forgetyourusedtobe | Є026 spam/video/text

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[When Elena arrives, she doesn't take to the network right away. Instead, she spends time going through the Barge. She spends a little extra time in the gym, library and the enclosure, but otherwise can be found anywhere and everywhere on board. She's refamiliarizing herself with it, but she's also looking for any familiar faces. She doesn't want them to find out she's back through the network or by word of mouth. She wants to be the one to tell them in person.]

[Admittedly, she's a little nervous. She doesn't know how they'll react to her coming back. While logically she knows they definitely have grounds to be angry for her coming back, she still finds herself with her stomach in knots as she walks through the hallways trying to find people.]

[That doesn't mean, however, she doesn't have time to stop and chat with new faces either. Elena is actually pretty friendly. She approaches any faces she doesn't recognize with a smile, setting aside her worries about her return, and a:] Hey, I don't think we've had a chance to meet yet. I'm Elena.

video.

[Elena gives a small wave to the camera after she turns it on. She's sitting at her desk with a mug of coffee beside her and her journal open. She hasn't started writing in it yet.]

So, I'm back. I've been back for a couple of hours, but I thought I'd go around and see people before talking on here. Sorry if I missed anyone. You guys are way too good at hiding.

For those of you that don't know me, I'm Elena. I used to be an inmate here, but I graduated.

[She hesitates to mention anything about being a vampire. There are definitely some new faces here and she's not entirely sure how they'll take it. But honesty is generally a good policy and she's not likely in any real danger anyway.]

Also for those of you who have come on board since then, I am a vampire. But I don't feed on people.

[There. She did it.]

I hope I get to know all of you. This place is definitely a lot easier if you've got friends.

private - Admiral.

Looks like I arrived just in time. Oddly enough, I don't mind writing this this year.

At the risk of her thinking it's really lame, I'd like for Abigail to have a nice journal so she can write or draw or do whatever she wants with it. I'd also like for her to have a ring. Nothing too fancy, just something simple. I'd also like for her to have a Polaroid camera with plenty of film to get her by for a while. Oh, and I want to get some things for her warden, Ben. Could you give him some books to read? I'm not sure what kind of novels he likes, but I'd say two or three he hasn't read that he will definitely like and then maybe one outside his usual choice.

For Dean, please give him vinyl copies of all his favorite classic rock albums and a player for it. I'd also like for him to have a vervain bracelet. And I'd like for him to have another bottle of Woodford this year. He might not want to necessarily share it, but hopefully he will again some day. And the same for Bond, wherever he is now. (Alcohol, not the music or bracelet, just so we're clear.) For Arkin, I would like for him to have a photo album of his family. I don't know if he still has that body pillow I asked for him last year, but if he doesn't give him another one. If he does, just make sure he gets a new fuzzy cover. Gotta keep up tradition.

For Cassel, get him a magic kit for kids and an EasyBake Oven. And for Chris get him a stack of comics he's missed out on while he's been on the Barge. For Jean can you get her a subscription to a psychology journal? And a piece of art she wouldn't mind hanging in her room or in her office. Give Mal a Keurig with plenty of K-cups in flavors she'll like to last her a year. Last, but not least, can you give Scott a buddy and some new lacrosse gear?

I hope I'm not forgetting anybody, but just in case? For everyone, make sure they get a mug with hot cocoa mix and marshmallows plus a candy cane. And don't be stingy with the ribbons tying the hot cocoa and marshmallow bags to the candy canes either.

And you know what? Give yourself some cookies. Merry Christmas and thank you.

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So that's the secret? Ply them with their addictions?

[It would be easy to back down from Dean. It would be easy to concede, to apologize. And yet it would still be too hard for Elena to walk away.]

[She's physically more powerful than him, but he is still larger. She stands a little taller and looks him in the eye, trying to seem anything more than a stupid little girl.]

