A/N: It's been a long time, yes I know but lately I feel like I've been operating on life support in keeping myself motivated to get these stories done. But here is the latest. I made a change to the mythology, a name change really. If you remember, I renamed the heretics Vrykolakas, but they are now going to be called and known as revenants. I revised the section in chapter 11 where Esther breaks it down for Bonnie. Thank you for your patience and for the reviews. Enjoy.
He felt the wind of the punch before it connected with his cheek. His head snapped painfully to the right, saliva flew, an incisor sliced into the fleshy part of his mouth and he tasted coppery blood.
"Where the hell is your head, Salvatore?"
Clearly it was close to being removed. Damon screwed his eyes shut to stop the world from spinning.
"A five year old girl could put up a better fight than you are right now."
Damon growled warningly.
Straightening his stance, the dark-haired vampire stalked forward. He was on edge and hated that he was on edge because the reason for it…that's why he called up his favorite buddy and asked him to be his punching bag.
Damon's fist turned into a battering ram as it struck ribs, abs, kidneys in that order sending Alaric crashing to the ground. Chunks of earth blew to the sky. Growls, the guttural kind that sounded like a soul being ripped out, rushed between Alaric's teeth.
Damon raised his foot to finally put an end to the hunter's insulting mouth, but the bastard flew out of the way and wrapped his arm around Damon's neck. Grabbing the former vampire hunter by the forearm, Damon flipped the pseudo teacher over his shoulder pinning him down with a knee to the throat.
"Say uncle," Damon smiled.
Alaric grimaced and shoved the older vampire off him. Back on his feet, body locked in a boxing stance, Alaric lunged.
Snarling, Damon rushed him, turned mid-run, his leg shot out to which he brought it across the man's face, turning his head. A fissure of blood erupted from the teacher's nose.
Alaric staggered, went and stayed down.
Breathing roughly, Damon cataloged how badly he kicked the snot out of Alaric. What typically would have given him intoxicating satisfaction couldn't even inspire a pity snort.
Alaric's head rolled in Damon's direction. "Done reinstating your masculinity? Can I go piss away my liver now?"
Damon didn't comment. Merely extended an arm and hefted the man to his feet.
Bending at the waist, Alaric rested his hands on his knees, angling his head, squinting against the bright sun.
Damon's resilience was something to marvel at, Alaric reflected. The man was only half-dead two days ago, but looking at him now it was like the near death experience had no lasting, sobering effect. More than likely Damon was delving into behaviors and patterns long established since the day he became self-aware to lessen the burden of his trying ordeals. Or perhaps being dead and displaced in an alternate reality for four months with a morally conscientious witch changed one's perception of crying over spilled milk. Dying could be an agonizing thing; possession was another monster on its own.
Damon began walking in the direction of his car. Matt and Jeremy had been "nice" enough to retrieve it from the boardinghouse. He was fifty bucks poorer though. Dumb and Dumber claimed they had to fill up the gas tank since it was almost on empty, and Damon's precious baby ran on premium.
"Hey," Alaric reached for his friend's arm, impeding him. "I know that look. What's crawled up your ass now? Is it about what happened to you the other day? You can talk to me."
"I'm fine. Besides, what is talking going to do?"
"Save my ribs, perhaps," Alaric winced as he cupped his aching side.
"Pussy."
"Considering it can push out a miniature human, I'll take that as a compliment."
Damon was about to retort but had a second thought. He shook his head. "I'm in the mood for a margarita. Hurry up, hop along."
Forty minutes later, showered, dressed and mouth rank with rum, Alaric half-heartedly searched the web while Damon sat on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. Neither had done much talking. This was a normal routine. Either Damon would fill the air with his mindless vitriol, or he'd sulk and brood beginning a conversation as if continuing an earlier discussion. Damon had not barged into his apartment at the ass crack of dawn slinging around demands, but it was plain enough to see there was something on his mind he wanted to share. Just didn't know the best way to attack it. Alaric's patience, however, for the big reveal was tapering off and he was ready to rip the Band-Aid. He had shit to do.
He knew the best way to kick start things would be by beginning with what Damon would lie about the most or downplay its significance.
"What was up with the tension between you and Bonnie the other day?"
A sliver of apprehension and alarm pierced Damon along his spine. It was amazing how he kept on forgetting how perceptive and observant Alaric could be. "I don't know what you mean."
Alaric threw him a look that basically read 'why are you lying'. But he would humor Damon as he's always done. "It's been a while since she's looked at you like she wanted to throw acid in your face. So what'd you do?"
"I hate how everyone always assumes I'm at fault."
"That's because most of the time you are. Out with it. You broke into my apartment to spar and to make crappy margaritas. You're clearly in desperate need of advice and I'm ready to dish it out if you're ready to be honest with yourself."
