Hello again. Thank you for your reviews and encouragement, I was pleasantly surprised :) I'm still on a writing craze because of these two so I decided to add more to the story. I don't know exactly how much more I'll write, but I have this narrative in my head and I need to get it out because I ship them too much. Does that make sense? Anyway, I hope you'll like it.

(thanks also to the anons Guest, Vie, JChatedelena, Sammy)

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It was terrible to find out you were in love with your best friend's boyfriend. It was also terrible because Damon had become a close friend. And she was about to ruin their friendship with her unwarranted feelings.

This is the PTSD talking. You got used to him, that's all, she thought with dismay. He was your only friend for a while. It makes sense to grow attached.

But not this attached. It shouldn't have twisted her insides to hear Damon tell Elena he loved her. It shouldn't have made her chest hurt, or turn her eyes misty. She should have been happy for them, because they had finally found their way back to each other. The first month of their captivity, Damon had talked about Elena constantly, about how she probably thought he was dead and had moved on and how it sucked he couldn't let her know he was alive. Of course, in typical Damon fashion, he hadn't spelled out his feelings; he had made casual remarks and self-deprecating jokes, but Bonnie had been there to shake him out of his moods and assure him that Elena was devastated and would be devastated for a while.

"How can you think she's moved on so fast?"

Damon had shrugged. "She's a vampire. We choose to shut things off and go with the flow rather than experience a big amount of pain. If I were her, that's what I'd do."

"Thank God she's not you. But even if she did shut it off, it would only mean she's in denial, not that she's forgotten you."

After a while, however, Damon's tune changed and he no longer complained about Elena moving on. Now, he wanted her to move on. He wanted her to be happy without him.

"I just hope she doesn't settle for some college idiot," he had confessed to Bonnie one night. "But I wouldn't have her waste her life away on my account. It's not like I was good enough for her anyway. She'll find someone better, someone who can make her really happy."

Bonnie had been slightly confused at his choice of words. "You don't think you made her really happy?"

"Guess I did, but it was always too intense or too short-lived. We were never very stable."

"Granted, you were never given the chance. I'm sure that under normal, non-supernatural conditions, you two could have worked," Bonnie had comforted him.

At that point in their imprisonment, they had both been semi-convinced they weren't getting out of there anymore. So it made sense that Damon had said,

"That's what I'm afraid of sometimes. Of being given the chance. Of finding out that we don't actually work in the normal, boring settings of real life."

"What are the normal, boring settings?" Bonnie had asked.

Damon had stayed silent for a long while. She had thought he wouldn't answer at all, but then he had looked up towards the ceiling like a convict about to meet the death sentence and muttered,

"The settings where Elena is human."

Bonnie had been stunned. He had refused to elaborate on what he had meant by that, but Bonnie had figured out what he was truly afraid of. That a human Elena would not like their intensity, their darkness. The old Elena had found Damon amusing at best, but certainly not boyfriend material. It was vampire Elena who accepted him as he was.

And Bonnie?

She was not human, but she was not a vampire either. She could safely say she did not accept Damon as he was. Their time in the prison world had been spent on her telling him off and him finding new ways to annoy her. So maybe what she felt right now was not unconditional. Elena loved him regardless of what he did. Maybe that was true love.

She did not know. All she knew was that she felt a big hole in her stomach and if it wasn't love, it was still something strong enough to make her wince at the thought of Elena and Damon together. She hated herself for it. This was not how it was supposed to go. It had never happened to her before. Caroline and Elena had dated consistently throughout high school, but she had never been tempted by any of their boyfriends. Of course, she had not spent three months with them to find out.

She held Miss Cuddles tightly in her arms. Maybe these feelings would go away now that she was home. Maybe all she needed was to see her friends and get back to her normal routine, become the Bonnie Bennett from before. Certainly, some aspects would be forever marked by her awful experience, and there was a good chance that old Bonnie was gone for good, but these romantic feelings couldn't be permanent. They were only a by-product, an accident. Perhaps what she felt was only the aftermath of a nightmare.

I have to stay away from him until this phase is over.

The prospect saddened her greatly since he was one of the few people she could really talk to about her trauma, but the alternative was being in his presence, pretending to be his friend while secretly yearning for more. He didn't deserve that.

Damon offered to drive her home, but she insisted on walking.

"I want to see the people on the street, hear the cars and the music, feel the hustle and bustle…you know, something that's not completely devoid of human life. I kind of hate the silence now."

"Well, this is still Mystic Falls, so chances are it's still pretty boring and deserted outside, but sure, if that makes you happy. Call me when you get in. And I'll pick you up tomorrow to take you to Whitmore."

