Note: This is for everyone who reviewed the surprise second chapter! Thank you x
(I sincerely hope you're all keeping well, and that this last month of the year is kind to you)
Is This It?
PT III
The day of the wedding was beautiful.
Sarah was the first to walk down the petalled aisle towards altar, and she of course had Matt on her arm.
For a moment, their eyes locked on each other as they were walking and they both felt the world slow and simmer.
"Us next," Sarah whispered to him, heart swelling at the look in his eyes.
"I'll take any excuse to tell the world how much I love you, let's get married every day," he whispered back.
Her uncles were waiting for her at the front, and she beamed at them, her hair twisted up into pretty braids that curled around her crown in an elaborate up-do.
Bonnie had her arm through the crook of Caroline's as they waited to follow after Sarah, and she drew in a deep breath, holding the moment between her and her best friend.
Many emotions were tied to this moment, Bonnie and Caroline knew. Memories of their fathers, their mothers, and then, the two of them, standing together, holding each other together and making sure that the word 'family' still meant anything at all.
"I know my heart would be racing if I was still human," Caroline whispered to her.
"I've got you," Bonnie swore. Without warning, Caroline looked like she wanted to cry. Bonnie shook her head. "Not yet, we have to get you through your vows," Bonnie reminded her. Caroline nodded, eyes shining, undead heart singing with gratitude.
"Thank you," Caroline said, quirking her mouth to the side, "for being here, for walking me down the aisle."
"Nowhere else I'd rather be," Bonnie grinned. "Oh, that's us."
They walked into the room, and Bonnie managed a glimpse at the altar, before she turned to look up at Caroline, just in time to see the look on her best friend's face.
Looking at Caroline, who was looking at Stefan, Bonnie knew in her heart of hearts that what had transpired between her and Damon the night before last was nowhere near the declaration of love that was going to take place today. That she was right to swallow it all down, to keep it all in. Nothing like today could come from what they had to offer each other.
I want that, Bonnie thought.
Which made her suddenly sad, and her heart so suddenly heavy, but she kept her face calm, and happy, keeping their footing in time to the tinkling melody filtering in from the piano.
Damon heard the exact moment the thought occurred to her, not knowing what it was, by how thick and strained the rhythm of her heart became.
As Bonnie handed over Caroline to Stefan, she kept her eyes on the couple, even as Damon made a point of standing directly opposite her, and calling to her with his attention. Her heart continued on its spiral downward, as Damon could do nothing but watch.
A year later
Bonnie's mouth fell open and a raw weep twisted the corners down as her memories fell in line while she regained consciousness.
Her throat was dry and her teeth felt heavy and tingly, and her skull felt like it had shrunk, or was in the process of being compressed by some kind of vice. Pain, there was an unimaginable amount of pain setting off every one of her alarms as her body came to.
She sent her senses out over her body and tried to wake it up faster, and figure out how to open her eyes.
There was a tinny sound trilling in her ear and a loud bang that was echoing over and over.
For some reason, Bonnie's brain chose this distressing moment to replay a conversation she'd had with Caroline before she'd boarded the plane. She'd taken time to herself to deal with everyone's inane questions about Damon's whereabouts since they hadn't seen one another at all over the last few months. She didn't know, and she was trying not to care. Thank you very much.
"So, what?" Caroline was saying, annoyed, "What happened at our wedding that threw off the balance?"
He told me he wanted to kiss me again, Bonnie thought...after which we had quiet, bone-melting sex two nights before you got married to his brother.
"How did we go from everyone telling me and him it was too good to be true, to a thorough inquisition as to why we've taken a break from each other since he started dating Georgia?" Bonnie asked instead.
"Who?" Caroline scoffed, "What does it matter who Damon's sleeping with, you two are always together."
"Care," Bonnie drew in a quick, sharp breath to temper herself, "Damon and I are on a besty-break. Like you and I have done a thousand times when one of us wants some time to ourselves, or the person we're with. It's not unheard of."
"Imagine my surprise," Caroline went on as if she'd heard nothing, "Calling the bastard, hoping you'd pick the phone up and spare us the formalities as you usually do when I can't get through to your phone, and some literal rando answers sounding like she's in the middle of her fourth box of cigarettes."
"Great," Bonnie rolled her eyes, "now I have even more unsolicited information about Damon's sex friend."
"I'm just saying it's weird that neither of you has said anything about being apart for the last six months."
