All I can say is that I vastly underestimated how much sway Bonnie and Nora have over my emotional state. Writing this chapter made me fall in love with them all over again. I hope it does the same for you.
Two things. First, pay attention to the chapter titles. Second, a thousand thanks to whoever types up the transcripts for the episodes on the wiki; I am eternally grateful to you. Third, I love you all.
Soundtrack:
Jackie-O Motherfucker – "Your Cells Are in Motion" from Fig. 5
It Hugs Back - "Saving" from The Record Room
Nadal El Shady – "Barzakh" from Ahwar
April 20–21, 2016
The night after Nora has finally been returned to where she belongs, both physically and metaphysically, the night after one of the most disturbing and exhausting experiences Bonnie has ever lived through (or thought through?), the night that she should be spending in bed tangled with her miraculously resurrected love, but that she is instead whiling away on one of the Salvatore living room couches, Bonnie finally falls asleep, and when she does, she dreams.
At first it's a phantasmagoric, nonsensical kaleidoscope of everything all at once, her now-unconscious mind doing its best to sort through and file away a lifetime's worth of stimuli just from this one day, flashes of half-remembered smiles and whispers and the sun on a shoulder and shadows spreading and two steaming cups of coffee and a host of sneering faces and a scared little ewe crying out to its missing mother as night begins to fall. But soon the concrete details fall away, all the smells and sights and sounds and sensations she stored in her brain bank whether knowingly or not slipping into darkness, and suddenly the swirl of color and chaos is distilled to sinister simplicity: two black rectangles against a somehow even blacker backdrop, both vibrating with impossible weight as they slowly drift toward each other, meeting at the exact midpoint and leaving only a single shape, and then that single shape once again becomes two, and then two become one, one becomes two, two become one, one becomes—
At some point, Bonnie becomes aware of herself in the dream, acutely certain that what's happening isn't real and that she can just wake up at any moment. But then she tries, and she can't. She can't wake up. And then she realizes she's not really there the way she thought she was, she isn'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
there's some lesson to this dream and once she learns it she can return to her body, but there is no sense to this hauntingly minimal loop occurring before her, even as it wordlessly purports to be sense itself, and she watches, waits for what's at once a blink of an eye and several eternities stacked upon each other, until
She has a body again, hands again, one of which is holding a wide brush and the other a palette filled solely with black paint, before her a blank canvas and to her right what appears to be a floor-to-ceiling mirror, because she can see herself holding the brush and the palette, stares into her own eyes and watches her movements being faithfully copied, until something imperceptible happens, and now whatever that is in the mirror is not her. It smiles and then starts on its own canvas, slathering paint on its brush and slicing it across the expanse of white in great swathes, the coat so thick each stripe drips down in countless thin, snaking tendrils. The mirror-Bonnie's motions are erratic but determined, executed at a high speed that seems to imply time is a concern, and at the same moment original-Bonnie knows that her shadow-self's objective is to cover the entire canvas and that this is a race of some sort. Even back in the haze of her subconscious she's reluctant to participate in whatever twisted game this is, but she finds she can't stop herself from tentatively running the bristles of her brush through the tar pit of acrylic held in her other hand and half-swiping, half-splattering it against the blank stretcher, but the action is surprisingly cathartic, and so she repeats it, her pace picking up with each drag back through the paint, and before long she catches up to mirror-Bonnie, both of them moving on to the next canvas at about the same time. Next canvas? Original-Bonnie doesn't have time to ask questions. She needs to win. And she does, or so she thinks, because after the second canvas is simply a wall the same shade of total black as the paint, but when she looks to her right again mirror-Bonnie is working its brush with unchanged urgency, and it fills original-Bonnie with indescribable dread as she robotically does the same, until none of her movements are her own anymore: she is the mirror image, a puppet toiling away forever at a bleakly futile task.
It's a long night, and Bonnie probably has many more dreams, many more nightmares than what she actually remembers when she wakes up, but the one that sticks the most is neither dream nor a nightmare. A vision, maybe. And in the vision there's a pool of water, a pond with a dappled, reflective surface that refracts the sunlight beaming down into a magnificent rainbowed aura, like the polychromatic sheen on an oil puddle but cleaner, brighter, teeming with life even though the unknown depths are crystal clear. But now something is happening, something that never seemed to start but will certainly end, a telescoping shroud of shadow closing in on the pool from all sides, the plants and trees and all other organisms surrounding the oasis shrivel and crumble to dust. The death wave is inches away from consuming the edges and everything within them—now the pool more resembles a stagnant reservoir than a crystal lagoon, like it's been sitting there rotting for thousands and thousands of years—when two enormous hands reach into the pool, cupping its contents in their palms, and then the owner of the hands blows a soft but steady breath across the surface, the gentle force sending every infinitesimal droplet in the larger body on its own trajectory as a magical steam rises and spreads, soaking into everything, into all, revitalizing and reinvigorating both water and watered. And the world smiles.
