Liv sat before the tombstone of John Mason, her arms outstretched, palms up towards the waining sunned sky. As the orange glow of day faded behind a thicket of trees, she chanted, her whole body and mind one with the magic.
Damon and Tyler stood behind her, keeping their distance, at Damon's insistence, each watching intently. Over and over Liv spoke into the night, her form rocking with the wind.
Tyler eased forward, but Damon put his arm out to stop him, yet again, and the two rested back into their spectator positions.
Finally, after nearly twenty minutes, Liv exhaled heavily and let her arms drop.
"Why are you stopping?" Damon asked her, incredulously. As he stepped forward toward her it was Tyler's turn to put an arm out, but Damon slapped it away.
"Damon, leave her alone. She's done all she can do," Tyler said forcefully, following Damon into the circle of dried flowers and broken twigs that surrounded the blonde witch.
"She can do more. Witches can always do more."
"Come off it man, or you're going to be—" Tyler stepped between a sitting Liv and a charging Damon.
"Or I'm gonna be what?" Damon questioned.
"Sorry," Tyler continued, pushing Damon backwards. In an instant, Damon was pushing back.
"Enough!" Liv cried out, wiping her sweaty palms on the front of jeans. She pushed herself upwards to stand, finding Tyler's arms suddenly around her waist, helping her. Liv pulled herself free, not wanting to seem weak or drained after using her magic. Not wanting to be someone Tyler Lockwood would have to save.
"I say when we've had enough," Damon began, but Liv put her hand up, waving it before his face.
There on her palm, the words: "Have hope. I'm bringing you home" were fading, until there was nothing left but the paleness of her skin.
Damon looked worried, sad even, not sure what had just happened, but the smile on Liv's face told him this couldn't be a joke. No one could be that cruel. Except maybe him, and that psychopath he had left Bonnie with.
Craning her neck around, Liv motioned to the tombstone and Damon followed her gaze, rushing to the ground and examining the witch's handiwork.
There it was, his message to Bonnie, scrawled into Mr. Mason's final resting plot. Damon could not contain his glee.
"I think you owe someone an apology," Tyler instructed.
"Tyler. Please. I don't need you to do that," she explained, feeling slightly embarrassed by his attention and slightly blushed due to his protective nature.
"You did what you said you would do," Tyler continued. "And you owed him nothing."
Damon spun around. "Yeah, right. Nothing. Except for the fact that if it wasn't for her, Bonnie wouldn't—"
Damon stopped himself, looking at Liv, seeing her guilt and recognizing his own in her eyes. He knew he should leave it alone, unless he wanted to hear it all tossed back in his face. If anyone was going to call him selfish it was going to be Bonnie. He needed to focus all his energy on getting her back.
"Never mind," Damon said. "This is good. Really good."
"Somehow "sorry" sounds different coming from you," Tyler quipped.
"One step at a time," Damon told him. Running a hand through his loose brown hair, Damon crouched down once more, looking at the words, feeling so close to Bonnie, wondering if she was seeing the message and feeling close to him too. He could almost taste the pancakes.
"Why 1994?" Liv suddenly asked.
"What?"
"Why was it so important that message be seen in 1994?" She asked again.
"The year of the white Bronco, Pulp Fiction and that creepy MJ and Lisa Marie wedding. I think the question is, "why wouldn't it be 1994?" Damon said sarcastically, his eyes still burning themselves onto the message.
"Seriously man, what is going on?" Tyler wondered aloud.
"I find it funny that everyone around here asks those ever probing questions after the deed is done," Damon said. "Like an evil villain giving away his plans just in time for the incredibly handsome and charismatic hero to thwart it."
He gestured to himself as he stood, leaning on the tombstone, facing Tyler and Liv.
"Is she in 1994?" Liv asked. Damon did not answer. "Because if she's back there, in the past, then yes this message will reach her. But if she's somewhere else, somewhere that looks or feels like 1994, but isn't the real deal, well…then I have no idea where this message will be."
Damon's eyes grew wide in confusion. Liv was smarter than he thought, maybe because instead of growing up Brady she grew up in a coven. Witches must know more, feel more, expect more, he was sure, and now he knew that Liv was on to him. But why didn't she say something before the spell? Why make him think it was going to work? Damon's eyes suddenly began to glow with rage.
"You said this would work! " he snarled.
"It did. Travel back to the Land of Flannel and it will be there, but…is that where she is?"
"Why would she be there?' Tyler asked. "You told Jeremy and Caroline and anyone else who would listen that she was gone. Dead, but in peace. Are you saying that was a lie?"
"I'm saying this message needs to be in 1994. Don't ask me why, it just has to be," Damon said.
