The CW owns The Vampire Diaries. I, regrettably, do not.
Chapter 4
For Jesus.
There had been a lot of things between them to argue about over the years, never this.
As she sat in the conservatory of the house she had long since called her home, she descended into the spirialing abyss of her own thoughts. Turning the little smooth stone over in her hands she watched as it glittered in the sun. It was so blue.
Like his eyes.
She imagined him, standing in front of the ocean like he had last year when they went on their honeymoon trip. It had been a long trip of driving along the east coast, visiting the beaches up north and digging for clams, hunting for lobsters. There was something about the way his eyes held her, like she was peace for him.
Laughing mirthlessly, Bonnie tossed the stone in her hands, only to let it clatter to the ground aimlessly.
She knew this stone was the key.
She had lived in this house for the better part of four years, lived in this town her whole life. There was no one who lived in Mystic Falls, Virginia, who had ever owned a stone with the letters NMO stamped on the back.
When she first saw it, she had a funny feeling. Like she had seen the funny scriggles on the back of the man-made stone before. For weeks the thing had tortured her. She was about to give up, until tossing the rock into the air a memory flashed into her mind.
When she was younger, her father had taken a business trip to the other side of the country. Even then her nature bonded her to the earth and she begged her father to bring her back a beautiful rock. He had had a tour of some of the best parts of the city and when he came back, he presented her with a stone, smooth and white, like her husband's skin.
Imprinted on the back of the funny rock were the same three letters… NMO.
"National Museum of Oregon"
No one else she had ever known to be from this town had ever had anything with those three letters. She knew because she had bragged all week at school and, small town as it was, there wasn't anyone who could ever match her father's gift.
She didn't need to go back to her father's house to confirm it, there was no need. The proof was right there in her hands.
She was so overwhelmed with this information, with the possibilities and the implications, what it could mean for her and her husband if they were actually not alone in this world. Perhaps they could even return to present day, non-repeating Mystic Falls, see their old friends again.
Bonnie was mulling all this over when her husbands voice startled her out of her reverie.
He was obviously not happy about what this kind of development would mean for them. Damon only saw things from the negative side of life. Possibly because he was already dead. He thought about the fact that even if there was another person here, in this time trap with them, they might just be stuck with them. Or maybe they had just landed here, or they were survivors of some sort of apocalypse or… anything was possible.
He had been angry then, and she was sorry for bringing up her suspicions without any proof first. He had gone up to take a shower and she was going to surprise him by getting in there with him and apologizing when she heard him say something he hadn't said in years.
"Elena"
She could feel her stomach drop to her toes, her innards spool out on the cold tile floor as the steam from the shower choked her lungs and suddenly, she was back.
It was as if four years of changing emotions, two years of peace and comfort and one year of love and abandonment to that love had dissolved into the mist that now covered the mirrors and walls of the bathroom.
He should have heard her stumbling backwards over her feet, should have smelled the change in the air, but he didn't, or rather he couldn't because he wouldn't let her go. Ever.
It would always be Elena.
And now with the possibility of returning to the present so strong, their love was gone. No. It had never existed. They were just a charade, just a pretense, something to keep them going in the after life.
"NO, it couldn't… it isn't possible…"
Bonnie's thoughts ran in a jumbled mess as she gathered her clothing and ran from the house. The conservatory on the back of the property was her haven. He wouldn't look for her there.
No, he wouldn't look for me.
Something within her broke as she crossed the threshold to her private sanctum. At first, she cried, then she screamed, then she ranted. Breaking things like pots and beakers, earthenware and porcelain that she had found and gathered and brought here, she smashed and smashed everything she could get her hands on until all of them lay in shards upon the ground. And it was there she sat, atop the junk heap like Job from the Bible.
Idly she wondered if God would rescue her too in the end.
She supposed it was worth a shot.
But she had been up all night, sitting there past the broken cries, past the regret, past the shame at ever loving such a man. The emotions swirled within her as she sat looking at the stone on the floor.
It wasn't even a stone, just a plastic replica. One she wanted to burn.
Suddenly, everything in her body ached.
It was like something was coming alive inside of her, some surge of something extra within her. Something pushing her to try her powers once again.
And so she did.
Jesus, help me.
