She wrapped her body around the dead man, pressed her face against his and whispered every arcane and made up spell she could think of to bring him back. She could once resurrect the dead with her words and darkness, now she was so desperately lonely she would divide half of her life with this stranger just to hear another voice.

It had been five months since May, since the other side collapsed and she had washed up in this empty world alone. Damon had been pulled into the sky, into darkness, and she had since spent sleepless nights wishing she had followed him. There must be company in hell. Don't they always say that place was other people? They were wrong.

"Please, please, please…" she breathed her pleas against his cold ear, brushing her trembling fingers through his damp hair. He was pale, of course, and he looked very young and still. He was to Bonnie in that moment beautiful, she had never touched anything so precious and he was dead. Anger erupted through her chest and she smacked his face. Who would torture her in such a way? Why had her grandmother sent her to such a dreadful and lonely place only to have the first person she had seen in months wash up on a lake shore dead? Why Whitmore of all places? Was he a student?

Maybe he was another hallucination.

Bonnie sat up, staring down at him. He was in a plain grey t-shirt, a blue plaid shirt and black jeans. His feet were bare. She found his clothes before she spotted his body floating in the water. Why take his chucks off? Fold his jacket neatly and leave his pager by the waterside? It was too detailed to be her isolated imagination, which had so far offered up flashing lights in the corner of her eye and odd sounds. She was not insane, not yet. The man was real…but dead.

"Suicide…" she touched his face gently, swept away by an intense feeling of kinship and understanding. She had no magic, though she practised every day to manifest it. She had tried to keep strong, to talk to the camcorder – cammy – to sing and read and dance but the loneliness was crushing. It started to disintegrate her mind. She started to doubt she was alive, that she was real at all without anyone to tell her otherwise. She bit her lip, tasting brine, and lowered her cheek to his chest. His heart was perfectly still, she heard not a beat or breath. She squeezed her eyes shut and cried again, wrapping her leg over his hip as the sun started to disappear behind the moon.

Bonnie prayed to the eclipse, a thing that she was starting to anthropomorphise like her teddy bear and camcorder. She offered up sacrifices and compromises, begging to do better in future, imagining that her granny could hear her through the black circle forming in the sky. It was a tunnel to some other world, a world where she and this man should be. It was all some huge cosmic fuck up.

"I've given so much…just give me this. Half my life is his, okay? Forty for me, forty for him…longer, witches live a long time…please don't leave me alone here," she begged him, looking down at his face and kissed his lips gently. She pulled back, blinking, one hand cupping his face. Was he warmer, his lips pinker? As the eclipse blocked the light she felt a perverse power flooding her. She had tried for months to channel the celestial event but her magic had been cemented and unreachable, possibly for good. She had died and become a liminal thing, one foot in the grave to anchor it. Maybe she was not even a witch anymore. But she willed it then, pulling on any magic that would respond and poured it through her hands and into his body.

It was pure madness, the mechanics of a desperate woman, but in that moment she felt divine. She was not real in that place so why not be a god? They must not feel magic, it is what they are, what they see and hear. To such it was nothing. The moon parted, offering a dim sickle of light and Bonnie kissed the dead man fiercely, forcing her tongue into his mouth before the moment passed. She pulled back, her lips throbbing from the force of her kiss, and breathed into his mouth. The sun appeared, brightening the air and the birds began to sing, confused and tentative after the premature darkness.

He remained still, lips parted and a little rouged by her mouth, but nothing passed them. Bonnie clawed her fingers, scratching his jaw before she screamed and pressed her face against his chest again. His clothes were almost dry. She remained lying on him for hours, a numb calm descending and she knew that waiting for landmarks on her calendar was not going to pull her on. Thanksgiving, Christmas, her birthday were all meaningless. No one was coming because no one knew she was here, waiting to be saved. She should just stay on the lake shore with him, fall asleep and die.

A gurgling noise reached her ears as the sun began to sink. It was a wet, deep sloshing sound and she frowned. She was stiff and cold, colder than the man below her. She listened to the rattling sound and held her breath, counted to ten. On seven the man convulsed and sucked in a rattling breath.

"Oh my god!" she fell off him as he coughed up lake water, turning onto his side to vomit onto the sand. She was stunned and could only stare as he coughed and gasped for air until he lay groaning. The movement of his back, the rapid rise and fall of it made Bonnie shuffle closer and reach out to touch his shoulder.

"Who?!" he looked at her sharply and Bonnie snatched her hand back. Wide blue eyes peered at her in shock before they narrowed. "…You're not real," he said in a hoarse voice and sighed in annoyance, which turned into another fit of coughing.

Bonnie opened her mouth to respond but could not. The dilemma of her existence had been keeping her up at night and exhausted her days. If the dead man said she was unreal then who was she to argue? Maybe she was dead. At least she would have company…

"…Are you?" she asked and at the sound of her voice he inhaled sharply and became very still. His pupils dilated, making his eyes look black in the dimming light. He lifted his hand, as if to touch her but pulled it back. He squinted, licking his lips.

"Am I finally dead? For real this time? No fake outs?" he asked and the confusion and hope in his voice made her want to laugh and scream. He could be saying anything and she could listen for hours.

"You – you were dead. I pulled you out of the lake. I tried to resuscitate you. I was a life guard in – in another life. I tried but you wouldn't breathe so I had to bring you back another way. I think it worked, I think I did it. Do – do you feel alive or do you feel like me?" her words rattled and shook like her hands and he now stared at her like a starving man driven crazy with need.

"Are…are you here to let me out?"

"What? I – I don't understand? I've been here for five months, I think. You're the first person I've seen. I thought I was alone. I was alone…I wanted to die, I wanted to die," she repeated and cried. He sat up suddenly, getting to his knees, and reached out to grasp her face. It was not gentle and his hand covered her mouth and nose, thumb and fingers pressing into her cheeks. Tears rolled over his fingers and she breathed hot and heavy against the palm of his hand. Being touched, even painfully, felt too wonderful to articulate.

"Oh my god, you're real," he breathed, a stark light in his eyes, and roughly pulled Bonnie into his arms.

a.n:

This story will be about them slowly getting very close as they find a way to get out, Bonnie having no idea who he is or what he has done. I always wondered what would have happened if Kai had not been so blase about revealing why he was imprisoned and instead was more careful, not jeopardising his chance to get out. So this story will explore that and how it changes their dynamic.