Written for the Beremy Domestic AU week happening on Tumblr. Day 2's theme was: A Beremy Wedding. Of course I'm incapable of writing a drabble, so I'm a couple of days late :)

Also, those who are reading Klaus' New Year's Eve Bash can hang in there. An update is coming. After last Thursday's episode, I saw gifs of that Beremy scene and got inspired, so I've been simultaneously writing the events that led up to what happened to Jeremy's back AND writing the Tonnie flashbacks. Double duty!

I hope you all like this fic!

The Blessing of a Wedding

Bonnie smoothed her fingers down her neck as she appraised her reflection in the square gilded mirror. The antique, first given to Sheila's mother Ernestine Bennett as a gift from her husband on her wedding day, was Abby's something old gift to Bonnie. She didn't have something borrowed or something blue, but the renovated house in which she was getting married probably counted as something new.

Her main words as the main day had drawn nearer had been new and beginning. This was a new beginning, not for her and Jeremy, but for the old witch burial ground they were making into their home (she fantasized about changing the name to Bennett House a couple of years down the line), and also for Mystic Falls.

The wedding was the beginning, the first good, positive thing that would happen in the house, something that didn't come on the heals of a tragedy. It was the first major thing she and Jeremy were doing now that they were back in Mystic Falls. And from there, they would continue the renovations and build a home and start a family.

Everyone had been surprised and more than a little apprehensive when they'd learned Mystic Falls would be the location of their wedding. Bonnie had stayed away from town, with never so much as a visit, for six years. Jeremy had been away for five. They'd corresponded with everyone from different countries, cities, and towns, though Caroline and Elena had heard from Matt that their home base was actually close by in Whittmore. Caroline used to think they were in New Orleans. Elena once spent a week in Denver, hoping maybe they'd gone back there on Jeremy's suggestion. She spoke to her brother, or, rather, her brother spoke to her, but he rarely offered his location, and it always felt like she'd be imposing by asking.

"Are you okay? You went kind of quiet." Jeremy's voice floated up to her from the laptop's speakers.

Bonnie turned from the mirror to look down at the computer. The camera was on, but it was facing the wall, same as his was. They couldn't see each other, but they'd decided to Skype and talk after the women had left Bonnie a minute to herself and the guys had long left Jeremy.

"I'm fine," Bonnie said with a smile as she walked toward the computer. "Just thinking."

"About your dad?"

She took a deep breath and released it. It didn't hurt anymore, only stung from time to time. "Yeah, kind of," she answered.

It didn't hurt anymore. Back when it did, she'd killed a square full of people and driven everyone who should've been there to save him out of town.

She'd worked so hard to save everyone, all of her friends, Elena in particular, yet she'd never really stopped death. It had certainly looked like she did, but each time it looked like she'd spared a life, Elena's life, what had really happened was that death took refuge in her heart. And that night, her heart had finally exploded with it.

It happened in the town square.

She'd been a dead girl wandering between two towns, keeping an eye on her two best friends and spending time with Jeremy. She'd been unable to move on to the OtherSide. For reasons she hadn't realized until later, she'd felt the need to live while she was dead. It had been safer. No one was looking for her, no one needed her, no one expected anything of her. She could live because she was invisible to everyone who kept her from living.

She'd been present during a conversation between Jeremy, Damon, and Stefan. The vampire Silas had resurfaced and was looking to make a big, public statement. Her thoughts had immediately turned to the town's annual end of summer block party taking place that night.

She'd had no warning. She never did. Her father had just begun his speech when she materialized in the square. She walked among the crowd, waiting for Jeremy, Damon, and Stefan to show up, waiting for the people who could actually do something should Silas show up, because she hadn't yet figured out how to make her powers reach over to the side of the living, and, truthfully, she hadn't been practicing.

Almost everyone had stopped to listen to her father, but they didn't all quiet down until Silas showed up on stage just two minutes later.

An eerie silence had washed over the square. Farther up and down the block, voices could be heard, partying and celebrating, but in the square, right in the center, right where she stood, nothing moved, it seemed like no one even breathed. They were all under Silas' influence.

And still she hadn't panicked. It hadn't registered even when Silas started speaking that he was in perfect position for a display. He had the stage; he had an audience. And he had a participant.

