A/N: Hello kittens. Here is Part II in the Cat & Mouse/Mine Again series finale. Yea! Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, added to your list of faves, alerted. *Blows you a big kiss and a fist pump* Enjoy!

Disclaimer: These characters are the creative property of LJ Smith and The CW. No copyright infringement is intended.


"The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all around him. She had become a physical necessity." –George Orwell, 1984.

For two weeks his hell had been inescapable. He dreamt of nothing but fanged women, some of them with her face, others he had seduced and killed, many more he thought he loved, but she had remained the dominate factor.

He dodged questions, sad auburn eyes demanding an explanation for his disappearing act, and the guilt alone had Damon catapulting to the deep end of denial when he would tell Elena that everything was fine, that nothing was going on with him, that he had a lot on his mind he had to deal with, that she didn't need to worry about a thing.

Those were all lies. Lies he literally saw march out of his mouth and dance around the living room as he tried to convince himself that the girl with the long, mahogany hair and the face of an angel still held his heart, still owned him mind, body, and soul.

The first time he saw Bonnie after their impromptu trip to New York, Damon felt as if he had been hit with a sledgehammer upside the head. All the blood in his body rushed to his brain and he thought for a second she was giving him an aneurysm, but her eyes had been fixed on the guy seated across from her at a booth at the Grille, a huge beguiling smile on her face, her fingers absently playing in her hair.

Was she on a date? Had she driven that bastard in his car?

That was another thing. He hadn't struck up the courage to get his car back and Bonnie hadn't exactly delivered it to him, either.

Damon took up his usual spot at the bar, planted his elbows on the polished wood top, and trained his ears like a sonar wave to pick up every single nuance of her conversation. She laughed and it sounded like bells. She gasped when the guy told her something she hadn't expected and it made Damon think of rolling around on cotton sheets; she made a point and he annoyingly felt himself agreeing with her logic.

She was sickening!

He made sure he spoke in a clear, loud voice as he ordered the best bourbon this piss poor excuse for a restaurant had to offer. He was going to get drunk and drunker still.

Alcohol made him taste like turpentine, she said. Damon figured he could do one better and taste like cobra venom by the end of the night.

Hour after hour, drink after drink, he sat there on that barstool, sullen, pouting, and missing something that had never been explicitly his. He kept watch of his surroundings through and by his peripheral vision, and before he knew it, the place was shutting down and Stefan had been called to drive him home.

Yet Damon had to torture himself and get one final look. The guy, the bum, the lame was helping Bonnie into her coat and that look in her eyes like she couldn't believe someone could be this wonderful and dreamy…she had looked at him like that at some point. Damon was sure of it.

Who was that guy? Where'd he come from? Would he be missed if he mysteriously went missing?

Why did he sorta, kinda look like Stefan?

"Are you ever going to tell me what happened to your car?" Stefan asked and drove out of the parking lot.

Damon, head resting against the window, ignored his little brother.

"What's going on with you, Damon? I've never seen you like this. You weren't even this despondent when you found out the truth about Katherine. Is it…are you and…"

Cutting him off, Damon said, "No, my woes don't begin and end with Elena."

Wrong girl, wrong color, wrong height, wrong smell, wrong blood, just wrong everything.

"Then what?" Impatience overrode compassion in Stefan. "You disappeared for almost two days, came back and you've been like this. In a funk. We may not always be close or have a typical brother-to-brother relationship but if you need to talk it out, I'm here, man."

"I hear you, Stefan but trust me you don't want to know what's going on."

Stefan mulled over his brother's words for a second. "Is it life threatening?"

"No."

Stefan let out a relieved sigh. So long as Damon wasn't dying and he didn't need to make a deal with Klaus or anyone else to save his life, Stefan would let Damon handle whatever problem he's cooked up for himself this week. The saga with the elder Salvatore never seemed to end. Stefan thought Damon would be walking around with an ear-to-ear grin on his face everyday now that he did the impossible by making Elena fall in love with him, but come to think of it, Stefan had rarely seen them together the last several weeks.

Damon only fell into a funk for two reasons: he or someone he cared about was dying, or it was a woman. A woman he cared a great deal about but didn't want anyone let alone himself to know.

Something hot poked at Stefan's insides. His brother wouldn't be stupid enough to fall for someone else while being with Elena. Directing his gaze to see the dull, flat look on Damon's face, Stefan would say it was indeed possible.

"Gotdamn you, Damon!" Stefan swore and made the turn off on the street leading to the manor.

"What? What did I do?"

"You tell me."

"I seriously have no clue what you're talking about."

Stefan turned off the engine the minute he parked the car but didn't move to get out. Neither did Damon. The two brothers stared at one another, unblinking.

"Your relationship with Elena is none of my business and I want no part of it, but if you've done something you need to come clean and be honest about it. Whatever you're harboring is only going to make things worse. And frankly, I don't want to be around for the aftermath. Handle it, Damon. Fix whatever it is you've done."

Yeah, Damon knew that. Knew he had to tell Elena the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but did he have to do so right now?

More days passed, and he hadn't cracked the seal on his mouth. Anytime Damon struck up the courage to let Elena know his path would intersect with Bonnie's.

He saw her again, strolling through downtown with a different guy, drinking her favorite frappuccino. Damon flashed a smile that she barely noticed but the guy she had been strutting beside gave him a head nod and he saw the guy wasn't a guy but a vampire. The lapis lazuli ring was a dead giveaway. And the guy nearly resembled Klaus.

What was going on?

