A Single Rose Left To Remember {1/3}
Title: A Single Rose Left To Remember 1/3
Author: not_from_stars // Cover Art By queenmidalah
Link to art master post: Art!
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters/Pairing(s): Damon Salvatore/Elena Gilbert, Tyler Lockwood/Caroline Forbes, Jeremy Gilbert/Bonnie Bennett, Alaric Satzman, Klaus, Elijah, Katherine Pierce
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Written For tvd_bigbang 2011
Warning: Spoilers for S2.
Word Count: 21,542
Summary: Elena blames herself for everything that has gone wrong in Mystic Falls and when she is sure that Damon is going to be healed, she leaves the only home she has ever known. She leaves letters for those closest to her, but for Damon, she leaves her journal. The journal is filled with all of Elena's thoughts over the last year -- including her growing love for Damon. The last written page in the journal is a letter for Damon -- and a carefully preserved rose. The rose he gave her once. Now, Damon is in a race against time to find Elena, because Klaus is looking for her, too. Klaus has discovered that because Elena survived the spell he used, her blood -- human or vampire -- now has the power to destroy him if used with an ancient spell. Damon is determined to find Elena before Klaus does and he doesn't care how many people he has to kill to save her. However, when Klaus brings in someone to use as leverage, Damon has to make a choice as to which life he's going to save -- Elena's... or Stefan's.
Author's Notes: I want to thank my friend, queenmidalah, for stepping in and doing art for me at the last minute when my original artist had RL issues crop up. I also want to thank my beta and cheerleader, enochiansigils, for not letting me quit when the story was being so stubborn as to send me into tears more than once. Aftre trying for two days, LJ finally let me post!
Once she started thinking about what she needed to do, it wasn’t very hard to make the actual decisions. After all, she could count on one hand the number of things that had occurred in the last two years that weren’t her fault. The things that she was to blame for far outweighed those that she wasn’t.
It was the funeral of Jenna that made the plans start forming in her head.
Jeremy had lost his parents, two girlfriends, his uncle and now his aunt.
Bonnie had last her grandmother.
Caroline had lost her life as a human and therefore almost everyone that went with it.
Damon and Stefan had probably lost a lot more than she knew about. Anyone who didn’t know them well could say that they hadn’t lost anyone and that they were to blame for everything that had happened in Mystic Falls the last two years.
Elena knew better. The one thing that all of them had in common was her. Elena Gilbert. If it hadn’t been for her, then none of the tragedies that had happened would have ever occurred. There would have been no reason for them to have.
She had planned to slip away soon after the funeral. She had started packing a small suitcase to take with her, something that she could easily sneak out of the house. She couldn’t pack up a lot because that would make people suspicious and it would make it almost impossible for her to disappear like she wanted to.
Disappear so that no one else would get hurt because of her.
She checked on Jeremy, finding him sleeping, and then she went into Jenna’s room. Everything looked the same as it had before Jenna died - and somehow that made everything hurt even worse. Nothing in here had changed, while everything on the outside of this room had. She sat on Jenna’s bed, reaching for one of her pillows, holding it against her as she tried to fight back the latest surge of tears. She didn’t think that she would ever run out of tears.
“I’m sorry, Jenna,” she whispered through the tears. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve for any of this to happen. Not to you.”
All Jenna had ever tried to do was take care of her and Jeremy and give them a home after their parents died. She had never done anything wrong as far as Elena could see - unless it had been all of her efforts to keep her safe when she didn’t deserve it.
Part of her just wanted to curl up in here and go to sleep - shutting out the world and everything that had happened. Go to sleep and hope that when she woke up, the world would make sense again. Jenna would be alive and bouncing around the house or talking about what she and Alaric would be doing that night. Uncle John - she couldn’t seem to call him her father yet - would be poking his nose into her business and trying to flex his status as the oldest male in the family in order to get her to listen to something he wanted her to know. Hell, even Isobel would be alive and be out there somewhere wreaking havoc in someone else’s life.
But none of that was likely to happen.
And an even darker part of her wanted to just go to sleep and never wake up again. If she just went to sleep and never woke up again, would that be able to balance out everything that had happened and all of the lives that had been lost or destroyed merely because she existed?
It would hurt her brother to know she was thinking thoughts like this, but she couldn’t help them. He had said that he could handle losing everyone else because he still had her, but how could he really mean that now? She had caused him to lose every family member that he had. All he had left was her. She didn’t see that as being a fair exchange for him and she knew that once the shock and the grieving wore off, he would feel the same way.
Maybe he would even say that she wasn’t even his real sister since his parents had adopted her. She had been given up by her own parents and then took his from him, as well.
Elena sighed, laying back on the bed and shaking her head. No, even at his worst, Jeremy would never think that about her, much less say such things. He loved her and no matter who had given birth to her, she was still his sister. He had shown that so many times over the last few months.
Even with everything and everyone he had lost because of her, she was still his sister and he still wanted to look out for her. She had seen that in his eyes several times since they started learning the truth about Mystic Falls and their family.
She had seen it in his eyes when she woke up after Klaus had tried to kill her in the same ceremony that he had killed Jenna in.
It should have been her that died then instead of Jenna. She should have died so many months before when she realized that she was the target and the reason things were happening. Damon should never have rescued her from Elijah and maybe all of this death and pain could have been averted.
She closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillow again.
It doesn’t matter what she thought about any of it. Damon would never have allowed her to die. He had made that point very clear - he would always choose her life over someone else’s no matter what she might think about the importance of someone else’s life.
Elena sighed. She needed to get up and go back to her room to finish what she had to do. Klaus was still out there and she couldn’t keep hiding behind any of her friends.
Damon.
She needed to finish her plans and get out of town before Damon was recovered enough to stop her.
Damon had almost died and she was never going to be able to forget how he looked or anything that the two of them had said.
Another life that was almost lost because of her. He wouldn’t have been bitten by the werewolf if he hadn’t been looking out for her.
Elena moved a hand over her mouth to stop the sob that she knew was building. Damon was going to survive, but only because Stefan had traded himself to Klaus for the blood to save him. Stefan had willingly become a monster like Klaus in order to get the cure for Damon.
She had cost Jeremy all of his family and cost Damon his only family.
She closed her eyes tightly and took several deep breaths.
She was running out of time. She needed to get out of town before Damon was recovered and Jeremy figured out what she was planning to do. She had no doubt that the two of them would never allow her to leave - no matter that it was for their own safety for her to do so. It was only a matter of time before Klaus came looking for her again now that Katherine had gone to ground somewhere.
Swallowing, she got up from the bed and replaced the pillow, smoothing the wrinkles from the bed where she had been laying.
“I’m so sorry, Jenna. I wish I could fix this and give you your life back. You were a wonderful person and a great parent and I’ll miss you so much.”
There was one more thing that she needed to do before she left the room. Swallowing hard, she went over to Jenna’s dresser and lifted the top of her jewelry box.
After Elena finished packing her suitcase and had taken care of everything she thought she needed to take care of, she climbed into her vehicle and headed to one last place. No matter what had happened or what she was doing, she couldn’t leave without going to the cemetery one last time.
By now, she knew how to find the graves by heart and it tore at her when she saw the four headstones so close together. People shouldn’t have so many dead family members to visit in their lives.
Of course, people shouldn’t have to bury what amounted to two sets of parents, either.
Three sets, she reminded herself. First her parents, next Jenna, and then John and Isobel.
Three sets of parents that she knew now had loved her, and three parents that had left her. Only the deaths of Grayson and Miranda had been accidents - as far as she knew. She didn’t think she wanted to ever find out that they had been anything other than an accident.
She sat at the graves of Grayson and Miranda for awhile and filled them in on everything that had happened and what she was doing. She explained about all of the things that she had discovered and reassured them that Jeremy was left with capable people to look after him. She didn’t think they could forgive her for anything if she didn’t make sure that their son would be taken care of.
After communing with them, she moved to Jenna’s grave. It was still difficult to see Jenna’s name carved in the cold stone. She was still so full of guilt and sorrow over what had happened to her aunt. She didn’t have the words for what she wanted to say, but then again, she had spent a great deal of time in Jenna’s room in the days leading up to the decision she had now made. She ran her hand along the top of the stone and let out a breath. She kissed the tips of her fingers and then pressed them against the headstone for a long moment.
She swallowed hard as she moved to stand in front of John’s stone. She and Jeremy had insisted that John was to have a headstone as well. Damon had made sure that John was laid to rest alongside the rest of the family - and he had told her that Isobel was there, as well. She never asked him for the details about how he had managed to get her buried there. It was probably all the better if she didn’t know.
