Endings at times could be so disappointing. Underwhelming, a letdown, anticlimactic. Trite and redundant. Foes facing off, a city or building in the background buckling under structural damage with less than five minutes to get out, or before the world ended, or a nuclear bomb detonated. There was carnage. Pandemonium cut for a brief respite where the hero so close to death had just enough juice to vanquish the enemy, and live on to welcome the sunrise, get the kiss and the girl at the end. But the enemy always died in some unsatisfying way. Too quick, too stupid, too easy.
Kai realized he didn't want Bonnie or Damon to die. He wanted their suffering to be never-ending, like a renewable nightmare that was reset at midnight; to last for eternity for the vampire and until Bonnie's heart gave out, which he would make sure would be a long, long, long time from now. But how exactly would he pull something like that off?
His new friends were a bit…dated when it came to torture. He always thought, besides the Civil War, the Victorian era was just as bloody and debauched. Other than using devices that had been out of circulation for a hundred years, they were low on ideas.
Schlepping through snow, they had days of travel left before reaching Mystic Falls. Tonight they had broken into a farmhouse in central New York. Kai fondly patted the burlap sack that contained the stone that housed the calcified blood of a Bennett witch. Nora had kicked up a stink thinking her and her siblings, or whatever they referred to one another as, should hold the stone as leverage so he wouldn't use it and leave them behind. Her argument had valid points. He was the only one who knew the spell to get out. He could arguably destroy the prison world and them in it if he were to escape. But Kai worked over time to persuade them that he was far too interested in seeing how they would be in modern times. It was too good, too sweet, and positively too evil not to unleash them on the world.
"I've never seen anyone more eager to make life hell for the ones who wronged him," Nora had commented.
Kai chose to take that as a compliment. "Oh, I have lots of surprises. Just you wait and see."
"Have you stopped to consider the risks?" Valerie, the level-headed one asked.
"You don't have to pretend to be reformed psychopaths for my benefit," he graced Lily's family with a charming smile that bordered on insane. "Lily's kept you on tight leashes. Me? I'm going to unshackle them. Unshackle, sounds liberating, right?"
"And look how well reveling in the monsters we are has worked out for us," Nora griped.
"Where we're going you won't have to hide what you are. And I'm not talking about you being a witchy vampire," he smirked knowingly.
Nora stared blankly before huffing and weaving her arms across her chest. From the stories Kai told of the modern world, things were less restrictive. People's minds were more open. He very well could be lying, but…it was too tempting a thought to disregard.
Kai could guess at Nora's thoughts from the way she studied the flames licking up the wood in the grate.
If it were true she wouldn't have to hide what she truly was, well that gave her another incentive to get the hell out of this abdominal hell. However, she still didn't trust the salaud one tiny bit. Kai held the cards, the means of escape. As much fun as it would be to crush his skull with a rock, she and the others stayed their hand.
That argument had taken place an hour ago. Mary-Louise and Nora had taken their leave and snuggled up together in one of the bedrooms. Malcolm sequestered himself in what passed for a library. Valerie had remained in the living room with Beau who perched himself at the windows. With them distracted, Kai stealthy removed the other relic he acquired.
Holding the vial between his index and thumb to the firelight, he inspected the glowing red substance inside. Mind racing.
Perhaps the first step to revenge was to give Damon a permanent divorce from immortality.
What a way to wake up in the morning.
So far so good. She had gotten a handle on her temperature. She was a simmering 98.6.
Bonnie's thighs were on either side of his hips. Damon cupped her cheek and she turned her head just so to brush a kiss against the palm of his hand before leaning forward to take his mouth. Sitting astride him, she rocked her hips back and forth, bucking torturously slow. His cock stiffened with every stroke. He held her steady, one hand kneading her tit, the other clamped on her thigh.
Her body responded, flaring painfully. Her fondled nipple hardened. Damon circled the erect tip with his thumb first clockwise and then counterclockwise, sending the nerves into a frenzy. It swelled and he wondered how plump it could get. His mouth watered at the thought. Soon he teased her neglected bud until it was just as hard as its twin, sending bolts of pleasure straight to Bonnie's clit that continuously rubbed against his dick. Heart pounding, Damon pulled down Bonnie's cami. Her breasts spilled out, a pillowy offering with fully erect, dusky nipples.
