Hello again fellow shippers! Sorry for being completely AWOL lately, but I have been and still am on vacation in Central America to visit some family. However, considering that I barely speak due to my lack of completely fluent Spanish, I have been writing this small fic. You see, recently, I have gotten into the whole 25 Lives/Reincarnation trope of fanfictions and of course, I began thinking of Stelena and the whole doppelganger thing. I thought, what if the doppelganger story was just a reincarnation story of Silas and Amara? So this came along! This story will basically tell the tales of each doppelganger pairing. Hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I don't own TVD, for if I did, it wouldn't suck as much as it does
Sidenote: Yes, I know Tatia is supposed to be the first doppelganger after Amara and that Tom Avery is the Silas doppelganger that comes after Stefan, but I like thinking that these doppelgangers show up every 400 to 500 years or so, so forgive me for wanting to write my own doppelganger love story or wanting to expand on the ones we already have. Tom doesn't exist here by the way...sorry. This story's narrator has their own section before every 'tale' and it's completely in italics, by the way.
I'm going to shut up now. Enjoy!

...

Days. Months. Years. Centuries.
Two millenniums.
Yes, two thousand years that this tale has been in the making. The tale of the two infamous doppelgangers; each chapter just as painful and tragic as the last.
But please, let us start at the beginning.
The first "once upon a time" begins long ago, during a time period that no longer exists, but that many people look fondly back on.
Ancient Greece.
For the tale begins with the very first two doppelgangers. And it is because of their actions that their incarnations face the fate that they must.
Once upon a time, there were two lovers named Silas and Amara.

...

Make of our hands, one hand,
Make of our hearts, one heart.
Make of our vows, one last vow;
Only death will part us now.

Now it begins, Now we start;
One Hand, One Heart.
Even death won't part us now.

A young girl runs through the woods, her maroon dress billowing behind her with the night's wind. Although her face is covered by a thin veil the same colour as her dress, he knows that she is smiling a smile that is brighter than all of the stars that shine down on them.
He's running after her. Truthfully, he can run just as fast as she can (if not faster) but he enjoys chasing her to their destination much more than walking or chasing her, but catching her halfway. No, he preferred to let her go ahead of him and constantly turn around to make sure he was still there.
He always was.
Finally, they reach their tent.
It was his idea to leave a tent just for them in the middle of the woods, hidden away from the world's prying eyes. This spot was for her, or rather them both. This tent was the one place where they could simply escape their daily troubles and problems and just...be together.
But tonight was special.
Tonight, they do not go to only briefly escape, but to prepare for their new lives together.
After escaping his own wedding ceremony, he goes for her, and together they go to the nearest temple and speak their vows of eternity and their promises to love and cherish one another for even longer. He left his wedding in order to make vows that he would mean; vows that he would keep.
And so, they were eloping.
Together, they would see what the gods and the world had to offer. They would escape Greece and finally be happy.
They reach the front of her tent and she stops running. She turns around and gazes at her new husband intently with those sparkling brown eyes of hers, waiting for him to reach her.
When he does, he wraps his arms around her waist and draws her in.
"Are you ready?" he asks.
She nods, more sure of this choice than she ever was.
The choice to be immortal with him.
"Amara...this is eternity. This is not a year or a decade or a lifetime, this is forever. If you do not wish to spend that time together, tell me now and I swear on all the gods and goddesses that I will not be angry with you. Just say the words."
She puts a warm hand over his lips. "Enough, Silas," she says quietly. "Do stop doubting yourself. If I did not wish to spend the rest of Earth's days with you by my side, I would never have agreed to those vows. I love you, Silas. I always shall, no matter what."
He smiles at her. "Just as you are mine, I am yours forever. For when I look at you, Amara..."
He lifts a hand and removes her veil. "All I see is an angel." He gives a small laugh. "I love you. I have no idea how I managed to deserve to have you in my life."
They leaned into each other and kissed softly. He whispers promises and declarations of love in between gasps of breath for desperately needed air.
They eventually make it into the tent, where they finally drink the immortality elixir meant for another wedding before finally, after all this time, give into their passions and desires; completely uncaring of what would occur when the nightingale's soft music was replaced by the louder songs of the morning lark.
But at the height of their happiness and joy comes their demise.
The very next night, Quetsiyah, the woman Silas had been meant to marry the night before, sat waiting for Amara in the tent meant to be an escape from the same woman.
She proceeds to torture the young girl to the brink of madness and insanity, to the point where the once happy woman pleaded for the sweet release of death.
Quetsiyah, with a devilish grin plastered on her otherwise beautiful face, plunges a hand in her handmaiden's chest, grabs her heart and mercilessly rips it out, bringing an instant death to the woman that stole her betrothed away.
He arrives later that night, only to discover his new bride's corpse lying in the same bed that they had shared just that very morning.
And the woman he was engaged to smiling over the body.
With an icy grin that sent shivers up and down his spine, she offers him the cure for immortality for him to take. The cure would revert him back to his mortal state and he would spend the rest of his human days with her. The other option is to live eternally completely and utterly, alone.
He flat out refuses both options and stalks out of the tent. Quetsiyah runs after him, but he has disappeared into the night.
Enraged, she gets to work on casting another spell, a curse of sorts, that would punish the two lovers...forever.
Every four hundred to five hundred years, an incarnation of both Silas and Amara would appear, doppelgangers of the two. They would live the same story, conquering all, falling in love.
Hopelessly in love.
At the height of their happiness, they would be crushed and separated by a force they would not understand. That force would drive them apart just when they thought that they had it all. It would be that way until Quetsiyah, who had created another immortality elixir and drunk it, perished.
The next day, she drops the cure into the mourning wine that Silas drinks and he becomes human once more.
He seeks her out, and she tells him of the spell. He looks at her with shocked eyes tinged with sorrow, aware that this is the story that he will have to live through forever.
And so he did.

