InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I pity da fool."

One minute, he had been in the doctor’s office looking at Elena’s sonogram, and the next he was inhaling the awful smell of Manhattan. Those two things didn’t connect. Annoyance kept his eyes shut for a minute longer, but curiosity pried one open in time to see a letter floating down to him. Jumping so quickly from one emotion to the other was jarring, but nothing new. It was just a little unnerving.

His eyes scanned the note quickly before he crumpled it up into his pocket. It was important information, sure, and the only clue he had, but that didn’t mean he liked it. Now that he could look up and around at his surroundings, he knew it to be New York, but it wasn’t quite the same way he’d left it.

“If I’m in another time loop prison, I’m gonna be p-i-ssed,” he finished in an agitated sing-song tone. Granted he didn’t have any fancy vampire abilities to back up the vocalized threat, he was physically strong. Damon was confident he could break a few noses. He’d do anything just to get back to Elena and Gray right about now.

The last thing she needed was him disappearing on her right when they were learning about the newest addition to the Salvatore line.

“Not a time loop prison. I don’t think,” Rose said from a few feet away, studying the obvious newcomer with a slight smirk on her face. It probably wasn’t funny to him, it wasn’t really funny in general, but his tone still amused her. Or maybe Rose was just in a good mood. After months of mostly being the only one from her world here, she finally had Lissa. They had some things to work through after so long apart, but Rose was still thrilled to have her here, finally.

Lissa was, predictably, pouring over school catalogs, so Rose had stepped out for a little fresh air. She didn’t like staying inside the apartment for very long and the bond was there to let her know if Lissa needed her. A part of her hadn’t wanted to let her best friend out of her sight, but she also hadn’t wanted to die of boredom.

“Goodland. Planet Bob. The multiverse is fucking crazy and this place looks like Manhattan today, but, hey, tomorrow it might be Paris. Or the beach. Maybe Hawaii.” Yeah, she probably wasn’t the most diplomatic welcome wagon this place had to offer, but this was what he was getting.

Who the hell was that? Damon’s scowl worsened over the unfamiliar voice. It wasn’t personal, but this wasn’t exactly an ideal situation either. Unlike his beloved wife, he didn’t exactly have a penchant for hospitals, but it was precisely where he wanted to be as opposed to out on the streets of Manhattan. He half-turned to glimpse Rose, a face that did not register as familiar.

This was one of those rare moments where he absolutely missed the added confidence being a vampire lent him.

When she expounded on the locale, Damon’s scowl didn’t waver, though it did become slightly more confused in nature. “Planet Bob,” he repeated, unimpressed. “And who let you out of the loony bin without your meds, huh? I’ve heard some crazy shit in my day, and I’ve been in some even weirder ones, but that’s shockingly new in a whole different insane way.” He wasn’t on board.

Rose was unfazed by the question. He wasn't exactly the first person to suggest she was crazy. Hell, some days she wondered if she shouldn't be locked in the psych ward at Tarasov.

“Honestly, the truth is no one really knows how or why we’re here. Some all powerful entity got bored and decided to kidnap a bunch of people from all over the multiverse. I woke up here 5 months ago, same as a lot of other people. Guess you're just the latest in a long line of people lucky enough to get an all expenses paid trip to the weirdest place any of of have ever been.”

Some days it kind of sucked, but, hey, Goodland was better than being in jail or living life of the run.

The explanation oddly checked out. Damon crossed his arms over his chest, eyes level with Rose. He didn’t like accepting scenarios where Elena wasn’t involved, so he wasn’t going to be completely on board. His main issue was that their family wasn’t here. After she had woken from her coma, he seldom spent a day away from her if he could help it.

“Great,” he gritted. Disappointed and frustrated, he quickly relented. Patience as a father had taught him that his anger had to be internalized. While he did have a history of shooting messengers, she didn’t strike him as the one at fault here; she was a victim, too.

“Goodland looks a hell of a lot like Manhattan,” he pointed out. “But, I guess that’s part of the magic mumbo jumbo bringing us here. Just when I thought normal was gonna stick with me to my silver fox years…” He sighed by the end, but moved to hold his hand out to Rose in a reluctant greeting. “Fine, whatever. I’m Damon. Who are you?”

“Rose Hathaway.” She took his hand to give it a firm shake, but was careful not to put her full strength into it. Rose had spent the last five months carefully passing as human; she could count the number of people who knew otherwise on one hand and she wasn't planning to change that, even if some others liked to advertise their status.

“It looked like Paris for a few days once,” she offered with a grin. “Beach town for, like, a week and a ski resort not long ago, too. We never know what it's going to do next, but you should probably be glad you missed half of us reverting to childhood.” Goodland didn't have a shortage of kids, anyway, and Rose had aged in the other direction, but way too many people had been suddenly, like, five year olds.

