jeremy

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'and i could give you my devotion
til the end of time
and you will never be forgotten
with me by your side
and i don't need this life
i just need...
i've got nothing left to live for
got no reason yet to die
but when i'm standing in the gallows
i'll be staring at the sky'

-'somebody to die for', hurts

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If Bonnie could have swallowed her tongue, she would have.

"How the hell is that possible?" she whispers.

Jeremy glances at her over the top of Kol's head. "She saw you. And she smelled Kol's scent and all of her compelled memories came back."

Kol's hands finally loosen their death grip on Jeremy's shirt. He shifts back slightly, shooting a worried look over his shoulder at Bonnie.

"That's not-that's not possible."

"Apparently, it's quite possible," Jeremy says with a snarl.

Bonnie quickly steps forward, a hand reaching out and wrenching Kol away from Jeremy. He doesn't fight her, his eyes still blazing.

"How? Tell me how," Bonnie says gruffly. She tries to ignore the flash of hurt in Jeremy's eyes at her tone.

"You left town about a month ago. She was hunting and she caught your scent. I don't know how she figured it out but she knows. She knows that you are alive and that Bonnie and Caroline took off with you."

As Jeremy continues to explain, Bonnie glimpses something out of the corner of her eye. Something that sends a shiver down her spine.

A man stands on the other side of the busy street, leaning nonchalantly against a lamp post. This street is abuzz with excitement, all the simple pleasures of the city and the man is unnoticed by all passerby.

Except her.

She locks eyes with this man and feels a shiver of fear down her spine. The shiver turns into a lock right at the base of her throat as the man begins to move around the lamppost and glances to his right before beginning his ascend across the street.

He looks like a simple man, every day good looking boy next door. He reminds her of Matt.

Oh, God.

"Kol."

Kol ignores her, he and Jeremy still in a heated debate over something ridiculous like the eighteen year old jerks that they are.

He really does look harmless. Bonnie even sees a woman stop in her path to some store just to give him a once over. In another life, she would have found this man attractive with his dark blond hair that hangs in curls just below his ears, the crisp black leather jacket that adorns a set of quite built shoulders.

Her fear grows as he gets closer.

"Kol."

Bonnie does notice something odd though about him. Even though they had looked into each other's eyes, there was something that was missing. Some sort of human quality-or even a servant of nature.

And she knows.

"Kol!"

That finally gets her partner's attention. One look at her and he knows too.

A flash of black and she is choking on her own tongue. Her whole body is twisting and turning, practically squeezed into an invisible tube and being shoved down. She can feel the release in her feet and it creeps up her legs and stomach. Once it reaches her throat, she lets out a gasp and falls onto her hands and knees, coughing and gagging. She can hear Jeremy and Kol both coughing as well.

When she finally gets her wits about her, her vision clears and she looks up.

They're not on that street anymore.

"What the fu-? How the hell did you do that?!" are Jeremy's first words.

Bonnie pulls herself to her feet, looking around worriedly. She realizes that they are back on the main street into the city, at least fifteen miles outside of the metropolis. She can barely hear Kol and Jeremy bickering behind her as she takes it in.

Silas had found them. He knew where they were. He was probably going after Caroline and Klaus and Matt as they stood there doing absolutely nothing.

"Niklaus isn't stupid, lamb," Kol says, reading her mind. "He'll get them out of there."

"And how do you know that?" Bonnie replies scathingly, turning around to glare at him. "He could be-"

"He won't," Kol shoots back.

"Why did you bring us here?"

"Silas will not strike now," Kol says. "He doesn't care. It's us that he wants, correct? It was the perfect time for him to take out New York City at the same time and I happen to be a bit fond of that place."

Bonnie rolls her eyes before her gaze falls on Jeremy once again. All she really wants to do is hug the stuffing out of her friend but can sense it would be just a bit awkward since she did kind of pick Kol over him.

"So what now?" Jeremy asks.

"We stop arguing," Bonnie says, her eyes settling on the other witch. He doesn't even bother to look intimidated, his playful smirk in place. "And we get back to the others."

"I don't think that is the best idea," Kol says.

"Excuse me?"

