A/N: Thus ends the hiatus. It has been a busy few months. Thank you for the patience. I am so happy to be writing Bamon again. Feels like coming home. I'm altering canon a bit and aging Bonnie up when Abby left. Enjoy, Bamily :)
"Why haven't you ever talked to yours?"
"I did once."
"You've never talked to yours?"
"Just once."
It was a crash that woke Bonnie. She jolted beneath her Little Mermaid bedspread, wrinkling the fabric until Flounder had deep creases in his face. She rubbed her eyes with small, balled fists and looked around for the source of the sound. Her room was still; Junie B. Jones books and a Jewel Girl Barbie stood tall and untouched on her shelf.
It had been raining for two days, and right when she was about to blame the thunder and curl up closer to her stuffed animals, her father's voice, deep and striking, intruded through the crack beneath her door.
"You're a coward, Abby! You're a coward!"
Bonnie threw her blankets to the side, slipped her feet into her Cookie Monster slippers, and tip-toed to the door, crouching on the floor with her ear to the gap.
"My mind's made up," her mom said, though her shaking voice undercut her words.
"And what about her?"
"She's better off-,"
"Even you're not that good at lying to yourself."
Tears stung Bonnie's eyes. She didn't have to understand what they were talking about. It always chilled her in a different when they even didn't bother dismissing themselves to the other room to fight in whispered fury.
She ran back to her bed and pulled the yellow walkie talkie from beneath her pillow.
"Caroline?" she asked, holding down the button. "Care, are you there? Whisper mode. Over."
"I can't, Abby. I don't know how—I can't talk to her!"
Bonnie put her hands over her ears.
It was the plight of the child forced to grow up quickly: the desire to know what made them hate each other so much, to understand the glances her friends' parents shared when they came over, but to also cling to the ignorance, to stay hidden away under her canopy bed and pull her knees to her chest, as happy as she could be not knowing.
"I'm here," Caroline's sleepy yet high voice replied, sparing her the choice. "Over."
Bonnie gripped the walkie with both hands.
"Talk about stuff. Over."
"Tyler said yesterday he talks to his arm person. They tell each other secrets. Over."
"But we're not allowed to talk to our arm people? Our parents said. Over."
"I know. But he said his parents said it's okay. Over."
Some part of Bonnie had noticed this before: the way their parents froze when soulmates came up in ways other people's parents didn't. She never questioned why, though. Her parents still knew everything to her.
She told her diary secrets sometimes, she thought. Like when she told Santa she'd been good, but she had kicked Matt Donovan in the shins when he cut her in line at the book fair.
Her diary, though, never said anything back, not like an arm person.
The chime of the doorbell pulled Bonnie back to her parents' now quiet voices.
"Hang on. Over," she whispered into the Walkie. She listened as her the rubber under the front door grazed the wood foyer floor.
"Is she awake?" Elena's mom's familiar voice asked seriously.
"Not yet," her mom said. "I put a bag together."
"I have to go," Bonnie whispered into the walkie. "Over and out."
She flipped the bedspread back over her head and breathed extra deep as her bedroom door opened softly.
Miranda placed a light hand on Bonnie's shoulder, shaking her softly. Bonnie rose from the covers, stretching her arms wide above her head.
"Hey, honey. I'm sorry to wake you, but I have a surprise for you!"
Bonnie's stomach flipped.
"Like a present?"
"Close. Do you remember when we were all at Cold Stone, and you girls asked me about the week-long sleepover?"
"The Weekover!?" Bonnie asked, forgetting to make her voice sleepy. Of course, she remembered the Weekover. It was all she'd been begging her parents for ever since they came up with it.
Her mom wiped her face with the back of her hand as she stood in Bonnie's doorway.
"Well, we thought about it," Miranda said, "And we decided you could do it! And I couldn't wait another second to tell you. So why don't you grab whatever stuff you think you'll need, and we can go meet Elena and Caroline for a day at the ice-skating rink?"
The mysterious crash that woke her and the angry voices were forgotten. The ice-skating rink was all the way in Richmond; they never got to go there! She leapt out of her bed and ran to her cubed shelves, deliberating what to bring. Her Polly Pockets, maybe? Caroline had just gotten the new—
"Miranda..." her mom plead behind her.
"Don't."
