Note: I'm still on break until December, but I couldn't let this stay in my head. (Song inspiration: "Running" Naughty Boy ft. Beyoncé and Arrow Benjamin) (Unedited, just written, disclaimer, blah-blah-blah, you know me by now)

If I Lose Myself, I Lose It All

That's what happens when you give away parts of yourself. You stand to lose them all at once if you're not careful.

One – Elena's smiling at him, awake, alive, about to be back in his arms.

Two – They're kissing, they're kissing and it's raining, her skin is warm and everything is how he thinks it should be right now.

Three – Bonnie's dead. He freezes in Elena's arms and she pulls back, frowning, how could he not want to kiss her right now? It's been so long. But he's moving away, stumbling out of her reach and he can't believe the price he paid for this moment. This selfish, magical moment. Bonnie's name falls out of his mouth, framed with horror and realisation dawns on Elena. A revelation he cannot see because he himself is quickly coming to understand what was really on the line to get his girlfriend back. He was so obsessed with the idea of Elena coming back to him that he didn't understand just what it would feel like to really lose Bonnie Bennett. Was it worth it?

Blinking back into reality, Damon grabs Bonnie and speeds her out of the truck's way and slams her against another car. Their bodies are pressed up close, her hurried heart pounding in his ears. But she's looking at him like she always does in those ephemeral moments, moments he will carry with him, for as long as he lives. Their plan to fool Klaus. Her eyes were wide open then too, scared, surprised, confused. Then when she was 'dead', her eyes open and staring up at him, lifeless and flat. Then the island, her eyes when she saw him, fumbling over herself and errant twigs to get into the circle of his arms. Then, when they died together and she held his hand, asked if it would hurt, like she didn't know enough about death already to trump even him. Sure, he killed, but she died – a lot. But she'd wanted reassurance then, and he was more than happy to give it to her. In these moments, Bonnie ruled over him, he'd do anything to keep her safe – even putting his life with Elena on pause. He'd done that; sometimes he still couldn't believe it himself. But then she was looking at him again and it all fell in place, it all made sense. How could it not?

"Wow," she breathed, "Thank you." He looked back into her eyes, he'd been counting the seconds, her heart was still stuttering trying to find a normal pace.

"Yeah, of course." He smirked and moved away, their hands falling away from one another. More than anything he wanted 'yeah, of course' to be the simple answer, but all it did really was brush everything under the carpet. She blinked a few times and looked around the car, at the truck that had long fled the scene. He heard Bonnie's heart change pace once more and readied himself for it. She was too smart and the pieces fell together fairly fast.

"Hang on…" She was staring after the truck now, "Did you see that truck coming?"

"…What?" Her jaw clenched.

"Did you just hesitate to save my life?"

"No, relax, it was three seconds," he reasoned, three seconds that stood between him and Elena. Three seconds that stood between him and losing his best friend. Three seconds for him to realise that either end of the stick of this entire situation would end up as a stake in his heart.

"Three seconds?" She echoed, with a knowing look shadowing her bright eyes, "Y'know, I could have died." She shrugged a little, her knowledge of his resentment building in her gaze. Bonnie swallowed as Damon opened his mouth to speak; he couldn't fault her for her apprehension, he'd done nothing but antagonise her about all of it. But he wanted her to know the truth, all of it, and he was glad that she didn't expect him to sugar-coat it, because at this point, he couldn't even try to.

"You're right, Bon. If I had done nothing, Elena would be here and it would all be grand –"

"Enough," she cut him off, "I'm not gonna spend the rest of my life thinking you resent me." He didn't want that either, but she was the one who had the answers he needed. He needed to know how to move on from everything and if pushing her to this point got him some clarity then so be it.

I could have killed you, but I didn't, now, doesn't that count for something?

Dispelling his inner trip down memory lane he focused his eyes on her, "How else am I supposed to feel Bonnie?" He was surprised at how composed he sounded, clinical almost, like a recording on loop, "You're here, she's not. Every time I look at you all I see is not Elena." He needed her to fix this, fix him; this couldn't be his foreseeable future.

