Thanks to all who favorited and followed. Tiny correction: when I said the Originals would be ignored, I mostly meant the second season. But the Originals history will be taken from it.
As for if this is a romance, if its with Kol or Kai, this is honestly for now a "Give Bonnie All the Friends!" Fic and a Parker-family fix it fic because I am a sucker for giant dysfunctional families. There is some Bonkai and Kennett already planned though.
Newspapers. Bonnie felt as if her entire life was coming down to black ink on crinkly white paper. There wasn't even a crossword in this one.
September 28, 1821. Kol Mikaelson's hell.
Bonnie let the Louisiana State Gazette fall to the table, sinking heavily into a chair. "Why are you here?"
Kol had not spoken much since releasing her earlier. Though she had never had it within her to muster much pity for the youngest, loudest Mikaelson brother, she knew from personal experience how much harder it got to force the words out if one got used to them not being heard and so she waited.
He seemed to move in slow motion now, which was disconcerting. Even as a ghost Kol had been almost manic in his movements. Now his hand seemed to move almost frame-by-frame as he raised it to the bridge of his nose and rubbed.
"Considering," he started slowly, irritation coloring his tone. "Your great grandmother wasn't even born in 1820, I believe that question is more deserving of your answer."
It was a bit disconcerting – she had been alone with Damon, and then Kai, for such a long time that she'd forgotten what other people were like. She could tell you exactly how they would've answered the question: Damon's would've been some long, overly-sarcastic reply that somehow made her feel guilty for even asking and Kai's would've been brutally to the point, slow words like she was a child, with some added jibe about sadism thrown in somewhere that somehow made her feel stupid.
Kol's was either a deflection or a genuine query; maybe both. He wasn't stupid and she knew he must have some idea of what was happening to him, but no idea how much.
"You're in a prison world. Repeating the same day over again, September 28, 1821. Why?"
Damon would've grabbed bourbon by now. Kai would've repeated the same answer from before while somehow saying something completely different. Kol remained silent, hand thudding to the table, dull eyes focusing first on the newspaper, then her.
She met his gaze squarely. She had never, never been afraid of Kol. Even when he was snarling in her face, he always wanted something. Mikaelsons may be prone to petty murder but they always wanted something.
"I asked you first," Kol finally replied.
Bonnie frowned, quirked an eyebrow. "No, you didn't."
Kol leaned forward, opening his mouth to argue with her, then stopped, clearly thinking about the conversation, or lack there-of, that had taken place. Then he chuckled half-heartedly. "No, I didn't. But I suspect you already know the answer to your question. It's a bad day for me. I guess someone thought I was owed a lifetime of bad days.
"Joke's on them, the wanker," he muttered, standing. "I've already been through that. I've already been through worse. This is nothing."
She thought of Kai then, unbidden. Crossbow in hand, threatening to let her bleed to death. Knife in her stomach and leaving her to die. Choking, drugging, and quipping all the while. She hated him so much, and she still wanted him back after he'd left her alone.
Kol hadn't been good with loneliness when he was on a planet full of people. She couldn't imagine he'd be able to handle it for the rest of eternity.
He was facing the window now. When he'd brought her into the house he'd headed straight towards the dining room. She'd caught glimpses of other room as she followed, broken furniture and glass scattered all over the floor. But in here it was pristine and beautiful, a long cherry table with elegantly curved chairs on either side and candelabras everywhere. She absent-mindedly set the wicks to light as she waited.
She had nothing but time here.
Kol turned somewhere along the fourth candelabra. He looked pale even in the candlelight and she wondered how long it had been since he'd eaten. He'd been two breaths away from her and hadn't shown one veiny sign of bloodlust but he was an Original, with centuries of control under his belt.
He waited until the last candle was lit before speaking. "So why are you here, little witch?"
"I got lost," Bonnie said before stopping. Finding the ascendant without Kol would be nightmarishly hard, but escaping from him now that he'd seen her would be downright impossible. He'd want to come with her when she went back. Just the thought of unleashing the Original back onto the world made her cringe.
