Elena's fingers grip the warm mug of blood resting on the counter top of the Salvatore's kitchen and she hooks two fingers around the little curtain to spy the wet concrete and the grey sky in the distance as she tries to enjoy the lazy rhythm of the drops of water hitting the still green leaves. Autumn is just one gust of wind away and she's already longing for it to be summer again (but she dreads spring).

She's always yearning for the hot, burning side of life. That is what made her latch onto Damon, the way he bites into life with no remorse or apology, the way he loves so hard and deep that what's between them can take the shape of her darkest nightmare in a flicker, or become a dream just as quick.

When she was a child frowning at the splattered windowpane because they couldn't go and play outside, Bonnie was the only one that didn't make a fuss about it. She later explained that rain to her felt like a healing force, like someone had allowed her to start over, wash away what's past and try again.

Elena thinks she'd like to start again, sometimes, but they can't. Since the day the other side crumbled down things have changed so much, and yet not, and yet again. She catches her reflection on the window's glass, pushes one wavy lock of hair behind her ear and smiles hearing Damon's step approaching.

The curve of her mouth takes a wicked grin as she feels his lips leaving a humid trail along the column of her neck before starting to suck on the point she likes the best. Her eyes flutter shut as she presses herself back against the length of his body, looking for the heat only he can provide.

"I missed you last night," she says. She's become even more hungry for him since she got him back, feeling like she's the only thing that keeps him alive, that keeps his brain clear of ghosts, feeling so important it's like being high all the fucking time.

In the last four months everything has been perfect.

There have been moments when, though she was grateful to Bonnie for saving him, for giving him back to her alive, she had feared she had kept a piece of him to herself and resented her for it. But she can feel his tongue on her skin and the steely hold of his fingers and she chooses not to think of that.

"Of course, you did," he cockily agrees, teeth gently pulling on her earlobe, "Every now and then I have to leave you some space to miss me, so you know how lucky you are."

She giggles at his overly confident attitude, which has always weakened her resolve every time he fucked up. And he fucked up a lot.

"Where were you?" she asks, half whiny, half flirty, turning around in his arms to look up at his handsome face. Damon has always made her feel like she was the only important thing in the world, the only girl he could ever see, and she constantly longs for that, to read the adoration and need in his blue eyes.

"Having some buddy time," he answers with a grin, his eyes mischievous as his lips highlight the m and he opens his mouth to let his tongue peek through. Her smile falters for a moment. She freezes in his hands as doubt drips down into her brain with a coveting slowness, with a name that once used to make her happy, while she does her best to not let the fear show. She's his epic love, she reminds herself, and Bonnie can't take him from her.

"You mean Alaric?" she asks weakly, hating the insecurity in her tone, the way a voice is laughing at her in her brain, because she wants summer and burning passion but it's raining hard outside and the drumming sound of it is imitating her dead heartbeat.

"Yeah," he confirms, letting her release a breath she didn't know she was actually holding. "The guys is seriously lame," he says with a roll of his eyes. The expression is both familiar and out of place, she feels a pang in her stomach which she willingly ignores. "I am the only thing that's interesting about him. I consider it charity work," he adds, grinning, letting his fingers slip from her, and taking a step back to open the fridge and take a bottle of water.

"Water?" she asks, looking at him suspiciously.

"Ric spent the night with his face in a glass of whisky. I don't think he finds me attractive anymore," he says dramatically, making her giggle. "I need detoxing, maybe a little diet. After the pancakes."

This time around she pulls away when the rusty teeth of doubt try to chew at her. "I already had my breakfast," she says as he approaches her with a predator-like step to tell her, "Not for you, silly," using his pointer finger to tenderly tap her nose, "I think Bon needs a fresh dose of her favorite D-rug."

She knows her eyes emptied out the moment she heard the words, her flesh has numbed and her hands are clammy as she tries to pathetically hold onto Damon's arms. He's looking down at her with a confused frown and she wants to cry and beg him not to leave her, even though he's going to come back, even though nothing can happen. Because he promised eternity and he'll keep his promise, even though she needs to nail his hand to her own.

