Note: An update ten months later is like, two weeks late for me. Thank you for all your reviews, seeing the dates stamped on them is what put the fire under my ass.
P.S: Everyone please, this update is me giving you one of many reasons to stay inside right now. COVID-19 is bigger than your immunity, it's about community, and not everyone can say the same of their health as you perhaps can, so be mindful. I'm sending strength and an open-inbox to anyone who wants to ride out quarantine-ing with me, or just wants human contact. You're a lovely bunch x
Better Than Forever
"What could be better than the idea of forever, I wonder? Surely nothing is better than the idea of everything? The chance at having it all? Oh, but I'll tell you one thing that usurps the throne of eternity...It is here and now.
"I want us to fulfill our prophecy, Bon. That's all." Kai'd said before her vision slowed, tilted and fell away in tatters, upending her in what seemed to be some whole other dimension, once again. No fear laced Bonnie's breathing as she looked around to no avail. There was no Kai, no Boarding House, no colour, just a white, bright light.
"Bonnie-dear? Is that you?"The voice was both familiar, and a complete utter surprise.
"...Mom?"
"Hi baby." Abigail stepped into view.
Caroline was sitting beside Bonnie's bed where the witch had been laid out, holding the her friend's hand.
"Why am I always too late?" The blonde wondered aloud. "I spend all my time worrying, planning, fretting and just - and I never get the timing right." Caroline's eyes welled up. "I never get it right. I always miss the chance to love the people I love, because I'm caught up in everything else."
Getting up from her chair, she gave no mind to Damon and Lily in the room and got in bed next to her friend. Lifting Bonnie's body, she cradled the witch in her arms, gasping and going stiff when Bonnie's body moved into hers. A small sigh from Bonnie's lips stopped them all in their tracks.
"Care." Bonnie breathed before going still again.
"She's still in there." Caroline exhaled, relief smarting her eyes with tears.
"Then we still have time." Damon nodded, eyes lingering on Bonnie's face before he turned and went to look for Lucy.
Bonnie could only stare as her mother stepped into view.
She felt all the feelings of having kissed Damon, being trapped with Kai, of seeing Sarah and Odette, of wrapping her one arm around Caroline, grateful her friend was home again - but the emotions that rolled forward upon seeing Abby pushed everything backwards, until this moment was all Bonnie knew.
It had been years.
Just about long enough for it to feel too late.
"I know..." Abigail said, dark eyes sad and unsure as she approached Bonnie. "I know there's a lot that I should say, but right now what I'm about to tell you, is far more important than me earning your forgiveness. I want you safe, I always have."
"You left...and you never told me about Kai. You took away any chance I had at defending myself against him because I didn't even know about him." Bonnie said, gritting her teeth.
"I left because the part of himself that he tethered that night his family betrayed ours, was tethered to the both of us. Together, we gave him a foothold in this world. I knew that in my bones. His power is fuelled by taking, and we would have no choice but to give. Above all, Bonnie: I've wanted you to have a choice, choices at that. Whatever it looked like, however you feel about our lives...just know that I didn't have the answers either, but I followed my gut instincts to protect you. And that meant leaving you, hurting you." Abigail swallowed loudly, clasping her hands together. "And for that I am sorry. I cannot tell you how sorry I am." Bonnie watched her mother wipe at her tears for a moment, before she spoke again, stepping closer.
"It took me years, but I finally made the spell that's going to put the tether trapped between us, back together again." The elder Bennett witch explained.
"What do you mean?" Bonnie felt a dread build in her chest.
"It means it's time for me to die." Abigail said plainly.
"That's not an option." Bonnie said reflexively.
Abigail's eyes welled up as a small smile pulled up the corner of her mouth.
"Bonnie I love you, but I don't deserve the delay. Your life, your friend's lives, your home. They're all in danger." The woman said seriously. "I've failed you enough times in this life to know that you no longer need me. You're smart, you're empathetic... you're so kind and so powerful. You're more than I ever dreamed you would be, and you became all of those things without me."
"No, I became all of those things because of you," Bonnie said, "And dad. And Grams. And I...I can't lose you too, that's not fair!"
