Note: There was this story I wanted to write. It would've been a very long story and I never actually got around to write it. So I decided to tell a shorter version, one from Bonnie's perspective, that will hopefully still make sense all on its own. And also hopelessly abandon canon sometime around S4E12 without ever looking back.

Warning: Character Death (the kind that's typical for TVD). Violence. Mental instability due to trauma and addiction to expression. Possibly threesome. English is not my native language.

Pairing: Bonnie x Jeremy; Bonnie x Jeremy x Kol; all other canon pairings until halfway through S4

IMPORTANT: This verse is based on one major canon diversion: Jeremy had a best friend that came visiting around the time of the ritual in S2. Klaus killed her in Jenna's place. Everything else is the same.

(I'm) the violence in the pouring rain

It's not real. None of it is. Not this house that she doesn't recognise—except for how it feels like home, more than home ever has, and it scares her, more than she'll ever admit—not the dead girl waiting patiently for her response, blood dripping down her arms, not the cold wind that whispers of things she doesn't want to know. It's not real. It can't be. Because if it is—

If it is then Jeremy's body, unresponsive and cold, lifeless, is real too. And Bonnie can't. She can't.

It isn't real.

Bonnie opens her mouth. Wants to tell the girl this. Wants to tell her that she isn't buying it, that she knows this is just another horrid dream too close to the life she lives for her to bear it. But what comes out instead is a soft, "People don't just show up to help. That's not the way the world works."

And she should be bitter, but bitterness takes energy. And Bonnie is so tired.

The dead girl—and Bonnie knows her name all too well, but she can't allow herself to think it, because that would be even worse—smiles. "Come on now, Bennett, I know you don't believe that." The tease sounds so natural. As though they've been friends for years. And in another life, maybe they could have been.

"I-" Bonnie trails off, with no idea what to say.

I'm sorry I hated you? I'm sorry I was jealous of your friendship with Jeremy? I'm sorry I got you killed? I'm sorry you died in the ritual because you didn't trust us to save you after Klaus caught you? I'm sorry you were right?

Maybe there is nothing left to say.

"I won't pretend I'm doing it out of the goodness of my heart," the dead girl admits. Absently rubs her chest, the wounded part right above her heart.

If Bonnie looks a little closer she can see the torn skin, see the splinters of the improvised stake Klaus used. She doesn't.

"You'll do it for Jeremy," Bonnie croaks. Because that, at least, she understands. Despite their differences, the short time she's known the girl, her loyalty to Elena's brother has never been questioned.

"No." the dead girl surprises her. "Death is not something to fear or to run from, Bennett. You of all people should know that." She shakes her head. There are leaves stuck in her wild locks.

Did they leave her body there that night, left alone and forgotten on that damned clearing after Elijah betrayed them and everything went to hell? Bonnie doesn't remember.

"I'm doing it because you'll owe me, Bennett," the dead girl says, sharp and serious, her eyes hard like chips of ice that leave no room for arguments. "And I will come to collect when the time is right."

It's promise and threat in one, but, more importantly, it's honesty. Until this moment Bonnie hasn't realised how much she's missed being told the truth straight to her face. No lies, no evasions, just plain facts.

And she shouldn't trust it. Nothing good has ever come from striking deals with the dead. But Jeremy didn't deserve to die the way he did, pointlessly shot by Sheriff Forbes, still grieving for his lost friend.

Bonnie squares her shoulders. She's faced off against Klaus, against Elijah and Katherine. She's willing to spit on everything her gran taught her about the sacred balance to bring Jeremy back. Taking a dead girl's hand and making a promise she won't be able to go back on might be a mistake—but it won't be her first. It won't be her last.

