-Last Day

N.R

The last day of Bonnie Elise Bennett-Hopkins life started out like many days before. She got up, got dressed, put on a brave face, and went to the job that she hated with all her heart. She was actively looking for another job somewhere else, working near Damon was agony for her.

Elena certainly didn't make things any easier, she would constantly swing by for "lunch" and made sure to walk by Bonnie's desk every single time. It wasn't long until word got around just exactly what happened, and why Bonnie was looking to leave.

It was of little consolation to her that most of the employees thought what both Damon and Elena did was extremely shady, and sided with Bonnie.

She didn't really care about sides, she just wanted some peace of mind. Ever since that fateful night of her birthday party, she's been plagued by bad dreams and endless 'what ifs'.

What if she were prettier?

What if she were thinner?

What if she were smarter?

It all swirled in her mind, and the only thing she had been able to come up with is that she herself wasn't enough. There was something about her that made it easy for people to leave her, even her so-called friends were distancing themselves from her. Bonnie knows she hasn't been the most fun person as of late, but she had just gotten her world turned upside down by the two people she trusted with all her heart. Wasn't she allowed to mourn the loss of two of the most important people in her life?

"Did you hear about Damon?" She overheard a secretary hiss. Bonnie halted her steps outside the door.

"No, what did the asshole do now?"

"They eloped! His secretary was bitching about having to shuffle his cases around and let it slip."

"No way! Has anyone told Bonnie?"

"Are you kidding? The poor girl is still thinking he's gonna come back to her. I will not be the one to break it to her, it'd be like kicking a puppy when it's already down."

Bonnie had heard enough, she felt as if her world had come crashing down. She put in leave for the rest of the day and went home. She curled up on her bed and let the tears come.

She cried for all the time she spent defending her relationship with Damon to everybody.

She cried for all the years she spent loving him.

She cried for the loss of a friend she never thought would betray her.

She cried for the part of her that would always be aching for someone to love her

She cried.

Once the deluge of tears stopped, Bonnie lay on her bed completely drained.

'They eloped?' Bonnie still couldn't wrap her head around it. She and Damon dated all through her college years, and they hadn't even come close to even being engaged. Hell, he was against Bonnie even moving in! But here comes Elena, and suddenly he wants to settle down? What the hell did she have that Bonnie didn't?

Her phone had been going non-stop all afternoon, she knew by now everyone had seen Elena's Facebook post. It was a shot of the (humongous) ring, and a caption that simply said "Mr. and Mrs. Salvatore." She had tagged everyone in the post, so there was no way they didn't know that Bonnie had seen it.

Her eyes landed on the jewelry box that, according to her grandmother, had been her mothers' as a little girl. She sat up and started looking through all the jewelry Damon had given her over the years. Nothing even came close to the rock that currently sat on Elena's finger, but then again, huge gaudy rings weren't exactly Bonnie's style.

That doesn't mean it didn't hurt.

It hurt. It hurt so bad that Bonnie gave up so many years on someone who didn't even have the decency to tell her to her face that he didn't love her anymore. It hurt that her so called best friend (who already had an awesome guy of her own) was the one who got to call herself his wife. It hurt that once again, Bonnie was shoved aside for someone else.

Her phone chimed again, she reached over to silence it, but saw the text was from Kai.

-I'm here, for whatever you need.

She smiled sadly as her eyes landed on the charm bracelet he'd given her all those years ago. Contrary to what everybody thought, she was fully aware of Kai's feelings, Damon had made damn sure that she knew. He despised Kai, and took great pleasure in rubbing it in the other man's face that he was with Bonnie any chance he got. He especially hated the fact that she loved the charm bracelet that Kai had given her, and had finally worn her down into not wearing it anymore.

Even when he had dumped her for Elena, the sight of her hanging out with Kai still made Damon clench his fist. Bonnie had stupidly thought that meant he still cared about her, that this thing with Elena was just a fling and he had to get it out of his system.

She was a damn fool.

She knew people talked behind her back, she heard the whispers, the mocking that happened while she was just out of earshot. Caroline, in particular, had taken a hard line on not wanting to hear any more about the situation, telling her it would be best to let it go and move on.

Bonnie was suddenly, furiously, angry. At herself.

