Bonnie told Elena it would be like this. She said it would be instantaneous, and she wouldn't remember anything from the sleep. Despite her friend's warnings, Elena thought there had been some sort of problem with Kai's spell when she opened her eyes as quickly as she'd closed them. One second, she was dipped down in Damon's arms, and the next, she awoke. The closed coffin door, however, told her that the time had come and gone as quickly as her friend promised. Bonnie Bennett was dead. Elena squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, letting a couple tears pour from the corners of her eyes. Bonnie told her there wouldn't be a way around it, but still, she hoped she'd wake to her best friend's smiling victorious face. She'd imagined Bonnie's proud expression after finding just the perfect loophole. Life didn't work that way, though. Sometimes, they didn't prevail.

Elena allowed herself another few seconds before she grew claustrophobic. She lifted the top of the coffin up, which, luckily, her friends had the right mind not to seal. She sat up in the bed and happily discovered that she wasn't sore or unable to move after… however many years of not functioning. How many years had it been? A horrific image flashed before her mind of Bonnie, taken by some fatal car accident or untimely disease not long after Elena fell asleep. She looked around the family crypt. It was definitely dustier than it once had been. By her lack of welcoming committee, Bonnie's death was not expected: a fact that pointed both to horrific car crash and content old age.

As Elena stretched and moved to climb out of the coffin, she found a cream envelope on her stomach. Elena's heart leapt at her boyfriend's familiar handwriting on the outside. Elena. She tore it open and found a short script on a piece of paper.

"Stay there. I'll come get you."

Elena smiled down at the note. Sure, there wasn't much fanfare to it: no "my love" or "I have been waiting decades for this moment", but there was time for a sappy reunion. Elena imagined Damon's beautiful face, hopping out of whatever car would be considered "classic" now. She wondered if he would still don his signature leather jacket, or if he'd adapt to some futuristic bad boy style that didn't exist when she fell into the coma. She looked around the crypt and spotted a couple of bottles of water in the corner waiting for her. She smiled at the gesture and hopped out of her resting place to take one.

Elena opened the door to the crypt and looked around. The cemetery was for the most part untouched by any indication of time passing. It looked bigger, certainly, but perhaps graveyards would always be something timeless. At least she was in Mystic Falls. Her town was here and okay, in whatever time she'd woken in. She sat down on the steps and sipped the water, waiting for her rescuer. Elena contemplated what a world looked like without Bonnie Bennett in it. If she was dead, Matt might be, too. What if Bonnie died alone in her house? Her thoughts ran away from her for the next half hour as she waited.

Suddenly, she spotted a familiar face. Caroline walked up wearing quite the bold outfit. The blonde's jagged sleeves and exposed midriff startled Elena for only a second before she sprinted toward her and enveloped her in a tight hug. Though it had only felt like hours since Elena last saw her, she held her tight. Caroline may be immortal, but her eyes demonstrated a deeper wisdom. The vampire pulled away with tears streaming down her face. They weren't only grateful or happy. They were mourning.

"I'm sorry. I'm so happy to see you, it's just… it's bittersweet, you know?" she said, wiping her face.

"I know, Care," Elena said. Caroline lit up.

"I've missed your voice so much, Elena," she hugged her one more time.

"Where's Damon? His note said he'd come get me," she said, holding up the card. She wasn't sure if she imagined a falter in Caroline's smile. The blonde took a quick look at the card.

"He's out of town, actually. We didn't know—I mean, she was obviously getting older, but we didn't know it'd be today, you know? I'm gonna take you to him, though!" Caroline said, gesturing for her friend to follow her. She offered her a small package of crackers, which Elena took gratefully. She kept her head on a swivel as they walked toward the cemetery parking lot, looking for any changes in her surroundings. There were certainly many renovated buildings, but the quaint charm of her small, Southern town remained mostly untouched from what she could see.

"How long has it been?" she asked.

"Uhh… fifty-five years? Yeah, she just turned eighty." Caroline's eyes fell to the ground as she referenced her late friend.

"I'm glad," Elena said, relieved it wasn't a freak accident. "Was she happy?" she asked. Caroline's breath hitched at the question, but she was spared from answering it when Elena laid eyes on her very fancy, strange looking car. Rather than row seating, it had seating like a limo, with very few controls up at the front.

"Wow, Care. Does it fly?" she asked. Her friend laughed.

"We're not there yet. They all drive themselves, though."

