A/N: Once again, we arrive at Story's End! ;)
I know it's taken me a ridiculously long time to post this chapter, but the good news is, if you'll ever come across a contest for the longest fanfic chapter *ever*, you'll know whom to nominate haha I was thinking about breaking this chapter into three (! lol) separate ones, but since it's very much a series of closures (or new beginnings if you will), I decided that it's going to work best as one chapter.
I'm in such a whirlwind of emotions because of the promos, the first S6 poster, episode titles and what not. But I deeply believe that this season is going to be AMAZING & I have no doubt that the DE re-union that awaits us this fall, er, winter is going to be beautiful & well-worth the wait :)
And now onto the...
Thank You Note
I WOULD LIKE TO THANK SO SO SO SO SO SO SO MUCH:
2serendipity, a girl writer, anonymous4now, BonnieB, Brrum, carlasalvatore, castlefringereader, cesy, cindy jade, Damon Salvatore is awesome, DanceInPurpleRain, DClovesTVD, ddeibler, delena always, Delena's worshipper, DElenaLover4Ever, DesiringPirates, Diana511, Doppelicious64, Eclaire Stones, Elisa, Ellyn92, EsCaDa-Mako, Hailyebug, havenhoya, HealingHearts, Helene08, Her-Imaginarium, His Gem, itwillalwaysbedamon, JaDeee69, jairem, Jem, Jeremy Shane, karalynn lovison, Karolina94, Katrock82, kat st james, kenlie argyle, KitKat, kittyfajitas, Kperkins, ladylibre, Larjana, Leandril, lessdangerous, LexiaMitchell, lina89, Lissa Salvatore, LiveHappy247, Lizzy Salvatore-Cooper-Grey, LoveDE, LoveForDamon, Lucie Sa, luna ibelieveinmagic, Malin, missing-in-venice, mysteryss4, niadk, Ninaandianforever, no no no, parisdamour, PoisonMistressX, PR Salvatore, primadonna001, Saiyajin-Neko, sahlamari, Sassytore, scarlett2112, ScarletRose, Seddielover945, Sere'sLight, sharpie78, Short on words, Sorrybout'ya, sososhort84, steffany, stormy grace, team delena, THE NIGERIAN, typedamon, WildYennifer, Willofthewisp, xELinneax, yes yes yes & all the anonymous reviewers
for your beautiful, encouraging, rewarding reviews and the wonderful support that made writing this fic such a happy & joyful experience! *hugs*
See you next year! ;)
Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries belongs to L.J. Smith & CW.
Chapter 22
Rose petals... or snowflakes?... He couldn't quite decide what it could be... Too warm to be snowflakes... soft... but not as light as rose petals...
The moment of confusion upon waking up, however, was brief and soon Damon's mouth twitched into a lopsided smile.
"That is an alarm clock I'd never mind," he murmured without opening his eyes.
Elena stopped showering his face with kisses and widened her eyes at him. "An alarm clock? That's the first thought that came to your mind?!"
Damon shook his head without lifting it off the pillow and opened his eyes. "No." He slid his hands into Elena's hair and pulled her down for a kiss. "My first thought is always you," he whispered against her lips, holding her face in his palms and looking at her with a smile she felt she knew so well even if she couldn't remember now when she'd seen if for the first time. "First and last and every."
Smiling, she pressed a lingering kiss to his lips and lied back down, draping her arm over his chest and snuggling against him when he slid his arm underneath her and pulled her into a hug.
"I wish we could just cuddle all day," Elena mumbled, resting her cheek on Damon's shoulder and closing her eyes.
"I don't see why we couldn't," he said, burying his nose in her hair and pressing a few kisses to the top of her head. "That's what we were doing all day yesterday."
Elena stifled a laugh. "We did much more than that."
Damon threaded his fingers through her hair and said in a stage-whisper. "Let's not go into scandalous details. Someone may overhear us."
Elena smiled and opened her eyes. "I think Ric, Stefan and Caroline came back," she said quietly after a pause.
Damon's hand stopped moving, but only for a split second and then he resumed the tender, lazy movement and continued sifting his hand through her hair and watching the sunlight illuminate the strands caught in between his fingers. "They did?"
"I heard Caroline on the stairs about three hours ago. And I don't know what it was that she dropped, but judging from the noise and her reaction it must've been a Monet."
"Nah, it was probably just something Klaus' painted," Damon said dismissively. "Have you seen that... 'winter in gray and in more gray' downstairs? That's his."
Elena grimaced. "Why do you have something that Klaus' painted?"
"I don't. Stefan bought it. For charity."
Elena blinked, not sure if she could wrap her mind around the concept of Klaus doing charity work, but she decided not to dwell on it too much for now. "So..." she started after a moment of silence, propping her chin on Damon's arm and sliding her hand upward to anchor it on his shoulder, absently tracing with her fingertips small heart shapes there. "Are we going to run, shake everyone awake and ask Bonnie to do the spell immediately?"
"And why would we do that?" Damon asked in a sincerely surprised voice. "We should at least let them get some sleep. Time zone change and all."
Biting back a smile, Elena narrowed her eyes at him. "Well, five days ago someone was in a great hurry to do the spell as soon as possible," she said, shifting in Damon's arms and looking up at him, her eyes alight with amusement.
Damon smirked and leaned down, pressing his forehead against hers. "Five days ago..." he started, but then trailed off, wrinkling his nose in mock-confusion. "I can't remember what it was exactly that happened then, but-"
"Damon!" Elena widened her eyes at him in humorous indignation.
"Elena!" Damon mimicked her voice and expression and then rolled them over, holding himself above her, his lips hovering over hers.
Elena poked him on the chest with her forefinger, slightly tossing her head backwards in a haughty manner. "It's Mrs. Salvatore."
Damon caught her hand and kissed it. "I know," he whispered with a smile that mirrored hers when he kissed her slowly, dragging his lips from one corner of her mouth to the other. "I know," he repeated, drawing back and pulling a piece of paper from under the pillow. "I keep this with me at all times."
Elena blinked, snatched the document out of Damon's hand and unfolded it. "You keep our marriage certificate under a pillow?"
"Of course not. This is just a copy. I made a thousand copies and put the original one in a safe."
Elena giggled, but then her expression sobered and she lowered the paper in her hand and gave Damon an incredulous look. "You didn't literally make a thousand copies?"
"Well, literally, I made a thousand and eight," Damon muttered, lowering his head to nuzzle her neck.
Elena smiled, wrapping her arms around him and cradling him to her. "Are you going to wallpaper one whole room with them or something?"
"I just needed to put one copy... everywhere."
Laughing, Elena was about to assume he was joking, but something in his eyes convinced her that he wasn't and it was Damon who smiled, amused by the expression on her face that changed from gleeful to stunned before it turned into a slightly dismayed one.
"If Caroline finds it before she's back to her more reasonable self-"
"Elena, we're just going to restore your memories. Not time-travel into the impossible future," Damon pointed out, propping his head on his elbow and brushing a strand of hair off Elena's forehead.
"And here I was hoping you became friends in the meantime," Elena said with a small sigh. "Like with Bonnie."
"I'm afraid one lifetime may not be enough to become friends with everyone," Damon said with a smile, but then cut himself off in mid-sentence when Elena's face drained of all amusement and her grip on his shoulders tightened.
"What are we going to do about that?" She asked in a quiet, strained voice, her eyes boring into his with utter concern. "There must be a way for you to become a vampire again. Or for me to become human." She raised her hand to cup his cheek. "I can't lose you," she said, trying to smile.
"You won't," Damon whispered, but the callback wasn't enough to brighten Elena's smile, so he decided to try changing the subject. "Would you like a breakfast in bed?" He asked with a wink.
Elena laughed briefly under her breath, but then said with a hint of sternness in her voice. "No! We're not doing this again. The first time you didn't tell me you weren't going to be able to even drink vampire blood to heal," she said with a frown, glancing at the small scar on his neck and stroking it lightly with her fingertips.
