Note: There is a love letter from me to you at the end of the chapter, give it a looksy will ya?


"Death always comes too early or too late."

English Proverb

The Battle PT II

Relief was too much to ask.

Or so it seemed. Bonnie had landed awkwardly through the portal she, Lucy and Amelia had opened up. Halfway through her return to Imran's beach house something gripped her chest and twisted. Damon was hovering over her, holding her up as he called her name. Enzo and Caroline gasped as they fell through the portal, seeing Bonnie like this.

"What's happening?" Caroline yelled? "Why is she…seizing?" When Stefan and Fahada stepped through the younger Salvatore fell to his brother's side as they tried to bring Bonnie's eyes into focus as they rolled around helplessly while her whole body shook. Jeremy and Alaric stepped through the portal, then Imran and Amelia. When Lucy tumbled in with a grunt, eyes flashed to her as well. Her body was shaking while Bonnie's had gone limp.

"…Luce?" Enzo's voice was the last thing the Bennett witch heard before her mind went horribly blank. Stefan and Enzo flashed over as her body fell to the ground, while Caroline and Damon fretted over Bonnie.

"The Superior," Jeremy said slowly as he tried to make sense of what they'd just been through and what was clearly happening in front of him now, "…Bonnie's grand-d-ad," he swallowed, "He said the closer it came to the last Bennett, the more power there would be. Maybe they inherited his magic when he died?" Jeremy's eyes darted around to the faces assembled around the lifeless Bennett women. They were all grave, uncertain and bloodied. Damon's world tilted at jarring angles as he tried to tear Jeremy's logic apart – but there was no fault to the pest's theory. Damn him. "Maybe they –"

"What do we do?" Damon snarled as he lifted Bonnie, her head lolling this way and that; the way it always seemed to have a habit of doing; much like the image thereof had the habit of turning Damon feral. "Why isn't she waking up?" He didn't want Jeremy to finish his sentence, he couldn't think of dark magic swallowing Bonnie again, he just couldn't. Or worse , if she wouldn't wake up at all as a last spell on behalf of the world's worst grandfather.

"Damon –" Amelia took a small step forward.

"No!" The blue eyed vampire barked, Stefan flashing to him to try and calm him down, "If it's bad I don't want you to say it, if she's in pain, I," his face fell swiftly into misery, "We have to fix this."

"Get into their heads." Fahada spoke up, her eyes still glassy with tears, "Damon can get into Bonnie's, Amelia to Lucy's, we can figure it out from there. This is what we do, remember?" A chorus of nods ensued while Enzo lifted Lucy easily into his arms and sped after Damon as he headed for the topmost floor of the building.


The Grey Realm

"Hell…Oh?" Bonnie's voice bounced off of walls she couldn't see, ringing in her ears as she stumbled blindly through. "…Damon?" Her arms reached out and around but never met with anything, and her anxiousness blossomed into a mild panic. "Lucy? Care?" She gulped. "Stefan? Enzo?" Still nothing. "Anyone?"

"And so we meet again." She froze and spun around in the direction the voice came from. "You didn't think it would be that easy did you?" Bright light flooded her vision and she blinked rapidly as her eyes tried to acclimate and she frowned at the man standing a few feet away. Tilting his head to the side he smiled and even though she hoped it was mere coincidence, it immediately made her think of the Superior. "Welcome to my failsafe Bonnie, I'd get comfortable; we're going to be here for a while."


"Enzo!" Lucy yelled as she ambled through the dark, his voice having been the last thing she'd heard. "Bonnie?" She tried again, "Stefan? Damon? Anybody?" No one answered as she reached ahead to the pitch black. "This can't be happening…this isn't happening." She muttered helplessly as she kept moving forward.

"Oh but it is." A voice called to her and her blood ran cold. There was a low laugh that sent shivers up her spine. "Silly Bennett girls, so hopeful," she spun around, her head jerking this way and that as she tried to hone in on the sound of the man's voice. "So naïve." Light poured in, bleeding out the frightening dark and she would have been grateful if she hadn't been met with the sinister smile of a man walking towards her with slow, animalistic steps. "That's right little Lucy," his eyes shone with glee, "I might be dead, but thanks to my foresight, I'm going to be taking you with me."


