"I didn't know she was your Maggie."

That one sentence completely changed everything and shattered the only reason he'd been holding on to life and hope for the past seventy years. The words echoed over and over in his head until they were almost overwhelming. Never had anything Whitmore or Wes had done to him had caused tears to flow. He could count on one hand how many times tears had seeped from his eyes in the past eighty years.

The last had been when he'd stolen Maggie's bracelet and compelled her to forget him. After years of kindness he'd been forced to let her go. She'd wanted him to turn her and he couldn't the thought of Dr. Whitmore catching them and experimenting on Maggie the way he'd been experimented on. That was a thought he refused to dwell on and he wouldn't allow to become a reality.

Love was about lose and he'd taken the memories that meant the most to him from Maggie. He loved her beyond words and reason and that was why he had to protect her the only way he knew how. As she'd picked up her bracelet and left the cold metal of the bars along with the silence had been his only companion. The tears he'd held back for her benefit had finally fallen.

He had cut the one person who gave him hope out of his life in the hope that he would be able to see her again in a better place and time. Damon knew this, he knew how much Maggie had meant to him, the hope she'd caused within, the love. She was the reason they were both alive today and Damon had ripped her bloody head off.

The fragile woman who had been his strength had sought retribution for his supposed death. She had remembered and for a time knew that he had loved her and she him. He'd given Damon everything, he'd suffered on drops of blood for a year in the hope that Damon would save them both. His so called friend had taken everything from him, revenge had taken over and he'd been left in the cage until the last possible second.

When he'd told Damon that he'd ruined him it wasn't out a spite it was truth. Before Whitmore House, before Damon leaving him to burn alive he'd had hope, dreams and faith there was still good out there. The final time he'd believed that had been when he allowed Damon to take the lead on their escape and after being saved by an ad and placed back in his cage he was less than forgiving. If he thought Damon had ruined him before he was nothing compared to the feelings he had now. Revenge was all he'd been able to think of and if there was anything he did well it was revenge, he loved a good vendetta.

He could still hear his own voice ringing in his ears as he screamed at Damon not to leave him, screaming for the man who had been his friend. Screaming for his life sure he would be burned alive as Damon looked at him as if he didn't know him before leaving and closing the door behind him as the flames raged smoke blinding him as his flesh began to burn causing him to scream in agony.

"That's the problem Damon, I don't want to hate you. Because if I hate you I have nothing left... There is another option."

Closing his eyes he could see and feel the punishment both Dr. Whitmore and Wes had brought upon him, he could see Maggie's face as she talked to him through the bars and for a moment his heart felt overwhelmed by the memory, beginning his friendship with Damon, being left to burn alive by Damon, killing Aaron, trying to save Damon from the ripper virus and then the picture of Maggie with her head ripped off. Emotions flowed and coursed through him as if emptying out leaving nothing.

He could hear Damon trying to stop him before his eyes opened again, tears and pain gone nor could he remember what had caused them since nothing seemed painful anymore. Maggie had been a woman stupid enough to love a monster and in the end it had been her downfall, her own fault.

"There we are, you're right, I don't have a care in the world."