A Prevailing Love (2) // TVD

Chapter Twenty-Three of A Prevailing Love

She laid her head on his chest as she felt the sobs taking over her body. She wanted to hear his heart beating to know that he was still there, she wanted him to still be there, but she knew deep down that he had been gone. Memories of him when she was young had filled her mind and she wanted nothing more than to share those memories with him at that time but every time she tried it was pitch black.

"I need you!" she cried rapidly, on the verge of a panic attack, but she would not let Damon take her away from him. She sobbed uncontrollably on his chest as she gripped his hand with as much power as she could muster. She wasn't ready to let go and she didn't want to let him go, not yet. The doctors had rushed in at the sound of the flat lining monitor and one urgently pulled her back but she continued screaming in protest as she wanted nothing but to be there with her father. He wasn't gone ... he couldn't be. This is all that was going through her head.

They had began to rub the machines together to try and bring him back and as they had began to shout "clear" Damon grabbed her from the doctor's grasp to take her outside.

"I need him, Damon!"

"I know, baby," his voice cracked as he whispered in her ear as they stood outside the hospital room continuously hearing the recharge of the machine. She didn't need to see their failed attempts to bring him back, he didn't want her to watch that. 

"Cassidy?"

She heard the voice of the youngest Salvatore brother behind her and when she turned around she could see that he had come to be the hero and Damon knew that the relationship between those two would definitely be one she couldn't lose. He allowed her to go to his brother and Stefan held her close as Damon walked into the room with the failed attempts to bring back Alaric Saltzman. What he hadn't known was that Alaric had been standing behind him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Take care of my daughter, buddy."

"I'm calling time of death at 3:00 pm on 1 January 2018."

xXxXx  

She had been sitting on the edge of Damon's bed unprepared for the funeral she was supposed to attend today at the church for her father. She stared in the mirror across from her unhappy with the dark circles beneath her eyes as she had remembered the night at the hospital as if it had been yesterday. That night, Avery had stayed in New Orleans with Elijah so they could discover more on what it was with the witch that was causing the Mystic Falls gang the trouble she was causing and Cassidy couldn't help but to wonder if it had to do with her doppelganger background. She was positive it had to do with the doppelganger background within her. She knew Damon had heard the update on what Elijah and Avery had figured out but he wasn't going to tell her so that she wouldn't get upset even more.

"Cassi?"

Her fiancée pulled her from her drowning thoughts but she hadn't taking her focus away from the mirror not because she enjoyed seeing the unpleasant picture in front of her. Mostly because she hadn't wanted to look at Damon because at moments he reminded her of memories of Alaric. 

"Hey," he kneeled down between her legs with a hand resting on her thigh as he looked up into her lifeless (pun unintended) eyes that broke his heart. His finger drew comforting circles into her knee and she wanted nothing but to burry her face in his hair and cry her eyes out as much more as she could, but she couldn't muster up the tears. "The funeral -- "

" -- I can't go to the funeral, Damon. I can't deal with all the sympathy because more family is dead."

He knew she was grieving and he knew that would of her grieving mechanisms was pushing people away but he also had known she needed this closure before he was in the ground forever.