Chapter Text
There was something odd in the way Bonnie and Caroline had approached her after everything that had happened the other day, she thought as she got out of her car. She’d almost stopped to get lunch on the way over, but the memory of how messed up her house was made her stop.
(She tried to avoid the way it reflected her life).
Cleaning up was easy when she was avoiding all the questions that invaded her mind, all the problems that she had managed to avoid while sinking into her own loneliness, that she knew she would have to confront eventually.
Even the way Klaus had threatened Jeremy.
When it came to his own family, he was complicated. He’d dagger them and say he didn’t need them, but she still remembered the way he had found her that night after they had all left him. Klaus could claim whatever he liked, but she knew he wasn’t just alone, that he was lonely. She’d seen it in his eyes when she had spent time at his house in the beginning.
(But it wasn’t as if she could blame his family for leaving either).
As she looked around her empty house, she wondered how he could bear to keep them all daggered for….almost a hundred years. To live in that kind of loneliness, while his siblings were right there.
Maybe, she thought, as she started working on decorating the tree, he had wanted to avoid his mistakes, to ignore what he’d done, how he’d hurt them, for as long as he could.
That she could understand.
But- she wasn’t like him, not really. She couldn’t avoid her own lies and betrayals for too long. Nor, she thought guiltily, hide behind Klaus’ violence for too long. Like that day at the Lockwood Manor.
She could fix things with Bonnie and Caroline, or at least start to, and then figure out how to go about doing the same with everyone else.
For now, she’d stay away from Jeremy. He had tried to kill….her. Maybe-
She was drawn out of her thoughts by the sound of the doorbell. Satisfied that she had thrown away all evidence of the fact that she’d done nothing all weekend except stew in her sadness, she opened the door.
Stopped short when she saw it was just Bonnie, remembering the last time they were alone together.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Bonnie sounded awkward and uncomfortable, something she had never been with Elena before. It brought back memories of their fight, Bonnie’s words hitting her like a freight train.
Guilt rose in her gut - this was all her doing.
“Do you wanna come in?” She moved so her friend entered the house and closed the door behind her.
She turned, her back settling against the door, her thumbs hooking into the pockets of her jeans as she watched Bonnie move around her house cautiously. The air felt thick with unspoken apologies and accusations, and she didn’t know what to do.
The thought that this was all her fault - the way their friendship was devolving, was almost pervasive. All the times she’d gone to Bonnie when she was upset, the morning they’d sat on her room and Bonnie had made the feathers float about them, floated at the back of her mind like oncoming waves. Constantly invading her, never quite leaving her alone.
“Are you alright?” Bonnie asked as she turned around to face her and Elena felt like she was frozen to her spot, unable to understand what was happening.
“What?”
“The other day….I heard what Jeremy did.” Her throat was burning and she swallowed heavily, “I know it can’t have been easy for you.”
She couldn’t quite control the way tears were stinging at her eyes, had to blink them away before she could talk.
Taking her time to answer the question, afraid that she’d break down if she spoke too soon.
“I’m okay.”
Bonnie’s eyes narrowed but not suspiciously, her gaze searching as she looked at Elena, “are you really?”
She nodded wordlessly. Despite how hard it was to think about that day, about Jeremy attacking her, for a moment, it felt like her heart was being held in the most tender, caring hands. Because this was Bonnie, and despite everything, she was the person who had always understood her. Always helped.
“I’m- Bonnie, I never,” she started, the words at the tip of her tongue, but she almost jumped when the bell rang again, this time too close to her ears, and Bonnie cracked a smile.
She opened the door to see Caroline standing outside.
“Sorry, I’m late,” unlike Bonnie, Caroline walked into the house easily, looking almost too cheerful. Part of her wanted to ask Caroline how she was so happy, but another part hoped that it was just excitement that they were all together after a long time.
She also felt terrible about the way she had yelled at Caroline.
