The Beginning Of Our Forever [1]

9. Filling In The Missing Pieces

Elena woke up a few hours later, realising that her and Damon had fallen asleep, cuddled up, under the covers. She fought her way out from under the duvet and looked over at the alarm clock which read '10.35pm'. Elena quietly crept out of the bed, being careful not to wake Damon up, and made her way to the bathroom. She could hear that Stefan and Caroline were still awake in the room next door.

Elena bent down, turned the hot water tap on the bathtub and began to run herself a bath. As she stood back up she was surprised by an unexpected cuddle from behind. It was only Damon.

"Do you mind if I join you?" he whispered. Elena shook her head and climbed into the bath after removing her clothes. Damon jumped in after her, causing a splash of bubbly water  to hit Elena's face.

Neither of them felt the need to say anything, they simply lead back and relaxed- closing their eyes and soaking deeper into the warm, bubbly water. The sound of Damon's bedroom door opening made Elena jolt awake, causing water to splash over the side of the bath. Damon lead there with his eyes still closed, not bothered by the sound,

"It's only Caroline, don't worry," he mumbled, ever so quietly.

Elena leant back against the bath just as Caroline shouted out into the empty room,

"Sorry you two, I don't want to disturb anything..." Damon smirked.
"I've just brought in the boxes full of my diaries for you to read Elena. I'll leave them at the bottom of the bed," she continued.

Elena carried on listening as she heard boxes begin dragged, pushed and then dropped into piles,

"Stefan, don't put them there. They are supposed to go over here," Caroline demanded.

Elena and Damon sniggered, 'Of course Caroline would get Stefan to do the heavy lifting' Elena thought to herself.

"Thank you Stefan!" Elena shouted back into the bedroom and then heard Stefan break out into laughter. Caroline quickly ushered Stefan out of the bedroom but shouted back to Elena before closing the door behind them,

"Please don't stay in bed too long tomorrow Elena, we have to go shopping and meet up with some people whilst we are out."

Elena climbed out of the bath and grabbed a towel from the rail next to them. Damon slowly climbed out of the bath too and wrapped a towel around his waist. They both made their way back to the bedroom where Elena paused in front of the boxes. Damon walked straight past them and crawled into bed.

"Do you mind if I stay up for a while and start reading these?" Elena asked, lifting the lid on the first box and pulling out diary number 1.

"No of course not, I'm pretty tired anyway. Don't stay up too late baby." Damon rolled over onto his side, curled up and closed his eyes. Elena walked over to the bed and sat on edge by Damon's feet. She looked down at the book in her hand and took a deep breath.

'Here goes nothing' she thought.

She opened the front cover to the first page and saw Caroline's all too familiar handwriting sprawled all over;

'Dear Elena... A few weeks ago, you said goodbye and told us to write everything down so you'd feel like you didn't miss anything when you woke up. Bad news first-- Damon said the best way to keep his mind off you was to help Alaric grieve. So, in common Damon-fashion, he kidnapped Ric and flew him to Europe for a guy-getaway. I'm sure you can imagine how that's going.'

Elena did just that, she looked over her shoulder at Damon and smiled despite her tears. She knew how distraught Damon was when she left, but she knew in her heart that he would have been there for Ric, despite his own pain. She looked back down at the book and carried on reading,

'Obviously, we didn't send them there without a chaperone'

Elena erupted into laughter. 'Poor Bonnie, you drew the short straw there,' she smiled. 'I miss you and Ric so much,' she thought, imagining Bonnie trying to control the two naughty school children that were Damon and Ric.

'So, Damon's watching out for Alaric, Bonnie's watching out for Damon, and I don't know exactly who's watching out for Bonnie. Matt will officially be Deputy Donovan next week when he graduates. As happy as I am for him, a big part of me wishes my mom was here to see it'

'I wish I was there to see it too. I wish I was there to see Matt graduate,' Elena thought, as tears fell on to the pages in front of her. She looked up to the ceiling, took a deep breath and wiped her eyes.

'The Town Council gave her a bench. I've been visiting it, hoping I'll miraculously start missing her less. I keep thinking that if I can heal, I can move on with my life, but I don't see that happening any time soon. Anyway, I covered Damon, Bonnie, Ric, Matt... Who am I missing?'

'Stefan!!!' Elena's inner voice screamed, as she smiled from ear to ear.

'As I was saying... things are great.'

'Oh I'm sure they are,' Elena smiled. She reached the bottom of the first page and closed the book. Despite the roller coaster of emotions that 1 page had brought up, reading the diary was everything she hoped it would be. She felt like she hadn't missed a thing.

She placed the book back on-top of the box, walked around the bed and crawled in bed next to Damon who was fast asleep. Elena's mind raced with 100 thoughts a second,

'Ric's grieving, Bonnie's chaperoning, Matt's graduation, the mystery meeting Caroline's organised for tomorrow...'

But somehow, all of her thoughts seem to converge on this beautiful man lead in front of her. He was everything she ever wanted from life and no matter what, he was always the person she could rely on for support.

Elena leant forwards and placed a small, gentle kiss on Damon's forehead. She wriggled down into his arms and closed her eyes, waiting for sleep to claim her and run away with her dreams.