“You always were selfish. Your one fault. Not willing to share anything, are you?" Suddenly, Damon's lips curved up in a singularly beautiful smile. But fortunately the lovely Elena is more generous. Didn't she tell you about our little liaisons? Why? The first time we met she almost gave herself to me on the spot.""That's a lie!""Oh, no, dear brother, I never lie about anything important. Or do I mean unimportant? Anyway, your beauteous damsel nearly swooned into my arms. I think she likes men in black." As Stefan stared at him, trying to control his breathing, Damon added, almost gently, "You're wrong about her, you know, You think she's sweet and docile like Katherine. She isn't. She's not your type at all, my saintly brother. She has a spirit and a fire in her that you wouldn't know what to do with.""And you would, I suppose."Damon uncrossed his arms and slowly smiled again. "Oh, yes.”

“Damon spoke without moving. “I’m not like you.”“You’re not as different from us as you want to think,” Matt said. “Look,” he added, an odd note of challenge in his voice, “I know you killed Mr. Tanner in self-defense, because you told me. And I know you didn’t come here to Fell’s Church because Bonnie’s spell dragged you here, because I sorted the hair and I didn’t make any mistakes. You’re more like us than you admit, Damon. The only thing I don’t know is why you didn’t go into Vickie’s house to help her.”Damon snapped, almost automatically, “Because I wasn’t invited!”Memory swept over Bonnie. Herself standing outside Vickie’s house, Damon standing beside her. Stefan’s voice: Vickie, invite me in. But no one had invited Damon.“But how did Klaus get in, then—?” she began, following her own thoughts.“That was Tyler’s job, I’m sure,” Damon said tersely. “What Tyler did for Klaus in return for learning how to reclaim his heritage. And he must have invited Klaus in before we ever started guarding the house—probably before Stefan and I came to Fell’s Church. Klaus was well prepared. That night he was in the house and the girl was dead before I knew what was happening.”“Why didn’t you call for Stefan?” Matt said. There was no accusation in his voice. It was a simple question.“Because there was nothing he could have done! I knew what you were dealing with as soon as I saw it. An Old One. Stefan would only have gotten himself killed—and the girl was past caring, anyway.”Bonnie heard the thread of coldness in his voice, and when Damon turned back to Stefan and Elena, his face had hardened. It was as if some decision had been made.“You see, I’m not like you,” he said.“It doesn’t matter.” Stefan had still not withdrawn his hand. Neither had Elena.”

“She heard Stefan’s voice.“Elena! Let go! Fall and I’ll catch you!”How strange, Elena thought, as if in a dream. His love and panic had distorted his voice somehow - making him sound different. Making him sound almost like-“Elena! I’m with you!”-like Damon.Shaken out of her dream, Elena looked below her. And there was Damon, standing protectively in front of Meredith, looking up at her, with his arms held out.He was with her.”

“Still, there was no point in hurting Damon. She loved Damon, too. “I’ll try,” she promised.“We’ll take you home,” he said.“But not yet,” she told him gently. “Let’s wait just a little while.”Something happened in the fathomless black eyes, and the burning spark went out. Then she saw that Damon knew, too.“I’m not afraid,” she said. “Well—only a little.”

“So," dark Susurre said quietly, "if you follow the curve... in a way your Damon did die to save Fell's Church from another massacre like the one on that Japanease island. He kept saying that was what he'd come to the Nether World to do. Do you not think he would be satisfied? At peace?""At PEACE?!" Stefan spat bitterly, and Sage growled."Woman," you obviously have never met Damon Salvatore before." The tone in his voice--more resonant, more threatening somehow--made Elena finally break off her staredown with the red-haired Idola. She turned and looked----and saw the enormous room filled with Sage's outspread wings.”

“You have to breathe," Sage was shouting in Damon's ear. "Take a breath, as if you were going to speak, but then hold onto it, as if raising your Power.Think about your insides. Get those lungs working!"The words confused Elena."There!" cried Sage. "You see?""But it only lasts an instant. Then I need to do it again.""But, yes, that is the point!""I tell you I'm dying and you laugh at me?" a disheveled Damon shouted. "I'm blind, deaf, my senses are haywire-and you laugh!”

“Stefan was the one who ... the one she loved. But he'd never understood that love was not singular. He'd never understood that she could be in love with Damon and that it would never change an atom's worth of her love for him. Or that his lack of understanding had been so wrenching and painful that she had felt torn in two different people at times.”