Hi everyone! Another wild chapter trying a lot of different things at once, albeit not as lengthily. I hope neither my stylistic conceits (inspired by a novel I recently finished, Ignácio de Loyola Brandão's Zero) nor my devotion to giving Abby and Enzo the romance subplot they deserve are TOO intolerable. Most of the first chunk of this story is a lot of legwork to get Bonnie and Nora back together; I'm sure you're feeling their cuteness's absence, because I am too. And all I can say is... your patience will be rewarded. Handsomely.

Soundtrack:
ERAAS – "A Presence" from ERAAS
FET NAT – "Soft Purse" from Le Mal
Sweaty Palms – "Grey Existence" from Quit Now

Reminder: Search fic title on Spotify and/or Apple Music to find full playlist, or just DM me for the links :)


April 20, 2014

As Bonnie watches a single tear fall from Nora's right eye—one of two staring straight ahead at everything and nothing, her cheeks already bearing the trails left by previous drops as they slid down the skin—it suddenly occurs to her that this is probably the most helpless she's ever felt. She tries to distract herself by listening to what Vincent is saying, which she should have been doing anyway.

"...key is to combine the psychic forces of the compulsion and the spell, so that whatever resolves in the subconscious actually has the power to ripple outward."

"But how are we to compel her?" Valerie. "Vampires can't compel other vampires, no matter what spell you use, and according to you all the Originals are either dead or out of commission."

Vincent's solemn face softens into something that's almost a smile. "No Originals on call, that's for sure. But I can do you one better. And he's already on his way here, all the way from the Big Easy. Should be here any minute, actually. He's gonna help us out. Just, you know, try to stay on his good side."

From the floor above, Bonnie hears the doorbell ring.


HAVING JUST ARRIVED IN NORA'S SUBCONSCIOUS (SUPERNATURALLY)

Bonnie (shivers): Well, it's a lot colder than I expected.

Valerie (scared): I know where we are. This is the prison world.

Beau: Not actually the prison world, Val.

(he hugs her, then pulls his hands back so he can sign )

Just what Nora's subconscious literally manifests as.
Bonnie (to Valerie): Are you sure you're ready for this?

Valerie: No. Are you?

Bonnie: Not in the slightest.


THESE WALLS WEAR WHISPERS

Bonnie lights one of the lanterns she found in the shed outside. Bonnie listens to the creak of her steps on the old wooden floor of the original Salvatore house and tries to tell herself that there's nothing that could be hiding in the shadows, nothing she should be afraid of. Bonnie looks around, not really sure where to look to begin with, peering into the crannies and corners and closets. Bonnie tries to use her voice thrice before any sound actually comes out: a quiet, tentative "...Nora?" that receives no answer. Bonnie continues to call her girlfriend's name as she slowly, cautiously ascends the stairs, the creaks as her boots make contact with each high, narrow step even louder than the ones downstairs. Bonnie reaches the top and realizes she's not actually looking through her eyes, but about five feet offset and three feet up from her actual body, like an incorporeal spectator to her own body, and she screams and everything dissolves like pen ink in the rain.


WHERE IS SHE? WHEN IS SHE? WHO IS SHE?

For some reason she's on her hands and knees, on the concrete, rendered almost white by the noon sun bearing directly down on it, and when she makes a visor with her palm and tries to look around she can barely see anything, as if the light it is so bright it's dissolving even as it's illuminating, so it takes her a good minute or two to focus her vision enough to even make out a few prominent shapes: a statue, a clock tower, a modest storefront, all features that are somehow at once familiar and alien, pieces of something she had maybe possibly once known that has since been comprehensively excavated from the annals of her memory, this small town that looks as if it should be bearing throngs of happy people on its sidewalks and streets and squares, but there's no one, no one except her in this chillingly silent scene, even the noises of chirping crickets and tweeting birds swallowed and stifled, everything so quiet that she actually has time to think once she's identified some semblance of corporeality around her, time to think about where she is, when she is, who she is, because at this moment she realizes she doesn't know she is, and when she looks down at the hands she just used to climb to her feet they aren't there, there's isn't anything there, someone who never existed somehow convincing themselves they did, that at some point they were there, that there was a "they" and that there was a "there" to begin with, but what are these things anyway, a question unanswerable not only because there is no answer but also because she can't ask it in the first place, because with no mouth or hands there are no words, and so she stays, this nothing-become-something, until something changes again, if something changes again, if


April 20, 2016

To the right of the still-immobile Nora, the flinches and twitches of the three figures standing with their left hands on her arm begin to grow into shivers and trembles, and an already nervous Caroline finally breaks the pregnant silence. "What's happening? Is there something wrong with the spell?"

