?"

She shakes her head. "He said we'd talk about it tomorrow."

Dean hasn't left the hospital often, mostly just to shower and change, his dad has appointed him Elena's personal babysitter and bodyguard without bothering to explain why a girl who emerged from a car accident virtually unscathed needs to be in a hospital, or needs a babysitter for that matter.

His dad and Dr. Fell come into view, having another one of their tense, hurried conversations. There's barely disguised scorn on John's face.

"He really does not like her," Dean can't help but say.

"Yeah, he doesn't really approve of her methods."

John and Dr. Fell enter the room.

"Elena, Dr. Fell is going to sit with you in the bathroom while you shower."

Dean can't help but be surprised that a doctor is doing that instead of a nurse or an orderly, but he doesn't comment. He also doesn't ask why Elena needs someone to stay in the bathroom while she showers.

When the two women leave Dean can't hold it in anymore.

"Why do you hate Elena's doctor?"

John raises an eyebrow at him. "I don't."

Dean gives him a skeptical look.

John sighs. For his part, Dean has been good about not asking questions, and he knows how hard that is for him, so he gives him a tiny sliver of information.

"Elena fell and hit her head a few days ago, the day before the accident, actually. Jeremy brought her here and Dr. Fell fed him some bullshit about a concussion even though she passed out and was bleeding out her nose."

He pauses here, his teeth gritting together.

"Dr. Fell gave Elena vampire blood without telling anyone."

Dean sucks in a breath, staring at his dad with wide eyes.

"Elena had vampire blood in her system when she went over that bridge. If Stefan hadn't dragged her out of the water in time, we'd be here for a very different reason."

It goes through Dean like a cold knife, the knowledge that Elena came so close to being turned against her will. They might've been here for a very different reason.

"Needless to say, I've been keeping Elena under lock and key to make sure no other accidents befall her before the vampire blood has fully left her system."

The Gilbert house is even more bleak and haunted than the last time Dean was there. At the moment, only Dean and Elena are there. John is off in another mysterious meeting, Jeremy is already in South Dakota with Bobby, and Elena's friends stay away. It's getting harder to ignore Alaric Saltzman's absence, but Dean can't seem to bring himself to ask what happened to the history teacher.

He knows he's been left in the dark about a lot, but he's pretty sure they'd tell him if Alaric had died. There would've been a funeral at least. He has a feeling it's something much uglier. He doesn't know how Elena can handle any of it, as grief-raw as she is, he's surprised she isn't catatonic.

He finds Elena in her parents' room, standing in front of her mother's vanity, staring at her jewelry box like it belongs to Pandora.

He knocks on the door frame quietly but she startles.

"Dean, hi." She's talking to the door frame, not him, but he's gotten used to her disconnect, he doesn't take it personally or hold it against her.

"Hey, how are you holding up?"

She shrugs. "I'm not a vampire, so I guess we focus on the small victories."

He nods. "My dad mentioned that he told me, then."

She looks vaguely guilty. "I'm sorry, it's just that it's all still so complicated. The less you know the better."

He tries not to be short with her. "Yeah, that's the line my dad's been feeding me."

"It's true, though." Only half of her mouth raises when she tries to smile at him. "Trust me, you'd be a lot less understanding if you knew."

"Nah, I wouldn't," he says immediately.

She looks doubtful.

"If you knew some of the things I've done – the things I've told myself were necessary-"

He shakes his head, cutting her off before she can continue.

"I know you, Elena. I don't need the whole story to know you. You did what you had to do."

She looks down at her hands.

"I wish I'd left with you in May."

He swallows, nodding his head. "There's always gonna be something you wish you did differently."

She looks at him, unshed tears in her eyes. "I wish I was in Charleston," she says hoarsely.

He clears his throat. "Hell, me too."

She looks around the room. "I'm done packing, I just can't figure out how to let go," she admits quietly.

