8x01

"I ripped the switch off the wall. There is no switch, Stefan." Damon said as he looked over at his brother, his eyes filled with even less emotion than Stefan had ever seen before, ",because there is no hope. Every drop of blood I ever spilled, every body I have ever drained, every bad decision I've ever made...sealed my fate. M-"

"No, you've been through this kind of thing before, I refuse to believe that there's no hope for you." Stefan said, suddenly interrupting his brother.

"For the last time, go." he replied, a slight nervous twitch as he sensed that Enzo was close. He knew Bonnie must have come with Stefan, and the last thing either of them needed was to be there when Sybil decided to show herself from the crimson water underneath the floor.

Stefan shook his head in refusal, "I said, no!" he growled, and within a second sped over to the mop, broke the handle in half, and then stabbed Damon in the back. Damon grunted, and fell to the floor.

Much like Damon had thought, and hoped against, Bonnie showed up behind Stefan. Those emerald eyes of hers filled with concern. For a second Damon wondered if the concern was about him too, until Stefan said they should leave as Damon picked himself up off the floor taking the makeshift stake out of his back, and Enzo sped over with a glaring deviousness in his eyes - and Bonnie looked at Enzo.

Those eyes of hers, the eyes that Damon had looked into for so long were looking at the man who had once been his best friend, and they were so worried, but when they flickered to him? There seemed to be almost nothing there.

He shouldn't have cared. His emotions were gone. He didn't care about anything anymore. When Bonnie continued to refuse to leave without Enzo, Damon snapped out of his internal conflict, and sped over to grab Bonnie. Holding her in a very loose choke hold, he made himself appear as the bad guy. He was the one 'hurting' Bonnie now. Yet, in reality he was keeping Enzo who was standing five feet away, from getting anywhere near her. Enzo's emotions weren't off, but he was the reason they were there in the first place. Even Damon in his siren controlled state knew this, even he knew that Bonnie wouldn't be in harms way if it weren't for him.

"Let me go, Damon!" Bonnie huffed, with even more disdain for him than she already held.

"Let her go and we will leave." Stefan insisted, but Damon knew from the look on Bonnie's face as she stared at Enzo that she wanted nothing to do with leaving without him.

Damon held her tighter, her back against his chest, and she squirmed, misunderstanding his attempt to keep her safe. Bonnie huffed, and Enzo still looked at her with a blank expression, holding the bloodied stake that had been in Damon's back in his left hand.

"When I let you go. You leave." Damon said to Bonnie from behind her, and she exhaled getting ready to say something to him, but he interrupted her, "Do you understand me?"

Bonnie furrowed her brow, she was confused. Then again, she'd spent this entire time thinking more about Enzo than Damon. Damon was in this mess because he'd saved her, Enzo was in this mess because he walked blindly into it. She was unsure who she should be more afraid of, partof her wanted to believe that since Enzo had left the clues to lead her there, he wanted to be saved. But, in hindsight, him leading her there knowing she might be hurt was pretty reckless.

"Just let me go... Damon." she said queitly, and felt his arms loosen, and then move from her entirely, she turned around to look at him. There was something so much different in the way he looked at her. Which was odd considering Damon was supposed to be the one with his humanity turned off.

Damon looked back at her, tilting his head to the side, putting on that same fake smirk he always did when he didn't want people to worry about him, or when he wanted to break the tension of a terrible situation by acting like he was amused by it. She shook her head a little, her forehead creasing.

"Till the next time, Bon Bon." he whispered, and the way she looked at him was different from when she had been distracted by Enzo. Her emerald eyes were almost the same as they had been four years before, and for a brief second, he swore that she wasn't thinking about Enzo at all.

Bonnie tore her eyes away from his blue ones, and as she moved over to Stefan, walking out of the building with him, she wondered if Damon still had the letter. That letter he'd written her three years before, that she had refused to read. She didn't have a clue where it was, but, if he did have it, that meant he'd been carrying it around the last two months.

Stefan walked beside her, looking like they'd failed, and suddenly Bonnie was the one with the most hope. She wondered if maybe, three years before, when Damon was standing in the warehouse in New York, she should have asked him to stay.