title: i wanna live with you (even when we're ghosts)
warning(s): character death (but it's a happily ever after, i swear)
prompt: "time passes slower without you" - gray-jedi-scavenger-rey

...

Bonnie dies at the ripe old age of 92, just as lively and lovely as she's always been. Sure, her wrinkles have wrinkles and her hair is a gauzy white, but she still smiles at him like she has for the last 70 years.

Her hand is small and brittle between both of his, while he sits at her side, feeling time tick away too fast and too loud for his liking. Children, grandchildren, and even a couple great-grandchildren have come and gone from her room, whispering words of love and gratitude and pride. Her first and second husband have long past and Bonnie hasn't bothered with a third, deciding to live out the last of her years surrounded by friends and family.

The house below is filled with Bennett voices and faces. Damon can feel that spark of magic in everything, seeping into the wood of the house and the soil of the earth it sits on. He would be lying if he said he wasn't sad. A more apt word might be devastated. But he got 70 amazing years with his best friend and he can't say he regrets a minute of it.

"It's not too late to turn," he tells her.

She lets out a rattling laugh and stares up at him with a twinkle in her green eyes. "Who are you kidding?"

He grins. "Probably some kind of record for oldest human to go vampire."

With a roll of her eyes, she mutters, "Just what I want to be remembered for."

He rubs his thumbs over her knuckles. "Think you made quite a legacy for yourself, Bon-Bon."

Her answering sigh is wistful. "I did, didn't I?"

"Well, I helped." He looks down at her from the corner of his eyes. "We made a pretty good team… The Bonnie to my Clyde."

"Didn't they go out in a blaze of glory?"

"Is that a suggestion?"

She laughs throatily. "I'm happy where I am."

"Should be. Those sheets are Egyptian cotton." He licks his lips as he traces her long fingers. "I'm going to say something selfish, so try not to hold it against me…"

"I'd be surprised if you didn't."

His mouth ticked up faintly. "I, uh… I don't want you to go. I know it's natural human biology. You live, you kick some ass, pop out a few dozen kids—"

"Or just three spectacular ones."

"—spoil the grandkids rotten—"

"I'm pretty sure you did that more than me."

"—and then end life on a high note, hopefully. Surrounded by familiar faces."

"Doesn't sound so bad to me."

"But it's not enough."

Her brow furrows. "What isn't?"

"Seventy years." He shakes his head. "That's nothing. I really think if you dig down deep, you can probably get another twenty or thirty out of life."

Bonnie stares at him a long moment. "I'm going to miss you, too."

His throat tightens then and his hands spasm around hers. "You're asking a lot of me here, Bon. Letting you go wasn't really a part of my plan. I thought at some point you'd take me up on that offer to turn and spend an eternity by my side."

"I gave it some thought."

He looks at her. "You get a better offer I didn't hear about?"

She shakes her head faintly. "Not better. Just different…" She sighs quietly. "Living forever wasn't in my plan. I just wanted a normal life. Long enough to do what I needed to. Have what I always wanted to. And in most respects, I did. I had my kids and my grandkids. The Bennett line is going to live on, more powerful than ever. And I found love a few times over. It wasn't perfect and it didn't always work out, but I still treasure what I had."

She folds her fingers between his and squeezes their palms together. "I was surprised, you know? When you stuck around after the gray hair set in and the wrinkles were hard to ignore. But I shouldn't've been. You've been here with me through everything. All the good and all the bad. You've been right here next to me the whole time… I know you felt like you had to prove something. To make up for what happened so long ago. But Damon, I forgave you for that. It was three awful years without you, I'll admit. But the seventy that followed made up for it in spades."

He swallowed thickly. "I don't know how I'm gonna do it… Not having you around to keep my head straight."

"You don't need me for that. You always thought you did, but you did all the hard work. You figured yourself out."

"Because of you. Because I wanted to be better. Because you made me better."

"You give me too much credit. You always have." She shakes her head. "I expected better of you because I knew there was more there than what you showed us. I know you. And you just proved me right. By being you, by doing the right thing, by wanting more from yourself."

He grinds his teeth as he stares down at their coupled hands. "Doesn't mean I don't need you here."

"It's always going to be hard to lose the people you love, but that doesn't mean you stop loving people. And when I'm gone, that love is still going to be there. It'll be in my children and grandchildren who will always be there for you and who you will always keep safe. Because I know you, Damon. You can't stay away from us Bennetts for too long."

