A/N: Many thanks to all you amazing readers. TheSouthernScribe, I know I said I'd get this out about two days ago, but I had some rewrites to do. Thanks for your support as always though, and thanks for being patience. RubyLily7, I've read a lot of Supernatural fiction. Some of them are so close, you can practically hear them talking, and some of them are not quite as close, so I'm glad that you think that my interpretation is one of the close ones. I hope that you like this chapter as well. Bright sunny days 1, I love your name and I love the fact that you like Bonnie/Stefan's friendship. I see a lot of potential for those two to be friends, especially with the whole mind reading thing. mrs. mathis, you flatter me to no end. And I adore you for it. I was your summer beach read? How awesome is that! I thank you for the kind words, and really look forward to all of your reviews (everyone). Also, thank you to KimBraindead for the lengthy reviews. They are entirely too sweet. And if anyone has time please read her story Broken Blossoms and Rules of the Chase by the lovely TheSouthernScribe. Now, the next chapter is going to take some time to write, because it takes a specific amount of detail to help it play out the way that I want to, and I am currently at a block, so please bare with me. Only 5 chapters left till the end.
Disclaimer: The title song is "Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele, because I feel as though a lot of characters will be setting fire to the rain in this chapter, and if you're familiar with this song then you'll know why as well by the end of the chapter. Now let's get on with it, shall we?
SET FIRE TO THE RAIN
Bonnie's POV
"Do you, Caroline Forbes, take Tyler Lockwood, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do you part?" Caroline recited these vows into a brightly lit vanity adorned with pictures of Old Hollywood's most glamorous blonds. A myriad of designer eye shadows, lipsticks, and facial primers lay sprawled around the note cards in her hands as Garbo, Davis, and Monroe waited gracefully for an answer to the bride's question.
Elena emerged from the adjoining bathroom in a lavender-grey strapless gown identical to my own that was surprisingly classy despite the amount of ruffles stitched into the floor-length skirt. She fussed over the beading at her midsection that pinched her skin through the soft satin fabric and threw a playfully scornful glance in our best friend's direction. "Care, you do realize that you don't have to memorize that part, right? Those lines are for the minister. All you have to do is repeat after him and say 'I do' when the time comes."
Caroline turned a full 180 degrees in her seat in order to fully address the brunette's concerns. "Is it so wrong for me to want just one day where everything stays perfect?" She dared us with a raised eyebrow to come up with an objection to either her wishes or her use of the word "perfect" to describe today's ceremony. And perfect it was. Her dress was from Vera, her jewelry was Cartier, and the catering was extravagant enough to have sent her a hasty steak knife straight from a jealous Wolfgang Puck himself. But gaudy appearances aside, all was not as flawless below the surface, because now that the wedding hour was approaching, the marriage aspect was becoming all too real. As were the up-and-coming mayoral elections in which Tyler was a candidate. We all knew how much carrying out his father's legacy meant to Tyler, even if he hadn't been very fond of the impudent man during his life. He couldn't afford the scandal surrounding the secret affair of his fiancé and best man. Not to mention the council's sneaking suspicion that he was a werewolf whose wife-to-be had knowingly invited vampires into their home. One whisper of either claim to Tyler or his constituents and both his candidacy and their marriage would go up in smoke.
So with all of those worries looming around us in the guest room-turned dressing area at the Lockwood estate, Elena smiled lovingly and offered a shortened version of the minister's speech, "Do you, Caroline Forbes, take Tyler Lockwood, to be your lawfully wedded husband from this day forward until death do you part?"
Caroline breathed a long satisfied sigh, turned back to her audience of long-dead actresses, and issued the answer that they'd all been waiting for, "I do!" As if summoned by the thoughts of looming worries, Damon took that exact moment to lean across the doorway, arms folded; smirk screwed firmly in place.
"You clean up well, Barbie. And here I was all prepared come up here and choke on parasols or petticoats or whatever the hell it is that you love so much about that ridiculous Yawn With the Wind movie.
The object of his ridicule swallowed back a very unladylike snort which suggested that she knew of a couple dozen other obstructions on which the undead charmer could asphyxiate.
Luckily for all of us, Elena responded before any more animosity could slip into their conversation. "Well, Caroline decided to take a tastefully modern approach on the décor of her wedding."
