A/N: Thank you SO MUCH for all the beautiful reviews! :):):)
Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries belongs to L.J. Smith & CW.
Chapter 15
Bonnie was rather grateful that she could leave, even if only for a few minutes, the room where all the grimoires were. They were making her feel simultaneously curious, anxious and guilty and she just didn't feel like sorting out all these emotions at midnight... which was probably an excuse as good as any, but she wasn't going to dwell on that right now either.
Caroline had called an "emergency meeting" and as Bonnie walked in and sat down among everyone, with an inward sigh of amazement she realized that just one day ago she hadn't known any of these people and now she was here with them feeling-
Scooting deeper into the couch, Bonnie stared at an invisible point in space. That was precisely her main problem at the moment. She wasn't sure what she was feeling. It was all so very confusing. And what was especially confusing was that she didn't know if she'd actually prefer knowing exactly what was going on to feeling confused. Because there was an odd sense of safety to confusion. It was like a safe hiding place and she was still in the process of trying to figure out if she really wanted to leave it.
"It's a good plan," Rebekah said with a shrug, leaning against the window and taking a sip from her drink. "Too bad it relies on something unreliable." She tilted her head to the side, shifting her eyes from Enzo to Bonnie who, lost in thought, didn't even notice that.
"You're the one living in a city full of witches," Jeremy pointed out, narrowing his eyes at Rebekah, annoyed by everyone talking about Bonnie as if she was both: an all-important personification of magic and a nuisance for currently not having it. "Why don't you take Enzo to New Orleans and you can spend the rest of your lives plotting murder schemes together."
"That is not a good idea," Caroline observed cautiously, shooting Jeremy an incredulous grimace. "The question is not who should do it and how, but rather whether we should do it at all."
"How is that a question?" Enzo asked in a pretendedly bored tone. He sat back in his chair and placed his feet on the coffee table, crossing one over the other. "You're just going to go home and wait for them to hunt you down one by one?" He slowly shifted his eyes between Rebekah, Jeremy, Bonnie, Alaric and Caroline.
Jeremy looked at him with a grim frown on his face, one particular thought, unrelated to worrying about their well-being, secretly keeping him from completely discarding Enzo's plan just yet. Ever since Dr. August had hinted at Jeremy's and Elena's father quitting the Augustine research, Jeremy couldn't stop wondering if that could've had something to do with their parents' accident. And while he certainly wasn't going to dive into any revenge schemes, he did want to know the truth.
"Well, first of all, we can't really go home," Caroline observed dryly with a sour smile.
"Caroline." Jeremy gave her a warning look, glancing at Bonnie.
Caroline huffed in exasperation and rose to her feet. She was beginning to get really, really tired of Jeremy glaring at her every time she'd mention Mystic Falls, the Travelers' spell, Klaus or magic. It wasn't her fault that these were the things their lives consisted of.
"Maybe we should just ask Bonnie if she feels emotionally abused by me talking about the things that concern us all?" Caroline blurted out, crossing her arms over her chest.
Bonnie shuddered and straightened up, the sound of Caroline's agitated voice shaking her out of her reverie.
"I don't feel abused," Bonnie deadpanned with a sigh. "I feel... confused. Either way, I can't actually do anything, so does it even matter?"
"Even if Bonnie had her magic, she wouldn't help you with something like that," Jeremy said vehemently. "And by the way, you didn't even apologize to her for lying to her and telling her that she was a member of some murderous squad," Jeremy scoffed, sending a glare Enzo's way.
Bonnie propped her head on her elbow, raising her eyebrows at Enzo and actually interested in what he was going to say. She didn't quite understand how they had moved from Enzo kidnapping her and shooting Elena with a poison, an apparently fake one at that, but still – to chatting with him in a hotel room at midnight. If that was a sample of how her life had been like, then indeed it might've been better to stay away from this craziness for as long as possible.