“I wish I had had the opportunity to get to know both of you better,” she started. “I don’t know if we would have ever gotten to be close - or even been able to act like a real family - but I would have liked for us to have at least gotten to make that decision ourselves.” She swallowed hard. “John… I’m sorry. I can’t call you Dad yet and it feels too weird to call you Uncle John. You told me that Isobel loved me and that she wanted to keep me safe and that’s why she gave me up. I believed you and I believe that you did truly love her. I wish … there are so many things that I wish. I wish I had gotten to know the Isobel that you knew. That last day, when she killed herself in front of me, I genuinely believe that she cared how she had hurt me and hurt the people around me. I wish I knew how long she had been under the compulsion from Klaus, though, and that and the first time I met her is going to color every memory of her that I have. What I don’t understand is how you can hate vampires so much, but you truly loved her even after she was changed.”
Elena could feel the tears sliding down her cheeks as she stepped closer to John’s stone and rested her hands on top of it.
“I left Grayson’s protection ring for Jeremy and I had yours resized for me. I’m also wearing Isobel’s necklace. I’m not sure how you got a hold of it after Isobel died, but you knew to put it in Jenna’s jewelry box for me to find. You must have had some idea of what I would do - or that I would want to keep something of Jenna’s with me. I bet you would be surprised to know that I needed to have a part of you and a part of Isobel with me, too. If I have both, maybe that will give me double the protection when I really need it? You said in your letter that you failed me, but you didn’t. In your own way, you tried to protect me and keep me safe from a life that you thought destroyed the woman you loved. I may not agree with your methods, but I can’t argue with the madness behind them. I only wish that you could have told me some of those things long before you were going to die. It might have helped to know some of those things a long time ago when we didn’t get along and you tried to make sure that I disliked you. I still don’t know why you spent so much time getting me to dislike you when you were also working in your own way to look after me.”
Elena wiped her cheeks, but the tears seemed to keep coming.
“I would never have asked anyone to give up their life for mine, you had to have known that. I think that’s why you didn’t tell Jeremy or me beforehand what the spell you knew would do. You knew that I would try to talk you out of it. You knew that I would try to make something happen before the spell could be done. You said that I was extraordinary, but John, I don’t believe that. If I was, wouldn’t I have figured out a way to protect the people I loved long before all of this happened? If I was as extraordinary as you thought, I would have realized that leaving town and everyone I loved would have stopped the killing and the death a long time ago.” She shook her head. “I have no doubts that you loved me and that everything you did was your way of trying to protect your daughter. You said that you should have listened to my side of things, but I should have listened to you, too. I should have realized that there was a reason you felt as strongly as you do about vampires. I should have realized that there was a real reason that you disliked Damon. I wouldn’t have agreed that you should hate him or Stefan or even Anna, but I would have understood why you didn’t like him or other vampires. The love of your life became a vampire and then for so many reasons, you had to work with or for them. I can only imagine that one of the originals or Katherine’s friends must have used me or Isobel to threaten you into doing what they wanted you to do. You believed that Isobel would keep me safe, but something happened that made you doubt that she had that kind of power.”
She took a deep breath, and then shook her head slowly. “I’m going to stop him, John,” she said softly. “I don’t know how, yet, but Klaus is going to pay for everything that he’s done. I’m going to find a way to end him and everyone that’s aligned with him. Jeremy will be safe, I can promise you that much. Alaric and Damon and Bonnie and Caroline will all look after him and protect him. I know that I can count on them to make sure that Klaus or Katherine never get their hands on him.” She sniffled. “I can almost see that disapproving look that you’re giving me, but I think that you of all people understand why I’m doing this. I know if you were here that you would never let me go up against something like Klaus or leave the protection of my friends. But, you know, you gave up your life to ensure mine. How can I not be willing to do the same for the last family I have left?” The laugh that escaped her was humorless. “I guess I’ve inherited your stubbornness or foolhardiness, one of the two or maybe both. Maybe that’s why we never quite saw eye to eye. Maybe it’s because I am a great deal like you. I don’t know, I just know that I have to do this. Just as you decided how you were going to protect me, I had to decide how to protect Jeremy and my friends. I hope… I hope that somewhere you can see me and one day you’ll be able to be proud of what I’m doing now. I know that I should have done this a long time ago. If I had, well, maybe you and Jenna would still be alive. Hell, maybe Isobel would be, too. Better late than never, right?”
Elena wiped her face again, even though she knew that the tears weren’t going to stop anytime soon. She touched the stone where his name was carved into it and took another deep breath, trying to steady herself. “I love you, John. Maybe not as the father I now know that you desperately wanted to be, but I do love you as my blood and my family. I didn’t like your methods, but I understand that they were motivated by love. When the time comes for me, I hope that I can be as brave about facing my own death as you were.”
She dropped her hand to her side and stood quietly for a few long moments. After giving the group of four headstones one last look, she turned and headed to the exit of the graveyard. She had one more stop to make at the post office and then she needed to get out of town before someone tried to stop her.
Alaric couldn’t believe what he was seeing and he looked back down at the wrinkled paper in his hand. He could read the words and understand them, but he was having a hard time accepting their meaning. How could she have done something so damn stupid? Didn’t she realize that she wasn’t safe on her own? Didn’t she realize that she was still very much a target for any of Klaus’ people who heard about her - not to mention the target she was presenting for Klaus himself by leaving her tattered little army of protectors?
He had to run a hand over his face as he realized that Elena knew exactly what she was doing and how much danger she was placing herself in. Something inside the girl had broken when Jenna died. He couldn’t imagine what she felt at also losing Isobel and finding out that John had for once thought about someone else and had taken part in a spell that traded his life for hers.
“Damn it, Elena,” he sighed as he read the short letter that she had mailed to him.
Mailed.
She had mailed it to him, guaranteeing that he wouldn’t receive it until she was already gone. He could picture that being the last thing she did on the way out of Mystic Falls. She would have packed what she thought she needed and then on the way out of town she would have stopped to mail the letter. She would want him to know what had happened to her, but she wouldn’t want him to know until there was no time to stop her. He had to admit that it was a good plan and if it had been anyone else he would have been impressed.
But the fact that Elena had run in an attempt to protect the rest of them kept him from being impressed. The last thing he had promised Jenna was that he would take care of Elena and Jeremy.
He couldn’t very well keep that promise when one of his charges had disappeared.
… I know how much you loved Jenna and I am so sorry that I wasn’t able to stop Klaus from killing her. I would have done anything he wanted me to if it would have just kept her alive. I don’t know if you realized it, but Jenna loved you very much. It was a little scary for her at first because she got her heart broken once a long time ago, but she knew you were worth the heartbreak. I’ve never seen her as happy as she was while she was with you. You made her happy and for that I am very grateful. Please, take care of yourself, and please take care of Jeremy. He won’t agree with my decision and I don’t think he’ll let himself understand that it was the only thing I could to make sure he stayed safe from the people that keep wanting to use my loved ones to get to me. He’s the only family I have left, Alaric, and I can’t handle the thought of anything happening to him. You’ve been looking out for me since all of this started and I appreciate that, but you don’t need to worry about me any longer. You also don’t have to worry that anything else will happen in town because someone is after me. I realize now that the only way to keep the people and the town I love safe is to leave. I’m sorry for everything that has happened to you because of your association with me or with vampires in general, Alaric. I hope that one day you will find your happiness again. If there is anyone here that deserves something like a happy ending, it would be you.
“Damn it,” he cursed again. “You’re just a kid, Elena. None of this was your fault.” He clenched his fist around the letter he was holding. How had she gotten it into her head that all of the bad things that had happened here was her fault? He didn’t blame her for any of it and he was sure that none of her friends blamed her, either.
Well, after everything she had lost in her life, he hoped that none of her friends blamed her.
He wasn’t looking forward to having to explain all of this to Jeremy.
Close on the heels of that thought was that he didn’t want to be the one who had to explain all of this and what Elena had done to Damon.
He was pretty sure the volatile vampire was not going to be too pleased when he found out about Elena’s flight out of town and away from his protection.
In her own room, Bonnie was having a hard time keeping her cursing quiet as she read her own letter from Elena.
“Idiot,” she muttered as she re-read the letter. “Sometimes, girl, you can be a real idiot.”
I can’t do this any longer, Bonnie. I can’t just sit back and watch everyone get hurt or lose someone close to them to help me or to keep me safe. You’re my best friend and even you have gotten hurt because of me…
On some level, she understood her best friend’s desire to protect all of them and keep them safe. On another level, she wanted to yell and scream at her for trying to do all of it by herself. Elena was human. Yes, she had vampire blood in her system from Damon, but she was still only a human. She couldn’t possibly hope to survive an attack by Klaus and his people all alone.
It was one of the lines in the letter that caused her to forget about keeping her reaction quiet.
… if I’m not there, then no one can be hurt trying to protect me. If they’re busy trying to hunt me down, then they won’t be there attacking people we care about in order to hurt me. This way, they can just come after me without having to go through the people I love…
Elena had lost her mind. She was purposefully making herself into bait in the hopes that she could protect them and the town. She was well aware that she wouldn’t be able to survive an attack by any vampire or werewolf that came after her if she was alone.
