Sorry this one took a bit longer than usual, but I hope the extra length makes up for it. Some exciting news forthcoming, including details about Part Two! Hope everyone is happy and well. I'm doing my best.
As always, many thanks to the transcribers over at the fan wiki for making my life easier.
Soundtrack:
Shipping News – "Axons and Dendrites" from Flies the Fields
Pauwels - "La une" from Elina
What Made Milwaukee Famous – "Hopelist" from Trying to Never Catch up
aMute – "Why Do I Run Seasons So Fast" from The Sea Horse Limbo
The Armory Creed, enacted 1881
I. To secure, contain, and protect any and all information, objects, entities, and persons of supernatural significance.
II. To actively work to conceal the existence, influence, and consequences of the supernatural from public and historical record.
III. To exhaustively catalogue, document, and study the supernatural in the interest of maintaining the eminent superiority of the human race.
IV. To utilize any means necessary, up to and including lethal force, to further the aforementioned objectives.
February 8, 2014
Wide-open display spaces have always given Bonnie the creeps, and the Armory lobby fits that off-putting combination of architectural and curatorial choices to a T: with its crisscrossing half-aisles of wooden podiums and glass cases, a ceiling that's both too high and not high enough, and a looming inner-terrace balcony along the upper edges of the room, it looks like it can't decide whether it wants to be a library or a museum, failing at being anything in the process. It's dead in here, lifeless, and yet she still feels like they're being watched. She scans the corners and light fixtures and scaffolding for cameras, microphones, nosy gargoyles—nothing.
Alaric, on the other hand, is in hog heaven.
"Oh my God."
"What?" Bonnie asks, whipping around, ready for anything. She's met, however, with the non-emergency sight of Ric with his face less than an inch away from the glass box housing an ornate, complex jewel with an edge of lapis lazuli, diamond lattice, and a finely wrought gold nest housing the dark blue crown-stone. It's set on top of a small gold support that looks almost as valuable as the thing it's supporting.
"I don't believe it." This is the most excited she's seen him over anything since Jo died. The novelty isn't enough to temper much of her annoyance, though.
"Would you like, tell me what it is?"
"The Lapis de Bello," Ric responds as he straightens up and crosses his arms, still staring at the gem, whose countless facets reflect so much light that it's hard to look at the whole thing directly. "It was given to Charlemagne by his first wife."
"Charlemagne? Like, the Charlemagne?"
"The very same. Legend has it, this allowed to conquer half of western Europe. You know, I spent three years searching for this thing. Through every tomb, every monastery, throughout the whole continent, I couldn't find it. I gave up—convinced myself it didn't exist." He laughs. "But there it is."
"Well I'm glad this little vacation worked out so well for you."
Ric looks sheepish. "You're right, I'm sorry. It's just, you know how much of a nerd I am about this stuff. And, well, it kinda sheds some light on our current predicament."
Bonnie furrows her eyebrows in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Half of these things should've been lost to history." He extends his arms and gestures around the room. "Disappeared, unfindable. The other half shouldn't even exist. Look, over there—that's Le Reste du Tyran, a Hand of Glory said to have been made from the corpse of Louis XVI after his execution. Every single historical account I've ever read dismisses it as a legend or superstition, and yet, again, there it is." He lets out a long, loud exhale. "If these guys can make all of this disappear, not just from the world but from reality, they're gonna have no problem making us disappear. So we'd better tread carefully."
"Agreed. Unfortunately, we'll have to carefully tread right into their open fuckin' arms, because there isn't a single other way into this place other than the goddamn front door," Damon says as he suddenly emerges behind them, brushing gray dust off the sleeves of his jacket while he walks.
"The hell did you do?" Bonnie asks, watching him shake even more of it out of his hair.