Vincent snaps out of his trance and looks at Bonnie, Valerie, and Beau with alarm. "I don't know. Something happened when I first cast it, and I was just tryin' to figure out what. The spell is supposed to provide a conduit for the subconscious to manifest as a literal physical scene, but whatever psychic force that had Nora in its clutches is complicatin' things. Now one or all of 'em is gonna have to do the actualizing of their own accord, or..."

"...or what?" the blonde vampire interrupts.

"To be honest, I don't know. I've never done this kinda magic, let alone encountered this type of hurdle. But I'm gonna try my best. Marcel?"

The Beast, the one and only Marcel Gerard, sitting in a chair directly across from Nora and staring into her eyes, emerges from a trance of his own. "Vincent."

"We're gonna try another approach. Compel her again, but this time don't use the diorama image, use... something with levels... a tower."

"Are you sure this is even going to work?" Marcel asks him in response, resting his elbows on his thighs and his chin on his interlaced fingers, and despite everything else happening, it's all Caroline can do not to sneak a peek at his arms. Considering the fact that, you know, one of his bites was a one-way ticket to certain death, she should just focus on not pissing him off. But she also has a substantial suspicion that to Marcel Gerard, no amount of attention is off-putting.

"I think there's a good chance." Vincent wipes his brow with his sleeve.

"You know I'm gonna need something in return. Favors like this don't come cheap. Not to mention how high airplane ticket prices are these days." Even someone who's only known him for a few minutes can pick up on Marcel's razor-sharp million-dollar smile, a dazzling flash of perfectly white teeth and a discreetly menacing eye twinkle that translates (roughly) to fuck around, find out.

But Vincent stares him down with equal force. "You know, Marcel, you're startin' to sound an awful lot like the guy you gambled everything to defeat."

"Careful, Vincent. Remember I'm only here out of the goodness of my heart and my respect for the truce. Don't make me regret it." He looks back at Nora. "You said a tower?"

Vincent nods. "Yeah. It's like I can feel 'em falling through the floors, approachin' somewhere they can actually get to Nora's subconscious ideal of herself, and things are about to get real weird for 'em in there, so now they need a map. So they don't get lost."

"And if they do get lost?" Caroline interjects.

Vincent looks at her gravely. "Then I might not be able to pull 'em back out."


IN A FAMILIAR ROOM, ON A FAMILIAR NIGHT

After the harrowing ontological ordeals Bonnie's just been through, suddenly finding herself in her and Nora's bedroom in their Greenwich Village apartment is barely a shock. But what is a shock, more so than the fact that she finally feels like herself, so to speak, is that she's looking at her own back, the other Bonnie facing away from her toward the glittering lights and stars beyond the glass of the window. And that she knows exactly what's about to happen, who's about to walk into the room through the bathroom door. Yet she still gasps, a sound she can hear but apparently not either of the figures on the dream-stage before her, the second of which is Nora just out of the shower, looking even more staggeringly beautiful than Bonnie remembered, this one glimpse of her as her normal self filling in the blanks and technicolor-boosting all of Bonnie's once-faded memories. And as past-Bonnie and past-Nora start to speak, Bonnie can't help but mouth along to the words she's replayed in her head hundreds of times.

"What's gonna happen to us?"

"What do you mean?"

"In a century, or less. Probably less. When I get old and death is an inevitability. Witches can extend their lifespan a good amount. But I'm still mortal. My face and body will change while yours will stay exactly the same. What kind of life is that?"

Bonnie isn't sure if she actually has a physical body right now, but if she does, there are fresh tears on her cheeks.