"There's still so much to find out about the lovely Elena coming after me with her two lapdogs. So-"

It happens so freaking fast that Bonnie's cry of warning dies on her lips. With a punch that seems so light but holds so much else, Jeremy falls unconscious at Kol's feet.

"What the hell is wrong with you?!" Bonnie screeches, practically stamping her foot in irritation.

Kol shrugs a shoulder. "I'm covering my own hide."

"And you're beating up someone who was just trying to save your ass."

"He killed me."

"He saved you. Oh, god I feel like I'm arguing with Damon," she moans, clapping a hand to her forehead. She ignores the shine of black in Kol's eyes.

They find a hotel after Bonnie calls Caroline. Irritatingly enough, Kol had been absolutely right and Klaus had gotten them out of there in time but it had been Matt who has sensed Silas being near.

As they talk later with the phone on speaker, Jeremy still out like a light on the lumpy couch and Kol practically climbing the walls, Bonnie learns much more.

That tattoo had never really gone away after Kol had been resurrected. When Matt had been made a member of the Five, it reappeared on Jeremy's arm as well. Bonnie sees it now, leaning her ex's unconscious form and carefully rolling up his sleeve. When Silas was near, the tattoo flared up on Matt's arm, alerting the rest of their family to what was happening.

"It glowed, Bonnie. It freaking glowed! If I hadn't been so scared I would have found that so cool!"

Bonnie chuckles softly at Caroline's excitement. She needs some excitement in her life, goddamn it and being around these freaks of nature (albeit one adorable freak of nature), it gives her quite a bit of zest for her crazy life.

"Where are you guys? Are you all safe?" Bonnie asks.

"Oh, we're fine. We're-"

"Don't tell her where you are," Kol cuts in. "The walls have ears."

"You actually have a point," Caroline says, an air of annoyance in her voice. "Listen, Elijah has been doing more digging about Silas. Since it got kind of lax with all the shit that we have gone through these past months, it's time to-"

"Get back on our game," Klaus butts in. "Elijah?"

Elijah's low voice rings through the speaker phone moments later. "There are three risings," he murmurs softly.

"Risings?"

Jeremy's voice causes Bonnie to jump. She looks over her shoulder to see her ex sitting up on the sofa, running an exhausted hand through his shaggy hair. A bruise is already forming on his jaw, stretching up his cheekbone.

"The tattoos tell the story. Not just of where the cure for vampirism lays but exactly what kind of-"

"Apocalypse," Kol finishes lightly, his tone ever so dangerous.

"How do you-?" Bonnie starts to ask Elijah but then Matt's voice cuts in.

"My tattoo is growing, Bonnie," Matt says gently. "By the way, hey Jeremy."

There is a swarm of pain in Jeremy's eyes that has nothing to do with his busted cheekbone.

"Matt?"

"Yeah, buddy. It's me. I'm okay."

Jeremy swallows noisily, his lips forming a question that he already knows tha answer to.

"Yes, he is a vampire," Kol cuts in, his voice almost cruel. "Katherine had to turn him after he was attacked by Silas."

Bonnie exchanges a glance with him before looking back at Jeremy.

Jeremy leans closer to the phone, almost like he is trying to get closer to his best friend. More pain shines in his features before he swallows them back.

"Are you all right? Are they-?"

"Using me as a chew toy?" Matt finishes with a light laugh. "No, I'm okay. I'm...I'm happy, Jeremy. It's rough, dealing with the thirst but it's getting easier with time. I-I'm alright."

"It was his choice, Jeremy," Bonnie finds herself murmuring. "It was all of our choices."

"We want to be here," Caroline puts forward, her own voice equally as gentle.

Bonnie looks up to see that Kol has left the room. She can sense that the others on the other end of the line have probably done the same, leaving the four lost friends to their own privacy. She guesses that Kol was just eager to escape the chick-flick moment.

It doesn't make the loss any easier.

Jeremy looks right at Bonnie as the next words come out of his mouth, his eyes firm and searching for the truth.

"Does he treat you right?"

Bonnie finds the shadow of a smile forming on her lips. "More than all right."

"Do you love him?"

She can answer this without even thinking because it's the truth. Nothing but the absolute truth.

"Yes."

