Hello to readers/friends old and new. I am happy to be back. Very excited about this story I've set up and finally get to tell, and I hope you are too. I'd recommend reading the first part, She's Thinking of Her All the While, before you jump into this one, but it also doesn't matter too much if you don't; everything is brand new, the status quo is totally changed, and the progression will be much more linear. I'll still include the soundtracks as well, and make a new playlist to house all of those songs too. (I can't link to anything on , but if you search the name of the fic on Spotify or Apple Music it should pop up.) And one last thing: you don't even need to be a hardcore Bonora shipper (although, I'm telling you, it's pretty great over here) to enjoy this story. This is basically my Bonnie-centric rewrite of S7/S8, and so there's plenty of other stuff going on—including new ships, which I am eager to introduce and gauge opinions on. Thank you for any amount of reading you've done. You all make this worth it.


Soundtrack

Ratatat – "Cherry" from Ratatat

Arca – "Alive" from Mutant

Roo Panes – "Tiger Striped Sky" from Little Giant

Mezzanine Owls – "Temporary Health" from s/t EP


March 15, 2015

" 'What became of the sandwich? Well, / In Itching Down they like to tell / How the birds flew off with it in their beaks / And had a feast for a hundred weeks.' " Bonnie closes the book, sets it on her lap, and pats it with both hands before saying, "The end" with warm finality, exactly the way her Grams used to with her when she was a kid.

"Wow." Nora sits up against the headboard of their bed so that now they're at eye level. They're both in their matching pajama sets, and Nora, despite the weather being almost balmy the past few days, is cocooned in two extra blankets, one of them drawn over her head as a hood. "First of all, your reading was bloody excellent, and second, okay, so, the book is called The Giant Jam Sandwich, right? So you think it's going to be about someone, or someones, making a huge sandwich to eat. But instead the sandwich is just a means to an end."

Bonnie squints at her. "How stoned are you right now?"

"Come on, humor me." Nora gives her an adorable peck on the lips and then returns to her nest. "And also, why'd they need the butter if all they were trying to do was trap the wasps? That's a ton of wasted milk."

Bonnie clears her throat dramatically. "Alright, maybe, even though the sandwich was 'just a means to an end' like you said, maybe the townspeople wanted to respect the classification of 'sandwich,' you know? Just jam between two pieces of bread isn't a sandwich, in my opinion. I mean, it might be a sandwich, but it's not a sandwich." She's trying so hard not to laugh, and she's looking everywhere but right at Nora because she knows that'll break her for sure. "These labels have weight, right? So just jam doesn't cut it. The townspeople want to do it right. And a ton of butter is hell of a lot easier to spread than a ton of peanut butter, I'd imagine."

"But then, wouldn't these determined townsfolk of yours want the extra challenge?"

"I don't think it's about the challenge. Maybe it's just about working together to create something beautiful. Everyone doing what they're best at."

"Well that's lovely, of course." Bonnie swears that Nora has never been cuter than in this moment. But she swears that a lot. "If you think a wasp-crunch butter-and-jam sandwich the size of a wheat field is beautiful."

"Do you not?" Bonnie clicks her tongue. "I'd better call the wedding planner and, erm, reevaluate some things."

Nora laughs: music. "Right on top of a giant sandwich. That'll be us all right. But no wasps, preferably. It'd be like getting married on a burial ground."

"You're right. You're so right. And no butter either. Imagine the smell."

"Repugnant." They've steadily been inching closer to each other throughout the exchange, and now their faces are only inches apart. "But at least you'd be there."

"And so would you." Bonnie's breathing is picking up and Nora's eyes are hooded.

"Always," Nora concludes in almost a whisper, and then they're kissing, and for a second Bonnie's thoughts briefly turn to the fact that after more than a year, every taste still feels just as breathlessly exciting as ever. And then after that she's thinking that now she wants a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And she must really be hungry, because by now she's also super turned on.

Suddenly Nora breaks the kiss and looks at her. "Okay, please don't think I'm a weirdo, but the book and then our conversation made me crave a sandwich. Do you want to go make some PBJs and then make out after?"

Bonnie just looks at her. She doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, and ends up doing a bit of both.

"Well? Are you looking at me that way because I'm being a lunatic and you want to keep kissing?"

