"So tell me mate, what is going on in that head of yours?"
"Why are you so damn nosey? It's really quite irritating."
"I'm just trying to figure out what's goin on with you."
"Why is that? Everyone is either trying to save me, find some type redeeming quality, or they are trying to get into my head. And the best one? Ha! Brace yourself for it. They are begging me to save them! Well guess what? I don't care about any of it. Why can't everyone just leave me the hell alone?"
"Who is begging you to save them?"
Damon realizes his mistake only when Enzo asks him that loaded question. That same question has been on his mind since he heard her pleading to him. But really, he's not completely sure she's begging to be saved or even real. The "Please Damon!" sure makes it sound like she needs him to save her, or at the very least needs something from him because her voice desperate. Damon Salvatore doesn't do saving. That quality hasn't been in him in a long time. So what he needs to figure out is why. He hasn't been able to shake her voice since that night he first heard it over a week ago. He sees her in his dreams almost every night. She's surrounded by this white light, he can never make out her face, but he can see her brown hair blowing around her face. He's not dumb enough to think he's got a guardian angel, but that sure as hell is what she feels like. Her presence comforts him in ways he didn't know he needed, in ways he didn't think he deserved.
"Damon! Where did you go there?"
"No where. I'm just tired of answering stupid questions."
"Look mate, I know you. We were trapped together in those cells for a long time. I've seen you disappear in you mind, trying to distract yourself and that's exactly what your doing, disappearing in your head somewhere. So why don't you just tell me what you need to be distracted from?"
"Everything! Did I ask for help? No. I want all of you to get lost. Take a beat for crying out loud. You all want something from me. Want me to do something. How about I do what ever the hell I please? How does that sound? Huh? Good? Good. Now leave. Don't follow me Enzo. I'm done with this. All of it."
"You don't mean that."
"Like hell I don't."
"You can't just leave me here alone."
"We aren't in those cells anymore Enzo. We are free. You are free. It's time for you to let the past go and move on before it eats you alive."
"Where are you going?"
"Anywhere but here. I mean it too, don't follow me." He can see the disappointment on Enzo's face but he can't find it in him to care.
She'd been here, trapped in her head for days, weeks, months. Could be years. She can't tell. Time means nothing anymore. She misses her life, her friends, her brother. But more than anything she misses Damon. She dreams the same dreams, relives the same nightmares. Everything is always on repeat. Except lately, everything she dreams about is Damon. Not good dreams like she's wished for. Dreams of Damon self destructing. Damon angry, he's always so filled with anger. She wishes she knew what made him that way again. But most of all Damon is alone. She hates that the most. She can see him loathing himself more and more with each day that passes, and all she wants to do is reach out and touch him but she can't. All she can do is watch. Watch and plead a silent prayer that no one will hear. Especially not Damon.
"Damon." He's laying on some back road, not a car in hearing distance when he hears her voice again. He opens his eyes to a pitch black sky and answers.
"I'm here."
"Please."
"What do you want from me? Who are you? What are you?"
"Damon..."
"Just stop! I want answers or I want you to get lost."
He sits up and he sees her not too far in front of him, her hand reaching out for him and before he knows what he's doing he's getting up and reaching his hand to grasp hers. And when their fingertips touch he feels the electricity between them. The light she's surrounded by is blocking her face, but she's real and he lets out a breath of relief. Relief because for some unknown reason he needed her to be real.
"You know me."
"Don't you think if I knew who you were I'd be asking?"
"Feel me Damon." She places his hand over her heart, as she presses her own to his. He's trying to look at her, past the light but it's blinding him, forcing him to look away. "I need you to feel me Damon. Tell me what you feel."
"I know you." He can't explain it. Her touch feels healing. He's felt her touch before. He can't place when or where, but he feels like he misses it. He never wants it to go away, yet he knows she can't stay. She never stays.
"Yes. You know me. I'm in your heart, in your blood just like your in mine."
"I feel like I've hurt you, haven't I?"
"Yes."
"I don't do apologies, but I am sorry."
"I know. If it helps, you've saved me so many more times than you've hurt me."
"Is that really what you're going to go with?" He gives her his signature smirk and he just knows she's smiling too.
"Damon, you have to stop, this isn't you anymore. Go home to our friends." He looks down to her hand that's still resting over his heart, she's talking like she's known him for years, like they were a part of each others life. What she's saying doesn't make sense.
"I don't have a home."
"Yes, you do. It's with your brother, and our friends. Bonnie and Alaric, your best friends."
"How do you know all this?"
"I already told you. I know you Damon, the real you. Not this version of you that you don't want to be. I see it in your eyes. They've always told me everything I needed to know from you."
"What does that even mean?"
" It means...I'm sorry I have to go."
"You can't leave."
"I don't have a choice. I don't even know how I did this, but I'm really tired now."
She's gone before he can utter another word. He places his hand over his heart where hers had just vanished from, and he knows he's missing something. Something big, and he wants answers. He wants her.
Stefan's called a meeting of Damon's Scooby gang. He explained to all of them what he was trying to do, and Caroline the ever supportive fiancé made a few calls to get everyone together while he had went to see Valerie. Ric, Bonnie, Caroline, Matt, all seated in the boarding house waiting for her to come. Waiting for Valerie to show up, Elena to come back to them. Waiting to bring Damon back to them to destroy Cade.
"Valerie is going to do it, but the spell calls for a vile of need human blood. That's the only thing we need to get before she gets here."
"Use my blood."
"No, Matt, we don't know if there's any consequences to it."
"It doesn't matter. I want Elena back just as much as all of you, and I owe Damon."
"What could you possibly owe Damon?" Caroline's quick to ask the question they all want to know the answer to.
"Back at the Original Ball, Kol tried to kill me and Damon saved me. For no reason, no one was around. No Elena to impress, he could have just walked away but he didn't. He chose to stay and save my life. And I can't help but wonder if that's why Damon is the way he is. No one ever gives him any credit. Well, except Elena of course."
"Damon is sooo going to owe us all big time after we get him back." Caroline adds and Stefan wants to disagree but Bonnie beats him to it.
"We owe him just the same for saving our sorry asses plenty of times."
He can't help but smile at how far everyone had come. To see Bonnie and Damon as such good friends still is strange to him, but he gets it. They've been through things together that only way they survived was together. For all the bad that Damon had done it had done something even better to trump it. He had saved each and everyone of their lives at least once, and now they were finally going to give him the only repayment that he would ever want. Elena.