“Heh,” Bonnie said. “And exactly what were we back in the dark . . . in
the dark . . . I mean, when we were personal . . .”
In the Dark Dimension when you were my “personal assistants” because you wouldn’t say “concubines” out loud, Damon thought, fascinated. You’re all trying to swim back to memories that you don’t have anymore. I suppose I should break this up before it gets too complicated.
“Look,” he said, “let’s just agree on what’s really important, okay?”
“About wombats or polygamists?” Meredith said ironically.
“No, and not about bats or Ferraris, either,” Bonnie cut in. “It’s like I said, about Elena being sick. I know you don’t want to hear it, Elena, but you have to stay here. What if they let you go and whatever happened happens again? What if Damon’s not around next time? What if nobody is? I know it’s not any fun for you in the hospital, but what if they let you out and next time this happens you die?” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “They have to figure out how to prevent that.”
This time the pause was longer, as well as being darker. Physically darker, Damon thought; the ICU lights had been turned down for the evening.
He glanced at Elena, who was looking back at him, clearly nonplussed. “I . . . what should I do?” she asked in a small voice.
A bolt of ice shot down Damon’s spine. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
Elena—without a plan? Asking what to do?
I’m Stefan to her, he thought; I’m in Stefan’s place, right? Since when did she ever ask Stefan for advice?
But no, his mind argued back. You’re not just Stefan to her. You had your own relationship as well. Granted, it mostly consisted of fighting and kissing, but there were times when you two simply worked together seamlessly.
I suppose there were a few times she did consult me, Damon thought, loath to admit how infrequent those times might have been. And given that I’m so much older than she is, maybe she was listening more carefully than I realized when I answered.
But he couldn’t give her answers now.
“It’s up to you, love. If you want out; we’ll get you out of here. I can find bodyguards who won’t bother you but who’ll monitor you twenty-four hours a day. Or you can stay and let the doctors try to diagnose you.” He watched her closely.
Elena shifted, clearly disquieted. “I suppose that I’ll stay another day. Maybe they will figure out what happened to me.”
“What you’ve got,” Meredith corrected. “Which is probably Southern Belle disease. You know how it used to be thought ever so romantic if you passed out or were pale?”
“It seems more like a ‘what happened’ to me,” Bonnie said.
Elena shot her a glance that stilled any fears Damon might have had for her intellect. “Is that was your sister told you?” she asked casually.
Bonnie, who seemed lost in thought, nodded and shrugged at the same time. “Yeah, well, she thought you might have been attacked and gone into a fugue state afterward—a psychogenic trance—and wandered to Damon’s room, while the blood was all left somewhere else. But that didn’t explain how there could not be a scratch on you, so she said that it sounded like a miscarriage and hemorrhage.”
“I wasn’t pregnant!” Elena exclaimed, at the same moment that Damon snapped, “She wasn’t pregnant!”
The sharp noises brought Bonnie out of her daze. “You tricked me,” she said to Elena, in grief rather than in anger. “But Mary said you might not even have known you were pregnant until you lost it—and then you could have gone into a fugue state and not remembered anything of what happened after.”
“Look east,” Elena demanded, sitting upright in bed with her lapis lazuli eyes narrowed. Confused, everyone but Damon looked in various wrong directions; Damon turned toward true east and concentrated on the readout of the machine he discovered there.
“Does anybody see three Wise Men coming this way on camels?” Elena challenged fiercely.
“Huh? Oh.” “Uh—got it.” “Yeah, okay. Okay.” The humans all seemed to understand what Elena was talking about. Damon frowned and examined a trashcan below the machine with a Dunkin’ Donuts box on it.
“She means, you know, from the Bible,” Matt explained.
“Ah. Ah,” Damon replied. “La Sacra Bibbia. The Gospel of Saint Matthew, regarding the Magi bearing gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the child of Mary, who conceived although she was a virgin.”
“What is myrrh, anyway?” Bonnie asked, frowning, while Matt said, “Isn’t this getting sort of sacrilegious?”
“It’s a fragrant resin,” Damon said to Bonnie, and added to Matt, in an offended tone, “I’m a good Catholic, and all Elena was trying to say was that she was a donut—I mean a virgin.”
“I am not a donut, and I’m going to get one of those purity rings and maybe have a purity party,” Elena said, and Damon was glad to hear the old note of command back in her voice.