"Honest with myself over what, Rick? Friends sometimes go through rough patches. This is just a rough patch," Damon denied any wrongdoing and drank some more. "Things with Bonnie will mellow out. I'm more concerned with what she shared with us the other day."
"Yeah, sure."
Damon arched a brow at Alaric's skeptical and flippant tone. "You think I'm not concerned with the fact my ass could have been possessed by some witch-vampire ghost?!"
Alaric pushed his laptop aside, resting his elbows on the table. "I'm sure that ranks about a two on your scale of importance."
Damon snorted and chased away the icy void inside of him that flared every now and a then—well mostly when he gave it a thought, which he hadn't stopped thinking about it, with another sip of his drink. He couldn't explain the feeling in laymen's terms other than to say his organs felt out of place and that a piece of him was irrevocably mutated. He still felt like himself but he definitely wasn't himself.
He stared at the blue veins protruding on the back of his hand, a hand that began trembling until he balled it into a tight fist.
The superheroes conference that happened right in this living room began playing at seventy frames per second in his head.
Bonnie established a neutral zone between herself and Damon. Her cheek still burned from his caress; the sensations that lit up her nerves continued to fire making it that much harder for her to maintain her annoyance. There wasn't time for whatever emotional wool he was trying to pull over her eyes. She had important news to share.
"Esther came to see me," Bonnie revealed.
Alaric perked up mostly in alarm. "Esther Mikaelson?"
Bonnie skirted around Damon and retook her seat. "Yeah. Although she's possessing the body of another witch who goes by Lenore. She showed up at my house to tell me that with the collapse of the other side, something else has been unleashed. These beings called revenants. They were witches who transitioned to vampires but were able to maintain their powers."
"How is that possible?" Stefan asked.
"Markos cast a spell called an awakening spell sometime before he died. The first time," she clarified. "It awakened anyone who had a drop of traveler blood in them. It was his big FU to spirit magic. Some vampires were affected by the spell. And because their blood is unique, any witch who died with the blood of a traveler vampire in their system became something else. Revenants.
"Because of this, the spirits made another purgatory for them that was held together by the power keeping the OS intact. It's what attacked you," Bonnie forced herself to assess Damon seeing he was almost completely back to normal—looks wise. She quickly shifted her gaze elsewhere, "and what lured me to crossing the barrier into Mystic Falls yesterday. They're looking for a way out. Possession being one method, but that could only be temporary.
"Esther wants me to help her and her coven to rebuild the other side. I haven't given her a reply yet. I'm waiting on her to agree to my terms."
"What are those terms?" Stefan inquired.
"That's between me and her." Bonnie's response made a few people readjust in their seats.
"What about the anti-magic barrier around Mystic Falls? Did she say anything about lowering it?" Caroline veered topics slightly.
Bonnie shook her head. "She didn't mention it. But…I have a theory. I think the barrier is what's keeping the revenants from truly getting out."
"Wait," Stefan cautioned, "how do we know no one has been possessed? They've been wandering around Mystic Falls for seven months."
"There haven't been any strange reports of anyone exhibiting odd behavior," Alaric said and shrugged sheepishly against the curious looks he received. "I've been keeping in touch with Liz. For the most part everything appears kosher."
Damon paced around, willing his skin to settle down. It felt like ants were crawling all over him and he was doing the best he could to pretend he was just dandy. "I think it's rather obvious that these assholes are only interested in possessing one type of being…a fellow supernatural."
It made sense everyone murmured.
"What I felt," Damon repressed a shudder. "No human would be able to survive something like that."
Which brought another point to Stefan's attention, "Jeremy called me and said that he saw your car parked at the boardinghouse, Damon. What were you doing there? How were you even able to reach it?"
Shit, Damon cursed. "Yeah, about that," he cricked his neck. "Esther or one of her minions created a nifty little charm that made it possible for me to slip in and out of town without combusting into little vampire bits. She and her coven were the ones who sent me back to get you," he appealed to Bonnie with those notorious puppy dog eyes of his.
She wasn't impressed. "Why didn't you tell me that?"
"What difference would it have made?" The question was a deflection because Damon knew the precise reason why he remained tight-lipped and it went far deeper than not being in the mood to dispense the details. Those details he would only share with Bonnie once they were alone. If he could get her alone, that is.
Bonnie was prepared to rebut but snapped her jaws shut. The news was significant and insignificant at the same time. She dismissed it either way. "Just tell us what happened to you."
And Damon did. Going into grizzly detail, and perhaps even embellishing as he was wont to do in how he went to the boardinghouse to retrieve an item. As he was heading out he described feeling a presence and saw an apparition with gray skin and swirling silver eyes that proceeded to beat the pulp out of him. He absently rubbed the spot on his chest where that revenant punched a fist through his ribs and trembled a little in memory at the invasion of gelatin-like ice that tried to slither its dead way inside of him.