"No, it's just, I—" Bonnie gives up trying to explain. She's too happy, and smiling too hard. "I just love you so much. Yes, let's go make PBJs."

Nora does a victory dance and begins to extricate herself from her blanket egg. When she shifts forward to the edge of the bed and gives Bonnie a kiss on the forehead. Bonnie looks at her again.

"You ever have those moments, where you just somehow know you'll always remember them?"

Nora nods and kisses her forehead again. "And each one is just a drop in the ocean of everything unforgettable about us."

Bonnie sniffles and wipes away a few tears. Then she grins mischievously. "Race you to the kitchen."


date(s) unknown, closest approximation: July 28, 2015

"Do I... know you?"

"I shouldn't think so."

"Who are you? What is this place?"

"I will answer your questions in good time. But first there is a conversation we must have."

"A conversation?"

"How did you get here, Bonnie? How did you come to be standing in your Grams' living room with me across from you?"

"How the hell do you know my... wait. I don't remember how I got here. I haven't even been to Mystic Falls in years. What's going on?"

"Think, Bonnie. Think about what happened. What sent you here. What caused you to be here."

"I remember I... Damon was trying to... and the fire everywhere and then they... they came at me their faces were... oh no. Oh my God no."

"Say it out loud. Assert it. Believe it. This is important."

"I'm... dead. I'm dead."

"Exquisite. It takes most people much, much longer. Not you, though, Bonnie Bennett, not you."

"You promised to answer my questions. If I'm dead then why am I here? With you?"

"I will need to tell you many things before my explanation will make sense. But to begin, let me introduce myself. My name is Arcadius."

Bonnie pauses her avalanche of an existential crisis to process what the man has just said. "You're— you're Arcadius?"

He flashes her a tight-lipped, controlled little smile. He would be an attractive guy if he lost the tunic and the I'm gonna suck your soul out and eat it whole look in his eyes. Wait, a tunic? "Everyone calls me Cade. We met once, briefly, when your so-called best friend ripped your heart out. You wouldn't remember that."

She looks at him again and realizes the tunic has transformed almost as quickly as she even noticed he was wearing it and is now an impeccably tailored three-piece suit, all black except for his tie and belt, which look black too at first but gradually reveal tinges of ghostly green. Bonnie shakes her head vigorously and tries to clear her mind, which currently seems incapable of focusing on more than one thing at a time, then looks beyond Cade to see—nothing.

"What the hell? Where are we?" She tries to mask the ice cold fear coursing through her with anger and indignance. It doesn't really work.

"Interesting choice of expression." He clasps his hands and cocks his head to the side the slightest bit. "Tell me, Bonnie Bennett, did you ever give much thought that which awaited you beyond that mortal coil? Did you hope for heaven, wish away eternal damnation? Or did you prefer everything to just . . . end?"

"Screw you," Bonnie answers through gritted teeth. She instinctively looks around for escape routes, but quickly realizes it's pointless. The only corporeal surface at all seems to be the floor they're standing on, and even that isn't fully materialized, its edges melting and blurring just beyond the border of shadow. She shivers. It's really fucking cold in here. What is she wearing? Henley, jacket, cargo-pocket pants, her "go-time" boots, all the same things she was wearing when—

She stops; gasps.

"Got to it again, I gather?" Cade says more quietly, in impossibly consistent rhythm with her thoughts, as if he can read and converse with them directly. "Do your best to wrap your head around it. The sooner you do that, the sooner we can begin."

"Begin what? What the fuck do you want from me? If I'm dead, can't I rest in peace or whatever? Does everyone who dies get the in-flight movie from cryptic-ass budget Charon?"

"Budget Charon. That's a good one. I'm almost offended. And that's a feat," Cade answers lightly, humorously, in a way that just feels fake, plastic, and then he narrows his eyes ever so slightly and drops any attempt at mirth. "Bonnie, do you know what this place is?"

She sighs, even though she'd rather scream. Scream and scream and scream so loud that everyone and no one hears her. "You're Arcadius. The devil. So I'm in Hell right? I'm in Hell."

