This story follows Cannon, but with obvious differences.
From the moment I was tall enough to reach the stove I cooked breakfast and dinner for Mr. Tanner. I also did all of the cleaning in his small, ranch style home in order to avoid his nagging. It wouldn't be wrong to assume the man treated me like a servant most of the time.
The morning that also was the cannon episode one of the show that had turned into my life, I made breakfast as I normally would. Just oatmeal because I knew he hated it, I was sort of slyly getting back at him for stealing fifty bucks out of my checking account. As if I wouldn't have noticed. He already hogged the check from the government and it had pissed me off that he also deemed the money I made from slaving away at the grill his too.
"You know I hate oatmeal." He pointed out as he sat his briefcase on the kitchen table and sat a stack of papers on top.
"It has raisins in it." I said as if that would make up for it. "Besides, its the first day and we don't have time for anything else."
He had narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously. Sometimes he gave me weird looks like that, as if he were expecting me to shed my skin and turn into some sort of slimy creature. "What in the hell did you do to your hair?"
I subconsciously ran my fingers through my chin length, honey blonde hair. "I dyed it." I said with a roll of my eyes, it was pretty obvious. "Is it ugly?"
He snorted as he sat down heavily at the table. I sat the bowl of steaming oats in front of him after I limped over to him. "If that's the type of stuff you do with your money, you should just give your paycheck to me."
"So you can lose it all playing online poker?" I asked as I grabbed my cane from were it sat against the counter and sat across from him with my own bowl. Yeah, along with the scar on my stomach, a shattered knee cap was a reminder of Sheila's attempted murder of me. "You're a smart man, Mr. Tanner, I thought for sure you would have figured out that poker and you spells the power getting shut off for a week." Seriously, he had lost a game of poker to me when I was ten. He just wasn't good at it.
"Well, if I didn't have some ungrateful, smart mouthed teen living with me, my power bill wouldn't be so high, now would it?" He shot back. "Where in the hell is the coffee?" He had looked around as if it would magically appear.
"We're out," I shrugged. "You didn't buy any, remember?" I hated coffee, I wouldn't buy it.
"You ungrateful, brat." He whined as he stood with his bowl and dumped it in the sink. "Its going to be your fault when I give those failures a hard time today, how will your peers feel about that?"
I actually smiled at that as I had slowly chewed my oatmeal. "You're the reason no one talks to me anyway."
He snorted again. He did that a lot. "Sure, keep telling yourself that." He wrenched open the fridge and poured himself a glass of orange juice. "It couldn't be they all seem to think you're 'weird'." He mocked what I guessed was suppose to be a teen girl's voice. He really hated kids, which always made me wonder why he surrounded himself with so many.
"Why did you hide the letter from the prison stating that Sheila was being considered for early release?" I didn't know why I had asked. I just remember it had weighed on my mind the whole night since I had found the letter tucked under some socks in his sock drawer.
I wanted to know why he didn't tell me. Was he trying to protect me from having to worry about that? Sometimes I thought or hoped rather, that he actually cared about me. Just so I would have one person in this whole fucked up world.
He finished his juice and didn't bring his gaze to me. "What good would that have done?" He questioned logically. "Even if she does get out there is a restraining order in place and she would have to be crazy in order to try anything." We both were quiet for a moment after he said that.
"I don't think you understand how much she hates me." I mumbled, not really meaning to say it aloud.
"She's a crazy old bat, but she's not that crazy." I had subconsciously rubbed my useless knee, lost in a slew of thoughts, all of them dark. "If you're not ready in ten minutes I'm leaving and you're gonna have to walk." He completely changed the subject as he came and picked up his briefcase and papers.
(TAP)
I had gone to school with most of the main characters from the vampire diaries my whole life, I just didn't have a whole lot to do with them. I was in the hospital most of kindergarten, so their was no childhood besties with Caroline and Elena. I mean, I was the weird kid who walked with a cane, no one wanted to talk to me.
I watched them grow up from afar. I wondered a countless number of times how would things fair for them without their resident witch to save the day. Caroline and Elena still were best friends, who grew up to be popular, pretty cheerleaders. Elena and Matt became a power couple, everything seemed to be setting up itself pretty cannon like, except for the lack of Bonnie Bennett in the middle of it all.
Like on the first day, I missed the whole bird into window shield, complaints about crazy grandmother's, and introductions into the world of hot back vampire. Unfortunately, I was in that history class, you know the one, and was smack dab in the middle of Elena and Stefan's sexy stare down.
Mr. Tanner was boring and I told him so after school as I watched him create a pop quiz for tomorrow before I left to go work at the grill.
"You know, if you were more interesting with your lectures kids would pay more attention to you."
"School is not suppose to be interesting, Vee." Oh, and I had told everyone I know, pretty much only Mr. Tanner, to call me Vee. He humored me because he was convinced Bonnie wasn't a real, proper name. I sort of think he also went along with it because he assumed my dislike for my name had something to do with Sheila and that whole situation. I hated being Bonnie. "You have shift to get to, I'm I wrong?"
"No, you're no wrong." I had said. "I was just wondering if you wanted me to bring you home something to eat after I get off."
"Ever so helpful," he waved me off, "whatever is fine. Don't be late, come straight home after work, no littering around with your friends." The smirk on his face told me he knew damn well I didn't have any friends and would without a doubt be home right on time. I told you he could be a jerk.
(TAP)
I know, I work at the Grill, very unique. Well, Mr. Tanner had known the manager, so it had been an easy job to get, I hadn't complained.