Damon may have blacked the rest of the night out because he woke up in bed not remembering a single thing. He touched both sides of his neck expecting to see blood on his fingers, kind hoped for it actually, but his skin and clothes were as clean and dry as a bone.

So what happened?

The empty and smashed bottles of bourbon, brandy, and Hennessy may have been the cause of his memory loss.

Damon stopped drinking.

It was hard adjusting from drinking hard liquor to eating hard candy. But he needed the substitute. Damon needed this something new, something old, something borrowed, because something blew. His mind, his situation, his life.

He was blowing it all with his inability to just let his dealings with Bonnie go and move forward with Elena. Damon vowed to tell her the truth and weather whatever storm that may be unleashed; however, he curtailed that because Jeremy's birthday was coming up and Elena had been planning his party for weeks. Didn't want to ruin it so he'd keep his mouth sewn shut for a little while longer.

Things were going fine. Damon put on a performance worthy of an Oscar nod as he danced and twirled Elena around the room, wouldn't let her out of his sight for longer than five seconds. She couldn't stop smiling, giggling, or making cute little faces; his stomach wouldn't stop knotting, his conscience wouldn't stop screaming. He thought he could fake it until he made it to bedtime.

Once again a monkey wrench was thrown into his carefully crafted plans when Bonnie arrived looking like sex on a stick. She wove her way through the crowd, pulled Jeremy aside and talked almost intimately into his ear. The boy couldn't erase that stupid smirk off his face even if you threatened to saw it off.

Damon hadn't realized he crushed the tumbler in his hand to pieces until Bonnie looked up at him sharply. He straightened his spine thinking this was it, she would finally acknowledge his existence after he abandoned her in New York. Bonnie took a step forward, then stopped, appeared conflicted, then angry. She was fighting something but Damon watched as her eyes zeroed in on his hand and he smelled his blood in the air.

Frowning, Damon watched the cuts in his skin heal yet his hand was still drenched in red fluid. When he glanced back up to see if Bonnie had gone into trance mode because she had a particular hankering for his blood, he wasn't shocked to discover she had fled the scene.

The mouse had gone but the cat would follow.


If she were surprised to see him standing in her bedroom by the very window he used to enter her room the first time, Damon couldn't tell. She didn't let out a startled shriek, nor did she slap a hand over her thumping heart. Her eyes didn't widen, her mouth didn't fall into the shape of an O; she simply looked at him questionably before promptly writing him off.

"Not surprised to see me?" Damon punctuated the silence and tension with a question.

"Should I be?" came Bonnie's retort as she threw her purse into the chair that sat caddy corner next to the closet door. Slender hands poised on her hips, she rubbed her lips over one another.

"You figured I'd come? That I'd say enough was enough and to quit pretending as if you don't want to feed off of me?"

Bonnie merely hitched an eyebrow in the air.

Damon looked away because clearly his weakness was showing. She was the one who held all the chips, was the possessor of the cards, held fate, life and death in her hands and all he wanted was five seconds of her time and attention.

"Why are you here, Damon? You made it perfectly clear that you didn't want to continue doing what we were doing. Did you think I was going to try to change your mind? Is that what you've been secretly hoping for?"

He wasn't going to give justification to her rational questions. His being here was for one purpose only: to end this stalemate between them. Forcing himself to look at her, which really wasn't a chore because she was beautiful to behold, Damon sighed heavily and then yanked his shirt clean off and turned his head to the side hoping that fat artery in his neck was bulging.

"You win," he moodily replied.

"I win what?"

"Just feed."

"I'm not interested."

He refaced the stubborn pseudo-hybrid and glowered. For weeks Damon stood back, occupied the sidelines as Bonnie lived her life or at the very least put on a very convincing production that she was enjoying the hell out of being immortal. But he knew better. A prideful girl like her just wouldn't simply roll over and accept the heaping amount of bullshit that landed on her plate with a smile on her face and dance in her heart. While the others may have allowed ignorance and blindness to hide the truth, it had been written as plain as day, though Damon would admit he was a little slow in deciphering it.

No witch, and especially not one that hailed from the bloodline Bonnie came from would ever be okay or accept the fact her life had been taken from her and was replaced with something else because her friends were too unoriginal in figuring out another way to help her.

They took the easy way out. Shot in the dark and hoped they hit the right target after the lights came on. But they missed. Terribly.

"Bonnie…stop."

A corner of her eye squinted in confusion. "Stop what? Being a hostess? That's simple, then. Get. Out."

"Stop pretending that you're fine with what happened to you!"

Whatever rebuttal Bonnie had ready to spew died in a flash. She swallowed, went absolutely still, and then in the next instant looked down at her feet.

"That's what you do," Damon proceeded with caution knowing that her fortress walls were starting to tumble and fall down. "That's what you always do. Something shitty happens, you get knocked down, you instantly forgive and never demand better from the ones who hurt you."

"…be quiet…" Bonnie mumbled pleadingly under her breath so low Damon barely heard her, but he did and refused to listen.

"This isn't you. You're not okay with what you are. You're not happy with being a vampire. You. Are. In. Pain. You're miserable. I can see it now when I couldn't before. This wasn't supposed to be your life…"

"…stop talking…"

"You don't have to go around acting like you're enjoying life; that you accept what you are. You're not supposed to be a vampire. Your life wasn't supposed to be cut off that night. You're not supposed to be this!"