"Astutely deduced." The floor seems to slowly spread out beneath their feet. "Calling it Hell wasn't my idea, to be sure. It seems to feature quite prominently in the mythology of one of the more virulent monotheistic cults in the world of the living, so I sort of got stuck with the label." He shrugs. "The Devil. So . . . dramatic. When the reality is anything but. Bonnie, do you know why you're here?"

Tears well in her eyes. Her brain feels like it's about to explode from all of the thoughts rushing at once, and yet she also senses an emptiness at the center of them all, and it's growing. "I mean . . . I've done some things. Things I'm not proud of."

"Immoral things, you might say?" he prompts.

Bonnie nods meekly. This is all too much.

"Well, that's not how it works, thankfully. You're here because I want you here. In fact"—he raises his arms—"everyone here is here because I want them here." He sweeps his arms outward, and suddenly the "sky" is filled, filled with grids and grids of tiny cells, each one occupied by a single person, at once seeming to zoom in and blur into its surroundings as Bonnie looks, and all of them, all of them screaming in agony. She's never heard anything like it. This must be the sound of the end. Not thousands, but millions of voices all contorted in shrieks of pain, terror, pure suffering. She covers her ears with her hands but it does nothing. And then Cade suddenly lowers his arms and it all disappears, and the brutally empty silence left in the wake of the cacophonous discordance is somehow even more horrible.

Bonnie can only choke out bursts of half-formed words. "What was— all those people—"

"Do not lament their fates, Bonnie. No one is here who doesn't deserve to be." He waves a hand again, and suddenly there's a cowering mess of a person on the ground between them. Bonnie looks at it in horror.

"Stefan?"

He lifts his head to look at Bonnie first, then Cade immediately after, but that one glance is enough for her to tell.

"Silas?"

"Please, please you have to— please don't send me back, I'll do anything, anything I swear, please—"

Seeing one of the most cruel foes she's ever faced, the narcissistic sadist who killed her dad in cold blood, who killed Jeremy too and god knows how many others, reduced to such pitiful gibbering should be satisfying. But it isn't, at all. She just feels sick. How do I feel sick? I thought I was dead.

"The all-powerful, immortal Silas. A sad, sordid man who made a mockery of our gift."

Bonnie's starting to get it. She sets her scattered thoughts to work figuring out the rest. "He was a witch, then a psychic, then a witch again. And you're a psychic. The first."
"Psychic, witch, what does any of it really mean, anyway?" Cade chuckles, then with a flick of his wrist engulfs the still-slumped Silas in a ball of fire brighter and hotter than any Bonnie has ever seen. But that thought barely registers as she watches Stefan, no, Silas register the sensation of the flames just as they already begin to melt his flesh and sear the bone beneath.

The sound he makes is no more full of panic, torment, and despair as any of the god-knows-how-many others she just heard, but this time it's up close, and Bonnie can actually see what every single person who ended up here is going through. She cups her hands over her ears, closes her eyes, tries to focus on something, anything else, finally managing to shift her frenetic swirl of an internal monolog from figuring out why she's here to wondering who else might be here. Not Grams. She found peace. But what about—

The screaming suddenly stops. Bonnie slowly opens her ears and lowers her arms, scanning over the ever calm, smug, smirking Cade and the charred remains between them, which still somehow rage with full, orange flames. Or are they . . . green?

"Is he dead? Again?" The question just sort of slips out.

"Oh, no." Cade smirks even wider. "He's actually still screaming. Even louder than before. I've just spared you from having to listen to it. Quite pathetic, really."

"What do you mean he's still screaming?"

"Souls can't be destroyed, Bonnie Bennett. They can be moved, split, shattered, but never obliterated. I once in this very spot lied to someone you know all too well, telling him that it was possible for them to fade away once I'd consumed enough of their energy. 'Eternal damnation,' as it were, is a splendid bargaining chip—even if, quietly, it is also the table on which the chips are stacked. Rest assured: the fate of conscious beings in our world, whatever it may be, is an indelibly infinite one."

Bonnie shudders as a chill like nothing she's ever felt before rushes from her brain stem down her spine. Forever. It's unthinkable. Incomprehensible. Impossible.

"How do I know you aren't lying to me too?" She wishes she could be wittier, show him how much she hates him, how fucked up he is, but even her love for words and the ways she can string them together and hurl them cowers and crumples in the face of existential finality. She feels broken.

