Author's note: Heeeeey, everyone! So that last chapter was a bit mean, huh? Everyone's really stressed out from their really unpleasant time at Whitmore. Time to decompress and reflect.

I wanted to get this chapter out as quickly as possible to keep my promise. So here we are! :D

It had been evening by the time they arrived in Mystic Falls, the autumnal Sun having already set for hours, allowing the increasing crispness in the air to instead pay tribute to the luminous Moon. Elena noted that it was beautiful and full above their heads, shining with an almost dazzling magic.

"I need to go home," Elena urged, when she saw that Damon wasn't driving in the direction of her house. "Jenna's probably worried sick."

"Just call her and tell her you're staying over at my place tonight," Bonnie insisted. "We have a lot to talk about."

"I would, but I left my phone behind," Elena lamented. "I'm pretty sure that Whitmore's resident mad scientist had it taken from me, because it wasn't on me anymore when I – found myself there," she frowned, unable to think of another way to describe the feeling of suddenly finding herself in a dark basement cell, when her previous memory had her placed miles away. Was she losing time? Just how much time passed, anyway?

"Oh, sorry," Damon announced contritely, handing Elena back her phone. "I grabbed our phones along with all this other stuff on the way out, and completely forgot I had it."

Elena snatched it from him with a look of suspicious annoyance out of sheer habit, only to see that her battery must have died sometime during the day. "It's dead."

"It's okay, I'll call her," Bonnie suggested, desperate to alleviate some of the obvious tension between Damon and Elena. It seemed like they were only getting along when teasing each other, but even that gave weight to the exhaustion of the day within the last hour – when Enzo's continuous thumping seemed to have placed Damon in a considerably more morose mood, though she suspected she knew the source and abject guilt behind that anguish. "Hey, Jenna?" she asked when a frantic woman on the other line answered. "No, Elena's here with me. She's fine. She came over to study, but we lost track of time and didn't realize her phone died," she said, sounding apologetic, then hummed a few times in response to Jenna's mumbled tone.

"Let me talk to her," Elena mouthed to Bonnie.

"Yeah, she forgot her charger – oh, she wants to talk to you, hold on," Bonnie said, reluctantly handing the phone over to Elena.

"Hi, Jenna!" Elena chirped with faux enthusiasm, to a dubious look from Damon in the rearview mirror. "No, I'm perfectly fine. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to worry you. I'm going to stay at Bonnie's tonight. We still have lot to go over for the uh – the," she looked around, catching Damon rolling his eyes at her rough attempt at lying, and Bonnie's widened gaze, urging her to continue. "Biology test on Friday! We're studying… the circulatory system?" she finally replied, their recent ordeal inspiring her fib. "I'm sorry, I'm just a little out of it. Brain is all bio-ed out for now. We're going to take a little break, then right back to it. Uh huh. I love you, too, Jenna. Bye!"

"How you ever managed to fool me is honestly beyond my understanding," Damon snarked, pulling onto the street that had the foreclosure that Bonnie found earlier on her phone. "You're a terrible liar."

"One of your assets, I suppose?" Elena asked with a little more bite than strictly necessary – considerably more than at any point earlier in the night when the two almost danced through quips powered by teases and half-hidden smiles – as the guilt of her earlier actions with Stefan gnawed at her. She noticed that the atmosphere seemed to tense about an hour ago with Damon's visibly increasing exhaustion. He seemed quieter, more introspective – sadder.

"One of many," he supplied sarcastically, though his tone lacked the playfulness it normally held with her, as he parked the car and quickly got out. Elena and Bonnie followed him out as he unlocked the trunk, pulling out an emaciated-looking man. Elena stifled a gasp when she noted his protruding collar bones, noting the angry tears forming in Bonnie's eyes.

"Damon. My personal Brutus and Judas in one. I've been wanting to give you something all these years," the man, who Elena realized must be Enzo, rasped as he made a weak lunge toward Damon that he neatly side-stepped.

"Yeah, well, get in line," Damon replied, before turning to address Bonnie. "I'm going for a blood bag," he paused, thinking, "and bourbon run. I have a feeling we're going to need it tonight. You'll be able to handle them?" he asked, gesturing to Elena and Enzo with his head.

Bonnie nodded, a smug smile gracing her lips. "I'm overqualified. Oh, and can you pick me up an acoustic guitar?"

