Sybil was very self confident in herself at the moment. She had Damon right where she needed him, so far with everything going as she wanted it to go. But, as confident as she was with her hold on Damon, there was still one factor that prevent her from knowing that it would be one hundred percent secure. That factor was that Bennett witch, Bonnie had already tried and failed to get Damon to see that the two of them were once friends. And if Sybil knew Bonnie for the short time that she did, she knew that Bonnie would be tempted to try to get through to Damon again. That was an inconvenience to Sybil, one that she thought that to be taken care of. Which was why she found herself going to confront that very Bennett witch.
Sybil so had happened to spot Bonnie and she walked up to her.
Bonnie saw her, giving her an heated evil eye, like she wished to set her on fire.
Sybil started smugly. "Ah, Bonnie Bennett."
"Sybil." Bonnie returned coldly.
"I'm guessing that you still want to convince Damon that the two of you had a close relationship." Sybil stated.
"Of course I do. You think that I'm going to stand by doing nothing, as you keep Damon as your mental prisoner." Bonnie lashed out.
"You can try however you might, but you'll fail just like you did the last time that you tried to get him to remember you." Sybil shrugged. "I'm just trying to save you the humiliation of failing over and over again with him."
Bonnie dismissed Sybil with a wave of her hand. "You must not know me very well, if you think that I'm just going to stand by and let people like you fuck with the people that I care about. What you did to Damon is wrong, I'm wasn't just going to stand by, watching you force him into a life that I know that he truly doesn't want."
Sybil directed. "I'm warning you, Bonnie, for your own good you better let this go. Or else it won't turn out pretty for you."
Bonnie narrowed her eyes. "Is that a threat, because I'm not afraid of you."
Sybil said back. "Such big words, when I could have had you killed just like that."
"You could try, but I'll promise you that I would fight you every step of the way." Bonnie snapped her fingers. "But, that would be if you have the guts to face me one on one, instead of trying to get your minions to do it."
"A bold statement considering the situation." Sybil faked a yawn.
"Just consider who you are dealing with when it comes to messing with Damon." Bonnie retorted.
"You just need to let this be and mind your own business." Sybil told her.
Bonnie firmly said. "Damon is my business."
Sybil shook her head. "Not anymore. Damon is mine now, he belongs to me."
Bonnie scoffed. "The hell he is, he deserves so much better than to spend the remainder of his life having to be stuck to a woman like you."
"What do you mean, are you saying that it's a woman like you that he deserves?" Sybil mocked.
The green eyed witch didn't answer that question.
"Let's face it, you say that this is all about you wanting to save Damon from me, but this is not really about your noble intentions to rescue a friend." Sybil stated smugly. "This is not some selfless mission that you are on to save him, nope I sense a lot of selfishness here. We both know that you are truly doing this for yourself and yourself mainly. You hate the thought of Damon not remembering you, therefore not feeling anything for you."
"Some part of you feds off of him having feelings for you, you cherish it when he shows you that he adores and admires you, now you are in fear of losing that part of Damon and never having him, have those feelings for you again. You need to know that Damon Salvatore the man that you have strong feelings for feel the same way about you that you do about him. That's what is really driving you to do all of this. It's your feelings that you try to keep hidden you have for him, the ones of a type of love that supasses friendship, and those desires inside that have you wishing that you could fuck Damon."
"What about Enzo in all of this, he's as loyal to you as a boyfriend can get and obviously loves you. But, Enzo isn't the man that you truly want. I wonder how he would feel about you being so emotional to rescue Damon and your feel intentions behind it." Sybil finished off her rant.
Bonnie raised a brow. "Are you done."
Sybil said. "Admit that what I just said was the truth."
The Bennett witch thought to herself that there was some truth to what Sybil had just said as far as Damon went. However, instead of addressing it she went for some truths of her own.
"You can't possibly try to come at me about Damon, considering your issues." Bonnie sneered.
"My issues?" Sybil questioned with a huff.