"I was just trying to make her feel like she belonged somewhere," Enzo said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes and although Jeremy's reaction was an annoyed snort, Bonnie was under the impression that, bizarrely, there was a grain of truth in Enzo's answer... even if it didn't necessarily have much to do with her.
"I think we're wasting time deriding a plan that's not even possible to work," Alaric observed matter-of-factly, after listening to the conversation in silence for a longer while.
Bonnie inwardly flinched and her own reaction baffled her a little. It was as if the simple remark had insulted her somehow. "I can do this!"
"I think you're getting it all wrong," Enzo muttered in a gritty, slightly impatient tone. "This plan doesn't rely on magic. I just thought magic could speed it up, but since it apparently can't, then I'm just switching back to the original version. It's not that big of a deal, really. I wasn't looking for opinionated minions to begin with. I accidentally ran into you and you just kind of invited yourselves to this discussion, not the other way around."
Rebekah was watching Enzo from her spot by the window while Caroline rolled her eyes, glancing at Jeremy who seemed both upset and yet curiously pensive. Alaric glanced at Enzo, tempted to ask about the details of "the original plan", but somehow not feeling like ridiculing the idea, if only because there was something about Enzo's tone that, for all his smugness, was rendering his determination pitiable rather than irritating.
Caroline opened her mouth to speak, but then the door opened and Stefan and Damon walked inside.
"Damon!" Bonnie jumped to her feet and to everyone's stunned amusement, she ran to him and throwing her arms around his neck, gave him a heartfelt hug that Damon returned with a trace of reluctance that only Stefan noticed. "I was worried about you! Are you OK?" Bonnie asked, drawing back.
Damon looked at her, all the memories clashing together and he couldn't immediately decide if the last three months were making this particular moment more or less difficult. When they'd died they'd been far away from the war zone for quite some time already. But they'd probably been just as far from the close friendship of the last three months either.
"I'm fine, Bonnie. You?" Damon asked with a small smile, feeling strangely regretful that this friendship might end once Bonnie remembered the past.
He glanced around the room, marveling inwardly at how different everything seemed. On the one hand, it was so much easier, being able to recognize everyone and remember everything, but on the other hand there was also something perturbing about it.
He held his breath, expecting to meet Elena's gaze any moment, but after scanning the room a few times, with a pang of worry he realized that she wasn't here.
"I need to talk to someone I know," Bonnie whispered, leaning toward Damon, her eyes laughing, although there was also a note of sincere desperation in her voice.
Stefan looked away, stifling a smile.
"Sure," Damon said in a slightly strained voice, smiling briefly and wondering if he should tell Bonnie the truth right away. He wanted to tell Elena first, but it just didn't seem right to let Bonnie rant about her fears and feelings without giving her a heads-up that she essentially might be hating him. "Where is Elena?" Damon asked when Bonnie turned toward the door.
"She went to the lobby to get the rooms for Enzo and Rebekah. It's getting a little crowded here," Caroline said with a thin smile.
Damon glanced at Alaric who smiled and at Enzo who tilted his head to the side and squinted, apparently noticing Damon's changed demeanor. Even Jeremy seemed to be noticing something and Damon thought that perhaps walking out of here was a good idea, because in a few minutes everyone would figure out what had happened and then Elena would end up being the last to know.
Damon's eyes darted to Stefan when Bonnie grabbed his hand, heading for the door. Stefan shook his head and nodded, signaling some kind of understanding of whatever Damon was going to say and Jeremy wondered what was going on, his suspicion being promptly voiced by Caroline when the door closed behind Damon and Bonnie.
"What was that about?" She asked, squinting.
"Nothing," Stefan shrugged, after a moment of hesitation opting for avoiding an answer altogether rather than attempting to wordlessly communicate the situation to Caroline. After all, this wasn't going to be a drawn-out secret anyway. It was just going to be a secret kept long enough for Elena to hear the news from Damon, not from Caroline. "That's a surprise visit," Stefan said, shifting his eyes to Rebekah.
