It's been a while. Real life and all. Trying to get back into the swing of things.

Chapter 18

Thursdays were "Dinner at Damon's" and on the last Thursday before the start of the fall semester, Damon decided that he would make the famous Salvatore lasagna from scratch. And by "he," he meant Stefan, since his younger brother was the better cook of the two of them. But Damon figured that he could at least spring for the groceries. So he scooped up Bonnie and they hit the grocery store, where he picked out everything Stefan would need to feed their little crew of friends. And by "he," he meant Bonnie, since he was way too distracted kissing her neck and not so discreetly grabbing her butt while she pulled items from the shelves.

"Damon, stop that," she sang.

He knew that she meant to sound annoyed but she actually sounded delighted. He didn't have to see her face to know that she was fighting a smile. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and they walked in lock-step while she pushed the cart and he nuzzled his nose into her neck.

"I can't help that you're hot and have an ass that won't quit," he said.

She turned around and gave him an irritated look, but her mouth quirked up at the corner.

"Focus," she said. "And once our friends are gone tonight, I might do something nice for you."

"I hope this something nice involves you being naked."

"Behave and you'll find out."

Damon held up his hands in surrender and mostly behaved for the next few minutes. He did continue to follow her so closely that his nose was practically glued to her neck, but he knew she liked it because she reached up every now and then and stroked his cheek. He was thinking of all the ways he could have her once their little gathering was over, when he felt it again. That sensation of being watched. He'd felt it a few times since the first incident but he was never able to pinpoint why he was feeling it.

He pulled himself away from Bonnie long enough to look around the grocery store but he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. The feeling stayed with him, though, even as they were checking out. His eyes went to the big windows that showed the parking lot outside, and Damon saw a man in the distance, just standing there. Not going to a car or putting a cart away. Just standing.

"You handle this, Bon," he said as he pulled out his credit card and gave it to Bonnie. "I think I left the lights on in the car."

Before she could open her mouth to ask why that couldn't wait the few minutes for her to finish checking out, he was already walking out of the door. He walked purposefully through the parking lot until the man's face came into clear view. He immediately recognized him as the heretic he'd let get away...Edward or Edgar or Eor or something...and he went on high alert. He sped to the man, grabbed him by the neck and squeezed.

"What the hell are you doing back here?" he demanded.

Edgar held up his hands. "I mean you no harm."

"Then why are you back here?"

"You let me go because I promised that I could bring your friend back. Elena."

At the mention of her name, Damon's whole demeanor changed. His hands dropped from Edgar's neck and he stumbled back like he had been punched. He hadn't thought of her in so long that guilt consumed him when he realized that he'd just forgotten about her. He remembered the conversation from the woods on the night he killed Lily and it all came back to him.

"Elena," he said softly.

"I've lifted the spell," Edgar said proudly. "It wasn't something that I could do by myself. I had to get the help of other witches, but is it done. At no harm to your friend."

Edgar pointed to the store and Damon's gaze went back to where Bonnie was about to walk out of the store with their groceries. He turned back to Edgar to ask questions and try to clear the fog in his head, but the other man simply patted his shoulder and said, "I will consider us even." And then he was gone. Damon didn't have time to make sense of any of it before Bonnie was nearly at his car and he had to pull himself together enough to act normal. He got to the car right before she did and plastered a smile on his face as he opened the trunk.

"Thaaaank you," she said happily as she loaded the items into the back.

He normally would have helped but he was too busy staring at her, wondering what Elena's return would mean for them and for everyone.

"You okay?" Bonnie asked once she had closed the trunk.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he lied.

She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side, and he knew he would have to put on a much better act if he didn't want her asking questions before he had the answers. So he pushed the cart out of the way and grabbed her by the hips. He pulled her against him and planted a long kiss on her lips and when he pulled away, she was smiling.

"What was that for?" she asked.

"Just thinking about how beautiful you are."

Her smile grew even bigger and she hit him on the arm.

"I already told you you're getting laid tonight. You don't have to lay it on thick, you know."

"Thick is the only way I know how to lay it, baby."

He wiggled his eyebrows and she laughed.

"Lame. Now let's get in the car and go before they wonder if we got lost."

Damon was more than happy to do what she said because the car gave him some space to try to think about the news Edgar had just given him. Elena was back. Or she would be back. And Bonnie didn't have to die. At some point, that would have been a dream come true for him. It would have been the best of both worlds. But now...now, given his relationship with Bonnie, he really didn't know what to think.

He was still trying to figure it out as he and Bonnie started cooking in their kitchen. She played some music and popped open a bottle of wine and sang along with her favorite songs, and all he could think about was how much he had grown to love her. As Caroline and Stefan and Matt arrived and took up space in his apartment like they belonged there, he wondered how Elena's return would affect all of them. The five of them had formed their own little group and they had a certain chemistry that might not last if Elena was back.

