Mounds of thanks to ladyluck25 for her beta-ing/consultation.
Around 2 am Klaus and I finished our business so I left him in my fathers old office to go to bed. I was in desperate need of a good nights rest and tonight seemed very promising. I felt that I would sleep much better tonight with the knowledge that I had taken control of Bonnie's and my situation. I had ensured a favorable future for the both of us. I would do what had to be done so my father could live and so that Bonnie could return home safely where I could ensure that no lasting harm had, or would ever, come to her. I had finally put to rest every sliver of me that was afraid and unsure in favor of dredging up every last bit of courage I had within myself. It would be worth it in the end to project the unwavering strength that I had. It was obvious that I would have to get my hands a little dirty here, but none of it mattered. I managed to steel myself against any and all things that may have tested me. I had taken control.
I had discussed the possibility of sending Bonnie home now rather than later but he shot me down gently, reminding me that she'd been refusing to leave me the entire time she'd been here. He had a point. I'd told her to leave, so had he, and she'd still refused. Even if I ordered stefan to take her home against her will there would be a struggle with getting her to keep quiet about all that had transpired. Chances were she would run to the police to divulge every detail about who'd kidnapped us and why, but I couldn't have that. Not with my increasing involvement.
It was one of my main priorities to get this thing finished with Bonnie safe and sound at home with her loved ones. the only way i could think of getting her to keep her mouth shut was too tell her about the plans i had made, but i feared that that would only serve to implicate her in some way. if she got involved in this terrible business because of me i don't think id ever be able to forgive myself. I just wanted her to be safe at home with her grams.
The room was pitch black when I got in, save for a thin streak of moonlight streaming in from behind the curtains. I used the tiny bit of illumination to navigate around the messy room without knocking into anything. When I finally reached the bed though I was forced to stop short just as I was about to climb in. I had to force my hand over my mouth to keep from crying out.
It was safe to say that bonnie hadn't slept well either since we'd gotten here. It would actually be an understatement considering how much she tossed and turned in the middle of the night. Right now, however, she was sleeping as soundly as a bug in a rug. That being said I really didn't want to wake her but I definitely wanted to do something. I definitely had to do something. I bolted out of the room as quietly as I could, tripping over a pile of clothes in the process. For some reason I went straight to Klaus. I hoped he hadn't gone to sleep yet but if I were being perfectly honest I wouldn't care too much if he had. I had no qualms with waking him up at such an ungodly hour.
"Mikaelson, I need your help." I stopped directly in the doorway of my fathers office. He was just where i'd left him. He had, thankfully, not gone to sleep yet but he had begun hitting the bourbon. Lovely.
"Last I checked you were simply getting into bed, love. How could you possibly require my assistance with that?" I knew exactly what his sarcastic tone was hinting at and resisted the urge to slap him in the face as hard as I could.
"No, I need your help with getting your brother out of my bed," I shivered at the memory of him in the bed next to Bonnie. I expected Klaus to agree to help me but instead he started to laugh. "It's not funny."
"I know, I know, sweetheart."
"Then stop laughing!" I cried out indignantly. I failed to see what he found so funny about what I had just asked of him. This was a serious problem, not to mention a breach of boundaries. He nodded and took another second to gain control of his outburst. "I want your no good, criminally insane brother away from my best friend." Kol's reputation around school had been…bad to say the least. He was, at best, a mischievous little miscreant. The fact that he was as involved in this lifestyle as Klaus did nothing to improve my favor. I wanted him away from her. As if it wasn't enough that i'd dragged her into this, he had to invade her personal space?
"Firstly, caroline, I believe it is completely within your capabilities to remove him from your quarters. Secondly, didn't Ms. Bennett knock him out the other day completely on her own for him daring to flirt with her? I have reservations in believing he'd be in that room with her without her express consent. Thirdly, Kol is not one to be very 'cuddly' meaning they're probably at an appropriate distance from one another. No hanky panky, my dear, no worries."
I glared at Klaus challengingly. I was daring him to say one more word against my conviction on this matter. I considered barking at him to stop talking but decided against it. Instead I just spun around on my heel, expecting him to follow me like a puppy. It was fitting. I could very easily make Klaus my bitch. I knew he had a thing for me but after all this I'd dare say he'd developed actual feelings for me. Whether it was as a person, as a friend, or as something more I didn't really know or care. It would be sweet if he wasn't totally psychotically evil. I may appreciate his burgeoning feelings a little more if he hadn't bribed me into kissing him then kidnapped me 'for my own protection'.
