by L. J. Smith
A tear slipped out from under her eyelids and ran slowly down her cheek. But a certain peace settled over Elena, and as she fell into a slumber, she knew without a doubt that, as much as it hurt, she’d done the right thing.
Elena woke up in a room flooded with light. The white ceiling above her was unfamiliar, outlined with ornate crown molding. Sitting up, she looked around. She was in a big bed heaped with soft pillows and a thick duvet. Sunlight streamed in through full-length windows at one end of the room, which opened onto a tiny balcony she could just see from the bed.
Hopping out of bed, Elena wiggled her toes against the thick pale carpet and padded out barefoot to examine the rest of the apartment. She wasn’t in the clothes she’d fallen asleep in anymore, she realized, but in crisp white cotton pajamas. Elena ran a hand across them wonderingly.
It wasn’t a big apartment: bedroom, bathroom, a kitchen with a small dining alcove at one end, a little living room with a large, cushy pale green couch. Everything looked peaceful and comfortable in light, neutral shades, accented with forest green or jewel blue. Paintings hung on the walls—not posters, but real paintings, a couple of them abstract, one an intricate landscape, another a charcoal sketch of a young girl’s face. The apartment felt like a nest, a retreat made just for one. Just for her.
It felt like home, she realized, even though she’d never seen it before.
She rummaged through the kitchen, finding coffee and figuring out the intimidatingly complicated brushed-steel coffee maker. While it brewed, she went back into the bedroom to get dressed. Everything in the closet seemed simple and chic, more sophisticated than the old Elena had been used to, and she pulled on a pair of close-fitting black trousers and a light blue top made of impossibly soft fabric.
Picking up a hairbrush, she looked into the mirror and froze. For a moment, she held her breath, examining the almost-stranger in the mirror.
She looked older. Not too old, but like she was in her mid-twenties. Her hair was shorter, falling just past her chin, and there were a few tiny lines beginning at the corners of her eyes, as if she’d been squinting in the sun. Elena tilted her head, watching the swing of her hair against her cheek. She looked good, she thought.
In the life she’d lived with Stefan, Elena had drunk the Waters of Eternal Life and Youth at age eighteen, and stopped getting older. Stopped changing. She hadn’t wanted to age while Stefan stayed young, had wanted to be by his side for eternity.
It had been the right choice when they had been together. After Stefan had been killed, it had seemed like living death to go on without him forever, to never grow old or have the possibility of having children. Now she would get to change. She had grown up, and she would keep aging.
As she turned away from the mirror, Elena’s gaze fell upon something on her bedside table that she hadn’t seen before: a golden ball, just the right size to fit comfortably in her palm. Picking it up, Elena pressed the catch and watched the ball unfold into a small golden hummingbird set with gems.
The music box Damon had given her.
Was it possible? Had they found each other again, somewhere in the intervening years between Fell’s Church and now? Her heart began to pound wildly, full of hope.
Carefully, she put the music box back on the table. There was a crisply folded note next to where it had stood. Elena picked the note up with shaking hands and unfolded it.
Well done, Elena. Here is a small souvenir of your past life, as a token of our regard. Enjoy your humanity—you’ve earned it. I hope you find your true destiny. Mylea
The Celestial Guardians had given her a piece of the life she had lost. It was a kind gesture, she knew, but it pierced a whole in her heart. A token could never replace the love she had sacrificed. No home could be home without someone to share it with.
Stepping out onto the balcony, Elena gazed over the city before her, and felt her mouth drop open. Far away, over the rooftops, she could just glimpse the Eiffel Tower.
“Hideous,” she suddenly remembered Damon saying, that last day together in Paris. “A truly tragic streetlamp.”
Elena stifled a giggle. She thought it was beautiful, anyway.
Wow. She lived in Paris.
Energized, Elena turned to the task of figuring out just who Elena Gilbert was in this new future. She rifled through her drawers, read her own papers, sorted through the mail. Rummaging through the cupboards and refrigerator, she devoured the chewy bread, soft cheese, and crisp fruit she found inside.
