ꗃ 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐈 𝐀𝐌 ˖ ࣪. ࿐♡˚.
𝚅𝙾𝙻 𝙸 ━━━ 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙷𝙴𝙰𝚁𝚃𝙻𝙴𝚂𝚂 𝙷𝚈𝙱𝚁𝙸𝙳
❛ 𝖶𝖤𝖫𝖢𝖮𝖬𝖤 𝖳𝖮 𝖯𝖠𝖱𝖠𝖣𝖨𝖲𝖤 ❜

𝟎𝟏. ❛ 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒎𝒂𝒈𝒊𝒄 𝗂𝗌 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒌𝒆𝒚 𝗍𝗈 𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝗎𝗌 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝗈𝖿 𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 ❜

𝐃amon leans against the shopping cart while Bonnie stands next to him, both strolling through the aisles of a deserted store in Mystic Falls, and fighting over who was going to push the cart.

"I got it." He spoke stubbornly, pushing her hands away.

"Okay." Bonnie sighs, picking up a small piece of paper, "We need strawberries."

"Mmmhh."

"Eggs, milk and — ooh candle." She picks one up and sets it into the cart.

Damon looks at her for a second, "I know it's been awhile, but you couldn't do magic as an anchor, so I'm curious what momentary lapse reason makes you think you can do it now?"

They turn the corner onto another aisle.

"You know, when all this started, you sucked at making pancakes but now they're somewhere edible." Bonnie shrugged, "Milk."

Damon stops the cart, opens one of the many refrigerators and takes out a big carton of milk before he sits it down in the cart.

"There's no reason to be Peter Pessimist." Bonnie heads over to a rack of sunglasses and sets a pair of blue shades on her face while the tag dangles, "We have proof we're not alone."

"First of all. Don't nickname, that's my thing." He points to himself as he strolls over to Bonnie, snatching another pair of sunglasses from her, "And this is proof, this mysteriously filled in crossword, could very easily been you."

Bonnie leans on the cart, "I. Didn't. Fill. It. In."

"No. You don't know you filled it in. You also don't know that you talk in your sleep." Damon tells her, pointing over his head, "Eggs."

Bonnie opens the fridge beside them and grabs the eggs, "What are you saying? Are you saying I sleep-crossword?"

Damon takes the glasses off his face, "I'm saying it makes more sense than the alternative." He takes the eggs, dropping them into the cart.

"I get what you're doing." Bonnie takes her sunglasses off.

"What am I doing?"

"You refuse to have hope that you'll see Elena again so you don't have to be disappointed." Bonnie tells him as they turn the corner again.

"I refuse to have hope because there's nothing to hope for." Damon says in a loud voice, "What do I honestly have in Mystic Falls anyway? My daughter is rotting away in a crypt."

Bonnie suddenly stops walking, "Pork Rinds."

Damon looks over the list the two of them made, "Not on the list and ewe."

"No, Damon." Bonnie emphasizes his name as she points to the shelf, "There have been pork rinds here on every shopping trip we've had for the past four months." k

Suddenly, an electronic chime playing a melody comes on.

"You hear that?" Bonnie hurries out of the store with Damon following after her, and she stands in front of a small horse carousel outside of the door that is playing. "Hmm you hear that, Damon? That's what hope sounds like."

࿐♡

𝐃amon opens the switch box to the horse carousel, "It's gotta be a short, faulty wiring, something."

"Or someone put a quarter in it and turned it on." Bonnie tells the vampire standing next to her.

"You know I'm a little confused with all this misplaced hope. Alright. Let's just say there's someone here. How do you know we're gonna get out?"

"Well, you say that this is your hell right? If there's someone else here, that means it's not your hell, and if it's not your hell that means Grams put us here, and if Grams put us here there's a way out." Bonnie tells him.

"That's a hell of a logic knot you've tied for yourself." Damon tells her."

"Thank you. So, now that we have properly placed our hope, let's play a game. When we get out, what's the first thing you're gonna tell Elena?"

