As soon as Jeremy saw the two of them approaching, he stepped outside of her hospital room and closed the door behind him.
"How is she?" Caroline asked, worriedly.
He didn't answer, instead he gave her a troubled look and then stopped Kol, as he attempted to rush past him.
Kol looked down on the hand pressing his chest, with a frown.
"She's in there because of you and your family. Maybe you should leave her alone." Jeremy told him determined.
Kol tilted his head and then swiftly grabbed the offensive resistance on his chest, he twisted Jeremy's arm enough to make the other wince.
"Kol..." Caroline touched his shoulder.
He let Jeremy go, but only because his brother's wife was asking.
He shoved Jeremy to the side upset and opened the door of her room.
"Are you ok, Jer?" Caroline asked him.
Jeremy nodded while rubbing his throbbing arm.
Kol closed the door behind him and slowly made his way to her side.
Bonnie wasn't conscious, she was connected to a lot of machines, but Kol focused on the erratic beating of her heart. It was very slow, and he was even more worried than he had been when Caroline's mother called them with the disturbing news.
He touched her face delicately, everything inside of him was aching.
The last days had been hell, but nothing compared to watching Bonnie like this, and he immediately regretted the fights, and the way that he pushed her out of jealousy.
Kol sat on the bed and took her hand into his, he looked up because she reacted to it.
"Kol..." She breathed out, not sure if she was again making it all up in her mind.
He forced a smile on his wary features. "Hello, darling..."
"Are you really here?" She whispered, fighting to keep her eyes open.
He neared her. "Yes, it's me."
Bonnie smiled. "Don't leave..." She whispered, before dozing off again.
Kol bent down to kiss her forehead softly. "I won't, I'm right here."
She moved her head, hastily opening her eyes. "Kol? Is that you?"
"Yes..."
"Are you real?" She asked, anxiously trying to keep awake.
Kol closed his eyes, fighting his own fear of what was happening to her. "It's me, Bonnie."
She sighed. "Don't leave me."
"I'm not leaving you... I promise."
She squeezed his hand hard. "I love you, I'm sorry for everything..."
Kol stroked her cheek and took her hand to his lips to place a kiss there.
He looked away from her to the wall in front of him, trying to make sense of how bad she looked and how he had missed all of this, by being mad at her.
Now none of it made sense, and regret was quickly turning into something much more shattering.
She moaned loudly, she was fighting something that she couldn't see or touch, she was restless because the sedative was wearing off.
A nurse came in and smiled at Kol.
She administered another dose of sedative which instantly calmed Bonnie.
"Are you family?" She asked Kol.
"She's... the woman I love." Kol circled his thumb over Bonnie's hand.
The nurse kindly kept her smile. "I'll leave you alone with her." She left the room quietly.
"She's the woman I love..." He repeated, stroking her cheek.
Jeremy reluctantly accepted the ice that Caroline handed him. "Thanks..." He pressed the ice against his arm.
"Why are you so upset with me?"
Jeremy didn't have time to answer her, he saw the other two vampires arrive and decided to go outside for some air.
"What's with him?" Damon asked Caroline.
"I don't know..." She rubbed the back of her neck tense.
Klaus offered his soothing touch by holding out his hand.
"What did the doctor tell you?" She asked him.
"It's not good news, love." He prepared her softly.
Caroline caught her breath. "Tell me."
"Bonnie has a brain tumor."
Caroline's hands flew to her mouth, and she started crying.
"They've done the exams and it's inoperable because of the area where it's situated. That's why she's had such a changeable behavior lately and Jeremy told the doctors that when he found her, she wasn't coherent and that she was seeing things that weren't there. The doctors have placed her under strong sedatives, so that she doesn't strain her feeble sanity."
By his tone and speech, Caroline knew that it was terminal. "How long does she have?"
"Not much…" Klaus answered somberly.
Caroline broke down into violent sobs.
Klaus wrapped an arm around her to keep her close and while she cried nested against him, he explained how serious it was. "The tumor is growing too rapidly."
"Kol?"
Klaus unsuccessfully tried to make him react, but Kol wasn't doing anything but stroke Bonnie's cheek in silence.
"If the doctors keep her awake, the effort will weaken her because she becomes too agitated."
"I have to turn her." He quietly said.
The doctor gently stroked Caroline's arm. "There's really nothing more that we can do for now. She needs to be stable before we can start the treatments..."
Caroline nodded, determined to stay strong.
