A/N: Thank you so much for all of your gorgeous reviews! :):):):):)

I was asked about the timeline, so here it is: S1 starts along with Elena's junior year in high school, S4 ends at the day of graduation, so that's two years already. I know S5 is probably half a year at best, but I decided to think about it as a full year to keep things simple lol Then this story is set six months after the end of S5, so that's another year, er, half a year. But hey, if Stefan can't keep his own age straight, I think I'm allowed to take some liberties with the timeline ;)

In other news... HAVE YOU SEEN THE TEASER TRAILER FOR S6? ? ? *goes back to sobbing*

Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries belongs to L.J. Smith & CW.

Chapter 20

She wrote a story like this once when she was ten. It was about a girl who wanted to be a princess and one day the girl woke up – and discovered that she was a princess... only that she had no memory of how it happened.

Elena opened another drawer and looked into it without bending her head too much in order to avoid soaking the clothes with the water dripping off her wet hair.

It was an underwear drawer, but it wasn't just hers. Apparently, no drawer here was and she had no doubt it was deliberate, as there was enough space and it seemed only too easy to organize the drawers according to its owners rather than the contents. But instead, each drawer looked like it was being shared by the two of them and Elena's hand trembled just a little when she had to rummage through Damon's underwear to find her bras.

She closed the drawer and tiptoed to the bed, the floor cold, the carpet soft under her feet, both sensations strangely familiar, cozy in an evasive way that she couldn't grasp, even though her heart seemed to respond to them immediately. She dropped the towel onto the bed and with her eyes on the bed sheets that she was scrutinizing with abstract fear... or fascination that felt like one and the same confusing emotion anyway, Elena put on her lingerie before walking up to the closet, feeling ridiculously apprehensive to open it.

She always felt like there was something mysterious about this room, but now it was more than that, because now she was a part of this mystery. Now this room was also hers and as incredulous as this fact was, she didn't start questioning it or feeling uncomfortable because of if even for a split second and that was also rather confusing... or scary... or fascinating... She sighed and lightly shook her head, a few drops of water falling onto her bare feet.

Elena's hand lingered on the side of the wardrobe before she fully opened it, wondering just how many times she'd opened it in the past three years? In what mood? Slowly like right now? Quickly, because she was in a hurry? She glanced at the bed, finding it disturbingly easy to imagine Damon throwing her back onto it on some sunny morning despite her being late for school or work. She could almost hear her own laughter when he'd brush off her protests with sizzling, impatient kisses-

She gave a little jolt and shifted her attention back to the closet. One side of it was occupied by mostly black shirts and a few shirts of different colors while the other side consisted of her clothes, some of them looking familiar, but most of them looking new to her.

Reaching out, Elena inspected all the different dresses, so many dresses in so many colors: white, red, blue, pink, yellow. She hadn't been wearing so many colorful clothes even before her parents' accident.

Out of curiosity, she pulled out a short, red and white strapless dress just to see in the mirror how she'd look in it.

Holding the hanger near her shoulder, Elena tilted her head to the side, trying to imagine an occasion for which she'd wear such a dress. A trip? A picnic? A party? She bit her lip and put the dress back into the closet. Our closet. Shedrew a shaky breath. She was afraid that Damon might've misunderstood her reaction to all of these revelations. She was so completely stunned and overwhelmed that she'd hardly been able to form a coherent sentence and perhaps that was why he'd abruptly suggested that she must've been tired, needed to rest, take a bath and then he'd left the room before she'd managed to stop him.

There was something acutely terrifying about him leaving the room that didn't make much sense. It wasn't like he wouldn't come back. Elena frowned. It was all so confusing. There were so many things and people she should be thinking about right now and yet she couldn't make herself think about anything else but Damon and a thousand days they'd spent together.

Elena grabbed another dress and held it thoughtfully in her hands. Technically, she didn't know how many days out of about one thousand that she didn't remember they'd been together. It could've just been three hundred. Or one hundred. Or fifty.

