CW/TW: Frank discussion of depression/suicide/self-harm

Chapter 10 Soundtrack:

Regina Spektor – "Hero" from Begin to Hope

Gowns – "Advice" from Red State

Dead Man's Bones – "Dead Hearts" from Dead Man's Bones

Also, happy late birthday to Bonnie (February 5)!

Midsummer's Eve, 1790

"It is beautiful. You are a fine craftsman."

"'Tis not even completed yet. Save your laudations for when it is finished and functional."

"Witches, of all people, are naturally apt at finding the beauty even in the incomplete and unfinished."

"And your abilities never fail to amaze me, Bea. But are you ever going to bestow upon this lowly metalworker the reason he is constructing this strange bell?"

"Ethan, you know as well as I that we all want the same thing: these unspeakable monsters driven from our lands. The bell will ward them away."

"It simply troubles me that an entire coven of witches cannot replicate with their magic a device that is, in essence, an elaborate dog-whistle. If I am not worthy of the real explanation, so be it, but do not underestimate my ability to know when I'm not being given the whole story."

"You always were too clever for your own good."

"So I've been told."

"It is not that you are not worthy, Ethan, but simply that we do not even understand what we are trying to do well enough to tell you. The flesh-eaters that stalk the shadows around our town are not vampires. They are something different: older, darker. The witches have known for many centuries of the fate that awaits us upon death: eternally watching over our progeny from the Other Side. But the presence, the aura, of these... demons has made us aware of something beyond that plane. A vortex of fear, suffering, emptiness. A gaping sore where nature has been brutally torn open and left mortally wounded, from which countless souls cry out in agony. We have designed the bell to heal this wound, to reinstate balance."

"And you believe this is possible?"

"We are hopeful. The bell's rings will meld our energies into one, a concentrated blast similar in intensity to the one that created the vortex. It should be enough to dissipate it.

"And what if it is not?"

"Then darkness shall claim us all."

December 21, 2013

"He what?" Bonnie's vision is blurring in fury. She pulls over to the side of the highway.

"We have until the end of the day to grant his list of demands."

"Hold on, I'm in the car with Nora. I'm putting you on speaker so you can explain everything to her." Bonnie taps the button on her phone and sets it on the console before burying her face in her hands as Stefan repeats his summary so Nora can hear. Every emotion and nagging worry she'd been suppressing since the night before came crashing back into her at once, a river of blood and acid breaking through the dam and tumbling down in a grotesque waterfall within her, and she starts to cry.

"Bonnie, hey, we're gonna get through this. He's going to get through this," comes Stefan's reassuring tone from the phone, but she knows he's not any more sure of that than she is.

"Do we have a plan?" Nora asks as she places a comforting hand on Bonnie's thigh.

"Not exactly. He's brought some... friends. We're outnumbered. And he's had Mary Louise cloak Damon, so no locator spell, no way of finding him."

"She's still with him?" The heretic's face has transformed from one of empathy and comfort into rage. "For God's sake what does she think she's doing?"

"He was all too happy to tell me that taking Damon hostage was her idea. Revenge for when we did the same to her. Which makes sense."

"Except you and Valerie wouldn't have killed Mary Louise. But she and Julian will have no problem killing Damon." Rage has become disgust. The look in Nora's eyes quiets Bonnie's distress. They glint sharply as if lit by small, white-hot fires, surging with the fuel of betrayal.

"Right." Stefan sounds exhausted. Bonnie can't even imagine what he's going through, but then realizes she can just ask.

"How are you holding up post-hell?"

"I was wondering when you'd ask." He chuckles darkly, the sound cracking a bit as it buzzes through the phone speaker. "Not great. It took Caroline all morning to convince me I was actually out. Everything still feels off. But I think I'm okay."

"What are Julian's demands?" Bonnie's all business now. Better to occupy her brain stitching together schemes and spells than thinking about how everything was fucked.

"They're ridiculous. He wants us to leave Mystic Falls forever so he can turn it into his very own vampire debauchery den. He wants us to act as his advertisers, going around and gathering fresh blood for the new residents. And he wants us to find some bell for him."

"A bell?" This is getting more bizarre by the second. "Is that it?"

"He wants Nora too."

The two girls lock eyes. They exchange a whole conversation's worth of words in three seconds of intimate silence.

