BK
After four episodes of Bewitched, and twenty vexing minutes of wriggling her nose at the balcony doors to get them to slam shut, Bonnie is convinced she is not a witch.
Her arms are flapping back and forth in front of the opened doors like she is clanging cymbals, "Close!" she yells at them, frustrated.
Death runs rampant in her mind and there won't be any sleep until she gets those damn doors to close, and if she can't get the doors to shut, proving she is no Samantha Stephens…
Peering quickly over the balcony railing, she questions just how far the jump from the ledge down to the garden is if she has to escape.
But escape to what? And to whom? She can't even remember her last name.
The memories she does have don't fit together. And when she tries to recall, there is nothing but a cold void. No cohesive recollection of a self, a family, a home. Do I have a stern father? A loving mother? How do I know Klaus?
Fog blankets her brain, frustration bubbling up as she tries to grasp a memory. Any memory. But there's not even cringe-worthy moments to fast-forward through or a heartbreak to grieve.
She can't even remember where she was before she woke up to Klaus.
Radically present, there is no past for her, and it petrifies her, especially because within the few hours she has been alive, she is certain of three things.
First. She needs to follow her gut. She isn't positive of course, but she thinks not following her instincts is what got her killed.
Second. Elijah wants something. And it is not her friendship. See the first certainty.
Third. Klaus is the one who will bring her reckoning. He had the will to bring her back to this world and she's worried if she doesn't produce some magic soon, then he will be motivated to use that same will to take her out.
"Please close for me? Please?" She groans to the inanimate objects. Her hair is dry and wild, and riotous wavy tendrils get in the way of her eyesight and she tries to twist it up into a knot off her nape but it persistently comes undone from all her frantic hand gestures to the door, which have changed from her graciously suggesting them to shut, like a symphony conductor leading the strings, to her flipping the doors off.
Fed up, she grabs a hold of each crystal knob and is ready to call it quits when the hybrid - who has been sitting in the leather chair in the corner of her bedroom observing her antics for the past five minutes - startles her and speaks up, "Are you wondering what I will do to you if you are not able to close those doors?
She controls the tremble of her fingers by folding her hands under her arms, and she glances over her shoulder to the rugged blond seated behind her. He is still shirtless, the warm glow of the lamp lights casting shadows across one side of his face and planes of his chest, and his eyes are dark blue and penetrating, his mouth a straight line as he waits for her to answer him.
Her stomach flips, because she is wondering what he will do, but the stomach flutter isn't from fear alone, there is another feeling, and whatever that feeling is, it warms the back of her neck when he looks at her, and makes her tongue thick when she opens up her mouth to speak to him.
With Klaus' speech on her resurrection solely happening because of her being valuable to him, she understands she is in a precarious situation. And her instincts are telling her that if she doesn't want her second shot at life to be cut short, then it will benefit her to build a rapport with the man who brought her back.
She answers him truthfully, "Yes," She whispers. And seeing no immediate reaction from him, she bravely continues, "What's gonna happen to me if you resurrected the wrong person. What happens if you thought you got some crazy powerful witch but I turn out to be a plain ole' regular girl," She says, pointing to the fictional witch on the TV screen navigating a hoover around her living room by wriggling her pointed nose.
Klaus is amused by the spectacle.
The bedroom is in a complete disarray. The expensive bed sheets are crumpled and heaped on the polished floor at the foot of the bed, and it seems she split open one of the pillows because there are little white feathers scattered over the mattress and on the rug. Every light in the room is on, and the TV is loud and shrill as it cuts to an infomercial about knives.
And Bonnie is eyeing him, hiding her shaky hands and voice, and though he has a better control on his bodily response to her right now than he did in the car, he is once again very aroused by her fear. Still reeling from the profuse amount of alcohol he has consumed and feeling the insistent tug of his hunger, he is unable to resist the vivid fantasy of taking a sip from her. Imagining his head buried in the lap of her butterscotch thighs or his fangs clamping down into the velvety flesh of her breast, he fights to maintain a facade of composure. "You can do more than make a vacuum go back and forth, Bonnie," he says smoothly, casually crossing his leg over his knee.
She bites down hard on her bottom lip, "Like what?"
