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 being helpful, resourceful and loyal.

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.

BKBKBK

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 awkwardly pulls out a chair for her, making 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.

"It's been a while," Damon starts, avoiding her eyes, "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 air 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 door step?

The last time she remembered him he was 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 hops up 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. He reaches back into the cooler and hands her a sweating bottled water.

Bonnie's mouth turns up into a smirk, "Changing the subject," She nods slowly, taking the bottled water he offers her, "That's cool, you were always uncomfortable when talking about anything that mattered, but I'm determined 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?"

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.

"No can do witchy-poo," He states causing her face to fall in exasperation. He chuckles and reaches for his third beer, but looks up to catch the anxiety in her eyes, "Also," he turns, his eyebrows scrunching, "Don't fucking thank me, Bonnie. It was the very least I could do," He says, his voice trailing before he sits on the edge of the bed, "When we found out Jeremy was faking the postcards," He shakes his head, his voice choking, "We all should have fucking kno––

Bonnie holds up her hand for him to stop. "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." She pulls at the wrapping on the water bottle, remembering her pleading with Jeremy not to tell, so desperate to sacrifice herself, so desperate to be invisible, so desperate to not be who she was destined to be.

Damon concedes begrudgingly. "Is that why you thought I was still in this hell hole, "He smirks, throwing his hands up at the grandeur of the rinky-dink motel room, "I don't deserve a thank you from you and its definitely not the reason why I've been sticking around or why I'm not leaving."

She snorts and rises for the door, reaching for her bag. "Well, I tried. Tell Caroline I will write to her eventually."

"Just like that?" He lunges for her, blocking her exit. "Five minutes of your time after weeks and you're all like 'peace out' Damon, like that would work on me, by the way". He reaches for her wrist and immediately releases it from the look she gives him. "I––I made a deal with Marcel. For your life, I would take you home."

"Home?" She cocks her head slightly, her brow crinkled with confusion, "This is my home. New Orleans."

He snorts, "New Orleans is only safe for you because I'm here. Marcel wants you dead too, not as much as the brother Mikaelsons' but pretty damn close." He warns, pulling out his cell phone and scrolling through texts between him and the King of New Orleans.

He puts the iphone 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 he just needed a little more time and he would have her out of his hair.

She pushes the phone to his chest, "You're fucking working with him."

"I'm a lone ranger, darling, I'm not working for anyone but Damon. And what I want right now is your safety and well-being. Klaus is out, Bonnie." He pleads, "He's lost this war. They have his brother. And he has no way of getting him back."

And she has exhausted her mind over Klaus, and she is exhausted of hearing about him on the lips of strangers, or through the walls when the aunts and cousins had come to visit Antoinette, and she is exhausted of the basic humans wondering on the nightly news what was mauling all of the bodies. Tourism had halted and businesses were suffering. The streets were quiet with fear. Klaus had succeeded in bringing New Orleans to its knees.

But.

Marcel had won.

Marcel loyalists had burned the garden district home she shared with Klaus and Elijah to the ground, his witch had finally conjured up a protective spell to keep Klaus out of the Quarter after Klaus's massive body count piled up, a spell that even the elders had to whistle about and scratch their heads over, and Marcel had the most prized possession, Klaus's daggered brother hidden in his mansion.

"I gotta go, Damon, but I'll be back, "She says resolutely, her purse on her shoulder and her hand demonstrating to him how he needs to move.

He steps aside, "Woman, have you been listening? There is a red dot aimed at your heart if you don't leave here with me."

She smiles up at Damon, her full toothy grin, "When did you become a scaredy cat," She says lightly, standing outside on the concrete landing, the golden sun setting over them.

He frowns and she places a soft hand under his chin, staring up into his turbulent eyes, "Stay in the city, Damon. I am gonna need your help in rescuing Elijah."

Damon jerks from her embrace and scoffs, "I mean I will be the first to admit that the ring looked good on your hand but you should let him rot in there."

Bonnie considers, "But that's not who I am."

Author's Note

Next Chapter: Bonnie goes to see her baby daddy.