The one where it's post-1994 and Damon misses Bonnie just a little too much.

Maybe it was because he got buzzed from too much bourbon, or because he had gotten so used to his 1994 mattress. Whatever the case, Damon wasn't sleeping well.

Most nights, he would wake up in a start, swearing he could feel the heat of Bonnie's body beside him. And he would reach out, fingers splayed out on the comforter seeking whatever warmth her skin had left on the cotton.

He was always met with cold sheets.

Although reluctant to admit it, Damon had been the one to insist that Bonnie and him sleep in the same bed back in 1994.

The first few times were accidents. They had formed a routine (unintentionally) that after they were tired of playing the board game of the day, they'd lay out on his bed and just talked. Sometimes Bonnie would paint her nails, or read her grimoire, or absently play with his hair as he spoke. Until eventually Bonnie couldn't keep her eyes open long enough and drifted to sleep. Her body pressed up against his, head on his shoulder, and he would try his hardest not to move as to not wake her. And end up falling asleep himself.

It wasn't until one night she awoke, gasping and murmuring about how she needed to go to her own bed, already stumbling off of the edge to make her way to the door.

"God, I'm so embarrassing. I'm drooling on you. How do you put up with me? Why didn't you vamp-speed me to my—"

"Bon..."

She turned around, her green eyes hazy with sleep, but somehow sharp as ever and replied, "What?"

It took more courage than it should've, but Damon licked his lips, met her gaze and managed, "...Stay."

He didn't regret it though, because the feel of her there was a constant reminder that he wasn't alone in that place—his own personal hell.

The more he thinks about it though, the more it felt like the opposite.

Now he was back in the real world, and without Bonnie it might as well be hell. Real hell. Maybe there aren't any fiery pits or pitchforks, but he was suffering without her and that was enough.

Elena had chalked it up to separation anxiety.

"You spent four months with her. You're bound to feel strange that she's not around."

She had wrapped her arm around his shoulders, rubbing her hand down the length of his arm in an attempt to comfort him. To Damon though, it might as well have been a ghost. He hadn't felt it. He wasn't comforted by her touch anymore.

"You're making me sound like a puppy that panic-pees every time it's owner leaves the room." He replied, dragging his hand down his face in exasperation.

Elena tilted her head back in mock-contemplation, "Well not a terrible comparison considering you're almost as cute as a puppy."

When he had gotten back he had expected that when he saw Elena he would feel different—complete. Instead the hole in his chest couldn't have felt any bigger.

After a cocktail of emotions from Elizabeth Forbes' funeral (and several literal cocktails later), Damon stumbles through the threshold of the Salvatore boarding house.

Funerals usually didn't affect him, he didn't allow them to. But this one had left him with the bitter taste of mortality in his mouth—but not of his own, that of a particular little witch who had carved a place into his undead heart.

With the smell of pancakes wafting from the kitchen, he rationalizes it as being muscle memory—from being accustomed to walking through the house door in 1994 and the aroma seemingly clinging to furniture and embedded in the walls.

He feels her before he sees her.

The thrumming of her heart progressively increasing as he approaches the kitchen. He can feel it thumping against his temples as if it's his own.

Then he sees the pancakes.

His first thought is that they look like they're about to burn, and that she better flip them before the smell of burnt batter infects the whole house again. He was the one that made the pancakes. That was the house rule. She would deny it, but he knew she preferred it that way. Damon had always made better pancakes than her anyway.

Then he sees her green eyes raise up to meet his.

The green eyes he had fought tooth and nail to get back. The green eyes that haunted his every dream and waking thought—Bonnie's green eyes.

She stands in an awful, plaid shirt that reeks of the 90s, his shirt no less. And he has an intrusive thought that he'd like to see her wearing his shirts more often.

"Bonnie."

It comes out as a whisper, like he's too scared to speak any louder or the memory of her will disintegrate before his eyes from the force of his breath.

"The one and only," she says.

And it's such a relief to hear her voice Damon feels his knees wobble beneath him. He's too afraid to step forward, to collapse at Bonnie's feet before she even has a chance to say hello.

Instead, he spreads his arms wide. A wordless invitation.

And she's around him. He's surrounded by Bonnie, by her essence and warmth.

He nuzzles his face a little further into her neck that he manages to get hair in his mouth, but he can't bring himself to care.

"Oh, you made it!" I made it, he almost says, through the torture of not having you around and being a pain in my ass.

And they stay there wrapped around each other for a while. Damon swaying them both, leaning back on his heels and forward again.

Her legs unwrap from his waist and she plops down to the floor with a laugh. Damon is reluctant having her any farther than arm's length, however, and cups her face in his hands.

"Don't ever leave me again," he gasps, crashing his lips against hers before he can think twice about it.

Nothing fancy, just a kiss. A reassurance that Bonnie was here, and she was alive.

Damon pulls back to meet her eyes, to gauge her reaction, checking to see if he crossed a line.

Her green eyes are wide with shock, and her mouth is open in an attempt to catch her breath.

"C'mon Bon," he murmurs, his thumb sliding over her cheekbone, "Don't pretend like that never happened in 1994."

Fortunately, he doesn't even get the chance to give her his smirk, because her mouth is back on his again.

A/N: If you've gotten this far, thanks so much for reading! Follow/fav, review, tell me what you liked (or disliked) it keeps me going:)
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