Damon thinks for a moment, "Sorry I killed Bonnie. But she was the most annoying person in the world." He started to walk towards the parking lot, "She wouldn't shut up. She just kept talking. I mean, it's a wonder I made it as long as I did, but here's the thing, I think it's better this way because she didn't have magic, and she was pretty much useless."

"Damon." Bonnie calls out as she notices something in the parking lot."

"What?!"

"I don't know, you still think I'm useless?" She points to the parking lot where Damon's car was parked.

He looks at the license plate on the back, "That's my car. That's my car!"

࿐♡

     ❛𝐇ow much longer are we gonna listen....,❜

"Shh, shh, shh, shh." Damon holds a finger up to his lips, "This sound is the opposite sound of your voice, and so I enjoy it."

"How did it even get here, Damon?" She asked, "Did you leave it here in 1994?"

"I don't know, Bonnie. It was eighteen years ago." Damon tells her, "Had a lot going on that day."

"Okay. So you admit that it's pretty unlikely that you did."

"Very unlikely."

"Which would stand to reason...that...,"

"Someone may have put it here, Bonnie. Yes, I admit that." Damon rolls his eyes, looking over to the passenger side of the car, "I'm gonna tell Elena how much I love her." Bonnie smiles at the ground at his words, "And then I'm gonna apologize for killing you."

Bonnie notices something in the distance, "Did you just see that?"

Damon turns his head just in time to see a figure pass by the open window of a truck parked next to him, getting out of his car, "I did that time. Let's go meet our little friend."

࿐♡

     ❛𝐈t was behind the pickup.❜ Bonnie tells the vampire as they move around the truck.

"No. It was in front." Damon argues, pointing in the direction of the back of the pickup.

"Are you sure?" Bonnie steps in front of the truck to look at him.

"Yes. Absolutely I'm sure. It was right there."

Both of them notice a tarp flying in the wind.

"It was a tarp. We saw a tarp." Damon says before the carousel turns on and the music starts playing, "And that...that is on a timer. That turned on by itself."

"But your car."

"I left it here in '94."

"And the crossword?"

"You filled it out, Bonnie. Which means we're alone in my own hell with no Grams escape hatch. We're never getting out." Damon tells her.

"Give me your ring." Bonnie tells him in a frustrated tone.

"What?"

"Give me your ring." She takes his hand in hers and tires to snatch it off of his finger while Damon resisted, "All I've heard you say is that you have no hope and that this is your hell, so if it's so ad, why don't you just end it?" He pushes her back, "Hope is the only thing keeping me going, Damon, so if you're really done, if you have none, then be done because this isn't helping."

࿐♡

     𝐂oming to the wine section of the store, Damon picks up a bottle before he hears a sound near and puts the bottle back. Moving ahead, he's met with a guy in a green jacket lounging on a chair and munching on the missing pork rinds.

"Rough day, huh, Damon?" Kai questioned his wife's father as he eats another pork rind, "Sorry. Manners. I'm Kai. Nice to meet you. Pork rind?"

Damon stares at the man, weirdly in shock that there was actually another person there with him and Bonnie.

࿐♡

     𝐊ai rocks back and forth in the chair he was still sitting in while he continued to munch on the pork rinds in his hands, his eyes still on the blue eyed Salvatore.

Damon stands close, an irritated look on his face, "That is gonna have to stop."

"Oh, you think this is annoying? Hmm." He nods his head, "Try listening to you and Bonnie bicker every five minutes."

"So you've been following us."

"Of course I have. You two are the closest thing I have to TV." Kai tells him, "I mean, you're no "Baywatch", but....remember "Baywatch"?"

"No, I don't."

"Oh. Oh, man you got to watch it. You like lifeguards, like...hot ones?"

"This has been a monumentally bad day in a sea of bad days, so I'm gonna need to know who you are, what you're doing here, and how it relates to me, or I'm gonna rip your throat out." Damon tells the siphoner sitting in the chair.

"Temper's gonna get you in trouble, Damon. It's already driven Bonnie away home may times?" Oh, oh, wait. I know. Thirteen."

"You think my temper's bad with her? I like her. You, not so much." Damon uses his speed to hold him up by his collar.