Elena crawled in the back and spotted the dashboard covered in touch-screen functions. There wasn't a button in sight. Caroline hopped in the other side and sat still for a few seconds, staring at Elena like she wasn't sure how to say what she had to say.

"Alright, you've got a face. Beyond the situation we're in. What is it?" Elena asked. Had Damon desiccated like he said he might? Was he far away because he was rotting away somewhere?

"I have something for you," Caroline said. She reached under her seat and pulled out an envelope and a stack of journals. The journals had a few multicolored post-it tabs stuck to a few pages inside. Elena looked at her confused. Caroline shoved them into her hands.

"Look, I will answer all of your questions about the future, but first you have to read that. The drive to Damon is only an hour, though, so I tabbed the sections I think you should read before we get there," Caroline instructed.

"How organized of you," Elena said, flipping open the top journal. Property of Bonnie Bennett. Elena's heart stopped.

"She really wrote everything down?" she asked through watery eyes.

"Everything," Caroline confirmed. She started the car, though Elena had no idea how without a key, and the car pulled itself out of the parking lot. Elena opened the envelope and resisted the temptation to look at the buildings nearby. There would be time for curiosity about the future. Now was about Bonnie.

Elena leaned back in her seat and pulled the letter out of the envelope. She recognized the scrawl resembling Bonnie's handwriting, but it was different. Narrower. More careful. Her eyes skimmed to find a date. August 14th, 2070. Bonnie had written this when she was over seventy-five years old. Elena tried to wrap her mind around what Bonnie may have looked like or sounded like when she wrote the letter. Did she have laugh lines and silver hair? What did she seem like after a long life?

Dear Elena,

It's such a weird feeling to write to you again. Once I retired, I stopped writing. Though I have no doubt my stories of water aerobics, gardening, and jigsaw puzzles would have been real page turners, it felt like as organic a stopping point as any. Today, though, my doctors told me that the cancer is spreading. It might be a few years, or a few weeks, but, little do you know where you are, you get to come home soon. Before things start to get bad, I thought I'd write to you one final time. I guess I want to... contextualize some things you're about to read.

As odd a sensation as it must be for you to read the words of an old, dying woman, I can promise you: it's just as strange writing to you. I feel twenty-five again. I can feel the excruciating grief and guilt from my younger years of missing you. I have had a wonderful life, which I can count myself lucky for as it is. My biggest piece of unfair luck, though, is I never had to face you. I never have to see your face as I give you the explanation I feel I owe you. I understand if you don't want to read them all right away, but maybe someday, when you've been back for a while, you will want to.

Please just know that the decisions I've made were never easy, and you never left my mind. More than anything, I hope your second chance at a human life brings you even half the joy mine brought me. I will always appreciate our friendship and, even more, the gravity of the adjustments you will have to make now. You're Elena Gilbert, though. You find strength in the most impossibly difficult situations. I'm sorry I contributed to making this one. I love you. I will love you forever.

Take care,

Bonnie

Elena squinted at the letter in confusion. She looked up from the letter to find Caroline crying softly, reading one of Bonnie's journals herself. Any questions Elena had about Bonnie's oddly ominous note got stuck in her throat. Caroline lost her friend today. She decided to leave her to her grief, and read for her own answers. She flipped the cover open and began to read.

March 8th, 2018

Dear Elena,

I don't know how to begin to tell you this…

Damon sat on the ground for hours staring into bitter blackness. His eyes drifted out of focus and stayed there, forcing his surroundings into a blurry watercolor in the dark. His vision fought to clear, but he wouldn't let it. He couldn't be here. He couldn't look at the wall in front of him. If he let himself see the cracks, he would come back to his body. So, he sat, letting Mystic Falls grow fuzzy in his retinas. He cursed his sharpened senses, willing himself to not feel the wet grass beneath him or inhale the smoke from the fire. The fire that killed his brother. Did it hurt? Probably not, right? Maybe for a second. The pain as the fire seared Stefan's nerves didn't have time to register before his new human future fell victim to the hellfire.

Damon cradled his legs to his chest and waited. Waited for what, he didn't know. To get hungry? Tired? Some reason, any reason, to get up. There never would be, though. There'd never be a reason to get up again. He disassociated for hours, thinking of nothing. The sharp March windchill creeped through the fabric of his suit. He welcomed the numbing cold. More numbing, more numbing.

