I was bored the other day so I was scrolling through Twitter more than usual and I saw this thing that read 'Bonnie to come back different' IDK what that even means in TVD-Talk (probably a nervous breakdown or something; not that I'd blame her) but it got ME thinking and then, well, then this happened.

Have I Gone Mad?

"Do you think I've gone 'round the bend?" Alice asked.

"I'm afraid so," her father replied, "You're mad… Bonkers. Off your head…but I'll tell you a secret – all of the best people are."

What if humans had switches of their own? You know, the ability to turn it all off or at the very least reach a point of indifference so all-consuming that nothing bothered you. A sweet numbness. Idleness. Insouciance. Reaching a point of pain so exquisite that as a physical reaction your nervous system short-circuits and cuts you off; shuts you down. Let's you breathe and be without second-guessing any of it.

Bonnie Bennett was home. Kind of.

She was in Virginia, somewhere outside of Mystic Falls. Elena's voice was rattling off something nearby but the sound was like static in Bonnie's mind and she wasn't in the mood to adjust the frequency of her thoughts to accommodate whatever it was that the other girl was saying. Caroline was sitting next to her, holding her hand and frowning so severely that for a moment Bonnie thought it might have been Stefan instead. But Stefan wasn't here. She didn't know where he was. Where Damon was. Where Jeremy was. Where Matt was. Or Tyler. Or Alaric. Or her own brain for that matter. She just sat there, breathing slowly and evenly, blinking every so often and wondering why she couldn't get out of her own head. Or when the last time was that she'd even said anything – not that that seemed to bother Elena who had yet to shut up.

"Bon?" Caroline whispered and Bonnie felt herself flinch, a slight movement that seemed to startle Caroline even more than she'd been at the blonde's sudden proximity. Caroline looked at Bonnie as she moved away slowly after whispering to get the witch's attention. Bonnie had been off since she'd gotten back and no one had done anything about it. Unless you considered Elena's incessant whining as doing something. "Are you okay?" Caroline pressed on and watched as Bonnie blinked. Once. Twice. Frowned and pulled her hand out of Caroline's. Without a word she stood to her feet and walked away from her friends. She walked until she found the front door of whoever's house she was in and walked right out of it. She felt Caroline and Elena behind her, reaching for her, calling for her but she pulled away each time with a deepening sneer as each attempt came and went until she was well out of the driveway. Closing her eyes she pictured her father's house. She didn't even register an emotion as the front door of her home came into her mind's eye. In the blink of an eye she vanished, leaving Elena and Caroline gaping at where she'd just been standing.

Bonnie reappeared outside of her house and looked up at the building. It was dark and hollow looking; even from outside, for all she knew it was the same inside; how long had she been gone again? Drawing in a breath she turned away from the door and spun around to sit on the porch. She didn't know how long she sat there, just staring unseeingly off into her front yard when a car pulled up. She heard two doors open and close and feet slowly made their way to her; one pair of feet more cautious than the other. She didn't move when Alaric came to sit next to her. A woman stood in front of her, but Bonnie didn't lift her head to get a look at her face, the only reason she even knew it was Alaric was because he'd said as much when he sat down. Trying to get her talk. But she had nothing more to say. Nothing at all.

"We should get her back to them at least," the other woman said, "She shouldn't be alone."

"She was with them," Alaric countered, "I don't even know how she got here from Stefan's place." The woman shrugged and Bonnie finally moved to look at Alaric. The older man frowned at her blank expression but she held his gaze. Slowly, her face began to unnerve him, her green eyes so cold and flat, like someone had switched the light off somewhere inside of her. "Damon called," Alaric said after swallowing, "Said you'd disappeared." Bonnie blinked. "Do you want to go back to them?" She blinked again. "Bonnie you can't stay here alone." She frowned then and coughed to clear her throat.

"Why not?" She asked, looking away from him and down at her hands, "Thanks to this place all I've ever been is alone. I'd like you to leave now, please." Jo's eyebrows lifted and Alaric shifted uncomfortably where he sat. "I could always make you." Bonnie said a few moments later. She looked up at Jo. "Is that what you want?" Jo pursed her lips and sighed, turning to walk away.

"I'll be in the car," she called over her shoulder. Alaric's eyes watched his girlfriend leave.

"Leave." Bonnie said in a clipped tone when he opened his mouth again to speak. Exhaling loudly Alaric stood to his feet but turned to face Bonnie as he stood.

"If you need us we're here." She looked up at him for the longest moment and then she laughed. A soft, broken sound.

"Whatever you say Alaric." She got to her feet then and turned from him and made her way to her door, making a pushing motion with her hand and effectively opening it with her magic. Clicking it shut behind her, she fell back against it and slid to the floor and stayed there.

Bonnie was sure she would have begun to desiccate had she been a vampire. She heard a door open and close, the back door that led in from the garden and two pairs of feet made their way through the kitchen, the short hallway until they reached her where she was sitting in the living room. She was folded up, a pile of limbs, her eyes staring at the coffee table in front of her where photos of her Grams and her dad were scattered on the wooden surface. Caroline and Matt hesitated for a few moments before they fully stepped into the room, giving her a wide berth as they sat opposite her on one of her familiar couches. There was dust everywhere, dust and boxes, and sadness. After a few minutes of them staring at the girl and then shooting desperate looks at one another Caroline decided to bite the bullet and open the dialogue.

"Bonnie?" She said, tentatively, hopefully. Bonnie blinked and took a breath, but did nothing more. "Bonnie, it's me, Caroline and Matt…we're here to see you."

