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Chapter 14
fools rush in
Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.
-Emily Dickinson
Instead of waking up broken on concrete, Bonnie came to lying face down on a soft mattress. While the featherbed was obviously preferable, the impact had still jolted through her entire body, and her skin felt tender. She groaned, burying her face further into the pillows. Bonnie had just managed to relax her muscles and was just gathering the willpower to turn over and face whatever time she'd found herself in, when she heard a door burst open behind her.
"Get up! Get up!" Bonnie rolled over, toward the voice, and fell right off the side of the bed.
"Ugh. Why?" She asked the universe.
"Who are you? What are you doing in here?" Bonnie looked up to see a girl about her age, dressed in a maid's uniform. The floor length kind, not the sexy-French-maid costume kind sold at cheap Halloween stores.
Hopefully, this girl would be as helpful as the people she'd previously met, and not an evil vampire like Klaus.
"I'm Bonnie. And I'm not exactly sure where here is, so…"
The maid moved to grab her wrist, but when their skin met both gasped. Bonnie saw a small cottage on a wide lake, smelt fresh peach cobbler, and felt the burning familiarity of home. She could immediately sense the truth in each vision. This maid was a witch, and even more, she was a Bennett. Bonnie seemed to be recovering from the psychic contact more easily than her ancestor, who seemed to be in a stupor.
"It's you. You are our end." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but Bonnie still heard her. Goosebumps erupted down her arms. What did that mean? What end?
"What? What are you talking about? Who are you?" The other witch's eyes snapped open, and she let go of Bonnie's wrist.
"I'm Damia Bennett. You shouldn't be here." She said flatly. Bonnie was reminded strongly of Emily, but that name was a step beyond belief.
"I'm sorry, did you say Damia Bennett? Damia? Who named you that?"
The fear on the other Bennett's face was now replaced by annoyance.
"My mother, obviously." She raised her chin superiorly, looking down her nose at Bonnie. "And I'll have you know I'm named after a hero. Damon saved Uncle Sebastian and my mother's lives when they were children, and he freed my grandfather from slavery." Her mother was Ruthie. She'd survived, apparently thanks to Damon.
"Your namesake, Damon? He freed someone from slavery?" Bonnie asked. She'd known that Emily's husband, the children's father, was owned by a man in Louisiana. She'd learned what she could about him; it had been a rare opportunity to learn a family history that would never be written down, but Emily hadn't wanted to talk about him very much, and his children barely remembered him.
"More than someone. A full plantation. Murdered the master and any slave catcher who tried to stop them between Louisiana and Massachusetts." Damia boasted. Bonnie had expected Emily's brother to take care of the children in the wake of their mother's death, but apparently Damon had made other plans.
"Whoa." Bonnie didn't really know what to say. This was news to her. She wondered how this story had been lost in her family, what had happened between now and 2010, that Bennetts went from naming their daughters after Damon, to glaring him down on their front porch.
"So yes, I am Damia Bennett. And I'm asking you again. What are you doing here, Bonnie Bennett?" Apparently, despite Damia's evident growing dislike for Bonnie, and whatever end the other witch had sensed from her skin, she had picked up the familial note between them too.
"I'm caught in the blowback of a botched spell. I'm kind of from the future, but I'm coming from the past, hence the old clothes. But I shouldn't be here long. I'm usually only around for a few hours, so I'll be out of your hair soon enough." Bonnie hoped this was enough of an explanation. But whether it was satisfactory or not, she wouldn't know. The two heard the wriggling of the knob of a door just outside the room.
Damia grew wide-eyed again.
"You don't have any credentials, and you look all wrong. Quick, under the bed." Bonnie didn't argue. Her dress was still the lend she'd gotten from Katherine in 1864, and it had been dirtied by quarry mud, stress sweat, presidential blood, and the dusty soil of South Dakota. She sorely regretted not trading it in for one of Rebekah's dresses, but it had seemed such a ridiculous risk. At least she'd ditched the full hoop before she'd begun digging graves outside Deadwood.
The bed skirt had fallen back to the ground after Bonnie, and she was ensconced in the dark, trying to breathe as shallowly and quietly as possible.
"Just go up without me Charles, I won't be a minute. I have to grab my dinner jacket, but there's no reason for you to leave your lady love waiting." The masculine voice was just beyond the wall, and Bonnie heard a second jovial voice bid him goodbye before the door to the bedroom swung open.
