They leave Mystic Falls without the fanfare that accompanied Bonnie and Caroline - and Elena, though Bonnie is trying really hard to not reflect on that just now - only three weeks ago. On a simple college tour road trip that never went anywhere and ended up back where it all started.
Except that place is an ending now, too.
Bonnie tells herself that they're moving forward, that they're doing something and it means something. It's better than sitting around the boarding house waiting for the horror to pass over and end. In the high heat of late July in Virginia, the only thing that seemed to end was the grass dying from lack of water and an overabundance of heat.
It doesn't stop her from keeping her eyes on the passenger mirror, watching the boarding house grow smaller and smaller until it's obliterated by the following RV and then falls off the horizon completely as they round a bend in the road. With a long sigh, of relief, of loss, of resignation, Bonnie pulls her eyes from the mirror and settles back in her seat and adjusts her seat belt.
"That's amusing," Damon comments. He only gives her a cursory glance as he goes on to explain, "You buckling the seat belt there. I'd think you'd prefer instant death via a vehicular accident than turning into one of the walking dead."
"Are you planning on getting into a vehicular accident?" Bonnie queries. She shifts in her seat, her shoulder to the door and looks at the vampire. Damon's eyes are hidden behind his dark sunglasses, but when he glances at her, she can feel his gaze on her.
"That would be a waste. All this planning, all this packing, just to wrap us around a tree?" Damon stares at her for a moment longer than Bonnie is comfortable with, when his eyes should be on the road. "Besides, the road is a little bit light on traffic."
"Could you watch the road please?"
"Vampire. Reflexes. The only things out there are zombies." Damon's voice is heavy with sarcasm and Bonnie can hear his eyes rolling. He does, however turn his attention back to the road.
Bonnie slumps back against the seat, turning her eyes to the trees breezing past the window. Her hands play idly on the dials with the radio in her lap, thinking of the twin in the RV behind them. They still have cellular phones and service, but the charges aren't going to last forever, and the radios make more sense.
The radio clicks on and Mick Jagger launches into a lamentation about his lack of satisfaction. Bonnie frowns at the radio in confusion, then notices the setting for CD.
The airwaves have been silent for days. Even the emergency broadcasts messages warble in and out, and it took a good hour to pick up the message about Atlanta being a safe zone.
"Figured if you were going to give me the silent treatment, I might as well listen to something," Damon explains off her look.
"You want idle chit chat?"
"Isn't that what you usually do on road trips?"
"With people I actually like and want to talk to, yes." Bonnie returned her attention to the scenery as Mick shouts out his lines.
"Ouch," Damon taps the steering wheel, crooning along with Mick while Bonnie wonders if she's just entered the Twilight Zone. "Why do you have such a hate on for me, Judgy?"
"Where do you want me to start?" Bonnie props her feet up on the dash, tilting her head to give the vampire a hard look. "Could it be that you're a sadistic, sociopathic killer? Maybe it's because you're an unrepentant manipulator who only thinks of himself? How about the part where you used and abused my friend for months just to get to Stefan and Elena? My Grams death? Rose's death."
The last is a low blow and Bonnie knows it, but still Damon asked for it and it feels good to lash out at him. It's freeing to let the vitriol roll off her tongue and fill the space between them. So much has changed, so quickly, in just a few weeks and it's been weighing her down and pushing at her constantly. She's held back, coped and put one foot in front of the other, but the barn door has been opened, and Bonnie's willing to let the horses free. Taking a breath, Bonnie listens as Mick inevitably realizes that he might not be able to get what he wants, but he may get what he needs.
"You tried to turn Elena into a vampire against her will. And minor point? I have a name. It's not Witchy, or Judgy or Glinda or whatever the hell else you can pull out of your ass. You might want to try using it when our asses aren't on the line and we're not fighting for our fucking lives."
Damon shows no sign of being affected by her words. No sign that he's actually heard her aside from the white knuckling of his grip on the steering wheel. For a few moments, the witch thinks she might have gone to far. Damon is unpredictable in the best times and severely unstable at the worse, and playing bait-the-vampire in a moving vehicle is probably not the best idea.
