"Your feet got dirty - when Damon did what?" he demanded, enunciating carefully.
"It doesn't matter - "
"It damn well does matter - " Stefan stopped short. "Elena?" he whispered, staring at her as if she had only just appeared.
"Stefan!" She couldn't help holding out her arms to him. She couldn't control anything. "Stefan, I don't know how, but I'm here. It's me! I'm not a dream or a ghost. I was thinking about you and falling asleep - and here I am!" She tried to touch him with ghostlike hands. "Do you believe me?"
"I believe you...because I was thinking about you. Somehow - somehow that brought you here. Because of love. Because we love each other!" And he spoke the words as if they were a revelation.
Elena shut her eyes. If only she could be here in her body, she would show Stefan how much she loved him. As it was, they had to use clumsy words - clichés that just happened to be uniquely true.
"I will always love you, Elena," Stefan said, whispering again. "But I don't want you near Damon. He'll find a way to hurt you - "
"I can't help it," Elena interrupted him.
"You have to help it!"
" - because he's my only hope, Stefan! He's not going to hurt me. He's already killed to protect me. Oh, God, so much has happened! We're on our way to - " Elena hesitated, her eyes flicking around warily.
Stefan's eyes widened for an instant. But when he spoke his face was deadpan. "Someplace where you'll be safe."
"Yes," she said, just as seriously, knowing that phantom tears were now racing down her bodiless cheeks. "And...oh, Stefan, there's so much you don't know. Caroline accused Matt of attacking her while they were on a date because she's pregnant. But it wasn't Matt!"
"Of course not!" Stefan said indignantly, and would have said more, but Elena was racing on.
"And I think that the - the litter is really Tyler Smallwood's because of the timing, and because Caroline's changing. Damon said that - "
"A werewolf baby will always turn its mother into a werewolf - "
"Yes! But the werewolf part is going to have to fight the malach that's already inside her. Bonnie and Meredith told me things about Caroline - like how she was scuttling on the floor like a lizard - that just terrified me. But I had to leave them to deal with that so that I could - could get to that safe place."
"Werewolves and were-foxes," Stefan said, shaking his head. "Of course, the kitsune, the foxes, are much more powerful magically, but werewolves tend to kill before they think." He struck his knee with his fist. "I wish I could be there!"
Elena burst out with mixed wonder and despair, "And instead here I am - with you! I never knew I could do this. But I haven't been able to bring you anything this way, not even myself. My blood." She made a helpless gesture and saw the smugness in Stefan's eyes.
He still had the Clarion Loess Black Magic wine she'd smuggled to him! She knew it! It was the only liquid that would - in a pinch - help keep a vampire alive when no blood was available.
Black Magic "wine" - nonalcoholic and never made for humans in the first place, was the only drink that vampires really enjoyed aside from blood. Damon had told Elena that it was magically made from special grapes that were grown in the soil at the edges of glaciers, loess, and that they were always kept in complete darkness. That was what gave it its velvety dark taste, he'd said.
"It doesn't matter," Stefan said, undoubtedly for the benefit of anyone who might be spying. "Exactly how did it happen?" he asked then. "This out of body thing? Why don't you come down here and tell me about it?" He lay back on his pallet, turning aching eyes on her. "I'm sorry that I don't have a better bed to offer you." For a moment the humiliation showed clearly in his face. All this time he'd managed to hide it from her: the shame he felt in appearing before her in this way - in a filthy cell, with rags for clothes, and infested with God knew what. He - Stefan Salvatore, who had once been - had once been -
Elena's heart truly broke then. She knew it was breaking, because she could feel it inside shattering like glass, with each needle-like shard skewering flesh inside her chest. She knew it was breaking, too, because she was weeping, huge spirit tears that dropped on Stefan's face like blood, translucent in the air as they fell, but turning deep red when they touched Stefan's face.
Blood? Of course, it wasn't blood, she thought. She couldn't even bring anything so useful to him in this form. She was really sobbing now; her shoulders shaking as the tears continued to fall onto Stefan, who now had one hand held up as if to catch one...
"Elena - " There was wonder in his voice.
"Wha - what?" she keened.
"Your tears. Your tears make me feel..." He was staring up at her with something like awe.
Elena still couldn't stop weeping, although she knew that she had soothed his proud heart - and done something else.
"I d-don't understand."
He caught one of her tears and kissed it. Then he looked at her with a sheen in his own eyes. "It's hard to talk about, lovely little love...."
Then why use words? she thought, still weeping, but coming down to his level so she could snuffle just above his throat.