Why couldn't she just give it up? Her mother gave up on her daughter and husband. Her father gave up on his raising his daughter. What was it about her that made her want to hang on to someone who obviously wasn't coming back?

She had spent the last six months doing everything she could possibly do to entice Damon back. She'd taken to wearing her hair straight as a pin, dieting so she could slim down to mimic Elena's svelte figure. And for what? He ran off and married her, not Bonnie.

She angrily swiped at the tears that streamed down her cheeks. She was so tired of being sad, so tired of putting on a fake smile every single day. She thought of Stefan, he'd had the right idea to leave right after their affair was discovered. 'Lucky son of a bitch' she thought bitterly.

Bonnie needed a drink, but she didn't keep any alcohol at her place. She didn't really feel like drinking around people that she knew right now. She thought of the bar on third that she knew Damon frequented when he would go out for a boys' night.


She's not sure how long she had been sitting there when she realizes Nik has pulled up a spot next to her.

"Hey, Nik!" Bonnie greeted cheerfully before taking in the fact that he was soaked from head to toe. "When did I start raining?" She frowned and turned to peer out the window, or rather, tried to. Nik was quick enough to reach out and keep her upright on her stool. "Whoops" she giggled, "Think I've had a few too many."

"Bonnie, what are you doing, love?" Nik sighed wearily.

"Celebrating!" Bonnie held up her drink, "Come join me in toasting the nuptials of my former BFF and boyfriend."

"Bloody hell," he sighed to himself. "I'm not in the mood to listen to you rattle on about that prat and the lesser Gilbert. Can we please just sit in silence, and I'll drive you home after?" Bonnie squinted in thought before giving a definitive nod. "Kay."

Of course that didn't last long, by the time Nik was on his third drink, Bonnie could tell he was extremely agitated. He was ranting about his fight with Caroline, and Bonnie was trying to sympathize with him.

"Hey, it's okay, you guys will get through it! Damon used to-" She was cut off by a snort.

"Please don't compare what I have with Caroline to what you had with that asshole. I am nothing like him."

Bonnie pulled back in shock, "I wasn't, I was just trying-"

"Trying to what Bonnie? Let me give you some harsh truths that nobody seems to want to tell you to your face: Damon is gone. He and your so called best friend were fucking behind your back for months before you found out. He's not coming back to you, hell, I'm not even sure if he loved you, or if he just loved the fact that you were so needy that he could control you. It's pathetic that you keep holding out hope. Take some cues from Stefan, get some self-respect and move on." He was breathing harshly when he finished. He turned to the bartender to order another drink.

Bonnie sat still as a stone looking at her empty glass full of melting ice. Of all the things Nik had said, one part stood out in big glaring letters:

'I'm not even sure if he loved you, or if he just loved the fact that you were so needy that he could control you.'

That can't be right. Bonnie thought. He did love her…once. She was sure of it. She knew she could be needy and had abandonment issues, but surely she wasn't unlovable, right? She was jolted out of her drunken musings by Nik arguing with the bartender about the quality of the whisky in his drink.

Sometimes being small has it's advantages, Bonnie thought as she slid off the stool and made her way outside.

It was still pouring rain, but that didn't register to her at all. She needed to get to Damon. Nik was lying, he had to be. They were together for the better part of 5 years! You don't stay with someone for that long unless you love them, right?

She didn't bother with her seatbelt, she'd made the drive hundreds, no THOUSANDS of times before. Bonnie knew the route like the back of her hand. "I just need to hear him say it" she muttered to herself, "doesn't matter that he's with her now. He did love me once, I was wanted."

She repeated the words to herself in the quietness of the car.

She was nearly there when the flash of lightning right in front of her car startled her so bad, she jerked the wheel to the left. Bonnie slammed on what she thought was the brake, but was the accelerator instead.

She watched it all happen as if it were a movie playing on the big screen in the theater.

Her front tire struck the curb, and combined with her speed and along with the water on the ground, her car went airborne off the road. It flipped once in the air, landing on the roof at the edge of the forest that surrounded the Salvatore property.

Bonnie had been thrown clear from the wreck, her body was found five feet from her car.


