"What else can you take from me, huh?" she screamed. "I am so tired of losing, so tired of coming out with nothing!" He stood with his arms stretched towards her. He wanted to hold her and tell her that everything was going to be okay. "I'm sorry." He paused, "I know how much you wanted…and watching you with…and that baby, that baby," he whispered. She turned her back to him so he wouldn't see her cry. She was done with vampires hurting her; she was done using her powers for them. She was done with giving up things that she loved.

Damon took a step toward Bonnie, "Don't" she simply said. She looked up into the night sky into the direction the private jet had taken off and disappeared into. "We can't protect her Bonnie, we can't. "He said, "We can't." She turned and screamed in fury, "Don't you think I know that! You couldn't protect Elena either, but you at least tried."

"That's not fair. Let me help you, we can help each other," he finally screamed to her, "I love her too you know! I lost her, I wanted to watch her grow up and laugh and smile. And I wanted to protect her!'

"She came through me, she was mine. The witches gave her to me!" Damon stepped back as if she had struck him. "You are not the only one in pain Bonnie."

She knew she was not being fair to Damon; he had been there for her for so long….

He was the first one to figure out something was wrong with Bonnie after her "date" with Professor Shane. He was there when a broken Bonnie sobbed into the night that Shane had raped her. He kept her secret when she was afraid to tell her friends and ashamed because she thought she was somehow at fault. He was there when she fell apart and he helped her put the pieces of herself back together again. They had become friends, he became her confidant. He was the one who found her that night sitting on the pier at the lake. A shattered Bonnie told him that she was pregnant with her rapist child and he muttered, "I know, I can hear the heartbeat." He had wrapped his arms around her slight frame as she cried her 19 year old heart out. "What am I going to do?" she said between sobs. He said nothing, he didn't have the words.

Five days later she had come to him and told him she was keeping the baby. Five weeks later, Professor Shane decided that he wanted rights to the baby he and Bonnie conceived. Five minutes later he was dead, Bonnie never knew anything. He showed up at the Salvatore's, smugly saying his child with Bonnie would give him immortality and power he had been searching for. Stefan stared at him astounded and Damon, well Damon was calculating that Bonnie could take no more and that she shouldn't have to and he was thinking how stupid Shane's mouth was. So he ripped his heart out and stuffed it into his stupid mouth, right then and there. He washed his hand and went to Bonnie's first ob/gyn appointment with her while Stefan buried the body. Five months later Bonnie gave birth prematurely to a still born baby boy she never named. Damon was the one who held her at the memorial service. He'd held her all night as she slept in his huge bed. He imagined how things might have been. Damon was the one who helped her put the pieces back together again.

She went to college, she graduated early. She was still a good friend to her friends, she was happy. She protected them with her magic when she was needed. She didn't date no matter how many times Caroline tried to fix her up. She didn't trust men, she didn't trust herself. Damon didn't push her to date. He was happy with their arrangement. He went out trolling and screwing whomever he wanted. He was well past his infatuation with Elena. He didn't know if he loved Bonnie, he didn't know what love was or how to get it and hold onto it. He would think occassionally when they had a movie night or she made dinner for him at her home that this was what normal couples did. There were moments when she would have her head down chopping onions or celery she would take his breath away. He would stare at her when she wasn't paying attention. Then he would go to a bar and find a girl that reminded him of her and bang her brains out. She would watch him too. She didn't know what was love was either. So they bumbled along together, he with whores and her with her work and remodelling her Grams home, her home, just on the edge of something but afraid to jump in. They were happy that way, when she needed anything he was there and vice versa.

It went that way for a few years until the remaining Bennett witches came to Mystic Falls to tell Bonnie Bennett on her 23rd birthday that she would give birth to the savior of all of creatures. Vampires, werewolves, originals, faeries, and humans would need her to be strong. They needed her to lay down with someone, carry and bear his child. Damon was there with her when she said to them, "It's impossible, I can't have children, the doctor's said so after the" a pause, "other baby."

"It is possible," Lucy said. "It is what is meant to be." She looked at Damon and the way she said it unnerved him, "You can't just show up here and tell her this. Is she supposed to go to a sperm bank, are you going to put the baby inside of her?" Bonnie looked away from him. He knew her history; he knew she was afraid to be touched by men. It had been years and she still tensed up when someone asked her to dance at a night club.

"We will help. It will be easy for her." Another Bennett explained. Damon exhaled deeply, he looked around the room, the gang was all there, Elena, Jeremy, Caroline, Tyler, Stefan, Rebekah, and Matt, all the players. They had all helped Bonnie in their own way. They were all tired of her being hurt. Bonnie sat in the window seat; she still looked like a kid to him sometimes. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. "No!" she said flatly. "What?" Lucy asked. "I said no, I won't do it. I don't care what happens I will not let you or anyone use me any longer. My body is mine! Nobody will put anything in it that I don't want them to!" She leapt from the seat and stormed out of the door. The room grew even quieter. Jeremy cleared his throat, "well that settles it."

Later that night Lucy went to see Bonnie in the home she had inherited from her grandmother. She looked around; Bonnie had made it her own. Gone were the Afghans and doilies, replaced with a modern feel an artistic vibrancy. Bright furniture and paintings that fit a young well to do woman like Bonnie. "You won't change my mind." she said. Lucy looked at her. "I don't need to; you will do it because it is what we do. Bennett witches protect the Earth Bonnie. This is your destiny." Bonnie looked away from her. "Didn't you hear what I said earlier, I can't have children? Meredith said so." Bonnie's voice was so pitiful and the look on her face was so tragic Lucy had to look away. " It is cruel of you to do this. I have accepted it."

"Anything is possible Bonnie."

"I can't be with a man, not since Shane...ra...not since he hurt me."

"You are with Damon."

Bonnie laughed and exhaled at the same time." I have never been with Damon, he is just my friend."

"He's in love with you."

Bonnie stopped breathing. "You're mistaken."

"You're in love with him."

"You're mistaken." She said again firmly.

"He's the one Bonnie."

Bonnie's heart stopped. "The one what?"

"It is what was meant to be, what was always meant to be."