Bonnie lifted her head and shouted, "I said be quiet!" her face vamped out as crystal tears rolled down her cheeks. Bonnie laughed self-deprecatingly and placed a hand on her forehead. "I can't even…" her words became garbled and her throat ached horribly from repressing the urge to scream. "I can't even cry without this happening," she indicated the wriggling black veins under her bloodshot eyes.

Damon crossed over the room and stood before in her in less than two seconds. He wiped a tear tract away with the pad of his thumb. "I didn't want this to happen to you, Bonnie. I never wanted this to happen to you. And this might sound harsh but I would have preferred if you died then live out the rest of your life as the thing you hate."

Bonnie shook her head and sniffled. Opened her mouth, then shut it. Shifted her weight on her feet, and decided.

Resigned she stared up at Damon. "I hate waking up like this everyday. Being a witch that's who I was…and it was taken from me," she cried brokenly. "I can't get it back."

Nodding his head, Damon remained rooted to his spot despite the overwhelming urge to pull Bonnie in for a hug.

"I thought if I acted like it didn't matter then eventually it wouldn't matter," Bonnie swallowed the lump in her throat.

"You need to grieve about this," Damon told her. "You've pushed it all to the side and haven't dealt with a fucking thing."

Bonnie averted her eyes, "I don't want to."

"Because it hurts and it's gonna hurt but how else do you expect things to get better if you don't go through the pain first?" Damon lifted her chin so he could look into her swollen and watery eyes. "You attacking me had nothing to do with getting even…it was a cry for help, a cry for attention. You needed someone to see…"

The crying newborn couldn't deny Damon's hypothesis mainly because Bonnie didn't want to put too much stock in the fact that the elder Salvatore could be eerily perceptive when he applied himself. If it had only been as simple as giving herself a new hobby, or going after Damon to pay him back for the times he scared her, made her feel insignificant and stupid if she couldn't pull off a spell, and for what he did to Abby, but it wasn't.

"You needed someone to see things never should have come down to this," he finished his observation.

Nibbling on her bottom lip, Bonnie wiped a tear away with the heel of her hand. "So now what? You report me to the authorities? Stage another intervention?"

"No," Damon shook his head. "I'm going to do what any good friend would do for another…I'm going to grieve with you."

Bonnie stared at the conviction and seriousness on his face in astonishment and disbelief before she started crying again. Harder. The kind of crying that would be embarrassing to do in public, the kind that contorted your face, the kind that racked your body, the kind someone wrapped their arms around you and held on to you letting you know that everything would be all right as soon as you got past this storm.

They ended up on her bed, Bonnie's head on Damon's chest while he cradled her, and periodically kissed the crown of her head or her temple. She could smell his saline tears and never thought she'd see the day Damon would cry for her and with her. This whole moment was more than surreal it was unfathomable. Damon didn't go out of his way like this for someone he supposedly hated, for someone he didn't care about. Bonnie couldn't put into words the flux of emotions that rippled through her as she dealt with her own feelings of injustice, loss, fury, loneliness, derision, and disappointment that those closest to her or had been at one point couldn't see what Damon saw.

But she didn't want anyone else to comfort and get her through this other than him.

All night they remained locked together, occasionally shifting on the bed and Damon asking her if she were all right; if she had anything else to get out, if she had any more tears left to cry. He'd give her this night, but after that things were changing.

This wasn't his first night not sleeping with a woman while sharing a bed, but it was definitely his first night holding a woman and simply being the support she needed. For the first time in an absurdly long time, Damon Salvatore felt like a man.

Birds started chirping as the sun rose in the sky. Bonnie moved against him, stretching the kinks and knots out of her body like a cat. She yawned and then craned her neck to meet Damon's gaze. His was unfiltered and intimidating with its potency.

"Good morning," she said softly.

"Good morning."

She looked hesitant to ask her next question. "Is anyone waiting for you at the boardinghouse?"

"Probably, but I'm not quite ready to go yet." Pause. "How do you feel?"

Bonnie's chin quivered and she had to quickly look away, but Damon saw the fresh batch of tears that were ready to make their debut. However, she took a deep breath and said:

"I'm not okay but I'm okay with saying that."

"Then that's progress."

"What happens with us?" Bonnie chanced asking.

To that, unfortunately, the blue-eyed vampire didn't have an answer. Oh sure there were lots of directions he wanted things to go with Bonnie, yet there was something Damon knew he had to do and it was something he had put off long enough.

"We can talk about that later," he sat up leaving Bonnie no choice but to relinquish her hold on him. Damon reached for his shirt and put it on. "I need to get going. I'll call you later."

Bewildered and rumpled, Bonnie did nothing but nod and then watch him leave. He came back two seconds after walking out the door to kiss her forehead, and then he was gone again.

DBDBDBD

He didn't go to the boardinghouse straightaway. Damon did several hours of procrastinating and lollygagging first mainly because he was avoiding one specific person, and someone he'd have to talk to and come clean with—inevitably.

Things with Bonnie used to be cut and dry, simple and easy. He'd pester her, she'd shoot him down. She'd need his muscle so she would have room and space to do a spell. He'd make a snarky remark, she'd give him a threatening, un-amused look, and at the end of the day everyone went home patting themselves on the back for beating the odds of death for another day.

Last night they had surpassed their usual routine. They were friends. And, well, Damon had never had a real friend before. Not discounting his bromance with Rick. That was different, and maybe sometimes one-sided. Alaric had been a much better friend and one Damon could honestly say he didn't deserve than he had been to the late history teacher and vampire hunter.

