Author's Note: I like the guesses I've seen in the reviews so far. I won't say who's hot or cold, but damn are y'all perceptive. ;) And thank you, thank you for the kind words. I really do love this story because it's kind of effortless and has been very good for my writing in general, but I love that you guys are intrigued by it as well. Ain't no stopping me now!


viii.

In her dream, Elena welcomed her back with open arms. A warm and tight embrace meant to replace all the months she'd gone without. This is not how Elena reacts to finding Bonnie at her door.

Bonnie had a small break between classes so she thought to run to her dorm and cram in some studying. As she neared her old room, she remembered the pox was no longer in effect and she could be around her friends. Caroline had made obvious efforts to avoid Bonnie and Liv on campus, fridging them both when they'd happened upon each other at a coffee shop. But Elena was harder to track down. So Bonnie stopped in front of the door to the room that had once been her own and knocked.

Elena stood on the other side of the open entryway and blinked. She didn't move to hug Bonnie, or smile, or speak. She just stared at her.

"Hey, can we talk?"

Elena blinks out of her trance-like state and turns around. On her bed is a messenger bag, an avalanche of textbooks spilling out, and the girl's cell phone chiming every few moments from text messages. "Uh, I'm actually on my way to the hospital. I have a shift with Jo. Is it important?"

"Not really." Bonnie rubs her hands over her arms from an invisible chill. Since when did Elena give the cold shoulder? "I just haven't seen you in a while. How are you?"

Elena tosses her bone straight hair over her shoulder and shrugs. "Good," she says except it comes out like a question. She stuffs her books back in her bag and hooks the strap over her shoulder. "Sorry. I'm really in a hurry. We should catch up later?"

"You sure about that?"

She tilts her head and auburn strands fall over her shoulder again. "What?"

"I moved out and you're adjusting to being human again, but if I did something wrong please let me know. This radio silence between all of us sucks."

"Bonnie," and her name comes out like a parent would say it. Stern and placating. "You said you needed time and space. I didn't argue with you for wanting to leave and now I'm giving you time. That's what you wanted."

"Now I'm not so sure about that..."

Her doll features transform into incredulous humor, raised eyebrows and mouth gaping open in a lopsided smile. "Well, when you figure it out, I'm positive you'll let me know."

Elena moves to the door and Bonnie takes the hint, steps out into the hallway. The former vampire locks up then turns to give a tight smile, which doesn't do much to reassure Bonnie.

"Hey, did Caroline say anything about the other night? I haven't gotten the chance to apologize yet."

"Apologize for what?" Confusion paints her face again. Did Caroline really not blab about the fight in the basement? Elena eyes her with expectation, and when Bonnie mutters "nothing" she takes it at face value and strides down the hall.

Suddenly the idea of being alone in her dorm room is the last thing she wants, so Bonnie stiffens her spine, exits the building, and heads to the library. At least there she can be alone without feeling lonely.

x

Bonnie calls them "glitches". Every time Liv zones out in the middle of a conversation, when she's thinking but it doesn't appear that anything at all is happening behind those baby blues of hers, that's a glitch. Bonnie makes sure to bring it to her attention each time it happens, but the Parker witch is skeptical. Chocks it up to the Bennett's paranoia.

"If this happens so often, why not record it on your phone or something?"

"If I could predict when, I would."

Liv claims it's probably stress, if anything. Classes are doubling down on their course loads – and Tyler is still avoiding her. She confessed the other half of why she'd attacked Kai on Bonnie's birthday.

"He really cared about me and I pushed him away. I think ever since I met him, I've been pushing."

"I've known the guy basically since diapers. When he's all in, he's all in. He just has to ramp up to it. He'll come around."

Liv digests that and it gives her a sense of comfort. Who'd know better than Bonnie? It's not as if she could ask anyone else and trust them to give her a fair shake anyway. For Liv, Bonnie's pretty much it.

Sure, she has Jo – the older sister she was forced to forget she had and it's not like she tried to stick around either. Then there's Kai, which is a barrel of monkeys she's keeping a tight lid on. Outside of her remaining siblings, Tyler, and Bonnie, she's alone on this side of the Mississippi River. With no task to complete on behalf of her coven, she's once again left to her own devices and Luke isn't here to guide her, warn her of landmines before she steps onto the field.

Liv is flying by the seat of her ass – not unlike Bonnie. She figures it's about time she put her magic where her mouth is.

It starts with another ward, this time around their dorm room. Soundproof to prevent neighbors or passersby from witnessing Bonnie's anguished screams from her dreams, which grow in frequency along with these supposed "glitches". She also casts a boundary spell on the room to keep vampires from entering. At all. It was originally Liv's dorm and old habits die hard.

"You gotta meet with the brat pack, you can do it in their space. Even better, do it in public. They can't compel everyone all at once."

Bonnie shivered at the hypothetical because she had witnessed a supernatural reign over a helpless crowd and that was a very dark moment for her. Watching a necklace of red drain down her father's throat and knowing he never saw her face above his as he expired. Her friends aren't nearly as powerful or motivated as Silas had been, but for the sake of Liv's mother hen-ing sanity Bonnie would stick to safe public places. Her gut tells her, though, the other witch's suspicions aren't wholly unfounded – proven by everyone's behavior as of late.

"I visited Elena today." Bonnie glances up from her public speaking textbook. Her cheek resting against her fist and arm propped on her one of her crossed legs, she eyes Liv, peeling off her leather jacket after her shift.

The blonde smirks, a glint of dark humor in her returning gaze. "Visited? She in the hospital already? Should've just stayed a vampire. Unless she took the cure so everyone can go back to rescuing her from paper cuts and hangnails."

"I went by her dorm room." She purposefully ignores the jab. "We didn't really get the chance to talk, but apparently Caroline didn't tell her about what happened at the boarding house."