Unsurprisingly, he followed me up to stairs into the room. In retrospect perhaps instead of writing him off as wrong on all accounts, because he was wrong and I was right and he'd really needed to shut the hell up and listen, I could have taken a moment to consider what he'd said. He'd had sort of a point. Bonnie could handle herself. She was a total badass if anyone dared to mess with her or her friends. But that didn't really seem to apply here. Something felt off. For all I knew Kol had abused the captor-captee dynamic.
"Get him out of the bed without waking her up." I whisper yelled at Klaus when we reached the side of the bed. he looked about as shocked as i had felt, although his expression was also one of confusion. he'd said his brother was not the 'cuddly type' and yet here he was snuggled up to Bonnie, hanging on to her like he was afraid she'd float away while they slept.
Klaus knelt by the bed to gently rouse his younger brother. I zoned out but was aware that Klaus and Kol were having a quick conversation. I wasn't interested in what they could possibly be talking about. The longer I was awake the crankier I got. Eventually Kol slowly rose from the bed, nodding in my general direction as he left the room. I breathed a sigh of relief. The knot of uneasiness in the pit of my stomach slowly yet surely unraveled itself.
"She didn't want to be in here all by herself. He was only supposed to sit here to talk to her until you came back but they both fell asleep." Klaus pecked me on the forehead to bid me goodnight, promising we would talk more in the morning.
Strangely enough I woke up earlier than Bonnie the next day. I felt completely refreshed for someone who'd only gotten a few hours of sleep. I sprung out of bed to make some tea for Bon and some coffee for myself. Klaus had had Damon stock the house full of Bonnie's and my favorite things partially to increase our comfort but mostly just to minimize my complaints. I was an absolute demon in the mornings without some type of caffeine in my system, so really I was doing them a favor. As long as Klaus met my utility demands, I wouldn't have to maim him. After enjoying my cup of coffee, I made Bonnie's tea to bring up to her. If she wasn't awake yet then I absolutely had to wake her up. We had to talk about my conversation with Klaus or perhaps more interestingly the full details of why she was in bed with Kol Mikaelson.
I sat on the edge of the bed with her tea in my hands for a few minutes. She didn't even stir. Finally I threw a pillow at her, yelling for her to get her ass up. She sprung up immediately, looking like she'd just seen a murderer. She glared at me and threw the pillow back. She wasn't really a morning person either. Her hair was sticking out in a million directions, she had a little drool peeping from the corner of her mouth, and her eyes spoke of a lethal grumpiness. I giggled at her and offered the warm cup of tea.
"What time is it, Malibu Barbie?" she accepted the tea with a subtle yawn. I took a glance at the clock.
"Its about 9:30, but who cares? What I wanna know is why I found you how I found you last night."
"Speak english and I may be able to tell you." Bonnie taunted, smirking behind her drink.
"Why were you, Bonnie Sheila Bennett, spooning with Kol Mikaelson?" I was being very dramatic, I know, but I could not help myself. I watched my best friend very carefully as I spoke to gauge her reaction to my words. Her face would tell me everything I needed to know, regardless of what her words would be. Bonnie put her tea aside and stared at her hands for a while. She scrunched up her nose a little, meaning she was just as confused about something as she was upset by it. My cheeky mood disappeared and I was by her side in an instant. This couldn't be good, trivial or not. Finally she shrugged.
"I woke up in like the middle of the night and you weren't here, which is totally fine I guess. I just assumed you went to the bathroom or something so I went to get myself a glass of water but I ran into Kol instead. He offered to wait with me until you came back. He's really annoying by the way. But he's nice. He apologized for keeping us here and asked how I was handling everything. He was comforting. He made me feel really safe." She paused to take a sip from the cup that'd magically reappeared in her hands. I had a feeling she was just holding onto it because the warmth soothed her nerves. "He even let me use his phone. I was gonna call grams but…"
"She could potentially over excite herself into a heart attack." Bonnie nodded.
"I called Lexi to tell her we were okay. She filled me in on everything. Grams and Liz are worried sick, the police are useless, Tyler is a miserable little twat, and Jeremy is back with Anna. Yeah, apparently he was wrecked when I first went missing and she helped him through his grief," the sarcasm and resentment was in her voice was plain.
"Utter bullshit."
