BKBKBK
Contrary to how Klaus has so delightedly described Bonnie to Elijah downstairs; she is not a blank slate.
Amid the dense fog of her consciousness are absolutes.
They beam through the haze like the bright white light from a watchtower to shine sporadically on what she knows. Like how she needs air to breathe, that it is gravity keeping her feet on the ground, that if she adds the numbers 2 + 2 it equals 4, and if she wants the color green, then she has to mix the colors blue and yellow.
There is also the knowledge of the different utilities of water.
Because when Marissa had closed the bathroom door behind herself, leaving Bonnie in the stark white room with a tub filled with steaming water, she didn't stand their idly looking at the claw-foot bathtub wondering what the hell to do next. She instinctively had taken off Klaus's shirt, and inched her body in- feet, calves, thighs- until she was immersed into the liquid. She took the nubby hand towel folded beside the tub with the fancy soap, carved as a flower, and had whisked it over her curves and soaped her hair, washing away the dirt and grime involved with coming back from the dead.
And though she can't remember Klaus is a depraved serial killer; she does have memories, and it's interesting; what bubbles up to the surface of her mind.
While she bathed, she whispered words to a rhyme. Pulling her knees to her chest, she had cupped the water and rinsed her hair, singing mentally, 'Miss Mary Mac, Mac, Mac; all dressed in black, black, black; with silver buttons, buttons, buttons; all down her back, back, back.'
Her memories are a scatter of images and sounds. They are independent of each other with no context, like an abstract painting, just red triangles and black squares on a canvas for her to decipher their meaning.
"Thank you," she says to Marissa, who acknowledges her by dutifully adjusting the terry-cloth robe on Bonnie.
Bonnie concentrates on the pale hands tying the robe's belt at her waist and she visions another pair of hands, these are smooth and brown, and they are covering hers, but hers are small and fumbling as she tries to tie the laces of a pair of tennis shoes, and there is a deep voice saying, 'You got it, baby girl.'
"Would you like the balcony doors open this evening, Madame?" Marissa asks, and before Bonnie can think if she does or not, there is a knock, and from behind the closed door Elijah asking if he may speak with her.
She nods to Marissa, and the maid hurries to open the door and asks Elijah if she may retire for the evening.
Elijah breams his straight white smile over to Bonnie, who stands by the open balcony doors, with her arms wrapped around herself defensively. And like with Klaus in the car, her skin crawls inexplicably at his smile, and the more he beams, the more she wonders what he wants from her.
"Would you like a bit of supper before bed, Bonnie? Or maybe tea? He asks, and when she does not respond, but only eyes him warily, he turns to a puzzled Marissa and says, "Bonnie will have her breakfast served in her suite by 8 am. At present she does not have any suitable clothing. We will need to make do with anything you may have that she can wear for tomorrow. I will take her shopping for a wardrobe after breakfast so you will not be inconvenienced in such a way again."
Marissa curtsies goodnight. And after she leaves, Elijah lingers, ever the gentleman, he will not move closer to Bonnie unless he is welcome.
"Bonnie I do not mean to make you uncomfortable, "He says smoothly with one hand on his suit lapel and the other gesturing to the four poster bed decked in virginal white bedding and canopy, "If you wish to rest, we can converse tomorrow."
"I'm not tired," She says, and sits on the bed, her legs no longer reaching the floor from the height of the bed. "What did you want to talk about?" She asks, her sodden hair dripping onto the duvet and saturating the collar of her robe. She swipes at the droplets that leak from her scalp, down her forehead, and off her nose and she ponders if her hair will be this heavy when it dries.
"May I?" He asks, pointing to the balcony, and she nods and stares at him as he takes each step to the double doors.
From where she is positioned on the bed, Elijah is hidden from her, but she can hear him when he asks her if she has by chance in the hours since her resurrection had any remembrance of her life, specifically as a witch.
And she contemplates the question from the invisible vampire, inhaling the thick smell of magnolias that rushed in with the muggy night air.
"You are a witch." Klaus had told her on the car ride through the French Quarter.
But what did that mean? To be a witch?
For some reason when she thinks of the word, she sees floating feathers, and she looks back at the pillows behind her and pats down their fluffiness. "No, I don't." She answers, "But I know Klaus needs me to."
Elijah appears from the balcony, his brow creased. "Has Klaus divulged the reason for his need?"
Bonnie squints up at the dapper vampire, who when he talks to her makes her feel how one squirms when they don't know which fork is the salad fork at a fancy dinner.