-Eden

The last day of Bonnie Elise Bennett-Hopkins' life hadn't been like any other for Malachai Parker. His normally scheduled day for therapy had been pushed back for that day versus earlier that week. On top of the end of the week rush at Vera's, two of their cooks had called in sick and he was having to cover and shoulder the weight of three chefs - himself included. He had Luke pick up his prescription from the pharmacy since he couldn't break away after lunch and his appointment was at three.

Therapy had gone well enough for the day. Dr. Maxwell said he had been doing exceptionally well over the years and it would probably be okay to start scheduling their sessions to be once or twice a month versus once a week. Despite the ups and downs that transpired in his life, Kai was doing pretty good for himself. It was only a matter of time before his father would completely hand over the reins to Vera's - both in Portland and in Mystic Falls.

Would he want to leave? No. He couldn't even imagine being far away from his family for good - only seeing them on the holidays. There was just no way.

And then there were the friends he'd made while he had started settling in. Kai didn't even want to think about life without them anymore. He may have been a city boy living in a sleepy town, but the sleepy town was where his heart was.

And then there was Bonnie…

Some would have called him a fool. Some actually did. But Kai didn't care. He had faith. He had hope to last for centuries. Because the Bonnie that he knew, the girl who had a spark of fire inside of her? She was still there, he knew it! She was even on the hunt for another job to get away from Damon Salvatore and the rest of his bullshit that came with it. Bonnie was taking steps in the right direction. It had come years later and her relationship with her friends and even Sheila had nearly reached the breaking point, but she was starting to come around.

He just had to be patient.

Kai rarely fooled around with social media. It was just a cesspool of drama waiting to happen. Coupled with the fact that Damon and Elena were displaying their disgusting relationship all over Facebook almost had Kai deleting his account completely. He abstained since the restaurant's social media pages happened to be on that platform.

It was tempting though.

The notification chime from Facebook wasn't what finally got his attention. It was the numerous text messages and phone calls that flooded his phone from everyone else. They were all asking where Bonnie was since she had taken off from work and refused to answer her phone. Kai didn't have a key to her place and he wasn't about to bug Sheila with it and worry the older woman more. Stefan had left town shortly after Bonnie's birthday, though who could blame him?

Dialing Caroline, he waited a few seconds before she finally picked up.

"Have you found her?"

"She's probably at home, Care. Don't you and Kat have time to swing by and check on her? Or Becks? I'm stuck at work and I don't think I'll be able to leave anytime soon."

Kai propped the phone up on his shoulder as he shuffled through the stack of paperwork piled up on his desk at work. Their accountant had crunched some numbers and he decided to double-check them and see where their budget would be at for the next month.

"What about your family?"

He bit back an aggravated sigh. "Liv is at the restaurant with me since we're down a few staff. Luke went to run some errands for me and my father is taking the day off since he worked a double two days in a row." Before she could say anything else, he cut her off. "And Jo is out of town for a medical seminar. She left this morning."

"Damn…"

There was a minute pause before Kai set his pen down to hold the phone properly. "Seriously, what the fuck, Caroline?"

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"We all know Damon is a prick. Elena is a shady piece of work. We saw Bonnie unravel for that son of a bitch and we all let it happen. All of us."

"She's the one who pulled away from all of us first! What else were we supposed to do? Damon tried to isolate her from everyone and-"

"We are just as much to blame for this shit happening as Bonnie is."

"Wha-?"

"We should have been there for her instead of just watching on the sidelines all these years, hoping that things would get better." Kai didn't know if he was talking to himself or to Caroline anymore. "Instead of bottling things up until they exploded, we should have just buried that bastard alive."

His anger was on the precipice of a volcanic eruption. Yes, he blamed himself. He should have never let it get this far. Bonnie had started turning things topsy turvy in her life and it was all because of her relationship with Damon.

The minute that Bonnie and Sheila's worlds had been torn asunder because of it, Kai knew he should have done something about it. When he first arrived in Mystic Falls, no one could have ever convinced him that Bonnie would ever allow for her relationship with her Grams to wither to dying a blossom. No one.

"Kai, what is go-?"

He slammed his fist on the desk, causing the papers to fly everywhere. "And why is everyone always relying on me to be the one to see how she's doing? You all have known her your whole lives and yet you guys were the first ones to run away when it looked like you weren't going to be able to convince her to let her shit with Damon go."

