Chapter 6

October 11, 2013

Dear Elena,

I'm so sorry that it's been so long since I last wrote you. Things around here have been kind of hectic. Between studying for midterms and trying to figure out this situation with Lily, I've been preoccupied. I'll try to write more often.

The good news it that the nightmares have stopped. Damon and I kind of came up with a somewhat strange solution to the problem. Apparently, deep in my subconscious...very, very, very deep...I feel safe when he's around. I know that's weird. Caroline think it's weird. You probably think it's weird, considering our history. Damon hasn't exactly been my knight in shining armor, but that time we spent in the prison world together changed our relationship. We still fight and snark and argue (mostly because I think Damon enjoys it and thinks it's funny), but underneath it all, I trust him. I let my guard down when he's there. Completely against my will, he has become my best friend.

Anyway, I'm sure you're wondering what the solution is. Please don't freak out about this because it will sound crazy when you first read it. But the nightmares stop when we sleep together. And no, I don't mean sex! He just literally sleeps in the bed next to me and keeps watch during the night. He has been very smug about it, I assure you. And besides, I wouldn't do that to you and neither would he.

This arrangement won't last forever, either. We're only doing it until I can learn to control my own mind and keeping wandering vampires out. We have been doing lessons for the past week, but it's mostly been about Damon teaching me how to breathe and block everything out, like meditation. He's actually good at it when he tries. He always seems so frenetic, like he has to be doing something at every moment, but he can be calm and quiet too.

Caroline and Stefan are still circling the drain with each other. Damon thinks we should go on a "double date" and then ditch them so they have to talk to each other. It's not his worst idea. I might agree to it.

We all miss you.

I'll do better about writing.

Bon

She had just put her pen down and closed the journal when her bedroom door swung open and Damon sauntered in. He was sipping on a blood bag when he plopped onto her bed and crossed his legs at the ankles.

"Hey there, witchy," he said.

"Is that Caroline's blood bag? You know she'll kill you if she finds out you took it."

"I'll replace it," he said, making a 'duh' face at her.

"Mm hm," she said with a roll of her eyes. She pulled off her hoodie and climbed onto the bed with her knees. She rested next to him and asked, "how was your day?"

"It was okay. I made some progress with Ric. He actually let me into his apartment. He didn't say anything for three hours, but at least he accepted my company. That's a step in the right direction, right?"

"I'd say so."

"What about you?" he asked with a nudge from his shoulder. "How was class?"

"Good. I really like my anthropology class. Maybe when this is all said and done and I'm living a normal life, I'll be an anthropology professor."

"So you're gonna teach students how to dig up fossils and stuff? Sounds boring."

"That's archaeology, moron."

"Whatever," he said with a wave of his hand. "They're both lame. You should do something fun. Like become a magician. And since you can do actual magic, you could get rich and famous and live the good life."

"That's cheating, Damon."

"Everyone who got anywhere cheated to get there, Bon-Bon."

She shook her head at him and said, "it's sad that you think that."

"And it's stupid that you don't."

She narrowed her eyes at him and she could tell that they were about to get into an argument, but that was cut off when there was a knock. They looked up to see Caroline standing in the doorway, her hand still on the door frame. She smiled at Bonnie, but frowned at Damon.

"Don't you have a home?" she asked.

"Aww, Blondie, are you jelly because I stole Bonnie as your BFF 5-eva?" he asked, wrapping an arm around Bonnie.

"No, I'm jelly because you're always here, drinking my blood bags!" She spotted the empty blood bag on the nightstand and narrowed her eyes at him. "Is that mine?"

"No," he said, very unconvincingly. Before he could try to hide it, Caroline sped to it, picked it up and pressed her lips together in annoyance.

"AB Negative. My favorite. What a coincidence, since I just...ran...out!" she said, beating Damon in the arm with the empty bag with every word.

"Ow, stop it."

"Told you," Bonnie said.

"God, you're irritating!" Caroline said. She threw the bag in his face. "You're going to start paying rent around here, or else the next time I see your ugly face, I'm breaking off the closest piece of wood and sending you to your maker."

She twirled and left the room in a huff, and Damon held his hand to his chest in exaggerated shock.

"Ugly?" he asked.

"Be nice to Caroline," Bonnie told him. "Please?"

"I've been perfectly nice."

