Damon looks down at the shriveled body of a woman he used to know.
In a million years, he never would have recognized her unless someone explicitly told him it was her. He still can't believe it. It's amazing what fifty odd years will do to a person.
Ravage them completely apparently.
The only thing he does recognize is her eyes. They're what he remembers the most about her. They always looked right through him, pierced him with emotional intensity. He's glad they're shut now, glad that she fell back asleep. He can finally put down his poker face, allow the shock of her appearance to register on his face.
She was so pale and thin. It frightened him.
He stands at the foot of Stefan's bed and simply stares. As if his look alone could cure her, could make this all go away. He could cure her, you know. With a few drops of his blood, he could make her healthier than anyone else in the world.
But he can't.
And he won't.
For the first time in his life, Damon is left without a plan. He has no idea what to do, no idea what's expected of him. All he does know is that he got a call from his brother at 3:15 Buenos Aires time while eating mahi mahi with a rather appetizing young college student. They hadn't actually spoken since that fateful day fifty years ago, but every once in awhile Damon would send Stefan a postcard from wherever he was at the time. He suspects that Stefan has kept every single one, him being such a nostalgic and all. They never said much of anything really. They were simply a way to let his brother know that somewhere out there he was still alive, living life as if Elena never happened.
But of course she did. And try as they might, neither brother would ever fully recover from the havoc she had wreaked on their lives. She was so much like Katherine in the end it was eerie…
He snaps out of his reveries when he hears his brother's footsteps approach the door.
He takes a breath and waits for the turn of the knob.