Disclaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries nor am I making any profit from this. Characters, etc. all belong to their respective owners.
A/N: I did do some research and I tried to make things generic enough that there wouldn't be too many historical inaccuracies, but please forgive me if you find any.
Enjoy!
Shit, Damon thinks. He's currently in a world of trouble. Granted, he currently stands a better chance of surviving than any else does at the moment. But, still, if his head happens to get blown off…well, dead's dead.
The German 88s had already taken out plenty of men and they weren't slowing down any time soon.
"We're fucked," Alaric Saltzman says as he cocks his gun again.
Saltzman was a thirty-something from Nebraska who had been drafted into the war and forced to leave behind a wife. He was usually boring as all hell, but at least he had good taste in liquor.
Before Damon can even respond, he hears the whistle of an oncoming shell. He feels himself being thrown and then everything goes black.
The carnage is unbelievable. Despite having been a part of the Army Nurse Corps for over a year now, it never fails to astound Bonnie.
Her family had hated the idea of her being out here, had worried about the potential danger she'd be putting herself in. However, she knew how much good she was doing here and that made her determined enough.
The doctors have all the nurses lay out the men who require surgery in a certain spot and they try to work as fast as they can, but it's not to much avail. When Bonnie happens to peak into where they are doing surgery, she sees that the doctors are literally standing in a pool of blood.
When she looks at the man who is currently laid out in front of her, she has the sinking feeling that he won't survive. Most of the men who have been brought her hadn't.
The 88 shell didn't hit the man directly (there wouldn't have been anything of him to bring here if that had been the case). However, most of his body is covered in burns and pieces of shrapnel are deeply imbedded in his skin.
As soon as she touches him, she feels a chill permeate throughout her body and she can't help but jump back.
Vampire.
She quickly regains her composure and looks around. Everyone is too engrossed in their work to pay any attention to her.
To keep up pretenses, she quickly begins to work on the vampire.
She'll figure out what to do with him later.
He wakes up in excruciating pain with a jazzy Duke Ellington number playing on the radio in the background. It takes time for him to get his bearings and when he does, the first thing he sees is a beautiful woman.
She's petite and the cream color of her nurse uniform contrasts with her smoothly flawless brown skin. Her black curls are pinned back, but a few had escaped to loosely frame her delicate heart-shaped face. Her green eyes, flecked with slivers of gold, stared right back at him.
"Well, this certainly isn't a bad sight to wake up to," he says with a half-grin. She doesn't smile back.
That's when reality sets in. He's sure that whatever injuries he had (and still has, from the feel of it) were supposed to be fatal and when she realized that they were actually healing instead…
He figures that there's only one recourse: To compel her and quickly disappear. When things got this hectic during a battle, they didn't exactly keep track of her came in and out. He would be assumed KIA and they would figure that there's just no body to be found.
He sits up, resisting the urge to groan in pain. He can't remember a time that he'd been hurt this badly.
"Forget you ever saw me," he tells the pretty nurse, looking directly into her eyes.
At first he's confused when she doesn't respond and just gives him a skeptical look instead. But, then, he figures it out.
"You're a witch."
"And you're a vampire."
"So what now?"
Another patient had woken up and was now screaming in agony.
"I don't know. You need to figure that out for yourself," she says brusquely, rushing off to help the patient.
He lays there, a bit stunned. Things have certainly taken a strange, unexpected turn.
He sees another nurse checking on a patient next to him. Unconsciously, he zeros in on her neck.
Given his recent injuries, he's in dire need of blood.
Then, the witch suddenly steps back into his line of vision.
"Let me make this very clear to you, vampire," she says, leaning in close to his face. "If I catch you so much as thinking about feeding on anyone here, I will ensure that the next injuries you have are very fatal."
Looking at the pure determination in her pretty green eyes, he believes her.
"So, have you figured out what you're doing, yet?" She asks him. "I can only cover for you so much before people start asking questions, considering that your injuries are mostly gone by now."
"You know, we haven't even exchanged names," he says conversationally.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"I'm Damon."
"Bonnie."
"So, Bonnie, what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"
She gives him an incredulous look.
"I am not here to make small talk. We are not friends. Now if you'll excuse me, I have patients who actually need my help."
Well, she's no fun.
