[Consciousness is slow and aching. The other side of his eyelids burn with white light, which contradicts his most recent memories of sparks and smoke.
The battle. The nanobots, and the explosion from the inside. When Tony remembers what happened, the pain he feels like an oil spill throughout his body is somewhat relieving: he might've blacked out but he's sure that he hit the ground, and he could've been paralyzed. He's seen it happen, before. There's no part of his body that he doesn't feel, right now, especially his sternum, where the arc reactor had been blown to pieces.
Tony brings a hand to his face to scrub it over his eyes, opening them slowly and meeting the sight of the medical bay. There's a brown blur by his bedside that turns into Elena. A part of him still lights up with excitement, but since she turned off her humanity, he doesn't know what she's doing there.
Before he even sees what she looks like exactly, and before she has a chance to say anything, he reacts.]
( the first thing elena felt, after four months of being cut off from her emotions, was fear.
like the ajna endgame, red and green teams were sent to murder the hell out of the remaining apex species, along with whoever volunteered from the other teams. elena got the distinct impression tony wouldn't have volunteered if not for her — as a yellow, he wasn't required to participate, even if it was highly encouraged. she was going, though, and tony wanted to keep an eye on her, so there he was, flying around like a moron while elena ran around the ground. the one thing substrata had going for it compared to all the planets they'd been to so far was an apex species she could actually eat, and elena tore into human necks with probably a lot more ferocity than was generally required. it kept her distracted, though, so that she didn't look up to check on tony until she heard the distant boom.
it wasn't a particularly loud boom, really. probably not something that should have distracted her, considering all the gunfire already going on around her. but something about it caught her attention, and she whipped her head up to the sky just in time to see tony start to fall.
at first, she wasn't concerned. she wasn't anything. she knew he would right himself and everything would be fine, so she didn't need to worry. but he kept falling, dropping faster and faster —
she could see it happening, tony hitting the ground, dead or paralyzed from the impact — useless to the cdc either way, none of the instructors would care to mourn him. no one would care to expend the resources necessary to bring him back. steve would rage at the loss of a friend and die trying to make it right, barnes would need not to feel again, the crew would be a lifeless, dark thing without tony stark in it —
elena's heart skipped a beat.
without thinking, she ran forward, as fast as her legs would carry her, blurring through the battlefield with no care given to what fights she was interrupting as she went. she could hear honey's voice in her ear as clearly as if she was actually speaking: why bother? if he sucks enough to die then he deserves it.
tony stark does not deserve to die. not here, not like this.
back in mystic falls, elena could clear the gym at her high school easily, that gives her at least a fifty foot jump. higher, if she really worked for it. tony was falling fast, quickly closing in on the ground, and she only had seconds to make her move. she leapt, grabbing tony and pulling him close to her chest, and had just enough time to angle them so she hit the ground first before his momentum slammed them back onto solid earth.
everything after that was a blur. she could remember the excruciating pain of impact, tearing the mask off the suit to make sure tony was still breathing, screaming for someone to get a nanite gun, and then... after that it was just flashes. the two of them being transported to the medical rover, elena insisting tony be looked at first, head pounding and heart racing and everything is too loud, all the voices of all the people she's wronged over the past four months, all the humans she killed in the course of their work here —
she didn't leave the med bay. she's still there when tony wakes up, sitting at his side, and she's trying to come up with something to say when he speaks first. his comment gets a laugh, at first genuine, if a bit strained, which morphs quickly into a sob, and before elena can stop herself she's crying. she curls up tight, hands over her eyes, trying to breathe, get herself under control, but everything she hasn't let herself feel for four months has finally caught up to her. it was held at bay at first with concern for tony's well-being, but he's the exact same asshole he's always been, and now there's nothing to distract her from it. )
[He's the same asshole that he's always been because that's his go-to reaction whenever something happens. That was his own way of dealing with feelings and vulnerabilities that he would rather not have a spotlight on. And people were less likely to pursue a subject when you're being obnoxious about it.
But that's not the only reason. Elena has been running around without her humanity, which has made the last four months feel like he was dealing with an evil twin from an alternate universe that was trying to take her place, and had the real Elena stuffed somewhere. Tony wasn't even a moral goodie-two-shoes like Steve was, but the real Elena wouldn't have such an effortless time killing people or digging into their weaknesses, which made it hard to watch and deal with. She wasn't gone like Bruce, but he still felt like he'd lost her. And it's more painful than he let anyone--even Jack or Steve--know.