After she wakes up, Bonnie will remember she's had the vision before, on countless occasions. Details vary, but one thing is always consistent.
In the vision, she isn't the plants, or the water. Nor is she the hands or the one to whom they belong.
She is all of it at once.
April 20, 2016
But before Bonnie wakes up, before she dreams, before she even falls asleep to have said dreams, her consciousness is thrown unceremoniously back into her body, still standing on the dirty stone floor of the Salvatore basement cell, and she immediately feels the strain of the time on her trembling, aching legs. To her right and left, Valerie and Beau seem to be undergoing similarly rough landings, but all three of them realize the same thing at the same time, and they turn to look at Nora, still sitting in the chair, now fully conscious, her eyes as wide as twin full moons, the images distorted by the tears starting to collect in drops and then streams.
"Oh, shit," Bonnie hears Vincent say quietly from the other side of Nora, but she's too preoccupied to debrief with him right now, because here in front of her is the impossible, in the flesh, rocky and imperfect in the way only true reality could be, because she knows they'll have a long way to go, a lot to work on and work out before things can even come close to being like they were before this whole nightmare happened, but they can work it out, because Nora is here, Nora is alive.
And when their eyes finally meet and Bonnie sees what she thought she would never see again, there's nothing in this world or any other that can take this moment away from her.
"Bonnie, I'm... I'm so sorry—"
Bonnie wraps her arms around her, feels Nora's head nestle against her neck the exact way it always did, the tears wetting the shoulder of her shirt as her hands trace soothing circles on Nora's back. "It's okay. It's okay. You're with me, you're safe now, we'll figure it out."
Nora pulls away slightly to look at her brother and sister standing above her, smiling, bearing their own tears. "My— my family..."
Both of them join in the huge, all four crying and laughing and sighing with relief all at once, the reunion nestled in peaceful silence until Marcel loudly clears his throat.
"Well, all, I'm happy for you and everything, but it seems my work here is done, and I need to be back in NOLA by"—he checks his watch—"two hours ago." He looks down at all of them, then offers a confident hand to Nora, who cautiously takes it. "Nora, I'm Marcel. Lovely to meet you. And if you ever need a little extra help coming to terms with everything, give me a call. Compulsion can be a powerful tool."
"Okay Miss Margolis," Vincent finally says, "your kingdom awaits."
Marcel, though still smiling, stares him down, and Bonnie imagines even Nora can pick up on the animosity here. His eyes remain trained on Vincent as he says aloud, "If any of you ever find yourselves in the Quarter, let's get a drink and a bite. And I'm sure Vincent would let you crash on his couch."
"Never took you for a comedian. Why you gotta leave all of a sudden anyway? Gotta go film your Netflix special?"
Marcel laughs, but too loudly and boisterously for it to be genuine; it comes across as more of a threat. "Oh, Vincent. You know how it is. I take care of my people, you take care of yours. And we give each other a hand sometimes. Which is what I just did. So first of all, you owe me, and second of all, I don't owe you a doctor's note."
Vincent grits his teeth. "Fine. But this Hell stuff affects all of us, man. I ain't just askin' for your help, I'm tellin' you that it's in your and your people's best interest. I doubt the end of the world is a fan favorite. And it would be great to know we can count on probably the most powerful being in the world right now if it comes down to the wire, because Marcel Gerard, for whatever it's worth, you can count on me." Now he offers his own hand, which, eventually, Marcel accepts.
"I'll talk it over with my number twos. And keep me updated with anything new you learn."
"You got it." Vincent claps him on the back, and the tension seems to thaw a great deal.
"Alright. Well, good luck everyone. You know where to find me." Bonnie blinks, and by the time her eyelids open again Marcel is gone.
"Well then." Vincent clears his throat, sticks his hands in his pockets. "Sorry about all that." He finally looks at Nora, and then he smiles, wide. "Welcome back, kid."
This sends the brunette into a whole new round of sobs, and Bonnie squeezes her tighter, not wanting to ever let her go again.
