A/N: Ok, so I wrote this before the last two episodes of The Vampire Diaries and Supernatural. It's a little spoilery, so if you haven't seen the last few episodes of those shows, then you might not want to read it. This story is really just a way to tell my readers that I am still here. I hope that you all enjoy this short little two-shot. Part two will be up tomorrow. Now, it's time to go work on A Million to One (another Bonnie/Dean fic). Read and review.

Disclaimer: I own none of these characters, but I love them to pieces.

MILES TO GO BEFORE YOU SLEEP

"Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win."

-Stephen King

This time it was Elena who needed the sleepover. She needed a break from the influx of earth-shattering information and unfortunate events that included, but was not limited to, finding out that the love of her life was the sole reason behind so much of the Gilbert family bloodshed and killing the one person who was old enough to even stand a chance of saving her all in one night. Naturally, in hindsight, it was easy for one to say that her hasty decision to risk her own life just to take Elijah's was a hair-brained move, but really, to her it had seemed like a good idea. At the time, anyway. Now, if someone had asked her whether she had honestly had a good reason to think that killing the only being who could possibly help her face history's oldest vampire—if he kept his word, that is—was a good idea, she would probably answer, "No. Not so much." Especially when the next vampire original to enter town would more than likely not be willing to forge any deals on Elena's behalf. So yes, she definitely needed this sleepover, because if she were going to be expected to fight for her life, then she would definitely need a night, just one night, where she spent some time fighting for her sanity.

"So why don't you just ask Bonnie for a protection spell or something? It's not like she and Jeremy haven't been—" one slap to the knee and the baby vamp dropped the last bit of buttery popcorn with extra salt back into the oversized red bowl. While Elena and I were sticking to snacks that were slightly less likely to cause cardiac arrest, Caroline was making up for some seriously lost time by attacking all the foods that she'd avidly avoided before she unwillingly joined the ranks of the undead. And why shouldn't she? After all, she didn't need to worry about things like high blood pressure and saturated fat anymore. She was on the stake diet. "—working on a spell anyway. Shit Bonnie! Why the hell did you slap me?" Elena waited for an answer too, but I wasn't about to tell her that I had hit the baby vamp in order to keep her from blabbing about Jeremy and my more salacious extracurricular activities.

Instead, I averted my eyes and hit them with a lesser bombshell, "Um…that's going to be a bit of a problem. Luka's dad took my powers." Turns out, telling Elena that I tongued her brother would have been much easier to explain.

"What happened, B.?" Elena unwrapped a large white quilt from around her narrow shoulders and came to sit beside me on the tattered carpet by her bed, moving Grams' grimoire out of the way. Caroline sat on my other side while I explained how he had extinguished my candle lit evening, held me by the jaw, and robbed me of every inch of my lineage. I made sure to keep the younger Gilbert's name out of it, however, lest she develop a curiosity as why we were studying by candlelight in the first place. Elena circled me with her arms, momentarily forgetting that her double was running around, trying to kiss her boyfriend one minute and strutting naked in front of his brother the next. Caroline, on the other hand, grew more pissed by the second. Tonight's sleepover began with the purging of secrets: Caroline's. And from them we learned that before Tyler had indirectly gotten her captured, they were well on their way fulfilling a few salacious desires of their own. But as previously stated, the newborn wolf had discursively held her prisoner, physically and emotionally, then run away before she could return the favor. Add that to the fact that her having to lie about her secretive relationship with a guy that she now referred to as "The Traitor" more than likely ruined any chances of rekindling her relationship with Matt, and well, let's just say that the only thing keeping her from going on a feeding spree was the two girls in front of her. A fact which didn't exactly endear her to us. Elena and I made an unspoken vow to thank him for the foul mood that he had put her in if he ever came back, but for now, her willingness to kill the first thing that threatened to rip our friendship apart was flattering, albeit highly unnecessary.

"I swear, the next time I see that thieving whore-lock or his lying son, I'm going to go all Regina George on his sorry ass!" She cursed, referring to my problem with Jonas and Luka. The credits to Mean Girls droned on in the background, providing the perfect soundtrack to a not-so-perfect situation. "I mean, he can't just go around stripping people of their powers just because he doesn't like the way they use them. Who the hell does he think he is? Harry-freaking-Potter?" I refrained from notifying her that Harry Potter was a wizard. She would just have accused me of contributing to the Who-the-Hell-Cares portion of the conversation. Her words, not mine.

"So that's that then. We're pretty much all screwed." Elena didn't usually enroll in the school of pessimism but at this point, none of us were holding out much hope of living through this ordeal. And if we did find a way to kill Klaus, there was still the tiny issue with Katherine, who would then have no further reason to protect her doppelganger.

Before either of us could confirm or deny the sulky brunette's claim, her bedroom door opened, greeting us with a smell that I had become all too familiar with in the past two months. It was the smell of body soap, laundry detergent, and distraction. Jeremy stuck his head inside the room and held a telephone receiver out to me. "Bonnie, someone wants to talk to you," he smiled. Elena, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, thumbed through the grimoire noncommittally. Caroline, however, bit her lip and covered her mouth in an attempt to keep whatever she was thinking from spewing out of her mouth like the volcano that she was.

"I'll be back, you guys," I left them in their previous states, steeling myself for whatever disastrous news awaited me on the other line of the phone, because, truthfully, that was the only news that I knew how to expect anymore. Luckily for me, it was also the only news that any of us were receiving. Only, instead of handing me the phone and leaning against the wall like Jeremy was prone to doing whenever he thought that I was putting myself in danger, he simply grabbed my hand and led me down the hall to his bedroom.

Once inside, the scent of him hit me in full force, assaulting my senses with visions of all that had happened here in the sixteen years that I had known him. Different stages of his life surrounded me, from the four year old kid who used to run around the house wearing fake WWE wrestling belts, threatening to power drive me and Elena over the staircase if we didn't "smell what The Rock was cooking," to the fourteen year old who wasn't interested in smelling anything other than Vickie Donovan's smoke scented breath from where she lay sleeping, lips slightly parted, next to him on his sex stained sheets. When my eyes finally met his again in the dimly lit room, I tried to find them, find any traces of the kid that used to live inside those deep brown irises, but for the life of me, all I could see was the man that he'd prematurely grown up to be. One that could definitely have given even Damon a run for his money in the charm department.

"I thought you said that someone wanted to talk to me," our proximity was making me nervous the way it did every time we were together now. Like my body craved something that my mind knew was wrong. And not just wrong because his unsuspecting sibling was sitting in the next room. No, it was wrong because daylight had melted into darkness hours ago, and with night came the dreams that never ceased. Dreams ofthe stranger that held me prisoner.

"I did," his fingers snaked around my waist, confidently pulling me closer to him, "but now I'm starting to think that talking's a little overrated. Don't you think?" Don't you think? My mind had the question on instant replay. Don't you think? To answer his question, I really didn't know what to think, because it was all starting to make sense: Caroline's relentless giggles before I left the room, the silent receiver laying forgotten on the fresh cotton sheets. It all added up to a sickening realization that the only call I'd received tonight was from a temptation that threatened to betray the disarming nightmare that haunted me in my sleep, and I was dangerously close to giving in.

Dangerously…

Close…

To…

Letting…

…My lips crashed into his. Despite having carefully planned for this, Jeremy clearly didn't expect for it to happen, and I couldn't exactly blame him. After our first and only kiss, my reaction to him hadn't exactly been inviting. Naturally, he'd respected my space, told me to take all the time I needed in telling Elena about us. That he would wait as long as I liked, and I had let him believe that getting her blessing was my only problem, knowing full well that he didn't deserve the cold showers that accompanied—at least they did for me—memories of a kiss that could have stopped time itself. He deserved the real thing. And I needed to let him know that I wanted that too. If only my dreams would let me.

He pulled back, giving me one of his infamous looks that held a hint of innocence lost and made the mistake of licking his lips. That's when I just said, "Screw it. He's hot, he's real, and those damn dreams will not take him away from me. Not anymore." So yes, I pulled him back into me. He hesitated a little at first, surprising both himself and me with reservations he never knew he had, but then, he took control of the situation. His fingers brushed the exposed skin on my waist in circular motions, making it impossible for me to resist the urge to run my fingers through that silky black hair of his. The feel of his hair between my fingers seemed to fuel something between us that took away all of our inhibitions. It was like we were possessed. Two demons in need of punishment that was sure to be doled out to me the moment I closed my eyes. But in reality, it was more like he had practiced this before. Not just the kiss, but the whole scenario. And that thought irked me a bit, though I did not know why. Get a grip Bonnie, you've had your share of Vicki Donovans as well, and at least his aren't making nightly promises to finish what your cold showers can't. I reluctantly removed my hands from his scalp in order to push him off of me at the same time that he rolled his tongue around my own. He had me, and he knew it! Though, in his defense, it could have been my ragged breathing that gave me away. His hands knew me well, and he played into my curves with the command of a prodigy. I gasped into his touch, making him smirk a little onto my lips in an uncharacteristically cocky way that thickened the haze in my brain. And we were gone.