Coupled with the fact that she was talking fast and had begun to tear up I couldn't believe half of what I was hearing. Of course our loved ones were worried. Sure the police would be incompetent without my mom to help them. But Tyler was miserable? No. Absolutely not. He was not allowed a sliver of guilt over our disappearance. He was not allowed to miss me. As for little Gilbert, he'd always been scum. Bonnie had always been too good for him. She was a bonafide woman in charge whereas he may as well be just a little boy playing with action figures. Even so, I could tell Bon was hurt that he'd moved on so quickly. They'd been gone for a bit but certainly not long enough for him to go running back to Anna. I placed a comforting hand on hers and squeezed tightly. There was literally nowhere for her to go but up. Jeremy was the literal rock bottom of the dating pit, Tyler took the spot right above that. We could both do better.
"I'm sick of high school boys. I'm swearing off them for good," now I knew that was a lie. Bonnie didn't like to go too far out of range. Her limits were a year younger or a year older, maybe two if he was worth it. "I just want to go home, Care. This is probably going to sound a little pathetic but I just can't be by myself. I can hardly sleep without someone here with me. Every time I'm alone I just get trapped in my own head. Its scary. I get to thinking like what if they never let us go or what if they kill us? And, I mean, even if they do let us go we'll never be the same Caroline."
I flinched at her words. She was too loyal for her own good. She'd been given opportunities to escape but had refused if it meant leaving me behind. She'd potentially risked her life, although I knew they wouldn't kill us, just to stay here with me. I considered putting it on the table that she be release d again but Klaus would just throw the dangers of it back in my face. I looked at her for a moment, trying to weigh my options. No. I decided it didn't matter what the risks of keeping her here were. I wanted Bonnie to go home and I wanted her home now.
"I proposed a mutually beneficial arrangement to Klaus last night. That's where I was. He accepted. If all goes well my father will get to live and we could go home. I suggested that you be sent home first as an act of good faith." I watched her stare at me completely dumbfounded.
"So you made a deal with the devil? I could go home? Over my dead body," she deadpanned. She shot me a look of complete defiance. I felt myself grow frustrated.
"I made a deal with the devil to keep my loved ones, including you, safe. Provided you tell no one where I am, who I am, or what I'm doing you could go home relatively unscathed." I didn't even want to consider what would happen if she refused. She would end up going to the Mikaelson event with the rest of us. She could misinterpret a piece of the plan and do something stupid. She wouldn't die but she could actually get hurt. I couldn't live with myself if she did. She'd be scarred for life, even more so than she is now.
"I'm not leaving you alone. What don't you understand about that? You know what, no, end of discussion." Bonnie stormed out of the room leaving me to crumple into the bed, defeated.
I had never encountered someone so completely devoid of self preservation instincts in my life. Bonnie wasn't leaving me with any options here. My only hope seemed to be that I have Klaus dole out extra security detail on her. When I was just about to wave my white flag and accept Bonnie's stubbornness I got an idea. I made the snap decision to carry out my idea, practically flying out of my room down to the living room to find Klaus. I found him in my fathers study, looking over a few diagrams. He looked busy but I couldn't care less.
"Can you spare a man?" Klaus was obviously startled by my interruption but I had no time to waste. The sooner I convinced him what I was doing was what was best, also that his opinion on it didn't matter in the slightest, the better. "Scratch that. Could you spare Stefan or Kol?"
"I could never spare Stefan but until my mothers event Kol is definitely dispensable, why?"
"Good. I am going to order that he reverse kidnap Bonnie. He will be under strict order to keep surveillance on her to ensure that she is safe and that she doesn't say anything. If I find out he has slacked in any way I will decimate him. Do I make myself abundantly clear?" I inquired challengingly. I was sure my tone of voice left no room for discussion. Even if it had, there would be no discussion. Klaus nodded his assent that he understood her clearly, up to the part where she insinuated he didn't have a choice.
Right now they were all just biding their time finalizing details. From what I understood of the rundowns Klaus had given me of his main team, Kol was bound to screw something up sooner or later. Bonnie would probably hate me for this, but it was definitely for her own good. Bonnie was in danger if she stayed. She was stubborn but so was I and I refuse to let Bonnie sacrifice any more for me than she already had. I knew having Kol reverse kidnap her was a risk but Bonnie seemed to be warming up to Kol. She had said it herself, Kol had made her feel safe when she woke up to find that I was gone. But on the off chance that Kol truly was as much as a fuck up as Klaus had mentioned and Bonnie got so much as a paper cut, I would hold the Mikaelson's personally responsible and end every last one of them myself. I was calling the shots now. I'd be damned if even one of them stepped a fraction out of line.
