Broken // 03: Bonnie
Title: Broken // 03: Bonnie | Author: that_treason
Rating: R (References to Sexy Times and Mature Themes)
Length: total around 5,500 words (this chapter: around 2,000 words)
Spoilers: Spoilers through the end of 4x15, "Stand By Me" -- AU after that
Characters (this chapter): Bonnie (appearances by ensemble)
Disclaimers: Everything belongs to the people who own them. I am just borrowing to get things out of my system.
Three little girls, all grown up.
Three related stand-alone chapters written to follow "Stand By Me."
// 03: BONNIE
The dead surround her.
Bonnie can’t see them or hear them or even smell them -- but she can feel them. It’s a thing she knows in her bones, a chill that nothing can overcome. She can’t ever get warm, hasn’t been able to get warm since the island, so she knows for a fact they are there, all the time and growing in number.
It’s because of what she’s planning to do. She knows this is what attracts them, like she knows the cold is really there. They gather because they want to watch her work.
Of course she talks to them and makes them welcome. She explains everything to them, all the time, no matter who else in the living world might happen to be around. The dead need to know everything -- so they can understand the change that’s coming.
In the beginning Shane coaxes and prods and cajoles, always talking Silas Silas Silas -- but after a while he leaves her be: gives her some basic instructions and disappears. Bonnie shines with her commitment to his cause, and he seems to sense that attempts to control her further are only hinder his goal. He’s already done enough, broken her down till she exists for only one purpose.
As far as Bonnie can tell, he's gone away and left her in peace with the cold. She’s so glad -- so very, very glad that he’s gone, along with his manipulative whispers. In the time that she’s known magic, Bonnie’s life has been out of her hands. Her friends use her as a hammer for a nail, no matter what the consequences.
This is different, now she’s in control, she’s the hand and the hammer and she has picked out her very own evil nail. All the lies will be revealed, all the broken promises fixed, all the veils lifted and the curtains thrown back. She’s the savior of the dead and she will remake the world.
And no one, not Shane, not her friends, not her parents, will hold her back any longer. Bonnie is free to choose -- and she chooses the dead.
They have no one else but her.
###
After the Gilbert house burns, Bonnie goes to Damon first because she knows he understands. She knows that he’ll help. He’s agreed already to everything, in actions if not in words.
When he found her on the island, she could see it in his eyes. There was a moment of connection between them, where everything that needed to be said was out in the air without a syllable spoken. And then Damon hugged her to show how much he wanted to help. He was so overcome with joy that he hugged her. When does Damon Salvatore hug someone? When does Damon Salvatore hug Bonnie?
(“Rarer than a conjunction of planets,” she says later when she recounts the story to the cold dead listening around her.)
He listened to her story the whole way home, focused and silent. Absorbed everything she had to say, turned all the intensity of that blue gaze on her, so that he wouldn’t miss a word. And when they arrived at Elena’s, he went right to work helping to convince his brother -- calling Stefan out onto the lawn to hear the plan so that Bonnie could argue with her friends inside.
Of course she goes to him first, when it’s time to put things in motion. Damon was there from the beginning and she owes him the same sweet courtesy.
(“Irony at it’s best,” she tells the ghosts on the boardinghouse porch.)
But when she gets inside, Damon is ranting about Elena and Stefan and switches before a word can come out of her mouth. When he finally flings himself on the couch, eyes crazy and throat hoarse from shouting, all Bonnie can do is smile and pat his hand.
“Elena’s got him all wound up and he’ll be good for nothing till it’s fixed,” she says to the ghosts. “Damon saved me on the island and now I’ll help him and then he’ll help us and then we’ll all be helped.”
He just stares at her and blinks, mouth a little open. For once, Damon seems to have nothing to say. So Bonnie just smiles at him and pats his hand again, before making her way to the boardinghouse door.
###
Damon's ranting tells Bonnie where to find Elena, hiding in Alaric's loft.
She knocks for something like ten minutes before just pushing the door open. There’s no response to her tentative “hello?” So she just walks in.
Elena’s on the bed, staring at the ceiling, dressed in nothing but a sheet.
It’s hard to know if she’s explaining to the ghosts or reminding herself to be cautious when Bonnie looks at her and says: “Elena’s a new vampire, they’re capable of anything.”
Elena’s up like she shot from a gun, looking at Bonnie with an amusement on her face, sheet twisting up into a fist to cover her chest. She pats the bed next to her, inviting Bonnie to sit down.
Bonnie’s cautious when she starts to talk, remembering how Elena turned her away so recently. Much to her surprise, Elena listens intently to everything that Bonnie wants to say, so Bonnie grows more comfortable and her voice gets stronger. Elena’s eyes are locked on her face. She never interrupts or argues or questions, just lets Bonnie get everything out into the air. When Bonnie tears up a little talking about the dead, Elena pulls her in close and hugs her for a moment.
