Chapter Text
“Bonnie!”
She can still hear him.
Over the dead language flowing over her lips, the wind whistling through the thin, bare tree branches, over the barbed voice in her head whispering insidiously that this is what he deserves, somehow, she still hears him.
Kai calls her name and Bonnie thought she would savor this. For two days she anticipated this very moment when she would hear his voice soaked in the same desperation that she lived with for months, but when she finally pulls her eyes away from the Ascendent to look at him hovering in the shadows near the tree line, ribbons of vibrant color playing on his face, her mouth tastes sour at what she sees.
Fear.
Pure, naked fear so stark and visceral that it makes her stomach lurch sickeningly is painted on his face and it’s in that second that Bonnie realizes that as much as she keeps saying that she’s changed she hasn’t because she can’t do it. She knows that fear and can almost feel the sinking sensation she knows is settling in his stomach in her own as he anticipates being left alone in this cold, dark, empty world. The cruel voice in her head despairs, howling in betrayal when she stops short of the last few words of the chant to stare at him expectantly. It cries out in disappointment, it’s need to be satiated so close to being satisfied snatched away, and she feels as if she’s out of her body as she watches comprehension dawn on Kai's face.
Damon’s gaze is an accusing weight pressing into her skin from across the circle but she ignores him, focusing resolutely on the Ascendent clutched in their hands. She already feels like a failure as Kai’s large hand joins theirs at the very last moment and she doesn’t need icy blue eyes damning her even further.
The last words leaves her lips, just as the Aurora Borealis begins to fade and the world bends and blurs to whisk them away back to present day.
--
The boarding house is too warm, the fire in the hearth mere feet away roaring even on the balmy summer night but nobody moves to remove their coats. The Ascendent falls to the floor, landing with a dull thud on the thick rug and the following silence is just as heavy. It feels like the air itself is going to snap in half when someone finally speaks.
“What,” Kai begins lowly, with ill-disguised ire, “the hell was that?” He waves his hand and the Ascendent goes smacking into his palm; he stuffs it into the inner breast pocket of his coat. Bonnie finally risks looking in Damon’s direction just to see him staring at her like she expected, brow furrowed in a mix of disappointment and anger.
“Hello!” All eyes snap back to Kai. “I said what the fuck was that?” He breathes out a disbelieving laugh. “Were you going to leave me in goddamn 1903? ”
“Not like you wouldn’t have deserved it,” Damon mutters and Kai’s eyes darken, flashing dangerously. At the sight fear instinctually licks up Bonnie’s spine and her shoulders tense preparing for the pain that will inevitably come her way.
“Is that what you were going to do, Bonnie?” Elena asks quietly. “Leave Kai there?”
She doesn’t answer, choosing to look into the fire instead. Sweat beads on her brow from the wafting heat and her heart is pounding in her ears.
“Figures,” Kai scoffs. All three women startle as Damon is thrown off of his feet by an invisible force and goes flying across the room. He crashes into the wall so hard it knocks the breath from his lungs and a picture onto the floor. He lands among the shards of broken glass and frame, grimacing.
“Ow,” he says sardonically.
“Of course. You would try to screw me over while I was doing you a favor. I knew I should have told you to go kick rocks but no, I had to agree to this bogus extraction that’s guaranteed to turn into a shitshow in two point three seconds. God , I fucking hate vampires.” He slams Damon into the wall again as he tries to get up and Damon groans, slumping to the side and clutching his ribs.
“Kai, stop it –ah!” Elena gasps in pain, hands flying up to clutch at her head as she falls to her knees. At the sound of her distress, Damon finally manages to get to his feet; he speeds towards Kai but he barely gets halfway across the room before he too is brought to his knees by a vicious aneurysm.
“Stop.” Bonnie clenches her fist near her hip, and Kai’s wrist twists painfully, breaking his concentration. He hisses in discomfort, shaking out his hand, and she waits, heart still racing, for his retaliation. But to her surprise he doesn’t throw a fireplace poker through her middle, and instead chooses to glower mutinously at her two friends gathering themselves on the ground. “Don’t go after them,” she tells him coldly. “I was the one who was going to leave you there.”
“Oh yeah? And who, pray tell, gave you that idea, hm? Because something tells me you’re not the type to think of something so cruel.” He turns his furious glare onto her and she forces herself not to look away as Elena and Damon get to their feet.
“Can someone please tell me what is going in?” Elena pants, face still screwed up in lingering pain.
