A/N: THANK YOU SO MUCH for your gorgeous reviews! *hugs*
Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries belongs to L.J. Smith & CW.
Chapter 13
Bonnie slumped onto the bed and looked at the grimoires that Klaus had managed to send in. She couldn't help, but wonder who Klaus was, because when she'd asked if he was their friend, both Jeremy and Caroline had denied the idea with rather extreme vehemence. Then again, she didn't feel like hearing any more disturbing stories right now, so perhaps it was for the better she hadn't asked them to explain their reaction.
She had talked with Jeremy for almost three hours and it was clear he had really been trying to tell her as much as he could and explain everything as much as possible, although Bonnie still struggled to make sense of her short yet seemingly very complicated life. Jeremy had said that it was her grandmother who had been teaching her magic and that at first Bonnie hadn't even believed her that she was a witch. He'd mentioned that Elena was the first person Bonnie had told about all that, so perhaps she could provide her with some more insight concerning her beginnings as a witch.
Out of curiosity, Bonnie started looking through the grimoires, turning tattered pages and trying to read the words and decipher the symbols, but none of them were evoking any feelings in her and it all looked like a story in a language she didn't know at all. Even a small, thick, square grimoire Jeremy had said she'd started to write herself didn't trigger any thoughts. Bonnie stared at what seemed to be her own handwriting, but the words and drawings were not making any sense to her. Even though deep down she felt that they might... if she wanted them too. And that probably was the main problem.
Closing one of the grimoires with a quiet thud, Bonnie rose to her feet. It didn't seem like a great mystery, her reasons why she had no interest in being a witch again. Her grandmother had died after performing a spell that had exhausted her beyond her strength. There were some unclear dealings with the "spirits" that Bonnie had supposedly angered. There was dark magic that she had apparently delved into to bring Jeremy back from the dead. A long, steep trail of questionable choices that had led to her own death. And later to her coming back to life – and due to another unexpected twist, also to her becoming the "anchor," the concept Bonnie couldn't really wrap her mind around. The idea of serving as a literal doorway between the world of the living (or rather undead) and the world of the dead... Bonnie could tell it must've been awful, if only judging from the way Jeremy's eyes darkened and his features tensed when he had been telling her about that in a low voice, his teeth clenched.
It was late and she was tired. Looking out of the window at the town lights shimmering in the semi-darkness below, Bonnie thought that perhaps she should just follow Caroline's advice, take a bath, go to sleep and continue thinking about everything tomorrow.
With a sigh, Bonnie went to the bathroom, turned on the water and sat on the edge of the tub.
Jeremy had reassured her that if she didn't want to have anything to do with magic, it was her choice and she didn't have to worry about that at all. Of course Bonnie hadn't missed Caroline mumbling something about their home town being under a spell, but Jeremy had wordlessly silenced her with a pointed look and so Bonnie hadn't really gotten any details on that.
On the one hand, she didn't want to know, but on the other hand... If she was to be completely honest with herself, bringing people back from the dead and lifting curses sounded pretty cool. Then again, it seemed that in her previous life everything had eventually started spiraling out of control and there was no guarantee this wouldn't happen again. And she wasn't sure she was ready for that. She felt like nothing would work until she made her choice and decided if she wanted to be a witch again or not. She needed a reason. Perhaps her being alive was a good enough reason, she had to take that under consideration. After all, according to Jeremy, it was literally a miracle that she and Damon were alive. If only she could remember how this had happened. Maybe then it would've been easier for her to decide.
Last but not least, regardless of everything, she had no idea how she could start being a witch again. Was there some kind of a triggering spell that could turn her skills on?
Snorting under her breath, Bonnie undressed and got into the bathtub, smiling at the realization that, technically, she'd never taken a bath before, because in the hospital she'd only been taking showers.
Having submerged herself in the comfortably warm water, Bonnie looked around in search of a soap and groaned inwardly when she noticed that it was lying on the vanity, very much out of reach. She'd have to get out of the tub to get it and she really, really, really didn't want to-
Bonnie's eyes widened in astonishment, when suddenly the soap bar lifted itself in the air and started floating toward her. She abruptly straightened up in the tub and the soap fell to the ground as if someone had dropped it.
