Author's note: Hey, so glad this story is getting some love! One more fluffy little peaceful chapter before things inevitably get wild. :D
Damon and Elena lay curled into each other on her bed, holding on with a desperate tightness that only two people who nearly lost one another could understand. Elena fought to catch her breath, having only made love to him for the second time as a human. Her mind dizzily recalled the first time in the barn – smiling into his neck at the beautiful memory until the day inevitably turned ugly, ending with Jo's death, the near-annihilation of the Gemini Coven, and her spelled slumber.
"I still can't believe we're here," she whispered, careful not to rouse the other occupants of the house. "After all this time."
"Do you need me to prove it to you again?" Damon pressed a finger under her chin to meet her gaze, grinning suggestively at her with a lift of his eyebrows.
Elena laughed, barely able to hear her voice above the rapid beating of her heart and pushed up to press a kiss to his waiting lips.
"I. Waited. For you. For nine months," she punctuated between hurried kisses.
"And I waited for you for five years," Damon countered, rolling Elena to show her again precisely how much he missed her, again.
Sometime later, in the whispers of the afterglow, the night stilled between them.
"We could do so many things differently this time," Elena marveled, sighing happily as she laid her head on his shoulder.
"We could leave the tomb sealed," he offered, tracing patterns into her thigh that was draped across him. "That would take care of that whole mess with the tomb vamps. Katherine will probably stay away, thinking that Operation Fake Death is still in motion, and hopefully Klaus and his creepy family will, too."
"I can't imagine desiccating for all eternity," Elena shivered, frowning.
"Leave it to you to feel sorry for a bunch of murderous psychopaths," he snickered affectionately, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head.
"They weren't all bad," she defended. "Wasn't there one who tried to help Stefan?"
"Harper, yeah. He was pretty decent."
"Couldn't we help him, at least?" Elena squirmed, uncomfortable with the notion of leaving others to perpetual suffering after having been a vampire herself.
"Opening the tomb would invite Katherine, and in turn the Lycos-less Wonder – who, at this point would be a lot less amenable to listening to reason and would absolutely try to repeat all the greatest hits from the sacrifice ritual," Damon explained pointedly.
"You're right," Elena conceded, though she clearly didn't like it. "There's also Anna – who's probably on the prowl to take me hostage," she explained, in response to which Damon tightened his hold on her protectively. "I'm sure she's going to want to free her mom."
"I won't let her or anyone else hurt you. I promise, Elena," he told her earnestly.
"I know," she smiled, pressing her palm into his cheek affectionately. "But she won't give up – and I can honestly understand her. It must be so awful to know that her mom has been suffering for over a century. I don't think I would have understood her as well if I hadn't been a vampire, myself. If someone I loved was trapped to desiccate, I would move everything to help them escape," she looked at him meaningfully. The subtext danced on her tongue, spinning merrily about, secure in the understanding that it had made itself known without morphing into its more blunt and literal counterpart – instead content to swim in finesse. She would do everything required to save those she loves.
She would take apart the Other Side with her bare hands to save him, just as they both traveled across time to save each other.
Damon smiled, a rare vulnerability coating the fiery blue of his irises and just allowed the moment to settle between them. They were here. They were really doing this. Scheming future witch and coven or not, he would save those he loves.
"We'll have to get rid of her somehow. Maybe leave her to desiccate until the next time the comet passes over Mystic Falls," he continued pragmatically.
"Harsh," Elena balked, raised both eyebrows.
"If not, we invite Isobel and John, who killed her last time," he shook his head, tipping a finger under her chin to meet her eyes, willing her to understand. "Desiccating for a few decades might be preferable to death – especially if she's reunited with her mother when the time comes. Maybe by then, Katherine and Klaus will have been dealt with. Either way, it won't be your problem anymore."
"What do you mean?" Elena frowned, not entirely pleased with the turn of the conversation. She knew this side of Damon, and it always hurt her to see how quick he was to discount his own importance in her life. She wouldn't let him get away with it – not this time.
"Humans don't exactly have the longest lifespan, Elena," Damon smiled gently at her, though she could see the pain lingering behind it.
"What about you?" she asked pointedly, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't even know if we're going to be able to find the Cure this time, but I know I won't let you die."
"Damon," she sat up immediately, turning to face him. He had to hear her. "If we don't find the Cure, you know that I'm going to turn, right?"
"Elena, it's okay," he soothed, cupping her face softly. "I know how much you want to stay human."
"Not as much as I want to be with you!" Elena shot back, outraged – then stilled when she realized how loud she was.
"You can't turn just for me," Damon insisted, wincing when he recognized the familiar flow of argument from a night that now felt like another lifetime.
"Oh really?" Elena crossed her arms, raising both eyebrows in defiance. "What happened to doing it for us? Isn't that why you took the Cure?"