Once he concluded his harrowing tale, everyone was quiet, soaking in the setting, replaying what scenes stuck out the most.
Alaric posed a question to Bonnie. "Do you think you could do it? Rebuild the other side?"
Bonnie scratched behind her ear. She saw it happening, the vortex, the nexus that she craved to avoid, but was sucking her back in. None of this was what she yearned to deal with once making it out of Kai's prison world, being thrust back into savior mode. Having nice things clearly wasn't on the agenda.
"I'm sure I could. If Qetsiyah could do it…why not me?" she eventually replied.
Damon sucked his tooth, the sound sharp.
"Damon?"
"What?" he snapped out of his musings.
"Look, I'm not saying you aren't thinking about what happened to you, but you've gone through worse," Alaric laid down the foundation of his argument. "With the anti-magic bubble still surrounding Mystic Falls, all you need to do is stay the hell out of town and you won't have to worry about becoming a meat suit. Besides, there's not much we can do. It's a magic problem and you already know Bonnie is on top of things."
"So we're just supposed to sit back, kick up our heels, and let her tax herself possibly to the point of death so that one day we can repopulate Mystic Falls? Fuck that," Damon was on his feet now, that imperial mask in place that let those around him know playtime was over and it was time to put your money where your mouth is. "You're a researcher. The least you can do is dig up what you can on those little revenant parasites, or what kind of power it would take to rebuild the other side and fish that info to Bonnie."
For five seconds Alaric didn't speak a word. "Never thought I'd see the day," he remarked. He nodded but Damon had a feeling it wasn't in agreement with his latest demand for solidarity.
"See what day?"
"You'd be this worried about Bonnie's mortality."
Damon snorted. "You haven't been paying attention then. We all have to do our part to help her, Ric. She bought us all back. She didn't have to do that."
"You're right. I owe Bonnie more than I can ever repay her," he sighed. "Which is why I took the liberty of wrangling up some source materials on revenants," Alaric retrieved a stack of folders from his locked file cabinet and handed them over to Damon. "Even found a sketch of a grimoire that could he useful if it can be located."
To say he was surprised was an understatement.
"Maybe you and Bonnie can comb through that, see what you find," Alaric hinted.
Damon ignored it and flipped through one of the folders.
"FYI Elena is on her way over. We have another compulsion breaking session in about fifteen minutes."
The air didn't rush out of Damon's lungs. At the mere mention of Elena's name he was reminded of their kiss, reminded of the fact Bonnie caught him kissing Elena, and was poked on the shoulder that his actions had driven a wedge between he and Bonnie. The wintry feeling that was trying in earnest to become a part of him dropped another degree.
"How close is she to remembering?" Damon snapped the file shut he had been perusing.
"Compelling her to forget took hours," Alaric said. "It's going to take the same amount of time to return them…maybe. We had to cut our first session short to make it to the dorm to pull names for Secret Santa. Who did you pull by the way?"
Damon wagged a finger. "If I tell you it would cease being a secret."
Alaric accepted that with the grace of a notorious gossip. "Fair enough. Elena…she hasn't said anything but I think she's…jealous."
"Jealous of what exactly?" Damon's nose wrinkled.
"Your…friendship with Bonnie," Alaric answered uneasily.
"So she wants her memories back because Bonnie and I are closer than we've ever been?"
That statement drew Alaric's eyebrows upward. "I can't say what Elena's true motives are. I just see you haven't been following behind her like a lost puppy. Haven't even tried to use the suave Salvatore charm on her. If it indeed exists."
"Fuck you."
"Which position?" Alaric snickered.
"I'm hungry and I'm suddenly in the mood for some Bon-Bons."
In theory Damon knew where Bonnie was at present. The library on campus was closed because of the holidays, but there was a fairly decent one in Brockton Hills, the next major town over. She would be there getting her hands on whatever mythology books she could find. Grabbing and shrugging on his jacket, Damon left Alaric's apartment without another word.
He bounded down the stairs and ran smack dab into Elena who appeared flustered at seeing him. Her hair was wind-blown, mahogany orbs bright with awareness. She offered him a half-smile that used to twist his heart into knots and made him feel like a besotted schoolboy with a crush on his teacher. Witnessing it now stirred nothing but a touch of nostalgia in Damon. He wasn't pummeled with arousal, wasn't thinking of discreet corners he could drag Elena off to get a quickie in. The threads that bound him to her in a cocoon of his own making had unraveled at some point, and a small part of him mourned the loss, but not to an extent that he wanted to change it, be there as Alaric undid his compulsion and Elena's memories of him came flooding back in a torrent that led to blood and sex.
