Ever since Bonnie stepped onto the Gilbert porch and found neither sign of a waiting Damon, nor Elena, any and all hope she 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 myself 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 myself 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 wasn't 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 food stuffs.
By February 5 whatever muted optimism she'd been forcing herself to hold onto had been abandoned 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 this, 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 a 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 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?"