"Damon, we already talked about this, didn't we?" she asks, trying to be patient, distressed with the need to scream at him.

"C'mon Elena, she's my bestie," he says, already tired of this conversation, "and she's much better to look at than Ric." And he feels like he hasn't seen her pretty face in years. Every now and then the need to see her just chokes him out of the blue and he can't take it. It's sudden and violent like being hit in the head, it leaves a wave of nausea and a vague desire to die, but he can't tell Elena that. It wouldn't be fair to her. It wouldn't be fair to Bonnie, for she's the reason he's alive.

"I'll be back, and I'll be all yours," he assures her, cupping her face to kiss her lips with a peck. She hates to find herself wondering if he's truly still all hers, if he can ever be. Maybe that's why she hasn't visited Bonnie lately, why she finds a new excuse whenever Caroline asks her to go with her, because she could find herself asking the question. Because she fears she wouldn't need to hear the answer to really know.

She nods and he doesn't look at her scared eyes, already smelling the whipped cream, feeling the dusty texture of the flour whitening his fingertips. He'll leave his fingerprints on Bonnie's caramel skin just to tease her, and he won't tell himself that he's just secretly hoping to leave his mark on her.

#

Through the splattered windowpane of his Camaro Damon can see Bonnie's petite frame running in his direction, trying to protect herself from the rain keeping her leather jacket over her head.

She shivers from the chill as she sits on the passenger seat and tries to shakes the jacket to get rid of the drops of water.

"Hey, you're dripping all over my seat," he protests, grimacing at her, though he turns up the heat in the car. He hates to think she might be cold. "And I wouldn't even mind if it was for different reasons," he adds with an half grin as he raises his brows in his signature, suggestive look. Bonnie shakes her head, looking up at the ceiling of the car with a sigh.

"Oh, com'on, you missed me," he says, trying to pry the words out of her. "Admit it."

"Probably," she just shrugs proudly.

"I must be the better friend, here, because I missed you," he says candidly, no trace of the arrogant vampire that always got on her last nerve. So raw and vulnerable any girl could find herself breathless at the sight of him.

"It's been only a few months," she says, so reasonable and fair. A few months is nothing in the grand scheme of things, especially when you're an eternal stud, so how can he explains to her the twisting pain in the bottom of his gut, simmering silently whenever she's not there?

"You know I get easily bored," he exclaims like it's obvious to both of them, turning on the engine of the car, "these peasants aren't entertaining at all."

"You've got Elena to entertain you," she replies starkly, looking at the road ahead like she needs to make sure he won't just drive over a passer-by.

"Are we jealous?" he asks, a bit thrilled at the idea. Most of the time even her friendship seems absurd to swallow down, because if Elena's love seemed like a hopeless cause, Bonnie's mere consideration seemed too much to even imagine.

"Are you delirious?" she asks back, not missing a beat. "I'm not," she adds, firmly.

"Well, I think she is," he sighs. It gets tiring to be pulled in opposite directions. He doesn't know how Elena endured it when she was with his brother. Mind you, Bonnie doesn't pull at all, but that's the end result all the same.

"Damon—" He knows what's about to come, the speech about priorities, and his destined love, and how he fought and it's stupid to throw it all away now. He can even predict every poignant pause, but that's something he just doesn't care to hear.

"Bonnie," he interrupts her, "I heard this all before, and I swear, it won't sound less stupid then the last time. You'll make me revoke your best friend badge if you keep it up."

"I just don't want Elena to be hurt."

"Me neither," he quips, annoyed with the discussion, "See? We have so much in common, Bon."

"Idiot," she mutters, rolling her eyes as she grins.

"She's just not used to not being the only woman in my life, but it's not so serious so you can stop disappearing on me just to appease her."

She looks almost guilty as she turns her eyes on him, her lips are pursed together and she looks impossibly pretty, looking at him with the innocence of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, almost angelic, in her white v-neck t-shirt, one size up compared to her own, tucked inside her boyfriend jeans. Her slender neck is adorned with the golden necklace she wore the day the other side collapsed. Damon licks his lips.

Suddendly he wants to kiss her so badly he can't even remember what it feels like to want to kiss anyone else.

