She has dreams sometimes that there's someone else here. At least she hopes they're only dreams. Because what she sees, or rather doesn't, chases her in her sleep. It starts with a cold heartbeat pressed against her neck, sending a chill down her spine with each heavy thump. Instinctively she knows she needs to get away from it. So in whatever empty area of the town she's in, the second she feels a shiver she makes a break for it in any direction. The thing is, whatever's chasing her is just as fast as she is.
It catches up to her. It always does.
Tonight is no different. She's bolting through the streets, madly trying to outrun it.
Bonnie.. it whispers in a hollow voice, chilling her to the bone. This is the first time the thing has ever said her name.
Bonnie. She's surrounded by this freezing feeling, whipping her head around and frantically searching for a face to pin it all to. But try as she might, she can't find a face, let alone a body.
Bon—nie...It calls out as it consumes her, blocking out the sun and sealing her in darkness. The worst part is how good it feels to hear someone else say her name. Even if it's as if she's suffocating.
'BONNIE! BONNIE! 'BONNIE!' Damon's voice screams, reaching her through the mist.
And she's up, mumbling something to that effect. Sitting bolt upright in bed before she even knows what she's doing, where she is, or what time of day it is. Morning? It must be morning, look at that sunlight coming in through the grey curtains, flapping so freely by Stefan's old writing desk. She chose Stefan's room because it was the one that felt most lived in. From the centuries-old diaries to the tiny plush teddies on the bookshelf that she knows Stefan will deny until the grave are his.
That's if she ever sees him again.
She'll see him again.
Huffing, she gathers herself onto her feet and teeters towards the bathroom— resenting Damon for waking her up so early and already forgetting the nightmare. But by the time she makes it to the kitchen, her bitterness fades away.
'I made pancakes.' Damon greets as she shuffles in, slipping into a chair.
She acknowledges it with a frown. Damon's being awfully nice since her breakdown last night. He made dinner and now he's made breakfast too. She doesn't know whether to comment on it and risk bringing up how almost human he's acting. Partly because she doesn't know how he'll react. She likes nice Damon and doesn't want to scare him away. He's a fragile creature that needs to be treated delicately. So instead she focuses on the newspaper in front of her as he sets down a plate of blueberry pancakes.
They actually look pretty tasty, and smell good too. She takes a bite. Scratch that, they taste like sweet sawdust. She doesn't want to hurt his feelings, especially since now she realises he might actually have some, so she eats them up and even musters up a thank you.
But nice Damon lasts all of a week. It might as well be a day with easy time merges into one big, messy, blob in this empty world.
Hell, Damon calls it. He keeps insisting on it and she refuses to believe him. Why would her Grams send her to hell? Surely Bonnie's not such a bad person that she'd end up there… Well, there was her stint with expression where she was technically the cause of death for all those witches but— but it wasn't her fault. She'd been manipulated by Shane.
Maybe that's why when, exactly seven days after nice Damon's first appearance, mean Damon's comments about her being useless without her magic hits so hard. When it comes to her magic, Bonnie's sensitive. She comes from a long bloodline of powerful witches and it hasn't escaped her notice that she's not exactly as strong as her ancestors. There's a possibility that she is the most useless Bennett witch.
Damon's suffocating presence gets all too much again and she's flying out the door, running to one of the only places where it didn't matter if she had a use or not. Elena's family loved her no matter what. Away from the vampire, she has some time to herself, to find out who she is without Damon.
It turns out without Damon she's paranoid.
There's a reason she sticks around him so much, and it isn't because she enjoys his company. It's because in those small pockets where she exists without him, she feels the hairs along her arms standing to attention. A tug in her gut urging her head to turn this way or that, expecting to see the thing she can feel. It wasn't this bad when they first arrived but it's growing stronger, and a lot creepier, the longer they're here.
There's never anything there but it doesn't stop the feeling.
