
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/419276.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Vampire_Diaries_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Bonnie_Bennett/Damon_Salvatore, Elena_Gilbert/Stefan_Salvatore, Anna/
      Jeremy_Gilbert
  Character:
      Bonnie_Bennett, Elena_Gilbert, Stefan_Salvatore, Damon_Salvatore, Jeremy
      Gilbert, Katherine_Pierce, Anna_(Vampire_Diaries)
  Additional Tags:
      Post-Season/Series_02_AU
  Series:
      Part 1 of A_Different_Mystic_Falls
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-06-01 Completed: 2015-09-09 Chapters: 25/25 Words: 68849
****** Sacred Geometry ******
by SkySamuelle
Summary
     Mystic Falls will be never be the same again after Founders' Day. Not
     with Katherine and a recently turned Jeremy allying to resurrect Anna
     and Pearl. Not with Stefan and Elena on the receiving end of
     Katherine's sick games. And Bonnie and Damon? Well, they are stuck at
     the epicenter of everything. S2AU.
***** Chapter 1 *****

Title: Sacred Geometry
Author:Sky Samuelle
Characters:Bonnie and Damon centric, but Katherine, Jeremy, Elena and Stefan
will be nearly as heavily featured. This is probably as close to an ensemble
fic as I'll never get.
Pairings:Bonnie/Damon, Stefan/Elena, Jeremy/Anna
Rating: Mature
Timeline: Post 1.22
Summary:Mystic Falls will be never be the same again after Founders' Day. Not
with Katherine and Jeremy allying to resurrect Anna and Pearl. Not with Stefan
and Elena on the receiving end of Katherine's sick games. And Bonnie and Damon?
Well, they are stuck at the epicenter of everything.



   
Chapter 1
Sometimes Damon wonders if Elena even suspects how alluring she makes herself
to him, handinghim crumbs of herself so easily, even while she gives her
everything to his little brother. As someone who has spent so many decades
focusing every waking thought and every fantasy on a whore with her same face,
Damon found in that human girl an unexpected comfort. Her sympathy, her
understanding, her friendship… they are tokens he has not gained or wanted or
sought, and yet she gave them anyway to him. So effortlessly, whereas Katherine
had forced him to sweat and bend backwards for the merest glimpse behind her
flawless mask.
Damon doesn't understand why, in a moment of necessity, Elena would call Stefan
first, Bonnie second and ignore him completely after… after that kiss. It was a
long, steamy kiss and it showed that she wanted him as much as he wanted her,
regardless of how well she hid it.
So it s offensive that she is forgetting it so soon. It's offensive that Damon
is forced to welcome himself into Bonnie's car to get to the Gilberts' without
looking like a complete fool.
The witch, of course, manages to ignore him completely, except that one filthy,
disdainful look she threw at him after she found him occupying the passenger's
side.
She didn't even bother trying to send him on his way, this is how much of a
nuisance she considered him. Despite the situation, Damon found the fact more
than a little disquieting. Nobody had ever truly dismissed him since he had
abandoned his mortality, and even before that his looks and personality had
made it a rare occurrence.
He spares a fleeting thought to those not-so-distant days when the little witch
knew nothing about her heritage and he could stalk her at his leisure, in his
crow form. Damon has never been the one to appreciate the vestal virgin
attitude, but Bonnie' s childlike warmth and purity were such an impressive
contrast to Emily's frigid, all-knowing standoffishness that it got to him. He
remembers staring at her from the tree in front of her bedroom window as she
undressed with her blinds open, thinking of her like one of those juicy,
ripening summer fruits you can't avoid wanting to sink your teeth into.
He misses having that level of control over human life. It was an addictive
rush.
Be as it may, once the unlikely duo has reached the Gilbert household, they
find Elena rushing out onto the porch even before Bonnie stepped out of the
car, Stefan practically attached to her side.
Damon maintains his neutral visage while the brunette clutches the witch in a
brief but violent hug before pulling her toward the house. He expects to either
be ignored again, or that the very sight of him will make Elena fidgety- what
happens is that Elena acknowledges his presence with a nod, without questioning
it, and then gets her explaining done, still grasping at Stefan's hand like she
hasn't a single worry at his reaction. Which is stupid. Elena should know that
this is exactly the kind of thing that would push Damon to enlighten his
brother with some really revelatory comments.
"It's horrible. When I got home, he was here, dead and I saw his fingers on the
floor. He's been drained! And Jenna was upstairs, asleep. I couldn't wake her
until Stefan got here. We think she was compelled. God, what if…what if Isobel
is the one who did it? I'm the one who led her to us! "
"Elena"- Bonnie' s voice is firm, smooth and soothing as water- "you can't
think of things like that now. It's not- "
"I just want to find Jeremy"– Elena interrupts her friend, engaging her gaze
with wide, terrified eyes- "We couldn't find him anywhere. I need to know he's
all right. I can't lose him too."
"Of course not," - Bonnie nods, squeezing the other girl's arm reassuringly,
keeping her tone low and calm because Elena has never looked this broken- "just
give me one of his shirts. "
They go in and the witch tries not to pay too much attention to the bloody mess
the kitchen has become. It's not so much because the spectacle of a corpse and
his missing fingers turns her stomach, but rather the fact she really, really
hopes that just being here won't trigger a brand-new gory vision.
The girls rush up the stairs, the two vampires striding after them, and they
get to Jeremy's bedroom without wasting time on other words.
'Something doesn't add up' –Damon thinks all along. Elena and Stefan are too
genuinely unaffected by him, and he needs to shut off the hungry desire to lash
out at everyone in the room to reason the situation out clearly.
This is when he notices Elena smells different than she did when he had kissed
her. He had been so distracted by Anna's death and how strongly it had reminded
him of that last day he had lived as a mortal, than he had not paid too much
attention to it before. The Elena he has kissed smelled like expensive perfume,
a spicy aroma that masked the natural scent of her skin all too well. This
Elena just smells like herself.
It occurs to Damon that he should be able to smell at least traces of perfume
on Elena, and that vampires smell much fainter scents than humans.
He recalls Elena's wary, circumspect body language when she met him on her
porch, then considers her aloofness when Jenna had discovered them in their
little transgression...
When Jenna had invited her in.
Jonathan Gilbert could not have died much later, could he?
And he had been drained by a vampire who knew better than to leave his ring on.
A vampire like Katherine, he considers, dread and trepidation mixing in with
rage.
Jeremy hands the sketch to Katherine, forcing a sense of calm on himself as her
fingers linger against his a fraction of second more than necessary. He won't
give her the satisfaction of seeing him flinching.
Even if he's really starting to see why Anna used thatfaintly disdainfultone
when talking about her mother's oldest friend.
Anna… thinking of her is almost too much. Everything he used to feel is
heightened now, and those emotions he had started to find relief in where she
was concerned are no exception.
He chooses not to shut that burning nostalgia off, because Anna was amazing and
she deserves to be missed, and he is the only one left who can do that.
A wicked grin spreads over Katherine's glossed lips as she looks appreciatively
up and down her drafted portrait. "It will do," she hums, folding the paper to
tuck it in her leather jacket's pocket, her eyes lit up with anticipation of
something the boy truly doesn't care to know.
"Tell me how we'll do it," he asks instead, trying to look tougher than he
feels. There's a very small fragment of him that wants to impress this cruel,
hardened vampire who wears his sister's face.
No, maybe 'impress' is not the right word. What he wants is to learn. To be as
indestructible as she appears.
Katherine flutters her eyelashes coquettishly at him, leaning closer and
invading his personal space.
He shivers but doesn't back away. This pleases her enough to be more complacent
toward his curiosity.
"Don't get any weird ideas in your crafty little head, Gilbert. You can't go
and resurrect your other girlfriend as well. I admire you for trying,
nonetheless. Eternity has no taste if you set limitations to what you can have.
"
Surprise scatters across Jeremy's features very briefly before a determined
blankness comes to cover it. He doesn't appreciate the insinuation over his
assumed disloyalties, but he won't deny that he has been thinking about Vicky
as well. Vicky didn't deserve to die, either, and he could do anything to
rectify that mistake, why wouldn't he have to try? It didn't need to be a
betrayal.
"You know a lot of stuff for someone who is supposed to have been in town for
such a short time. "
Katherine gives him a particularly chilling version of a lopsided grin. "My
sire is a Precognitive. He sees a lot of stuff, as you call it, before it even
happens. Feeding on humans gives us all sorts of intriguing abilities over
time. I seem to recall that Annabelle was very good with controlling animals. I
wonder how strong you will be, if you live long enough…the potential in you
Newborns fascinates me. "
"Is this why you turn so many of them?"
It's a bad idea, to get so brazenly sarcastic to her face. He knew it even
before her hand clutched around his throat and squeezed so hard that it felt
like his lungs were suddenly collapsing.
"Yes"- she whispers in his ear, then effortlessly hoists him up so his feet are
dangling in the air. - "I'm the boss, Jere. Respect it, always."
And with that she launches his body against the wall like it weights no more
than a ragdoll. His ribs crack painfully during the impact.
"The blood of a sire, the blood of a childe, a talented necromancer. That's
what we need to resurrect a vampire. It's even the one reason you are not ashes
yet. Stay smart and I won't be forced to forget it."
"Okay"- Jeremy coughs, struggling to get back on his feet and massaging his
sore throat- "I got it. You are the boss of this show, I'm the henchman. Good
for you."
Katherine laughs, seemingly amused by his attitude.
"I only hope you have a really good incentive to convince Bonnie to help,
because I don't think she will be very collaborative. "
"I've heard she is a real white hat"-Katherine admits with an unconcerned shrug
–"but it'll be extremely entertaining to work on that."
"Do you think you can corrupt her?"-Jeremy snorts, passing a hand through his
hair in exasperation- "It sounds like a rather long-term plan. Let's just find
another witch."
"No"- the other vampire deadpans, rolling her eyes upwards mockingly- "I like
this one right fine and her lineage has a history of great power. I don't
settle for second best. "
But, -he wants to reply, instinctively- I want Anna now. The thought must be
all over his face, because Katherine only gives one assessing look at him
before shaking her head in disapproval and scoffing:
"Oh, stop being such a mood-killer scarecrow. It won't take all that long,
ifyou begin spilling all you know about her. "
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything and anything. Her sense of right and wrong is what keeps a witch
caring about the consequences of her spells. If we can blur those lines in her
mind, it will take very little to sway her to our side. "
Bonnie holds one of Jeremy's favorite sweatshirts to her chest and closes her
eyes, shifting her focus from her five 'external' senses to her inner one,
reaching out for a glimpse of a boy who was almost family to her. At first it's
like groping through the darkness for a solid support, finding nothing but void
anywhere. Then it changes, and that chilly, freaky sensation she associates
with Stefan and his kind descends on her. It's like icy fingertips just grazing
her skin, whispery voices barely outside her ear. It's Death.
Suddenly she finds him, enveloped in a bottomless dusk: Jeremy's face and hands
are covered with blood, his eyes engorged and black with an animalistic thirst.
He's licking the crimson liquid off his wrist with an unhurried relish. There
are countless corpses at his feet.
Bonnie opens her eyes with a grimace of revulsion.
"What have you seen?"
It's Stefan who asks, his hands comfortingly squeezing his girlfriend's
shoulders. Elena doesn't appear to have the strength to do anything but lean
her back against his chest and gaze at her best friend with a mute terror.
Bonnie looks back at her dejectedly, breathes out the wretchedness she feels
gripping her in a vice to find the nerve to say what she has to.
"I'm sorry, Elena - he's already a vampire. That's the one thing I could see."
Elena hides her face in the crook of Stefan's arm before pain becomes apparent
on it, her whole body shuddering as her boyfriend presses her closer and kisses
the top of her head.
It's such a transparent display of intimacy that Bonnie needs to look away from
it, finding Damon's figure on the threshold, his arms crossed before his chest
and his expression too vacant to be natural.
Bonnie allows her gaze to linger on him until he responds to her attention. His
eyes are not empty like his features but they are pensive, a cruel ferocity
flaring behind their superficial coldness at her inspection.
What do you know?- the witch wants to demand, but instinct has her repressing
the urge in favor of a wiser circumspection. 
 

 
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Summary
     Katherine keeps on scheming, Elena finds her anchor in Stefan, Damon
     and Bonnie are still going in mildly hostile circles around each
     other

Chapter 2

 
There was nothing Katherine Pierce loved more than breaking hearts. You could
say it was because, once upon a mortal time, hers was repeatedly broken, but
honestly her human history wasn’t any more tragic than average. And she has
always been a petty, manipulative, and ambitious creature.
As a matter of fact, her ambition was her first downfall back when she was no
more than the cunning fourteen-year-old daughter of the cook of a British duke.
She had been blossoming fast into her womanhood and too proud to easily accept
those daily humiliations that came along with her social status.   Perhaps
she’d been overconfident, thinking she could actually seduce the youngest, most
naive son of the Duke to marry her. Or perhaps her mistake was giving up her
virtue before a wedding ring was on her finger.
Maybe…maybe she had simply been in love, too reckless and silly to not accept
running away with that beautiful, romantic boy. For a few months, it was the
closest to happiness she ever came…but then, as it should have been obvious to
foresee, her young lover got tired of her and returned to his family. He left
her without a penny which forced her, like many other dishonored women, to
whore herself out in order to survive.
Stefan Salvatore had reminded her so much of that one, first, stupid love. It
was very therapeutic to pit him against his adored older brother as much it was
satisfying to plague his simple, rational mind with constant thoughts of her.
Ah, to force Stefan to love her more and more every day, while every fiber of
his being fought against all that she stood for was an uniquely empowering
experience.
Having Damon under her thumb was just as sweet, but for completely different
reasons. She had understood right away the kind of man he was: so passionate
and so very lost, utterly stifled from the kind of life and society he was born
into.
Damon was so completely enraptured with her from the first fatal glance that no
compulsion was ever necessary. All it took it was a bit of strategic pushing,
the occasional well-placed insinuation or lingering caress, and he was past the
edge. The way he easily grew to depend on her was fascinating , because what
really drew him in was her darkness, or perhaps the absolute freedom that came
with it. Yes, Damon Salvatore was thirsting for freedom even before Katherine
came along, and he was so caught in that quiet, colorless desperation which
nobody noticed that he didn’t care how he got out. He was so beautiful in his
quest for self-destruction, like a black flame eager to burn itself out.
It was pleasantly surprising to Katherine that she could now sense the same
aching abyss inside Jeremy Gilbert. Empathy was the one gift no one would
suspect immortality had bestowed on her, but it was definitely the most useful
weapon in her arsenal. It made manipulating humans and vampires alike so much
easier, so she was extremely careful not to expose it . Only her sire and Emily
had ever known about that special ability of hers and certainly not because she
had revealed it of her own free will.
‘So, what am I going to do with little Jeremy?’  She wonders, mildly intrigued
by the possibilities. His devotion to Anna is useful for now, so she won’t mess
with it. Even if his eagerness got on her nerves. Jeremy still has to grasp the
main thing about being immortal – nothing truly matters.
Not death, life, love, or even hatred.
It was only the games you could play with those that got you past the boredom
and magnified every moment of your existence. 
Katherine likes the idea of resurrecting her old friend, but she is in no hurry
to execute her sire’s orders and bring their plan to fruition. She is more set
on enjoying the ride than she is on achieving the endgame, although it’s
starkly clear that failure is not an option. Katherine Pierce always gets what
she wants. Always.
Right now, it’s important that her true purpose remains a secret, and it’s
unfortunate that her privacy has been compromised by her chance encounter with
Damon. She would need to keep the brothers distracted, which was going to be a
lovely challenge more than an actual complication.
Katherine leaves the sketch Jeremy had made for her on Stefan’s bed, right
under his pillow. She lightly kisses the red rose blossom before placing it
over the bedspread.
“Oh, we’ll have so much fun together, my dear heart,” she murmurs, satisfied.
---
Damon has always been a selfish creature, and it won’t change just because he
actually wants to keep fair Elena Gilbert safe. Telling he has met and kissed
Katherine will probably be inevitable at some point, but it’s not even worth
considering right now. The humiliation of being fooled by that bitch once more
is too fresh and the emotions of those around him too volatile. He won’t share
what he knows before he has put together a plan, or before the truth has become
a means to gather some control on his little brother and his girlfriend.     
He doesn’t even have the decency to feel guilty about lying which is
comforting, considering how nauseatingly soft he has behaved recently. “If
Jeremy is a vampire, it at least explains how John met his maker.”
The blunt lie is out of his mouth before he can fully weigh the consequences.
If they think Jeremy is the culprit, they won’t be looking out for Katherine.
Which is a risk but one worthy of taking in order to gain some time.   
Elena flinches at his insinuation, blinking fast to not cry while she presses
herself harder against Stefan’s side. The display makes Damon bitter because
this should be him, either with Katherine or Elena, and instead he keeps
getting burnt while his useless brother gets everything handed to him
effortlessly. 
It’s disgusting.
Stefan doesn’t reply either, just hugs Elena and runs his palms all over her
back, like she is a child in need of comforting after a nightmare.
That’s disgusting too, the way those two physically respond to each other
nearly instinctively. Damon doesn’t want to see it, but the truth is there and
it scratches deep.
You see how difficult it is to not hate Stefan when he  alwayshas it better?
“We need to call the police. This will look suspicious enough as it is.”
Bonnie’s voice is firm and practical as it cuts the thick silence, and
everybody turns to look at her at the same time.
“Or we might just misplace the corpse so they find it somewhere else,” Damon
dishes back, not comfortable with allowing her to call the shots.
“And why would we do that?” the witch inquires, tilting her head and
condescendingly arching her brows at him. Just the sort of attitude that Damon
finds both endearing and irksome about her.
“So the Sheriff won’t hunt Jeremy down before we do?”  he provokes her with a
shrug and a superior smirk. “The general conclusion will be kind of hard to
miss once they interrogate Jenna and find out she was alone with Jeremy and
Uncle J right before she fell asleep. Especially considering that Anna was with
Gilbert Junior when they have taken her. ”
“How do you know that?” Stefan asked, turning his attention away from his
girlfriend, his gaze and voice reflecting a hint of suspicion Elena picks on
and mirrors right away. 
‘They are like fucking Siamese twins. ’ Damon considers, nauseated and angry
with himself for ever expecting differently.
“I came over to tell Jeremy personally that Anna was dead. He looked quite
alive then.” Despite what he feels, he sounds nothing but elegantly bored.
Elena glances back and forth between her boyfriend and best friend as if
waiting to know from them what the better course of action is. Damon finds
himself extremely irritated by her behavior, for both the spontaneity she is
slighting him with- again- and her transparent show of weakness. He has never
seen Elena so fragile and for a reason he can’t pinpoint it doesn’t sit well
with him: he just wants to grab her and shake some sense into her.
  “Perhaps it’s better if we keep Jeremy’s disappearance from the Council as
long as we can,” Stefan admits, meeting Bonnie’ s austere gaze with an
expression that can only be described as apologetic. “He must be very confused
right now. If we can find him before he feeds again, he can still learn to keep
his appetites in check. It could help motivate him if he had the chance to hold
on to his human life for at least a couple of years. ”
Bonnie nods reluctantly, pressing her lips in a grim line and turning on her
heels to leave the room. All this truly means is that she will be doing very
questionable things to conceal vampire tracks.
But it’s Jeremy, so what is she supposed to do?  
“Just stay here while I take care of it,” she sighs, not surprised nor pleased
as Damon’s footsteps follow her into the hallway. 
--
“Do you think Jenna will be all right tomorrow morning?” Elena asks quietly,
her fingers gripping the hem Stefan’s shirt too tightly once they are alone.
This is her breaking point, and she can’t stand to move.
There’s no reason Jenna should not be fine and dandy in the morning, but she
needs the reassurance regardless. Remembering how upset Jeremy has been
recently with her for erasing his memory just makes her feel guiltier for
allowing Stefan to compel her back to sleep, right after he had used compulsion
to awake her. She knows Stefan is not perfect- he sometimes makes decisions on
her account, and he may be exasperatingly secretive about certain parts of his
life, but in the end, he’s her anchor and his presence by her side never fails
to make her feel like a better person than she’s ever been. With him she’s
stronger, more forgiving, more understanding, and more self-aware.  More
alive,in every connotation of the term.
Sometimes she thinks that, ironically, when he’s around she is like a
sunflower, gravitating toward the sun and feeding off his reflected light,
although the distance between ground and sky is so extensive.
Even now, just holding onto Stefan makes the sheer devastation she is feeling
bearable. She had so many questions for Jonathan, and now she’ll never get to
ask them. She will never get to know if under the uninviting surface there was
a man she could have cared for, or if he was going to be just as disappointing
as Isobel.
Jeremy is dead. Jeremy is a vampire  –the thought keeps echoing inside her
head, yet she can’t really wrap her mind around it. She doesn’t know how to
feel about his turning. Maybe it was him who killed her father. After all, her
father had caused Anna’s death. Or maybe they could find him and Stefan could
succeed where he had failed with Vicky. Maybe he is just another person she has
loved and lost. Or is going to lose.
It’s terrible, the not knowing.
“She’s going to be perfect.” Stefan strokes her hair soothingly and while his
lips brush against her neck, his tongue grazes her skin like tasting her was a
natural reaction he can barely contain. It’s with little things like this that
he holds her together. Elena shivers, leans more into his body. 
“Stay here with me, tonight? I don’t feel like leaving Jenna alone, but I can’t
stand- ” She doesn’t finish her phrase with ‘being away from you now’ because
the words feel silly and inappropriate on her tongue. Yet, the prospective of
spending the night here without him to keep her from splintering into thousand
pieces is terrifying.   
“Where else would I be?” Stefan asked, pressing a kiss to her temple.
                 
--
There are no words to describe the spectacle Bonnie finds waiting for her in
the kitchen. Anything she fleetingly imagined pales before the real horror of
the scene. The Gilbert’s kitchen is almost unrecognizable, with random, large
spatters of blood abundantly staining walls, floor tiles, and cabinets. 
Whoever did this, it was clear he had stabbed Elena’s biological father with a
wild unrestrained relish.
To believe Jeremy is capable of this level of brutality hurts.
 Jonathan Gilbert’s corpse is slouched against the pale cabinets, his livid
lips disclosed in a silent scream, his eyes wide open but unseeing, the large
knife still dug in his gut; the front of his shirt blotted a dark red.  His
throat sports a broad, gaping wound, like a vicious animal ripped repeatedly at
the exposed flesh just for the pleasure of it.  His fingers are scattered on
the floor, in front and beside the body.
Bonnie feels the nausea mounting in the pit of her stomach, tastes bile in her
mouth. Her eyelids drift shut and she can sense the fresh imprint violence has
left on every object around her like a dense fog hovering on the very air she
breathes. 
Shivering, she sees hands eagerly stabbing, observes through another’s mad eyes
Jonathan’s visage twisted in agony, feels the savage joy at the scent of blood
thickening into the air with every  deep gash inflicted, the rising hunger at
the sight of crimson liquid oozing from each wound.
The impulse to gag is there, intense, and difficult to swallow down, but she
manages to wrap her arms around herself and force her body to relax. Damon
stands behind her, grips her elbow as her step falters.
Her forceful and useless attempt to tug herself free of his iron grasp almost
causes her to fall backwards when he suddenly releases her, smirking smugly.
The fleeting distraction is enough to let her psychic powers overcome the
obscure imprint of violence hovering all over the place. It’s a poison snaking
through her defenses and forcing her body to react with a spontaneous
revulsion. Bonnie runs to the sink and retches.
“That was attractive” Damon mocks, loud and clear, as she wipes her mouth with
the back of her hand. 
“Fuck you,” she dishes back aggressively, without turning, washing her hands.
There’s something inside her that feels acutely like she should explain that it
was not the carnage that turned her stomach but its psychic impressions, but
just because Damon acts like everyone needs to try and prove their worth to him
doesn’t mean she owes him anything. Even if being perceived as weak by the
arrogant asshole bothers her.
“Are you offering?”
“Do you think this is really the time for disgusting innuendo?”
Her features as she tilts her head to face him compose a perfect mask of
loathing. His grin dims a little, appearing unnaturally fixed for barely a
second or two, but he replies like the usual cocky smartass.
“There’s no such thing as the wrong time for innuendo…or for concealing
corpses.”  
It may be perverse, but taking his frustration out on her sensitive self is
taking the edge off his rage. He feels much more ready to focus on the matter
at hand now. Judgy little witches are apparently good for something else other
than creating unwelcomed debts. Who knew?
“You get funnier by the second,” she states, her voice as flat as her mood
because for some reason she just can’t persuade herself to be smart and let him
have the last, meaningless word.
“And you get stiffer. Can you actually to do anything about this mess?”
The more Bonnie looks like she is ready to murder him, the more vindicated
Damon feels. It’s magic.
“I can fix the kitchen,” her tone is lilting, accompanied by a falsely bright,
sarcastic imitation of smile, “but I believe that relocating mangled bodies is
your field of expertise.”
Before he can come up with some other apt comment  to humiliate and/or provoke
her, the witch is reaching for the salt jar and turning her back on him, a low
murmur of an alien language rising into the air while she walks around the
kitchen tossing handfuls of salt against walls and cabinets alike.
“I thought so,” he throws at her anyway, taking extra care to sound as sardonic
as possible. After all, if he allowed himself to feel anything, he would be
having a truly terrible night, and misery loves company.
The way the heavy scent of blood starts to recede in response to her chanting,
even before the blood stains begin to discolor is kind of …interesting to
watch, the vampire admits to himself.
It’s a short-lived acknowledgement, of course, since Damon shakes the thought
off contemptuously to collect the scattered fingers off the floor and fold them
in a napkin. He tucks them in one of Jonathan Gilbert’s pockets and hoists the
body over his shoulder.  
--
 
--
 

***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Summary
     Damon and Stefan have an harsh confrontation that springs an
     unwelcome epiphany on the older Salvatore and spreads Stelena
     goodness all over my pages. Jeremy's involvement in Katherine's plans
     gets him progressively more distant from his humanity.
 Chapter 3 
  
The morning after, when Stefan returns to the Salvatore residence, there are
only ugly, ugly surprises waiting for him.
“Let me see if I can understand this better,” the younger Salvatore breathes
out, pinching the bridge of his nose with that particular mix of resignation,
disgust, and anger that only his brother ever elicits from him, “you were
supposed to get the body of Elena’s father somewhere other than her house, so
you decided to take it to our basement and melt it in acid instead?”
“That’s pretty much it,” Damon waves the implicit reprimand away, looking
studiously bored while he pours himself a glass of gin.
“Has it not occurred to you that this might get Elena even more upset than she
already is? I thought you were set on at least pretending you care about her!”
Despite Stefan’s resolution to say this calmly, his voice raises several
notches by the end of that sentence. It gets Damon to finally look at him, but
the amused expression with which his outburst is received does nothing to
improve things.
“He was her father for like five seconds before he met the Grim Reaper, and he
was her least favorite uncle before that. I loathed John for way longer.  Don’t
I deserve some satisfaction? I even tried offing the guy before Isobel came
along with her pesky accidental revelations. Doesn’t this say anything to you?
I had so much pent-up frustration to work on… ”
“You are unbelievable,” Stefan growls, rushing vampire-speed up the stairs
before his turmoil can entertain his asshole of a brother some more. What was
he thinking, trusting Damon could hold his raging psychosis at bay for once?  
How is he supposed to explain this to Elena? It’s not like she doesn’t have
enough on her plate as it is…
“A word of advice? You should nottell it to your girlfriend anytime soon!” a
sarcastic and unrepentant snicker reaches him from downstairs, “We don’t want
to traumatize her further, do we?”
Seething, Stefan slams his bedroom’s door soundly closed and wonders why he
bothered arguing with Bonnie and risking his neck for someone this intent on
ruining anything he touches. 
It must be some fine form of masochism - there’s probably a psychiatric
definition for it.
He just wants to lie down a little and reason out the best option, but as soon
he has walks up to his bed, he is frowning at a red rose resting elegantly on
the pillow.
What game are you playing now, brother?
Stefan can’t say what instinct brings him to pull aside the bedspread and
upturn the pillow, but as soon he does, he knows he won’t like how this day is
turning around. The papersheet he unfolds none too patiently is a sketch of
Elena’s face and upper body, a crooked smile on her lips and a flirtatious
light behind her completely unnaturally black eyes. 
“Damon!” he snarls, furious and confused, “What the hell does this mean?”
“What are you droning on about now?” his brother chuckles from the edge of the
threshold.
“This,” Stefan waves the sketch in the other vampire’s face, and Damon frowns,
his features darkening as he snatches the paper from his hands.
“It’s not my doing, genius.”
“Oh, really?”
The aggressive sharpness of Stefan’s sarcasm, however justified, awakes Damon’s
appetite for emotional wreckage. That and the scent of sex and Elena that still
hangs around his younger sibling.
“Have I mentioned Katherine is back in town?”
Damon’s smile as he announces it is nothing short of smoldering, the cool blue-
green of his eyes glittering with the light of perverse enjoyment. It’s
transparently clear he’s feeding off the effect of his revelation. The way
Stefan’s jaw instantly slackens and his forehead wrinkles more than usual gives
him a unique, thrilling kind of satisfaction he has quite missed lately.
“What?”
“Last night I saw her hanging around Gilbert’s house as I was leaving. I talked
to her, smelled her, and even tasted her. You can thank me for not giving my
game away by letting her believe I thought she was Elena as I kissed her long
and hard. ”
Damon is tempted to pat himself on the back for a well-played lie: now, if
Katherine tried to mock his stupidity in front of Stefan and Elena, it would
sound less like the truth and more like one of her usual mind-fuckeries.
“You knew Katherine was probably responsible for whatever happened to Jonathan
and Jeremy, and you kept it quiet?”
Stefan can feel the anger thrumming hot and hungry in his bloodstream and for
one increasingly bloodthirsty minute all he wants is to behead his brother, to
stake him, to tear his limbs apart. Not because he has kept a secret, but
because he endangered Elena with his fucked up games….
Then it occurs to him that Damon would never let Katherine go so easily, and
it’s like his veins are suddenly filled with ice. “You can’t possibly want her
back after the way she humiliated you.”
“I want revenge.”
“Enough to leave Elena and her family in danger? I don’t believe it,” Stefan
says, more rational now, the bloodlust receding.
“You should,” Damon insists, shrugging, because being perceived as evil is
still better than being perceived as a fool. Elena will forgive him eventually,
as she did for Isobel and Caroline and everything else. Elena’s grudges against
him last only as long as his actions’ consequences, and once Jeremy is returned
to her, he’ll be able to pursue her again. Perhaps he’ll have an extra
advantage as well if he plays the pity card well or plays a pivotal role in
getting her problematic sibling on the recovery road.
“You thought you were kissing Elena,” Stefan guesses, his stomach clenching at
the thought. It doesn’t make sense because he already knew Damon wanted Elena.
If he had no faith in Damon’s brotherly loyalty, how could he have the power to
disappoint him? “I think you believed it was Elena all along until we found
Jonathan dead.”
“Please, I’m perfectly able to tell the difference between my vampire ex and
your human sweetheart.”
Nothing in Damon sounds or looks defensive, but Stefan goes with his gut
feeling anyway, regardless of how unpleasant the reality thusly painted is.
 “You must be right,” Stefan snorts, shaking his head as his lips curl in a
thin, bitter smirk, “If you loved anyone but yourself, you would know the
difference.”
If you truly loved Elena - Stefan holds back from adding- you would never
mistake her for anyone else. You would know each and every shifting nuance in
her scent when she is angry, scared, sad, and even excited.  You would know
every movement of her hands, every turn of her lips. You would recognize her
walk and the way she carries herself. If you saw a miracle in every gesture of
hers, her resemblance to Katherine would be almost nothing. You would know the
difference. 
There’s no sense of victory to be found in having Damon looking silently after
him as he walks away since Stefan barely notices.
At least when it was about Katherine, he could blame Damon’s ruthless single-
mindedness on compulsion at first and on genuine love after.
It’s not until he’s knocking on Elena’s door that the storm brewing inside his
mind finally quiets. All it takes is seeing her there, hearing her soft-voiced
‘Hey’ as she stands aside to let him in.
Just like all it takes for her to see he’s troubled is a deeper look into his
dark eyes.  “What’s wrong?”
They sit on her bed, and he tells her everything. With every word he
pronounces, the anger and the disappointment slowly burn away to nothing,
leaving him empty. But only until her hands are threading through his hair and
her arms are folding around his shoulders.
Her body heat envelops him soothingly while his palms run up and down her back,
possessively keeping her as close as he can.  “We never get a break, do we?”
she sighs wistfully in his ear.
“You are not surprised.”
“Let’s just say that, with your brother, I’m learning to expect getting
disappointed.”
Elena is almost shocked to hear herself say this because deep down she is so
very furious for how callously Damon has disposed of Jonathan and for making
everything so much harder than it needs to be, but she also knows it’s the
truth. Damon is like a sleek, beautiful leopard: he can be mesmerizing to watch
and he can like you enough to allow you the thrill of petting him, but you know
he may turn on you for whatever reason at some point.
It’s easier to diminish her anger when Stefan’s hurt is so fresh, and he’s in
her arms. She hurts for him and his disappointment more than she does for hers.
Elena Gilbert has never been -admittedly- neither the most selfless nor the
most selfish soul, but Stefan’s pain will always come first for her. It’s
amazing and new and scary at the same time, but she wouldn’t give it up for the
world.
So why does she feel guilt flaring up in a dark, remote corner of her heart?
  --
Stefan’s parting words stay with Damon longer than anyone of them might have
supposed because in following days he keeps dreaming about the night he thought
he was kissing Elena.
Sometimes in his dreams, he knows it’s Katherine right away:he rips her heart
out of her chest after kissing her hello. Or fucks her roughly against the door
before cradling her beautiful head in his hands and tearing it off her neck,
with one swift and violent tug. 
 Other times it’s really Elena, sidestepping his kiss and sternly warning she
loves Stefan: he cuts off her reprimands by snapping her neck in one furious,
practiced motion. Or Elena gives in, looks at him with guilty longing in her
eyes and kisses him back languidly…she’ll beg him to bite her next, and he’ll
feel her go sweetly in his firm hold, rebelling only feebly.
It always ends with death, with him awaking hard and throbbing and full of
angry appetite. Any search for Jeremy and Katherine he and Stefan have
conducted has turned out fruitless so far, and this only makes his sleep more
and more troubled.
Damon likes pretending he doesn’t understand why, but he knows very well that
there’s only so long he will be able to deny himself the truth. Obsession is
not love.
--
Jeremy learns something new about being vampire every day, and with each
passing day it seems more and more like his life from before is enveloped in a
fog, like a dream or a nightmare so very distant from his present.
There are times he feels so numb that he even wonders if he is real. He wonders
if he really loved Anna or if she was just convenient, questions whether she’s
worth staying with Katherine instead of simply leaving Mystic Falls behind once
and for all. But then he remembers how Anna was the first real friend he has
ever had, how she held on to him as the device hurt her, how girly she could be
when she wasn’t trying to act badass.
Anna made him feel connected to the living world for the first time since his
parents had died, whereas everything with Vicky had felt magnified and surreal
like a hallucination induced by acid.
He’s certain that, at the very least, he loved –still loves- Anna as a
cherished friend, and he remembers he had a fascination with the delicate,
graceful curves of her body, the snow-like paleness of her skin. Had he not
read somewhere that ‘Love is just friendship set on fire’?
Jeremy wants to be Anna’s hero, the first face her eyes see when she awakens to
life again. He wants to see the joyful gratitude on her face as he tells her
that he has given her mother back to her too. That’s what drives him to go on,
and perhaps once he is done Anna will connect him to the world once more.
Until that day comes, the next best thing seems to be stalking Bonnie. Jeremy
isn’t entirely sure why the action gave him such a reprieve, but since the
night he and Katherine started his new habit (she had been teaching him the
finer points of trailing and ambushing a prey), he has developed a fixation on
it. It occasionally disturbs him how much  he enjoys executing Katherine’s
bidding, playing surveillance on Bonnie while remaining unseen, basking in her
scent.
The witch wears the skin of his sister’s best friend, but he no longer sees her
like that. The only thing Jeremy sees as he looks at her is a prey, and the
more he follows her around, the more he sees her struggling with the feeling of
being spied on, the more he longs for a kill. He pictures drinking her blood
until the last drop, fangs aching to tear at her flesh, and he imagines it
would be the last line to cross in destroying the boy he used to be.
It’s not compassion or remorse stopping him every time, but the knowledge that
he needs Bonnie for whatever necromantic hocus pocus will return Anna to his
kisses and hands. 
--
Bonnie met Samuel Garwain at her grandmother’s funeral when he introduced
himself as one of her top students and assistant. They’ve kept in touch via
email since then, and they’ve occasionally seen each other for lunch or coffee
since she came back to Mystic Falls. He has long hair of the darkest brown, a
tall and lean figure, and eyes dark and penetrating enough to rival Stefan’s;
the coolest winged snake tattoo around his forearm, and he looks sexy without
even trying. Yet her favorite thing about him is that their casual coffee dates
are the one secret she can keep for herself, separated from the drama that
touches the rest of her life. Seeing Sam is helping her redefine her version of
‘normal’, which might sound strange to anyone else, considering Sam is a druid
with a weird interest for manga and Ufology. Yet having him to talk to has been
providential in a time of her life she when she lost the one person who could
guide her through her rediscovery of life as a witch. It doesn’t hurt that,
given Sam’s older college student status, they can flirt a bit without aiming
to make their friendship into something more. It’s like enjoying the best part
of dating without the stress and the responsibilities that come with it. And at
the same time, it’s stark evidence that having magical powers doesn’t mean
being cut off from ordinary reality, but rather being privy to an extraordinary
world.
Tonight Bonnie and Sam are meeting by the ‘Moonshine,’ a downtown pub owned by
his cousins, Gwen and Rowan. Bonnie feels like she’s stepping on a whole other
planet every time she gets past the door.  Witches hang frequently about the
Moonshine both because it’s owned by witches and because Rowan sells mandrake
roots and other rare magical ingredients under the counter, so the pub gives
off a very homely vibe to her.
It’s a place where she might start a conversation like this one without feeling
self-conscious:
“I think someone’s been stalking me.”
Sam puts down his beer and looks no less impassive than usual. “Do you still
feel like you are being watched?”   
Bonnie nods, cringing a little “It’s been getting worse. It’s like an itch I
can’t scratch, and incidentally I get that feeling only at night.”
Sam’s cringe mirrors hers. “You are thinking about vampires.”
“Someone I used to know has been turned recently.”
“It sucks to be you, then.” Rowan pops up from behind them, gracelessly laying 
the tray with Bonnie’ s ordered cider down. Her waist-long blond hair, streaked
with purple locks almost hit Bonnie’ s face as the other witch decides to sit
beside her, but the interruption is more amusing than bothering. The girl is
such a hurricane of brute energy that it’s hard holding it against her.
“Ever heard of respecting your customer’s privacy?”  Sam reproaches his cousin
with a low, dark tone.
It hardly dents Rowan’s over-board perkiness. “I own a bar, doofus. People come
here so their privacy can be invaded while I serve them massive quantities of
alcohol. I probably know the darkest secrets of half the town.”
“Now, that’s a scary thought,” Bonnie chuckles. “All of that unsavory knowledge
in your sneaky, freakishly-little hands.”
“Funny, Bennett,” Rowan snickers, rolling her eyes, “but if a bloodsucker has
taken a shine to you, you better do something fast. Longer it goes on, worse
the risk to your safety. It excites their predatory instinct, and a cocked up,
fang-y maniac is a pain in the ass. Don’t wait until the leeches decide to draw
the hunt closed: they get more unpredictable and sadistic, and you will get
antsy. Draw the beast out and set it on fire before it gets it in its head to
play with you.”
However Bonnie appreciates Rowan’s experience-proof advice and however little
she likes vampires in general, it disturbs her more than a little that the
older witch refers to them as ‘it’. There are a lot of negative comments she
might bring up in reference to her history with vampires, but she wouldn’t
accuse them of being ‘things’.
Not wanting to give Jeremy’s identity away, she chooses her next words with
particular attention: “What if my blood is not what it wants?”
“All more of a reason to strike first,” Rowan’s cerulean eyes are stormy as she
leans toward her friend, “you let one of them exploit your powers, it won’t be
long before others follow the example. You would never know any peace.”
“She’s right,” Sam cuts in, the grim calmness in his warning making it harsher,
“the last thing you need at this stage of your preparation is developing a
reputation for associating with their kind.”
“Okay, I’ll keep it in mind.” Bonnie nods and forces a smile. “Let’s talk about
something else now. I need to be cheered up.”
The druid smirks a little at that request and points with a tilt of his head at
the pixie-ish, rail-thin blonde behind the counter, transparently flirting with
a customer. “Just let Rowan spill the beans on Gwen’s latest accident in
potion-making.”  
Poor Gwen has a twisted, relentless passion for inventing potion recipes for
basically anything that pops in her brain. The sad consequence is that she is
continuously involved in very colorful experiments. The story Sam is hinting at
must be good because Rowan’s expression loses every trace of belligerence at
its mention.
“Hasn’t my cousin told you anything yet? I almost died! I swear that girl is a
menace!”
--
Bonnie’s good mood over her night expires somewhere between the moment she gets
out of the Moonshine and the moment she reaches her car in the parking lot.
Somehow she has managed to put aside the vampire drama that comes with being
Elena’s best friend for one hour or so, dancing with her friends and laughing
at Gwen’s stories and Sam’s dry jokes and Rowan’s rough handling of a drunk
customer who just would not stop hitting on her.
She felt so relaxed, for the first time in a whole week. Then as soon she is
out and the foreboding sensation of being watched swoops on her again, she is
tempted to simply dismiss it.
Then Rowan’s warning replays in her head, and she remains standing beside her
car, fingers playing with her keys as her inner senses reach out to locate the
threat. After all, if she has to confront her stalker, there’s probably no
better place than outside of a pub swarming with other witches.
“I know you are here somewhere,” she raises her voice tentatively, sounding
tougher than she feels, “I can sense you”
The only response she receives is a faint echo of her voice in the empty
parking lot, and for one full minute she keeps standing still and feeling
extremely silly, if a little relieved. Then a familiar frame emerges from the
shadows to swagger toward her.
Jeremy’s face, when she’s finally able to get a good look at it, is utterly
emotionless.
“Hello, Jer. We’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“I know. I didn’t want to be found.”
“Jenna and Elena are out of their minds with worry,” Bonnie half-cajoles and
half-reproaches.
It seems to elicit a humorless grin from Jeremy’s pale lips. “Ah, Jenna. I
noticed that Alaric is doing wonders to comfort her. Those two should be
thanking me. If I had not turned, who knows how long dear auntie would be lied
to? It kind of makes her look stupid when the entire family lives in a world
she suspects nothing of. ” 
Swallowing her uneasiness down, Bonnie wants to suggest that he goes over to
the Salvatores, or to defend Elena’s past secrecy concerning her vampires, but
some misgiving she can’t pinpoint stops her. “Why have you been watching me?”
is all she demands.
Jeremy’s eyelids droop half-closed as he focuses on her accelerating heartbeat,
the hunger inside him spiking so high he can almost taste the blood in his
mouth. “Out of everyone I knew, you feel the most different to me now.”   
“That’s not an answer.”
The boy’s grin becomes thinner, feral. “No, it’s not.”
“Are you hunting me?” she can’t avoid sounding slightly incredulous. This is
supposed to be the same Jeremy who intruded on hers and Elena’s chick-flick
nights, so how is it possible that she has become just food to him?
“I don’t know, but,” Jeremy drifts off and shakes his head, confused, hungry
beyond belief. That edge of fear in between her heartbeats is intoxicating,
addictive. He suddenly needsto have more of it.
“I know you may think this is the only life you can have, but there are other
ways to be a vampire. Better ways that would allow keeping your family, a
resemblance of normality. Stefan would be glad to help you.”
“I bet,” he chuckles, “but he cannot give me what I want. I wanted this for
myself, and I don’t regret it.”
“It was a very hard year for you,” the witch speaks gently, keeping her tones
low and soothing like she is trying to calm a wild horse because the way Jeremy
is coming forward has something subtly threatening about it, “but you always
had a kind heart. You might have chosen to become a vampire, but you would have
never chosen to be murderer.”
“It’s not like I see it anymore,” he shrugs and tilts his head aside and leans
against her car, seemingly enjoying how their nearness makes her increasingly
jittery. “You like your meat, and you don’t feel guilty about all the chickens
and cows whose life was cut short.”
“It’s different.”
“It’s not, but it’s a typically human trait to get hypocritical only because
you are not on the top of the alimentary chain.”
“Death can be easy for the people who go,” Bonnie interjects, striving to stay
collected and to not provoke him with any sudden movements while ready to react
if he attacked her, “but you should know it’s not as easy for those who stay.
Every person you kill had a family, friends, coworkers. Ending a life will
never be like cutting short a string. It sows a pain you should know better
than anyone else.”
“Shut up!” Jeremy snarls, eyes flashing black, “My life is not material for a
motivational speech!”
“You’re only angry because you know I’m right. Think about-”
That’s when he jumps forward, ready to latch on her, but Bonnie is more than
prepared for it. His body meets an invisible obstacle right away in a
telekinetic force that pushes him backwards hard, deflecting his impetus so he
glides through the air and falls a few feet away.
Bonnie gets inside her car and speeds promptly away.
 AN: You can picture my Original Guest Star Sam Garwain as a long-haired Jason
Bher, and rest assured that no Sam/Bonnie romance is in the works. I hope you
like him as much I do. Also, I imagine Rowan as Kristen Bell and her little
sister Gwen as Taylor Momsen. 
 