“What's ‘going on’ is your boytoy here convinced Bon to leave me in another prison world." He strides across the room, hands waving. "One worse than before.” Elena casts Damon a surprised glance which he shrugs off. “Oh yeah, and let’s not forget the part where they decided that this should happen after stabbing me to death in said prison world. You know, the one that wasn’t even made for me, so I actually would have died." He scoffs. "Brilliant idea Bobbsey twins, definitely the best course of action. Or, it would have been except for the little fact that that would have led to my entire coven being wiped out. An outcome I’ve actively been trying to avoid, in case no one noticed. Not that any of you would care.”
The horror is cold when it sets in -she hadn’t even thought of that. She was so focused on making him hurt and bleed that she’d forgotten all about what could have happened if she had succeeded.
“Damon, Bonnie,” Elena says, hushed and shocked. “Is that true?”
“Oh, don’t look at me like that," Damon snaps, irritated. “He had it coming.” At her disappointed look he raises his hands in slight supplication. “I admit,” he says lightly, “the 'entire coven croaking' thing was a teensy oversight but it didn’t work so no harm no foul, right?”
“No harm, no foul?" Elena exclaims. "Yeah, by the skin of your teeth! How could you do that to Alaric? To Jo and her babies? And not to mention dozens of innocent people who have nothing to do with any of this?”
“Or, I don’t know,” Kai chimes in, “how could you do that to me, when I’m the only reason why you idiots got your so-called bestie back.”
“What?” Bonnie’s stomach dips, like she's missed a step or two in the dark. “What are you talking about?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Kai laughs bitterly. His intense azure stare bores into her as she watches him warily, waiting. “Of course, he didn’t. Well, allow me to set the scene. The Salvatore kitchen, February 5th, a beautiful winter day beyond the windows. Inside? The scent of fresh confectionaries fills the air. Can you see it?” Her jaw aches, she's clenching her back teeth so hard, and he continues after a few long seconds. “I walk in, handsome as always, to find these two sucking face and licking frosting off of the tops of the cupcakes they baked ‘in honor’ of you.’" He simpers the last few words and it makes her feel slightly sick. “That’s the extent of how much they were looking for a way to pull you out of that hellhole.” He says, and he sounds disgusted as he eyes Damon and Elena hovering near the wet bar. “On the day you were going to off yourself they were baking ‘in memory of you’ instead of working themselves into exhaustion trying to find you.”
“That’s not how it went," Damon sneers at him.
“But isn’t it?” Kai questions. “I mean, if I hadn’t wandered on over here, rolling in my new found ability to feel guilt and agreed to drain myself of my magic, you," he points at her, "little BonBon, would have been nothing but a sweet, sweet memory wrapped in an adorable cheerleading uniform.”
"Is that true?” It can’t be, she tries to tell herself but something in her stomach roils, burning.
“No,” both Damon and Elena exclaim emphatically.
“It is,” Kai says, easily dismissing their protests. “Also, I almost died during the process and this is how you repay me? Trying to leave me stranded in a frigid wasteland with no indoor plumbing?”
“Oh, c’mon,” Damon scoffs. "You're being dramatic."
“Am I? You sure you didn’t miss a spot cleaning up my blood when I got skewered like a fucking shish kebab in your kitchen?” Damon opens his mouth, but Kai cuts him off. “Your blood tastes disgusting by the way, just thought you should know.”
It feels like her world has flipped on its head and the room blurs before snapping back into focus.
“I didn’t know,” she says faintly. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She aims this at Damon who finally has the good graces to look a little sheepish.
"You didn’t seem like you wanted to know." At her disbelieving look he shrugs jerkily. "I didn’t think you’d care. You almost tore my head off when I brought him to apologize."
“They didn’t even come and find me to help get you out,” Kai continues casually, twisting the emotional knife deeper. “I happened to turn up here on a detour during my apology rounds-”
“Why would we come find you? You're the one who left her there in the first place.” Damon hisses and his eyes look wild; he looks like he's three seconds away from rushing him again.
Kai's head tilts as he sucks in air between his teeth. “I don't know Damon; something tells me that you have no problem working with the bad guy to get what you really want.” He looks over Elena’s shoulder where Lily has been watching the proceedings silently with a sort of detached interest.
The silence after his statement is loud.