Damon rolled his eyes, but before he had the time to reassure her that it didn't matter at all, they both stiffened at the scream that reverberated across the boarding house.
"Elena!?
Elena blinked in bewilderment, having no idea what could warrant Caroline calling her name in such a manner-
But then her eyes widened and she gave Damon a comically horrified look. "What did you mean when you said that you'd put a copy of our marriage certificate everywhere? You didn't literally mean every room, did you?"
Damon smirked and then unhurriedly kissed his way up to Elena's ear. "Elena. Have I ever meant 'everywhere' in a not literal sense?"
xxxdelenaxxx
"I thought we were best friends," Caroline said tearfully, biting her lip and apparently doing her best not to burst into tears.
Enzo looked at her a little baffled, beginning to consider sitting a bit further away from her on the couch... but then he thought that it'd probably be rude to move right now.
Stefan, who was sitting on Caroline's left hand side tried to give her a reassuring look, but she wasn't looking at him, her eyes fixed straight ahead. He glanced at her hands, wondering why he felt the unyielding need to at least pat her hands and say that there was no reason to feel sad.
"Caroline..." Elena winced, exchanging a look with Bonnie who looked just as exasperated. "I told you ten times already. I didn't not invite you specifically. I didn't invite anyone! It was a... spontaneous decision."
Enzo glanced at Elena who was sitting at the end of the couch next to him. He wondered why Stefan had looked so wary to sit next to her. As far as his impressions went, Elena seemed like a much safer person to be sitting next to than Caroline.
"Spontaneous," Jeremy echoed sarcastically, ignoring Bonnie giving him a half-seriously silencing look. "I didn't know 'spontaneous' and 'insane' were synonyms."
"That'd explain your SAT scores," Damon retorted, shooting Jeremy a narrow-eyed look from where he was standing leaning against the wall near the fireplace.
"They're pretty high, but yes, probably not as high as your weekly murder rate," Jeremy deadpanned and Elena was about to intervene, but stopped herself when she realized that there was something different, something new about Damon and Jeremy's interactions and the expression on Bonnie's face seemed to only confirm that the hostility in Jeremy's voice was entirely humorous.
"I think you keep distracting Bonnie," Alaric pointed out, pouring himself a glass of bourbon.
"Yes, thank you," Bonnie said with as much sternness in her voice as she could muster, glaring at Caroline, Damon and Jeremy. "I'm trying to concentrate," she said, slamming the grimoire against the table in front of her, glancing at Elena, Enzo, Stefan and Caroline who were all sitting on the couch opposite from her.
"Well, that's great, but speaking of that, I actually don't know what you're going to do anyway!" Caroline exclaimed with a huff. "Klaus said you're going to fry our brains."
"Klaus said?" Bonnie echoed, giving Caroline a disbelieving look.
The first time Caroline had used the phrase Bonnie had ignored it, but after the fifth time she was beginning to feel annoyed.
"He did say that," Stefan observed cautiously, mostly just to support Caroline, but somehow his words only earned him a look from Bonnie that was as hostile as the one she'd given Caroline.
"Is Klaus that gentleman who-" Enzo started just to organize his knowledge, but Elena cut him off.
"Klaus' not a gentleman," she said with a mirthless snort.
"Actually, he is," Caroline protested, a little miffed. "It's your husband who isn't!"
"Oh really?" Elena responded immediately, Caroline's tone triggering in her some abstract irritation that made it impossible for her to think twice about what she was going to say. "And why would you say that?" Enzo leaned back a little not to get caught in the crossfire, his eyes shifting between Elena and Caroline. "I'm pretty sure he didn't compel you to jump right into bed with him as soon as you met him," Elena blurted out and then her eyes widened in dismay at her own outburst.
Stefan blinked.
Caroline stared at Elena while everyone else was so caught off guard by the sight of Caroline being rendered speechless that for a moment the room was completely silent.
"OK," Bonnie cleared her throat, giving Elena a meaningful look. "I don't think we need to be having this conversation again."
Caroline blinked. "Oh, you mean she actually said that to me before?!"
Elena shifted her eyes between Bonnie and Caroline in stunned dismay.
"Don't worry," Jeremy said dismissively, giving Elena a reassuring smile. "If she got over you trying to kill her-"
"Jeremy!" Bonnie gave him an incredulous look, not sure if she felt like laughing or becoming even more frustrated with everyone's behavior. "You're not helping!"
"Is he ever?" Damon muttered offhandedly.
Bonnie narrowed her eyes at him. "You're not helping either! Could everyone please stop interrupting me?" She looked around the room in exasperation.
"I tried to do what?" Elena asked, dumbfounded, feeling cold shivers run up her spine.
"Tried to kill Caroline," Jeremy replied conversationally, plugging headphones into his tablet. "Bonnie too. And me- No, wait. You actually did kill me."
Doing her best to keep a straight face, Bonnie grabbed a pillow and tossed it at him."Jeremy!"
Chuckling, Jeremy caught the pillow and threw it at Damon.
Elena shifted her bewildered gaze from Jeremy and Bonnie to Damon who had apparently failed to tell her anything about her homicidal attempts. She gave him a questioning look, but he only grimaced a little in response and gave her a smile, signaling that it wasn't something she should be too worried about. Slowly leaning back against the couch, Elena shook her head in helpless disbelief.
Enzo shifted in his seat, looking between everyone with growing uneasiness.
"I knew you were trying to kill me!" Caroline exclaimed, wincing. "And everyone was trying to convince me that it was a Katherine'!" she said mockingly.
Stefan's eyes darted to Caroline. "Katherine tried to kill you?"
Caroline gave him a confused look.
"Elena only tried to kill you. Katherine actually did kill you," Jeremy clarified.
Bonnie hid her face in her hands.
"I don't understand what's going on here at all!" Caroline exclaimed in a miserable tone. "Why did I lose my memories? Why am I a vampire? Why is anyone a vampire?! Why all of you are so prejudiced against Klaus?" Her eyes fell on Alaric. "And why is Mr. Saltzman hanging out with us?" She asked in a faltering voice that clearly indicated that that was really too much.
Alaric blinked. "That's creepy, I know," he said, stifling a smile. "Seeing a teacher on Saturday. I'm sorry about that."
"And about stabbing you with pencils probably too," Jeremy chimed in.
"Jeremy!"
"Why don't we go back to that spell..." Damon offered in an exaggeratedly calm and loud voice before Bonnie would unwittingly set the room on fire, her patience running thin.
"Yes, let's do the stupid spell, so I can remember what's going on," Caroline joined in with a grimace. "Even though Klaus said-"
"So what exactly you're going to do?" Stefan asked matter-of-factly, drawing Bonnie's attention to him before the glare she'd sent Caroline intensified.
Bonnie gave him a sharp look, but since the expression on Stefan's face suggested that the question was absolutely serious, Bonnie took a breath and decided to answer.
"I tweaked one of Esther's spells and merged it with two different ones," she said, pulling a thick stash of papers from under the grimoire. "Your amnesia is like a a cloaking spell," she said, looking between Elena, Enzo, Caroline and Stefan. "Your memories didn't disappear. They're just hidden from you. So I'm going to remove the cloak, so to speak." Bonnie placed her hand on the stash of papers, each page covered with a list of names. "With the help of Enzo's list. I'll transfer your amnesia to the people on the list."
Enzo blinked, a little taken a back by his name being mentioned in the context. "My list?"
"Sixteen centers in twelve states plus quite a few abroad. Twenty three worldwide," Bonnie recited, as if it was some kind of an inside joke, but Enzo just stared at her, not feeling any wiser than a moment before.
"You're going to erase the memories of all the people involved with the Augustine Society?" Alaric asked, taking a few steps closer to them.
He glanced at Damon who looked just as surprised by Bonnie's plan.
"Not all of their memories. Just all of their memories that have anything to do with the supernatural world." She glanced at Damon. "The Augustines are going to forget they ever existed."
"But that won't stop them from existing," Elena said cautiously.
"Of course it will," Bonnie said, straightening up. "Pick a book. Any book," she said, looking between Damon and Elena with a faint smile.
