Thank you so much for the outpouring of love, but I want to correct myself from the last chapter. I would never like, hold this fanfic ransom for reviews. That wasn't what was happening. I just needed some feedback, which I got, so thank you so so much.

This chapter was absolutely killer to write, but I hope you can't tell. We're almost over the hump, though, so that's nice.

Songs for this chapter are "Undiscovered Colors" by Flashbulb and "The Long Haul" by No.

Chapter 6: We're The Kings of Imagining Things

The task of reading the grimoire, in the end, actually went to Kol. Though her basic understanding of Latin allowed Bonnie to understand some words, the book was written entirely in French, a language she didn't speak. Bonnie sat as close to the fire as she could, listening to the faded whispers of the mausoleum, and waited.

"I think this was actually written by a very adept French chicken," Kol complained, turning the grimoire this way and that, then shrugging his shoulders and seemingly giving up. "Of course the Tremes were made up nearly entirely of freed slaves following the whispers of long-dead voo-doo queens. I suppose I should be impressed they could write at all."

"Actual voo-doo queens?"

Kol glanced up at her. "Oh, yes. Ancient tribal magic rubbed raw under the yoke of slavery. Voo-doo is built entirely on vengeance. It's seriously wicked stuff, love."

"You sound so impressed," Bonnie remarked. Kol grinned wildly.

"You don't understand because you've never been part of a coven. To watch these women and men in action was to watch humans wrest power from gods. I once witnessed them cast a plague that would've put your Bible's to shame. It was incredible."

"But that's not right," Bonnie argued. "Magic shouldn't be used to play God. It should keep the balance."

"Shouldn't it? That's rather rich coming from the girl who brought her boyfriend back from the dead," Kol pointed out, smug. Bonnie's face fell, conceding his point, and he sighed, closing the grimoire around one finger to keep his place and sliding gracefully off his chair to come to a crouch beside her at the fire. "Bonnie, love, would you have changed what you did? If you could go back?"

It was a question Bonnie had only ever had to ask herself once before. Her Jeremy was going to grow up, have a life and a family, the things he'd always wanted to have but was too scared of losing to reach out and take because of what she did. "No."

"That coven that cast a plague only did so because of the noblemen of the city were kidnapping and raping little girls and boys, sometimes even killing them, and the police weren't lifting a finger because the children were slaves. If there is a god, he wasn't listening to their screams. Or worse, he didn't care," Kol said quietly. "Elijah and I tried to do what we could, but it was the witches who saw justice done in the end. You saved Jeremy because you knew it was wrong he was dead. The witches cursed the noblemen because they knew it was wrong for them to go free."

"It's easy to play judge, jury, and executioner when you've got an entire coven to spread the parts around," Bonnie protested. "I'm just me. Alone."

Kol sighed and stood, returning to his chair. "Yes, well, Bennetts have never been very good at belonging. They don't need to. They lead."

Bonnie and he held each other's gazes for a moment, and she wondered if she looked like one of her ancestors to him. One of those women he had called powerful and accomplished, that he admired. Or if she looked exactly as she was: a frightened, lost nineteen year old girl playing the longest game of pretend that had ever been played.

She broke first, looking away and curling in on herself, rubbing her hands along her arms and legs to warm them up. She buried her face into her hands and closed her eyes, trying to block out the soft voices that echoed along the halls. Trying to block out everything, really. Bonnie thought she would go mad from the wanting that filled her. She wanted to go home and see her friends; she wanted her friends to come save her for once. She wanted to be powerful enough to crack this world in two; she wanted to go back to when she wasn't aware of magic at all. She wanted to not be scared anymore.

She wanted for nothing to be wanted of her. To just be Bonnie, and be good enough.

"Do you think your brothers and sister would come for you? If they knew?" she asked, raising her head to look at the Original

Kol flicked to another page but from the way his eyes stopped moving she knew he was considering it. He shook his head. "Niklaus would never risk it in a million years, Elijah would think it was a trap, and Rebekah wouldn't go alone."

"My friends aren't coming for me," Bonnie said. "And I knew that. But I am very good at hoping."

"Well, it does spring eternal, as the poet says," Kol said dryly.

Bonnie cast him a sardonic glance. "It also breeds eternal misery, as the poet says."

"Hopeful and pessimistic, aren't we a paradox?"

"No one's going to find us. We have to save ourselves," Bonnie said, ignoring him. "Just you and me. Well, you, me, and a bunch of whispers…" She trailed off, eyes going wide as what she just said sunk in.

"What?" Kol asked, noticing her expression. "What is it?"

Bonnie stood on shaky legs, walking unsteadily towards the door. Kol was in front of her in an instant, hands on her shoulders. "Use your words, little witch. You can't keep wandering off like this. What is it?"

"Those whispers," she told him, only half paying attention. "Where are they coming from?"

Kol leaned back, assessing her. "We've had this conversation, love. Magic from the real world is mimicked here."

