Fear was an emotion that, for a long time, Damon Salvatore had disassociated himself with. Excluding the time when he thought that he was going to die due to the werewolf bite he sustained from the mutt, Tyler, he couldn't say that anything had really instilled pure fear into him since he was human.

Until he found out that Bonnie Bennett was dead.

Pure, unadulterated fear had seeped into his skin and gripped both his throat and heart until he could barely breathe.

Bonnie Bennett. His Judgy. Dead.

Agonising pain ripped through him, bringing him to his knees as he finally opened himself up to what he had been feeling over the past few months.

He was in love with Bonnie Bennett, and now she was dead.

Dead.

Dead.

No matter how many times he said it to himself, it was hard to believe; the witch was never supposed to die. Eventually, she would have been turned into a vampire and spent the rest of eternity with her two best friends, his brother and himself. He was meant to have the rest of eternity to figure out his feelings for her and now…now he was left with nothing. Fighting to regain his breath, Damon stumbled out of the boarding house's doors, away from the mourning 'Scooby Gang' inside, and gulped in the fresh air. His head was spinning, his hands were shaking and he could feel the long forgotten feeling of tears welling up in his eyes.

How did he let this happen?

He wasn't sure how long he sat outside, allowing his sorrow and heartbreak to swallow him whole, before he heard it.

Elena let out a loud shriek. Damon jumped out from his seat on the steps outside the boarding house and raced inside, up the stairs and into his room where he had left her crying over Bonnie's dead body.

Except, the 'dead body' was sitting up ramrod straight in his bed, her eyes wide open and her hands clawing at her throat as she gulped in huge breaths of air.

"Bonnie! Oh my gosh, GUYS! SHE'S AWAKE, BONNIE'S AWAKE!" Caroline, Stefan and Tyler sped into the room, followed a short while later by Matt and Jeremy, who did not have the luxury of supernatural speed. Bonnie's wild eyes travelled around the room, falling on each of her closest friends, each of which had varying expressions of awe, relief and utter shock on their faces.

"Bonnie!" Caroline sobbed and pulled her best friend into a crushing hug.

Damon stood frozen in the doorway, his mouth hanging open, his brain uncomprehending.

She was alive.

She was alive.

How was this possible? She had died, Elena had killed her. He had seen he snapped neck, had to hold her head up as he carried her to his car from the Lockwood property where Elena had killed her.

And yet…she wasn't. She was alive, sitting in his bed, tears falling from her red, veiny eyes as she stared hungrily at Matt and Jeremy.

Wait…what?!

Caroline's shocked scream was the only alert that the room had before she was thrown off of Bonnie who lunged across the room in the direction of the two human boys.

Damon was there before she could bury her fangs deep into the jugular of whichever boy she reached first, his arms clamped tightly around her small waist, holding her back as she growled, straining against his grip, the enticing sound of their hearts pumping their blood around their bodies and the smell of their blood driving her near insane.

"Bonnie. Bonnie, calm down. Calm down." He mumbled into her hair. The horrified gasps and cries of her friends were drowned out by the thud-thud-thudding of Matt and Jeremy's hearts.

She needed blood and she needed it now.

"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" Caroline screeched, turning her furious glare on Elena. "SHE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO BECOME LIKE US! YOU DID THIS TO HER! I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU SO MUCH!" She turned her head into Tyler's chest, her sobs muffled by his shirt. Elena's wide eyes were trained on the scene unfolding before her.

Except that they weren't really. All she saw was Damon's arms around Bonnie's waist, his face burrowed in her hair, his hands gently stroking the exposed skin above the waistband of her jeans. An animalistic growl was ripped from her throat and before she knew it, she was across the room, pulling the pair apart and snarling in Bonnie's face.

"Don't you ever put your hands on him again."

The veins suddenly receded from beneath Bonnie's eyes and she looked around the room, horrified. Her hands flew up to her mouth as she took in the shocked, upset and slightly scared expressions on her friends' faces.

"No." Her eyes filled with tears and she stumbled backwards.

"NO!" Everyone in the room winced at the sheer anguish in her voice as she dissolved into heartbroken sobs. "What did you do to me?" Her eyes were trained on Elena, her voice quiet and shaky. She received no answer from the girl whom she had once considered her closest friend. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?" She grabbed a lamp from Damon's bedside table and flung it across the room where it hit a wall and shattered into hundreds of tiny pieces.

"Bon, please. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"How could you do this to me?" The potent grief in her voice was enough to break the hearts of all of the people standing in the room with her. "I was your best friend, how could you do this to me?"

"Bonnie-" Elena reached out a hand to touch her, but Bonnie slapped it away before it could come into contact with her.

"DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T EVER TOUCH ME AGAIN!"

"Elena, I think you'd better go now." Damon stood protectively in front of Bonnie, shielding her from Elena's view.

"Damon-"

"Leave, Elena. NOW!" Elena growled and made to reach for him before thinking better of it and retracting her hand.

"You'll regret this, Damon." She lingered for a moment longer, glowering at him before turning and stalking out of the room. As soon as the boarding house door slammed shut, everyone in the room seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and relax slightly. Damon turned and pulled Bonnie back into his arms-where she belonged. He inhaled her scent again, as if committing it to his memory; who knew when the next time he would have the opportunity to hold her would arise.

"Bonnie," he mumbled into her hair, "you need to feed." She pushed hard against his chest.

"No, I can't. I'm not…I can't." Damon and the other inhabitants of the room frowned.

"What the hell do you mean, you can't?" She ran a trembling hand through her hair.

"Damon, I'm a witch. That's all I've ever been. How can you expect me to become a vampire? I can't." He growled and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly.

"If you don't feed, you'll die. You'd honestly rather die than become a vampire? You hate this lifestyle that much?" Tears, once again filled her eyes and her bottom lip began to tremble.

"Please, Damon. You have to understand-"

"UNDERSTAND WHAT? THAT YOU WANT TO DIE AND LEAVE BEHIND ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT YOU?"

Behind them, the rest of the room looked on in both horror and fascination at the scene unfolding before them.

"I CAN'T DAMON! I'M NOT MEANT TO BE A VAMPIRE! I CAN'T TURN!" The silence that followed her exclamation was deafening.

"Bonnie-"

"Just let it go Damon." With that statement, she walked out of the room, her head bowed to hide the tears that had reappeared in her eyes and had begun to stream down her cheeks. Damon felt his hear finally shatter into millions of tiny pieces.

He had just got her back, and now he was going to lose her again.