Author's note: Happy Star Wars Day, everyone! May the Fourth be With You! Thanks for all the love, beautiful darlings! :D
I actually had parts of this chapter written first (I often write out of order), so why not just post it to get the ball rolling, right? :D
FYI, if you're concerned about potential breaks in the spacetime continuum, paradoxes, and other consequences of time travel – you should be. :D
One hour to midnight, Damon noted, reasoning that now that he was a vampire again, he could easily finish yet another tumbler and sober up with time to spare. Pressing the glass to his forehead, room temperature cooled by the crisp, autumn air, he finally allowed the day's tumultuous events to replay in his mind, hoping to suss out some hidden meaning behind the witch's vague warnings.
She mentioned something about others – some helping, some hindering. Helping what, exactly?
He dubiously eyed Emily's grimoire sitting next to him. Perhaps if he gave it to Bon Bon early this time, maybe they could be friends sooner. He'd almost forgotten what it was like to be completely and utterly alone, minus the occasional meaningless one-night stand that left him feeling just as empty in the harsh light of day. So, becoming friendly with Witchy while hoping to earn a measure of Elena's forgiveness and perhaps even love would make his existence here a lot more bearable.
Granted, he did just nearly rip Bonnie's throat out, Damon remembered with an inward groan. And used Vampire Barbie as a mobile blood bag. And force-fed Elena his blood.
Would it even be fair to pursue Elena, knowing that he was unlikely to survive for long? He knew the devastation she faced when she mourned him. Would he so selfish as to force her to go through that again? Maybe it would be best if he backed off entirely, and just kept her safe – encouraging her to lead a normal, human life. Maybe marry Doctor Future Humanitarian Award and pop out a couple of kids while singlehandedly curing world hunger and saving the whales and everything else a blithe, compassionate spirit like her could accomplish without the supernatural intervention with which she was saddled.
No, that kind of global overachieving was more Blondie's style, he internally reasoned. Elena had a considerably more personal approach. She was the kind of person who could find the most miserable, the most downtrodden, and make him feel like the most important person on Earth. She could find a lost soul adrift, bereft of conscience, and still genuinely see enough good in him that he'd move mountains just to meet the faith in her eyes. Could he really subject her to the devastation of such soul-crushing grief – again?
But what if he didn't have to die? What if there was another way?
He needed another drink.
Before he could properly get his bearings, he heard the heavy, wooden door slam into its adjacent wall, signaling the arrival of the Terror of the Forest himself, guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of every cute bunny and squirrel – Steffie.
Damon fought the urge to run up and embrace his very living brother, standing mere feet before him – breathing, whole – alive. And then punch him for the pompous, self-righteous lecture he was about to deliver, if he was reading his forehead wrinkles correctly.
And then hug him again.
Stefan stared at him curiously, seemingly confused by the undisguised affection on his brother's face, before Damon caught himself and carefully returned what he deemed to be sardonic perfection. While he considered seeking some supernatural aid for his endeavor, it absolutely wouldn't be from him. At this point, Stefan would be too quick to think the absolute worst of his brother, not believing for a minute that his goal was only to save him and Elena. If he even believed that he was displaced in time, this version of Stefan was a lot more likely to lock him up to desiccate than provide any kind of valuable assistance.
At least for now, hiding the truth from him was utterly imperative.
"I hope you're happy, Damon," Stefan moped, angrily, seeing Damon's expression return to normal. "Elena's so distraught over what you did that she forced me to leave. I've never seen her like this. She's not herself, at all. If something happens to her while your blood is in her system –"
"Then at least you know you'll see her again," Damon interrupted airily, still not entirely understanding why Stefan would prefer a dead Elena to a vampiric one.
He missed his brother, truly and wholeheartedly, though he had hardly the energy to deal with the confrontation this version of Stefan was clearly craving. Grabbing the grimoire before his little bro got any ideas, Damon made a beeline for the door. "I'm going out," he announced, making a show of shutting it casually behind him, and immediately blurring away from the Boarding House at supernatural speed before his interlocuter got any bright ideas and tried to follow him.