"The Call of the Wild?" Elena said, glancing at Damon who shared her smile.
Bonnie closed her eyes and soon the book floated into the room and straight into Damon's hands. He opened it and smirked weakly in understanding, flipping the book open toward everyone else and thumbing through its completely blank pages for everyone to see.
"You mean..." Elena shifted her eyes to Bonnie who nodded.
"That's how all of their data will look like. Every proof, every journal, every page of research. Everything will disappear."
"That's assuming Enzo's list is complete," Jeremy observed with a small sigh.
"I still don't-" Enzo started, but Damon cut him off.
"He wouldn't want to blow everyone up as soon as possible if the list was incomplete."
Bonnie seemed to casually agree with that assumption, which caused Enzo's eyes to widen even more.
"I'm sorry, I wanted to do what?" He asked in a low voice and Elena gave him a compassionate look rather sympathizing with being overwhelmed by one's own forgotten actions.
"Oh, let's just have it over with!" Caroline said in an irritated tone, throwing herself against the back of the couch and crossing her arms over her chest. "Klaus said-"
"One more word about Klaus and I will just turn everyone into frogs!" Bonnie interrupted her in an utterly serious voice, but the intimidating effect was ruined but Jeremy failing to stifle a chuckle.
Caroline glanced at him, but not being entirely certain if Bonnie was really joking or not, she sat back with a sigh and a slightly hurt look on her face. "I thought we were best friends."
Bonnie rolled her eyes and pushed the grimoire open.
xxxdelenaxxx
"Hayley's taken Hope to the park and I'm very busy right now," Matt said, repeatedly averting his eyes from Rebekah and shuffling his feet as if he was seriously considering just slamming the door shut in her face.
"I don't think I've been invited in here," Rebekah said thoughtfully, looking the white-washed door frame up and down and peering into the narrow hallway. "Is this your family home? Were you living in here with your mom and sister?"
Matt frowned. "Like I said, I'm-"
"Oh, come on." Rebekah rolled her eyes. "I don't think that under the circumstances throwing fits is justified," she said with a sigh.
Matt blinked. "I'm not throwing a fit. I'm busy. I need to go find Tyler. I scheduled him for an interview with Caroline's mom today, but I don't know if he even got my messages. He's either ignoring me or he got himself in trouble," Matt said, but then the no-nonsense look Rebekah gave him seemed to convince him to drop the charade. "And what circumstances are these? Because I don't know. I thought- I thought that you- that we-" He trailed off and looked away.
"You thought that we what?"
Matt didn't answer.
Rebekah watched him for a moment in silence before taking a step back from the door. "Alright. If you want to spend the day being upset that's your choice. I can't do anything about it today. But tomorrow I'm going to barge in, whether you invite me or not and occupy your personal space until you capitulate," she said in a serious tone, but her eyes were sparkling with amusement shaded with a glimpse of anxiety that Matt couldn't decode.
He looked at her, trying to understand what she'd just said, because as simple as the words seemed, there was also something about them that didn't make sense... He frowned, curious enough to give Rebekah a questioning look, prompting her to explain, even though he felt like he shouldn't care for her explanation.
"Bonnie said she might be able to turn me into a human. I told her I wanted to try."
The whistling of a kettle coming from the kitchen resounded in the silence between them and the enigmatic, vulnerable expression that appeared on Rebekah's face reminded Matt of the tone of her voice that he'd heard for the first time quite some time ago when he'd been hiding in the shadows of a school hallway, waiting for the opportune moment to dagger her.
"I've only ever heard that sound in movies before," Rebekah whispered and then drew a breath resuming a stronger voice. "I'm not going to make grand declarations and say that I'm doing it for you. I'm doing this for myself," she said, slightly thrusting up her chin and Matt wondered if she knew she sounded more childishly proud of herself than arrogantly defiant. "But... I'd be happy to live my human life with you, if that's what you'd want too," she said a little breathlessly, but then her uncertain, almost sad smile became radiant when Matt smiled at her as well.
"Sounds like a pretty good idea," he said in a low voice and Rebekah grinned - and then froze, feeling tears well up in her eyes when he added. "I can't imagine a better way to live a life than sharing it with someone whom you love and who loves you."
xxxdelenaxxx
"It worked!" Caroline exclaimed and sighed in relief, exchanging a happy smile with Stefan.
Bonnie arched an eyebrow at her. "I'm not sure why you're saying it like you were surprised."
"Thank you, Bonnie," Elena said with a bright smile, jumping to her feet.
She ran to Bonnie, gave her a hug and then ran to Damon and threw herself into his arms. Beaming, she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him.
Jeremy grabbed a pillow and made a show of using it to block off the sight of them.
"Of course I'm not surprised! I'm just very, very glad!" Caroline said, hugging Bonnie. "And mad," she added, rapidly changing her tone of voice from cheerful to annoyed.
She crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for Elena to realize that she was talking to her.
"Alright. I'm sorry," Damon said with a sigh. "For... whatever it is that you're most upset about."
"I wasn't talking to you," Caroline said with a stiff smile, tilting her head to the side. "I don't get mad at people I hate. I was talking to Elena."
Stefan rubbed his forehead, only half-listening to what everyone was saying. He felt like he'd just woken up from a very tiring dream, but at the same time he felt oddly rejuvenated and there was that odd, vague sense of what he could only compare to having some free space in his head, as if all of the unnecessary clutter had been thrown out and wasn't weighing him down anymore. He just couldn't imagine, couldn't quite grasp what it meant.
Elena turned around as much as it was possible with Damon still holding her in an embrace. "I'm sorry about what I said. I didn't mean to-"
"OK, Caroline, I think everyone has something to apologize for, including you, so why don't we skip all the apologies, just assume we're all sorry and have a fresh start?" Bonnie proposed, stuffing now empty pages with the names of the Augustine Society's members into her grandmother's grimoire. "Let's forget about all the old grudges and start anew."
His eyes wandering around the room, Enzo tried to put together all of the confusing memories of the last few days that somehow didn't make any sense in the general context... didn't make much sense at all...
"Start anew?" Caroline snorted incredulously. "We swore to do it together, to be together on that day and she just went and did it without us! How am I supposed to ever get over that?"
Bonnie frowned and glanced at Elena who looked equally baffled.
"Now I'm confused," Elena said, wrinkling her forehead. "Caroline, what are you talking about?"
"I can forgive you on one condition," Caroline carried on, ignoring Elena's question. "We'll throw a proper wedding here, in our town and I will be in charge of all the preparations, the reception, everything. Like it was supposed to be," she added pointedly.
Elena bit her lip and stifled a laugh. She looked up at Damon to see what he thought about the idea and held her breath when he said in a low voice.
"I can be marrying you every day for the rest of my life."
Jeremy groaned under his breath. "Seriously?"
Caroline shot him a quick glare that also reached Bonnie when she chuckled.
"Sounds like a boring daily schedule to me, but of course everyone can do with their eternity what they like," Rebekah said flatly, marching into the room and locking her eyes for a second with Bonnie before slumping onto the couch. "Why is everyone staring?" She asked, tossing her purse on a pillow next to her. "Am I late?"
"No," Bonnie said with a smile. "It's perfect timing, really," she said, shifting her eyes to Damon who blinked, suspecting that there was a reason why Bonnie was looking at him with her eyes laughing, although he couldn't quite fathom why.
But before she had a chance to explain, Caroline drew everyone's attention to her when she whispered in utter dismay:
"We were in Paris."
Stefan and Alaric exchanged uncertain looks.
"That's what I remember too," Alaric said cautiously.
But Caroline didn't seem to pay any attention to him or anyone else for that matter, the frown on her face deepening, her eyes fixed on an unidentifiable point in space, as if she was busy solving some gruesome mystery. "Paris... Rome..." Caroline paused, her eyes widening and to everyone's befuddlement she concluded in a grievous voice. "Tokyo!..." And then before anyone managed to ask what the problem was she threw her arms out in the air and cried out in the most aggravated tone. "Ugh, I hate him!"
