With pain wriggling through his middle and along his spine like a tangle of spooked snakes, Kai was surprised to register the thoughts sweeping around him in a turmoil with no beginning or end. Among all the shreds of coherency, there was one suggesting it was all a set-up. A masterful trap to get rid of him against all odds. And he knew it wasn't true – however much Elena, Damon and Jeremy hated him, none of them would have flushed Bonnie's last chance down the drain just to snuff him. When he finally set his eyes on Liv – panting and furious, her hair in disarray – he realized it was a set-up, after all, but one his dear late brother Luke would refer to as karma. Kai never gave it much thought before. Now it made perfect sense.
Another laugh spilled from him when, unexpectedly, he managed to fling a fork at her neck, and she stumbled back, sliding against the wall. Kai picked up a bottle with the fluid they used for their fireplace, and pain subsided just enough to make space for what he was more used to: the thrill of upcoming death he would inflict. An eye for an eye, or however they say it. He grinned down at his sister, spurting the liquid over her as she tried to turn her face away yelling for him to stop.
"It's all coming back now, sis," he informed her. "That charge that goes through your bones at the prospect of watching someone burn to death. I really missed that feeling." He took one of the candles from its holder and held it over her like a priest would a cross against a vampire in one of the black-and-white horror movies they used to like with the siblings of his that were long dead.
"Just kill me, Kai," Liv said, tears trickling down her cheeks, both plea and hatred in her eyes. "You've already killed my best friend. So just do it."
For the first time in his life, Kai felt he was no longer in control of his own body. Even the pain throbbing in his stomach felt as though it was someone else's, and he saw his hand tremble like the flame on the candle it held. Icy dread stroked through his spinal cord. It couldn't be happening.
"Get it over with," Liv said, the candlelight dancing in her darkened eyes like a promise of relief he was no longer certain he would grant.
Soon enough it wasn't just his hand trembling, and his body tensed like an overstrained guitar string. Kai couldn't will any of it. Tears of impotent anger, confusion and something else – that disgusting compassion that burned the brighter the more he stared into his sister's eyes – stung and threatened to spill. He could repeat and yell 'Do it!' to himself all day, and it wasn't going to change squat.
"Motus!" Liv jerked her hand suddenly, and Kai cried out in pain seeping through his shoulder where the fork stabbed. He staggered back, slipped, and fell down, grunting as the agony thrust in all directions from his midsection where her poker first got him. She stood up, once again resembling a goddess of vengeance they learned about at school's mythology – furies, was it? He couldn't tell, nor remember where the hell Jeremy was; his head was swimming. As if from another universe, the voices screamed and laced together. Then Jeremy's arm jerked him up unceremoniously, and dragged Kai out of the room. Kai could hardly see where. He got a blurry picture once sat on the floor against the kitchen counter, bolts of white-hot lightning shooting through his torso, stealing his breath.
Jeremy grabbed his hand, shoved the ascendant in it. "Send me back."
Kai couldn't resist a laugh, though it cost him a terrible throe. "Jeremy, look at me. I'm half dead."
"I have to stop Bonnie," Jeremy said. And Kai saw the same desperate but sharp plea in his stare like that he noticed in Liv's earlier.
Bonnie's face, strained with barely contained desperation of the same kind, swept before his inner eyes. Kai nodded, "Okay… okay." He could hardly remember the incantation that helped him focus, and he knew the little of the focus he had was not enough to do what Jeremy asked. But it might just work for what Kai had in mind.
There were running footfalls that burst into the kitchen where they were; there was Kai's name yelled in Liv's voice and something Jeremy cried in return. His hand was off Kai's, and then it was done.
"Kai! Come out here! You can't hide from me!" The parlor interior blurred in Liv's eyes, her body vibrated with both pain and magic that raged and stormed, eager to splash its fury at her older brother and let it burn. She yearned to see the fear of death in his eyes once again — she glimpsed some earlier before that little Gilbert bastard threw a knife at her shoulder. The wound still throbbed angrily, adding fuel to her rage.
"The hell you think you're doing!"
She whipped around and beheld Jeremy coming at her with his eyes blazing, his hair disheveled.
"Bonnie's gonna die because of you!"
Her face scrunched in an angry grimace, her fingers tightened on the poker as her free hand lashed forth, fingers clawing at air. "Fractus!"