...

Which was how the grand tale of the doppelgangers began. Silas and Amara ended up trapped in an endless circle of fate that for them, would never truly end, nor stop tormenting the two.
Was being in love, the simple act alone, deserving of such a cursed fate? Normally, no. Theirs...yes.
Silas had left another woman, a woman that loved him, a woman he was engaged to, for Amara.
Amara had begun the torture. She was no better than Quetsiyah. Granted, she hadn't physically and literally ripped someone's heart out, but she had done it metaphorically to Quetsiyah, who loved Silas to the point of death. Amara had taken away that love.
She truly wasn't any better. No one technically died at her hands, but someone's heart had. Amara had practically ripped out her own heart. She had condemned herself and Silas, Silas, who she had loved immensely with her whole heart, to an eternal cycle of meet, love, heartbreak. She had turned a woman into a piece of shining ice. She sentenced who knew how many incarnations of herself and the man she loved to the same fate. Quetsiyah had been a monster.
But all in all, she wasn't the only one.
Amara had been one too.
And it was because of those actions, that in addition to never being able to keep their love, her incarnations were never at peace with themselves. There would always be something in them that bothered them, something that if unleashed, made them terrible. One would be icy cold, the other completely careless of the ones that cared for her, and another would never show any true emotions.
But that's still to come.
Let's move on to the next tale of incarnations; the very first ones after Silas and Amara. The Early Middle Ages, sometime between the years of 476 and 1000, lay the setting for the first set of doppelgangers, Celestia and Zacharias.

...

Only you, you're the only thing I'll see forever
In my eyes in my words and in everything I do
Nothing else but you
Ever