And stormed out of the room.
Stefan looked after her and despite not knowing more than anyone else what was the exact reason for Caroline getting so upset, he headed for the door to follow her and find out.
Rebekah looked after her with an indifferent expression on her face and then shrugged to herself. "So? Are we doing it or not?" She asked, giving Bonnie a questioning look.
"I didn't tell Damon yet," Bonnie said with a small smile, looking between Damon and Elena who exchanged confused looks. "Do you still want to be a vampire again?"
Damon looked at her, caught off guard by the question, his momentary silence giving Elena time to speak.
"Can you give us a moment?" She whispered hurriedly, her voice shaking a little from amazement at what had just been said.
She sent Bonnie a quick look before pulling Damon out of the room with her.
"Elena..." Damon started when Elena closed the door to the library behind them and turned toward him. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I know what you want to say-"
Elena backed him against the wall and placed her hands on his shoulders. "I don't think so," she said with a faint smile and drew a breath. Damon tilted his head to the side, giving her an intrigued look. "I'm not going to say that you should take your time and think about it. I'm not going to say that it is your choice and I'm going to respect it either way."
Damon smiled, outlining the contour of her face with the backs of his fingers, tugging her closer to him with his arm wrapped around her waist. "I did expect you to say something like that," he admitted. "So... what is it that you wanted to say, Elena?" He asked under his breath, marveling inwardly at the physical impression that the light emanating from Elena's eyes felt like sunlight on his skin.
There was also something in her eyes in this moment that suddenly brought together all of his complicated, grim, tangled memories making it so clear that they all had never led anywhere else but here.
"I wanted to ask you..." Elena drew a breath and then repeated again a little louder. "I wanted to ask you to turn for me."
Damon's eyebrows knitted together, his eyes wandering all over Elena's face. Maybe there was a destiny, after all. But not in the form of a story that was already written, but rather a story that everyone was free to write for themselves.
Elena placed her hand on Damon's cheek and whispered with a small, conspiratorial, feverish smile that he returned. "Be vampire with me."
xxxdelenaxxx
"Bonnie..." Jeremy drew a deep breath and for a few seconds tried to come up with the rest of the sentence but to no avail.
He rolled his eyes and tried again.
"Bonnie, I know this is..." He groaned, giving himself an annoyed look in the mirror.
"Bonnie, this may seem..." He shook his head. "Bonnie, I was thinking..." He squeezed his eyes shut with a grimace. "Bonnie, in the light of the recent events," he recited sarcastically, shooting himself another grim, self-mocking look. "Great," he muttered.
"Are you OK?"
Jeremy turned around so abruptly that he almost knocked over the tall mirror in front of him. "This room has a door, you know," he grunted.
"I know," Damon said slowly. "But I didn't know it was sound-proof. I knocked five times before walking in," he said eying Jeremy with too much amusement in his eyes for Jeremy not to notice.
"Maybe next time if you don't hear any answer you should consider not walking in," Jeremy snapped.
"Who were you talking to?" Damon asked, glancing around Jeremy's room. "Are you seeing ghosts again?"
"Are you here for a casual chat or do you have something to say?" Jeremy asked impatiently with a grimace, squeezing a small box in his hand so tightly that he was afraid he might crush it.
"Have you seen Elena? I wanted to tell her I'll be back in a few hours." Damon paused and then added with a small frown. "Stefan wants to check if he's still a ripper."
Jeremy raised his eyebrows. "Does it only sound so disturbing?"
Damon smiled briefly. "Hopefully."
"I'll tell her. But I think she's just downstairs. Bonnie and I wrote those letters you asked us to and I gave them to Elena a few minutes ago."
Damon nodded. "Thanks," he said and turned to leave.
Jeremy frowned, struggling with the idea for a second before he reluctantly decided to speak. "Damon."
Damon turned around, giving him a questioning look that Jeremy thought was surprisingly nonirritating and just genuinely curious.
It reminded Jeremy of their conversation after Anna's death and for a moment he felt a twinge of painful regret that Katherine's appearance and so many other obstacles and senseless tragedies had made them all take such a long detour before they could find their way to becoming a family.
Not that he'd ever say that out loud, Jeremy thought with an inward smile that was faint and yet it felt so happy if only because it was so hard-earned, especially after six months of ice-cold, burning grief that he was sure they'd carry with Elena in their hearts forever.
"What- How- I mean..." Jeremy sighed, searching for the right words. "What did you say to Elena when you asked her to marry you?"
Damon tilted his head to the side, squinting a little. "I don't know if I'd recommend that particular speech, but... I'm sure we can come up with something good." He closed the door and leaned against it. "What do you have so far?"
Jeremy sighed. "I have a ring." He half-raised his hand and dropped it. "Other than that, I have: 'Bonnie, I...'"
xxxdelenaxxx
Enzo threw another page into the fire and moved it deeper into the flames with a poker. He propped his hand on top of the fireplace and pressing his forehead to it, watched the white sheets of paper darken and shrink, turn into ashes and disappear.
"Aren't these empty anyway?"
Enzo smiled weakly, still staring into the fire. "Well, who knows. Maybe there's a spell out there that could magic the names back onto the paper," he murmured thoughtfully, poking the ashes and tossing the last page into the fireplace.
Elena walked further into the room, glancing at the burning lists before moving her eyes back to Enzo. "They really are gone," she said softly with a cautious smile.
Enzo snorted humorlessly. "Not really," he said, glancing at Elena over his shoulder. He tapped the side of his head in an inattentive manner.
"That's up to you."
Enzo put the poker away. "Is my taxi here?" He asked, brushing the remnants of dust from the fireplace off his hands and looking toward the window.
"No," Elena said, squinting a little. "Where are you going?"
Enzo shifted his eyes to her. "Away," he said with a smirk that didn't reach his eyes.
Elena opened her mouth to speak, but then glanced at the clock and bit her lip. "I could... drive you to the train station if you'd like," she offered and felt a pang sympathy at the automatic way in which Enzo nodded, not even remotely surprised by her not trying to talk him out of leaving.
"Hey, Elena," Jeremy peered into to room, holding onto the door frame. "Damon left with Stefan-"
"I know, he just told me," Elena cut him off with a smile.
Jeremy nodded. "And I promised to help Alaric with something. I'll be back in the evening. See you," he said, glancing at Enzo who looked like he wanted to say something and indeed stopped Jeremy before he turned to leave.
"About that... trip," Enzo said, pronouncing the word as if it was quite difficult to pronounce. "You and Bonnie... the lake... the boat..." he frowned, stammering a little, as if he wasn't able to put all of these words into a proper order and make a coherent sentence out of them.
"Yeah, yeah, I know." Jeremy interrupted him with a dismissive wave of his hand, barely glancing at him on his way out of the room. "We're awesome. Get over it."
xxxdelenaxxx
Looking up at the sky as she was descending the stairs, Bonnie almost bumped into Klaus on her way out of his house.
"Does it look a little different from the Other Side?" Klaus asked with a small smirk, clasping his hands behind his back and looking up.
Bonnie thrust up her chin slightly narrowing her eyes at him. "Ask your siblings. I think you've been sending each of them over there quite often."
Klaus shifted his eyes to her, the smirk still present on his face even though his eyes weren't as bright. "Not many of them left to ask."
"To quote our mutual friend..." Bonnie grimaced. "Seriously?" She said flatly and moved to walk past Klaus, but he stopped her.
"To what do I owe the visit?"
"I didn't come to visit you," Bonnie said, her voice stern. "I came to put the protection spell over Hope. And I also brought back that chapter from your mother's grimoire. I gave it to Elijah," she explained unsmilingly and turned around, but Klaus stopped her in her tracks once again.
"Thank you," he said in that voice Bonnie could never decide if it was serious or mocking, because it sounded almost too sincere. "You had to do neither of these."
"You didn't have to share your mothers' swapping spells or take Stefan and Caroline on a trip around the world either."
Klaus smiled. "I've got ulterior motifs aplenty."
