Bonnie had health monitoring spells on both Damon and Elena, with their permission. Ostensibly so that she could get there if they were hurt. Since they were in hiding and couldn't actually go out anywhere without disguising spells, if they needed medical attention they could be in trouble. And since Bonnie was their contact to the outside world, since she could use her magic to hide herself too, it only made sense that she would need to know if they were in trouble. Her main reason for it though was because she suspected that Elena was abusing Damon and she wanted to be there to help him. Like Damon probably had, she'd hoped that him giving up his vampirism and becoming human like she wanted would make things better. Would get her to stop judging everything he did and stop accusing him of ulterior motives and awful behavior.

Bonnie wasn't around a lot. It wasn't safe. But she saw enough to at least suspect that those hopes had been unfounded. Every time she saw them, Damon was a little more cowed. A little more painstakingly careful in his words and actions. He watched Elena's reaction to everything he said and did like he was waiting to be scolded. Bonnie hated it. She hated seeing someone so vibrant and full of life diminished to just a shadow of himself. No, the old Damon wasn't perfect. He had his issues and had a tendency to cross the line sometimes, but like with anyone else, one had to take the good with the bad. Something Elena clearly didn't understand.

It was twenty years into their marriage before she got an alarm that Damon was hurt and she went running, remembering to disguise herself first. She dropped the disguise as she walked in the door and quickly found Damon groaning and attempting to sit up in the living room, surrounded by broken glass and bleeding from his head. She moved to help him up, and suspected what had happened, but still had to ask. "Elena?"

"Upstairs. She's fine," Damon told her, as she got him to the couch. He had to lean rather heavily on her as the room spun and he was fighting the urge to vomit.

"Easy, let me take care of that concussion first and then we can take care of the cuts and bruises," Bonnie told him, and then cast a quick spell to ease off the swelling on his brain. "Feel better?"

"Much," Damon said relieved. "At least there's only one of you now," he chuckled.

Bonnie's return laugh was more than a little tense, but she got the hint. He didn't want a serious talk right now. He just wanted to brush it off. And she would let him. At least until she was finished healing him. Then all bets were off. "You've got a little glass still in some of these cuts," she said as she gently cradled his face in one hand and the other carefully went to remove them. "Stay still," she said, trying very hard not to notice the intimacy of the position. Not to get lost in his deep anguished eyes. Not to let her feelings for him overtake her. She managed to last until she had the last of the glass out at least before her eyes met his and they both got caught in the trap.

Damon found himself leaning in to kiss her before he even knew what he was doing. The worse things got between him and Elena, the more he realized how much he loved Bonnie. It was too late now though and this didn't change anything. He caught himself right before their lips met though and jerked away, getting up and moving quickly across the room. "Fuck," he breathed out as his hand ran through his bloody hair, trying to pull himself together. He was /not/ going to cheat on his wife. Period. Not even for a single kiss. No matter what she'd done or how much she deserved it. It wasn't about her. It was about him and the person that he wanted to be.

Bonnie took a deep steadying breath, agreeing with his unstated words completely. She wasn't going to go after a married man, no matter how miserable his marriage was. It was no excuse. She got herself under control and went to grab his arm. "Come on. I need to finish healing you," she coaxed him back to the couch.

Damon hesitated a minute before nodding and following. He could feel the blood dripping and knew that he probably shouldn't lose any more than he already had. He was already starting to get a little woozy. "I'm sorry," he said softly as she healed up his worst cut, neither of them noticing Elena coming down. At his words she decided to wait around the corner to try and figure out what he was apologizing for.

"Me too," she said with a tentative smile. "I forgot myself for a minute there."

"Why?" Damon asked in almost a whisper. He knew he was playing with fire. That any answer she could give would make things worse in the long run. He just needed to know. To see if anyone could actually really care or if he was truly the lost cause he felt like.

Bonnie knew what he needed, and also knew that it wouldn't help overall. Or maybe it would. Maybe it would give him the strength to leave her. To find himself again. It wasn't as though she could not answer though. Not with the heartbreaking vulnerability laced in that one word. "Because I care about you more than I should," she admitted. That was as far as she was willing to go there. "And seeing you like this is tearing me apart...You're done."