He let out a huff of a laugh. "My life's curse."

She smiles. "I was lucky, you know? Maybe not in the beginning. It was hard back then, when all we ever seemed to do was fight and survive. But even then, I had you. And later, when it got a little easier, I still had you."

"Death or no death, you're always going to have me."

"I know." Her gaze is soft and steady and, for a moment, she looks so much younger. "You were my favorite love story. I know we didn't get the middle or the ending that we wanted. But you are threaded in the best parts of my life."

Damon blinks back the burn of his eyes. "I wanted more, Bon. I always did."

"I know. I did, too."

"But it was enough? What we got?" He drags his eyes up to meets hers, even as his heart feels like it's breaking in his chest.

"I'm not sure it'll ever be enough. But it was something." She holds his hand a little tighter. "You have to promise me that you'll take care of yourself. Let my family get you through it. Caroline, too. You might still bicker more than talk, but she's your family."

He nods, a quick jerk of his head.

"It's okay to fall apart and to mourn and to be angry. But don't throw away all the hard work you've done."

"So, no massacring the nearest village then?" He smirks, but it's faint and empty.

"You're better than that."

"A laundry list of victims would beg to differ."

"And they aren't going anywhere. But I bet I can count just as many, if not more, that you've helped in the last seventy years."

"Yeah, well, I had this naggy witch that was always telling me to do the right thing."

Bonnie's lips quirk. "She sounds terrible."

"Nah, she was pretty awesome, actually."

"Then take her advice." She stares at him searchingly. "Live a good life. Surround yourself with love. Don't wallow or hide. Grieve if you have to, but don't let it sink you."

"Old age is making you wise, Bon-Bon."

"I was always wise."

He half-grins and then bends to press a kiss to her forehead. "You had your moments."

A knock at the door draws their attention then, and it opens to reveal Aubrey and Jeremiah, her eldest daughter and middle son. Somewhere in the house— he'd bet money on the library— Damon can hear Bo's familiar heartbeat and the shuffling of her pacing footsteps.

"Hey, mama," Jeremiah says, readjusting his glasses as he steps further into the room. "How're you feeling?"

Bonnie pats the bed beside her, inviting them over. "Getting tired of talking. Why don't you pick up the slack for me? Tell me how the kids are doing."

Aubrey settles at the foot of the bed and tucks a pillow behind her for comfort. "You wanna hear the good stuff or should I start on how Bradley went and got himself expelled from school… again?"

Bonnie chuckles under her breath.

"I know what my vote is for," Damon says.

Aubrey shakes her head. "That boy is the reason I went grey early."

Jeremiah's laugh is low and rumbly. "He knows it, too."

Bonnie settles back against her pillows and waves her hand in a way that says 'tell me everything.'

Damon listens with half an ear as he tries to count the cracks that litter her hands. Death is coming for her fast and he can do nothing but let it take her. On the one hand, he recognizes that this is a better way to go than any of her previous deaths. On the other, he's just not ready.

But then, he's not sure he ever could be.

Later, Bo joins them, taking a seat on the other side of the bed. Grandchildren trickle in as the hours pass. Caroline bustles around the house, cleaning to distract herself. But she's there at the end, when Bonnie takes her last breath, her eyes falling closed, and her heart slowing to a stop.

Grief is potent in the room, enough to choke him. And Damon's first instinct is to run. To bury himself in bourbon, blood, and bodies. Instead, he stays. He lets Bo lock herself in the library, needing some time alone to process. He holds Aubrey as she cries. He sits with Jeremiah on the porch, staring at the garden Bonnie started when she was thirty-two and had spent countless days tending to in the hot sun, wearing a floppy sun hat and flowery gardening gloves.

He remembers days he'd find Jeremiah raiding the cherry tomato plants, stuffing as many as he could fit inside his cheeks. Days he'd push Aubrey in the tire swing that hung from the tree. Days he'd find Bo tucked in the library, reading anything and everything she could get her hands on and telling him every detail of what she'd learned. Days he'd sit with Bonnie on this very same porch, watching her kids come and go from school, then work, then holidays.

He'd spent a lifetime here, coming and going as he pleased, always returning to find her there, in that house she bought when she was thirty, a professor of the occult just like her Grams. He'd built the porch himself and a treehouse that the great-grandkids still used. Over time, her house became his. Her family became his.