"Um, it's okay, I can drive there myself. You should…probably look into your mom and everything."

Damon frowned, his eyes roaming over her features uncertainly.

"Are you sure? I can do both, you know. I just want to know you're okay."

Bonnie tried to suppress the strange lightness she got whenever he mentioned he cared about her.

"I am. I mean, I'm going to be. I just need time to adjust. But you don't have to babysit me or something."

"Don't tell anyone, but I might - and I'm saying might - enjoy babysitting you," he teased.

"Your awful secret is safe with me," she smiled. But what about my secret?

"You could stick around some more, maybe eat something other than pancakes," he said, pointing to the kitchen.

Bonnie gulped, her palms sweating in her clenched fists.

"Haven't we spent enough time alone together?" she joked, rolling her eyes.

"Are you kidding me? It will last me into the next century and the next, and the one after that," he replied, smirking.

Bonnie wanted to kick herself. But perhaps pretending not to care would make it real. If she worked at it hard enough, she might even call it the truth. I don't like Damon Salvatore romantically. I don't. I don't love him, or get butterflies in my stomach when he grins like that, eyes all wide and blue…

She almost jumped out of her skin when he touched her shoulder and leaned into her.

"Stay safe, okay?"

"Sure thing!" she almost yelped.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

Alone in the confines of her room, Bonnie paced and paced until her feet grew sore. Her old home was unchanged. There was no mother, father, Grams or sibling to make it any different. No company to make her forget her troubling thoughts. There was only silence and, as she had told Damon before, she hated those.

She turned on her laptop and TV and made sure their volumes were high enough to drown out the ocean of quiet that threatened to spill into her ears. But no matter how much loud techno music she forced herself to listen to, she couldn't get rid of Damon and his face burning into her retina.

The walls were closing in on her. Every minute or so, she had to look out the window to confirm that this was the populated Mystic Falls and not the empty one.

She had to go somewhere where there were many people, where the world danced and burned with energy.

She was tempted to call Elena and drive up to Whitmore that very moment, but it was almost midnight and she did not feel up to it. She was not emotionally equipped for another reunion. What was more, she feared this reunion the most. She entertained the absurd notion that Elena could tell she had feelings for Damon just by looking at her. As if there was a big "loves Damon" sign on her forehead.

"Stop it!" she yelled to herself. "I don't love him!"

But you kinda do, a small voice whispered in her head.

It was so frustrating. She was a traitor. The worst kind of traitor; an involuntary one. After all, the road to hell was paved with good intentions. It was bad enough that the fabric of reality was now foreign to her; she did not need another emotional upheaval.

"Let's get you drunk."

It was a stupid decision that old Bonnie would have never condoned, but old Bonnie wasn't here anymore.

It was a Friday night, which meant there was some high school party was going on somewhere in the neighborhood. This being a small town, the kids liked to party even harder to make up for the lack of actual urban grittiness. There was always a decent amount of alcohol that got passed around. Ideally, she wanted to drink surrounded by as many bodies and talking mouths as possible.

Bonnie rummaged through her wardrobe and found a short red dress she hadn't worn since high school. She put it on and found that it still molded to her body, except that the Bonnie staring back at her from the mirror looked like she'd earned a couple of battle scars and consequently, the dress clashed with that great big gulf of bitterness between her eyebrows. Damon called it her "scrunchy, judgy face". But she flashed a fake smile and gave herself a thumbs up. She looked good. And she would not cry on her first night back. She was stronger than that, much stronger.

She got into her car, ready to land at the nearest house party. Her heart was beating fast. She was usually in control of her life. Maybe this was a bad idea. But she kept driving.

She didn't have to search long.

The seniors were giving a bash at a house near Wickery Bridge. She was pretty sure that Jeremy would know some of them by name.

Jeremy.

Strange how he popped up into her head randomly. She hadn't called him yet to let him know. But she shut her mind off. If she let herself think more, she'd have another reason to feel guilty. And one Gilbert on her conscience was enough.

She got out of the car and strutted confidently to the front door. She didn't have to worry about getting in. The door was ajar; people were coming in and out, laughing, touching each other, inhabiting their own youthful universe that did not include PTSD, insanity or torture. She didn't want anyone to ever go through what she had, but it seemed unfair that these people got to waltz around carefree while she had to drag her baggage everywhere.

The house was packed with loud and rambunctious teenagers. They were everywhere, on the stairs, in the living room, in the hallways, in the kitchen…you couldn't escape them. Everywhere you turned, every inch of space was filled up. She sighed with relief.

Just what I needed.