She'd wanted more than anything to reach out to her dad, to get his attention, to be seen. But she couldn't even call for help. She had nothing.

When Silas killed her father for all to witness, she screamed. She screamed as she never had before. She fell to the ground screaming; the wail made her body sag, and when she was on the ground, she didn't stop. Her heart was bleeding death, and everyone could hear it. She screamed it into the ground where it took root and became part of the foundation of the square.

She was crying when she stopped, her face to the night sky. The noise of the crowd came back to her, not in a rush but gradually, a little muted. The audience had snapped out of Silas' compulsion, freed by her screams, and they were confused.

Silas was trying to wrest back his control while simultaneously looking for the source of the screams.

Bonnie stood and looked around her. Most of them were still confused. Some just now noticed the dead body on the stage. Why were they just now noticing? Why couldn't they have done something before? Why were they so helpless? Why did they have an excuse? Compulsion. They were only mortal; they couldn't fight against compulsion. Why not? What happened to the vervain that was supposed to be in the water supply?

Oh yes. Liz Forbes had put a stop to that to protect her daughter. To protect….one….person. Her daughter.

Where was Caroline now? Where was Elena? Away. At college. They didn't know what was happening. The last time she'd seen them, they'd been excited about their rooms and starting the semester; they'd been happy.

They didn't know what was happening right now, couldn't know.

They didn't know; they couldn't do anything; they were mortal; they didn't know the truth; what could they possibly do? It all sounded like so many excuses.

Excuses!

Why couldn't they do anything? She was expected to do everything. She did everything, and anything she couldn't do she worked at it until she could, until she delivered.

She overcame. Regularly.

Why couldn't they?

Why did everyone else have so many limits?

She killed the first person who ran up to her father's body. Flayed him alive, watched his body go up in flames. Silas sprang back from the fire.

She targeted him next, didn't let him get away. He burned so hot that he smoked, and because he was so old his body didn't give out from the fire until every last human in the square laid dead.

She killed men, women, and teenagers. Mothers, fathers, brothers, cousins, she didn't care. She snapped their bones and stopped their hearts and stole the breath from their lungs. She spread the death she'd been holding in her heart, purged herself of it and marked the square.

Because she'd learned what happened when a witch died a violent death. Power was released and that power lingered, forever if it was potent enough.

The mistake had been in thinking that was the only way to mark a spot with a witch's power.

She marked the square that night, and her grief would weigh the town down until time helped her move on.

And she banished them all. Elena, Caroline, Matt couldn't stay, Damon and Stefan died together, right in the square, together they'd turned, together she killed them, and Jeremy watched, mouth agape. Only forgetfulness on her part allowed Tyler to return to Mystic Falls as he pleased.

Liz Forbes had to go. She disbanded the Founding families, let Caroline tell Liz who told the others that death would crawl up and snatch them away if they let the first day of school catch them in Mystic Falls. Jeremy hadn't let Elena anywhere near where Bonnie was, impressing on her that she needed to leave because Bonnie would absolutely kill her if she tried to talk to her.

It was okay that they didn't know; that they couldn't do anything; that they were mortal and helpless. It was finally okay. Because they were dead. Because it was uselessness that had ultimately kept them from being able to do anything. And those who weren't dead were banished. Mystic Falls wasn't the place for the weak; her life had no place for the weak. They couldn't help her, so they had no business living in town.

That was how she marked her father's death. It was an event that was still talked about today. Those who'd been far enough away at the block party never managed to piece their lives back together.

And neither Bonnie nor Jeremy have heard it yet, not being back long enough, but everyone said that every year on that date, a hair-raising scream breaks out in the town square, and it lasts the duration of the massacre.

Those who had taken he lead after the chaos in order to calm the inhabitants have romanticized the scream. They say it commemorates the dead. It was an event so horrific that God commemorates the deceased every year with an angel's wail.

When Bonnie first heard that interpretation while waiting with Jeremy for his car at the mechanic's, she'd decided that the people who had come up with that explanation would've been among those she killed that night.

No one could imagine that the scream was for one person and one person only. The Black man on the stage, the only one who's body had been in tact and recognizable.

Bonnie never regretted what she did. At no point was she ever horrified. She eventually cried for her father, mourned him, and went about her life. Because when Jeremy, Damon, and Stefan finally made it to the square, she'd been alive. Jeremy had run straight for her while yelling her name, and he'd grabbed her hand to make sure she was okay, and the energy that passed between them had immediately grabbed their attention.

