[fic] Before the Sun Goes Dark (1/3)
Title: Before the Sun Goes Dark
Author: badboy_fangirl
Pairings: Damon/Bonnie; Damon/Elena (vague Stefan/Elena, Jeremy/Bonnie, Matt/Bonnie)
Word Count: ~3500
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything through 3x05; goes AU from 3x06 "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but incorporates ideas/themes/plot points from it.
Summary: Bonnie gets into the thick of things to end Klaus once and for all.
Author's notes: From loving_emerald's prompt of a Bonnie/Damon/Elena triangle - Stefan is edging out of the picture, Bonnie and Damon are getting closer, and Elena is a jealous green monster. But Damon loves Elena best, of course. Thanks to lit_chick08 for a prelim once-over. This is just the beginning of this prompt, not the whole thing, so don't be dismayed at the subtlety. Also, don't ask me what I'm doing writing Damon/Bonnie - you all know me, you know how this is going to end up. *g*
Does anybody know how to hold my heart?
How to hold my heart?
'Cause I don't want to let go let go let go of you.
-from "Hold My Heart" by Sara Bareilles
Two days after she breathes life back into Matt Donovan, Bonnie Bennett stands on the far side of the football field watching Stefan Salvatore harassing and bullying a variety of people.
The moment she realizes that Stefan has gone to a place that none of them ever dreamed he could go her terror level is so high she can't stop shaking. She goes straight home without saying goodbye to anyone and paces across the floor of her bedroom, remembering moments over the last year; the times when Damon wanted Emily's crystal, or the moment when he tried to rip out her jugular, and those smaller, quieter instances when she realized he would do anything for Elena, but not in the same way that Stefan would do anything for Elena.
Stefan wanted to please Elena; Damon wanted to preserve her. The difference between them had made Bonnie's job easier; when in crisis, she went to Damon. When hard choices had to be made, she sought out the older Salvatore. When she wanted to make good on a threat, she went to Stefan.
But now, Stefan was the threat, and pardon her French, but he was fucking scary. Much scarier than Damon had ever thought of being, and that's the moment for her when she truly understands. For all of Damon's irrational behavior and pointed jackassiness, he is not nearly as dangerous as Stefan; part of her wonders if maybe he never was. Perhaps he'd just let them all be afraid of him to accomplish his purposes. Stefan's behavior just seems-mean. Ruthless. Vampiric.
She's probably just desensitized to Damon now, but part of her really thinks he was never like this. That's why she texts him, asking him to come to her house.
She still lives at her grandmother's, because her family owns the property and her father doesn't want to sell it. Sometimes it's lonely living there by herself, but overall, it's been fine. She's spent many nights at either Caroline or Elena's homes when she was tired of being by herself. But really, the best part about it had always been that it was a Damon-free zone. He couldn't come in, and she was safe there. But now, when he shows up a half hour after her text, she invites him in and he smirks at her, but also tips his head in acknowledgment.
Something momentous is happening, and even Damon isn't a big enough jerk to try and ruin it.
He stands in her living room and looks around, but when his eyes come back to hers, he widens them comically before purring, "You called?"
"Stefan has gone crazy," she says without preamble. Elena had given her a vague sense of what had transpired with Klaus, but she'd had a hard time talking about it, so Bonnie hadn't pressed her too hard for much detail.
"Well, no, not...crazy." Damon holds his hand up and turns an imaginary dial. "He's flipped the switch. He's sort of like how I was when you first met me, only not sneaky. He knows everyone knows and so he's just having a good ol' time with it."
"What are we going to do about it?" she demands, and Damon's eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline. "We can't just let him terrorize people. Should we throw him in the basement?"
"Aren't you generous? I'm pretty sure if this was me, I'd just be getting some aneurysms, or you'd be setting me on fire or something." Damon shakes his head dismissively when she opens her mouth to defend herself. He smiles as if bygones are bygones and says, "I already had this discussion with Elena. We aren't going to be able to vervain him into submission. He's in a place that he's not going to come back from easily, if at all. We'd probably be better off lighting some torches and running him out of town than trying to lock him up." Bonnie huffs out an irritated breath as Damon smiles at his own joke. "I do have an idea, of course," he says, as though he was just waiting for the opportunity. "I think that perhaps this could hold the answer," he says as he pulls something from his pocket and holds it up for her to see. Bonnie recognizes Elena's necklace, and moves closer to look at it. Damon grabs her hand and presses the necklace in her palm. "Elena said you said it has magic of its own; Elena also said that it once belonged to Klaus's sister. Considering how old they are as Original vampires, this little thing could hold all the answers we need."