Jeremy cried out, going down on one knee when one of his legs gave way with a sounding crack. He gasped; the pain was brighter than a set of headlights in your face at night.
"Where is he?" Liv demanded, stepping closer to him, her poker ready. "Where is he?!" Her clawing fingers flexed, and Jeremy squeezed his eyes shut, grabbing at his head. Blood crept out from his nostril. "Where—"
With a loud whooshing sound as though a giant blew down the chimney with all his might, the fireplace behind her blasted out at her like a dragon breath. Liv was sent flying across the room, collided with a coffee table and landed with a loud thud on the floor. She didn't move. Jeremy slumped down, gasping.
In a second, Elena and Damon were by his side.
"Jeremy! Jeremy! Please, Jer, you hear me? Jer? Are you okay?" Elena's face was a blur as he cracked his eyes open.
"My… leg," he groaned.
Her bloody wrist was already pressed to his mouth. He suckled at it, relieved as the sharp, thudding pain began to abate.
"She's out," Damon announced, straightening over Liv. He looked around, frowning. "Where's Kai? She got him?"
"She stabbed him through with the poker," Jeremy said, sitting up with Elena's help. His headache also eased up significantly. He was almost fine. Worry and alarm seeped in to replace the painful scowl, and he widened his eyes, glancing between Elena and Damon. "He was chanting to send me back, and then he just… disappeared."
"What?" Damon set his jaw. "The bastard just bailed on us?"
Jeremy thought about it frantically as he got to his feet, then rushed past his sister back to the kitchen, the two close on his heel. He kneeled by the counter, picking up the ascendant. A large part fell off it at impact. He showed it to the vampires. "I don't think he cloaked to flee." He gestured at the pool of blood by his feet. "He was too weak and dying. I think he went there, to the prison world. Probably couldn't take me with him."
"So, he'll stop Bonnie?" Elena asked, her anxious eyes darting between her brother and her lover.
Damon was scowling, both worried and angry. "He better."
"What if he dies?" Elena asked. "What if he won't make it in time for her—"
"But he told us he can't die there," Jeremy reminded, his expression turning hopeful. "So, he'll make it. Then he can get Bonnie back with his magic. She won't have to go for that rock."
A slow smile dawned on Elena's face. "But that's great! She could be back… any moment! We, uh… we better clean up here, and… and set up a table… and…"
"What about the lil wicked witch here?" Damon asked.
"Liv! Liv, you here?"
Damon rolled his eyes. "Great, the defective wolf boy's just what we needed."
Tyler rushed in, his eyes like saucers, wild and frantic. "The hell's happened here? Where is she?" Then his eyes landed on his blonde, and he crouched beside her, turning her over carefully. "She's bleeding and… is she burnt?!"
"Hey, she locked us up and went all psycho on her bro," Damon retorted. "We got nothing to do with it. When witches fight, it's brutal. Look at my damn house!"
"Help her!" Tyler demanded.
"A please could be nice, given she near destroyed my damn parlor," Damon's eyes widened in jocular menace.
Elena was already crouching next to them, her wrist on Liv's slack mouth. "Come on, babe, come on…" Tyler muttered.
"She'll be fine," Elena said, wiping the extra blood from her skin. "Take her home. Let her wake up in a safe place."
"What's with Kai?" Tyler asked, getting up with Liv in his arms.
"A mystery," Damon said. "He's gone."
"Gone?"
"Disappeared, cloaked, escaped, whatever. Bled all over the place, then poofed." Damon waved a dismissive hand. "Away with you now. We got work to do here."
Tyler started to the door, but then turned around, glancing between the three sheepishly, his eyes lingering on Jeremy with an apologetic glint. "I tried to stop her, but she knocked me out. I wish I'd come sooner."
Jeremy nodded. "We understand the sentiment. Can't blame her. But she shoulda picked another day."
"Kai was trying to get a message to Bonnie," Elena explained. "She's still stuck in that prison world. On her birthday."
Tyler's face went slack with recognition. "Oh, it's today… Damn. Sorry. Is she… Did he—"
"We hope it worked," Elena said. "If Kai went there, it should have worked." She gave a cautious smile full of hope. "We might have her back tonight."
"Call me if you do," Tyler asked, and went out the door.
