A/N: I know I didn't really give anyone a chance to review by updating so fast, but I want get the end up later today. Thank you to mrs mathis for your very sincere review. I am glad that you've enjoyed my work enough to give it a second read. And believe me, there will be plenty more from me. You'll get sick of all the updates. Trust me. Ha ha! Also, thank you to KellyB83 for adding this story to your favorites. That means a lot. This is the second to last chapter. The end shall be up later today.

Disclaimer: The one thing I've come to look forward to on TVD's finales are the epic ending songs from lesser known artists. So I've tried to emulate that using Marianas Trench's "Good to You" as a title song. Look it up if you must. Now let's get on with it, shall we?

GOOD TO YOU

Bonnie's POV

Last night I dreamt. Don't ask me how I was able to slip any thought past the deafening white noise in my head. When Dean first left me, I'd locked myself and all thoughts of him deep within my subconscious where it was nice and warm and nothing could penetrate it; neither the pain of loss nor the anger of Damon's screams. But somehow, throughout all of the restless tossing and turning, I dreamt that Damon was alive. He was as alive as I'd ever seen him and looking for blood in all the wrong places.

I watched as his consumption of entire rows of vodka and tomato juice turned into a few too many to distinguish right from wrong and landed bartenders named Mary lying bloodless on the floor. Town after town the bloodshed never dried. He'd bare his fangs to anyone brave enough to take on the monster and turn that courage into hoarse pleas to a silent savior, laughing all the way.

In other dreams, he'd direct those bloodthirsty fangs at me, silencing my hollow "I'm sorrys" with roars of "I saw you." Then our arguing would give way to silence. Deadly silence and we'd fight like we should have when I'd first thrown us away. He and I would quietly tear each other apart instead of our friends' lives, sneering through jaws that lay temporarily agape like they were cursed. Of course, the blood that swept through my hands would only make the tossing and turning worse until the man circling me in his arms would gruffly nudge me awake, reminding me that only Damon's tangled black hair filled my hands. Not his blood.

It was then that I would peer down at the lifeless vampire whose head lolled on my lap and remember everything about that day's events: staking Rose, weakening Klaus with her blood, finding Damon hanging in the nest, and Dean finding me weak and nearly powerless on the concrete floor. He'd helped me cut Damon down and drove us straight to the boarding house, never letting me go once. Not even when I laid Damon on the couch and refused to leave his side. Evening melted into night and he was still there, dozing off beside me with one boot propped onto the edge of the couch and his arms already crossed just in case Damon woke up and had something to say about it.

The leg holding my head rattled as Dean tried to shake it awake. Leave her, leave her, leave her oscillated between the vibrations beneath my head taunting me even from where I'd slid my head high onto his chest. He rested his chin on my scalp and rubbed circles into my hair with his fingertips. Screw this town. She chose him. Call Sam now the circles grief was so loud that I had to look to Damon in order to make sure that it hadn't awakened him. It hadn't; he still lay deathly still underneath my fingers with a gaping hole in his stomach that no longer bled but hadn't healed much either. I lifted my gaze away from the myth to stare straight into the eyes of the magic.

"You don't have to stay here with me. I know how uncomfortable this is for you."

His knee picked up its rhythm. "It's only a dead knee, Green Eyes. Just give me four hours of shut-eye and it'll be good as new."

"I meant us lying lie this. With Dam—"

"I know what you meant." A rush of coolness replaced the warmth of his touch when he crossed his arms again.

I shifted to lie on his shoulder instead. "Listen, I know you don't understand my relationship with Damon, and honestly I don't either. One day, we're fighting with each other, the next day we're fighting for each other," my gaze involuntarily fell down to the pale face in my arms, "but until you and Rose came into town, we were all each other had. So thank you," I added, "for helping me get him out of there." Dean was silent for so long I thought he'd fallen asleep, making my urge to trace the curve of his eye lashes against his skin grow into something more persistent than a simple want.

