The Fort(Sequel to It Was You)PG
Bonnie woke up at one pm the next day. Her head was pounding, and she was sure it would split open any second. Unable to fully open her eyes, she squinted.
“Morning sleepy head,” Caroline said as she walked into the room with orange juice and pickles for her friend.
“Thanks for keeping the curtains closed,” Bonnie said groggily as she prepared her throbbing head for the act of sitting up by first picturing it.
“Well I didn’t exactly do it for you,” Caroline said as she set Bonnie’s remedy by the lamp on the table. “I’m not ready to die yet,” she said as she sat on the side of the bed.
“Oh God,” Bonnie said as reality came back to her. She had completely forgotten why she’d picked up the bottle in the first place. “You spent the night?” she asked as she looked at Caroline with slanted eyes.
“Yep. Don’t worry; your dad didn’t see me. I left your bedroom door open so he wouldn’t get suspicious or anything. And you wanna know how you ended up in your bed?” she asked as a proud look graced her face. “I carried you.”
“What?” Bonnie asked slowly.
“Yep! This vampire thing is something else. Although I’m going to need you to get back to working on that magic ring, because I’d like to walk during the day again.”
Bonnie was speechless at her friend’s aloofness. “Did you manage to get drunk last night?”
Caroline chuckled, and Bonnie saw the shadow behind her gaze. “Here,” Caroline said, offering the juice and jar of pickles.
With a grunt, Bonnie sat up. After waiting for the picture before her to clear, she took her cure from Caroline. “Does your mom know you’re here?”
“I called her this morning,” Caroline said. She shrugged. “I just don’t feel like going back yet.” She fully got on Bonnie’s bed, folding her legs beneath her.
Bonnie watched as Caroline bowed her head and played with her nail polish. Fresh guilt washed over her. “Are you okay, Caroline?”
She shrugged and shook her head in the negative. “It’s just all now hitting me,” she said as she looked at Bonnie. “I mean I feel fine. Most of the times I don’t feel any different. I don’t feel…dead,” she said with a small lift of her shoulders. “But I’m afraid of the other stuff. The hunger, the want, the loss of control.” She buried her face in her hands. “That’s why I don’t want to leave here. I don’t want the temptation. I don’t want to kill anyone else.”
Bonnie closed her eyes. “You shouldn’t have to be dealing with this. I’m so sorry.”
When Caroline looked up at her, she looked like she was about to cry. “There’s one good thing about this. I remember. I remember what Damon did to me.”
Bonnie gave Caroline all her attention.
“I remember how he bit me; how he used me to do his dirty work.” She took a deep breath. “He treated me like I was nothing. Absolutely nothing,” she said as she looked in the distance. Her gaze then cut to Bonnie, full of accusation, hurt, and anger. “Did you know?”
Words escaped Bonnie for a bit. She wanted Caroline to know that she had wanted to tell her, but at the same time she didn’t want it to sound like Caroline shouldn’t be mad at her. “I…after I found out what he was, I figured out what the bite marks meant, but I didn’t know he used you to do his dirty work.”
Caroline nodded without looking at Bonnie, a sign that she was pulling away from her.
“Caroline, I wanted to tell you. But so much happened---”
“That I naturally fell down on your list,” Caroline cut her off. “How could you listen to me talk about him and still keep the truth from me?”
“Because I didn’t know what to say!” Bonnie said, widening her eyes and causing pain to shoot through her temple. She drank some juice and took out a pickle. “I didn’t keep quiet to…protect him. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to say it; I didn’t know what to do if you didn’t believe me; and if you did, I didn’t know what we were supposed to do from there. So I did what I could. I tried to help you move on from him,” Bonnie said, her eyes begging Caroline to believe her.
Caroline shook her head and got off the bed. She paced as she tried to calm down. She struggled to keep in mind that Bonnie didn’t keep this from her to hurt her. She fought to not take the victim route. She was one of Bonnie’s best friends, and the brunette truly cared about her.
“I set him on fire last night,” Bonnie said calmly as she munched on a pickle.
Caroline almost missed a step. “What?”
Bonnie looked at Caroline with no expression on her face. “I set Damon on fire last night.”
Caroline hurried back to the bed, her eyes wide, eager for Bonnie to continue. “When? Why?”
She drank her juice and set it on the lamp table. “After you left with Stefan. Why?” Her eyes drifted to the quilt as a small, reflective smile pulled at her lips. “Pick a reason, any reason,” she shrugged. “I just…I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t even realize when I started to do it. I couldn’t believe what was happening, but he was going on like it was business as usual,” she said with resentment. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at her friend, “When I looked at him, he had a shovel in his hand, just…ready to bury Carter. And he was just talking to her like there wasn’t a dead body right there. I didn’t even hear what he said to her,” she said as her mind went to the night before.