“Soooo……what are we planning to do?” Caroline asked as Elena walked into the house. “Hopefully, something fun. We haven’t done this in a long time.”
While Caroline seemed a little too bright, Bonnie was muted in comparison, the bags under her eyes visible. Elena glanced between the two of them, wondering if they were there because of what Jeremy had done. That maybe they had been worried about her.
“We can talk,” Bonnie said and Caroline looked between them deliberately.
“Yeah, sure,” Caroline smiled at her answer, and Elena finally walked in, settling on the couch.
“Ugh, you know what we should do?” There was an excitement in Caroline’s voice that was both familiar and unfamiliar to Elena, a little strained, “we should get a bunch of blankets, and watch a movie. And you know, talk while watching it.” Caroline added as she looked at Bonnie.
She bit her lip at Caroline’s suggestion, the last time they had done something like that was before the sacrifice, almost a year ago. And she had missed it. Not just spending time with her friends, and watching mindless movies as they stayed up all night, but the normality of it. The way she wanted to hold on to these moments before everything changed forever, even though it was already beginning to, was something that struck her out of nowhere.
She wanted to have one conversation that wasn’t about death or death threats.
There was a time when they’d do this at least once a month, and she wished they could all go back to that.
(But things couldn’t just be fixed magically. Not really, she’d have to try and fix them.)
“That sounds great,” she tried to relax her taut muscles as they all got up and started moving in a way that was distinctly familiar. Bonnie picking out the movie, Caroline getting the blankets and her making the popcorn. She made some hot chocolate as well, and couldn’t help but smile at the thought of what was happening.
That somehow, after everything, she was getting a chance to spend time with her friends. Caroline was clearly making an effort at bridging the gap between them, and she was going to take the opportunity.
She wasn’t naive enough to think she was forgiven, but at least the ice seemed to have broken, and she had a feeling the real conversations would probably happen after midnight. That was how it always was with their sleepovers.
Unsurprisingly, Bonnie picked out Mean Girls as Caroline threw down the pile of blankets. She was slightly disappointed as she looked at the meagre snacks she’d gotten; she’d wanted to have a proper sleepover. Hopefully next time.
The three of them settled next to the couch and in front of the tv, and she passed the hot chocolate.
Caroline was gossiping about one of the cheerleaders, and Elena almost asked what everyone was saying about her.
“So,” Caroline said at the end of a dubious story involving two students having sex underneath the bleachers “tell us about him.”
She almost choked, swallowing hastily, feeling the hot chocolate burn along her throat at Caroline’s demand, her heart racing as she kept looking at the screen. Her mind whirled, attempting to come up with an answer, when Bonnie spoke.
“There’s nothing to tell, Caroline. He’s just helping me,” Bonnie leaned back against the foot of the couch with a bowl of popcorn, and she realised it was about the professor they’d met, the one Bonnie was with at the pageant.
She looked between the two of them, hating that she’d gotten so engrossed in herself that she wasn’t sure what was going on in Bonnie’s life. It gnawed at her, the way she’d been neglecting her friends, part of her was all too ready to absolve herself of the guilt, she’d had a lot of things happening in her own life, but another part wished she’d tried harder.
“That’s not what it looked like at Whitmore,” she was surprised to hear the teasing in her own voice when she spoke finally, but it didn’t seem to deter Bonnie.
“Shane is just teaching me how to use magic now that the spirits have cut me off from it.”
“Oh, so creepy professor guy is Shane now, huh?” Caroline asked, and Elena could hear the bite in her voice despite how light she tried to keep it.
“Really Caroline? He’s not creepy,” part of her wanted to say that he was, that he had more than a year to call Bonnie to get her grandmothers things but he hadn’t, and then he had showed up in Mystic Falls not once but twice. Completely out of the blue.
“Of course he is! You agree, don’t you Elena?”
She turned to Caroline sharply, pulling her her knees closer to herself as she shook her head. “I don’t think I can judge.”