Her heart pounding in her chest (and she rather hoped Caroline's blood had really healed her heart, as ridiculous as the entire idea still seemed to her), Bonnie very slowly leaned over the edge of the tub and looked at the soap bar on the floor a little fearfully.
She tried to remember what she had done, what she had thought a few moments ago-
And sure enough, to her disbelieving exhilaration, the soap shot up into the air once again and as she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the bar, it floated straight into her open palms.
After staring at the soap for a longer while, Bonnie shook her head. "This is seriously weird," she muttered to herself and laughed under her breath.
xxxdelenaxxx
"That was easy," Enzo said, raising an eyebrow when before he even got to knock on the door it opened and Damon stormed out of the house almost colliding with him.
"I'm sorry," Damon muttered absently, briefly looking the police officer up and down. He took a step to the side, but then stopped, thinking that perhaps he should take advantage of this chance meeting and report what was going on in Dr. August's basement. But before he opened his mouth to speak or realized what was happening, Enzo grabbed him and zoomed with him off the porch and back toward where the cars were parked.
Elena and Alaric were standing next to Alaric's car, Elena's expression anxious and a little upset as she was about to start listening to Alaric's explanations, which were cut short, because Enzo came back a mere minute after he had left.
"Do I get bonus points for speed?" Enzo asked with a brief smirk, brushing imaginary dust off Damon's shoulder and lightly shoving him straight into Elena's arms.
Alaric glanced at Enzo, not sure what such an instantaneous return meant.
"Damon!" Elena gasped out, overwhelmed with relief, her arms immediately wrapping around him. She cradled him to her, trailing hurried kisses across the side of his face.
Maybe if he wasn't so stunned by this turn of events and caught off guard by Elena's appearance, Damon would've been able to act on his earlier thoughts. But her sudden closeness was too much and he couldn't bring himself to care whether he deserved to hold her or not. He locked his arms around Elena and pressed his lips to her cheek.
"I'm sorry," he whispered and she drew back to look at him. "I-"
"You could've just told me," Elena blurted out on an impulse, despite having intended to bring it up later and in a much calmer and more reasonable voice, "if you wanted to visit someone-"
Damon shook his head, cutting her off. "No. No, Elena... I just thought that maybe Bonnie was here," he said with a frown, tucking her hair behind her ears, his thumbs sliding down her cheeks.
Elena's eyes lit up and she was quite certain that the smile that flitted across her face was ridiculously content. "Bonnie's safe," she said, placing her hands on his cheeks. "Enzo got her out of the hospital," she added, glancing at Enzo who squinted and slightly shook his head in mocking exasperation, silently communicating to her that glamorizing his past actions wasn't going to affect his future ones.
"That's good," Damon said and Elena smiled, but then her smile turned into a frown when she realized that Damon's eyes were still veiled with worry and sadness and that apparently there was something more, something else that was bothering him. "Do we know each other?" Damon asked cautiously just to clarify, looking at Enzo over his shoulder.
"Well, not to brag, but I'm your best friend," Enzo replied with a small, crooked smile.
Alaric widened his eyes at him and snarled derisively.
"I think you can argue about this later," Elena said, despite finding the prospective argument rather heartwarming. She glanced up at Damon, but he seemed unaware of it, apparently lost in his own thoughts, his expression so grim that Elena's heart skipped a beat, her anxiety growing.
"There's nothing to argue about," Alaric said with another snort. "Alright. Let's go," he said, glancing at Damon and Elena and getting into his car.
Enzo watched him with his eyes narrowed and when Alaric closed the car door, he zoomed toward Damon and Elena and before they had the time to protest, he unceremoniously ushered them into the backseat of his car, jumped into the driver's seat and started the engine.
Not sure what was going on, Alaric shook his head in annoyance and having no other choice followed Enzo's car.
"Wait, we have to go back," Damon said, shaking himself out of his reverie, leaning forward, instinctively grabbing one of Elena's hands and holding it tightly in his. He knew that he should talk to her first, before just picking up where they had left off, but a mere thought about staying away from her seemed to be having the exact opposite effect on him and he was feeling the need to keep making sure she was right next to him even more. "There's a girl locked up in the basement of that house. We have to go back for her. We can't leave her there."
