I haven't said this yet, but thank you all so much for all the love, support and reviews! Every time I see a review, favorite, or mention on Tumblr, it makes me smile. (I'm not really into Twitter but I hear it's on there, too, so thanks!) This is really fun to write and I'm glad you're enjoying the ride.
Chapter 10
November 27, 2013
Dear Elena,
I know, I know, I'm terrible. It's been over a month since I wrote you. I'm sorry! I'm just really horrible at keeping up with this writing stuff. I promise I haven't forgotten you. Nobody else has either.
I have some good news. The nightmares have stopped. They've been replaced by an entirely different, equally crazy dream, but I'd take them over the nightmares any day. My magic is stronger, too. I've been doing things to release my frustrations: running, working out, and I even signed up for a dance class for next semester. I can't remember the last time I just got into a studio and danced until my body hurt.
Damon is...Damon. He's good. He's his usual self, but he's been helping me a lot. He fancies himself as my "trainer." He's being a good friend to me. You would be proud of him.
I'm sorry this entry is so short, but Thanksgiving is tomorrow and Caroline is breathing down my neck about helping her get things ready. She invited the guys over here, so it'll be me, Care, Stefan, Damon and Matt. Ric took off to parts unknown and I haven't heard anything about Enzo in months.
Okay, now she's yelling. I'm going to run a few laps and then come back to be at her disposal. Here's hoping that I make it to tomorrow.
Love,
Bonnie
...
At first, running in the cold November night air made Bonnie feel like there were nails in her lungs. But after a few laps around the crowded Whitmore track, her body warmed up and her muscles loosened. She was, by no means, a runner. She didn't get the "runner's high" or some satisfaction from pushing herself. But she did appreciate the boost in energy and the release of tension, not to mention how much control she was gaining over her magic.
So she fought through the discomfort as she rounded the turn of her last lap, and she increased the volume of Beyonce blasting through her headphones. She sprinted the last four hundred meters and then did a cool-down walk until she reached the bleachers. She stretched a little, removed her headphones and checked the time. It was almost seven and she had promised Caroline that she would be back in time to help with some of the dishes that needed extra prep time.
"Hello, Bonnie."
Bonnie jumped and whipped her head to the left, where Lily had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
"It's been a while since we last spoke. Have you given any thought to my offer?"
"The offer to turn me into a vampire?" Bonnie asked lowly, through tight lips. "No, can't say that I have."
"That's unfortunate because I can tell that you've been getting stronger, and I could certainly use you on my side."
"What do you want with me?"
"I thought I had made that clear."
"No, actually, you haven't. I know your kind, Lily. You're not doing all this," Bonnie said, waving her hands around them, "stalking me, watching me, keeping tabs on me, just because you want me 'on your side.' You want something from me and I want to know what it is."
Lily turned her attention to the students and professors jogging around the track, and when she spoke again, puffs of cold air escaped her mouth.
"I want immortality."
Bonnie frowned. "You're a vampire. You already have that."
"Yes, unless someone stakes me, rips my head off, or sets me ablaze. Then I'm just as mortal as you." She turned to Bonnie. "I want true immortality, like Qetsiyah gave to Silas. You are Qetsiyah's last direct descendant and her magic flows through you. You are the only one who can give this to me." She gave Bonnie the once-over and continued. "Of course, in your current state, you aren't strong enough. Despite all your training and adorable efforts with my son, you would need significantly more power. But as a heretic, a vampire-witch, whatever you'd like to call it, you could be more powerful than Qetsiyah ever dreamed."
She waited for all the information to soak in before she asked, "so what do you say?"
Bonnie shook her head in disbelief. "I say that you're a psycho. You tried to kill me, and ever since you and your friends have been here, you've caused nothing but chaos. If you think that I would ever help you live forever, you're even more insane than you look."
She got up and started to walk away, when Lily asked, "have you enjoyed your dreams?"
That stopped Bonnie in her tracks and when she slowly turned back to Lily, she saw the older woman smiling like the cat who caught the canary.
"You made me have those dreams?"
"Not me, per se, but my friend Jasper did. He's quite adept at mind control and manipulation."
"Are you serious? What kind of sick freaks puts those kinds of thoughts about her own son in someone's head?"