“Were you really going to leave me there?” It takes a moment for Bonnie to realize that Kai has spoken to her; she's never heard his voice pitched quite this way, quiet, and calm, and oddly intimate, like they're friends and he expected better of her. He has the gall to look betrayed and she's horrified when she realizes that she feels a tingle of guilt between he shoulder blades.
“I didn’t know,” she manages to get out, like she owes him any type of explanation.
“Would it have made a difference?" And he’s looking at her like he was earlier, eyes intense, and deep, and different. So different than what she’s used to from him.
“I – “ She doesn’t know.
The look in his eye take on a curious glint as it drags across her expression searchingly. “Do you know about her?” He gestures with his chin to Lily in the shadowed corner and while she doesn’t react noticeably, an air of defensiveness shrouds her immediately when all eyes land on her.
“What about her?” Bonnie asks, suspiciously.
Kai huffs, disbelieving and amused. His gaze lingers on her as he turns his head to address Damon once more.
“So withholding information is your M.O, huh?”
The spidery tingles of anxiety creeps over her, the ominous feeling that usually accompanies the declaration that things are actually much, much worse than what she'd first anticipated. A sensation she is far too used to, unfortunately. “What is he talking about Damon?” she demands.
Damon’s lips thin, the contriteness in his eyes condemning.
“What?" Kai taunts. "Ripper got your tongue?”
Ripper! The word sends a flare of panic careening through her.
“Bonnie-” Damon begins.
Shocked doesn't even begin to explain the rush of emotion that rocks her. “She’s a Ripper?”
“Yup!” Kai exclaims jovially, obviously relishing delivering the news. “It's funny, right? I mean, wasn't that the whole point of trapping yourself away with me with no magic? To prevent me from killing people? And here Damon is, tricking you into freeing Mommy Dearest, who, last time checked, had a body count of just over," he pretends to count on his fingers, "three thousand."
"Three thousand?"
"I know! Makes my measly half dozen look like nothing-"
"You just had me release a Ripper into the general population. Into Mystic Falls?" Her voice sounds faint in her own ears as a numb feeling steals over her.
"It's going to be alright," Damon insists. "She's just here to help Stefan; she’s not going to kill anyone -"
There’s a flurry of air that rustles Bonnie's hair and the curtains, followed by the dull thud and they are all left staring at the front door swinging open on its hinges. Bonnie already knows but she looks over at the dark corner anyway to see that it's empty; Lily is gone, the redolence of aged petticoats the only thing left in her wake.
“Welllll,” Kai drags out. “I guess we’re just going to have to see about that. Looks like heads are about to roll to me.”
“You shut the hell up,” Damon snarls.
Kai raises his hands in mock surrender, laughing. “I’m just saying; I can't be the only wondering what not eating for over a century will do that to a person, let alone a vampire on steroids.”
She doesn’t hear Damon’s angry response, Kai’s jeering, or Elena’s pacifying croon. Unlike the clearing where she heard every branch cracking in the gust of wind, all she hears now is a ringing covered in white noise as the walls start closing in.
Suddenly it's all too much.
Just like at the rave days earlier her nerves are too sensitive; her mind is in over drive. Those tendrils of anxiety are full flown chains, pulling her down into a vacuum of confusion and she mind can't focus, unable to pitch on a single full thought. Her throat burns.
She has to get out of here now.
They're all still at each other’s throats when she walks out of the living room without a word and out of the wide open front door. When she gets into muggy night air she finally tugs at her jacket buttons.
She needs a drink.
--
She's three fingers of bourbon in when the buzzing in her head stops and she can hear again. The sound of the crowded bar is loud but not overwhelming, the aimless sound brushing gently over her dulled nerves instead of spiking it. It's strange being back in the real world sometimes. One would be surprised at how quickly a person could get used to knowing no one is around and even though she's missed people desperately it doesn't overshadow the fact that she still has to get used to being around them again.
It's a Friday night in June and bare skin glints from behind the plumes of smoke blown by flirty barflies. She watches, chest hollow, as they lean into each other to touch coyly and smile suggestively while nearby groups of friends laugh at inside jokes. She tries to imagine being one of them, anyone who was carefree and enjoying life but it feels starkly foreign and after a few attempts she stares at the muted tv unseeingly.
She's nursing her fourth drink when the bartender places a double finger of what looks like whiskey in front of her.
“I didn’t order this,” she mumbles, pushing the glass away with the back of her fingers.
“I know. He did.” He gestures his elbow to the left and Bonnie’s bourbon bleary gaze travels down the shining oak bar to land on the very last person she ever wants to see. Kai is sipping at his own full glass of something dark, and she groans low and long.