"It doesn't mean that you owe me anything," he admitted, aware that this was such a fundamental part of Elena's personality – especially given her almost pathological need to excuse Stefan's behavior after he left to decorate the Eastern Seaboard with bodies with Klaus – that he had to make sure.
"I didn't say that I felt like I owed you anything!" Elena hissed, throwing her arms up in frustration. "Damon, I want to be with you," she insisted, grabbing his hands, before a note of insecurity snuck into her voice. "Don't you want to be with me?"
"You know I do – of course I do," he reassured vehemently, squeezing her hands drawing her closer.
"Then what's the problem?"
"I don't want you to regret it," he finally managed after a brief silence, though she had to struggle to hear it with her human ears.
Elena softened, stroking his hair as her eyes caressed the contours of his face. "I won't, Damon. Look, I'll turn – when I'm a few years older. And if we happen to find the Cure, then we can make a decision on whether or not we take it – together. Either way, I love you, and being with you is nonnegotiable for me. It means more to me than being human," she insisted – though her voice was a soft whisper, there was a passion to it – a fervent aching – urging him to understand. When he offered her the Cure that Bonnie brought back from the prison world, her first instinct was not to take it, because she refused to live without him. It was only after he insisted that he would be human, too, that she changed her mind. She needed him to know that her feelings on this were still the same. Okay?"
"Okay," he finally conceded. It was a small word – monosyllabic, conventional, often considered dispassionate. But context can be everything, and in this moment – the breath with which Damon delivered his acceptance of the ardency of her feelings, the passion burning in his cerulean eyes to rival the brightest stars in all the cosmos, the depth of euphoria and love and longing with which his lips infused the kiss that followed – finally gave her hope that he understood how much she loved him, because he had made his feelings clear long ago.
"We'll have to ask someone else to turn me, though – avoid the sire bond," Elena suggested when her human form peskily demanded airflow.
"Yeah, I'm with you there. But who? Blondie would be the obvious choice, but we don't even know if she'll turn this time around."
"Stefan? We'll have to tell him the truth eventually," she shrugged.
"Let's leave that as a last resort. I'm not exactly rushing to have this discussion with him – and in a few years, a lot may change."
"That's fair," she acquiesced. "When do you want to tell him?"
"I don't know, but I don't think we should say anything to him yet. He'll probably think I compelled you and just try to trap me to desiccate again."
"Yeah, probably," she frowned. "We'll figure it out," she reassured, pressing a kiss to his lips. "As long as we're together, I'm not worried. We'll find a way to make this work," she murmured, laying back down on his shoulder, though she failed to hide her slight wince.
"What's wrong?"
"I've just had this headache ever since I got back. It doesn't seem to want to go away."
"Afraid that's my fault. I had a tension headache coming on when I fed you my blood," he said remorsefully, then bit his wrist. "Here, drink. This should make you feel better now."
As she drank, Elena's pupils enlarged immediately, flooded with the desire and potent love infused in Damon's blood – and for the third, and likely not last time that night, they allowed their bodies to express what words already hoped to convey, unaware of the narrowed, supernatural gaze observing through a crack in the blinds.
"I can't believe I have to go to high school again," Elena complained sleepily, annoyed that her supernatural beau appeared fresh as a daisy despite also receiving the minimal sleep offered by their reunion. Sometimes she missed being a vampire. "Did I quit cheerleading yet? Please tell me Tanner's already gone. I can't deal with his douchey interrogation today," she groaned into her pillow in a manner that was only partly intelligible."
"Yeah, he's gone," Damon trailed off, hoping she doesn't ask him why. Apparently, Stefan didn't divulge this particular misdeed. "I think Ric's probably on his vengeance mission now," he offered, then frowned in recollection. "Actually, I think I killed him already," he shrugged in a manner entirely too nonchalant for the subject, when suddenly, his voice reduced to a whisper. "Someone's coming."
Elena opened her eyes to see that Damon was gone, her confusion interrupted by a loud knocking on her door, followed by Jenna's voice. Jenna!
"Elena, Bonnie's here to see you!" Jenna announced, sounding somewhat confused, no doubt by the nature of such an early-morning surprise.
The door suddenly opened and the witch in question hurried inside, hastening to shut it behind her. "Damon, where are you? I know you two weren't discussing pancake recipe," Bonnie snarked, placing emphasis on the singular, and searched the room.
Suddenly a blur whirled in through the window and grabbed Bonnie in a crushing hug. "Bon Bon! You're here, too?"
She hugged him back, laughing, then accepted an equally eager embrace from Elena. "Althea found me about a year after Elena left. Apparently, the two of you will do – or are about to do – or plan to do – something that disturbs a Fixed Point. It's all very confusing, even after she tried explaining it at length. Eventually she gave up and just told me that it's something that has to be experienced," she struggled to explain between squeals of joy shared with Elena, and tight hugs exchanged by the three.