Maybe it helped him to understand Steve and Bucky better because he couldn't abandon her. He still tried to get through to her (because a switch could be turned on if it could be turned off). He put himself between her and Jack when she targeted him and his dead boyfriend. And he went to battle with the rest of them.
And just like Steve, his feelings ended up almost getting him killed. But he believes the Elena sitting by his hospital bed is still the same soulless Elena that has been occupying her body. Even if he couldn't quite figure out what she'd be doing there or what she'd have to gain.
Point is, he isn't expecting tears.
He watches Elena's resolve crumble, curling up into a tiny ball of convulsive sobbing. The pain is there, obviously, most of all in the muscles binding his sternum, where the arc reactor had exploded. But he pushes that and whatever feelings he's had about the last four months into the back of his head because Elena needs him to be present.
He finds some way to stack his spine and once he's pulled himself upright on the bed, reaches out for her.]
( he sits up and reaches for her and elena hates herself, loathes herself, because tony isn't entirely healed and she's been the worst version of herself for the past four months and he's still putting himself through unnecessary pain to try to help her. the motion is, at the very least, good for getting her to snap out of her sobbing, as she shakes her head and leans forward, reaching for his shoulders without actually making contact. )
No, lay back down, I'm fine, you still need to heal. ( she can't bring herself to look at him or touch him, but her hands hover just over his shoulders and her eyes focus on the bandages around his chest. adrien said he would recover. he doesn't need her blood, unless he want a scar-free chest. it's tony's choice. )
I... I have my blood, if you — Adrien said it would only be necessary if you don't want a scar, you'll heal just fine without it. But I thought, you know, there was an explosion, and nanites can only do so much, so if there's ever been a time to use your stupid magic blood, Elena, this is it...
( she's rambling. she knows she is, and she shuts herself up, visibly deflating as she drops her hands onto the bed and leaves them there, upturned and useless.
she feels so much, all at once. )
I forgot, ( she says softly, staring down at her hands. ) There's so much, I forgot how badly it hurts.
[Tony jerks back without being pushed like his shoulders were attached to invisible strings. It's a normal response, trying to stop an injured person from over-exerting themselves, but he still watches Elena in confusion. Maybe he's still reeling from the fact that she seemed to be back to her normal self, or just the break from her sobbing to practically lunging at him. And he hasn't been conscious, that long. It's hard enough to process her words when they seemed to be going a thousand miles per minute.
Even if she avoids his gaze, he seeks it out, studying the pain that was written into her face. He hears her mention something about a scar, which he registers as less of an issue when his chest was already marked up from the surgery he had to get the arc reactor removed. The faint circle of scar tissue, like he'd been attacked in a dark alley with a giant cookie cutter. Maybe he'd see how bad this recent damage was before making a decision on drinking magic blood.
Elena deflates, and for a second, he thinks she's talking about the accident, but that doesn't make sense. From there, he realizes that she's remembering the terrible pain of feeling.]
Why did you turn it off? [Even if he thinks he already knows, and has spent the last four months coming up with alternate theories, he still wants to know the truth.]
( why. that's a hard question to answer, because it's not like it was one thing. it was so many things, all taken together — steve's cold detachment, after she came clean about compelling barnes, and his death before she could make it right, vriska's transfer, that they were on earth, with humans still inhabiting it, everything that had happened to her in the past three years anyway. tony's rejection was just the last in a series of soul-destroying events that elena eventually just couldn't take.
but tony deserves to know the truth, even if giving it feels like revealing something a little too real. she takes a deep breath, turning over her hands and tangling her fingers in the sheets. )
It was a lot of things. I don't know if you've read my file, but I... I lost a lot before I came here. And then I just kept losing more, and I had to kill, and then you... ( here she pauses, grimacing. ) I don't blame you, that's not what I mean, I just...
( it takes a couple seconds before she can finish, but when she does, she just sounds angry with herself. )
You were afraid of me. So I decided that being the worst version of myself was better than feeling anything at all, because I'm a selfish bitch. I'm no better than Katherine.
