Note: I'm still wrapping my mind around this idea and deciding or un-deciding stuff, so I count on your reviews to help me out in my little process. If you read, please let me know what you think of it.
#
He's not even nervous about this, not much. It's just one more thing on his to-do list. Change the light bulb in the master bedroom, cut the grass in the garden, get married. He hates cutting the grass and since he's human and he has no time to waste, he doesn't see why he should stall with it. He needs to go ahead, do this, and move on. His brother died so that he could do this, could build a life of value. And Bonnie will have to come back now. no matter how badly she wants to get away and leave the past behind, she'll have to come back because she's his best friend. Even on the other side of the planet, even if she seems to manage perfectly without him, she's his best friend and if he's too busy wondering what the fuck she's doing and where she's doing it, he can't really do this.
The phone rings in his pocket and he takes it to check the incoming message. He told Bonnie to let him know when she was due to arrive at the airport, not that she was particularly ecstatic at the prospect, but she will come back. She has to.
The message is from Elena, letting him know she had to switch shifts with another student so they can't have dinner together tonight. He writes back that it's okay, that they can see each other tomorrow. Well, they'll see each other every day for the next sixty years, so it's not such a problem if they're apart for the night. Or the next month, actually.
He doesn't know who came up with the idea, but it seemed to make sense. Maybe Stefan's sappiness slipped inside him together with the blood that cured his vampirism, but the no-sex rule until their wedding night seemed so right when they came up with it. It will be their first time since becoming humans, it will be different the way everything else is now. It will be special, or so he told her when he said the words.
She decided it was more practical for her to stay at the dorm. It's closer to the hospital and she has the quiet she needs to study. He really doesn't mind.
Damon Salvatore going voluntarily celibate—it sounds so ridiculous. But suddenly he feels no rush at all to jump into the pit of this relationship, though time is not the most abundant thing on hand for a human being. It's just that he wants to do this right, build their perfect future from scratch.
Right now, playing the supporting boyfriend seems the best course of action. He'll be the husband of a doctor, one day, and he needs to help her out, be thoughtful. So, it's okay if she has late hours and long shifts. He has his own stuff to figure out, he thinks, pouring himself a drink. He's thinking about that bar Stefan had him opening in the fantasy future he gave him. After all, he knows how to pick his alcohol and manage bar fights. He has accumulated enough money throughout the years to live off of for the next two lifetimes, but he's only got one and he needs to keep himself occupied during the day; so, why not?
Damon turns around to sit on the couch, staring at the papers in front of him. He could buy the Grill and make some renovations to make it more in his taste. It wouldn't be a bad idea at all, he thinks. That place is full of memories, not many of them are good, but they're memories of his brother, of his best friend, of the girl he's gonna marry, so they are worth keeping.
He puts down the glass, letting it rest above the pile of magazines next to the blueprint of the Grill. Caroline – in her maniacal, very Jennifer Lopez wedding planner mode – left them there for Elena to check out but she hasn't had the time to do it yet. It's a column of bridal magazines, with glossy pages and pastel colors. His lips curl into a grin watching the long limbed black girl in a feathery white dress with a mismatched jacket sheltering her from the chill as she leans against a railing behind her. On the cover, in big letters, it reads, "25 tablescapes that gives us autumn fever,"and "These epic elopement photos will make you reconsider the Big Wedding."
"Nope," he says, pushing the glass up on the cover to read the last word of the second title. Their Big Wedding will give him the chance to see it all in front of him, his wife, his friends, the way his life is going to be and how much sense it makes. Right now it's just a blur, planning a wedding with a girl he's not even touching, deciding on an investment that will occupy his next sixty years, waiting around for his best friend to be in front of him so he can read on her face how right it is, what he's doing, but on that day he will know without the shadow of a doubt that he's finally got it right, the stars are aligned and everything is right in the world.
Maybe if he plays his cards right he can even convince Bonnie to stick around, work with him, be his business partner. He'll put in the money, and they can run the bar together. She can help him pick its new name, cover for him if he needs to run an errand, be there when they turn the closing sign and enjoy a drink once they are finally alone and about to go home. If she'd think about it, he would place an offer to buy the Grill right now.
