Stefan stood next to Elena as everything dawned on him. Like a dam ready to burst but he could not let it out. Not now. He knew that everyone would turn to him for a shoulder to cry on, but right now he did not have it in him. Damon was gone. That thought alone was enough to break him. Bonnie had disappeared before their very eyes and then it was over. The other side was gone, his brother was gone. 


Already the voices seemed to haze out, he stood still watching everyone else react to what had happened. But he couldn't. If he allowed himself to break free of this haze that he was in then who knows what he would do. Damon had risked everything to save him, but it should have been Stefan. He had already made peace with the fact that Bonnie had lost her way to bring them all back. He would find peace with his best friend Lexi. But now he had lost the two people he had known longest in this world; they were both gone.

"Stefan...Stefan..." Caroline called out to him.

But he did not respond. He did not want to say a thing, instead he backed off from the group blending himself into darkness. He needed to be left alone. With his hands stuffed into his pockets he moved away from everything. Stefan made his way through the Mystic Falls cemetery ducking below the low hanging branches, his feet sinking into the damp dirt slowly increasing his speed. 

He could hear Caroline call out to him but he ignored her; he didn't want to talk, he didn't want to hug everyone. He could still hear his brother's voice fresh in his mind, the pain expression of that moment that he and Elena returned to the Whitmore dorms to find his veined corpse on the couch. It was a memory that he would never forget.

"I didn't know where to bring him, and I just couldn't leave him outside.
 Bonnie has a plan, right? She she said that she could bring people back.
Tell me that she can bring him back!"

"We'll bring him back"

Damon had risked everything to make sure that he came back. He was happy and he was willing to give it all up because of Stefan. It should have been him that died, not Damon. His brother would have still been here and had everything that he ever wanted and Stefan would have in a way got what he wanted. He would have been at peace.

Coming to a sudden stop, Stefan let out a breaking sigh. Somehow he found himself standing in front of his father's grave. The Salvatore plot. He and Damon should have died that night they tried to help Katherine escape from the Founder's Council; but they didn't. They were both given a second chance to change things and only now it dawned on Stefan. He needed his brother, he always needed his brother. But now it was too late; he was gone. 

And in that split second, Stefan broke;