Summary:

Bonnie experiments with magic.

Bonnie stood up from where she had been crouching in the dirt, rubbing her hands together to get rid of the soil on them.

She looked down at her handiwork appreciatively. The transmutation circle was complete with black soil, the star in the middle had black candles at each point and with a flick of her wrist, she lit them.

The grimoire lay just outside the circle with the page opened to the new spell she just finished. She has been keeping herself busy these days, making spells, experimenting with her magic in any way she deemed fit.

Some days, she cast a spell with spirit magic, then cast the same spell with dark magic, just to notice any variations in the outcome. It was mostly the same outcome and she found that using a few drops of blood didn't affect the basic nature of the spell.

So she had started changing the basic components of the spells.

She started with small spells... like mixing elemental fire and lightening spells to create a powerful surge of offense spell.

And then she had started a series of spells she named the Vampire Slayer spells.

Merging the power of wood, silver and amulets in different variations, provided different outcomes. It was such a shame that she couldn't test out their efficacy on any of the vampires in town.

A damn shame.

But now, she was blending locator spells and boundary spells... and now, with her new spell, she added elements of teleportation and disillusionment spells.

She didn't know what the outcome would be, but she was ready to test it out.

Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the middle of the circle, sat down with her legs folded under her and clasped her hands as if on prayer, and started to chant:

Phasmatos invenira venatrixos isto gladio ulla onyx...Vescaram Anta Intacurum, Vescalis Dissendis Divinitum. Vidau matere et virtus. A pouvoir la trouver.

When she opened her eyes, she was in the same abandoned house, sitting in the same spot, but the circle was gone.

She frowned, slowly walking out of the house. Something was different, she realized almost immediately. The energy of this land was almost too pure to be real.

She couldn't recall a time since she's been I tuned with nature, that she felt such purity from the land. Surely, this was not Mystic Falls.

She was convinced about that much, which was why she walked into the town.

Her confusion grew further. Everything seemed to be in its place and the people looked familiar... and at the same time, nothing felt the same.

She run into Matt— which only further proved her theory right.

Somehow, without meaning to, she had created a spell that opened a portal to a parallel world. And she wasn't even one of those people who believed in the existence of parallel universes.

Caroline and Tyler were the next people she encountered, and she had made an excuse about being in a hurry and not having her phone on her to get out of that situation.

She rushed back into the woods. She needed to figure out a way to go back to her world since she hadn't worked on a counter spell.

She was almost at the abandoned house when;

"Bon bon!" A very familiar voice called from behind her and Bonnie felt the blood in her chill from the familiarity with which the nickname was given. "Bon bon, come on don't pretend you didn't hear me calling." Damon sped up so he was next to Bonnie.

Taking a deep breath, the witch let it out slowly and turned her attention to the vampire she hated... who was looking at her with a smile. That three het off. "What do you want, Damon?"

"I just indulged in some daytime drinking and now I need food so I was coming to pick you up for dinner?" Damon shrugged casually.

"You were coming to what?" She couldn't keep the incredulity out of her voice.

"You heard me." Damon rolled his eyes at her before leaning closer to peruse her face. "You seem out of sorts today, witchy... and what's with your hair?" His hand reached out to touch the long end of her hair.

"There's nothing wrong—" Bonnie started to defend.

"Did you decide to grow it out again?" Damon was frowning now.

"I'm experimenting." The witch replied quickly. In her mind, she was realizing that the Bonnie of this town was probably sporting a different hairdo and she was wondering why her friends hadn't seemed to notice that burn Damon did.

"Right." Damon didn't sound convinced, however. "So are we on for dinner tonight?"

"Yeah sure... I mean, come by my place in an hour. Call first." She turned to leave, a sudden desire to flee overwhelming her. The fact that she had Damon Salvatore before her but she couldn't bring herself to kill him like she had wanted to do for so long... the fact that Damon seemed to know the Bonnie in this world well... "Sorry... I kinda need to—" she stopped when Damon stepped in front of her, his hands in his pocket in a stance that looked a bit confrontational.

When he spoke, however, his tone was calm. Almost gentle. "You're not my Bonnie, are you?"

"Your Bonnie?" Bonnie gasped at the absurdity of that. And then almost immediately, her mind wondered if Damon and Bonnie were dating in this world. It would explain why he seems to have caught on when even her closest friends hadn't.

"See? My Bonnie would laugh about that and probably hurl something at my head while telling me to be considerate of Jeremy." Damon offered with a smile, still not looking the slightest bit like he was about to accost her.

But Bonnie knew better than to let a calm demeanor on Damon salvatore fool her. He was the type of man who could rip out your heart while smiling at you. "I'm dating Jeremy?" Seemed like a more pressing question though.

"Who are you?" The vampire asked now.

"Obviously." She tilted her chin up defiantly... and started to smell smoke. A look down at her hands revealed the smoke was coming from her.

"No, who are you really?" Damon asked again.

With urgency, Bonnie snapped his neck right before she felt the energy around her shift.

Damon was gone... and the vile energy that was obviously Mystic Falls was back again.

Yeah, she was back home, and she had to know how that happened.

