You know your name is Bonnie Bennett.
Your favorite color is Kelly green and purple, all shades of purple, and that you love pizza with jalapenos and pineapple, and pumpkin lattes, even though its not's cool to love them anymore, and that you would wear a dress everyday if you could, especially if the dress has pockets. And you know you got the scar under your left knee from a biking accident when you were six and that it was you that copied the answers from the teacher's history book and got the rest of the third-grade class detention when you would not fess up, something that burdens your heart to this day. And you know it was you who the bottle actually landed on when Matt spun the empty coke bottle on the basement carpet, but you knew Elena would be crushed so you pretended that you had to leave, that your Dad would be looking for you even though everyone knew your Dad never looked for you.
And you know you are a witch, belonging to a long-line of great witches, all the way from a bat-shit crazy ancestral mother named Qetsiyah, who doomed some star-crossed lovers a thousand years ago to pester your young adult life in the future, and that you were reared and raised by a no-nonsense woman, a professor and grandmother named Sheila Bennett.
You know you struggle with abandonment issues stemming from an absent mother and a neglectful father; you know you have a constant fear of being left again, so you overcompensate by beinghelpful,resourcefulandloyal.
You know you lived in Mystic Falls, where your best friends are vampires, neurotic Caroline who always plans your birthday parties with too many pink balloons and too many pink streamers, and danger-prone Elena, who always makes sure to bake the cake and pipe icing peonies because peonies are your favorite. And sometimes Stefan is your friend, but there was a coin flip that he was in on that keeps you from using 'best'. You know you used to be in what you thought was love with a hunter who is also your best friend's younger brother, Jeremy. You know you will always have an itsy-bitsy crush on your friend Matt, thinking of him now in his football uniform and his goofy smile. You know you never really cared for Tyler and still kinda' don't, and you know your grandmother was the love of your life and she's dead, and that you wish you and your Dad could have worked on a relationship but he's dead too.
And you know that after you graduated high school, your friends were once again in trouble, and you performed a spell to save your friends lives that cost you yours and that you died and your body had lain under the city until about two and half months ago when Klaus (the same Klaus who had tortured, subjugated and humiliated the people you love)saw a New Orleans witch who told him that you could make him into a King.
You think you got the facts, and you tell it in that order to your friend, Antoinette who you walk along the levee with for the sunrise and the sunset. You wonder if it all makes sense, because all that is just the beginning and you haven't even really wrapped your head around the present.
It's like you woke up from a long dream or something to discover that the engagement ring on your finger was given to you from a vampire who you thought was your friend, but who is just a killer, a debonair one, but still a killer who is partially responsible for your mother's death,(and now you know you can trust your instincts because your first reaction about him was right), and that smug asshole who you played sidekick to one too many times, who you never thought in a million years would care if you lived or died, is the one who came to rescue you down in the Big Easy.
It's like you came back to life or something and you learned that the man who you are deeply, madly in love with was the monster of your nightmares. You laugh every time you think of this, especially when you protectively place your hand on your belly.
Antoinette was the one who told you when you came through and had the strength to stay awake longer than fifteen minutes. "Bonnie you are pregnant and it is for Niklaus." She said it just like that, all in one sentence, straight to the truth.
BK
Antoinette had written his pitiful address under a forgotten grocery list tacked to the refrigerator.
Two months had passed, fall turning into winter. During all the reeling and processing she was doing back at Antoinette's place, she figured he would have burnt out by now. She pictured his blue Camaro leaving skid marks on the road after each time Antoinette told him she didn't wanna see him.
Bonnie stares hard at the dented-up metal motel door before she knocks. A set of ice blue eyes peek briefly behind the window curtain before unbolting the door.
Never one to be at a loss of words, he is now, as he ushers her in and awkwardly offers a chair, which she takes, dropping her purse on the cigarette burned table.
He fills the space between them with small talk that The Roosevelt was booked or he would have had better accommodations and calling her a nickname she hasn't heard in this new life of hers.
He leans against the wall, near the wide window covered by stale orange curtains, staring at her.
"It's been a while," he finally says, "I had to threaten Caroline and Elena to stop them from boarding a plane. Stefan is distracting them with fighting baddies up there but I don't know how long I can hold them off, Bon."
The furniture is aged and the once white walls are browned from decades and decades of cigarette smoke, but the room smells of bleach and cologne, the bed is made, the trash is emptied and his duffle bag is zipped and sitting in the opened closet.
The room has the sense that he is just arriving, or, is just about to leave.
"Is that what you have been sticking around here to tell me?" She asks, fighting back the barrage of mixed feelings that conjure up at the mention of names like Caroline and Elena. "Is that why you have been stalking Antoinette's house?
Her last memory of him was him asking her to cast some spell to kill some villain, to save Elena's life, to save his life, to save the town. Yelling at her to pull her juju together, he didn't notice that the professor was using her, that the expression she was dabbling in had taken over, that the dark magic was turning her heart.
She notices him peering into her, searching for that Bonnie. Bonnie with the cascade of dark brown tendrils and curls and big mossy eyes.
The last time he saw her she was dying in Klaus's arms, but the truth she knows he can see, is she died months ago.
He pushes his boot off the wall and grabs a beer from the humming mini cooler, "I would offer you one of these but you know." He smirks, his eyes dropping to her non-existent baby bump in her fitted black dress. He reaches back into the cooler and hands her a sweating bottled water.
Bonnie's mouth turns up into a smirk because she doesn't have much time, she's in Antoinette's car and she told her this wouldn't take long.