Beach House

Damon was inconsolable. He was pacing between the two gurneys where Bonnie and Lucy lay; still as the dead. Stefan stood near their heads with Caroline, both of them wearing similar expressions of helplessness. Enzo and Jeremy were downstairs with Fahada and Amelia; scrounging for anything and everything that could possibly help. Damon's pacing didn't let up and he distractedly ran a hand over Bonnie's forearm as he walked, needing the constant reassurance that even though she hadn't woken up that she was still there…that whatever this was, could be fixed. The elder Salvatore had thoughts running through his head a mile a minute; the bulk of it taking the shape of Jeremy's voice ringing in his ears as he mentioned the Superior and the Bennett magic. He needed her back, her needed her voice, her open eyes, he needed this to be some horrific dream, like the ones she used to have…He needed it to all come to end so that he and Bonnie could finally begin.

"I have half." He muttered suddenly, his eyes snapping up to Stefan's, "Bonnie's magic I have half of it." Stefan's brows furrowed as he tried to form a response to it. "Why am I awake when I have Bennett magic in me?"

"It's not so much the magic as it is the Bennett blood," Amelia said as she stepped into the room, "The blood is the true essence of the magic, the magic in you is technically a manifestation of that." Damon sneered angrily, he couldn't help himself.

"I need –" he couldn't even finish the thought, never mind the sentence. What he needed was Bonnie looking at him, smiling at him, kissing him, holding him, loving him…anything other than her lifelessness would do. He needed to feel something outside of the horror clawing at his skin as he stood there, like a … "Bonnie, she needs me, I know that much." Amelia nodded. "I need to get to her."

"Then you need to listen to what I'm about to say."


The Grey Realm

"What have you done?" Bonnie demanded, as she stared long and hard at the man before her. He was surprisingly handsome, all things considered and Bonnie finally realised where she'd gotten her green eyes from.

"I've done what any scorned Warlock would do," he said smoothly, his voice low and commanding, "I've levelled the playing field."

"Is it just me?" Bonnie went on, she didn't care much for his riddles, she just needed the gist of the scenario. His smile was lethal.

"Lucy's here too, worried about you no doubt and I'm sure your mate is on his way –"

"If you dare –"

"Uh, buh, buh," He waved a finger at her, "I've had enough of the empty threats, haven't you?"

"My threats were never empty," Bonnie snarled, "You've already tried once to take everything that matters most to me and I didn't let it happen then and I sure as hell won't now."

"Are you sure about that?" His voice was coy and sly, it pricked at her sensors, something was very wrong with him. Before she could reply a crumpled figure appeared between them, on the floor, curled in on itself. Bonnie tilted her head and that's when the smaller details came into focus. Her throat closed. That curly hair, the sudden soft perfume permeating the space between them…that sweater, those feet, those hands

"Grams?" She gasped.


Beach House

"We've never done this before." Amelia said sternly, "So just…hear me out, okay?" Damon nodded, impatiently. "You and Bonnie already have this cognitive connection. So getting you isn't a problem…getting you out…" She pulled a delicately unsure face, "There's no guarantee."

"What about Bonnie?" Damon asked, "If I get to her, could I at least get her out?" Amelia swallowed.

"It's her mind, so, theoretically, she'd have more of a stronghold over it, with you coaxing it, she shouldn't have trouble getting out of whatever spell she's under." Damon nodded, that was more than enough.

"What about Lucy?" He demanded, his tone still terse, his shoulder bunched as he looked over at the other Bennett, "How will it work for her?"

"I'm going in." Stefan said, obliterating any room for argument, "She's been practising channelling the magic within a vampire through me and it's not much, but there's a bond there, a thread at the very least." Amelia nodded. Damon relaxed, infinitesimally.

