A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who read and reviewed and liked this story. I really appreciate all your words of encouragement and your feedback. Please keep them coming. I have a general idea of where this story is going, but I'm also open to correcting/improving. Also, this chapter is not beta'd so I'll appreciate any corrections of that nature.

7

The Grimoire

Bonnie had showered, dressed in plain jeans and her oldest shirt, and even managed to catch breakfast with Liz Forbes before the Sherriff left for the station. She went back to Caroline's bedroom and grabbed her bag and keys, then paused to stare uncertainly at the apparently comatose blonde figure on the bed.

"Caroline, get up."

Caroline opened one eye and shuddered.

"Seriously, Bonnie? I drove four hours yesterday. I'm exhausted."

"You're a vampire. Vampires don't get exhausted."

The second eye opened and both glared at Bonnie. "We also sleep during the day."

"In a coffin."

"You magic me a coffin and I'll hit that pillow faster than you can say grave."

"You're useless. I'm off to Grams' house."

That got Caroline to at least raise her head. "So soon? Give me a moment, I'll come with." She punctuated the last word with a wide yawn.

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "I can't wait, Care. We need to start heading back to Whitmore this afternoon if I'm going to catch that plane today." She paused, and then said quietly, "I'd actually prefer some time alone there first."

Caroline nodded, understanding clear on her face.

"Maybe you can come over in an hour or two? You'll have to call a cab. I have the keys."

"I don't need to call a cab, I'm a vampire, remember?"

"As you keep reminding me, Countess Dracula," Bonnie retorted, and left.

Mystic Falls in the early morning was even more dismal than Mystic Falls in the late evening. Bonnie counted more empty homes than occupied homes, and those that looked lived in had reinforced doors, bars over their windows. Every picket fence was lined with sprigs of vervain, not neatly trimmed or prettified but left to grow as wild and ugly as the rest of the town.

Bonnie drove past the burnt down high school and shuddered. She remembered the Homecoming Dance that Caroline had invited her to. She had double dated with Matt Donovan and Tyler Lockwood, two boys she had known from elementary school.

They were gone now.

Like Elena.

Bonnie was almost at the brink of tears by the time she pulled up in front of her Grams's old house. The split-level home stood quietly in its green lawn. This seemed to be a more occupied part of the town. She only spotted one foreclosed house.

She wandered if her grandmother's influence – even now that she was dead – had something to do with that.

She parked the car across the street and sat there for a while. A pang of nostalgia hit her so strong that she needed a moment to force back the lump that had built in her throat.

Herself at five, running around the house, Elena and Caroline giving chase, three-year-old Jeremy, Elena's little brother, crying as he struggled and failed to keep up with them. Grams shouting from the kitchen window that they should slow down for him. Bonnie finally tripping over a shrub and Elena jumping on her, Caroline following suit.

It was strange how memories worked. Bonnie had stronger memories of this house, than she did of her own home where she lived with her dad. Even when she was growing up in Portland, it was Sheila's house that she dreamt of when she dreamt of Mystic Falls, more than she dreamt of her father's house. She could barely remember what it even looked like.

That house was long gone now, sold to some developer who had mowed it down, tried to set up a hotel and had abandoned it. Another failed attempt to inject new blood into the town.

At the end of the moment, she stepped out of the car and walked to her grandmother's – no, her – house. It was hers, entirely. Sheila's will had been unambiguous. Bonnie touched the gate and felt a thrill like a small shock climb up her arm. And like a switch being flicked, she was suddenly aware of the strong, multiple wards around the house, pulsing with energy.

Bonnie smiled inwardly. Of course, what self-respecting witch would leave her home unprotected? She touched the gate again and it gave way under her fingers. Whatever magic Sheila had placed on her house, it was not against her. Either because she was Sheila's own blood or because Sheila had configured Bonnie's aura into the spell.

She climbed up the steps, and fumbling with the key she had collected from the lawyer the day before, she opened the front door and entered her house.

It was beautiful, just as she remembered. Clean yellow and green painted walls. Pictures of a wide variety of subjects – ranging from Yaa Asantewaa, Empress of the Ashanti to a perfect zodiac drawn with shells – hanging on the walls. There were flowers in vases all over the house. Bonnie touched the petals of a rose, and marvelled at its freshness. To the best of her knowledge, there was no contract in place to clean or otherwise maintain the house. But it was – preserved, that is and beautifully so. Neither an inch of dust nor a whiff of stale air could be perceived. The sense of working magic was strong and the analytical part of Bonnie's brain wondered what it was anchored to if it was still active after its caster's death. Perhaps something within the boundary of the property? It was a clever spell then that protected its own foundation.

