A/N: This was mostly written for my own selfish pleasure; it has absolutely nothing to do with show canon and is merely a glimpse into what Stefan and Elena's life might be without all the drama. Also, in case you're wondering, I purposefully left Damon out of this; there isn't a reason, he just isn't there. Enjoy!

I've waited a hundred years

But I'd wait a million more, for you

He laughs, soft and muffled against the skin of her shoulder, fiddling with her wet hair that was sticking to her neck from the shower they had taken together. His favorite is this time. Post, pre. Naked. Bare. His favorite is when it's just the two of them and he can count the freckles on her nose and she can curl her toes against his calf. She can't remember what was so funny but it covers her, his laughter, like a warm blanket and they meet somewhere in the middle; stomach to naked stomach.

His laughter is soon replaced by moans, her name low and deep from his throat, his fingers leaving prints against the notches of her spine.

She doesn't know what he had laughed at but knows what had made him want to stop.

His favorite time is this.

"I want to get marry."

They're lying on the grass just by the lake, not swimming because they're both too tired and lazy to. It was a hot day, the kind where everything seemed to just stick to you and sweat matted uncomfortably. She's tucked against his stomach and they're on the ground beneath a wide oak tree, his car parked a couple feet away.

She doesn't really mind sticking to him.

Stefan fingers her earlobe, watching the way her eyelashes seemed to grow and curl around her eyes like webs even as she blinked.

"Let's get married then." He tells her lazily and closes his eyes, the smell of pine and her lavender shampoo on his mind.

Elena adjusts and soon she's tangled with her limbs into the curve of his shoulder where she seems to effortlessly fit even though she forced her way in there.

She closes her eyes and falls quickly into a doze, feeling with her hand across his chest, as it slowed to a steady calm rhythm of sleep; she's humming as she wakes up. Humming her yes even though she thinks it's a little more than understood at this point.

"I'm sick of this bedroom."

Stefan sighs. It's late one afternoon and they had been fighting earlier about something he can't really remember (he can, he's choosing not to).

"Go outside then."

It's been raining, constant sheets, for hours and he's placating her by telling her this but he's tired and annoyed, writing in his journal with his back hunched. She's curled on the bed, feet away from him, staring up at the rafters. He could've moved away from the bedroom and she could've gone home but they seemed stuck, unwilling to move away from the other. As equally stubborn as each other.

Elena makes a noise, a mixture of an eye roll (that he can most certainly hear) and a scough; he isn't surprised when she's standing by his desk, hands on her hips a few seconds later.

"Can I tell you something?"

Stefan puts his pen down and then the stiff binding of his diary, laying it flat against his desk. He looks up at her just as she moves, coming around his desk and he opens his hands out for her despite that less than a few seconds ago, he didn't want to touch her at all.

"Anything you want." He says and it's a sigh that he half means because she's warm against him as she sits in his lap and he's forgetting, so quickly, to be mad with her.

"I think you would've made a great doctor."

Stefan closes his eyes and sees, almost instantly, his mothers face. He lets his chin rest against the back of Elena's head, swaying them together softly as they sit in his desk chair. They had been fighting about the future; lack therefore. Discussing the possibilities, both the ones that were achievable and the ones that weren't.

Most were dreams, impossible dreams they wanted for themselves but also the dreams, the ones that stung and ached bitterly, they wanted together.

Elena waits, patient and wondering, her hands clasping together over her stomach. The topic of children had come up and they were both hit differently, with the sadness and loss of it.

They talked about that dream the least; the one they wanted most.

"Can I tell you something?" He says finally and opens his eyes. He kisses against her hair, lingering there for a moment.

"Yes." She says and it's quick out of her mouth, her lips turning into a shy smile.

"I think you'll make a great writer."

They make up, in an assortment of different ways, for the entirety of the night. It's a long time before they mention dreaming again.

They run away to Vegas. If her mother were alive, she'd kill her.

Elena waits in the car as he pays the gas fee; they're about an hour away still and could've made it but she needed to pee. She picks at the dress she was wearing, one she had yanked out of her wardrobe without really looking at it. It's not her favorite but it'll do as a faux wedding dress; light blue and falling all the way to her feet, hugging her in all the right places.

"Look what I got you." He slips into the drivers seat and tosses a brown paper bag onto her lap, shutting the car door. She tips the bag over and a wooden picture frame falls out with the words, married in Vegas etched over the top of it.

Elena laughs so hard she begins to cry and she clutches at the frame, reaching over to grab his face to kiss him.

But later that night, he gives her a new leather bound diary, a letter her mother had written to her as a child engraved in the back. She cries a little more and smiles and wraps herself around him, thanking him with kisses that can't possibly tell him enough but have him clutching onto anyway.

She doesn't tell him but secretly, she likes the picture frame just a little bit more.

They don't say vowels at the chapel but he drives her to a look out, miles out of town where they can see the ember lights of the strip and they whisper them quickly into necks and ears, peeling one another's clothes off. He's sinking into her just as the suns beginning to rise and she's seeing the bloom of pink even as her eyes are closing and it feels like she's on another planet.

"You ever think you'd get married?" She's lying on her belly a couple hours later, wearing his shirt; she's a mess, covered in grass and dirt but for some reason, something about laying right there on the ground felt natural. She wonders briefly, if being a vampire made you more connected to the earth than to anything else; she reminds herself to ask him later.

Stefan shrugs, tracing patterns into curve of her wrist as he stared up at the sky; he takes a moment before turning his head to look over at her.