… I know haven’t always been the best friend you’ve needed me to be in the last year or so, and I’m sorry. No matter what has been going on with me, I should have tried harder to be there for you with all of the changes you’ve gone through in your own life - some of those changes being triggered because of me or the Salvatores or the fact that I’m related to the Petrovas…
“None of which it your fault you idiot,” Bonnie muttered.
Yes, maybe things wouldn’t have become so bad if Elena didn’t care for the vampire brothers, but there was also the chance that things could have gotten even worse if it hadn’t been for Elena’s heart getting involved. If she hadn’t loved them and they hadn’t loved her, the town could easily have become a bloodbath. Elena’s heart had probably saved more than one life.
… I love you like a sister and no matter what happens in the days to come, you will always be my sister, Bonnie. Take care of yourself and look after Caroline and Jeremy. See if there is anything in your book to protect Caroline from werewolf bites. I know she cares about Tyler and he seems to care about her, but even Stefan didn’t know if anything could ever be happy when a vampire and a werewolf got together. I won’t be there to help make Tyler’s life miserable if he hurts her, so you’re going to have to do the job for both of us…
Bonnie could feel the tears starting in her eyes as she dropped the letter down onto her bed. She couldn’t be angry with Elena because she had an understanding of how scared and how hurt she was. She had lost almost everyone in such a short time and this was her way of trying to keep anything from happening to her or Jeremy or Caroline.
Jenna being killed and then almost losing Damon had been enough to start the cracks spreading in the armor that Elena had crafted around herself. When Stefan went to the side of evil on top of everything else, it must have been enough to shatter all of the hope that her friend had been desperately clinging to.
“This isn’t good, Elena,” Bonnie whispered as a tear slid down her cheek. “Oh sweetie, this isn’t good at all.”
It wasn’t that Caroline couldn’t believe that Elena was trying to sacrifice herself for all of them. She had seen a lot in the past few months and seen something that no one else had seemed to notice. She had seen her best friend breaking down bit by bit with every additional thing that happened to her or anyone else. She was able to see that there would come a time where it would get to be too much and her friend would do something foolish and dangerous.
She had said something to Tyler after the funeral of Jenna and John, after all. The two of them had secretly been keeping an eye on Elena since then - even though she didn’t realize it. Caroline wasn’t going to take any chances on losing her because some old and bastardy vampire decided he had some other spell that he needed Elena or her blood for.
The thing was, even though she and Tyler were trying to protect Elena, two things happened that neither one of them were prepared for.
First, Damon had become ill from when Tyler bit him - and she knew how sorry Tyler really was for that. He had tried to eat her, after all. Then, Stefan had gone over to the side of the creepy and evil.
She knew that both of those events had broken pieces of Elena that no one else had been able to see.
No, what she couldn’t believe was that Elena had said goodbye in a letter! She didn’t come in person to tell her what she was doing, but had mailed her a letter! They had been best friends since they were practically babies and they had seen the best and the worst of each other. So why hadn’t Elena come to her in person to tell her that she was leaving and why?
“Damn it, Elena,” she fumed. “Why?”
“You know why,” Tyler said quietly as he handed Caroline back her letter and retrieved the one Elena sent to him. “She’s not stupid. She knew if she came in person that you would have prevented her from leaving. You’re stronger than she is. You would have restrained her and called me. Then, the two of us would have taken her to Alaric or Damon so that all of us could attempt to talk some sense into her and keep her from being suicidal.”
Caroline frowned at him and then sighed. “Why were we the only two who could see that she was falling apart, Tyler? I mean, yeah, we’re her friends, but how could none of the others see what was happening to her right in front of their eyes?”
“Because, for once, you and I weren’t all wrapped up in our own lives and what was happening to us. Because of all of the things that have happened to us, we were on the lookout for even more or looking for bad things to start happening to our friends.”
“So, Elena is your friend again?” Caroline asked carefully. “You certainly haven’t been too nice to her in the past several months.”
“Well, really, the only problem I had with her was her annoying insistence in fighting all of Jeremy’s battles for him.” Tyler sighed as he admitted that. “But now, I can see why she did it. He was all she had left. Besides, she has saved my life -- and yours -- quite a few times. Plus, she didn’t let her boyfriends kill me after the other werewolves were torturing you.”
Caroline smiled faintly. “You were in more danger from Bonnie and Elena after that happened. But at least you didn’t abandon me because of what I was turned into like Matt did.” There was some residual bitterness in her voice.
“Matt’s an idiot,” Tyler said immediately. “You’re still Caroline, just with new and extra features.”
Caroline’s smile would have been more light if the situation wasn’t so serious. “You might be just a little bit biased.”
“Probably,” he agreed, putting his arms around her and pulling her close. “The point is, Elena is our friend. Right now, she is doing something stupid because she wants to protect us.”
“She’s not thinking clearly.”
“Of course she’s not. How could she be with all of the shit that has happened to her? That’s why she has us. She needs us to stick together and find her so we can look after her and think things through. She can’t think rationally, so we need to do that for her.”
“I can’t let anything happen to her, Ty. She’s always been family to me -- always a sister. When my parents didn’t have time for me, Elena and her family always did.”
Tyler kissed the top of her head. “You won’t lose her, Caroline, I promise. We’ll find her and we’ll protect her. A vampire and a werewolf. She can’t have better bodyguards than us.”
“What about Damon and Bonnie?”
“They can help us if they want to -- and if they’re doing it to help our friend who is in trouble and not trying to show each other up.”
It wasn’t that Jeremy was surprised by the letter he was currently reading; he was just irritated that he hadn’t realized sooner what his sister was thinking or feeling. He remembered how she had apologized before Jenna’s funeral, but he had thought he made it clear to her that he didn’t hold her responsible for anything that had happened and that as long as he had her, it would be all right. Either she hadn’t believed him or she hadn’t received the same assurances from others in their group.
Which meant he needed to find out who had made his sister feel like she had to make herself into a bigger target by leaving town.
Realizing how big of a target Elena had turned herself into, Jeremy burst into her bedroom. Her room as a private sanctuary ended as soon as she was missing. He was sure the rest of their group would agree with him. Once in her room, he went directly to her dresser and opened her jewelery box. He sifted through it and then let out a sigh of relief, closing the lid and putting it back down.
Her vervain necklace and Uncle John’s protection ring were gone.
That meant that she had least thought about having some safeguards with her. That didn’t make him any less annoyed with her actions, but at least she wasn’t being a complete idiot.
Not completely.
Just mostly.
He dropped down onto Elena’s bed, looking around her room. She had been gone for at least two days. Two days in which he had assumed she was with Damon. He assumed that she was safe and well and that she was just making sure that Damon was healing.
He should have taken the time to check. He should have called or gone over to check on her. He had promised himself that he would be a better brother and take care of her, and yet she had been able to pull this because he hadn’t done what he promised.
Damon stared down at the package that he kept turning over in his hands. He had no problem recognizing the the handwriting. It wasn't as if he hadn't spent a lot of time with her as she was doing homework or writing in her journal. He ran one hand along the paper, feeling the almost invisible indentions that were left behind after moisture had dried. He didn't need to feel the remnants of Elena's tears to know he wasn't going to like whatever it was that Elena had decided to send him through the mail.
That was another concern. Why had Elena mailed him something instead of just delivering it to him herself? She had spent enough time here with him while he was recovering, and it was her house, anyway. He had made sure that she had some place safe that she couldn't be taken from in the middle of the night -- or the middle of the day even.
He started to open the package when he heard someone pounding on the door.
"Come on, Damon, let me in."
Oh great. Like he wanted to try dealing with whatever had upset Vampire Barbie this time. Not that she had been a bother and she had in fact done her part to try to keep on eye on Elena and keep her safe.
"Come on, Salvatore! Elena's gone!"
And with New and Improved Werewolf Ken. Wasn't he just...
He was at the door and pulling it open in a flash. "What do you mean she's gone?"
"Just what he said," Caroline responded, her voice quiet for once. "She mailed a bunch of letters to people and just disappeared."
"She apologized for all kinds of things that weren't her fault and now, none of us can find her." Tyler added. By us, he meant him and Caroline. "Caroline and I have been searching everywhere we can think of and she's nowhere to be found."
Damon refrained from banging his head into the side of the door. What foolhardy and self-sacrificing thing had Elena done this time? As much as he loved her he would really like to be able to remove her tendency to martyr herself for others out of her personality. He hated seeing her get hurt -- especially for people that he didn’t think deserved her sacrifices.
"What did she apologize for this time?" Damon asked, after motioning the two of them inside and shutting the door behind them. "Besides oh, I don't know, existing?"