"Think what you want to about me, but it won't change the fact about what you are and that is pathetic. At least that I know that the true Damon cares about me, you can't say the same thing. You're thirsty for him, yet you know that the true him despises you and would never show you any sort of positive attention if he had his free will. " Bonnie told her off. "The only way that you can get what you want out of him, is by brainwashing him and washing his memories of me away. You have to isolate him from everyone that cares about him in order for him to get the attention that you crave from him. No matter how much you tell him to shower you with words of love or devotion, those aren't truly his words or really how he feels. It's what you want him to feel about him. You are so desperate for Damon that you basically have him in a Stockholm type of situation right now, by lying to him about you being the only one that he can rely on. You have to brainwash a man to get him to spend time with you, that is what makes you pathetic, Sybil."
That wiped the smugness right away from Sybil's face as what Bonnie had said hit it's mark. "You're so lucky that Damon is the only reason why you are alive right now." Sybil spat out.
But, Bonnie was unfazed by what was just said. "You're the fortunate one that I'm not kicking your ass right now, I've ran out of patience with you a while ago." The witches tone was deadly serious.
Sybil pressed her lips together so hard that they almost disappeared into her mouth. "Just say away from Damon, for the last time I am warning you to back down."
And that was the end of the conversation, as the two women ended up parting ways. "Back down, my ass." Bonnie mumbled to herself.
BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK
Despite Sybil's warnings to her, Bonnie refused to back down from her goal of helping Damon. That's why on the following day she had hoped to see Damon to try and get through to him again. She had failed to do so on the two days before, but today was a new day and she had something that she hope that would aid her in her rescue Damon Salvatore mission. That was the selfie that she had found in his bedroom of the two of them together.
She just needed to see Damon in able to be able to show him the selfie. Once again she made herself downtown in hopes that she would luck out and see him again. It was late in the morning, just after ten 'o'clock as she made her way around. She was doing things for herself, but still keeping an eye out for Damon.
Soon her wishes were granted as she spotted him walking down an empty alley way. Bonnie thanked the fates and wasted no time in going into the same alley that he was in. Making sure that he was alone without Sybil around. Hearing footsteps Damon turned around to see that it was her.
"Why are you here?" He asked as if her were bored.
"I have something to show you." Bonnie blurted out.
"I have no interest in seeing anything that you have to show me." Damon pinched the bridge of his nose.
"It's proof that what I'm telling you is the truth." Bonnie stated determined.
Damon's tone was sarcastic. "Sure you do.."
Instead of just telling him what she had, Bonnie reached into her purse, grabbing the selfie that she had found of them together. "Here." She put it up to his face.
Damon snatched it away to study it.
She watched him look at the selfie, waiting to see some kind of reaction come from him. Hoping that it was recognition or that it would at least spark something familiar in his mind about when they had taken that selfie and that perhaps that would lead to a memory of her in his mind.
The expressions that came across his face was extremely perplexed, to annoyed, then went to upset. "What in the hell is this" Damon barked out.
"It's photo proof of one of the times that we spend together as friends." Bonnie tried to explain.
"This is a load of horse shit." Damon belowed.
Bonnie knew that seeing the photo had to be confusing some, since he didn't remember her or their friendship. But, still the way that he lashed out had her mouth dropping open.
"What did you do, how did you fake this?" Damon accused.
"I didn't fake that." Bonnie returned with a shake of her head.
"You must have, because I would know if I had taken such a picture with you and I didn't. " Damon tossed the picture to the ground. "Tell me what sorcery that you used to try to trick me into thinking that this was real, you witch."
" I would never use my magic to try to trick someone into a situation as serious as this. Especially not you. No magic needed since what I showed you is real." Bonnie responded.
"Mmmm, of course you would deny it. But, I know about evil witches and how you all can use dark magic to do all sorts of things. I'm sure that faking two people in a picture together wouldn't seem that hard." Damon said back.
"I'm know that me being an 'evil witch.' " Bonnie made quotation marks with her fingers. "Is something that Sybil told you in order to poison your thoughts and feelings towards me. But, she lied just like she did about everything else."