Caroline was looking at her with her mouth open.
“I just needed him to stop talking. Next thing I knew he was grabbing his head and dropping on the ground, and I knew I was doing it.” She wiped at her tears.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” was what came out of Caroline’s mouth. A dead Damon Salvatore would certainly brighten her future. She has so much to deal with; she didn’t want to be dodging Damon’s attempts to kill her.
“Elena stopped me,” Bonnie said, licking her lips. “She told me that this wasn’t us. That it can’t be us. How is that fair?” she asked, a slight frown on her face. “Damon gets to walk around and do whatever he wants, because this can’t be ‘us,’” she said, putting quotations around the word. She ate the last of the pickle.
Caroline looked at her hands thoughtfully.
“Last I checked we were all trying to get rid of Katherine. I assume that means kill her,” she said, grabbing another pickle from the jar. “If I managed to kill her tomorrow, no one would give me a speech about how this isn’t me,” she said, moving her shoulders to indicate that she thought the entire concept was a joke. “What makes Damon any different? How many people does he have to kill or hurt before the fact that he’s Stefan’s brother stops being the most important thing?” She looked at Caroline, almost willing her to have the answer. Her headache was getting worse because she was frowning. She tried to relax her forehead.
“I don’t know. He tried to kill me.” Caroline said quietly.
“He killed Jeremy last week.”
“What?!” Caroline said, alarmed.
“He lived, thanks to this magic ring,” she said nonchalantly. “He almost killed me once. The night I got possessed by Emily?”
Caroline’s eyes widened, a pang of guilt hitting her. That was the night she walked out. She never even asked Bonnie if what happened was real. Part of her was afraid it was, and because she didn’t want to deal with it, she ignored it. She realized now that Bonnie played along. For her sake. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never…”
Bonnie shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s done.”
Caroline felt worse.
“I feel like leaving,” Bonnie said, draining the last of the orange juice and putting the cup back on the light table with a little more force than necessary. “I just want to burn the grimoire and leave town.” She closed her eyes and rested her head against the headboard.
Caroline smiled contemplatively and moved to sit next to Bonnie, her back against the headboard. “That would be nice. I would come too. A new place for this new chapter in my life.”
“We would go to New York.”
“Perfect,” Caroline said, closing her eyes. “Some place big where no one knows us.”
“Where we aren’t likely to run into vampires. Where I don’t have to decide anything. Where I can use my powers for me again. Where magic can be fun again,” Bonnie said, her voice filled with sadness as she remembered a simpler time when magic was all about floating feathers. Caroline pulled her into a hug when she started to sob.
“But we’re not leaving, are we?” Caroline asked, her voice like that of a child’s, disappointment evident.
“No,” Bonnie cried. “Because I’m a masochist now.” Her head bounced as Caroline laughed.
“That also means you can’t burn Emily’s book.” Caroline said when they separated.
Bonnie mentally rolled her eyes.
“Not even after you make my ring. And we may not be able to go to New York, but can we spend the weekend in here? I really don’t want to leave.”
Bonnie regarded her friend and waited for her to continue.
“I don’t know,” Caroline shrugged. “In here, things are still…normal.”
“Even with me talking about burning my magic book?” Bonnie asked skeptically.
Caroline laughed. “Even with that. You being a witch was part of my normal remember?” Her mirth turned thoughtful, and she said, “Bon, I don’t know what to think of this whole who should be killed thing. That’s waaayyy to heavy for me, but I do know that I don’t want you killing people. Not even Damon Salvatore. The way you feel about the thought of me killing someone is the same way I feel about you doing it. It’s just…” she shook her head, “way too big of a change.”
Bonnie nodded. She understood what Caroline was saying, but she simply cannot just stand there and let Damon, Katherine, or anyone else have their way if it means innocent people being hurt. She agreed with Caroline that the situation is heavy, and it’s one she really doesn’t want to deal with anymore. “This is not how I imagined my life,” she said, staring into space.
“I know. But it’s not all bad,” Caroline said. “We’re going through it together,” she shrugged with a little smile on her face. “Like when we had to get braces just in time to begin 6th grade.”
Bonnie laughed, remembering. It seemed like such a monumental tragedy at the time. Caroline held out her hand, and Bonnie grabbed it.
“So the next time you want to relieve some stress by torturing that asshole? You can count me in. We’ll do it together.”
Bonnie smiled. “So no killing, but torturing is allowed.”
“Absolutely!” Caroline perked with a shrug of her shoulders.
Bonnie laughed. She almost thought it was the vampirism talking, but this was 100 percent Caroline. It was hard for her to imagine things being better, especially with Katherine still lurking, ready to prove to her that it can absolutely get worst. But maybe it might not be so bad now. ‘Together’ is a word she had not heard in a long time.