There had been Rose, but that started out as two lonely people making a sexual connection to take their minds off their pathetic lives for a couple of hours. He liked her because she saw under his mask, and didn't pull any punches, and in many ways she shared common traits with Bonnie. But again what was brewing between him and Ms. Bennett was unlike anything Damon had ever experienced.

And that scared the shit out of him.

He wasn't ready to haul off and start using the L word or anything preposterous like that. Damon was positive that he didn't love Bonnie. He loved drinking her blood when she'd let him, and he loved their dynamic, but…

Deliberately switching his thoughts, Damon pulled his car into the driveway and his stomach sank to his toes. Elena was here. Jenna's Mini Cooper was parked in his spot.

Sighing heavily, Damon exited the car and wondered if he could perhaps sneak in without being detected. It would have been hella easy when Elena was still human, but now that her senses were just as sharp as his it would be almost impossible to make it up to his bedroom so he could shower and change clothes. He was drenched in Essence of Bonnie and Damon didn't have any kind of explanation worked out in his head as to why he smelled like he took a bath in the doppelganger's best friend.

And it was far too late to try to sneak anyways. Elena heard him pulling up.

Stepping through the front door, the first thing to smack Damon in the face was the smell of marinara sauce and noodles boiling.

Oh, how sweet. She was making him dinner. At three in the afternoon.

Since Elena was tinkering away in the kitchen, Damon zoomed up to his room, stripped out of his clothes which he buried at the very bottom of his hamper, hopped in the shower, scrubbed himself thoroughly and washed his hair twice.

He had just wrapped a towel around his lean waist when the door to his room slowly opened and an olive face popped through.

"Hey," Elena smiled brightly and then quickly scanned his body. She approached Damon and kissed him on the mouth. "I wanted to surprise you by cooking you dinner. I didn't know when you'd be back. You were gone all night."

Though she said the words with a tight smile on her face, suspicion lined those umber eyes.

"Yeah," Damon walked over to his dresser and pulled out a plain black T-shirt and a pair of socks. "I was helping out a friend with something."

Elena helped herself to a seat on the foot of the bed. She visually stalked Damon as he moved from one corner of his room to the next. "You were helping out a friend with something? Can I ask what?"

"I rather not say at the moment," he dodged. "Something smells good though," Damon tossed her a conciliatory wink while he pulled on a pair of jeans.

"I decided to cook since you never returned my phone call where I asked if we could go to dinner," the frustrated brunette waited for Damon to explain himself. He didn't. Wouldn't even give her the courtesy of looking at her. "Damon…what's going on? We haven't done anything or hung out in weeks. I know you asked for space because you were going through something, but I'm tired of being in the dark."

"Elena…" Damon didn't continue until he was standing in front of her. He braced his hands on her shoulders before running them down her arms and taking hold of her hands. "I know I've been distant lately and I want to tell you everything that's been going on. It's complicated."

"What's complicated?" her tone had turned somewhat demanding.

Did he want to do this now? There'd never be a good time to tell the woman you doggedly pursued for years, and achieved that illusive dream of claiming her heart and body that shortly thereafter you've lost your passion for her. When Damon looked at Elena, was around her, that anticipatory rush which sailed through his veins had vanished, fallen into a drift. She was familiar to him, easy going, complicated in her ordinariness. She was special because she shared the face of the first vampire he loved. She had been his paragon for rewriting history and being granted a second chance.

However, she had belonged to someone else and he got in the way. He didn't get just in the way; he planted himself in the way—firmly and with little fucks to give. Now they were together, he supposed, sire-bond aside, but did they ever have a strong basis to start a relationship on? Did they ever have a fair shot?

Like the plague Damon avoided asking himself those questions because he knew he wouldn't like the answers.

He could very well destroy whatever future Elena had cooked up in her head concerning them the second he revealed the truth.

And that actually didn't bother Damon. Not as much… say a few months ago.

He took a step back. "Everything is complicated."

"With vampires it usually is," Elena made a go for humor and it fell flat. She was trying to tell her insides to settle down and her mind not to jump to any conclusions but with Damon one always had to prepare to hear the worst.

"Look," Damon licked his lips mostly as a stall tactic. "Let me start by telling you that I wasn't alone…in New York. Bonnie was with me."

Elena merely blinked at him uncomprehendingly and waited anxiously for him to continue. "Okay," she folded her arms tightly over her chest. "What were you two doing in New York?"

"Before I get into all of that you remember that short period of time where I was being attacked?" Elena nodded. Damon continued. "It was Bonnie."

"She attacked you?" her voice carried the right amount of disbelief and confusion. "Why would she do that?"

"Again that's complicated. It went on for about a month. She'd show up in a sneak attack, and I'd wake up somewhere mainly here with two blood bags waiting for me. I took her to New York because she told me that Klaus was courting her or at least trying to."

"And you wanted to keep her away from him?" Elena guessed but felt there were huge, gaping tractor trailer sized holes in Damon's story. She knew him well enough to know when he was willfully omitting information. He never said how Bonnie attacked him. "What did she do to you, Damon?"

Here comes the tricky part, he thought. Damon wanted to be honest but there was the other side of him that also wanted to protect Bonnie and keep what the two of them had been doing on the low-low. Elena would freak the fuck out, rightfully so, and once the dust cleared he'd be lucky if his balls were still intact and Elena didn't haul off to confront Bonnie.

"She…Bonnie…she drank my blood until I was nearly dry and she'd snap my neck," he shrugged nonchalantly.

Elena's hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened as she tried to imagine her elfin friend overpowering and getting the better of Damon.