"If they're of the same kind as your sister's, then maybe there's hope for you," Bonnie said with a sigh and turned on her heels before Klaus managed to formulate a retort.
xxxdelenaxxx
Watching the healed and compelled stranger jog away across the forest, Stefan wiped the blood off his chin with the back of his hand.
"Are you live-tweeting what I'm doing or just ignoring me?" He asked, turning around and slightly wrinkling his forehead at Damon who was standing with his back against the tree, his eyes glued to the screen of his phone.
Damon smirked to himself and Stefan raised his eyebrows in a questioning expression, but then realized that his words hadn't even registered with Damon at all, so he cleared his throat and repeated the question.
Damon looked up, doing his best to wipe the smile off his face. "I thought you told me not to do anything? Isn't that the whole point? To check if you can stop by yourself?"
"But it looks like you are doing something," Stefan said, pointing to the phone.
Damon squinted. "I'm just... organizing my phone book," he said evasively. "What am I supposed to do anyway? Watch you?"
"Well, for starters make sure I don't kill anyone," Stefan said in a sarcastically casual tone.
Damon extended his arms and shrugged. "You didn't."
"Not that you would've noticed."
"I did notice that you didn't," Damon pointed out with a crooked smile.
Stefan snorted mirthlessly. "So..." he said after a pause in a pensive tone, shifting his eyes from their surroundings to Damon. "Do you think Klaus compelled me?"
Damon put his phone away and crossed his arms over his chest. "Ric said he kept an eye on you at all times, so I don't know how and when he could've done it."
"Or why," Stefan added with a sigh.
"Maybe it's just that your default settings have changed, because you re-lived your first day as a vampire?" Damon offered with a speculative grimace.
Stefan nodded absently, pondering this for a few moments. "Just so you know, Caroline invited him."
Damon shook his head with a small frown, not really understanding what Stefan was talking about, but then the realization dawned on him and he widened his eyes at Stefan. "You've got to be kidding me."
Stefan shrugged. "Caroline thinks it's a nice reconciliatory gesture and that by doing it we may avoid the 'Maleficent effect,' so to speak."
"I don't care about Klaus maleficentizing himself even more. I don't want him to come. I don't like him," Damon said with a grimace.
"I don't like Enzo, but he is coming, isn't he?" Stefan retorted.
"You're not actually making a comparison here? Besides, it's my wedding, so I'm pretty sure I can decide whom to invite."
"You do realize Caroline's in charge of the preparations, right?"
"Why are you saying it in such an amused tone?" Damon asked with a suspicious frown.
"I'm not saying it in an amused tone."
"Yes, you do. And she promised Elena to keep it small and simple."
"Caroline actually used the words 'small' and 'simple'?"
"Yes. No. I don't know," Damon grimaced and Stefan bit back a chuckle. "I don't know what words she used exactly, but-"
The sound of an incoming text message interrupted them and Stefan used this opportunity to suggest that they should get back to the car.
xxxdelenaxxx
Enzo didn't think he knew everything about the modern world just yet, but he was pretty sure that train tracks didn't usually run across parking lots right in front of police stations.
"Ah. It was a trick, then. Offering to give me a ride to the train station while the truth is that you want to get me arrested," Enzo said with a brief smirk, tilting his head to the side and narrowing his eyes at Elena who turned off the engine and shook her head with a smile.
"No. You just have a job interview in there," she said, pointing to the sheriff's office. "In ten minutes."
Enzo blinked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion. "A what?"
"A job interview," Elena repeated, turning toward him. "With Sheriff Forbes. Your resumé is already there. Damon wrote it," she added with an amused smile. Enzo just stared at her. "Good luck," she said, glancing meaningfully at the clock and ushering him out of the car.
xxxdelenaxxx
"I hope you like lime ice-cream," Meredith said, placing the desserts on the table.
"I love it," Bonnie said with a smile. "Which can't be said about writing poems."
Jeremy smiled. "We're not supposed to write a poem. Just a short text." He slid the blank sheet of paper across the table to Alaric who narrowed his eyes at him.
"I'm a historian."
"And that's going to be a historical event," Bonnie said in all seriousness. "According to Caroline. And all the TV channels in Virginia," she added and everyone laughed.
Jeremy grabbed a piece of paper and began sketching on it. "So are you sure we're just going with crows? Without tombstones or anything?"
Alaric winced. "Alive or undead, I really don't think drawings of tombstones are what anyone would want to see on their wedding invitations."
Bonnie's eyes lingered on Jeremy's hand and with an inward smile she thought back to when there was something about the act of drawing itself that had been making her feel that it was somehow related to her forgotten past.
"Alright. What do I get if I write the first sentence?" Meredith asked, taking her place at the table.
"An exclusive right to write the second sentence," Alaric said, reaching for a spoon.
Meredith chuckled.
"Oh, and," Alaric wrinkled his forehead, suddenly remembering about something. "When we were in Italy, I didn't manage to visit that witch you'd asked me to find and thank for her help," he said with a small sigh when Jeremy looked up at him. "In fact, I think you must've given me the wrong address..."
"No, the address was definitely correct," Jeremy said with conviction.
"What witch?" Bonnie asked, propping her head on her elbow.
"We found your cousin Lucy and she gave us the address of a witch in Italy who could... who could talk to ghosts," Jeremy said, his voice faltering slightly at the memory, but he smiled when Bonnie put her hand over his. "We went to her with Elena and she told us that..." He drew a breath. "That you and Damon weren't dead."
Bonnie gave Jeremy a warm smile, but then arched an eyebrow. "A witch in Italy who could talk to ghosts?" She repeated with a hint of skepticism in her tone as if something had just occurred to her.
"Yes, well, the thing is," Alaric continued, "that when I went there... there was a building there, but... it was off limits to tourists and seemed deserted and empty altogether. There was a commemorative plaque... but no door, at least not one that opened."
Jeremy grimaced. "What do you mean there was no door? It was a regular building. We went inside and... down the stairs. I remember exactly how everything looked in there."
"What was her name?" Bonnie asked, biting her lip.
"That witch's name?" Jeremy looked at Bonnie and shrugged. "Verona."
Bonnie smiled and leaned back in her chair while Alaric and Meredith exchanged amused glances.
Jeremy looked between everyone with a confused frown. "What?"
"That... didn't ring any bells with you?" Bonnie asked, squinting.
"No... I mean, yeah, sure, if you mean- But-" He shook his head. "I saw her. Elena saw her too. She was real."
"It wasn't the witch who was real, Jeremy," Bonnie said with a small smile. "There is no witch. It's a... legend. Or rather a spell of a certain kind... Lucy must've cast it when you asked her for help. Grams told me about it. Back when I was rather skeptical about all the witchy things." Bonnie averted her eyes from everyone for a second, a few bittersweet memories flashing across her mind. "And this spell sounded particularly incredible. It's a spell that allows you to see a witch who grants lost lovers hope. But not everyone can see her. This spell... this spell is just a possibility. Whether you'll be able to find this witch or not is entirely up to you, because... you can only find her if someone is looking for you as much as you're looking for them." Bonnie drew a breath. "If and only if someone loves you and misses you as much as you love and miss them." Bonnie smiled while Jeremy's eyes widened slowly in understanding. "The person you think you saw..." She added in a hushed voice, squeezing Jeremy's hand in hers. "It was your own heart telling you not to let go."
xxxdelenaxxx
"I see you've been working as a police officer for the last six months," Liz said matter-of-factly, glancing at Enzo over his resumé that she was holding in her hands.
Enzo looked at her as if he was trying to figure out if she was joking. He kept glancing around the office every once in a while, as if he half-expected someone to jump out at any moment and say this entire conversation was just a ruse and Liz couldn't help feeling saddened by this acute sense of wariness in his gaze that she imagined would take years to fade.
"And before that," she continued when Enzo's only response to her previous statement was a humorless grimace, "you worked as a..." Liz paused and sighed a little, squinting and giving Enzo a quick look over the page before adding in a low voice, "medical assistant. For... seventy years." She put the sheet of paper back on the table.