He nods in understanding. "Maybe you don't need to leave everything?"

She looks at him questioningly.

"Find something to take with you. A talisman or something to keep you connected to your home."

She reaches out, touching the pendant on his necklace.

"Is that what this is? A talisman?"

He nods. "I guess, yeah. Sammy gave it to me when we were kids."

"Okay." She clears her throat. Carefully she opens her mother's jewelry box.

She sucks in a breath, a few tears slip down her face.

He gives her a concerned look.

"It smells like her perfume, still," she says softly.

He nods in understanding.

She runs her fingers carefully over a pearl necklace, delicately flutters her fingers along a pair of silver earrings shaped like leaves. Finally she picks up a ring box and opens it. Inside there are two gold wedding bands and a diamond engagement ring.

"My parents'." She inhales. "They're family heirlooms, that's why they weren't buried with them." She quickly swipes away a few tears. "I need to find a chain."

Dean smiles, quick as lightning. "Actually, I have one for you."

She looks at him, surprised. "You do?"

He searches the pockets of his coat before he finds the little velvet bag that's been sitting there for about a month.

"Uh, yeah. It's a witch chain, fortified with vervaine, I found it in some voodoo shop in New Orleans. I dunno, it made me think of all those crazy stories about the Mystic Falls Founders' Council, so I bought it. It doesn't have a pendant, which is why I haven't given it to yet."

She takes the bag from him, opening the tassels and upending it into her hand in a stream of pure silver moonlight.

"It's beautiful," she says softly. She slides the three rings onto the chain.

Clearing her throat she holds it out to him.

"Could you?" she asks quietly.

He nods, taking it from her. He fastens it around her neck. The rings sit just low enough to tuck under her shirt.

"Thank you," she tells him sincerely.

Elena waits until Dean and John are asleep to slip out her window. It's risky, anyone could be watching and waiting for her just outside the sanctuary of home, but it's all she's been able to think about since she woke up in the hospital.

She's surprised at how smoothly her first task goes. She's in and out of the Salvatore Boardinghouse without any trouble. She never imagined how easy it would be.

Part of her wants to barge right in guns blazing. She's been burning bridges all week, just for this. Caroline, Damon, Bonnie, anyone who tried to see her was met with cruel honesty. It's the only way she can make this work. It seems fitting, to continue on as ruthlessly as she has before. One thought of Dean is enough to caution her. She doubles back to her house, finding a foolproof hiding spot before she even steps foot inside.

The easy part out of the way, Elena takes a deep breath and sets out for her next destination.

Predictably, the originals are converged in the sitting room of their towering mansion. On the ornate table, pointed outwards in a circle are their daggers, in some bizarre decoration of what is likely Klaus' design, a display of power, no doubt.

Elena enters with a bang, slamming through the door so hard it slams itself behind her. Elijah stands immediately, her name on his lips. Klaus leans forward, seconds from rising himself, aiming to collide with Kol before he can touch her. She pays them no mind, hurtling forward until she stops in front of Rebekah.

Rebekah, for her part, looks almost afraid, rising slowly to stand in front of Elena.

"Why didn't you save him?" Elena asks, cutting straight to the point.

Rebekah blinks.

"I get it," Elena continues, her voice hard and flat. "I had to die." She waves her hand, waving away her own life like it's nothing. "You had to protect your family. But why didn't you save Matt? He didn't have to die, Rebekah."

"Elena," Elijah starts but Elena cuts him off with a scream of pure wordless fury.

When she speaks her voice is tight with control.

"I'm talking to Rebekah."

Elijah sits, too stunned to maintain his composure.

Rebekah blinks at her, looking overwhelmed.

"Well?" Elena asks. "I'm waiting. What did Matt do to deserve this? Or was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

Rebekah starts shaking her head.

"Elena, it wasn't personal-"

Elena begins to laugh, her throat is raw from nearly drowning, but she can't help it.

