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 everyone who's been reading and reviewing! I very much appreciate it!

Enjoy!

A couple nights later, she's sitting at her kitchen table, perusing Whitmore's catalog online and deciding what classes she might want to take. And possibly what major she might want to declare.

Only thing is, she doesn't really know what she wants to do. She'd taking up a lot of reading, lately, but was English a real passion for her? She'd always like working with nature in plants…maybe biology?

"So I decided to give you a second chance to come party with me," Caroline announces, striding into Bonnie's home.

"Why are you so insistent on me partying with you?" Bonnie asks, looking over at Caroline with a raised eyebrow.

"Hey, it's not like we can't still be friends," Caroline replies, crossing her arms over her chest. "I mean, I'm still me…just none of that depressing, woe is me, my mommy's dead drama."

Bonnie just looks at her.

"There's a rave on campus. Dance, get drunk, get laid. It'll make you feel a lot better, trust me."

Looking at Caroline, Bonnie thinks she finally gets. She knows that having the switch off means that you technically aren't supposed to feel emotion, but Bonnie wonders how much of that is true or how much it differs from vampire to vampire. Because when she looks at Caroline she's a scared girl afraid of being alone because she'd had just lost her only family.

And Bonnie gets that.

"If it makes you feel better you can just pretend that you're going so I don't kill someone." She breaks out into laughter upon Bonnie's look. "Don't worry, Bon Bon, I'm not actually going to kill someone. If bodies start piling up, that'll draw a lot of attention and then Saint Elena and Saint Stefan and Saint you are going to be up my ass even more."

Bonnie sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. Maybe she could give it a try. She used to enjoy these sorts of things once upon a time.

"Okay," Bonnie sighs, closing her laptop. "Just let me get dressed."

And that's how Bonnie ends up in a room with way too many people, with music that's too loud, and lights that are too trippy.

It's been forever since she's been in a large crowd like this and she can't help but partially want to crawl out of her skin.

She's perfectly happy to plant herself against the wall, though. That is, until a man approaches her.

He's attractive and clearly knows it. He also clearly doesn't know how to take no for an answer when he pulls her out on to the dance floor despite her protests.

"Loosen up a bit sweetheart." His breath is hot on her face and he reeks of so much alcohol that she wonders if she could get a buzz just from standing near him.

"Down boy," she says, trying to push his hands somewhere that was less inappropriate.

"Can't help it, baby, you're too hot." One hand comes down to grip her butt, pulling her closer to him, while another snakes around for a handful of breast.

She could feel the anger flare through her to the point where she actually thought it was a tangible thing she could touch.

How dare he think it's okay to push her around and touch her without her consent.

Before she even really thinks about it, she grips both of his forearms tightly as smoke escapes from under her palms.

"What the fuck?!" He roars, pulling away and staring down at his now burned arms.

"Can't help it. I'm too hot," she quips. She does her best to mask the fear she felt creeping up with in her as she looks at his half-confused, half-angry expression.

Everything in her told her it was time to get out of there now.

"Isn't it a bit late for you to be coming in now?" Damon asks with raised eyebrows when he opens the door. She doesn't know why she doesn't just start barging in instead of knocking. It's what everyone else seemed to do with her home.

"Sorry, Dad, I lost track of time and then next thing I knew it was past curfew," Bonnie replies sarcastically, entering the boardinghouse.

"Keep it up, young lady, and I'll put you over my knee and spank you."

"Yeah…let's just stop now before it gets any weirder than it already just did." She turns and heads for the living room, going straight for the decanter full of bourbon.

"So, not that it's a problem, but is there any particular reason why you're suddenly coming here at two in the morning?" Damon asks, closing the massive door.

"Well, Caroline somehow managed to talk me into going to a rave tonight," Bonnie tells him. "This guy got a little handsy with me and I burned him.

"Good," Damon replies with a shrug, taking the glass that she offers him while she sips from her own.

"No, not good. What if I had done something worse? I just got so angry…I wasn't thinking."

"He wasn't exactly an innocent little puppy," Damon points out, lounging on an overstuffed couch.

"I know, but that's not like me," Bonnie says, sitting down next to him. "I think…it made me think of Kai. I mean, he never touched me like that," she adds quickly upon Damon's sharp look. "It's just that the idea of someone putting their hands on me when I'm telling them not to…"

Bonnie sighs and drains the rest of her glass before setting it down on the coffee table.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I'm just…it's been a long night. I'm going to go home and sleep it off." She stands up to leave.

"Stay," Damon says. He reaches out, his fingers looping lightly around her wrist to stop her. "It's late and you're tired and I'm too lazy to drive you home, so just stay."

She pauses and then nods.

They make their way upstairs. Damon digs through his dresser drawers before tossing a black button-up and black sweatpants at her. She almost laughs out loud because for some reason she would have never thought that Damon Salvatore actually owned a pair of sweatpants.

