AND HEAVEN STILL MEANS SOMETHING
drabble/song-fic; kol mikaelson x bonnie bennett
Bloodstained Heart by Darren Hayes (no chorus)
Love, you're in pieces. There's no one left to lay you down, or say it's okay.
When he first sees her, she's sixteen years old and full of light and love. He holds a considerable amount of disdain for her in the beginning. Some might have called it jealousy. She streaks down the expanse of damp green grass, lavender sun dress billowing around her slender legs and dark hair streaming out behind her. The sun catches the emerald flecks in her eyes and highlights the red and gold of her hair. She's lighter than a feather, pure and untainted by the horrors of the world; the horrors he had spent centuries surveying and occasionally partaking in, but never forgetting.
Her momentum falters and one misstep sends her tumbling down to the carpet of wet grass. He sees this coming, has to steel himself not to catch her. A blonde-haired girl helps her up and they both dissolve into a fit of giggles.
He has no right to be here; no right to cast a shadow on this moment with his presence. He stays anyway, watching for what feels like minutes but was probably hours, judging by the setting of the sun. He came to see the doppelganger and instead became enamoured with the power clinging to this young girl. She was a witch – that much was certain – but he had never felt such unencumbered power cling to someone so young before. It was heady and sweet; he was inebriated merely being in its presence.
He doesn't see her again, not for several years at least. Klaus and Elijah's infatuation with the doppelganger persists and it never ceases to perplex him. In his few encounters with the insipid Elena Gilbert, he finds his mind wandering and his mood growing impatient. Her essence is bland and borderline depressing. The doppelganger fails to compel him.
It is death and tragedy that lures him back to Mystic Falls four years later. The doppelganger's brother dies and the service is long and monotonous.
"We are gathered here today to mark the tragic loss of Jeremy Grayson Gilbert – a friend, a brother, a son and a fiancé."
He can sense her again; that thickly sweet, heady sensation sets in and he narrows his eyes, scanning the crowd for her. She is seated in the front row, between the doppelganger and the blonde-haired friend, dressed demurely in a knee-length black dress with her hair pulled back into a severe bun. The light throws her features into sharp relief – the almond shape of her hazel eyes, the downward tilt of her full lower lip, and the soft dip of her widow's peak.
It begins to rain later that afternoon and the guests respectfully peter out of the cemetery, proceeding to the warmth of the reception. Eventually, even the doppelganger departs, pressing a chaste kiss to her friend's cheek. The witch remains, though. Her bun starts to undo around her heart-shaped face and her dress is soaked almost completely through but she chooses to stay, leaning over the gravestone.
"I'm sorry, Jer. I should have protected you." Her body shivers, both in response to the cold and the sobs wracking her body.
He extends a handkerchief, neatly folded, to her and she takes it gratefully.
"Did you know him?" she asks softly, still kneeling by the gravestone. Here lies Jeremy Grayson Gilbert.
"Not well," Kol admitted.
"He was a good man," the witch says fiercely, wiping her damp cheeks. "A wonderful man."
"Were you the fiancé?"
"Yes," she whispers. "We were supposed to leave this town. Make a new life somewhere far away."
"I'm sorry for your loss," Kol says, finding he meant it.
He isn't sorry Jeremy Gilbert is dead. He barely knew the man. He was sorry this was destroying the young witch aside him. She could be great, legendary even. She has more power than he could begin to imagine what to do with, and she was going to let this stop her. "I really am."
"I'm sorry for…" She gestures around her. "This. I'm not normally this emotional. I just… Sorry, I didn't quite catch your name?"
"I didn't offer it." He smiles to soften the blow of his comment. Getting up, he dusts off his crisp black dress pants and with a curt nod, walks in the opposite direction. The beautiful witch is standing there, dumbfounded.
On the worst night of the worst year. Though we might fall, we'll go out punching.
Blood is streaming down her face, her jaw locked in sheer determination as she focuses on the burning vision that is Klaus. Flames lick at his brother's writhing form and Kol realises then and there that this is futile. He couldn't find Bonnie Bennett, not tonight.
So he gives in. He makes a silent gesture of truce and takes several slow steps backward.
Klaus is long dead but she keeps up the assault for several minutes.
"You can stop now," he ventures. "I will deal with the body."
She collapses to the floor, gasping. "I—I did it. I did it. Did it, didn't I?"
The pale dark-haired, blue-eyed vampire grasps her shivering form and nods.
"He's gone, Bon. Gone for good."
They lock eyes and Kol holds his hands up in surrender. "I won't fight you."
"You can leave Mystic Falls," the vampire hisses. "And never return."
"Just give her blood, okay?" Kol says quickly. "She'll die without it."
He runs then. He runs far, far away, determined to forget about the witch. It shouldn't be difficult. Nothing binds them together anymore. His brother is gone and the doppelganger is finally safe.
But he misses her heady essence. He misses the vaguely inebriated sensation that consumes him when he allows himself to become immersed in her power. He misses the wondrous vision of her wielding her power, finally controlling it. He misses her loyalty – wants it for himself, truthfully – and the glitter of her hazel eyes, and the conviction with which she leads her life.
He isn't sure what it is he wants anymore.
In the gutter, when you're starless and blind to dreams. We can dream each other to a new day where the good guys always win.
She's twenty-five years old and assisting a research project at a university just north of Mystic Falls. She's casually seeing the professor, Mr Saltzman, in between using her powers to right the supernatural wrongdoings in the area. She comes in, guns blazing, eyes alight with fury and knocks down the perpetrators one by one.
"Crime rates are at an all-time low in the greater Virginia area," the incredulous newsreader announces.
As for Kol, he's sitting in a hotel room of far less grandeur than he's accustomed to and desperately trying to deny that he'd been lured here by his infatuation with the witch.
Monday morning, he walks onto the campus she sometimes works at and straight to the double doors of a seldom occupied lecture hall.
"Hello, students. Professor Saltzman is out sick today so I'll be taking today's lecture. I'm Miss Bennett, but you can all call me Bonnie."
Kol settles in the back, letting her essence wash over him. He misses this. It's been far too long.
They lock eyes after the lecture and if she's perturbed by his presence, she doesn't show it.
"Miss Bennett?" He approaches her after the lecture.
"What are you doing here?" Her voice isn't as cold, as hostile, as he expects.
"Maybe I was just enthralled by your lecture?" he suggests with a coy smirk. "Can we go somewhere? Somewhere private? To talk."
To his surprise, she agrees.
"I don't make a habit of lunching with vampires," she starts.
"I should hope not," he jokes.
"But I've changed," she says, looking off to the distance, almost absent-mindedly. "My beliefs have shifted a little. Just a fraction. I still hate your…kind."
"No offense taken."
She smiles. "You're not all bad are you, Kol?"
"Bad enough."
She laughs and if it weren't so painfully cliché, he'd say his heart soars with the sound.
And heaven still means something…