Damon directed. "I don't believe that my queen would do something like that. What is it about me that makes you keep trying to convince me that we had something? Why this so personal for you….why does it have to be me of all people?"
Bonnie looked at him. "As I told you, this is so important because you and I are….."
Damon interrupted her, like he had to force out the next word that he said. "Friends?"
She nodded.
"Well, I tell you, chick that we were never were and never will be friends. You're delusional if you think that I could ever care about you, newflash because I don't, I couldn't. I want nothing to do with you, I don't know a Bonnie Bennett, nor do I give a damn about anyone by that name. So, do me a favor and just let me be." Damon finished harshly.
Those words hurt Bonnie emotionally, even though she knew that Damon couldn't help into because of his current mental state and that it wasn't acting himself, that still didn't stop them from hurting her. The sting of the words had her blinking back tears, she refused to cry, because it's no doubt that Sybil would have wanted to see her cry, if she was there.
Still her mood was now fouled some. "I'm just trying to help you," She snapped out more than she had meant to.
Damon glowered at her, "I don't want your help. How many times do I have to reject you for you to get it."
Bonnie was currently irritated that showing him the selfie had gotten this type of reaction out of him, she knew that there was any chance of getting through to him at this moment and that trying would only get her into a back and forth, with her getting more irritated as she got no where.
She figured that at least for today that it was better that she retreated and come back to him with a different approach later on. That's what lead her to say. "Fine, then I'm out of here."
He said nothing in response, just stared her down.
Bonnie picked up the picture, placing it back in her purse before storming out of that alley. She couldn't get through to Damon for today, in the meantime maybe his younger brother could.
BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK
After receiving the call from Bonnie that she had failed for the third time to get through to Damon, Stefan understood without her even having to ask him. And after doing a little research to find out where his older brother could be, Stefan found out where the apartment was that Sybil had just moved into recently. He guessed if anywhere that was where Damon was, since Sybil had taken over his mind, there was no doubt to Stefan that she would want Damon around her as much as she could have him, that she would make it so that Damon was staying with her.
So the younger Salvatore got into his car an hour or so after Bonnie had called him and made his way over to that apartment building. Because he couldn't be exactly sure which apartment that they were in, just knowing that they lived somewhere in the building, Stefan waited outside in the parking lot, sitting in his car in hopes of seeing Damon enter or exit the building so that he could talk to him.
Stefan waited for a while before he saw someone pull up and get out of there cars, it wasn't Damon but Sybil as she prepared to enter into the building. It wasn't exactly who he wanted, but Stefan thought that it was the next best thing. He quickly got out of his car, running up to Sybil before she could enter the building.
"Where is he?" Stefan asked.
Sybil turned around to face him. "Where is who?"
Stefan demanded. "You know who, where is Damon?"
Sybil pursed her lips. "I don't have to answer that." She tried again to move towards the entrance of the apartment building.
But, Stefan blocked her way. "Yes, you do."
"That's none of your concern." Sybil sounded slightly annoyed that her path was being blocked.
Stefan glowered. "Damon is my flesh and blood, what you did to him makes it very much of my concern."
Sybil almost chuckled. "Did Bonnie run to you and tattle tale of accusations of what I did to Damon? That is what brought you over isn't it."
Stefan returned. "I damn sure don't appreciate what you are doing to my brother, with how you are screwing with his life."
"I don't care about how you feel, Stefan. Now why don't you go and leave me in peace." Sybil said.
"Not unless you let Damon go." Stefan commented.
"Seriously?" Sybil looked at her nails.
"You're going to reverse what you did to him and undo whatever spell that you put on him, right now." Stefan tried to hold onto his temper.
Amusement came over Sybil. "Oh, little boy I don't take demands from you. Why don't you run off before I make you regret stepping up to me." She tried to move around him to get into the building.
But Stefan grabbed onto her arm. "I'm not done with you yet."
Sybil raised her voice. "Get your freaking hands off of me.."