Boyfriends and husbands came and went. Some more civil to him than others. Sometimes he was a hurdle and sometimes he was a friend. But in the end, Bonnie loved and was loved, by others and by him most of all. She lived a long life. A good life. And as much as it hurts to lose her, he knows he was lucky to have her at all.

That doesn't mean he doesn't miss her.

From the very moment she dies, he feels it deep in his bones, a gut-wrenching emptiness where she used to be. He made a promise though and he'll follow through. He'll keep her family safe, watch over them as best he can, and avoid maiming people (unless they deserve it, and his standards are, admittedly, low in that respect).

There is some comfort, he thinks, in the idea that one day, when it's his time, he might see her again. That if he spends his time doing and being better, he might just end up where she is.

A guy can hope.

...

Damon is well past three-hundred when he finally dies. All things considered, it's not the worst way to go. He calls it a personal victory that it takes not one, not two, but eight vervain soaked stakes to bring him to his knees. More than that, it gives Crestley Bennett, a great-great-great granddaughter of the woman he's never stopped loving, just enough time to get away from her pursuers.

Soaked through with blood, smiling up at a coven of attackers, Damon laughs as they surround him.

Two of them— he calls them Crabbe and Goyle in his head— exchange a confused look.

"Think this one's got a couple screws loose," Crabbe says, raising a cross-bow at Damon's chest.

Damon wonders if the previous eight stakes were purposely poorly aimed, having missed his heart each time, or if they were just terrible marksmen.

"Where's the witch, bloodsucker?" Goyle demands, tossing a bottle in his direction.

Vervain sprays down the side of Damon's face, leaving a searing pain across his skin. He bares his teeth at them, his eyes a bloody-black. "You'll have to be more specific. I'm a bit of a witch magnet."

"Crestley Bennett," Goyle snarls. "She killed our sister and she's gonna pay for it."

"Your sister was twisted. She was sacrificing humans to give herself power. Cres didn't kill her. She bound her powers, 'cause she's a nice little witch that likes to think people are better than they really are. I blame her parents. They raised her to be an optimist."

"Bullshit. Bella's dead and that witch killed her."

"No, Bella's dead because I killed her. She went for Crestley's throat after she so kindly let her live. So, I tore Bella's black heart out of her chest and fed it to her." Damon smirks. "I get one mercy killing a year. After ten, I get a free blood orgy."

Crabbe and Goyle exchange a look, unsure how to respond.

And then their leader— Draco? He does have the silvery-blond hair for it— steps up. "Even if he did kill Bella, it was Crestley Bennett's fault this vampire got anywhere near her. We'll kill him and then we'll kill her, too." He grins. "Might as well wipe out all the other Bennetts while we're at it. Better to avoid any long lasting revenge plots."

"Kettle meet pot." Damon stares up at him a beat. "You know I'm not going to let that happen, right?"

"You've got eight stakes in you and a ninth pointed at your heart." Draco raises an eyebrow. "You're already dust."

"Maybe." Damon shrugs. "But I made a promise a long time ago to a very stubborn witch that I wouldn't let anything happen to her family. As it happens, I'm fond of Crestley. And all the other little Bennetts running around. So… I'm just going to have to kill you and your little band of Slytherin rejects."

"Yeah? And how are you going to do tha—?"

As it happens, there are six of them. Three lurky little underlings stand around them. Damon pulls two stakes from his chest, dispatches with Crabbe and Goyle first with a stake to the eyes, then beheads Underling's #1 and #2 before breaking #3's neck. That leaves only Draco behind, who struggles to dig Crabbe's crossbow out from under his limp, heavy body. He manages it, though. Turning it on Damon and pulling the trigger in the exact same second that Damon shoves a hand through his chest and crushes his heart between his fingers.

The stake lands a little to the left, but pierces enough of his heart to let him know that he's not walking away from it in the end.

He hits the ground in a heap, sucking in air like he's breathing through a straw, his hand lifting to his bloody chest, probing around the wood sticking out of it.

It could be seconds or minutes, but eventually, Crestley comes back, like the Bennett she is, and falls to the ground next to him. "Idiot," she mutters. "I could've fought them."

He coughs out a laugh. "You're welcome, Kid."

She shakes her head, springy brown curls bouncing as she does. "Mom always said you had a death wish."

"I prefer to call it 'terminally reckless.'"