"Magic that was already here. Spirits aren't attached to the earth, they go where they want. They can't be recreated, they're spirits." Bonnie began to feel a bubble of excitement, growing larger and larger inside of her, and she raised her arms to clench her hands tight on Kol's elbows. "But the Other Side is gone, Kol. There are no spirits left. So where are the whispers coming from?"

Kol pushed down on her shoulders a little, like he was trying to anchor her. "New Orleans witches go to the Ancestral Plane. I've heard tale it's like the Other Side but not as lonely, or as endless."

"We can talk to them!" Bonnie said, excitement and the returning chill now that she was away from the fire making her words nearly unintelligible from her chattering teeth. "Look in the grimoire, there must be something to contact them-"

"No," Kol said immediately. The bubble inside Bonnie popped and her hands dropped away from his arms as she finally looked at him. His jaw was set, eyes like flint. "These aren't your friendly neighborhood ghost witches, Bonnie, they'll want something in return. Something you might not be able to give."

"I'll decide that," Bonnie said, throwing off his hands and looking around for the grimoire. She could practically hear the whispers calling her and she was eager to respond. Kol had left it on the chair by the fire but before she could take one step towards it, he blurred and reappeared four feet in front of her, book in hand. She huffed and held her hand out. "The book, Kol."

"This isn't just about you, love. It's only you and me, like you said. I can't lose you." Kol's tone was hard, the planes of his face harder, but his words still made her soften.

"You're not going to lose me. I know I haven't given you a lot of reasons to have faith in me, but I can do this," she promised him. "You've told me exactly what to expect. I won't give them anything."

"They won't give you a choice!" Kol snarled. "You are power, screaming into the void because you can't control it. Do you think they can't hear you? You were the only one who heard the whispers in that room, love. They're calling you."

Bonnie remembered the warmth she felt while searching for the grimoire, how entreating and welcoming it felt. Even now she could hear the voices become louder as if responding to her newfound motivation. This time, she could almost make out the words, if she just listened harder…

She shook herself, squeezing her fist so tight her nails cut into the palm, and focused on those tiny pinpricks of pain to keep her grounded. "This could be our chance, Kol. They could tell us what we need to know to get out of here."

"Not for free," Kol said savagely.

"Nothing in magic is free. I know that," Bonnie shot back. The voices swelled and her grip grew tighter. "Probably better than anyone. But what wouldn't you give to go home?"

"I wouldn't risk my life, but then again I don't have the years of experience being a martyr that you do," Kol spat. "You have found an easy solution and now you want to take it. So like you to run headlong into situations you know nothing about."

"I made a mistake before. But you'll be right beside me. You said you wouldn't let anything hurt me-"

"Which is why we're not doing this. We're going to read through this grimoire to see if there's anything useful," Kol laid out, voice condescendingly patient. "And if there's nothing in here we'll try something else. Something that doesn't involve talking to the ancestors of sacrificial witches."

Bonnie gritted her teeth, fingers aching from the tightness of her fist and her body aching uncomfortably from the cold. She could feel her skin beginning to give. Kol tucked the grimoire into the back of his pants and stepped closer to her.

"Don't," she warned him. Her voice didn't sound like it belonged to her. "I will flay you alive."

"I wasn't-" he protested, looking shocked. "Bonnie, just think for a moment. This is dangerous."

"I want to go home," she cried. "I want to be safe."

Kol's eyes narrowed. "You're acting like a spoiled child. I'll keep you safe, and we'll make it out, I swear-"

"If I do this, if I talk to them, they'll tell me what I need to know," Bonnie swore fervently. Kol cocked his head inquisitively, already narrowed eyes thinning to slits.

"How are you so sure, Bonnie?"

She could feel the whispers in her veins, creeping along like ice water. In her mind's eye she could see Elena and Caroline, smiling with arms outstretched to receive her and body hurt from the heaviness of her heart.

She felt hot slashes against her palm and Kol started, red veins appearing around his eyes and disappearing just as fast. "Your hand-"

She looked down from him, to her left hand, unclenching her fist. Her nails, long and ragged from months of neglect, came away red, four jagged half moons weeping blood from her palm. The world went curiously silent and slow as she watched one drop as it slid to the edge of her palm, balanced tremulously, and then fell.

It hit the ground, splashing in an odd, unnatural pattern, and the whispers swelled to a chorus so loud Bonnie did clap her hands to her ears. Kol's eyes were as wide as could be and she realized he could finally hear them as well. The sound of wind began to build in the mausoleum from and he grabbed at her arm.

"We have to go. Now!"

His hand slid down to grab her slippery palm in his and he tugged her to him, then the world became streaks of colors until several second later, Bonnie was deposited unceremoniously onto the hard cement of the curb in a foreign part of town.

The whispers were gone, the cold receded as well, but Bonnie had never felt so numb, staring down at the blood on her hands.

