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Epilogue II

birds of a feather

Birds sing after a storm.
Why shouldn't people feel as free to delight
in whatever sunlight remains to them?
—Rose Kennedy

Bonnie had climbed a mountain, and now she looked out on everything that lay before her, not as a queen assessing her domain, but like a child facing an entire room filled with presents.

Bonnie breathed in deeply before releasing all of the held air in one single forceful whoosh. She wanted to fill her lungs with this air, and her body with this feeling of awe, over and over so that she could carry it with her always. She turned, eager to see Damon's reaction to the view, but he was eyeing her instead of the vista spread in front of them. His gaze was speculative, and she stifled the smile that immediately teased at her lips. Damon wanted to be serious right now and he wouldn't appreciate her cooing over his furrowed brow.

"Do you regret it?"

There could be no question of the 'it' he was asking after. He'd posed the question a dozen different ways in the past month, though never this directly. Instead, he had lingered over hypothetical what-ifs, timelines where they never met, or where she'd never traveled back in time, or where Elena wasn't a doppelganger. They all held one thing constant: she would still be alive.

"Are you going to talk about my lost opportunities again? The 2.5 kids I could be having with someone that isn't you right now? Who was it yesterday? Jeremy Gilbert, right? Of all people, Damon, honestly." The former witch said with a laugh.

His lip quirked downward and Bonnie internally scolded herself. Hadn't she just resolved to match his serious mood? But it was hard not to make light of his worries, hard not to smile and laugh, when she felt so happy. She looked out on the valley one more time. Wonder bubbled up in her again, but she tore her gaze away and skipped over to Damon. Standing in front of him, she rested a hand on his chest, feeling the steady beat beneath her palm, letting the warmth seep into her fingers. The pearl ring glinted on her finger, nestled next to the unadorned gold band that marked their marriage. Bonnie cupped his cheek and tilted his head to meet his gaze head on.

"No. I don't regret it."

Damon took a step back, though not far enough for her hand to fall from its resting place over his heart, and gestured broadly.

"But looking at this, at Nature, don't you wish you were still a part of it? That you could still speak its language?" Damon asked. Bonnie knew he was nervous, that he lingered on these questions and hypotheticals because he was scared that she was keeping her unhappiness hidden from him, and that he wanted assurance that she didn't regret choosing him. She knew that her more-constant presence for the last decade had erased most of his anxiety over the preceding century that he spent waiting for her brief visits, but times of change tended to resurrect old fears. And this was definitely a time of change, for both of them.

"I can't lie; I do miss magic. I've forgotten that I don't have it a dozen times, at least, in the past week. And I know it will take more time to get used to it, to remember that I should be scared of fire, or that I can no longer track you down with a simple spell and a map. But I still don't regret it."

"How can you not?"

"Damon, I lived as a human before I was a witch. I've had my world and worldview completely upended before, with zero preparation that time. This was different. I went in to this with my eyes open, knowing what I was giving up and what I was gaining. And I promise you, I'm happy."

"But—"

"I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you, and you wanted the same. Right?"

Damon nodded.

"Would you have taken the cure, and become a human, for me?"

Damon hesitated, but nodded again.

"I think we both agree that Kol had the right of it though. Shoving it down Silas's throat was the way to go. But don't you see that it's the same? You're my best friend, my deepest love, my husband," She said, lingering on the last word, his newest title in her life. "I wouldn't be parted from you for anything. How can you doubt my choice when you would make the same one?"

"It's not the same, Bonnie. And if there was a chance for us to be human, for us to live and grow old together—"

"We can still grow old together Damon, just without the wrinkles and arthritis. I wasn't exactly looking forward to either."

"And no kids."

"Damon, I'm not Elena, and you're not Stefan. We wouldn't have had kids even if we'd both been born in the same century as regular humans. That was never my dream. But if you're really into it we can talk about adoption in a few decades. Or maybe more than a few. But I'm sure that if we ever make that choice, Caroline will be waiting in the wings with the contact information of an established and respectable supernatural adoption agency and dibs on godmother status."

Damon laughed. Bonnie felt the sound vibrate through him.

"And I think we both know that a life without each other isn't what we want. I'd have gone crazy behind my picket fence with Jeremy Gilbert. I'd probably have killed him myself."

"Not if I got there first."

"You're going to kill my husband and steal me away in the same fantasy world you created to separate us?"

Damon looked sheepish, but Bonnie was smiling again.

"How very you. But it's too late in this world. You can't steal me away from my husband. I'm much too in love with him."

"I've heard he's a dick."

Bonnie laughed, and refused to deny or agree with his joke.

"Damon I could never regret this. I promised." The happiness in his eyes finally matched hers. Bonnie wanted to keep it that way.

"Close your eyes. Listen," she ordered, lifting her hand to cover his eyes when he didn't immediately follow her direction.

"What? Bonnie—"

"Shh. Listen." She said. Without their voices, the sounds of their surroundings filled the silence. The stream rushing beneath them, the dozen heartbeats of the animals nearby, the birdcalls from distant trees.

"As a human I would never have heard all this music. Listen to the wind passing through the mountains. It sounds like a giant is blowing their breath across a dozen bottles." Bonnie lifted her hand from his face, and Damon's eyes blinked open. "Or look, there!" she said, pointing. "See how the light dances over each individual feather on that hummingbird? And god, can you smell this grass? Who knew grass could smell this good?"

Damon smirked at her antics, but he followed along with her as she pointed out each wonder of the senses. More and more, his eyes shown with the same wonder that sparked within Bonnie. She felt giddy with it, with the valley and the future, both stretched out before them.

"I may no longer be a witch, but Nature isn't lost to me. We've just switched frequencies. And do you know the best part of this frequency?"

"What?"

"I get to share it with you."

"Sap."

"You love it."

"Yeah, I do."

"Now who's the sap?"

And then they kissed. Because they were young (relative to other vampires in their friend group) and in love (hopelessly) and at the top of the world (or a mountain at least).