A/N: Just a little something that happened after 6x07, "Do You Remember the First Time?" I'm not sure how canon-compliant it is. Like, mostly but I played fast and loose with some details because most of it happened on my phone's OneDrive. That thing is sort of awesome. Anyway, I had it almost done but not quite before 6x08, but I think it might still qualify as a missing scene, a little character-driven one shot thing. I can't seem to completely leave the brotherly dynamic alone, I guess. If you read, thank you. If you read and review, thank you two times.

Disclaimer: I don't own TVD or "The One" by Jukebox the Ghost. I have no idea how that song inspired this story, but I was there and it really happened that way.

Broken Hearts are the Easiest Parts to Get Back

He could feel the look on Stefan's face before he ever heard it.

Wait. That only sort of made sense.

Fuck, he was drunk; and his tolerance hadn't changed, so that was saying something about the amount he'd consumed. Good thing bourbon in 1994 hadn't been any different. Was he right or was he right?

Well, he was sitting in the dirt outside the family masoleum, holding a teddy bear. And he was only sitting because his ass had some serious dropping power when it decided it was done for the night and that's where it had landed. He was no one to argue with his own ass.

That kind of made it difficult to think he'd been right about anything ever, really.

"Damon," Stefan said, his voice dripping in something Damon couldn't place and, quite frankly, he didn't want to try. Besides, the tone of his brother's voice basically said it all. That and the three empty bottles littering his semi-personal space, if empty bottles could talk. Oh, and the teddy bear. He was gonna have to explain Cuddles. Could a grown man, centuries old even, explain that and keep his balls in tact?

He wasn't too worried about his dignity after the earlier turn of events. He already knew it was long gone. Along with Ric's immortality and morality, Elena's memory, and Damon's resolve to do anything that wasn't sit here and drink and try to figure out a way to get Bonnie back to the present day, where she would be safe instead of with that psychopath. He knew Bon-Bon could deal with a psychopath because she'd been dealing with him for years. That didn't mean she should have to, and he wanted to get her back. She deserved to come back and deal with the devil she knew instead of the other one.

He hadn't actually explained anything to Stefan because there really hadn't been time. Their catching up had been largely one-sided, and it had been fine. Listening to Stefan spill his guts was welcomed because it was real. He hadn't quite yet caught up to the gratitude that it was happening. On the short list of things he had to be grateful for, seeing his baby brother ranked pretty high.

Or, you know, right now...it.

"Elena called me," Stefan explained slowly. He was using his therapist voice, which lead Damon to believe it was a prompt. Stefan was opening the bloodbag and hoping Damon would bite. Only trouble was, Damon had another kind of liquid dinner, no fangs involved. No biting. Stefan had to continue and his slow voice almost made Damon want to hit something. "She's worried about you."

Damon couldn't really help the snort that happened. Or the sound, kind of a laugh and kind of not-good humored, that followed.

The thing was, he still knew her. She could apologize and say she wanted to remember all day, a whole life, long. And he knew by looking that she meant it. She didn't know him, though-not anymore. Her worry or anything besides her guilt-they weren't based in fact. They weren't real. She had killed the knowledge that would let her truly be worried, that would have her correctly begging him not to do something dumb. His best friend had helped her. Elena and Ric had somehow managed to fuck him over so completely he was the only one who couldn't get rid of the things that hurt. They both got off with fake worry and fresh starts.

"I told her I'd leave her alone," Damon said eventually. "So you can call her back and tell her she doesn't need to worry. It sure as fuck wasn't me she was worried about when she chose things she can't take back-and it isn't me she's worried about now. She doesn't need to worry because believe you me...she's just peachy. " He shook his head and brought the bottle to his mouth, cursing when he realized it was empty. Just like his voice when he said the next part. "She'll be fine."

"And you?" Stefan asked. He looked over at his brother, all earnest eyes and Pursed Lips of Concern.

Damon was so good at a lot of things—lying being at the top of the list.

Tonight, he didn't want to. He'd already lied enough for one day; it was too hard to keep his mouth running with things people wanted to hear versus what he knew was true and what was busy eating him up inside. He was too raw, too drunk, and if he were honest with himself, too heartbroken.

He was not saying that out loud. People like Elena, like Stefan, like Ric… they would. Damon was most comfortable inside a bottle because he was a bottler.

So, if you can't baffle them with bullshit…. Misdirection. Change the subject.

"Me and Bonnie were holding hands when the white light came for us," he said. He kept looking into the bottle he held pinched with a thumb and two fingers, more for a way to keep his gaze from sliding to Stefan's face. Stefan would probably know what he was doing and Damon didn't want to see the knowing smirk or the concern or, worst of all, the pity. "So we got metaphysically tugged to the same place. We were there together, back in time, but we weren't alone."

"I…." Stefan hesitated. He didn't know where he was going. As Damon had a tendency to do, rather than coddle his brother's confusion, he kept right on going.

"I think I told you it was one particular day on repeat. We went to the grocery store, we improvised handsome pancakes…" At Stefan's skeptical glance, another one he could feel before words happened, Damon chuckled. "Okay, fine. That was just me. I made her the fang pancakes you hate so much. Anyway, we got our groove back, at least as much as we could while we were living in what looked like post-apocalyptic Mystic Falls. Yellow Ledbetter was the wrench, though."

"The Pearl Jam song?" Stefan cut in, his confusion clear.