A small electrical charge zapped through Kai, stealing his breath for a moment, and he tumbled on the floor in the 1994 Salvatore kitchen. His vision went dangerously black for a moment while an explosion of fiery suffering wracked his insides. He gasped and tasted blood on the base of his tongue. He scrambled to his feet and dragged himself across the dining room. Bonnie was nowhere to be found.
"Dang, you little witch." He grabbed the edge of the table, coughing up a few drops of blood on its polished dark surface, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. While he tried to get his breathing in order, he heard it. A faint humming. It could only be one thing.
Her strained coughs broke through the humming of a working engine behind the white garage door. And it was a sea of grass between Kai and that damn door. Sweat rolling down his back and temples, he fixed his eyes on his destination and tried to cross the lawn without falling down. He wouldn't get up if he did. He stumbled a few times, gnashing his teeth at the twinges. Blood was practically pouring out between his fingers pressed to the wound. The last bump he stumbled on nearly sent him headfirst into the concrete wall. He put his hands before him and left two bloody imprints under the switch before slipping down to the ground. It was only the engine running inside. No coughs, anymore.
Kai threw a glance at the switch, knowing he would never get up and reach it. "Please, God," he muttered automatically, like a curse when you hit a finger with a hammer, and felt surprised. What would God want to have to do with him? He winced, focusing, and repeated the silly prayer under his breath, raising a hand. He started a little as the door began creeping up with metallic screeches, revealing the smoky garage insides and Bonnie lying on her side at the front tire of Damon's car. "Bonnie," he called, knowing she wouldn't answer. The exhaust seeped into his lungs, stinging and wrenching his windpipe shut. He bent over the ground, coughing violently and thinking he was about to die right here. Breathing in short gasps and coughs, he slowly crawled aside, sucked in a deeper, painful breath and held a hand towards Bonnie. His hand weighed a ton. "Mo… Motus."
Bonnie's body lifted off the floor and flew out of the garage to the center of the lawn, guided by his trembling hand for as long as he could wield it. Her landing wasn't gentle but neither there was more than half a foot between her and the grass.
It felt like an eternity before Kai got to her and slapped her pallid cheeks, calling her name, still tempted to cough until his guts came spilling through his mouth. Finally, she stirred and coughed. He fell back beside her, feeling like a depleted battery consisting of throbbing pain and wetness that was his blood escaping its vessel like rats a sinking ship.
"I can't believe you didn't tell me! What, a phone call was too much?" Caroline stood with her arms akimbo, Ms Cuddles' slack, dirty body clutched in one hand, and her head in another. Stefan hovered by her side, his arms folded, and Elena was going through all the shades of remorse.
"Look, there was no time," Damon tried, exasperated, refilling his glass, while Jeremy and Elena were trying to tidy up the room and scooping the cake from the floor. "It was a spur of the moment. The bastard came, we seized the opportunity—"
"And what, it all went down within five minutes?" Stefan inquired with a tint of irony on his frown. "And you couldn't just pick up your phone and call us while you all prepared for a spell or something? We coulda been backs here within minutes!"
Caroline shook her head slowly, showering Damon with despise. "I'm not surprised. But what does sting, is that you, Elena, never thought of me." Caroline's eyes filled with tears as she directed them to her friend, who looked mortified. "I just… I've no words. I don't believe you've just left me out of this. I was in that stupid wood digging up the damn bear instead of trying to get my actual best friend back! I can't… I just…" She raised her hands up, the parts of the bear dangling from them, and made to turn and leave.
"Caroline," Elena called, tortured and also tearing up. "I'm so, so sorry, it's so stupid, I can't believe I didn't call, I just… He came here so suddenly, and we were kind of… shocked. And that—"
"Why did he come?" Stefan interrupted.
"Brought some lame letter to Jo," Damon put in, sipping his drink, leaning against the table with decanters, unperturbed by the drama. "Like, he's good now since the merge with Luke, and he wants Jo to forgive him, but can't find her, yadda-yadda…"
"Interesting," Stefan mused. Caroline was frowning beside him, too hurt to linger, but too intrigued to go.
"Yeah, well, even if it's some new stunt," Damon shrugged, "it came in handy."
"Where's that letter?" Caroline asked, wiping at her tears with the back of her hand holding Cuddles' head.
Damon waved a hand, "Somewhere… dunno."
"And he just agreed to cooperate?" Stefan squinted.
