Dislcaimer: I don't own the Vampire Diaries nor am I making any profit from this. Characters, etc. all belong to their respective owners.
A/N: Wow, sorry it took me a while to update this. Student teaching ate my soul and then I worked really hard on wrapping up a couple other fics. But, now I'm back and ready to get back to this piece.
Thanks so much to everyone who has been reading, reviewing, etc. I very much appreciate it!
When she wakes up, Caroline is gone and Bonnie finds herself being disappointed by that.
When she gathers herself enough to get dressed and go downstairs, she notices that all the destruction she had wrought last night had been cleaned up. The holes ripped into the plaster of the walls from when she had forcefully torn down all those photos were still there, but the photographs and been taking from the busted frames and stacked neatly on the foyer table and all the broken glass had disappeared.
When she enters the kitchen, Damon is there, flipping pancakes. There's already a plate waiting for her on the table. A smiley vampire face looks back at her.
"I always tell you I hate that," she says softly, sitting down.
"And I always do it anyway," he replies, turning around with a Cheshire grin.
It's just like old times back in 1994.
Suddenly, it all flashes before her. Breakfast after breakfast with Damon, him cheating at every board game, seeing Kai for the first time, the burning pain of an arrow through her stomach, a grip around her throat, a knife below her heart, weeks alone, talking to herself just to hear some noise.
The fork she's holding drops onto the table with a loud clang.
"Bon?"
Her eyes snap back to meet his icy blue eyes. She realizes that her hand is clutching at her throat as if trying to pry something off it.
"It's fine," she says quickly, dropping her hand. "I'm fine."
She's lying and he knows it and she knows he knows it. She doesn't know why she bothers with that lie. She knows she's not fine. He knows she's not fine. Everybody knows she's not fine.
"It was a flashback, wasn't it?"
She shrugs a little and swallows thickly, looking away. She opens her mouth to say something, but is interrupted by the door slamming open.
"How the hell could you do it?" Elena snaps, barging in with little preamble to stand in front of Bonnie. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
"Elena," Damon says warningly.
"Now, because of you, Luke and Liv will have to complete the merge!"
Bonnie finds herself surprised when Damon takes Elena by the arm and propels the two of them outside, shutting the door behind them.
Despite her better judgement, she stands up and moves towards the door to eavesdrop.
"How can you possibly defend her for this?" she hears Elena practically yell.
"Why do you give more of a damn about Twitches than your own best friend?" Damon hisses back.
"I do care about, Bonnie, even if she hates me," Elena says defensively. "But that doesn't mean she gets a free pass to do whatever she wants!"
"How is it any different from what any of us have done before?"
"I know we've all done some bad things in the past, but…"
Bonnie finds herself drifting into her own thoughts. She thinks about how Elena had lost her memories of Damon over the summer. Part of Bonnie had always assumed that, for whatever reason, Damon brought out the worst parts in her best friend (or was it ex-best friend?). Yet, here she was…
Was she always like this and I never noticed till now? Bonnie wonders.
She's jerked out of her musings when the door bangs open once again and Damon reenters. They stand there staring at each other.
"You're ruining your chances," she blurts out before she can stop herself. "With Elena, I mean," she clarifies upon his confused look. "You're ruining your chances with Elena. I mean, you were always talking about how much you missed her and really wanted to see her again…" she trails off.
"She forgot about me," he replies, his jaw clenching a little. "She chose to forget about me. Through it all, even the worst moments, no matter how much it hurt, how crazy she made me, I would have never chosen to erase it all."
Bonnie doesn't know how to respond to that.
"C'mon," he says. "Your pancakes are getting cold and I've got one burning to a crisp on the stove and about to start a fire. And Caroline asked us to go take care of Liz while she and Stefan prepare the family cabin…she wants to move her there before…"
Bonnie finds herself a little surprised that Caroline would ask Damon to watch over Sheriff Forbes, but she supposes that Damon had struck up an odd little friendship with the officer.
