Disclaimer: 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: Thanks so much to those who have been reading, reviewing, etc.! I really appreciate it!

Enjoy!

She awkwardly stands in the hallways, hesitating and debating whether she's actually going to do this.

Whitmore offered free counseling services to their students and, while Bonnie wasn't technically a student anymore, she doubts they'd look too far into it. But she couldn't help her hesitation.

It's not that she thought seeing a therapist was bad…it's just…it's wasn't like she could really tell some stranger everything that had happened to her.

You can change some of the details, she tells herself. But maybe this could actually be a step towards rebuilding your life. You could try it at least once and then never come back…

"Uh, can I help you…?" Asks the student worker behind the desk when she spots Bonnie awkwardly loitering.

"I…" Bonnie cautiously approaches the desk. "Um, I think I want to make an appointment? What's the soonest that's available?"

She guesses that the girl must be used to be that clearly looked like they wanted nothing more than to turn around and run away because she just smiles at Bonnie before turning to the computer and typing away.

"Looks like you're in luck," the girl says cheerfully. "Maria is free right now if you want to go see her. She points towards an office further in the room. "She's right through there."

Bonnie slowly walks towards the open door. When she enters, she sees a pretty woman with curly black hair and brown skin sitting in front of a laptop.

"Hello," the woman greets with a small smile. I'm sorry…I don't recall having an appointment at this time…" she flips through what looks like a day planner.

"I didn't exactly have one. The girl at the desk said you were free now, but I can come back later…" Bonnie moves to leave.

"No, no, no," the woman says, standing up. "Please, sit down. I was just worried that I wasn't as on top of things as I thought." She gestures for Bonnie to take a seat in a cushioned armchair.

"I'm Dr. Maria Gutiérrez, but please just call me Maria." She reaches out to warmly shake Bonnie's hand. "And you are…?"

"Bonnie. Bonnie Bennett."

"Oh, your grandmother used to teach here, right?" Maria asks, closing the office door before taking a seat in an armchair across from Bonnie's.

"Yeah, she taught occult studies."

"I remember her very well. Of course, it was hard not to."

Bonnie can't help but smile a little at that.

"So, what brings you here, Bonnie?"

"I, uh…" Bonnie looks down at her hands, picking at her cuticles a bit. "I guess that because of some things that have happened in my life, I've been feeling a little lost."

"What were these things that happened, if you don't mind me asking?"

Bonnie continues picking at her cuticles.

"I'm not here to make you talk about anything you don't want to, Bonnie," Maria tells her softly. "This is your time to talk about whatever you want."

"Uhm, it's just that I don't know exactly where to begin," Bonnie admits, looking back up at Maria.

"Well, when did you start feeling like you were lost?"

"When Grams died," Bonnie replies honestly.

"That must have been hard. I take it that the two of you were very close?"

"Yeah," she replies quietly. "My mom had never really been in the picture, so Grams did her best to fill that space."

"And the rest of your family?"

"My dad was murdered about a year and a half ago, but he hadn't exactly been that involved in my life, either. Well, actually, he was starting to get more involved right around the time he died," Bonnie amends. Her mind flashes back to seeing Silas slit her father's throat and her not being able to do anything about it because she had been dead. She jerks a little as she picks at one of her cuticles too hard, drawing a little blood. "For a long time I'd thought I could rely on my friends, but…" Pause. "One of them she, uh, I guess we'd both changed over the years and grew apart or whatever. And this other friend…she'd been trying to help me, but she's been going through some things, too. But there is another friend and I do feel better around him and he's been trying to help me, too, but I'm not so sure he really gets it…actually, I'm not so sure anyone really could, though."

"What about your college life? Have you met new friends, gotten involved in any activities?" Maria asks.

"Not really," Bonnie admits.

"Maybe that would be a bit of a start, then," Maria suggests. "It's not unusual to feel a bit lost, especially during your college years, especially when you feel like you lack a support system. But it helps to get connected with different groups and people."

Bonnie nods, but doesn't say anything.

"If you decide that you want to continue to see me, what are your goals? What do you want to get out of this?" Maria asks.

"I don't know…I guess I just want to try and piece my life back together."