"Well he's not getting her." Bonnie starts the car and turns back onto the road.

"We agree on that. Now it's a matter of how we go about, you know, the brute force method."

"We'll be there in four hours. That leaves us the whole afternoon to work something out. We'll get him back, Stefan." Both of them are great liars when it comes to reassuring someone who's about to go on a suicide mission. Usually each other. For the same mission.

"I know." He hangs up.

Nora has her head turned toward the window, watching the spikes and slopes of land whiz by.

"Are you okay?" Bonnie asks her.

She's silent for a bit, then slowly shifts to face the driver's side, a motion Bonnie barely notices in her peripheral vision. But when she turns to look she sees tears pooling in Nora's eyes.

"Why is she helping him?" the brunette asks with an aching desperation that feels like claws against Bonnie's heart.

Their hands touch and fingers lace together. "I think deep down she knows she made the wrong decision when she chose Julian over you guys, but consciously she can't admit it, so she doubles down, does all she can to prove she's the type of person who always makes the wrong decisions."

"This sounds quite familiar to you."

"When Elena was awake, and her and Damon were together, he acted in a very similar way. He is the most pathologically self-destructive person I have ever met."

"And you've forgiven him."

"Multiple times. For increasingly awful things, it seems." Bonnie shrugs and curls her lips into an it is what it is half-smile. "Forgiveness is a tricky thing. It's even trickier when vampires are in the mix. I've found out that there are three kinds. You can forgive someone for them, but no one would ever do that consciously… it's more like you think you've really forgiven them but you're actually just making excuses for someone who has power over you. You can forgive someone for yourself, which the other person doesn't even have to know about—it just helps you move on, and it doesn't make whatever they did any more acceptable. And then you can truly forgive someone, when you actually let someone who's wronged you back into your life."

"But how do you know the difference between the first and the last?"

"I don't know if you ever really do. We just have to guess. And hope."

Nora sinks down in her seat and is silent for a minute before looking at Bonnie again. "Does it make you uncomfortable to talk about her?"

"Mary Louise?"

"Yes."

"No, why?"

There's no response, but when Bonnie turns Nora is giving her a pointed look.

"Okay, fine, but no, it really doesn't." She turns back to look at the road, starts to switch lanes and then decides against it. "Should it?"

"No, not at all, I just…" Nora fidgets. "I fancy you. Properly. It's new and it's exciting and I have never been so torn between the sensations of appreciating a person and appreciating the fact that they just exist at all. But I look back at almost my whole life and I see her, whether I like it or not. I don't miss her, I don't perk up the same way every time her name is said, I don't long for her touch. I don't love her anymore. But we have so much history, and there's nothing that can be done about that."

"Remember that girl I told you about, whose mother was in the tomb in Mystic Falls? Anna?"

"I think so."

"I can't remember if I mentioned that her and Jeremy dated. They were still together when his uncle used the device at that town event. John killed her himself. And then when I brought him back from the dead, he started seeing her. While we were dating."
"Ohhhhh."

"Yeah. My boyfriend cheated on me with a ghost." Bonnie laughs dryly and taps her fingers on the steering wheel. "There's two kinds of pain: when there's an explanation and when there isn't. But they both hurt. I could tell myself all day that they never broke up and there was never closure and that I probably would have done the same thing if it were me, and I didn't cry any less. But because there was an explanation, once the pain stopped, I could still love him. History doesn't mean anything, because as long as you're not a sociopath, there's always an explanation for what has gotten you to where you are today. People hurt each other. We love and lose and leave. But we are who we are. 'History'? It's overrated."

"You know, until I met you know I've never known what it feels like to be honored that you are the only one witnessing someone's words."

"I'm here all week," Bonnie deadpans. She's not really in a joking mood, but compliments make her nervous.

When she hears the word "week" Nora instantly perks up. "Bloody hell! Christmas is on Wednesday!"

"That it is. I'm trying not to think about it, to be honest." She feels a dull ache in her chest, a heavy weight pressing on her heart, as she remembers opening gifts and baking with her dad and Grams on Christmas Day.

"I assume Caroline has some ostentatious shindig planned," Nora replies. "You're not excited for that?"

"All I can think about right now is getting Damon back. If we can do it before Christmas, great."