  
  
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Summary
     Elena and Bonnie have a much necessary chat, Katherine has a plan,
     Bonnie and Damon reach one more breaking point.

  CHAPTER 4
   It’s been a long time since the last time Elena and Bonnie shared her bed,
silently curled beside each other listening to the sounds of an empty house.
After the ‘briefing session’ Bonnie held with Stefan and Alaric, they went with
Damon to search the outskirts around the Moonshine for Jeremy’s trail.
   Laying down here with her best friend, the witch can’t avoid remembering
last summer, those first few days after the funeral when nothing seemed able to
get Elena to leave the bed, and Bonnie would hold her hands and squeeze them in
hers while she cried, because words felt fake in certain circumstances.
   The witch feels restless, intensely aware of the differences between now and
then. The silence only makes the recent distance between her and her childhood
friend palpable. Maybe it’s the natural backlash of all that has occurred in
the days leading up to Founders Day, or maybe they are just no longer the same
people they used to be, but for a moment Bonnie wishes she could go back to
when all she knew was a life as Elena’s sidekick, so to speak. It was a simpler
life, and she always felt more at ease when taking care of those she loved.
  ‘You are just a naturally nurturing soul,’ Grams used to say, ‘It’s a good
quality to have, but don’t let others take advantage of it.’
   Bonnie had not cared then: since her parents divorced and her mother moved
out of town, progressively but leisurely disappearing from her life, her world
had gravitated around Elena and Caroline. And if people  had started to label
her Elena Gilbert’s Shadow or Caroline’s ‘Nice’ Shoulder, it had not mattered
because popularity for her was a commodity, not expected as it was for Elena
nor fundamental as it was for Caroline. Just like it didn’t matter if boys who
entered her orbit soon leaned toward her two more attention-prone friends,
because Bonnie never felt the heat as intensely.
   It was easy because neither Elena nor Caroline ever got in the way of
something Bonnie really wanted. But this was before she learnt who she truly
was. Everything feels different now, because she has finally found her place in
the world. Although accepting themselves is something that everyone experiences
at some point in their life, she never expected  it was going to separate her
so irreversibly from everyone she knew.    
   “Do you think they will find him?”     
   “I hope so,” Bonnie answers just as absently as Elena asked.  
   “I’m really sorry about what happened. You must have been terrified.”
   The uncertainty under the forced calm in Elena’s voice is new too. Elena
never used to be hesitant about talking to her about anything.
   Bonnie recognizes that she probably should have been terrified by Jeremy’s
attack the way she had been months ago when Damon nearly killed her in one of
his temper tantrums. In reality, the two situations didn’t even compare. From
the moment Jeremy started advancing on her, the fear had receded under the
surface, giving over to a sense of controlled coldness. Every inch of her body
and every glimmer of her Power had been preparing to defend and attack, so
there was little space for terror and helplessness.    There’s no way she would
be able to put this in words for anyone regardless, so she just shrugs.
   “It’s not like you asked your brother to make me his dinner.”
   “I feel responsible anyway. I’m always dragging you in my messes lately, and
I know you don’t like it, but you’ve been my best friend since forever and I
don’t want this to change because you hate vampires.”
   There’s a hint of reproach in that last sentence that has Bonnie’s gaze
hardening. “I don’t hate them. I just don’t forget how it is when you aren’t on
their good side.”
   Suddenly looking every bit as guilty as she feels, Elena reaches out to
squeeze her hands, her expression faintly pleading. “I get that I was lucky on
that front, especially when compared to you. I just …don’t want to argue and
lose you too, but I love Stefan and I can’t even imagine this ever changing.  ”
   “I can distrust them and be happy that you’re happy at the same time,
Elena,” Bonnie sighs but Elena still frowns a little.
   “Even if it’s with a vampire?”
   “Even if it’s with two vampires,” the witch smirks lightly, enjoying her own
sassiness.
   “It’s not like that,” the other girl huffs, rolling on her stomach. “Damon
is Stefan’s brother.”
   “Unfortunately.”
   Elena chuckles at her friend’s dry tone, but still feels like she should
marginally defend the other Salvatore brother: “He is kind of my friend as
well.”
   “In whatever capacity a narcissistic sociopath in a hurry to get inside your
bed is capable of being disinterestedly a friend.”
   “Bonnie!”
   “I’m just calling it as I see it.”
   There‘s a pause thick with expectation. Bonnie doesn’t entirely understand
why until the other girl averts her gaze and asks: “Do you think I’m leading
him on?”
   The witch sighs softly and thinks hard about how she is supposed to answer
that. She doesn’t want to sound too harsh, regardless of her personal
loathings.
   “I think that being close friends with someone who’s publicly set on
pursuing you gives off the wrong impression.”
   “But-”
   Bonnie doesn’t give Elena the time to justify herself. This is the last
conversation she wants them having, but since it seems unavoidable she will at
least aim to get it over with fast.
    “It’s a lot like what you do with Matt. You care for him, and you don’t
mean to string him along or to interfere in his relationship with Caroline. But
you don’t want to lose him either, so you still give him enough to let him hope
for more.”
   “I have a lot of history with Matt. He’s like family; I can’t just …cut him
out. Even Stefan understands that.”
   “I do understand it too. I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt him on
purpose. Still, it would be easier for him to move on if you kept your distance
for a while.  So he can…get used to the idea of you not being there. Learn to
lean on other people. You can’t just take what the two of you used to have and
make it platonic.”
   Elena frowns, a slight pout on her lips, and for one full minute it seems
like she’ll say something to defend herself. Then Bonnie sees something in her
features shift to convey understanding, acceptance, and a hint of surrender.
It’s comforting that even standing on opposite sides of the fence, they can
still get each other so well. Even with all their differences and their leaning
toward opposite journeys, Bonnie doesn’t think she would be able to stand it if
her surrogate sister became a stranger to her.    
   “So do you think I should avoid any time alone with Damon too?”
   Bonnie rolls her eyes automatically, suddenly feeling very laconic. “While I
don’t care in the slightest for his feelings and I kinda think he deserves to
be endlessly strung along, it’s probably better.”
   “Oh.”
   They both pretend there’s no echo of disappointment in Elena’s tone. It’s
easier that way.
    ---
   Jeremy’s eyes are wary as he follows Katherine’s movements as she glides
gracefully across the room looking for their remote control. Her show of
generous forgivingness doesn’t convince him at all.
   “So, you aren’t angry at all?  ”
   “I get it, little Gilbert: you were hungry; the witch was too close; the
witch got you too angry.”
   Turning around, she throws him a fiendish, cutting grin that sends shivers
along his spine. “You’re a newbie; it was bound to happen.”
   “You wanted it to happen?”
   “I hoped. Otherwise you would have a stake through your heart already.”
   “Why? I thought we needed her.”
   Katherine turns her back on him again, busying herself with her cell phone,
but her voice promises all kinds of misfortunes as she answers him.“We need her
on edge. You’ll stay under the radar for some time. and then you get to have
fun and stalk her again. Happy?”
   “I would be happier if you told me what you will be doing in the meantime.”
   “Stay smart and mind your business.”
   By now, Jeremy knows better than reminding her that her plan is his
business. 
   On the other side of Mystic Falls, Gwen Garwain is laughing, having ice
cream with her ‘normal’ friends. She gets distracted from the conversation
around her when her cell vibrates in her pocket, signaling a received text
message.
   It reads, ‘She’s ready. Give the book to her.’    
   Gwen’s mascara-rimmed azure eyes grow troubled for a few seconds before she
blinks the revulsion away. A deal is a deal, and she has her family’s safety to
think of first.
   --
   When Stefan and Alaric return to the Gilbert household, they find Jenna,
Elena, and Bonnie quietly drinking tea in the kitchen. Stefan’s unwaveringly
serious visage says Jeremy is still AWOL even before Alaric verbally
acknowledges that they found no trace of the boy anywhere. It’s when her
history teacher surrounds Jenna’s shoulders with his arm and Elena leans toward
her boyfriend with her soul in her eyes that Bonnie decides it’s time for her
to go.
   She doesn’t exactly miss a boyfriend what with all the issues she has to
deal with, but sometimes she wonders how it would be, feeling your knees going
weak and your heart speeding up in that rush of a new romance, having someone
who puts you first. If she thinks of that palpable devotion that materializes
between Stefan and Elena with barely a glance, she concedes it would be nice
having something like this for herself someday. Well, vampire drama aside.
   For now, she shall deal with her own drama by herself.
   Which, among other things, means finding Damon Salvatore outside, standing
on Elena’s porch, arms crossed before his chest and still as a statue.
     It’s the usual strategy: she walks on and ignores him, without sparing him
one further glance in the hope he bestows the same courtesy.
   It’s a vain hope since his footsteps follow in her wake until her car.
   “Did you want something?” she breathes out in annoyance, surrendering to the
inevitable, glaring at his smug face.
   “You are not a very polite witch, Bonnie Bennett.” Damon’s tone is just as
smug as his expression.
   “And you care because?”
   “With Katherine on a rampage, I would think you would be nicer to those who
can protect you.” 
   “Last time you offered me protection from a psycho,” she scoffs frostily,
“you ended up lunging for my throat. Excuse me for not counting too much on
you.”
   Her referring to Emily as a madwoman stretches his lips in a genuinely
amused grin that he can’t fight. 
   “I wasn’t offering anything yet.”
  “Did you want something?”Bonnie repeats,more exasperated, unable to summon
the will to go in endless circles for his entertainment’s sake.
   “We need a truce, for Elena’s sake,” he spells it out for her like the last
two words were a sort of magical formula to get anything out of her, and Bonnie
is so fucking tired of everybody thinking this. Perhaps it’s why the sudden
urge to be vicious is so overpowering.
    “You must really enjoy being passed over in Stefan’s favor again and again.
What would Katherine think?”
   She doesn’t need to specify that his sire must think him more stupid than he
was a century ago or that Elena tells her everything: he can read between lines
well enough.
   It gives her a certain satisfaction, seeing every pretense of friendliness
leave those unfairly attractive, pale features.  The icy fury flashing behind
his gaze awakes something inside her, an awareness very different from what she
felt with Jeremy in that empty parking lot.
   It’s an echo of the resentment she has buried deep down, and she is darkly
happy that she can give one of the sources of that resentment at least a
figment of her displeasure.
   “Don’t get too cocky, Little Witch. Like it or not, you and me will be
seeing lots of each other in the near future. And I can make it extremely
unpleasant.”
   The menace threading his tone doesn’t even faze her, and Damon wonders why
her attitude doesn’t anger him as much as it should. He doesn’t generally like
being opposed, but under the irritation, with her, he likes this dance of
verbal punches. It quite satisfies him that he needs to sweat a little to bring
Bonnie Bennett down a notch.
   He even likes the proud way she leans back against her car and arches her
eyebrow, the cold heat behind her words as she ensures: “You already do.”
   The vampire smirks slowly, a cruel anticipation surging through his senses
as he leans forward, braces himself against the car’s roof to entrap her
smaller figure between him and the door. Her breathing pattern barely changes,
her heartbeat speeds up only for a few second before it reverts back to normal,
but all along her green eyes hold his with a steely, calm determination.
   Damon loves it so much that his fingers are almost reverent as they reach
out to play with the ends of her dark locks. “You can hate vampires all you
want, sweetie,” he whispers silkily, breathing in her scent with all-consuming
relish, “but in the end we both know that you resent yourself so much more than
you do me or Stefan.”
   Her warm palms splay on his chest, uselessly pushing back while her gaze
narrows on his. “Really?”
   “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about your sneaky, troublesome kind is
that you are inborn energy conduits. You know as well as I do that the spell
could not have killed your grannie unless she was already dying.”
   Fisting the cloth of his shirt instinctively, Bonnie glares at him more
harshly, angry indignation spilling in every line of her body and every nuance
of her voice like it is a living, burning thing:
   “Do you think that makes it better? Takes some of the blame off of you? One
more day of her life was worth more than the century you spent mourning for
that whore like a rabid little bitch.”
   Despite her clear intent of insult him, her harshness sends a wave of warmth
through every fiber of his being. Damon wants to kill the girl, break her; let
her pull him apart.  He is bathing in her loathing, her breath, her smell. 
There’s no real reason he should enjoy it so much, but he craves it even more
than he hates it.
   His next reply grazes her skin like a freezing caress, mellifluous but
plainly malevolent. “It kills you doesn’t it? Admit it: you feel like you chose
us over her and you can’t stand it.”
   It’s mesmerizing, the way her face transforms under the impact of his
insinuation: her strength shatters, her eyes grow fixed and glassy while an
endearing fragility suspends itself over her features. But even now he can see
her stubborn will to stay frozen, strong, unflinching under his scrutiny. To
fight tooth and nail to keep his accusation from sinking in even though it’s
the truth. At that moment Bonnie looks so beautifully broken that the predator
in Damon hungers to take her, to push her further and see how much prodding her
defenses can stand.
   That’s not all he feels. A protective urge throbs underneath everything
else, greedy for recognition, and all of a sudden, the only thing he wants to
do is get rid of her hurt.
   “It just proves what a silly little bird you truly are,” the vampire forces
himself to huff, mildly disoriented, “the old witch made her choices and you
made yours. It’s not like her ghost is gonna make you pay.”
   Her gaze is unfocused on some point beyond his shoulder, in the distance,
when Damon steps back from her. He feels unsettled, dazed by the imaginary
imprint her touch has left on his skin.
   “One of these days, I’ll set your sadistic ass on fire.” Bonnie shakes her
head, still not looking at him.  Threatening  without any real bite.
 Damon is not sure of the reason he stays rooted in his spot until after her
car is gone. Or whether he should be satisfied of his face-to-face with the
young witch or not.   

***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Summary
     Katherine’s perverse plans reap their first fruits and everyone else
     just tries to keep themselves afloat. Bonnie may or may not be
     heading down a dangerous path, and Damon is the one to notice.
  CHAPTER  5


 Last thing Bonnie Bennett expected, when she returned home after ‘one of her
longest days ever’ (a term she uses and redefines more and more often lately),
was discovering her friend and fellow witch Gwen Garwain chatting on the porch
with her father. Gwen’s blonde-white mane, split in two long tails, shines in
the sunset’s orange light as much as her pearly smile.
   Her father leaves them alone after the bare minimum of polite conversation
and then Gwen’s friendly expression shifts to a more business-like one. It’s
pretty much a given that this is not a courtesy visit: they’d never met outside
Moonshine before. “I have something for you,” Gwen explains, rummaging through
her handbag, “I found it the other day while reorganizing the family library. I
thought it could be useful to you, given your last adventures.”
   The volume Bonnie takes in her hands has a lucid red leather cover and its
pages aren’t yellowed by time or use, but she can tell it’s ancient all the
same. Magic hums awake at her touch when her fingers run along the cover.
Incantations probably preserve the book from wearing.
   “Wow,” she sighs, awed. “This looks so precious; I don’t think I can borrow
it.”
   The pixie-ish blonde shakes her head, easily dismissing her concerns “Most
witches have the chance to develop their raw power from childhood, and yours
runs much deeper than mine or Rowan’s. This will be more useful in your hands
than in ours, believe me. I would feel awfully guilty if I didn’t offer it.”
   Bonnie would insist if it wouldn’t be stupid to refuse a help she so needs.
She flips through the pages eagerly. ‘The Necromicron’ has a  whole detailed
tail section on Necromancy, an introductive first part about exercises on
awaking the darker, primal core of a witch’s power, a middle section on
offensive spells, mind-control and shape-shifting. Grams would have never
allowed her to even look at a book with so much dangerous stuff.
   “Most of these spells are Black Magic. I don’t know if I’m ready to even
understand the basics. ”
   “With the amount of power you have, you need training at a faster pace, ”
Gwen warns while Bonnie struggles with both a greedy curiosity and a troubled
conscience.
   The book and its tempting well of knowledge are beautiful –no other word for
them in her mind- but also not tools for a beginner like herself.
   “I’m not taking it back,” Gwen decides for her and it’s the first wholly
sincere thing the blonde girl has uttered in the entire conversation. Just the
idea of having this book hidden in her closet, since the instant Katherine
forced her to take it in her custody, made her nervous. And if Bonnie refuses
it, there’s just no telling what the perverse leech will do. Gwen is not so
cocky to think that she and her family might hold their own against such an
ancient, ruthless vampire. Unlike her sister, she is not stubborn enough to try
just to spare her pride. The Garwain line has not survived this long by taking
sides in disputes that didn’t directly concern it.
   “I don’t know how to thank you.”
   “Then don’t. Take it, study it hard and let’s not talk about it ever again
until you don’t need it anymore.”
   Hiding behind her sunny façade, Gwen silently wishes good luck to the last
Bennett heir.
   ---
   The following weeks are nerve-fraying but superficially uneventful.
   Katherine and Jeremy never show up, and no summoning spell seems to work on
them: this leads Stefan to conclude that powerful magic must be at play,
protecting both of them, and therefore they are probably associating. Which is
ill-promising to an extent no member of their group wants to admit out loud.  
   Jenna often finds dead cats and dogs with their necks broken on the porch by
early morning: it’s Katherine’s warm reminder that she can get in anytime she
wants. Alaric and Stefan have become permanent guests at Elena’s house,
sleeping and eating there until ‘the situation’ is resolved. Damon and Bonnie
are frequently there as well, but not any more often than strictly necessary.
Bonnie is feverishly studying over her Necromicron, and Damon splits his time
between handling the Sheriff Department and searching for Katherine.
   Obviously the local ‘animal attacks’ are back with a new flourish, but the
police don’t suspect vampires at all. The victims may be drained, but their
corpses are so badly mangled than it’s a hard task to determine whether the
blood loss is simply an after effect of dismemberment rather than the cause of
those deaths.   Werewolves begin to be suspected as the guilty party, and, for
awhile, Stefan and Damon take a breath of relief.
   Then Bonnie begins to dream of Tyler, rounded up, pleading for his life and
swearing his innocence. There’s no way to warn him without endangering the
Salvatore’s secrets, no time to devise a plan that takes the general suspicions
away from him. How could it be? It’s Carol Lockwood turning him in as soon the
Sheriff cautiously voices the word ‘wolf.’  
   Bonnie is idling around the Salvatore boarding house with Elena and Stefan.
Elena had dragged her there of course in yet another ‘covert’ attempt to get
her best friend and her boyfriend to be more familiar with each other. Bonnie
was twisting her mouth, trying to decide if she should just play along so Elena
would leave her alone when Damon walked in with the news.
   Hearing about Tyler being put down like an animal leaves the two human girls
unable to breathe. They exchange horrified glances that hint to endless other
evenings of a lifetime ago, when it was only Bonnie, Elena, Matt, and Tyler
hanging all over the town, feeling like adolescence would last forever.
   Once upon a time they would lean on each other, but now there’s Stefan to
gather Elena in his arms, so the girl can press her cheek against his chest,
closing her eyes, shutting the rest of the world out. Bonnie looks down to the
floor, not quite knowing what to do with herself, and for merely a moment the
most peculiar feeling crawls over her. It’s like she’s suspended in a dark
place between present and future, and not alone.
   She is caught in this unshakable, alien certainty that this is how it will
alwaysbe: Bonnie and Damon, Stefan and Elena, hating and loving and living,
together.  
   The witch shivers violently and looks up to discover Damon watching her,
looking more impenetrable than usual. 
   “She is the real monster. How can you do something like that to your own
son? He trusted her and she just handed him away like he wasn’t …part of her.”
   If there’s one thing Bonnie was taught to hold sacred above all others, it’s
family. That Carol Lockwood has turned on her only son so easily and ruthlessly
is inconceivable to her, although she has always thought of the woman as a
major bitch. She’s a little surprised that Damon shares the sentiment, because
she didn’t really anticipate any response from him.
   He shrugs, a crease of aversion on his lips. “I imagine she thought it as
her chance to regain some of her dignity. Years spent getting humiliated by one
man, and she didn’t even suspect he was a werewolf until their son  came to her
crying for help.”
   “What I don’t understand,” Elena breaks in, “is why Katherine would bother
framing him.”
   All those bodies, the flesh ripped from the bones and the torn apart limbs. 
This is the one explanation Katherine wanted the Council to have.
   “To prove that the control we have on this town is one she allows us to
have,” Stefan answers bitterly, his fingers gently fisting her chestnut locks.
“To let us know she can tear down our carefully built covers any time she
wishes to, without even needing to show herself.”
   Damon darts a look to his younger brother as he says that, faintly surprised
that the other vampire is not looking straight back at him. Although it’s not
really necessary: they both remember very clearly that this is a modus operandi
Damon has systematically pulled on Stefan every few decades or so.
   Damon feels a bit disconcerted at the disgust he feels for his similarity to
the woman he once swore to love eternally. Somehow, seeing that disgust
reflected on Bonnie and Elena’s pretty features makes it worse.
    It’s not that Katherine made him the way he is today. It’s that he wanted
to be her, back in those days when she played with his life and everybody
else’s he knew like it was no big deal. In his human eyes, the vixen was a
goddess, unmerciful and incomparably strong, extraordinarily beautiful. In a
world where women did and said solely what they were taught to, or valued
nothing but their virtue, Katherine had stood out like a mirage, all the more
alluring for her dangerousness and promiscuity.
   He had not only wanted her, her beautiful body, her black soul, and her
frigid heart. He had wanted to become her.  Talk about a wish he had realized
quite easily among all his other failures.
   When he had loved her, he had been proud of seeing his life sculpted to her
unholy image: she was his very personal god.
   But now that he knows after all the fawning and the worshipping, he can’t
even tell her apart from her human double, he just feels dirty.
   Underneath his skin, inside his bloodstream, Katherine is a taint he can’t
seem to ever cleanse. He thought Elena would do that for him, every day he
believed it more. She would have dug out the man inside the vampire and undid
Katherine’s claim. But she avoids being alone with him lately, for whatever
short time, bringing up excuses about ‘priorities’ and ‘being fair’ when
questioned about it.      
   Nevermind  that Damon doesn’t need or care about Elena being fair to him:
all he wanted was a way out of this obsession of finding Katherine, punishing
her, torturing a few answers out of her, and forcing her to regret something.
   The thought hammers his mind constantly: he loathes that hating Katherine is
hardly different from loving her.  The hatred, the love- it’s all the same
empty, devouring fever.
   He sees Alaric with Jenna; takes in that spring-like sense of rebirth and
second chances that emanatespathetically from the other man whenever he is in
the same room as Elena’s aunt.
   He observes how Elena’s support fills Stefan up.
   Damon doesn’t understand how, even in this situation, everyone but him
somehow found their sliver of sky. While he keeps fighting the tide pulling him
downward, spiraling deeper toward rock bottom, out of control.
   The irony is laughable, really.
   He is nearly grateful for having Bonnie Bennett around in the face of all of
this mushiness. The witch is fast becoming his personal stress-relief valve. 
Alaric calls what they do ‘juvenile bickering’, but Damon has lived long enough
to learn that, under duress, the most meaningless patterns can become a
lifeline.
   Much like him, Bonnie is meant to get through this game as a lone player:
this is possibly why he is the only one who notices the subtle changes in her
nowadays, the way she is there and not quite there for Elena at the same time.
Somehow the witch is learning to play her cards and keep her moves to herself
despite her fierce determination to protect Elena and Jenna. Damon wants to
know the hows and whys, dissect her motives until they make sense. Bonnie is
not Emily:  there’s such a fire inside her, dormant under the practical,
balanced appearance, but lately there are places where differences and
similarities overlap. Emily’s Power made her unflinching in front of any
horror, unlikely to show any outward emotion other than a fleeting, distant
amusement, her demeanor a bit remote like she was constantly lending her ear to
otherworldly presences.
   Most of the time, Emily  looked more inhuman than Katherine, and Katherine
herself used to find it humorous that Damon was more freaked out by her
handmaiden than he was by her.
   Bonnie is the diametrical opposite to her ancestor. Whether she is being
kind to her friends or unkind to her enemies, she is fully into it, vibrant and
alive at every instant. Even at her most calm and composed moment, her gaze
reflects a searing intensity.
   Yet some days, Bonnie looks exactly like Emily to him. It’s the way her
eyelids droop half-closed while conversation floats around her and no one else
realizes she is no longer entirely participative. The manner her expression
goes suddenly blank, her eyes secretive, the manner she carries herself, like
she is always perfectly safe despite the supposed evidence  of the contrary.
The way she moves and walks like she’s a queen (it looked uncanny on Emily, on
Bonnie it’s strangely sensual).
   Stefan will occasionally glance at the witch like he suspects something is
off, but he has not been around her kind as often as Damon, in his long quest
to rescue their maker. Damon knows it’s not normal, how fast Bonnie’s Power is
maturing. He understands that the little dreamy smile that sets on her lips
when there’s no reason for it means she is just a bit high on It.
   So he watches her, eager to find out where this new twist is leading to, too
morbidly intrigued to interfere although deep inside he’s hitching to expose
her transgressions in front of everyone.  He can taste it so badly some days,
the need to drag her down her high horse.
   “I’ve yet to meet her, and I’m already charmed,” Bonnie simpers, sarcastic,
bringing a slight smile to his mouth. There’s something about her caustic type
of wit that quite improves his mood.
   “At least you don’t need to count on her for your brother’s safety,” Elena
cringes, bitter. It’s clear it’s eating away at her, knowing that Jeremy’s life
lies in Katherine’s hands.
   “I suppose there will be a funeral,” the witch adds, shaking her head,
disgusted. After Grams and Vicky, she hoped their quota was officially filled
up for this year. She is sick of attiring herself in black and saying her
goodbyes. She is sick of omissions that feel like lies and lies that feel like
crimes, especially when she thinks of Matt, of how much he has lost and how it
was supposed to be Matt and Tyler, Bonnie and Elena forever.
   It hits her hard that with Tyler goes such a large, irretrievable piece of
her old life. There’ll be no going back to the past.
   She knows the wild rage simmering inside at the thought is not entirely
hers. Black Magic reaches deep in her blood now, melting all darker, deeper
emotions in one heady and violent pyre. Even now, she feels all-powerful, one
step closer to that state of ecstatic wonderment that comes with heavier
spells. Magic mourns her loss right along with her heart, transfiguring her
pain in something beautiful, a black and addictive fury that knows neither
forgiveness nor mercy.  It fortifies her, and for that alone she’s grateful.   
   “Every one of us will need to go,” Damon warns, with a pointed, arctic
glance to her. “We can’t afford arising suspicions of any kind right now.”
   What he means is that the Council is still on alert. Bonnie needs to
forcibly stomp down that new side of herself that wants to tempt luck and claim
her revenge: the desire to squish every single bigot Council member like an
insect only because she can and Tyler, for all his flaws, deserved better than
what he received.
   Grams used to warn her about associating too much with other supernaturals.
Emily paid a too high price for her life style choices, but also set a
dangerous taint on the Bennett name. Bonnie used to understand that warning,
but now it feels ridiculous that she should fear judgment from the likes of
Carol Lockwood. 
   Goddess, I want to curse her, to strike her with a fever that will consume
her mind until she grows mad, a raving and drooling bitch no one will even
stand to look at anymore…
   Bonnie ends that trail of thought before the image becomes too vivid, too
tempting to resist. She has to believe she is better than this. Better than
them, the vampires and the Council alike. 
   There are lines that she will not ever cross, lines addictive as the rush of
having infinite possibilities at her disposal can be .
   --
   The Tyler Lockwood funeral is a quiet, subdued affair, which is a major
contrast to the usual Lockwood style, but it proves a bare minimum of decency.
Carol Lockwood looks strangely withdrawn, lost in her thoughts over the course
of the entire ceremony. The Sheriff and Damon sit close to her while the priest
delivers his pretty speech, whereas Bonnie plays numb in between Caroline and
Matt, and Stefan and Elena. Matt’s knuckles are white as he squeezes Caroline’s
hand, but the blonde girl doesn’t complain, just leans her head on his shoulder
without speaking or looking at her boyfriend.
   In front of them, Bonnie feels like a liar. She can’t even stand to look at
the Salvatores or Elena without feeling like this is somehow all their fault. 
Reason invites her to remember that throwing the blame around is as useless as
it’s wrong, but the falsity of everything around her still chokes her.
   So, after the mass, she chooses to take an early exit.
   Which, obviously, doesn’t go unnoticed by her personal incarnation of
Hellish Torment.
   “I thought we all agreed on playacting nice and sympathetic, not standoffish
and ready to run.”
   Damon is behind her, his hand shutting her car’s door before she can get in.
“Playacting is more your thing than mine.” She glares at him, all the more
upset because he always stands too close to her, like he is not happy unless
his threats and breath brush on her face. “And quit chasing after me every time
I leave a room!”
   Non-pulsed, he rolls his eyes at her slight exaggeration. “Stop making your
exits at the wrong time.”
   “I bet the right time is whenever you decide.”
   Her smirk is nothing short of mocking and glacial, and he mirrors it right
back. “Since I’m the one with all the common sense, it goes without saying.”
   “Move away!” Bonnie snaps, green eyes flashing in a way that makes Damon’s
smirk widen and his gut tighten.
   “Trouble controlling your temper, witch?”
   There’s something in the manner he says it that has a bell singing in
foreboding in the back of her mind.  He looks too satisfied with himself, like
the proverbial cat that has just swallowed the canary.
   “Yes,” she answers tightly, lowering her tone to a harsh whisper, “and it’ll
be in everyone’s best interests  if I get out of here before things begin to
explode…beginning with your egomaniacal head!”
   Looking positively delighted, Damon just leans further forward, tilting his
head so he’s once more invading her personal space, regardless of her attempts
to put more distance between their bodies. His nose nearly brushes her
forehead, much to her discomfort. “I love it when you get aggressive.  To think
you always struck me as such a mild-tempered, cool-headed kind of girl…” the
vampire trails off, making it sound like an insult. Bonnie might even swear
that the blue of his irises heats in response to the hardening of her
expression, which goes from reflecting anger to plain dislike. She hates it
when he turns conversation into a slideshow of subtle sexual allusions.
   “But look at you, now. I might wonder why you’re so edgy and temperamental
lately,” he continues, as it becomes apparent that she won’t give him anything
but a cold shoulder.
   “Or you might mind your business,” Bonnie cuts him off, without too much
success.
   “As I was saying,” he continued, “I might wonder, if I couldn’t spot signs
of Black Magic abuse a mile away.”
   There’s a short pause where Damon quite enjoys his little victory and the
stony glare he receives as reward for it. But Bonnie doesn’t deny or beg for
his silence, contrary to all his expectations.
   “Give the Dead Boy a cookie,” she merely sneers, sugary-sweet with a hint of
boredom. “Is there a point you’re waiting to make?”
   Has he no other way to kill his time than picking on me and fawning over the
Elena/Katherine combo?  - she wonders, trying hard to not allow him to
exasperate her.
   Finally, the vampire pulls back, not bothering to hold in a sigh of
disappointment. “Let’s just say I don’t want a Dark Arts junkie on my hands
when I can’t enjoy it. Have you and Stefan made a pinky promise to only unravel
whenever bigger issues are at play?”
   Bonnie catches herself just before she smiles. Damon’s antics and clever
lines will notbeamusingever, no matter the circumstance or the subject.
Instead, she makes a show of rolling her eyes upward like she is annoyed. Which
she was just a moment ago.
   “My God, you caught us: we scheduled all our nervous breakdowns to happen
during big events from here to the next three years just so you won’t have time
to gloat over any of them.”
   Her tone is so flat and dry as she says it that he can’t avoid admiring her
style a little.
   “Stefan would.”
   “I think you’re confusing him once again with someone who resembles you.”
   “You are funny when you arenottrying to be. Anyway,”he clears his throat,
giving himself an air of importance and the stance of someone to not be trifled
with, “I just wanted to let you know I’ll be keeping an eye on you, just to be
sure you don’t get in over your head. I want you saintly and sane until bad old
Katherine is out of my hair.”
   “Your so called concern is unwarranted,” she deadpans, trying to sound
serious without being too hostile or sarcastic about it, “I‘m experimenting a
little, but I’m handling it. I got the after-effects under control.”
   “Good because if you can’t handle yourself, then I shall do it for you. I
would hate having any magical outbursts of yours interfering with my next
diabolical master plan.”
   Obviously, Damon’s only worry over other people’s missteps is related to
whether they will bring unwanted attention on him. Bonnie can’t believe she is
stuck listening to his bully-ish, spoiled brat orations once again. How had
Stefan put up with it for more than a century?
   “Do you never get tired of that Prince Lestat attitude? Because frankly I’m
certain that everyone else already has.”
   Damon looks her over with newfound respect at that last annoyed barb. He
never pegged the little witch for someone who read Anne Rice. Apparently even
cheerleaders can spare a few surprises in Mystic Falls.
   “I think this is the nicest thing you ever said to me, Bon-Bon.”
   Strangely, it may well be the truth.
   “Whatever, Damon. Can I go now?”
   “Since you asked so nicely, honey…” With a smolderingly innocent, sparkly-
eyed grin, the exasperating vampire fluidly moves away from the door he was
fully leaning into, making it accessible to her. “I’ll be seeing you around.”
   “Not if I see you first,” she grumbles under her breath once she is inside
her car, uncaring that her persecutor can hear her perfectly well. She just
couldn’t let him have the last word, especially since he called her ‘honey’
with his last word.
   He struts back to the church conceding to himself that that sharp tongue of
hers could be diverting when it didn’t grate on his nerves.     


 
***** Chapter 6 *****
Chapter Summary
     Katherine decides to finally meet Elena and Bonnie- separately-,
     running into Damon along the way. The aftermath is not pleasant for
     anyone but her, and maybe Jeremy.
   