"A pleasant surprise, I'm sure," Rebekah said with a sardonic half-smile and Stefan chuckled weakly under his breath, which annoyed Caroline enough to take her mind off analyzing Damon and Stefan's wordless exchanges.
"I have good news and bad news," Elena said, walking energetically into the room and stopping abruptly in her tracks at the sight of Stefan.
She quickly whirled on her heels, looking around the room, but the smile on her face faded a little when she didn't see Damon anywhere.
"Bonnie and Damon went to our room to talk," Jeremy said, before Elena had the time to start worrying about Damon's absence.
"Oh, OK," she said, giving Jeremy a smile.
"Bad news first," Caroline said with a sigh, causing Elena's eyes to dart to her.
Elena grimaced slightly. "There are no rooms available."
"How come?" Caroline asked with a childish frown, widening her eyes at her.
"Apparently, there is a wedding and two conferences this weekend. They said tonight and tomorrow night every single room is booked," Elena explained with a small sigh.
"What's the good news?" Alaric asked, arching an eyebrow.
Elena bit back a smile. "They gave us vouchers for cotton candy," she said, lightly waving the vouchers for everyone to see.
"Hilarious," Caroline muttered grimly.
"There are two beds in my room," Alaric said. "So if-"
"Great. Can I have the key?" Rebekah asked, walking up to him. "I'm sorry, but I think I'll call it a night, since I'm a little tired after three days of being sliced and stabbed all over," she said with a hint of anger in her voice, a sour smile flitting across her face as she looked fleetingly at everyone before snatching the card key out of Alaric's hand and marching toward the door.
Alaric rose to his feet, remembering that he had quite a few weapons in his room and he'd rather not have someone who had killed him once before, rummage through them. "Well, it's late already anyway. I think we've had enough entertainment for one day. We should talk about everything tomorrow."
"We should leave tomorrow," Jeremy said and Alaric gave him a speculative nod, somewhat agreeing with him.
When Alaric and Rebekah left, Elena's and Jeremy's eyes suddenly met and they exchanged stifled smiles at their silent understanding.
"Wow!" Jeremy jumped to his feet. "It really is late," he said, glancing at the clock, the dismay in his voice so fake that Elena found it difficult not to laugh.
"Yes, it is," Elena confirmed zealously. "We'll see you tomorrow!" She said hurriedly and then she and Jeremy left the room with great haste.
Caroline looked after them in confusion, but only until she realized that the only person left in her and Stefan's room beside them was Enzo, who waved Elena and Jeremy a good night and didn't look like he was going anywhere.
She was about to say that it was late and that he should go to... wherever place he was living in in this town, because he surely must've been living somewhere, but then Enzo rose to his feet on his own and Caroline almost smiled, pleasantly surprised that he was going to leave without being prompted to do so-
But then, instead of exiting the room, Enzo plopped himself onto one of the beds and reached out for the remote control.
"What are you doing?!" Caroline asked with an incredulous frown, glancing at Stefan who unfortunately seemed either too exhausted or temporarily too immersed in his own thoughts to join in the outrage. "You are Damon's friend! Go to Damon and Elena's room!" She said in the most commanding tone she could muster.
"Now, I wouldn't be a very good friend if I actually did that, would I?" Enzo observed with a hint of amusement in his voice, flipping through the channels. "Besides," he said, shifting his eyes from the screen to Caroline and slowly looking her up and down," I like the view here better," he said with a wink.
Caroline glared at him before whirling around and heading for the balcony. Stefan gave Enzo a long, pointed look that Enzo completely ignored before he went to follow Caroline.
"Why do I always end up being stalked by psychopaths?!" Caroline exclaimed in indignation when Stefan closed the balcony door behind them. She leaned over the banister with an exasperated huff.
Biting back a smile, Stefan moved to stand right next to her, mirroring her pose. "I may be the wrong person to ask," he observed cautiously.