"I…you…you don't have to stay with me or lug me around or anything," Bonnie says quietly, sitting down at the kitchen table. "What happened last night, what I almost…it…I'm…I'm not planning on trying it again."
Honestly, she didn't want to be left alone, but she didn't want to be everybody's burden, either.
"What, you just take my pancakes and then kick me out?" He jokes. "I don't think so. You're stuck with me for the day, like it or not, judgy."
She laughs a little and then begins crying again.
"I'm sorry," she says, shaking her head. "I don't know why I'm crying. Jesus, it's all I do anymore." She attempts to bury her face into the table to hide it, using her arms as a cushion.
"Hey," Damon says, pulling her until she lifts her head up. He cups her face and uses his thumbs to wipe her tears.
He does that until her tears dry up and then they go to eat the now cold pancakes.
As she slides into the passenger seat of Damon's Camaro, she finds herself getting lost in her thoughts again. Caroline didn't talk about her mother's troubles very often, but she's sure that inwardly the blonde wasn't handling it all.
Bonnie personally hadn't been super close to Liz Forbes, not like she had with Elena's parents, but she still should take the chance to say goodbye to her. It's not like she got that opportunity a whole lot.
"I had been helping Liz with some cold cases," Damon mentions. "One of them was actually about Elena's parents."
"She thinks Elena's parents were murdered?" Bonnie asks, her mouth gaping a little.
"She thought it was a possibility, but she was wrong. I'm actually going to let her know today."
"Does Elena know?" she asks. Part of her wonders if it would have somehow have been better if there and been a reason behind Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert's deaths other than pure, dumb fate. Probably not.
"Yeah, I told her yesterday, just a little before…uh, y'know."
Before the whole fiasco with Kai.
Truth be told, even with knowing that Liv and Luke potentially having to complete the merge, she doesn't feel all that bad about killing Kai. She had literally slayed the monster from her nightmares, stopped him from potentially doing more harm…
Except, the nightmares won't stop, says a little voice in the back of her head. How do you ever get over something like that? You can't.
When they enter the house, they find Liz Forbes in bed. Bonnie can't help but find herself a little shocked at how exhausted and run-down she looked, but forcefully reminds herself that the last time she'd seen Liz Forbes she was happy and healthy.
"Bonnie," Liz says, greeting her with a small smile. "Caroline told me you were back. I'm glad."
Bonnie smiles back a little and nods. She stays glued next to the doorway, not quite sure what to do with herself.
"So, you're probably going to want a drink before I give you the news about the Gilbert case," Damon tells her.
The sheriff heaves a sigh. "Just tell me."
"It wasn't anything supernatural," he explains to her. "The voicemail message was Elena's mom wanting to ask you to intervene about Jeremy smoking pot and the suitcases in the trunk were supposed to be for a trip to their lake cabin that they were planning."
To Bonnie's surprise, the woman actually starts crying. She can't think of a time where she had ever seen Liz Forbes cry.
"I think…I think it would have been easier if it had been something supernatural," she says. "If there had been some reason behind it other than a stupid accident. It was a stupid accident. A stupid accident. Just fate."
Bonnie wonders if maybe Liz is actually talking more about herself and her illness than anything.
"I did everything right. I tried my best to be a good person, to take care of my family. I just…"
"I know," Damon hushes her, reaching to take her hand. "Sometimes terrible things happen to really amazing people."
"I suppose I should be grateful on some level," Liz says, tearfully nodding. "There's this strange sense of peace in knowing that I'm one of the few people in this town that actually get an ordinary death. I'm ordinary, exceptionally ordinary." Pause. "I'm glad Caroline isn't, though. If anyone was meant to be extraordinary, it's her. She needs to know how proud I am of her."
"She will," Damon reassures her. "You can tell herself when she gets back here tonight."
"Thank you. For today, for being here."
Damon's face looks more than a little pained.
"I never spent a whole lot of time with my mother before she died," he admits. "I was supposed to write the eulogy at her funeral, but then I bailed. I couldn't even bring myself to attend."