"You're not going anywhere until you free my brother." Stefan tightened his grip on her elbow.
Sybil glared at him.
Just then Damon who had went back to the apartment after his run in with Bonnie at the alley, stepped out of the building and saw Stefan holding Sybil by the arm.
"What's going on here?" Damon questioned.
Both Stefan and Sybil turned to face him.
Before Stefan could say anything, Sybil spoke up before him. "Damon, you have to help me he's hurting me."
Stefan started to defend himself, to say that he wasn't hurting her at all, not in the way that Sybil had made it sound like, clearly hinting that he was physically harming her.
Damon however, sped over to him and grabbed him by the collar, slamming Stefan into the nearby wall, just next to the door.
This was much to Sybil's delight.
"What in the hell do you think that you are doing." Damon directed at him with anger in his voice.
"There you are, Damon." Stefan said tone unfazed, even though his brother had just slammed him into a wall.
"Don't you dare hurt, Sybil." Damon commented in a robotic tone.
Stefan looked his brother right in the eyes. "I wasn't hurting her, I was only trying to talk to her about you."
Sybil lied. "You can't listen to him, Damon, he was just awful and mean to me. Making me afraid of him."
Stefan rolled his eyes at her lying.
The brainwashed Damon though brought into it. "I won't allow you to harm her."
"Don't let him get to me." Sybil kept acting like she was hurt and scared.
"Go ahead inside, my queen, I won't let him near you." Damon told her.
"Oh, thank you, Damon." Sybil pressed an overdramatic hand to her heart before rushing inside of the building.
Damon glared at Stefan. "How wrong are you, dare wanting to cause hurt to such an sweet, innocent woman."
Stefan gave his older brother a brooded expression. "You have to listen to me man, Sybil is using you, playing you like a fiddle."
"You too are coming here telling me lies about Sybil, huh Stefan." Damon snipped out.
"So, you do know who I am." Stefan muttered.
"Damn right I know who you are. My bad blood brother who abandoned me and always treated me like second class." Damon said.
It appeared that Bonnie's intuitions were right from what Stefan could see, Sybil may not have wiped Damon's memories way of their brotherly relationship, like she did with Bonnie. But, there was no doubt that she had altered the memories and beliefs of the few other people that Damon was close to or cared about.
Stefan shoved Damon's hands off of his collar. "You can't see it, but Sybil is messing with your mind, she has you screwed up and thinking the wrong way, you need to understand that."
"Wrong, I don't believe you either. Sybil is the only one in my life that has ever cared about me, the only person that I can rely on." Damon stated. "As for you, I know who you are brother, ever since we have grown up you have never given a damn about me, your only intent is to put me down and to keep me in your shadow."
"We don't have the perfect sibling relationship, sometimes it has been strained." Stefan admitted. "But, that doesn't change the fact that when it comes down to it we are always there for each other. No matter what she made you believe, I wouldn't abandon you and I do care about you. She's just twisting how you feel all for the benefit of herself."
"You sound just as crazy as Bonnie Bennett does, I don't trust either of you, the only person that I do trust is Sybil." Damon let out a humorless laugh.
"That's because it's what she wants you to believe, keeping you away from the people that truly give a damn about you." Stefan gestured.
The dark haired vampire clucked his tongue. "The only person who cares about me is like I said Sybil, just like the only woman in my life that I care for and have feelings about is my queen. So, why don't you, just like Bonnie Bennett do me a favor and leave me alone."
"Wow, she really has done a number on you." Stefan shook his head.
"Don't even try to keep talking to me with your lies." Damon snarked.
"I tell you this, there is only one current woman in your life right now that you really care about and have feelings for, that sure as hell isn't Sybil. That woman happens to be that green eyed, Bennett witch that you can't remember." Stefan stated in a matter of fact way.
Damon responded with an emotionless, yet stubborn expression.
Stefan added. "Whenever you are interested to know about your real memories and your true feelings that came along with them, you can came to me and as your brother I'll be there to help you find yourself again."