Kol was in the middle of the street, staring up at the sun. "Fool me twice," he said, attempting to chuckle but instead sounding choked.

The solution was right there in front of them. Ask the ancestors, learn the answer, go home. But it hadn't been really been her thoughts, not entirely. She let herself be controlled again. She was scared and weak and utterly pathetic.

Stay strong, Grams had told her, and she had. She had lived and fought to go back home. But now her friends were farther away than ever and it was too much. Bonnie didn't know what she was doing or how she was going to save herself and Kol. She didn't know the magics she was dealing with. She didn't even know her own magic.

She was lost. Utterly and completely lost.

She was crying before she could really stop herself, quiet sobs that hurt from how they made her body shake. Part of it was grief; between taking care of Damon, making sure Kai didn't get out, and feeling sorry for herself, Bonnie really hadn't let herself feel how much she missed her friends. Part of it was frustration at her failures. But most of it was the reason a child first learns to cry: so that someone would find them and give them comfort.

She felt palms on either side of her knees and looked into Kol's guarded eyes, level with hers as he crouched in front of her. Bonnie wiped furiously at her face, only remembering when her face was semi-clean that one of her hands, and now her cheek, was completely bloody, but Kol seemed unfazed.

"I'm so sorry," she told him in a whisper, and he nodded.

"You can't keep doing this, love. You don't have the luxury of being weak. I won't lie and tell you that everything is going to be alright, and I need you to be strong in spite of that. We are playing a dangerous game, and if I am to keep playing my part I need you to do the same." Kol leaned forward onto his knees, hands leaving her knees to retrieve a handkerchief from his pocket, so mundane and proper that Bonnie giggled ungracefully around her tears. Kol managed a small smile, reaching slowly and carefully for her injured hand. Bonnie let him take it and he began wrapping the cloth around it.

"I need you," he said gruffly as he worked. "Which doesn't really make me happy, but there it is. Life is-"

"-Hard, and then I'll die?" Bonnie finished for him expectantly. "I just thought, maybe, since I've died twice, life would give me a break, just this once."

Kol tied the two ends in a tight knot and looked up, smiling tightly at her. "No such luck, I'm afraid."

Bonnie nodded, pulling her hand away from his, feeling the tiredness straight through to her soul. "I'm sorry," she told him again.

"I accept your apology," Kol said, standing up and holding out a hand to help her, which she took gratefully, legs still wobbly. "We've had your trauma for the day and are still three hours away from mine. Shall we find some food?" Bonnie took a deep breath and nodded and he began leading the way. "Now don't touch anything, alright, darling? With your luck, the next time you pick up an apple it'll be a magical fruit grenade and you'll blow us both to bits."

He was joking – probably – but she followed him along meekly to the open markets just off the main thoroughfare. Kol handed her a kebab and a banana with a sarcastic smile and took a pear to munch on for himself.

The handkerchief made for clumsy eating but Bonnie managed, idly chewing while she looked around. New Orleans was beautiful, every inch of it. The wind had picked up and she longed for a ponytail as she kept brushing her hair out of her face to read the inscription on the bottom of one of the statues that seemed to dot every corner. It was, of course, in French, and she straightened with a huff.

"I have an idea, little witch," Kol called from by the fruit carts. He had picked up another pear and two apples and was now juggling them, managing to look coordinated instead of clownish. "We should start practicing your magic."

"Sorry?"

"Your magic," Kol repeated slowly, glancing at her dubiously. "You've done the occasional spell but you haven't really flexed your muscle. You've got to take control, Bonnie."

"Because my magic's cooperated so well with me so far," Bonnie said sarcastically.

Kol sighed, catching the apples in one hand and the pear in the other. "You're right, you know. You're much better at hoping. This eternal pessimism suits you ill, poppet. Have you considered my words at all? You're wearing another witch's skin."

"So I should, what, cannibalize it?" Bonnie said, screwing up her face in disgust. Kol laughed.

"To put it indelicately. Look, if you go on at this rate you're going to get yourself killed. You've got to-"

"Take control, I got it," Bonnie said irritatedly, rubbing her temples. "I just – I don't know what to do."

Kol set the fruit down and began walking towards her. "Lucky you've got me, then. I had proper training, you know, not a slapdash grimoire speed-read while my ancestors pestered my every move. We start with basics and work our way up."

"Basics?" Bonnie said, one eyebrow raised.

Kol scoffed. "Of course the American doesn't know the value of a solid foundation." When she still looked undecided, he adopted a pleading expression. "Come now, darling, take pity on a poor man. I haven't been around magic that isn't trying to kill me in centuries."

Bonnie bit back a grin. She'd never had a proper teacher; her Grams had died too early and Shane had just been trying to manipulate her. Her friends never put much thought into Bonnie's magic. They just pointed her at a target and waited for her to start chanting Latin. The last time she'd gotten to really talk about magic was with Liv Parker, who'd tried to steal her boyfriend.

