Author's note: Hi beautiful humanoids! Thank you for all your super-delightful comments! I'm absolutely in awe at the love that this story's gotten.
Without further ado, on with the show!
The vivid, roaring flames of the fireplace burned an incandescent rhythm – practically a song – scorching everything in time with the vice that gripped Damon's heart.
He had finally confessed his feelings to Elena – had finally told her he loved her – only to immediately compel the memory away, leaving behind the deepest part of himself that escaped in an errant tear. A part he'd never get back. That piece of him would be hers for all eternity. His heart would belong to her forever now. He knew it entirely too well, and so he sat in the Boarding House's parlor, nursing a tumbler of bourbon after he threw several into the flames in frustration at his own stupidity and lack of self-control for letting himself fall so damn hard. For his brother's girl, no less.
Again. Fuck. Only this time, the hold Katherine once had on him was laughable in comparison to the thrall with which Elena ensnared his heart, his very soul. With each smile, laugh, heartfelt gaze, she'd blown what was left of his humanity switch to smithereens. With the agility of water, she'd stealthily swam through the cracks and caverns of his walls into the fibers of his heart with her compassion, her insight, the healing warmth of her presence.
"I'm sorry – about Katherine. You lost her, too."
Her ability to see right through him – beyond the mask of the monster – to what he truly wanted.
"You decided I was worth saving – and I wanted to thank you for that."
In resulting tantrum of his realization of how thoroughly he was fucked, the set of crystal glassware bore the brunt of his frustration.
But he could never bring himself to destroy the tumbler in his hand for some reason. He didn't know why, but something about it called to him – felt special. He's nearly given Stefan a shiny new stake wound in the side for all the forest animals to rejoice over – lauding the sweet defeat of their tormentor – the one time he tried to drink from it. Ridiculous. What was so special about this glass, anyway?
He couldn't explain it, but it was almost like he felt closer to her whenever he touched it – which made no fucking sense.
Since when did anything about their interactions – especially of late – make sense? By all rights, she should hate him. He'd certainly tried to make her, and she in turn certainly tried to make that a reality.
But they were both swept in a current, a tidal wave, a wildfire – stronger than either of their wills. Even he could tell that Elena couldn't hate him, no matter how hard she tried.
"You and I – we have something – an understanding."
He couldn't stop loving her even when his dimmer switch tried to power his humanity off – just being around her filled it with her light and the switch never had a chance to hold his empathy back – his ability to love – certainly not in her presence. Except for one monumental hiccup when she by sheer coincidence repeated the words that Katherine used to crush him, resulting in a night he'd pay almost anything to will out of existence.
His heart belonged to her, and no humanity switch, no circumstance, no force in all the cosmos would ever be able to take it away.
And so, in the spirit of that at once depressing and elating epiphany, he resolved to spend the rest of the evening getting intimately acquainted with his bourbon, just happy that Stefan chose this moment to finally step out and leave him the fuck alone to his thoughts.
Stefan – Sir Mopes-a-lot of Sulky City, himself – had seen fit to apologize nearly 150 years too late. Even so, the notion of his normally self-righteous brother actually recognizing that for once Damon was not the bad guy touched him in a way he couldn't express – made him feel more valued, validated. In fact, it immediately created such a stir in him that he barely wasted a moment before blurring to Elena's house and doing that.
In that moment, in the spirit of Stefan's confession, Damon too needed to confess. And so, he did. Longingly, brokenly, worshipfully, he told Elena the secret that had been weighing on his heart ever since they stole a dance at the Miss Mystic Falls pageant – when the rest of the world fell away, leaving just the two of them in a perfect moment of romantic euphoria.
He removed his weathered heart from his chest, placing it before her in the broken platter of his vulnerability to crush, to hold – to do whatever with it that she wished.
He had expressed his own inadequacy, his own unworthiness of love.
"I don't deserve you, but my brother does."
Of course, he didn't deserve her. But that wasn't point. The point was that he was completely and irrevocably fucked, Damon realized with a growl, as he got up to finally throw the tumbler in his hand into the fire – when he heard tinkling laughter reverberate through the room.
Her laughter.
"And here I thought that the role of Resident Brooder was taken, or are you and Stefan teaming up to challenge all the world's Botox united?" Elena teased, mirroring a favorite position of his, leaning against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest and an impish smile curving her lips, her expressive, dark eyes dancing with mirth and clear affection, adoration.