Their mingled breaths, their high-pitched laughter, their uncoordinated movements, they all had the charm of community and togetherness. She was part of something; still an outsider, but surrounded enough so as not to feel the pressing emptiness inside her.

People were starting to give her odd looks, but she had arrived at a point in the party where people were tipsy enough not to care if they saw a strange face.

She made a bee-line to the kegs.

I'll just have a drink or two and sit around for half an hour.

But new Bonnie had some different plans in mind.

"Drink, drink, drink!" the voices yelled with triumph.

The world was upside down, literally. The floor was the ceiling and her tiny boots almost touched the actual ceiling. Blood was rushing to her brain, clotting her senses, pushing her down this stream of recklessness.

She was being held up by a pair of sweaty hands. Two boys were holding her legs, another one was gripping her waist and she was standing upside down, drinking directly from the tap. She'd heard it was called a keg stand. She remembered she had never got to do this in high school, but all her friends had. Now it was her turn.

The boys put her down eventually, even though the hole in her stomach had not been filled, not even by a half.

"That was awesome!" one of them cried out, putting a hand around her shoulders, flashing a wide, dumb grin.

Bonnie wiped her mouth and grabbed him by his shirt. "Shut up."

She crashed her lips to his without much forethought. It was something instinctual, something she had never quite mastered at sixteen or seventeen – letting go and being stupid – but she was getting the hang of it now. He tasted like beer and chips, but she probably tasted the same and after a while, she tasted nothing at all. His lips were chapped and soft and soon their tongues clashed in a way that made her body tingle. She could almost pretend he was someone she actually desired.

No.

She pulled away briefly.

"Let's go dance."

He didn't protest, although he looked a bit overwhelmed by this older girl, taking charge of him. They got swept along with the other bodies jumping and darting chaotically around them. Bonnie loved it. She could smell the sweat, could feel foreign skin touching hers, invading her personal space, and she wanted to get high on this sensation. Never a moment alone. Never a moment of silence. Her body thrummed and vibrated along with the music. She held onto the guy's neck, while he squeezed her waist and hips.

"What's your name?" he screamed into her ear.

Bonnie leaned her head on his shoulder and started kissing his neck, ignoring his question. He gasped, struggling between arousal and surprise. His hands moved to her ass, but he was tentative, nervous.

"Touch me. Do anything," she urged him, bringing her lips to his again. At first he went along with her encouragements, but soon she was biting his tongue and digging her nails into his chest, and he took a step back, breaking the kiss.

"Whoa, this is great and everything, but do I know you? I don't think you go to Mystic High -"

Bonnie frowned. "Why does it matter?"

He looked at her sheepishly. "You're not from around here, are you? That's cool, but I don't want any trouble."

She rolled her eyes. He did not understand she didn't care who he was, or who she was for that matter. She just wanted contact and oblivion. Was that so much to ask?

"Just enjoy the ride, okay?"

But he seemed to be getting other ideas. "Um, actually, I have a girlfriend, but I guess we could still make out if you don't tell anyone–"

Bonnie shook her head. "Forget it." She zapped him with a current of magic that made him shriek and she quickly dived into the pool of bodies, ready to select a new, less disappointing partner. Her search didn't take long. She found another available guy straight away. He was much more enthusiastic.

"Don't ask me any questions. Just touch me," she told him sternly.

"Glad to," he answered stoically and soon his hands were so far up her thighs that her dress was almost a forgotten accessory. Bonnie leaned her head back into his chest and enjoyed the sensation. The dance was slow now and she wanted to move faster, but she had to pace herself. Her head was swimming in alcohol and the room was spinning.

Suddenly, it was too warm inside. The walls were closing in again. She had to get outside. She had to breathe.

"Come on," she urged him. "Let's go on the terrace."

Thankfully, there were many other people there too to alleviate the fright of being alone in the darkness of the night. Beyond them, she could see a small lawn that ran down to the lake. She wondered if the water was cold. She would have liked to try and see.

Bonnie pushed him up against the terrace wall and started kissing him again. His hands were everywhere. They even landed on the zipper of her dress.

Could she do this? Could she be this careless in front of strangers?

"How old are you?" she mumbled between kisses.

"Turning seventeen in a month," he mumbled back.

Good enough.

Her moral compass was wavering, but she clasped it shut. This was about not being alone in her head. This was about living again.

And then, she heard his voice.

"Bonnie? What the hell?"

No. No no no no.

She almost didn't want to pull away from the kiss, almost didn't want to acknowledge what was happening. But even through her blurry, drunken haze, she saw Damon Salvatore clearly standing in front of her. He wore a severe expression on his face. The kind she usually sported.

"Uh….hi."

"Hi? Bonnie, are you making out with a sixteen year old?!"

