[round 3: elena gilbert]: diving in
title: diving in
fandom: the vampire diaries
characters: elena (brief mentions of caroline, bonnie, jeremy) + an appearance of a character i refuse to name, because spoilers
rating: g
word count: 2k (i know, i did not expect this to happen either.)
recipient: Kelsey, who wanted elena and life, water, flowers, feathers
summary: When Mystic Falls is empty and there is nothing else to run away from, Elena runs from herself.
note: i feel silly saying this every time, but, again, sorry for being late. this somehow turned into 2k words, don't ask how and maybe i'm plotting a sequel already
(a girl, somewhere, asks another girl:)
"What do you call that thing,
a lot of running and some standing still?
(the second girl
says)
Living.
~*~*~*~*~
When Mystic Falls is made barren, almost dust now, mere scratches and bruises of the town it was, a raw town now, torn down, and death still in every shadow and movement, there are tears and sweat and blood, not in that order, drying on their skin. And in spite of all this, or maybe because of all this, there is Elena, standing alone in the middle of the town square and she is laughing.
When Mystic Falls is empty and there is nothing else to run away from, Elena runs from herself.
She packs lightly and swift, basic clothing and necessities, a nice black dress if the need arises, and a new pair of sunglasses. She doesn't leave a dramatic goodbye letter to anyone, but she leaves a note meant for Jeremy on a yellow post-it, because Caroline left one of her post-it stacks in Stefan's room and Elena sneaked in and took a pink one and wrote "gone. take care of yourselves. don't look for me. Elena" on it and she stuck the post-it on her most recent diary, which, if anyone looked into it, they would see that it was abandoned months ago, numerous empty pages in it, pages that might have once been a future in Mystic Falls, that were now a past in Mystic Falls, that will soon be merely a dot on the horizon, or so Elena hopes.
She comes downstairs, a bag over her shoulder and the diary in her right hand, her left hand sliding somewhat smoothly over the handrail, like a billion times before; she is aware that this might be the last time she hears that familiar click of her heels on the stairs and feels this wood with her skin. She looks around briefly, for a good place to leave the diary, but come to think of it, is there a good enough place to leave this kind of note? She's just leaving her phone on the coffee table when she spots a laundry basket in one corner of the room, doesn't understand why or how, because despite all the apocalypses and the threat of damnation, this house always remained clean. She stops this train of thought easily enough now, self-control is a virtue, has always been, and the future, the future is a non-stop mantra in her mind.
Enough now.
She throws the diary on the top of the pile of muddy, bloody, dirty clothes, post-it side up, grabs her only non-muddy, non-bloody, non-dirty sweater and she gets the hell out.
the future, the future
She's running scenarios in her head, things that could happen during her getaway; the car not starting, Jeremy yelling after her, Bonnie and Caroline jumping in front of the car, seeing the ghosts of Mystic Falls past float around her trying to stop her from becoming Scrooge, but nothing of the sort happens.
Her hand doesn't tremble dramatically while she's pushing the car key in the lock, and she throws her bag on the passenger seat and sits down. Her hands still don't tremble when she turns on the ignition and they don't even tremble when her fingers grasp the wheel and just like that, she's on the road, the point of no return straight ahead, and Elena sees it and just drives past it.
The first time she's tempted to stop comes soon, but it's Wickery Bridge, and she expected this, she's prepared for this. She wants to, and badly, to just park her car after the bridge and just dive into the water for a while. Her knuckles are whiter now against the wheel of the car, tighter. She wants this. Not a lot, but she still wants it, enough for it to hurt a little. It would be such a dramatic start or end or both, to have water wash away everything that is her, and this water in particular, the water of her dead families and friends. It would be nice, she thinks, to face it all once more in this water.
After all, who can resist a good cyclical plot?
Elena laughs -- "I can."
In the end, Elena doesn't even slow down while driving across the Wickery Bridge. Water may be life, but it wasn't for her - or at least this water wasn't.
She's past the Wickery Bridge now, which she thought would be the biggest obstacle, and her mind focuses on her plan now: there are things she needs, some clothing, a phone, a place to stay at some point, though she'd like to put the most distance possible between her and Mystic Falls. She left almost all of her clothing behind, she just brought a sweater in case it got cold. This is a new life, and her old clothes won't fit it, or shouldn't fit it anyway. Nothing from her old life should.
Two hours into the drive, the road takes her through a small, unremarkable town and she slows down and looks around through the car windows to find a clothing store. She spots a second hand clothes shop, shudders and thinks of Katherine and herself and decided not to go in - she wants a first hand life now and she hopes it will fit her better than the old one did.