She nods slowly, taking the bottled water he offers her, "That's cool, you not wanting to talk about it? Kinda expected. You were always uncomfortable dealing with anything that really mattered, but I'm going to say what I came here to say and maybe it will help you to get the hell out of this city where it is unsafe for you."
He finishes the beer and reaches for another. "Spit it," he says, rolling his hand, bracing himself for the truth.
"Thank you," She states as a matter of fact and sincerely. She is thankful for him, even when he wasn't the best of friends to her, or even at times, fucking downright cruel. He had had a hand in shaping and influencing her and it was him out of everyone who tracked her down in New Orleans.
Damon stares down at her naked ring finger. "I guess it's hard to think straight when your fiancé is busy terrorizing a city," He snorts, "Or is it the one daggered at Marcel's that's got you speaking nonsense to me?"
She sighs, "Did you hear me, Damon? I said thank you. The Guidrys told me how you helped in saving my life, and I'm grateful, but now it's time for you to go ahead with your already packed things and head back to Mystic Falls."
"No can do Broomhilda," He states causing her face to fall in exasperation. He lets out a short laugh and reaches for his third beer, but looks up to catch the flash of anger in her eyes, instead of the usual annoyance with him.
He then sighs and slumps down on the corner of the bed in front of her, his knees nearly touching hers, his way of asking her not to leave yet.
"You're right, I'm not good with the..." His eyebrows scrunch, and there is a pause, a moment of him figuring out how. "It's just, I don't want you fucking thank me, Bonnie," he says to her, slowly, "Coming here for you was the very least I could do," He adds softer, ashamed, his voice trailing, "When we found out Jeremy was faking the postcards," He shakes his head, "We all should have fucking kno––
Bonnie holds up her hand for him to stop, because she really doesn't want to hear it. She wants him to go back to where he came from. This is her grace to him. "You can save it, Damon," she starts, "We can't change the past and knowing us both, I think things would have come to this inevitably. And you can leave here with that." She pulls at the wrapping on the water bottle, remembering her pleading with Jeremy not to tell, so desperate to sacrifice herself, and be invisible, she couldn't let Damon take all the blame, but she didn't have to rehash it with him either.
Damon concedes begrudgingly. "Is that why you thought I was still in this hell hole, "He smirks, waving one hand at the grandeur of the rinky-dink motel room, "That I was waiting on an underserved thank you?" He asks, looking at her to see if that was really it before he sits up straighter and says gently, "No, sweetheart, that's not why I'm still here."
She snorts at his predictability, at his defiance, and she rises for the door, "Well, I tried."
"Just like that?" He shoots up from the bed, and places his hand on her shoulder to stop her, "Five minutes of your time after weeks and you're all like 'peace out' Damon, like that would work on me, by the way".
She looks up at his hand which he quickly drops, and takes a deep breath, "I don't know what else you could possibly want from me, Damon?"
He snorts, but his eyes give it away that he's pained, that he hoped for something different. He sticks his hands in his pockets, and says, "I––I made a deal with Marcel." He admits to her confused face, pulling out his cell phone and scrolling through texts between him and the King of New Orleans.
He puts the phone into Bonnie's hands and she reads the back and forth. The constant assurance that she was not practicing magic and that there was no need to harm her. The daily reminders that Damon sent to Marcel that he just needed a little more time and he would have her out of his hair.
She pushes the phone to his chest, shaking her head in disbelief, "You're fucking working with him."
He quickly captures her hand to his chest, holding it close to his her, " I'm not working for anyone but Damon." He stresses, "Klaus is done Bonnie." He adds, "He lost and Marcel has his brother daggered in his mansion. Let me take you home."
She feels the press of him under the shirt, and she breathes softly, "This is my home, Damon," She says almost absently, because all the information she just read has overwhelmed her.
He snorts, "He can't come back from this, Bon. Cut your losses."
She is exhausted over hearing about Klaus.
Tired of his name on the lips of aunts and cousins who come to visit Antoinette, done with hearing about what trouble he brought the city, the news anchor covering all the mauled bodies while they spoke softly wondering when he was gonna try to come for her.
But then that thinking changed when one of Marcel's witches conjured up a barrier spell so strong that even the elders had to whistle and scratch their heads over it.
After that the Mikaelson home was burned to the ground.
She yanks her hand away from him, "You think I don't know Marcel doesn't want me here, "She looks up at him, "It's the reason why I need to leave you now."
He steps in front of the door, and she's over men blocking her from leaving. Her eyebrows fly up and she purses her lips, as he holds up his hands in surrender, "We don't have to go back to Mystic. Just let me take you anywhere but here."
She threads her hands in her hair, and snaps, "Okay, where?" She reaches for the doorknob, "There's no where I can hide that Marcel can't touch me."
He narrows his eyes then moves from the door, "Then I guess I need to add another month to this hotel."
Bonnie opens the door, and sees his Camaro out in the parking lot, and then she quickly closes the door and turns to him, "Gimme your keys," and he raises an eyebrow, and she outstretches her hands and twiddles her fingers, "Now."
He reaches into his pocket and dangles the keys in her palm before she snatches it, "What do you want with the keys?"
She tells him, "I'm taking your car. I can get further in your car then with hers, "She says resolutely to his shocked face.
"Woman, have you been listening? There is a red dot aimed at your heart if you don't leave here with me."
Bonnie shakes her head.
"Come on, Damon. You're not scared, are you? "She pats his chest with the ghost of a smile, and when his face falls to where her hand is, right at his heart again, she adds, "You wanna do right by me? Then help me."
And he squints, and then says, "Come on, let me show you how to work the clutch."