Damon takes his phone from his pocket to check the messages. His inbox is empty.
#
Dakar's Leopold Sedar Senghor International Airport is crowded when she gets out of the black and yellow taxi and Bonnie must squeeze her way in through the small doors, dragging her trolley case after her.
She stands resolutely in line, in front of the Turkish Airlines desk to secure her ticket. There's a plane she intends to catch, destination: Cairo.
She'll have to do a stopover in Instabul, but that's fine. At least she'll have an opportunity to stretch her legs after sitting in a cramped space for seven hours. And after that it will be pyramids and deserts and endless days of fascination.
"Are you really going to stand Damon up?" Enzo asks, standing next to her with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the line in front of them with little interest. "I never thought I'd see the day," he comments with a sneer.
"You've seen the day many times," she corrects him, dragging her trolley case as she takes a step ahead.
"Yeah, but you were angry at him because you thought he didn't care about you. Now you know he cares so much he basically can't do a thing without you and you're still bailing out on him."
A feminine voice announces the boarding for a flight headed to Ciudad Del Este, and a kid starts to whine to his mom about something she can't understand.
"I'm not," she protests irritated, "I'm just taking a detour on my way home. A couple weeks…" she shrugs "maybe a bit more," she adds, trying to make it sound reasonable. But Damon is getting married in four weeks and she's stalling.
"Maybe four weeks, why not? And, oops, I just couldn't make it, Damon, I tried."
"What? Are you suddenly treasurer of the Damon Salvatore Fan Club?" she asks, turning her head to see his profile. "I don't get why you're so adamant about me going back home."
"I don't get why you're so adamant about you not going back home," he replies, turning to meet her eyes. But when he does she turns her face, making him grin. He caught her. "You're avoiding something, and the Bonnie I knew was not scared of anything."
"The Bonnie you knew was dead half the time," she mutters, and in a way that didn't change. Here, in the other half of the globe, where no one knows her she can be someone else, nobody if she so likes. Here, no one can spot her weakness, no one can ask anything of her. Here, she's not the lonely survivor of a family of witches. Here, she's not the only one left without roots to hold onto, without someone to hold on to her for dear life. In this airport, in this nation or the next, she's a young, strong woman traveling the world, too independent to let a man hold her down or stop her from pursuing her dreams. Curious people are happy to make up the most exotic, fascinating stories about her life, but back home her story is written on a series of headstones. Back home, Caroline has two daughters to look after, Matt has a city to protect and Damon has a new life to build, and she has nothing.
She's irritated by Enzo's words, and all the waiting and she taps her foot on the floor, as she watches people walking all around her. Something vibrates against her thigh, for the millionth time since she arrived in Yoff, where the Airport is, and she picks the phone from her bag looking for something to occupy her time while she waits, so that she will be able to ignore Enzo.
There are a large number of emails piled up in her inbox, and she swipes almost all of them away. It's old junk mail, sales from stores she's bought from once or twice, and a few ones from her credit card company to notify her of the charges from her movements in Africa.
When she's done with that she checks her texts. There are a few messages from Caroline, pictures of her and the twins, the shining letters of the school's name over a pretty gate, very X-Men like, and two messages from Matt. It's mostly basic things about how they miss her, updates on how life proceeds for them on the other side of the globe, and it feels nice. It's a little string that keeps them attached to each other, though in such a non-intrusive way that she doesn't even need to try and ignore it.
In her head she's adding up the numbers to calculate how many days in Egypt she can afford before she has to go back home. She's got a decent sum from life insurance, and she received a few checks from her mom, which she has never cashed, so she's good, but she doesn't want to go home just to be penniless. She actually doesn't want to go home at all. To what? She can find herself a job in the first nearby country of her liking, and what would stop her? Confines aren't a problem anymore. She even surpassed those of the physical, tangible world, and she speaks to the dead more than the living. She's stopped having a real home the moment her Gram died, and Mystic Falls is just the town where she grew up, where she died, and she died, and she died again.
On her phone the icon of her answering service helps her push away every qualm about what she's doing. It's her life, after all, and maybe this is the wrong move but if she wants to make it, it's her call and no one is going to make her change her mind. Not even Enzo, she decides as she calls the answering service to listen to her messages.