 CHAPTER 6
The last place Elena Gilbert would expect to meet her sadly infamous ancestor,
Katherine Pierce, is her backyard. Stefan is inside her house with Jenna- she
would just need to raise her voice a little and he would hear her.
She stays quiet and still instead, utterly mesmerized by the dark reflection of
her image, standing merely a foot away from her. Somewhere inside her mind,
Elena had fooled herself into thinking the resemblance between them had been
less pronounced than portraits and memories suggested. That surely it was
impossible that two women shared the same face, the same build, the same voice
without being twins. That is not natural.
But now there’s no denying that Katherine Pierce is her perfect double, at
least physically. The other woman – no, the vampire – smiles with a twist to
her lips that manages to be both  coquettish and malicious, tilting her head
aside before turning around, like she  expects  that Elena will follow in her
wake.
It makes no sense at all, but at that moment, Elena does want to comply.
There’s something majestic about the way Katherine moves: she simply owns the
space around her, like she is not walking, but gliding over the ground,
gracefully but somehow aggressively.
Elena’s feet start moving quickly even while her features twist in a mask of
confusion. Katherine terrifies her more than anyone else she has met, and last
thing she needs is to be alone with her. Katherine is a threat to everyone she
loves. Katherine is…despicable, for what she has done to Damon and Stefan and
anything she is doing to Jeremy. So why is her mind so befuddled, so eager to
cave and please?
 “My coffee has been laced with vervain for weeks,” she spat, trying to break
the haze, walking almost shoulder to shoulder with her rival now.
Katherine’s dark eyes glitter with amusement. “I was not even thinking about
biting you, my dear girl. I won’t even snap your neck. ”
“Where’s my brother?”
“Wherever he wants to be, I suppose. He’s certainly not anywhere around here.”
“We know he must be with you. I want him back home,” Elena bits out, sounding
more desperate than she expected to, but still hoping that Katherine will offer
an opening for negotiation, or set grounds for some Damon-like blackmailing. It
doesn’t happen. Katherine stops walking and looks straight in her eyes with a
certain amused disinterest.
“I want Stefan in my bed, all warm-blooded and willing and defenseless, but
that doesn’t mean those days aren’t gone.”
It’s nearly too much, the off-handed, thick with fond remembrance   tone with
which the vampire refers to the way she repeatedly violated Stefan’s mind and
heart. It’s nearly impossible to not react violently.
For the first time, Elena understands what it means to really hate someone. But
what can she do with all that hatred other than choke it down and put up with
Katherine? Her mortality mocked her.
“Don’t play with me. You’re here because you want something. Tell me what it
is.”
Katherine’s falsely demure smile widens in a devious smirk, just as beautiful
as Damon’s imitation of it. It chills Elena to the bone.
“I was just testing a theory.” The singsong to Katherine’s voice is melodious
but cold, a threat covered with velvet.
“A theory?” Elena echoes, skeptic, fleetingly wondering if Stefan has already
noticed her absence. If he will reach her before it’s too late.
“Why are youhere with me, Elena?”
“Jeremy.”
The answer is simple, easy, automatic, firm. It’s also a lie.
Katherine’s gaze lights up like she knows it. “You are here because I wanted
it, and because you wanted to please me, just like everyone else usually strive
to please you.”
Elena wants to deny it, but she can’t, so she chooses to stay hostilely silent.
She is also desperate to not hear whatever her ancestor will tell next, whether
it is a truth or a lie, a threat or a compromise. She would give anything to
have Stefan behind her now, keeping her from feeling so exposed and uncertain.
“We are exactly the same.”  Katherine’s cool fingertips dust over her cheek and
Elena finally flinches, stepping back, her features a mask of proud disgust.
“Only on the outside.”
“The outside is all it takes,” her double remarks, pleased, dismissing the
intended insult all too easily. “This face, this body, this voice…they are
perfectly identical, almost like you were cloned from a drop of my blood. You
can’t be so stupid to believe it’s natural. ”
“What are you saying?” Elena frowns, although she knows she can’t trust this
vampire nor does she want to believe one word out of her mouth.
“I’m sharing a family secret,” Katherine leans forward, conspiratorially. “That
child I had, your direct ancestor, I had not given birth to him when I was
human.”
“ You want me to believe that vampires can procreate?”
Elena’s faintly disguised incredulity seems to only please her further. “It‘s
an extremely rare occurrence, but there are a few cases reported throughout
history. You should ask your witch friend; she might research for you …although
I would advise against that. I don’t think the truth would have a healthy
effect on your friendship, and witches are handy to have around.”
Elena tightens her mouth, determined to not listen to anything else and find a
way to go. She won’t let a sadistic bitch get off on insinuating anything bad
about her relationship with Bonnie or anyone else she loves. Katherine has
already caused enough damage.
“I don’t believe anything you say.” And before she can turn to go, a fist is
closed around her wrist, holding her back forcefully.  
“You don’t need to believe me. Deep down, you know what you are. It’s why you
were so drawn to Stefan and Damon since the first glance. Why you feel this
pull to satisfy me. You must have wondered about what was so special about you
that everyone wanted to be around you. Every human male you met was keen on
either fucking you or protecting you. Sometimes both, I bet. Every human girl
you kept around felt inferior. My son was exactly the same way. I couldn’t
bring him anywhere without having everyone fawning all over him. I got tired of
it really fast….What about your flawless complexion, that air of grace about
you, the natural magnetism you  can work on  weaker vampires as well?  You
inherited those traits from me. You know it’s true. ”
For two full minutes, neither girl nor woman blinked or moved. Elena felt like
she was barely breathing.
“This son you say you had…was he human?”
Almost gently, Katherine releases her iron grip on her human descendent,
shrugging with a careless, feline elegance.
“He was mortal,” her feral grin feels to Elena just as mocking as her choice of
words. “The Church had a name for those useless little demons like him. I think
it was…’Lamiae’”
Katherine swaggers backwards and out of sight with a feeling not too unlike
giddiness in her cold heart, not bothering to glance back to check if the human
girl’s blank expression had changed.
Sometimes truth can serve you just as well as the most well-crafted lie-  she
thinks, satisfied-  It was almost too easy. Work on the weakest ring for a bit,
and even the strongest chain will break. Little Elena, so fragile to my attacks
despite all the protection she has. Once she falls, so will Damon and Stefan.
Maybe they will even tear each other apart like last time…and then Emily’s heir
will be ready for me. God, how Ilovethis plan.
Dividi et conquera: it must be the oldest strategy in the world, and the most
effective.
 The idea of destroying and twisting so many lives in a carefully orchestrated
chain reaction excites her more than anything has in ages. By the time
Katherine meets Jeremy, she has worked herself in an anticipation-induced
frenzy. Her good mood is so apparent that even her young ‘apprentice’ notices
easily. He doesn’t question her, even when she links her arm with his and
nuzzles his throat contentedly.  
“How do you feel about introducing Bonnie to me, now?” she purrs against his
cheek, and the mercurial  flashing of his brown eyes to ink-black is a valid
compensation for the indulgence she has conceded to him so far. Her boy is a
fast learner.
---
Elena strides back to her house ramming a mantra in between her jumbled
thoughts:‘Stefan loves me and I love him and our love is real. Katherine just
wanted to manipulate me.’
When Stefan’s worried gaze meets hers and he asks where she’s been, that he was
looking for her all around the house, she knows she should talk, tell him
everything.
But Stefan is her whole world and without him she would be just half-a-person.
She can’t stand the idea of him hating her. How is she supposed to tell him
that perhaps the most precious thing they have is all due to Katherine’s blood
thrumming in her veins?
Just the thought that she might have raped his feelings the same way Katherine
had so long ago makes her sick. She feels dirty, tainted. Stefan had been
adamant about ensuring that he never influenced her choices or her emotions
with his vampire abilities since the very beginning of their relationship….
If he doubted his feelings ever being genuine, how could he look at her the
same again?
Before she can make a conscious decision to, Elena’s lips curls in a tired,
painfully wide grin.
“I’m sorry. I just needed some fresh air. Stupid of me considering the
situation, I know. ”
How she hates herself for that lie.
When his arms wrap around her waist, she convinces herself that she will tell
him tomorrow. Right now she only needs to feel him, lips to lips, every inch of
his skin pressing on hers. She has never felt as real as she does when he is
touching her. How could it be just about magic? You cannot ‘magic’ a love like
this into existence.
She trusts her heart. It’s Stefan’s she can’t risk.
--
By now, Bonnie believed she was used to having her routine disrupted by random
vampire attacks aimed at her person.  She was wrong.
 There are fears you can never entirely vanquish or reduce. She learns this
lesson by doing something as simple as stepping in her little kitchen, already
greeting her father.  He is supposed to let her cook an Iranian dinner today.
Since Bonnie loves ethnic cuisine as much as her father distrusts it, it’s not
a frequent occurrence that she manages to convince him to try any new flavors.
Her joyful expression falls as soon she gets on the kitchen’s threshold and
notices they have guests: Jeremy has a smug smirk plastered on his mouth, and
his sister is standing right behind her father. Close enough to snap his neck
or tear his throat out in a blink. That’s what Katherine’s Mona Lisa smile
promises.
The witch squeezes her grocery bag to her breast so hard that her knuckles lose
color, and she misses her father’s greeting above the blood rushing to her
ears.
All her witchcraft progress is utterly useless now in front of this.
“Bonnie, you should sit!” Jeremy pipes up and something in his tone has her
father turning to give the younger boy an assessing, probing glance. Sean
Bennett is a man of excellent instincts regardless of his elative ignorance of
what is happening. Katherine glares at Jeremy for either speaking out of turn
or drawing Sean’s attention, her expression dark. Feeling on the edge of a
potential disaster, Bonnie strives to control her rising panic and to look as
‘normal’ and serene as she can.
Sean’s gaze travels from Jeremy to his daughter, calm but not exactly pleased,
picking that something is off but passing off the current tension to common
teenager angst. Her father hasn’t liked Jeremy since his recent reputation as a
junkie so it stands to reason that he would be attentive.
“Elena,” Bonnie’s grin unfurls slowly, detached and fixed, but her voice is at
least steady, if a bit too perky. “Have I forgotten we were supposed to meet?”
Hopefully, playing along with the charade will keep the vampires in check.
“Oh, no,” Katherine answers, leaning slightly closer to the older Bennett, “I
just needed to borrow you a moment. Your dad was so nice, inviting us to stay
for dinner, but I told him we couldn’t stay.”
Clutching tighter at her grocery bag as a nearly overwhelming wave of anger
begs her to fuck all pretenses and just react, Bonnie merely blinks at the
smoothly pronounced provocation, going close to immobile because otherwise she
doesn’t know what she might do.
“Why don’t we go upstairs to my room to talk?” the witch suggests, trying to
not come across as too eager.
“Sure,” Katherine nods, looking eerily alike to her descendant for the first
time since Bonnie laid her eyes on her. “Jeremy can wait here for me, can’t
you, little brother? And no tasting,” she adds playfully, wagging her finger.
“I’ll resist,” the other vampire responds, studying Bonnie’s reaction with ill-
disguised enjoyment.
She doesn’t recognize anything in him besides his looks: he is as distant from
the kid she grew up around as Katherine is from his sister.
“What are you doing here, Katherine?” Bonnie whispers as they go up the stairs.
“Proving to you that I can be a generous friend to Emily’s last living kin
unless you make it otherwise.”
The implication is that, while Katherine can be lenient now, for whatever sick
reason, and spare her dad, it will be very easy for her to remedy should she
ever be displeased.
Normally, Bonnie would be refusing to fold, returning threat for threat, but
with Jeremy so close to her dad, she needs to be more diplomatic than that.
“Unless I make it otherwise? In other words, you want me to use my powers for
you.”
“Oh, no,” Katherine interjects, looking gleefully innocent. “I just don’t want
you using them for the Salvatores’ benefit. I’m here with a peace offering: you
stay out of my business and I will stay out of yours.”
“I won’t let you hurt Elena,” Bonnie replies before she can think better of it.
“Please,” the vampire scoffs, rolling her eyes and shaking her head with
condescension, “that washed up clone is nowhere near as interesting as I
thought she was going to be after speaking with her mother. I probably
shouldn’t be too surprised. Isobel was the same: entertaining for those first
five minutes and then as dully pathetic a vampire as she was a human. Stay
neutral, Bonnie. What do you care if I play with my boys for a while? You don’t
seem very fond of them. ”
Katherine sits on her bed, looking up at Bonnie expectantly. The witch wraps
her arms around her herself, not liking the turn the conversation has taken and
expecting it can only worsen: “If I ask you why you are visiting this town,
will you answer?”
Katherine smirks, shattering any resemblance to her descendent to appear much
like a carbon copy of Damon on his cockiest day. “I would think it would be
obvious by now. I’m not a complicated person, darling. My life is all about fun
and games.”
So basically, Bonnie’s current choices feature either letting Katherine freely
enjoy her psychological torture of anyone the vampire feels like, or putting
her father at risk.  No need to say she is not happy with either possibility,
but it’s not like she can afford to argue with her guests right now.
“What do you expect me to say?”
“I expect you to weigh your options carefully. I’m too old to fear your tricks
and I can destroy you and all you hold dear. I’m only giving you this
opportunity out of respect for my friendship with Emily. We had fun, she and I,
traveling all over the country. I had her back and she had mine. Can you even
say the same about our little Elena? She didn’t even warn you that vamps were
real until you had one of them sinking his fangs into your tender flesh. It
must have stung, that she went spilling your secrets to her boytoy instead of
just giving you the truth. Emily would never let me get away with that. ”
“I’m not anything like her.”
“Obviously.”
Funny how one snotty word can express so much condescension.
“You allowed her to be burned at the stake,” Bonnie feels bound to remark.
“She betrayed me,” Katherine replies coldly, for the first time utterly
sincere, “She deserved to burn.”
Katherine gets up to her feet, sighing before continuing her speech.
 “I’m not particularly interested in ending my bloodline or yours right now.
Perhaps that will change, perhaps not. Anyway, you should smarten up and
consider whether your BBF’s happy mood is worth having your daddy tortured and
killed. I don’t have to necessarily be your enemy Bonnie Bennett, so don’t make
me into one.”
One moment Bonnie is staring into frigid, empty brown eyes, and the next
instant there’s only a vacant space before her. Downstairs, she can hear
‘Elena’s’ voice jollily calling out for Jeremy and biding goodbye to her
father.
She rushes down the stairs regardless, anxious to see personally that Jeremy
did no damage.
--
“I don’t get why you haven’t talked to her about Anna and Pearl already,”
Jeremy scowls as soon as he and Katherine are a few feet out of the Bennett
house.
Katherine ignores him, preferring to voice her assessment of the situation:
“Dark Magic should be feeding her darker emotions. She is not affected enough
to be useful, for now: we were inside her home, threatening her daddy  and she
still held her instinct to attack us in check. We need to push her more.”
Jeremy’s brows furrow as he realizes that the true purpose of their visit
wasn’t  to advocate their cause but to test Bonnie’ s control and the toll her
recent studies are taking on her. It’s brilliant, but he would really like that
Katherine explained this sort of stuff beforehand instead of simply expecting
him to follow her directives blindly, guessing her motivations all the time.
“How?”
But before Katherine can even consider answering him, her senses put her on
alert. She grabs his forearm and squeezes it hard while her eyes wander around
and then up to the sky, telling him silently to quit the subject until she has
identified the threat.  
A crow caws in distance.
“Go ahead. I’ll see you around the block in awhile,” she orders, and he obeys
with a nod.
Katherine lingers behind, waiting. She isn’t disappointed.
“Playing around with children now? I didn’t think it was like you, but then I
never knew you all that well.”
Damon’s voice is thick with bitterness, and she would criticize his inability
to dissimulate his emotions, despite all her lessons, if his weakness was not
so flattering. “Quite the contrary, love. I remember we knew each other so
intimately. Didn’t we use to spend hours getting better acquainted with each
other? It was so good. ”
Damon’s beautiful visage is hardened in a mask of frigid anger. Katherine is
nearly temped to reach out and touch it, just to see how he would react, to
prove to both of them that he would be still as eager for her lips the way he
was for Elena’s.  
“Evidently not good enough to get you to keep your promises,” he snarls, his
eyes more vividly blue than usual. 
How did she dare call him ‘love’ after all he had done for her, and the way she
had betrayed him? How did she dare stand there, so close to him, looking
completely unaffected by their time apart?
Damon hated her, and he hated himself for having let her humiliate him like
that. He hates even more that he is still allowing her to make a fool out of
him, but he can’t pretend her abandonment meant nothing.
“Oh, don’t pretend I didn’t give you exactly what you wanted. We had fun before
you and your brother became too sloppy and jealous to be good company.”
Katherine’s singsong is smooth, laced with indifference.
It turns his anger to loathing and suddenly he doesn’t understand how he could
have loved her so damn desperately. This woman has no loyalty and no respect,
not for him or anyone else but herself. 
“Do you think spending an eternity fighting to save you and avenge you was what
I wanted?”
“You wanted an excuse to set the world on fire and watch it burn, and tear your
perfect little brother down from his pedestal along the way. I set you free.”
“I wanted you,” Damon seethes, hating himself all the more for that admission,
but unwilling to believe that his sire is dismissing all she has been to him
with some half-assed Doctor Phil crap.
“Just like you want my good twin now?” Katherine giggles, circling him like a
shark does its prey. “Sweet. You must be so proud of yourself. ”
Damon shakes off her insinuation angrily, telling himself that the two
situations were wholly different. “I don’t know what you want with her, but it
stops now. You‘ll stay away from Elena and her witch-”
The bitch doesn’t let him finish, her gaze suddenly brimming with mirth.
“Her witch? From the way you’ve been stalking under her window lately, flying
around her house just to guard her from me, I assumed your interest was a bit
more personal. ”
Damon clenches his fists, a dark fury fluttering under his features.  “I was
waiting for you to make your move. I knew you would seek her out at some
point.”
His reasons aren’t entirely as straightforward as he professes.  Admittedly, he
has been concerned about Bonnie’s recent dabbling in black mojo too, but in the
back of his mind lies the real reason for his watchfulness over Bonnie. The
reason he became so defensive over Katherine’s last insinuation.   
Bonnie Bennett is his dirty little secret, the shame-filled fantasy he
occasionally indulges in because he is positive it will never be realized.
Everyone else will fold to his will –whether it’s because of his looks and
charm, his bullying or manipulative skills, but not she.
Elena hands over her forgiveness, her empathy, and her understanding, but the
witch is full of fire and so pure,in every way he has ever defined that word.
Of course this appeals to him. He wants to preserve that purity as much as he
wants to corrupt it.
To have Katherine bringing his meaningless transgressions up, regardless, is
unacceptable. 
Although, naturally, his sire doesn’t get it. She purses her glossed lips in a
pout and flutters her eyelashes like she is some delicate dame, not a back-
stabbing whore. The lack of decency he once found so enthralling now only
twists his stomach in disgust. That feeling is a disappointment too. He used to
be so fucking certainthat he would love nobody but her for as long as he
existed.   
“Everybody wants what they are most adamantly denied, Damon, and for those like
you and me this is even truer. You’ve changed so little.”
 Katherine almost sounds nostalgic, but he stops himself right before hoping it
means anything. He would like to believe that he had not been so blind to
imagine affection where there was none at all. He would like nothing better
than to believe his love was more than a joke to her at some point in their
history, but he knows better now.   
“I’ve changed enough to want you gone. Permanently.”
Katherine’s features harden imperceptibly, but it’s enough to turn her
expression from amused to coolly solemn.  
“You can try, love,but if I was in your shoes I’d stick to the wishes you have
at least a slim chance at realizing.”
 “You always thought too highly of yourself.”
“We’ll see”
They exchange humorless, challenging smirks and then Damon surprises himself:
he doesn’t stop her from leaving. He has ached for this meeting since he died,
and today he couldn’t wait for it to be over.
It’s like seeing Katherine again has robbed him of every feeling he had left,
painting even his crush for Elena as a shallow, ridiculous consolation prize.
He can still see the shape of the Bennett house in the distance, and his mind
goes to the girl who must be hiding inside, smarting up from her encounter with
their common enemy.
His body starts to shapeshift with no warning, his wings rising upward, toward
the sky, toward the roof of the witch’s house.
 
 
 
 
 
  
***** Chapter 7 *****
CHAPTER 7
Bonnie doesn't enjoy her much awaited dinner with her dad. Which is a shame
because he works afterhours often ever since the divorce and they have precious
few chances to spend quality time together. Regardless of how proud she is of
her mother for ditching her previous teaching post and pursuing her dreams,
unfortunately a beginning career as a Jazz musician is not quite the best
source of economic stability.
Bonnie is very grateful to her father for never letting the situation weigh on
her, and it makes her feel so guilty that she can't put aside everything else
and give him the break he deserves.
The meeting with Katherine has her stomach in knots, and just forcing the food
they cooked down her throat takes effort. It doesn't matter how much she tries
to disconnect her brain, Katherine's threat hovers in between her thoughts.
It makes the guilt worse that her dad eyes the way she picks at her food and
looks more subdued, even striving to compliment her goulash before flat-out
advising that she stops pretending she is not tired and call it a night.
Bonnie surrenders to his cajoling without a fight and retires to her bedroom
somberly, set on consulting her books for appropriate protection spells. She
will even get on that CD her mother mailed to her last month- there's soothing
quality about the mournful intensity of the saxophone's sound that she could
truly use right now. Perhaps it's just that listening to her mother's music
makes her feel like the woman is in the room with her.
It's a meager comfort that, at least, her mother is someone Katherine won't be
able to get to.
Since no part of her night went how it was supposed to, it should not come as a
surprise to her when her senses pick up a familiar presence as soon as she
closes her bedroom door.
It's not the first time she has sensed him hovering around her home. She knows
Damon has maintained his 'promise' to keep an eye on her, but usually the vibes
he sends off are barely an echo of his soul essence: what she senses now is
stronger, almost like an imprint lingering in the air, whose source is too
easily localized. Maybe it's her emotions sharpening her intuition, or maybe
it's because of how upset he is now. She always seems to feel him more strongly
when his feelings are closer to the surface. Realizing how attuned to Damon she
has become startles her, because she can't say she is able to sense Stefan in
the same manner.
Any other day, Bonnie would pretend she doesn't know she is being spied upon:
after all, Damon doesn't terrify her anymore, and why should she care about how
he wastes his time? There's a minor, resentfully acknowledged figment of her,
that is relieved of being under careful watch, even if it was Damon doing the
watching, or perhaps exactly because it was him, and not someone with any
scruples. The idea of losing control of the entire situation scares her, and
it' been helpful knowing that if the worst ever happened there was someone who
would recognize the signs and help her retain that control.
How do you go from being resentful of someone's very existence to feeling safe
with your sanity in his blood-stained hands?
Bonnie doesn't even pretend to understandable her life's small ironies, but she
still goes to her window, shaking her head in disbelief. The large crow lands
on the window's sill and caws, shameless.
"Quiet," she mutters, conflicted between her need to truly talk with somebody
–anybody, apparently- and the very rational certainty that she's going to
regret it in the morning.
The witch ends up uttering, with a defeated sigh, an incantation to soundproof
her walls. A silvery dusted smog shapes a small vortex in her open palm before
penetrating the vertical surfaces of her room.
Only then does she open the windows, nearly smiling because the crow is titling
his head to regard her in a manner that can only be defined as suspicious.
"Come in."
The bird jumps on her floor and looks around quickly like he expects some
unknown force to materialize and attack him from all directions.
What he doesn't expect is a flash of pale grey fur rushing madly from under her
bed and getting his nasty claws into his feathered body.
Bonnie is too surprised to react, and Damon must to be too, since it takes him
a full minute to come back to his human shape.
"Finn! Get off him!" the witch cries out as the cat keeps wrapping around the
vampire's arm. Damon looks down at the small animal, stunned, trying to shake
the pest off without killing it.
I should just fling the stupid beast at the wall- he reflects, then he
remembers that Bonnie hasn't always had a pet. Finn was actually Sheila's cat
before the woman passed away, so it wouldn't be diplomaticto even injure the
animal.
Fortunately vampires have a high pain threshold, but having small claws deep in
your arms, regardless, is not pleasant.
"Damon if you hurt him, I swear-"
"Are you blind, witch? It is trying to eat me!"
"Well, now you know how your victims felt!"
Despite her stern tone, Bonnie hurries to grab her feline and peel him off the
visiting vampire, who cradles his bleeding arm in disbelief. Finn calms down
considerably within his mistress's soothing embrace, although he doesn't much
like to be held, by habit.
"I can't believe I was ambushed by a fucking cat," Damon mumbles, indignant,
causing the girl by his side to erupt in peals of hysterical laughter.
Finn mewls in protest and slinks out of her arms to hide under the bed again.
Damon glares after his retreating back, still unwilling to accept this happened
to him, now and here, when it has not happened in a century of successful and
dignified shape-shifting.
Bonnie's continuing giggles soon distract him: admittedly, the situation in
itself is rather ironic and funny, but that's no excuse to appreciate it so
freely.
"Sorry," she says, covering her widely smiling mouth with her fingers, "it must
be a nervous reaction."
He supposes it might well be true: Katherine is not easy on anyone's nerves.
Yet, when Bonnie manages to get her body's reactions under control and hold her
face straight again, Damon is surprisingly dissatisfied with her neutral
expression. She looked brighter and softer just a moment ago – he much
preferred it to her usual pinched appearance whenever they were arguing.
Putting aside the random observation and taking out the irritation it has
arisen on the hiding cat, he glances back to the spot it disappeared off to, a
stubborn scowl expressing all his disapproval.
"Is it even safe to allow that psycho anywhere close to your bed?"
To think of how the little witch allows that miniature monster to sleep curled
over her covers has him inwardly shuddering.
Bonnie presses her mouth together and shakes her head like she's holding in her
laughter again, but much to his relief, when she talks to him she manages to
keep her composure.
"I let you in," she reminds him.
Wicked and undeservingly attractive, his answering grin bares white, human
teeth in one additional mockery.
"Do you think it was a smart idea?"
"Probably, since my dad has already welcomed your ex and Jeremy to our house."
However the invitation may have surprised them both, she feels better knowing
he will be able to get in as easily as Katherine can should necessity arise.
The mere mention of his ex-lover suffices to erase from Damon's visage any
traces of humor."I saw the little bitch getting out of here. What does she want
with you? Besides recruiting you, as that's already obvious."
Bonnie shakes her head, denying his suspicions as she picks up the furry
nuisance that is pocking his head out from under her bed to rub his moist nose
against her legs, seeking to draw her attention away from their 'guest'.
"Actually, the one thing she has demanded from me is that I remained neutral."
"That's out of character," Damon observes, narrowing his gaze on her like this
could force the truth out of her. Bonnie doesn't allow his suspicion to shake
her, cradling Finn closer to her breast and continuing to stroke his fur in
slow, rhythmic strokes that help her to both simulate an air of self-possession
in the vampire's eyes and to soothe her mood.
"I thought it was strange too," she concedes, holding her chin high, "have you
spoken to her?"
Damon nods, cool-eyed and unflinching. "There was a fair share of ineffective
threatening involved, on both sides."
"No chances of cute, evil reconciliations in sight?" she questions, studying
him intently and wondering if she will ever be able to really read him.
"I have not even considered it."
"Really?"
"She is not what I had made her to be in my mind," he shrugs, his voice
acquiring a pensive quality, "I remembered her like this charmingly unique
vixen, but what I saw today was only a disloyal, frigid whore. I wasted enough
of my time on her. I want her dead and finished."
Bonnie is momentarily startled that Damon Salvatore is confiding so openly in
her of all people. Then she remembers he doesn't really have anyone to talk to,
after Elena took her distance from him, and hiding his twisted feelings for
Katherine has never been his priority anyway.
And although pity is the last feeling she wants to have for him, a tiny, guilty
twinge of pity is exactly what she feels. It's a silent, unwilling betrayal of
Grams and Caroline, but she can't help slightly empathizing with his
disappointment. In Katherine, she has felt no room for love, only greed and a
hunger to dominate. To try gaining her affection and her trust could only have
been like trying to squeeze water out of a rock.
"I guess I will have to take your word on that."
"If you hadn't already chosen to trust me, witch, you wouldn't have invited me
in your room."
"You are the lesser evil," she admits, nodding.
"Imagine that." He smiles at her, thinly but genuinely, and for some senseless
reason Bonnie's lips curl upward to mirror the gesture.
All too willing to dispel the unwanted bridge forming between her and her once-
attempted-murderer the witch hurries to change subject: "what did you think
about Jeremy?"
"Jeremy? He wasn't around for very long."
"Have you even tried to talk him?"
"No."
By the way he says it, it's quite obvious that Damon hadn't even spared a
single thought for the newborn vampire until Bonnie brought him up. Which
doesn't meet her approval, judging by the annoyed roll of her eyes.
"Did you?" he accuses right back, disturbed by this sudden urge to defend his
actions.
"I didn't have the chance to, but I don't think it would have made much
difference. It's like Katherine has completely brainwashed him into her
personal, unquestioning lapdog. Which is weird, because Jeremy has never been
afraid to think with his head, even when this made him hostile or unpopular. "
"Katherine has that effect on people," Damon observes dismissively, not
particularly eager to focus on that part of the equation.
"So how do we get through to him?"
"We don't."
"Excuse me?"
"We kill Katherine and once she is gone, Jeremy will be out of a centre. We can
work on containing him then. If he becomes a threat before that, we react
accordingly."
Damon sounds so certain, like Elena's well-being or reactions are no concerns
of his. Bonnie doesn't pretend to understand whether he is simulating or not,
but she certainly wishes it was that simple for her.
"Katherine has more or less promised to not hurt Elena if I don't do anything
to help you or your brother. She has to have something big planned for you two
if she is looking for an insurance policy."
"I wouldn't put much stock in her promises if I were you. Even if Stefan might
advise to go with the tide, delusional little martyr that he is, he'll be even
more glad to the point of sheer stupidity for the slimmest chance to keep his
ladylove out of the line of fire."
"I won't take Katherine at face value, and I'm not giving her a say on my
choices. I only need to figure out a way to protect my dad from her."
"I hate to break this to you, but dearest Kat was very capable of getting to
him even without the added privilege of entering your house."
"I have Emily's grimoire, I can spell his wrist-watch to be like Alaric's
ring."
"So poor Sean can be the next Jonathan Gilbert?"
"Have you anything constructive to say?"
"Get your old man detoxified of all that vervain, and then I can compel him to
take a much deserved, long vacation to, let's say, London or Paris or some
other far away cliché. Until further notice," Damon huffs, looking at her with
all the smug pride of someone who is sure of receiving the soundest thank you
of all his life.
Bonnie finds, reluctantly, that his idea has a lot of merit. Emily's ring magic
is very complex and not easy to replicate for a newbie. If she could summon
Jonathan's ring back to her and bewitch it to look like a trinket Katherine
can't recognize, it would still be a risk.
"I'll think about it."
It's all that she can afford conceding for now, but it's still helpful, knowing
she has one more option. Although it places her father's future in Damon's
hands.
***** Chapter 8 *****
Chapter Summary
     While Elena tries to gather information on her origins all on her
     own, Bonnie and Jeremy reach their breaking point and Damon is called
     to exercise an old talent of his. Dark themes alert.
 
