This is a one-shot because:
1. this is my first TVD fic;
2. I am a commitment-phobe when it comes to multi-chapter stories and have failed so completely at them before, and failed so completely those kind enough to follow (so so so sorry and guilty about that), and
3. I don't know if I'll ever do this again because (did I mention I'm a committment-phobe?)
Anyway, I hope it's 'passing fair'...
Tableaux Vivant
def: tab·leau vi·vant (täˌblō vēˈväN,täˌblō vēˈvänt/)
a. French origin. Trans. 'living picture'.
b. representation of scenes of art, literature, history or everyday life in which the characters remain frozen in place.
c. popular in Victorian England as a parlor game to amuse guests and engage them in a deeper appreciation of art.
There's a crispness seasoning the night air. Underneath the tolerable coolness offered by the early autumn wafts a sharp reminder that the season of change is once again knocking at the door, and the slumber of winter not far off. No poisoned apple needed.
But the cool air that surrounds her does not discomfort. She actually welcomes it as she sits on the porch steps of the cabin – two from the top – and gazes out at the serene nothingness of field and forest. It is late – much closer to morning than night – and the quiet isolation offered by this time is eagerly welcomed. She closes her eyes, leans back, and absorbs the night's energy – allowing her magick to swirl and spin and dance with the natural energy that hums around and within her.
People think the sun is the greatest source of power and energy, but she knows different. The moon, with its tidal pull that governs the oceans and the life teeming within, is the real power. It is darkness and light: seemingly cold and distant, yet on nights like these, swathed in a familiar warmth that comforts as it soothes.
The sun – the sun burns.
She senses his presence before the door to the cabin snicks shut.
"I'm okay," she offers, preempting the concern that is on the verge of being voiced, "just had trouble sleeping." Pause. "As usual."
He sits beside her on the step, his thigh brushing against hers then settling, pulling her heat from her. He is close, always close. But still closed off. Her guarded guardian.
This never-ending conflict has demanded a harrowing exorbitance of them both, leaving them burnt up from the inside, filled with the residual ash of betrayal and crushing disappointment. Friendships and alliances destroyed. Lovers divided. Friends dead. Others abandoned. But they have survived because they survive, their latest persistence rewarded with a forging by the temper of the constant blows this war has delivered. A pair of Teflon-coated sand-castles.
A scrutinizing side-long glance is followed up with the surprising presentation of a warm cup of tea. He leans slightly back, propping his elbows on the stair behind him.
"Lemon Ginger, one 'shallow' teaspoon of honey." She turns to him then eyes twinkling in the near-dark as she takes the offering from him. Wrapping both hands around the mug's sides she leans forward, her hair a curtain, closing her eyes as she inhales and grins.
"Mmmmm…you are divine."
"I know," his voice a smile.
"And a two-hander."
"What else?" His hand involuntarily reaches out to sweep back the swath of hair that has obstructed his view but he hesitates and diverts its path to rub comforting circles into her back instead.
She notices anyway. "I told you I was okay."
"I know. I was worried. I worry. About you. About us - all of us. Even after everything that has happened, and will happen, to you especially, I want…I need you to let me be here for you. I can still be a friend who is there for a friend." His words are more a question than an affirmation.
"So we're friends – is that it," she asks in a flat voice.
His hand falters, lies still on her back. He can feel her heart thumping underneath his palm – through her back, the loose dress she wears, the chunky cardigan that tops it. His voice cracks on a husky groan as he hushes out her name: "Bonnie…"
"It's okay, Stefan," she turns to look at him, his face a preternatural outline in the dark. "I was joking. Kidding?" She leans in to him, nudging him with her shoulder. "Friends do that with each other, you know."
Turning to look at her, he knows he is perilously close to being caught out. And despite all his efforts these past months he has come close to a precipice that he now finds himself suspended before: toes on the edge of a void, arms flailing, halfway between everything and nothing.
He waits a beat. Unfurls the claw-like shape his hand has mysteriously assumed. Calms.
Then his hands resume their circular ministrations. He does not speak and neither does she and they sit companionably in the dark together, gazing out across the lawn towards the treeline highlighted by the moonlight. They are okay again. Just like that.
