2 in 1 day. I never left my computer.

x.x.x.

2.

Caroline sometimes feels like the odd one out. Elena and Bonnie have a closer relationship with one another than they did with her. She knows that it is because Bonnie spent most of her time at Elena's house growing up. Her mother wasn't around and her father was hardly around. Her grandmother was always on campus teaching. Bonnie practically raised herself. And when she wasn't taking care of herself, The Gilberts were. Doting on her, taking her in, taking her on family trips.

Caroline went too sometimes but she felt like she simply couldn't compete with their almost sister like bond. It's an insecurity she can't control. But lately she has begun to notice a shift, the way the two girls hardly talk. It was a shift that came almost overnight, one moment Elena was holding Bonnie at the Sheila Bennett's homegoing service, then Bonnie left for a few days and when came back she kept conversations with Elena short and clipped. Hell, even Caroline is lucky for the time she does get to see Bonnie, seeing how the girl has turned into herself almost completely since her grandmother passed away. And she worries about her. Worries about how she's doing in that house all alone. What she's doing in that house all alone.

But another part of her is happy to be the one Bonnie is choosing. It's a selfish part of her that has always felt like she was competing with Elena. How it feels like she got this right, that she wasn't the second choice here. But, and she is loath to admit it, she's tired of their fighting. Missing their trio.

"Okay!" Caroline announces, shutting Bonnie's locker dramatically. A few students passing by pause, lingering to see if some drama or a public fight is about to happen. Bonnie stares up at Caroline blankly, one perfectly manicured brow raised in question.

Caroline sighs, opening the locker back. "Sorry." She says rolling her eyes. She pauses, staring at the two students staring at them until they glance away, back to minding their business.

Bonnie continues with stuffing her books away into her locker. Waiting patiently for Caroline to explain the outburst.

"What's going on with you and Elena?" She asks, folding her arms across her chest.

"Don't know what you're talking about, Care."

"Don't play dumb with me. You and Elena are fighting." Caroline takes the book Bonnie's preparing to put into her backpack out of her hand. Forcing the girl to look at her. "Spill." She demands.

"It's nothing." Bonnie says, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. She takes the book back, putting it in her bookbag. She busies herself with shutting and locking the locker back.

"It's not nothing." Caroline says, mimicking Bonnie's shrug. "You two have been on the outs for two weeks now and I don't like it." She whines. "I can't fix it if I don't know what's going on."

Bonnie inhales deeply, closing her eyes. She wishes she could tell her. Wants desperately to talk to someone, anyone about this. Hear another opinion. Am I tripping? She wants to know. She exhales. "I just can't, Care. I'm sorry."

"I'll try to respect that." Caroline says and Bonnie understands that boundary is hard for her. It makes her smile, to have someone like Caroline in her corner. Caroline who was so skeptical of her being a witch, cracking jokes about it. She'd never get it. She thinks. She doesn't need to. If she can keep Caroline like this. Keep this one reminder of who she was before all of this, she'll do anything to maintain it.

"Don't be mad at me too." Caroline says when Bonnie disappears into her thoughts.

"Oh, Care." Bonnie wraps one of her arms around her, leading her down the hallway. "I'm not mad at you. I'm not even mad at Elena." She squeezes Caroline tighter to her side, laying her head on her shoulder as they walk. "I'm just...tired."

And frightened. And different than I use to be. And sad. So sad. And Angry. So angry.

"Well, just promise me you'll talk to her." Caroline says and Bonnie's about to pull away from their embrace when the taller girl tightens her hold back. "You don't have to do it now. It's just she's having a tough time too. And you guys have gone through something I haven't experienced. Losing people so close to you. If anyone can help you through this right now. It's Elena."

And Bonnie thinks it's sweet she believes that so she tells her she will.

X.x.x

The house is too silent. An eerie silence that burrows itself underneath her skin and chills her to the bone. It's a Friday night and she should be anywhere else like others her age. Seeing a movie at the Landmark Theatre, pampering herself at Gina's Nail Parlor, getting underaged drunk at Tyler's bonfire. But she isn't.

She can't help thinking about what lurks in the shadows, who she walks by daily who could in one fell swoop kill her and her friends. If Stefan and Damon were able to slide in so undetectable, who else was there?

What else was there?

It's moments like this that makes her fill with regret. Regret that she didn't take her grandmother seriously when she talked about their heritage. She wishes that she had understood truly the depth of what was in a name. In particular hers.