And she couldn’t. No matter what Shane had done, it was nothing compared to the things Klaus was capable of. She wasn’t sure she had the right to judge anyone else.
Caroline frowned at her, clearly disappointed; she had expected Elena to be on her side, to at least be cautious, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that now. She wondered if she would’ve done the same thing if the truth about her and Klaus was still a secret, but she doubted she would’ve even agreed to the sleepover then.
Which made her want to fidget uncomfortably, the lengths she’d gone to keep that secret.
“Ugh, fine, don’t say anything,” Caroline spoke over the movie, “but I’m right.”
But Bonnie was already shaking her head, “you aren’t. He’s helping me.”
“And why do you think he’s doing that?”
Bonnie shrugged, but Elena watched the way she pursed her lips, trying to keep a smile from breaking out, hoping that he was doing it for her. From what she had seen, professor Shane had seemed charming with the knowledge and the ability to help Bonnie. After her grandmother had died, and her mom had left again, Bonnie didn’t have anyone who could help her with her magic.
It would be so easy, she realised, for someone to get under Bonnie’s skin, to slip past her defences while she was so vulnerable.
(Elena tried not to think about her own loneliness, the disconnection she’d felt when she had learned that she was a doppelgänger, so different than all others. A thing to be sought rather than a person.)
“He knew my grams Caroline,” Bonnie sounded firm now, and Caroline huffed.
“Fine, if that’s what you say.”
“It is.”
“We’re missing the movie,” she said trying to distract them, but Caroline’s sharp gaze was on her now, and Elena suddenly felt like a deer in headlights.
“Fine, if we’re not gonna talk about Bonnie how did…..you and Klaus,” she ground his name out like it was poison, and this was the conversation Elena was dreading. “Start - you know, whatever it is you’re doing?”
She heard the undertone in Caroline’s voice, the way it was laced with something bitter, and she wondered how to explain everything that had happened. “It just did, it’s difficult to explain.”
The noise from the tv was gone as Caroline turned it off suddenly, and she sighed as she leaned back.
“Well, it’s a great thing we have all night,” the way Caroline smiled at her was sharp, the kind she’d learned when she’d turned fourteen and had learnt that high school was all about secrets and knowing the right ones. The kind that had been thrown her way every time Matt would text her in sophomore year.
“Yeah, you said something about the Mikaelson ball,” Bonnie added as she sat up straighter, and between the two of them, she suddenly felt cornered.
“Wait, the Mikaelson ball, where Klaus asked me to be his date? So what? You told him to ask me so that no one would know-”
“No, of course not Caroline! It wasn’t like that, I didn’t even know. It - look, it all started when I went to ask him for his blood after you were bitten.”
“When he made Tyler bite me, you mean.”
Elena winced at the reminder of what Klaus had done that night, of what Stefan had done that night, and nodded slowly. “Yeah, on your birthday. We made a deal where I would spend time with him,” she could still remember how upset she’d been that she had to let him compel her. How violated she had felt.
It had been nothing compared to how she had felt after that afternoon with Kol and Rebekah.
“Right.”
“Well, I think it was because of the whole….thing.”
“The unbreakable mating bond no one knows about?” Elena could hear the disbelief, the mocking, in Caroline’s voice and bit down on her lip. Tried not to protest against it. “I asked Tyler about it Elena, and he said he’s never heard about it.”
“Well, that’s because it’s rare-”
“So, Klaus told you this, and you just believed him?” Caroline was frowning at her, features twisted into something between pity and frustration, “you know he’s a liar right?”
“I-” she did know he was a liar. That he had lied to her before, that he was keeping secrets from her even now, evading her questions. But she also knew that he didn’t lie about this. “Yeah, he is but he didn’t tell me about it, Esther did. Besides, I….I can feel it too.” She could feel her trepidation growing, knowing that this wasn’t the answer Caroline wanted. That she was disappointing her friend when all she had wanted to do was fix things.