"I saw Lucy, kissed a boy in front of the louvre after knowing him for a full ten minutes...I had sex on the beach-," Bonnie defended, narrowing her eyes when she caught someone eavesdropping and glaring until they scuttled away.
"And you've obviously also been lying about this Damon situation all along, because you can cry besty-break all you want, I know a break-up when I see one."
"And how do you break up with someone you've never dated?" Bonnie quipped back, officially over the conversation.
"By making sure you never make it official, for the sake of, oh, let's call it a catch-22 shall we?" Bonnie's jaw set.
"If you don't want me at the dinner because you're worried it'll be weird, just say so," Bonnie ground out, ready to turn around and leave the airport.
"Are you serious?" Caroline's voice went soft, "You only get defensive and flippant like this when you're hurt, and I'm not trying to hurt you, Bonnie, I'm worried you've been carrying some personal stuff you feel like you can't tell me. This is me telling you that you can tell me." A beat followed her half-begging. "Also, I love Stefan, but if it's between you and his brother, guess who's cut off the guestlist for good?"
"...I love you, too," Bonnie said after a moment, "I'm sorry I'm being such a bitch."
"Just promise me that when you're ready to admit that I'm your real best friend and tell me whatever it is that's really going on, that you'll call me and not just go off the grid."
"I'll call you, I promise. See you in a few hours, I'll start sucking up on sight."
"I'll bring your favourite coffee!"
They'd been celebrating Stefan and Caroline's first anniversary earlier that evening.
Everyone had flown out to Singapore for the hell of it.
Damon had gotten a call from his newest love interest, Georgia, and left a little earlier than everyone else to video call her from his suite, so Bonnie'd shared an uber back to the M Hotel with Sarah and Matt. Theirs was a few blocks over, so it'd made sense.
Everything had been fine until a car slammed into theirs from the side, flipping it over and sending it careening across the streets of Shenton Way.
"Bonnie?" Damon's voice was the first thing she heard, and his hands cupped the side of her face as her eyes fluttered open. "Bonnie? Can you hear me?"
"Sarah," She rasped, "by-the door, where-s-Matt? The driver?"
Her eyes came into focus and took in his face.
He was too close.
Hovering over her, his brows were drawn in and down, his mouth twisted and upset. Damon's eyes were shining with stress even as he wiped at her tears. He'd been crying, she could tell. His face looked the same as when he'd cried the day she asked for her return flight to be different to his, for them to take some time apart. The memory played itself out before she could stop it.
"What do you mean you're not coming with me?" Damon's voice was low, and unbelieving. No more jokes, she warned herself. No more ignoring it, or lying around it.
"...I know I should have said something," Bonnie admitted, "any one of the thousand times you've asked me, but," her voice caught at the look in his eye, "I don't know why this feels like something it isn't-"
"You're leaving without so much as a conversation? You've completely made up your mind?" He asked, the tenor in his voice rising. This was going to be one hell of a fight, and it was then that she realised, she just didn't have it in her, anymore.
"I'm telling you I'm in too much pain, Damon!" Bonnie burst, hands clapping over her mouth immediately after, as her tears came.
He was in front of her before she drew her next breath, and as much as it killed her to, she let him cup her face, at least for a moment, before she pulled away, wiping hastily at the warm tears streaming down her face.
"I don't know how to do this. How to love you both so much, that all it does it kill me. I can't do this, I'm not made for it... I'm sick of the pain...I'm sick of everything feeling like it's got to kill me for me to have it as mine. I don't - I can't-"
"I don't want that either, Bonnie," Damon's voice broke, "I don't want you to suffer, ever."
"I don't have a choice, Damon. I'm not going to subject you to that kind of love again, either. It's not what I want for either of us. We both deserve better."
"And that means leaving each other behind?"
The pain she'd felt in her chest that day, walking away from him, was a close second to the riot tearing through her body at warp speed, waking up.
"They'd already taken Sarah and the driver into surgery by the time I'd gotten here," he explained.
Bonnie became attuned to the bed she was laid out on, as more memories surged upward, spilling over to the foreground, mashing against the sounds and sensations of her body regaining consciousness.
Too much was closing in on her at once, and she wasn't holding it all very well. She could feel herself begin to shake in earnest.
Her hands went to Damon's where he still held her face and her lips puckered, and she started to cry when his words fell into place.
"...Where's Matt?" Bonnie asked again and all Damon could manage was to shake his head, 'no'.
