Chapter 14

Everything's Easy When You Never Have to Choose

The headaches were becoming a frequent thing. They were happening often enough that it was making Bonnie worry. They hadn't happened in the past, so she wasn't sure what the cause could be, but she was beginning to have her suspicions.

One was pulsing through her head while she was at The Grill again after school when Damon showed up. As he walked in, she was picking at some fries alongside finishing up an English paper on her laptop. He saw her almost immediately and, after ordering a drink at the bar, slid into the booth across from her.

Both of her elbows were on the table with her hands at her head and her fingers lightly massaging at her temples. Her laptop was half closed, and the book they were reading for class was turned over. Her plate of fries was pushed to the side. The headache was so bad she could neither eat nor focus on her homework anymore.

"You look like you could use one of these," Damon said, the ice in his drink clinking against the sides of the glass as he shook it.

She looked up at him. "I could, but Matt is working today, and I don't need him wondering why I'm drinking at four in the afternoon. But I was…thinking about stopping by later."

The corner of his mouth went up. "Missing me?"

"No," she said a little too fast. "It's just quiet at mine, and you have better drinks. I also wanted to give you your shirt back."

"Sure," he acted as if he didn't believe her, as if she was just making up an excuse to see him.

He wasn't wrong, but Bonnie would never admit that.

He sat back in the booth, making himself comfortable while he drank a bit of his bourbon. As he did so, a strand of his dark hair fell further across his forehead than it usually did, and she itched to reach over and put it back in place. "So about that coffin. Find out anything else out?" he asked.

"Not yet."

He watched her carefully. "What aren't you saying?"

She wasn't sure about the timing of this, of whether or not she should say who they needed to contact about opening the coffin then or later, so she hesitated.

"Spit it out."

"I…think my mom is the key to getting the coffin open."

"And this is based on…"

"Dreams," she half lied. She hadn't had anymore dreams since the one, but she knew that was how she'd known to find her mother before.

"Okay. So we find Abby Bennett, we open the coffin."

"Yes, but I have no idea where she is," which was not a lie. Bonnie didn't remember what her mother's old address was, only that it was somewhere in North Carolina.

"Give me a few hours. I can do a little digging."

He left in a flurry, and Bonnie was alone again, but she noticed that the pounding in her head had nearly disappeared when he'd been sitting across from her. And now that she thought about it, it was the same with all the times she had a headache before. Even when the drinking dulled it a little, being around him seemed to better and more fully alleviate the pain. It was a pattern. Though she wasn't exactly sure what it meant.

In the meantime, while he was gone, Bonnie packed her things up at The Grill and left for the boarding house. She brought the shirt she borrowed into the house with her, and debated on going upstairs to his room to put it back herself. Wanting an excuse to go in there, she ended up doing it, her feet carrying her up the stairs and straight to his door. Gingerly, she turned the knob and when she opened the door, she was bombarded with the smell of him and his cologne. The rich cedar scent with a hint of spice permeated the room, and she took a deep breath as she walked over to his dresser where she knew he kept his shirts.

His room was immaculately clean as he always kept it. Nothing was out of place. Even the bed was made perfectly with the white sheets and the greenish gray comforter spread across it. She slowed as she stood beside it, and in vain, she tried to build up a dam around the memories threatening to flood her mind. In the future, it had been months since she'd been back in this room, but at the beginning of their relationship, they'd spent so much time wrapped around each other in that bed. She could almost see herself curled up against him and feel their bare legs tangled together. Back then, she was at the beginning stages of never being able to imagine life without him anymore and didn't want to.

She dragged her gaze away from the bed and forced herself to head over to the dresser to put the shirt back in it like she originally intended. Carefully placing it in there so it matched the organization of everything else, Bonnie closed the drawer and left the room, closing the door back behind her.

He came not long after. It took him only a little over an hour to get the information they needed, and Bonnie had already been at the boarding house for fifteen minutes when he walked in with the file on Abby Bennett that she assumed he somehow procured from the police station.

Damon walked in reading off the contents. "Abby Bennett-Wilson, Monroe, North Carolina. Born in Mystic Falls Hospital, graduated at Mystic Falls High…blah blah blah." He came over to where she sat on one of the sofas in front of the fireplace and handed it off to her. She began to read it.

"Alright, so we have a location."

"Yep. Road trip time." While she read the file, she heard him go make himself a drink.

"You're not coming." He wasn't supposed to come.

"You can't be planning to go alone."

"I was going to bring Elena into the fold with the whole coffin situation. Besides, aren't you busy?"

