sleeperstar’s “I was wrong” starts to play. tears start leaking out of my eyes because I am weak. Elena steps out of the shared bathroom and into her bedroom - Damon is sitting by the window, and we’re paralleling 2.01 now, when he showed up drunk in her room and demanded she love him.
“Cute PJs,” he says. She sighs, tells him, “I’m tired, Damon.” He stands, looking sympathetic, and then manages a smile and holds up her necklace. “I brought you this.”
“I thought that was gone,” she says. He shakes his head.
She smiles, relieved, says “thank you.”
She goes to reach for it, and he draws it back.
She sees the look in his eye - he’s sad - and she starts to be afraid. Damon is most dangerous when he’s sad, isn’t he? “Please give it back,” she says, serious.
“I just have to say something,” he says. “Why do you have to say it with my necklace?” she shoots back. He pauses, says, “Because what I’m about to say is probably the most selfish thing I’ve ever said in my life.” She takes a breath and says in a rush, “Damon, don’t go there.” “I just have to say it once,” he says, almost lightly. “You just need to hear it.” He steps in close, looks at her intently.
“I love you, Elena.”
And she knew - she had to have known - and somehow she’s almost still surprised?
“And it’s because I love you, that,” Damon says, softly, “I can’t be selfish with you.”
“Why you can’t know this...” He looks at her, says in a broken whisper, “I don’t deserve you...”
“But my brother does.”
He leans in, she closes her eyes and he kisses her forehead. A single tear falls down his face. She opens her eyes and kind of gasps - this isn’t at all what she expected from him, and she doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know why he’s doing this. He looks down at her, gently caresses her hair, and says with desperate longing, “God, I wish you didn’t have to forget this.” She doesn’t seem to understand.
“But you do.”
Another tear falls. There’s a whoosh, Elena opens her eyes, and she’s alone - and her necklace is around her neck.
This is how their relationship begins to heal. She betrayed him in season one, and he gave her necklace back to her without compelling the truth out of her. It was a gesture of trust, an acceptance of the truth she freely chose to give him, intended to bind them together. But then he hurt her at the beginning of this season. Here he finally tells her the truth, but this time he doesn’t allow that truth to create any feeling of obligation in her. He gives her his love, and then he compels the memory of it away. Redemption starts when he chooses to let her go.