Three Days Later
Skin sliding against skin, curves pressed against angles as mouths meet halfway
in a needful heat: Elena feels like she is born anew. There's nothing quite
like being with Stefan, even when lust has been sated and they just lie in her
bed, legs and hands entwined, her sweat an oddly sensual contrast to the cool
dryness of his marble skin. Her eyelids drift shut, her cheek resting on his
chest as his lips brush her forehead tenderly and his fingers comb her brown
locks behind her earlobe. This is her Heaven. Or it would be, if not for the
ugly suspicions intruding again among her thoughts.
Once upon a time, being Elena Gilbert meant being the perfect girl with the
perfect family and the perfect boyfriend- except that perfection was never
meant to last: her family history turned out to be full of dark secrets, her
loner brother has now become someone who hates her, Matt is someone she no
longer needs, and Bonnie is someone who no longer needs her.
What she and Stefan have has made up for every negative change she's
experienced. It was bad enough when she believed his feelings were spurred by
her likeness to Katherine, and it still stings when she thinks he first got
interested in her because he wanted to see if she was anything like Katherine.
It used to console her that at least his feelings for her ancestor wasn't
genuine, but now…it's all gone. She can't rest, knowing she might have vampiric
blood running through her veins, poisoning every concept she used to have about
herself, coloring every past memory.
Suddenly, it's like Elena Gilbert doesn't exist at all. Was she really this
'creature' who attracts and deceives without wanting to, a Lamia? Her friends,
Matt, Stefan, Damon, her parents – did they love her because of herself, or
because her nature confounded their minds? Was anything in her past as real as
she had naturally thought?
Damon had told her, once, that Isobel had tasted different to him. More
alluring than the average human.
And Isobel herself was attracted to the supernatural world. She had been so
convinced that she belonged there that she left her husband to embrace
vampirism.
Does any of that mean something?
Elena wants to say 'no' but her unnatural resemblance to Katherine Pierce mocks
that wish. There are just too many little oddities at play to ignore.
"What are you thinking?" Stefan asks softly, stroking her hair in slow,
soothing motions.
Elena wets her lips before lying, surprised to realize that the longer she
keeps her doubts to herself, the more smoothly every lie comes.
"Do you know how Jeremy used to research vampire lore from all over the world?
I was rummaging through his computer files the other day. There was something
about demons called Lamiae. I was wondering if they are, you know…real. Like
vampires, and ghosts, and witches, and werewolves, and every other legend I
thought was pure superstition."
Stefan chuckles, although she gets the impression he is not all that amused.
"This was a year stuffed full of revelations for you, huh?"
"You can say that."
There's a pause of thick, easy silence before she prods him again, covering her
restlessness with a cheerful smile. "So? Are they real too? "
Stefan smiles back at her, causing a burning cut of remorse deep in her heart.
"To be honest, I don't know for certain. I don't think so. Lexi used to say
they are a lot like the vampire version of a metropolitan legend. Humans who
are born from a vampire bloodline, Mortals with vampire powers… they've been
rumored to exist for centuries, yet no one of our kind has ever claimed to meet
one in person. "
"You sound like you believe it's all rubbish."
"It probably is. If vampires were truly capable of procreating, they would know
for certain by now."
Hearing him say this lifts a weight off her shoulders, although it probably
shouldn't. All the same, Stefan's opinion will always be worth a lot more than
some nasty bitch's offensive insinuations.
"I love how your forehead wrinkles when I'm being silly and you try humor me
and take me seriously," she teases, stretching above him and reaching for his
lips.
"I always take you seriously."
"Liar." Elena giggles, kissing him again.
===============================================================================
It's been a while since Bonnie had her last 'girls night out' with her fellow
cheerleaders, so Caroline has basically threatened her to not skip this one.
Bonnie doesn't really regret caving in: regardless of how little she likes
certain teammates of hers, spending more Matt-less time with Caroline is nice.
Fruity drinks at the Mystic Grill, gossip and some dancing have made for an
especially, unusually mundane night and the hours sped by their little group
with unexpected easiness. All in all, the witch is surprised by how much she
enjoyed herself.
She parts from the other girls with a wide grin on her glossed lips, humming
the last tune they danced to while she heads to her car.
Her joyful mood fades quickly into alarm as she strides through the deserted
street and hears footsteps echoing in the dark in her wake. She speeds up her
pace and those footsteps keep up with her, she stops and they stop along with
her.
Concerned, Bonnie taps into her sixth sense to visualize her unwanted company:
it locates four presences, all average human males. Narrowing her focus, the
witch reaches out to get a feel of their intentions, fiddling with her purse in
order to not give her current preoccupation away. She is not prepared for the
assault of violent images that invade her mind at once, or for the sensation of
grime crawling all over her skin under her clothes. She can see it all, what
they mean to do to her, she can see herself through their hungry eyes, and it
disgusts her. She closes her eyes against the wave of filthy desires that soil
her hyperaware flesh, tries to not feel the imprint of hands on her arms,
holding her still while other hands undress her roughly.
She tries even harder to dismiss everything and even out her breathing.
I can handle this. I studied to handle this. They are only humans. I can get
rid of them easily. –she repeats as a mantra, but it's a thin, flimsy defense
against the mounting panic. Her feet are frozen in place as the footsteps grow
louder, closer, and her tongue feels huge and wooden inside her mouth.
Taking a deep breath in, Bonnie concentrates her willpower to project a thick
veil of energy around her frame, meaning to use it to blend in the darkness and
become unnoticeable. But her heartbeat is a deafening distraction and her
concentration keeps faltering and slipping under the pressure of those ugly
images, undermining her confidence.
When she opens her eyes again, she knows it's too late to move away.
The four men surrounding her are well-dressed and their faces young and clean:
they don't look like rapists, she decides, swallowing down the knot in her
throat, but not her fear.
The terror spreads to every part of her, growing and roaring until it melts
into something else. As soon as the first arm stretches to grab her, something
explodes at the very bottom of her soul.
It's like a beast is twisting underneath the surface of her skin, her power
howling with rage and indignation. She understands, in a moment of fleeting
sanity that she might still stop it, contain the scorching heat before it does
what she was unable to. She chooses to give in instead, allows the fury inside
to lash out and destroy. For the following instants, Bonnie is nothing but the
Fury, the savage joy to punish and tear apart.
It's her power boiling their blood, melting their insides like butter- they
can't even scream because their lungs are already collapsing and thawing, but
she can taste their pain on her tongue and it fills her with a wicked, all-
encompassing delight. Their lives seep away slowly, like dust between her
fingers only because she wills it to be that way, and it's a source of
indefinable wonderment, the swiftness with which her helplessness has turned
into absolute dominance.
Only when it's over, and a foul stink of all things putrid and decomposing is
rising to her nose, does Bonnie become newly aware of the world around her. It
happens gradually, every breath in and out calming the wild elation that had
possessed her until mere minutes ago, and inside her head there's finally
silence, a space for rational thought. The pungent smell strikes her first,
inviting her to blink ahead and pay attention. Through the mist of her
dissipating inebriation she doesn't entirely understand what she is seeing at
first. She just feels her knees going weak before she braces herself on
something solid in order to stay upright.
And then the mist is gone and she is alert, weary and sore like she has just
ran a marathon but nonetheless lucid and awake. There are corpses at her feet,
and the memory of what nearly happened to her hits her like a crumbling brick
wall.
Her first reaction is anger: they were going to do that to her for real. They
were going to steal her soul as certainly as she had stolen their life.
She had not asked for this, had not deserved anything of the sort- so why her,
today, and here?
Why had someone –four someones actually- decided her dignity was worth less
than five minutes of their satisfaction?
This is when she realizes they are dead, by her hand, and there's no spell that
can help her make sense of anything anymore.
She has just killed people – flesh and bone and blood- and she hadn't even
meant to. Or maybe she had deep down, but…
She is a murderer, and this is something she never wanted to be.
Bonnie shivers, jumps away from the bodies while fighting the urge to gag.
There's no blood anywhere and she has an inkling that it is because she made it
steam off.
She leans against the nearest wall, almost falling forward in the process to
force air inside and out of her lungs. She can't panic now. She can't leave
them there either, because if anyone finds them, or finds her there, there will
be an ugly repeat of The Burning Times, courtesy of the Sheriff Department.
To worsen the situation, she is completely wiped out, so battered that she
couldn't master a simple levitating spell, let alone anything complex enough to
hide or dispose of bodies.
Her sweating palm closes around the mobile phone in her purse, but she is
surprisingly antsy about calling for help. Picturing Elena's face while she
explains her current predicament makes her want to cry.
Stefan would be the obvious choice, except he's constantly attached to Elena,
and anything Stefan knows, Elena will soon know as well.
Stefan wouldn't judge her, maybe. He might even understand her and the impulse
to react on your darker impulses, especially when threatened, without knowing
what they will lead to.
But if they knew, they wouldn't look at her the same way anymore. They might
think she overreacted. They would look at her like a threat, a ticking bomb and
while she might have deserved that, she wouldn't be able to deal with it.
Damon's serious, blue-bell azure eyes and ivory face pop in her memory, a faded
snapshot of the parade on Founders' Day.
"I owe you"he told her, and he sounded like he meant it.
Bonnie's fingertips don't stall while they dial his number- for once, she is
relieved that Elena forced it into her contacts list.
She doesn't expect him to pick up at the first thrill, or even recognize her
number, but he proves her wrong on both counts:
"Finally, a certain witchy untamed shrew surrenders to my unholy charms. I've
always known it was going to happen, eventually."
Bonnie can feel the smug grin in his voice and fails to find hers.
"Little Witch?" he calls out to her, more evenly, after a beat of expectant
silence.
"Yes," Bonnie clears her throat, hesitant despite herself, "it's me. Are you
around Stefan and Elena right now?"
"No," he huffs, annoyed, "I left them getting all lovey-dovey at Gilberts'
house. What do you want with them at this outrageous hour?"
"Actually, it's you I wanted to speak with. I might need to borrow your…talent
for getting rid of dead things."
"Vampires?" he inquires, every trace of humor leaving from his tone.
"Human bodies. In the centre of town."
"Awesome," he gives a deep sigh like she has just asked him to bring out the
luggage, and it comes across oddly comforting. "Tell me where you are."
===============================================================================
From the roof of the tall building, Katherine forcefully grasps Jeremy's elbow
and pulls him back from the edge.
The fat, satisfied smirk on her visage makes the younger vampire want to punch
her hard, rearranging those features that have no right to bear any resemblance
to his sister.
Elena would be horrified by this, not pleased like a cat who just got her
cream, and Jeremy… he is disgusted too, with himself, his choice of alliances,
and over all, with what he nearly allowed to happen tonight.
That was Bonnie, his sister's best friend, the girl who basically grew up
inside their home, the one his father called 'the unofficial third Gilbert'.
And he had just stood there, watching while she got attacked. While she got
terrified to the point of killing four people. Four people he and Katherine
compelled to sexually assault her.
The worst part is that it made sense when Katherine had explained it. She'd
made it to sound so flawlessly logical, so harmless.
"Oh, come on Jer, don't get all wrinkly and judgmental on me now. We weren't
going to allow her to get hurt for real. She is too useful to let go to waste.
You'll see how much more malleable our witch will be from tonight on."
Our witch, Katherine calls her, and Jeremy wonders when exactly he allowed
Bonnie to become just a means for a purpose and not somebody he used to care
for.
Suddenly, what he has just done feels very different from the attack he
subjected her to, not too long ago. He set her up to be raped and sure, he
meant to step in before any real violence occurred, but he still allowed her to
kill four innocent bystanders.
Their deaths weren't to blame on his thirst, this time, but on his obedience to
Katherine. She held him back and he let her. He let her.
It occurs to him that his parents, if they could see him now, would be
appalled. And it doesn't matter if they can't, because he just killed every
single principle they ever taught him. It's like they just died for the second
time and it hurts, but he can't bring himself to slip the switch off, because
it's his fault, and he deserves to feel it.
Anna, he has been doing all of this for her, for her solely... but Anna
despised Katherine. She would have hated the idea of Katherine changing him
into anything remotely alike to herself. What if at the end of all these games,
Anna can't love him anymore?
'You are my weakness'- she had confessed to him, so softly, almost shyly, in
the privacy of his bedroom.
'You are my shame'- she would tell him now, and he can't stand it.
"We better get away from here before Damon comes to her rescue, wonder boy. We
need to celebrate."
Katherine's airy, annoying voice drones on, her nails digging into his forearm
as she drags him away.
He wants to shrug her touch off, but he knows he can't. Not now, at least, and
most especially not here.
She is too old, too strong, and very ready to stake him at the slightest sign
of rebellion.
And he got his wakeup call a tad too late anyway.
===============================================================================
Damon eyes the bodies at his feet in transparent distaste. At a point he
actually wrinkles his nose, leaning down to examine them, and it would be
hilarious if it was not already so tragic. "I have never smelled anything like
this in all the years I've been a vampire. The stench is like…a disgusting mix
of sour milk and rotten swordfish."
Bonnie's mouth doesn't curl in disgust like he anticipated, but she nods
quickly and sternly reminds him, "We need to go before someone sees us," like
the sexy, uptight high school professor he never had or wanted (outside his
favorite porn of course).
"I've shrouded the entire area with my mist, Elphaba. Nobody here will see
anyone or anything more than an inch from their nose until I decide to lift
it."
"The faster we move-"
"I say you should tell me what you've done to them before we do anything."
He says it calmly, no smugness or malice filtering through his words. It's not
like he needs them. She is not in any position to refuse his questions. "I
thought you said you were going to be discreet about this."
"Doesn't mean I don't want to know what's going on," Damon shrugs, rising to
his feet again so he can move closer to her, using his taller height to close
in on the witch. The movement makes her slight figure shiver uncontrollably,
whereas it would usually do nothing but light up the flame behind her gaze. Her
reaction gives him a pause, and he steps back to allow her to get her
instinctual responses under check. "What happened to you?"
Bonnie' s gaze shrinks away from his, her hands rubbing her arms up and down to
fend off an imaginary chill. "I got attacked. I lost control. This was the
result."
When she looks up from the tips of his shoes, her eyes are a mossy green
clouded with shame and defiance.
Come on, rip me a new one-they seem to say to him-I deserve it.
That reflection of fear and of being lost reminds him of another Bonnie, the
one he had purposefully scared, while Emily played hide-and-seek within her
mind and body. The same he made empty promises of protection to.
It confuses him the way that look leaves him feeling. It's deeper than remorse,
not quite shame or anger or indignation. He's suddenly looking forward to the
instant he will dispose of those carcasses and wishing he could grind their
bones to dust with his bare hands to erase what she did. Erase her feelings of
guilt and shame.
"So what spell did you use?"
Bonnie frowns, unable to understand his approach to the insane situation. "Are
you really interested in that right now?"
'Not really'- he wants to answer- but I need to keep my mouth busy and my head
clean of you.'
"Why shouldn't I be?" is what he actually replies.
The witch opens her mouth to say something then closes it abruptly like she has
just changed her mind. Her nails dig nervously into her elbows. "I don't know
what I've done precisely, okay? I went into this rage-filled trance and when I
got out of it, they were dead. I remember their pain inside me, I remember I
enjoyed it, I remember I hungered for it. I know their blood boiled and their
flesh was turning to mush. I felt it, I loved it and it makes me sick at
myself. Is this what you wanted to hear?"
Damon stands a little taller and squares his shoulders, very uncomfortable with
the thought that, if he doesn't find a way to stop it, the witch might well
begin to cry.
"Not quite, but thank you for over sharing. Let's just…" He makes a vague
gesture with his hand, puzzled at this new lack of finesse of his.
Bonnie nods, her gaze feverishly vivid, like he has expressed himself perfectly
well. "How do we get rid of them?"
"I brought a couple of cloth sacks. I bet that if I break the bones often
enough, we can fit all of them in my car trunk. We can melt the remains with
acid once we get to the fine Salvatore cellars."
"Okay," Bonnie nods, her features hardening in a mask of resolution. "How can I
be helpful?"
"I'll do all the hard work. Just watch for anyone coming near the mist. I
didn't park far."
***** Chapter 9 *****
Chapter Summary
     Currently on: Bonnie and Damon finally meet on a common ground, and
     all the UST they brewed so far finally goes somewhere.
Chapter Notes
     Soundtrack for this chapter is 'Gravity' by Sara Bareilles.
Damon walks in the Salvatore's library with a carefully blank expression. "It's
done," he says, and the witch nods briefly, hardly looking away from the
untouched glass of bourbon he had set in her hands before leaving her there.
"Good."
Her face is crumbled, her eyes red and unnaturally bright, and he can see from
how stiff her posture is that her muscles must still be cramping, her body
still working to expel the remainders of those dark energies she so recently
gathered inside her flesh.
"I told you to drink it," he reprimands her, annoyed, "if alcohol soothes our
blood-thirst, it will most likely work to calm your Dark Magic backlash."
"The last thing I need right now is to get drunk" Bonnie answers with a stilted
voice without looking at him, "I don't want to risk losing control ever again."
He finds it disturbing, the way she is reacting, and not in a way that would
arouse his amusement. The thick awkwardness between them sets his nerves on
edge, but he cannot act on his instinct: to be a bigger, crasser bastard than
usual, because he has a feeling it wouldn't go over all that well.
He is not cut out to be sensitive, and he is quite certain that she might laugh
in his face if he tried or worse (he hates it when she looks stonily straight
through his charades like she knows he is only lying his mouth off).
He settles for a reasonable compromise.
"Come on," he sighs with a palpable aggravation, "even you can't that much of a
goody-two-shoes to beat yourself over defending your virtue."
This gets Bonnie to stare sightlessly into her swirling glass and finally turn
her head to meet his gaze.
"I'm not sorry for them," she spits, like the mere mention of those men makes
her sick, "but I'm sorry that I let them take away from me something I can
never get back, and I'm sorry that they had families who will be destroyed when
they don't come back home."
She sighs dejectedly, her shoulders sinking under an invisible weight as she
takes her chin between her hands "How I am supposed to trust myself again after
this?"
Damon scratches the back of his head thoughtfully, unable to look away from her
petite frame and yet quite bothered by how defeated she appears. He wishes he
could say to her that even if she had allowed those assholes to live, he would
find out the truth of what they meant to do to her somehow, and do a lot worse
than she had, but intentionally so. He would have never allowed anyone to get
away with abusing his property: this town is his territory and, somehow, the
little witch became part of his 'pack'.
But he doubts hearing anything like that would make her feel better, so he lets
it go, focuses on something more practical.
"Controlling supernatural abilities is a trial by error, little witch. Did you
really expect to master your power without ever hitting a bump or two along the
way? You'll do better next time."
Bonnie shakes her head frantically, narrowing glassy, haunted eyes on him:
"There will be no next time - I'm done with Dark Magic."
"Don't pull a Stefan on me, Bennett," he scoffs, aggravated that she is so
willing to send to waste all her potential over one meaningless accident. "You
can't afford to. With your lineage and the extent of your power, there will
always be a Katherine breathing down your neck. It's not pulling punches
that'll make you survive."
"Didn't you see what I did tonight? I can't risk-"
"You have to," the vampire cuts her off harshly; "there are no shortcuts
available."
"You don't get it do you?" Bonnie jumps to her feet, arms spreading wide, "You
enjoy killing and compelling right, left, and center… You love inflicting pain
and fear! I didn't until tonight! Tonight I adored it, and I can't stand
thinking of it! I don't want to ever get used to it!"
"You won't," Damon hisses, circling around her. "Rest assured, Bonnie, there's
still a goddamn abyss of difference between you and me."
The witch blinks, dazed by both his sudden nearness and the offense snaking
through his words. He so rarely uses her first name that it's difficult to not
take notice when he does.
"I wasn't trying to insult you!" she spits, gritting her teeth. Her temper is
flaring, but she's trying to control it. She won't lose it again.
"Well, that's a change!" Damon says, getting even more in her face and
enunciating every word, blue eyes blazing a glowing cobalt shade right in her
face.
"You are such an egomaniacal asshole. Not everything is about you. I have no
idea why I was even trying to explain to you how I feel," Bonnie says, her
smile one of disbelief and without humor.
"Well, look around: it's not like you have anybody else to turn to. It's not
like you're running to Sweet Elena and Saint Stefan!" he snaps, his voice
rising, losing control as he realizes she only turned to him in her moment of
shame. "Without me, you'd be waiting for your turn to burn at the stake!"
"Without me, you and your brother would be ashes by now!" How quickly Bonnie
forgot to retain her control. She wouldn't just stand there while he yelled in
her face. "It's not like you deserved to be saved. You hurt everyone I loved!"
"Well then thank youfor being so fucking merciful!"
"And thank you for being nearly decent to me, for once," she says, calming her
voice, but she was still glaring up at him and breathing hard.
And although it's nothing short of a screaming match, it's uncomfortably clear
that they both mean what they say. A strange vibe sizzles between them, like
the heat they always blamed on mutual dislike has suddenly morphed into
something altogether different and unknown.
Their physical proximity makes her skin itch in a manner that is not entirely
unpleasant, and Bonnie steps back, her anger spent as easily as it had arisen.
The fire simmering low in her belly doesn't extinguish though, and she
convinces herself that it's just the magic lingering in her system that is
altering her senses.
She nervously touches her hair, surprised as a cool hand grabs her wrist,
stilling it with a careful strength. Damon closes the distance she had just
established between them, following her footsteps, mesmerized by the warmth
emanating from her flesh. Her small, tight body is burning hot like a furnace,
and he can feel her high temperature scalding the air around her frame. It's
just one more reminder of what she just went through, and of why he should be
pulling away from her, but Damon had never seen the point in resisting a
temptation.
His thumb runs back and forth across the sensitive inside of her wrist, and
Bonnie doesn't fight his touch but her expression remains wary, uncertain.
"I bet all it takes to get you back under control is some supervision. You
never had a real opponent to practice offensive spells on until today, so
you've never learned to measure out your reactions. It will be different if you
have a sparring partner."
"Are you volunteering?" she questions with a mix of incredulity and
hopefulness.
"Helping you helps me," he justifies to himself as much he does to her.
"All right," Bonnie acquiesces. "Thank you."
"You are welcome," the vampire smirks lightly, feeling quite reluctant to let
her wrist go, but doing it nonetheless.
She rubs the sliver of skin his grip has branded absently, her expressive
visage reflecting a guarded concern about his motives for being so compliant.
"Am I to expect you saying anything to your brother or Elena before I get the
chance to?"
"Maybe," he chuckles, although he is not amused in the slightest, "but isn't it
so much more entertaining when the two of us keep secrets?"
Not quite sure if she wants to agree or not, Bonnie stays quiet. The silence
doesn't last long, because for some reason it feels important that the words
keep flowing between them. He gets her to agree about sending her father away
finally, and they craft vague plans about fight training.
He watches her fending off her exhaustion with admirable effort, but he doesn't
call her on it. When she crumbles, pretty much passing out on the armchair
while he is spouting tactical advice over some subject she can no longer
remember, Damon doesn't even bother to try and nudge her awake. He only takes
in the weary lines engraved on that young face and then gathers her carefully
in his arms to carry her upstairs. He lays her down on his bed, gets her shoes
off and tucks her under his sheets with a gentleness that surprises him.
He scowls as his fingers brush a few unruly locks away from her face, and then
finds there's nothing else for him to do other than sit on the edge of the
mattress and glare at her still form like his tangled feelings are entirely her
fault.
Bonnie doesn't sleep long or easily: it's after barely one hour that her eyes
flutter open, and she doesn't feel well rested, only vaguely restless, as she
quickly realizes where she is and why.
Awakening to find Damon Salvatore staring down at her with a fixed gravity and
herself wrapped in purple silk sheets in a strange bed is quite the
disorienting endeavor, but it does wonders to bring her back to the fucked up
reality, hard and fast.
"For just a moment," she mutters, levering on her elbows to grouch herself up
to a sitting position, "I hoped last night was all one senseless nightmare."
"It's not." Damon shrugs, still watching her with that aggravating, unfiltered
focus. In the morning's light, his eyes are a silvery azure that colors them
much colder, almost unfeeling.
"A shame," she replies, absolutely unable to make sense of anything anymore.
Damon finds himself unsettled by the way the witch refuses to shy away from his
gaze. The way she is looking back at him then is a new brand of upsetting. It
reminds him of the look he saw Stefan giving to Elena or Lexi a few times
across the decades: usually whenever his life was going to shit and he wanted
to silently beg them to stop the train-wreck before he lost his mind.
Nobody looks at Damonlike that, ever. With good reason too, since Damon is not
sensitive or altruistic enough to give a shit about anyone else's messes. He
also has a hunch that if the little witch was aware of the weakness she is so
carelessly displaying to him now, she would be utterly humiliated.
She doesn't trust him and he doesn't trust her and nothing has changed, so why
the fuck does he have this impulse to fix her?
He doesn't know how he is supposed to handle a Bonnie Bennett that is uncertain
and breakable and lost instead of scathing and proud and confident. The Bonnie
he knows doesn't depend on anyone to get by and she most certainly is not
afraid of making unpopular choices or voicing unpopular opinions.
Perhaps he tucks her hair behind her ear only because he wants to break the
impasse, to get her to stop looking at him.
Perhaps he leans forward and presses his mouth to hers only because he hopes
she will slap him and give him something familiar again.
Even if he is quite certain that on a list of things to do with a girl who's
been sexually assaulted less than 48 hours ago, kissing her is at the very
bottom.
He is shocked when the slap doesn't come. Bonnie doesn't move at all, just
waits it out as his lips move slowly around hers. She doesn't get why he would
want to kiss her, really, especially now: he has always wanted Elena or
Katherine for as long she can remember and after the night she just had, she
can't be all that irresistibly attractive.
Yet, as the pressure of his tongue against her lips grows from tentative to
demanding, she discovers she is tired of analyzing. If nothing will make sense
anymore, she might as well go with the tide.
Damon is something close to freaked out when her mouth opens against his and
Bonnie starts to kiss him back: it's not a rushed kiss but it's a hungry one,
and she douses him with a hurried aggression that has him wondering if she is
angry with herself or with him, if she really wants it or it's just the easiest
way to punish herself.
He should put a stop to it, probably, but there's this feeling of trepidation
and anxiety building in the pit of his stomach, and then a sense of juvenile,
unreasonable fear that wars against the promise of an elated release.
It is entirely too unexpected, to have her in his arms, warm and compliant, to
be cupping her cheek to angle her head so he can kiss her more deeply. He keeps
expecting her to push him off any moment now, so he really, really should make
the best of it. Even if it's wrong and fucking stupid because there's a fat and
sound chance that the witch will be soon yelling at him for taking advantage of
her.
He goes with it anyway because it's hot and he's not so hypocritical to deny he
has wanted this for a long awhile, badly. He just didn't think it would ever
happen.
As he coaxes her down, the strands of her hair silky-soft between his fingers
while her arms wrap around his shoulders, he can't pretend he has not imagined
it often, how it would feel being the first to make Bonnie Bennett melt and
whimper.
In fact, Damon has imagined it so often that it's nearly funny that it's
happening for real, and if he stops, maybe it's just to double-check that they
are both on the same page and he is not making it all up inside his head.
After all, lately, he has been proved to be a bit too keen on self-delusions
for his taste.
Bonnie's shadowed, green eyes look up to him from behind lowered lashes,
questioning, her lips parted and swollen, and Damon feels again the strangest
mix of terror and excitement gobbling up his throat.
"You started it," she reminds him, feeling more than a little self-conscious,
as her nails scrape his nape.
"So?"
"So, finish it, before I change my mind."
"I see," he drawls, his tone a smooth blend of honey and poison, a perfect bait
to get a grasp on her thoughts because, damn, he still can't figure her out,
and it unnerves him like mad even now. "Am I supposed to be the host of your
pity party?"
If his hands weren't raking up and down the contours of her body, molding her
to him, she would be tempted to take offense and fling him off her. Possibly to
set his pretty hair on fire. But his touch is too distracting, to allow her to
pay attention to anything but the unresolved tension they have been building
for so long, over the course of many arguments and disagreements, now breaking
dam after dam to weave this unreal fog of arousal and relief.
Bonnie heaves a deep sigh and smirks, more roguish than bitter. "Sorry, but
pity parties are more of your specialty than mine," she assures, although she
is not completely certain she is not lying. Perhaps there's a part of her that
hungers for self-destruction today, but all for all, she doesn't think it's why
she is doing this. It's more the fact that he sees her –sins and flaws- and she
feels him –for better or worse- and when he touches her it feels good and real.
Her hips arch upwards, pressing against his, and Damon feels himself literally
shaking, clamming up his mouth so he doesn't do anything embarrassing like moan
or growl.
Hefeels her lips accidentally brush his neck and the subsequent spike of
anticipation is enough to forget any point he was so set on arguing.
He kisses her again –slow and deliberate whereas before it was clumsy and
passionate- intent on exploring the texture of her skin, the taste of her mouth
and the spicy flavor of her scent.
Damon wills it to be all about the power play, but the witch is swiftly
bringing out of him something different: that urge to dominate keeps getting
quelled by an elusive needto keep Bonnie whole and functioning, to be kind to
her even while he craves to sate himself with everything about her.
He doesn't understand it, but then that just seems to be his trend with
everything today.
Her skin burns higher than normal still, he notices while his palms roam along
her legs, bunching up her dress around her hips before lifting it over her head
and tossing it on the floor. Her hands slide under his shirt too, a telekinetic
force pulling at his buttons until they all skitter around the room: her
eagerness designs a smug grin on his lips, which are meshed to hers.
He loves the sensation of her hands on him, skimming slowly from his back to
the well-defined planes of his stomach and chest, and he likes it that she is
touching him like she is not afraid or ashamed.
He loves the way she moves under him, tentative and yet bold, a testament to
both her lack of experience and her ease to go along with her body's responses.
Back to the times he was born and raised, accepting as a life-companion a girl
who was anything less than untouched was considered unacceptable. He had
thought so little of it, then, preferring the company of harlots and maids to
courting what his father would define 'suitable girls'.
Respectable virgins had looked dull and boring when confronted with the
alternative of easy, loose, free-mouthed conquests. Now, with Bonnie, for the
first time Damon thinks he finally understands that old fixation with only
claiming the unmarred.
There's something extremely appealing in his current awareness of being the
first to graze Bonnie's bare skin, of being the only one who knows how she
tastes and sounds and responds. It makes every caress and moan worth more
somehow, and when her cheek nuzzles the hollow of his throat, her limbs
stretching and quivering under his weight, the sensation is so intense that
it's almost like it's a first for him too.
She nips at his neck, her lips tugging at the skin ever so briefly before
closing again in one languid, open-mouthed kiss, and he's wild for her,
clenching his eyes shut and stilling every muscle in his body to not attack
her.
Taking in one shuddering, frustrated breath, he unclasps her bra with fumbling
fingers before discarding it quickly, half-expecting to be mocked any moment
for that boy-ish eagerness. Glancing up to his lover, he can find no sign of
censure in her features.
If anything, she looks every bit as nervous a wreck, biting on her bottom lip
in a very shy, unwillingly sexy pose.
For an instant he nearly wishes he was the kind of man who would know how to
speak the right words, the perfect cheesy lines. He's ever been that kind of
man, so he returns to what he knows- the art of pleasing a woman through
physical contact.
Damon ducks his head and runs his fangs along her skin, from her collarbone to
the valley between her breasts, gifting her with lingering kisses along the
way. He can feel her hips jerking, the juncture of her thighs instinctively
seeking and rubbing against his thigh.
Groaning, he nuzzles his face between her soft breasts before ducking lower,
teasing her brown, hard nipples in turns with his sharp teeth. Her fingers
tangle and twist in his short hair, pulling as she cries out in both pain and
pleasure, her spine arching to push her curves to his mouth.
His tongue slides relentlessly downwards to her stomach and she shivers, it
dips into her navel and she gasps.
"Da-mon," she chokes out, and it forces him to stop because although he's
supposed to be taking advantage of her, when she throws him with those small,
tantalizing details it feels more like it's the other way around.
The vampire coaxes himself out of that drawback, strokes her thighs and her
inner legs softly before he tugs her underwear off slowly, caressing and
kneading her flesh as he goes.
"I hate you," Bonnie grumbles breathily, her muscles quivering and melting
under his caresses.
Damon stops abruptly stroking her calves: "What?"
This is not the usual, natural reaction he gets from women during sex… what the
hell is wrong with this one?
"What?" she echoes, dazed with frustrated arousal and impatience. Then she
takes in his puzzled, offended expression and recalls what she was apparently
thinking out loud a moment ago.
"Do you notice a slight imbalance between us?"she tries to explain, hoping her
mortification is not all that evident.
Damon's expression manages to remain both blank and faintly resentful.
"I'm practically naked, and you… are not," Bonnie hisses, fisting the sheet in
aggravation while she gestures to Damon's half-hanging shirt and pants. It's
not that she didn't attempt to get them off, but he just kept stilling her
hands whenever they got in the way of his 'quest'. And she didn't mind all that
much but now it is slightly embarrassing to be naked with a very 'clothed'
vampire when they are to…
"Oh," he pauses and smirks in that cocky manner that is just begging her to fry
him, his eyes glittering with arrogance as he gets out of his clothes with
surprisingly elegant rapidity.
"That was fast."
"I am a vampire, cupcake."
"Start with the ridiculous pet names, and I'm out of here," she vetoes,
attempting to regain a resemblance of dignity.
Which proves to be particularly difficult, when his mouth is back between her
thighs, suckling their inner patch of skin until he parts them further, runs
his tongue leisurely and repeatedly along her slit as his thumb presses down
hard on her swollen clitoris.
Whole her body jolts and writhes in pleasure and whatever is left of her mind
really wishes she could hate him now, because he is entirely too good at this.
He keeps at it until the hungry, throbbing ache in her womb is positively
painful and she is working hard to hold in a sob of longing.
His fingers dig in her thighs, stilling her as his teeth come nibbling on her
nub and finally the delicious tension inside her uncoils and overflows.
The sound of glass creaking almost covers Damon's self-satisfied chuckle.
"What was that?" she whispers, breathless as he slides up against her, every
inch where his skin touches hers tingling.
"I think you just nicked my window, BB," he retorts conspiratorially, bending
her wobbly knees higher, "but no worries, you can pay me back."
"You are such an ass-" she exhales, a wave of white-hot fire shuddering through
her every nerve-ending as Damon thrusts inside her, stretching her deeply.
He strokes her sides soothingly while she gets used to him, his face hiding in
her hair as he inhales her in. "So hot," she hears him utter and for a
fleeting, unexpectedly painful instant the witch wonders if he is picturing
someone else, imagining that it's Elena's warm body under his.
It's a stupid thought, she recognizes: it's not like she was secretly pining
after Damon all this time, and he is as entitled to his feelings as she is to
hers. It's still her first time, anyway, and while she holds no romantic
delusions over its meaning, it would be nice knowing she is not a fill-in.
Her doubts pretty much disappear when Damon draws back, mouth tight as he
begins to move inside and out of her wet warmth. One of his hands goes to frame
her visage, tilting it up so he can look into her eyes.
An arcane current of energy stirs and shifts between them, and suddenly she is
seeing so clearly: it's like their souls are brushing along each other and
maybe, maybe this is exactly what is occurring.
She read about it once- it's not unusual that sex becomes a psychic channel
between two adequately powerful supernatural creatures.
Either way, what she sees takes her breath away: there's such a wild darkness
hidden inside Damon Salvatore, a voracious, Dionysian appetite for everything
and anything, a restless hunger for solace. Power, and confusion, and solitude.
Deep down, he is just as weary and lost as she is.
It scares her beyond reason, that he is capable of sensing her the same way,
but there's no erecting barriers now.
He sees everything of her too: her affection for her friends and family, so
powerful and protective, her pride and her calm strength. He feels her guilt
too, her demanding responsibility to live up to what her Grams wanted for her.
The black depth of her remorse, because Sheila always had her granddaughter's
back and when Bonnie was supposed to return the favor, she chose to have
Stefan's back instead.
Damon clutches the witch to him, ecstasy slithering through his senses and
defenses until every conscious thought is simply gone and the one thing he
remembers is that Bonnie feels so good, so scorching hot around him.
And they come together.
***** Chapter 10 *****
Chapter Summary
     While Jeremy pays a visit to Tyler's grave, Damon and Bonnie face
     their 'morning-after.'
Damon is beginning to suspect that he will never able to entirelypredict what
will pass through Bonnie Bennett's pretty head.
For one, he never expected her to allow him to touch her, but she did, and he
was fairly certain that she was going to return to her usual moralistic self
and jump out of his bed as soon as the deed was done. Probably screaming in
outrage. Acting almighty and disgusted, accusing him of having taken advantage
of her vulnerability.
But, he observes now, propping up his head over his forearm to watch the witch
as she bends to gather her dress from the floor, what he couldn't have fathomed
was this…composed acceptance of hers.
Instead of leaping out of his arms and vomiting harsh words in the space
between them as soon as he pulled out of her, she had allowed him to brush her
hair away from her face, her eyes wide and shadowed like she was already
retreating inward. Out of pure principle, Damon had tried to pull her back into
the moment, with peppered kisses and lingering caresses and the dirtiest things
that came into his head. Again, he had expected to be staked with a pencil or
something. Instead Bonnie kept that annoyingly nebulous, all-knowing gaze on
his and let him go for round two.
Which he hadn't minded at all. Quite the contrary, to say the truth. He could
not remember the last time he felt so satisfied and smug about taking a
beautiful woman to bed. It still bugs him that he doesn't understand her
reaction… or his reaction to her reaction, if that makes any sense.
Bonnie's spine is ram-rod straight as he slips her dress back on, and he feels
marginally disappointed to see her body covered again so soon. Also, the
absence of girl drama irks him even though he usually favors his girls quiet
and out of the door when sex and feeding is no longer on the menu.
Perhaps he is just addicted to pulling this witch's strings. Who can blame him?
It's such an easy thrill. Or it would be, if she had not just joined the
murderers-and-derelicts crew.
"So, no threatening to castrate me if I breathe a word of this to anyone? No
recriminations, insults, tears of bliss?"
Sparing a cursory glance around the room for her dispersed shoes, Bonnie shrugs
and simply exhales a sound and strong "No."
"No?"
Finally, she looks back at him, stoic despite the dark lines of tiredness
around her eyes. "You wouldn't tell it to anyone, because first, nobody would
believe you, and second, it would ruin whatever last chances you think you have
with Elena. And I won't yell at you, because even if sleeping with you was not
the brightest idea I've ever had, it took my mind off all the other ugly stuff,
and that was exactly what I wanted."
"You're such a romantic little bird. No wonder you're single."
While Damon will admit that goading her for stating the truth is not the wisest
option at his disposal given her volatile emotions lately, her careless
bluntness offends him. It's hisjob to slap people around with brutal honesty.
"Who's insulting whom now?"
"No offense intended, Sabrina. I'm just making reasonable observations. I
thought all good girls were into cuddling and grand romantic expectations,
especially after getting deflowered from hot, proficient specimen like myself."
Bonnie rolls her eyes upward and strives to ignore the heat that is creeping up
her neck to her cheeks. Of course he wouldn't let this pass without boasting.
She decides that retreating behind sarcasm is easier than acknowledging that
she can still feel the imprint of his mouth all over her skin. "Are you asking
for a hug?"
"I just feel used."
"You are unbelievable."
"Thank you," he smirks like somebody who's holding in a sinful secret, blue
eyes crinkling while sheets pool around his waist with a slow, fluid movement
that brings him to lie on his side and expose the full glory of his perfectly
defined upper body. Her mind goes utterly blank for a moment or two, hair
raised on her nape, goose bumps over her arms. She should not feel any shame
over noticing that he looks so good. His gorgeous outside is fact more than
opinion. It's also always been a ringing alarm to the ugliness hiding beneath
the surface, until today.
"It wasn't a compliment."
"I don't care. You were complimentary enough during the last two hours. I know
you've got to have a limit."
At this, Bonnie can do nothing but blink.
Damon doesn't relent: "Nothing to add?"
"What do you want? A thank you card? "
Her question actually gives him pause: he becomes aware of an impulse to keep
the witch right where she is. The problem is that he can't imagine what to do
with her when spectacular sex is no longer a viable alternative and draining
her no alternative at all.
"I encourage you to show me your appreciation. But not with a card," he chirps
lewdly, undeterred by the Medusa-like glare she pins on him a few seconds
before putting on her shoes angrily and stomping toward the door.
===============================================================================
"I'm really sorry," Jeremy said to the grey gravestone, setting down a few
wildflowers he caught while he made his way through the cemetery.
He had felt awkward coming here empty-handed, but he feels plain silly offering
flowers to what is left of Tyler Lockwood.
But when all is said and done, he knows he should be feeling so much worse than
silly. Isn't that what making amends is about?
"I know we never got along, but I never wanted it to end this way. I never know
what Katherine is up to until it's too late and…when I know, it doesn't seem to
make much difference anyway."
Shame burns in his gut as Jeremy remembers Bonnie and what almost happened to
her. He knows she's far from being an innocent wallflower, but it doesn't make
him feel any better.
"It's like I don't know anything anymore."
All he knew for certain is irreversibly gone. Her Beautiful Lost Boy – Anna
called him once in an excess of post-coital tenderness, her fingertips dancing
over his features. She loved his humanity… and where had it led her? She was
dead for saving him. Killed by his uncle's hand…the same uncle who was supposed
to know how much Jeremy cared about that petite Asian girl.
Jeremy feels guilty for that, too. He had felt guilty from before he turned,
because Anna had done nothing but save him, and he had done nothing but choose
his family over her.
What about now? He could save her. He'd thought, in the beginning, that his
useless humanity was a fair price to pay for her life. Now… he is confused.
Anna deserves to come back, about this he is certain: he owes that much. But he
misses that boy he was so eager to leave behind.
"I miss me," he repeats out loud, numbly. It's fitting that the one person he
can share this dawning realization with is Tyler Lockwood, who was the first
casualty in his and Katherine's quest.
Staring down at the gravesite, Jeremy knows he can do nothing to undo the past.
The old Jeremy Gilbert would be just as gone if he had truly committed suicide,
and giving up on Anna and Pearl now would be nothing but an act of cowardice.
He needs to know it wasn't all for nothing. But at the same time, he knows he
can't keep following Katherine's rules. He can't oppose her, not openly, but he
needs to find a way to contain her, if that's even possible.
Things have to change… and he won't destroy all he used to care for to achieve
his victory. If he can't be the boy he was, then he will be somebody else.
Somebody Katherine won't play like a cello. Somebody he can live with for an
eternity, even if Anna won't be there to share it with him.
Unfortunately, he has no idea how to make all of this happen without warning
Bonnie. Or talking Damon Salvatore into some kind of deal.
'I'm completely out of my league,' Jeremy admits to himself and strangely,
owning to it makes him feel better.
He can and will work on this until he has found a suitable solution.
***** Chapter 11 *****
This was never supposed to happen again. Bonnie knows it just like she knows
she should stop. Stop familiarizing with Damon, stop paying attention to those
possessive, appreciative once-overs he's been sending her since the night they
had sex whenever Alaric, Stefan, or Elena aren't around. Which was barely two
days and half ago, actually.
She should stop remembering that too; stop having nightmares about the men she
has killed, about what could have happened to her if she had not been able to
protect herself. She should stop feeling like that night has irreversibly
connected her to Damon.
She is not Elena: she doesn't think all Damon needs is love, and she doesn't
particularly appreciate his tendency to place on whatever love interest he is
chasing at the time the responsibility of deciding whom he is. She wants no
part in the Salvatore-Pierce love square and she definitely doesn't need to
question Damon's feelings where she is concerned.
Bonnie has seen Damon being both a protector and an evil fiend, and she finally
understands that fierce loyalty and cold cruelty can come just as easily to
him.
And that makes him all the more dangerously unpredictable, because most of time
he chooses to be bad, selfish, and uncaring.
Hell, he kissed Elena (or the vampire who posed as Elena) less than one hour
after Elena's boyfriend – Damon's own brother- saved him from being burned to a
crisp.
He's the type of person she should to be setting strict boundaries with.
Boundaries to stop her from having sex with him again. The last thing she needs
is to have sex with him again.
Which is why she should stop this. Push his cool, toned, bare-chested body off
hers, crawl out of her bed, pick her discarded shirt and invite him to leave
her bedroom.
It's the right decision: to stop, stop before this truce they managed to build
goes to waste. There's a reason they argue so often and so easily. There are
many good reasons actually, but she can't go there, not now, even if her
sensible, sane side reminds her that she should.
"Stop thinking," Damon growls against her collarbone, demanding her full
attention by fisting her hair and pulling hard at it.
It had started –again- while she stood in her kitchen, supervising him as he
compelled her father to leave for some small town near Dublin, to stay there
until he received a certain phone call from Damon, who was supposed to simply
hum some ridiculous folk song. Her father was convinced he had won the trip at
some drawing. The compulsion was complex – Sean Bennett being carefully
persuaded not to ever question any part of the well-crafted illusion. It was a
relief that Damon seemed to know what he was doing. The whole trip and getaway
was organized by him…organized and paid for, which Bonnie hated. She hated
being so dependent on another person in general and Damon in particular; hated
not being able to provide for her family, both economically and magically. But
what was she supposed to do?
Her father doesn't have enough money to stay abroad for Gods-know-how-long and
she can't afford to refuse Damon's offer.
"Take it as me making up for getting your grannie six feet under," he had
commented carelessly, when she had tried to protest, effectively putting end to
their argument.
While Bonnie watched the car drive away with her dad inside, a feeling of
helplessness and hopelessness washed over her. She felt fragile all of sudden,
like going inside the now empty house was a despairing prospective. So she
stood on the porch, arms crossed before her chest, staring at the driveway long
after her father was gone. At least it felt like a long time, but it couldn't
have been very long, considering Damon's impatient streak. He lingered behind
her like a shadow, until she felt his lips dragging along her neck, exploring
the curve of her neck while his hands settled on her hips and drew her toward
him.
She should have sent him on his way then, instead of just pulling out of his
arms and striding inside, allowing him to trail after her. Why had she not?
Sleeping with him once was a fluke of fortune, but twice is…
The painful pressure of fangs on her shoulder shakes Bonnie out of her
thoughts. "Ow," she cries out, her fist punching his back repeatedly while he
licks the blood oozing from the superficial cut with an appreciative purr.
"I told you to stop thinking," he has the gall to reprimand her, patronizing as
ever. His knee slides between her legs, locking her in place.
"If His Majesty spoke…" she mocks him, rolling her eyes as routine dictates.
"You should pay attention to Him," Damon drawls, almost lazily, in her ear,
nipping the lobe lightly. His palms cup her bare stomach and her breast like
he's claiming ownership.
It's not a mindset she should encourage. She has no intention of becoming his
latest toy. She should not allow him to think that he can do or ask whatever of
her just because there are secrets and small courtesies piling up between them.
But it's hard to be reasonable when her fingers are entwining with his at each
side of her head and his weight is pinning her down to the mattress, his mouth
demanding access to hers. It feels comfortable, the way their bodies fit
together, more familiar than it should.
Bonnie doesn't feel alone or fragile now, just intensely aware of his taste,
his scent, the strength in his quivering muscles. She feels him brushing
against her entrance and knows it's too late to stop anyway.
When Damon pushes inside her, the movement smooth and hard at once, it feels
different than the first time. She feels nothing but a rush of pleasure at
being stretched, filled at first. Then it comes again, the strangeness of his
feelings mingling with hers. She senses his desire and his bloodlust slipping
into her bloodstream plus some new feeling…a sense of entitlement, of self-
satisfaction, of possession.
She resents the last one the most, and yet she arches under him, matching the
pace he has set while holding on to his broad shoulders, her nails digging in
harshly.
His thoughts thunder between her ears, and try as she might, there's no
gathering the focus to push them out.
'My pretty, tight Little Witch. I love it when she tries to hold in all the
sounds. Come on sweetie, I wanna hear you choke on them.'
Stay out of my head-Bonnie wants to scream, but she is afraid of what might
come out of her mouth if she even tried to be articulate. Her hypersensitive
body is a stranger to her right now.
Psychically, and emotionally, she is completely open and vulnerable to him.
Damon might destroy her so easily, and that loss of control is both frightening
and exhilarating in the extreme.
It's also what gets her utterly undone. One moment she is sure she's about to
crawl out of her skin unless he stops torturing her and the next she is
squeezing him hard between her thighs and dissolving into liquid fire.
===============================================================================
In the 'after,' exactly like the first time, she has no clue what she's
supposed to do with herself. On a list of activities Bonnie Bennett expected
engaging in at some point of her life, casual sex wasn't even contemplated.
She feels sore and extremely self-conscious, all the more since Damon appears
perfectly at ease, naked beside her. Which makes sense since he might well be
the most promiscuous person she has had the misfortune of meeting.
Her bed is small enough that their bodies are pretty much forced to press
against each other, but the vampire makes no move to disentangle their legs and
leave her side.
"Where's your psycho cat anyway? I was half-expecting an attack on my family
jewels, if you know what I mean."
Bonnie doesn't quite fight off the smile at her companion's usual, casual
crassness. "Finn is not really my cat; he's more like a…frequently visiting
guest. He goes away for days at times, and then he comes to check on me before
leaving again."
Almost like he's watching over her on Grams' account. It makes her sad, because
she has a feeling that someday Finn will see her starting to get better, and he
will not return to her door anymore. He has been itching for the wilderness
since Grams has been gone, and all that keeps him still connected to the
Bennett household is the old bindings of loyalty to his witch. Finn was
Sheila's familiar, and therefore the last living piece of her heart. Bonnie
doesn't want to lose that too, but there's nothing she can do about it;
familiars will never belong to anyone but the witch they chose.
"He's not doing a good job then." Damon's voice is silky, insinuating, as his
fingers spread over her hip and his teeth nip at the joint between her neck and
shoulder. "Letting strange, old, dead men into your bed."
"Do you ever talk of anything that is not connected to either sex or murder?"
She tries to push away his touch but it's not practical, with the cramped space
they have to share and he is nothing but persistent. Apparently, vampires have
no concept of personal space whatsoever.
"Only when I can't help it, honey," he teases silkily, his lips brushing her
ear. "But if you want to talk about where this relationship is going so badly,
I can indulge you. Orgasms soften me up."
Bonnie chuckles, shaking her head almost fondly. "You know your dirty jokes
amuse only yourself, don't you?"
"I wasn't kidding. I was trying to not make you feel like a cheap pity fuck."
He runs a hand along the curve of her back while he speaks, resting his palm
too low for her liking. She repays his impertinence with her most brilliant
fake smile. "Or maybe you are just suicidal and trying to push me to torch you
alive."
"I would prefer if you tried to kill me via utter exhaustion," Damon whispers
suggestively, slipping his hands lower yet to squeeze her ass.
Bonnie heaves an annoyed sigh, snatches his offending hand away from her flesh,
clutching it as hard she can, hoping it hurts at least a little but knowing
that it probably doesn't, and sits upright.
"This," she remarks, waving her index between them to indicate them both,
"can't and won't happen again, Damon."
"Are you sure?" the smirk that settles on his lips as he lounges back is lazy,
derisive. "You and I are so stressed these days. And this, as you call it, was
curing us so well. Why should we stop?"
His façade of detached arrogance is so well-perfected that his attitude would
fool her easily, if not for those unwanted glimpses she gets about him while
they have sex. Just one more reason to stop before they get in too deep.
The gaze she pins on him is hard, a definite no-nonsense memento.
"It's not about that," she reminds him with deliberate surety. "I feel so
disengaged from everything lately, but not from you. Don't even pretend you
aren't in the same place, because I wouldn't believe it. This absurd situation
has stuck us with each other, but it doesn't mean we have go along with it and
just…screw each other silly."
His blue eyes lose a bit of their coolness to brighten up in unmasked
appreciation. "I almost like you when you're talking dirty."
"I'm serious, Damon."
"Aren't you always?"
"We're banning sex from this 'association' of ours right now."
"If you want me to take you at face value, witch, you need to stop sounding
like a dominatrix. It gets me in the mood."
"Damon…"
Instead of softening, her features harden in a strict glower and although he
finds the expression to be absolutely inviting of all sorts of convoluted,
filthy images, he just rolls his eyes like he's uninterested.
"Suit yourself," the vampire snaps, thinking that he might as well take it as a
challenge. He never wants something as much as when he is denied it, anyway.
Why should he let some annoying Emily descendant call all the shots?
***** Chapter 12 *****
Chapter Summary
     Bonnie keeps struggling to handle the most primal aspects of her
     witch nature, and Damon does anything but help.
Chapter Notes
     to this chapter is 'Real'- Goo Goo Dolls(a truly perfect Bamon song,
     listen it if you have the chance).
"What's up with you lately?" Bonnie ventures to her best friend during one
relatively uneventful evening. "You've been strange lately."
The witch would have probably noticed before Stefan asked her to talk to his
girlfriend if she hadn't been so preoccupied with her own private issues.
Stefan is worried for her, says that something is off with Elena even though he
can't pinpoint what. Bonnie agrees that Elena has been sending off the same
vibe she did when she was striving to look 'okay' after her parents' death.
Which is kind of acceptable since Jeremy turned and disappeared; and Katherine
keeps sending little gifts and psycho love letters to Stefan. Bonnie feels
guilty for not being more supportive, but it's not like Elena is not
permanently attached to her boyfriend's side. Almost like she is…avoiding her,
but that is not possible. Elena and Stefan don't even suspect about that night.
"Strange is the new normal in this house," Elena answers offhandedly, twisting
a chestnut lock between her fingers. "I'm just weary of all these crises. I'm
tired of wondering if Jeremy will ever even call me. I'm sick of Katherine
stalking my boyfriend and sending him her creepy letters reminiscing about
their past. I don't feel like talking about this stuff all the time. "
Looking at her, Bonnie is reminded for a moment of the privileged popular queen
bee she was just a year ago. Which might be good, bad, or neither. Everyone
needs to shut down sometimes. "Okay."
"How's it going with Damon?"
"What?" For a moment, Bonnie is startled by the question. She keeps forgetting
her little training sessions with the vampire are common knowledge although no
one but her and Damon know why they are so necessary.
"The offensive spell-work practice. Are you making any progress?"
Elena sounds hopeful, like she is picturing all the ways they might get
Katherine out of the picture already. It irrationally irks the witch. "My aim
with fire balls sucks," she shrugs. "Managing to not kill Damon for real is
progress enough for now."
It might come across as a joke, but there's more than a little truth behind
those words.
If Damon wasn't as powerful and experienced as he is, she would be worried.
Sometimes, when the spells work through her, she gets so very angry that it's
hard to keep it all in and let the rage out in a controlled, steady manner.
Sometimes, when she tries to contain the power, it physically hurts her so
badly that she feels like she is going die. She finds herself unable to talk
about it, with anyone. Not solely because no one but Damon and Gwen knows about
her recent study in Dark Magic. Her weakness fills her with shame. It's bad
enough that Damon sees it so frequently.
Elena leans on Bonnie because Bonnie has always been stable, accommodating, the
voice of reason when things went from bad to worse. Bonnie is afraid of losing
any more constants in her small world. She is scared of being seen as weak, un-
trustworthy, a threat.
"His antics take a lot of getting used to."
Elena smiles lightly, basically transpiring fondness and slight nostalgia.
Bonnie is not entirely sure how much of her accurate reading of her friend is
due to her life-long companionship and how much is due to her developing
powers. Either way, she makes a point of writing the thought out of her memory.
Since forging her weird, inconstant and private understanding with Damon, she
feels uncomfortable passing judgment on what she has privately christened as
'The Triangle of Doom.'
Stefan has not been with Elena long enough to know that the girl is not used to
denying herself anything, and while Elena's intentions are always good and her
love for Stefan plain as day to see, Bonnie wonders how long her friend will be
following her advice and keeping her distance from Damon.
She feels almost a little bit guilty at the possibility of Elena missing him,
because although she still believes her advice is right and genuine, the fact
that she has slept with the older Salvatore brother makes it look otherwise.
Which is stupid because it's not like Bonnie has stolen him or whatever and
while Elena can enjoy Damon's attention and company, her relationship with
Stefan still stands sacred.
Does Elena lust after Damon despite that?
"Are you glaring at me?" the brunette in question inquires, amused, shaking the
witch out of her inner monologue.
"No," Bonnie replies collectedly, "but I was thinking we need ice scream,
cookies, and a good romantic comedy. It's been ages since we had a normal
girls-only evening."
The proposition both distracts and intrigues her best friend instantly. "It's a
great idea. I can't even remember the last time we went by the video store."
Her degree of enthusiasm leaves Bonnie feeling even guiltier.
Two-timing two brothers is gross. Elena wouldn't do it. Not even inside her
head. I'm becoming paranoid because of… that other thing. Damn, I knew nothing
good could come out of having sex with the devil.
Underneath the guilt, deep down in that dark, primitive core of herself where
her Power sinks its roots, a more basic instinct tugs at her. It's territorial,
angry, ferocious. It doesn't recognize Elena as an equal, and it dislikes being
challenged by a mere human.
I'm human too. –the witch tries to convince herself.
Grams' firm voice echoes in between her thoughts, a memento from one of her
first lessons: 'Spell-work is what we do, Bonnie, but Witchcraft is what weare.
It permeates and shapes every part of us: how we feel, how we think, how we act
and react.'
Sometimes Bonnie thinks moving on from Grams is so hard because, blood ties
aside, in the Craft Sheila was the mother who gave her a new life. She was the
first one of their kind to welcome and accept her, the one who taught her to
understand and accept herself. Even before knowing the truth, Bonnie had always
felt a sense of belonging when she was with her crazy grandma, so unexplainable
and yet evident that even her parents seemed a bit upset at it sometimes.
She starkly refuses to feel like that about Damon someday. Even if she is
forced to share that part of herself with him for now, she won't let this
entwine their lives so permanently.
===============================================================================
The forest is so dark in the night despite the pale moonlight filtering through
the evergreen foliage that Bonnie is strongly reminded of a premonition she had
long time ago, when Emily was poking her ghostly nose in her dreams. The mental
picture is as a vivid as an actual memory, but it stirs no fear, only more
power.
She can feel everything: the moon's subtle, feminine energy descending from
above like an affectionate, cool caress; the Hearth under her feet, like a
generous, life-giving gravity; the trees and the plants all around her,
vibrating with a gentle force.
An owl calls for his mate somewhere in the distance and she can feel the love
echoing in that call too, so different and yet the same as its human
equivalent. Her senses locate both the birds easily.
She is at the very centre of an infinite spider's web, and its invisible
threads make the entire world reverberate through her body. It's hard to retain
consciousness in the face of all that unadulterated power- it's not hers but it
might take her over effortlessly if she didn't keep her mental barriers up. The
learning process is frustrating, but Bonnie is determined, and she trusts that
determination more than anything. A witch is just as strong as her self-
discipline, Grams would say.
She waits for the moment she starts to feel smaller, because that's how it
feels when the Power is slipping through the cracks of her barricades to
possess her: she responds by expanding her aura, strengthening its margins and
her sense of self by mentally chanting her name.
She is almost ready when another Power source charges at her, cutting through
the wilderness with a thunderbolt-like speed.
"I was not ready!"Bonnie snaps, molding the energy at her disposal in a
gleaming shield of light that temporarily blinds her adversary but just
slightly delays his attack. She heats the shield so that when his hand reaches
to grab her, his palm and fingers blister.
Damon jumps back, his vampire face doing nothing to dissimulate the patronizing
smirk that bares his sharp monstrous teeth. "If this is the best you can do
when you're caught by surprise, you're an easy meal."
"Hardly."
She charges at him with a telekinetic push, but right before he can crash
against a tree trunk, his body dissolves into a grey mist.
It's a trick that gets him out of trouble every damn time she gets close to
doing any real damage to him and it annoys her very much; she still has not
figured a way around it.
Bonnie glances around warily as the mist grows thicker and closes in around
her. She needs to force him to rematerialize if she wants another chance to
attack him.
Stretching her arms ahead, she chants the Gaelic term for 'wind', raising a
breeze that disperses the fog with increasing persistence. She can sense his
resistance as the mist resiliently filters through the breeze to surround her
again, and she boosts her magic to feed the wind until a miniature hurricane
rises around her frame. For a full five minutes their Powers are at a stand-
still. She grits her teeth and focuses with greater intensity, expending more
effort to clamp down her sudden appetite for destruction, wanting to gain the
upper hand. Then she exerts herself just a bit more and, inch by inch, she
sweeps the mist away without losing the control over her aggressive instincts.
Damon's body reforms at her left: his soundly, sardonically clapping hands are
the first one to materialize, and the witch concedes to him one begrudging
extra point for scenic effect.
"Not bad," he comments, his tone far more patronizing than flattering, "but it
hasn't truly resolved anything, has it? Hit me with something real now, little
girl-"
Bonnie does her best to comply that wish, cutting him off with a telekinetic
punch aimed at his chiseled jaw. His lips are bloody but he's laughing as he
staggers.
"Unoriginal but effective, I got to hand it to you, Bennett. That all you got?"
She goes for another punch, but he's good and fast enough to sense the
direction of the shifting air and evade it. Instead of being disappointed, she
feels a wild excitement bubbling up inside: she can see the same emotion
reflected in Damon's gaze, and it feeds hers.
Smirking, she sends out a few tendrils of her aura so they descend into the
warm and welcoming soil …and laughs as two brown earth-made claws grab the
vampire's ankles. After trying to kick them off him, he turns a stubborn,
mocking glare on her, flashing his fangs threateningly.
"Don't expect me to be gentle when I wipe you out. You can't keep those on
forever-"
"I didn't plan to"
Her invisible hand slaps him hard across the face, and then she hits him even
harder in the stomach. It takes three blows to make his knees buckle and drag a
soft grunt of pain from that bloody mouth.
She is faintly disturbed at how good it feels to bring him down to this.
There's a twisted, endearing quality to the murderous intensity he keeps
looking at her with, and she doesn't understand or even wonder why but she
wants more of it.
So she adds the finishing touch, strengthens the vice of the earthly claws
around his ankles and then has them drag him down to the ground.
Exhilaration surges through her as she watches the vampire fall, a sign that
she is getting drunk with magic again. It doesn't feel wrong. It feels natural,
like shedding your clothes for a shower after an exhausting day. This is what a
witch is meant to be after all: a vessel for her gods' ancient power.
She is tempted to attack again, with something more satisfying, more
spectacular. But she glances at Damon, face down, no longer watching her with
ink-black, red-ringed irises, and releases him from her hold. Then she breaths
slowly out and lets every link she has to the Web go.
Bonnie sways, overcome from the backlash: suddenly she feels bereft, not quite
certain of what is real and what is not. She has let go too fast, as per her
usual mistake.
She notices the predator rushing up toward her too late to react accordingly:
her back is already uncomfortably pressed against a trunk, and cool fingers are
loosely splayed around her throat, exercising a slightly painful pressure just
to prove a point.
"I win," Damon growls, licking his lips.
Bonnie would object but it's complicated to do with his hand pressuring on her
larynx and every inch of her flesh heating exponentially…not metaphorically,
but literally. Her body temperature always seems to increase to blatantly non-
human levels after a fight.
He frees her throat just to dip his head down and graze it with his fangs. She
should be terrified, eager to fend him off given their 'precedents'. But that
other alien half of her is in charge, and it recognizes his right to bite her,
so she turns her head so the curve of her neck is entirely exposed.
Right at this moment, she wants to feel his fangs sinking into her flesh, her
blood sliding down his throat.
She can feel his smile on her skin while his mouth nuzzles her neck, but he
doesn't bite her. His fangs barely press on her flesh before what had started
as a playful nip turns into Damon suckling on her neck like he is set on
marking it with a hickey the size of Texas.
Bonnie stifles a moan, closes her eyes and allows herself to enjoy the
sensation for few moments. It feels natural, like the culmination of a dance
they started without meaning to. Which of course brings her back to the real
reason she shouldn't be…indulging. Especially since Damon is getting ahead of
himself already, pinching her hip and cupping her breast.
She focuses her mind on the task and sends him flipping backwards.
"Not nice, Elphaba."
"If you insist on copping a feel, you might at least bother saying my name."
"I'll keep it in mind for next time, Bonnie."
His eyes are back to their normal blue and shining with all sorts of bad
intentions.
"There will be no next time."
He nods and advances toward her with a roguish grin, and she backtracks at the
same pace.
At a point he gets fed up with it and dashes at her, trying to entrap her again
against a tree. Bonnie foils his plan with a timely slap- a real, completely
human slap, which does not hurt him but still slackens his jaw.
"If this is what turns you on-"
"It doesn't," she grits.
"You know you're lying, I can smell-"
Bonnie doesn't really want to know how that sentence ends, so she slaps him
again. "At least tryto contain yourself, little witch," he says giddily.
"Look, I know you don't really listen to what anyone says, but you can believe
me now: you and me are not going to have sex ever again."
Damon has the gall to sigh and roll his eyes like he thinks she is being
unnecessarily difficult. "Why are you fighting it so hard? I want you, you want
me: let's sweat it out. "
"It doesn't work like that!"
"It does when you aren't a bossy, sexually repressed, martyr-complexed witch!"
They don't get any further in their argument because they are soon alerted to
another presence in their relative proximity. They were so preoccupied with
each other that they had not heard it coming, so when a familiar voice sneaks
in the discussion they turn toward its source so fast that Bonnie's neck
cramps.
They don't jump apart regardless-perhaps Damon even instinctively leans closer
to his 'sparring partner'.
"I'm really sorry about the interruption," Jeremy breaks in, finding the
startled expression on their faces more than a bit discouraging, "but I really
need to talk to both of you, away from any ears."
Inwardly, the young vampire crosses his fingers and hopes they won't try
killing him once he has finished his carefully rehearsed speech.
***** Chapter 13 *****
Chapter Summary
     Bonnie, Jeremy and Damon have a talk and many ugly truths come to
     light while the bond between the witch and her vampire grows
     stronger.

