Bonnie dreams.

Fever dreams are what her Grams called them, those long endless streams of dream sequences that weave themselves haphazardly together but don't actually go anywhere. Doors that open into long buried memories of the past or glimpses of a the future. Dreams, the likes of which she hasn't had since Coach Tanner's death. Winding hallways and up and down staircases that end in rooms to nowhere or chasms to everywhere that aren't unlike an Escher painting.

Grams bakes in those days before her mother walked out of her life and the kitchen is warm and smells of sugar and cinnamon. She has lopsided pony tails and a missing tooth and her mother dots cake batter on her nose while her father watches from the doorway and she asks if maybe Santa will really finally bring her a pony this year. . .

"The witch is as good as dead," Damon's loud and vicious as he glares down Caroline but her friend shakes her head, eyes defiant as she glares at the older vampire whose blood made her what she is.

Twisting corridors and the door to Elena's bedroom opens to the trio of girls at thirteen, painting toe nails and trying on Elena's bra because she was the first to get breasts while Bonnie got braces and all Caroline ever needed was a bright smile and those blonde bouncy curls . . .

"I won't leave her," Caroline argues and she takes Damon's suitcase and throws it across the room. "You won't leave us!"

Out the window to land on the ground beside Jenna's grave and Elena dressed in black, holding Jeremy's hand tight even though it didn't happen that way and when they look at her, dark eyes so solemn, her heart breaks and she wants to beg them not to leave her but they're fading fast before her eyes and the ground is slipping beneath her feet . . .

Alaric hovers and presses a cloth to her forehead and then there's something warm and salty in her mouth and she chokes on it more than she drinks it but somehow it settles warm in her belly and his words float like a near tether as she tries to hold onto this dream, "She's getting better . . ."

"I'm so proud of you," Grams tells her, pulling a brush through her hair. She's dressed like she was for her funeral and the brush is the one Bonnie keeps in a box under her bed, but she still smells like Grams, all spicy and warm and her hands are strong, though they are cold. Her eyes are filled with love and she presses her cheek to Bonnie's in the mirror. "The road is long and hard, but you can do this. You're stronger than you ever thought . . ."

She skins her knee when she falls off her bike at seven and it peels down to the layer of white skin beneath and she doesn't cry, even as she limps all the way home and Matt waves sadly at her from beneath the weeping willow and her father gathers her in his arms and then the tears start to come . . .

Bonnie wakes with tears on her cheeks and an inexplicable emptiness in her chest. She shifts and rubs her face against the unfamiliar scent of unfamiliar sheets. Soft, but not hers. Her legs are tangled in the covers, and it's something of a struggle to free herself and thrown them all off.

Sitting up, breathing heavy from exertion, the witch looks around the unfamiliar bedroom. Heavy furniture and dark curtains, and her mouth is dry and her throat is scratchy. Her head feels like she's just done several major spells, and she flops back down to the bed as the last dregs of energy leave her.

Bonnie feels like the walking dead.

"Bonnie!" Caroline's voice is chipper and perky, too chipper and too perky and it makes Bonnie want to curl into a ball and shove her head beneath the pillow. The room is dark thanks to the heavy curtains, but Caroline's voice is like a bright ball of sunshine all on its own. "You're awake!"

She makes a non-committal grunting sound, all that she has the energy for and tries to follow her first instinct, that of burrowing back into the covers of the unfamiliar bed.

"Bonnie?" There's a change to Caroline's voice, that unsure and watery waver that it gets when she thinks she's about to be disappointed or something terrible might have just happened. "You are okay, right? Bonnie?"

Swallowing a few times, Bonnie tries to work some moisture into her mouth and dry throat. She nods from her prone position and then flops her body over onto her side. Her head bobs in a faint nod of agreement. "I'm awake, Caroline."

She tries to focus on her blonde friend and fails utterly. Mostly because Caroline is moving at vampire speed and Bonnie goes from blinking at the blonde lurking in the doorway of the bedroom to blinking at the blonde standing at the side of the bed with a happy, relieved smile on her face. "Oh, thank God, we were so worried about you."

