Note: Since you've been waiting a long time for an update I though I could make it double this week. This is thanks to 1beaut that helped me again by providing beta service.
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She jumps from the bed without putting her shoes on and goes running down the stairs as she hears her name being screamed with the burst of an emotion she can't take the time to recognize right now.
When Bonnie gets to the damaged front door, Caroline looks out of breath and out of her mind.
"You're back," Bonnie says, regretting the fact that her first words are so stupid. If Caroline is back, it can only mean she found out the truth.
Bonnie has dreaded this moment, but all she feels right now is relief. She needs to come clean, take the blame and at least try to make amend to her wrong doings.
"What the hell are you screaming about?" Damon's voice sounds clearly irritated as he arrives and then he adds, "You're going to pay for the door."
Bonnie doesn't look around to shush Damon, but she raises one hand in his direction motioning him to let Caroline talk. There's no doubt that, right now, Damon could not stop her even if he tried, anyway.
"How could you?" Caroline's fists are clenched together and her pearly nails bite at her palms, while her red, glossy eyes fix on her a hard stare.
"I'm so sorry…" it's the stupidest thing to say right now, but she truly is sorry, so very much, and she can't keep the words inside.
"Yes, so sorry that you killed my boyfriend, and sent me on my marry way with a monster like Klaus," she feels so betrayed right now that she can't find the right words to hurt her enough. "You didn't even have the decorum to tell me. You let me live under the same roof as him, you let me share the same-"she can't even complete the line without feeling suffocated by the vivid memory, "I found out only because I found his drawings of me and I connected the dots."
"Wh-"Damon wants to ask her if she had sunstroke or anything but then he looks at Bonnie and knows that there's something he doesn't know. He doesn't like it.
He passes a hand in his thick black hair, trying to reason this out.
"Okay, something is wrong here, but I can tell you that she's been stuck in this house with me for the last three weeks so whatever it is that happened to Tyler it can't possibly be her fault."
It sounds good to his own ears. Yeah, right, whatever happened he's her alibi so everything's fine.
"I did a spell," Bonnie says. Her voice is so thin for the effort to keep herself steady that he must strive to listen.
"I had to find a way to hide Klaus... in a place where Alaric couldn't find him."
"You're forgetting that Alaric did find him, and burned him like it was the fourth of July," Damon says.
"Not really," Bonnie shakes her head, "He only found his body. I had already transferred his power in another body; Tyler's."
Damon is stunned to hear that she did something like this under his nose and he didn't even notice. And, is that the extent of her powers? Can she play around like this with people's lives without so much breaking a nail?
Well, yeah, aside from the sociopathic side effects.
"And I've spent almost a month with him, believing him to be Tyler when he was in fact a poor imitation," Caroline is trembling with rage and betrayal, and Bonnie wishes so much she would just launch herself toward her and be done with it. But she forgot that Damon's there with the sole mission to screw everything up for her, so when Caroline goes to take her by her shoulders, Damon manages to tear her away from her just in time.
Bonnie can see the colored trail of their fast moving as she falls on the floor from the force of Caroline's residual grip.
"Now, back off Barbie!"
Caroline's eyes are black and so are Damon's, but his hissing sounds a lot more threatening than hers.
"Use that brain of yours if any cell remained after all the hair-dye," he says, "We are alive because of what she did!"
"I lost Tyler because of what she did!" she screams into his face.
"And it took you almost a whole month to tell the difference between him and your other suitor," He says, sarcastically, "And just because Tyler can't hold a pen, so imagine a pencil!"
Caroline throws him across the room, face burning with humiliation and shame.
They won't get anywhere with this so he decides to change his strategy.
"Listen, I'm sorry for your loss-"
"Damon," Bonnie cuts in because he's not doing a great job at appearing sorry, at all, and because this is all her fault so she must take the blame and everything else.
"He was so important to me, and you made me betray his memory," Caroline tells her, with tears running down her beautiful, pale face. "How could you?" she asks, her voice trembles, "He was your friend, and you killed him."
"He's alive," Bonnie offers "I swear he is."
"Where?" the shock of the news sober Caroline up immediately, "Where is he?"
"Inside his body, with Klaus," she explains, "It's just that Klaus is more powerful, I suppose his personality must be the dominant one."
"Then undo the spell, right now!" the vampire orders the same way she bossed her friends around when she was just a child.
"I can't do it, unless I find another body for Klaus to inhabit. It's not really easy to find a supernatural vessel for an Original vampire, I don't know what would happen with a less equipped vessel," she says, "Not to mention the fact that I…"
"You what?"