"It isn't fair." Abigail agreed, holding Bonnie's face. "You deserve better than this...and you will have it." Her eyes averted. "I called a witch I trust. They're drawing the tether out of me and sending it to you as we speak. I wanted to tell you this time, and not just disappear again, and have no way for you to find me. I know you've been looking...and you know I've known that. The same way I know that that family, that drew us in, the same way other families always draw us in to their messes, they underestimate us. They underestimate the very thing they rely on. Our magic," Bonnie's mother's face was wrought with about a million emotions, "Your story will outlive our curse of kindness, and you will be free of all the poison that's been spoiling our blood all these years. That's my dying wish. I'm going to suck all the poison out baby, and then," She cupped Bonnie's cheek one last time. "I'm going to swallow it, and die, so that you and the people you love don't have to."
"But I never got to love you!" Bonnie wailed, feeling the urgency of her mother's words. The pain.
"Bonnie, I know you," Abigail was crying as she pressed a kiss to her child's forehead. "Like me, you never stopped." Bonnie was reeling, hardly feeling the run of Abby's thumb across her cheek to catch the tears. She wanted to remember everything, but there was so much hurt.
"Please... why can't I choose you? Why do I get to save everyone but my family?" Bonnie's breathing bubbled from crying. "You're the only one who could have asked me to turn, and get me to say yes." Abby's dead heart had broken more in the last five minutes than it had been her whole life.
And that's how she knew it was truly over.
"Because just about the only thing that hasn't changed for the people that love you, that are blood to you, is that there is no choice if it comes down to you." Bonnie wrapped her arms around her mother and sobbed. Abigail hummed softly, as the colour of her vision began to swim. Bonnie was listening to her own heart beat in both of their chests, wishing there was a way they could do this forever. But all they had was now, and didn't that usurp the throne of eternity anyway? "And baby, I would never, ever wish this on you. Ever. It is not who we are."
"Please, no matter what Bonnie. You don't have to forgive me, but I'm begging you...Don't let any more of you die because of me. I want you to live. And that's more than breathing baby, it's more than breathing."
The white light poured into everything Bonnie could see and feel, until she was all the way back into her body.
The smells around her came slowly and then all at once.
"B-Bonnie?" Caroline's voice was small, and disbelieving.
A broken sob, broke Bonnie's silence as her body began to convulse, the power of whatever spell her mother had found and had cast, binding her to it's will.
There was an influx of magic, but also of memories.
Moments they'd shared while Bonnie was still in the womb, or still able to be held in her arms, before the darkness had swept in and pushed them apart.
Whatever spell Kai had cast on Abigail the night his family had brought him to Sheila, had eaten it's way into Abby's heart, changing her, fighting her at every angle to succumb to what he was.
Where with Bonnie it had grown patiently beside her youth and still-to-be magic, it took one look at Abigail and had given her a clear ultimatum - absorb the life and magic of your child, or die.
There was no way Abby was going to hurt Bonnie or bring her anywhere near the mess the Parkers had stirred up in the wake of their curse.
Abigail had looked Sheila dead on, knowing what she was about to do herself and knew, there was no price too high when it came to the last Bennett, to their baby Bonnie.
"Mama, I need you to promise me you'll do whatever it takes to keep Bonnie safe. Whatever it takes."
"Whatever it takes, baby, of course."
"I love you."
"I love you my baby. I love you, and I am so sorry this is happening."
Bonnie let out a sharp scream as everything, all of it up until that moment exploded out of her, along with the end of the fated spell.
There was so much pain, all her life she'd known this, but to know that it wasn't just her bubble, her world, her body. To know that everyone she'd loved had been paying the price she'd been expected to pay since losing them, broke something inside of Bonnie.
She felt it swimming in her. The parts of her that'd been missing.
She felt, so keenly, a rage, a darkness and a violence sweep through her; meandering the currents of her fresh feelings.
She also felt her mother, her grandmother. Her father.
She could almost feel them holding her, smell them, her a laugh somewhere far-away, somewhere long gone.
