It was nearing 2 o'clock in the morning and yet Bonnie Bennett was no closer to falling asleep than had she been on a caffeine rush. Instead she lay there in her bed, silently staring up at the ceiling, willing herself to fall asleep and to not reflect, to not reason with herself and above all, to not think about him.

But it was to no avail.

Like every other time, regardless of how hard she tried, Bonnie's mind drifted back to blue-grey eyes and the brown, lightly tousled hair that had haunted her dreams for longer than she had cared to admit. She had told herself time and time again that it was nothing. That she was only thinking about him simply because everything she had experienced in the past year, he had been a significant part of and therefore it was only natural that he popped up in her mind every now and again. She wasn't necessarily thinking about him but rather he just happened to appear in her thoughts.

She had lost count of the days that she had gone out of her way to change tracks simply so she wouldn't have to see him. So she didn't have to feel the hatred, along with another odd, unfamiliar emotion, bubbling up inside her at the mere sight of him. She knew very well that he wanted to talk to her and apologise for what he had done but no apology in the world could make up for everything he had put her through. On top of everything, despite trying to say he was sorry, he had done nothing to try and get her back so why on Earth should she just accept that he was a good person now? But regardless of what Bonnie did, he just seemed to appear everywhere she went, like an irksome shadow.

After all, avoiding Kai Parker was far easier said than done.

Sighing, Bonnie turned over and pulled up her covers higher so they nestled just under her chin. She had only returned home a week ago and despite having longed to be back, she couldn't help but notice that she now felt like a stranger in her own town. Things that had once felt so familiar now seemed so foreign to her that she no longer knew what to think. She kept reminding herself that this was home and that she was safe with her friends and she only felt this way because she had been away for so long, isolated away from humanity. Tomorrow she would meet her friends and they would discuss what they were going to do about Kai and things would be fine. Things would go back to how they once were and that's what she would hold on to. That was the only thing she could hold on to.

The next day was a wet, stormy one as Bonnie ran across from her car to the door of the Salvatore mansion. She rapped on the door hard and Damon opened it almost immediately, allowing her to step inside and let the warmth envelop her.

"Whoa there," Damon said, smirking. "You look like a half drowned cat. Careful Bon-Bon if you catch a cold, Caroline will force-feed you her special soup and that wouldn't go down well for anyone."

"Shut up Damon," she said through gritted teeth as she clutched her jacket tightly around her. "Or I'll tell Caroline and you'll have a stake through your heart faster than you can say 'ouch.'"

"Bonnie," the bodiless voice of Elena wrung out across the hall. "Is that you?"

"Yeah 'Lena," Bonnie called back. "It's me. Hold on I'm coming."

Both she and Damon headed down the hall and into the living room to find a group of people sat silently on the couches. Aside from them, Matt, Caroline, Stefan and Enzo were also present.

"So," Damon began clapping his hands together and looking at them all. "What's the plan?"

"Well, it would help," Stefan said indignantly. "If everyone knew what the plan was for. I mean usually, when you need a plan, you also need a topic to base it off of."

"About Kai," he said irritably. Bonnie's heart did a slight leap but she dismissed almost instantly. "What are we going to do about the idiot? He's been lurking around town like he owns the damn place and I thought we had all decided he needed to go. So why the fuck is he still here?"

"Well, it would be stupid to just go rushing at Kai, flailing our arms and screaming bloody murder," Bonnie interjected. "I mean we've all seen what he's capable of and we've all seen what he's done. We need to be perfectly clear on what we're going to do before we do it or it could all fall apart within a matter of moments."

"Bonnie's right," Stefan said, nodding. "If a group of supernatural creatures were a game for the guy, I doubt we're going to be of much use fi we go into this blind."

"He needs to die," it was Elena who spoke this time. "Just because he was in hell, he feels the need to put everyone else through it too."

"So we go and behead the dick," Damon shrugged. "He's got it coming."

"Are you deaf?" Caroline remarked, glaring at him. "Did you honestly not hear a word of what we just said? We'll all be dead and buried within 2 hours if we do anything like that."

"Caroline's right," Bonnie said, pacing the room. "Just give it time. We'll talk things over but we can't make any rash decisions just yet. Kai's clever, so let's not bite off more than we can chew." But even as Bonnie said this she felt an unwelcome upwelling of remorse, or was it guilt (?), at the thought of the man. She knew she had nothing to feel guilty for, after all Damon was right. Kai had it coming after everything he had done to all of them and all the innocent lives he had taken. So why could she still not help but feel that this was wrong?

"So Bonnie," said Enzo, frowning. It was the first time he had spoken to her directly since she had returned. It was just him, Bonnie, Elena, and Damon in the room now. Elena and Damon seemed quite engrossed in their own conversation on the other side of the room and were paying no attention to Enzo.

"Yeah?"

"How come you're so ready to kill this guy?"

"Excuse me," Bonnie gaped at him, flabbergasted. Surely he couldn't have just asked what she thought he had asked.

"This Kai person. Why are you so ready for him to be dead and gone?"

"Oh I don't know, maybe it's because he put me, put us all, through hell! I would have made it out a lot quicker if he hadn't left me there on my own. He made my life a living misery and if he has his way, he'll do the same for everyone else living anywhere near us."

"That's perfectly understandable but he also almost died trying to get you out. Doesn't that count for something? I mean I don't really understand the whole Luke thing but I think he was acting out of his own guilt and-"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Bonnie said loudly, holding up her hands to stop him. "Hold on and backtrack for a second. What do you mean 'he almost died' trying to get me out?"