The first two incarnations swap social class order. Silas, who had owned an exclusive and large amount of land and who had quite a bit of money to his name, was suddenly nothing but a poor servant boy named Zacharias that was lucky enough to work in the palace. Amara, on the other hand, had gone to the complete opposite of the spectrum. She was no longer a simple handmaiden, but the fair princess Celestia of Zeldin, next in line to be the kingdom's queen.
How the tables had turned.
They had met as children. True, he sees her around the palace in her fine gowns and jewels, but they don't officially meet one another until a certain gloomy day shows up in Zeldin. The young princess was upset that she could not go outside due to the bad weather. Seeing the distraught on her face, he went to entertain her an make her forget about the pouring rain that had ruined her plans. They had run around the castle, dodging servants, playing tag in the endless halls, hid to scare each other only to burst out laughing before they can.
And after that day, they become the best of friends. He teaches her how to fish and in return, she sneaks him various goodies from the grand dinners prepared for the royal family. Together, they explore every inch of the palace, every hall, every corner, every secret passage.
Eventually, the relationship between these two, between Celestia and Zacharias, sparks into something more.
When she turns sixteen and is finally allowed to go to her first official ball, he's her first dance partner before a long line of suitors claim her.
None of them matter to her. Zacharias is the only one that does. After all, he got her very first dance at very first ball. And just a few hours later, he's her first kiss as well. Granted, the kiss was a bit awkward and clumsy, but it was a kiss nevertheless. Besides, four nights later, they kiss again and are much better.
When she isn't busy and neither is he, they are together; talking in the halls, riding in the fields or kissing in the corners and passages they discovered when they were children. Soon enough, she has fallen in love with the servant boy and he, in return, falls in love with the princess.
But servants see them and spread gossip, and soon enough, her parents, the king and queen, know about the relationship too.
It cannot go on, Celestia. We are sorry, they tell her.
Sorry? Sorry?! They were sorry for telling her that she couldn't be with the man she loved? Just sorry?
She begs for them to change their mind, but it is to no avail. In a few days, she is suddenly engaged to a prince that she has not laid eyes on once.
And there is nothing to be done about it. For that is the life of a princess. A princess may have anything in the world that she desires, even if it is a three legged horse, she will have it. Jewels, gowns, riches, land. She may have it all. Anything in the world...except for true love. Love, the grandest luxury, is the one thing not available to a princess. And it is the thing that this princess desires most.
She must tell Zacharias the truth, that she can no longer be with him.
However, when she goes to tell him, he confesses his feelings for her before she can get a single word out.
"I love you, Celestia," he tells her. "You are the most amazing woman that I have ever met. I understand that you are princess and I am nothing more than a measly servant that works in this castle, but I do not care. I love you. Please say that you will be with me, for it will make me the happiest man in the world." He takes her hand and gives it a tight, reassuring squeeze.
With a heavy heart, she realizes what she must do; what she must say. It will pain her, and she'll regret it, but it must be said.
"No," she says as brutally as she can. "I will not be with you, for I do not love you, Zacharias."
She takes a moment to pause as his bright green eyes give her a sad look.
"You...what?" he asks.
"I do not love you. You were merely a distraction. Now unhand me and leave me be before I call the guards. Now."
He practically drops her hand at that second. "I am sorry, your Highness. I shall take my leave." He bows before her. "Your Grace."
Zacharias walks away and just like that, she's lost the best thing that ever happened to her.
Little does he know that she winced as he called her by her formal titles of 'your Grace' and 'your Highness. Nor is he aware of the tears welling up in her eyes as he walks out of her life for good.
It's for the best, she tells herself. It's better that he hates her instead of having her love, but never being able to act upon it for fear of treason. Of course.
Three months pass and she's at the altar, marrying a man, a royal, that she had met only a week before the actual wedding day. Tears flow down her beautiful face and all the visiting family and guests believe that they are tears of joy.
But she knows better.
She knows that those tears represent the exact opposite of joy. These tears represent sadness and longing for another man to be standing in front of her, a man with shining green eyes and sandy blond hair instead of the man with icy blue eyes and hair dark as night that she's looking at right now. Celestia becomes Zeldin's queen and her new husband its king shortly thereafter, but she never knows true happiness ever again.
As for Zacharias, he eventually is asked to become a knight due to the lack of strong enough males in Zeldin's villages. He puts himself into his new training and in a short span of time, becomes the best in his class, fighting with such strength, passion, and even a small bit of anger.
No one knows that all of the passion he buts behind his fighting comes from deep within, from his pain. Pain caused not very long ago by a certain princess that he thought he understood.
But he hasn't stopped loving her. He still gives her yearning looks when he sees her in the hopes that one day, she too will share the same gaze at the same moment.
He dies before that day ever arrives.
A simple year after he becomes one of Zeldin's official knights, an enemy kingdom raids the palace in an attempt to assassinate the royal family.
As one of the raiders nears the room in which Queen Celestia hides in with her new child, he nearly manages to kill the two...before he is ambushed by Zacharias, who kills him, but not before sustaining a fatal wound himself.
Zacharias dies facing the queen that he loved, the queen he risked his life for in order to protect her and a child that isn't his. He dies unaware that Celestia loved him in return.
She eventually dies when she is much older, with her greatest regret being that her children never had a chance to be born with those same green eyes that she fell in love with oh so long ago.

...