By the time a couple of hours had passed, she knew that she worked at an art gallery. She had an undergraduate degree in art history, from the Université de Paris. Apparently, Elena had come to Paris for a junior year abroad from the University of Virginia—not Dalcrest College—and never left, finishing her education here.
She had lived alone in this apartment for two years, according to her lease. There were notes from friends in both English and French—and it was a relief to realize that she could read French much more fluently than she had been able to in her old life. Elena smiled over a gossipy birthday card from Aunt Judith that made it clear that she and Robert and Margaret were just as happy in this life as in Elena’s previous one.
There was no sign of any romance. Elena’s heart ached a little at that. But who could she have loved after the Salvatore brothers?
Just as Elena was sweeping papers back into her desk drawers, there was a tapping at her front door.
Leaping up, Elena rushed toward it. It was Bonnie, she was sure of it, or Meredith. She could picture them here. Meredith probably had helped Elena pick out the chic outfits. Bonnie must have cast a protection spell over the whole apartment.
She flung open the door.
“Elena!” said the dark-haired girl on the other side, her arms full of shopping bags. Elena had never seen her before. She kissed Elena enthusiastically on each cheek in greeting. “Can I leave these here? Come on, we’ll be late.”
She said it all in French, very fast, and Elena was relieved to realize she spoke and understood French as well as she read it.
A name popped into Elena’s head, along with a remembered warm affection. “Veronique,” she greeted her friend. “Where are we going?”
Veronique made a little moue of pretended offense. “You forgot our Sunday lunch?” she asked. “The others are probably already there.”
The restaurant at which they had lunch was as stylish and tasteful as the rest of Elena’s new life. The two friends waiting for them there were as lovely as Veronique was. They jumped to their feet and kissed Veronique and Elena on both cheeks, laughing. Elena laughed with them, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that these were people she loved.
She just wished she could remember them properly.
After a few minutes she got them all straight. Veronique was talkative and bossy, with a quick, good-humored smile. She was a stockbroker, and she and Elena had been roommates in college. Elena had a flash of memory: Veronique, softer and younger, her hair tied up in a sloppy bun, hollow-eyed from staying up late studying for exams.
Lina was quieter and more soft-spoken, with huge dreamy eyes and long light-brown hair. She worked at the gallery with Elena and was the niece of the owner.
And Manon, sharp-witted and sarcastic with very short, very pale blonde hair, was a graduate student at the Sorbonne, doing a joint degree in art history and law. She had gone to university with Elena and Veronique.
“If you want to get further with art history,” she was advising Elena, “you should come back to school. The museums will never hire someone with only an undergraduate degree.”
“Perhaps,” Elena said, sipping her wine. She hadn’t found school particularly interesting back in the life she remembered. There had been too much else to do: monsters to fight, the ongoing drama of her love life to manage.
Maybe here, studying something she loved, with the idea that it would actually help her get a particular job … She felt excitement blossom in her chest. She could te
ll from the way Manon was talking that the Elena these girls knew was serious about her career.
Lina began to describe a show she and Elena were organizing at the gallery to the other girls, and Elena listened, eyes wide.
“It was Elena who suggested arranging the pieces by the models instead of chronologically,” Lina said. “A very interesting effect. He used the same models over and over, for years, and you can see the women growing older, just as his art developed.”
Elena felt a flush of pride. Even though she didn’t remember it, apparently she was good at her job.
“Let’s talk about something more interesting than art,” Veronique said eventually. “Elena. Are you going to go out with Hugo again?”
Hugo? Elena tried to prompt the memory that had given her the names of her friends, but came up blank. “I don’t know,” she said slowly.
In unison, all three girls sighed.
“He’s such a nice man,” Lina said, tucking a long lock of hair behind her ear. “And he’s crazy about you.”
“I will take him off your hands if you don’t want him,” Manon said. “That lovely man, just going to waste.” She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly, laughing.
