.
Chapter 10
a stich in time
Death ends a life,
not a relationship.
—Mitch Albom
"You'll protect her right? You have to! He was clutching Bonnie's upper arms, searching her face, before switching his desperate gaze to Emily. If there had been an inkling of doubt in Bonnie about Damon's devotion to Katherine, it was gone now. He hadn't even paused to hear Stefan's explanations. He'd run straight to her, to Emily, knowing they were the only ones who could protect the vampire he loved.
"What do you expect us to do?" Bonnie asked. She could have told him that Emily was already well-prepared to protect the vampires. Word of the trap door which led to the tomb had been passed through the town's undead population, and Bonnie knew her ancestor had already mapped out the spell she would be using. No one mentioned that the spell would last until the comet came around again, and Bonnie had a feeling that the vampires were unaware of this fact.
"You're a witch right? That's why you're so—" He broke off, unsure how to finish his sentence, and in too much of a rush to spend time finding the word. "Please. There must be something you can do." He let go of Bonnie and looked ready to get on his knees before Emily.
"There is something I can try. But I will need something from you in return" Emily said. Vampires weren't the only cunning creatures in the supernatural community. Emily had been extracting bargains for her protection all week. Most had ceded gold, or grimoires, or some hoarded trinket from centuries past, but Damon didn't have anything like that to give. What he did have though, was a future.
"Anything, I'll do anything." Damon promised.
Emily looked to her descendant, and Bonnie gave a quick nod. He was sincere in his promise. He would keep up his end of the bargain.
"I will protect Katherine, and all the vampires that have come with her. But if I do this, if I protect the vampires that have been captured, you must promise to protect my children, and my children's children, for as long as my line continues."
"Done. Katherine and I will protect the Bennett line for as long as we live."
"I want you to swear it, on your own life. And don't make any promises for Katherine. This promise means you would defend us, even against Katherine." Emily's words stayed calm, but Damon remained frantic and his words rushed.
"I swear it. As long as you protect Katherine, I will protect your descendants against all harm." Emily nodded, and the oath took hold. Bonnie wondered if he felt the ropes of magic winding around his heart, binding him to his word. She wondered if he had physically felt its release when Emily destroyed the crystal. If he knew that he could tear into Bonnie's neck, with no consequences, because Emily had gone back on her word and broken her side of the oath.
"So it will be." If Emily meant to continue, she gave no sign and got no chance. Stefan rushed headlong into the room.
"I found her! They're taking her in a carriage to the church, it will cross Wickery Bridge in minutes. We can catch it in the woods on this side!" He slammed out of the room, with Damon seconds behind.
Bonnie felt, more than she ever had in her time in 1864, like she was watching a movie about history, rather than living it. Her body felt leaden, as if time itself was trying to stop her from changing anything. It reminded her of how heavy she had felt when she first arrived.
"I'll need your help, Bonnie. Even with the comet, it will take both of us to save twenty-seven vampires from conflagration." Emily said once they'd heard the brothers leave out the front door.
"You know the plan as well as I do, and Katherine even better, so I think you already know that it will be twenty-six vampires in that tomb." Bonnie replied and Emily smiled.
"That's thanks to you, you know Bonnie. If you hadn't drawn the attention of George Lockwood, Katherine would never have noticed that he was a werewolf."
Bonnie blinked.
"What? George Lockwood is a werewolf? Werewolves are real?" Emily just looked at Bonnie, demonstrating a truly impressive dead pan stare.
"As real as you and me, and significantly more violent. They run in the Lockwood family. George came back from the front with the ability to turn. He's the one who's been ripping the necks out of people every full moon." That explained why none of the vampires had fessed up to such messy eating habits. But how could the Founder's council hunt vampires, and not know that one of their own was a werewolf? But more importantly—
"You knew this and you let me go to a ball with him? What happened to protecting your family?"
"Family is everything to me, and I will do anything necessary to protect them from this world. I would have stopped George Lockwood's heart in his chest if he'd even thought about hurting you." She paused, tucking a strand of loose hair behind Bonnie's ear. "But he just wanted to dance with you, Bonnie."
Emily had spent years as Katherine Pierce's handmaiden, traveling with the vampire with her own children in tow. Bonnie could only imagine the dangers they'd faced, both supernatural and mundane, but this seemed too cavalier of an attitude to take when facing a dangerous creature. Did he only kill people on the full moon? Had there been a full moon the night of the Founder's Celebration? She would have to search Grams' library a little more carefully once she got home. If werewolves were real, what else was out there?