"Tried to punch through a wall that looked secret-passageway-y. Got about five feet into solid stone before I gave up. Now my knuckles hurt, my arms are tired, and I'm pissed." Damon finally gives up on trying to clean the jacket and just throws it off to his side, causing another cloud of rock dust to puff up into the air. "Hey museum nerds!" His intentionally obnoxious tone echoes and ricochets around the room as he yells, "Give us Abby or I'm gonna kill all of you!", the last few words sing-songed in a mischievous melody. As he picks up a large ceramic vase from a marble column and makes an exaggerated show of preparing to drop it on the floor, an elevator-style door at the back of the room suddenly slides open, revealing a short, dark-haired woman in a silver pantsuit who Bonnie has never seen before—accompanied by none other than Enzo St. John.
"I should've known," Damon scoffs, looking at his former friend with disgust. "Not only have you made yourself into their complete, no-questions-asked vampire bitch, now you're double-crossing your own people?"
"What people, Damon?" Enzo tightly folds his arms in front of his chest and stands with his black-booted feet slightly apart. "The so-called 'friends' who never cared about me? Or the supernatural race of vampires, of which I never asked to be a member? Either way, I'm past the point of feeling guilty for doing what I want with my life."
Bonnie looks to her left at her two friends. Damon is fuming, his eyes crackling electric blue, while Ric seems more cautious, yet still coiled, his whole body poised with the anticipation of escape at any moment. She suddenly feels incredibly guilty for asking him to come here. He has two daughters on the way, after all.
"I hate to break it to you, Lorenzo, but when you're facing off with me and you come out looking like the asshole, you've fallen a looong way." Bonnie hasn't seen Damon this mad in a while.
"Now boys, boys, let's be adults here." They're the first words Alex has spoken since she entered the room, and indeed since Bonnie became aware of her existence, but they already drip with enough smugness and general patronization to ruin any chances of her being a fan. "There doesn't need to be any violence. We just—"
"No violence? You kidnapped my mother in the middle of the night!" All of the rage that has been building up within Bonnie bursts outward at once. "Bring her to me, or I'll burn you alive." She concentrates all of her minds on the palms of her hands, twists her neurons up to say incendia, INCENDIA, and then flames burst from her palms and fingertips, crackling like war-braziers as she stands facing Alex.
"Ms. Bennett, there's no need for that," she says, trying to appear collected after letting a spark of fear slip in her eyes at sight of the fire. "We're all on the same side. Right, Enzo? Here, I'll tell you what. As a gesture of good faith…"
The sliding doors open once again, but this time only one person steps out.
"Mom? Are you okay? What did they do to you?" Bonnie closes her hands, extinguishing the flames, and instinctively wipes her hands on her jeans, even though there's nothing to wipe off.
Abby looks surprised, disoriented even. She looks around at her surroundings, then at Alex, her expression hardening, and finally to Bonnie. And now her face shows fear. "Bonnie. You shouldn't be here."
"Agree to disagree, Ms… what is it now? Rogers? I think this is exactly where your daughter should be."
Abby keeps walking forward, and neither Alex nor Enzo make any move to stop her, so once she passes them Bonnie runs forward and pulls her into a tight hug. But almost immediately she feels something wrong, jumps back and looks at Abby, then to Alex. "She's not really here, is she?"
"You're quick. Just the kind of witch I need. Come on, Bonnie. What kind of negotiator would I be if I brought my leverage out into the open unprotected?"
Bonnie's even madder now. "One, we can't all be on the 'same side' if you're doing fucked-up shit like this. Two, if you're projecting her, that means you have a witch. Most likely more than one."
"Indeed. How do you think we found her in the first place?"
"Then why do you need me?" Even as she asks, the gears are already turning in her head. She looks back at Ric, who, despite still looking tense as a compressed spring, flashes her a knowing smirk of understanding. When she turns back to Alex, she sees the first sign of a crack in the cool, one-step-ahead exterior the woman has built around herself.
And then Bonnie smiles. Cocks her head to the side. Laughs.
"You need a Bennett witch, don't you?"
Alex, still trying to collect herself, has an expression like Nixon at the 1960 debate—minus the sweat, thankfully. "The thing is—"
"And if you need a Bennett witch, that means you need me to undo some sort of spell or enchantment that one of my ancestors specifically designed to not be undone. They put their faith in their descendants, in me. So whatever it is, I'm not gonna do it." She looks at Abby, whose face beams with pride before her form flickers and then winks out completely.
