They get a witch to do the spell, she's not even half of what Bonnie was and Elena started thinking that she would not live long enough to meet another witch as powerful as her best-friend was. That's why she's inpatient with the girl, it wasn't not her fault really- she's only twenty four and judging from her slender frame and shaking hands she had no idea what she had just agreed to.
"Where did you find her?" Stefan asked her, forehead broody, lips pursed and eyebrows knitted together in disapproval; he doesn't think they should bring them back, it's been two years and it started to look like they would never return because no one ever died in Mystic Falls, look at Alaric.
"In New Orleans, her name's Ruby."
"I don't think-"
"I know what you think Stefan but you don't know Damon like I do. He would want to be back, here, with me."
She'd stopped pretending that she wanted Damon back for everyone. They've all moved on, Stefan has Caroline and she has no one. She's the one still waking up in the middle of the night, sweaty hair clinging to her pale face knowing that she should've been the one on the other side with Damon, Knowing they could've found peace together and she can't even turn it off, she wasn't a vampire anymore. All she had were the vivid memories and a foreboding feeling that she would never know happiness like she did with Damon.
Ruby called four other witches whose names she keeps forgetting except for one named Sheila. Sheila just like Stefan didn't think they should be bringing back the dead. That is not what she signed up for-apparently Ruby failed to mention the purpose of their abrupt visit. She heard them fighting continuously, Ruby's frail voice got caught in her throat more times than she could count and it always ended with Ruby crying and Sheila, red hair and alabaster skin, scowling by the fireplace.
They came to an agreement five days after they arrived and five days too long for Elena's liking. She sat by the fireplace watching as the wind rustled their hairs and the air got so thick she thought she was suffocating.
She was sure when the chanting seized and the air started to reek of blood and a put out fire that two of the witches were dead. Ruby's body laid eerily still on the carpet next to Sheila's who's eyes were wide open with only the white part showing. But that's not what got her to stand up from the fire place.
"You had two people killed to bring us back." The afterlife had done nothing to quell Bonnie's judgmental nature. She stood, still short, brown skin glistening in the dimly lit room, dark hair framing her beautiful face and falling down to the small of her back superiority dripping off of her demeanor. She still looked the same, like her Bonnie but there was something mature about her, as if she had aged years to Elena's weeks.
"You're welcome, Bonnie, I too am very glad to see you." She spat back because that was not what she had in mind when as far as first words went.
Bonnie looked at Stefan who was lingering behind Caroline who was also keeping her distance.
"Why didn't you stop her? Look at them? They're dying if not dead already." That's when Elena saw it, there fingers were still intertwined and Damon who looked not a day older than when he said that he would not be coming back, was looking at Bonnie with this strange look in his eyes. She moved to where the bodies were still not moving and looked Sheila in the eyes, muttering quietly to her face.
"I didn't know they would die, okay? I thought they'd use their witchy juju to bring themselves back."
Things were not going as she had expected. This would've been the part where they would've all thanked her and deemed her the hero for saving them from that hell whole they called the other side.
"Damon?" She pleaded but it came out desperate and needy, which she was. She wanted Damon by her side, naked at most not- he hadn't even said one word after appearing from thin air.
Bonnie held ruby in her arms like a mother cradling her child and said "Rise, Ruby Mcdonald, Daughter of nature, your time to die has not arrived yet." In an eerie voice and Ruby now looking too young to have ever been capable of the things that Elena had asked of her blinked twice and then opened her eyes. This went on until all four witches had been resurrected by Bonnie.
Elena expected things to fall into place once the girls left, with a very pissed off Sheila, her parting words being "I know that you're human now, but you still think like a vampire and you could've had my little sister killed. I'll never forgive you for that."
No one came to her defense; Stefan, Damon and Alaric were talking to each other and Caroline was still crying/laughing while hugging Bonnie.
She stood at the door for what felt like forever before Damon looked at her, smiled her smile and motioned for her to come over. Part of her wanted to be angry but it felt useless bringing someone back from the dead just to give them the silent treatment the whole time.
Alaric was the last one to leave, she remembered distinctively having to almost shove him out of the door. Stefan and Caroline has retreated to god knows where and Bonnie was sleeping on the couch.
"You guys seem different." She observed after a stretch of silence where she had waited for the banter to start, the sexual innuendos and basically Damon being Damon. But, they don't arrive.
"How?"
"Like you've aged without physically aging."
He sighed moving to the couch where Bonnie hadn't stirred nor moved she practically looked dead, lifted her feet and placed them on his lap.
"We've been gone for a long time Elena."
"It's only been two years."
"Here, on earth. Where we were two years feels like an eternity."
She wouldn't say it but he looked so calm and at peace where he sat, like he couldn't have wanted to be anywhere else. That was a calmness that she wanted him to reserve for her.
"Come to bed, Damon." She doesn't know why it takes her that long to tell him what she wanted.
"I can't."
"Why not?" He looked at Bonnie. "I just can't."
Elena woke up to murmurs coming from the room next door which was inhabited until now.
"You have to tell her."
"I will, I promise-"
"If you don't then I will and I think we both know how that will go."
"Bonnnnniiiieee"
"Damon, she had four teenaged girls die just so you could be here." Bonnie's voice rose an octave so Elena didn't have to strain so hard to hear her. "It could've gone wrong, I could've not come back and they would've still been dead."
"But they're alive- you fixed it. Cut her some slack."
"People died Damon, children with lives ahead of them. A better life than what I had; sacrificing myself for her at seventeen."
There's rustling, a protest from Bonnie and then silence.
"I'll tell her by the end of the day." There's a smacking sound and Bonnie yelped before falling into a fit of giggles. "In the meantime I am going to need you to relax before you set this whole place on fire."
There's another silence and Elena wasn't sure she wanted to know what was going on.
"Are you happy to be back?" Bonnie asked.
"No."
"You?"
"Not even if I wanted to."