"Damn," he whispered. They were beautiful, fat enough for him to wrap his lips around. Lifting her higher along his chest, Damon took one bud into his mouth.
Bonnie hissed, her head falling back. Her fingers combed through his obsidian hair, tugging it to the point shards of pleasure/pain funneled through the immortal. Damon rolled, placing Bonnie under him, never detaching from her breast, attacking her nipple with an insatiably eager tongue. He flicked her swollen flesh, planted kisses on her nipple, bit it and stretched it out to see how far it could go.
"Oh," Bonnie moaned, arching against her lover.
She palmed her other tit, pinching it between her thumb and forefinger so it wouldn't lose it stiffness. But Damon pushed her hand aside and laved her nipple with his tongue, greedily devouring it, washing it clean with his saliva.
Days ago, when they had been tranced under a spell, this had been nothing more than a fantasy that took up every square inch of his brain. The crush of her breasts on his chest, cradled between her splayed thighs, savoring her skin, absorbing every tiny mewl was such a fucking turn on for Damon, pearls of pre-cum leaked from the engorged hood of his cock.
His hand slid down the length of her washboard stomach and disappeared in her soaked panties. Deft fingers gauged her wetness. Bonnie panted. His finger lacerated down her slit, opening the lips of her twat that he wanted to see and taste.
Suck.
Lick.
"Touch me," he breathed right before slanting his mouth on the moaning witch once more.
Bonnie slid a partially shaking hand down the ridges of Damon's stomach. She rotated her wrist just so, slipping her hand between his skin and the bedsheet. A low animalistic groan reverberated from Damon's mouth to hers the minute her lithe fingers wrapped around his cock and stroked him.
The doorbell chose that perfect moment to chime.
Witch and vampire broke apart equally groaning and cursing.
"Who is it?" she asked aggravated, bare chest rising and falling that held Damon captivated.
How long had he wanted to see those?
In his lusty haze Damon had recognized the sound of Stefan's car engine, but of course he disregarded it for as long as he could. "My brother. I'll get rid of him."
"No, the only reason he should be here is to give Miss Cuddles back," Bonnie yanked up her cami, wiggled from the bed, and grabbed her robe. She stared at Damon who looked furious and ready to tear her apart at the smallest signal.
She didn't say anything as she cracked open the door and darted downstairs.
With her gone, Damon fondled himself a little. His cock jumped and…Something occurred to him. And that something had him springing out of bed and beating Bonnie to the door, who hobbled on her feet when she was gently nudged out of the way. He didn't want Stefan ogling Bonnie in her robe irrespective of her pertinent areas being covered. And he sure as fuck didn't want his little brother to catch a whiff of her sweet arousal. That was a moot point because Damon scented it all over himself and with her standing right there, yeah.
Damon thrust the door open, forgetting he was naked, and snatched Miss Cuddles from Stefan's grip. "That was a speedy delivery."
The younger Salvatore took his brother's nudity in stride. "I might be an asshole but I'm not stupid," he sniffed.
Damon handed Miss Cuddles over to Bonnie. "Real or fake?"
Bonnie was a little horrified that Damon was standing naked and fully erect in front of his brother who pretended not to notice. Her ears burned and she snuggled Miss Cuddles to her chest, "It's real. I feel my magic."
"Good," Damon promptly slammed the door in Stefan's face and slung Bonnie over his shoulder.
"You're welcome!" they heard a petulant Stefan yell.
In the airy bedroom once more, "Now, where were we?"
"I think the mood is gone," Bonnie said dangling upside down from her perch. Damon lowered her to her feet.
"We can get it back."
Hand on his chest, Bonnie pushed Damon away needing room to think. Grudgingly she was happy their activities were stopped before they crossed that line, or repeated history. She was determined they create their own. Bonnie refused to follow the script of doppelgangers' past. "Look, what we were doing felt amazing, but we shouldn't have let things go that far."
"Far? Bonnie that was barely third base."
"You just got out of a relationship."
Yeah, and? Damon barely refrained from saying.
