Three months.

Ninety days.

A handful of uncountable seconds and minutes since her world had been forever altered yet again. A handful of seconds and minutes she had heard those fateful words come out of her friend's mouth: "it's too late." It was too late to save Damon, her boyfriend, and the one she made the conscious choice to build a life and future with.

It was too late.

Those words continued to haunt her through the long summer she suffered with the ever present reminder of his absence, and the fact that they were banned from returning to Mystic Falls due to the fact the anti-magic perimeter was still up and running long after the Travelers had been destroyed.

Crying had aided her the first few weeks after his demise; it had healed her in more ways than one to roam to a quiet mountaintop and let the rest of the world in on her grief, and how unfair it was that the world she lived in, thought it was okay to treat her like they did, and inflict so much pain and loss on her life.

After that, she had progressed further to the stage of anger. That was the hardest one to battle with because that irrational part of her felt angry at him for leaving her, even though it was in no way his own fault for Luke stopping the spell at the last minute.

But Elena was angry. She was angry that he had left her, out of everyone in her life, he had been the one constant that had continually offered her the support and love she had desperately been craving from someone, and she was mad that he hadn't done more to get out of the situation he had been placed in.

It was irrational, but it was something that felt real inside of her as she curled up on the bed in the lake house she and the others had retreated to. It was the only place they were afforded privacy, and the one place where the memory of him wasn't as painful like it was with other locations.

The boarding house was where the memory of him would be most alive for her, and that was the one place she was strangely grateful she had no other choice but to stay away from. Every square inch of the mansion was filled with the memories of him.

From the bourbon decanters in the family room, to the library where he had sat and told her that he would never leave her again, after the nightmare Klaus had put her through that night, and Stefan being compelled to turn off his humanity and attack her.

Choking back on a sob when she thought about the bedroom where they had decided to share his bed together, her mind flashed back to happier times during the summer of her dreams, when they would lie together and listen to nothing but the sounds of their kissing as they explored every square inch of the others body.

The bed was where they had the most alone time with each other, and where Damon most often let down the walls he so often put up during the day when he felt like he had to. During the night, he would shift into the gentle and kind person that was a complete juxtaposition to the monster he portrayed himself to be.

The other stages of grief that she had yet to experience, were the hardest, and the ones that she couldn't bear to even go through, even though it was a natural progression for both humans and vampires alike. Even though the steps could sometimes, according to Stefan, take centuries to complete when the love that two people—or vampires—felt for each other, was too strong to turn off or let go of.

Elena couldn't ever imagine reaching the stage of acceptance. She couldn't ever imagine coming to terms with his death, she couldn't ever imagine letting go of him to the point where it would become normal to go about life without his presence in it.

Swiping a hand across her moisture—ridden face, she huffed a deep sigh as she tried to turn over on her side and go to sleep. Even in sleep, she couldn't escape from the vestiges of him. It could be something as small as smelling the distinctive leather of his jacket, or even something more tangible when she would see him physically in her subconscious, and she would always dread waking up because that meant the end of a dream, and the beginning of more hell on earth for her.

When the door opened somewhere behind her, she didn't move a muscle. It was probably either Caroline or Stefan coming to check up on her again, like they had been doing since the day they made the drive to the lake house and she closed herself in that bedroom.

Their concern, while understandable and touching, only served to remind her of the fact that everyone thought she was dangerously close to the brink with her emotions, and though she couldn't care less what others thought when they had no clue what it was like, it still kept her on edge.

When the mattress sagged underneath the weight of another body being added to it, she still didn't move. Stefan had done that before, had sat down on the bed behind her, talking to her, and even going so far as to place his hand on her shoulder to offer as much comfort as he was capable of, but she always rejected it.

"Elena."

She tensed; she would know that voice anywhere, even in her darkest and craziest dreams. The voice that kept her going through some of the worst times in her life, and always so gentle and calm when spoken in her presence.

This wasn't anything new, though. She heard Damon's voice in her dreams all the time. Either she had fallen asleep much quicker than she normally did, or she was finally turning the corner into downright insanity.

Deciding to risk it, she twisted her body around to face the man that she knew only existed in her dreams now. He was sitting there on the edge of the bed, his normally snarky face firmly smoothed into lines of concern as he reached out a hand to rest it on top of her knee, which was covered by a blanket.