And why is that? Some little voice whispered at her. In all the books the voices in people's heads always sounded like someone: their parents, their enemies, their friends. Bonnie couldn't place this voice, had never heard it before. It was whispery, high and soft and insidious. She fought down a shiver.
You let Damon back out onto the world with a smile on your face. You sacrificed yourself for it. Is he so much better than Kol?
So much better than Kai?
Bonnie shook her head. She sent Damon back because he was her friend, and for Elena and Stefan who needed him. Who needed Kol, or Kai?
Who needs you, Bon?
"Lost?" Kol snapped, clearly losing patience with waiting out her internal war. "How?"
Damon's victims could fill a cemetery and yet she felt no remorse or guilt for sending him back. Because he was her friend. She wasn't naïve enough to think he'd be better now, that he'd never lose his temper and drain somebody's blood or snap their neck to make himself feel better. But she did it anyway, because he was her friend.
God, her morals were so screwed up. She smothered a few hysterical giggles and looked up at Kol. "I was trapped in a prison world, too."
Kol's eyebrows raised and he scoffed. "Someone wanted to lock up sweet, righteous Bonnie Bennett? What kind of tricks were you pulling when no one was looking, hm?"
"I couldn't escape the Other Side when it collapsed. Neither could Damon Salvatore. We went together." Saying it out loud made her ache for Damon's voice, chiding her for being so sappy. She pressed her lips together and looked away.
"Well, that explains that," Kol said, shrugging. "I can think of plenty of people who'd want to punish Damon Salvatore for all eternity. Still doesn't explain why you're here."
"I got lost," Bonnie repeated, tracing the pattern of the lace table runner with her finger. "I was trying to go home, I had a spell, and it went wrong – or maybe just sideways. I did everything right." She cringed at how whiny the last part sounded, but Kol didn't seem to notice, seizing on one particular detail.
He had a chair pulled up as close to hers as possible with him seated on the edge, folded arms resting on his knees before she could blink. "There's a spell to escape."
"And I ended up here," Bonnie said, choosing to finish her story rather than answer him, leaning as far back into her chair as she could. "I have no idea how."
Kol's head dropped down, shoulders slumping, as he said in a fading voice: "So the spell doesn't work."
Bonnie hesitated. She could say yes, she could stay here forever, save the world from Kol. That would be the noble, selfless Bonnie Bennett thing to do.
What has that ever gotten you? Dead Grams, dead Dad, a vampire mother who doesn't love you, dying, dying again, the prison world, a knife to the stomach? She could still feel the scars on her skin. They rested there uncomfortably, as if they didn't really belong, as if they weren't supposed to happen to her.
Life shouldn't be like this. She was nineteen years old. She should be happy.
She could be happy. She just had to choose it.
"It works," she said softly. Kol's head pops up almost comically. "I got Damon back through. There was-" She stumbles again, not knowing, hoping, that Kai got lost as well, that he didn't make it back to Mystic Falls. Not really wanting to talk about Kai at all.
"But it didn't work for you?" Kol asked, rhetorically she hoped. Thinking of her failure was becoming a rather miserable pastime for Bonnie.
For now, her theory was that there were more prison worlds than Kai had let on, and not all of them belonging to the Gemini Coven. It made a certain sort of sense; even assuming the Geminis had created the spell all on their very own, which was unlikely, it was a very powerful spell, one that they could've used to barter with other covens and bloodlines.
And then there was the fact that the spell was anchored on Bennett blood. The Geminis didn't do it alone. They had a Bennett witch to aid them, and Bonnie had had enough to of her ancestors whispering in her head to know that Bennett witch would've never let that much power accumulate in a bloodline that wasn't her own.
It still didn't explain why she wasn't able to go home, why she had been pulled here to Kol's world. She had gone over the spell a hundred times in her memory, comparing it with when she had done it with Damon. Nothing was different, except for the fact that it was Damon who left and not her. Maybe something was wrong with her. Maybe she was never going to make it out.
Bonnie clenched her hands in her lap. She couldn't afford to think like that. If she did, it would all be over. Hope is the only thing keeping me going.
"Little witch?" Kol's voice broke through her reverie. "How did you get out of your prison world?"
"It wasn't mine," Bonnie said automatically, her tone defensive, offended for reasons she couldn't quite place.