Liv nodded. "It is. But, you have to understand that the walls between the past and the present are just as thin as those between dimensions. If someone is there communicating with you or you with them, there are no guarantees how long that will last. I mean, it shouldn't be possible...not without—"
"Without what?" Damon wondered.
"Nothing," she replied, shaking her head. "It just shouldn't be possible. Time traveling magic is one thing, Damon. Dimensional magic, the kind you and I have been through, it's something else entirely. Something we might not want to mess with again."
"Cryptic much," Damon snapped.
"Trust me, the consequences are big with this kind of magic."
"Yeah, yeah. I get it. Step on a butterfly there and your great, great grandchild dies or something."
"Not exactly," Liz began.
"I trusted you, now you trust me," Damon stated. "I know someone is out there reading this. It had to be done."
There, on the other side of the tombstone, Bonnie's recently dug up boot leaned against the stone, hidden from Liv and Tyler's view. Damon had to believe that if he could see that, touch that, then Bonnie could see and touch the messages he sent back for her.
—
Bonnie sat on the ground before the tombstone, pulling her boot over her bare foot. Suddenly, she felt a cold shiver run up her back and she instantly knew something was off. Well, more off than her life in prison with Kai. Sensing something, sensing Damon perhaps, Bonnie took the boot off and stuffed it under the ivy that was growing around Mr. Mason's resting place. If Damon sent her a message something had to tell him she was there. She was that something.
—
Liv packed up her witchy wonders and began hiking out of the woods, a flashlight guiding her way in the darkening night.
Damon and Tyler began to follow, but Tyler stopped the vampire with a hand on his shoulder.
"If you don't tell them, I will," Tyler said. Then he pushed passed him, following his girlfriend-to-be, into the night, back to their car.
—
Opening the door to the Salvatore Boarding House, Bonnie stepped inside as silently as she could. The foyer was dark, really dark, and Bonnie had to squint to see, willing her eyes to adjust to the lack of light.
When it was just her and Damon, candles were always lit. It was intimate…not like that…but it was beautiful and calm and they were together.
Standing alone in the dark, Bonnie held on to the message: "Have hope." Her insistence that they would survive had rubbed off on Damon and now he was spouting her beliefs. Now that was intimate, she thought.
"Coming to bed," Kai said, his voice cutting through her thoughts, startling her back to her dreaded reality. "Don't worry. Tomorrow is another day. We'll get a bright and early start looking for that magic. Won't we?"
Kai was standing on the stairs to Bonnie's left, she could hear him and feel him, but in the dark she could not see him. Suddenly, he was beside her. She hadn't heard him move there, but in an instant his hands were on her shoulders, his breath on her ear.
"Won't we, Bonnie?"
"Goodnight Kai," Bonnie told him, walking away, feeling her way up the stairs, leaving the immediate danger behind. She knew that her acts of courage only made Kai like her more, but she couldn't suppress them. It was what being a Bennett was all about. Being a Bennett and a friend of Damon Salvatore's.
Bonnie found herself in Damon's room, circa 1994, so she knew the sheets were Elena-free. The thought made her smile. Bonnie slipped off her lone boot and pulled herself into Damon's bed, fully clothed and still covered in dirt, leaves stuck in her loose hair. Bonnie pulled the covers over her body and inhaled deep.
Then she let her courage slip, and cried, for only a moment, but it was still a good cry.
So good, she didn't hear the bedroom door open.
—
Damon sat on the border of Mystic Falls, staring into the night, wishing he could be there, in 1994 or even 2014. It didn't matter tonight. He just wanted to feel closer to her, to sleep in his old house and remember how they once slept there together. Not that together, but still.
"You alright?" Stefan said, taking a seat beside his brother, stretching his legs out on the ground.
"Not really, but I figure that's just how it is," Damon replied, not pulling his eyes away from the flickering lights of the town.
"I don't know," Stefan began. "You were happy for a while there."
"When my girlfriend knew me, loved me. When my best friend was my best friend. When we were fighting evil, real evil, and not our own bullshit, not ourselves."
"Damon—"
"I'm happiest when I have something to do. Loving Elena, supporting Alaric, taking down the travelers."
"Saving Bonnie," Stefan cut him off.
"Well, I think you can tell that I'm not happy…so I guess you're wrong there, brother."
"You're not happy yet, but when you get her back," Stefan explained.
"Who says I will?" Damon asked, finally looking his brother in the eye.
"I do."
"Damon!"
A female scream pierced the night.
"Bonnie!" Damon cried back, leaping to his feet and running straight into Mystic Falls, magic barriers be damned.