"To make Stefan switch back?" Bonnie asks, looking at the charm in her hand. Damon curls her fingers around it as though he's afraid she'll drop it.
"No, Bonnie, to kill Klaus. That's still the objective. Once Klaus is dead, his compulsion wears off. Only then can we hope to get Stefan back to 'normal.'"
Bonnie purses her lips and Damon squeezes her hand. This is how it works now-how it's worked all along, maybe?-she and Damon, unlikely teammates who somehow want the exact same thing.
"It's probably better if Elena doesn't know you're investigating this," he says, his eyes narrowing at her meaningfully.
Bonnie nods. "I agree." She'll tell Elena when there's something worth telling her.
"Okay," he says, letting her hand go. "Let me know what you find out."
A few days later, Damon's cleaning up some of Stefan's mess-blood on the carpets is always something that annoys him-and as he drags two of the Persian rugs out to the shed behind the house to get them cleaned (he has a carpet cleaner guy on retainer who is compelled to ask no questions about what he's extracting from the fibers of the area rugs), he's contemplating all the times when this had happened before. Things had really changed between him and Stefan, because normally this is the time when Damon cuts and runs; he doesn't like cleaning up his brother's messes anymore than he likes worrying that everyone's about to find out he's a vampire. (And usually one led to the other.)
He knows he won't leave Mystic Falls because of Elena, but let's face it: he could solve this problem in two seconds flat. He could just stake Stefan and be done with it. But he won't, because despite years of animosity, everything that's happened in the last year alone has given Damon something that he hasn't had since he was human: the knowledge that underneath it all, Stefan does love him.
He considers it a point of weakness, but Damon loves his brother in return; and Damon loves Elena, and so there are two people for whom he feels responsible towards when it comes to Stefan. He doesn't want to kill him because of his own complicated feelings, but he knows he can't because of Elena's state of mind. She's more distraught over Stefan's walk on the dark side than she ever was over any of Damon's actions; he supposes that stems from the fact that his antics, while sometimes shocking, or even devastating (read: Jeremy), were never in opposition to the things he professed or showed he was capable of. (Also: she's in love with Stefan.)
Elena thought she'd seen Stefan in his darkest place; oh, how wrong she had been.
He'd been by the Gilbert home the day before, and Alaric invited him in; they had changed the ownership of the house from Elena and Jeremy to Alaric to reinstate the protection on the house. At this point, the only vampires who could go inside were Damon and Caroline, and he had to admit, it felt a little funny to be on the "good" list.
(Ric was still being pissy about the neck-snapping thing, but he hadn't taken another stab at forbidding Damon's on-going friendship with Elena. He did give him the stink-eye constantly, but he didn't say anything, which is good, because Damon didn't want to get mad enough to snap his neck again.)
As he's coming into the house through the back entrance, he hears someone enter on the front side. He focuses, listening closely, and he can tell it's a human guest, and whomever they are, they're alone, not accompanying Stefan for some kind of messy feeding game.
(No, the irony is not lost on him how just a year ago, he was doing this sort of thing to Stefan, but it still pisses him off. Blood on his carpets is not good, and Stefan never cleans up after himself.)
Once he makes it back to the front hall, he sees Bonnie standing in the living room entrance. "Hey," he calls, and she spins around, obviously on guard. When she sees him, her face relaxes into a smile.
"Hey," she replies. "Is Stefan around?"
Damon shakes his head. "No, I haven't seen him since this morning. What's up?"
Bonnie holds up Elena's necklace, letting it swing freely from her fingers. "I made contact with someone who said she's the Original Witch."
Damon comes to a stop in front of Bonnie, and everything eager and curious peaks within him. "Do tell," he says, motioning her into the living room.
"Apparently she knew Klaus, back before he became a vampire, and she's been trying to destroy him ever since. But every booby trap she set up he's found a way around."