Just when I'd worked up the courage to actually do it, he spoke up, "You're right. I don't understand it." His voice was softer than his words suggested, "But like I told you last week, the vampire is as nuts about you as I am, so watching you die wasn't an option. Only thing me and the bloodsucker ever agreed on," was his afterthought. His hands unfolded once again and landed on the exposed skin of my hip. With that one touch, I felt the eight letter jumble that he couldn't say slowly take up shape in his mind.

"Me too," I whispered as if he had actually said those three little words out loud. He chuckled softly and tucked the blanket that covered Damon and me further around us.

"Get some sleep, Green Eyes," he was already well on his way to R.E.M by the time his head drifted to the arm of the couch, but his fingers still slightly grazed my hip. I thought I'd never get to sleep, yet amazingly I managed to find myself dozing off inside another vision of Damon and me all cried out and staring daggers at the other.

Then there were the dreams that took us to a happier place than bloodshed in bars and bruised lips behind closed doors. And it wasn't so long before I realized the difference between these dreams. The angry visions from earlier were his desires to let his emotions boil over. These new scenes playing over his skin were memories of places that we'd been far too little to call it routine. They were dreams of our vacation last year.

In these memories, Damon was different. The Damon that I had become accustomed to was a dark and gorgeous charmer that you couldn't trust with your life unless you were trusting him to end it. He had a heart that was fierce and loyal, but didn't like for it to show. Not the Damon in this dream though. This Damon was happy and energetic in a way that made him seem younger somehow; more beautiful because good intentions shone in his eyes and colored their normal grey-blue nearly neon.

"Come on Bon Bon, just one picture," he waded in the sand with his camera phone poised high above me. He caught the ankle that I playfully kicked at him, not once minding that it was covered in sand and salt from the ocean. The shutter of the camera snaps wildly, encoding pictures of the man behind the monster sliding from my legs to the waistband of my shorts into the phone's memory. His hands hover over the zipper leading to my blue lace panties. "I'll need something to do while you're molding the future witches of America all day." His tone is sarcastic, but his eyes are pleading. Pleading for pictures of me. Damon had taken plenty of pictures of me that day: shorts unbuttoned, shirt ruched up, blue bra peeking at him from underneath. But he wasn't interested in just any photo shoot. He wanted Playboy styled shots with our clothes splayed across the white sands of Myrtle Beach and the two of us covered in wind and sunrays. It was stupid. It was impulsive. But it was a glimmer of the youth that we'd both had stolen. And when it was over, we let the night engulf us and run its star spangled fingers through our hair.

"Is this what you were like in 1864?" I asked afterward. He said that he wasn't as confident. He was more docile; always begging for approval from a father who granted it to his second born without a single thought to his first. I thought that it was a shame too, because the Damon before me, though hard to chase, was a good catch. A fact that his momentary modesty kept him from admitting even though he could hear conversations of how good he looked while walking wrapping around us in the night air.

"Only for the women of 1864," he winked at the joke. Still I knew that he missed life. He'd embraced being a vampire, but it didn't replace being human. It wasn't a consolation for the things he'd given up: the wisdom that came with aging, the ability to have and nurture children with all the love and adoration that he'd never felt growing up.

"Does it bother you?" His breath was barely above a whisper now, hands ghosting along closed eyes that I now wished I'd kept open; he wasn't usually this nervous. Yet it was hard not to be apprehensive when doubt hung so heavily in the air. Did it bother me that he and I would never be able to be more than a passing fling that should have already flung by then? Elena had, on more than one occasion, cried over the phone that she did not want to give up her life for anyone. Not even for the boy who made her heart sing and her toes curl. Still, by refusing to give in, she was damning herself to a life only half fulfilled. She would have no children with Stefan's sandy blond hair, green eyes, and her olive skin tone. She would never have children as long as she was with Stefan.

