A heartbeat.

What defined the difference between a soul and a body was a heartbeat. Despite being a ghostly soul moments ago, she now had one.

        The bright light that surrounded them had disappeared and they were standing in a cemetery. Her hand was still latched to her blue-eyed friend.

           As she looked at their joined hands, she realized her skin wasn't a ghostly white anymore but rather full of color. Her clothes even regained their normal shade. She wasn't like some character in a black-and-white movie anymore.

               Her other hand clutched at her chest to feel the thump of a heart underneath and she knew it was all real now and not some dream.

                "I'm alive. We're alive," Jenny smiled with tears in her eyes as she looked at Damon and Bonnie.

                The emotions she felt consumed her so much that she didn't notice she couldn't feel the touch of the hand she held.

               ____

            The first thing Jenny did was reunite with Elena and Jeremy. The look of shock on their faces was priceless; she would've laughed if she wasn't so emotional.

               "Oh my god," Elena said with wide eyes. Jeremy had the same look. "Aunt Jenny."

            Jenny was encased in a group hug and she thought she would've cried but she didn't. Instead, she noticed the longer she spent alive, the more numb she became. It was like all her feelings got stuffed in a bottle.

              She became even more alarmed by the fact that when she was hugged, she was aware of a dull sensation around her, but she just couldn't feel the hug. Touch alluded her senses.

             So to say she was frightened was an understatement. By the time she got home where dust coated everything, she was wary. She was also tired, deeply; she guessed not sleeping in two years could do that to someone.

             But there was one thing she was even more terrified of: the dark.

              When she lied down to bed, she kept the lamp on her nightstand turned on. But even then, every time she closed her eyes she thought she was back in the darkness, alone and wandering and lost.

               It was a very long night because this time, she was haunted by herself.

               _____

               Time passed.

              Bonnie fixed what the Travelers did and the supernatural could once again enter Mystic Falls. Damon was...Damon. And, herself, well, she smiled like everyone expected her to but she supposed it felt a bit broken; like somehow her happiness didn't belong to her.

               But today she was going to smile anyways. It was a very big day in Mystic Falls. Elena and Stefan were getting married.

              They had gotten engaged while they were in the prison world but now the day was officially here. The couple was also now human thanks to the cure that Damon and Jenny got back in the prison world.

               "You look so beautiful, Elena," Jenny cupped her hands around her mouth as she looked at the doppelgänger in her wedding gown. "Jenna would've said the same."

              Elena teared up a bit at that before looking in the mirror at her, "I'm so glad you're here, Jenny."

               Elena turned to her, "Thank you...for everything."

               "There's nothing I wouldn't do for my niece to get her happily ever after," Jenny smiled before shooing her towards the door out of the room. "Now, let's go. A bride shouldn't be late to her own wedding."

              ____

             Elena and Stefan looked positively in love as she watched them say 'I do.' Jenny put a smile on her face but all she could think about was Elijah. The moment she thought of him she erased the thoughts from her mind. She couldn't think of him. She wouldn't. She let him go.

At least, that was what she told herself.

_____

At the reception, she danced with Damon. She kept her eyes on Stefan and Elena throughout the whole dance and how happy her niece looked. Her feelings were so numb that she didn't recognize them as envy.

"Why are you still here?" Damon asked.

"What do you mean?" her eyes moved to him. "This is Elena's wedding. Why wouldn't I be here?"

"No. Why are you still in this town? You don't want to be here when he's not," Damon said. "You can fake a smile and say you're fine but I know you're not happy."

She stopped dancing and stepped away from Damon and his bright gaze. She shook her head, "I let that go."

"But you're alive now, Jen. That changes things."

She shook her head again, "You should go dance with Bonnie. She looks lonely."

And she walked away to go sit down. She felt like she couldn't breathe thinking about Elijah. In her mind, she pictured he probably moved on and she couldn't handle seeing him if that were true. It would break her heart all over again (like when she broke it herself).

And as she watched couples dance (even seeing Damon with Bonnie) and everyone be happy, she let a frown slip onto her face like a second skin. The truth was, she was sad, tired, and purely blue. There was nothing wonderful about a being flower in pale bloom.

_____

Later that night when she had gotten home, there was a knock on her door. It was Damon.

"Our conversation wasn't finished," Damon spoke immediately.

"Yes it was," she walked away from him so he could come in.

"Jen, you haven't been the same since we got back," he stated as he came inside.

"I'm sorry I can't be sunshine and rainbows all the time now," she shouted at him.

"No. But you're not a ghost anymore and yet you live like one," he argued before his voice softened. "Jen, what are you afraid of?"

"Everything," she answered in a cry. "I am what I am now because of him. Because I miss him. What if he doesn't want me and I still miss him?"

"That's not possible," Damon uttered as he pulled her into a hug that she didn't feel. "He'd be an idiot not to want you."

Jenny cried into his shoulder as she stood in the house she grew up in and spent her entire life in. The house that no longer felt like home. But she knew what did.

A home that she wasn't sure if she could go back to. Not because she didn't want to but because homes changed and she couldn't handle it if she wasn't his anymore.

_____

Jenny breathed deeply as she held the steering wheel. She was so scared but...excited. She let go of Elijah in her mind but not in her heart and now all the feelings were rushing to the surface as he became her only thought once again.

"This is the part where you start the car," Damon directed as he stood beside her driver window.

"Right," she nodded but didn't move.

She was currently sitting in her car in the driveway of the Salvatore Boarding House. She had sold her house as it wasn't home anymore but she was on her way to find it.

"Jen..." Damon warned.

"Okay, okay," she said as she started the car.

She looked at Damon, "You'll be okay without me?"

"No, I'll be in complete misery without you," he replied sarcastically before getting serious. "I actually have a lunch with Bonnie that you're gonna make me late for."

"You and Bonnie?" she smiled genuinely.

"Don't start," Damon said. "Now car, reverse, drive."

She sighed and put the car in reverse, "I'll call you when I get there."

"And I better hear a smile in your voice or I'm coming down there to kill someone," Damon shouted as the car reversed.

She shook her head with a small smile. Then she focused on the road and she frowned. She was scared to see the one person she wanted to see the most. She was scared of where her life was headed if he wasn't in it.

She got more and more terrified the closer she got to her destination: New Orleans.

AN: so yes Stefan and Elena got married. I'm a Stelena fan so this made me happy to do actually.

And yes, finally, Jenny is heading to Elijah. But....I want to remind you guys we still have quite a journey ahead of us. So buckle in your seatbelts and get more tissues.