Chapter 18

Silence hung over them like a cloud. Thirty minutes after Bonnie had completed the memory spell, neither of them had said a word. Damon sat stone-still and watched Bonnie in what he could only describe as a state of shock. He knew that she was reliving the same memories he was: waking up together, taking a romantic trip, sex...lots of sex...laughs, pillow talk, love. To remember all of it at once was incredibly intense and confusing and despite it all, he just wanted to pull her into his arms and make it okay.

He knew that wasn't going to happen when Bonnie finally came out of her stupor and started shaking her head. She covered her face, he guessed from embarrassment, and then she got up and started to walk away. He scrambled behind her and jumped in her way right before she could go up the stairs.

"Hold on there, where are you going?" he asked.

"I need to think, Damon," she said, refusing to look at him. "This is all too much for me right now."

"I know it's a lot but we should talk." He lowered his face to hers but she kept looking away. He gently encased her face in his hands and made her look at him. She closed her eyes and he smirked. "Really? Open your eyes and talk to me."

"I can't. I'm humiliated."

"What? Why?"

"Because!"

He wouldn't let her go until she opened her eyes and when she finally did, he smiled softly. It did nothing to help her worries.

"Because why?" he asked again.

"We did so much, Damon," she said barely above a whisper. "Stuff I can't believe I did with you."

"So we had sex. We both kinda figured that."

"Yeah, but we did more than that. We dated and hugged and laughed and...had feelings for each other."

He could tell that she couldn't bring herself to say that they were in love.

"We died, Bonnie. And we had no reason to think we would ever come back. Were we just supposed to sit there and pine for Elena and Jeremy until we died for real? We didn't do anything wrong."

"Even if that's true, that necklace my mom gave me made it so we would still have these feelings for each other."

"Is that such a horrible thing?" he asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

Bonnie's green eyes narrowed like he had asked her the most ridiculous question in the world.

"Yes, it's a bad thing," she said in a serious tone. "We can't feel this way about each other. You're in love with Elena and you have been in some form or fashion for 150 years. I can't compete with that, and I don't want to. What we did and had on the Other Side was fine there but it wasn't real."

Her words sank in like cinder blocks on his soul and he removed his hands from her face.

"So, what happens on the Other Side, stays on the Other Side, right?" he asked.

She sighed and he walked past her, only to have her pull him back to her. She stared into his eyes, like she was hoping to make him understand her point of view by the sheer power of her gaze.

"I'm not saying that," she said. "I am saying that the circumstances are so different that our feelings there don't translate to here. There was no competition for Elena there. There was no complicated relationship with Jeremy there. When we woke up, we were already engaged and everything was laid out for us and all we had to do was fall for each other and that's just what we did."

"That doesn't make it any less real," he said through gritted teeth.

"But it does, Damon. I know deep down that you know that. It's hard to see right now because we're being inundated with all these thoughts and emotions and it would be so easy to just jump into bed together right now and pick up where we left off, but we can't do that."

"So what, we just pretend like nothing happened?"

"Are you suggesting something different?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

And it was in that moment that Damon realized that he had no idea how he wanted to handle this situation with Bonnie. Since waking up in Mystic Falls, all he knew was that he wanted her. He wanted to be around her and tease her and be the center of her attention. He had never felt that way about Bonnie before, and he partially chalked it up to transitioning again. He was already an intense guy and when he was in transition, everything was amplified even more.

As he stood in front of Bonnie's questioning eyes, though, he knew that he didn't have a good answer for her. As weird as things had been with Elena, he still loved her. How could he not? After damn near losing his brother for her and everything he had been through to finally win her affections, he couldn't honestly say that he could just let her go. But he wanted Bonnie, too. Desperately. He knew he could blame it on the necklace and say that their feelings were fabricated, but it felt too genuine to simply brush aside.

He groaned and scrubbed his face with his hands. He tried to push all the conflicting thoughts out of his head but they all collided against his skull and the only thing he could do was laugh. He laughed loudly and crazily until tears were pouring out of his eyes. Once he managed to pull himself together, he saw Bonnie looking at him like he had a third head.

"Are you...okay?" she asked.

"I'm great, Judgey. Just peachy."

"Then what was that about?"

"Oh, you know, just a recognition of the fact that I am THE unluckiest guy in the history of the planet."