Bonnie let herself cry.
Not Matt. Not like this.
She sobbed loudly as the memory completed it's reassembly and played out in full.
Damon sat on the edge of the bed and leaned into her, and held her. Her little hands wound around his middle, and she pulled him close.
The three of them had been joking about Sarah and Matt getting married next in the uber.
"I can't think of a better city for you to finally propose to me in," Sarah had said, eyes shining as she lifted his hand to kiss his knuckles, "let's go pick out my ring in the morning," she'd been photographing everyone from the minute they'd touched down and she took another one now, quickly, with the bright lights dazzling the sky behind him.
"I can't think of a better way to spend our last day here," he'd said and kissed her quickly on the mouth before peeking over at Bonnie.
"That means you and Damon are ne-"
Bonnie jerked again in the hospital bed, remembering the impact.
"Fuck," Bonnie rasped as the sadness ebbed away long enough for her to breathe. She drew in a breath and exhaled loudly, Damon pulling away from how he'd been holding her, to sit back down beside her, taking her hand, "...Fuck." For a long while, she let the soft rub of his finger into the skin of her hand tether her there, nothing else, just that moment, just him.
"I, uh," Damon's voice brought her back into her body from the memory, "I know now isn't the best time to have this conversation, but, you know there was blood in your system the time of the accident." Fuck, she hissed inwardly.
Bonnie's body went cold.
A thousand things ran through her head then.
Her mind settled on three words: dead, vampire and Elena.
"You still have a heartbeat," Damon pointed out, "You didn't die. I don't think. I don't know." She watched his face furrow with exasperation. He felt helpless.
"Do you wanna talk about it?" Bonnie asked, softly, inwardly hoping he'd say no.
"I broke it off with Georgia," he said instead of answering, "then, I got this feeling, I needed to find you." He barked a dry, sad laugh, "Imagine my surprise when I get the uber notification that your trip had been interrupted."
"Did I die?" Bonnie asked. He shrugged.
"There's no way to say," he said through gritted teeth. She watched the tension, frustration and anger run across his body, surprised it didn't make it past the surface.
"What did the car look like?" She wondered.
"Totalled."
"The other driver?"
"Drunk. Jail."
"Jail?" Bonnie echoed, holding his eyes.
Clenching and unclenching his jaw, he looked her dead in the eye, "Don't ask me that question again, and maybe you can live with the fact that you survived."
Bonnie's heart twisted and she couldn't hide her feelings as they turned her face.
"Sorry, I don't want to upset you," Damon swore, "Until you woke up it's been fucking chaos, I think I'm getting whiplash."
"Where's Caroline?" Bonnie wondered, wiping at her eyes, after freeing her hands from his. She watched him reach for her, and then pull away.
"With Stefan."
"And they're...not here?" Bonnie pressed.
"They're in Mystic Falls," Damon supplied curtly.
Bonnie's heart dropped for the third time since she'd regained consciousness.
She wanted to know what that meant, for her, for him, for Elena, but more than that, Bonnie was terrified that the life they'd had was over and that all she'd done before she could even love him, was let him go.
Regret filled her to the brim. Bonnie blinked rapidly to stop her eyes from smarting.
Damon dropped his head into his hands and sighed at length. Bonnie watched him for a moment or two and then reached out a hand to him, running her fingers through his hair. When her nails reached the side of his temple on the second rotation, he took it in his and held it to his cheek as he looked back her. "I didn't think you were going to wake up again." They weren't the words she wanted to say to him, but the sentiment was synchronised between the two of them, they both knew.
"I didn't think you'd be this upset," Bonnie murmured back, "Not being a dick or anything, but I thought we'd made peace with what came after me dying."
"No," Damon shook his head and she cupped his cheek, "You did."
"I know that the only reason I'm even alive right now is because you cheated on Georgia...with me." There, someone said it.
"Are we doing this?" Damon sat up and frowned.
"Sure, why not."
"Okay," Damon nodded once, "Then I'm starting."
"Okay," Bonnie folded her arms and braced herself.
"I'm in love with you," Damon said matter-of-factly.
"I'm sorry...you're what?" Bonnie sat up in the bed a little higher.
"I'm in love with you," he repeated, "I was in love with you the day my brother got married, I was in love with you when we were in Cape Town two years before that, and I was in love with you the day we left to Dublin, six years ago today."
"...We left Mystic Falls six years ago today?" Bonnie echoed.