I'm a lot more than you're willing to give me credit for, Dean. If you really think saying the same thing over and over again that I don't mean anything to you is going to hurt me? It's not.

[Which isn't entirely true. It's a punch to the gut every time the words come out of his mouth. She can feel the way it makes her resolve waver and the way it ignites some of her anger. Sometimes it's tempting to latch onto either one, but she keeps herself firmly away from those impulses. She's better than that. What she really means is she won't let it get to her. Not without one hell of a fight. Those are things Dean helped to teach her. She won't turn her back on him or his lessons.]

You're not willing to let me in, that's fine. That's your choice. But it's my choice about whether I stay or walk away. Nothing you say or do is going to change that any more than what I say or do is going to change yours.

[Physically, Dean is still imposing; possibly more than ever with age, with even what few youthful rounded edges remained to him in his 20s sanded away and chipped at, all angles and hard muscle and bone left. He's gained a little healthy weight since his arrival on the Barge, but the end of the world is still starkly visible in him, in the hollows of his cheeks and eyes, the ridges of his knuckles and the straightness of his back.

He's neither angry nor stupid enough to try to physically threaten her, but only because he remembers she's not human. There is more danger to being around him than just what he has to offer in and of himself, though, but no one who hasn't seen it ever believes that. She's already almost crying and he hasn't even done anything. She's already upset and he hasn't even done anything.

It's okay, he promises himself. Things only come after the people around him if they're important to him. All he has to do is not care. (All he can do is not care.) He snorts.]

Fine. But I'm not taking responsibility for anything past this point. Final answer.

[She won't turn her back on him, but he turns away from her. His door is unlocked - there are wards she won't be able to follow him over even if she could get around the invitation - and he goes through it without looking back again.]

Well, duh. It's not a well-guarded secret.

[And now Cass has to think because she still has trouble remembering the order that months are supposed to go in, but once she realizes the length of time Elena has been missing it makes sense that she isn't bombarded with memories of this girl. They never met before, and that's oddly soothing.]

Almost a year, then. We must have... just missed each other, the first time.

[The annoyance falls away, just like that, in the face of Elena's vulnerability. It's not gone, not all the way, but there are more important things that come in front of it. Concern, a sense of loss, a sense of guilt, too, for having brought up something that needed bringing up but that hurts all the same. She'd think that Elena's deliberately trying to distract her, with all the body language and the nervousness, except that it's Elena, who never does that. Who's never tried to trick Abigail in all the time they've known each other. Not even back when her emotions were off. They were always honest with each other. Always.]

[It's Abigail's job to protect her now, to take care of her. To give her space to tell the story that Abigail needs to hear.]

[She nods, crisply, efficiently, all business-like now that she has something to do, someone to help. Stepping closer, she takes Elena's hand and leads her out of the library.]

You can take your time.

[That's all she says. And then she lets there be silence.]

{I would not have chosen to be born like this.}

Isn't that kind of the point of this place? All the skills you learn that make you good at being a shithead, unlearn 'em.

[Elena doesn't even think to follow him. She lets him walk away because like she said, that's his choice. She can't force a friendship he doesn't want. She does linger outside his door for a while, however, first staring at it and then at the floor.]

[She's trying hard to wrap her head around this, trying to figure out what could have happened to him to make him this way without all the information. Unsurprisingly, she's coming up empty-handed. The only thing, she thinks, she can do is just try not to dwell on it. There are other people to see, people who will hopefully remember and want her around.]

[Finally, she turns and walks away.]

I'll be sure to pass along the knowledge anyway if any of my friends have to meet any families in the future.

Must have, [Elena agrees with a nod. She pauses to take a sip of her coffee.] But better late than never, right?

[Elena's grateful for the silence and doesn't say anything as they leave the library and make their way to Abigail's cabin. She's even more grateful for the hand to hold. It's hard for her to gauge how cold her own hand is. All she really knows is that Abigail's is warm and a comfort. Even after they get to her cabin and sit down, she doesn't let go. It feels...safer that way.]