Caroline slides onto the side of the bed, her hands going for a cup with a straw on the bedside table. "Can you sit up? Do you need any help? Here's some water." The straw is tilted toward Bonnie and the cup held by Caroline. "You're probably exhausted. I remember back when I had that horrible flu freshman year. Do you remember that? You and Elena -" Caroline stops, her voice hitches and she plows onward in typical Caroline full-steam-ahead fashion, " - came over to watch television and play games with me after the fever broke and I was useless. All I could do was lay on the couch and listen to you guys talk and remember? You had to move my little iron around the Monopoly board -"

Bonnie opens her mouth several times in an attempt to get a word in edgewise as she pushes to a sitting position. She's aided by Caroline who manages to reach around her and arrange pillows and tuck in covers and never spill a drop of water out of the cup. Bonnie takes it and sips the lukewarm water - pleasantly good which just goes to show how dry and dehydrated her body must be - in order to make sure she doesn't end up wearing it. Caroline continues with the pillows and the prattle until Bonnie finally is able to speak over the young vampire's voice.

"Caroline." Bonnie's interjection is firm, but gentle.

The blonde vampire stops, looks at Bonnie and then laughs lightly. "I'm overwhelming you, aren't I?"

"Just a little." Bonnie takes another sip from the water and lowers the cup. "I got sick, didn't I?"

There's a slow wobble of Caroline's head up and down. "You did. Really sick. And we were worried. But you're better now." Caroline breathes in and out and it's one of those things that Bonnie still has to get used to, watching the rise and fall of shoulders and chest with the intake of air that the other young woman doesn't really need. "Do you think you can eat something? Do you want to eat something? I can make you some soup or maybe some crackers? Soup and crackers? Or - oh! A shower! Well, you can wash in the sink, there's no hot water unless you want a cold shower -"

"Caroline." Louder and firmer this time. Bonnie waves the empty cup at her friend. She'd complain about being sick and having to be cared for, but she can already feel herself drifting and figures the complaining will have to wait until later. Then she can find out where she is, and how Jeremy and Elena are doing, and Sheriff Forbes too, though she must be doing better if Caroline is here . . .

A sharp, quick shake of her head is given and Bonnie winces as pain lances through the skull. Her hands go to her temples and she gives a soft, "Ow."

"Are you okay? What's wrong? What can I do to -"

"I think I just need some more sleep," Bonnie says. She's already slumping back down against her pillows, eyes fluttering closed. "Remember you fell asleep before we finished playing Monopoly. . ."

"I remember." There's a hitch to Caroline's voice again and infinite sadness only Bonnie's too tired to process it and decides she'll ask about it later when she can stay awake a bit longer.

The unfamiliar pillows are so very soft.

####

Bonne drifts in and out of awareness for . . . she doesn't know how long. The curtains are always drawn when she awakens, though she usually can't take much more than a few breaths and roll around on the bed before Caroline is there with whatever she needs. Or whatever Caroline thinks she needs: soup, crackers, water, warm ginger ale. Sometimes she thinks she wakes to a pair of niggling familiar pale blue eyes watching over her, or Alaric's concerned/relieved face, but what she remembers most is Caroline. Caroline's soft singing, Caroline's babble and prattle, Caroline attempting to care for her in the ways that no one has since Grams died.

One day - one night - Bonnie doesn't know for time due to the heavy curtains and the silence outside and all around - she comes out of it completely. Blinks her eyes open, sits up and reaches for the cup of water - graced today with a purple swirly straw - that's always on the night table and within reach of her hands.

Sipping, Bonnie looks around. She's still tired and drained, and suspects she might be for a few days more, but she's alert. Alert enough to allow her gaze to move around the bedroom that isn't hers. It isn't Caroline's either or any of the bedrooms in Elena's home. She thinks it might be a bedroom at the Lockwood mansion or even the boarding house, but that makes no sense to her so she simply shelves it until she can ask.

The furniture is old, heavy wood and dark woods. Teak and cherry with form and shape that speaks of being carved in the past, not in the sixties or the fifties, or even the forties. This is old stuff, the sort of stuff that is a true antique going back before the days of the Antebellum south. There are old books on the bookcase and scattered over desktops and spilling over the shelves. There's enough of a crack in the curtains for her to make out that much, the sharp slant of golden yellow spilling across the floor and providing a bit of illumination.

