Author's note: Welcome back, everyone! Wasn't that a surprisingly short break between chapters? Why can't it always be like this? :D
I had a large chunk of this chapter already written, so I decided to just go for it! :D Why not?
By 2009, the fad for unusual ice-cream combination flavors made it even as far as Mystic Falls, so after taking a stroll around town, Bonnie picked up two cones of lavender ice-cream for herself and Enzo as they made their way over to the Quarry.
Although Bonnie had mostly held it together for the last few days, she had to admit that this entire exercise had been brutal – and difficult. Sure, Damon thought he had it hard when the Elena of their time briefly disappeared, but at least her past version knew him.
At least he never had to see her heart ripped out right in front of him.
This version of Enzo never met her, and there was still clearly something the matter with him. The rational part of Bonnie understood that he was probably in the throes of post-traumatic stress disorder, and his reaction was probably stellar considering what he went through. He almost seemed to be too well-adjusted to the information.
"How are you feeling Enzo?" she chanced to ask, as the two of them settled onto the sunniest spot on the grass, licking their respective cones of ice-cream.
"This is a really unusual flavor," Enzo frowned, then brightened. "I like it!"
"Yeah, those have kind of become all the rage in recent years, finally making their way down here, too. I'm not sure where it all began, honestly, but I like trying new things."
"You're a witch who likes a bit of adventure?" he asked with a grin.
"You could say that," she replied, with a matching one of her own. "I've been to a few choice places, some even that few others have ever seen," she mysteriously added, thinking of her brief forays into the 1994 prison world and the Other Side.
On the one hand, Bonnie was relieved with how easily they fell into their pattern – their chemistry – from before. They'd met under considerably better circumstances – with her being one of his rescuers, who annihilated the man that tormented him for decades – instead of being bitter adversaries before they inevitably fell into the deepest and most beautiful love that she had ever known.
"Oh yeah? Like where?" he asked, pretending to examine his cone while really sneaking a peek to admire the beautiful woman who seemed to have designated herself his guide through the modern world that he'd missed.
"Paris, Rome, all over South America…" she trailed off, a wistful look in her eye. They had such high hopes when traveling the world, until they came back to Mystic Falls, until –
"Wow! Sounds like you've done quite a bit of travel. Who's the lucky bloke?"
"How do you know there was one?" Bonnie asked with consternation, unnerved by his insight.
"You have this look on your face of a woman in love," he explained, then caught himself. "Oh, apologies, gorgeous. Lucky lady?"
Bonnie laughed, seeing that he came to the wrong conclusion at the look on her face. "It's a …bloke," she tried the word out on her tongue, sampling its distinctly foreign flavor. Although she found Enzo's British-isms utterly charming, she hasn't quite adopted any herself. Who knows what would happen with time?
"What happened to him, luv?" Enzo asked frowning.
"What makes you think that something happened to him?"
"You had this faraway look to you – sad, almost heartbroken. Like you lost something that made up half your heart," he explained softly.
Bonnie swallowed thickly, desperate to change the subject – it was too soon. There was no way she could let him know about his role in her life – not yet. Pasting a smile on her face, she grabbed a guitar and struck a few distinctly discordant notes, watching in amusement as Enzo visibly winced. "Enough about maudlin matters. Weren't you going to help me learn how to play?"
Elena squeezed into Damon's side, trying to catch her breath both from their latest bout of sexy cardiovascular activity and from all the cascading events that seemed to just not stop ever since they made their return. Had it really only been two days?
A part of her was jealous that Bonnie and Enzo were out exploring, and they had to be cooped up, but it appeared that someone was watching her and Damon, specifically, so she reasoned that it was best that they stay put until they at least thought of some kind of plan – or at least an explanation for these strange events.
Althea's warning had come to pass. They had at least one adversary who seemed to be aware of their every action, and at least had some working knowledge of the nuances of Damon and Stefan's tenuous relationship.