It was an interesting problem, and she tried to give it some thought but it was barely a distraction from the barrage of memories that kept assaulting her.

Sitting on the kitchen floor and playing with pots as Sheila cooked up a storm. Tea sets carefully arranged in preparation for a garden party with her father. Squirming on the living room floor as Abby did her hair. Smashing the vase right there while playing hide and seek with Elena and Jeremy. Whispering up at Caroline as she climbed up the pantry to find Grams' whiskey, and the two girls giggling as they helped themselves.

Standing in the hallway like a stranger, Luke and Liv flanking her sides as she asked – no, demanded – that Sheila gave her Emily Bennett's Grimoires.

The few times she had been in Mystic Falls from Portland to visit with Elena and Caroline – mostly Caroline in the end, she had gone to see Sheila twice. Sheila had never given Bonnie anything she asked for during those visits. Neither had Bonnie promised Sheila anything that was asked of her. They had all ended badly, with Bonnie in or near tears, cursing Sheila in her head if not with her voice.

Well, the Grimoires were hers now. The talisman, the scrolls, the entire Bennett heritage was somewhere in this house and it all belonged to her.

It still shocked Bonnie that Sheila had left them for her.

"You're not ready, child."

"I will never be ready to you!"

She shook her head, as if to shake off the memories and the regrets; and she went to her grandmother's study.

She had rarely stepped into this room. It had been barred from her as a child and she only went there when her grandmother accompanied her. Bonnie had a vague memory of being unable to open the door. But when she turned the knob, it fell open without resistance.

More magic. She could feel it in the air, making goosebumps rise on her arms. The room was dark, even with the light she turned on so she opened the curtains in the far wall. The furniture was sparse – a long oak table with a matching seat. A desktop terminal and printer that was a few years out of date. A sofa in one corner, in front of a small centrepiece carrying a globe that was so large it was probably as tall as Bonnie. Its boundaries were drawn rather strangely, she noted absent-mindedly.

There was also a bookshelf that covered the length of the wall, spanning from ceiling to floor.

Bonnie took a deep breath, and exhaled, saying the words of a basic guiding spell in her head and stretched out her hands.

Two books came flying out of the bookshelf and into her hands.

Gingerly she placed them on the table.

They were old, cloth bound with pages of varying quality and origin, a few sticking out completely. She opened both at the same time. The first one had 'Emily Bennett' written on its first page with elegant cursive. The second had 'Sheila Bennett' stamped on it with a customized seal.

Up until then, Bonnie had expected to reach for Emily's first. It was, after all, the Grimoire that she had longed for since she knew what a Grimoire was, when she saw the twins writing in theirs and had wanted one. Joshua Parker had spoken at length about Emily Bennett's Grimoire. He told her about the spells it contained, some of which came from such obscurity that there were no other records of them in the entire world. And that was to say nothing about Emily's own inventions, the magic that was exclusively her own work. Emily had shared some with other covens but there were bound to be countless secrets she kept for her family alone. And beyond Emily, at least three other generations of Bennetts had written in this Grimoire, their spells, their adventures, and their secrets. For a Grimoire was a spellbook but it was also a journal, a record of a witch-family's history. There was magic here that any witch would spend hundreds of years studying and still not have exhausted.

And it was all Bonnie's.

And yet…

She picked up her grandmother's Grimoire and flicked past the first page. The page below was older, yellow and worn. It had Sheila's name again but this time, it was written by hand, a young hand if its unevenness was any indication. She must have started this Grimoire when she was a very young witch. The first pages were filled with simple drawings, spells of levitations and illumination, children's magic. There was also writing, too. Every page had a story. Sheila Bennett had kept the journal of her life quite faithfully.

Bonnie had thought she knew her grandmother so well. And she had been completely wrong.

She kept turning the pages, and the magic floated up at her like feathers.

Kai woke up at the crack of dawn, and found his way to the dining room. The offerings for breakfast were meagre and after asking permission from their faded hostess, he made himself comfortable in the rather well stocked kitchen and cooked up a storm. Apparently, he and Liv were the only guests in the boarding house at present so he didn't hold anything back. By the time he had finished a healthy breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, lemon slices, washed down with hot chocolate and capped with a shot of his sister's magic, he was ready to face the day. He left Liv writhing in her room – the poor kid deserved a time-out – and drove to Sheila Bennett's house by himself.

It was almost noon. The rush of commuters - what was left of them in this dying town - had long abated and in the empty streets, he enjoyed having Liv's fancy car to himself. The old man had spared no expense with the brats, Kai thought with no small bitterness, remembering a time when he had slaved all summer to scrape up cash to buy a motorcycle.

The nagging sense, the spasm in his chest, that had descended on him as they drove into Mystic Falls had not abated overnight. Rather it had increased, was increasing as he drew closer to the Bennett's house.

It was an inconvenience, nothing more.

He had reasoned out the cause while cooking. It was rather obvious, really. Magic was unpredictable. Strong emotions created in another time, even in another dimension could still leave imprints in its geo-equivalent location.

So profound emotions had been felt in the Mystic Falls of the 1994 prison, he thought with some bitterness. What of it? He had survived on his rage, his malice, and his sense of betrayal for seventeen years as he literally travelled all over the world.

A few intense months in Mystic Falls had only served to magnify those emotions and ground them, so to speak, in this town. And those were the only emotions he felt.

(Kai Parker certainly did not feel guilt. Nor regret. And he was incapable of love. His own mother had told him that when he was a very small child and that was one lesson he had never forgotten.)

He turned a corner and Sheila Bennett's house loomed up ahead. And the pang – and yes, it was a pang – felt even heavier in his chest. His hands on the wheel were shaking a little and he swallowed against the heaviness in his throat. He managed to park the car in front of the fence, then he took a deep and much needed breath.

What was wrong with him?

For a moment, Kai stared at the house, and considered going back to the boarding house and returning with his sister. He would distract himself by tormenting her.

Something caught his eye. A flash of white. He looked hard at the house, trying to figure out what he saw. Finally he noticed the open curtains in the upper window. Every other window had its curtains drawn. Someone was there, in that room… He looked around him, and noticed the car parked across the street.

And he suddenly realized what he had been feeling all along.

Her presence.

She was here. In Mystic Falls.

Bonnie Bennett was here.

Something woke her up. A sharp bell in her head. An alarm. It jerked her right out of a dreamless slumber and right onto the floor beside the sofa. She bumped her head against the globe.

"Ow," she moaned.

She had fallen asleep reading Sheila's Grimoire. She glanced at the window. She could tell from the light that some hours had passed. Apparently, Caroline was not the only one that was fatigued from their journey.

But what woke her? An alarm, she remembered.

Instinctively, she reached for her cell. 12:31PM. Two voice messages. Luke and Caroline.

Caroline's message was brief.

"Hi, Bonnie. I'm at the station. My mom wants to show me some stuff. I'm really sorry, OK? I'll be over as soon as I'm done."

Bonnie called her back at once, told her not to worry about it. Caroline sounded distracted. She was still at the station, but she reassured Bonnie she would soon be done. Bonnie reminded her to call before leaving the station.

Luke's message was briefer.

"Call me back."

He picked up on the first ring.

"Hey, Luke."

"Bon, where are you?"

"Mystic Falls."

"What? Remember we have a plane to catch this evening? What's going on in Mystic Falls?"

Bonnie sighed. "Can you help me reschedule my flight? I'm not sure I'll be able to make the 1915 to Orlando."

"First, you cancel our date now you're bailing on our trip. Talk to me, wifey. I thought your sidepiece was at Whitmore, nor Mystic Falls."

Bonnie smiled. "Very funny. I'm just…" She cleared her throat. "I'm going through some of my grandmother's stuff."

"Oh," Luke's voice was soft. "Bummer."

Bonnie sighed. "Yeah, that's one way of putting it."

"I always liked her, you know."

"I know you did." Luke was the only person in Portland that ever had anything good to say about Sheila Bennett. He had tried to encourage Bonnie several times to reach out and make peace with her grandmother. "I wish I had taken your advice all those years ago."

"I'm always right. It's a curse, I tell you," Luke said with a heavy sigh.

Bonnie laughed a little.

"I wish I could be there with you," he said gently.

"So do I," Bonnie said with a sigh.

"For all the cool stuff in her house, I mean. The Grimoires, the talismans, the home theatre. Not so that you can cry your mascara into my silk shirt. Ours is a strictly physical relationship, remember? You go to your little bits on the side for emotional fulfilment."

Now, Bonnie was giggling so hard, she was almost hiccupping. "You are outrageous, Luke."

"We gotta keep it real, Bon. And talking about keeping it real," a little seriousness entered his voice. "Those guys in Orlando are pretty hard-core. You can't bail on this one."

"I won't." Faintly, she heard a bell peal. "Is that you?"

"What?"

"The bell? The alarm? Is that from you?"

"I don't think so. Although I'm not far from a crowd. It could be anyone's phone. The Huangs are here."

"Oh dear." The Huangs were one of the most powerful families in the Gemini coven. Greg Huang and Joshua Parker hated each other's guts. Dealing with them was a diplomatic nightmare.

"You can manage them," Bonnie said, encouragingly. "You were always the best at buttering people up without actually promising them anything."

"You brat. I can't wait until it's your job to deal with these geezers."

"Why would I have to with you around?"

"Keep telling yourself that. You know you'll be Queen Mother to our next set of magical twins. Whether Liv or I win, it's you, Bonnie Bennett-Parker, that will be co-ruling this madhouse with one of us for a long time."

Bonnie winced. Luke was always so casual about the Merge. His and Liv's. Their future children's. She didn't know how he did it.

It had actually been a relief to find out that Liv was not as accepting of the Merging Ceremony as Bonnie always thought.

"I… I have to get going now. I'll get Caroline and we'll start heading back to Whitmore."

"Good. I'll book us the red-eye to Orlando. Er… by the way…" he hesitated.

"What is it?"

"I don't suppose Liv is there with you?"

Bonnie and Liv had not been very chummy since she returned from the Prison World and Luke was well aware of this. An alarm bell rang in Bonnie's head.

It literally rang, she realized suddenly. She looked around the study to see if she could see something to explain the noise. Nothing.

It had to be coming from his side.

"Bonnie?"

She shook her head out of her distracted thoughts. "No. Caroline drove me down. We're staying at her mom's place. Why?"

"Er… no particular reason."

He couldn't have sounded cagier if he tried. The last time he had sounded like this about his twin, Liv was cavorting with shady occult professors and shadier vampires to track down Expression Magic.

"Luke, what is it? What's going on with Liv?"

"Nothing that concerns you. You get what you need from Mystic Falls and get back here in good time for the trip."

He had that tone in his voice that brooked no argument. Bonnie knew it would be a waste of time pressing him. In all fairness, she didn't really want to. The last time she had worried about Liv's antics, Bonnie had ended up in a tug of war between constantly shifting alliances of ruthless vampires, even more ruthless humans and a couple of fanatical vampire hunters.

She had enough on her plate at the moment.

"Bye, Luke."

She ended the call. The silence of the empty house rushed in on her at once.

She picked up her grandmother's Grimoire from the floor. It had fallen open when she dozed off and now the pages were slightly creased. Apologetically, she smoothened them and shut the book carefully.

Sheila Bennett had lived an extraordinary life. She had travelled to Britain after high school and liberated a Scottish village from a nest of vampires; for decades, she worked on a spell to harness the power of a dormant volcano; the same year she was expecting her only child, she had climbed Mount Everest – no supernatural monsters there, just Sheila being a badass. Bonnie had skimmed past increasingly intimidating accounts of her grandmother's life to the last pages. She fell asleep halfway in the middle of the account of Sheila defeating an Original vampire right here in Mystic Falls.

What had she, Bonnie, done with all her incredible Bennett powers? Excelled in Magic School and crowed over the twins?

In fact, she realized with a wince, the most noteworthy thing she had ever done in her life was to wield Expression. Dabbling with the darkest of dark magic and literally getting herself killed for her troubles.

She bit her lip and put the book into her bag, beside Emily Bennett's Grimoire.

Somewhere a bell pealed.

Bonnie almost jumped out of her skin. Where is that noise coming from? She turned around and there it was again. A bell ringing. It was coming from somewhere close by.

She put a hand on her heart. It was coming from…

It was coming from inside her.

And Bonnie suddenly realized what it was.

The wards.

Something - no, someone was breaching the wards.

She barely even had time to react, to panic. On cue, the magical signature of the person broadcasted itself at her.

Luke? No. Liv. No. Neither.It was eerily similar to both but Bonnie had learnt magic alongside the twins. She was more familiar with their signatures than she was of her own – rather the same way a person would recognise their sibling's face better than their own.

And yet. It was a signature that was like the twins'. Uncannily so. Even more, it was a signature that Bonnie recognized. She was sure of it. She knew this person. And she had known this person recently. Closely.

Intimately.

Bonnie's heart jumped.

No. Oh god, no.

It couldn't be.

She was standing, her fists clenched on either side of her when Kai Parker pushed the door open and walked in.

Don't forget to nominate Bonkai for Teen Choice Awards! You can tweet as many times as you like, and you can retweet other people's tweets as well. Won't it be amazing to see the look on the faces of JPlec and co if Bonkai gets nominated and even wins? It won't bring back Kai or Bonkai but they'd look silly. And maybe they would have some explaining to do to the CWTV execs.

Just copy and paste:

My #TeenChoice nominee for #ChoiceTVChemistry is #bonkai Bonnie and Kai