Kind of a filler chapter, but some important stuff happens (and there's still plenty of fluff). Look forward to seeing Bonnie and Nora being a badass magic-team in the future... Julian better watch his back!

This is my final semester in my degree and I'm really busy, so while I plan to do everything I can to stick to the schedule I've been keeping, some chapters may take longer to go up than others. I appreciate everyone who reads or even skims.

To the anonymous reviewer who thought their reviews weren't going through: they are! And I am so flattered by all of them! Thank you.

Chapter 9 Soundtrack:

Sol Seppy - "1 2" from The Bells of 1 2

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - "Telegraph" from Dazzle Ships

Disco Inferno - "Footprints in Snow" from D.I. Go Pop

Grog Organ - "I Walked Through the Snow" from Fur Clemt

date unknown, closest approximation February 1, 2012

"No, no, this can't be happening, I was supposed to touch the witch-bitch and cross over to the Other Side, where the FUCK am I? Hello?... Is this it? Am I just—"

"Ms. Petrova."

"OH God, warn a girl next time, please? I don't who or what the fuck you are but where I come from, it's not polite to spontaneously appear in front of someone and scare the shit out of—"

"I don't think you're one who should be lecturing me on what is 'polite' on Earth."

"Are you the devil? Is this my hell? Talking to some straight-laced posh wannabe-mortician asshat about my sins for the rest of eternity? Well, let's get to it. I regret nothing, got it? I did what I needed to do to survive. You'll never break me."

"Oh I'm well aware, Katerina. I've been observing you long enough to know that your cynicism, cunning, and obstinance are peerless among almost every other soul on Earth, with a few… notable exceptions. What's more, you—"

"Hold up; 'observing' me? What are you on about now? You're some kind of extradimensional spy?"

"Why don't you just hear me out without interrupting every other moment?"

"Not really my style, Mr…"

"Arcadius. But please, call me Cade. After I finish, that is. I'm afraid you'll have to be forcibly silenced, which will be painful but necessary... there. No, don't try to speak, it will only make it hurt more. Now, where was I… oh yes. The serendipitous dose of the immortality cure you were given, it confirmed what I had always predicted. You were born to a Traveler bloodline. Your father was a Traveler, your daughter was a Traveler. Both of them are here, by the way. A conversation for another day. But your magical potential was never honed, your internal energy never nurtured into conscious spellcasting, and became dormant when you turned. Did you think all of those strange visions were a side effect of the cure? No, Katerina, you are a psychic, and a powerful one at that. So powerful that I was acutely aware of your existence from the moment of your birth. And since then, no other has even come close. So you could say that I've been waiting for this moment for a very long time. You may speak now."

"HHH—… mm. Please don't do that again."

"Behave reasonably and I won't have to."

"Hard for me to 'behave reasonably' when every snobbish syllable that comes out of your mouth makes me want to be deader than I already am."

"Have it your way. You'll come around eventually. I may not be able to penetrate the minds of people on Earth, but you aren't exactly one who keeps her thoughts to herself. And the Katerina Petrova I've come to know surely wouldn't pass up the opportunity to be crowned the Queen of Hell."

December 20, 2013

Both of their eyes remain closed in that desperately intimate sort of way as their lips finally separate and they lean their foreheads together. The respite allows a restless thought that had been squirming around in the lusty haze of Bonnie's mind to surface, the question tumbling from her parted, slightly swollen lips in something barely more than a gasp: "Are you sure?"

"I haven't been this sure about anything in a long time. Maybe ever." Nora finally opens her eyes to meet Bonnie's gaze, their faces mere centimeters apart. "Are you sure?"

"I don't know," Bonnie replies, then quickly clarifies: "I mean, I like you. I really like you. But I have no idea what I'm doing. I've never even kissed a girl before."

"You had me fooled," Nora says with a satisfied smirk.

"I'm serious. I know it's not a big deal but it's still new and not only is it a girl but it's you and Nora I swear you make my brain twist up in knots—"

"Is that a good or a bad thing?"

"Good. Very good. But it also means I say dumb stuff, like right now. I don't want to mess—"

"I know what you're about to say. Don't. It's okay. It's as much a surprise to me as anyone that I am ready to move on so quickly. But I am willing to wait for you, Bonnie Bennett. This can become anything you want at whatever speed you want." Nora reaches her hand up to where their foreheads are still gently pressed together and tucks some of Bonnie's dark hair behind her ear. "Just as long as I can still see you. And talk to you. And kiss you every once in a while."

"I'm okay with that." Bonnie's eyelids close once again as she smiles and presses her lips to Nora's one last time. It's a soft, gentle kiss, much more reserved than what they'd been doing a minute or two ago, but it still sends the same fire through Bonnie's body, a feeling simultaneously freezing-cold and scorching-hot, the two extremes canceling out in an intense glow of tingling energy.