The wave of magic she released shook the entire Boarding House to it's foundations, thin fissures splintering up the walls as dust swam down from the rattled ceiling.
Caroline could only cradle her as Lily called her name, cupping her cheek, Damon hovering frantically, hands itching to hold her.
Something was wrong.
Bonnie curled back into Caroline's hold and cried, grabbing onto her friend's cardigan as the sobbing racked her ribs.
Caroline's blue eyes locked with the other blue eyes in the room, all shining with the same fear and foreboding.
All Bonnie knew was that her mother was dead.
"Is Kai still unconscious?" Caroline wondered.
Damon flashed away and then came back, nodding.
"Bonnie?" Lily tried again, heart aching at the sight before her, tears welling up as the pain wracked her own heart.
Lily hated seeing Bonnie like this, and in their short time together she'd seen many sides of the formidable witch. But -
She'd never seen Bonnie this way, and it went against everything they'd promised one another. Your safety is mine, they'd said. "Please say something."
"Abby sacrificed herself." Those three words were all the witch could manage, and Damon and Caroline looked to one another and then back to Bonnie who was still hiding in Caroline's hold.
The blonde vampire felt her friend's emotions more clearly now, and brought Bonnie even closer, her own tears welling up.
Unresolved feelings with a dead parent wasn't new territory to her, and she'd never have wished the pain on anyone, let alone her best friend.
"Bonnie?" Damon's voice froze Bonnie's body stiff.
In a flash, Bonnie had her arms wrapped around him, pulling him close so she could bury her face in his chest.
He held her, holding the top of her head, and another arm wrapped around her shoulders, to corner her into his body.
His eyes flickered between Caroline's face and his mother's.
No one had any idea what was going to happen next.
Lucy was having the time of her life.
She'd always heard about Siphons, in hushed whispers, almost as though they were kin of the fabled Voldemort stories that humans loved so goddamn much.
She worked her hands above the sleeping boy as droplets of her blood rained down on him, etching her force into his very skin.
Of all the spells she'd ever cast, she was going to enjoy avenging the life and magic of her cousin once again.
And if boiling this rat-boy from the inside out was one of the many ways she got to do it, then so be it.
She was in the midst of casting a nauseating spell on Kai that would be triggered by his speaking, when a wall of magic subsumed her, the spell, the house, the immediate vicinity with a giant gust of power.
She'd know that kind of magic anywhere.
Bennett magic.
Bonnie.
Just then there was a knock on the door.
Odette.
Stefan was sitting opposite a vervained Elena, watching a sleeping Sarah as she muttered senselessly.
Suddenly, Sarah jerked awake loudly, mouth agape as her eyes lifted upstairs to where they'd moved Bonnie.
"Stefan-"
A wall of magic ran over them both, startling them anew.
"Do you know what that was?" He wondered, still trying to wrap his head around her being an Oracle.
"I do, come on." She lifted her hands up, wiggling her fingers, "Zoom us over to Bonnie's room."
Bonnie knew she had about thirty minutes before Kai realised that she'd vanished into thin air, her mother's magic having found her after she'd been split across dimensions seeking answers.
She'd had to let go of Damon, but she didn't want to. So he'd taken her hand.
"Odette's here." She told Lily.
Lily's eyes left her face for the first time since she'd opened her eyes, the surprise distracting her.
"Where's Sarah? Did you know she's a Bennett and a Salvatore?" Bonnie said to no one in particular. "Explains why trying to glamour her didn't really work."
"I'm here." Sarah ran to Bonnie as soon as Stefan set her down, they hugged quickly. "I know, by the way, my parents told me everything."
"It's good to finally meet you." Bonnie said, smiling widely. "Welcome home." Cupping Sarah's face, Bonnie gave her the trails of Abby's magic that had still been lingering around her when she'd died hugging Bonnie.
"Woah, magic?" Sarah gasped and Bonnie nodded.
"No Bennett woman goes without it." Bonnie said, flicking Sarah's chin. "It'll help activate the rest of your own magic."
"Awesome." Sarah beamed.