Caroline's eyes darted to him and she laughed briefly before averting her eyes from him and looking around the town illuminated by the scattered, colorful lights. "I used to wonder why that whole Klaus thing was making me so angry," Caroline said on an impulse, struck by the thought that lately felt to her both irrelevant and yet not really. Stefan looked at her out of the corner of his eye, clasping his hands over the banister. "Until one day I realized that I wasn't angry just because I was feeling something for him." Caroline drew a breath and propped her chin on her hands, looking around with half-lidded eyes. "I was angry, because the main reason why I was feeling something for him was that he was the only person for whom I wasn't a second choice."
Stefan blinked, flabbergasted, not expecting that kind of conclusion to Caroline's speech at all. "Caroline, you're not a second choice," he said with a frown, straightening up and turning toward her, not sure why it seemed to him that she wasn't just talking about some ancient past and hoping that he was just reading the expression on her face wrong.
But to his further befuddlement, Caroline shrugged. "I'm over it. It doesn't bother me anymore," she said, glancing at him with a small smile and rolling her eyes when he looked at her as if he completely didn't understand what she was talking about. "Oh, come on, Stefan," she said, turning away from the banister to face him. "Work was always a little bit more important to my mom than I was. I could probably make a full list of things that were more important than me to my father. Elena and Bonnie has always been slightly more best friends. Then there was Matt and his lingering feelings and Tyler and his pack or Tyler and his revenge or Tyler and whatever else was more important than me at the moment. And... We both know we wouldn't be having this conversation right now if Elena didn't break up with you," Caroline added in a quiet, but firm voice, her dismissive smile not quite reaching her eyes.
Stefan widened his eyes at her and then shook his head with a grimace. "Yes, and if a meteorite didn't hit the earth, dinosaurs would be having this conversation right now instead of us. Caroline." He grasped her arms, his eyes boring into hers with utmost sincerity. "You're not anyone's second choice. You are the most vivacious, gregarious, precocious person I've ever met." Caroline snorted, but didn't interrupt him and Stefan continued, following the suspicion that had just dawned on him. "I'm sorry if you didn't feel that it's what I think. These last few months... I was... I'm sorry if you felt that I was being distant. I just didn't want you to think that I was treating you like a distraction. All I could think about was what had happened with Damon and Bonnie and I just didn't feel it was the right time to... change things between us, to..." He trailed off, noticing a glimpse in Caroline's eyes that told him that she believed him.
He smiled and then after holding her gaze for a few seconds he leaned down and kissed her.
"Does that mean you weren't hanging out with me just because I was the only sane person around?" Caroline asked a little breathlessly when they drew apart, trying to keep her voice and expression serious.
Stefan's eyebrows furrowed in thought and he bit his lip and looked at her as if he was preparing to say something difficult. "Caroline, I love you, but I'm afraid I can't say you ever are the most sane person around."
Caroline laughed briefly, but then she froze, her eyes widening in amazement. "What did you say?" She asked in a hushed voice, her lips barely moving as she spoke.
Stefan's mouth twitched, but he managed to keep a straight face. "That I'm afraid I can't say you ever are-" He started repeating the second part of his sentence and Caroline smacked him playfully on the shoulder.
"OK. First of all..." she said with a clap of her hands and thrusting up her chin, she dashed out of the balcony.
Stefan wrinkled his forehead and followed her, wondering what she was up to.
"Enough of this. I don't care where you'll go. You just need to-" Caroline stopped abruptly in mid-sentence, her hands suspended in the air as she looked down at Enzo, having suddenly noticed that he was, or at least seemed to be asleep. "Hey," she said sharply, but Enzo didn't even stir, although his face was contorted in some kind of a tense grimace, his hands rolled up into fists, his knuckles completely white and he was gritting his teeth in his sleep that he apparently wasn't faking.
Thrown a little off guard by the sight, Caroline sighed and frowned, glancing at Stefan and after a moment of silent consideration, without even exchanging as much as a nod they both walked up closer toward the bed.