Enzo snorted, but then frowned, catching Liz' gaze and somehow immediately guessing that she knew.
And perhaps even understood. He looked at her in silence, caught off guard by all this.
"Well, I'm afraid you'll have to re-write your resumé before we can put it in your file," Liz said, breaking the silence and looking at him with simple friendliness that Enzo found almost frightening, because, as he suddenly realized, he rather forgot how to expect from people something other than cruelty. "Some people around here may be as suspicious as to not consider 1710 as the graduation date a typo," Liz said with a hint of humor in her eyes. "Same with references." She slid a couple of pages toward Enzo and he blinked and then stared in surprise at Jeremy's and Bonnie's signatures under his letters of recommendation. "They're very... comprehensive," Liz said cautiously, biting back a smile," but a little too frank to be read by anyone else from the Council."
She stood up and Enzo automatically followed, even though he still couldn't really wrap his mind around what was happening.
Liz walked around her desk and extended her hand to him. "Welcome to the Mystic Falls Police Department," she said in an official tone, but then added in a lower, warmer voice that evoked in Enzo the strangest feeling that was simultaneously sorrow and its exact opposite. "Welcome to Mystic Falls."
xxxdelenaxxx
"Are you going to be OK?" Damon asked, stopping the car in front of the store.
Stefan nodded. "I'm pretty sure I can handle grocery shopping without supervision." Damon smiled. "Yeah, I feel fine. Surprisingly and suspiciously fine, but... fine," Stefan muttered with a speculative grimace and then sighed, producing a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolding it.
"This looks scary," Damon said, narrowing his eyes at the long list of groceries.
"This list or Caroline's handwriting?"
"This list in Caroline's handwriting."
"Don't worry about that," Stefan said, opening the car door. "You won't be eating these anyway. These are ingredients for welcome-to-the-neighborhood cookies."
Damon shook his head with a weak snort. Stefan turned away and was about to get out of the car, but then he stopped, sat back down and closed the door.
"Alright," Damon finally said, after waiting for a few moments for Stefan to say something. "How much do you need?" He asked, reaching for his wallet.
Stefan's lips twitched into a brief smile, but then a grim frown returned and he drew a breath before turning his eyes to Damon. "I just... I'm sorry," he said in a low, firm, solemn voice, looking Damon straight in the eye.
Damon raised an eyebrow. "Am I supposed to know or guess what you mean?" He asked cautiously, the hint of humor still present in his voice despite Stefan's expression and tone being utterly serious.
"I... I gave up and I'm sorry," Stefan said tonelessly. "I shouldn't have. I wasn't looking for you and I'm sorry. I just... I just couldn't find any hope knowing that the Other Side was gone and-"
"Stefan." Damon interrupted him with a shrug. "You couldn't have possibly known. We were dead. There was no hope."
Stefan glanced away with a mirthless grimace. "That didn't stop Elena and Jeremy from searching the world. That's what I should've been doing too. Because it wasn't about hope. It's always only about-"
The sound of an incoming message interrupted the conversation and Stefan shook his head with an incredulous smile. "What is it with you and this phone today? It's 50th message, at least."
"You've been actually counting my messages?" Damon asked, taking the phone out of his pocket and taking a quick look at it, before putting it back with a barely concealable smile. "You were saying?..."
Stefan waved his hand in a dismissive gesture and got out of the car.
Damon made a confused face. "I didn't forgive you yet."
Before closing the door, Stefan peered into the car. "You can text me when you do."
xxxdelenaxxx
"You may stay here if you wish. I'm leaving anyway," Klaus said after a longer moment of silence when despite reassurances that it wasn't necessary Hayley had taken Hope out of the room and left Klaus alone with Rebekah.
"Do you mean this house or is this a country-wide permission?" Rebekah asked in mock-astonishment.
Klaus smirked stiffly. "I'll take sarcasm over hostility every day."
"Really?" Rebekah deadpanned, but then sighed, as if she was already tired with the conversation.
She looked away, but her eyes darted to Klaus when he spoke, his expression becoming completely serious, but in that enigmatic way she never knew if she could truly trust. Because it usually was as sincere as foreboding.
"Thank you. For taking care of Hope. I didn't even have a right to beg you to do it and yet you did it almost without being asked. I know you didn't do it for me, but... it is still my place to thank you."
Rebekah shook her head, pursing her lips in a brief, dejectedly cynical grimace. "Sometimes I don't know if you know me so little or if you're afraid of knowing yourself too much?" She smiled sadly at a shadow of a confused frown that flitted across Klaus' face. "Maybe it's time to stop running? Stop hiding behind the wars that you don't even want to fight? You've been trying so hard to become someone you're not that you made yourself believe that that's who you've always been." She took a step forward, almost certain that he shuddered and for a moment they went back in time and she felt that she was speaking to someone who understood... to someone who made wooden horses for her to protect her from bad dreams... "I used to think that it's been years since we should've stopped running. But you know what I've discovered? That's it's been more than years. It's been centuries," Rebekah whispered, thrusting up her chin to keep her tears at bay. "We could've been free if we hadn't spent so much time believing that we weren't. People think that the worst fear is the fear of death. But this is not true. The worst fear is the fear of life." With a trembling hand Rebekah reached out and squeezed Klaus' hand in hers while holding his gaze, as glossy as hers. "We only know how to suffer, Nik. How to be dying over and over again. We don't know how to live. But maybe... maybe we could learn?"
She withdrew her hand and left the room, quietly closing the door behind her.
xxxdelenaxxx
Fumbling with the ribbons strapped across the envelopes that she really didn't think were "absolutely necessary," Bonnie opened the door, mentally preparing herself to explain to Caroline why the flowers weren't ready yet-
"Damon!"
"Throwing a back-from-the-dead party?" He asked and Bonnie tightened her hold on a bunch of decorative envelops in her hands, glad she hadn't managed to write anything on them yet.
"Yes- No-" Bonnie chuckled nervously under her breath. "I'm just... filling out my college applications," she blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.
She shrugged and stepped back to make room for Damon to walk in, hoping that there were no confetti boxes left in the hallway.
But Damon didn't move and just extended his hand with a miniature tree toward her. "I thought this might come in handy as a challenge, a... reconnect-with-nature exercise?" he said with a lop-sided smile.
Stifling a smile at the tag with the name 'Alice' on it, Bonnie took the present from him. "This is a bonsai tree. It's not supposed to grow any bigger," she said matter-of-factly.
"Hence the challenge part," Damon said with a wink. "And that's the thank you part," he added when Bonnie found a folded piece of paper in between the branches of the tree.
She glanced up at him and flipped it open, reading it quickly through half-lidded eyes. "If a year ago someone told me that I'd be turning people into vampires to make them happy..." she said thoughtfully with a weak smile, looking up at him. But then she frowned a little. "Is there any particular reason why you're not coming in?"
"Other than that I haven't been invited in?"
Bonnie blinked and then snorted humorlessly. "I'm sorry. I totally forgot I've never-"
"Bonnie... you don't have to," Damon interrupted her in a low voice, giving her a reassuring nod.
Bonnie narrowed her eyes at him, but then her humorous expression turned serious and she drew a breath, doing her best to smile and not wince. "I couldn't have- I wouldn't have done it alone," she said on an impulse in a firm, hushed tone.
"You would have," Damon said unhesitatingly with a faint smile.
Bonnie bit her lip and smiled back. "No. I really don't think I would've had the courage to take that risk if I was alone," she said pensively and then shook her head at the still skeptical look on Damon's face and grabbed him by his jacket sleeve. "Come on in, James."
xxxdelenaxxx
"This is all wrong," Caroline said with more than a hint of dismay in her voice, glancing right and left in apprehension.
"Nah," Stefan waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, snatching the recipe out of her hand. "Not all of it. It's just that this abbreviation stands for a tea spoon not a table spoon."
"They look the same!" Caroline exclaimed, annoyed. "Almost."
