❝Maybe you're not healing because you're trying to be who you were before the trauma; that person doesn't exist anymore. There is a new person trying to be born. Breathe life into that person.❞
━━ tvd seasons 1-2
━━ l. morgan standalone
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ten haunted
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THE MORNING LIGHT GLIMMERED DOWN THROUGH THE BREAKS OF THE BRANCHES DOWN ONTO THE FOREST GROUND. Squirrels skipped around the ground before racing up trees as birds flew around, chirping away and singing to each other as Lux approached Stefan who stared at the fresh dirt that remained separate from the rest.
A makeshift cross made from sticks marked the grave, the only signifier. No tombstone that told a name, though Lux didn't need one to know who it was for. Stefan didn't turn towards her or indicate that he heard her approach though he obviously did, and she didn't announce her presence as she crept towards him until she stood next to him.
Her gaze went to the man beside her. His features were like stone; giving nothing away as he stared at the ground, but his eyes...his eyes held a fury that intermingled with an intense sadness. Grief beyond anything that she could imagine. She had lost. Lux had one family member – her beloved uncle at the cost of her mother, never knowing her grandparents or her father – but she was too young or too distant to understand the grief that Stefan faced.
He had years with Lexi. A century, maybe. She didn't know how long they had been friends, truly, but it was too long for him to be unaffected by her passing. Lux lost her mother when she was a toddler and only grew up knowing what was gone, not knowing what she had lost. And there were black spots in the spaces of her father and grandparents instead of people, but that was a void rather than losing people.
Elena would understand, and she wished that she had brought her for a moment, but then maybe it wouldn't make it better. She didn't really know what would – or if anything could, really.
"I'm sorry about Lexi," she said softly, not knowing what else to say. That's the line, right? I'm sorry for your loss. That's what she said when Elena's parents died at the funeral, when she hugged her friend so tightly only to get on a plane weeks later and shut them all out because she turned into a bloodsucker who could only think of draining all her friends dry. But it never felt quite right, quite complete. Always a little too lacking.
"Yeah, me too," he returned bitterly.
Lux looked at him. "She sounded like a really good person – a good friend. I wish I got to know her better."
"She loved anyone who make me stop being so...broody, as she said."
Unable to stop herself, she let out a laugh. "Broody – yeah, that sounds about right. Yeah, I think I would've liked her, too."
Stefan smiled and a serene silence fell between them as the birds continued to sing and the sun snuck into the scene. Lux looked down at the gift bag she brought. It was probably an inappropriate time, but she never cared for being appropriate, and he needed something to cheer him up.
