Author's note: This is dark and angsty, even for me. You're going to have to blame this one on my husband and daughter, though. We were listening to the radio in the car, and I mentioned I could just hear "Someone Like You" by Adele on TVD this coming season. My family members got a little carried away, and soon we'd mapped out this scene (which I desperately hope won't happen on the show...but it really seems much too plausible for my taste).

We've played this game before. Have your playlists at the ready. I'll tell where to start the sad music. Today's song is, as I mentioned before, "Someone Like You" by Adele.

Warnings: Mature, ADULT content (but not what y'all are thinking), crude language, character death, bloodplay

Just one last word of warning. I think my current stressed-out mood has overtaken my writing. This is REALLY angsty.

If you're still here, grab your tissues (and alcohol if you're of age). Music at the ready? Let's go...

"You're ready to leave, you know." Damon walked into the damp cellar room and pointedly left the steel door standing wide open behind him. He watched the slow rise and fall of his brother's shoulders as Stefan's attention remained fixed on the barren dirt floor beneath him. "What are you hoping to accomplish by staying here? Doing penance?"

Stefan muttered something low and unintelligible, even to Damon's ears, as he spun slowly on the well-cushioned cot and faced the wall.

"By staying here, you're only hurting her." Damon looked around the room. The agony Elena felt at the part she played in trapping her former lover in this place was evident. Knowing Stefan would likely be an unwilling captive in the Salvatore-detox-dungeon for an extended period of time, she'd insisted that Damon help her make the room comfortable.

From the downy pad atop the cot to the stack of DVDs next to the small television, Elena's mind-blowing level of concern for his tortured and wasted brother was evident in every minute detail of the room.

And Stefan had used none of it.

When Damon had tossed his brother's unconscious form into the cell and slid the heavy iron bar closed, she'd chewed her lip so hard it began to bleed. She waited, her breaths coming with torturously slow intensity, for Stefan to give the faintest sign of waking - convinced they'd given him too much vervain. Beyond high on his bloodlust, he'd been so strong, he'd fought through five of the vials Alaric had prepared before he even blinked.

Without Caroline and Bonnie at his side, Damon would have lost the battle...and Elena had watched it all.

Of course, that wasn't the worst thing she'd seen this summer.

As time went on, and Klaus discovered Elena was alive, he seemed to delight in taunting her. That's when the pictures and videos began arriving. Elena had opened the first, thinking that some memory of her had broken through Stefan's confused mind.

Damon had been downstairs when he'd heard the feral grunts coming from the video of his brother. The video was dark, but a light shone on Stefan...and the naked blonde girl beneath him. Stefan's groans of pleasure perfectly timed with each time his body struck against the girl. His fangs were buried deep in her neck, the blood obscuring his face. When he came, he let out an animalistic growl. That was when Damon tugged the phone out of her trembling fingers - her sobs masked the girl's whimpering cries before Elena had the chance to realize the horror...Stefan's victim was still very much alive. The girl turned her eyes to the camera, clearly begging Klaus to end her torture, as her shoulders shook beneath his brother.

The brother Damon never truly believed existed.

The brother Elena was convinced could still be saved.

Each photograph, letter, video she received tore more deeply into her soul until her friends and remaining family formed an impenetrable barrier around her, not letting her be alone for an instant. Every time her phone pinged with the alert she'd received a message her hand would tighten around Damon's. As she became a shadow of herself, he'd refused to leave her side.

"This is killing her, you know that." Damon couldn't believe it had come to this. He was begging his brother to leave the room...to rejoin the woman Damon loved more than his own life. The only woman who truly ever loved him. The one who'd never admit to that passion she felt because she refused to become the woman who shared her face.

"Is this why Katherine let him kill her, so you could sit here and rot?" When Katherine had seen the last video and watched the animal Stefan had become, she couldn't stand it any longer.

Knowing Klaus' obsession with Elena, she'd straightened her hair and borrowed Elena's clothes. They only needed a minute...or so they thought...just enough time to distract the original Original while Caroline, Damon, and Ric fought to subdue Stefan and pull him from Klaus' side.

But his brother hadn't wanted to go - not until he saw Elena, the real Elena. Somehow she'd known he'd fight. She'd been able to see something in Stefan's eyes visible to no one else, and she'd insisted on coming.

When Stefan had Damon down, his hand plunging into his brother's chest, she'd stepped into the clearing. Everything blurred as Stefan sped to Elena's side.

But his arms wrapped around Elena didn't signal a joyous reunion.

He was killing her.

His fangs sunk so deeply in Elena's neck, she didn't even have time to cry out.

Bonnie was ready. Although weakened from her battle with Klaus, she didn't hesitate as she turned and took on Stefan with every ounce of strength her mind possessed. Blood streaming down her face, she focused all her energy on bringing Stefan to his knees.

And then she dropped. Now she laid in a bed in Mystic Falls General - not dead, but not fully alive. Damon had seen her just that morning when Elena wanted to visit her friend. Bonnie's eyes stared fixedly at the ceiling while Jeremy held her hand in his. He'd lost his love to save his sister.

Too much loss.

Damon turned to leave but a whisper behind him stilled him in his tracks.

"She's still here?" The first true words his brother had spoken in the month of his confinement, and Damon wasn't certain which she he meant.

"Katherine's dead." Damon watched the regret play over Stefan's face. The blood of a doppleganger had proven to be the only way to take Klaus down. "But Elena's still here. She's pacing so much, she's trying to wear a hole in the living room floor."

The cot creaked as its burden was lifted. Stefan blurred out the doorway.

Mumbled cries.

Sounds of a tearful reunion.

Ric was up there...waiting. If Stefan so much as breathed wrong, Elena's almost-uncle wouldn't hesitate to take him down. Damon didn't move until he heard their steps upon the wooden stairs. Knowing what Damon planned to do today, Caroline sat waiting in the bedroom next to Stefan's.

(Cue music...)

Climbing the stairs, Damon slowly made his way back into the living room. Ric pressed a bottle of bourbon into his palm. "You don't have to stay."

Even Ric could hear Elena's words of comfort...of reassurance as Stefan's muffled sobs drifted down from above. "We won't let him hurt her."

The sounds changed and softened until they were only audible to a vampire's ears.

A moan.

Elena's sigh as she yielded into Stefan's embrace, offering herself in comfort to the man she was uncertain she truly loved, but refused to leave...because she didn't want to be Katherine.

A zipper.

Clothing landed on the floor above with a soft thud.

The glass bottle cracked beneath Damon's grip.

Ric's eyes flicked to the ceiling as Stefan's bed creaked from above. Damon's eyes darkened as he fought for control. "You should leave." He took a step closer to his friend. As he'd watched Damon shelter Elena through one of the darkest periods of her young life, he'd become aware of how much the woman meant to the vampire. "Don't torture yourself."

Damon downed the rest of the bottle in one long gulp. "I have to." He'd seen the monster within his brother. It was only a matter of time before something awakened the beast they'd only so recently tamed. And when that time came, Elena would shatter again.

And Damon would be there to pick up the pieces.