A/N Really not sure if this is going to be a one shot or multichapter. Klonnie folks! Please review and let me know what you think!
She watched from the shadows, from the nothingness that was the other side. Grams came for her and led her out of the caves after Jeremy came back, but that was days ago.
Grams was gone now.
She was alone here in the spaces behind the veil.
She found that if she thought hard enough about her friends, she was instantly wherever they were. It was great until she thought of Matt and ended up in his and Rebekah's bedroom in Venice. That was awkward and she'd thought quickly of Caroline, the image of tangled limbs burned into her retinas all the same. She watched Caroline call Tyler for a time and then she blinked, suddenly surrounded by the dank brickwork of the school basement.
Casting a glance around in curiosity, she noticed she was utterly alone except for the body hidden against the far wall.
Her body.
What was she doing here? A measured set of steps alerted her to the presence of another in this space.
Him?
What was he doing down here?
She watches him stride to her corpse in that swaggering way he has, crouching next to her prone form with all the predatory grace he wears like a mantle. She's leaning over him, wondering what in the seven hells he thinks he's doing, or rather, what he intends to do, with her body?
She realises that he's stroking his fingers over her right hand, jaw clenched.
He doesn't speak but Bonnie is so repulsed by his unwelcome intrusion into her final resting place that she directs all her considerable malice at him. The results are so spectacularly volatile that he goes to his knees, howling, blood running from his nose in a red river and hands furrowed into sandy curls as all his cranial blood vessels pop and reform.
"Witch..." he hisses before speeding away from her body and her ghostly manifestation.
She is once again, alone.
She sits down and thinks of what she just did. She is able, still, to access her magic and she wonders, briefly if she could somehow come back...
No. Grams spent the first few days explaining that there was no way...
Yet, Bonnie was able to bring Klaus to his knees using magic she should, by rights, not be able to use on this side of the veil.
She makes to leave this dank room, maybe see if Jeremy can still hear and see her but she finds that she cannot exit. Like the barriers that keep vampires out of your home unless you invite them, it appears she is unable to stray away from her body.
She is saddened that she won't be able to check in on her friends, though they couldn't see or hear her, at least she could move around them and see them and listen to them. This was somehow worse and Bonnie thinks maybe using that magic caused the barrier to be erected.
Her tears would be bitter if she could taste anything.
She lays curled on the floor and, for the first time since all of this began, she sobs and screams and rails and curses, purging herself of all of it, all the fear and hate and sadness; sadness for a life not lived.
She drifts, floating in that nothingness that is her existence now.
When she comes back to herself, he's there, again.
He's sitting next to her body, again, not touching it, just staring at her face.
How long they sit there, staring at her body, Bonnie doesn't know but his voice startles her when it drifts out of his mouth.
"Funny that your corpse hasn't started to decay, love, as it's been several days since you've expired."
Bonnie perks up at this.
"I know you're still around here, watching, if yesterday's display was anything to go by." He laughs that deep laugh that sets Bonnie's teeth on edge (and arouses her a bit as well).
"I think my dearly departed mother had several grimoires, one might contain something useful..."he trails off as he stands.
Bonnie waits but he doesn't say anything for a long time, he just stares down at her oddly peaceful face, his own visage unreadable.
Bonnie realises that she's standing at his shoulder, staring into his eyes. Eyes that look saddened to see her reduced to this, a body on a dirt floor in a dank basement.
"You shouldn't be here, Bonnie, you should have let me help you..ARGH!"
She cuts him off by breaking both his legs in three places, sending him crashing to the floor.
She doesn't like the thought that she turned down his offer of help before all of this began and so directs her displeasure at the only other being she can.
When she comes back to her present, he's gone and she sighs wretchedly, remembering how fast he can be. She sighs again and sits, back-to the wall thinking she maybe shouldn't have chased him away. He was at least company, albeit also a psycho but then again, beggars couldn't be choosers.
He doesn't return for two weeks, probably as punishment for breaking his legs. He can be rather a petulant child when he's of a mind to, always when he feels that his kindnesses are under appreciated. Well, she sure as hell appreciates him now and his small kindness of even finding her.
She wonders how he would have even known though.
Then she remembers, when he came to her and offered his help. She declined, not really meeting his eyes, saying she had it under control, even after he witnessed Caroline kill twelve of her brethren and her total descent into expression; still he offered. He had that all too knowing smirk on his lips and actual sadness in his eyes, she recalls.
He knew what she planned.
She had to give him credit, she concluded, for his not trying to talk her out of her folly and she thinks she should have taken his help, now that she has the time to consider; nothing but time it seems, for reflection, for the endless recounting of her many mistakes. The only way she can truly justify her hasty actions and leisurely penance is that everything seemed so fraught with urgency that her actions had to comply just as swiftly, swiftly and without thought to her own painfully obvious peril.