Damon raised both eyebrows. "Bonnie, you remember that this is Mystic Falls, right? You expect me to just stumble onto an all-night Sam Ash?"

"Look, steal it if you want. I don't care what you have to do – just bring me an acoustic guitar," she urged. "Trust me on this. It'll help," she whispered, hoping that Enzo wouldn't hear her in his blood-deprived state.

"Fine," Damon sighed. "But I might be a while." He took the small cooler containing the few blood bags they brought along when they all naively expected to go home for the night out of the car, dropping it at Bonnie's feet, while pointedly avoiding eye contact with both Elena and Enzo. He then got back into the Camaro and drive off into the night without a backward glance.

"Are you two supposed to be dinner?" Enzo grinned threateningly, blood pooling into his eyes as his fangs elongated on instinct, his body singing with the ability to finally feed to his heart's content after years of malnourishment.

"I set Wes Maxfield on fire with my mind," Bonnie replied flippantly as a small fireball gathered in the palm of her hand, watching with satisfaction as Enzo's eyes widened in fear, and his vampiric features retreated.

The three walked inside the expansive house, with Elena lingering back. What a confounding day. A part of her continued to question her sanity for not trying to escape the group and sneak away home – instead, she was willingly entering a foreclosed house to spend the night with a murderous vampire, a victim of experimentation, and one of her best friends in the world. Honestly, if it weren't for Bonnie's obvious trust and dedication to the terrifying twosome, she'd have put up a considerably larger fight.

"Bonnie, what's going on?" Elena asked as she watched the witch in question hand over the contents of the cooler to the vampire, who ripped into them with wild abandon.

"That's what Damon and I are going to try to figure out," Bonnie honestly, though evasively, answered. In the car ride over, Damon made some allusions to her lost time, though the subject hadn't been discussed yet. Elena just noted the wide-eyed and troubled look on Bonnie's face when he announced that Elena didn't remember anything past the cemetery, and the subject was quickly and unceremoniously dropped, while the two seemed to give each other worried, but meaningful looks.

"When did this happen? And how? This … partnership … with Damon," Elena elaborated, at Bonnie's questioning look. "I thought you two hated each other, and now it's like you're –"

"Best friends?" Bonnie asked softly.

"Yeah," Elena replied, matching her tone. "I don't understand. In fact, I don't understand any of this," she bit her lip, on the verge of tears. "How did we end up in Whitmore Hall's basement? Do people actually experiment on vampires?" she asked, her voice shaky with horror as her vision blurred. "Why did Damon save me after I …?" betrayed him, Elena wanted to say.

Bonnie took her hand gently, looking at her friend with undisguised compassion. "Because he lo – cares about you very much, Elena," she quickly amended, realizing that Elena might not be ready to hear about the full extent of Damon's feelings for and history with her after the harrowing day they've had. "Maybe you should cut him a little slack. It's a difficult situation, and he's trying his best."

"But he wanted to unleash the vampires on the town," Elena argued. "They would hurt everyone. Stefan said –"

"Do you know what desiccation is?" Bonnie asked, interrupting. In reality, she still held a measure of resentment for Stefan's role in Enzo's death from their original timeline, and though she objectively understood what it meant for a vampire to have his humanity off, the knowledge did little to lessen her utter heartbreak and emotional agony at his actions. When Elena shook her head, Bonnie continued. "It's when a vampire slowly dries out from lack of blood. It's incredibly painful, and it goes on forever unless stopped." In truth, Bonnie found this exchange ironic, since it had been Elena who initially made the case to her that leaving a vampire to eternal desiccation was cruel and inhumane. In those months when the two had gathered Althea's ingredients, Elena presented a defense of Damon wanting to open the tomb that startled and surprised her. Even death would be more merciful than the never-ending torture of blood vessels scraping against each other, unable to die, but in constant pain. What kind of person would Damon have been to have left his sire to suffer in that? It wasn't obsession, Elena argued, but compassion. To find herself on the opposite role of the same argument struck Bonnie as a bit ironic.

Elena gasped, bringing a hand to her mouth to unconsciously stifle it. "That sounds awful!" she cried, horrified, then a look of understanding settled on her face. "He's just trying to save someone he loves."