"You and I, we may have kissed and said and done things to each other that have made me the happiest I've been in a really long time," Bonnie admitted, "but it doesn't negate the fact that you were someone's boyfriend less than seventy-three hours ago. I'm not a vampire. I don't move fast. My feelings aren't heightened, and I don't want us to start the same way you and Elena did."
That killed any remnants of Damon's erection.
"So…I'm going to shower and get dressed," Bonnie concluded and left him standing there.
Grumpily, Damon watched as she placed Miss Cuddles on the dresser and collect things for her shower. It wasn't he didn't see the point or understood her logic. Most, if not all of his relationships operated under the same vein—swift. His relationship with Bonnie was probably the first slow burn he ever experienced. Damon wasn't sure if he liked it, but well, irritatingly understood the significance. He just didn't want to give Bonnie too much time to change her mind.
He wasn't like her. He didn't know how to move or go slow. He couldn't handle slow. Damon operated under the belief that moving slow meant you were unsure, you were wallowing, or complacent. Love for him had been violently quick, supernaturally fast. If passion didn't overwhelm you then it wasn't real. A simmering passion for him was waiting four hours instead of two before kissing someone.
Maybe…maybe he needed change? Ugh.
He plopped down on the bed, gripped the nape of his neck. Damon was unsure how long he sat there lost in thought, but a significant amount of time had passed. The hiss of the shower stopped and he heard Bonnie humming. That should have been his cue to move, make the bed, do something productive, but there he remained like a statute.
Bonnie stepped out of the bath a moment later, bringing with her the aromatic fragrance of sunshine and cherry blossoms. Her lips twitched, unsurprised to see him pouting.
"We're going to get to the good parts just bear with me," Bonnie promised.
Damon grumbled.
"I was thinking about you in the shower," she approached and straddled him again.
Damon became granite hard instantaneously, "Yeah, what were you thinking?"
"Last night you said that you should be a better vampire by now and I agree. You really suck."
"Hey!"
Bonnie ran her fingers through his hair to soothe him. "I was thinking about the Originals and how they're not susceptible to werewolf venom, how their bodies don't turn into ash if they're burned, how it takes white oak to kill them. Esther made it possible for them and yet those gifts didn't trickle down the bloodlines.
"I know you can get inside a person's head, alter their dreams, give them psychosexual nightmares. You could summon crows and fog, but you need more than that. So what would you like?"
Damon's overly animated face didn't disappoint. He looked intrigued and skeptical. "What are you saying? Are you saying…you can make me stronger?"
"You're already strong. Damon, you just need to work on your strength the same as I have to work on my magic. You've gotten lazy," Bonnie criticized.
Damon rolled his eyes and for some reason recalled the encounter he had with the late Bill Forbes who told him his compulsion was lazy. He had been affronted, of course, because Damon damn sure didn't believe anything was wrong with his ability to compel. He had the shit down to a science; however, he had been dealing with people who weren't trained to withstand the gifts of a vampire. Compulsion had many uses, but altering someone's entire memory or personality wasn't one of them. At least he didn't think so. As far as his strength, he had no need to be able to lift an eighteen wheeler over his head. If Damon had to he probably could do it, yet the thought alone was…intimidating. As he aged, he did the bare minimum yet easily found himself overtaken time after time again.
"I can give you a gift, Damon, another advantage. I want to keep this going," she tapped his heart, "as long as it can."
He grinned boyishly. "You and I are living proof that we keep coming back no matter how many times we die."
"Yeah, that's when the other side existed. That's when my grandmother looked out for me. There are no more other sides or prison worlds, and I can only think of one other place your soul could go." Bonnie had seen Katherine being dragged to that other place when she had been the anchor. "You want to take that risk?"
Damon stared at her searchingly before examining the veins protruding beneath his dermis. "I can work on my strength. Maybe go back to drinking blood straight from the tap. Blood bags have watered me down…in more ways than one," he curled his fingers, made a fist. "What I could really benefit from is being impervious to witchy migraines, and having my bones shattered from the inside from a damn spell." Damon stared at Bonnie expectantly.
She twisted her head from side to side. "I can't do that."
He scowled, "What do you mean you can't do that? You just said…"
"I can't make you impervious to magic because spirit magic is what's keeping you alive. If I void your ability to be hindered by it you'll die."