"Yes." He finally says, his eyes flicking their way across her face; she blushes, he can see the glow of her cheeks and starts to smile.

"Yeah, one day, if I found the right person."

Elena wriggles closer until their shoulders are pressed up against one another's and closes her eyes, tucking her head into the curve of his neck.

"Me too," She whispers.

She's asleep within minutes but he stays awake, watching the sky; watching her. Thinking about all the times he thought about asking her to marry him; thinking, she had been the right person all along.

They stay at a nice hotel for a few nights just because they can and they treat it as if it's a honeymoon even though it really feels like they're on a holiday they've always been on.

"Do you think it's more probable or less probable that the door would've actually held both of their weights?"

She's watching Titanic, the remote in her hand and a bathrobe wrapped around her naked body as she lay spread across their king sized bed; he's fiddling with one of his blood bags in their small kitchen around the corner.

He doesn't say anything but she can almost picture his face through his silence; scrunched up and cynical.

"Definitely more."

"Liar!" She yells with a smile and Stefan ducks his hand around the corner, giving her a look.

"Why would I lie about that?"

"Because you know I'll debate you into the answer if you didn't."

Stefan laughs. "So why even ask me then?"

Elena shrugs as she smirks and looks back at the screen. Rose just docked into New York. "Just curious."

Stefan shakes his head and goes back around the wall; she can soon smell the faint, familiar scent of blood and plastic. He always preferred to drink in private even though she's told him many, many times that she didn't mind.

When he's finished, he dunks the bag into the trash, cleaning the counter top up and stowing the cooler back into the fridge behind the bottles of juice and soda.

"Anyway, you don't have to worry about that."

Elena cocks an eyebrow, switching the television off and sitting up against the headboard. He comes back into the room, grinning at her and leans lazily against the wall; there are butterflies already in her stomach and she still, still can't believe that they did this. Can't believe how happy she is that they did. That he's hers.

"Don't I?"

He bites his bottom lip, looking away from her for a moment, "Nope, I got you covered for life babe."

"Wife." She mocks, making a face with her eyes closed and he rushes forward, pushing her flat onto the bed as she squealed.

"Wife." He says softly and stares down at her, holding his weight with one hand above her head and pulling back her robe with the other; he places his hand on her belly, begins to make a trail with just his finger tips up to the valley of her breasts, to the underside of her chin. Goosebumps spread like wildfire; she scratches impatiently with her toes, at his jean-clad leg.

"Don't you forget it."

Stefan smiles, now tracing his way back down just as she drops her knees apart and leans up to kiss him.

"Elena Fern Gilbert, I will love you until the day I die."

"Forever." She replies in a gasp, shutting her eyes as he slipped inside her.

"Forever."

They never make plans to change her but she gets into a car accident as she's driving home from college over the forth of July weekend and they don't really have any other choice.

He doesn't have any other choice.

When she wakes up, a tube over her top lip and a machine beating beside her that is counting the way she breathes, she cries harder than he's ever seen her cry before. Because she realizes and knows what this means and he hates so much that they didn't get to talk or decide or make plans. That they didn't get a choice.

He slips out of the room before she can notice him and Jeremy passes him by wordlessly, like he knows and he probably does. That he'll be the one to hold her hand. Grieve with her. Grieve over her old life. Over the lives they've both lost; that they didn't have to grieve hers.

Stefan gets as close to the exit before he begins to run, chasing his anger through forest after forest, letting the miles slip and fall. He's crossing a river when he misses a step, slipping over his own feet. Hitting the ground, coming to a complete stop.

He screams. As loud and long as he can, until he's torn his throat and there's nothing left but letting his face fall and his body fall and he just needs to stop and grieve this too. But as he's wiping his eyes, his ring, the thin silver wedding band they had chosen together, he knows where he needs to be. Wants only to be with her.

"I'm so sorry, baby." He whispers into her neck a few hours later and she rubs her face against his hand gently, her eyes closed; she was tired from the drugs they had given her even though there was logically nothing wrong. Stefan doesn't have a problem with it, she needed sleep. To be numb for as long as she could before she would begin to crave blood.

"We knew this was coming." Is all she says and he wonders briefly if it's the truth, if she's convinced herself because she has to but he's thought it too. Too many times and she's right, the inevitable decision was coming. He just wishes it hadn't come so abruptly. So violently.

"We'll take it slow." He promises and she smiles and wriggles, making room for him.

"Doesn't matter," She starts and she's almost asleep, "We have all the time in the world."

She's a bitch when she's hungry.

It takes some time but they're able to transition her onto his diet without her losing control every time there's so much as fresh blood within a half a mile radius.

But she still has a couple slips, gets angrier than he ever did so it takes some time but they're learning, together.

It's also better than she ever imagined it, better than he ever could.

"You've made me see the beauty of being a vampire." He tells her when they're watching the sunrise in a small village town of the coast of Europe. It's true, it was as if his own senses had heighted ten fold through hers intensifying. The beautiful senses, the love and passion and vision and feeling senses. They've chased one another across the world, discovering it new even though he's seen it all before but it's different. Lighter and clearer and realer than he remembers it to be.

Elena climbs up onto his back, hugging him around his neck and leaning her head there, "We're only living, my love."

And he thinks it's the absolute truth.

They were only living.

A/N: Technically, she wouldn't have to turn but for the purpose of the story, she does. I have a couple other fics I'm hoping to put up by the new episode so keep an eye out!