Damon's breath left for the instant that he took her in – her easy confidence in the warm glow of the fire in her navy satin cocktail dress, the one he has saw when –
Quite suddenly, his breath returned, and he was flooded with images – memories, feelings, being – from the night of the pageant. It felt like remembering a dream at first – but instead of dancing on the wind and disappearing into the vastness of the air around them, it solidified, and he could feel it as though he had just experienced it.
"Elena?" he asked in shock. A later version of him – and earlier – would scoff in embarrassment at his reaction, but the current Damon was left to the mercies of this strange circumstance.
"Surprise! It's me," she responded playfully, though her eyes reflected sharp longing, belying the casualness of her tone. She stepped forward until she was right before him, giving him time and space to adjust.
"It – it wasn't a dream," he breathed, reaching out to touch her arm, caress his way all the way down to her hand, taking hold of her fingers to urge her closer.
"It wasn't," she sighed, relief written in her features and her voice. If she had to be honest, she was afraid that he wouldn't remember – and wouldn't that be just the perfect slice of irony.
Of their own volition, her hands found his cheeks, her thumbs tracing patterns from his cheekbones to his jawline. It felt so heavenly to be able to feel him again – to be in his presence. After she disappeared from the Boarding House last time, she was sent back to that place – the one she called Hypnagogia – to wander aimlessly through what increasingly felt like a vast nothingness. Of course, the second she returned, she took to journaling all her thoughts, feelings, impressions. She'd even taken to writing poetry – nearly filling up an entire notebook.
Her visit to a Damon of yesteryear had seemed like a bright light within a sea of ever encroaching darkness – repetitive nature of that realm's existence slowly taking way her ability to feel, to think, to be– and she could only hope that she'd find a way to repeat the experience. It was impossible to tell precisely how much time passed, but it certainly felt long. Then again, so did every moment in that place.
But now he was here, again, with him. They had to figure out how to make this work – how to keep her here.
The entire situation had seemed so surreal to Damon. In the aftermath of baring his soul to Elena, to find her looking at him with such open devotion, affection, love almost felt like a dream.
Except it wasn't, was it? Everything she said – about being kidnapped, werewolves – it had come to pass, didn't it? Wait, not everything. She mentioned someone named Klaus? A ritual?
But he killed that Original, Elijah. Shouldn't it be over? Maybe he fixed it. Maybe he saved her and made it so Elena could stay.
That had to be it. He killed Elijah, taking away the danger, and made it safe for Elena to live here instead of suffering the sleeping spell.
"When am I?" she asked with a barely perceptible wince, still unable to stop touching him, a silly, goofy grin conquering her face. Her eyes wanted to take him in entirely – unsatisfied with any one part – eyes, lips, everything.
"You're safe, Elena," he exclaimed with a touch of pride and excitement. "I killed him. He can't hurt you anymore."
"Killed who?" she asked, barely allowing herself to hope that he meant Kai. Although the sheer amount of empathy beaming from Elena's every pore would hardly allow her to cheer someone's death, Kai came very close. At least the pragmatic side of her realized how many lives it would save, if only they'd listened to Damon and put Kai out of commission before he enacted his very own tribute to the Red Wedding in Mystic Falls.
"Elijah," Damon replied, as though the answer was obvious. "You were kidnapped to be taken to him for a ritual, but he's dead. Everything's going to be okay now. That's probably why you're here – you're safe," he assured, letting his own hands find her cheeks, his forehead resting on hers. He wanted so badly to kiss her, but the memory of the Elena of his time wanting nothing of the sort halted him.
Elena fought to stifle her disappointed sigh in the news that it wasn't Kai after all, and instead reached forward to close the distance between them, letting their lips meet in a kiss that was markedly soft, loving. She instantly realized what tonight was – the night of his compelled confession. No wonder he was so hesitant with her.
She'd have to take the lead, before crushing him by correcting his optimistic assessment of his moment with Elijah.
Damon only hesitated for a fraction of a second before pulling her closer, tilting his head to the side to deepen the kiss, caressing her tongue with his, as his entire body melted into hers. He heard a soft whimper that became a moan, and the kiss instantly grew more passionate.
This was actually happening.
He did it. He saved her. He'd get to be with the girl he loved more than anything –
His internal moment of triumph was interrupted when Elena pulled back with a wince and a nervous smile.
