A/N: This is a preview of sorts of a potential story. I hope it flows all right because I only edited this once. If you read a section and it appears familiar it's because a took a bit from a previous story I started but since deleted because I knew I wasn't going to be able to finish it, and I hate letting things go to waste. Um, what else? What you need to know is this is set way, way in the future. Enjoy!

1.

The last tear fell, cascading down an icy cold cheek before joining its predecessors on the pillow cushioned beneath her head. The physician held her limp wrist counting the beats of her pulse which grew slower, fainter as the seconds ticked off the face of his watch. Each one measured by a shuddering cry coming from one of the occupants in the bedroom. Her pulse beat once in a faint boom of sound that filled the ears of those with preternatural hearing. When nothing followed for several minutes, the physician slowly lowered her arm to rest over her abdomen.

Placing the diaphragm of his stethoscope on her chest, he listened to her lungs. They weren't inflating in the slightest. What warmth remained within her body was quickly siphoned out by death. With half-lidded orbs he nodded solemnly at the nurse.

"Time of death…seven-fifteen p.m."

Tears, wails, and sniffles rent the air in a chorus of misery. The physician repacked his bag and shuffled out of the way as the body lying in the middle of the huge bed was converged on by the bereaved.

Fingers danced across her cheeks, tucked strands of surprisingly soft salt and pepper hair behind her ears. Hands enclosed over her own, a body wedged next to her, a face shoved into her neck breathing warmth on her that she now lacked.

One remained stoic watching things unfold. Her slender hand balled into a fist. Someone approached her to give condolences but condolences' was not what she wanted. Condolences' wasn't going to do a damned thing but piss her the fuck off.

Outraged forest green eyes met glacial blue that were red-rimmed. She narrowed her orbs before spinning abruptly marching to one of the tall candelabras and blew out the flame of the candle.

A hand touched her shoulder. The hand of her uncle and by all accounts a surrogate father. She recoiled from his touch, shrugging him off.

"I never wanted this…"

"It'll be seven days from now that you get your bitch back," she interrupted. "In the meantime I have a funeral to plan," she quickly vacated the bedroom repressing the urge to scream from the depths of her ravaged soul.

Damon Salvatore heaved a rugged breath. When he refaced the others they were staring at him. Some sympathetically others accusatory. His gaze dropped to his best friend…dead best friend knowing the implication of her passing. He swallowed although his throat had collapsed long ago. Damon crossed the room, but he was barred from getting any closer to Bonnie.

Another pair of forest green eyes seared him down to the marrow of his bones. Damon pressed his lips into a thin line glowering at the petite woman doing her best to intimidate him.

"Let me say…goodbye," he said quietly. So quietly he barely heard his own voice.

It may have taken a minute but she slid out of the way offering him an unobstructed view.

It hit him at once. He had watched it happening; saw Bonnie deteriorating at a rate that couldn't be stopped by conventional medicine. He lost count of the number of times they argued about her transitioning, becoming immortal like him, and each time she'd question why he'd think she'd ever go for that. Being a witch was who she was and nothing would make her stop being one.

Seeing her lying impossibly still…no eye movement happening beneath her shut lids, the texture of her skin was changing, becoming that of the recently departed. He couldn't look at her like this…he couldn't.

Tears fell, caked his eyelashes together. Damon didn't feel his legs under him but felt the pain of his knees coming into contact with the unforgiving hardwood floor. From head to toe he scanned Bonnie almost willing her heart to start beating again. In that moment he hated himself for all the petty comments he made about her choking on her food, or being hit by a train…tasteless. Bonnie was the only reason he even had his joke a life, and to mock about her dying in order to be reunited with Elena…Damon let out a little groan of agony.

He reached out a shaky hand, his knuckles coming into contact with Bonnie's cold skin. Even at seventy she was still a knock out, the best looking geriatric broad he had ever known, he had teased her often. Bonnie would pretend to be offended before blushing reluctantly, and passive aggressively shrinking his balls.

The thought inspired a tiny half-smile that vanished instantly. That was their way, how they showed their love, and…Jesus…he was going to miss her. More than miss her. His chin quivered and his jaw hardened simultaneously.