"Yup," Damon said, leaning back in the chair, popping his lips over the 'p' as the adrenaline of his confession tapered out and left him deflated beside her.
"And I'm guessing Elena is still...asleep?" Bonnie hedged.
"Yup."
"So...I didn't die?" Bonnie surmised.
"Bonnie, you didn't see the car," Damon told her, "You didn't see what they pulled you out of."
"So?" Bonnie's crying started again, slowly, quiet rivers running over her cheeks, "That's it? Matt's dead, Elena's been dead this whole time, and you're in love with me?"
"One of those things is not like the other," Damon pointed out, swallowing his wince as he reacted to her words.
"Damon, I-"
"You don't have the answers, I know," he said, getting up and walking over to the window across from her private ward. There was another bed on the far end, for Sarah, she hoped, but other than that, the room was opulent and empty.
"I was going to say I'm scared," Bonnie confesses, and he looks back at her then, weary, tired. "I feel like we got it all backwards, and then it was flipped upside down and now...now, we're here and, I'm scared."
"I've had a total of 324 dreams about you since we met...302 of those have happened in the last year since Stefan and Caroline got married, since the night we had sex for the first time," Bonnie tells him, knowing that it was finally time for her to put all her cards on the table. "I didn't fight for the way I felt because I didn't feel like I stood a chance. I didn't feel like it was fair to anyone to ask you to love me, too. So, I let us do whatever it was that we could without saying it out loud, or taking up the space, or forcing anyone's hand."
"It makes me think of that night," she went on, "with Kai, when you killed him and chose me," her eyes fluttered shut as fresh tears came, "That feeling I had," her green eyes locked with his, "Of lying on the floor, getting left behind... it was so obvious to me then, that that was how my life was going to go. Then, you came back, and I was...dizzy with relief, confused, but so keenly aware of the odds that were stacked against me in that moment. And the cost."
"You choosing me didn't feel like a miracle, it felt like the kind of thing that you pay the rest of your life for. I'm not wrong for saying that," she told Damon, seriously, wiping at her face, "We've been paying for that night ever since." Bonnie took a deep breath. "And all it does is remind me that I've been living on borrowed time anyway. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that this was another part of your happily ever after for Elena, it's the best PR the two of you have ever had, putting me first. I imagine she'd be so grateful to you knowing I lived a full life, and you'd be grateful knowing whatever this was died with me. So, don't act like you don't get where I'm coming from."
"Elena didn't choose," Damon muttered. "I chose you, and I should have known that you've been keeping all of this to yourself this whole time, but it doesn't make me feel less like a steaming pile of shit," he growled. "I shouldn't have waited for you, I thought waiting might make you trust me, see how much I cared about you, really. With no danger, no magic, just normal, mundane thoughtfulness. Being there when you turned around looking for me in a crowd, worried we'd been separated, giving you what you want, knowing you'd never ask for it. Not pushing you, or asking you for answers neither of us have, but letting it be what it is. It was fine, until Georgia."
"That was your idea," Bonnie scoffed.
"I wanted to see if I could move on from you," Damon said.
"You mean Elena," Bonnie corrected him.
"I mean you. The guilt I feel over her is not part of this conversation. I'm talking about you, Bonnie. Me and you."
"Damon...we're a mess," Bonnie said, and then looked down at her hands as she spoke, winding the fingers between each other. "We're never going to get it right."
"Who's ideals do we keep falling short of?" Damon threw back at her, "Who has ever been in this damned situation that we should be looking to for guidance? Because I've never even heard of them."
"It will go away," Bonnie insisted and widened her eyes, "What you feel, your memory of me, Damon, it will go away."
"All the thought of you has ever done is claim more space," Damon rebutted. "But, I'm not going to try and convince you to love me back, or convince you of anything you don't already know-"
"Damon-"
"I can be your friend, Bonnie. I can," Damon assured her, heading to the door, "I just didn't want that before, and that's clearly what was making it hard for the both of us."
"Damon, please don't leave," Bonnie raised her voice a little, clenching her fists when it broke over the word 'leave'.
He looked back at her, and in a flash was beside her.
"I was going to get you something to drink," he explained, watching her wriggle to the side of the bed closest to him.
"I'm not thirsty," Bonnie said, pulling his hands to her, and resting on them with the side of her cheek.
He gently eased one hand free, to trail over the side of her head, where her dishevelled hair waited for him.
