Author's note: So I woke up this morning with an idea in head. It was very much inspired by the 100th episode of TVD where Matt asked Bonnie if she sees anyone she knows. It was meant to be a quick Kennett drabble but now I have it as sketched out as a series. With the ideas in my head, I am making no promises as to an endgame pairing (if romance even comes to the forefront). It will cross over with The Originals. The title comes from a line in the song "Dance back from the Grave" by Marc Cohn (it's about New Orleans). I sincerely hope you enjoy!

A Thousand Souls Crossed Over

Part One

"Little witch."

In truth, she has been waiting for this moment. Somewhere in the back of her mind. It's not as if she goes about her daily business expecting it to happen but she has always known intuitively that it would.

Therefore when she turns to face him, she is not wide eyed or slack jawed. Her lips are pressed together and her gaze is cool. He looks very much the same as he did when she left him pinned in the bowels of the school. Her head tilts just a little, an unconscious triumphant gloat. She had been able to pull the wool over his eyes - considering everything that followed, the time she had spent wandering the Other Side, she feels entitled to find whatever good she can in the situation.

"Hello, Kol," she states evenly. Thankfully, they are alone. Or, she is alone because he is not really there. If anyone comes across her, they will find her talking to the space in front of her. Perhaps they will chalk it up to freshman stress - midterms and papers. She doesn't worry about that now. She focuses all her attention on him, on how to make him go away.

"You've cut your hair. It suits you," he observes. He still has that look about him - predator watching prey even though he is the one who is dead and gone.

Her control falters. She makes a face. He hasn't sought her out to compliment her fashion sense. She recovers quickly, one arm crossing over the other. She will not, under any circumstance, ask him why he is here. She is not interested in giving him a podium to stand on. "I figured - time for a change, new chance at life and all."

He raises a brow. Smiles.

"I've got class." She turns on her heels and leaves him standing there, hands jammed in the pockets of the jacket he died in.

X

She does most of her work in a study carrel in the library. It's easier this way. Her dorm is a bit chaotic - with two of out of three of them in various stages of a breakup. Caroline is always trying to think of novel ways to get over Tyler (Bonnie had never heard of a post relationship luau until the other night) and Elena spends most of her time looking like a walking talking mop of brown hair. She almost feels guilty for being happy with Jeremy.

Almost.

Because truthfully, it's hard to feel guilty when you remember that you have spent months utterly alone watching the world move on without you. She deserves him - she deserves the smile he puts on her face.

Tonight she has her books spread out in front of her. She is lost in the complexities of physics (and wondering how many theories would change if the scientists who made them knew of the supernatural) when someone clears their throat. She blinks and looks up. Frowns.

Obviously their encounter the other day was not meant to a one-time thing.

The library is not quite as empty as the hall she first encountered him in. He leans against her carrel as she sighs, and gathers her things. So much for solitude. He follows her out into the cool fall evening. She decides to leave the first words to him and therefore takes a path that winds like a maze throughout the Whitmore campus. Kol is right beside her, hands clasped behind his back as if they are friends sharing a quiet moment. Finally, when they have nearly doubled back to where they started she whirls on her heels. "What?!"

He bows his head a little, a smile playing across his lips. "I would have followed you all night if you hadn't broken."

She furrows her brows. "Why?" It slips out almost on accident and she winces at how easily she has conceded. There - she supposes she has done it. Given him his platform.

"I'm bored."

That's it? That is why she is now face to face with Kol Mikaelson. He is bored?!

Bonnie bristles, eyes narrowing to slits. He doesn't hold back his smile now. "I am not a source of entertainment. Go play hide and seek with the other ghosts."

"You know, just as well as I, how rare it is to find another here. You could walk for years and never see another soul." He moves so that he stands directly in front of her. His eyes travel over her in such a manner that her fingers twitch to strike him. "You on the other hand - you burn brightly. I can see you no matter where I am. We all can. It's how the ones that get here find you. You are their North Star."

