The fire in the Salvatore house burns low, its light throwing long, restless shadows across the study. Damon sits in front of the hearth with a hollow, far off look in his piercing eyes, one elbow propped on his knee and an untouched glass of bourbon in his hand. It's worse than seeing him lash out, there's no wit to deflect behind, no smirk to hide the fracture beneath.

Katherine wasn't in that tomb, she never was, never trapped, never in need of saving. So whilst his self-inflicted mission to free her from her stony prison consumed Damon for one hundred forty-five years, she was out there, flouncing across the world in that way only Katherine can. The realisation of that fact has carved a hole in his chest, leaving behind something raw and stunned and far too fragile. It does not mean she is gone.

“All this time,” he murmurs, voice rough at the edges, “and she was never even there.” The words are softer than anger, quiet with devastation. He's spent so long chasing her, obsessed with trying to make her love him the way he does her, of hating what she did to both him and Stefan, all whilst wanting that hurt to come back into his life.

Damon’s jaw tightens, his expression unreadable in the firelight, though the set of his shoulders gives him away, every arrogant angle in him has gone sharp with hurt. “No letter. No grand return,” His mouth twists, bitter and disbelieving, and finally he lifts his glass to his lips, “I should have known she would never let someone come rescue her like a knight in shining armour.”