“You can feel it?!” Elena winced as Caroline shouted, “that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard.”
“Caroline, please, it’s not-” but Caroline had already gotten up from her place, pacing about the room, as if she wasn’t sure how she could make her point. Elena felt the same, unsure about how to explain her relationship, the way she felt, but she knew she had to find a way. “Look-”
“Oh come on Elena! How do you know if you really felt anything? That it was real? This is Klaus and you were alone with him for weeks, he could’ve compelled you!” There was desperation in Caroline’s voice instead of anger now, but a new danger sounded in her head. It was as if they were both having different conversations, and discordant notes were ringing out.
Bonnie had thought that Klaus was manipulating her, but the idea that Klaus had compelled her about this seemed absurd.
“Why would you even think that? And what would he compel me to do Caroline?” She knew that he had compelled her, but that had been different. It was because he didn’t trust her. But what Caroline was implying now was a lot worse than that. “Have feelings for him? Don’t you think I’d know that at some point?”
Even as she asked the question, she knew that she wouldn’t. Compulsion was insidious, Klaus could’ve made her do anything, feel anything he wanted, and she would’ve been powerless to stop it. She could feel her heart racing at the thought, a discomfort growing in her stomach, but it was gone within a moment; that wasn’t what happened and she knew it.
Besides, Klaus was too full of himself to compel her into wanting him.
“Of course you wouldn’t Elena. Klaus is not some young vampire, I doubt he’d have difficulty compelling you-”
“Caroline, that’s not what happened,” she said with finality, wanting to be done with this conversation. She knew that she couldn’t tell Caroline that Klaus had compelled her to keep their conversations a secret in those first few days now. The compulsion that he hadn’t lifted until just a few days ago. “I know what-”
“Do you Elena? Or do you just think that you do? How would you even notice?”
“Caroline,” the pleading in Bonnie’s voice made Elena turn abruptly, but she knew that it wasn’t just because of what Caroline was saying.
“Is that what you think too?” She asked quietly, making Bonnie look at her.
“I don’t think it’s something we can just ignore. There’s a chance he did it, otherwise, why would you keep it a secret for so long?”
“Because I knew you’d react like this!” She could hear the frustration in her own voice and shook her head, “but I didn’t think you’d try to act as if my feelings weren’t real.”
“We’re not saying that Elena,” Bonnie said levelly, “just that Klaus might’ve influenced those feelings to get what he wants.” For a long moment, she looked at Bonnie, before finally letting out a sigh.
“My blood.”
“Your blood, maybe even you. I mean, didn’t he love the first doppelgänger?”
“Tatia,” she didn’t know why, but despite the conversation they were having, she didn’t like the idea of the original doppelgänger not having a name. That, in the grand scheme of things, she wasn’t even important enough to have some…..identity beyond what she was made Elena uncomfortable. “And I….I don’t know if he loved her or not, but his feelings for me have nothing to do with her.”
The idea seemed to rise within her unbidden though, how Klaus had compared her to Katherine, had disparaged her for being just like the ones before her. How he cared about her but hated someone who shared her face.
“Oh sure they don’t,” Caroline huffed, “we’ll see if you feel the same way when the compulsion is gone.”
“What?” She frowned at Caroline who was pressing her fist to her lips, clearly regretting what she said. “What do you mean gone?”
The only way to undo compulsion by an original was to dagger them, she thought, but the daggers didn’t work on Klaus. Unless-
“Nothing,” Bonnie said quickly, almost too quickly and Elena looked between them.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on,” Bonnie said it with conviction, but Elena didn’t need vampire hearing to know that she was lying.
She walked towards Caroline, feeling guilty for what she was about to do, but also knowing that she needed to find out what were planning. “Caroline, what do you mean? When the compulsion is gone? How will it be gone? The daggers don’t work on Klaus.”
“Not the daggers.” She said lowly.
“Well, then what?”
“So you admit that there’s a chance Klaus compelled you?”