"We made him," Damon corrected.
"He didn't really object," Elena added, wiping the oily cream from the floorboards. "But the ascendant was ruined and he couldn't send us there. A message was all we could do, and then it went wrong. Too much power or something. And we decided to send Jer. But then Liv came and stabbed Kai, and… you know the rest."
"If we were here when she came," Caroline stepped forward, her lips pulled back in a defiant snarl, "all this could've been avoided. She wouldn't get past us, and maybe Bonnie woulda been here by now."
"She wouldn't," Damon snipped. "The ascendant was trashed, remember?"
"You said he disappeared!" Caroline threw her hands up, frustrated.
"And none of us thought he coulda done that to begin with, duh!" Damon played back, and downed his drink. "Jeez."
"Care, really, we're sorry," Elena repeated. "I wish we called… we just… we blanked, okay?"
"Yeah, whatever," Caroline muttered, stomping away.
Stefan sighed, and went after her, leaving the trio to finish with the cleaning.
Stefan found Caroline in the rickety parlor on the couch, crying with her face buried in her hands. The ruined Ms Cuddles in a heap on her lap. His heart ached for her, but he didn't quite know what to say. Her frustration he found fully justified, and, while one could expect Damon to be careless about everyone else's feelings, Elena's lack of consideration surprised him a little. Although, Damon was just that ill an influence on her since forever, so, in total, not much surprise there. Jeremy was not even to blame at all, given his inner turmoil wherever Bonnie was concerned.
"Look, Damon's a dick, we both know," Stefan tried, coming to settle beside her. "And Elena just forgets everything when he's all in her face, and he can own the room and distract everyone with his stupid attitude. Just… don't hold it against them, they didn't exclude you on purpose. They were just being all wrapped in the mome—"
"It's the story of my life, Stefan," she said wearily, raising her wet face to look at him, her eyes red and oozing tears. "My mom's terminal, my best friend is trapped in some horrid prison world, and I just… go to the stupid woods to look for a stupid stuffed bear that solves nothing. Nothing! Big fat nothing! And while doing that, I miss the most important things that could've solved something, could've… could've brought Bonnie back! It should've been me, you know? Trying to get to her, trying to be that hand to help her out, or that friendly face for her to see. I so wish I could go there for her! I… I just don't know how to do all this without her, Stefan. I need her so, so much."
Her face crumpled again, and she wept. Stefan pulled her to him in a hug, and she clung to him, her whole body shaking.
"I know," he said quietly, stroking her back, pressing his cheek to the top of her head. "I know. We'll get her back, I promise."
Ever since Bonnie stepped onto the Gilbert porch and found neither sign of a waiting Damon, nor Elena, any and all hope she had harbored vanished into thin air. She'd been strong for Damon and for herself for over four months, fighting to keep them afloat when he sought to give up, refusing to throw away her grandmother's sacrifice. She cried spasmodically for a few hours once she realized they weren't coming to get her, and wearily dragged herself back to the Salvatore boarding house. She craved to hole herself up in her dad's place, to take comfort in the familiarity of her childhood home and pass out for the night, but she thought better of it. What if Damon managed to find a way back into the prison world in the middle of the night? She'd been living at the boarding house with him for so long it was only logical he'd look there first. She wanted to make things easier on him and didn't want to stay within this unnerving prison world another minute more than necessary.
Bonnie didn't sleep that night, staring at the parlor ceiling from her place on the couch nearer the front door and where she knew Damon would have no problem locating her. She narrowly registered the plot as she watched a VHS rerun, barely made sense of the words in the books she was flicking through for the umpteenth time that night, and by morning—as the sun crept into the living room from the open curtains— she hardly possessed the urge to move. She forced herself to get up off the couch, to recreate her old routine with as much vigor as she could possibly muster and to climb into the shower to wash away the previous day's travel sweat. Damon wouldn't leave her in this world now that he knew she was alive, and she didn't doubt for a second—having had a front row seat to his previous attempt to save her—that he was doing everything in his power to get her back.
She changed her clothes, applied fresh make-up and did her hair anew in preparation of going home. She made herself comfortable on the couch that day, staring at the front door, straining her ears for any unacquainted sounds of their return – of his return.