“Obviously, you shouldn’t date anyone you don’t want,” Veronique added, “but it seems like you’re never even open to the idea of love.”
Elena didn’t know what to say. Even without memories of this time, she knew why she wasn’t looking for love, why she wasn’t falling for the lovely man they were talking about. How could she? She had left her heart with Damon and Stefan, wherever they were. Finally, she shrugged. “Sometimes it’s not meant to be, I guess.”
“We worry about you,” Veronique said flatly. “It’s like you’re waiting for something, and we don’t want you to let life pass you by.”
Looking back at her Parisian friends, Elena was hit by a sudden rush of homesickness. Meredith and Bonnie would have fussed over her and nudged her in just the same way. Where were they now? Had the vow they had sworn in the churchyard, to be friends forever, come true? I hope so, she thought. I hope I haven’t lost everyone from my old life, even if I’ve lost … even if I can’t have …
“Oh, we didn’t mean to make you sad,” Lina said softly, laying a warm soft hand over hers. “It will all come right in the end.”
When she came back from lunch, the apartment seemed entirely too quiet. Elena wandered through the flat, touching the sleek pale furniture, rearranging the books and ornaments.
It was exactly the kind of place she’d always dreamed of. And yet, she felt terribly wistful.
She was reminding herself of Damon, she realized. How he had brushed his fingers across her possessions, opened drawers to peer inside, inspected her photographs. Like him, she was trying to figure out the person who lived here.
Elena laughed a little and wiped her eyes. The person who lived here had a wonderful life. Elena just wasn’t sure if it was really hers.
In the kitchen, she found an invitation held by a magnet to the refrigerator, something she’d somehow managed to overlook on her first rummage through the apartment.
Elena read: “… invite you to the wedding of their daughter Bonnie Mae McCullough to Zander—” She stopped.
Zander? She could feel a smile beginning on her face.
Some things must be destined after all.
Amazing. Despite everything that had changed, Bonnie was not only marrying the same guy, she’d chosen the same bridesmaids’ dresses. As she waited to walk down the aisle behind Bonnie’s two older sisters, Elena carefully straightened the long rose pink gown and held her bouquet—pale lilies and bright roses—at waist level.
This time, though, the wedding was in the church Bonnie’s parents attended, and there seemed to be a lot more people in attendance. Elena looked over the crowd, picking out faces she recognized: Sue Carson, Bonnie’s dad’s business partner, Mrs. Flowers. Apparently, when Bonnie’s mom and sisters had time to get involved, things got a lot more elaborate.
Someone struck up the wedding march, and the bridesmaids began to file in, first Bonnie’s sisters; then Shay, Zander’s second-in-command in the Pack; then a girl Elena didn’t know who had been Bonnie’s roommate at Dalcrest College; then Meredith, head held high, stepped down the aisle.
Meredith looked terrific. Confident and elegant, her beautiful thick dark hair piled on top of her head. And she was human. Elena let the spreading joy of that fact run through her. The changes Elena had made back during those fateful few months in high school had saved Meredith.
When it was Elena’s turn, she raised her head high, held her flowers low, and stepped carefully and slowly, just the way she’d been told. At the front of the church, she took her place next to Meredith and looked over at the guys’ side of the aisle.
It was all werewolves—Matt and Zander must not be good friends here—jostling one another rowdily, but they stilled and came to attention as Zander lifted his head, pushing his pale blond hair out of his eyes, and saw Bonnie.
She looked beautiful. She came down the aisle on her father’s arm, draped in creamy lace. Pink rosebuds were twined in her hair. Bonnie and Zander gazed at each other, and they both looked so incredibly happy that Elena’s breath caught in her throat.
“Dearly beloved,” the minister said, and Elena listened with only half an ear as she watched Bonnie and Zander take each other’s hands and smile at each other, a warm, private smile.
Elena had gotten a chance to talk to Bonnie last night after the rehearsal dinner. She and Meredith and Bonnie had sat up half the night in Bonnie’s room, talking things over, just like old times. When Meredith had stepped out for a minute, Elena had turned to Bonnie and breathed, “Bonnie, the last thing I remember before two weeks ago was Halloween night in Fell’s Church.”