"I won't forget what I promised you, Bonnie. I won't," he froze, mouth poised to speak but he was too consciously aware of the audience, the crowd doing what they could to give him space to say his goodbye while hanging on to his every word.

Damon had said this to Bonnie. Once and possibly at the worst possible time. But he had been brutally honest and in typical Damon fashion, inserted his foot in his mouth narrowly escaping with his hide intact. Here was his do over and the words were stuck to the roof his mouth. Their taste distinctive like flavored desperation. Perhaps Bonnie wasn't truly gone gone and she'd hear, understand, know his heart and his intentions.

Maneuvering to sit on the edge of the bed, he lowered until his lips brushed along the shell of her ear. "I love you…Bonnie. I've loved you for the better years of my life, and I'm sorry. You…I'm sorry."

His lips touched hers briefly before he vanished from the room.

Caroline who had witnessed it all stared at the two women hovering on the right side of the bed, their eyes widened in disbelief.

"Gotdamn coward, fool," the blonde cursed. Of course Damon would wait to tell Bonnie what everyone else had known for years.

Telling Bonnie he loved her wouldn't do Bonnie any good now since she couldn't say it back.

Fool.

2.

The hour was ridiculously late or early depending on the person. The bottle of bourbon dangling precariously between his fingertips plunged to the ground but didn't shatter into pieces. He was a wreck. Hair finger combed, face tear streaked, eyes pounding and red. He thought he'd pass the time hanging out with Elena's coffin counting down the moment until she awakened, but the idea of being around her even in a spelled box made his flesh crawl.

Damon felt another strip of his sound mind giving way to insanity. He crashed into a headstone and nearly tumbled over, but caught himself in time. Laughing wildly, he fell on his back anyways, eyes up at the night sky.

He didn't know why the fuck he was here knowing he'd have to make an appearance in a few days to officially bury Bonnie. The unpleasant thought made the veins in his head bulge, throb brutally that Damon almost wanted to dig his brain out with a fork.

A sharp kick to his ribs had him jolting up. Seeing who it was, Damon groaned and fell backwards on the ground.

"Artie…leave me alone."

"Get your ass off the ground, Uncle Damon. You think mom would want you to fall apart like this?"

He scoffed. "Yes she would. She knows me…knew me. This behavior wouldn't be a surprise to her. In fact, she would demand I sob like a bitch and curl into a fetal position on top of her grave."

The young woman chastising him rolled her olive eyes. "I'm glad you're grieving…I wasn't sure you would."

"That hurts, Artie."

"And stop calling me Artie you damn drunk. It's Loki."

Damon bellowed in laughter at that. Artemis Bennett, or "Loki" as she preferred to be called was Bonnie's youngest who had been born at a whopping two pounds and seven ounces. Loki was a spitfire, all the spunky parts of Bonnie poured into a five foot even frame. Though Damon saw more of himself in Loki, she was her mother's daughter, and he knew out of her sisters she'd be the one to find him. Caeden—the eldest probably wanted to flay him alive, and Faora—the middle child would co-sign whatever Caeden wanted to do. His best shot at survival was Loki.

She sat beside his prone form. They were quiet.

"Do you hate me?" Damon questioned. "Because I could never…own up to how I felt about your mother?"

Loki bit the inside of her cheek and plucked a few blades of grass. It would be elementary to tear her uncle apart, berate him for his mistakes, but no one could punish Damon Salvatore the way Damon Salvatore could. She knew what her sisters would want her to say. That if he weren't so stuck in the past, clinging to an allegiance to some girl stuck in a box that wouldn't fit who he was today, he could have had everything he truly wanted. But nope. He was chicken shit and didn't deserve their mother's love or loyalty. He fucking blew it! That and much more would have been what her sisters would want her to say to Damon. They were connected in many ways. They were triplets after all. Three versions of one person—their mother. Sure they shared qualities in common with their father, but to Loki her dad was the wallowing fool spread on the ground next to her.

"What did you feel for my mother?" Loki questioned. "Did you fall in love with her?"