“No, I don’t.” All the talk about compulsion brought back memories from the day they had been trapped in school by Kol and Rebekah, all the things she had confessed then, had been made to confess. That desperation of trying to resist, of trying to control her own mind still. “But I need to know what you’re planning.”
“No, I won’t tell you, it’s for your own good.”
She felt her hackles rise at the words, even though she knew that Caroline was trying to look out for her.
(The thought came back to her with a cruelty, how everyone had been eager to let Jeremy become a hunter.
The way they all trusted him to know what was good for him but not her.
She wished she could talk to Jeremy about the whole thing, but she couldn’t even see her own brother because he might lose control and try to kill her again.)
It felt as if everything was slipping out of her control.
She had thought that she might actually be able to take the first step towards fixing her friendships somehow, but it was obvious now that Caroline and Bonnie hadn’t just come here to watch a movie.
“Well, if it’s for me, then I have a right to know about it.”
“Look, Elena,” Bonnie was there now, and she felt like she didn’t know who to answer first, who to deal with first, not when they were both on the same side, “we are planning something, but if we tell you, you’ll just go and tell Klaus.”
“Right, and it’s not the first time you’ve planned something without me. You stopped involving me a long time back, didn’t you?” She couldn’t keep the hurt from seeping into her voice. It had been a gradual change, but one she had noticed. At the time, it had felt jarring to be left out, but she hadn’t done anything about it because she had been tried of having to pick her loyalties each time.
Without her ever noticing, she had slowly started drifting away from them.
In fact, the only reason Bonnie was even here right now was because she thought Elena had been compelled.
“Honestly, yeah! Back then, we weren’t sure why you were helping Klaus or telling him, but it all makes sense now.”
“Caroline-”
“You were protecting him! He almost killed me and Tyler in the sacrifice Elena, in fact there is a whole list of things he has done to us all just to get to you, and you don’t understand why we think you’re compelled?” Caroline seemed indignant, her voice taking on high pitch. One that was usually reserved for when she thought Elena was being ridiculous.
“What are you going to do?” But Caroline didn’t say anything, and Bonnie looked equally determined to not give her any answers. “The daggers won’t work, so-” she recalled the sudden invitation she had gotten for tonight, how both of them were suddenly ready to try and talk through things.
It had obviously been part of a plan.
“Where are Damon and Stefan?” She asked finally, and saw the way Caroline immediately looked at Bonnie, a panicked look in her eyes, like a scared rabbit. “It has to be magic right? That’s how you’re going reverse the compulsion?”
“Look, you don’t understand Elena,” Caroline started but she shook her head.
“Is that even possible?” She asked instead.
Suddenly, everything about this night was becoming clear; they had probably waited all weekend for this, planning, and had cornered her when she was lonely. She could almost see Damon and Stefan making this plan, Caroline agreeing with the whole thing, all of them thinking that they knew what was good for her better than she did.
She wouldn’t have minded some witch trying to reverse this compulsion that she was apparently under, but the way they did it - letting her stew in her own sadness, and then presenting this plan to her when she wouldn’t be able to refuse it, was underhanded.
She’d never thought they’d get to this point.
“Yeah, Stefan and Damon knew some witch who could do it in the fifties. In New Orleans.” Caroline sounded reluctant but she frowned at that, wondering why the place kept coming up.
“And they’ve gone to find her? Or a descendent of hers?”
Caroline nodded, inhaling sharply, before walking towards her, and gripping her shoulders, fingers digging into her skin, “what’s important is that there’s a way out of this. You don’t have to stay with him, and you don’t have to do anything that he makes you-”
“I want to stay with him Caroline!”
“Of course you don’t Elena, he compelled you to! He compelled you and he’s making you feel things for him, and do things for him-”
“What does that even mean? What do you mean he’s making me do things? That’s not what’s happening!” Frustration bled into her voice as it rose and she squirmed within Caroline’s hold. The accusations that her friend was making were too much, too painful. “I want him Caroline, why would he try and make me-”
There was nothing else she’d defend Klaus against, but the idea that he’d compel her to sleep with him, that he’d violate her like that made her sick to her stomach.
