Lucy's baaaaack. And if you don't love her, then don't tell me. Your reviews are greatly appreciated and a joy to read!
Who Doesn't Love Lucy?
Bonnie doesn't know why she's so nervous. She's calling family, a cousin who specifically gave her a number for the purpose of calling at some point in time. Still, she's nervous and she paces the length of her bedroom. For a moment she considers if it's possible Lucy could have forgotten that she gave Bonnie her phone number. She tugs on her new bracelet, tracing over the words.
Bennett. Bennett. Bennett.
Bonnie Bennett. Lucy Bennett.
Bennett.
"Hello?"
"Lucy?" Bonnie says. Who else would it be, answering Lucy's phone, with Lucy's voice? She's such an idiot. "It's Bonnie."
"Bonnie!" Lucy exclaims. "It's good to hear from you. How's it going?"
"Good," Bonnie answers, relaxing a little.
"I heard your little town is Salvatore free," Lucy says. "Good work." She sounds how Bonnie would imagine Grams might sound, or Abby, if she was actually a parent. Proud.
Bonnie can't help but smile. "Thanks. That's actually why I'm calling. Kind of. I need a favor." It comes out like a question.
"Name it."
Bonnie's surprised by Lucy's eagerness.
"Before he died, Stefan met a witch in New Orleans who told him what we were doing," Bonnie explains. "She knows about us now and we need to know if she's going to be a problem. We think someone might come looking for information about what happened and she has it so..."
"You want me to see if she's a problem?"
"If you don't mind."
"I don't," Lucy says. "You caught me at a good time. I'm in Alabama and I've been looking for a change of scenery."
Bonnie wonders what it would be like to have the same nomadic existence as Lucy. Hopping from one place to the next, crossing one state line after another and figuring it out along the way. "Why are you in Alabama?"
"Got a new boyfriend," Lucy sighs. "Well, I got a new ex-boyfriend. This'll give me an excuse to make it official."
Bonnie smiles to herself. Maybe she'll make calling Lucy a regular thing. She's so not Mystic Falls. She came, she left, and now she's in Alabama. Bonnie can do that, too. She can leave. She can kill Klaus and leave. It's possible.
"Anyway, you got a name?"
"No," Bonnie says. "Is that going to be a problem?"
"Probably," Lucy says, "for someone who isn't me. But I am me, so it'll be fine. I'll find her, whoever she is."
Bonnie sits down on the edge of her bed, relieved. "Thank you. If she wants money, Tyler's got plenty so that shouldn't be too much of a problem."
"Cute and loaded. And he's still not your boyfriend?"
"Well, that's gotten complicated," Bonnie says, surprised that she said so. She can't tell anyone about what's going on with Tyler and Jeremy. She can't tell Elena, who will surely be horrified at the thought of Bonnie kissing Jeremy and Tyler both, on the same night, with the other standing right there, and kissing her somewhere else. And whatever progress Bonnie and Caroline have made will be shattered. Even though Lucy is hundreds of miles away, doing who knows what, at least Bonnie can tell her something.
There might be some other things Bonnie could tell Lucy. Like what she did to April.
"You have to teach me your ways, little cousin," Lucy says. "All the men I meet are flops."
Bonnie laughs. As if she has ways.
"And Bonnie?" Lucy says.
"Hmm?"
"Happy Birthday."
"Thanks," Bonnie says. "How'd you know?"
"Your mom told me."
"You've seen her? Again?" Lucy's managed to see Abby more than Bonnie ever has. And Bonnie now remembers more Happy Birthdays from Lucy than she does from her own mother.
"Just for a second," Lucy says. "She was in Atlanta for awhile. She was thinking about coming to see you or something but she didn't think you'd want to see her."
"She was right," Bonnie says bitterly. Wouldn't that have been a stellar birthday surprise? Abby on her doorstep in all her abandoning glory.
"How about I don't tell her you said that?" Lucy says. Bonnie can hear her smile. "I'll head to New Orleans by tonight and I'll give you a call when I find something. Consider this your birthday gift. Tell your boys I say hello."
Once Bonnie's gotten the okay from Lucy, she's in a much better mood. She heads back to Elena's, on a mission to convince her that enlisting Klaus' help is a terrible idea. If anyone can do it, it's Bonnie so Tyler's not that worried. He's still kind of worried because he has no idea what Elena's thinking these days. Not that he knew what he was thinking other days.