Lily's smile only widened as she stood and approached Bonnie. "Ah, now see, there's the beauty of it. I didn't make you see Damon."
"But you just said..."
"I said that Jasper put thoughts into your head. But all he did was a spell that made me see what you really want. It's very convenient in situations like these, where you want to get to know what motivates someone, what drives them, even if they don't know themselves. You see, Bonnie, he did the 'Heart's Desire' spell to show me your deepest desire. And apparently, that desire is to have my son."
Bonnie's face flushed and she felt like someone had just thrown cold water over her body. She didn't know if Lily was telling the truth or just playing with her head, and she wasn't sure which scenario was worse.
"So what I am offering you is an even trade. You give me immortality and I give you Damon."
"I don't want Damon," she said, even though it sounded false to her own ears.
"My dear, of course you do. And I could make him want you in the exact same way." Lily circled her slowly, like a shark that smelled blood in the water. "It would take very little effort to put similar dreams in his head, and suddenly, you would go from the cute best friend to the very desirable object of his affections."
"I don't want him like that," Bonnie said through gritted teeth. "Not handed to me on a silver platter while he's still in love with Elena."
"Elena," Lily scoffed. "She is just another version of that trollop, Katherine. And do you really think that Damon will be happy with her? A human? No longer a doppleganger, no longer a vampire. He'd be bored with her within a year." She stopped in front of Bonnie and gently took her shoulders. "But you. A witch. A Bennett witch, no less. You excite him. You keep him on his toes. You could have an eternity together and for the first time in your life, someone to love wouldn't leave you. You would be the perfect life mate for him and we both know it. Just say the word and I'll make him see it, too."
Bonnie would never admit it out loud, but for a brief moment, she thought about telling Lily to do it. She felt horrible and weak for even considering such a ridiculous offer, but there was a small part of her that wanted all the things Lily promised that she could give.
But that small part was quickly overruled by her sensible morals, and rather than answer Lily, she narrowed her eyes and sent the woman crashing to the ground in a screaming heap of pain. She watched with a disturbing level of satisfaction as Lily convulsed and cried out in agony.
"If you're wondering why no one is helping you, it's because I've put up a little screen so that to the outside world, it looks like we're just talking normally. And if you're wondering what the hell is happening to you, I'm popping every blood vessel in your body, over and over. I know you've built up an immunity to aneurysms and you were right, by the way, that was getting kind of old. So I guess you could call this a whole body explosion."
She bent down and smiled at the shouting woman. "It probably feels like your insides are going to catch fire, doesn't it? I could kill you like this, you know. But I won't. Because, unlike your sons, I don't go around killing other people's mothers without at least giving them a heads up." She scooted a little closer. "So consider this your heads up. If I see you again, I'm going to make your head go bye-bye. And in case this isn't clear enough for you, no, we don't have a deal."
Bonnie extracted herself from the magical shield but left it up for Lily, until the vampire could get herself together. She stopped the blood vessel explosions and walked away triumphantly. But when she got into her car, her hands were shaking, both from the thrill of temporary victory and the knowledge that she had made a very powerful enemy.
She was still a little shaky when she got back to the apartment. She tried not to let it show in her face, and she smiled when she walked in to the smell of food cooking and Thanksgiving decorations everywhere: a cornucopia, carved pumpkins and pumpkin spice-smelling candles.
"Care, this looks amazing," she said as she walked into the kitchen.
Caroline whipped around, showcasing her "gobble, gobble" apron, and ushered Bonnie into the shower, all while telling her all the things they had to do. Bonnie politely reminded her that there were only five guests, three of whom would have been fine with pizza and beer, which only earned her an eye roll. As soon as she was out of the shower and into some sweats, Caroline had her back in the kitchen with instructions to make both pumpkin and sweet potato pie. The pumpkin was for Stefan, and the sweet potato for Bonnie and Matt. It was kind of crazy and chaotic but Bonnie found she enjoyed being the kitchen with Caroline, even if her friend was like the vampire version of Martha Stewart.
"So the guys are coming at noon," Caroline said, once they took a break and left the pies to bake in the bottom oven and the turkey in the top. "You think everything will be ready by then?"