The enormity of his lack of interest in his world being consumed by Elena was like being blown away by the engine of a fighter jet.
"Hey," Damon said softly.
"Hey," Elena replied in an equally subdued toned. "Just leaving Alaric's?" she closed her eyes, scrunched her nose because that was more than obvious. "Stupid question."
Damon chuckled lightly. "I won't hold you up. There's some place I need to be," he skirted around her, but Elena turned to keep him in sight.
"Damon?"
He had just made it to the sidewalk yet shifted to face her. "Yeah?"
"Maybe later…if you're not doing anything…we can talk. Please?"
The sunlight wasn't really bothering him but he'd use it as a reason why his eye narrowed. "I might be busy so I really can't promise you anything, Elena."
Disappointment made her look away at nothing important or even tangible. She perked up when she heard the unmistakable sound of his boots drawing closer. When she chanced a look Damon was looming near enough to where she could make out his cologne. The scent jarred a phantom memory but nothing concrete came to fruition.
The former flames openly measured one other, staring searchingly. Elena tried her best not to fidget under Damon's direct appraisal.
Looking at her now, Damon realized she didn't know him and even when her memories had been intact, she knew the parts he decided to show.
The ugly came to the surface but Elena completely disregarded it, shrugged it off and swept it under the rug like he broke an expensive vase, and not robbed an innocent person of their life. His love for her, her love for him was probably one of the worst things to happen to Elena, he was probably one of the worst things to happen to her. Damon could see it now. He always had but had been too selfish to let Elena go.
Elena tucked a strand of hair behind her ear feeling unnerved by Damon's piercing stare. "Was there something you wanted to say?"
Damon came out of his musings. "I know you asked Alaric to lift the compulsion."
"I did."
"Why now? What are you hoping to gain from it?"
Elena jerked back as if she had been slapped. "Other than memories…I'm just tired of living with this missing gap of who I was," the doppelganger redistributed her weight on her feet, "I know everyone thinks I'm only doing this because…of your friendship with Bonnie. Regardless of that you're in my life in a roundabout way, Damon and I want to know who you are."
"Are you?"
"Am I what?"
"Jealous of my friendship with Bonnie?"
Elena blinked twice and studied her hands. "I feel weird about it. I don't have any memory of the two of you being friendly with one another."
"But my friendship with Bonnie doesn't have anything to do with you."
His words weren't spoken unkindly but they still stung. "I get that," Elena whispered.
Damon gripped the back of his neck, released it a moment later. "I kissed someone."
She looked up at him sharply. She almost asked if it was Bonnie, but stopped. Elena really had no response. Something inside of her shattered, and she frowned, looking wounded and betrayed though she knew she really didn't have a right to feel that way at all.
"You kissed someone else," she sputtered.
"I don't regret the kiss or the timing or anything about it, and the fact I don't regret it is why you and I are talking. Plus this needs to be said. My history, my patterns and habits, kissing her I don't want it to be something I do just for the hell of it. She deserves better than that."
"What are you saying, Damon? You want to be with her? That even if…when I get my memory back it's not going to change anything between us?"
He penned her with an apologetic yet resigned expression. "Look, I know we kissed the other night and for me it was revisiting the past, but the past is the past for a reason and I can't keep repeating it. And…I'm sorry if it may have given you false hope," he swallowed, the words tasting so foreign on his tongue mostly because of whom he was directing them to. Damon Salvatore didn't say words like that to Elena Gilbert. It was implausible because Damon would always want Elena. But things change.
"I really don't know what to say right now," Elena wore a mirthless smile. "I feel like you're breaking up with me but we're not together."
Damon cupped her cheek and stroked it with his thumb. The look on his face was caught between pain and acceptance. "If only you knew what we were really like when we were," he dropped his hand, drifted away from her marginally. "The first night we met I compelled you to get everything you want in life. I still stand by that, Elena. I want you to have it, but I'm not…one of those things. Not anymore."
Elena wanted to argue. Felt she should argue but she had no rebuttal since it was difficult to build a case with no evidence.
A stubborn tear fell from her eye. Loss hit her all the same even if she wasn't clear on just what she was losing. "Do you love her?"
Damon wouldn't haul off and start throwing the L word around. He had very strong emotions for Bonnie and felt it was too soon, too premature to label it that word he used to commit some of the most heinous acts he's done to those he loved or in their name. And quite frankly, he didn't want to brandish that kind of love on Bonnie. For once Damon wanted something pure. Now, if he could get Bonnie alone so he could explain this perhaps they could make some kind of leeway.
"How I feel about her is a work in progress. So…if you still want your memories back at least you know where I stand."
Elena folded her arms, averted her gaze.