Now, in Elena's house all alone again , it's amplified by a thousand. Bonnie refuses to be bullied by her own delusions. She ignores the goosebumps and goes about her evening of solitude. Here, there are no expectations of her. She makes an absolutely delicious dinner for herself, maybe making too much in the hopes that nice Damon might reappear with an apology, then picks out a movie to watch. The Gilbert's always used to have an awe-inspiring VCR collection displayed on the living room bookcase.
She remembers aunt Miranda only ever used to let them watch the PG 13 tapes. But once, at a sleepover, Caroline dared Bonnie to sneak up a tape rated R. Hidden by the darkness of the house, she waited until everyone but the three friends had gone to bed, Bonnie picked out the first movie with an R rating that she could grab and bolted upstairs.
In 1994, the collection isn't as immense as she remembers. It barely takes up half a shelf. But sure enough, the tape is there. Right now, the Bodyguard is only two years old. Bonnie pulls it out and plugs it into the VCR. Almost the second the movie starts playing, she's hit with this longing for home. A longing for the days where they would huddle around the tiny pink TV set in Elena's room and watch R-rated movies swiped from downstairs, at stupidly low volumes.
At an audible level, The Bodyguard isn't half bad. It's been long enough since she watched it that Bonnie's forgotten what happens so it's like a whole new film. When the end credits play, and Whitney Houston kills it with I will always love you over the rolling names, she's left breathless. Bit's of the story still cling to her and she doesn't know how to shake it off and carry on with the rest of her life.
'That's it?' She snaps. The words echo deeply around the room, despite the fact that she could have sworn she didn't say it that loud.
She replays the movie and shakes off that niggling feeling, ready to immerse herself again. On the second re-watch she picks up on something. A line.
Frank Farmer says he's seen a movie 62 times. Imagine that. Doing something over and over again even though the ending is still the same…
It's almost like being stuck in a loop…
Almost like she is.
Exactly like she is.
Waking up to May 13th 1994 looping over and over and over. Her life is a movie that is stuck replaying the same scene, the same day, the same moment.
Heavy with that realisation, Bonnie falls asleep on the couch. This time she can't tell if she's dreaming or if it's an out of body experience. She's still lying on the couch, illuminated by the crackling static screen, but she can't move.
There's someone else here. She can't see them, but she can feel them.
Damon?
No…
She's not alone and she's terrified because she can't move, let alone run away like usual.
The ghost has finally caught up to her.
Bonnie waits for something awful to happen, dread coats her stomach in anticipation. It feels like the infinity it takes for a rollercoaster to crawl up a steep hill. All she can feel is the shaky climb, notching higher and higher until…
A drop.
Bonnie plummets.
She can feel her soul falling but it feels just like floating and leaves a pleasant sting as she drifts. Toes curling at the sensation, then suddenly it's over too quickly and her eyes are fluttering open.
Morning.
It was a dream.
Of course it was a dream.
Don't be silly, she scolds herself. It all came from her own mind, so why is she so affected? Bonnie sits up, letting the blanket fall away as she uses every ounce of effort to get onto her shaky legs. God, why is she so sore?
With agonising movements she folds the blanket and goes about her morning, slowly regaining her energy, right up until the moment she realises; she never put a blanket on herself last night.
'Damon…' She wonders aloud, because who else could it have been? An involuntary replay of her dream runs through her mind and Bonnie shudders. What if it wasn't Damon? What if, and she's a little excited to think about it, there's someone else here?
Bonnie's already heading to the door, hyper-aware of the goosebumps along her arms and the creepy feeling surrounding her. With her hairs on edge, she yanks the door open and is ready to run but—
But there's Damon.
Standing in front of the door with his hand raised to knock, and humility plastered all over his face.
Oh.
It was Damon.
It was Damon! This means he's growing as a person. She should be happy. He's more human than he knows.
So why the hell is Bonnie so disappointed by the realisation that her ghost might actually just be Damon?
Suddenly she feels so stupid for ever entertaining the idea that it could have been something else— someone else— so she grabs a few essentials and joins Damon out on the porch, more than ready to leave this house and that feeling behind.