"He…he technically turns seventeen in a month."

Damon pushed the poor boy away from her. He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her inside the house. "Come on, we need to talk."

Her make-out partner put up a small fight.

"Hey, wait a second man, what are you, her dad?"

Damon turned on him with a murderous expression. "What did you just say?"

"We were just having fun and then you had to show up –"

But Damon ended his words with a pretty nasty punch to the face. He staggered back, eyes wide and ran inside the house.

"You didn't have to do that!" she protested, but her voice came out like a slurred whine. She tried to put some distance between them. He was awfully close to her now, practically breathing down her neck, inspecting her as if she were some broken toy he needed to fix.

"Oh, sure, cuz I was about to stand there and watch you eat his face," he retorted.

"It's my choice whose face I eat! Let go of me!"

She realized she sounded slightly ridiculous, but she didn't care. She had every right to have fun and waste the night away, if only to chase her demons.

"What are you doing here anyway?"

"You didn't call me when you got home. I got worried. I thought – doesn't matter anymore, but you should've called me! I found your car by the side of the road. I figured you were going to go out, but this wasn't what I'd imagined."

He brought a hand to her chin. "How drunk are you anyway? You're barely standing."

She needed to get away from him. In her current state, she might open her mouth and spill out some dark shameful secret. Not to mention, his presence was a reminder of all the things going wrong in her life at the moment.

"Just go, Damon. I'm an adult. I can handle my drinking fine."

"Clearly," he sneered.

"Please, just let me have this –"

"I'm taking you home right now. You're in no condition to party. Take it from a guy who's been there –"

"No! You haven't been there! I was there completely alone! So let me go!" She turned around and ran down the terrace steps, but Damon was on her footsteps.

"Bonnie, stop –"

"Go away."

"We need to talk about this, you're not okay –"

"I said I'm fine and I don't need you!" she screamed. Damon reached for her arm again, but she yanked herself free and ran down the lawn.

The lake was getting nearer and nearer. Suddenly, she didn't care anymore. She wanted this, wanted to lose herself completely, even if that meant diving into cold mud. She took off her boots and ran straight for the water.

"Bonnie, no! Stop!"

She jumped and dived into the dark water, holding her knees to her chest.

The shock of icy needles pricking her skin relieved the tension which had built up inside her. Now all that negative energy seemed to dissipate. She was entombed by heavy folds of water and she felt weirdly at peace. Her body was screaming at her to get out, but her mind was not responding. Her mind was sitting back and watching the madness unravel. She looked up at the trembling surface and watched it recede from her vision. She closed her eyes and let the water slide into her nostrils, down into her lungs.

She had never been suicidal, until the Other Side. People thought she liked sacrificing herself over and over again, putting others before her and making grand, sweeping gestures of generosity that usually involved risking her life. But the truth was she had always considered it her duty, not a pleasure. She had never enjoyed any of it, but she had swallowed it like a bitter, necessary pill.

The Other Side had taught her the price of life. But it had also taught her that sometimes, death was the only way not to pay that price.

It was absurd; she had gone through hell to get back here and now she was almost throwing it away. She had wanted tonight to be full of noise and contact, but now, silence enveloped her again on all sides.

Inescapable.

And then, there were arms around her. Strong, rough fingers digging into her ribs. Maybe it was the monster of the lake. When she had been little, Grams used to scare her with stories like that. You never knew how real they were when she told them. Grams had a talent of making the impossible possible. If magic was real, maybe the monster of the lake was real too. In Grams' story, it claimed its victims by dragging them in the waters and consuming them slowly. If that was happening to her now, the monster was doing a pretty bad job of it, since he was pulling her up towards the surface.

She experienced another shock when she felt oxygen mingling with the water in her lungs.

Her throat was constricted. She choked on her own breath.

"Bon? Bon, look at me. Come on. Breathe. Breathe."

The monster was cradling her in his arms. She turned over and opened her mouth. She coughed water and mud. Lots of it.

He was patting her back.

"Let it all out, witchy. I know you guys hate water."

He was sopping wet, courtesy of having gone into the lake after her. He had dragged her on the opposite shore. She lifted her head feebly and saw the house party across the water. People had gathered on the banks and were watching her as if she were some kind of crazy freak.

Maybe I am.

She glanced up at Damon. He still looked frustratingly handsome, particularly now when his body was accentuated by the water.

It wasn't fair. She was supposed to see less of him now and get over these cumbersome feelings. But hours later, here they were.

"I'll go get you a towel."

"No…don't bother. I can just do this."

She sat down in the grass and closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation of warmth. She muttered the spell words and soon enough, her whole body was glowing with internal heat. Her dress was beginning to dry up.