It would be almost poetic if one doesn't consider the realities of being the anchor. Or that the words come from him, the vampire who had once wrapped his hands so tightly around her neck in an effort to send her hurtling towards her own north star. "I don't care if I am lit up like a supernova. I am not going to let you use me as a cure for your boredom."

He tilts his head, a near mirror of the movement she had made the other day. He is ready to do a little gloating of his own. "Just how do you plan to stop me?"

X

Apparently he does find other things to amuse him because she does not see him for a few weeks. In all honesty, Bonnie had spent the first few days after he had laid down the taunt turning her head at every sound for fear that she would find him standing there grinning like the Cheshire cat. She was careful to avoid crowds in case he decided to pop up and demand her attention. She had glanced over her shoulder enough times for Caroline to pull her aside and ask her if she was okay (considering Caroline had been in the middle of backsliding into the crying stage of the breakup, Bonnie's actions must have been noticeable). Bonnie had shrugged it off.

Eventually, she had decided that she could relax. That maybe Kol had beaten the odds and was slinging mud at his father, or bitching about Klaus with Finn. Either way, she had sighed, let her shoulders drop and stopped expecting him.

Big mistake.

X

She turns on her side, burying her face into her pillow. There is a whoosh of breath that betrays her frustration. She is exhausted, so much so that she aches but yet she can't seem to drift off. Earlier a vampire had crossed. She had doubled over, her mouth forming a scream of pain that just would not come out. In the moments after it had happened, she had leaned heavily against the brick building, blinking away tears.

It always surprises her just how much it hurts.

She needs to rest but the pain is still there, curled in the bottom of her stomach. It will fade of course but that takes time. Right now she is losing precious sleep. She has a lab in the morning and she is not keen to being around an open flame on a few hours of rest. She utters a curse (ever so quietly of course - having two roommates with keen hearing has its downfalls) and turns once again.

There he is. Stretched out on her bed, his head resting in his palms as he stares at the ceiling. She can't even stop herself. She yelps.

Elena wakes first, her body snapping to a seated position at an alarming speed. Caroline is by Bonnie's bedside seconds later. They both look at her with wide eyes.

Kol laughs.

X

From that moment on, he becomes a regular fixture in her life.

Kol follows her to class, plops down beside her, and scoffs at the professor's interpretation of the French Revolution. "Niklaus started it, you know," he mutters as he stretches out his feet. They rest on the top of the blonde seated in front of him. Bonnie wonders if the living feels any inkling at all of the dead that surround them. She watches the girl for a moment, gets caught staring and receives a look that tells her she has just been filed away as 'strange' in the girl's eyes. Kol chuckles. "Making friends I see."

Bonnie sinks in her seat a little, content to ignore him. He spends the next hour telling her a tale of how Klaus had single handily turned a country upside down by being his 'usual prick of a self'. She never once bats an eye in his direction, doing her best to concentrate on the professor.

Later she discovers that bits of Kol's story have crept into her notes and snarls.

X

"I never went to college," Kol admits as she picks her fork through some baked pasta dish that looks as if it has been reheated from lunch time. Around her others are repeating the same action, no doubt contemplating breaking into their reserve cash to spring for some pizza. She breathes through her nose, and casually glances up. Her eyes met his and he smiles. "Lovely. You are at least acknowledging me. You hurt my feelings you know - ignoring me as you do."

Surprisingly it tastes better than it looks. Bonnie closes her eyes, wishing that Elena or Caroline had joined her instead of opting for a liquid supper. She would have something to concentrate on instead of him. It was harder when she was seemingly alone. Her voice is soft, a whisper that is almost inaudible. He has to lean in to hear her. "I am not crazy."

"Of course you're not!" He responds, making a face. "Why on earth would you think that?"

