SUMMARY: Damon learns a little more about why Andrei has tracked him down. Klaus struggles with his jealously and memories are bubbling to the the surface for others.

A/N: Another cliffhanger but everything is about to come into the light soon!

"I saved you?" Damon questioned. He honestly had no memory of this. He hadn't recalled meeting Andrei before aside from when he was saved from captivity. Granted, he had his toxic days where he went on killing sprees and other unsavory actions. Still, saving someone didn't sound like something he would have done back then.

"Yes." Andrei answered.

Klaus' frown deepened.

History. They had history.

"He saved you how?" The blonde questioned.

"He saved me from something like Augustine. It was in Europe. Decades ago, you saved my sister and me. You could have easily left us for dead, but you came back, and you freed us and killed every human that participated in…whatever that was."

Damon blinked in confusion. Why didn't he remember any of this?

"We searched everywhere for you afterwards. Followed a trail of bodies in Europe, Asia, the states. Even if my sister gave up hope of finding you, I didn't give up. I refused to give up. Then by some kind of fate I found you. I figured if I couldn't find you, I could at least do what you did. Free vampires from human experiments. I had been tracking that Wes guy because he had taken one of my friends and I learned I was too late. He was dead when I searched the place. Then, I saw you."

Damon knew he had been up to a lot over the last several decades but being someone's savior couldn't have been one of those things. "You sure it's me?"

Andrei stepped closer and reached for Damon, but his hand was stopped by Klaus.

"You don't get to touch, understood?"

"Yes."

"Where is your sister, Andrei?" Damon asked.

"She's in England."

"Does she know you found me?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I wanted time with you first."

Klaus' jaw clenched and he stood up straight. "Enough of that. Now that you've found him, do you just plan to follow him around?"

"If he'll let me."

"Nik, let him go." Damon asked. He wasn't so sure about any of this, but this guy was so sure it was him. Something about the look on his face just made Damon believe him.

"You don't have to protect me; I've done just fine on my own so far. Minus a few close calls." He said with a chuckle. "I'm not some helpless cat. Consider us even, there's nothing to repay me for. If I did save you, I'm sure it was for a selfish reason on my part. I wasn't particularly doing things out of the kindness of my heart back then. I wasn't a nice guy. I'm barely a nice guy now."

"I know exactly what and who you are, and I didn't care then. I still don't care now."

Damon stared at him for a moment and there was just something he couldn't pinpoint about all of this. "Don't care, huh?" He laughed to himself. There was something about someone accepting him for who he was that just…just did something to him. It was rare, really. Most people tried to change him, tried to 'fix' him. There were only a few who just accepted him as he was. He could count them on his hand and coincidentally, two of them were now in the same room with him.

Awkward.

"Let him go. Please." Damon asked again, softer this time.

Klaus, reluctantly, let go of Andrei.

Andrei sped over to Damon and cupped his face and leaned in close to whisper something in his ear.

"Please. I need you to remember me, Damon."

After his desperate plea, he fled the home and made his escape just in case Klaus would retaliate for touching Damon again.

Damon stared in the direction the other vampire fled before glancing over to Klaus. "I believe him even though I don't remember any of what he said. I guess I did blackout a few times when I was reckless- well more reckless than now. There are some parts of my past that I could have forgotten."

Klaus stared at Damon. He didn't particularly like any of this. Call it toxic but he didn't like the idea of someone being this level of devoted to Damon. This obsessed. Not only was it annoying to him, but it was also…infuriating.

He was jealous even though he wouldn't admit that's what it was. "How devastated would you be if I just killed him?"

"Nik." Damon deadpanned.

"It was a hypothetical question, Damon."

Bonnie stared at Damon and his very weird request. "You want me to what?"

"I want you to do a deep dive in my head. I haven't really been able to get my thoughts wrapped around this whole saving people thing. I know it's fucked up, but I wouldn't have done that. Especially back in my England days. That was a bad time for me."

Bonnie sighed. "Are you sure? Clearly you wanted to forget it for a reason."

Damon nodded. He wouldn't be able to move on until he did this. "Come on, little witch. Help your favorite vampire out." He teased.

Bonnie laughed. "We bond once in captivity and suddenly we're best friends?"

Damon flashed that boyish grin of his. "That's exactly how it works." Neither of them would admit it out loud but they had in fact grew closer than they had with anyone else in their group. Funny when they used to hate each other's guts.

Bonnie may not have liked every act that Damon performed but she also understood a different level of him that others hadn't comprehended yet. "Sit down, idiot."

Damon smiled happily and did as he was told. "Bon?"

Bonnie grabbed a few candles and started placing them around herself and Damon. "Yeah?"

"Thank you." He said, almost a whisper.