Wait.

The older a vampire was the stronger they were. Damon could have easily gained the upper hand on Bonnie at anytime he liked, but for whatever reason he didn't. Unless Bonnie injected him with vervain but again Damon made no mention of that.

"So Bonnie would sneak up on you, drain you to the point of death, and she'd snap your neck? Did she inject you with vervain beforehand?" Elena inquired. Damon shook his head and looked a little shamefaced but not nearly enough. "So what you're really saying is you allowed her to drink your blood?"

"I…did. After the first time it happened I chalked it up to a fluke. I didn't think she'd come after me again, but she did, and it kept happening. And before you ask why I never brought it up I didn't bring it up because I wanted to deal with it on my own. She was coming after me and I considered it pointless to involve anyone else."

"But you should have told me, Damon! Here I was thinking you were being attacked by a werewolf or another vampire, I guess you were, but I never would have imagined that it was Bonnie. Oh my God."

"What would you have done if I had come to you about this, Elena? Asked her politely to stop turning me into a juice pouch? You think she would have listened? Like I said, it was between me and her."

Shaking her head, Elena fixed her eyes on Damon. "You're not telling me something."

"You're right, I'm not. Things escalated."

"How?" that queasy feeling in the pit of Elena's stomach had returned.

"I…I started drinking her blood."

All life left Elena's face. Everything in the room faded to black a part from Damon. He was the only thing she could see and what she saw she didn't like. Was he seriously standing in front of her telling her that he had been blood-sharing with her best friend whom she had been walking around on eggshells with since before she was turned into a vampire?

Damon could only fathom the thoughts running through Elena's mind. He knew what he would be thinking if the situation were reversed, and Elena admitted to drinking another vampire's blood, specifically a friend of his. He'd be ready to tear the both of them apart with his bare hands.

"I don't….I can't believe…why?" Elena stammered and felt her nose tingle and her eyes swelling with tears.

"It just happened, Elena. There was no rhyme or reason," he added delicately hoping to soften the blow but knew it would be virtually impossible.

"NO!" she exploded. "There is always a reason for why everything happens. Especially with you! You were blood-sharing with my best friend! Do you know what that means? It's a form of intimacy. I didn't know that when you did it to me, not until Stefan explained the implications involved, and you would willingly do it with Bonnie!"

"Elena," Damon took a step towards her but she jerked back and held up a hand in warning. Tears spilled from her eyes and Damon's jaw ticked. He was tired of being around crying ass chicks, but he was the reason why he made two very different women cry.

"No," she said again and felt pain stab her repeatedly in the heart.

The both of them played her like a fool while she walked around as if everything was beginning to click back into place. Bonnie had slowly been coming around, but now Elena understood why. Her bestie had Damon eating out of the palm of her hand—literally, and he, well he was getting the best of both worlds. He had her love though he often behaved as if he didn't care she loved him, and he had his secret rendezvous with Bonnie.

Elena had crossed the room and slapped his head from east to west before she realized what she had done.

"I can't believe you would do that to us, Damon! You really don't care about me or this relationship because if you did you never would have started drinking Bonnie's blood and you never would have kept this from me for so long. But I forgot," she laughed gaily, "you get off on lying to people. You parade around in your man-pain and act like the world owes you something because some bitch didn't love you back. I gave you my love. I broke the heart of a good man for you," she stabbed him in the chest with her finger. "And you throw it all back in my face because you're a coward and a prick. A greedy, selfish asshole."

Damon couldn't say anything in his defense and it wouldn't change the facts as they were.

"You don't care about me, about Stefan, or Bonnie. I don't even think you care about yourself because if you did you'd treat people the way you'd want them to treat you," Elena breathed harshly through her nostrils while trying to get her bearings under control. "Do you have feelings for Bonnie?"

"Yes."

Elena opened her mouth but then it snapped shut. She hadn't expected him to be honest.

Hearing himself say that put a lot of things into perspective for Damon. Didn't mean he liked it, but he was tired of lying. He didn't like harboring feelings for one girl when he had pledge his heart to another. What did it say about him? That he was insatiable? That he'd never be satisfied with what he had? That he had no honor?

Suffice to say he spent the next six hours listening to Elena vent about nearly everything she had kept bottled up. How she regretted defending him to Caroline and shaming her friend for quickly jumping into bed with him despite the fact she, Elena could barely wait a day after breaking up with Stefan to do the same thing. How she forgave him for hurting the people close to her though she wasn't in a position to forgive him since his acts hadn't been geared towards her, or maybe they were on some unconscious level.

Then she moved on to the heavy duty stuff by saying being with her had never been about her, but about getting what Stefan had.

Perhaps she had a point. Mentally, Damon didn't want to go there.

Insults were hurled, loyalty and loved was questioned and at the end they both agreed they probably wouldn't have worked long-term. Not while the sire-bond was still in place though Elena doubted she could feel a single shred of it left. Pleasing Damon was the absolute last thing on her mind at the moment, and Damon tried once again to grant her, her freedom. She left by slamming the front door, said she'd get what things she left in his room later, and he let her go.

Traipsing downstairs to get his first drink in a week, Damon held the tumbler up to his lips, paused, inhaled the tear-inducing aroma, and tossed it back.


"When someone hurts you, you want to hurt them back. It's the rule of the jungle."

