Chapter 7

Bonnie Bennett sat at her dressing table, carefully studying her reflection in the stark morning light. Stripped of makeup, her hair in a messy bun piled on top of her head, she cautiously ran a finger along the lines under her eyes. She was aging. Her face was beginning to reflect her years. She could wear a glamor to cover it, but honestly, she was too proud for that.

The people she loved would be forever young. But she would age. Time itself would eventually take her life, even if she avoided all the danger that felt like it stalked her everyday. Part of her wanted to be jealous of Elena and Caroline, because they would never face their mortality the way she did.

But she couldn't bring herself to be jealous. Bonnie straightened her shoulders and examined her reflection again. There was a certain dignity in her humanity, in the process of aging, in gaining wisdom as strength waned. It set her apart from the people she loved, rather than making her ordinary. And Grams was still beautiful at her age. Bonnie winked at her reflection, assuring herself that she would age gracefully too. It was in her genes.

The last few weeks had taken their toll, though, wearing her down. She'd constructed wards around the homes of all of her family, carefully infusing power to protect them. Stretching herself in so many directions was taxing at best, but it was worth it. For the most part, the attacks from their unseen assailant had stopped.

Bonnie's eyes went wide as she watched her reflection lose focus. She blinked several times as it settled again to become clear.

A very dark skinned bald man had taken her place in the mirror, seeming to be seated where she was. Bonnie looked around, alarmed, but found she was still alone in her bedroom.

The man wore a white suit and shirt with a matching tie. At first, he mirrored her movements and expressions, but finally he stopped and a slow wicked smile spread across his features. Very white teeth shone at her, mocking her. His face was riddled with pock marks under high cheekbones.

Bonnie's heart raced, but she kept her face calm.

"You must be Naaman." She said slowly.

"And you are Miss Bennett." He nodded slowly and cast his black eyes around the room behind her before they met hers again. "Forgive me if I'm not impressed."

Bonnie smiled. "That was never my goal."

Naaman laughed contemptuously, long and loud.

"No. Your goal was to stop me." He spread his arms wide, gesturing like a showman. "You failed. Or I wouldn't be here."

"But your attacks have stopped." She pointed out with a small smile.

Naaman's dark eyes flashed over her and one eyebrow rose. "Oh my darling, I haven't even got warmed up yet."

There was a bright flash of light from the mirror that illuminated the whole room and Naaman's image was gone. She was alone again.

Bonnie covered the mirror with a blanket and moved to sit on the edge of her bed, shaking.

Later that night Damon rushed into the kitchen waving his arms in all directions like a crazy person, trying to clear the smoke. It had been two days since Damon learned everything and he and Mara had spent them together. The days and the nights. She now stood holding the corner of a bag in two fingers. Her dark, full lower lip was stuck out in the loveliest pout he'd ever seen.

"I told you!" She accused, her eyes wide.

"But all you had to do was stand there. I did everything else." He didn't know whether to groan or laugh. So he ended up doing both. This was their third attempt at microwave popcorn and his efforts to teach her. The trash can was still smoldering with their failures.

"This takes magic I don't have." She admitted with another pout and he laughed again, drawing her into his arms.

"It's okay. I can tell you from experience that being perfect is overrated." He whispered near her ear, his tone all kindness and empathy. She laughed, swatting at him.

They'd decided to go for Movie Night, Take Two. Mara genuinely wanted to see The Shining. So Damon had a very large flat screen television installed in the den toward the back of the house. The room was quieter and more isolated than the living room off the foyer. It was also darker since he now knew that she would be more comfortable that way. He'd even had the room decorated with a movie theatre theme just for the occasion.

"This will never work." Mara told him with a smile.

Damon grinned, choosing to misunderstand. "Are you suggesting we should annoy other people?"

Mara tipped her head back with a laugh. "I meant me and popcorn." She sputtered before her smile faded a bit.