"Okay, okay. Sorry. Seriously. I'm just kind of rusty on the face-to-face type human interactions." Kai says to him.

Damon drops him, "Answer now."

"Maybe you should have a drink." Kai tells him, "That usually calms you down."

"Thanks."

"Then it makes you angry, then sad, then calm again. It's a weird cycle, and look, if you really want to know the reason I'm following you, it's because I want to kill you."

Damon takes a swig of the bourbon he picked up from the shelf and instantly coughs at the skin around his mouth starts burning along with his throat.

"Vervain in your bourbon." Kai smirked, "Who didn't see that one coming?"

࿐♡

     ❛𝐖ho buys patio furniture from a grocery store? I mean, somebody must. Otherwise it...it wouldn't be here.❜ Kai picks up a beach umbrella and breaks it into two, "But now I'm a little unfamiliar with vampires, but from what I learned from your daughter forty years ago, a stake to the heart should do it, right?"

Damon screams out as Kai stabs him in the hand with the broken umbrella.

"You can always fight dirty, Damon. Like that time you and Bonnie played monopoly and you stole from the bank. Not cool."

Damon manages to free his hand and stands up, "I'm gonna rip your head off."

"No. You're not." He smashes all of the bottles on the shelf and the liquid from it burns Damon's skin as he falls to the floor again, "I didn't know which bottle you'd take, so we vervained them all."

"Stay away from him."

"The useless one is here. Thank God. We've watched you try to do magic for months now." Kai says to the Bennett witch standing in front of him, "What are you gonna do, fail at me? It's embarrassing. I'm embarrassed for you."

Bonnie looks down at Damon, who is already looking back at her. She looks at a candle on the side shelf and it lights up. Damon is relieved while Bonnie is happily surprised.

"Uh-oh."

In an instant, Damon was gone.

"Phesmatos Incendia." Bonnie says a spell as a fire lights up in front of Kai thanks to the spilled bourbon in the floor.

"Okay, okay, okay." Kai holds his hands up after throwing the broken umbrella off to the side.

"Giving up so soon?" Bonnie asked him, "I'm embarrassed for you."

Damon knocks Kai out from behind, throwing him to the floor as he looks up at Bonnie, "Sorry I called you the most annoying person in the world. I hadn't met him yet."

Bonnie smiles.

࿐♡

     𝐊ai begins to slowly regain consciousness, realizing he's stuck in a chair.

"You're awake. Good. Now for the Q and A portion of the evening." Damon stands in front of Kai with a fire poker in one hand and a bag of pork rinds in the other.

"Let me guess, I answer right, I get a pork rind. Wrong, I get a poker."

"What? No, no, no. These are for me." Damon puts the bag behind his back, holding up the poker up, "You just get the poker."

"Yeah. You don't have to do that." Kai tells him.

"No?"

"We're on the same team." Kai says to the vampire and witch.

"Really?" Bonnie stands up from where she was sitting, "Do you always try and kill your teammates?"

"The important thing is that you have your magic back. It worked." Kai said, causing Bonnie and Damon to look at each other, "What, you...you didn't really think I'd kill Damon, did you? In what universe does that make sense? Who would kill one fourth of our population? I'm not a monster."

"We knew Bonnie would show up. She always comes back, all thirteen times, and we knew with the right motivation she'd be able to access her magic, although I — I did get a little worried with all your bickering that Damon's life wouldn't be enough motivation, but turns out it was. I guess that's just how you two show your love."

"So you did all that just to make sure I would have my magic?" Bonnie asked.

"Of course we did." Kai smirked, "Isn't that right, Natty?"

Damon and Bonnie both go silent and still as the front door comes open and the sound of heels click against the floors as a dark haired figure turns the corner, a gasp leaving the Bennett witches lips as she gets a good look at who was standing before them.

"Right. After all, your magic is the key to getting us the hell out of here."

Damon stares into the dark and dead eyes of his daughter, a daughter that was supposedly dead, "Anastasia.

Anastasia smirks at her father, tilting her head, "Hi, Daddy."