Bonnie looked at her for a long time before responding. Technically, Elena's wording is correct, even though they're talking about different people – that Katherine was currently the least of his worries and not even remotely the woman who occupied the great bulk of his heart. Finally, she nodded, and decided against elaborating further. "Yes. Yes, he is."

"Okay, ladies, what do we have around here for entertainment?" announced a surprisingly cheerful voice from the doorway, where Enzo stood, looking markedly healthier.

"You're in a better mood," Bonnie smirked at him, appearing entirely unsurprised by his change in behavior.

"What can I say?" he shrugged nonchalantly, wandering inside. "The way to a vampire's heart is through his, uh, fangs?" he tried, and then immediately got distracted by the flatscreen television. "What's this?"

Elena left the room shortly after Bonnie clearly found enormous delight in explaining modern technology to the newly liberated vampire that was their housemate for the time being. Instead, she took to wandering the house, and ruminating on the profound and tumultuous changes to her life in only the last few hours.

She couldn't find a notebook but did locate some odd papers and a pen to help articulate her thoughts, when she heard the front door open and then close. Damon must have been back.

She followed the noise and saw him dropping off another cooler and a few bottles of bourbon on the kitchen floor, as well as a worn acoustic guitar on the table. She thought to approach him, when she saw him take a blood bag and bottle to head to an empty room, carefully avoiding any eye contact with her, before shutting the door.

She frowned, noting that his sudden change in mood had not yet abated. If he was determined to avoid her, she would at least apologize to him first – he deserved that much, especially in light of what Bonnie had just revealed.

"Hey," Elena said softly, entering the room in which Damon secluded himself. He appeared to be immersed in the mountains of papers and open folders littering the desk. There were dark circles under his eyes. Is this the first break he'd had in hours? Was he drinking enough blood? Elena stopped herself, baffled at her line of thought. Bonnie's admonition affected her more than she thought – though if she were completely honest with herself, she felt the pang of remorse only seconds after lying to Damon in the first place – she knew it was wrong, that Stefan asked her to step on her principles in a massive way – but she'd allowed herself to be talked into it if it meant keeping the town safe. But maybe Damon wasn't quite the monster he appeared – that Stefan made him out to be. He fought so hard for her in that basement. "I just came to apologize." When he didn't offer any kind of verbal response, she wrung her hands together nervously, urging herself to continue. "I realize that I was being unfair to you. You saved me, and –"

"That was all Bonnie," Damon interrupted her, putting the file in his hands down and getting up to approach her, but not too closely. Elena noticed just how keen he was to keep a distance now.

"No," Elena frowned in consternation. Something about Damon's refusal to acknowledge his own role in her rescue bothered her on a visceral level. "It was you, too. If it weren't for you – if you didn't come when you did, then –" she broke off, shaking her head, and instead deciding on a different avenue. She resolved to bravely take a step closer, nodding to herself as though she finally made a decision. "You and I – we have something – an understanding. And I know my betrayal hurt you – different from how it was with you and Stefan. But I'm promising this to you now – I will help you get Katherine back."

Damon barked a laugh, shaking his head – but it was pained, bitter.

"I don't see what's funny," Elena frowned, affronted.

"Oh, trust me. It's very funny – probably not to you or me, but objectively speaking, there's a profoundly painful sense of irony here that I can definitely appreciate," Damon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was so exhausted. Everything hurt, down to his very soul.

"I mean it," she persisted, choosing to disregard his confusing statement and overall behavior. She reached for the clasp of her vervain necklace, determined to show him that she was serious – that he could trust her.

"What are you doing?"

"I know you don't trust me, but please, ask me," she prompted, removing the necklace and placing it on the table next to her. "Ask me if I'm sorry. Ask me how much I regret what I did. I am sorry, Damon – truly. You didn't deserve that."

"I know you are, and it's okay."

"No, it's not, because I want you to trust me again – and I want you to see that I'm serious. I'll help you get her back, Damon," she urged, growing visibly upset by his reluctance to even look at her. He tried so hard to connect with her in the cells in Whitmore Hall's basement – but now he seemed determined to push her away entirely. She stepped closer, taking a deep breath to quiet her heart and instill some courage within her. "I get it," she soothed, taking measured steps toward him. "You love Katherine —more than anything in the world. It's how I feel about Stefan. I thought about everything you're doing – I put myself in your shoes – and I'd probably do the same thing. I'd move heaven and Earth to rescue him, too. I'm not judging you," she insisted. Of course, she would do everything possible to save those she loves from unending pain, locked away in a dark room, left to perpetually suffer. Anything else would show a staggering lack of empathy. When she analyzed it from that perspective, all of Damon's actions made a lot more sense – though she still vehemently disagreed with his less-than-savory methods.