"Is that what we're doing? Annoying each other….exclusively?" Her eyes still laughed at him, even with her serious tone.

Damon leaned back to let his eyes move over her face. High cheekbones, those perfect dark lips, small pointed chin and remarkable eyes, all hiding a warmly stubborn heart. He saw her as beautiful, inside and out. "I can't think of anyone else I'd like to annoy more than you." He admitted as he cupped her cheek with one hand.

Her arms pulled a little tighter around his waist. "Something we agree on, then. For a change."

He took the bag and dropped in the trash with a smile. That was the closest they'd come to talking about what it was they were doing here. It was enough. For now.

"I'll take care of this. Why don't you go to the den? I'll be there in a minute or two with edible popcorn." Mara rolled her eyes at him again with a smile and wandered out of the kitchen.

Right after she disappeared the backdoor opened and Milla appeared, Klaus in tow.

"Is knocking not a thing anymore?" Damon asked without looking up.

"Not when you've not responded to the RSVP for our wedding it's not." Milla told him, one hand on her hip.

"I've been...um...busy." Damon told her with a slow, broad smile.

Klaus was overwhelmed with the smell of burnt popcorn, the scent nearly pummeling him as he followed Milla into Salvatore's kitchen. He couldn't help but snurl his nose up and wish it belonged to someone else. He was sure that what Milla was saying was important, but another scent also assailed him which he found equally unpleasant, and his focus on his fiancé waivered. He pulled another deep breath, attempting to identify it through the smoky haze.

Automatically, he followed it, noting that the burnt smell filtered away the further he got from the kitchen, thankfully. Another breath. Lavender. He wandered down a hall as it grew stronger.

Klaus stepped into the den. Silver eyes glittered at him in the darkened room.

Just as he remembered, she had long smooth hair the color of midnight. He froze where he stood, meeting those eyes. She sat on a chair in the far corner and smiled at him, forcing a chill up his spine.

Milla's warm voice came up behind him. He put out a hand, intending to block her entrance, keeping his body between Milla and the threat. Milla stopped short, a warm hand at his waist.

"What's wrong?" She asked at his ear, another hand on the arm he was using to block her path.

"Tell me you can see her." He spoke under his breath, never taking his eyes from the corner.

"Oh, of course. That's Damon's friend, Mara." Milla pointedly stepped around his arm. She crossed the room and went to sit on an empty ottoman near the dark haired woman, greeting her like a friend.

Klaus drew a deep breath to calm himself and cover the chaos inside him.

Milla gestured in his direction.

"Mara, this is my fiancé, Klaus." Those eyes moved over him again and he cleared his throat, finally moving to take a seat.

Damon stepped into the room and seemed to sense the tension, stopping in his tracks.

"We have met." Klaus answered Milla gruffly. The woman he now knew as Mara met his eyes.

"You're doing well." Mara inclined her head in his direction and nodded. It wasn't a question.

"Yes." He agreed stiffly.

"I'm glad." She told him. She smiled, and even he could see it was a slow, honest one. Those haunting eyes grew kind. It was cold comfort.

Milla's amber eyes were bouncing back and forth between the two of them, her confusion apparent. Klaus couldn't help but wonder if he was the only one aware that this Mara had suddenly appeared in this place and time. Klaus had been out of town for several days and evidently missed out on a lot.

"I am thrilled that I meet with your approval." Klaus said, his tone thick with sarcasm and one brow ratcheted up by degrees.

Mara leaned forward slightly in her seat and Klaus tensed. "You don't need my approval. Anymore. " She smiled with warmth again.

Damon came to stand next to Mara's chair and reached down to take one of her hands.

Klaus stood and gestured to Milla.

"We should go." He told her and Milla immediately rose to take his hand.

He turned his attention to Damon. "You should choose your company with greater care."

Damon straightened and crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing.

"I seem to remember telling Milla the same thing about you not so long ago." He told Klaus, his eyes hard. "I can admit I was wrong then. You're wrong now."