"Okay," she said finally.

Kol clapped his hands, grin only growing wider at her ensuing glare. "Excellent. Now, first things first –"

"What, now?"

"No time like the present, love. We'll start with protection spells. If something happens to me, I need to know you'll be alright. So-" he blurred and then reappeared, holding a handful of fruit. "I am going to throw these at you and you are going to stop them."

"What?" Bonnie shrieked, stepping away from him. "Hell, no!"

"Relax, I'll be gentle. Now, walk along this road until I tell you to turn." And then he was gone, laughter ghosting around her. She spun around on her heel, trying to spot where he might have gone, but he was fast enough and clever enough to stay hidden.

"This is your idea of basics?" she yelled. "I won't even be able to see them coming. This is stupid."

"You know you're in danger, love," he called back, his voice moving from this building to that one, impossible to track. "If you were surrounded by vampires, what would you do?"

He had the grace, at least, to give her a moment to think. If she was surrounded by vampires…there was a protection spell that was easy to maintain and could be sustained near-constantly. If she was surrounded by vampires, she would cast that spell and strengthen it the instant she expected an attack.

"Otum adnarvet esnavit atim," she muttered under her breath, feeling the barrier creeping up around her like a second skin. When she felt it come together at the top of her head she began walking.

The first throw hit her square in the center of her back. True to his word, the toss was fairly gentle, but the impact still had her hissing from the sting.

"We'll work on healing spells next," Kol called from a high vantage point.

The second she anticipated a second too late, but the impact was diminished. It was difficult to expand the spell outwards, she found. She had to push the defensive energy into a sort of modified motus, and it all happened a bit too fast for her brain to catch up.

While she concentrated the third apple pegged her dead in the thigh and Bonnie stumbled, wincing. This wasn't training, this was annoying. Why did she ever agree to this?

C'mon, Bon, you're getting angry. He's tossing freaking apples at you, you've got the power here, she berated herself. It was how she had faced off against countless vampires. If they touched her, they won, but until then it was Bonnie's game.

It's Klaus, rushing at you, and you've got one shot.

She closed her eyes and heard the whistle of an object soaring through the air and then halting. She turned to see the apple falling to the ground, four feet away from her. "Ha!"

Somewhere, Kol golf-clapped politely. "Yes, very impressive. Keep walking, and take the next right."

This followed down that street, and then the next. She didn't stop every one; she had grown unused to the strain of maintaining a spell, even a minor one, and her barrier began to waver. But she was almost having fun. It was exhilarating, feeling her magic respond to her will, and it was nice to just be dodging flying fruit. No vampires, no pointy projectiles. Just practice, to make her better and stronger.

"Did you do this in your day?" she called out. "What did you use, pinecones?"

"And they were on fire!" Kol responded jovially. Bonnie laughed quietly, sending her magic out to fix weak points in her boundary spell, and then she heard it.

Tick tick tick.

"Kol?" she yelled.

Tick tick tick.

She whirled around, trying to discern where it was coming from. An apple came flying out of nowhere and she turned to face it, catching it in one hand. "Kol, what is that?"

A whoosh and Kol was in front of her, looking alert. "I cannot deal with you hearing things again, little witch." But when she didn't respond, letting the silence fall between them, he began to frown.

Tick tick tick tick tick tick.

"It sounds like a clock…" Kol said slowly. "There's a timepiece store two streets over but you shouldn't be able to hear it from here."

He began to walk in the opposite direction they had been headed, and she followed close behind, the ticking noise growing louder and louder until she could discern individual noises, separate from each other, like a hundred clocks going at once.

They round a corner to a street lined with little stores, the clicking now unbearably loud. Albert's Fine Watchworks was a modest establishment, with only a small window to display some of his goods set into the wall. Three pendulum clocks, their hands spinning wildly around the face, ticking away.

The door wasn't locked when Kol tried it and she followed him in. "Has this ever happened before?" she yelled over the noise. There must have been fifty pendulum clocks, ten huge grandfathers lining the back, and cases and cases of pocket watches strewn about the store. The minute and hours hands of all of them were spinning, some fast and some slowly, some even backwards.

"No," Kol replied, looking almost frightened. "They're not even supposed to be this loud. I don't…"

He reached out and touched the nearest one and all at once the ticking began to slow inexorably, as if the gears were suddenly coated in molasses. It sounded, almost, like it was counting down. "We should leave," she said. When Kol didn't budge, she tugged on his arm. "C'mon, Kol."

"They're just clocks," he said, almost dreamily. "What harm can they do?"

The ticking grew slower, then slower still, and chills creeped up Bonnie's spine. She moved closer to Kol, almost touching him, and slowly expanded her protection spell to cover him as well. He didn't even notice, too entranced by watching the clock in front of him slowly tick towards twelve o'clock.