It always seems to come down to dying for love, doesn't it? So far...yeah, that seems to be the grand theme of great love stories. Silas and Amara, Celestia and Zacharias...hell, even the one that the public seem to love like Romeo and Juliet and their thousand and one different versions like West Side Story. What is it with people believing that death and/or sacrifice make a good love story? Tragedy doesn't equal beauty. Just because your significant other dies, doesn't mean that you should too. I think it's safe enough to say that Romeo and Juliet were two infatuated idiots that couldn't tell the difference between love and lust. They may be a personal guilty pleasure, but it's easy to see the idiocy of those two 'lovers'. Good thing that the newest doppelgangers didn't have that mind set.
Enough complaining, lets get to the story of Tatia and Aspen.

...
Today, all day I had the feeling
A miracle would happen
I know now I was right

For here you are
And what was just a world is a star

The next incarnation is...different. This time, they are in the New World and aren't immediately crushed at the height of their happiness, but have more time to be joyous before their ultimate end.
They meet when Tatia and a few other women in her village welcome a Viking ship into the New World. Aspen, this time period's Silas, sees her and immediately become intrigued. He introduces himself to her and convinces her to tell him more about her. She does, and soon, they know nearly everything about each other. He makes her smile in a way that no one can and she makes him laugh like no one's been able to do in the last year. He entertains her with tales of his voyages and she tells him funny stories from her past.
Of course, she is not the only woman drawn to this attractive green eyed Viking. Gradually, other women take notice and he becomes the most sought out man in the village. But she too is fawned over by many men as well; some of them even the fellow Vikings Aspen had traveled with.
Yes, they were wanted by nearly everyone within their town. But they have eyes only for one another. Once could always find those leafy green eyes staring into a certain pair of brown ones and vice versa.
In six months time, much to the dismay of the men and women that wished to be with Tatia and Aspen, he proposes to her and with tears filling her eyes accompanied by a shining smile, she accepts.
They are wed on a bright spring day, and despite the fact that many were disappointed by her acceptance, they are cheered on by fellow villagers and onlookers.
Tatia and Aspen could have been with anyone, yet in the grand scheme of things, they chose each other.
A few months later, she gives birth to their child: a healthy baby boy under the name of Luke.
A mere year after, he is forced to go into battle.
Two months pass and he is gone, never able to return home to his wonderful wife and son.
She watches in sorrow as his body is burned until it is nothing more than a pile of ashes and embers. But unlike other widowed Viking wives, she refuses to throw herself into the flames, much to the surprise of those around her. She would not die simply because the man she loved was no longer living. She was better than that. So, chooses to keep living and to, just maybe, find love once more. She wouldn't put her life to waste.
He would not want that for her or their son.
A few years later, four years from Aspen's death to be exact, she falls in love again. Despite her status as a widow, she remains an extremely desirable woman for the villagers, her new love and even her new love's brother. She never loves him in the way she loved Aspen, but in a different way. It was worth it not to join her husband in the flames that engulfed him. Tatia is finally happy once more.
Only this time, her love costs her own life, for this time, she dies at the hands of the man she thought she knew, the man she thought would bring her love once more.

...

Just like that, there's another dead doppelganger. First Amara, then Celestia and now Tatia. Silas, Zacharias and now Aspen. Can't a couple catch a break?
Well, no. This is exactly what Quetsiyah had planned for these two to face. And until she's found and killed, it will always be this way. She's never too far from the action though; she's always there, watching everything happen from a distance. In fact, her own actions transpire the end results. She pretended to be a maid in Celestia's castle and spread the story of the princess's secret affair with the servant boy Zacharias. She helped cause Tatia's death by helping a certain witch with a certain spell.
Next time, although she's watching, she does nothing. Events take their own course and cause enough destruction on their own. This time, she simply sits back and relaxes while letting everything fall apart around her. But she probably didn't like the setting of this chapter very much, it could get incredibly hot in the summer.
It's time to travel from the New World to Bulgaria, where we have our next couple, Katerina and Dimitri.

...

