Because sometimes you just need to write a one-shot.
Disclaimer: Don't own anything Vampire Diaries related.
She moves out. Maybe she needs a distraction, maybe she needs to do something human or maybe she's just tired of her father avoiding her; she really doesn't care why, she just packs all her belongings in brown paper boxes and leaves her lawn.
She loads the piles of crammed boxes into the trunk of her car with a little help from Matt. He throws her worried glances through the whole process, but he doesn't say anything. Bonnie knows he wants to, she notices the way he pales and bites his tongue when they arrive to the old witch house. He still helps her carry her possessions into the delinquent house, but not without inspecting the rotten beams with furrowed brows. He politely asks if she needs any help with unpacking but she assures him she doesn't. She wants to do this on her own. With a last concerned look over his shoulder he leaves.
The first thing she unpacks is her grimoire, and the second thing is a photo of her, Elena and Caroline in their sophomore year. She holds the picture in her hands for awhile, watching their carefree smiles and their similar cheer-leading uniforms. She dusts off the mantelpiece and places the photo carefully on it. It's the first thing of her property to get an official place.
She kind of smiles.
..-..
The first person to visit Bonnie is the least expected one. Klaus waltzes in casually some days later when she's washing the sooty windows in the kitchen, smirking that usual smirk that makes Bonnie regret ever giving him his body back.
"Kind of creepy, love. You have to admit; living in an ex-slaughterhouse kind of makes you question a person's sanity." He drawls offhandedly as he leans against the old-fashioned stove. He watches her tensely wiping away a stubborn smudge off the windowpane.
"Personally I don't mind," He continues when she doesn't answer him. "I find bloodstained memoirs emits... a certain charm." He gives her a toothy grin. A sudden feeling of sickness rushes over Bonnie at his words, and for the first time she meets his eyes. His baby blue eyes twinkle in amusement.
"I love the drapes." He nods his head towards the white laced curtains with the dark spots that Bonnie had taken for grease. His smile widens as he sees her horrified expression and with a last wink he leaves the house.
As Bonnie burns the curtains she realizes that she never had invited him inside.
..-..
Her friends bring some light into the house, but sometimes Bonnie just wants to violently shove them out of the door. They bicker constantly and eat up all of her chocolate and Damon even jokes about getting her a cat so she can become the crazy cat-lady instead of just plain crazy.
At times she catches them throwing anxious looks her way, because living ten miles from the central parts of Mystic Falls by her own is not sound. Bonnie wants to laugh them straight in the face, since when has refusing to choose a lover between two brothers or appreciating life more as a vampire ever been considered sound. Bonnie is tired of being fallible and being used and she just wants to be left alone. She's sound goddammit.
..-..
He's back, and this time he brings her a present. Bonnie stares suspiciously at the beautifully wrapped rectangular package in his hands and crosses her arms over her chest. "What's this about?"
Klaus feigns a wounded expression, putting a hand to the place his heart should have been if he had one. "You wound me, love. We're neighbors now, I got to keep the neighborliness intact."
"You live over six miles away. We're hardly neighbors." Bonnie answers stoically.
"But my residence is closer to yours than any of your friends', am I right?" He counters and thrusts the package into her hands. "That makes us neighbors, love."
Bonnie gives up and tears away the shimmering wrapping paper, fumbling slightly with the lid of the box she unwraps. Her brows raise to her hairline as she finally slides the lid of the box. The two thin pieces of material shine pleasantly in the gleam of the candles. It's curtains. He has given her curtains.
Bonnie stares down on the considerate (and did she dare say sweet?) gift and suddenly it pisses her off so greatly that she thrusts the box back to him. "I'm not Caroline, Klaus!" She hisses through gritted teeth. "Now get the hell out of my house before I give you an aneurysm that will last 'til next Christmas."
The next morning when she goes out to fetch the newspaper, the box is lying neatly on her porch. She walks past it demonstratively.
..-..
A lot of Bonnie Bennett is made out of missing pieces diverse people stole a long time ago. Her mother took one when she first left, her father claimed one when never accepted her, her grams will forever own a big one. And her friends, they will forever keep stealing and putting back pieces until she no longer knows what the puzzle is supposed to depict.
A great deal of her summer is spent trying to avoid her friends and trying to forget every spell she has ever learned. She can't deal with all the drama surrounding Elena's transition and maybe if she's not a witch anymore they'll finally stop calling and cornering her. She doesn't want this anymore. But then again, she doesn't really know what she wants either.
..-..