Bonnie had squealed and leaped up to hug Elena. It was such a relief to have just one person to share this huge secret with, Elena thought, watching as Bonnie began to speak her vows, promising to have and to hold.
Things hadn’t changed that much for Bonnie in this life. She was a witch, she had gone to Dalcrest, she taught kindergarten, she loved Zander, she lived in Colorado. She was happy. Perhaps a little softer and gentler than the Bonnie Elena had known in the future she’d left behind. This Bonnie hadn’t been through so much, hadn’t seen her friends die.
Meredith, on the other hand, had changed. Elena cast a sideways glance at her gray-eyed friend. Meredith was so much happier here. She didn’t know anything about the supernatural, Bonnie had quietly confirmed. Well, she knew Bonnie said she was psychic, and was sort of New Agey with candles and herbs, but Meredith thought it was all a game. It was, Bonnie and Elena agreed, better that way.
Meredith had graduated from Harvard Law School. She was going to take the bar next month, and she wanted to work for the public defender’s office in Boston. She wasn’t a hunter. She wasn’t a vampire.
Last night, when they’d been sharing gossip and updating one another on their lives, Meredith, eyes shining, had told them about the work she’d done with some of her classmates and professors, researching the cases of prisoners on death row that hadn’t been handled properly, trying to prove the innocence of people who had been wrongly convicted.
“You’re saving people,” Elena had said, impressed. “Like a warrior.” Meredith had blushed with pleasure. It didn’t matter if she hunted monsters or not, Elena realized. Meredith was always going to find a way to be a hero.
“You may kiss the bride,” the minister said, and Bonnie leaned up as Zander leaned down and they wrapped their arms around each other and kissed, tenderly.
Unexpectedly, tears welled up in Elena’s eyes and she bit her lip, hard, to force them away.
She was so happy for Bonnie, she told herself fiercely. And her own life was wonderful, everything she would have dreamed of in a world where she didn’t have to hunt monsters, didn’t have to be a Guardian.
It was just that, the last time she’d been in Bonni
e’s wedding, she’d felt the brush of Damon’s admiring regard from his seat in the audience.
Bonnie and Zander were heading down the aisle, leaving the church, and it was time to follow them. Elena took the arm of her werewolf groomsman—Spencer, the preppy one—and laughed politely at his joke without really hearing it.
Outside, it was early evening, and the leaves were just beginning to change. There was a briskness in the air, the beginning of fall. Fall, again. The last time she’d been in Fell’s Church in the fall was seven years ago, although it only felt like a few weeks, the night she’d said good-bye to Stefan and Damon.
They were out there somewhere—probably—and she should be glad of it, was glad of it, fiercely glad that they were still alive.
She felt that wistfulness again, stronger still, at the beginning of the reception, when Jared, Zander’s best man, started his toast.
“Uh …” the shaggy-haired werewolf began, “when Zander started dating Bonnie, we all thought she was awesome, but we were like, ‘Really?’ because she wasn’t, uh, the same kind of person we were.” Looking around the circle of faces smiling at him, Jared’s eyes went wide and panicky.
This was the same toast Jared had given in that other world, so Elena knew he’d be able to pull it together. But that time, Damon’s eyes had met Elena’s, and she had felt Damon’s rich amusement coming straight through the bond between them. They’d both laughed at the same time, quiet laughter at an inside joke.
At this wedding without that bond, without Damon, Elena felt slightly adrift.
After the toast, she and Meredith picked up their place cards and found their tables at the reception. There was someone already sitting there, and Elena grinned with delight. “Matt!”
Matt—bigger and broader than the last time she’d seen him, but with the same open, friendly face—got to his feet and hugged them both. Beside him, a tiny woman, almost as tiny as Bonnie, jumped to her feet and hugged them, too, blond curls bouncing over her shoulders.