"I'm so sorry this happened," Bonnie said, her voice low and earnest, "But I lost her too. In fact, between the two of us, I'm the one who never gets to see her again so please stop acting like you're the only one who lost something that night. It's hard, yes, nothing with the two of us has ever been anything but that," she stepped a little closer to him, "But I'm not doing this with you anymore, Damon," Bonnie pursed her lips and shook her head sadly. "I won't let you punish me for a choice you know you were right to make, a choice I'm grateful that you made. A choice that I think we should move past before it destroys the both of us." She lifted and dropped her shoulders and readjusted her tote bag strap before moving away from him, "You're one of the few reminders I have left of her to hold onto, so you can resent me or love me…but you're stuck with me." Damon said nothing, and she turned and left.

Damon knew his timing was awful, but once again, he was knee deep in existential despair and all the chaos around him, around them, was nothing but lift music to all the thoughts keeping him up at night. Coming back to Mystic Falls had been a mistake, but what else where they supposed to do?

Just like so many times before, he sought her out. Her and his trusty perpetually half-empty bottle of bourbon. He dropped his box of things at the end of her bed and plucked the booze out of it, releasing the lid and taking a swig. Sitting down he exhaled long and loud, hoping some wandering spirit would pity him and appear and show him the way. No such luck. He heard her small feet and steady heart and knew that whatever he was in for would be worth it, because, like it or not, she'd become a haven of sorts. In his head it was all he could think about – the three seconds it would take for his heart to break in an entirely different way. And on top of the heart ache he'd been feeling, who knew how he'd end up after a fresh wound.

She asked why he was here. Damon explained he had nowhere else to go. True to form she brought up the three seconds in Amsterdam, something that had made their flight back home with a hungover Alaric especially painful.

Second one – Elena in his arms.

Second two – Kissing Elena. He told her this, then; he stood up and faced her, ready to tell her about the third second.

"And by the third, I remembered," And Damon remembered everything. The times Bonnie gave up the little she had to give the rest of them a chance at survival. The times he hurt Bonnie, specifically, said he didn't care about her, claimed to hate her, rue her existence, belittle her. "You're my best friend." It was a fact. They were kindred, cheesy as it sounded. It went beyond the four months they'd spent in 'hell'. It went beyond their fiery initial encounters, beyond their reluctant team-work. Somehow, between all the bickering, the 'loathing', the sneering and the anger, there was love. It was what had kept them compliant when it came to the other for a long time. It just so happened that now, Damon had been forced to a place where he had to be vocal about everything.

Because Bonnie wasn't fond of second chances, not really. And if he didn't explain everything to her, the whole truth, why he hesitated, why he saw it through – he could lose her too. And the thought alone propelled him to say what came next. "And that if anything happened to you, I would lose my mind." He saw her falter, she was taken aback. He was too. There she went again; ruling his small moments, making him show the crux of his feelings towards her – something he'd made a point of evading for years. He wasn't good with that shit, but Bonnie brought it out of him, made it feel more like a natural impulse to him than something he was forced to do. He owed her this, at the very least. "So yes, Bonnie, I do know how long three seconds are." His hands were on her again, reiterating that this was real, it was happening; he cared too much about her.

There it was; the moment they both realised that Damon would give up the culmination of his existence, the core of his obsessive rhetoric of his past and a girl, with a face he'd loved longer than he cared to have lived – for her. He would because he already had, and she supposed in his mind he'd been doing that every day, which pissed her off no end (because it meant he'd been dabbling the odds of her demise for weeks now), but that wasn't important right now, he was talking again. "This is me loving you, it's shitty and probably not worth your effort, but right now it's all I have in me."

