AU/ In which Bonnie Bennett's role in Mystic Falls goes a completely different route. Fool Me Once onward. word count 5,078.
1.
For her next trick, Katherine Pierce will destroy every semblance of hope that kindles deeply within Damon Salvatore. How pathetic, he thinks. The fireplace roars before him and he is seated on the old Persian rug, cradling a bottle of bourbon to his side as he stares at the flames as they crackle. He wants to be engulfed by the fire, have it sear his flesh from his bones, burn the break from his heart and turn every memory of her to ash. No, he thinks. He wants the fire to engulf her. He'd rather she be dead than the truth that settles on him.
She was never in the tomb. He shakes his head as if to dispel the dark thoughts before tipping his head back and in a hungry gulp swallowing down the amber liquid. Liquor spills from his mouth like he has a hole there and his pink tongue darts out to catch some of the alcohol before it can be wasted.
His emotions are a master mix up of anger, grief and disappointment. He can't place which one he feels more, he just can't believe it. The bitch was never in the tomb. He had spent the better half of his undead life combing the earth for her, seeking answers in secret basement clubs, foreign covens and clans and connection after connection. He thought he had finally found an answer, found a coursing cool spring in the midst of a burning desert- but he was wrong. He had pined, oh how he had pined like some Shakespearean fucking schmuck for a woman that had played him like an Irish fiddle. What a fucking fooleth.
He is hungry, he is drunk and he is pissed. What a terrible combination. He laughs aloud, bitter.
x.x.x.
Bonnie Bennett glances up at the darkening sky and silently curses the gray clouds that hover above her. The promise of a storm. She pulls her jacket closer and folds her arms over her chest to trap in the warmth. She maneuvers around tall statues and headstones. Leaves litter the cemetery grounds in bright shades of orange, yellow, red and brown. The ground is hard, cold and unforgiving underneath her feet. So is the world around her.
She imagined that when her grandmother introduced her to the world as a witch. Pulled the veil of mundanity from her eyes and Bonnie began to truly recognize who she was- that she would also understand what it meant. Grandma Sheila had made sure to teach her, in her crash course, that being a Bennett witch carried with it heavy history and equal responsibility. Her name, one that barely belonged to her, was the name of some man who had owned her ancestors and they had pulled it and molded it into something they could lay claim to. And here she was, stumbling through tombstones wishing she didn't have to carry such a heavy burden.
She drops to her knees in front of the headstone. No grass above it, it's dirt freshly moved, only a week removed. Wishing her grandmother hadn't had to carry such a heavy burden. A heavy duty to protecting those who could not protect themselves. Such a desire to keep Bonnie safe, that she would still be here. She leans forward, running her hand over her grandmother's name and she shuts her eyes tightly, tears forcing their way forward. She understood grief in so many different ways. Had learned to grieve beginning with her mother and her lack of presence in her life. Had learned to grieve her father and his inattention. But nothing could have prepared her to grieve for her grandmother, the only person who had stayed.
She feels like there is something missing from her. A piece of her body she can't seem to find no matter how hard she looks. Like someone had carved from her and her life all she knew of the world's warmth and she was just here stuck in it's cold.
Sheila Bennett had been her home and now the silence in her home would eat her alive. Even when Bonnie would curl up in the darkness of the home she shared with her father, she always felt comfort knowing Sheila's home was only a few blocks away. After the funeral Bonnie felt like her father's home seemed to be quieter, colder and sadder than usual. Some nights she would walk out in the middle of the night and go to Sheila's desperate for the older witch to open the door and greet her because she knew she was coming. Her heart, wanting for her grandmother to pour her a cup of lavender tea to relax her, rubbing her scalp until sleep and comfort could claim her.
Two nights ago she left her home to go to her grandmother's. The silence of the neighborhood streets disarmed her and she stopped by the mailbox and stared at the darkened home and remembered that there was no one there to answer. No comfort to be sought beyond that bright red door. When she had finally gotten the guts to step onto the porch, she settled onto the porch swing and when she awoke dawn was greeting her.
Bonnie spares a glance at the sky again. Watches a blackbird perched on the branch of a tree until it soars away. She clears her throat and speaks, "Rudy still hasn't called me."
It feels silly to sit there and speak aloud to herself but something deep within her feels reassured that someone is listening. "I don't really expect him to." She says.
He had told Bonnie that he couldn't neglect his responsibilities, his business being one of them and he boarded a plane completely unaware that he was neglecting his most important responsibility: being a father to his daughter. It had been going on for so long that Bonnie found it hard to be upset anymore. She had long ago mourned their relationship, having given up on being closer to the man after he broke promise after promise. The only thing he had shown her he was good at was letting her down. Even as she reassures herself that she is fine she angrily wipes at a tear as it slides down her cheek.