But that, he can't imagine it, let alone do it.

"I am the dutiful boyfriend, and I take care of all her needs," he makes the innuendo clear in his voice, just so that he can see her disgusted face. The way her nose wrinkles up and her eyes squint at the mental picture.

"Oh, spare me," she begs.

He likes the way she worries about others, the relentless, suicidal selfness in her that won't let him deem the human race hopeless and unworthy, that makes him feel like he's not such a total loser for hoping against all hope someone will love even the shittiest part of him. Bonnie could, maybe, if he asked.

"But I need my best friend," he says, "You know, to keep me in line and shit," he explains, pulling over. "Now go, you have class."

"I swear, you make my schedule for me," Bonnie mutters under her breath, slipping her arm inside her leather jacket.

"And stop talking to that guy that uses the notes excuse to throw himself at you. He's a loser and it's not nice of you to give him hope since you don't like him," he clarifies.

"And who says that?" she asks, almost challenging.

"I do," he replies immediately, "The Bonnie Bennett I know has standards."

"Which poses the question," she wonders aloud, teasingly, "What am I doing here with you?"

For the longest time, she's barely kept him breathing the same air as her because of Elena's pleading eyes, out of courtesy towards his brother, and it burns a little to think he had to resort to snapping necks and be his assholish persona, elevated to a new assholish level, to keep her interested and relying, but everything is fair in love and war; though, he could really not pinpoint what his motivation was between the two.

"Easy," Damon answers proudly, "I leave you absolutely no other choice."

#

His brother's voice is hushed and taut, "You saw what happened last time, when we tried to explain—"

"What's with the brooding faces?" he asks, suspicious as he enters the sitting room to pour himself a glass of bourbon.

"Oh, right. Sorry, little brother," like he's just realized what he's said, "I wasn't trying to twist the knife here," he adds feigning innocence, sitting on the arm of the sofa holding his glass, "So?" he asks.

Elena doesn't answer the questions. Instead, she offers a lukewarm smile asking, "Where were you?"

"Watering Bonnie's plants," Damon replies casually. "It looks like a still-life painting or something. I think she should give up and let me buy her a cactus," he comments, amused by her lack of a green thumb. He thought witches were in tune with nature, but she must be the exception to the rule. "You know, start small. Possibly from a plastic plant," he suggests with a shrug.

Stefan half smiles at that, but he doesn't look particularly amused. Damon has always wondered how he can keep a woman's attention with that glaring lack of a sense of humor. Elena looks between him and his brother with a tense smile and the air is generally stuffy in the room. They might be vampires but there's no reason for the general lack of vitality that permeates the atmosphere. He contemplates the possibility of having Bonnie skip the next class and waste some of her time on him.

"What were you talking about?" he asks, taking a sip from his drink. "It sounded boringly serious," he adds, widening his eyes to empathize the concept.

"We were talking about…Kai," Elena explains tentatively.

"What about the psychopath?" Damon responds with a biting tone, blue eyes hardening like stones, his jaw so tense Stefan can see a nerve pulling.

"We were just wondering if there's any chance that he's going to come back," Stefan says, studying his reaction.

"I hope his frozen dick has fallen off by now and that he has found the perks of living in the prison world because if I see him – if I only sniff his presence around here – I'm going to rip him apart shred by shred," he spells, canines itching to slip out and sink into tender flesh.

Elena lowers her eyes, pushing the hair back from her face with a pained expression.

"You think Bonnie is in danger?" he asks, studying his girlfriend expression.

"No, Damon," she roars at him, standing from her place all of a sudden, "She's not in any danger. In fact she is the danger. You're letting her destroy you, destroying us—"

"Woah," Stefan reaches for her, hands holding her by the shoulders, "You need to calm down."

"It's okay, Stefan," Damon says, keeping his cool, "It's good. The cat is finally out of the bag," he comments casually. "You're jealous. I understand, look at me," he jokes, waving a hand along the length of his own body, "But she is your friend, too, Elena. She was your friend first." He rolls his eyes at that. "I mean, every man wants to be the first, but I'll concede the honor to you," he jokes. "She sacrificed everything for us. And you know I would never betray you," he explains, looking her straight in the eyes, "You know that, right?"