Bonnie swallowed with a shaky nod as he released her. "Just checking." She gulped. She hadn't expected that, some half-arsed excuse, sure, she'd just about heard them all. But this, this was like that crooked smile she'd only seen on him in 1994. Or when she caught him dancing. Or when she woke up in her bed after having passed out on a couch, with Ms Cuddles tucked in next to her. Or when he told her stories of his human days, whispering quietly over the crackle of burning wood in their fire place. Small moments. Moments she soon found, looking into his eyes, had built up a solid foundation for the only reason they were still standing in front of one another – their love.

"I guess that's just how you two show your love"

"It's enough." She heard herself saying. Because, though at first, his resentment had spat in the face of the choice he'd made that horrific night. But now, looking at him, the man and the monster, that had upturned her life – she couldn't find it in herself to do anything but love him back. "Just…Don't do that thing you do when you turn your love into hate, I don't think I could take that anymore."

"Lucky for you," his smile was here and gone as he retrieved the bottle of bourbon and handed it to her, "We got the hate out of our systems a long time ago." She hummed as she swallowed and handed the bottle back to him.

"Listen," she sighed as she watched him empty the contents of the bottle and burp loudly as she frowned, "As much as I know you'd love to pass out right now and keep me up all night with your drunken snoring, what do you say we get a head start on our bug problem?"

"Heretic Hunting?" He pursed his lips as she nodded. "Why not, it's that or let them draw first blood."

"I want to fight." Bonnie said to him, seriously, "I want our town back." He liked the sound of that.

"Then we do what we do best Bon-Bon," he closed some of the space between them, her wide green eyes tethering him to a new purpose, "We kill anyone who gets in our way." She grinned at him, a smirk he'd worn on his face since the dawn of his own rebellion. He mirrored it and scooped her up in his arms and sped up and out of Whitmore College and to the nearest Hybrid.

When they got home she just pointed at the adjoined bathroom and glared at his hands. Taking a hint he went and cleaned up, by the time he was finished she was changed into pyjamas and was braiding her hair across the crown of her head, and he paused for a moment.

Times like these, he really hated himself. Because he remembered the months she spent alone and how much she deserved to live a normal happy life, and how the odds of that happening weren't favourable. And yet, for the past while he'd been toying with the idea of taking that from her. He truly was a foul bastard and yet she stayed. Just like he stayed. She always came back and there, in that moment, he decided that so would he.

Bonnie Bennett was going to die someday, but he would fight that for as long as he could, as hard as he could. Because she deserved to be fought for, returned for, protected. And like he'd said to Elena all those months ago, Damon was doing it for Bonnie; he was keeping Bonnie safe for Bonnie. Scratch that – if he was being honest, he was doing it for him and Bonnie. She was a part of him now and he'd handed over parts of himself over the years and there was no coming back from that.

Because just like he'd let Katherine consume him, he'd let Elena rule him and slowly, without permission (or resistance) Bonnie had begun to rule the parts of himself he'd been neglecting. The parts Stefan swore by. The parts Elena tried to bring to the surface. The parts that he'd labelled weak and pathetic. Bonnie'd fostered those small fractions of him, and they responded to her when she was near, like petals to the sun, nurtured and happy. Maybe it was time he stopped suppressing that.

"What's going on up there?" She was a few feet away from him, a curious frown quirking her brows. Damon blinked back into his body and smiled tiredly.

"Just thinking." He said vaguely and her right eye narrowed a bit, but she let it go. "…Do you want me to tuck you in?" He joked, diverting her attention. Luckily it worked.

"You just work on not snoring, okay?"

"No promises," he smiled as she got under the covers of Caroline's bed, letting him have hers, neither mentioned Elena's, "Good night Bennett."

"Good night, Salvatore." In a flash of movement the light was off and he was in her bed, surrounded by her scent, trying his damndest to stay afloat in the madness that was their world

A/N: And that's all folks! I just wanted to fill in the spaces of their dynamic in the first episode with a little of my own perspective of their relationship right now. I watched the first episode out of morbid curiosity but doubt I'll be watching any more. As always, you can find me in PMs or email (if you're cool enough to have my address :P) and don't hesitate to get in touch with me for whatever. Stay excellent