"Okay. I'm going to completely set that aside as not the issue right now. What are we going to do about the church? Is everything ready?"
"You brought a stone with you when you travelled here. You said it was a bloodstone, right?" Bonnie nodded, following Emily with her eyes as the witch dug through one of her own trunks.
"Did it look like this?" Emily held up an identical stone. Bonnie's eyes grew wide.
"Yes, exactly like that." She'd hidden the stone among her own things. And while Emily could have stolen it, she had no reason to do so.
"I thought this might be the one you spoke of. Except yours now has over a century of extra magical charge, if I'm right. I think it's been tied to the spell that locks the tomb. If we can harness that energy, we can use it to kickstart the spell. Go and get yours. Meet me in the graveyard by Fell's Church, I will check on Pearl."
Both women left Katherine and Emily's rooms. Bonnie headed towards her own, while Emily went for the front door. Bonnie knew that Pearl was being exposed by Jonathan Gilbert's pocket watch as they spoke, and that Emily would save Anna from meeting the same fate. Another crossroad, another chance for Bonnie to change the story she knew.
She thought of stopping Emily, and condemning Anna, her kidnapper, but hesitated. Now that concrete opportunities to change the future were presenting themselves to her, when she knew which way history was leading, she felt real fear at the thought of changing it. A few months of ripples was one thing, but what if she accidentally caused something more severe? What if she prevented her own birth? Or Caroline's? What if she somehow caused the Civil War to go the other way? What if Anna has inadvertently (or purposefully, who knew?) stopped Hitler from taking over all of Europe? She had no idea, and she wasn't keen to find out by returning to a future with a successful third Reich. Better to let the big things remain unchanged.
When she got to her room, she grabbed the bloodstone quickly, but hesitated over the rest of the bag. Her jeans would be much more comfortable than her dress, but she wouldn't be able to get out of the corset without help anytime soon. Huffing in frustration, she grabbed her grandfather's necklace, an elastic hairband, and an energy bar. The first she would never leave behind, and the latter two because she had a feeling that this would be a long night.
LINE BREAK
The two Bennetts met in the graveyard beyond the church grounds, the area reserved for sinners, suicides, and witches. It wasn't tended to by anyone, and trees interspersed the graves and high grass. They stood within sight of the church but were well hidden. Emily had brought Anna with her.
"We'll use her blood as a further binding." Bonnie nodded, but had a feeling that Anna's blood would be used to identify vampires for the seal, making it safe for all other species to cross. Anna crouched at the wall separating the unhallowed graves from the blessed, watching as the first vampires were carried, hog tied and drugged, into the church.
"Do you have the stone?" The witches both spoke in unison, but neither laughed.
"I've got mine." Bonnie held up the stone she'd used to travel back in time. Emily mirrored her action with her own bloodstone.
"Are you familiar with this spell?" Emily asked. Bonnie was. She'd studied the tomb sealing spell with Grams before they'd attempted to open it.
"I don't understand though. I thought your crystal, the talisman, was what locked the tomb."
"The crystal will act as a channel for the comet, and it will bring more power to the spell. But it is just the key, though a tricky one. This," Emily held up her bloodstone, "is the lock."
Bonnie swallowed. That didn't make sense to her, but there was no use arguing stones with Emily Bennett. "Okay, let's do this."
The witches set up the elemental circle. The both stood within the circle, Bonnie in front of the lit candle, and Emily in front of the bowl of earth. Anna remained outside, but a bowl of her blood lay on the ground between the two Bennetts. Each held a bloodstone, identical in every way. They were the same stone after all.
"First, I'm going to draw the energy from your stone to mine, you don't have to do anything. This is my area of expertise." If Emily were a different person, she would have winked here, or smirked, but she wasn't so she did neither. "After I place my stone in Annabelle's blood, we'll join hands, and begin the sealing spell. The comet will be directly overhead." Bonnie nodded, taking a deep breath. She could do this. She knew more than she did the first time she tried this spell, and she had the comet at her back this time, not to mention one of the most powerful Bennett witches ever in front of her.
"Bonnie?" Emily called for her attention. Anna was still staring at the church, searching each face to identify them as they were carried into the church. Bonnie looked at Emily. "After I do this, I don't know how long you can remain here. The bloodstone is connected to you. It might be only minutes, but it might be months. I wish I could be more exact, but we no longer have time." Bonnie swallowed. She wouldn't need to look for a way home any longer, but she had no idea when she would be leaving. Lovely.