"What is it?" he asked, the familiar walls around his heart trembling with anticipation to reform.
"Elijah's not dead, Damon. It's not even close to over –"
"But –" he began, desperate to prove her wrong.
"But," she interrupted softly. "Everything will be okay. I'm here now, so let's make the most of it."
"What? No, no, we're going to figure out how to keep you here," he insisted stubbornly, unwilling to admit defeat – not after he finally knew the bliss of being with her, apparently for the second time. "I watched him die, Elena. I staked him myself. He got all veiny and gross."
"Original vampires aren't that easy to kill. He's just asleep. You need a white oak stake," she replied calmly. Since chose to leave out sire lines for the time being, since finding any white oak stakes that night was unlikely, anyway.
"A what?"
"A stake whittled from the white oak tree," Elena explained in a manner entirely too casual for the severity of the conversation. "It bloomed on the property where they were made. It's their only weakness."
"Great! You up for a road trip? Let's take another five minutes, and lead the way," he gestured to the door, grabbing her hand. "Is it too much to hope that we'd find this white oak tree in Maui?" he asked with a suggestive wiggle of his eyebrows, prompting a charmed laugh from her.
"Damon, if you want to see me in a bikini, all you have to do is ask," she purred in a tone distinctly similar to his flirtatious cadence, mischief dancing in her dark, expressive eyes. "There's no need for all this pretense."
"Perfect! We'll mix business with pleasure," he grinned, moving to lead her out of the house. "Where to?"
"Upstairs," she smiled. "Your room."
"There's white oak in my room?" he asked dubiously.
Elena bit her lip and peered at him mischievously. "I was thinking of another kind of wood."
"Wow!" Damon exclaimed in mock-admonition. "Elena Gilbert, what I am going to do with you? Where'd you learn to talk dirty? Donovan? What next? This?" he teased, making a crude gesture with his index finger penetrating a hole made from the index and thumb on his other hand.
Elena scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest with a pointed raise of her brows. "I'm sorry, are you turning me down?" she asked in teasing exasperation, then shrugged. "Well, okay then," she announced, making to walk away, before his hand immediately shot out to pull her back, eliciting a grin to spring to her lips.
"I didn't say that," he murmured against her lips as he pulled her close again. "We just need to work on your game," he breathed, capturing her lips with his.
"Why? For all the sexy vampires I'm going to seduce?" she asked she pulled away breathless.
He growled possessively, not willing to entertain the notion of Elena being with anyone else, despite seeing her wrapped up in his brother fairly regularly. The mental image sent him into overdrive, and their next kiss wasn't quite a soft as before – it was needy, possessive, filled with all the longing he'd felt for her ever since he was finally able to accept his feelings – since the last time this version of her was in this very room.
Elena attacked him with the same urgency, deftly ripping his shirt open as the buttons scattered all over the parlor's floor. Distantly, she recalled doing the same previously, an echo of their first time – the night spent together after the feelings both fought for so long had erupted in waves and flames of passion, leaving nothing behind but broken artifacts and blissful sighs on happy faces full of love. "If you want your shirts left intact, then just start walking around naked," she breathed unapologetically, her needy hands reaching for his chest, stroking down to his abs, finding his belt.
"The last one reformed itself right after you disappeared, but if the lady wishes it so," he offered gallantly, removing the offending article of clothing.
"What?" Elena pulled back, shock written all over her features. "All trace of me was gone?"
"Yeah," he replied, still in a daze, his hand inching up her bare inner thigh, moving ever closer to her center. "Even the tumbler you broke reformed itself. But it's like it knew you – I could feel you on it, even though I couldn't remember you. I couldn't bring myself to break it, not even –" he wisely chose to stop that train in its tracks – reminding Elena of the night he snapped Jeremy's neck would undoubtedly kill the mood.
She pulled back fully to his very disappointed groan. "That's it," she remarked with a frown. "I'm leaving imprints. Damon, we have to find a way to send you a message, in case I disappear again!" she cried urgently.
"No," he replied, aghast at the notion of losing her again. "No, you won't – you'll stay this time. Because I know this is real – that we're real," he said, recalling how anguished she looked last time she was here – when he didn't believe her. He vowed to never be the source of that expression on her lovely face ever again.