It hurts. The dead girl's touch burns like liquid fire slowly dripping down her skin, and Jeremy's hands are too transparent to get a proper hold on, and Bonnie feels the sick desperation clawing at her throat, the helplessness as the dead witches judge her actions and find her wanting, and the fire lights up the house around her, the entire world, and it doesn't stop, not at the dead girl, not at Jeremy, not at Bonnie, and the screams, and—

Jeremy jerks on the ground. Chokes as his body tries to remember how to breath. And Bonnie feels sick, feels dirty, feels exhausted, feels stripped down to her very core, but she smiles.

It's worth it. Jeremy is worth it.

She repeats those words again later that night, when she falls asleep with the face of a dead girl burned into her closed eyelids. And again the next morning, when she can't get a hold of her magic like she used to. And again, every time her right arm itches just a little, where the dead girl's hand used to burn through her skin.

"I will come to collect when the time is right."

It's worth it.

It's real.

And so is the dead girl, watching from the shadows. Waiting.

The first time Bonnie is sure she's seeing things. Her magic is still struggling to recover, sluggish and stubborn at the most inconvenient of times, but she's finding her footing again. Beginning to recover from everything she, they all, have been put through.

Jeremy is starting to smile again. He's quiet most of the time, and Bonnie isn't sure whether that's an aftermath of watching his best friend's murder or dying himself. She doesn't dare to ask. Afraid of the answer perhaps. Afraid of the accusation in his eyes.

But it's getting easier. Better. There are days now, when things are like they used to be. Only better, maybe. When Jeremy takes her hand and smiles at her like they have the whole world at their fingertips. When they kiss, short and sweat, and she can feel his heart beat steadily under her hand.

They're hurt, but they're alive, and they have all the time they need to fix this. Bonnie repeats those words in her head every day, and by now she's finally starting to believe them. To believe in her magic, damaged and scarred though it may be. To believe that maybe despite Stefan's disappearance and Elena's desperate search, despite Klaus rooming out there in the world, maybe this once they can have the peace they fought for so hard. That maybe broken things can be fixed, if only they are given the consideration and care they need.

Today, though, is not a good day.

Today, Jeremy walks around with red-rimmed eyes and a scowl that dares the world to take him on. Today, they fight over something stupid and pointless—because the bigger fight, the one that truly matters, is a fight they can't have, not without breaking themselves and each other beyond what even they can repair—and before Bonnie even knows what's happening, they're screaming.

"Why, because you can't leave me alone? Because the second you and Elena turn your back on me I'm gonna run back to Josh, ask him for another joint? I can live with you not trusting me, but the least you can do is stop fucking lying about it!" Jeremy yells, furious and sad, and all the more angry for it.

"I'm just trying to help!" Bonnie shouts back, and she didn't even know she was angry too, but oh yes she is. "I'm tired, Jer. I'm tired of measuring up to a ghost—and coming up short!"

The moment those words have left her lips, Bonnie freezes. She didn't mean to say that. She's sworn to herself to never, ever say that. Because—But it doesn't matter. The words are out there now, hanging in the air between them like paper thin glass shards that will cut them up to the bone if they aren't careful. And Bonnie can do many things, more than she would have thought possible just two years ago, but. She can't take those words back.

Jeremy's face is white with anger. He's pressing his lips together hard enough to suck all the colour out of them—an effort to hold back what he truly wants to say, Bonnie knows, and feels her heart clench with something too hopeless to count as pain.

And it's in that moment, as she stares at Jeremy with a look of horror previously reserved for hybrids planning to sacrifice her best friend in an ancient ritual, that it happens. For a fraction of a second, too fast for Bonnie's brain to process, she swears she sees the shadow of a dead girl at Jeremy's side. Swears she sees Jeremy twitch as her hand reaches for his shoulder.

Bonnie blinks and the girl is gone.

Jeremy closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "I think maybe we need a break," he says, eyes still closed, refusing to look at her. He doesn't sound angry anymore. Just tired.

Somehow that makes it worse.

That first time Bonnie thinks it's a fluke. And even if it wasn't, she's got other things to worry about. Like Klaus, who's abruptly shown up in Mystic Falls again. Or Stefan, who is not the man she remembers. (But who is, these days?)