They also clearly knew about Brotherhood of the Five iconography. Was it a Hunter in their midst? Or just someone who was aware of them?
Were there even any Hunters left by the time the three of them made their trip back? What if this person traveled earlier? She knew that both Connor and Galen were dead, so that's two of the five. There was no way Jeremy would return to this point in time just to hurt them, Elena adamantly insisted, so that left two unknown persons.
Or perhaps this person had just made an alliance of a Hunter of this time, like it appeared they might with Anna?
Or maybe they just knew the symbolism. This was all so much. The clouded reverie of her thoughts was quickly interrupted by a familiar jingling sound that she had first associated with who she – for admittedly a short time – thought was her epic love, and then instead it came to symbolize her bond with his brother, who she realized all too reluctantly was her soulmate. She laughed at her younger self's denial of this frequently.
The knowledge was like a tidal wave breaking against denial made of driftwood – torrential, powerful – it consumed her.
"Got something for you," Damon teased, producing Elena's vervain necklace seemingly from out of nowhere, though it was actually just a drawer in the nightstand, with a little vampire superspeed-aided sleight of hand. It dangled on its chain like a pendulum, and she thought back to the veritable tumult of the last few days with its storm of dichotomies. Yes, no. The serenity of finding each other again, versus the harrowing anguish of their brief capture. The deep love shared, versus the vile hatred spewed in the depths of Whitmore Hall's basement. The certainty of their plans versus the chaos of the unknown and all its many rising elements.
She immediately erupted in laughter. "My necklace! How many times has it been now?"
"I don't know," Damon replied flippantly, "At least three, not counting the time I stole one from Flannel Hellscape Groundhog Day."
She scrutinized him with a teasing smile for a few long moments, before sitting up bringing her hands to her hips. "Well, do you have tortured truth to tell me, or do I have to feign being tired first?"
Damon stifled a grin, but just barely, while placing the necklace around her neck. He carefully schooled his voice to sound very sad and earnest before speaking. "I love you, Elena. And it's because I love you that I won't constantly remind you how much you suck at pool. Only occasionally," he smirked roguishly.
She laughed and playfully swatted him as he secured the clasp around her neck, though she sensed by his stilled movements that his demeanor changed. "What's wrong?" she asked, concerned.
"Why didn't you press your talisman to call for help?" he asked quietly. "I know you were still you because I heard you sass to Franken-Creepy when Bon-Bon and I were stealthing our sneak-attack. Your past self had some bluster, sure, but the need to make your adversaries feel like a joke didn't come until later."
"I wonder whose influence that was," she teased with an adoring impishness, while being utterly hopeful that it was enough to distract him.
"Only magnifying what was already there," he confessed, though his tone still held that measure of smugness in it, before he sobered. "I'm serious, Elena."
She just stared at him, not entirely sure how to respond. He must have deciphered something from her expression, because he laid flat on his back, staring away, straight ahead, his eyes distant, thoughtful. She was instantly taken back to a night in Denver, though it was almost as if their roles were reversed – now he was searching for information, while she fought to distract and deflect.
"What are you planning to do?" Damon asked without taking his eyes off the ceiling, his voice hollow. "I've seen this behavior in you – right before you tricked Rose into giving you up."
"I—" she began, then faltered. What could she say? That the thought of anything happening to him made anything alive inside her freeze and corrode and scatter into a million pieces drawn together only by agony.
"No, not this time. Promise me. Elena, please," he finally turned to look at her, and it was as though his whole heart was in his eyes. Elena shut hers tightly.
"Damon, I…" she started again, but drifted into silence.
"Just talk to me," he whispered, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear while she fought to keep the tears that threatened to overwhelm her at bay. "Tell me what's going on – what you were thinking. Did you honestly believe that we'd just leave you there?"