Kol waved a hand dismissively. "Whatever. Damon's prison world, then. How did you get out?"
It hadn't been Damon's, either, though she wasn't going to point that out. "There's something called an Ascendant. It basically controls the gateway between this world and the real one. Every world has its own."
It was galling to still be blindly following Kai's information when he had lied about every other thing, but she had nothing more to go on. Kol nodded to himself, finally leaning away from her. Bonnie relaxed shoulders she hadn't even known were so tense.
"Can you find it?" he asked. "I don't know where it is. I mean, obviously, even if I had found it, what would be to me, hm? But you can do a locator spell."
"I don't even know where we are," Bonnie shot back, a little thrown by Kol's pattern of demands. "The paper is from New Orleans but we're out in a freaking swamp, Kol."
Kol looked genuinely offended. "Watch your language, love, this is a bayou. And New Orleans is about three miles that way." He pointed back and to the left.
Bonnie rolled her eyes. "Why are you even stuck in an 1821 New Orleans prison world?"
"I told you," Kol replied evenly. "Today's a bad day."
At that he stood, his legs brushing against hers as he moved out of the tight space between their chairs, and crossed the room to a closed door. "I'll find you a map," he said without looking at her, before opening the door and disappearing into the darkness beyond her.
Bonnie had the feeling that he wanted her to stay here, but after nearly six months on her own Bonnie had learned that sitting still with her thoughts was not a good thing. She stood and used the door she had come in, beginning to explore the house.
It was beautiful, every inch of it. The wood of the paneling in the halls was silky smooth under her fingertips as they dragged over it. There were little end tables scattered all along the halls, filled with picture frames with broken glass and no pictures. Bonnie fingered the torn piece of paper hanging in the corner of one, wondering whose house this had been. Had Kol known them? Why chose a place out here when he had the entirety of New Orleans just three miles away?
She didn't linger for long, choosing to enter the first door she found. It was a large galley kitchen, all white wood and stone slab countertops. There was a table shoved close to the walls, and the remains of chairs scattered all around it. Bonnie realized with a sick lurch that they were all missing their legs, the point where they were broken off jagged and sharp.
There was no refrigerator. No built in stove. Bonnie had always loved history, but actually living in it was…frightening, in a way the 1994 prison world wasn't. Bonnie was afraid that she had been started to forget things (sometimes she couldn't remember what the color of Matt's eyes were, or how Elena's laugh sounded) but she could see so clearly her grandmother's kitchen, soft brown wrinkled hands on her smaller ones as her Grams helped her stir some parsley into the soup she was making.
It was cold and empty here. Bonnie left the room quickly.
The next room was a bathroom that she gave only a cursory glance. Across the hall was the wide entrance into the main living area. Tables and chairs destroyed, legs broken off again. The only piece of furniture that remained untouched was a massive leather armchair with a high, winged back. There were two glass decanters on the side closest to the unlit fireplace. One was nearly full of bourbon. The other, nearly empty of blood.
There were more than a few smashed glasses in the ashes of the fireplace and Bonnie had to grin, thinking how dramatic it was to throw the alcohol in the fire. Kol was a Mikaelson, through and through. Always putting on a show.
She nearly danced in place when she noticed the ten foot high bookcase in the dark corner just beyond the fireplace, almost skipping over to it. The Salvatores' had a great library in the boarding house and the public library had always been there in Mystic Falls, but a good chunk of the Salvatores' novels had been in Italian, which she had tried to learn for precisely one month by sheer context clues and a rudimentary understanding of Latin before giving up and the Mystic Falls Library was woefully understocked.
There were a number of books written in French but some she had never even heard of in English. She went to pick one up before she noticed right next to it an original 1812 copy of The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales.
She was at the very end of 'Cinderella,' sunk deep into Kol's chair, when he found her again, map in hand.
He perched on the arm of her chair and leaned in close to read the title, then scoffed. "No Jane Austen? You know Frankenstein was just one shelf up. But of course you pick the fairy tales. You never did have an appreciation for the macabre."
"Cinderella's stepsisters just cut off their toes to fit into the glass slipper," Bonnie said dryly, eyes never leaving the page. She was so close to the happy ending.