When Elena calls her, helpless, upset, worried out of her mind, because apparently bringing Jeremy back has some side effects after all, Bonnie pushes her feelings aside and focuses on helping the people she loves. It's not like she doesn't deserve the heartache anyways. Not like—and boy, does it hurt to admit this, even inside her own mind—breaking up isn't for the best. For both of them.

Despite seeing dead people, Jeremy seems to be in a better place these days. A fact Bonnie carefully doesn't think too much about. Neither does she ask Jeremy if he ever talks to them. If he sees his parents. If he sees her.

She doesn't think she has the right to ask. And if it hasn't occurred to Elena yet, what exactly his ability might mean, what it might entail, well. Bonnie sure isn't gonna be the one to enlighten her. Not in this. Not when it's so clearly helping him.

So she doesn't comment on the times she walks in on Jeremy suddenly cutting himself off, even though he's the only one home. She doesn't ask about the way his eyes flick away for a brief moment, like he's reflexively reacting to something only he can see. She doesn't point out the way his lips twitch sometimes even though nobody has made a joke. All she does it look at him and pretend not to see the ghost lingering in his shadow.

Because Bonnie wants Jeremy to be happy. And maybe that's not all she wants, but it's close enough.

Bonnie doesn't know why she's calling him. Alright, that's a lie, but it's one she'll stick to. It's not like Jeremy even bothered to say goodbye to her. Just packed up his things one day and moved to Denver with no warning whatsoever. Not that she has any right to be informed of his decisions, but that doesn't mean it don't hurt when she's so clearly left out of the loop.

But Bonnie has to call someone right now. And it can't be Elena because right now she doesn't even know if she can look at her friend. It can't be Caroline because she doesn't deserve to be pulled into this. It has to be Jeremy because. Well. She's trying not to examine her reasons to closely.

There's also the fact that he might not even answer her call. It's not like he's got any reason to.

Except of course Jeremy picks up after the third ring. Something in Bonnie's chest eases, takes the edge of an old pain she's gotten so used to, she barely notices it anymore these days.

"Bonnie?" He sounds confused, worried. She can't blame him.

"They killed Abby," Bonnie blurts out. Doesn't even know how the words make it past her lips, but somehow they do. Then quieter, because she's run out of tears and righteous fury an eternity and a half ago: "They killed my mother."

Jeremy hisses, a sharp sound over the phone. It hurts in her ears, but Bonnie doesn't mind. Anything is better than the poisonous numbness spreading through her veins.

There's another voice in the background saying something she can't quite make out, but she doesn't care. Jeremy mutters a quick, "Not now, Cole," and then he's talking to her in that calm, competent voice that first showed her that Jeremy has long outgrown his role as Elena's baby brother.

"Who?"

It's such a simple question. Bonnie wished the answer was just as simple. "The Salvatores," she says, and maybe it's not the whole truth, but it's the truth that matters. It's the men who know her, who she has fought for and helped out. The men who haven't come to her, don't trust her. Haven't even hesitated.

Jeremy curses—very creatively, and some absent part of her is impressed by his choice of words—and then, for a long moment, he's simply quiet. Bonnie closes her eyes and listens to his breathing, the way she used to back when he'd first come back from the dead and she hadn't been able to fall asleep without some kind of proof that Jeremy was alive.

"Are you going to kill them?" Jeremy asks eventually, hushed but serious. Bitterly Bonnie thinks that Jeremy is perhaps the only one who's ever taken her serious. Who's ever been awed by her power, no matter how many times she got knocked down, got in over her head, instead of mocking her for it like everyone else seems so prone to.

There's many answers Bonnie could give him. Yes. No. I want to. I can't. In due time. Each one is a truth in itself. What she ends up saying instead is something else entirely. Something she doesn't mean to ask, but desperately needs to know.

"Do you see her?"

She's not asking about her mother.