"You've been drinking her blood bags, taking obnoxiously long showers and parading around with hardly any clothes on."

"What's your point?"

She pursed her lips at him, and then turned her body to rest on him like she usually did when it was time for sleep.

"Listen, I like having you here, but I don't want this to be a problem for Caroline. This is her home, too, and she should be comfortable. I don't want to be like those girls with really annoying boyfriends that always sleep over and leave a mess and their roommates end up hating them."

He wrapped his other arm around her and rested his chin on top of her head. "So I'm your boyfriend?" he teased.

"You know what I mean. Just be nice to her."

"Okay, fine. I'll apologize." He said the word like it burned his tongue.

"Thank you."

"Whatever," he grumbled, and she squeezed him in response. "Up." She rolled off of him so that he could disrobe down to his boxers and he turned off the lights and turned on the TV. He flipped through the channels until Bonnie made him stop on 'American Ninja Warrior,' their newest favorite show. He got back into his spot on the bed and she curled up to him. They were silent for a while, before he asked her a question.

"What were you writing when I came in?"

"Hmm?"

"You were writing in that little book on your desk. Is that homework or something?"

"Oh, no, that's my journal for Elena. She wanted me to write down everything that's happening so when she wakes up, it will feel like she was here. She was especially interested in hearing about you."

"Hmm," he said, as his finger traced up and down a small patch of the skin on her arm. "What all have you told her?"

"Everything," she said with a shrug.

"You told her about this? About our arrangement?"

"Yeah." She looked up at him and placed her chin on his chest. "Why, do you think I shouldn't have?"

"No. I mean, yes. I mean, no I don't think you should keep it from her or anything. I'm just wondering if, you know, she'd be mad about us sleeping together every night."

Bonnie thought about it for a second and shook her head. "I don't think she'd be mad. If I thought that, I wouldn't be doing it. You know that. I think she would be happy that you're helping me and that her two favorite people are getting along. She always wanted us to be close, and now we are."

"And it only took her dying for us to get there."

He said in his usual joking, sarcastic tone, but she could tell from the look on his face that it bothered him. She reached up and held his cheek. "Are you okay?" she asked quietly. "I know we haven't talked about Elena much, but I don't want you to think that we can't."

"There's nothing to talk about. She's not here and you are, and I wouldn't change that. You deserve to be here."

She smiled softly. "But you miss her."

"Yeah."

She nodded in understanding and snuggled him again. She gave him a reassuring squeeze and said, "I miss her, too." They fell into silence for a while, other than a few comments about the competitors on American Ninja Warrior, until Bonnie popped her head again.

"Hey, do you want to go to a Halloween party with me?"

"I'm a little old for a children's party, don't you think?"

"Like that's stopped you before."

"Touche."

"Caroline's been talking about it a lot and I was thinking that this could be our opportunity to secretly hook her up with Stefan. We'll all go and get drunk and we can kind of push them together, you know?"

"I suppose that's not a horrible idea. As long as we don't have to have matching outfits."

"Oh, come on, that's half the fun. You can't just show up in your leather jacket and claim that you're James Dean or a brooding vampire. I hope you're not that unimaginative."

"Fine, what do you want to go as? Ketchup and mustard?"

"No," she said with a laugh. "Something fun, like...I don't know. Frankenstein and the bride of Frankenstein."

"So first, I was your annoying boyfriend and now, you're my bride. Are you trying to tell me something?"

"You wish."

"Okay, I'll go with you, on one condition." She raised an eyebrow. "Wear something slutty."

...

The Halloween Party was held at a bar near the Whitmore campus. The place was packed with drunk, sweaty co-eds dressed like everything from Batman to a slug. Stefan leaned against the bar, scanning the crowd. When Damon told him about the party, he had hesitated at first, only because he'd been to enough drunken Halloween parties to last several lifetimes. When he realized that Caroline would be present, though, he changed his mind. He didn't put much effort into a costume, which she noticed as soon as she walked up to him.

"And what exactly are you supposed to be?" she asked with a standard Caroline you-didn't-live-up-to-my-expectations frown.

He ran a hand over his leather jacket and then through the hair that he had dyed black for the night.

"Damon," he answered.

Caroline chortled. "Wow, really?"

"He didn't seem to think it was funny, either."