"I think it'll be fine," Bonnie said with a little chuckle.
"You think I'm insane, don't you?"
"Yeah, but that's what I love about you."
Caroline smiled and they sat next to each other on the couch, binge-watching "Chopped: Thanksgiving" editions. Bonnie's mind wandered back to her run-in with Lily.
"So, something interesting happened at the park," she said.
"Oh yeah? What?"
"Lily."
Caroline frowned. "You look okay. She didn't hurt you, did she?"
"No. Actually, I think I was the one who hurt her."
"God, she's so annoying. What did she want?"
"Something she can't have," Bonnie said with a roll of her eyes. "But I found out that she's been the one making me have the dreams about Damon."
"Ew, gross. Who puts sex dreams of their son in someone's head?"
"That's the same thing I said. But then she told me that she only revealed in my head what was already in my heart." She sighed and rested her head on the back of the couch. "The 'heart's desire spell." She rolled her head to look at Caroline, who was biting her lips to keep from smiling. Bonnie pointed in an accusatory way and said, "I swear to God if you say 'I told you so,' I'll burn those pies with extreme prejudice."
"I wasn't going to say that," Caroline said. But then she grinned. "Okay, I was. I told you so. There, you have to let me say it at least once."
"I don't want him!" Bonnie said in something very close to a whine. "He's my friend. I like it that way. And his relationship with Elena is so complicated and has so much baggage that nobody in their right mind would want to compete with it."
"So what you're saying is that you don't want to want him, not that you don't want him."
Bonnie groaned in response.
"You know what you need?" Caroline asked. "A distraction. A pretty, dumb, muscular distraction that will get you laid and won't ask for a commitment."
"That sounds like a horrible idea."
"It sounds like an amazing idea because, let's face it, you need sex. Badly. And since you refuse to ask Damon, even though I'm 99.99% positive he would give it to you, you've got to get it from someone else. First thing after tomorrow, I'm making it my mission to find you a hot hook-up partner. But it has to wait until I can pull off this first Thanksgiving without my mom around."
"Oh my God, Care, I'm so sorry. I've been so caught up in my own drama, that I didn't even think to ask you how you're doing with all this." She reached over and took her friend's hand. "Are you okay?"
Caroline's lips quivered a little but she nodded emphatically. "Yes. I'm okay. I mean, you know my mom couldn't cook worth a damn anyway, so even if I ruin everything, I'll still be a step ahead of her."
She said it in a joking way but her furious blinking told Bonnie that she was fighting back tears. So Bonnie pulled her into her arms and let the vampire cry on her shoulder and she reminded her how proud her mom was of her and promised her that her Thanksgiving was going to kick so much ass. They reminisced about Thanksgivings past, including their favorite dishes from Grams and Elena's mom and putting up the Christmas trees.
"We've been through a lot together," Caroline said, resting her head on Bonnie's shoulder.
"A hell of a lot."
"Let's promise that no matter what happens, we'll always have each other's backs, okay?"
Bonnie squeezed her. "Promise."
...
The boys arrived at exactly noon the next day. Matt carried a case of beer in each hand, Stefan had a cooler full of blood, and Damon was sipping from a bottle of bourbon while precariously dangling a large bottle of tequila in his free hand. When Bonnie opened the door and saw them all, she frowned.
"Wow. Blood and booze. You guys really know what to bring to a Thanksgiving dinner."
"What's Thanksgiving for if not to get drunk with the people you tolerate?" Damon asked as he took another sip and slid inside.
"Happy Thanksgiving, Bonnie," Stefan said, and they gave each other a short hug.
"I'm mad at you," Matt said, when it was just the two of them still remaining in the hallway. "I was good enough to go to Vegas with, and then you dumped me like a bad habit."
"I did not! We talk on the phone, and you know I've been busy."
"You couldn't drive down to little old Mystic Falls and see me in person every once in a while? With everyone gone, it's kind of a lonely place, you know."
He rounded his big blue eyes into that puppy dog expression that he did so well, and Bonnie smiled and roped her arm in his.
"Yes, I will come see you. And no, you are not allowed to give me that look and make me feel guilty. Now come on, I'm sure Caroline is counting the seconds that we're out here talking instead of inside telling her how amazing her dinner is."
