GOODBYES ARE NEVER EASY

"There's no cure for a werewolf bite." That's what they said.

So when the agony was over, he thought himself dead.

Damon tilted his head on the pillow and with a broad sweep of his forearm, he wiped the cold sweat from his brow, and onto his already soaking wet shirt sleeve. His eyesight was still adjusting to the light; the blurry images slowly came into better focus, and after a short while he could determine that he was in his room at the boarding house, laying in his own bed. "So I guess this means I'm not dead," he thought. His memories were still cloudy about what exactly had transpired during the past few hours, but the most important thing was that the pain was gone. He didn't care how or why at that particular moment; he was just grateful to be alive. And as he stirred, and his vision returned, and his nerve endings began to tingle and come back to life, he felt her hand still clasped in his sweaty palm, and her warm body pressing up close against his side, and he turned his head and saw that pretty smile and those big brown eyes that conveyed such a peaceful sense of relief.

He cleared his throat, his voice husky and ragged: "Elena?"

"Don't call me that!" she snapped back with a defiant glare. "Ever."

"Katherine?" It couldn't be. It shouldn't be. But it was. Of course, her curly auburn locks were the tell, but his vision was still dialing itself in, and he hadn't noticed the one critical detail. "What happened?" he asked groggily.

"You were bitten by a half-assed werewolf," Katherine quipped, propping her head up with a fist under her jaw, her elbow sinking into the fluffy goose-down pillow.

"How about telling me something I don't already know," Damon groaned, his penchant for sarcastic flare still very active even in his weakened condition. "I mean what happened after... as in why am I not dead?"

"There's a cure. Klaus' blood, to be precise," Katherine said. "Stefan got it. I brought it. You're going to be fine." He groaned and attempted to sit up, but it was too soon, and he collapsed right back down. He was obviously still shaking off the crippling after effects of the sickness. "Don't try to get up just yet," she said, not entirely on account of his condition, but more that she didn't want him to walk away from her again, like he did on the night of the sacrifice.

"How the hell did Stefan manage something like that?" he groaned.

Katherine's eyes shifted downward and away from his gaze. "He traded something for it." Her words were ominously understated.

Damon read her expression and dreaded to ask the question. "Dare I ask what that might be?"

"Himself... his humanity," she answered quietly.

"God damn it, Stefan..." Damon sighed, slamming a fist down into the soft mattress. "And Elena?"

"She'll be back like a bad habit, I'm sure," Katherine snapped with a sharp edge of jealousy.

It was then that Damon finally lifted his left hand to his face, and realized for the first time that her fingers were still intertwined with his own, and even as he went to rub his eyes, she curiously didn't let go until the last awkward second.

"And you? What's your excuse?" Damon asked, his voice softening and becoming less raspy.

"I wanted to make sure you're alright," Katherine explained. "And before I leave, I thought I might try one last time to get my goodbye."

Damon turned away, rolling his head back on the pillow, and staring up at the ceiling. "Forget it," he said brusquely.

Katherine rolled her eyes and huffed a breath. "Look, I don't want to go away with you mad at me, or hating me, or... whatever it is," she said, feigning an aloof detachment, although quite ineffectively.

"Then you're going to be waiting a very long time!" Damon growled.

Katherine cocked her head sideways inquisitively and tossed her curls back. "Come on, don't be like that. You almost died. I don't have much time here, so could you please just drop the cocky jackass attitude and be serious with me for thirty seconds? Is it really too much to ask, coming from someone who just helped save your life?"

He turned back to her, his vision finally clear, and he could see that she did look serious. But Katherine was an expert liar, and those big brown eyes of hers were undecipherable. "Am I supposed to believe you careall of a sudden?" he asked defiantly.

"Go ahead and believe what you want to believe," Katherine said. "I brought you the cure, didn't I? You'd be dead right now if I hadn't."

"Better late than never, I suppose..." Damon conceded, clearing his throat. "So what's in it for you? That's always the most important part, right?"

"Like I said, I'd like to get my goodbye. I don't want to leave with you mad at me. And we both know that deep down, you don't want that either," Katherine said coyly.

"How do you figure that?" he snapped back.

Katherine smiled slyly and patted his shoulder. "Because it wasn't Elena you were calling for during your hallucinations and your deathbed dream-gasms. It was me."

Damon frowned, wondering how she could possibly have known about his personal journey through delirium. "How would you know that?"

"Because I know you. Maybe I'm not so easy to get out from under your skin, as badly as you might want to be rid of me," she said. "So, what do you say? Can we make this short and sweet? Give me my goodbye, and I'll leave," she asked sweetly.

"This really is bothering you, isn't it?" Damon asked curiously. "I can't figure why you'd be pushing like this if it wasn't."

"Surprised?" She smirked.

"Surprise is an understatement," Damon said. "It wasn't long ago that you said-"

"Don't," she said firmly, laying her finger against his lips. "There's no need to repeat it."

"Why? Do you regret it?" he asked. "Are you even capable of regret?"

