I will - without any artificial Wings, Elena promised. Then she worried that Stefan would think her too presumptuous - or too attached.
But one look at Stefan was enough to assure her that she was doing the right thing.
They clung to each other.
It wasn't as hard as Elena had imagined it would be - handing Stefan over to other humans to be bled. Stefan had a clean pair of pajamas on, and the first thing he said to all three donors was, "If you get frightened or change your mind, just say so. I can hear perfectly well, and I'm not in bloodlust. And anyway, I'll probably sense it if you're not enjoying it before you do, and I'll stop. And finally - thank you - thank you all. I've decided to break my oath tonight because there's still some little chance that if I slept I wouldn't wake up tomorrow without you."
Bonnie was horrified and indignant and furious. "You mean you couldn't sleep all that time because you were afraid to - to...?"
"I did fall asleep from time to time, but thank fortune - thank God - I always woke up again. There were times when I didn't dare move to conserve energy, but somehow Elena kept finding ways to come to me, and every single time she came, she brought me some kind of sustenance." He gave Elena a look that sent her heart spinning out of her chest and high into the stratosphere.
And then she set up a schedule, with Stefan being fed every hour on the hour, and then she and the others left the first volunteer, Bonnie, alone, so as to be more comfortable.
It was the next morning. Damon had already been out to visit Leigh, the antiques-seller's niece, who had seemed very glad to see him. And now he was back, to look with scorn at the slug-a-beds who were distributed all around the boardinghouse.
That was when he saw the bouquet.
It was heavily sealed down with wards - amulets to help get it through the dimensional gap. There was something powerful in there.
Damon cocked his head to one side.
Hmm...I wonder what?
Dear Diary,
I don't know what to say. We're home.
Last night we each had a long bath...and I was half-disappointed, because my favorite long-handled back-scrubbing brush wasn't there, and there was no star ball to make dreamy music for Stefan - and the water was LUKEWARM! And Stefan went to see if the water heater was turned on all the way and met Damon going to do the same thing! Only, they couldn't because we're home again.
But I woke up a couple of hours ago for a few minutes to see the most beautiful sight in the world...a sunrise. Pale pink and eerie green in the east, with nighttime still full dark in the west. Then deeper rose in the sky, and the trees all wreathed in dew clouds. Then a shiny glory from the edge of the horizon and dark rose, cream, and even a green melon color in the sky, Finally, a line of fire and in an instant all the colors change. The line becomes an arc, the western sky is deepest deepest blue, and then up comes the sun bringing warmth and light and color to the green trees and the sky begins to become celestial blue - celestial just means heavenly, although somehow, I have a delicious shivery feeling when I say it. The sky becomes a gemlike, celestial, cerulean blue and the golden sun begins to pour energy, love, light, and every good thing onto the world.
Who could not be happy to watch this while Stefan held her?
We who are so lucky as to be born into the light - who see it every day and never think about it, we're blessed. We could have been born shadow souls who live and die in crimson darkness, never even knowing that somewhere there is something better.
Chapter 44
Elena was wakened by shouting. She'd already once awakened to unbelievable bliss. Now she was awake again - but surely that was Damon's voice. Shouting? Damon didn't shout!
Throwing on a robe, she went dashing out the door and downstairs.
Raised voices - confusion. Damon was kneeling on the floor. His face was blue-white. There wasn't a plant in the room that could be strangling him.
Poisoned, was the next thing Elena thought and immediately her eyes darted around the room to see a spilled drink, a dropped plate, any sign that poison had done this. There was nothing.
Sage was clapping Damon on the back. Oh, God, could he have choked? But that was idiocy. Vampires didn't breathe, except for talking and building Power.
But then what was happening?
"You have to breathe," Sage was shouting in Damon's ear. "Take a breath, as if you were going to speak, but then hold on to it, as if for raising your Power. Think about your insides. Get those lungs working!"
The words only confused Elena.
"There!" cried Sage. "You see?"
"But it only lasts an instant. Then I need to do it again."
"But, yes, that is the point!"
"I tell you I'm dying and you laugh at me?" a disheveled Damon shouted. "I'm blind, deaf, my senses are haywire - and you laugh!"
Disheveled, thought Elena, bothered by something.
"Well." Sage seemed to be at least trying not to laugh. "Perhaps, mon petit chou, you should not have opened something that was not addressed to you?"
"I put wards all around me before I did it. The house was safe."
"But you were not - breathe! Breathe, Damon!"
"It looked completely harmless - and admit it - we were all going - to open it last night - when we got too tired - !"
"But to do it alone, to open a present from a kitsune...that was foolish, yes?"
A choking Damon snapped, "Don't lecture me. Help me. Why am I muffled in cotton wool? Why can't I see? Or hear? Or smell - anything? I'm telling you I can't smell a thing!"
"You are fit and sharp as any human could be. You could probably defeat most vampires if you fought with one right now. But human senses are very few and very dull."