"Sir, I'm sorry. I was just collecting your linens. I will wait outside until you're finished." Damia's tone was polite and deferential, but curt.
"No need to wait, I'll keep my sheets another day. Go to your next room." Damia couldn't exactly argue, and Bonnie tracked her soft tread as it exited the rooms and out into the hallway. Bonnie stopped trying to be quiet. She knew that voice.
"I may be weaker than my brother, but I can still hear your breathing, Bonnie." He lifted the bed skirt and peered under. Bonnie began wriggling out without protest, pulling roughly when her skirt got caught underneath. The last time she had seen Stefan they'd managed a peaceful and contemplative conversation, but they weren't friendly in the past. Still, she was confident he wasn't about to snap her neck.
"How did you know it was me? I doubt you can recognize my breathing patterns after all this time." He appraised her for a second, sizing her up.
"Witches have a particular note to their scents. It's alluring, it draws vampires in. The more powerful the witch, the stronger the draw. You have the most powerful aura of any I've encountered; it was noticeable even when I was only human. As soon as I walked in, I could feel you, beneath the bed, and I knew it was you."
"This draw…um…is it like a pull to feed, or a pull to…" Bonnie trailed off, cursing herself for even thinking about asking that question. Why did she ever open her mouth?
Stefan just laughed.
"You and Katherine could be so forward, I'd almost forgotten. As for your question, I would guess it would depend on the vampire and the witch. There is always an awareness, but whether the attraction is gastronomic or carnal probably has more to do with their relationship." He winked, but Bonnie thought it was pretty safe to say that his attraction to her scent was strictly in the food category of things.
"Well, that's good to know at least. Now about me being under your bed—"
"Bonnie, I've wanted to apologize to you for a long time. I'm sorry for how I treated you when we first met. I've always been attuned to people's hurt and suffering, and I thought I had an open mind as well as heart. But your presence made me realized that I'd written off a huge number of people as not even people at all, that I'd assumed that what society told me about them was true. My actions towards you, and my attitude in general, was reprehensible. My apology comes half a century too late, but I hope you will accept it just the same." Bonnie blinked. That was some speech, and it had definitely been rehearsed in front of a mirror a few times, but that didn't mean he wasn't sincere. Stefan had always been better at soul-searching, and sticking to his resolutions, than his brother.
"Thank you, Stefan, for the apology. You're already forgiven." A weight lifted from her, as the dissolution of a difference between the two timelines hit home. Stefan was nearly her friend again, and their relationship could only be built up from here. A little of her guilt, from condemning him and his brother, and later saving them, resolved itself within her.
"Stefan, what's the date, and the year?" He looked at her a little curiously but shrugged good naturedly.
"Coming off a bit of a bender? Can't say I haven't been there. It's April 14th, so we're four months into 1912." He winked, before pulling out his pocket watch. "And it's a quarter of an hour before six o'clock. Honestly, I don't know how you managed to get aboard without knowing the date, didn't your ticket say?" Stefan asked.
The last time Bonnie had been sure of the date was in 1865. Nearly fifty years had gone by; little Ruthie was a woman now and had a grown daughter of her own. For Bonnie, it had been only three days since their shared magic lesson. She would never see that little girl again, but the only thing she could do now is look forward.
"It's a long story, but here's what you need to know. I don't have a ticket, a cabin, a change of clothes, or money to get any of those things. Want to help a girl out, for old times' sake?"
"It would be my honor, Miss McCullough." Stefan gave a slight bow in emphasis. It somehow managed to be lighthearted, yet completely devoid of the mocking note she would have expected from his older brother. "I'd be happy to lend you some cash, and there are seamstresses aboard. But for now, I'll just go borrow something. I'll be back in a second." He took more than a second, but only barely. Bonnie had just sat down on the bed when he returned, smile in place, and with a dress hung over one arm.
"This should do, anything else?" He asked, but Bonnie had just remembered his earlier entrance.
"Stefan! Your friend! You told him you'd meet him soon."
"So I did. I doubt anyone will be that put out by my late arrival at dinner, but I should give you some time to change. There's a comb and some soap by the wash basin. Come up to the main dining room when you're ready, we'll get you some food and I'll introduce you to everyone you don't know." Bonnie nodded, resolving herself to an evening of unfamiliar faces, and Stefan swiftly exited.
She combed her hair and tried to pin it up into some sort of respectable up do. It looked much sloppier than Damia's sleek no-nonsense bun, but Bonnie hoped it would come off as intentional.
