CHAPTER ONE

Damon groans as the five of them walk alongside the parked cars. "How many more streets are we gonna wander?" He questions.

"How many times are you gonna ask me questions I don't have the answers to? Hm?" Bonnie asks, annoyed.

"Okay, so... The last thing you remember is baking cookies in yours and Sam's apartment in '05 while talking to your friend, Brady?" Nyx asks Jessica.

"How many times are you gonna make the poor girl tell you that story?" Damon asks as he glances at Nyx. "She's already gone over it ten times."

"Excuse the hell out of me for being confused. I saw her die, Damon." Nyx tells him.

"You're confused?" Jess questions. "You just told me that you and he are vampires, and I've been dead for almost three years."

"I've been dead for two." Jenna interjects.

"And Bonnie and I have been dead for almost one, while Damon's going on day one." Nyx says, looking at the street ahead of them. "Our lives are depressing."

"There's something weird about these cars."

"Yeah, they're all almost twenty years old or more, and yet they look brand new." Damon says and then something catches his attention. "And that is Nyx's not-so-burnt-to-a-crisp house."

"Burnt to a crisp?" Jenna looks at her niece as Damon picks up a newspaper.

"Uh, yeah..." Nyx nods. "Jeremy died, and Elena turned off her emotions. She burned the house down."

"What? Jeremy's dead? Elena's a vampire too?"

"Jeremy's alive, Bonnie brought him back — which is actually how she died. And yes, me and Elena are both vampires." She tells her aunt. "Klaus' sister killed us both...on the same night."

"Uh-huh."

"Yeah, we have a lot of catching up to do. Maybe we should save the questions for after we answer the biggest one." Nycole says.

"You mean the one about where we are?" Damon asks as he turns around. "I think I just found out."

"What?" Nyx looks up at him, and he taps the date on the newspaper he's holding, so she looks at it. "May 10..." She raises her eyebrows. "1990. What the hell?"

"Is that— Are we— That's impossible." Jess says, and they all look at her.

It suddenly starts to get dark, and the five of them all look up at the sky. "Hey, Damon?"

"Yeah?"

"What's the headline on that paper?"

"Something about an eclipse happening today." He tells her, and she nods.

"Yeah." She clears her throat. "I don't think we should be asking where we are. I think we should be asking when we are."

"So... 1990?" Jess asks as she walks toward the house. "I was six, and I lived in California on the other side of the country. Why am I here? I don't have a connection to this town like you guys do. I'd never even heard of it before last night."

"I don't know." Nyx says as she follows behind her.

The five of them walk up onto the Gilberts' porch, and the two vampires sit on the swing. Bonnie and Jessica​ sit on the porch steps, and Jenna goes inside the house to look around.

"I wonder if there's any booze in this empty retroville." Damon says as he swings slightly.

"It's so weird to be back here. I practically grew up on this porch." Bonnie says, and Nyx scoffs.

"Tell me about it." Nyx looks around. "This was the only house that I'd ever lived in until after my parents' funeral."

"Alright, talk us through it." Damon says, referring to what Bonnie had been telling them while they were walking earlier.

"Before the Other Side collapsed...my Grams said that she made a sacrifice so I could find peace." She tells them.

"The part where you actually have a theory."

"Is he always so..." Jess trails off.

"Rude?" Nyx supplies. "To her, usually."

"Well, this clearly isn't peace. Otherwise, I wouldn't be stuck here with you." Bonnie tells Damon, and he turns back to her, away from Nyx, who he was glaring at.

"Rude." He narrows his blue eyes.

"So, she must've, I don't know... Sent me somewhere. And when I held onto Nyx's arm, I took her with me." She says. "And since she was holding your hand, you're here too."

"How does that explain me and Jenna?" Jess asks, and Nyx looks at her.

"It doesn't​."

"Well, did she happen to whisper a safe word in her last breaths?" Damon asks, still talking about Sheila. "A clue, maybe? A witchy path out of here?"

"No." Bonnie says as she stands up. "But if we got here by magic, magic should be able to get us out." She tells them as Jenna then walks back outside.

"The house looks exactly like I remember from when you and Elena were two." She tells her niece. "It's freaky."

Damon's​ still looking at Bonnie. "And that frown that's not upside down is telling me what?" He questions.

Bonnie takes a deep breath and looks at the candle that's sitting on the table in front of Damon and Nyx. "Phasmatos incendia."

"What was that?" Jess asks.

"That was Bonnie failing to do magic." He tells her, and she looks at Nycole.

"Bonnie was a witch before she died." Nyx tells her. "The good kind. The best kind."

"So, she's not anymore?" Jess asks.

"She couldn't do magic when she was the anchor." She explains. "And it seems like she still can't."

"Perfect." Damon says sarcastically​.

—

"Sam is a hunter of supernatural​ creatures?" Jess' eyes widen. "Like the thing that killed me?"

"A demon." Nyx nods.

