"Where to?" Asked Bonnie uncertainly.

"How about your house." Elena responded woodenly. Bonnie looked at her, her voice was flat as she tried to keep any unwonted emotion out. "Ok." She responded, turning her car towards her house. "I can say you are coming over to help me catch up in class today. My dad will believe that since I was supposedly sick this morning."

Elena's eyes did not waver from looking out the window, she did not ask for the story behind Bonnie staying home from school.

Bonnie could not help but look at Elena out of the corner her eye as she drove, but there was never any change in the unnatural stillness of her friend, nor a flicker of emotion. This was beginning to be slightly unnerving to Bonnie.

Bonnie pulled into her drive; she had a moment's hesitation as she had the urge to open the door for her friend. But she knew that it was not a good idea, if she was overly solicitous it could not help but illustrate the calamity that had befallen her. Bonnie suppressed a sigh as she saw Elena wearily slide out of the car and trudge to the house without a backward glance. Bonnie followed her inside the house. Elena walked straight into Bonnie's room.

She sat on the edge of her bed and held her head with her hands.

Bonnie walked over to stand beside her, she reached out to put a comforting hand on her, but Elena leaned away from it.

"Bonnie?" Elena's voice was tentative. "It's all here, in my head; I can't deal with it all. The memories of what happened to me. It's like a horrifying memory or a terrible dream that you can't shake the next day. Oh God, Bonnie. Why, why did this have to happen to me? I cannot deal with all of this! Can you help me? Can you do something? I feel all scrambled up inside.

So much chaos, Bonnie…"

"What do you mean?" Asked Bonnie, though she had a pretty good idea what Elena was talking about.

Then there was a sudden flash in Elena's eyes as she leapt to her feet, she kicked out at an errant pillow on the floor near her.

"How could this have happened? How dare he? It's his entire fault that this all happened!" Her breath heaved as she aimed a punch at the wall, it connected solidly, denting the sheetrock and bloodying her knuckles.

"Elena!" Bonnie stepped forward and pulled her friend away from the wall.

"Stop it; you are going to hurt yourself!"

"Right, because that has never happened to me before. What do you call rape? A walk in the park? A unpleasant incident? What?"

"What could possibly be worse than that? Oh, I know, maybe having my head crammed full of the memories of a century of inhuman violence and hatred?"

Bonnie stepped back from her tirade. She felt out of her depth, she had never seen Elena like this, never even thought of how to handle something like this. There was nothing in the best friend that taught her to help her friend through this.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Damon enter the room, Elena's back was to the door so she did not see his entrance, Bonnie motioned to him to get out, but he did not even so much as glance in her direction. Instead he walked directly to Elena. She turned at the sound of his footsteps, her eyes flashed as she saw him.

"This is your entire fault!" She shouted her eyes wet with unshed tears.

Bonnie winced at the volume; she was glad that no one was in her house at the moment to hear Elena; in fact she was worried that a concerned neighbor might call the police and report the noise.

Damon never faltered. "What is all my fault?" His voice was light, dismissive.

"All of this, everything, all the noise in my head, the death, rage, the attack, none of this would have happened if you had just stayed out of things and left me alone. Go away, just go away!

And to Bonnie's horror, the friend that never cracked, that was always the strongest of anyone around, dissolved into sobs, sinking to her knees.

Damon looked down at her for a moment, and then spoke over her sobs.

"How about trying to use some of that anger and hatred that you say is now inside you for something positive? Get enraged and fight! You are stronger than you think and smarter than you know. I just know that this is not the real you, this limp sorrowful human carcass that is sniveling around here on Bonnie's floor. Get mad! Don't let this one event dictate to you your life, there is so much more out there, Stefan to rescue, Klaus to evade, Elijah to kill. The old Elena would have been neck deep in hare-brained schemes to deal with them, I would have to go after you and swoop in at the last moment to save the day of course… But still, come on. Isn't there the slightest idea of a plan in there? It does not even have to be a good idea; I have showed that I am even talented enough to work out a way to save you from the worst ones you can think up."

"OUT!" Bonnie snapped, stepping close to her friend.

Damon looked at her mockingly, "Why, because you do not want her to hear this? Because you want to protect her? Get real, this is not something that someone can be protected from, you deal with it and get on with your life, or you don't. It is very simple."

He re-directed his attention to Elena.

"Come on, get up." He held out his hand to her.

Elena hesitated a second, then took it. Once again she was assaulted with images and memories, she gasped and tried to pull away at the mental image of an artery spurting crimson blood, but Damon grasped her hand harder, refusing to let her go. Then there was an abrupt shift in the mental image, there were flowers? Beautiful flowers, well tended ones, wild ones, but all beautiful. Damon had been very interested in horticulture before he had been turned. A trait he had been very careful to hide from everyone. But now he was opening that memory to her, re-directing his thoughts to those that would not traumatize her further.

Unfortunately Bonnie only saw one side of things, the side where her friend was struggling to escape Damon's grasp and his refusal to release her.

In a second she had hit him with every bit of psychic power she had.

It took less than a nano-second for him to realize what Bonnie was doing.

"NO!" He cried, his face twisted in emotion.

Bonnie had a half instant of puzzlement. Damon did not react this way, he took what she inflicted on him with anger, hostility. But always pride. He never cried out or displayed fear.

He was flung across the room like a rag doll from Bonnie's pent up rage. Then she saw it.

Elena was on the ground, her body tremor and shook as she lay on the ground from where she had fallen.

"You idiot!" Damon hissed as he flashed to Elena's side.

"What happened?" Bonnie was shaken.

"She is somewhat linked to me, you figured that part out, touch makes it more intense, so when you blasted me with your witchy power, you blasted your friend as well. Way to go on helping her."

"Oh God."

Then Elena stirred, her eyes flickered, then opened.

"Ow, what happened?"

Bonnie reached out and took her hand, helping her to her feet.

"I am sorry, I did not realize you would be hit too."

Elena shook her head.

"I am fine, don't worry about it."

Damon looked relieved and breathed a sigh of relief. Elena turned her attention to him.

"I am sorry I went off on you, its just there has been so much, and it all was so overwhelming…"

Damon nodded.

"So much happening, I don't know what to do…" She addressed herself to both of them in the room.

"I know," Damon's voice was low, "But whatever happens, I do know you will be alright."

Then he left the room in a blur.

"All right. Now, let's find a way to get Stefan out." Bonnie turned to her friend and smiled, then they left the room and into the afternoon.

I was having so much trouble with this story I have decided this will be the last chapter for a while. I do not know what happened, but it was just like the story seemed to die, there were no ideas or flow, no animation to the characters. They became wooden and silent in my mind.