Peeking out from beneath the dress Stefan had laid out on the bed was a slip, stockings, and a significantly less restrictive corset compared to the one Bonnie was wearing. She internally thanked Stefan for his thoroughness, before gleefully burning through the buttons and ties of Katherine's borrowed clothes.
Bonnie pulled each layer on, guessing at the order and hoping for the best. When she was finished, she had a shirt-like piece left over, but she shrugged and tossed it aside. She smoothed her hands down the gauzy embroidered overlay, took a deep breath, and headed out the door.
After wandering up and down the hall for a few minutes, Bonnie realized she had no idea where she was going. There weren't any signs, and all of the doors remained shut. Finally, she decided to try going down a set of stairs, hoping to at least run into someone. It was only one flight down when Bonnie spotted a man, a boy really, hurrying past her. He looked harried, and Bonnie internally winced at adding to his burdens, but she was completely lost.
"Excuse me, could you help me? I have a horrible memory, and I'm lost. Do you think you could give me directions towards the dining room?" The boy spun on his heel to face her and nodded eagerly.
"Happy to ma'am, first class dining I assume?" He said, with a nod to her dress. "I'm on my way there myself in fact, Mr. George decided he wants his ivory cufflinks after all. I'll show you." He spoke fast, with a thick Irish accent, and barely waited for her before continuing on. Lifting her skirt to lengthen her stride, Bonnie followed.
After what seemed like a dozen identical wood paneled hallways, they spilled out into a wide atrium, and Bonnie could see a huge set of double doors at the bottom of the stairs.
"Here you are ma'am. The steward will let you in the main doors, but I've got to slip around back. Have a good evening."
Bonnie called a thank you after him, but he was already gone. She descended the stairs slowly, careful in the short-heeled shoes that Stefan had brought her.
When the steward didn't immediately open the door for her, she nodded to him in recognition, and reached for the handle herself. Bonnie hoped her brazenness would get her through where her ignorance could not help, but he caught her arm before she'd touched the door. Though he immediately released her hand, it was clear that he was intent on blocking her entrance to the room.
"Is there a problem?" He pursed his lips like he was sucking on a particularly bitter lemon.
"Do you have a first-class ticket ma'am?" The last word was said derisively, like he did not want to address Bonnie as such.
"Not on me if that's what you're asking. I was unaware I was required to carry it whenever I wished to have something to eat."
"I'm sorry ma'am," He didn't sound sorry at all, "but I cannot allow you to enter the dining room without first class verification." Bonnie huffed in frustration, no doubt cementing her low-class status in this guy's mind.
"Look, I understand that you don't think I belong in there. But I'm already late, and I can't exactly go all the way back to my cabin and fetch a ticket that I shouldn't even need right now. I told Mr. Salvatore I would meet him a quarter of an hour ago, and I'm sure he won't appreciate knowing you've kept me even longer." Bonnie channeled Katherine, projecting belonging and superiority as much as she could. His face changed.
"Mr. Salvatore? Are you—?" His lips stiffened again, from shock, to determination. "I still have to verify. I will ask Mr. Salvatore myself, and if he doesn't know you, there will be consequences, Miss." Bonnie noted her demotion to Miss, but nodded in agreement. The steward called a servant from inside to watch her while he entered the dining room to get Stefan.
Bonnie tried not to fidget nervously, and only adjusted her long over-the-elbow gloves once. Standing outside a party, waiting to know if you'll be allowed in, was never a good feeling. After a short eternity, Bonnie heard voices just on the other side of the door.
"Once again, sir, I am sorry to interrupt your meal. The woman claims to be meeting you, but you really should see her before you verify anything." Bonnie took a step away from the door, trying not to look guilty about eavesdropping and ignoring the amused snort of the door's temporary guard.
"And here she is." The door swung open, revealing the rude steward and the wrong Salvatore brother.
"Sir, I—" Bonnie's face must have reflected her shock, she had not expected to be face to face with Damon, and she was struggling to articulate how to tell him he'd grabbed the wrong Salvatore brother. The steward looked somewhat gleeful, no doubt gearing up to ream her out, and to deliver some of the consequences he'd threatened earlier.
Both of them were cut short by Damon. He sprung forward and pulled Bonnie into a tight hug, lifting her off her feet, before spinning her around once. Bonnie clung to him, her arms tight around his shoulders, shocked by his exuberance.