Because one too many times he had heard Elena say that things never would have happened if she hadn't survived the car wreck that killed her parents. Even worse, he had heard her say that she should have died instead of someone else that she had lost. Those were the times he had to work very hard not to yell at her about wasting her life. Since falling in love with her, he had let a few of his more human emotions and empathy come out and he could understand how much she was hurting at all of the lives that had been lost around her.
It was Caroline who responded. "She apologized for ruining my life and for the fact that my mother is an intolerant bitch."
"She didn't call your mother an intolerant bitch," Damon said knowingly.
"No, but she might as well have. It would be the truth."
"She did apologize for ruining our lives though," Tyler said, shaking his head. "I'm not sure how she thinks she was responsible for anything that I've gone through since it's apparently been a curse in my family for a long time. It's not her fault that I'm a werewolf."
"And it's not her fault that I'm a vampire. She didn't kill me, Katherine did."
Damon started to say something when he heard more people arrive on the porch. He opened the door and wordlessly motioned them in.
"Let me guess, Elena's Delivery Service." He would have smiled if he wasn't already trying to figure out where Elena had gone.
"I should have come over here sooner," was Jeremy's response. "I knew what kind of condition she was in emotionally, but when she said she was spending time here with you, I believed her. I mean, this is Elena and we all know how she can be. She even apologized to me at Jenna's funeral for taking away all of my family. I should have expected her to pull something dumb."
"How long?" Damon looked from Jeremy to Alaric.
"At least a lead of two days," Alaric said quietly. "We all thought she was here with you, but from the looks of her room and the dates on everything, she left at least two days ago. Maybe three."
Damon wanted to bang his head into a door. Elena was gone. She had run away from the one place she was safest. "Does anyone have any idea where she might have gone?"
"Damon," this time it was Bonnie that spoke. "I think she went to find Katherine or Klaus."
If he was human, his heart would have stopped beating at that comment. Even so, it took him a moment to process through the panic he felt at the idea of Elena getting anywhere near Klaus. "Why? Why do you think that, Bonnie?"
"Because she made herself bait," Alaric said reluctantly.
"She told Caroline that she was going to put a stop to all of this," Tyler responded.
"And she told me that if they were out hunting for her, then they weren't here hurting her friends," Bonnie answered.
"She made herself into a target for us," Jeremy's voice was quiet. "She's going to get herself killed because she thinks that she owes it to us."
One of these days, I am going to lo-jack that girl. Out loud he let out a sigh. "So, she sent all of you a letter apologizing for ruining your lives and promising she was going to make it all up to you by leaving town and going after her hunters."
"That sums it up pretty well," Caroline agreed. "Damon, she was in love with you. Didn't she send you anything?"
"Yes, Vampire Barbie," Damon said calmly. "I was about to open it when the lot of you started arriving on my doorstep."
Tyler gave him a sour look, but Damon stopped him from saying anything. "Oh don't even start with me, Werewolf Ken. You almost killed me, remember?"
"Not on purpose!"
"Be that as it may, that's not really the important thing here. The important thing is that our Elena has gotten into her head to do something incredibly noble and stupid. We have to find her and stop her." He looked around the room. "Ideas, people?"
"I could try and pick up her scent to see if I can track her," Tyler offered.
"I could try that, too," Caroline agreed. "Heightened senses are one of the cool things about being a vampire."
Go go Power Rangers, Damon thought as he looked at the others. "That's definitely an idea. Jeremy, is there any place you can think of that she would go?"
Jeremy shook his head. "All of our family were here. We didn't have any other family anywhere else. All of John's friends would have been people that were working either with the vampires or for the council." He sighed. "Besides Elena, the person John loved the most was Isobel."
"I could probably use something from her room to do a tracking spell," Bonnie said as she looked at Damon. "She wouldn't have been able to take a whole lot of things if she was trying to make a quick exit before any of us realized what she was doing." She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I know she thought she was doing the best thing she could for us, but does she really think we care so little about her? Does she really think we would just let her leave and not do anything about it to find her?"
"She's not thinking clearly," Caroline defended her best friend. "I mean, would any of us be? She just buried her Aunt and her real parents -- one of which made sure he died so she could live. She lost her other parents months ago, almost lost her brother how many times? She thought she lost Bonnie because of everything that has happened. I was turned into a vampire, she thinks Tyler and Alaric hate her for what they've lost, and she believes that Damon hates her because he lost Stefan."
"What?" Damon's voice was cold as he looked at Caroline. "What makes you think she believes I hate her over Stefan? I told her that no matter the choice, I would always choose her."
Caroline just stared at him, so it was Tyler that answered him. "Klaus was able to make Stefan go to the dark and killer side because your brother needed his blood to save you. If it hadn't been for Elena and people being after her, you and I never would have fought and you wouldn't have needed Klaus' blood to survive."
Alaric let out a curse. "I don't hate her. God, I couldn't hate her. She's just a kid."
"She broke," Jeremy said. "It's been too much and none of us realized that Elena was shattering right in front of us. She was so focused on taking care of us that we never thought about how everything was weighing on her."
"Tyler did," Caroline pointed out. "He's the one that said he and I needed to keep an eye on her because she looked like she was about to fall apart."
"Good puppy," Damon said caustically. "But I told Elena that I would always choose her no matter what happened."
"Maybe she didn't think that was true when it came to her or your brother," Bonnie said evenly. "I know how protective she is of Jeremy and she was so glad that you and Stefan had started mending whatever there was festering between you. And, well, it wasn't your choice this time. Someone else made the choice to save you. Yes, it was Stefan's choice, but we all know how Elena can be. With everything else she's blaming herself for, what Stefan did was just one more thing."
"You know, a therapist could make millions off of the kids in this town," Damon sighed.
"Most therapists couldn't handle the things that go on in our lives and this town," Bonnie said practically.
"There you go, Jeremy, a new career goal. Go to college and become a therapist. Come back here and bilk all of the first families of lots of money by providing therapy to their kids." Damon was trying to show them that he was fine and he thought he was funny.
"That's not important right now," Jeremy pointed out. "The important thing is that we find my sister before she gets herself killed."
"I know. Believe me, I know." Damon shook his head. "That girl needs a tracking device or something that keeps her from chasing trouble." He pushed himself away from the wall. "Ok. Barbie and Fido will go back to Elena's with Bonnie to see what they can pick up in her room and outside. See if you can figure out a trail once you get past the post office. Bonnie will come back here with something to do one of her witchy spells to see if she can locate anything pertaining to Elena." He looked at Jeremy. "Necklace?"
Jeremy nodded. "Her vervain necklace is gone, as is Uncle John's ring."
"That's something then. It means she thought enough about her safety to at least make sure she had them with her. Who knows what kind of magic John had added to that ring. I think that we can all agree he loved his daughter and if he had time to do anything before he convinced Bonnie to do that spell, then we can assume that he would have found another witch to add extra mojo to it."
"Why wouldn't he have asked me to do it?"
Damon gave her a look. "One, he knew that you didn't trust him. Two, you would have wanted to know what he was planning if he asked you to mess with the magic of his ring. He wasn't about to tell you he was going to trade his life for Elena's. You not only wouldn't have believed him, you might have tried to stop him."
"No she wouldn't have," Jeremy said quietly. "Bonnie wouldn't have tried to stop him. She would have chosen Elena's life over his." He sighed. "The same way I would have."
Damon waved his hand. "Yes, we all agree that Elena's life was worth more than her birth father's -- but then again, I may be more than a little partial. After all, how many times did he try to kill me, mess with my plans or endanger Elena because he was a moron?"
"Damon..." Alaric warned.
"Whatever. While those three are at the Gilbert house, Alaric and Jeremy will be going through maps to see if they can put together an idea of a trail Elena may have taken. Alaric will call some of his secret friends and find out if there have been any weird happenings that would give us a location of Klaus, Stefan or Katherine. We don't want Elena to find any of them alone or before we find her."
"Would Stefan really hurt Elena? He loves her."
"He's a ripper, Jeremy," Damon said in what counted as a gentle voice for him. "He has no emotions and thinks only of killing and feeding. He won't recognize Elena as anything more than food." And he, personally, had no plans to let one fang of his brother's get anywhere near Elena.
"What are you going to be doing while we're all out following your orders?" Tyler demanded.
"While the Scooby gang is out scoobying, I'm going to find out what it was that Elena sent to me."
"Damon --"
"We'll find her, Jeremy," Damon said quietly. "We'll find her and we'll get her back safely."
Damon stood on the staircase as he listened to the others go into different directions to carry out the tasks he had assigned them. He didn't like this team leader thing and what he really wanted to do was go out there and chase Elena down himself. However, she had a two day lead on him and she had to have known that he wouldn't let her go like this. The only way to get inside her head while she was running off to who knew where was to go upstairs and open the package he had been holding when Caroline and Tyler showed up.