"I know," she replies, in a whisper.

"You have no reason to worry, okay?" he leans in to her, to press a quick kiss on her lips. Her eyes are glossy but he makes no mention of that. She was upset and jealous and he knows the fear of being second best, of losing what you love the most, the perpetual waiting for the other shoe to drop. It can make you go mad.

Damon glances at his brother who looks back at him. He counts on Saint Stefan to make her see reason, to calm her down, so he steps away and turns to leave the room only to stop on the threshold, to ask over his shoulder .

"What happened to the brocade armchair that was there?" he asks, pointing to the empty corner next the fireplace.

"It broke," Stefan answers, "We got rid of it."

"The fuck, brother," he grimaces, "That was a 19th Century Louis XV Style French bergere!"

"Sorry," the younger Salvatore offers, with a regretful expression.

Damon shakes his head. Since he's helping him with his needy girlfriend, he'll turn a blind eye over the destruction of a $1,300 piece of furniture. It seems almost fair.

There are worse things to lose in life, he thinks with a shrug, leaving the boardinghouse.

#

The car's hood is still warm after the long drive, and it makes for a good contrast in the chill of the evening as they lay over it and look up at the sky. It has cleared up enough that he can point his finger up and trace the constellations for Bonnie.

"That's the Corona Borealis," he tells her, one arm bent behind his head, the other stretched up to guide her eyes along the semicircular arc the brighter stars form.

"What does the name mean?" she asks.

"Northern crown," he replies easily, "They say it was a wedding gift from the god Dionysus to the Cretan princess Ariadne. He fell madly in love with her and married her, but she was human and when she died, he brought her crown to the heavens so that everyone would see it, and remember his devotion for his beloved queen."

"Wasn't he a drunkard god and a party animal or something?" she asks, curious, pursing her lips. "He defiantly sounds like someone I know."

He's amused by her definition and he grins when he asks her, "Are you calling me a god?"

"Absolutely not," she states.

"I totally am. Especially in bed—"

"Aw, you're disgusting," she laments, grimacing as he observes her profile.

"You should ask Elena," he continues, pushing the buttons he knows will make her shiver in revulsion. Under the starlight she looks like a vision. If he touches her she could disappear, so he sticks to the rule not to.

The car's radio is turned on, and from inside the cockpit a voice is singing and when I'm tired, do you lay down with me, in my head so I can sleep without you?. The music easily reaches his ear. The driver's door is open and the vibration is lulling. Damon feels like an idiot, his left hand moving over the hood of his car to reach hers, but his fingers stop on the metal before he can touch her skin. There are rules, he should not touch her because what if he can't stop holding on to her? And there's Elena. He loves Elena, though some days it's more a sentence then a feeling.

Damon swallows the knot in his throat, trying to relax his rigid fingers, clenching his fist and pulling his arm away to rest it on his own stomach.

"Haven't you had enough of celestial stuff after spending four months watching eclipses?" she asks, helping him shift his mind from the idea of her soft skin to the memories they made on the other side, when he thought that he would have been relieved to have someone else to talk to. When he still didn't know what they were sharing, what they were building.

"This is actually the part where, if I weren't already taken, I'd throw a cheesy line about you coming from heaven and I'd try to get into your pants," he replies, and she starts to laugh at his side, covering her mouth with one hand, her eyes dance with mirth as she turns her head towards him, sleeve too long and brushing over her pretty mouth the way he won't let his fingers do because he doesn't love her that way – he reminds himself – and Elena has no reason to worry.

"Like I'd ever let you," she replies, both amusedly and mischievously.

He'd be crazy to hope otherwise. Sometimes he thinks he is.

#

"How dumb are you?" Kai asks, perched up on the bench in front of the altar, appropriately dressed in black and white with a touch of blood for a pop of color. Bonnie calls his name, broken and scared under his large hand, and the crazy maniac stands to explain, "Translation: she's about to croak."