But Damon and I weren't Stefan and Elena. We took control. We grabbed impossibilities by the horns and churned them into promise. "No," I answered him truthfully, "it doesn't bother me." I truly believed back then that if things were to ever get serious enough between him and me that children—or lack thereof—became an issue, we would always have options of surrogates and adoptions. If the impossible should ever occur, there was no doubt in my mind that we would parent the green-eyed half-witch daughters that he'd never admit to dreaming of. Then, Klaus came along.

I woke up to the feeling of an empty heart and even emptier arms, because Damon was no longer dying in them. Somewhere, I hoped that the pictures of us were still etched onto his memory card so that I could plant them in the roots of my mind and watch their stems grow strong and healthy in a world where there were no deluded Originals to take it all away.

"He got up about an hour ago. You sleep well?" the scratchy voice coming from the large wooden door reminded me that I was back at the boarding house. Sun filtered in through the heavy curtains, spotlighting Dean's haste to pack his weapons inside his duffle bag. I watched him through a curtain of unshed tears. It seemed that the only time I was able to watch him anymore was when I was watching him leave. This was why I hated mornings.

"Is he ok—"

"He's still really sore," Stefan's voice wafted down from the staircase that he was descending. When had Stefan gotten free of my spell? "Klaus must have been torturing him the entire time. Damon had more knife wounds along his chest. The one to his stomach was for your benefit though. Rose is up there tending to him now." Stefan was directly in front of me now on the coffee table. "How did you know that the key to killing Klaus could be found in his witch's death?"

I sat there watching Dean pack away his belongings. Not a word had been spoken between us since I had awakened and he asked me if I'd slept okay. I hadn't replied, because he already knew my answer. It went without saying. For the first time since we'd come back to the boarding house, the reality of what our victory meant sank in. We had won, and now there was nothing that either of us could do to keep the other around.

"I'm not really sure," I absentmindedly answered Stefan's question. "I guess Grams and Emily just pushed me in the right direction."

Stefan sat beside me on the couch and rested his arm around my shoulders. "Speaking of needing a push, Elena and I split up for a while." His confession made me look at him, really look at him. He smiled knowingly at my surprise. "Well it was right after we'd both started classes at Richmond, and it only lasted a week. But after not seeing each other for that long, it had felt like a forever."

"Stefan please. I just fought off the oldest vampire in history. I don't have the strength to do so with another. Especially one who claims to be my best friend." The dull ache in my chest was starting to grip at my temples. I needed an aspirin. Or maybe even some of Damon's scotch.

He went on as if I hadn't even spoken, "I can imagine what not seeing each other after seven years and one week would have done for us. What do you think, Bon? Should someone in that situation tell the other person how she feels?"

"I think that someone should stop beating around the bush and just say what the hell is on his mind." I fixed him with an accusing glare.

The arm around my shoulders turned my body in the direction of the man at the door. "Okay, well then how about this: if you don't tell him how you feel, I will." Together, Stefan and I watched the muscles in Dean's back clench through his shirt while I tried to convince myself that all I wanted from him was the pleasure of admiring this view while it lasted. After all, I was still with…No one. A car horn honked somewhere close by.

"Well Sam's here so…I guess this is it." The crooked grin never fully made it into place. It was just like me out of place and indefinable. Damon had nearly been killed because of me, and even the week before Klaus had taken him, I couldn't really call what we'd had a healthy cohabitation. It was more like hostage by guilt and revenge. Now, I couldn't imagine he'd want anything more to do with me. And the one who did couldn't do anything about it. I was, for the first time in my life, truly and completely…alone.

"I'll walk you out," I told him, refusing to acknowledge the I'm seriousBonnie look on the younger Salvatore's face.

