A/N: Thank you guys for reading and reviewing and following and favoriting! Sorry I couldn't respond to the anon reviews, but you're all amazing and so inspiring, wow (: Thank you!

Hoping that the pacing for this is okay, I'm still figuring out what works and what doesn't. Enjoy the new chapter, please R&R!

Disclaimer: I disclaim all the things!

The concierge chuckled conspiratorially on the other end of the line. "Candles and oil, of course sir. Will you be needing anything else?"

"Yes." Damon glanced again to Bonnie who sat on the bed with her legs crossed, mouthing words to him silently. "Crushed dandelion root."

"Um, sir?"

"Crushed. Dandelion. Root."

"Sir, I'm afraid we don't ha - "

"What kind of sham are you all running here? A five star hotel with no crushed dandelion root?"

"I beg your pardon, sir. We'll have that up in... in just a moment."

Damon dropped the phone into its cradle with a smirk.

Bonnie grinned and rolled her eyes. "You think they'll actually find some?"

He shrugged. "There was a new agey place down the street. We'll compel the bellboy if not." He looked smug, viscerally feeling her revulsion as she stared at him in disbelief. "You let me worry about that, anyway. You figure what you're going to do with Emily once you get her here."

"Well she clearly knew something. If we can get that out of her, it'll be better than the nothing that we know right now."

He nodded, taking a seat at the edge of the bed.

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When the boy finally showed up, Damon tipped him excessively. They had found the dandelion root.

Bonnie laid the candles in a wide circle on the floor as Damon shut and locked the door. He noticed a faint wrinkle form on the bridge of her nose as she focused, and with a soft whoosh all of the candles were lit.

A nagging doubt tickled the edge of her conscience. She hadn't performed heavy magic since the ill-fated spell that returned Klaus to his own body and sentenced her Grams to whatever torture the witches had decided to mete out on the Other Side. She felt Damon's cool hand on her arm. She vaguely realized that this should make her uncomfortable, but she wasn't. Her eyes didn't seek his, yet the firm and confident resolve that coursed across their bond seemed to overwhelm her doubts in that moment.

She was a Bennett. She could do this, she had to do this. She felt warm, and the distinct sensation washed over her of having recovered something she'd lost.

He took back his hand, sensing the change in her. Gingerly, he pulled off his daylight ring.

"You're sure it won't be destroyed?"

She nodded absentmindedly, going over the spell once more in her mind. "We need something of Emily's, and it contains enough of her magic that it should work."

Reluctantly, he handed the ring to her.

Stepping away from the vampire, she set the room's empty ice bucket in the center of the candles, dropping the ring into it and pouring water and the lightly scented oil over the band. She sprinkled some of the crushed root over the mingling liquids as ancient whispered words slid over her tongue. The silver letter opener dragged across her palm, and a trickle of blood joined the mess in the bucket. The candles flared as she closed her eyes, and she felt a heavy pressure building in her head.

The familiar tang of blood ached in her sinuses.

She heard Damon clear his throat.

When Bonnie opened her eyes, Emily stood within the ring of candles, her face placid.

"Hello, Bonnie."

"Emily." Bonnie replied smoothly.

"Hi Emily." Damon gave a flirtatious wave and did a poor job of stifling an amused grin as both witches turned simultaneously to glare at him. He shrugged nonchalantly. "Now I see it. Family resemblance, nice."

Bonnie flinched at the word family and looked at the floor. "Emily, my Grams..."

"Sheila is stronger than you know. She will recover from that ordeal. However, you need not tempt further pain upon her by upsetting the balance of nature again." Emily stared at her descendant, her expression blank.

Relief flooded through her to know she was okay, but Bonnie shook her head with a resigned sigh. Her Grams' well-being was still being extorted by the witches. She looked back up to her ancestor. "What did you mean in my dream, when you said I was in danger?"

Emily's voice was soft but stalwart. "The plan is a trap. Releasing the gift of the Five requires the sacrifice of a blood bonded witch and vampire."

Bonnie's shoulders slumped. "So Atticus was in on it."

Damon bit back the impulse to make a snide remark about the professor. Instead he studied Emily's chill visage. "Witches... ruthless little things. You'd drop one of your own, just like that?"

The corners of Emily's mouth turned downward slightly. "Everything on the Other Side is now perverted by Esther. The power of the massacred witches is no longer being channeled for balance, but instead wielded in her vendetta against her own children."

Damon felt a flare of anger in Bonnie. She smiled bitterly. "Hijacking my body and leaving me to be drained by the creature they made out of Alaric is proof enough of that, isn't it?"

