.
Chapter 4
a house divided
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary.
Men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
—Joseph Conrad
"Your book is not a very wise read. It is merely trite propaganda." Bonnie looked up from the stark white pages of her chosen book. It was a first edition, already more than a decade old, but the spine had never been cracked. She was sure that no one had ever opened the copy of Frederick Douglass' autobiography before she lay her hands on it today.
"Why Mr. Salvatore, you insult your own father's taste. I picked it from your library, after all." Stefan didn't smile at her coyness, as Damon had yesterday, though he did deign to take a seat in the grass next to her. Maybe the younger Salvatore only expressed his appreciation for word games when they came from Katherine, or women who looked like her.
"It was bought for research purposes, not out of sentiment or sympathy."
"And you doubt my need for research?" That is, after all, why Bonnie had picked up the book in the first place. She'd remembered Mr. Tanner mentioning it in class, and his particular cruel taunts when she couldn't answer his questions about it, despite, as he put it, her personal stake in the subject matter.
"I wouldn't think you would need such a book to be familiar with its contents." Tanner thought her too distant from her past, Stefan thought her too close. She set aside her reading material to fully face Stefan.
"I was born free. Things are very different here from where I'm from." Stefan snorted at her words.
"Yes, the great and terrible Boston," Bonnie didn't correct him. After all, she couldn't exactly say that she'd been born in a hospital less than 10 miles from the very tree they sat under, or that she'd never seen Boston, in 2010 or 1864.
"Like I said, I'm not from around here."
"That much is obvious. The real question becomes then, why are you here? You wear your origins so blatantly that no one could accuse you of hiding natural sympathies, but that doesn't put you above suspicion."
"I'm sorry, suspicion of what? As for why I'm here, it's to visit my friend."
"You know very well what I am suspicious of. You're not even subtle, being what you are. Not to mention the Irish name. And that you use your innocent friend to further your schemes disgusts me. Abusing Katherine's good will, and my father's, so you can learn secrets to send back to Washington!" Bonnie was shocked. Allusions to her being a runaway were surprising, but a union spy? That was something else.
"And what information, exactly, would I be sending to my hypothetical handlers in Washington? That the Salvatores still serve five course dinners, despite the shortages? That the two brothers fight over a woman, and their slaves have no idea how close the front is, or that the outcome of this war will decide their futures? Even if I were what you suggest, any information found here would be either useless or already obvious!"
She stopped her tirade with harsh breaths and waited for him to respond. His carefully blank face seemed so different from the one she knew in the 21st century. There, it was a cultivated blank mask, with compassion and curiosity just peeking out around its edges. Here, the blankness seemed desperately clung to, and hinted at banked anger.
Bonnie eyed the careful foot of space Stefan had kept between them. She thought of the compulsion that Katherine needed to use on him to make him accepting of his desire towards her and her murderous intentions towards others. Bonnie considered Stefan in the future, the football star dating a cheerleader. He modeled himself off the morals of society, the image of a good man, but this time told him that they were not equals, and that they were at war.
"My brother is a soldier you know. He left school to fight for Virginia, for the Confederacy. My father believes it will be the making of him, once his leave ends."
"Stefan, Stefan, Stefan. Do you really have so little to brag about that you are left to boast about my exploits?" Bonnie twisted around, she hadn't heard Damon and Katherine approaching, though neither had ever been quiet or inconspicuous in their lives.
"War and killing are not things to be laughed at or bragged about." Bonnie's words surprised all three of her listeners. Katherine looked considering and Stefan petulant. The haughtiness and humor melted from Damon's features, and his voice was bleak.
"And what would you know of death and war, Miss Bonnie? What the newspapers tell you? War and death cannot be captured through still photos and poorly written news articles. Have you ever seen someone die? Have you ever locked eyes with a man across the slimmest stretch of grass, and known one of you would have to kill the other? Have you seen the life drain from someone's eyes, knowing you were the cause, knowing that you have taken their life for yours, and wondered if you made a poor trade?"