She could laugh then at the saying she used to say when Rudy and Sheila would get into their squabbles. "My name's Bennett and I ain't in it." What a fucking joke that was. She was quickly learning from pouring over her grandmother's journals, her ancestors' grimoires that they were literally always in everything.

They were at the epicenter of so many different spells and events. She saw her name listed somewhere in a spell about prison worlds and grandma Sheila talking about some crazy coven in Oregon. There is nowhere she had looked thus far that she could say her hands were clean.

And here she was, the last living witch of this powerful, handsy line of witches crumbling under pressure. It makes sense now, all the cautionary tales her grandmother would repeat to her when she began to teach her magic. It was all in these books.

How many of her ancestors had died getting tied up in vampire business? How many got the opportunity to die of old age and not some vindictive vampires whims? Some quest for power or blood or both?

Is her family cursed? She wonders. Doomed to be martyrs, to die for pointless causes. Grams had died carrying the weight of a spell far too old and complicated to undo. For what? For Damon Salvatore?

For Katherine Pierce, whomever she was. Wherever she was.

She isn't one to get tied up in their business. She doesn't want to be. She wants to be the one who defies the curse.

Truly her name is Bennett and she ain't in it.

She places her grimoire in her messenger bag and slings it over her shoulder. She needs some noise to comfort her not the cold and silence of her empty house and the way it preoccupies her thoughts. She goes to the grille. She revels in the steady movement of people, as waiters and waitresses attempt to keep up with the fray. Patrons laughing, drinking, being so goddamn merry. So perfectly oblivious to what lurks around the corner. In the little corner booth reading.

"Hey Bonnie, what can I get for ya?" It's the benefit of a small town. Knowing everyone well enough that you can call them by first or last name. It's also that this is just the local haunt. She's been here so often throughout the years that she's memorized the menu. She orders loaded potato skins, ranch dressing on the side and a coke. Figures she deserves the oil and sugar. Tara, her waitress, tells her she'll be back with her drink and Bonnie disappears again into reading.

She drops off the drink and quickly after the appetizer. Bonnie smiles politely every time Tara stops by to check on her and thanks her when she clears her plate and places a fresh coke in front of her. The crowd is changing as the night grows later. This crowd is looking for more of an afterparty.

"Studying on a Friday?" Tara remarks almost incredulous mostly because she can't imagine that this cacophony of sounds makes it easier to retain any information.

Bonnie leans forward a little to cover the material of what she's studying. "Just trying to get ahead of the game." She tells her with a bright smile. Tara nods, trotting off to another patron. Bonnie chooses then to spare a glance around the restaurant, wondering if any of her friends from school have stumbled in when across the room at the bar her eyes fall on a familiar tuft of dark hair and a black leather jacket.

Incensed, she searches immediately for Tara, suddenly ready for her check. What is he here for? She wonders when her eyes fall on his back again. Scoping the place for a hot meal?

Almost as if he feels her gaze, he turns on his stool and his eyes meet hers. She breaks their staring contest first but she can still feel him watching her. Despite herself she lifts her eyes to his again. Vaguely, she hears a noise next to her hand on the table. Watches as his gaze goes to the noise too, watching as the salt shaker shakes so violently the glass breaks. The sound shakes the booths near her, people glancing around to pin-point the source. Salt spills into her lap.

In her line of sight, Damon's brow furrows.

Tara is there again. "You okay honey?"

Bonnie snaps to at the sound of her voice. "I'll take my check. Please." Her voice is hoarse as she stands, closing her grimoire quickly and stuffing it into her bag as she moves away from the mess. Dusting salt and small shards of glass from her lap.

Tara only stays a moment longer, her eyes going from the salt on the table and broken glass to Bonnie. She cleans up most of the glass first, sweeping it into a towel and carrying it carefully to the waitress station.

The booth next to her, two college students eye her curiously and she smiles tightlipped at them before refocusing her attention on anything other than Damon at the bar and the cool she's obviously beginning to lose.

How was it he could just sit there? It was such a small thing but it pissed her off immensely. How did he have the audacity to sit here, among these people, in the town where he may have hunted and killed their loved ones?

But if Damon Salvatore had nothing else he had audacity. He was so full of audaciousness.

How could he be so unfeeling? It wasn't vampirism. Stefan was a vampire too and he tended to lean closer to the gentler side of the spectrum. Though recently he scared her too. She had seen firsthand what he could be capable of but he sought to not be that. She didn't trust him. But she knew that he would beat himself up more than she ever could. Could see that in the way he tried desperately to not cross her path at school since he came back. The way he avoided her eyes.

Then there was his older brother. So careless, so hurt, so broken that he could and would hurt and break so many other people.