Damon swallowed.

"Did you?"

"Loki," Damon whined.

She shook her head repugnantly and pushed to her feet. "Why can't you just be honest?"

"What has honesty ever gotten anyone? Pain."

"Don't do this. Don't be an asshole."

Fire shot from Damon's eyes. "Watch your mouth, little girl. Your mother may have just died but that doesn't mean I won't throttle your ass."

Loki propped a hand on her hip. "Try it, old man and break a hip in the process."

"Loki…why are you even talking to me, right now? Your sisters need you. Bonnie…she needs you."

"I know precisely what everyone needs," her tone softened. "Caeden and Faora are handling things, but mom…she'd want me to look out for you. She…asked me."

Damon blinked slowly, deliberately. No matter what, his eyes blurred despite his best wishes. He averted his gaze. Why was everyone always so much more worried about him when he didn't deserve that kind of attention? Damon didn't get it.

"I should be the one looking out for you and your sisters," he refuted.

"If you fall apart you won't be able to. We're still family even if she's not here, Uncle Damon. Come back to the house."

"Caeden doesn't want me there."

"No, she doesn't," Loki didn't sugarcoat the absolute truth. Damon snorted ruefully. "Caeden would very much like to shove Elena's coffin into an open fire right at the moment she wakes up. You're the only one who can talk her down from that ledge."

"I'm her enemy right now because of my ties to Elena. She's not going to listen to me, and I don't blame her. I'm a piece of shit."

Loki felt herself getting pissed off because of her uncle's endless excuses. She snatched Damon by the collar of his jacket and jerked him to his feet. Her strength—disconcerting.

"I don't want to hear another self-deprecating comment come out of your gotdamn mouth," she poked him, hard. "Do what my mother needs you to do. Be the Damon Salvatore she's always told me you were. Lick your wounds in private and let's move on. Your self-loathing isn't going to do anything to bring her back. Talk to Caeden. End this feud before it starts," Loki suggested before turning on her heels. "See you at the house."

Brushing off the back of his jeans thoroughly whipped by a young woman half his size and a third his age, Damon pulled his lips back from his teeth. Yep, that was all Bonnie and he couldn't be prouder.

3.

A gale wind from the northeast fondled his denim covered backside, and whipped against his exposed neck and ears. If he were human he would have shivered, but the weather had no effect on the immortal other than to annoy him. Damon shuffled the keys on the ring looking for the one for the front door. He felt so weird actually using the key to open the door to the boardinghouse because typically it remained unlocked.

Finding the correct one, he shoved it into the lock and opened the door. Damon made quick work of flicking of lights, starting a fire, and grabbing the least dusty bottle of bourbon he could find. Twisting off the cap, he tossed it, picked up a rock glass, poured. He knew he'd have to speak with Caeden before the sun set on a brand new day, but finding the words to say to her…his mind was a total blank. But he'd have to because Loki would kick his ass otherwise. When would women stop ruling his life?

Damon tossed back the shot of bourbon. Would his habits ever change, he wondered idly as he made his way to the newly built wing of the Salvatore boardinghouse that had been constructed a year after the Gemini Wedding Massacre. There was nothing special about the wing, just a series of short hallways that led to a solarium that featured a view of the woods. How inspiring.

Hung on the paneled walls made of stained oak was portraits—oil paintings of those who had lost their lives fighting the good fight of the supernatural, were casualties of collateral damage, or simply just because. Damon strolled by headshots of Zach Salvatore and his girlfriend Gail, Lexi Branson, Jenna Sommers, Liz Forbes, Sheila Bennett.

Rounding the final bend, Damon was looking at paintings of his friend Rose, Jeremy Gilbert—he tried not to roll his eyes at that. Last he heard, Jeremy was still alive somewhere out there in the world but won an honorary spot on the wall because he knew that's what his sister would have wanted. Alaric's portrait was next—Damon's teeth gritted on that one. Alaric, dead of a heart attack a year after losing Jo.

Damon's steps began to slow as he came up to the final two paintings hung side by side.

