BD
"How long do I have to keep this thing on," Damon asked his wife, referring to the black bandana she had tied over his eyes.
They were standing on the crumbling brick portico of the two-hundred-year-old Tuscan villa where they resided, the summer wind encircling them both in the scent of fresh dirt and olives.
"Until I say you can take it off," She said, grabbing his hand from fiddling with the bandana and intertwining her fingers with his.
He didn't have the heart to tell her that the way the sunlight was hitting his face, he could still see through the cloth, and he could clearly make out her bright smile, round green eyes, and the crown of delicate white flowers she had woven into her brassy curls.
"You're ready?"
She led him as if she were really leading the blind, even though with his additional heightened senses, he could have followed her with ease, but he enjoyed her caring for him, telling him to watch his step as they descended the stone stairs and squeezing his hand to assure him she would not let him go.
Their marriage had been a quick one; in some social circles, it might have been referred to as a marriage that was forced by the barrel of a shotgun, but Damon gave no fucks about such propriety.
No one attended their wedding but the priest he had compelled and their non-English-speaking housekeeper.
A phone call was made to Stefan after the cake was sliced and the rice was thrown, and only at the behest of his bride.
Damon just wanted to show up in Mystic Falls and shock everyone with their matching rings.
She had done most of the talking, gushing over the day and expressing how sorry she was that he and Caroline couldn't have been there. And he had heard Stefan say how he wished he could have been there too and that they should plan to visit soon, and before he had hung up, she paused and said, " Stefan, we have more good news. Are you sitting down?"
They stopped walking, and he reached for her shoulders, pulling her to him to brush his lips over the top of her head, "What is all of this for?"
"Happy Birthday!" She squealed, undoing the tiny bow, the bandana falling into her hands.
Under one of the blooming olive trees was an elaborate spread of plates filled with artisan cheeses and fresh fruit lain decoratively on a patchwork quilt, along with a picturesque wicker picnic basket and a sweating ice bucket chilling two champagne bottles.
Out of the 167 years he had been on this earth, he had only celebrated his day of birth a handful of times. Most of those few birthdays he could remember being acknowledged were when he was a human, and they were only special because his mother made a spectacle of the day, waking him up with a birthday cake and a grand dinner in the evening with fireworks. After her death, there was no one around to make a big deal about the day, and after turning into a vampire, the reason for celebrating another year of life had seemed moot.
"You don't like it," She frowned.
"No, baby. I love it." He whispered, looking over at her, thinking she resembled an angel in her flimsy white cotton dress and her flowery halo. He planted his lips on her forehead and ran his hands down her hips and over her swollen belly, "I just haven't had a birthday party in a long time."
She smiled and made him sit while she fed them both stuffed figs and shards of milky cheese and filled the hour with her laughter at his smart-ass comments and making him touch her stomach whenever the baby moved.
"How old are you today?" She asked after making him blow out a single candle on a chocolate cupcake they shared.
He pulled her on top of him, wanting her to straddle his lap, "I stopped counting," He lied, licking the bit of icing at the corner of her mouth before sliding his mouth down her neck.
She giggled, pushing his face away playfully, "Wait, I have a gift for you."
"I thought I told you I don't like presents."
"I thought you knew by now that I don't listen to what you say."
He smirked and grabbed her shoulders, kissing her, "Stop pushing me away."
But between kisses, he heard her say, "It's a girl."
If he had needed air at that moment to breathe, it would not have been available, for he was too elated to do such a thing as inhale.
"We're having a girl?"
She nodded her head.
And he could feel the swell in his chest, the pain of too much tenderness, and he grabbed her hand and placed it over his heart, "I'm a lucky, lucky man."
He opens his eyes to the cold sunlight beaming through the frosted window over his cold white chest. And he closes his eyes, trying to recapture the dream, bits of memory and longing, his subconscious working out her absence.
Rolling his head to take in that he is, in fact, in his old bedroom in Mystic Falls, the bedroom she lived in briefly.
He sees the empty bottles of Jack Daniels scattered over the Persian rug and the remnants of his smashed cell phone strewn around the bedroom, and there is a sudden drop in his stomach, the realization all over again that his wife is dead.
For three months, he has wandered the halls and rooms of their home like a ghost, trying to recapture a life that existed before her, drinking and passing out and pondering how a vampire kills himself.
At his side is a black silk robe; it is spread out as if the woman to whom it had belonged to was going to emerge from the bathroom and slide into it.
Damon had lain next to it in the middle of the night.
The robe is one of the few things left of hers that still has her scent, and seeing it makes him clutch the cloth to him and softly utter her name.
It is Stefan who hears him, the choked whisper of her name, Bonnie, at the front door of the Salvatore Mansion.
Author's Note
Merry Christmas!