Damon just said. "I must get back inside of the apartment." Turn walked inside without another word.
Stefan wanted to try to talk more sense into Damon, but he knew how difficult that it would be. Damon was just as bad off as Bonnie had explained. Sybil had done an unbelievable number on Damon's brain and it was clear that getting through to Damon wouldn't be an overnight job and was going to take some time for his memories to be restored, if they ever were. The task of getting the real Damon back was going to be tough, but Stefan was willing to take all of the time that was needed to get his brother back.
BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK
Around the same time that Stefan had went to try to talk to Damon, Bonnie had went to the boarding house for Caroline, because she needed her blonde friend to talk to after see couldn't get Damon to remember her again.
Stefan had explained to Caroline, everything that Bonnie had told him that went down between Damon and Sybil. Now the blonde vampire listened to all that Bonnie had to say, as the witch explained her interactions with Damon and how bad that they went. Caroline could tell that it upset Bonnie.
"Are you ready to give up after trying three times?" Caroline wondered.
"No, far from ready to give up. This just fuels my fire in the need to get Damon to break away from this. I got frustrated some today and needed to vent it, instead of holding it inside." Bonnie replied.
"Well, you know that anytime that you need to vent that I am here. I don't care if it's three a.m. in the morning. If you need to vent just call me." Caroline said.
Bonnie gave her friend a half smile. "I know that, Care."
Caroline returned the smile.
Bonnie went on. "Since this situation has happened, it has made me feel guilt for how I reacted towards Damon desiccating himself."
Caroline questioned. "Guilt for what? You know that you had every right to be angry and hurt by what Damon did. It would be hard for anyone to have someone close to them just decide to leave like that."
Bonnie responded. "It's not exactly that I got angry and hurt over his desiccation, that part I think that is okay for me to have reacted like that. With me being as close to Damon as I was, him setting it up to where I would never see him again was very upsetting to me. What I mean is about the part where I was honestly prepared to go through the rest of my life holding a grudge against him based off of something that I was mistaken for. I was going to shut him off forever, that is what makes me feel guilt after the sacrifice that he made for me."
"What counts now is that you still have a chance to start fresh with Damon, reconnect with him now that you have forgiven him." Caroline pointed out.
"I just hope that it's not too late." Bonnie stated.
"It won't be." Caroline returned.
"He needs me right now, I have to fight for him otherwise Sybil will have accomplished what she wanted to do." Bonnie mentioned.
"If you want my advice on how to break what happened, I will say that you know Damon and who he is. You know him better than any other person, besides Stefan. You know how he feels, what he thinks, and how he ticks. Use that to help you get through." Caroline suggested
Bonnie nodded. "You're right, despite what Sybil did the real Damon is still within reach for me, I know that he is. I know his heart and how he feels, I'm going to try my best to use that to get through to him."
Caroline added. "Good, is there anything else that you want to discuss about this?"
Bonnie thought about it. "There is something that Sybil said that as been on my mind."
Caroline waited for her friend to say more.
"Sybil told me that Damon appeared to be bothered by the fact that Enzo and I were together." Bonnie went on.
"Bothered?" Caroline furrowed a brow. "As in jealous."
The Bennett witch shrugged. "I guess that is what she meant. But, the thing is that it would surprise me if true, if he really was jealous then that would hint that he feels something more for me than friendship."
Caroline wondered. "You don't think that he could fall for you like that?"
Bonnie commented. "I don't know….Damon is very deeply into Elena or at least he was. I figured that he would always be in love with her, and that it would be hard for him to get over her, especially considering that she is in a magical coma right now. Didn't think that he would even consider loving another woman like that."
Caroline said to her. "Just because he was in love with Elena once, doesn't prevent him from falling in love or being in love with you currently. Feelings can change over time, people can fall in love with more than one person in their lifetime. So, it's not out of the odds that he could love you like that."