It’s only when Bonnie mentions Damon that Elena’s eyes narrow and her shoulders tense. She’s just starting to talk about his sadness and anger when the whole conversation falls apart. A mask slips and falls from Elena's face: where once there was amusement, now there's only cold calculation. Her eyes are lifeless.
Her hands reach out to grab Bonnie by the face, to pull her bodily into Elena’s sheet-covered lap. Their lips meet with a crash. Bonnie’s teeth snap together and her nose is smashed. Everything about this is opposite of sexy. It might almost be funny, if it wasn’t already so frightening and painful.
She shouts “Wha--?” into Elena’s mouth and tries to shove herself away. It’s instinct and surprise mostly, because she knows that the vampire crushing her mouth and neck is a hundred times stronger than her and there’s zero she can do to stop her. But to Bonnie’s surprise Elena lets go -- although now she’s got a sulk on, pouty lips and narrowed eyes and crossed arms.
“Come on Elena, we’re best friends and besides this is so much more important right now, the dead need us--”
“Not a chance,” Elena says. Too strong arms push Bonnie off the bed and she falls to the floor with a thump, with not even a hope of catching herself.
“Elena? What the hell?” she hollers.
There isn’t even time to breathe -- suddenly she’s flying through the air to the doorway. Her brain catches up too slowly: Elena has picked her up and run at vampire speed to throw her out of the loft and into the hallway. By the time she realizes what’s going on the door slams shut without another word from inside.
“Elena?” Bonnie’s quiet now, speaking only to herself (for once in a very long while).
###
Bonnie waits a day to try and talk to Caroline, because she knows Caroline and knows how Caroline will react.
When they meet at the Grill for lunch, Caroline looks pale (even for a vampire) or sick (in spite of being a vampire) or something else (no label Bonnie knows). There’s a strong smell coming off her (“like smoke and alcohol and sweat,” Bonnie tells the ghosts). She looks disheveled in a million ways, hair rumpled and make-up slightly off.
(“This is apocalyptic Caroline, end-of-days Caroline,” Bonnie can’t help but say to the dead, when they hug and she first catches a bit of the scent.)
They sit and order and talk. Caroline tries to argue with the plan, but Bonnie can tell that her heart is somewhere else. The intellectual arguments are there (and Caroline has plenty) but all the focus is gone from her. She’s a Caroline-shaped ball of distraction, who orders tequila shots with lunch and endlessly checks her phone, but never seems to get or send a message.
As they argue round and round, Bonnie figures out she'll never win her over to the side of right. Caroline hasn't lost anyone, not really. (“Except maybe her father, who was already running away from her,” she mutters when Caroline visits the restroom.) Tyler's still alive even if he's missing. Matt's around, even if he's sad. And it sounds like she has Tyler's replacement all lined up and ready to go. (“Maybe even the one after that.”)
Once it’s decided in her head, Bonnie finds a way to excuse herself. She won't contact Caroline again, not before it's finished. No, Caroline is at best a waste of time and at worst an obstacle to overcome.
She’s barely away from the table when Bonnie hears her already on the phone with Stefan. “No help there either, I’m sure,” she tells her ghosts.
###
When she goes to Matt she doesn’t really have a chance: he just cries on her shoulder, snot dripping down his face. He's sobbing so hard Bonnie doesn’t think he can hear her or the plan, so she whispers apologies to the dead and holds him, patting his back and smoothing his hair. The places where his skin meets hers are so hot they burn her -- but she won't let herself let go.
###
At night, at home, when she’s alone with her plans, Bonnie can feel Jeremy holding her close. She knows it’s him, because of the cold stroke she feels along the side of her thumb and the palm of her hand. Jeremy does that. He did it when he was still warm, and he’s doing it now when he's cold -- giving her a sign that it will all be ok. This is right, and he loves her, and there's no reason in all the world to stop.
She sits for hours at her kitchen table in her empty house with arms outstretched, just feeling him touch her. Dawn comes creeping in before she even thinks to move.
(This happens at least once, but maybe it happens again and again, Bonnie’s not entirely sure. Things seem to be getting a little jumbled in her head.)
Because her friends are unreliable, Bonnie ends up doing most of the work herself, as the days pass and the sacrifice draws near. They need her when they need her, but that road doesn’t go both ways, not for her or for the dead. Even Damon disappoints.
So Bonnie builds the bomb without any help from anyone.
And while she builds Bonnie embraces the cold. She pulls the blankets off her bed so she can sleep with nothing in between her and the air. The hot water tap in the shower never moves an inch. By the day of the sacrifice she could probably walk naked in the streets with no trouble except from neighbors.
She doesn’t need to ever be warm again. The dead hold her safe. And in return, so very, very soon, Bonnie will give them all back everything that they deserve.
###
A/N: This chapter went through so many drafts my brain has turned to mush. Bonnie fought me hard on this one and wouldn’t let me stop revising. I know I said I was nervous about that first chapter, but I think this is the one that really eats at my nerves the most.
Thanks to the lovely people who are leaving me comments and reviews! Super fantastico encouraging!
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// 01: Elena // 02: Caroline // 03: Bonnie