Enzo sighed. "I'm really tempted to say something right now," he said, glancing into the mirror and meeting Elena's simultaneously pleading and warning gaze. "To cut a long long story short," Enzo continued and Damon wondered if he was saying what he had just said he was tempted to say or rather jumping to a different train of thought, "I have a plan that requires keeping a low-profile and breaking a vampire out of that basement right now could potentially hurt my plan. Collateral damage and all that. Sorry."
"You don't understand," Damon said with a frown. "They're torturing her-"
"Oh, I do understand," Enzo cut Damon off, shooting him a lingering look over his shoulder.
"Enzo spent 70 years in a similar place," Elena said quietly, shifting her hand in Damon's grasp and sliding her fingers in between his. "That's how you met." She drew a breath. "What Enzo meant to say was that we'll come back for her later," she added, holding Enzo's gaze in the mirror.
Enzo rolled his eyes, but said nothing, which Elena hoped was a sign that he was at least open to talking about that later.
Damon looked at Elena, trying to return a faint, reassuring smile that she gave him, but failing. He averted his eyes from her and stared out of the window for a few seconds, a nagging voice in his head telling him to release her hand, but he found himself clutching it tighter and tighter in his instead.
"Damon, are you OK? What happened in there?" Elena asked, turning fully toward him and gently cupping one of his cheeks with her open palm to make him look at her.
His eyes wandered all over her face a little frantically before, after a moment of hesitation, he decided to ask, his voice low and uneven. "Elena... Did you know all that?"
"What do you mean?" Elena asked with an uncertain frown, her breath catching in her throat.
"Did you know all that... about me," Damon replied hollowly and Elena's mouth twitched. She shook her head, trying to guess what exactly he could be talking about, a sinking feeling that he might've heard about or remembered some disturbing facts torn out of context sending cold shivers up her spine. "About... all those... horrible things that I've done," Damon whispered and trailed off, studying her face with utmost intensity, as if he was half-hoping she'd known... half-hoping she hadn't...
Slowly, Elena drew a breath. She wanted him to be free of all the dark and sad memories, for as long as possible. And she felt a twinge of painful regret at the realization that it seemed that her plan wasn't going to work, not even for one whole day.
"Did someone tell you something? I don't know-" Elena started, but Damon cut her off, brushing the side of her face with the back of his hand, a strangely rueful grimace flitting across his face.
"I want to hear it from you," he said and only after saying the words out loud he realized how true that was, how he wished he had learned it all from her. "If you know," he added under his breath, suddenly afraid that she didn't know anything and that when he told her, it'd change everything.
"We all have done horrible things," Enzo observed in a low, flat if a little raspy voice, his eyes fixed on the road.
Elena's and Damon's eyes darted to him, but then they looked at each other again.
"But I don't remember what I've done," Damon said somberly after a pause. "Now I only," he grimaced at the word, "know what I've done. I killed... I killed... so many people. I spent two hundred years killing people-" he spoke in a faltering voice laced with incredulity and panic that reminded Elena of her own feverish reaction to Connor's death.
"No, no, that's not how it was," Elena protested, interrupting him in mid-sentence and placing her hands on his shoulders, sliding them onto his neck. "You weren't like that. Not... usually, not all the time," Elena groaned inwardly at her inability to quickly find the right words that would be precise enough not to be giving off some ambiguous impressions.
"Not all the time," Damon echoed with a bitter, sad, humorless smile, looking at her in a way that made Elena's heart beat faster and not in a good way. "Stop defending me!"
"After you escaped from the Augustines you were in a really bad place," Elena said, holding his face in her hands and looking him straight in the eye. "They'd been torturing you for five years. You thought Enzo was dead," she continued ardently, her eyes darting to Enzo for a second. He was looking at the road, his face unreadable. "You and Stefan weren't really speaking. You didn't have anyone, any place to go. You were all alone." Elena swallowed, blinking back the tears, feeling abstractedly angry that she had to be saying such things out loud. "And you... turned your emotions off," she whispered with a grimace, but Damon's expression didn't change and she felt like she was losing the ground under her feet. "You're making excuses for someone you love, that's what you do."
Damon shook his head, a resigned frown deepening on his face. "Elena-"
"Damon," Elena interrupted him in the most decisive tone she could muster. "I didn't mean this as a metaphor. You literally turned off your emotions, your humanity. Vampires can do that. They can choose not to feel. If we turn our humanity off, all the guilt, sadness, despair, all other emotions, both good and bad - are gone. And you turned that switch off... for a few years."