Caroline slid the remote-control from under Enzo's hand and turned the TV off. She then gathered from the bed a few things Enzo must've taken out of the mini-bar and put them away while Stefan tugged off Enzo's shoes and dropped them on the floor. They grabbed a blanket from the armchair and draped it over Enzo and after tossing one of the pillows on the couch, Stefan turned off the night-lamp, leaving the room illuminated only by the faint light coming from the small corridor.
Caroline shook her head with a weak, soundless snort, before mouthing to Stefan that she was going to go take a shower.
When she disappeared into the bathroom, Stefan went over to the couch, slumped down onto it and looked at Enzo with a pensive frown, wondering about all those other people's nightmares he knew so little about.
xxxdelenaxxx
"So on the one hand, this is really intriguing and sounds like tons of fun, but on the other, it's apparently not fun at all." Bonnie shook he head with a mirthless chuckle. "I even asked Jeremy what would old me do and he wasn't able to tell!" She sighed, glancing between the grimoires and Damon. "I mean, he said that I'd probably want my magic back, but he also said that he could imagine me not wanting it back. I really like him, by the way," she blurted out and then stifled a smile, trying to resume a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "He's being really sincere. Like really sincere. He's trying to be more honest than I think it's even possible, not only telling me about everything that happened, but also trying to recall what I was saying and how he thinks I was feeling about everything-" Bonnie trailed off, but only because she was running out of breath. However before she continued, her eyes lingered on Damon's face and it suddenly occurred to her that he was being unusually quiet while she had been prattling cheerfully for at least ten minutes without a pause. "Are you sure you're OK?" Bonnie asked, stopping her vibrant monologue and arching an eyebrow at Damon who was sitting next to her on the bed just a little too stiffly, another thing she suddenly noticed that puzzled her.
"I heard every word," Damon said, narrowing his eyes in a faint, lop-sided smile, countering what he suspected was Bonnie's way of pointing out to him that she thought he wasn't paying attention. "Maybe you should just give yourself more time to figure out how you feel and if you want to be a witch again."
Bonnie looked at him in silence for a few moments before she turned more toward him, drew up her legs and sat cross-legged on the bed, facing him. "Nice try, but you didn't answer my question. Are you OK?" She asked, giving him a mockingly pointed look. "How did it go? Hanging out with your brother?" She continued with the questions, trying to guess what could be the reason behind Damon's changed demeanor. She'd say he was acting timid if she didn't know better. "Jeremy said-"
"I got my memories back," Damon blurted out and Bonnie's eyes widened in shock.
"What?" She exclaimed, blinking. "And you're telling me about it now?!"
"I can tell you tomorrow," Damon offered, leaning forward, as if he was about to get up.
Bonnie pulled him back down with a brief laugh. "How? When? You mean you remember everything?" She asked excitedly.
Damon squinted into the distance. "I'm still missing the details of those five days at uncle Ralph's farm in Kentucky when I was four," he said in such a solemn voice that it took Bonnie a second to realize he was joking.
"Stop it!" She said, grabbing a pillow and hitting him with it. "Come on! Tell me everything!" She tugged on his hand, almost bouncing off the bed. "How did we get here? What happened?"
"First of all," Damon said, wincing a little, "you don't like me as much as you think you do, just so you know."
Bonnie put a pretendedly dismayed expression on her face. "I knew it," she said, shaking her head in indignation, but then burst out laughing. "Tell me about how we came back to life!" She said urgently, rolling her eyes at him, completely unconcerned about the revelation and Damon wondered if she had even taken it seriously at all.
"Your grandmother made it happen, somehow," Damon said, his forehead wrinkling in thought. "The price for coming back was that we wouldn't remember the past."
"But why did we come back here?" Bonnie asked with a small frown after a moment of consideration. "Why not somewhere else?" She clarified her question. "There must be a reason why, of all the places on earth, we landed in this particular town."