Her eyes were downcast, still unable to look at him, until he gently cupped her cheek, finally prompting her to look into his eyes. She was taken aback by the openness in them, though she shouldn't have been. Although he'd looked at her like that for years – especially when they were alone – it sent veritable shivers down her spine every time. "Elena…"
"I couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to you," she finally spoke, though her voice was becoming increasingly broken with each word. "We got so lucky last time – even though we didn't realize it. Tyler bit you, so Klaus couldn't use you in the ritual, but what if this time he does? Or what if you get bitten again, but we can't get Klaus' blood in time to cure you? Anything could happen! It's a miracle any of us made it through that and –" she broke off, convulsing into sobs.
"Hey, hey," he soothed, taking her in his arms. "I'm not going to die, Elena," Damon added, stroking her back comfortingly to calm her. "I promise you."
"You made that promise before," she cried accusingly, squeezing him almost impossibly hard for her human form, as he pressed her face into his increasingly went shoulder. "And then –"
"And I kept it!" he interrupted passionately. "It might have been delayed, but I made it back to you. I crossed time and space for you, and I'd do it again, okay? Hey, come on. What happened to all that annoying optimism? Where did it go?" he pulled back to look into her shining eyes.
"I can't lose you," she whispered ardently, shaking her head.
"You won't," he whispered back, and they both had a ghost of a smile on their faces at the irony of the words and their apparent role reversal.
"I'm the human doppelgänger again, Damon," Elena insisted. "I'm a danger magnet. Everyone in my life gets pulled into that orbit. Look at how many people died because of me. Jenna, and John, and –"
"That wasn't because of you!" Damon interrupted hotly. "It was because of Klaus – and we don't even know if we'll encounter him this time, or even in the same way."
"If I – if I just," she bit her lip, knowing he wouldn't like what she had to say. "If I'm not here, then Klaus can't associate any of you with me, and –"
"And what? He just kills you?" he demanded, anger rising in his tone. "And what about what your death would do to me?" They both stayed quiet for a few long moments when Damon spoke again. "I don't know if anyone told you – I wasn't exactly forthcoming with the information at the time, but while you were off in Neverland, Stef and I got caught in something called the Phoenix Stone."
"What's that?" Elena asked, at once frightened at what she imagined must have been an ordeal for him and relieved that the spotlight had been taken off her transgression.
"It's a hell dimension, I guess. It's hard to explain. This vampire hunter, Rayna, used to mark vampires with it, and anyone sucked into it was forced to relive some of their worst memories."
Her eyes widened in horror mixed with empathy. "Damon," she breathed. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked, taking his face in her hands.
"Maybe later," he said, closing his eyes and leaning into her touch, then opened then and physically distanced himself again when he remembered what he had to tell her. His mind reeled at that whole awful year as he braced himself.
He should have told her this a long time ago – right from the start – as soon as he learned that she was here. Instead, he was just buying time – delaying the inevitable.
"When we were released from it, we were both all kinds of messed up. Hallucinations, delusions, uncontrollable emotions – you name it. I actually thought I was part of another loop at first and that none of it was real, so I killed everyone," he revealed distantly to Elena's increasingly widening eyes. "They got better," he explained with a smirk that didn't reach his eyes. "The hallucinations were getting worse and worse, and then I insisted on seeing you, I…" he trailed off, glancing away from her. She squeezed his hand reassuringly, urging him to continue. He finally looked at her. "I had to see you," he breathed. "You were the one light in all that darkness." His expression turned grim, then. "And then that light combusted into a giant inferno." When Elena furrowed her brows in consternation, he continued. "I kept seeing my old platoon-mate, Henry – he's one of the tomb vamps, actually. Henry kept insisting that I'm a monster – that was kind of the entire point of my hell loop –"
"What!?" Elena asked, aghast. "You can't possibly believe that, Damon! Please, tell me you don't."
He smiled thinly, wondering if this enthusiasm on his behalf will remain once she leans what he did, or if she'll rightfully want nothing more to do with him. Perhaps it was only a matter of time until everything crashed and all these handful of hours in the last few days were just a swan-song before he's left to his comeuppance. "When I opened the coffin, I saw Henry inside, urging me to let the monster out," he revealed in soft, slow, measured tones, so that there was no understanding. He wanted her to feel every ounce of the weight of his crime. "I set it on fire. In the next instant, I saw you inside, burning, with Henry yelling in my ear and telling me you were all that kept me from becoming the monster I was always meant to be. I thought I killed you."
