Chapter nineteen
Bonnie was sitting cross legged in the witch house. She was so tired of the secrets. The ones she was keeping and the ones she was certain the others were keeping from her. Everything she had done had failed. Sauveterre was alive , Damon and Stefan were making amends, and Klaus was becoming more determined to stay and try to seduce Caroline. The whole point of using Tyler was so that her friend would be free of anything controlled by Klaus, much less some guy that was going to bite her and wind up killing her one day. It wasn't so that Klaus would have a step up in the process.
She heard footsteps and looked up from her attempted meditation. She smiled. "Hi." She was always surprised when Jeremy found her here. She knew how he hated this place. "I haven't seen you in a while. I've missed you."
"You too." He said. "Things have been crazy busy lately. So what's been going on with you?" Jeremy asked.
You too, he'd said. Just the way Damon answered Alexandra when she said she loved him. He was spending way too much time out there at Fell's Church. Bonnie was sure no good would come of it. "I've been kinda busy. Spending a lot of time with Abby." She said. Which was as good an excuse as any. Usually she was spending her time trying to keep people from finding out that Klaus was alive, which unfortunately lead to a lot of time with Klaus.
"That's good." Jeremy said grinning. "Getting to know your mom is great. I know Elena's been missing you. She's got the dining room table piled three deep with wedding magazines. I have no idea what she is going to do with all of them but I know it involves you and Caroline some how."
Bonnie laughed. " Wow, vampire marriage. It better last forever cause they arent gonna be able to get a divorce in a hundred and fifty years. No one will believe them"
"Are you kidding, I have doubts they'll live that long." Jeremy said with a sigh. "It'd be nice to think they're gonna make it to be hundreds of years old, but I'll be happy if she lives to see thirty."
"Stefan and Damon won't let anything happen to her." Bonnie said getting to her feet. "Even if he is moving on."
"He is, and I know that you and Alex don't like each other, so I won't start going on about what she's teaching me." Jeremy said. "I wish you two could get to know each other. I think you'd like each other if you did. "
"I'm sure they won't be too happy that you are spending time with me." Bonnie said "But you can tell me anything. I want to know what's happening in your life. I miss you so much."
"They don't give me a hard time about you I promise. " He said smiling brightly. "How about I tell you everything over coffee? I'm helping Matt with some stuff later but I have some time now."
"I'd like that." She said.
They walked back toward town and Jeremy told her what he had been up to the last few days. He was cautious to keep some things secret. Not out of any real fear of Bonnie betraying them. He trusted her. He just didn't trust the witch ghosts that tended to inhabit her world. He told her how he was learning to control his gift.
"It is really starting to be a gift," Jeremy said smiling, "now that I'm learning to control it more. I can sleep at night without being haunted. I talked to my mom, Bonnie. " he said "I've missed her so much and I finally got to talk to her and say goodbye."
"There are consequences for meddling with the dead, Jeremy. I'm glad you got to say good bye to your mom. I really am but you can't pull people back from the other side."
"I can't pull people back. They have to be willing to come. I'm a medium. I'm not learning to be a necromancer. I can't. I'm not part of one of their bloodlines."
Bonnie relaxed. "I was a little worried about what she might be teaching you. " She held up her hands. "I'm not gonna get into the anti- Alexandra spiel. I promise. I just … I care about you so I worry."
"Just like I worry every time I find you in that house." Jeremy said. "But we each have to do what we have to do. It's not like there are a lot of places for us to go to learn what we need to know. " He said leading her into the coffee shop. "So we both have a lot of accepting to do."
"I guess we do." Bonnie said smiling warmly. At least she still had Jeremy. When all was said and done she would always have Jeremy. With that she could breathe easier.
Elena nestled closer to Stefan, her arm across his chest, head nestled in his shoulder. She could stay there all day.
"It's almost noon." Stefan said smiling. "You really need to let me out of bed."
"Nope" she said grinning. "I have nowhere to be. Besides I haven't been here that long. "She'd gone home the night before to check on Jeremy, and had come back after her morning workout with him. "I've already accomplished my good deed for the day now I get to snuggle."
"What good deed was that?" He asked. Stefan loved the way she seemed to smile with her whole body. He didn't have to see her face to know that it was there. He could feel it.
"I convinced Jeremy that he could walk the line too. That he didn't have to feel like he was part of Team Bonnie or Team Alexandra." She said. "So he was going to go find her this morning and just talk."
