After a good meal and a solid twelve hours of sleep, Bonnie pulled herself out of bed and hopped in the shower to consider her plans for the day. Seeing Damon was definitely up there on the list. Even if he was too busy or upset or whatever to talk to her, she just couldn't resist seeing him again. Vibrant and strong and vampiric and /himself/. She needed to see that with her own eyes. She wasn't going to tell him about the time travel. Wasn't going to tell anyone if she could help it. She could use the mess they'd just been through as an excuse for 'distraction' until she got caught up with the little details of her life in this time period, and chalk any newfound maturity up to the same thing. Which also meant getting her story straight for her rapid turnaround to Damon and refreshing her memory on all the things she owed him apologies for.

Those thoughts lasted her all the way through breakfast before she got ready to go. She hoped that Elena wasn't with Damon at the moment and then realized that she was probably taking care of her brother. The question was whether Damon was with her. There was nothing for it but to check so she headed out to the Salvatore house and rang the bell, rehearsing again in her mind what she was going to say. There was a bit of a delay before Damon opened the door and she could tell by his wet hair, the few drops of water still clinging to his shoulders and the fact that all he was wearing was pants that he had just gotten out of the shower.

Damon smirked at her discombobulation. He knew full well how hot he was and the fact that she hated him didn't make her immune to that fact. Not that he would ever touch her with a ten-foot-pole. Hate sex was all well and good with anyone but a witch who could curse him later for it. He wasn't going to stand there and be ogled all day though. "If you're looking for Elena, she's not here."

That was enough to snap Bonnie out of her trance and she shook her head, blush rising to her cheeks. "No, I was...actually looking for you."

"Oh?" Damon raised an eyebrow, but opened the door to let her in. "And what bus is it that you want to throw me under today?" he asked as he poured himself a drink and offered her one too, surprised when she took it.

"I owe you an apology," Bonnie started.

"You do, do you?" Damon asked skeptically, wondering what she was buttering him up for this time.

"Yeah. I do. For a lot of things. Though I would like to point out that the tomb wasn't my fault. I had no idea what Grams was planning. The device though. That /was/ my fault. I shouldn't have lied about dispelling it and you almost died because of it, so...I'm sorry. I'm also sorry for blaming you for Caroline turning. If anything, it was my fault. The device I lied about caused the accident in the first place and then I was the one that asked you to heal her. You did a good thing and didn't deserve the way I treated you for it."

"What is this about?" Damon asked suspiciously.

"This is me trying to make amends for being a bitch," Bonnie told him.

"Why?" he asked with narrowed eyes. "And before you answer that, let me point out that I'm not stupid enough to believe that this total about-face out of nowhere is just because."

Bonnie had known he would never believe that, which was why she had an answer all ready for that. "I essentially killed someone a few days ago, Damon. I sacrificed John Gilbert's life for Elena's. Then I tried to resurrect Jeremy and lost my magic in the process," which was the story she was going with for that. "It made me realize...I don't have the right to decide who lives and who dies any more than you do. But when push comes to shove and the decisions have to be made...I'm going to choose the people I care about too, so how can I fault you for doing the same thing?"

"Uh-huh," Damon said, still skeptical, swirling his drink in his hand and waiting for more.

"You saved my life, Damon. At that dance. And yeah, it was just because you needed me, but that's not the point. You saved Caroline's life from that accident, no matter what ended up coming of it. You've saved all our lives. We ask you for help and then condemn you for it and you don't deserve that."

"You think you know what I deserve?" Damon asked coldly. "You say that I kill people when I have to. When a choice needs to be made. But that's not the only time I kill people."

"I know," Bonnie said. Here was her big test. 'Accept me and fight for me' the future Damon had told her. That it was all he'd ever wanted and that alone was heartbreaking to think he'd never had it. "I know you kill people even when you don't have to. But I don't know why. I don't know the circumstances. I don't have the right to judge you for it. Nor do I have the right to hold you to human standards of morality. You're not human. I know that you don't kill indiscriminately, or half this town would be dead by now. You'd kill people for every meal. But you don't. Which means you do have some code that you live by. You have morals, no matter how they line up to others. That means you're not a bad guy. You're not evil. You're not a psychopath. You're just you and there's nothing wrong with that."

Damon scrutinized her for a long moment, taking a lingering sip of his drink. "You said you lost your magic. You want my help to get it back," he guessed, trying to figure out where all this was coming from.

"It's not coming back. It's gone for good. I'm completely human now," Bonnie told him.

"Then you want my protection when the many Bennett enemies come after you once they realize you're helpless," Damon tried another guess.

"I wouldn't turn it down," Bonnie admitted with a chuckle, not that she planned to be helpless for long anyway. "But that's not what this is."

"Then what is it?" Damon asked impatiently, getting more than a little annoyed by the runaround when he had more important things he could be doing.

"I don't have an ulterior motive here, Damon. Unless you consider trying to make friends an ulterior motive. I've never given you a chance and I'm here to thank you for everything you've done and apologize for all the things I've done to hurt you. I'm hoping we can start over and put the past behind us. That's it."

"I don't do 'friends'," Damon said firmly. "But I appreciate the sentiment." He wasn't letting his guard down yet, but if she /was/ being genuine, it meant a lot. "Have you talked to Elena since yesterday?"

"No, I...I haven't been able to get up the nerve to face her after..." Bonnie trailed off, letting him believe the lie rather than the truth. That it was the killing of her birth father and failing to save Jeremy that was bothering her.

"Understandable," Damon said sympathetically, offering her a refill of her drink.

Bonnie shook her head. "Thank you, but no. Getting drunk is the last thing I need right now," she chuckled.

"Suit yourself," Damon shrugged. "It always helps me to cope with the guilt."

"I can imagine," she said wryly. "But as a human, I'm susceptible to things like alcoholism and alcohol poisoning and stuff that you don't have to worry about," she pointed out.

"There is that," Damon tilted his head in acceptance of the point as he refilled his own drink instead.

"You're not going to tell me I shouldn't feel guilty?" Bonnie asked curiously. Granted what she really felt guilty about was sacrificing Jeremy's life so callously in this whole venture, but he didn't know that.

"Nope. For one thing, it wouldn't actually help, even if I did have the right to tell you how you should feel. You need coping mechanisms, I've got that, but there's nothing I can tell you that you don't already know."

"Thank you," Bonnie said gratefully. "I think the absolution would just make things worse really."

"Because you need to punish yourself for it before you can move past it," Damon said understandingly.

"Yeah. Exactly. Otherwise, it just gets shoved to the side and festers," Bonnie said sadly.

"Long as you don't take the punishment too far," Damon warned. She'd reached out to him, which meant that he would help where he could. Even if it came to stepping in to stop her from hurting herself.

"I know. I won't," she promised.

"Good. Now as much as I would like to sit around and chat all day, I do have some rather important things to do," Damon said, draining the rest of his drink as he got up.

"Do you need any help?" she offered.

"Well I could really use a few tracking spells, but..." Damon said wryly.

"Yeah, not really an option for me anymore, but I'm not bad at computer tracking," she said amusedly.

"I'll keep that in mind," Damon huffed amusedly.

"Okay, you do that. I guess I'll get out of your hair then. Thanks for the drink. And the talk," Bonnie told him as she got up to leave. This had been everything she needed. A reminder that she was doing the right thing. He was /Damon/ again. It would take time to get through his walls, but she was patient and she knew it would be worth the effort in the end.