[It feels like a lifetime before she finally figures out how to start explaining all of this to Abigail, but only seconds have truly passed by once they've settled down.]

The first person that I killed was named Connor. I killed him before I turned my humanity off because he tried to go after my brother.

[She doesn't regret killing Connor to protect her brother, but she still feels guilt and shame over it all the same. It's not something she's really worked through to figure out how she feels about it, but she thinks most days that's probably for the best. The next part is a little easier to talk about.]

I didn't know it at the time because Stefan was keeping it from me, but Connor was one of the Five. Each of the hunters in the Five have a tattoo that only other or potential members could see called the Hunter's Mark. It acts as a map to the cure, but hunters don't get the whole mark. A hunter only starts to get the mark after one has died and after he's killed a vampire.

[She heaves a heavy sigh. If Stefan hadn't kept it from her, things might have been different. Jeremy might have been safe from all of this and she could have kept him out of it. But maybe not.]

Jeremy could see the Mark.

[Elena gets that distinct feeling that she's possibly in over her head here, but she still asks, softly,] What do you mean?

It just wasn't something I was expecting you to ever want to give up.

[She settles in close to Elena, as close as she can. Elena isn't really warm, but she's comfortable and soft and - Abigail's just missed her. All of her, her words and her eyes and her hair and the gentle way she shifts her weight against Abigail when she's worried.]

[Abigail is suddenly struck by the errant thought that she should have brought snacks. This is looking like it might turn into a long conversation.]

[The strange thing is she's never really thought hard about Elena killing someone. That or it just never bothered her before. Because it's obvious, Elena must have killed people, lots of people - but once it didn't matter to Abigail. Once, Abigail might even have thought they deserved it.]

[Now she doesn't feel bad for the people that Elena killed; she just feels bad that Elena was in a place where she had to kill them. Or felt she had to.]

[She listens carefully to the explanation. It all seems incredibly complicated until the last thing Elena says, the final point, which makes her stomach feel all of a sudden like an icy pit.]

So - he was, he was a hunter.

Who says I wanted it?

[Elena nods.]

When you kill a hunter, if you're a vampire, you start to hallucinate. You hallucinate the worst things. Things bad enough that you don't want to live anymore. That you'll do anything just to make the pain stop. I was... I was pretty close to killing myself before the hallucinations stopped.

[Elena feels a small stinging behind her eyes at the memory of it. She had felt lower than that since then, but there was a particular pain behind it that she couldn't really describe to Abigail. To believe that the people you loved thought you had become a monster, to have your enemies confirm that, and it to be an unrelenting chorus chanting for you to just end it. To make things right and die like you should have time and time again while others took your place for you.]

They only stopped because Jeremy killed a vampire and started the Mark. He did it to save me, but it made things even more complicated.

[It only seems logical, honestly, but Ben takes the laugh in stride. He tilts his head slightly at the request though, pausing for a moment to consider.

Clearly she remembers being here as an inmate, unless she means in a much broader sense. There is, however, an explanation that matches more perfectly.]

You do not remember being here as a warden.

Good plan. It's Barge Etiquette 101.

I find it a little hard to believe anybody here would make you give something up unwillingly.

No, I don't.

[She shakes her head a little.]

Now there's a scary manual.

No it's not. I wrote it.

So horrifying then.

[She is (mostly) teasing.]

[This, too, strikes her in the belly - under the ribs, below the heart. Elena hurts, and Abigail hurts with her; Elena describes her remembrance of pain, and Abigail feels as though all she's ever felt is pain, for the entirety of her life. It's like being suspended in amber, only the amber aches and crawls into your mouth and nose, and you can never escape it.]

[She doesn't say any of this to Elena - can't, shouldn't, wouldn't - just hugs her tighter, holds her closer, arm around her shoulders.]

Complicated how?

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