Kai stared at the clear blue sky above him noticing how the color of it dimmed the more his eyelids yearned to droop. Somewhere in another world, Bonnie was still coughing and gasping for fresh air. His lungs still felt like flayed but he had no stamina to muster a cough or more than a shallow breath, one at a time. He was almost fading when a new twinge shot through his stomach, and he hardly even gathered enough energy for a wince.
"How did you know?" her voice said, muffled as if through a pillow or two.
Kai sucked in a deeper breath, despite the misery his insides turned into. He needed to do this, to stay awake just a little longer. Otherwise, it was all in vain, a big fat nothing he was going to die for.
"W—why are you here?" she went on. "How are you here?"
He groaned, a small sneer creasing his mouth. "Funniest thing ever… came to… bail you out."
This struck Bonnie as ironic and she might have laughed if he didn't appear so sincere. She stared at him in amazement, warm blood coating her hands, a slight tremor coursing through her as she coughed, trying to expel of the damage done to her lungs.
An unexpected cough tore through Kai, and he shuddered at the blast of agony. The blood flavor in his mouth grew richer. He turned to Bonnie, fixing his attention on her in a desperate attempt to leave the pain out of the loop – at least partially. "No time to… explain. Listen to me. I hope you have… the as… ascendant."
Bonnie lowered her hands to the grass and rolled onto her knees. She picked up his shoulder slightly, being careful not to hurt him any further, trying to see where he might have dropped the ascendant. Kai was still talking and becoming more disjointed by the second.
"Now, I don't know if… it'll work, but… I mean, I could only… take it out of others before… never give… so it's a new, but… we gotta try."
"It's not here," Bonnie exclaimed in a feeble murmur, panic setting in once more as she slid her hands underneath him and along the length of his sprawled body, moving to bend over him on all fours to check his other side. What was he talking about? She could scarcely make sense of it. What was new? The ascendant?
"Take my hands… hurry. I've died enough times to… know it's close."
It startled her, making her forget herself for a second. She first grabbed a hold of one hand, then the other as she sat on the backs of her legs, automatically closing her eyes in preparation of his chanting.
Another bout of pain surged through Kai's torso, making him shiver, and he barely noticed her hands in his. "Okay, now…" he closed his eyes to recall the damn words before it all meshed up in his head like a heap of confetti.
Bonnie opened her eyes and squeezed his fingers gently to reassure him she'd done her part, taking note of how cold to the touch he was and how the color faded from his cheeks. Would he be able to get them back? What was he trying to do? She still hadn't quite understood what was going on and hadn't been able to dissect his fragmented words in all our haste.
"Here goes… Essentia magus mea delego… Essentia… magus mea… delego…" His voice faded into a bare whisper as he put all his remaining strength into concentration on the task, pushing the magic towards Bonnie's hot hands clutching his.
Bonnie began to chant with him out of habit and in hopes of strengthening whatever he was casting. She fumbled over the words like a stricken child, coughing alternatingly the more flustered she got, unable to shake the heaviness settled on her chest. She could feel and tell how close she almost came to succeeding in her disastrous attempt.
After a while, he felt something starting. A bit of pricking in his palms as they got warmer, and then as if his conscience was slipping out along with the shreds of stamina.
Bonnie stiffened as the spell began to take physical effect, progressively growing hotter until a low bellyaching heat was surged through her blood system. She knew this sensation well as she had experienced the loss of her power and the return multiple times over the last two years of her life.
Kai clung desperately to the words playing around in his head and his lips moving after them while he could, until it felt like there was nothing there. His head swam and a feeble charge passed through his hands into hers. Before he could perceive whether it was done or not, darkness thickened around him, muffling the senses.
Bonnie stared down at him with silent bafflement once his chanting stopped and the last of his life sputtered from his lips. She kept his hands in hers while she scrutinized his peaceful face, too afraid to let go. What if all this was some twisted nightmare caused by the car's exhaust fumes? She tingled from head to toe, the winds picking up around me as if the seeded power was obeying to the change in ownership and to let her know that there was hope.
Could it be possible?
She gently set his hands on his abdomen, patting at the top of his right hand reflexively in an unspoken form of gratitude. She didn't know why Kai was here or why he came back, but in spite of who he was—and what he did to her—she couldn't be happier to be in contact with another flesh-and-blood human being. The coughs subsided slowly, allowing her to sit and stare at him for a while, patiently waiting for him to wake up. She knew he would come back, he had to—there were questions that needed answering—and he had done so in the past. Why would this time be any different?
Unless somehow, whatever spell he cast to get here, he wasn't expecting to come back?
Tears involuntarily sprung to her eyes, a hand wearily lifted to wipe at her lids before it could fall. All this crying wasn't doing her any good.
"Pull yourself together, Bonnie." She rose off the grass, casting a look in direction of the garage where the Damon's car was still running. She moved to stand at Kai's head and crouched, sliding her hands beneath his jacketed armpits. She inhaled, ignoring the nauseating pain that fisted her heart, and lifted his upper body off the ground, no longer mindful of his fatal wounds as she started to drag him toward the boardinghouse and inside to in front of the fireplace.
She staggered back against the couch to catch her breath once she let him go, rushing toward the kitchen to get a drink of water or juice to wash the petrol taste from her mouth. She headed back to the parlor and took a seat on the couch to watch him, fingers drumming at the glass while she waited. She wanted to shake him, to tell him to hurry up and return to her already. How long had it taken him to come back to life before? She glanced at the clock in the corner of the room impatiently and stood, rubbing her sticky hands against her jeans. She needed to wash his blood from her hands. She lifted the glass off the corner table, finishing it off, and headed out of the room once more to brush her teeth, to dissolve any and all of the fowl taste from her mouth before returning to the parlor a second time.
Kai still wasn't awake.
She crinkled her nose, picking up on a foreign scent, and stared at him across the room.
What if he was starting to decompose?
She sniffed the air as if to try and confirm it and then peered down at her sweater. She lifted it to her nose and inhaled deeply. She needed a shower. She strolled forward and took a seat again to wait another half-hour—getting up to get a second glass of water—and then headed upstairs to rinse off and change clothes. She needed to keep busy, to keep from fearing that, perhaps, with the shift in timeline, he was permanently dead and that hope was once again out of her reach.