Damon snorts. "Well, Katherine's convinced he's superiorly smart, though I have my reservations. Did she give you any tips?"
Bonnie smiles, her lips moving upwards in a slow, satisfied way. It makes something within Damon wildly hope even before she nods her head. "Oh, yeah.
"She's got enough power that she's willing to lend me; and get this: her power seems to be more than the 100 dead witches from the burial site because she's really the Original Witch. As in all witches came from her. She's like my great, great times twenty generations grandmother or whatever. She told me that killing Elena is the best way to ensure Klaus doesn't upset the balance anymore, but I told her I wanted to kill Klaus, and that I'm willing to do whatever it takes. So she agreed; while she's worried about what the other Originals might do, he's the only one who is both vampire and werewolf."
"You were able to reason with this...ghost?" Damon asks, feeling skeptical. The only thing that keeps him hooked calmly is that he knows that Bonnie would never do anything to hurt Elena. He's just not so sure trusting a non-entity is a wise move.
"We went back and forth for a while, but I really feel like I convinced her I can kill Klaus if she'll help me. It's a complicated spell that she said I'll need to work on for a while before I'll be able to perform it in the way that will kill him."
Damon nods. He doesn't have any other offers, currently, so it's best to go with what he's got. "Well, I guess that makes our path clear. I'll work on Stefan, figure out how we're going to get Klaus back here, ASAP. You hang on to Elena's necklace, and work on that spell."
"Right," Bonnie says, and she smiles giddily, tucking the necklace into her pocket.
Damon slaps her shoulder affectionately. "It's kinda cool, us being on the same side, huh?"
Bonnie regards him in silence for a long moment, but then softens. "I guess we've been on the same side for a while now; since the first time we tried to take Klaus down." She looks at him with kindness, and Damon really has to stretch to remember that this girl hated him not that long ago.
A lot has changed in the last year; when he thinks of what he wanted when he first returned to Mystic Falls, it seems like another lifetime; another him. (And it was. He was the humanity-switched off one, and Stefan was falling in love with Elena Gilbert.)
Possessed of something he'll never be able to explain, he finds himself confessing, "If I had known then what I know now, I'd have never wanted to get into the tomb."
Surprise colors Bonnie's expression. Sudden tears make her eyes glisten and she blinks rapidly, dropping his gaze. Damon looks away, and clears his throat. He wasn't trying to make her cry, so it's a little awkward, but it's possible he's wanted to say that for a long time and just couldn't bring himself to do it before. (It's possible he's become overly fond of a few people besides Elena, and at least Bonnie's not mad at him right now, unlike Ric.)
"Bonnie?"
They both jerk around at the sound of Elena's voice, and Damon can't believe he didn't hear her come in.
"Hey, Elena," Bonnie says.
"What are you doing here?" Elena asks, her eyes flickering over Damon before going back to her best friend.
"I just came by to tell Damon how awful Stefan's acting. Make sure he knows." She cocks her head, and her eyes go back and forth between Elena and Damon. "I guess that's why you're here, too, huh?" Bonnie lies so smoothly, he feels an even greater sense of respect for her flood through him. He knows her figurative balls are pretty damn big, but her ability to keep things under wraps is probably the thing he likes most about her. Elena has enough to deal with without worrying if what Bonnie's trying to do will really work.
Not to mention, by putting the focus back on Elena-who wasn't there to report anything to Damon, in fact she had told him just the day before that she wouldn't be coming to the Boarding House anymore just so she didn't have to risk seeing Stefan-Bonnie made sure that no one cared why she was there at all.
(Yes, the witch was really, really good.)
Elena nods evasively and then makes full eye contact with him, some sort of desperate, I-need-you vibe that he keeps picking up more and more from her spiking across the space separating them. Taking the cue from both of them, he wraps things up efficiently. "Bonnie was just heading out. Lets get out of here before Stefan shows up, shall we?"
He puts his hand out and closes the space between them, his palm sliding easily over Elena's shoulder to redirect her back to the front door she'd just come through. She bumps his hip with her own as they walk out to her car. "Wanna go to The Grill?"
"Sounds fun!" he quips and she giggles, a hand tucking strands of her hair behind one ear as he opens the car door for her.