"I wish I hadn't-" She stops, chokes on the words and a sob. She curls her fingers into the dirt, feels it underneath her fingernails, feels her heart hammer in her chest as another sob racks her body. "I wish you were here." She smiles sadly. "I wish I had someone here."
She feels pathetic. The loneliness carves a hole into her chest. The silence pokes at her. She wishes she could stomach being around Elena right now because she's sure her warmth would help soothe some of it but she knows that where Elena goes the Salvatore's follow and she can't really be around them at all right now.
Caroline's image pops into her mind and the girl though blissfully unaware of what saunters beneath the surface of Mystic Falls normal façade, she's sweet and she's so human.
Her mind turns to the Salvatore's before she can help it. Damn Damon for hurting her. She presses her hand to her neck, feels the phantom of his fangs. Damn Damon for his threats. Damn Stefan and Elena for asking her and Sheila to perform the spell. Damn Katherine Pierce for not being where she was supposed to be. Damn them all because that meant there was a good chance that Damon Salvatore isn't going anywhere. Bonnie wants to hate them all. Her heart won't let her hate Elena. Not the girl she had chased ice cream trucks and boys with. Not the girl that had helped her fill the void by inviting her over for every holiday and movie night. She wants to hate Stefan but he was so concerned about her and her grandmother that she found the only thing she had found him guilty of was being so gullible and gutless when it came to his brother.
Sadness gives way to anger, opening the door for the other more volatile emotion to enter and offering it a seat and something cool to drink. She balls her fist, roughly rubbing at the tears that have fallen down her face.
It feels easy to hate Damon. None of this would have happened had he not entered into their lives. Hating him feels right. He is the catalyst. Immediately after her gram's death she considered how she could kill him. She only realizes after the first fat drop of rain falls onto her forehead that she's said that out loud.
"I want to hurt him." She says fiercely. His heartbreak is not enough but the knowledge that he had left that tomb as empty as that night had left Bonnie made some part of her sort of happy. Deep down she wishes that Katherine continues to elude him. And he spends the rest of his existence fighting with himself, seeking closure and never finding it. She hopes the pain burns him so badly that no vice of his can sate it. She wishes for his self-destruction. She wishes to be his destruction. The idea of his suffering almost tastes good.
"I want to kill him." She says. It's then the sky booms with thunder, lightning whipping through the dark sky and providing the softest light above the cemetery and that's when she spots him, feet away from her.
They stare at one another for a long time. Nothing but the sound of the storm brewing and the unmoving dead in their company. They stare.
She wonders if he heard her.
He lowers his eyes then, gives an almost imperceptible nod of his head.
So he had.
.x.x.x.
He is struck by the passion in her voice. The way the weather coincides with her words like punctuation. The thunder booming the moment she says that she wants to kill him. And it feels like it could be poetic. But it's all talk.
The little Bennett is all smoke and mirrors. Tiny and barely breaking glass with her powers. Her last name and lineage is about the toughest thing about her.
She looks up then, staring back at him and unlike every single time she's seen him up until now, she doesn't look away. She maintains eye contact, her gaze hard and unrelenting until she lowers it to the half empty bottle in his hand. The rain starts then, pouring down on them with no preamble, no light sprinkle at first, just a flat out torrential downpour. She raises her gaze again to his face.
He could kill her first. Finish off the job from that one night. It would be poetic, he thinks. Since she blames him for her grandmother's death. He could kill her right above her. She stands then, still staring at him then her gaze lowers again to the bottle in his hand.
The bottle shatters, bourbon and glass exploding on his already soaked pants and boots. The rain washes it all away. She doesn't linger then, turning on her heels to leave.
.x.x.x
"Hey." It is tentative. A soft word spoken into the air between them, a testing of the waters. Elena Gilbert folds her arms underneath her breast and presses her shoulder into the locker beside her bestfriends opened one. Bonnie closes the grimoire quickly, startled by the other girl's proximity. She stuffs the leather bound book into her bag and reaches into her locker for another book.
"Hey." Bonnie says back, she shuts the locker, folding her arms over her chest, her eyes on the ground between them. Being back at school is hard. Simply because the world around her keeps moving, no one else's life seemed to be shaken at the loss of Sheila Bennett and Bonnie, after a few days, is simply thrust back into the normalcy of her day to day. She has in the time since she been back been less interested in her school work, trying desperately to play catch up on what she missed but mostly pouring over her grandmother's grimoire. Her grimoire.