"I bet you're glad for all the booze now, huh?" he teased.
Once they were inside, Caroline ushered them all to the ornately decorated table, where she had printed little place cards with all their names on them. Bonnie could tell that Damon was just itching to make a joke, but Stefan grabbed his hand and squeezed until Bonnie was sure she heard a bone pop. Damon grumbled but kept whatever comments he had to himself. And as it turned out, dinner was very good. Caroline had done a great job with the turkey, they had split the side dishes, and between Stefan and Matt, there was hardly any pie left.
"That...was...awesome," Matt said as he sat back and rubbed his stomach. "You ladies really outdid yourselves."
"I'm glad you liked it," Caroline beamed.
"It was incredibly delicious, you two. Thank you," Stefan added. All eyes fell to Damon, who slurped a little of his bourbon and shrugged.
"It wasn't horrible."
"Coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment," Caroline said. "Now, time for games!"
She clapped her hands and moved the party to the living room, where there were a number of options for games: Monopoly, Pictionary, Charades, and the list went on. Stefan and Damon started arguing about which one to play and the other three stepped into the kitchen.
"Bon, seriously, that pie was incredible," Matt said. "I feel like I'm gonna explode but I'm tempted to eat another piece."
"Knock yourself out," she said. "I made it for you anyway."
His blue eyes sparkled. "You did? That was really sweet. Thank you. I guess I'll wrap up the rest and take it home with me. That way, I can have a piece of your pie any time I want."
Bonnie laughed, but Caroline got a weird look on her face and then abruptly grabbed Bonnie's arm.
"Come with me to the bathroom?" she asked, but it really wasn't an option, as she dragged Bonnie with her to her bedroom. They veered off to the bathroom, Caroline shut the door, and then turned the shower on.
"Uh...are we about to shower for some reason?" Bonnie asked, confused.
"I'm just doing that so they can't hear," Caroline said with a quick wave of her hands.
"Okay...what is this about?"
"Matt!"
"What about him?"
"He can be your distraction!"
"What?"
"Remember how we said you need a hot distraction from all the crap that's going on with you? Well, it should be Matt."
"Oh, Care, come on. No."
"Why not? He's been making moon eyes at you all night."
"No he hasn't."
"Oh yes he has. And did you not hear the little emphasis he used when he said he could, and I quote, 'eat your pie any time'? What the hell was that?"
"A very corny joke. You know his sense of humor."
"I know he's been checking you out and staring at your ass every time you walk by."
Bonnie groaned. "Did you get any sleep last night? I think all this Thanksgiving stuff has gone to your brain."
"My brain is functioning just fine, thank you. Why won't you even consider it?"
"Because Matt is my friend! And this is ridiculous! I thought the whole point of having a distraction was so I wouldn't ruin my relationship with Damon. I don't want to ruin it with Matt, either."
"But you know Matt, and you love him Matt, and you trust Matt. He would be soooo sweet to you." She folded her hands under her chin and made a dreamy face. "You guys would make such beautiful children."
"Whoa. Time out. You're getting a little ahead of yourself, don't you think?"
"Just give some thought, okay? That's all I ask."
Bonnie sighed and relented, only because she didn't want to continue the conversation. "Fine."
"Yay! Now go back out there and shake what your mama gave you."
She slapped Bonnie's butt, which only made the witch frown at her, and after Caroline turned the shower off, they returned to the living room with the boys. They agreed on Pictionary, the Salvatore brothers versus Bonnie, Caroline and Matt. Of course, Damon had to add some special rules.
"Whoever loses the round, takes a shot," he announced. "You three are in some trouble. Especially you, Bon-Bon," he said with a wiggle of his eyebrows.
"Oh please," Bonnie scoffed. "We'll see who's talking all that trash after we kick your ass."
The games actually ended up being pretty close. Damon and Stefan had the advantage of being surprisingly artistic with their drawings, so even though they didn't have the best communication skills, their pictures made the guessing part easy. Bonnie and Caroline, on the other hand, could almost guess each other's answers based on even the most incoherent drawing. Poor Matt's pictures all looked like the same stick figures. In the end, they ended up slitting the games and therefore splitting the shots. For the vampires, that was fine. For Bonnie and Matt, however, five losses meant five shots and they were both pretty drunk.