Enzo looked at her confused and it was like he was looking at her properly for the first time. Damon and Elena had fallen silent at her loud voice and were now looking over curiously.

"I thought it was rather self-explanatory…when the Gilbert boy went to fetch you, wasn't Kai the one who helped him? I mean I wasn't actively there but from what I've heard, it got pretty intense. He barely had enough life left in him but he still performed the spell. For you."

"No…"Bonnie gaped at him, shaken. "No, no one told me that. No one told me anything. Damon?" She turned to him now, eyes wide and thoughts cascading through her head. "Is this true? Did Kai…did Kai try and help me?"

"Well he-"Damon began but Elena cut him off.

"Does it matter? The guy's a lunatic Bonnie! He's the reason that you were there in the first place."

"That," Bonnie said, her teeth gritting together. "Is not what I asked. I'm asking did Kai try and get me home? And did he almost die in the process?"

"Yeah," Damon said softly, almost hesitantly. "Yeah he did but-"

"But nothing!" Bonnie didn't know why but she felt a surge of anger rushing forward at this new piece of information. "Why did you feel the need to withhold this information from me?"

"Because," it was Enzo who spoke. "They would then have to admit that instead of meeting you halfway, they decided to reminisce about their past for a little while longer and have a little snog-fest."

"So," Bonnie could barely contain the fury that threatened to overwhelm her. "So that day when you were supposed to meet me…"

"It went wrong Bonnie," Elena pleaded. "It all went wrong and we're sorry we couldn't be there when you needed us but that does not make Kai a good person! He was only doing it because Luke-"

"Luke may be a part of Kai, but that does not make him Kai himself!" She took a deep raspy breath. "I'm not excusing Kai's action in the slightest but that does not explain why you felt the need to not tell me this."

"We told you!" Elena seemed close to tears now. "We didn't think that it would make a difference-"

"Well it does!" Bonnie fumed, her anger bursting out. "It makes a difference Elena and I'm the one who gets to decide how it affects me. Not you. Not Damon. Me."

Bonnie yanked her jacket from the couch furiously and pulled on the arms with a powerful ferocity before headed towards to door.

"Bonnie," Damon called after her. "Bonnie where are you going? Bonnie!"

"Don't come near me! I just need to be away from a while so just stay away from me for now."

And with that she flung open the door and headed off outside into the storm.

She didn't know why she was doing it. She knew that it was stupid and reckless behaviour which could potentially end very badly and she could end up hurt. But at that moment, as the rain pounded on the car windows, all she could think about was the fact that she had to find him. She didn't know what she was going to say or why it even mattered as much as it did but all she knew was that it did. Somehow, it made a world of difference.

Bonnie drove the car fast across the roads and though she wasn't sure how, she just seemed to know where to go. She paid no attention to the blur of lights as she sped away from the other cars and onto the rocky road of the forest terrain. The rain was coming down harder than ever now and though there was no lightning or thunder, she knew it was only a matter of time before they added to the mix. She drove as far as was possible before parking her car and stepping out and allowing the icy sheets of water to hit. But she didn't focus on the cold now. She didn't have enough time for that. Instead, she clenched her teeth, pulled her jacket tighter and rushed off further into the trees. She carried on like that for a while, keeping her head down until she knew she was closer to her destination. Pushing aside twigs and branches that caught on her clothes and hair, she trudged on further into the forest, trying not to slip on the muddy ground. It was after a 10 minute walk that she found the clearing where she was supposed to be. She looked up-

And there he was.

He stood a bit further away, facing away from her, twirling a stick in mid-air using his hand. He was dry from head to foot and the rain seemed to fall short of him as he stood there without a care in the world. He knew someone was there though because at the sound of footsteps, he turned his head almost immediately to face Bonnie. And the mere sight of him, seeing the surprise and welcome in his face was enough to make something break inside of her. She rushed forward and though he looked confused, he made no attempt to stop her. Closer and closer she came to him.

"Bonnie I-"

She grabbed his shirt and pulled him down in a ferocious kiss. She hadn't anticipated doing this but it just felt right. He almost seemed to freeze in shock at first but within a matter of moments, his entire body language changed as he relaxed his usually rigid posture and one arm snaked around her waist, pulling her closer whilst the other coiled tightly in her hair. She wound both arms behind his neck and the intensity of the kiss almost threw her of balance. Shivers coursed through her body that had nothing to do with the cold.

Kai kissed her with an almost needy passion, clung to her like he couldn't get enough of the woman in his arms. Their lips captured each other in an urgent, desperate manner and it was as if their lips and tongues were speaking words they had been too scared to say and Bonnie realised that perhaps, this right here was what she was most afraid of. But it was also everything she wanted. The man who held her was what she wanted. And that scared the shit out of her.

Then slowly, hesitantly she pulled back her lips and he reluctantly let her. Her arms were still around her neck and he was still clutching her tightly to him. Green eyes met the bluey-grey ones that had haunted her thoughts for the past couple of months.

"What was that for?" He grinned at her, his eyes scanning her face in awe.

"For trying to save me. For feeling guilt. For showing some sign that you can be saved."

Kai's eyes burned into her as he looked at her in a way that she had never seen him do before. It was scrutinising kind of look but it didn't make her feel uncomfortable. He leaned in once more and captured her lips in another kiss, this time being more delicate and taking his time as he savoured every kiss and let his hands roam over her body and she allowed him to. For the first time in what felt like forever, she let herself succumb to emotion and simply enjoy the present. What was coming would come and they would meet it when they had to. But for now this was enough.