"I don't think I've ever had a friend that cared as deeply for me as you do for him."

"When you spend four months in total isolation with someone, you form a bond that doesn't break easily." Bonnie's somber memories of her family are replaced by ones of Damon serving her vampire pancakes in the morning, and she smiles a bit. "I hated him for so long. And now I can't imagine living without him. Maybe it's me, maybe it's him, maybe it's both. But for whatever impossible reason, we're friends." She briefly glances at Nora, trying to make her face warm and encouraging even though those emotions are running on extremely short supply. "You have a whole eternity ahead of you. You'll find someone like that too. But for now you have me."

"Yes, you're my friend." Nora takes Bonnie's free hand with her long, perfectly manicured fingers and gently places it palm-down on her chest over her heart. Bonnie's eyes are still on the road but she tenses as the contact is made, suddenly swarmed with thoughts of taking it further, until she's distracted by the light but palpable thump of Nora's heart, slamming against her ribcage with a stuttering, agitated velocity. "But feel what you do to me. Every second I'm in your presence I am simultaneously perfectly content and unimaginably restless. You light a fire inside of me. That's more than friendship."

"You're right." Bonnie sighs. "And I feel that way about you, too." She moves her hand from Nora's upper chest to her shoulder and collarbone, which she gives a light comforting squeeze. "But I can't have the what are we? talk right now, I just can't. Not while Julian has Damon, not while he wants you too. I can't lose you."

"You won't, Bonnie."

"That's what everyone says. Until they're wrong." They've just crossed over the Virginia state line; only about two hours or so to go.

"In case you've forgotten, I'm kind of the more durable one out of the two of us."

"It doesn't matter. Everyone dies." Bonnie's tone is dull and dead but tears are starting to well in her eyes. "My Grams, my dad, Jo, Caroline's mom: all of the best people, the ones who didn't deserve it. Sometimes I wonder what the fuck the point is in forming attachments when this is the world we live in. I can't look at anything anymore without imagining its expiration date." She shakes her head vigorously, trying to stave off any more crying. "I know it's not logical but I can't help it."

"You of all people should know how little sway logic has when it comes to the things we feel," Nora says sagely, once again laying a soothing hand on Bonnie's thigh—a new favorite thing for both of them. "So you shouldn't fault yourself for these thoughts. But may I make an observation that might sound a bit callous?"

"Pretty sure I'm the queen of those, so do your worst," Bonnie answers.

"Do you have such a fear of loss because of the specific people you're afraid of losing? Or because you yourself are just afraid to be alone?"

Bonnie is silent as the gears in her skull churn, processing what Nora has just said. Her immediate instinct is a defensive one; she wants to deny such a ridiculous accusation, resent the implication of selfishness disguised as selflessness. But the more she thinks about it, the harder it is to refute. So she simply asks, "Why do you say that?"

"You've been utterly alone more times in your young life than most will ever be. Isolated and weaponized by a narcissistic psychic. Confined to the Other Side for an act of ultimate sacrifice. And then the prison world." Nora pauses, clears her throat, then cautiously says, "Is there by any chance something you left out of your account last night?"

The blood drains from Bonnie's face, giving her that soft but horrible chill of anxious dread. She is filled with so much shame about that day—her birthday—that she hardly thinks about it herself. If Jeremy hadn't been able to stop her... "How did you know?" Talking to Nora is enough of a distraction. It has to be. She's trembling, doing all she can to drive in a straight line; luckily it's lunchtime on a Saturday and they'd hardly seen anyone on the long, winding mountain roads they'd been snaking through for the past hour or so. Ironic, to discuss this in a car.

"Because…" Nora hesitates again. "Even though I wasn't alone I—, I tried once, too."

Silence.

Then, "Really?"

"Yes. We'd been in for a few years or so and had used almost all of the blood we scrounged from slaughterhouses, save the supply Lily set aside for rationing. Oscar was arguing constantly with Malcolm and Lily because he wanted the stored blood and we were all hungry and tired and it was miserable and Mary Louise was being so horrible and I just couldn't take it anymore. I went out into the woods that night and staked myself."

Now Bonnie pulls over. When they roll to a stop and she puts the car in park she expects to see Nora in tears, but the other girl is surprisingly calm, seemingly just waiting for Bonnie to respond. "You staked yourself? Like, fully?"