She wasn't sure why she preferred imagining the days rather than weeks or months. Maybe because imagining the days made the time seem longer... She looked at herself in the mirror. Whatever it was that she'd forgotten, she missed it, every moment. Those moments felt like tiny holes in her head, each filled with pain. It was probably how it all felt to him too. Or perhaps to him it felt even worse, Elena thought, gritting her teeth. Because to her it felt like she'd lost some of her memories. To him it seemed to feel like he'd lost her.

She tried on a blue dress and a green one. The colors alone were making her look happier and Elena found it surprising that she could even focus on thinking about clothes while she should probably start thinking about the fact that she was a vampire instead. But for some reason she just couldn't make herself worry about that. Maybe because three years had passed and even if she didn't remember it now, her mind had already processed her transition and somewhat bizarrely, she just wasn't able to think about it as something new and shocking.

Elena shook herself out of her reverie and noticed that she was looking at the row of black shirts in the wardrobe. She stepped away from the mirror.

So many strange things had happened to her in the past, but there was something incomparably strange about falling into the icy-cold, murky river one day and waking up in a dream-like world in the next one.

She grasped the lapels of one of the shirts to feel the fabric under her fingertips.

Tears, uncertainty, pain, despair, dismay, heart-wrenching decisions, choices she hadn't been ready to make – they were all gone now. Irrelevant. Because all of her problems had magically solved themselves while she was sleeping.

That was how it all really felt to her, Elena thought with a faint, broken smile. That was the most persistent thought that was echoing in her head while Damon had been trying to summarize the last three years to her. She suspected that he'd been focusing on what was of little interest to her out of sheer nervousness. Of course one day she'd like to hear about everything in greater detail, but right now she couldn't care less about suspicious professors, evil warlocks, crazy witches and anti-vampire societies and he knew her too well not to know that.

Having picked a white, sleeveless crochet dress, Elena swiftly put it on and headed to the bathroom to dry her hair.

But half-way across the room, a knock on the door stopped her and she turned around, bracing herself, not really able to smile even though she felt as if the entire room suddenly brightened around her.

"I just wanted to-" Damon started, taking a hesitant step inside, but then stopping abruptly in his tracks and staring at Elena, apparently struck by something in her appearance.

"What is it?" Elena asked, intrigued, looking herself up and down, guessing that it must've been her choice of the dress that had startled him so.

"I'm not sorry that I'm in love with you."

Damon shook his head. "I just..." He looked away with a grimace, his eyebrows furrowed. "I thought that we could go out, maybe... go on a short road trip... somewhere. But if you don't want to go..."

He looked back at her, his voice uneven and uncertain, but at the same time determined and vaguely upset and Elena wasn't sure how to respond to that. He seemed so worried about her reaction to everything he was saying, that instead of actually waiting for her to react, he was assuming what her reaction was going to be like and then he was behaving as if she really reacted that way.

"I didn't say that," Elena said with a brief smile, nervously curling up and outstretching her fingers.

"Right," Damon said quietly, his lips twitching into a fleeting smile that mirrored hers. "So... do you...want to-"

"Yes," Elena breathed out, cutting him off in mid-sentence.

They looked at each other in silence for a few seconds.

"I have to dry my hair," Elena said at last, hoping that at least he could hear her voice, because her heartbeat was reverberating in her ears so loudly that she herself couldn't.

Damon nodded. "I'll wait downstairs-"

"Could you..." Elena interrupted him again and was sure that there was something ridiculous about her rushed tone of voice, but she couldn't help speaking with inexplicable impatience, driven by this recurring, irrational fear of him leaving the room again. "Could you help me with the hairdryer? I don't know where to plug it," she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

But despite the excuse being lame, or perhaps because of the excuse being lame, Damon's eyes widened and the underlying grim expression seemed to fade off his face a little.

"Sure," he said, blinking and beginning to walk up to her.

Elena turned on her heels, trying to calm down. Watching him walk toward her was having a simultaneously thrilling and terrifying effect on her and she didn't know what to do about it, other than almost run to the bathroom.

Which obviously wasn't going to help much, because he appeared right next to her soon after.

Elena grabbed a brush, just to do something with her hands and watched Damon plug the hairdryer in the most conspicuous electrical outlet ever.

"Thank you," she whispered and Damon smiled faintly and then repeated that he'd wait downstairs.