Not really a justification, though. She knows better now. She should have gone to the one person who would have had the answers, should have stopped Elena and Jeremy, should have...
Should have...
Didn't.
Instead, she held her own moral compass aloft and did it her way, to her mind the only way she had chosen to see clearly, but still, her way. The final payment was her life, and though she rather regretted the cost, she felt that at least it was only her life.
"No one else had to die this time." She says this aloud, and finds the echo of her voice bouncing back to her.
"But many more will, love."
She jumps, badly startled, for there is Klaus, insolently leaning against the wood frame of the door, face set.
"You can hear me now?"
"And see you, if that helps, Miss Bennet." His eyes darken.
"How?" said simply.
"Found a witch. Though, I must admit she is without your panache when it comes to spell-work, but she's got a decent understanding of the basics; at least enough to make sure visual and auditory communication was possible." He pushes off the jamb and strides to where she is currently standing, stopping inches from her. His eyes roam with candid leisure over her features, as if starving and she the meal.
Unnerving, though not totally unwelcome, and that made her want to pause.
Was she so desperate for contact? Was she so alone?
The answer to both was a resounding yes.
Her question is as loaded, and as simple.
"Why?"
"How could I let such potential lie thus, love? How could I allow this world to be without your balance, Bonnie? How?"
So earnest his answer, yet Bonnie cannot imagine that he's serious.
"You are the balance, Bonnie, you are what keeps the scales even, always the keeper of the natural order, the protector of the human race from creatures like us." He smiles thin, strained.
"I'm the balance? And what happens if I remain, in your words, thus?" she indicates her prone body.
He looks into her eyes for a second, reaches to stroke her cheek, remembers that she isn't corporeal and drops his hand.
"Chaos, Bonnie, complete and utter."
This makes her shudder and hug her frame though she feels no cool air; revulsion and agony. She knew.
"How do you know this, Klaus?"
He pulls a slim volume from his jacket pocket, it's cover worn and cracked and made of pale hand-bound leather.
"My mother kept Aiyana's journals, you are the last of your line, Bonnie, and you weren't supposed to die, love, not for a long time."
"But Silas.."
"He is but a pale shadow to what you are, sweetheart, he cannot truly access his power, though with you dead, he can, the balance, you see, is gone." His hand is back up and she feels a dull tingle where his knuckles touch her skin, but that's all. He looks wondrously confused.
"It's like there is an energy that prevents me from putting my fingers through your presence, love, like thousands of tiny buzzing insects against my fingers. It's fascinating."
"It's the veil." She whispers this, not sure why she is so captivated by his face, his fascination.
"Is it?" It is still only his hands that touch, light tracing patterns over her cheeks.
She can't fathom the look, so oddly placed on his features, as if the emotions he's feeling are foreign to him; or so far in his past that he forgot what it was to feel them. The experience whole causing a slight tremor in his long digits in their slow exploration.
She finds her words inadequate now, realising that he is very close and that she cannot really feel him, or smell him, though her memory of his scent is still sharp, spice and a dark musk that is just him, like leather and oil and smoke; unique.
Uncomfortable are her thoughts because she is not used to thinking about anyone this way, or rather, that they would even view her as anything other than a tool to be used and then put away until she was needed once more to repair something. Even Klaus was guilty of this err in judgement though he seemed to be trying, in some way, to make her see that he now felt a shift in his view of her as more.
"Is there more?" Her voice is sluggish.
"More?" His eyes dark and his hands still now.
"Is there anything else in the book?"
"Not in this volume, though I'm sure that my mother may have a way..." he says and steps back, shuttered, arms crossing. "I'll go and have a look, return when I find something." He turns and is gone and Bonnie is left wondering if he is running from something.
Her, perhaps, though she finds it ridiculous. The hybrid wouldn't be afraid of the likes of her.
The promise of his return was a when not an if and that made Bonnie feel something warm start in her body.
Hope.
He returned three days later with a large, thick black volume.
Bonnie shot to her feet and was there in front of him as fast as she could .
"The bible, Klaus? Really?" The tone of her voice is quietly incredulous.
"Not just any bible love, the first ever written copy of the King James bible, complete with the gospels of Mary Magdalene," he retorts in a smug growl, noting her slack-jawed expression.
"Jesus..." she begins.
"Well, yes, love, but he wasn't nearly the witch Mary was."
Bonnie is flabbergasted, but at this point, not really surprised. If vampires and witches and hybrids can exist, why couldn't Jesus and Mary Magdalene be supernatural as well?
"Well, it explains the whole walking on water thing." Bonnie mumbles, reaching out for the book, dropping her hand.
"There might be something in here, that you can use." He is kind when he speaks, putting the book on the floor, opening it to the pages she will need.
