There are things, he knows, he can't say. Not now. Not anymore. There are words which sound can kill a man when there's no one to hear them out, to hold them still, because they come back like a boomerang and hit where it hurts the most. Some place in the middle of his chest, at the bottom of his soul, wherever she still is.
The practical, sensible thing to do is to swallow them and pretend.
Damon has a poker face of which he is quite proud. He can pretend with anyone, but when the first actor is even his own audience it gets tricky. You swallow those insignificant, tiny three words and they swell inside until your heart is crushed and your throat is tight and your vocal cords breaks and everything burns with the power of those words.
He can't admit to himself that he was that stupid, that blind. He can't admit that his heart was elsewhere instead of with the girl that always smelled like vervain and all of his mistakes, and that he never knew 'til now that it is too late.
He is timeless and he never knew what too late really meant until now. Now those three tiny words mock him endlessly in whispers and murmurs and the shopping list attached on the fridge watches him from the VIP stand.
He can't say goodbye either.
If he visits her gravestone or her empty room he will have to, eventually.
If he holds Elena back, now that she's holding on to him like he's going to disappear at any moment, he will have to, and he can't. So he pats his hand in the middle of her back and fake a peaceful, resigned expression as Stefan watches the scene from the doorstep, with arms crossed on his chest and - Damon knows without looking - an unimpressed look on his face.
"I miss her so much," she says between tears. A vampire has no need for air but she is sobbing on his shoulder so violently like she can faint from lack of oxygen and he thinks about how it can be possible, mechanically speaking.
But she should look at the bright side. Wouldn't she like to pass out and take a breath from all this crying?
On his part, he would like a break from all the thinking, but he's left with little less than a bottle of bourbon and a weeping vampire damping his shirt and he can't even sleep anymore.
"I know," he says, blank, hoping she will stop crying or talking, or possibly both, but she doesn't.
"I'm so sorry I didn't think of you, but when I saw her- I- it's just-" he's not sorry at all, he'd like to tell her; in fact he would be very glad if she would go back to cry her loss on his brother's shoulder, but she keeps on talking and after all it's a noise like another that will cover up all that mocking in his head.
"I thought everything was going to be alright and now she's gone."
How strange it is that Elena - his beloved Elena - is in his arms and he does not really care. He had always thought that as long as she was alive, as long as he could be near her everything would have been alright. He had been yearning for her touch for so long, believing it to be a healing to all of his wounds, all of his scars, and now she's no more than a dead weight hanging on his shoulders.
"There, there," he says apathetically, knowing this is the pause where he's supposed to tell her something meaningful and comforting, and yet he's unable to find anything better to say. And then he sees her for a moment. His little bird, sitting on the sofa, coughing on his favorite bourbon. "There, there," and she slaps his hand away making him laugh. The image is so vivid that for a moment he forgets that she's gone and the ghost of a smile shows up on his face at the memory, and then disappears as soon as it appeared.
Elena holds on his shoulders with her small hands, her grip unnaturally strong, and she puts space between them to fix her doe eyes on him. Damon would like to tell her to stop looking into his eyes like she wants to find his soul; he doesn't know where it's gone hiding and he doesn't want to give her yet another reason to cry on.
Her eyes fall on her shoes as she bows her head and her grip loosens up slowly.
When Elena looks back at him again her eyes have stopped watering, but her lashes tremble and her sadness is so composed that it gets him, somehow. Her voice is weak, it sounds like a glass ready to break, "Damon..."
Her unblinking eyes stare at him like suddenly she knows what he won't.
"Yes, that's my name," he says, looking like he's trying to amuse her but she just keeps on staring at him with eyes wide open.
Her hands fall from his shoulders and she says again "I'm so sorry," but it seems like she's sorry for something else this time, and he can't stand the way she looks at him.
"I got it the first time, and as much as I'd like to stay here and watch the rerun I think my little brother is the best man for the job. His shirt is dry, anyway," he says walking around her, "I'll go out while you stop the Flood," he tells his brother passing him by.