He was walking away slowly, she'd give him that. Nonetheless, Elena found it frustrating enough to throw the brush on the vanity and storm out of the bathroom after him.

"Why are you being like this?"

Damon turned around. "What do you mean?" He asked softly, squinting.

"Like you were upset with me," Elena said, her heart clenching at the resigned tone of his voice, that inexplicable fear of losing him out of sight even for a second hitting her with full force and she could almost grasp the meaning of it.

Because there was something to it, something she couldn't understand, couldn't remember, something that tasted bitter and cold, something more than sadness or anger. Something like... grief.

A weak, sad smile flitted across Damon's face. "I'm not upset with you, Elena."

Elena winced and after a moment of hesitation Damon frowned.

"I just don't know what to do," he admitted and Elena felt relieved that they were at least back to what felt like home in itself: to always telling each other the truth. "I can't behave like nothing's happened. I can't go back to that time you remember." He paused and then added in a strained, self-berating voice, holding her gaze. "I don't want to."

Elena took a step toward him. "I'm not asking you to." Paradoxically, this seemed to rekindle the grim look in Damon's eyes. "I'm not," Elena repeated firmly. "I don't remember the last three years, so I'm behaving the only way I know how. But you do remember, so behave like it. I'm not asking you not to," she said with an abstract hint of challenging aggravation in her tone, fueled by a mixture of hope and skepticism in his eyes.

She wanted to scream at him, if that was going to help, because there was something incredibly frustrating-

Her train of thought was cut short when Damon suddenly leaped toward her and she just managed to register his hands sliding into her hair before his mouth crashed against hers.

For a few moments neither of them moved and the kiss felt more like a breath they both had to take to survive.

His lips felt hot and feverish against hers like when she'd kissed him after the werewolf bite... The kiss was sweet and gentle like when they'd kissed for the first time... And then it grew passionate and reckless like in Denver...

But there was also something else, something more, and Elena's hands flew to his shoulders to pull him closer and don't let him go, never let him go.

Damon broke the kiss, but his lips were still hovering over hers and Elena slowly opened her eyes and looked into his without blinking, shivering in exhilaration she understood quite well and yet not at all, because it didn't feel like anything she'd experienced before.

"What was that for?" She panted and Damon's hand froze on her cheek, but only for a second.

"You said we didn't have to pretend like the last three years hadn't happened," Damon said in a low voice, cupping the side of her face in his palm and brushing his thumb across her lower lip.

"I said you didn't have to pretend," Elena replied, her heart fluttering as if she'd just found a long-lost trail that led back home.

Damon raised his eyebrows. "And how is that supposed to work? I can kiss you, but you won't kiss me back?" He risked a small smirk, his forehead falling against hers. Perhaps it was too early to hope that everything would fall into place without any troubles, but it was so tempting to dream with Elena safe in his arms. "You kind of already did."

"You caught me off guard."

Damon drew back just a little, his heart skipping a beat when he noticed a glimpse of humor in Elena's eyes. She was leaning toward him, not at all trying to keep any distance between them.

"Does it mean I can't kiss you again?"

Elena's eyes flickered between his eyes and his lips and it looked like she was trying to formulate an answer, but to no avail.

Pressing his cheek to hers Damon whispered. "Does it mean I can?"

He closed his eyes, waiting for her to answer, but she didn't say anything. He turned his head, watching her eyes flutter shut, her ragged breathing ghosting across his skin when he started trailing unhurried, soft kisses all over her face.

"What if it's just been a day and I'm making it all up?" Damon murmured, his eyes glimmering with wonder when Elena opened her eyes and brought her hand to his face.

"You wouldn't," she whispered. "I trust you."

He smiled faintly and she smiled back, but her smile faltered when she noticed that the expression in his eyes became predominantly sad again.

"So you remember trusting me," he said somberly as if he'd come to some kind of an obvious, disappointing conclusion and then apparently remembering about something, he grabbed Elena's hand and led her to the bathroom and the movement, the gesture reminded her of something... or at least she thought it would've reminded her of something if she'd only remembered...

"Damon..." Elena started tentatively, watching him in the mirror when he stepped behind her, turned on the hairdryer and began drying her hair in the most casual manner.