At The Grill, Damon orders ribs and fries for them to share and also gets them beer. ("None of the hard stuff in public, the Sheriff might see us!" he says, his eyes twinkling.)
Elena just smiles, because pretty much that's what Damon does for her anymore; he makes her smile. He's the only thing that makes her smile, because if she thinks about it too much, everything about Stefan will make her cry.
She's not the naive little girl who met a vampire in a cemetery a year ago and embarked upon a world she could never have guessed existed, but at the same time, she really did think that with her and Damon's efforts, Stefan would come home, and with hard work on all their parts, he could be on the mend. The reality is that he is home, but doesn't even faintly resemble the boy she met. What is actually worse is that when she looks at Damon, when she asks Damon questions, when he avoids her eyes or answering her in full, she realizes not only has he seen this before, but in his strange way, he's trying to protect her from it.
(He would have helped her forget it entirely, and she doesn't take that gesture lightly, given their history.)
And though she's tired of being protected, tired of having to fight for the right to the truth, she can't help the way it makes her heart tighten in her chest. Damon's been doing that to her all summer, ever since he declared his love for her and she waited for him to die...and he didn't. Again and again she'd been faced by moments where she could literally weep for him, for the way he felt about her, for this thing that he so freely gives her when she doesn't deserve it and hasn't earned it. (Isn't sure she wants it. Isn't sure she doesn't.)
The good thing about Damon is he mixes it up enough-pulling crap like flashing her, or launching her into a lake, or snapping Ric's neck in an unmitigated assholey move that no one should forgive, but they will because Damon makes it impossible to stay mad at him forever-that she doesn't have to dwell too long on the parts that tear her heart out. (Ric is making a valiant effort at keeping his distance, and Elena has not needled him about it too much.)
As they eat their ribs, Damon's eyes flash at her and he licks his fingers with flourish before asking, "What's up, mon ami?"
He always knows, too, how to reach out to her in these moments so that she doesn't feel like a jerk for needing his help; his advice. It's such an odd development between them. "I was wondering about what you said in Chicago-about Stefan being a cocky, ripper douche. How did you deal with him when he was like that?" She's looking for real answers here, because locking him up isn't going to work, but she doesn't think she can deal with him day in and day out at school. Not without breaking, and she doesn't want to give him that satisfaction.
"I would leave," Damon says quietly. He leans forward, resting his arms on the table. "Just take off, and not look back. We'd usually find each other in ten or twenty years, and I'd see what he was up to. He was always one extreme or another; and if he was hanging around with Lexi, I didn't ever stick around. She didn't like me, and I didn't really like her. She always acted like I was something she needed to scrape off her shoe, even though she was often rehabilitating the-" he cuts himself off suddenly. "Anyway, that's not a solution for you, unless you want to run away in the middle of the night." He pauses, examining her face closely. "I mean, we can do that, if you want. I'll take you somewhere, hide you out from him. I'll do whatever you want."
For a split second, the appeal of that idea almost overwhelms her. But, in truth, that's no better than Damon wiping her memory for her. They need a real solution, not an escape hatch. She eats a fry so she doesn't have to answer right away and then she meets his gaze again. He's watching her intently, but there's no coercion in his expression. He's open to whatever she wants. "Ric's training me to protect myself. And we've gotta hope, right? Hope that Katherine will get this Mikael guy to come and take care of Klaus. I can't run away. Even though, I'll be honest, it sounds like a good idea."
Damon leans back, relaxing in his seat. "Okay. We'll wait it out. But just know, the offer stands."
She nods and so does he and then he moves on, blithely talking about other unimportant topics, pulling her away from her worries for just a bit.
Later, she drives him back to the Boarding House (she hadn't drunk any beer, he'd downed both of them), and before he gets out of the car, he turns to her. His eyes are penetrating, and even if she wanted to she would be unable to look away. "Stefan is a vampire. We are vampires, Elena. What he's doing is not a reflection of how he feels about you. Whatever else you've got up there in that head of yours, this is the thing you have to understand. I don't think you really ever have. It's time to get up to speed. Okay?"
She finds herself unable to respond, and he continues, "It's important to arm yourself and know how to defend yourself. But it's also important to understand the situation that you're facing. The reality of it. Think about that."
He climbs from the Mini-Cooper and disappears into the Boarding House.
