AN: Thank you for all of the favourites and reviews! Here is a holiday treat for you =) I'm sorry this one is so long! The next chapter is coming soon, and it is very Bonnie/Damon-bonding focused. Enjoy!

Damon's accusing tone momentarily stifled the butterflies that had previously been working their way from Bonnie's stomach to the confines of her tight lungs. Crouched in the door frame, the wind whipped gently around her as she sat at the precipice of heat and cold: between a warm home and a cool night. Damon sat with his back to her, leaning against the wall of her home and staring with narrowed eyes into the distance as if he were studying the stars.

Even with the barrier between them – even with Damon's face contorted in mocking anger – Bonnie still felt pulled towards him. Like that night weeks ago when, against her better judgment, she hurried to comfort the demon as his eyes brimmed over with silent suffering. She had no choice – in that moment she was Damon. She was suffering with him – or, maybe he was suffering with her – the loneliness, the solitude, the darkness that they had both briefly lost themselves to – were all twisted up with each other so that she couldn't tell where her pain ended and his began. She needed to comfort him – she needed to stop his sadness, if only so that she could balm her own.

In the weeks between the summonings, Bonnie had convinced herself she'd imagined it. She must have exaggerated the strength of the connection; she was just reacting out of guilt for hurting another living – albeit depraved – soul, there was no way she could be so connected to Damon of all people. Her rationalizations were so persuasive that when he showed up on her porch tonight, brimming with the same amusement, the same ecstatic, playful buzz with which she sensed his presence, she was shocked. There it was again – that desperate need to be beside him; that longing to touch him like an itch she couldn't allow herself to scratch. It was annoying, and frustrating, and - now that she thought about it – an entirely appropriate sensation to associate with the vampire.

She was being drawn towards him by the spell; she was starting to project her feelings on to him – it was clouding her judgment, it was putting her risky situations. She didn't trust it. Hell, Bonnie didn't trust herself. So she forced him to remain outside her door, and she refused to budge from behind the barrier or allow him to breach it.

Damon let out an annoyed sigh – "How do you know? Emily could've been summoning anyone."

"I looked into it after you left," Bonnie said quietly. "I wanted to know why you—well, why it affected you like it did. You looked so," she forced herself to face him, "tortured."

Damon scoffed, ignoring her assessment of his state. He had been tortured – forced to feel the weight of one hundred and forty five years of murder, spite, rejection and anger in the space of a few seconds – and she was the cause. How convenient of the judgy little witch to ignore her hand in his anguish! "And?"

"I cross-checked the date of the spell with some history books in the library. Emily is mentioned very briefly in the same year." Bonnie took a steadying breath. "She died that year, Damon. She was calling Katherine to save her."

Damon frowned. "Katherine wouldn't save her. Emily must have known that." He turned his head to face her, "You Bennetts can't all be that stupid." When she set her annoyed eyes at him with a frustrated breath, Damon wanted to smile. It was a strange feeling, to want to laugh as they discussed Katherine's possible release – but there was something strange about this moment. He felt, again, like he was forgetting something. There was something he had meant to do, but he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was.

"Regardless," Bonnie closed her eyes as a testament to her patience, "of what a psychotic, selfish bitch your lady love is," she smirked with her eyes closed, resting her head against the door frame so her neck arched into a tempting curve. "She fits the needs of the spell."

Damon watched the vein in Bonnie's luscious neck pulsate slowly, and focused his ears to listen to it – concentrated on smelling the sultry, sweet scent of bewitched blood – but he couldn't. She made an ethereal image in the space of silence between her next words; Damon was entranced by the light that seemed to spark and float in a delicate glow around her. He felt a sudden urge to touch her, to lure her beyond the barrier and clutch her fragile body in his killer hands.

But her eyes snapped open, and she broke the reverie with her own condescending tone: "These spells aren't as simple as you think. They're based on a bond between the witch and the summoned. Katherine fits – Emily had a bond with Katherine, she had strong memories and experiences with her, she probably had lots of tokens to channel her with. You can't do the spell without an emo—"

"An emotional connection, blah blah blah." Damon interrupted, rolling his eyes. "Spare me the lecture."

Bonnie gritted her teeth. Even with Damon showing off his talent of aggravating her, Bonnie couldn't drown out the edge of ecstasy that had settled over her the second he appeared. "And since Katherine and I don't share any common emotions, I thought maybe I couldn't summon her."

"You don't know what you share." Damon shook his head in frustration. Then suddenly, he turned to look at her. Bonnie's forehead was knotted in frustration and worry – she was searching him for answers. She didn't expect him to smirk at her, to send a fluttering through her chest as he said with an arched eye brow: "So, we have an emotional connection, eh? I always knew there was something between us."