Bonnie finds herself feeling incredibly awkward. She can't help but feel like she's intruding on something and that she didn't quite belong there in that moment and should leave, but she finds herself glued to that spot.
She had never gotten the chance to really know her mother. She was too young when she left and she swept in and out of Bonnie's life too often, but she had had Grams. Still, though, she had wondered more than once what it would have been like to have had a real mother. One who would have raised her, taught her how to ride a bike, to tell her that she was extraordinary.
"Want a second chance?" Liz Forbes ask with a slightly wry smile. "Write mine." Pause. "Just nothing dirty."
"No promises. How about that drink now?"
Damon leaves the room to go pour some drinks. Bonnie watches him leave before turning back to Liz.
"Caroline told me how hard things have been for you," Liz says, motioning for her to come a little closer. Bonnie tentatively perches herself on the edge of the bed where Damon had been sitting before. "And it's probably unfair of me to ask you this, considering that and I've already asked Stefan, but…will you help her when I'm gone? She's going to need you now more than ever.
"Or course I will," Bonnie says. She finds herself crying again.
The older woman gives her a small smile and then her eyes slide closed and she's lying still. A little too still.
"Sheriff Forbes," Bonnie says quietly, her heart sinking. She has a sense of a de ja vu, thinking back to how she had found Grams that one night…
"Damon!" Bonnie screams. He vamp-speeds back into the room. "I don't thinks she's breathing! I don't think she's breathing!"
The doctors call the official time of death at five o' seven p.m.
It takes about two hours for someone to successfully pry Caroline away from her mother's body.
Bonnie sits there silently in the corner, not knowing what to say or do. The whole thing brought up a lot of memories. Memories of losing her Grams, hopelessly watching her father being murdered.
They eventually make their way back to the boardinghouse where everyone was. Caroline is silent and sits on the couch for the most part, completely stunned. The only sign of life from her is the tears that wouldn't stop.
The night passes away with coffee and idle chitchat. Elena, Tyler, and Matt trying their best to reminisce about happier times. Neither Bonnie or Caroline chime in.
Eventually, they end up passing out. Caroline falls asleep on the couch. Bonnie manages to grab a pillow and blanket before crashing on the floor. Elena is awkwardly propped against the couch, her neck at an angle that would have been horribly unpleasant to a human. Tyler somehow ends up under the coffee table, while Matt and Stefan passed out in a couple of armchairs.
Bonnie jerks awake in the middle of the night thanks to one of her usual nightmares. She's grateful that she didn't scream or anything like that. She didn't want people to see her like that, especially not tonight.
She looks over at Caroline only to realize that the blonde had woken too.
"Nightmare?" Caroline asks in a whisper. It was the first words she had spoken all night.
Bonnie nods. "You?"
"More like memories."
Caroline slides off the couch, grabbing her pillow and blanket. She lays next to Bonnie and the two cling to each other and silently cry.
The next morning, the blonde is up and at it, ready to get everything out of the way as soon as possible.
Bonnie and Elena easily put their difference to the side for the day to help with the funeral arrangements.
She never would have believed it would be possible to pull off a funeral in one day, but they manage it.
It mostly passes by in a blur for her. Damon gives a touching eulogy. Caroline sings beautifully. The usual ceremonies for deceases police officers commence.
She thinks back to Grams funeral and her father's funeral the entire time. And, not for the first time, Bonnie wonders what sort of cursed has been placed on her friends that none of them were allowed to have or keep any parental figures.
"I'm sorry to leave now, but I'm really tired," Bonnie says softly, as she hugs Caroline goodbye at the Grille that night. "If you need anything, call me," she whispers in the blonde's ear.
"Don't worry. I'll be fine by the end of tonight," Caroline assures Bonnie. Bonnie finds that particular phrase a little strange, but she doesn't read into it. The girl had just lost her mother, after all.
She goes home and falls into bed.
"Bonnie. Booooon Booooon," a voice sings out.