Alex's face is suddenly disturbingly calm. In an almost robotic voice she says, "Fine. I was hoping it wouldn't have to come to this, but you've chosen to be difficult. Agree to help me or your mother dies. You have five minutes."
Somehow, the most surprised of them all appears to be Enzo, whose stoic front immediately breaks as he turns to mutter questions at his colleague, his brow wrinkled in bewilderment. Damon's incredulous "WHAT?" off to Bonnie's left is a more familiar reaction, and before she herself can even respond he's already sped over to stand behind Alex. "I have a better idea. How about I just rip your head off instead?"
But as he reaches his arms up to do said ripping, two loud bangs ring out from opposite sides of the upper expanses of the room and suddenly Damon is falling, blood blooming from twin bullet holes in his forehead, and now all hell is breaking loose, loud grating alarms blaring and heavy red light pulsing as Ric dives behind the nearest display and Bonnie tries to cast a blocking spell as Enzo and Alex zip toward the door but they're too fast and the panes slide closed before the broad ripples surging through the air can reach them. Now she's whipping her head back and forth, scanning the ceiling for wherever the sniper shots came from, but she can't see anything, just darkness and rafters, and suddenly the alarm stops, leaving them in complete, oppressive silence.
As soon as Bonnie's adrenaline surge tempers the slightest bit she rushes over to Damon, puts her hands on his forehead, murmurs some incantations until she finds the rhythm and starts to feel the projectiles dislodge from wherever they've dug into his brain, and as they finally shoot outward from the wounds they left going in he sits up with a gasp, skin already closing and healing over where it was torn into. Damon immediately surveys the room in a flash of movement, his already indignant expression becoming angrier as he sees no trace of Alex or Enzo in the still red-drenched room. "Where the hell did they go? God, I'm going to fucking kill—"
"Damon." Ric doesn't look scared anymore; he just looks mad. "We need to figure out a way to get in there. They're gonna kill her."
"I know, I know." He gets to his feet, doing his best not to look embarrassed, but Bonnie sees right through it. "Just gotta get through this door. Do you have any of the explosives in the car? We should—"
He's interrupted by the sound of the doors opening again, but now it's accompanied by a rather large squad of black-uniformed paramilitary types holding all sorts of ridiculous guns, some of them presumably filled with stakes instead of bullets. The one who looks most like a "leader"—white, shaved head, expression filled with so much fury it looks like it's his default setting... i.e., couldn't look more like a cop if he tried—steps forward, his firearm trained on Damon, who stares back at him as if he's a large bug that was just accidentally stepped on. "We were instructed not to use lethal force as a gesture of goodwill. Please do not make any sudden movements or actions or we will be forced to eliminate you. Ms. Bennett, you now have four minutes to come with us."
"Exactly. So you can't 'eliminate' me, right?" Bonnie tries her best to look smug, even though having fifteen-odd gun barrels pointed straight at one's face isn't the easiest situation to be smug in.
"Excuse me?" head-angry-white-guy answers.
"You can't kill me, because Alex needs me. Badly enough to do all of this bullshit. So, if I were to, say, do this…" She starts to slowly walk toward the phalanx of armed thugs, hearing Damon growl her name in caution behind her; she waves him away. They all brandish their guns and shift their feet, but just as she suspected, none make any sort of move that would indicate they're prepared to pull the trigger.
Bonnie smiles. "That's what I thought. Now, how about we do this my way. I'd like that a lot better." And in the span of less than a second, she pulls both Damon and Alaric through the air toward her, slams her foot to the ground to conjure a boundary spell, and waves her hand in an arc over her head, causing large orange flames to quickly spread across the ceiling. Her ears are immediately filled with the splitting noise of chattering gunfire and explosions as the Armory security force unloads their comical arsenal against the forcefield, but she feels the invigorating energy-vibrations as it repels every single projectile metal and wood alike, and eventually the booms and blasts are replaced by the pathetic clatter of the last round of spent ammunition and shell casings hitting the floor as the shooters realize the futility of their excessive volley. And as soon as they stop, Bonnie sees Damon's face curl into an evil grin and his fangs jut out, and then he's tearing through the mercenaries one by one, heads and limbs flying to and fro like gruesome confetti, while she and Ric take care of the rest with propulsion spells and an ankle pistol, respectively. The last one standing whips out a stake and is about to stab Damon—who's currently busy chewing into the neck of the head goon's corpse—in the heart through his back, but he's felled just before the point pierces the skin by a well-timed bullet... except it isn't Ric who fired it.