"Right, it wasn't personal, so why the fuck did you leave him there?" She cocks her head to the side. "What? You didn't want to get your hair wet?"

Rebekah glares at her. "I thought my brother had just died-"

"So you murdered someone who had nothing to do with it?"

"Love-" it's Klaus' turn to try to cut in.

"I asked Rebekah, not you." There is something so dead in Elena's voice that it seems to steal Klaus' voice right out of his throat.

"You must have a death wish," Kol says with amused smirk.

Elena swings her gaze over to him, looking away from Rebekah for the first time since she came into the room. He blanches. There is nothing in her eyes that says she is afraid. She's so far beyond fear, in a room full of immortals, Elena is the one who seems invincible.

She looks back at Rebekah who turns away, unnerved by her empty gaze.

Elena's composure is slipping again, and what lies just below the surface is so much more terrifying.

"Do you really just not care? Is that it? You've been alive so long; what's one human compared to the thousands you've killed?" She trembles, full of rage. "You come here and you wreck lives and destroy families and then you wonder why your own mother hates you."

"For God's sake, Elena," Elijah interjects.

Elena turns blazing eyes on him and he falters again.

She looks between all of them, sneering.

"Nothing matters to any of you, nothing is sacred. You just ruin things. You kill because you can and that's a good enough excuse for you. I used to have sympathy for you. I used to think it was more complicated than just being a monster, but maybe I was wrong." She stops, trembling. "Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there's nothing human left in any of you."

She looks at Rebekah again. "You failed. I'm still here. You killed Matt for no good reason." She shakes her head mockingly. "You'd think after a thousand years of casual destruction it wouldn't be so hard for you to kill one stupid little girl."

She flashes a humorless grin at Klaus. "I mean, at least you did it right the first time." She shakes her head. "The second time, though. Not as well done."

"Here," she snatches one of the daggers off the table, "I'll show you how it's done."

Kol and Rebekah don't act, neither of them having the personal experience to know that Elena Gilbert doesn't bluff or hesitate. Klaus and Elijah on the other hand, leap into action. Elijah is moving towards her before he is even standing, and in the instant before Klaus has one hand wrapped around Elena's wrist, barely managing to prevent her from driving the dagger into her own throat. He wraps his free hand around the back of her neck, holding her in place. She drops the dagger with a clatter.

Tears stream freely down her face, but she does not crumble. She stares him down, teeth bared, body shaking with the force of her grief.

Elijah hovers over Klaus' shoulder, at a loss. Rebekah looks shell-shocked. Kol, for his part, can't seem to understand what he almost witnessed. He stares at the dagger like he's never seen it before in his life, let alone spent centuries with one buried in his heart.

"We are not irredeemable, Elena," Klaus whispers, his voice low, his gaze intense. "I am sorry for your loss. I understand your frustration. We have not often showed you our humanity."

It occurs to Rebekah, distantly, that if Klaus just tilts his head forward a bit, his forehead will rest against Elena's, their noses will touch. In one move, they could be a breath away from a kiss.

"I recognize now that I let others make decisions for you. I see now that I was hasty in my attempt to dispose of Alaric efficiently."

He strokes his fingers down her neck, surreptitiously checking for wounds, lingering on the place he left his mark on her.

She snorts. "John told me Rebekah wrecked your blood supply. You need me again. That's the only reason you don't want me to die."

He flinches but does not deny it.

"I'm sure John Winchester doesn't know you're here." Elijah attempts to take control of the situation.

"I had a hunch," John says from the doorway. He has his gun trained on Klaus. "Get your hands off her."

"Could you not point a gun at my brother?" Kol responds.

"He just stopped her from driving a dagger into her throat," Rebekah interrupts before a proper fight can break out.

Klaus lets go of Elena, bending down to pick the dagger up from the floor and place it back with the others. John begrudgingly lowers his gun. He keeps his eyes on the originals, closing ground between him and Elena.