The doctor excused himself to focus on his other patients.
All the while, Damon stood by Caroline's side "We'll find a way to save her."
She smiled faintly at him. "We have to do it."
A disdainful chuckle made them turn around to meet Jeremy.
He dropped the ice inside of the bin harshly. "Now, you want to turn her."
Caroline looked at him perplexed. "It's Bonnie! I'm not going to let her die."
"What right do you have to choose who stays and who goes?"
"What?"
"There is a real chance for us to have Elena back and none of you is moving an inch. In fact, none of you actually mourned her." Jeremy was mad.
"We're here because Bonnie has cancer." She scolded Jeremy.
"She's in a hospital bed dying because the witches are probably taking revenge on her, for all those times she helped you. Because she's your friend, just like my sister was. She died and what did you do, exactly? Nothing."
"We didn't know what Tatia was and then... Elijah died, and we couldn't function. Everything was so messy and heartbreaking and we..." She looked at Jeremy full of pain. "We had to find a way to keep those who were still alive safe."
Jeremy just shook his head, disappointed.
"I can't do this with you right now." Caroline walked away, leaving Jeremy with Damon.
Jeremy wasn't done and motioned to follow her, but Damon grabbed his arm. "Leave her alone."
"Or what? You're going to kill me again?" He defied Damon, while showing his immortality ring.
Damon clasped his lips mad. "Listen to me, Jeremy. All the angst and pain? We have it twice as hard as vampires, you don't need to give us a bad time because we have all already been there."
Jeremy shook his head with a laugh. "Don't be ridiculous. Out of everyone, you cried for my sister the least. I saw you sharing looks with Rebekah back at the boarding house, so my sister wasn't cold yet, and you were already in bed with another."
Damon gripped his arm harder. "I am not good. That Damon died with a shot to his heart because of a woman. I loved your sister like I thought I would never love again but I went through hell to be with her. I went against my own brother for her love, and she made me work for it until she finally chose me. Then she was dead, and I had to deal with that. She never wanted to be a vampire, Jeremy, so I wasn't going to do anything that would make her come back as one of us. You know the risks of bringing someone back from the dead, you came back as a Ghost Whisperer… God only knows how she will return to us."
Jeremy shook his arm away from Damon's grip. "At least she would have a chance, but you and Stefan didn't even try."
"Death became very natural to us, and everyone in Elena's life knows when it's time to let go."
"I won't give up on my sister."
Damon stayed behind in the hallway, watching Jeremy walk away, knowing that he meant it.
Klaus found her resting against a large window. "Damon told me about the confrontation."
"Maybe Jeremy is right... maybe we all just got so wrapped up in our happy little lives that we... dusted off Elena's death, and moved on, like she wasn't an important part of our lives."
"There was very little happiness around us, Caroline."
Caroline looked at him, frowning slightly.
Klaus gently traced her cheek with the back of his hand. "We have every right to be selfish and to take the moments we can, to indulge in them, because no one has fought harder for this than we have. I fought for you and for us, and I'm not about to start apologizing for the only happiness I have ever known."
Caroline smiled at him. "You need to stop being so romantic, because it clashes with your bad boy reputation."
Klaus shrugged with a smile.
"What happens now with Bonnie?"
"There is an imminent risk, if we turn her in such bad conditions. Vampirism enhances everything and if she is having hallucinations, she might carry part of her illness to her new self." Klaus explained.
Caroline closed her eyes for a second. "I can't lose her, Nik."
"Neither can Kol, but if she transitions as a mad person, it won't be pretty."
"I know, but we have to try something..."
"You should know that all this is a consequence. Using the black arts and going against the witches, made her weak and they punished her with a human condition that is set on harvesting her life. If we break this chain again, we will pay for it, because we will be unbalancing nature yet again."
Caroline nodded, understanding what he was saying. "We will deal with everything like we have done so far, together as a family."
She hid in his arms for a hug that warmed her to the bones.
Damon was home to check on Stefan, and he found him inside of his bedroom, sleeping with an empty blood bag next to him on the bed.
"He's drinking with control again." Rebekah quietly said, as she walked in with a fresh blood bag.
Damon smiled at her. "I was hoping to find you here."
She didn't look at him, she just swapped blood bags and then grabbed her jacket.
"Katherine is out to purchase more blood and I need to go over to the hospital, so you can stay with him."
She moved past him coldly and Damon hated it.