( which might not make sense to tony, as he's never met her, but it's just about the worst thing elena can say about herself. )
[Tony read Elena's file: the story of a young woman that lost countless loved ones, as well as her mortal life. Part of what made it so hard to watch Elena lose her humanity was the hidden admiration that he had for her spirit, still feeling so much compassion and caring for others, despite her pain and loss. It was one of the things that made her circle in his mind, even when he wasn't trying to think about her.
He doesn't know who Katherine is and doesn't ask because it seems like an irrelevant piece of trivia bracketed by everything else--or rather it doesn't stand out as much as the parts that directly have to do with him.
Tony scrunches his forehead as he tries to remember being scared of her. He really searches his brain, even wonders if he suffered a brain injury when the nanobots destroyed his suit because it factored into her cause to turn off her humanity. It must have been significant. And he still has no fucking clue.]
...I was pissed. But that was long after you locked Jiminy Cricket in the storage closet.
[He presses his lips together, giving it one more chance to pop up, and then he gives up. Admits ignorance.]
( it's... not what elena was expecting. for tony to reassure her, maybe, that now that she's herself again he's not afraid. or to confirm that yes, he was afraid, but he can get past it. or, realistically, to say he was afraid, but now he's just disgusted. the things she's said, the things she's done... tony was there for all of it, and even started working on ways to protect her when jack started threatening her — something that was her fault in the first place. he saw all of it, and he must hate her now, even if he'd been willing to give her the benefit of the doubt before.
but he's not saying that. he sounds... genuinely confused, like he can't think of what she could even be talking about. elena had seen his face, though, can still remember it like it was yesterday — she'd gotten carried away by the bloodlust, all her awareness narrowed down to the human struggling and screaming in her grasp. the man had stabbed her, clawed at her arms, screamed until he couldn't breathe, and she never let go. she just drank and drank and drank until he stopped fighting, and when she'd finally come back to herself and dropped the corpse, tony was staring at her with a look on his face... elena couldn't read it, hadn't wanted to. so she ran, as fast as she could, and tore out the knife still embedded in her side and cried so hard she felt like vomiting, and after that... after that she'd known what she had to do.
she bites her lip, spreading her fingers over the sheets to smooth them out, still studiously avoiding tony's eyes. )
The fight, before I turned it off. There was a man, he tried to kill you, he got close enough that I got scared, and... ( she has to take a breath now, letting it out in one long sigh. ) I couldn't control myself. I bit him, I'd meant to just drop him, but then he stabbed me, and all I could think of was how close he'd come to hurting you, and I'd never really... fed on anyone like that. When they were struggling and scared and there was adrenaline, and I'd always been so tightly controlled about feeding and I was so scared, and giving in to the bloodlust felt... good. I gave in for a second, and when I looked up you had this look on your face... I'd never seen it before. Not from you.
( unconsciously, elena curls in on herself again, making herself small, and wraps her arms around her stomach. )
You were afraid of me. I'd done the thing I always said I wouldn't, and I scared you in the process, and after everything else... I just didn't know how else to deal. So I took the easy way out and I made everything a million times worse.
[Tony lifts his eyebrows a little to hear that the man was planning to kill him. He had his back turned at the time, engulfed in fighting the humans that grew up on this alternate earth and were much harder to remove himself from than the aliens on Ajna and Macha. But he had to, to survive, and to protect the people he cared about. He remembers knocking two soldiers unconscious with his repulsor beams; it was the sound of shouting that got him to turn around.
He has seen Elena bite into his wrist when she needed blood, and he has seen his fair share of vampire media. Dracula, Nosferatu, Edward Cullen--nothing really prepared Tony to see the real thing. It feels less like those television shows and movies, and more like something from the animal planet: he'd seen that same thrashing, wide-eyed panic from an antelope being killed by a lioness. The CDC hasn't desensitized him enough to not be shocked by that image.
But it's knowing Elena that set his nerves on edge. Elena that would rather starve than hurt anyone. Elena that confided with him about the guilt she felt about what they were forced to do in the CDC. If there was any fear in his expression, it was the fear of what acting on instinct (even a completely justified act) could do to her conscience when the fighting was over.
It wasn't fear of Elena. It was concern.
A part of him feels sheepish to correct her on the misunderstanding when it had caused her to turn off her humanity for four months. For that matter, he feels irrational guilt for being unconsciously responsible for Elena turning her humanity off. If he had known, or somehow picked up on it, if it was possible for him to tell her how he really felt. Though there's no guarantee that would've solved anything.