It leaves Jeremy and Tyler in the house alone, both in the living room.
"Are we going to talk?" Tyler asks.
"I dunno," Jeremy says. "Are we?"
"I guess."
Jeremy sits down in the armchair across from the couch where Tyler sits "Okay."
"We're friends, right?" Tyler asks.
"Right."
"Are we gonna stay friends?" Tyler asks. "Because you were really mad when I told you about kissing Bonnie the first time. And you had a right to be," he adds quickly. "I don't want us to not be friends."
Jeremy rolls his eyes like it's a stupid question. "We're friends, Tyler. After everything that happened, that kiss didn't seem so urgent anyway. And then last night was...what it was."
Yeah.
After last night, there's no doubting what either of them feels for Bonnie.
"Last night was unexpected," Tyler says.
"That's an understatement."
But last night is over and Bonnie says it'll never happen again. It's the future they should be worried about. Everything has changed, or could have changed, if last night had gone any further. Everything may be changed anyway.
"I can't just stop liking her," Tyler says. When they kissed that day in her kitchen and hours later on the front porch, it was mutual. There was something there, even if Bonnie doesn't know what it is, even if Tyler isn't sure what they're going to do about it, it exists. And she kissed him last night, as hungrily as he kissed her. She wanted Tyler to kiss her. And who wouldn't kiss Bonnie if she wanted them to?
She also wanted Jeremy to.
"We'll just let her figure it out," Jeremy says, "whenever she does that. In the meantime, if she kisses me again, am I allowed to kiss her back?"
That's a good question.
"If she kisses me, am I allowed to kiss her back?"
Jeremy doesn't hesitate. "You are if I am."
"You are."
Silence.
Tyler nods his head. "Fine."
"Fine."
"And we're okay?"
Jeremy cracks a smile. "We're okay."
Tyler smiles, too. "Good." He's quiet for a minute. "So, do you wanna make out?"
Jeremy tries to keep a straight face but fails. "I always knew you had a crush on me, Lockwood."
They're both still laughing when Bonnie comes in, her hair tousled by the wind. "What's so funny?" she asks, shrugging out of her jacket.
"Nothing," Tyler and Jeremy at the same time, swallowing down laughter. Bonnie, after her frantic apology earlier, might not find it as funny as they do. "Weren't you going to Elena's?" Tyler asks.
"She wasn't there," Bonnie answers. "I called her but she said she wanted to be by herself for awhile. I'll try again later. Pizza for dinner?"
At school the next morning Bonnie finds Elena and Caroline standing outside together, talking near some of the tables that they frequent when it's warmer out. They're deserted in this chilly weather, the perfect spot for private conversations. Bonnie bends her steps toward them. When she gets there, she sees that Caroline and Elena are having a bit of an argument.
"What's going on?" she asks, looking back and forth. Caroline is wearing her familiar annoyed expression and Elena looks tired and impatient.
"Nothing," Elena says. "Caroline's freaking out because I didn't return her calls last night. Even though I just told her I just needed to be by myself."
"We can't just fall off each other's radars like that," Caroline insists. "Someone killed Stefan and Damon. We don't know who, we don't know why, so we can't just go be alone whenever we want. One of us could end up staked next."
Bonnie's really wishes Caroline wasn't worrying. If she could assure Caroline of her safety, of all of them being perfectly, completely safe, she would.
"Caroline, stop it," Bonnie sighs. "You're going to drive yourself crazy. We're working on it, okay?"
Caroline doesn't look convinced. "Did Tyler say anything more about the Klaus thing?"
This is the first time Caroline and Bonnie have talked about Tyler since the day at the Grill. Otherwise, neither of them brings him up. When they're together, Tyler might as well not exist. For now it's better to pretend he doesn't. It's even better to pretend the feelings Tyler has for her, and the feelings Bonnie has for him, don't exist either.
"Other than he doesn't think we should do it?" Bonnie says. "No."
"What do you think?" Elena asks.
"I think Klaus will be more trouble than he's worth," Bonnie says.
"So you agree with Tyler?" Caroline says.
"Yes, I agree with Tyler," Bonnie says, wondering if this will become an argument later on. "Klaus might be a short-term solution but he's definitely a long-term problem."
"Well, he's been a problem for this long," Elena says.