"What do you mean?" she asked tentatively, like she was scared to hear the answer.

"For all my dashing good looks and rock hard abs, I cannot catch a break with women. I loved Katherine with all my heart, searched high and low for her for a century and a half, only to find out that not only did she not give the slightest shit about where I was, she never even loved me. Then I fell in love with Elena, but she didn't love me. Now that she does, I want you and well, you know how the rest of the story goes."

Bonnie sighed and had the decency to look guilty. She touched his arm and shook her head.

"It's not that I don't want you," she started. "I do. But I shouldn't and I can't because my best friend is in love with you. On top of that, we can't base a relationship off stuff that happened when we were dead. That's crazy. It's like we were living in a dream and now we're awake and back to reality. We don't even know anything substantive about each other!" she said with a slight laugh that he didn't return.

"We know plenty about each other," he countered.

"Oh yeah, like what? I know that you like the color black, you love scotch, whiskey and other assorted old man brown liquors, and that you have obsessive tendencies bordering on insanity. That's not the basis for a relationship. It's not even the basis for a friendship."

Damon hoped that he didn't let on how much her words hurt him, so he put on his signature smirk and shrugged.

"You're right. You're always right, Judgey. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways. Good night."

He walked away from her and headed out the door. He was on the porch before before she was in front of him again. He tried to get past her but she kept standing in his way.

"Damon, come on, look at me," she begged.

"What?" he asked icily, finally meeting her eyes.

"I'm not saying that we have to pretend like it didn't happen. We obviously can't do that. But can we just...put it away in our memories and move on?"

"Sure, little witch, whatever you want."

He tried to walk away again but she grabbed both of his arms.

"I want to be friends," she said. "Or at least try. Can we start there? We can get to know each other outside of saving Elena and fighting the supernatural and if something is still there between us, then we'll revisit this conversation."

He wanted to tell her to go to hell. He wanted to fight with her and hurt her feelings like she had unintentionally done to him. But her eyes were so hopeful that he couldn't bring himself to do it.

"Fine. We can be friends."

She smiled that wide toothy grin that he had always secretly loved.

"Good. I'm happy."
He nodded and she finally moved out of his way. He almost left, but then he turned to her and offered one parting shot.

"By the way, I know that when you're nervous, you bite the insides of your cheeks. When you're sad, you paint your toenails purple. And when you're happy, you sing along to really shitty pop music in your tree-hugging car and you can actually carry a tune."

Bonnie's mouth dropped in complete surprise and Damon offered a small smile.

"Still sure I don't know you?"

He left before she could respond and he super-sped all the way home. He slammed the door and poured a big glass of scotch and tossed it down his throat like it was water. He knew that he really should have been used to rejection after a whole lifetime of it, but somehow it still hurt. It didn't help matters that he didn't want to want Bonnie. It only made it that much more painful.

He had a few more glasses of alcohol before deciding to try not to feel so sorry for himself. He trudged up the steps and threw his bedroom door open. He stopped in his tracks when he found a very naked Elena curled seductively on his bed. Her thick luscious hair was curled just the way he liked it and she had her hands strategically placed so that he could only see hints of all her fun parts.

"Hey," she said in a purposely low voice. "I was wondering when you were coming back."

"Uh...hey."

"You like what you see?" she asked with a big smile.

Of course he did. Every man on Earth and probably a significant number of women would like what he was seeing. He wanted to ravish her and take out all his frustrations on her, but he couldn't help but think of Bonnie. Somehow, he felt like he was cheating on her, even when she'd made it perfectly clear that they were not and would not be together.

"Of course," he said, throwing in a cocky smile. "You look delectable."

She laughed girlishly. "Then come have a taste and see how yummy I am."

He swallowed hard. He stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him. The closer he got to Elena, the more her hands revealed until there was nothing covered. He got onto the bed, knees first, and lowered himself onto her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down. She initiated the kissing and he went with it for a while. She extracted herself and kissed down his neck and ripped his jacket and shirt off. She moaned and whimpered and as sexy as she sounded, every time Damon closed his eyes, all he saw was Bonnie.

He saw her spread out on the bed for him. He saw her arching her back up for him to go deeper. He saw her climaxing and holding him tight and he suddenly felt like he was cheating on Elena. He jumped off the bed and she groaned loudly.