As Klaus headed out the door, he said, his tone thick with accusation, "One piece of advice I suggest you take, at least. Do not bite her." With that, he and Milla were gone.

He stepped in front of Mara and crouched to meet her eyes. He drew a deep breath of surprise as he realized her eyes were welled with tears.

"I'm sorry." He told her as he took her hand.

She cleared her throat and blinked hard for a minute.

"Not your fault." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I couldn't blame you if you decided to listen to him."

"If you haven't noticed, I make my own decisions." He told her softly, taking one of her hands in both of his and squeezing it gently.

"What did he mean? Did he bite you?" Damon couldn't hold back the questions any longer. Biting someone served two purposes in Damon's mind. Food and sex. Damned if he didn't need to know which had been Klaus' motivation.

Mara nodded. "Yeah. That's a strange story. But he's right. Don't ever do that."

"Why?"

"My blood would be poisonous to you." She shrugged a little. "NightMares are born able to counter all of you. Weres, witches, vampires. None of you stop being what you are in dreams. You carry your natural abilities with you. So we come with natural counters or none of you would ever have so much as a bad dream. I carry all of those defenses here, into the Natural Realm."

"Why did Klaus bite you, Mara?" He had difficulty forcing the question out around the lump in his throat, but he felt compelled to ask it.

Her glassy eyes met his and she smiled a little sadly. "I annoyed him."

Damon's gut clenched as images of Klaus touching her, or worse, her touching Klaus with those same hands that had moved over him like fire. A conversely cold chill moved over his skin.

Mara was watching him process her words, wondering at the way his sharp jaw clenched, a muscle working rhythmically. Their wonderfully warm conversation from earlier whispered through her mind.

"No!" It came out on a gasp of horror as she understood. She reached out gently to take his hand. "Oh, no." she said again.

Blue eyes swung to her face, questions flashing in them.

"I meant I actually did annoy him." She shrugged helplessly. "I presented myself as a clumsy barmaid. I spilled his drink. Twice. He decided to make a meal of what he thought was an innocently clumsy human girl for that. But it didn't quite turn out the way he planned. I purposely let him bite me."

He felt a moment of relief that she'd just denied a past relationship between herself and Klaus, but it didn't last long. The memory of how they'd met whipped through Damon's mind.

"So that late delivery was a test?" He asked, his voice tight. He tipped his head to one side as he spoke, his eyes hard.

She nodded slowly. "How someone treats those in their service…..it speaks of the content of their heart. And you were forgiving and kind. You can see the contrast between guilty and not guilty for yourself, I think."

"And if I'd been angry?" He asked carefully.

"That would be understandable. But if you'd attacked me for it, you would've confirmed the accusation about an abuse of power."

Damon shook his head. He wasn't sure he would ever, even at his worst, have attacked someone for something so small. Klaus, on the other hand, would've done it without blinking before he regained his humanity. Her reasoning made perfect sense.

Damon understood Klaus' resentment a little more clearly. He had been guilty. And keeping his life wasn't something he'd won or deserved. It had been granted. It was humbling to live in the shadow of mercy. Damon knew exactly how that felt. Klaus had actually been the one to teach Damon that lesson a time or two.

Karma had the last laugh with Klaus and it continued to echo a century later.

Damon, watching Mara closely, realized she still had something weighing on her. He took a hand and squeezed it lightly until she met his eyes.

She shrugged like it was nothing, but her eyes were troubled. "I took a chance on those brothers. One that carried a high price if I was wrong. It was a good gamble. Innocent deaths are down forty percent worldwide because of the business Elijah Mikaelson started. But theirs weren't the only lives hanging in the balance. Mine was too. So I kept close tabs on them both. Came to feel invested in them." She drew a ragged breath. "It makes their hatred hard to bear."