"And it wasn't him who killed Stefan and Damon," Caroline adds. "So how much worse can it get, even in the long term? I'd rather we take our chances with Klaus, whose brand of bad guy we know than these other people who could be planning anything."
"Klaus could also be planning anything," Bonnie says. "Even if he does agree to help, what comes after?"
"If the witch and the hybrid and their little friend come back," Caroline says, "we'll have help."
"We can handle ourselves," Bonnie insists. "But we can't trust Klaus." She looks to Elena for some kind of recognition, some flicker of understanding that this is a bad idea. "The only reason you're still alive is because Klaus needs your blood to make more hybrids. And the only reason you're alive," she nods to Caroline, "is because he's obsessed with you and that's barely enough. We're stuck with him for this cure thing but we don't need him for this. Even if he finds them, how are we to know he won't just help them do whatever it is they're trying to do?"
Caroline looks hesitant now but Elena's gaze remains steady. She's always been this way. Once she digs in her heels, there's no moving her.
But this time Bonnie will move her. She has to, for her own sake.
"Elena," Bonnie says. "We're gonna be fine. I'm more powerful now, more powerful than I've been since the dead witches. Stefan and Damon weren't the backbone of this group. If someone comes for us, we'll handle them ourselves. You guys plus me with Tyler and Jeremy. We're fine."
"You're a good witch, Bonnie," Elena says, "but-"
"There are no buts," Bonnie says. She can take on an Original if she wants to (and she does want to). "If they come back, if they come after us, we'll handle it. I'll handle it."
It annoys her that she's talking like there's an actual threesome out there planning to hurt them. And it annoys her even more that she has to prove to Elena and Caroline that she's capable of defending them against this nonexistent threat. It annoys her that Caroline thinks they're weaker without Stefan and Damon, when Bonnie's the strongest of all of them. She's the Bennett witch. People like her made them. She doesn't need vampires to be strong and she's certainly never needed Stefan or Damon. If there was a real trio - a real hybrid, witch, and hunter - gunning for them, Bonnie would deal with it. Like she deals with everything else, like she didn't deal with the Gilbert device (though she certainly could have), like she almost did with Klaus (which she would have if Elijah hadn't changed his mind), like she always does. Like she dealt with Damon and then Stefan. If they are ever in danger again, she'll deal with it.
Caroline folds her arms across her chest and sighs. Elena doesn't move.
"Guys," Bonnie sighs, "come on."
Caroline bites down on her lip and gives Elena a sidelong glance. "Elena?"
Elena holds Bonnie's gaze. Bonnie can almost see the wheels turning in her head, sorting this whole thing out, weighing her words.
"I think we should still do it," Elena says. "I don't want to risk any of us. And Caroline's right. We know Klaus even if we don't know these people. We know what Klaus wants, and we can leverage that. Whoever killed Stefan and Damon might not want anything but a trail of bodies. Ours. We're not giving it to them."
The bell rings and Elena starts walking toward the main entrance without another word. Caroline follows after her. With a sigh, Bonnie goes, too.
"It didn't work," Bonnie says, plopping down on the sofa next to Tyler. His feet are propped up on the coffee table and there's a book open across his lap that he's not reading. She tried making Elena see sense at lunch, too. All she got from that was Elena's promise not to decide anything just yet and her assertion that she wasn't going to wait forever to talk to Klaus. "Elena still wants to go to Klaus."
Tyler sighs heavily and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Now what?"
"Jeremy?"
He's her brother. Family appeals to Elena.
"It's worth a shot," Tyler says.
"Where is he?"
"Shower."
Bonnie will wait until that's done. For now she sits with Tyler, curling her legs up to her chest while they watch some documentary on a giant squid. When she asks him why he's watching it, he says nothing else was on. She doesn't insist he turn the channel.
Jeremy comes down later, drying his hair with a towel. He comes around to peer at the TV screen. "Why are you watching this?"
"Nothing's on," Bonnie says. "You have to talk to Elena."
"Bonnie's pitch didn't work," Tyler chimes, not taking his eyes from the screen.
Jeremy nods. "I'll call her now and see if she's home. Enjoy your squid."
"We will, thank you," Tyler says as Bonnie's phone starts to ring. She expects it to be Elena or maybe Caroline, one of them coming to their senses. It's Lucy. She snatches up the phone in a hurry.
"Lucy?" she says. "Did you find her?"
Tyler turns off the squid and faces Bonnie, who puts Lucy on speaker. Jeremy hurries back over to lean over the back of the couch and listen.
