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Chapter 19

unring a bell

No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it is not the same river
and he is not the same man.
—Heraclitus

Bonnie woke up with dirt in her mouth. She was lying face down in the center of a circle. Bonnie recognized it as the one she'd drawn to cast the initial time spell. It hadn't been disturbed, by wind, leaves, or animals. The water dish remained full, none of its contents evaporated. Bonnie flipped herself over. She'd half expected Damon's anxious face to be leaning over her, in either modern or antebellum dress, but he wasn't. She was alone.

A bird call echoed through the trees as Bonnie stared at the sky above her. She'd never learned how to tell time by the sun, a skill Damon and Stefan were adept at in 1864, but it was easy to tell it was early morning. The light filtering through the forest canopy was thin and weak, the light of a barely risen sun. Bonnie blinked. She'd left 2010 just as the sun was hinting over the horizon. Was it possible she'd found herself back at nearly the same moment? She had been gone for over a month by her own estimate. Could she really have lived that all in just a moment in the timeline?

Bonnie lifted herself from the ground and stumbled her way towards the road, gaining stability with each step. She spat repeatedly in an effort to rid her mouth of the taste of the forest floor. Her Prius was waiting for her, parked in the shoulder of the road, just where she'd left it. Bonnie threw herself into the driver's seat and actually teared up at the sight of her key, still in the cupholder. She kicked off her soiled shoes and tossed Damon's coat aside. She checked the road, once, furtively, before ripping into her cheer practice bag that sat in the backseat. Slipping into the worn-out athletic shorts and t-shirt was a relief.

After taking a minute to refamiliarize herself with her car, Bonnie shifted it into gear and started on the drive back into town. Bonnie barely pressed on the gas pedal, and the car rolled slowly. It was good that there was no one on the road with her, because they would definitely have been annoyed by her hesitance. But she didn't quite trust herself behind the wheel yet. Driving a car was like riding a bike, a hard skill to just forget, but the power and speed held in modern machinery would take her more than a single shaky minute to get used to again.

She gradually sped up to a more normal speed, eyes locked on the empty road. Gaining confidence, she allowed her mind to drift, just slightly. Bonnie thought about the untouched circle, the full bowl, the scent of freshly burnt incense still on the wind. She reached out one hand to absentmindedly stroke the fabric of her discarded dress. It was so smooth. She glanced down. Even dirty and damaged, the pool of silk shown iridescently. Like a puddle of crude oil.

Her moment of distraction was brief, but in it the car had drifted toward the shoulder of the road. She jerked, torn from her reverie by the loud and harsh cry of a crow nearby, and slammed on the breaks.

Bonnie rested her forehead on the steering wheel in front of her and forced herself to take ten deep breaths. With her heart rate steadier, she straightened again.

Her ring caught her eye from where her hands were clasped tightly around the wheel. Should she take it off? Damon surely wouldn't want her wearing it, not now. Not after what he'd discovered, and what he'd said.

Bonnie didn't take it off.

She stepped on the gas and drove towards her house.

It looked exactly how she remembered it in her own time, but the differences between the house now and the recent memory of the home from her childhood were glaring.

The technology of the 21st century was not the only thing she would have to get used to. But would it all be things she'd once known as well the back of her hand? Would anything be different?

Again, the empty spell circle came to her mind. It was followed by the image of the sun, barely risen in the sky, and her car, easily waiting for her on the side of the road where she'd parked it. If everything was exactly how she'd left it, did that mean nothing had changed? Nothing at all?

Bonnie shifted into reverse and drove to her Grams's house.

She knew without getting out of the car that this, at least, had remained the same. The windows were shuttered and dark, and Grams's beat up hatchback was parked neatly in the driveway, her father's work, instead of precariously far from the curb like Grams had always left it.

Bonnie looked up at the darkened windows of the empty house and allowed herself to accept the idea that had begun to itch at the back of her mind as she sat in the kitchen with her grandmother.

Why would Stefan ever have been at Wickery Bridge last May, if she hadn't asked him to meet her there? There was nothing to see there, and it was nowhere near the Boarding House. He wouldn't even have been in Mystic Falls; he'd been in Virginia too recently. There was the possibility of someone recognizing him.

Why would Grams hate a vampire sworn to protect their line, if she hadn't met him before? Hadn't seen his disagreement with Bonnie? Would he have abandoned Abby in her time of need if Bonnie hadn't told him that her mother would be fine in the end? Or if he wasn't feeling the betrayal of Bonnie's revealed identity?