There is a pulsing in Damon's brain, because a sadistic asshole has put him in this position, watching his best friend suffer, hearing her lungs give out as they fill with blood. He can see the clock's hands moving, to punctuate every second slipping away, together with her life.

"Of course, you don't have to help her. You could just walk away," he suggests, his tone almost jovial, as he smiles his boyish smile, warmth never reaching his cold eyes. "She dies of a collapsed lung, no blood on your hands, and you and Elena get to live the life you always dreamed of."

And Damon considers it, because it would be easier. Life was easier when he cared for Elena only, when his fingers didn't itch for someone else, and he didn't miss green eyes, and he didn't need to break himself into pieces to appraise a girl that was supposed to have all of him, forever.

Bonnie looks scared and doubtful, and it hurts. It hurts more than thinking he won't get to see Elena for long, long years. She thinks he can let her go this easily. She thinks he can let her go, at all.

"Either way, you better act quick," Kai reminds him, mercilessly.

Damon could pretend she's just a girl he dreamed up one day. In the dark it would be easy to let her fade, melt away under the candlelight, think of Elena, who is real in his arms, made of violent flesh and always hungry, always needy, loud in his head as she tries to overcome the perpetual whisper of Bonnie.

Bonnie would not fault him for that, because she knows Elena always came first, because she's always trusted him to take care of Elena first.

"I'm sorry, Bonnie," and he'll have to disappoint her now.

Ripping Kai's head from his neck it's liberating, thrilling and even a little bit arousing, he must admit. He's wanted to do that since the day he started flirting with Bonnie, but he can't bask into the joy of it because he needs to save Bonnie first.

Bonnie who's the voice of his reason, and sometimes the voice of his madness.

"You think I was gonna leave you all alone, huh?" he asks her, a triumphant smile on his lips before he's mercilessly ripping at his wrist, "No way," and he's pressing down on her mouth. She made him break all his rules. Not to touch, not to put her first, not to forget about Elena. He doesn't know what's left that's not broken of what he was, but he's discovered he's someone else when Bonnie is next to him. Someone he likes better.

"I'm not out of nicknames for you, yet," and he picks her up to carry her away with him.

#

Stefan runs inside the house when he hears Elena's voice screaming, only to find her vamped out and holding a defenseless Alaric off the floor.

"You said you'd get rid of her!" she cries out, two lines of melted mascara divide her cheeks and she'd look ridiculous if not for the pitiful picture she makes right now. The hand squeezing his throat is pressing on a bone to break it and Stefan stops her just in time.

"Let him go!" he says, one hand around her wrist as he holds her close and speaks in a soothing voice, "You have to let him go," he spells out.

"He said it would work, Stefan! He said he would—" She's crying now, fingers losing strength as she bawls out and lets Ric's feet touch the floor.

"It's not his fault, Elena," he says, holding her to his chest. Her fingers grip at his shirt, and she hides her stained face against him.

Alaric is trying to loosen the muscles of his throat, tight and sore from her cruel grip, looking back at an immobile Damon, sitting on the sofa and staring ahead with empty eyes. The pocket watch is abandoned on the coffee table, the clock's hands are moving, punctuating every second slipping away together with his sanity.

"Why can't she leave him alone?" the girl cries out, raving, "She needs to leave him alone!" she repeats, letting go of Stefan to pick up her phone and dial Bonnie's number with trembling fingers.

"Elena, please," Stefan says trying to take the phone away from her hands, but she pulls back and presses her lips together as she holds the phone to her ear.

"Bonnie," she says, "Listen to me, Bonnie," she repeats, "He's mine!" before Stefan can tear the phone from her. It's stupid to even try but he gives in, too, pressing the cold object to his ear. On the other side the voice, permeated with a dull inflection, just repeats Sorry, the number you have dialed is not valid.

"I thought, given the choice, he'd pick you," Alaric admits, dismayed in the face of Damon's choice, "that he'd always pick you."

The last time they set up a way for him to cut Bonnie from his mind, he chose to trap Kai in the other dimension, and now, he's just killed him. One hand and a blink, and Kai was out of the picture, and Elena was forgotten, and he was holding on to Bonnie more than ever.