"I'm glad you're back." Elena smiles softly, reaching across the space between them to hold her friend's arm. The gesture feels so gentle, so nice that Bonnie finds herself smiling back softly. "How are you?" Elena asks then she grimaces. She knows from personal experience that's a horrible question to ask. She knows that a couple of days isn't enough to give grief, the hungry monster that it is.
"I-" Bonnie begins, the words dying on her lips when she spots Stefan at the end of the hall. He stops too upon spotting the two girls. The pause causes Elena to glance over her shoulder to see what interrupted. Stefan doesn't linger, turning then to leave the building from the doors behind him. Elena turns back but she can see Bonnie shutting down already.
"Bon-"
"I should go." She says and she forces the words to sound brighter than she feels. "Catching up to do."
"Wait-" but Bonnie's turning on her heels and headed for the door in the opposite direction of where Stefan Salvatore went. Elena stares after her sadly, sickened at the idea of losing her friend.
They were sisters. They are sisters. So close it is disgustingly sweet. When she had lost her parents Sheila Bennett had been there, at the Gilbert house with food wrapped tightly in foil, telling Jenna she was capable and she always had her to lean on if she needed help. She frowns remembering how grief, only a summer removed, had twisted her into someone other than who she had been. She was only now starting to feel like herself again. She knew Bonnie needed time, wanted nothing more than the normalcy of their lives before she truly believed she was a witch, before vampires became real and not the stuff of novels they passed around.
"How is she?" Her boyfriend's voice is a soothing elixir and so is his touch, when he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her back to his front. Stefan kisses her cheek softly and she lifts a hand, caressing his jaw as she sighs deeply.
"She's Bonnie." She tells him, turning in his arm and kissing the corner of his mouth softly.
"She's the strongest person I know." She frowns, burying her head into the crook of his neck.
"She was so there for me when my parents died." More than there she didn't bother with stupid questions. She understood sullen silences. She never bothered to fill them with anything more than her presence and Elena had appreciated that. "I just want to be there for her too."
"All you can do is extend that branch." Stefan tells her, hugging her body close and kissing her forehead.
"Did you do that with Damon?" She asks, tightening her arms around him, rubbing her hand up his back as she pulls away slightly, just to look up at him. Stefan grows silent, thinking of his brother and how many times he's tried to talk to him since the moment he found the tomb empty.
"I tried." He says but he doesn't want his failure to reach his brother to make her feel less confidence in bridging the gap between her and one of her closest friends. He thinks of his brother, the way he left him this morning as he headed to school. Drinking from two co-ed's from Whitmore college, dancing to Prince.
"But Bonnie isn't Damon."
X.x.x.
Damon presses his foot on the gas, driving in silence. Licking his lips, he tastes Sylvia, the third year Literature major. What did she think she was going to do with that? He supposes she had options. She had a family, wealthy from some other southern town who was prepared to shell out cash for her graduate studies.
He's not far from the Boarding house when he spots her walking down the road, alone, in pajamas and slippers with just a cardigan to keep her warm. She hugs the thin fabric close and doesn't stir when he pulls up beside her, slowing to keep up with her pace.
"Witchy, you lost?" He is a sorry excuse for a guardian. For having been tasked with guarding the Bennett line. When this one, one of two living Bennett descendants, blames him directly for being responsible for her grandmother's death and him for almost killing her too. His feeling toward her straddle this line of responsibility and an odd interest. It is responsibility that makes him stop. That's what he tells himself.
She doesn't answer. She simply stops in her tracks, staring forward for a moment. He stops his car, backing up a little.
"Hellooo?" He calls her again. Still, she's silent. Finally she turns toward him and opens the door, sliding into the seat and shutting it. Still, struck dumb by her he doesn't speak, simply leans forward and turns the heat up. Rolls the windows up so she can warm up. She doesn't thank him. She doesn't say anything. He doesn't bother asking any more questions, instead he just puts the car in drive, turning around and taking her home.
It is curious. The witch out for a walk in her nighties in the middle of the night. He had heard Stefan and Elena say she did that sometimes. That she was prone to waking up places she hadn't meant to be because of visions. He wondered where this one had been taking her.
They ride in complete silence for the drive. When he stops the car, they are parked outside of her house. Still, she doesn't speak. And if he was someone else he would be concerned. They both just stare forward. After a moment, Bonnie turns toward him, licking her lips, she waits until he turns toward her, looks deep into his blue eyes and says, "I was on my way to try."
