Seattle | November – December 2019
Half a year into the medical program, Elena finally let go of the fear that she wouldn't be able to keep up after her involuntary timeout in a coma, followed by an abridged final semester of pre-med. Her class at the UW was comparably small with under 100 students and those tended to break up into groups depending on their intended residency. Only five other students besides Elena had chosen the surgical program which meant that they got to know each other pretty well, pretty quickly. Thankfully, Elena liked all of them, in all their motley crew glory.
With the midterm exams coming up, they decided their spontaneous study group sessions needed a fixed date and place. They were headed towards winter break now, but as soon as the holidays were over, they all intended to get back into a regular study schedule. All they needed was a place that was convenient for all of them. The library was good for solitary studying, but with a group of six, things sometimes tended to get loud which meant the library was crossed off the list.
"Well, my place is out," Luis said.
"But you live on campus."
"Yeah, in a tiny dorm room. With a roommate who is constantly high."
The others grimaced, agreeing that that wasn't an option.
"Mine's out too," Amber piped up. "I still live with my parents. Privacy is not guaranteed. Unless you enjoy a learning environment with Wheel of Fortune playing in the background."
"Deja? What about you?" Luis asked.
"I suppose we can meet at mine. If you guys don't mind the smell of Indian cuisine coming from next door. And also my noisy neighbors," Deja replied.
"I can't concentrate when I'm hungry. And if I smell food, I'm hungry," Daisy inserted. "We don't have to go to someone's house. There's plenty of places close by. There's this bar just off campus—"
Before she could expand on the advantages of the place, Deja cut in, "You won't be doing much studying there, busy as you always are ogling the waiter."
"He's not a waiter," Daisy mumbled.
"Still, a strong veto on the bar," Deja replied.
"I'd suggest my place, but a lot of you don't have a car and there's no easy way to get to mine without one since I live way outside the city," Ryan said. He was the quietest of the group und usually only spoke when directly addressed.
"We can use my apartment," Elena suggested. "It's right on the edge of campus. I don't live alone, but Damon won't mind. And we have more than enough space."
"Damon is the boyfriend?" Daisy asked.
"Going by the rings on her finger I'd say he's more than that. Seriously, D, how do you not notice stuff like that? The stone in this thing could probably pay for a whole year's tuition."
Amber nodded silently but very pointedly in agreement.
Unaware that she was doing it, Elena covered her hand with the engagement and wedding rings on it and asked, shocked, "It could?" Then mumbled, mostly to herself, "He said it wasn't that expensive."
"Depends on your definition of expensive, I guess," Amber inserted. She took Elena's hand to admire the ring further. "Antique gold setting, round cut diamond, perfect clarity. Vintage, too. Not just made to look vintage, but authentic. Yep, probably cost a pretty penny. I'm guessing the wedding ring was custom made to fit the design of the other one? Unless they were sold as a pair which would be unusual given its age. Bridal sets are popular now, but wouldn't have been a thing back when this was made."
Elena looked at her with a bewildered gaze, as did all the rest.
Amber shrugged and explained, almost embarrassed, "I worked on a cruise ship for a few years, trying to save up for school; why do you think I still live with my parents? We sailed the Caribbean mostly. One of my jobs was giving presentations on diamonds and other precious stones and carting tourists to the local shops that sold them."
"Well, it looks gorg," Daisy commented dreamily.
Luis and Ryan shared a look. "So, your place then?" Luis asked Elena, interrupting the swooning and gushing girls.
"Damon?" Elena said, switching off the bathroom light and coming to bed that very same evening. "How much exactly did you pay for my engagement ring?"
Damon frowned and closed the laptop after saving the file he was working on, using Elena's vanity as a desk. Most of the time he tried not to bring work from the bar up to the apartment, much less into their bedroom, but since they were headed towards the end of the accounting period, he had to finish the books. And he would much rather do it in Elena's company. "That's a very out of the blue question," he said.
"And that's a very evasive answer."
"Can I ask first why you want to know?" Damon asked.
"Remember the girl in my study group, Amber? I told you about her."
Yes, Elena had. She had told him about all of her study buddies. Daisy who was chaos personified, lacked a brain-to-mouth filter, and was prone to accidents, but had a brilliant mind for medicine. Amber who was a bit older than all of them and who had worked several jobs in the past, constantly shocking her new friends with her random but very specific knowledge about all kinds of things. Luis who was probably the most ambitious of them all; part of a siblings duo that Elena had befriended pretty early on but whose sister had chosen a different field of medicine and thus wasn't part of their current study group. Then there was Deja who sounded intimidating and according to Elena liked to reinforce that assumption with her appearance and boisterous personality but was really caring and considerate. Damon felt like he knew them all already.