Elena gasped before releasing an excited laugh. A part of her knew that Damon would likely soon pull back in self-admonishment, spinning songs about how he doesn't deserve her, but his initial reaction to her returning his love had always been pure joy, and she wanted to revel in it. "Come on," she urged, taking his hand and leading him upstairs to his room – to the room that would one day become theirs.
Her eyes scanned the space affectionately, finding traces of Damon in every crevice – from the stacks of books by the bed, to the closet full of almost vainly selected designer outfits, to the tastefully decorated open floor plan. She found a notepad in the drawer by his bed and began to scribble on it with a pen he knew would always roll off the nightstand to land underneath. He was charmed and touched with how well she knew the space – like it was her home, too.
"Tell me about us," he said before he could stop himself, taking a seat next to her on the bed, while she wrote furiously.
She stopped writing, looking up at him hesitantly. "What do you want to know?"
"Anything," he sighed, a dreamy disposition seeking to break free as he reached over to kiss her temple. "Everything."
"You're, by far, my longest relationship – and that's not even counting my plans to spend the rest of my life with you," she said simply, watching him for a reaction.
"What changed?" he asked, vulnerability shaking his very core. "You told me it would always be –"
"I couldn't lie to myself anymore," she sighed, finally putting the notepad down to pull her feet up on the bed and turn her body fully to face him. "You were right, you know – when you told me I was lying to myself."
He winced, hoping to avoid any mention of that night. "Elena, I'm so sorry –" he urged desperately.
"I know," she interrupted him softly, placing a hand upon his cheek when he refused to meet her eyes. "I know you are, Damon. I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago for that."
"How?" he breathed, still unable to understand how she seemed to be an endless well of compassion, of empathy, of forgiveness and understanding, even for someone as underserving as him.
"You've more than made up for it," she said with a smile. "You really need to give yourself more credit." She bit her lip nervously, as though trying to make a decision, then her features grew more resolved. "You were wrong, you know – when you said that you don't deserve me, but your brother does –"
"You remember?" he asked, his eyes widening in shock and horror and just the tiniest hint of elation.
"I got that memory back – and the other one," she arched an eyebrow in mock-admonishment, though her smile instantly gave her away, before she softened. "Love isn't about deserving. It's about who fits. And for me, that's you." He only furrowed his brows in confusion, so Elena took both of his hands in hers, bringing them to her heart. "You make every part of me better – you make me happy; you make me feel alive. It's like pieces of you slide into the broken parts of me, and I'm whole again."
The sound that escaped from Damon's lips was something between a gasp, a whimper, a sigh, an exclamation – but it was pure emotion, pure joy, pure bliss, pure aching vulnerability. He thought he felt his eyes begin to pool with crystalline moisture, for the second time that night. But while the first had been tears of heartbreak, these had been the cleansing tears of a heart healing anew.
He wanted to tell her that he felt the same – that the light of her essence flooded all his dark crevices with love and warmth and her – so much that he could never hide again. She saw the deepest parts of him, even as early as when he first came to town, and that terrified him to his core. To learn that she loved – but he couldn't bring himself to say it – not yet. Despite Elena assuring him time and time again of her love – of their future happiness together – he couldn't shake the years that instilled within him the firm belief that this kind of life would never be his. So, he stayed quiet about the most tender parts of his soul coming alive with her words, and instead leapt to his most familiar and truest defender – sarcastic deflection.
And so, he schooled his expression to don a wry smirk yet again, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively at her for good measure. "Sliding into you? See? Just a few minutes with me, and your game's already better. Any more time spent with Stef and he'd have you angling for pity sex," he snarked, and then affected a low, mopey voice, contorting his face to allow as many wrinkles between his brows as his vampiric constitution allowed. "It's so hard to be so perfect all the time and to wallow in self-pity, and Damon just sucks and he's so mean, and even my hair gets split ends from him just existing and –"
His mind instantly flashed back to one of the worst experiences of his existence, when - on the verge of allowing his humanity to return - he decided to rekindle his relationship with Stefan. May 10, 1994 - the day of the annular eclipse, and a memory that gnawed at him every time he allowed it. He fed on the boarders, which admittedly was kind of a douche move, but when Stefan locked him up and took away his daylight ring, all he wanted was his brother back - a connection to family, his humanity. Instead, he got a cruel rebuke and a reminder of what he really was.
"I'm not trying to screw up your dumb, new life."
"You don't have to try, Damon. All you have to do is exist."