He set her down and kissed her with a smack on both cheeks.
"Bonnie McCullough, I thought you'd never arrive." He smiled widely at her silence and slipped a bill into the hands of the gaping steward.
"Thank you so much for letting me know she was here. Now, the doors if you don't mind." The steward opened the door wide, avoiding Bonnie's eyes.
"Sorry about that Bonnie, you should have heard his implications when he came to get me. Though I'm glad he did; tell me, when did you board? This is a voyage of familiar faces. You'll never guess who else is here!"
"Stefan." Damon deflated a little at her easy answer.
"You've already seen him?"
"He's the one who got me this dress. If the steward had seen me when I first arrived he wouldn't have let me in even with your endorsement."
"Well I supposed I have to be just slightly nicer to my brother this evening. You look ravishing." Bonnie rolled her eyes and noticed the rest of the room for the first time.
It was gorgeous, but also full of people staring at her. Bonnie shifted under the scrutiny.
"Damon, why are they all staring?" He flashed a smile at her, no teeth, and raised an eyebrow. Every time she saw him he looked more and more like the vampire she remembered from the 21st century.
"Bonnie, you're entering a room arm and arm with Damon Salvatore, a few stares are to be expected." Bonnie muttered some choice words about arrogance under her breath, knowing he could hear her as clearly as if she'd shouted. "Now, just smile like I'm the most charming man in the world and they'll all love you."
"Not likely." But despite her words, she smiled up at him. Partially because she was taking his advice, but also because she was happy to see his face. No one could blame her for that. It was a good face. Grams swam into view, followed by herself. Her past self, from before she travelled in time, would be judging her harshly for her happiness. She pushed the thought aside.
"Anyway, you can just take me to Stefan's table and go back to whatever you were doing before I interrupted your evening." She still couldn't see Stefan in the room, probably because of the amount of people circulating between the tables. She hoped he hadn't decided to leave when he saw her with Damon.
"No need for me to abandon you in unfamiliar waters, Stefan and I just happen to be sharing a table tonight." They reached the end of the room, and Bonnie finally saw Stefan. He was seated at a large circular table, which was populated mostly by men around the same age as Damon and Stefan, or at least the age the brothers appeared to be. Only three women sat at the table, each smiling demurely and taking small bites of the food in front of them. The men were loud, and the women looked bored. Bonnie prepared herself for a rough meal.
"Ah! Damon, you're back. We were wondering where that steward took you off to," His tone was convivial, and he added an exaggerated wink before shoving a piece of bread into his mouth. No one spoke, waiting for him to finish chewing and finish his sentence. "We thought he might be shaking you down for cash, but it seems you have gained something instead."
"Yes, William, no need to worry about me being mugged by the servants. Everyone, this is Bonnie McCullough." His introduction was met by an easy acceptance of everyone at the table, and Stefan smiled widely at her. Bonnie thought he'd probably dodged the steward on purpose, just to laugh at her when he heard her shocked sputtering twenty yards away.
An empty chair appeared next to Damon's and the table's occupants gamely scooched their chairs and shifted their plates to make room for her. Another set of dishes and silverware arrived, quickly followed by a plate filled with potatoes and roast duck. Bonnie dug in, ignoring the uneasy looks directed at her by some of the party.
"So, did you hear? Roosevelt is entering the election, who would have thought? Got so fed up with Taft he's started his own party! Some sort of Moose nonsense." Bonnie perked up. Taft sounded familiar to her, and she knew there had been multiple Roosevelt presidents. Stefan had told her she was in 1912, but Bonnie didn't really know where that placed her in history. Maybe this could help her figure it out.
"Excuse me, but what did you just say? He's started another party?" Bonnie had expected that her words would spur the conversation on, hopefully to current events and maybe a mention of who the current president was. Instead, her words effectively ended the conversation, and everyone looked at Bonnie as if she'd suddenly sprouted a second head. Damon just laughed into his glass of wine, doing nothing to help her. After a full twenty seconds of silence, another man at the table, Bonnie thought he might have been introduced as Charles, spoke up.
"This is really nothing that concerns you, so don't worry your pretty little head about it. Margaret," he turned to the young woman next to him, "why don't you two talk about dresses or something." Bonnie blinked in shock as the conversation resumed as if she had never spoken. Margaret smiled at her sympathetically.
"Damon, what the hell?" Bonnie whispered. The vampire reached out a hand, patting hers in comfort, before leaning in to whisper in her ear.
