Damon is in the middle of the road as The Vampire Diaries Season 6 Episode 22 opens, in the same spot where he and Elena Gilbert first met. It's a dream, and he's inside her head. He tries to revive her with vampire blood while Alaric holds the body of his dying betrothed, Jo. Damon takes Elena to the hospital just as Kai renders Caroline and Stefan useless.

Father Laughlin and the other Gemini witches begin chanting to send Kai back to a prison world but he stabs himself in the neck and falls to the ground. All the Gemini witches begin dying with him.

In a dream, Elena and Alaric spar in the woods. He says he has nothing left to fight for. In the real world, Elena is in a hospital bed and Damon gets a call from Bonnie. He informs her that Jo is dead and Elena is in the hospital, unconscious. Nothing is physically wrong with her but she isn't waking up. 

Stefan and Caroline wake up in the back seat of Enzo's car. He takes them to Lily where she is frantically searching through the storage containers for her friends whom she believes Kai brought back with him from the prison world. Liv wakes up next to Tyler and can't believe that she's dying. He holds her hand and tells her that he loves her. He's dying too, and she tells him to trigger his curse in order to live. 

Damon sits beside Elena's bed as Tyler leaves the wedding, turning as he goes. He calls Matt to tell him that he triggered his curse and he wants Matt to warn the vampires. 

Lily can't find her friends and Stefan gives her an ultimatum. Come with her or she's out of his life. He knows that she gave something to Kai so that he could survive and learns that it was her blood. He's now a Heretic just like the rest of her family. He feeds on his father to complete his transition.

Alaric puts Jo in the back of his car and grabs a gun from the glove box when he sees Kai walking toward him. When shooting Kai doesn't work, Alaric points the gun at himself. Tyler shows up and bites Kai before leaving to complete his transition. 

In another dream, Elena and Matt are together on the Wickery Bridge reliving her obituary moment. Matt enters the boarding house to find Bonnie staring at a video recording Kai made. 

Kai shows up to the hospital asking Damon what's happening to him and Damon tells him there's a cure in New Orleans. Damon believes Kai has placed Elena under a spell and demands that he lift it. The only way to lift the spell is to kill Bonnie. As long as she's alive, Elena remains asleep and alive. 

Elena's dream takes her to a moment with Stefan where she takes him on a hike to the falls where she first told him she never wanted to be a vampire. She tries to tell him goodbye. Stefan and Caroline sit with Elena while Damon tracks Kai to get a reversal spell. He tells Caroline that while he loved Elena, she brought him back to his brother, and that was what he really needed.

Bonnie and Kai have a showdown at the site of the wedding where Kai is in a bad place following his werewolf bite. Bonnie breaks his legs and wrecks his brain and still he tells her he can't undo the spell. His death made it permanent. Kai heals himself from the werewolf bite with magic before slamming Bonnie into a wall.

Elena's dream takes her to Damon where she asks him how bad it is and what's happening to her. Damon finds Bonnie on the ground, wheezing, and Damon walks away, planning to let Bonnie die. Kai doesn't understand why Damon wasn't more conflicted and Damon beheads Kai before rescuing Bonnie and healing her.

At the boarding house, everyone gathers to say goodbye to Elena. Caroline teaches Bonnie how to let Elena into her thoughts. She tells them to write everything down, all of it, so that one day when she wakes up she can read their lives and feel like she was there. As a parting memory, Elena asks Bonnie to lift the feathers around her room one last time. 

Matt, as a sheriff, says goodbye, and knows that there's a chance he and Elena will never see each other again. Elena consoles Alaric by telling him to feel his pain. Jeremy returns just in time to say goodbye to his sister. Elena tells Tyler to leave Mystic Falls and embrace who he is as a wolf. In her goodbye to Stefan, Elena thanks him for saving her life and tells him to be happy.

Enzo finds Lily still waiting at the shipping yard. He tells her that he's been searching for connection and family his whole life and then they see a building which Kai had been cloaking. Now that he's dead, Lily and her family are reunited. 

Damon and Stefan take Elena into the Salvatore family crypt so they can protect her and her body from any vampires who would come looking for the cure. The plan is to have Bonnie spell it shut so no one, including the brothers, can get inside. Stefan leaves to that Damon can say goodbye.

Elena tells him to be happy while he waits for her.

Stefan visits Caroline to tell her that she he made a list of all the ways loving her has changed his life. and promises to wait for her. Damon and Elena say goodbye. 

Matt drives down the streets of a darkened Mystic Falls, a much bleaker place than it was when Elena was entombed, with Damon Salvatore standing watch from the clock above.