Epilogue

...The Path less Taken...

by Anya (aka Evilgoddss)

He had packed his bag that night, only hours after fire had been put out and the building searched for remains. None had been found, but somehow, after everything that had happened Damon had been expecting that. So, he had patiently waited until Stefan had left him alone for a few hours, and quickly gone through Bonnie's apartment and packed.

His hand had wavered over her diary for a single moment, and something had moved him to shove it into the bag as well. It wasn't of any use to Stefan or Elena, and frankly, some of what Bonnie had written about regarding the past year would have hurt his brother and his friends terribly. Perhaps it was an act of kindness that had him remove it, he didn't know.

It was fortunate Bonnie had no pets, and truthfully, her family and friends would have an easy time of it packing up the remains of her life in this apartment. She had lived a rather spartan existence. In time perhaps more 'junk' could have found it's way into her world, but this had been an apartment, not quite a home. For him, it had been a shelter in a storm, but he couldn't recall in over ten weeks ever hearing Bonnie call the apartment 'home'.

The remaining blood from the fridge, enough to see him through several weeks, was carefully packed into a cooler he'd found hidden in the spare bedroom. There was no point in leaving it behind. Her family would have had too many questions, and why let a perfectly good source of blood go to waste? He still preferred blood from the source, but was pragmatic enough to make use of even bagged processed blood. At least, make use of it until it was gone.

All in all, his packing was expedient, and in the hours just before dawn, he quietly locked the door to the apartment, and crept down the stairs to the waiting car below. He'd traded in the Corvette that had died in this town weeks ago, and while the car below wasn't quite his style, the Toyota Celica would get him the hell out of dodge. Europe was sounding good. Home, was sounding better.

Packing the trunk, he threw some blankets in the back-seat, and started the engine. The streets of Fell's Church were still, but he moved slowly to draw no attention. He had two last errands to run before leaving this town, and he wanted them done before the sun came up.

Mrs. Flower's old boarding house looked even more neglected in the weeks following her death, and still he found himself looking up at the old building with nostalgia has he parked there. This town had cost him a great deal, and yet he was intending never to loose sight of these memories. He'd both lost, and found his brother here. Found and lost the 'love' of his life. Twice, if you counted Katherine. And he'd found and lost the only friend he'd known in hundreds of years.

Leaving the car, he walked back to the rose bush, and smirked to see the simple subtle marker Bonnie had put up over the place where Mrs. Flowers earthly remains lay. "This is goodbye." He told the old lady, as if her ghost was listening. "I don't know what will happen in this town now, but hopefully St. Stefan can keep the peace. I'm done."

He offered a few moments of silent, a show of respect that he didn't willingly give to many. She'd been a little kooky, but in the end, had provided him with shelter and protection. Sadly, her protection hadn't been enough to save her life.

A layer of dust had settled on the window-sills, and Damon took all this in as his eyes swept over the property. Satisfied by the stillness around him, he shifted into the body of a wolf and once again took off into the forest.

It took a bit of time, but not a lot, for him to find the clearing where they had faced down Klaus. Circling around, he felt for any sign of disturbance, any indication that Klaus had been freed from his magical prison. The land lay peacefully, power thrumming below the surface but not with malevolent intent. The dead of Fell's Church had not lost their prisoner, and as far as Damon could tell, would not lose him any time soon. All was good.

He took a moment to sit and replay the moments of that night in his mind, seeing the tiny redhead bent over his brother's fallen body and arguing with him. She'd been so stubborn, so tenacious and yet, she had done the impossible. For while it had indeed been Elena's army of the dead that had subdued Klaus, it was Bonnie who had been the mortal body standing against him while summoning Elena's host. She, a mere mortal, had stood against an Original and lived in defiance of a prophecy.

The girl had guts, even then.

The wolf huffed a sigh, and stood up, shaking his coat out once before setting off onto the path again, this time on the trail that would lead to the cemetery and Honoria's tomb. He veered off slightly, taking the river path that would lead underground and followed it back to the catacombs below. Katherine's voice taunted him in his mind, as the memories ran through him, and once again he felt echoes of the pain from that terribly battle.

He could see the spot where he had crawled from the river, gravely wounded by The Hunter. The ground was disturbed, and the new coating of dust not enough to obscure the spot his wet body had lay. Or to hide Bonnie's footsteps when she had found him. How had she carried him out of there?

Still he moved forward, following the curve of the underground river just a little more.

He'd come out of his stupor at the library as the firemen had emerged and announced there were no bodies. The fire had been put out quickly, the emergency sprinklers inside the library doing their job to protect the valuables there. Even Honoria's diary had survived.

Stefan and Elena hadn't done the math, but he had. The Hunter had escaped, and had taken Bonnie's body with him. But why? Kiera's spell should have ended with her death. Why take Bonnie unless the creature intended to raise Klaus itself.

He would have given a lot to know where Kiera had found the creature, but he would cheerfully have put money on it that it hadn't been around Fell's Church. The convergence of power lines that drew so many creatures here had an upside to it. Most of those creatures were not the truly powerful ones. Creatures that would feel the constant itch from those ley lines.

Not that Damon liked to discount his own standing in the hierarchy of things-that-went-bump-in-the-night, but he wasn't even mid-way on that totem pole. Poor Stefan was barely scraping the ground floor. There were bigger, badder things and he and his brother weren't in those classes.