Damon grunted but otherwise didn't make a comment, or remove his eyes from the ceiling of his bedroom. He was all talked out, wanted to be left alone so he could wallow in, what was that phrase Elena said? Yes, right, man-pain. The last thing he wanted was to be faced with the exact reason Elena was probably badmouthing him all over town. Not like he cared about any of that. Reputations could be rebuilt overtime and at the end of the day it wasn't important. It didn't matter. Yes, in the olden days a man was only as good or worth the time of day based on his reputation. But times had changed severely and people were more so swayed by their emotions than anything else.

He'd be fine in a couple of weeks.

"Talk to me, Damon."

"I don't want to talk and least of all to you. You've done quite enough. Thanks," he tacked on sarcastically.

The bed dipped signifying she made herself quite at home, but still he didn't budge his attention. Who knew the grooves in the paneled ceiling could make such interesting shapes.

The longer she remained parked on his bed the higher Damon felt his irritation climbing. What right did she have to be here after he lost Elena because of his inability to learn control, to be faithful, to tell the truth? It was all her fault! He wouldn't be feeling the way he felt now if she had left his ass alone, went after another vampire, and then he wouldn't have gotten it into his head that he wanted to taste her blood as badly as she wanted his. Then those stupid, pointless things called feelings wouldn't have bloomed and blossomed in his heart. He wouldn't have felt a single shred of jealousy in seeing her going out on dates with random losers, being tickled with the idea of Klaus courting her, or seeing her smile at that emo loser who allowed a hot, feisty girl like her to slip through his fingers.

Damn her!

Damon whipped his head to stare at public enemy number one and came up stupid.

Her hair was a cloud of curls around her heart shaped face. A face he would have been hard pressed to believe had been crippled with pain and anguish last night. Those wicked and sweet tasting lips were painted blood-red, but the one thing her beauty couldn't disguise was the regret in her viridian orbs.

"I'm guessing you had a visitor," he said.

Bonnie nodded her head. "Things almost turned violent. I guess I've succeeded in making Elena hate me as much as I resented her."

"You resented her?"

"Does that surprise you? I may have behaved like a robot only because I felt like that was the only way for me to survive. I tried not to. I tried to fight feeling as if my best friend wasn't solely responsible for why I lost so much in my life. It's hard staring into the face of the person that everyone around you would fuck you over for in order to save. I lost my mother twice because of Elena. My grams. My powers. I lost myself. I could continue the list but I won't."

Damon sat up and braced his weight against the headboard. "So this whole thing between you and me had been part of your diabolical revenge plan?" He tried not to feel a pang of anger about Bonnie potentially using him just to get back at Elena.

"It may have started out that way and then it became something totally different."

"Then what the hell do you want with me now, Bonnie? You got what you wanted. Me out of a girlfriend, and Elena feeling betrayed. Or is that not enough for you?"

Uncharacteristically, Bonnie straddled him and Damon gulped. "How deep should I twist the knife? Should I make Stefan fall in love with me? Should I kill Jeremy in his sleep? What do you think I should do to get my message across?"

Hmm, Damon's mind began to zoom with ideas and possibilities but he shook them loose, grabbed Bonnie by the hips and plucked her off of him. He was standing on his feet in a second.

"You need to leave."

"Damon…stop."

He turned around so fast he almost toppled over. Oh, so she was going to use his lines against him now. Was that the new game?

Bonnie strolled up to him walking in that signature way that captivated his mind. He peered down at her when she stood less than a foot away.

"Out of everyone, you were the only one who connected the dots and saw what was really happening to me. You were the only one to tell me it was okay that I didn't have to accept what I was. You were the only one who was upset that this happened to me in the first place. I remember hearing your voice in asking why they thought turning me was the only way. And maybe you have an unfair advantage because I started this whole thing between us…but at anytime you could have told the others what I was doing. You didn't."

"Because…I'm a selfish prick asshole with man-pain issues," he rolled his eyes feeling flippant.

Bonnie snorted. "I won't disagree with that," she shook her head and took a step closer. So close they stood chest-to-chest. "You didn't say anything because you care about me. And I care about you, too. Don't walk away from this."

"You expect me to believe you want me? After everything that's been said and done?"

"Think about this, Damon. If I wasn't interested in you do you think I would have gone with you to New York? You think I would have kissed you? Does that sound like something Bonnie Bennett would ever allow?"

The blue-eyed devil made a restless motion with his shoulders. "Being a vampire can change people."

"Amplify what's already there. Or so I've been told."

It took some doing but Damon swallowed the lump in his throat. "Are you…are you trying to say you've always had a thing for me, Judgey?"

"I'm saying, I knew there was always more to you than what meets the eye. I just wanted to see it for myself, and I'm glad I did. You are beautifully damaged, Damon and so am I," Bonnie ran her hand from his chest to his neck, her fingers burrowing in his hair at the nape. "What are we going to do about this?"

"I don't know. But I know what we're not going to do. We're not going to waste another minute settling for less than what we deserve."

Her eyes sparkled then, and Bonnie rose to stand on her toes. "And I don't want to waste another minute without tasting your blood," she lunged teeth sharp and ready only for Damon to lean out of the way.

"Fangs. In," he admonished and held her by the wrists. "I've learned my lesson. I'm only blood-sharing with my girlfriend and I don't have one at the moment."

Bonnie backed down and settled on her feet. "But you will. One day. And she'll be all yours."