It was Enzo, who has just emerged from the doors alongside someone that Bonnie can't quite see, but the silhouette looks familiar... it's Abby, looking decidedly more real than last time. Enzo lowers his gun and looks straight at Bonnie. "You can extinguish the flames, Bonnie, the auto-targeting system has been shut off. I promise you, I had no idea your mother's life would be threatened. I misjudged Alex's intentions—the things she would be willing to do for what she wants—and for that, I am deeply sorry."
Before Bonnie can even blink Damon is at his throat, holding him up against the wall with one hand clasped under his chin. "What the fuck was that?"
"Damon, take it easy. He let her go," Ric says from off to Bonnie's left.
"Yeah. He's a coward who will always switch sides when it's convenient for him. I should just kill him now so he can't double-cross us again."
"Damon, he let me out." Abby reaches her hand out to him but doesn't actually touch his shoulder. "He could have let them kill me but he didn't. And he put his boss in my cell. I think that's enough."
"We need to question him anyway, find out what the hell this was all about." Bonnie recalls the spreading sheet of red and orange flames with a wave of her hand, leaving a giant wound of ashy, smoking cinder in its wake, and for whatever reason it's only then that the sprinkler system kicks on, a million tiny spritzes quickly soaking through all of their clothes. "Come on, Damon, we need to get out of here."
He looks between all of them, his features burning with that singular don't tell me who I can or can't kill frustration as the cold water drips from his dark matted hair onto his face, and then turns back to Enzo, who is starting to turn purple from the pressure on his trachea. "So your charming boss is out of commission? How many more of these goons are there? Will they come back and let her out?"
"No," Enzo chokes, and Damon seems to lessen his grip some so the other vampire can talk more freely. "I dispatched them to various places around the country. We have a week, maybe two, before anyone starts asking questions."
"Great." Damon releases his hold on Enzo, who falls the few inches he was raised up to the ground, rubbing his neck, until Damon quickly breaks it by twisting the Brit's head to the side.
"Damon! What the hell?" Bonnie and Ric yell in unison.
"Oh come on, he'll get over it. Gives us some time to think his latest allegiance-change over." He claps his together as if knocking dirt off, even though they, along with the rest of his body, are thoroughly drenched. Bonnie starts to shiver. "Alright. Let's get out of this dusty old place. Not so dusty anymore, I guess."
Back at the Salvatore house, Bonnie wrings the water out of her sock over the sink, the last of the clothing she was wearing when they all got that wonderful surprise shower. Luckily, the false warmths of spring have begun to poke through winter's ice-shell, resulting in an unseasonably balmy days like this one, so neither she nor Ric froze to death in the time it took to walk back to his car. Damon kept prodding him by making jokes about how glad he was that they didn't take the Camaro, steadily escalating his teases and annoyances until Ric threatened to kick him out of the car and then turn the convertible into a makeshift hot tub, all while Bonnie sat with Abby in the backseat rolling her eyes and trying not to laugh. Her mom seemed okay—a little shaken up, mostly from being astrally projected without her consent, which is apparently a disconcerting and even painful process—and seemed to be in good spirits by the time the drive was over, but just as they entered the Mystic Falls town limit she asked, "Do you think they'll find me again?"
Bonnie replied, "I'll cloak you wherever you decide to go. So even locator spells won't work." Paused, then: "I'm sorry I dragged you into this."
"We're Bennetts, Bonnie. We're always getting dragged into things. It's in our blood—alive or undead."