"You make me happy just by existing," she interrupted him, sealing her words with a soft but urgent kiss, noting the catch in his voice at the end of the sentence. She'd question him about it later – did Stefan say something to him along those lines? That his existence was somehow bad? Did anyone? Elena rarely felt the urge to hurt someone, but at that moment she had to shove down feelings that were outright murderous. "You make me feel alive. You make me want to be alive. It wasn't until I met you – got to know you – that I started treating my life as something valuable. It just took me a while to get there."
He looked shocked, almost horrified at the notion, and yet the surprise came more at her admission of this than the meaning behind it. He'd suspected as much when she tried to launch herself into the tomb when Katherine was trapped in it with Stefan, when she ran headfirst into a house full of tomb vampires. All either exercise would have gotten her would be death – and likely one that wasn't mercifully swift.
"Why, Elena?" he asked, all jocularity instantly slipping from his voice.
"Because I wanted to die, Damon," she replied, cuddling into him, the soothing timbre of her voice belying the harshness of her words, as though she was disconnected from the meaning. Like she was recalling the words rather than feeling them – a relic of the past.
"What? Why?" he questioned, aghast at the notion. She looked at him expectantly, raising both eyebrows as though to remind him that he already knows – that she's aware that he figured it out. "Because of what happened with your parents? I had a feeling. Come on, Elena. You know that wasn't your fault," he stressed - the firmness of his voice and softness of his gaze beseeching her to believe him.
"I know that now, but I didn't then," she said tenderly, brushing her hand cross his cheek, her eyes never leaving his.
"What changed?" he asked quietly as he wrapped an arm around her waist to pull her closer, his heartbeat accelerating in anticipation, though a part of him already suspected what she'd say. He needed to hear it.
"We didn't talk about it until after we got together officially. I was suddenly so much happier – and I finally wanted to be alive. I think you figured it out before I did," she confessed quietly, still stroking his cheek. "Once you said it, it was like everything clicked into place. It was what I needed to hear for so long – and then the rest of the day was a bit of a blur. I just remember holding you and crying. It was like all this pain – all the trauma I'd been holding on to was being washed away, and when I came out of it on the other side the next day, I'd taken a real step toward healing. I guess all it took for the process to start was for someone I love to say the words I needed to hear."
"What were the words?"
"That it wasn't my fault," she breathed, looking up at him. "In the rare situation that I spoke about that moment before then, I'd focus on helping someone else. I talked about it to keep Stefan from taking off his daylight ring when he first fell of the wagon after Miss Mystic Falls. I made it about him. But you made it about me, and what I needed. You always put me first."
"Someone has to, if you won't," he rolled his eyes in mock-admonition.
"And you'll always come first with me, because you'll never fool me with your claims of selfishness ever again," she smiled, drawing him in for another kiss, one that grew increasingly heated with every passing moment. The notebook lay forgotten on the bed next to them, as Damon rolled them to hover over her, her words penetrating the last defense he had against her – he was swept away with the feeling of being seen, truly seen, and loved for it. The feeling was so alien to him, and yet he craved it with the deepest fibers of his being.
"I love you so much, Elena," he breathed, needing to tell her – she had to know, to remember. To feel it in the deepest fibers of her soul.
"I love you, too, Damon," she concurred softly, letting her fingers trail through his hair in a way she knew soothed him before pulling him in for an ardent kiss, rolling them both to position herself on top, straddling him between her thighs. She wanted this so much.
"I don't know what it's like not to love you," Damon whispered into the ether surrounding them, the words swirling on the sound waves – reverberating, dancing – piercing right into Elena's heart.
There was something about the words that sang to him in piercing truth, though he couldn't quite understand why. He just knew that he loved her – had seen a future with her from the second he laid eyes on her, but the logic behind it always evaded him.
It didn't make any sense, and yet it was indescribably, undeniably, undoubtedly true.
She gasped as she felt his lips on a particularly sensitive spot on her neck, before the world began dematerializing again. No – nonono! It was happening again. She sat upright immediately, aghast at her arms becoming transparent.
Damon looked equally horrified, heartbroken. "We have to figure out why this is happening. Elena, I will get you back – I promise you," he urged, moving to cup her face in a reassuring gesture, only to be dismayed when his hands moved right through her.
"I know you will, Damon," she breathed, fighting to smile through her tears. "I'll see you again," she said, hoping that she was telling the truth.