Stefan stifled a smile, taking a spoon out of Caroline's hand and lightly patting her on the head with it. She laughed briefly despite trying not to.
"It would've been bad if it was salt. But it was just cinnamon. No one's going to mind more cinnamon," he said with a shrug. Somewhat reluctantly, Caroline nodded, but then she averted her eyes from him and Stefan took a step closer to her. "What is it?"
"If you think this is stupid, just say it."
Stefan smiled weakly. "I don't think this is stupid."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you, do, because it is."
"So you think it's stupid?"
"No, I don't, but it is!" Caroline said and groaned in frustration, hiding her face in her hands.
With an amused smile, Stefan shook his hand and putting the recipe away, pulled Caroline into his arms. She leaned her cheek on his shoulder.
"I actually think it's a good idea," Stefan said after a pause.
Caroline sighed. "Great," she mumbled. "Guess that makes us both stupid."
"No," Stefan protested with conviction. "It makes us both..."
He trailed off and Caroline waited and waited for him to finish the sentence, but after a while glanced up at him and snorted at the expression on his face that was meant to imply that he was trying really hard to come up with a different word.
"Well, at least we have a couple of ulterior motifs," Caroline said with a resigned sigh.
"Exactly," Stefan said, reaching for a jar with coconut flakes. "We're being sneaky and manipulative and being stupid is just a clever cover."
Caroline smiled and grabbed a small box of icing. "Do we add some decorations?"
"Like... smiley faces or something more appropriate like... bloody faces?"
Caroline winced. "We don't have red frosting anyway, so let's do-"
"Post-modern snowflakes?" Stefan offered and Caroline hid her face in her hands and laughed.
xxxdelenaxxx
"If that's whom the post office employs these days I'm going to switch to e-mails only," Damon said when after leaving Bonnie's house he saw Klaus sliding a rather large, flat box into her mailbox.
Klaus sighed. "Way to ruin a surprise."
"Funny. It's usually your surprises that ruin everything."
"I see we're still bitter. That's a sign of insecurity, just saying," Klaus called over his shoulder, heading back to his car.
Damon frowned, hesitating for a second before deciding to ask. "Did you compel my brother?"
Klaus stopped in his tracks. "Does he think I compelled him?" He asked, amused.
Damon's mouth twitched into a sour smile. "He's brainstorming possible explanations."
Smirking to himself, Klaus turned around. "Well, you may tell him that despite fleeting appearances, one's will really is stronger than anything, including psychological patterns, natural mechanisms, spells and curses." He paused and then opened his mouth, his eyes twinkling with humor as if he was about to make one of his usual biting remarks, but then something must've crossed his mind – and changed it, because the smirk on his face faded into a serious expression and he said in a voice surprisingly free of any kind of irony. "As I'm sure you know."
xxxdelenaxxx
Elena glanced at the dark window, smiling at how beautiful the stars looked, sprinkled all over the perfectly clear, black sky.
Walking up to the windows, she pushed the curtains to the sides as far as they would go to allow for a better view and then returned to the wardrobe for another set of clothes.
She didn't really know what to pack, because she didn't know where they were going, but there was something inexplicably comforting and enjoyable about simply tiptoeing around the room, folding the clothes and placing them in suitcases. She didn't even turn any music on, the silence was as entertaining and the mere thought that she was home, that everyone was safe, that everything was alright was making every gesture gratifying.
Her hand lingering on the fabrics, on the furniture, Elena tried to re-learn the reality, feeling as if she'd been away for such a very long time even if it was only six months... or perhaps it really was longer than that. Perhaps only now she was finally able to start living a life that she'd always wanted, always believed in, but could've never quite grasped before... before died.
Smiling pensively to herself, she stilled her movements, looking toward the window for a longer while, gazing at the shapes of the trees, listening to the wind, her vampire hearing making it possible for her to hear even the quietest rustling of the faraway leaves.
When she finally turned around, her eyes widened in surprise at the sight of Damon standing in the doorway. He was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest and a peculiar mixture of melancholy and exhilaration in his gaze.
She wanted to laugh and ask how long he'd been standing there, but she found herself caught in the moment and unable to speak, his eyes locked with hers in silent understanding that this was the most extraordinary ordinary time and that they both felt overwhelmed by the possibility of feeling happy without fearing an aftermath.
They didn't have to hold their breaths anymore. There were no ghosts of the past left, no secrets looming in the shadows waiting to tear the reality apart. And the reality itself was now of a different kind. It wasn't fragile anymore.
It was unbreakable.
"Something tells me you're packing for our honeymoon," Damon said with as much humor as he could muster, but his voice caught in his throat a little and Elena dropped the dress she was holding in her hands and zoomed to him, her arms locking around his neck.
"I am," she said, pressing her cheek to his, trying to smile, but feeling tears well up in her eyes instead.
Damon's embrace tightened around her and they seemed to simultaneously, wordlessly acknowledge the bittersweet memory.
"I shouldn't have left then," Elena whispered and Damon drew back to look at her.
"Elena." He cupped her face in his hands, a frown and a smile flitting across his face at the same time. "It's me who should apologize-"
"No." Elena shook her head and brushed her fingertips across his lips. "I just didn't understand... even though so much happened... that was something I still didn't understand. I understand it now. That it didn't matter. What happened... it didn't matter. I mean it did, of course it did, but... It wasn't something that should get between us. And before you say that this brings us back to the first break-up," she continued quickly, catching his hand before he managed to mirror her silencing gesture and brush his fingers against her lips. "It doesn't. We're a thousand miles away from there," Elena said, smiling weakly when she had to blink back the tears.
"Elena-"
"Damon." She narrowed her eyes at him in a mockingly stern way and pressed a kiss to his lips. "Everything I said that night after we were cured from the virus... About my beliefs and... and I don't know if it's a paradox or not, maybe it is, but... what I didn't see then and what I see now is that it mattered only because we were together." She grimaced, her hands clenching around his arms in an effort to put her feelings into words as precisely as possible. "I want to be this person, I want to believe in all the good, important, beautiful things... because of you," she said ardently, holding Damon's gaze with utmost intensity. "Because you make me want to be myself. You make me want to live." She smiled against his lips when he kissed her and then continued with her lips still touching his. "We were getting it all wrong. This toxic nonsense. Love isn't toxic. It's OK to love someone more than anything, to love someone despite and above everything. And I was never that certain of who I am- Everything I said that night," Elena smiled brokenly, leaning into Damon's touch, his hand on her cheek, his eyes boring into hers in amazement. "I could only say that because you made me feel so certain of myself, of who I am, who I want to be. I had more than enough time to think about all of that and I realized that you don't just make me happy. You make me happy with who I am, you make me want to be the best I can be."
"You made me believe in everything that I'd ever stopped believing in, including myself," Damon spoke in a low voice, his first words blending with Elena's last. They kissed and exchanged another feverish smile. "You make me want to feel alive. You made me feel, you made me want to feel again. And I don't know if it's selfish, toxic, right or wrong, but I'm never going to let you go. I don't want to be away from you ever again. I need you. I want to be that person- I want to be... that person I barely remember, but you somehow know," he whispered with a faint smile and Elena smiled back, pressing her forehead to his and closing her eyes. "I want to be the best I can be... for you."
They kissed and hugged each other, standing in silence for a longer while.
"Is it going to be like that from now on?" Damon asked, his eyes closed, his face buried in Elena's hair.
"I hope not," Elena said after a pause, trying to resume a steady voice and tilting her head backwards to look at him. "I haven't seen you since 1pm. That's six hours in a row!"
Damon gave her a lopsided smile, his forehead falling against hers.
"I can't say I had to endure a similar ordeal," he said after a pause with a smirk flickering across his face. "I saw you every three minutes or so."
Elena bit her lip, trying to keep a serious expression on her face. "You didn't have any pictures in your new phone, so I just wanted to send you some," she said matter-of-factly. "And since I knew what you were doing, I just wanted you to know what I was doing all day."
"I set the picture of you on our car as your contact picture," Damon said, squinting, and Elena squeezed her eyes shut and laughed briefly under her breath. "And... the shower one as the wallpaper."
