it takes everything he has not to scream at the nurse. he’s slept for a freakin’ decade. he was dead. he doesn’t need anymore rest. maybe if his brother wasn’t visibly weakened he might have said as much. by some miracle, he keeps his lips pressed tightly together until the nurse is gone.
“ i shouldn’t be surprised. “ it’s the first thing that pops into his head. it’s not exactly how he pictured this moment but then again, he’d NEVER pictured this moment. with cade’s hell destroyed, as well as the other side, he’s never considered a future where he’d see his brother again. “ the dead have been popping back up like whack-a-moles lately. “ he starts listing them off on his fingers. “ jenna sommers, john gilbert, vicki donovan…” he pauses. “ enzo. “ another pause, a smile. “ elena. “ because stefan didn’t know. he wasn’t here; he didn’t see her car go off wickery bridge again, feel that loss of losing her once again with N O T H I N G they could do to get her back. “ this hobo chic look you’ve got going on though … now that’s new. “ his lips twitched, a smirk teasing features. “ looks like the universe decided to give you a RE-DO on the happy, human, life. “
“Wow.” Stefan couldn’t quite believe that more people had been popping up, besides him. “Elena.” That got a small smile out of him, he was happy for his br- wait a second, Elena had come back to life? He turned his head to look at Damon. “What do you mean by that? She did come out of her coma, right? When I sacrificed myself.” It was way too early for details but Stefan was determined to get more information out of him despite having just literally crawled out from the ground. “I’ll have to start shaving again won’t I?” Lots of things he would need to start doing again. “One downside to that, my wife is still a vampire. That means she’ll outlive me while I get old and die properly this time.”