When she shrinks back into a ball, he doesn't reach for her again, only because he's digesting everything she's told him.
Tony also becomes deeply fascinated with the blanket over his legs.]
I don't know what you did. [As far as making everything worse goes.] It's not like either one of us can go back or change the past, but what happened...it's not what you think.
( elena should have expected something like this. she's been relatively lucky, the past few drops — she knows others have been dropped into water, but she never has been. her first drop was into an avalanche, her second into a forest filled with poisonous butterflies — she's never had to deal with a water drop before, no matter what else ajna and macha threw at her.
honestly, she'd take the time she was impaled over this.
the second she hits water, a deep, uncontrollable fear wells up in elena. she can swim, so she's not going to drown — but she has twice before. she drowned and lived and drowned again and died, and in the time after that deep water has not so much been elena's friend. she held it together in station 19 because she had to, because she could see land and ringo needed help. now there's no land in sight and no one to hold it together for, and elena's about this close to panicking. not even the knowledge that she won't really die if she drowns is helping to stave it off — that didn't help stefan.
all she can do now is tread water and try to pull herself together. there are other people in this drop who will need her help, she can't just sit here and freak out. it accomplishes nothing. taking a deep breath, elena slowly spins in place, looking for any unfamiliar faces, or anyone who looks like they're having trouble swimming. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(dat humanity thread)
The battle. The nanobots, and the explosion from the inside. When Tony remembers what happened, the pain he feels like an oil spill throughout his body is somewhat relieving: he might've blacked out but he's sure that he hit the ground, and he could've been paralyzed. He's seen it happen, before. There's no part of his body that he doesn't feel, right now, especially his sternum, where the arc reactor had been blown to pieces.
Tony brings a hand to his face to scrub it over his eyes, opening them slowly and meeting the sight of the medical bay. There's a brown blur by his bedside that turns into Elena. A part of him still lights up with excitement, but since she turned off her humanity, he doesn't know what she's doing there.
Before he even sees what she looks like exactly, and before she has a chance to say anything, he reacts.]
Please tell me you're not here to watch me die.
no subject
like the ajna endgame, red and green teams were sent to murder the hell out of the remaining apex species, along with whoever volunteered from the other teams. elena got the distinct impression tony wouldn't have volunteered if not for her — as a yellow, he wasn't required to participate, even if it was highly encouraged. she was going, though, and tony wanted to keep an eye on her, so there he was, flying around like a moron while elena ran around the ground. the one thing substrata had going for it compared to all the planets they'd been to so far was an apex species she could actually eat, and elena tore into human necks with probably a lot more ferocity than was generally required. it kept her distracted, though, so that she didn't look up to check on tony until she heard the distant boom.
it wasn't a particularly loud boom, really. probably not something that should have distracted her, considering all the gunfire already going on around her. but something about it caught her attention, and she whipped her head up to the sky just in time to see tony start to fall.
at first, she wasn't concerned. she wasn't anything. she knew he would right himself and everything would be fine, so she didn't need to worry. but he kept falling, dropping faster and faster —
she could see it happening, tony hitting the ground, dead or paralyzed from the impact — useless to the cdc either way, none of the instructors would care to mourn him. no one would care to expend the resources necessary to bring him back. steve would rage at the loss of a friend and die trying to make it right, barnes would need not to feel again, the crew would be a lifeless, dark thing without tony stark in it —
elena's heart skipped a beat.
without thinking, she ran forward, as fast as her legs would carry her, blurring through the battlefield with no care given to what fights she was interrupting as she went. she could hear honey's voice in her ear as clearly as if she was actually speaking: why bother? if he sucks enough to die then he deserves it.
tony stark does not deserve to die. not here, not like this.
back in mystic falls, elena could clear the gym at her high school easily, that gives her at least a fifty foot jump. higher, if she really worked for it. tony was falling fast, quickly closing in on the ground, and she only had seconds to make her move. she leapt, grabbing tony and pulling him close to her chest, and had just enough time to angle them so she hit the ground first before his momentum slammed them back onto solid earth.