"I would be, if I carried on a conversation with you whenever you deemed it necessary to drop by," she counters. Her eyes dart around the door but thankfully no one has noticed her talking into her noodle surprise. "In their eyes…"

He scoffs. "Who the hell cares what a bunch of walking blood bags think of you?"

She does. Truly. College - that is supposed to be her bit of normal after the past year. She is supposed to do normal college things. Go to parties. Stay up all night studying. Eat Chinese takeout at all hours. Sleep til noon.

She deserves it. Her high school career had been plagued by one near death experience after another. She wonders how she even pulled it together enough to be crowned Prom Queen let alone graduate. She just wants one thing that isn't wholly tainted by the supernatural. Sure, it's not perfect. There are times she has to leave a lecture to let someone through to the Other Side. Elena's doppelganger status still makes her a magnet for trouble - but Bonnie has been doing exceptionally well at filtering those things into different compartments. College isn't tainted yet.

Kol is making her rethink that. Just by being there.

She doesn't answer his question. Somehow she thinks he figures out what she would have said anyway. She just sits there, a mouthful of her supper half chewed and wonders if there is any way she can take it back.

"I never went to college," he repeats. "But then again, I never really had a chance. Niklaus was always sticking me in that bloody box for bad behavior. I think I would have liked it though - or at least liked the easy access to a meal."

Noodle surprise quickly loses what little appeal it had going for it.

X

She has to admit, she misses being a witch. She misses that connection to the earth, the feel of power flowing through her body. She had come so far in just a few years; from floating feathers to raising the dead (she never dwells on the fact that that rapid progression is why she is no longer a witch). She tells herself when she longs for power that she did as much good as she could in the time she had.

However, she still longs.

Especially right now, as she writes the dreaded midterm.

Kol is right beside her, singing what she can only assume is a myriad of filthy limericks. She is trying her best to concentrate on the complexities of the question but it is hard when some of the things that slip from his mouth cause her eyes to bulge. She wishes desperately for her magic so she can make him stop. She can practically see every blood vessel in his head pop time and time again until he is on the ground writhing in pain. She wouldn't stop there - she'd throw him so far into the Other Side he would wander for a decade just to find her 'bright light'.

But of course as much as she wants her magic, she doesn't get it.

When the proctor calls time, she still has at least ten questions to complete. She throws him such a look of fury that he falls silent. He remains silent as he follows her from the exam room. She stomps her way off campus with him on her heels. She doesn't stop until she isolates herself. The only other being she sees is him. Weeks of frustration boil over.

"Are you trying to punish me for leaving you there? Is that it? Because I wouldn't let you unleash hell on earth!" She cries and is surprised to find that her whole body shakes in anger. "Is this how I am going to spend eternity? With you?"

He looks surprised. Honestly. She falls silent as she takes in the dumbfounded look on his face. "Punish you - there's a novel idea. I wish I had actually thought of it. My last moments on the proper side of life were spent with the girl who helped kill me. Hardly the way I had thought I would go."

Bonnie sags a little, so angry that tears glitter her eyes. "If not to punish, Kol, then what?"

Kol doesn't answer her right away. He merely watches her in the state she is currently in. She almost thinks he pities her and envisions tackling him to the ground to sink her nails into his skin but then remembers that it will do no good. "I lied." Her jaw falls slack and her brows push together as she waits for him to clarify the statement. "It wasn't boredom that brought me to you. I need something."

"I can't bring you back, Kol. It's not a two way door," she tells him.

He bows his head and she hears him laugh. "Oh no no, I am well aware that is now my fate. Forever doomed to wander. That is not what I need from you."

"Just tell me," she says and realizes she is not averse to pleading. Begging. Anything if he would just get to the heart of it all. She has spent weeks listening to him, knowing he was right behind her, fearing that the next time she would press her lips to Jeremy's that he would be in the corner ready to provide commentary.

"I need to speak with my family," he finally says, his voice having taken on a tone she has never heard. It's solemn with just a hint of longing. "And you need to help me."