She drags him up so his head is cradled in her lap and stares down at him with green eyes that are almost too familiar to handle. "She's not gonna be happy…"

He can feel the dessication process starting, feel his skin grow grey and veined. This isn't where he wants to die or where he wants to be buried. But home seems so far away from where he is and there's no way he's going to make it now.

Refocusing on Crestley, he grunts out, "She'll live."

"What's the point of having an eternal shadow to keep us safe if you die on us?"

"Guess you'll just have to start watching out for yourself." He grins wobbily. "I taught you a few things along the way."

Crestley blinks back a sheen of tears. "More than a few. You were kind of like a snarky uncle. Sixty percent protective, forty percent asshole."

"Give me some credit. It was more like seventy-thirty."

She snorts a laugh but sobers quickly. "Was she right?"

"After spending the last two hundred years surrounded by Bennetts, I can almost guarantee the answer to that question is 'yes.'"

Crestley shakes her head. "Mom said you've been looking for a way out since Great-Great Grandma Bennett died."

Damon's tongue feels too big for his mouth and his vision wavers in and out of focus. There's a ringing in his ears before sound seems to hollow out, distant and cloudy. And then he's back and he's staring at a face he hasn't seen in about a hundred and thirty years. Or two hundred, if he's more accurate, since she looks like she did when he found her in the kitchen, after Liz's funeral, wearing baggy, 90's era clothes, and flipping a pancake, her eyes riddled with tears.

"Bonnie," he breathes, reaching for her face as she leans over him, long lashes framing impossibly green eyes. "God, I've missed you."

A shaking hand covers his own before her fingers ring around his wrist and squeeze.

"It's been… so long…" He shakes his head, blinking quickly. "But I did it. I did what you asked. I kept them safe. I didn't kill too many. Like hardly any in the grand scheme of things…" He pauses. "Maybe a few. I'm not a Boy Scout."

She snorts and rubs a hand over his hair.

"Hey, a hundred and thirty years is a lot of time, and people are dicks." He searches her face. "Time passes slower without you… Feels like it's been a millennium or two. Don't get me wrong, your family isn't half bad. Gave me a good reason to stay on the straight and narrow. But I think I'm good now. Seen enough, done enough, loved and lost a few too many…"

She rubs a thumb over his cheek and under his eye. "It's okay," she whispers, her voice choked. "You can let go now."

"I tried, Bon… I really tried."

"I know." She blinks and a few tears trip down her cheeks. "It's okay. You can rest."

He swallows tightly, his face tightening with sincerity. "I don't know if I'm headed to pearly gates or fiery damnation, but if the last thing I see is your face, it'll be worth it."

She smiles, her mouth trembling. "Thank you… For everything."

Damon's brow furrows. And then Bonnie's face fizzles away and it's Crestley he's looking at. Crestley who's crying. Crestley who's telling him it's okay to go. The youngest in a long line of Bennetts. Just as smart and stubborn as Bonnie was forever ago. Kind and good and forgiving. Just one of a whole family of Bennetts he's watched grow over the years.

He can't feel anything below his chin, the reaching grey of dessication is climbing his face to take him whole. He smiles for the girl in front of him. "You're gonna be okay," he tells her, his voice quivering with the effort.

She shakes her head, unsure.

But he knows. "You will. You're a Bennett… You're special."

They're the last words he says. And he believes them.

...

Caroline stands in the cemetery, a bouquet of six between her gloved hands, one for each of them.

She starts with her mother, who she tells about her girls and her school. Then Matt, who she promises the town is still safe, and so are his great-great-great-grand-children. Then lays a third at Tyler's grave, that deep-set sorrow reminding her that he was so young, too young. A fourth goes to Stefan; she presses a kiss to her fingertips and lays it over his name. Next is Bonnie. She lingers there, rambling about the many adventures of the Bennetts she stays in close contact with. Last, she stops at Damon's, the earth still fresh and soft. Crestley brought him home and the family had unanimously agreed to have him buried next to Bonnie. Much as he and Caroline had their issues over the years, on this, at least, she agrees. She lays her final flower at his grave and draws a deep breath.