Kol whistled lowly. "Now that's true dedication to the cause. And all Cinderella did was what, wish on a Fairy Godmother? The stepsisters should've won."
"It's not a cause, it's love," Bonnie snapped, finally looking up at him. He was far closer than she had realized but sliding away now would only make him laugh. "And besides, Cinderella was kind. That's why she won, as you put it."
Kol rolled his eyes and shook his head, standing up and walking around the chair to pick up the decanter of bourbon. "Kindness rarely wins you anything in the real world. You of all people should know that, Bonnie Bennett."
She held his gaze for what felt like a very long time. She had been kind before, when she didn't take up on his offer to join together and escape the other side. Now he held the map out to her, taking a swig out of the decanter without ever looking away from her, raising his eyebrows in suggestion.
She placed the book down and took it with both hands.
Kai, it turned out, was not so good with emotions.
No, he thought, he was being too hard on himself. Emotions were hard, and he had never really had them before. Well, not one's like these.
Because he was sitting across from his little sister, his face splitting into a grin against his will at some story she was telling, actually semi-enjoying himself, and the whole thing made him want to vomit.
But that would ruin the whole meal, and he was trying to be good. Why, he had no idea. Honestly, before the merge, he didn't even really have a concept of what good was. Killing his family wasn't, but that was a gimme. That was a conscious choice to do the wrong thing.
Zachariah's face slackening, his hands dropping away and into the water-
Nope. Not going there. Kai was even worse at dwelling than he was at this whole 'feeling' bit. Liv told the next part of her story with particularly emphatic hand gestures that made Jo laugh beside him.
Kai liked to blame it all on the merge, but as he felt warmth spread through him from where Jo's upper arm pressed against his elbow as she shifted in her seat, he knew. Josette had been the only person in the world besides his mother that he had even remotely tolerated before his dad put him in the prison world, but he had always been more jealous of her than anything. Watching her interact with their bratty little siblings, watching how they smiled at her. That was a family, and it was supposed to be his. But Kai was always on the outside, always alone.
Kai had spent his entire life alone. Sitting here like this, with his twin and the little sister who was now actually marginally older than him was something he would be good for even without Luke rattling around in his head.
He knew they weren't really comfortable with him being here. Liv was speaking at hyper speed and Jo couldn't seem to sit still. But they hadn't gotten up and left when he sat down unceremoniously, breaking up their weekly lunch at the Grille. He suspected Liv just wanted even half a chance that she might see a glimpse of her twin again – that and she seemed to be almost as cutthroat as he was – and that why he wasn't tossed through a window, but Josette's was the tolerance he could not puzzle out.
Liv's story, something about an asshole customer that Kai now wanted to track down and cut to ribbons, petered out quietly and those over enthusiastic hands drifted to her lap as her gaze shifted around like she was looking for the next conversation topic. Liv couldn't stand silence. Something the two of them had in common.
Jo noticed the awkward silence settling in and turned to him, not quite meeting his eyes but staring resolutely at the center of his forehead. Her skittishness was adorable and Kai hated himself for just thinking that.
"So," she said shortly. "I haven't heard anything about Bonnie. It's been a month since you guys contacted her in 1994, shouldn't she be back by now?"
Kai, as a rule, did not like to talk about Bonnie Bennett. Just thinking about her was exhausting, endless amounts of guilt and something sadder and more final that he couldn't name. Kai could barely deal with just every day emotions, had locked himself up in Jo's spare bedroom for three days when he actually helped an old lady across the street like he was in the Babysitter's Club – which Josette had laughed her ass off about when he finally broke down and told her. Kai was still put out at her mocking his genuine distress. – so dealing with Bonnie and her prominent lack of being here was a no go in his book.
His voice was gruff when he responded, choosing to look down at his grilled cheese than at his sisters. "She had to go all the way to Nova Scotia, Sissy. That's not a short trip."
"It's like, a twenty hour drive," Liv argued. When both Jo and Kai looked at her quizzically she shrugged. "Tyler and Matt have discussed it in great detail. Plus Bonnie could drive whatever speed she wanted, so like eighteen hours tops. It would only take her two days."