Maria gives her a gentle smile. "Well, I do hope you come back again. And just in case…" she moves to her desk and pulls out what looks like a small business card. "I'm on campus two days a week, but I am at my clinic the other three days of the week. Feel free to call if you'd like."

Bonnie smiles and takes the card and gives her a soft thanks before exiting the office. She honestly can't say if any of that really did anything for her or not.

Maybe she has a point about trying to connect with others, though, Bonnie thinks. Maybe it's time to attempt to have a part of my life that's actually separate from the supernatural…

After she heads down the stairs to reach the first floor of the building, she literally almost runs into Elena.

"Hey," the brunette vampire says, surprised. "What are you doing on campus?"

"Uh, thinking about possibly re-enrolling," Bonnie lies with a small shrug.

She doesn't exactly know where she and Elena's relationship stands, but even beyond that, she hadn't really planned on telling anyone about her little excursion today. But, as Elena looks up at the staircase that Bonnie had just descended from, she has a feeling that the vampire had put two and two together.

"I've got some time before my next class…can we talk?" Elena asks.

Bonnie clutches the strap of her bag a little tighter, hesitant. She's surprised that Elena was even interested in talking at all given the whole debacle a couple of mornings ago.

But…maybe they could finally clear the air between them.

So, Bonnie nods and they make their way to go grab some coffee.

"Did you and Stefan ever find Caroline last night?" Bonnie asks.

"Yeah, but it didn't exactly go so well…which is a huge understatement," Elena says with a sigh, pushing her brown curls out of her face. "She was really angry that we tried to interfere, so she tried to kill Stefan's niece, Sarah, to make a point. But we made a deal that if we leave her alone for a couple of months, she won't kill anyone and flip it back on then."

Bonnie's head swirls with all that information.

"Wait, Stefan's niece?"

"Yeah, turns out that Zach had a daughter with a woman named Gail, but Stefan erased it from his mind because…"

"Damon had told me all about it in 1994," Bonnie interjects. She ignores Elena's sharp look when Bonnie says it. "Well, except that the baby was supposed to be dead. Does Damon know that she's alive?"

"Uh, now that I think about it, with everything that's been doing on, I think it kinda slipped our minds."

Bonnie purses her lips, but decides not to comment on it any further. Instead, she asks, "What about Caroline? I know she says she won't hurt anybody, but with no emotions…it's kinda just a matter of time."

"I don't know," Elena groans. "If we push her too much, then she definitely will start killing, just like I did, but if we don't, then she might start killing anyway."

Silence.

"I guess I do owe you an apology, though," Elena says. "It turns out that maybe you not letting Jo complete the merge with Kai was actually for the best. She just found out that she's pregnant. She thinks she's about three months along, four at the most."

Bonnie blinks in surprise. She doesn't really know Jo all that well, but she supposes that she's happy for her and Ric. Good news was rare for any of them.

"But if she wasn't, would you still be yelling at me about how I'm incredibly selfish even though any of you would have done the same in my position?" Bonnie asks before she can stop herself.

Elena's mouth drops open a little, but she closes it and just frowns instead before becoming very interested in the coffee cup in front of her.

"What happened to ask?" Elena asks after what feels like forever, looking back up at Bonnie.

Biting her lip and looking somewhere over Elena's shoulder before focusing back on the brunette in front of her, Bonnie answers, "I don't know. I guess we just grew apart."

"Yeah, but I never thought we would," Elena says. "We're supposed to be bonded for life."

"Look, I don't know what to tell you, Elena. We're not who we used to be and I don't know if we'll ever get back to how we used to be," Bonnie replies honestly. "But for whatever it's worth, I meant it when I said I didn't hate you."

Bonnie walks away and to her surprise, she actually feels a little lighter.

"Hey," Stefan greets her when he opens the massive front door to the boardinghouse. He steps aside to let her in.

"Hi…is Damon around?" Bonnie asks and she walks into the massive foyer.

"No, but you can wait here if you want," Stefan offers.

"Uh, thanks, but no. I'll call him later or something, I guess," Bonnie replies shaking her head.

"How have you been?" Stefan asks, looking at her with concerned etched on his face.

"I've been trying to figure out how to deal with…everything. Whether I'm doing a good job or not is a different matter," Bonnie admits.