She decided that it made no sense to speak, since he couldn't hear her anyway, so she just continued gazing at him in the mirror. He seemed focused on the task, his fingers sifting through her hair and it wasn't until his eyes met hers in the mirror that Elena's breath caught in her throat and it prompted her to whirl around.

"Damon, tell me what happened," she said with a determined grimace, snatching the hairdryer out of his hand. She turned it off and put it away. "Tell me everything. Not about curses, spells and magical tombstones." She inhaled and added under her breath. "Tell me... about us."

He looked at her as if he was trying to decide if all he wanted was to do just that or rather dismiss her request altogether.

"Elena... I don't know where to start," he said at last with a brief, sour smile.

"Start at the beginning or at the end, it doesn't matter. Start anywhere." Elena looked around, as if searching for ideas and then pointed to her dress. "Start with this dress," she said with a small, encouraging smile. "What's the story here?"

She looked at him without blinking, silently urging him to speak, but after a moment of deliberation he seemed to have decided against it.

"I'll let you figure this one out," he said at last with a faint, crooked smile, briefly widening his eyes at her before walking out of the room and Elena made an effort to look after him with an irritated frown instead of an amused, hopeful smile that appeared on her face a moment later.

Because they were going to be fine.

She walked up to the window and pushed all the curtains to one side, letting all the sunlight in.

Because they always survived. She could never forget about that.

xxxdelenaxxx

Bonnie gave Jeremy a questioning look when he came back into the library shaking his head and rolling his eyes in exaggerated exasperation.

"I don't know what would have to happen for them not to start making out within five minutes of seeing each other," Jeremy said, slumping onto the floor next to Enzo who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, apparently lost in one of the grimoires.

Bonnie grinned. "That's good. We don't need more problems," she said with a sigh, glancing around.

"So what are we looking for now?" Jeremy asked, following her gaze.

"We're looking for this symbol," Bonnie said, lifting one of the grimoires for Jeremy to see.

"Not this one?" Jeremy asked, taking advantage of Enzo's eyes being glued to the book.

He gave Bonnie a conspiratorial smile and made a heart shape with his hands. Bonnie laughed.

"It has to be in red," Enzo muttered, turning a page. "We've already checked all of these," he said, tapping a couple of grimoires on his left hand side.

Bonnie shrugged when Jeremy wordlessly communicated to her what incredulous an idea involving Enzo as a researcher here was.

"Did you call Alaric?" Bonnie asked, propping her head on her elbow.

Jeremy nodded. "He said that after Paris they're going to Rome."

Bonnie widened her eyes at him. Jeremy extended his hands in a hopeless gesture, but before Bonnie had the time to point out that she might need Caroline and Stefan back soon and traveling around the globe was not the best idea right now, their attention was drawn to the hallway when they noticed Damon heading toward the door with a rather grim expression on his face.

"Alright, let's take a coffee break," Bonnie said after a moment of consideration, rising to her feet. "I'm gonna go talk to Elena for a second."

"Could I have that cherry juice that I had before?" Enzo asked in such a polite tone that Jeremy found it very hard not to make some sarcastic remark concerning it.

"Sure," Bonnie said, biting her lip. "Jeremy will get you some and maybe... he could also take this opportunity to explain to you why this... cherry juice is so good," she proposed cautiously, giving Jeremy a strained smile.

"Why me?" Jeremy asked with a grimace.

"Because Damon's not in the mood and no one else is around."

Jeremy laughed. "Right. Thanks. Now I feel irreplaceable."

Bonnie leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips on her way out of the room.

"Don't forget to tell her that he almost got me killed again and that he dumped her. Twice!" Jeremy called after Bonnie, glancing over his shoulder and stifling a smile when he heard her laugh under her breath while she was making her way up the stairs.

"I think I know what's wrong with this cherry juice," Enzo said with a knowing nod. Jeremy shifted his eyes to him. "It contains alcohol, right?"

Jeremy stared at him, but then quickly cleared his throat and did his best to keep a straight face. "Well, I guess in some cases it definitely may..."

xxxdelenaxxx

On the one hand, everything was going better than he'd expected, but on the other hand... it wasn't going well enough.

