Disclaimer-not mine, don't own, etc.
Bonnie let out a small scream. She had gotten good at this, being able to absorb the incredible pain without much if any sound. But sometimes, when the person had a particular gruesome death, or carried much sadness, it was too much and she had to let out a noise just to be able to deal with it. She was good at finding little alleys and hidden openings to deal with this, just in case of a particular horrible passing. She was also good at covering up what was going on, pretending to stump a toe or bang an arm if she couldn't get to a place where she could be alone during those times.
But at this moment she was outside her dorm room, sitting on a bench that was hidden by some trees outside of the residence hall. It was two in the morning in early spring, the nighttime weather still cool enough where she had to wrap herself in a sweater, a Christmas gift from her mother. Two former werewolves had just passed through her, a father and daughter, who died in a car accident. The father passed through relatively easily. It was the daughter whose death was the most painful, so much sadness from both the young girl and Bonnie.
Bonnie sat on the bench, trying to catch her breath and settle her emotions. She didn't want her roommates picking up on anything as she walked back in. Although they seemed quite easily to forget all the pain she had to go through with being the anchor. But she still didn't want to disturb them so she sat there, giving herself some time to calm down. It was then her phone started to ring, loud and clear and breaking through the silence of the night. Bonnie grabbed her phone and looked at the number. It was from out of town and she didn't recognize the number calling her. She was about to ignore it when something told her to answer and she did.
"Hello?" she asked hesitantly. "Who is this?"
"Good evening Bonnie. Or should I say good morning?" The voice held an edge to it, cutting through the accent.
"Wait, Klaus?" Bonnie was confused. She didn't know Klaus had her number when he was still in Mystic Falls, much less after he left.
"The one and only." Klaus walked into his bedroom and closed the door silently. He didn't want to alert Elijah and Genevieve that he was near quite yet.
Bonnie sighed. This was not what she wanted to be dealing with after the pain of a couple of minutes ago. "What do you want?"
"No reason to be so hasty, love. I've just called to ask you a question."
"No."
"No?" Klaus sat down on his bed, a glass filled with scotch in one hand while he held his phone with the other. He was in a foul mood, not being able to sleep for the past several days. His father had been infiltrating his sleep, killing him in a variety of ways. After finding out that Elijah was suffering through the same thing he wanted to get answers. The New Orleans witches wouldn't help him, more because there seem to be only three of them and all three hated him minus the redhead who wanted his body. So he reached out to the only competent witch he currently knew.
"No." Bonnie shook her head even though Klaus couldn't see her. "I've been through…a lot tonight. I don't feel like you threatening me. Go to someone else." She went to hang up but then his voice spoke up loud and clear through the night.
"How are you managing being the anchor?" It was a last grasp hope for him, yes. But he had to say something to get her attention, something that would make sure she wouldn't hang up.
"What? How do you know—"
"I may not be in Mystic Falls or its surrounding areas sweetheart, but I do still have eyes and ears there."
Bonnie rolled her eyes. Of course he did. "I'm sure you're really interested in knowing my well-being Klaus."
"You come from a great line of witches, Bonnie. Witches who didn't put others before themselves or their families. Witches, who when needed to, were are vicious as any vampire or werewolf—"
"Or hybrid?," Bonnie interrupted.
Klaus chuckled into his glass, taking a sip. "Or hybrid. And they always won. It's why the Bennett name holds so much weight and is legendary. Quite frankly, you have let your friends deter you from your legacy."
"Oh." Bonnie didn't know how to respond to that. Klaus sounded almost in awe of her ancestors. She never expected something like this out of him.
"How come you never told me this before, Klaus?" she asked him.
"Because we were never on the same side, little witch. Oh what you could have been under me."
Bonnie didn't respond. She brushed her currently short hair out of her face and tried to wrap the sweater around herself even more. This was all new information to her. Information she was starting to wish she knew when he was still an active citizen in Mystic Falls.
"So how are you managing? I've heard that all supernatural deaths go through you to get to the other side."
"They do," Bonnie confirmed. "And I'm kind of not doing well. It's, it's a lot to deal with. And I can't really talk about it to anyone. It's almost too much sometimes." Bonnie didn't know why she told him that. In the end it didn't matter. She was in Virginia, he in Louisiana, and the two of them probably wouldn't be meeting anytime soon. But it felt good getting all of that off her chest, to be able to honestly tell someone how she wasn't coping with everything. How it sometimes made her wish she never came back.
Klaus could hear the unshed tears and pain in her voice. She almost sounded broken. If this was a year ago he would have done anything to use this to his advantage, get her to join him. Now he felt disappointed and strangely sad. The life his child was starting to weigh on his mind more and more with each passing day. She too would be powerful in some way, just like Bonnie. He didn't want her to go through what this girl who had all the moxie and bravery of any he had ever dealt with in the course of his over 1000 years of existence. And if they would not have called themselves friends, or even comrades, then he could always respect that part of her.
"You, daughter of Ayanna, daughter of Sheila, deserves so much more." Klaus finished his drink and set it down on the small table beside his bed.
"You knew my Grams?" He saying Sheila's name made Bonnie curious. She knew the Salvatores knew her grandmother, but not Klaus.
