disclaimer: don't own tvd, this applies to all of this story, etc. etc.

notes: basically I want Bonnie x character development to come out of this fic...and Bonnie x everyone because we all know she deserves better than what she's getting down. there's no Klaus in this chapter (unfortunately) but he makes his grand entrance next chapter accompanied by sexy stubble so I suggest you stick around! also, love to you if you read all of this and still decide to read this chapter.

warnings: none in this chapter, fully harmless stuff, but a general warning for any of my stories is that me and updates never work out, so expect sporadic updates and lots of apologies.

thank you!

Since she was a child, Bonnie's been caught in the middle of a war. It's one of her earliest memories- her arms outstretched to see if her fingers could brush the brick walls surrounding the Mikaelson and Salvatore compounds.

She's never really been caught in the middle, per se apart from those short few years in her childhood, because she's never known anyone but the Salvatore brothers.

Damon's the eldest; he's the kind of unattainable hot she's been lusting after since she realised what sex was.

And Stefan is her rock. There is no other way to put it- Stefan is her anchor, solid and stone and always there.

But there was a time before, she knows, when there was another boy who joined them. And they loved him (she loved him) until it all fell apart.

Bonnie fumbles with the key in her hand and hitches her work bag up, nodding to the Salvatore watchman as she passes him and pushing the memories to the back of her mind. Her own home is located in the middle of the other two, the ancestral Bennett house, renowned for its beauty as everything in this area is.

She's expecting the call of her name the minute she opens her gate, and he does not disappoint. "Bonnie!" Stefan calls, and she can hear the urgency in his voice.

"Come quick," she mutters under her breath with a smile and an eye roll, pushing the door open. "I need you to see something."

She waves and shuts the door behind her, certain that Stefan will be frowning at this point. "Grams," she calls, dropping her bag and slipping her shoes off. "I'm home."

The house is silent as always as she runs with bare feet down the carpeted corridor, heading for the kitchen. It's alive as always- the sound of laughter fills the room and light spills easily from it.

"Baby," Grams says, leaning over and placing a plate of fruit in front of Bonnie. "Where have you been?"

"Sorry," she murmurs, stabbing a banana with her fork. "I got kept behind at work."

She adjusts the floral print of her work frock and takes the time to admire it; as she always does with Grams' creations. It's in tune with the fashions; straps which tie at the back of her neck and a skirt which flows from the cinched waist.

Grams shakes her head and laughs, sliding an invitation over to Bonnie. "The Mikaelsons want to invite us to Finn and Sage's engagement."

It's an unusual gesture- the Bennetts and the Mikaelsons are not close and rarely ever talk, and Bonnie takes that to mean that the engagement will be a grand display of wealth.

"Tomorrow," she says in surprise, fingers flitting over the embossed card. "A bit short notice."

"Rebekah came over to give it to us personally," Grams tuts and shakes her head. "Seemed awful apologetic but I don't know if I can trust that family. Still, it wouldn't hurt to be friendly and just go."

The phone rings then, loud and shrill and causing Grams to jump as it always does. She picks it up with a grin and turns to Bonnie with an eye roll. "Stefan says to come over, although I should give him a piece of my mind, acting as if you're at his beck and call all the time."

"I don't mind," Bonnie laughs, sliding off the stool and brushing her lips against Grams' cheek. "We're friends."

Grams harrumphs but watches Bonnie leave with a smile.

X

She doesn't really do much other than slip her feet into flats and run a brush through her hair, but the way Stefan calls for her is as if the world will fall if she doesn't come to find him.

Bonnie groans and laughs and slips into his room as she has done for all of her nineteen years, expecting his figure to be curled, as usual, over the edge of the piano.

He doesn't disappoint. "Come listen," Stefan says, smile lighting up as he becomes aware of her presence, fingers already pressing the ivory and ebony keys before him.

Bonnie listens to the notes that fall from the piano with bated breath- heart in sync with each rise and fall of the music. His long, pale fingers glide over the keys and she rests a chin in her hand, flopping onto his bed and waiting as the music swells to a gentle crescendo. "What do you think?" He asks her, resting his head on his forearms and exhaling quietly.

"Well" Bonnie mimes a shrug and waits for his face to crease before she laughs. "I loved it," she says truthfully, moving to stand behind him. "It was pretty."

He frowns again and she brushes her finger over the crease with a soft smile. "I loved it," she repeats, and refuses to look away from him until he finally, finally cracks a smile.

Below, there is a crack of something hitting a wall, or maybe a palm hitting flesh, Bonnie doesn't want to think about it.

"—should have died in the war," someone shouts, but Bonnie recognises the gruff tones of Salvatore Senior well enough.

Stefan's face crumbles immediately, and Bonnie thinks of Damon in the aftermath of the war, of the shaking and the screaming and the not sleeping it has taken him almost a year to overcome, and knows that she hates the Salvatore patriarch with a venom so acute she would sting him if she could.

As it is, she probably shouldn't be thinking of murdering her boss. Instead, she forces the anger back into the pit of her stomach where it gathers with a hundred other coils of venom, and pulls the tiny silver key from the chain around her neck.