"Well, she mentioned something about it today," Elena continued. "Turns out she knows quite a bit about expensive jewelry and she said that this must have cost a fortune. Has it?"
"How much is a fortune really? And what difference does it make?"
"So, it has," Elena concluded. "Damon, you know I don't like it when you spend too much money on gifts."
"It wasn't a gift," Damon objected. "It was a bribe, so you'd marry me." He grinned, hoping to make Elena smile.
She did, though she tried hard not to. "Now I'm going to be worried about it whenever I go out in public. What if someone tries to grab it?" Her eyes widened in horror as another thought struck her, "What if I lose it?"
"Don't worry. It's insured," Damon tried to reassure her but it had the opposite effect.
"Oh, my god," she almost hyperventilated. "It was expensive enough to merit insurance?" She tried to pull it off her finger but Damon hurried over and stopped her.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"We're putting it in the safe," she declared.
"No, we're not."
"Yes, Damon, we are."
"No," Damon said again, with more emphasis. "You're not taking it off. Not while you're still my wife."
Elena stopped struggling, realizing that Damon wasn't joking. "It means something to you that I'm wearing it." She didn't phrase it as a question.
"It doesn't to you?" Damon asked, looking hurt.
"Of course, it does, Damon." She cupped his cheek. "How can you even ask me that? But however much it means to me, doesn't its worth outvalue that?"
Damon shook his head. "That's a stupid question and you know it because the answer is: not even close." He took her hand in his. "How would you feel if I stopped wearing my wedding ring?"
Elena understood what he was trying to say. Still. "I am going to wear my wedding ring. But maybe we can put the engagement ring away for safekeeping," she suggested once more.
Damon resolutely shook his head. Thumb stroking over the diamond of the engagement ring, he said, "You promised to marry me when I gave you this ring. And then you did." He smirked slightly before going on, "What was it you said? With this ring I give you my all and tie my life with yours—" Tapping a finger on his lips, he pretended to think hard. "Damn, I forgot what came after."
Shaking her head at his antics, Elena smiled. But she indulged him and repeated their wedding vows, "From this day forward you shall not walk alone. May my heart be your shelter…"
"And my arms be your home," Damon finished for her.
Elena lifted Damon's hand to her lips and kissed his knuckles and his wedding ring before kissing him. Damon let himself fall backwards on the bed, pulling Elena with him.
Lifting his mouth from hers, he held her face and said, "Those two rings are supposed to stay together and you're not going to separate them. Okay?"
"Okay," Elena agreed and pressed her mouth to his again.
After they had mostly given Thanksgiving a pass because Elena was tied up in her studies, both of them expected December to pass in a similar fashion. It would be Elena's first that she didn't spend with her friends, but everyone was very understanding. If she had more free time, she would have probably felt bad about it, but between her classes, the study group, and Bar None the weeks flew them by.
Damon continued fighting with Dot who pestered him about decking out the place in holiday appropriate decorations but Damon resisted because he mostly considered them garish and over the top. They could frequently be caught in shouting matches about what constituted acceptable décor and what deserved to be dismissed as kitsch. After days of hearing the same argument over and over again, Elena brokered a compromise: Dot could put up decorations, but she had to limit herself to one primary and one accent color. Damon, grumbling all the way, finally agreed to that.
And even though they didn't go back to Mystic Falls for the holidays, in the end, they did manage to all spend Christmas together. It began with a text from Bonnie.
It worked.
Elena reread Bonnie's message and a grin slowly spread across her face. She glanced at the professor at the front of the class, but he was droning on about B cells and T cells and Elena felt safe to shoot Bonnie a quick message back.
Enzo?
He's back, Bonnie replied.
As soon as the lecture let out, Elena dialed Bonnie's number and spent the whole of her lunch break getting a play by play from her friend who sounded lightyears lighter than she had ever since Elena woke up.
"Your powers?" Elena asked after having been reassured by Bonnie that Enzo was alive and well and back to his previous vampire self.
"Gone. For good. I don't care. I'm alive and I'm happy and so is he. So, as far as I know, all is back to right in the world."
"I'm so happy for you, Bonnie."
"Me too, Elena. You have no idea how much."
Elena had, actually, but she knew what Bonnie meant. "Have Enzo give Damon a call, okay? I know he'll be glad to hear from him. Better yet, come and see us both in person. We've plenty of room for visitors."
"Yeah, maybe we'll do that."