"No. The crossword puzzle solution. Bonnie couldn't get it because she was about five seconds old when the song came out, but someone who wasn't me filled it in." He glanced over at Stefan for the first time. If he hadn't been so weighed down with alcohol and thoughts and other heavy things he generally kept to himself, he might have laughed. "It was some dickhead named Kai." He shook his head. "Me and Bonnie had been arguing over who's definition of hell our little vacay fit best—but it was Kai's. He's a psychopath who'd slaughtered his whole family and wanted to absorb Bon-Bon's witchy mystical energy, the power of a solar eclipse, and some weird, flippy compass thing—to hitch a ride back with us to the here and now."

Stefan was watching him cautiously. He was pretty sure Stefan was trying to figure out what exactly he'd flipped after his conversation with Elena, but… he couldn't tell his brother not to worry about that. Yeah, it fucking sucked but… it was whatever. He had something else to focus on now, and in doing so, he kind of hoped he'd forget to hurt at some point.

He held up Cuddles. "This is my man Cuddles." He started thinking about what was required to paint his brother into the memories, the details, the where he'd been that no one knew about except Bonnie—who was apparently still alive. It made him tired and he just wasn't sure he could do it. He started from a different angle than he'd been intending. "Cuddles, somehow, is here from 1994. I'm just assuming the dork of darkness didn't come back with a bedtime story. Bonnie kind of… shoved me into the light. It was like the reverse of a sacrifice and I think she'd do just about anything to keep Kai from getting back because she's…"

"Damon," Stefan sighed. That was kind of the same voice he'd started with.

"I honestly thought he'd kill her." Damon blinked, looked at the bear, and held it up to his nose. It smelled like her and, for some really fucked up reason, he was glad it had survived the journey. "If she's not dead… I can't just leave her there. Obviously." He shook his head. "You've got Swiss cheese for details and I'm sorry, I just… we need to find the Gemini coven. I think they can get her out of there. They'll know exactly who we're dealing with."

"I'm pretty sure I could walk through the holes in the story you're telling me," Stefan replied slowly, eventually. "I hope you covered better with Elena. She was pretty sure you'd lied to her about something."

Just like rainy days and Mondays, his brother could always be counted on to suck.

Damon sighed and breathed and reminded himself. There was no rain, there were no promises. There was forever, but nothing good lasted that long. There was just a bear and a girl who'd helped him more times than he could count, even if they cursed each other as often as they could, and he knew what he had to do. There was only one thing he could hold onto. Once he got Bonnie back, he could find something else to pay attention to.

Distraction, deflection, selective memory, and bourbon—that was all he needed and all he could count on, really.

"Yeah, well, it's just mine now," Damon said, his voice low and tense. "I'm the only one who remembers it, so it's almost like it never happened."

He could feel the look Stefan gave him, so he flashed a not-smiling smile. He was really good at those and it was met with almost as much fire as it would've been in 1994.

"Come with me," Damon said. "You can see for yourself that I am fine… ish. I'll be fine."

Stefan's eyes narrowed. "You're not fine."

"Nineteen-ninety four me is offended." He looked down at himself. His tie was loosened, his shirt half unbuttoned, and all untucked. "I'mrocking my newfound bachelordom. –Dom? -Hood? Status."

There was a long pause where Stefan was probably trying to figure out the pop-culture reference that had resulted from the use of the word 'fine.' He shook it off before he spoke.

"Yeah, getting drunk in the family crypt and muttering to a teddy bear. I'd say you're cleaning up nicely," Stefan added with a smirk. He held his hand out to Damon. "Sleep it off, explain in more detail, and then we'll probably go. It'd be a first. Hopefully a first of many."

Damon accepted the hand up and probably stumbled a little too much as he let Stefan pull him up.

"I think we better take the cross-country roadtrips to pump psycho witch covens for information about alternate death dimensions one at a time," he remarked. He had to actually finish talking before he could stumble forward.

Speaking of taking things one step at a time...

"How in the hell did you get that sentence out of your drunk mouth?" Stefan asked, his voice a little lighter as they started to walk.

Damon sighed and shook his head, acted as put-upon as he possibly could. "You always have underestimated me."

Stefan shook his head. "No… I just usually doubt you have any idea what you're doing."

"Right now I'm just moving forward, brother."

"Look out for that tree."

Damon narrowly side-stepped it, with a curse and low-power dose of vamp speed. "Next stop? Portland."

"We're not going right now," Stefan protested.

"Why? You got anything better to do?"

Stefan looked at him for way too long and way too... something. "No. Let's go."

There were a lot of words rattling around in his skunk drunk head. Things he'd seen on Stefan's face, probably sussing him out to see if he was going to do something insane, go a little crazy, play possum on the town line where he'd die. Things like worry, pity, sadness, judgment, and caution. The thing was, though, he'd meant what he said to Elena about letting her go. The romantic parts of his life hurt. They would probably hurt for a long time, but he wanted her to be happy. He wanted to be happy himself, happy in this life and this second chance he'd ended up with. He would just have to take it one day at a time, like he was trying to get sober. (Never happen.)

He was just gonna focus on this road trip with his brother for now. After that… he'd find something else. He'd keep going. He was glad to be back and there were a lot of reasons he was planning to stick around. The least of which, actually, wasn't the road trip with his little brother. He still rolled his eyes as he yanked open the passenger side door to Stefan's car.

Just for the sake of balance or something.