Why can’t she escape him?
Every night in the prison world her dreams revolved around him hunting her, laughing tauntingly as she cried and prayed for help that she knew wasn’t coming. They've continued, even back in the real world where she wakes up heart racing and in a cold sweat at odd hours, the feel of his hand squeezing her throat all too real. Even now she can't find solace in the bottom of a bottle as to what a clusterfuck today was without seeing his damn face.
Confronted by her scowl Kai gives a little wave, rings glinting in the low light, and she rolls her eyes. She’s cursed. There’s no other explanation. She’s cursed – vampires, doppelgangers, being the anchor, sociopaths. Is there a Bennett curse that Grams didn't mention?
Forcing herself not to take her frustrations out on the barkeep she politely pushes the drink further away. “Please tell him I don’t want it,” she tells him. “Or you can dump it. Whatever you prefer.” He nods, smirking, and takes the glass away. She watches as he picks the former and places the drink in front of the other man while passing along her message.
She is wholly unsurprised when he grabs both his drink and the one meant for her and gets up. She looks at the clock on the wall behind the television playing an old football game. 11:24 pm.
When will this day end?
He’s smart enough to leave a seat between them when he sits down again. Carefully he places the drink in between them.
"It’s not poisoned," he says. She doesn’t answer, sipping her bourbon wishing it burned a little more. They sit, both sipping their drinks and not looking at each other. She considers just leaving but she's tired; physically and mentally, but most of all she’s tired of running from him and she won't let him chase her out of here. This is her town in her world. The silence stretches, long enough that she thinks that maybe he will, for once, keep quiet and avoid escalating the moment.
“That was... fun.”
“What do you want?” she snaps.
“A drink," he says, "but I'm working on that. Jumping decades always leaves me ravenous so maybe a burger. Definitely a good night’s sleep. I'm still torn on world peace -”
“From me,” she sighs. She’s so exhausted. “What do you want from me?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he tilts his tumbler slowly, liquor washing the crystal walls and he stares into the dark liquid. “I don’t want anything from you,” he finally says, quietly.
“You’re lying. You’re a sociopath. You always want something.”
“You haven't known me long enough to know what I always want. Also, former psychopath is the correct phrase.”
"Big difference."
"Yeah, my bad. Psychopaths are more likely to murder someone than a sociopath." She says stiffly, and he doesn't say anything. “Anyway, I've known you long enough. Longer than anyone should have to. So, tell me, what do you want, hm? Some more of my blood? Or let me guess, Zaroff; you're here to give me a head start?”
“No,” he says simply. She waits for more but nothing comes.
“Then what? What do you want?”
“I told you. Nothing.” Her chest feels like its straining, fit to burst from frustration and confusion and she can't hold back the question that’s been gnawing at her since she strode from the Salvatore living room.
“Why did you save me?” She demands, careful to keep her voice even.
“Why didn’t you abandon me?”
Finally, he turns to look her squarely in the eye and that familiar jolt that she always feels when he does cuts sharply through her drunken haze. She hates the crackling fission of tension that pushes up against her skin and writhes in her stomach and chest that never lessens.
The sounds of the bar mill around them and in her hazy state she notes once again that his eyes look... different. It feels like she's looked into those eyes for hundreds of years, seeing them every time she dares fall asleep. She stared into them in a smudged rearview as he whispered threats hotly into her ear and gazed into them as she bled out from a knife in the ribs. She knows those eyes and the ones that pin her down now are wholly unfamiliar. The intense sincereness is out of place and it's so disturbing that she has to look away first. It takes her a few seconds to remember what he'd asked her and she clutches her glass.
“Because I’m stupid apparently,” she mumbles and downs the rest of her drink. In pursuit of reaching her goal of complete numbness she takes the previously proffered drink and downs it just as easily. “I came here to get away from you,” she says, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand.
“I know.”
“So why won’t you let me. You say you don’t want anything from me, fine. Leave me alone.”
“I can’t.”
"You can’t what?"
"Leave you alone."
"Why the hell not?"
He shrugs. “I don’t know.” He actually looks perplexed.
“You don’t know?” she echoes. He drains his drink and gestures for another. “What do you mean you don’t know?” Kai keeps his eyes focused on his glass being refilled and once full he drinks half of it in one go. “Kai-”
“I said I don’t know," he says, annoyed. "I have this... this...” his hand hovers over his midsection, “thing going on in this region.”