As soon as she is within reach, he drags her into his embrace, pressing her face into his chest, more to protect than comfort.

"I don't know what happened, but she's obviously not in her right mind. As far as I'm concerned the terms of our agreement are still in effect."

Elijah nods, he was the one who made the agreement in the first place.

Klaus disagrees. "She came here herself, no contact was never an option, not when her blood is so valuable to me."

John glares him down. "After everything she's been through, she's not in her right mind. I don't give a shit what you want with her blood, we're going and you're leaving her the hell alone."

Klaus shakes his head. "When I agreed I had plenty of blood, and I was unsure of the location of the white oak stake. Now I know the Salvatores have it, so, I've changed my mind. I'll be taking that stake, and I'll be taking my girl." He gestures magnanimously at Elena, still pressed to John's chest. "We'll go somewhere fun, I promise she'll never be bored."

Elena pinches John's waist, shocking him enough that he loosens his grip enough for her to shove her way out and face Klaus.

"The Salvatores don't have the white oak stake, I do."

Her declaration silences the room.

"What do you mean, Elena?" John asks through clenched teeth.

Turning back to look at him, she shrugs easily. "I have the stake." She sniffs, both a condemnation and a reaction to the tears drying on her face. "They practically handed it to me."

She turns back to Klaus.

"Now, are you ready to negotiate?"

The terms are simple, Elena will run, and Alaric will follow. He'll have to, once he realizes she's in possession of the only way he can kill the originals. She's his only weakness and she has his only weapon. She's irresistible prey.

Klaus will get his blood on Elena's terms, and in exchange he'll keep the vampires under control, so no one who knows that she is Alaric's weakness will tell and none of them will try to murder her either.

John isn't happy with any of it, but he recognizes that Elena has all of the advantages, he's got nothing but a promise to a dead man to keep his daughter safe. That seemed so much easier before he realized Elena isn't so much as suicidal as she is always one step away from sacrificing herself for perfect strangers – perfect enemies – as long as it suits her purpose. As far as he can tell, Elena's only purpose is to keep people she cares about alive. It makes her reckless with her own life and ferociously protective of anyone she considers hers.

On top of all of that, Elena won't tell him where she hid the white oak stake.

Elena's plan goes like this:

"There are four girls. Three of them leave from Mystic Falls. They all go in different directions.

"The first goes north, to Canada. She drives. Her car will belong to Elena Gilbert, but with different plates. Elena's plates will be found in a truck stop bathroom, the car that the other plates are originally from will be reported stolen. She disappears at the border and never resurfaces. He'll follow her first, Canada has English speaking providences. He doesn't know Elena has a knack for languages.

"The second girl goes south. She takes a plane. She has a different passport, not Elena's, but with Elena's photo. In Mexico City the third girl meets her at the airport, they trade passports. The second girl boards a plane as the third girl to Amsterdam where she gets a connecting flight to Gdansk. In about a month she drowns in the Baltic Sea; no one claims her body. He'll follow her after the first girl's a dead end. Gdansk has a burgeoning art scene. Sure, she was traveling alone, but would Elena really leave her brother?

"She would if she knew he was in a safe place. An absolutely safe place.

"The third girl stays in Mexico, she travels around, partying, he's only just one party destination away from her. Elena has always had a wild streak, after all. She's a ghost, she's fifty girls at once, not a single one of them is Elena Gilbert. By the time he realizes it's not her, he's been chasing dead ends for months.

"Six months to a year, that's how long we can keep him chasing after the wrong girls if everyone plays their parts perfectly."

"And the fourth girl?" John asks, interjecting as much skepticism as he can. Apparently Dean wasn't nearly distracting enough for Elena in her confinement.

She smiles at him. "Good catch. She goes with you. I'm going with you. I'm the fourth."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? Wouldn't you rather be with your brother?" John asks. It's what he's been leaning towards, sending her to Bobby to be with Jeremy.