Their soft smiles. Their expressive eyes that could say a thousand things at once without having to move their lips to make one syllable. Elena could look at a person like a shiny new object created just for her amusement. Bonnie, like she was waiting for you to stop wasting her time and to impress her. Prove her hypothesis about you being right. Damon's forefinger traced the shape of her jaw. How was he ever going to say goodbye to her and let it stick? Already his mind was itching of ways to make some deal with some mystic, spirit, or Ronald McDonald to bring Bonnie back, give them more time. But time was up. This was the final call. She wouldn't be resurrected. Not this time.

Inhaling, the immortal caught a particular scented perfume on the air. His shoulders tensed, but he swallowed the rest of the bourbon in his glass, waited.

Damon didn't have long until Caeden filled up the other end of the hallway. Her red-rimmed irises squinted. She tutted and made a move to leave, but Damon flashed down the corridor, caught her by the arm.

"Caeden, please. Please talk to me."

"I don't have anything to say to you."

"Yes, you do. I can see it. Hell, I can practically hear you screaming at me. So just go ahead and say it."

Caeden Bennett, her name made up of one letter from all the people her mother loved, glared at her uncle, jaw tightening with each second. He appeared drunk and pathetic hoping she'd absolve him of whatever guilt or unfinished business he didn't have the balls to square away before her mother took her final breath. Well, he would be shit out of luck. She had to deal with her own emotions that were firing all over the place that standing still was taking a concerted amount of effort. Caeden would like nothing more than to blow up a couple gas stations, and wreck a few cars, but she couldn't act out that way. Her mother expected more from her.

"You came here to look at her painting," Damon filled the eerily cold silence. He held out his hand. "I could use some company while I do the same."

Caeden stared at his outstretched limb before meeting his gaze. She bypassed his hand and continued down the hall, reaching her mother's portrait. Her attention, however, was thwarted to the painting hanging beside Bonnie's.

"Is she worth more than having my mother alive?" Caeden whispered.

Damon stood shoulder…well the top of Caeden's head barely came to his shoulder, but he stood close enough to feel her body heat. He had a special relationship with each of Bonnie's daughters, but Caeden had a special piece of his soul her sisters didn't. Maybe because he was the first person she saw when she was born, staring at him as if she recognized him, which was impossible. Yet from that life-changing moment, Caeden became more than his best friend's daughter, but his daughter as well.

"Caeden, Elena and Bonnie mean different things to me. I don't love one more than the other."

"But one you loved openly."

"She…" he sighed tiredly. "You've heard the stories. You know how bad things were. You've been in love. You know what it can do to you."

"I've seen love and the love I saw…it wasn't destructive, and people didn't have to die while two people simply merged their lives together. You expect me to be happy about this woman I don't know from a can of paint returning to life while I bury my mother?"

Damon turned Caeden to face him. "I don't expect you to be happy about any of this. I'm not going to ask you to give Elena a chance, or tell you to get to know her for yourself. Feel what you need to feel, Caeden, but don't think I'm automatically going to stop giving a damn about Bonnie or any of you girls just because Elena's waking up."

Silvery tears coursed down flaming hot russet cheeks. Damon cupped Caeden's face, using his thumbs to wipe her tears away. In baby steps, Caeden moved closer, burying her face in his chest. Damon wrapped his arms around his niece, kissed the top of her head. He felt her trembling, heard her sobs that triggered his own emotional torrent.

"I love your mother, Caeden. Don't think I didn't. I…wanted to be with her but…she fell in love with someone else. I missed my chance."

Caeden listened. She understood why Damon was confiding in her now, but it was too late. Much too late for what was coming next.

4.

Faora Bennett quietly observed as two caskets were rolled into the living room of her uncles' house. One of them was empty, the other contained the body of the woman she knew from stories told to her, her entire life. Stories of a girl, the doppelganger of a vampire, cursed to attract death and destruction to the lives of those who tried to save hers. Faora never grew up with stars dancing in her eyes whenever she heard the name Elena Gilbert. She didn't understand the worship, the reverence that overcame anyone telling her some useless fact about one of her mother's oldest friends.