“Because that’s what vampires do, Elena! And I know nothing feels out of the ordinary, but everything in your life changes and you can’t even remember it! You just have to guess, wondering what happened to you in the time you’ve lost!”
She stopped suddenly, frozen within Caroline’s hold. Caroline, who looked as if she was trapped, her eyes filled with a despair she had never seen in Caroline’s eyes. She could feel horror filling her, Caroline’s insistence suddenly making sense.
It’s what Damon did to her.
The thought burned her like acid, and she could still remember the bite marks all over Caroline’s body. But she also remembered that Stefan had assured her Damon was just feeding on Caroline.
(Just feeding - as if that wasn’t horrible enough. She knew exactly how it felt to be someone’s blood bag).
But the intensity with which Caroline was reacting now made her question everything.
And the moment she looked into Bonnie’s eyes, she knew she wasn’t the only one.
“Is that what Damon compelled you to do?” It was Bonnie who spoke first, her voice wavering despite how calm she attempted to appear.
“Caroline….I thought you liked Damon, in the beginning.”
She could hear the pounding of her heart, the feeling of dread crawl up her spine, moving closer to both Bonnie and Caroline instinctively.
“I did,” the words were slow, and Caroline seemed to hesitate. “And then he attacked me, and made me forget about it. Look,” Elena saw the way she was desperately trying to gather her emotions, “Damon compelled me to be his blood bag, and his errand boy, and Klaus is doing the same with you.”
“But I already agreed to give him my blood,” she knew Caroline was hiding something, and knew what it probably was. It was the whole reason Caroline had been against Klaus since the beginning. Everything she was accusing Klaus of doing was something Damon had done to her.
But if that was true, then it meant Damon had-
“All I’m saying is that if he compelled you to do something, to forget it, you wouldn’t know it.”
She wanted to push, to ask Caroline more questions, to probe and find out what exactly Damon had done to her. But she could still feel the fear that had passed through her when that hybrid had attacked her, the way her stomach had swooped when Klaus had left her alone with Lucien, when Tristan had snuck her away on the balcony alone.
When Klaus had taken her vervain away, and despite their deal, she had been acutely aware of just how vulnerable she was in that moment. The absolute control he had over her. The guilt of letting him do it.
If Caroline didn’t want to relive it, if she couldn’t talk about it, Elena wasn’t going to force her to do it.
She licked her lips and shook her head slowly, holding Bonnie’s eye, who seemed to understand.
“Will it help,” she asked slowly, “if I tell you I’ve been drinking vervain ever since Klaus got back. Even when I was with him.”
“You weren’t drinking it that day. With, you know,” here, Caroline’s voice got softer, “Rebekah and Kol.”
She could still remember it, and this time, she could feel the fear that was in Caroline’s eyes. “Yeah, but that was different. It was because of the pregnancy.” Bonnie walked towards them, grabbing a hold of Caroline’s hand, and she let out a sigh, “it’s not like that Caroline, I promise.”
She watched the way Caroline tried to hide how shaken up she was, and wondered, just how she had missed it.
“Alright,” Bonnie said finally, her voice strained, “if that’s true, you’ll let the witch do the spell on you? Make sure you aren’t compelled?”
Bonnie’s stare was pointed, and she knew she’d have to. If for no other reason than to put Caroline at ease.
And yet, she wondered, if deep down somewhere in a place they didn’t even want to acknowledge, they wanted her feelings to be all because of some well placed mind control.
Not because they wanted her to be hurt, but because they didn’t want to accept this side of her. The one that accepted monsters into her life and cared for them, especially Klaus.
“Fine, it’ll be safe though? Despite the pregnancy?”