"Bex..." He called as she left the room, but she didn't look back once.
He quickly caught up to her in the corridor and knowing that he wasn't going to stop chasing her, she turned around snappy.
"What do you want, Damon?"
"Are you going to be like this with me now?"
"I'm sorry if I can't be all cheerful about the way you broke my heart."
"When did I break your heart?"
"When you made me fall in love with you."
"I didn't do anything. But you shouldn't waste your love on me, because I will never love you back."
Rebekah bitterly smiled on her end. "You're such a prick..."
"We're both adults, and we've been on this road before. At least this time, we haven't taken it into the bedroom."
Rebekah looked into all of that blue in Damon's eyes, sorrowful. "I never meant for this to happen. I had enough heartache and pain with Matt, I had no need for this."
Damon didn't say anything.
"Are you going to help Jeremy?"
Again, Damon was silent.
She finally had enough and left.
Katherine came out of the shadows with a blood bag in her hand, he expected a huge smile on her face but instead she went to Stefan's room without a reaction-
Damon's head was a mess, and he didn't have anyone to talk about it, he couldn't make sense of any of what was happening around him or inside of him.
Rebekah's words were heavy on him as he took a drink to his bedroom and sat on his bed, he was looking into the beverage completely unaware that Katherine had come into the room, right after him.
"You should choose her."
"Which one?"
This was the kind of vulnerability that she had known from Damon, back when he was human, and she smiled at him.
"Rebekah. I know that you hate me, because I toyed with your feelings and with your love."
Her words took him off guard, he couldn't deny that.
"But I wasted your love, and you should stop wasting it as well. You love unconditionally and you love completely, and you should give that love to someone who deserves it, someone who is willing to love you back in the same way. Stay away from us, the doppelgängers. You will never be happy if you keep coming back to us."
As she left the room, he exchanged his glass for his leather jacket.
Klaus removed the blood syringe from Kol's arm but before carrying on, he looked at his brother and then at his wife. They both nodded in silence, so he emptied the syringe with Kol's blood inside of Bonnie's vein.
She whimpered the tiniest and Kol stroked her cheek to calm her down.
He looked at Klaus on edge, there was an actual chance that this wouldn't work.
Bonnie opened her eyes. "Kol?"
"Yes, darling?" He smiled at her. It took all that he got but he wasn't going to fail her now.
"Where am I?" She asked in a low voice.
"You're in the hospital, love."
She tried to move her hand, but it was too heavy. "They were there… telling me what to do..."
"Who, Bonnie?"
"Elijah and your mother... I saw them."
"They existed only in your mind."
"No..." She closed her hand harder around his. "Elijah told me what to do."
He shushed her by sitting on the bed and stroking her face inches away from her. "You need to rest now, Bonnie."
She sighed a bit, it felt good to feel him so close and she closed her eyes for a moment.
It was surreal to see Bonnie like this, she was always so strong and unbreakable to him.
Bonnie opened her eyes and smiled when she saw him. "You're here…"
He gulped down. "I thought that you were going to rest."
"My mind is full of spells but…" She lowered her voice, drifting to a slumber.
Kol looked up at Caroline when she took the other side of the bed and held Bonnie's hand, they shared a long look between them.
Bonnie turned her head on the pillow and faced Caroline with a smile. "Care…"
"Hey, Bons..."
"You only call me that whenever you're drunk..." She joked, but right after that, she fell into another one of her unconscious bits.
"I'll buy you as much time as I can." Klaus told Kol, while resting his hand over his shoulder.
Kol looked up at him with a nod.
"We will be right outside." Caroline told him before she kissed Bonnie's hand and left the room.
Rebekah was finally where she wanted to be and welcomed her friend with a smile. "Nik just told me what Kol is going to do…"
Caroline stroked her arms like she was physically able to feel cold. "Are we doing the right thing?"
"I don't see another way, Caroline."
"She will never forgive any of us for turning her into one of us. She loves being a witch and hates what we are. Vampires took everything from her, and now I'm taking part in a plan that will take her life..." Caroline's tears returned.
"She will understand that we had no choice." Klaus arrived at the girl's side.
Caroline sheltered against his chest.
Rebekah left them alone for a bit, she needed a cup of coffee and there was a machine nearby that delivered a really black and bitter taste of it.
At least it was hot, and she paced the hallway, sipping on her coffee until she heard Damon's voice asking for her.
Childishly, she decided to stay out of sight by hiding in a blind spot next to the coffee machine.