Elena turns around to look up into Stefan's eyes.

"What does that mean, Stefan?" she asks, desperate the way only children can be. "Doesn't he love me? Doesn't he love me more than anything?" she presses, pitifully clinging to him.

Stefan can't hurt her, can never hurt her, but he won't lie to her either. So he just stays silent and holds her.

#

His eyes snap open and for a moment he thinks that something bad has happened. Something bad has happened to Bonnie and he lost precious time. Damon stumbles on his feet as he stands from the couch, finding himself in the Salvatore sitting room. The carpet under his feet is drenched in alcohol, the drink cart is knocked over the floor, and there are muffled voices talking in his ear. Someone in the house is having a discussion, making plans, but Damon already has one of his own. He just shakes his head, tuning them out, and walks out the house.

It's like someone is squeezing his heart in a constant vise so that the pain never becomes dull, never reaches the point where his stubborn body catches the drift and heals it back. Something has happened to Bonnie, he thinks - he knows – and he needs to make sure this is all just the aftermath of a bad hangover.

It's too early for her to be in bed just yet, but the lights are off and he stares at her window unable to push his legs to move for long moments, until something snaps in him and he's hitting the door with closed fists and closed lungs. He can't even hear the sound of the door creaking under his strength, only the deaf whistle of his lungs that have forgotten how to work properly.

The Bennett house front door is open, he realizes, and he enters calling her name. Inside everything is neat, and the high pile of junk mail is sitting on the cabinet next the door. Damon walks up the stairs in a rush and sees the faint light coming from the space under the door of her bedroom.

He gently pushes the door open, willing his eyes to see her. Her back against the bed headboard, legs stretched over the red duvet, her gaze concentrating over a line in the novel she's reading, headphones in her ears – which is why she didn't hear him calling, which is why she let him die a little in his head. But if she's okay he can overlook it, this time around.

"You're supposed to knock," she says, pulling at her earphones when she notices his presence in the doorway. He can hear asong playing – and it hurts so bad that I search my skin for the entry point where love went in and ricocheted and bounced around and left a hole when you walked out – before she can turn the music off.

"Not if I'm hoping to catch you naked," he jokes, offering a grin. "What are you reading?" he asks, entering the room, trying to occupy her space as much as possible to reassure himself that she is still there, still alive, unharmed, the way she should always be.

He uses one finger to push at the cover of the book she's holding up and reads the title 'Grave Refrain'. He's read this one. In fact, he vaguely recalls the ghostly tale with an intensely passionate, almost maniacal tortured rock god male lead, and the elegant old Hollywood vibe that saturates the whole story.

"If you spoil it for me I'm going to kill you," she threatens, glaring at him for a split second before going back to read.

"I don't like when you don't pay me the due attention," he comments, sitting at the foot of her bed. She doesn't even reply, just reaches out blindly for her nightstand, takes a book and throws it in his lap.

Last time, he interrupted his reading before he could finish it. He's not much into poems but he loathes leaving things unfinished so he browses the pages until he's found the point where he left off.

Damon stretches his legs on the bed, leaving his feet off of it to not dirty the duvet. Bonnie's tiny ones are wrapped in silly socks with a cat smile stretched over the toes, which she wriggles. Her feet are always icy.

The brown leather cover of the book is heavy, and smooth because of the wear, he can feel the engraved golden letters of the title against his fingertips as he reads on, the short poem: A mermaid found a swimming lad, picked him for her own, pressed her body to his body, laughed; and plunging down forgot in cruel happiness that even lovers drown.

She's distracted and he's still expecting for something to happen, for the ground to open up and swallow her, so he just grabs at her ankle and pulls, dragging her closer, uncaring of her shriek of surprise, until her soles are pressed against his chest and her head is falling over his thighs, as she lays on her bed curled up on the side.

"What are you doing?" she asks, blinking at him.

"Nothing, keep on reading," he says, "Aloud," he adds, closing his own book and letting it fall on the mattress, before brushing his palm against the curve of her dainty feet to infuse some warmth.