"What the hell was that supposed to be?" Bonnie asked him, unable to control her laughter. "It looked like some kind of anorexic cat taking a dump."
"Shut up," he said, even though he laughed too. He bumped her shoulder with his. "You know I can't draw."
"That's an understatement. Good thing you're cute."
"Oh, I'm cute?"
"Don't act like nobody's ever told you that, Mr. Blue-Eyed Quarterback."
"You haven't. I think I like it."
Bonnie looked at his smiling face and she noticed that he was, indeed, cute. He was more than cute, really, but she had always known that. She'd had a crush on him back in middle school, but even then, he only had eyes for Elena. It felt weird, in a good way, to get flirtatious attention from him. Maybe Caroline was right. Maybe Matt was the perfect distraction.
For the rest of the night, Bonnie did nothing to discourage his advances. She returned his smiles, laughed at his jokes, and let him put his arm around her while they watched football. She saw Caroline's grin. She didn't see Damon's frown.
As the night wound down and they cleaned up, Matt yawned and began to stand up, but Bonnie pulled him back down.
"Whoa, where are you going?" she asked.
"Home, I guess."
"You're drunk, Matt. Just stay here."
"Yeah?" He did his half-smile and leaned in to ask, "and where would I sleep?"
Bonnie felt a little flustered as she seriously contemplated asking him to sleep in her bed. Or to come to her bed and not sleep at all. She was about to suggest it, when a pillow flew into his face.
"There's the couch," Damon said.
He sauntered into Bonnie's bedroom and shut the door behind him. Stefan stifled a snicker when Caroline smacked his arm, and Matt nodded.
"Well, I guess that answers that."
"I'll get you some pillows and blankets," Bonnie said.
She gathered the items from the hall closet and made sure that he was comfortable before she went to her room. She narrowed her eyes at Damon, who was already down to his boxers and relaxing on her bed like he owned it.
"That was rude."
"What?"
"Throwing a pillow in Matt's face and telling him to sleep on the couch."
"Yeah, so? Where else was he gonna sleep?"
She put her hands on her hips and stared at him like he was an idiot. "Gee, I don't know. Maybe in here with me?"
"Why the hell would he do that?"
"Maybe because we weren't planning on getting much sleep, Damon."
His eyebrows dug deep into his forehead, creating a confused frown. Bonnie folded her arms and waited for him to make the connection, and when he did, those same eyebrows yanked up in shock.
"Seriously?" he asked. "You were gonna bang Donovan? Uh, no, not gonna happen."
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize that being my self-proclaimed trainer also gave you permission to have an opinion about my sex life."
"It was in the fine print," he said with a sarcastic smile.
"What I do and who I do it with is none of your business. And there's nothing wrong with Matt."
"He's a loser, so there's something wrong right off the top of my head."
"He is not a loser. He's one of my oldest friends."
"Doesn't make him any less of a loser."
"Look, I get that you've never been crazy about Matt, but I love him and I don't want you to talk about him anymore."
He rolled his eyes. She huffed to the bed and roughly pulled back on the covers on her side. She got in but didn't slide close to him, and they sat in irritated silence for a few minutes.
"I don't know why you're acting all jealous," she muttered.
"Jealous?" He scoffed. "Please, don't flatter yourself. I'm not jealous. I'm possessive."
"The difference being?"
"Jealousy would imply that I either have or want to have some kind of romantic claim to you, and sorry, Judgey, but I don't." She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at him. "Possessive simply means that I don't want to share you."
"That must be a new development because you sure did share Elena with Stefan and you ate up whatever scraps she threw you like a homeless little puppy."
Almost as soon as the words left Bonnie's mouth, she regretted them, and not because they weren't true, but because she knew that she had touched on a sore spot of his. The little smirk that had formed on his face fell off like cheese on a cracker.
"Look, I'm sorry," she said with a sigh. "I shouldn't have said that."
"No, you shouldn't have."
He stared at the TV, which was doing a marathon of "House Hunters," even as she stared at him and silently tried to coax him to look at her. He then suddenly turned on his side, away from her, and punched a pillow underneath his head a few times.