She had to look away as the walnut casket was rolled near the pool table before it burst into flames. Like her mother, she and her sisters were witches. On her own, she was weaker. Loki was the strongest since she was the last of their line. But combining her powers with her older and younger sister made them a powerhouse the only one capable of unraveling their spells…was…

Faora's nose tingled. Today was the day she would be burying her mother and Elena would wake up. It didn't seem fair. It wasn't fair as it seemed everyone around her mom unconsciously or consciously counted down the days until this very moment. She hated them all.

Anger seethed in her veins, and her sharp nails scraped the wood of the post she was holding on to.

Stefan sensed Faora watching from the second floor landing. He glanced up, thin lips stretch into something of a comforting smile.

"Faye…are you all right?"

"What do you think, Stefan?" she dropped the uncle. As far as she was concerned her family consisted of her sisters. Anyone outside of that, they were just people who mooched off their mother's power for their own gain.

Stefan frowned, noticing that Faora called him simply by name. He understood this was hard on her, could literally see the rage in her eyes.

"Talk to me, Faye," he began making his way to the staircase to join her.

"There's nothing to say. My mother is dead and Damon will get his girlfriend back. It's all he's wanted these last fifty years. He's being reunited ten years ahead of schedule so I'm sure he's cutting flips."

Stefan stood beside Faora in a flash. "You know it's not like that. You know Damon loved your mother. He never wanted to have to say goodbye to her. None of us did. But…we knew we couldn't have her forever. Your mother had an amazing life, Faye. She met a man, fell in love, married him, and had three beautiful daughters. She was happy in the end."

Was she?

Faora exhaled harshly. Yes, her mother still managed to have a good life, but her parents split up years ago, and she knew, Faora knew her mom waited for their Uncle Damon give her the love she truly needed.

"That may be so but can any of that make up for the years they didn't have together?" Faye queried. "The years they will never have together. I get it. Damon wanted to remain loyal to some girl in a box. And my mom…she wouldn't cross that line even if she were totally justified. She tried to make things work with my dad but…he wasn't Damon. I saw it, Stefan. When I was ten years old, I saw how much they loved each other, and he finally tells her when she's dead."

Faora skirted around Stefan.

"He told her once before."

Stefan's words stopped Faora dead in her tracks. She pivoted to face him questionably.

Damon would probably crucify him for this, but he couldn't let Bonnie's daughters live another minute thinking their pseudo uncle cared fleetingly for their mother. Their relationship may have remained platonic through the years where they had moments of being candid with their feelings, hiding it behind the guise of friendship, but Stefan knew certain truths they didn't. He wouldn't tell Faora everything, but enough to temper her immediate need for revenge, retaliation. She was primed for it. Stefan could practically smell the magic coiling off her.

"He told her…on her wedding day."

Faora gaped. "He did what?"

"He showed up…drunk," Stefan shook his head. "Spilling his guts to your mother on how he felt about her."

"And she…?"

"Swept the floor with his ass. Laid him out."

Faora snickered but coughed to cover it up. "Even after all that she still went through with the wedding."

Stefan nodded at the rhetorical question. "If she hadn't you and your sisters wouldn't be here. Possibly."

Folding her arms across her chest, Faora chewed her lip. "What did Damon do afterward?"

"He chose desiccation."

Jaw widened in disbelief, Faora mouthed the word 'wow'. She never knew any of this.

Stefan nearly stood toe-to-toe with Faora now staring into a pair of eyes that were nearly identical to Bonnie's. "He bitched and complained about missing Elena, but I knew the real reason why he stopped drinking blood and opted to waste his life in a coffin. His heart was broken over Bonnie moving on with someone who was…unafraid to love her. Damon remained desiccated until I woke him up because I needed his help with something. Your mom was heavily pregnant at that time, our lives, like always was in danger.

"Every time he looked at Bonnie and her swollen stomach I could see the pain in his eyes. Despite that, he promised he wouldn't leave her and he kept that promise."

Faora mulled that over, head cocked to the side. "My dad…how did he feel about that?"