He didn't want to think about what Alaric had become, or about whose fault it was that the teacher died often enough to be so thoroughly poisoned by the witches on the Other Side. He didn't want to think about that night, waking to find Bonnie's body bloodied and motionless on the floor of a crypt, with his friend nowhere to be found.

Emily spoke, her eyes flashing towards the vampire. "Thank you for what you did that night. You kept your promise to protect my bloodline despite the fact that I reneged on my end of the bargain."

"You probably shouldn't bring up your betrayal. That was very painful for me, you know. I could still change my mind about that whole "protect the bloodline" thing," he snarked. But Bonnie sensed warmth spreading through his chest at her words.

Since when did Damon Salvatore feel pride at doing the honorable thing? she wondered.

An enigmatic smile flickered over Emily's lips.

"Here's what I don't get." He changed the subject. "Why is Klaus working with them?"

Emily shook her head and opened her mouth to speak, but her words were cut short. She stared at something beyond Bonnie's shoulder and ducked her face beneath her arm as flames engulfed the area within the ring of candles.

Bonnie raised a hand to shield her eyes from the blinding white fire, and as the blaze subsided a different figure stood inside the circle.

"Esther," Bonnie growled.

The Original witch's face twisted with a cool rage as she turned to face Bonnie. Slowly, she raised an arm towards her.

Damon felt pain searing through his body as Esther focused on Bonnie, and for a moment he was disoriented, falling to his knees. The overwhelming noise and light and pain crushed together into an all-encompassing roar around him. He dazedly wondered how the witch was hurting him while not even appearing to see him. But then her screams finally registered.

His eyes flew to Bonnie, her body taut and straining under the Esther's cruel gaze. Her piercing screams seemed ceaseless as they poured from her lips.

He struggled towards them, lunging forward and pushing the circle of candles into disarray, releasing the summoning spell's energy. Esther vanished.

Bonnie felt herself falling as the agonizing grip of the Original witch was released. Strong arms wrapped around her shoulders before she could hit the ground.

Her eyes fluttered open and saw icy blue before closing again.

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He laid her motionless body on the bed, watching with grim satisfaction as the wound he'd gouged into his wrist faded away.

He felt the tense dread still gripping his chest, remembering the way her body had writhed and stretched unnaturally under the assault of the Original witch. He wanted to tear that bitch limb from limb. Fucking ghost witch.

When he realized he was pacing, he sat down at the table.

He couldn't pinpoint exactly when it had happened, but he had to admit that something was different between him and the judgy little witch. If he was honest, it had started way before the blood sharing. The snark they bandied back and forth had long ago become something he anticipated rather than an irritation.

He depended on her without hesitation when push came to shove because he trusted her to not make stupid decisions like every other idiotic child in that godforsaken town. Because, much like him, she had proven time and time again that she knew how to get things done.

He knew that the reason he'd fallen in love with Elena was that at the times when he'd been most vulnerable, she had seen him, accepted him, and comforted him. She had the potential to be everything Katherine should have been to him if Katherine weren't such a monumentally terrible person. But on some level, he also knew that Elena only saw what she wanted to see. The incongruence between what he was and what she saw was evidenced in their every argument.

He and Bonnie had no such misconceptions about one another. She saw him for what he was. She worked with him despite the things she found unacceptable. It was as if some part of her was daring him to do better of his own accord, not because she held any false expectations. He found himself wanting to rise to the challenge, every time.

There was a very short list of people in the world whom Damon Salvatore liked, and an even shorter list of those whom he trusted. Bonnie Bennett had somehow juju-ed her way onto both lists.

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She woke to find herself lying on the bed. Her body sank into the fluffy white blankets and for a moment she felt drowsily at peace.

A splash of crimson staining her shirt broke the spell almost immediately. She bolted upright. "Why am I bleeding?"

His voice was tired, and she turned to see him sitting at the table. He was leaned back, his head tipped over the back of the chair. "My blood, not yours. You needed it."

Her mind swam, trying to remember what had happened. "Esther."

His eyes were closed, and he ran a hand through his messy dark hair.

"Damon, you..." She looked at him, her gaze finally sharp and alert. "Thank you."

He lifted his head to glance back at her. He nodded.

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Her shirt had been ruined of course. She held Damon to his promise from the day before and sent him out for clothes and supplies while she cleaned away the remnants of the summoning spell.

Finally stepping into the shower, she felt a surge of gratitude for the way the warm water felt as it rushed over her. She found she felt strong and unalone for the first time in a while, despite the looming threats of vampire hunters and Original witches and killer hybrids.

