Chapter 9
"You want some more mu shu?"
"No!" Bonnie hid her disgust with a mellow smile. "Thank you." Lisse shrugged and scraped the last onto her own plate.
Bonnie had been staying with Lissie for two days now. Two long days in which she had been subjugated to countless viewings of 'The Notebook' (she had been ready to punch Ryan Gosling in the face after the last time), mu shu at every meal and absolutely silence from he who she would not name.
It wasn't that she didn't like hanging out with Lissie, because she did, she really did. She was just so angst-filled by now that anything Lissie said or did was bound to make her angry.
Caroline had called a few times. At first, Bonnie had talked to her, trying to explain to her why she wasn't staying with Kol and why she didn't want to stay with Caroline and Klaus at the hotel either. Caroline, of course, had refused to accept that, and now Bonnie had been forced to screening her calls, which did nothing to improve her mood.
"So, what are your plans for Halloween" Lissie asked in between showing mu shu into her mouth and trying to find the dvd remote (Bonnie could only hope that she wasn't about to be forced into another dissection of 'The Notebook' as she was already penning imaginary hate-letters to Nicholas Sparks).
"Uh I was actually invited to a dorm party" Bonnie said slowly. In all honestly she had forgotten all about it until now. Including telling Caroline about that.
"Cool! Who invited you?"
"Brent, the guy I met in the park."
"Uh, the hot creeper! Bon, that's awesome. At least one of us has a life then."
"You couldn't get out of work?"
"No, and as an extra bonus, now I have to dress like a slutty pumpkin!"
Bonnie stifled her laughter. "I really am sorry."
"You're a horrible liar, Bonnie Bennett. Make out with a hot guy for me."
"I make no promises!"
Lissie rolled her eyes and got up as someone knocked on the door. "You expecting someone?"
"Maybe it's the delivery guy with more mu shu" Bonnie muttered as she removed the batteries from the dvd remote. Good luck getting your cheesy-romance fix now, she thought.
"Uh, Bonnie" Lissie called from the door.
"I don't have spare cash" Bonnie called. "Fund your own mu shu pig outs!"
"Bonnie" Lissie hissed. "Someone's here to see you."
Reluctantly, Bonnie got up, brushing the sad remains of a bag of chips off her PJ pants. "What?" She stopped abruptly in the doorway. "Oh… It's you."
"Quite right" Kol said with a blank expression.
"What are you doing here?"
"We finished with the crime scene this morning. I thought you'd might like your things."
"Oh, right. Great!" She had been offered a new dorm from next week and was eager to pack all her things and move somewhere that would be her own. And preferably not tainted by the horrible murder of her old roommate. "I'll just change."
"Please" he said, making her frown at him.
"Uh hi. I'm Lissie, Bonnie's friend" Lissie introduced herself with a big smile.
Kol narrowed his eyes a little and then smiled back. "Really? Lissie? What's that short for?"
"Elizabeth. Elizabeth Cade."
"Pretty. Where are you from, Miss Cade?"
"I grew up just outside Washington."
"Is that so? With both your parents?"
"Yes, my mom is a nurse at the local hospitable and my dad is a math teacher at a high school. My younger sister Mary…"
"Stop that" Bonnie demanded hotly, looking at Kol. "She's not involved!"
Kol smirked a little at her, breaking his compulsion. "Just checking, love."
"I'll see you later, Lis, okay?" Lissie seemed dazed but nodded a little.
Bonnie followed Kol down the hall and out to the parking lot. "You don't expect me to get into the back of that" she asked, staring at the squad car parked in front of them.
"Not tonight" he said, opening the front door for her.
They drove to the dorm in silence. Bonnie was trying to empty her mind and Kol was probably focused on the road, which was good, in Bonnie's honest opinion, because he was a pretty terrible driver. Lissie had sent her text almost the second after Bonnie had departed the apartment, asking who "Officer Hot" was. Bonnie had just deleted it; there was no reason to risk Kol seeing it and having his ego inflate even more.
"They sure cleaned it up good" Bonnie mused, as Kol opened the door to her old dorm room. Every surface was spotless and there were no signs of a horrible and grizzly murder.
"We aim to please" he muttered, walking inside. "Grab what you need."
"I can't just "grab" two years worth of stuff" Bonnie scoffed, starting to riffle through her closet for a big bag.
Kol leaned against the other wall. "Please, are you really planning on keeping this?" He indicated a rather ugly looking chest with drawers standing by the end of her bed. "It looks like something Rebekah made for Klaus when he turned eighteen."
"Well, it has sentimental meaning" Bonnie defended the furniture that she had actually hoped the police would have taken away as evidence.
"Of course" Kol muttered as he sat down on her bed. "You know, it's been a long time since I was last in your room." He looked around a little. "Or your bed."
Bonnie held up her hand to make him stop. "Not another word, thank you."
"Alright, I'll just lean back and…" He took a deep breath. "Let the memories wash over me."
"Or you could wait outside" Bonnie suggested, throwing jeans into her bag.
"Oh where's your sense of humour, little witch?"
"Okay, one: don't call me that! And two: what part of this do you find funny, exactly? I'm packing together my stuff because my roommate got killed because of me while my ex-whatever-you-were is supervising me."
Kol rolled his eyes. "Fine, I'll wait outside then."
