A/N: Hello! Uni has just been a whirlwind but not writing feels wrong. Creating these stories for you all has been such a privilege; thank you for all your support. Apologies if I seem a bit rusty – it's been a while since I wrote creatively, especially as Damon/Bonnie.

A short update for obvious reasons. This is the penultimate instalment of Amaryllis but don't worry, I have a lot of other one-shot ideas to come (and am very open to requests too!). Follow me on tumblr for updates: perpetualimaginings

Sometimes, when it's dark outside and her thoughts collect under the moon, she thinks about how she got here. All of here. From normal to supernatural, from student to Witch, from lonely to mother – in the warm light of the Salvatore kitchen, Relly is perched on the counter-top as Damon cooks – from enemy to best friend, best friend to… here.

She's extended her stay for two weeks now; it feels right. Most of the time. It's only when he bends his head to smile at her with more than his smirk that she feels like a fraud, a thief. Taking something that should have been Elena's. It's then she needs space – the air turning crisp, the night tilting into silence.

Bonnie twists again to the Boarding House light. The window is shut but she can practically see her daughter's giggle, a spoon hanging off the former-vampire's nose, eyes drawn inward in a stupid face.

You're not making this easy, Damon Salvatore.

"Mommy, dinner's ready!" Damon holds Relly steady as she swings suddenly out the window, welcoming Bonnie back to the present. Like coming home.

"Coming," she sing-songs in response, nods in thanks to the moon and crunches over the gravel to Damon's cooking and teasing and loving.

Is it okay if a little bit of me can imagine staying here?

"In the dining room, Bon!"

How about a lot of me?

Relly's tongue is just visible above her lip as she lays the table. When she places the fork where the knife should be, Damon prods her gently, a whisper in her hair.

"Sit down, Mommy!" She orders.

"You Bennetts," Damon exhales, "Always so bossy." A dish towel is flung over his right shoulder and it's embarrassing how attractive Bonnie finds the sight. It's an image lodged in the pre-death part of her mind – before her life peeled apart and she was magic and a weapon and had more important things to think about than what her husband would look like cooking for their family.

"You okay, Bon?"

She blinks and blows hot breath on her chilled hands. "Hungry."

"Good because I have prepared a banquet fit for a Queen and a Princess," he winks.

"Daddy calls me Princess," Relly says brightly but the light fades and she frowns, breaking Bonnie's heart a little, "But not very soon."

Damon's hands tighten around the dish, the blue of his eyes hardening, and if he wasn't human, Bonnie would be bracing to pacify the vampire. His reaction stalls her response momentarily before she snaps into Mom mode with the sole goal of ensuring her baby knows her fucking perfect she is.

"You're way cooler than a Princess, Relly," she begins, flicking to Damon for assistance (to Relly, his word is sacred). "Princess' don't get to fly."

"Your Mom's right," Damon affirms, placing the lasagne on the table and wiggling the chair next to Relly out of its place. "Princess' are pretty but I know something much prettier and cooler and it can fly."

"What?" Relly breathes, wide eyed in the promise of his fantasy.

The former vampire twists to Bonnie but she just shakes her head, just as intrigued. "Go on."

"Um… yeah… a fairy queen?"

And she has to laugh, the once big-bad vampire and his adorable attempt at cheering her daughter up.

Relly scowls at Bonnie's snicker before addressing Damon. "Do fairy queens have a wand?"

"For magic?"

"Yes! Turning people into frogs and… making milkshakes!"

"Milkshakes!?"

Relly giggles, "One million hundredmilkshakes."

"One million hundred!?"

His mouth is tilted in that same goofy smile he wore when she came back from the Prison World, what's she's come to recognise as happiness – what's come to make her happy too. He was her best friend and she was selfish. Watching Elena, watching him watch Elena, it hurt when, where, it wasn't supposed to, when she was mourning Enzo, where she was leaving for her own adventure (not to escape the impossibility of the one she couldn't have, but might've, wanted).

"Magic, Damon. It can do anything."

And he pulls away from her daughter, goofy smile dissolving into something that flutters her heart. "I know, Bon-bon," he says softly, "I've seen you."

/

Elena calls him when they're at the park. He lets it ring, silencing the ringtone and slipping his cell face down back in his jean pocket.

"Damon! Push me on the swing!"

"Sorry, I'm on it," he hurries, unable to shake the frown out of his words, off his face. Elena never calls, the last contact they had was one month ago – sorting out bills and car insurance.

"Faster!" Amaryllis demands.

"Okay but hold on tight? Bonnie wasn't happy when I brought you home with a graze yesterday."

"I ammmmm. Just moreeee."

He'd called Elena the evening before the grocery shopping, before Amaryllis clattered into his life… before Bonnie began laughing in his thoughts again. She hadn't picked up. Obviously. Their love had faded and neither of them knew why. Liquored up, he wondered if it was ever really there.

Damon pushes the little girl through the air a few more swings before he realises, he's irritated by the woman's intrusion. The last few weeks of mornings he's woken up happy – Elena's absence swallowed by a little girl in Frozen pyjamas and her little Mama (he's wanted to call her that for days now – the name dangling on his tongue, daring to earn him an eyeroll) cooking up breakfast. It's what he's thought human would look like. Not 1864 with his curled hair and waist coats and an empty hole he believed Katherine could fill. Happy human.

"Oh shit."

"Did you just say a bad word?"

"I saw a ship."

"No, you didn't. We're at the park."

Maybe this has always been dormant? Maybe the whole fine line between love and hate bullshit has some weight? Maybe Stefan was right that one time he mentioned it? Maybe he's been waiting for her the last six years? Maybe that's why he and Elena drifted apart… and why she's in his kitchen now, reading a trashy magazine and eating the overpriced cashews she persuaded him to buy?

Shit.

He flexes his palms on Relly's back, sending her whizzing through the air with a squeal.

I'm in love with your Mommy, kid.

A/N: One last chapter of this series, my friends. Hope this itty bitty one was okay. Please do leave a review.