Damon looked at her in silence for a few seconds and she hoped that maybe she had convinced him to think about the past differently, but then he spoke, his voice quiet, but firm.
"This doesn't change anything," he said and then to Elena's growing dismay covered her hands with his and gently, regretfully slid them off his face.
She drew a breath, feeling like she was losing him all over again, like it was some kind of a nightmarish déjà vu.
"I have a suggestion," Enzo cut in and Elena's eyes darted to him, but he was looking straight ahead, not at them and she couldn't see the exact expression on his face, couldn't infer from his tone what he was going to say. "Instead of wondering about all the awful things that you've done," Enzo said, turning into a parking lot. "Why don't you start wondering about the things you must've done that make everyone hover over you so much right now?" Enzo stopped the car, turned off the engine and flashed them a brief smile, before getting out of the car.
Elena let go of a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She glanced at Damon, but the frown on his face was still there, although he blinked a few times, Enzo's words apparently breaking through that barricade of resignation a little.
They got out of the car and only then Elena noticed that they weren't at the hotel like she had expected them to.
"That's not our hotel," she stated unnecessarily and Enzo gave her an amused look.
"Clearly. It's a bar. My bar," he said, gesturing for them to follow.
"Yours as in you own it or you spend every night in here," Damon asked, trying to find some space in his mind that was free of thinking about his dark past or the vaccine, but not really succeeding. He looked at Elena, feeling his heart clench painfully at the realization that one day he wouldn't be able to look at her anymore. One day he'd be gone. He'd have to die and leave her.
"Mine as in I have most of the staff compelled," Enzo replied with a smirk.
"What's going on here?" Alaric asked with a grimace, catching up with them, having parked his car next to Enzo's.
Elena shook her head, signaling her confusion, but then whispered when Alaric came closer to them.
"Maybe that's not a bad idea. We still need to talk him out of this Augustine scheme."
"Yeah, and he probably wants to talk us into it," Alaric observed dryly.
Elena shrugged and then stopped in her tracks. "We'll be there in a minute," she said, giving Alaric a quick nod and pulling Damon aside while Alaric reluctantly walked into the bar after Enzo, not entirely convinced hanging out with him was the best way to spend an evening, especially for Damon.
Grabbing Damon's hand, Elena pulled him with her a few steps away from the bar entrance. They turned around the corner of the building and into a very narrow, dark alley.
"I feel like I should say something funny right now, but..." Damon said with a weak smile when Elena backed him up against the wall.
"You would have," Elena said with a small smile. She stepped on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. "I didn't want you to find out about all that in such a way," she whispered, placing her hands on his shoulders. "And I know you're confused and that it seems really terrible when you think about it in human terms-"
"Does it make any difference?" Damon asked, almost involuntarily raising his hand to push a few strands of hair off her face. "Not all vampires kill people, do they? And what you said earlier about that humanity switch. I chose to turn it off, right? So the responsibility is still mine."
"I'm not saying it isn't," Elena said, grazing his lips with her fingertips. "You never thought it wasn't. You were always taking responsibility for your actions. I'm not trying to justify your actions," she continued with more confidence, noticing that his feverish adamance seemed to be subsiding a little, "I'm just trying to explain them to you. You turned off your emotions, because you didn't want to care, because you got hurt so many times that you lost faith in people. You were, you felt alone for most of your life. Or worse than alone. Abandoned. Betrayed. And I was glad that you didn't remember that. I wanted you not to know about any of that for as long as possible. I wanted you to be that kind, charismatic, trusting person that you once were, that deep inside you've never stopped being. And as much as it makes me sad that you don't remember our time together, it is nothing compared to how happy I was seeing you like that, without all those grim memories lingering at the back of your mind. And you were always so hard on yourself that I knew if I told you everything, you'd just focus on the bad parts, like you're doing right now."
Damon shook his head, a broken, self-berating smile flickering across his face. "Elena." His forehead fell against hers, one of his hands getting lost in her hair. "I'm not. I should, but I'm not. I should be thinking about all that, but all I can think about is you. I'm thinking about all that, but... I feel like I'm thinking about all that mostly because of how it may affect you, us. When I saw all those photographs- what I've done- I wanted to tell you to stay away from me, but I can't."