"Yeah," Bonnie frowned. "Hate."

"Sure," Damon said drily. "You hate me. Katherine hates me. Maybe that's your shared wavelength, Bon-Bon. Hell, who knows who you might've summoned channelling that feeling."

Bonnie set her lips resolutely. "No. You have to think of them to summon them. I haven't thought of anyone... well, except you." She dismissed him with a wave of her hand.

"Not even Katherine?"

"Why would I think of Katherine?" She snapped.

"Not even tonight?" He persisted, "She wasn't in the corner of your tiny mind as you called me, knowing the spell was meant for her?" Bonnie was silent as he glared at her. It was only a second's pause in which their eyes met and held, but it was enough to rekindle the nervous butterflies in his stomach. He felt unsettled, and insecure. He forgot what he'd asked her, what he was expecting her to say, as he slipped into the hypnotic trance of her green eyes. His face felt warm, his eyes wanted to droop closed – he remembered the strange sensation of her palm against his cheek – the soothing sound of her voice as her breath hit his ear – it's okay, you'll be alright.

"I don't know!" Bonnie said, "Not on purpose."

Damon rolled his eyes. "So you hate me, and you thought of Katherine."

"Emily's grimoire is probably enough to be a token," Bonnie admitted, shuddering at the thought. "If she was near it long enough, and enough of it is about or for her, then..."

"You don't have tokens from me." Damon said, suddenly. "Are you sure you even know what you're doing?"

"Who needs a token when you're stalking me?" Bonnie spat back.

Damon grinned, "I told you – I wasn't stalking you. You must have summoned me."

Bonnie gaped at him, and sputtered: "How could I summon you? I was channelling Grams."

"Maybe our emotional connection is a lot stronger than you want to admit." He smirked.

"Well, I do hate you an awful lot," Bonnie conceded with a wicked smile.

"It is my fault she's dead," Damon said casually as he narrowed his eyes to study her reaction. Bonnie trained her face to not respond, and only arched an eye brow in annoyed disbelief when he continued: "Or at least that's what your simple mind thinks. You must have thought of me when you were summoning her." He grinned when her face fell: "You did think of me."

"I was thinking about my dead grandmother, not touching myself." Bonnie struggled to keep from throwing him across her yard. "No need to look so smug."

"Can't help it," Damon shrugged, his grin growing impossibly large across his face. "Especially with that lovely image in my mind."

"How could I have summoned you without any tokens of yours?" Bonnie reminded him, trying to pull the conversation back to the point.

"Well, summoning spells aren't as simple as you think," Damon mocked, doing his best Bonnie impersonation and gesturing wildly. "Maybe Emily got it wrong."

"Maybe." Bonnie rolled her eyes.

Damon stood suddenly, shoving his hands in his pockets and making his way from the Bennett home as easily as he came. He called over his shoulder as he hopped down the stairs: "Next time you want to see me, Bennett – use a cell phone. It's 2010, not 1864." At the bottom, he turned to offer her a charming smirk.

"Where are you going?" Bonnie asked as the distance between them increased, clutching the edge of the door to keep herself from stepping beyond it.

"To the tomb." He said, turning to look at her without breaking his stride – walking backwards without a hitch in his gait. "There's only one way to find out for certain."

"Wait, Damon," Bonnie said, suddenly shy. "Do you feel that?" The fluttering kicked up as he turned to look at her from the bottom of the porch. He tossed her a teasing smile, "Feel what?"

"Like a—" She struggled for words as she gestured at the space between them, "like a fluttering feeling," she waved her hand over her heart and stomach, "like bubbles bursting all over here?"

His eyes twinkled as he looked at her. Ha! So she was the reason for the strange, tickling delight that curled warmly around him that evening. He was reflecting her emotional energy. His mind turned briefly to the deep grief he'd felt during the last summoning, but he quickly dismissed the thought. That tortured, tormenting grief – that couldn't be brewing in his witch – he couldn't handle being responsible for that. Damon smirked, "I tend to have that effect on women."

Bonnie scowled, "Nevermind, forget I asked!" Ugh, so was it all her – this strange sensation, this odd ecstasy was all her own? Just looking at his smug expression made her grind her teeth in frustration. Without another word, she spun on her heel and slammed the door behind her.

For a second, Bonnie stood with her back to the door. Just knowing he was on the other side, she felt a strange desire to remain close. Stifling the overwhelming urge to open the door and be face to face with the vampire again, Bonnie clenched her fists resolutely and forced herself deeper into her house in an attempt to more fully sever the spell's enhanced connection.