“Sure,” there was something odd in the way Bonnie said it that made Elena’s hackles rise, her brows furrowing as she wondered what it was. There was a shift in the atmosphere, the hair on her arm raising as she blinked warily at Bonnie.
“Are you? Because we don’t even know what this spell is.”
Bonnie nodded quickly, and Elena watched her like a hawk. She’d known Bonnie her whole life, and she could tell that there was a coldness in her eyes that wasn’t there just moments before.
“Don’t worry about it Elena,” Bonnie’s smile was too sharp, too odd, but when she looked at Caroline, her friend didn’t seem to notice anything out of place, “we’ll make sure it’s safe.”
“Alright, fine then.” She wasn’t sure she’d actually go through with it, but her acquiescence made Caroline relax, a tentative smile creeping on her face, and Elena looked away as she felt tears prick at her eyes.
For some reason though, Bonnie didn’t seem too bothered. Almost as if she couldn’t bring herself to care.
Even the thought was ridiculous.
“Should we get back to the movie. now?” Caroline asked lightly, apparently satisfied. Eager to brush this entire conversation aside. But Elena could still see the pain in her eyes.
Now that she’d seen it, she couldn’t undo it.
“Sure, just give me a minute.” She moved away from the room, trying to wonder how the night had gotten to the point it had.
The image of that night came into her mind, when Damon had tried to compel her to kiss him, and she could feel bile rising in her stomach.
In the washroom, she splashed water on her face as if that would change anything. Clenched the counter as she forced herself to breath slowly. Her thoughts were a whirlwind she couldn’t control, and she didn’t know what to do about it.
For some reason, she’d never really thought about all the ways in which compulsion could be used. She wondered about Andy too, the way she was always compelled, yet, Damon would sleep with her. She understood that there were blurred lines, but just how blurred were they?
And if sex and blood were really so interconnected, was there even a line for someone like Damon?
She stared at herself, at the mark that was practically burned into her skin.
There was a growing discomfort within her, and she seemed to be filled with some sort of darkness.
She frowned when she heard a knock on the door, pulling her out of the labyrinth of her thoughts. She washed her hands again, using a towel to dry her face, before opening the door, and seeing Bonnie standing outside.
“Hey, sorry it took me a while,” she tried to keep her voice level, but Bonnie was staring at her unblinkingly, just as she had a while before, and she felt an urgency. “I’m just going to talk to Caroline.”
She moved around Bonnie, who gripped her hand, and seemed to falter at the mention of Caroline.
“Elena,” Bonnie’s eyes were shining with determination and her teeth were chattering as she spoke, “run.”
“What?” But before she could say anything else, Bonnie’s eyes rolled up, holding onto her hands, her touch strong. “Bonnie!”
But Bonnie didn’t say anything, instead she began chanting a spell. Elena tried to pull her hand out of Bonnie’s grip which only seemed to get stronger.
The lights flickered and she heard sound of the tv playing.
“Bonnie, let go of me,” she pushed at her friend, who was momentarily shocked before running back into the living room where Caroline was. Only she was slumped on the floor with her neck broken.
Bonnie had obviously done this, but she couldn’t imagine why. She rushed to a corner of the room, picking up a vase from one of the cabinets, just as Bonnie came back into the room, still chanting a spell.
She rushed towards the stairs, but Bonnie was quick on her feet, while using another spell to hold her in place. She tried to run, but she was fighting against an invisible force that was pulling her back. Soon, Bonnie had reached her, and it was then that she recognised the spell.
“Bonnie,” there was an urgency in her voice as her friend came near her, “stop it.”
Bonnie shook her head, and she looked helplessly at Caroline. Bonnie tried to catch hold of her hands again, but she pushed her into the wall. It seemed to work for a moment, and she started running up the stairs. but right when she stepped on the next step an invisible force seemed to pull at her feet, making her fall down on the stairs. She used her hands to break her fall as she felt herself being pulled and then she realised what was happening, her fingers curling into a fist around the railing. She pulled herself up, needing to get away desperately now.
