Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.
A/N: New story, as promised. This one will will probably get weekly or biweekly updates until the Charade is done. I've been wanting to do a TVD Redux where Bonnie gets to live a life outside of her friends, and where Kai gets a chance, period. Enjoy. :)
PROLOGUE
Mystic Falls, 2009
It arrived in a small white envelope, thin and inconspicuous, almost lost amidst piles of junk mail. But Sheila's eyes zeroed in on the handwriting, the elegant, flowing thin script.
She knew the sender, from years past. They had worked together, solving the mystery of a massacre which had ultimately led to the other woman's death, twenty years ago. But Sheila wasn't surprised to receive a letter now. The woman had belonged to one of the most secretive covens around, their collective fingers dabbling in prophecies and predictions spanning this earth and others. Who knew what chess pieces her coven had moved into place, years before her death?
This letter would be bad news, without question.
"Grams?" came the bubbly voice behind her. "Your tea's ready. I made a new flavor for you. Come on!"
Sheila pasted a small smile on her face and shoved her misgivings away, pocketing the letter, as she turned to face her granddaughter.
"Let's see, child. Last time, I swear you brewed me a cup of anti-freeze."
Bonnie's laugh drifted happily in the air.
-oOoOo-
Prison World
In this empty hellhole that had been his home for fifteen years, there were many things Kai got around to doing.
Coming back home to Portland to roam the city, the suburbs, the fields of his family's estate-that was one of them. Sometimes it was just to see the familiar, and indulge his curiosity about the neighbors, picking through their secrets by rummaging inside closets and lockboxes that were denied to him, in the real world. Once in a while, he targeted coven homes, except when he stocked up on knowledge there, he was pretty sure one day it would prove useful. Mr. Mcallister from two houses away hiding a box of rare coins in his cellar was different, after all, from his father's oldest friend and one of the leading coven seniors stashing contraband artifacts in a secret compartment in his study.
Still other times, Kai went back to his family's house to just wander there, reliving childhood memories that culminated on a pleasant spring night.
He still remembered the soft breeze carrying the scent of blooming flowers and dead bodies, when it was all over.
He wasn't sure anymore, if that had been the best idea. Aside from getting caught and punished, he'd arrived at the conclusion that he could have been a tiny bit smarter, handling his rage. But, the massacre he enacted on his siblings so long ago still gave him nothing more than a case of heartburn and slight pause to consider life's ironies.
The people whose good opinion he'd once longed for, his own blood, reduced to begging for him to spare their measly lives.
Never mind that he couldn't float a feather on his own account-what signified was his hands. He was good with his hands, in every way that mattered in a family of self-important witches and warlocks with an over-reliance on magic and under utilization of physical prowess. Aside from knowing as well as anyone else the history of ancient and modern-day covens, and memorizing catalogues of grimoire spells, little magic-leeching Malachai also happened to pick up quite a few things about carpentry, and cooking, and electrical. All dangerous things in their own right, turned out, when one was inventive to boot. As some of his family had discovered, to their bad luck, that one evening in May.
Now, he periodically went home to hone his skills. It was here he could tool around the old shed, or think up some new recipes, or build new tree houses. There was also a lot of land to use as a makeshift hangar, once he'd picked up piloting a plane. In all, wasn't much that he couldn't do once he put his mind to it. He had different stomping grounds to run to, where he could do the same things-but sometimes, there was just no place like home.
Especially lately, with weird shit happening.
In the past couple months-he could be wrong, it could easily be half a year-the erratic storms and occasional missed eclipses have tugged on his awareness. He'd sat traveling the continents trying to figure out if he was at last, losing his final, tepid grip on sanity as he watched all the pretty colors in the sky. Then he'd had a thought that the Gemini Coven and dear old dad were finally trying to wipe his existence from the prison world, if not the prison world itself.
He sat on the topmost trunk of the weeping willow tree, his face turned upward. His clothes were wet from walking outside in the storm earlier, and he thought lightning might have singed him a little here and there. But now, in the quiet after the storm, instead of the usual clear starry night sky that had hung overhead him in his decade and a half of imprisonment, an impossibly large blood moon beckoned to him. Beautiful, eerie, almost close enough to touch, it presented him with a sudden bright and gleaming hope.