"Wait a damn minute, Kai!"

"Sure, this whole fucking town knows how I feel about her, but that doesn't give any of you the right to shove the friendship responsibility solely onto my shoulders! On the shoulders of my family!"

Kai had had enough. He was at his limit and that was saying something for the wealth of patience he had learned to accumulate over the years. No one wanted to be responsible. No one wanted to make the hard choices. Not even his family, and yet they were stuck doing it every single time.

Liv wasn't the lovey, bubbly and affectionate type. She had reached her limit first and with Luke dealing with his own relationship, he wasn't as watchful as he used to be in their high school days. Jo was swamped with work and while their father was always aware of most things, he was of the belief that young people needed to handle their own problems.

And Kai wasn't going to be the one to break the hard truths to Bonnie because he knew, better than anyone, just how delicate the mind really was. Shattering what courage she had managed to build up over the last few weeks would have been dangerous. He wouldn't be that person, no matter how much he wanted Bonnie to see the truth of the world around her.

Sighing heavily, he angrily brushed his fingers through his hair and scratched at the stubble on his chin. "Look, I gotta go. Like I said, things are tight over here and I can't break away even if I wanted to. Just...just check on her, okay?"

He didn't wait for Caroline to say goodbye. Kai hung up and shot Bonnie a text.

-I'm here, for whatever you need.

It was all he could spare the time and energy for. But she would get through this. She would. It was just going to take a little bit of time.

Kai was in need of a strong drink and a couple of aspirin by the time he closed up the restaurant. A storm had blown in out of nowhere. Not wanting to let his younger sister tool around in his car, however, had Kai rethinking this need and he decided to take her back home first. He handed her the ledger to pass off to their dad and said he'd call him first thing in the morning when he got the chance.

He wasn't ready to go home. Not yet. He thought about calling Elijah or Mason to see if they wanted to hit The Grill for a few beers and game of pool when his phone started to ring. Waiting until he came to a stoplight, he answered it on speaker.

"Oh, thank fuck. I didn't know if you were still at work."

It was Nik.

"I actually just closed up a little while ago. Was gonna see about heading out for a drink or two. You want in?"

"No, that's why I'm calling. I...I think I fucked up, bleedin' Christ."

Kai pulled over to an empty median once the traffic light changed to green. "Did you get drunk and yell at Caroline?" It seemed he couldn't escape from anyone's relationship problems.

"Caroline and I fought earlier. Some shit about me being an insensitive ass, but listen, that's not what I'm talking about…"

"Well spit it out, man."

"It's Bonnie. I ran into her at that place Damon likes to go and she was pretty knackered. I snapped and just laid into her and-"

"What?!" Kai's anger flared up for the second time that day. "Are you fucking serious right now?"

"Look, I know, okay? I was just stuck in my own shit and Bonnie was there and she-"

"Where is she?"

The silence was so suffocating that Kai thought he was going to die from it. Between the ringing in his ears and the painful thudding of his heart against his chest, he wasn't sure he was going to make it. Kai clutched at his chest, feeling a burn threatening to spill out of his esophagus.

"Mate-"

"WHERE IS SHE NIKLAUS?!"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

"You don't know?!" The two of them were yelling and it wasn't helping. "Fucking Christ, how long has she been gone?"

"I don't know, alright? I just turned my head away for two seconds and then she disappeared!"

"FUCK!" He punched his steering wheel repeatedly, honking the horn in the process. After about five more seconds of this, he finally calmed down enough to take a few deep breaths. "...okay, let's just take a minute and figure out where she could be. There's a chance she could be driving. I'm going to call Sheila and Mason. Get ahold of Caroline and the others. Call me if you find her."

"Alright."

Kai sat there for a long moment just staring at nothing. His nerves were shot and it only just occurred to him that there was still a torrential downpour outside. If Bonnie was inebriated and driving out in that weather…


He called Sheila.

He was with Sheila when they got the call from Doctor Fell. Kai had never seen the older woman coming unglued in all the years he'd known her. But when Sheila dropped the phone and fell into his arms, he knew that something was definitely up. She stressed that there was no time. They needed to get to the hospital now.