"Oh, you mean me beating her pious, self-righteous ass? Yeah, makes sense. I'd be embarrassed if I were her, too."

"I thought she'd let it slip to someone. Stefan hasn't even mentioned it and I've seen him around a bunch of times."

"I didn't know you two were that close."

"We used to be..."

Liv twists her hair up in a sloppy bun, tendrils whispering at the nape of her neck, and fetches her towel and toiletries from her side of the closet. "Hate to break it to you but obviously your friends' lives are moving on just fine without you. Which wouldn't be the first or even the second time. You should do the same."

"How?"

"Easy. You're already doing it. You got out from under them, at least geographically, you got yourself a job, you even declared your major – finally."

Bonnie's eyes drop back to her textbook. Speech was the first prerequisite towards a degree in Communications. She always imagined Caroline being the one in this field, but something about the idea of making use of knowing what people want and how to give it to them appeals to her.

"Maybe your next step is to find yourself a boyfriend. Date. When'd you last do that?"

"Jeremy," she instantly deadpans. The air in the room deflates and neither know what to say. Jeremy never did respond to that message Bonnie had left him. She was sure out of all the things that did or didn't actually happen, that voicemail fell firmly in the did pile. His number was in the "called" column of her phone.

Liv's lips go thin, partly because of the awkward dynamic that came with the three of them – her, Bonnie, and the younger Gilbert – and partly because how awful. Did Jeremy really encompass all Bonnie knew about boys and relationships? Had he really been her first, her only? That was pretty sad considering the girl had been a lifeguard, cheerleader, and prom queen. She'd even go as far as to appreciate her physical appeal. Under haphazard layers and her little less than flattering haircut, Bonnie Bennett is hot. Hadn't Jeremy convinced her, at least, of that?

Admittedly, Liv had been attracted to Jeremy way back when but the summer of watching him wallow in misery officially shot that horse in the face. On the one hand, his behavior was completely pathetic. But on the other...she found it sentimental. He'd genuinely, or at least as earnestly as he knew how, mourned Bonnie. His methods were super gross, searching for his beloved in the bodies of other women, but he missed her. Caroline had flown into Action Jackson mode with occasional help from Alaric and Enzo, Elena manipulated Luke into aiding her drug habits, Stefan skipped town, but Jeremy had really cared.

And now he is god knows where doing who knows who or what.

"Well. I know of a guy who'd be thrilled to fill the void–"

"Don't."

"Hey, you have options. You may not like them, but you have them."

"I'd rather become a nun."

"Too late, Bon Bon."

Liv retires to the co-ed showers, which leaves Bonnie to think on what she said. Her mind is incapable of entertaining the concept of dating Malachai Parker...but she could find some use in him yet. Sift out the answers to her burdensome questions. See if he's behind her nightmares, knows anything more about magical diseases. Maybe he's come across scenarios like Liv's glitches. He could help her as a show of good faith.

She collapses back on her bed, her head falling onto Ms. Cuddles' round stomach. Underneath the bear, she fishes out her phone and scrolls through its contact list. The night Kai had dinner at the bar, he'd scrawled his number down on the side of the bill. She'd rolled her eyes at the time and used a sprinkling of Expression to make the blue ink vanish before Rodney saw, but not before committing the number to memory. Not as catchy as 555-HIYA-KAI, but it stuck well enough.

Pressing the voice call button and listening with a hollow dread as the rings sound in her ears, she bites her lip. Maybe she should hang up now, forget this lapse in judgment. Or at least call back when she's figured out an actual plan. Before she can decide, the receiver picks up, his cool, unaffected voice answering, "Yello?"

"Kai."

He sighs in her ear. "Seven days exactly. Looks like I owe myself some money." She can hear the amusement in his baritone and wants to hang up on principle. "What can I do ya for?"

"Are you free tomorrow?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes," he drawls and there he goes again, hinting at things beyond Bonnie's reach. Or just being plain ol' difficult and overly verbose. A "yes" would've sufficed.

"Wanna grab a coffee? My treat."

"As tempting as that sounds, I think I'll pass."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. A coffee date? Do I look like a study buddy to you, Bonnie?"

"What happened to wanting to be my friend, Kai?"

"Oh, that is very much still on the table. Well, it will be when your poorly disguised attempts to manipulate my feelings for you have been abandoned."

How in the hell... "What are you talking about?"

"About a week and a half ago, you told me to stay away from you. Before that, you said if you saw my face again, you'd melt it off. Now you're calling me up late at night, asking me 'round for drinks of the caffeinated variety, and I'm not supposed to be concerned? Please. I was born at night but not last night."

"Okay, Gramps. What do you have in mind?"

"Dinner. My place. Eight o'clock."

Her mind flashes back to the last time he cooked for her. Thanksgiving, May 10th, 1994. Spaghetti and red wine. That didn't turn out so hot. The scar under her breast twinges at the very memory. "If I trust you with dinner, I'd be a fool."

"Yes, yes, you would be. But what's that saying about trust? The only way to know if you can trust someone is to…trust them?"

"You been reading 'Dear Abby...' columns?"

"Is she still a thing? Huh. Either way, it's sound advice."

"It's stupid is what it is."

"Dinner is my offer on the table, Bon. I'll even cook whatever you'd like to eat."

She almost remarks "rat poison", but she's trying to behave. Play nice. That's the only way this will work in her favor.

"You know you want to..." he goads and he's right. He has a way around the kitchen of which she is envious. Anytime she cooks it's out of necessity, but when he does it it's a performance. He knows he's good at it and wants to show off. And maybe this is her chance to tear down some of his walls.

"Seared salmon, sautéed veggies, and lots of cheap champagne. I won't be late." Then she hangs up and powers down her phone.