Barely A Memory

Chapter 8

The music was fueling Stefan's temper. He hated this song. Loathed it... Almost as much as he loathed himself at the moment. Why did he care so much about what his brother was doing with Elena? She didn't belong to Stefan. She never had! So why was his chest feeling so tight and his face so hot?

Always a masochist, Stefan replayed the song a few more times, his frustration growing stronger and stronger every minute. He hated that he cared. He didn't want to care. If only he couldn't. And finally, when the lyric that bothered him the most came along, Stefan shouted along with the music.

"It was only a kiss!"

He threw a book to the other end of the room. Followed by another. He didn't care about the song anymore; it kept moving past those five stupid words. He wanted to shut it off now. It was terrible, and he was tired of it.

"IT WAS ONLY A KISS!"

Without even thinking, he shouted again, sending another object flying across the room.

A few seconds later, his phone was silent and he was lying on the floor beside a pile of discarded, damaged journals, his heart pounding.

Breathing heavily, Stefan stared at the ceiling for a long moment. Trying to calm himself, he reached out for a journal that was in reach. He was done with Elena; he had to be. So, he had decided earlier that night, that he was going to find the vampire girl from his dream and start over with her. It did not matter how many loves he had had over his long life –he assumed there were only a few after her-... he was going to find her, despite how long and painful the search would be. He ached and despaired for her completion.

The journal that Stefan grabbed was from 1864, one of the first of his many diaries. Curiously, he began to flip through the pages and stopped abruptly at a long entry.

She is cosmic. Seductive. Compelling. An angel and a demon.

The sensual experience of her is one I will never be able to erase from my memory. She has opened my eyes like no other. Loving her is like sinning in heaven. I had not lived until I laid eyes on her.

Katherine. Her name rolls off of my tongue and onto the paper like molten silk.

I am in love. There is no doubt in my mind.

I am in love and I am not afraid of anything.

-S.S.

Stefan let out a long exhale after reading the passage he had written, not even realizing that he'd been holding his breath.

This was the girl. It had to be.

He needed to find her. Katherine. Maybe, just maybe, if he found her, Elena would never enter his mind, never tempt him. Maybe. He could hope.

Eager, he reached for his phone and searched through names, hoping to find hers. His heart raced when he found it. Was it the same Katherine? He wasn't going to wait around to find out.

Shaking and full of high expectations, Stefan called her.

It was time to forget about Elena Gilbert, once and for all.

XXXX

Elena stared up at her ceiling, eyes wide open. There was no way she was getting any sleep tonight. She couldn't stop replaying the moment with Stefan in her mind: the way he laughed, the way she had caused that laughter, the way he kissed her.

For that brief second, Stefan –the old Stefan—had been beside her. Maybe it'd been a reflex of his to kiss her whenever he was happy due to all of the years of casual displays of affection they had once shared with each other. Nonetheless, her lips trembled and her body shook with conflicting emotions. She wanted to love him more than anything. But where would she even begin?

She sighed and turned to her side, jumping when her eyes met Damon's sky blue ones. He gave her his trademark smirk. "Hello there," he smiled.

Elena exhaled deeply. "Hey. You startled me."

Damon dramatically pouted, looking somewhat like a puppy. "Sorry."

She forced out a laugh. "Sorry about the way that I left things the other day. I haven't really talked to you since." She frowned at him, her expression displaying her true sincerity.

Damon smiled at her a little, a genuine smile that made her feel guilty. It was that smile and nights spent lying on her bed like this that made her open up her heart to Damon Salvatore in the first place. She never should have let him in. "It's all good, Elena," he replied softly with a shrug. "You'd been grieving. It's understandable."

She nodded, hugging her pillow closer to herself. "It's just... how did you do it? Bring him back?"

Damon sighed, but she knew he wasn't going to lie to her. Not in this mood. He almost seemed too tired to put up his normally cold and arrogant demeanor. "Bonnie helped. Some of the dead witches too. I didn't know he was going to be human." Now he was the one to look at the ceiling. "Stefan's life was hell when he died. I mean, it was always hell, but you know, it got worse. He wanted to die; you could tell." Elena nodded solemnly and waited for him to continue. "Maybe it was selfish to bring him back. But I don't really care."

Elena wanted to be angry at Damon for what he had done, but truly, she was not. She'd missed Stefan so much too. They were both selfish. "He's your brother," she added. "You care about him. You can pretend to hate him all you want, but it's obvious that you two depend on... I don't know... each others' existence." She gave him a halfhearted smile. "You two were all you had. And when he was gone..," Elena trailed off, and Damon did not respond, not agreeing, but not disagreeing either. He swallowed, trying not to show any sign of emotion.

She twiddled her thumbs. "I get why you didn't tell me." With those words, Damon turned to her. "It's true. You are selfish." Although her words were harsh, her voice was not. "You didn't want to lose me either. I was all you had left."

No response.

"And I forgive you for that, Damon, I do. But we can't keep looking at each other and pretending nothing has changed. The sire bond is broken, Stefan is alive, and, well... I missed him. I still do miss him. It would be a lie to say I haven't thought about changing the past one thousand times so that I never even let the thought in of even caring about you." She winced at the words. "But I do, and I can't change that. I do care about you. But..."

Damon closed his eyes. "But..." He opened them once again, his eyes burning into hers, willing her to say the words that were on the tip of her tongue.

She gave him a pleading look. "Damon, you know."

His eyes were fiercer now, more forceful. "Say it, Elena." His lips were in a straight line. "But..."

She bit her lip, her chest aching for the pain in Damon's stony-but-failing face. "It's always going to be Stefan."

Damon took in a big breath and looked at something only he could see, and after a long pause, nodded. "Of course," he said to himself. There was a bit of anger in his eyes, but she could feel this strange sense of closure between them. After all, unlike the time when he had kissed her and snapped Jeremy's neck, they had tried. At the end of the day, Damon and Elena had tried to make it work. But it hadn't; it never would.

Damon's eyes met hers for one final time when he said, "Good luck." It was an attempt to be sincere, though it clearly was not. But he'd given it a try, and for that she was thankful. And when she blinked, he was gone.

But there was no emptiness in Elena's heart when he vanished.

She nodded and smiled a bit to herself, feeling pride creep into her expression. She was done with stringing both brothers along; she'd made her choice.

And now, it was time to come clean to Stefan. She was going to tell him everything. She was going to explain his dream, the Vervain necklace, and even, how he'd died. If he didn't forgive her, she would understand, but at least there would be no more lies between them.

With her new plan thought out and a new sense of self-worth, Elena grinned to herself and easily fell asleep.

It was time to get her Stefan back and never let him go, once and for all.

XXXX