"I should be mad at you… You were the last connection I had to either of them. I haven't seen Elena in a century, literally. You were the only one I could talk to about them that got it. What it felt like to still miss them. To remember them so clearly…"

She sighs. "But, I get it. I kind of knew this day was coming. You lasted longer than I expected, actually… You always had a reckless streak; I thought it'd catch up to you quicker. You surprised me, though. You had a habit of that. I know I didn't always say it, but… You were family, Damon. The most dysfunctional family ever, but…"

She shakes her head. "I know after everything that happened, there shouldn't be another side. Maybe after we die, we're just dust and debris and there's nothing more to it. But I don't think so. I think you're with them. I think you found them and you're happy. I choose to believe that. So… tell them I love them. That I miss them. That one day, I'll be there, too. And until then… Take care of them." She smiles. "And let them take care of you."

Standing, Caroline straightens her dress and smooths out her gloves. She leaves the cemetery where too many of her loved ones are laid to rest. She feels the ache of their absence weigh heavy on her heart, but she doesn't let it tie her to this place. She still has a life to live and she's going to enjoy it for as long as she can.

...

When Damon opens his eyes, it's to a dirt road leading up to a familiar house. There's a garden, a tire swing, and a tree house. On the porch, his brother sits in a wicker chair, reading a book and drinking a mug of coffee. In the garden, Bonnie tends to the cherry tomatoes, a floppy hat on her head to block out the hot sun.

She sees him first. Standing, she leaps over carefully lined vegetable plots and races toward him, tearing her gloves off as she goes. Damon starts running at the same time, until they meet in the middle, crashing together, chest to chest. He picks her right up off the ground and swings her in a circle. Her hat falls off in the fray, landing in the dust their feet have kicked up.

Bonnie laughs, her arms wrapped around his neck. "You're here," she says breathlessly.

He grins up at her. "So are you."

He kisses her neck and her chin and she dips her head down to meet his lips. It's hard and deep and full of desperate hope and want and love. Of three and seventy and two hundred years' worth of wanting but not having. Her fingers coil in his hair and behind his neck, pulling and tugging at him. He could do this forever. He could stay right here, tangled up in her, and never let go.

When they draw apart, he's panting, she is too, and they just stare at each other for a long beat.

And then—

"I love you."

"God, I love you."

They laugh.

He drops her down to her feet but keeps his arms around her. "I missed you."

She cups his face and nods. "I'm glad though, that you had more time."

"Wasted as much as I could. Little surprised I got here, actually."

"You were expecting fire and brimstone?"

"Just on my wilder days… or years…"

Rolling her eyes, she shakes her head. "Well, I hope you're not disappointed."

He reaches up and rubs a thumb over her cheek. "Are you kidding?" He squeezes his arm around her waist and then looks up, to where his brother is still on the porch, leaning against a pillar and smiling down at him. "Couldn't ask for a better afterlife."

Bonnie smiles.

"What about you?" He strokes his fingers down her neck and squeezes her shoulder. "You don't mind spending the rest of, what, eternity with me?"

She shakes her head, her eyes soft and bright and utterly adoring. "Not exactly."

Damon's grin stretches so wide it almost hurts. "You know why? 'Cause I'm like a fever you can't shake…"

Groaning, she wraps an arm around his waist and leads him toward the house, to his brother, to the beginning of an afterlife he has more than earned.

"Quick question, Stefan has his own place, right? You haven't been playing house with him this whole time...?"

Bonnie snorts. "You're so predictable, you know that?"

"I take offense to that. Also, you never answered my question."

"I haven't been having an affair with your brother in what basically passes for heaven." She rolls her eyes. "He lives nearby, so he visits."

"You guys sit around talking about me? Crack open a bottle of bourbon and cry together?"

"More like complain about you…"

Damon squeezes her closer. "I missed this rapport we have."

"You are so annoying."

"Yeah, but in a loveable way."

With an affectionate sigh, she tells him, "Something like that."

"Come on. You can admit it..." He pulls her to a stop and stares down at her searchingly. "You and me, Bonnie Bennett, we're soul mates. Made for each other. The best we'll ever have."

A slow smile turns her lips up. "At the very least, you're the love of my afterlife."

He nods. "I'll take it."

.end.

author's note: i was gonna add this to my oneshot/drabble collection, but it felt like it deserved its own post. so there.

i am working on updates to the rest of my stories including, yes, 'til eternity. i'm just incredibly busy with practicum right now, so i'm fitting writing in where i can. i'll be posting a few drabbles and oneshots over the next few days to get my inspiration going to work on some of the more in-depth stories.

i hope you liked this, it seriously ballooned. originally, it was only going to be bonnie's death and damon reflecting on it, but then this happened, so... :)

please leave a review; they're a huge motivation!

thanks so much for reading,
- Lee | Fina