"Damon, what the hell?" she demanded.

"I'm sorry. I'm just...tired."

"Tired?" she yelled. "What is going on with you?"

She got off the bed and covered herself up with a blanket. She stomped towards him until she was practically nose to nose with him.

"Nothing's going on," he said calmly.

"Don't lie to me. I know you better than that. I understood when you first got back that you needed time to adjust but I gave you space and time and now I want answers. You can't keep pushing me away like this."

It was amazing how she went from fierce to whiny in a matter of seconds.

"I'm not pushing you away," he said gently.

"Yes, you are!" Tears formed in her eyes. "You haven't slept with me since you got back. You barely kiss me and now I'm basically begging you for sex and you still won't give it to me. Please, tell me what's wrong. What did I do?"

Damon rubbed her bare arms and realized that what he once found cute and adorable about Elena had somehow become annoying. The damsel in distress bit used to turn him on, but not anymore.

"You didn't do anything wrong," he assured her.

"Then tell me what it is."

He looked into her watery brown eyes and thought about lying, but he couldn't. He had never been good at lying to Elena and with all those fresh memories of his time with Bonnie, he was feeling disgustingly human. He knew he had to tell her the truth, at least part of it.

"I have my memories back," he told her in that same gentle tone. "Of my time on the Other Side."

"Okay," she said slowly.

"And the truth is..." He paused and gathered the courage to break her heart. "I met someone."

Elena's face fell into a look of sheer devastation.

"What?" she whispered.

"When we were gone, it wasn't like we were just stumbling around a forest all day every day. We were in a place just like Mystic Falls, with buildings and things and people. And...I met someone."

The tears spilled down her cheeks and Damon felt like someone had just stabbed him in the chest. He wiped away her tears and wished he could melt into the floor when she looked at him like he had torn her heart out and ripped it to shreds.

"What do you mean, you met someone, Damon?" Her voice was thick with hurt. "Who? Who did you meet?"

"It doesn't matter. I wasn't going to tell you because I didn't want to hurt you but I'm obviously hurting you anyway. And that's why. I'm so sorry, Elena."

She ripped her arms away from him and cried hard, all while staring at him.

"Did you love her?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Do you still?"

Damon looked down and licked his lips. "I don't know," he admitted.

A harsh sob came from her throat and she tightened the blanket around her body.

"Do you still love me?"

"Yes, I do."

She shook her head. "But not like before."

He didn't have to confirm it for her to know it was true and she went to his drawers and yanked one open. She continued to cry even as she pulled clothes out and put them on. She also started to pack but he closed her suitcase.

"What are you doing? Where are you going?"

"I'm leaving."

"You don't have to leave, okay?"

"Yes, I do!" she screamed. "You love another woman. Some woman you were running around with for the last six months while I was here, losing my mind over you and trying so hard to get you back!"

Damon took her arms again and made her look at him.

"I. Still. Love. You," he said, punctuating with each word. "I do. And I want things to be good again. I want to get over her. I just need time, okay? Can you give me that?"

Elena looked at him and then she laughed pathetically.

"Sure. You can have time. You can have all the time you want because at the end of the day, none of it matters."

"Don't say that."

"I know you, Damon. For all your bravado and innuendo, you're a one-woman man. And if your heart is with her, then it can't be with me."

She took the suitcase back from him and he stood, motionless, as she packed her things and left without another word. He felt guilty about the whole exchange, and he felt guilty for not feeling more guilty. It was wrong, the whole situation was messed up and he didn't even know what he could have done differently. He sat on the bed, staring straight ahead, and trying not to think. He heard when Stefan softly knocked on the open door but he didn't look at him.

"Damon?" his brother asked quietly. "Are you okay? I didn't mean to eavesdrop but it was kind of hard not to hear..."

Damon turned his head just slightly and Stefan offered a sympathetic smile.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah," Damon said. "Can you make me fall out of love with Bonnie Bennett?"

To quote the illustrious Erykah Badu, "keep in mind that I'm an artist, and I'm sensitive about my shit." To quote mothers all around the world, if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything. I post this story for fun, not to defend my work to assholes and Internet thugs. To everyone who has reviewed (and said something positive and/or helpful), thank you. To everyone who has favorited, followed, and been encouraging, thank you.