Sheila used to say misery loves company.

That's what Damon is, miserable. But he pretends to be anything but. And all Bonnie wants is for him to feel it.

He thought he had felt despair. He thought he had felt pain.

She wants him to feel what he did to other people. How badly he hurt other people all to serve such selfish ends. She knows that she needs to find out how to control the fury she feels when he is near, how combustible it makes her feel.

The moment she pays her bill she leaves in a hurry, a flurry of curly strands and lavender as she goes to her car. Hoping, wishing to not have to deal with any of them today. She's too busy fishing her keys out of her bag, fussing when they get tangled with her headphones. She doesn't see him until his arms are latched around the tops of her arms, stopping her from running smack into his chest. She sucks in a deep breath from surprise, lifting her eyes to his. This proximity makes her uncomfortable. The fact that she can see how long his dark eyelashes are.

"Ow!" He drops his hands quickly, anger twisting into his expression as he grips his wrist. She zapped him, a little bit of electricity shooting up his arms. Just enough to sting. To get the idea out there into the air between them. Don't touch me. She takes a big step back and readies herself for what he plans to do next. He can see the tense set of her shoulder and he lifts his hands in surrender, palms facing outward toward her. As if to say, see no tricks up my sleeve.

Flexing her fingers, feeling her magic thrumming right there at the surface. Seemingly activated the instant she sees him. Her brow furrows when he doesn't say anything right away. He just stands there staring. "What."

"I wanted to call a truce."

She tilts her head then, squinting at him at this…. Arrogance he seems to wear like a cologne. A laugh bubbles up out of her and she watches as his expression changes to one of annoyance as she giggles. It's like he woke up everyday and dabbed some behind his ears and neck.

"A truce." She says shaking her head. The very idea of it is so hilarious that it actually isn't funny. His middle name might actually be Audacity. Damon Audacity Salvatore. "What do you want, Damon?" She says, weary.

"I need to ask for a teensy favor." He says, demonstrating with his thumb and pointer finger, exaggerating the space between them.

"You're asking me for a favor." She scoffs stepping forward until she's standing scant inches away from him. "Move. Before I make you move."

"Okay now wait a minute. I have kept my distance. I have been trying to fix the problem I caused. That's why I'm here. I wouldn't be asking you for anything at all if I didn't need it for the greater good and blah blah blah."

She sighs, taking a step back from him again, folding her arms over her chest. "Talk."

He takes her through all of it. How he has the main part of some device the council wants to utilize to empty Mystic Falls of it's vampire population and he wants to give it to the council to keep up his charade of vampire hunter and not vampire. How he wants to be rid of the tomb vampires as much as she does but he can't just let the council have the device. And he needs her, needs her to skim through Emily's grimoire, to see if there's a loophole, one that leaves he and his brother unscathed. She raises a brow after his explanation.

"You think I care about you or Stefan?"

"No." Damon says glancing skyward, understanding this would be harder than he originally anticipated. "You seem to forget that the council is against all supernaturals."

"Where is this going?"

"You think Liz doesn't know you're a witch? Why do you think she watches you so closely? Why the Lockwood's are the way they are with you?"

Liz, she thinks, watches her closely because she lost her family. Because she knows there are vampires here and feels this duty to protect this town. She wouldn't hurt Bonnie. She couldn't.

"First, the Lockwood's are racist." Bonnie says waving that off dismissively. Their biases were far from secret. She remembers distinctly the day she and Tyler went to the homecoming dance together, the way Mrs. Lockwood kept her lips pressed together. The tightlipped smiles she always gave Bonnie whenever she was nearby. How she knew she referred to her as that girl when she wasn't around. "Secondly, Liz basically helped raise me. She wouldn't hurt me."

"Unless she thought you were a threat."

Bonnie squints at him. "Is that a threat? What, you gonna tell on me to the council?" She could feel that anger bubbling again.

"No." He laughs, shaking his head. "I'm just trying to get through to you and that thick skull that you're more like me than you are them. What, Emily didn't tell you when she was spending all that time in your noggin? She was a target too. You know how she died? Hint: It wasn't a vampire."

Bonnie glances away from him, feeling the unfortunate truth and the weight of his words.

Emily Bennett, though she was attached to a deeply untrustworthy and selfish vampire, the person who had ultimately been the cause of her death had been the man she loved. The human man. It was unfortunate from reading her grimoire, all the things she did for Johnathan Gilbert. How she used her magic to make him think he was some genius creator And in the end he had simply chewed Emily up and spit her right out. Into the fire.