"Well, she would have to stop," Kai reasoned. Liv scoffed.
"Didn't you spend like a whole month with her? You know, before you stabbed her. You're telling me you didn't figure out how crazy determined Bonnie B is in literally every aspect of her life?" Liv's eyes dropped again. "She is a terrifying person."
Kai tried his best to ignore the jibe about his stabbing Bonnie. He tried to ignore the whole thing. The fact was he knew exactly how determined Bonnie was and it was taking her far too long to get back.
What if she had died? It wasn't her prison, Bonnie wouldn't be revived like he was. If she died, that was it. She would never see her home again. She had, for that brief window between learning he murdered his family to being brutalized over the course of several days, been able to stand him enough to talk about home. Or, hell, maybe she would've talked to anybody about it, just to talk about it. To remind herself. He had done that, once or twice, when he started forgetting things about Josette. But for him it was so he would still be able to find her when he got back, no matter how much older she was, so he could do the merge and get rid of her and the stink of her betrayal forever.
Bonnie's voice when she talked about Elena and Caroline and…Matt, maybe? It was unlike anything he'd ever heard. It made his heart almost burn. He was pretty sure part of the reason he hurt her was just to never hear her voice like that again.
"Who knows what she had to do to get the magic in Nova Scotia?" Jo said. "Maybe it was a long process, or maybe it took some time to figure out what to do."
She was, Kai realized, trying to make him feel better. His face had started to show his distress somewhere in the middle of his thoughts and here was Sissy, like always, trying to make her psychopathic twin feel something that wasn't there.
But it was there now and his heart a thousand times more than it ever had before. Kai gritted his teeth. Somewhere in there, Luke was laughing at him. Little fucker won in the end after all.
"Maybe," Liv finally allowed, still sounding doubtful. "I hadn't thought of that. I'll use it next time I have to convince Matty and Ty there's nothing to worry about."
"Happy to help," Josette said with a smile. "Ric's pretty worried, too. Keeps blaming himself for not helping Damon save her when he could."
Kai threw his hands in the air. "Yes, we're all very worried. But Bonnie's plucky, right, she knows the spell, she's got the Ascendant, everything's cool. She'll be back. And then she'll kill me. So we have that to look forward to."
"You'll be fine," Liv said dismissively. "Bonnie's a sucker for a good redemption story." She seemed to realize what she'd said, and then she was a whirl of movement. "Well, I've got to go. You know, work and stuff, plus I promised to meet up with Tyler. Thank you for lunch, Jo. Kai."
And then she was gone, racing out the door before her elder siblings could blink.
Kai stared at her empty chair. "It's like teleportation, but really awkward."
Josette huffed a single chuckle then began gathering up her phone and keys, stuffing them into her purse. Kai faced her fully. "You're going, too?"
"Some of us have jobs, Malachai," she replied patronizingly. She stood, slinging her purse up onto her shoulder, but remained there, looking down at him. She was so beautiful, his sister. He'd forgotten that. But she was a stranger now, so much older and more mature and no longer afraid. They weren't even really twins anymore, and the realization almost made him sad.
"I carved out your spleen," he said, and Jo stopped breathing. But he had to know. "And you helped Dad toss me into a prison world to rot alone for all eternity. Why are you-?" And then he gestured around the Grille making what he was sure was the dumbest expression.
Josette barely refrained from rolling her eyes. "You hardly ever give me a choice on accepting your company, Kai."
He just continued to stare at her and she sighed, raking a hand through his hair. "You know, I remember you before you figured out what was happening to you shouldn't be happening. When you were still – not happy, you were never happy - but basically okay? I missed you for so much longer than eighteen years, big brother."
Then she drew her hand away and stepped out from between the chairs, beginning to head for the exit. She only got two tables down before she turned again. Kai, still a little dazed, took a while to catch up to what she was saying.
"You know, you could go check on her." At Kai's nonplussed look, Jo shrugged and made one of the same gestures Liv had made during her story, one where she really was making a point. "Bonnie. You could do the spell you did before. You could even go back and check on her. The first rule of having emotions is not to torture yourself with them, Kai." And, looking satisfied, she left.