It was in the middle of her reunion with Jeremy, with his warm hands touching her warmed face, that Damon had started asking questions. His tone and voice had clawed at her eardrums. She killed him and his brother.

She'd reappeared from her trumped up travels in time to give her father a proper burial. And afterwards she'd gone to Whittmore College where just a look had told Elena and Caroline that she didn't want them on the same campus as her either. Jeremy finished his last year of high school in Mystic Falls.

And after his graduation, where he'd sworn to her that he didn't mind that Elena couldn't come, that he'd send her pictures, she'd told him that she wanted to leave, and he'd told her that he didn't care to stay, so he'd met her in a convenience store in Whittmore, and they'd set off to all the places they'd lied about in the e-mails.

"I miss him," she said to the computer.

"I know," Jeremy said. He knew that one of the things that still stung was that she and Rudy hadn't worked out the tension in their relationship before he died. "We shouldn't have held the wedding here," he decided.

"No," she insisted. "I wanted it here. We both agreed. A fresh start, remember? I was just thinking about him, because….well whenever I thought about this day when I was younger, he was always there to walk me down the aisle. It's normal to be thinking about him, right?"

"Right," he conceded. "I've been thinking, too."

"About your family?"

"Yeah. And what it'd be like if things were different."

With Elena. She knew he meant with Elena. Because Elena's initial reaction upon learning of the Salvatores' death had been everything Bonnie had expected and everything Jeremy had grown to filter out about her in order to preserve his last familial relationship.

Things had been strange between Jeremy and Elena since before Bonnie had ever thought of banishing anyone, and it hadn't been until Jeremy had put distance upon distance between him and his sister that he'd been able to tell Elena his true feelings, no hypnosis needed.

"Are you regretting holding it here?" She asked. She wished she could see his face.

"I don't, Bon. This is where we're gonna live. I want to be back here. I want you to feel comfortable."

"I want you to feel comfortable, too," she said, a frown on her face as she took a worried step towards the computer.

"I am."

She relaxed, because she heard him smiling. "Good," she said, though she held in her smile. He was leading the renovations on the house, his crew consisting of a few of his Hunter friends plus some people they'd hired.

"I think it's time for me to go," he said.

She smiled. "Okay. I'll be there."

"I'll be waiting."

She grinned wide and heard the call end. Clasping her hands together, she took a deep breath and turned back to the mirror. She was skinnier than she used to be. Her hair had grown long again since her freshman year at Whittmore, but she'd cut it last year. It was shorter than she'd ever worn it, so short that she could make it spike with enough gel.

She had a glow to her skin today, and she was ready to marry the man she loves.

"Bonnie—"

She turned to Caroline who stopped in the middle of what she was going to say.

Caroline was distracted by how beautiful Bonnie looked. She'd helped dress her, of course, but having left the room, it was as if she was seeing the finished product for the first time.

"You look—-incredible."

Bonnie smiled. Caroline had sadness' shadow on her face, and she'd had it since Bonnie reunited with her two months ago. Their rift probably felt fresh again now that Bonnie was back, now that she was seeing the result of Bonnie spending six years away from her: her happiness, the lack of sadness on Bonnie's part. Bonnie hadn't broken down and come running back; she'd never called wanting to talk everything out. Being away from her and Elena had been exactly what Bonnie needed, and having to accept that, finally seeing the proof of it, stung a lot.

Bonnie was getting married, and she hadn't planned everything out with Caroline. She'd planned it with her mother, Lucy, and her best friend Taima. And of course Jeremy.

Emily was officiating. She and Jeremy had made the request, seeing as they didn't really belong to a church at the moment and didn't want a pastor at all. They wanted someone who was familiar with their love story. Who was better than the woman who'd answered Bonnie's supplication and brought Jeremy back the first time?

Emily had been puzzled at first, but she'd quickly grown excited. It had been a little strange as Bonnie had never associated Emily Bennett with giddiness, but that's what she had been. No other descendent had ever personally asked her to attend their wedding, much less conduct the ceremony.

