Dying to Live

Elijah knew the exact moment when Elena was gone. Although when it struck, he convinced himself that he didn't understand what the tearing pain in his chest meant. He was in an early morning online conference with his business manager when the feel of something like cold steel sinking into his chest that drew a harsh gasp from him. He ended the call abruptly, clutching uselessly at his sternum with one hand. This was worse, so much worse than any dagger Klaus liked to wield.

It was raining. Spring was soaking the grounds in preparation for the long awaited kaleidoscope of blooming color that Elena loved so much. He stepped out onto the terrace hoping for a breath of fresh air that would make the throbbing in behind his ribcage stop. Instead, he stood massaging the center of his chest with the heel of one hand while the rain soaked, unnoticed, through his clothing. Even then, he knew.

After a call to her went straight to voicemail, he went in search. Head tipped to the wind, he set out, following her scent and covering her commonly followed route with lightning speed. His efforts ended on a gravel road only a few miles from their home. The road, which was more a path than anything had a single dangerously sharp turn and a steep incline. The guard rail was in tatters. The pain chewed at him with sharp teeth, familiar now, as he found her.

The window was shattered, glass shards spread like sparkling rain droplets across her face, her hair. Her delicate olive skin was white now with pallor, her face turned toward him. Wide chocolate brown eyes that were usually so warm had grown cold and looked at him, past him to sights he would never see.

The light that was Elena had been extinguished. A cruel, capricious god had snuffed out the life in her eyes as anyone else might snuff out a candle with a careless breath.

Tears mixed with the rain as Elijah ran a hand over her hair, smoothing it away from her face. He sank to his knees in the mud next to her car, bearing a weight even he didn't have the strength to carry. She was sprawled over the steering wheel, her head turned at an unnatural angle. The crumpled car was closed in around her, a cruel formless tomb.

He wanted to rage, howling his sorrow at the sky and the storm. But no sound would come out of his open mouth as his shoulders shook with silent grief. There was no drama in her last moments. No fanfare or final, breathless words. There would be none of the last minute chances to save her as there had been so many times before. There was only silence.

Lightning struck at a distance and thunder rolled around him, an echo of the violence in Elijah's heart. It only now served to remind him that even the air had life, but there was none anymore for his love. His Elena.

He stood purposefully, pulling at the door handle and meeting resistance. The crumpled mass held her prisoner like a closed and greedy fist, even in death. That wouldn't be permitted. Not for even another breath.

He pulled at rippled metal with one hand. In the fury of his grief, he slung piece after piece of what was left of her car with both hands and all of his strength. His immediate goal was to free her from her lonely prison. Even if it was too late, it mattered somehow that she be free again.

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Damon passed the droning television wrapped snugly in a warm towel, fresh from the shower. The picture on the screen made him stop and listen when he would've normally just kept going. The images he watched were shaky, from a camera phone and caught his curiosity as he turned up the volume.

"An onlooker caught video of what appears to be a small stray tornado as it struck a wrecked vehicle on a rural road just outside Richmond in the early hours of morning today." The lovely blonde leaned close, her eyes alight as she went on with zeal.

"The sports car belonged to a local writer who some now say seems to have gotten caught in one of her horror stories. Elena Michaelson, who has published half a dozen bestsellers in recent years under the name E.G. Michaels, appears to have rolled her car several times on a gravel road just east of Richmond. It came to rest in a copse of trees at the bottom of a forty foot embankment. The debris you're seeing in the video is pieces of her car being tossed in all directions by a whirlwind that struck after the wreck. Experts on the scene shortly after this video was caught don't believe that Mrs. Michaelson could've survived the wreck, but her body has yet to be recovered."

"Strangely, the only damage from the small tornado was to the car, with pieces being strewn as much as three quarters of a mile from the wreck site."

"We will bring you details of the story as they become available."

Damon had stopped breathing and sank to the floor as the reporter seemed to relish the details that shattered his heart. It's not true. It can't be true.

The denial rang inside him….like a death knell from long ago.

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Elijah sank to the floor of their bedroom, his prize still in his arms. He couldn't help but search the broken face for signs of life. Even knowing there would be none. There were things that he should be doing, but he found himself unable to move from her side. He couldn't leave her alone. She had been alone for the accident, alone and afraid.

He sat for hours in the silence with her draped across his lap. His grief still made no sound. As time passed, it seemed just that he honor her silence with his own.

Those who also loved her joined his silence; their scents tracing up the stairs, one by one. He was not surprised. They gathered below, quiet except for the most necessary of words. He heard soft sobs from Bonnie as well as Caroline. The upstairs of their home was still as death. Everything was now as still as the heart that had once beat in his chest, but had ceased for all of time tonight. They seemed to be aware that he was there, up the stairs, but no one came. He smelled fear from a few of them, desperation from all of them. Their grief was a layer of snow before the ice settled in. It was cold and blanketed him, them, in sorrow.

Jeremy came. He, a man now fully grown, was weeping before he came through the door. The others tried to stop him, but he bolted up the stairs in search of his sister. He found Elijah sitting there, next to their bed, her broken body in his arms. He was covered in her blood. They both were. But the blood on her would be wiped away, she would be cleaned one last time, her body made ready for its rest.

Elijah would never be clean and he would have no rest. Only memories of her smile, her laughter and her scent would remain to haunt him until the sky grew forever dark and the earth faded away. The thought horrified him.

He looked up at her brother, who stood shattered, in the doorway. Ever so slowly, Elijah stood and placed her delicately on their white coverlet that covered their bed, pillowing her head with his hand. He felt the grind of severed bones as he settled her there. A broken neck had taken her from all of them.

Such a simple, mundane thing had stolen so much vitality.