So, following a spontaneous decision and after some rearranging of plans, Bonnie and Enzo eventually did make it to Seattle – just in time to catch the city decked out in lights and festive decorations. Predictably, Enzo and Damon spent a lot of the time in Bar None, drinking and reminiscing while Bonnie and Elena went all out on their Christmas shopping whenever Elena could make it fit into her school schedule. But winter break was coming up in a few days and Elena was looking forward to finally having some down time.
On her last day of school and official start of the winter break, they all went out for dinner to celebrate the end of the first semester, Bonnie's brilliance and Enzo's return to the living, as well as belatedly toasting to Damon opening the bar.
"Oh, um, I have to confess something," Bonnie cut into the conversation a few bottles of wine in. "Earlier, I talked to Caroline and told her of our plans to stay here for Christmas and she was really upset."
Elena grimaced. "I would be too, if I were her."
"To make an embarrassing story short," Bonnie continued, "I invited her here. I'm sorry. I know it's not my place to invite anyone. I may have made it sound like it was your idea in the first place."
"She said yes?" Elena exclaimed, excitement already sparkling in her eyes. Back when they were all teenagers, they used to spend every Christmas together, but that was before Bonnie was trapped in a 1994 prison world, before Damon and Elena's open-end Europe trip, before Elena's magical coma time-out. "That would be amazing. I would have asked myself, but I assumed she would want to spend the holidays with Ric and the twins."
"She does," Bonnie slowly replied and hid behind a long sip of wine.
Damon narrowed his eyes at her. "You've invited them all, haven't you?" Bonnie just took another gulp of wine and avoided his eyes.
Elena glanced at Damon and he shrugged. "The more the merrier?"
"Looks like we'll have to child-proof our apartment," Damon said.
"Aren't the girls six already?" Enzo injected. "I don't think you have to worry about them tumbling down the stairs."
Something thudded dully, jarring Elena awake and she opened one of her eyes. The Damon shaped shadow in the doorway swayed slightly and Elena released a relieved breath. It was two days before Christmas and earlier in the day, Damon and Alaric sort of went missing. When all the girls had returned from an impromptu holiday shopping trip, they found only Enzo in the apartment. Enzo in a paper crown, having a tea party with two sugared up six-year-olds.
Elena was about to call her husband and demand an explanation when she noticed a text from him.
Out with Ric. Don't wait up.
"They said something about Jo and an anniversary?" Enzo added. "The girls here volunteered to babysit me, isn't that right?"
While Bonnie cooed over her boyfriend, understanding dawned on Elena's face. Earlier that month, Ric had celebrated the twins' sixth birthday and while that was a joyful occasion, the date also marked Ric's worst memory. Alaric needed his drinking buddy to belatedly commemorate his late wife. Of course. She only hoped they wouldn't get into any kind of trouble while out drinking. At first, she'd assumed they were drinking downstairs in Damon's bar but when she went down there later to check on them, Dot told her that yes, that was where they had started their evening but apparently they had moved on several hours ago. Something about the staff not needing to see their boss getting wasted.
There had been more messages in the following hours. All getting progressively more imaginative in spelling, to the point where they were impossible to understand. But Elena had appreciated Damon's attempts to check in with her nonetheless.
Elena, now fully awake, rose to assist an unsteady on his feet Damon. He reeked of alcohol, which she had expected. He smiled when he saw her.
"Elena. Did I wake you?"
He sounded not as bad as she had feared. Sometime in the past few hours, he'd not only gotten drunk but had actually started sobering up already. His fine motor skills however still left something to be desired. She moved to help him undress and asked while she worked on his shirt, "Do I want to know why you felt the need to unbutton your shirt sometime in the last 6 hours?"
The buttons were done up all wrong, skipping one in several places.
Damon, eyes closed, replied, "Because I needed to take it off. Obviously."
"Obviously," Elena chuckled. Though it did not answer any questions at all. She decided to ask again when the ratio of blood and alcohol in his system was back to non-toxic levels.
Instead, she asked, "How is Ric doing?"
There was a pause and Elena thought Damon hadn't heard her. Or had possibly fallen asleep while standing up. But then he muttered, "As well as can be expected under the circumstances."
The thought seemed to sober him up considerably. He suddenly crushed Elena in his arms. Burying his head in her shoulder, he whispered, "I lost you when he lost Jo. Only you came back to me and he has to live the rest of his life—" Damon broke off, a sob on his long, tremulous inhale. "I couldn't… To think that… Can't even imagine…" He began and faltered again and again.
"Shh, it's okay," Elena mumbled, hand smoothing through his hair. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm right here, Damon."
