everyonelives | because the lives of the wicked should be made brief

I went to one in New Jersey, that's just driveways winding around like a knot, one on top of the other. That was a nightmare to get out of and I wasn't even driving.

[She glances out the window as she settles before shaking her head.]

And no, it wasn't work.

You survived.

( To see her parents back. But, he can literally only imagine. )

Well, whatever it is, if you want to talk about it, I'm here. I know things are strained, and your mom and I messed up, but, we are still your parents. And if I can be there for you, I will.

[Part of her is tempted. She wants to talk about it some, but given what her parents already know about Damon, she isn't sure she wants to breach this conversation with context.]

It was an ex. A long time ago ex. He ... wanted to rehash some stuff from our breakup.

Sounds like it came from out of left field.

( He only intuits, but lets her drive the conversation as he drives the car. They have two hours, and he will let her rest if she needs it, but he wants to be there. )

Yes and no. Our relationship was always ... high drama. Part of the reason I ended it, honestly.

[She rubs her arms as she looks out the window as they drive.]

But he's probably one of the most selfish things I've ever done.

( That's a way to phrase it. )

Sometimes, we get to be selfish.

( At a certain point, you choose your partner. And your kids. You choose your life, selfish as it may be. And he had his selfish side. He had Augustine. He wore many faces. Town practitioner. Father. Brother. Scientist. Founding family member. )

Sometimes. But this wasn't really the good kind of selfish. I hurt people as a result. And we weren't really good for each other in the long term.

[Another pause as she tries to figure out how to articulate it.]

He has this habit of telling me how I felt, and to his credit, sometimes he was right. But it was also in the ways that benefited him. That we were happy and that was the only thing that mattered. Like it was some kind of victory we fought for, and maybe in some ways it was. But he was so determined to keep us together that ... when it started to fall apart he didn't understand why.

( He stays impartial, pretends he's not listening to his little girl explain her ex-boyfriend, and how - what's the word these days? Toxic? He sounds?. )

But, it felt good at the beginning. When everything felt like a victory and like you two were a team?

( Against the world? )

Honestly? I don't know anymore.

[Because when they first got together, she was sired to him. And when the sire bond broke, she was riding high on feeling things again, for better or for worse and she thought that maybe if she just leaned in to this choice, it would feel like she was regaining some control.

She didn't want to go back to Stefan. But Damon? Damon felt ... heady. And it was better than trying to think about everything that was falling apart. About how Stefan was missing. About how she hadn't actually heard Bonnie's voice in months.

What was wrong with her?]

Maybe I was just deluding myself.

Why does it have to be so cut and dry. Just because you weren't right for one another - or aren't now, doesn't make what you had any less real. Maybe, when it felt right, it was right.

( He watches the road, again, making sure to validate her feelings. That's what it's called? )

But, maybe you weren't. And you know now. And it sounds like he finally knows now? Can I ask, how many years ago this was?

[That's how it feels, but Damon wanting to pick it apart and break it down has made her question all of it. She exhales slowly as she tries to do the math for the time, because it was a long time ago.]

A decade, maybe? Before I went off to med school.

You broke up because you went off to med school. Honey, if he's guilting you over a choice you made a decade ago.

( He frowns. )

I'm sorry. And, for the record, I'm proud of you. Not just for following in my footsteps - but, I am for that. But of who you are. Who you've become.

[She doesn't correct him in that the breakup is why she went away to med school, because that isn't really the point. And there is a warm, release of some things she didn't realize she was holding on to regarding what her father would think of her.]

Thanks, Dad. I ... worried about that a lot, sometimes.

That you weren't making us proud.

( Fingers tighten on the steering wheel as his breath catches, minding himself. He and Miranda talked about this. They have to be able to talk about it. )

Because of Stefan and Damon?

No. Well ... not just because of them. There were times when I didn't feel like I could save anyone. Even though I knew it wasn't all my fault, in some ways it was.

[She doesn't know how is the time to have this conversation, but maybe having it one on one with her father will make it easier than having to stare down both of them.]

And Caroline isn't the only one who got turned into a vampire.

Edited 2025-08-21 02:10 (UTC)

Because you were the doppleganger.

( He doesn't mean to be the 'Because' part of the conversation, but sometimes, you can only contribute so much until you get - well, that. And, unfortunately, driving, and being in the middle of an impromptu heart-to-heart has Grayson on his heels. )

I know how it must have been, but any friend in their right mind would stop being around you if they were afraid or selfish or - They all stayed. They loved you. That's friendship. That's putting them in front of you. ( And then, gleaning very little what he knows. ) It's not Bonnie, is it?

( What would they tell Abby and Rudy. )

No.

[Yeah, she definitely should have thought through having this conversation in the car.]

It was me, Dad.