Stefan stuffed his hands in his pockets, mind flooded with memories of that time. The fights, the bickering, the ultimatums. It had been too much which led to Bonnie delivering seven weeks prematurely in the back of Damon's Camaro that he later gave to the girls on their sixteenth birthday.

"Your father wasn't pleased, but for you guys he toughed it out. You three brought so much joy; however, you three never made it any secret whom you preferred."

Faora knew that much was true. She and her sisters loved their father, naturally, but the minute any of them spotted Damon they seemed to forget his existence. That couldn't have been easy for their old man to deal with, and some of the anger boiling in Faora faded.

"I just want you to know, Faora that Damon isn't celebrating having Elena back because having Elena back will be a painful reminder that Bonnie isn't here."

Faora absorbed that. "I'm afraid, Uncle Stefan."

"Of what?"

"That…everyone will forget my mom as soon as Elena wakes up."

"That won't happen."

"I'm…I'm also afraid I'll kill her." Stefan's eyes widened. "Accidentally. People deal with grief in many ways, and from what I've been told, Elena was the source of a lot of the bad shit that happened to mom. You know how I am when it comes to her."

Yes, Stefan did know. Out of the triples, Faora was the most protective of her mother.

"As long as my contact with her remains minimal, well," Faora shrugged. "I'm going to go check on Caeden."

Stefan said nothing as he watched Faora march down the hall, flinging open a door, darting inside.

He knew without having to turn around that Loki was standing behind him. He eyed her as she passed him on her way, no doubt, to the room her sister just disappeared into.

"No worries, Uncle Stefan. I'll make sure Faye at least says hello before she smites Elena," the youngest triplet laughed mellifluously.

5.

It was the seventh day. The day of one awakening. The closing of a chapter on another life.

It would be a gravesite funeral which would make it much easier on everyone. Bonnie would be carried in a glass carriage pulled by four white horses. Her favorite flowers: calla lilies and orchids would decorate the top of her casket as well as other arrangements. Doves would be released as well as white balloons which they would ask everyone to write a special message on them for Bonnie before being sent up into the air. That would take place while she was being lowered into the ground. The repast would be held at the Bennett residence.

Tonight would be a private viewing at the Salvatore boardinghouse where only immediate family and designated friends would be allowed to attend. At the moment, everyone was on edge, waiting for the moment of truth.

Caroline Forbes stood in front of a cheval mirror, straightening out her skirt. She was perfectly coiffed and wanted to scream herself raw.

Despite her meticulous preparation for Bonnie's funeral, it hadn't actually prepared Caroline to see her body. Bonnie was like her, before she grew more into her witch powers. She used to be upbeat, carefree, but also the sensible one of the bunch. Caroline had had a front row seat to Bonnie's deterioration from a bubbly firecracker to a cynical, closed off individual who was only interested in the bottom line. She mourned her friend's childhood probably more than Bonnie did. Yet in pieces, Bonnie began to reclaim what made her unique beyond the spells and the hocus pocus. She graduated, started her career in journalism, became a wife, mother, a mentor to at-risk youth. She traveled to exciting places determined to never live the same day twice. But ovarian cancer caught her, and by the time it had been detected it had been too late.

So delivering the final outfit Bonnie would ever wear to the mortician made Caroline lose it. She had held herself together all week, snapping out orders, and keeping the flow going. For her nieces sake. But all of that composure went out the window the minute reality hit her, and seeing Bonnie so lifeless. The absent rise and fall of her chest, the flat line to her lips, the gray pallor to Bonnie's skin were all telltale signs that she was dead. Her spirit no longer lived inside her body.

Caroline broke down. She was inconsolable.

And in a few short hours she was going to have to drag herself through glass again.

Nevertheless, Caroline pulled herself together enough to give direction to the mortician on how Bonnie preferred her makeup. She was an earth tone kind of girl, liked the natural look, but she coveted lip gloss and told the guy to be liberal with it.

Her thoughts turned to the girls, her nieces. Caroline hadn't seen them in the last three days, which wasn't a good sign. Her calls had gone unanswered and unreturned. The blonde immortal thought of the night Bonnie died. The girls had crowded on the bed surrounding their mother, joined hands, and started singing a song Bonnie used to sing to them when they were babies. They did that for hours until Loki slipped out. Faora and Caeden had fallen asleep. Caroline had questioned Loki where she was going.

