Chapter Text
Bonnie’s hands were shaking as she put the last of the preparations for her big spell over the body of her last friend. Well more than a friend really, but that was beside the point. She’d been working on this spell for a long time. Since the first deaths that could have been prevented. She’d learned her lesson about messing with the natural order, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find loopholes. Time travel was a big no-no, but that didn’t mean that the past couldn’t be affected at all. And since her memories wouldn’t attach until it was all over with, and the future was already changed, it worked around the problem.
She continued painting the symbols on the naked body in front of her as she told him, despite him not being able to hear her, “I’m sorry for what you’re going to go through, Enzo. But hopefully it’ll all be better in the end. You can save us all. And you’ll have the chance for you and Damon to finally get your shit together this time. And I’ll help you with that once my memories catch up. You’ll have a better life this time. We all will,” she whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes as she finished up the preparations.
She wouldn’t let him be treated like garbage this time. Or even if she couldn’t stop the others, /she/ would give him someone to count on. Stand by his side and Damon’s against the others if necessary. Help give Damon the strength to stand by Enzo against the push and pull of Elena and Stefan too. Hopefully it wouldn’t take Enzo too long to figure things out. He wouldn’t end up /too/ traumatized by this whole thing. But no matter what happened, she would stand by him, and help Damon stand by him, to help him through. “Here we go,” she took a deep breath before starting the long cast that would hopefully fix it all. As the last notes rang out, she had just enough time to whisper a soft, “Good luck, Enzo,” before it all went black.
Enzo woke up struggling against the restraints on the familiar lab table and looked around frantically. How the bloody hell had he been recaptured? And by who? No way would bloody Wes Maxfield have lived through the rescue of Damon’s girl. Elena he thought her name was, not that he’d been paying much attention to that. Too hurt and angry about the fact that Damon didn’t give a shit about him, even after everything, and only cared about his girl. But wait…there she was again too. Surely they wouldn’t have let her get recaptured again so soon. She actually had people to care about her and protect her, unlike him. He’d just found a random room to crash in once he made it through all the Augustines he could find. He had no one else. She had people to be on their guard and keep her safe after her ordeal. People who surely wouldn’t have left her alone.
He was still struggling to make that make sense when she woke up, just as frantic as he had, pulling on the restraints and looking around fearfully. “What’s happening?” she asked as her eyes settled on him.
“We’re back here again. Not sure how,” Enzo sighed heavily.
“A-Again?” she asked confused. She’d never been here before. “And who are you?”
“You don’t remember meeting me yesterday?” Enzo’s brow furrowed confusedly.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” Elena said just as confused.
“Then allow me to introduce myself. I’m 12144. Name’s Enzo,” he told her, looking for any dawning of recognition. Maybe so much was going on and it was a rather brief meeting that she just didn’t remember. But no. Still nothing. It wasn’t until the doctor came in, the one that should have been dead, and gave him his ‘job’ that he realized he was repeating yesterday. He was injected with the same thing to ensure he came back, but this time Enzo knew where the antidote was. And he wasn’t playing this bloody game.
He knew that someone would be along to kill this bastard and rescue Elena. He had his guard up too much for Enzo to do it right now. Not to mention that he was about as weak as a kitten at the moment. He needed to get some more strength in him before he would be able to pick a good fight. So he may as well go and re-kill all the ones he’d killed yesterday once he left that bloody lab and walked away from the monster he used to call friend. They could take care of the doctor. He would get the rest that they probably wouldn’t. But first, a stop by the lab that he’d woken up in.
It didn’t take him long to find the tray of antidotes and did as Damon did and just injected them all. One of them would work. And then he went hunting Augustines. He had no intention of seeing Damon again. At least not anytime soon. Maybe one day when the hurt and betrayal faded enough that he could think around it, but he couldn’t even think far enough to decide on that. He’d been planning to skip town as soon as he cleared out the rest of the Augustine bastards the last time they’d done this, so he would just continue on with that plan.
Enzo went to bed in a compelled hotel room two states away, but then woke up on that bloody table /again/! And was weak as a kitten /again/. Once again, he saw Elena strapped to the table next to him, but this time he didn’t bother introducing himself when she woke up. Just kept looking around and waiting for the miserable doctor to show up with his bloody injection and give him his job. While he waited, he tried to figure out what was happening. That this was some kind of magic was obvious, but the question was how. How was he stuck repeating the same day over and over again.
By the time the doctor came and gave him his instructions, Enzo had something of a plan to get out of this. He just wanted his bloody freedom. Was that so much to ask? This time, he headed straight for the lab, grabbed and injected all the antidotes, and made a run for it then and there. Maybe this spell had some kind of tether and if he could get far enough away, it would break. He could come back and get the Augustines again once he was free and it wouldn’t all be undone the next day. He did grab a few random people to eat during his detour for the antidote, just so he wasn’t starving and weak at least. He would need his strength to get away.
He swiped the fastest car he could find and started driving like a bat out of hell. Even ended up in a few car chases along the way as he continued as far west as he could. He didn’t even let himself be distracted by all the crazy changes to the world, even the helicopter following him overhead during the car chases. Which were rather fun if he’d been in a better frame of mind to appreciate it. They would, occasionally, trap him into an accident, but then he just took off at vampire speed, found another car, and continued on. And he would keep driving until he hit ocean or until he was too exhausted to keep going. And he could go for a good long while too.
He was just approaching the Utah border as the sun was coming up and he went straight from driving, evading another group of cop cars and a helicopter, to strapped to that bloody lab table again. Weak as a kitten again. He gave a scream of frustration as he fought the restraints, ready to do some damage to anyone who came near him right now. And when the bloody doctor came in, injected him, and told him his job before setting him free, he did his best to do just that. He pounced on the doctor with every intention of killing him for this offense only to find himself overpowered and then injected with vervain.
By the time Enzo came to again, the desiccation from the first injection had fully set in. He’d never desiccated before, though had gotten close in the year he was giving Damon his rations. This was more miserable than he could have dreamed. Maybe even worse than being taken apart on that lab table. Only because it was never ceasing. There were no breaks, no ebbs and flows to the agony that could help him steel himself for the worse moments in the better ones. And especially the helplessness. Even on the lab table he could at least try to fight, but this…he was essentially trapped in his mind unable to move or speak or even breathe. This time, he was actually glad to wake up on that table again the next morning, all that undone.