The only issue with working at the grill was the fact that for obvious reasons I was slower than everyone else, some assholes complained about that.
"What can I get for you, Caroline?" I had asked as I stopped at her table. She had just entered and Vicki was off having drama with Jeremy. She had looked up from her phone and smiled at me.
"Oh, hey, Bonnie!" She said perkily. I almost groaned. "How was your first day back?"
"It was fine." I said blandly and stared at her, wanting her to go on with her order.
"Okay..." She said slowly and stared back at me, then she had shrugged. "What do you think of the new guy?" I frowned and she rolled her eyes. "You know, the new guy. Its not everyday Mystic Falls gets eye candy like that."
I raised an eye brow. Sometimes Caroline did that, randomly pulled me into conversations. "I think Mystic Falls will see an influx of eye candy for the next few years." I said cryptically. "But the new guy?" I shrugged, knowing she meant Stefan. "I don't know, don't know much about him."
"Well, you're in luck, I'm here. His name is Stefan Salvatore. He lives with his uncle up at the old Salvatore boarding house. He hasn't been here since he was a kid. Military family, so they moved around a lot. He's a Gemini, and his favorite color is blue."
"That's... impressive..." I remarked slowly.
"I know," she gushed, "he's perfect. I'm thinking Mystic Falls High is about to have two power couples."
"I thought Elena and Matt broke up?" I had mentally sighed. I had looked around the Grill noting that the costumers that had come in were some of the ones that enjoyed giving me a hard time. I could listen to Caroline prattle along for a few minutes to avoid the inevitable.
"Yeah," she rolled her eyes, "but how long do you think it will last? They're made for each other."
"I don't know, I think it might hold." I mumbled distractedly. Caroline gave me a weird look. "I mean, you would know better, you're best friends with her and all of that." I rambled. "Uh, what can I get for you, Caroline?"
She finally gave me her order and I quickly scooted away in order to fulfill it.
I was juggling a couple of refills on a tray when Caroline called out to me. I told her to wait a minute before I returned to the table that had now housed, Elena and Stefan.
"Are you going to the party at the falls tomorrow?" Caroline asked me.
I leaned on my cane and stared at her. "Uh..."
"See, even Bonnie is going, Elena, you have to."
I blinked in astonishment as Elena finally sighed. "I guess I will." She said, gaze firmly locked on Stefan and his on hers.
Caroline squealed in excitement, forgotten, my purpose fulfilled, I slowly moved away from the table. I didn't mention that even if I didn't have to work the next day, how I wasn't going to that shitty party.
(TAP)
High school sucked even without the vampire, werewolves, originals and vampire hunters, teen boys could be hellish creatures all on their own. Which was how I found myself painfully hitting the floor, my cane clattering across the floor as a group of sweaty football players rushed down the hall. I didn't get an excuse me or an offer to help me up from any human in the hall, but I did get an offer from a friendly, concerned vampire.
I stared at Stefan's hand blankly for a long moment before my eyes finally moved to his face. He had seemed so awkward there, offering his hand and holding onto my cane with the other. "Uh, do you need help up?" He eloquently said.
"Yeah?" Was my beautiful, brilliant reply. I took his hand and he helped me back on my feet and handed me back my cane. "Thank you." I smiled gratefully at him.
"You work at the grill." He commented offhandedly.
I blinked in surprise. "I didn't know you noticed, not with the way you were staring at Elena." Sometimes I didn't have a filter between what I thought and what I said. My bad.
He looked embarrassed as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I... I just noticed Caroline sort of forced your hand. I guess you're not really going to show up to that party, huh?"
I shook my head. "Gotta work," I shrugged, "I think I'm to old to be condoning, underage drinking and poor decisions anyway."
He seemed amused by what I said. "Really? Isn't that what us teens do, make poor decisions and drink underage?"
I shifted my cane from one and to the other, the groves along the handle dug into the scars on my palms. "I guess you're right." I shrugged. "You should really be getting to class, Mr. Tanner hates when his students are late." I changed the subject.
"Oh, yeah, you're in my history class?" He commented.
I sighed, sort of making a show of it as I rolled my eyes. "I sit next to you." I deadpanned.
He actually blinked in surprise. "Oh." I smiled a little at the lines that appeared on his forehead. "How about we walk there together? Make sure what happened before doesn't happen again." He motioned towards the direction the football players had disappeared."
"I've managed before you've gotten here, you know." I raised and eyebrow. He looked sheepish at the point I made. "But who I am to stop a young man from doing a good deed?" I smiled, mostly at the idea of him being young.
He returned the smile.
"The battle of willow creek took place at the end of the war in our very own Mystic Falls. How many causalities resulted in this battle? Ms. Bennett?"
I looked up at Mr. Tanner and away from the math homework I was doing. "I don't know." I said bluntly.
"Seriously?" He asked as if astonished I wouldn't know. "We went over this just this morning." He had, but I had never really listened when he gushed about history. "No, tv tonight. I better see you studying." I had gawked at him, he knew how I felt about tv. I watched an unhealthy amount when I wasn't in school or working. Something that had stuck with me from when I was with Sheila.
"That's not fair," I snapped.
He ignored me. "Mr. Donovan. Would you like to take this opportunity and overcome your embedded jock stereotype?"
My poor foster father was such a jerk. Its not his fault though, he just didn't know how to interact with others very well. I stopped listening because I knew how this would go, Stefan would hand Mr. Tanner a new asshole.