"Lily?" Everyone stopped and turned to face the threshold where Lucy and Odette stood now.
They were exactly alike in appearance. Strong jawline, hard, dark eyes and cunning smirk. Slim, statuesque, perpetually perfect brown skin.
"...Oh...my-" Lily hurried over, arms out, straight to Odette's arms.
"Lily." Odette exhaled long and loud as they embraced. "I have missed you."
"I have waited years for this." Lily laughed, through her tears. "But these two are the one's you must be dying to meet."
Still holding onto Lily's hand, Odette moved into the room and locked eyes with Bonnie and Sarah.
"My sweet, sweet children." Dipping into a quick courtesy, "I thank the paths that forged us."
"An honour," Bonnie inclined her head.
"It's nice to meet you." Sarah said, waving a little awkwardly.
"So...they've come again?" Odette asked the room. Everyone nodded somberly.
"They've come for us." Sarah said, "The Bennetts are one of the few remaining bloodlines left on Earth...coincidentally also one of two left that have wronged them by hand."
"But fuck the Mikaelson's anyway," Lucy said with a shrug.
"I know what we need to do." Bonnie said, gritting her teeth against her body as it recalibrated again and again with each passing moment.
She had to swallow her feelings, and breathe her words and make sense of her thoughts and remember that tomorrow there was only more to come.
"Easy." Odette reappeared in front of her. "We don't pretend. Let every emotion you're trying to swallow run it's course, so you can reach the conclusion you seek."
"The Parkers took my Grams' mind, my mother's magic, and then my mother from me, they took my powers, they infected me with theirs and they left me no choice."
"So...what do we do?" Lucy and Odette asked at the same time.
"We bait them with their spawn, draw them in, and give them the ending their curse demands of us." Bonnie said, aware of the thrumming magic that thickened her voice along with her anger. The hairs on the back of everyone's necks stood up, and the witches in the room nodded.
"Wake up." Bonnie slapped Kai across the face - hard.
A myriad of emotions played across his face as he processed his situation.
Bonnie was flanked by Lucy and Odette on either side, and then Sarah and Lily on either side of them.
He was encircled by thick, flaming candles, and bound by rope doused in water. In fact, all of him was dripping wet.
He knew, with one snap of her perfect fingers, he'd be incinerated.
"We're done playing games," Bonnie informed him, pressing a flick-knife into the flesh above his heart. "You help me lure your forefathers here, to their deaths, or I rip your heart out, build my own Kai and do it anyway. What do you say?" Her smile was manic.
"I'm in." Kai yelped, promptly throwing up on himself.
"Perfect." Bonnie pulled back, and then stabbed him in the heart anyway.
"What the fuck, Bonnie?" He screamed, reeling.
The witches threw buckets of water over him.
Bonnie raised a hand and drew the blood bleeding from his heart to dance between them as his magic curled into her body.
"Audite me. Qui nos accipere tethers faciam mihi. Ut quod a me ipse tulit, et non revertetur ad me. Take quæ tulit de cognatione mea, et adducere eum in domum suam. Ut quid feci eum, et ad me, et da mihi dabis ad me: quia mea est."
"Date eam illi." The rest of the witches chanted in unison.
Bonnie took all of it, the siphoning power, the latent Parker magic he'd laid waste to when embracing who he thought he was.
She drew all of him in, all of his magic, his memories, his very matter.
All the light in the cell was suddenly snuffed out and Bonnie leaned in, in the dark, eyes glowing a righteous green and she gripped his face as he whimpered.
"I heard you like death, Parker. Wanna see what comes next?"
A/N:
"Audite me. Qui nos accipere tethers faciam mihi. Ut quod a me ipse tulit, et non revertetur ad me. Take quæ tulit de cognatione mea, et adducere eum in domum suam. Ut quid feci eum, et ad me, et da mihi dabis ad me: quia mea est.": "Hear me. Take the tethers that brought us here, and make them mine. Take what he took from me, and return it to me. Take what he took from my family, and bring it home. Take what made him, and give it to me, give it to me, give it to me, for it is mine."
"Date eam illi.":"Give it to her."
