A/N: Cheers to the weekend! I'm updating later than usual, but that's only because the muse was on fire, and I was cranking out/fine-tuning future chapters.

Enjoy!

Part 20: Here Lies Klaus

"Come on," Bonnie begged Tyler, panic making her skin hot. His breathing was becoming more and more shallow as the seconds ticked by. She rubbed her ears on her shoulders as she channeled him. The werewolves' howls were getting sharper and louder, and it was hell on her and Lucy's eardrums.

Kim went outside of the circle and shifted back into a human. Her body was killing her, but she tried to ignore it.

"I can't take this!" Lucy yelled over the pack, her index fingers pressing against her ears.

"They're sad," Kim explained, her mouth red with Klaus' blood. She stepped inside of the circle. "They're celebrating, but it's sad because Tyler can't join in, and you guys are worrying about him too much to be able to celebrate. It's a sad celebration."

Kim's voice reached them even though she was speaking normally. Bonnie had to yell above the ringing in her ears. "Can you do something?!"

Kim kneeled in front of Tyler and Bonnie. "Not here. We need to get him to the woods, the mountain even. We're sounded by houses and people and everything that isn't us."

"He's not gonna make it from here to deep enough in the woods, that's too long a trek!" Bonnie fretted.

"He's not gonna make it here. Bonnie, listen to him. He doesn't want to move, because what you're doing feels good, but it's not healing him. He feels good, but it's delirium. He's getting worse. He can make it with us."

"Are you sure?!"

"I am."

But Kim's breath hitched in the answer, which told Bonnie that she wasn't completely sure. She was only hoping, just like her. Nevertheless, Tyler was definitely getting worse.

"Bonnie, you need to let him go!" Lucy said. She took her fingers off her ears and moved behind Bonnie to hold her shoulder in a show of support.

"I know," Bonnie said as she stared down at Tyler. Her breath caught in her throat. "Ty? You need to go. And you need to come back, okay? We're supposed to be in this together. Fifty-fifty, remember? So you have to come back."

She realized that things had turned very bad when she took her hands off of him, and he didn't object. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she beseeched Kim with her eyes.

Kim tightened her lips and gently took Tyler off of Bonnie's lap. Bonnie aided by gingerly removing herself from under him. Kim changed her eyes, red veins coloring her face, and infused Tyler with her healing power.

The others stopped singing their mournful song and came to their leader's aid.

"Come on," Lucy said, and she helped Bonnie stand and walked her backwards out of the shrinking circle. "We can't be here. We're in the way."

Kim trained her yellow, bloodshot eyes on Bonnie. "I'll take care of him."

Bonnie nodded. "Take care care of yourself, too. And the others."

Kim smiled. She laid her palm flat on Tyler's fur and concentrated, and a gentle wind swept the pack away.

Bonnie started. "What was that? Was that normal?"

"Uh, yeah," Lucy said as she put her arm around Bonnie. "Their powers are genetic like ours, which means different families from different parts of the world can do different things. It's usually just one special power, but yes it's normal. She looks like she knows what she's doing. He'll be okay."

Bonnie nodded a little too fast, and she could feel her neck becoming stiff. She took a big breath and covered her face with her hands. She exhaled and said, "I need to think about something else."

"We can move all of their clothes inside the house," Lucy said.

"We can clean the house," Bonnie added.

"Hold on a second, they might not be back by the time you're done, so if that's why you want to clean…"

Bonnie closed her eyes.

Lucy looked behind them and said, "Uh, Klaus' wolf bits have turned into human bits."

Bonnie turned around and saw Klaus' body parts scattered over the yard. The son of a bitch just had to leave Tyler suffering. "Here lies Klaus Mikaelson. Everyone hated him."

"What are we going to do with him? Incinerate?"

"Not until Tyler's back. He needs to be here for that. He will be here for that. In the meantime, uh, his family has a cellar….."

When Caroline arrived home, she had to calm a very anxious Carol Lockwood.

"Mrs. Lockwood, everything's fine. I only came back because things got dangerous for me. Tyler, he's-he's winning."

"Well if he's winning how could things have gotten dangerous for you?"

"Because werewolves don't like vampires, and there are thirteen angry werewolves in that yard. Klaus was making a beeline for me, so I had to go. Or maybe he was coming for Bonnie and her cousin. Either way."