"I can't believe you're all here," Nora manages from beneath the muffle of tears and multiple embraces. "Thank you."
"This is where we belong," Bonnie replies. "This is where you belong."
"But I've done so many things... so many awful things..."
Bonnie shakes her head. "It wasn't your fault. It was her. The woman that was controlling you."
"The what?" Vincent cuts in.
"Oh," Bonnie says, suddenly remembering he wasn't along for the Willy Wonka boat ride of an ordeal she just went through. "Right. In Nora's head there was this woman. Well, more like a thing that looked like a woman. And I uh, sort of, um, expelled her."
Nora's voice is so quiet that if anyone else were talking they'd miss it. But the cell is silent, and so they all hear her whisper, "Sybil."
Vincent rubs the back of his head, seemingly unsure of what to do with his hands in light of this information. "Alright, uh... we— no, you know what? It can wait, because you need to rest. Recuperate. But once you do, I got a lot of questions."
Nora nods. "Everything's all jumbled now anyway. I'm not sure I'd be of any help." She looks at Bonnie, then at the floor. "I think I should just stay in here for now."
Valerie and Bonnie both say, "What? Why?" in near-perfect unison.
Nora offers a half-smile, but she looks exhausted. Beyond exhausted. "To detox. I don't trust myself right now. I don't want to hurt any more people than I already have. Kill any more people."
"But you're standing right next to both me and Vincent, pumping blood and all." Bonnie steps even closer to her, underscoring her point. "Your instinct is not to hurt anyone. She took that from you. But you're you again."
"I want to believe you, I really do." Nora runs a hand through her hair, which despite everything is just as flawless as always. "But it's not just that I don't trust my instincts. I don't trust any of my thoughts. Everything's so— messy. Nothing in its right place."
"Then we can at least have you in a room upstairs right? No need for you to contract diphtheria down here."
"And we'll lock you in, if you insist," Valerie adds.
"Don't sound too excited," Beau signs, and Bonnie and Nora both laugh together for the first time again, and another of many jigsaw pieces finds its way back home.
"Here, come on, let's get you set up." Valerie takes Nora's arm and starts to lead her out of the cell. "Plus, oh my lord do you need a shower."
Beau follows them, leaving only Bonnie and Vincent in the dimly lit room. She smiles at him. "Thank you. So much. For everything."
He smiles back. "Of course. But you know we ain't done yet."
"Yeah. But small victories, right? And it's just, I know you have a lot of responsibilities back home, being head witch honcho and all. It means a lot that you went so out of your way to help."
"Like I said to Marcel, this affects all of us. No time for anyone to bury their head in the sand." He looks at his watch and frowns. "Alright, I know I was just giving him shit for heading out, but I'll be honest, I really gotta get back too. Been gone too long. Bein' Regent has given a whole new meaning to the phrase 'a watched pot never boils.' Although, if I've learned anything, it's probably more something like 'the pot'll probably still boil if you're watchin' it, but at least you'll be there to clean up the mess.' "
Bonnie laughs, then pulls him into a hug. "I'm surprised you've tolerated Mystic Falls for this long anyway."
"Not gonna lie, it's refreshing," Vincent chuckles back. "Y'all really think you have a vampire problem. It's cute." He steps back. "You'll be good getting the info from Nora?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Okay. Well if you aren't, don't push yourself. But I do have some questions of my own that I'll text to you. I really thought I had this whole thing figured out. But surprise surprise, I was wrong." He looks off into the distance. "Sybil... why is that name familiar..."
"We'll figure it out." Bonnie's gotten really good at empty assurances. "How many times has the world threatened to end before? We always save it."
"I wish I shared your optimism." He looks at his watch again. "Okay I really gotta go. Flight leaves in like an hour."
"Be safe. We'll talk soon."
After he leaves Bonnie is finally completely alone, and she just takes a brief moment to appreciate the stillness and silence after the whirlwind of noise she was dumped out the other side of. But then she remembers that somewhere upstairs is her other half, here again, and she grins to herself, uncontrollably wide, and keeps grinning as she tiptoes up the stairs, past everyone hanging out in the kitchen, and then up into the boarding wing of the mansion, where she follows the barely audible sound of a whistle-rendition of "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)," Nora's favorite music hall tune to one of the many identical dark-wood doors. She takes a deep breath and then undoes Valerie's locking spell with a quick murmur, which causes the door to swing slowly open, creaking, and Bonnie hears the whistling stop, knows Nora is aware that she, or at least someone, has entered. But the heretic doesn't protest, at least not until Bonnie walks into the bathroom, sheds her dusty clothes, and steps into the steaming shower, her hands cupping Nora's face as the wide jet cleanses them both, the drops from both the nozzle and their eyes mixing together in a shimmering glitter of warbling stars.