"One I am perfectly okay with living, because it means I'll get to be with you. We've talked about this before and you were okay with it. Has something changed?"

"No, I just— I am okay with it. I think. But should I be? Up until a few years ago I always thought I would— always wanted to put down roots with someone, live a beautifully boring and unremarkable life with them, grow old together, die together. But what does it mean when the person you want to be with forever is on a completely different plane of 'forever'?"

Like she's watching a heartbreaking episode of TV she's seen too many times already, Bonnie wills with all her might for something else to happen, for some other words to come out of Nora's mouth. But this has already happened. These words have already been uttered.

"I don't know."

Until now, Bonnie has been a solitary spectator to this deeply intimate conversation, but all of a sudden she gets an overwhelming sense of someone standing next to her, and when she turns she sees Nora, an iteration with none of the calm or cleanliness as the one in the scene in front of them, soaked in dark venous blood from head to toe, fangs bared and eyes flashing hell-red. "You shouldn't have come," beast-Nora growls, and then Bonnie is falling again.


April 20, 2016

"This is pointless. We've been cruising around for hours and have seen exactly zero threats to the safety of the utterly oblivious citizenry. No Mary Louise, no Rayna, no unspeakable Lovecraftian psychic monster, nothing. We could be back at my house right now, making sure that the closest thing the world has to a vamp-god doesn't get pissed off and chomp any of our friends."

Abby rolls her eyes. "Oh yeah, because having you there would dramatically lower the chances of someone getting annoyed."

Damon scowls at her. "And yet we left Blondie to talk his damn ear off."

"You heard what Bonnie said. Vincent needs us out of the house so there won't be any interference with the spell."

"Assuming it even works. Psychic subconscious dive? Sounds like some Freudian bullshit to me." Damon pulls the Camaro into the Grill parking lot. "How about a little break for Happy Hour?"

Abby sighs and looks at Enzo in the back seat, who's still in the same position as he has been the entire ride: one leg crossed over the other, temple leaning against the window, eyes glazed and unfocused. "I don't know if that's such a good idea," she finally replies.

"Oh come on, a little midday pick-me-up is exactly what Enzo needs. Right, buddy?" Damon tries to make eye contact with him in the mirror, to no avail.

Abby purses her lips, deep in thought. A stiff drink and maybe a cup of coffee does sound really good. And they truly haven't seen anything amiss the whole day."We'll get back on patrol right after?"

Damon crosses his heart. "...and hope to die. I'm always an improviser, but every time I've straight up refused to do something Bonnie Bennett told me, I've regretted it."

"You mean like when you force-fed me your blood and then snapped my neck to save Elena?"

For a second his facial expression is bruised, hurt, but it's barely around long enough to tell before the smirk is back. "Well see, the thing there is that Bonnie did not explicitly say, 'Hey Damon, don't turn my mom into a vampire.' If she had, I would've known better." The shoulders shrug, the smirk grows.

"Wow, you truly are the worst," Abby says as they finally open the doors and step out onto the sun-baked asphalt.

"It's what makes me so fun to drink with." Damon pauses with his hand on the handle of the Grill's front door. "You two coming, or what?"

Abby hasn't moved too far from the car, and Enzo hasn't moved at all, his head still slumped against the glass of the window. She looks back at Damon. "Go ahead. We'll be right behind you."

He opens his mouth like he's about to say something back, but then closes it again and just shrugs before opening the door and stepping inside.

Abby turns back to look at Enzo, then quickly walks around the back of the car, opens the door, and slides into the passenger's side of the backseat, hers and Enzo's legs just barely brushing against each other as she settles in.

"Enzo," she says aloud after a good thirty seconds of silence.

"Yes, darling?" The response is snappy, engaged, not at all the words of someone who's been completely checked out for the last few hours.

"Is there anything I can do? I really feel helpless over here. And that's not your problem, or anything, just... if there is anything... I'm someone you can trust with it."

He finally moves, just a simple shift so that his shoulder is still leaning against the leather paneling of the door but his face is angled toward her, his dark eyes boring into her own. "I've asked you many a time before, and I'll ask you again. Why are you so hellbent on saving my soul?"

"That would imply you actually have a soul to save."