"Sorry Bonnie, he's very against women's suffrage or involvement in politics, but he has a grimoire I need." He leaned away and joined the conversation easily. Bonnie shuddered at the thought of arrogant Charles holding anything magic for even a second but was also miffed that Damon would go along with this kind of stuff.
Bonnie looked down at her plate, and the few lonely potatoes still left on it. Her stomach churned.
"If you'll excuse me, I think I need to freshen up a bit." Bonnie pushed back from the table roughly, not caring what any of them thought of her or her manners at all.
"I'll go with you." Margaret stood from beside Charles and took Bonnie's arm. Bonnie knew she should be grateful, as she had no idea where anything was on the ship, not even the closest bathroom, but she would rather have been alone.
"I feel I must apologize on Charles' behalf. He and I are engaged, you see. He's never been the most polite man, but he was rather more rude than usual to you, I'm sorry."
"I'd rather an apology from the source, but I don't think I'd ever get one." Bonnie replied. Margaret grimaced.
"No, most likely not. But we haven't been properly introduced, have we? I'm Margaret, Margaret Graham. But you must call me Margie, everyone does, except Charles when he's putting on airs of course." Bonnie smiled at the woman's increasingly easy manner as they got further from the table. She opened her mouth to return the introduction.
"And of course, I know who you are, even without Damon's rather slapdash general introduction. We've been expecting you, Bonnie McCullough. When you didn't appear after Queenstown, Elizabeth was sure he'd been lying about you taking the trip. But he said you'd be here, and here you are. So, when did you get on? I would have thought we'd meet you right away!" Bonnie was strongly reminded of Caroline, and her heart ached with missing her friend.
"Queenstown. I've just been sick; I'm not used to the sea yet. I wouldn't even let Damon in to see me, I looked horrible. He probably just didn't say anything because he didn't want to admit that my maid managed to physically bar him from the room." Margie laughed at the image this evoked, a nice tinkling laugh. It was the kind of laugh Caroline and Bonnie had tried to practice in middle school. Caroline had managed to completely stifle her awkward braying, but Bonnie had never quite managed to stop herself from snorting.
"Well if you're prone to seasickness, I understand why you needed to get away from the dining room for a bit. It gets so hot in there, even I feel dreadful when all the men are smoking and shouting along with the ships swaying, and I've crossed the Atlantic a dozen times now." They'd reached a door, and Margie nodded for an attendant to push it open. She immediately went to the burnished mirror on the wall and began to dab at her face with a provided towel. Bonnie attempted to mirror her movements but was struck by the image in the mirror.
She didn't look like herself. Both her and Margie had re-donned their long gloves when they left the table, and her covered hands added to the unreality of her reflection. Her unintentionally voluminous hair looked purposeful, her stolen dress elegant, and her flushed face energized. Had she really changed that much? That she could slip into a dress, a role, a lie, without the guilt being painted on her face? Bonnie tried to dismiss her disquiet with some extra vigorous dabbing before she tossed the hand towel into a waiting basket.
"They're smoking a lot. I hope the smell doesn't stay in my hair." Margie's eyes lit up a bit too excitedly for Bonnie's statement.
"Oh, I have just the thing for that! You'll have to stop by my rooms so I can share some with you. I mix it up myself, and it really works. I smell like roses even after my father smokes his pipe next to me."
"Sounds like a plan. Hey, do you know what time it is?" Margie's face turned apologetic.
"No, I apologize; you will have to ask one of the men. I am sure they all carry pocket watches. Are you ready to go back now?"
"Oh, of course. Let's go." Margie nodded and gave Bonnie one last wide smile before they headed for the door.
As they drew closed to the table, Bonnie noticed that the eyes of their table's occupants were tracking their progress across the room eagerly. She tried to suppress the trepidation that sprung up in her stomach. Stefan looked gleeful, which was very odd to Bonnie. Even as a human, he'd been more prone to brooding and intense stares than smiles and laughter. Bonnie thought she saw Charles elbowing Damon repeatedly as they both stood, Charles to pull out Margie's chair, and Damon to pull out hers.
After they sat, the conversation resumed, and no one made any mention of their intense interest a few moments earlier, or the continued glances Bonnie could swear they were throwing her way. The men began talking about Woodrow Wilson and business in New Jersey, and the two other women quickly pulled Margie into a whispered discussion of the Astor patriarch's new and scandalous marriage. Bonnie kept to herself, trying to remember when exactly the first world war broke out, and if that is why Wilson's name sounded familiar to her. Her calculations were cut short by Charles.