#

"You are completely out of your mind," Damon says, smiling maniacally. His little brother has hit his head one too many times and he's delirious. But he's looking at him with that grave expression of his, and Damon is starting to think that this is not some kind of sick joke, that Stefan has just lost it.

"Brother," Damon says, "I think you need to rest your senile head."

"I don't," Stefan replies, moving in warily, like he's scared of a violent reaction on his part. "You need to listen to me, Damon," he says, placing one hand on his shoulder, "Bonnie is dead."

Damon stays still for a moment, torn between laughing in his face and getting angry at him. With their track record, he shouldn't say those kind of things. It's bad mojo, everyone knows.

"She's not!" Damon replies, shaking off his hand with an irritated gesture and stepping away from him like he could infect him with madness and a reality where Bonnie is not alive anymore.

"I saved her!" he protests, "She found the map and came back to me," he explains, recounting the events, telling himself the story of how she's beat all odds, "She always comes back to me."

The pitiful look in his brother's eyes is jarring and he wants to break his face so that he'll stop looking at him that way.

"We trapped Kai in the prison world," he says, angrily "And when he got out I ripped that crazy head off the rest of his body. And I'll keep on killing anyone who tries to harm her, you understand that?" he asks, threateningly.

"Kai never came back from the prison world," Stefan says, shaking his head and slipping his hand inside the pocket of his jeans to take his phone. He presses one button and puts the phone on speaker, once again the female voice answers with the ritual sentence: Sorry, the number you have dialed is not valid.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Damon asks grimacing, confused. Stefan shows him the illuminated screen with Bonnie's name.

"You got the wrong number," Damon explains with a shrug, "or she's blocked yours. More points for her," he decides.

"Jeremy deactivated her number after she got stuck on the other side," Stefan reminds him. Damon remembers the boy's face as he sat in front of him on the bed and asked him, "Why? She hated you," when he had decided to call her just to hear her voice, recorded for the answering service.

"Yeah, the asshole gives up so easily. But I didn't, and she came back."

"She didn't," Stefan insists, and Damon turns around to unload his anger on the first piece of furniture he can grab. The footrest slams against the wall and falls to the floor. The broken memories of his own hands grabbing at a poker and destroying the antique armchair that used to be in front of the fireplace come together and fall apart again, as he hears Elena's voice begging from a corner to stop. He turns around, where she was back then, but she is not there.

She is not there, because Kai has put her in a magical coma and forced him to choose between her and his best friend. And that means Stefan is wrong.

He turns around triumphantly to rub the truth in his face, but behind him, on the flight of stairs, Elena is looking at him and holding her breath.

"Elena," he's relieved to see her, he's ready to go to her and hold her against him when it crashes over him.

"Kai did not come back, Damon," his brother says again, with the gentlest tone he can master, like he's talking to a kid who's just woken up from a nightmare, "And Bonnie didn't, either."

Damon has just woken up into one. He raises his arms, pressing his open palms against his temples, insisting "No, no, no," in a sad lullaby.

"We tried to bring her back and failed…" he admits, with guilt "you've spent whole days watching her cope with her loneliness on the other side. And then one day… she couldn't take it anymore," his throat burns in saying the words, "Jeremy said he saw her when she killed herself but you didn't believe it. You said she had found a way to come back, and you've waited for months…"

"You're wrong," he protests, but his own voice in his head is asking You think it is spring where she is? They've spent four May together, and even in spring she could get chilly.

"When it was clear she was never coming back you've started to hallucinate her," he recounts, "We've been here before, Damon" Stefan says, again, trying to reach him through his wall-like denial, "We tell you she's dead, you go mad, destroy half the house and you seem to accept it, to be alright for a few days. And then it starts all over again."

""You're lying to me," Damon shouts, angrily, pointing an accusing finger in his direction.

"Every time we dismantle one of your stories your brain find a new way to save her," it tears his heart apart to see his strong, invincible big brother so broken and fragile, prey of a mad love he could never voice or come to terms with, before it was too late.

Damon's eyes are on his and yet they go right through him. One tear escaped his black lashes, but he doesn't make a sound. Stefan knows who his brother is seeing now.

