BKBKBK
The Other Side wasn't Heaven or Hell.
It wasn't a final decision. It was a waiting room; a dreary lobby created by a scorned distant relative to deprive supernaturals of an afterlife and have them instead exist on earth as phantom observers; to be in the world but not be of the world.
And this is where Bonnie had so many times voiced she would gladly go for the sake of the happiness and safety of her friends, behind the scenes of the living, who smiled, who cried, who made love and fought, who got to experience life while she subsisted in the shadow of it.
For three months she had convinced herself she was content following her loved ones, orbiting their lives, pretending their trials and tribulations were her own; it was make-believe, it was fantasizing color in a present of only gray.
She actually assumed she could continue on like this: months, years, centuries.
But then she witnessed the murder of her father. His throat slit from ear to ear.
And she stopped following the living; stopped imagining that the lives she watched were her own.
She was dead.
And the hopeless realization she was trapped with her loneliness made her state unbearable.
So when the gatekeeper, Elegba, found her; prostrate and broken at the gravesite of her Father, he bellowed she had a summoner and the ground underneath her began to seep blood in a circle around where she laid.
He presented the summoner's vow.
And she instinctively accepted, fastened her entire being around that promise; clung to each word and let it lead her out of the darkness.
BKBKBKBK
"This. Is. Klaus."
She blinks slowly up at him from her supine position, and before she recognizes him, before she realizes her savior has been her tormentor; he swiftly leans in, her lips grazing his stubbled chin and he slides his cold, broad hands under her bare thighs and neck, lifting her to her feet.
Only a breath between them, she squints at him, and the delicate skin between her eyes creases, and she sees the world for the first time. The Original Hybrid. His red lips, wide animated mouth, and his white throat. She concentrates on the thick red and blue veins traversing down the side of his neck, and how the knot at the center of his throat moves with each formulated sound.
"What is wrong with her?"
She looks down at the length of herself, her breasts and dark brown nipples, and naked arms and legs, she curiously runs her fingers down the firm middle of her chest, over the taunt stretch of skin at her stomach, and she glances up, her dark hair ashen from the dirt ground, curling over her shoulders, shrouding her oblique gaze.
He is staring at her. His blue eyes black in the torchlight.
"She been dead cher', give her a time. She a newborn."
The second voice came from behind her. The timbre was not as dark as his, and she tries to turn to look for the source of the voice but wobbles, and the hybrid pulls her closer to him, to where her body is pressed securely onto his. And her lips get caught on the cotton of his t-shirt as she attempts to make sound come from her own mouth; but what escapes is a raspy whisper of air. And she feels his fingers, holding the back of her neck, the nails digging into her flesh, and she moans, wriggles from discomfort, and the fingertips loosen their grip, and hesitantly, they begin to caress her, like the hand was unsure if it could touch her in such a way.
"She does not remember me."
His chest vibrates when he speaks; her ear is on his sternum and she is enchanted by the hollow deep sound; she can feel his voice in her own body, and she knows she is alive.
"Souls been here since the start, cher', they don't remember blips and you a blip. When she get settled in her bones she will tho', just you wait."
BKBKBKBK
He slides his grey t-shirt up and over his head and tells her, "Hold up your arms," and she gives him a inquisitive look, and he notices in her olive green eyes the moment she understands his command, and her lithe arms, the color of confections, like butterscotch or caramel, reach upward without a question of why and Klaus lips curl into a smirk as he briefly considers her lapse of memory as a fortune.
'You have no idea what I can do now.'
Those were her words to him when she had trapped him for three days in the Gilbert living room, and he recalls vividly, his grief over his murdered brother, his lust for the deaths of Elena and Jeremy Gilbert, and his determined pledge to tear the little witch limb from limb.
He remembers; even if she cannot.
And now, she belonged to him.
He rolls the shirt in his hands to the opening, placing the hole over her head, and he skims the warm curve of her neck as he untucks her hair from under the collar; and he is methodically planning how to use her. How she will be his shield and sword, the sharp blade to sever the head of his enemy, and he is tugging her arms through the shirt like a father does a child when he is startled by her placing her soft palms on either side of his face; her thumb smoothing over his bottom lip.
He stumbles out of her curious embrace, his eyes narrowing on the little witch who looks sheepishly down at her hands.
Mama T hobbles over to stand in between them; she has her hand on her hip, and she points to Bonnie and asks, "What she do?"
"Nothing," He scowls, "Nothing at all."
"Then why you scared?"
He stretches his mouth into a smile at Mama T and at the pair of green eyes that follow him, "If anything, I am amused," He says, stalking the perimeter of their ritual, sniffing the air scented with magic, that gunpowder smell, and it heightens his paranoia.
