[Damon Salvatore]

"Huh. You two really are gonna walk me all the way to the door aren't you?"

Even with a head injury she could still make jokes. That was Elena, ever attempting to be normal, even when her life was everything but.

"You lost a lot of blood today." Stefan told her.

I said nothing, craning my neck around and scanning the immediate area for potential dangers. Despite the sun still being at least a half hour away from setting, in a place like Mystic Falls, you learnt to expect the unexpected. And as a one hundred and seventy year old vampire, I'd seen my fair share of the unexpected.

"Yeah, I know, and I told you, I'm fine." She sighed, "I just... I have a little headache."

"Yeah, but the sun's about to go down and Ric's gonna be out to terrorise the streets any minute." I reminded her. She could say all she wanted, her safety was my number one priority, whether she wanted my protection or not.

"Yeah, but he can't hurt me. It's you two we should be worrying about." She pressed. We seemed to be repeating ourselves with the "yeah buts" but she was stubborn. Feisty. One of the many things I loved about her. And once again she was more worried about my brother and I than keeping herself safe. Did she not understand that Stefan and I could take care of ourselves? We had for the last century and a half. Yet this one human girl seemed to care more for the life of two vampires, monsters by nature, than for her own, much more valuable life.

She was a masochist to say the least.

"Nah," Stefan reassured her, "He won't be able to find us."

As we got to porch, I was still looking around. Stefan might feel comfortable, but I was always on the lookout for anything that could hurt her. This might be her home, but there were already so many threats coming at her from different sides, one slip and the home she once felt safe in could become as much a danger to her as living with a house full of vampires. But of course, she'd been there, done that a long time ago.

As she reached the door, she turned back.

"I'll, uh, I'll call you when we get back." Stefan said.

Elena nodded, the worry for our safety only barely masked in her eyes. It made me wonder that Stefan seemed oblivious to how scared she truly was for us. Had Elena and I grown so close now that I could tell such little details about her emotions? Or was it just that she and Stefan had grown apart? I couldn't tell, and neither did I want to dwell on the thought too long. Unrequited love and all.

I nodded, and we turned wordlessly to leave.

Elena sighed, "I know it's selfish..."

We looked up again, turning back to face the girl we both loved. I glanced sideways at Stefan, confusion quickly giving way to understanding and awkwardness as she continued.

"I know that it seems like I'm stringing you both along."

No, not at all. Just making me wonder, every second of every day, what goes on in that head of yours.

Stefan glanced at me, before we both looked down, unsure what to say, or even if she wanted a reply.

"But I don't... I don't know what I'm supposed to do."

Jeez, you could practically taste the tension in the air. She was voicing everything we'd been wondering for ages now and suddenly I felt helpless. I tried to look everywhere, anywhere but at Stefan, as I felt the raging jealousy eating away at my insides.

Was there even a choice to make? She'd told me 'it'll always be Stefan'. Shehadn't admitted to having feelings for me. She'd kissed me; twice. But not once had she told me that she had even considered me as another option. But was I really? I wasn't worthy of her; I'd told her that from the start. Even she couldn't see herself with me. 'Every time there's a bump in the road, you lash out. You sabotage things.' I'd been trying, so hard, and God had it been hard, to change for her. I'd turned my humanity back on because of her. A century of pain and anger and hope and fear. Ten decades of forgotten emotions slamming into me with the force of a sixty ton truck. Fighting against the urge to throw it all away again, and dealing with the onslaught of guilt and pain and regret that came with knowing what each and every one of my actions had affected somebody, had caused someone pain or grief. But I dealt with it, I learned to control it. I found the balance between what was right and what I wanted, and I held on.

For her.

"I mean..." She looked away, tears in her eyes, as she fought an internal battle with her emotions, and gathered the courage to continue. "If I choose one of you, then I lose the other."

Her eyes moved to Stefan, and the little hope that had been dwelling in my heart dimmed.

"And I've lost so many people. That I just... I can't bear the thought of losing one of you." Her gaze moved to me, her eyes pleading with me to understand. Understand what exactly, I wasn't sure. I just knew that with every second, I was convincing myself to stop hoping.

I looked away, knowing that if I continued to hope, to think that maybe, just maybe, her choice might be me, I'd end up broken. I didn't deserve her. I didn't deserve her friendship, let alone her love. But I craved it, needed it. She taught me how to love again. She showed me that what I felt for Katherine was nothing. It wasn't love. I didn't know what love was then, but Elena showed me. And now? Now I couldn't live without her. I wouldn't. I loved her more than anything and I needed her to love me. I just wanted her to feel something. Something that was stronger than what she felt for Stefan.

Stefan. Always the saviour. It was always Stefan who she turned to before, always him she had given her heart to, her trust to. What difference could a year make? To me? Everything. But to her, I didn't know. I couldn't understand her, couldn't see if all the effort I'd made this past year, in my brother's absence, to protect her, to give her everything she wanted, and to deal with my own pain of rejection, was worth it. To sit through months of her tears, of her pain, in the absence of Stefan from her life. To hold her and tell her that everything would be okay, when my own heart was breaking for her, wishing that she could see that the man that truly loved her more than anything in the world, was the man left to pick up the pieces of this broken girl.

None of it mattered, though, if she had not considered it an option.

She'll always love Stefan, I thought, that's why we spent months searching for him, and then months more helping him search for his humanity. If it wasn't always Stefan, why had she not just given up?

I smirked wryly at the thought. The rational hope all but extinguished, despite the irrational hope that would forever burn in my mind, that, one day, she would realise and, one day, she might choose me.

I turned to my brother, nodding for him to take the stage. My heart breaking further, as I attempted to accept the fact that Elena's choice was almost indefinitely not going to be me.

"It's, uh, it's been a long day." Stefan nodded, and I was thankful that he was giving us both an out.

"Yeah," I confirmed, fighting to keep my expression indifferent, attempting the hide the internal conflict that always seemed to rage inside me at the concept of Elena Gilbert. "We'll call you from the road. After we dump Klaus' body in the Atlantic."

Elena sighed, her demeanour slipping ever so slightly. The pain and tiredness was evident in her eyes for a split second before she recomposed herself. The momentary lapse was not lost on me though; she could hide nothing from me anymore.

Her eyes lingered on me for a second and my heart swelled as she muttered, "Be careful," before her next words shattered the hope before it could even begin to grow. "Both of you."

As my brother and I turned away, from Elena, and from Mystic Falls, at least for the moment, I felt almost relieved. I couldn't bear to be around Elena anymore. The next time we would see her, she would make her decision, and this was the last time I could look at her as anything more than her boyfriend's brother; her best friend.

As we crossed the town limits and started out onto the open road, I felt my heart breaking a little more, and I knew that no matter how hard I tried; my heart would always belong to Elena Gilbert.

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