"Why Bonnie, you've known our man Damon here for a long time, wouldn't you say?" Bonnie nodded. By Damon's count, they'd known each other for almost fifty years. "You probably know him as well as his own brother. Now Stefan has said his older brother's rather brave, but I think he's a bit of a craven. What do you think? Would you call Damon courageous?"
Bonnie thought about how Damon had failed to speak up when Charles had put her down a few minutes earlier, how he refused to fight his baser urges and try out Stefan's diet, and how he'd refused to own up to his harmful actions with her Grams, with Vicki, and his other victims. A coward.
But she remembered his persistence in opening the tomb, him taking Stefan's army commission, and then leaving the Confederacy to save his humanity. His will to save Katherine's life and his dedication to her before she broke his heart with her absence. Bonnie remembered the trust he gave, over and over, to Elena and to Stefan. She remembered the look in his eyes when she handed over his favorite book and he decided to put his life in her hands. His heart was a gaping wound over Katherine, and he still opened it to someone whose face was her mirror image. That took courage.
"I think Damon is like any of us, at turns courageous, and at others cowardly. Sometimes wise and sometimes foolish. But he's without artifice. And I know, like Stefan does, that when you're backed into a corner, Damon is someone you want next to you. He's willing to take a few extra punches to make sure people who aren't as strong as him remain unharmed." A smile crossed Bonnie's lips. She'd never thought about Damon in the future so positively. Damon as a human was easy to like, but he hadn't really lost any of it by transitioning. So much of himself had stayed with him beneath his bloodlust and lived years; she just had to be open to seeing it.
"Hear that Damon? She wants you next to her. But she didn't give a straight answer on courage, maybe she knows you like to duck out of things before you've crossed the finish line." Bonnie's smile fell. What was Charles talking about? Damon glared at the man but didn't lean over to snap his neck. That grimoire must be something else. Everyone else had to be in on the joke, as they were all laughing. Even Margie seemed in the know now, giggling into her napkin. Stefan's grin widened further. Damon glared at each member of the table in turn.
"I hope you're happy." His glare dropped once he'd turned to Bonnie and took her hand. She turned her body slightly, so their joined hands could rest comfortably in her lap, but he still seemed restless.
"Bonnie, I'm sorry that Charles has ruined this with his meddling, and forced me to do this at this moment, but we all must make the best of our circumstances." He shot another glare across the table before he slid from his chair and knelt next to Bonnie's seat.
Bonnie had never been more confused. She turned her body towards him more fully, catching the very amused smiles on everyone's faces.
"Umm, Damon? What is—?" He held up his free hand.
"Shh. Just give me a minute to speak." He swallowed and started. "Bonnie," He paused, and then sucked in a deep breath before beginning again. "Bonnie, the first time I laid eyes on you I knew that you were something special. That I would never be free of you for the rest of my life, that I wouldn't want to be. I've yet to meet your family, so I cannot say I have their blessing, but you have always charted your own course. My happiness rests solely in your hands. Bonnie McCullough, will you marry me?"
The anticipatory silence had spread from their party, to the nearest adjoining tables, to the entire room. The string quartet fell quiet and Bonnie could feel a hundred pairs of eyes on her and Damon. She was viscerally reminded of the stares she'd received in the school cafeteria when Tyler Lockwood asked her to Spring Fling in eighth grade.
But this wasn't a school dance invite, and this wasn't Tyler. Damon Salvatore had just asked her to marry him. The silence stretched and began to buzz with whispers.
"Bonnie?" Damon looked up at her imploringly. She looked down at him, still processing. He had a ring. It was simple, a gold band with two pearls edged with a vine decal. It wasn't something extravagant, like Katherine would have preferred. He had gotten it with Bonnie in mind. He looked up at her imploringly. Bonnie realized that he must need this engagement for something, and she couldn't leave him hanging any longer.
"Yes?" It came out more as a question than a statement, but the women still sighed enviously as Damon slipped the ring onto Bonnie's finger. The vampire smiled broadly, like he was the happiest man on the whole boat. As if he loved her, and this wasn't just a cover story for this era or this business deal.
His face grew serious, brow furrowed, and his searching eyes roved Bonnie's face for something. What it was, she didn't know. The titters had died down, and Bonnie felt the room hold a collective breath. Her chest ached as his stare bore into her. She didn't want to face this feeling, and she wasn't up for self-introspection. Maybe it was cowardly, but she just couldn't at that moment.
