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The cathedral is teeming with the energy of family and friends, humans and witches, vampires and wolves, all dressed to the nine, old women in colorful hats with perfumed necks and wrists, stockings even in the heat, old men in fedoras with polished canes, young men in their sunday best, and some in their freshest sneakers, young women in elaborate braids, curls, lace-fronts and fades. And the babies, the many babies who are bounced from lap to lap or carried out to the front if they can't quiet down, their small voices are the only noises that shrieked out over the whispers of the crowd.
That's her. That's her right there.
It is Mama T's funeral but Bonnie is the star of the show.
Pulling the gloves from her sweaty hands, Bonnie wonders if there was a funeral for her when she passed. Even if there wasn't a body, as Klaus detailed to her where he found her, but if the people who loved her still had a service to remember her; picking out a pretty casket to hold things of hers they wanted to give her, maybe laying her favorite flower, peonies, on top of the glossy lid when it was time. She thinks of this while she still holds onto Klaus's fingers in her lap, oblivious to Elijah's chagrin.
The whispers grow louder and louder, bombarding Elijah and Klaus's ears.
Klaus yanks his fingers from her grasp and Elijah drapes a protective arm around her, sliding closer to her, forcing her into an intimacy for the onlookers and Bonnie settles that she probably didn't have a funeral. As the priest recites the Catholic rites of death, she stares at an altar of oranges at the foot of the all white casket. Who mourns me?
The priest asks for loved ones to come and speak but to please be conscious of the time. A line quickly forms at the mic and Bonnie becomes conscious of the whispers, not that she can hear them, but she can sense the shift of the air around her, feel pairs beyond pairs of eyes on her, and not the curiosity of the stream of elders she greeted with Elijah, the energy behind these irises is of something sinister and dark, it makes her move ever so slightly, makes her fidget with the gloves in her lap, but in that energetic melee' of disgust and jealousy there is an energy that stands out to her, and she is certain that it belongs to the particular pair behind her that is burning a laser beam into her nape.
She caresses the back of her neck and spins her head around briefly to see the line of vampires behind her, white ones, black ones and the colors in between, and although they were definitely upset by her presence, none of them possessed the burning gaze. She exhales a breath she doesn't realize she has been holding when she comes face to face with dark almond shaped eyes on a handsome smiling face.
The handsome smiling face from the locket.
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"I am the great- great grandniece of Therese Guidry, who we all know by Mama T." Antoinette Guidry is covered in reddish brown freckles that match her sandy colored hair, springy curls that frame her symmetrical face from under her head wrap. She is dressed in a simple black dress and flat shoes but she has on big silver earrings in the shape of the continent of Africa. She is the color of manila paper with a full pink pout and serious eyes. She couldn't be more than twenty years old but she speaks loudly and stands with her chest out with all the gumption of a grown ass woman.
"Mama T was like a mother to me and I know she had that title for a lot of us here. I know I'm not the only one. She was a child of God and a woman with courage and character and a heart with room for all of us. She loved us. She raised me to be woman you see standing right here. Like you, I come from the same place that has tried to drown so many of us, but with Mama T there, we always had someone to offer us a life raft. She was our hope. She always taught us we had to choose better, that we had to look out for one another and that eventually we would have to fight for what is ours."
Antoinette's words do not fall upon deaf ears.
The priests walk up and down the aisles shaking the ornate incense holders billowing smoke of myrrh over the congregation as if they were blessing the words of Antoinette.
"Let us pray."
Those who could still genuflect, took to their knees and those who couldn't, stood with their eyes closed in prayer, except for Elijah, Klaus and the handsome smiling face behind Bonnie.
At the end, the priest invited all of the family and friends to come and comfort one another at the repass for Therese Guidry that was to be held on the shores of Bayou St. John.
There wasn't a choir, but those in the congregation who could sing began to belt. Take My Hand Precious Lord, as they each passed by the white casket, saying their last goodbyes to Mama T.
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"I thought you said she was Klaus's fiancé, but now you telling me she's yours?"