Damon remembered he existed when he registered somebody kneeling down in front of him. He said a silent prayer as to the identity of his observer. Please let it be death. Let it be death. He reluctantly refocused his stare. Before him was the pained face of the next best thing. His best friend, Bonnie Bennett.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," she said. She let out a steady, relieved breath. At least he wasn't indulging in somebody's Carotid in typical Damon grieving fashion. The solace dissipated as her tired green eyes met his glassy blue ones. The man in front of her was a shell. He gripped his legs so hard his fingers went ghostly white. He only then noticed he was cradling himself, rocking back and forth, too fast to be comforting. Bonnie rested her hands on his knees, but he didn't respond to her touch.

"Alaric and Caroline are taking the twins out of town for a while. She's… well, it's just us now," she said. Caroline. Damon didn't reply. He wanted to tell her to stop talking. He wanted to beg her not to remind him of the sister-in-law he gained and lost in a day. Was she wailing, or were her tear ducts as dry as his own? Bonnie searched her friend's eyes for any sign of life, but she didn't find any.

"Let's go home," she said. Home. It hadn't been their home since they were in the prison world. Damon's mind woke up slightly. After hours of disassociation, a single image came to his mind: Bonnie, radiant in her pale pink knit top, throwing her arms up in victory as she beat Damon in Tetris for the first time. Her wide, perfect grin as she spewed taunting smack talk his way.

Damon released the tight grip on his knees slightly as Bonnie stood. The ghost of a memory ignited something in him strong enough to force him to swallow the lump in his throat and take her outstretched hand. She pulled him up and lead him back to the car. Damon's senses slowly woke up as he registered the crunch of the leaves under his feet and Bonnie's hand on his arm. She had such small hands. He felt where the pads of her fingers gently guided him to the passenger seat. He became aware of how cold it was. What time was it? Late. So late.

They shared long, sorrowful silence in the car. Damon shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and he resented the witch for waking him up from his stupor. He became too aware of the fabric of his suit scratching at his skin. The coat, button up, tie, and tight, hard shoes constricted him. He wanted to crawl out of them. He wanted to crawl out of his skin. He stole a glance at Bonnie, ready to glare daggers at her for being responsible for pulling him out of his state and forcing him back into his life. His cursed life, rotten like black produce left in the bottom of a forgotten drawer. Let me out. Let me fucking die.

When he saw her soft cheek, his anger got stuck bubbled in his chest. She was crying. Certainly not for his brother? Not after Enzo? His face twisted in confusion. He registered the sound of the tires slowing to a stop on the gravel of his driveway. He didn't look away from her. He didn't want to see the house he shared with Stefan. The painful flood of memories would cripple him. He stayed staring safely at Bonnie's tears rolling down her soft cheeks. She wiped the tears from her face quickly.

"Are you ready?" she asked. Damon couldn't find his vocal cords to respond. Even if he could, he didn't know what the answer was. His hand found the door handle, despite feeling as if he had no control over his movements. He wordlessly followed Bonnie up the walkway, imagining his brother waiting for him on the other side of the door. Stefan would be reading a book, maybe, pouring him a drink. He'd tell Damon some good news or propose a game of catch in the yard.

When they crossed the threshold into the house, though, there was no Stefan. There were only reminders of his absence. His jacket was draped over the back of the couch. His shoes were kicked in the corner of the foyer. The air smelled faintly of his cologne. Bonnie saw Damon's eyes flicker around the mementos. Finally, his gaze landed in the direction of upstairs. He would have to walk by Stefan's room to get to his own. His sunken eyes revealed how close he was to falling to pieces.

"Wait here," Bonnie instructed. Damon didn't react. He only continued to stare into the parlor at the two used glasses on the table. With one last aching glance at her best friend, Bonnie ran up the stairs.

When she came upon Stefan's open bedroom door, she looked inside for a long moment. It's true, whatever fondness she felt for him had been irrevocably damaged when he tore Enzo's heart out, but, after watching nearly all of her closest friends play humanity switch roulette over the years, she'd slowly grown accustomed to seeing them as different people. The Stefan she knew, before Enzo, who held her while she cried, earned the respect of her Grams, and had been a friend to her over the years was the one who resided in this bedroom. Stacks of books were piled on his end table and desk. Her eyes wandered over to his bed. On his bedspread were six ties, tried on and discarded. She imagined Damon helping him choose the perfect one for his wedding. She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking of the kind of husband he would have been, the kind of father he would have been. Maybe she even would have forgiven him one day. She closed the door, keeping the room of memories out of Damon's sight for the night.