Stefan barely registers her movement to his moneybox, so engrossed is he in reading his sheet music and pretending not hear the poison spewing out of his father's mouth.

"No good for business," comes the shout, and Bonnie can't help herself- she snaps and slams the door to Stefan's room with a resounding crack. Stefan begins to play the piano as she eases the lid of his moneybox open, finding the pennies she's searching for.

"I'm taking 10 pennies," she calls, snapping the lid down again. Stefan shakes his head and laughs at her, pausing his Bach playing to groan.

"How many times do I need to tell you," he starts, and she knows the words that will come next because he has said them to her millions of times before, "you don't need to ask me."

Bonnie thinks back to her three year old self, dropped off at her father's by her mother and can still remember the crinkle in Abby's eyes as she smiled down at her daughter, face barely visible in the gloom.

"You'll be safe here, darling," Abby whispers to her little daughter, safe in the knowledge that her daughter will be untouched by the world of hurt that is soon to surround her. Don't cry in front of Bonnie, she reminds herself, and slaps one open palm against the large door of the Bennett residence.

Sadness still coats Bonnie's every movement the first time she bumps into Stefan Salvatore. She's out, sitting in the garden because her Grams think it will make her happier, when he appears at the gate of his families' compound, hand in hand with a beautiful woman who can only be his mother.

Bonnie remembers her own mother, lost in the night, and begins to cry.

Cianna Salvatore gives the crying child a panicked look and hurries over, Stefan in her wake. "Tell me what's wrong," she says to Bonnie, golden hair catching the sunlight as she presses a kerchief into Bonnie's tiny palm. "Come inside and tell me what's wrong."

Sometimes Bonnie thinks that she can remember Cianna better than Stefan does-flopped onto Stefan's bed with the pennies clinking in her pocket and all she can do is wish Cianna were there to laugh at her and squeeze her cheeks and tell her how much she's grown.

She has Grams for that, of course, to whisper words like"—better than Marilyn Monroe" into her ear when she goes out with her friends, but Cianna was the first woman who had enough time for her. Grams tried, she really did, and Grams is her flesh and blood, but they were going through a particularly rough patch and Grams found herself always elbow deep in work. That left little Bonnie to wander over to the Salvatore house most afternoons, and join in Stefan and Klaus' games, and sometimes when they were mean to her, just sit with Cianna and listen to her sing.

"Stefan!" The command rings around the quiet room and Bonnie winces in surprise.

"The king of the universe is calling," she mocks bitterly, and Stefan shakes his head but descends the stairs as he is bid.

She lets herself out, slipping from the background of the argument, taking stock of the muscle ticking in Damon's jaw; the tautness of Stefan's back, and slips away back to her own house.

X

When she gets back into the kitchen, Grams is sketching dress designs while some herbs boil in a pot on the gas.

Bonnie takes in the scent of witch hazel and tucks her legs underneath her, hopping onto the dining table. "Does dad still have a cold?"

Grams only nods her head and stops scribbling to stir the pot. "I'm drawing up a dress design for tomorrow night," she smiles, "I've got an old dress of mine made out this gorgeous silk fabric I'd love to recut, but it's going to take a while."

"I don't understand why you insist on overworking yourself."

"If I didn't do it child, someone would have to. Besides, I enjoy feeling useful and I enjoy sewing."

Bonnie's the exact opposite. She prefers numbers and the way they lay themselves out on the page; she can read them in an instant. She's been working for Salvatore Corp. from the end of the war, when she was barely thirteen and has managed to work her way up to being a respected accountant.

"Be a dear and get me the dress from my wardrobe please," Grams asks, and Bonnie knows she'll be up on her little sewing machine til the early hours of the morning.

She shakes her head but hops off the stool and makes her way upstairs anyway, searching for the gilt wardrobe that holds Grams' old dresses and their formalwear.

The Bennetts used to be a force to reckon with; she's heard the stories of the balls they used to throw; of Christmas at the Bennett house and how they used to be equal to the Salvatores. Grams' old dresses reflect that- dozens of them in every colour of the rainbow-floor length and sweeping with bodices cut low. Bonnie gulps and makes her way to the blue tulle with the dark blue sash, ashamed that Grams has to cut up one of her old dresses to give Bonnie one of her own.

"I could go in my yellow day dress," Bonnie suggests, unfolding the tulle onto the workbench. "Add a different sash and put some pearls on it and it'll be good as new."

Grams clicks her tongue at Bonnie and gives her a light slap on the bum. "I wouldn't dream of it. And anyway, what are we going to do with all these outdated dresses?"

Nonetheless, Bonnie leaves Grams to her sewing and retires to her room, aware that her Dad won't be getting home til much later that evening.

He's been overworking himself for the past five years or so, since the bomb landed on his largest development and completely splintered it and the company still hasn't fully recovered.

What good is going to come with me worrying about it? Bonnie thinks, but even so makes her way to her locked vanity to retrieve the jewellery case that contains her mother's jewels.