"You don't, I suppose. Yet. It doesn't really matter, because it is not your time."

Something like relief floods through her. "What?"

"Earlier, when I confirmed your guess that we are in Hell, I wasn't being entirely truthful. We are actually somewhere in between life and death. Previously, in what looked like your grandmother's house, we were just behind the veil. Now we're a bit farther, closer to my realm. If I brought you all the way in, you could never leave. So think of this as a waiting room. But still, once you've come this far, you can't return without bringing something back."

"Bringing something back?"

Cade wafts a hand and the sooty, pulverized ashes of Silas drift away into the darkness. "First, the truth." And suddenly everything is fire; no more air, sound, sight, anything but free-flowing, neverending conflagrations and a pinprick of pain somewhere deep inside Bonnie's mind that she can sense is starting to grow.

Then it's gone, just like that.

"Apologies for all the jarring reveals. I've acquired a bit of a flair for the dramatic in my old age." he chuckles softly at his own joke, while Bonnie is still trying to recover from not just what she just saw(?), but everything.

Cade continues: "You see, Hell isn't a place. It's a memory—my memory—of the moment I realized mankind was an immoral, irredeemable, selfish scourge on the world. And in that moment, that memory, I am burning alive. Have you ever been burned alive? The pain is inconceivable. So inconceivable, in fact, that they say most human brains kick into unconsciousness well before dying completely. That did not happen in my case. I continued burning, and screaming, feeling my skin melt off my body and just wishing for the mercy of death to end my suffering. But it never came. I just kept burning. And eventually, what once was agony waned to a dull ache, and then to barely anything at all, and I realized that just because I would always be burning didn't mean I would always have to endure it. Because soon other wretched souls were drawn into the infernal spiderweb my death stitched through a corner of the cosmic attic. Souls to which I could transfer my fate. Souls I could punish."

"So this isn't about right and wrong, or even some screwed-up illusion of it? You just torture whoever you think deserves it?"

His face twists in a sad, patronizing smile, the kind a smug adult would give a naïve child. It pisses her off. Like it or not, anger is the thing making her feel most alive at the moment.

"I don't expect you to understand just yet, of course. In fact I'm not sure either of us will ever fully understand. But that's just how these things tend to work." Cade turns, his back now to her. "Now, second, the matter of what you'll be carrying with you."

"Pockets all full. Sorry."

"Funny." He turns again, now holding (or levitating?) an incorporeal orb of warm light. It's so bright it seems like it should be searing Bonnie's retinas, but no, she can stare straight at it without flinching, stare all the way inside to—

"There will come a time, later on, when you will need to do something. You don't and won't know what it is, nor will you even remember this interaction. But when the time is right, this will give you the courage."

"So I don't have enough courage already?

"No one has enough courage to do this." And the way he says it chills her to the bone. Her stomach drops.

"To do what? What are you making me do?"

"I don't know."

The glint of true fear in his previously steeled eyes is the last thing she sees. What the fuck could possibly scare the literal dev—


July 28, 2015

She's never appreciated a single breath so much in her whole life.

And the next one is even better.

She's alive.

But . . . where?

Slowly, the mundane creature comforts of reality start to materialize in her peripheral senses: the sound of an excessively loud engine and tires tearing over asphalt, the slight, inexplicably alluring scent combo of gasoline and weed, the squeaky stretch of leather seat under her back. She knows exactly where she is.

"Damon?"

The noise of the tires transforms from a soft hum to a piercing screech as they pull over so fast Bonnie half expects to die all over again.

She blinks away the last of the bleariness from her eyes and sees a very familiar face looking at her with complete disbelief from the driver's seat. His eyes are bloodshot and swollen, and fairly recent tears have left still-visible trails down his face. She's never seen him cry like this.

"Bon?" The almost childlike tenderness in his voice is enough to break her heart wide open.

"I'm here. I'm alive."

Before she knows what's happening she's outside the car wrapped in a truly legendary bear hug. She chuckles and returns the embrace, but wiggles her suspended feet as a signal that she'd like to feel some actual soil beneath them. Damon doesn't notice.

"I thought you were dead. I— I saw you die." He finally puts her back down on the ground, still gazing at her with an expression of utter incredulity.

