Damon's sleep is anything but peaceful. Haunting dreams about Elena and their past, that so called journalist, Atticus Shane trying to kill her, Enzo kicking him out of their house, Vanessa trying to help him, Kol blocking her way grinning and laughing at her efforts, it's like cannonball fire, one volley after the next, his brain simply wouldn't shut off.
As an alarm clock keeps ringing in his dream it slowly pulls him to consciousness. He startles, he did it again. Overslept. Growling, he reaches for the phone with a loud bang when he knocks a reading lamp onto the floor. It almost jerks him to full alertness. Almost.
"Vanessa?"
It takes him a second before he realizes there's a long silence on the other side.
"It's me, Elena." Her voice is noticeably colder.
"Hey, Elena, sorry. I overslept and didn't look at the display...," he tries but he can tell she isn't buying his bullshit.
"It doesn't matter. I only called to ask about your schedule and to double check to see if you still wanted to come?"
"I do. But I can't now. I have a conference to attend. I'm scheduled to give my lecture at 2 o'clock but I have no idea what time today's sessions will end. I suspect I'll be there all day."
"It's alright.. But I made plans for the weekend so I won't be available later. I guess we'll have to figure something out next week."
"Elena, come on?"
"Don't let me keep you!" she sing-songs, ending the call before he can rebut her. He's left to stare at the phone, the dial tone blaring annoyingly in his ear. Frustrated, he slams it onto the mattress. By some stroke of luck it doesn't fall to the floor and shatter.
Oh crap!
Damon is in his element, he so enjoys teaching and giving talks about his books. He's received many rounds of applause by the time he finishes his presentation. The question and answer period is a formality, not his favorite part, but it's a necessity. He frowns slightly when he glances at his wrist watch. He takes a swallow from his water bottle while pointing at a redheaded girl.
"Dr. Salvatore, can you share any ideas that you have for future books?"
"Actually yes, I am just beginning preliminary research on John Singleton Copley. He lived from 1738 – September 9, 1815. This man was an American painter, active in both colonial America and England. He is famous for his portrait paintings of wealthy and influential figures in colonial New England, depicting in particular middle-class subjects."
When people start waving their hands in the air again, he shakes his head back and forth. "No more questions. Thank you all for attending today. It was my great honor to be here." Damon smiles then exits the stage, relieved to finally be able to loosen his tie. He's satisfied with his lecture and having satisfied even the most ardent history fans. It's almost six, Damon swears under his breath. He spent more time answering questions than he had planned to.
Although he knows it's probably a futile gesture, he's determined to at least leave her a message. He'd very much prefer to arrange a meeting for tomorrow if she can find a few moments to spare. He dials Elena's number and waits. While walking outside, he contemplates his options. Just as he reaches his rental car, Enzo answers the phone.
"You've got to be kidding me," Damon mutters under his breath. "Enzo."
Enzo laughs heartily. "Damon! My favorite nutty professor. Sorry buddy, she's not here."
"Stop bullshitting me! Just put her on the phone."
"Can't. She's walked off to get herself a big cup of coffee."
"Come on, Enzo, put her on the phone."
"No can do. We're at the airport."
Damon's caught of guard. "You're leaving?" Yeah, that was a stupid question.
"We are indeed. We're going to Hawaii for the weekend to visit Elena's mom."
His throat tightens. "They moved her to Hawaii?"
"Not exactly, Damon. She miraculously woke up two years ago and after a long stay in rehab, Elena bought her a home in Maui. Miranda now lives there permanently. We visit her whenever we can. Surely you knew?"
"No.. um, I didn't," he admits. It hurts more than he's willing to admit. He never got to meet Elena's mom, at least not personally. His only contact with her was sitting with Elena while her mother was laying unconscious in a comfortable facility room. And she never met him either. What did she think about Elena's marriage? It was already in its last gasps when she awakened. What would she think of him? And now Enzo's the one joining Elena when visiting her mother.
"Still with me, Damon?"
"Yes, I'm here. So I suppose you won't be back before next week?" He asks, waving for a taxi to pull over.
"Unless there's some kind of a flight delay, we should be back sometime on Monday. Elena is booked up Tuesday doing TV shots for the studio's PR department."
Damon hears the loud sound of a flight being called through the phone. Before he can say another word, Enzo's voice breaks the momentary silence. "Sorry Damon, need to run." With the sound of a click, Enzo ends the call.
Frustrated, Damon tosses the phone on the passenger seat. He sits there for a long moment before he finally starts the car to drive back to the hotel. He's more than ready for this day to be over.
Elena is sitting in the window seat, occasionally looking outside to take in the view. When she feels a nudge, she turns her head, taking the drink that Enzo hands her. She doesn't like flying which sucks because her job requires her to fly all over the world, sometimes on a moments notice. She whispers thank you and takes a swallow. Although she's not much of a drinker, she never turns down alcohol when it comes to airplanes. It seems to help her frayed nerves.