"Bon, where are you?" Damon asks, "This human thing is so humiliating. I was at a bar and I had to leave because I was about to fall face-first into my drink. I just can't keep myself awake. It's only 1 a.m. for God's sake! This is so lame... I'm an old man." His horrified tone makes her chuckle unexpectedly. Such a trivial, vain thing clashes with her calm, meditative ways and for a moment the warmth his voice sparks is uncomfortable. She looks about herself, like she's expecting to see people turned towards her, picking up on it, looking at her dismissively but everyone is minding their own business. She pushes back the hesitation, and presses the button to forward to the next message.
"There's no breaking news about an airplane crashing in Algeria so you're probably passed out because of the jet leg. And speaking of passing out, I suck at holding up my liquor, can you believe it? It's like I have to build my resistance back from scratch, but you know me. I'm so up to the task. If you come back soon, next time we go out for a drink you could have the satisfaction of drinking me under the table. I'm sure I don't have to point out how you can't miss out on this opportunity. You might even have to carry me home, piggy back. I can't wait." There's something about the message that makes her feel awkward, though she doesn't know what it is exactly, not immediately anyway. Until she realizes, long moments later, when she's already listening to the fourth message that it's the fact that he's already planning their outings like it's any other day of the pre-Elena week that surprised her. Somewhere inside she had cowardly given up on him and their relationship the moment she knew Elena was back, and now she knows she's wronged him. It had never crossed her mind that Damon could still want her in his life in the same doses as before. Or, even at all. And it was easier to turn the page and pretend like she had closed that chapter herself, that it was just another milestone in her life and she was okay with leaving it behind. Leaving him behind.
"This must be the lowest of the lows ever lowed before, Bon." He says, making a dramatic pause, "I just gave myself a papercut.A freaking, honest-to-God, bloody papercut. Next thing you know I'll choke on my own tongue while I say something worth handing down to posterity, but it'll will be totally unintelligible, so the world will miss out twice in one go. On my gravestone they'll write He lived like a sage and died like a fool. Suddenly I'm amazed at Donovan's ability to last so long in this town. I clearly underestimated him."
She pressed the button again and gets washed over by a new flood of pointless information. In the background she can hear the sound of water flowing and the tinkling of glasses, she can picture him in his kitchen, phone trapped between his shoulder and his ear while he washes the dishes.
"I can't remember the name of that pastry shop where you brought that cake and I, in my innocence, accidentally ate it, thinking it was for me. And whatever you say, I'm telling you, there was my name on it. What was I supposed to do? The not for part didn't get registered, but truthfully, I think it was a Freudian slip on your part or something. Do some soul searching, and in the meanwhile, call and tell me?"
The pull of muscles on her face feels alien and unnatural now, because she hasn't smiled like this in ages and she's not sure it's a habit she can master again. And yet, here she is, in a stranger land, blended in a crowd, a little dot in the world, lost inside herself and smiling because Damon Salvatore is an asshole, and it feels good enough that her eyes flicker to the side, to see if Enzo is there, witnessing this, getting hurt because of it.
But he's not, and the smile falls from her mouth anyway when the next message starts.
"I miss Stefan," Damon breathes out, voice so raw the brush of it seems to scrape away a layer of her skin. Something hits her. Bonnie stumbles back as a woman pulls back her son and apologizes for the kid bumping her. She can't even blink, trapped inside the letters he's let out and their spidery ramifications. She can barely move her head in an awkward, single nod of recognition. The pause he makes is so long she thinks he just forgot to hang up, leaving both her and this conversation perpetually hanging, but then he speaks again. "Where are you?" voice urgent, burning through the space and into her, making holes on her perfect walls, which seem to curl on themselves and consume easily like they are made of paper. "He's got a good excuse for not being here, you know, but yours sucks a bit, honestly. I mean, I get that you want to see the world, but do you have to see it all at once?"
She lowers her head, feeling the slight of shame. It's been one emotion after the other since she first heard his voice, trying to break down the stillness inside, and she feels a bit like throwing up, so much so that she keeps the phone pressed to her ear even when she hears the sound of the disconnecting line. She needs to hear the silence, needs it to put herself back together, but his voice has set something in motion already.