She sips her tea intermittently. Sees a shooting star but does not gasp in wonder, only tracks its lightning-fast path across the night sky with her eyes. Hears the message in the wind, absorbs power from the trees and the earth and the life that surrounds and fills her in this close darkness.
Stefan swallows and licks behind his teeth. Then rips off the Band-aid. "He knows where we are."
She tenses with a small jerk that only two others would notice. He feels her heartbeat begin to race. "I tried to convince him to stay away, reminded him of the choices he's made and the wasteland founded upon them. But he didn't care. He raged and blamed and then said he was coming to set things straight."
Bonnie closes her eyes and rolls her shoulders. She takes as deep a breath as she can and holds it, willing herself into a restful state. She blindly hands the tepid cup to Stefan and makes to stand.
He quickly puts down the cup and places his hand on her thigh to still her. "Bonnie, you know you can't leave now. It's not safe. It's too late…"
"All I know is that I can't stay, Stefan. I don't want to deal with his inevitable tantrum right now. And I don't want to be guilted into defending myself and my choices and my 'judgy ways'…This, he's pulling this now?" She coughs a laugh and shakes her head. "He is too much. This is too much – this is asking too much." Bonnie pointedly looks at his hand and he slides it off of her. She grasps the railing to help herself stand.
"Then let me come with you, at least, at least until –"
"No Stefan. I shouldn't even have come here in the first place and dragged you into this mess." For the first time the panic seems to win and her eyes brim with the reality of her predicament. This will be the hardest thing she's ever done and for the first time it is not for Elena or Caroline or any of her 'friends'. For once it is entirely selfish, and the newness of the feeling plus the cognizance of what will come terrifies her.
But she is Bonnie Bennett.
"No." She is resolute this time. "I'll contact you when the threat isn't as…when it's safer." When she turns to go Stefan has materialized beside her. This time it is her hand offering comfort. Cupping his cheek she makes an oath. "I promise. I can do this." And then she is moving away from him.
Stefan knows he has a choice to make. Does he honour her wish and let her leave? Does he force her to stay, exploiting his knowledge that she won't invoke her magick against him? Does he let her leave then try to follow her, keeping an eye on her while trying to remain invisible to her at the same time? He hates these moments, these choices. He hates when anything and everything he chooses is as redemptive as it is destructive.
"Bennett."
She freezes. Her eyes are wide, her mouth slightly open, her eyebrows pinched in fear. She turns quickly to look at Stefan and his shock shimmers in the night. Even though she shakes her head, she senses that she knew this would happen. That her gamble on her own future would come up snake-eyes. Shoulders dropped, head bowed, she utters the one word that has both saved and destroyed her.
"Damon."
"One and only." Despite the lightness of the tone, she feels the mockery simmering beneath. She thinks the suppressed iron rage under his words tastes like blood in her mouth.
But when Bonnie turns to face him she can literally feel the anger whoosh out of him, sense the second his smug rage abated enough for him to actually see her and gave way to an onslaught of shock.
Now it is Damon who stands with lowered shoulders. Whose mouth gapes open. Whose eyes cannot for the world look anywhere but at the unmistakable swell that pushes out Bonnie's dress; prevents the buttons of her sweater to properly fasten; makes her lean back slightly, despite her raised chin of intractable defiance.
Then a tableau unfolds to put all in their place.
Damon steps forward reaching out towards her, his face awash in awe and confidence and hope.
Bonnie slides her hand to the front of her belly in that universal movement of unconscious maternal protection as she takes an involuntary step backwards into the solid wall of Stefan's chest.
Not a single verbal missile has been launched in this battle, but Damon is crushed. His eyes laser in on those of his brother, whose hand has found its way to rest on Bonnie's shoulder.
And Stefan. Stefan finally loses his footing on that precipice, tumbling into oblivion.
FINI
NOTES:
I intentionally left a lot of unanswered questions here - mainly because I don't know the answers myself.
A 'two-hander' is what my circle of crazy tea-junkies call a tea that is that perfect temperature of being just barely too hot to drink, but still capable of being held with both hands wrapped around the mug.