Elena widened her eyes at him. "You didn't!"
They exchanged amused smiles and then their lips collided in an unhurried kiss.
Elena's hands flew to Damon's cheeks and she held his face, smiling when his lips wandered off from hers to trail soft kisses across her skin, her eyelids before returning to her mouth.
But then they looked at each other and something happened. Some kind of a protective barrier surrounding all those feelings they'd been carrying inside for half a year broke down and the realization of what had happened six months ago hit them harder now than it had ever before.
They held each other without words, without trying to calm down, smiling through the tears and finally able to breathe in - and breathe out.
Now that everything was alright, now that they didn't have to be strong, cling to hope, try not to lose their senses - all the grief burst free. It returned as something real - and it felt both rejuvenating and terrifying to fully realize that it was gone, that they had survived not only the separation of the last months, but everything else that had happened after they'd met, before they'd met, everything that had ever happened to them.
They'd survived it all.
xxxdelenaxxx
"What is he doing?" Caroline asked out loud when Stefan stopped the car. "You take the tray," she said before getting out of the car.
Stefan stifled a smile at her annoyed, commanding tone of voice and turned off the engine.
Klaus looked away from his car and watched them approach him with an amused smirk flitting across his face.
"To what do I owe-"
"What are you doing?" Caroline interrupted him, glancing suspiciously at the luggage in the car.
Slowly, Klaus closed the trunk. "Leaving. So if you came to check if I'd already-"
"Leaving?" Why?" Caroline unceremoniously cut him off again.
"Rebekah mentioned that Hope would be staying here," Stefan pointed out, appearing next to Caroline with a tray covered with a shiny baking paper in his hands.
Klaus arched an eyebrow at the sight, but either because of Caroline's genuine aggravation or a sincerely serious look on Stefan's face he allowed his facial expression to change into something more real than a sardonic smile.
"Yes, well, as you might've noticed while you were there, there's a bit of a commotion wrecking New Orleans right now and it won't just end itself." Klaus looked around with his eyes narrowed before shifting his gaze back to Stefan and Caroline. "Not to mention that not unlike everyone else, she's probably better off without me," he said in a voice intended to sound lighthearted, but it came out strained. "I'm very touched, though, that you came to say good-bye," he added, plastering a smirk on his face again even if it didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Wait a minute. You're leaving?!" Caroline widened her eyes at him, but before he managed to find her inexplicable irritation amusing, she added. "Running away, just like that."
"I'm not running away," Klaus protested in a calm voice and Caroline huffed in frustration, because he really seemed to believe his words. "Like I said-"
"No one is better off without their parents! Especially not-" She trailed off and stifled an urge to roll her eyes.
Stefan looked from her to Klaus and said in a low voice. "Especially not when said parents could, maybe, perhaps, unlikely but possibly be really good if they put their mind to it."
Caroline watched Stefan from under her eyelids and smiled faintly when he glanced at her with a glimpse of a smile and understanding in his eyes.
They looked at Klaus who stared back at them as if they'd just said something in a language he didn't understand.
"After a thousand years you have an actual chance to build something real and good and you're going to throw it away to fight some stupid, artificial war? For what? A few buildings? You're looking for home where you can't find it, because it's easier that way. And running away under the pretext of not being good enough to stay is also easier than staying and becoming that person that you think you should be to have a right to stay," Caroline said in a hurried, firm voice, almost running out of breath.
Not a muscle in Klaus' face twitched, he didn't move, but there was something happening in his eyes that was difficult to decipher, but impossible to miss.
It didn't seem like Klaus would break the silence that had fallen, so after a pause Stefan said conversationally. "And we've got cookies to go with that speech."
There was another moment of silence that followed and then Caroline chuckled.
"But don't get the wrong idea!" She said warningly, despite Klaus looking pretty much at a loss for any ideas. "We want to trade the cookies for a few things," she said, gesticulating while enumerating the requests. "We need white horses, carriages and some general help with turning the town overnight into the most lavishly decorated celebratory place ever."
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Stirring in his sleep, Damon moved his hand and was a little surprised when he couldn't feel Elena's body under his arm. With a grimace, he tilted his head to the side and blinked his eyes open.
Elena was sitting upright on the bed, looking toward the window with a frown on her face. Damon watched her for a few seconds trying to guess what was going on but to no avail.
"Elena?"
His vague worries were appeased a little when even though she didn't look at him, Elena's hand floated blindly to his face and skimmed across his lips in a gently hushing gesture. Smiling to himself, Damon grasped her hand and lightly scraped his fangs against it, a glint of humor in his eyes, but Elena didn't seem to notice.
"I heard a cannon."
Damon blinked, caught off guard by the statement. "A cannon?" He echoed, puzzled, but then he rolled onto his side, smirking. "You mean you saw fireworks?" He raised an eyebrow, drumming his fingers along her arm and across her chest.
Elena's confusion only increased at that and her eyes darted to Damon, whose smirk and ministrations were rather self-explanatory. She stifled a snort.
"No, Damon," she said, trying not to laugh when he began pulling her toward him, nuzzling her neck and making nom-noming sounds while moving his lips across her skin. "I'm serious. I heard an actual cannon!"
Elena rolled her eyes when it seemed clear Damon wasn't going to devote any serious consideration to her words, but then a loud noise broke the early morning silence and Elena triumphantly straightened up, grabbing Damon's arm.
"See? Did you hear that? It was a cannon! I knew it was a cannon."
Slowly, Damon pulled himself to a sitting position, acknowledging with some reluctance that it was indeed highly unlikely to mistake the sound. Especially that a moment later it resounded again and again and again.
"What's going on?" Damon muttered, his forehead creasing in thought.
His gaze met Elena's and for a second they both seemed to truly consider the possibility of having magically traveled back in time.
But then the cannonade was joined by church bells and distant sounds of people cheering.
"What day is today?" Elena asked, lacing her hand through Damon's arm and propping her chin on his shoulder. "It's not Founder's Day, is it?"
Damon slowly shook his head and they quickly went through all the possible holidays, but none of them seemed to fit the current date.
Glancing right and left around the bedroom in absent bafflement, Damon narrowed his eyes at a rectangular piece of paper that he noticed on the floor near the door. Throwing the bed cover off him, he went to pick it up.
"What is it?" Elena asked, moving to sit on her bent knees in the middle of the bed.
Damon shrugged, looking the white, blank envelope over a few times before opening it and taking a wide, and beautifully decorated with hand-drawn images, card out of it.
"What is it?" Elena repeated impatiently and was about to scoot off the bed and run to see for herself, but Damon's lips twitching into a smile stopped her and replaced her anxious thoughts with sheer curiosity. "Damon?"
Glancing up at Elena from above the card in his hands, Damon flashed her a brief smile before beginning to read in a very formal tone. "The fabled town of Mystic Falls cordially requests the honor of your presence at the historical ceremony and invites all the residents of the beautiful state of Virginia to join in the festivities accompanying the celebration of the happy union between our two well-esteemed founding families as Miss Elena Gilbert and Mr. Damon Salvatore are married-"
Elena, who had stormed off the bed a second before, snatched the card out of his hands, running over the lines a few times before reading the invitation out loud again. "... are married in a ceremony of jubilation. The ceremony will be followed by a town-wide reception that will last all night."
"Small and simple, eh?" Damon said, pulling Elena into his arms and brushing his lips across her cheek.
Elena squeezed her eyes shut with a sigh. "Actually, the exact words were 'local and elegant,' so I should've probably seen that coming. Well," she continued, turning toward Damon, placing her hands on his shoulders and looking up at him. "At least it means that there's nothing ill-boding about the cannons, because they're being fired in happy celebration," she said, smiling against Damon's lips when he kissed her.
"I knew they were," Damon said and Elena gave him a slightly questioning look. "After all, we're in Mystic Falls." He took Elena's hands in his and smiled, resting his forehead against hers when she laughed, guessing what he was going to say. "The town where nothing bad ever happens."