"I'm serious, Abby." Enzo straightens up so that he's actually sitting normally, his spiky hair almost but not quite touching the convertible roof. "What am I missing here?"

She sighs. "What can I say, other than the exact same thing I say every time you ask? Because I care. I give a shit about you. I've told you why, but you don't believe me. You can't. And yesterday you told me why you can't. Because you don't even like yourself. So how could anyone else?"

He doesn't say anything, just continues looking at her with even more quiet intensity than usual.

"That's about as far as I can get you," Abby continues. "I'm not a shrink. But I think you should consider seeing one. You can compel them not to flip out over the supernatural stuff, preferably not tear their head off, and just talk to them. You can talk to me, too. But I'm not qualified for the kind of work you need to do."

Another stretch of silence. And then, after a long exhale, Enzo finally answers: "Do you really think that could help? Can vampires even benefit from therapy? Have you known any who have?"

"Well, uh..." Abby messes with the collar of her shirt. "For one, me."

"You've been to therapy?" Now he seems to be paying twice as much attention as before. "What did— do you mind telling me what it was like? I'm... skeptical, to say the least."

"It was humbling, to say the least. And—" Abby's phone suddenly buzzes, the screen showing an incoming call from Damon. "Uh, hold on." She picks up. "Hey, we'll be in soon. We're—"

"No, you might have had the right idea." Damon sounds out of breath, and Abby can hear something crash somewhere near him. "We may have a problem."

And then one of the patio-facing windows shatters as Damon is violently thrown through it, his landing on the concrete a comically unceremonious one. He's followed outside by Mary Louise, who steps not through the gutted windowpane but haughtily through the front door, which she slams shut behind her.

"Are you aware just how sick I am of this stupid little town?"


Watching Bonnie's face while her psychic projection of herself does its thing in Nora's head is one of the most stressful experiences Caroline can imagine, so when she gets the call from Abby and is forced to devote her attention to something else for a change, it's almost a relief.

Almost.

"She what?"

Both Vincent and Marcel turn to look at her. She waits for Abby to hang up and then relays the information, talking so quickly it's a wonder all her words don't trip over each other.

"Boy, you guys really can't catch a break up here, huh?" Marcel's eyes shift from Caroline to Vincent. "I'm not familiar."

Vincent ignores him, speaks directly to Caroline. "Do you need to go over there?"

"I—" She looks at Beau and Valerie, who have been standing perfectly still for the last ten or so minutes (she isn't sure whether that's a good or a bad sign), and then again at Bonnie, brow furrowed and eyes squeezed tightly in what's clearly some sort of distress, but then she thinks about all the people at the Grill who need to be evacuated and healed and compelled... "Yeah, I think I should."

Vincent smiles knowingly. "Then go. We'll be fine here. I'll make sure nothin' happens to them, I promise."

"And I trust you." Before she zips out of the room, Caroline stands right next to Bonnie and gives her a supportive kiss on the head. "You've got this. You'll get her."


SINCE WHEN IS THIS MY DREAM?

The feel of the crimson athletic polyester is so familiar, so reminiscent of home that Bonnie doesn't even register what she's wearing at first, not until she sees the rest of the 2009 MFHS cheer squad doing their warmups on the sidelines of the football field, the fluorescent white stadium fluorescents humming overhead, the band playing and the two teams huddled together on opposite ends like an episode of Friday Night Lights. She tugs at her shoulder straps and tries to figure out what to do with her pompoms as the unsettling sensation of becoming aware that one is dreaming floods through her, but if this is a dream it's not one from which she can choose to wake, nor one she can control. Apparently all she can do is hope it isn't a nightmare.

"Ladies and gentlemen," booms an unfamiliar voice over the announcer speakers—a woman's, with an accent Bonnie can't even begin to place, as if she knows how to speak every language and happens to be the slightest bit rusty on English—as all of the activity on the field slows to a standstill. "We have some truly one-of-a-kind entertainment for you tonight. A face-off of epic proportions, a rivalry to rival the most reviled of rivalries, a showdown of sweat and spirit and soul. Let's introduce our celebrated competitors, shall we?"