"Elena," Damon breathed again with a strangled sound of despair. He clutched her even tighter before pulling back a little and crushing his lips against hers. He kissed her like a man drowning and she let him take comfort in her, letting him take what he needed. She dropped onto the bed, pulling him on top of her, held him when he buried himself in her, and didn't let go even after he had spent himself. She kept her arms around him when he fell asleep and stroked his back to chase his nightmares away, occasionally kissing the side of his face and mumbling sweet nothings in his ear.
While Alaric slept alone in his bed.
Bonnie and Enzo stayed on for a few more days after Ric, Caroline, and their kids left, since neither had any kind of responsibilities to return to.
"You have any idea what you're going to do next?" Elena asked one quiet evening where all four of them stayed in to watch a movie.
"I suggested going back to Paris, but Miss Paris-is-good-for-a-visit-but-I-wouldn't-actually-want-to-live-there shot me down."
Bonnie didn't comment, just smiled at Enzo and Elena saw him tighten his arms around her. There was plenty of sitting space in the main area, but they were sharing a chair, never not touching. Elena couldn't remember ever seeing her best friend so happy and bit down on her grin while watching them.
"So, you're planning on leaving the country?" Elena asked.
"No idea. We're still brainstorming ideas. Neither of us has any attachment to any place, really. My mom is somewhere in South America right now. Maybe we'll go visit her next."
"Meeting the in-laws," Damon commented with a dramatic wink at Enzo. "Must be serious."
Enzo frowned or maybe it was just badly concealed panic. "They say Europe is beautiful this time of year. Didn't you say you wanted to learn to snowboard?" he tried to talk Bonnie into it.
"Subtle, man. Real subtle." Damon laughed under his breath and so did Bonnie.
"Or you could stay here," Elena suggested.
"We could," Bonnie agreed. "To be honest, I haven't really seen much of the country to even decide which coast I would like to live on."
"No," Elena clarified, "I didn't mean here as in 'US'. I meant, here, as in Seattle. The apartment right under us is still available. Right, Damon?"
Damon nodded and said, "It's right above the bar, but it has good soundproofing."
"What would we do here?" Bonnie asked.
"What would you do anywhere else?" Elena asked and Bonnie agreed that it was a valid question. One that she hadn't devoted enough time to think about yet. Up until recently her life had been a series of saving the world from one catastrophe or the next or simply focusing on surviving. And more recently all her waking hours had been dedicated to bringing Enzo back. The question of what she wanted to do with her life seemed completely foreign.
"I guess I could go back to college," Bonnie mused.
"There are excellent colleges here," Elena sing-songed and smiled.
"I can show you how to run a bar," Damon said to Enzo.
A not-so-sudden silence descended upon the group as everyone let it sink in how a hypothetical idea could actually turn into a real, possible option.
"Well, think about it," Elena told the suddenly quiet couple.
"We will."
"Finally alone," Damon sighed loudly and dramatically, chin hooked over Elena's shoulder as they watched Bonnie's and Enzo's cab disappear around a corner.
"Did you hate it?" Elena asked. Damon hadn't said anything and had been a perfect host throughout. But Elena was under no illusion that a lot of it was for her benefit. She knew Damon would do pretty much anything, including housing her best friends under his roof, if it meant making her happy. "Honestly."
"Honestly?" Damon said. "Not as much as I thought I would."
Elena turned in his arms. "Really?"
"Why are you surprised? I got to go drinking with my best friends again. Granted, one of them mostly drinks ginger ale nowadays, but my tolerance isn't what it once was either, so."
"And the unexpected addition of two six-year-olds?" Elena prompted.
Damon scoffed. "The munchkins love me."
They did. Elena hadn't expected that. On Christmas morning, after Josie and Lizzie had woken up their dad and Caroline, they insisted to wait for Damon and Elena to join them in the main room before opening presents. Damon had grumbled all the way downstairs, but it had been mostly for show. And also to score a favor with Ric who kept apologizing.
It had been such a domestic scene, watching the girls tear into their presents. It had tugged at Elena's heartstrings, reminding her vividly of what she truly wanted and what was so frustratingly out of her control. She remembered glancing over to Damon, only to find him watching her. She had smiled and hoped it didn't look too sad.
"Let's go to the bar and annoy Dot," Damon suggested. "It can be our new post-holiday tradition."
"She held down the fort for you while you were entertaining your guests. I'd be extra nice to her if I were you."
"That's what I said," Damon replied, face a perfect mask of innocence, but with a devious glint in his eyes.
Elena suppressed a smile and followed him through the doors of Bar None.