"What you do you want?" Damon growls, his cold eyes narrowing on Jeremy in
evident annoyance and suspicion. Jeremy has the feeling the older vampire is
ready to attack him the moment he steps forward, so he stays immobile, shifting
his gaze on a confused looking Bonnie.
Jeremy is tempted to blush at how good she smells, like a sugary blend of sweat
and adrenaline and arousal, and he tries to remember that to try drinking her
up would be an extremely bad idea, regardless of what his thirst would indicate
him to believe.
"I'm telling the truth. I'm just here to talk. About Katherine."
"About Katherine," Bonnie inquires, recovering a certain cool aloofness, "or
for Katherine?"
"She doesn't even know I'm here. I want to work out a deal."
"Are we honestly supposed to believe that you are trying to double cross
Katherine?"Damon snorts, an arrogant sort of amusement and lazy indignation
plain on his features.
Slightly miffed that he is not being taken seriously, even after how low he has
sunk, yet emboldened just as much by the annoyed look Bonnie has just shot to
her companion, Jeremy parrots the other vampire's mocking tone with a raised
eyebrow:
"I know what she wants and it's what I want too. If you agree to give it to me,
I'll help you put her down."
"And we would believe you why?" Damon sarcastically spits just as the witch
beside him interjects, "What is it she wants so badly?"
Jeremy wets his suddenly dry lips before going on, striving to ignore Damon and
stare straight into Bonnie's green, serious eyes."Anna and Pearl, your magic
can resurrect them."
The rest of his speech doesn't come easily, but once he has started, Jeremy
learns he can't stop. He reveals everything, from how the Necromicron was
Katherine's and she had somehow intended to get it in Bonnie's hands, to her
plan of singling Bonnie out in order to manipulate her to do her bidding. The
hardest part is confessing about compelling those four guys and observing their
attack on her.
Jeremy hears himself pronouncing the words as if from a wide distance: the
'feelings-switch' is off before he fully realizes it. He has locked his shame
and guilt away, almost like it's a natural reaction by now.
"I would never let them go too far," he justifies himself, and he hopes she
sees he means every syllable. But the witch just shakes her head lightly,
letting out a low, sardonic laughter filled with disdain.
Damon's fists are clenched at his sides and his shoulders are tight with
tension, but he's angling himself toward Bonnie, the need to observe her
reaction strong enough to distract him temporarily from his urge to beat the
other vampire to a pulp.
"Too far?" Even while her voice remains soft, almost musical, Bonnie's eyes
flash a vivid, furious, unnatural green. "How far is 'too far' for two psycho
vampires, exactly? How much leeway were you ready to give them? Would you have
allowed them to roughen up me a little? Let them have a look under my clothes,
a couple of kicks to knock me down."
Damon snarls at the imagery she is painting for them, so low that only Jeremy
can hear him, but it's not what makes Jeremy flinch. It's that he has no answer
for Bonnie: he doesn't know how far Katherine was prepared to go but, most
importantly, he doesn't know whether he would have actually been capable of
acting against her wishes.
"I don't even know who you are anymore, why should I give you what you want?
You don't deserve it!"
She wraps her arms around herself, the déjà-vu this confrontation is arousing
inside her doing nothing to calm her mounting anger.
"Because Anna deserves it! The one reason they took her is because she was
trying to protect me and this town! You owe her! This whole town owes her!"
"I owe her? The vampire who had me and your sister kidnapped and manhandled by
her insane boyfriend? If you think this, perhaps the two of you truly deserve
each other!"
"She did what she had to, to save her mom!" Jeremy seethes, his voice rising to
match hers. "I would have done the same for mine, and you can't say you
wouldn't-"
Outraged by his allusion to Grams and hurt by the too fresh memory of that
awful day, Bonnie lets her power loose, clutching his throat with an imaginary
hand and in the same moment wrapping a high-pitched sound in an invisible
energy sphere. She projects it inside his skull and lets the noise explode in
his mind.
The trick works on Jeremy even better than it had worked on Stefan. The young
vampire's knees bend like melting butter and he curls on himself as he falls
down, not even clutching his head to protect his ears.
Bonnie smirks coldly, a sinister light behind her gaze as she watches him
convulse on the ground, soundlessly because she is completely cutting off his
air supply.
Damon's shoulder bumps hers as he inches closer to her, but he doesn't stop her
nor does he do anything to help Jeremy. He is just watching on with a somber,
undecipherable expression that has something predatory, and something
satisfied, and something displeased as well.
His regard bothers her enough that she finds in herself the will to stop.
It's disturbing and confusing that she can get a hint of what he hides under
the mask with no more than a furtive glance, but she commands her mind to not
go there, not now and maybe not ever.
Jeremy coughs up blood, turning on his stomach with a groan of pain, and she
has to look away, because she feels like she's breaking. Her head knows he
deserved it, and her Power demanded retribution, but the part of her that is
still very human is horrified. He's just a kid, a kid who used to pull at her
hair and steal her hairclips for fun, a kid who lost his parents and two girls
he cared about in the same cursed year, and she is taking pleasure in beating
him up.
How did everything get so fucked up?
Damon steps forward, kneeling next to Jeremy to grab him by his hair and pull
his head back.
"So, boy. Give me a reason to not rip your head off your neck. Or even better,
to give your bitch of a mistress a heads up about what a little fickle,
talentless fool you are?"
"Elena," Jeremy utters, plastering the beginning of a cocky grin on his lips.
It goes over less well than he had hoped since Damon rolls his eyes, annoyed,
and smashes his face on the ground thrice, each harder than the last. Honestly,
the older Salvatore has been waiting to do something like this since Isobel
came to town. It's a source of endless aggravation that every ignorant,
oblivious nobody which comes his way lately claims to know for certain that
Damon is in love with Elena Gilbert.
If Damon was in love again, he's quite sure he would be the first to know. With
Katherine, he had known right away, regardless of how painful and humiliating
the whole experience was.
"She will be better off without you," he adds, more for Bonnie's benefit than
Jeremy's. He turns to meet her wide, haunted eyes, searching for any hint of
silent approval.
Jeremy coughs out more blood, his bruised visage shifting to his vampiric form.
His nose is broken but the broken skin is already beginning to heal, and Bonnie
takes in the process with a distant, morbid fascination. She is scared that the
moment she stops distracting herself, she is going to look back to Damon and
give him some sort of positive signal.
How is she supposed to know whether finishing Jeremy off is the right thing to
do? It's not a decision she wants to make, and it's not a decision Elena would
make, so where does this leave them?
It's appalling that she is even considering the murder of her best friend's
little brother as a solution.
Damon keeps smacking Jeremy's head on the ground, so violently, and just a week
ago the sight would have her forced to throw up. Now it just leaves her cold.
"Katherine," Jeremy grunts. "You can't defeat her without inside help."
"That's just what you believe, baby boy," Damon drawls with a smile that might
just be defined as cruel, just before the sound of snapping bones echoes among
the trees when the boy's cheek meets the grass once more. It's clear enough
that he's enjoying the violence, the dominance, the pain he's causing and
Bonnie remembers because he used to scare her so much.
"Stop!" the witch cuts in firmly, surprised that Damon actually freezes the
moment the word is out. "If Katherine is really working for someone older and
stronger, maybe killing her won't stop anything. We can use him. "
She tried very hard to block out that working with Jeremy might mean informing
Stefan and Elena about her recent transgressions. The welfare of her town comes
before her shame and her personal relationships.
Damon lets the boy go and gets up with an aggravated sigh and a last kick to
Jeremy's prone form.
"You are one lucky loser, baby boy."
"We're going leave now," Bonnie goes on, grasping Damon's wrist and pulling him
toward her. "And you won't follow after us. I'm going to think about what you
said and I'll make a decision when I don't feel like killing you just because I
can."
Again, she expects Damon to undermine her and her shocking newfound
decisiveness, but the vampire just takes over where she left off by finishing
with the threat she could not bring herself to pronounce.
"Breath a word to your sister, her boy-toy, or anyone else and you are
finished, Jer, I'll make sure of it."
He says it so smoothly that she shivers, knowing it's probably for her benefit.
Damon is protecting her again, and he should not.
While they walk among the trees, Bonnie's hand never leaves Damon's wrist. Her
grip is strong enough to hurt a human, but the vampire is more worried at the
speed her feet keep going, stumbling on the occasional root but never slowing
down, even after he had to catch her repeatedly to stop her from falling.
She has not said one single word since they left Jeremy, and that bothers him.
He can imagine where her mind is going, and he dislikes imagining her blaming
herself over things that are nowhere close to being her fault.
"Bonnie?" he calls for her, fed up with the waiting.
"I can't talk about it now," she answers, not bothering to even glance his way.
It annoys him.
"About what?"
"About anything!"
Her nails dig in and he almost plays with the idea that she might brand him,
leaving permanent marks where her warm fingertips press against cool skin. He
dismisses the mildly pleasant thought before it's fully formed.
Thick silence elapses for few minutes more before she contradicts herself by
breaking it.
"I killed four men for nothing." She sighs and under the tense collectedness
she says it with, he can sense how angry she is at herself.
"Not for nothing, for legitimate defense. Compelled or not, they were a threat.
Nothing has really changed where that's concerned."
His calm obliges her to recoil and halt her uneven walking, finally flipping
around to face him. "Everything changed! How could I not notice?"
"How were you supposed to notice?" Damon counters, unyielding. "You are not
God, Bennett. Despite your propensity for self-flagellation and pushy self-
righteousness."
His attempt at humor only seems to upset her even more, and she drops his hand
abruptly, her eyes blazing.
"I'm a witch!"
"You did the best you could with what you had."
"It wasn't enough!"
"What do you want me to tell you?" Finally she sees him start losing his cool,
and it satisfies her, because what she has done should matter, should seem
awful, even to him. "Life is unfair and sometimes people pay just for the fact
they are in the way.It happens!"
"You should know that better than anyone else!"
For a few seconds, Damon genuinely wants to grab her shoulders and tear her
throat ope
, because she is being impossible and he's sick of her constantly bringing up
the past. Why can't she be a little more … manageable, like Elena, and just
accept that he wants to comfort her? It's not like it comes naturally to him,
but he's trying and her hysteria is no help!
With mounting horror, Bonnie realizes that, just staring at him and standing
before him, snapping, has lifted that flimsy veil of shock and denial she held
on for protection. Something is coming loose inside her and she can't stop it.
The memories, the reality of that horrible night, the accurate strategy
Katherine had applied to single her out, Gwen's betrayal are all sinking in and
it's simply too much.
Hot tears gather in her eyes and she wills herself to hold them in for just a
little longer. It's a useless, humiliating effort and they slide over her
burning cheeks copiously as she chokes on a sob.
Bonnie covers her face with her palms, hating fiercely that Damon is there,
watching her again as she falls apart.
She is so ashamed and so hurt and the tears just keep coming. It feels like the
harder she tries to keep quiet, the harder she shudders and cries.
She doesn't sense Damon approaching until his fingers begin stroking through
her hair cautiously, but she doesn't stop him because all her energies are
focused on not bawling like a baby and lose all sense of herself.
After awhile his arm wraps around her hips, pulling her close, and his hand
cups the back of her head to press her cheek against his chest. As her nose
brushes the rift between his arm and shoulder, Bonnie inhales his masculine
scent and lets the familiarity of it wash over her.
She breathes it in and out until her crying finally slows down.
Damon exploits the break to lift her legs and pick her up, bridal style,
running at full vampire speed toward her home before the little witch could
gather the strength to fight him.
"Thank you," was the one comment past her lips once she was tucked in her bed,
her covers up to her chin. Damon could have used her turmoil to get what he
wanted, but something stopped him. He could not pinpoint what it was, but while
he stood by a Bonnie who stripped and put on her PJs, he had felt singularly
disinclined to do anything but glare at her stupid cat.
The very same cat who had curled at her feet while he stood by the window,
mumbling that he was staying to make sure that Jeremy didn't put to use his
free pass to the house for the night.
"Thank you," she had repeated, even smiling as Damon snapped a, "Just be quiet
and sleep."
The softness in Bonnie's tone shook him. Not because she sounded weak, but
because she sounded grateful and almost…affectionate toward him.
All night long, he stares at her sleeping face and marvels at the serenity it
gives him, the simple action to keep her safe.
Contrary to popular belief, Damon Salvatore is not completely oblivious to the
reality around him, even when he dislikes it. He has lived long enough to know
what has been happening to him where Bonnie Bennett is concerned. He does
understand that there's a reason his head is full of nothing but her, even when
he should busy himself with much more real concerns. Like putting Katherine
down, or plotting his revenge for all the years he has wasted mourning her loss
and taking out his rage on Stefan.
But the fact stays: since the night he had her, all he really he wants to do is
being near the witch; take care of her; make sure she is protected and sane;
fantasize about how long it will take to wear her silly resistance down.
And when he sleeps, all he dreams about is her and the night he nearly drained
her. But in his dreams, he never let Stefan touch her; instead he gathers her
in his arms and feeds her his blood while her taste still fills his mouth. Some
other times his dreams are more carnal, and it's all about their bodies joining
on the forest's green grass while the air around them carries a heady scent of
summer blossoms.
He's developing an annoying tendency to get hot-headed and bothered whenever he
sees her in conversation with Stefan, Alaric or that horrid Donovan boy. It
even bugged him to see her wasting one whole hour of telephone conversation
coddling Caroline, or -even worse- Elena. The witch would flay him for how
territorial he is if she knew. He hates it whenever she spends alone time with
Elena, only because Elena is supposedly the most important person to her.
He just wants all of Bonnie's attention, all the time lately, and that's
especially frustrating since she acts like she is utterly determined to give
him as little she can.
Damon despises himself for how frustrated and jealous he allows her to make him
feel. Because while his behavior might be defined as borderline psychotic for a
common male human, it is quite normal for a vampire, as he has seen happen to
countless others of his kind while Stefan played the pathetic human wannabe.
What he feels for Bonnie is not love but the way his nature pulls and insists
on her as a potential mate. He supposes it was bound to happen, considering
that in 145 years he has sired few childer, and purely out of a varying
combination of boredom, carelessness, and bitterness. Just because vampires
don't reproduce like humans do, it doesn't mean they don't have biological
imperative to perpetuate their bloodline.
Before, with Katherine shadowing every thought of his, he had felt bound to
wait for her, his instincts recognizing her like his one true companion. Now
that the truth had set him free, perhaps it was logical that the vampire in him
demanded to fill that vacant space.
Logically, he knows he doesn't necessarily want Bonnie around for eternity.
Rationally, he sees he doesn't even really want her as his childe: he enjoys
their dynamic for what it is, and he has no intention to change it. Yet, the
instinct is there, challenging him to fuck, defend, mark and feed.
He can only wait until it goes away.
It's not love- he reassures himself- Itwill go away.
By dawn, he is flying out of her bedroom, proud that he is going to skip
unnecessary awkwardness. A raven keeps roaming the sky above the Bennett's
property until the girl inside is heading to school.
***** Chapter 14 *****
Chapter Summary
     Bonnie, Jeremy and Damon have sketched a strategy to destroy
     Katherine, and now it's time to set it in motion
Chapter Notes
     Soundtrack to this chapter: 'A Beautiful Dawn' by Wailin' Jennys.
Borgin's Emporium isn't an easy shop to find. It has a 'hide-me' spell placed
on it, so unless you have someone recommend you to the owner thus procuring you
a client card, you can walk around Dusty Lane until your feet are sore, but
would not find it.
This security measure is quite necessary since the shop specializes in 'objects
with unusual and powerful properties,' specifically ancient ones. In other
words, it was a Dark Arts shop.
Fortunately, Bonnie has inherited her card from Grams although she supposes her
grandmother would have been appalled to know that she would need to use it so
soon, and for such reasons.
"What has the world come to: Bonnie Bennett skipping cheerleadering practice to
shop at a place like this," Damon sneers, his cheek brushing hers as his chin
hovers on her shoulder and his arm snakes around her waist.
She allows the contact to last a moment longer than she should before stepping
forward and away from him.
"Tell me again why you're following me?"
He shrugs, blue eyes glittering in the sunlight, and she resents him deeply for
being handsome, standing here beside her when he is supposed to be somewhere
else, pestering Stefan or Elena or Katherine.
"Everyone needs a hobby. This is mine."
Bonnie shakes her head, drawing her lips in a thigh line as soon as she notices
they are trying to pull up in a smile.
Amelia Borgin, the owner, waits on the threshold, scrutinizing the couple
expressionlessly, her arms crossed before her bosom. She is a woman in her mid-
forties, still sensual looking with her dark, long hair, dark red lips, and
pale face; a gothic matron clad in all black, impassive but intimidating.
Bonnie wonders what the woman's black eyes see when she watches them, and her
fingers tighten around the card in her pocket before taking it out.
"Wait here. I'll be done in a second."
Damon's hand cups her hip and draws her back against him. "It's not a good idea
going in there alone for the first time. Convince her to let me in."
Bonnie snickers, finding the notion ridiculous. "She barely knows me, and only
through Grams' mentions. She would be insane to let a vampire inside her shop
merely because I say so."
She moves away from him, and this time he doesn't stop her. His gaze bores into
her back anyway. She can feel it even after Amelia has stepped aside to let her
in. The shop is quite large, dusty, and dimly lit, with shelves lining
virtually anywhere, and fluorescent vials, amulets and jars filled with strange
and horrid things like bones, mummified human heads, and hearts in formalin.
Still, the youngest Bennett keeps her expression blank, and meets the older
witch's probing stare boldly. Knowing that Damon is waiting for her outside,
backing her up, makes her feel more secure, despite whatever she said before
entering.
"What can I help you with?"
Amelia's voice is strong, melodic, resonating with power.
Bonnie knows, as she answers, that her tone is no match. "I'm looking for a
Hand Of Glory."
"It's expensive."
"I can afford it."
Which was, sadly, Jeremy's doing. Bonnie had not wanted to know where the money
came from when she accepted it. She just hopes the path she has opted to take
is the right one.
Amelia places a wooden, plain box on the counter, opens it to reveal a left
hand, dried and pickled, his skin grey and papery. Magic hums through it like a
cold, cutting force that tastes like winter's frost and the first snow of
December
The older witch takes in the younger one's nod and names a price. Bonnie pays
without another word.
===============================================================================
Damon falls in step right behind her as she walks out of the Emporium, her box
tucked in her bag.
"So?"
"I have it."
He grabs her elbow, just tight enough to redirect her without hurting her,
steering her toward a nearby café.
"Let's get some coffee. I want you to talk to me."
Bonnie huffs but doesn't rebel. She doesn't look him in the eye until they are
sitting at their small circular table, a fuming cup before each one of them.
She brings her cup to her lips and sips, waiting. When she first showed to him
the spell on the Necromicron and illustrated the modifications she wanted to
apply to the general scheme of the ritual, the vampire had looked intrigued. It
was a matter of merging two different rites together: the evocation of the
Moirae and a Restitution Petition.
Now that every tassel is sliding in place, Damon no longer looks so certain
that her idea is worth trying, and Bonnie can tell this solely by his growing
indifference towards her explanations of the various proceedings .
"Let's stop tiptoeing around the subject," he begins bluntly, like he is not
the one who has been in avoidance mode. "The basics of giving Katherine a
lesson by turning her games on her seemed truly appealing to me at first, but I
had the chance to reason it more level-headedly now. I don't think you're at
the stage where you can write rituals this complicated by yourself. Last thing
I need is another dead witch on my hands. "
His callousness in slipping a dig at her grandmother's death in conversation
angers her, but not so much that she would forget taking offense at his sudden
lack of faith in her abilities. Out of everyone in town, he should be the one
to know she is sufficiently strong enough to do this.
Bonnie knows better than to allow those feelings to get the best of her. It's
what he wants probably: to see her faltering and angry, just enough to be
easily swayed.
She strives to appear unmoved. "I can do my part, Damon, and I can do it
without your support. What is your real issue here? Are you scared that killing
Katherine is more appealing in theory than in practice?"
In truth, she has often feared this possibility. She has come to count on
Damon's alliance, whether it was accidentally formed or not. If he was to
change sides now, it would be a disaster. He knows too much of her and of all
her weaknesses.
His expression hardens at her accusation, and he is quick to snap a clipped,
"Don't insult me, Bennett. Iknow perfectly well what I want."
"Really? She was more than the woman you loved, she was your purpose. Are you
gonna say that pleasing her wasn't the one reason that kept you going for more
than a century? You can't expect me to believe there's not a part of you that
still loves her underneath the hatred and the bitterness."
Damon's flawless features school themselves into a bland mask, but that just
adds to the stormy fury reflected in his eyes.
He leans forward, smiling sinisterly. "Maybe you're right. Deep down, I still
feel whatever she used to be to me, even if it's twisted beyond recognition. Do
you think it changes anything, little girl? The fact that she lives is not just
an insult to my self-respect, it's a threat. It will never be over until she
stops walking on the same planet I do, and I want to be freeof this poison that
binds me to her."
The chilling clarity of his words echoes through her mind and touches her in
places she can't identify; she just understands that something about the
intensity of his intent transmits straight to her.
"Fine." It's all she can respond. "Then mind your part and I'll mind mine."
"Use your head for something other than separating your ears, Bonnie!" he
hisses through clenched teeth. "You want to summon Fates. Ask to have four
vampires resurrected as your slaves in restitution for the four men whose lives
you have taken. What would happen if the Powers That Be decided that your being
tricked into murder is not a wrong to be compensated, but a fault to be
punished? What if they take it out on you? You could die or worse. I can't let
you play with things bigger than you are!"
Bonnie is about to snap that he is not in a position of letting or not letting
anything happen to her when a strange, startling concept snakes through her
mind, leaving her utterly confused. "Are you…worried about me?"
"You're no use or fun to me if you die now," he reminds her nastily, eyes
narrowing like she has just insulted him.
"I won't die," she repeats vehemently, putting down her coffee to touch his arm
instinctively. "Restitution Petitions have been done by witches for ages. If my
case doesn't fit the requirements, my request will be ignored, and we'll find
another way to fix everything."
Original Restitution Petitions were invocated to demand the Gods to bind to the
caster's will a person who had greatly offended the witch in question, for
example by killing a relative, or intentionally causing another un-reimbursable
loss. The 'victim' of the spell was thus called to serve the spellcaster in
retribution for the committed wrongdoing, until they were both alive.
The difference here is that Bonnie wants, recognizing Katherine Pierce as the
offending party, to ask that Pearl, Anna, that Harper guy that Stefan had
occasionally mentioned with some sort of respect, and some other vampire dead
on Mystic Falls' soil as her servants to successfully defeat Katherine and
whoever had sent her. It would be a perfect symmetry: four lives given for four
lives taken, four soldiers in Bonnie's pocket to protect both herself and her
hometown.
"If by some miracle the spell doesn't kill you, Pearl will try to find a way to
cause your death, evading all your direct orders. She won't take kindly to
being teenager's slave."
"She won't kill me because both her and her daughter will be dust as soon my
heart stops beating. The magic will keep them alive as long as I'm here to be
served. And it's not like I'll be making their lives impossible. I don't plan
on ordering them to do anything except protect the town, help me fight Team
Katherine, and not kill humans unless it's in self defense. It's just 3 rules,
and since they are bound to protect the town, they should be able to keep
living even after my life meets its natural ending."
Damon slouches back against his seat, visibly baffled by her little speech even
after he rolls his eyes at her weirdness.
"You're a nutcase, finding loopholes to keep alive vampires you despise."
"Being fair to them is part of being fair to myself. I want to be able to look
back at this year, after this mess is resolved, and say I haven't become
someone I can't respect."
He looks at her strangely then, tilting his head like he is mentally dissecting
every fragment of her and trying to understand how everything works together.
It lasts little, because by the next instant the queer emotions on his face-
curiosity, wonder, hunger?- are gone and he's snickering, back to his usual
arrogant self: "I'll remember that when Zeus' lightning bolt comes down and
incinerates you."
She notices just now that she has never removed her hand from his arm and runs
her thumb over the contour of it in a silly attempt to smooth over his bad
mood.
"They are my Gods, Damon. I have faith in Them even if you have no faith in
anything but yourself. Magic is empty without love and without trust in the
universe."
Even if she profoundly believes what she is saying, she has never truly spoken
so openly about her religion to anyone before. Although it's real to her and
Elena has seen what Witchcraft can do firsthand, Bonnie always had the deeply
rooted conviction that talking out loud about the strictly spiritual side of it
to non wiccans would have inevitably exposed her to ridicule.
She begins to pull her hand away, self-conscious, but Damon's fingers grasp it
and play with hers.
He seems quite fascinated with his untouched coffee while he nods with an
exaggerated sigh. "Let's do this your way if you feel it's that important."
To her crazy heart, it translates as 'I'll trust this because you do, and I
trust you.'
It fills her with warmth, the starkly non-sexual kind of she never considered
she would have associated with Damon Salvatore.
Bonnie entwines her fingers with his and softly recognizes the inevitable. "You
are a good friend to me."
The vampire raises his eyes to hers finally, and the amused twinkle in those
cobalt irises is nearly mesmerizing.
"Whatever you say, milady," he intones with an exaggerated, cheerful formality
before lifting her hand up and dropping a searing kiss on the back of her
wrist.
 