He runs his hands through this thick hair, and calls Mama T a fool for not hiding their location with a spell. Here they were, open kill, and he imagines how many soldiers Marcel would send to take down an old witch, and how many more would he send if he has the knowledge that Klaus is with her.
There was a clearing in the woods that they had trampled on their way to the bayou, and Klaus hushes both women, even though neither has said a word, and he peers through the dark, seeing only shadows, and he shoots a look at the elder witch, and asks if Bonnie's amnesia has affected her magic.
Mama T faces the hybrid, his strong brow set and his eyes hooded with that constant suspicion that has now reached a frenzy, and she chooses her words carefully, and calmly says, "Its inside of her when she ready," and she pats Bonnie's hands in her own, and encourages him to look at the young witch, "She full of magic, you can't see?"
And he looks at Bonnie in his shirt, hanging on her like a loose nightgown, and she did not look ethereal, there was no phosphorus spark, she was made of more than mystical elements like light and air.
A creamy shoulder is peeking out from where the shirt collar drapes, and he can smell her, the mix of his own bodily scent and cologne, and the salt of sweat breaking out over her skin, under her arms, and the intoxicating musk from between her legs, and the aroma of her earthy blood from the mosquito biting her neck, pulling her blood into itself until it was drunk and full.
He tears his gaze away from the girl, and informs Mama T that they need to leave.
"A blessing before we go," Mama T says, turning to the young witch, gently pressing down on her shoulders for her to genuflect. And picking up a bit up dirt, she spits into her palm, making a paste and she rubs the clay into the sign of the cross on Bonnie's forehead.
"Blessed be the woman who perseveres under trouble, because when she has stood the test, she will receive the crown of life that God has promised."
And Bonnie looks up at the deep coppery wrinkles in Mama T's face, the weathered lines and cracked lips, and she closes her eyes momentarily as Mama T continues to pray over her, and when she opens them, the old woman is replaced by a handsome young woman, her face like a shiny new penny, and as the fearless priestess chants the name of God over her, she looks past her, searching for the one she saw when she first opened her eyes, and she finds him, and she stares at his gleaming chest, and at the ink swallows tattooed on his pale skin, and how their wings began to beat and flutter.
BKBKBKBK
After he had dropped off Mama T at her home, he had asked Bonnie to sit in the front, and she obliged silently, opening and closing car doors to move to the front passenger seat, and she sat inches from him, the gear shift separating them with her slender hands folded and his shirt barely covering her rounded thighs and lap.
And he thinks how he never considered the witch; which was reasonable as it is hard to admire how attractive someone is when they are trying to kill you, but he is still a man, and Bonnie is significant to look at. Her skin, and eyes, and her scent that has flooded the front of the car is arousing; the amalgamation of him and her, and he thinks about rolling down the windows, but chooses to indulge, just this once.
"Tonight you will rest and tomorrow we start your tutelage," He says, laying out his intentions for the witch.
She makes no response, and he glances over at Bonnie, leaning on her passenger door, her forehead pressed to the window, and he asks if she requires food, and she shakes her head again, using gestures to communicate.
Bonnie is concentrating on the lights of the dashboard illuminating the car, colors of green, yellow and red, and the sleepy drone of the tires on the freeway, and the street lights whizzing by and how with each burst of white light into the dark car, she catches her reflection in the glass, her eyes big and wondrous and simultaneously glimpses her face as it was underneath the sewer of a high school parking lot, the eyes empty sockets.
"I was dead." She whispers to herself, her breath quickening.
His jaw tightens, and he makes a right on to Basin Street, slowing the car down in front of the ancient cemetery over run with ivy and heavy rusted chains on the iron-wrought gates.
He removes the keys from the ignition thinking this is it. The witch is back and she remembers who he is, and he is ready to subdue her if he has to, if she tries to do anything stupid, and he can feel the burn of his eyes shading yellow, and he refuses to look at her, instead he focuses on the empty street ahead of them, and how no one would hear her scream, and he says cautiously, "You were dead, that is correct."
Her heartbeat echoes loudly between them; its rapid thump blaring in his ears.
"You found my body, you are the one who brought me back." She says, stressing each 'you' like she is in disbelief he is the one.
"Why," She asks, her tone stern.
And he quickly thinks of the many ways he can answer her, how he can play her like pieces on a chessboard. He even contemplates what cruelty he can bestow on her, the one who tortured him as much as he tortured her friends; and how he can repay her pay for those past transgressions.
But he realizes it would defeat his purpose and he answers her truthfully.
"Because I need you."
Author's Note
I rewrote this chapter at least 5 times and this chapter is much longer, I'm working on the other half of it right now but wanted to post this before I deleted it and started over again. To not give too much away, I will say to not get used to this Bonnie, and that there will be many more surprises to come.