Damon was retreating. He offered a closed lip smile, turned, and walked away saying goodbye to an era of loving dangerously.
Logically she knew she was alone on the second floor of the Brockton Hills Public Library, but irrationally she felt him looming right behind her, whispering things in her ear; goading things that made her flush and coil her fingers around the pencil in her hand.
She had acquired a taste for making tremendously rash albeit heroic decisions that only cost her a small thing like her life, and it would seem she hadn't changed in that regard.
Her brain was a seesaw. One minute going up: thinking about her kiss with Damon; the next coming down: in remembering he could have died or been possessed.
The kiss though far outweighed everything else and Bonnie wasn't sure what that said about her.
All she could do was either pretend it never happened, that she never transgressed against the sacred bonds of sisterhood—though those waters were murky, muddled, or own what she did unapologetically. The probability of survival was higher if she tightly packaged her kiss with Damon into a vault and never mentioned or thought about it again.
It was impossible, of course. One couldn't just not think about a kiss; or the resulting fogged up windows, of fingers tangling in her hair, and a hard body crushed unbearably tight against hers.
Did he have to feel so good or be so fucking awesome at kissing?!
She wasn't a vulture nose-diving for the meaty leftovers of her friends' exes. Her history with attracting viable candidates was spotty. Bonnie couldn't overlook that with a magnifying glass if she wanted to. Her palate for the most part hadn't been discriminatory but she should have been more discerning. Lesson learned. Damon had slipped past her defenses or casually walked through the front door, but the crux of the situation was…Bonnie didn't regret what they shared. Not. One. Bit.
She was just choosing not to dwell on it.
Instead, Bonnie thought of Damon's account of his encounter with a revenant. Even now her fingertips turned freezing if she so much as spared those beings a thought. She tried to imagine what their hell was like. If it was like her brief stint lumbering about the other side. If they watched their loved ones during their times of happiness (if they even cared). Did they have to endure seeing the people close to them being murdered…like she had to with her dad? Bonnie snapped her pencil, struck by her surge in strength. She dropped the broken pieces in her bag, rummaged around for a new pen. The revenants, though. Why had they been segregated? Were their crimes so horrible or were they supremely misjudged? Were there any revenants living today?
An idea began forming. She jotted it down.
Currently Bonnie was going blind from staring at the plethora of books on mythology ranging from a myriad of cultures spread out in front of her. Why was she doing this? Why was she wasting her vacation becoming a vacuum of data when the answer to her problem had already presented itself? Combine her powers with Esther's coven, rebuild the other side, siphon away the anti-spirit magic bubble over Mystic Falls, and lock the prisoners back in their cells. Simple.
And complicated.
Bonnie rubbed her pounding temples. These books weren't going to tell her what she already intrinsically knew. The math was simple. Doppelganger and Bennett blood were always the two main ingredients to seal or break something. This time around would be no different, but Bonnie had to ask the important question: what was in this for Esther?
She was not a witch known for the art of altruism. She helped Damon rescue her to repay a debt, and now she wanted to rebuild a wandering hell? Something else had to be behind Esther's change in tune. But what?
Bonnie slumped into the chair, eyes closing. Crap. Damon was back again in the forefront of her mind. Lips pliant and aiming for hers. Sharing the same breath, the same spit, hands unsure of where to touch but most assuredly wanted to touch everything they could reach.
Hearing the swoosh of elevator doors opening spooked Bonnie into action. She tried to look busy, writing gibberish. No one walked by her table. In fact Bonnie didn't hear anyone shuffling about. She glanced up, checking the immediate area. Empty. The tired witch powered on her phone staring at the time. The sun would be going down in another hour and there was an errand she needed to run before making the trek home. She gave up the ruse of being proactive, rose from the table neatly stacking the books for the librarian to re-shelve.
Leaving the library, Bonnie was distracted, fishing through her purse for her keys.
Stefan Salvatore slinked out of the shadows, hands in his pockets. "Hey," he said.
Bonnie let out an undignified squeak. She slapped a hand across her pounding chest, glared. "Hey, trying to send me into cardiac arrest?"
"Sorry," Stefan apologized but the barely concealed amusement on his face belied his actual contriteness.
"What are you doing here?" Bonnie breathed. "How'd you know I'd be here?"
"Caroline told me you were here doing research. Any success?"
"Besides boredom and a headache? No. You wanted to see me about something?" she prompted.
"I was wondering if you had time to grab a cup of coffee with me."
The invite sounded casual enough but still made Bonnie arch an eyebrow in mystification. She had told Stefan once before he wasn't the drop-by-to-see-how-you're-doing type, so inviting her to grab coffee although they had been friendlier with one another as of late…wasn't their thing. What did he want now?