She parks her car anyway on the only parking lot she's seen so far here and she steps out and locks the car behind her. She plans to walk around for a while, it should not be hard to find some store with some decent looking clothes. She's looking at the windows of the stores around her, a grocery store that looks unexpectedly crowded to her, for a town this small, a tiny jewelry store where one boy is standing at the counter, discussing something with the clerk with a lot of hand waving included in the process, and a store with a bright orange neon sign that says "ladies" and a large yellow post-it on the door that says open and it may be true that not even she can resists a good cyclical plot after all.
Other than the clerk, a young blond boy who seems mostly to be sitting behind the counter, typing something on his phone, there's only one girl in the store, light-brown haired and shorter than Elena when she's in her heels, the girl in a pair of black Mary Janes, a green sweater and a very short denim skirt. The girl seems to be looking at some skirts, taking almost every skirts from the shelf into her hands and then returning it neatly to the shelf it came from, probably when she decides against buying it. Elena looks around the shelves herself, looks at the jeans and a plain shirt she's wearing and she knows then she wants a dress now. Dresses are new; dresses should do the trick.
There's some dresses in the store, luckily, and Elena just needs to choose the right one. Some of them are black, and she decides against them - black seems too dark for this moment. That leaves her with two she likes, a pale green dress with tiny white feather & flower print, and a bright orange one that's a bit shorter than the green one, and seems less soft to touch. She's not sure which one to go with, because the pattern worries her a bit, and her eyes catch the girl's legs and back again. The girl's moved on to a box that seems to contain knee-high socks now, a new denim skirt draped over her shoulder. She definitely looks like she could give out better clothing advice than the boy behind the counter dressed in a black shirt that seems too big for him, and pants that Elena can't see, but guesses she wouldn't like.
She takes each of the dresses in one hand and says "Hey, sorry to bother you -" and the girl's already turned around, made a bubble gum balloon, let the balloon burst and said "The green one, definitely."
"You think?" Elena says as a smile stretches across her lips.
"Yup. Feathers and flowers? Fabulous. And it's green. Green's good, green's life," the girl says and Elena's smile widens.
"You know what? That's just what I needed to hear,"
"No problem, random store girl; happy to help."
"And go with the grey socks with the tiny bows at the knees. They'll go great with everything, and they're cute,"
"Oh, thanks," the girl says and remains turned towards Elena while Elena walks to the counter and pays for the dress, but when Elena turns back, the girl's looking at a pair of purple denim shorts with some glitter on them.
"See you around," the girl calls out to Elena.
"Sorry, I don't think so, I'm just passing through here."
"Me too."
"Where are you headed to?"
The girl thinks for a moment, and then says "Everywhere."
Elena chuckles. "Me too."
"Hey, I don't even know your name, and you know everything about me."
"I know everything about you?"
"I like the color green and bows on socks. What more is there?"
Elena laughs.
"Elena Gilbert."
"Nice to meet you, Elena Gilbert. My name's Dawn Summers."
"See you around, Dawn."
"You too, Elena."
Elena leaves the store smiling, and decides against changing her clothes until she's had a shower or a bath, and she decided to postpone that until she's put some more miles between herself and Mystic Falls, so Elena throws the store bag on the passenger seat and starts her car once more and drives out of another town too small for the size of her.
She's been driving for a while now, and it'll be day time soon, she can tell by the see sun coming out in the distance. The woods seem different here than around Mystic Falls and she think maybe she's far enough now, so she rolls down the car windows and lets the fresh morning air into the car.
She sees a glimpse of water in the woods and makes a sudden turn off the road and parks her car on the side of the road. She takes her bags with her, new dress included and locks the car behind her. She walks until she finds the glimpse of water she saw, and it's beautiful. It's on lower ground than the rest of the trees around it, a beautiful lake that looks so inviting to Elena she almost jumps into it with her clothes still on, before recognizing this as the opportunity that it is. The shower she wanted before changing into her new clothes. The fresh start Wickery couldn't have been for her.
She walks carefully towards the water and puts down all her things on the grass and starts unstrapping her sandals and then she places them on the ground next to her other things. She takes out the towel she took with her and a pair of matching peach colored panties and a bra and sets them neatly on her bag. She pulls out her new dress and places it on the towel as well, the green fitting beautifully with the woods here, and the flowers and feathers looking so much more alive on the dress than they looked in the store. She proceeds to take off her clothes then, unzips her jeans and pulls them down her legs and off of her, finally, and she unclasps her bra and takes her white shirt off over her head and this is as close to freedom as it gets.
She steps into the water and it wraps itself around her ankle, and she hisses a bit because it's colder than it looked from the outside, but she gets used to it soon. She walks further until the water reaches her knees, encircling her further.