Bonnie turned to lock eyes with Damon. The look on his face was kind of heartbreaking. She was really hoping that she could help him with whatever he was looking for. "So," she probed, trying to lighten the mood. "Niklaus Mikaelson, huh?"

Damon would have denied it to his grave, but he could feel his face flush—or at least feel the heat suddenly around his head. Not the bodily reaction that he was used to. Not a feeling that he was used to having for someone. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Damon, I probably know you better than you know yourself."

Damon rolled his eyes as he watched the witch point at each candle, lighting them with her will alone. Sighing, he rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Niklaus Mikaelson."

"Interesting choice in men. Here I thought you would end up with Enzo or the psycho Elena doppelganger."

Damon laughed. "I could say the same thing about you."

Bonnie cleared her throat. "Hush." She turned back to her unlikely friend and folded her arms across her chest. "Okay, this is going to hurt a bit but if I get close to something you don't want to remember, it's going to hurt a lot. You still want to do this?"

Damon nodded. "I'm ready."

Bonnie reached out with both of her hands and placed her fingertips on either side of Damon's temple. Closing her eyes, she began. A dim light began to glow around her fingertips.

It had begun.

Bonnie watched as Damon's eyes fluttered behind closed eyes. That went on for a good twenty minutes until suddenly she could see the blood tears streaking down his cheeks, dripping to the floor. She didn't say anything.

Damon had gone through several decades of memories, good, bad, and evil. It was like a speed run of his life, and it was hitting him harder than he had thought it would. It was bearable until it wasn't. His body tensed up and this may have been what Bonnie was warning him about.

Years of moments, time, experiences, spent with…Andrei. It all came flooding back, hitting him like a freight train. Memories of that all being taken away from him also came flooding back. Augustine had taken yet something else from him again. Those travelers had taken part of his memory from him.

Then the one memory that he had locked away himself resurfaced. Andrei's sister, she wasn't in England waiting.

She was dead.

Damon jolted and shoved Bonnie away from him, breaking the connection. He hadn't meant to, but his body was on autopilot. He was losing all composure. He couldn't see straight. "I killed her! I took away the only person he loved…" He shouted, breaking anything in sight.

Bonnie had to create a barrier to contain Damon in one spot so he wouldn't hurt himself. "You need to relax." She saw it, she saw everything Damon had lived through. "You can't take these memories for full context under these circumstances. It only shows what you saw with your eyes, you don't know what fully happened if someone was tampering with your memories."

Damon just stood there, any shred of humanity he had gained back, lost again in seconds. "I don't need context. It was my hands that killed her. That's why he's here. He wants me dead."

"Are you going to ignore the other memories?" Bonnie questioned.

Damon didn't want to think about that.

"You were in love with him."

"And I killed his sister in front of him. The only family he had left."

She couldn't rebuttal that because it was true, the memories showed that but there had to be a reason.

"You don't fall in love with someone that hard and just murder their sister, Damon. Something else had to happen. Let me finish the search. I don't want you doing something stupid."

"There's nothing else I need to know. Let me out. I need to go."

"Damon."

"Please."

"Come back to me after you're done with whatever it is you have to do. Please don't make me regret letting you out. Don't make me lose another friend."

She dropped the barrier and Damon stood there for a moment, staring at Bonnie before taking off.

Klaus had never thought he would be on the side of those who he once tried to erase from this earth. Still, it was true and here he was, standing face to face with one of their little witches. "And what do I owe this visit for?"

"As much as I would like to catch up and talk about our nails, I don't really have much time, and something tells me you have more influence over a certain impulsive vampire than I do at this current moment."

"Where is Damon?"

"Let me fill you in, on the way."

"So, you remember?" Andrei asked softly, watching as Damon approached him.

Damon nodded but didn't try to speak. What could he even say. He had killed his former lover's sister, and he didn't even remember why. Not that there would be a reason good enough to excuse his actions.

Andrei slowly approached the other vampire and Damon was fully prepared to lose his life without a fight. He had changed a lot with all his time spent on this earth. Despite how he had never wanted to be changed or to be fixed, he had grown for the better and found people and things worth living for. Worth being better for. Yeah, he wasn't perfect, but he was still working on himself. So in his new way of thinking, he would let this happen without protest.

Andrei stopped when they were face-to-face, barely any space between the two of them. "Do you remember everything, Damon?" He asked.

Damon once again nodded. This was it.

"I'm glad, that makes this a lot easier to do then." He raised his hand and placed it on the back of Damon's neck and pulled him into a deep kiss. His free hand found the small of Damon's back and slipped up under his shirt.

"I have waited for what felt like millennia to have you back, Damon." Andrei whispered against his lips.

"And I refuse to wait any longer."