Elena is decisive.

"I'm sure. I'm coming with you. We can't keep him distracted forever, eventually he'll catch on and figure out where I really went. By then I'll be a moving target. By then, you'll have taught me enough for me to defend myself in case anyone disagrees with Klaus on how to deal with me. As long as I stay with you, I'm a moving target. We play cat and mouse until we figure out how to kill him or fix him."

She looks him directly in the eye. "If worse comes to worse, we already know how to kill him. If worse comes to worse, you do what you have to, promises be damned, or I do it for you."

It hits him like a gut punch, what she expects. If Alaric can't be saved, Elena expects to die.

"I want to be one of the girls," Rebekah announces.

Everyone is shocked when instead of protesting, Elena nods.

"You'll be the first. The second should be a witch or a vampire, a hybrid even. Someone who can fake a drowning. I'm open to suggestions on that one."

Rebekah makes a face. "I was hoping for the third." She pouts.

Elena shakes her head, laser-focused on her plan. "No, that's Katherine."

Everyone turns to look at her, surprised, except for Klaus.

"You trust her with this?" he asks.

She sighs. "She's the only one who could get away with pretending to be me for so long. I trust that she has enough self-interest to want to stop Alaric from killing off the entire vampire species."

John shifts uncomfortably. He's a damn hunter, he shouldn't be here planning to protect monsters. Elena Gilbert's priorities are frankly disturbing and he's starting to wonder if maybe she needs trauma therapy – or deprogramming.

She looks at Klaus. "Agreeing not to kill her would go a long way in getting her in on the plan."

Klaus nods begrudgingly. "Yes, I suppose she's the only choice."

Rebekah considers Elena. "You had this plan all worked out, yet you expect us to believe you were really going to kill yourself?" It's strange how pleading she sounds, like she needs to hear it from Elena that she was bluffing.

Elena stares her down. "There's more than one way to solve a problem." She smirks. "That was the easy way. It figures you originals would pick the hard way."

Elena's plan starts off without a hitch, in a confrontation with Damon, Alaric discovers the white oak stake is gone, it doesn't take long for word to get out that Elena has it. He follows her car over the Canadian border, by the time he realizes he's chasing Rebekah, Elena is somewhere in New Hampshire, riding shotgun with John Winchester reciting the proper technique to track a werewolf.

"What did you and Dean do in Charleston?"

Elena looks over at him, he has his eyes on the road.

"Tourist stuff," she answers honestly.

He glances at her, eyebrow raised.

"Oh," she says, suddenly understanding. She shakes her head. "Oh, no, Dean would never. He was being nice, that's all."

John shakes his head. "I know my son, he's not that nice."

"He is to me," she says firmly. "I mean, I might've traumatized him into it, really. I called him crying one too many times and he did the only thing he could think of."

John looks doubtful. "So nothing's ever happened?"

She shakes her head vehemently.

"He's been a good friend, but that's all." She sucks in a breath. "We both know why anything else would be a terrible idea. I would never want to drag him into my messes."

And something in her tone gives her away, as good as she is at faking it, John Winchester understands in an instant.

"You love him."

He doesn't sound horrified or disapproving, just surprised.

She doesn't even consider lying to him.

"It's not a good idea," she says simply.

A hysterical laugh bubbles up in his throat, he swallows it down. "It's really not." He clears his throat. "You have to understand why I'm asking you not to go there."

She nods slightly. "He'll never know, I promise," she says softly.

He glances over at her, looking doubtful.

She smiles bitterly back at him. "I'm complicated, I know that. I'm not gonna drag him into any of it, I swear."

He nods slowly. He knows he'll have to say something to Dean the next chance he gets. He's pretty sure he'd know if Dean was in love, but it's best to nip it in the bud before there's even a chance of his stupid, brave son getting dragged into the blackhole that is Elena Gilbert's life.