"Ramona Kincaid. That's your witch," Lucy says. "I found where she used to be."
Used to be?
Bonnie glances to Tyler and Jeremy who look similarly bewildered.
"Where is she now?" Bonnie asks.
"Couldn't tell you," Lucy says. "She worked out of a little store down here but the whole place has been cleaned out. I already checked the storage space she rented, and there's nothing there about you. I think you might have spooked her. She cleansed the whole place. I couldn't get a read on her. Congratulations on being terrifying."
Jeremy looks kind of proud. Tyler notices and whacks his arm but he's smiling a little, too. "Thank you," Bonnie sighs, which earns her a nudge from Tyler. "Anything else?"
If Ramona Kincaid is hiding from them, then it's unlikely Klaus will be able to find her either. A witch will certainly have a better time of staying hidden than the average person.
"I'm still looking around," Lucy assures her. "I'm going to see if anyone here is willing to talk to me. If they're not, I might be able to magic it out of them."
"Be careful," Bonnie says.
Lucy laughs. "You're telling me to be careful? I'm not the one targeting Originals, now am I?"
Bonnie smiles down at the phone.
"Am I on speaker?" Lucy asks.
"Yeah, want me to take you off?"
"No," Lucy says. "I just wanted to know if your boys were around."
"They're here."
"Hello, boys." Lucy's voice takes on the flirtatious lilt Bonnie remembers from the vampire bar where they met awhile back.
"Hello," Tyler says. He remembers that tone, too. Jeremy says "Hi" and even waves a little, like he's forgotten Lucy can't see him.
"Still handsome?" Lucy questions.
Bonnie rolls her eyes and rests her head on the back of the couch as Tyler says, "Always."
Before Jeremy can say something similarly ridiculous, Bonnie speaks. "There was something else I wanted to talk to you about."
"I'm listening."
Bonnie picks up the phone and puts it to her ear as she goes out onto the back porch. She leaves her jacket inside and the temperature is dropping so she does a little spell to warm it up a little. "Something happened," she says. "I did something."
"Something happened," Lucy repeats, "and you did something. No need to be so specific."
Bonnie smiles in spite of herself. Then she remembers what she wanted to talk about and her smile fades. "I killed someone. I didn't mean to and I didn't pick. She didn't deserve it."
On the other end, Bonnie can hear Lucy let out a breath. "What happened?"
Bonnie explains about Stefan biting her. The whole time she runs her fingers along her neck.
"Bonnie," Lucy says, "you're alive. That's not a bad thing. Don't let anyone tell you it's a bad thing."
"Someone else being dead is a bad thing."
April would certainly think it was a bad thing.
"Bonnie," Lucy says, more forcefully, "I told you once that you're one of the good ones. That's still true. You made a mistake, and I'll admit it was a big one, but you're not the first. You won't be the last either. Personally, I'm glad you're okay."
"Have you ever...?"
Lucy sighs heavily. "Unfortunately. It's gonna be fine, Bonnie. You're a good one, maybe one of the best ones. Don't forget that. I'll call you when I know more about Ramona."
Elena's not at home when Jeremy calls. She says she's having some alone time. Bonnie says it probably means Elena is doing her mourning thing on her own. He doesn't know what that entails but he doesn't get to talk to Elena until the next day. It's after school and Jeremy's got an assignment due at midnight that he hasn't even started but he's trying to convince Elena not to involve Klaus anyway.
"You don't think I should go to Klaus," she says knowingly. She's sucking from a blood bag.
"It's too big of a risk," Jeremy says, going through the cabinets for something to eat. He finds a giant bag of chips in their usual spot. "We should be trying to get away from Klaus, not invite him in further." He sits down at the kitchen table across from her. Him with his chips and her with her blood. This is what their lives have become.
"We can't do this alone," Elena sighs. The bag is finished and she crumples it into her palm to toss with perfect accuracy into the trash can. Now she's making that face she always used to make when they were younger, when Jeremy's done something annoying. She used to make that face a lot back when he was still doing drugs with Vicki. She makes it when she thinks she's saying something he just doesn't hear.
"Elena," Jeremy says, setting aside the chips. Now she's the one with the hearing problem. Ironic since her hearing is vastly improved. "I know you're desperate to know what happened to Damon and Stefan but they wouldn't want you to do this. Klaus is dangerous, especially to you. If he didn't need you to make more hybrids he would have killed you already. If you're scared, you don't need to be. We can protect each other."