"I can see where that's a pretty good deed. She's been avoiding me since Damon's rescue. I think she feels bad for not being there to help."
"There was nothing she could do. Even Alex had to call on help. Which was kinda creepy, can you imagine being possessed by your father? " Elena said shivering a little. "But you know… she loves him. I can see that now. I think he loves her too."
"He does," Stefan said, "which is good because that means he'll stop wishing he was the one you're marrying."
"You have nothing to worry about. " Elena said. "I care about Damon and probably a little more than I should, but it's you that I love. "
"I know." He said and laughed. "Now let me out of bed." Stefan teased. He could get up any time he wanted to. But he was enjoying having her where she was, as much as he really wanted to get up and get moving.
"No, you're just going to go track down Katherine, she will do nothing but frustrate you and it will ruin an otherwise beautiful day. "
"Alright, how about you and I put Katherine out of our minds for the day, "Stefan said.
"I like the sound of this already."
"I want to go out and look at Veritas." He said. "Seeing the mill the other day" He laughed "And being tossed into the river by Damon, brought back a lot of memories. Good ones. I'd like to show it to you."
Elena lifted her head and looked at him a moment. "Really? Does this mean I get to hear stories?" She asked, dark eyes twinkling. She had only seen the remains of the front gates before.
"It means you get to hear stories." He said and laughed. "But only if we can get there early enough to make it worthwhile. "
She was out of the bed instantly, grabbing an arm to pull him after her. "Then we better get going. Sun sets early out there."
Matt and Jeremy off loaded the furniture into the house. It wasn't much. Two book cases and a dresser.
"Don't look at me," Damon said "I leave that sort of thing to her. I learned that lesson a long time ago."
Matt laughed quietly. " We're definitely keeping her around if she can teach you lessons."
Damon gave him a look." If you're gonna be like that I'm going to go outside. I know when I'm not appreciated."
She laughed. "The shelves… one in the bedroom and one over by the window. I think there is enough room. If not I can move the bench over a little."
"Yes, ma'am" Jeremy said and grinned as she followed Damon out onto the porch. "They're gonna go make out where we can't see them" He said in a rough stage whisper.
"I can hear you." Damon called from the front porch. "And I don't care if you see or not." He said leaning in to kiss her. He made a purring sound as he did so. "It's already wearing off. " He said softly. He could feel the energy flowing between them. She couldn't help it; she took more than she gave. It was the nature of how things worked. But it was a sensation that he could lose himself into very easily.
"Careful, that gets addictive you know." She said smiling.
"I've heard that somewhere before." He grinned. "But I've got one day to enjoy this. So that's what I'm going to do." Damon took her hand. Even that was enough to give him a pleasant chill. "You have been neglecting yourself, woman, " he said leading her off the porch and away from the house. "none of that is allowed." He could tell just by touch that she was not charging enough. It was part of the bond. But so much of it was habit when he could feel the sensation of her flowing through him that he didn't think to hide what he knew.
"Is that another rule?" She teased. Normally she was the one setting rules but since she had let him go he seemed to be enjoying make quite the list of them. Old habits didn't register as out of place to her either. She didn't feel him the way he felt her. It was the nature of the bond to be one direction only.
"Hell yeah." He said. "Definitely a rule. I like that rule. You don't get to neglect yourself. You need to feed more often. Personally I think fine Italian food should be a regular part of your diet."
"You are incorrigible." She told him, laughing at his antics. He was always so energized when she took a little here, a little there. Eventually it would take its toll though so she would have to keep an eye on him.
"And you like it." He countered. She didn't argue, and he gave a little lopsided smile. "That's what I thought."
"We should take one of the cars up to the mill house and load it up to bring back. " She said.
"You're probably right. It would take too long to bring back a box at a time. And my hands would be full, which means I couldn't do this." He said sliding his hand up her sweater. He laughed as she swatted his hands away playfully.
"Behave." She said laughing in spite of herself.
"Dream on." He said.
"Your house must have been huge." Elena said as they walked around the burned out husk that had once been the Salvatore's childhood home. She looked into the cellar which was really all that remained. "you could fit two of the boarding house in there alone."
"My father was descended from Italian nobility. He was the younger son of some count or another and had come over to make his fortune. So he was determined to make his home as fine as any in Italy." Stefan said. "We controlled the timber locally, so by the time Damon was born he'd made that fortune and Veritas was the antebellum equivalent of a palace."
"Did your family own slaves?" She asked.
