private; JUST LEMME DIE./DIGS A GRAVE
[ Excuse Damon's screwed up logic. He never got why you wanted to befriend him, Ric. He'd been nothing but an asshole to you.
And -- it's the bit about Elena that gets to him. Not the part about him being a monster because he knows exactly what he is. He's always known. ]
She doesn't think she's in love with me. [ What is Alaric even going on about is what he's thinking. ]
Elena wants to go home. To Jeremy. To Stefan. It's why she even signed up to be part of the Defense Force in the first place. They have her thinking that they can find a way out. But there is no way out. There is no way home. There's only getting lost in the dimensional stabilizer and being spat back out with zero memories of your previous time here. It happened to me. It happened to her.