***** Chapter 15 *****
Chapter Summary
     Katherine keeps breaking hearts and Bonnie keeps repairing them.
"Let me to see if I've understood this right," Damon drawls, his brows furrowed
skeptically. "You called me over because you lost hold of a cat? The very same
obviously disturbed cat I've often suggested you hand over to Stefan as evening
snack?"
When Bonnie called him and asked if he could pass by her house, this wasn't
even close to the reason he expected.
Bonnie sternly glares at him as she crosses her arms before her chest,
fleetingly wondering why she had thought he would be even remotely helpful,
considering his lack of whatever form of sensibility, and briefly feeling
begrudgingly defensive over her reasons to turn to him. Damon is not the
comforting type, so why had she wanted him here now?
"It's my fault…" she frowns, deciding to not indulge his polemics. "I tried a
soul-bonding spell on him last night; I wanted to see if Finn could work out as
my familiar. He rejected it and ran out of the window like Hell was on his
heels."
Damon nods, taking in her defeated stance as the witch sits on her bed, his
mind still impatiently seeking to grasp where the problem is.
"So go and use a summoning spell." He shrugs.
"It wouldn't work. Finn has been bonded to Grams since she was a little older
than me. He is not a normal cat anymore."
The sadness in her green eyes as she says that has Damon sitting close to her
in a flash, leaning in to brush his nose on her curls. Bonnie slides out of his
reach as subtly as she can, a fresh stab of guilt reminding her that getting
along with this vampire is the metaphorical equivalent of killing her
grandmother all over again.
Because the reason Damon is able to sit there with her, is the very fact that
Grams can't be.
Her friendship with the Salvatore brothers came to be at the high price of
Sheila Bennett's life. Try hard as she can, Bonnie's mind simply can't shut
that thought out.
Hardly discouraged from her attempt to increase the distance between their
bodies, Damon just slides even closer than before, his lips brushing her
earlobe as he suggests in a flirty, dismissive purr:
"Well, if the little psycho doesn't come back, we'll get you another kitten
when Hurricane Katherine is forever banished."
He knows he might be overplaying his hand by surrounding her waist with his
arm, but he wills himself to not care. After all, he does want to sweep her
somber mood away and he is unable to admit to himself that he doesn't really
know how else to act. Even if his attitude might give the witch the impression
that the one thing he wants is to fuck her for a simple, good fuck's sake.
When in doubt, resort to physicality: that is one strategy that has always
served him very well. Although that wasn't all that true where the girl in
question was concerned.
His fingertips trace the outline of her caramel neck, pushing her dark locks
out of the way. Something about the shade and texture of her skin captivates
him intensely for a few seconds, and he feels his fangs ache right before her
sigh dispels the hunger away.
"Familiars are supposed to be really good to anchor their witches to Hearth
during trance-work, you know…they help us to stay grounded and to recharge if
our energy field weakens during rituals. I was hoping Finn could assist me with
the Petition. It would've made me feel more secure. "
Bonnie hates the needy, whiny undertone to her voice with a passion. It makes
her feel like a stupid little girl busy crying all over herself when bigger
things are at play. The fact that Damon is with her during this moment just
makes it more humiliating.
His thumb soothingly rubs the back of her neck. "You'll do well without him,"
the vampire adds after an awkward pause, and he sounds so damn matter-of-fact
about it that it angers her on principle.
"The one time my grandmother did something big without him, she died."
The words crawl up to her mouth, burning her throat like acid, and she snaps
without meaning to. As soon she realizes what she has just said the remorse
chokes her, rising from the very bottom of her soul, twice as vicious as
before, because she is twice a betrayer, to Damon, and to Grams.
The memories are too raw and she can still hear Grams lamenting how moody and
aggressive Finn was behaving, the week before Damon's schemes prompted the
Tomb's opening. Grams had kept Finn sedated with some Belladonna's oil and
confined him to her locked up bedroom.
She had told her granddaughter that the cat was too volatile to use, downplayed
his strange behavior as 'full moon jitters.'
Bonnie now wonders if the older witch had understood the signs perfectly well
and simply chose to disregard them, choosing to protect her family regardless
of the cost.
It breaks Bonnie's heart just imagining this, so she doesn't dare to believe it
too fully. Not today at least.
Just like she doesn't dare to examine too closely why seeing Damon freeze at
her words hurts just as badly.
His expression is placid but she can sense the tension underlying it, and the
way his eyes keen on hers is both guarded and expectant. She knows he is giving
her the chance to decide what it will be–anger or affection, a fight or a kiss-
while steeling himself to react accordingly.
He is probably telling himself that he has no preference anyway.
If Damon was anyone else, she would apologize for being so short-tempered with
him and bringing up a past neither of them can change. But apologizing is out
of question: it would only trivialize what he has done and the loss eating her
inside.
She wishes she could say anything without becoming either a bad friend or a
horrible granddaughter.
And yet, right now, the last thing she wants is to be arguing with the one
person she feels truly close to anymore.
So she doesn't apologize, not verbally at least.
She just presses her mouth to his softly, so he'll know this is not about
escaping reality or self-flagellation issues, and let everything else fade
away.
===============================================================================
One hour of heated making out later, Damon is strolling inside the Salvatore
boarding house, satisfied and confused in equal parts.
It's unusual for him to leave a woman's bed before he had gotten all he can get
out of her, but this time he had not felt like pushing Bonnie for sex. Mostly,
he had wanted her to be comfortable with him, and while he desired her
fiercely, he understood better than anyone else that kissing and pawing for the
fun of it was more intimate than a convenient fuck.
He likes the idea of having something meaningful and private with the little
witch, something that no one else can quite touch, not Elena or Stefan or
Katherine or even her dead grandmother.
Recently she called him a friend, and he is slightly embarrassed that there's a
side of him that is deeply flattered – maybe even grateful- for that unexpected
compliment. It feels good knowing that Bonnie has seen the worst of him and yet
found it in herself to take him in her heart. She is not a girl to use the term
'friend' lightly: when he heard her call him that, he knew he could expect her
to have his back unconditionally.
He has not had that kind of security since Katherine broke him and Stefan
apart.
He is so preoccupied with those musings tan he almost doesn't notice the other
presence in his home until his tumbler is in his hands and he is reaching for
his shot glass, wanting nothing more than to drown his aching thirst for
Bonnie's blood in alcohol. A familiar sensation pulls at his senses and he puts
the scotch away with a displeased sigh.
"You have the little Bennett's scent all over you. I'm wondering if Stefan is
so off his game to not notice."
Katherine's grating, provocatively and deliberately pleasant-sounding voice
comes right on cue and Damon turns around to find her comfortably, elegantly
nestled on his couch.
Still just as theatrical as ever- Damon contemplates idly, disgusted from yet
another thing they had in common. He hates the way he has molded himself in her
image, and he hates even more not knowing who he would have been without her.
Her poison has shaped nearly every fragment of his life.
When he finally kills her, when her death will have erased every visible
evidence of his shame… will he finally feel free, or at the very least less
haunted?
"What are you doing here?" he asks calmly, his lips turning downwards in bored
displeasure.
"Obviously I'm visiting."
Katherine has her cattiest smile on, the one that used to make his human heart
skip a beat. Now it only elicits a weary disgust. He is tired of these games
even while a part of him can't picture ever doing without them.
"Thanks for stating the obvious. Now get to the point and leave before I forget
courtesy and get myself a stake."
His sire's silvery laughter follows in the wake of his threat, reminding him of
how empty it is in her eyes.
"Come on Damon, we both know I could rip you to shreds and do my nails at the
same time. Don't tarnish your dignity with silly, useless threats. We are well
past that, aren't we? "
Damon surprises himself by not lunging for her throat after that humiliating
comment. Apparently, he now hates this woman enough to not allow her the
satisfaction of dragging him even lower than he feels.
He smirks coldly instead. "Nice one. I might actually be offended if that
reprimand came from anyone but you," he said, his eyes widening slightly. "Kept
between us, I think you gave all your credibility up when you started chasing
after my little brother like a bitch in heat. It's gotta be sad when a man
despises you so much he falls hard for your clone who happens to be your polar
opposite, in every way."
Katherine's delicate chin trembles almost imperceptibly, and that's all the
victory he can hope to achieve today, but it's enough. In fact, it's
exhilarating.
At least until Katherine's lips lift in a coquettish grin, the one she always
displays to deliver her best hits.
"Ouch, it seems my sweet, innocent Damon is all grown up now. Isn't it humbling
how fast centuries pass by?"
"Whatever. I'm better at pointless stalling, Kat. Have you something not boring
to add to this conversation? Because I have better to do than you."
Unexpectedly, the other vampire looks intrigued by his eagerness to end their
meeting. Intrigued enough to completely bypass his intended insult, which was
not a good omen by any means. "For now."
She gives him another amused giggle, pushing a rebellious strand of her wavy
chestnut hair behind her hair in a remarkably similar gesture to Elena's, and
then she looks him up and down, transparently delighted.
It confuses him and it unnerves him, all the more because she knows how much he
always hated to be the object of any joke. Something of his feelings must show
through his façade of indifference, or perhaps she just knows the inner
workings of his brain that well, because whatever reaction she imagines in him
just spurs her on.
"You don't actually think it will last, do you? Jeremy says the witch blames
you for everything wrong in her brief, inconsequential life. I'll take a wild
guess and suggest that screwing you is part of her emo phase. Once that is done
… goodbye clingy homicidal vampire, welcome nameless, sturdy jock number 2013."
Damon grits his teeth and realizes, with a twinge of overwhelming panic, that
he can't mentally reach for his infamous emotional-switch.
Why the fuck can't I…WHY AM I STILL FEELING EVERYTHING?
He lets the panic subside, convincing himself that he doesn't need to switch
anything off. He wants to rip Katherine Pierce's head off for even thinking of
Bonnie, when Bonnie is so much better than any of them that someone as
corrupted as Katherine shouldn't be allowed to even soil her name by
pronouncing it, indirectly or not.
He wants to rip Katherine apart but he can control himself, and this is why he
doesn't need any switch to make it easier.
"You were probably better off pursuing my cheap copy. I might even have helped
you get her if you had asked nicely."
It's Damon's turn to laugh. It's a bitter, hollow laughter that echoes in the
space between him and his ex-lover.
"Is that why you're here? To push me toward Elena so you'll have a better shot
at Stefan? You are even crazier than the gossip would have us believe."
Perhaps that is her reason, or maybe all she wants is to create distance
between him and Bonnie, maybe Katherine aims to kill two birds with one stone.
Either way, Damon is set on not playing into her back-stabbing hands. He's so
over being her bitch.
"Think what you will, Damon but I almost feel like I owe you something some
days. Was I not more of a mother to you than the woman who gave birth to you? A
mother has a right to worry for her children, especially when they spend years
and years trying to prove to her how faithful they are. I appreciate your
consistency enough to spare you a bit of wise advice. If you want to stop
getting treated like a pet, stop settling for crumbs. Learn from your
mistakes."
The last vestiges of his self-control crack at that last line, and his mind
becomes nothing but a furnace of hatred and rage. He's on Katherine in a matter
of seconds, slamming her to the wall, his hand around her throat.
She flatters her lower body against his, her visage perfectly composed and
serene, a slight smirk unwavering on her glossed mouth.
Her brown eyes reflect a cool sort of contentment, and by contrast his mind
recalls green eyes always so vibrant, whether they were burning with anger or
alit with joy.
The image of them somehow gets the beast inside him subdued, and he literally
throws Katherine's lithe body across the room. Naturally, she lands on her
feet, her stance indicating she's ready for the fight.
Damon shakes his head and retracts his fangs, suddenly more angry with himself
than he is with his sire. He was about to hand the damned bitch exactly what
she wanted, again.
He turns his back on her and walks to the liquor cabinet again, going straight
for his best bottle of bourbon without sparing her another glance: just looking
at her makes him sick. The occasion deserves an appropriate toast, he thinks
and he fills himself a shot.
"All you are is a waste of time. Of my time, of anyone's time. I'm only sorry
I've taken so long to see it."
To voice that thought is both liberating and emptying. An invisible weight has
been lifted off his shoulders, but rather than feeling light he feels vacant,
hollow.
I'm 160 years old, and most of my existence was for nothing. The most of what
has made me who I am was pointless.
For a moment he feels dazed, out of balance. He doesn't know why. Today has not
taught him anything he didn't already know.
He wonders why Katherine is not attacking him, ending him. When the silence
stretches by, he knows she is gone. He hurls his glass against the wall, the
same wall he slammed Katherine against a little ago, just to appreciate the
ugly sound of an empty glass breaking.
That's a metaphor of my life if I've ever heard one.
Smirking at his joke, he drinks straight from the bottle, willing the alcohol
to wash away the sensation of dirt this latter conversation bathed him in.
It's not long before he finds himself flying in his raven form toward the
Gilbert house, vaguely anticipating sweet, innocuous Elena to undo the darkness
Katherine has unleashed inside his heart. As if merely seeing Elena in all her
humanity could make Katherine any less real.
But when he gets to circling her house, Elena is sitting on her porch, on
Stefan's lap. They are drinking beer and laughing with Alaric and Jenna,
talking of silly things. Jenna is passing around a burnt peach pie, and Alaric
is making fun of her culinary skill. Stefan laughs as Jenna hits her
boyfriend's shoulder in retaliation, jesting in kind. Elena puts her thin arms
around Stefan's neck and pecks his cheek tenderly.
It's not the gesture of easy affection that makes Damon feel like he is
suffocating, but the carefree expression on his brother's face. He has not seen
Stefan so clearly happy since they were human, in their pre-Katherine era.
It strikes him violently that the laughter Stefan used to reserve for his big
brother, for the thoughtless, father-free days they used to go fishing or
hunting or riding, is now reserved for the other family Stefan has found along
the way.
For someone who has spent last century making Stefan as miserable as possible,
Damon should not be either shocked or hurt. He's a bit of both.
===============================================================================
Returning from a night out with Caroline, Bonnie enters her dark bedroom and
turns on the lights to find a silent, hunched figure grouched on the floor,
with his back leaning against her bed.
Her first reaction is surprise that she has become so used to his presence that
her instincts no longer set her on alert where he is concerned.
Her second reaction is being disturbed by his continued immobility. Damon looks
like a statue. A severely depressed statue.
"Damon? You okay?"
"Just doing my part in the neighborhood watch. That's me, trusty bodyguard to
all the fair maidens in need. Calm in a crisis."
He slurs very sentence in a string, looking stonily ahead, obviously
intoxicated and sounding very much like a sullen kid.
"You're a funny drunk." She kneels down beside him, tilting his face toward
hers so she can look into his blue eyes. They are too dull for her liking. He
leans into her touch just a bit, for just a second before pushing her hand off
his cheek.
"Where were you? It's pretty late."
"It's barely 11; 30 PM, daddy. It will sound unbelievable to you, but I still
have friends outside our supernatural clique, and even if I hardly manage to
see them anymore, they still talk to me."
"Great. Any boy friends I don't know yet?"
Bonnie gives up and sits down on the floor, close to her improvised guest,
puzzled by the sudden suspicion in his tone.
"What's wrong with you tonight?"
"Are you trying to change subject?"
"Okay, first, there's no subject to speak of here. Second, I was out with
Caroline, who felt neglected. Third…why are you upset with me?"
He looks at her for a long, undecipherable, intense minute before insisting:
"I'm not upset with you."
"So you are just upset in general, and I just happen to be the lucky soul you
take it out on?"
Damon stays silent, regarding her with an angry, predatory focus. She puts her
hand on his forearm, squeezing gently. "Talk to me. Is it about Katherine?"
He chuckles, glancing down on her hand and shaking his head disbelievingly.
"No, it's not. I…"
He drifts off, studying her worried expression like he is looking for some
hidden clue behind it, then he continues with renewed fervor.
"You and me…what we've been doing here, with each other, does it mean
something?"
*DoImean something to you? To anyone else? *the apparently random thought
tumbles from his mind to hers, entirely by accident, but the sense of despair
that echoes from it shakes the witch too much to let her wonder how it has
happened.
"Damon…of course it does," Bonnie answers, uncertain about what had prompted
his breakdown, but vehement about wanting to help him through it. "Everything
you have done for me lately is important to me. You are important to me. I
don't know if I could have survived through all of this alone."
Instead of being pacified by her admission, as she hoped, Damon seems to grow
even more agitated by it.
His features stiffen in anger, and he snarls, his gaze hard and accusing:
"Yeah, I think you demonstrated your gratitude plenty."
Bonnie's fingers spark with a sudden electrical surge, jolting the vampire's
flesh throughout his shirt in warning.
Damon growls menacingly in response, doing nothing but adding to the witch's
rising temper.
"I don't appreciate the insinuation, and if I you think for one second that I'm
going to put up with your belittling me just because you are pissed off, for
reasons unknown to anyone but your dick of a self, you're dead wrong! I'm not
anyone's punching bag!"
"Fine!" he snorts, looking away from her and reprising his very matureprevious
occupation of staring at the wall.
"Fine!" she repeats, more softly, imitating his action.
It takes less than five minutes for them feel quite ridiculous, sitting side by
side on the floor, glaring at anything but each other, but they are both
stubborn, and neither of them wants to give in first.
Bonnie calms down first, her concern for him soon overpowering her headstrong
pride, and a furtive glance to Damon's scowling profile convinces her to be the
bigger person, even if her asshole of a vampire friend makes it so hard
sometimes.
"Will you tell me why you're so on edge already?" she asks, striving to sound
conciliatory.
"Does it matter?" he counters, scowling even harder straight ahead.
Do you regress to childhood every single time you are out of sorts or is it
just the whiskey in your bloodstream? -she wants to snap back, badly, but years
of dealing with Caroline Forbes in Bitchy Princess Mode have taught the witch
to hold her tongue in situations like this one.
If Damon waited for her, if he is still here being difficult, it means he wants
to talk about whatever is driving him into a frenzy. She mentally rewinds their
brief talk to its beginning, trying to understand when she had set him off and
why.
He had asked her if their bonding time had any value at all to her, and she had
answered him to the best of her abilities. He had not liked what he had heard,
obviously, even if she couldn't find anything wrong in the way she had
attempted to verbalize her feelings.
"I care about you, asshole," Bonnie blurts, unpleasantly aware of the heat that
rushes up to her cheeks as soon she has the chance to actually listen to
herself. It sounded like a much more plausible reply, inside her head.
But strange as it is, her slip of tongue reaches through her companion,
convincing him to turn toward her and face her warily.
He stares at her unblinkingly again for awhile before bending so he can hide
his visage in the crook of her neck, against her loose hair. "Sometimes," he
mumbles low in her ear, hesitating, his breath heavy and stinking like a
brewery, "I will need to be reminded that it's real."
Damon stays like this, breathing her scent in and out in that not quite-
comfortable position, and Bonnie has no idea what to do, say, or think.
So she goes with what feels natural and she strokes the side of his face, from
his jaw to his temple, encouraged by his passive acceptance of her caresses.
After awhile she takes a leap of faith and twists awkwardly around him so she
can put her arms around his shoulders and hug him. She is unspeakably elated
when he melts completely in her arms, his body pretty much falling on top of
hers.
She pats his back, runs her fingers through his hair until there's nothing else
left to do but hoist him up and into her bed.
They don't speak and they don't do anything to turn this into something cheap
and sexual. They just nestle into her small bed and each other's embrace, legs
entwined, occasionally running their hands on each other's sides or backs in
small comforting touches.
She falls asleep to the sound of his breathing, contemplating how strange it is
that vampires even have a breathing pattern, without knowing he fell asleep to
the sound of her heartbeat, caught in a strange sense of peace.
The morning after Bonnie awakes to an empty bed, her sheets up to her chin.
When her fingertips linger on the space Damon was supposed to be occupying, her
mind plays with an image of him tucking her in before leaving.
She smiles a bittersweet smile into her pillow and closes her eyes once more,
choosing to not question if she is making it up or not, determined to get back
to sleep.
There's something going on between her and Damon Salvatore, and it would be
silly to deny after the previous night. But she doesn't need to decide what it
is right now.
***** Chapter 16 *****
Chapter Summary
     Bonnie visits Grams, but the kind of help Spirits give is not always
     the kind you were waiting for.
Chapter Notes
     AN: (1) is a direct quote from 'Together Again" by Dennis Jackson and
     Alice Best-Jackson
The cemetery is quiet as Bonnie Bennett walks through it, a thick book under
her arm, her pace slow because she is not eager to reach her grandmother's
gravesite.
This morning it's something she can no longer talk herself out of doing and
although part of her feels she needs this, there's whole other part of her that
just can't forgive herself for it.
The scent of grass is strong in the cool breeze hitting her face, and it's
somehow a little comfort in the grave stillness of everything else surrounding
he. A reminder that Life keeps prospering even among the very monuments of
death.
She finds herself standing before the familiar gravestone all too soon, feeling
the familiar knot in her throat, the familiar ache of longing in her soul.
"Hi, Grams." The young witch kneels down, putting down the book with a deep
sigh, her fingers caressing its worn cover lovingly. "I have something to
return to you. I haven't forgotten our traditions."
A witch's grimoire, according the Witches' Law is to be burned at her funeral,
since a witch's knowledge is supposed to survive solely through her heirs.
Bonnie held back because she had still a lot to learn at first, and then
because letting go was just too hard.
And now, now that she has finished mastering and then copying down in her
grimoire all of Grams' spells, now that she is about to attempt her first
ritual of her creation, she has run out of excuses to delay this. It would
probably be wise to destroy Emily's grimoire too, but today is not Emily's day,
however Bonnie might wish otherwise.
"I'm sorry I'm late, but I still miss you so much, every day. You were my rock,
and I wanted so badly to feel you closer to me. This book helped me. Sometimes
I brushed my fingers against the pages just to sense the ghost of your touch."
She stops, blinking hard to stop the tears gathering in her eyes, and breathes
out shakily, willing the hurt to stay buried deep inside her and at the same
time longing to finally be cleansed of it.
"I never wanted to disappoint you Grams; I need you to know this. I've learnt
all I could from you, I kept the town safe for you but…everything is upside
down now. I tried so hard to hate them, to keep the right and the wrong apart.
I needed so badly for things made sense again, even if it made me bitter. But
I'm tired of being angry and I'm tired of being alone. I don't feel alone when
Damon is with me and I know it doesn't undo the evil he has done and I don't
fool myself in thinking he is going become a whole other person but… he has
been good to me. We are good to take care of each other…"
Bonnie breaks off, furiously wiping away the tears that are sliding down her
cheeks. She can't believe she is practically begging her dead grandmother for
some kind of absolution, after the ugly things she has done, and especially
after letting Damon in her heart.
"I don't want to betray you, Grams, but…"
But she is tired of hating, and in the end Damon is here whereas Grams will not
ever be again. It hurts so much, but she needs to let go. Yet, is not letting
go like letting Grams die all over again?
"I need you to forgive me and I need you tell me it's fine to… move on. Please,
one more time…tell me what I need to do. Tell me I'm not doing it all wrong…
Please, I can't do this without you."
She half-expects to see Grams' frowning ghost appear, wanting to argue her
case. Bonnie would welcome it. She desperately wants to see her elder a last
time to apologize, beg, even fight to defend her reasons.
But nothing happens, and it feels like a moral slap in the face, a rejection
louder than any screams of condemnation the ghost could have addressed to her.
Bonnie rocks slightly, bracing herself to resist the fresh onslaught of tears
but then the breeze stirs, pulling her hair away from her visage, and it feels
loving, like Grams' caresses when she was a child.
She leans instinctively into the invisible touch, and although she cannot feel
it on her skin, there's a sensation of warmth that wraps around her and just
squeezes. It lasts barely a moment and then it's gone, but the breeze flips the
grimoire open, its pages turning until any presence Bonnie sensed was gone.
Bonnie learns forward and checks the section the book has been opened to… it's
the entry Grams had written on her wedding day, and half of the writing is just
the musings of a girl deeply in love. Bonnie had read it before and just
remembers feeling deeply embarrassed at the blatantly sexual nature of a few of
the passages regarding the 'joining' of her grandparents. This time, she reads
more carefully, trying to get how those notes could be related to her current
situation.
It's the final conclusion that strikes her dumb, despite her determination to
understand the message her Grams meant for her to have:
"In finding that other half, we enhanced the person we each had already become.
That is an important part of knowing that you have truly connected with your
twin soul. The partnership is not a completion, but an enhancement of who you
already are. You are already perfect! Your twin soul brings to the relationship
whatever energy is needed to empower you to create your own choices and realize
your dreams, and is there to celebrate with you when they happen! Twin souls
are mirrors of each other; they are not an exact duplication."(1)
Her mind runs back to all of her confrontations with Damon, to how their
hostile banter used to make her feel bolder than she usually was, to how she
used to feel like she just had to keep him in line. She remembers how much
stronger she felt when they discussed their strategy, how empowered their
training sessions made her.
But she considers how he has always behaved with her since they met –always a
touch more real than he was with Elena- and that was not always for the best.
With her, he's been at his most aggressive, intimidating, imposing and grating…
and also at his most honest.
But it's impossible, that she and Damon are Twin Whatevers…and Bonnie is not
buying that Grams would actually encourage her to pursue anything with a serial
murderer.
"You gotta be kidding me," she mutters, closes the book, and is startled when
it goes up into flames.
Did I do that or …?
She shakes off the thought, rising abruptly to her feet.
"Bye, Grams," she says, wiping her hands on her jeans nervously and with that,
she rushes home as dignifiedly as possible, forcing her mind to stay blank.
===============================================================================
By the time she got home, she had managed to calm herself down. By refusing to
consider the little omen from the Above Realms in even the slightest way. She
decides, glaring at the plates she finds gathered in the sink, that all that
matters is that Grams doesn't hate her.
So she turns on the radio, gets some dishwashing liquid and works off her
tension, intensely scrubbing the dishes.
It seems to work adequately enough until Mariah Carey's single fades away in
favor of The Frames' old success, 'Seven Day Mile'.
The intro is slow and melancholic, suiting her mood and she sways slightly to
the song, allowing herself to get lost in the music, following the lyrics
intently enough to keep at bay her dark thoughts.
'Your will changes everyday
It's a road you've come upon
I can't help you if you want to
Down here nothing gets a chance
It's a threat that's real enough
We can burn this bridge or stay here.
It's a breeze everlasting like time
Making so sure that
I can return just to see it from your side again'
She stops swaying, caught unaware by a strange feeling, like she is being told
something but also very ready to shut it out and focuse again on the plate in
her hands.
'Always never seems to work
It's a word you never learned
I don't really see a way clear
It's a sea ever churning in tides
In the sureness of time
And our words will repeat now forever again.'
Irrationally unnerved, Bonnie telekinetically reaches to switch the radio off.
She did not want to think of Twin Souls, Karma, or souls finding each other
across various incarnations to help each other fulfill their destiny. Because
they had nothing to do with her and Damon, not at all. It freaks her out beyond
words when the radio just switches back on again, all by itself.
'Well this might take a while to figure out
So don't you rush it
And hold your head up high right through the doubt
'Cause it's just a matter of time
You've been running so fast
It's the seven day mile
Has you torn in-between here and running away'
Bonnie switches the damn thing back to off, stubborn. She is a bit disappointed
when the radio doesn't rebel again. Maybe it was just a fluke.
Suddenly put off of doing anything domestic, the young witch finishes her
dishes hurriedly and marches up to her bedroom, that mild irritation and
anxiety still bubbling up in the back of her mind.
There is a bouquet on her bed. She takes it, half-fearing that it is from
Jeremy or Katherine and half-knowing it's not. White tulips are not exactly
what she can picture Jeremy or Katherine picking. They are beautiful and smell
sweet.
A small red card peeks among them: 'Thank You' is written in capital letters
but Damon's handwriting is still very much recognizable.
She would have never pegged him as the flower-giving type, and she is the
slightest bit touched that she was wrong.
"You win," she chuckles as the petals tickle her nose, and she has no idea
whether she is talking to Damon or to her Grams, but she can't deny the
butterflies in her stomach.
She had given up on ever feeling something that innocent again.
The shadow of a laughter that hovers in the air for just a moment before
dissolving feels like a goodbye.
***** Chapter 17 *****
Chapter Summary
     Bonnie and Damon enjoy a bit of fluff, and the calm before the storm
     strikes.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
 
It won't be the last time Damon Salvatore seeks wisdom from the bottom of a
bottle. There's something about the cleansing quality of liquor that the
vampire truly loves: you drink enough and your mind will wander in places your
lucid self would utterly forbid it to go. As someone who doesn't have an easy
time being sincere with himself, especially when it matters most, Damon is
grateful for the supernatural resistance of his liver.
For once he is not drinking because he is unhappy, or bored, or hungry. He's
drinking to preserve the sparkling good mood he enjoyed since this morning.
Waking in Bonnie's bed, with her pliant, fragile, warm body half-draped over
his, he felt the most rested he had in decades. His first impulse, he
remembers, was not to leave her, but to wake her with teasing caresses and
heated murmurs. Then the events of the previous night had caught up with him,
and he knew he had to leave, because Bonnie would want to talk about it, and
talking just is not his thing.
He thinks back to the carefulness he had used in prying her off him before
sneaking away, and not before having tucked her in, his gaze lingering
appreciatively on her sleeping face.
That never used to be his thing either.
Yet, thinking of her had made him all relaxed and light-hearted all day long,
so much that he just had to buy her flowers.
Something unusual, classy and flawless, to prove to the witch how highly he
thought of her: white tulips seemed like the obliged choice.
Bonnie Bennett is the most pure, fierce, noble thing he has ever been allowed
to hold in his grasp and this makes Damon a little in awe and a little scared
as well, for her,this girl who trusts him and even cares after seeing the very
worst of his character. After seeing him hurting the people she loves so
protectively.
She has seen nothing but the evil in him for so long that knowing she sees the
good now too, and without idealizing him by any means, reassures him he must
really have something decent inside for her to appreciate.
And this, in turn, makes him want to shower the little witch with gifts. Treat
her like a lady, because she is a wondrous, heroic creature and doesn't even
know it.
He wants to touch her too, of course, but he doesn't want it to happen when she
is miserable anymore. Next time he kisses her, he wants to see her green eyes
bright with contentment and not glassy with unshed tears. And he wants a lot of
next times too.
This is how Damon comes to the terrifying realization that, for the first time
in his life, he is considering the pursuit of a woman who has no romantic
interest in his brother. With Elena and Katherine the greater obstacle to
having them was always Stefan, and the path to them was pretty much clearly to
outdo the competition. With Bonnie, and their friends-with-occasional-benefits
arrangement he does not know how to proceed. His experience is wide and varied
when it comes to successfully gaining free blood and sex, but is drastically
reduced concerning the courting of a woman's heart. Not to mention that he's
not exactly been blessed with good luck in his last two attempts.
Women had the funny habit of either jumping in his bed with heartfelt
declarations of love when he wanted nothing more than being free of them, or
stringing him along without any real interest if he felt more than lust.
But Bonnie is different.
Different enough to not take him seriously if he ever ….
Time to raise the stakes –Damon concludes smugly with a last toast to himself.
===============================================================================
'The oldest Legends in the history of Witchcraft say that when the World was
generated by the Sacred Joining of Our Lord and Lady, souls were created in
groups. There is much confusion about soul mates and twin souls. Very often
these two terms have been used as synonymous. They are not synonymous. One can
and does have many soul mates but one has only one twin soul. In order to
understand how these terms come about one must begin from the beginning. Eons
ago, many souls or sparks of divinity were discharged from the Divine Source.
These were destined to be human souls. Soul mates are from a unique group that
was discharged eons ago from the Source. Love draws them together lifetime
after lifetime so they can help each other grow; so they can nourish each other
on their spiritual journey, and so they keep finding each other as friends,
lovers, or as a family. There's between them the deep connection that comes
from a long, loving acquaintance.
Each soul is supposed to experience everything in the universe before its
return to the source. It is impossible for a single soul to do this. Therefore,
the scheme of group soul has been formulated in order that each soul can go out
and experience as much as possible, but there is no necessity for each to
gather all the experiences. When they finally assemble together they would have
accumulated and aggregated enough knowledge and wisdom for the whole group, as
the sum of the total cargo would be adequate for the entire group to pass the
test. The total experience and knowledge is assimilated by all and sundry and
therefore every soul in the group would be just as knowledgeable as the whole
group.
The second point in the function of the grouping is the return. Alone, the
single soul cannot find its way back to the Source. They can only find their
way back when joined as the original group.
Twin Souls are different, because they are the very last two souls to part from
each other at the time of their birth: like Isis and Osiris, they shared the
same Divine Womb, and are each other's yin and yang. A twin soul is not a soul
cut into half, but has every ingredient to be a whole individual. However, as
the Twins have shared the same pod for the entire journey downward towards the
physical earth that attachment and longing for each other is always there in
the subliminal consciousness. The incessant throbbing of desire for the other
twin is never far beneath the subconscious. It becomes more and more cogent
when the soul nears the heightened state of enlightenment. In other words, as
soon as we become humans we have been working and practicing to achieve the
ideal state to merge with our twin.
While Soul Mates are a spiritual family, Twin Flames are mirrors of each other:
complementary opposites, but also strongly similar in the way they feel and
experience the world. Twin Souls balance each other's energies and are
therefore part of the universal law of Sacred Balance. Like day and night, male
and female, life and death, they reflect each other even in their
dissimilarities. '
Bonnie closes the 'Twin Souls, Soulmates, and Soul Mastery' heavy tome with a
loud snap. She cringes silently at the idea that she ever talked herself into
borrowing the book from Grams' library. Honestly, all of this overtly
sentimental speculation on Soul-Twins seems more like the fitting definition of
Stefan and Elena's destiny than something that could EVER be applied to her and
Damon.
Which is fine with her, completely, since Bonnie has never been a fatalistic
type of girl. She likes the idea that she has the control of her story, witch
or not.
She may or may not have romantic feelings for Damon, but the concept of them
being predestined since the Beginning of Time is frankly a whole other,
terrifying mess.
Just because Grams believed in that fantasy drivel, it doesn't mean she has to
share that belief.
The day after
Damon's shiny black car parks in front of her house, and Bonnie sees it coming
from her window, her feet refusing to move until he stopped right there, under
her window, where she could look down and see him perfectly well. He waves at
her, shit-eating grin on his lips and she feels her stomach knotting. It's the
first she has seen of him since that night, and she gathers from the bouquet
she has received and his subsequent, purposeful avoidance of her that he has no
desire to revisit the subject. She is not altogether sure if she should respect
it or press the issue, and her confused emotions are of no help.
Because while she is slightly timorous of how Damon Salvatore handles exposure
and of his brutal tactics of self sabotage, she is also embarrassingly excited
to see him.
Still, for her dignity's sake, she takes her time in coming down to greet him,
shutting out the small inner high-schooler voice that would incite her to rush
in her bathroom to check on her hair.
When she opens the door, his grin has not dimmed. There's a large carton box in
his arms, with its top open. It shakes slightly in his hold.
"Little Witch, I have something for you," he says, all too enthusiastically for
her liking.
"What is it?" Bonnie asks, a hint of amused suspicion in her tone as she tries
to peek in. Unsuccessfully so since Damon just hollers past her and into the
house, pushing her back slightly before laying the box on the kitchen's table.
"Once upon a time," the vampire begins conspiratorially as an explanation,
grasping gently the girl's shoulder to hold her back from his present. "I used
to bone this very cool soccer mom. She was absolutely obsessed with cats, she
had about fifteen of them..."
"It sounds like the beginning of another horror story…"
"Hush, Neurotic One. Her favorite breed was…"
"I'm not neurotic-"
"Holy Jesus, do you want to let me finish once -"
Their discussion comes at an abrupt halt when a small furry head peeks out of
the box, revealing the presence of an additional, strange, non-human creature
in the room.
Bonnie is a bit stunned at first as she nears the table to look at it better.
She has never seen something like that before.
It looks like a freaky crossing between a cat and a pixie: the creature has a
triangular head, huge and inquisitive amber eyes, really huge ears and a small,
muscular body. Its fur is a sable shade, darkening to chocolate brown on its
tail, muzzle and ears. This would be E.T. if ET was born a cat. In other words:
adorable, in the weirdest meaning of the term.
Damon clears his throat self-consciously, not knowing what to do with her
silence: "Odd as it might look, she's a real a cat and not an alien. It's a
Devon Rex: small thing, packed with energy and appetite, with an unhealthy
obsessive attachment to its human owners. It reminded me of someone I know."
Bonnie's glance to him is puzzled. "I hope she's not Stefan's takeout lunch"
she says out loud, thinking instead 'I hope she is not a gift for Elena,
because, if it is, I might just have to punch you hard '.
With Damon Salvatore, you never know what you are getting. He might just be
pissed enough about going all emotional on her last night to give a cat to her
best friend when hers just went poof, just as a twisted method of
reestablishing boundaries.
Damon laughs, blue eyes shining. "Oh, she is all yours. I hope she can work
where Finn did not. You know, for that spell of yours. It sounded like it could
be your type of cat."
"Oh."
For the life of her, Bonnie has no idea how to come up with something smarter
than that. She feels warm all over and it's so distracting…
"You didn't compel someone to give her out, did you?"
"I did not," Damon scoffs with a smug expression. "I knew you would never
accept her otherwise. It was a regular purchase, and you are not allowed to
refuse. I consider this my personal way of investing into your career. If she
works as your familiar, I get a right to 30% of your future spell-workings."
"Just a humble30 %? I'm surprised you're learning the art of moderation," the
with chuckles, hesitatingly patting the 3 months old kitten on her head and
beaming when the little monster began rubbing against her palm, after sniffing
her curiously a little bit.
Finn was never so friendly with strangers.
"I like throwing you off your game once in awhile," Damon replies casually,
eyeing the scene with interest when Bonnie grows bold enough to take the new
kitten in her arms. He had hoped that his gift would win him some points with
the witch and it looks like she is warming up to it.
"She is so incredibly cute. And soft and warm too," Bonnie gushes, a little
embarrassed, and he has to make an effort not to add a lewd 'Just like you' and
move in to nibble on her neck like he has been pining to do since ages.
The witch smells so delicious and he wants to grab her and feel her body
against his so badly that he can nearly taste it, but he has promised himself
to be more restrained with her from today on. He doesn't need Bonnie getting
some misguided idea about him wanting her just to satisfy his appetites.
Despite his frustration with himself, it's somehow uplifting to hear Bonnie
giggling when the kitten sneaks her nose under the witch's armpit and starts
purring like a chainsaw. He feels a little proud that he can give to this girl
a deserved break from the drama.
"Does she already have a name?"
"I don't remember."
"Typical," Bonnie shrugs, running her fingers lovingly over her new pet's back.
"I think I'm going to call her Freya," she decides impulsively. It is the name
of a Nordic Love Goddess, a protector of cats. Maybe it would bring to all of
them a slice of the good luck they so desperately need lately.
"Whatever," Damon replies, sounding studiously uninterested, but it just makes
Bonnie smile more and inch casually toward him. She is more than a little
disappointed when he doesn't take advantage of their newfound proximity to drop
a kiss on her throat or jaw.
"The dark moon is coming soon. It feels so strange to know that in a couple of
days everything will be irreversibly changed."
Her eyes never leave the little beast in her arms as she braves breaking the
comfortable silence.
"Afraid still? I'm going to give you my blood as a precaution."
She shakes her head, smiling at the confidence behind her vampire's offer. "I'm
not afraid of that. I'm afraid of everything that will come next. We kept a lot
of secrets from Stefan and Elena in those months. Doing this behind their backs
is paramount to giving up their trust for Gods-know-how-long."
It truly scares her, imagining a life without Elena. Losing both a sister and a
dear friend so soon after giving up Grams forever is not something she can ever
entirely accept. It's too destabilizing, despite their differences of opinion
about certain matters.
"They will get over it once we send Katherine back to the Hell she belongs in."
"Do you think so, really? Aren't you even a bit worried that your friendship
with Elena will never recover from this hit? It wasn't so long ago that it
seemed like you were ready to die for her."
"Mmmm, beside the fact that my friendship with her was never quite based on
trust, I can't say I had such a high esteem of my life just then. I'm all
better now."
Bonnie doesn't reply to that, just keeps cooing at Freya softly, and for some
reason it quite bothers Damon. Last thing he wants is for Bonnie to keep
thinking that he carries a torch for her bestie.
"I don't know what the thing with Elena was, Bonnie. I just know it's over."
It was not Love; he knows that with near overwhelming certainty now. You can't
love a woman with half-a-heart if the other half is still numb from loss. Or at
least it was not the real, lasting kind of love.
It's hard to accept, because it had felt so real for him at the time. Wanting
Elena, caring for Elena…half-hoping that Elena could fix him, the way she had
fixed Stefan, all while feeling in his gut that she was Stefan's other half.
Funny thing, now that he could not feel that sort of nostalgic longing Elena
used to wake inside his dead heart anymore, he almost could not remember her
beyond the idealized version he had built inside his head.
He did not really know Elena as a person, apparently. He was willing to admit
he had not tried very hard.
Finally Bonnie looks up to him, her wide green eyes looking for something
inside him.
"Okay," she nods at last, and Damon knows she believes him from the hopeful
tilt of her smile.
Chapter End Notes
     For those who are wondering, Devon Rex are real and Wiccan Sources
     were exploited on the explaining of the 'Twin Souls concept'.
***** Chapter 18 *****
Chapter Summary
     A ritual and momentous change.
Chapter Notes
     It always troubled me that I left this story unfinished two chapters
     away from the planned conclusion, but as canon and my perception of
     characters shifted, I was kinda afraid to return to the story. Recent
     requests for me to finish it convinced me that maybe it was worth to
     reread whole the tale and recapture the original concept to draw the
     finale SG deserved. I hope I handled it, even if this was unbetaed
     and it was long time since my last dabbling in this fandom.
CHAPTER 18
Two weeks later.
It’s 3.00 AM when they begin.
They meet at the back of a cemetery at the outskirts of the town – hallowed
ground, touched by Death, strongly connected to Mystic Falls’ ancestors. Jeremy
comes by gratingly late, sliding out of the shadows while Damon and Bonnie are
sniping at each other about where exactly drawing the circle. Tiny Freya, that
has been utterly inseparable from her mistress side since their first meeting,
is quietly observing them both with huge, starry eyes from her comfy spot in
Bonnie’s bag , her head pocking out and sneaking back in at regular intervals.
The younger vampire immediately slides a napkin with a streak of Katherine’s
sire blood out of his pocket, body language so tense than he looks like might
jump out of his skin at any moment, hooded eyes reflecting eagerness and antsy-
ness and the usual hint of teenager aganst .
“Are we ready?”
He looks at Bonnie like the wrong answer might undo him, and Damon wants to
push him out of principle.
Surely, I didn’t look quite so desperate when it was my turn , did I?
“We will be.”
Bonnie concedes blankly, drawing her ceremonial blade out of her bag, turning
the white, lacy cloth on its other side, splaying it wide around the back of
Jeremy’s lager hand before going in to cut the center of his palm.
Jeremy pushes up into the blade without a sound, watches with a bit too much
interest while the blood trickles down until Bonnie shifts to dry it so the
napkin is smeared with parallel twin chrisom streaks on each side.
Another masochist in the making, this one.
“Do I even want to know how you got that blood out of Katherine’s notice
without raising suspicions?”
Admittedly, he had his own doubts that the boy could manage it, in the
beginning . Even tonight, with the slight delay and all the nefarious
considerations that could come out of it, he had been almost sure he and Bonnie
would be forced to go for a plan B.
Jeremy’s voice, when he answers, is just a bit too coy for his liking.
“I used to have some interest in hacking and surveillance equipment. I set an
hidden micro-camera in each room of house when she was out, then I simulated a
panic attack and I convinced her that I didn’t trust her to have for real the
vial she had claimed having unless I saw it. Obviously she would have not
allowed me to see where she kept it hidden all on her own. ”
Bonnie’s face scrunches up in revulsion, because obviously she didn’t miss the
creep factor in this equation, but she says nothing, just getting her little
cat out of her bag and cradling her in her arms.
Freya sniffs at the air around Jeremy, neck stretching forward as her tail goes
straight and waving like a dog’s.
Jeremy just stares back at the beast. “What is that?”
“My familiar. I trained her to help.”
Bonnie sounds so proud of that, standing up a bit straighter, a bit brighter,
despite the dire situation, that Damon just feels proud of himself in turn.
And he can read into Jeremy’s expression that the loser is going to say
something to ruin that feeling, so he shuts him up before he can, by diverting
attention elsewhere.
“Are you sure *she* didn’t pick on anything?”
Katherine, after all, had always trusted only Katherine.
“Sure as I can be. And I know nobody tailed me tonight.”
“Jeez, that’s reassuring.”
“Let’s just hurry up.” Bonnie interrupts what promised to be a quite promising
pissing contest, with a wave of her hand and a stern glare aimed to both of
them.
Damon tries to shrug the tension off as he follows her into night and among
gravestones, Jeremy behind him, without much success. He is afraid for her if
he allows himself to feel, to focus on what is going to happen . It has been so
long since last time he had anything to lose, and this looks too much like one
of those instances where it all seems like life will hand you something that is
not a lemon, just to take it back at last second possible, the worst way
possible.
And it looks too much like the night Bonnie lost Sheila too.
Karma is such a bitch.
--
It goes like this: Bonnie draws a circle spilling sea salt on the ground , just
large enough for her to sit in, Freya trailing after her faithfully, then
climbing her shoulder and settling there like a cute, attentive sentinel when
the witch actually crosses her legs and sits.
He and Jeremy keep watch from distance as she chants her greetings to the
Ancestors that keep the town, the nature spirits residing in the territory, the
spirits that keep the doors between death and life, the ‘Lords of the
Underworld’ and, finally, the Moirae that rule over everyone’s fates.
There’s a lot of listing honorific titles and spreading gratitude’s for
whatever reason, and Damon has a terrible time at trying to stay still and
relatively patient.
Respect is important for the spirits, Bonnie has explained to him more than
once, but from where he is standing it seems a lot like the arse-kissing he had
no talent for when he was alive. Not that he would say anything of the sort to
his witch’ face, ever.
It irks him considerably that Jeremy, instead, is drinking up every word and
every ritual gesture with rapt attention.
Offerings of food and drink and flowers of whatever symbolic meaning were left
at the four corners of the cemetery, in correspondence to the four cardinal
points – there’s a long and elegantly worded plea for the spirits to accept the
gifts.
Still looks like a bribe to me. He thinks, looking around for anything
suspicious or unusual. It’s all right and dandy for a witch to trust those so
called ‘Powers’, but he personally hates to leave someone he cares about in
their hands. Hands he can’t break if anything goes awry.
I am officially more useless than a fucking cat. I have never contemplated *
the idea* I was going to see the day it happened.
There’s a certain cold, icy feeling in the air when the Ancestors of the town
seemingly accept the gifts and lend their support to the ritual, like a cool,
invisible cloak that closes in and covers everything, gives him a sort of
hitching he can’t scratch out … Jeremy too feels the same if the way he
twitches suddenly means anything at all.
But, for the rest, Damon notices nothing that might indicate things are going
good or ill.
Bonnie keeps humming prayers, eyes drifting shut in concentration, face up to
the sky. Freya is unnaturally still, curled around her witch ‘ neck, mewling it
is like a cat’s version of weeping at certain points.
It’s creepy as the fuck, and he does not understand the logic behind any part
of it. For all that is not the first time Damon witnessed a Ritual, he can’t
remember ever feeling this way about it.
There’s a moment Bonnie places the Hand in her lap, forces the stained napkin
between two wrinkly, yellow fingers, and places the artifact on the ground. She
stares right ahead, right through Damon, and he feels it in his bones that this
is not the girl he knows, the girl he fought and fucked and kissed and liked.
She is something more. And she is too, something ‘Other’ than him, something
‘Other’ than vampire or human or wolf. She is something that can, for perhaps
just a moment, be filled with God. To carry through the threshold the essence
of Things wilder and older than time, that might stretch her like a glove and
then shatter her, throw her away like she is nothing, because for Them she
might just be that.
Somewhere inside him he has always known, in theory, but oh, he never
understood what it really, truly entailed. Never wanted to, probably, because
the truth is terrifying … and it is the one thing he will be never able to
protect her. She is *this*. A carrier of energies, of Powers far greater and
harsher and crueler than her tiny, breakable body.
Like her being mortal was not enough of a concern in a town like this one.
It strikes him then, the depth of the courage and the faith and the trust and
the sheer dedication it takes for her to give herself over so completely, but
also the strength and the will and the confidence that will take to drive out
and keep in check those very forces she invited inside herself.
He watches her speaking strings of Greek and Gaelic to the rising winds and he
feels like he has already failed her before even beginning to prove his value
as potential boyfriend to her. He is the key that opened the door to this
moment, to this danger, maybe… but this girl was already doomed by her
bloodline, by her very nature … to make something of her life that is going to
be way more dangerous and way more important, probably, that anything he ever
thought of doing with his.
It frankly terrifies him.
He feels very strongly, at that precise moment, that to stand in the way would
be to lose her, and that to try protecting her without stifling her will be the
hardest thing he has ever attempted in a century, considering both his nature
and hers.