Damon's smirk grew into an evil grin. "Yes, modern women are quite tasty, aren't they?" He ended the statement with a wink in my direction followed by a contemptible lick of his lips. Elena blushed and Caroline rolled her eyes, wrongly guessing that this remark was some kind of allude to the sexual nature of our relationship. Only he and I knew that the real reason had to do with his recent murder of my anthropology and folklore student Felicia, something that he had denied all week. Now he was taunting me with it. "Speaking of tasty women, there's an entire backyard filled with semi-drunk, morbidly desperate, yet still mildly attractive former sorority girls begging the good father to give you just 'five more minutes,'" he said in a high pitched female voice. "And you, Ms. Gilbert, had better get down to my nervous and predictably brooding brother before he makes a bunny run." Elena drew us all into a tearful hug that felt more like goodbye than good luck and hurried down the stairs to meet Stefan and the rest of the wedding party before Caroline could even spritz a cloud of Chanel No. 5 into the air.
Once the room had cleared, Damon entered and stuck out a deceptively polite elbow for me to take. "Miss Bennett." How he had managed to get Tyler to not only include him in the wedding party, but talk his fiancé into letting Damon take Matt's place as my escort down the aisle was beyond me, but I wasn't exactly excited about the change. Especially given that things weren't at all copacetic with my new escort and me.
For the last eight and a half years that I had known Damon, I had stood witness to various changes in his mood. There were the months upon months that he would spend pining away for love's touch to come in the form of deep olive skin and give his afterlife the only meaning that it had. Soon enough, he would find the pining irksome; the vampire having grown momentarily tired of leaving his love life left up to fate would stalk the streets looking for a nice face and a pair of hips round enough to pretend—with closed eyes, of course—that the woman writhing and twisting on top of him was his long lost love or at the very least, his brother's new flame. Then, in the blink of an eye, his disposition would turn deadly, deciding that the physically spent girl coming off her ecstasy high beside him wasn't even worth the flimsy one-ply toilet paper with which she wiped her ass and end her life on the spot.
"What? It wasn't like she had any family. I did her a favor," he'd more than likely say to his brother or the brunette permanently tattooed to his sibling's arm, no doubt counting on their forgiving natures. And this was all during my first few months of knowing him. Since then, he'd loved, hated, and sought revenge, sometimes all at the same time which is why I'd prepared myself for the blow of his hands. Gotten myself ready for the crash of tumblers and window panes as I sent his body hurling through the air in retaliation for the attack. After all, we had fought for insults much more frivolous than this.
But all week—impromptu murder aside—he had been on his best behavior, serving me breakfast in bed and running nightly baths filled with enough eucalyptus leaves to tranquilize an elephant. If one hadn't known better, she would have thought that Klaus's slaying had brought us closer together, but Rose wasn't fooled by the display. She had been home that fateful morning. She'd heard the voicemail, heard Damon's breath painfully hitch at the sound of me screaming out Dean's name, and she couldn't understand how he could sit idly by and reward me for my betrayal. "Do you have no more self-respect than to continue to love a woman who is clearly still madly in love with another?" She'd been quiet for most of the week, but after six nights of watching him lie across his empty bed, perfectly unaffected, as if nothing had happened, she had had enough.
"Despite my internal elation over the fact that my existence has turned into nothing more than a shitty CW drama whose writers are clearly a bunch of fanfiction-obsessed tween girls, I fail to see where any of this is your concern." His voice sounded distracted even from where I lay praying for sleep in the guestroom down the hall.
Rose's voice; however, was very involved; growing further from him and closer to me. "It's my concern, because sadly enough, I am just as pathetic as you. But unlike you Salvatore, I refuse to stay here and torture myself with unrequited love any longer." She stuck a head into the room where I'd lain and issued a hate-filled, "He is the only thing stopping me from ripping your heart out and throwing it into the fire next to his," then she left me to fall asleep with restless dreams of Damon's face twisted in pain that killed me a little more slowly each hour. Little did his vampire confidant know, this was exactly what he wanted: for my own guilt to eat me alive and distract me from the makings of his plan. And it had worked. Until now.
"People are waiting, Ms. Bennett. Or would you prefer me to call you Miss Pierce instead?" The comment seized the blood in my veins, crippling me in exactly the way that he had wanted it to. And all the while, I wasn't stupid. Okay, so perhaps I'd made some recent decisions that sought to disprove that claim, decisions for which I should have known better. That I will never deny. But I knew more than to expect for Damon's only punishment to be the mental abuse of making me hate myself.
"I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what you're up to." Damon stepped closer to me, stealing all the air from the tiny room.