With the check. That bitch.
Bonnie stared at the unmoving drop of blood with disbelief.
"Are you sure you're still a witch?" Kol asked, his light tone failing to completely disguise the anger boiling underneath.
Bonnie would reply – knew she should reply, before he truly lost his temper – but something cold and dark had swallowed up all her words. She pressed down harder on the edges of the map, flattening the curled paper to the dark cherry wood until her fingers went white, her body nearly bent in half over the table, but still the blood did not move.
"Bonnie, what's happened? Or, rather, what's not? Why isn't it moving?"
Kol's voice could barely be heard over the roar rushing through her head. The blood wasn't moving, the spell wasn't working, and she'd never find the Ascendant. She'd be trapped here forever.
How could she have failed? She finally mustered the will to mutter the spell through lips that felt frozen solid, but still nothing happened. The blood was starting to sink into the paper. This was it. This was all she had, it was over.
Bonnie was vaguely aware that she was panicking, that her heart rate and breathing were accelerating far too rapidly, but she couldn't seem to stop. She kept picturing her friend's faces for just a fleeting second before they blurred in her mind's eye, becoming unrecognizable. How long before she forgot the shape of Jeremy's smile or the way Stefan and Damon's brow furrowed exactly the same when they were confused? Before she forgot the smell of her dad's aftershave or the cookies that were the only thing Caroline could bake? So much of Bonnie was made up of her friends, and if they were gone she would be no one.
"Bonnie? Love?"
There was a hand on her arm and Bonnie jerked back so suddenly that she lost her balance and fell, landing hard on her hip then her back. The impact was enough to jar her thoughts free of the spiral they had been caught in, but for a long moment she just lay there, trying to slow her panicked breathing.
She heard Kol sigh heavily, then movement from behind her. His ridiculously shiny black leather shoes came into few and he crouched in front of her.
"You are ridiculous," he informed her bluntly. "And your ancestors are spinning in their graves."
Since most of her ancestors didn't deserve a peaceful eternal slumber, this didn't bother Bonnie too much. Seeing that she had no inclination to move, Kol moved backwards until he was seated, knees drawn up in front of him.
"So you've lost your magic and your mind," he said idly, lacing his fingers together. "Whatever am I going to do with you?"
Breathing somewhat slower than marathon running but way faster than climbing the stairs, Bonnie rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.
"This is kinda nice," she croaked, willing her body to relax muscle by muscle.
Kol hummed. "The rug? It's French."
Breaking down, Bonnie wanted to reply. She didn't do it very often; panicking and crying didn't do a whole lot of good when all your friends were depending on you. But as the turmoil slowly drained out of her she felt more at peace than she had in a long time. Since before she died the first time.
Well. That was not entirely true. There had been a moment, sitting in that garage with the Camaro running, the carbon monoxide making everything heavy, where Bonnie had actually been grateful to be going. She had felt so solid, leaning against the car and listening to her breathing. Like she was going to sink right through the concrete and the earth and rest forever.
"You tried killing yourself yet?" she asked, craning her head slightly to look at Kol. He was gazing at where her hand rest against her stomach, the blood still slowly leaking from where she had cut her palm for the locator spell.
Bonnie clenched her fist and his stare trailed sideways to her face, leaving an almost physical burn in their wake.
His eyes only met hers for a brief moment before he dropped his head, unlaced his fingers and waved one in the general area behind him. "The furniture in the kitchen is made of White Oak."
All the breath left her at once and she stared up at him, her gaze somewhere between horror and amazement. Kol, who had been so afraid to die. He caught her expression and his face twisted, caught between a smirk and a grimace.
"I tried regular stakes at first. Stupid, but I just wanted to block it all out for a while, yeah?" He laughed at himself and it was horrible to her ears. "Then I went and found one of Nik's dagger and I-"
He stopped, running his hands through his hair over and over and staring hard at his knees. She could see the muscles moving in his jaws and cheeks, the flare of his nostrils. She waited.
"Can you believe," he started again, voice a little cracked. "Can you believe, I actually woke up? Dagger in chest and all. So it was the chair and tables then. Break off the legs, instant stake. We'd known about them the whole time, and I'd told Nik we should burn them, burn the whole house down but he'd always said no. I should've known then what he was about, should've known centuries before, but he was my brother."