She moves into the bathroom to dress in privacy. She takes a strange comfort in how the too-big clothes envelop her body. Then she exits the bathroom and settles into the bed next to Damon.

A realization comes over Bonnie as she lays her head down. It's not the kind of realization that hits you like a bucket of ice water or like a speeding bullet. It's more like the kind of realization that's like a piece of truth in the back of your mind that's been there for a little while, but yet for some reason it doesn't consciously occur to you until a certain moment.

"It's a little strange, isn't it?" She asks Damon, turning on her side to face him. "That somewhere along the way we of all people became best friends?"

She half expects him to scoff at her or deny it or make some witty remark or all of the above, but instead, he gives her one of his lopsided smiles and replies, "Stranger things have happened." Pause. "Besides, I'm irresistible…like a fever you can't sweat out."

Ah, there's the witty remark.

"More like a disease," she responds dryly, but a small smile still paints her lips.

She closes her eyes and lets herself fall asleep.

"So have you given anymore thought to what I said last week about trying to connect with others?" Maria asks.

"Uh, I went to a rave a couple nights ago, but it didn't go so well…this guy got a little too…familiar with me, I guess you could say. It brought back some bad memories." Bonnie looks down and begins picking at her cuticles. It's become such a bad habit she should really stop and go get a manicure or something to give her nailbeds a little TLC.

"Do you mind me asking what these memories are?"

And there it is. She knew sooner or later it would come to the point where she had the opening to talk about Kai.

She practically envisions herself about to jump off a cliff where only a very small portion of where she'd land isn't covered by sharp rocks. But maybe it was time to take the plunge.

She'd mentioned how Kai had hurt her to her friends before…well, more like yelled at them about it to prove a point. She never actually took the time to sit down and talk about it and process it.

Granted, she couldn't exactly tell Maria that she had been trapped in an alternate dimension that was nearly twenty years ago with a psychopathic warlock, but…

"Um, there had once been this guy. He was never my boyfriend or anything, but a series of really strange circumstances made it so that I had to be around him a lot. And…he hurt me." Pause. "Not that he raped or molested me," she clarifies, realizing how that can be taken. "I mean, he would sometimes make unwelcome advances, but he would physically abuse me a lot. And then for a very long time, I was…isolated from everyone."

She doesn't realize that she's crying until she feels the warm wetness on her cheeks. Maria helpful pushes a box of tissues across the coffee table between them so they're within in her reach.

"Do your current circumstances have you living somewhere that's safe now?" Maria asks, warm brown eyes watching her carefully.

"Yeah. Trust me, there's no way he can ever come back to my life now." And, boy, was that ever the understatement considering she had shanked Kai like a maniacal serial killer. "But, uh, I'd be lying if I said that it didn't leave its mark. It's been a lot of anxiety, some insomnia, some days when I couldn't even bring myself to get out of bed. Uh, there's bene flashbacks…it's all very textbook PTSD."

Wow. Only her second visit and Bonnie was spilling her guts like nobody's business. Either Maria was just that good or Bonnie just didn't know how to shut up once she got started. Or both.

She conveniently left out the part where she almost slit her wrist open that one of bed. Uh, there's bene flashbacks…it's all very textbook PTSD."

Wow. Only her second visit and Bonnie was spilling her guts like nobody's business. Either Maria was just that good or Bonnie just didn't know how to shut up once she got started. Or both.

She conveniently leaves out the part where she almost slit her wrist open that one night. She doesn't know all the ins and outs of what would legally bind Maria to have her admitted to the hospital, but she certainly didn't want to find out.

"It's not unusual to have experiences like what you described after you've gone through traumatic events," Maria assures her. "However…" she gets up to move to her desk and busily types at her laptop. "There is someone I'd like you to see." She scribbles something down on a Post-It note before handing it to Bonnie. "This is the contact information for a Dr. Elias McNamara. He's a psychiatrist and I think you could benefit a lot from seeing him, too."

Bonnie bites her lip.

A psychiatrist basically meant that Maria wanted her evaluated for a diagnosis to possibly be prescribed medication and/or bed admitted for observation if her 'condition' was considered severe enough.

She really didn't need a doctor to tell her that she had PTSD. Anybody that ever took a gen-ed Psych class could tell her that.

"Now, this doesn't mean that you can't continue to see me," Maria says. "In fact, I would encourage you, too. And I know that you might feel some trepidation about seeing Dr. McNamara and that's perfectly normal, but there's no shame in it. I can't make you go, but I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't think that it would be beneficial to you."

Bonnie looks down at the sticky note, trying to ignore the feeling in her stomach that was akin to someone taking the organ in a fist and squeezing on it as hard as possible.

A/N: Thanks for reading and, as always, reviews are very much appreciated!