In the not so distant future…

It was a quarter past two in the morning. People in this section of Virginia were already tucked deeply into their beds, dreaming and drooling on themselves, but not Damon. He was flying down the deserted two lane highway bobbing his head to the crooning voice of Janice Joplin, the volume cut down low. He stretched and curled his aching hand while maneuvering the gear shit and clutching the steering wheel. Oceanic eyes darted to the passenger that was brooding in the bucket seat, lips pursed. He smirked a little, turned up the volume and began to sing annoyingly loud to the music.

A caramel hand immediately dimmed the volume and glared at him before staring out the windshield once more.

"You can't still be mad at me about what happened."

His statement was met with a wall of silence.

"Come on! Cut me some slack. Give me some credit for acting."

"A turtle would have moved much faster than you did," Bonnie criticized. "And would have been much more intimidating. When did you become so soft? I swear you've lost your edge."

Damon widened his eyes in incredulity. "You take that back," he pointed a finger in her direction. "I am truly offended you would say that about me," he laid a hand on his chest to emphasize his point.

Bonnie guffawed. "I know you have an established head canon where you believe you're the toughest, most dangerous vampire lurking around Mystic Falls, but I'm afraid you've abdicated that title to someone else."

"Who?"

Bonnie stared at Damon head on. "Me."

He scoffed rudely and laughed shamelessly. "Please! When's the last time you did something dangerous? Paint your nails while standing by a gas stove? Look, I may have had to repeat myself but the guy got the message the second I planted my foot in his ass."

"In the olden days it wouldn't have had to come to violence. Your aura alone should have been frightening enough to scare everyone, put everyone on notice that death just stepped through the door, and they better not so much as breathe wrong. You blend now, Damon. The only reason you stand out is because of your looks."

"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful," he tossed his head back theatrically. "And you're wrong."

"About what?" Bonnie was deeply curious because she sounded pretty right to herself.

"I haven't lost my edge. I've just amended some of my ways. Excuse me for evolving."

"I'm all for evolution, Damon as long as it goes somewhere."

Damon cocked his head to the side. Did Bonnie honestly believe he had no edge, that he gave it all up in order to keep his secret of being supernatural safe and sound? He prided himself on his controversial decision-making abilities which saw results though the lingering damage afterwards left much to be desired. Damon changed for no man, but he realized he allowed the influence of others to slowly creep in and make little alterations here and there. So maybe he didn't shoot first and asked questions later, was Bonnie now trying to shame him for it?

It had been six weeks to the day his relationship ended with Elena. He expected her to resume her relationship with Stefan but instead she moved out of Mystic Falls and was now attending Whitmore full-time. The dynamic of the group changed with no one taking anyone's side but still willing to point fingers at one another.

The second the others learned about his and Bonnie's blood-sharing escapades naturally everyone assumed it had been initiated by him despite the fact Bonnie attacked him first. Whatever. Damon was comfortable with being viewed as the bad guy, and from what he had seen and experienced people had more respect for the man who didn't give a shit as opposed to the one who did.

He had been solidified once more as the pariah, the one not to trust, which only afforded him an inordinate amount of freedom. Without the constant presence of eyes and noses poking into his business, Damon was a free man able to do whatever he wanted, and it wasn't until this all blew up that he realized how much he missed it. He had been suffocating before. Living in a vacuum of expected martyrdom, and he finally made his escape.

Bonnie on the other hand was swamped by her friends with the notable exception of Elena. That was to be expected. Underneath the disbelief she could be so manipulative everyone understood Bonnie's motives though they might not have agreed with them. But gradually she pushed everyone away, and told them it was for the best because she wasn't the Bonnie they remembered. Too much pain and hurt hung around in order to start fresh. At least not yet.

During this reprieve and restructuring, Bonnie and Damon had not shared a single drop of each other's blood. Damon meant it and held on to what he said. He would only blood-share with his girlfriend.

Tonight would have been the night he asked Bonnie to make things official, but they hit a snafu in the form of a belligerent drunk and his protesting wife. Damon moved in to intervene since the man was making the crowd in the bar nervous and anxious for a fight. They got one, but it was over before it could be recorded on a smart phone.

And instead of being treated like a victor for putting foot to ass and calming a situation before it got out of control, he was being ridiculed for having a deficiency in edge? Pardon?

Damon's foot became lead on the gas petal. The red dial of the speedometer climbed higher and higher and strained to make it to a hundred and twenty miles per hour. This car was a classic and a gas guzzler, and he loved it, but he would be willing to sacrifice it to make a point. Not a point but a statement. Damon Salvatore doesn't give a fuck about crashing a '68 Ford Mustang. Well, deep down inside he was already in mourning for what he was about to do. He really did love this car!

"Speeding…how daredevilish of you," Bonnie mocked.

"Not speeding…this," he jerked the wheel hard to the left and then…

They were rolling, crashing, flipping, crunching metal, breaking glass, still rolling, ejected, sliding across the asphalt for seventeen feet down the highway before stopping.

By the time the world stopped spinning around Damon was on his back, the car on its roof, and Bonnie was pushing herself to rest on her elbows.

"How's that for edge?" he asked and swallowed the blood in his mouth.

Bonnie twisted her neck in his direction and glowered. "Now how are we supposed to get home, genius?"

"We have legs, we have feet, we have speed, genius. That's how we're getting home," Damon helped Bonnie to her feet and brushed glass off her leather jacket and face. The small cuts that were there healed and her face was perfect again. "You modern vampires are the ones without any edge. So reliant on technology."

Her eyes glowed kryptonite green for a second, but then a saucy smile crossed her lips and her vexation was gone. Damon swooped Bonnie up bridal style and took off.

