"How - " Damon's mouth falls open when he sees the icy key on my palm. "How did you do that?" he gasps, looking down at my palm with shock and interest you so rarely see in his eyes.
I'm still not quite over it either. Honestly, I didn't really believe it's going to work, not entirely. It was a long shot - well, as it turns out, not that long.
"I remembered what the seeker said," my voice jumps up and down out of fear - I don't know what exactly I'm afraid of - but I swallow it down. "Her exact words," he looks at me, his eyes still wide, knowing very well that he has missed something. I want to ease him, to tell him not to worry, that I've missed it as well. It's such a new feeling for me, to be worried about Damon's emotional state, so worried that the thought of him deteriorating physically pains me. Protecting him is my first instinct. "That we're going to have to carve the key from ice that doesn't melt," I emphasize the word carve, almost singing it in a dramatic tone, "She never said it's hidden, or that we will actually find it."
"How did you know that you'll be able to do it with a knife?" he asks, his eyes glistening with curiosity and wonder, like he's a five year old who discovered that superheroes are real.
"I didn't," I answer, feeling the key with the tips of my fingers. It's a strange feeling, to hold ice in my hands and not feel it melt. "I took a chance with it," really, it was wild luck.
It's almost too good to be true. I hope not.
"Huh," he says, a smile pulling away from his lips, "So we're going home now, I guess.."
"If we figure out how the keys works, then yes," I squeeze the key in my palm, testing it, before looking back up at him. "You don't seem too happy about it," he looks like someone who just sobered up and remembered what a mistake he made last night.
He doesn't deny it. His skin goes paler than it already is and, if he were able to blush, he would be burning red at this point.
"Don't tell me you're warming up to this place?" I tease, grinning at him.
"Nah," he says, looking away from me. I never thought I'll ever see Damon so lost, so baffled, so completely and utterly struggling with words, "I just don't like change."
I furrow my brows, genuinely confused. "Change?" I ask, trying to get his attention. I wish he would look me in the eye, maybe then I would know what he's referring to, to know in which direction his mind is wandering. "We're going home, the most familiar place there is.. What change?" sometimes it's too hard to understand Damon, sometimes futile. But when it comes to him, it's important not to give up, or so I've learned.
He's like pizza, the deeper you go, the softer he gets.
Sweet merciful Zeus, I can't believe I just compared the guy I love to a pizza.
My eyes go wide at the thought but, thankfully, he doesn't catch my reaction. He's too busy with avoiding my look.
The guy I love..
"Everything," he says softly, in a low whisper, that I barely hear it. But it's there, like a shadow, in the back of his voice. I know exactly what he means.
"Damon.." I say his name with affection, gently cocking my head to the side.
"It's okay," he shakes his head, trying to shake his thoughts and worries away as well.
"No, it's not," my look hardens. I approach him, closing the fading distance between us. I enter his energy field and suddenly I feel buzzed by feelings I didn't even know could come in such intensity. "My feelings for you won't disappear if we cross to another dimension."
He locks his eyes on mine, his look intensifying. "No, but they will probably change. As well as.." he draws and invisible line between our bodies, "This."
"Why would it change?" I ask naively, squinting at him.
"Oh, come on," he raises his voice, brushing me off, pushing me away, like I'm playing him. Like my questions aren't asked in a serious matter. "How are we going to explain this to anyone?"
"You're so stupid, Damon," I reply in such a childish way. I wish I had a better response, but I'm not used to this, to these love quarrels that are completely unnecessary. Do they end with kisses and meaningless apologies like they do in movies?
I hope so.
"What?" he asks, like he can't believe I really said it. I can't either.
I inhale deeply, filling my lungs with air, making them rise like a balloon, before I step right in front of him, twist my fingers around the collar of his jacket and I pull his lips down on mine.
I don't think kissing him will ever become normal to me. Every time I feel his mouth on mine, I jerk in surprise, like it all happened so suddenly, unexpectedly. But it's a pleasant surprise, like stepping inside of a warm room after you spent hours out in the cold. The longer I kiss him the more familiar he feels, and I sink into him.
"So, so stupid," I breathe into him, filling his lungs with unneeded air.
"Yeah, yeah," his lips move against mine, "I'm stupid."
I laugh, and my laughter bumps off of his lips and, like a boomerang, comes back to me.
"We'll figure it out," I try to soothe him.
I wish we had more time. To define this, to define us. Even I barely understand it, so how am I supposed to explain it to everyone else? We've hated each other for such a long time that people simply accepted it and shared among themselves as a common fact. How am I supposed to explain to them that this feels just so..