"I know this isn't ideal. But we must live with what Nature provides. Now, are you ready."
"Ready as I'll ever be." Bonnie replied. She would never be as stoically accepting of life's challenges as Emily was, but she didn't exactly have any time to complain. The comet was here, and the vampires were all inside the church.
Emily began chanting, eyes closed and both hands curled tightly around her bloodstone. Bonnie realized she had no idea what she was supposed to do with her own stone once the transfer was complete. Toss it aside? Awkwardly put it at her feet before grabbing Emily's hands?
Her worries about where to put the stone quickly dissipated, replaced by greater alarm. Deep fissures were appearing on the bloodstone, large ones. Before her eyes the stone cracked and crumbled into dust. She was left holding just a sinlge oblong sliver. She stared, not even noticing Emily opening her eyes and placing her own stone, still whole, into the bowl of blood.
"Bonnie, we have to begin now." Bonnie started, and hastily shoved the last piece of her stone travelling companion into her bodice. She missed pockets.
The lone candle flared as they began chanting, and the smell of freshly tilled earth filled the air. The spell seemed to last hours and seconds at once. Bonnie could feel the tomb being built with their words, the layers of protection they were weaving over the prison falling into place. Finally, she felt it. The lock clicked, and both Bennetts stopped chanting at the same moment. Bonnie glanced down. The blood in the bowl was gone, and the bloodstone was dry. But the red veins that ran through the stone seemed more vibrant, almost alive.
Emily stooped and picked up the stone, stowing it in her waiting satchel.
The familiar amber crystal hung around her neck. And she fingered it for a moment before taking it off. She held it tightly in her hand, as if she didn't want to part with it.
"I have to find a place for the stone. It will need to stay near the tomb for it to be effective. I can have my brother get a shovel, we'll bury it at the foot of a grave, so it is not disturbed." Bonnie, who remembered that the bodies under her feet were exhumed and the graves moved as part of a Virginia wide historical society project, shook her head.
"No, it belongs at the Salvatore's. It fits in the centerpiece of their main fireplace. It will be safe there." Emily nodded slowly.
"We have to go, I have to give this to Damon," Emily said indicating her talisman, "and they'll light the church any second. We don't want to be here when they do." Her words were spoken too late. The church blazed, dry timber catching easily. Flames shot out of the windows, and the glass shattered. The area was suddenly much better lit, and all three women immediately dropped to ground.
"We can't leave together, we'll be too noticeable as a group. And we're all known as associates of vampires." Emily bit her lip, obviously thinking hard. "Annabelle, take this." She thrust the bloodstone into her hands. "This is what is keeping your mother safe. Bring it to the Salvatore's. You've been invited in before. Get it onto that fireplace. I don't care who you have to compel or convince. Just get it done, and get out of town. Don't wait for either of us." Anna nodded, grabbed the stone, and was gone in a blur. Emily turned her head to Bonnie. They lay on their fronts, their faces inches from each other, their bodies parallel to the witches and sinners laying six feet beneath them.
"Bonnie. You are an amazing witch, and I am proud to know you are part of my family." She stretched out an arm, and Bonnie grasped her hand. Emily's fingers tightened over her own. Without the power of the spell, their entwined hands felt different. Not lesser, but full of something else, safe and warm.
"They will search Katherine's rooms. They probably already have. My things are there, they will know I am a witch." Bonnie gasped. The Salem witch trials were more than a century in the past even for this time, but townspeople who burned vampires weren't likely to spare witches. "I am not going to walk away from this. But you are." Emily let go of her hand and placed her talisman in Bonnie's palm. "This contains more of me than anything else on this earth other than my children, keep it safe. Keep them safe, and keep yourself safe. Now go!" She shoved away, stood, and ran away. Not into the woods behind them, but around. She was hoping to be spotted, hoping to draw any possible hunters away from Bonnie.
Bonnie rolled over again, erasing any lingering traces of their circle, before picking up the bowl and candle stub. After assuring herself that she had Emily's talisman and the last piece of her bloodstone she stumbled into the woods. She didn't make it twenty feet before she ran into another body.
Both of them had been rushing, looking behind them for pursuers, and neither had been prepared for a moving obstacle. The candle and bowl went flying. Bonnie landed on a large protruding root, and she groaned.
"Bonnie?" The witch experienced déjà vu as she opened her eyes to find Damon leaning over her. This time, he was much closer, and his face was marked with drying tear tracks.
"Damon? What are you doing here?" Any answer he had was cut off by a shout, far closer than Bonnie was comfortable with.