A few days later John heads to South Dakota to check on Jeremy like he promised. It's not ideal, leaving Elena with Dean so soon after learning her secret, but he figures she'll have to learn how to be around him on her own eventually, better to rip off the band-aid.

Elena has always been comfortable with Dean. When she lapses into silence there is the readily available excuse of grief. It's the truth, in a way. No, she hasn't figured out how to be around him now that she knows how she feels, but she also can't deal with that feeling when she can't stop remembering: Matt, the bridge, Rebekah, resolute in their headlights.

Sometimes the impossible dandelion flashes though her and she thinks how ugly it was, to recognize love so close to death. She doesn't want to associate love with death but it's always there. The two are inexplicably tied in her life.

It's almost like being in Charleston, back before she was in love, it's only when they stop for the first night that she realizes it's nothing like Charleston. Charleston was a vacation, after all. She might not be a hunter yet, but she's certainly in training, and Dean isn't interested in skimping on any of it.

He explains as kindly as he can that the most important thing they can do is blend in, and looking the way they do, separate beds isn't blending. Numbly, she nods in understanding. She signed up for this life, after all.

In the room, he is gracious. "I can take the couch, don't worry about it."

She rolls her eyes, shaking her head. "Don't be ridiculous, Dean. it's tiny, your legs wouldn't fit on it comfortably."

He opens his mouth to protest but she raises a hand to cut him off before he can speak.

"It's fine, we can share a bed. It's not a big deal."

"Are you sure?" he asks warily.

She nods. "It's a big bed. Really, it's fine."

It's actually very awkward. Neither of them can seem to finish any of their thoughts, despite the fact that at least two people could fit in the space between them.

Elena thinks longingly of Charleston, the dark of the room and the space between their beds and how easy it had been to tell him anything. Back then the hardest part had been stopping herself from telling him everything.

"This is weird," Dean finally says bluntly.

Elena grasps the first excuse she can think of. "Only because we're used to talking on the phone."

He doesn't seem convinced. "It wasn't like weird in Charleston."

"We were on vacation, that's a totally different mindset," she reminds him. "We had space between us, and it was dark, it was almost like talking on the phone still."

His foot accidentally touches her shin and she recoils.

He sits up. "Okay, that's it." He get out of bed.

"Dean? What are you doing?" She sits up too.

Watching in astonishment, he gathers the couch cushions and all of the extra pillows they'd dumped on the couch earlier. He even gets the extra pillow from the closet. He uses them to build a wall between them.

He lies back down.

"There, we can play telephone."

She stares at the pile of pillows in astonishment, then she starts to laugh.

He grins into the dark. It's always felt like a personal triumph to be able to make Elena laugh when she's miserable.

She flops over, disappearing from view, still giggling.

"Okay, now tell me about your day like it wasn't me chauffeuring you around all day."

She protests. "Hey! I said I would drive."

He shakes his head, well aware that she can't see him.

"Sorry, 'Lena, you've been in way too many car accidents, there's no way in hell I'd let you drive mine."

It's a risk, bringing up car accidents so soon, but he's rewarded with the sound of her laughter again.

"Your love for your car is a little disturbing, you know that?"

He gasps, genuinely offended, but over-exaggerating in order to egg her on.

"She's a classic, Elena."

"Like you?" She asks, a teasing edge to her voice.

"Yes, exactly. So don't disrespect us again."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Her voice is warm.

There's a lull in their conversation so Dean finally brings up something that's been bugging him since Damon came to Elena's hospital room.

"Elena, why did Damon call me your boyfriend?"

"Oh, that." She huffs, uncomfortably aware of him again. "To sum it up, he's crazy."

"Yeah, I'm still confused, I need more."

"You took me to Charleston, and we talk on the phone a lot. That's enough for Damon – and everyone else in Mystic Falls for that matter – to decide that you have to be in love with me, instead of just being a good friend." She's impressed at how well she hides the hitch in her breath.

