"Now what?"
The question hung between them like an ultimatum. He, for one, had already given up. He knew his prospects were bleak, he just hadn't voiced it.
Bonnie herself wasn't feeling up to it anymore. She had exhausted herself to the point where even walking was taking a toll on her.
Klaus' own deformed body would soon collapse. He had broken many of his bones and his face was full of cuts and bruises. But that was nothing compared to the real damage. He was resting against a tree trunk, hoping against hope that something inside would ignite his rage and he would launch one final attack. So he would go out in dignity.
Of course, he was fooling himself. The will was gone. Only the stupor remained.
"Now we die," he spoke calmly.
Bonnie snapped her eyes wide open. She surveyed him with a glimmer of panic in her eyes. What did he mean by that?
It is true appearances did not tell the whole story, but surely, he was only putting up a show, wasn't he?
How could it be that bad? Hadn't he gone through much worse?
Had her ancestors really inflicted that much damage that even he thought he was on the brink of death? Surely even her greatest powers couldn't end him for good.
Her cheek broke in a bitter smirk. No, he was mocking her again, most likely. Pretending this was the end when he was actually preparing to start over; what a bastardly trick.
There was of course the issue of the poison in her blood. But she was a witch after all, curing herself would take some time and effort but it was not out of her reach.
And even without her abilities, this was not real poison. Otherwise she would have felt a more impending sense of danger.
She was still able to do everything she would otherwise normally do. Her senses were intact. She was only very tired.
And he was tired too. But not defeated, certainly not.
Her smirk turned into a clean smile. Everything was going to be all right after all. Cuts and bruises, bones and skin, what were those to real power? To magic?
It felt so warm and nice right there. She could lie down and rest a little and then maybe they'd finish what they started. There was still so much time left till the end.
Her knees went weak and she plopped down on the fresh, morning grass. The sun hadn't risen yet, but it was palpable in the air.
She wiped the sweat from her brow and pulled her hair back, breathing in and out hungrily.
Klaus half-limped, half-walked towards her and sat down in her proximity, trembling slightly from the nausea. He was burning up. The fever was a hot flame scorching his skin.
The silence was a bit uncanny. He couldn't hear her breathing and she hadn't even noticed him next to her.
Their foreheads had grown so white they were indistinguishable. Their lips, the colour of the earth.
Water was spilling out of his eyes, but they weren't tears. He brushed his hand across his face, smearing the blood all over his palm.
"Bonnie, you should extract the poison," Klaus suddenly said, his voice barely above a whisper.
She flinched.
"What are you doing?"
"Resting," he replied, gazing towards the sunrise.
"You want to give me time to heal myself?"
"It's only gentlemanly, isn't it?"
Bonnie pursed her lips and made a face. She might as well do it. They shouldn't postpone the inevitable anymore. One of them had to be defeated. And the other had to be victorious.
She straightened her back, making her spine crack painfully in a couple of places and she shut her eyes, summoning the energy she had left to extract the poison.
Klaus' trembling had turned into spasmodic shudders. His mouth was wide open and he was trying to spit something out. Something that was burning his insides almost mercilessly. It was twisting the very essence of his being, squeezing the blood, the all-giving blood, until it had become just a searing liquid that tore through his limbs. The pain was downright unbearable.
Bonnie, meanwhile, kept trying to summon energy. This was the first step, the most simple, the most elementary step, and yet she didn't even have enough power for that. She blinked confused. No matter how fatigued, she should be able to connect quite easily. She should be able to go beyond that, no matter what.
She exhaled in frustration.
"I… need some more time," she told him.
Klaus chuckled, revealing a set of bloodied teeth.
"We don't have any left."
"Of course we do. We have all the time. I just need to focus."
Klaus shook his head amused. "It won't work, little witch. It won't work. You're spent."
"I'm never spent. I still have my abilities. And so do you. Don't just sit there," she shot back, watching his collapsed figure with disdain.
"Get up. Get ready to fight again," she added, trying to lift herself up.
"I'm afraid… you've made that impossible…Bonnie," he replied in a strangled voice.
Bonnie was about to contradict him, when a powerful spasm hit her right in the chest. She lost her breath for several moments, staring at him in horror. She pressed her hands to her neck, trying in vain to release the tension. The pain was travelling from foreign regions to her head, delivering a blow every time her blood pumped through her heart.
She fell on her elbows, her nails digging into the soil, her hair trailing the ground like a shadow of her former self.
"You…gave all of you to kill…me," Klaus told her, through pants.
Bonnie shook her head, trying to deny his words, rejecting the possibility.
That couldn't be the reason she felt the lack of warmth, that couldn't be the reason she felt the solitude, the emptiness of a space once populated by many, the silent demise of her kind, the suffocating bareness of a space now occupied by one fading light, it couldn't be because everything had gone to him -
"And…I…in turn…you," he added, lying on his back in resignation.
He had felt it before her. He had chosen to see the grim reality before she had even delivered the final blow. He had known that evening, he had felt it. He was going to die. After so much time spent roaming this earth, after so many months of wearing his battered shields, after so many fights against magic and blood, after all those nights he had watched her sleep, her face fraught with yearning and anger, after so many times when he had wanted to win, after so many times when he had wanted her to win, his shields were coming undone. The hollow place where his soul should have been was filling up with a foreign substance.
And now that he had done it, he had taken the final step, he was saddened, but at the same time happy to see her finally rest as well. She deserved a bit of happiness, of bit of victory, a bit of everything.
Perhaps he had wanted to die because he knew it would mean her ultimate death as well, but maybe he had not been that selfish, maybe he had just wanted to die at the hands of someone worthy, maybe he had just wanted to share a part of him with a kindred spirit, a spirit so similar to his that it wouldn't matter if he disappeared anymore.
It was only when Bonnie fell down as well and couldn't find the reason to get up anymore that she began to comprehend.
Her eyes met his as they turned their heads towards each other. Their bodies were sprawled one next to the other in a broken mirror, but their faces kept the perfect symmetry intact.
His eyes never left hers as he trailed his weary hand over her cheek.
"Aren't we supposed…to die alone?" she managed to ask. That was the general rule, you come into this world alone, you leave it alone.
He smiled affectionately.
"Others maybe. We…" he began throatily, but she never heard the rest of his words because a sudden jolt made him go completely still. His hand remained tangled in her hair.
Her vision became blurry. She was about to extend her own hand to touch him, but her heart stopped for good and the words that she might have heard from him were lost forever in another world, another life.
…love each other."
They would never find them as they were. They only found a young witch, surrounded by a fire whose ashes covered her like a blanket.