Katherine seized her moment, pulling the heaviness of the conversation in her favor.
"Stefan, you know talk of war bores me. Let's leave our friends to their sorrow, you promised to show me Willow Creek today."
"So I did!" Stefan leapt up, and the two raced back towards the house without another word passed between them. Damon took his brother's place beside her, though he kept less space between himself and her skirts than Stefan had.
"You're right, Mr. Salvatore. No newspaper can really capture what war is. No image does its horror justice. But I know some. I've seen bodies left out to be ravaged by the elements, choked on the smoke of burnt human flesh, held the death stiffened body of the person I loved most in this world. And I've made that trade, deciding the life of myself and my friends was more important that the life of those who would threaten it." Bonnie's words choked off, remembering her Grams and the dangers she'd faced in Mystic Falls. One of those dangers was the very man who sat next to her.
"I know people who think death is a game, and killing is fun, and they are monsters—"
"But war makes monsters of us all?"
"No, monsters make the war. This war will be remembered as the bloodiest in United States history, and why did it start? Because people didn't want to pay their laborers?"
"I think you know there's a bit more to it than that. But Stefan seems to have been right about your sympathies."
"And how do you figure that? Because I think war is abhorrent or because of my skin color?"
"Because you called it the United States." Bonnie gaped like a fish. Damn, another slip. Damon continued.
"But more than that, you talk about it like our great War for Southern Independence will be over in a minute, and we'll all be together again, licking our wounds as a single country. Is that so?" His voice was mocking and serious in turns, and Bonnie had a hard time deciding whether he thought southern independence, or herself, were more ridiculous.
"Yeah, it is."
"And what will happen to our dear dependents? And how will my father live without a boy around to button his cuffs and wipe his ass? You can't expect him to do it himself!" Bonnie blinked at the vulgarity, realizing how quickly she's adapted to the language of the time, the lack of expletives, and the additional seething hate hidden underneath.
"They'll be free, to live as they choose with no masters."
"Next you'll be telling me they'll vote in our elections." He might be teasing, but Bonnie smirked, thinking of the President she'd left behind in 2010. The future had never felt so close, or so far.
"Yup. Women too, you know."
"Ah, and she supports women's suffrage too. A true radical." He was definitely smiling now. "Let me tell you a secret?" Bonnie nodded. "Sounds nice." Bonnie's mouth dropped open as Damon's matter of fact shrug.
"I can't imagine anyone new messing up more than the ones in power already have. And I'd rather have you, Miss McCullough, deciding our future than my father." Damon gave an exaggerated bow and Bonnie rolled her eyes. To think, Damon Salvatore: an abolitionist and suffragist, if only to annoy his father. Though, one thing about him didn't track if that were true. She'd seen him in his uniform. Bonnie's train of thought was cut off by Damon's leaning in. He whispered, his face close to hers.
"Besides, it hardly matters. Both you and I know that real power lays, not with gender or race, but with blood." His eyes were alight, glad to have a third to share the secret of a largely unknown world.
"So all humans are equal, as cattle, under their vampire lords and masters? That's no better than this plantation."
"It's different. They're predators, it's the natural order of things."
"No need for guilt, or a respect for human life, because they're physically inferior?"
"Not exactly how I would put it, but yes."
"Your father would probably say the same thing when whipping a slave who learned to read. That he is just preserving the natural order."
"How can you say that? You and Katherine, it's an entirely different plane of existence. We are but ants before you, washed away in the sands of time." She and Katherine? Bonnie's mind raced.
"What exactly did Katherine say about me?"
"That you were an old friend, like the other visitors in town." Is this why Damon had been kind to her? He was hedging his bets on immortality?
"Mr. Salvatore," Bonnie reached a hand out for his, so he could feel the easy give of her muscles. "I am no vampire." His fingers tightened around hers, his face a mask of confusion.
"You're a human?"