Carol put a hand on her hip and the other on her forehead and sighed in relief. "Is Bonnie okay? I mean…"

"She's fine. She's helping."

"And you're positive Tyler's okay."

"He's holding his weight. He's winning, Mrs. Lockwood. He's got a whole team."

Carol closed her eyes and nodded. And then she dissolved into tears. Caroline walked her to the couch and sat with her.

"I'm sorry, I'm just...I'm so scared for him. He's doing all these big things, taking these risks…."

"He's halfway there," Caroline consoled as she rubbed her back. "Trust me, I know how scary it is."

"He was talking about burying himself alive and getting possessed, and he's so driven. I never-" She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I knew Klaus was horrible. He turned my son into a monster. But I never realized how angry Tyler was, how much….he still thought about it. He doesn't give me the details, you know? He left town a lot, and I'm so sick of him leaving, but I always thought….I always thought that he had accepted it, that he was dealing with it. Like I was. I was so busy dealing with it that I ig-ignored my son," she realized, and she broke down again. Her memories were pulled back to a time when Richard Lockwood was alive and would oftentimes carry out a contentious relationship with Tyler. She had dealt with that, too, and it had resulted in the same thing: she had failed to be there for Tyler to the best of her ability.

Caroline comforted her and shortly after, when Carol assured and reassured her that she was fine, she went to her bedroom and closed the door. She sat in front of her vanity mirror and looked at herself. She'd connected to what Carol was saying, and she hoped that Tyler made it. But she still felt sorry for Klaus.

"Fuck," she breathed in frustration. She got off the vanity and dug through her closet for the portrait that Klaus had given her, intent on ripping it, but when she found it she stared at the image of her next to a horse's head.

Thank you for your honesty,

-Klaus

Reading the words over again, she went to her bed and sat down. A portrait, a dress, and a bracelet. Those were the only existing evidence that Klaus could attempt to be a good person, and she owned all of them. She couldn't destroy them, not yet, maybe not ever. She'd meant what she'd said to him. She truly wished that he had lived differently. She wished that he had gotten a chance, that he had been able to take a chance. As horrible as he was, he had been dealt a sucky hand by his parents. What must it be like to indulge one's basic nature for so long and then one day want to change it for one person? Perhaps that had been too ambitious for him.

Damon came to her mind, and she put the drawing down. It wasn't the same thing. Damon was unwilling to change and he said as much every chance he got, not to mention that the asshole wanted to be an important part of Elena's life while he insisted on treating the rest of them however he pleased. Klaus had generally left them alone, unless they bothered him, which they had, a lot, with all of their plans to murder him. He had been playing the cure partnership straight, but Tyler and Bonnie had wanted something else.

Maybe people like Klaus weren't allowed to change after all that they had done. Even if they wanted to change, maybe they didn't deserve the chance, for the sake of all of the people that they had hurt.

She didn't hurt people, didn't kill anyone unless she had no choice, and she didn't maim. But she was going to live forever. Time was going to make sure that she ended up surrounded by people like the Originals and Damon and even Stefan, who had a severely ugly side. She was graduating high school soon. She couldn't cling to planning dances and volunteering forever. How the hell was she going to fit in?

Bonnie insisted on driving, because she did not want to be idle.

She and Lucy had walked to the cellar, levitating Klaus' body parts as they went.

They returned without incident, packed their things, and buckled in to leave Tyler's house. She thought about calling Caroline for the sole purpose of speaking to Carol, but she realized that stopping by the Forbes house meant delaying the moment when she would be alone in her room, wondering how Tyler was holding up.

She made the drive and knocked on the door when they arrived, Lucy standing behind her.

Carol moved the curtain to see who it was, and then she fumbled with the locks in her hurry to open the door. "Where's Tyler? Liz called and said the station was getting reports of howls in my neighborhood. Where's Tyler?"

Bonnie held out her hands and said, "He's fine. I mean-Klaus is dead. Tyler's hurt."

Carol stood in shock and looked behind Bonnie at Lucy.

Caroline, who had come jogging out of her room, asked, "What do you mean he's hurt? Is he in the car?"

"The other werewolves took him to heal him. They're banged up, too."

"How are they going to heal him if they're hurt, too?" Carol asked, worry making her raise her voice.

"Because they'll be surrounded by Nature," Bonnie answered calmly. "They'll be in their natural environment. Hey," she said when Carol got a far away look in her eyes like she was about to imagine the worst, "What he needs is for us to believe he's gonna be okay."