There's something... off about the way the crowd cheers and applauds in response to the mystery commentator's words, disturbingly fervent and intense, manic even, as if each and every attendee were held at gunpoint and forced to be an overjoyed, mindless fanatic.

"One one end, we have the red-blooded underdogs, the true salt of the earth, perpetually having the short end of the stick shoved up where it most certainly doesn't belong, my friends, I give you... HUMANKIND!"

The pit in Bonnie's stomach grows even larger as both football teams cheer even more loudly and savagely than the crowd of hundreds of people, their teeth gnashing mouthguards and spittle as they jump around and shove into each other all over the field. They all freeze, however, when the speakers blare the next announcement: "And on the other end, the devil you all well know, the thing that goes 'bump' in the night, the primordial parasite... the one, the only... VAMPIRE!"

Bonnie knows who it is well before she can bring herself to actually look, and by that time Nora has already slaughtered roughly a third of the players, the rest screaming in terror and frantically sprinting to escape the field, which now seems to be encased in an invisible dome like a giant observation tank, and they beat their hands bloody trying to break out, all while the packed bleachers roar a strained, synthetic din, and all Bonnie wants is for it to stop, to make it stop, but she can't move, not even when Nora finishes off the last of her prey on the field and turns her ripper-hazed eyes toward her, not even when the crowd cuts out like someone accidentally yanked an audio cable out and then Nora is suddenly right next to her, salivating, fangs bared, the light in her red-poisoned green irises extinguished completely, and Bonnie squeezes her own eyes shut and braces for the thing she's always known might happen but refused to acknowledge as a possibility, the same twin spears of agony she'd felt first when Damon attacked her after Emily destroyed the tomb crystal, and then when dark-Alaric fed on her to complete the transition, and who knows how many times since, but never Nora, never, never.

But the pain doesn't come. In fact, before Bonnie opens her eyes again, she could be floating in an endless void; the once clamorous field now impossibly silent, the physical matter near her stripped of its very aura. Nora's there when the light floods back in, though, drenched in blood yet again, so much of it that it mats her hair and drips from the ends like gobs off a melting wax figure, the only area of her body not completely covered the skin of her cheeks, which have been rinsed a bit by the tears still flowing freely, as Nora sobs and sobs and sobs. She's saying words too, what sounds like gibberish at first, but when Bonnie focuses on it enough meaning begins to materialize.

"I'm sorry— I— you have to— we can— there's a— it's— it's—it's her, it's her." Nora points to the announcer's box atop the home side of the stands, on the roof of which now sits a woman Bonnie's never seen before but still somehow recognizes via a wash of dread and horrific comprehension. "We need— get— need to— get her out."

"Good luck with that," the mystery woman calls, her voice echoing throughout the vacant shell of the place that had once been a not-insignificant part of Bonnie's life. "I have to admit, I'm one of those 'guests from hell,' or what have you... if I don't want to leave, I'm not going to leave." She rises to her feet on the roof, stretches, yawns. "But you can try."

Bonnie's mind has processed so many things in the past who-knows-how-many who-knows-whats that it's adopted the often successful survival tactic of only being able to comprehend one thing at a time, and so despite the horror of what she's just witnessed, the traumatic ordeal of Nora almost draining her, the everything else, what it's comprehending at this moment is that she wants to knock this smug bitch off the damn roof.

Though the woman disappears before the fireball reaches her, the uttering of the familiar words, the energy of the flames flowing from Bonnie's very being imbues her with the drive she needs. Magic works. Magic is real. She is real. And she's here to wake Nora up, which apparently now means exterminating a gorgeous, extremely well-dressed psychic parasite, who also happens to now be standing right next to them.

"You know, I must apologize. Just because I'm a nightmare guest doesn't mean my basic manners have to go out the window." She holds out her immaculately manicured hand, which Bonnie swears, just for a second, turns into a huge scaly claw. "I'm Sybil. I've been keeping Nora busy since, well, you know. We've had so much fun! Soul-searching, secret-sharing, shopping—"

"Shut up!" Bonnie growls, and splays her palm while channeling all her power into popping every blood vessel in Sybil's brain she can find. Which seems to work, for a second or two, before the infuriating smirk returns, just like when she tried it on Katherine so long ago.