"Nope. Nothing that can't wait a day. And I'd advise against that. As much as Stefan has been a prick lately, I do agree with him on the point that Klaus could easily use Elena against us if she has that information." Drink in hand, he came back over to sit in his usual chair beside the sofa she was sitting on.

Bonnie thought about her headaches again and the fact that Damon could be useful if things went left like they did in the past.

But no. She shook her head. Regardless of what she wanted, it was possible that him coming could derail things. "I'm still going to bring Elena."

He frowned in disapproval. "Fine, but I'm still coming."

Oh no. She was not going to be trapped in a car with both Elena and Damon. Seeing them interact would drive her insane. "I'd rather bring Stefan."

He gave her a deadpan look. "You're joking. You can't possibly think its a good idea to bring him with the way he is right now, and I'd wager Elena wouldn't be too happy with you bringing him either."

They stared at one another. "You're not going to let up on this, are you?"

"If you leave tomorrow, I'll just meet you there. I already have the address."

Instead of questioning why he wanted to go so badly and continuing the argument, she relented. Once Damon decided to do something, it was hard to get him to change his mind without a good reason. "Okay, fine. Maybe you're right. Road trip. Just you and me tomorrow." The moment the words left her mouth, she had a feeling shouldn't have given in so easily, but maybe it was better to keep him closer to her. She was also grateful he didn't question her re-excluding Elena from the trip. The doppelganger was originally supposed to come with her and Stefan was going to turn up after they arrived, but was there even any point of having Elena come when Damon was also not supposed to come and was insisting upon coming anyway? She couldn't see the point of forcing herself to play third wheel to them when things were already going to be slightly different than they were in the past.

"Staying here tonight?" Damon broke her thoughts.

"Do you mind? I've already been drinking." She picked up her own glass of bourbon from the side table next to her.

"Stefan might be back."

She swirled her drink in her hand. "Doesn't he already think something's going on with you and me?"

"It's strange how you don't seem to care about that. And for the record, even borderline humanity-less Stefan expressed some disapproval at you and I not hating each other. I don't know what he thinks is going on though."

"I'm mature enough to not let other people's opinions affect who I decide to be around."

"And yet you would rather the rest of the Scooby-doo gang not find out we're not exactly mortal enemies anymore."

"Can you blame me for not wanting to deal with the reactions? Anyway, I already thought it was inevitable that Stefan find out, but he tends to be good at keeping things to himself."

"Eh. That's debatable. He also tends to stick his nose in where it doesn't belong, especially when it comes to me."

"True. But isn't that what brothers are for?"

They fell into silence, and Bonnie stood up after a moment, her long ponytail swaying behind her as she turned her head towards Damon.

"I'm going to watch a movie. Feel free to join me if you want."

"Make yourself right at home, why don't you."

Ignoring the comment, she started to walk into the other room with the TV and held back a smile when she heard him get up to follow her.

Bonnie was up early the next morning.

The night before she had ended up borrowing one of Damon's shirts again. She had wanted to take a shower and hadn't wanted to sleep in the same clothes, so she snuck back into his room again to steal another one of his shirts before she went to sleep. He caught her. She closed his dresser drawer and saw him standing in his doorway, watching her. He made an offhanded comment about how usually women only wore his clothes after they'd been in his bed. And feeling the need to be a smart-ass, Bonnie walked over to his bed, pulled back his comforter, and slipped in. The white cotton sheets were just as soft as she knew they'd be. The man never had anything less than 1000 thread count, and for a moment she wished she could commandeer his bed from him and sleep there for the night.

She watched him watch her, seeing the little bit of tension that leaked into his features as she laid her head on his pillow for three seconds, then sat back up. "There," she said. "Now I've been in your bed." She left it messy behind her just to annoy him as she stood up with his dark gray t-shirt in hand and walked towards him. His blue eyes never left her. "That's the only time and the only way I'll ever be in there," is what she said as she was forced to shoulder check him on her way out the room. His expressive mouth sloped upwards on one side, and his response of "If you say so, Bon-bon" followed her down the hall.

She shouldn't have done that because her dreams last night morphed into her sleeping in his bed naked as she had done many times before, her back against his soft sheets and legs bent at the knees and spread wide as he crawled towards her while she played with herself. Unfortunately, just as his arms came around her thighs and his mouth was about to replace her fingers, her eyes opened and she was back in her room of the boarding house. She hated having dreams like that about him. They always left her unfulfilled and wanting, and she always did her best to ignore the feeling, but it never truly went away.