So, she kissed him.
Their second kiss for an audience, and the second kiss that caught Bonnie completely unawares despite her initiating it. Damon kissed like he did everything else, wholeheartedly and without reservation. His lips gentle, but firm. His tongue slipped into her mouth and Bonnie didn't quite stifle her moan before she remembered herself. Her hands, clutching his shoulders, slid down to his chest, and gently pushed. Damon withdrew, only sucking her lower lip slightly as he pulled away.
"Would you like to take a turn with me on the deck, Bonnie?" Bonnie was still dazed but she nodded. Damon would have swept her from the room immediately, and turned to do so, but he was stopped by Charles, who insisted on he and Margie acting as chaperones. Bonnie doubted that one young and engaged couple could be counted on to chaperone another, and her doubts were proven correct as soon as they left the public dining room. Charles and Margie fell back, and soon were completely out of sight, and pleased to be so.
They made it out to the main deck. A few other people were milling around, but it felt private. The night was quiet and cold and huge around them. Bonnie leaned against the metal rails at the side of the ship, and only looked directly down once. The lurch her stomach gave, at the thought of being so high up and the icy water below, convinced her to keep her eyes fully on the deck in front of her. She hadn't forgotten the feeling of free fall as her magic had given way outside Klaus's house.
"I promised a necklace and I'll get that too, even if you reneged on the request. I've set aside some of the raw gold we dug up for it. But I saw the ring in a shop, and I thought of you and," Damon shrugged. "well, I guess I'm glad I bought it now. But I promised you a necklace from my gold, and you'll get it. I just haven't found the right jeweler yet."
"You don't have to give me anything at all, I took it back remember? That was a silly promise anyway." Bonnie said.
"Well it's a silly promise I plan to keep. Next time I see you, I'll have it."
"You don't even know when that will be."
"I'll just have to carry it with me. Worked for the ring." Bonnie stopped, halted by the thought of Damon carrying around the ring that she now wore. How long had he carried it? Just for this trip, where his friends had expected her?
"Damon, why do you talk about me? Really? I know you can't be expecting I show up every time."
Damon looked away. The wind ruffled his hair. He tapped the metal railing a few times, as if a metronome would help marshal his thoughts into coherency.
"You don't show up every time, and I know you won't. But every time there's a chance you could. And that's a nice thought to have. That my friend could arrive any minute and I would no longer be alone."
Bonnie grasped his hand and tightened her fingers over his own. The twin pearls on the ring seemed to glow in the moonlight.
"You're not alone, Damon. Your brother—"
"My brother cursed us both to this existence."
"Damon, you chose to drink Katherine's blood, and to try and rescue her at the risk of your own life. Every day you choose to go outside and keep your daylight ring on. It wasn't all Stefan."
"Yeah, well enough of it was that I'll continue hating him for the rest of the century no matter what you say, thanks."
"Well, I had to try. But Damon, about this whole fiancé thing…" Damon looked nervous. "I want to thank you. It's been pretty useful having people direct me your way once they hear my name." Damon's back straightened and the nervousness melted away.
"Of course, that's the plan. I want to make sure that when you find yourself in an unfamiliar place, and I'm nearby, someone will bring you to me, and I'll be able to keep you safe. I don't want to hear my name on the street, and when I turn its to see you jumping out a window."
"Sorry about that." He waved away her apology.
"Vampire speed, I caught you no problem. Though you fainted on the way down and dropped your rock. Burned like the sun when I picked it up, but as soon as it touched you again, you disappeared, right from my arms. The whole street thought it was some kind of magic show."
Bonnie had thought she'd travelled in the middle of the fall. Knowing Damon had caught her, and that she'd dropped the stone, made her uncomfortable. What if he'd held the stone a little longer? Would he have traveled here, while she was stuck in the past? She shoved her worries aside, determined to appreciate the here and now, whenever that was.
"This has been amazing. The dinner, the view, the dress. I feel like I'm on the Titanic or something." She smiled up at Damon, trying to lighten her own mood. Damon narrowed his eyes, confused.
"Or something? Bonnie, you're on the Titanic."
Author's Note: We are officially over the word count of the original fic, though we are still a few chapters behind where that one left off! To celebrate, I am posting this chapter a little early. Second part will follow this weekend.