"Cute," Sybil purrs, "but you'll find your limp little magic tricks won't have much effect on me. All that nonsense is just a... persistent misinterpretation of our true gift." She looks up at the sky. "If you want to take me on, you'll have to relearn everything you thought you knew."

"I'm already doing it," Bonnie shoots back through gritted teeth, and then, with every bit of strength she has left, she slams her eyelids shut and wills Sybil out, not a spell, no words, just thinks, knows it to be true that the invader will be gone when she opens them again.

And she is.


April 20, 2016

In between exchanges of kicks and punches and (mostly) getting their asses kicked by Mary Louise's telekinesis, Damon and Enzo do their best to draw Mary Louise into the alley next to the Grill, away from prying eyes, while Abby scrambles around inside, trying to keep everyone calm while she does a headcount and then tells everyone to stick together and stay put, that help is on the way, grateful she thought to ask Bonnie to extend the safety distance of Enzo's spell-tether. She pulls aside a tall silver-haired woman who radiates authority and compels her to watch things while she's gone and then rushes to the storeroom side door, puts her ear to it, listens. Nothing. She opens it a crack, peeks around as much as she can. Still nothing. But as soon as Abby sets foot on the old concrete she realizes her mistake; Damon's unconscious or temporarily dead body is sprawled at the bottom of the stairs, and she barely processes the sight before she hears a loud rushing of air and then utters a choked scream as Mary Louise's fingers stab through the flesh and muscle of her back and close around her heart.

But with another rush of air, the grasping claw falls free without protest, and when Abby feels the wound fully heal she opens her eyes and turns around: Enzo, his face showing the most emotion she's seen it bare since she first saw him, holding the top end of one of the Grill patio's outdoor umbrellas, the bottom end fully impaling Mary Louise's torso, and was apparently well-aimed, because the blonde heretic's face has gone mottled and stone-grey.

"Thanks," Abby finally says, the word making her sound like she's out of breath, even though she didn't even realize she was.

"No problem, love," he half-whispers back, and they just stare at each other, gaze-locked, and is she imagining things or did he just take a small step forward—

"Well. Looks like I missed all the action." Damon slowly sits up, rubbing his neck, then grins mischievously when his eyes flit from Mary Louise's corpse to how close Abby and Enzo are to each other. "Or maybe not..."

"Oh, shut up." Abby scowls and goes to open the side door. "Damon, can you take care of the body? I have to go check on our witnesses."

He nods, winks. "Not sure when I became the town guerrilla mortician, but at least I look good doing it." To Enzo: "Thanks for the save, brother."

"Don't mention it," Enzo replies, and Abby can feel the anger soaked into the words.

By the time they get back to the Grill dining room, Caroline's there, directing a perfect orderly line toward her and sending the compelled patrons on their way.

"How the hell did you get here so fast?" Abby asks her.

"Oh, you know I have my ways."

Their phones both ring almost simultaneously (well, Caroline's rings, Abby's buzzes).

"Good news, I hope?"

Enzo's voice coming from behind Abby startles her a bit. "When is it ever good news?"


THIS IS THE MOMENT

This is the moment. This is everything. This is nothing. This is air and water without land. This is land without air and water. This is a dream. This is real. This is Central Park. This is a day both of them know at their very cores the way one knows their first kiss or communion or kill. This is the sun shining down, not too hot, not too bright, just right. This is Bonnie Bennett, two Bonnie Bennetts at once, one here, one there; one then, one now. This is Nora Hildegard, two Nora Hildegards at once, one there, one here; one now, one then. This is their favorite boulder-perch. This is the wind saying what needs to be said. This is Bonnie saying what needs to be done. This is Nora, Nora's Nora, hearing the exact right thing(s) at the exact right time(s). This is Bonnie reminding them both, all four of them, that this isn't real, this is real, that Sybil is gone now, that Valerie and Beau are here too and that Nora has all the power to summon them, to save them. This is Bonnie telling Nora what she is worth, what she means. This is Nora finally, finally, beginning to believe her.

This is the moment.

This is everything.

This is