Bonnie scooped as many toys as she could fit into her bright purple backpack and pulled it over her shoulders. She walked toward the door when her godmother put her hand on her shoulder.
"Do you want to be a pilot?" she asked, her smile stiff, but trying. Bonnie nodded enthusiastically; it had been so long since she let her be a pilot.
Miranda squatted down so she could get on her back, then she stood, carrying Bonnie high in the sky.
As Miranda walked out of the room, taking careful, big steps, Bonnie noticed the bathroom mirror had been smashed, and tiny pieces of glass coated the wood floor. She looked around the room, alarmed to find blood dripping from her father's fist. She wanted to ask if he was okay, or if he wanted her to kiss it. She wanted to ask, but he wouldn't look at her.
Miranda picked up a duffel bag on the porch and carried her out to her car. Bonnie covered her head with her arms as the rain came down on her until Miranda set her down into Elena's booster seat.
"Wait!" her mom ran fast to the sidewalk toward her, something shiny in her hand. Her dad followed and grabbed her arm hard. The blood on his knuckles smeared her white shirt.
"You don't get to do this," he said. "You don't get to confuse her so you can feel—,"
"It's not for me," she snapped back.
Suddenly, a man in a black jacket fell into him from behind on the sidewalk. It was strange, the way he slipped, but he hadn't tripped on anything.
"S-ssorry," the man slurred, catching himself on her dad's shoulder. The man looked down at her dad's hand for a strangely long time, suddenly looking around as he held onto the shirt. He looked at mom, then Miranda, then Bonnie. His dark blue eyes met Bonnie's light green ones for a hanging second.
"Can I help you?" her dad asked.
The man shook his head and let go of him, walking away in faint diagonals on the sidewalk.
Her mom pulled from her dad's grip and rushed to Bonnie's side.
"Hi, love bug," she smiled big. Bonnie's heart dropped.
"You can't change your mind about the weekover! Miranda said—,"
"I know, baby," her mom said. "I just wanted to give you something."
She placed a snow globe in Bonnie's open palm. Shielded in the glass were a mother and daughter in bulky winter clothes on a park bench surrounded by snow-covered trees. The mother pointed to something in the distance with her arm securely around the girl's shoulders.
"Thank you," Bonnie said, and she noticed how wet her mom was getting standing in the rain. The water drops were sneaking into the car, soaking the inside of the door.
"I love you."
"I love you, too, Mama," she said, letting her mom hug her so tight it hurt. The blood on her mom's sleeve smeared on the snow globe as she let her go.
"Be a good girl."
It was a crash that woke Bonnie. She jolted beneath her pure white bedspread, wrinkling the fabric on top of her. The thunder rippled through the sky, and the heavy summer rain beat down on her roof. A lightning strike turned outside bright white, and Bonnie gasped as it outlined a dark figure behind her curtains.
The figure knocked on the window.
Bonnie opened her hand, ready to fire a spell.
"It's me."
She quirked her head and moved from her bed quickly. She pulled the curtain back and found a pair of tired eyes on the other side of the glass.
"Damon?" Bonnie whispered, unlatching her rattling window. "Come in."
His legs were shaking as he climbed inside. He clutched a large device to his chest, but she didn't know what it was.
"You're okay," she said, surprised by her own relief.
"Something like that," he said, hysteria lacing his voice as voices erupted from the device.
We've got a 10-11 on Anderson Ave.
Copy.
Damon listened intently to the words and pulled out his phone, looking at a long list of numbers on a the wet screen. He shook his head, deflated, and put the phone back. Bonnie took him in. He looked entirely healed, healthy as always, if not happy.
"How did Stefan do it?" she asked. Damon recoiled.
"I need your help."
"Already? I got all Emily-possessed looking for your cure. There's usually at least a 24-hour grace period before you come asking me for another favor."
She playfully leaned back against the wall, but his face chilled her.
"What's wrong? Is Elena okay?" she asked.
"Stefan... he gave himself over to Klaus. Apparently, Klaus Blood is the cure for werewolf bites. Stefan was his payment."
"What do you mean he gave himself over?" she asked, standing up straight.
"I mean he's gone," Damon said, sitting on the foot of her bed. He set the police scanner beside him. "Klaus got him back on the human diet, and they disappeared."
She joined him and let her head fall into her hands.
"Oh, my God," she whispered. Not Stefan. They were just together for the better part of the day.