There's a place for us,
Somewhere a place for us.
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us
Somewhere

The newest body makes him the son of a baker in a small Bulgarian township and it makes her one of the many children in a large family. Although she isn't rich at all and is actually quite poor, she is desired by many men, mostly his age, in the town.
She is the otherworldly Katerina Petrova to his ordinary and simple Dimitri Ivanov. Her beauty is so great that a visiting nobleman sees her and immediately becomes taken with her. In just a few days of knowing the fair maiden, he asks her father for her hand in marriage, despite her family's lack of riches, land or title. Yet, he offers the Petrovas the world and anything that they would need to live luxurious lives.
The two are together when she lays eyes on Dimitri for the first time. She and her betrothed go to the bakery and it doesn't take long before she finds herself falling into the young baker's son's green eyes. Just as a rich man was completely taken with her, she becomes taken with a man that is incredibly poor compared to this man she is engaged to. But she doesn't care.
She becomes so intrigued that she develops a sudden need for bread and pastries and even offers to fetch extra food for supper just to see him for a few minutes. One day, he strikes up a conversation, and they spend hours upon hours talking and chatting and laughing until it grows dark and she needs to go home.
He walks her back to her small house and by the time he leaves her at her door, he is in love with her.
And she with him.
A few weeks pass and they continue talking whenever they can, whether it be in the bakery or an 'accidental' encounter in the market. Despite her pending engagement, she promises herself to Dimitri, completely taking him by utter surprise.
"Katerina..." he whispers, "you have a very rich man with a title that can give you and your family anything that they desire for themselves. I can only give you myself and my heart, yet I am the one you promise yourself to."
She smiles sweetly and a flash of recognition passes through him, and for a split second, he sees her running in a maroon dress before it disappears.
"Oh, Dimitri," she replies. "That stuffy nobleman can give me anything in the world except for what I truly want: a love that means something. Only you can give me that. I have fallen in love with you, Dimitri. Some may believe that I am a mad woman for wishing to be with a simple man rather than a grand, rich noble and perhaps I am, but I do not care. I do not care that you have no title or lands, for you offer me your heart, which is all I want. I love you, and I will not deny it."
And that's all that needs to be said.
His worn apron and shirt end up on the floor next to her cloak and gown as they give themselves over to each other completely.
However, before they reach the point of no return, he asks her if this is truly what she wants, if she is sure that she wishes to give everything up for him.
"сте си струва всичко," she tells him. "You are worth it."
A few weeks later, she discovers that she is pregnant, much to her own joy and utter fear.
A child, something she has always wanted to have (and with a man she loved nevertheless) but her own life along with this unborn child could be on the line if she gave birth out of wedlock.
She tells no one other than her mother and oldest sister; not even Dimitri knows.
Nine months later, she gives birth to a beautiful baby girl that she doesn't even get a chance to hold before she is taken away. However, before the child is gone, her father finds out and so does the noble. He leaves her in disgust, which angers her father to the point where he throws her out of the house and forbids her from returning.
So she runs far away from Bulgaria, far away from her shame and the only man she has ever loved. Having been tossed away by her won father as if she were nothing but a meaningless piece of trash, she doubted that Dimitri would ever want her now. Just like her former betrothed, he would probably not accept her. Yet after being silent towards him for the full nine months of being pregnant, Katerina never fell out of love with Dimitri Ivanov. And he never fell out of love with her either. He had still waited for her, looked at her as she walked by until she disappeared during what turned out to be her fifth month of pregnancy; the exact time that her stomach became noticeable.
He only sees her once more before she leaves, on the exact night she fled from the town.
She had stopped by the bakery and his father had serviced her rather hesitantly, and only when his father leaves the front counter to fetch more bread do her eyes lock on Dimitri's.
So much yearning and sorrow pass between them in the one look. He begins making his way towards her before she puts up a hand, gesturing for him to stop. She puts her head down and wraps her cloak tighter around her taut body.
Perhaps he imagines it, but he swears that she looks up once more and whispers, "I love you," extremely quietly. However, his father returns before he can be sure. She proceeds to quickly pay him before she disappears from the small bakery and Bulgaria all together.
When she's gone, his father tells him the news of what happened to "that disgraceful Petrova girl" that had once been so loved by the community.
He tells Dimitri that she gave birth to a baby girl out of wedlock, and that she would not reveal who the child's father was. The nobleman she had been engaged to left her in disgust, knowing that the baby could not be his. Her father, enraged by the fact that she had thrown away their family's saving grace, tossed her out into the streets. Ruined and ashamed, she was leaving the town and Bulgaria altogether.
Dimitri is both shocked and heartbroken by the truth of what occurred to Katerina. In addition to a daughter (that is most definitely his considering that the time frames make sense and Katerina never slept around) that he would never raise or even get a chance to meet, the beautiful woman he loved was gone, never to return to his life ever again.
Although, he believes he sees her once more in his life, in Russia when he is much older and visiting family. He's in what later becomes Saint Petersburg when he spots a woman that looks exactly like the girl he once loved.
But it cannot be her, for this woman looks no older than sixteen, and the young Bulgarian girl he knew should be well into her sixties.
Dimitri Ivanov lives the rest of his life constantly reliving that final encounter with the magical Katerina Petrova in the bakery that one night; never knowing if she truly said that she loved him, never knowing what happened to his daughter or even who she was, never falling in love the way he did once, long ago, and always asking himself the eternal question of what ever happened to the woman he would have given up everything for.