"I have to say that the feeling of knowing that he could be in love with me is overwhelming. I'm not even sure how I would handle that, exactly. Especially not right now when I'm focusing on trying to bring him back from what Sybil has done to him." Bonnie admitted.
"One thing is clear to me, without a doubt I believe that Damon does love you from how I see how he has interacted with you, whether that love is as a friend or something much more only he can tell you for sure. But, that man does love you, Bonnie." Caroline softly stated.
And Bonnie admitted to herself that her heart leaped with the possibility of Damon loving her as more than a friend.
"How about you and how you feel, do you love him?" Caroline went on.
"I….uh…" Bonnie paused, she knew that what Caroline meant wasn't the friendship type of love, that her blonde friend was questioning if she loved Damon more than that, that if she was in love with the elder Salvatore. She paused in answering because she knew that having a boyfriend in Enzo, that she shouldn't feel the way about another man the way that she did about Damon.
Caroline could see her friend pausing and picked up on why she did so. ""Promise you that I won't judge you, because I know that you can't help how you feel or who you fall for sometimes. And what you say here will stay between us two, unless you say otherwise."
Bonnie trusted Caroline and knew that she couldn't help but to feel what she felt in her heart, it would feel good to get it out to someone that she trusted. "Yeah, I do love him….I'm in love with Damon Salvatore."
BREAK BREAK BREAK BREAK
It was just before 4:00 that evening when Bonnie returned from the boarding house after talking to Caroline, and then made her way back to the cabin that she had shared with Enzo. Part of her felt like she was hiding something from her boyfriend, as she had just confessed to being in love with another man. But, she did care about Enzo and loved him in a way, even if it wasn't as powerful or strong as she loved Damon, she didn't want to exactly break if off with Enzo by saying, 'Hey, I'm in love with someone else, see you later.' So, she thought that it was her obligation to stay with him at least for now.
Besides, it wasn't like she wanted all of the drama that went with a break up, on top of the pressure of trying to free Damon. She was going to take Caroline's advice in order to save him, however still wanted to assure if there were any magic or spells that could assist her in her mission. That was why when she returned from talking to Caroline she got right into that matter. She got out all of the grimoires that she had, along with the paperwork that she had collected over the years about spells, potions, and magic. Looking through all of them to see if any could help in with the particular situation that Damon was in.
She was at it for hours, only taking a break to eat some dinner or when she had to use the restroom. But, all of her time was spent looking at every paper that she had, searching carefully through every page of her grimoires, then going back and looking just in case she missed something. There were different spells of that had to deal with the brain or mind that she read through, but so far nothing that fit the exact problem of a person having their memories wiped away and being brainwashed like Damon had been.
Evening went into night time, as the hours past by and she was coming up empty, but refused to give up. It was past midnight now, yet still she was at the table with her spell books and papers spread out before her. Between feeling tired and the stress of searching she could feel a headache brewing in her temples.
That was when Enzo came into the room. "Can't you give that a rest."
Bonnie shook her head. "I can't give it a rest until I find a way to solve this problem."
Enzo told her. "I understand that you feel the need to help Damon, but you also need to get some sleep. You've been at this since you came home this evening."
"I'll get some sleep, I just need to look for a while longer." Bonnie insisted.
"But. it's one a.m. in the morning now, you'll just make yourself exhausted. Sleep and then come back to that." Enzo said.
"I know how late that it is, I have to find a way to break this thing that Sybil has done to him, give me one more hour and I'll go to bed, I assure you." Bonnie returned.
"One more hour and then sleep, do you want me to stay up with you?" Enzo asked.
She glanced over at him. "No, you go on to bed, I'll join you in an hour."
Enzo let out a breath. "Alright, darling, I'll head there waiting for you."
As he headed towards the bedroom, Bonnie turned her attention back to what she was doing. She stayed up a little over an hour, until it was past two a.m. It was only when she got super tired, having a hard time keeping her eyes upon that she gave in to her body, and went to bed to get that sleep.
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I apologize for any grammar or spelling errors that I missed. Thanks to all who have reviewed and supported this story so far!