"Thank you" she sighed and packed the rest of her things in silence. When she was done, she looked around the room. It was weird, being here now. Alicia's parents hadn't picked up her things yet, but she knew they were in the city. She just couldn't face them. She and Alicia hadn't been friends, they weren't social and Bonnie couldn't tell them anything that would make them feel better about the situation. She sat down on her bed and rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Ali" she whispered.
"All done" Kol called soon after from outside the dorm.
"I guess" Bonnie muttered, trying to hold up all her things.
"You know, you look like a homeless person."
"I am a homeless person" she sneered at him. They walked to the car in silence. Kol didn't offer to help her with her things.
"So… You really think Lissie could be the killer?"
"What, your dim-witted Dim Sum friend?"
"It was mu shu…"
"She's innocent. Well, relatively innocent. She steals from her job and doesn't always wash her hands after she's used the restroom."
"What? You're kidding, right? Right?"
Kol just shrugged. "Also, she really wants to sleep with you."
By request, Kol dropped Bonnie off at her new dorm. Technically, she didn't get the key for the room until the next monday, but Kol easily handled the door and she could finally enter her new home and enjoy the serene quiet. Well, at least for a solid two minutes until Kol started to tinker with the radio.
"Don't you have somewhere to be?"
"Of course I do, but for the time being I'm stuck here with you."
"Why do you even care" Bonnie asked sourly. Having Kol around again and constantly not talking about everything that had happened (and was somehow still happening) was starting to wear on her mood.
"Well, I don't, but your friends do, which means my intolerable brothers do, which means that if something were to happen to you, I would never hear the end of it."
Bonnie rolled her eyes and shook her head a little. "You're so full of it. You just don't want to admit that you still care about me."
"I never cared about you" Kol answered, but he failed to meet her eyes, suddenly starring at the door instead.
She leaned against the wall a little. "You told me you loved me."
"I was very emotional at that time. I promise it won't happen again."
She had to force a snort down. "I believe you. But you still said it. You wanted me to leave Mystic Falls with you, before everything…"
"Went to hell?"
"Something like that. So you cared. A lot."
"And you didn't" he concluded, looking at his watch.
"Let's just pretend for a second that that's actually the truth" she said hotly. "If you were so sure I didn't care about you at all, why are you here right now, protecting me from something that could very possible want to kill you as well."
He shrugged a little "Like I said…"
"You know, for someone who's had so many years to practice, you're a pretty shitty liar."
"Resorting to cursing now? Very immature, little witch."
"Don't call me that" she snarled at him. "I'm not a witch anymore."
"Look who's bullshitting now" he threw back in her face. "You're no less a judgemental little witch than I am an immortal creature."
All the fight suddenly left Bonnie and she stared down at her hands; they were trembling slightly. "It's true…"
"What?"
"Ever since Matt… Rebekah, you… I don't know…. It stopped working."
"What do you mean, "it stopped working"" he asked, looking somewhat bewildered suddenly.
"I couldn't even dim a candle. I tried for some time, but…" She shrugged a little. "Nothing changed, it was like something was blocking my powers. And then I stopped trying. After a while it felt good, actually, to just be normal again, to just be normal."
Kol finally met her eyes. "Are you completely dim-witted?"
"Excuse me?"
"You do understand that the only thing stopping some randomly pissed off werewolf from just snapping your neck in the street was the threat of being skinned by you!"
"Well, obviously that hasn't happened, so…"
"That hasn't happened because I've been making sure everyone knew what a powerful witch you are. Or were! But you don't even care!"
"Of course I care, but…"
"Obviously not, otherwise you would have done something to change it" he yelled heatedly. They were almost nose-to-nose now.
"I care" she yelled, jumping to her feet. "I lost my one connection to my grandmother, the ability to help the people I care about, my own identity! I had to practically reinvent myself, because I couldn't be Bonnie Bennett the witch anymore!"
"Yes I can see you've been absolutely torn up about that!"
"How would you know" she demanded, pushing him away from her. "You left!"
He seemed to falter a little. "You didn't want me to stay."
"I asked you, again and again. I begged you not to leave."
"And I didn't" he yelled back. "I couldn't, not really." He closed his eyes in an attempt to regain his temper. "I wanted to kill you, did you know that? I wanted it more than anything in that moment. It would have been easier for me if you were dead."
"Then why didn't you?"
He shrugged, almost like it wasn't important. "I just couldn't. It felt like… Like you had bewitched me, done something to me. No matter what I did, I couldn't rid myself of you. So I just" he made a wry face, "stayed far enough away for you not to notice but close enough to comfort me that you were alright."
As quickly as her temper had taken over her, it left her again and she sacked down on the bed. "Why did you do that? I never asked you to do that."
"That's the point though" he said, leaning against the opposite wall. "You didn't have to. Rebekah, she would howl at me for days at a time, threaten me, plead with me…" He shrugged again. "It never took."
Bonnie stood up on shaky legs and walked over to where he was leaning against the wall and kissed him.
A/N: As always, huge thanks for your lovely reviews, faves and alerts. It's the best motivation there is and especially the reviews make me want to jump up and down and do a little happy dance! So please keep them coming. Next chapter, there's going to be a party, costumes (any great ideas for Bonnie's costume - Alice in Wonderland, Buffy, Indiana Jones?), Damon will get a chance to play the hero, Brent will be meeting Kol and Klaus will most likely say something inappropriately.
I hope you all had amazing Halloweens! Lots of love, Anne