Stefan read the unspoken question furrowing Bonnie's brow. "I'm not here on any official business or to ask you what Damon got me for Christmas," he waggled his eyebrows.
Bonnie giggled and shook her head. "I'm sworn to secrecy."
"Dammit," Stefan cursed and snapped his fingers. "Anyways, I would genuinely like to get a cup of coffee with you. If you're not busy."
"Sure, we can head over to Starbucks. It's not far. It's just down the street."
The twosome fell in step with one another and shared idle chitchat until they stood at the counter of the coffeehouse putting in their order.
Stefan and Bonnie found a quiet table in the back next to the windows, and prepped their beverages to satisfaction.
"How have you been?" he inquired, licking granulated sugar off the tip of his thumb.
Bonnie shook a packet of Splenda. "Good for the most part. I'm ready for the holidays to be over though. Caroline has recruited me to help her decorate her family's log cabin."
"Not looking forward to it?"
"Yes and no. I still have my own house to decorate but I'm still in the middle of renovations."
"If you need help, I'm good with my hands. Or so I've been told," Stefan winked.
"Stefan Salvatore, are you flirting with me?"
"Bout the only time I can get away with it without incurring the wrath of a certain older brother." Bonnie would deny her entire body warmed at Stefan's proclamation. "Besides, you're flirtable."
"That's not even a word."
Stefan shrugged. "Listen," he scooted his chair closer to the small table, his knees practically touching Bonnie's. She sat up straighter. "I have something for you."
Stefan dug in his back pocket and retrieved an item Bonnie never thought nor expected to see ever again. He slid it over the table's surface.
"Why are you giving this to me?" Bonnie picked up the necklace with its unusual but distinctive pendant. It was the Original witch's talisman. "You gave…"
"I know," Stefan interrupted. "I found it cleaning out Alaric's apartment shortly after he died. I thought it was lost for good. But there it was wedged between his stakes and underwear."
Bonnie smiled wryly. Slender brown fingers toyed with the silver link chain, then the locket itself. She always wondered about its design. It secretly made Bonnie think of a dragon curled around its egg while the ruby was a symbol of where it created its fire. "I can't accept this. This was Elena's."
"It's been doing something weird."
Bonnie stared at Stefan peculiarly and noticed he was trying to moderate his concern, but the lines marring his forehead gave him away. "What do you mean? If this thing is acting up, I don't want it."
Stefan laughed. "I just…today it was magnetized to the window. Like it was trying to break free."
"Hmm," Bonnie murmured noncommittally as she examined the pendant remembering it melting in the flames as she and Grams used it to close the door to the other side. The necklace proved indestructible, literally returning to form as soon as the enchantment was over. Esther's talisman was freaky as hell and gave Bonnie bad vibes. Those bad vibes justified after what Stefan relayed to her.
"I can see you thinking," Stefan tapped a beat with his spoon.
"I don't think it was trying to break free. More than likely someone was trying to summon it. Someone like Esther."
"With her back in town… it's definitely better off being in your hands than hers."
Maybe, Bonnie thought but didn't say aloud. "So you're giving me a bomb. Thank you, Stefan."
"I hope I'm not. I don't trust Esther, and if there's a way to keep that concealed from her until we can figure out if she's legit in what she wants to do concerning the other side…letting that fall into her hands could bite us all in the ass."
Truer words have never been spoken.
"There's not much that can keep a witch separated from her talisman. She'll sense it," Bonnie claimed.
"Could you make it into your talisman?"
"The only way that would be possible is if I came from her bloodline. The magic on this, I can't remove."
"Maybe you won't have to."
Turning the talisman between her fingers, Bonnie stared at Stefan from beneath her lashes. "I hope this isn't my Christmas gift."
"I give you my word, it's not. Perhaps it could be used as leverage?" he eyed her pointedly.
"Perhaps."
Drinks consumed, Stefan walked Bonnie to her car still parked at the library. They exchanged pleasantries for a moment before Stefan engulfed Bonnie in a hug that stunned her. It was nice to be embraced when she wasn't feeling like utter crap unlike their first hug.
"Drive safely," Stefan advised as he made his way to his motorcycle.
"I will," Bonnie opened her car door but closed it a moment later. She looked at the library contemplatively. Mentally she revisited the books she had poured over all afternoon. One had sparked a minute interest that she later discarded, but it might actually be useful. Now armed with Esther's talisman, her vague idea was taking shape like clay.
With that Bonnie dashed to the library, jogging upstairs where she shifted through the books looking for that precise one. Relief flooded her when she came across it.
"Bonnie."
A cathedral bell tolled and she wondered if the sound had been birthed in her head. More than likely it was the sound of impending doom or death's squire looking to collect. Her reprieve was over. The young woman in question whirled around.