“Where are you from, Damon?” she wondered aloud.

“Childhood?” He repeated, actually conceding a laugh. “That’s fine, I was a cute kid. Would’ve stolen all the candy and hearts.” It sounded like this place kept people on their toes in a way that Mystic Falls could’ve tried to do once in a while.

“Virginia,” he answered, hand retreating to his pocket. “Mystic Falls, to be exact. Be happy if you haven’t heard of it.” That town held his heart captive in so many different ways. “What about you, Rose? If not Candyland, where’d you come from before getting trapped on Lost?”

The mention of Mystic Falls got her attention and Rose actually looked surprised for a moment before grinning again. “You might have friends here, then. That's where Hope and the twins are from. I think their dad just showed up, too.” She didn't get the supernatural vibe off of him like she had from Hope and she wondered if he actually knew them. From what she'd heard, it didn't sound like it was a big place.

“Hope?” Damon questioned, the name certainly rang a bell or two. “The Mikaelson kid?” His heart sank just a smidge at the thought of Klaus being there and it showed. “Klaus. Last I heard, he was running amok in Russia, but I could be off. Can’t say I kept up with the psycho,” never mind that the man had saved his life a couple of times. Under some protest.

“Friends is a loose term,” elaborated Damon. “Take a pass on seeing them. We’re not cozy. So, Rose Hathaway, where do I go from here?”

The only Klaus Rose knee was the Hargreeves guy. She doubted that was who he was talking about. “No, Josie and Lizzie’s dad. He said his name was Ric or something?” She hadn't paid that much attention, aside from being happy that her friends had someone close to them here. And maybe a little jealous. She'd only just gotten Lissa and that had been after Ric had showed up. She was happy for the girls, though.

She shrugged when he questioned her. “Fake New York, there's a hell of a lot to do here, so I guess it's pick your poison.

That gave him pause. The twins. He hadn’t made the initial connection, an old fear associated with Klaus taking precedence. “Ric?!” His face burst into a relieved smile. “I know the guy, too well. Now I believe you, officially. Tell me more. What about… what about Elena? Have you heard anyone by that name? God, please tell me yes…” By the end of it, he looked almost desperate. Getting close to Rose, as if that would help him hang on to the possibility, his hands groped the air around her anxiously. “Tell me there’s an Elena Salvatore, Gilbert, just--an Elena here somewhere. Please.”

Rose wasn’t a naturally empathetic person; Lissa had always been the compassionate one while Rose was, quite honestly, kind of a bitch. She was frequently moody, unstable, most likely to punch someone in the face, but she also recognized that look of desperation in Damon’s eyes, because she’d felt it. More than once. She knew what it was like to love someone so desperately and she knew what it was like to miss the ones she loved most.

“I’m sorry,” she said with genuine sympathy in her dark eyes as she looked up at him. “If she’s here, I haven’t talked to her.” Rose decided it would just be dumping salt in the wound to add that there were very few people in Goodland she hadn’t noticed. Even the ones she didn’t talk with much, she still paid attention to.

“She might show up, though,” she did add. It wasn’t usually like her to give false hope, but for some reason she felt bad for the guy. “Lissa, my best friend, she just showed up after months of it mostly being just me. So even if your Elena isn’t here now, that doesn’t mean she won’t come.”

As soon as the apology left her, his hands dropped in immediate defeat. For the first time in years, Damon was going to be parted from Elena. He looked up accusingly at the sky, a myriad of emotions clouding his gaze. Not only was it Elena now, it was their son. As if all the energy left him with the ensuing exhale, he shot a hand out to catch himself on the wall. Was this panic? His breath began to rise and fall rapidly, anxiety swelling his heart. Rose’s sympathetic words faded into a loud but pounding nothingness.

Knuckles white from their grip, he swore the world turned upside in the literal sense, at least for a moment. As he tried to catch his breath, he found himself slumping to the ground with his back against the same wall. Elena had taught him what to do when this happened, but she had always been there whenever it did.

Somehow he pushed through it, breath steadied and head cradled in his hands. Controlling his emotions in this regard had been so much easier as a vampire, but he didn’t miss it. There wasn’t room for longing, Elena and Gray captured it all.

“I gotta get out of here. I gotta --” As his breath continued to calm, he remembered one thing that could make him pretend the edge was softened. “I need a drink.”

The panic was something Rose knew too well, too, even if the trigger for her was different. Put her in a nice, controlled space, and she’d forget how to breathe properly, too. Whoever this Elena was, it was obvious that he loved her. Rose could empathize, even if empathy wasn’t normally her forte. She could appreciate how it must feel coming into a place like this and finding the one person who could make it more bearable wasn’t here.

Reaching down, she held out a hand to help him up. “Come on,” she offered. “The first one’s on me.”