"We have to get out of here, hang on to me." Damon grabbed her without waiting for her answer, and Bonnie felt the wind start rushing by. Her legs and skirt uncomfortably jostled at the speed, hitting Damon's as he ran through the woods. Bonnie could feel the bruises forming, but he was going too fast for her to adjust her body at all. This was nothing like when Stefan jumped out of the tomb with her. Bonnie closed her eyes tightly, hoping to dispel the nausea brought on by the rapidly moving trees.
Just as suddenly as he had started, he stopped. Placing her down, he removed his arms from where they had wrapped around her. One hand stayed at her waist, steadying her while she swayed.
"Sorry, I don't really know how this works yet." Bonnie looked around. She could barely see a thing, but she could hear the lapping of water and vaguely make out a ramshackle structure a few yards away.
"Where are we? How did you run like that? Have you already turned?" Bonnie took a step closer, so that they were chest to chest. She didn't know what she was looking for in his eyes, some telltale sign that he now needed to drink blood to survive? A lack of life that meant he'd chosen to switch his humanity off? She found nothing, they were the same eyes that had bored into her as they danced, twinkled as he laughed over their shared ice cream, and flashed at each of her challenges.
"No, I'm not. It seems like some of the powers come early. Katherine didn't tell me that. But I guess she didn't spend long in transition." He stepped back, and sat down, staring out into the night. Bonnie assumed that he could see better than she could, because it was an inky expanse of nothingness to her. The moon overhead was dull and dim. She could barely see him, even with his bright and reflective white shirt. She sat next to him, close so she couldn't lose him in the dark.
"You need to drink human blood to fully turn. Is that why you went to the church? And where's Stefan?" He turned, eyes suddenly blazing.
"You knew?" He asked venomously.
"Knew what?" Bonnie was confused.
"That she was feeding him blood! That she planned for this! That Katherine never wanted eternity with me at all!" Bonnie swallowed. She had never known Damon to be angry with Katherine before he found out she wasn't starving in the tomb under Fell's Church. And she'd missed his initial anger at that revelation. She'd been there for the despondency, and his later cold fury, but nothing in between. What could she say to him now?
"I knew that she was giving Stefan blood, yes. She's been compelling him to drink, and to forget about it." She said quietly. Damon punched the ground.
"That just makes it worse. He didn't even want this, she had to force him. And here I am, desperate and willing, and I don't even get the girl because she's fucking dead!"
"Damon—"
"And what am I supposed to do without her? No one else wants me. Am I to live life alone as a monster? Or with Stefan forever? Perhaps we'll find a new girl to fall in love with, a new girl to pick him over me."
"She didn't exactly pick him over you, Damon," At least she hadn't yet. "And you don't have to be a monster, or alone." Her first statement had earned a scoff, but her second caught his interest.
"I don't have to be alone? Have you changed your mind? Will you stay with me, Bonnie?" The witch was shocked. That was not what she expected him to latch onto. She remembered what Emily said. She couldn't go with him just to disappear in an hour or a week. Especially in his current mood. It'd be better if they had a clean break.
"Damon, I can't. I'm not a vampire. I'm mortal. And I have to go home soon." He looked away again, the hope she hadn't even realized she'd kindled was gone from his face.
"There's no point to this existence when you're alone, you're a monster because you're killing people to stay alive for nothing, for no one." He threw a rock, hard, and Bonnie heard its splash as it hit the water in front of them. It sounded very far away.
"That's a pretty depressing outlook on your life." And about as dramatic as Caroline freshman year. There's no point in living when you're single? Yes, there was the added nuance about vampirism, but it still sounded harsh to Bonnie. Probably because she'd been single for most of her high school career.
"Well, it's not much of a life. I only have a day left; I can be as depressed as I want."
"You don't plan on completing the transition?" Hadn't he just been asking for her to run away with him? Had he been trying to contract her as his undertaker and not as a companion?
"Do I look like I'm out hunting for a human to drink from?" He replied glibly.
"There's a human sitting right next to you."
"You offering a vein?"
"No, but I thought I should point it out. You might even be fast enough to get some before I stopped you."
"You think I don't know that? You think that every part of me isn't screaming at me right now to take a bite out of you? Believe me Bonnie, I know you're human. I can hear your heartbeat, see the blood pumping through the veins at your wrist, I can smell you." He leaned into her, breathing in deeply, his nose just beneath her jawbone. She could feel the puff of his breath on her skin at each word.