Why had Damon avoided her so often, here in the 21st century? He could have talked to her, made nice with her and told her about his role in her family history, but instead he'd avoided her, avoided even meeting her eyes, unless he was trying to get her to hand over the necklace. Except sometimes, he snarked, like he'd forgotten they didn't have an easy friendship full of teasing to fall back on. Bonnie thought of the way he'd flipped on a dime and trusted her with his life, even though she hadn't really done anything to prove her power or her sincerity. Not the behavior of a casual acquaintance.

No one else ever warned Katherine and Pearl, it had only been her. Without her there, they both would have been locked away in the tomb, and Pearl wouldn't have had time to steal the Gilbert Device. If she'd told Damon the truth later, that Katherine wasn't in the tomb, he never would have returned to Mystic Falls to release the tomb vampires, and the Council would never have activated the Device. No Device, no car crash, no guilt-ridden Bonnie desperate enough to attempt going back in time.

Bonnie hadn't changed the past; she'd ensured the present.

In the moment she cast the time spell, Bonnie had hated her life so much that she'd wanted to change it, but all she'd managed to do was fool herself. She was back just where she'd started.

Part of Bonnie was profoundly grateful; she wasn't cast adrift in an unfamiliar universe. For the most part, she'd ignored her fears of a different future. But every so often she'd felt the terror of it yawn out in front of her as a dark abyss. She'd imagined arriving to find Mystic Falls gone, Bonnie and her friends never born, vampires and witches revealed to the world and hunted.

Knowing that she hadn't brought about the end of the world, or even just a slightly more unpleasant version of it, was a relief. Returning to her life, with the magic she'd discovered, the friendships she'd forged, and the lessons she'd learned was really the best possible outcome. Really.

But another part of Bonnie, equal to the part filled with gratitude, had fallen into despair. Because in her own mind, although barely consciously aware of it herself, she'd been countering visions of that nightmarish future with daydreams of another future, a kinder one. She'd spun a fantasy for herself where her Grams was alive, the town peaceful, her friends safe. Bonnie had imagined herself happy and, despite her own actions to prevent it, she'd imagined Damon by her side.

The ridiculous trip she'd just taken should have brought her closure and cured her of all her doubts. But it hadn't. Because everything that was wrong with the world she'd left was still just as it was.

Only Bonnie was different. Bonnie had found family, and magic, and feelings she'd never imagined. But—

She'd changed her mind about Damon, about all vampires. But if nothing was different, if she hadn't actually changed anything, it meant that Damon had known her the whole time. Known her, seen Elena, and discarded Bonnie. It was a stupid thing to focus on, but it pricked at Bonnie's mind regardless. Her grandmother was still gone, her parents still absent, and now her heart was lost too.

Bonnie hit the steering wheel in frustration, accidentally honking the horn. The sound rent through the empty air. Bonnie wanted to scream just as loudly. Scream so that someone would know she was here, she was back, and that her heart was tearing itself open in her chest for all the chances she hadn't allowed herself to take, and that she'd never really had.

But she didn't scream. Instead she wiped her eyes and kept her cracked heart tucked away inside of her, hidden. She'd known this was coming after all, that's why she'd prepared herself for it. Besides, Bonnie was used to being alone. Another empty space shouldn't be hard to fit in next to all the others in her life.

Bonnie took one last look at Grams's house. She'd promised herself, and Emily, that she would look into her grandmother's library. How many times on her trip had she scolded herself for not studying more carefully? Now that it was within reach, she knew she couldn't go into the house, not yet. Not when the whole home would be infused with Grams's absence; not when she could still so clearly picture Grams alive and sipping spiked tea across a kitchen table from her. But maybe tomorrow. Maybe.

Bonnie turned away and drove back to her own empty house.

Bonnie sighed as the hot water beat over her shoulders. Weeks without a shower, and days with only stolen moments of furtively scrubbing herself down between travel and tragedy, made the flowing water feel like heaven. She almost teared up at the smell of her shampoo when she popped the cap. It was an extremely artificial apple scent, and undeniably of the 21st century.

Bonnie picked up the deep conditioning serum. She really should put it in now, but she also didn't have the time to spare. She needed to get to the hospital to check on Caroline. Her shower, no matter how necessary, would have to be quick. Tomorrow, she told herself putting the bottle down, with an additional promise to carefully moisturize her curls.

Hair was the least of her worries. Klaus was coming, and he was apparently the son of the original vampire, and a potential hybrid besides. Bonnie had to check that Mikael was still in his own tomb, that Klaus hadn't set up spies around town before the comet, and that Katherine wasn't about to sweep into town to sacrifice Elena on her own altar. Bonnie made a note to convince Elena to delete all of her social media. Her friend hadn't been active since her parents died, but it would be better to scrub the Petrova face from the internet.