They had also invited Qetsiyah since she'd been the one to let them know that, as a result of Liz Forbes and the Fells seeking refuge with other Councils, there were Councils in different towns looking to kill Bonnie. Some had hired amateur hunters, legitimate Hunters like Jeremy, and the harder it became to catch her, the more they widened their source for help: vampires. There was a bounty on both Bonnie's and Jeremy's heads.

Qetsiyah's warning as well as the protection she'd provided them once or thrice were a reward to Bonnie for ridding the world of Silas. Not that Bonnie should've touched Silas' burial cave in the first place. And it was part of why Qetsiyah declined on the invitation.

"Everyone's ready for you," Caroline said.

"Already?" Bonnie questioned.

Caroline chuckled. "He's a guy, Bon. It's not like he needs to glide like you. He's wearing a tux. He probably jogged down the stairs."

Bonnie chuckled and then grew quiet. Caroline looked at her as if she was a strange which Bonnie didn't mind. Seeing Caroline again, her heart did ache for the past, but she also realized that the past her heart ached for went back more than six years and so was too distant to recapture.

But still. New. Beginning. Those didn't mean 'recapture.' The closeness of the past mattered….but it also didn't.

So she walked up to Caroline and hugged her. She smiled at how ready Caroline was for the hug. She didn't tighten her hold on Bonnie until Bonnie tightened her hold on her.

Bonnie's vision didn't include Caroline or Elena buying up a house in town. For all she knew, they didn't want to come back after all these years. Maybe they couldn't feel comfortable with how comfortable Bonnie herself was with all that had happened. They'd grown to be opposite that way. Six plus years ago, the more uncomfortable Bonnie's life had gotten, the more comfortable Caroline and Elena seemed to become in their own lives.

She didn't picture them meeting up at the Starbucks where the Grille once stood for coffee.

But she could share this hug with Caroline.

She glided down the stairs and Matt was waiting for her on the first floor.

"Jesus," Matt whispered when she finally stood next to him.

"Thank you," she said as she picked at her flowers.

"We got a late arrival," he said.

She looked up and saw Tyler. "Finally. I thought you were going to miss it."

"You know I like to be fashionably late. Although my entrance didn't look as good as yours will," Tyler said as he walked up to her and laid a kiss on her cheek.

Bonnie scoffed as she accepted it.

"Ready?" Tyler asked, his voice heavy like he was the one who was getting married.

"Very," Bonnie answered.

"You guys deserve this. I'm….happy….that you guys are getting to do the normal relationship thing."

Bonnie inclined her head at his words. At first they'd kept in contact with Tyler through Matt, then they'd started calling him up directly.

Tyler walked in ahead of the bride and raised his eyebrows at Jeremy to let him know he'd seen her. Jeremy smiled wide and straightened his back in preparation for Bonnie's entrance.

She had a maid of honor: Taima. Otherwise, she didn't need anyone else walking her path. Sean, Jeremy's closest friend, walked with Taima.

Bonnie walked to Pachelbel's Canon in D Major. And all eyes turned to the door to watch her.

Jeremy's breath caught, and his mouth dried up. He'd worked the hardest on the house's foyer. It was large and spacious, not yet filled with the appropriate furniture because of the wedding. Natural light streamed in from the huge windows, yet Bonnie managed to be the most vibrant part of the room.

She seemed to float. The skirt of her dress was ruffled and tiered so that it looked like wisps of clouds streamed down from her as she moved. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and the sweetheart neckline of the dress dipped nicely into her breasts. She'd foregone a veil.

It was actually, finally happening. Bonnie was taking the steps to become his wife.

Bonnie and Matt stopped close enough, and Emily spoke. "Who gives this woman to be wedded to this man?"

"I do," Bonnie answered, eyes connecting with Emily, and then she looked at Jeremy.

Jeremy reached out his hand for hers, and Bonnie placed hers in his after getting a kiss from Matt and took her place by his side.

Hours later, after toasts, food, drinks, and lots of pictures, Bonnie sunk into her bed. She'd changed from her wedding dress in the middle of the reception into a high-waisted, white lace dress with a simple leaf design. The dress ended just above the knees, with double spaghetti straps on both shoulders. She was bare foot and waiting for Jeremy to come up.

"Hey," he greeted when he walked in the room.

"Hey," she moaned. "I cannot believe how tired I am."

"Yeah, you've only been planning a wedding."