Tick…tick…Bonnie held her breath. Tick…tick

…tock.

Now, she thought, and pushed out with all her might.

All around them the clocks began to chime unnaturally loud, the grandfathers in the back shaking from the sound and every inch of glass in the room exploded. Kol yelled, rounding on her and seizing her close, lowering them both to the ground, but not a shard of glass touched them, bouncing off an invisible barrier a foot from Kol's back.

The sound seemed to go on forever, so loud she gave in a pressed her head further into Kol's chest to block it out. The glass had settled but she was afraid to release the spell as long as the sound went on. It began to drain her, the familiar feeling of pressure building in her head, but just as it reached its peak the sound stopped utterly. No chimes, not even the softest ticking.

Kol waited a few seconds longer and the cautiously raised his torso up to look around. Bonnie scuttled away from him, sucking in air. "What-?" she managed.

Kol shook his head, standing and then helping her up. The store was a disaster, glass strewn everywhere, several of the clocks toppled over and more than one display case leaning precariously on lost legs. The clocks remaining on the wall had all stopped at one time, and Bonnie went cold as she read the time.

"Twelve twenty-eight," Kol whispered, looking around. "What happens at twelve twenty-eight?"

Bonnie closed her eyes, forced herself to breath. 12:28 PM. The exact time of the solar eclipse in the prison world she thought she had escaped.

Bonnie ran her finger over the smooth brass of the pocket watch she had filched from one of the broken display cases before sliding it to the small button at the top and pressing down. The hands of the clock hadn't moved in two hours, no matter how many times she winded it. Twelve twenty-eight.

She should tell Kol. She knew she should and yet every time she opened her mouth, the words wouldn't come. Their experience at Albert's had him more on edge than she'd ever seen him, and as 8:47 drew closer and closer he only grew more tense. She had never seen the planes of his face so severe, and her own neck ached in empathic sympathy at the rigidness of his own.

There was no practice now. They stayed close to each other as they walked down the empty streets of New Orleans, Bonnie nearly walking sideways to watch their backs. It seemed every time the wind blew Kol vamped out and she reactivated the barrier spell, but nothing came of it.

They reached a crossroads, and Bonnie sighed as Kol examined every road with narrow eyes. "It's meant for me."

Kol stopped and turned to her. "What is?"

"The time. The message," Bonnie said, showing him the pocket watch. "The Gemini Coven used reoccurring celestial events to give their prison world power. In 1994, it was an eclipse, and it happened at 12:28 PM. It was the only time the spell to leave could work."

Kol glanced from the watch back to her. "Maybe something followed you?"

"Or maybe something found me," Bonnie answered, remembering her blood on the floor of the Treme haven. Kai's prison world had been a lonely, quiet place, but it was just that. Kol's was full of dark and darker things. Things that could make even a demon afraid. She looked down at the frozen hands and felt a dreadful certainty fill her. She was never going to make it out intact.

"We'll…" Kol tried. His voice was soft and broken, and he was just as lost as she was. "We'll sort it out, sweetheart. You'll see. We're going home."

His hand reached out to hers, covered it, and pushed on her fingers with his until the pocket watch closed with a snap. She took a deep breath and looked up at him, nodding sharply, and slid it into her coat pocket.

The clock tower, far away, began to chime and Bonnie jumped, barrier firing to life only to fizzle out when Kol shook his head and turned, walking with purpose. "It's time, Bonnie," he called back to her. "September 28, 1821. I hope you like Shakespeare."

She hurried after him, keeping close, as he led her down one street then the other, only to stop dead when they came upon the first of many brightly burning streetlamps. They started in the middle of the street, one light dark and the next bright with flame. Kol slowed but didn't stop, watching her wonder with wary eyes.

"Do me a favor, love."

"Depends," she responded, touching one of the lamp posts, feeling the slightest hum of magic.

"Look at me."

She complied out of sheer confusion, turning to stare at him. "Why?"

Kol returned her gaze evenly, as if memorizing her face, then smirked. "Just wanted to see if you would. You're very biddable."

"And you're an ass."

"One who's growing late for his own hell. Let's anon."

They resumed their trek, but it was slower this time. Lights began to fill the air, nebulous and small at first but growing in size and intensity the further they walked. Bonnie reached out to touch one only to watch her hand go right through one side and the other, tingling unpleasantly.

The music started, a single mournful violin that the lights seemed to dance to in the wind. It was beautiful, and terrifying. Kol stared straight ahead as they marched on, but Bonnie was constantly turning, wanting to take in as much as she could.

Two of the lights had grown to a height and width only marginally smaller than Bonnie herself and they sunk lower and lower until they touched the ground and exploded in a shower of sparks. Bonnie leapt away, shielding her eyes. When the light dimmed and she lowered her hand she watched, dumbfounded, as a man and woman walked passed her, holding hands and smiling.