"How is it even possible of you to be here?" Bonnie asks rudely as he strolls into her living room not even a week since his last visit. She doesn't need to look up from her book to know it's him, her mind still goes on high alert whenever he's in a twenty meter radius.
"Now whatever do you mean, love?" His tone is idle and not the slightest bit vigilant like it should be. Like Bonnie wanted it to be.
Bonnie looks up with a glare. "I have never invited you into my home, and yet you have been walking in here several times without any trouble."
Klaus stands silently in the doorway to the room and watches her with pensive eyes. He takes in everything from her chocolate-colored skin to her unwashed hair to her olive green eyes. Bonnie writhes in the armchair uncomfortably, she doesn't like the feeling of insecurity that his eyes leave wherever they wander. It's not sound.
Klaus looks down for a moment before he meets her eyes once again with a solemn expression. "If you really considered this your home, I would never have been able to walk in, love."
He's gone before she can lash all her choked back magic upon him. She furiously stomps into her kitchen in her home and dishes a couple of clean plates in her home because that's what she does in her home whenever she has no one to yell all her anger at.
"This is my home." Bonnie whispers to herself hours later when the fury had faded and all that was left was a strange feeling of emptiness.
She looks away from the mirror as she realizes that not even she believes that.
..-..
She decides to start practicing magic again, more out of hopelessness than anything. She hasn't felt alright in a long time and she needs something to take her mind of things.
The first victim Bonnie saves after her absence is not a victim of the supernatural, instead it's a victim of a rapist. Bonnie hears the muffled screams of the blonde woman as she's walking through the town on a late Wednesday night, and she hastily comes to her rescue. She slams the son of a bitch to the brick wall violently while the terrified woman falls with shaky legs to the ground. She stays with the woman until the ambulance arrives, trying to do her best to comfort the chocked woman. She leaves before the ambulance men manages to ask any further questions.
The morning after she reads about the deed in the newspaper.
A woman in her twenties was almost raped previous night in the very center of Mystic Falls. The woman was on her way home from the local pub around 9 PM yesterday, when a strange man pulled her into a blind alley. The man was in his early forties and most likely intoxicated when he assaulted her. The actual circumstances are still unclear, but it's possible that the woman in self defense shoved the man so strongly against the wall behind him that he got a severe hit to his head. The man died on the way to the hospital. The woman is still in shock and not accessible.
The small letters becomes a blurred mess of black and white. The air wails in her ears and she grips the ear of her coffee mug so harshly her knuckles turn white. She has killed a man. She has killed a man. She is a murderer.
What really gets the tears to run hysterically down her face is the fact that it should bother her more than it does.
..-..
He finds her two days later lying in the bathtub. He leans against the doorpost with his head tilted as he watches the scene in front of him. She's lying in (what he's sure is) an uncomfortable position, fully clothed and very dirty. He also notices the streaks tears had made on her cheeks.
He pushes himself from his position slowly and picks up one of the many bottles lying on the floor. He throws the brand a look and snorts unattractively. "Cisco? Love, really, even drunkards request higher standard than this."
Bonnie mumbles a string of curses into her arm.
"I'm sorry, love. Didn't quite catch that." He crouches down by the tub.
"I said," Bonnie sighs and straightens herself up unlovely. "can't you just leave me alone?"
"And leave you with this poor excuse for wine?" Klaus looks horrified. "I'm not a monster, love." The irony in that statement does not go lost on her, but she still lets him stay. Another thing that should bother her more than it does.
..-..
She visits her friends the next day. It's hard and awkward as hell, but she manages to pull through an afternoon at the Boarding House. Caroline hugs her tightly as soon as she walks through the door and after that she spends an hour assuring Elena that no she's not angry and no it's not Elena's fault. She even bickers a little with Damon just for fun. She almost feels like normal.
When she returns to the house, it's dark, cold and gloomy. She stands in the small hallway and takes in every little detail and all of a sudden she's throwing around everything her hands manages to find. She cries and sobs hysterically as a vase hits the wall with a ear-splitting crack. The shreds fall to the floor with a tinkling sound and like that the anger runs off of her. Bonnie watches the glittering shreds for what seems like hours before she finally puts down the flowerpot in her hand.
She goes to collect the brush and the rest of the evening is spent cleaning up the mess she made in the hallway.
..-..
The following morning there's a soft knock on her door. She is met by a familiar pair of twinkling blue eyes and a toothy grin when she opens the door.
"Terribly sorry love, but could you please invite me into your humble home? I can't seem to be able to enter."
Bonnie stares at him for a moment before she fully and truly smiles.
She's home
Sometimes you just need some fluff. ;)