Chapter 4.1
She felt like she'd been screaming forever. Clawing at the mattress, clenching her teeth, and crying for relief that never came.
Damon had pulled a chair to her bedside, having told her that there was nothing he could do to help the pain. He'd watched it happen before. There were apparently faeries on earth if one knew where to look for them. He'd said that the faeries deemed growing wings the only pain worse than giving birth.
Despite his resolve that he could be of no help, he still tried to distract her with stories from their old lives. How she had saved the town they lived in and the people they cared about.
"Don't let it go to your head or anything," he said, "but you're the only one I ever trusted enough to do it."
He kept saying stuff like that. Complimenting her strength and bravery. If there was any sarcasm behind his words, she was too delirious with pain to detect it. Even so, she had convinced herself that he was only saying those things to make her feel better. The kicker came when he called her the guardian angel of Mystic Falls. "And now the angel is getting her wings," he'd said. She'd wanted to ask him when he'd turned sensitive and if he was being impersonated, but something snapped near her spine and she cried out instead.
Whenever she screamed, Damon's face went blank. There was no worry or concern. She thought she saw his jaw clench once. Other than that, he let nothing through.
"Tell me something real," she said during one of the lulls when the pain was more bearable. She didn't want to hear any bull about her being a hero. If he really believed that, he wouldn't have needed her to be reduced to screams for him to say it.
He leaned forward in his chair, watching her face. The blue in his eyes gave away nothing.
"We had a lot in common, you and me. Even before we rode off into the sunset together. Emotionally unavailable father. Disappearing mother. And a woman who opened our eyes to the world. You had your Grams, and I had Katherine Pierce."
She wanted to recognize the names. She thought the pain might be more bearable if she could. Only the thing about her Grams rang even the smallest bell. She knew she had given up her memory because she thought it was what the woman had wanted, and she knew that meant she must have loved and trusted her, but her future self said that listening to Grams had been wrong. Somewhere, sadness warred with the pain inside her. Another tear escaped and pooled on her cheek.
For a moment, Bonnie thought she saw Damon's calm mask break, but he continued.
"Katherine introduced me to the world of magic and wonder. She made me love her, compelled my brother, turned us both into a vampires, kept my heart like trinket for 150 years when she was supposed to be locked in a tomb, and then she broke it right in front of me. That real enough for you, Bennett?"
A bell rang, so heavy it sounded like a gong. Someone was at the door.
"Answer it," Bonnie said, gasping and trying not to succumb to more tears.
"Oh answer the door so one of the zombie herd can tell me what I already know? You're growing wings and you're as stubborn as ever. I got it covered."
Bonnie tried to sit up, pulling a blanket with her to cover her chest. With gentle, but firm, hands, Damon pushed her back onto the mattress.
"We have to let them in," she said, blinking up at him. "They can't know that anything is wrong."
"Okay, again, what aren't you telling me?"
She closed her eyes and shook her head. She was in no mood to explain what she knew, and they didn't have time. It wasn't like the door had a lock anyway. Whoever was in the hall could come in anytime they wanted. She couldn't be writhing in agony when they did.
After a breath, she looked him in the eyes and tried to plead without words. "Help me."
His nose wrinkled slightly the way it did when he was thinking about something. Then he was gone in a flash, returning not a breath later with a white silk robe, which he helped her into.
He propped her up by the door and stood behind the doorjamb. "You have a minute. Send whoever it is away."
She nodded, in no condition to argue.
When she opened the door, Samael was standing in the hall with his curls pushed back and a heavy book in his arms.
"Ben wanted you to have this. Read it in your spare time and then arrange a meeting with him once you're done. Is everything alright?" His bushy eyebrows were furrowed as he took her in.
Bonnie tried not to lean on the door so much. She knew that while the robe could hide what was happening to her back, it couldn't hide her face or her hair. She must have looked terrible.
"Everything is fine. Thank you for asking!" Her voice spiked at the end after another stabbing pain.
"Get rid of him," Damon mouthed.
She took the large brown book from Samael's hands and had to lean back to compensate for the added weight. Why was it so heavy?
"I'll read this as soon as I can," she said, trying to smile.
Samael didn't look convinced but he placed a hand over his heart and bow/nodded.
"Very well. I'll see you next hallow."
Bonnie knew that hallow was what they called the night, and it was the only time that anything ever happened. Everyone was confined to the buildings during the day, or epoch.
"Right. Great." As soon as she closed the door, her legs gave out. Damon caught her and whisked her back to the bed. When she was lying down again, he didn't pull away, opting to search her eyes instead.