"Don't you dare," Elena said ardently, cupping his face in her hands. "That's what you did before. That's why you broke up with me the first time and everything started crumbling into pieces after that. We can't be apart," she added almost threateningly.
"You always do this," Damon said under his breath, covering Elena's hands with his, studying her face in warm wonderment that immediately calmed her down and she felt that they had finally moved a few steps away from the precipice.
"You started doing it first," Elena whispered, leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to his lips. "The first time you did this... it was raining, I was very worried, we were both worried, because of some things happening... You put your hands on my cheeks like that and... and when you did it, I immediately felt, I knew that everything was going to be alright."
"That's what I'm feeling right now," Damon said quietly after a pause and Elena smiled, locking her arms around his neck.
Damon closed his eyes and they were standing in silence for a longer while, holding onto each other.
"We should get inside," Elena said at last, hoping that whatever Enzo's main purpose of bringing them here was, perhaps a night out would help to take Damon's mind off grim thoughts. "I'm not sure Ric and Enzo can handle that much alone quality time together."
"What about our alone quality time together?" Damon muttered into her hair and drew back, cupping her face in his hands and kissing her tenderly on the mouth.
Elena smiled and he made an effort to smile as well, but every time he tried to smile now, it only caused gruesome images to spring to his mind, as if to remind him that he didn't have a right to smile. He also didn't know how to tell Elena about the vaccine and every passing moment was making it harder and harder for him to tell her.
"We'll get to that part," Elena said with a hint of humor in her voice, although she could still see a persistent glimpse of sadness in Damon's eyes and with an inward, worried frown she tried to figure out what she could do to make that go away for good.
xxxdelenaxxx
"You've got to see this!" Bonnie announced excitedly, running into Caroline and Stefan's room.
Jeremy's first reaction was a twinge of panic and he scolded himself inwardly for leaving Bonnie alone, even though it had been her idea, but then he sighed with relief when he noticed a grin on Bonnie's face.
She rushed into the bathroom, her white robe flailing around her. Caroline, Stefan and Jeremy exchanged uncertain looks.
"Look!" Bonnie exclaimed, coming back into the room with a variety of toiletries in her arms.
She placed all of the items on the sill and then ran to the far end of the room, giving Jeremy an endearingly gleeful look.
Jeremy smiled, even though he still wasn't sure what was going on and if he should rejoice or worry. He followed Bonnie's gaze that was fixed on the soap bars and shampoo bottles... that suddenly began floating in the air.
Bonnie laughed at everyone's stunned, happy reaction when she transported all of the items to different parts of the room.
"That's wonderful!" Caroline clapped her hands. "Do you want to see that chapter with swapping spells from Klaus already?" Caroline asked with a smile, receiving a death glare from Jeremy.
Stefan winced, stifling a chuckle.
"Really?!" Jeremy asked, rolling his eyes.
Caroline pursed her lips in an innocent expression and shrugged.
"I don't think I'll be able to make much sense of it any time soon," Bonnie said a little dejectedly. "I looked into those grimoires and I hardly understood a word."
"Yes, but you could try," Caroline insisted with an encouraging smile, deciding that Bonnie's attitude warranted ignoring Jeremy. "I'm sure it was the same way the first time around and you figured it all out somehow."
"Bonnie's grandmother was there for her, helping her," Jeremy observed, directing another pointed look at Caroline.
"Well, from what I know, Bonnie figured lots of these things on her own," Caroline stated firmly. "And wouldn't it be awesome if we could go back home, real home, already?"
"Caroline!" Jeremy widened his eyes at her in incredulous indignation, even though she seemed honestly unaware of the fact that she was precariously close to emotional blackmailing.
"I still don't know if I actually want to do any of that," Bonnie said with a small sigh before she turned on her heels and headed for the door to go back to her room.
Before Jeremy made to follow Bonnie, he gave Caroline a meaningful look to which she responded with an exasperated huff.
"Is this really so bad that I just want things to be the way they were before?" Caroline asked, sitting down on the couch next to Stefan.
He opened his mouth to reply, but then his phone rang.
xxxdelenaxxx
"This is creepy," Alaric muttered, giving a full glass of blood in front of him a wary look before shifting his eyes to Elena who was sitting across from him at the table, looking equally put off by a waitress serving them her own blood.
"Biting her on her way out of here after her shift would be less creepy, I'm taking?" Enzo inquired, shifting his eyes between Elena and Alaric who was sitting next to him.