Pointing to the doors, he says, "You can close them, but you are scared. Your magic does not work well when you are scared." He rises, advances slowly, reminding her of an animal, the way his sinewy muscles undulate under his skin and how he stealthily closes the space between them with ease, and she stares at the tattooed birds on his chest, inexplicably wanting to cover the markings with her hand, to feel his skin under her palm. She whispers to the floor, "I don't want to be scared, but I can't help it. I don't know you or Elijah, or where I'm fr-". Her voice hitches because he has jerked her chin up to look at him and she makes a small sound from the back of her throat and his wide mouth curls up into a pleased smirk, "Do not look at the floor when you are speaking to me, or anyone else. You hold the power, and anyone in your presence should be made aware of that fact. And they will not, if you are talking to the nails in the floorboards."
She doesn't dare tear her gaze away from him this time. Not after his warning, "How are you so sure I have this power when I don't feel it."
He silently takes her hand in his, hers small and delicate in his large and coarse one and places it over her left breast, and bends his mouth to her ear, "Do you hear that thump, love?" He asks gently, his breath on her neck, and she listens to her heart echoing in her throat as he continues, "That is your heart. Pumping gallons and gallons of blood per minute," He adds, his voice dropping an octave as his lips barely brush along an artery, "And curiously enough, it was not doing this a few hours ago, and the fact that it is now is because you are made of magic."
She closes her eyes involuntarily as his hand travels up her neck and into her hair, and she feels him grasp her curls in one hand and pull it up from her neck, "I saw you struggling with this earlier, maybe I can be of assistance while we try your magic once more before you rest. Shall we?"
"Yes."
Although she cannot see his face behind her closed lids, she knows he is smiling. She can feel the stretch of his mouth and teeth on her neck. And he speaks again into her ear, "You are capable of commanding more than you can imagine, trust in that, trust in your becoming, and trust I have no interest in a fearful witch." The grip on her hair tightens and his face quickly moves from her neck, "Keep your eyes closed," he commands and turns her body to the open breeze coming from the balcony. She straightens up, feeling his firm chest behind her, bracing her, "Now forget about me and concentrate on the doors in front of you."
She tries not to become antsy, picturing the doors that wouldn't close for her earlier as she welcomes Klaus's instruction. "They are made of wood. They once were trees, can you see them in your mind, Bonnie?
Saplings in a forest is what she sees, barren birch, and bony limbs and thousands and thousands of orange and brown leaves under foot.
"You control nature, Bonnie, bend the trees to your will."
She wills the leaves under her to float upward, circling and flying, and the trees whistle from the wind and Bonnie hones in on the saplings, she sees each spiraled grain, each wavy mark of life, sees all the way to their roots, snarled under the earth. And she tentatively lifts her hands from her side, observing the fantastical scene around her, the hum of magic and smell of gunpowder, and with the flick of her wrist she uproots the saplings, cutting them off from their life source.
"Open your eyes." Klaus whispers into her ear, and she tumbles out of her imagination just in time to see the balcony doors magically slam shut.
BK
He picks the white fitted sheet off the floor, "You can sleep in the bathrobe if you like, but if you would prefer to be more comfortable, I can offer you a pair of my pajamas," He offers, swiping his hand over the sheet to make it lay flat against the mattress.
She nods that she would like to sleep in his clothes, and when he leaves her alone, she tries to collect the feathers around the room with her magic, but can't seem to reinvent that sense of assuredness she felt with him on her own.
He hands her a set of black satin pajamas, and as she changes behind the closed bathroom door, he tells her that he intends to take her away after breakfast.
"Where are we going?"
"To the middle of nowhere for a while," He says to the door, speculating on how long will it take for him to get her up to par to fight a city. "Your magic is present, but you are unsure of yourself, which means we must practice, and it would be best for you to train away from prying eyes."
"From Elijah too?" She asks curiously, emerging from the bathroom. He fixes his eyes on her, drowning in his pajamas, the golden "M" emblem stitched in the fine material, intended for his shoulder, falling provocatively on her breast.
She sinks into the turned-down bed, wrapping her arms around a plush pillow, drawing in a deep breath. "Will he be disappointed to see me I'm not that good of a witch?" She asks.