"I'll translate the Aramaic, sweetheart."
She doesn't say anything, just stares at the words at the top of the page.
"Genesis."
"And that is the most apt place to start, don't you think Bonnie?"
She spends the next hour reading as much as she can, asking Klaus for translations when she needs, committing to memory all the words of the spell that emerges, finally, from all the gospels.
"Clever, clever woman. She knew, Klaus, she knew that her gospels would be left out of the final versions of this book." Awe coloured her words and she found herself gripping his wrist. He allows her to uncurl her fingers, wry smirk dancing on his mouth, eyebrow arched and she thinks he may say something sarcastic. Surprisingly, he doesn't.
"Well, love, having lived as long as I have, women haven't been regarded as equals in any quarter ever. Even now, women are still treated poorly, though it is becoming rather unfashionable to do so." he turns the page and they continue on in silence for another hour. Once she has the spell entire, she sits back, eyes closed, sighing.
"I'll be alive again, if we can pull this off."
"Yes, I gathered as much myself, love." He too sits back, oceanic eyes gone unreadable once more.
She regards him once her own eyes open again, his face as a whole is different, less, evil is the word she thinks. She forgets, with all the things she's seen him do, all the things she herself has done, that they share a similar type of aloofness, a separateness that only the truly powerful can know.
"I'll need some things, Klaus, if you would be of assistance?" she says, knowing that he will expect some sort of payback for his aid because he is one that does nothing for free. "And whatever it is you want in return, it's yours, no questions, no complaints." She knows what it is she is saying and not saying, what she is indeed offering and his eyes allow her to see that he knows too.
"I haven't told you what it is I want from you, witch, are you still so sure you'll not forfeit?"
"I won't, Klaus, whatever it is, I owe you much more than I'm offering, but whatever it is, it's yours."
He tilts his head, lips rather more plush than she remembers and nods, once.
"Done, little witch, now what do you need?"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
He returns in short order, laying out the implements she's requested, nature's servant even now.
"Four elements, earth, air, fire and water."
She surveys the four pointed star she had Klaus draw out, each element resting at it's corresponding point. East and fire, north and air, west and water and south and earth. All four elements were life, in one form or another, a bird, a fish, a fire and a plant in the rich black soil of a garden. She could feel it all, all of it fuelling her power. Klaus stands outside at the north, eyes shining as Bonnie begins chanting, latin and her carefully learned Aramaic flowing from her lips, hands above her head. The wind comes, fanning the fire, the water swirling and the dirt spiralling up to form a twister of all four elements, a crescendo of light and sound and power, magic keeping it all together as the twister bends and shifts and Bonnie feels as if she's about to explode into the light that dazzles, her voice not wavering as it climbs up and down the ancient magic that seems to feed off her, off the other side, off of Klaus. He remains standing as his frame is battered, bent nearly double under the relentless howling cold. He watches as she finishes her spell, lit up like christmas in the centre of the vortex and he has to close his eyes or be blinded as the fire and the light seem to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Bonnie tosses her head back, spine ramrod straight, lips loosing a cry as her vision quadruples, a rough wrenching tearing can be heard, and she howls louder now, eyes rolling back as the light breaks, crests and waves over her like a tidal crush and she is lost in the swirling nothing of the crystalline dark.
Hands on her face, hair tickling the underside of her chin and her right hand seems to swim upward to ruffle through the soft waves.
"It worked.." a mere croaking gasp, but he hears it anyway.
"It seems that it did." deadpanned, accented voice playing neutral.
"It's very dark."
"Yes, well, all the light went out after..." he trails off as the candle springs to life.
She squints her eyes open and tries to sit up, managing a little, realising the space is clear of all but the four pointed star. She finds her arms around his neck and though he stiffens, briefly, then he closes one arm around her back and holds her, free hand in her hair.
She manages, with his help, to get to her feet, enjoying, oddly, the feel of his hand in hers, his callouses rough against her palm, the ripple of muscle in his forearm where it's braced at her back and his alluring scent that she remembers again, and experiences anew when he doesn't move away. She meets his eyes.
"You didn't tell anyone I was doing this, did you?"
"No love, I didn't." Tone very carefully neutral.
She waits several minutes before speaking again
"Good."
If he needed to breath, he'd have choked.
"Bonnie..."
"Honestly, you, of all people, Klaus, should understand."
The coil of his fingers around the back of her neck is all the answer she needs really, while his thumb strokes over the evidence of her return to the land of the living.
Next his breath is in her ear, his lips moving softly against the shell, lithe body pressed into hers. Leaning into him slightly, she speaks.
"When do we leave?"
He grins against her ear, thumb still stroking.
"Now, if you like, Miss Bennet."
Her answering grin blossoms, and the light chuckle she emits is very nearly carefree.
"No better time, Klaus."
End part 1.