Elena gasped, both hands at her mouth in horror, as tears formed in her eyes of their own volition. "Oh, Damon…" she whispered, reaching for his hand, but he moved his away.
"I thought you were dead – that I killed you – and all I wanted was to die. I kept looking for any reason – any excuse. My mother's boyfriend, Julien – real king douche, and I mean Douchasaurus Rex – just her type." At Elena's look of confusion, he elaborated. "He's a lot like my father, only British, and if he attended," he pretended to flippantly search for a word, though he had the perfect one in mind from the time he spent scrutinizing Julien and making barbs in his head when he couldn't see him in person, "finishing school, or whatever it is they did in England back then. He had this sort of vampire fight club ring going, so I joined. I kept fighting, going up against bigger guys, hoping someone would kill me. Then I almost got my wish when this really huge beast of a vamp almost ripped my head off," Damon revealed casually, to a terrified gasp from Elena. "But then someone threw me a stake – illegal move apparently – so I killed him. Maybe next time, I thought."
Elena's drew her eyebrows together in concern and confusion, uncertain why he thinks she would judge him so harshly, for clearly not killing her, since she's alive. And even then, it sounds like he didn't intend to, and he was horrified by it. "What happened then, Damon?"
He barked a laugh. Here it comes, he thought. "I started drinking in the Lockwood mansion – anything to numb myself to the pain. Then the woman who threw me the stake came in," he began, no longer able to look her in the eye. "She started –"
"You slept together," Elena interrupted with a hurt whisper, connecting the pieces of his body language – lack of eye contact – with the trajectory of the story.
He only nodded, and slipped farther away, hanging his head in shame. "Look, I get it. I should have told you sooner. You don't have to say anything – I know." He moved to get up, but she grabbed his hand with speed that surprised them both.
"What do you know?" she was terrified to ask.
"That we're over," he answered as it were the most obvious thing in the world, while his own heart shattered in the confines of his chest. He was surprised his voice still worked, that his undead heart still beat, that breath still permeated his lungs while everything inside him broke, piece by piece.
"Why would we be over?" Elena asked with a trembling voice, taking his other hand in hers as well, as tears rapidly filled her expressive dark eyes. "Damon, you thought I was dead! Do you really think that I of all people would judge you for the way you grieved? Me? After what I did?" She instantly thought back to that summer, that awful summer where she was so caught in the throes of her grief that she became addicted to psychedelic magical herbs, if only to hallucinate him for a few minutes a day, to see him, to touch him, to feel his presence deep in her heart.
But there was a caveat.
It ignited her bloodlust like never before and turned her into a monster. Faced with the prospect of starting a killing spree after nearly draining several bodies dry, her one choice left was to forget, to give him up, rather than spread untold pain and become the cause of the agonizing grief she felt in untold numbers of others. She became a danger to the humans around her, and so the only option left was to erase her heart.
And then he unexpectedly came back, and though those very humans for whom she sacrificed the memories of her heart were now safe, it was all then unleashed on him in the form of her nonchalance and coldness and aloofless, while a tiny part of her would whisper that she actually loved him.
And then the tiny little spark grew into a roaring fire, a torrential ocean, and she was consumed with love for him yet again, seemingly in no time at all.
Damon tried to wipe the utter shock off his face, but allowed her to pull him into an embrace, of only to conceal the tears shining in his eyes. "You can't mean to tell me you're okay with what I did, Elena."
"If hurts, obviously, thinking of you with someone else. But you would never do that if you knew I was alive, Damon – I know you. You're the most loyal person I've ever met, at least to me. I'm just more horrified by what you had to go through while I was asleep," she murmured into him, squeezing him tighter.