"I can run on my own, you know," she said, arms wrapped tightly around his neck. The world passed in a blur, but the only thing that seemed not to move was Damon.

"You independent women have no sense of romance. Just let me do this," he bargained and then threw Bonnie over his shoulder so he could move faster, get to the boardinghouse quicker, and take off her clothes—now.

Half an hour later, settled behind the high walls of his lair, Damon watched from the entryway of his bedroom as Bonnie took her hair out of its bun, comb her fingers through her lustrous chocolate strands, and slip her hoop earrings out. She was already dressed for bed in a camisole sheath that came to her thighs. This was oddly domestic and reminded him of their brief stint in New York. That had been their first time ever sharing space with one another, but his conscience had to blow it.

In his long life there were few things Damon wanted to do the proper way. He found it almost impossible to ignore that little nagging voice in the back of his head telling him he was being a bastard for fooling around with Bonnie while he was supposed to be in love with Elena. He needed to end one dalliance before he entrenched himself deeper into another.

Things finally felt like they had fallen into the right track. For once.

Damon stood behind Bonnie now. Their eyes met in the reflection of the mirror but only for a second. The diminutive vitch spun around to face him and started to unbutton his shirt. He watched her fingers work.

"I know there's something you want to ask me, but you've been too chicken to do it."

A dark brow arched. "Oh, really?" Damon's voice dripped sarcasm.

Bonnie slowly nodded her head and loosened another button. "My psychic abilities…they're coming back. So are my powers. I can feel them more and more each day."

That was definitely news to Damon and he should have been pleased to hear it yet part of him wasn't.

He was free of his shirt, the material fluttering to the floor. Bonnie unbuckled his belt, pulled it out of the loops, and wrapped the strand of leather around his neck, bringing him closer. Their foreheads touched.

"Whatever it is you want to ask me…my answer is yes," Bonnie told him and pecked his lips before stepping around Damon. She climbed on the bed and waited for him.

She didn't have to wait long. Damon was momentarily distracted from crawling across the bed when the lights in his room dimmed automatically and a few candles he had displayed here and there began to burn.

Bonnie cocked a smile and then crooked her finger towards him as she lowered herself against the mattress and in no time flat Damon loomed over her, firmly planted between her spread thighs. He gently kissed both of her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and the corner of her mouth. Little by little his eyes shifted to her neck and he skimmed the column of it with his fingers.

The stalemate was over the second he pierced her skin with his fangs and that warm gush of blood flowed in his mouth and he greedily, hungrily, and happily swallowed her essence. The sigh that escaped Bonnie reminded Damon of a lid opening on a jar and compressed air and flavor had been granted its release.

He could taste it much more potently than he did before—her power. Her magic. Her. There was no word to describe what he felt for her, how her blood tasted, and what it was currently doing to him.

Bonnie didn't want to be left out so she bit into his wrist and then managed to push Damon's jeans down to his knees, and shimmied out of her panties. This was what she wanted.

The powerful combination of her blood and the smell of her arousal was almost too much for Damon to handle. He stopped feeding, peered down at her silently awaiting for her consent.

"I'm ready," Bonnie said softly but confidentially.

She went back to sucking on his wrist and that was all she wrote as far as Damon was concerned.

With some clever shifting he aligned his erect cock with her opening and told himself to go slow, to be gentle, but unfortunately he was too eager and speared himself within her folds, stretching her muscles to accommodate his girth and length. Shit, shit, shit, she was deliciously wet and painfully tight but the feeling was better than lying on a bed of cotton. Impossibly soft, Bonnie felt more human than a human though she was no longer a part of that species.

Damon slanted his mouth over hers tasting his blood, hers, everything that made them who they were individually yet brought them together unilaterally. He kissed her pain away knowing she had to be in a butt load of discomfort at the moment, and that's why he hadn't moved a single inch. He wanted Bonnie to feel him, to learn and memorize how he felt inside her because no one else was going to get this privilege. He'd make sure of that.

"Are you okay?" he asked and thrust a little.

Bonnie nodded. A tear slipped from the corner of her closed eyes. She held on to him in a vice and her breath was stucco, but she undulated her hips. After a while the pain diminished, her grip on Damon loosened, and he moved along her, pumping in an out fast and slow, hard and rough.

Bending his head once more Damon took possession of her lips, kissed long her jaw, licked the shell of her ear, and buried his face between her neck and shoulder. His thoughts were on this accord.

This game of cat and mouse will never be over between us. She's mine again and now that we've arrived at this point, everything changes.

The End.

A/N: So there you have it folks. The conclusion of the series. I hoped you enjoyed it. I didn't want to do a full on smut scene because I have way too many to write in my other stories, but I wanted to give you guys a taste. I would apologize for the copious amount of Delena because I know some don't care for Elena, but it was necessary because I really do believe Damon is capable of fidelity with the right woman of course so that's why I stopped things between Bamon at the end of Part I. He needed to deal with Elena before he could move on and commit anymore of his time with Bonnie.

And speaking of Miss Bennett, I felt it was important to show that she may have been putting on an act the whole time to cover up the fact she hated being a vampire. She handled transitioning much better than others, yet at the end of the day she was in pain and Damon recognized it.

Please let me know what you think of this. I didn't get the response I had hoped for, for Part I and I can say I wasn't exactly happy with the chapter myself, so, I don't know. But I really do look forward to reading what you guys think because it helps me become a stronger, better writer. So please let a sistah know. If you're going out tonight to celebrate Halloween please be careful and safe. Okay guys, thanks for reading! Until next time, love you!