Chapter 12

I don't own the TVD.

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Bonnie's cellphone buzzed away in the pocket of her discarded jeans in a heap at the foot of her bed. The fire had burned down to a few smoking embers in the hours since they had fallen asleep, oblivious to the horrors of the rest of the world.

Someone was calling her now, and it might actually be one of the compelled granny baby sitters, so she had to be the responsible parent and check it out.

Damon squirmed his sleeping protest as she carefully removed his heavy arm from around her ribcage and allowed herself her full lung capacity again. She sighed as she edged over the side of the bed and felt the cool wooden floor on the soles of her feet.

She checked the id on her phone now, squinting at the bright LED lights. It was a number her phone recognized and a name flashed up on the screen.

Elena.

She felt two pangs of guilt stab through her, the first, because she had actually been looking forward to seeing how her daughter was doing, having never been away from her for so long before. The second, for sitting on her bed in the dorm she shared with a girl who she once called her best friend; while the ex-boyfriend of said former best friend and Bonnies secret husband lay stark naked behind her in all his un-dead glory.

Unfortunately, she didn't have time to dwell on all the implications of their soon to be love triangle. She flicked her thumb across the little icon that asked her to pick up the call and pressed the glowing screen to her ear.

"Oh my God, Damon!" came an exasperated sigh from the other end. "Where are you? I've been calling you for hours."

"Hello?" Bonnie yawned groggily, as Damon stirred beside her, kissing her shoulder and trying to pull her back down on the bed with him.

"H-hey Bonnie. Umm…" she heard Elena go silent for a second "why are you picking up Damon's phone?"

"Uh- what?"

Busted.

Suddenly, they were both wide awake.

Bonnie tilted her head back cautiously. The phone in her hand did indeed belong to Damon, hers was over there, in that other heap of discarded pants.

Round green eyes were staring into icy blue as the seconds ticked by.

"Oh God, he must have left it here when he came over to talk last night" she winced.

Stop breathing. She mouthed.

Elena was a vampire, she could hear if someone else was in the room if she wanted to. In her minds eye, Bonnie pictured Elena using her senses like a bat uses echolocation. She spoke clearly and evenly now, and Bonnie half thought to slam her thumb into the little red picture of a telephone and hang up on her.

But she didn't.

"'Lena? E? Hello? You there?"

There had to be some kind of way she could spin this. If Elena tried hard enough, she could hear the tremor in her friend's voice, if she wanted to, she could hear the position she was sitting in, the weight of the bed, the warmth in the room.

Bonnie had to outsmart her.

By the pause on Elena's side of the conversation, she knew Elena must be contemplating her next move, she was vampire fast, so Bonnie had to be faster, to keep her from figuring out by various means, that the man beside her was indeed beside her.

Bonnie stood and walked over to the dying fire, flicking her wrist as she went in order to bring it to life again.

"Why are you calling so late E? What's wrong?"

"N-nothing's wrong" she stammered "I just uh- I just needed Damon's help with something, that's all"

Now they were both hiding something.

She turned, leaning her arm on the hearth to look at her husband. Her mouth said

"Oh, yeah? Okay, well I'll track him down in the morning and you can talk to him then okay? How's Caro by the way?"

But her eyes said Am I missing something here?

Sitting on the bed in an awkward, half up half down position, Damon's undead muscles were burning. He didn't really need to breathe since he was dead.

"He came over last night?" she fished. She may be a predator, but there was nothing she could do to mask the overwhelming neediness and hurt in her voice. Bonnie couldn't help but feel a bit smug at the bizarre turn of events.

"Yeah 'Lena he came over. How's Caro?"

"Oh! Um, she turned her humanity off and made Stefan turn his off to, and she almost killed Sarah but, everything's fine now."

"Oh, glad to hear it?" she hedged.

"So, umm, what did Damon come to talk to you about?"

Inwardly, Bonnie sighed. Wasn't she ever going to give up?

"Umm, he just wanted to apologize for being a jerk" she said eying said jerk in the most pointed fashion.

"Oh," Elena paused, clearly searching for a way to glean more information out of her.

"And anyway, why do you care if he came over last night E? You're not still into him are you?"

Bonnie tried to keep her tone as light as possible, but she was staring daggers at her husband now, who was using every facial muscle he could to refute her implications.

"I- I'm not B, I just, uh, I don't know. I guess I'm still trying to figure everything out."

"Mm," came Bonnie's non-committal answer. She was starting to get irritated by Elena's need to be the center of everyone's (namely the Salvatore's but especially Damon's) lives.

"Well, from what I understand there's a lot for you to figure out, but I'm sure you'll find your way… in the morning."

"Or… we can just talk about it now."

Bonnie saw the door knob to her dorm room turning a split second before the door burst open.

A/N: You like?