A/N: When Lapis is dissatisfied she writes. This is a quickie post 6x05 story that I'm not exactly sure I will continue. I'd love to but only if there's a genuine interest for it. Thank you kindly in advance for giving this a chance.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to their respective owners. LJ Smith/CW. No copyright infringement is intended.
Virulent emotions ransacked her as soon as her eyes shot open and she was staring up at a night sky. Her skin was sticky and hot, the pungent smell of the cave mixed with that of the metallic aroma of her blood. She had awakened to part two of her nightmare.
Groaning, Bonnie Bennett shifted her head to the right and saw nothing but empty space. Tears pebbled in her eyes. It worked. He was gone. She sent him home.
Part of her was overjoyed while a much larger part was filled with unbearable misery. The cave was dark making it near impossible to see, but she could just make out enough, and didn't spot a lump in the form of one sociopathic warlock nearby. That gave Bonnie pause but also relief.
Kai was gone and wherever he was, was the last place Bonnie wanted to be. She thought for a moment as she gingerly sat up, blinding-hot pain shooting through her abdomen, she wondered why he didn't drain her of her powers and ultimately kill her while she had been at her most vulnerable.
Had he gotten to the spot where the light from the eclipse beamed down and he was sucked up into the portal with Damon? Those last few moments right after she told Damon he was going to make it were cloudy. Cloudy but also clear.
That expression on Damon's face as he realized what she meant to do—sacrifice her chance to be reunited with her friends just so he could go home, killed her. He had been prepared to jump out of the portal but it sucked him up much too quickly.
Fresh tears coursed down Bonnie's cheek as she shakily got to her feet.
It had been a slow climb out of the cave, injured as she was. Her fingernails were caked with dirt, clothes smeared with it, but Bonnie didn't care. Once she made it out and took a deep refreshing breath she immediately went on the offensive.
Kai couldn't be killed. She didn't know if that rule applied to her as well and she definitely wasn't in the mood to find out. The forest was creepily silent. This would be her first time in four months she'd be totally alone, and the thought made her skin pebble with fear.
No time for that, Bonnie shook the thought out of her head before it could form and take root. She had her magic back. She made the device work. She sent Damon home. She could…
Bonnie sat down on the pile of dirt breathing deeply and trying not to scream at the very top of her lungs. She was stuck in hell now, for real this time and her only way of getting out was destroyed.
She did what she could. Did the right thing, right? She had been injured but certainly; and it was just now occurring to Bonnie that if she had the power to telekinetically flip Kai off of Damon, pull Damon to the portal spot, place the adscendent in his hand, activate it fully then surely she could have teleported herself to his side as well.
No, there was no time for second-guessing her decision making skills and feeling remorse.
Pushing herself up, Bonnie made the trek through the forest, eyes constantly darting and on the move anticipating a sneak attack from Kai. Where the hell was he? Where the hell had he been hoarding himself before making his presence known? Bonnie figured she could get answers later or not at all. Getting to safety was tantamount to anything else.
She climbed into Damon's Camaro and burned rubber to the hospital where she pilfered what medical supplies she needed, and reached the boardinghouse right before dawn.
Breathing heavily she listened carefully for sounds of another person being on the premises. With her powers reinstated, Bonnie could detect when another witch or warlock was close by. For the time being it would seem Kai was nowhere to be found. If he knew what was best for him, he'd keep it that way.
She hovered in the foyer, closed her eyes and placed a protection ward around the house that would bar anyone from entry. Hopefully it would hold but most importantly work.
Bonnie made her way into the living room and immediately created a fire in the hearth. The lights flickered on. The light gave her comfort and tricked her into thinking she wasn't here completely alone.
She took in the scope of the living room. The sheer size of it dwarfing her already elfin presence. Her eyes lingered on the bottles and decanters of bourbon and whiskey longer than they probably should have. Bonnie looked to her right, her feet wanting to carry her to the kitchen. The only other room she and Damon had spent a great deal of time in.