She isn't sure what prompts her for the confession. She just says it.
He almost asks her, try what, but then he remembers. He glances away from her, back to the quiet of her little suburban street. "What stopped you?" She sighs, turning away from him and stares back out of the car window.
"You picked me up." Then she opens the car door and gets out.
He watches as she walks up to the door and lets herself in. He sits there and stares at the house, listening as she locks the door behind herself. Goes to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Pads upstairs to her bathroom and starts a shower.
He isn't as concerned as he is intrigued by this fire brewing in her, this growing determination.
This fixation.
.x.x.x.
Bonnie is grateful for Caroline. She is grateful for all that she knows about fashion, dating, event planning, celebrity gossip and all the things she doesn't know. She is a refreshing cool breeze on a hot summer day. She offers Bonnie an opportunity to take her mind off of the emptiness of her life and the anger she feels and fills it with preparation for the Miss Mystic Falls competition.
"Oh my goodness Bonnie." Caroline exclaims, running her fingers over the verdant dress, it's silky fabric sliding from her hand. She pulls it by it's hanger, holding it up to Bonnie's body. Before Bonnie can say anything, Caroline is twisting around her, still holding the dress and pushing her toward a mirror. "Oh, look." She coos. And Bonnie does, as Caroline quickly slides the opening of the dress over her head, the hanger now hanging at her back, holding it against her body as she glides her fingers down the bodice.
Caroline isn't sure why she and Elena aren't really speaking right now. Thinking of how at dance rehearsal Bonnie did everything she could to try to avoid talking to her. She feels pulled into two different directions, wanting to honor Elena's feelings and her need to chat with Bonnie but also wanting to be there for Bonnie. In the end she did what was so unlike her which is disappear from the moment. Walking away to avoid being put in the center. She's not sure what they talked about or how it went because after Bonnie never said a word and Caroline didn't want to push her to talk. She figures she would share on her own time. At least she hopes.
"It's beautiful." Bonnie whispers and she feels herself getting emotional. Wishing she had a mother or a grandmother who she would do these things with. Thinking of her future prom, the future dances, the wedding she'll get dressed for alone. She lifts the dress over her head, carefully adjusting the straps on the hanger and putting it back. All while Caroline watches her carefully. When she turns to the taller girl, Caroline pushes the worried frown from her face and smiles softly. She throws her arm around Bonnie's neck and ushers her to another dress, something in the green family because she's stuck on the color right now. "Jewel tones are so in right now. "
"I'm glad you came with me." Caroline tells her. She knows the exact medicine Bonnie needs and it's a distraction. Bonnie smiles at her, feeling safe here and distinctly loved.
"I am too." She tells her then this time she gasps, rushing away from Caroline's arm to a dress, of course green in color, strapless tight fitting bodice with bows on either hip and a split right down the center. It was exquisite. Reminded her of something a Disney princess would wear therefore deemed perfect for Caroline Forbes. "You should try this one on."
Caroline looks at the dress, pulling at the fabric, squinting at it before she looks back at Bonnie.
"I don't know Bon." She scrunches up her nose, glancing back at the dress. "The bows are killing it for me."
"No!" Bonnie tells her laughing, she snatches up the dress and pushes her toward the fitting room. "You never shy away from a chance to play dress up so go get dressed up!"
.x.x.x
Bonnie could not make Elena choose though she still wished she had heard what she said and placed the importance of her friendship with Bonnie over her relationship with Stefan. Bros over hoes, remember? Boys come and go but friendship is quite literally forever.
At least that's how it went before she started meeting boys who would literally be around forever. That's how she feels, staring at the space where Stefan just was, cowering as she pommels him with an aneurysm. She found him here with his face buried in Amber Bradley's neck, her blood staining her pretty dress and his marled face crimson. And Elena and Damon were screaming his name and softly trying to talk him down.
Pathetic.
She knew that it would only happen eventually. That he too would turn out to be a monster. As untrustworthy as his brother. Stefan is good, was good at pretending to be different. It must be a skill only men master, "I'm not like him." They would say. Then they'd be him in different language.
She let up her assault and watched him as he recovered on his hands and knees in the grass.
"It's okay Stefan." Elena said to him, ready to throw herself on the grass beside him before Damon thrust his arm in front of her, stopping her.
"No." Bonnie said glaring down at the younger Salvatore, shifting her gaze to Damon but speaking to Elena. "It isn't." Damon looked at her, saw the firm press of her full lips, the fire burning in her eyes and held it. That angry gaze, all for him it seem.