"I've done so many terrible things in all those years," he breathed, his voice almost broken with emotion.
"And I forgive you all of them," she soothed, now the one to trace comforting patterns along his back.
"You don't even know what they are," he argued.
"I don't need to, because I know you," she pulled back to look at him – to take him in – to let him see the love shining in her eyes. "If you want to tell me, I'll listen, but know that I'll still love you all the same."
He looked at her – really looked at her – tracing the contours of the face he loved the most with his eyes as his heart caught up with the meaning behind her words. Did she really love him? Absolve him? After those years? After his temporary insanity from the Phoenix Stone? Krystal?
Cade? All those awful things he did for Sybil and Cade, when he was desperate to hide the memory of Elena deep in his subconscious to keep her safe from their clutches.
He allowed himself to breathe deeply, fully, letting some of the weight that had gathered over the years - that he had forgotten was even there – fall off his shoulders, allowing himself to be seen, felt, loved. It was a rare feeling, but he only recalled ever having felt it with her. His arms tightened around her of their own volition.
"You have no idea what losing you would do to me," he finally spoke in hushed tones, pressing his forehead to hers, closing his eyes to savor the feeling. "What it did when I thought you were gone."
"I have some idea," she replied, matching the intimacy of his tone.
"Then can we agree? Neither of us does this anymore, okay? We both try to live – fully, sincerely – for each other."
"You've got a deal," she smiled, perhaps for the first time since this conversation began.
"Come on," he pulled away, some energy and vibrancy returning to his tone. Elena could practically see his being flood with happiness that had been held at bay throughout most of their conversation. "We've been cooped up long enough. You need some sunshine and I need a change of scenery."
"But what about our mysterious stalker?" she queried.
"Let's get out of town for the afternoon," he suggested with a beaming smile. "Have a bit of fun."
"Five-minute time-out?" Elena grinned, suddenly in much better spirits.
"Exactly. These problems will still be here when we return."
There seemed to have been some confusion regarding Anna in the last chapter, so I thought I'd clear it up here. Yes, Anna is fully aware that Katherine is not in the tomb, but what surprised her was that Damon was also aware of this – and what especially surprised her was that Elena was, too. Since a lot of her initial plan was based on getting Damon to help her, since as far as she knew, he believed that Katherine's also in there, she was shocked to find out that they were still going to go through with it, because she couldn't figure out their motivations for doing so. What could they possibly have to gain from it? :D
The disbelieving comment Anna made to Elena about being surprised that she's willing to be "thrown away" was when she was under the impression that Damon still thought Katherine was in there, so, again, she was confused by Elena's motivations. This is why Elena replied with "We know that Katherine's not in the tomb," rather than something like "Katherine isn't in there" – suggesting that they're also aware of Anna's lie-by-omission/manipulation. Please let me know if this makes sense. If not, I'll go back and rework some of the dialogue to make it clearer. What may seem really clear to me might not necessarily be so to someone else – since it's coming from my head – and it's my job as the writer to make sure everyone's on the same page. :D
Sorry the Bonnie/Enzo section was so short, but I wrote the Damon/Elena one first, and the chapter was getting a bit long. It'll continue in the next one! Damon and Enzo still need to have their conversation, too. A little bit of a breather before everything zooms forward yet again. This conversation between Damon and Elena had been a long time coming, since chapter 5. So here we are! :D
Wobalo started a delightful story called A True Best Friend in which Lexi whisks Stefan away when she finds out that he fell for the doppelgänger, in what might not be the most stable course of action. ;) This leads to a very different S1, since he's off adventuring with Lexi; while Damon's still in Mystic Falls dealing with all those events. :D
Big hugs to Kriz03, scarlett2112, and Florencia7 for being gracious and allowing me to talk about plot points with them. Thanks everyone for showing this story so much love! I'm utterly touched and moved and delighted.
Please leave a review, so I know all your delightful thoughts.
Love yourselves, and each other, everyone! :D