She thought back to her first night cooking a meal for the both of them. She'd never admit to feeling a bit nervous and self-conscious about her cooking, and if he'd like it. His pancakes sucked, but if there was one dish she mastered it had been chili.
Damon had a blood bag which he ignored it in favor of breaking bread with her. Her philosophy teacher had posed this question to the class: what was the most intimate thing two people could share? Of course the answers had ranged from sex to shopping, but then he questioned: what could be more intimate than sharing a meal with someone you love?
At the time Bonnie didn't think that could equate intimacy. Her opinion had since changed.
Bonnie sucked in a deep breath and got to work on healing her body.
An hour later she could move without holding her breath as pain pinched her nerves. Bonnie went upstairs and journeyed into the bedroom that had become hers overtime.
Being here didn't feel right. She looked across the hall. The door to Damon's room was wide open and before she could stop herself, Bonnie had made her way inside.
It was dark but she flicked the light on and started yet another fire in the fireplace. Everything was as it should be, but there was a book turned face down on the bedside table. Bonnie strolled over and picked it up. She read the cover and then flipped it to where it had been bookmarked.
"'She is sitting there before me. There is the graceful outline of her form; it cannot be mistaken — there is nothing like it. The two countesses had no outlines at all, and the dowager's was a demd outline. Why is she so excruciatingly beautiful that I cannot be angry with her, even now?'"
Bonnie placed the worn copy of Charles Dickens The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby back exactly where and as she found it. She swallowed thickly and wondered but stopped her mind from going there as well.
Turning she entered Damon's bathroom and finally did one thing she kind of secretly always wanted to do. She stripped, started the shower, and then stood in heaven until the hot water began to run cold.
In the shower she allowed her tears to flow as she scrubbed her skin, dug the dirt from under her nail beds, and washed her hair. Her fingers unconsciously grazed the area where she had been shot with an arrow.
Wrapped in a fluffy towel, Bonnie dried her hair and then had to deal with the loneliness again.
It was heavy like a weight pressing uncomfortably on her entire body.
Wiping her nose, Bonnie began to move. She raced around trying to find a piece of paper and something to write with. When she located the items she sat down in front of the fireplace and started to compose a message.
This probably wouldn't work but she had to try nonetheless.
Her hand moved faster than the words came to her. And once she read over the missive a million times, Bonnie crumbled it and then started reciting the incantation. She thought of home, the exact day and year it should be in…
Bonnie stopped once she realized that the magic-free bubble over Mystic Falls was still in place. She had no idea if Elena and Caroline had decided to continue their studies at Whitmore or not.
But then it came to her. Her shrine. If it was still there and if anyone went there hopefully they'd see it, but she had written the note for one person and one person only.
Licking her lips, hope renewed, Bonnie closed her eyes and started whispering Latin holding the balled note in the center of her hand.
She sensed it catching on fire and when her hand felt empty, Bonnie's eyes opened and she allowed herself to smile.
15 Days later…
Feeling guilt was one thing but doing something to alleviate that guilt became quite another. His feet pounded the earth. Awolnation's Burn it Down belted through his earbuds and propelled him through the wooded area.
He had been running since last night, bleeding into the morning. Time moving forward instead of the same day repeating was something he had to get readjusted to, but regardless he still felt stuck.
Damon Salvatore had never wasted so much of his life thinking about time, but it was all he could think about right now. How much time kept slipping away and most importantly through his fingers. How many hours were wasted looking for a resolution that more than likely didn't even exist.
The guilt, his guilt morphed into anger. Anger at himself for not doing more to make sure Bonnie came with him. Anger for not just snapping Kai's fucking neck. He was a vampire and had a good twenty pounds of muscle on the little jam-eating wimp, and yet he struggled as if he were a wet noodle?
He talked about what a piss poor excuse of a vampire Stefan could be from time-to-time, but Damon knew he had made some bonehead decisions as well. Failing Bonnie was an example of that.
But what could he do about it?
Damon had taken up running because the guilt became too much and staying still was impossible. Being around the others and their unasked questions only served as a constant reminder of his last minute with Bonnie.