"Blood bags would be less creepy," Alaric offered flatly, squinting.
"Right," Enzo grunted, gulping down half of the contents of his glass. "Because there's such a plenitude of blood in hospitals. Probably that's why they keep begging people to donate some."
Alaric snorted sourly. "And of course you care a lot about prospective patients in need of transfusion."
"Could we perhaps talk about something else?" Elena interrupted cautiously, glancing at Damon and lacing her hand through his arm. "Or at least stop arguing," she added under her breath, as so far at least five different topics led to Enzo and Alaric engaging in back-and-forth exchanges.
"Elena, do you like this song?" Damon suddenly asked, when one song had ended and another began. He glanced toward the dance floor and then looked at Elena.
Elena rested her chin on his shoulder and listened to the song for a few seconds, trying to recognize it. Damon was about to ask her to dance, but before he had a chance to do so, Elena shook her head.
"Not particularly."
"But you like Bon Jovi?" Damon asked, but then almost regretted the question, wondering if he hadn't just made a blunder of some sort.
To his relief, however, Elena smiled. "No, I don't," she said softly, looking up at him with a glimpse of understanding in her eyes. "But... Stefan does."
Damon blinked and then nodded slowly.
"Speaking of, why don't we call Stefan?" Alaric proposed and Enzo rolled his eyes.
"Hi."
Everyone's eyes shifted to the end of the table where Stefan suddenly appeared, a slightly sheepish expression on his face.
"I already did," Elena said with a faint smile, giving Enzo back his phone that she had kept with her since leaving the abandoned building.
Enzo groaned under his breath. "Just when I was beginning to hope this was going to be a nice evening," he muttered with exaggerated annoyance, leaning back in his seat and shifting his eyes to Damon. "He killed me, by the way," he added, pointing to Stefan.
"That's a slightly overdramatic retelling of events," Alaric observed wryly.
Enzo extended his arms in a hopeless gesture manifesting that he was merely stating the simple fact.
"Alright," Elena said, standing up. "Alaric and I will drive Enzo home and we'll see you back at the hotel in a couple of hours," she said, looking between Damon and Stefan and glancing at Alaric who nodded, quickly getting on board with the plan.
"How about my opinion?" Enzo asked in mock-astonishment, nonetheless rising to his feet, even though he was strangely certain "going home" was a euphemism for "going back into the lion's den to ruin his meticulously designed plan by making him risk his life to rescue some random chick out of Dr. August's basement." And the most perplexing part of that was that he was probably going to do it.
Damon looked between everyone, but before he had a chance to express any opinion concerning this entire arrangement, Elena wrapped her arms around him and whispered into his ear. "I think you should talk."
"Alright," Damon whispered back into her ear and hugged her tightly, pressing a warm, lingering kiss to her cheek before letting her to step back.
Elena squeezed his hands in a reassuring gesture. "Don't do anything crazy, OK?" She said, giving Stefan a serious look.
Stefan nodded and Damon raised his eyebrows, giving him a questioning look when Elena, Alaric and Enzo had walked out of the bar.
"Yeah, let's get the basics straight," Stefan said, turning toward him. "I'm the fun brother."
"OK," Damon said, about to sit down again, but Stefan stopped him.
"Which means we're not going to sit here sulking and brooding all night," Stefan said and only then Damon noticed a glimpse of humor in his eyes.
"So I'm the brooding type," Damon said, squinting, beginning to suspect where this was going.
"Unfortunately," Stefan confirmed matter-of-factly, his eyes laughing. "Brooding, journaling, shaping your hair. That's pretty much all you've ever been good at."
Damon looked away with a weak, lop-sided smile. "I see. Well, someone was being a bully," he said, looking back at Stefan with his eyes narrowed.
Stefan shrugged. "Nah. Not at all, actually," he said sincerely, still smiling in a slightly mischievous manner, but his eyes were now completely serious and filled with deep concern that Damon found both troubling and comforting.
"So where are we going?" Damon asked, when Stefan turned around, motioning for him to follow.
"Down the memory lane," Stefan replied, heading for the door.
Damon sighed under his breath. "Ah. A stroll down the memory lane."
"Did I say a stroll?" Stefan asked, a ghost of a smile he didn't really try to hide flitting across his face. "I was rather thinking about a rollercoaster."