And she comes back again, slightly smelling like rain, looking small and seductive inside her oversize, worn out Duke sweater. Flood aside, you went pretty well. His answer to that isn't that funny but she smiles and pushes a lock of hair behind her ear, and he wants to touch them so badly that he can hardly concentrate.
He thinks about stupid things, like what happens when someone eats strawberries even if they are allergic to them. And he walks, until he finds himself facing the open gates of the cemetery. He doesn't enter. He never does even if he takes the same walk every day, until, on the fourth one, he hears a familiar voice speaking aloud.
"You were the strongest of us all, and now everything's crazy without you," he says, "Elena and Caroline miss you so much. Almost as much as I do." Oh, isn't he adorable to tell her something so sweet after he betrayed her with ectoplasm? He deserves to be hugged so tight that it'll make him turn blue in the face.
But first things first.
It takes Damon just a moment to find Jeremy, "To each their kink. It seems that ghosts do it for you" he says; his voice makes the boy turns around, and he grabs him by his shirt to lift him easily from the ground until his feet kick the air.
"Sorry to ruin your Demi Moore moment," he says with a canine smile, "Me and her need to talk and you'll pass the message along," he says, turning his head around like he can see her too.
"What?" Jeremy can hardly breathe, let alone follow his colorful speech, "Elena is not here," he says trying to pull at Damon's wrist to make him loosen up his hold.
"Not her," he says gritting his teeth, "I heard you," he clarifies, sounding almost like he's accusing him of something, "Tell Bonnie that she needs to tell me how to bring her back."
The initial confusion on Jeremy's face disappears as Damon lets him go.
"Tell her now."
The boy rubs his neck, answering wary "She's not here."
"Bullshit!" Damon says, almost hissing, "I told you I heard you talking to her, so Ghost-Whisper-her that she needs to come back!"
"That's not what I was doing," Jeremy tries to explain but Damon cuts him short. His features revived by eagerness and sarcasm.
"I don't care how you un-cool kids call it. You do that and I'll let you live enough to see the end of your handmade moments."
"Get it into your thick skull," Jeremy says again, "I was not talking to her. Bonnie is not here. I was doing what any sane person would do. I was mourning her."
Jeremy is angry. Angry that she's gone, angry that he must explain himself to him of all people, angry that Damon has the nerve to be so unstable because the witch he tried to kill has dared to die without his involvement.
"Why do you want her to come back so badly? Are you upset that you didn't get to kill her yourself?" he asks, "That must be such a bugger for you. I mean, after Sheila and Abby, I see why you'd want to finish the job with the last Bennett!"
Hate burns in his eyes as Damon pushes him to the ground and presses his forearm down on his neck.
"Isn't it convenient that ring of yours? Huh?" he asks, as his black eyes stare down on him and his canine come out, "I wonder if it would work all the same if I tore you to shreds."
"Wanna try?" he asks back, desperate for air but trying to not show his fear. It's hard to do when Damon looks so bloodthirsty and out of control.
What about Jeremy? She's sitting on the sofa, looking at him like she's trying to not hope for anything and he wants to erase the insignificant boy from her mind.
"I'm not going to bother with you," he decides, standing and brushes off dust from his shirt looking detached and bored, "Being useless should be punishment enough."
He catches the marble of her gravestone. Her framed picture smiles at him and he needs to look away before his walls crumble down.
Jeremy gets up and watches him turn his back and walk away like there's something that slows down his steps, some sort of anchor closed around his ankles that keep his body - or his soul - at the bottom of the ocean. It occurs to him that someone else might miss Bonnie more than he does.
She was wonderful like that, he thinks. And what is she now, the anchor or the ocean?
Maybe she's both.
#
"How was the funeral?" he asks, suddenly appearing in the kitchen as Elena and Stefan sit at the table.
His brother holds her hand keeping it on his knee, and they look like they're letting each other be all the known world, outside of which nothing else exist. Damon really has no taste for molasses.
Elena blinks and looks at Stefan before answering; it's been a week already since it happened and he never showed any interest in discussing it before.
"A lot of people came," she says "Everyone was really touched."