"To find that deadbeat uncle of mine. Don't tell the squad. I really don't want to hear their shit."

Loki, she was the most outspoken, had zero filter. Still to this day, Caroline shook her head that at the age of five Artemis said she no longer wished to be addressed as such for she believed she was the reincarnated version of the Norse god of mischief. The name fit her perfectly because Artemis loved playing tricks on people, indiscriminately using her power to make things vanish into black holes she conjured, or animating furniture. Luckily she had outgrown that but for twenty years straight, Caroline wanted to strangle her.

Hours later Loki returned to the house she grew up in.

"Did you find him?" Caroline asked.

"I did. We talked. Whether or not he's going to do what he needs to do will remain to be seen."

Caroline nodded. She had to tell Loki something and was apprehensive, unsure of how she might take it. Clearing her throat, wringing her hands, Caroline eased into it. "Loki…I think we need to call the coroner."

"Why?"

"I can…she's starting to…decompose. I've bumped up the air as high as it'll go…but it's not going to work for much longer."

The color left Loki's face then, yet she pinched her lips together. "I'll tell them."

Two hours later, Bonnie's body was wheeled out of the house in a black body bag, the girls clinging to one another, crying.

Thankfully, a door opened distracting Caroline from her contemplations. She heard feet walking past the room where she was held up. The sun dipped below the horizon. It was time.

Heading down to the main level, it was washed in candlelight. Damon was there dressed in a dark suit perched in front of Elena's coffin. Bonnie's was off set to the side.

Stefan popped up beside Caroline wrapping an arm around her waist. Caroline offered Jeremy, who stood with a cane, an encouraging smile which he reciprocated showing his dentures. Matt was seated on one of the folded chairs, barely able to keep his blue eyes open. Senior citizens they were.

The vampires heard the tapping of three pairs of heels coming down the stairs.

The triples arrived on the first floor dressed in matching black, tea length dresses, pearls around their slender brown necks, dark, wavy hair parted on the same side.

They walked with purpose across the living room, down the aisle toward Elena's casket.

Damon didn't face them. "Are you ready?"

The triplets gauged one another, speaking their own language. "Yes," they answered unanimously.

Caeden began the incantation that would unseal the coffin, her voice strong and determined. Faora chimed in adding her part with Loki sprouting the last few lines of the spell. Their voices combined together as they recited the incantation from the beginning, their harmonized tones reverberating along the walls. The flames of the candles grew taller, brighter, the air became denser. Once it was finished, they stepped back as a single unit, right foot followed by the left.

The hood groaned as if a pair of invisible hands was prying it apart. Damon moved closer slipping his fingers under the seal and flipping the lid open.

He sucked in a massive breath. Fifty years. Endless hours waiting for this one moment. The picture of how she looked when he said his goodbye…she hadn't changed. Hadn't aged from that day Kai ruthlessly knocked her unconscious and bound her life with Bonnie's. That serene, delicate look on her face unblemished by time. Damon's chest heaved up and down rapidly as he waited for any flicker of life.

Her eye twitched. Damon was sure of it.

"Elena?"

Her head moved slightly against the padded pillow and her brow dimpled. Elena groaned a little, and her lids finally parted affording Damon the chance to gaze into her luminous brown orbs.

The others had shuffled closer unable to handle the suspense. Well, Jeremy poked Matt awake with his cane who snapped up with a curse.

And while they converged on Elena's casket that Damon reached into to pick her up, the triplets turned their heads towards their mother's closed coffin. Their eyes went white.

"Damon?" Elena murmured sleepily, burrowing her cheek into his chest.

"Hey," he carried her to the sofa that had been pushed out of the way to make room for guest chairs that had been set up for Bonnie's wake.

Damon sat down, cradling Elena on his lap.

She pulled away, her body feeling stiff and foreign. Disoriented, she smashed the heel of her palm into her temple wishing the room would stop spinning. Elena didn't know what was happening as her vision fought to make sense of the scene in front of her.