Damon snorted inwardly at his own thoughts, thinking that maybe he was being thoughtlessly ungrateful. He was obviously relieved that Elena didn't seem appalled or incredulous, merely a little stunned and overwhelmed by everything. It was more than he'd expected. And yet, perhaps even because of that, he automatically, greedily, immediately wanted more and that of course wasn't fair to her, because for her, for now the time had stopped that night at the Wickery Bridge.

Or perhaps the time stopped altogether, Damon thought in bewilderment, stopping dead in his tracks when after walking out of the house he was confronted with the most astonishing sight that for a second made him think that Elena, Stefan, Enzo and Caroline hadn't just lost memories, but rather that they all had gone back in time.

Damon looked at his camaro, looking perfectly un-burnt, shiny and new, parked in front of the boarding house like it was any other day-

But then to make this strange occurrence even weirder, the door on the driver's side opened and Matt jumped out of the car, adding more than a hint of irritation to Damon's bafflement.

Matt froze for a second when he noticed Damon. He made a face as if he was stifling an urge to roll his eyes and then closed the door and walked around the car.

"Nice car," Damon said, squinting. "Another gift from Miss Mini Klaus?"

Matt smiled briefly. "Actually... no. It's pretty much hand-made," he said, giving the roof a little pat. "It's taken almost six months to build... or rather rebuild," he corrected himself and Damon's forehead wrinkled in confusion in vague anticipation of Matt's explanation that followed. "It's a bit of a replica. I recovered from the Grill what I could, but there was not much that could be recovered." Matt glanced at the car again. "And OK, I admit, there was a couple of parts that I couldn't find or buy anywhere, so Hope did help a little with that," he added with a small chuckle, but then resumed a guarded expression, mildly amused by the baffled look on Damon's face. "I didn't really think I'd ever see you again, no offense, so it was supposed to be a present for Elena, but I don't think she's going to mind," he added a little pensively turning the car keys in his palm before handing them to Damon who blinked a few times before taking the keys from Matt after he prompted him to do so.

"Thank you," Damon muttered with a frown, not sure what to make of it. He looked at keys in his hand and the glanced up at Matt when he spoke again.

"I don't know if it would've actually made things better or worse," Matt said after a pause. "But I just couldn't think of anything better to do." He looked at Damon as if to see if he knew what he was talking about and continued when he saw a flash of anxious, worried curiosity in Damon's eyes. "They were going crazy. Elena and Jeremy. We honestly thought they were losing their minds. They were going mad with grief... with hope, I don't know which one it was more, probably both. They weren't going to move on, that's for sure, so I thought..." Matt trailed off, glancing at the car again in search of the right words, but somehow he wasn't sure what exactly he wanted to say or why.

"Matt!" Elena called out, appearing in the door and quickly walking down the stairs, not looking at Damon, but noticing out of the corner of her eye that the fact that she was wearing his jacket wasn't lost on him. Despite the amnesia, she at least seemed to be doing a good job picking her clothes, Elena thought smiling to herself a little. "Are you OK?"

Matt smiled. "Well, like everyone else I died a couple of times in the meantime, but yes, I've been mostly OK in the last three years."

Elena nodded, biting back a chuckle and stopping near the car, but still making a point of not looking at Damon.

"Are Bonnie and Jeremy home?" Matt asked, gesturing to the house and only then Damon realized that it wasn't the first time someone was casually referring to the boarding house as 'home' and it was a strange feeling, because it suddenly made him feel, for the first time in a long time, that he had a home.

"Yes, they're putting together a spell to restore our memories," Elena replied with a small sigh. "Bonnie said it's actually very likely it will be possible to do."

Damon listened in silence to the exchange that lasted for another couple of minutes until Matt finally went into the house and Elena slowly turned around to face Damon.

"You're upset with me," Damon said with a weak, humorless smile.

Elena shook her head with an incredulous huff. "Bonnie just told me that we spent the last six months apart, that you... died?" She whispered the word, hardly able to pronounce it, "that you're human! Why didn't you start by telling me about all that?"

"I didn't and still don't think that's most important at the moment," Damon replied in a disgruntled tone.