"Please do not take my duplicity in this matter as a feature of my character. I would and will do anything to protect Bonnie but….
Klaus listens in on his brother explain the switcheroo of Bonnie's lover, half annoyed, half amused as he watches his brother's hand slide down Bonnie's back as the trio stammers through the introductions.
"We lost her and got you. I guess Mama T had her reasons…"
Klaus suppresses a smirk when a firm hand settles on his shoulder. Klaus. It's a familiar voice. A voice he hasn't heard in decades. And before he looks up at the face of his child, he smiles, because he remembers a time when he commanded that that voice speak in a way that the world would listen. And now..
"Marcellus."
Anyone who didn't know better would look over at the two vampires and figure that they loved each other very much so and that there was no way in hell that both were plotting the demise and death of the other, but this is the Mikaelson's we are talking about and love and hate are of the same coin.
Marcel beams, showing all of his pearly whites, "Just Marcel, Klaus."
And although Klaus's knows it is supernaturally impossible for his protege to have grown an inch, or to have gained an ounce, or to have formed fine lines of wisdom around the eyes, he stands in front of his creation and knows that the vampire has changed though, emotionally, psychologically, mentally…atomically. There was no need for an outward change of appearance.
This Marcel is not the Marcel of yore.
Klaus grips Marcel's shoulders and there is something in his face, something that Bonnie has seen before when she has caught him staring at her too long, a look she hasn't given a name, but a look Elijah has seen before, rarely, but still recognizable over the millennia.
Elijah places his own hand over his brother's resting on Marcel's shoulder. "Niklaus, you want to introduce Bonnie to Marcellus?"
"It's just Marcel now, " Klaus says before Marcel can correct Elijah.
The nudging from Elijah breaks Klaus's trance, and Elijah's observes his brother come back to himself.
Klaus stretches his mouth into a twisted smile, "It would be an honor. She is after all the reason for this funeral." He states, "Marcel, please allow me to introduce you to Bonnie, soon to be Mikaelson by way of marriage to our dear Elijah."
Marcel reaches for Bonnie's hand and brushes his mouth against her bare knuckles and she looks up into those eyes that burned her skin earlier thinking so you're the reason for the splinter of the family, for the fire, for Mama T, for me.
"Marcel is an old friend of the family," Elijah says smiling. And she expects the smile from her charming betrothed but she notices that everyone was all smiles, even the vampires who crowded behind Marcel. Smiles hiding fangs and daggers behind backs, this how business was dealt with and Bonnie stands among their frozen smiles and dares to to frown.
"I've heard a lot about you, " She states honestly because she never learned to be comfortable with a lie; she doesn't know this but she wasn't much for dishonesty in her old life either.
Her admission causes a shuffling of feet and stares from Marcel's minions but Marcel's laugh fills the back of the church and he tells her he won't bother asking if what she heard was good things.
"I wish I could say that they were," Bonnie says, which makes Elijah interrupt her from saying anything else. "It has been a very long day and I think its best if I get her home, we have a lot to do as far as prepar-
But Marcel grabs her hand again so quickly and unceremoniously, that her breath hitches, and she stumbles forward a bit closer to the vampire king, and he lifts her wrist to his nose and inhales with a smile, turning their awkward meeting even more awkward as Klaus and Elijah edge themselves in between her and the young vamp. And Marcel grins, beaming from brother to brother, and apologizes for his crude behavior. Marcel bows slightly to Bonnie and explains that he just wanted to understand why Elijah did what he did, but he understands now.
Elijah was always falling for beautiful things.
Ensconced by no less than twenty or so vampires, Marcel turns to leave and Bonnie feels the burning sensation again and doesn't quite discern if it was his magic or from his witch, who she never saw, and doesn't see among the gaunt faces and before the doors close behind him, he says softly "Always and forever, right?". And with that the vampire king's words linger with the three of them in the church with Mama T's flower laden casket.
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Okay so I have another chapter to plow through for plot purposes and then I think its time for Bonnie and Klaus to show each other how they feel about one another.