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Aly rubbed her eyes, sniffling slightly as she walked in the dark corridor of their home. It's been weeks since she last awoke in the middle of the night, although now it wasn't due to another creepy doppelgänger-induced nightmare. That night, Alyssandra woke up to the sound of crying.
The wall separating the two rooms was thin and failed to completely muffle Elena's small weeps. Aly shuffled her way down to the kitchen, swallowing down her ill-grievances towards her sister. Instead, she quietly readied two cups of hot choco and mentally prepared herself for the coming talk. Aly heard her sibling's fight that night, and she drowned it out through Justin Bieber and Fall Out Boy. However, each half-sob knocked on her heart and she couldn't keep ignoring it without feeling wrecked herself.
She steadily opened Elena's room, her sister immediately tried to stifle her cries. "Hey."
"Why are you still awake?" Elena's voice wavered slightly, "I don't want another fight, Alyssandra. So if that's why you're here then you should leave."
"I'm not here to fight you, Elena." Aly closed the door shut behind her, sighing. "How'd it go?"
"Bad." Elena hiccuped, "He hates me. He's going to hate me forever."
"Forever's a really long time." Aly shook her head. She walked up to her sister's bed, sitting down next to her. Aly handed her the hot-choco mug, and she inwardly sighed in relief when Elena took it. Then quietly, she added, "You know it's justified."
Elena's eyes well up with tears once more, she hung her head low and stared hard at the mug. "I'm sorry."
"I know." Aly comfortingly held her hand, "But what you had Damon do to him, it's not something that can easily be forgiven. It was fucked up."
"I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought I was protecting them." Elena tried to explain, "Do you think he'll ever forgive me?"
"I think," she started slowly, "that there's nothing you could really do to make him forgive you." Aly shot Elena a pointed look and she immediately looks down in shame. "Jeremy needs his space, Elena. He deserves space after- after what happened. I think we're lucky that even after everything that's happened to him he hasn't run away. He's still Jeremy, you know?" Aly sighed, trying not to let her thoughts take a dark turn. "Honestly? Even then we don't know if the reason why he's doing alright is because of the compulsion. Is it really Jeremy? Does he wonder if it's him or if it's who you want him to be?" She shook her head, looking away from her sister.
"Don't say that." Elena's lower lip quivered, and she sniffled through another wave of tears. "I didn't mean it like that."