"That is crazy."

"I told you, Mystic Falls is a weird anomaly when it comes to relationships. A guy could blink at me and everyone would swear he's in love with me."

"Right, because he's confessing his love in Morse code."

She laughs. "Damn, I knew I should've learned an outdated telecommunication method." She sighs exaggeratedly. "All of the coded love confessions I'm missing out on."

They snicker over all of the ridiculous things that could be secret love confessions for a while before Dean drifts off. Elena stays awake, listening to the sound of his breathing.

tbc.

AN: Chapter Title from Let He Go by Passenger. I discovered this song from an edit on Tumblr, it was of Elena and it was the lyric "maybe one day you'll understand why everything you touch surely dies" so I've always had a strong association between the song and her character. I don't think I really considered any other song for this chapter title because of that.

TVD episodes used: 3.01, 3.06, 3.10, 3.11, 3.14, 3.19, and 3.22.

I'm honestly surprised no one guessed that Evil!Alaric is who Elena is running from, but then again, he was a short-lived villain. Honestly though, he's one of my favorites. Matt Davis' performance is chilling, and Evil!lAlaric presents a lot of well-reasoned arguments for his side of things. He's also the perfect villain to play against John Winchester as Elena's "hero" (not really what I would call him, but I do think Elena has an idea of him as a heroic figure who swooped in and took her out of place where she was miserable and constantly being controlled by everyone in her life). I love when heroes and villains have very similar lines of thinking.

Yes, I did write Dean and Elena going to Charleston, but this was another mammoth chapter so I had to cut it, don't worry, I'm planning on posting it, probably later this week. I think I'm gonna make a small collection of cut scenes from this story, including Charleston and Elena taking Hope to see Hayley.

References/Rambles:

Canonically this is only Elena's second birthday without her parents and her first without Jenna (or John). I've never believed that the way she was acting was just because she missed Stefan. Not that that isn't valid, mind you, but I really do think the show just forgot its own timeline - it does that a lot. Elena lost her parents and Jenna and John less than a year apart. She's holding herself together with the one hope that she has, that Stefan is still someone she can save.

One of my favorite details in Dracula is that Quincey uses a Winchester rifle. Off the top of my head: Elena is Mina, Dean is Quincey, Sam is Dr. Seward, Caroline is Lucy, Klaus is obviously Dracula, Alaric is definitely more of a Van Helsing than John Winchester bc Van Helsing is a sweetie pie but I digress. I'm sure if I thought about it more I could think of who Harker and Arthur are. Sadly S3 Stefan is highkey Renfield, at least in the first half of the season. And yes I recognize all of these character equivocations have no point and also wreck basically every ship - except Lucy/Mina is the Best literary equivalent to Caroline/Elena right down to the fact that Caroline is a dissection and reversal of the vampire character archetype Lucy pretty much originated: lively pretty blonde girl who becomes The Vampire's first victim and eventually becomes one herself and dies tragically except Caroline fucking thrives and destroys the dead blonde girl archetype! Also the queer undertones in both relationships are undeniable and will always fascinate me - but idc about ruining the shipping, it's just fun to think about TVD/SPN characters and equating them to Dracula characters.

In case you were wondering, any time Dean sees Elena get hit on by some random guy who has nothing to do with a case, the memory of Elena crying to him on the phone because Damon kissed her without her consent rises up inside of him like a vengeful fury. So, he's not acting purely out of jealousy. He's remembering what it felt like to hear her cry because she didn't want to be kissed.

Truthfully this particular phone call wasn't supposed to go anywhere. I had no plans for Dean and Elena to meet again in person until 3x19, but while I was writing I just could not get away from the idea that Elena desperately needed to be anywhere but Mystic Falls, at least for a little while. Suddenly Dean was taking her on a road trip.