"Why are you always so stupid?" he asked.
Her forehead furrowed. "I don't know what you mean."
"The girl who died only to die again. You never did a single selfish thing in your whole life, and now that you're dead, you still want to play nice," he practically spit the words at her, but he was close and all she felt was his breath. "Try being selfish. You might like it, or at least survive it."
They were almost chest to chest, and she couldn't look anywhere but in his eyes.
"Maybe selfish worked before, Damon, but I don't see it doing us any good right now."
"There it is. Bonnie Bennett's creed. Us, we, you, but never me." He sneered and stood tall above her. Another moment passed and he turned away.
She curled onto her side to get the pressure off her back, figuring that this was what he really thought of her. No hero or angel. She was too stupid to be selfish and too stubborn to ever try.
Chapter 4.2
The first wing emerged a while later. Bonnie was too exhausted to try and gage the time. Besides, there was a long, jagged, featherless wing sticking out of her back. It was large enough to cover her, and it seemed to have a mind of its own. Twitching and sometimes even flapping without her consent. She'd screamed when she first saw it. It was so…ugly. She knew now probably wasn't the time to think about her appearance, but how was she supposed to walk around with two of those things sticking out of her? She felt like a turkey or another equally hideous bird that had been plucked and primed for a feast.
At least Damon wasn't seeing her like this. Since he turned away from her, she hadn't heard anything more from him. It wouldn't have surprised her if he'd left the room during one of her shouting fits.
She wanted to ask him how his experiences with faery wings compared to this. How long it normally lasted. If the faeries looked this terrible, too.
Instead, she cried silently into her pillow, trying to be strong. She had managed to remain quiet for a while, but then the other wing started trying to force its way out.
She screamed for Damon because she didn't have anyone else to call. Her new wing beat violently, turning the room into a whirlwind. Then she blacked out from the pain.
When Bonnie came to, he had returned to the chair at her side with the book Samael had given her in his hands. Behind him, the metal shutters had been pulled up on the wall of windows, revealing the brightening sky. The view was clear. No buildings or any semblance of a city in sight. Just lots of rolling hills.
"It's not over yet," she said, afraid that the truth of the words might break her. She was sure she had never experienced anything half as painful in her life. If she had, she knew that there was nothing in Elysium or anywhere else that could wipe away the memory. The pain was unforgettable.
"Just keep breathing," Damon said, turning a page. "It doesn't get any easier from here."
She squeezed her eyes tight, wanting so badly for the pain to end.
"I can't take it," she whimpered.
"Don't be stupid," he said, his voice stern. "Before we died, you were the anchor to the Other Side. You felt the deaths of every supernatural creature who came your way. Give yourself some credit."
She wanted the words to bring her strength, as she was sure he'd intended them to, but those weren't her memories anymore. They might as well have happened to someone else.
"Damon," she said, taking a breath so she could say the words exactly right, "Do not call me stupid again."
"Or what, Little Birdy," he said with half a smile. "You gonna beat me to death with your ugly wing?"
She shot up and sat before him, hunched over. Her hair shadowing her face and covering her chest and her giant wing waving beside her.
"Maybe you haven't noticed but no one here has expressed even the slightest concern for you since we arrived. You're here because I want you to be. If I told them I wanted you gone, you would be."
Her breaths became even more labored, though it felt good to sit up after lying for so long. And having the wing didn't feel all that bad either. It was ugly, yes, but it made her feel powerful. It made beating Damon to death seem like a very real and obtainable option.
Despite the threat, Damon's smile didn't falter.
"There you go, Birdy. Get selfish."
"I'm not being selfish, Damon." She didn't know how to tell him that she wanted him, no needed him, there. When he wasn't being an ass, he was halfway comforting. "If I get rid of you, it'll be for vengeance."
"Careful, you're starting to sound like me."
"I don't want to be anything like you."
"Like me, around me, under me." His eyebrows wagged suggestively and went back to reading.
Bonnie tried to think of something else to say, but the pain spiked again and she slumped forward, clutching the edge of the bed. She closed her eyes to focus on her breathing, and when she opened them, he was staring at her. The cynicism gone from his sharp features.
"See there," he said. "You can handle anything."
Blinking, she wondered if that had been his plan all along. Get her riled up so she'd forget how exhausted she was. She had to admit, it'd worked, and she wondered about something.
"Katherine Pierce must have been a hell of a woman to get you to love her."