After stepping from the shower, Bonnie found herself caught in a stare down with her own reflection. She felt older, like she'd experienced a lifetime in her short stint in the past, but she still looked like the teenager she was. Except for one thing. She lifted her left hand, and watched as her mirror image do the same. Without looking down, she slipped the ring from her finger, and placed it on the sink's edge. Now she looked the same as how she left, no matter how she felt inside.

The ring stayed there, balanced on the curved surface, as she dressed, and then dried and combed her hair. It gleamed elegantly, a point of calm amongst the chaos, out of place in her bathroom filled with discarded haircare bottles and half-destroyed makeup palettes. Bonnie almost left it there, but the possibility of it being swept up with the rest of the mess in a fit of cleaning, or worse, knocked down the drain with an accidental brush of an arm or towel, forced her to pick it up again. She found a small bowl, placed the ring inside, and tucked the last memento of her and Damon inside her bedside table's drawer.

On her bed was the purse Damon had bought her in 1942. The only surviving souvenirs of her trip were dumped out beside it. The bloodstone, her grandfather's necklace, and two elastic hairbands. She'd travelled light.

The sliver of bloodstone that was left, a startlingly small piece when one thought of the hunk of stone she'd brought with her to 1864, didn't pulse with life as it once had. No longer connected to the tomb, and thoroughly tapped out from her time travel, the stone wasn't a magical conductor anymore. Still, Bonnie could feel the traces of her journey along the fault lines in the stone. As if time left a little piece of itself, a shadow of a signature, behind as it had passed through the bloodstone.

Bonnie remembered her Grams's long ago advice; that Bonnie would know the right gemstone to take as her talisman when it found her. She'd doubted her then, but her grandmother had been right. She knew. Bonnie pressed the stone to the depression in her grandfather's necklace. They fit perfectly, as if the gold medallion had been crafted to hold the stone.

Bonnie had learned multiple sticking spells, to hitch, to bind, to glue, while in 1864, but all of them had failed her when she was imprisoned by Klaus. A sticking spell that could be undone wouldn't do. She couldn't lose this stone. Instead, Bonnie called heat to her hand, until her fingers were as hot as the bloodstone as it had pulled her decades forward in time, and squeezed the metal around the stone, molding it snugly together. Now, they could never part. With a nod of satisfaction, Bonnie clasped the chain around her neck, and slipped the stone beneath her collar. She wanted to feel the metal cool against her chest.

The hospital was brighter than Bonnie remembered, but she didn't know if that was because of the morning sun, or the distance she felt from her earlier guilt. Sitting in the waiting room with Matt that night, knowing she caused their accident, even if indirectly, had been the worst she'd felt since the night her Grams had died.

The guilt had eaten at her, driving her out of her mind, until she'd been pushed to take drastic measures. For Bonnie now though, the accident had happened over a month ago, even if it had only been a few hours for Caroline. Her best friend was still fighting for her life, and Bonnie was no more able to heal her now than she had been the last time she'd been in this waiting room.

"Matt? You're still here?" Bonnie said.

"Yeah. My shift starts in half an hour, but I didn't want to leave her alone."

Bonnie nodded, even though she could clearly see Sheriff Forbes standing near the nurse's station down the hall. Matt and Bonnie knew the Sheriff was a better mother than either of theirs, but they'd also heard how emotionally distant she was with Caroline, and how she prioritized work over her daughter. Even now, she was speaking with a deputy, and the doctors were nodding to Matt as the authority on Caroline's care. The parents in this town had a lot to answer for.

"Elena should be on her way too. She said she'd be here first thing in the morning when I talked to her yesterday." Or at least she thought that was what Elena had texted that night. She couldn't exactly check her messages, since she'd left her cell phone at the Salvatore's in 1864. Bonnie added that to her mental to do list, at the top. Mikael and Klaus could wait a day, getting a new cell phone could not.

"She's here already, down a floor I think. With her uncle."

"Her Uncle John? What's going on? Did something happen to Jenna? Or Jeremy?" Bonnie wouldn't spend time with her biological father willingly.

Matt just shrugged.

"I don't know. She isn't answering my texts. No one is."

"I'm having a bit of a phone problem at the moment, but I'm here now. You don't have to worry."

"Bonnie, how can I not be worried? Caroline was fine, and then the next second she wasn't. Now she's going into surgery again in a few hours and the doctors don't think she's going to make it. Plus, Tyler's disappeared. No one knows where he went after hearing about his dad. And I can't even be there for either of them, because my shift starts in twenty minutes and I can't miss it if I want to make rent this month."