"Yeah, shock later, focus now."
"Damon, if Klaus has him, I don't know-,"
"No. There's no 'I don't know'. Okay?"
His eyes plead with her in a way they hadn't since she had him on fire on the ground.
"Okay," she said softly. "Do you have a plan?"
Damon laughed shortly and got back to his feet, pacing across her room.
"I'd be scouring the state if it weren't for Miss Needs-to-be-Involved. I had to slip her a Benadryl to get away."
"You drugged Elena!?"
"I said Benadryl not Chloroform," he waved.
The police scanner rumbled again.
10-50 on School Street.
Copy. 10-17.
"And you can't scour with her because...?" Bonnie asked.
"She'd get herself killed trying to help."
She crossed her arms.
"But it's okay if I get killed. Yeah. You've made that clear."
His expression flashed, and Bonnie felt her heart sink.
"You want me to follow them," she whispered.
Damon turned to her and raised his hands innocently.
"I was getting to that part."
"No!" she snapped.
"I'll come get you if you get close!" he said, stepping toward her. "You don't have to approach."
"Damon, there's no way-,"
"No, just-," he interrupted her, taking her hand in his. It startled her until she felt him slip something into her palm. "Just run up the room service tabs; I don't care."
She looked down and found a credit card with, undoubtedly, centuries of generational wealth on it. She flipped it over in her palm and shook her head.
"Look," he tried. "Are you more expendable? Sure."
Bonnie glared at him.
"But you know how to take care of yourself."
10-23. Just some football players with spray paint.
Copy.
Bonnie put a contemplative hand on her left cheek.
"Where do you think they're even going?" she asked.
"I don't know," he sighed, sitting on the ground, his back resting against her dresser.
"Promising."
"Bonnie..." he whispered, looking up at her. "Please."
She tried to remember if he'd ever said that word where she could hear.
Images of the summer she'd anticipated after her junior year flashed in her mind: the back row of the movie theater with Jeremy, the watering hole, shopping, and sun-soaking with Caroline and Elena. But, even if she stayed, it wouldn't be that. It would be watching her best friend die inside while her other half was lost.
Bonnie didn't know much about soulmates. Nothing, in fact. Her parents sure as hell weren't destined to bring each other anything but pain. But she saw the look in Elena's eye when she was with Stefan, like some essential part of her she hadn't known she'd lost had finally returned to her. She saw the way Elena relaxed when he entered a room or she heard his voice from behind her. She could only imagine how Elena would look in the morning- the way it would hit her after half a second of consciousness that she woke alone.
She knew all too well what that was like: to wake up in a nightmare.
"I can say I'm visiting my dad's family," she heard herself say.
Damon squeezed his eyes shut and bit the knuckle of his index finger.
"Thank-,"
A knock on the door silenced him, and Bonnie leapt to her feet. She turned the scanner off and shoved it in Damon's outstretched arms before she opened her closet door.
"I can compel him," Damon mouthed. Bonnie shook her head quickly and pushed him into her closet. He rolled his eyes as she closed it behind him.
"Hey," Bonnie smiled as she opened her door. Her father looked around skeptically.
"I thought I heard noise."
"I was watching SVU," she said, and he nodded, seemingly satisfied.
"Hey, uh-," she began. "Remember that cheerleading tournament I told you about?"
"Of course," he nodded.
"They bumped the date up so I'm gonna leave tomorrow. Then we were thinking of going to Elena's lake house for a few weeks. Celebrate our sure victory," she smiled and tapped her finger against the bedroom door.
"Okay," he said, and she wondered if she was imagining the relief in his eyes. "Close that window. It's pouring."
He left without a hug.
Damon was half out of the closet by the time she closed the door.
"You have a cheerleading tournament?" he asked.
"Nope," she said casually, gesturing to the window.
Damon rose his eyebrows but didn't say anything more. He quickly ducked through the window.
"Hey," he heard and turned back around.
"What?" he asked.
"How will we know where to start?"
Damon looked at her for a quiet second but for the rain and the low static of the scanner.
"The bodies."
It was a quiet hum that woke Damon, so soft he barely registered he'd stirred until the sound was right in his ear. He batted the source away and found an empty bottle of bourbon. The glass container had rolled across the wood floor until it hit his face. He groaned, rolling onto his side where the cool floor soothed his flushed cheek.