She turned to rest her elbows on the counter while they quietly people-watched. He followed her gaze to the couple in the middle of the dance floor: Bonnie and Damon. They were somewhat hard to miss, given that Bonnie had a huge black wig with a white streak down the middle of it and Damon was painted green with fake bolts coming out of his neck. They were dancing to some slow song that both of them apparently knew the words to, because they were singing and laughing and looking just as intoxicated as everyone else.

"I can't believe he actually wore that costume," Stefan said.

"Please, Bonnie's got him wrapped around her finger," Caroline said. "He would have worn a diaper if she told him to. What I can't believe is that they haven't gotten tired of each other yet."

"They're good together," he said with a little nod. "They're very yin and yang, you know? They have a good balance."

"I guess. Not all of us need a daily dose of Damon, though."

"Well, if he's driving you crazy, you could always come stay with me at the boarding house."

"Is that a good idea?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

"Of course. I'll be a perfect gentleman."

The slow smile on her face told him that she would consider it. She bumped him with her shoulder, and he returned the gesture. Their eyes fell on Bonnie and Damon again. Damon's hands were on her hips and hers were around his neck. They talked about something but it was too much other noise for Stefan to hear it.

"I guess he's not that bad," Caroline said after a few minutes. "Now that he stopped drinking my blood bags. I came home one day and he had made up my bed and cleaned the whole apartment. It was kind of sweet." She pointed a finger at Stefan. "Don't tell him I said that."

He chuckled and held his hands up in a silent gesture of agreement. He tipped his chin toward the dancing couple.

"They're kind of cute together, aren't they?" he asked.

Caroline sighed and nodded. "I hate to admit it, but yes."

"You think they'll ever...?" He didn't finish the sentence but he wiggled his hand around.

"Oh yeah, definitely," she said confidently. "I give it six months, tops."

Stefan laughed. "I don't know about six months. I was thinking more like a year, maybe."

"You haven't seen them sleep together. They'll be lucky to last six months."

"You want to put a wager on that?" he asked.

Her dimples appeared when she smiled slyly. "What kind of wager?"

"Well, if they do anything together between now and...what's six months from now...April 30?"

"May 1. April and February are short months."

"Fine, May 1st. If they do anything with each other between now and May 1st, you win. But if they mess around any time between May 2nd and Halloween of next year, I win."

She raised an eyebrow. "Define 'mess around.'"

He thought for a minute. "Sex, obviously."

"Obviously."

"But other than that, I'd say kissing. Like real kissing, not pecks on the lips."

Caroline narrowed her eyes in contemplation. "What do I get if I win?"

"What do you want?"

"Shoes," she said with hesitation. "Outrageously expensive, impractical shoes."

"Okay," he said with a laugh. "But if I win, I want a date." Her eyebrows rose. "One date. You and me. No guilt allowed." He offered his hand. "Deal?"

She looked at Bonnie and Damon again, who appeared to be wrapped up in their own little bubble, and then took Stefan's hand. "Easiest pair of shoes I ever got."

Meanwhile, Bonnie pulled away from Damon for the first time in the two hours that they had been tearing it up on the dance floor.

"Hey, where are you going?" he asked.

"Bathroom. Be right back."

"Fine, but I can't promise some other lady won't swoop in and take your place."

"Yeah right, as if you could replace me," she said with a smile.

She pushed and squeezed her way through the crowd of people until she found the restroom all the way on the other side of the club. She pushed the door open and was happy to find that there was no wait. In fact, it appeared that she was the only person there. She did her business in the stall and after washing her hands, she looked at herself in the mirror and smiled. Her makeup was still pretty much intact and her wig looked good, as ridiculous as it was. She'd worn the tightest black dress she could find, Damon's orders, of course.

But it wasn't really the outfit or even the party that was making her smile. It was that she felt free and loose for the first time in a while. She was sure that the two Long Island Iced Teas had quite a bit to do with that, but it felt good to not worry so much, for once. She was happy to just be a college kid at a party, drinking a little too much and having fun with her friends. Normalcy was the one thing she craved and having a little taste of it was intoxicating.

"You've been avoiding me, Bonnie."

Bonnie's happy thoughts crashed like a broken mirror as she jumped at the sound of someone else's voice. She spun around and found Lily only a few feet away from her. Her heart thumped at a million miles a minute as the older woman smiled at her.

"I've been trying to reach you, but you're blocking me from your mind. That's awfully rude," Lily said.