Lucy slid her attention from Carol to Bonnie. She sounded so together. Literally up to the moment that she had stepped out of the car, she had looked like she was still picturing Tyler weak and fading on the grass. She had kept a tight squeeze on the wheel for the whole drive over. Now, the only sign of the true depth of her emotions was how quietly she spoke, something she was sure that other people would mistake for the sympathy required when delivering not so great news.

"You're right," Carol said.

"He's gonna be okay," Caroline assured as she rubbed Carol's back. "And I'm sure the first place he'll come when he gets back is here so you can see," she said with an encouraging smile.

Carol nodded and tried to smile.

Caroline dragged her gaze to Bonnie and said, "So, Klaus is dead?"

Bonnie looked at her like she was finally registering that she was talking to Caroline. Here. In Caroline's house. All of that had gone down with Tyler, he was struggling to breathe, and Caroline was sitting in her house. Things could have gotten dangerous for her, sure, but had she really needed to clear the property and go blocks and blocks away to sit at home? Tyler had told her that he felt like Caroline wasn't in his corner, but Bonnie was still flabbergasted by the fact that the girl had missed Tyler's pivotal victory.

When Jeremy had asked her to be there the day that Shane had helped diffuse his urge to kill any vampire within sight, she had agreed because she'd known that it was a delicate situation for him, and she'd known that he wasn't a fan of people getting inside of his head. They weren't together anymore, but she was still considerate of Jeremy's deepest fears and concerns, and he was still considerate of hers, which was why he fully supported her decision to get the cure for her mother instead of his sister.

Caroline had left Tyler on what she knew was the biggest night of his life and gone all the way home.

"He's dead," Lucy confirmed when she saw Bonnie taking too long. "Chewed and scratched to bits and pieces."

Caroline kept her horror in check.

"He's dead," Bonnie repeated, her voice flatter now than when she'd been talking to Carol. "Gone." Then she added with a thin smile, "Sorry you missed it."

Caroline recognized an accusation when she heard one. Barely opening her mouth, she said, "You probably missed it because you were busy chanting, but Klaus made a beeline for us. I didn't have anything to protect me."

Bonnie slowly lifted her head in acknowledgment and reigned in her emotions. She shouldn't take her worry for Tyler out on Caroline. "Yeah, I know," she said resolutely. "Things could've gotten more complicated."

But she couldn't tear her hard stare away from Caroline.

Lucy put her hands on Bonnie's shoulders and tried to break the tension. "Okay, well we just wanted to stop by and let you know how everything went."

"Thank you," Carol said.

Bonnie lowered her gaze from Caroline and then lifted it to Carol. "Good night."

Carol nodded. When the women turned away, she quickly said, "And thank you….for helping him. Thank you."

Bonnie and Lucy nodded, and then they walked to the car.

"I'm driving this time," Lucy said, and she held out her hand for the keys.

Bonnie didn't feel like putting up a fight, so she surrendered and directed Lucy to the house.

When they arrived, Lucy cut the car off, and they sat in silence for a moment.

"That was, uh, that was really good," Lucy began. "Tucking your feelings away like that to talk to them? I've had to do that before. But I'm usually talking to strangers. I thought….you guys would lean on each other."

"I've got people to lean on," Bonnie said, and she looked from the floor of the car and smiled at her cousin.

Lucy smiled. "So I take it that was Tyler's ex."

"Caroline," Bonnie confirmed as she looked out of the windshield. "My best friend."

"You say best friend, but I kind of hear frenemy."

Bonnie smiled. "No, she's my best friend. We grew up together, we all did. Things are just different now. We're different, and that makes us not completely compatible anymore. That's what tore her and Tyler apart," she said, turning her head to Lucy.

"And what brought you and Tyler together?" she guessed. Then she warned, "If you say he's not your boyfriend…"

"He's not my boyfriend," she insisted. She couldn't believe that she was smiling right now. "We haven't talked about that. He's just a really good friend."

"You mean a really good friend."

"Yeah, Lucy, a really good friend."

Lucy chuckled.

"He's a good person."

"And Caroline? I mean clearly she knows how good of a friend Tyler's been to you, if that staring contest is anything to go by."

Bonnie exhaled steadily through her nose.

"You can tell me," Lucy said. "I'm not gonna run and tell your parents. I mean I'm not promising not to judge, but you can tell me."

