Midnight

Damon!

He’d died four dimensions away. But she could feel Stefan backing her, amplifying her transmission, sending it like one last beacon through the multitude of worlds that separated them from his cold and lifeless body.

Damon!

There wasn’t the slightest glimmer of an answer. Of course not. Elena was making a fool of herself.

Suddenly something stronger than grief, stronger than self-pity, even stronger than guilt, took hold of her. Damon wouldn’t have wanted her to be carried out of this hal  – even by Stefan. Especial y by Stefan. He would have wanted her to show no sign of weakness to these women who’d shorn her and humiliated her.

Yes. That was Stefan. Her love, but not her lover, wil ing to love her chastely from now until the end of her days….

The end…of her days?

Elena was suddenly glad that she couldn’t project to strangers telepathical y and that Stefan had set shields around them when he’d taken her into his arms. She turned to Ryannen, who was watching…warily, but Stillwith business in her eyes.

"I’d like to go now, if you don’t mind,"she said, picking up her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder with a gesture as arrogant as she could make it. There was a bolt of agony as the weight of the strap hit the place from which most of her wings had sprung, but she kept her face contemptuous and indifferent.

Bonnie, back on the ground since she wasn’t fighting any longer, fol owed Elena’s lead. Stefan had left his backpack in the Gatehouse, but he gently cupped a hand around Elena’s elbow, not guiding her, but showing that he was there for her.

Sage’s wings folded back into themselves and were gone.

"You understand that for the return of these treasures which are ours by right – but which we were barred from retrieving – you wil be granted your requests with the exception of the imposs – "

"I understand,"Elena said flatly, just as Stefan said, much more brusquely, "She understands. Just do it, wil you?"

"It is already being organized."Ryannen’s eyes, dark blue splashed with gold, met Elena’s with a look not entirely unsympathetic.

"The best thing,"Sussure added hastily, "would be for us to put you to sleep and send you to your – your old, new dwellings. By the time you awaken, al wil have been accomplished."

Elena forced her face not to change. "Send me to Maple Street?"she asked, looking at Ryannen. "Aunt Judith’s house?"

"In your sleep, yes."

"I don’t want to be asleep."Elena moved even closer to Stefan. "Don’t let them put me to sleep!"

"No one’s going to do anything to you that you don’t want,"Stefan said, and his voice was like the edge of a razor.

Sage rumbled his support, and Bonnie stared at the fair woman hard.

Ryannen bowed her head.

Elena woke up.

It was dark, and she’d been asleep. She couldn’t remember exactly how she’d fal en asleep, but she knew she wasn’t on the palanquin, and she knew she wasn’t in a sleeping bag.

Stefan? Bonnie? Damon? she thought automatical y, but there was something odd about her telepathy. It felt almost as if it were confined to her own head.

Was she in Stefan’s room? It must be pitch-black outside, since she couldn’t even see the outline of the trapdoor that led to the widow’s walk.

"Stefan?"she whispered, while various bits of information pooled in her mind. There was a smel , at once familiar and unfamiliar. She was lying on a comfortable double bed, not one of Lady Ulma’s silken-and-velvet extravaganzas, but not any lumpy featherbed from the boardinghouse, either. Was she in a hotel?

As these various thoughts came together in her brain, there was a soft quick rapping. Knuckles on glass.

Elena’s body took over. She tossed off the bedspread and ran to the window, mysteriously avoiding obstacles without thinking about them at all. Her hands wrenched aside curtains that she somehow knew were there and her skyrocketing heart brought a name to her lips.

"Da – !"

And then the world stopped and did its slowest somersault of al . The sight of a face, fierce and concerned and loving and yet strangely frustrated, just on the other side of the second-story window, brought Elena’s memories back.

Al of them.

Fel ‘s Church was saved.

And Damon was dead.

Her head bent slowly until her forehead touched the cool pane of glass.

Chapter 43

"Elena?"Stefan said quietly. "Could you ask me to come in?

You have to invite me in if you want to – to talk – "

Invite him in? He was already in – inside her heart. She had told the Guardians that everyone would have to accept Stefan as her boyfriend of almost a year.

It didn’t matter. In a low voice she said, "Come in, Stefan."

"The window’s locked from your side, Elena."

Numbly, Elena unlocked the window. The next moment she was encompassed by warm, strong arms in a desperate, fervent embrace. But the moment after that, the arms dropped, leaving her frozen and lonely.

"Stefan? What’s wrong?"Her eyes had adapted and by the starlight through the window she could see him hesitating before her.

"I can’t – It isn’t – It’s not me you want,"he said in a rush that sounded as if it came through a constricted throat. "But I wanted you to know that – that Meredith and Matt are holding Bonnie. Comforting her, I mean. They’re al okay and so is Mrs. Flowers. And I thought that you – "

"They put me to sleep! They said they wouldn’t put me to sleep!"

"You fel asleep, lo – Elena. While we were waiting for them to send us home. We al watched over you: Bonnie, Sage, and I."He was Stillspeaking in that formal, unusual tone. "But I thought – Well, that you might want to talk tonight, too. Before I – I left."He put a finger up to stop his lip from shaking.