His face briefly darkens, a shift she overlooks, "His disappointment is of no consequence." He declares, leaning against the bed post, "My estimation of you is the only one that matters."
Bonnie is not comforted by his statement. She lifts her mouth from the pillow so her words won't come out muffled and weak, ""What if you aren't happy soon …by what I'm able to do?"
Klaus tilts his head, contemplating her question, suppressing the thought of what he would like to do to her now, focused on the veins at her throat as they constrict with each worried swallow. "In that case, you and I shall have to uncover what other purpose you can serve for me," he coolly suggests, tempering his tone, and observing how his answer soothes her a bit, her shoulders slouching as she offers him a small hesitant smile.
"Did anything resurface while Elijah was with you?"
She shakes her head, "Not much from my past feels like mine. My memory feels like a puzzle missing most of the pieces," she confesses, "Elijah did tell me you could answer some of my questions, maybe that will help me remember."
His stare hardens, despite his attempt to appear unfazed, "You have questions for me?" Klaus asks, his voice carrying an edge that quickly makes her rethink asking him anything.
She doesn't want to upset him. Not when she just made some sort of connection with him. She discards her barrage of questions for him, about him and his family, and instead asks the burning one, "Can you tell me how I died?"
He lets out an abrupt dry laugh, as if she told a joke, "I was not present at your premature demise." He tells her, "But I can assume it had something to do with your heart," he explains as he moves to turn off the nightstand lamp, "But you need not worry, little witch, I will teach you not to have one. "He finishes, dimming the room, signaling his impending departure.
She toys with the remote in her hand. "Do you mind staying?" she begins softly, "Just until I fall asleep and just for tonight, if that's okay." She catches the corner of her mouth with her teeth. "I keep picturing how I used to be, you know, when you found me, and it's messing with my head."
And in the several heartbeats while she waits for his response, hanging on a thread that she suspects will be savagely cut. He doesn't say a word, feeling warm from her gaze, in his groin or is it in his chest? Maybe in his mind, it is all so cloudy. Must be cloudy from that last bottle. Or it's definitely from a need for blood, he reasons, as he considers his response to Bonnie's open green eyes. Open to him like he's not a killer, like he's not a tyrant, like he's never threatened her life.
The mattress sinks under the weight of him. Sitting on the other side of the bed, he bends down to untie his boot laces and she can see his spine and the muscles in his arms through the shadowy light of the TV. And then there is a thud of his boots haphazardly tossed behind the bed.
Blinking at him, she observes as he reaches over her, grabbing the remote from the side of her hip. He digs his body into the bed, crossing his ankles, and remarks, "If I have proven anything to you tonight, it should be that if you do not wake up." He points the remote to the TV, turning the volume down to a whisper, "Then I will come for you."
BK
As the sun rises, daylight shines where Bonnie lays, curled up into herself, next to Klaus who never went to sleep.
He watched over her, making sure her body rose and fell as it should.
And now he is staring at the sun through the glass panes in the veranda doors, listening to the footfall of intruders on his lawn, and Elijah's incessant knock on the door, informing Bonnie that they have to leave.
BK
Across town, Mama T's great-great-grandniece, Antoinette Guidry is pulling her rusted green Camry into Mama T's driveway. She is making her regular morning stop before class to check on her. Today she is bringing the old woman gossip and groceries. She has plastic Walmart sacks in each hand, carrying milk, cornbread mix, green bell peppers and oranges.
Her Mama T loves fresh oranges.
And the freckled young woman is eager to tell her beloved relative about the rumor of a witch breaking the law by practicing magic. She wants to 'ooo and awwwee' with Mama T and boast to her that she was right in her prediction.
It did happen on the full moon.
And she hopes Mama T is right again in predicting that this offence will spark a rebellion.
She unlocks the door, and gasps, and down falls the plastic sacks, oranges rolling from her feet to where her Mama T sat in her old laz -z- boy, dressed in her all white priestess garb, her eyes wide open to match her ashen mouth in a perfect 'o' shape from where the Gatekeeper had reached into her to collect her soul in exchange for Bonnie Bennett.