His thoughts bothered him all night. He hardly heard anything that anyone else said because his mind was too preoccupied. Every time he heard someone walking in the apartment corridor outside, he wondered if it was Elena. He wondered how he would react. His stomach twisted in knots for reasons he wasn't sure he understood, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to.

...

Caroline and Bonnie were at brunch a couple of weeks later, and Caroline was going on and on about something or other and Bonnie was trying her best to keep up. She kept checking her phone, hoping for some kind of message from Damon, but none came.

"Okay, you want to tell me what's going on?" Caroline asked as she cut herself off in the middle of a sentence about her organic chemistry teacher.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"I mean that you haven't heard a word I've said this whole time."

"That's not true!"

"Okay, then repeat something I said," Caroline challenged.

Bonnie opened her mouth to say something, but in truth, she had no idea what her best friend had been talking about. She sighed.

"I'm sorry, Care, you're right. I'm distracted. Tell me the story again."

"After you tell me what's got your mind so spaced out."

Bonnie sighed again.

"It's Damon. He's been acting weird lately."

"He's always weird," Caroline said with a flip of her hand.

"No, this is more than usual. He's...distracted. I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it. It's like he's jumpy or something."

Caroline frowned. "Do you think he knows about a threat and doesn't want to tell us yet?"

"I think he would have told me something like that. The way he's acting now, it's like..." She looked down and chipped at her nails, not wanting to say what she really thought.

"It's like...?"

She looked at Caroline and bit her cheek.

"I think Damon is cheating on me."

"What?" Caroline asked, and then she laughed loudly. "Oh yeah right. Damon is a lot of things, Bonnie. He's a jackass and a moron and an irritant and..."

"Caroline."

"Sorry. He's a lot of things, but a cheater isn't one of them. He's the poster child for blind devotion."

"I know that," Bonnie said with a groan. "Logically, I know that. But he's acting so different. He takes his phone with him everywhere he goes, like he's afraid I'll look through it. He's always looking at the door like he's expecting someone to burst through it. He hasn't been as...affectionate...as before."

"If by that, you mean that you're not banging each other's brains out ten times a day anymore, sorry, honey, but eventually that wears off."

"He's distant. And secretive. And I don't know what's wrong with him."

"Have you asked?"

"Of course! Multiple times. He keeps saying it's nothing but I know he's lying."

"So give him an ultimatum," Caroline said with a shrug. "Tell him to come clean or you walk."

"That's kind of drastic, don't you think?"

"No. You're his girlfriend and he's keeping something from you. If it's bad enough that you think he's cheating, you have a right to know. But if you give him that choice, you have to mean it."

Bonnie nodded in half-hearted agreement and spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to approach the situation. She didn't want to accuse Damon of anything, but she was tired of feeling shut out and pushed away. So she made up her mind that she was going to get the truth out of him that night, no matter what it took. She went into their apartment, nervous about seeing him, but he wasn't there. So she took some time to get herself together and come up with a plan. She talked herself up, ready to have what would probably be an uncomfortable conversation, but after an hour, Damon still wasn't home.

Another hour passed, then another and another, until it was nearly midnight. Bonnie's anxiety turned to anger, and what had seemed an unlikely scenario of him cheating on her suddenly became the only explanation in her mind. She paced in their living room, ready to rip him a new one, when he opened the door. She put her hands on her hips and glared at him, but he didn't seem to notice as he tossed his keys on the counter.

"Hey," he said. "What are you still doing up?"

"Waiting for you," she said with a bite in her tone.

"You didn't have to do that," he said as he pulled his jacket off.

"Where have you been?"

"Out," he shrugged. He kissed her forehead. "I'm going to bed."

Her fury only grew as he started to walk away from her, and even though it was not part of her carefully devised plan to get him to talk to her, she blurted out the question that was burning in her mind.

"Who is she?" she asked.

Damon turned around with a frown. "What? Who?"

"Whoever it is you're cheating on me with."

"Cheating on you? What are you talking about?"

"You tell me, Damon! You've been pushing me away for weeks! You've hardly touched me, you act like someone's watching your every move, and now you come home at midnight without so much as a text to me all day! What am I supposed to think?"

He looked like he was going to argue with her at first, but then he slumped his shoulders and shook his head slowly.

"I'm not cheating on you," he said lowly. "I wouldn't do that."

Despite her anger, she believed him. And her mood improved just a tiny bit. She slumped her shoulders, too, and approached him until she could take his hands in hers.

"Then what is going on? And don't tell me it's nothing but I know that's not true."

Damon rubbed his forehead a few times and looked everywhere but at her.

"I've been out all day," he finally said. "I want to take a shower. Can I do that first, and then we'll talk?"

A new wave of uncertainty spiked in her chest, but she nodded and he pulled away from her. She sat down on the couch and waited for what felt like an hour for him to return, and that wait was so much worse than when she was waiting for him to get home, if that was possible. Her stomach churned and her mind buzzed with questions. When Damon came back, dressed in black pajama pants and a black cotton shirt, he sat down next to her but didn't say anything for a while.