It could be mere seconds or long minutes before Damon looks at her, the look unreadable due to his eyes being so conveniently hidden behind his sunglasses. "Feel better, now ... Bonnie?" He waits a second, two, and continues, "Because if you're done ripping me a new one, it'd be really great if you can do your knock back magic on the zombies we're about to come up on."
Bonnie blinks at him, then swivels her head around in time to be tossed against the door as Damon swerves sharply left, then right to avoid the zombies wandering in the road. The RV is not so lucky and as Bonnie watches in the rear view, the over-sized vehicle rolls over them with a sickening thud.
Dead ahead, though, the pack is thicker and Bonnie concentrates, flicking her wrist as she tosses them to the far sides of the road. Once done, she slumps down in the seat, closing her eyes. She can hear Damon moving in the driver's seat, but doesn't have enough reserve energy to look over and see what he's doing. As long as he doesn't run them off the road, or run over any zombies, or decide to finish their conversation by ripping her throat out - the witch is good.
Something heavy and cold lands in her lap. Startled Bonnie jumps and looks down. She blinks in confusion at the energy drink.
"You look like you could use a little pick me up," Damon says, his eyes never leaving the road.
Bonnie blinks at him. Then she opens the can and drinks.
By mutual, unspoken agreement they ride in silence to the background of Paul McCartney leading the Beatles in twisting and shouting, John Lennon's proclamations of nothing being real and nothing to get hung about before declaring himself to be a walrus before Damon tired of that and surprises Bonnie by letting Freddy Mercury croon about not having an escape from reality.
She knows that she's staring at him, she just doesn't realize how intently she is doing so until he tosses a curious, "What?" in her direction.
Bonnie purses her lips and considers not answering. Freddy just killed a man. "I didn't take you for a Queen fan."
"I've been around a long time, Bonnie." There's a special lilting emphasis on her name - and why is she not surprised that out of her entire rant, that is the thing he took away from it - and Damon does that unnerving thing where he pulls his eyes from the road for far longer than Bonnie is comfortable, even though the road is clear ahead of them as far as her gaze can reach. He dips his head enough to let her meet his gaze over the tops of the sunglasses. "I have very varied and eclectic tastes." Somehow Damon Salvatore managed to make the whole sentence sound dirty.
Her hand instinctively wraps around the door handle, her left one tightening on her seat belt. "The road. Damon."
"You really don't know how good these reflexes are, do you?" Other than the flippant reply, Damon doesn't taunt her any further. His gaze swings forward, fixed on the open road before them.
"Is it easier?" Bonnie asks quietly. "Leaving, I mean. You've done it so much, and you know that you'll come back again someday."
Thunderbolts and lightning are very, very frightening before Damon answers. "This time, it's not going to be the same." He peers at her over his sunglasses again, and this time Bonnie can read the resignation and hints of discomfort wrinkling at the corners of Damon's eyes. "No matter what, it's never going to be the same homecoming again."
The witch has no answer to that, and this time the silence remains unbroken far beyond Queen's concluding note.
###
They stop for gas around midday. Both vehicles had fuel cans in them, which is convenient, but the car pile up blocking the main highway heading south makes it a good time to add gas. When the going got rough, and it became clear that the virus was doing more than making people sick or simply killing them, everyone tried to flee for the hills. Too many bodies, too dense of a population and not enough road space added up to accidents and road blocks. Weeks later, all that is left are the abandoned cars, and cars filled with those who were too sick to move on, and the virus hit too hard.
Bonnie helps Ric and Matt add gas to their vehicles, while Damon and Caroline scout ahead to see the best path to clear.
It's a hot day, and Bonnie fluffs her ponytail as she tries not to look too hard around the highway that has become a graveyard.
"It's going to be like this all the way to Atlanta, isn't it?" Bonnie asks. She uses her hand as a shield to the sun, gazing to see how far down the road the two vampires have wandered. For all their animosity, the pair of vampires easily teamed up together to do what was too dangerous for their human companions to do.