The whole way back Ric, at the request of the masses, alternated between full-blast AC and heat to try to compensate for the awful sensation of your clothes being soaked through, but by the time they pulled into the circular drive, the sun just finishing its dip behind the horizon and bleeding orange across the distant silhouettes, everyone is only half-dry at best, slicked in some unknown mixture of still-unevaporated water and clinging sweat. Good thing their home base is basically a showroom floor for ridiculously fancy bathrooms and showers, as Bonnie pointed out to Damon while she grabbed a fresh set of clothes from her emergency overnight bag stored in the living room.
"Remember when my dad dumped vervain into the water supply and everyone had to shower here?"
"Don't get any ideas."
Hot water out of the triple-nozzle tap head in one of the guest bathrooms felt like heaven, and now she couldn't feel cozier in the sweats and soft henley she had packed for herself in anticipation of something exactly like this. She finishes squeezing as many droplets as she can out of the sock and tosses it in the trash bag with the rest of her wet outfit, drops it by the door, joins Damon and Ric in the living room.
"Is Abby still getting changed?" she asks as she pours herself a glass of bourbon.
Damon visibly perks his ears to listen, grins, and then answers, "She's still in the shower. Wanna know what song she's singing?"
Bonnie laughs. "Not particularly."
"Your loss. She's beltin' it."
"Creep." She plops down on the couch between them, sighing with relief as she sinks into the seat, appreciating this much-need moment of (mostly) un-asterisked R&R. She looks at Damon and smiles. "I think she doesn't want to like you, but does anyway."
He raises his glass. "Cheers to that fun little phenomenon, which I would have absolutely no friends or loved ones without?"
"I'll drink to that," Ric grumbles, downing the rest of his drink and then standing up. "Alright, I have papers to grade. And by that I mean I'm an old man and I'm exhausted, and will probably put off that grading until at least tomorrow evening. But regardless." He looks down at Bonnie. "Need a ride back to campus?"
"I just sat down! What kinda bullshit is this?"
"Yeah, Ric, c'mon," Damon chimes in. "Ask your mom if you can sleep over."
Ric ignores him, pointedly keeping his head directed toward Bonnie. "Are you okay? Do you need anything, or…"
She sighs, then smiles. "Earlier today I was pretty sure I was gonna snap at some point. But now... I don't know. This felt like a win." Mostly because she's been completely distracted from thinking about Nora since last night. Now that things have calmed down, she can feel it starting to creep in. She takes another sip of bourbon, trying fend off the heartache with the warm blur of intoxication.
"What exactly about today makes you so optimistic?" Damon asks with a scowl. "We have to figure out what to do with Enzo, hope he doesn't flip on us again, cross our fingers and just wish that the hordes of discount jarheads scattered around the country don't put two and two together and kill us in our sleep, plus whatever Lovecraftian nightmare has to be in that vault Alex was so obsessed with, and—"
"Damon." Ric's tone isn't aggressive, just firm. "Shut up."
The raven-haired vampire throws up his hands and rolls his eyes in exasperation, a few drops of amber liquid escaping from the crystal glass in his right hand. "Whatever." He gets up and walks into the kitchen. "Where would you all be without my cynicism? Dead."
Bonnie closes her eyes in affectionate frustration and then turns back to Ric. "I'll be good here, but thanks for the offer. I'll get him or Caroline to drive me back tomorrow."
"Of course. See you in class Monday."
"Drive safe, old man."
"I guess I asked for that one." He gives her a mock-salute as he steps out the door, the heavy slab of dark wood closing behind him just as Damon returns with another bottle of whiskey, this time drinking it straight from the bottle, and a fresh blood bag from the fridge. He sits back down next to her and, so quietly that she almost doesn't hear it, says, "I really missed Elena today."
"Me too, bud." She wraps him in a bear hug, which he stubbornly doesn't reciprocate. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"Not really," he says, scowling, taking another swig. Then he looks at her. "What about you? Has it been hard without... you know?"
Bonnie sighs. "Yeah. And I feel so stupid. Like, it was barely even a month, right? Do I even have anything to be upset about?"
"Love lost its watch a long time ago." It takes him a few seconds to see her raised eyebrows. "What? I get weirdly self-help-y when I get sloshed. You know this."