..right?
Now I know how Elena felt, now I understand her struggle in choosing the right words to say to make people understand, or just back off.
In the end of the day, you really don't have to excuse yourself to anybody when it comes to who you choose to love. Nobody but yourself.
"Hey," he says. At first I think he's calling to me, to tell me something, but then I realize his tone is more urgent, he's trying to get my attention. To show me something. "Look at that," he moves away from me, and I turn around in his direction to see what he's referring to.
He's looking down at the hole in the ice in the shape of a key.
But the hole doesn't hold that shape anymore. It's rounder. Wider.
"Is the ice..?" I look down at it, speechless, shocked by what I see going on right in front of me.
"Melting? Yeah, it is," he doesn't seem too shocked or surprised by it, like something else caught his attention. "But, there's something else," he crouches down, looking directly into the hole.
I move towards him, leaning over his shoulder to see what exactly got his attention and then, I notice it.
A patch of grass. The ice has melted completely in the small hole I've cut, and a small patch of grass is visible. Touchable. It looks so healthy and green, untouched by the freezing cover.
I look up from the ground to him, only to catch him staring down with a small smile on his face, like he's amazed by it.
"Do you think it's coming back?" I ask cheerfully, "Do you think the kingdom will blossom again?"
"Probably," he shrugs before looking up at me, "I think this is just the beginning. And you started it," he stands up, smiling at me.
He's been smiling so often since we've gotten here, I hope it doesn't stop once we go back home.
"You create miracles wherever you go, Bonnie," he says, and I'm stunned into silence.
His words hit me so hard that they make me dizzy, and the intensity in which he smiles doesn't help the matter.
"I think it's time for us to go home," he continues once he realizes the words have escaped me, "Where are they keys?"
Right. The keys.
I reach for my bag to take out the other two keys and laying them down on the ground next to the icy one.
They don't look like they have anything in common. They don't even look like they're from the same era. Are they really what's supposed to get us home?
We both stare at the keys laid out in front of us, taunting us.
"So, umm," I say awkwardly, "I don't think they're going to do any tricks for us."
He frowns. "There's a catch. There has to be."
"I kinda naively thought the doors will come with them."
I know, nothing is ever that easy, but a girl can dream about getting out of a hellish dimension the easy way.
"No doors," he sighs, disappointed, "Just these keys that have absolutely nothing in common."
"Urgh," I says through my teeth, "How are we supposed to get home when we can't even figure out how to use three little keys?"
He doesn't say anything. This is killing him as much as it's killing me, our inability to figure it out, and we've come such a long way.
I look at the keys, from the first over the second to the last one, trying to will them to whisper their secrets. To tell us what their purpose is. Can they even be used here, or are we supposed to go somewhere else?
"Wait," his voice interrupts my thoughts, surprising me a little, so I jump in place. He gets down on his knees and takes two of the keys in his hands, fumbling with them until they..
Until they latch onto each other.
All I hear is one quiet click and they're glued to each other.
I gasp. "How did you do that?"
"They fit into one other," he shows me where the keys collide, sticking on each other, like a puzzle. He takes the last key and brings it closer to the middle key, fumbling with it until the last one sticks to it as well. "See?" he smiles.
Which is when the keys start shaking on his palm. He jerks away in surprise, and the keys fall down on the ground, rattling against the ice.
From that moment on, everything happens so fast.
The keys disappear and are replaced by a spiraling vortex. It's strong. Magnetizing. Gray. Windy.
It's sucking us in.
I can't stand my ground anymore, so I fall down.
I can feel Damon's hand searching for mine.
His fingers graze against my palm and he takes my hand just in time before we're both sucked in.
When I regain my consciousness, it's not like waking up. It's like closing your eyes in class and coming so close to fall asleep, only to remind yourself that this is not the time or place and having to pull yourself out of the sleepy state.
My eyelids are heavy, but they flutter open. Once. Twice. Three times.
Very slowly.
These colors are so familiar. And so are the smells.
I'm holding someones hand.
Damon, I remember.
"What was that?" I hear a voice that's close and distant at the same time.
"I don't know. I thought it was you."
"And I thought it was you."
Silence.
Then footsteps.
I remember that smell. Vanilla and strawberries and.. blood.
"Oh, God," someone whimpers.
Not someone.
Elena.
"Bonnie!" she says my name.
"Stefan! Come here! Quickly!"
Her arms go around me. She pulls me closer to herself. I can feel her tall, lean frame.
I let go of Damon's hand.