Still, Elizabeth Forbes wouldn't hurt her. She was little Bonnie Bennett. Sheila Bennett's granddaughter. The girl who had been over her house for holidays and sleepovers for over half of her life. But she was committed to keeping Mystic Falls safe from all supernatural beings.

She feels his words on her like a cool bucket of water, calming the fire in her veins.

"Truce." He repeats, annunciating the word. She doesn't say anything back, instead taking the opening. Getting into her car and driving away. He watches her little ugly Prius until her light disappears from his view.

X.x.x.

She spends an inordinate amount of time thinking of Damon's words. The truth of the matter at hand. It is true that in the time period of Emily Bennett's life and before, that humans posed as large a threat to witches as vampires. She understands that here in Mystic Falls she too was as much a threat to human life as any vampire.

She could kill them if she wanted to. She didn't want to but she could. That's all they needed to see her as an enemy. And far be it from Bonnie to trust the word of Damon Salvatore. He had sworn to protect the Bennet line and here it was that she could still feel the way his fangs pierced her neck. How he nearly drained her dry. A bang up job he did of being trustworthy, of keeping promises. He had plenty of reason to lie to her but deep in her gut she knew what he said in the grille parking lot was true.

Grams had grumbled about the council often. They hadn't believed her to be a witch. Sure they had known she was a Bennett woman and suspected that she may have had powers but they never saw them and grams allowed them to safely assume that when she talked openly about magic and Bennett lineage that it was rooted in her college courses she taught and the research she did. Her family name being the sole reason for teaching the occult studies course at Whitmore. And maybe Bonnie too could have fallen under their radar if the two of them hadn't been responsible for opening the tomb.

Undoing a Bennett spell.

The council had every reason to suspect her of witchcraft. To want to put her down before she got too big for her britches. Or to pocket her, utilize her as a tool to keep them safe.

Her mind roves over the possibilities. All of which strip her of something. The control of her magic. Of her story. Of the only things she still manages to have some semblance of control over.

Plus, Bonnie is a witch. So, what matter was it if Liz or any of the other members of the council knew her personally. John had known Emily, quite intimately. From what Elena had shared of the Salvatore brothers, their very own father had been responsible for why they died with vampire blood in their systems. Those people were willing and did sacrifice people they professed to love.

Sure, that had been 1864, but towns like Mystic Falls, founded on strict principles, so out of touch mostly of the world at large retained the values they were built on. The people in places like this thrived on their inability to shift and change.

Southern people don't stray from their principles. Grams use to say that about the Lockwood's.

And those people, the ancestors of the very people walking Mystic Falls with her had passed those ideals on down the line. Just as easily as her magic had been passed on down to her.

Damon Salvatore might have reasons to lie to her. Obvious reasons to manipulate her and though she knows ultimately what he is offering is for he and his brothers benefit. She also knows that she's all alone in this now. Forging this path and studying all on her own. It burns her up to think of it, herself in alliance with him but it's the only thing that makes sense.

It's an unfortunate truth.

She skips cheer practice driving to the Boarding house preparing herself to endure his smart ass remarks. Maybe a "told you so" or "knew you wouldn't stay away for long."

When he opens the door before she can knock, her hand is still poised in the air in a fist. She lowers it, stuffing her hands into her back pockets to keep from fidgeting. His expression is stoic instead of gloating and she worries that something grave may have happened while she was debating, shifting from foot to foot, wondering if she was quite literally getting into bed with the devil.

When he doesn't say anything, she assumes things are fine, he's just in a sour mood.

"I don't trust you." She tells him plainly. He folds his arms over his chest, leans on the door jam and eyes her warily. Blue eyes skimming, searching for a trick up her sleeve.

"I don't trust you either."

"And I don't like you." She adds.

"Grow up." He tells her then he thrusts his hand into the air between them. Try this again. She knocks his hand away, squeezing by him into his home. She needs something stronger than a handshake. Something to calm her nerves. Calm the part of her that thinks she's walking into a trap, into the lion's den. Her distrust and disdain of him is still too strong.

He follows her, watches her as she grabs two glasses, drops a single ice cube into both, her hands shaking slightly as she pours bourbon into each glass. She spills a little on her hand as she roughly hands him one glass and takes one for herself.

"This is tentative." She decides to say.

Tentative. He could deal with that.

"To new alliances." He says and before she can correct him, tell him the definition of the word tentative. He knocks his glass against hers before downing the shot she poured. He waits a moment for her to do the same, lowering his glass back to the bar and already going for seconds.

She lifts the glass to her full lips, tips it and takes a tentative sip.