“Morning sleepy head,” Caroline said as she walked into the room with orange juice and pickles for her friend.
“Thanks for keeping the curtains closed,” Bonnie said groggily as she prepared her throbbing head for the act of sitting up by first picturing it.
“Well I didn’t exactly do it for you,” Caroline said as she set Bonnie’s remedy by the lamp on the table. “I’m not ready to die yet,” she said as she sat on the side of the bed.
“Oh God,” Bonnie said as reality came back to her. She had completely forgotten why she’d picked up the bottle in the first place. “You spent the night?” she asked as she looked at Caroline with slanted eyes.
“Yep. Don’t worry; your dad didn’t see me. I left your bedroom door open so he wouldn’t get suspicious or anything. And you wanna know how you ended up in your bed?” she asked as a proud look graced her face. “I carried you.”
“What?” Bonnie asked slowly.
“Yep! This vampire thing is something else. Although I’m going to need you to get back to working on that magic ring, because I’d like to walk during the day again.”
Bonnie was speechless at her friend’s aloofness. “Did you manage to get drunk last night?”
Caroline chuckled, and Bonnie saw the shadow behind her gaze. “Here,” Caroline said, offering the juice and jar of pickles.
With a grunt, Bonnie sat up. After waiting for the picture before her to clear, she took her cure from Caroline. “Does your mom know you’re here?”
“I called her this morning,” Caroline said. She shrugged. “I just don’t feel like going back yet.” She fully got on Bonnie’s bed, folding her legs beneath her.
Bonnie watched as Caroline bowed her head and played with her nail polish. Fresh guilt washed over her. “Are you okay, Caroline?”
She shrugged and shook her head in the negative. “It’s just all now hitting me,” she said as she looked at Bonnie. “I mean I feel fine. Most of the times I don’t feel any different. I don’t feel…dead,” she said with a small lift of her shoulders. “But I’m afraid of the other stuff. The hunger, the want, the loss of control.” She buried her face in her hands. “That’s why I don’t want to leave here. I don’t want the temptation. I don’t want to kill anyone else.”
Bonnie closed her eyes. “You shouldn’t have to be dealing with this. I’m so sorry.”
When Caroline looked up at her, she looked like she was about to cry. “There’s one good thing about this. I remember. I remember what Damon did to me.”
Bonnie gave Caroline all her attention.
“I remember how he bit me; how he used me to do his dirty work.” She took a deep breath. “He treated me like I was nothing. Absolutely nothing,” she said as she looked in the distance. Her gaze then cut to Bonnie, full of accusation, hurt, and anger. “Did you know?”
Words escaped Bonnie for a bit. She wanted Caroline to know that she had wanted to tell her, but at the same time she didn’t want it to sound like Caroline shouldn’t be mad at her. “I…after I found out what he was, I figured out what the bite marks meant, but I didn’t know he used you to do his dirty work.”
Caroline nodded without looking at Bonnie, a sign that she was pulling away from her.
“Caroline, I wanted to tell you. But so much happened---”
“That I naturally fell down on your list,” Caroline cut her off. “How could you listen to me talk about him and still keep the truth from me?”
“Because I didn’t know what to say!” Bonnie said, widening her eyes and causing pain to shoot through her temple. She drank some juice and took out a pickle. “I didn’t keep quiet to…protect him. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to say it; I didn’t know what to do if you didn’t believe me; and if you did, I didn’t know what we were supposed to do from there. So I did what I could. I tried to help you move on from him,” Bonnie said, her eyes begging Caroline to believe her.
Caroline shook her head and got off the bed. She paced as she tried to calm down. She struggled to keep in mind that Bonnie didn’t keep this from her to hurt her. She fought to not take the victim route. She was one of Bonnie’s best friends, and the brunette truly cared about her.
“I set him on fire last night,” Bonnie said calmly as she munched on a pickle.
Caroline almost missed a step. “What?”
Bonnie looked at Caroline with no expression on her face. “I set Damon on fire last night.”
Caroline hurried back to the bed, her eyes wide, eager for Bonnie to continue. “When? Why?”
She drank her juice and set it on the lamp table. “After you left with Stefan. Why?” Her eyes drifted to the quilt as a small, reflective smile pulled at her lips. “Pick a reason, any reason,” she shrugged. “I just…I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t even realize when I started to do it. I couldn’t believe what was happening, but he was going on like it was business as usual,” she said with resentment. Tears welled in her eyes as she looked at her friend, “When I looked at him, he had a shovel in his hand, just…ready to bury Carter. And he was just talking to her like there wasn’t a dead body right there. I didn’t even hear what he said to her,” she said as her mind went to the night before.
Caroline was looking at her with her mouth open.