The man was wearing garb similar to Kol's and the woman a beautiful dress of blue and green, and Bonnie could see straight through them. They talked to each other, but made no noise, and they didn't appear to notice the vampire and witch walking just behind them.

One by one the lights touched down. Two sullen-faced men, a girl whose garb suggested a less than savory occupation, a small urchin boy. More men and women, twenty at least, all walking along with them.

She turned to Kol, a million questions ready to fall on her lips, but he held up a hand to quiet her. "Give the dead their due, love. This is their final march."

They rounded a corner to find the Le Grand Theatre lit all up in lights. It had seen better days even in 1821, but it's lights were cheery and its orchestra in tune. The violin had long since been joined by others: cellos and a piano and the clash of drums. The marquee was empty and no signs were hung in the windows but the ghosts all filed to through the closed doors without hesitation.

"Wait," Kol said when she made to follow. "You'll want to see it all."

She didn't have to wonder what he meant for long. A few minutes later, a ghostly Kol strolled up to the theatre, a small translucent black boy in tow.

"What are we doing here, Mr. Kol?" the boy asked. Bonnie started at hearing his voice, so thin and confused.

Ghost Kol simply smiled. "A treat, just for you. For all you've done for my family."

She looked to the real Kol, standing beside her. His eyes weren't on his ghostly counterpart but on the little boy, and she had never seen such hatred mixed with such sadness. "Marcellus," he murmured.

"Who is he?" she asked, hushed.

Kol didn't look away from him. "Just a boy. He was just a boy."

The two spirits walked past them – through them – and into the theatre, and Bonnie made to follow but Kol remained stock-still, staring at the place Marcellus had left. On the street, the lamps began to go out, the farthest first then closer to them. The road grew darker and darker as the music swelled until finally only the lights of the marquee was left. They cast a shadow across Kol's face, the hollows of his eyes and under his cheekbones going dark. He tipped his head back, eyes closed, and breathed deeply through his nose, then turned sharply on his heel and crossed to the door, holding it open for her.

The lobby was beautiful if worn. Everything was threadbare red velvet and unpolished brass and it was so large, the size of her high school cafeteria twice over. Four sets of double doors were at the far end of the room, and two great staircases fanned out on either side. Kol led her to the left, pace fast enough that they caught up with his ghostly twin and the small boy in no time.

They followed the spirits into a private box close to the stage. There were only a few people, about seven of the twenty she had seen, in the audience though it could easily seat hundreds, but she suspected the rest were behind the closed red curtain.

Ghost Kol bade Marcellus to sit, then picked up a wine glass from the table of crystal left waiting for him. He bit into his wrist and squeezed the blood out into the glass then held it out to the boy.

"Drink," he ordered. The boy shied away, face full of fear.

"Mr. Kol, let's go home –"

"Marcellus," Kol said, leaning in close, voice going low. "Drink."

Compelled, Marcellus took the glass and gulped it down. Kol chuckled, seemingly satisfied, then turned to the theatre. He held up his hands and the music, coming from a pit so dark she couldn't see if there were people actually playing, stopped dead.

"Begin!" Kol said, clapping his hands. Instantly the people in the audience straightened as if in a trance and the curtain rose up and away. The lights of the stage flooded the dark theatre and Bonnie couldn't hold back her horrified gasp, cringing back into the wall of the box.

There were corpses strewn all over the stage. Some in the aisles in between the seats, wearing the clothes of the ghosts sitting in the audience. The poor girl Bonnie had seen earlier was lying over the front row of seats like a broken doll, wide eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling. The corpses were incredibly real and solid, and the ghosts walked right through them as they moved about stage.

"Why are they here?" she managed. The real Kol was leaning against the lip of the balcony, watching the play begin with a blank expression.

"They're always here," he answered. "Even when the spirits fade, they remain."

Bonnie had read Hamlet in high school and remembered it fairly well, but Kol had apparently decided to improve upon it. She watched as the actor playing the Ghost strangled the actor playing one of the sentries to death. Marcellus seemed unsure if it was real, but Bonnie's hand flew to her mouth as bile rose in her throat.

"You…what? You compelled them?" she asked Kol. The spirit of the sentry's actor fell to the ground where the corpse wearing his face lay. Kol watched with an almost clinical gaze, nodding.

"Why?"

Kol did not answer for a very long time. Hamlet entered and left, deceitful Claudius and Queen Gertrude afterwards. Ophelia, played by the young prostitute strewn over the chairs twenty feet from her ghost, wailed her worries.

It was only after Polonius was stabbed and killed by Hamlet, twitching as he fell into his corpse, that Marcellus seemed to realize what was happening. "Please let me go, Mr. Kol, I don't like this!"

"Don't be absurd!" the Original's spirit responded cheerfully. "Shakespeare should be experienced in the flesh! In truth, these aren't the finest actors, but we are in the colonies. Here! Where were we?" He rose and stood behind Marcellus' chair, holding the boy down by the shoulders.