"Maybe we can sell t-shirts together." She takes the bottle when Damon offers it to her and savors the warm, syrupy burn as it slides down her chest. "I just... I wish I just knew if she was okay. Or if she'll ever randomly show up like that again."
"Wanna know what I think?"
"Do I ever?"
"Ha. Well, if you haven't made this connection yourself already, and I'm pretty sure you have, Nora and I have a few things in common when it comes to dealing with our emotions. And in that regard, you should be thankful; I mean, it's not like she's killed anyone. JOKE, joke," Damon quickly clarifies in response to Bonnie's scorching glare, "but in all seriousness, long story short, I think she'll come back. Probably sooner rather than later, I'd wager."
Bonnie crosses her arms. "What makes you so sure of that?"
"I'm not sure. But for me, whenever I did the pushing-away thing, I almost always discovered my stupidity all on my own. From what I know, she cares about you too much to truly leave forever. That doesn't mean you're obligated to sit around and wait for her, or that you're doing anything wrong by moving on, if that's something you're ready to do. Just... at the very least, promise me you know it's not your fault. Fool like us, we learn, eventually. But we don't deserve to be waited for."
"Elena always waited for you."
"If you're basing your romantic strategies on Elena's and my relationship, then I'm sorry, but you're beyond help."
"Hey! Shhh! She can hear you!"
"Good." He makes a hand-megaphone and yells toward the ceiling. "Wake up, lazypants! Time for coffee."
"She's going to break up with you before she even sits up out of that coffin."
"Eh, water under the bridge. You can be my rebound. Oh wait."
It's not even that good of a joke, just asshole Damon being asshole Damon as usual, but for some reason it really, really gets her, and her sudden outburst of laughter spreads to Damon too, and then they're both full-on cracking up.
Bonnie wipes the tears from her eyes and takes a deep breath once the giggle-convulsions stop wracking her abdomen, and then looks at her best friend, his still face still plastered with a shit-eating grin. "You're such a dick," she says, shaking her head.
"I know."
Just then Abby joins them, still toweling off her majestic heap of dark brown curls, wearing one of Damon's bathrobes.
"You've made yourself at home, I see," he quips.
"As far as I'm concerned, your debt to me has only barely begun to be paid," Abby replies, sitting down in one of the chairs across from them and swiping the bourbon bottle. "Fancy showers and whiskey are just the tip of the iceberg."
"Noted." He smirks, stands up. "I'll give you two some time to talk, yeah?"
"It's your house, Damon," Bonnie says.
"Sure, but I was feeling like a drive anyways. Get the last bits of rock dust out of my luscious locks." He grabs his keys from the hall table with an exaggerated flourish and strolls out the door. "Don't wait up!"
"Idiot," Bonnie mutters, shaking her head.
"He's a good friend to you." Abby folds the towel she brought with her into a neat square on her lap. "I'm so glad you have someone like that to talk to."
Bonnie squints at her suspiciously. "Did you eavesdrop on us?"
"Only a little." Abby grins roguishly. "It's so hard not to. But I only heard enough to know he's come a long way from the person he was when he turned me."
"Don't let him hear you say that," Bonnie mock-whispers. "He thinks personal growth is weakness."
"Makes it all the more impressive."
"So... how's Jamie?"
"He's great. Just started his second year of an electrician apprenticeship, and he couldn't love it more. He's in Raleigh... we don't talk as much as we used to. I think he's really enjoying himself there." Abby smiles again, then looks more serious. "Hey, I haven't said thank you. For dropping everything and coming to rescue me."
"I mean, Alex sent us what was basically a jargoned-up version of a ransom note with specific instructions, so…" Bonnie pauses. "But you're welcome. No matter what, I'll always do everything in my power to keep you safe."
Abby's eyes are wet as she nods and says, "And I the same for you. We're Bennetts. The last ones. We have to look out for each other."
Bonnie grins. "The Bennett tenet."
"I love it."
"I really should make t-shirts, shouldn't I?"
Abby doesn't respond, just wordlessly rises from the chair, sits down on the couch, and pulls Bonnie close to her so that their sides and heads are tucked together.
"I'm so glad you found me, you know, and I'm so sorry you had to."
"I am too, mom."