"Damon, please," she said quietly. "You're making me really nervous."

He ran a hand through his wet hair and finally looked at her.

"You know how I told you that all the heretics were gone?" he asked.

She frowned, mostly because that was not the course she was expecting the conversation to take.

"Yeah."

"Well, that's not exactly true. One of them is alive. And he's back in Mystic Falls."

Bonnie sat up straight and almost sighed in relief that Caroline had been right about Damon just not wanting to worry them about a new threat.

"What does he want?" she asked.

"Nothing, actually," he said with a dry laugh. "He only came back to tell me that he'd done something I asked him to do in exchange for me not ripping his head off."

"Okay. And what was that?"

She didn't like the look he got on his face. It was the look when he knew that he had done something wrong.

"I asked him to bring Elena back," he said.

All of the feeling drained out of Bonnie's body and her earlier worries seemed silly in comparison to the thought of having to give Damon to Elena.

"It was before you and I were together," Damon said quickly. "He said he could break the tie between you and Elena without hurting you. I never would have even considered if I thought you could get hurt in the process."

She nodded repeatedly, showing him that she understood even though she wasn't sure that she did. It felt like her whole world had been turned upside down, and on top of that, she felt guilty about not being happy that Elena would be back while she was still alive.

"So that's where you've been," she said, looking down at her hands. "With Elena."

"No," he said immediately. He took her hands but she didn't look at him. "No, I haven't been with Elena. She's not even back yet. She's still in her coffin, locked and sealed away. I've been looking for Edgar, the heretic who claims he undid the spell. For all I know, his spell didn't even work."

"Or maybe it just takes a while. Big spells are like that some times."

"Do you feel any different?"

"No."

"Then it probably didn't work. He was probably just blowing smoke up my ass."

They were both silent for a while, with Damon holding her hands and Bonnie staring at the coffee table.

"What if it did work?" she asked quietly.

She looked at him then and saw an expression that seemed as pained and confused as her own feelings.

"Do you want her back?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "Of course. Don't you?"

"Yes. And no. Because I know if she comes back, it's over between us."

"That's not true."

"Please," she said with a sad empty laugh. "If she walked through that door right now, you'd be done with me."

"I love you. You know that."

"And I also know that the plan was to love me now and love her when I'm gone. So what happens when we're here at the same time?"

He got up and paced and looked around like he was searching for the answer to that same question. He never gave one, though. And Bonnie knew it was because he either truly didn't know what would happen, or he knew he would pick Elena. Her eyes started to sting with tears but she wiped them before they could spill out. She stood up and straightened her back and talked calmly, like she wasn't about to fall apart.

"I'll have my things out by tomorrow," she said.

"What? No. Bonnie, don't do this. We don't even know if Elena is actually coming back."

"No, we don't. But it doesn't matter anyway. I don't want to be second to her anymore."

Damon gritted his teeth in frustration and took her by the shoulders to make her look at him in the eyes.

"You are not second, okay? You're first. You're here, with me, right now, and that's all that should matter."

Bonnie shook her head and smiled sadly.

"You know, when we first got together, I would have been okay with that," she said. "I knew what I was getting into and I knew I was sharing your heart with her, even if she's not here. But now?" Her eyes filled up again and she tried to wipe the tears but Damon beat her to it. "Now, I'm not okay with it."

She slid out of his hold and went to the bedroom, where she put on a hoodie and grabbed the keys to her apartment. She tried to walk past Damon but he stood in the bedroom doorway.

"Please don't do this," he said. "You're overreacting to something that might not ever happen."

"I don't want to look over my shoulder worrying that Elena will just step back in our lives and you'll go back to her."

She tried to get past him again but he again took her by the shoulders and looked at her with big, pleading eyes.

"What do I have to do to make you stay?" he asked.

Her heart broke for him, almost as much as it broke for herself, because for someone who'd been on the wrong end of a love triangle at least twice, he really didn't seem to get it. Maybe, she realized, because he always settled for the little scraps Katherine and Elena tossed his way. He was content with whatever he got. But she wouldn't be. Not after a lifetime of sacrifice.

"You'd have to tell me that when and if Elena comes back, you'll still choose me. And until you can say that to me and mean it, then I can't be with you. I love you so much, and I won't share you. I'm sorry, Damon."

He finally let her go and she squeezed past him and left the apartment. She let herself into her own apartment and locked herself in her room before Caroline or Stefan could realize she was there. She curled up on her bed, hugged a pillow, and cried. Damon was just down the hall, but it already felt like he was a million miles away. There was a part of her that held out hope that he would burst through her door and declare that his love for her was greater than anything he'd ever felt for Elena.

But he didn't. Not that day or the next one or any of the ones after that. Bonnie knew then that it was over, and she couldn't recall anything hurting so badly.