"Stefan's right," Amelia surmised, "All we need to do is give you the incantations for when you see each of them and it should take as your within the witch's mind when you're casting the spell, which in turn means that, in every way that matters, they'll be casting the spell, so that should pull them out of the hold of whatever has them trapped –"

"The Superior." Damon all but snarled, "It has him written all over it." Imran was grim when he replied.

"Be that as it may, with Bennett's white magic, they should at least be able to return to this plane, we'll destroy whatever realm he made once we have them back."

"What are we waiting for?" Stefan spoke up before Damon could and both brothers turned to Amelia expectantly and she nodded, squared her shoulders and raised her palms. Two more gurneys moved beside each Bennett and each brother got onto one. Before lying down they each looked to one another and, with a stern nod, averted their eyes and moved to a flat position. Amelia gave them each a square card with her elegant script in neat lines on both sides. A spell on each side. Frowning Damon soon realised one was to find someone and another was to return someone home.

"Take her hand." She said to both of them, "Bring forth a memory you have with her, as if you're tampering with her dreams, play it over and over again, while I cast the spell."

Stefan closed his eyes as he held onto Lucy's lifeless fingers. He thought back to when they were sitting on the beach and she was smiling, drawing runes in the sand and telling him stories, smiling up at him, her skin sun-kissed, her hair free flowing, her eyes bright and round, trained on him and the clear blue sky as she spoke. Stefan felt something twist in his chest as the vision took hold.

Damon took Bonnie's hand in his, intertwined their fingers and closed his eyes. He thought back to when he and Bonnie first saw one another after she returned to Mystic Falls. He thought of half-tearing the door to Matt's truck off its hinges as he clawed his way to her. He thought of how her heart was slamming through her chest, the beat reverberating through him. He thought of how she felt in his arms, how the sensation surmised the all-consuming relief he felt in that moment. He remembered the smell of her skin, the feel of her voice tickling his ear as she laughed. Her toes balancing on the tops of his feet as she clung to him. He felt the twist in his chest too as the vision swallowed him and he fell headfirst into Bonnie's mind.


The Grey Realm

"What did you do to her?" Bonnie yelled as she fell to her knees in front of her grandmother's slumped body. Her head snapped up to the man and she snarled. "I said what did you do to her?" Her voice bounced off of walls that weren't there, her Grams' skin was pruned and cold, like she'd been submerged in water all this time. The Superior smiled wickedly.

"I didn't do anything," he said with a gleam in his eye, "She wanted peace, and the spirits gave it to her." Bonnie narrowed her eyes as her sensors tried to find something, anything, within the body laid out in front of her, but…nothing. "I suppose that's what she gets when she gives you her only ticket out of hell."

"…Excuse me?" The man looked annoyed.

"You can't be that naïve can you?" He laughed, his face still twisted angrily, "Did you think you were the only one who gave it all up for the people she loved? Your Grams could have had peace…but instead she gave you that 'out' you so desperately needed after once again putting the world before your own needs and she was sucked into Oblivion…but, luckily for you, I fished her out and well, ta-da." He all but sang. Bonnie jerked a little, like someone had shocked her, Damon's face flickering in her vision. She pulled away from her Gram's body. "…Do you want her back Bonnie?" Yes, she wanted to say, more than anything, but her tongue had grown heavy, "You can have Sheila…when you give me Lucy."


"You killed me once already," Lucy snapped, "I'll be damned if I let that happen again." His smile was slick and sly. She countered every step he took as he prowled around her like a hungry predator.

"You're already damned," he grinned, "You're out of your depths here sweetheart, if I were you I'd just give in to it." She sneered. "You're not the prodigy, we both know that." Her eyes narrowed. "Between you and Bonnie we both know who will make it out of here," Lucy swallowed uncomfortably, "We both know who always gets brought back," he went on," his grin was sharp, "The ancestors punished her and yet her magic remained tethered to her, like a boomerang."

"If I'm so weak why wouldn't you save me instead?" Lucy accused, "Look at you," she waved a hand at him, "Obsessed with power, why would you save Bonnie when she's the bigger threat to you?"