“I just needed him to stop talking. Next thing I knew he was grabbing his head and dropping on the ground, and I knew I was doing it.” She wiped at her tears.
“Why didn’t you kill him?” was what came out of Caroline’s mouth. A dead Damon Salvatore would certainly brighten her future. She has so much to deal with; she didn’t want to be dodging Damon’s attempts to kill her.
“Elena stopped me,” Bonnie said, licking her lips. “She told me that this wasn’t us. That it can’t be us. How is that fair?” she asked, a slight frown on her face. “Damon gets to walk around and do whatever he wants, because this can’t be ‘us,’” she said, putting quotations around the word. She ate the last of the pickle.
Caroline looked at her hands thoughtfully.
“Last I checked we were all trying to get rid of Katherine. I assume that means kill her,” she said, grabbing another pickle from the jar. “If I managed to kill her tomorrow, no one would give me a speech about how this isn’t me,” she said, moving her shoulders to indicate that she thought the entire concept was a joke. “What makes Damon any different? How many people does he have to kill or hurt before the fact that he’s Stefan’s brother stops being the most important thing?” She looked at Caroline, almost willing her to have the answer. Her headache was getting worse because she was frowning. She tried to relax her forehead.
“I don’t know. He tried to kill me.” Caroline said quietly.
“He killed Jeremy last week.”
“What?!” Caroline said, alarmed.
“He lived, thanks to this magic ring,” she said nonchalantly. “He almost killed me once. The night I got possessed by Emily?”
Caroline’s eyes widened, a pang of guilt hitting her. That was the night she walked out. She never even asked Bonnie if what happened was real. Part of her was afraid it was, and because she didn’t want to deal with it, she ignored it. She realized now that Bonnie played along. For her sake. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never…”
Bonnie shrugged. “It’s okay. It’s done.”
Caroline felt worse.
“I feel like leaving,” Bonnie said, draining the last of the orange juice and putting the cup back on the light table with a little more force than necessary. “I just want to burn the grimoire and leave town.” She closed her eyes and rested her head against the headboard.
Caroline smiled contemplatively and moved to sit next to Bonnie, her back against the headboard. “That would be nice. I would come too. A new place for this new chapter in my life.”
“We would go to New York.”
“Perfect,” Caroline said, closing her eyes. “Some place big where no one knows us.”
“Where we aren’t likely to run into vampires. Where I don’t have to decide anything. Where I can use my powers for me again. Where magic can be fun again,” Bonnie said, her voice filled with sadness as she remembered a simpler time when magic was all about floating feathers. Caroline pulled her into a hug when she started to sob.
“But we’re not leaving, are we?” Caroline asked, her voice like that of a child’s, disappointment evident.
“No,” Bonnie cried. “Because I’m a masochist now.” Her head bounced as Caroline laughed.
“That also means you can’t burn Emily’s book.” Caroline said when they separated.
Bonnie mentally rolled her eyes.
“Not even after you make my ring. And we may not be able to go to New York, but can we spend the weekend in here? I really don’t want to leave.”
Bonnie regarded her friend and waited for her to continue.
“I don’t know,” Caroline shrugged. “In here, things are still…normal.”
“Even with me talking about burning my magic book?” Bonnie asked skeptically.
Caroline laughed. “Even with that. You being a witch was part of my normal remember?” Her mirth turned thoughtful, and she said, “Bon, I don’t know what to think of this whole who should be killed thing. That’s waaayyy to heavy for me, but I do know that I don’t want you killing people. Not even Damon Salvatore. The way you feel about the thought of me killing someone is the same way I feel about you doing it. It’s just…” she shook her head, “way too big of a change.”
Bonnie nodded. She understood what Caroline was saying, but she simply cannot just stand there and let Damon, Katherine, or anyone else have their way if it means innocent people being hurt. She agreed with Caroline that the situation is heavy, and it’s one she really doesn’t want to deal with anymore. “This is not how I imagined my life,” she said, staring into space.
“I know. But it’s not all bad,” Caroline said. “We’re going through it together,” she shrugged with a little smile on her face. “Like when we had to get braces just in time to begin 6th grade.”
Bonnie laughed, remembering. It seemed like such a monumental tragedy at the time. Caroline held out her hand, and Bonnie grabbed it.
“So the next time you want to relieve some stress by torturing that asshole? You can count me in. We’ll do it together.”
Bonnie smiled. “So no killing, but torturing is allowed.”
“Absolutely!” Caroline perked with a shrug of her shoulders.
Bonnie laughed. She almost thought it was the vampirism talking, but this was 100 percent Caroline. It was hard for her to imagine things being better, especially with Katherine still lurking, ready to prove to her that it can absolutely get worst. But maybe it might not be so bad now. ‘Together’ is a word she had not heard in a long time.