Damon looked at her in silence, pondering this. "It could just be an accident," he said tentatively after a pause.
"An accident?" Bonnie echoed dubiously, shaking her head. "Not with that anti-vampire organization around the corner, Dr. August knowing Jeremy and Elena's dad, that Enzo guy being here. Too many coincidences," she muttered, glancing away and Damon followed her gaze to the grimoires that were laying scattered on the bed.
He opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but then he seemed to change his mind. Bonnie, however, noticed a wistful look that flashed in his eyes and she bit her lip, trying to think about a question that could reveal what he was thinking about, because she suspected that for whatever reason he wasn't just going to tell her.
"What else happened? You should be elated that you got your memories back!" Bonnie said, giving him a thoughtful look. "Even if they aren't all good. Something else must've happened. And I'm not letting you out of here until you tell me," she added in a mock-threatening tone, crossing her arms over her chest.
Damon smiled weakly. "I can't be turned into a vampire," he said after a pause, making an effort to speak in order not to lose that odd thread of understanding that had developed between them during the last three months. "They injected me with some kind of a vaccine and now... I can't become a vampire again."
Bonnie was studying his face in silence for a few seconds, stopping herself before voicing an opinion that perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing, because she quickly realized just why exactly this turn of events must seem so disastrous to him.
As if out of their own accord, her eyes drifted to the grimoires, and suddenly, there were voices and images in her head. A woman she quickly guessed was her grandmother... Elena... in a purple outfit... Jeremy... Caroline... in the forest... Jeremy... Jeremy... So worried. They all looked so worried and she couldn't understand why. "I'm so proud of you."
Bonnie straightened up to hide a tremor that ran through her like a white, white flame. It hurt and yet she couldn't really feel the pain, because it was steadily subsiding, turning into some reckless, empowering sense of self-confidence.
"Do you think-" She started, but fell silent, when the door opened.
"Hey, are you almost done talking?" Jeremy asked, taking a step into the room. "Personally, I'm completely OK with you being here alone for another hour," he said and then added in a pretendedly very worried tone, "but it's past midnight and Elena is throwing loud jealousy fits in the hallway and I'm afraid that we'll end up getting expelled from this hotel," he said with a completely straight face, chuckling only when Elena poked him with a stifled laugh.
Bonnie smiled, glancing at Damon and smiling even more at the stunned, star-struck expression that appeared on his face as if, when Elena peered inside from behind Jeremy, he saw her for the very first time in his life.
Elena must've noticed the look in Damon's eyes too, because she stopped playfully nudging Jeremy and just stood motionlessly, gazing at Damon in silence just as he was gazing at her.
"Alright," Bonnie said with a grin, rising to her feet and exchanging amused looks with Jeremy. "See you tomorrow."
Damon slowly got up and took a few rather unsteady steps toward Elena without breaking the eye-contact with her. She muttered a good night, not glancing at either Bonnie or Jeremy, unable to look away from Damon, wondering what was going on. He looked at her in a way that made her heart race to the point she was losing her breath.
They walked out of Bonnie and Jeremy's room room and went straight to theirs that was located just a few feet way. They did so in complete silence and Elena wasn't sure what to make of it. There was something strange, but also enchanting about it.
She felt Damon standing right behind her, his breath ghosting over her skin when she slid the card key into the lock.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him raise his hand and very lightly touch her hair, trace a single strand with his fingertips. Elena drew a breath and held it, hearing her own quickened heartbeat reverberate in her ears. She had missed him and he must've missed her, even if it had only been a couple of hours since they had seen each other. But there was something more to this moment now, this tension between them that was suddenly, inexplicably more intense and almost terrifying. It made her think back to all those moments in the past before they were together when he would take her hand in his and she'd be completely caught off guard by all the emotions evoked by such a simple gesture, a hurricane of feelings that would make her every bone rattle, her every thought burn, leaving her shaken up and utterly confused every time.