Damon caught a hand as she moved them away. "Me too," he admitted, thumb tracing over the back of her hand. "But we can't," he reminded himself as much as her.

"I know," she said in a pained voice, getting lost in his eyes again as she held the hand in hers like a lifeline. The most she would ever have.

"I should have known," Elena said angrily as she stepped out, seeing the two of them scramble guiltily to opposite ends of the couch. "I don't know why I'm surprised. I should have thought as much of you," she snapped at Damon. "But you...I expected better," she told Bonnie.

"Listen, Elena...whatever you're thinking, this isn't..." Damon tried to explain, but he was cut off by another thrown glass that he ducked this time. Not that he'd needed to duck since Bonnie got a barrier spell up in time and the glass broke against that.

"I came to heal him," Bonnie said as she moved to stand between Damon and Elena. "He had a severe concussion and was losing a lot of blood. Nothing else happened."

"But you wanted it to. Both of you. You think that makes it any better?" Elena said coldly. It didn't matter that they hadn't acted on their apparent feelings. The fact that they were there at all was just as bad. "You know what? I don't care anymore. Do whatever you want. Both of you. I give up," she threw up her hands and stormed back upstairs, slamming the bedroom door hard enough to rattle the house, making Bonnie and Damon both wince.

"Yeah, I'm gonna feel that one later," Damon sighed and deflated, falling as much as sitting back on the couch and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"I'm sorry," Bonnie said again. "I shouldn't have..."

"Shouldn't have what? Come here to save my life?" Damon huffed. "No, we were both responsible for that almost loss of control. You have nothing to apologize for."

"How often does this happen, Damon?" Bonnie asked with a frown as she sat back down next to him, keeping a decent distance. Neither of them took Elena's statement of permission as genuine.

"It's fine. I'm usually better at dodging," Damon tried to brush it off.

"It is /not/ fine," Bonnie said firmly. "You shouldn't have to live like this." She'd seen how quick he was to dodge the second one, so she could easily believe his statement.

"It's not like I don't deserve it," Damon shook his head. "I'm the one who keeps screwing up. Even without that, after all the suffering I've caused in my life..."

"You shouldn't have to keep paying for that. Or for being who you are. I see how much of yourself you've lost, and I hate it. You never needed to change, Damon," Bonnie said sadly.

"Right," Damon scoffed in disbelief.

"I mean it," Bonnie said sincerely. "You could...leave," she suggested hesitantly. "I could ward another place for you..."

"No," Damon shook his head. "Thank you, but...this is where I belong now. I made vows and I'm going to stick to them. Not to mention how Stefan sacrificed his /life/ for this. If I leave, I might as well be spitting on his grave. No, I'm right where I need to be. No matter the cost. I've had plenty of time to have fun and hurt a lot of people in the process. This is my time to pay for it."

"Those are Elena's words," Bonnie snarled.

"Doesn't make them any less true," Damon said wearily.

Bonnie closed her eyes against the wash of pain, knowing that Damon was going to carry this out to the end. His end if he wasn't careful, but he'd dug in his heels and he wasn't budging. There was only one thing she could do now. She reached over and squeezed his hand. "I'll fix this, Damon. All of it," she promised before getting up to leave with tears in her eyes.

It took a second to dawn on Damon what she meant. There was only one way she could fix things now, and she had to know it as well as he did. She was almost to the door when he caught up with her and took her arm, turning her to look at him. He reached a hand up to cup her cheek and catch the few falling tears, getting lost in her watery eyes again. "Accept me and fight for me. That's all you'll need to do. All I ever wanted," he said in barely more than a whisper as his thumb caressed her cheek.

Bonnie reached up and covered his hand with hers, giving a slow nod. "And that's the least you deserve," she whispered almost inaudibly before pulling herself away from the moment and leaving. If Damon knew that cost of what she was about to do, he would never let her do it. But defying the natural order always had a cost. It wasn't one that she /wanted/ to pay but leaving this travesty intact would be even worse.