For a second after Bonnie closed the door, Damon fought the urge to rush up the porch steps, desperate to feel her in close proximity. He felt the tug fade, and the fluttering sensation become a dull hum as – he assumed – she moved further away from the door. He ignored the remnants of strings that his puppet master was pulling at with her magic fingers, and forced himself to set his mind to the mission at hand: to Katherine.

BDBDBD

Damon grunted, strangely feeling the exertion of his strength as he pushed the tomb door open. He flexed his muscles subconsciously, preparing himself to either find it empty, or to be attacked by a very powerful vampire going insane from the lack of blood and the siren's call that she could not answer.

When he'd stopped by the boarding house earlier for a shot of blood and some potential back up, he'd found a very broody Stefan giving him the third degree about his whereabouts. Shrugging him off, he'd made some excuse about meeting Sherriff Forbes and left them to continue planning some adolescent get together at the Boarding house in two weeks. Stefan was like a stranger to him: he was too old for high school intrigue – seen and done too much to be so captivated in the life of a teenage girl. Granted, Elena was a beautiful and sentimental teenager to be fixated on. But nonetheless, he knew in his gut that figuring out the dynamics of a very puzzling summoning spell was something better kept to himself before he got another lecture about the importance of humanity, and normal teenage experiences and blah blah blah from the dynamic duo.

So he took a steadying breath, and a bag of blood, and met Katherine on his own.

"Damon." She said, with a hand on her hip, trying to sound commanding but sounding more like a dizzy, distracted child. She shook her head and tried again: "Did you miss me?"

He tossed her the blood bag, and watched as she devoured it hungrily in seconds, looking up at him with a smirk on her face afterwards. "Good to know I won't wither away." When his only reply was an arched brow, she continued more herself this time: "Doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose to feed me every few weeks? You could save yourself the trouble and toss that Gilbert boy in here again."

Damon smiled, and his eyes went wild. "You seem to be yourself – not particularly eager to go anywhere."

Katherine narrowed her eyes at him, and asked like an exhausted and impatient mother. "What are you getting at, Damon?"

"Maybe you haven't heard it from your little sound proof cell," He gestured with his fingers, "But someone's been summoning you."

Katherine smiled slowly, and let out a curious laugh. "Summoning me?"

"You haven't heard it." He concluded, with a frown.

"Oh, I've heard it." Katherine met his eyes, and licked a stray drop of blood from the corner of her lips. "I'm particularly in tune with the Bennett blood line."

"And yet, it's not enough to break this spell because here you are." Damon said, tauntingly. "You're still trapped here. You must be desperate to answer that call."

Katherine crossed her arms, mirroring Damon's casual but condescending stance. "You think the Bennett witch is summoning me." She laughed more wildly this time, raising her thin hands to cradle her face in unabashed amusement. "You always were so... cute. And simple-minded."

"It's Emily's spell." Damon said through gritted teeth. "She was summoning you the year she died."

"OK." Katherine arched an eyebrow, and smiled wickedly.

Damon's anger flared and he stepped dangerously close to the edge of the barrier. "Did Emily summon you?"

Katherine laughed again, taking a step back and said irrelevantly with the wave of her hand. "Summoning spells breaking barriers – what an interesting theory."

"Did she summon you?" Damon said like a threat, slamming his fist against the wall as he felt the familiar tug at his chest start to flutter into anxiety and distress.

"After all," she continued with an arched brow, "Who summons someone who is otherwise easily reachable?" Katherine paused to smirk thoughtfully as she cast her eyes around her confines, "This prison probably is no match for a well cast dark spell. I guess we'll find out soon enough."

"Answer me!" He growled and narrowed his eyes at the decaying vampire, who just smiled in return as she walked backwards and faded into the darkness.

"Tell Bonnie I'll be seeing her soon."

BDBDBD

When Bonnie left home for school the next day, she found Damon sitting on her porch stairs, sprawled out and deep in thought. She almost thought she startled him – but that was impossible, surely he could hear her steps, and her heart beating, and smell her – she ignored this thought, nervously – witch's blood. His face was more gaunt than a vampire's should be – he had stayed up thinking about what Katherine had said – what her insane, blood-starved laughter had meant: "Summoning me?"

"Damon!" Bonnie said, kicking him lightly before sitting down beside him. She checked her watch – she had to hurry, or she'd be late for school. "I waited for you last night, you never came back."