"You," Bonnie greeted laconically.
That patented crooked grin was on his face as if he discovered all her secrets and was prepared to ransom them back to her. Damon refused to censor the fact he was appraising Bonnie, the movement of his eyes let her know just where he was looking and that he was more than enjoying what he was seeing. If anyone else had done that she'd feel objectified but with Damon…her femininity beamed. She seethed.
"How'd you know I'd be here?"
"I knew because I made a place for myself inside your mind, little witch. I know all your moves before you make them."
Bonnie swallowed and expected Damon's provocative words to be followed up by him inching nearer, but the gap between them never shrunk in size.
Damon waited for her chin to jut higher in the air and the moment it did he added, "I knew you'd be on the search for answers although you know you wouldn't find much in a human's library."
The tome in her hand would say otherwise.
Clutching it to her chest, Bonnie strolled to the stairs not in the mood to wait for the elevator and definitely not in the mood to be trapped in a small, metal box with Damon regardless of the length of the ride. A zing she recognized as happiness that he was here filled her that she shoved aside in favor of tugging along her annoyance like a hyperactive dog on a leash.
He caught a familiar manly stench on her when she sauntered by him. Stefan?
"What were you doing with my brother?" Damon fired at her retreating form.
Bonnie didn't slow her stride, "Having coffee."
Something about that sort of rubbed Damon the wrong way, but he let it go.
On the ground floor, Bonnie checked out the book, accepting the receipt from the librarian. She scurried to the exit, her vampire shadow right behind her.
Silently they left the practically empty library and stepped out into the blistering cold December air. Christmas was days away and Bonnie could scent the first snow on the air. It wouldn't fall for a few more days. Maybe there might be a surprise on December 25th. She buttoned her coat all the way to the neck and clicked off the alarm to her car. Damon had parked right next to her.
"Are you seriously going to ignore me?" Damon fell into step with the little witch who didn't reply. "I see we're doing this the hard way." Impulsively Damon reached for Bonnie's arm, detaining her. "I get it. You're mad and you have every right to be. But we need to talk about this. I don't have flowers and I don't have candy, all I have is words for you, Bon."
Her chest heaved on an inhale. "I've gotten plenty of words from you, Damon. Most of your words have been sarcasm, veiled threats, excuses and demands. I don't want to hear anything else from you. Not when your actions have made everything clear."
"My actions…my actions haven't come close to illustrating what's really going on inside my head. I'm trying to apologize to you and you won't give me the chance to make it right!"
"Why should I when all you're gonna do is fuck up again?!"
"That is a strong possibility," Damon agreed shamelessly. "But we are the sum total of our mistakes, our choices, and how we recover or rewrite those mistakes is called life. A hundred and seventy-six years later and I'm finally learning that. You're probably one of the most complicated relationships I've ever had. Yet…it's one I need the most."
Bonnie's anger disintegrated and her guard lowered. She stood before Damon totally naked although she was still fully dressed. He could see that the tip of one foot was in the door.
When she exhaled he could scent caramel and peppermint on her breath.
"Let's take this back to your house," Damon said during Bonnie's extended silence.
"No."
"Okay we can stand out here and entertain the people waiting on the bus."
Bonnie looked behind her and sure enough three people waiting for city transportation were openly gawking at them. Her cheeks heated and Bonnie opened her car door. She started the engine and pulled off. Damon quickly hopped in his ride, in pursuit.
Bonnie periodically checked the rearview mirror and ten times out of ten Damon's eyes were plastered more on her than on the road. For a minute she thought he might try to race her, but he didn't although he hated driving at a sedate pace. If she was supposed to look deeper into his actions, that he was willing to move at whatever speed she sat…Bonnie nixed that line of thinking. Overanalyzing an issue was one of her pitfalls.
Pulling into her driveway Bonnie waited a beat before climbing out of her car. Damon parked his vintage ride next to her environmentally friendly Prius. Wordlessly they walked the short distance to the front door which she unlocked but didn't trail inside.
Being angry at someone utilized a lot of energy, and with the information buzzing around in her head, Bonnie had no room for it. She faced Damon who stared at her expectantly. He was here like he had been since her return from 1994. And his tenacity wasn't being motivated to save the life of the woman he loved or his brother, his lone excuse for constantly seeking her out. For once it was about her, only about her. That knowledge made her light-headed, and the pit in Bonnie's stomach was slowly beginning to fill with butterflies.
If she gave him this in would anything change? Damon might behave himself for a short while but something would happen and she'd be left suffering because of someone else's actions. But she couldn't discount the overwhelmingly large part of her that missed him terribly for the last three days. She wouldn't tell him that because his ego wouldn't let her live it down.