"Yeah, that's the thing: it's complicated. It deals with a whole history between all of us. Bottom line: Caroline is my best friend. She hates me right now, but I'm sure beforehand she thought of me as her best friend, too. The girl who was freaking out so badly last night that she had to literally be put to sleep: would you have guessed that she had not one but two best friends? The other one is Elena. That is...one...giant...mess. Elena's boyfriend is the vampire who turned mom. He wasn't her boyfriend at the time, but….yeah, he still managed to win her over after. And Caroline hates Damon. He was horrible to her. Elena knows that. But a couple of months ago at a sleepover we were having, she was singing his praises to Caroline. We're best friends.

I think we're used to each other. I think we love each other. We just have different priorities. I didn't care about Caroline's relationship," she admitted. "I mean, I wasn't looking to destroy it, I wasn't looking for anything to happen, but...I just felt like if it didn't need to happen, then it wouldn't have been happening, you know? That probably doesn't make sense, but you should've seen Tyler and Caroline at their beginning. They were just….so into each other. Perfect couple, always touching, always kissing. Not that any of us would've ever put them together, but they were working, and then Tyler was into me, and I was attracted to him, and we just clicked. Maybe that sounds typical, but we did. And even still, I assumed they'd work it out in the end despite the connection I felt to him, but then Tyler told me….She couldn't even be there for him tonight."

"She probably really was scared," Lucy said. "You and I don't know what it's like to have a natural enemy that can smell you out."

"She would have stayed if-if it was Stefan," she countered as the thought came to her. "I can't imagine her running and abandoning Stefan, but she ran. And that's the thing, that's the whole issue. The people you're supposed to rely on just...disappear. And then they have a perfectly good reason why, and that's supposed to make it okay. This is why-"

"Based on what I saw," Lucy interrupted, laying her hand over hers, "It was more important to Tyler that you were there."

"Based on their history, it sucks that she ran," Bonnie insisted.

Lucy submitted to her point. "Come on, let's get you inside."

When they entered, Rudy and Abby were waiting for them.

"I was about to come check on you," Rudy said. "I heard the car stop a couple of minutes ago."

"We were talking," Lucy said as she reached behind her to lock the door.

Abby crossed her arms and asked, "How did it go?"

"We won," Bonnie said plainly. "Klaus is dead."

"So why don't you look like someone who has something to celebrate?" Rudy asked carefully, throwing a quick look at Lucy.

"Tyler's hurt," Bonnie said quietly. "Badly. He's having trouble breathing, and, um….the others have taken him….somewhere….to try and heal him."

"To definitely heal him," Lucy corrected quietly. "He couldn't be in better hands, Bonnie. Communal pack healing is powerful stuff."

"I'm gonna go to bed," Bonnie told her father.

She was nowhere near falling asleep when Rudy knocked on her door.

"Come in," she said. She turned on the lamp and sat up against the wall.

Rudy sighed heavily and sat on the bed. "You're very very worried," he observed.

"I know he's gonna be okay. I just want to skip this waiting part and have him in front of me, talking, smiling, and laughing. I can't stop thinking about how hurt he is, so I keep forgetting that he's gonna be okay."

"Do you trust the people he's with?"

"I do."

"And Tyler's a fighter. I see that in him. If nothing else, him coming in front of us for your sake cemented it. This isn't what's gonna take him down. Besides, he and I still need to have a talk."

"About what?"

"How sweet he is on you."

"Oh my God," she cringed, even as she smiled. "Sweet on me? You sound like granddad."

"Hey, pop's a good judge of character and situations. I like to think some of that rubbed off on me. And what I judge is that that boy wants to be more than just your friend. But if you don't feel anything for him, then….there's nothing for me to talk to him about," he egged her on.

Bonnie gradually sobered.

"Do you?" he asked.

She opened and closed her mouth twice before answering, "Yeah. I like him. A lot. I love him."

"Based on what he said earlier, he loves you, too."

She smiled shyly. Then she remembered that Tyler might've meant that he loves her as a friend.

Rudy grimaced, because one detail still troubled him. "Isn't he dating your friend? Caroline?"

"They're over," Bonnie said.

