"It's a price I would have paid anyway! Klaus wanted me to be the same guy he knew in the twenties. He would have gotten me back either way, you being sick just made it happen faster." He has no doubt that in the end, he would have broken. He usually does. If it wasn't Damon, it would have been Elena, and in some ways, that was better.

"And if I hadn't, I wouldn't have Rebekah - not here, but back home. If I hadn't, he would have turned on Elena, so then you would both have been dead or worse, and then I would have really lost it. So yes, I was in a bad place. But you dying would have been ... "

It would have been a massacre that he would never have recovered from.

"I wouldn't be able to handle it. So whatever price I paid, it's still cheaper than the one I would have paid if I didn't."