Whatever It Takes {Two | Alaric Saltzman}

Hell Is Other People

Days passed, all of them the same, which turned into weeks, and then months until three had gone by.

Abigail, Alaric, Caroline, Matt, and Stefan were gathered around Damon's motionless body. None of them had called it what it was, a dead body, and a part of that was because it was not desiccated or in need of any further preservation, but the other part of that was because none of them wanted to believe what they already knew. The Phoenix Stone was resting on his chest, the smell of gasoline that Stefan spilt the night before still lingering, as Bonnie casted the spell to return his soul to his body.

"Ababbas dagoineh mateesah elunatan. Damon melunaweh washaset. Ababbas dagoineh mateesah elunatan. Damon melunaweh washaset..." Bonnie opened her eyes. "The spell is not working. It's like the stone is hiding his spirit."

Matt looked up at her. "Then maybe you should take a break, alright?"

Stefan rubbed his forehead. "She can't. The longer he stays in there, the more damaged he'll be when he gets out."

Bonnie scoffed. "And whose fault is that? You, of all people, don't get to lecture me."

Abigail watched Caroline take a step away from the table. She was rubbing at her third trimester belly, trying to breathe through the meditation she and Abigail often did together. She joined her then, voice softer than she thought it could have been as she addressed the group, "We're all stressed right now, but let's just take a deep breath, and we can start again when Bonnie's ready."

"I don't get it." Alaric shook his head. "We pulled Stefan out no problem. What's different now?"

Stefan went still. "He's not ready yet. When I was in there, I could barely remember who I was, and then I was hit with visions and tests. But the worst part of hell isn't what you're going through, it's the sliver of hope that you can actually get out on your own."

"How come we had no trouble reuniting your soul with your body?" Caroline asked.

"Because, eventually, I submitted to the kind of suffering that just breaks you." He gave them a look that only made the chances of resurrecting Damon seem smaller. "Knowing Damon, he'll do anything he can to avoid that kind of pain. Which means we may never be able to get him out."

Abigail followed Stefan out of the room, but she did not say a word when she caught up to him on the second floor of the Lockwood Mansion.

"He's not gonna make it in there."

She closed the study door behind her. "Yes, he will."

"That stone is punishment for every bad thing you've ever done. This is Damon. I don't even want to know what he's going through." He looked up at her. "If I would have just-"

"She was your mom, Stefan. And if you think it's easy to let something like that go, it's not. But you're not going to have to let Damon go. We're going to get him out of that stone."

Their talks, the ones that came on the roof or the porch of the Salvatore Boarding House or the Lockwood Mansion, on the floor of her kitchen, in her dining room, or across the furniture of her living room, on the phone from opposite sides of the country, or in places they least expected, they always started slow. It was like the way they became friends, the push and pull until only trust remained. The conversations were short, long, or somewhere inbetween, and there was no way to know how long the ones that were starting would last until they were over.

"Abigail, even if we can, he'll be different." He blinked hard, leaving his eyes closed until he knew she had sat down next to him. "The hellstone does a number on you, but post-hell is much worse."