Every slap of his footsteps, every hitch in his shoulders, put me in the sad state of wanting to break down before him. And this time, there was no room in my heart for pride to get in the way of the pain that I was feeling. I wanted him to see it, to catch a glimpse of the miserable, screwed up, dilapidated, aggravated, and completely frustrated fool that I was only one more tire squeal away from turning into. And it wasn't as if I couldn't face life without him. After all, I had lived seventeen carefree years without ever knowing the sight of my reflection in his eyes. The lilt of his voice wrapped around my name. Or the lick of his fingertips pressed against the small of my back as his tongue dipped lower and did the same. But watching him walk away hurt in a way that was well past excruciating, because I knew that he would feel this way about someone else at some other time. He'd put his hands on the door handle of his car just like he was doing now, and drive straight into someone else's heart, forgetting all about the one that would always be his for the taking. Would she appreciate him? I wondered as Sam threw their duffle bags into the backseat. Would she realize that there was someone else out there who could wrap herself in his hero complex to warm her lonely bed facilitated by his nights on the road if she couldn't? Would she know how lucky she was? These are the thoughts that crossed my mind at the sight of him reaching for his keys to unlock the door.

I'd never gotten to feel this way before. I thought that had been robbed, and last week, I had even told him never to come back. Still, I hadn't expected for him to keep that promise. I should have. I should have known that this was the one promise that he would have no problem keeping; the fear of me getting killed while he fought for us was written all over his face. And I understood his fear. I really did. I just…it just seemed as if he were giving up so easily. I guess I just thought that after everything we'd been through, he'd have tried harder.

When I grabbed his arm, he didn't seem the least bit surprised. I suppose we both knew that the sad goodbye was coming, and we expected the excuses to fly once again like, "This is my job. It's not you. I'll miss you…" but the speech that tumbled out in its place was a surprise to both of us. "You're leaving for you." I told him.

"Excuse me?"

"You're leaving for you," I repeated, "because you're still afraid that the things you fight may come after me if you stick around."

"Uh, Green Eyes…" his eyes were focused on something behind me, but I went on anyway.

"But guess what?" I was jabbing him in the chest with my finger now, "I'm a big girl."

"Hey, Green Ey—"

Once again, I ignored his attempt to interject, "There will always be threats! So if you leave, then you're leaving for you, because in case you haven't noticed, I can take care of myself."

"You done now?" Now the grin was in place, and between the sardonic crinkle in his eyes and the fingers looped into my jeans all I could do was shake my head yes. He turned to his brother then, voice thick with barely hidden amusement, "Hey Sam, clear out the backseat! Green Eyes thinks she wants to join us." All I could do was stand there and gape. Completely speechless while he nudged his head at something behind me. The smile faded a little as he announced his retreat. "I'll be waiting by the car."

I turned to find Damon walking stiffly toward me with the help of an old umbrella that he was currently using as a cane. When he was close enough to meet me face to face, he threw the umbrella scornfully into a nearby bush and leaned against his car, doing a very painful imitation of Dean's stance. "I want to talk to you. " His eyes were blue icicles that threatened to stab the man behind me.

"Thought all was forgiven, vampire?" The question was as unaffected as one could get without flat out yawning during the phrase. Like he didn't believe it either.

Damon settled his eyes onto me in mid roll. "I was talking to Judgie here." His gaze on me wasn't much better, and I knew that no matter how civil he had planned for this conversation to go, there was still a large part of him that wanted to live out his violent dreams, because it was easier than saying what was on his mind.

"Damon, you don't have to say anyth—" the sight of his palm stopped me from trying to put him out of his misery. He said that he had to do this, that he just needed to say it once.

"You went back for me. Even after my complete and total dick move at Barbie's wedding, you still went back for me."

"You would have done the same thing," I found it a little disconcerting how easily this conversation was flowing. Maybe because it felt like that moment at the end of a relationship where both participants decide that they're better off as friends. At least it did until he stepped up and held my face in his hands. Then I felt it, that need that he'd always begged me to admit.