The smile on her face when she said he'd make it. The tears in her eyes. Her "not really" comment after he made a lame joke about her wishing she could be there with a billion other people besides him. The sincerity of her admission did things to his insides that surprised the hell out of him, and he could do nothing more than smile like a total nerd.
It haunted him day and night.
Damon was unquestionably grateful to be back in the here and now, but a huge piece of him was missing. A piece the returned vampire had no clue had become so important to him until he could no longer stare her straight in the eye.
How had the little witch burrowed her way under his skin with him looking at her everyday, all day, for four months straight?
At first Damon tried to play it off. Tried to go with the flow that he was back with his brother and the woman he loved who—plot twist had her memories of him erased, hidden so she could move on and stop eating people in her grief.
Damon, at first, had been pissed but then an unexpected rush of relief filled him that Elena only viewed him as Stefan's older, homicidal brother, and not the man of her dreams, her soul mate. It meant he could dedicate his time focused on the crisis at hand.
Getting Bonnie back.
He had taken over the investigation that had been launched by Stefan, Enzo, Caroline, and Alaric. The dead ends they came to where the ones Damon was determined to breakthrough.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world hadn't been informed that telling him 'no' wasn't an acceptable option.
His trip to Oregon had been a bust. His fire walk through New Orleans gleamed nothing. His sweet talking in Druid territory in Canada left him dateless in the answer department.
No one could tell him anything. Or so they claimed.
Damon had tried looking for the inventor of the ascendant, and right now he was waiting impatiently to hear back from his point of contact.
It would have been wonderful if he had an eidetic memory and could build the stupid thing himself, but he always had the attention span of a goldfish.
He was making the loop to go back to his temporary residence right on the outskirts of the magic-free zone of Mystic Falls when Damon saw a flicker of light out his peripheral.
Slowing his speed he changed trajectory and began to head in the general direction. If there were campers afoot he could use a little snack.
This area, he knew it intimately and knew what was here. The muscles in the back of his neck bunched tightly, but Damon ignored that as he came closer to that tree stump where Bonnie's memorial had been held.
He had honestly forgotten all about it because even back then he refused to accept her being gone. Dead. What irked him was that her funeral didn't even end up being about her. Bonnie had yet again shifted the focus off herself and made it about her friends. He really should have had a stern talk with her about being a little more selfish, and a little less Kamikaze when it came to looking out for others.
What had he done in their four months together instead? Mocked her, belittled her. Made cracks about her abilities though he had firsthand knowledge of just how powerful Bonnie Bennett was. Made engine noises to block out the sound of her voice though he'd gladly murder just to hear that voice again.
Damon arrived at the tree stump where mementos of Bonnie had been left behind. They were still there, not her grimoire though. He cocked his head to the side almost like a bird because there was a balled up piece of paper in the collection. Had someone mistaken this for a garbage can?
Anger swell in his chest at the disrespect, and Damon snatched up the paper ready to rip it to shreds, but then he caught a distinct smell wafting from it.
His eyes blinked rapidly and he held the paper closer to his nose and sniffed it.
Honeysuckle and sandalwood. Bonnie.
Damon unfurled the paper and his eyes bulged as he read the words disbelieving this were even remotely possible.
"If you're reading this it means it worked. Remember when I said I can't wait to talk to someone else? I lied. Don't give up hope. I'm coming home. One day. Soon."
Bonnie even dated it May 10th, 1994 as added proof this was real and that it was from her.
Damon couldn't feel his fingers or the ground underneath him. Bonnie was okay and she could communicate with him. He never ever lived on much hope before, but now it would be his greatest treasure.
TBC possibly…
A/N: So I guess some suspending of belief for a second that Bonnie can send a message via magic to present day MF is possible, but hey she's a Bennett and in my book anything is possible. We don't know what Damon may do or what part he will play in trying to figure out a way to get Bonnie out of AU MF prison, but I can't just picture him sitting on his hands like CD seem to indicate in her latest interview. I won't rant. If you like please let me know. Nonetheless, thanks for reading!