"No, I was just too weak of a target."
Her brow furrowed. As cruel as he was sometimes to her, she noticed that he was even crueler to himself. At least when he'd said the mean things about her, there was always a flash in his eyes that let her know that they were nothing but the words of a cynic, but when he talked about himself, there was nothing in his eyes but darkness. No mocking edge in his voice. She could tell he believed his words.
"Maybe you should give yourself more credit," she said.
His lips twitched like he wanted to argue, but he dropped his gaze to the pages in front of him.
"This book is turning into a must read," he said. "I'd give it two thumbs up but only if I could rip them off of Sammy Sam and his bald headed mistress."
"What does it say?" she asked, ignoring the comments about Samael and Ben.
"Don't worry about it."
Rolling her eyes, she reached for the book, but he pulled it to his chest and clicked his teeth at her.
"No, no, no. Not while you look like the creature that crawled out of the deep. I'll tell you about it when you do something with your hair and that monstrous thing that keeps waving at me."
"I don't get you," she said through clenched teeth.
"Well, you never asked nicely."
She shook her head. "I mean are you on my side or not? Do you want to help me or do you just want to make me feel bad about myself?"
"Bonnie Bennett," he said, straightening in his chair, "of course I want to make you feel bad about yourself. But you're my friend and I like you and I want to help you." He cocked his head to the side, staring south of her face. "Plus, your tits are practically majestic."
She had straightened her back while he'd been talking to her, and her hair was no longer covering her chest. The second she realized this, her wing snapped in front of her, leaving nothing exposed but her eyes.
Damon smiled. "Those wings are coming in handy already."
Chapter 4.3
Bonnie slept for a long time after her second wing emerged. She woke up blinking at the scene outside her windows. The brilliant orange sky, so bright and vivid and endless.
The pain had subsided some time ago, but her body still ached and she thought for a moment that she might sleep longer if it meant not having to face the throbbing in all her muscles. But as her head cleared, she became more aware of the arm around her shoulders and the body sleeping beside her. At some point in her sleep, she'd wound up with her head on Damon's shoulder and her chest pressed against his torso. All that separated them was a blanket she hadn't remembered crawling under and the thin fabric of the t-shirt he wore.
Shocked, she jerked upright. Her wings snapped open behind her, knocking Damon onto the floor with no effort at all. He landed with a painful thud, his head barely missing the side table, and then she heard him grumbling as he pulled himself to his knees and rested his arms on the edge of the bed.
"Morning, sunshine," he said. His hair was everywhere and his eyes were bright. Suddenly, her head was pounding all over again.
She started to apologize and couldn't get the words out right. When had he gotten into bed with her? Why had he thought it was a good idea? He'd said they were friends. As far as she was concerned, friends didn't need to share the same bed. Friends didn't need to be that close.
The Screening Board chimed. Immediately, she thought of her future self and future Damon. The warning they'd left for her, and the many clues they'd left about their future together. If they were to appear again at the moment, Damon would see what she'd seen, and she wondered, against her wishes, what he would think of it.
"Apex is starting in 10…9…8…"
A polite voice began the countdown. Bonnie felt the banging in her head grow worse as she realized that the shutters were still open on the windows.
The temperature in the room rose by the second. The air clouded with steam. Bonnie could feel herself burning. She flung herself across the bed and stumbled on stiff legs to the windows. The closer she got, the worst it got, the feeling that her insides were boiling right beneath her skin.
"Should I be concerned?" Damon asked, gasping behind her.
"5…4…3…"
Her wings folded over to shield her eyes from the blinding light. She slumped against the wall and found the latch Paula had showed her how to use. She slid to the floor as she pulled it, hearing body sizzling and feeling light-headed. It was exactly as Samael had said. She felt like she was evaporating.
Then the shutters were closing, slower than she would have liked. They lowered. The blinding light shrank until there was barely a slither remaining. And then it was gone.
It took a moment for the temperature in the room to return to normal and her eyes to adjust. Bonnie sat slumped against the wall, watching Damon lie on his back with one knee propped up and his hands on his head.
"Bonnie, what the hell was that?" he asked as if it were somehow her fault. As if she hadn't saved both of their asses. She pulled herself to her feet and walked over to him with her arms folded across her chest.
"That was Apex." She rolled her eyes when he blinked up at her in confusion. "Apex is the brightest part of epoch."
"Are you even speaking English?"
"When sky bright, you no go outside. You stay inside keep shutters closed or die."