They're at the Boarding House now, and the two girls are in the living room. Nyx is currently trying to tell her everything that she's missed in the last two and a half years.

"Why didn't he ever tell me?" The confused blonde asks.

"Well, he stopped hunting. He didn't want killing monsters to be his whole life." Nyx explains. "He was out for a while before he met you, and he had no intention of ever going back. He hated how he and Dean were raised."

"So, why'd he start hunting again?"

"Because of what happened to you."

"Me?" She questions, eyebrows raised.

"He loved you, Jess, so much. He was actually gonna propose to you." Nyx tells her. "After you died... He wanted to kill the thing that did it because it took a lot more from him than just you."

"Their mom." She says, and Nyx nods.

"Mary's death is what drove John to become a hunter. It's the reason the boys were raised to be hunters. John hunted the demon for twenty-two years before it killed him too."

"And Sam and his brother killed it?"

"Yeah." She nods. "Dean did. But not before it got Sam killed."

"Which is how Dean ended up..." The blonde clears her throat and looks down. "Sorry."

Nyx shakes her head. "It's fine." She tells her. "Yeah, that's how Dean ended up dead, uh... He made a deal with a demon. So, Sam's alive, and Dean's...in hell."

"Wow."

"Yeah." She sighs. "I wish I had John's journal. That's how I learned a lot of this. It would make teaching you that much easier."

Bonnie and Jenna walk in then. "Is someone cooking?" Bonnie asks.

"Damon is." Nyx tells her. "And listening to annoying music."

"Come on." She motions toward the kitchen, and the four girls go to see what he's making. "I didn't know you cooked."

"I don't." Damon says awkwardly​ as he lowers his bottle of whiskey and stops dancing. "How'd you sleep? Me, not good. My 1990 mattress was very lumpy."

"Well, at least your room has a bed and not a crib." Nyx says. That's why she and Jess stayed at the Boarding House last night.

"What is that stuff?" Jess asks Bonnie.

"Miss Cuddles." The former witch says with a smile as she holds a teddy bear up. "I lost her when I was nine, but I went into my house last night and there she was. I also found this at my Grams' house. Her old grimoire."

"Yeah, well I found this." Damon holds up his whiskey. "Drank it last year when Ric died."

"So, we're in this snapshot of another time or something. Everything that existed in 1990...still exists." Jenna says.

"For better or for worse." He says as he holds up a CD.

"It's too bad you don't know where Sam and his family were in 1990." Jess says, and Nyx looks at her. "Then we could go and get his dad's journal."

"Actually, I do know where they were." Nyx says. "You really wanna learn?"

"You just got through telling me that I was killed by a demon. And that my boyfriend, er... Ex-boyfriend? I don't know." She shakes her head. "That Sam's a hunter. Yeah, I want to learn as much as you can teach me."

"Anybody up for a road trip?" She asks as she looks at the other three.

"To where?" Damon asks, skeptically.

"Wisconsin."

"Why were they in Wisconsin?"

"There was this...thing." She clears her throat. "John was on a hunt."

"What was he hunting?" He asks.

"It's called a shtriga. They're...disturbing."

"What's that?" Jess asks.

"Story for the road. Who's coming?" Nyx asks as she looks around.

"I'm in." Jenna says. "What else is there to do around here?"

Bonnie and Damon then start arguing, so Nyx tells the other two to get ready while she plays mediator. Bonnie eventually starts doing the crosswords puzzle in the newspaper while Nyx and Damon eat the pancakes that he made. It suddenly gets dark in the room, and the three of them look out the skylight in the kitchen roof.

"You gotta be kidding me." Damon mutters.

"Please tell me that that's not what I think it is." Nyx says as Jenna and Jess walk back into the room.

"Bonnie, look at the date on that paper."

"It says May 10, 1990." She tells them. "Same day as yesterday. We're living the same day all over again."

"Great." Nyx says sarcastically. "I always wanted to be in a crappy remake of Groundhog Day."

"Which hasn't even been made yet." Jess says, and Nyx shoots her an unamused look.

"Well, that proves it. We're in hell." Damon says. "My own personal, custom-built hell. And you're all in it with me. Bottoms up." He says and then he takes a drink from his whiskey bottle.

"So... Road trip?" Jenna asks, and Nyx nods.

"Do you think I'll be able to take my grimoire?" Bonnie asks. "Or will it disappear when the day resets?"

"Will we be able to bring the journal back from Wisconsin?" Jess asks, and Nyx sighs.

"I don't know." She says. "I guess we'll have to go and figure it out. Who's coming?"

"We can always stay there for a while." Bonnie says, and they all look at her. "Jess should probably know more before we get out of here. Jenna too, since she's human again."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah." She nods. "I remember enough from the grimoire to go without it for a while."

"Okay." Nyx nods. "Damon?"

He shrugs. "I might as well." He says as he sets his bottle down. "I doubt any of you know how to hot wire a car anyway."

"Well, you'd be wrong there." She says with a smile, and he chuckles as he walks past her.