Her heartbeat thudded through, and into him, filling him with peace as they held one another's eyes. While he tried to salvage what was left of his heart, Bonnie was scrounging up the courage to give him hers, emboldened by the courage of knowing she was done with regrets.
Her cheek curled into his palm as he cradled her head on the underside, and caressed his fingers through her curls on her crown.
"Liar," he said softly.
He watched her eyes flutter closed and she sighed, almost contentedly, before her eyes snapped open again on him.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Bonnie said.
"Tell me, what?" Damon wondered.
"That I'm in love with you, too."
He watched her mouth move, and he heard the words, but he was frozen stiff with fright.
Not even an hour ago, he'd thought he'd lost her forever.
He still had no idea what happened after the accident, if she'd died, if Kai's curse was lifted, or why Elena's eyes were still closed according to Stefan, or what he would even had done if it'd been Elena and not Bonnie asking for him after news of the accident.
All he knew was that every fibre of his being was held in place by those seven words she'd just said. In a small, apologetic i-don't-know-why-it-took-me-so-long-either voice.
"You are?"
"I am," she said.
"Drink a little more of my blood, I want you out of here," Damon said.
She obliged.
Just as her wounds healed, and he was readying to call the nurse, her breathing shifted and she'd only managed half of his name, before she had an aneurysm and started to seize.
The staff hurried in, and hurried him out, and in that moment, he had no choice but to oblige.
Lucy hurried down the halls of the hospital, having just landed in Singapore.
Spotting Damon by his posture and ominous black clothing, the witch made a beeline for him.
"So, what happened?"
"They were in an uber on the way back to the hotel," he said, leading her to a pair of elevator doors, which would take them up to the private care suites where the driver, Sarah and Bonnie were, "a drunk man t-boned them at a four-way and flipped the car a good few hundred feet."
"Jesus-" Lucy hissed. "Aren't they strict about that kind of thing here? Where's everyone? Where's Caroline?" The doors shut and the lift rose smoothly upward.
"They're landing in the next few hours, they had to get to Mystic Falls."
"Why-oh, nevermind."
"She's not awake, if that's what you're wondering," Damon supplied. "Bonnie is, she has a heartbeat, but she had my blood in her when it happened, and when I gave her more blood to get her healed and out of this shit-hole-"
"-Have you ever seen a shit-hole?-" The older Bennett witch asked as the doors opened after a trilling 'ping'.
"-She started seizing and they threw me out to stabilise her and run some tests," Damon went on, gesturing for her to follow him to the right. They walked down another corridoor, swathed in sunlight, and pristine.
"So, that's where I come in?" Lucy said rhetorically, "I need to figure out what the hell kind of spell this Malakai person put on Bonnie when he tied her life to Elena's, and what death and vampire blood mean to it."
"No pressure," Damon said with a hard smile, pulling the ward door open, and leading her inside. "I also have a few questions, and one terrible idea."
There, Bonnie and Sarah lay opposite each other, monitor's beeping back and forth, trying in vain to fill the silence.
"Sounds like we're on track then," Lucy teased over her shoulder before giving Sarah's hand a soft squeeze and kissing Bonnie's forehead.
"I can't believe I'm not with Bonnie," Caroline fretted for the umpteenth time.
"Baby, we're almost there," Stefan assured her.
"She'd already woken up, and asked for me," the blonde hissed under her breath, eyes shining, "I should have been there with her, not Damon!"
"For all we knew Elena was waking up alone in a coffin, we were worried about our other friend, too."
"Damon could have gone with you," Caroline said bitterly, she knew, "especially if what we thought was happening, had happened."
"But, again, he chose Bonnie," Stefan pointed out, "she's as safe as she would be with you as she is with him."
"You don't know that," Caroline says back, "until they're out of Elena's shadow over them, you don't know that."
Stefan conceded, and the drive lapsed into a tense silence as they raced to their family.
"Bon-nieeee," Sarah sang softly to her friend.
Sarah remembered the flash of light that had come off of Bonnie before they'd all been knocked unconcious. She wondered what it had been, and what it had done.
Damon was discussing matters with a vampire-doctor friend of Stefan's in the hallway, and Lucy was asleep on the couch somewhere behind her, so no one had stopped her from getting out of bed, and slipping in beside her favourite witch.
Bonnie's eyes fluttered open slowly.
She saw Sarah, up close, in bed with her, and smiled.
Sarah smiled back.
Then they both remembered, and Bonnie cupped her friend's cheek and pulled her into her side, cradling her.
