Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Diaries, nor do I own the Episode plot of Rose. I just own the changes that I made to it.

Summary: Set during 2X08, Rose. Elena doesn't hug Stefan; instead, she runs and hugs Damon. One Shot.

Okay, this is my take of 2X08. Most people, when it come to that episode, write about the confession that Damon makes Elena at the end, either just repeating themselves wit hwhat happens, or changing it so that she had vervain in/on her. I decided to take a different scene from the episode, and came up with this. I hope you like it.

I Run To You

It was over before she knew it. She watched as Damon turned away from the graying body of Elijah, turning to face her. Relief washed over her as she noticed that he showed no sign of having been harmed. She began moving down the stairs slowly, but got distracted when Rose – she was still here? – blurred away. Damon and Stefan moved to follow her.

"Just let her go," she said, her eyes still on Damon. She sighed, slightly tired, and continued down the stairs.

Stefan stepped forward a bit, still off the side, but close to where she would end up. He was ready, ready wrap her up in his arms. She didn't need to move anymore; she would migrate towards him as she went down. He didn't notice that her gaze had yet to leave Damon.

Damon's and Elena's eyes were locked onto each others, and, without thinking, she began to hurry down the stairs. Damon face broke into a hesitant smile; she was going to go to his brother's arms, he just knew it. The fact that Stefan was moving closer to her seemed to say that it was a fact.

So he was pleasantly surprised when she plowed right by Stefan, ignoring his words, in favor of wrapping her arms around him; his own automatically rose, wrapping around her. He held her to him, feeling a happiness he hadn't been expecting at the way she had practically ignored his brother in favor of him.

Elena knew that Stefan had been there, knew that he had been expecting her to run to him, but all she had been able to think about, since she realized that she had been kidnapped, was that Damon would save her.

It was Damon's name that entered her thoughts first, when she woke up; Damon's name that had jumped from the message Bonnie had managed to get to her through magic; Damon name that she had mentally screamed in her thoughts when she thought Elijah would manage to take her; and Damon who her heart had automatically sung for when she first heard the sounds that led to her rescue.

If she was honest, she didn't think about Stefan at all.

Vaguely, in her mind, she knew that what she had told Damon – I love Stefan. It's always going to be Stefan – was the biggest lie she had ever said. If she was honest, what he had said was true; she had been lying to everyone and herself. There was something between them, something that she had been afraid to explore before. She said that it was always be Stefan because he was the safe choice, the comfortable choice…The boring one.

She realized that, had they not arrived when they did, the one thing she would have regretted the most was not exploring what was between her and Damon. For not giving in when she had the chance; for not going with what her heart really wanted; for denying the truth.

Now, knowing just how close she came to loosing that chance, she knew that she couldn't go on pretending. She knew that the next time this happened, she might not get rescued in time.

It was time to listen to what her heart really wanted, not ignore it, and she was going to do just that.

Okay, all done. There will be no continuation to it unless I think of some thing to add. If I do, though, it will be in a separate fic.

Please review, I'm curious to know what you think of this one-shot.

Heart In Strangeness