"Let's just be honest with each other," Katherine said. "I never really wanted you to die, just like you never really wanted me to die. Face it, Damon; every single time we cross paths, it's explosive. It's just who we are. I kill you, you kill me, I reject you, you reject me, I put you through hell, you lock me up in one prison only to pull me out of another. And after all of that, we're still here. We're survivors. And every single time I've felt like the final nail in the coffin had been hammered; that we were truly done with each other; we somehow end up in a new place, like we are right now. It's all a cycle. Fate just seems to have this funny way of ripping us apart and crashing us together. And I, for one, don't think that's a bad thing. I like it. And I think, so do you."

Emotional cracks were already starting to appear in his callous facade, and she knew she was getting to him. When he let his guard down, she seized the moment and rolled on top of him, her lips brushing against his chin, her soft brown curls dragging across his face, and he took in the familiar lightly sweet fragrance of rose-hips, and he found himself face to face with that perfect storm of seduction known as Katherine Pierce. "Do you like it?" she asked, ambiguous as to whether she was referring to her last statement, or her sensual provocation.

She read the pained expression on his face as an admission, but he refused to speak. He held still; not giving in to temptation, but not exactly resisting, either.

"We both know the truth," Katherine went on, raining kisses over his face; his cheek, his ear, his eyes, his forehead. "You can't get me out of your veins any more than I can get you out of mine; no matter how hard we try, no matter how much we might hate it, or how hard we fight against it. In some strange way that neither of us may ever understand, we belong. We just belong."

"I've already spent a hundred and forty five years on you." Damon's voice quaked as her lips grazed his cheek. "I can't go through that again."

"So don't!" Katherine cooed, landing her lips on his forehead.

"Don't let love get in the way, right? Easy for you to say," he exhaled.

Katherine held his face tenderly. "I never said it was easy."

"Then why are you here?" Damon finally questioned.

Katherine paused reflectively and tucked her strands of stray hair behind her ear. "Maybe it's hard to realize what you have, until you're about to lose it," she said. "Maybe I care. Maybe I loved you once. Maybe I still do, in my own crazy, dysfunctional way that drives you insane... Maybe I had to say goodbye, even if you won't."

"Stop."

He heard enough. Too much. He quieted her and pulled her down into his embrace, and her head tucked neatly between his cheek and shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head, and she sunk into him and rested there. It was calm and peaceful, just like the old days. And on some intangible level, it just felt right. It was the way things were supposed to be; the way he'd always hoped they would be; but by some heinously cruel twist of fate, they never were. And when they finally made it to that perfect place for just a moment, it wasn't meant to last; but it made him realize that at the heart of it, the biggest mistake he ever made with Katherine was letting himself to believe that things could be as simple as they were laying there in perfect peace. It was the first time since 1864 that they were able to find comfort in each others' arms, and they stayed that way, neither speaking, neither wanting to pull away for as long as circumstances would allow.

It was so poetic how the roles had suddenly flipped. On his deathbed, he was the one offering consolation; he was the one to ease her suffering.

"You're going to run again," he finally said, not so much as a question, but a statement of the obvious.

"He's going to chase me, so I suppose I have to live up to my end of the deal," Katherine answered, halfway between cheeky and glum. "Elena might be in the clear, but I'm not. I might never be."

"Guess that asshole really holds a grudge, huh?" Damon couldn't remain bitter over the past any longer. His experience with Klaus had already forced him to reconsider his perspective on Katherine's plight: past, present, and future.

"Seems that way," Katherine said. "But maybe I'll see you in another hundred and fifty years or so."

"Yeah," Damon sighed wistfully. "Maybe." Hopefully. He thought it, but he couldn't quite bring himself to say it.

She started to get up, but not before leaving him with a kiss; just once, softly, deliberately, honestly, as if it was for the last time, but with a sliver of hope that it would not be the last time. It was a memento; a special memory to hang on to, and it signified the end of another chapter in the story that is Katherine and Damon; a story that never quite comes to an end, no matter how wrapped up and final things may appear. She lingered there for a moment, brushed his hair back with her hand, and revealed perhaps her first authentic smile in weeks. "My sweet, innocent Damon."

"Goodbye, Katherine."

"Goodbye, Damon."

Goodbyes are never easy. At least she finally got one.

They shared the moments that they never had a chance to share the first time around, and while a broad spectrum of emotions were conjured up, there was no hostility, no resentment, and no one walked away mad. From his bed, his glassy eyes followed Katherine as she walked out of his life once again. But when reached the door, she looked back over her shoulder and left him with one last message, uniquely bittersweet in it's delivery:

"You don't have to wait for me this time."

She wanted him to remember that. But on some level, she knew he would still be there when she came back. And on some level, so did he. They knew they would find their way back to each other, because fate just seemed to like it that way.

Elena was just coming down the hall when Katherine turned the corner out of Damon's bedroom. The elder vampire stopped briefly as her shoulder brushed past her young doppelganger. The two exchanged glances; neither entirely jealous, nor accepting, but at a place somewhere in between, where they shared a certain understanding.

"He's all yours..." Katherine said with a cavalier toss of her hair. Her words almost suggested a passing of the torch rite, while she stealthily circled behind young Elena in order to leave a postscript in the girl's ear: "For now."