"So, you were there," he says, like he's trying to get somewhere. He has a haunting look about himself that makes her feel tense. She doesn't believe he would ever do anything to hurt her intentionally but she can't help but feel nervous.
"Of course I was, she was my best friend."
"What are you trying to get at Damon?" his brother asks, cutting in. He knows him too well to be misled.
"I just realized your girlfriend is wearing a very pretty ring," he answers, eying her white gold ring with a pink stone, "And since the sun has not set yet and she's here in all her un-dead glory, I must gather that you found yourself a new magical mini-market," the bitterness in his face doesn't show, yet he hates the idea that they could replace her, even if they really had no other choice, even if in that department alone.
"Abby came for the funeral."
She remembers her mask of pain behind the big glasses as she mourns her daughter from afar so that her husband would not see her. Her, usually firm, posture curved by the weight of all the things she never got to say to Bonnie, of all the years and the birthdays and the recitals and the dances she missed out.
"She was quite worn but managed to help us all the same," Elena explains.
"Oh, I bet. You should expect that from someone with such a maternal instinct," he says, his voice clearly ironic, "But she can't do magic anymore, so..." he says and Stefan looks at him wary.
"I think it's my duty to bring her my condolences, in person," Damon adds, sounding way too reasonable for Stefan to not worry.
"I don't think there's any necessity," he says, standing up like he's ready to fight him.
"Little brother, how rude of you," Damon scolds him with a grin, "Would you really deny some comfort to a mourning mother?"
"I don't know what you have in mind," Stefan says, not buying his sudden sympathy for a second, "But whatever it is I can tell it's nothing good."
"And we all know what family approval means to me," he replies flat.
"Guys, please," Elena cuts in trying to be the voice of the reason, "you need to stop fighting. Haven't we lost enough already?"
Stefan is silent as Damon fixes his eyes on her. His blue eyes look distant and yet melancholic as he answers her.
"That's the point."
It's his brother who hears what's hidden behind those few words. Damon has nothing else to lose. Stefan is hurt but he can understand, because he would feel the same if it was Elena instead of Bonnie and so he watches him turn his back on them and walk away.
"What do you think he has in mind?" Elena asks him, circling his waist with her arms and resting her cheek against his shoulder.
Stefan does not answers, just kisses her forehead hoping for the better.
#
Abby is already gone and so is Jamie. Now that he's got no one to irritate he can even say his name right, but the boy remains useless, and now is nowhere to be found, and so any link he could have with the witch is lost.
Stefan doesn't need to ask when he sees his brother coming back home late that night. He decides to not push the matter, not make any question and leave him to rest so they can face the subject in the morning. Damon hadn't had any sleep in over a week now and he's hoping that this can be the right night.
When he opens his eyes in the morning and snap into a sitting position the feeling in his stomach is so real that seems almost made of concrete. He gets up immediately and rushes to Damon's bedroom, then downstairs and in the garage. His 1969 blue Chevy Camaro Convertible is missing and so is a bag of clothes.
All Stefan can think about is that he should have known.
When he tells Elena she stays frozen on the spot for five seconds and then rushes into his arms. He's very worried about Damon but he cannot say it out loud. It's so strange the things that can scare you. He lived long enough without his big brother; he's been haunted by his hate, and both his absence and his presence for more than a century, and this is the first time that he makes him truly frightened.
Elena holds him more often than usual, and when, two weeks later past by, he lets himself wonder if it's his brother's arms she's longing for. She tells him "I know you're worried about him but I'm sure he'll come back."
It's almost like she could read his mind and he feels a bit more at ease.
"Do you miss him?" he asks her once. She sighs and admits with a hint of guilt, "Not as much as I'd miss you."
Stefan waits patiently for his brother to come back, because - after all - right now he's all he's got, and once he's back he'll be there for him any way he needs to.
He visits Bonnie's gravestone every night; hers is the only one always covered in fresh flowers. During the day he could easily meet her father and he doesn't want to intrude in his pain. Above all, he can do nothing about his guilt.