Enzo looks at her now and then but knows it would be futile to try to distract her. He presses his hand on top of hers and soon enough her eyes close and her breathing evens out. He relaxes and opens a book he picked up in the airport for the flight. He can't seem to concentrate though as he usually does when traveling. Damon doesn't know Elena's mom? How strange.
But given the circumstances, he guesses it's really not so strange after all. She was trapped in a coma for almost two years. Although he knows most of the details of Elena's romance and marriage to Damon, he is quite certain that she still has a few secrets. From what he does know with certainty is that she and Damon were together for about a year before it blew up in their faces.
Enzo met Elena not long after she started her career. She wasn't a big name yet, still having a small role in the soap opera. At that time, she was under the wing of her mother's best friend, Esther Mikaelson, who also managed, still manages her son, Elijah Mikaelson's career. It took quite some time for Enzo to convince her that the two of them would make a great team and as much as Esther loves Elena, she wanted to focus her attention on getting her youngest son, Kol, groomed to enter the acting world. They've been together ever since and neither has any regrets.
After her mother's tragic accident, Elena's world tilted off its axis. Her mom was her best friend, advisor and mentor. She fell apart and Enzo was there to help her pick up the pieces. The doctor's didn't hold out much hope but Elena refused to give up and as soon as she was medically stable, Elena had her transferred to one of the top rehab facilities in the country. There she laid for almost two years. That all happened a few months before she met Damon.
While Enzo has never been that keen on the good Professor, he will give him due credit, the marriage probably saved Elena's sanity.
The problem is that he also destroyed it.
Enzo wakes her up once the plane begins its descent, frankly it's the worst part of the flight. He links their fingers after they both buckle up and wait for the plane to hit the runway. He feels good inside when he sees how excited Elena is already to see her mom. She's staring out the window but as soon as they feel the bounce, she tightens the grip till the plane slows down and begins to taxi towards their gate.
Once they step onto the concourse, Elena and Enzo follow the rest of the passengers as they make their way towards the luggage carousel. "Do you think mom will be waiting?"
"As if you even need to ask, you know she will," he laughs, giving her a wink.
She pulls her hand free and darts past him as soon as she sees her. "Mama!"
Miranda catches her and hugs her tightly. "Elena! I'm glad you're here." She pulls back and eyes her daughter closely, frowning when she sees the brown smudges under her eyes. "You certainly do need some rest," she adds, brushing her thumb across Elena's cheek. As soon as Enzo catches up to them, she takes him in a hug too.
"Enzo, good to see you."
Thank you for bringing her home to me. He knows Miranda well and can easily read her thoughts.
Elena is simply beaming, her smile is as wide as Enzo can ever remember as she looks at her mother's face. He will never tire of that smile, it's full of life and vigor. The three of them walk together to claim their luggage and while they wait, Enzo steps over to a kiosk to get them all something to drink.
Miranda is glowing too having her daughter here. There were so many times the doctors told Elena that a meaningful recovery was a very small possibility. Miranda had a heart attack while driving to see her and crashed her car. She obviously had a severe head injury in addition to the damage to her heart muscle. But Elena insisted that they do everything in their power to treat her. She laid in the intensive care unit for about three months, attached to a ventilator. Miranda still bears the scar in her throat from the tracheostomy. Once they were able to wean her from the machine, she was transferred to the rehab center.
She still has a little weakness on one side of her body, but it's nothing that hinders her activities. He's just so grateful that Elena got her mother back and he gained a trusted friend. When her rehab stay was nearing it's end, Elena and Enzo flew to Hawaii for a job. They fell in love with the place and knew it would be prefect for her mother to continue her recovery.
She bought a vacation home near the beach and when Miranda was discharged, the three of them flew here. Elena took six months off to stay with her mom. Miranda found her purpose again, finding herself a job as an activity director at the same kind of facility in Maui. She lives at the home full time. He and Elena visit as much as possible and occasionally Miranda flies back to the mainland too but Hawaii is paradise so usually if they want to see each other, it's he and Elena who hop on a flight.
As soon as their luggage starts falling onto the carousel, Enzo reaches for them, setting each one down as he retrieves them. Once they have everything, Miranda pats his shoulder and takes her daughter's hand.
"Let's go home kids, we're going to enjoy this weekend," she adds, leading them outside to the parking garage where her car is waiting for them.
"Damon!" Ric's voice sounds pleasantly surprised when he picks up the phone. "How are you?"
Damon mentally rolls his eyes. "I'm doing what you should be doing..., trying to get my wife sign the divorce papers," he adds sarcastically.
"That's not fair!" Ric feigns hurt.
He's clearly in a good mood. Bastard. Although loathe to admit it, Damon already feels better hearing his friend's voice.
Ric chuckles but then his voice becomes serious. "No, really, Damon, how is it going? I mean, was it bad? She hasn't signed them yet?"
"No she hasn't, she's not making it easy by any stretch of the imagination. She... wants to talk everything through, Ric."
"Hmm..., That's not an unreasonable request, Damon. I mean, it can't hurt, right?"
"Are you being serious right now? You really think it's a good idea, opening up all those old wounds?"