Concentrating, she picked up the little plastic stone and focused. All her energy, all her pain, all her senses, everything. Her head hurt, and her eyes blurred with tears. Her muscles roared with pain as she ground her teeth and curled her toes. It was like pushing against a brick wall.
In her mind she yelled, a wordless, continuous stream of vowel sounds, she wasn't going to let the doubt in. That's how it happened last time. She was so willing to lay down and die, so willing to let the world decide for her how she was gonna be. But not now.
No more, no more, NO MORE!
And suddenly the wall budged.
She saw the quiver in the air before she saw the flames themselves.
Like a mini heatwave that began and ended at the center of her palm. And then the flames.
In a fraction of a second the flames covered her hand and engulfed the tiny petulant rock.
But rather than let the flames consume her and the plastic stone, she saw the flames separate from her palm and wrap neatly around the plastic.
Even though the flames had only a moment earlier, covered her hand, they now licked quietly at only the blue target of her misery.
It was power, it was control. It was something she had never known so precisely.
As she sat watching the ocean blue demon darken and bubble, she gently removed her hand from it. Shriveling, crackling, charring, the blue stone sat calmly in the air above the spot she was just holding it at.
She checked her hand and saw that there was no indication that she had even been near fire. Her palm was cool to the touch.
A fire that doesn't burn
Somewhere before she had heard of something, but it wasn't magic anymore.
Somehow her unspoken feelings, her prayers, had been… expressed? No… manifested was more like it.
As the flames around the now black ashes died and wisped away, she looked around her at the mess she had made.
Dear Lord
Perhaps she could do … whatever it was she had done again?
It was worth a try.
She concentrated again, imagining in her mind the way her conservatory had looked when she had first come in last night.
Then she had a better idea.
Closing her eyes she imagined what the room would look like had she completed her projects and her plants were flourishing.
When she finally did open her eyes, she sank to her knees.
Beneath her 90's denim clad knees was soft fresh soil. Everywhere around her plants bloomed and blossomed, flourished.
It was her own paradise, and everything she had imagined was there and so much more. To her left she could hear cicadas singing, over to her right she could hear koi fish changing directions as they swam their endless patterns in the dug in pond.
This prayer- thing she was doing was something else!
Even her hearing had picked up.
Speaking of hearing…
Somewhere in the distance she could hear the sounds of bottles crashing.
That's weird, why would Damon be smashing bottles in the grocery store?
Next there was a cry of pain and then… another man's voice?
Snapping her eyes shut Bonnie concentrated hard on what Damon was saying. In her mind's eye she could see a picnic umbrella's wooden pole stabbing his hand.
She needed to be there, but how?
She opened her eyes, about to search for a way out of her conservatory and over to the main house to find one of Damon's cars. But what about the keys? Right. She might just be better off run… ning?
She didn't need to run. She didn't need to run because she was standing right in the middle of the grocery store, watching the man she heard raise a makeshift wooden stake as though he were going to stab it into Damon's—
No.
Candles all over the store burst into flame as she aimed a murderous glare at the man.
Kai is it?
How did she know that? Never mind.
She looked down at Damon and suddenly their minds collided.
He was sorry for what he'd said, even sorrier for what he'd done in the shower that he hoped she'd never know about. He had drank through his entire store of liquor at the house and came here to mope and clean out the liquor isle here. Burbon being his favorite drink he had idled here, thinking of how the color reminded him of her soft sweet skin.
She forgave him in an instant, with a smile she looked into his eyes and forgave him. She could almost feel herself the weight that lifted off of his shoulders as a small smile tugged at the edge of his mouth.
"Run" she said to him, he was gone in a flash.
"Bonnie," the man stammered "hi."
She squinted her eyes at him, she didn't like the way he said her name, as if they were already familiar. She took a moment to look into him, and saw that he had showed up here a few weeks ago, stumbled across them actually, and had been watching them (yes watching them) for some time.
The floor around him was alive with flames.
How dare he!?
Dropping his weapon the man pleaded for forgiveness. He was about to go into some sort of speech, but Damon beat him to it, literally, knocking him out with a single strike of the shovel.
After that he looked up at her trying to tell her he was sorry again. He went to hug her but she flipped her nose up at him and gave a little "hmmph" noise.
Smirking a bit, he knew exactly what that noise meant.
I told you so.