"Who are you to Klaus?" She asks, playing with the ends of her hair, her eyes downcast on the comforter.
He sticks his hands into his pant pockets, curious by her tone in her questioning, "We are brothers. I am the eldest of the children born of Esther Mikaelson."
Her big green eyes hone in on him, "There are more of you?"
"At present there is only the three of us, diminished from seven."
"What happened to the other ones?"
Elijah takes a step closer to the bed and holds his hand over his un-beating heart, "Let me differentiate myself from my brother," He says, smiling down at the petite witch, "Klaus is the one who will give you answers, and I will be the one to please you."
She stares at him and sees the definition of betrayal, black letters defining the quality of being ones comrade while aiding an enemy.
"Were we friends when I was alive?" She asks, knowing the truth.
"No, "Elijah answers, "Our alliances did not allow for amity, but, now, I would like very much to be a friend to you," He says then asking for her hand so he may bid her goodnight.
He brushes his lips over her crisp soap-scented knuckles, and she is overwrought with a melancholy that was not there before because she would like a friend, someone to genuinely be there for her, a confidante to help guide her through this new life, and Elijah is not them.
And the sadness sits heavy on her chest because she can't remember ever having such a friend.
BKBKBK
Five minutes past three in the morning, Klaus meditates on the second hand gliding in one full revolution around the face of the gold table clock resting on the corner of his desk.
The Bennett Grimoire is in his lap; the tattered book open to a page with protection spells. Spells he had seen over and over, nothing original. But also in his hand is a bill of sale; the stained document was the receipt of purchase of one unnamed Negro boy to Niklaus Mikaelson.
Klaus gulps his scotch, distracted as he runs his finger over his signature of the aged document, recalling the day he had sauntered in to his lawyer's dusty office on Canal Street and had him draw up a separate contract.
Emancipation Papers. For the unnamed boy in his possession.
He had tipped his hat to the stout American attorney and strolled out to the waiting equipage. A powdered-wigged servant opened the carriage door, and in the dark of the carriage was his beautiful sister who had hastily asked what the impish smile on his face was about, and he had made a show; pressing his mouth to her cheek, he had pulled out the papers hidden behind his coat and handed the handsome young man sitting across from them his freedom.
Warm brown eyes settled on him and his sister, and he considered the boy and said, "You are my son, and we are descendants of Gods," He grinned, Rebekah intertwining her fingers into his, showing her unity, "From now on you will answer to Marcel, the God of War."
He rubs his hands over face, annoyed, and he determines he will have Bonnie use the bill of sale as a charm to protect from any onslaught of magic from Marcel's witches as they discover how to overpower his special Davina.
And he finishes off his drinks, still agitated over the smiles and endearments of that distant memory, and he realizes he is drunk.
Not sloppy drunk, never sloppy, but perhaps, more vicious, as he eyes the balled up letter from his sister.
The coldest of the cold blondes.
They fell into a succession of disappointment: his mother, his half-sister and the one currently cutting images out of magazines to delude herself into happiness.
Who has been the cruelest?
He snorts, thinking of the winner, and who places for the one who beget the cruelty and for the placement of the one he believed would eventually let go of her spite and love him.
And why should he save this contest for the women; the men had been equally frustrating.
He walks over to the bar for another drink, and foregoes the glass, drinking from the decanter. And he reflects over his final words to his brother before he ran off to comfort the witch. She was his and he is tense that had to make that clear to Elijah, his own brother. For if he had not, it would be Elijah to gift-wrap her and ship her to the Salvatore's doorstep, even though he had stood in his study and gave his word that he would honor his decision.
Klaus knew his brother, and he did not want him undertaking a war with Marcel.
"She is my witch."
Four words.
A threat, really; which he sadly had to make time after time in order to have his siblings' loyalty.
BKBKBK
There are not many unfortunate things about being a hybrid, but if Klaus has to choose one, he thinks it has to be the inability to stay properly pissed.
After downing two more bottles, he has drank past the point of hostility, and is experiencing that rarely achieved, lifted feeling, that weightlessness that will flee in another hour or so.
He wants it to stay.
So he twirls an unopened vodka bottle in his hand, switching to the clear alcohol since he is out of Scotch, and the theme song of the TV show, Bewitched, blasts from upstairs, beckoning him.
He climbs the stairs.
And he walks determinedly to the end of the hall; to where the bright light shines through the cracks of an ornate frame, and creeps from under a gap, and spreads outward onto the delicate Oriental rug in the hall, and over his black boots, where he stands right outside her bedroom door.
Author's Note
Thank you for reading.