"Should we wait for Stefan to wake up?" Caroline asked, peering down at the weirdly contorted body of her friend.
"No, we can fill him in later. Let's just hear it now," Damon said decisively.
"Damon's right," Rebekah agreed. "I'm not waiting any longer. What do we need, witch?"
Bonnie glared at her once before beginning to speak. "While Damon and Stefan were fighting I suddenly felt something come over me. Almost like when Emily Bennett was possessing me so long ago. All of a sudden I could hear all these voices in my head. They were the voices of the witches who created the cure to keep the balance. They knew there would be vampires like Klaus who wanted the cure to destroy it so they made it so that no vampire could touch it, which is why it burned Stefan. Only a witch descended from the original witches could get."
"You're descended from the original witch?" Elena asked in wonder.
"Apparently. Anyway, they told me how to use the cure. A petal of this rose must be placed over the heart of the vampire and then staked while I recite a spell. They'll die and then wake up as a human the next day."
"Is that it?" Damon asked. He and Rebekah exchanged glances of disbelief that it could be so easy.
"Not exactly," Bonnie began. "Apparently the process of your rebirth as a human will be extraordinarily painful. It's nature's way of punishing you for being abominations."
"How bad?" Caroline questioned.
"Bad enough that you will long for death." Bonnie replied solemnly.
"Yeah, but who cares?" Damon asked. "It's not like we're not going to come back. So what? We suffer terrible shit for a day but then *bam* we're all back to weak, heart beating, food eating mortals. Look at the bigger picture, Barbie."
"Damon, I don't think you understand how the other side works," Bonnie began. "Time has no meaning. Yes, you'll be dead for a human day here on earth but over there… there's no telling how long it will take. You'll each have to atone for your sins in the most excruciating way possible. It could feel like centuries, millennia even, especially considering all the evils in your past. All that time spent in pain."
Damon blanched; he knew that he would have hell to pay for his crimes. Looking over at Elena, however, he was reminded what it was all for. He would have a chance to grow old with her and live the life she had always wanted. She deserved this. He would do this for her.
He squared his shoulders, clenched his jaw, and looked directly at Bonnie. "Try it on me first."
"What? Why do you get to go first?" Rebekah pouted.
Damon looked at her seriously. "We have no idea whether this is actually going to work or not. For all we know, it could be a trick of the witches to get us 'abominations' to stake ourselves. I'm not about to let anyone else try it before we know whether it's the real deal or not."
Elena ran to hug him, pulling him in tight and begging him not to sacrifice himself. The others looked at him in awe. The arrogant, selfish, evil vampire they all thought they knew so well had completely turned the tables. The selfless side of him that only Elena knew existed was on display for the whole world. Tyler and Matt looked on him with grudging respect while Caroline and Rebekah were forced to look back on their interactions with him in a new light. He had undoubtedly treated them terribly but in this moment, he was completely open and exposed and they knew they could forgive him for his past. Bonnie, too, looked with confusion as everything she thought she knew about him had changed. Elena had told her about Damon's good deeds and selflessness but Bonnie had always assumed these had been done to garner Elena's favor rather than out of an actual desire to do good. Now, however, there was no denying the truth. Damon was sacrificing himself not only for Elena but for all of the others too with no hope of reward. No matter how much she thought she hated Damon, a few tears of gratitude escaped her eyes at his gesture.
Jeremy spoke, however, and ruined the mood. "I don't know if that's a good idea." When all eyes turned to him in confusion he continued, "Think about it, we still have to take Klaus down. Do you really think we can just walk up to him and say 'hey, do you mind lying down with this rose petal on your chest so we can stake you and end your reign of terror?' I don't really see that going over well. I think, as of right now, we need everyone, or at least the strongest of us, to stay vampire so we at least have a shot."
Damon nodded with begrudging respect. "Look at you, Little Gilbert! When did you become the brains of this operation?"
"I'll do it," Tyler said suddenly stepping forward. "I want to kill Klaus more than anything. If we need to test it out on someone, test it on me."
"Tyler! You can't do that! What if something goes wrong?" Caroline said frantically, rushing to his side.
"Care, I'm doing this for you. For us. We have to know if it works before heading back to face Klaus. Let me do this," Tyler said with determination.
Caroline stepped away from Tyler into Elena's waiting arms. They both looked on in terror as Tyler laid himself out on the ground.
"Wait, Wolf-boy," Damon said suddenly. "You should take off your shirt. No reason to ruin a perfectly good shirt with an unsightly staking hole."
Tyler peeled his shirt off before giving it to Damon. "Thank you, Tyler," Damon said seriously.
"You called me Tyler!" Tyler said in shock.
"Yeah, well, there's a first time for everything," Damon replied lightly. "Go hurry up and die so we can make it a reoccurring thing."
Tyler stuck out his hand to Damon who looked down on it with surprise for a moment before holding out his own. They shook firmly before Tyler let go and spread himself on the ground. Bonnie gently placed the rose petal over Tyler's heart and grabbed the stake Jeremy handed to her. She cast nervous eyes around at the group watching with horrible fascination before looking down at Tyler.
"I'm sorry," she whispered as she plunged the stake through his heart.