She saw Caroline and Stefan looming. Standing directly next to them were two older gentlemen who looked vaguely familiar. Elena stretched her eyes and gasped once realizing those older gentlemen…one was her brother, the other was Matt Donovan. How long had she been asleep?

Then it hit her. The condition on which she could only wake up.

"No, no, no, no, no…"

"Shush," Damon tried to soothe her.

"Bonnie!" Elena wailed pitiably.

He heard it. The girls…they were doing another spell.

Damon shifted to peer around Caroline and saw the girls', hands clasped, their attention locked on their mother's coffin. "Caeden, Faora, Loki what are you doing?"

Elena frowned. She didn't recognize those names.

Caroline and Stefan turned to investigate.

The girls, who had been chanting softly at first began to speak louder and with more authority. The flames of the candles burned brighter and higher once more and hotter, so hot the wax burned down to nothing within seconds ending up as pools of it on the floor. Damon started to push Elena off his lap when he heard her gasp sharply.

Right before his eyes, Elena's skin began to lose its luster, aging at an alarming rate, becoming lined with wrinkles, and riddled with age spots. The vibrant color of her brown eyes faded until they were nearly milk white, the skin underneath becoming papery and hollow. Her long, lustrous strands of sable hair lost its sheen and became wiry and gray.

Her supple body was shriveled to appear identical to a prune. Elena watched in horror as she aged fifty years in ten seconds.

Stefan gawked, "Jesus."

Caroline covered her mouth with her hands.

Matt and Jeremy, whose vision wasn't that great to begin with, stared in stupefaction. "Holy shit," Matt wheezed.

"What the hell is going on?" Jeremy griped.

Damon, immobilized for several seconds before getting into action, gently placed Elena on the couch, a tick working overtime in his jaw. She reached for him with gnarled, arthritic hands that he had to carefully pry off of him because they felt so fragile. Damn stood to his full height, eyes bleeding red. He was so fucking furious with his nieces! He should have seen this coming. Should have known they weren't going to simply be complacent when it came to their mother.

Stefan tried to reach for him knowing consequences always followed when one tried to interrupt a witch while she cast a spell. But three witches? Yeah, Damon might end up being a splatter of vampire remains on the wall.

Damon snatched his arm out of Stefan's reach as he barreled toward those meddling triplets.

He was in reaching distance of Loki, but slid to a stop on his feet when the hood of Bonnie's coffin flew open.

The girls ceased their chanting.

One arm stretched out, finding purchase on the edge of the coffin for leverage…a youthful looking arm. Slowly Bonnie sat up. A curtain of dark hair blocked her face, but the color of it wasn't that shade of silvery black he had grown accustomed to, but that of the Bonnie back in her heyday.

Damon swore his heart or his nuts was lodged in his throat. "What have you done?" he could barely get the words out.

Caeden shifted her head to look at him, her eyes still freakishly white. "What Bennett's always do."

"Look out for one another," Faora added.

"How?" Caroline murmured.

Loki supplied the answer. "It's simple really. We put our mother's consciousness back in her original body," she smiled hugely. "Of course to reanimate her we needed bioenergy…the organic kind. And what better source than a newly awakened twenty year old human girl."

"You didn't," Damon had to resist snatching Loki.

Faora lifted her chin in that stubborn, proud Bennett way. "Oh, but we did. Our mother is going to relive her life from the moment she first died."

"Is that a problem for you, Uncle Damon?" Caeden lipped and approached Bonnie's coffin. The young woman whipped her head and stared at her with frightened eyes. "It's okay, mom. We'll explain. Promise."

Bonnie's bowed lips formed into a circle and she uttered, "Who are you?"

A/N: This almost kind of reads like Twice the Trouble. I just love knocking Bonnie up with several babies at once, can't seem to help myself. No, I don't know who the triplets' father is, terrible I know. I don't have all the logistics worked out, but I just wanted to put this idea out there to see if anyone is interested. I can't make any guarantees this will become a full-fledged story, well it could; and I probably won't have this posted for long, as this is a preview I'm marking complete for now. Thanks for reading, and please review.