Breathing a sigh, Bonnie returns the empty water cup to the nightstand and throws back the covers. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed drains her small spurt of energy, though she continues looking around even as she wrinkles her nose.

"I stink," Bonnie mutters. The dark t-shirt isn't familiar and the bedsheets have that cloying smell of sickness to them. She vaguely has the impression of Caroline promising clean sheets and clothing as soon as Bonnie was well enough to get out of bed, but it's a fragmented memory that slips through her fingers like sand.

"You've been sick and sleeping for days," Caroline chirps as she crosses the threshold.

The sudden appearance of her friend causes Bonnie's head to jerk up in surprise and a yelp escapes her before she can stop it. "Caroline! Don't do that!"

The blonde vampire gives her a sheepish smile, "Sorry. You've been a little out of it, so the coming and going didn't phase you so much. I'll make more noise." She holds up two fingers, "I swear."

"Thank you. I'm pretty sure that in my condition I'm ripe for fainting," Bonnie says, but the words are light and teasing. "What -"

The words are cut off as she's suddenly enveloped in the arms of her best friend, and the pair goes toppling over on the bed. "I'm so glad you're okay!"

Bonnie gives a gasp of air, a cross between laughter and simply having the wind knocked out of her, and Caroline rolls over, sits up and begins apologizing profusely. "I'm sorry, did I hurt you! It's just that you were so sick and I was so worried -"

"It's okay, Caroline." Bonnie catches her breath and takes her friend's hands in her own. "Just tell me what's been happening. Where am I? How are Elena and Jeremy? How's your mother? How long was I sick? Have they found treatment yet -"

Caroline takes a breath, and her smile wavers. "Bonnie -"

"Needs to eat." Alaric's voice interrupts from the doorway. He holds up a bed tray, and he's barely a foot into the room before the smell of chicken noodle soup wafts to Bonnie's nose and she's salivating. "It's just soup, but you'll need to start small."

The less than subtle look exchanged by the history teacher turned vampire hunter and cheerleader turned vampire isn't unnoticed by Bonnie. It's simply that she's far hungrier than she thought she was and she's looking at the tray with soup - and a smattering of crackers - like a starving vampire looks at an open wound.

"Go slow," Alaric cautions as Caroline busies herself helping Bonnie adjust the pillows and prop herself up in bed to eat. "Small spoonfuls until you're sure you're going to keep it all down."

Bonnie nods, and accepts the tray and the pampering with good humor. She intends to ask questions while eating, because apparently Caroline and Alaric plan to stay and watch her eat, though she's getting the feeling that Caroline is watching her eat, and Alaric is watching Caroline and it's a scenario that makes no sense to Bonnie's way of thinking, but in the end the soup is more important and she finishes half the bowl and two crackers before she comes up for air.

"Healthy appetite," Alaric notes as he takes the tray away. "That's a good sign."

Bonnie snags a last cracker before the tray disappears completely. Though apparently that's not needed since Alaric only places it on a nearby table and then busies himself looking around the room. "Ok. So, tell me what's going on. Where is everyone - where am I?"

"The boarding house," Caroline chirps as though Bonnie waking up in the boarding house is the most natural thing in the world.

"I'm at Stefan and Damon's?" Bonnie asks, her gaze darting around the room anew.

"Mm-huh," Caroline bobs her head up and down, and sits at the foot of the bed with her legs folded. "The hospitals were just ... I mean, you couldn't take people there and -"

"You're sleeping in Stefan's bed and wearing my shirt."

Bonnie's head swivels to see Damon leaning in the doorway, that far too familiar shit-eating smirk on his face.

She looks down at the shirt, up at Caroline to Damon and back to Caroline again, who nods.

Pulling a face, Bonnie tugs at the shirt collar. "Ew."

"You're welcome, Witchy," Damon drawls. "But the alternative was to have you sleeping naked and we thought Ric might get some naughty ideas about his students."

Just like that, the vampire is gone as quick as a blink.

Bonnie stares at the space where Damon was for a heartbeat. Then her head swivels back to Caroline. "What the hell is going on?"