A/N: Just a short drabble originally written for tumblr after the airing of 6x06, when we saw Damon missing the sound of Bonnie's voice and leaving her a voicemail. Hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries or anything affiliated with the Vampire Diaries or really much of anything at all in general. The most depressing disclaimer.

When Bonnie got back to present-day Mystic Falls, after an exhausting day of reunions (some heartfelt, some awkward, some non-existent as Damon stood silent in the back of the room all evening… but all emotionally draining), Bonnie made it back to her room. She found her phone, and she let it charge while she took a well-earned shower.

Afterwards, she sat on her bed, just staring into space. It was strange to be back. She was happy, but after everything she'd been through… she wasn't expecting to ever be back again, and it was taking her brain a while to process it all.

She was broken out of her thoughts by her phone chiming at her. She glanced at the screen as it powered up.

312 voicemails? What the fuck?

Tentative, but curious, she hit "play all" and lay back on her bed, not even bothering to change out of her towel.

It started out painfully. Message after message was from Jeremy. Sometimes he was bitter, sometimes he was screaming at her, sometimes he was crying. He missed her, and he didn't understand how she could put him through this. How could she be so selfish?

Bonnie was crying too, before she even realized it. She had known it was a selfish choice, of course. Even if she hadn't worked that out herself, Grams had made it pretty clear. So had Liv.

But she wanted to be selfish, for once. She wanted to be happy, even if it wasn't completely real. She wanted to have her love story, before it was all over. Because it was all supposed to be over after that. She knew on some level that it wouldn't be fair to him, but she also knew that he could survive losing her.

Now, hearing his voice heavy and slurred, muttering profanely, desperately, hopelessly… she wondered if she had miscalculated.

But then his tone began to change, as the phone chimed with every new voicemail. He told her about Alaric talking him through everything, about fighting for his own life, about not letting his grief consume him. He told her about Elena, about how he didn't want to end up so lost that the only way out was to erase and redraw the map entirely.

At last, he said goodbye. Bonnie listened as he promised her it would be his last message to her. That he would never truly understand why she did what she did, why she didn't look for some other way out, but that he was ready to keep living despite it.

And then there was silence. Bonnie breathed.

A part of her was sad, but at the same time, she was proud of him. She began to wonder -

Her phone chimed to indicate the next message was playing.

"That's it? That's your outgoing message?"

Damon.

"You mean the one time I actively seek out the sound of your voice, that's all I get? Perfect."

She rolled her eyes as he chuckled to himself on the recording.

"Anyway, I'm in your room, which is a lot less weird than it sounds. I just want to say… because of what you did for me, today's the day I see Elena. So thank you."

Bonnie's smiled.

"And… I'm sorry."

Her smile faded and she sat up, staring into the screen as if it could show her the pain evident in his voice.

"Other than that, I don't know what to say… or what I'm supposed to say. Except that, defying all possible global scenarios… I might miss you a little bit."

Bonnie frowned, picking up the phone and cradling it in her palms. It chimed again.

"Hey Bon Bon, has anyone ever told you that less is more? Because it's not. You really need to update your outgoing message, you know. Maybe make it a little judgier, it could tell me my pancakes are barely edible today, or that my dancing needs work."

Bonnie grinned. Chime.

"So, Elena still doesn't remember me. I guess you haven't gotten that story yet, but you're probably in witchy heaven or something judging us all from above by now, so I'm sure you've got the gist."

Bonnie turned off the speakerphone and lay down on her side, holding the phone to her ear. Chime.

"Stefan won't eat my pancakes. Maybe it's because I didn't put the fangs on them. The fangs were for you, though."

Chime. On and on the messages played, Damon yammering incessantly about the most mundane elements of his life, as if after their time together, he no longer knew how to spend a day without her knowing every detail of it.

She noticed that the mentions of Elena grew fewer and farther between. She felt the sudden, ridiculous urge to stop him mid-message and ask him what was going on.

Chime.

"You owe me, you know. Leaving me here to sort all of this out by myself. 1994 is looking pretty great right about now."

Chime.

"I'm here in the cemetery, as if standing next to this headstone with its empty grave is somehow going to make you hear me. Fuck."

Chime.

"We had it good, Bonnie. Did you realize that back then? I sure didn't. I mean you were annoying and I guess I was an ass, but we had it so good. Until that psychopath showed up and ruined everything by pointing us to the exit, I mean. Why didn't we see how good it was?"

Chime.

Damon didn't speak for a moment, and when he finally did, his voice was quiet. "I was wrong, Bon. You died for me to be happy. That was fucked up, okay? You're never going to hear this, so just… that was fucked up, Bonnie.

"And now, now I get it. I was wrong. You know what you really needed to do for me to be happy? You should have stayed the fuck alive."

The phone didn't chime again.

But Bonnie wasn't listening for the chimes anymore. She was rushing to her closet, throwing on the first clean articles of clothing she could find, her head echoing with all the times she talked herself out of giving in to despair despite the sheer hopelessness of her situation, alone with Kai in 1994.

The voice that had pushed her to keep going, that pushed her to find her way to Portland, to search through the Gemini Coven's library, to find her great-grandmother's grimoire tucked away beneath a pile of books. The voice that rang out in alarm as Kai approached behind her and then growled with a vicious clarity as she used her magic to snap his neck one last time. The voice that grew quiet and encouraging as she performed the spell to transport herself home.

It was Damon's voice.

She grabbed her phone and rushed to the door, throwing it open. And there he was, looking guilty with one hand poised mid-knock.

His arm dropped down to his side, and he smiled, the way he had that day in the cavern.

She threw her arms around him, pressing her cheek to the cool skin of his neck as he pulled her into a tight hug. For the first time in a very long time, Bonnie knew she was home.