Tears escaped past the folds of her eyes and traveled down her cheeks. This was what happened every single time she dreamed of him. He would come and touch her, and whisper to her, and then it would all be over again.

"You can't keep doing this," she found herself saying. "I can't keep seeing you and then waking up again. It's too hard."

During the times she was fortunate enough to glimpse him in her dreams, she always reveled in the amazing feeling of his unique touch, and the expert way in which he used his fingers to induce the right amount of calm in her, but it was only a dream and nothing more.

"Elena," Damon said, lowering his voice so subtly the way he did when he only spoke to her. "You're not dreaming."

As if to prove his point, his fingers lightly danced across her cheek, targeting the spots where he knew she enjoyed being stroked the most. As his fingers massaged the cheekbone on her cheek, she sighed softly, knowing the moment would soon come to pass before too long, and she was doing everything she could not to get too worked up for nothing.

"Yes, I am. This isn't real."

She had foolishly gotten her hopes up the first time he had come to her in a dream, only to be bitterly disappointed when her eyes always flew open in a blind panic, before the usual upset and grief started all over again.

He shook his head, a small smile playing across the edges of his mouth as though he found her doubt amusing somehow, even though none of this was funny to her. He was a figment of her imagination that had been conjured up because of her inability to sleep, and now her mind was running away with her.

"Fine. Then tell me if this isn't real," he whispered, his tone lowering into the sotto voce he reserved exclusively for when he was in her company, as his head turned to the side in preparation of a kiss.

This was the part Elena dreaded the most. This was the part where the dream ended and reality firmly overtook anything else. The instant his lips were due to meet hers, the blissful happenings of her mind were washed away to be replaced with the horrific truth of what she was facing.

"Don't-" she whimpered, wanting to claim just a few more minutes with him before the fantasy was taken back from her.

He ignored her as he cupped the side of her face with his strong but sure grasp. It was something she was so used to that she reacted instinctively as her eyes fluttered shut, even though she knew the illusion would soon be up.

When his lips pressed against hers, her eyes flew open. She felt the fire surge through her just like three months previously when they had shared their last goodbye kiss with each other. Instead of waking up alone in her bed, he was still sitting there, his hand still cradling her face.

"Usually I like it when you close those pretty eyes of yours," he teased, "but I'll let it slide this once."

The kiss ended as he topped it off with a final one on the tip of her nose. For her, so many emotions were surging through her spirit: disbelief, hope, and an unbridled love for this man that hadn't ever lessened with the passage of time.

"Damon?" she said incredulously, her soft eyes filling with tears of pure relief and love, even though her mind was still struggling to catch up with the emotions her body was eliciting.

"That's my name," he said softly, his face spreading out into the kind of smile she had sorely missed the last ninety days.

"But how-" her mind was struggling to catch up to what this all meant, and how he (and presumably) Bonnie had been able to catch a ticket back to their lives.

"Shh," he said softly, as his fingers moved delicately to catch the tears that fell down her cheeks. This time, she wasn't crying out of sadness or desperation, but out of a love for this man that wouldn't quit. "It's okay, it's okay."

"Of course it is," Elena sniffled, as she allowed Damon to gently shift her so they were laying down together on her bed, with her head positioned right on his chest, as his hand moved to rest across her back. "But how?"

"I don't know. For the first few weeks and months, it was complete chaos. It's like the Other Side was, but more violent, I suppose," he mused, as his fingers worked to untangle the rats nest that resided in her hair from weeks of not bothering to maintain it.

"And then what?" she asked quietly.

"Then it's like one of those stupid shows where they drop down monsters and demons. It's a battle of the wills, a battle of who will make it to round three. I made it, we both did."

"Bonnie?"

Damon nodded. "Her Grams had a plan so we wouldn't fade completely. We were still within the realm of being reached, it was just harder than it would have been if it had just been the Other Side we were working with."

Elena nodded. "It doesn't matter, not really, but I'm just so glad you're here."

"I am, too. The only thing that kept me from giving up completely, was the thought of returning to you, Elena."

Elena closed her eyes, allowing the tears to safely run their course without giving him a giant tip-off that she was still crying, only now because of the thought that she had been the one to keep him going through all of it, through all of the ups and downs and the terror of being stuck in another dimension.

"I love you."

"I love you too. See?" he said, his mouth quirking into its trademark smirk. "I promised you I would make it back to you, and I did. It may have just taken me a little bit longer than originally planned."