Elena always visits her after school. Now that Caroline is gone again - trying to find the right words to say, the right thing to do to help Tyler win Klaus over - she still confides her secrets to Bonnie and he doesn't want to take away this last shred of bond she managed to find with her best friend.
Sometimes Jeremy goes there before the sunset, so he can watch it with her. Matt is the early morning kind of guy and he jogs to her before school.
So Stefan is left with night hours, and it is fine with him. It's peaceful and, in the night, he can hear every sound of the city. He doesn't really know if he visits her because he misses her or because he expects it to be the place when he'll find Damon again; he stops wondering after the first week.
A month later he's so tuned to the sounds that it doesn't matter what time of the day it is; he can hear the batting of wings of any kind of bird to the point that he can distinguish them without even having to raise his eyes to the sky.
When he hears a crow's cry it's four in the morning and it is fifty-one days since the last time he saw his brother, fifty-nine since Bonnie's funeral, sixty-one since her death.
He gets up from his bed, gently untangling himself from a sleeping Elena, and leaves the house walking to the cemetery. He waits longer then he needs to, just to make sure that his mind is not playing tricks on him.
"Where did you go?" he asks as his brother piles up another shovelful of earth to the side.
Damon leaves the shovel half into the ground as he turns his head over his shoulder to grin at him.
"I went to buy a pack of cigarettes," he says.
Stefan is not going to argue with him about his whereabouts in the past month and a half, but he's not going to be gracious about him disinterring Bonnie's corpse. He rushes to take away the shovel from his hands and he must push him down in the process.
"This is not a game of football," Damon tells him, "If you force me to come and get it I won't go easy on you, little brother."
Stefan can see his eyes shine with a serious intensity. The air is quite cold at the end of September but if he could feel any chill at all it would be because of Damon's eyes.
"What are you doing?"
"Gardening," the other says as he gets up, with the grin he always uses to scorn him, and yet Stefan is not really sure he's mocking anyone but himself.
He promised himself to do anything to keep his brother once he found him again, but to let him humor himself with Bonnie is not an option.
"I know you're hurt but I'm not letting you disrespect her," he says, grave.
"That's not what I'm trying to do, and you should know better," he says, almost accusingly.
Yes, Stefan should know. He does know, doesn't he?
"You found a way to bring her back."
"Bingo! The doll goes to the vampire with the brooding forehead."
"How?" he asks, very tempted to believe they really got a shot at having Bonnie again but reminding himself that he's the only lucid one and he must remain so. When or if Damon's hope crumbles down he must be ready to pick up the pieces and so his hope must be kept at bay.
"Oh, you know how it works," he shrugs "a semi-consenting ex witch here, an abracadabra there, et voilà," he says waving his hand in the air like he's holding a magic wand, "it's easier than you think".
"I don't really like the semi-consenting part."
"So picky," Damon grimaces, "Now give me back the shovel."
"Forget it."
Damon attacks him immediately but Stefan dodges him. Once, then twice.
"I said to give me the shovel," he repeats, with a threatening voice.
"There's no need to," Stefan replies calmly, "I'm digging myself."
His brother watches him cocking his head to the side. There's the same sharpness of the crow in his movements.
"You go, I'll take care of Bonnie and meet you in an hour wherever you need me to," Stefan explains.
"And I should trust that my righteous brother will disinter his friend's corpse because I said so?" he asks, sarcastic.
"No," he replies simply, "You should trust that your righteous brother will disinter his friend's corpse because you love her."
That's what makes Damon falter in the end. The tiny words always mocking him just put them out there by his little brother. Damon blinks taking that sentence the way he would do with a punch.
"It's been more than a month now," and her body must be decomposing faster because of what black magic did to her and he doesn't want his brother to see the girl he loves like that; if whatever plan Damon set up to bring her back fails, he doesn't want that to be the last image he'll ever have of her, "You don't need to see her."
"The exercise will do you good," Damon says after a few seconds of stunned silence.
Stefan is his brother and he can hear what's hidden behind those few words, that's why his answer is "You're welcome."