"What are you doing here?" Bonnie asked with a shaky voice. "What do you want?"

"You know what I want. You."

"I don't want to be one of your witchpires."

"I know that," Lily said with a little shrug. "And that's why I haven't already forced you to drink my blood and killed you. Because I want you to come to me on your own. I want you to want it, Bonnie. We'd be a much better team if you come voluntarily."

Bonnie briefly closed her eyes and shook her head, hoping that maybe it was all a drunk hallucination or that somehow she was dreaming. But when she opened her eyes, Lily was still there, looking eerily calm.

"I realize that when I approached you about this in your dreams, I used the wrong motivation. I realize now that you're not the type of girl who's after power or material things. Becoming a heretic to grow stronger and gain unimaginable power doesn't appeal to you, does it?" She didn't give Bonnie the chance to answer. "But I know what does. Eternal love. You've been abandoned by all your family and most of your friends at some point or another. You just want some kind of real, true, everlasting love. Isn't that right, Bonnie?"

Bonnie pressed her lips together and said through gritted teeth, "you don't know me."

"Don't I? I know that your mother left you when you were a child. I know that your father was never around. I know that your grandmother is dead, your best friend is in a coma that she will only wake from upon your death, and I know you've never had a meaningful romantic relationship in your young life."

Lily came closer and Bonnie scooted back as far as she could, but it didn't stop Lily from touching her cheek.

"I could give that to you," she whispered. "I could give you that thing you crave the most: companionship that will last for your entire life. I could give him to you, Bonnie."

Bonnie didn't know who the "him" was that Lily was referring to, but she didn't want to find out. She smacked the woman's hand down and pushed her away.

"Get away from me."

She sent a powerful aneurysm Lily's way, but the vampire didn't even quiver. Bonnie tried again, with the same result.

Lily only smiled in amusement. "As you can see, I've become very tolerant of your little headache spells. I've had some of my friends practice them on me for the last few weeks so I could prepare for this encounter with you." She shook her head. "It's a shame, really. All that magic, all that power pent up inside of you, and you have no clue what to do with it."

She reached for the door, opened it, and then said over her shoulder, "let me know when you're ready to talk."

Bonnie stood in a scared, shocked stupor for a few moments before she pulled herself together and hightailed it out of the bathroom. She ran straight into Damon, who held her arms and moved back to look at her.

"I was about to check to make sure you hadn't fallen in," he said. He got a good look at her and his flags immediately went up. "Hey, are you okay?"

"She was in there with me," she said. "Lily was there."

Damon's head snapped around in all directions to spot her, but he didn't. He turned his attention back to Bonnie and looked her over a few times. "Did she hurt you?"

"No, no, I'm okay. I just..."

She shook her head, and he pulled her into for a hug. She embraced him tightly and asked him to take her home. He held her closely and when they found Caroline and Stefan, Damon explained the situation. Caroline was ready to leap into action right then, but Bonnie assured her that she just wanted to go home. She got into the car with Damon and didn't say a word all the way to the apartment. Even after they were inside, she was silent as she removed her makeup and wig and outfit. She curled underneath the blanket on her bed as Damon scrubbed the green paint off his face and changed clothes.

"Are you okay?" he asked again as he climbed into the bed with her.

"Yeah," she said quietly.

"Well that was a test and you failed. You're obviously not okay. Are you going to tell me what happened or are you just gonna lay there and sulk all night?"

She pressed the back of her head into the pillow and stared up at the ceiling.

"I'm not strong enough," she admitted in a low voice. He propped himself up on an elbow and rested on his side so she had his full attention. "I tried to give Lily an aneurysm and she didn't even flinch. She told me that I have all this power and I don't know what to do with it, and she's right. I don't. I've been making it up as I go along. She could have turned me in that bathroom tonight and there would have been nothing I could do to stop it."

"So we'll train," Damon said. "I'll train you to be the baddest witch that ever walked this planet."

"What do you know about training witches?"

"Please. I know all about it, Bon-Bon. Don't you worry."

She cracked a small smile. "Yoga, meditation, and witch training. You're just a jack of all trades, aren't you?"

"And a master of all, too," he said. He hooked his arm around her and turned her body away from him. He pulled her into him so that they were spooning, Bonnie being the little spoon, of course. "Now forget her and get some rest. Tomorrow, I make a Bennett out of you."