Authors Note: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR LOVELY REVIEWS! I would love if we could keep those coming in cause they are a true motivation and inspiration for the story! :) Hope you enjoy this next chapter and i severely apologise that it took so long, but here you go:

Three Years Earlier: Bonnie and Damon held hands, clutching onto to one another and instinctively gluing their eyes shut as the brilliant, blindly white light passed over them, and then… it was over. The light passed, and they remained standing there, hands interlaced. Tentatively, Damon opened his eyes. "Was that it?" He said.

"I guess so." Bonnie replied. Admittedly something did feel different. The atmosphere seemed thinner and the general color scheme slightly darker than it had been. This didn't feel like the other side.

"Well at least it didn't hurt." He optimized "but where the hell are we?"

Bonnie let go of his hand, bravely wondering forward towards the forest, with Damon following closely behind.

Before too long they were back in what appeared to be the graveyard of Mystic Falls, the definitive fog of the other side floating around the surroundings, except there hundreds of people all gathered around in concentric circles chanting away, unaware of Bonnie and Damon's arrival. Clearly these people were witches and Damon thought he recognized Sheila Bennett among the crowd.

"Who are these people?"

Bonnie walked up to them, as if the congregation was the most amazing thing she'd ever seen in her life.

"They're my ancestors."

Present Day: "As per usual witch theories are extremely intricate and complicated but Liv and I will try to keep it simple." Luke addressed the groups, consisting of Jeremy, Caroline and Stefan, while his twin began drawing a diagram on Caroline's white board. At the center of the board in a green marker she had the word DEATH written in capitals and circled. "When a human dies they find peace, accepting their fate and fading away to a relaxing afterlife, kinda like an eternal retirement. Which is why it's impossible to bring back a human, because once they find peace no magic at all can find them to interfere with their rest."

"Wait, are you suggesting that we can bring Damon and Bonnie back?" Stefan asked.

"We're getting to that," Liv explained, continuing "when a supernatural creature dies a far more complicated process takes place. Initially all supernatural creatures will go to the other side, where unfortunately many stay or ever," on the board she written the word's peace, and other side, connecting both to the DEATH at the center, "The Lucky ones will eventually find peace which is pretty much exactly the same as it is for the humans," she drew an arrow connecting other side to peace.

"It feels weird to have gotten this far without being told to skip to the important part" Luke mused.

"No Damon to interrupt," Caroline pointed out, Stefan just glared at her with a 'not now' look. "Sorry, continue Liv."

"Thank you. The extremely unlucky ones would be pulled off into oblivion, where again no magic can find them." Liv attached another line to, other side, labeling it oblivion.

"As you already know Other Side imploded thanks to the Traveler community bringing back Markos and tearing holes into its very foundation. Essentially what happened it that Oblivion gobbled up the Other Side taking everybody over there with it. This is more then likely what happened to your friends." As Luke spoke, Liv crossed out Other Side, "The only supernatural community to whom this whole structure does not apply to, are witches. They need to stick around for their coven in case they want to practice ancestral magic and hence they have their own secret little enclave of the Other Side, commonly known as the Ancestral Lands."

"We figure that, despite the complete unlikeness of this scenario, that maybe due to Bonnie's witch ancestry your friends may have somehow ended up in the Ancestral Lands."

"I knew it," Jeremy exclaimed, "I knew they couldn't just be gone."

Caroline and Stefan stared at each other in shock, Bonnie and Damon could still be rescued? "How do we get them out of there?" Stefan asked.

"Wow, wow, wow, slow down," Liv commanded, "theres is absolutely no proof that they're even there. Until further notice, they are pronounced dead and gone as far as I'm concerned."

Caroline countered, "but if there is a chance they are over there we need to know why we can get them out of there."

"To get a person out of the Ancestral Lands is an extremely difficult and complicated process that we will not be discussing now. Until we have some kind of proof that Damon and Bonnie might be over there, there's no point in talking about it."

There was silence.

Jeremy stood up, "We'll get you proof," he declared before walking out of the room, everybody else staring out at him.

Caroline and Stefan were still in shock, they could feel something warm returning to their spirits after such a long era of coldness. They were beginning to feel hope again. "We should probably tell Elena." Caroline said.

"No," Stefan was adamant, "She's still getting over Damon, if we tell her this and it doesn't work…we'll just be making her go through that all over again."

Caroline nodded in agreement.

Mystic Falls: Alaric made it home late that night, having spent too long at the Mystic Grill draining down the Bourbon, enough for him and his former drinking buddy. Yet oddly enough the second he opened the door to his loft opened he felt oddly sober again. He suspected that in large part the sudden sobriety was due to the shock of finding Elena Gilbert, whom he hadn't seen for months, sitting in his favorite chair by the fire, the same chair that another friend of his use to commandeer, a half empty class of Bourbon in her hands.

"Hey Elena, what are you doing here?"

"You told me you would make sure he got back in time."

"Who are you talking about?"

"Damon,"

Alaric wasn't sure when he had last her say that name. It must have been years ago.

She continued. "When we met on the other side, you told me that you would get him back on time." He sat on the chair facing her, and he could tell how careful she was being to not meet his eyes. "What happened?"

"He saw Liz Forbes' body hesitated to long trying to get debris from the explosion off her." There was a moment of silence as Elena, with and eerie ghostliness, absorbed the information she had just been given. Eventually Ric gained the courage to ask the question that was on his mind. "Elena it's been three years, why has it taken you this long to ask me that?"

"You know everybody says that? 'it's been three years' like I'm supposed to get over it." She chugged more of the Bourbon down. It was an acquired taste, but Elena was beginning to appreciate the strength of the liquor. "I'm not supposed to be alive. I wasn't supposed to come back without him."

"Well I hate to agree with everybody." Alaric said, "But you know Damon wouldn't wanted you to die for him, and he wouldn't want to see you like this Elena. He would have wanted you to move on, to find a way of being happy."

Since Stefan's visit the day before, Elena felt like she had opened up some gate in her heart, she hadn't been able to hold the grief back since and it showed as she openly wept in front of her former teacher/guardian/ friend.

"We were happy Ric," she managed between tears.

"I know."

She wanted she tell him how she had been more than just happy. Being with Damon had her happier then she had been in years, since before her parents died. She settled for that one feeble sentence she could muster, repeating it again and again. Just so long as one person could understand that she and Damon had been utterly and devotedly in love, even if just for a minute.

"I can't live without him, I don't know how anymore." She confessed. She stared, as if her life depended on it, at the the blue ring with the engraved D on it, as she twirled it around her fingers.

"Your starting to remind me of him you know."

She chuckled darkly. "Is that supposed to be an insult?"

"No, just an observation."

She spent the rest of the night sleeping on Ric's couch, not wanting to go back to her lonely dorm room ever again. All Elena wanted in that moment, was to go back home, to the sanctuary of the Boarding House, but she was too afraid of the memories that hunted the deserted building.

Authors Note:Well, what did you think? was it worth the wait? please give me your feedback in the reviews section. Oh and i know that some of you lovely readers have been wondering how Stefan is coping so well with the loss of his brother, and this will be addressed in the next chapter, so stay tuned. :)