Stefan nodded. "Not many, and those we had were house hold servants. Damon and I were far from spoiled, we learned the ropes as soon as we were old enough to handle the work. Father hired men from the town and the next two over during logging season and during harvest. When the war came it cut our business in half." He told her. "We shipped a lot of oak up north."
"Damon fought in the war didn't he?"
Stefan nodded. "Our father paid for his commission. It's how it was done back then. You bought rank. They thought it kept the right people in the positions of authority. My brother fought for three years. He was decorated several times. He retired his commission as a Captain. He couldn't take it anymore. I don't blame him. My father never forgave him. He saw it as weakness. Then again he never forgave Damon anything. " Stefan stared off into the distance as if lost in the past. "After our mother died, Damon and I only really had each other. He was always there to protect me until he went off to war. I was a boy when he left and when he came back I thought I was a man."
"And then Katherine came." Elena said.
Stefan nodded. " I thought I was in love. So did he. We were always competitive. At first it was fun for both of us." He took a deep breath. "But we were going to forget about Katherine today. "
"You're right. I'm sorry." Elena said.
Stefan took her hand and they walked away from the remains of the mansion. He took her deeper into the woods telling her about the parties his father had thrown at the manor and at the mill, he told her about games that he and Damon used to play. Where they had learned to hunt, and where he had stolen his first kiss.
His brother was enough older than him that occasionally Damon had been more roped into keeping Stefan out of adult hair than really playing. But he'd done his best to make a game of it when he could. His hot tempered, impulsive brother had done everything he could to make sure Stefan was taken care of. Everything from teaching him to hide and move quietly through the woods, teaching him to throw a knife, and beating the boys that had found Stefan's quiet introspective nature somehow offensive.
"You were bullied?" She asked, surprised by that.
"Not after that." He said."I was 13, my mother had just died the year before and Damon was going to be leaving for the army. I was this sullen kid with his head in a book. I remember the night before he left I was at the quarry reading a book of poems by William Blake. I still have that book. "Stefan told her. " The Lockwood boy, I can't remember his name, Jonas Fell and Jim Forbes were out there drinking their fathers hard cider. They were 16 or close to it and they decided that I needed to man up because I was from a founding family." He frowned. "Father had sent Damon looking, and when he found me I was surrounded and taking the worst of it. They never touched me again, even with my brother gone for three years; he gave them a beating they never forgot. " He sighed. His father blamed Damon for not finding him before he'd been hurt. Stefan never understood his father and brother's relationship. It was something Damon had never been willing to explain. "To this day when I read 'The Tyger' I think of Damon."
"Does he know you used to have that much hero worship for him?" Elena asked smiling a little.
"I don't know." Stefan said. "After we were killed everything changed. I changed and I… I can't regret it. I regret how things happened. I regret who I became for a while but I can't bring myself to regret forcing Damon to transition. I couldn't lose him too."
"I think he understands that now." Elena said looking up at the dimming sky. "We should start heading back."
Stefan nodded. "It's going to be dark soon." He heard the sound of a wolf's cry and instinctively looked up to check the phase of the moon. "We need to move now." He said.
They had moved two loads of boxes to the house, before Damon could resist no longer. He'd taken the down comforter from its container and spread it across the millhouse floor, and then he'd taken his time enjoying his lover thoroughly.
He had missed this. He'd missed the sensation of belonging. He'd missed the almost tantric feel of their love making when there was nothing blocking her. His cries of pleasure were echoed by another in the distance and he smiled a little as he collapsed beside her.
The cry came closer and his smile faded. "What's the phase of the moon?" he asked getting out of their make shift bed quickly and running to the hole in the wall where there had long ago been shutters. He swore as he looked up. "We have to go. " He said briskly, and rushed back to pull his pants on.
As she dressed he concentrated, bringing in the fog dense and low. The crow took flight circling above and he closed his eyes a moment, willing himself to see through its eyes. He took a deep breath and looked outside again. "When I say, you need to run for the car. No matter what you hear or see, you stay in the car. You hear me? "
Alexandra nodded. "I understand."
"Alright," He kissed her gently. "I love you." He told her and wrapped the comforter around her as another layer of protection.
"You too," She answered, worriedly. The cemetery didn't extend this far. There was nothing she could do to help except stay out of the way.
He looked out the door with his own eyes and then that of his familiar. He bent down and picked up a piece of the crumbling rock wall, "Let's go," He said grabbing her and running for the car. He heard the snarl of the wolf, and could see the shifting shadows just beyond the trees.