There was a smile on his face as he linked his arm through mine, whispering, "People. Are. Waiting. Bonnie," but the hint of venom in his growl was impossible not to detect. This was all part of his trap, one that I was forced to walk directly into for Caroline's sake. Slowly, the smoky-eyed demon backed away from me with hands poised high above his head in the universal sign of surrender. "Fine. If it makes you feel better, I won't touch you. We can walk out there in painfully self-controlled awkward…ness. It'll be just like 1864 all over again. I promise," he crossed his heart and smiled at me as if I didn't know that his promises were usually signed in blood. The thought of forcing a smile in front of a congregation of people dead-set on witnessing the merriment of sworn love was about as nauseating as it had been during Tyler and Caroline's engagement party. Yet, I couldn't deny that he was right, Caroline was waiting quite impatiently to walk down the aisle, and she couldn't do so until Damon and I had made the trek first.
The entire backyard of the estate was decorated with white chairs roped off with ocean-grey streamers that were tied at the middle with blood red roses. A red carpet led Elena and Stefan arm in arm down the aisle in front of Damon and me as the pianist started the first strains of "Make You Feel My Love." When the wedding singer got to the part about knowing where her lover belongs despite the fact that he hasn't made up his mind about her, Damon chuckled beside me. "What the hell made Barbie pick this song?"
"Tyler picked it as a surprise for Care. They had their first kiss to this song in college." I whispered to him the story that Caroline had gushed over countless times. She had just broken up with that week's Damon Salvatore with a pulse and had let Elena drag her off to a party, not knowing of the latter's plans to get her together with our nocturnal childhood friend. It was all so romantic. Very Caroline.
Damon huffed out a small bitter laugh as we started walking arm in arm—per Caroline's insistence—that made me reluctantly ask what song he'd have chosen instead. "All American Rejects' 'Dirty Little Secret' comes to mind," he lowered his mouth to my ear, "especially after what I have planned."
It took everything I had not to wrench my grasp from his. "What are you going to do?" I whispered loudly. He ignored both me and the strange looks that we were getting from the guests. I lowered my voice and hissed in a volume that only he could hear, "Dammit Damon, just tell me what the hell you're up to!"
"In due time, Bon Bon," he chided through tight, clenched teeth that looked like a smile to those unsuspecting of the man's vengeful nature, "You know that good things come to those who take."
"It's 'good things come to those who wait,' Damon" We were nearing closer to the alter, getting ready to part ways when his slight laugh gave my body a parting shake.
"Not the way I say it."
The rest of the bridesmaids filed in behind Caroline, showering the red carpet with white rose petals, as there were no flower girls to do it for them. Sheriff Forbes, who was dressed in a formal version of her uniform, sat in the front row, dabbing her eyes. Next to her, Mrs. Lockwood clutched her hand and wiped her eyes as well, although not nearly for reasons as joyous as Liz's. Looking around, I saw that everyone was feeling the sentimental effects, even Tyler and Stefan, who tried to pass their tears off as sweat due to the extremely large tent that we were standing under in such unseasonably warm weather. And I wanted to cry too. Tears of happiness over gaining Tyler as a pseudo-brother-in-law. Tears of sorrow over what I'd done to Damon. And more than anything else, I wanted to cry tears of downright pain over losing Dean yet again, because celebrating in all of the fanfare was really making me realize all that I was missing. And for the first time in my life, I wanted what Elena and Caroline had. But I couldn't bring myself to cry for or envy any of them, because the wink that Damon had given me once the blushing bride reached the alter washed away everything but warning.
"Dearly Beloved," the minister started, "we are gathered here today in the presence of these witnesses, to join Ms. Caroline Forbes and Mr. Tyler Lockwood in matrimony." At that moment, my phone began to vibrate wildly in the tiny rose red bag that Caroline had attached to all bridesmaids' bouquets. Elena tore her eyes away from the wedding bliss just in time to see the name RENY flash across the screen. There was question widening her brown eyes. "Which is commended to be honorable among all men; and therefore – is not by any – to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly –" Beside Matt, Stefan furrowed his brow at me. He seemed to be sending me some kind of mental message, but I couldn't hear him. "…but reverently, discreetly, advisedly and solemnly." Come to think of it, I hadn't been able to hear Stefan's thought this entire week. He had to have heard what happened between Dean and me. Between Damon and me. And yet I could hear nothing. Not a single thought. "…Into this holy estate these two persons present now come to be joined." Why couldn't I hear him! Another vibration brought my attention to a text message that read:
*You have to stop this wedding! NOW! –Reny*
Elena mimicked Stefan's raised eyebrow. They seemed to be able to sense that something wasn't right. My stomach churned, causing my knees to knock together wildly. "If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together…"
The girl is right Bonnie, Grams' voice was inside the wind. Listen to what she and your instincts are telling you.