...

Katerina Petrova really changed after she was forced to leave everything she thought she knew in Bulgaria. After having to abandon her family, Dimitri, and her newborn baby, she went to England where ultimately, she became a vampire.
The transformation and its aftermath completely transformed her as a person, turning her once warm heart into a block of ice. Every decision made was and is meant to ensure her own survival, no matter who she hurts in the process. After all, her family was slaughtered because she became a vampire; she would not let that go to waste.
No one ever saw her alone at night, when she looked at old drawings of her families and let her heart pour open. No one saw the look of complete anguish in her eyes or the tears that flowed down from them. No one ever heard her sobs and cries over what she's lost.
She had lost everything by then: her family, her daughter, and the man she loved, whom she had last seen in Russia when he was much older. Her heart had flown and sunk all at once when she saw those green eyes that had never aged a single day in the fifty or so years since she had last seen them.
He died not long after, and she doubted that she would ever get to see his brilliant eyes ever again.
But she did.
Nearly four hundred years later, in a completely different country and continent and even a different name on her end, she saw him again during a lucky encounter when her carriage stopped.
Can't say that this one is a personal favourite, but here it is anyways: the story of Katherine and Stefan.

...

Somewhere,
We'll find a new way of living,
We'll find a way of forgiving
Somewhere . . .

Dimitri Ivanov sort of comes back in the newest incarnation as Stefan Salvatore. Little does anyone know that this incarnation of Silas is the last one.
When he first sees her getting out of a carriage at the entrance of his father's estate, something in him recognizes her. It's a teeny, tiny part of him, but it's there. Yet another part of him knows that this is not the girl he is meant to be with.
The time they meet is not the first time she sees him though. No, that happens when her carriage breaks down and he helps fix it. She's appalled when she sees him, this man that looks exactly like the one she loved once, but she immediately knows that it isn't him.
That doesn't prevent her intrigue though.
She pretends to be a teenage girl orphaned by the Great Atlanta Fires and even adopts a new alias, Katherine Pierce, instead of using her real name, Katerina Petrova.
She sees that he is beginning to fall in love with her, and so, she tells him her secret. But when she sees that he is afraid of her, she starts compelling him to feel things for her. She manipulates him and convinces him that he truly is in love with her.
But at the end of the day, it is all for naught. The wrong Salvatore, Stefan's older brother Damon, falls in love with her and the one she truly cares for, does not. There are times where she wonders whether she truly loves Stefan or if she only loves him because of his resemblance to Dimitri.
It doesn't matter at the end, for she prepares to turn him into a vampire anyways. But Damon also wishes to be with her, so she decides to turn him as well to keep as a...playmate, of sorts.
However, she gets captured by fellow citizens of the town after they find out the truth about what she is. But being the manipulative vampire that so many have fallen in love with over the centuries, she manages to escape.
But it's too late.
Both Salvatores are gone. Both of them are dead. Killed, shot, when trying to save her.
She finds their bodies lying the dirt. She completely disregards Damon and goes straight to Stefan, quietly promising him that someday, they'll be together. And with a soft kiss on the lips, she's gone.
The experience makes her think. It forces her to face the person that she's become for the first time in nearly four centuries. It makes her see how much she's changed between being Katerina and Katherine.
It's four centuries too late to fix anything though; this is who she is now: a selfish, manipulative, cold-hearted bitch.
A definition that she needs to live with now.

...