"And I did." She lets out a long exhale. "But I don't really want to talk about it right now, if that's okay."

"Hey, sure, whatever you need. Literally. I'll drive you to go get fuckin' ice cream if you want." He stops, just stares at her for a second, and then hugs her again. "Holy shit. I am so glad you're alive. Do you want a drink? I need a drink. Let's find a bar, and— oh shit, we have to start calling people, everyone still thinks—"

"Damon." The horrible sinking feeling that has been steadily growing since she woke up is now a black hole inside her. "Where's Nora?"

He halts mid-gesture and looks at her like a deer in headlights. When his brow wrinkles the way it only does when he's actually upset. And Bonnie feels the rosy ice of her heart start to crack.

"I'm so sorry, Bon."

She drops to her knees, and honestly doesn't remember much of what happened after that. She knows she crossed her arms over her stomach and grabbed her sides and sobbed, tried to sob so hard that the emptiness now weighing her down like a stone would leave, but it didn't, she knows that for sure too, because now it's now and she still feels it. But now they're both on the ground, Damon behind her with his arms around her in the grass, and it would actually be a beautiful day under other circumstances, because it's nearly August now and the weather seems to be taking a breather before the last of the crushing summer heat kicks in, and the late-evening sunlight is warming but not excessive, and the sky is a deep cerulean and full of birds, and Nora is gone.

Forever.

And it's like she's having to realize that over and over again because the full breadth of the truth is too much to bear at once so every time she's just seeing a new piece of it, and she breaks anew every single time. Eventually her mind splits in the way it often does in the face of so much sorrow, and the small fragment that can actually think tells her that there's no way she'll be able to process all of this now, and that she might as well keep moving forward, finding distractions, until she actually has the time and energy to truly grieve. If ever.

"Okay," she finally says, sitting up and drying her cheeks with her sleeves. "I'm done crying for the day."

"It's your resurrection day. You can cry if you want to."

"No, no, I need to think. My brain is so fucked up and right now I can't—" She sees another piece, and chokes back another bout of sobs. "No. Okay. How long was I dead?"

"A few hours."

Jesus. "And who all thinks I still am?"

Damon winces. "Everyone who was at the Armory. Stefan, Beau and Valerie. Blondie. She's a wreck. Stefan may have called Ric, I'm not sure. It's all a blur, to be honest."

Even though this isn't the first time she's returned to the land of the living after all her friends either knew or thought she was dead, nor even the second, it never gets any easier. She knows the pain they must be going through all too well. Knowing people are grieving you isn't as flattering as some might think. It feels wrong. Like you've violated something sacred. "What about Abby?"

"No one had her new number. And we figured we should wait a bit before, you know, taking your phone and shit."

Bonnie pats the side pocket of her pants and feels the familiar rectangle beneath the thick fabric. At least that's still there. "Thanks, I guess. Did you get Enzo out?"

Damon scowls. "We couldn't even get the Sword. Alex went AWOL and apparently took it with her, along with some other suspicious shit. The Armory's totally abandoned now, apart from all the holes we blew in it."

"So nothing went right." Bonnie intercepts the incoming stab of sadness and twists it into anger and frustration, "And she's— she's gone. She's gone."

Damon fidgets uncomfortably like he doesn't know what to say. Then: "But you aren't. And that's something to celebrate, even just for the day."

Suddenly Bonnie freezes. No. It couldn't be. But what if?— "Wait. Damon. Does this mean . . . ?"

He purses his lips and looks away. "Tyler was in Boston when we called. He's on his way to Brooklyn now. We didn't tell him what happened, just asked him to check on her. There's a Nokia in there with all our numbers saved, but no one's gotten anything yet. So I'm not optimistic."

"Kai said that any attempts to get around the spell would kill both of us. So if I'm still alive, there might be a chance. Can't we just have a shred of hope for a little longer?"

"Hope hurts, Bon. This has been one of the worst days of my life. I'm not really interested in making it even shittier by being a naïve schmuck. I already failed Enzo. And Nora. And—" He suddenly can't look her in the eye. "I need to tell you something."

Bonnie doesn't even know what to think. "Okay."

Damon pinches the bridge of his nose and then clasps his hands behind his head: nervous tics. Now she's nervous. "What is it, Damon? Don't worry about what I'm gonna think. Not really in a place to judge at the moment."