"Elena, please stop," he breathed, his voice coming out a broken whisper. When she reached to place her hand on his, Elena was dismayed to find him stepping away from her, putting some physical distance between them. His eyes were shut tight, like he was experiencing incredible pain. Elena was utterly flabbergasted. What did she say that was so wrong?

She'd never seen him like this – couldn't have even imagined it hitherto, and yet in this moment, every word she uttered seemed like it pierced his very heart. What happened to the wryly nonchalant Damon Salvatore who swaggered into town, intent on causing his brother an eternity of misery? What happened to the confident vampire who flirted and teased smiles from her in Atlanta and only hours ago? She had anticipated more bluster, as she'd come to expect from him, but not this – not this vulnerability.

Feeling an indescribable urge to comfort him, Elena allowed her body free rein without the requisite analysis with which she was often encumbered and placed her hands on his cheeks, gently urging him to really see her – her sincerity – the fact that, despite her earlier behavior, she really was starting to care for him.

"I'm sorry, Damon," she whispered, and found that she meant it with every fiber of her soul.

"I know you are, Elena," he allowed, repeating his earlier words, but with considerably more naked affection, finally looking at her. She nearly gasped at the gaze that met her own – the stunning vulnerability in his blue eyes, the gentle concern; the deep, penetrating sadness; another lingering but powerful and all-encompassing emotion that she was too afraid to yet name. Not even Stefan had ever looked at her like that – and Damon did so just from a promise to help rescue his beloved. She wondered briefly what it must feel like to be loved like that and was distressed to find herself feeling jealous of this Katherine.

"To answer your question from before, I was able to lie to you because I didn't think I was fully lying," she explained, desperate for him to understand. "I meant it when I said that you could trust Stefan – that he wanted what's best for you. I didn't know how awful desiccation really was."

"I know," he said, closing his eyes and allowing himself a few brief seconds to lean into her touch. "I know you didn't."

"Then tell me what I can do," she urged softly.

He reached for her necklace on the table in response, taking care to secure it around her neck again with a tenderness that was surprising to her. "You really need to give me some time. I'd like to be alone for a while, okay?"

She nodded reluctantly and stepped out of the room, desperately fighting every urge inside her to glance back.

"Hey, Bonnie," Elena announced shyly, entering her best friend's chosen room, marveling at the surreal nature of the day.

"Hey, Elena," Bonnie replied softly, though Elena didn't fail to notice the exhaustion around her eyes.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I will be. It's just been a long day. How are you feeling?"

"I'll be better once I understand what's going on. Bonnie, why can't I leave? I need to call Stefan. He's probably worried about me."

"He'll be fine, Elena. Don't worry. So will Jenna and Jeremy. We just need to figure out what happened to your memories first."

"My memories…?"

"You really don't remember anything after the cemetery?"

"No, I – I tried to apologize to Damon, and I even promised him we'd help him get Katherine back, but I don't think he believed me," Elena confessed. Bonnie's unsure smile twisted into a grimace, which Elena noticed immediately. "You disapprove."

"Yes, but not for the reason you think," Bonnie replied hesitantly.

"Tell me what's going on, Bonnie, please. Why is everyone acting so weird? Why are you walking on eggshells with me? Why does Damon keep looking at me like I stabbed him in the heart? I know what Stefan and I did to him was awful, but there's no way he could be that hurt by my actions – I don't mean nearly important enough to him for that."

"You'd be surprised," Bonnie winced.

Elena frowned in confusion, but continued, "he thinks he's hiding it, but I can see how hurt he is, and it doesn't make any sense."

"Okay, so," Bonnie took a deep breath, drumming on her thighs nervously. "Here goes. Damon and I – and until early this afternoon, you – had our consciousnesses sent back from nine years in the future. Well, nine for Damon. Ten for me. With you, it's a bit questionable, since you spent about five of those years in a magical sleep."

Elena listened wide-eyed, with growing trepidation, as Bonnie gave her the broad strokes of their lives together, though her eyes widened, and heart sped up, and whole soul contorted in a way that she suspected was not entirely unhappy over a very specific new bit of information.