...chapter two...
Author: badboy_fangirl
Pairings: Damon/Bonnie; Damon/Elena (vague Stefan/Elena, Jeremy/Bonnie, Matt/Bonnie)
Word Count: ~3500
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Spoilers: Everything through 3x05; goes AU from 3x06 "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but incorporates ideas/themes/plot points from it.
Summary: Bonnie gets into the thick of things to end Klaus once and for all.
Author's notes: From loving_emerald's prompt of a Bonnie/Damon/Elena triangle - Stefan is edging out of the picture, Bonnie and Damon are getting closer, and Elena is a jealous green monster. But Damon loves Elena best, of course. Thanks to lit_chick08 for a prelim once-over. This is just the beginning of this prompt, not the whole thing, so don't be dismayed at the subtlety. Also, don't ask me what I'm doing writing Damon/Bonnie - you all know me, you know how this is going to end up. *g*
Does anybody know how to hold my heart?
How to hold my heart?
'Cause I don't want to let go let go let go of you.
-from "Hold My Heart" by Sara Bareilles
Two days after she breathes life back into Matt Donovan, Bonnie Bennett stands on the far side of the football field watching Stefan Salvatore harassing and bullying a variety of people.
The moment she realizes that Stefan has gone to a place that none of them ever dreamed he could go her terror level is so high she can't stop shaking. She goes straight home without saying goodbye to anyone and paces across the floor of her bedroom, remembering moments over the last year; the times when Damon wanted Emily's crystal, or the moment when he tried to rip out her jugular, and those smaller, quieter instances when she realized he would do anything for Elena, but not in the same way that Stefan would do anything for Elena.
Stefan wanted to please Elena; Damon wanted to preserve her. The difference between them had made Bonnie's job easier; when in crisis, she went to Damon. When hard choices had to be made, she sought out the older Salvatore. When she wanted to make good on a threat, she went to Stefan.
But now, Stefan was the threat, and pardon her French, but he was fucking scary. Much scarier than Damon had ever thought of being, and that's the moment for her when she truly understands. For all of Damon's irrational behavior and pointed jackassiness, he is not nearly as dangerous as Stefan; part of her wonders if maybe he never was. Perhaps he'd just let them all be afraid of him to accomplish his purposes. Stefan's behavior just seems-mean. Ruthless. Vampiric.
She's probably just desensitized to Damon now, but part of her really thinks he was never like this. That's why she texts him, asking him to come to her house.
She still lives at her grandmother's, because her family owns the property and her father doesn't want to sell it. Sometimes it's lonely living there by herself, but overall, it's been fine. She's spent many nights at either Caroline or Elena's homes when she was tired of being by herself. But really, the best part about it had always been that it was a Damon-free zone. He couldn't come in, and she was safe there. But now, when he shows up a half hour after her text, she invites him in and he smirks at her, but also tips his head in acknowledgment.
Something momentous is happening, and even Damon isn't a big enough jerk to try and ruin it.
He stands in her living room and looks around, but when his eyes come back to hers, he widens them comically before purring, "You called?"
"Stefan has gone crazy," she says without preamble. Elena had given her a vague sense of what had transpired with Klaus, but she'd had a hard time talking about it, so Bonnie hadn't pressed her too hard for much detail.
"Well, no, not...crazy." Damon holds his hand up and turns an imaginary dial. "He's flipped the switch. He's sort of like how I was when you first met me, only not sneaky. He knows everyone knows and so he's just having a good ol' time with it."
"What are we going to do about it?" she demands, and Damon's eyebrows shoot up towards his hairline. "We can't just let him terrorize people. Should we throw him in the basement?"
"Aren't you generous? I'm pretty sure if this was me, I'd just be getting some aneurysms, or you'd be setting me on fire or something." Damon shakes his head dismissively when she opens her mouth to defend herself. He smiles as if bygones are bygones and says, "I already had this discussion with Elena. We aren't going to be able to vervain him into submission. He's in a place that he's not going to come back from easily, if at all. We'd probably be better off lighting some torches and running him out of town than trying to lock him up." Bonnie huffs out an irritated breath as Damon smiles at his own joke. "I do have an idea, of course," he says, as though he was just waiting for the opportunity. "I think that perhaps this could hold the answer," he says as he pulls something from his pocket and holds it up for her to see. Bonnie recognizes Elena's necklace, and moves closer to look at it. Damon grabs her hand and presses the necklace in her palm. "Elena said you said it has magic of its own; Elena also said that it once belonged to Klaus's sister. Considering how old they are as Original vampires, this little thing could hold all the answers we need."
