07 The Return_ Midnight - L. J. Smith

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Elena clutched the child to her. Damon had understood, even in his dazed and confused state.
Everyone was connected. No one was alone.
“And he asked something else. He asked if you would hold me, just like this—if I got
sleepy.” Velvety dark eyes searched Elena’s face. “Would you do that?”
Elena tried to keep steady. “I’ll hold you,” she promised.
“And you won’t let go ever?”
“And I won’t let go ever,” Elena told him, because he was a child, and there was no
point in frightening him if he had no fear. And because maybe this part of Damon—this small,
innocent part—would have some kind of “forever.” She had heard that vampires didn’t come back,
didn’t reincarnate the way humans did. The vampires in the top Dark Dimension were still “alive”—
adventurers or fortune-seekers, or condemned there as a prison by the Celestial Court.
“I’ll hold you,” Elena promised again. “Forever and ever.”
Just then his small body went into another spasm, and she saw tears on his dark
eyelashes, and blood on his lip. But before she could say a word, he added, “I have more messages. I
know them by heart. But”—his eyes begged her forgiveness—“I have to give them to the others.”
What others? Elena thought at first, bewildered. Then she remembered. Stefan and
Bonnie. There were other loved ones.
“I can…tell them for you,” she said hesitantly, and he gave a tiny smile, his first, just the
corner of one lip up.
“He left me a little telepathy, too,” he said. “I kept it in case I had to call to you.”
Still fiercely independent, Elena thought. All she said was, “You go ahead, then.”
“The first one is for my brother, Stefan.”
“You can tell him in just a moment,” Elena said. She held on to the small boy in Damon’s
soul, knowing that this was the last thing she had left to give him. She could sacrifice a few priceless
seconds, so that Stefan and Bonnie could say their own good-byes. She made some sort of enormous
adjustment to her real body—her body outside Damon’s mind, and found herself opening her eyes,
blinking and trying to focus.
She saw Stefan’s face, white and stricken. “Is he—?”
“No. But soon. He can hear telepathy, if you think clearly, as if you were speaking. He
asked to talk to you.”
“To me?” Stefan bent down slowly and put his cheek against his brother’s. Elena shut her
eyes again, guiding him down through the darkness to where one small light was still shining. She felt