"You shouldn't be here," Nora whispers, her breath heavy, the words so quiet it could have just been the rush of the water.
"This is exactly where I should be," Bonnie whispers back, and then kisses her, their bodies tightly entwined as they drink each other in, lips moving beyond lips to rediscover every square inch of skin, and then Nora has her up against the wall and she's moaning her name over and over, savoring the beautiful sound of it in her mouth, and they've probably wasted a hell of a lot of water by the time they finally towel off and collapse onto the bed, fully spent in more ways than one.
"Well," Bonnie finally sighs, after a solid minute of silent side-by-side staring at the ceiling.
"Well," Nora answers, and then they both roll onto their sides, Bonnie onto her left and Nora onto her right just like always.
"Guess we still got it," the witch says with a smirk, reaching her hand over to Nora's hair and threading her fingers through the chestnut locks, still damp and impossibly silky from the expensive French conditioner that is somehow present in every single one of the guest bathrooms.
"We'll always have it." Nora giggles and presses her forehead to Bonnie's. "Bloody hell. I still can't believe this is real."
Bonnie kisses her once, twice, thrice. "Me neither," she breathes, and then runs her hand from her lover's head down her neck and shoulder and torso, stopping at her waist and pulling it even closer. "But you definitely feel real."
Nora's eyes lose a little bit of their warmth, and she clears her throat. "About that. I wanted to ask. Um. Not really sure how to phrase it. But how 'real' do I feel?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, at the risk of ruining a perfect moment with the crest of the tsunami of things we have to talk about, I imagine you saw what happened to my original body, right?"
Bonnie freezes, the horrible memories drenching her just like said tsunami. "Yes," she manages.
"Well. Sybil somehow made me a new one, when she brought me back to life. It looks normal, feels normal. But I didn't even know something like this was possible, even with magic."
Nora's looking at Bonnie almost as if she expects her to be repulsed, or at least unsettled, by this revelation, but amidst all the unspeakably horrific things she's dealt with not even just the past year, but her whole life, this barely even registers. "I didn't either. But I mean, this is you. Not an ounce of doubt in my mind. Don't you feel the pull?"
Nora nods, then lets out a little gasp as Bonnie's hand drops lower, brushing the spot just above her left hip that always makes her tremble.
"And I still know every little piece," Bonnie purrs, "as if you never left."
Both of their pupils are dilated and deadlocked as Bonnie's fingers descend farther still when they both hear the front door slam shut from the front of the house and Damon's voice ring out with disproportionate reach: "Bonnie! Bonnie's zombie heretic bride! Grace us with your presence!"
Nora laughs and Bonnie rolls her eyes, then rolls off the bed. "Hold on, I'll go get us some clothes. I know I have some extras here, and Elena's stuff would probably fit you."
"Thanks. Nothing tacky though, mind." Nora props her head up with her arm. "It's not every day that one gets second chances at first impressions."
Bonnie rolls her eyes again, this time while grinning, and wraps a towel around herself. Then as she's leaning out the door, still looking at Nora, she nods toward the source of the obnoxious greeting and says, "He would never admit it to you, of course, but you have no idea how much he missed you."
Downstairs, after another round of tearful reunions and bear-strength embraces, Damon, Abby, and Enzo all start to look less giddy, until Damon finally blurts out, "So, we have some bad news. Well, if you're asking me it's not bad news, but it's news, at least." He looks at Nora and purses his lips. "Mary Louise is dead."
Bonnie's head immediately snaps toward Nora, whose expression is unreadable.
"How did it happen?" asks Valerie, whose face broadcasts similar emotional uncertainty.
Enzo steps forward a bit. "She attacked Damon at the Grill, right in front of a whole lunch rush's worth of patrons. We lured her outside but then she went for Abby's heart, and I staked her." He's silent for a second or two, then adds, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Nora mutters. "She devoted so much time to vindictivity, it was bound to catch up with her at some point."
"Do you have her body?" Beau signs.
"In the trunk," Damon replies, jerking his head back in the direction of the door. "I can help bury her. Whatever you guys want to do."
"Thank you." Valerie takes the keys he offers and follows Beau outside.
Bonnie leans over and rubs Nora's shoulder. "You okay?"