"Oh. Shit."
"So think of something else. I'm going to get something to eat," she kissed his nose and hopped off him.
Damon dressed in his freshly laundered clothes and found Bonnie rummaging around in the practically empty refrigerator. Taking her by the hips, smiling a little at her surprised yelp, he kissed her and said, "Grab your shoes and purse. I'm taking you someplace special."
Angry claw marks marked the spot. Broken clumps of earth lay scattered about, a shovel not lying far from the two foot hole in the ground it had taken her less than five minutes to dig. Lily absently toed the empty safe she had hidden the ascendant. Enzo's alarming text about the ascendant now being in the possession of the witch made her furious. Again and again she called and sent missive after missive through the phone he provided with no response from him. Lily was worried a terrible fate had befallen Enzo yet she wasn't that worried. He had been helpful; however, she sensed the young vampire desired more from her in that he desired her. She made him, after all, but his affections were wasted on her as Lily looked on Enzo like another son.
Besides she loved someone else. But that was neither here nor there.
Lily kicked the empty safe some hundred yards away. She knew her eldest son was the responsible party for its theft. She had needed no soothsayer to tell her he'd be her problem child. The son who resisted the most. Damon proved her right every single time he defied her.
Before she knew it, the gabled roof of the boardinghouse jutted before her. Lily's brows knitted together because she didn't remember the journey home, so consumed by her contemplations. The house was quiet. She listened for Sarah, heard the girl's deep breathing figuring she must be sleeping. Lily made herself some tea, added three drops of blood.
She sipped her tea hoping to calm down, relax. Her nails periodically clawed the arm rest of the chair, peeling the wood. Lily caught a few splinters and the pain was….exquisite, kept her on edge. Simmering. Boiling.
An hour later, she sighed as the chippy knocked on the front door. Lily retrieved Sarah and had her invite Elena inside who eyed the girl with worry and suspicion before Lily dismissed her back upstairs. Alone with the doppelganer, the older woman could smell the saline on Elena though her face was clean and covered with cosmetics to give her an innocuous glow. Everything about the girl renewed her aggravation.
"So you're come," Lily greeted flatly.
Elena nodded jerkily. It had taken her longer than necessary to arrive because she kept second-guessing her decision to hear Lily out. The doppelganger couldn't escape the feeling she was making a mistake. From the pissed vibe she was reading on Damon's mother, her intuition was advising she leave.
Yet she remained.
"Was your death especially painful?" Lily asked, irritation coating her words to where it sounded more like a growl than a coherent sentence.
Elena started at the abrupt question and frowned a moment later. "I drowned. It sucked," she snorted wryly and inched farther into the living room.
Lily tugged on the sleeve of her cardigan. "You already know my story. But what don't know is that there are parts of who I am that are so vile I…wonder if they've been inside of me from the moment I was born. Getting to know my sons better, I wonder if it was a fate I unknowingly passed on to them. Or do we all just slowly degenerate until there's no shred of humanity in our immortality?"
"Lily, you said that we can help each other get what we want. What did you mean by that? How can I help you? I can't convince Bonnie to free your family." Elena hoped to direct this plane to the point.
"I found Stefan's journal," Lily announced as if Elena hadn't spoken. "He lamented how everyone close to you spent months seeking out a way to restore you to the vibrant human girl you used to be. A way was found. A way you denied partaking of because you were convinced you could only love Damon as a vampire. Is that true?"
The hairs on the nape of Elena's neck began to rise. She knew Stefan had burned his journals. Apparently he missed one. "Li—"
"He truly loved you, you know. Stefan, I mean," Lily slighted her with a look. "A love like that happens once in a lifetime. Twice if you're fortunate, and what do you know? You struck gold, twice. You seem to be the luckiest girl in the world, Elena." Lily slipped a hand in her pocket. "Or the worst," her fingers curled around the oblong shaped object there.
Elena began easing away. "I didn't come here for this," she hissed.
"You're right. You came here hoping I honestly gave a damn about you rekindling things with my son." In a blink the Salvatore matriarch stood scant inches away from Elena who inhaled sharply. "Damon would do anything to keep you alive, yes?"