Midway through the next scene an actor fumbled his line and Ghost Kol sighed, zipping away and reappearing in a blur down by the stage. "We went over this, darling. Hamlet, not harlot." Then he snapped the man's neck.

Bonnie felt the sound through her own body and crumpled into a chair next to Marcellus, looking over at the poor boy's face, covered in tears. Kol replaced the actor he had killed with a man from the audience, shoving a script into his hands, and blurred back to Marcellus' side. He was so small and so scared and her heart ached just to look at him. She reached out a hand and placed it over his. It went straight through but she let it rest there, hoping, however irrationally, that he could feel it.

"The boy is Marcellus," Kol finally elaborated. "My brother Klaus' ward. He'd grown rather attached to Elijah which, predictably, made Klaus rather jealous. Rebekah was daggered and he had yet to forgive her, so he woke me up so he could have someone to love him again."

She turned her wide-eyed gaze towards him. His returned look was so alien, so cold. He didn't even look like a person any more.

The play went on. Ophelia, tearing at her clothes and hair, climbed to the top of the catwalks and flung herself out, landing with a horrible thud and crack over the chairs where her body laid. The impact seemed enough to startle the lady in green and blue, sitting with her husband, out of her compulsion, and she began to scream. Ghost Kol sighed again, blurred, and another neck was snapped. Then five more as the audience began to flee. The actors on stage seemed to come out of their stupor but Kol turned and roared "FINISH IT!"

They fell quickly after that in the bloodbath that was Hamlet's finale. Horatio and Fortinbras, surrounded by bodies, took their bows to Ghost Kol's loud applause.

"Let's go congratulate them, shall we?" He asked Marcellus, taking the boy by the arm and leading him out of the box.

"Bonnie?" the real Kol asked her, so quietly she could barely hear him. Her face felt frozen in horror, her hands so tight around the arms of the chair she couldn't move them.

"It was fun for you," she accused him, her voice hoarse. "You compelled them to kill each other and you applauded."

"Yes," Kol agreed readily. "I did horrible things and I liked it because I was a monster. I'm not my siblings; I won't blame it on lack of love, or too much of it. I did it because I was eight hundred years old and I was bored and I was numb."

"'Was?'" Bonnie echoed derisively. "You think you're not a monster anymore?"

"There wasn't a need, not after this," Kol said, shrugging. "I found my purpose. We should get closer."

He headed out of the box and she followed numbly, out into the lobby and back into the theater, Ghost Kol on stage with Marcellus clapping the actors on the back.

"Marvelous job, truly," he was saying. His smirk was the same Kol had worn just an hour ago, the one that was so familiar to her and she could scarcely stand to look at him. She and Kol had gotten halfway to the stage when a voice burst out from behind her.

"What are you doing?"

Bonnie whirled just as a ghostly apparition raced through her, leaving her shaking. Elijah Mikaelson's echo raced up on stage, halting when Kol laughed.

"I'm introducing Marcellus to the theatre," his brother explained. "I thought you'd be pleased?"

Elijah was as angry as she'd ever seen him. "Is there no limit to your violent imagination, brother?"

Genuine confusion crossed Kol's face as he glanced down at Marcellus. "If the lad is going to be a vampire, he'll have to learn somehow, won't he? Come, I've already fed him my blood. All you have to do is snuff him, and voila. One of us. Well, that's what you and Nik want, isn't it? A new little brother? A better one? I'm trying to help, Elijah."

Elijah seems stuck somewhere between worry and horror. "Kol. Just –"

Ghost Kol heaved his dangerous sigh and tossed his hands in the air. "Look, I'll do it for you then. Horatio, good man, would you kindly run this boy through with your sword?"

"No!" Elijah snarled, but before the actor could even move his head was struck from his shoulders by an unseen force, Fortinbras soon following. Klaus slowed into view, tossing their heads aside.

"Oh, Nik, you're here-"

"Marcellus," Klaus said lowly, cutting off Kol. "Go wait in the lobby, there's a good lad. We'll be out shortly."

Marcellus raced off as fast as he could, his spirit dissipating before it reached the door. The real Kol walked slowly up the stairs onto the stage, drawing close to his brothers, staring with the closest thing to wonder she'd even seen on his face. She followed him up, nerves on edge at being so close to Klaus, even in an apparition's harmless form.

Ghost Kol, however, didn't seem to realize the danger he was in. "Alright, so we'll give him a few years. Being forever twelve would be rather awful. I admit my folly."

"You go too far," Elijah snarled.

"Too far?" Kol asked, incredulous. "He's fine! You two play at noble purposes but we all know the truth here. You're going to turn him one day, and you're going to show him horrors far worse than anything he saw tonight. For now he's pleasant and malleable because he's young and he loves you. But just wait until he grows up, Elijah. The moment he displeases Nik will be the last time you ever see him."