You're -- ( She's right. And she's lucky they're coasting along a flat stretch of highway, with enough space between the car in front and the car in back. He doesn't hit the breaks or swerve or, really react because he is the driver. The adult. The parent. He thinks this is what some parents think when they learn their kid isn't who they thought they'd be. In the nineties and the early two thousand's when sexuality was divisive and suddenly you worried about having grandkids, or just about your kid's safety. He doesn't know how he'd handle a gay kid, but, to be honest, he wouldn't care. People are meant to be on the Earth, however they are. In whatever they form. He helps. He heals. But, being a vampire is not something he'd want for any of his kids.

Unfortunately, it is like the, not my kids cliché. It's fine for Caroline, and if Liz were still alive and as okay with this as they've been told, maybe it could be different. But, she's not.

Silence stretches between them along the stretch of road. Finally, he asks a question. ) Was?

[She takes a deep breath, keeping her eyes on the road ahead of them.]

I was in a car, with Matt, going over Wickery Bridge. There was someone in the road, we swerved and we went over the bridge.

[Again.]

Stefan dove in after us, and I told him to save Matt first. And he did.

[Because Stefan always listened to what she wanted.]

What we didn't know is that when I had been in the hospital earlier that day, I had been given vampire blood. So when I woke up, I was in transition. Originally, I wasn't going to go through with it, but I ... didn't want to die. I was only eighteen.

[She wanted to go to college and get married and do so many other things that she couldn't do before.]

I hated it. It was never what I wanted. But I was doing my best to make it work. Then we heard their was a cure. We found it, but I wound up giving it to someone else.

[Someone more complicated, but she doesn't want to make this about Katherine right now.]

I got through the next few years, decided to become a doctor ... I was going to try and do good with it. And then Bonnie found another cure and she gave it to me, and I took it.

( He focuses on the road and he focuses on her story. He holds back from asking specific questions. Who was in the road? Who gave you vampire blood? Why did you tell Stefan to save Matt first? But, he knows his daughter.

His chest tightens when he hears she hated it. There's a light dusting of pride accompanying it, but her plight remains his focus. Not his own thoughts.

He knows she's not a vampire now, but he still finds himself wanting to ask, to make her confirm it. But he doesn't. )

Cures are rare?

Cures are singular. There was only one, made a long time ago, and it's practically impossible to recreate. The only reason Bonnie got mine is because she got trapped in a prison world for a while that was modeled on our world so she was able to find the one there.

[Yeah their life is ... let's just not get into that.]

You can pass the cure to another vampire by giving them your blood after you've taken it but once you do that, the magic leaves your body and all the years you were immortal start to catch up to you. It wasn't such a big deal for me when I passed it on, but the person who currently has it is very, very old, so she's not going to be giving it up for a good long while.

You also can't use vampire blood to heal yourself anymore. Once you take the cure, there's no way back to being a vampire.

[So congratulations, Grayson, you're daughter is inoculated from being a vampire, but that also means she can very easily die when bad supernatural things happen.]

( That's just not easy to take at all, but now they're in slowed down traffic for some reason, so he's able to turn to make real faces at her. )

So. The healing vampire blood won't heal you anymore. But you're not in danger of becoming a vampire. Again.

( So there's that. And that's great? )

And you still do dangerous things like go into caves to kill witches. With your hunter boyfriend and his brother. And the witch you're just starting to trust again. Just. Following.

Just because I'm human again doesn't mean I've stopped being the doppelganger.

[Her life has always been dangerous and always will be dangerous, no matter what she does.]

And honestly, it was quiet for a while. It's just the last year that things started to pick up again. Maybe I could run away to Alaska or something and no one wound find me there, but all the people I love are still in this life. I'm not going to abandon them because it's dangerous.

And I'm not asking you to, Elena. I'm just trying to understand. I can be proud of you being there for your friends and doing what you think you have to do, but it's still going to look like sacrifice after sacrifice on your part for your friends. For your boyfriend you recently moved for. Were you happy with your career in Mystic Falls? It's hard not to see patterns.

( He's really only taking all the evidence he hears. It's hard to see it as anything else other than Elena always drawing the short straw. The doppleganger having no choice, except in men, and even then. )

I didn't move just for Dean. I left Mystic Falls because there were hunters looking for me. I didn't go back because of Dean but I don't consider that a sacrifice. It was a choice. Also, all I really had in Mystic Falls was my career. I was helping at the school or I was working at the hospital, but all of the people I cared about? They moved on.

[Until it was just her and Damon and maybe if she hadn't stayed, she wouldn't have been accidentally leading him on until she wasn't. True, Ric was there but Ric had moved on from being an active presence in Elena's life as soon as he had a family of her own. She appreciated Jo's mentorship, but they didn't need her there.]

Bonnie is never home, Tyler left, Jeremy is in Portland, Caroline is constantly traveling for work, Matt ...

[She trails off because Matt isn't there at all. Matt isn't anywhere. And she misses him so much.]

The point is, I was the only one left. It was just me and the ghosts. Why shouldn't I make a choice that actually makes me happy?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject