-chapter one-
Damon Salvatore was the last person she thought she would see on the floor of his home with his head in his hands with tears resting on his dark lashes. The vampire's face rose momentarily as Elena flew in crying over Bonnie but she couldn't see Bonnie no one could but Jeremy. Oh the irony that her ex-boyfriend and brother of the doppelgänger who was trying to calm Damon without success wasn't lost on Bonnie. As her viridian hues locked with azure even as Damon stared through the space she was curled up in and his dark hair brushed his neck as his head shook back and forth in denial of the harsh reality.
"You're crying over a girl you tried to kill remember Elena?
You tried to tear her apart for what? Being the one damn girl who cared enough for you and your friends, our friends to give up her life! She shouldn't be dead no one should be dead. All these years we've been here I should have taken my brother and run, leaving you all, saving you all from this! If Stefan and I had never come, none of this would have happened. It's my fault, I should have known, after Augustine, after Lexi, I am a curse to anyone I let close to me."
The bottle that lay half empty between cotton clad legs was in his hands and shattering across the room within the blink of an eye. As the delicate veins filtered around the cobalt orbs of the elder Salvatore and she shook with surprise. Bonnie hadn't expected that reaction from him over her death to be so angry and lost looking they'd been fighting against each other and the beliefs both Damon and Bonnie had in regards to what and who they were. Regret flowed through Bonnie as she stood and watched the supposedly happy couple glaring at one another with hate in their eyes, she couldn't understand it, Damon had loved Elena for so long and it was clear to Bonnie now that her friend had loved him too - longer than she had even realized so why now, when they could be happy together? Why were they like this. Bonnie swore silently for what it was worth now that her death wouldn't, no couldn't be the reason they were like this.
"Get out."
The vehemence in Damon's voice reminded Bonnie of when he had turned on Katherine and the frustration in his tone the same as when Stefan had infuriated him and sent him into the cellar to clear his head. This time though, it was Damon who needed the clarity, his cobalt hues were tinted red from tears, his normal pristine appearance in dishevelment as he stood rocking on his heels before walking to where she sat. His hand moving the leather jacket to one side to show the soft material of the jacket she had worn, the one that had dirt all over it from her fall to the ground as her last breath had left Bonnie. Damon had her jacket. Bonnie watched as he held the fabric in his hands, his eyes closing and jaw tighten in anger and her eyes widened in amazement as she saw Damon lift the fabric to his face
and an agonized cry fall from his lips.
"I told you to be careful so many times and you never listened, never once use an element of selfishness to protect yourself Judgey! What am I supposed to do with no one to tease, no one to try to burn me with their wit and sarcasm, to bring me the clarity the others lack when I'm too damn scared to say I'm afraid we can't win. Wh-what am I going to do to without you Bonnie?"
The look on Bonnie's face at his broken despair was one that no one would have ever seen in regards to Damon Salvatore before, it was one of compassion, of mutual pain for the man who was breaking before her and she couldn't do anything. Fingers slid through her hair, the tips tainted red with blood as they fell from the dark locks and her emerald hues focused on what she could do rather that what she couldn't. The veil had closed and left her in this trapped state. Bonnie's temper flared as she moved towards the smashed glass and tried in vain to pick up the splinters that admittedly couldn't hurt Damon, but as Bonnie glanced back at the vampire it was as if the air between them was electric. There was no fathomable explanation as to why it was the Salvatore Boarding House Bonnie had come to, nor was there one for why she wanted desperately to calm the man who was breaking apart before her. Damon was acting like someone she'd never known and she found it hurt her to see him so lost and alone. Brushing her hand over his cheek as she stood on tiptoe, wishing in that moment she could touch him, to try and show him that she was safe. She wasn't okay – being dead was far from okay, but she was safe and nothing hurt her anymore. It was a new sensation to be completely void of pain that Bonnie could now let everything else come to the surface and as the soft pad of her thumb seemed to caress Damon's skin and the urge to berate him for his outburst she froze. She could be mistaken but the vampire was leaning his face into her touch as if he could feel her there, Bonnie bit her lip and tried once more to see what happened. Her left hand running over raven waves that would when just a little longer, catch across cerulean hues that were filled with so much emotion that they had held her transfixed so many times before. Damon's eyes closed as if held in a trance as he rolled his head into her hand. There was no denying it – somehow the vampire could feel her near.
"Bonnie?"
His voice tentative and uncertain as his eyes searched the apparent empty room with puzzlement within the hurt and tear-stained face as feet crunched over broken glass and Bonnie knew there would be muttering about the Persian rug enduring more suffering come morning. She stayed motionless after moving four steps away from the vampire unsure as to what to do, yes, he could feel her though how was a mystery but surely he wouldn't hear her?
"You must miss me Damon... you never call me anything but Judgey unless you need me for something. I'm here, just turn your head to the right a little."
Bonnie watched as Damon turned maybe 45 degrees to the right at her instruction, his face filled with amazement as eyes ran across the corner of the room searching for her. She watched the mixture of emotions fall across his eyes as he moved closer to her and as her dead lungs seemed to catch oxygen she felt his fingers brush through her hair and over her cheek as Damon's hiss of amazement filled her ears. Both of his hands cupped her petite face as she lifted her eyes to look into his and she watched a solitary tear fall from azure hues and over ivory skin.
"Judgey? I know it's you who's here, tell me the truth – you just couldn't get enough of me so you're haunting me now? I mean I deserve it, being so damn cruel to you but it's all I know really, to hurt those you care about. I just wish you knew that I'm sorry. I never say sorry to anyone Bennett remember that? Too damn proud to confess my mistakes but I can get away with it now because.. because you're dead. No running to Jeremy you here, I'll make his life Hell if you do. Kidding, the kid is going through so much, we all are. What were you thinking Bennett? You didn't let anyone in – didn't trust us enough, or was it the fact we've always thought you were able to handle everything. We failed you Judgey and I would do anything to show you the truth, to show you how empty it is without your irritating self here."
Being dead meant that Damon could be honest? Stifling a laugh at the absurdity of the whole scenario Bonnie listened to Damon berate himself but with his usual style he managed to make me laugh and roll my eyes as he turned his concern into an attack on my kindness. He was right though, Bonnie's naïve approach to protecting everyone had cost her everything in the end, She never got a chance to experience the world, do anything Bonnie wanted to do with her life. She was dead, life over before it had truly began and there was no way she could come back, Bonnie had seen too much of what opening the veil could cost people. Alaric, Lexi, Kol, all back to help people and who was there for her? No one. It hurt Bonnie even now to face that reality, she was only wanted when she could give those around her something they needed.
Or was she?
"I failed myself Damon. I don't want this – I want to be standing here, my heartbeat strong in my chest and be able to fight against Klaus, or even you but I can't. I'm not supposed to be here, I am supposed to be cold in the ground."
Tears fell fast down Bonnie's cheeks as she realised she wanted more than anything to be alive, to be the girl with fire in her eyes again, as she sank away from the safety of Damon's embrace she felt empty for the first time. He'd awakened something that lay dormant within Bonnie – it was the thought that she wanted to matter to someone and hearing Damon's reaction to her death she wondered if the crazy notion within her chest was a true one. Damon, missed her. Lifting her eyes at the sound of a third person within the room, Grams was there as she had been on and off since Bonnie's death, watching and guiding her to something whatever it was she didn't want it. Bonnie wanted Damon, Stefan, Care even Elena after everything we had been through recently. Death? That she certainly didn't want. As Bonnie watched her Grams's serious façade she wished that Damon could see the elder Bennett witch and see that Sheila Bennett was watching over has as she had done in life – at least then maybe he wouldn't be so upset that she was gone.
"Grams is here Damon, can you feel her too? I hope you can she's trying to help me... to guide me, sorry I'm, babbling I don't know what to do Damon, I need your help though – please Damon, find a way to bring me back. My body is lying in the morgue and I belong within it! I don't know how but there has to be a way!"
Bonnie had been dead under twenty-four hours, and in that time, she had been tormented by the spirits of the witches she had indirectly been responsible for the deaths of. She had faced the wrath and the painful truth of the ghostly form of her Grandmother for daring to believe she was capable of more to have thought that in the short time she had been aware of her magical heritage she had lost insight of who she was without it. Atticus Shane had broken her apart and rebuilt her but the ruptured shards of her body and soul hadn't fitted back as they should and when she'd found herself trusting in him he had used to twisted logic and grief to make her face Silas who had been the living embodiment of every nightmare anyone could find themselves against and for a while Bonnie had managed to survive but only barely. She had faced everything she could, with her head held high and the fire in her eyes till death had taken it's grasp on her petite form and the light had faded and become dull and her breath had filtered away in a rattling final cough. One full day and she couldn't survive the loneliness and darkness that had her drowning and Damon Salvatore was the immortal raft she found herself clinging too in desperation.