It felt like it took a hundred years to get to there. Sheila and he both ran through the doors, a small crew of EMTs stopping them. Everyone in the town knew who they were and knew what sort of state they would have been in had either of them saw Bonnie at that moment. The older woman's temper flared to new heights and Kai's only saving grace was that keeping her calm was also preventing him from erupting.

Bonnie was in surgery for ten hours. Kai called his father to let him know that he wasn't coming into work for the next couple of days. The next time they saw Logan Fell, he broke the news to Sheila, stating that her granddaughter was in a coma. They didn't know when she would wake up. If she would wake up.

For the next two weeks, Kai's life moved by in a strange blur. Almost like he was walking through mud as high as his waist. His father told him to take some time off and he found himself lounging around like a sack of useless meat on his couch in his apartment. Jo came by often to check on him and she was horrified to see that his medication hadn't been touched since Luke went to pick up his prescription half a month ago. Kai couldn't bring himself to get medicated. Kai had missed his scheduled appointment with Dr. Maxwell, but the small town had informed his therapist what was going on. He'd left a voicemail telling him to come in when he was ready.

The image of Bonnie's beaten and battered body was burned forever in his mind. Doctor Fell said that it was a genuine, honest-to-God miracle that she'd survived the crash. She should have died instantly. Maybe the afterlife wasn't ready for Bonnie Bennett-Hopkins. Or maybe she wasn't ready for the afterlife.

Kai wasn't a religious person but he went to church with Sheila every Sunday and Wednesday. They prayed together and in the quiet solitude of her cottage, she cried and he did everything he could not to cry with her. He saved his tears for when he was alone where no prying eyes could see. Every day he would drop Sheila off at the hospital and pick her up when visiting hours were over.

He didn't actually start visiting until the third week. Kai brought her flowers and read poetry to her when Sheila needed a break to sleep. The older woman was often hunched up in one of the chairs in the corner of the room.

Another week had passed.

Kai read everything from Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and had even dabbled into William Faulkner. She had always been a bit of a bleeding heart so one day, out of the blue, Kai started reading "A Farewell to Arms" by Hemingway.

"Maybe...you'll fall in love with me all over again."

"Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"

"Yes. I want to ruin you."

"Good," I said. "That's what I want too."

The hospital went into an uproar almost seconds after Kai stepped through the threshold. The bouquet he had in his hands fell to the floor, trampled underfoot without a second thought. Orderlies and nurses ran down the hall and rounded the next corner where he knew Bonnie was. Something in his gut told him that they were all hustling over to Bonnie.

He gave chase and his heart dropped to his gut when he saw Sheila wailing on the floor, that sickening tone of the EEG and Heart Rate Monitors sounding off the tell-tale cry that it was over. It was all over.

Bonnie was gone.

Doctor Fell yelled for the monitors to be turned off and Kai wanted to burn the hospital down. She had been fine! She was just tired! Bonnie was just tired of all the bullshit and needed to sleep. She just needed to rest. Bonnie Bennett-Hopkins was no quitter!

Kai had barely taken a handful of steps when chaos erupted once more. Monitors were reattached and the heart monitor announced a pulse. His heart thudded like a drum declaring war and part of him wanted to run in and see for himself the miracle that had happened - the miracle he had been praying for.

Leaning on the outside of the door, he let his back rest there just as the weak sound of Bonnie's voice cut through all of the noise. Sheila sobbed, crying both from joy and sadness as she saw her granddaughter return from the land of the dead.

It had been thirty days of hell, but Bonnie had come up swinging on the thirty-first night.

His legs shook and he slid to the floor, a weak smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Kai pressed his palms into his eyes and, try as he might to stop them, the tears flowed freely. A sob rattled through him, shaking his entire body. She was alive. She hadn't given up the fight or the fights to come.

Kai didn't care that he was a crying mess on the hospital floor. People left him alone. And as he bit into the back of his wrist, he smiled a little more for the first time in months.

Welcome back, Bonnie. Glad to see you've still got some fight left in you.

He craned his neck slightly to peek inside, seeing Sheila cradling Bonnie's hand in hers as her granddaughter's weak fingers curled over the older woman's.

So you better get up and give Mystic Falls some hell.