Ric nods, and settles a baseball cap on his head. It's an odd sight that makes the corners of Bonnie's mouth twitch. She's sure she's never seen him in a hat before. "Probably. The radio was blaring that Atlanta was a safe zone. Everyone, and I do mean everyone wanted to get there."
"Good thing we've got vampires who can move cars," Matt jokes. The humor doesn't quite make it to his eyes, but it's a sign that he's trying and Bonnie reaches out to give his arm a squeeze of encouragement.
"Yes so glad to hear that we can be your beasts of burden." Damon is back, with Caroline on his heels, standing in their conversation circle where he hadn't been only seconds before.
The abruptness of his arrival has Matt taking a step back in startled surprise, hand actually going to his chest. "Jesus! I didn't survive the fucking plague to have a heart attack. Do you have to do that?"
"Vam-pire." Damon looks at the taller man and enunciates each syllable clearly. "Why have all these fantastic abilities that can make you wet your pants if we're not going to use them?"
"Damon likes showing off," Ric says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "You really do get used to it."
"Yeah," Damon smirks at the group, doing that thing with his eyes that Bonnie thinks is supposed to be sarcasm - or flirtation, and Damon flirting with Ric or Matt is not an image she needs in her mind. "Ric hasn't screamed like a girl in at least a month."
Ric gives the vampire a look. One that Bonnie hasn't managed to translate yet, but seems to border between mock annoyance and amusement. "Did you find a path to clear the way?"
The question sobers Damon. "Yeah, we're take it down the right side of the road. More room to work with and plenty of room for the RV if we get that side cleared."
"Good," Matt claps his hands together. "Tell us where to start."
Damon eyes the blond and Bonnie can see the amusement coming long before Damon opens his mouth. She wishes she knew a gag or silence spell, but she doesn't and the words are tumbling out of Damon's mouth as the young witch tries to contemplate creating one. "Right. You and what army?"
"Me," Ric says.
"And me," Bonnie pipes up.
"You have got to be kidding me," Damon flicks his gaze from one to the other.
"Why?" Ric challenges. "Because we're not big, strong vampires like you and Caroline? We may not have your strength or speed, but we can work together and move cars."
It's another one of those moments that demonstrates why it's good to have Ric around. He's the one voice in a thousand to which Damon seems to listen. Some of the time.
"Fine." Damon waves at the row of cars. "Start from the back and just work your way forward." He glances at Caroline, "Come on, Blondie."
"Are you sure you want to do this, Bonnie?" Matt asks as she falls into step between he and Ric. "There are . . . bodies in some of those cars. It might be a little disgusting."
"I'm not a delicate flower, Matt." Bonnie draws a breath and releases it slowly. "I've been treating zombies like exploding pumpkins for a few days. I can handle this, if you can handle it."
Matt grins at Bonnie, and she smiles back because it's another hint of the boy she's known for so long hiding down deep. He's talking to Ric, but the teasing grin is all for Bonnie. "Bonnie always wanted to prove she could keep up with the boys. She had to show us that girls could be just as fast and hardy, Mr. ... Ric." The pause is brief, but it's there. Another sign of change and adjustment. "She did pass CPR though when a bunch of us didn't."
"I guess then, if I'm going to drown or have a heart attack, you'll be good to have around," Ric comments.
They slow as they reach the car, and each comes to a halt. Bonnie can see the head and shoulders of the driver from here, and she bites her lip. She's seen her fair share of dead bodies these past weeks, but it never gets easier.
It never gets better.
"Let's just do this." Taking charge, Ric steps up to the driver side door and wrenches it open. The window has been down, so the body isn't as bloated and dessicated as most, but it still slumps out with a disgusting thunk to the pavement as Ric barely moves aside in time.
A whiff of decomposition and bodily gases, coupled with rotting meat drifts to Bonnie's nose and she swallows back bile as Ric pulls a face and pinches his nose briefly.
"Next time," Matt swallows hard and Bonnie swears he looks a little green. "Will someone smack me if I try to help?"
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