The pearls wink up at her, nestled in their blue satin wrapping, and Bonnie fingers the three strands and remembers the cool feel of them on her cheek when Abby hugged her.

She's long gone now, probably dead somewhere, and these are the last links she has with her mother. Bonnie knows she'll sell them if she has to, and she snaps the lid shut and relocks the case.

She's weary when she finally climbs into the bed, cold and bone tired, and she needs new slippers but can't find any money to buy them- not when most of her meagre income goes into managing the house. Her dad's still busy trying to pay off the debts he acquired during the war.

She remembers Stefan's latest melody and a smile touches her lips. At least she's not alone.

X

"You're slouching," Grams calls as Bonnie enters the kitchen. "Get your posture together and come look at the dress I made you."

Bonnie rolls her eyes but follows Grams to her little sewing room, gasp falling from her lips when she sees the dress on its dummy.

It's flawless- sleeveless blue tulle with lilac accents, the tiny waist cinched in by the dark blue sash. No one will be able to tell that it hasn't been made by the upscale dressmakers. "It's gorgeous," Bonnie says, and Grams shoots her a self satisfied smile.

"Go and try it on," she grins, "and Stefan was calling for you but I told him not to expect you until you were ready."

"What?" Grams says upon seeing Bonnie's expression. "That boy takes up far too much of your time anyway."

Bonnie shakes her head and takes the dress anyway, already adding Abby's pearls to it in her mind's eye, and the heeled blue peep toed shoes she bought last year.

The dress fits perfectly, accentuating her small waist and flaring out to just below the knee. It's only after she's painted her face and slipped on her shoes that she remembers she has to go see Stefan.

"You'll be late if you go to visit him now," Grams warns her.

"I won't stay long," Bonnie promises and leaves for the night.

X

The problem, she decides, with flashy parties like the Mikaelsons always throw, is that she always finds herself on the fringes of things and never quite belongs, yet Bonnie knows that she cannot not attend. She would much rather spend time with Stefan, she thinks, tapping her fingers along the wooden bannister leading up to his room.

She knocks on the heavy door before she enters (and walks in right away, but she likes to at least give the impression that she is polite) and flounces into his room, loving the flow of the dress around her legs.

"You look nice," Stefan remarks from where he's stretched out lazily on his bed, shifting through piles of paperwork.

"Thanks."

Bonnie perches on the edge of his mattress and peeks at the papers. "Why are you doing accounts now?"

"He asked me to look over some papers," Stefan says stiffly, and then, before they can lapse into silence, "where are you going?"

"Finn and Sage's engagement."

His eyes snap towards her and she understands what he is asking her, but she merely shakes her head at him. There was a time, before all of this, when Stefan and Klaus were inseparable and their mothers whispered that they were finally going to break the tradition of animosity that ran through the two families for centuries. And then Cianna died and it all fell apart.

"You were friends once," She whispers, taking stock of the shadows that cross his features.

"Once." Stefan says, and there is a cold note in his tone more suited to his father than to sweet little Stefan with his unfailing kindness, drummed into him after countless afternoons spent with his mother.

Bonnie raises an eyebrow and clenches her fist inside her glove, feeling the glide of silk over her skin. "I don't want to argue with you about this."

He sighs and shifts towards her, slinging an arm around her shoulders and giving her a gentle squeeze. "That's all we ever seem to do when the Mikaelsons are brought up, isn't it? It's all I ever seem to do when they're mentioned."

Bonnie places her cheek onto the thin cotton shirt covering his chest and gives him a small smile. "I don't blame you. I can barely recall what happened but it was…bad."

It's a lie. She can remember every scream, every broken glass hurled at the wall, every look she got from Klaus- choose me- with a great deal of detail. But she's giving Stefan an opportunity to talk about it, here and now, and take at least one load off his back.

The bell tolls downstairs, loud and ominous, the nine tolls echoing through the cold house. He has everything; but he has nothing. She supposes the Mikaelsons' are much the same.

Bennetts stay together, Bonnie promises herself, always. And they might not be rich, but they're happy. Happier than most, anyway.

He sighs; and she knows she won't get anything out of him tonight. She lets the silence settle itself over them, warm and comforting, for exactly a minute, before he starts humming into her hair.

Bonnie pokes him. "You're always thinking about music."

He smiles and doesn't deny it, and she crosses over to the piano and picks up one of the marble figurines, running her fingers over the carved face. Stefan groans and she looks back at him, smile already on her painted lips as she looks at the sheaf of papers he is holding in his hand.

"Help me out with these, will you?"

"But if I do that," She says playfully, taking the papers and letting them fall in a jumble to the floor, "How will you ever learn?"

"I can't believe you just did that!" He says, standing and advancing towards her with a menacing grin. Bonnie laughs and backs away, giggle slipping from her tongue. Stefan grabs her hand as she makes to leave, and she plants a finger on his nose and pushes him away, slipping out of the door as quickly as she came.

"Have fun!" Stefan calls after her, trying to quash the thrumming note of jealousy that has already begun to grow in his heart.