Frailty and Error
A/N: While I love the Salvatore brothers, this story isn't about them or their respective romances with Elena. They will appear (but there will be no clear Delena or Stelena) but this will be about the four original humans/mortals - Elena, Bonnie, Matt and Caroline. This story may seem a little anti-Salvatore in fact, because really it's celebrating the joys of simple humanity. It's AU after 4x15, set in the October of what would have been their Freshman year at college. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and please leave reviews if so desired.
Chapter 1: The Hope
She is exactly 19 years, 1 month and 13 days old today, but she'll forever be 18. They die young in the Gilbert clan, her father at 45, her mother at 43 and her brother just a month shy of his 17th birthday. Her aunt, her birth mother, her uncle slash biological father (another part of her life that she doesn't want to think about too closely) - all gone to the other side. She's the only one left. The last remaining legacy of a doomed family.
She lays a flower at each grave. Their plot is more crowded than any other in the cemetery, a veritable metropolis of gravestones. She's the only one there, mid-afternoon on a chilly October day. Everyone else is at work, or school or college. College. She had spent her whole life dreaming of going, of joining the newspaper team and taking obscure Russian literature classes and meeting cute guys at the student hangout but that seems impossible now. A distant dream, a life she'll never experience.
Her phone bleeps and she checks it automatically. Yet more urgent messages from the Salvatores, demanding to know where she is. She left the house this morning without telling anyone, disappearing for a few glorious hours of freedom where she doesn't have to pretend and no one treads on eggshells around her. She hasn't been herself since Jeremy's death. First when she turned off her humanity switch, doing terrible unspeakable things, and now with her dull, numb, constant grief. She lives like nothing has changed but they can all see it, her pain, her sadness, her depression. It lives in her every movement. She scans through the messages, sighing a little. She can't even escape her world for a day without someone checking up on her.
Where are you? Are you ok? I'm worried about you – Stefan
You've been gone for hours. Elena, damnit, just tell me you're ok – Damon
It's been two years since the Salvatore brothers came into her life, only two short years and yet she can barely remember life before them. In every good, the bad, exciting, passionate, heart-breaking moment they are there. She lives, breathes, moves Salvatore. They consume her and she allows herself to be consumed. She knows that it's gotten out of hand, that her attachment to those beautiful, deadly brothers has been the cause of all this pain, but why fight it anymore? They're her life now, the only family she has left. She can run as far as she can but will never escape them, they'll always be there waiting in the wings. The thought both exhilarates and terrifies her.
In the quiet moments like this, when she is away from them, she thinks about the before. Times when she teased Jeremy and went on dates with Matt (who she never really appreciated back then and she often thinks how stupid she was) and gossiped with Bonnie about something unimportant. Simple times, times she'll never get back. She often wonders what her life would be like if her parents had never driven off the bridge or if she'd never met Stefan and Damon. Would she have found them anyway, like it was meant to be? Or would she have gone on with her life – prom, graduation, college, job, marriage – never knowing that there was a supernatural world? She sometimes wishes she was still blind to it all. How easy life would be.
She feels a strong, comforting arm around her shoulder and she looks up into Matt's steady blue eyes.
"How did you find me?" She looks beyond him to see Bonnie and Caroline and rolls her eyes. "Of course, Stefan and Damon sent you."
"They're just worried about you," Bonnie replies, coming to stand on the other side of her, "we all are. You haven't been yourself since…"
"Since I got my brother killed and burned down my family home," Elena finishes for her.
"Hey, we've been through this. It wasn't your fault." Matt gently squeezes her shoulder and she buries her head in his chest.
"I just wish it could all go away. I wish things were different," she cries, her voice muffled.
Bonnie wraps her arms around Elena's waist and shakes her head slightly at Caroline who has her phone out, ready to text Stefan their location. Caroline nods in understanding, slipping the phone back into her pocket, and comes forward to complete the group hug. They stand there for a while, just them, the gentle breeze and the overwhelming feeling that nothing will ever be the same.
Bonnie only allows herself to cry at night. She's the strong one of the group, the powerful one, the fixer and can't be allowed to slip. The group creates havoc and she's always there to clean up their messes. So after they deliver Elena back to the Salvatores, like she is a package not a person, she goes home, shuts herself in her bedroom and lets it all out. No one is there to comfort her, to hear her sobs. Her Dad is out like usual and her friends are going through the same things. If Grams were here, she would know what to say. She still misses her so much that it hurts to breathe sometimes. There's anger in her tears too. She hates the Salvatore brothers, for coming into their lives and ruining everything. She hates Elena sometimes too, for dragging them all into this, for caring more about her immortal lovers than her friends, for being so damn selfish.