"It takes time," Stefan says. "I know after I spent that summer in the bottom of the quarry, I never thought I'd be okay again."

"Yeah, but you did…how?"

"Katherine locked me in a safe with her. I wouldn't recommend it, though," he replies dryly.

Bonnie lets out a small laugh.

"Look, I know over the years we haven't really been, uh, close with each other and that's my fault. But if you ever want to talk or just want to be around someone, I'm here," he offers, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Thanks," she replies sincerely. "Uh, I'm going to get going know, though." She turns to leave and then pauses. "Hey, you should really tell Damon about Sarah," she tells Stefan. "He'd care a lot more than you might think."

That night, she takes the pictures that had been neatly stacked up on the foyer table and lays them out on the coffee table side by side. She sits on the floor, looking over all of them, thinking about what Maria said about trying to connect with people.

"So, you'll never believe what Stefan told me today," Damon tells her as he enters her home and heads straight for where she's at.

"Yeah?" Bonnie replies, even though she knows.

"Zach's child is still alive," he tells her, sitting on an armchair nearby, clearly more than a little stunned. "Stefan brought Gail to the hospital and they managed to save the baby. Her name's Sarah. She was adopted by a family and now majors in art at Duke and everything."

"That's great," Bonnie says with a smile. "So…are you going to try and get into contact with her or…?"

He looks down at his hands, fiddling with his daylight ring again. "No," he decides. "She's got a good life. She doesn't need to know about us. Although, apparently Enzo thought it was okay to try and mess with her to get back at Stefan for something, so I'll be paying him a visit tonight."

"I'm sure getting back into some little bromance thing with him will solve your problems."

Damon snorts.

"So, what have you been up to?" He asks with raised eyebrows, looking over at all the photographs she'd spread out on the coffee table.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," she replies. She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on them. "I've been thinking about re-enrolling at Whitmore and moving back into the dorms. Although, I'm not so sure about moving back in with Caroline and Elena and the idea of moving in with some people I don't even know isn't exactly appealing either. I guess I could just commute back and forth if I plan my classes right. Although, the enrollment deadline is kind of long passed."

"Just say the word and I'll fix it all," he tells her with a shrug.

She smiles a little.

"I'm also thinking about getting a dog…so that it's not so quiet around here all the time."

"Pfft, you really want to deal with drool and chewed up shoes and fur everywhere?"

"Hey, dogs are great," she replies. "I had one growing up. A golden retriever named Bear. We actually grew up together because he was still a puppy at the same time I was born."

Truth be told, she hadn't thought of Bear in years. But looking at all the pictures, she saw one of her and him when she was a baby and he was a puppy. They were passed out next to one another.

She remembered reading somewhere that it wasn't unusual for someone to take comfort in a pet. And it would give her something worthwhile to focus on and it wasn't like there wasn't a shortage of dogs that needed a good home.

"This was him," she says, plucking up the picture and showing it to him.

"Hmm, they still drool, though," he says, looking at the picture.

"Oh, come on, I know life sucked growing up during your time, grandpa, but didn't you ever have any pets?"

"A: If I'm a grandpa, then I'm a very sexy grandpa. B: We had dogs, but they were for hunting, so it was completely different."

"Oh, whatever," she says rolling her eyes.

They fall into a comfortable silence.

"So, what do you say I go pour some drinks while you put on the Bodyguard?" Damon suggest.

"You hate the the Bodyguard," Bonnie replies with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't hate it…I just didn't understand your need to watch it almost every other day," he replies.

"As opposed to what? You wanting to watch Groundhog Day when we weren't watching the Bodyguard because, and I quote, 'you can't pass up irony like this'."

"Is that supposed to me? I don't talk like that."

She laughs a little. "Just shut up and go pour some drinks." She gets up to go seek out her copy of the Bodyguard.

She can't help but smile as she hears Damon mutter, "Rude," before he gets up to pour some drinks.

A/N: So, I'm not quite sure how much longer this fic is going to be. I'm thinking somewhere in the ballpark of five chapters or less, but we'll see. I have a pretty good idea of where we're going, it's just a matter of getting there.

Anywho, thanks for reading and, as always, reviews are very much appreciated!