He pushed her hair behind her ears, as she always wore it and turned to her beloved brother. His beloved brother and opened his arms.

Jeremy crossed the room and the two of them embraced. There was no shame in expressing sorrow this deep. The two of them, strong men, were equally broken. They wept together for the beloved wife and sister that she had been.

After a few moments of raging pain between the two men, they separated, tears still streaming. "Is there any chance that…?" He understood what Jeremy was asking. No, Elena had not drunk his blood in a very long time. She was lost to them all, and Elijah still he could not let her go. Sadly he shook his head and watched the dim hope drain from Jeremy's eyes.

Others began to come in then, emboldened by the shared grief. Damon came next. Elijah knew he had loved her too, perhaps as much as Elijah himself. This had been a bane to Elijah for years, this love the other vampire had for his woman. He had always worried privately that his Elena had returned the others affection with something warmer and more intimate than friendship. Now it mattered not at all. They embraced, tears flowing freely for the woman they both had loved.

Elijah found only grief, no anger, nothing left but this terrible burning pain within him that seemed to have no end. He had seen much loss in his long life, but nothing had ever brought him to this terrible silence.

His Elena, the woman he had waded through time for, was gone after only seven years blissful years together. Seven years in a thousand. He would do it all again for those seven years.

The others would say later, amongst themselves, that they had never guessed at the depth of feelings between Elena and Elijah. They had never understood the relationship until that day, when all was lost. When they watched the quietly dignified Original unravel like a piece of delicate lace over the death of their beautiful friend.

Bonnie and Caroline came to him, sobbing and held him as well. He was thankful for the sharing of this weight he carried. Their presence, the ones who had loved her so much and so well, made this, not easier, certainly, but shared and understood.

Bonnie took his hand shyly after long moments of sobbing brokenly into his mud covered and bloodied shirt.

"Will you let us clean her? Please? She would be horrified to be seen this way." Caroline, sobbing quietly at the door, seemed torn between an appeal and the urge to bolt at the question

Bonnie was right and he nodded. He should've done that, should've thought of it himself, but he was rooted in this place, next to her. Ashamed of his thoughtlessness, he mouthed "Thank you" to them and sat with Elena, holding her cold, now stiffening hand while they worked.

Bonnie filled three large bowls around the room with herbs and lit them with a glance. He smelled lavender, rosemary and sage. Funeral herbs. They were to be burned, a benefit to the dead and the mourning.

How appropriate that Bonnie would not only know, but honor the old ways. It made him grateful, but he thanked her only with his eyes. He had no voice anymore, it seemed.

He sat by the bed and held Elena's hand as the comfortingly familiar scents filled the room.

The two young women worked as the tears flowed. A large bowl of water, scented also lavender and soft cloths were their only tools. They cleaned away the blood and pulled away the clothing that had been torn and splattered by the collision. They carefully washed away any trace of the tragedy, their only sounds quiet sobs and gasps over the injuries they found. The bleeding had long ago stopped and now only had to be washed away.

The body was cleaned and wrapped loosely in a pristine white sheet. It reminded him of the death shrouds of old, so he refused to allow them to cover her face

He cared nothing for modern traditions, morgues, Medical Examiners or death certificates. He felt they are just modern and meaningless rituals that accompany death, like the herbs burnt while the body was cleaned from days of old. Elena's friends left him because they could do nothing else. Only the two Salvatores and Caroline remained as time ticked on.

Elijah finally moved onto the bed they had shared, lying beside her. He just needed to rest for a moment and then he would do what was necessary for her. He fell asleep with her cold hand in his.

He dreamed. It was the lake he and Elena had walked beside the day he confessed that the sun and moon curse was a fraud. It had only been a few years ago, but seemed like ages to him. He had been in love with her even then. She was seventeen perhaps, and alight with youthful beauty. He watched the sunlight skim over her hair, the light wind making it dance and play around her shoulders.

"You are so beautiful." He told her.

He watched her eyes widen, wary of him….or perhaps his words. In the next breath he understood her wariness.

"Only because I remind you of her." She meant Katarina.

It had always been a source of pain for Elena that he had known, and mistakenly thought he loved Katarina first. He understood her sentiment completely, feeling much the same about her friend Damon.

"No sweetling. You are beautiful here," A finger tapped her chest. "as Katarina will never be."

"I love you, Elijah." She said it so simply, as if it was the answer to every question. So much faith, had his little one.

"I love you, too, my heart." The words caught behind the lump that had closed his throat. Even when she had been a toy strew about by the wills of others, he had loved her.

"I can love you forever now." She was saying goodbye. Reflexively, his chest heaved.

Reflecting his turmoil, the wind began to blow around them and the sky darkened.

He watched in wonder as she looked to the sky and said quietly "No." The winds calmed and the sun reappeared as if answering her command. How was that possible?

"Yes, my heart." The words were only a tight whisper of sound and he swallowed hard before he went on, feeling she might need reassurance.

"Perhaps one day I'll see you again, get to meet with you wherever it is that you are now." The tears now, even in his dreams ran down his cheeks. He was trying to be strong for her when all of his strength had drained away in a rain soaked field, hours ago.

Author's note:

Dying to Live is the final installment in a love that I firmly believe the writers of TVD completely missed out on. The story began with two other stories under my name. Making Amends and Leaving came before this one. If you haven't read them, and I have your interest, you might want to go back and read them first to understand what's come before.

It begins with an ending. I write what I know. Most writers do that, I think. For me, personally, my greatest joys always come in the wake of my greatest losses.

If my stories seem familiar, it's entirely possible that you have seen them before. I published on this site in 2012 under a name I don't use anymore. I am republishing here after edits and rework. My apologies for any confusion.