"He's not here."
He pried his eyes open and found Zach in the doorway, his arms folded and mouth straight in his signature wet-blanket-ness.
"And who would that be?" he groaned.
Zach looked around the room with a single eyebrow raised. Damon followed his glance.
He was in Stefan's room.
"Oh," he muttered.
"So, you can go," Zach said.
Damon would have respected his cool bravery if his heartbeat didn't give away his panic.
"Maybe I'm here to see you, buddy," he said, trying to push himself off the floor.
"He's spending his birthday with Lexi this year. I don't know where."
Damon fell back down, his forehead hitting the ground hard. He remembered chugging bourbon while he sped across state lines last night, hoping and dreading the possibility of seeing his brother. Each swig of the bottle changed his motivation: to tell him he hated him, to tell him he missed him, to beg for his forgiveness, to kill him once and for all.
"Is that today?" he asked. The chilled rain answered as it came in the window.
"There's a new bar downtown," Zach said. "The Mystic Grill. Go. Drink. Not here, okay?"
Damon managed to get up this time, pulling himself up by the leg of Stefan's desk. He registered Zach shuffle nervously out of the corner of his eye as he grabbed another bottle off the bookshelf. He thanked the version of himself from last night that knew he'd need it. He took a drink from the bottle with one hand as he felt the spines of Stefan's diaries with the other. He grabbed 1994 and tucked it under his arm.
"It's fine, Zach. You can be the man of my house," he said as he walked to the door. He pushed his nephew back into it for good measure, a crack splitting the wood as he fell to the ground.
"You said 'Grill'?"
The walk through the small town was nostalgic and familiar. He drunkenly weaved in and out of neighborhoods on his way to the bar, stumbling as the comforting warmth of the bourbon fought the wet, brisk November air. Mystic Falls was both nothing and everything like it was in his childhood- quaint and corrupt, but newer, faker, and quieter about it all. His head was on a swivel, taking in the bare trees and the pools of rainwater in the uneven sidewalks.
"You don't get to confuse her so you feel—,"
"It's not for me!"
Damon smelled blood.
His nose found it before his eyes did, and he whipped his head around to find a man in the rain, blood dripping from his knuckles. It smelled rich. It had been over a day since he last fed, and the alcohol running through him had him halfway convinced that witnesses didn't matter. He'd simply kill everyone there. No harm no foul.
He tripped onto the man and grabbed his shirt. His skin was warm, and his heart was pounding, fast and hard. In fact, every heart there was, except one.
"S-sssorry," he slurred. He looked for the one brave soul in this sea of contextless human conflict.
There was the first woman, the wife it seemed by the trip of the man's hand on her arm. Her eyes were wide with panic and resolve.
No, her heart was jackhammering.
There was the other woman. Her heart was racing, too, but she was better at masking her expression. He looked on.
He listened for the calm heart and found a young girl, her green eyes bright with excitement and naivety. Of course, she wasn't upset. She had as little clue about what was happening as he did. But maybe he was wrong. Behind her excitement was something knowing, something wary. She met his eye for just a second, confusion cloaking her expression.
The appeal of the blood withered at the sight of her. He couldn't kill a child. Not today.
And he definitely couldn't leave her without a mother.
"Can I help you?" the man asked shortly.
Damon ignored him and walked on.
He liked this Mystic Grill, he thought, as he rubbed his head. For one, the bartenders were nice and compellable.
He hadn't thought of his other reasons yet.
The place had mostly cleared out since Damon had the manager shut off the music and dim the lights. The thunder and beating rain were a more fitting soundtrack for his headspace as he read his brother's diary.
Zach can never know, Stefan had written.
But there's no coming back from this. Damon's dead to me. He always will be.
"I see the overserving rules only apply to me, then?"
Damon looked up to find an older woman glaring at the bartender as she gestured to the empty glasses around him.
"He's allowed to drink as much as he wants," the bartender replied automatically.
The woman sat beside Damon. She had ringlet curls, and her wet emerald sweater made her shiver. Her dark lipstick remained perfect, but her mascara had bled down her cheek.
"I've never seen you in here before," she said.
"I'm just visiting."
"Here?"
"Good a place as any to kill time waiting for my girl," he shrugged, taking another sip.
The woman raised two fingers to the bartender.
"Thanks," Damon said.