They remain like that for what seems like hours, eyes connected, souls always a part of each other. They have gone through too damn much to stop any of this now.

But it's time to let go.

"We're all right," Caroline says through the phone line, her tone lighter. "Everything is going to be okay. This is going to get fixed."

The hours go by and the tattoo grows. Kol is able to read the language that it spells out and they discover so much more than they ever bargained for.

Three risings, three losses will occur. It isn't hard to guess that they may already be occurring as they speak.

"The first rising is of the witches," Kol murmurs softly, holding Jeremy's arm in a light grip. "All the dead witches in the last three years. And then the wolves. And the vampires."

"From all different times?" Bonnie asks.

"All I can see is the witches will rise first and I think that is because there were a lot of recent deaths," Kol says.

"You can say that again," Bonnie says.

"The same with the wolves and the vampires."

The phone line is connected once again and the two sides of the family continue to converse. Klaus read the same thing on Matt's arm but it took longer to grow since Matt has only killed demons and one other vampire in self defense, unlike Jeremy who had killed several.

Early morning strikes and Jeremy falls asleep on the sofa, his large frame sprawled out across the lumpy cushions. Bonnie finds herself following Kol into the tiny kitchenette, watching him as he rummages through the cupboards for some kind of food.

"It's too bad we aren't like Samantha Stephans and we could just magick up food," Bonnie chuckles softly, seeing the slightly panicked and hungry look on Kol's face. When he looks at her blankly, she raises a brow. "You've never heard of the show Bewitched?"

"Sounds like a porno flick," he murmurs grumpily, slamming a cupboard door shut with a huff.

"It was on in the sixties and seventies and it was about a witch who married a human. It was pretty good-"

"You seem to forget that I am only a freaking human now who was daggered during the sixties," Kol replies with an irritated snort. He violently yanks out one of the kitchen table chairs and sits down, crossing his arms in front of his chest and adopting the pout of a four year old boy in dire need of a nap.

"Jeez, what's your problem?" Bonnie asks, lowering herself down into the other chair.

"What's my problem, lamb?" Kol snaps. "What do you think my problem is? Silas chooses to come after us today of all days, Elena and her whipping boys know I am alive, I am stuck here with the boy who killed me and you're-" his voice catches in his throat. Bonnie leans forward, catching a glimmer of pain in his honeyed eyes.

"Kol, I am not going to leave you for him," she whispers, resting her elbows on the table.

"That's not-" He tries to rebuttal her and loses it. He lets out a sigh, running a wearily hand through his sun blazed locks. "Is it really that obvious?"

Bonnie nods. "It's kind of cute, actually."

Kol rolls his eyes. "Thanks, Bon."

"There's a difference between you and Jeremy," Bonnie says, her voice dropping to a whisper. "A big difference."

"That I'm much better looking?" Kol supplies. Now it's Bonnie's turn to roll her eyes.

"Shut up for a second," she says softly as she rises to her feet, slowly shuffling over to where he sat. "Jeremy...Jeremy didn't want me in the beginning. He-he was still hung up on his little ghost of girlfriends' past cliché and-and I got it. He had a lot to deal with. And he even told me that it was always going to be Anna."

Their fingers twine together and Kol gently pulls her down onto his lap, his hands protectively encasing her in a soft embrace.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, his lips a breath's away from her ear.

She shakes her head. "I don't want you to feel sorry for me," she says. Her fingers catch his again and she notes how perfectly they fit together. "Because it's a thing of the past. Jeremy is my past. I don't regret my time with him. He has helped me grow in ways that weren't possible. But now, I have a future. I have an amazing future."

Kol gives her the tiniest of smiles. "Are you going to go all cheesy and say I am your future?"

Bonnie winks. "Would you like me too?"

He shrugs a shoulder. "I wouldn't hate it."

She can't help but smile as she leans down to kiss him. Their lips meet in the softest, most gentle of kisses. And Bonnie finds her home right there in his arms.

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This was originally going to be one long chapter but I think it fits better to end it on that sweet Kennett moment. While I was writing it, I was listening to Labrinth's 'See Beneath Your Beautiful' and it fits so much better than the song that I chose but I dunno. I'm just rambling here guys.