everything after that was a blur. she could remember the excruciating pain of impact, tearing the mask off the suit to make sure tony was still breathing, screaming for someone to get a nanite gun, and then... after that it was just flashes. the two of them being transported to the medical rover, elena insisting tony be looked at first, head pounding and heart racing and everything is too loud, all the voices of all the people she's wronged over the past four months, all the humans she killed in the course of their work here —
she didn't leave the med bay. she's still there when tony wakes up, sitting at his side, and she's trying to come up with something to say when he speaks first. his comment gets a laugh, at first genuine, if a bit strained, which morphs quickly into a sob, and before elena can stop herself she's crying. she curls up tight, hands over her eyes, trying to breathe, get herself under control, but everything she hasn't let herself feel for four months has finally caught up to her. it was held at bay at first with concern for tony's well-being, but he's the exact same asshole he's always been, and now there's nothing to distract her from it. )
no subject
But that's not the only reason. Elena has been running around without her humanity, which has made the last four months feel like he was dealing with an evil twin from an alternate universe that was trying to take her place, and had the real Elena stuffed somewhere. Tony wasn't even a moral goodie-two-shoes like Steve was, but the real Elena wouldn't have such an effortless time killing people or digging into their weaknesses, which made it hard to watch and deal with. She wasn't gone like Bruce, but he still felt like he'd lost her. And it's more painful than he let anyone--even Jack or Steve--know.
Maybe it helped him to understand Steve and Bucky better because he couldn't abandon her. He still tried to get through to her (because a switch could be turned on if it could be turned off). He put himself between her and Jack when she targeted him and his dead boyfriend. And he went to battle with the rest of them.
And just like Steve, his feelings ended up almost getting him killed. But he believes the Elena sitting by his hospital bed is still the same soulless Elena that has been occupying her body. Even if he couldn't quite figure out what she'd be doing there or what she'd have to gain.
Point is, he isn't expecting tears.
He watches Elena's resolve crumble, curling up into a tiny ball of convulsive sobbing. The pain is there, obviously, most of all in the muscles binding his sternum, where the arc reactor had exploded. But he pushes that and whatever feelings he's had about the last four months into the back of his head because Elena needs him to be present.
He finds some way to stack his spine and once he's pulled himself upright on the bed, reaches out for her.]
Elena.
no subject
No, lay back down, I'm fine, you still need to heal. ( she can't bring herself to look at him or touch him, but her hands hover just over his shoulders and her eyes focus on the bandages around his chest. adrien said he would recover. he doesn't need her blood, unless he want a scar-free chest. it's tony's choice. )
I... I have my blood, if you — Adrien said it would only be necessary if you don't want a scar, you'll heal just fine without it. But I thought, you know, there was an explosion, and nanites can only do so much, so if there's ever been a time to use your stupid magic blood, Elena, this is it...
( she's rambling. she knows she is, and she shuts herself up, visibly deflating as she drops her hands onto the bed and leaves them there, upturned and useless.
she feels so much, all at once. )
I forgot, ( she says softly, staring down at her hands. ) There's so much, I forgot how badly it hurts.
no subject
Even if she avoids his gaze, he seeks it out, studying the pain that was written into her face. He hears her mention something about a scar, which he registers as less of an issue when his chest was already marked up from the surgery he had to get the arc reactor removed. The faint circle of scar tissue, like he'd been attacked in a dark alley with a giant cookie cutter. Maybe he'd see how bad this recent damage was before making a decision on drinking magic blood.
Elena deflates, and for a second, he thinks she's talking about the accident, but that doesn't make sense. From there, he realizes that she's remembering the terrible pain of feeling.]
Why did you turn it off? [Even if he thinks he already knows, and has spent the last four months coming up with alternate theories, he still wants to know the truth.]
no subject
but tony deserves to know the truth, even if giving it feels like revealing something a little too real. she takes a deep breath, turning over her hands and tangling her fingers in the sheets. )
It was a lot of things. I don't know if you've read my file, but I... I lost a lot before I came here. And then I just kept losing more, and I had to kill, and then you... ( here she pauses, grimacing. ) I don't blame you, that's not what I mean, I just...
( it takes a couple seconds before she can finish, but when she does, she just sounds angry with herself. )
You were afraid of me. So I decided that being the worst version of myself was better than feeling anything at all, because I'm a selfish bitch. I'm no better than Katherine.
( which might not make sense to tony, as he's never met her, but it's just about the worst thing elena can say about herself. )
no subject
He doesn't know who Katherine is and doesn't ask because it seems like an irrelevant piece of trivia bracketed by everything else--or rather it doesn't stand out as much as the parts that directly have to do with him.