"I'm so happy to see you awake," Sarah whispered, sniffling with the promise of tears, as she laid her head on Bonnie's chest. "I couldn't take it if we'd lost you both."
"Sarah," Bonnie's mouth twisted to the side as more tears came.
Caroline stepped in then, and hurried over to the two of them after kicking her shoes off.
The bed was big enough for the three of them, so she got in, too, nestling Bonnie in the middle.
"Oh my god," Caroline sighed, kissing the top of Sarah's head, as a hello, and then rubbing her hand up and down Bonnie's arm where it stuck out from the covers. "I'm so glad to see the two of you!"
The three of them huddled in together, and Caroline made sure they were both covered up and warm, as swung her arm around back to hold Sarah, and used her other to wrap around Bonnie. Stefan looked over at them, from beside Damon, and she nodded to him.
In the wake of the past few days this was the most comfortable any of them had felt.
"The blood sorted you out?" Caroline asked over Bonnie's head, down at Sarah after a beat.
"I'm fine," Sarah nodded, "getting discharged once Damon finesses the doctors."
"And you, Bee?" Caroline asked, giving her arm a squeeze.
"You're here, I'm fine," was all the witch said with a broad smile, burrowing into the fabric of her clothes.
Being back in Mystic Falls felt bizarre.
Stranger than coming back to life (yet again, maybe, kind of?), but Bonnie was trying to focus on Matt's family and Sarah today.
Whatever she was feeling could wait just one more day, even as more questions came, and more doubt was thrown over the night that took Matt's life.
Bonnie got ready quietly in Damon's bedroom while he, Stefan and Caroline tied up the last of the funeral plans.
Once she was dressed she made her way to Sarah's room in the Boarding House and knocked softly on the door.
"It's Bee," she said, and waited.
"Come in," Sarah called back.
Bonnie walked in and found black clothing strewn everywhere.
Sarah was sitting on her floor, on top of a pile of blouses and dresses, in her underwear. Bonnie clicked the door shut behind her, walked over and sat in front of her friend.
"Do you want help?" The witch asked.
"You're so good at that," Sarah said, half-smiling back at her, "Normal people would say "do you need help?" or "what can I help you with?", but you've buried enough people to know which words are the right ones, huh?"
"I never thought of it that way," Bonnie confessed, "but, I think you're onto something."
"...Matt was going to be the father of my children," Sarah said, "Just like you and Caroline were going to be their godparents, if you'd have wanted to, of course." A long moment of silence followed as Sarah tried to pull herself together. "I've never even met his mother... can you imagine meeting the love of your life's mother on the day of their funeral?"
"I can't," Bonnie said simply, "but I know that she must feel sad she's only meeting you now, too."
"I don't feel...'sad'," Sarah said, mouth twisting around the word, "His mother abandoned him, but he never hated her for it. My mother and father were murdered and I've been cursing their names for leaving me here alone in this life. He was a better person than I was, and loving him made me realise I wasn't even a bad person for thinking the things I did to begin with, that I'm human; that the best part about being human is being able to change. Changing your perspective, your direction, whichever."
Sarah drew in a shuddering breath, and picked a dress out of the pool of clothing and held it to her stomach.
"Matt made it all make sense, he made it all believable, understandable...without him, I..." Her breathing caught and Bonnie wiped her own tears away.
"I'm pregnant." Sarah whispered, tears flowing freely now.
Matt's mother was hardly there for ten minutes after the church service, but she and Sarah did manage to exchange numbers.
Caroline, Tyler and a few of the old members of the football team of their year said a few words in his honour before the priest spoke about the miracle of life and wished Matt the golden glow of eternal salvation.
Bonnie sat on the one side of Sarah, with Damon beside her, while Caroline sat on the other side of Sarah, with Stefan beside her.
When Sarah took their hands and squeezed, Bonnie and Caroline leaned in, moving a little closer, which caused the brothers to do the same. The gesture came so naturally, so carefully, that it was that that was the last ache her heart could take before it broke.
The symmetry of love mirrored by people around you. The same hands that had once torn apart, were the only thing holding her together now.
Sarah felt loved, she felt overwhelmed by the feeling of gratitude that swelled in her as well. What she'd feared more than anything all of her life, being alone, was washed away by her friend's next three words.
"We've got you," Bonnie whispered.