"Can I tell you something?" Nora asks in an adorably timid voice once they slowly break apart.

"Anything."

"I'm really happy you kissed me. I was so scared that I was totally misreading things and that I was going to ruin everything between us." Nora looks down at the ground, moving a little back toward the balcony and leaning her arm on it, some renegade snowflakes gathering on her mitten-clad hand. She still doesn't meet Bonnie's eyes as she confesses, "Ever since we first talked at Scull I haven't stopped thinking about you. Not once." It appears to take her a great deal of effort, but Nora finally raises her head. "You are beautiful and impossibly sexy and your mere presence reduces me to a simpering mess, but you're also kind, and funny, and intelligent, and probably the first person I've ever met that really understands me. So whether our relationship ends up being the sort in which we kiss or the sort in which we don't, I need you to know that you are too important to not have in my life in some way."

"How come everything you say sounds like it was read right out of Jane Eyre, and everything I say is more like... I don't know, a John Green book or some shit."

"I haven't the faintest idea who this John Green bloke is, but are you telling me you like Jane Eyre?"

"Oh, God no." Bonnie brings a hand to her chest, as if confronted with something so offensive it physically wounded her. "Does anyone?"

"Only the entire literate population when we lived in England. I couldn't walk five meters without seeing someone reading a copy on a bench, or overhearing ladies fawning over Rochester, or what have you. At least in the prison world we didn't have to deal with romance-obsessed charlatans. But I will admit, the Brontës could all write most eloquently about love, even if it is all dull drivel."

Bonnie grins. Nora's rant has caused all of her vulnerability to completely dissipate. The joking around has broken the ice and they're back to their familiar friendly rhythm. Bonnie can barely identify when the switch actually occurs; one moment she's either laughing at Nora or doing everything she can to make her laugh, and the next her head is filled with images of sweat-sheened skin and twisted sheets and moans of pleasure. It's maddening, and yet beautiful that the two can maintain such a delicate coexistence: something to cherish, not leave behind.

(Easier said than done.)

"Remember, like, fifteen minutes ago when our plan was to come out here to get high?" Bonnie asks with a chuckle.

"I think my brain may have been wiped of all of its memories up until then, actually," Nora replies, contradicting her dry joke by taking the joint from inside her coat yet again and lighting it with a whispered incendia. She completes the smooth motion by taking a sizable drag like a seasoned professional, holding it in for a second, and then exhaling, the smoke almost indistinguishable from the large clouds of foggy condensation that formed when they breathed.

"Damn, I really turned you into a little stoner, didn't I?"
Nora looks at her with alarm. "What?"

Bonnie laughs. "It's a word for someone who smokes a lot. Just a joke."

"Well, that's a lot tamer than I was thinking," she says, passing the lit joint to Bonnie after taking another hit. "I used to hear horror stories about stoning when I was young."

"I only know about it from the Bible. 'Let he who is without sin cast the first' and all that. Have you ever seen it happen?"

"Thankfully, no." Nora grimaces. "But I once saw the body of someone who had been punished for stealing something. This was somewhere along our trek across the country." She shudders at the memory. "They had cut off his hands and feet and left him in the stocks to bleed out."

"Jesus." Bonnie winces, trying not to picture the gruesome scene in her head. "That's fucked up."

"Quite. I was only fifteen at the time as well," Nora says, the last few words trailing off slightly as she turns to look up at the moon.

"I'm sorry."

The genuineness of the condolence seems to bring Nora back down to Earth. "Bloody hell, we need some sort of alarm that buzzes every time we go down the gloomy path." She accepts the joint when Bonnie offers it. "How often does one get a true break like this?" she asks, gesturing toward the smooth eddies of snow all around the motel. "The car's probably buried in a good meter of snow—we couldn't do anything helpful or heroic even if there were something like that to do. We shouldn't be discussing such horrors, we should be having fun."

"Ah, yes, the eternally successful formula for fun: saying it out loud," Bonnie quips.

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah. But I feel like we are pretty close now. I don't want you to feel like you need to censor or monitor what you say to me. You can tell me anything." The weed is kicking in and that slight self-conscious paranoid whisper in the back of her head is telling her that was too much.

But Nora's grateful expression proves otherwise. "Thank you, Bonnie." She blinks away tears. "You don't know how much that means."

"I have an idea," Bonnie says sagely.