"Damn you for being so incredibly selfless, Elena."
Two
Author: not_from_stars // Cover Art By queenmidalah
Link to art master post: Art!
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters/Pairing(s): Damon Salvatore/Elena Gilbert, Tyler Lockwood/Caroline Forbes, Jeremy Gilbert/Bonnie Bennett, Alaric Satzman, Klaus, Elijah, Katherine Pierce
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: Written For tvd_bigbang 2011
Warning: Spoilers for S2.
Word Count: 21,542
Summary: Elena blames herself for everything that has gone wrong in Mystic Falls and when she is sure that Damon is going to be healed, she leaves the only home she has ever known. She leaves letters for those closest to her, but for Damon, she leaves her journal. The journal is filled with all of Elena's thoughts over the last year -- including her growing love for Damon. The last written page in the journal is a letter for Damon -- and a carefully preserved rose. The rose he gave her once. Now, Damon is in a race against time to find Elena, because Klaus is looking for her, too. Klaus has discovered that because Elena survived the spell he used, her blood -- human or vampire -- now has the power to destroy him if used with an ancient spell. Damon is determined to find Elena before Klaus does and he doesn't care how many people he has to kill to save her. However, when Klaus brings in someone to use as leverage, Damon has to make a choice as to which life he's going to save -- Elena's... or Stefan's.
Author's Notes: I want to thank my friend, queenmidalah, for stepping in and doing art for me at the last minute when my original artist had RL issues crop up. I also want to thank my beta and cheerleader, enochiansigils, for not letting me quit when the story was being so stubborn as to send me into tears more than once. Aftre trying for two days, LJ finally let me post!
Once she started thinking about what she needed to do, it wasn’t very hard to make the actual decisions. After all, she could count on one hand the number of things that had occurred in the last two years that weren’t her fault. The things that she was to blame for far outweighed those that she wasn’t.
It was the funeral of Jenna that made the plans start forming in her head.
Jeremy had lost his parents, two girlfriends, his uncle and now his aunt.
Bonnie had last her grandmother.
Caroline had lost her life as a human and therefore almost everyone that went with it.
Damon and Stefan had probably lost a lot more than she knew about. Anyone who didn’t know them well could say that they hadn’t lost anyone and that they were to blame for everything that had happened in Mystic Falls the last two years.
Elena knew better. The one thing that all of them had in common was her. Elena Gilbert. If it hadn’t been for her, then none of the tragedies that had happened would have ever occurred. There would have been no reason for them to have.
She had planned to slip away soon after the funeral. She had started packing a small suitcase to take with her, something that she could easily sneak out of the house. She couldn’t pack up a lot because that would make people suspicious and it would make it almost impossible for her to disappear like she wanted to.
Disappear so that no one else would get hurt because of her.
She checked on Jeremy, finding him sleeping, and then she went into Jenna’s room. Everything looked the same as it had before Jenna died - and somehow that made everything hurt even worse. Nothing in here had changed, while everything on the outside of this room had. She sat on Jenna’s bed, reaching for one of her pillows, holding it against her as she tried to fight back the latest surge of tears. She didn’t think that she would ever run out of tears.
“I’m sorry, Jenna,” she whispered through the tears. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t deserve for any of this to happen. Not to you.”
All Jenna had ever tried to do was take care of her and Jeremy and give them a home after their parents died. She had never done anything wrong as far as Elena could see - unless it had been all of her efforts to keep her safe when she didn’t deserve it.
Part of her just wanted to curl up in here and go to sleep - shutting out the world and everything that had happened. Go to sleep and hope that when she woke up, the world would make sense again. Jenna would be alive and bouncing around the house or talking about what she and Alaric would be doing that night. Uncle John - she couldn’t seem to call him her father yet - would be poking his nose into her business and trying to flex his status as the oldest male in the family in order to get her to listen to something he wanted her to know. Hell, even Isobel would be alive and be out there somewhere wreaking havoc in someone else’s life.
But none of that was likely to happen.
And an even darker part of her wanted to just go to sleep and never wake up again. If she just went to sleep and never woke up again, would that be able to balance out everything that had happened and all of the lives that had been lost or destroyed merely because she existed?
It would hurt her brother to know she was thinking thoughts like this, but she couldn’t help them. He had said that he could handle losing everyone else because he still had her, but how could he really mean that now? She had caused him to lose every family member that he had. All he had left was her. She didn’t see that as being a fair exchange for him and she knew that once the shock and the grieving wore off, he would feel the same way.
Maybe he would even say that she wasn’t even his real sister since his parents had adopted her. She had been given up by her own parents and then took his from him, as well.
Elena sighed, laying back on the bed and shaking her head. No, even at his worst, Jeremy would never think that about her, much less say such things. He loved her and no matter who had given birth to her, she was still his sister. He had shown that so many times over the last few months.
Even with everything and everyone he had lost because of her, she was still his sister and he still wanted to look out for her. She had seen that in his eyes several times since they started learning the truth about Mystic Falls and their family.
She had seen it in his eyes when she woke up after Klaus had tried to kill her in the same ceremony that he had killed Jenna in.
It should have been her that died then instead of Jenna. She should have died so many months before when she realized that she was the target and the reason things were happening. Damon should never have rescued her from Elijah and maybe all of this death and pain could have been averted.
She closed her eyes and buried her face in the pillow again.
It doesn’t matter what she thought about any of it. Damon would never have allowed her to die. He had made that point very clear - he would always choose her life over someone else’s no matter what she might think about the importance of someone else’s life.
Elena sighed. She needed to get up and go back to her room to finish what she had to do. Klaus was still out there and she couldn’t keep hiding behind any of her friends.
Damon.
She needed to finish her plans and get out of town before Damon was recovered enough to stop her.
Damon had almost died and she was never going to be able to forget how he looked or anything that the two of them had said.
Another life that was almost lost because of her. He wouldn’t have been bitten by the werewolf if he hadn’t been looking out for her.
Elena moved a hand over her mouth to stop the sob that she knew was building. Damon was going to survive, but only because Stefan had traded himself to Klaus for the blood to save him. Stefan had willingly become a monster like Klaus in order to get the cure for Damon.
She had cost Jeremy all of his family and cost Damon his only family.
She closed her eyes tightly and took several deep breaths.
She was running out of time. She needed to get out of town before Damon was recovered and Jeremy figured out what she was planning to do. She had no doubt that the two of them would never allow her to leave - no matter that it was for their own safety for her to do so. It was only a matter of time before Klaus came looking for her again now that Katherine had gone to ground somewhere.
Swallowing, she got up from the bed and replaced the pillow, smoothing the wrinkles from the bed where she had been laying.
“I’m so sorry, Jenna. I wish I could fix this and give you your life back. You were a wonderful person and a great parent and I’ll miss you so much.”
There was one more thing that she needed to do before she left the room. Swallowing hard, she went over to Jenna’s dresser and lifted the top of her jewelry box.
After Elena finished packing her suitcase and had taken care of everything she thought she needed to take care of, she climbed into her vehicle and headed to one last place. No matter what had happened or what she was doing, she couldn’t leave without going to the cemetery one last time.
By now, she knew how to find the graves by heart and it tore at her when she saw the four headstones so close together. People shouldn’t have so many dead family members to visit in their lives.
Of course, people shouldn’t have to bury what amounted to two sets of parents, either.
Three sets, she reminded herself. First her parents, next Jenna, and then John and Isobel.
Three sets of parents that she knew now had loved her, and three parents that had left her. Only the deaths of Grayson and Miranda had been accidents - as far as she knew. She didn’t think she wanted to ever find out that they had been anything other than an accident.
She sat at the graves of Grayson and Miranda for awhile and filled them in on everything that had happened and what she was doing. She explained about all of the things that she had discovered and reassured them that Jeremy was left with capable people to look after him. She didn’t think they could forgive her for anything if she didn’t make sure that their son would be taken care of.
After communing with them, she moved to Jenna’s grave. It was still difficult to see Jenna’s name carved in the cold stone. She was still so full of guilt and sorrow over what had happened to her aunt. She didn’t have the words for what she wanted to say, but then again, she had spent a great deal of time in Jenna’s room in the days leading up to the decision she had now made. She ran her hand along the top of the stone and let out a breath. She kissed the tips of her fingers and then pressed them against the headstone for a long moment.
She swallowed hard as she moved to stand in front of John’s stone. She and Jeremy had insisted that John was to have a headstone as well. Damon had made sure that John was laid to rest alongside the rest of the family - and he had told her that Isobel was there, as well. She never asked him for the details about how he had managed to get her buried there. It was probably all the better if she didn’t know.