Tony scrunches his forehead as he tries to remember being scared of her. He really searches his brain, even wonders if he suffered a brain injury when the nanobots destroyed his suit because it factored into her cause to turn off her humanity. It must have been significant. And he still has no fucking clue.]
...I was pissed. But that was long after you locked Jiminy Cricket in the storage closet.
[He presses his lips together, giving it one more chance to pop up, and then he gives up. Admits ignorance.]
When was I ever afraid of you?
no subject
but he's not saying that. he sounds... genuinely confused, like he can't think of what she could even be talking about. elena had seen his face, though, can still remember it like it was yesterday — she'd gotten carried away by the bloodlust, all her awareness narrowed down to the human struggling and screaming in her grasp. the man had stabbed her, clawed at her arms, screamed until he couldn't breathe, and she never let go. she just drank and drank and drank until he stopped fighting, and when she'd finally come back to herself and dropped the corpse, tony was staring at her with a look on his face... elena couldn't read it, hadn't wanted to. so she ran, as fast as she could, and tore out the knife still embedded in her side and cried so hard she felt like vomiting, and after that... after that she'd known what she had to do.
she bites her lip, spreading her fingers over the sheets to smooth them out, still studiously avoiding tony's eyes. )
The fight, before I turned it off. There was a man, he tried to kill you, he got close enough that I got scared, and... ( she has to take a breath now, letting it out in one long sigh. ) I couldn't control myself. I bit him, I'd meant to just drop him, but then he stabbed me, and all I could think of was how close he'd come to hurting you, and I'd never really... fed on anyone like that. When they were struggling and scared and there was adrenaline, and I'd always been so tightly controlled about feeding and I was so scared, and giving in to the bloodlust felt... good. I gave in for a second, and when I looked up you had this look on your face... I'd never seen it before. Not from you.
( unconsciously, elena curls in on herself again, making herself small, and wraps her arms around her stomach. )
You were afraid of me. I'd done the thing I always said I wouldn't, and I scared you in the process, and after everything else... I just didn't know how else to deal. So I took the easy way out and I made everything a million times worse.
no subject
He has seen Elena bite into his wrist when she needed blood, and he has seen his fair share of vampire media. Dracula, Nosferatu, Edward Cullen--nothing really prepared Tony to see the real thing. It feels less like those television shows and movies, and more like something from the animal planet: he'd seen that same thrashing, wide-eyed panic from an antelope being killed by a lioness. The CDC hasn't desensitized him enough to not be shocked by that image.
But it's knowing Elena that set his nerves on edge. Elena that would rather starve than hurt anyone. Elena that confided with him about the guilt she felt about what they were forced to do in the CDC. If there was any fear in his expression, it was the fear of what acting on instinct (even a completely justified act) could do to her conscience when the fighting was over.
It wasn't fear of Elena. It was concern.
A part of him feels sheepish to correct her on the misunderstanding when it had caused her to turn off her humanity for four months. For that matter, he feels irrational guilt for being unconsciously responsible for Elena turning her humanity off. If he had known, or somehow picked up on it, if it was possible for him to tell her how he really felt. Though there's no guarantee that would've solved anything.
When she shrinks back into a ball, he doesn't reach for her again, only because he's digesting everything she's told him.
Tony also becomes deeply fascinated with the blanket over his legs.]
I don't know what you did. [As far as making everything worse goes.] It's not like either one of us can go back or change the past, but what happened...it's not what you think.
substrata
honestly, she'd take the time she was impaled over this.
the second she hits water, a deep, uncontrollable fear wells up in elena. she can swim, so she's not going to drown — but she has twice before. she drowned and lived and drowned again and died, and in the time after that deep water has not so much been elena's friend. she held it together in station 19 because she had to, because she could see land and ringo needed help. now there's no land in sight and no one to hold it together for, and elena's about this close to panicking. not even the knowledge that she won't really die if she drowns is helping to stave it off — that didn't help stefan.
all she can do now is tread water and try to pull herself together. there are other people in this drop who will need her help, she can't just sit here and freak out. it accomplishes nothing. taking a deep breath, elena slowly spins in place, looking for any unfamiliar faces, or anyone who looks like they're having trouble swimming. )