Maybe soon, he'd have his freedom.
And his revenge.
-oOoOo-
"...something fundamentally off about me," lamented her blonde friend, her tousled curls haphazardly bouncing with her lolling head, before she dropped her head into her hands. "Like I'm the total opposite of perfect Elena."
Going to the Grill for a proper meal to stave off the effects of five too many beers had been a good idea, or so Bonnie had first thought. Caroline definitely needed to chill, somewhere without Elena and Stefan around, but now that they were sitting there, miles away from the party they had just left, Bonnie saw her mistake. People trickled in regularly, Friday night giving the place a feeling of hustle and bustle instead of its usual sleepy southern diner feel. It didn't matter, though. The Real Madrid soccer club could walk in now, and Caroline would miss all that hotness, in favor of tirading against the unfairness of constantly being in Elena Gilbert's shadow.
Bonnie played with her utensils, listening to several more minutes of moping, adding in hums of sympathy and appropriately understanding expressions-most of them she meant, really-then watched Caroline's head droop lower. Had she fallen asleep?
She eyed the exit consideringly.
"Go ahead..." Caroline said. "I'll be fine. I can walk home by myself. I mean, probably trip on my face, but them's the breaks, right?"
Bonnie gave into a tiny moment of irritation. She found Matt in the distance, then said to her friend, "I have to go. Grams is waiting on me."
"You've been spending a lot of time with her," Caroline muttered. "Your Dad out of town again?"
She shrugged. What else was new?
"Go, Bonnie," and this time, Caroline managed a smile. "She might empty the liquor cabinet again. Can't have that."
Bonnie pursed her mouth, feigning disapproval, before she thought of it, then nodded, and made her way towards the exit.
"Hey, Matt," she said. He nodded to her, and she indicated Caroline behind them. "Keep an eye on her til she gets home?"
"Sure."
The walk back to her grandmother's cottage was short, the quaint neighborhood she lived in a mere five blocks from the Grill. Her boots clattered along cobblestone sidewalks and sweeping trees on quiet streets, most of the lights inside the homes off, the neighborhood having bid good-night already. Most of the residents on her grandmother's street were older, or couples with children, tucking in early. Bonnie enjoyed the atmosphere a few blocks over, the area more lively, the residents more bohemian and giving the streets a livelier feel. But she could see why Grams liked the quiet. Not that she was herself, though.
When she got to the cottage, the porch lights were blazing accusingly at Bonnie. Inside was just as bright.
"Where have you been, child?" her grandmother asked, her television loud in the background, an explosion causing the entire living room to rumble with the effects of surround sound. Bonnie moved further inside, dropping her bag and plopping onto the couch, her eyes on the screen as Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law's bruised, battered faces filled it.
Sherlock Holmes, one of her favorite movies that year. The tray on the edge of the coffee table held a bowl of cheddar popcorn and a KitKat bar.
"Grams," she murmured. "I'm sorry."
Her grandmother's brows slashed down, but Bonnie could tell she wasn't really hurt by the twinkle in her eyes. Or maybe that was the liquor. "I made some beef roast earlier, too."
"Saved me some?"
"No," the older woman huffed, then smiled reluctantly. "Make a plate, before I change my mind."
Bonnie shot up, starving suddenly, and made a beeline for the kitchen. Minutes later, tucked into a plate of a home cooked meal, she sighed happily.
"Where'd you go anyway?" asked Grams, sipping wine.
"How many glasses is that already?" Bonnie shot back, earning a glower.
"Only my fourth," Grams said. "Had to drown my sorrows somewhere, getting stood up by my favorite granddaughter."
"Your only."
"Semantics."
Bonnie worked on her plate, trying not to notice that despite the banter. her grandmother was seriously eyeing her.
"Where I usually am," she finally said, her voice light. "With Elena and Caroline."
"Really? That all?"
"Elena's new boyfriend showed up and Caroline needed moral support."