Elena's mouth went dry. She should have known. She should have known the kind of "help" Lily thought she might provide would be playing the damsel in distress. It was stupid to come here thinking otherwise. Elena turned and blurred toward the door only to be yanked back by the hair so brutally the nerves in her face tingled. She was thrown clear across the room, hitting the wall with enough force her clavicle snapped. Crying out, Elena was back on her feet, panting and shoved her bone into place. She made another attempt to flee, but received a chopped blow to the stomach and her legs were swept from under her. The girl screamed when Lily held her down by the chest with her foot.
"Answer my question!" Lily roared, the sclera of her eyes totally red, fangs unsheathed and pointed. "He would do anything to keep you alive… even betray Bonnie?"
Squirming, Elena tried everything she could think of to get Lily the hell off of her. But Lily was too strong, too enraged. She went still the moment the older woman flashed a familiar looking vial before her scared brown eyes.
"The c-cure," Elena sputtered.
Lily broke the cap.
"Please," the doppelganger futilely pled. "Listen to me…!"
Bending down, Lily removed her foot yet seized Elena's neck and brought the girl to her feet, ramming her into the wall.
She shoved the cure down Elena's throat.
Lily let her go so she could swallow and avoid choking. She watched dispassionately as Elena flailed around a little and cried.
Fury sparked and ignited in the doppelganger. "Do you know what you've done to me?"
"Yes," Lily's serene countenance returned and she patted her hair back into place. Letting off some steam felt good. "And that is why you will call Damon and tell him what's happened, and layout the terms for the exchange. You, unharmed for my family. Do it."
Damon parked with ease between the two marked white lines on the pavement, shut off the ignition, and killed the lights.
"You cannot be serious," Bonnie rolled her eyes in his direction. "This is the someplace special you had in mind?"
She hadn't seen the in or outside of this building since her stint in 1994. Damon, with a lopsided grin, bounded out of the Prius, rounded the hood, and opened Bonnie's door with flourish.
"This is the only place I could think of that's uniquely ours, in a sense. It's where we shopped every week."
"Where we argued every week," Bonnie corrected, climbing out of her car.
"It's also the place where you were finally able to tap into your magic."
"It's also the place where we met He Who Shall Not Be Named who ruined my life."
Damon swallowed thickly, "Right, but before those tragic events…this was the one place we bonded."
"That's how you remember it? I remember it slightly different." They fell in step with one another as they crossed the parking lot. "This was where you snapped at me, wouldn't let me drive the cart, and yanked things out of my hand."
"So I was in a bad mood some days. That doesn't mean deep down I wasn't enjoying myself."
Bonnie made a noise of disbelief.
"You know I get a perverse thrill out of annoying you. Come on. We need eggs among other things," he grinned cheekily in spite of the unimpressed storm brewing in Bonnie's orbs. "Aisle three awaits, milady."
In the two decades that passed the décor of Bell's Market hadn't changed. Some upgrades were made: touch screen registers, a Western Union and small café had been added to compete with the larger chain grocery store just outside of town. Endless aisles of non-perishable and perishable goods gleamed beneath the harsh florescent lighting. One could buy a patio set to lobster.
Damon grabbed a buggy and proceeded down several aisles, fondling the produce, weighed a head of cabbage for kicks, compared prices between brands with Bonnie adding commentary here and there.
"Oh, look," his steps quickened. Damon pulled a pair of aviator shades from the display and crooked a finger at Bonnie. The sunglasses weren't like the ones from 1994, but were a style more popular with state troopers. Bonnie crossed her arms, sauntered closer, and remained absolutely still as Damon slid the shades on her.
She took them off a moment later and returned them to the display. Bonnie wondered if she should tell Damon she had brought with her a pair of aviators from 1994.
They rounded another corner where Damon plucked a bag of pork rinds from the shelf. Bonnie smacked them out of his hand. Pork rinds made her think of Kai who was the last person she wished to think about. Before they knew it, they were on the aisle where things came to ahead. Their eyes were glued to that particular spot.
Damon said, "What did it feel like…getting your magic back?"
Bonnie dropped two bottles of bourbon into the cart, added two more. "It was like when you finally learned to tie your shoes, ride a bike, drive without swerving in and out of the lane. It was like that final piece of me that had been missing clicking into place."