“I wish I had had the opportunity to get to know both of you better,” she started. “I don’t know if we would have ever gotten to be close - or even been able to act like a real family - but I would have liked for us to have at least gotten to make that decision ourselves.” She swallowed hard. “John… I’m sorry. I can’t call you Dad yet and it feels too weird to call you Uncle John. You told me that Isobel loved me and that she wanted to keep me safe and that’s why she gave me up. I believed you and I believe that you did truly love her. I wish … there are so many things that I wish. I wish I had gotten to know the Isobel that you knew. That last day, when she killed herself in front of me, I genuinely believe that she cared how she had hurt me and hurt the people around me. I wish I knew how long she had been under the compulsion from Klaus, though, and that and the first time I met her is going to color every memory of her that I have. What I don’t understand is how you can hate vampires so much, but you truly loved her even after she was changed.”
Elena could feel the tears sliding down her cheeks as she stepped closer to John’s stone and rested her hands on top of it.
“I left Grayson’s protection ring for Jeremy and I had yours resized for me. I’m also wearing Isobel’s necklace. I’m not sure how you got a hold of it after Isobel died, but you knew to put it in Jenna’s jewelry box for me to find. You must have had some idea of what I would do - or that I would want to keep something of Jenna’s with me. I bet you would be surprised to know that I needed to have a part of you and a part of Isobel with me, too. If I have both, maybe that will give me double the protection when I really need it? You said in your letter that you failed me, but you didn’t. In your own way, you tried to protect me and keep me safe from a life that you thought destroyed the woman you loved. I may not agree with your methods, but I can’t argue with the madness behind them. I only wish that you could have told me some of those things long before you were going to die. It might have helped to know some of those things a long time ago when we didn’t get along and you tried to make sure that I disliked you. I still don’t know why you spent so much time getting me to dislike you when you were also working in your own way to look after me.”
Elena wiped her cheeks, but the tears seemed to keep coming.
“I would never have asked anyone to give up their life for mine, you had to have known that. I think that’s why you didn’t tell Jeremy or me beforehand what the spell you knew would do. You knew that I would try to talk you out of it. You knew that I would try to make something happen before the spell could be done. You said that I was extraordinary, but John, I don’t believe that. If I was, wouldn’t I have figured out a way to protect the people I loved long before all of this happened? If I was as extraordinary as you thought, I would have realized that leaving town and everyone I loved would have stopped the killing and the death a long time ago.” She shook her head. “I have no doubts that you loved me and that everything you did was your way of trying to protect your daughter. You said that you should have listened to my side of things, but I should have listened to you, too. I should have realized that there was a reason you felt as strongly as you do about vampires. I should have realized that there was a real reason that you disliked Damon. I wouldn’t have agreed that you should hate him or Stefan or even Anna, but I would have understood why you didn’t like him or other vampires. The love of your life became a vampire and then for so many reasons, you had to work with or for them. I can only imagine that one of the originals or Katherine’s friends must have used me or Isobel to threaten you into doing what they wanted you to do. You believed that Isobel would keep me safe, but something happened that made you doubt that she had that kind of power.”
She took a deep breath, and then shook her head slowly. “I’m going to stop him, John,” she said softly. “I don’t know how, yet, but Klaus is going to pay for everything that he’s done. I’m going to find a way to end him and everyone that’s aligned with him. Jeremy will be safe, I can promise you that much. Alaric and Damon and Bonnie and Caroline will all look after him and protect him. I know that I can count on them to make sure that Klaus or Katherine never get their hands on him.” She sniffled. “I can almost see that disapproving look that you’re giving me, but I think that you of all people understand why I’m doing this. I know if you were here that you would never let me go up against something like Klaus or leave the protection of my friends. But, you know, you gave up your life to ensure mine. How can I not be willing to do the same for the last family I have left?” The laugh that escaped her was humorless. “I guess I’ve inherited your stubbornness or foolhardiness, one of the two or maybe both. Maybe that’s why we never quite saw eye to eye. Maybe it’s because I am a great deal like you. I don’t know, I just know that I have to do this. Just as you decided how you were going to protect me, I had to decide how to protect Jeremy and my friends. I hope… I hope that somewhere you can see me and one day you’ll be able to be proud of what I’m doing now. I know that I should have done this a long time ago. If I had, well, maybe you and Jenna would still be alive. Hell, maybe Isobel would be, too. Better late than never, right?”
Elena wiped her face again, even though she knew that the tears weren’t going to stop anytime soon. She touched the stone where his name was carved into it and took another deep breath, trying to steady herself. “I love you, John. Maybe not as the father I now know that you desperately wanted to be, but I do love you as my blood and my family. I didn’t like your methods, but I understand that they were motivated by love. When the time comes for me, I hope that I can be as brave about facing my own death as you were.”
She dropped her hand to her side and stood quietly for a few long moments. After giving the group of four headstones one last look, she turned and headed to the exit of the graveyard. She had one more stop to make at the post office and then she needed to get out of town before someone tried to stop her.
Alaric couldn’t believe what he was seeing and he looked back down at the wrinkled paper in his hand. He could read the words and understand them, but he was having a hard time accepting their meaning. How could she have done something so damn stupid? Didn’t she realize that she wasn’t safe on her own? Didn’t she realize that she was still very much a target for any of Klaus’ people who heard about her - not to mention the target she was presenting for Klaus himself by leaving her tattered little army of protectors?
He had to run a hand over his face as he realized that Elena knew exactly what she was doing and how much danger she was placing herself in. Something inside the girl had broken when Jenna died. He couldn’t imagine what she felt at also losing Isobel and finding out that John had for once thought about someone else and had taken part in a spell that traded his life for hers.
“Damn it, Elena,” he sighed as he read the short letter that she had mailed to him.
Mailed.
She had mailed it to him, guaranteeing that he wouldn’t receive it until she was already gone. He could picture that being the last thing she did on the way out of Mystic Falls. She would have packed what she thought she needed and then on the way out of town she would have stopped to mail the letter. She would want him to know what had happened to her, but she wouldn’t want him to know until there was no time to stop her. He had to admit that it was a good plan and if it had been anyone else he would have been impressed.
But the fact that Elena had run in an attempt to protect the rest of them kept him from being impressed. The last thing he had promised Jenna was that he would take care of Elena and Jeremy.
He couldn’t very well keep that promise when one of his charges had disappeared.
… I know how much you loved Jenna and I am so sorry that I wasn’t able to stop Klaus from killing her. I would have done anything he wanted me to if it would have just kept her alive. I don’t know if you realized it, but Jenna loved you very much. It was a little scary for her at first because she got her heart broken once a long time ago, but she knew you were worth the heartbreak. I’ve never seen her as happy as she was while she was with you. You made her happy and for that I am very grateful. Please, take care of yourself, and please take care of Jeremy. He won’t agree with my decision and I don’t think he’ll let himself understand that it was the only thing I could to make sure he stayed safe from the people that keep wanting to use my loved ones to get to me. He’s the only family I have left, Alaric, and I can’t handle the thought of anything happening to him. You’ve been looking out for me since all of this started and I appreciate that, but you don’t need to worry about me any longer. You also don’t have to worry that anything else will happen in town because someone is after me. I realize now that the only way to keep the people and the town I love safe is to leave. I’m sorry for everything that has happened to you because of your association with me or with vampires in general, Alaric. I hope that one day you will find your happiness again. If there is anyone here that deserves something like a happy ending, it would be you.
“Damn it,” he cursed again. “You’re just a kid, Elena. None of this was your fault.” He clenched his fist around the letter he was holding. How had she gotten it into her head that all of the bad things that had happened here was her fault? He didn’t blame her for any of it and he was sure that none of her friends blamed her, either.
Well, after everything she had lost in her life, he hoped that none of her friends blamed her.
He wasn’t looking forward to having to explain all of this to Jeremy.
Close on the heels of that thought was that he didn’t want to be the one who had to explain all of this and what Elena had done to Damon.
He was pretty sure the volatile vampire was not going to be too pleased when he found out about Elena’s flight out of town and away from his protection.
In her own room, Bonnie was having a hard time keeping her cursing quiet as she read her own letter from Elena.
“Idiot,” she muttered as she re-read the letter. “Sometimes, girl, you can be a real idiot.”
I can’t do this any longer, Bonnie. I can’t just sit back and watch everyone get hurt or lose someone close to them to help me or to keep me safe. You’re my best friend and even you have gotten hurt because of me…
On some level, she understood her best friend’s desire to protect all of them and keep them safe. On another level, she wanted to yell and scream at her for trying to do all of it by herself. Elena was human. Yes, she had vampire blood in her system from Damon, but she was still only a human. She couldn’t possibly hope to survive an attack by Klaus and his people all alone.
It was one of the lines in the letter that caused her to forget about keeping her reaction quiet.
… if I’m not there, then no one can be hurt trying to protect me. If they’re busy trying to hunt me down, then they won’t be there attacking people we care about in order to hurt me. This way, they can just come after me without having to go through the people I love…
Elena had lost her mind. She was purposefully making herself into bait in the hopes that she could protect them and the town. She was well aware that she wouldn’t be able to survive an attack by any vampire or werewolf that came after her if she was alone.