When he smirked, I thought that for just a second, he could read my mind, but then he continued, "No I wouldn't have. Because I never would have opted to save the world like you. I prefer the wild and impulsive approach." Seriousness clouded over in his eyes again as he stroked my cheek. "I appreciate everything that you did for Rose, but now you need to understand something." By this time, Rose and Stefan had joined the Winchesters in witnessing our reunion. They waited, some with mild interest, the others with mild disgust, for him to finish his thought. And I have to admit that even I held my breath for the heart wrenching I would have let Klaus take you that never came. "If it had been Barbie in his ridiculous doppelganger scheme, or even Elena, I wouldn't have hesitated to hand them over for you. I love you, Bonnie, and it will always be you." I didn't realize that I was crying until my breath caught in my throat. Then again, the gasp could have come from Rose, who sagged a little against Stefan per Damon's confession.

"Me too," I said for the second time in twenty-four hours, hoping that the other man I'd claimed to love hadn't noticed. His tight grip on the steering wheel told me that hope didn't spring eternal in that regard.

"I know," Damon surprisingly wasn't smug about the effect of my words on Dean, "Just like I know I don't deserve you. Not like he does. But if you go off with him, don't come back," His eyes were hard for a second as if issuing a threat. Then they softened. "Because I will not let you go a second time." Every head within the vicinity turned toward him, not daring to believe the vampire in front of me was actually Damon speaking. And it wasn't, because for the first time since he'd let Katherine die, he was speaking with the one thing that everyone but me thought had burned up with her: his heart.

Love. There were a million different ways to say it. And for every different way, there were hundreds of actions that one could choose from to show it. But before I'd met Dean and Damon, I had only known of two types of love: the familial kind that included close friends you couldn't go a week without speaking to and the kind they swear you must be older to understand.

When I was thirteen years old, I had the biggest crush on Tyler. Yes, he was a jerk, but we all knew that it was mainly a trait learned from his father, and even in early adolescence I sought something breakable worth fixing.

"It's love!" Caroline had gushed for me, and even though I wasn't so sure, I also wasn't content with the fact that what I was feeling couldn't possibly be love just because all our dates had to be parent chaperoned.

Of course, they were all right about me and Tyler. The heartbreak that I'd thought I'd felt at thirteen wasn't even a dull ache once my sweet sixteen had rolled around. And by the time I was seventeen, I met a man who taught me what heartache really was. Was I more capable of being in love then because he'd left me as an adult? I didn't think so. Because despite what they all say, love is a lot easier to understand when you're young. Girl meets guy—or whatever variation fits the situation best—, they bond over some insignificant factor such as a mutual love for peach soda, and before you know it, the two are attached at the hip. It's as simple as I. Love. You.

But now I'm older, and the only thing I've learned from love is the fact that even the romantic type can be subcategorized.

What Damon and I had was like an advanced version of what I'd had with Tyler: a mutual understanding that had turned into the real thing over ice cream, scotch, and Cruel Intentions. And yes, we had a few scars. After all, you didn't give someone who knew that you were made of glass a mallet and expect for them not to try and break you. It just didn't happen. But what had happened between us was a lighter type of appreciation that came from fully accepting the other. He didn't have to hide his short comings with me, and I never felt as if he wanted me to be something that I wasn't. When we touched, he sent chills down my spine in. Hard and cold, rough and dominating, freezing every worry that I had until I was a shivering pile of reluctant happiness. And it was easy. That's how I'll refer to the kind of love I had with Damon, as easy love.

Yet with Dean, it was crazy from the beginning. Dangerous, untrusting and even our first real conversation had been an accusation. "You drugged me!" That's what he'd said to me. After I summoned him back using an acai summoning ritual. He didn't trust, but if you ever got him to accept you, you could believe that he'd fight until the end to protect you. Nothing about it was cooling, and when we kissed there was more heat than I could stand. Cozy and soft like only flames were. That was us. Two parts of a raging fire that only took one trade wind to spiral out of control and get crazy. That's how I'll refer to the kind of love I had with Dean, as crazy love.

So as I looked back and forth between the two men who patiently waited for me to choose, I realized that it wasn't about children, or normalcy, or even love. Because I loved them both. No, my choice boiled down to one and only one thing: who made me the happiest. The only question was who did make happier. The vampire who had enough of me to break my heart? Or the hunter who could rip it out altogether?