She took off his shirt, laying it across a chair in the corner of the room and put her clothes back on. He was still in his bedroom, and she quietly walked down the hall towards the steps. She was about to leave and drop by her house to get dressed for their little road trip when she ran into the other Salvatore brother on her way out the door.

"Bonnie." He stared at her like he was trying to figure her out. She was wearing the same clothes as the day before so it must have looked something like a walk of shame to him. Except he most likely knew she hadn't slept with his brother. He'd have been able to smell it.

"Morning Stefan." She acted as if it was normal for him to find her creeping out of the boarding house in the morning. "Just so someone else knows, Damon and I have a lead on getting the coffin open. I've been having these dreams about my mom, so we're headed to North Carolina to find her and see if she can help."

One of his eyebrows went up a few centimeters. "Just you and Damon?"

"Is that a problem?"

"No. It's just I would think you'd want someone capable of emotional support if you're going to be seeing your mom for the first time in a long time."

"I'm perfectly capable." Damon materialized out of nowhere, already dressed and ready. His dark hair was still wet from the shower. "I'm practically an emotional savant."

"Pfft," Bonnie couldn't hold back the bit of laughter that escaped her. "Right Damon." Even the supposed humanity-less Stefan cracked an almost undetectable smile as he shook his head.

"Did I say something funny?" Damon glanced between the two of them.

"Not at all. I'm gonna get ready at mine. Meet me in an hour and a half?"

His blue eyes met hers. "Sure."

"Oh, and Stefan."

"Hm?"

Her lips stretched into a smile. "It's good to have you back."

They were on the road an hour and a half later, Damon at the wheel of his Camaro and Bonnie on the passenger side. They settled into a comfortable silence, the radio the only noise between them for a long time until a song that Bonnie didn't like came on and they got into an argument over the station, and then another argument over music in general. Besides that, it was a a short three hour car ride before they arrived, parking outside of a lakeside house on what used to be farmland in the middle of nowhere.

"Nervous?" Damon let go of the wheel and looked at her.

Bonnie shrugged. "Not really. I just don't know what I'm going to say to her." She was torn between telling her mother what was really going on or leaving her in the dark. "What do you say to someone who chose to abandon you as a child?"

"Whatever you need to say."

"I'm sure when I see her, I'll know."

Bonnie reached for the door handle when Damon's phone went off. She glanced back to see him answer it and put the phone to his ear.

From the sound of the voice, it was Stefan. "Klaus is getting antsy," Bonnie could hear him say. "He knows that I'm stalling. We need to move faster."

"Noted." Damon said and hung up.

They both left the car and started towards the door of the modest sized house surrounded by trees. The only other building in sight was an old barn a little ways off to the side of the house, and behind it was a private lake. Bonnie pulled at the edge of her jean jacket and rolled her lips between her teeth. Her boots crunched against the leaves under her feet.

"You ready?" Damon asked her.

Her eyes moved from the house to his. "Yeah, but maybe it'd be best if you waited in the car. Or at least let me do the talking." She wasn't sure how they would react to her showing up with a vampire.

While she was looking at Damon, she didn't notice Jamie come up beside them, but Damon did and turned to glance at him first.

"Hey, there." He stared at them both, his gaze wary when it landed on Damon.

"Hi, we're looking for Abby Wilson." Bonnie tried to sound friendly.

"She's not home. What can I do for you?"

"I'm…actually her daughter. Do you know when she'll be back?" Jamie paused, and after a second look at her, decided she was telling the truth.

"She shouldn't be too long. You guys wanna wait inside? Follow me." He motioned for them to follow and Bonnie went first with Damon close behind her.

Putting a key in the lock, he opened the front door. "Come on in." It creaked as he pushed it further open and went fully inside.

Bonnie walked in and glanced back to see Damon hesitate before taking a single step through the threshold.

"So…are you her long lost brother?" Damon asked him as they all walked into the kitchen. Jamie nodded at the round wooden table, signaling that they could take a seat, and they both sat down.

"Nah. Abby's not my mom. She dated my old man back in the day. He's kind of a deadbeat, so when they broke up, she took me in. Can I get you guys anything to drink?"

"We're fine. Thanks." Bonnie answered for the both of them.

"Oh, okay. I didn't catch your names by the way."

"I'm Bonnie and this is Damon." She pointed to herself and then to Damon next to her.

His light eyes flicked between them again. "And are you…together?"

"No, we aren't."

"Oh," he focused on Bonnie with a little more interest.

Damon turned towards the door right before her mother spoke. "Jamie? Who's car is out front?" she shouted.