In the next instant, however, a visibly confused Damon merely looked about the room, wondering when he even came upstairs.
He shrugged and opted to go to sleep. He was probably a lot more drunk than he realized.
In the Gilbert household, the very human Elena bolted upright. She had that awful dream again – of that cold and lonely and horribly, stiflingly, invasively monotonous place again.
Her hand instantly went to the necklace on her clavicle, relief flooding her, though she suspected it wasn't for the usual reason.
Something about her necklace, ever since last night, became a lot more comforting than before – it made her feel warm, enveloped, accepted, protected, loved. She thought it odd that although Stefan had given her this necklace to protect her, the association with it didn't really click into place until the night before when it mysteriously appeared around her neck, after she thought she lost it forever when Elijah threw it across the room in a delapidated mansion.
That had to be it. She thought she lost it, which made her realize how valuable it is. Mystery solved – and yet something in her subconscious tickled that it wasn't quite right.
It was with this curious thought that Elena realized that she wouldn't get any more sleep that night, so she did what always came most naturally in moments of confusion and distress. She took out her journal and began to write.
The aftermath of the Specter's second visit seemingly returned everything to the way it was before she came, with only trace amounts of magic pulsating through the spaces like she touched.
A few days later, he and Rose stood in the parlor, sending flirtatious glances in each other's direction – pure want, a tool of their distraction.
"Being in love with your brother's girlfriend must be hard," she remarked offhandedly.
"I'm not in love with anyone," he scoffed, scandalized by the notion.
"Want to try that again?" she asked wryly. "I heard you the other night. 'I love you so much, Elena,' and 'I killed Elijah and now you're safe, Elena,' some nonsense about getting memories back and having a future together," she revealed with a laugh.
"I don't remember that," he remarked with a decidedly furrowed brow. The comment about getting memories back gave him pause – given that his secret love confession to Elena that he'd compelled away only days prior. Did he really talk in his sleep? He'd have to look into this, he thought with a wince. The last thing he needed was an audience to his innermost thoughts and feelings.
"Well, it must have been in your sleep," she shrugged, evidently paying it no mind. "And if that's the case, you definitely sleepwalk, because I heard your voice coming from the sitting room first, and then it sounded like you were up in your room – like you were having an actual conversation with someone," she laughed.
He just rolled his eyes and resumed his seduction. He and Rose both knew precisely what this was – what they both needed. This wasn't love by any stretch of the imagination, but they could both use the distraction from the tumult that their lives became.
And he needed to get a hold of himself. What better way than to stroke his ego by unleashing the Eternal Stud and letting Rose know precisely what she'd be missing out on with any and all future sexual partners? That, and he really just needed the distraction – and meaningless sex was by far one of his favorites.
As Damon and Rose became more involved in their emotionless tryst, the notebook on his bedside table continued to lay open, the pages within it blank, save for the strong magical residue that was embedded precisely in the lines where the Specter Elena's strokes of pen touched them, words hidden with a magical signature, only visible to certain eyes in specific forms.
Beneath the nightstand, the pen that she used rolled back to its usual place – its magical signature pulsating, like a heartbeat, reverberating into the very cosmos.
And there we are! Sorry for the delay, folks! I wanted to get it just right. :)
I picked this moment because it comes soon enough after the initial visit that Damon would be verify the validity of Elena's "predictions." This also frees me up to now travel anywhere I want, mwahaha! :D
The line about Damon not knowing what it's like not to love her is a … hint! About a future chapter. That's all I'll say for now, but I'm super-psyched about it. :D
Soooo, the way that time works in this story is very similar (but not quite) to how it works for the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse-Five, for anyone who's read it (I love Kurt Vonnegut, and it's one of my favorite novels) – it's from where I drew my inspiration for this aspect of the mythos. The Specter is "unstuck in time," much like Billy Pilgrim was after he was abducted by them. Essentially, they see time as a tapestry, rather than something chronological, so they can go back to any moment. That's why when someone dies, they simply say, 'So it goes," because death doesn't feel permanent for them – since time isn't linear. It's not exactly like this for Specter-Elena, but it's certainly inspired by it. Future chapters will also shed light on how Damon starts to perceive time through his interactions with the Specter. I will say that this was inspired by the way time works in the novel, but it doesn't work that way exactly. Hopefully, this becomes clearer in future chapters as we get to know the Specter and her abilities more.
Much love, all. :)