"That's an excellent question," he allowed, his face turning sharp with sadistic glee, Lucy felt her trepidation triple, her body grew colder and when her brows furrowed he nodded his head, acknowledging his part in her demise. "It's a pity I may have to kill you instead of giving you an answer."


When Damon's eyes opened, he was…taken aback. And he wasn't sure why that was; nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He was in his bedroom, or rather, a warmer, sepia toned version of it. He could feel the sun all the way across the room, and everything smelled like Bonnie. He took a step forward and he felt the world move with him, making sure that every part of him realised he was submerged in her scent. Her distinctly human scent. Before he could stop himself his fangs extended and he cursed aloud at the predictability of his predatory self. With a grunt, he pulled them back in and swallowed reflexively; wondering where she was.

"Bon?" He called out and then more things fell into perspective. Sounds, sensations that had been absent before. His vision flickered and distorted, the image of his room before him falling off at an angle like a page half torn from a book and left hanging by a thread. He could hear the spray of water, a fluttering heartbeat; housing a rhythm he'd know anywhere. "Bonnie?" Something was pushing against his chest, a hand he couldn't see, a question he couldn't phrase, but all he knew was that he needed to see her; he needed her in front of him before it all got out of hand.

"In here!" She called and his feet ghosted forward, honing in on the sound that was Bonnie Bennett. Her breathing, the way her voice bounced off of the bathroom walls, trying to swallow the sound but only managing to create an echo that thrummed right into his inner ear. He blinked stupidly at her silhouette; the outline of her curves through the misty glass, framed with billowing steam and the smell of orange blossom shower gel. Her head popped out, startling him. Her hair, curled prettily from the water and her bright eyes…something was wrong with them but he couldn't remember what, she was too beautiful, too perfect, so human – "Hey." She grinned, sticking out an arm to him and wiggling her fingers, "I thought we were past you just staring at me." He'd already stumbled his way to her, his hands on the glass. His vision distorted again and when it came back into focus he was zoned in on every facet of her; struck down and rendered immobile in her presence. Every fleck, every curve, graduation of colour over her surface, every subtle texture…

"Couldn't stop me if you tried." He muttered, as if in a daze, the last of his words swallowed by the slide of her wet mouth across his. Drawing in a breath through his nose he took her face in his hands and deepened the kiss. Her small hands unbuttoned his shirt swiftly and he tore the fabric off of his body, tossing it blindly aside to return his fingers to her skin. She pressed her front to his and he marvelled at the feel of her skin against his. He growled as he felt his back hit the far wall of his shower, their shower? Where his jeans had gone was anyone's guess and he never wore underwear… "Bonnie." His voice vibrated in his chest and her loud gasp as he lifted her spurred him on. Yet even as he held her, something was telling him to let her go and he growled angrily at the thought…that was the last thing he wanted to do. He could never let her go.

"I never want this to change." She breathed against his neck as she dug her nails in at the nape, "I want it to always be like this."

"What?" He stammered, they'd never had sex in the shower before, or ever for that matter; but the way her hips were rotating, falling just short of letting them do just that, made him think otherwise.

"This." She sighed as her legs tightened around his waist and the sensation that followed the motion turned his brain to stuttering half-thoughts. He squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered, his nose in the crook of her shoulder.

"No," he gasped and moved to look her in the eye. "Bonnie, why are your eyes both green?" She looked at him like he was as crazy as he felt in that moment. "They're not supposed to be green, they're –" A loud boom sounded off in the distance and his ears picked up the sound of cracks cutting through the walls around them, the floors splitting and the feeling of her in his hands, on his skin, slipping away from him even as he held the sight of her in front of him. Something was telling him to run and when he tightened his grip on her to do so, she cried out and it gave him pause, he must have held on too hard, bruises blossomed on her skin. The blues and purples spreading over her like splotches of thick ink even as her pallor bled to white as he ran, the Bonnie in his arms evaporating into thin air. He looked up, feeling the weight of his clothes return to him and was met with lines of thin trees and the familiar crunch of foliage under his boots. He could still smell her on his skin, remember the heavy heat of the shower-mist as it wrapped around them. The feel of being inside of her, even if it was only a moment…it rippled through him again and again even though he knew that he had to focus and find her, the real her – and fast. But first, he had to figure out where he was.