"I don't know. My brain is like Swiss cheese right now." Nora rubs her eyes. "I know I should feel sad, or something. Maybe just empty. But I barely feel anything."
"There's no 'should' here. You—"
"Damon?" Valerie's call interrupts all the side conversations.
"Where you left him!" Damon calls back.
"You said the trunk?"
All the blood drains out of his face and then he rushes outside, shadowed by everyone else, so that they mostly all see the sight, or lack thereof, all at once: the trunk is empty.
"NO ONE. EVER. STAYS. DEAD. IN THIS FUCKING. TOWN."
The process is almost complete when Mary Louise finally kicks the door in, the rotted wood slab snapping into several more pieces as it clatters across the filthy tile, which borders a standard hotel-size pool filled with murky water that looks like it hasn't been cleaned in decades. She's already ranting before she sees Sybil in the shadows to her left: "—the sheer disrespect of using me as your cannibal courier for the better part of a year and then trying to blow me up like a bloody goldfish you're flushing down the toilet! You know how I found you? After I resurrected in the trunk of a car? I did a locator spell, using myself. That's how deep you have your disgusting psychic claws buried in my brain—magic thinks I'm your property. Which—"
When she finally sees what Sybil is doing, kneeling next to the shallow end of the pool with two mutilated corpses on either side of her, one of her blood-soaked arms buried in each eviscerated torso as she vocalizes, the serene notes claiming Mary Louise's mind once again.
"Oh, why hello dear. You're right on time. Be a doll and say the magic word. You know the one."
"Incendia," Mary Louise mumbles, and the already infernal-looking water erupts in flame, the orange tongues licking impossibly high, so high it seems like the ceiling is going to be a charred hole open to the sky by the time the fire burns out, but when the radiant light leaves all at once there's no comforting moonlight shining through the darkness, nothing to alleviate the room's suffocating claustrophobia, which only seems to have increased tenfold with the humanoid shadow now standing at the opposite end of the pool.
When he steps forward and Mary Louise finally sees the Devil's face, she's surprised to discover it's one she's seen before.
"Hello, my lovely Sibyl," Cade greets with a flash of perfectly white teeth. "Tell me, what brings me here?"
Sibyl bows before him, showing a level of respect Mary Louise didn't think she was capable of. "Master. I am humbled by your presence. I've summoned you to tell you that everything has gone according to plan. I have in my possession the Ascendant of the first Gemini prison world."
"Splendid." Cade smiles. "And I trust Seline is hard at work on the bell?"
"Yes, master. We will be able to create the gateway in less than a week's time."
Cade nods approvingly. "My dear, loyal Sirens. Superb return on investment, wouldn't you say?" he asks no one in particular. Then: "Ms. Rayna Cruz, please step forward."
Mary Louise trembles with rage as the huntress emerges from the shadows, her face still blank with a profound lack of recognition of her surroundings.
"Without you," Cade continues, "none of this would have been possible. And for that, you deserve a reward. A handsome one." He waves his hand. "Your multiple lifetimes' worth of memories, taken so unceremoniously. I'm sure they will bring you the joy you seek."
Rayna's eyes reveal the opposite result as they start to harden and sag, presumably under the weight of hundreds of years' worth of experiences forcibly reinserted into her hippocampus. She drops to her knees. "No. Please. Take them away again."
Cade barely seems to hear her. " 'Knowledge is power,' they say. 'Ignorance is bliss,' they say. 'They' couldn't be more wrong. There is no power. There is no bliss. There is only pain." And with another wave of his hand, Rayna erupts in flames, her shrieks of agony bouncing around the echoey chamber until there's only silence and blistered, melted skin.
"Sibyl, could you please begin another summoning?" Cade asks, completely unfazed. He turns to Mary Louise. "Miss Calder. I'd like to extend my thanks, and perhaps even an apology. My Sirens often forget their manners when it comes to their little soldiers. In truth, should you wish it to be so, your work with us is far from over. In fact, there's someone I'd very much like you to meet."
"Once more with feeling, Mary Lou," Sibyl says, and another incendia ignites the pool once more, except this time its extinguishment is accompanied by a much more familiar silhouette.
"Elena Gilbert?" are the blonde heretic's final words, before she too is brutally immolated with hellfire, this time wielded by a different hand.
"Now Ms. Petrova, I told you to play nice," Cade scolds.
Katherine smirks and then blows the tip of her fingers as if they're the smoking barrel of a gun. "And I told you that the only way I would play along with your little game is if I got to have a little fun."