"A witch's power is tied into her emotions…I'm your emotional conduit," Damon wagged his brows.
Bonnie fought off a smile but she did roll her eyes. "Leave it up to you to take credit for something that really had nothing to do with you."
"Well, how do you figure that? I was the one of the floor in a puddle of vervain laced bourbon about to be staked."
"That's true but only a small fraction of how my powers kick started. I had reached my limit," she began softly. Damon regarded her. "You had been on my case about finding a way home, talking down to me like I haven't saved all of our asses before."
Damon gulped guiltily.
"Then he showed up, called me weak and pathetic and I was tired of it. Tired of men underestimating me. Tired of men talking to me any way they pleased. Tired of not truly standing up for myself. I felt rage and instead of it being hot it was cold. And it…it came out and I was able to light that candle," she turned away then.
"Bonnie…I'm…"
"Sorry? Yes, you made that clear last night. Let's just finish this up so we can go."
Mood ruined, things didn't brighten again until a little girl approached and asked Bonnie if she were a living Bratz doll because of her eyes. Damon told her yes. Ten minutes later, the vampire bared his fangs at an old guy who wouldn't stop staring at Bonnie's legs.
They finished their shopping buying enough food to last two weeks. Unloading the groceries at the house, Bonnie managed to scarf down a bowl of cereal before Damon was tugging her out once more, this time to the mall where he purchased a doable wardrobe until his housing situation could be rectified.
About an hour later they made their way to a small Spanish-Italian pub right at the height of the lunch rush. They commandeered a prime table outside, and munched on appetizers while they waited for their entrees to be served.
Bonnie absently caressed the rim of her Coke glass soaking in the milling bodies, the sounds of laughter, buzz of conversation as people jockeyed for space and for their anecdotes and opinions to be heard.
Their waitress, a twentysomething with rosy cheeks and kind dark brown eyes dropped off their food, inquired if they needed anything else. They declined, thanked, and promptly shooed her away.
"So what's next, witchy? When it's all said and done, what are you going to do?" Damon chomped into his gambas al ajillo.
The topic threw Bonnie for a moment because it had been an appallingly long time since anyone asked. She flushed, "I have no idea what I want to do. It seems like there's too much and then not enough to choose from."
"Tsk-tsk," Damon eyed her while he tossed back his bourbon. "If I might make a suggestion…traveling."
"Maybe. I could get my degree."
"You'd make a hot ass surgeon if you chose the medical field."
"Blood makes me squeamish," she quipped.
"Ha."
Bonnie propped her chin on her palm, "I don't know what to do with my life. I've never given what I wanted to do any serious thought, putting it off, figuring I had time. Then I died, came back on literal borrowed time, died again. Living under those kinds of conditions you don't think long-term about anything."
"You're not under those conditions anymore. You can do anything you want, be anything you choose. No one is holding a stopwatch over your head telling you, you've been on this earth long enough."
Bonnie nodded but Damon could tell she didn't really believe that.
"All this interest about my future… what about yours?" Bonnie reached across the table and poked him. "You're not going to live under my roof as a kept man, I want you to know."
Damon pouted and sat back against the chair, drummed his fingers on the table. "I guess…I'm like you. I haven't given my future much thought because hey, immortal," he hook a thumb at himself. "I've had a million identities in the span of almost two hundred years but nothing felt…none of it had been real, you know? It had been a game waiting for some celestial event to reoccur so I could be reunited with a…anyway," he turned his head giving Bonnie his profile while he looked into the middle distance, "I've lived my life a quarter of a mile at a time—"
"Okay Dominic Toretto."
"—maybe…maybe it's time I tried something simple," he grimaced in distaste.
"Less complicated."
Damon snapped his fingers, "Yes."
"And that would be…?"
He opened his mouth, paused, tried again. "I have no clue."
Bonnie snickered. "Have you given anymore thought to the enhancement I'm willing to give you?"
"Let's be real, I'm the last vampire who needs any kind of advantage."
Suddenly Bonnie heard Stefan in her head. "No, this is about my brother constantly fucking me over and walking away without so much as a paper cut."