When it was Bonnie's turn to drop a handful of dirt onto Matt's grave, the witch let the tears that had been held at bay pour out as she dropped to her haunches to say goodbye to him.
"Remember when you asked me to stay?" Bonnie said with watery eyes. "You knew how far gone I was when you came to my dad's house, and you knelt down in front of me, and you reminded me that I had you, that I had Caroline, and that I would always have Mystic Falls."
"You've been like a limb on my body my entire life," Bonnie couldn't let go of the dirt just yet, "You've been the normal we've been holding on to all along. The person that tethered us to our childhood memories, our firsts, hell, even our lasts here. I'm going to hold you in my heart as long as I can, Matty. I love you."
Bonnie was out in her Grams' backyard when Damon found her a little later.
Caroline and Stefan had taken Sarah back to the Boarding House after the funeral. Bonnie was getting the home ready to gift to her friend and her unborn child.
Grams had managed to find a sliver of peace under this roof, in these gardens, and Bonnie was hoping Sarah and her baby could do the same.
Bonnie'd put up layered, powerful walls around the plot, and was working on a spell with Lucy that could put a spin on the ring Matt had left behind at his home years ago, and create something for the new family.
It was the least she could do, in her eyes.
"There you are," Damon called out to her, making his way slowly to where she cradled a lemon that she'd just picked.
"I'm making lemonade, you want some?" She asked without turning back to look at him.
"Sure," Damon shrugged anyway, "As long as we can talk." Bonnie turned then, and Damon's smile was strained even as he wiggled his brows. "I think we've put this off long enough."
"I agree." Bonnie said and put the basket of fruit down and clasped her hands together as she slowly cleared the last few feet between them. "But I'm starting this time," she decided as she came toe-to-toe with him.
"I'm in love with you," she said, her eyes clear as her face was upturned to his, her expression decisive and kind. "But more than that I need and I want you... I adore how funny you think you are, how reflexively kind you've become over the last few years, and seeing how much joy it brings you when you help people. I've loved every minute of seeing you grow out of yourself, and then back into yourself."
Bonnie wrapped her arms around his middle and pulled him closer.
"And it's not all perfect," Bonnie admitted, "Some days I feel possessive over you, and then mad at the both of us for being in the situation we've been in, or some days I think of you trying to turn me, and asking you to choose me forever, but...that's not our story. That's not how this ends. We don't know what Kai's spell's hold has over how I die. We don't know...and a part of me fears that his obsession with me could unravel a new layer of the pandora's box that blew our lives apart the first time we opened it, dealing with him." She steadies herself. "My point is, Matt dying in such a flippantly human way, it shook me, and I don't wan't to leave this unfinished. When it ends I want us to have more than this second-guessing," Bonnie said, "Whatever my life is, or becomes, I want you in it. I want you to be my boyfriend." A pause. "This is me asking you to be my boyfriend."
Damon's smile was slow, but a rumbling chuckle reverberated in his chest as he lifted Bonnie onto her toes.
"I love you," he said, kissing her.
"I love you," she said, kissing him back. "I wanna pull rabbits out of my ass with you until I die."
"Well, I wanna die when you die," Damon said. "Which is why I'm going to tell you that when you were under, after your seizure at the hospital, Lucy tied your life to mine."
"You what," Bonnie pulled back a little.
"Eye for an eye," Damon shrugged, lifting her so her toes were resting atop the tops of his boots. He swung them around and pulled her closer. As close as he could. "Elena wakes up when you die, I die when you die."
"That's a lot of weight on my shoulders," Bonnie murmured, pensive.
"It's not a burden you're carrying alone," Damon reminded her. "These are extreme circumstances, Bonnie. The rule was that we couldn't play with the tether that tied your life to Elena's, no one said anything about making another tie."
"Well, it obviously didn't occur to him, that you'd literally tie your life to mine."
"Because he was a moron, an idiot and a festering asshole," Damon growled, irritated by the thought of Kai.
"Have you ever seen a festering asshole?"
"Your and Lucy's obsession with me recounting the gross things I've seen in my lifetime will never not be not funny."
"You love Lucy," Bonnie beamed, "and you love me."
"I do," he admitted, "Also: for future reference, every time you say you love me, I would like to be kissed."
"I can do that," Bonnie pulled his face to hers and kissed him fiercely.
Where his hands moved downward, following the curve of her back to her hips, Bonnie's hands lightly traced up into his hair.