When she came back downstairs, she spotted him holding his brother's favorite bottle of bourbon. Her stomach filled with nerves. She knew his process. With his brother gone, Damon's drunken stupor would last weeks. She could only hope it wouldn't start tonight.

"Damon?" she whispered.

When he turned around, the exhaustion was all over his face. He needed sleep more than whiskey. He put the bottle down and looked at her for a long moment. He felt grateful for her presence in the room. She was something to pay attention to that wasn't the ghost of his brother filling every corner of the large house. She was something grounding. She nodded toward the staircase, and he followed her silently up. His feet felt heavy. Everything felt heavy. The clothes on his back and the watch on his wrist crushed him. He felt ready to crumble beneath the weight of the grief.

When they reached the top, he craned his neck to look over at his brother's room and found the closed door. He looked back at Bonnie with quiet gratitude. She nodded in the direction of her old bedroom when they were in the prison world. How easy it was to sleep under the same roof again.

"Okay. I'll see you in the morning," she said. She turned and took a step down the hall when Damon caught her wrist in his hand. She looked down at his hand on her skin and saw his knuckles go white with the firmness of his grip. She looked up into his petrified eyes.

"Don't leave me alone," he whispered. His expression was raw and begging. His voice sounded wrong, cracking as he spoke for the first time since he watched the flames consume Stefan. She swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded.

"Okay."

He dropped her wrist and looked down the hallway toward her room. He pointedly avoided looking at his own. Stefan's ghosts were all over it.

"One second," she said. Without waiting for a reply, she walked into Damon's bedroom. She walked past his giant, unmade bed to his dresser and fished out two of his soft cotton v-necks. He wasn't exactly a basketball shorts or sweatpants kind of guy, so she gave up on the pajamas mission and walked to the bathroom. She grabbed his toothbrush and facewash from the counter and left the room, closing the door behind her. She nodded toward her room with patient concern, like she was guiding a lost child through a grocery store.

Damon followed her back to her room and sat on the edge of the white guest bedspread while Bonnie disappeared into the bathroom. He kicked off his dress shoes and shrugged off his suit jacket and let them fall to the floor. He fiddled with the tight knot in his tie until it came loose enough to pull above his head. If he had the energy or the anger, he would have thrown it, but he had neither. Anger would come. The numbness still choked him.

Damon managed to kick off his suit pants when Bonnie walked back into the room. She wore only his dark green V-neck, which ended at her upper thighs. If there was a time for blushing, this wasn't it. When they made eye contact again, they felt the overwhelming grief fill the space between them. She handed him his dark blue t-shirt and crossed the room to the other side of the bed. She crawled under the covers as Damon switched shirts. They slowly sank back onto the pillows.

Bonnie turned off the lamp and dared a glance at Damon. She was still waiting for him to freak out. She was waiting for the screaming, killing relapse, and his fist in a wall. Maybe he might chuck alcohol into an open flame; he liked that. Instead, he laid there, staring at the ceiling, completely shattered. The moonlight coming in from the window illuminated his pale, clammy skin. His hands shook at his sides. His whole body began to shake until he lost it.

Damon cried. His heavy tears intensified until they were accompanied by booming sobs as he purged the first wave of devastation from his body. Bonnie leaned toward him and wrapped him in a hug as he crumbled. She wordlessly stroked the back of his head as his tears soaked her sleeve. They laid this way for a long time, as Damon let out the grief into her arms. He wrapped his arms around her waist tightly. His grip begged her not to let go. She rested her leg on his waist and gently grazed comforting fingers up and down his back. Damon's shirt bunched up around her waist, but neither of them noticed. They clung to each other desperately. They were alone now.

Bonnie knew better than to try to provide words of comfort. He wouldn't have accepted them anyway. He would just retreat into himself. She just held him until he fell asleep with red eyes against her wet shirt. In the morning, he would groggily head downstairs to begin his long drinking binge. In the morning, she might say she's sorry. In the morning, they certainly wouldn't talk about what happened here. In fact, they wouldn't talk about it for a long time.

A/N: I just want to clarify one thing- Damon is a vampire. In this AU, Stefan gave Damon a syringe of his blood rather than injecting him with it (theoretically to wait for Elena to wake up).