"I can waken things inside you that have been sleeping all your life."

Tell me where to now 'cause the lights are up
And the covers and the gloves are off
There's no win or lose so go ahead make your move
Let's just pray that it's good enough
There's a war in my heart getting tired of fighting
When you say that you love me it hurts like lightning

In the end, he couldn’t stay. He tried; God knew he tried. He wanted to be there for her, to make sure she made the transition all right. For as long as he could, he stayed. He fought with Stefan and went toe-to-toe with Matt and snarled for her right to choose her own path rather than being forced to be what Stefan wanted her to be: some other version of himself, fettered to human morality.

Damon knew what it was to lose yourself; to lose everything you hoped for and dreamed of; to let go of your life; to have to forge a new one. Stefan was going to keep her trapped in a cycle of denial, for fear of what she could become, but…

But she’d chosen Stefan. It didn’t matter that she had to know, now, that she’d met him first. Didn’t matter she likely remembered <i>everything</i> he’d ever made her forget. She’d chosen Stefan.

And a few minutes later, Ric had died in his arms, and after that he didn’t see much point in sticking around.

Besides…he’d promised to go.

*          *          *

There hadn’t been much reason to stay. Elijah said they’d done enough. Nothing left to bury; nothing left to burn. He was angry, she thought, at what she’d done. Or maybe he was just angry at their mother, or himself. She couldn’t be certain. Where Nik’s anger was obvious, and he never had let you wonder about what you’d done…Elijah was cold. Contained. Remote.

Rebekah wasn’t sure if it was anger, then, or who it was aimed at, or if he had just shut down in grief, shattered into pieces he couldn’t pick up.

If he was angry at her, he didn’t lash out. When she cried, he held her; when she woke in terror from nightmares, he was there.

But he wouldn’t let her in; wouldn’t let her see his own grief; most certainly wouldn’t talk about it.

The modern world was still new to her, and she drifted through the streets of New York, so changed from the last time she had visited it with Nik, before they’d gone to Chicago. Kol came and went; Elijah stayed; and she wondered if she would ever get the chance to really live, or if the next thousand years would be a more grief-stricken version of the last.

*          *          *