"Yes, truly the wisest of us all," Nora responds, hugging her tight. The enveloping contact is both calming and catalytic for Bonnie, but the latter wins out when a shift of Nora's hand at the small of her back sends a jolt of anticipation to her core and she pulses down there and all of a sudden her mouth is moving faster than her brain again and

"I don't want to have sex tonight." As soon as she says it Bonnie feels her cheeks and ears turn bright red in embarrassment. Why the fuck did she say that? Now she's definitely messed—

Nora surprises her by laughing as she steps back from the hug and sees Bonnie's expression. "Don't be embarrassed. You're cute. Did my 'let's proceed slowly' speech not have a lasting impression? We won't do anything you don't want to do."

That's not it. That's not it at all. "But I do want to." Bonnie's face turns an even deeper shade of crimson. "I'm just so nervous about it. And when we're close I... I can't stop..."

The heretic's eyes narrow and her face draws in a look of heated desire that makes Bonnie's knees weak. Nora steps forward and gently places her hands on the shorter girl's waist, her gaze never dropping from their smoldering deadlock. "Don't be nervous. When the time is right you'll surprise yourself with how easy everything is." She slowly runs her long fingers down to Bonnie's hips, thumbs tantalizingly close to the top of her underwear. Nora savors the small shudders and tremors her touch elicits as she whispers, "Do you like it when I touch you like this?"

"Yes," Bonnie rasps, her eyelids sliding shut in appreciation. The joint is long gone but its effects remain in her body like warm plasma, the body high increasing the pleasure of Nora's caresses tenfold, each new contact inciting a jet of feeling that spreads over every inch of her skin. She doesn't even register the cold anymore. The entire world is their faces and their bodies and their hushed words and Nora's hands.

"Now touch me." Nora pronounces these words in soft gasps as she takes Bonnie's hands and brings them to her own waist. They're still looking straight into each others' eyes as Bonnie reciprocates the tame yet sensuous motions, her arms eventually slipping under Nora's coat and wrapping around her slim torso. "See," she breathes into Bonnie's ear, her exhales quiet but heavy. "It's easy. Instinct."

"Or maybe we're just made for each other." Oh God, too much way too much again—

"It does appear that way, doesn't it?" Nora blushes and smiles shyly. It seems Bonnie's tendency to blurt frank romantic revelations won't be an issue (and it certainly has been in the past). Nora's just as much of a sap as she is. They stay in a kind of half-embrace for a few moments, swaying silently.

"I'm really high," Bonnie suddenly confesses, giggling into Nora's shoulder.

"Me too. I've been thinking about polar bears, like, this whole time." Nora looks amused but then her face drops. "Where are they going to live with all this global warming business going on?"

"The Scandinavian ice-witches will save them," Bonnie says.

"You're making that up."

"I mean, they're not called 'ice witches,' it's some long impossible-to-pronounce Norse word, but they totally exist. And from what I've read about them they're big on nature and living things. So I wouldn't be surprised if they have a contingency plan for the polar bears."

"You always say just the right thing to make me feel better," Nora says warmly. "And I imagine I can do the same with the following suggestion... want to go back inside and eat the snacks I bought?"

"More beautiful words have never been spoken."

After one of the bottles of wine, a bag of dark chocolate–covered pretzels, and plenty of handfuls of sweet chili Doritos, Bonnie's feeling very full and very warm. Her sides are also aching from countless bouts of laughter (she isn't sure whether Nora's funnier when she is or isn't trying to be).

They're lying on the reasonably soft carpet that covers the floor of the motel room, heads and shoulders interlocking like two children posed for a Christmas card so that when one talks or laughs the other feels the physical machinations that produce the sounds. Bonnie is drunk not just on the wine but on the fact that spending time with Nora is so easy, that they can go from insanely hot sexual tension and deep confessions to best-friend silliness and rapport so quickly. Jeremy was her friend, sure, but there were still things she felt like she couldn't talk about, sides of herself she couldn't show. Nora is... different. Bonnie wants to tell her things she hasn't told anyone else, wants to show all of herself. And it scares her, a bit.

"Have I told you about my family?" she suddenly asks out loud.

Nora gets up a bit, repositions herself so she's leaning on her braced left arm and looking down at Bonnie. "No, you've never really mentioned them. Do you want to tell me?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Okay."

Bonnie will never tire of seeing her smile. "I just have my mom now. She's a vampire. Damon turned her into one a few years ago... it's a long story. She was so lost at first but she's doing really well with it now."

"That's great to hear. She certainly learned much more swiftly than me."

"You didn't exactly have great teachers." Bonnie grins wryly. "I didn't know her most of my life though. My dad raised me, and I spent a lot of time with my Grams. They're both dead now; Grams died doing a rough spell and Silas murdered my dad in front of a crowd of people in Mystic Falls."
Nora's free hand flies to her mouth. "Oh my God."