"Bonnie."
A voice startles her out of her misery and she glances up to see Emily Bennett, bonnet and all, standing in her bedroom. She swings her legs over the bed into a sitting position, wiping her eyes to make sure that she's not seeing things. Emily hasn't appeared to her in over a year.
"Am I dreaming?"
Emily ignores her. "You've lost your way Bonnie Bennett."
"I'm sad," she whispers.
"You've experienced a lot of hardship, more than a girl your age should." There's a note of sympathy in Emily's voice that Bonnie's never heard before. She's usually so stoic.
"What's the point of this?" Bonnie demands, voice harsher than intended.
"You've dabbled in dark magic because of it. It's not what the Spirits want."
"I've tried my best! I know what I did was wrong but I had to help."
Emily cocks her head and considers. "You've grown hard. Your spirit is crushed."
"No, I can do this, I can keep going," Bonnie insists.
"Your strength is your weakness. You have great power, Bonnie, but if you keep going like you are, if you lose any more people that you love, we are afraid you will bring a darkness on the world so strong that many innocents will suffer."
"I'd never let that happen!" Bonnie protests vehemently.
"The witches on the other side have been talking. We have found a way to help."
"How?"
"We can make you go back. To before all this started."
"What?" Bonnie jumps up and strides the three feet over to where Emily is standing. She meets Emily's eyes seriously. "That's impossible, it goes against the balance of nature. You taught me that."
Emily shakes her head. "What's happened in Mystic Falls has tipped the balance to the other side. There has been a death rate unnatural with the rest of the world, especially in terms of supernatural occurrences. Human deaths are one thing, they are expected, but deaths caused by creatures that are not supposed to be walking the earth, that is quite another."
"What do I have to do?" Bonnie eyes her suspiciously, knowing that there is always a catch.
"A spell," Emily replies simply, "and name a time that you want to relive."
"The end of sophomore year. Before Elena's parents died," Bonnie tells her without a trace of hesitation.
Emily shakes her head again. "The Gilberts' death was nature taking its course."
"It was their deaths that started this whole thing," Bonnie argues back, "Elena found Stefan because she was grieving. If they hadn't died, none of this would have happened. If we went back to a time they were still dead, nothing would change. It's only two people to save hundreds. I've given so much. Please, let them live."
A hint of a smile plays at Emily's lips. "You strike a hard bargain. Very well, it is allowed. Whether they live or not, that is up to you and your actions. There are only two rules in going back. First, you will go back with all the knowledge and all the memories you have to this day. You cannot correct the balance in ignorance or innocence. Second – and this is very important – you must not make the same choices and the same mistakes again. Do you agree to these terms?"
"I agree."
A book slams to the floor behind her, and she whips around to see her grimoire lying open on the floor. She glances back but Emily has vanished. She hurries over to examine the page. She practically knows the grimoire inside out and she has never seen this page before, or this spell. She pauses for a moment. Should she really do this? Is there some sort of catch? She thinks back to earlier in the day, to the weariness in Elena's face, the heavy burden that always follows Matt around. She studies her face in her mirror. She has dark shadows under her eyes and lines on her forehead. Lines at only 18. They shouldn't be feeling like this at their age, they should be having the time of their lives. Emily's right. Unnatural vampires upset their natural world and the natural order of things. If there's a chance to change things, to right the wrongs, then she will do it. She'll save her friends, just like she's been trying to for the last two years. Except this time, she may succeed.
She picks up her cell phone and calls Elena who answers on the second ring.
"Bonnie? Is everything ok?"
It pains Bonnie that the first thing that Elena thinks is that something bad has happened.
"Are you alone?"
There's some scuffling in the background and then the sound of running water.
"Now I am," Elena confirms, "what's going on?"
"I need to you to come over to my house right now."
"Ok, I'll grab Stefan and Damon and see you in a few minutes."
"No, not Stefan and Damon, just you," Bonnie interrupts, "make it seem totally casual. Say I need cheering up or something."
"Bonnie, what's wrong?" Elena's voice is mixed with concern and distrust, "why can't the guys know?"
"Because," Bonnie drops her voice down to barely a whisper, just in case a Salvatore is lurking somewhere, "I think I've found a way to reset the last two years."