"To make Stefan switch back?" Bonnie asks, looking at the charm in her hand. Damon curls her fingers around it as though he's afraid she'll drop it.
"No, Bonnie, to kill Klaus. That's still the objective. Once Klaus is dead, his compulsion wears off. Only then can we hope to get Stefan back to 'normal.'"
Bonnie purses her lips and Damon squeezes her hand. This is how it works now-how it's worked all along, maybe?-she and Damon, unlikely teammates who somehow want the exact same thing.
"It's probably better if Elena doesn't know you're investigating this," he says, his eyes narrowing at her meaningfully.
Bonnie nods. "I agree." She'll tell Elena when there's something worth telling her.
"Okay," he says, letting her hand go. "Let me know what you find out."
A few days later, Damon's cleaning up some of Stefan's mess-blood on the carpets is always something that annoys him-and as he drags two of the Persian rugs out to the shed behind the house to get them cleaned (he has a carpet cleaner guy on retainer who is compelled to ask no questions about what he's extracting from the fibers of the area rugs), he's contemplating all the times when this had happened before. Things had really changed between him and Stefan, because normally this is the time when Damon cuts and runs; he doesn't like cleaning up his brother's messes anymore than he likes worrying that everyone's about to find out he's a vampire. (And usually one led to the other.)
He knows he won't leave Mystic Falls because of Elena, but let's face it: he could solve this problem in two seconds flat. He could just stake Stefan and be done with it. But he won't, because despite years of animosity, everything that's happened in the last year alone has given Damon something that he hasn't had since he was human: the knowledge that underneath it all, Stefan does love him.
He considers it a point of weakness, but Damon loves his brother in return; and Damon loves Elena, and so there are two people for whom he feels responsible towards when it comes to Stefan. He doesn't want to kill him because of his own complicated feelings, but he knows he can't because of Elena's state of mind. She's more distraught over Stefan's walk on the dark side than she ever was over any of Damon's actions; he supposes that stems from the fact that his antics, while sometimes shocking, or even devastating (read: Jeremy), were never in opposition to the things he professed or showed he was capable of. (Also: she's in love with Stefan.)
Elena thought she'd seen Stefan in his darkest place; oh, how wrong she had been.
He'd been by the Gilbert home the day before, and Alaric invited him in; they had changed the ownership of the house from Elena and Jeremy to Alaric to reinstate the protection on the house. At this point, the only vampires who could go inside were Damon and Caroline, and he had to admit, it felt a little funny to be on the "good" list.
(Ric was still being pissy about the neck-snapping thing, but he hadn't taken another stab at forbidding Damon's on-going friendship with Elena. He did give him the stink-eye constantly, but he didn't say anything, which is good, because Damon didn't want to get mad enough to snap his neck again.)
As he's coming into the house through the back entrance, he hears someone enter on the front side. He focuses, listening closely, and he can tell it's a human guest, and whomever they are, they're alone, not accompanying Stefan for some kind of messy feeding game.
(No, the irony is not lost on him how just a year ago, he was doing this sort of thing to Stefan, but it still pisses him off. Blood on his carpets is not good, and Stefan never cleans up after himself.)
Once he makes it back to the front hall, he sees Bonnie standing in the living room entrance. "Hey," he calls, and she spins around, obviously on guard. When she sees him, her face relaxes into a smile.
"Hey," she replies. "Is Stefan around?"
Damon shakes his head. "No, I haven't seen him since this morning. What's up?"
Bonnie holds up Elena's necklace, letting it swing freely from her fingers. "I made contact with someone who said she's the Original Witch."
Damon comes to a stop in front of Bonnie, and everything eager and curious peaks within him. "Do tell," he says, motioning her into the living room.
"Apparently she knew Klaus, back before he became a vampire, and she's been trying to destroy him ever since. But every booby trap she set up he's found a way around."
