Damon stands amid his fallen friends as The Vampire Diaries Season 7 Episode 11 begins. Realizing that he’s no longer inside the stone, he sets about rescuing Matt and Bonnie using vampire blood to heal them. Caroline, after finding herself alive, stabs Damon to knock him out so he can inflict no further damage. They chain him up to contain him.

Stefan’s Hell included drowning, a callback to being trapped in the safe by Silas. Damon calls out for his brother and the two talk about Damon and whether or not he can be calm.  Damon is shocked that they’re forgiving him instead of forcing him to pay for the error of his ways.

Damon asks to be unchained and Stefan refuses. 

Tyler comes home, returning to Mystic Falls for Caroline’s baby shower, and finds the city incredibly different than it was when he left it. Damon learns that in the time he was inside the stone, Julian has taken over the town with a rowdy gang of vampires who truck humans in for dinner. Matt and Bonnie try to stop them.  and take out the vampires two or three at a time. Matt has issues with his anger.

Damon is aggravated to learn that Bonnie is helping Matt protect the city from vampires. Stefan fills his brother in on everything he missed while trapped inside the stone.

Things between Caroline and Stefan have been awkward as Stefan’s Hell largely centered around protecting Caroline and continued into his waking life. While he waits for Stefan to return with keys to unchain him, Damon hallucinates his Civil War friend Henry.

Caroline prepares for the baby shower while Stefan takes Damon on a tour of the new Mystic Falls. It has become a den of gluttony and depravity. Damon continues seeing Henry while they’re in the bar. While there, they encounter Julian who congratulates them on making it out of the stone and wishes them luck with their hallucinations.

Caroline and Bonnie watch as Alaric, Tyler, and Matt attempt to diaper baby dolls. Tyler’s doll ends up headless. Alaric is a winner at diapering. Caroline lets him know she won’t be a surrogate mother once she delivers the babies, and Alaric understands. 

Tyler tries to talk Matt into leaving Mystic Falls since there’s nothing left to protect there. Nora shows up at the baby shower uninvited bearing baby socks. Tyler is intrigued. Bonnie and Matt disagree over whether she should be there.

Damon listens to Henry and begins talking out loud to his hallucinations. He rips the heart out of his companion only to realize he’s actually killed one of Julian’s minions. 

Stefan’s post-Hell involved constant imagery of Damon and Caroline was his only constant. Stefan pushed her away, only able to focus on Damon until he solved the rest of his puzzle. Stefan tried to burn Damon’s body and doused it in gasoline, telling Caroline he never wanted Damon to come back. 

Julian smashes in the windows of Stefan’s car to tell him to get Damon under control. Stefan isn’t finished hallucinating his brother.

Damon asks Tyler to take him to Elena’s body and Tyler refuses. Damon threatens to kill everyone at the baby shower if Tyler doesn’t take him to her body. 

Matt gets pulled over and busted for drunk driving while going through a neighboring town.

When Damon opens Elena’s coffin, he sees Henry’s body instead. Tyler tries to shoot him but ends up with his head bashed in. Stefan shows up at the baby shower and tells Caroline that he’s still hallucinating. She won’t let him go find Damon until he tells her how he managed to get out of the stone.

Every loop of Stefan’s Hell ended with Damon drowning him, drowning the both of them. The only way Stefan could get out of the stone was to let go of his brother. Stefan believes that the only way he will ever be happy is with Damon out of his life for good. 

Damon, meanwhile, pours gasoline on Elena’s coffin because he believes Henry is inside it. Instead, Damon burns Elena’s body. 

Bonnie finds Nora at a coffee house outside. Nora finds a postcard in her mail from the Huntress, the owner of the Phoenix sword. Nora believes she’s marked and tells Bonnie that the Huntress is coming.

Matt is free to go, but the officer who arrested him won’t let him drive home. She questions him about why FEMA didn’t get involved in Mystic Falls and about the bag of vampire weapons found in his truck.

While bringing home the baby gifts, Caroline finds a letter from another college and learns that Alaric is planning on leaving town. She gets a little emotional over the thought of not being near the babies. She has a hard time convincing herself that she’ll be okay without the babies and Alaric in her life.

Stefan finds Damon at home and tells him how he managed to escape the stone. Together they realize that the answer isn’t for Stefan to leave him behind, but to refuse to give up. Damon can’t bring himself to tell Stefan about burning Elena’s body.

The final scene flashes forward three years to Caroline’s on-air plea for Stefan to show up at the TV studio. Matt is the one to rescue her, and she learns he’s working with the Huntress