Maybe a drive would be an environment more conducive to pensive brooding – no, strategizing; he didn't brood – while he mentally prepared himself for confrontation number two, due to take place in less than an hour.
Damon arrived at the quarry with thirty minutes to spare in his paranoia that his clandestine night-time interlocutor lost her mind, continuously aghast that she would pick such a deserted place at night, when she knew very well that vampires roamed Mystic Falls. Although, he reasoned, at the time, he was the only known danger, at least until Anna –
Anna!
This was the night the Anna kidnapped Elena and Bonnie to manipulate him and Stefan into helping her open the tomb. Panic seized him, until he saw her unmistakable form approaching, his palpable relief quickly replaced by anger.
"Are you out of your mind?" Damon demanded, quickly closing the distance between them as his voice rose in volume. "Out here all by yourself in the middle of the night? Are you trying to be vampire-bait?"
"I knew you'd come," Elena almost-whispered, too quiet for human ears, but evidently aware that he would hear her. Her face seemed to run the full gamut of emotions. From sharp relief, to what Damon could swear was hazy adoration – she looked so happy to see him, that he could have almost interpreted the tears in her shining midnight eyes to be ones of joy, of affection as her eyes darted between his and she stifled a sob – but all too quickly, her face contorted in rage.
The force with which Elena slapped Damon could kindly be called a minor tremor on the Richter scale – at least that's what she probably told herself. He was a vampire, so it hardly felt like anything.
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
He allowed her to do it, his face shifting to the side, but only slightly, because her human strength when compared to vampirism was frankly the equivalent of a kitten trying to move a lion.
"Elena, I'm sorry; I – " Damon began, his voice filled with shame. What excuse could he possibly give her?
"Do you have any idea what I went through for those months when you were," she swallowed thickly against the tears rapidly forming in her eyes, drowning her voice in emotion, unable to bring herself to say it, "…gone? And now you would willingly subject me to the possibility a life without you? How could you, Damon? And don't even think for one second that I don't think you have some secret plan to sacrifice yourself and save Stefan! What happened to hating martyrs? Well, I won't let you do it!" She pushed him, and then immediately squeezed him in an almost too-tight embrace. He heard her breath tremble against his chest, his jacket clasped tightly in her fists.
His eyes widened in animated – almost cartoonish recognition – that would have looked bizarrely out of place to anyone who'd only seen Damon's carefully-sculpted facial expressions. But it had been five years for him since he had seen her awake, not counting earlier that evening, when he numbly pushed the love of his life into his brother's waiting arms.
"You're … my Elena?" A Damon of yesteryear would have probably cringed in embarrassment at the sheer vulnerability breaking his voice, but his current version couldn't be bothered to care. She was here, awake, and she remembered him – and she loved him.
"Always yours, Damon," she pulled back to gently cup his face, smiling against the tears that threatened to fall, while gazing at him with something akin to awe, as though hardly believing that her endeavor worked after so long.
They were drawn together instantly, whether by magic or by love or by desire – or a combination of all three – but all they both suddenly knew was a combination of lips and tongues and hands, and the salty taste of tears that snuck into their ardent embrace for the first kiss they got to share in years. When Elena reluctantly pulled away to catch her breath, Damon drew her impossibly close, almost fearing that she could disappear at any moment.
"But how? How are you here?" Damon finally managed, finding his voice among to volcanic eruption of emotion threatening to overwhelm him, his face buried in her hair. This day had certainly not turned out how he imagined, and its various sharp and unexpected turns left him reeling.