Bonnie stood up, her chair scraping against the white floor tile. Her mother came through the front door and into the kitchen. She stopped when she saw everyone. "Mine, mom. It's Bonnie, your daughter."

Her long brown hair was loose and her features the same as the last time Bonnie saw her in the future. That had actually been years ago, but they did talk on the phone every few months. Her mother still hated being a vampire even then, but she was resigned to her circumstances and surviving. "Bonnie. This is…unexpected." Her eyes wandered over to Damon. "And who is this?" She narrowed her eyes almost imperceptibly.

"This is Damon, a friend of mine."

Picking up on the unwelcoming look Abby was giving him, Damon stood. "And I, in fact, was just leaving." He turned to Bonnie. "I'll be outside. Awkward family reunions aren't my thing anyway."

He left them alone and Jamie made himself scarce as well.

"You've really grown into a beautiful young woman," Abby said, taking Damon's seat beside her at the kitchen table.

Bonnie held up her hand. She didn't want to replay this conversation the way it happened in the past. Her mother's platitudes and excuses would only grate on her nerves. "We need your help."

Abby frowned. "Does it involve magic? Because I lost mine a long time ago. I'm not completely useless. I mean, the earth still provides herbs and such. There might be something I can do, but I don't know why you would come all this way when Grams-"

Bonnie almost forgot she didn't know. "Grams passed away, mom."

Shock passed over her mother's features and settled into sadness "What…how?"

Bonnie explained the circumstances surrounding her grandmother's death with the spell and the tomb.

"I…you know I'm sorry I left right?"

"It's too late for apologies. You and I, I don't think we'll ever be able to fully come back from this, but-"

A weird feeling rose in the pit of her stomach, and Bonnie abruptly stood up, her feet moving towards the door without her thinking. The gunshot sounded, and Bonnie was about to run outside when Abby lunged for her. Deftly, Bonnie avoided her grasp and shoved her mother into the nearest wall, a concealed bag of crushed herbs falling to the ground between them. Bonnie put her to sleep with a wave of her hand across her face and short spell.

Bonnie ran outside just as the second shot went off, and went straight to the barn where she saw Damon laid outside of it on the ground. Blood leaked out from a wound in his chest caused by a wooden buckshot. She panicked. With a flick of her hand, she threw Jamie away from Damon, and Bonnie was rushing over to him.

"Damon," She breathed out nervously as she knelt at his side.

"Fuck. I need you to get this wood out of me." His breath came out strained.

She lifted up his shirt, looking at the damage.

Damon glanced over her shoulder, his eyes widening slightly. "Behind you."

Bonnie's head snapped around to see Jamie coming back, shotgun in hand. Quickly, she rose to her feet and pulled the gun from his hand with a jerk of her head. Then she put him to sleep with the same spell she used on her mother.

After she was sure he was out, she returned to Damon's side and helped him with the wood chips lodged in his chest. It was a little time consuming looking for every piece of wood and digging into his torn skin with her fingers, but she did so with a seemingly calm focus. Damon grunted and clenched his teeth at the pain as she pulled at a piece of wood in a rather deep wound. Her fingers were covered in his blood as she tossed the wood to the side of him and watched the opened skin slowly begin to heal.

"You're less fazed by this than I thought you would be."

Bonnie was quiet, not quite over the panic she just experienced nearly watching Damon be killed. This wasn't the first time she had done something like this for him, but it was the first time in a long time. Diligently and carefully, she worked on getting the wood out and when they were done, she sat back on her heels and ran her fingers over the smooth skin of his abs, just below where all the wounds were still slowly healing. She was this close to losing him.

He brought himself into a seated position, and she pulled her hand away. "You actually seem like you would've been upset if I'd died."

"I would be," she said, honestly. She couldn't even think of what she would've done. Losing him once was hard enough.

He adjusted his shirt. "Funny. There was a time I was sure you wished I was dead."

"Things change."

The look on his face was meant to be neutral, but she saw the gratefulness and the unsaid thank you hung between them.

They both stood. Bonnie looked over at Jamie's body.

"Grab them both. Tie them up. We're going to figure out what's going on." She said even though she already had a vague idea.

When the two were inside and securely tied up to chairs, Bonnie removed the sleep spell from them. "Explain." She said.

They told her what was going on, that a hybrid had visited them and compelled Jamie to kill anyone who got in the way, and if Abby didn't find the location of some coffins, he was supposed to kill himself.

"I personally don't see the problem here," Damon said, still sore over being shot. Jamie balked under his stare, looking back to Bonnie with pleading eyes.