She breathes deeply then, for the first time in what feels like forever, and maybe she laughs a bit, and maybe she cries a bit, but the most important is, she dives in.
fandom: the vampire diaries
characters: elena (brief mentions of caroline, bonnie, jeremy) + an appearance of a character i refuse to name, because spoilers
rating: g
word count: 2k (i know, i did not expect this to happen either.)
recipient: Kelsey, who wanted elena and life, water, flowers, feathers
summary: When Mystic Falls is empty and there is nothing else to run away from, Elena runs from herself.
note: i feel silly saying this every time, but, again, sorry for being late. this somehow turned into 2k words, don't ask how and maybe i'm plotting a sequel already
(a girl, somewhere, asks another girl:)
"What do you call that thing,
a lot of running and some standing still?
(the second girl
says)
Living.
~*~*~*~*~
When Mystic Falls is made barren, almost dust now, mere scratches and bruises of the town it was, a raw town now, torn down, and death still in every shadow and movement, there are tears and sweat and blood, not in that order, drying on their skin. And in spite of all this, or maybe because of all this, there is Elena, standing alone in the middle of the town square and she is laughing.
When Mystic Falls is empty and there is nothing else to run away from, Elena runs from herself.
She packs lightly and swift, basic clothing and necessities, a nice black dress if the need arises, and a new pair of sunglasses. She doesn't leave a dramatic goodbye letter to anyone, but she leaves a note meant for Jeremy on a yellow post-it, because Caroline left one of her post-it stacks in Stefan's room and Elena sneaked in and took a pink one and wrote "gone. take care of yourselves. don't look for me. Elena" on it and she stuck the post-it on her most recent diary, which, if anyone looked into it, they would see that it was abandoned months ago, numerous empty pages in it, pages that might have once been a future in Mystic Falls, that were now a past in Mystic Falls, that will soon be merely a dot on the horizon, or so Elena hopes.
She comes downstairs, a bag over her shoulder and the diary in her right hand, her left hand sliding somewhat smoothly over the handrail, like a billion times before; she is aware that this might be the last time she hears that familiar click of her heels on the stairs and feels this wood with her skin. She looks around briefly, for a good place to leave the diary, but come to think of it, is there a good enough place to leave this kind of note? She's just leaving her phone on the coffee table when she spots a laundry basket in one corner of the room, doesn't understand why or how, because despite all the apocalypses and the threat of damnation, this house always remained clean. She stops this train of thought easily enough now, self-control is a virtue, has always been, and the future, the future is a non-stop mantra in her mind.
Enough now.
She throws the diary on the top of the pile of muddy, bloody, dirty clothes, post-it side up, grabs her only non-muddy, non-bloody, non-dirty sweater and she gets the hell out.
the future, the future
She's running scenarios in her head, things that could happen during her getaway; the car not starting, Jeremy yelling after her, Bonnie and Caroline jumping in front of the car, seeing the ghosts of Mystic Falls past float around her trying to stop her from becoming Scrooge, but nothing of the sort happens.
Her hand doesn't tremble dramatically while she's pushing the car key in the lock, and she throws her bag on the passenger seat and sits down. Her hands still don't tremble when she turns on the ignition and they don't even tremble when her fingers grasp the wheel and just like that, she's on the road, the point of no return straight ahead, and Elena sees it and just drives past it.
The first time she's tempted to stop comes soon, but it's Wickery Bridge, and she expected this, she's prepared for this. She wants to, and badly, to just park her car after the bridge and just dive into the water for a while. Her knuckles are whiter now against the wheel of the car, tighter. She wants this. Not a lot, but she still wants it, enough for it to hurt a little. It would be such a dramatic start or end or both, to have water wash away everything that is her, and this water in particular, the water of her dead families and friends. It would be nice, she thinks, to face it all once more in this water.
After all, who can resist a good cyclical plot?
Elena laughs -- "I can."
In the end, Elena doesn't even slow down while driving across the Wickery Bridge. Water may be life, but it wasn't for her - or at least this water wasn't.
She's past the Wickery Bridge now, which she thought would be the biggest obstacle, and her mind focuses on her plan now: there are things she needs, some clothing, a phone, a place to stay at some point, though she'd like to put the most distance possible between her and Mystic Falls. She left almost all of her clothing behind, she just brought a sweater in case it got cold. This is a new life, and her old clothes won't fit it, or shouldn't fit it anyway. Nothing from her old life should.
Two hours into the drive, the road takes her through a small, unremarkable town and she slows down and looks around through the car windows to find a clothing store. She spots a second hand clothes shop, shudders and thinks of Katherine and herself and decided not to go in - she wants a first hand life now and she hopes it will fit her better than the old one did.