He pressed his lips to her smooth cheek. "If it helps, I don't think it's hatred. I think it's unaccustomed respect. Those two don't often meet someone their equal…or their better. I'd say you are a whole new ballgame for them."

"No." She disagreed softly. "From Niklaus, that's definitely hatred."

At that moment, thirty miles away, Elijah stepped into the washroom just off their master bedroom. As he rounded the corner the dark room flickered with a bright blast of light. He stopped abruptly in his tracks, his eyes moving cautiously around the illuminated room. After a moment, he noticed the reflection in the mirror. A man exactly matching Klaus' description of Naaman watched him with dark eyes and a warm smile.

Elijah reached to close the door, hoping to prevent Elena from seeing what was happening and being alarmed.

"Naaman, I presume." Elijah said finally, studying the other man's dark face.

"Elijah Mikaelson." Naaman nodded. "You and I have business, I think."

The following morning Mara was working at brushing out Diamond's mane when the rustle of the horses in the other stalls caught her attention. There was a loud whinny of warning and she moved to poke her head over Diamond's stall door.

Elena Mikaelson appeared in a gust of wind a few steps away eyeing her cautiously.

Mara smiled to herself. She'd been expecting this since her visit to the Mikaelson home.

Mara turned back to Diamond and picked up where she'd left off. Diamond snorted at the stranger and Mara spoke soft words to him.

"Why do you smell human?" Elena asked her without bothering with a greeting.

Mara didn't look up from her work.

"Because I am." She answered simply. "I am half human." Somehow, saying those words, out loud, here, didn't feel so shameful. It felt good to be open for a change.

Elena took a step toward the door and Diamond snorted again.

"He doesn't like you much. He senses a predator." Mara commented, running a calming hand over Diamond's muzzle.

The other horses made alarmed sounds on all sides. "They all do." Mara finished.

"But they don't sense a predator in you?" Elena asked, leaning against the stall door looking doubtful.

"No. He senses another horse in me." Mara admitted with a smile. "The other half."

Elena shook her head in confusion.

"You kill people." Elena said finally.

"No. I kill supernaturals who abuse their power. I protect innocent human lives." Mara answered the accusation quietly, without rancor, never pausing in her work.

"So you're judge, jury and executioner?" Elena asked, her voice gaining volume as her anger built.

"Just the executioner part." Mara said it quietly and stopped then to meet Elena's eyes.

"I want for you to leave Damon alone." Elena crossed her arms over the stall door and held Mara's gaze.

"Right now I am helping him avoid a death sentence. Leaving him alone at this point might cost you a family member." Mara took a step in Elena's direction, the brush still in her hand. "I think that's the last thing you really want." Mara added carefully.

Elena shook her head, her eyes hard with anger. "I welcomed you into my home. And everything about you was a lie."

Mara took another step. "Mostly I leaned on implications and false assumptions. But yes. I lied. I also told you the truth. I have read all of your books. I admire you very much. Not just for your work. But also for your integrity, your compassion and because you refuse to take lives, despite what you are."

Elena's dark eyes searched Mara's face and flickered with questions.

"When I agreed to Klaus' release, I became responsible for his actions on a very large scale. I've watched those brothers closely for nearly a century. I had a vested interest." Mara explained.

"How old are you?" Elena's eyes were wide and wary.

"By your standards….very."

"That's not really an answer." Elena countered, but her irritation had begun to fade.

Mara only looked at her because she didn't really have an answer.

"Immortal, then." Elena concluded, her dark eyes sweeping Mara cautiously.

"I can be killed, just like anyone else. You'll have to forgive me if I don't elaborate." Considering Elena's obvious anger, sharing that information would be like putting a weapon in her hands. Mara was many things. Stupid wasn't one of them.

"Damon insists you nearly died a few nights ago." Elena said, her eyes straying to the horse like she didn't want to meet Mara's eyes any more.