Damon snorts. "Well, Katherine's convinced he's superiorly smart, though I have my reservations. Did she give you any tips?"
Bonnie smiles, her lips moving upwards in a slow, satisfied way. It makes something within Damon wildly hope even before she nods her head. "Oh, yeah.
"She's got enough power that she's willing to lend me; and get this: her power seems to be more than the 100 dead witches from the burial site because she's really the Original Witch. As in all witches came from her. She's like my great, great times twenty generations grandmother or whatever. She told me that killing Elena is the best way to ensure Klaus doesn't upset the balance anymore, but I told her I wanted to kill Klaus, and that I'm willing to do whatever it takes. So she agreed; while she's worried about what the other Originals might do, he's the only one who is both vampire and werewolf."
"You were able to reason with this...ghost?" Damon asks, feeling skeptical. The only thing that keeps him hooked calmly is that he knows that Bonnie would never do anything to hurt Elena. He's just not so sure trusting a non-entity is a wise move.
"We went back and forth for a while, but I really feel like I convinced her I can kill Klaus if she'll help me. It's a complicated spell that she said I'll need to work on for a while before I'll be able to perform it in the way that will kill him."
Damon nods. He doesn't have any other offers, currently, so it's best to go with what he's got. "Well, I guess that makes our path clear. I'll work on Stefan, figure out how we're going to get Klaus back here, ASAP. You hang on to Elena's necklace, and work on that spell."
"Right," Bonnie says, and she smiles giddily, tucking the necklace into her pocket.
Damon slaps her shoulder affectionately. "It's kinda cool, us being on the same side, huh?"
Bonnie regards him in silence for a long moment, but then softens. "I guess we've been on the same side for a while now; since the first time we tried to take Klaus down." She looks at him with kindness, and Damon really has to stretch to remember that this girl hated him not that long ago.
A lot has changed in the last year; when he thinks of what he wanted when he first returned to Mystic Falls, it seems like another lifetime; another him. (And it was. He was the humanity-switched off one, and Stefan was falling in love with Elena Gilbert.)
Possessed of something he'll never be able to explain, he finds himself confessing, "If I had known then what I know now, I'd have never wanted to get into the tomb."
Surprise colors Bonnie's expression. Sudden tears make her eyes glisten and she blinks rapidly, dropping his gaze. Damon looks away, and clears his throat. He wasn't trying to make her cry, so it's a little awkward, but it's possible he's wanted to say that for a long time and just couldn't bring himself to do it before. (It's possible he's become overly fond of a few people besides Elena, and at least Bonnie's not mad at him right now, unlike Ric.)
"Bonnie?"
They both jerk around at the sound of Elena's voice, and Damon can't believe he didn't hear her come in.
"Hey, Elena," Bonnie says.
"What are you doing here?" Elena asks, her eyes flickering over Damon before going back to her best friend.
"I just came by to tell Damon how awful Stefan's acting. Make sure he knows." She cocks her head, and her eyes go back and forth between Elena and Damon. "I guess that's why you're here, too, huh?" Bonnie lies so smoothly, he feels an even greater sense of respect for her flood through him. He knows her figurative balls are pretty damn big, but her ability to keep things under wraps is probably the thing he likes most about her. Elena has enough to deal with without worrying if what Bonnie's trying to do will really work.
Not to mention, by putting the focus back on Elena-who wasn't there to report anything to Damon, in fact she had told him just the day before that she wouldn't be coming to the Boarding House anymore just so she didn't have to risk seeing Stefan-Bonnie made sure that no one cared why she was there at all.
(Yes, the witch was really, really good.)
Elena nods evasively and then makes full eye contact with him, some sort of desperate, I-need-you vibe that he keeps picking up more and more from her spiking across the space separating them. Taking the cue from both of them, he wraps things up efficiently. "Bonnie was just heading out. Lets get out of here before Stefan shows up, shall we?"
He puts his hand out and closes the space between them, his palm sliding easily over Elena's shoulder to redirect her back to the front door she'd just come through. She bumps his hip with her own as they walk out to her car. "Wanna go to The Grill?"
"Sounds fun!" he quips and she giggles, a hand tucking strands of her hair behind one ear as he opens the car door for her.