"Yeah," Jeremy admits after a few moments.

No lies. Not this time. Bonnie doesn't know what she'd expected, but his answer doesn't change anything. Of course it doesn't. She's sitting next to her mother's dead body, waiting for an awakening that will be worse than death.

"Good," Bonnie says eventually. Doesn't know whether she means it or not. "Take care, Jer."

He breathes, soft, alive. "You too, Bonnie."

It's not real.

There's bodies, bloodied and broken, covering the grounds as far as Bonnie can see. She doesn't look at the faces too closely—they're familiar, too many of them have haunted her dreams before, and she can't.

There's a dead girl among them, and she doesn't stand out at all, except for how she's standing. Staring. Watching Bonnie with blank, lifeless eyes. She's got claws instead of hands, and somehow that doesn't surprise Bonnie. Even alive she's always been more predator than prey.

Jeremy is dead. His body sprawled on the ground. And still the girl has her claws in him, buried so deeply in his flesh Bonnie doubts even in death he'll escape her grasp, and all she wants is to reach out and pull her off him, get him away from her, keep him save. But when she takes a step towards him, the grounds crumble beneath her feet, and the whole world grumbles and shakes as reality falls apart.

Through it all the dead girl's grip on Jeremy's body never lessens.

Her eyes, uncompromising and cold, meet Bonnie's gaze. "You owe me," she says, and somehow, above the breaking and tearing of the world, Bonnie hears her.

She keeps screaming long after she's woken up.

It's not real. But it's close enough.

Expression is not something you just slip into because you haven't been watching where you going. You need someone to lead you there, to push all the right buttons, to give you enough information to light the flame without burning you inside out.

Professor Shane is not that person.

He tries, Bonnie will give him that much, and he has ample conviction to make up for his lack of guidance, but how the man ever became a teacher is beyond her. He's giving her directions like he's repeating instructions from an out-of-date textbook. Information that might be relevant, but isn't what Bonnie needs to get it.

But she's Bonnie Bennett and she keeps pushing until she finds her own way. And when she opens her eyes and sees a dead girl standing next to the professor with a frown on her face, Bonnie doesn't think about right and wrong and balance and justice. She follows the dead and she pushes, because Bonnie is so damn tired of taking the shoves lying down.

"Soon," the dead girl says, and real or imagination, a warning from the dead should always be headed.

"No."

The refusal is out before Bonnie has finished thinking the suggestion through, but she doesn't regret it. Doesn't plan on taking it back. There's a lot she's willing to do for Jeremy, and despite everything she knows this is a debt in need to be payed. But. There are lines she isn't willing to cross, people she refuses to let down. It's all the principles she has left and Bonnie doesn't know what will happen if she gives up on them too.

She's afraid she's going to find out soon.

The dead girl's scowl deepens. "This isn't your decision to make, Bennett."

"Bullshit!" Bonnie snarls back. "It's me who's gonna have to do it! You're not just asking me to save someone, you want me to betray my friends, my family! The only one I have left! Besides you're dead, what do you care anyways?"

The girl's expression could have been carved out of stone for all the life that's left in it. "I don't. That doesn't change what I want."

"You can't—Kol is crazy! He's gonna kill Jeremy and I'm not losing him again!" Bonnie cries desperately.

The girl's mocking laughter shouldn't hurt as much as it does, but her defences are weak these days. "Please. You gotta have something before you can lose it," the dead girl smirks cruelly. "And I'm not asking you to stand by and let Kol kill him. I'm not even asking you to betray anyone. A life for a life, Bennett. I saved the man you love. It's time for you to return the favour."

"What—When did you even fall in love with Kol, you've never met him!" But even as Bonnie speaks the world dissolves around her, and she doesn't need to turn around to know that the dead girl is long gone.

Of course she is. There is no room for the dead among the living.

"I will come to collect when the time is right."

"Listen, if Jeremy kills Kol all the vampires sired by him will die and he'll have completed the hunter's mark."