Then she heard herself as she forked around a plate of pancakes telling Damon, "…you feel remorse that means there's hope for you."
Should she give him any more abilities than the ones he had that came with vampirism simply because she loved him? Bonnie could never forget Damon was a merciless killer, an unapologetic one. One who rarely atoned for his wrongs. He could bleed, get his neck snapped a hundred times in a row, in the end he survived.
Was she really just making the offer to fortify him so he wouldn't die and leave her alone?
The question made her gulp more soda.
Erstwhile, inside the restaurant, Caroline accepted her change and paper bag offering the cashier a trembling smile. Three days later and she was still an emotional mess. She couldn't stop thinking about the people she hurt or killed. Her stomach turned at the thought of the playwright she murdered in front of his daughter. Elena was right. Her mother would be ashamed of her. Ashamed of the way she decided to handle her death. She pretty much spat on Liz's memory. That wasn't her. She didn't run from her issues or become a callous shell, at least that was the belief about herself. Losing her dad had been painful, but her mom…the most devastating blow.
And she handled it like a total raging asshole.
Caroline felt tears coming and headed for the exit but came to an abrupt stop. She spotted Bonnie seated outside eating with whom appeared to be Damon. Her breath hitched and muscles tensed with fear as her conscience begged to scurry for freedom.
"No," she tersely whispered. "No, no more running."
Bonnie skewered a cherry tomato on the tines of her fork. "You don't have to hide…Caroline," she said loud enough knowing she'd hear. Bonnie had sensed her lurking and wondered if she'd ever make a move to step forward.
Damon turned his head.
The blonde squeaked that she tried to pass off as a cough. Shyly she stepped from behind the plotted plant and approached their table. She was overcome with a bout of nervousness that Caroline wanted to kick herself for. Bonnie was still Bonnie, but she was changed. Harder. Powerful in a way she had not been when imbued with the magic of a hundred witches or Expression. This troubling sensation had Caroline's skin feeling it was minutes away from being ripped to shreds.
How could Damon stand it? Why wasn't he being affected like she was?
Caroline fisted the bag in her hands tighter. "Hey, s-sorry for…hey."
Damon read the tension like a best seller and scooted his chair back. "I'll give you two a minute."
"No, this won't take long," Caroline exhaled, shifted closer to Bonnie. "I need to apologize. I'm sorry for the things I did and said to you, Bonnie. I was way out of line, and I know just saying sorry doesn't cut it, but I am sorry. What can I do to make things right?"
Bonnie popped the cherry tomato in her mouth, chewed. The longer it took her to speak the more Caroline trembled. "I don't know," she pulled down her shades, inwardly smirked at the widening of Caroline's orbs once she got a look at the witch's remembering her green irises was gone. "Putting you through the seven labors of Hercules isn't going to diminish how you made me feel, or what you did while your humanity was off."
Caroline practically whined, "I know. I'm sorry. I can't say it wasn't me or I didn't mean it. I wouldn't insult you like that…I just…"
"Caroline, right now isn't the time for us to talk about this. I want to enjoy my food and go about my day."
"All right-all right," the blonde sniffled. "It may take a while for you to believe this but I do love you, Bonnie and I'm…sorry."
Damon and Bonnie said nothing as Caroline spun on her heels and careened as fast she could get away with out of the restaurant.
"You had blondie shaking in her boots...what the hell did I miss the other day?"
Bonnie shook her head.
"Do you still see her as a friend?" Damon inquired.
Bonnie sliced into her parmesan chicken, hunched a shoulder. "I think I need to redefine the kind of friends I want and need in my life."
"You know…I feel somewhat responsible for her turning off her humanity."
A divot formed between the witch's brows. "How do you mean?"
Damon put down his fork, sighed. "I don't know what possessed Liz to ask me to write her eulogy, but she did and I struggled with it. I was supposed to write my mom's eulogy and…anyways Caroline had come into the kitchen when I was writing, and I may have said the hardest day wouldn't be the day she buried her mom, but all the days following. I thought I was being helpful," he snorted ruefully.
"You didn't tell her to turn it off."
"Yeah, but I may have implied it."
"She made that choice because she didn't want to deal with the pain. Who does when you lose someone you love? But that didn't give her an excuse to be reckless and hurt other people because she was going through shit. We all go through shit. So no, Damon you can't take responsibility for that."