Ah yes, the infamous Katherine Pierce. Not a big fan. If she was bad before, she became worse after.
She finally did get the chance to earn Stefan's love 150 years later. She failed, but she did get a chance. However, since she is a vampire, she lives long enough to see, meet, hate, and get jealous of the next doppelganger.
You might be thinking, how can two incarnations of Amara coexist at the exact same time? Well, I think it's safe to say that Amara disappeared from Katerina's, or should I say Katherine's, body/soul/spirit/whatever when she became a vampire, and proceeded to wait nearly five hundred years before coming back. Based on the major change in Katherine's behaviour and thought process, it makes enough sense.
Anyways, the next and last doppelganger story, possibly the longest and most dramatic one of them all, happens 145 years after Stefan and Katherine's. It even happens in the exact same town with one of the exact same players.
This one is probably the favourite. You'll know why later.
So without further ado, it's time to present the final tale in the two thousand year old Doppelganger Saga: the story of Stefan and Elena.

...

There's a time for us,
Someday, a time for us,
Time together with time to spare,
Time to learn, time to care,
Someday!

Nearly a century and a half passes by before he meets her, the one he knows is meant for him.
Her name is Elena Gilbert, and although he doesn't remember all of their past lives together, he is drawn to her and he knows that it is her soul meant to align with his.
As strange as it sounds, they meet outside of a men's washroom. Well...officially meet. Okay, not even officially considering they don't actually introduce themselves to one another until later. Anyways, he had saved her from a car accident four months earlier and finally properly meet. And just like every lifetime before this one, they fall in love.
The love they feel for each other is so strong that he cannot even begin to comprehend how much he feels for her, despite having more wisdom than a seventeen year old should have. What she feels for him in return is far too powerful and complex for any human in general to begin understanding.
She accepts every part of him, light and dark, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, and when she finally sees him as what he truly is, a creature of the night, she doesn't cringe away in fear run away in disgust. Instead, she brings her fingers to his face and stares up at him in wonder before bringing her gentle lips onto his.
And just like that, he belongs to her completely. Of course, things are never easy; each problem that tears them apart much worse than the last. Yet every time they're forced apart, they come back stronger and more in love than ever before. She sees him at his very worst and accepts him anyways.
At the end of her human life, she's faced with the choice of choosing which Salvatore to be with. It doesn't even take that much thinking and she chooses him.
Then she becomes a vampire.
What had seemed to be the perfect start to their forever together turns out to be the plot twist they had never asked for; one that seems to put an end to their tale.
She leaves him.
She becomes a vampire, completely changes into someone the human her would have hated, and leaves him for his brother; the same brother that had been so in love with Katherine as a human.
Even through all this, Stefan still holds hope that one day, the Elena he knew and fell in love with will return to his arms.
But she never does.
Strangely enough, they face Quetsiyah just like Silas and Amara had and they bring the wheel full circle in a way. She is not surprised to see Stefan and Elena, nor is she surprised to see where their once near to perfect relationship ended up. She tells Stefan an edited version of what actually transpired, and she, along with history, even completely leaves out the story of Zacharias and Celestia; making it seem as if Tatia was actually the first doppelganger after Amara like everyone had already believed.
In a shocking twist, she is eventually killed, thus finally ending the curse; ensuring that Stefan and Elena are the final incarnations of Silas and Amara. This means that as soon as Stefan and Elena die, the grand story of doppelgangers, star crossed lovers, fate and destiny would be over.
That is, if is hadn't already ended.
Everyday, it seemed to Stefan that she fell more and more out of love with him and more in love with Damon. Stefan constantly tries to put himself back in her heart, but no matter what he does, he never can.
Although, there is a time where he thinks that he finally may have broken through and got her to feel something for him again.
Only to have her later run into his brother's arms and kiss him.
Just like the way she did once with Stefan.
After that, he gives up. He stops trying to get her to love him again and he loses all hope of ever getting back the love they once shared.
Elena completely leaves him and his heart in shambles and even Death finally comes to collect Katherine (or Katerina, as he would have called her once) (not that he remembers).
When Damon decides he wants to be human with Elena, Stefan gets upset; not that he tells anyone. He was the one that wanted a human life with her while his brother laughed in his face for being in love with a human.
As if stealing Elena away from Stefan wasn't enough, he had to steal his brother's dream too.
But then, that plan was put to rest when Elena became a princess straight out of a fairy tale. She was put into a deep sleep and wasn't set to wake up until sixty or seventy years from the present day.
Goodbyes were said, advice was given, until ultimately, Elena Gilbert said the very words Stefan Salvatore had waited far too long to hear her say.
"I love you so much.:
And somehow, that made everything-the pain and heartbreak-all worth it, just to hear her say it for what might be the last time.
I'll see you soon, she had said, promising him that there was a future to the two of them.
Then she's gone.
Stefan never remembered the curse that had been bestowed on him all those years ago. He never realized that the fate he had to live with was because of an angry scorned lover.
Yet, that begged the question: since Quetsiyah was dead, did this incarnation of Silas still have a chance with Amara's incarnation? The curse died when Quetsiyah had, after all. Did Stefan still have a chance with Elena?
But of course, he never knew this.
And because he didn't know, his mind always wandered to the thought of what could have been.