"Mmm." He chose not to ask how that had come about. He was sure that he didn't want to hear it. Instead, he switched gears. "Listen. About what you said earlier. About your mother. I want you to know that…." He struggled to find the words as the pain of those fifteen years converged on him. "Your mother and I….were partners. We were partners. And….she broke that. She wrestled with her duty as a witch and what she felt she owed to herself: you and me. I had given her the option of leaving after you turned one. She didn't take it, swore she had to stay. And then….two years later….I got a note from her. A magical note. It said, I'm fine. I still have it. She'd sent me notes before, but I knew that that one…..

I called, and I called. I called for two and a half months. I called on your birthday the next year. Then Christmas. On your first day of kindergarten….I cried, not for the first time, but I cried, and I called her and told her how adorable you looked and that you'd screamed and thrown a fit. I called on your birthday again, then Christmas again. New Year's Day the year that you would turn eight was the last time I called her. I told her not to come back, that she never needed to see you again. I still have that number written down. And all these years, I've wondered….I've wondered if….if I called….would she pick up? Has she kept the number like I have?"

"But you never called," Bonnie said.

"I know that you were the best thing to happen to Abby. I still don't doubt that. She carried you for nine months, and….baby, I was not gonna beg anybody to love you. Not anybody. I wasn't gonna convince anyone of how special you are, least of all your own mother, the woman who-It's one thing for me to beg for myself. But you? Your uniqueness speaks for itself. I've always told you that."

Bonnie nodded. He had. She just had had no idea that it stemmed from what Abby had done.

"Maybe I should've reached out," Rudy considered. "Maybe I should've tried."

"It's okay that you didn't," Bonnie said. "I can imagine what that was like, and I'm pretty sure my imagination is nowhere close to actually going through it. But dad, you should've given me the choice of reaching out. You took away all of the pictures except one. I never….please tell me you have those pictures somewhere. No matter how many times I trained myself not to think about it, part of me still hoped that you just had them in storage somewhere."

Rudy sucked in a hesitant breath. "I do, but Bonnie….I just don't want you to get hurt. I'm not gonna know how to pick up the pieces if she leaves again. At least beforehand you hadn't had any experiences yet. You didn't really know her."

"I'll be careful," she promised. "I'm not running to her, heart first."

Rudy nodded and pulled her into a hug. "I worked very hard to make sure you weren't damaged by her, that you wouldn't miss her in any part of your life. I did my research to make sure that I would be enough. Those years, even with your grandmother, they were torture. I could never really be sure that you weren't lack anything, not internally. Everything scared the hell out of me."

"Like when I told you I wanted to straighten my hair in middle school, and you spent a month talking about black women's hair and gave me old issues of Jet Magazine?"

Rudy smiled as he remembered. "Yeah. Sheila finally convinced me to stop when she pointed out that I could be giving you a complex about your hair by doing that. I guess I didn't do such a great job. You're right: I shouldn't have kept her from you. I should've let you decide."

Bonnie hugged him tighter and closed her eyes. "You did a great job, dad. I wouldn't trade that month for anything."

About ten minutes after Rudy left, Abby softly knocked on the door. Bonnie turned the lamp on again and sat up.

"Come in."

Abby opened the door and smiled. Bonnie smiled back.

"I just, um, I wanted to make sure you were doing okay," she said as she sat down.

"I'm doing a little better."

"Lucy's right: he couldn't be in a better place. Communal healing is the best a werewolf can get."

Bonnie nodded.

"I'm sure you're gonna be one of his first pit stops when he gets back."

She smiled.

"I've thought about what he said. I'm on board."

"Mom, if you're uncomfortable-"

"My unease is largely due to guilt, which I brought on myself. This is about you, and I think that Tyler's conviction is….adequate, pleasing. Am I right in thinking that he's important?"

The similarity between how her parents had chosen to frame their question about Tyler made Bonnie smile. "You're right."

"I'm going to trust that someone like that would only want what is best for you."

"Thank you."

Before Bonnie slipped under the covers this time, she grabbed Tyler's jacket and put it on. She sniffed it when she laid down and closed her eyes as his cologne and natural musk filled her nostrils. Her mind was calm when she fell asleep, her thoughts on how valiantly he'd fought for her in front of her family, and she hoped that he somehow knew, wherever he was right now, that she was thinking about him.

A/N2: Alright listen, now. I need y'all to prepare. I need y'all to get your minds right for the Tonnie reunion, because it's going to be intense, gloves off, all bets off, and I tried to prepare you as best I could by peppering hints in different chapters of the fic thus far. You been waaarned!