Lifting her easily, he smiled into her mouth when she pulled at his hair, wrapping her legs around his waist. Bonnie curled her tongue into his mouth and a flush of electricity rippled outward from her navel where their torsos were pressed and moving against each other.
Out of all the dreams she'd had, even the ones where all she'd dreamt about was being in love, and being loved, none of them came anywhere close to the reality she was living now.
Where death was as present as shame, as constant as a triggering memory fuelled by duress, as inescapable as a tie between your life and someone else's, binding your actions to a pact made by someone else. Yet, in the maelstrom, Bonnie and Damon found this. Each other.
In doing so, Bonnie realised that there was no such thing as the right time or the right place, but, there were instincts, that had been guiding them all along, and whose fault was it really that they took the long way round to one another? Who's to say where the lines are drawn with a history like theirs?
"What happens now?" Bonnie asked, nudging her nose past his as he nipped at her bottom lip.
"Sex," Damon decided, keeping his mouth near hers, "Hours and hours of sex."
That evening, Bonnie and Damon walked hand in hand for the first time, as they made their way to the front doors of the Boarding House.
"Is it weird?" Damon wondered, still waiting for the ground under his feet to vanish.
"With you? No." Bonnie laughed, looking up at him with shining, happy eyes, "Being this happy on the day of my friend's funeral...yes, it's bizarre."
They stopped and stood in front of the doors, and turned to face each other.
"We're going to go inside, we're going to sense it out, because this day doesn't just belong to us, Sarah needs us right now."
"And we're going to be there," Damon nodded, serious. "We're going to tell her about the house, and that we're staying until the baby is here, at least-"
Bonnie nodded, "At least," she echoed, "And then we talk it out. Like a family does."
"The smile on your face right now," Damon complimented, "I wanna kiss you, so badly."
"How much restraint do you have left?" Bonnie wondered.
"Like, a half hour's worth?" He pretended to calculate, waving his free hand side to side between them. She laughed.
"Okay, kisses later, then," She decided and he let out a whine-y growl. "It's an incentive."
"One more thing, though, quickly I promise," Damon said, pulling her back to him before she could open the door. "I just want to say thank you."
"For what?" Bonnie quirked a brow up at him.
"For being my firsts, even after years of living. My first worthy nemesis," they both chuckled, "my first best friend, my first confidante, my first travel-the-world-for-years-and-not-get-sick-of-it-buddy-"
"-Memories I'm going to hold dear as long as I live-" Bonnie interjected to vow, pulling him closer.
"And the first person who's let me find my humanity for myself, and trusted me enough to get it done."
"I'm pretty great, huh?" She asked, heart racing as she held his gaze.
"You're the best woman I know," Damon replied easily, confidently.
"I always feel like I'm standing on the edge of something big with you," Bonnie said, cupping his cheek, "it gives me this rush of adrenaline, like we're about to discover something new." She stood on her toes and pressed her forehead gently to his. Bonnie took a deep breath. "You make me feel like anything is possible." She pulled away and looked up at him.
Damon had never been looked at like that in all his years.
Of course it's Bonnie, he thought to himself, there's no one else.
"Well, we do have a habit of breaking the laws of physics, you know, inter-dimensional travelling, magic and all," Damon said with a wink. "Also, no one's ever given me this kind of affirmation before, I think I need to lie down."
"I'll be gentle," Bonnie said, "Give it to you in small doses, so you survive," she whispered against his mouth.
Their heads bobbed back and forth as they debated giving in to the sexual tension that was shooting sparks between them.
"I'm going to open the door," Damon said, pulling back and clearing his throat, "because I know we could both do this forever, but, we have to go inside and be with Sarah. But the minute we're alone..." Bonnie mirrored his brow wiggle, amusing him as they walked inside and shut the door behind them, following the smell coming from the kitchen.
She'd kept her distance well enough away from them, but she could have been standing right beside Damon...he couldn't see past Bonnie, apparently ever.
Georgia listened as the couple were welcomed home, ushered deep into the walls of the boarding house. She regarded it now, standing outside, eyes lifting up and over.
Damon had kept so much from her, almost like he'd known never to let her in.
Turning on her heel, Georgia sped off, back where she came from.
A town over, her cellphone rings, and she grits her teeth, skidding to a halt to answer it.
"She's not dead, you know," Georgia seethes instead of an asinine greeting. "She's supposed to be dead."
"Yes, well, I can fix that."
A/N: Will this be it? For your sake, I hope not! Ha.
(Thoughts?)