Matt stared down at his hands, one covered in a plaster cast, with a defeated look on his face. Bonnie carefully did not ask if his boss at the Grill knew about the broken wrist.

"Hey, Matt. It's going to be okay."

"What am I going to do, Bonnie? This is all my fault."

"What? Matt, no. This is not your fault. Not at all."

"It is though, if I wasn't…" He trailed off, but Bonnie didn't speak. He just needed a second to gather himself.

"I was going to break up with her. It isn't working for me. But every time I was about to do it, Caroline would just be trying so hard. And I liked that, how much she wanted us to work, how much she wanted me, even though it wasn't good for either of us. But with Vicki gone, and Elena and I over, and my mom…I just didn't want to be alone."

Bonnie didn't know what to say. Why were her friends always sharing their problems with her like this? Did they really like the advice she gave? Bonnie didn't think it was ever that groundbreaking, but she couldn't just leave him hanging.

"There's no use feeling guilty about that now, it's in the past, and there is nothing you can do now to change it." She should know. "But when she wakes up, and Matt she will, you should think about what you just said. You owe Caroline your honesty and your effort. It's not healthy to live in denial this way, and Caroline deserves someone who wants to give her the world."

Matt nodded.

"And Matt, you know that if you ever need to you can stay with me for a while, right? I've got plenty of space."

"You think your dad would be okay with that?"

"As if he's around enough to notice." Matt gave her a deadpan look. Despite his effort, it was actually the happiest he'd appeared since Bonnie arrived. "But if you're too scared of my dad, you could always ask Tyler."

"Maybe, I guess I should at least talk to him when he comes back. But I can't give up the house; my mom needs somewhere to crash when she's back in town. That definitely can't be the Lockwoods."

Bonnie winced, remembering the very public kiss between Tyler and Kelly Donovan. How had she forgotten about that?

"Okay, but still. If you need anything…"

"Thanks, Bonnie. And you too, you know. You're always taking care of us, let us return the favor sometime. We're here." He glanced at the clock mounted on the wall and stood. "Well, here in general, you know, emotionally, because I can't actually be here right now. I have to get to the Grill." He looked worried about cutting off a touching moment, but Bonnie laughed.

"Go! I'll be here for Caroline, and I'll steal a nurse's phone to call you if anything happens. Now get to work!"

He waved as he jogged down the hallway.

Bonnie turned to look in the window of Caroline's hospital room. The shades were only partially drawn, so she could see the still form of her friend's body on the hospital bed. Bonnie no longer felt an all-consuming panic at the sight. She still had no way to cure Caroline, and she still felt responsible for her current state. But now she was different. Now she was willing to ask for help.

A woman strode past her, and Bonnie caught her reflection in the glare off Caroline's window.

"Jenna?" Elena's aunt turned to her, harried and still dressed in last night's clothes. "Have you seen Elena or Damon?" Jenna's face soured at Bonnie's question, her lips twisted in disgust and eyes steely.

"So, you knew, then? I guess I can't expect her to confide everything in me, but it would have been nice to know before I found them kissing on my own front porch."

"What?" Bonnie's mind helpfully conjured the image before her eyes. Damon and Elena, kissing. It was easy to picture. Elena looked so similar to Katherine, and Bonnie had caught Katherine and Damon together a number of times early on in her time in 1864.

"Oh. You didn't know?"

"No, I mean, yes. I kind of knew, but I didn't know they were doing that…in the open." Bonnie answered. Her chest felt tight. She'd thought Elena would hold out longer. But Bonnie knew, better than most, how easy it was to fall into Damon's arms.

"Well you're warned now. I couldn't have imagined a bigger shock after that, but then with John…"

"Uncle John? What about him?" Bonnie asked, remembering Matt's answer on Elena's whereabouts.

"Hasn't Elena called you? He was attacked. Elena found him bleeding out in our kitchen last night. Someone stabbed him."

Bonnie stared in shock. Jenna looked sympathetic to her surprise.

"You know what? I'm going to go grab coffee for everyone. I'm not really ready to face that group yet. Elena's one floor up, she wanted to give Sheriff Forbes some space. Why don't you go see her?"

Bonnie nodded and headed upstairs.

As soon as Bonnie exited the elevator she came face to face with Elena. Her friend had been pacing, but immediately made her way towards Bonnie. The witch hadn't seen her best friend in weeks, and it was a shock to see her. It was one thing to think about how alike Katherine and Elena looked, but another to see it in front of you. Their faces were exactly the same.

