It still took Ric a second or two, to look up. "I know. I just wasn't..." He was having issues, here. "We hadn't talked about Elena, specifically, and. I don't know. I wasn't prepared to walk in and see that." Which was ridiculous and he was going to kick himself for, for a while. Not that Elena wasn't a big damn deal to Damon. With Stefan being effectively gone... Yeah, it had hit hard. "I'm sorry."