"What are you even doing here, anyway?" Bonnie suddenly asks him the next morning. "In the war, I mean."
He looks at her, a bit surprised. Yesterday, she hadn't wanted to give him the time of day and now she wants to talk to him?
He really can't figure her out.
"I was bored, I guess," he replies with a shrug.
"That's not it," she replies, her lips quirking slightly. "At least not entirely. There's something more, isn't there?"
"What do you care?" Damon asks. "I thought you weren't here to make small talk."
"I'm not," Bonnie answers with a small shrug. "I guess sometimes I just get to curious for my own good."
And with that, she moves on to her other patients.
"I'll tell you why I'm here if you tell me why you're here," Damon tells her the following morning.
She blinks in surprise.
"I wanted to help people," she replies simply and honestly. "A lot of good people are dying in this war and if I can save even just a few of them…"
"How noble of you," he says with a small scoff.
"Yeah, well, why are you here? The real reason this time," Bonnie replies skeptically.
"Originally, I had enlisted with my younger brother to serve on the North African front. He's an ambulance driver over there."
"You have a brother? And you're both vampires?"
"That's a very long story. Anyway, someone made me realize that my brother is better off without me. So, I left without telling him why I wouldn't be showing up to ship off together. After, I didn't really know what to do, so I ended up enlisting somewhere else and here we are."
She looks at him thoughtfully as if she wants to say something, but stops herself. Instead, she stands up, looks around to make sure no one is watching and pulls a needle out of her pocket and pricks her finger. She then squeezes it over a small cup, allowing some blood to pool in the bottom of it.
"Given what happened to you, I know you need to feed," she says quietly. "And given the fact that this place is full of injured men who have been bleeding…I can't run the risk of you attacking any patients or nurses."
He takes the cup from her, not knowing what to say.
"It's witches blood, so it'll sustain you a lot better than anything else. Also, unless you've already made plans as to how you're getting out of here, I'll arrange for you to be sent somewhere else. People will start asking questions about why you're already healed, so…"
And with that, she turns and leaves.
Her blood, even though there is barely a mouthful of it, is one of the best things he's ever tasted.
"You're crying," he says when she comes to him later that night.
"You're very observant," Bonnie says dryly. "One of my patients died today. I always cry when I lose a patient."
"It's a war. And you're an army nurse," Damon replies. "You must have lost plenty of patients by now."
"Is that supposed to make it easier? Because it doesn't." She pauses. "I'm not some stupid, naïve little girl that signed up without knowing what she was getting into. It's just that…they're people. They had parents, wives, children, people that loved them and they're gone and the people they left behind have to live with that. And for what? Because some madman decided that his thirst for power makes it acceptable to do this to the world?"
He doesn't have a response for her.
"Well, this has certainly been a strange few days," Bonnie says, handing Damon a small bag of provisions that could be spared.
She had arranged for him and other patients that could be moved to be transported somewhere else. She'd let Damon figure out where he's going from there.
"So, tell me something," Damon says with a grin that makes many women swoon. "When this is all over, if I were to look you up, would I stand a chance?"
She grins and replies, "In hell, maybe."
He hadn't expected any less from her.
As he moves to leave, she stops him.
"You should get in contact with your brother. Whatever happened and whatever you may think…you need him. I mean, the guilt of leaving him was enough to make you enlist even if you won't actually admit it."
She always knew how to leave him without a response.
He gives her a small smile and a nod before he leaves.
Years later, when the war is finally over, he thinks of getting into contact with Stefan, but he chickens out. He doesn't know what he'd say to him, anyway.
He also looks Bonnie up, wondering what has become of the beautiful and brave, yet incredibly compassionate nurse.
He discovers that after the concentration camps have been liberated, she'd stayed in Europe to help the survivors.
He thinks about contacting her because for some reason, even after years have passed, he can't get her out of his head.
He decides against it in the end, though.
She's too good and nothing would ever come out of it.
It doesn't stop him from thinking about her every now and then and wondering what could have been.
A/N: So, honestly, I think I would have liked to have taken this and turned it into a multi-chapter instead of a one-shot with just a few little snapshots. But…realistically, I know I'd never finish it because I already have a bunch of other fics on my plate.
Anyway, thanks for reading and, as always, reviews are very much appreciated!