Damon turned to her, furrowing his brow. He stared at her for a moment, feeling the flutters bubble up and clenched his teeth before they spilled out of his mouth in the form of some inane, disgustingly pointless words. "I paid Katherine a little visit last night."

Bonnie's eyes grew wide. "Is she—"

"She's still there," Damon interrupted, shaking his head and narrowing his eyes at her. It was like he was trying to figure out – test her – like he suspected her, or something. Bonnie shuddered slightly at the thought of it: how evil could this spell be if Damon was suspicious of her?

"The spell breaks barriers," He continued, pensively. "It must. It's a dark spell, it makes sense. Who summons someone who isn't trapped behind some kind of barrier anyway?"

Damon rambled on, running a shaking hand through his hair as he scanned the distance. He looked as though he'd been up all night – as haggard as a human keeping watch at her door step like a sentinel. But Damon would never do that. "Have you been here all night?" Bonnie asked gently, and his eyes snapped back to life.

"Are you listening to me, little witch?" Damon said slowly, leaning back against the stair case and returning his eyes to the distance.

"Katherine's in the tomb," Bonnie nodded, so awash with relief that she didn't feel the need to return Damon's tone. "It can break barriers, but it didn't."

"But it can." Damon insisted. He felt the nervous bubbles building again, stifling him as they rose up his chest. She was still looking at him with that pitiful, gentle look in her eyes – had he really been here all night? Thinking, worrying, and watching out for that psycho vamp bitch?

Bonnie offered Damon another gentle smile and he rolled his eyes at her, furrowing his brow deeper and shoving his hands in his pocket. His hand went absently over his heart, and she mirrored his movement: flurries of excitement started to build again. "Damon?"

He didn't respond, so she inched closer. Bonnie licked her lips, and stopped herself from asking again – Do you feel that? – especially when Damon's gritted teeth and concentrated scowl was mirroring exactly how she wanted to respond to the gleeful turmoil twisting around her heart. She rested her hand on the space between them and saw his hand twitch and then clench into an inaccessible fist. He moved to put it in his pocket, but she stopped him – stretching her fingers to brush and rest against his.

He turned to face her slowly as his hand relaxed under hers – it was a loose fist now, and her fingers felt easily into the curve of his palm. Damon's brow smoothed out, and his jaw relaxed. He closed his eyes as a feeling of settled relief settled over his aching nerves. The fluttery, fragile bubbles burst at the edge of his throat in a sigh and seemed to spread a sweet contentment throughout his body.

Any surprise Bonnie felt at Damon's reaction was quickly silenced by her own sudden burst of calmness. The butterflies stopped fluttering, and instead warmth reached tickling fingers up and outwards throughout her body. She felt as though she had remembered something at once important and relieving: she wanted to laugh, and, without thinking, squeezed her fingers more tightly over Damon's palm.

His eyes shot open and he was staring at her again. He pulled his hand away, and shoved it in her pocket. His face contorted as he struggled to keep the vampire at bay. All at once, he was overwhelmed by a crushing desire to pull her to him, to tug at the long strands of black hair until her throat was revealed and pulsating before him. Finally - he could smell her blood: the sweet, tangy scent – the dulcet melody of her pulse fluttering in his ears like a bird's wings trapped in his palm. Except he didn't want to let the bird go as he dropped her hand and hastily stood and blinked to regain composure: he wanted to clap his hands together and absorb her chirping song into his heart – spill her blood into his skin.

"Damon?" Bonnie asked, squinting at him in the morning light as he walked away from her. She rubbed her palms against her jeans as she stood up, as if she could wipe off the warm tingles his touch had ignited.

"What?" Damon barked at her, the vampire in him coming to the surface – his fangs curved dangerously at the edge of his mouth. Bonnie forced herself not to lean backwards as the force of his aggressive, predatory question hit her. Adrenaline kicking in, she was about to focus her energy into creating tiny sparks of aneurysms in his mind when he let out a mournful, hungry growl and disappeared from her sight.

Bonnie wasted no time hurrying to her car and driving directly to school. She wouldn't see Damon for the rest of the week – even as she stopped by the Salvatore residence to go over plans for her upcoming birthday party, Damon was nowhere to be seen. Even without him present, Bonnie was still haunted by the image of his eyes – the sound of his voice: The spell can break barriers.

She shuddered alone in her room at night thinking about it. When she woke from lonely dreams – dreams where she was desperate, reaching and grasping for Grams' hand as she was pulled into a world where Bonnie couldn't reach her – her immediate thought was Damon. She would rush to the window to find her porch empty – to see her father's car gone, to feel, again that settled, sick feeling at the pit of her stomach of being absolutely and utterly alone.