"…let them speak now or forever hold their peace." My heart pounded as Damon walked in front of the happy couple and took his place in front of the congregation. He uttered a bitter laugh similar to the one that he'd let out during our wedding march, and evaded Caroline who mistakenly thought that he was about to issue another ill-timed wedding toast. His eyes turned even colder. They seemed to echo his previous thoughts: "Dirty Little Secret" comes to mind…especially after what I have planned. And: You know that good things come to those who take. I had missed it earlier, but now I knew exactly what he was about to do.
"Do you have any opposition that you would like to share?" The minister, who was very young, looked as taken aback as everyone else. Clearly he had never ordained a marriage that had been opposed.
"As a matter of fact, good father, I do." Damon was beaming with pride, fully pleased with himself until I cut my eyes at him. Then his smile turned to a grimace of pain. Not however; because he was buckling underneath the force of his brain cells popping, as I'd hoped. In that regard, he was still standing fully erect, watching as the first drops of blood hit the white roses in my hands. That's how hard I was using my powers, and they were working. The flaps of the tent slapping their posts excitedly were proof enough that my powers were working. They just weren't working on him. His look of hurt turned into one of amusement. "Don't do this, Damon." No one could hear this plea but him.
Yet, he answered as if I had screamed the request. "Now, now, Bonnie. Don't you think that Fido here deserves to know what's going on? Not everyone can be lucky enough to find the incriminating evidence on their voicemails like I was."
Tyler's hand around Caroline's waist stiffened a little. "What kind of incriminating evidence?" Caroline paled underneath her red lipstick. She looked as if she wanted to die. And now, Damon had gone too far. I no longer cared that half the town—including the council—were here to witness my spell.
My eyes shot a stream of fire into the air that showered Damon's hair and shoulders like raindrops. He felt nothing, but the desire to throw this entire town into the flames that failed to engulf him. "Evidence of Sex Tape Barbie fucking your best man." All previous conversation went deathly silent, except for Tyler who snatched himself from Caroline and hurled an enraged fist at his former best friend. Caroline let out a horrified scream for me—or Stefan, or really anyone for that matter—to do something about the two men that were trying to kill each other and hurling insults like "Now you know how I felt when you made out with my mom," and "It was one lousy drunken kiss, Matt! But at least I didn't fall on her dick first."
Finally, Stefan and Jeremy were able to pry the emotional wolf off of his victim and push him toward the direction of the house. Around us, rain started to fall. The tent was meant to keep out bugs and slight drizzles, not the torrential downpour that reminded us it was December and threatened to ruin what was left of Caroline's wedding. She didn't care though. To her, all happiness had been ruined the moment Damon had stepped up to the alter. Maybe even the moment he was invited to the wedding.
Sensing that his work was done, Damon turned back to the crowd. "Well, if anyone needs me, I'll be at the bar. You're welcomed to join me. You look like you could all use a drink." Which is exactly where I found him five minutes later, sucking champagne from the crook of a bartender's neck who barely even looked young enough to drink, let alone serve them. As soon as they saw me, he whispered something in her ear that sent her into a fit of giggles, twirled his finger around his temple and nudged at me as if to say, "she can get a bit insane, so could you just give us a few minutes, please?" She jumped off his lap and pouted until he promised to rejoin her in five more minutes, which was all I needed to send the half full bottle of Chardonnay into the side of his skull.
"What the hell did you do to my powers, Damon!" I used the powers in question to smash another bottle and held the jagged end up to his jugular.
"They seem to be working just fine to me." He nonchalantly moved the levitating shard of glass from his throat and placed it onto the bar. I sent a bowl of olives his way.
"You know what the hell I mean vampire! Why are you immune to my powers?"
