Unstoppable | The Vampire Diaries

90. Since You've Been Gone

They broke apart sooner than they wanted to, staring into each other's eyes. There was so much Riley wanted to say, so much she wanted to do. But instead, she broke eye contact, wiping a tear from her face.

"OK, let's start with the obvious," she said, her voice still slightly shaky. Damon wrapped an arm around her, holding her close to him. It was as if, now that he was back, he didn't want to let her go. "Where's Bonnie?"

Damon sighed. "She sacrificed herself so that I could come back. But I don't want anyone to know."

"So we're supposed to lie? To Elena and Caroline? To Jeremy?" Riley asked, shaking her head.

"What are we going to tell people?" Stefan asked, looking as uncomfortable with lying as Riley.

"That she wasn't over there," Damon answered immediately. Clearly he'd already thought about it.

"And where was 'there', exactly?" Riley asked. "Because every time I tried to see you, all I could see was a deserted version of Mystic Falls."

Damon glanced down at her, standing in the crook of his arm, with an impressed raised eyebrow. "Pretty much. Mystic Falls, 1994."

"1994?" Stefan repeated. "Why then?"

"Look, we have forever to go over the most depressing four months of my life," he told them. "But first, there's someone I got to go see."

Stefan looked down guiltily and Riley bit her lip. Damon look back and forth between them, feeling more and more suspicious by the second.

"What?"

Riley removed herself from under his arm. "Before we tell you, just remember not to kill the messengers. If you're gonna kill anyone, kill Ric."

Damon rolled his eyes, looking at Stefan. "What is she babbling about?"

"Well... Elena couldn't cope with you being gone," Stefan confessed. "She was reckless and dangerous without you. So, she got Ric to compel her to forget that she was in love with you."

Damon shook his head, trying to take the information in. "What?"

"She knows that she was in love with you, she just... can't remember it," Riley clarified.

"Then I need to see her," he said, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. "We'll be face-to-face and she'll remember."

"And what if she doesn't want the memories back?" Riley wondered.

Damon shrugged, walking towards the door. "She has to."

He left. Riley sighed and picked up her phone, calling Caroline.

"I already told her about Damon," Stefan said, peering over her shoulder. He'd been texting Caroline since he'd first seen Damon, maybe a half hour before Riley turned up.

"Someone needs to tell Jeremy about Bonnie," she reminded him. Caroline was the only one who didn't have to deal with a boyfriend/best friend/brother coming back from the dead. "Hey Care."

"Thank God you called," Caroline said, relief flooding her angry tone. "I am so mad. Apparently a crazy vampire hunter called Tripp has been keeping Enzo locked up for days, and he's about to give us up."

"Wait, what?" Riley asked, looking up at Stefan who looked guilty for the second time that day.

"He drove Ivy over the border and killed her," Caroline revealed. "Now, if we don't rescue Enzo, then all vampires and friends of vampires that live in Mystic Falls are toast."

"No wait, this doesn't make sense," Riley said. "Enzo's not stupid enough to get caught by an all-human vamp hunter. So who gave him up?"

Stefan cleared his throat, his face giving away the answer that Riley was waiting for.