Her first week in 1864 she'd been uncomfortable around Katherine. She'd kept expecting Katherine to move or speak a certain way, like Elena, and been unsettled each time she didn't. Bonnie felt that same swoop of surprise in her stomach when Elena rushed towards her now. She'd expected the smooth strut of Katherine.

"Bonnie, how's Caroline?" Elena asked. Bonnie shook herself back to the present. This was 2010 and she was with Elena.

"She's weak. They don't know if she's going to make it." Elena's face fell, and Bonnie tightened her arms around her friend. Elena's face was so open and vulnerable, it was impossible to mistake her for anyone but her childhood friend. Even during her drunken-sharing session Katherine's face had been combative.

Out of the corner of her eye Bonnie saw Damon's figure lurking, eyes assessing the situation. He was waiting for the right moment to enter the scene. She almost rolled her eyes at his love for theatrics but was distracted by Elena.

"Is there something that you can do? Like a spell, or something?"

"She doesn't know how. Do you?" Cue dramatic, and rude, entrance. Bonnie glared up at Damon. Her relief at returning home had made Bonnie forget how much of a dick Damon had been when she'd last seen him. His humanity wasn't off now though. He had no excuse.

"No. I don't."

"No, you don't. Because it took Emily years to learn a spell like that."

Bonnie could have responded with a quip about how easily she could take down a vampire, or some other threat from Emily's lessons, but she decided to ignore the opportunity to banter for once.

"There isn't a spell for this at all, Elena. It doesn't matter how many years I've studied it or not. Magic doesn't really do healing. It's against Nature. There are spells to prevent diseases and injuries, but once you have them…" Bonnie trailed off.

"How could healing be against nature? Shouldn't it be the opposite?" Elena asked. Bonnie shook her head.

"Sickness and injury are part of life, just like magic. Trying to postpone them is one thing, but reversing them, or stopping them…that would create something else, an abomination." Bonnie cast a significant look at Damon. He seemed to catch her meaning.

"I can give Caroline some blood." He offered.

"No. No way." Elena said, shaking her head.

"Just enough to heal her. She'll be safe in the hospital and it'll be out of her system in a day. She'll be better, Elena."

"It's too risky. I can't agree to that."

"Do it." Bonnie interrupted Elena's moralizing with the soft-spoken order. She'd held her morality so rigid against vampires that she decided traveling in time was easier than asking the Salvatores for a little blood. She wouldn't be making that mistake twice.

"This is Caroline. Okay? We can't let her die." Bonnie appealed to Elena before turning back to Damon. "Do it."

The vampire looked considering. "If I do this, you and me?" He started, gesturing between their bodies, "We call a truce."

Bonnie had gotten so used to working with Damon, of loving him, that she'd been shocked by his lack of emotion when she saw him in front of her childhood home. But she was back in her own time now, and she couldn't forget how things were. If nothing had changed that meant that he'd known her this whole time, she told herself again. He'd known Bonnie and he'd still attacked her, threatened her, hurt her friends and her town. He was still a vampire, and the Bennetts were no longer protected from him.

"No." Bonnie looked straight at Damon. For the first time in the conversation he was really looking at her, not just watching Elena's reactions to their conversation. Bonnie would not let herself get used to it. Not again. "But you'll do it anyway. For Elena."

Damon's eyes narrowed, but Bonnie could see Elena nodding from the corner of her eye. She knew that in a second Damon would be drawn back into the doppelganger's orbit, that he would forget this conversation with her even happened. Jenna had confirmed it for her already.

Bonnie turned away before his could drift back to Elena and left. Damon would feed Caroline his blood and she'd be fine. Bonnie could sleep for a few hours before coming back to the hospital.

Bonnie stared at her distorted reflection in the burnished metal of the elevator doors.

Last year, she'd told Caroline that it wasn't a competition, and the night after the first Founder's Celebration, she'd told Stefan she didn't enter fights she knew she couldn't win. Apparently, she'd lied to both of them.

Half unknowingly, Bonnie had thrown her hat into the ring for Damon Salvatore's heart, and now she was reaping the rewards. She'd known she'd already lost long before she'd begun, but it was already too late.

The elevator doors opened and Bonnie stepped out. Today was the first day of the rest of her life, and she was going to do it right this time. No more bothering with things she couldn't change, and that included Damon being in love with Elena.

No, looking forward she needed to find things she could affect, and could enjoy. And there were so many things she had gained a new appreciation for. Mystic Falls may not be the culinary capital of Virginia, but it had more choices than its 19th century iteration. First step to embracing her life and future was getting a slice of pizza.