"I followed you," she breathed, pulling away to look at him, to bask in the cerulean fire that were the eyes of which she'd dreamt so often when she was in her magical sleep. "I could tell right away it was you – my Damon – from the way you looked at me earlier tonight," she traced every contour of his face with utter adoration shining in her eyes – a part of her truly believed she would never see him again. "Bonnie found a way to wake me up, on the day you left," she added, with a hint of annoyance, quickly overshadowed by the typhoon of emotion that was actually being in the same physical space again.
"Don't you realize dangerous this is, Elena?" He tried to sound upset, truly, but the joy lighting every facet of his face told an entirely different story.
"It's like I said before," she smiled against the tears continuously falling onto her cheeks, pressing her forehead against his. "I know what I signed up for, Damon – and I'm all in. And this time I won't trust Alaric or anyone else to make sure you're okay. I'm doing it myself."
"You're really here," Damon breathed reverently to her returning nod. "She said there would be others. I just never imagined…"
"That it would be me?" Elena smiled, drawing him closer for another kiss. "Why not?"
"Because I didn't expect this trip to make me so deliriously happy," he replied, pressing adoring kisses to her knuckles. "How did you get her to agree to send you? She didn't strike me as the most charitable witch."
"Ooh, that's an excellent question," she narrowed her eyes, her exasperation from before suddenly returning. "I'm so glad you asked. Bonnie woke me up shortly after your disappearance, only for us to both learn that you had yourself cloaked from being sensed by magic. By the time we managed to track you down, you were already gone, and the most obstinate witch in the history of witches kindly informed me of all the materials you ruined in your display of irreverence to be taken seriously. You know that slug paste you destroyed to make a point? Do you know what slug paste even is? Well, I do. I spent nine months crafting a new batch for every vial you obliterated in your show of little rebellion. Would you like to know how it's made, Damon?"
He winced, sensing he would learn the answer soon, and in considerable detail.
"Do you know what they made me do, Damon?" Elena cried in exasperation, throwing her hands in the air. "I had to spend nine months scouring the globe to replace the contents of the vials you broke. One of them contained slug paste. Slugs, Damon! I had to reach in with my bare hands and squeeze slugs to make a paste out of them. Do you know how many slugs I had to squeeze to fill just one vial?" She grew increasingly animated as her tirade progressed, emoting the actions behind said creation of the paste.
"I—"
"Two hundred! And the entire time, I'm caught between disgust and heartbreak – because what if they're in pain? I mean they have to be, right?"
"Elen –"
"You made me squeeze slugs, Damon! And the butterflies," her face constricted in pathos for the poor creatures she helped obliterate. "I had to find hundreds of butterflies, of varying species, to make butterfly oil. I'm pretty sure some of them were endangered," she pouted, then collected herself after a long sigh. "Just so you know, she would have sent you regardless. My understanding from our not-brief-enough, but very terse, encounters is that they'd been seeking to create a team of 'champions' for a long time now, and you happened to waltz in and give them everything they needed."
"Do you know what for?" Damon wisely changed the subject from butterfly-and slug-murder-cum-ingredient creation.
"No, she was very tight-lipped about it," Elena admitted pensively. "Though I have seen her talk to Bonnie, which I'd been meaning to ask her about, but the witch – Althea – dropped me here before I got the chance."
"And now you're here," he brought her hand to his lips to press a kiss to her palm. "And dating my brother again, in my least favorite bout of déjà vu," he wrinkled his nose in distaste.
"Actually, I broke up with him tonight – shortly after we left. We've been friends for so much longer than we were together that it just felt all sorts of weird. Plus, I knew you were here," she nudged him playfully. "It was almost impossible to get him to leave me alone after that, but I made my escape by going to Bonnie's. I'm just lucky she chose to cancel her date with Ben. It gave me a place to stay for the last few hours."
"Bonnie the lifesaver," he smirked lopsidedly, his mind evidently elsewhere. "He made it sound like it was more of a fight – that you weren't yourself."
"Well, I'm not," she laughed, then studied him. "Hey, don't tell me you're worried. Damon, I'm in love with you – and only you."