"Well, it was actually more of a thick tree branch, but yes, and then I died." Nora unbuckles her seatbelt, turns her body toward the driver's side, pulls up her long legs and sits with them crossed over the seat. "But I came back. It was like those moments when you start to doze off and catch yourself, only when I woke up it had been a few hours, as if I'd simply blinked." She messes with her hair a bit, still remarkably composed for someone telling the story of not just an attempted, but an actual suicide. "The Gemini coven made the prison world for each and every one of us. None of us could have died even if we wanted."

"Kai's was that way too." Bonnie's a bit too awestruck to contribute anything beyond simple questions or observations.

"Right. Anyway, so I knew I couldn't die, so I decided to just make do. Once we started to desiccate time passed rather quickly, and there was obviously no longer any arguing. But... it haunts me. And I recognize the same haunting in you."

"You're right." Bonnie sits cross-legged as well, facing Nora as if they're kindergarteners on the storytime mat. "But first, thank you for telling me. I'm sure you can guess that it's not something I like to talk about, since I told you so much but still left it out. And it can't be easy for you either. So thank you."

"I've had many, many years to come to terms with it. But you haven't. It's perfectly acceptable not to be comfortable discussing it."

"I know shame isn't a good thing to have, but…" Bonnie bites her lip. "I'm ashamed. I'd been in there for almost a year and it was my birthday and I just couldn't take it anymore. When literally all I had to do was take a road slash raft trip to get the tombstone, which I should have thought of. I was about to kill myself for nothing."

"No one tries to, or does, kill themselves for nothing. If a person truly feels they would be better off not being alive, or that the world would be, they have their reasons. Those reasons may not be correct or acceptable generally, but they were to the person, so they didn't do anything wrong. No one should feel ashamed. Regretful, maybe. Grateful, certainly. But not ashamed."

Bonnie's crying because she's right and it doesn't help. She still feels pathetic and weak and like someone who always gives up. "I know. I can't help it."

"It's a process. A matter of accepting what we did and then defeating the things that caused us to do it. I'll always be working on mine, and I believe you know what yours are." Nora reaches both of her hands up and tenderly holds Bonnie's face, wiping away some of the tears running down her nose and cheeks. "You are strong, Bonnie Bennett. Stronger than anyone I've ever known. There is no place for shame in anyone's heart, let alone yours."

"Thank you," Bonnie answers quietly, her head still cradled by Nora's light touch, and then they're looking to each other's lips and leaning in and Bonnie breathes in a lungful of her sweet addictive fragrance as they kiss softly and tentatively at first and then with more urgency, and Nora's starting to lean over on top of Bonnie when they fall onto the steering wheel and honk a loud squawk from the horn that scares the shit out of both of them, and then they're laughing and it's like everything resets.

"We really are something, aren't we?" Bonnie says as they settle back into their seats and she starts the car again, both still giggling and breathing heavily.

"Even the boat ride to England wasn't as tumultuous as our emotional oscillations," Nora agrees. "But something tells me things won't always be so volatile."

"Step one of emotional stability: don't listen to what the voices tell you to do." Bonnie puts the car in drive and pulls back onto the highway.

"Well, they were the ones that told me to kiss you just now, so…"

"Fine. Just every once in a while, then."

Their hands interlace once more.

A hundred or so miles from the girls, Bonnie's inactive laptop, left plugged into the wall in her dorm for the trip, lights up with a notification. A new message to 83R7brtH19xz from Freya Mikaelson, subject line When Can We Meet?

Thirty minutes' drive beyond that, Julian and Mary Louise sit sipping drinks in the filled-to-bursting Mystic Grill, its oak floors slick with blood, Damon's inert body laid out as if for a funeral pyre across two tables. Within the Stone, he dies painfully and horribly for the 96th time.

Across town, Stefan and Caroline are on a lunch date that's cut short when the younger Salvatore assaults an unsuspecting waiter, believing him to be his brother coming to hurt them.

And seven miles northeast of Mystic Falls, Rayna Cruz, naked and dizzy and disoriented from her fiery reincarnation in a cell in the Armory basement, hears Sybil's haunting croon for the first time. It's just one word, dressed up and extended by the Siren's seraphic voice, but discernible nonetheless:

"Soon."