"Let's just say we had an encounter that she won." Klaus smiled, remembering the time he came to Mystic Falls in 1990 hearing that the doppelganger was finally alive again and getting Sheila meeting him at the town line, a barrier erected over the entire town, and him being transported out of Virginia to somewhere in Canada. Just thinking about Sheila made him yearn for what Bonnie should have been. Sheila had been fierce and powerful but Bonnie's natural power was far greater her grandmother's. Her power reminded him of his mother's mentor, who to this day Klaus considered the strongest being he had ever been in the presence of. Bonnie was a prodigy that was sent awry. And it made him angry.
Bonnie, for her part, cherished this little memory, even if it wasn't hers. The idea that someone like Klaus could speak about her Grams with so much reverence meant a lot to her. Out of everything going on with the other side, the idea of Grams not being there scared her more than anything.
Bonnie took a deep breath. If she got on this road of thinking about Grams she wouldn't stop and she'd have to stay outside all night just to catch her bearings. And she had an exam at noon.
"Okay Klaus."
"Hmm?" She had been silent. He figured she was deep in thought, probably chewing on her lower lip like she tended to do. Like he secretly enjoyed.
"What's your question? You were decent to me just then and for that I'll try to help you out."
"Well thank you in advance, fair Bonnie. You truly are a generous soul."
"I can always hang up Klaus."
"Fine, fine." Klaus eyed the glass. Usually he brought the bottle with him but not tonight. For some reason he needed a little liquid courage to tell his story. He had no idea why. He wanted to savor the burn of the drink going down. But he was without so he just continued on.
"I've been having these…dreams. Of my father Mikael." He paused, figuring Bonnie would ask him a question but there was nothing but silence on the other end. Klaus continued on. "In them he kills me. In a variety of ways. They are lifelike; he is sticking the white oak stake deep into my heart, only I always wake up from them. I figured I was having these dreams because of anxiety over my becoming a father." Klaus paused again, expecting some comment but there was still nothing but silence. If it wasn't for hearing her breath and the crickets from her end of the phone he would have thought he was talking to himself. "But tonight I learned that Elijah has been having the same sort of dreams. We wondered if something was going on with the other side. We asked a witch here but truly they are incompetent compared to you."
There was more silence and Klaus began to hear the wind whipping on the other end of the line. He heard a soft yet resigned sigh before Bonnie began to speak.
"The other side Klaus, it's starting to disintegrate. Implode on itself. There are these Traveler witches…have you ever heard of them?"
"Can't say that I have, love."
"They're these witches who, actually, it doesn't matter. It's convoluted and doesn't make any sense and is unimportant to your question. What is important is that they want to destroy the other side and they're starting to. Large swatches of it are disappearing, are being torn away into a, a void," Bonnie thought of Katherine and the black hole she was sucked into when she failed to pass through Bonnie after her death, "and the ones that are still there, they don't want to go into this void. They're doing everything they can to get out. So with huge parts of the other side disappearing and the supernaturals there doing what they can to stay, the veil is weak. Really weak."
"And my father is choosing to spend his last moments torturing my brother and I," Klaus thought out loud. He wondered if Rebekah was suffering the same fate, but she was gone and he didn't know where. Knowing their father she was dealing with the same dreams. But as much as the dreams were hell, the idea of Mikael being gone for good delighted him. He'd never have to deal with the man he called father ever again. He could maybe have peace, in that area at least.
"I guess," Bonnie spoke up. "With the veil being as weak as it is they are able to contact the living through various means. Usually through—"
"Dreams," Klaus finished Bonnie's sentence.
"Yeah."
More silence followed as they both absorbed what was said. It was the first time Bonnie really let herself think about what was happening, the first time she acknowledged it since Grams contacted her. She didn't want to think about it because there was only one possible outcome for her.
"And will it? Actually implode that is?"
"Yes."
A pause.
"And you, little witch? What will become of you?"
Bonnie scoffed. "I think you know the answer to that."
Klaus frowned, his eyebrows creasing in the middle of his head. He did not like the idea of Bonnie imploding with the other side or a world without her.
"Well then, love. Should that come to pass, the world will be lesser without you in it. You were a worthy adversary."
Bonnie jaw dropped. This was not what she was expecting to hear from Klaus at this time of morning.
"Thank you Klaus." She said it more as a question then as a statement.
"Thank you Bonnie."
The two listen to each other breath. There was something they both felt that kept them on the phone, not wanting to hang up on the other. It was a force, a pull between the two that they knew would end as soon as they hit the END button. But both knew they had to.
"Um. I have a test tomorrow. I should go. Good night Klaus."
"Good night, Bonnie." He waited for her to hang up and then he followed. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to happen to her and he wanted to prevent it. He wanted to save her. But he was here in New Orleans with his own problems and he needed to focus on that. For himself. For his child.
Klaus left the drink on the table as he walked out the room. He could hear Elijah and Genevieve talking; she was giving him information she had heard from other witches. She knew to a certain point. Witches, alive or dead, talked, and what was happening was probably the hottest topic among them, especially since one of their own, a Bennett witch at that, was the focal point. But she didn't know everything, only Bonnie did, and he had gotten the story from her.
He listened to them some more before making his grand entrance.
"She's right," he said, looking from his brother to the red-haired witch and back. "More or less, it's actually imploding." He made hand gestures to further emphasize his point. He thought about what Bonnie said and decided not to tell them everything. At least not her predicament. They only needed to know the basics so that's is what he decided to tell them.
"I made a call to a rather reluctant Bennett witch in Mystic Falls…"