With Damon and Stefan gone, they're safer. They will never be their victims again. Elena doesn't realize how safe they really are, not yet. Once some more time has passed, she'll be able to, once the grief isn't as fresh.
"Elena, I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."
Elena laughs a little. "Remember when you staked me?"
Jeremy wouldn't smile if she wasn't smiling, too. He remembers that and he remembers really wanting to kill her. If Bonnie hadn't been there, he might have. "Yeah, well. I was having a bad day. I'm not gonna stake you anytime soon, if that's what you're worried about."
Elena looks down at the table and drags her finger along the table's surface. "If Mom and Dad were alive, what do you think they'd say?"
"I don't know," Jeremy says. "They'd probably be proud of us for being alive this long, after everything we've been through."
"I'm not alive," Elena says.
Their parents hated vampires, which Elena now is, though it's not her fault. She didn't ask for it anymore than Jeremy asked to be a hunter. Even though his parents weren't hunters, they must have known how to use a stake. Jeremy's following in their footsteps more than she is. Maybe that reality has hit her.
"You're alive, Elena."
"More alive than Stefan and Damon." Elena's eyes meet his. They used to be different, back before their parents died. There was that typical tension between siblings, annoyance wrapped up in love. She's his sister, now more than ever. He doesn't need the old Elena back. He just needs Elena back, his sister, who wouldn't have chosen anyone else over him, wouldn't have let anyone hurt him.
"I know you feel alone because they're not here, but you're not," Jeremy says. "We're all together. You and me, Bonnie, Tyler, Caroline, Matt. No one can hurt us if we're together. I mean Bonnie alone is a pretty big deal, right? And there's me. I know you think I'm still a kid, but I'm a hunter. That means something. Tyler's a hybrid, and you and Caroline are vampires. Okay, so Matt's human but we can take care of him. We don't need anyone else, especially not Klaus."
Elena grasps his hands across the table. He can tell she's being careful not to squeeze too hard. Only he can see her fingers splayed across the top of his Hunter's Mark, a vampire touching his Mark and not even knowing it. She smiles. "You're right. We'll find another way."
Lucy calls in the middle of the night. It's past two when Bonnie's phone rings. With a groan she rolls over and squints against the white-blue shine of the screen. She answers. "Did New Orleans move into a different time zone?"
"No, but if we put our magic together, I'm sure we could manage that," Lucy says. "Sorry it's so late but you're gonna want to hear this."
Bonnie sits up in bed. "What is it?"
"Remember when I said you spooked Ramona?" Lucy says.
"Yes."
"I take it back," Lucy says. "Not that you three aren't scary. It's just that I found someone here. Apparently Ramona had her own little vampire love affair going on. Well, if you call being stalked by an idiot a love affair."
"I don't," Bonnie says, rubbing her eyes.
"Didn't think you did," Lucy says. "He's a weirdo but he was very thorough. And our girl Mona saw some use for him occasionally. Anyway he said she was doing work exclusively for Stefan before he died. Memory restoration, locating a dead vampire, supplying him with herbs to block a witch's - I'm assuming your - magic. He kept her busy."
"Hope he paid her well," Bonnie says.
"He did," Lucy assures her. "Too well."
"Too well?"
"Way too well."
Maybe it's because she's exhausted but Bonnie can't grasp the significance of Stefan not knowing how to make change. "So?"
"He left her with some extra work," Lucy says, "to be completed if and when he died."
"What kind of work?"
"Delivering a message," Lucy says. "And who knows what else."
Even from the grave, Stefan manages to make things difficult. Bonnie really wishes they'd managed to kill him first. Damon wouldn't have been half the headache. Well, he probably would have been a little headache, but at least it would have faded after they'd killed him.
Welcome to Mystic Falls, where even after the dead are dead, they'll still give you problems.
"Did she deliver it?"
"I don't know," Lucy says. "The vampire says he was off his game for awhile. He didn't see her sending anything or talking to anyone, but he was also lying in a gutter for a few nights. We can probably guess what that message said. And I don't have to tell you who it might have been for."
"No," Bonnie answers. She turns to the photo Elena gave her. It's nestled between candles, college acceptance letters, and jewelry. Best friends forever. Future college roommates who will take Whitmore by storm. "You don't."