He plucked an olive from his silk shirt and chewed it thoughtfully. "Now Bonnie, you didn't seriously think that you were the only witch I knew did you?" Another witch! So, he's protected by another witch. My mind immediately reeled back Reny's question last week: "Can a witch break the charms of another?" But she wouldn't. Would she? Damon rolled his eyes and silenced my internal debate. "Your Charmed School rejects are safe and sound. And trust me, my witch is far more experienced than yours." This made sense, even though I had never known Damon to have many friends. But the question of why Damon would intentionally hurt Caroline—who had never done anything to him—still coursed through my thoughts. Of course, he had an answer for that one as well. "As you and Katherine have both proved, nothing stings worse than being burned by the one person you trusted." A part of that comment was meant for Caroline. Devastated and broken Caroline, who was even more pissed at me for inviting Damon to her wedding than she was at Damon for ruining it. Yet, there was a deeper part of that statement that was meant solely for the vampire himself. He too had been devastated. Oh, he feigned heartlessness well, concealed his feelings behind a wall of scotch and Sexy Graffiti perfume, because they were his smoke and mirrors. But as with any other form of false magic they were all an illusion to hide the obvious. That something in him had died the night I'd saved Dean. I just prayed that that something wasn't his humanity.
"Look Damon. I'm sorry that I hurt yo—"He flinched away from me as if I had set him on fire (successfully), and stood up so fast his stool crashed to the floor. My throat was in his fist in a second.
"Don't you dare give me that 'I didn't meant to hurt you bullshit! You don't know the first thing about pain, but you're about to." He used his other hand to smooth down the pieces of hair that had come loose from my hairclip, "Because I've only just begun to make your life a living hell."
Damon released me into a hard wall of muscle, sending an infuriated glare at the owner of those muscles before he took off to meet the bartender. For a split second, my heart raced. And I thought that maybe it was Dean. That he had come back to grant me one moment of reprieve even though the house of cards that I'd been dealt had just fallen down around me. But the face attached to the muscle was only Elijah. "What do you want?"
"It's nice to see you too Ms. Bennett. Quite the mess you've gotten yourself into, isn't it?" I was in no mood for another vampire. I had really had enough of them to last me a lifetime. "It seems as if we've had a bit of a misunderstanding the last time we talked," he went on. "If you mistook my concern for the doppelganger's life as anything more than selfishness on my behalf, then perhaps I've overestimated your intelligence."
"Well, if you mistook my saving Rose's life as anything even remotely concerning you, then perhaps I've overestimated your intelligence." He grabbed me before I could go find Caroline.
"When I came to you, it was because I trusted that you could follow directions. Not take it upon yourself to "handle," he emphasized his sarcasm on the word with air quotes, "the situation on your own. Which you failed to, by the way." I was not about to argue the fact that Dean would have died I we had waited any longer to a man…No! To a selfish blood thirsty leach who had no authority to stake claim over my actions. I had just finished telling him so when Caroline walked between us at the bar demanding that I give her the Jewel of Eclipse back.
"Jewel of Eclipse?" I stupidly repeated.
"Yes, Bonnie. Now, give it back. Tyler's going to need it during the eclipse… If he ever speaks to me again." She melted into a fresh puddle of tears, choosing Elijah's jacket as a place to rest her head since this perfect stranger's arms were the closest that she could find. He smoothed her hair like the devious monster that he was and assured her that everything would be alright. But how could it when he didn't even realize just how horrible things had gotten. Inside my head, he continued to whisper, I suggest that you keep the jewel for yourself. After all there is a reason for every name…
Something about the way that he said it made me run. Run deep through the woods in search of Damon. Maybe it was the fact that I was supposed to have been rid of Elijah. He was an extension of Klaus, and Klaus was dead. Him being here, telling me that I had screwed up somehow didn't make any sense, and I was hard-wired to run toward anything that could make sense of this mess I'd made. Still, as my heels dodged thorny branches and sharp rocks, not stopping until I reached the boarding house, I knew that I had run out of realization of what Elijah's presence really meant. Because even though I was pretty sure that Damon's life was as good as over, I couldn't stop myself from searching for him.
On the couch where Damon should have been, there was a note instead. Rose stood staring, first at it, then at me. "It was here when I arrived. I've been waiting for Damon to come home and open it, but…" she couldn't finish her thought, because we both knew that he wasn't coming home. We read the note together in silence.
If there is one thing that I despise most in this world, it's a cheater. Games are more fulfilling when they are fair, like chess. Which is why I have seized your gallant knight. Now, I will give you a choice, surrender my queen by the night of the eclipse. Or I will go after your king.
–My regards,
Klaus.
Inside the envelope, lay a glass chess piece; a queen holding a single red rose in her hands. Rose turned the piece over in her palm until the bottom faced upward. Along the bottom there was a message: Check mate…