She parks her car anyway on the only parking lot she's seen so far here and she steps out and locks the car behind her. She plans to walk around for a while, it should not be hard to find some store with some decent looking clothes. She's looking at the windows of the stores around her, a grocery store that looks unexpectedly crowded to her, for a town this small, a tiny jewelry store where one boy is standing at the counter, discussing something with the clerk with a lot of hand waving included in the process, and a store with a bright orange neon sign that says "ladies" and a large yellow post-it on the door that says open and it may be true that not even she can resists a good cyclical plot after all.
Other than the clerk, a young blond boy who seems mostly to be sitting behind the counter, typing something on his phone, there's only one girl in the store, light-brown haired and shorter than Elena when she's in her heels, the girl in a pair of black Mary Janes, a green sweater and a very short denim skirt. The girl seems to be looking at some skirts, taking almost every skirts from the shelf into her hands and then returning it neatly to the shelf it came from, probably when she decides against buying it. Elena looks around the shelves herself, looks at the jeans and a plain shirt she's wearing and she knows then she wants a dress now. Dresses are new; dresses should do the trick.
There's some dresses in the store, luckily, and Elena just needs to choose the right one. Some of them are black, and she decides against them - black seems too dark for this moment. That leaves her with two she likes, a pale green dress with tiny white feather & flower print, and a bright orange one that's a bit shorter than the green one, and seems less soft to touch. She's not sure which one to go with, because the pattern worries her a bit, and her eyes catch the girl's legs and back again. The girl's moved on to a box that seems to contain knee-high socks now, a new denim skirt draped over her shoulder. She definitely looks like she could give out better clothing advice than the boy behind the counter dressed in a black shirt that seems too big for him, and pants that Elena can't see, but guesses she wouldn't like.
She takes each of the dresses in one hand and says "Hey, sorry to bother you -" and the girl's already turned around, made a bubble gum balloon, let the balloon burst and said "The green one, definitely."
"You think?" Elena says as a smile stretches across her lips.
"Yup. Feathers and flowers? Fabulous. And it's green. Green's good, green's life," the girl says and Elena's smile widens.
"You know what? That's just what I needed to hear,"
"No problem, random store girl; happy to help."
"And go with the grey socks with the tiny bows at the knees. They'll go great with everything, and they're cute,"
"Oh, thanks," the girl says and remains turned towards Elena while Elena walks to the counter and pays for the dress, but when Elena turns back, the girl's looking at a pair of purple denim shorts with some glitter on them.
"See you around," the girl calls out to Elena.
"Sorry, I don't think so, I'm just passing through here."
"Me too."
"Where are you headed to?"
The girl thinks for a moment, and then says "Everywhere."
Elena chuckles. "Me too."
"Hey, I don't even know your name, and you know everything about me."
"I know everything about you?"
"I like the color green and bows on socks. What more is there?"
Elena laughs.
"Elena Gilbert."
"Nice to meet you, Elena Gilbert. My name's Dawn Summers."
"See you around, Dawn."
"You too, Elena."
Elena leaves the store smiling, and decides against changing her clothes until she's had a shower or a bath, and she decided to postpone that until she's put some more miles between herself and Mystic Falls, so Elena throws the store bag on the passenger seat and starts her car once more and drives out of another town too small for the size of her.
She's been driving for a while now, and it'll be day time soon, she can tell by the see sun coming out in the distance. The woods seem different here than around Mystic Falls and she think maybe she's far enough now, so she rolls down the car windows and lets the fresh morning air into the car.
She sees a glimpse of water in the woods and makes a sudden turn off the road and parks her car on the side of the road. She takes her bags with her, new dress included and locks the car behind her. She walks until she finds the glimpse of water she saw, and it's beautiful. It's on lower ground than the rest of the trees around it, a beautiful lake that looks so inviting to Elena she almost jumps into it with her clothes still on, before recognizing this as the opportunity that it is. The shower she wanted before changing into her new clothes. The fresh start Wickery couldn't have been for her.
She walks carefully towards the water and puts down all her things on the grass and starts unstrapping her sandals and then she places them on the ground next to her other things. She takes out the towel she took with her and a pair of matching peach colored panties and a bra and sets them neatly on her bag. She pulls out her new dress and places it on the towel as well, the green fitting beautifully with the woods here, and the flowers and feathers looking so much more alive on the dress than they looked in the store. She proceeds to take off her clothes then, unzips her jeans and pulls them down her legs and off of her, finally, and she unclasps her bra and takes her white shirt off over her head and this is as close to freedom as it gets.
She steps into the water and it wraps itself around her ankle, and she hisses a bit because it's colder than it looked from the outside, but she gets used to it soon. She walks further until the water reaches her knees, encircling her further.
She breathes deeply then, for the first time in what feels like forever, and maybe she laughs a bit, and maybe she cries a bit, but the most important is, she dives in.