"But it's not like we had to rent space or hire a wedding planner or a bunch of wait staff," she complained as she turned her head to look at him. They'd gotten their marriage license a month ago. They'd had to take a marriage preparation course, which had come in the form of a booklet that talked about communication within a marriage, financial skills, parental skills, as well as how the state if Virginia handles divorce. They'd both found it interesting as far as a step they hadn't known existed when one wanted to get a marriage license. But at the end of it she'd come out as Bonnie Bennett-Gilbert, though she still planned to introduce herself as Bonnie Bennett, and he'd come out as her spouse.

"Yeah, but you've been thinking about the renovations, you were still decorating and trying not to let your mom drown us in flowers for the ceremony; you planned the menu…I think the only people who don't stress about weddings are those who elope. They stress afterward." He smiled.

Bonnie returned his smile. "Aren't you tired?"

"I probably will be as soon as I lie down."

"Our marital bed," she said as she spread her arms on the comfortable mattress.

"And we're about to defile it."

Bonnie chuckled. "It's our wedding night; can you please be romantic?"

"We're about to defile it, and it'll be romantic," Jeremy joked as he crawled on top of her.

"Shut up," Bonnie laughed just before he covered her mouth with a kiss, one of many that they shared today. She sighed happily after he pulled back. "I have a surprise for you," she said softly.

Jeremy smiled. He'd been joking about defiling the bed, at least tonight. Now that he'd gotten on the bed, he was tired. He and Bonnie had decided to be celibate one month after getting engaged, so they had ten months to make up for, give or take a slip up here and there, but he couldn't do it tonight. Thankfully, that's not what she had in mind.

"What?" he asked.

"It's downstairs," she answered as she slipped out from under him.

"I just came from there," he complained.

Bonnie checked the clock to make sure it was three in the morning. "And now we're going back down. Come on."

She reached out her hand and he took it. Bonnie felt bad about how tired he suddenly looked. He needed sleep as much as she did. But when their hands connected, her attention was drawn to the diamond and gold wedding band she'd slipped on his finger earlier. It was plated in black rhodium, the color matching the onyx in her engagement ring. Her own wedding band was made up of round diamonds set in platinum.

She turned around and wrapped Jeremy's arms around her waist. He rested his head on hers until they go to the stairs and went down.

"Qetsiyah didn't want to come to the wedding, but she did help me out with your present. Or rather," she corrected as she magically flipped on the lights in the messy living room, "Your presents."

Jeremy's feet thudded loudly down the last two steps. Smiling at him in the living room were his mother, father, aunt and uncle. He looked next to him at Bonnie, words escaping him.

She kissed him, and he moved into her when she pulled away. "You said you thought about them today. This is my wedding present to you."

"Yeah," he said absently. He looked at her and kissed her again square on the lips.

"I'll give you guys a moment alone?"

Jeremy nodded.

Bonnie moved off into the kitchen as Jeremy went to his family. She heard his shocked laugh when he realized something important. They were corporeal. She'd made the request to Qetsiyah a month ago: send Jeremy's family and let them be corporeal for the duration of their visit. It was so hard for mortals to cross back to the side of the living without magical assist. It was easier when they were angry, vengeful spirits.

The light in the kitchen turned on before she could reach out to it. "Qet—?"

The rest of the syllables were stolen by the man who stood next to Qetsiyah. Qetsiyah immediately vanished. Bonnie wouldn't be able to remember what she looked like.

"Dad?"

"This is my wedding present to you," Qetsiyah said in Aramaic. She never spoke anything except her childhood tongue, so she always worked a spell to help Bonnie and Jeremy understand her. "The ceremony was beautiful. A nice blend of your witchcraft and the church he grew up in."

Qetsiyah promptly disappeared, and Bonnie didn't get to reply.

She couldn't. She felt the blood rush throughout her body. Her body sagged, not from tiredness this time, but joy, relief, and shock. It was the first time she'd seen her father in six years. It was the first time she was stable enough to be open to seeing his specter. But like Jeremy's family, he was corporeal when he swept her into a hug. Bonnie was stiffer than Caroline had been earlier. She closed her eyes and dissolved into tears. "Dad."

"I saw you, baby. I watched it all. You looked….you are….absolutely beautiful."

Bonnie smiled through her tears and hugged her father tight, her fists balled on his back. "I've missed you."

"I know. I've missed you, too."

End