She levelled a glare at the vampire. "He was compelled to do it, Damon. We are not letting him die."

Abby shook her head where she sat tied up in the kitchen chair beside Jamie. "I can't believe you've ended up in the middle of something like this. And can I believe that you've been running around with vampires like him."

"You think I wanted this? I'd rather be at home studying for a math test than dealing with this. And at least Damon…" she took a deep breath. She was about to say things that were not acknowledged aloud between them. Like the fact that he cared about her, that he had been there for her when she needed him before. Things she felt she shouldn't say. At least not in front of him. "Never mind. I don't owe you an explanation."

Their conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door. It was the hybrid that had come back for the location. Bonnie gave it to him.

As soon as she closed the door, Damon had Stefan on the phone in seconds, explaining the situation. Stefan told him that he was on it, but before he hung up, Damon asked him if he knew where Elena was. He said he had Elena with him just in case.

They waited for Stefan to call back again.

The silence was deafening between the four of them in the kitchen and a little bit awkward.

"I am sorry about how this all happened," Abby said.

"Please don't apologize anymore. I understand you were only trying to protect him."

Abby cleared her throat. "So how long have you two been together?"

Bonnie and Damon looked at each other. Jamie had seemed to think the same thing earlier. Did they really look like they might be together?

"We're not together," Damon answered as he leaned against the wall near where Bonnie stood.

"Oh thank goodness," her mother muttered.

Bonnie was tempted to defend the idea of them together, and her nose scrunched as she tried to keep her mouth shut.

Then she imagined if she had decided to tell her mother about the future and almost laughed. Her reaction to her and Damon was much milder in the future since she was already a vampire, and at that point Damon had apologized for what he did, but she had never really liked him. She always resented him for turning her, which was understandable. Based on her reaction a few seconds ago though, if she knew about the future, this Abby probably wouldn't be much too different in not liking them as a couple.

A moment later, Stefan called back, letting them know that he was able to get one of the coffins out before Klaus and his henchmen found the others. And of course it was the one that they hadn't been able to open that contained Esther's body.

"You think the hybrid will come back?" Abby asked as Bonnie grabbed a kitchen knife and moved to untie them.

She stepped around her mother. "You kept your end of the bargain, and Klaus usually keeps his. Now, I believe you owe us."

After they were back in Mystic Falls, Bonnie received a call from Caroline, updating her on the situation with her father. It ended with her saying things were going pretty well, but then later she sent a text saying that her dad was attacked and in the hospital.

Bonnie thought about another update Elena gave her on the fact that there had been a mysterious murder and no one could seem to figure out the culprit. She called up Caroline. "Care, I know I said I wasn't going to say anything, but watch out for your dad in the hospital, okay."

"Um, okay…"

A pair of footsteps sounded behind her and she turned around to see Stefan and her mother with a grimoire in hand. "I have to go."

Together, the three of them walked deeper into the old Lockwood Cellar Cave where Stefan had moved the locked coffin. He was rushing them as he took them deeper into the cave, then stopped at the entrance to the area with the coffin in it. It was spelled so that vampires couldn't get in, so he left them to it, and they went inside.

Abby was curious about the markings on the wall depicting the story of the Mikaelson family, but Bonnie was eager to get started and took the grimoire from her mother, already flipping through the pages. Her mother joined her, pointed at the blood knot on the page with the sealing spell and told her how it meant they would need two generations of witches to unbind it.

They started to work on the spell, but as powerful as Bonnie was, her mother's lack of magic was preventing them from opening the coffin. She wasn't trying hard enough because she didn't believe that she still had her powers. But Bonnie knew this would work, that it was supposed to work, so she told Abby to pull it together, to dig as deep as she could, and the candles in the room flared, the earth shook beneath their feet, and then everything went quiet.

"Did it work?" Abby asked.

Bonnie tried to pry open the lid, but it still wouldn't open. "It should've." Bonnie turned away from the coffin. "I don't-"

She heard a loud thud behind her, her mother gasp, and then all she saw was black.

A/N:

Three updates in one month. I can't remember the last time I was able to do that (or if I've ever lol). But ngl don't expect too much more frequently, I'm just going to be totally transparent and tell y'all that I've had 12-16 written for a while now and mostly ready to go, so you can maaaybe expect 15 and 16 relatively soon :) (and by soon I mean like within the next two months, but also no promises lol).

Anyway thanks for reading, and special thanks to all of you leaving reviews and comments!

Chapter title from "Folds in Your Hands" by Passion Pit.