He opened his mouth, but she knew what he was going to ask, so she went ahead and answered the question. "Yes, we can die here, but only during Apex. We'd literally evaporate."
She thought about explaining further, but she was exhausted and all she wanted was a shower. So she turned for the bathroom.
It was weird walking with her wings, and she had yet to get used to their size. They were strong, too. Strong enough to send Damon tumbling to the floor. She laughed as she thought about it.
"By the way," she said before closing the bathroom door. Damon quirked an eyebrow at her as he waited for her to continue. "You sleep on the couch."
Inside the bathroom, her reflection scared her. As if her hair—tangled, matted, and clumping around her shoulders—wasn't bad enough, as if the bags under her eyes weren't deep enough, her wings were massive. They almost spanned the entirety of the mirror, but they were no longer naked at least. There was a nice soft down forming on them. Feathers. She was sprouting feathers. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.
She turned to see how they looked from the back, wondering how she was supposed to wear clothes. She thought maybe they might be retractable, or hoped anyway. Clutching the edge of the sink, she leaned forward, staring into her own tired eyes and trying to focus.
"Please go in," she muttered and closed her eyes. A moment passed and nothing happened. She thought she should give up. The retracting thing was only wishful thinking, and she knew it would have made things too easy. But then she felt two snaps along her back, like someone popping her with giant rubber bands. She opened her eyes, and they were gone. Her back was completely smooth except for two long scars along her skin. She was normal again.
After her shower, she stepped out into the room, hoping Damon could explain.
He was sprawled across the couch with the book Samael had given her. He looked up when she came out in a towel, her hair dripping wet.
"Something's missing," he said.
"Yeah, my wings. I can make them disappear."
"Of course you can." He held the book up to his face and turned the page.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Bonnie asked, running her fingers through her natural curls and wishing for a brush.
"It means that nothing here makes sense until you realize that it's not supposed to," he said and clarified, "make sense, I mean."
"I'm not following."
Damon snapped the book shut and tossed it on the off-white ottoman.
"Back in the real world, there was this thing called magic," he explained. "You were a witch, so you had a fair amount of magic of your own. The important thing to know about magic is that it predates everything. Vampires, werewolves—"
"Werewolves?" Bonnie asked, not liking the sound of the word. It seemed even more threatening than the word vampire, and she didn't think that could be possible.
"Werewolves. Half human, half mangy mutt. Nasty creatures, but that's beside the point."
"And what is the point?" She hoped he'd get to the root of the conversation sooner rather than later. If he knew something that could help them better understand Elysium, she needed to know what it was.
"The point is that no one knows where magic originated. This book says that Elysium is on a different plane, one satisfyingly close to the plane that holds Earth, so if magic could be on Earth—"
"Magic could be here?"
"There you go," Damon said, wagging his eyebrows. "You're almost to the center of the Tootsie Pop."
"So me being able to move us from place to place before was magic?"
He nodded. Bonnie sat down in an arm chair, clutching her towel. "And my wings are magic, too?"
"It's very likely. When you think about it, it explains everything not just the teleporting. I'm still a vampire."
"Minus the blood lust."
Damon gave her a cunning smile and said, "How can there be blood lust when there is no blood? You just had wings claw their way out of your skin like something in a terrible eighties horror film, and yet you didn't bleed. Not one red drop."
Bonnie slapped her palm to her forehead, wondering why she hadn't noticed that. It was true that she'd been delirious with pain, but not bleeding when your skin was being ripped apart seemed like a pretty big thing to miss. She racked her brain, trying to figure out if anything Damon told her would explain the message she'd gotten from her future self. She came to the conclusion that it didn't, but she was thankful for the information none the less. At this point, any little bit helped.
"Now, here's the problem. According to the book, your new BFF's are planning to expand the Elysium plane by devouring the planes that surround it. The Earthen plane is number one on the list. Everyone on Earth will die and be faced with a choice, the same choice you made."
"They can't make the choice I made," Bonnie said, a little too much anxiety in her voice. Damon stared at her for a moment, and she figured he was waiting for her to explain, but he stood abruptly and edged around her.
"You and I agree on that, at least."
But that wasn't a good thing. Damon was going to have to make a choice of his own, and if he didn't choose to give up his memories, he would be sent away. She would be in Elysium without a tie to the life she could no longer remember, and although she knew she could handle anything, the thought of losing him when he was all she had was the loneliest most miserable thought in the world.
She figured she only had one choice. She had to get herself and Damon out of Elysium as soon as possible. She had magic and she had wings. Something was going to have to give.