She progressively turned on the sound of the TV as the sunlight faded away, one unenthusiastic bar at a time, and took to setting in motion their old routine as hunger kicked in. The next day she repeated the process, by the third she'd taken to sleeping upstairs again, and by the fourth she did away with the annoyances she knew bugged Damon. He was such a neat freak. She chuckled to herself in remembrance of his rebuke and his constant need to remind her that he wasn't her maid, that he wouldn't pick up after her, and that he didn't want to live in a pigsty. Damon knew how to over exaggerate. She couldn't be that bad.
The tenth day she stopped cleaning house altogether, hopeful he'd appear—as he always did—to reprimand her and take her back home. It never happened, and for near on two months she barely strayed from or out of the boardinghouse, only going so far as their convenience store to get juice and other groceries. More often than not following the list written by Damon's hand religiously.
More often than not she was having pancakes. More often than not she cried over them.
By February 5 whatever muted optimism she'd been forcing herself to hold onto had seeped away and given away to sadness, anger and regret. She couldn't think past the ever present voice in her head—one that sounded oddly like Kai—that told her she was never getting out. Damon abandoned her here, he'd given up, there was no solution to getting her out of here and no one else was coming for her. Why would they? She sacrificed herself for his freedom, she made her choice, and willingly threw her life away. Not once, but three times and well before she even became the anchor. She might as well make it a fourth and make it count this time.
Bonnie ambled into the garage with determination, having sealed the windows earlier, towels stuffed against the crack of the inter-leading door to make sure none of the fumes would escape. She gripped the bottle of celebratory scotch she and Damon had preserved for this very reason in one hand, sipping at it intermittently as she did, and turned on Damon's car.
This was all that was left to do. This was as it should have been. What else did she have to return to? An estranged mother that wanted nothing to do with her? College? Would she merely fall back into classes? She knew Caroline would help her, that Caroline would make sure they cram on everything into the wee hours of the morning and that Bonnie would be okay. But what did Bonnie want to be? There was no time for her to think of a future or a silly thing like a career, no time for her to contemplate how Jeremy might feel or to even try to come up with another way to save herself. She had no magic, no future and no ascendant. What more was there?
"Happy Birthday, Bonnie," she congratulated in a contradictory tone, downing off the contents before flinging the bottle across the room angrily. It shattered upon impact with the wall. She eased herself to the cement floor, propping herself against the back wheel, her heart racing in anticipation of death as she gradually inhaled the thick exhaust fumes. She'd been through enough to know what was to come, yet, she still wasn't prepared. She closed her eyes, ignorant to the tears still coursing down her cheeks unchecked, feeling the smoke wrap around her lungs and squeeze painfully. She coughed. And kept coughing.
"You're stronger than all this, baby. Don't give up," a familiar voice said as unconsciousness neared. An image of her grandmother sprung to the forefront. "All is not lost. You can do this. Just hold on a bit longer."
"Grams?" Bonnie whispered, her throat feeling raw, another cough spilling from her lips, her arms falling from around her knees to grip the floor around her. "What the hell am I doing?" she hissed, forcing herself to push away from the looming unconsciousness and pull herself together. She struggled onto all fours, the invisible hand wrapped around her lungs tightening when the extra exertion, making her progress all the harder. She extended a hand before her, still coughing, praying her magic would return and that the door would open. "M—Motus!" she struggled out, putting the last of her breath into the known spell, collapsing into darkness as the overhead motor kicked into gear and the door started to open.
Bonnie coughed as the pressure on her lungs started to fade, her eyelids progressively fluttering open, straining against the sunlight overhead, surprised to find herself outside.
How in the hell did she get here?
She sat up, fighting off grogginess and nausea that threatened to overwhelm her, and made a grab for the ground to steady herself. Her hand brushed against something next to her. She looked. She coughed painfully in surprise.
Kai?
He was the last person she anticipated to ever see here again. She peered around promptly in search of Damon, expecting to see him lying nearby. He wasn't.
She shook it off, taking a few unsteady deep breathes of fresh air to clear my head, and frowned when she noticed the bloodied wound in Kai's abdomen. She impulsively reached out to touch him, to check on him and assess the damage. She couldn't have him die on her, not when she didn't know what was going on and was in desperate need of answers. She also wanted to make sure he was real.
"How did you know?" she asked in a strained whisper, referencing her attempted suicide and pushing it aside as easily. "W-Why are you here? How are you here?"
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