I got the idea for this after reading Adverse Effect by Farie Insignias and watching the miniseries 11.22.63. For this fic, we're pretending Plec didn't screw Bonnie over and take her magic after season 7. :) This is my first TVD fic. Enjoy!

Chapter 1

"I want to help you help him," Stefan Salvatore urged as he paced the space in front of the fireplace in the Salvatore boarding house.

Bonnie Bennett looked up from her grimoire. She was thinner than usual and her curls, which had grown, were limp. She looked as if she had given up already. Stefan couldn't stand to see her like that, the fire gone from her being. The will gone. It wasn't like her. But if he had any idea what Damon and Enzo meant to her, he could understand why she was so dejected.

It had been about six months since Damon and Enzo had been possessed by the creature in the vault. They had tried to track the two vampires when they heard about the string of murders along the west coast, but it hadn't gone well.

They had tracked down Damon in an empty coffee shop in a small California town. He was surrounded by bloodied bodies, which looked almost as if Ripper Stefan had had his way with them. Damon wouldn't tell them where Enzo was.

His voice was cold and hard and not his.

"The gang came to Cali! What a nice surprise." He turned to see Bonnie and a ghost of his signature smirk appeared on his face. It was more of a leer now.

"There's nothing you can do to bring me home, witchy," he laughed icily. The sound combined with his old nickname for her sent a shudder down her spine.

"Not even Elena herself could stop me," he continued, and when he saw the look of discomfort pass across Bonnie's face, "You do realize I only ever loved her, right? When I was still capable of love? There was nothing for me with you. It's funny that you thought there ever was. 1994...Hell, even Enzo has forgotten about you..."

Stefan and Caroline had steered Bonnie out of the room as Damon's fangs extended and he disappeared in the other direction. She hated the awkward tension between them that he had caused and she hated that he wasn't himself. And she missed Enzo. But maybe it was a good thing that she didn't have to see exactly how he had "forgotten" about her already. That had been two months after their disappearances.

Now, she blinked in Stefan's direction. "Has he ever been this bad?"

"Damon is in a different kind of evil right now. His humanity isn't off he's literally being possessed. But, he did have a long bout without his humanity when he left Enzo at the Augustine Society."

"I remember Enzo telling me. Damon had the switch flipped for decades, didn't he?"

"Yeah, and I don't even know what turned it back on," Stefan said. "It was a nightmare-for everyone involved, especially him."

"Do you think he could have turned his humanity back on sooner with some sort of trigger?"

"I'm not sure. Katherine Pierce may have been able to turn him around if she had showed her face." He paused. "Or a love like Katherine's."

"What do you mean? Elena?" Bonnie was confused. Stefan kept looking at her with his signature serious look.

"I know you are-were-with Enzo, but I know you had a special connection with my brother. I noticed it ever since you got back from the prison world," he said slowly. He had never openly voiced this before.

"Look, I know what you might think you know, but there's nothing more than a strong friendship between us. He told me himself; he loved me the way Elena did." It was hard for her to use the past tense.

"Do you really believe that?"

Silence.

He decided to let it go. "However you want to put it, you inspire strong feelings in each other. Feelings that should be able to turn his humanity back on, despite the bullshit he fed us in California."

"What do you want me to do? Track him down again only to have him laugh in my face?"

Part of her wished Enzo wasn't gone too, so she could at least take comfort in being with him. And so she wouldn't feel so guilty about missing Damon more. How was that even possible after everything he put her though? She hated herself for it.

Stefan had an odd look on his face. "What if you had a chance to work with post-Augustine Damon? To try to flip his switch?"

"Yeah let me catch a ride next time I see Marty McFly," Bonnie scoffed. But Stefan was still serious.

"You've done so much with magic, Bonnie. You literally lived within 1994 for months. Don't you think you could try to manipulate time to try to talk to him? See if you could make a difference?"

He was crazy. And she didn't like him bringing up 1994. Not that anything had happened. She just didn't like it.

Her face was wary. "I'm not very keen on putting myself in that kind of situation, especially being black..." she said, thinking of America pre-Civil Rights Movement.

"Humanity or not, he was more rational than you'd think, if that's what you're worried about," Stefan said. "Being raised in the 1850s–with our father at that-gives you a different perspective for the rest of your life."

"I don't know, Stefan," she was still uneasy. "I'm not even sure I can get the spell right."

Caroline took that moment to walk into the house. "Oh, you told her!" She had obviously heard the conversation as she got out of her car outside. "I think it's a pretty good idea," she smiled at Stefan.

Of course you do, Bonnie thought.

"I'll think about it," she said aloud. They nodded.

The two women could see the pain behind Stefan's smile. He just wanted his brother back.

Bonnie did too.