It wasn't a surprise that she'd been the subject of conversation between Damon and Elena. It was, however, a surprise that Damon had evidently been defending her.

"Damon is a smart man." Mara hedged, neither confirming nor denying it. She turned back to Diamond, who was getting restless again.

"Protecting him." Elena added. The comment sounded like a question and bore the weight of implications.

Mara didn't answer, she just ran the brush again through Diamond's mane.

"He has feelings for you, I think." Elena announced as she mounted the wooden slat on the stall door and swung a leg over to sit on it.

Mara smiled a little to herself, glad they were finally getting to the point of Elena's visit.

"And you're concerned." Mara added.

"He's been through a lot. The last thing he needs is a broken heart."

"Again." Mara added and turned to meet Elena's eyes, the one word implying much that was left unspoken as well. Elena had the good grace to look uncomfortable.

Mara pulled a deep breath before she spoke again. "I am not here to hurt anyone. I will help protect him, get the mark lifted and be gone."

"But if he has feelings for you, that's exactly what you'll be doing. Hurting him."

"Seems to me that you should make up your mind. Do you want me gone? Or not?" Mara made her point without looking up.

"Fair enough. What I really want to know is if the feelings are returned? Or is he just an assignment to you?" Elena leaned forward with her question.

Mara considered carefully, drawing a deep breath and straightening from her work to acknowledge the question. It was a valid one, but not here and now.

"I understand you are concerned about your friend. I can respect that. But that is a conversation I'll have with Damon, or not at all." Mara answered. "Speaking about those things with anyone else would be dishonorable."

"Good grief. You sound like Elijah." Elena huffed at her, punctuating her statement with an expressive eye roll.

"Your husband is also a smart man." Mara said with a little smile.

"You're right. He is. Just don't tell him that. I'll never hear the end of it." Elena smiled as she spoke and Mara couldn't help but laugh.

Mara pulled another deep breath, making up her mind.

"There is something you should know, though." She sat down Diamond's brush and moved to the paddock door Elena was perched on. "You and I have actually met once before."

Elena shook her head, her eyes narrowed. "I don't think so."

"We did. It's been a while." Mara scattered and regathered herself.

Elena's jaw dropped. She'd just watched the other woman become a column of black smoke before shifting her form. She now looked like a small girl of about ten. Her dark hair was up in pigtails and she wore a black tank and denim shorts. Still silver eyes sparkled up at her.

"Oh my gosh. The little girl who spoke like a sage from my dream. That was you!?" Elena gasped.

A little more than a year ago Elena had been struggling with crippling anxiety. It had locked her in her home, afraid to leave or move forward, for fear she'd leave Elijah behind, losing him forever. As her fear mounted she'd had a dream where a strange little girl told her about the true value of fear. In the process, the child pointed out that it could cost her everything if she let it.

Mara nodded and made a helpless gesture with her hands.

Her voice was girlish and small when she spoke. "As I said, I had a vested interest in your husband's actions. I couldn't help but see that you were hurting. And fear…." She shrugged with both arms spread wide at her sides. "fear is sort of my profession. Sometimes it's easier to hear something from a stranger than it is from someone you love. So...I stepped in to speak. To warn you about the dangers of living in it. Of not facing whatever had you bound so tightly. I only meant to help."

Mara's appearance returned to what Elena was accustomed to and the other woman leaned against the railing.

"If I made it harder for you, complicated things with my actions, I apologize. It was never my intention." Mara flitted a hand again in an uncertain gesture.

Elena had come to see that dream as a turning point, a prod that had pushed her to face herself. At least now she had some answers about where it came from. When it happened, she'd been angry at what felt like an intrusion. Strangely, she wasn't now.

"No. What you did was actually a good thing." She met Mara's eyes with effort. "Thank you. And thank you for telling me. You didn't have to do that."

Mara smiled up at Elena a little sadly. "I would always prefer to tell the truth. Not admitting this wore on me after you opened your home to me."