Bonnie's eyes snap open and she scrambles up. Reaching over, she snaps her lamp on. Caroline's standing over her bed, a wide grin stretched across her pretty face.
"Hey, so, I'm off to go get drunk. Possibly to get laid, too. You should join me," Caroline says. "I mean, your life sucks a lot, too, so why don't we just go forget about it?"
"What're—" Then, something inside Bonnie goes cold. "You shut off your emotions."
"Well, duh, why feel pain if you don't to?" Caroline asks with a tinkling laugh and a shrug. "Oh, don't give me that judgy little look," she adds upon seeing the expression on Bonnie's face. "You totally would have done the same thing too a long time ago if you could. My mom just died and my feet were crammed in the most painful shoes for over four hours, what else was I supposed to do?"
"Your mother would have been ashamed of you for doing this," Bonnie says before she can stop herself.
The blonde vampire looks angry and, for a moment, Bonnie sincerely believe that she's about to be attacked. However, Caroline takes a small step back and begins laughing.
"Nice one. That almost got me to flip my emotions back on." Her face goes back to being straight. "Ah, well. It's too bad. But, then again, I don't know what I expected. You've always been the boring one. Now you're just the boring, irrevocably damaged one."
And with that the blonde leaves as if she had never been there in the first place.
Not knowing what else to do, Bonnie grabs her phone and shakily goes through her contacts until she finds the name she's looking for.
"Damon," Bonnie says, half-whispering. "Caroline was here. She…she shut her humanity off."
"Did she hurt you?" Damon asks, zooming through her bedroom door.
"No," Bonnie says a little shakily. "She wanted me to go party with her, but I wouldn't and then I said some things I probably shouldn't have and then she left."
Damon nods, running a hand through his hair.
"We should go looking for her, shouldn't we? I mean, she could hurt somebody or…"
Damon shakes his head. "Stefan and Elena have it covered."
"Yeah, but I need to help her, I…"
"Bonnie," he says, placing firm hands on her shoulders. "Elena and Stefan have it covered. Ambushing her with all of us is just going to make her feeling cornered and it won't do anybody any good."
Bonnie bites her lips, wanting to argue with him, but she knows on some level that he's right.
"Are you going to stay the night?" she asks before she can stop herself.
"Do you want me to?" He asks, looking at her with an unreadable expression.
"Yes," she whispers and moves over to make space for him on her bed.
He slides in next to her and they next to each other, side-by-side, not touching, staring at the ceiling.
"Back when I was alone there," she says quietly, "I'd sometimes sleep in your bed. For a little while it smelled like you and I could pretend that I wasn't completely alone for a bit."
Silence.
"God, I'm being all weird again. I think the whole being alone for too long thing kinda left me not knowing when to shut up or what to keep to myself," she says, slapping a hand over her face half expecting him to laugh in her face and leave.
"Don't worry about it," he says. "I mean, who wouldn't miss me?"
She drops her hand and scoffs a little.
"Sometimes, when we were there together, I'd spend the night outside your door or I'd check in on you," he confesses. Her head turns and she looks at his profile. "Sometimes I was afraid that you'd disappear as a result of magic or some stupid cosmic force and then I'd be stuck alone. Don't get me wrong, living with you hadn't been a cake walk by any means, but it kept me sane and I probably would have tried to off myself a long time ago."
She stares at him, more than a little speechless. Then, wondering if she's pushing boundaries, she turns and curls into his side, her fingers lightly clutching at his shirt. She jumps a little when he starts running his fingers through her hair, but she relaxes into it and falls asleep.
And, for the first time in a long time, she feels safer than she's ever been.
A/N: So, when thinking about the future of this fic, I kept going back and forth if I was going to do no humanity!Caroline or not (I was back and forth with whether I like it on the show or not too, tbh), but I decided to give it a whirl here.
Also, I was originally going to split this chapter into two smaller ones, but since it's been a while since my last update, I decided to just let it be one big chapter. However, you can (hopefully) expect frequent updates.
Thanks for reading and, as always, reviews are very much appreciated!