"It never should have been like this..." Damon spoke. He had watched the small funeral service from a distance. "She should have had the life that she deserved..."

"You never thought about that, when you didn't come back."

"Stefan..." Damon turned to face his brother. He'd been the sole person which had attended her funeral, save for a few friends, which barely knew her. "I loved her, dammit. Don't you believe for one second that I never did..."

"But you never came back, and Elena was left to believe the worst about you. She thought you gave up on her. That you took back your choice to become human..."

"I did take it back," Damon admitted reluctantly. "I loved her more than anyone I ever knew in over two-hundred years, Stefan...but when it came down to it, I chickened out. I couldn't be what she wanted me to be. I didn't want to give up being what I was, and I still don't. I don't regret what I did. Elena needs someone like her, who is like her. I'm never that good, Stefan. I can't be with her like that. I don't want the big white house and the fenced in yard. I don't want to have my own family...that was you. It was always you."

"Why did you come here, Damon," Stefan said after a long silence. "You know that Elena is really alive...you knew she's been awake for over three years, and you still never came to see her... why now?"

"I never came...do you really think that I would never come back for her?" Damon sounded sincerely upset. "I was here, the day you went to see her first...I heard everything, and she..."

"She kissed me..." Stefan replied for him. He felt guilty. He felt guilty for the choice he had made that day about his brothers girl. His brothers girl, but his own first love. He had decided that nothing on earth would make him ever stop fighting for Elena Gilbert. Even if that meant stepping on his brothers feelings. "Damon, you should know, we never got together, after that. Not until...recently."

"You made her wait for me..." Damon surmised. His voice was broken.

Stefan bowed his head. He had made Elena wait for Damon. A wait that she reluctantly did. Three years without any word or reason to believe that Damon was still in love with her.

"She waited sixty years, Damon, to be with you. Time passed for her, in that sleep. She was self aware..."

Damon let his tears fall and he turned away. "I can't hear it, Stefan..."

"Go to her...we're leaving town tomorrow night..."

"No," Damon shook his head.

"Damon, don't let me go home and tell her about this. Instead of going to see her, you attended a funeral that you knew was fake..."

"Stefan, you don't want me to go and see her...because if for even one second, she gives me second thoughts, I won't hesitate..."

"Damon, just...do it for her. Please. If anything, Elena needs the chance to say goodbye to you. She's wanted nothing but the chance to see you again. She loved you for a whole lot of years, and she's missed you...that much I know."

"What if she..."

"Damon, no more back and forth. That's over for her. Just do this, one last thing. For the mere human in your life that you refused to say goodbye too."

Finally, Damon notices. He's surprised, and hurt sounding.

"You took the cure..."

"I was dying, and Elena refused to give up. It's why she gave me her blood..."

It had never been a question before that. She was human, and I was a vampire. A dynamic we were used too. I had never wanted the cure, even years ago. When I held it in my hands. I could only think of her. I had wanted Elena to be human, not me. But here we all were...

I was human. I died a vampire, and then I came back... I came back for her.

"I woke up after dying...we never could figure out why it worked. I never took enough..."

"I'll see her," Damon replies, after a cool silence. He decided he rightly hated the new bond that I shared with Elena. I could tell by the look on my brothers murderous face. I had ended up with Elena, despite everything. I had really accepted the fact that I had lost her forever. But fate had other plans for me. "I'll go to her...when would be the best time...?"

"Now, the kids should be in bed soon."

Damon stopped at that last reveal. I fully expected my brother to physically try and rip my head off, but something had changed in him. He looked happy to know that Elena Gilbert was the mother for two kids. Even if I was the father.

Damon gave me a final smile, and one last nod, before taking off into the evening dawn. I waited a few hours before going home that night. I never seen my brother again.