It took Damon two seconds to find her, and he did it with a cocked eyebrow for the silly behavior.
"What do you want?" She grumbled.
"Can we try to talk without you throwing that coffee at my face?" He asked her with a smile.
"I'm sure that your abilities as a vampire would prove to me that I shouldn't waste my coffee." She replied, before she sipped on the tasteless beverage.
"Maybe it would be a good waste." He teased her.
"Did you come all the way here from your house, to talk about coffee?"
"I'm here because I have something to tell you."
Rebekah looked down on the floor not wanting to meet his blue devilish eyes.
"Bex... look at me." He softly asked.
She slowly raised her eyes to meet him. "Why?"
"Because it gets a little hard to talk to someone when they're staring at the floor."
"I don't have anything to tell you and I don't want to listen to anything that you have to tell me, either." She tossed the coffee into the trash and walked away.
"Well, I have something to say and you're just going to have to listen to it." He rushed after her.
She faced him determined to stop him, but his determination was stronger and without hesitation he cupped her face before he pressed his lips against hers for a kiss that was different from all the previous ones between them, this time he kissed her with love.
When they parted ways, Rebekah looked at him with weak knees. "What do you really want from me?"
"I want everything."
Happily, she searched for his lips, she was willing to try that.
Kol rested against the headboard with Bonnie in his arms, she was unconscious again, for a longer period this time, and he was just building up the courage to do it, this was unbearable, but he loved her too much to risk losing her to a human illness.
She woke again from her small sleep and smiled. "I missed your chest..."
He thought of telling her what he was going to do but there was no gentle way to say it.
"I love you... only you, Kol..." She whispered and closed her eyes again. "I'm tired." She admitted with a mumbling tone.
"I need you to forgive me for what I am about to do, darling." He said the words, dreading her reaction but she was weaker, and her breathing was getting heavier so there was no real reaction.
Kol laced his arm tightly around her waist and rested his chin on top of her head, then in slow motion he grabbed a pillow and covered her face.
She didn't even put up a fight, her breath became a muffled tiny sound as she slowly gave in, he closed his eyes listening to the machine that gave away the slowing down of her heart rate, slowly telling him that she was dying.
No, that he was successfully killing her.
"Forgive me, Bonnie. Forgive me..." He whispered and allowed his tears to fall as a flat line replaced her heart rhythm on the screen.
He moved the pillow away to touch her lifeless face and pulled her closer to him, hoping for a redemption that probably would never come.
A man rushed along the long corridor with heavy footsteps that echoed against the rich marble of the floor, coming to a halt, he knocked on the door waiting for permission to go inside.
"Who is it?"
He opened the door, respectfully stepping inside. "It's me, Master." The man bowed his head slightly.
He was by the window watching the city at night. "Do you have news for me, Eric?" He asked in his deep voice, without facing the other.
"I do, my Lord..." He hesitated.
The older man turned to face him. "What happened?"
"We've lost a few men." He was upset to admit it.
"I wasn't expecting anything else from him."
Eric noted a smear of pride and joy in the comment. "I see..."
The man reached out his hand to take the envelope that Eric brought for him and removed the pictures from inside, on his way back to the large desk.
"The one with the dark-haired vampire is the sister, Rebekah. The other picture with the man at the bar is his other sibling, Kol and the last one..." Eric stopped as the other raised his hand.
"The girl is his wife?" He asked Eric.
"Caroline. He protects her with his life." Eric said.
"Leave me." The man asked.
"Master... are we really sending more men to Mystic Falls? It makes no sense to lose more of our own..."
His Master raised his eyes from the picture, so Eric became quiet.
"Have I lost my ability to run this pack, but simply wasn't informed about it?"
Eric gulped down. "No, Master."
The man dropped the pictures on the table and stood up.
He slowly approached Eric. "Are you questioning your Alpha?"
Eric shook his head.
"Last time I checked, I was still the leader of this pack and Master to all of you."
His voice was louder, and his eyes were now yellow.
"I'm sorry, my Lord."
"Leave." He demanded with a growl.
Eric left without raising his head and the man went back to the table, picking up that last picture, showing his wolf primitive tattoo, carved into the back of his hand as he did so.
He smiled, watching the smile on Klaus's face and attentively he lingered his eyes on the girl, she was beautiful, and she held herself like a worthy woman.
"She is remarkable, Niklaus..." He whispered proud.