[ The weight of her unexpectedly vanishes from off of his chest but he continues to lay there as though pinned down to the floorboards by some invisible force. He doesn't have to turn his head and look to know that she is still in the room with him; he can hear the stolen blood as it struggles to pump through her narrowing veins, smell the heady scent of her all-too-familiar perfume concentrated just a few feet away from him. ]

I spent so long blaming myself for your death. Damon's hatred of me never even came close to touching what I felt deep down inside for myself. And yet all this time, all these years that you were secretly alive, you never even once thought that we deserved to know about it.