...

Five versions of Silas. Five versions of Amara. Six chances to defy the curse that altered the stars' plans for these two., forcing their happiness to be brutally taken away every time they met.
All thanks to that strange thing called fate.
Yeah, fate was a bitch, wasn't it? Fate constantly showed up and made them a promise that never changed, a promise made up of only a single word.
Almost.
They almost lasted. They almost defied fate. They almost got their happy ending. But almost was never enough; especially when one is referring to love.
Speaking of love, who ever knew that one word, one emotion, could make you either the most joyful person in the world or tear you to pieces in the most literal sense of the phrase. Only in in the case of doppelgangers did it seem to break more than it fixed. Yet when it did make something, which is it always did...wow. When it worked, it really worked. It gave them the best feeling in the world.
A feeling that never could last forever.
Almost. That terrible word. Almost forever, almost eternity, almost happy.
What if? What if there was no spell? What if they were just two regular people? What if they weren't subjected to this fate? What it Elena hadn't become sired to Damon, or if Katherine wasn't engaged to a noble, or if Tatia's husband hadn't died, or if Celestia wasn't the princess of anything?
What if Silas and Amara had managed to evade Quetsiyah and successfully eloped the way they wanted to? If they had, would any of these tragedies ever happen?
Maybe. Maybe if things had gone differently. Maybe they would have had a chance to live happily ever after. Hell, maybe they could have simply lived.
Almost. What if? Maybe.
That was the story of their lives; each word ending what could have been amazing.
But I still have a chance to fix it.
Truly, I can't help Silas and Amara, or Celestia and Zacharias, or Tatia and Aspen, or Katherine and Dimitri, but I can help with the last story. I may have to wait a while...seventy or eighty years at the most, but when I finally get out of this damn coma or sleep-like state, or whatever it is, I can change the way the story of doppelgangers ends.
Being a (sort of) living and breathing Sleeping Beauty has shown me all of these stories. Who even knows if I'm going to remember them when I eventually wake up, but right now, I can see them clear as day. I know the error of my ways and I finally understand how much I hurt him. He didn't deserve to be treated the way I treated him. I never even stopped to think about what I was saying and doing.
These tales of sorts made me see how much he truly loves and cares for me, despite everything that I've done.
I'll make it up to him. Sure, I thanked him for everything that he did for me the last time we spoke, and I told him that I loved him too. But hey, I can do better than that. I promised him someday, I told him that I'd see him soon, and I sure as hell am going to deliver that promise. And if he moved on, so be it, but I'm definitely going to apologize no matter what.
I'm sorry, Stefan Salvatore. I'm sorry for everything that I have done to you. As soon as I get out of this sleep, I'll find you and tell you in person.
I promise.

...

There's a place for us,
A time and place for us.
Hold my hand and we're halfway there.
Hold my hand and I'll take you there
Somehow,
Someday,
Somewhere...

...

And there it is, finally done! I have to say, I'm proud of myself for this one. If you're wondering why Steferine's story is really short, it's mostly because A) we already know the whole story and B) there wasn't much of a love story there to begin with. The reason Tatia's story was so short was for the exact opposite, because we barely know anything about her life before she met the Originals. In turn, I took a lot of liberties with names and actual stories here, so I hope you don't mind. As for the songs at the beginning of every 'tale', all I can say is that I was listening to a lot of West Side Story music when I wrote this and I happen to love the movie, so why the hell not? Plus, I think Somewhere suits these tragic love stories fairly well. And sorry about the length, this thing ended up waaaay longer than planned, but I just couldn't stop writing.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed it! Reviews make my day :D
-stelena-forever-and-always