When she raises her head again the woman behind the counter is asking her where she wants to go. The names of all the places she wants to see are blurred letters, distant ideas, but Damon is breathing against her ear, asking where are you? She can feel the texture of his breath and the sound of his lashes lowering over his blue eyes as he looks at her with his own brand of violent vulnerability. The hair at her nape raises up and she feels goose bumps on her skin, under the long sleeves of her red and black silk shirt.
"Home," she says, and the idea takes sudden shape and substance, ringing of truth, "I need to go home."
#
Between the actual flights and the waiting, sitting on an uncomfortable chair in the lounge, it takes her around thirty-seven hours before she's in Virginia. The Iberia flight 4869 she catches in Senegal leaves her in Madrid. Everyone around her seems frustrated, or impatient or plain tired, but she doesn't mind the waiting, she has no problem sitting alone and not talking to anyone.
"Are you nervous?" Enzo asks, sitting next to her.
She sighs before answering, "Why should I be?" She's not nervous, but deep down there's a little movement, like bubbles starting to form at the bottom of a kettle, she doesn't know what it is exactly but she can concentrate and still every movement of her soul. She can be more than herself, bigger than she was. The world around her, all this commotion cannot shake her.
"Have you told Damon you're going back?" he asks.
"He'll probably get the clue once he sees me," she replies blankly. Bonnie wants to enjoy her solitude until it lasts, distance herself from all that had power over her before. Her need to do her damnedest for those she loved, her fear of being cast away and forgotten once someone more special came into their lives, her idiotic, infuriatingly handsome jerk of a best friend.
Danger wouldn't have pushed her to go back on her steps, but his raw voice, his solitude did. Maybe if he had waited some more, if her cellphone would have just kept being a useless piece of plastic, if she'd had more time, enough time so that his voice would have had no effect over her, anymore. Or maybe not, because in one month, or one year, or one lifetime, Damon will still be Damon. But she's learning, she thinks, she's learning to let go of people, let go of him. Of her feelings.
Right now, she knows he needs her. She knows she needs to do this for him. Be next to him when he starts a new chapter of his life, leave him with peace of mind and the awareness that this is how things were supposed to go all along. And be on her way, out there in a larger world, where she's born every day, once again, in the eyes of strangers, out there in a larger world, where everything passes and nothing lingers.
On the flight from Madrid to the USA she starts to feel it, the light bubbling in her blood, the anticipation, but it's a flickering sensation she can smooth over with the same ease it takes to run a hand over fabric to smooth away the wrinkles.
She likes it, this new awareness, the fact that she has no need for anything. Bonnie takes a sip of water, though she doesn't need it, as she looks outside her window at the white they sink into when they pass through a cloud,. It's been thirty-something hours now since she last ate and she doesn't even feel the bite of hunger, not even a trace of appetite. The cabin is cold, the air conditioning clearly a bit too high, but she is not bothered by the temperature. A flight attendant hands her a blanket with a smile and she accepts it so as to not raise any question or interest.
Enzo reaches out for her, tries to take her hand under the blanket. She can feel the touch and for the first time is able to ignore how absent and cold it all feels, like her soul has gotten used to it. If she can forget how it felt to be held in warmth and softness, the absurd, thrilling joy of a chest shaking in happiness against hers, the smell of skin and pancakes, she'll be content forever. She turns her face towards him, smiles at him in their blue-lit, cocooned world, and chooses to forget there's another kind of life.
That kind of life is not for her.
#
She drags her case behind her, the wheels turning easily on the cheap marble with no need to rush. Everyone around her seems to have a fast steps, all so impatient to be home in the arms of their loved ones, but Bonnie cannot feel that anxiety. Her loved one is with her after all, and while everyone else is pulled by the strength of life, she is indifferent to it. The buzzing around her doesn't register in her brain, her mind lulls her senses. Her body is merely a tool for a spirit larger than life itself.
She can tune out the sounds, leaving her in quietude similar to when she would dive underwater. Only, she doesn't need to come up for air anymore.