Elena widened her eyes at him. "And what in your opinion is most important at the moment?"

"You forgot everything since your transition, Elena," Damon said as if that was supposed to explain everything, but Elena was still looking at him with demanding disbelief, so he continued. "The most important thing is for you to learn how to be a vampire, how to feed, how to survive-"

"If that's the purpose of this trip I'm not going anywhere," Elena interrupted him, crossing her arms over her chest.

Damon's mouth twitched into a resigned, bitter grimace. "I know you don't want to be a vampire-"

"That's not what I meant," Elena cut in, her voice becoming sharper and more irritated with every sentence and he could tell that she was losing patience, although he wasn't entirely sure why.

"You don't want me to be teaching you-" Damon started again, but stopped in mid-sentence when Elena snorted mirthlessly.

"Where all of these theories come from? I didn't say anything like that!" she said with a frown, but then her breath caught in her throat at the expression on Damon's face. "Did I?"

"Elena-"

On an impulse, she stormed toward him and Damon fell silent when she placed her hands on either side of his face.

"I don't know what to do either," she said earnestly, echoing his earlier words. "All I know is that I want to be near you."

Damon smiled, his embrace tightening around her, but before Elena had a chance to return his smile he grimaced. "But you don't know why," he said wistfully, running his fingers through her hair.

Elena looked at him and felt shivers run up her spine at the sudden realization that she didn't even have to search for a good retort right now, because the question rolled off her tongue almost out of its own accord:

"What makes you think I don't remember falling in love with you?"

Damon stilled his movements and just stared at her.

But then they both shuddered when Jeremy's voice shook them out of the moment:

"Bad news or good news first?"

"Bonnie found the spell?" Elena hazarded an immediate guess and Jeremy smiled.

"That's the good news," he confirmed. "And there's even more to it, so it's double good news, actually. But the bad news is that in order for Bonnie to do this spell Caroline and Stefan also have to be here."

Damon gave Jeremy a questioning look, as if he didn't understand what the problem was. He reached for his phone.

"Don't bother," Jeremy said with a small smile. "I just called Ric. Klaus said that he's not going to change their itinerary, quote, ' for no reason' and that they still need to go to Tokyo at least for one day before they can come back."

"What?" Damon asked with a disbelieving grimace.

Jeremy shrugged. "Let's just hope they'll be back sooner than Enzo projected. When he heard they're in Asia, he said it'd take them a few months to come back."

"Very funny," Damon muttered, not sharing Jeremy's amusement and preparing to make a call anyway, but Elena snatched the phone out of his hand. He blinked.

"Are they alright?" Elena asked, looking at Jeremy and moving her hand away whenever Damon was trying to get his phone back.

"From what Ric said, they're more than alright."

Damon looked between Elena and Jeremy with a grimace, not sure what they were even discussing that. "Who cares? They have to come back as soon as possible."

"Why?" Elena asked, wrinkling her forehead in feigned confusion. "If they're having such a good time, we can wait a few days."

"No, we can't," Damon protested.

"Why not?"

"We could go to the lake house for a couple of days," Jeremy offered and Elena seemed to ponder this for a second.

"Not my favorite place on the planet," Damon muttered grimly, but they both seemed to ignore him.

"Do you and Bonnie want to go?" Elena said after a moment of consideration.

Jeremy sighed. "With Enzo, right?"

"Who is Enzo?" Elena asked, glancing between Jeremy and Damon who was about to answer, but Jeremy cut him off.

"Don't worry about it, Elena." Jeremy waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "We can take him to the lake house with us, it's fine. In his current state he's pretty easy to handle. Either way, it's probably a good idea to be out of town in case the Augustines decided to pay us a visit before Bonnie can perform the spell."

"Isn't the spell going to be about our memories?" Elena asked a little puzzled.

Jeremy gave her a purposefully mysterious smile. "Bonnie said it's going to be a surprise," he said with a wink.

"It's a surprise after surprise today," Damon mumbled, glancing at the camaro.

"So you don't want to go to the lake house?" Jeremy asked, looking at Elena who shook her head.

"No." She paused, stifling a determined smile and glancing at Damon whose head snapped into her direction when she added. "Damon and I are going to Georgia."