"What!? Damon loves me? That can't be right." Elena denied, panicked.

"It's true," Bonnie urged patiently. "I admit it took me a while to see it, but it's there and it's very real."

"It's because I look like Katherine. It has to be," Elena stuttered, feeling her anxiety rise.

"He's not the one who lied-by-omission about your resemblance to her, Elena," Bonnie countered softly, expecting this kind of reaction.

"Maybe he couldn't rescue her, or she turned him down, so he's just using me to heal his heart. That has to be it," Elena dismissed, unable to believe that any of this could be real. It couldn't, could it? The way he looked at her… the way he fought to save her. No, she was with Stefan. Stefan was the one she loved – he was the one who would never die – would never leave her. Damon was reckless, and attracted danger, and he said he died, and –

"Nope," Bonnie deterred. "He loves you and you love him. You called him your soulmate – the love of your life. You said it was the most real thing you've ever felt in your entire life."

"That can't be true, Bonnie. I love Stefan – it'll always be Stefan!" Elena all but shrieked and ran out, when the sound of glass breaking could be heard from the room Damon sequestered for himself.

"Taking your frustration out on the bourbon, I see," Bonnie wryly commented upon entering the room containing Damon, as she gestured at the broken tumbler and carpet stain at his feet. He was surrounded by papers from Wes' files, haphazardly thrown about the room, while his hands lay idle on the laptop's keyboard, having evidently just been interrupted for searching the drive.

"I happened to have been holding that in my hand when Elena delivered one of my favorite lines in this or any universe. Couldn't keep all that excitement inside," he snarked.

"At least you shared some with the rug. Not worried about this one's virtue?" Bonnie needled, aware of Damon's ultra-protectiveness of the rugs at the Boarding House.

"Hey, it's not mine," he shrugged. "What do I care if it wants to indulge in the finer things in life and pursue the path of the lush?"

"Speaking of which, I kind of, sort of, might have let it slip to Elena during one of our ingredient-gathering sessions that you drank your bottle of nineteen fifty Chateau Cheval Blanc while she was in her magical coma, and she was," she cleared her throat, "irate, to say the least. Granted, telling her this while she was doing gross manual labor to replace ingredients you stole probably wasn't perfect timing."

"Oh, is she upset that I didn't wait for her?" he sassed. "Maybe I won't wait this time, either, if she keeps the Steffie-worship up. I'll drink it right in front of her, too."

"Vindictive," Bonnie deadpanned. "I'm sure that's her chief concern now. And you're sharing that bottle, by the way. I'm mad at you, too."

"You'll have to find it first," he smirked.

Bonnie narrowed her eyes but decided to change the subject for the time being. "Were you able to find anything?" she asked, gesturing to his mountains of research.

"I found a lot. Apparently, the Creepy Professor had plans to open a West Coast department for his psychotic overlord of superhuman beings plan, the formula for his heart serum, some general crazy megalomaniac rambling," he sneered, pushing the papers to the side. "But nothing – nothing – that even hints at Elena's condition," he ground out in frustration.

"And you're sure he did something to her."

"Oh, absolutely."

"Why?"

"You didn't see her, Bonnie," Damon emphasized, emotions, hope bubbling to the surface. "When I was trying to jog her memories, and I told her that I died, she cared – she cared so much. More than that – she looked terrified of the idea."

"So?" Bonnie asked flatly, not understanding the connection.

"If she cared that much, that means it's like the compulsion that Ric put on her – her real feelings are still buried under whatever it was that was done to her."

"Damon," Bonnie sighed. "I don't think that's it. Elena and I had a lot of time to talk over the months that we looked for you. We both did a lot of soul-searching. Without yet another cataclysmic threat over our heads, we had a lot of time to really analyze everything."

"And? What does that have to do with this?"

"She's had a thing for you for a very long time – a very long time," she stressed. "Probably since the moment you met on the forest road. She even went as far as to say that if you didn't compel the memory away, Stefan may have never been in the picture, romantically speaking."

"Good to know," Damon intoned flatly, kicking himself – not for the first time – for ever having compelled that memory away. "Well, she's certainly back to Team Stefan factory settings now, and given how afraid she is of me thanks to our field trip, that's how she's most likely to stay."