"Home sweet home," Enzo says, the light blue ambiance around her is almost comforting, but the color draws in like paper absorbing water as soon as a sign rises up among the people, reading, "Welcome back, Bon-Bon". There's a sound in her mind, like a pin scratching a record and the silence is replaced by noise so sudden that she stops and someone almost crashes into her from behind, managing to only bump her shoulder and muttering a sorry. The word is rushed, it slips automatically from the lips of the well-dressed man that looks over his shoulder as he keeps walking away from her, and it's all too much.
The noise covers the sound of the sign hitting the pavement when Damon just slips under the security rope and holds her against him, two feet off the ground. His fingers sink into her hair, palm sliding over her nape. Holding her face in the space between his shoulder and the column of his neck, her nose unintentionally tickles the skin, making her acknowledge the scent of him and his cologne, that woodsy, smoky, spicy mix she's learned like the back of her hand. He's wrapped around her, warm and strong and alive, and he won't let her touch the ground, won't let her get away. His voice is husky and relieved when he says "You're back. You're back," like he can't believe it, like he can't wait to make sure.
It's a breathless feeling, like the whole world shrank down just to envelop her. His heart beats violently against her ribcage, and his skin is hot against her. The shock from the contact, from the difference of their temperatures gives her a shiver. Her body, usually so compliant and indifferent, goes stiff in his arms, like an animal wary of an upcoming attack from a predator. Bonnie's eyes grow large and unfocused as she feels his fingers stretch against the base of her head, as she listens to the little, breathy sounds of his happiness. Her fingers grip the fabric of Damon shirt with little strength, like she's about to drown and is too shocked to do anything about it.
There's still a dazed look on her face when he finally puts her down again, but he's so fucking happy to have her back he doesn't dwell on it. His hands cup her cheeks, fingers sliding down along her neck and her shoulders, to make sure she's been returned safely to him.
"Have you lost weight?" he asks, not waiting to have an answer to his question. "Did you miss my pancakes that much that you couldn't eat properly?" he asks with a wink, "Don't they have blankets on these flights? You're as cold as a popsicle," he adds reaching for the handles of her trolley case with one hand and hooking his other arm around her shoulders to guide her away.
"I'll cook you something that will make your toes curl," he promises, only getting a strange silence in return.
Damon can feel the stiffness of her body as he presses her to his side but he can fault the long flight for that. She spent two days cramped in a seat – not that she needs so much space considering she's actually pocket-sized – so it's only fair that she's tired.
"How was your unbearably long flight?" he asks, looking down at her at his side.
"Long," she replies, "Unbearably so."
"Smarty-pants," he says with a smile, dropping a kiss on the top of her head and missing the flashing panic that crosses her eyes. It is strange, the way in this part of the globe everything is so loud. And if he'd let her alone for a bit she could focus, concentrate on tuning it off, on getting a hold on herself. But suddenly, she feels again, with no filter. Just a pair of arms around her, and she feels a tender warmth slipping down through her skin, a silly kiss on her hair, and something drives down straight though her veins and inside her heart. She doesn't know how it's possible that suddenly the switch got turned on, she just knows that it feels like an assault and her first instinct is to blend in, disappear, so she's silent.
But Damon seems happy to speak for the both of them. He seems happy to hold her to his side and make way for her with his body when they go through the crowd, almost hiding her against his chest as he does so.
It's like a Damon Salvatore overdose. After months away she had almost forgotten how handsome and allergic to common boundaries he was. Almost, because there is a voice inside her trying to call her out on that lie. He was in the back of her mind as she packed up and left without so much as a proper goodbye, because there was a chance her best friend would be only so happy to have her go away and leave him all the time in the world to devote to Elena. He was in the back of her mind while she walked through the markets and looked at herself in the mirror, because he was there too, that unapologetic, jackassical voice of his, with his stupid quips and his twisted mouth, and she talked to Enzo whenever that would happen because Enzo was supposed to be the one always with her. And they talked, and she looked at him, and she sank consciously into his icy embrace and made Damon fade into the background.
But Damon is stubborn, and Damon always pushes his way to the front of the line, and Damon kisses her head and gives her body something to feel again.