He finally meets her gaze and sighs deeply. "I left you. Right before you got shot I just walked away. I don't know why. I've been replaying it over and over in my head and it doesn't make any fucking sense. I was me the whole time until one random second when I suddenly thought it was a good idea to abandon you. And I did. And—" He's crying; real tears. The sight is almost surreal. "I don't know. I really don't know. It's fucked that I don't even have an explanation. It's fucked that if you hadn't come back, I would have lived the rest of my miserable life knowing it was my fault you were dead but never knowing why. Even now it's all I can fucking think about. I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

"Damon." Bonnie's crying a little too, but she's also smiling. "It's okay. Things happen. And what could you have done, anyway? Alex still would have killed Nora, I still would have dropped the protection spell, and I still would have gotten shot."

"Stop making excuses for me!" Damon almost screams it, his voice brittle with both exhaustion and exasperation. "I'm a shitty friend. Just like you reminded me this morning. Why even pretend like I'm something I'm not?"

"Being a shitty friend doesn't preclude you from being a good one."

He ignores this response, instead taking out his phone and tapping it a few times before holding it to his ear. "I'll call Stefan. You call Caroline."
"Damon, come on," Bonnie says, but he turns away from her and walks closer to the car. She sighs and takes out her own phone, dials the number she knows better than her own. The fourth ring is almost over when Caroline finally picks up, and before she even says a word Bonnie can already tell she's pissed.

"What the fuck, Damon? Is this your sick idea of a joke? I can't believe you would—"

"Care." The other girl stops talking. Bonnie continues. "I have good news."

The other end of the line is silent for a good five seconds. And then Bonnie can hear the trembling in her best friend's voice when she finally asks, "Is this real?"

"As real as it gets. I'm alive. Somehow."

Caroline makes a very Caroline noise and shakes the phone while she does it, and the effect is actually quite mesmerizing. "UGH I wish you were here so I could hug you for the next week. I've been— jesus I've been crying non-stop since—" Brief silence. "I don't want to talk about it. But how? How is this even possible? Not that I'm complaining!"

Bonnie laughs genuinely and it feels so good, as fleeting as it is. "Extremely long story that I'm not prepared to tell yet. Hey, you wanna get drunk tonight?"

Caroline clears her throat. "Bonnie, you're back, and that's obviously amazing and everything but . . . well, what exactly did Damon tell you?"

Bonnie smiles again, the faux, sad kind, and feels fresh tears spark like acid in her eyes. "I know she's dead, Care. But she wouldn't want us all to just mope around in mourning! She'd want a good old fashioned Irish wake. Let's do it." She hears the words come out of her mouth, but they don't even sound like things she would say. These ephemeral bursts of joy from all the post-posthumous reunions are a tissue-paper wall withstanding the weight of the torrent of grief she let a tiny fraction of just minutes ago. She can feel the wall giving, so she's getting desperate.

"Listen, Bonnie . . . " Caroline sighs. "I really don't think that's a good idea. Valerie and Beau are wrecked. Totally. Now they're holding out hope that she might get resurrected, like you did. But when—"

"Well maybe she will." The sobs she's holding back are like a sour lump in her throat. Nora isn't coming back. She can't explain why, but she just knows she's gone. There's a difference, however, between knowing something and acknowledging something. And her overloaded mind is fighting a losing battle on the border between. "And maybe we'll get Enzo out too, and we'll all be singing kumbaya before midnight."

More silence on the other end, then: "I am so sorry, Bonnie."

And just when the bigger dots finally start to connect, the tissue-paper wall start to tear, Bonnie sees Damon walking back toward the car with an expression on his face that she hasn't seen since the night she got back from the prison world. And she knows what he's going to say even before she says it, and she knows she needs to let herself be happy, in spite of everything, at least for a while.

"She's awake."


Selected excerpts from The Giant Jam Sandwich by Janet Burroway & John Vernon Lord

And the noisy, nasty nuisance grew

. . . .

Took a great big saw and sliced right through.

Everybody clapped, and they cut slice two.

. . . .

And then there was nothing to do but wait

. . . .

There were only three that got away,

And where they are now I cannot say.