Barely A Memory

Chapter 3

With a chill, Elena brought herself back into the room with Caroline, trying to shake the realization she had just made. "If I could just get another chance with him," Elena whispered, shaking from the inside out, "I'd make everything right. I'd find a way."

Caroline, for the first time in a long while, gave her friend a sympathetic look, though it quickly faded. "You do realize, if Stefan actually is alive as we speak, that you're still in a romantic relationship with his brother?"

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The doors to the sheriff's station nearly broke as Damon pushed his way through them. "Where is he?" he demanded to the stranger sitting behind the desk, his fists clenched and tenser than ever. When the girl gave him a blank look, Damon slammed his fist on the table; the wood splintered. "Where the hell is my brother? What kind of a joke is this?"

Just then, Liz Forbes slowly walked into the desk area, looking awestruck and overwhelmed. "Damon," she said as calmly as she could. "You need to see this."

He didn't even bother walking around the desk. Instead, he jumped over it and rushed to Liz. "Where. Is. He?" His undead heart was beating irregularly.

As they walked through what felt like a never ending hallway, Liz kept her eyes forward. "I thought he was dead," she whispered under her breath.

"He was," Damon responded instantly. "What happened?"

Liz let out a long exhale. "One of our deputies found him in the woods. He was covered in dirt, crying against the ground. And get this: he's human."

Damon furrowed his brows. "Are you sure it's my brother?"

"He was sitting in a coffin. Right where you had buried him. He kicked himself out. We think it was an adrenaline rush, because the blood samples were just as normal as anyone's." Confused, Damon opened his mouth to ask another question, but Liz continued, "Anyway, when the deputy approached him, Stefan jumped, tried to explain that someone had tried to bury him alive."

Finally, they arrived at the holding room, and Damon's eyes instantly landed on the dirt-covered, sleeping young man. He took up two chairs and had his knees to his chest in the fetal position, trembling just slightly. Damon recognized this man's face as Stefan's, but everything about him was so... different. More timid, even in sleep. Maybe even... innocent?

Hesitantly, Damon stepped closer to this sleeping stranger who wore the face of his brother. "Stefan?" he whispered. Gradually, Damon rested his hand on his shoulder until his dirt-covered eyes groggily opened. Although Stefan's face was dark and caked with dirt and blood, his eyes were just as vibrant as ever, the same shade of green they had always been. "Hey, Stefan," he said slowly, keeping his eyes locked on the familiar green ones. Damon tried to keep his breath steady. "You hear me?"

Stefan's emerald eyes almost looked through Damon as he spoke. Damon could practically feel the tension in the air as his brother scanned over his face, trying to find something familiar. Stefan's eyes were empty. "He...Hello?" he rasped out, turning his body so that he was sitting up.

Damon felt a strange tug in his heart, a deep, deep drop in his chest, and his eyes stung. "Stefan, do you know who I am?" he tried.

His brother let out a frustrated noise, as if a name was on the tip of his tongue but too far to reach. The face in front of him was so familiar, but so difficult to find. Then, suddenly, the word escaped his lips before he could understand it: "Damon."

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Stefan ran his fingertips along the leather of his brother's car, staring at the road as they drove. "Damon," he mumbled. "Damon." The syllables rolled off of his tongue like a foreign language that he spoke but could not discern. "Damon."

Damon chuckled a bit to himself, trying to force a smirk onto his lips despite the uneasiness rising in his stomach. "Stefan, who am I?" he asked.

Stefan smiled a little bit and said more confidently, "Damon. You're Damon." He was still quiet, but no longer shaking, and because of that, Damon was more than relieved.

"Yes, I'm Damon. But who am I? How do you know me?" He looked at Stefan from the corner of his eye, watching as his little brother furrowed his brows. Frustration flicked through his eyes, followed by defeat. "I'm your brother. Do you remember that?"

Stefan shook his head.

"What do you remember?"

"I remember waking up in a coffin," Stefan replied truthfully. "Someone tried to bury me alive. And I remember that your name is Damon." The youngest Salvatore cracked a smile at those words, and Damon returned it genuinely.

"Yeah, I got that. Is that it?"

Stefan nodded.

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Elena and Caroline were just about to give up and try to get some sleep when Caroline spotted headlights in the window and heard Damon's car. Instantly, Elena jumped up, her heart racing.

What was going to come through that door? Who was going to come through that door?

Hope coursed through her veins, but she forced herself to patiently wait.

Low expectations, Elena. Low expectations.

And then the doorknob turned, and in walked Damon, followed by the hunched over form of a man. He was covered in dirt, his eyes looked tired, and his clothes were ragged, but oh my god, she knew that face. She knew that face better than anyone!

Stefan.

He still looked beautiful. And despite the dirt and exhaustion, he was exactly as she remembered him. Exactly how he looked in her dreams every single night. Her heart fluttered and raced and did wild things, and without even thinking her feet were running towards him and the world around her was nothing but a blur. He was back. Stefan was alive. She'd been given another chance, a chance to apologize and make things right, a chance to show him that his life was worth living. Elation and a beautiful pain coursed through her body as she rushed to him, and she immediately wrapped her arms around him. It was him. It was really him. He smelled the same: like clouds and eternity and forgiveness. She breathed his name into his shoulder, incoherently whispering apologies and explanations and declarations of love and fate and—

He wasn't hugging her back.

Baffled, Elena backed away, wiped her tears and looked into his green eyes. They were strangely cold, void of the love that she always remembered so vividly...

Had he not forgiven her?

Looking for some sort of aid, Elena glanced over to Damon, who sent her a hauntingly apologetic look. He was frantically shaking his head.

Feeling suddenly uneasy, Elena looked up at Stefan's face, which also looked eerily sorry. And, when he opened his mouth to speak, she thought she was going to fall to the ground.

"I'm Stefan," he said slowly, apologetically. She knitted her brows for a second, baffled as his words went through her ears. Then, it suddenly clicked in her: his lack of response, the vacancy in his eyes when he walked through the door...

Oh god. No, oh god... I'm going to be sick. She felt dizzy. This is not happening. This cannot be happening.

Swallowing, she swayed and Damon started to move towards her. She brushed him off and looked this confused Stefan in the eyes, trying to fight the tears that suddenly did not feel quite as pleasant as they had about a minute ago.

"I'm Elena," she managed to say. "We, uh... We have history together."

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