"What? Oh. Yeah, you can have one," she said. He liked her.
"Here you go, Mrs. Bennett," the boy said, placing the drinks in front of them.
Damon pressed firmly into the glass. Had it really been a few decades since he checked in on the Bennett family? Binge drinking, partying, and blood highs had a way of blurring time. He started doing poor mental math in his head.
He remembered escaping Augustine. Leaving Enzo in the flames, the subsequent blood bath he left behind him. And he remembered going home, checking in on Emily's line. He remembered peering through the shutters to find a toddler crawling across a shag carpet. And here she was: old, drunk, and devastated. Life withered everyone.
"Got any kids?" he asked.
She grimaced, but he didn't know why. He only watched as she chugged half of her drink back.
"I have a granddaughter," she said tensely.
"Is she healthy? Doing good?"
"Yeah..." she trailed off. "Yeah, she's healthy."
Damon shrugged. It was sufficient. The deal was safe, not happy. He turned back to his drink, ready to ignore her the rest of the night. He looked back down at the journal.
It hurts... it hurts me. I know it was Gail who died. I know that. And she is the only person who deserves this grief. But I can't contain the part of me grieving for Damon more. It feels like... like Damon died, too. My memory of him. The boy who looked after me. The man I thought he may always be able to get back to bei-
"People never stop finding ways to disappoint you, do they?" the woman asked.
Damon exhaled sharply and closed the journal.
"So, you've met my brother," he joked, resting his head on the bar.
"I don't know where I went wrong," she sighed, shaking her head. "You think you raise them right. You think you teach them about family... commitment. Right and wrong. Then... shit, I failed."
She sniffed and wiped a tear before it could fall below her eyelid. Damon was grateful for her restraint. He liked people who were bad at crying.
"Everyone lets you down in the end," he said. "Everyone."
The woman shrugged and waved to the bartender.
"Any other night, and I might fight you on that."
"You got a shot in you, Grandma?" Damon asked with a quirk of his mouth.
"That's Grams to you. Jameson."
The boy had already begun pouring when Damon nodded to him, and he grabbed the tiny Mystic Grill shot glasses.
They held the them up to each other.
"Fuck everyone not sitting right here," Damon said, coaxing a smile out of her.
"Cheers," she replied, and clinked her glass to his, the tips of their fingers grazing lightly.
Her face fell, and she froze, holding the glass in the air. Damon cleared his throat and knocked back the drink quickly.
"Are you staying long?" she asked with the same forced casualness with which Damon spun the glass in his hand.
"Just passing through," he said, not meeting her eye.
"Why?"
"It's my brother's birthday," he said, pocketing the glass for reasons he didn't want to understand.
"Get going," she said, her voice low. "You don't want to start something here."
Damon smiled, grabbed the journal, and got to his feet, standing behind her. He put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them lightly.
"You have a good day, Mrs. Bennett," he said with liquor-coated breath.
Damon stumbled out of the Grill into the frigid rain, and he groaned at the long journey to the car. He glanced down at his watch when he saw strange, bright purple ink peering out at him from under his shirt sleeve.
He pulled back the fabric, but the rain drops didn't make the ink bleed. No, this wasn't the reminder of an even drunker Damon from the night before. It wasn't his writing at all. He squinted down at the clunky letters.
dear arm person: this is the first time im writing to you and my frend said tyler tells his arm person seecrets and so my parents got in a fight so they needed a break from each other and my mom is not home now but nobody said if she is coming back so that is my secret.
That last shot made Damon's vision spin in front of him like a transparent, reverberating barrier. He had to reread the words three times as he deciphered the childish, looping letters in their glittery ink.
His head snapped up until he found what he was looking for: a blonde woman walking by him on the sidewalk.
"You got a pen?" he slurred at her. Her eyes went wide, and she reached for the pepper spray sticking out of her purse. He groaned and pulled her to face him.
"Do... you have... a pen?" he compelled slowly.
She nodded and pulled a black sharpie from the bottom of her bag.
"Go," he pushed her away with sloppy inhuman force. He pulled the cap from the sharpie with his teeth and wrote shaking letters in the thick, black Sharpie.
Nobody ever loves anyone like they love themselves. They'll always leave you. Get used to it, Rugrat, or it'll only get harder.
He underlined "always" for good measure and wondered if she would thank him someday.