Witch and vampire resumed eating locked in their own thoughts.
"What are you thinking about now?" Bonnie broke the silence a moment later.
"Emily," he blurted.
"Emily? Why are you thinking about her?"
Damon forked food into his mouth before answering, "I was just thinking…she asked me to save her children, but now I'm wondering if she had another motive like…Did she know one day I'd fall in love with one of her descendants?"
A shy kind of warmth spread through Bonnie. It was still so surreal to have Damon say he loved her, but she played it off as if the truth didn't affect her, make her feel as put together as goo. "Aww, look at you, the closeted romantic."
Damon bristled but Bonnie noticed he didn't automatically refute it either.
"You are!" she squeaked in delight. "You may have complained about the amount of times we watched The Bodyguard but your eyes stayed glued to the screen start to finish."
"Kevin Costner is one of my favorite actors," he mumbled.
"Un-hun. I bet when you were human you probably carved your name and the name of the girl you liked into trees, bought her bitter ass unsweetened chocolates, wrote her poems and tucked them away in special hiding places, and hid while she read them."
"You got jokes?"
"Yes I do."
Damon braced his elbows on the table, legs splayed shoulder length apart. He winked at her feeling pride and warmth fill his chest cavity. "I'll have you know I've never carved my name into anything. Except this one time I did inscribe my name on someone's stomach, but that's neither here nor there. And she didn't like chocolate but peppermints."
"How very grandmotherly of her," Bonnie wiped her mouth.
Damon guffawed and sipped some bourbon.
"Just admit it, Salvatore. You've always wanted to be swept off your feet."
Finishing his bourbon, Damon used his tongue as a toothpick. Bonnie's words hung over the table, over his head like a satellite. "Finish your food so we can get out of here, and I can get my dick wet. How's that for your romantic theory?"
A balled up napkin popped him right between the eyes. Guess that answered that question.
Contrary to popular belief, she had been in love once. Dahlia reminisced walking through the halls of Paleis Noordeinde in Holland, adapting the fashion of the time doing away with her stiff, formless clothes. She had felt absurd, like a bloated peacock until she caught the eye of a nobleman. For a time she understood her sister's infatuation with the opposite sex since Dahlia had never seen any merit to shackling oneself to a man. For protection? She scoffed. For financial security? Please. If you were able, a woman could do for herself had been her philosophy. Nevertheless, the affair with the nobleman had been swift, torrid, and about as spicy as an early nineteenth century affair could get. But she remembered those unexplainable, chaotic emotions that for a brief time she allowed herself to be a slave to. Her heart was not completely cold, nor bore any ill-will to those who devoted themselves to love. However, she knew love could eviscerate long-standing loyalties.
She could see it was happening to Bonnie. Her pupil was almost ready.
Their session had lasted from night until dawn. Now they stood on the edge of a pier overlooking the Susquehanna Lake.
"I realized something last night," Bonnie said.
"That is?"
"I love the idea of having acolytes. Having extra eyes and ears in places where you can't be. The situation with Lily is at a tipping point. I haven't had any more nightmares about Kai, but I feel he's going to show up without warning."
"So what are you saying?" Dahlia knew she just waited for Bonnie to figure it out on her own.
"It'll only be a matter of time before all hell breaks loose…So why not get the jump on the situation? I could use a coven."
Dahlia felt her lips twitch in a smile probably for the first time in over nine hundred years. The last time she smiled was when she got revenge on the Vikings that ravaged her village.
"You're going to steal Lily's family?"
Bonnie regarded her mentor, "I'm going to make an offer to the most gifted of the bunch. The rest…can burn."
A/N: So to recap: Kai has the stone with Qetsiyah's blood and the cure, lite Bamon smut, Lily shoved the cure down Elena's throat, Bamon shopping trip, Bamon talk about the future and Bonnie possibly endowing him with another gift (ha-ha), and Bonnie deciding to make her own coven. Who hasn't been waiting for that moment? Let me know what you guys think. Thank you so much for reading. We're down to the last handful of chapters and my goal is to finish this before 2017 ends, so review, review, review to keep me motivated! XOXO!