"Ah." Sheila refilled her glass. "Rivalry still going strong, huh?"
Bonnie shrugged.
"How is it," Grams said. "They spend all that time competing with each other, and never with you?"
"Why would they?" she asked, puzzled.
Silly question, she almost wanted to say. The three of them had grown up well-liked by almost everyone, not exactly the most popular but enough that they managed to get invited to the parties that mattered. Bonnie didn't go half the time, though, and the other half it was mostly because Caroline was forcing her, backed up by Elena. The two were hardly ever comfortable going anywhere just by themselves. So Bonnie trailed along, playing wing woman to one, or both. Occasionally, also playing referee.
Not really a bad place to be, as far as high school careers went. She was comfortable, and happy. Had been.
Up until a few weeks ago. The night of the comet, seemed to signal some kind of turning point for her and her friends.
The same night her Grams started breathing down her neck, oh so subtly.
"You should know, Bonnie," Grams said. "Those girls would sink without you."
Bonnie smiled, then. "I know it," she said cheekily.
"I'm serious. Sometimes, I think-" Grams took another sip.
"What?"
The way her grandmother had been acting since the end of the summer and the start of school was borderline problematic now. First, that talk of being a witch-a concept that kept her up at night lately, because parts of her were starting to believe it: her flashes of intuition, the way strange things kept happening around her-lights flickering, birds dropping from the sky out of the blue, her keys appearing in her hands whenever she was in a rush and she knew, just knew, they were upstairs on the nightstand in her room.
Now, this. Grams nitpicking about Elena and Caroline?
Part of the issue, Bonnie suspected, was because her grandmother's unease fed her own. Which had grown since the night of the comet, when she'd caught a glimpse for one brief moment into Stefan. Seeing into him had made her flinch away like she had touched a hot stove, her mind seared by the unending pain and misery inside of him, coated in...blood. Endless, copious layers of scarlet, dripping all over the flash image, like gallons of paint tossed across a bleak canvas.
Stefan, the same boy spurring the rivalry between her friends to new life-nice as all get out, sure.
The thought wouldn't leave her-he was just bad news.
"Maybe it's time for you to make new friends," Grams muttered.
Bonnie kept quiet. No, that wasn't it. They needed to make less friends, was what she wanted to say. She, Elena, and Caroline-they should stay within their comfortable circle. And keep out anyone with the name of Salvatore.
"Could be right," Bonnie said dismissively, not wanting to trigger more of her grandmother's alarms. "Doesn't mean I'm dropping my existing ones."
"Elena and Caroline should learn to handle themselves without you."
Her laugh was loaded with disbelief. "Grams, what is this?"
"Bonnie, listen."
"No." She pushed her plate away. "It's enough. Nobody's on drugs or catching STDs or getting arrested. It's Elena and Caroline. They're practically my sisters."
Her grandmother's face was so gloomy then, Bonnie couldn't understand it. Where was her kooky, fun-loving Grams who went over the latest issue of her botany magazine while they had their nails done at the parlor, and who had-just a few month ago-invited her friends over for a sleepover and made them all banana pancakes at noon, when they all trudged down the stairs after just five hours of sleep?
"Let's just watch the movie, please?" she pleaded, as she removed the glass of wine from her grandmother's hold, dumping it in the sink and doing the same for the bottle.
"Now that's no way to convince me," grumbled the older woman, but she got up anyway.
Soon they were settled on the couch, sharing the large, soft quilt that her grandmother swore she had knitted but Bonnie had seen at the local linen and bedding shop downtown. Exhaustion set in before they'd even gotten halfway through the movie, and though she tried to fight it, Bonnie found herself drifting.
"You forced my hand, child," she heard the murmur, but distantly, as if it was a soft echo, winding its way through a long tunnel, and she was at the far end of it. "I can't let you throw yourself away."
Reflexively, Bonnie murmured something, all of it incoherent. Again from far away, she heard her grandmother merely shush her back.
"You needed a safeguard," came the sad whisper, the last thing to reach her through the growing haze, before blackness claimed her.