"Wow, really?" Bonnie asked. "You're just gonna turn away from me?"
He didn't respond, and she wondered whether she should leave him alone or try to talk to him again. The sober version of herself would have probably let it be and attempted to fix it in the morning. But the drunk version of herself, the one with five shots of tequila rolling around in her head, was unsatisfied with his literal cold shoulder. So she poked his back a few times.
"Turn around," she said.
He didn't respond.
"You cannot seriously be pouting right now."
She grabbed his arm and tried to force him to turn around, and when that didn't work, she used her whole body to climb on top of him and make him turn. He fought her off a little, but she knew that he was only using normal strength, so she eventually succeeding in getting him onto his back, while she straddled him.
"I said I was sorry," she said.
"And it was not accepted, in case you didn't notice."
Bonnie groaned. "I'm sorry! God, what else do you want me to say? I didn't know that merely mentioning your love triangle would send you spiraling into an inferiority complex."
His lips pursed together, even tighter than before, if possible.
"You really know how to make a guy feel good, don't you?" he asked.
"Okay, fine, I shouldn't have said that either, but we both know it's true. So Stefan had Elena first. Who cares?"
"I do," he snapped back. "He always gets everyone first and they always love him more. My mom. Katherine. Lexie. Elena. Hell, even you."
"Me?" she asked, eyes wide with surprise. "What are you talking about?"
"You liked him better at first."
"Of course I did. He was nice and you were a total asshole."
"I'm still an asshole."
"Yeah, but now you're my asshole."
Damon's jaws clenched, but she could tell from the way his hard eyes softened a little that she had said the right thing. So she kept rolling with it.
"I did prefer Stefan at first, but now I prefer you. By a long shot. You annoy me like nobody else on the planet, but you also make me laugh. And you're loyal. And fun. And you think I can do anything, even when I don't think I can. I like your stupid, corny jokes and I like that I can count on you."
She should have stopped there, but the liquor just kept her mouth going.
"Stefan is nice. But he doesn't know me like you do. He doesn't know my secrets. He can't read me like a book. He didn't try everything in his power to get me back. He didn't hold me for three days so I could sleep. He and I don't have anything like this...thing...that you and I have. This..." She waved her hand around, trying to come up with the right word, and when one popped into her head, she didn't stop it in time. "...intimacy."
And there it was, their relationship exposed in a way that she wasn't sure either of them wanted to vocalize. She almost apologized, ready to blame her loose lips on the tequila, but she stopped short when she saw how Damon was looking at her. It was hard to describe, really, but it was different than any look he had ever given her before. And then he made it worse when his eyes drop to her lips. They lingered on her mouth for a moment before he dragged his gaze back to hers. They stared at each other, and the whole atmosphere of the room changed. Suddenly, Bonnie felt warm and uncomfortable and completely unsure of what was happening.
Their stare was broken when Matt knocked on the bedroom door.
"Hey, Bon," he said through the wood, "can I use your bathroom? Caroline's showering in hers and I really gotta pee."
Bonnie scrambled off of Damon, both thankful for and irritated by the interruption. She opened the door for Matt and laughed off his apologies as he raced into her bathroom and shut the door. She wrapped her arms around herself while she waited for Matt to get out, unwilling to look at Damon even though she felt his stare burning a hole through her. When Matt opened the door, he apologized again and returned to the living room. Bonnie slid into the bathroom behind him and took a few minutes to just get her thoughts together. She took an extraordinarily long shower, brushed her teeth, wrapped her hair and washed her face. She was buying time, and she suspected that Damon knew that.
When she returned to the bedroom, holding her towel tightly over her body, he was resting with his eyes closed and an arm behind his head. He looked like he was asleep, but she knew better.
She gathered up some pajamas and after she dressed in the bathroom and turned all the lights and television off, she slid into her side of the bed. She turned away from Damon and tried to sleep, but her efforts were ruined when he slid in behind her and wrapped his arm around her waist. He kissed her hair, but didn't say a word. It was his way of telling her that nothing had changed.
But she knew, and she figured that he did too, that everything had changed.
And she was as nervous as she was excited.