At this point, all Klaus knows about Dean is his first name and that he drove all night to get Elena and take her away from her miserable life for a week of fun. So, yeah, he'd be all over that. Matt just had to be human and in proximity to Elena for Klaus to ship them, so Dean has like miles of ground between them. Once Klaus knows that he's Dean Fucking Winchester, his feelings about the two of them get a bit more complicated. He was right on the money about Dean falling for Elena, though.

To everyone who is sad that the Delena kiss is gone, this is a Deanlena fanfic, so, take comfort, that kiss is canon and I'm just a fanfiction writer.

In case it isn't clear, most of what Elena and Alaric have told John is related to the ghost storylines in season 3 of TVD. A ghost is a relatively easy monster to deal with, and Jeremy being a medium is a good excuse for why they keep showing up. Of course, since Jeremy didn't die and get resurrected by Bonnie until after John and Dean left Mystic Falls, Alaric and Elena fudged the timeline so John wouldn't freak out and come back. They have to tell him something, especially if he decides to start keeping tabs on news stories about Mystic Falls, so it's all ghost world as far as John's concerned.

While writing the section for 3.22 I listened to Dauðalogn by Sigur Rós on repeat. If you give it a listen, you'll recognize it as the song playing during the final scenes of the episode itself, during the flashbacks to Elena's parents' deaths, and while Elena and Alaric are dying.

John and Elena have their own complicated relationship that is occasionally made more complicated by Dean, but it is still it's own separate thing. Elena is someone John feels responsible for, but she also has a terrifying ability to emote, particularly when she's grieving. He is the first person she effects with her grieving in this section, but he isn't the last.

Elena's feelings about Fudge Delight ice cream are my feelings about strawberry ice cream. Mind you, my favorite ice cream is actually peppermint, but when I think of a perfect moment, I think of strawberry ice cream on a summer's day.

I spend way too much time thinking about Bobby helping Jeremy with his homework tbh. And you know, teaching him hunting stuff too. But the homework takes up a large part of my brain. Somewhere in Bobby's house there's a photo of Jeremy in his grad regalia with Bobby and that's all I care about.

John wants to shoot Damon because he's a vampire, Dean wants to shoot Damon because he made Elena cry. Priorities, lol.

Witch chains do not exist in either TVD or SPN lore, I made them up bc it sounded cool.

At some point Dean and Elena stopped using Charleston as a reference for good times and that always kinda makes me sad to think about. Like for at least a little while there was this idea that they were each others' escape from their real lives - Elena's terrifying high stress life as the human blood bag in Mystic Falls, and Dean's lonely life on the road hunting down monsters - but then Elena left with Dean and John and she became Dean's partner and that just stopped being part of their relationship. In a way it's an improvement, Dean always has someone to count on and talk to now, someone who isn't his overly critical father. And Elena has more agency than she did back in Mystic Falls, she protects people and takes care of herself and has Dean's back, but I'll always be a little sad that Charleston doesn't mean to them in the current timeline what it did in flashbacks.

Elena's plan was one of the first things I wrote for this story. If you pay attention to canon, Elena's plans tend to work out much better than anyone else's on the show. People just often interfere because they think they know better than her. She has an incredibly strategic mind.

And so we get to the terrible truth, John has always known that Elena loves Dean. John warning Dean away wasn't about John thinking Dean wasn't good enough for Elena, it was a father's terror that this girl's messy and tragic life could get his son killed if they were seriously involved. It's hard to hate John for it, because he's just trying to protect Dean, but he does take advantage of Elena's survivor's guilt in order to do that, and he is making them both miserable by keeping them apart so, definitely not one of his best moments. Although this is John Winchester so his good moments are few and far between. But yup. While he warned them both off, only Elena knows the real reason why. Dean gets even more of a complex, thinking his dad doesn't think he's good enough for Elena, and Elena believes her feelings are dangerous.

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Please leave a review!

See ya'll next week for Nightmare! Also at some point before then, Charleston. Stay safe, everyone!

xoxo

-Pixie