"Sorry to disappoint." She said jokingly, trying to lighten the mood again. He released her hand but didn't move away as Bonnie expected.
"I am not disappointed, but I am surprised. More than Katherine's friendship there is…something about you, something more. You can taste it in the air when you're close. If you are a human, you're an extraordinary one." The time travel must have left a residue, because both Katherine and Damon had noticed her magic without her even using it. But Bonnie was not about to be burned at the stake as a witch, even if Damon was trying to be charming.
"Your words hardly match up with your actions." Bonnie redirected the conversation, trying to steer it towards non-magic waters.
"Which words and which actions are those?"
"You say you would trust me more than your father to govern, that humans are equal, and you don't use abolition as a dirty word." Damon nodded once with each assertion.
"Yet you wear grey and fight for the Confederacy. Do you see my confusion?"
Damon picked at the long grass in front of him before answering.
"I am seven years older than my brother and have always tried to protect him when I could." He paused, the silent moment stretching long, but Bonnie did not dare to break it. "No, that's not how I should start. That makes me out too honorably." He threw away a broken off piece of grass and started again.
"This whole town thinks I'm worthless, including, no, especially, my own father. I've never had to work for what I had and I spent my youth drinking and gambling and fucking. I nearly dishonored the Maxwell girl, and my father has cut me from the will for it." This was a surprise to Bonnie, as Damon still walked around the estate as if he would one day own it, and his father hadn't seemed cross with him in her presence.
"So I decided to go to university, to make a man of myself up in New Haven, where no one knows me. But this thrice-damned war broke out and all the good Virginians were heading home. So I came home. I had half a thought to pack up Stefan and get us both back north, or away from the border at least. But by the time I got here, I was already too late. Me, they'd written off. My sympathies were well known, and my half-completed university education only distanced me further. But Stefan was a strapping lad, for all he was only fifteen." Damon brushed the small pile of shredded grass he'd amassed off his thigh.
"Fifteen, and eager to defend his home and family. If he had seen the orders he would have joined gladly, proudly. And it would have ruined him." The air around them felt heavy, despite the sunshine and sweet breeze, and Bonnie hesitated to interrupt, but it seemed like Damon was done for now.
"So you took his place and let it ruin you instead?" Damon shook his head at her words, but refused to meet her eyes.
"Weren't you listening? I was already ruined. Besides, I'm his older brother, protecting him is what I'm here for." There was an essay of unspoken words behind this statement, but Bonnie didn't push any further. She was mulling over his current attitude and the brothers' relationship in the 21st century. They seemed to hate each other there and protected each other only in the direst of circumstances. But here they were different. Even their rivalry over Katherine seemed more friendly than antagonistic. What happened to them? Was it just time?
"You're a good brother, Mr. Salvatore, maybe too good." He huffed out a laugh.
"Please, you've just learned my sordid past. Call me, Damon. Plus, with three Salvatores in the house, it can get confusing. And I wouldn't want you confusing me with anyone else." He winked.
Bonnie rolled her eyes at his joking flirtations. As if the Salvatores were interchangeable.
"Then you must call me Bonnie."
"Finally, Miss Bonnie. Now, shall we be friends?"
"Just Bonnie is fine, thank you. But yes, we can be friends." She held her hand out to shake on it, and he greeted her modern manner with little fanfare, giving her a firm handshake and a smile.
"Just Bonnie it is then." With this he looked up at the sky, reading the forecast from the clouds with the ease of practice.
"We should head in; a summer squall is coming in." He stood, wiped any lingering grass off his pants, and extended a hand to help her up. After a firm pull, she was on her feet, dress ballooning around her and undoubtedly covered in grass. They began their walk to the house, through the hedgerow maze, with her hand tucked in the crook of his arm.
"Damon?" Bonnie said. She didn't want to lose this moment to say it, now, when it was still true. He tilted his head downwards, towards her, to let her know he was listening.
"I don't think you're ruined."