At The Grill, Damon orders ribs and fries for them to share and also gets them beer. ("None of the hard stuff in public, the Sheriff might see us!" he says, his eyes twinkling.)
Elena just smiles, because pretty much that's what Damon does for her anymore; he makes her smile. He's the only thing that makes her smile, because if she thinks about it too much, everything about Stefan will make her cry.
She's not the naive little girl who met a vampire in a cemetery a year ago and embarked upon a world she could never have guessed existed, but at the same time, she really did think that with her and Damon's efforts, Stefan would come home, and with hard work on all their parts, he could be on the mend. The reality is that he is home, but doesn't even faintly resemble the boy she met. What is actually worse is that when she looks at Damon, when she asks Damon questions, when he avoids her eyes or answering her in full, she realizes not only has he seen this before, but in his strange way, he's trying to protect her from it.
(He would have helped her forget it entirely, and she doesn't take that gesture lightly, given their history.)
And though she's tired of being protected, tired of having to fight for the right to the truth, she can't help the way it makes her heart tighten in her chest. Damon's been doing that to her all summer, ever since he declared his love for her and she waited for him to die...and he didn't. Again and again she'd been faced by moments where she could literally weep for him, for the way he felt about her, for this thing that he so freely gives her when she doesn't deserve it and hasn't earned it. (Isn't sure she wants it. Isn't sure she doesn't.)
The good thing about Damon is he mixes it up enough-pulling crap like flashing her, or launching her into a lake, or snapping Ric's neck in an unmitigated assholey move that no one should forgive, but they will because Damon makes it impossible to stay mad at him forever-that she doesn't have to dwell too long on the parts that tear her heart out. (Ric is making a valiant effort at keeping his distance, and Elena has not needled him about it too much.)
As they eat their ribs, Damon's eyes flash at her and he licks his fingers with flourish before asking, "What's up, mon ami?"
He always knows, too, how to reach out to her in these moments so that she doesn't feel like a jerk for needing his help; his advice. It's such an odd development between them. "I was wondering about what you said in Chicago-about Stefan being a cocky, ripper douche. How did you deal with him when he was like that?" She's looking for real answers here, because locking him up isn't going to work, but she doesn't think she can deal with him day in and day out at school. Not without breaking, and she doesn't want to give him that satisfaction.
"I would leave," Damon says quietly. He leans forward, resting his arms on the table. "Just take off, and not look back. We'd usually find each other in ten or twenty years, and I'd see what he was up to. He was always one extreme or another; and if he was hanging around with Lexi, I didn't ever stick around. She didn't like me, and I didn't really like her. She always acted like I was something she needed to scrape off her shoe, even though she was often rehabilitating the-" he cuts himself off suddenly. "Anyway, that's not a solution for you, unless you want to run away in the middle of the night." He pauses, examining her face closely. "I mean, we can do that, if you want. I'll take you somewhere, hide you out from him. I'll do whatever you want."
For a split second, the appeal of that idea almost overwhelms her. But, in truth, that's no better than Damon wiping her memory for her. They need a real solution, not an escape hatch. She eats a fry so she doesn't have to answer right away and then she meets his gaze again. He's watching her intently, but there's no coercion in his expression. He's open to whatever she wants. "Ric's training me to protect myself. And we've gotta hope, right? Hope that Katherine will get this Mikael guy to come and take care of Klaus. I can't run away. Even though, I'll be honest, it sounds like a good idea."
Damon leans back, relaxing in his seat. "Okay. We'll wait it out. But just know, the offer stands."
She nods and so does he and then he moves on, blithely talking about other unimportant topics, pulling her away from her worries for just a bit.
Later, she drives him back to the Boarding House (she hadn't drunk any beer, he'd downed both of them), and before he gets out of the car, he turns to her. His eyes are penetrating, and even if she wanted to she would be unable to look away. "Stefan is a vampire. We are vampires, Elena. What he's doing is not a reflection of how he feels about you. Whatever else you've got up there in that head of yours, this is the thing you have to understand. I don't think you really ever have. It's time to get up to speed. Okay?"
She finds herself unable to respond, and he continues, "It's important to arm yourself and know how to defend yourself. But it's also important to understand the situation that you're facing. The reality of it. Think about that."
He climbs from the Mini-Cooper and disappears into the Boarding House.
...chapter two...