No, if Damon reasoned rightly, what had sent that creature homicidally out of control, outside of Kiera's coercion spells, was the itch of the convergence. It had reacted with something akin to an allergic reaction to the power flows in the area and had lashed out to 'scratch' the itch.

The only true way to relieve itself would have been to leave Fell's Church, and prior to Kiera's death, that hadn't been an option, but after? Damon had no doubt that the Hunter had survived the lightening strike just fine – it was a creature made by the Gods to fight evil, after all. God-summoned lightening was probably mother's milk to it. Even a direct hit shouldn't have destroyed it. Maybe, just maybe, wounded it, but nothing final.

But why take Bonnie? Klaus, he had already established was still firmly under lock and key. It could have dumped Bonnie's body in the library and escaped on it's own.

Damon rounded the river again, finally approaching the nexus of the power lines, where they all came together in the spot below Honoria's tomb. It was a tiny niche in the cavern walls, one that he doubted anyone save Honoria had noticed. A little innocuous place where power seethed as it came together in what some would perceive as a maelstrom, but Damon saw as a kind of 'waterfall'.

And there, in amongst all that energy, all that supernatural power, lay the still body of Bonnie McCullough. The rod that had impaled her was gone, though her clothing told the story in blood stains as to how severe that injury had been. She wasn't blackened from lightening, or burnt by fire, and it was evident that her body had been laid out with care in the little niche. The care of the Hunter who worked for The Gods. A Hunter that probably had been horrified by it's actions and sought to fix things.

He shifted back to human form and walked closer to the niche, studying her still face. Either she was dead, or in stasis. He was hopeful that it was the later. He feared it was the first.

Power stung at his hands, but it was of no consequence. He gently lifted her up and out of the point of nexus, cradling her close to his chest. "Bonnie." He called both audibly and with his mind, feeding power to her like he had so many weeks ago. "Wake up."

Moving away from the nexus, he listened for signs of life, his face breaking into a true smile when her heart sounded in a gentle beating rhythm. "Wake up." He called again, feeding more power into her.

Her pulse picked up speed, and eyes opened hazily, golden shining eyes that shone with confusion, disorientation and the physical manifestation of her own natural powers. "That's a good girl." He praised her as if a child. "Wake up."

Her hand moved down to her stomach, feeling for the wound she last recalled, her most recent memories being the first to come to mind. "How?" How had they survived? What happened to the Hunter? Why was she alive?

"You did it." Damon set her down on the ground and crouched beside her. "Do you remember?"

Her eyes closed, her forehead furrowing in concentration. "Lightening."

He nodded.

"Kiera?"

"Fried. She smelled awful." He chuckled. "For future reference, I don't like boiled blood."

"Noted."

"The others?"

"They're fine." He paused. "Everyone thinks you're dead." Dark eyes watched for her response with great care.

Bonnie sighed, "I was. I know I was. Dead, that is. For a moment or two. Maybe longer, I don't know."

"That's twice in one year." He poked at her gently with one finger. "You should cut back, I'm sure the surgeon-general frowns upon it."

"Probably does. If everyone were to job dead, there wouldn't be a need for a surgeon general." She yawned broadly, her hand straying up to rub at her eyes. "So. Now what?"

Damon watched her, amused by her kittenish behaviour. Little movements, sluggish and awkward. Sleepy laziness. She wasn't dead, but she was one exhausted little witch all the same. "That, I suppose, is up to you."

"Hmm?"

"You're not…" He searched for the right word.

"Responsible for this town anymore. I know. Death is life's way of saying you're fired, after all." She wiggled closer to him, her hands rubbing up and down her arms to generate warmth. "I can't stay here though. Not now. Something is different. I don't think I'm exactly human anymore." She sighed softly, but slowly a teasing smirk crossed her lips. She looked up at him with mischief glimmering in her eyes. "And it's all your fault."

One eyebrow arched in an impassive face, but his eyes remained curious.

"I was dead," She supplied in amongst another yawn. "You get answers, it seems, once you bite it. The Hunter interfered with my death, though. I was going to rise up as a vampire which was entirely your fault. But, then it brought me back to life in other ways."

He waited, she'd continue in her own time.

Lazy eyes looked up at him. "I forget the exact words, but I'm straddling a line. I'm not mortal, and I'm not quite immortal. But, I do remember that it's really all your fault."

"My sincerest apologies for saving your life the first time."

She smirked. "You're forgiven."

"Thank you." Damon retorted dryly, slid out of his jacket and wrapping it around her. It was cold down here, and whether or not she was susceptible to life threatening diseases was a topic for another time. "Now what?"

Bonnie smiled, her fingers clutching at the opening of the jacket and snuggling close. "I guess I leave town and start a new life. I don't want to be around Elena and Meredith now. There's too much between us, and now they'll be watching me cross-eyed. I'm not the same person I was a few years ago. I don't really want to be her again. But, I don't know how to start over."

In four centuries the thought had never crossed his mind as it did now. And he'd never had so much hope buried in it as he felt right now. He moved, dropping in front of her and closing the jacket with his own hands before nudging her chin up. "How about you come with me? I'm yearning for home. Italy would be a nice place for you to start, at least for a few years." He shrugged depreciatingly. "I know of a nice villa, it's an old family property, has a vineyard – a little neglected over a couple of centuries. I'm certain the owner wouldn't mind a long-term houseguest."

Her brilliant smile was answer enough.

Fini