Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine... well, except the one and I've decided I really like her so you can't have her!

Prometheus

He'd killed her brother.

For the rest of the world there was no getting over that. There was no forgiveness for such an act. She herself had thought that there was no getting over it.

But he's Damon, and the only thing he does better than screwing up is making big comebacks.

It definitely helps that her brother is still alive. Only Damon could have that kind of luck. And Jeremy, in the astonishingly calm manner he has taken all supernatural occurrences, seems to be taking his own death in stride.

For heaven's sake, he'd killed Alaric and turned his wife and now they were drinking buddies. Nobody could get away with murder like Damon could.

She'd thought it would be different for her. She'd thought the sound of Jeremy's neck breaking would echo in the space between them for the rest of his eternal life. But instead they're road tripping together and no matter how much she doesn't want to, she's remembering Georgia and the many times he's saved her… and the look in his eyes when he realised that Katherine wasn't in the tomb, which just exactly matched the look in his eyes just seconds before he'd broken Jeremy's neck.

And then he's always there… always ready to charge to the rescue, always standing in front of her at just the right second to take an arrow in the back. She might have told him that night after Duke that he had lost her forever, but who had she been trying to convince? How could you hate someone and love them at the same time? How was it that when she looked at him she could hear Jeremy's neck snapping and see the broken expression and hear him saying a hundred different things; 'I can't protect you Elena', 'You're not the worst company in the world', 'You can't hate me forever'.

And then there was Rose; Rose who had looked at Damon with guarded hope in her eyes. Beautiful, jaded Rose who wanted nothing more than to be loved in spite of all her hundreds of years of running and all her deeply ingrained flight instincts. Rose had seen something in Damon that she had been willing to stop running for and eventually to give her life for. And Damon had nursed her.

Elena had never seen him like that. She'd never seen him so… human. She'd watched him comforting Rose, caring for her, trying to minimise her pain and he was so fragile, so helpless, so very much like an ordinary human being. It was strange to think about him like that. It was strange to consider that he changed the sheets on his bed just like she had done for Rose. It was strange to consider that his pristine bathroom had to be cleaned by someone; and they certainly didn't have a maid. It made her think back on him in her kitchen, chopping vegetables and helping her load the dishwasher. She could very suddenly see Damon in a hundred domestic scenes; ordinary, human, laughing and making sarcastic comments.

He had it in him somewhere, the capacity to live and love a normal life. Katherine had taken that from him. Elena imagined him falling in love with an ordinary girl back in 1864; a girl who loved to have fun, a girl with an unembarrassed laugh, a girl who would have understood why he'd deserted and looked at Stefan like her own brother, and stripped down to her underclothes to go swimming with him in the summer. She imagined how all of his passionate love could have been a good thing instead of the quality that had twisted him into a monster when given to Katherine.

She imagined him marrying this girl, this woman, and loving her with everything he had. She could see her now; she had strawberry blonde hair and pale, pale skin that freckled and burnt in summer and blue eyes with laugh lines around them. She hated jewellery but she wore her plain gold wedding band with pride and loved it when Damon looped his arm around her waist and kissed her unashamedly in the middle of town. She could see them together. She could see Damon with a child sitting on his shoulders. She could see his wife bending and pulling her skirts out of the way to cradle a little boy and kiss his skinned knee.

She could see all of it in the way he cradled Rose to his chest and brushed her hair out of her eyes and gently dabbed the sweat from her forehead.

And she couldn't hate him anymore. She could be angry with him. She could want to shake him and slap him and pull out his hair. She could want to cry for the choices he'd made. But she couldn't hate him.

She could hate Katherine.

And somehow she could forgive him. He had atoned. He had paid for every drop of blood he had shed… like Prometheus who had stolen fire from the Gods, Damon had stolen eternal life… and now in payment his heart was ripped from his chest and eaten every night only to grow back in the morning. Sometimes he seemed to rip it out himself.

How could she not care?

Killing Lexi, Jeremy, Alaric and countless other innocents would never be okay; could never be condoned. But now she sat on his bed watching him fade away in Caroline's stead as he had watched Rose fade in his stead… and she forgave him for lashing out in his pain.

How often had she demanded he be the better man?

She kissed his lips softly and believed that that was what he was.

AN: Reviews are love and I'd really appreciate feedback as I'm pretty new to writing Vampire Diaries!