"So, what are you here to do exactly?" Elena inquired, grabbing Bonnie's hands. "Aside from just making everything more fantastic with your presence?"
"I'm not sure. Tell me what your plans were, and we'll try to figure it out."
Damon nodded, looking at Bonnie meaningfully. "We didn't talk about this yet, but we need to –"
"—Save Enzo," Bonnie concluded, to the agreement of both interlocutors. "We'll come back to that later, but it's probably something a bit bigger – on a cosmic scale. What else?"
"We're going to try to save everyone," Elena offered, looking at Damon.
"By keeping the tomb sealed," Damon finished for her.
"Damon convinced me, "Elena began, bubbling with excitement. "And it's such a brilliant idea! If we keep the tomb sealed, we can keep Katherine and Klaus away. That'll save Jenna, and John, and Isobel, and Anna – and Bonnie – your Grams," she softened, squeezing her friend's hand. "Imagine how much easier life is going to be for us if we just leave it closed for a while longer."
Bonnie listened, taking the information in. Leaving the tomb sealed would undoubtedly make massive changes. "Althea said that an action you at this point still plan to take – but have yet to enact – would lead to the loss of hope, which is pivotal in maintaining a healthy flow of this universe. You're in danger of creating a paradox."
"What does that mean?" Elena asked.
"Wouldn't a paradox suggest the kind of contradiction that leads its own impossibility?" Damon inquired, leading to curiously raised eyebrows from both interlocutors. "It's not like we went back in time to kill our own grandparents before they met our parents."
"I don't know yet," Bonnie admitted, listless. "Except that there's only one plan you have that has the potential for major consequences," she announced with all the peace and plans-shattering gravitas she could muster. "We have to open the tomb."
Fixed Points are part of Doctor Who mythos, and I'm not sure that I'll use them in the exact same way yet – but in terms of storytelling, I like the idea that certain points are fixed, and certain points are more flexible – though we don't know which are which yet.
Damon correctly quoted (a simplified version of) the velocity formula to Galen Vaughn in late S4, which is probably the only time anyone actually mentioned any physics (I'm not counting Stefan's ball-of-cliches comet analogy in S1, because lack of originality does not make for romance) in all of TVD, to my best recollection. I'm using this as official justification to make Damon my physics mouthpiece, yay! (Just for fun, I had him reference the famous Grandfather Paradox.) He's an intelligent, curious, and witty guy, so we'll say that he compelled his way into Richard Feynman's Caltech lectures – which were hilarious. Some of them are on YouTube, so please check them out, though the subject matter is admittedly very difficult. If you're not a math person, you will need to brush up first. I recommend starting with a really delightful clip of his explanation on the scientific method. That doesn't require any math, and is just enjoyable. This website doesn't allow links, so please search for it on YouTube. It's only 10 minutes or so long, and it's one of the best (and most entertaining) explanations of the scientific method out there, so I strongly recommend checking it out. That's not to say that I like everything about Feynman. He was a brilliant and witty guy, for sure, but I'm not the biggest fan of his involvement with the Manhattan Project – mostly because I don't think these kinds of weapons should even exist (so creating them was definitely a step in the wrong direction, for all of humanity – but those are just my views). I remember reading how heartbroken Einstein was when he learned that his research was to be used for this, and I felt so sorry for him.
Feynman was at Caltech at a point when Damon had his humanity off – but what TVD has shown us consistently is that the humanity switch has no impact on curiosity and a sense of humor (since no-humanity was the first time ever saw Stefan consistently be funny. Damon's always hilarious, anyway). It chiefly affects empathy. And really curiosity is what he would need to enjoy that experience.
My background is in physics, so I'm going to have a lot of fun with this fic! :D I'll use the author's notes to explain any allusions to real-world physics, but I'm also taking a lot of creative liberty here – and like literally any time-travel story – playing fast and loose with science (but hopefully a little less so than most works of fiction that deal with it). :D But, at the very least, I promise to be better than the MCU, which just throws the word "quantum" around anytime it's actually talking about magic but is trying to get some science cred. For good science jokes, go see Futurama. ;) I am soooo beyond psyched to stretch my physics nerd muscles with this story! :D
Bonnie's going to be the explainer of the magic angle. Elena's role is a surprise and remains to be seen. :D
With that said, I'm annoyed that nearly every physicist in fiction is a dude, but it makes a lot more sense to give it to him here. Elena and Bonnie are still good at math, though, because all the ladies in my stories are unless canon insists otherwise. :D (Fight stereotypes!)
Big hugs to you all, especially scarlett2112 (who was gracious enough to allow me to go over elements of the story with her), Florencia7, and Kriz03. You're all a massive delight. Please leave a review so I could learn all your beautiful thoughts and feelings!