"She's temporarily out of service," Damon says.
Bonnie would roll her eyes at his choice of words if it didn't seem so disrespectful of Caroline's pain.
"He found a way to unable my powers because they were getting… out of hand."
"Oh, what made you think so?" she asks, sarcastically, "Then re-enable them!"
"Do you have a suicide wish?" he asks back.
"You don't understand," Caroline begins, but Damon doesn't let her continue.
"No, you don't understand," he says, irritated by her useless whining and ordering around now, when in fact she didn't do one useful or even relevant thing in the first place, "I won't do it because we'll die if I do it. Because if she puts things back the way they were, we'll be all dead. Your precious Tyler included."
"I know you don't want to hear it now," Bonnie says, "But it was the only way I could save everyone I cared about."
"You had to find another one!" she insists.
"I know," she says, "I can't fix things right now, but I'll do it very soon. I promise, but right now you need to keep Klaus under control. Does he know that you know about him?"
The blonde vampire shakes her head as a reply.
"Then he'll lower his defenses. You know he'll do it around you, and you can keep him good for a while."
Caroline stares at her for long seconds.
"Tyler is alive?"
"Yes," Bonnie answers, "Yes, he is and you'll be together again."
#
"She's just ashamed she likes Tyler 2.0 better," Damon says while Bonnie sits on the first step of the stairs holding her head with both hands.
"Don't be unfair," she says, "I forced her into this situation. I made the wrong choice," and wasn't she so good at talking about those?
"It's my fault," she adds.
"I'm not being unfair," he says, not looking at her, "I call things the way they are. I know enough about torn women. She can say all she wants that she loves only Tyler, but it doesn't make it any more real."
Bonnie looks up at him. She can never stop herself from looking at him when he opens up to her, even just a little bit.
"You could have told me," He says, "I don't like surprises."
"I wanted to, but there was always someone around and…" she shrugs, like she doesn't know what she means to say. She doesn't know if words count for anything now.
The fact is that he doesn't care to know how that sentence ends. He cares about the way it begins, because it means something to him that she wanted to tell him; even if it was a lie, he likes the sound enough to choose to accept it.
"Fine," he says, "You know what you need?"
"To get drunk?" she hazards a guess.
Damon just grins at her.
#
"It was Elena on the phone, wasn't it?" she asks, staring at the glass in her hands as he comes back into the room.
Damon shrugs, to not give importance to the call but she can't help but dig into it.
"They don't want to see me."
"Caroline needs an audience when she whines, you know that," he says, sprawling himself on the sofa, "So she's kind of holding them hostage, but they'll come tomorrow night or whenever she feels merciful enough to free them."
Bonnie gives him half a smile and tries to sip on the bourbon he gave her. The smell is so strong that that alone makes her stomach turn a bit. The amber liquid burns on the tip of her tongue and she grimaces putting the glass back on the coffee table.
"What did they have to say about what I did?"
"Stefan can't really throw any rock here. And Elena is too worried about showing some sympathy to Barbie to try and make her be reasonable, but I'm sure she understands."
"What about Jeremy?"
The name throws Damon off for a moment. Jeremy? Why should she care what Jeremy thinks?
"He doesn't know. The boy is out tonight, but I'm sure they'll fill him in soon."
"With a girl?"
She's kidding, right? Is she actually worrying about Jeremy's love life right now? Why the hell does she care if he even has one? Damon highly doubt he has one; He's a stubborn teenager still wet behind his ears, he's sure he'll have a stable relationship with Miss Rosie Palm for a very long time.
"It's not like I care enough to ask," but watching her face display a fake smile he rushes to add "But I'm pretty sure he and Matt went playing pool. I think I heard them making arrangements when I went to Elena's."
He's lying, of course, but if it makes her feel better he doesn't see the harm in that.
"Good," she says slowly, "he should go out and take his mind off troubles."
"You should, too," he answers, with the tone of someone that just took a decision.
Bonnie just looks at him with a scowl.
"I mean it. Me and you, we're going out tonight!" he decides.
"You forget the part of going out where I have to actually put my foot outside the boarding house. Which, I can't." "That's because lately you lack in the imagination department, but luckily for you I'm around," he explains, "The garden on the back of the house it's the integrant part of the house itself, and since there's nothing else calling for our attention and we're young and free - well" he interrupts himself to correct the shoot, "one of us, at least – we'll have a nice date."
She looks at him perplexed; he himself feels pretty weird about the word.
"A friendly one, of course," he clarifies, "though, I can let you get to second base if you're really nice to me," he adds, with a wink.