"I see that." She replied after the longest while. "What do you want?" she added after a beat. Caroline frowned.

"Want? Bonnie we want to know how you are…how you've been –"

"Why?" She asked, lifting her hard malachite eyes to Caroline's powdery blue ones.

"Bonnie, we're worried about you." Matt interjected, his tone sombre. She didn't even turn to him. She didn't want to get into it with him. Half the time he'd been cannon fodder for the supernaturals they loved just like she was.

"You should be. I died." Bonnie said tersely.

"But you're back now." Caroline reminded her, her tone taking on an ever increasing edge of distress, "You should be happier than this." Bonnie cracked a smile then. An odd one, all lop-sided and dull.

"You should go." Bonnie said once her face fell back to a blankness, "I don't want you here." Both blondes jerked as if they'd been slapped.

"You don't mean that…" Caroline stammered.

"Don't I?" Bonnie hissed and when Matt and Caroline blinked again they were outside at the bottom of the porch looking at Bonnie's front door.

When Damon came to see her, she didn't know how many days it had been. He kicked her front door in. Literally. She'd put a half-arsed spell on it to burn a vampire that tried to knock on the door but she should have just put up an impenetrable wall. Damon stormed into the living room, looking set to set her alight by the looks of the fire in his eyes. It almost made her feel something…amusement maybe.

"What the hell Bonnie?" He spat, like he had so many times before now, his eyes wild with his hair mussed. He would never change, she mused. And she'd been changed irrevocably. And somehow, Damon was the one who fared better between the two of them even though she knew and he knew and the whole world knew that he didn't deserve it in comparison to her. "What's with the Bella Swan spin-off?"

"Get out." She muttered, fiddling with the hem of one of the legs of her pyjama pants as she sat on the couch with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them. Damon barked a laugh. In a flash he was in her face. Off-handedly she was glad for his sake that she'd just brushed her teeth.

"No can do Weeping Beauty, I don't know if you've noticed but the wards in Mystic Falls are down and we can all go back to living and all that and yet here you are…wasting away leaving me to worry about you like it's my job." Bonnie's eyes looked into his and Damon swore he felt himself grow colder just holding her gaze.

"Let me make it easier for you," Bonnie said, her voice flat, her face blank and her body stiff, "Fuck. Off." She blinked three times after she spoke, slowly, giving Damon time to absorb what had just transpired. He blinked back at her, like he was only just seeing her in that moment. Like he hadn't been the one to bring her back. Like he hadn't been the first one to notice that something was horribly wrong with her. Like he hadn't been the first one to brush it off because as long as she was back he'd done what he had to do so he could move on.

"What's going on with you?" He muttered after a while. She looked away from him then, pushing herself further into the back of the couch she was in, putting as much space between them as possible.

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

"Damon." She said his name like the cocking of a gun, "We're not doing this. We're not playing the Damon-Do-Gooder Game okay? You brought me back, let's leave it at that. You get millions of points with Elena, all is well in your world, so leave it be."

"That's not why I got you back, idiot," Damon snapped, leaning back into her space, his arms on either side of her slight frame as she dipped her head to avoid his eyes, "I got you back because you're my friend. Possibly my first real friend. I've had like…two before but none like you. None that put me first even when I put them last. I didn't deserve that and you deserve so much better than that shit storm with Kai so I got you and I brought you home because you deserve to be fought for and brought home. People are so quick to forgive me when it looks like I'm trying and in the same breath they take people like you, who are always doing good things, for granted and it…it kind of nauseates me. Which is really saying something." Bonnie blinked at him. But the blinks were different. They were quicker, nervous. "So tell me," he went on, "What the hell happened to make you end up like this?" Bonnie swallowed and gripped her hands on her knees as she tried to make sense of her thoughts.

"It all caught up with me," Bonnie said, low and uncertain, "I guess I didn't give much thought to what would happen after dying as much as I have. But I think…I think something broke inside of me…and I don't, I mean, I'm here but I'm not…I don't feel right and I can't find it in myself to even want to…I don't want to do anything but sit here and breathe, it's all I can do to avoid dying again and -" tears fell then, "And I know it's only a matter of time," a twist of sadness distorted her words and Damon's own breathing hitched at the sight of her, "But I don't want to die again Damon, I can't and I know it's going to happen and I –" before she could collapse into a heap of sobs she found herself in the circle of his arms. He held her and she cried. He rubbed her back to stop her from her shaking and she cried. He moved them both so that he sat on the couch and pulled her to him and she cried. Her pain was different somehow, to Elena's for example. Bonnie was so shy and sincere in her sorrow that it threatened to pull him down with her where Elena's pain seemed to be perpetuated by the girl herself as she wondered why, why, why, why the world could be so cruel to her. Not realising that Bonnie, Bonnie Bennett, her best friend, had long fallen apart.

"I've got you." Damon murmured, bringing the girl even closer. On the Other, Other Side he'd gotten used to her, and her form – but she was bonier, her curves sharper from weight loss. Even her face was losing its soft lines in favour of edgier planes and angles in its heart shape. The only thing that was the same really was her mouth. Her mouth and her broken heart. Bonnie's little hands balled into the material of his jacket, hanging onto him for dear life while she wept. And Damon let her. He let her cry because he'd decided that the minute the tears ended, the minute she drew that ragged breath and steadied herself he was going to help her.

"I think I've lost my mind." She whispered about an hour later. A ghost of a smile moved over Damon's mouth as he ran a hand through her hair as he held her.

"Take it from someone who lost it a long time ago," Damon said softly, "It's not nearly as bad as it seems."