Damon whistled. "Impressive little trick there. Especially since you're pretty wasted right now."

"I'm completely lucid," she slurred. "Plus...it's super easy to perform."

"Hey, remember that time on the Other Side when the shower broke and my jeans and flannel got soaked? I don't remember you whipping this out for me then."

"First of all," she said, coughing up more water, "that flannel was horrible."

He chuckled softly. Suddenly, he was crouching down and pulling back her wet hair from her face. She swallowed thickly.

"I should be pissed at you right now. In fact, I should kill you for being this stupid, but you've pretty much conquered death at this point."

"And I'd give you so many aneurysms your head would explode."

"Fair enough. But do that again and I'm going to make you regret ever befriending me."

Bonnie sighed. He did not know how much he needed to shut up about their friendship.

"I'm getting lessons of sobriety from…you. Didn't you once kill Jeremy out of spite?"

Damon raised an eyebrow. "I see it's no-filter night."

"I just – wanted to get out of the house. Out of myself. I can't really do normal right now."

"I asked you if you were okay."

"And what were you expecting me to say?!" she shot back.

"The truth! Because we lived there for three months, and you're right, I don't know what it was like for you when you were left alone, but I sure as hell remember we pulled through that shit together. And you know why? Because we talked!"

"We're not there anymore, Damon!"

"So? You can't tell me what's wrong?"

"Look, I've only been back for a couple of hours and I'm already a mess. I didn't want you to know."

Damon scowled. "Yeah, better give me a nice surprise instead."

"Hey! I didn't ask you to come here."

"You don't have to! I'll come anyway!"

Bonnie breathed out shakily. "Why?"

Damon did not seem to comprehend the question. "What do you mean why? I just will."

He had nothing else to say to that. As always, he expected others to just understand whatever he meant.

He offered her a hand, and she got up clumsily, falling into him again. He steadied her, placing a hand on her back, but she quickly darted away.

If he noticed anything, he remained quiet.

They started walking towards Wickery Bridge. There was no other way across the lake, unless they wanted to go for a swim again.

When they reached the summit of the bridge, Damon stopped for a moment and looked out at the water. The bridge bore a lot of memories for everyone. It was a place of death and rebirth. Bonnie knew he was probably thinking about Elena, her parents, her demise and subsequent revival. Bonnie wondered if he regretted any of it, and how much. Did he wish Elena had never been turned? The alcohol was really doing things to her head.

"Thanks...for getting me out," she said, to fill up the dreadful silence closing in again.

"Don't mention it. And I mean it. If Elena finds out, she'll snap both our necks."

Bonnie leaned against the railing, but far enough from him so that their shoulders weren't touching.

"I guess it was a bit stupid."

"No kidding. So, if I wasn't going to show up, were you going to go to town on that kid?"

"Of course not. We would've found a bedroom first."

Damon pretended to scowl. "Who are you right now?"

"An average college girl," she mumbled, shrugging her shoulders.

"Nothing average about you, Bon Bon," he replied. She tried to take the words as a joke and not dig in any deeper because there was nothing else. There never could be.

"You didn't have to punch the kid."

Damon frowned. "Huh. Felt good, though. I guess I got lost in the moment."

Bonnie bit her lip. Her heart was starting to speed up again and she didn't like the butterflies which suddenly started fluttering in her stomach.

"Are you going to punch all my dates from now on?"

"That was not a date. And I'll have to do a background check on pretty much all your potential partners, yes. We don't wanna end up with another Jeremy Gilbert situation, do we?"

Bonnie smiled. "The kid was right. You're such a dad."

Damon threw her a look. "Watch it, Bennett. You're getting cocky."

They stayed on the bridge for a couple of minutes more. This time, she didn't find the silence so encroaching.

When they finally got back to her car, he turned her around and said, "Listen, next time, just come to me and we'll down a bottle of Bourbon together. Without killing each other afterwards, though."

Bonnie sighed. "Damn. Your plan sounded almost perfect. But if there's no suicide pact I'm not interested."

"I'm serious, though."

"Look, Damon, I need time to -"

"Adjust, yeah you said. But that doesn't mean you have to do it by yourself."

"You have enough on your plate as it is."

Damon frowned. "You gave me hope when I gave up. You're the reason I'm here and you're probably also the reason I still have a relationship. You saved me. I'm returning the favor. I won't let you slip."

Bonnie inhaled sharply. Please stop talking like that, Damon. Please.

"Come on, witchy, let's get you home."

He ushered her into her car and got behind the wheel.

He won't let me slip, she thought, turning towards the window, hiding her face from him. But he's the reason I'm slipping.