Damon followed Elena into the living room. He was pissed. None of this was supposed to happen. Elena wasn't supposed to be a vampire again, and she certainly wasn't supposed to have some weird connection to Elijah. "I can't believe I let Bonnie talk me into this. I know better than to trust the freaking. originals!"
"The originals aren't the problem, Damon," Elena responded.
Damon turned around to face his girlfriend. "Oh, the originals are always the problem. They have been the problem since they came into our lives."
"Not this time. They didn't do this," Elena said.
"Yes, they did! They turned you back into a vampire!" Damon practically yelled.
"With my consent. If they hadn't, you and I wouldn't even be having a conversation right now," Elena pointed out.
"The spell would've played itself out eventually," Damon said. He knew it wouldn't have been ideal, but it would've been better than this.
"Not until Bonnie died! Do you not understand that that's not what I wanted? I accepted it only because the alternative meant Bonnie had to die. When I was give another option I took it," Elena said.
"You didn't know what you were getting yourself into," he said.
"Yes, I did. I went into this with my eyes wide open, Damon. I knew what could happen," Elena told him.
"You knew you'd end up tied to Elijah for eternity?" Damon asked skeptically.
"I knew anything was possible. It was a spell that had never been performed before. Freya was very clear when she told me that. I knew there was no telling what the effects would be. I was willing to accept the risks. I agreed to it, so did Elijah," Elena said. The only risk she hadn't been willing to accept was the one to Bonnie's life, but of course, Bonnie had taken that one away from her.
"Well, I didn't!" Damon snapped.
"It wasn't for you to agree or not. This was not your choice," she said firmly.
"I should have at least been consulted about it! It affected my life too! We should've decided together!" Damon said irritably.
Elena couldn't deny that he had a point. They were in a relationship. Big decisions should be made together as a team. The problem was that they never had been before. "You're not wrong. In a normal relationship, couples would make a decision Dlike this together. But we've never had that kind of relationship, and that's a real problem, Damon. I didn't ask you for your opinion, or at least have Freya ask for it, because I knew you wouldn't respect mine. You wouldn't respect the fact that this was ultimately my choice to make, whether it was right or wrong. You've never respected my choices unless you agreed with them."
Damon opened his mouth to argue, but Elena cut him off before he had the chance to get a word out.
"I know your heart was in the right place. I know you thought you were doing what was best for me, but that's not something you get to decide," Elena said firmly.
"It's funny. You weren't saying this until Elijah was in your head," Damon pointed out.
"No, I wasn't saying this until the last time my choice was circumvented. I wasn't saying it until I was manipulated by a friend into risking her life to save myself. It was the last straw," Elena argued.
"That was Bonnie, not me."
"So then tell me things would've been different if you knew what was going to happen. Tell me you would've respected my decision to let Freya do her spell if you hadn't been incapacitated," Elena challenged.
Damon said nothing in response. He simply looked away.
"That's what I thought," she whispered.
"It was a stupid decision, Elena! You let the originals experiment on you!" he snapped.
"I did, but I did so knowing and accepting the risks. And it doesn't matter if you think it was stupid, it was my decision to make, and I don't regret it," Elena said.
Damon looked at her in disbelief. "How can you say that? You're connected to an original on a mental level. You're a vampire again for the rest of eternity."
"Yes. And I get to live my life again. I get to experience that life with my friends and family. I get to watch my brother turn into the man I know he will become one day. The alternative was waking up in a world where half of my friends were either dead or close to death. It would've been a world where Jeremy's life passed without me in it, and where the world was significantly different than how I'd left it," Elena told him.
"It was a world where we could be together as humans. That was what you wanted," Damon reminded her.
"It was a pipe dream. It was never going to be how either of us wanted it to be. I never should've taken that cure. It only left me vulnerable," she said.
"Are you saying what happened is my fault for giving you the cure?"
"No. I made the choice to take the cure. It's my fault. I should've known better. I've been around the supernatural long enough to know that a normal, full life as a human was never going to be possible. I let my dreams of what I wished I could've had cloud my judgement," Elena said.
"But you could've had it. We could've," Damon insisted.
"Damon, there's no point in arguing about this. It's done! And like I said, I don't have any regrets," she said firmly.
"And what happens in a century or two when you do regret it?" Damon asked.
"If I ever regret it, then it was my choice to regret. That is the point I have been trying to make here. Right or wrong, my choices are my choices. You don't get to circumvent them because you don't agree," Elena told him.
"I'm not just going to sit by and watch you make choices that I know are wrong! I'm not going to stop doing what I think is best for you!" Damon yelled.
"I know, and that's the problem. It's a problem I'm not willing to ignore anymore. I've let you do what you wanted for years, even when it came to my own life, and because of that I'm just as to blame as you are, but I won't do it anymore. I won't be with someone who can't respect me," Elena said firmly.
"I do respect you," Damon insisted.
"No, you don't. If you don't respect my right to make my own decisions, you don't respect me. I love you, but I can't be with you," Elena told him honestly. She did still love him, but that wasn't enough anymore. Neither of them could give the other what they needed.
Damon balled up his fists and barely kept himself from smashing something. "If you're going to leave me, at least admit the real reason. It's Elijah."
"I won't deny that that's part of it. As you said, I'm connected to him mentally, and that's not fair to you. A part of him is a part of me, and because of that, I couldn't fully commit to you or anyone else. But it doesn't change what I've said here. Even if there was no Elijah or any mental link, it wouldn't change the fact that I can't live with the way things have been anymore," Elena explained to him.
Damon didn't say another word. He simply stormed towards the door. He needed to leave before he did something he'd regret.
Elena let him go. She knew there was nothing she could say to make things better for Damon. She wished there was, but there wasn't. She just had to let him go. It was best for both of them.