Elena glanced away from Bonnie quickly, shifting her own attention to the sirens that approached. The flash of blue and red lights. She rushed to tell Stefan to go-but he was already gone.
And Bonnie turned away from Damon, staring after where Stefan went, wondering, hoping, wishing he isn't on his way to hurt anyone else.
"Bonnie," Sheriff Forbes calls to her, breaking her out of her reverie, the blank stare into the woods before her. She turns then to her, watching how carefully the Sheriff examines her face, her neck, her arms. "You didn't see anything?" She can also feel Damon and Elena's eyes on her. Feel them boring into the side of her face, tense, waiting for what she says. She's silent a moment too long and the Sheriff thinks it's just shock.
"No, we just found her and then called Damon." Elena says quickly before Bonnie can say anything. Bonnie looks at her sharply and Elena can feel it but she keeps her eyes on the Sheriff's.
Bonnie turns back to Sheriff Forbes. "Is she going to be okay?" She asks softly, watching as the Paramedics load Amber into the ambulance.
"It looks like it." She shifts on her feet, sighs. "Why don't you two go back to the party." She suggests.
Go back to the party. Pretend once again that nothing about this is normal but pretend to not know. Pretend to be oblivious teenage girls. Go back to the party.
That's all Bonnie hears but she obeys, wanting to have space between her and Damon...and Elena.
She doesn't even bother with going back to the party, she heads to her car instead. Wanting to be rid of this dress- this evening.
"Bonnie, can we talk about this?" Elena asks, rushing to keep up with her. Bonnie pauses with her hand on the handle of her car door and sighs heavily. She opens the door and pauses again turning to Elena.
"There's nothing to talk about." She tells her and she gets into her car and drives away leaving Elena staring after her again, sad.
X.x.x.
Damon watches her pacing, her dark hair swinging with every revolution.
"You're going to wear a hole into the floor." He tells her, returning his attention to mixing himself another drink then he sinks into a chair, throws his feet up on the coffee table. She sighs stopping in her spot and looking at him.
"It isn't hard for you to see him locked up like that?" She probes, dark eyes searching him. He's slouched low in the seat, man-spreading, staring forward into the fire. Thinking of it's warmth. Of searing flesh separating from bone. Of release. Of punishment. Of what Stefan is feeling downstairs. Of his weary groaning. Thirst and blood lust sending him through tragic trips down memory lane.
"Nope." Damon says. The picture of insouciance. He takes a sip of his drink. Then another right after.
"He's your brother. Don't you care?"
"More your thing than mine." He tells her. She sucks her teeth, growing increasingly frustrated. Damon's attitude burns her up sometimes. She can tell he cares underneath all that bravado, all those stinky bad manners and she sorely wishes he would just let himself feel. She understood it. That heartbreak could be a sharp knife twisting inside of you, betrayal adding gasoline to already burning fire. But you didn't just let that be it. You didn't just give up. You didn't just turn your back on everyone around you.
"You know what Damon." She says. "You're not fooling anybody."
When he doesn't say anything she doesn't linger, scoffing and leaving him alone to his sad man thoughts and his sad man pity party and his pretending and faking. He can hear her as she climbs down the stairs, settles on the dirt right outside of Stefan's cell and whispers to him softly.
I'm here.
But of course he cares about his brother. He loves him in his own way. In a way that transcends human understanding because when you have eternity everything feels different. Grudges and sibling rivalry aren't so simple.
See, neither of them would be dead if he hadn't been for Katherine. And neither of them would have been undead if it hadn't been for Stefan.
I'm here too, Damon thinks.
Still here. Despite the total and complete lack of Katherine Pierce. His reason for being here. It stings still, the way that particular cookie crumbled. But the problems keep snowballing. His brother is off the wagon, unhinged for a thirst of blood because he can't handle himself. One sip struck him stupid, bereft of all sense.
Which is the last thing Damon needs at this moment. With John Gilbert in town knowing all his secrets and having motivation to end him.
Distantly, Damon wonders if Giuseppe Salvatore would still believe he was a talentless scoundrel if he were alive today to see how easily he builds a list of people with whom want him dead.
There is John Gilbert. There are at least three covens along the west coast line. A whole host of others with little Bonnie Bennett rounding out the list.
And this game he had decided to play, this role of caring human being, was lending itself to being more trouble than it was worth. Left him sitting with the council to help them figure out how to get rid of the vampire problem… that he had inadvertently created.
This chaos was all his doing and he didn't know where to start with undoing it.
Then he thinks, an idea forming in his head.
No, he knows exactly where to start.
And it won't be easy.