… I know haven’t always been the best friend you’ve needed me to be in the last year or so, and I’m sorry. No matter what has been going on with me, I should have tried harder to be there for you with all of the changes you’ve gone through in your own life - some of those changes being triggered because of me or the Salvatores or the fact that I’m related to the Petrovas…
“None of which it your fault you idiot,” Bonnie muttered.
Yes, maybe things wouldn’t have become so bad if Elena didn’t care for the vampire brothers, but there was also the chance that things could have gotten even worse if it hadn’t been for Elena’s heart getting involved. If she hadn’t loved them and they hadn’t loved her, the town could easily have become a bloodbath. Elena’s heart had probably saved more than one life.
… I love you like a sister and no matter what happens in the days to come, you will always be my sister, Bonnie. Take care of yourself and look after Caroline and Jeremy. See if there is anything in your book to protect Caroline from werewolf bites. I know she cares about Tyler and he seems to care about her, but even Stefan didn’t know if anything could ever be happy when a vampire and a werewolf got together. I won’t be there to help make Tyler’s life miserable if he hurts her, so you’re going to have to do the job for both of us…
Bonnie could feel the tears starting in her eyes as she dropped the letter down onto her bed. She couldn’t be angry with Elena because she had an understanding of how scared and how hurt she was. She had lost almost everyone in such a short time and this was her way of trying to keep anything from happening to her or Jeremy or Caroline.
Jenna being killed and then almost losing Damon had been enough to start the cracks spreading in the armor that Elena had crafted around herself. When Stefan went to the side of evil on top of everything else, it must have been enough to shatter all of the hope that her friend had been desperately clinging to.
“This isn’t good, Elena,” Bonnie whispered as a tear slid down her cheek. “Oh sweetie, this isn’t good at all.”
It wasn’t that Caroline couldn’t believe that Elena was trying to sacrifice herself for all of them. She had seen a lot in the past few months and seen something that no one else had seemed to notice. She had seen her best friend breaking down bit by bit with every additional thing that happened to her or anyone else. She was able to see that there would come a time where it would get to be too much and her friend would do something foolish and dangerous.
She had said something to Tyler after the funeral of Jenna and John, after all. The two of them had secretly been keeping an eye on Elena since then - even though she didn’t realize it. Caroline wasn’t going to take any chances on losing her because some old and bastardy vampire decided he had some other spell that he needed Elena or her blood for.
The thing was, even though she and Tyler were trying to protect Elena, two things happened that neither one of them were prepared for.
First, Damon had become ill from when Tyler bit him - and she knew how sorry Tyler really was for that. He had tried to eat her, after all. Then, Stefan had gone over to the side of the creepy and evil.
She knew that both of those events had broken pieces of Elena that no one else had been able to see.
No, what she couldn’t believe was that Elena had said goodbye in a letter! She didn’t come in person to tell her what she was doing, but had mailed her a letter! They had been best friends since they were practically babies and they had seen the best and the worst of each other. So why hadn’t Elena come to her in person to tell her that she was leaving and why?
“Damn it, Elena,” she fumed. “Why?”
“You know why,” Tyler said quietly as he handed Caroline back her letter and retrieved the one Elena sent to him. “She’s not stupid. She knew if she came in person that you would have prevented her from leaving. You’re stronger than she is. You would have restrained her and called me. Then, the two of us would have taken her to Alaric or Damon so that all of us could attempt to talk some sense into her and keep her from being suicidal.”
Caroline frowned at him and then sighed. “Why were we the only two who could see that she was falling apart, Tyler? I mean, yeah, we’re her friends, but how could none of the others see what was happening to her right in front of their eyes?”
“Because, for once, you and I weren’t all wrapped up in our own lives and what was happening to us. Because of all of the things that have happened to us, we were on the lookout for even more or looking for bad things to start happening to our friends.”
“So, Elena is your friend again?” Caroline asked carefully. “You certainly haven’t been too nice to her in the past several months.”
“Well, really, the only problem I had with her was her annoying insistence in fighting all of Jeremy’s battles for him.” Tyler sighed as he admitted that. “But now, I can see why she did it. He was all she had left. Besides, she has saved my life -- and yours -- quite a few times. Plus, she didn’t let her boyfriends kill me after the other werewolves were torturing you.”
Caroline smiled faintly. “You were in more danger from Bonnie and Elena after that happened. But at least you didn’t abandon me because of what I was turned into like Matt did.” There was some residual bitterness in her voice.
“Matt’s an idiot,” Tyler said immediately. “You’re still Caroline, just with new and extra features.”
Caroline’s smile would have been more light if the situation wasn’t so serious. “You might be just a little bit biased.”
“Probably,” he agreed, putting his arms around her and pulling her close. “The point is, Elena is our friend. Right now, she is doing something stupid because she wants to protect us.”
“She’s not thinking clearly.”
“Of course she’s not. How could she be with all of the shit that has happened to her? That’s why she has us. She needs us to stick together and find her so we can look after her and think things through. She can’t think rationally, so we need to do that for her.”
“I can’t let anything happen to her, Ty. She’s always been family to me -- always a sister. When my parents didn’t have time for me, Elena and her family always did.”
Tyler kissed the top of her head. “You won’t lose her, Caroline, I promise. We’ll find her and we’ll protect her. A vampire and a werewolf. She can’t have better bodyguards than us.”
“What about Damon and Bonnie?”
“They can help us if they want to -- and if they’re doing it to help our friend who is in trouble and not trying to show each other up.”
It wasn’t that Jeremy was surprised by the letter he was currently reading; he was just irritated that he hadn’t realized sooner what his sister was thinking or feeling. He remembered how she had apologized before Jenna’s funeral, but he had thought he made it clear to her that he didn’t hold her responsible for anything that had happened and that as long as he had her, it would be all right. Either she hadn’t believed him or she hadn’t received the same assurances from others in their group.
Which meant he needed to find out who had made his sister feel like she had to make herself into a bigger target by leaving town.
Realizing how big of a target Elena had turned herself into, Jeremy burst into her bedroom. Her room as a private sanctuary ended as soon as she was missing. He was sure the rest of their group would agree with him. Once in her room, he went directly to her dresser and opened her jewelery box. He sifted through it and then let out a sigh of relief, closing the lid and putting it back down.
Her vervain necklace and Uncle John’s protection ring were gone.
That meant that she had least thought about having some safeguards with her. That didn’t make him any less annoyed with her actions, but at least she wasn’t being a complete idiot.
Not completely.
Just mostly.
He dropped down onto Elena’s bed, looking around her room. She had been gone for at least two days. Two days in which he had assumed she was with Damon. He assumed that she was safe and well and that she was just making sure that Damon was healing.
He should have taken the time to check. He should have called or gone over to check on her. He had promised himself that he would be a better brother and take care of her, and yet she had been able to pull this because he hadn’t done what he promised.
Damon stared down at the package that he kept turning over in his hands. He had no problem recognizing the the handwriting. It wasn't as if he hadn't spent a lot of time with her as she was doing homework or writing in her journal. He ran one hand along the paper, feeling the almost invisible indentions that were left behind after moisture had dried. He didn't need to feel the remnants of Elena's tears to know he wasn't going to like whatever it was that Elena had decided to send him through the mail.
That was another concern. Why had Elena mailed him something instead of just delivering it to him herself? She had spent enough time here with him while he was recovering, and it was her house, anyway. He had made sure that she had some place safe that she couldn't be taken from in the middle of the night -- or the middle of the day even.
He started to open the package when he heard someone pounding on the door.
"Come on, Damon, let me in."
Oh great. Like he wanted to try dealing with whatever had upset Vampire Barbie this time. Not that she had been a bother and she had in fact done her part to try to keep on eye on Elena and keep her safe.
"Come on, Salvatore! Elena's gone!"
And with New and Improved Werewolf Ken. Wasn't he just...
He was at the door and pulling it open in a flash. "What do you mean she's gone?"
"Just what he said," Caroline responded, her voice quiet for once. "She mailed a bunch of letters to people and just disappeared."
"She apologized for all kinds of things that weren't her fault and now, none of us can find her." Tyler added. By us, he meant him and Caroline. "Caroline and I have been searching everywhere we can think of and she's nowhere to be found."
Damon refrained from banging his head into the side of the door. What foolhardy and self-sacrificing thing had Elena done this time? As much as he loved her he would really like to be able to remove her tendency to martyr herself for others out of her personality. He hated seeing her get hurt -- especially for people that he didn’t think deserved her sacrifices.
"What did she apologize for this time?" Damon asked, after motioning the two of them inside and shutting the door behind them. "Besides oh, I don't know, existing?"