"Be lucky there is a lot we need to talk about otherwise you'd never see the inside of this house again," Bonnie paused, "come in."
Damon could have humbled himself, but instead he unleashed that sensual smile notorious for causing heart palpitations and a woman to squeeze her thighs together. Bonnie swallowed and felt dumbstruck for a second before shrugging off the effects of that panty soaking leer.
Her front door cracked open, pressurized air filtered out, and Damon stiffened. Bonnie noticed and immediately went on alert.
"Stay here," Damon pulled Bonnie to the side as he stealthily entered her residence.
"What's going on? Damon?"
Her questions went unanswered. Bonnie waited on the porch anxious and ready to defy Damon's edict. The light in the foyer switched on followed by the floor lamp in her living room.
Damon stood in the center of it, inhaling deep, distinguishing scents, discarding the ones that belonged while searching for the one that didn't. The one he caught seconds ago. A quick glance around and nothing seemed out of place but Damon inherently knew someone had been skulking about, rummaging through Bonnie's things. And whoever it was…the individual had a touch of decay attached to them. Facts ruled out it being a vampire since his kind had to be invited inside. So unless Bonnie was consorting with unfamiliar vampires behind his back, Damon could think of no other being that would smell half-dead. He fine-tuned his hearing, but other than the rapid beat of Bonnie's pulse and the furnace running, all was quiet.
Bonnie poked her head inside her house. "Damon? Can I come inside my own house already?"
He flashed upstairs to her bedroom. There weren't any muddy footprints, no overturned furniture, clothes and papers weren't strewn around liked a doctored crime scene. Everything was intact. Yet that nagging feeling someone had been in Bonnie's home was screaming like a siren.
Damon heard Bonnie coming up the stairs. She rounded the corner into her room. "Is anything out of place or missing?" he asked.
Bonnie took inventory of her sanctuary. Nothing seemed remiss and she was about to say so when she did a double take. Her feet carried her to the chest of drawers where Ms. Cuddles sat on top. She picked up the bear, examining it shrewdly. "She's been moved. I always keep her on my bed."
"You sure?"
"Yes. I put her in the middle once I make my bed."
Damon was beside her now pulling Ms. Cuddles out of Bonnie's hands. He sniffed the bear's fur and that foreign scent was stronger on the stuffed animal.
Bonnie ambled to her bed and pulled back the duvet and sheets. Her eyes bulged as did Damon's once he got a good look at what had been left behind by her uninvited visitor.
"That's it…I'm moving in full-time, Bon."
Barren. Hot bed of paranormal activity. Supernatural and extraterrestrial. It drew you in and if you were lucky it spit you back out.
Eerie silver irises were plastered to the ground. She had one hand stretched out feeling for different disturbances, something a typical, normal person wouldn't be able to do, but she could. She knew what was buried here.
Those of her kind hovered silently as they had…for centuries.
Placing one foot in front of the other, she casually strolled over the unmarked graves of the undead. Every single body that was killed before its time had been dumped here like a biological landfill. There were no tombstones telling stumbling visitors of who rested here.
Someone should always remember the dead. And they would. She nodded and in the palm of her hand was an essence, the closest thing to life she'd felt in centuries compliments of the vampire she attacked. Across from her stood her akri, a bright, burning power source was held within his palm as well that he was able to siphon from a witch. They converted those essences into particles that sunk into the ground like seeds.
Words flowed from their mouths, spewing forth and encompassing the entire area. It was a command, not a plea. The time for making pleas was over.
The clouds began to swirl overhead into a helix, a funnel resembling a tornado. The earth raged at what was happening, but that rage was disregarded. Fifteen hundred years of captivity were about to end.
Warning and danger signs flashed, the soul of the earth telling her to turn away, to get off this course because what she was barreling into, barreling out of it would cost what remained of her soul. But the soul was the first thing to be bartered away. She kept it up, kept saying the words that was opening doors to other parallels, creating intersecting voids of energy with no way to shut the door once it was blown open.
It was over. Done. Finished. She waited. It was unnervingly quiet and frigidly cold. Maybe it didn't work. Maybe it did. And then she heard it. The groaning of the dead waking up. She felt the earth vibrate under her feet as layer after layer of dirt was being pushed aside and broken apart.
To her left she saw a hand break through the ground. She watched in fascination as the desiccated body rose from the earth in tattered clothes that had fallen victim to decomposition. Soon another broke through the earth, and another, until she was surrounded.
"Inhabit your host so that we may leave this place."
Chapter end.
A/N: Who was resurrected? What was in Bonnie's bed? And Bamon as roomies again, sign me up. And Damon letting Elena know the train has pulled out of the station, ha. Thank you for reading and let me know what you think. I have misgivings about this chapter but when is a writer ever satisfied or pleased with their work. *shrugs*