She didn't know why, but she hadn't felt this good in so long, and she decided not to mess it up by overthinking it. What began as cheerful humming in the back of her throat swelled into a reckless burst of song.

Throwing her hands up, she spun in a tight circle, her feet gliding through the splashing water. Her hair flipped wildly and sent shampoo suds across the interior of the shower. "You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to meeee..."

She tossed her hair again, delighting in the feeling of the wet strands hitting her skin.

"... But we-eeee are never ever ever - " She jutted her hip to one side. "Getting back together."

She giggled to herself, wondering if this was what a descent into madness felt like. Slightly off-key Taylor Swift and a completely irrational sense of elation.

When she walked out of the bathroom in her towel, she was surprised to find him back at his perch at the table.

"Fast shopper," she mumbled. She unconsciously lifted the hand that wasn't occupied with holding up her towel, catching the pile of folded fabric he launched at her.

She glared at him and he smirked.

She slipped back into the bathroom and put on the camisole top and pajama bottoms, pleased at their comfortable fit. When she walked back out, he hadn't moved. She threw herself onto her stomach on her bed, trying and failing to ignore the fact that his shirt was unbuttoned.

Maybe having a complete lack of shame was a requirement for being a vampire. No, that wouldn't explain Stefan. It was just Damon, then.

She rolled her eyes and reached for the remote, stretching her arm towards the nightstand between the beds. She flipped through the channels as her mind wandered back to their confrontation with the Original witch.

Esther had been angry. Despite the consequences of that anger, it pleased Bonnie. It meant that they were on the right track.

"Not happening." She looked up at Damon and realized he was frowning at the screen. She hadn't noticed that she'd stopped surfing through the channels. She laughed to discover what he found so offensive.

"It's not so bad, Caroline loves this show."

"And that ought to tell you everything you need to know. We are never ever ever ever watching America's Next Top Model."

Her skin flushed and she glanced up at him. How fast a shopper was he, anyway? Had he heard her in the shower?

"Like ever." He looked smug, his arms crossed over his chest.

Yes, he had. She rolled her eyes again and deadpanned, "You're hilarious."

"I know." He grinned.

She felt a bloom of affection spreading through her chest, and she realized she was sensing an echo from the blood bond. She looked at him curiously.

"Like what you see?" He winked at her.

"Don't be gross, Damon." She scoffed, but her exasperation quickly melted away.

He raised an eyebrow, feeling the craving inside her. "Why, you little addict." He smirked cockily as he understood.

She huffed out a breath of air, indignant, but he'd already made his way to the writing desk before she could respond.

Using the letter opener, he nicked the base of his neck and stood before her. She climbed to her knees on the bed and shuffled towards him, her eyes alight.

Fisting the fabric of his shirt with both hands, she stepped off of the mattress and pushed him hard so that his back slammed against the wall. Her mouth pressed against his neck forcefully and he groaned in surprise and pleasure at her roughness.

He drew his arms around her, hooking her thighs and lifting her so that her legs wrapped around his waist. His eyes shut as his head rolled against the wall, lost in the feeling of her lips cajoling the blood from him.

Sated, she tossed her own head back with a contented hum. He took the opportunity to sink his fangs into her throat. She cried out, and her hands raked through his hair and down his back as she clung to him.

She didn't have to be afraid. She could just let go and float on this.

He pulled his mouth away, giving her skin a final playful lick as he let her slide her legs down his body until she was standing on her own again.

His arms were still around her and she leaned into him, breathless.

Her eyes flew open.

"What am I doing?" She pushed him away and took two large steps back, stumbling onto the bed. "Why do I feel like this?"

He heard her heart thumping wildly in her chest. "It's the blood." He caught her eyes in his gaze. "It's euphoria... and it's power. The single most irresistible thing to someone like you or me."

"I - I can't." She slumped forward and held her head in her hands, her eyes flitting wildly to and fro. "No, I'm nothing like you!"

The wrenching in her gut was immediate, and when she looked up she saw that his face was shut down. "You know, I keep hearing that lately. Can't figure out why, though. Joining the club has its perks," he enunciated wryly.

"Damon, it's not..."

He felt the remorse writhing alongside her shock and horror. Still, he turned away and shut himself in the bathroom for a long shower.

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When he came back out, Bonnie was fast asleep, curled up atop the covers of her bed.

In the darkness he saw the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she slept, and he heard her pulse flowing smooth and strong.

He pulled one of the blankets off of his bed and draped it over her body, the light sheet billowing before clinging to her like a mantle of mist.

Crinkles formed around his eyes as he watched her for a moment longer, pensive and frowning. He climbed into his own bed and went to sleep.