"You invent a new enemy to fight, find another loophole in the story, and you save her," he tells him. "Last time we thought you were over it. You seemed to be fine… you were fine for four months, and then it started again. You woke up one morning, and she was alive in your head. We thought we could make you break off this sick circle by giving you a choice. By making you choose between Bonnie and Elena, but…" he doesn't say the words, because they both know how that story ended.

"I wouldn't…" Damon tries, "She is not…"

"You can't bear a world where she is not with you…" Stefan admits, in the end, defeated. Elena is howling on the stairs, sliding down to crouch on the step as her hands hold the bars of the railing.

"But, please," Stefan begs, desperation breaking though his voice, as he holds his brother by the shoulders, "Please, you need to let her go, because next time I don't know if we're going to be able to pull you back," and he hugs him tight, scared. "Let her go, brother. For me."

"I will," Damon surrenders, holding him back, watching though unshed tears the useless figure of Elena crying on the stairs. "I'm sorry. I will." He repeats.

Damon hopes it's warm where she is. He hates to think she might be cold.

#

Damon lost someone he took for granted, someone that was supposed to be with him and survive him. Someone that was better than him in every way; and in the face of that, he can't find the strength to hold on to Elena.

He needs to start over, find his peace of mind. He needs a warm place.

Damon looks down at the airplane ticket in his hand, smiling at this new beginning.

It's spring. Springs are for beginnings.

Bonnie flops down in the chair next to him, the hem of her flowery dress waves in the air as she does so. Damon can smell the scent of her shampoo, and the leather of her favorite jacket. Her eyes avoid his look until she finds the courage to ask him, "Are you sure about this?"

"You want to leave me behind?" he asks back, grinning at her. She could never get rid of him, even if she tried.

Bonnie smiles at him, "I know better than to try again," she says with a shrug.

"Exactly."

"But you just lost Stefan, and maybe this is a rushed decision that you're going to regret. You should think about it some more."

There are people walking around them, carrying their luggage or running towards the gates to catch their flight before it takes off. Their faces are blurry and confused, the background noise is a bit muffled for a moment. All his attention is on Bonnie, on the curve of her pretty mouth, on the crown of her heart-shaped hairline, on the glowing color of her caramel skin.

"I'd do anything for you," he realizes, before looking about himself for a brief moment like he's waking up inside a dream. Before looking at the confused colors of the nameless airport. He cannot remember how he got here, but it's not like it matters.

"I love you," he says, dead set and ready to hold on to her.

Bonnie's eyes are large and surprised, and softened by his confession. Her mouth tries to form words she remembers how to speak.

"You don't have a witty comeback to that?" he asks, grinning victoriously.

Bonnie stands all of a sudden, takes the luggage abandoned on the chair next to her and marches away, but he's faster. His fingers wrap around her slim wrist, and he pulls her back, making her face him, before his free hand cups the back of her head and draws her close, to kiss her.

He can feel her body leaning in, his petite girl reaching tiptoes to deepen the kiss, and he can't help but smile against her mouth as he let her wrist go, trusting that she won't go away.

When the kiss ends, sweetly so, Bonnie makes the tiniest sound of awe, her lashes tremble as she opens her green eyes, and he brushes his nose against hers. He never could imagine her loving him back, but maybe he can now.

She's blushing and trembling against him, fingers wrapped about the fabric of his t-shirt like she could fall to the ground if she doesn't, and he doesn't take his hand away from her nape so that she won't hurt as she looks at him like he's the only man in the world.

"Bonnie Bennett," he says, inches from her mouth, the back of his fingers caressing the curve of her cheek, "I'm crazy for you."

#

Note: The title of this story means "Madly".The songs used in this story are "Don't forget about me" by CLOVES and "Exit wounds" by The Script, plus, I suggest you listen to "Fear of the water" by SYML. The book 'Bonnie' was reading is by Sarah M. Gloven, the poem Damon was reading is "The mermaid" by W.B. Yeats. I have a lot of things to say, but maybe it is better if I let you come to your own conclusions. I hope you will leave me a review (and maybe buy me a coffee, if you'd like), let me know what you think (and what you feel)