Caring about you, Bonnie Bennett, is going to be the trip of a lifetime.
Because I *am* going to have your back, whether you send me on my way or not.
She raises her thin arms up, and her body clenches and releases in turns like
she is a gun ready to fire … and she is that, too, he understands, as suddenly,
with a brutal stab of a perfect clarity, he becomes aware of who and what she
is going to become, someday, whether he is there to see it or not: a weapon and
a martyr, somebody’s hero and somebody else ‘ curse and danger.
There’s lights blooming somewhere at his left, Jeremy grunting something Damon
does not care to register … his eyes and attention are, right now and here,
only for *her*.
This witch that shifted his perception of the world in the blink of an eye,
this girl whose hands are moving in the air drawing shapes he doesn’t know the
first thing about, but that are changing some version of reality anyway,
somehow. He doesn’t care about the specifics in the slightest because he knows
exactly what is happening.
Here and now, Damon Salvatore is seeing Bonnie Bennett.
And he is falling in love.
***** Chapter 19 *****
Chapter Summary
     Anna returns, along with few other familiar faces.
Chapter Notes
     This story has now a fanmix: http://m.8tracks.com/queenofcups/sacred-
     geometry-a-soundtrack
     Check it out! It contains all of the songs mentioned in previous
     chapters and alot of character and thematic songs
CHAPTER 19
She comes awake with lightening pouring through her heart, electricity running
all along her skin, burning, crawling, branding. It feels like coming alive at
once, like walking straight out of a dream and into the real world.
It feels … like being born. Again?
At first she doesn’t remember. Her mind is a blank, candid space – a peaceful
space that registers only the way the rustling wind is so loud in her ears
(like a scream, like storm is brewing).
Then there’s the memory of fire, ugly, frightening, demeaning. The ghost of the
awareness that she was endingand it was the wrong time, because she still
wanted so much… her mother, Jeremy, a life with them in this modern time … but
Mother was already gone, was not? All those things she wanted were all already
gone from her grasp, and this time there was no second chance to get anything
and anyone back.
The memory of those thoughts sparks a lucid, new awareness.
I am Anna. Annabelle Payne, daughter of Pearl. I am a vampire from the Original
Line. I was burned. How I am not… gone?
Her eyes wander in the space around and above – nothing she recognizes, but oh,
her skin still burns, and her squeezes like it should be beating, except she is
dead, undead, and her heart has been still in her chest for so many years
already.
I am in pain. I lack… something.
“Anna!”
She turns abruptly toward the direction the voice came from.
She knows the pale angular face that reaches fast her sight, but the
familiarity she feels with the tall, muscular body that soon envelopes her is
only distant. An unwelcome thing.
Still, when lost, overly eager blue eyes meet hers, it gives her a bit of
comfort.
“ Ben? ”
It should be his name.
Her childe (because this she feels with certainty born from her blood calling
to his blood and her scent under his scent, he is hers,made from her, although
not with love or lust or anything but the sheer necessity of a moment) smiles
wide and confident and bright.
Just like a puppy his master just bothered petting.
“How am I alive?”
He asks like she should have the answer and, naturally, since he died way
before her, if her fractured memory is any good, it is likely he is assuming
*she* is to blame for his presence here. Anywhere *here* is.
But she is not. Right?
It’s strange to take anything as certain , given how off-kilter she feels.
“You know where we are?”
She demands, schooling her expression into hard, determined indifference.
Never let a newbie suspect they might be in control or at advantage.
It reassures her, that at least some lessons she learned are still there at her
fingertips.
Bennods promptly, beams like he expects a cookie for a correct answer, like it
is a test he has already passed with flying colors.
“Right behind the family crypts of the founders. Mystic Falls cemetery. I just…
sprouted from the ground like a vegetable. Fuckin’ cool.”
“Wonderful.” She smiles, keeping it bland and not committal, rubbing her wrists
because it burns,the way it would if something moved beneath her skin and
fought to get out.
He notices. His eyes follow the movement with a spark of interest she dislikes.
“You feel it, too?”
“What?”
“The-”
“Anna!”
The moment she hears her name spoken, this time, the recognition is immediate,
and everything else fades because nothing else matters.
“Mother?!”
Arms, beloved arms this time, a scent of water-lilies she grew up with, envelop
her in a blur.
“How is this possible?” she asks, without really caring about the answer,
because it is a downright miracle, to have this reunion a second time.
“You didn’t-”
“No, I … I was put down right after you were -”
“Wait… what?” Ben echoes her, stepping closer, confusion clear in his voice as
in his visage.
A slightly taller black boy, comes to stand between him and the two women,
halting his progress without a word.
Anna recognizes him as her mother’s childe, Harper.
Okay, things are just getting stranger here.
And her skin keeps hitching. Her muscles feel sore too, and slightly twitchy.
Her feet ache to just move, and move again.
After-effect of being … back?
“Anna? Who is this boy?”
“I sired him when I was still trying to get you out from the Tomb. He died
before you could meet him.”
Mother and daughter just look at each other for a long, heavy moment, tacitly
conveying their understanding of whatever little facts they had on their
situation.
Four dead vampires brought back to life on the same night, all of them of the
same bloodline.
An icy, eerie sort of calm seems to settle over Pearl as she separates herself
from her daughter and places herself between her and the two other, younger
vampires. Taking implicitly the command with a natural ease that makes Anna
feel instantly better – this is the mother she knows, the mother she is proud
of, the mother that never let her down.
“Then we are looking for a necromancer, and we are likely to be under his or
her control. We were all dead before tonight, and we are from the same blood.
Only blood magic could have brought us back … it is unlikely for anyone to be
able to gain access to the one who sired me without his consent, and it’s even
less likely for anyone to have gained his blood without his command. If we are
fortunate, it is by his will that we are here now. ”
Yet Mother, it’s one thing for your sire to want me and you back in pocket, but
Harper and Ben?
The doubt that rises now in her had to be rising in her mother as she
pronounced those words, Anna is sure of it.
Niklaus Mikaelson sees himself as an emperor and an entrepreneur at the same
time. The vampire mob that controls New Orleans and the cities around is all
his. He might maybe think the time he once wasted having Pearl trained by his
brother Elijah is worth a resurrection … and Anna is good at controlling
animals and possessing them at distance too, a rare ability within the line.
They are both old blood. Pearl was Elijah’s lover too, at some point, although
it was no grand romance and Anna was kept mostly not privy at most of that
affair.
Harper was just Pearl’s underling, and he was entombed before Pearl had the
chance to present him officially to the Original family. No reason the brother
should even know about him, since Anna has not mentioned him to them in the
long years after.
Ben… it is not even a question mark, at this point. Nobody would intentionally
resurrect a newbie.
The Originals aren’t sloppy or prone to leave anything to chance. Especially
when it comes to the witches they employed. This situation looks less and less
like something they might be behind.
And her mother has to know it too, because she adds.
“But in case we are not fortunate, let’s be on our toes. Trust your senses :
what do they say?”
“Anna and I feel scratchy” Ben replies right away, and for all that Anna wants
to snap and put him back into his place, she has to admit he is right.
“It feels warm and itchy since I … came about.”
Sprouting from the hearth like a vegetable, Ben called it, but it did not feel
like it to her. More like… popping in from nothingness, growing solid at such a
fast pace that everything shook, from yes, the hearth. Hearth that pushed her
out like it didn’t want her. Like she didn’t belong to it.
“I might agree with that.” Harper joins in.
“I wouldn’t exactly disagree, either.” Pearl admits, pressing her lips together
like she does when she looking inward, reaching for the prescience she shares
with Elijah.
“It is the magic, is not? It must be. It is … calling to us?”
Anna does not feel any good about it, no matter how happy she is to be alive
and with her mother again. She wants back the control of her body, thanks much.
“It binds us to the spell-caster, most likely.” Pearl reflects.
“Let’s kill him.”
Ben jumps right at it, once more outing himself as someone who will need a very
short leash to work as minion.
“Anna!”
Jeremy?
Suddenly she can’t say a word. Jeremy is here, coming toward her, smelling like
her … like a childe, like a lover, like he is hers,properly, now. He took the
vial. He killed himself to become like her. He choseher, a lifetime, a century,
one year or one day, whatever it can come, with her.
It was what she hoped, what she wanted so badly before, before she … died or
whatever, and now she has it. Has him. Him and her mother and she is as alive
as she will ever be and everything is possible ,once more.
Happiness is a shiver that takes over completely. She clutches at him before
she can realize what she is doing. He moves the hair away from her face
prudently, almost reverently, and it’s the gravity in his eyes that tells her,
more than a thousand words or reasons or even his presence there.
*Jeremy* accomplished this. He saved her, reunited her with her mother, opened
that closed door on all their futures. He did this because he loves her.
***** Chapter 20 *****
Chapter Summary
     The Night above Mystic Falls just gets darker. You did not think
     Katherine was resting on her laurels, did you?
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Chapter 20
Katherine Pierce loves, loves, loves being herself. Any time, any day. But ,on
nights like this one? She loves it just a tad more.
It’s that special hit of adrenaline that reaches its zenith when she knows she
is one step or two ahead everyone and she has discovered just that special move
to twist to bring whole the castle of cards down-the only high she really
craves, better than bloodlust, most significant than any kill, most all-around-
satisfying than any drug.
“Oh, Elena I love you-”
She keeps the grin in check, affects what might pass for a teenaged, demure
version of arousal by leaning back, eyes half-closed, rolling her hips in a
certain way as her hands slide down his ribcage and toward his groin to stop
there provocatively.
“It’s more like you love my hands…”
“Damn right-”
Whatever her lover is to say gets swallowed by a grunt as she strokes the
inside of his thighs softly, slowly, teasing his family jewels for a lingering
moment or two just before caressing his stomach again.
He is bringing his hot mouth to her breast when her lips tremble around a moan:
“Oh, I just feel so guilty.”
Oh Elena, even pretending to be you is a mood-killer. Fortunately, there are
props.
“My poor Stefan…”
“Yeah, poor Stefan”
The jock mutters with obvious disinterest, kissing the line between her
collarbone and her nipple.
“I say he is a lucky man.”
Another mouth smirks against her shoulder, nips at her skin like a promise of
punishment.
Hands bring her hips against other hips, and she undulates back and forth
between two bodies, both nicely built and muscular, almost but not quite losing
herself to the sensual feeling.
How cute for them to think of me as their sex-toy and of themselves as the
masters of a poor drunk and miserable orphan, when I might flip their large
frames over any second now, and so easily slaughter them. Ah, to cut their
throats open, the way my father used to cut into his chickens, but without any
blades - using only my fingers, or my fangs.
The thought is tempting, and nothing she has not put into action in past. This
time tough, she has a project .
Such a shame. This world is so small and full of idiots- it might use some
trimming.
Her hands reach for both her boys, to bring a dark head down for a kiss and
another lower, back to her nipple. Her thighs spread wider and wider as she
pushes her ass back to meet the hard length ready and eager to impale her
backdoor entry.
Jock number 1 is careful and nearly considerate while he slides in, going slow
as his hand gets her wet by playing in her secret garden.
Not a bad lay for a teenager.
Still he knows to pull her snugly close to his chest when his friend wants to
enter her too.
It makes you to wonder if they imagine their candy-sweet school queen would
never willingly submit to such profanation.
Katherine allows her body to be managed, closes her eyes to get a better read
of the emotions coloring the air around her.
Lust for flesh, lust for control, a sliver of spoiled macho-boy misogyny: a
shot of yellow-red fever that floats from body to body and sticks to her skin
like sweaty imprint. The sort of sickly-green, vaguely predatory excitement
that brands bullies when they team up to get their way and they succeed.
In the space of two heart-beats (theirs, not hers, because her heart is dead
and they can’t touch that,nobody can, it’s only hers, it feels only for
herself) all she wants is to scrub them and their filthy emotions off. They
make her to feel dirty.
But the show has to go on.
She grins the loose, only too happy grin of someone who had way too much drink
at this sorry high school party.
“Oh, I feel so full, it is so very good ! ”
Well, maybe that came out too shrill.
“What’s that, princess, does not Stef know how you like it?”
She stretches up, giggling in faux-giddiness, so the camera in the corner of
the room will get a really good shot of her bare breasts.
“He does! He does! He just thinks I like it a bit too much! But it is not my
fault! Since my parents died I only need something extra, do you know?”
Oh, if the dig to her dead parents on record while having a threesome on record
does not break her in half, I will have severely misjudged her character.
“Yeah, yeah we understand. Right, Jack?”
“Sure, man.”
“Just shut it up, both of you, and get me off.”
That might be the first totally honestly-meant thing she has said in the whole
night.
“Oh, is that a… a camera?!”
“Elena, honey, you were the one who wanted to do something crazy - I told you,
nobody will ever see the tape except me and Jack -”
More like you and your meat-head cronie will show it to whole your pathetic
football team, if I have to compel it out of you. Which I will totally do
because I did not enjoy your sophisticated company for sport.
“Promise! I would die if anyone ever knew! My poor Stefan! Pretty please, do
that scissor thing to me with your fingers again!”
I sure to God hope my double is not as annoying as I play it in the bedroom.
Dear Stefan, what were you thinking?
 
At dawn, she is sliding back into her tiny black dress, slipping on her trench
coat, and leaving behind two worn out, properly compelled morons and their
video camera behind as silently as she can.
The fresh air of morning that hits her in the face while she steps out the
house goes a long way to put distance between her and the previous night. The
show can go on and the stench of mediocrity and sweat is already only the
shadow of already accomplished deeds.
Elena Gilbert’s deeds, not hers.
Life is all about the little things.
All Katherine wants at that point is a good, long, hot shower and a martini.
But first things first.
Her maker never liked to wait.
She dials him up as she strolls toward the nearby bar, a vampire on a mission
to get at least some caffeine in.
“Kat?”
He sounds drowsy, like she just woke him up. Good. She should not be the only
one to be inconvenienced.
“Nik, I am on schedule. Elena’s life stage as Mystic Falls pure princess just
got an hit it will never recover.”
“Do I want to know the hows?”
“A pointless question from a control maniac like yourself.”
“Very true.”
“So why are you not grilling me? I might to want to gloat.”
That’s basically the whole basis of their sire-childe relationship. He sets her
up a task, invites her to do her worst ever-so-sweetly, and she has her fun
going above his expectations, if she can. She gloats, he spoils her high by
unloading on her his ever-present man-pain about family issues, and their
shared assessment that yes, being an Empath does make you more and not less of
a sociopath.
“Elijah had a vision.”
This one makes her to roll her eyes. There’s always a vision coming from that
particular party.
“So?”
“We will lose Pearl and Anna.”
“Staked? Burned? Unsuccessful ritual?”
Maybe that Bennett witch is not powerful enough, after all.
“Land-bound, actually.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You will see.”
A frown.
“Am I not supposed to make me my best to avoid it?”
“No, play along and roll with the punches for now. Pretend to be surprised and
upset when it happens. Pretend to be petty and vengeaful over it. Use it to
push Bonnie Bennett around, but not too much. Divert attention from Elena while
you play her, and over all …”
“Take good care of Stefan!” She finishes for him with a mocking purr.
It makes her sire to laugh, a low and sexy pleased sound she still likes.
“I want myboy on the edge when I come in town.”
“Elena?”
“See what you can do, I am still curious. Three women of your bloodline looking
so incredibly alike. It sounds like a puzzle I might like to resolve. To not
mention, I am missing a lamia in my entourage. I will collect the girl as
willing as I can make her. If it gets me my Ripper back, all the better.”
Like if you would settle for anything less. Two copies of your first love, one
vampire and the other lamia. An unresolved supernatural mystery that makes your
paranoid brain to hitch for a definite answer. The possibility of getting back
your masterpiece of a monster. You will want it all and you will give nobody of
us any rest until you get it. It’s the way you are.
“About the Bennett witch…”
“Not pliant enough, yet?”
“She got intimate with Damon. I am not sure Elena is going to be enough
leverage anymore with her. Her loyalties might shift ... and a Damon in love s
a wildcard, always.”
“You would know better than anybody. But, if their little group scatters it on
its own it only goes to our advantage. The witch is not my priority anyway. I
have plenty of those and my Gloria is doing wonders now. Her bloodline has
certainly nothing to envy to the Bennetts.”
Ah, the artist is already infatuated with his dangerous creation. Right as
usual. Nik, if only you were as unique as you think yourself being…
“One of those days, this obsession of yours with adding to your … menagerie
will land us all in serious trouble.”
“You love trouble and I run a business. Having only the very best in our employ
is what keeps our family on top.”
The casual amusement that was there just beneath the surface of that velvet
voice now to turned to pure steel. Katherine knows better than to not take it
seriously.
*Our* family, or *yours*, Mikaelson?
“Naturally. You know me, I was only joking.”
“I will keep in touch.”
He hangs up without waiting for a reply.
Moody as always, my daddy.
--
 
 
Chapter End Notes
     OKAY, DON’T HATE ME RIGHT YET. This is leading up to Elena having her
     own storyline, separate from her love-issues, something that
     personally I always wanted for her. Also, this is my chance to make
     Klaus the villain I once dreamed he could be. It will be a dark and
     occasionally agansty ride, but it will be rewarding I promise.
***** Chapter 21 *****
Chapter Summary
     Bonnie and Damon face the Resurrected Vampires.
This has to be why Grams used to warn me about never giving the Powers too much
of a leeway when closing a Contract.
Bonnie does not like how this turned out at all.
Having Ben, a vampire who kidnapped her, humiliated and traumatized her, back
from the grave was not an option she had considered.
But he fit the bill for the Fourth Vampire servant – dead on Mystic Falls’
soil, from the same bloodline whose blood was used as tool in the ritual.
I should have named the fourth, no matter what. I should have picked all of
them personally just to exclude the chance of such an eventuality actually
presenting itself. I rushed through, I left one detail up to chance and divine
mercy, and this is what I get … a royal kick in the theeth.
Standing behind Pearl and Anna, Ben does not look like neither death nor
resurrection improved him a bit.
And he still glares at me like I am prey and he can’t wait to make a meal out
of me.
Smug, megalomaniac and stupid – not a good combination. Especially since she
was hoping to avoid to aneurism all of her present company into submission.
“You are saying you enslaved us. Do you expect us to be good with that?”
Not even half-an-hour out of her grave, Pearl Zhu seems to have already taken
up the role of unofficial leader of the vampire foursome. The others let her
speak on their account, keep behind her in a silent show of support, don’t join
the conversation if they don’t glance sideways to her first. Hell, even Jeremy
had fallen in line with that trend from the instant he led the resurrected
vampires to Bonnie and Damon, and he was supposed to be on their side!
Another stroke of luck. Damn vampire hierarchy.
If there was once one chance that Elena might have been forgotten all Bonnie
had been keeping from her deliberately in name of Jeremy’s safe return into
family, it is growing more distant by second.
The younger Gilbert is keeping to Anna … literally. He holds her hand, keeps
stroking the inside of her wrist at random moments like if maintaining his
focus on the conversation happening around him requires physical effort, and
touching her is the only touchstone that grounds him. His gaze keeps drifting
to her face, and when he does the feverish, haunted intensity she finds there
paints him as a stranger into Bonnie’s eyes.
He might be obsessed or he might be in love, but either way he won’t stick with
us for long.
“You are not shackled to me, you are bound to Mystic Falls-”
“A place where a Council set on ending our kind thrives.”
Pearl’s pale face is a mask of contrite, controlled incredulity. Her tone when
she speaks to Bonnie is the tone a teacher would use while striving to be
patient with a child that is unreasonably missing the point of an important
lesson.
“Would you prefer being dead?” Damon snipes helpfully, with all the flair he
usually sports when he spoiling for a fight.
Pearl levels at him the coolest glance “Most certainly not. My rejoicing in
life doesn’t keep me from pointing out the flaws in your plan tough.”
Damon snickers. “You are not here for your comfort, but for ours.”
And Bonnie knows she has step in before tensions escalate, no matter how
privately she agrees with him. She tries hard to sound calm and reasonable.
“You were brought back as a protector of the land. As long as you keep to that
law, the land will keep you protected and undead. My role as enforcer and
referee of the Contract is purely a matter of theory unless you try to kill on
these grounds or to harm any innocents. You were dead and you get to live,it
does not seem to me like the price you are going to pay is too high. ”
“Magic is going to save us from a stake, when we can’t kill those who hunt us?”
Ben laughs, low and derisive, and the aneurism that brings him to his knees
right away is almost reflex.
Gods, I’ve wanted to do this since the moment I saw him, but he makes easy to
not regret it.
Other vampires ignore his whimpers of pain … except Damon, that grins his
beaming approval.
“This trick looks like a much classier move when I am not the one on the
receiving end of it.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
She finds herself smiling at him, despite the situation, and the desire that
slashes through her body when he leans in slightly, approval so bare on his
features, takes by complete surprise.
The cemetery, the vampires in it, the little cat still curled, immobile, around
her shoulders in silent protection, and even the cold, heavy awareness of Death
all around her weighing on her senses -- it all recedes, grows as distant as
dream in front of this primal gravity that tries to pull her body to his body,
her mouth to his mouth.
The magic that keeps her on the edge, ready to respond to the smallest
provocation in the face of danger, the tension in her muscles, the left-over,
dark energies lingering in her from the ritual … it allblooms into a feeling of
want so visceral and so pure that it takes her breath away.
Her instincts would love nothing better than grabbing Damon, forgetting her
cursed company and sneaking in one of the family crypts to hide.
To slam his back against cold stone, rip his shirt open, get him out of those
pants and inside my body. Just get myself off on him, over and over again.
Wait, what?
She shakes herself out the fantasy, but the heat dancing up and down her spine
from her loins doesn’t leave.
She feels good about it tough; it makes her warm and comfortable in her skin
instead of ashamed or nervous, like she thinks she should feel, zoning out like
that in a crisis.
Stupid hormones.
“What if we tried to leave the town?”
Her attention drifts to Harper. It is impressive like his whole body language
reminds her of Stefan.
“The very same magic that was calling you to me after your Resurrection will
keep you from going past certain boundaries.”
“Even if our lives were in danger? ”
“Yes.”
No getting around that. To his credit, Harper nods at himself with an air of
resigned complacency.
He clearly expected as much.
“After you, your descendants will inherit the role of Referees of the Contract.
What if you don’t have any descendants? Will we… return to dust?”
Anna asks, inserting herself in the conversation for the first time.
“No, the Ancestors will name another. Most likely another witch. No use in
planning for my death, therefore.”
Bonnie smirks, and again she feels all fire and adrenaline, herself but not
herself at the same time. It is the queerest feeling.
“But, if we die defending this rotten place, does it stick?”
Ben is on his feet again, but noticeably less confrontational than he was when
he opened his mouth last. Good.
“Sorry, you are still susceptible to all the downfalls of your vampirism. One
more chance is all you get, and even that is conditional.”
Damon sing-songs beside her, almost giddy to deliver the information. He too,
didn’t look too content of Ben‘s presence among the ‘Chosen Ones’, as he called
them.
“Then I am afraid you took a useless risk in going against Katherine’s
desires.” Pearl asserts herself back in, quietly.”Four of us, in addition to
two of her Childen-of-blood in Damon and Stefan, might perhaps be enough to
take her down, if that is what you hoped to obtain. But if she has been acting
on the account of our sire, and she certainly doesn’t care enough about me or
my daughter to do all of this unless she is instructed to, we will be all
slaughtered regardless. We are no match for the Originals.”
“The Originals?”
Damon’s brow is furrowed in suspicion. He mocks the title even as he inquires
about it.
It makes Bonnie guess that he has even less of an idea of who they are than she
does, and it is not a reassuring thought.
“The First Vampires, one family whose bloodline started all others, and sired
me and Katherine both.”
“A myth you are trying to frighten us off with. It won’t work.”
He glowers, but the older vampire doesn’t even blink.
“All you will manage to accomplish with *this charade* - she assures with a
certain iciness – is to irritate them … the sad thing is that now you will drag
my family down along with yours.”
 
 
***** Chapter 22 *****
Chapter Summary
     Elena and Stefan are finally informed about the ritual and everything
     that came before. Elena loses some of her innocence.
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
.00 AM, Salvatore Boarding House …
Stefan opens the door, and is not sure he can do anything except blinking at
the scene before him.
It is way too early for Damon-induced shenigans, and this scene already
definitely looks like something that is going to give him a major headache.
He is very tempted to shut the door on Damon's shiny, cat-just-ate-the-canary-
and-you-can't-do-anything-about-it-anymore grin and crazy-moving-to-match
eyebrows, to return to his bed and Elena's warm, long, welcoming body.
But …
Bonnie is just there beside Damon, looking nearly apologetic.
Anna and Jeremy stand behind the vampire-witch duo nuzzling like a pair of
innocent lovebirds that death (or murder) never parted. Pearl is in the middle
of the should-be-dead-but-they-are-not vampire group, all stiffness and ice,
flanked by an aloof Harper and a twitchy, nearly-familiar-looking … ah, no, now
his memory connects … that one is the newbie who kidnapped Elena and Bonnie
ages ago.
Nothing is right or promising with this picture.
Also, why is the weirdest little cat peeking out of Bonnie's bag?
"There's a really good, really colorful explanation for all of this." His
brother zeroes in before he can ask, his whole being stretching in a string of
charm and smarminess.
Again, not a good sign.
"I bet."
He is nearly curious… not. He is still pretty attached to that fantasy of
cuddling Elena until breakfast time, getting his morning refill of blood and
coffee, basking in the glow of her soft smiles as they read the newspaper
together, and thenfacing the crazy of the day.
He got used to that schedule (or variations of it, anyway) when he was staying
at the Gilberts, and he is not quite ready to let it go. Not in favor of
complications he has not predicted or planned.
But he can hear her dressing in the other room, so he is fully aware he is just
stalling the unavoidable until she is ready.
"Dare I ask why they are out of their grave? Katherine's work?"
"My work, preventing her work." Bonnie stresses, raising her hand to claim the
responsibility of this, and she manages to look so unhappily guilty about it
than Stefan feels unpleasantly certain that the story behind the picture is
going to turn even less pretty than he imagines.
"What is up?"Elena asks from behind him, and Stefan takes it as his signal to
stand aside and let the group in.
===============================================================================
Elena listens.
And she feels.
A lot of different things.
Suspicion – an ever present shadow on the background of everything else- Pearl
is too scared of those so called Originals to be trusted with the town or the
lives of the people she loves… and the others are just loyal to her.
Relief – a sharp hit of it, because Jeremy is out of Katherine's pocket
finally, no matter what this cost them on the long run.
Horror – heavy and inescapable, a thick haze that cloaks anything in its path -
for what Jeremy did, what Bonnie almost went through, what Bonnie did that
nightthat changed everything without Elena ever knowing it.
Incredulity that she and Stefan never suspected whole this long, dark list of
happenings that concerned their friends and his brother, for God's sake. Shame
that she never noticed Bonnie slipping far away into this dangerous world *she*
brought on both their doorsteps when she decided to stick with Stefan.
Gratitude that Damon helped her friend and her brother, and disbelief that he
managed to keep it from her and Stefan.
She is overwhelmed and she hugs the living daylights out of Bonnie at some
point, mouthing a 'thank you' to Damon that looks over at that moment with a
suspicious sort of attention she can't quite figure out.
She hugs Jeremy too, hard. Her brother, almost lost, back where he belongs.
There's much that she wants to say to them, privately, a lot of questions she
needs to ask … but now, with strangers looking on, this reunion is hard enough
without getting too personal.
She wants to thank Damon properly, for orchestrating all of this while she had
shut him out, to explain why she felt she had to put their friendship on ice
for some time, to thank him again for standing by Bonnie.
She wants to ask Bonnie why she didn't confide in her, assure her best friend
that she is not judging her, that she can tell her anything, anything. Comfort
her for all the times Bonnie needed her and she didn't know to be there. To
erase this sudden sense of separation between them.
She wants to reach for Jeremy, get him away from this crowd and make sure that
now he has Anna he knows to draw lines between what he can do and what he
should. She wants to take the pain away from her brother, more than anything.
She wants to mend him and pull him through.
But this is not the place or the time, she gets that.
Hugs shall have to do.
===============================================================================
It is decided that the 'Resurrected Gang' will be hosted at the Boarding House
and kept hidden until they are sure about how to settle scores with Katherine.
It goes unspoken that this is also where Stefan and Damon will be able to
better keep their guests under a cautious watch.
Eventually, because this time Damon leaves with Bonnie, claiming she is too
wiped out by the ritual to not have a 'stud of a bodyguard' at her back for the
day.
He's truly a good guy underneath, Elena can't avoid to think then, and she is a
little bit happy she was right to put her trust in him, after all.
She hangs on with Stefan as he gives rooms to his unwanted guests, plays
hostess by holding polite conversation with Pearl and Anna and helping them to
settle in. She even manages to corner Jeremy into a one-on-one-chat, even if
not much comes out of that. Too soon to reach him beyond his walls, but she can
wait.
She goes to school, comes up with excuses for Bonnie's absence, diverts
Caroline's attention from it whole the day long.
Bonnie deserves a break. Elena does not forget the shadows under her eyes or
the tension in other girl' body as she hugged her, so when she tries to reach
her after dinner she is not too surprised her cell is ringing on unanswered.
It is strange Damon is unreachable too, tough. He is not at the Boarding House
either, when she returns to it after leaving Jenna to Alaric' romancing.
Stefan is pissed that he is struck babysitting other vampires all by himself,
even if he won't openly say it.
Elena does her best to sweeten the pot for him, insists to stay the night even
if he would have safer at house Gilbert.
"Silliness, nowhere is safer to me that a place where you and my brother *both*
are."
Besides, she feels better if she can see to Jeremy for herself.
===============================================================================
At night, Stefan spoons her and she slides among heavy dreams right away. Even
if she does not feel all that tired.
In her dreams she is combing her hair before the mirror of an antique looking
vanity. She wears lacy pink lingerie and confidence, the air of fresh-faced
self-possession that came easily to her before her parents died. It is the *old
her*, Mystic Falls queen bee and socially-active head-cheerleader, someone
today' Elena sometimes misses and often does not.
The reflection blurs and the mirror is showing her something else. Bonnie's
kitchen, and Damon in it, making pancakeswith smiley little faces drawn in
syrup upon them, serving them to a visibly exhausted Bonnie that wears the same
clothes she did this morning at the Boarding House. Except this Bonnie kisses
him for a thank you, a ravenous, almost feral sort of kiss that the real Bonnie
never would dare, not with Damon anyway, because she hates him. Or used to hate
him tough. And then,* her* Bonnie has not eyes like those, paling green and
feverish, haunted but not.
Her Bonnie is consistent with herself and her opinions, always, a steady
compass for anyone in need. She is a worrier and a nearly maternal best friend,
and she would never grin like that, wide and wild, certainly not for a vampire,
and not for a vampire like Damon. She is Bonnie.
With that certainty, the disturbing image blurs away, and her reflection
returns. Except it is not *her* reflection for real, this time around.
That penetrating, mocking gaze that cuts into her is 100% Katherine Pierce.
"Denial does not look cute on you, Elena. I saw them. My eyes might well be
your eyes, if I put my worst intention to work."
It is not a real dream, it occurs to her at once. There's a pressure all around
her mind, squeezing her in one direction, and she can't get out, can't leave.
"Get out of my head!"
"Not until I am done."
The grin is smug, it looks all wrong on lips so closely resembling to hers.
Elena forces the panic to recede.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing but opening your eyes, my naïve little fool."
"So if I say I believe you, you leave."
Simple enough.
Katherine rolls her eyes, twisting her features into an expression of petulant
distaste.
"Please,honey, give me a little credit. You will believe me when our dear
Bonnie confesses up to you, which will most likely be very soon. She can't keep
the charade up for much longer. I just want you keep to your heart the
beautiful picture I gave you. They looked hot together. Remember who discovered
them first for you."
They looked like strangers, Elena corrects to herself, Bonnie with her …
general strangeness, Damon with his domestic fluffiness and tender, not-so-
desperate blue eyes.
Irrational, she is acutely aware of it, but she feels betrayed.
"There's anything else?"
With her voice covered in ice, she is reminded once more of that other, past
self she glimpsed before in the mirror.
"How is Stefan?"
"A day without you is always a good day."
"Or so he says."
The casual lightness her double uses to insinuate that, like Stefan's view
point is nothing because Katherine already decided on her version of reality
and will bend him to it, angers Elena in a thousand different ways.
"He means it too. You abused him, made him to feel like your whole relationship
was a rape on every level and he still was so defenseless than he could only
love you for it. That's monstrous enough. You don't get to dismiss his feelings
on the matter, on top of it."
"Yet he loves you now, my living likeness in all but the mellower personality,
and before you there was Klaus,my sire and teacher in nearly all things that
made me as you know me, for almost fifty years. Basically me with a cock, but
then I suppose the same mind games that he found so offensive in a Southern
flower weren't so bad in a New York bad boy."
"Don't hide behind sexism. Stefan is not the bad guy here, you are. Right as
proved by this … forced conversation. Other people boundaries mean nothing to
you."
Elena responds in automatic, determined to not give in an inch.
Inside, she feels like someone just doused her with iced water.
It's an old fear, that Stefan might love her just because Katherine hurt him so
much that only being with a *good* version of her could heal him. She pushed it
down and decided to believe in their relationship, every time it came up.
But this …
Pearl described the Original family: Niklaus Mikaelson, second born son and
bastard of the family, bloodthirsty and vengeaful head-clan; Elijah the Seer,
Rebekah Of The Beautiful Death, ruthless assassin to her brothers' enemies. Kol
the Trickster who collected witches, who had recently turned one of the New
Orleans Harvest Girls right before a sacrifice could occur, making her a nearly
all-powerful… Davina The Goddess, they called her now. Finn the Kinslayer who
was buried alive after he descended into madness and tried to slay his own
siblings, defeated only by a combined effort of all his kin.
Stefan was there as Pearl talked and talked some more.
He didn't act like someone who already knew the Originals. He asked all the
right questions, confided his concern over the situation to her right
afterwards.
Stefan was silent about Katherine once too, but that was different. They had
not the relationship they have now.
Even if she still ignores so much of his past. His remorse makes a lot of not-
Lexi-related subjects a complete taboo.
"I won't say I have not traumatized him, Elena, but in the end, what is love
but a wound we keep digging into over and over again, trying to feel something
other than a lack, an absence? We might hate solitude, but the only healthy
love we are ever allowed is the love we hold toward ourselves. A score on the
which you need improving, dearest."
"Shut it up."
She has had enough of this proselytism and condescension and general
Katheriness. She is ready to get the hell out of this dream.
Katherine just gives her a triumphant smile.
"He told you nothing about Klaus. Nothing about fucking another man neither,
just to stay on the generals and bond over the years he was crazy and
experimenting? It sounds more and more like you are not inside his head at all,
and only because he does not want you there. Some love,being the fuck-toy and
not the lover, always the healing and never the sickness that haunts him in his
sleep."
Elena mirrors that smile with a beaming grin that comes so easy, too easy. It
is never hard to tap in the bravado when there's nothing to lose, and this is
how she feels. Nothing is over and everything is at the same time. When she
wakes she will have Stefan and Stefan will have her. They will be sharing a
bed, a life, but there's a dream she is losing, here and now, and Katherine is
killing it somehow.
Just words, they are just words. Ideas and not facts. It might be all a lie. It
might be a truth said in the wrong light. I love Stefan. I trust Stefan.
Even if deep down, I don't know him enough to tell the difference between truth
and lie. Even Katherine saw that, and she understood how to use it.
"I had enough of you pretending you know anything about me or my boyfriend or
our relationship. You can get out, or I can push you out. Either way, I am done
replying to whatever you say."
Elena means that. It may be a stretch to claim she will push an ancient vampire
out of her head by force, as she does not even know if it is possible (damn
her, for relying too much on other people' protection to get better informed)
but it won't stop her from trying and trying again.
She is not going down this easy.
"Brave girl. I have one more gift for you, and then we will talk in person. I
promise you will even want to see me, when you receive it."
Elena wants to bite back just how likely that is, but she holds back. She
promised to stay silent and she will follow through on ignoring her double if
it kills her.
Katherine's dark, predatory eyes are the ghost that follows her as she finds
herself in her bed, exhaling deep, like she was underwater for long time and
just now coming up for air.
Stefan's arms are around her – they feel like a cage.
"Elena?"
He speaks her name against her shoulder like he owns it. He has always seemed
to say her name like it meant something to him, everything. He was the only
person to ever do that. She trusted that.
I trust it, still.
"Just a bad dream. About exams and not vampires, how odd is that, with our
situation? "
And it is easy to talk to him the way she always talked to him. Kindly, softly.
Like nothing changed.
Nothing *has* changed, except we have issues to talk through, now.
It is the easiest thing in the world, to lie.
 