Stefan had given her blood that night Emily had possessed her, and she had no scars from Damon's bite. But she could feel the ghost of the wound now, with its giver so close. His lips brushed the skin above her collar before he pulled away. Bonnie let out a shaky breath.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to bite you. Like I said, this is the end of the line for me."
"What about meeting my friends?" Bonnie asked. How did she convince him to live? What had she changed that made him want to give up on life? And what could she do to change it back?
"The friends you refuse to introduce me to? I think I'll pass." She caught the flash of his teeth as her smiled. Her throat felt tight. How could he be smiling and joking while saying things like this?
"And what about all the places you could visit? The things you haven't done? What about the people you still haven't met?" Bonnie thought of the future, of Damon's face when he looked at Stefan and Elena, the hurt there, but also the love. "Maybe you'll meet someone in the future that will make you forget all about this. Someone you will really love."
"She'll probably be in love with Stefan too." Bonnie winced, and hoped her heart didn't stutter too obviously. Damon narrowed his eyes.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you'd miss me, Bonnie."
"I will." Bonnie hadn't hesitated over the answer, and she wasn't lying. She liked Damon here in the past, and he had his moments in the future. There, she'd always felt on uneven footing. He knew more than her, was stronger than her, and always seemed on edge, like he was a second away from snapping her neck. Here, in a time when they should be considered anything but, they were equals. Bonnie had grown to consider him a friend, and maybe—no, a friend.
She held up Emily's talisman. It was her final play. Elena had said Damon didn't know Katherine had survived until after he had turned, but Emily wasn't there to give him the crystal, and Bonnie didn't know if she'd be there in the morning to give him the good news.
"This will open the tomb. When the comet returns, find a witch, and use this."
"You did it? You saved her?"
"Katherine is safe." Damon's eyes were locked to the crystal.
"When the comet returns…but…that isn't for another century!"
"A hundred and forty-five years, yes."
"That's a long time to wait."
"It could be longer." And it would be, actually. They had no idea where Katherine was. Maybe it'd be another century before Damon and his sire crossed paths again.
"And you won't stay with me?" Damon asked. He still hadn't taken the talisman, and it hung from Bonnie's outstretched hand between them.
"And be a placeholder for Katherine? No thanks." She tossed the chain towards him, and he caught it midair. She felt lighter without it. Did that mean she'd set him back on the right track?
"I didn't say that. We're friends aren't we?"
"Yes, Damon, we're friends. But I still have to leave. Soon."
"Will I see you again?" He actually sounded worried that he wouldn't. How would she face Damon back home? The snark would be the same, but there'd be none of the care underneath.
"Of course." Of course, Bonnie thought, when you try and force me to open the tomb to save your dead girlfriend and then rip my throat out. Would that still happen?
Thinking about his attack again made her doubt her decision, with Anna before, and now with Damon, to not change the future. She could stop Damon from transitioning. She could kill him right now. He didn't have the ability to heal from the aneurism she could inflict.
But again, she hesitated. Would she have been born if Damon hadn't been protecting the Bennett line? Would she have lived past five, without Damon's timely intervention with the dog? No, Damon would become a vampire, and kill hundreds of people, because Bonnie was going to be selfish. Not only for her life, but for his. Because, and Bonnie could barely admit it to herself, they really were friends, and she wanted him to be there when she got back home.
She could feel something in her navel. A cord unravelling, ready to drop her as soon as the last twist was undone. The last piece of her bloodstone burned hot against her chest. Was that a signal that it was finished holding her here? When it failed as her anchor, would she travel back home, or just…dissipate? Lost forever?
"Damon I have to go." She stood and turned away from him. Her eyes were dry, despite her fear that she was about to die. She wanted to stay, to throw herself into his arms. To know that in her last moments someone cared about her to hold her close. But Bonnie hadn't relied on anyone in years, and it wouldn't do any good to break her streak in her final moments. Besides, Damon had just lost Katherine. She didn't need to add her own loss to his conscience right now. She'd only just convinced him to live.
Bonnie started walking, not knowing where she was going. She'd started to lose feeling in her hands and feet, so she was up to her ankles before she realized she'd walked into the water. She breathed in and thought of home. Would clicking her heels be too much?
"Bonnie, what are you—?" Damon said behind her.
"Remember your promise to Emily! You have to protect her children!" Bonnie called.
"Bonnie!" She took another step forward, the water at her knees, and the unraveling was complete. She heard a splash behind her, Damon trying to follow her, but Bonnie was already gone.