"Marcellus is family," Klaus said savagely, seizing Kol by the collar. The youngest brother shoved him away.

"You say that like it will protect him from you! But where is Finn, Nik? Where is my sister?"

Elijah grabbed his brother by the shoulder. "Kol, this is madness. What you've done, what you are – you will destroy everything."

Both Kols gazed at their elder brother, the younger full of disbelief, the elder shuttered completely. "Tell me, brother, what is it about him that makes you love him so?"

"Marcellus is-"

"Hang Marcellus!" Kol shouted. "I mean him!" He pointed at his half-brother, watching with wary, narrowed eyes, circling around the two vampires.

"Kol, I don't –" Elijah said, confused.

"I don't want to be saved," Kol said sincerely. "But you could try. You try for him."

Behind him, Klaus drew the dagger from his pocket. Elijah gripped Kol's other shoulder, pulling his brother close, but Kol just began laughing. "You could try. I wouldn't be worth it, but none of us are. I thought that was the point of family."

He broke away from his brother's grip and turned. The real Kol's hand stretched out, as if trying to stop what was going to happen next. "Brother," he muttered, watching the three spirits in front of him. "Brother, please."

Ghost Kol smiled at his brother then spotted the dagger, gleaming in the stage lights. He backed up into Elijah, who held him again. "Brother. Brother, please."

"You want to see Finn and Bekah again?" Klaus asked. "I'll gladly reunite you." Then he thrust the dagger forward into his little brother's chest, and watched impassively as the lights died from Kol's eyes and his grey body sagged in Elijah's arms.

Elijah held Kol close, picking him up as if he was just a child. "Always and forever, Niklaus?"

"Always," Klaus swore, staring down at Kol's still face. "And forever."

Then they disappeared in front of her, leaving Kol standing in the middle of a sea of bodies, hand outstretched and all alone.

His face was outlined in grief before he dropped his head, hand falling to his side. It was quiet but for the sound of Bonnie breathing.

"This is…this is your hell?" she asked finally, unable to take the silence.

Kol laughed once, a short, broken sound that echoed around the theater, glancing up at her. "Unimpressed, are you?"

"No," Bonnie said quickly. "I just – what happened with your brothers…"

"It is a terrible thing, to find you are unloved," Kol answered her unspoken question. "They didn't need me. They didn't even really want me. Nik only woke me because he was bored. I loved my family and I wanted just a piece of their hearts. A small wish, but a foolish one, too. There was no room for me." He laughed that horrible laugh again. "And now I have all the room in the world. Whoever did this at least had a sense of humor.

"So, yes, love. This is my hell. The day I realized what I was to my family. Eighty years from now, Rebekah will betray my plans for vengeance to Klaus and the cycle will repeat itself. In around two hundred years I will be staked by your moronic boyfriend and they won't even mourn me when I'm gone."

Kol stared at the massacre around him. "I was no better or worse. I was simply not enough."

Bonnie was silent, not knowing what to say. The bodies around her sickened her, made it impossible to ignore the monster Kol truly was, but his words were echoes of things that she herself had thought in her worst moments.

"The worst moment," she whispered. "This is what the prison world is built around." She looked around, trying to spot anything out of the ordinary. The magic must be concentrated here, but there appeared to be no obvious signs of a spell.

"I don't feel anything," Kol offered quietly. "There's – there's nothing here."

"There must be," Bonnie insisted. "This is the end result of the curse, to torture you forever. This must be it, Kol, we just have to figure out what it is." She glanced at the bodies strewn across the theatre. Seven in the audience, poor Horatio in the pit where Klaus' hit had flung him, and twelve on the stage. Twelve, the number called out to her, but she couldn't figure out why.

Kol went to the edge of the stage, looking down into the pit. "Maybe it's the spirits? They're trapped here with us, that's got to be part of the spell."

"And they're all human?" she asked, counting the bodies over and over. Twelve.

"If they weren't I couldn't have compelled them," Kol answered.

"Twelve humans," Bonnie said slowly. "This can't – no, that's not it."

Kol turned back to her. "Twelve humans? There's a least twenty of them."

"On the stage. There's twelve. There's twelve, Kol."

Kol counted quickly, eyes narrowed, then turned back to her, shrugging. Bonnie walked to the center of the stage, hands shaking. "You said – the brazier, in the Algiers coven, it could summon demons."

"Yes, if called by a very powerful witch."

"And the whispers in the Treme haven – how many voices would say there were? Twelve?"

"I don't –" Kol said, the stopped, realizing what she was saying. Bonnie turned to him, her skin feeling stretched and thin as if she might shatter any moment from her shaking. "Bon, you don't know."

"I don't know," she agreed. "I hope I'm wrong. Because if your world is built on an Expression Triangle, we're never getting out."

AN: Next chapter will be all Kai, all the time. So you have that to look forward to. Is Bonnie right? Is she wrong? WHO KNOWS?