 
Chapter End Notes
     Bonnie had most of her arc at this point, in the sense that there's a
     storyline for her and Damon as couple, but she as character is where
     she needs to be - all grown up as a witch, and out of the most of her
     issues.
     Damon still has Katherine issues and we will get there, but he is
     better, emotionally, than he was at the beginning.
     For Elena, her character arc is just beginning. She remained the most
     naive and 'soft' of the group until now. Time for her to take a level
     in badass too. ;)
***** Chapter 23 *****
Chapter Summary
     Tables turn fast on everyone. Or, this is the point of the story
     where the secret meaning of the title comes to light. Every single
     character here has deep issues. It's their issues that keep them
     together.
Chapter 23
He makes for her pancakes with ridiculous syrupy smiley faces and looks down to
her like a puppy waiting for approval.
It’s those smoldering, so blue, puppy eyes that make Bonnie to feel
disoriented, because, in her life, it is usually Elena or Caroline to be on the
receiving end of them. She is the girl who looks on by the sidelines, judging a
little that loss of dignity, hoping it will never happen to her and yet
dreading it will.
It has never been clearer that her life took a drastic turn to somewhere known.
She draws Damon’s head down for a kiss – the fire in her belly, never quite
gone since that moment before flares up to new life. There’s a monster
underneath her skin now , and it screams to her to take what is hers.
With her body pressed to his tough, the possessive feeling fades to a certain
burning, bone-deep fondness. She is simply glad of him, his presence in her
house, of the shape his body makes against hers, familiar but always new, of
his scent and the way he growls as he kisses her throat. She likes this thing
they have together, no strings attached, no limitations, despite the hovering
promise of more.
It feels good, natural. Even if probably it should not, with his being a
vampire and her being a witch and their species being made to be each other’
bane.
If she was not feeling so weak from the ritual, it would be far more than
making out. Instead they come back to the table, both breathless and light-
headed, and share breakfast in companionable silence. When she collapses on her
bed he is underneath her, a vampire-shaped, warm cushion of flesh that ouches
in faux-irritability while she gets comfortable.
He is talking when her eyes drift shut… she can’t make out the exact words,
this is how tired she is, but she knows the tone, the amused sarcasm it
carries. She falls asleep, feeling safe for possibly the first time since
getting introduced to the supernatural.
 
It’s weird to sneak around Pearl and Harper like he and Anna are just two
normal teenagers.
Jeremy never once imagined it was possible to be looked to again like a real
boy once the news of what he had done got out. But Elena knows and still treats
him with compassion, forgives him before he can work up the courage for asking.
Anna is grateful,Anna ishappy he is in love with her,she had doubts before.
Anna allows him to tell her how in love he is with every part of her body as
soon they get an hour alone in her bedroom.
She offers to him the pale curve of beautiful neck, let him to drink from her
while she drinks from him in return. He never felt so close to another being
until that second her skin is in his mouth and her blood is moving inside his
body. His blood runs in her body too, keeps her alive and strong and well.That
furious, primal, grandiose feeling, there are no words for it.
They feed each other, and it is erotic without even coming close to sex,
intimate without ever coming close to shed a layer extra of cloth. Sustenance
is offered and accepted, but it’s oh so much more than that.
It’s life, his dead heart almost fluttering and stilling in imaginary tune with
hers, her essence coating his veins, breathing color into his skin while he
knowshis blood is doing the same for her.
This is his new normal.
Jeremy already adores it.
 
 
Elena wanders in her neighborhood without an aim, attention drawn inward,
toward a past she can no longer catch.
She left Stefan with a boisterous kiss and soft caresses, light in her eyes as
she danced out of the door with promises of seeing him later at school. She was
playing at being happy. Without that mask, she just feels lonely.
She is more sad than angry, really, and it will probably stay like that even if
Katherine’s tale turns to be true.
Strangely, all she can think of this morning is her parents. How hard it was
after they died, to just… get up and do normal things, bring herself over that
terrible realization that they were gone.
The way it hurt, the tide of memory, bringing them back, flesh and bright as if
they were still with her, part of her forever, just to bring them away again.
And again, and again, the pain never truly gone, even when everybody acted like
it was just fine to go on, to move on, to leave people and pieces of you
behind.
Everybody always spoke to her about death eventually losing her touch, leaving
only a more serene recollection of a past shared with people you used to care
about.
Elena tried to convince herself it could work for a time. It did not. It kept
surprising her, at the most random, unexpected moments, that the parents she
had loved existed only the past, along with all the hopes, all the dreams that
would never come true.
The pain remained a bleeding wound and not a scar… and god, if it drove her
crazy, the general assuming that she could, should, would just …stop loving
those who weren’t there like they were, in fact, just in the beside room.
If only it was a matter of choice.
This is the way I love, and I can’t help it. I don’t know how to let things or
people to go. The more I try to force myself in that direction, the more I lose
.I pretend otherwise out of necessity, fairly well.
I forgive too easily, before ever wondering if it’s wise. I get easily fond of
the people I meet, then I just as easily forget them. I feel for anyone in
pain, I feel almost coerced to sooth it when I see it, even if I dislike the
person in question, even if it turns me into a doormat on occasion. I hate that
feeling of people I care about slipping away, so I hold on even when it is
against their best interest. I am not perfect, and I feel most alive under the
eyes of those I love. Right now, it sucks.
Because it is becoming odiously apparent that even when people stay, they can
no longer to be there anyway, and that’s a wholly different brand of pain.
She does not resent Bonnie for her … whatever it is with Damon. In time, when
she made sure Damon is not using her to get attention, she will be happy for
them. But Bonnie is growing into a stranger, and Damon maybe no longer feels
for *her*, maybe he never really did, and Jeremy killed himself to become a
vampire.
Here it goes, three people that matter to her, that used to care about being in
her life, that either promised or were genetically wired to stay in there,
always, just took a turn to drive in whole another direction.
Stefan?
He feels like forever, but he won’t let her in all of him, apparently. It hurts
her, but she feels helpless about it too. Saint Elena is already forgiving and
worrying about his pain instead. I am so pathetic.
Funny thing is, she was attracted to his brother. She saw Damon, holding on
this blazing obsession for her look-alike, this passion that drove his every
action for beyond a century and that compelled him to listen to her, a perfect
stranger, only because she wore the face of the woman he loved… and she
thought, somewhere inside ‘this is a man that would never leave me, no matter
what’.
The idea, even now, holds all of its appeal – because that’s all she wants: one
person that won’t ever let her go, only one person in the whole world she
doesn’t need losing. One person she is safe in getting attached to. Because she
doesn’t know how to release herself from the attachment once she takes someone
inside her heart wholly.
She is not sure she can recover from another pain like the one the death of her
parents inflicted, that sense of being tethered to someone absent, gone, unable
to pour back on her the affections she still pours constantly on her memories.
Unfading pictures, an ache she tries to distract herself from everyday –that’s
what is left. But her heart still waits for a return that will never happen,
still bleeds at reminders that it won’t be ever again like it used to be. She
grew used to it.
For her parents, she could. For anyone else … she shut the door the summer she
left Matt. She loved him then, but at the same time the sharp pain she felt,
the way his presence could not diminish it by a long shot, showed her that he
was not the man she could love until she grew old. Some part of her soul
decided, right there and then, that if he was not her destination, she had no
energy to spare and invest in their relationship.
She wanted to try for forever, or be alone; free of the burden of expecting a
relief he could not offer her.
Enter Stefan. Vampire, meant to never die. A bit of a monster but so much of a
man too, who could fill her loneliness with a discreet and yet unconditionally
loving presence. Who believed in her enough to depend on it, and who made her
the muse of his reaching beyond the bloodlust for his lost humanity.
He gave a face to her dreams, and she fell in love with his reality every day
because of it.
She read the Great Gatsby once, as a school assignment. She remembers the part
that struck her straight at the heart:
‘ He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so
close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was
already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city,
where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby
believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes
before us.’
That’s her. The girl reaching for the green light, sure it is so near, so
within her reach, hoping every time she can get close to touch and to be
touched back.
In the novel, Gatsby dies waiting for his Daisy to come to him, so certain it
will happen even while every single person around him understood from the
beginning it was never to be. Daisy loved his love for her, not the man who
felt it. So Gatsby dies hopeful and desperate, waiting for a phone call from a
woman who won’t shed a tear on his death.
The fate of a true dreamer. Nearly slave to his dream, giving it all to see it
realized. Dying along with his dream, refusing to accept its fall.
Except, Stefan is real, and he loves her. He just nit-picks the parts of his
self he is ready to let her see, control-freak he is. He judges himself so
harshly and then expects from her the same condemnation he bestows on his
actions, takes it for both salvation and absolution when she chooses to accept
it all, the good and the bad.
She can live with that, but his propensity to keep secrets from her scares her
and hurts her more than any skeleton he hides in his closet.
I want everything- the monster and the man, the savage and the saint. Your
secrets, your blank spaces, every little thing you never offered to another. I
want that you want to give it without my asking, or it won’t mean anything. I
want to be loved, and to know your love won’t ever desert me. I want you,
Stefan, but it needs to be real.
She will have to talk him about this, unavoidably. To be clear about what she
wants and needs, to come clean about every scrap of information Katherine
dangled in front of her face.
And then, she will have to change her approach too, because her boyfriend is
not the only one who is holding back.
She too, despite what she feels, started their relationship with a foot on the
fence. She withheld a little part of herself, saved it for Damon just in case
Stefan could not be the man who stayed, who gave it all. She had not wanted to
open herself to the pain to be left hanging, not so soon after that summer of
crawling stubbornly in and out of her depression.
She is ready for a risk now. She is not afraid of the pain anymore, she knows
how it tastes and that she can shoulder it, bear its weight, and to still find
happy moments in the darkness despite its sharp bite.
Elena Gilbert has reserves of strength the world does not suspect of under her
sugar. She is a survivor.
 
 
When she gets to school, everybody stares and whispers. Some girl giggle as she
pass them by.
I have a bad feeling about this, already.
Caroline is the one who rushes forward, grabs her elbow to draw her aside.
“What were you thinking, coming to school today? – The blonde talks in a rush,
a thousand expressions shifting on her visage, like she can’t decide whether to
play the part of the concerned, angry, scandalized or upset friend, then some
kind of realization dawns behind the screen of her blue eyes, and her features
freeze in … pity- Elena, I am so sorry, everybody knows!”
“Everybody knows what?”
This better to not be Katherine’s promised gift, I swear…
But it is, she realizes as soon Caroline presents her with her cellphone and a
youtube link.
“One of my cheerleaders emailed it to me this morning. We don’t know who set it
up.”
I do, and I am going to kill her.
She strolls out of the school without sparing a glance to the murmuring groups
of fellow students that pretendto not gossip about her.
From pity case to school slut. Might be a progress for all I know. Same
dynamics at work.
She finds Stefan on the way out, in the parking lot.
“El-”
“Your ex is on you-tube, using my body and my identity for having a threesome
with people I have known since elementary school.”
She is livid with anger of such an intensity she is not sure she ever
experienced before.
There’s not even enough space left for feeling violated in the intimacy of her
body, the sacredness of her memories. Anger is a red haze that absorbs
everything in its wake.
Stefan freezes, a blank, stony expression descending on his face. His eyes
flash tough, and she might swear that as his hands close and clench in fists,
dark veins flutter under the skin around his eyelids.
“I am going to stake her.”
He promises, an errant knight ready to die for her honor.
Too bad it is notwhat she needs now.
“Were you involved with Klaus at any time of your life, in any capacity?”
Good time as any for asking, she supposes, and it is not like the rage she
feels will allow her to think.
“What?”
Stefan blinks, goes blanker, looking either very innocent or very guilty, Elena
can’t tell the difference.
“She claims you were his lover for fifty years. It is true?”
“Absolutely not. How can you even imagine I would keep it from you if it was?
After yesterday? I would never consciously endanger you!”
“How can I imagine it? A good question! Might it be because it would not be the
first time that you hide your past from me? Because you lock away from me the
parts you won’t even acknowledge? I don’t know how you look when you are not in
love with me!”
Stefan denies nothing, and she can read it on every line of his face, of his
body, that he knows she is not off the mark but he has no intention to verbally
recognize it.
“Where is this coming from?”
Those are the words that break her heart.
All of Elena wants to run. Away from him, and his stony, beautiful, cherished
face that kills her only by not being hers. She needs out of this parking lot,
where she is forced to realize that Stefan is the one to truly hurt her and
deliver a killing blow. You see, she put him on a pedestal too.
Him turning into a stranger was never an option she considered. Her bad,
really.
“I need to be alone now. I can’t have this conversation now.”
It’s all too much. All she can do is running.
--
Stefan does not return to the Boarding House before he punched two jocks into
oblivion.
He doubts anyone at school is even surprised about it, and he can certainly use
the outlet. He can’t summon the will to care about this being probably a wrong
way to deal,for once.
They weren’t even compelled to set that video up, damnit, they did all on their
own. Assholes.
He compels them to spread around that they got her drunk on purpose, took
advantage of her, that they are ashamed. And to take off the net that insulting
rubbish.
If he could, he would compel whole the school to forget, but it is too
dangerous and this will have to be enough.
It does not feel like it.
Elena is hurt, and he doesn’t know how to make it better for her.
Katherine’s story about Klaus is not one he understands , at all, yet … Pearl
has warned them that Originals can compel other vampires. He has found it weird
right away that he lived moving between New York and New Orleans, part of their
supposed territory, for fifty years, give or take, but he didn’t remember ever
hearing of an Original family.
He set aside his suspicions about whole the thing because it seemed there was
no point in airing them so far, and because it was believable that those
Originals operated on a level of underground criminality that required secrecy.
What are you playing, at Katherine?
She hasto have lied to Elena, and topped it with all sorts of insinuations
about his history and character if Elena turned on him with that desperation.
Or maybe she was just hurting and leashing out, with her reputation in tatters
and that offensive video online.
She has to be feeling so violated.
Bonnie might help. There might be a spell, to fix this.
--
He calls Bonnie, the witch is outraged and more than a little worried when she
can’t find Elena on the phone.
Then she turns all her attention on her Grimoire, and Stefan is left with a
bizarrely relaxed Damon, in the Bennett sitting room.
The two brothers study each other silently, sitting on the opposite sides of
the room.
Stefan is feeling restless, on the edge, angry. A caged animal locked in a
prison of ice, that can’t even verbalize how he feels without fearing he will
lose the control he needs on his inner monster.
Usually, Stefan can count on Damon to be everything he can’t allow himself to.
If Elena is in danger, and he can’t voice how badly he wants to crush those who
would hurt her, he will look at Damon, who is likely to be telling her just
that, and he will feel better. If he pretends to himself that he won’t always
choose Elena’s safety over morality or anything else (assuming that choice is
indeed absolutely necessary, obviously) he can count on Damon to force the
issue. Damon externalizes what Stefan suppresses with all himself, it is the
only reason his pursuing of Elena has not completely killed their already
dysfunctional brotherly bond.
Some days, the younger Salvatore even wonders if this ill-fated courtship keeps
them connected more or less than it keeps them distant and at war with each
other.
So it is with a feeling of unreality that Stefan notices, this time he and
Damon are not on the same page.
He feels like a mess, Damon … is not pacing or raving or threatening to go off
the handle any time soon. He is not even flying off to find Elena, as it would
be natural for one of them to do, and she certainly was not in the mood to be
near to her boyfriend.
Come to think of it, Damon looks contrary, morose and put off from this turn of
events, but also remains strangely relaxed, collected. His anger is not
spilling in all directions; he does not look like a man who would kill to be
beside the woman he wants in moment of distress. He is not even lifting a
finger to exploit an ideal time to drive a wedge between his brother and his
girlfriend, which is very out of character in itself.
Stefan is a facing a puzzle whole pieces are not quite making sense.
Damon reads him like book.
“It is probably the wrong time to advertize Bonnie and I are seeing each other,
is it not?”
He dishes it out playful and casual, which is how Damon delivers most often the
stuff he really means.
Just … Bonnie and Damon together is not an equation that adds up in his brain.
Last time he checked they were very hostile toward each other, but that might
have blown away while they helped each other in those months.
She distrusts vampires fiercely; Damon distrusts witches just as much. Damon
uses witches, Bonnie is out for keeping vampires like him in line since she
discovered her powers.
Damon’s focus was or is all for Katherine and Elena … Stefan has just supposed
that Katherine’s return had shifted the attention away from his girlfriend and
back on their sire.
Unless…
“Are you using her to get Elena jealous? I won’t-”
“I am into her and she is into me – Damon barks, interrupting him and aiming in
his direction one of those disgusted and hurt and resentful glares he used to
reserve for their father alone, a lifetime ago- however impossible you might
find to believe the idea of me in a real relationship. Of course that’s
reserved for the martyrious likes of you-”
All of sudden, the room is thick with hostility.
“I was just concerned for a friend.”
“An acquaintance, if anything. –Damon tsks, still glaring – One that is both
intelligent enough to tell if I am in for real or not, and fully able to kick
my ass if I cross any lines.”
“Okay.” Stefan acknowledges, maybe a bit too easily, but this conversation is
weirding him out. He needs time and perspective to establish if he is to take
it to face value or not.
Silence between them remains tense after that. When Bonnie strolls in,
oblivious to their sour faces, it is a relief for more than one reason.
“I found a memory spell to lift on a community. I would wait for Elena’s final
say before I do it, tough. It is very specific, and I need to be careful in
naming what we want to erase from the group memory of this town. Her imput
would be useful.”
“Please- Damon chirps, shifting back to relaxed and easygoing- who would turn
down a chance to have their imaginary misdeed erased?”
“You would be surprised. Memory spells almost constantly backfire, and they
need to be repeated from time to time to stay effective. It might not be the
brightest idea to take a risk with the Council already on alert, but I will
give it my best shot to make it safer, if that is what Elena wants. ”
In other words, it is Elena’s call and nobody else gets a say. Good enough for
now.
***** Chapter 24 *****
Once Elena gets in the car, she drives around the town in a controlled frenzy,
her mind circling back on last words Katherine told her.
We will meet once you get the gift or something along those lines. You will
want it.
Well, Elena sure wants to talk Katherine right now. But just to put to good use
the spare stake under the seat.
Where to find her, that is the mystery of the day. Where would Katherine go, on
a fine day like this?
Elena doesn’t expect her brain to supply an actual answer, even if she wants
one desperately. Her double tough, is not one to leave any detail to chance.
There’s an information, deep buried into her subconscious, that floats to
surface and glows (or the psychic equivalent of it, she supposes) like a
signal.
She knows at once where Katherine waits, and she loathes it.
It is the place where the accident that turned her life on its head happened, a
place Katherine should not be allowed to touch. It should be sacred, inherently
Elena’s. That other thing with her face does not belong there.
She speeds to destination.
Katherine is indeed waiting there, a lone and seemingly harmless figure on the
side of the road, dark hair moving in the wind, sunglasses covering her eyes,
glad in skinny blue jeans, leather boots and a leather jacket, poise and
dressing code so different from hers that Elena has to wonder again how it is
possible for anyone at all to confuse either of them with the other.
Maybe Jenna is right. All men do their thinking only with their cocks.
It is an ungracious thought, but then she is not feeling much gracious at the
moment.
Elena stops, Katherine enters the car like nothing is amiss with the picture.
She takes off her sunglasses and has the gall to smile, a natural and clean
smile that entirely out of place on her.
“Let’s drive to next small town in line.”
Elena finds she is too angry and upset to even talk. She drives according
instructions, acutely aware of the where the stake is – she moved it to the
inside pocket of her jacket- and of the easy movement that would bring it to
accidentally poke out Katherine’s eyes.
Elena is human and too slow for that, but she has nothing to lose and a
desperate will to do this vampire damage, to hurt her back at least a little.
“No need to thank me yet.”
“Thank you?”
This woman is crazier than she looks, and that is saying a lot.
“ I am just beginning to set you free. My gift was just a little taste of
motivation.”
“A threat, you mean.”
“No I mean exactly what I said, motivation. You can have heard my sire is a …
collector of supernatural treasures. He wants a lamia in arsenal, but one
untrained is of no use. Fortunately, I had the advantage to raise both my son
and my grand-daughter. I saw him developing his gifts by experiment, and I
trained his daughter myself. I am in a position to make you my masterpiece.”
“Dream on. If you think destroying my relationship with Stefan and my
reputation is enough to make me fold to join a crew of psychopaths… think
again. You are off the mark.”
Katherine just laughs.
“You have a drop of spunk, good. I hate too fragile toys – they get broken
before growing useful.”
“Your opinion of me is irrelevant. I am here because I want to hear what you
have to say before having the satisfaction before giving you my gift too.”
“The vervained wood you have on you? I can smell it. We both know you can’t be
strong or fast enough to get me with it. You are here because you are angry and
you want to unload, all to take back the power you feel I took from you.
Whatever. I don’t care. You will listen to my story, I will do my part to keep
Klaus happy, then we will both free of each other. ”
It’s Elena’s turn to laugh.
“Motivation, Elena. You are the school’ slut now, but you don’t need to be. You
can take control of this. You use your abilities the right way, you can
maneuver your idiot citizens to see you as a saint. Hell, you might persuade
them that what you think, what I have done in your place, is the coolest and
romantic thing ever. You will be their goddess of love, descended on hearth
just to light up their miserable, grey lives. You will rule them, they will
want to crush anyone who says a bad word on you. No more needing lovely Bonnie
or my secretive Salvatores studs to protect you. You can handle yourself, if
you accept my tuition. ”
That is seductive, the concept she might finally be not defenseless, not a
weight.
Not acceptable.
“Go to hell.”
“Really? Then stop this car right now.”
Elena drives on.
The other alternative, to be vulnerable when everyone leaves, and in a world
where everybody hunts for everyone, is not acceptable. She needs to know too,
if every single thing she received in her life she has not had because of
herself, but because of some supernatural hold she has on others , that is
beyond her control.
All answers have a price. This answer in particular comes to the cost of her
pride.
--
As the road runs before them, Katherine spins a tale.
“My son was always a pretty child. A bit capricious maybe, but people seemed to
barely notice and rarely care. Women wanted to protect and coddle at first. He
had every single of his nurses and teachers wrapped around his palefinger. I
was the only person in his life that ever said no to him, which was why we
didn’t get along. That, and the fact he tended to take the spotlight away from
me, being terribly rude about it. I loved him, but I didn’t like him at all. It
made me very curious. I studied him, grew suspicious, and eventually tested
what he could do once I discovered it. By borrowing and reading his diary. He
too, had experimented with his abilities, used fancy words to dress them up. He
had two gifts, that he named Persuasion and Imperium. Persuasion to him, felt
like a cloak he projected on the person he wanted to affect. He conjured a
feeling, an illusion, an image and he wrapped it around his body, then extended
it from there… soon his victim was somehow convinced the idea, my son had was
real … or in some cases, the person’s brain utterly reshaped itself to better
accommodate that belief. My son could persuade you the sky was green, if you
weren’t careful around him. He used to drive some into madness, on occasion.”
Elena shudders, horrified.
“Imperium was a little better. He could just break into someone thoughts and
push into them the need to commit whatever action he wanted. He loved it. A bit
too much. Fortunately discovering sex calmed him little. He decided his gifts
were a wonderful opportunity to do some fortune hunting. He seduced young
heiresses , then he did away with them and enjoyed their fortune. He was doing
wonders for himself until he met a girl he actually liked. He did the
stupiderror to reveal himself to his seventh bride. She poisoned him. I killed
her and took their daughter with me. Nadia … I actually liked her, and I was
devastated when she died an old maid. ” – Katherine tells it like that was a
true feat, but it’s the softness in her eyes as she pronounces Nadia’s name
that gives her away-.
“Her power expressed itself differently. She described it as pouring silk
through her mouth. Anyway, the effect was the same – she talked, and
crowdscould believe every words without a shadow of questioning. She could
fascinate too. Even women who met her could not avoid having fantasies of her.”
Elena strives hard to not imagine what that could have meant for Katherine’s
relationship with her grand-daughter.
“Imperium was something she never mastered tough. It didn’t work for her, but
then she never neededuttering orders .If she wanted something and mentioned it,
whoever was around at the time would move mountains to bring her that desire
made real. They wanted to please her to the point of madness, that was her
secret.”
Again, not a principle Elena is fond imagining to live her life to, but an
useful tool nonetheless.
It might save lives, it might destroy lives. Which would it be for me?
“So, it is different for everyone. How would you help me?”
“I know how my children found their triggers, the tricks they used to learn
their way with it. Today, I will make sure you pull your trigger and bring your
sweet power out. Tomorrow, I will be on the first train out. ”
“What?”
“Klaus wants me elsewhere. It’s his show and he hates sharing. Stefan and Damon
will have to deal.”
She sounds almost sorry about it.
“You just finished bullying into accepting your teachings!”
“I gave you all the bits of history you need to find your way. Once your power
is awake, you can’t come back. My job is just to … unlock you. It can be
accomplished within a day. If it can’t … I will keep up the research for the
right motivation. Believe me, you would hate that.”
“It’s you I hate.”
“Join the club. Have I mentioned that once you tap into the power, the sexual
frustration you will stir into the nearby humans will keep you young, by
feeding the power itself? Like a self-regenerating battery. My darling sadist
of a son adored that part. ”
“I can’t think of any reasons he would not.”
Personally, Elena feels cursed already, but it’s late to turn back from this
step. She needs one weapon, only one to protect those she loves from the
oncoming danger.
I might actually get forever with Stefan if I do this, without becoming a
vampire.
 
They stop at a bar.
Katherine makes Elena to try on all the mental mojo and imagery her son used to
persuade or command.
Every attempt fails. Elena does not feel anything.
Then they try all of Nadia’s tricks. Some of them hit close to home, and Elena
feels like pianist touching her instrument for the first time, just to find all
the chords are broken.
She puts together, under Katherine’s scrutiny the bits that touch her inside
and combines them together in a bunch of different puzzles.
It is hard to say what Awakens her, because every single thing she does seem to
fail but …
In the evening Elena unfurls like a rose. It is what her senses tell her,
anyway.
Something deep inside opens up and she feels it blossoming like a flower. Her
power is not silk, it is a perfume spreading in the air gently, overpowering
the passersby, who stop and stare, not at two identical girls but only one.
Enchanted.
Her words too, feel like perfume. She can Persuade. She can order and make it
to sound like a prayer. She can get a dreamy look in Katherine’s eyes for a
couple of seconds before the vampire shakes herself out of it.
I found my self and my forever, at last.
 
She leaves Katherine to the train station without looking back, closes her
imaginary petals around herself to contain It.
Bonnie is the very first person she calls.
Whole the story spills from her lips with no control. Maybe Elena even cries.
“Come home. –Bonnie pleads. - Come to see me. I won’t call Stefan, or anyone
else. ”
And she does so because Bonnie always saves her, like that summer she could not
get out of the bed, some mornings, and so Bonnie would stay the night just to
snap her out of it. Drag her into the sunlight again by filling the room with
chatter.
This is my sister, she knows without doubt when they hug on her doorstep, and
it will never change.
“Make her happy.” she will say Damon the day after, without any Persuasion “and
take good care of her.”
She will mean it.
 
She and Stefan meet each other at school.
The awkwardness between them cuts her nearly phisically.
“I am a jerk.” He starts, and maybe it is a little true, but all of him is
brooding in her face, it is hard to stay indifferent.
“No, you are not, I just … ”
Doormat Elena at work again. I need to stop.
“I ama jerk, I know that for a fact. I want desperately to not be, tough, so I
put a lid on many things I feel, and many things I lived. I never meant to hurt
you with it, it is just … habit, at this point of my life.”
Some justification.
It strikes her that he is not promising to change.
“The Klaus thing?”
“I was being honest with you about that. If Originals can compel other
vampires, I suppose it might have happened, and I might have had my mind erased
again. I hope it is not the case, but I can’t exclude it. ”
“Okay.”
Not a problem, even if it turns to be true. Not for her at least. For him, yet
another lover ready to brainwash him will be a blow. For his sake, she hopes
Katherine was lying too. She just has a feeling it is not very likely.
“I was worried about you yesterday.”
“I know”
“You are still angry.”
“I am sad. We will grow apart if you don’t let me all in.”
“You are in!”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“I told you-”
“I want a love that consumes me, Stefan. I didn’t think I was that sort of
girl, but I am and I can’t change it. It’s why I kept returning inside Damon’s
orbit, even if I wanted, love and chose you every time. I was wrong about it,
and I am sorry, I won’t do it again but-”
“You want more.”
“I want all of you, even the bits you are ashamed of.”
He looks serious like a funeral as he digests that.
I didn’t ask for the moon or a deadline, does he realize that?
But his forehead wrinkles in that cute way she has always, always loved. It
sweetens the offense.
“Well, I don’t want to consume you. Vampires are already obsessive by nature. I
want to see you to burn with what makes *you* Elena and take flight as I watch
you, not to see you disappearing into the black hole that my life has been
before you.”
That does sound a bit obsessive, now I think of it. Maybe. Is it off that I
like it all the same?
“It sounds like we might be able to compromise.”
She smiles, he smiles back.
Her heart suffers that beautiful feeling of and growing three sizes and being
lifted to the stars. Like the day we met. Exactly like that.
Then his gaze changes, a slightly dazed, dreamy veil descends upon it and
between them. “You look even more beautiful than usual today. ”
And she remembers a pretty important detail she has not yet made him aware of.
“Did I mention, now I am a demon too?”
Smooth, Elena, really smooth.
“That’s a funny joke.”
There’s still a glazed … something over his expression. He actually believes
she made an amazing joke.
Controlling this tiny novelty will take a lot of work.
She is totally up the challenge.
***** The Epilogue *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
THE EPILOGUE
Bonnie and Elena would spend months training their gifts together, trying to
prepare for unavoidable ‘invasion’ from the Originals – it made their
friendship stronger than they could have predicted, filling that gap that had
existed between them since Sheila’s death. They could once more to call each
other sisters, and to know it was no lie.
Unfortunately, their newfound closeness, along with the supernatural existence
they now shared, excluded their ‘third musketeer’ Caroline in ways they could
not quite manage to prevent, despite their trying hard.
Not enough for Caroline, they would discover later. When Klaus came in town,
and put Bonnie in the terrible predicament of killing Greta Martin, witch and
one of Klaus’ many lovers-creatures, in a direct fight, his ‘punishment’ would
collect Caroline as first casualty of the war between the Original family and
their gang.
Turned by Klaus, who used her insecurities, her jealousy of Elena and her
feelings that the latter had nearly ‘stolen’ Bonnie away as she stole
everything else, to turn the blonde against her old friends, Caroline became
for a time a quite vicious vampire.
Especially after Klaus’ constant provocations of Stefan into violence, reopened
‘a Ripper stage’ of his life that had Liz Forbes among its first victims.
Caroline turned off her emotions then, and it took all of Bonnie’s magical and
emotional power to keep her in check as she made the whole town to pay for her
grief.
But in the end, Caroline’s genuinely loving and joyful nature proved to be the
one thing even the all-powerful Klaus could not corrupt. Good memories of her
mother and of her friends, summoned in a staged ’intervention’ that saw the use
of both Bonnie’s spells and Elena’s gift of Persuasion, brought her back to her
heart.
She never forgave Stefan tough, nor did she accept that Bonnie and Elena’s
choice to stand by him and not by her.
She returned to Klaus as an extremely controlled vampire with a renewed self-
esteem his manipulations could not touch. He was enthralled by the change, the
way Caroline’s human OCD enabled to keep her inner monster in check nearly
flawlessly, the way she now stood up to him in defense of her old friends.
The seducer became the seduced, once more, and his newest childe basked in that
fascination she exercised, exploited it to convince Klaus to return to New
Orleans with her in tow.
Caroline Forbes took extraordinarily well to life as his mafia princess there.
Having a guy who covered her with gifts every day and acted needier than her
was a dream coming true for many decades.
For Stefan, his road to recovery was long and hard. Elena was able to use her
power to help him through, Persuading him down the edge every time he was
falling over. In the long run, that made their relationship much stronger.
Bonnie and Damon came through the hardships of that year as an ‘official’
couple. They became best friends and lovers, at least when they weren’t at each
other’s troath. Love for them remained a battlefield.
Yet, when the Travelers came to town, bringing the rumor of a Cure along with
them, at first, and then its reality…. Damon decided to fight for it and take
it, despite Stefan’s opposition.
Damon remained vampire until Bonnie was ready for college and set to leave
Mystic Falls and its dangers behind. Then he took his magic pill, and actually
went to college right along with her.
Ironically, he was the one who set out to become the next Occult professor of
the Bennett Family. Bonnie studies psychology and became a therapist. They
lived in Salem until they were old and wrinkly, both of them, in a small house
with one huge garden Bonnie spent a terrible amount of time and energy on.
They had three daughters Damon insisted to be a stay-home-dad to as Bonnie
pursued her career, and all their friends wondered at how they never considered
marriage although they were incredibly committed to stay together.
Their daughters grew into brilliant witches, and when Damon eventually died, it
was in his sleep, smiling, as he looked his grand-daughters playing since his
wood chair on the porch.
Bonnie had not the chance to mourn him – his ghost just refused to leave the
house, his woman, or this world. She was glad for it, and for the fact she
could still hear his voice and see his face, being an advanced necromancer.
It became a running joke in the family that even death could not part Damon
Salvatore from the people he loved.
Necromancy remained a strong talent in the new Bennett line, that would be
guarded for the centuries to come from Uncle Stefan and Fair Godmother Elena.  
When Bonnie died, it was emulating the first and only hero of her life, Sheila
Bennett. A car accident had left Melissa, her middle child, in a coma, her soul
lingering in a limbo. Bonnie consciously sacrificed her life-energy to bring
Melissa back. Damon supported her through it, and he was there when she crossed
over.
He took her hand as the door to the Other Side opened for her. “I will come
with you” he promised as she looked back and around for last time to their
home, to the heritage they were leaving behind.
“We had such a life…” Bonnie could not avoid being amazed at it, now all was
over. So much sorrow and so much joy, a family they were thick as thieves with,
a heritage set to outlast them. Amazing friends that made it all possible and
so many adventures, a wonderful love-story even death could not put a damper
on.
They had it had all. How had she not noticed until it was the time to leave?
“No regrets. Two centuries behind me, and there were no years I spent better
than those I was mortal again in. We did it all, witchy. I am glad I have loved
you, even the days you have not made it easy, you old shrew.”
“So the older neurotic coot says. Your antics gave me more white hairs than any
of our kids, or their kids for the matter, but I have adored you for it.”
“I wish we could have a last drink to well spent time.”
“Thank you for waiting for me.” – her throat clenched on the words because she
knew that if he had not, as human … he could have ended somewhere else
entirely, in an Afterlife she could not reach him to, now instead she will
bring him with her … or stay down here with him
“hush woman, it is now or never.”
They both glared at the transparent Door hanging in the air, and glanced to
each other in a mute question of whether it was better to just keep haunting
the house, together. Then, in just as mute decision, they walked straight
through it, hand-holding, and they let the Other Side to shallow them up, with
identical squared jaws and jutted out chins.
 
Death turned to be truly the Next Great Adventure. Another beginning. Sheila
surprised them right away by being on the other side of the door to receive
them.
Damon and Bonnie joined the crowd of witch ancestors in a small ghost town
struck in between different timelines and worlds. It was the strangest place to
get used, at first, and the transition was not made any smoother by the
presence in there of several witches Damon had killed in his vampire days. But
you got to be as young or old looking as you pleased, and that was a blast.
Besides, they got to watch over their family, to guide and protect generations
of it with advice and plots.Ancestor politics turned to be a challenge they
were up.
Also, Grams forced them to finally tie the knot.
It was by many details a strange ceremony, but the oddity suited the
Salvatore’s pretty well.
Eternity stretched in front of them – better to be prepared.
 
Among the living, Bonnie’s death produced a domino effect.
Elena and Caroline met at her funeral, and they finally reconciled.
Persuasion had kept Elena young and beautiful, but living. She had pursued her
dream to become a writer, at first using her power to further her career as
journalist and ‘help’ people to confide in her. She had her fun with that until
her youthful appearance began to look suspicious, then she settled as romance
and erotica novelist under several pseudonyms. She and Stefan had married in an
extremely romantic and expensive ceremony right after the birth of their first
niece by Bonnie and Damon. They often regretted the impossibility to start a
family of theirs ( no fertility ritual or potion had ever succeeded with them)
but they consoled each other and themselves pretty well with a great sex life
and traveling all over the world.
They were happy, and they kept in frequent touch with Bonnie and Damon for as
long they were alive – all festive occasions were celebrated together with the
Salvatore-Bennett clan, and when Stefan and Elena visited, they never failed to
cover every single relative with gifts from each of the places they had visited
in the rest of the year.
Bonnie’s death hit them both hard, it was the end of an era.
It inspired them to take a risk, tough – the following year they adopted a
child during one of their travels in a war-torn country.
Caroline regretted she had never let her friendship with Bonnie to bend as she
was alive, but the grief brought about a positive life change. Not only she
forgave Stefan and made an effort to start over with Elena, but she left Klaus
and his family murderous lifestyle, gave herself a chance to be fully the good
person she had never really left behind. She moved to London, exchanged human
prey for blood bags, and studied for a career as fashion designer.
In the centuries to come, she and Elena became like the sisters they weren’t in
their teenager years, although in a different way Elena and Bonnie used to be.
Life went on, and there was a place for new bonds along with the old ones.
Bonnie Bennett managed to stay present in her friends’ lives from the grave.
She popped often in their dreams when they were having a major life-crisis,
even if her cryptic-speak, as Caroline came to fondly call it, could be
terribly frustrating.
--
In Mystic Falls, a Traveler witch called Liv inherited Bonnie’s role as Keeper
of the contract before she left. She was chosen by the land wrights, much to
everyone’s surprised. Although Bonnie had disliked her fiercely during their
acquaintance, she did well by her role.
Pearl inherited the Salvatore boarding house when the brothers both moved out
following Damon’s taking the cure. She made it a boardinghouse again and kept
it going along with her daughter Anna and Harper.
Ben was killed by Caroline in her ‘bad vampire’ stage, in a fit of temper
spurred on by his bravado.
As the Resurrected vampires could not leave the land they were bound to, they
had to use enchanted jewelry to set glamour on their looks changing every
twenty years or so. The land magic still protected and hid them in ways they
never quite understood.
Anna enjoyed the experience of that changing normality and the family life she
had always craved. She and Jeremy remained a couple, much to everyone’s
surprise, through the years. Even if he moved to Portland for a time, to attend
an Art School. He worked freelance as illustrator after that, but normal, for
him, was quite never enough. He grew a sinister reputation as vampire slaying
vampire, getting off the violence of the kill and the draining of another
predator. Anna on occasion got off watching him as he killed, and made
violently love to him afterwards. She pet-called him her beautiful monster, and
he never stopped seeing her as his Juliet.
Mystic Falls gained a reputation as a sleepy, incredibly quiet small town .
Yet, when Caroline and Stefan and Elena made it a habit to return to their
hometown at the passing of every century, finding refuge in the old lake house
that had once belonged to Elena’s parents, they always found themselves in a
net of secrets, lies and supernatural danger. Darkness just never left that
place, and it never slept despite the appearances. It just learned to hide
better its traps. They learned to love it for what it was – their very cradle
and birthing chamber.
Katherine?
She was another who never changed. She came every few centuries in their lives,
just when they had managed to forget her, and she brought back with her all her
deceptions and twisted games. She became the dance partner nobody wanted but
nobody could refuse. Or kill, and not for their lack of trying.
Eventually, she just seemed to drop off the face of the planet for good.
Nobody but the Original family kept in casual contact with, knew that one day,
she had just got bored of everything , removed her ring and walked into
sunlight. The reward of a life lived without any attachments, Elijah would have
commented in passing.
He couldn’t know he was , maybe, slightly off the mark.
Bonnie and Damon had the misfortune of finding her on the Other Side, and reach
a different conclusion.
Katherine Pierce didn’t change.
Even in the realms beyond the door, she created her peculiar brand of havoc
tirelessly. The difference? Her grand-daughter Nadia, that strayed never too
far away from her side. Her son Kai who possibly worse than good old Kat was,an
eventuality even Damon would have not considered as a real possibility.
Even the devil has loved ones, and love is all what leaves a trace, when the
show is over and the curtain falls.
 
 
Chapter End Notes
     Soundtrack to this chapter: If I Lose Myself- One Republic
     I will follow you into the dark- death cab for cutie
     Share the love – c.cremonini
      
     AUTHOR NOTE:
     Damn, I am moved. I will miss this story, its characters (and its
     readers too ;) ). To weave this little tapestry of words was a
     delight, and I grew fond of this little universe of mine , this
     darker Mystic Falls.
     Kudos to all who caught the parallels with various seasons and oh, I
     nearly cried as I wrote the scene where oldBamon crossed over, nearly
     like their canon counterparts too. Raise your hand if thinking of Kai
     as this Katherine’s son, and of their post mortem unholy alliance,
     makes you to fear the world’s fate.
     *mine is the first hand up*
     Sacred Geometry was always supposed to have an open ending, and I was
     tempted to go with a sequel that showed *this* group of beautiful and
     scarred heroes fighting the Originals for the town. Maybe someday I
     will get to write that story, but with college work starting up again
     so soon, I can’t take that commitment, and frankly I wanted that the
     readers that stuck around to see this finished had a clear last
     picture of where those characters were headed. Down to the
     bittersweet ending. If we can call it an ending, since the adventure
     goes on and on… forever. That’s what I loved about writing this
     epilogue; everything is over and it is not at same time.
     Life goes on, but nobody is forgotten, and everybody gains a place, a
     tale of their own. The end is not truly the end, but more like the
     beginning of yet another tale. Sacred Geometry at work, indeed.
     I might decide to return to this universe so dear to me, (next
     summer? For the het big bang? I have thought of it, at least) and
     write about Bamon and their big, complicated family joining them on
     the Other Side when their own race ends. To have them together again
     for a new grand adventure. Or to go deeper into the war against the
     Originals. But *this* tale is still complete as it is, and I hope you
     enjoyed it as such! Thank you for reading.
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