"Afraid of you? I don't think she's afraid –"

"Look, you didn't see her, okay? She was terrified. She wouldn't come near me," he interrupted, frustrated.

"Yeah, she was terrified of the situation – not of you. She certainly didn't seem scared in the car when she kept snarking at you and obviously trying to get a rise out of you, until your mood suddenly soured," Bonnie countered. "And when she went to apologize earlier."

"She felt guilty," Damon dismissed. "I know, thanks to my brother, the lengths she'll go when she feels guilty about something. Look, let's just focus on fixing this – whatever it was that he did to her."

"I don't think it was him," Bonnie pensively retorted. "Her magical signature is different than before," she frowned, then collected herself. "Okay, let's go over this again. Tell me about the spell Althea used to bring you back."

"I told you already," Damon ground out, exasperated. "Probably at least a dozen times." Taking a deep breath in a show of annoyance, he continued monotonously. "I broke into their ceremonial chamber; damaged some of their precious ingredients, so they would take me seriously –"

"Did Elena tell you that they made her replace those? She had to grind slugs with her hands, Damon," Bonnie interrupted, clearly entirely too amused at her friend's ingredient-crafting ordeal.

"Yeah, she told me all about the slug paste – and the butterfly oil – repeatedly," he narrowed his eyes, though his tone had a wistful note to it. He would happily listen to Elena blame him for this all day if it meant he got to back her back.

"Sorry, continue," Bonnie cleared her throat contritely.

"Then she told me that she needed me to be one of her Champions – whatever that means, slit my wrist, engulfed me in a bright light, and –"

"Wait, say that again?" Bonnie's eyes widened in realization.

"Engulfed me in a bright light –"

"No, before that," she pressed impatiently.

"You mean when she collected my blood?" Damon raised both eyebrows in confusion.

"Yeah, you never mentioned that before!"

"Of course, I did!"

"No, you didn't," she insisted irritably, though hope was sparkling in her tone." I would remember that. That's a really vital part of the spell, and neither Elena nor I had our blood taken."

"I'm pretty sure I told you that she went all Lizzie Borden on my wrist, Bon-Bon," he smirked.

"You definitely didn't," she countered. "Who's the witch here? Blood is an important spell ingredient."

"So, what difference does it make?"

"Damon, think about it," she stressed, seeking patience. "What was the first thing you did when you found yourself back here?"

"I fed Elena my blood," he realized, his eyes widening. "Do you think…?"

"Yes," Bonnie replied, gleeful at having finally solved the puzzle. "Elena's consciousness is tethered to your blood. It has to be! That's why you both appeared when you did, with you feeding her your blood in the cemetery. When your blood left her system, 'future' and 'past' Elena must have split again."

"So, if she drinks my blood again…?" He asked, almost afraid to hope.

"I think the two consciousnesses will re-merge, and our Elena will be back."

Both friends finally sat back with matching grins bubbling in joy, while Damon poured them each a tumbler of bourbon in celebration. For the first time all day, he felt stirrings of hope and happiness in his heart.

So, I split this chapter up, too, but at least we finally learned the source of Elena's memory loss, as promised!

I'm really sorry that I'm hurting Damon so much in these chapters – I guess this kind of makes up for the unexpected bliss of chapters 2 and 3. :D Also, there was something that really tickled me about the idea of S1 Elena trying to be kind and apologize and soothe him, but naively say all the exact wrong things. She really was trying to help.

In the next chapter, we'll see if Damon and Bonnie's theory is correct. (Spoiler alert: it is. And now we see why they were both sent back to that exact moment. :D I thought that the blood tether thing would be a fun route to take, since it's a little chaotic, and I'd never seen it done before.) But being able to maintain the merged consciousnesses through having his blood in her system can be a tricky thing, as we'll soon see. And where did she go in the meantime, anyway?

To answer the question of whether or not Wes is dead. Yep, he is. "Phasmatos Incendia." He got caught in the blaze – Bonnie made sure of it.

Many beautiful thank-yous to all of you for being delightful; asking keenly inquisitive and intelligent questions; and for being fantastic, overall lovely people. Special thanks to Kriz03 for being beta for this chapter. Hugs to scarlett2112 and Florencia7. Much love to everyone.

Please make sure to leave a review because I absolutely love learning your thoughts. Until next time, hugs and love all around!