"I know," he told her seriously. "It took me a while, to get to this point – I admit. But I'm here. So, what reason did you give Stef for the break-up?"
"I told him it made me uncomfortable that he manipulated me into betraying you tonight and that it was wrong, which it is," she emphasized, leaning her head on his shoulder. "It's something I should have done even then. I love Stefan – truly – he's one of my best friends. But we really brought out the worst in each other when we were together. Kept each other in this perpetual state of grief and mourning, and it often led to you being hurt. I never should have lied to you that night. I'm really sorry about that."
"Hey, it's okay. It was a long time ago," he soothed.
"Technically, it's only been a few hours," she smiled, though it didn't reach her eyes – guilt gnawing at her anew at how much she inadvertently hurt Damon before they officially got together, despite her best efforts to avoid it.
"Well, if you're really concerned, I know exactly how you can make it up to me," he smirked, raising his eyebrows suggestively.
"Oh no, you don't!" Elena gasped, affronted, though grinning happily at the turn away from morose topics. "You're making it up to me first! Slug paste and butterfly oil, Damon! You can spend the night making it up to me, and we'll see where you are in the morning in terms of forgiveness," she purred, wiggling suggestively in his arms.
"Oh, Elena, Elena," he sang, a decidedly smug expression slithering onto his face. "That didn't take long at all. Still can't keep your paws off me."
"I have to get going," Elena offered reluctantly, biting her lip. "Or Jenna's going to catch me. I'll text you as soon as the coast is clear, and leave my window open for you," she winked, before sauntering off to her car, swinging her hips in a manner she knew from experience drove him wild. Perhaps she wasn't a precision-point caliber seductress like Katherine Pierce, but the college years were educational in many ways for Elena, in and out of the classroom.
It was near two in the morning by the time Elena was finally satisfied that Jeremy and Jenna wouldn't wake, and that the coast was clear enough to text Damon to climb through her window for a night-time tryst, laughing at the Shakespearean absurdity of it all, with significant hope of a happier outcome. She barely set her phone down before he appeared by her window, his presence serving to erase her worried thoughts like magic. She smiled beatifically, greeting him with a lingering kiss as soon as he entered the room.
He pulled away reluctantly, his face awash in consternation. "Elena, you said that nine whole months passed since I disappeared, right?"
"Just about, yeah."
"When did you get here?"
"Right at the moment when Stefan handed you the grimoire," her eyes widened, suddenly catching his train of thought.
"Me, too," he replied, his expression solemn. "Only I left nine months before, but we appeared in the same exact moment. The witch – Althea? She said there would be others – both friends and adversaries. That means that whoever else came after you –"
"Is already here."
Sooooo, I'm sure some of you wanted Damon to woo Elena for a nice little slow burn – and you may still get elements of that. There's an idea that I'm tossing around, but it's a bit wild and out there, so we'll see if I can make it work. :D
What a healthy interaction for chapter 2 of a story – the kind that usually signifies the conclusion of relationship storytelling. Take this as a sign that things will get wild, and soon. (Although, to be fair, I'm not sure this counts as a relationship-centered story, anyway.)
I guess you can count this as a post-series reunion, because this is their first real interaction after she woke up for the magical coma.
But that also means Elena as a fellow time traveler/Champion! :D One more to be revealed in the next chapter – before the remaining identities become a mystery. Anyone want to guess who it is?
Please don't be fooled into thinking that everything's smooth sailing just because Elena came along. I just thought that we were robbed of a proper reunion in the series finale, so I tried my very best to compensate, and hope it meets your approval. :D
Although chapter 3 is also pretty clear in my head, I think I'll update With Great Power next – mostly because that chapter is already half-written. I'm saving Serendipity until I'm happy with it, because it will really be one more chapter, and maybe an epilogue.
Thank you for being awesome, everyone! Hugs and love. :D