Stefan was lying on his back when he opened his eyes. Someone's hand was in his and his fingers flexed between theirs before he turned his neck, ignoring the soft sand stuck there.

"Lucy." Her name echoed out of his mouth, soft then loud, here then there; the sound dancing between them. Her dark eyes were alight with their usual warmth; her skin flushed and beautiful.

"Stefan." Her voice floated to him through water, "I've missed this." She turned her head back up to the stars. He couldn't take his eyes off of her, for some reason he felt like he hadn't seen her in a while and that he'd missed something very important, something he needed to see now, before it was lost forever. "The stars are up there, silly." Her thin fingers wriggled in his hold for his attention and, dutiful as ever, he turned his head to look up. They were lying on the sand, seconds from the water. She was dressed in something white and floaty, the soft sound of the movement between the layers of fabric falling into a symphony with the waves curling to the shore, her steadied breathing and her comfortably thudding heart. The air was fresh and still; the heat of the day still lingering. They watched in silence for a minute or so and Stefan felt himself relax into the feel of her hand in his, of the peace between and around them.

She'd always managed to do that for him; be some sort of anchor, a line to reach for when he needed her. He was reminded here how grateful he was that she'd fallen into his world as well. She didn't fill the space left by Lexi, no one could, but she'd long carved her own territory in his undead heart. They liked the same little things; frayed edges of a well-read book, lukewarm tea, the salt smell that hung over Cape Town, art. He shuffled closer to her and could see her smile grow through the corner of his eye. She moved her head to rest on his chest, making sure to keep her eyes up at the blue-black sky. The shaking, twinkling and falling stars were so absurdly captivating in their simplicity.

"Something's brewing up there." She said, amused, tapping a finger to his temple. "Gonna share?"

"I was just thinking how much I love you." He said, plainly, honestly. She did turn then and frowned up at him. He looked at her and grinned, unsurprised by her very Lucy-like reaction to his declaration.

"You say that like you're not going to get to do it much longer." She said warily, "You're not about to do something reckless are you?" Him? Reckless? Hardly. "I just got you back."

"Got me back?" It was him who frowned; he was flooded with stuttering images of spending day after day on the beach with her, hand in hand, making breakfast in a kitchen he didn't recognise even though he didn't find it strange that they looked so at home in it. "Lucy I've been right here." She shook her head slowly, but her affection returned.

"Here maybe," her hand came to rest over her heart, "But ever since Fahada called you've been…off." Fahada? Some part of him surged at the sound of the name but he couldn't shake the feeling that Lucy was more important right now, and she needed to know that. He had to keep her close before she did something reckless and he never saw her again; that innate knowledge spurred him on. Between the two of them she was the one who would pay the price, and she had a habit of making sure the onus fell on her shoulders. The behaviour reminded him of someone but he couldn't say who…

"Lucy, I feel like I'm going to lose you." He said, aware of how odd his voice had become to his own ears. Looking at her he couldn't think of why he felt this way, she didn't look like she wanted to be anywhere else. But he didn't know where they were, why they were even here or why he felt so …sad, somewhere inside of his chest the feeling was throbbing uncomfortably, aching, anxious and he couldn't shake it off.

"We knew that going into this, you were going to be the one to suffer." Her voice was soft and sad, her skin warm to the touch. "I'm only human after all." He pulled them upright, turned to face one another, hand in hand. "This was never going to last." He shook his head. He felt so conflicted. He wanted to reassure her and himself that he was okay with this. That as much as he loved her, and he loved her, that her inevitable death was something he could stomach. And then,

Just looking into her eyes and thinking about her dying made him want to scream. His vision tilted and swung before coming into full focus as she moved to kiss him, softly on the mouth. "I know you feel like you're always losing the people you love, but that's the natural cycle of things." He kissed her this time, desperate for something to make sense to him. "Love isn't meant to last forever, death is a reminder of that." He shook his head as he cupped her face in his hands.