We fell into a rhythm where tongues overlapped the other, massaged and stroked the backs our throats until making out just wasn't enough anymore. Until my back brushed against his cotton sheets with no sign of us slowing down. He ended up on top of me, my legs clinging helplessly around his waist. By now, he had advanced to gently trailing my jaw line and neck with kisses, sucking and biting in a way that no sixteen year old boy should know, until tiny orbs moved in front of my eyes, blurring my vision with nothing but visions of him. He whispered something into the crook of my neck that sent violent, involuntary shivers down my spine. Or at least I thought that it was his words that had elicited my tremors, until seconds later when I felt my phone vibrate in the pocket of my jeans.

"Are you going to get that? Or do you want me to?" He laughed breathlessly, lowering himself into a sitting position on the floor. I clumsily opened the phone and immediately blushed at the crudely worded text: Keep it down in there. Any louder and I'm going to finish with you guys. Love Caroline. "Sorry, Caroline," Jeremy whispered under his breath, knowing that the vampire could hear him. A moment later, she texted back: It's quite alright Jer-Bear. I just didn't know you had it in you. Or in Bonnie technically. Ha ha.

"I'd better get back to the girls," I whispered, realizing that for the first time since we'd started whatever this was, that I didn't want to leave his side. Because I had finally conquered my fear by giving in to him. And if I hadn't learned anything else from Grams, she'd made sure that I understood the power of concurring reoccurring dreams. Even when I'd awaken sweat-drenched and clinging to a nightmare that I was certain could never come true, Grams had always been there to remind me of their validity.

"Never sell your visions short, child. Everything in this world has a purpose, and you and I both know that purposes never go away unsatisfied." While the advice wasn't ideal for calming a hysterical six year old, her words reverberated in my head now. Purposes never go away unsatisfied. Clearly, the aim of my most recent nightly visions, no matter how urgent and real that they had felt, had been to get me over my reluctance where Jeremy was concerned. And I had. Game over. Bonnie/Jeremy: 1. Man in my dreams: 0

"I'm glad we had this little…talk," he walked me over to his door and kissed me lightly on the lips. The look on his face broke my heart, and reminded me of all the other times I'd walked away from his advances. But this time would be different. This time, I wouldn't be breaking away from him, I would be breaking down the only barrier that stood in our way now that I didn't have to worry about the dreams. The sibling barrier.

"We're good together, you know."

"Don't tell me," he pinned me softly against the slightly opened door, "tell my sister." The words "good night" lay on his lips, waiting for me to meet them, and I did, with enthusiasm that only freedom can bring. There was a very good chance that morning would announce both Klaus's arrival and the end of life as any of us knew it, but until then, I would rest happily, knowing that if only for one moment, things were truly perfect.

Unfortunately, the moment for perfection ended the minute I stepped back into Elena's room and found my two best friends fast asleep. Sudden warmth wedged itself beneath my skin, tingling with the edges of a familiar sensation that offered no signs of relief. Before my eyes, those not-so-distant feelings started to mold themselves into the shape of a small room that held blackness as though it never wanted to let go. There was only one person inside of this room, and though it was too dark to make out his features, I could feel him all the same. Feel his breath on my neck as he whispered for me in deep, scratchy tones. My body struggled to fight the terror that bubbled up inside of me at the mention of my name on his lips, but his pull was far too strong for me to resist the memory of his strong, capable hands digging into my waist. Dragging me back to him. It was at that very second that fatigue washed over me, and I knew it wasn't over. That I hadn't beaten him, I'd just found a way to silence him. I wanted desperately to run back into Jeremy's room and cling to his ability to awaken all of my synapsis. Only, I couldn't move. My face hit the pillow, causing paralysis to sink over my body as I reluctantly fell asleep to the sound of a hero making promises that even he didn't believe to a brother he'd given his life to protect …