booklovertotheendoftime:
Hey BAMON shippers you really think DAMON of ALL PEOPLE would change his heart that quickly after that HEARFELT OF A SPEECH?! AND THAT BONNIE BENNETT WOULD FALL FOR HIM?! NO WAY IN A MILLION YEARS! SHE WOULD PUT ELENA FIRST, LIKE ALWAYS! SO NEVER EVER EVER! DELENA IS ENDGAME!
In the darkness, he stared at the old "Welcome to Mystic Falls" sign. The paint was peeling, and the letters were chipped.
Damon had a decision to make.
The board was set, each piece perfectly placed and each player awaiting the roll of the dice. The plans were all made.
Usually when Damon made decisions, the plans were not yet made. Usually things were falling apart, and his life was threatening to split at its seams. But this time, all that had already happened. His brother was dead. The travelers were threatening to end witch magic and hence his own existence. The Other Side was crumbling. Bonnie Bennett was crumbling along with it.
With all that had happened, that last realization had been the final one to hit him. But there in her dorm room as they argued with a mutual sense of desperation, he understood. She had taken the time to pack up her belongings, file away every bit of the ghost of a human life she had returned to… and she had no expectation of ever being able to open up those boxes again.
Like him, Bonnie was the sort who made decisions and plans. And the plan that she had formulated now was not going to save her. So Damon decided to make a few little adjustments of his own.
There were very few people in the world that Damon truly cared about. A short list, you could say. He still couldn't quite articulate why or when or how, but the witch was on that list. When he had learned of her death, it took Damon all of ten minutes to realize that mourning her was not an option. He was single-minded in his determination to bring her back to life where everyone else had failed to even try.
And even before, when she was lost on that island, the urgency of his impulse to find her surprised him. The relief of having her wrapped in his arms was lucid in his mind even now. From his vantage point on the hood of his car, he was crystal clear on what he had to do.
"I will make it back to you," Damon had lied. "I promise."
Tears and worry marred Elena's face, and Damon brushed her cheek for what he knew was the last time. Winning Elena's love was the greatest achievement of his years on Earth. Selfishly, he wanted to keep that.
But he knew with a level of clarity that he had never felt before that this was not a time for selfishness. As his brother had sacrificed his own love of Elena on that night ages ago, to fulfill the bargain with Klaus and save Damon's life, Damon now made his decision. If it were any other day, such a consciously selfless act would have worn him ragged with the insidious brand of cognitive dissonance that punctuated every choice he'd ever made in his life. But today, all he felt was calm. Calm, and ready.
His brother would be alive. Elena would be safe. Bonnie wouldn't die alone.
He rolled the dice. The game began.
BDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBD
"Well, would you look at that," did seem a bit of an understatement, Bonnie thought. It was weird, but she almost felt like she was more upset that he hadn't been able to pass back through her than he was.
Still, she had experienced an overwhelming relief when she saw him finally appear amidst the brush and trees, in the cool and unforgiving landscape of the Other Side. Despite their failure, the sensation continued to surge through her, and she was guilty and glad to not be facing the end by herself.
She didn't know what to make of Grams' cryptic assurances, but she decided that they were why she felt safe in that surreal moment. Not because of the vampire standing beside her, nor his fingers interlocked with her own.
She inhaled and squinted into the light around them as it grew in intensity. "Do you think it will hurt?"
His fingers squeezed hers, and all she could see was white.
"I don't kn-"