"Well, Damon, it's not like you talked when she was leaving... I suppose it's better to get it all out in the open, not leave anything unsaid, no regrets..."
"Regrets... ? She, she wants to talk about... her accident. When the baby died..."
It never gets easier for him to talk about that time in his life. Without realizing it, he finds himself rubbing his palm over his left fourth finger. Damon can feel the familiar tug at his heart and the thickness in his throat at the mention of her. He is ready to flee from this conversation. And this is just Ric.
Ric sighs, he knows how good Damon became at denying the past, both Elena and the miscarriage. He buried his feelings deep and simply refused to talk about his loss, their profound loss. As Damon's best friend, he also knows that it wasn't the only contributing factor that led to the disintegration of their marriage.
"Maybe it's time to talk about it, Damon. Get it all out in the open and maybe then you can let it go?"
Damon falls silent for a minute, then voices what bothers him the most. "She said, I've never forgiven her. That I was mad." He realizes after a few moments that his friend has fallen silent. "Ric?"
"And have you, Damon? Forgiven her, I mean?"
"What do you mean have I forgiven her? How can you even ask me that? It wasn't her fault, I know that, it was a tragic accident."
"Yes it was, Damon. Elena didn't do anything unreasonable. Lots of women work up to their due dates. But what I remember from that horrible time was that you were pretty much a dick about it. And you didn't want to talk to her and on the rare occasion when you would speak, your words were terse and sharp. It shouldn't be a surprise that she would think that?"
Damon's stunned to silence, the truth of Ric's words slamming into him like a freight train. Ric's right. He's never forgiven her, at least he's never told her has. Neither has he ever made amends for his stupidity, he must have made her feel like crap. "Hindsight is bitch," he utters, pouring himself a stout drink.
Ric can sense his uneasiness and changes the topic to help him out. "I saw Vanessa the other day. She's clearly enjoying teaching your classes. I think the students might be looking forward to your return though. She's pretty tough on them."
"Yeah, Vanessa..," Damon mumbles half heartedly. But the truth is, the uneasiness still lingers, a maelstrom of guilt churning in his belly.
Elena is lying in a hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling. Feeling the uncomfortable stab of her incision, she shifts in bed, grimacing as she does. Her right hand is gripping the control button for the PCA, she gives it a push and feels the numbing warmth as the morphine begins to work again. She relaxes her fingers letting it fall from her grasp. Her cloudy eyes drift to her strangely flat stomach, she places her palms against it. she can't help but caress it every now and then but stops immediately at the odd empty feeling.
She's been awake for some time now. He has yet to come into her room. She knows he's somewhere in the building, the nurse told her so. Her heart clenches even more painfully at the truth, he's avoiding her, she's certain of it. The nurse confirmed as much when she told her that he was here. Surely they would have told him that she's now awake. Tears form in the corners of her eyes, she can't stop their descent down her cheeks at the thought that he doesn't even want to look at her.
How can she blame him when she doesn't want to look at herself either? Elena curls up into as tight a ball as her aching body will allow. She wishes that she could have seen her, held her just once. She again runs her fingers over now empty bump. Her cries are full of agony and despair. They're so loud that the depth of her pain can be heard echoing in the hallway. The nurse runs in and injects something into her IV and then everything is blissfully gone as she slips into the darkness.
By the time she wakes again, several hours have passed and now she knows, he isn't coming at all...
She wakes up with a start, her mom's soothing hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry Elena, you were thrashing."
She shares look with Enzo and then with a nod, he gets up to give them some privacy. She swallows thickly and watches him disappear through he door. There are so many things she has to thank him for. Miranda sits next to her and lays her daughter's head on her lap.
"Was it about your baby?" she asks quietly, her hand stroking her daughter's silky soft curtain of hair.
Elena nods but is already calming down. It's like walking along a familiar well worn path. She's looking around, making out single pieces of furniture. There's a light shadow shining in from the window, spraying the light on a chest of drawers. Although it's too dark to make out the photos sitting on top, she knows they're family pictures of her and her mom when she was a child and then a teenager and finally one of her in her high school graduation garb. She shifts just slightly, her eyes meeting her mom's.
With her heart so heavy and her mind a mess of emotions, there is no other place she'd rather be than right here in her mother's arms.
"It wasn't just that... he's back, mama... he came to ask me for a divorce."
You're probably angry with Damon right now. Our erudite professor is beginning to see the first hints of sunlight, he's very much a work in progress in this story. He will be taking an important little getaway of his own pretty soon.
My apologies for the late update. I was out of the house running errands all day yesterday. Eva and I want to thank you all so very much. You're an amazing group of people, we're in awe every day of the friendship and support you give us. Your encouragement inspires us to keep writing stories.
Thank you Eva. You're awesome and brilliant and I'm so lucky to have you as my sister/partner.
Chapter title: 'Mama, I'm Coming Home' by Ozzy Osbourne.
Please have a look at "Eyes Without a Face."
Have a fantastic day and weekend. Thank you again, you're all the best. We'll see you next week.