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The wan morning sun filtered lazily into the windows of the museum, refracting through the dewy condensation that blanketed the glass to create scintillating patterns across the walls inside. To Bonnie's sleep-laden eyes, it seemed as if they were surrounded by tiny, dancing rainbows.

She wanted to crush each and every stupid one for daring to be so cheerful at such an hour.

"Hey, Grumpy! Move your ass," Damon called from the back room.

She muttered something he couldn't quite decipher, the words "burn" and "ugly face" rising above her low grumbling.

The museum wasn't open yet, technically. Compelling the morning staff to close off the sarcophagus room for "emergency maintenance" had been simple enough though, and when the museum doors opened a few hours later, they would remain undisturbed.

She brought both of her hands to the carved surface of the sarcophagus, frowning as it seemed once more to slip beneath her fingertips. Carefully, she pushed power through her hands, trying to determine the magical nature of the artifact. The energy flowed around the box, coursing lightly across each face of it. She could sense nothing.

She shook her head. "How do you penetrate something impenetrable?"

She felt a twinge of amusement that was surely not her own this early in the morning.

His mouth opened to speak and she cut him off before he could impart any of his sparkling wit. "It's way too early for that, Damon."

"Oh quit your bitching, witchy. It's not that early. Besides, we're on a deadline here, remember?" He'd be lying if he said he didn't find her moaning grouchiness hilarious, having always been something of a morning person himself. Not to mention he was still smarting from her words the night before.

Still, he spoke the truth. They needed to get this thing open, time was running out.

As if summoned by the thought, a gravelly voice echoed behind them. "Too true, mate. Tick tock."

Klaus. Bonnie felt her stomach drop, the raw anguish of her last encounter with the Original hybrid rushing back to her as she turned to face him. She made a conscious effort to keep her heartbeat steady and glared at him. A pair of hybrids stood behind him, one carrying a wrapped package.

"What, no clever rejoinder?" He stepped towards Bonnie with a smug smile.

The witch crossed her arms and said nothing.

"Is this the silent treatment? Don't be like that, love." He traced his fingers along the curve of her jaw as she stood defiantly unmoving. "You know I'm eternally, eternally grateful to you." He smirked.

Damon pushed his way between the witch and the Original. "What do you want, Klaus? You're the one so hell-bent on getting this thing open, so why're you wasting our time?"

Sharp eyes flicked from the face of the younger vampire to the witch who now stood behind him, and Klaus' lip curled into a sneer. "Just thought you might like the key."

Bonnie arched an eyebrow. "There's a key? That would have been useful information to know when we first got here."

"So cross in the morning! It's a beautiful day, Bonnie, just think of all the less fortunate places you could be." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, dialing a number nonchalantly. When a voice answered, he spoke again. "Would you believe our darling witch seems to need a little motivation this morning?"

He held the phone away from his ear. Despite her lack of vampiric hearing, Bonnie clearly heard Stefan's roars of anguish as the hybrid on the other end of the line followed Klaus' orders.

Damon rushed at Klaus in rage. "You son of a b- !" His shout was cut off as Klaus met him head on and shoved him against the opposite wall. One of his hands was planted firmly around the younger vampire's throat, and he casually flipped his phone shut with the other.

"Temper, temper," Klaus crooned. He turned to the hybrids as his grip tightened around Damon's neck. "Give it to her then."

The hybrid carrying the package allowed the canvas wrapping to fall away, revealing a dirt-encrusted sword. Bonnie and Damon both tensed as the hybrid moved towards her, but he presented her with the hilt rather than the blade. Cautiously, she took it in her hands.

The sword was corroded and pockmarked, the faded metal forged into a broad, straight blade. Wrapped with tattered scraps of leather, the hilt too was battered by time. The wrought bronze cross-guard was caked with dirt, but its embellishments were intact: a ring of bronze extended over the base of the blade, centered with a symbol. Set into the pommel, she noticed a faceted crystal.

As her fingertips brushed the crystal, buzzing tangles of energy leapt frantically beneath them. She felt her chest tighten as she sensed the potent magic of the crystal, and a quick look at Damon showed that he'd felt her realization.

She shook her head. "What am I supposed to do with this? It's just some sword." She glared at Klaus.

The Original hybrid growled, releasing Damon and standing in front of Bonnie in a flash of movement. His hand gripped her arm, and she couldn't help squirming as his fingers dug into her skin. "Figure it out, love. You've got one more day."

Giving one last smirk, he dropped her arm forcefully. She turned a knowing glance onto Damon as Klaus and his lackeys finally left.

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