Salvation (TVD Fan Fiction)

Chapter 9

3rd POV

Rowan stared deeply into Damon's bewildered eyes and concentrated.

"You are free to remember that of which I forced you to forget."

As soon as the last word was out of Rowan's mouth, the rush flooded Damon's mind. Damon slowly sank down to the floor of the threshold, as if his mind was weighted with lead. He was so immersed he did not even notice Rowan leaving.

Damon remembered everything.

Vivid, tangible memories of his time with Rhiannon. The first time he their eyes met at the train depot, and how his heart had been hers ever since. How he felt the first time he heard her honeyed voice speak his name. The night he asked Rowan for permission to date his "niece." The first time he kissed her in the moonlight on the steps of Leamineagh. The countless walks and carriage rides he had escorted her on. How breathtaking she had looked at the Founder's Ball, and how she only had eyes for him. The look on her face as he nervously slid the Claddagh ring on her finger. How their love-making had far surpassed any meaningless tryst he had had since. How he loved her and her alone, and he had promised he would for eternity. Her heartbreaking cries when he had been shot, and how she had carried him back to Rowan to save. The fear in her voice when she told him the truth about who she was. The agony in her gorgeous green eyes the night in his barn when she told him that he would never see her again, and the indescribably pain those words inflicted on his heart. How he had looked up to see Rowan, and then afterwards never recalled a thing. That is, until Rhiannon had come back into town.

Damon now understood what he hadn't before. Why Rhiannon had left back in 1860. She had come to Mystic Falls with the sole purpose of annihilating Klaus, hoping that Katherine's arrival would lure him there. But then she discovered that Katherine was no longer human, and was on the run from Klaus. Rhiannon knew that Katherine was desperate to obtain a bargaining chip to negotiate with Klaus in return for her freedom. Katherine was ruthless, and Rhiannon knew as long as she stayed in Mystic Falls, she was placing Damon at risk.

She never wanted to leave me, Damon realized. She loved me enough to force herself to walk away to protect me.

Damon wondered briefly how the visions were taking place if Rowan had compelled him to forget. The only answer that seemed accurate was fairly simple. Their love had never really faded away. A heart cannot be compelled, only a mind. After he was compelled, without Rhiannon around to rouse his memory, there was no way he could remember her. Instead Damon felt hollow seemingly without reason. But since seeing Rhiannon at the Grill the night before, had set things in motion, causing the compulsion to slowly unravel and lose potency.

Damon knew he had missed Rhiannon all these years, even though to his mind, he had never known her. Briefly, he considered how very different the past century and a half would've been if only he had had her by his side.

Damon felt as though his existence had suddenly been given a purpose, and that purpose was to love Rhiannon. He no longer harbored the instinct to reject her love and run from it. The emptiness that had haunted him all these years was no more, and the fact that she reciprocated his love liberated him. Loving Rhiannon came as naturally to Damon as breathing. It was easy.

Damon was overcome with an irresistible pull to Rhiannon, to be near her, to hear her voice, to feel her touch. As he rose to his feet, he was suddenly racked with guilt over the hurtful things he said to her the last time he saw her.

Rowan is right, Damon thought. I don't deserve her, but if she will still have my sorry ass, I will spend the rest of my days making it up to her.

Without squandering another second away from her, he ran as quickly as he could to find her.

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Sorry it's kinda short