"You were here with Klaus? In 1821?" Bonnie asked.
Kol's eyes were so dark they were nearly black. "For a short while."
It was silent then, the both of them listening to Bonnie's slowing breathing and the tiny crackles of the flames. Klaus and Kol together in 1821 with a ready supply of daggers – it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened to the younger brother.
"The spell's not working, Kol," she said at last. Kol rolled his eyes.
"Seems to be happening to you a lot, little witch. Oh, I'll have to change your pet name now. The troubles you put me through." He clucked his tongue reprovingly and then he was a blur. The next breath Bonnie was sitting upright on the table and Kol was alarmingly close.
Her poor heart stuttered and fired up again, beating hard against her ribs. She flicked her hand out, a weak motus that only sent him stumbling a few feet back, laughing when he regained his footing and hands raised innocently.
"Just trying to help, darling."
"This isn't funny, Kol!"
"Well, we can't all flop about like a fish out of water," Kol shot back, a bite under his laughing tone. "I'll stick to more useful pursuits, thanks."
Bonnie sneered, her pride stung at his jab. "Like what?"
"New Orleans is one of the great centers of magic, Bonnie," Kol explained in an overly-patient tone. Bonnie's peace from before, already waning from Kol's tale of suicide, evaporated completely. "There are hundreds of grimoires and thousands of magic books. There must be something helpful in one of them."
Bonnie's hands were already starting to itch at the prospect of getting her hands on other covens' grimoires, but just to be contrary she asked, "And if there's not?"
Kol's look was something between pity and disdain. "If there's not then I suppose you'll cry and moan about it until I start missing the silence and break your neck. Gods above, woman, are you always this pessimistic?"
This conversation seemed vaguely familiar to Bonnie and with an unpleasant start she realized that she had, somewhere along the way, morphed in Damon at his absolute mopiest. Wasn't she just berating herself earlier today to not give into despair? And now look at her.
Her Grams told her to stay strong. She didn't come all this way to get knocked down by a backfiring locator spell. Magic always had a loophole, that was a certainty, and certainties always made Bonnie feel better. It was dangerous to live in a world of black and white but it was how she survived.
But you couldn't have one without the other and she couldn't do this without Kol. "Okay," she said, waving a hand as if to clear the air between them. "We'll go look. We'll find something."
"And then we'll get out," Kol finished.
Bonnie nodded. "And then we'll get out. We'll go home."
This made Kol shrug. "My home burned down a millennium ago. Just getting out is enough for me." She raised an eyebrow at him, look whose pessimistic now, and he smiled overly-huge and waved his hands in an arc. "But you go ahead and dream big, Bon-Bon."
The tiny smile she had felt quirking at the edges of her lips dropped away. "Don't call me that." Then she hopped off the table and headed for the exit. She didn't hear footsteps following and turned. Kol was still rooted to the spot. "You really wanna be here any longer than we have to be? Let's go."
A flash of uneasiness and something almost like fear crossed Kol's face and then it was gone. "C'mon, love, it's pitch dark out and we've no carriage or horses to pull it."
"Is the big bad Original afraid of the dark?" Bonnie couldn't resist teasing. Kol grimaced but still did not move.
"You need rest. World hopping must be exhausting. We'll set off in the morning, yeah?"
She was tired, though she was loathe to admit it to Kol. "Fine. Is there any room in this place with furniture still intact?"
Kol grinned at her acquiescence and clapped his hands together loudly. Bonnie could not completely cover her startled jump at the loud noise and his grin grew louder.
"Take your pick, little witch. You've the Rose Room, the Wisteria Suite, or the Oleander Apartment."
"I'll take the one not named after a poison, thanks."
The Rose Room was predictably pink and red but Bonnie didn't really care when she saw the large four poster bed. Thankfully Kol did not even spare a goodnight, just a jaunty salute, before pushing her in and closing the door. She didn't know where he went then – maybe the Belladonna Boudoir, she thought tartly – nor did she wonder very long as she fell onto the covers and into a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.