———X———

Mystic Hills:

"Hey Bon... where are you now?" Damon asked over the phone, massaging his neck. No matter how many times he had his neck snapped by a witch, it never got easier.

"I'm in Elena's house." The witch says over the phone, in a background of laughter.

"With Jeremy or with Elena?" The vampire asked, rising up from the ground and dusting off his clothes.

"With both of them. What's the matter?" Bonnie asked. She seemed to have either stepped away from the merriment, or asked her company to dial down on the joyous celebration.

"Nothing... I was in the woods and I could swear I saw someone who looked like you."

"Damon, there are a lot of people in Mystic Hills who look like me." The witch rolled her eyes to no one in particular.

"Well, the resemblance was uncanny with this one." He didn't want to startle her by giving her all the information. Perhaps later if it's proven that Bonnie 2.0 was a threat to the town... or to Bonnie 1.0.

"Perhaps you saw the ghost of my ancestor. Did she say—" Bonnie started to say, humor evident in her tone.

"Bye." Damon cut through her jesting. "I was coming to get you so we go and grab dinner but since you're meeting the in-laws..."

"Don't be sassy, Damon." She laughed. "I'll bring you breakfast tomorrow morning and you can tell me all about my ancestor in the woods."

Sighing, Damon ended the call and headed into town. He wasn't about to forget this interaction any time soon.

———X———

Mystic Hills. 6 days later:

In the days that followed, Bonnie's curiosity won out against her apathy.

She had figured out the reason behind her leaving the parallel world when she did. When a candle went out, it broke the teleportation link in the spell and brought her back home... which was why she spelled the spoke and saw smoke coming from her hands seconds before she is whisked back to Mystic Falls.

She was working on a counter spell, hoping that with that spell complete, the potency of the candle to restore balance —because nature required balance and traveling across planes with dark magic was an upset to that balance— will dwindle and the power of whether to return or stay, would rest solely in her hands.

When she had opened the portal to the parallel plane in the days after that, while testing out her theory on how long she can stay there and what the smoke had meant, she had tried to find out as much as she could about that place and for the most part, she realized things were exactly where they were supposed to be.

The Grill was in its place, so was her house, Elena's and Caroline's.

She had interacted with Caroline and Matt on the first day without any problem at all and it had surprised her that Damon Salvatore was the one who had noticed she wasn't this Universe's Bonnie Bennett.

It had been the most shocking of all. He had called her Bon Bon with familiarity. In which universe was Damon and her, friends enough to eat dinner together?

Apparently, this one. She scoffed.

The name of the town was different too, and in this reality Elena was dating Stefan and she, was dating Jeremy.

But all those seem minute in comparison to her friendship with Damon. She wanted to know if this Damon had been the catalyst for the death of her Grams and the transformation of her mother.

And she wanted to know why this Bonnie forgave him and how she did it.

She envied herself, Bonnie chuckled as she watched from the shadows once again, watching what looked like a picnic in the woods between Elena, Stefan, Jeremy and Bonnie.

They talked loudly and laughed heartily as though there was no worry in the world... as if the Bonnie of Mystic Hills had nothing to be angry about and it made her feel like shit.

"What—" she started to say and stopped when a hand clasped firmly to her lips.

"If you speak loudly, Stefan will pick it up. Elena too." The familiar voice of Damon Salvatore said from behind her. He was standing too close for comfort. "You don't want to be found out, no?"

She shook herself out of his hold. "Let go." She whisper-screamed in response, inadvertently telling Damon no, she didn't want to be found out.

Smiling at her in a way that unnerved her, Damon grabbed her arm once more and sped them away, putting some distance between them and the merry group. He let her go immediately he stopped, and took a seat on a log, looking up at her indulgently. "What is it? What do you want to know?" His voice was calm.

Damon has had days to wonder about what he had seen in the woods that day and combed through the entire town for days trying to find her, no no avail. He resolved to wait for her to make an appearance and give him some clarity.

"What do you mean?" The witch asked with a crease of her brows.

"I've been thinking about you since that day in the woods... something about your eyes have been unsettling to me since then." The vampire replied honestly.

"What?"

"It feels like a reflection of mine. Those eyes... on Bonnie's beautiful face, I find it unsettling." And Damon meant that. The girl before him didn't seem to be the same innocent Bonnie Bennett he knew. The pure, Bonnie.

"How did you two become friends?" The witch asked instead.

"I can't pinpoint the exact moment." He shrugged.

"I'm sure if you think about—"

"When winter gives way to Spring, and Spring gives way to Summer, and Summer to Fall... can you pinpoint at the exact time it happened? The exact day and time? I can't tell you exactly when Bonnie became my dear friend, but I'll tell you it's probably one of the very best things to happen to me." Damon replied honestly.

"I'm just..—" she started to say, then smelled the smoke, causing her to groan in exasperation.

"Leaving already?" Damon thought he figured it out then, watching smoke start to engulf her body.

"Yeah I need to go." And with that, she was gone, leaving no traces, no evidence behind.

He sat there, eyes focused on nothing for a while and wondering if she was going to be back.

Most importantly, he wondered why he was thinking about the witch who had just left.