"I don't care," he breathed, dizzied, "I will do whatever it takes to make sure your heart keeps beating." Her smile was blinding and it pulled at his heart strings, soothing over the feeling that was plaguing him. "Until your heart, and your heart alone, has decided it's had enough." They kissed again and he felt his head begin to spin, frowning he pulled away. "Whatever it takes." He said again, moving away from her. "Whatever it takes." Those three words stuck on his tongue and reminded him of another moment between them, one that felt like it had been from another lifetime altogether.

The sudden image of her saying those words to him with a quick desperation, her looking quickly over her shoulder before looking back at him, the urgency clear in her expression. "Whatever it takes Stefan, promise me." Her eyes scoured his face, as she took his hand, "Promise me that you'll keep her safe and I'll do my best to keep him safe as well. I'll do whatever it takes to finally be the family Bonnie needs." he recognised the book case behind her they'd spent hours in there, on good days and bad, whose house was it again? He blinked out of his haze and stared blankly at her.

"Stefan?" She lifted one strap of the dress that had fallen off of her shoulder and tried to kiss him again but he shook his head and craned his neck away from her. That feeling had turned to a blaring warning light he couldn't ignore anymore. She needed him, but not like this. He needed her, but not like this either. He just had to make sense of it all.

"Whatever it takes, Lucy." He swore, and smiled, hanging onto the only truth he had in that moment. He watched with an odd relief as she began to vanish in front of him; a part of him had known it wasn't real but more of him had given in too easily and he grew furious at the time he'd wasted drowning in the fantasy of it all. "Whatever it takes."


The Beach House

"They're in." Amelia announced as her hands hung over the four bodies in front of her.

"What do we do now?" Caroline stammered, her shaking hand in Enzo's as he stared gravely ahead at his friends lying lifeless in front of them. "I can't just stand here and watch."

"You don't have much of a choice." Imran reminded her. Fahada was standing quietly, her eyes on Stefan and Lucy's hands intertwined with one another's. She was thinking of how his hand felt with her own, and how distraught he'd been when he'd thought Lucy was dead. She was trying to decide if that pain was anything like her own when she'd seen Kiera again, and when she'd lost Kiera. She wondered if Stefan's love could grow to be that eventual pain as well. Then they'd have another thing in common.


The Grey Realm

Bonnie.

She blinked as she stared at the Superior, even as Damon called to her. She knew he was calling to her, she just didn't know how and her heart was going into overdrive trying not to think of all the idiotic things he could have done since she passed out and fell into this realm.

Damon? I can hear you

Bonnie, I'm lost –

He has me in some blacked out space, I don't know where –

I'll find you –

What about Lucy? She's not with me.

Damon?

Stefan's looking for her

And just like that, Bonnie's stomach bottomed out.

"So, have you decided?" The Superior asked, that ever-present glint in his eye. "Are you finally going to repay the debt to your grandmother and give her her own life back or are you going to save yet another family who didn't give a shit until it was too late?" He took a step towards her and she snarled and held up a hand in warning, causing him to grin. She felt the moment begin to build in her chest, the weight of the situation finally dawning on her, but just like before, the thought of Damon with her, in this impossible situation spurred her on and she felt him fill her bones with a strength she'd never known.

"I've made my decision." She admitted and his expression was openly curious.

No matter what Damon, I love you

With that she sped toward the Superior with a loud roar promising nothing but his demise.


Note: Yes, there will be a Part III and it's not too long before I put you all out of your misery. Those of you who appreciate this story for what it is, thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Damon and Bonnie's relationship and how it's growing and filling the both of them isn't going as some of you expected (sex-wise) and if you're still sticking around despite that, again, thank you, you're rad. After all, this story is about the profound connection that was made between the two of them in the 'prison world' both magically and emotionally and that's going to stay at the heart of it all. Let me know what you think is going to go down and don't forget about the legion of dark witches that follow the Superior, I know I haven't ;)

Stay excellent xoxo