Damon held the door open for her from behind and Elena wasn't sure why she didn't even look at him over her shoulder until they walked inside, their fingers colliding on the light switch, their eyes meeting and she found herself completely breathless, something about his demeanor striking her not so much as odd, but a little intimidating, in the most bewildering, curiously thrilling way that felt both familiar and warm, but also new and unexpected.
He didn't say a word and she didn't either and they just looked at each other for a longer while until Elena regained her composure and stepped away from the door, letting it close with a mute thud. Her fingers glided away from under Damon's and she felt hot shivers run up her spine at the dark light that glimmered in his eyes when she withdrew her hand. She half-expected him to grab her hand and tug her into his arms, but he seemed overwhelmingly calm, too calm for that even as she could feel the fire emanating from his eyes. He looked at her, mesmerized, and for a moment she felt tempted to make a humorous remark concerning that, but she didn't.
There was some kind of a vague thought forming itself in her mind, but she was pushing it away, not out of fear, but out of some abstract, happy precaution. There was something spellbinding about this moment now and she subconsciously felt that she'd ruin it by trying to clarify what exactly was going on. He was so very close and it'd take but a step for them to kiss, so she was a little baffled, but not worried and decided to let everything unfold as it would.
"I want to show you something," Elena said softly, taking a step into the room and producing a memory stick out of her skirt pocket.
Damon's darkened gaze was wandering all over her face, but very slowly, as if he was taking in every inch of her skin, as if he was kissing every inch of her skin with his eyes. Elena drew a shaky breath. Reaching out, she took Damon's hand in hers and smiled when he squeezed her hand in his so hard that she almost gasped out loud. She turned around and pulled him with her into the room and toward the night stand where the radio set was. Switching one of the side lamps on and sliding the flash-drive into the appropriate slot, Elena quickly found the song she was looking for and whirled around to face Damon, hurriedly pushing him toward the middle of the room before they lost too many notes of the song.
"That's the song that was playing during our first dance," Elena explained, her voice faltering, despite her efforts to keep it steady.
But it just wasn't easy to remain calm when he was looking at her unblinkingly, with the faintest smile playing about his lips as if she was some kind of a miraculous apparition and he was trying to convince himself that he was really seeing her.
Smiling up at him, Elena raised her hand, about to start explaining how the dance looked like and that he should just try mirroring her gestures.
But then suddenly, Damon pulled her against his chest, his palm splayed on her back as he held her in his arms as close as possible. One of Elena's hands automatically landed on his shoulder, her free hand intertwining tightly with his other one.
"It's supposed to be near-touch," Elena whispered with a small, amused smile, her eyes flickering to Damon's lips hovering right above hers and then her breath caught in her throat when she shifted her gaze back to his eyes and noticed the look in his eyes.
It was one of the looks she knew so well, his eyes seemingly red-rimmed and dimly aglow as if he'd been crying for the last hundred years, even though there were no tears in his eyes at the moment. "I just have to say it once, you just need to hear it." "I'm setting you free, Elena." "Now I'm choosing." "Travel safe."
Elena drew a sharp intake of breath, her eyes widening, her lips slightly parted when Damon spoke for the first time since they had walked into their room.
"I know," he whispered against her mouth and Elena's eyelids fluttered closed when he captured her lips in a brief, fervent kiss, her hand clenching around his shoulder when he slowly dragged his lips across her cheek. "Elena..." Damon pressed his mouth to her ear and murmured the words that made the tears spring to her eyes when they snapped open. "I told you I'd make it back to you."
xxxdelenaxxx
Alaric chuckled into the phone, smiling at something Meredith had said, when suddenly Rebekah dashed out of the bathroom and into the room with an expression on her face that made the smile on Alaric's face turn into a frown, his eyes darting from Rebekah's bloodied wrist to what looked like a tiny tracking device she was holding between her thumb and forefinger.
"I found this in my wrist!" Rebekah said through her teeth, her voice laced mostly with anger, but also with fear when she added. "They know where we are."