"Denver was nice. Went to school. Met some cool people. But I guess I was just trying to pretend, you know? That I wanted this, a normal life? But. Don't know. That's always been Elena's dream, I guess. Not mine."

"I'm so tired of letting all of you push me around."

"Expression is the manifestation of your will. You could do anything."

"A life for a life."

Bonnie closes her eyes, tries in vain to take a deep breath, calm her racing thoughts. But there's no easy way out of this, no simple choices to make, and, most importantly, the time to come to a decision is running through her fingers at a terrifying speed. Things are escalating, and will only get worse before they get better. If she's really going to do this—and a part of her still doesn't believe she will, even as the rest readies itself for the fallout—she'll need to do it now.

The time for negotiation and stalling has long since passed.

Jeremy's best friend is long dead, but in that moment Bonnie hears her laughing clearly. "If cheating death was easy, everyone would do it."

"Bonnie?" Jeremy asks. He's trying to sound calm, but there's an undercurrent of nerves there that makes her smile. It doesn't seem to reassure Jeremy in the slightest. "What exactly are we doing this for?"

He's gesturing towards the pentagram they're both kneeling in, the bowl with both of their blood in it in front of her.

Bonnie isn't surprised by the questions. More surprised, actually, that he's gone along with everything so far, despite her refusal to provide answers. Even now she can't tell him, for what good is an ace in the deck when everyone knows you have it, but she can't bring herself to lie to him, so she compromises.

"Insurance," she says and murmurs the words that will make her answer true.

She hasn't made a decision regarding Kol yet—except that's a lie, but maybe if she repeats it often enough she'll start to believe it as much as she wants to—but whatever it is she'll do from this point on, Bonnie refuses to lose Jeremy over it. She won't allow that to happen.

In the echo of her chant, Bonnie hears the laughter of a dead girl. She grits her teeth and keeps going.

Bonnie is stumbling down the street. Her body still weakened by the drugs her mother saw fit to give her—and that thought sends a rage so cold through her, Bonnie doesn't know how she held back from ripping that woman's heart out. But she thinks she's starting to understand Klaus a little better now, and boy does that comparison piss her off.

The dead girl by her side doesn't exactly improve her mood.

"Are you even really here?" Bonnie grits out, even as she forces herself to walk faster. "Or am I really that crazy already?"

The dead girl doesn't answer. Luckily, Bonnie didn't expect her to.

"It's time," the dead girl says suddenly, the words weighted down by their heavy meaning. Bonnie doesn't even falter. She's been carrying the weight of this town's fate on her shoulders' for so long, she barely notices the added burden.

"I know," is all the answer she's willing to give. All the answer she has left to give.

Her hand closes around the thin vial of blood, the one she'd taken only hours ago, when Kol attacked her and she had forced him to his knees, broken his neck, just to be save. Insurance, she'd told Jeremy. Bonnie doesn't know how to call this one.

"Save him." It's a command. And even though Bonnie has long sworn to stop following other people's orders, the cut on her palm is almost natural. The words flow over her lips as easily as her favourite song.

Perhaps it's a good thing Esther unknowingly reminded her of the power blood holds—and the bonds that can be invoked through it. Perhaps saving Kol Mikaelson is going to ruin her best friend's chances of a normal, human life forever. Perhaps she is betraying everyone she loves, bringing their deaths down upon them.

Perhaps she's doing this, all of it, for a girl who isn't even there and a promise that holds no power over her now.

Perhaps none of those moments on the Other Side, fighting for Jeremy's life, pulling him back, were real.

But they were close enough. And Bonnie has a debt to settle.

End of Part I

Sooo, do you like it? Enough to maybe be interested in Part II? *smiles innocently* I hope it wasn't too confusing, but Bonnie isn't exactly stable towards the end. And if it helps, Bonnie's plan as well as the fallout will be in Part II. Do you have a suspicion on what exactly she did do? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments!