There was a smell, at once familiar and unfamiliar. She was lying on a comfortable double bed, not one of Lady Ulma’s silken-and-velvet extravaganzas, but not any lumpy featherbed from the boardinghouse, either. Was she in a hotel?
As these various thoughts came together in her brain, there was a soft quick rapping. Knuckles on glass.
Elena’s body took over. She tossed off the bedspread and ran to the window, mysteriously avoiding obstacles without thinking about them at all. Her hands wrenched aside curtains that she somehow knew were there and her skyrocketing heart brought a name to her lips.
“Da—!”
And then the world stopped and did its slowest somersault of all. The sight of a face, fierce and concerned and loving and yet strangely frustrated, just on the other side of the second-story window, brought Elena’s memories back.
All of them.
Fell’s Church was saved.
And Damon was dead.
Her head bent slowly until her forehead touched the cool pane of glass.
“Elena?” Stefan said quietly. “Could you ask me to come in? You have to invite me in if you want to — to talk—” Invite him in? He was already in — inside her heart. She had told the Guardians that everyone would have to accept Stefan as her boyfriend of almost a year.
It didn’t matter. In a low voice she said, “Come in, Stefan.”
“The window’s locked from your side, Elena.”
Numbly, Elena unlocked the window. The next moment she was encompassed by warm, strong arms in a desperate, fervent embrace. But the moment after that, the arms dropped, leaving her frozen and lonely.
“Stefan? What’s wrong?” Her eyes had adapted and by the starlight through the window she could see him hesitating before her.
“I can’t — It isn’t — It’s not me you want,” he said in a rush that sounded as if it came through a constricted throat. “But I wanted you to know that — that Meredith and Matt are holding Bonnie. Comforting her, I mean. They’re all okay and so is Mrs. Flowers. And I thought that you—”
“They put me to sleep! They said they wouldn’t put me to sleep!”
“You fell asleep, lo — Elena. While we were waiting for them to send us home. We all watched over you: Bonnie, Sage, and I.” He was still speaking in that formal, unusual tone. “But I thought — well, that you might want to talk tonight, too. Before I–I left.” He put a finger up to stop his lip from shaking.
“You swore you wouldn’t leave me!” Elena cried. “You promised, not for any reason, not for any length of time, no matter how noble the cause!”
“But — Elena — that was before I understood…”
“You still don’t understand! Do you know—” His hand flew to cover her mouth and he put his lips to her ear. “Lo — Elena.
We’re in your house. Your aunt—” Elena felt her eyes widen, although of course subconsciously she had known this all along. The air of familiarity. This bed — it was her bed, and the spread was her beloved gold and white bedspread. The obstacles she’d known how to avoid in the dark — the tapping at her window…she was home.
Like a climber who has negotiated an impossible-seeming section of rock, and almost fallen, Elena felt a tremendous rush of adrenaline. And it was this — or, perhaps, simply the power of the love that flooded through her — that achieved what she had been so clumsily trying to reach. She felt her soul expand and come out of her body. And meet Stefan’s.
She was appalled by the hastily swept-away desolation in his spirit, and humbled by the surge of love that flooded every part of him at the touch of her mind.
Oh, Stefan. Just — say that — that you can forgive me, that’s all. If you forgive me I can live. Maybe you can even be happy with me again — if you just give it a little time.
I’m already happy with you. But we have all the time in the world, Stefan reassured her. But she caught the shadow of a dark thought whisked quickly out of the way. He had all the time in the world. She, however…
Elena had to choke back a laugh but then clutched at Stefan suddenly. My backpack — did they take it? Where is it?
Right beside your nightstand. I can reach it. Do you want it? He reached in the darkness and pulled up something heavy and rough and none too pleasantsmelling. Elena thrust one frantic hand inside it while still holding on to Stefan with the other.
Yes! Oh, Stefan, it’s here!
He was beginning to suspect — but he only knew when she drew out the bottle labeled Evian Water and held it to her cheek. It was icy cold, although the night was mild and humid. And as it effervesced violently, it glowed in a way that no ordinary water did.
I didn’t mean to do it, she told Stefan, suddenly worried that he might not like to associate with a thief. At least — not at first. Sage said to get the water from the Fountain of Eternal Youth and Life into bottles. I dug up a big bottle and this little one, and somehow I stashed the smaller one in my backpack — I’d’ve put the big one in, too, but it didn’t fit. And I didn’t even think about the little one again until after they took away my Wings and my telepathy.
And a good thing, Stefan thought. If they had caught you — oh, my lovely love!
His arms squeezed the breath from Elena’s lungs. So that’s why you were suddenly so eager to leave!
“They took almost everything else supernatural about me,” Elena whispered, placing her lips close to Stefan’s ear. “I have to live with that, and if they’d given me a chance I’d have agreed — for the sake of Fell’s Church — if I’d been logical—” She broke off as she suddenly realized that she had been literally out of her mind. She’d been worse than a thief. She’d tried to use a lethal attack on a group of — mostly innocent people. And the worst thing was that a part of her knew that Damon would have understood her madness, while she wasn’t sure Stefan ever could.
“But you don’t have to change me into — you know,” she began whispering frenetically again. “A sip or two of this and I can be with you forever. Forever and for — forever — Stefan—” She stopped, trying to get her breath and her mental balance.
His hand closed over hers on the cap. “Elena.”
“I’m not crying. It’s because I’m happy. Forever and ever, Stefan. We can be together, just…just us two… forever.”
“Elena, love.” His hand kept hers from twisting open the bottle.
“It — isn’t what you want?”
With his other arm, Stefan pulled her tightly to him. Her head fell forward onto his shoulder and he rested his chin on her hair. “It’s what I want more than anything.
I’m…dazed, I guess. I have been ever since—” He stopped and tried again. “If we have all the time in the world, we have tomorrow,” he said in a voice muffled by hair.
“And tomorrow is time enough for you to start to think it through. There’s enough in that bottle for maybe four or five people. You’re the one who’s going to have to decide who drinks it, love. But not tonight. Tonight is for…”
With a sudden rush of joy Elena understood. “You’re talking about — Damon.”
Amazing how difficult it was to simply say his name. It almost seemed a violation, and yet…
When he could talk — like this — for a moment to me, he told me what he wanted, she sent. Stefan stirred a little in the darkness, but said nothing. Stefan, he only asked for one thing before he…went. It was not to be forgotten. That’s all.
And we’re the ones who remember the most. Us and Bonnie.
Aloud she added, “I will never forget him. And I will never let anyone else who knew him forget him — for as long as I live.”
She knew she’d spoken too loudly, but Stefan didn’t try to quiet her. He gave one quick shudder and then held