“What?”
“My chest. Something is going on in my chest. And sometimes my stomach.”
“What the hell does that have to do with following me around?”
“I said I don’t know,” Kai snaps.
They glare at each other but this time he’s the one to look away first.
The effects of the liquor is hitting her full force now and as she continues to stare at his profile the urge to do him physical harm wells up rapidly. She knows it's time to leave before she gives into the desire. She slides off of the bar stool and grabs her coat.
"Wait.” His hand reaches out to grab her elbow and immediately she flinches and yanks her arm away.
“Don’t touch me.”
“I’m sorry-” he begins.
“Don’t ever touch me again.” Her heart pounds. “Don’t or I promise, I swear, Kia. I will kill you. I won’t hesitate again.”
And he must know she's serious because despite the small shake in her voice he nods resting his hand back on the bar, tucking his fingers in. “I want to say thank you.”
“For what?”
“Not leaving me.” And God, why does he keep looking at her like that? She hates it. And she hates how sincere he sounds; it’s almost too convincing and anybody who didn’t know him would think he was actually capable of feeling sincerity. "I don’t know what I would have done if you had.”
“You really want to thank me?” She holds his stupid, weirdly warm blue gaze, and is careful to enunciate her words. “Leave me alone. I didn’t leave you behind and you -” She still can’t believe that he risked his life to go back to save hers. “You did what you did for whatever reason so now we’re even. We can go our separate ways." The proposal gives an eerie sensation of de ja vu.
“Just…Leave me alone.” This time when she heads towards the door he doesn't stop her.
A quick glance at the clock informs her that it's 12:01.
Finally, this day is over.
--
When she staggers into the dorm its blessedly empty. The prospect of fielding Elena’s questions or ignoring Caroline’s murderous snarking sounds hellacious especially with the room rocking back and forth like it is right now . But it’s not like she’s surprised they aren’t around as she kicks off her shoes. They’re never around. She’s always alone.
She throws her coat, gloves, and scarf into the wicker chair near the window and when she tugs her shirt over her head it joins the growing pile. Without even bothering to turn on the light she falls face first onto her bed and snags a pillow, clutching it like an anchor as the room settles.
The moon shines brightly through the window, it's beams cutting across her eyes and thoughts flood her mind.
Why did he save her?
Why abandon her for months only to come back literally at the last moment and save her life? And not to mention apparently he almost died doing it. The only other person who’s ever done anything close to that was Grams and the complicated feelings that rear up at this realization are immediately pushed to the back of her mind. She can’t examine that with a belly full of booze without spiraling.
Is he really different? She wonders instead. Is that even possible; to be a sociopath one second and the next a human being with genuine, full-fledged emotions? What did he mean by he can’t leave her alone? She was half kidding about the curse but what if she really does have a problem? What if she’s doomed to have him haunt her until the day she dies as penance for escaping death one too many times? What if-?
Why were Damon and Elena baking cupcakes on the day you were really going to die?
That little voice that became her only friend in the prison world chimes in and immediately her eyes begin to burn.
A shade of the despair, a fraction of what she felt when she got back to 1994 Mystic Falls to see that she was too late and they were already gone, ripples through her and her vision blurs with unshed tears. She's gotten better at holding them back but tonight one falls hot onto her cheek as she wonders for the hundredth time why they didn’t bother to meet her halfway.
No. No more crying, no more crying.
“No more crying.” She says her new mantra ever since that garage door opened, out loud. “No more crying...”
She sits up in bed a little too quickly and the room jerks like a faulty carnival ride. Gripping her comforter she waits for her vision to stop twirling and breathes deeply through her nose to center her thoughts. Each inhale pushes away the hurt she feels trying to blossom in her chest, fed by the steady stream of alcohol in her veins and she continues until she can barely feel anything. She’s not going to cry anymore. For the past four years she’s cried too much, enough for endless lifetimes, and she’s sick of it.
She tries to think about tomorrow. Besides the headache it will be a better day. The thought is barely formed before reality comes crashing in. Caroline’s still bitchy vampire barbie, your best friend lied to you, a former psychopath won’t leave town. She groans but it's when she remembers that now there are two Rippers running around Mystic Falls that she realizes that she can’t deal any of it. Not now, or tomorrow, or even the next day.
Pulling herself to her feet, she teeters to her closet and digs around spare comforters and piles of shoes and eventually pulls her suitcase out of its depths.
She has to get away.