"Yeah, it was fucked up. I was a spirit on the Other Side at the time, another long story, and I was the only one who could even move or react. I couldn't touch him to help him so I had to watch him bleed out from his throat while everyone sat still and watched. It's the worst thing that's ever happened to me." Bonnie chokes out this last sentence as thick tears start to form in her eyes. (Old scars being reopened in order for them to heal once again, more fully.) "But that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was no one knowing. No one knew I was dead except Jeremy. I couldn't cry with my friends, I couldn't do anything to stop Silas. I couldn't even go to my own father's funeral."

Nora has picked her up and started holding her as if it were a motion she'd performed many times before, her fingers weaving through Bonnie's hair as she rubs the back of her head soothingly. "You are easily the strongest person I have ever met, Bonnie Bennett. You've lost so much, and yet you have never let that stop you from finding new things. I am so sorry about your father."

"Thank you," Bonnie replies, relaxing into Nora's loose, cradle-like embrace. She uses both of her hands to wipe the tear tracks from her face. "It feels good to talk about it. I try to keep it buried but then I hate myself for forgetting him and it's just a neverending vicious cycle. So thanks for listening."

"Always." Nora brushes away a tear that Bonnie missed with the pad of her thumb, her fingers hesitating near the ear before curling around the side of Bonnie's and leaning in. The kiss is tender and light and gently puts everything back where it's supposed to be.

"I hate to interrupt this beautiful moment, but, earlier—you said you were 'dead.' I'm, uh, a bit confused." Nora grimaces. "I'm sorry, that was such a brutish way to ask."

"No, it's fine." Bonnie laughs. "My relationship with death is a bit more... complicated than most people's." She sits up a bit, still reclining against Nora. In an exaggerated English accent she says, "Is it time? Do you think yourself ready to hear the Tales of Bonnie the Brave?"

"I… literally cannot think of a single other way I would rather spend my night than to hear these grand chronicles." Nora vamp-speeds up to the bed to grab the other bottle of wine and is back in the exact same position before Bonnie's fallen even an inch, but the disconcerting sensation along with Nora's nonchalant expression as she motuses the cork out of the bottle without missing a beat is the funniest thing she's ever seen. She didn't know it was possible to laugh this much in a single night.

"What's so funny? I thought that was quite slick," Nora says half-defensively, taking a swig of the large bottle with a dexterity that would put even Kelly Donovan to shame.

"It was, that's why I'm laughing." Bonnie composes herself, takes a sizeable drink herself, and then sits up cross-legged as if she's about to tell a scary story before a campfire. "You're sure you're ready? It's a lot."

"I can take it." Nora leans back on her palms and looks at Bonnie attentively.

"Alright, your funeral. We'll probably be here a while—I swear, saying it all out loud, it sounds like something out of a damn TV show."

December 21, 2013

The major roads have all been cleared when they wake the next morning, but the snow that remains acts like a massive mirror for the early-day sun, bathing the motel room in painfully bright light. After snagging some muffins and coffee of questionable quality from the common area of the motel and checking out of their room they're back on the road.

Bonnie had half a thought that things would be awkward after their extremely intimate night, but waking up tangled with Nora, even stone cold sober—especially stone cold sober—was the best thing ever. They shared lazy kisses and cuddled and sometimes just stared at each other and it was like nothing else existed. For the first time Bonnie's first thought as her eyes shot open was not What new way of failing am I going to discover today, but I'm really happy to be here.

Bonnie's trying to focus on driving, the music, the mountains, anything that will keep her mouth from drifting into a giddy smile, but she can't; her mind constantly drifts to everything that happened and how good she feels and how happy she is that Nora is still here, right next to her, occasionally reaching over to take her hand or absentmindedly humming along to some of the better-known pop songs she's come to know. Bonnie hasn't forgotten about their Phoenix Stone troubles, but the task somehow seems more manageable now.

And her careless good mood is only improved when her phone buzzes with a call from an unexpected source.

"Stefan?" she answers excitedly.

"Bonnie."

"You're out? How?"

"I'll explain everything. But first, I'm so sorry Bonnie. You warned me how terrible of a plan it was and I went through with it anyway and now Damon—"

"Stefan, it's okay. I'm really glad you're back." Bonnie's eyes are watering with joy as she gives a curious Nora the thumbs up with the hand holding her phone. "I'm sorry I told you that I wouldn't give a shit if you died. I can assure you, I gave plenty."

Stefan laughs a bit, but his tone still sounds like he's about to give news of someone's death. "I'd never doubt that for a second. Listen, it's good to talk to you, but there's something you need to know. Apparently Valerie and Beau went to try to find Julian yesterday? The false tip was from him. And while everyone was gone, he took what he knew mattered to us the most."

Bonnie's stomach drops. "What happened, Stefan? Tell me."

"He has Damon. And he says he's going to burn the body along with the rest of Mystic Falls to ashes unless we do what he wants."