Because one too many times he had heard Elena say that things never would have happened if she hadn't survived the car wreck that killed her parents. Even worse, he had heard her say that she should have died instead of someone else that she had lost. Those were the times he had to work very hard not to yell at her about wasting her life. Since falling in love with her, he had let a few of his more human emotions and empathy come out and he could understand how much she was hurting at all of the lives that had been lost around her.
It was Caroline who responded. "She apologized for ruining my life and for the fact that my mother is an intolerant bitch."
"She didn't call your mother an intolerant bitch," Damon said knowingly.
"No, but she might as well have. It would be the truth."
"She did apologize for ruining our lives though," Tyler said, shaking his head. "I'm not sure how she thinks she was responsible for anything that I've gone through since it's apparently been a curse in my family for a long time. It's not her fault that I'm a werewolf."
"And it's not her fault that I'm a vampire. She didn't kill me, Katherine did."
Damon started to say something when he heard more people arrive on the porch. He opened the door and wordlessly motioned them in.
"Let me guess, Elena's Delivery Service." He would have smiled if he wasn't already trying to figure out where Elena had gone.
"I should have come over here sooner," was Jeremy's response. "I knew what kind of condition she was in emotionally, but when she said she was spending time here with you, I believed her. I mean, this is Elena and we all know how she can be. She even apologized to me at Jenna's funeral for taking away all of my family. I should have expected her to pull something dumb."
"How long?" Damon looked from Jeremy to Alaric.
"At least a lead of two days," Alaric said quietly. "We all thought she was here with you, but from the looks of her room and the dates on everything, she left at least two days ago. Maybe three."
Damon wanted to bang his head into a door. Elena was gone. She had run away from the one place she was safest. "Does anyone have any idea where she might have gone?"
"Damon," this time it was Bonnie that spoke. "I think she went to find Katherine or Klaus."
If he was human, his heart would have stopped beating at that comment. Even so, it took him a moment to process through the panic he felt at the idea of Elena getting anywhere near Klaus. "Why? Why do you think that, Bonnie?"
"Because she made herself bait," Alaric said reluctantly.
"She told Caroline that she was going to put a stop to all of this," Tyler responded.
"And she told me that if they were out hunting for her, then they weren't here hurting her friends," Bonnie answered.
"She made herself into a target for us," Jeremy's voice was quiet. "She's going to get herself killed because she thinks that she owes it to us."
One of these days, I am going to lo-jack that girl. Out loud he let out a sigh. "So, she sent all of you a letter apologizing for ruining your lives and promising she was going to make it all up to you by leaving town and going after her hunters."
"That sums it up pretty well," Caroline agreed. "Damon, she was in love with you. Didn't she send you anything?"
"Yes, Vampire Barbie," Damon said calmly. "I was about to open it when the lot of you started arriving on my doorstep."
Tyler gave him a sour look, but Damon stopped him from saying anything. "Oh don't even start with me, Werewolf Ken. You almost killed me, remember?"
"Not on purpose!"
"Be that as it may, that's not really the important thing here. The important thing is that our Elena has gotten into her head to do something incredibly noble and stupid. We have to find her and stop her." He looked around the room. "Ideas, people?"
"I could try and pick up her scent to see if I can track her," Tyler offered.
"I could try that, too," Caroline agreed. "Heightened senses are one of the cool things about being a vampire."
Go go Power Rangers, Damon thought as he looked at the others. "That's definitely an idea. Jeremy, is there any place you can think of that she would go?"
Jeremy shook his head. "All of our family were here. We didn't have any other family anywhere else. All of John's friends would have been people that were working either with the vampires or for the council." He sighed. "Besides Elena, the person John loved the most was Isobel."
"I could probably use something from her room to do a tracking spell," Bonnie said as she looked at Damon. "She wouldn't have been able to take a whole lot of things if she was trying to make a quick exit before any of us realized what she was doing." She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I know she thought she was doing the best thing she could for us, but does she really think we care so little about her? Does she really think we would just let her leave and not do anything about it to find her?"
"She's not thinking clearly," Caroline defended her best friend. "I mean, would any of us be? She just buried her Aunt and her real parents -- one of which made sure he died so she could live. She lost her other parents months ago, almost lost her brother how many times? She thought she lost Bonnie because of everything that has happened. I was turned into a vampire, she thinks Tyler and Alaric hate her for what they've lost, and she believes that Damon hates her because he lost Stefan."
"What?" Damon's voice was cold as he looked at Caroline. "What makes you think she believes I hate her over Stefan? I told her that no matter the choice, I would always choose her."
Caroline just stared at him, so it was Tyler that answered him. "Klaus was able to make Stefan go to the dark and killer side because your brother needed his blood to save you. If it hadn't been for Elena and people being after her, you and I never would have fought and you wouldn't have needed Klaus' blood to survive."
Alaric let out a curse. "I don't hate her. God, I couldn't hate her. She's just a kid."
"She broke," Jeremy said. "It's been too much and none of us realized that Elena was shattering right in front of us. She was so focused on taking care of us that we never thought about how everything was weighing on her."
"Tyler did," Caroline pointed out. "He's the one that said he and I needed to keep an eye on her because she looked like she was about to fall apart."
"Good puppy," Damon said caustically. "But I told Elena that I would always choose her no matter what happened."
"Maybe she didn't think that was true when it came to her or your brother," Bonnie said evenly. "I know how protective she is of Jeremy and she was so glad that you and Stefan had started mending whatever there was festering between you. And, well, it wasn't your choice this time. Someone else made the choice to save you. Yes, it was Stefan's choice, but we all know how Elena can be. With everything else she's blaming herself for, what Stefan did was just one more thing."
"You know, a therapist could make millions off of the kids in this town," Damon sighed.
"Most therapists couldn't handle the things that go on in our lives and this town," Bonnie said practically.
"There you go, Jeremy, a new career goal. Go to college and become a therapist. Come back here and bilk all of the first families of lots of money by providing therapy to their kids." Damon was trying to show them that he was fine and he thought he was funny.
"That's not important right now," Jeremy pointed out. "The important thing is that we find my sister before she gets herself killed."
"I know. Believe me, I know." Damon shook his head. "That girl needs a tracking device or something that keeps her from chasing trouble." He pushed himself away from the wall. "Ok. Barbie and Fido will go back to Elena's with Bonnie to see what they can pick up in her room and outside. See if you can figure out a trail once you get past the post office. Bonnie will come back here with something to do one of her witchy spells to see if she can locate anything pertaining to Elena." He looked at Jeremy. "Necklace?"
Jeremy nodded. "Her vervain necklace is gone, as is Uncle John's ring."
"That's something then. It means she thought enough about her safety to at least make sure she had them with her. Who knows what kind of magic John had added to that ring. I think that we can all agree he loved his daughter and if he had time to do anything before he convinced Bonnie to do that spell, then we can assume that he would have found another witch to add extra mojo to it."
"Why wouldn't he have asked me to do it?"
Damon gave her a look. "One, he knew that you didn't trust him. Two, you would have wanted to know what he was planning if he asked you to mess with the magic of his ring. He wasn't about to tell you he was going to trade his life for Elena's. You not only wouldn't have believed him, you might have tried to stop him."
"No she wouldn't have," Jeremy said quietly. "Bonnie wouldn't have tried to stop him. She would have chosen Elena's life over his." He sighed. "The same way I would have."
Damon waved his hand. "Yes, we all agree that Elena's life was worth more than her birth father's -- but then again, I may be more than a little partial. After all, how many times did he try to kill me, mess with my plans or endanger Elena because he was a moron?"
"Damon..." Alaric warned.
"Whatever. While those three are at the Gilbert house, Alaric and Jeremy will be going through maps to see if they can put together an idea of a trail Elena may have taken. Alaric will call some of his secret friends and find out if there have been any weird happenings that would give us a location of Klaus, Stefan or Katherine. We don't want Elena to find any of them alone or before we find her."
"Would Stefan really hurt Elena? He loves her."
"He's a ripper, Jeremy," Damon said in what counted as a gentle voice for him. "He has no emotions and thinks only of killing and feeding. He won't recognize Elena as anything more than food." And he, personally, had no plans to let one fang of his brother's get anywhere near Elena.
"What are you going to be doing while we're all out following your orders?" Tyler demanded.
"While the Scooby gang is out scoobying, I'm going to find out what it was that Elena sent to me."
"Damon --"
"We'll find her, Jeremy," Damon said quietly. "We'll find her and we'll get her back safely."
Damon stood on the staircase as he listened to the others go into different directions to carry out the tasks he had assigned them. He didn't like this team leader thing and what he really wanted to do was go out there and chase Elena down himself. However, she had a two day lead on him and she had to have known that he wouldn't let her go like this. The only way to get inside her head while she was running off to who knew where was to go upstairs and open the package he had been holding when Caroline and Tyler showed up.
"Damn you for being so incredibly selfless, Elena."
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