BDBDBD

"What did you do?" Damon barked at her playfully the following week, even before she had fully opened the door to meet his amused eyes. He tilted his head to one side as she braced herself against the door, clad in a purple satin robe and fluffy bedroom slippers and cradling a tea candle whose flame was burning much higher than it should be.

Bonnie let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, "You came."

"Of course I came – you called." He narrowed his eyes at her. There was something strange – something nervous, something sultry about the atmosphere air tonight. "The question is – why?"

Bonnie shrugged at him. "I wanted to try calling Grams again."

Damon rolled his eyes, "So you dialled the wrong number and got bad old Damon instead?" He crossed his arms, and leaned against the outside of her door, facing her. He sniffed the air for her blood, but could only smell fire and lavender wafting from the candle – or maybe wafting from the witch herself.

"No," Bonnie shook her head, "You said the spell can break barriers." The candle light danced off of the angles of her face as she looked up at him, unsure of herself. Her skin seemed to glow – seemed to hum with discordant light that fought with the flame for his attention.

"Right; which is why I thought we agreed you weren't going to do this anymore," Damon's eyes danced with the threat of danger. A sly smile spread across his lips as he spoke smoothly: "Are you so desperate to see me that you're willing to risk freeing Katherine?"

"First," Bonnie said, as she dropped the candle from her hand and hovered her palm over it, setting it gently on the floor, "I never said that I wouldn't cast the spell again." With the twist of her wrist, the candle flame was replaced with a smouldering stream of smoke. Damon's gaze was steady and unstuttering as he watched her skin ring with the most delicious firefly glow.

"Second," Bonnie hesitated, unsure of herself. Damon shifted his weight in response. "I would risk almost anything to see Grams again."

"Then why am I standing here?" Damon asked, with a fake smile plastered across his face. He felt tense – like he didn't want to hear her answer – you're an accident.

"I wanted to see you." Bonnie startled even herself with the frankness of her words. The smile on Damon's face seemed to spread teasingly into his eyes as he waited for her to continue. Bonnie ignored the nervous heating spreading across her cheeks in what she was sure he, in his arrogance, would interpret as a blush. "You were avoiding me. Anyway, you said the spell can break barriers. There's a barrier here. Let's break it."

"Barrier?" Damon leaned forward in morbid curiosity. He smiled when she gestured at the doorway. She wouldn't invite him in – that would be too obvious; and, well, kind of pointless. "How?"

"I've thought about it all week." Bonnie said, seriously. "The only difference between what this barrier means to you – and what Katherine's means to her is that she is desperate to break it. Hungering, starving even."

"And?" Damon smiled charmingly. He could taste the metallic edge of the air; there was something sensual about the way Bonnie stood – about the way she tossed her hair behind her and met his eyes dead on without fear. "You're going to starve me?"

Bonnie smiled slowly, and that creeping blush crawled its way to her cheeks again. Although the heat in her face was usually invisible, in the throes of a spell, it edged her bronze glow with a subtle pink that emanated a delicious heat of its own. Damon licked his lips as he awaited her response.

"I want you to want to cross this barrier, Damon." Bonnie said seriously, holding his eye as she reached for the knot at her waist. "So I'm turning to my last resort." His eyes had left her face: he was focusing on those nimble fingers untying the knot – on the belt slipping from her hands to the floor beneath her feet, half in and half outside her home. "Temptation."

Bonnie kept her eyes trained on Damon's, bracing herself for a possible attack – and steeling herself against what she was exposing herself to: both physically if he attacked her, and emotionally if he ridiculed her. She pulled the collar of the robe down over her shoulders and held it there for a moment.

The witch was glowing. Light was buzzing and dancing off of her in waves of bronze and blue and pink light – and the more of herself she revealed, the more entranced he was – the more captivated, the more difficult it was to pull his eyes from her form.

Bonnie took a deep breath and let go. The robe fluttered to the ground in a pool of satin at her feet. She stood in front of Damon, awkwardly trying to fake a pose of confidence, in a matching purple lacy panty set.

Surely he couldn't be the only one who could see this firework display at two in the morning – surely if a neighbour was awake, they'd become suspicious and he'd have to snap some necks. But instead of feeling annoyed, Damon felt a surge of possessiveness ignite his adrenaline – he took a step closer to her, squaring himself in front of the doorway to block the view of peering eyes. "What are you doing?" He growled.

Bonnie smiled up at him, as the strange tug toward him began to singe with an unnameable heat: "Just, you know, testing a theory."