It wasn’t Bonnie.
It was Esther.
The spell she was casting now was the same one she’d used the night she’d turned Alaric, this had been the same way she had tried to stop Elena that night too. Until Klaus had showed up and killed her.
She twisted awkwardly as she tried to crawl up the stairs, but Esther was there. She’d stopped casting the spell, but she she reached out to grab her hand.
“How are you doing this? You’re dead,” but instead of answering her, Bonnie, or Esther rather, continued casting the spell.
She shivered as she got an idea, and dug into the pocket of her jeans. Bonnie’s eyes seemed to glow in anger, and she caught hold of bracelet, curling her hand around Bonnie’s, struggling to tie it around her wrist.
For a moment, it seemed as if her idea hadn’t worked, but the next moment, Bonnie slumped against the ground, and she crawled down the stairs to where her friend was.
“Bonnie?” She sounded breathless to her own ears as she crawled down to where Bonnie was just getting up.
“It’s me, I’m fine.”
She slumped against the stairs, looking up at the ceiling. She could feel exhaustion lining her bones, her eyes heavy; she was so tired.
She’d gone exactly one weekend before there was another attempt on her life.
She wanted to think about everything that had happened tonight, everything she had found out tonight, but all she wanted to do was sleep. All she wanted was to feel safe again.
They got up from their places after a while, and by then, Caroline had woken up too. They shut the tv and sat around the dining table, the hot chocolate had grown cold, but one of them had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
She wanted to ask them to stay, but she couldn’t meet Caroline’s eyes, and despite giving the bracelet to Bonnie, she wasn’t sure it wouldn’t happen. That Esther wouldn’t take over again.
“I thought you couldn’t do magic anymore,” Caroline said softly, cracking her neck, and Elena winced.
“I can’t. But I guess Esther must’ve been able to access it somehow. It’s like what Shane said, it’s locked away.”
“But it’s still within you,” Elena said, and Bonnie nodded.
She wondered how magic worked, all the intricacies of it.
“Esther’s a leech,” she said suddenly, anger rising in her like never before, “using your ancestors magic to make vampires, and then your magic to do all her dirty work. Try and kill her children, try and kill….me.”
Bonnie’s magic, and her blood.
Always using others’ and then calling herself a gifted witch. The unfairness of it stung at her, but it was also in the way Esther used Bonnie and her family. Completing her wild and nefarious spells on the backs of their magic.
(She’d been blind towards Bonnie too, hadn’t seen it happening, not when Esther did it, not even when she, herself did it.
Maybe everything Bonnie had said that night at her house had been out of anger, but there was a truth to it too. When she thought Elena wouldn’t want to be her friend cause her magic was gone.
It hurt to think that she’d made Bonnie feel like that.)
“Yeah,” she looked at Bonnie, and she wondered what it was like. To have her body possessed and controlled by someone else. “I should probably go home.”
“Yeah, both of you should.” She said finally, her decision made.
Bonnie and Jeremy had tried to kill her. The two people that had once done everything to save her were the ones attacking her now, through no fault of theirs and she was left reeling.
“Are you sure?” Caroline asked and she nodded.
“Yeah, the bracelet worked for now,” she remembered what Kol had said about it - that it stopped a witch from doing magic - “but we don’t know if it’ll work again. Or what other trick Esther will use.”
They both seemed reluctant, but in the end, they left. She knew they didn’t want to leave her alone, but she didn’t have any intentions of staying alone.
She cleaned up the house, and it took her longer than usual. Tears threatened to fall, but she didn’t give into them. She knew that if she did, she wouldn’t be able to stop. While she’d cried herself to sleep before, she had no interest of waking up with a headache in the morning.
By the time she was done with everything, and locking the door behind her, it was almost one in the morning. The streets were empty as she drove, and she was grateful for it, because she didn’t know how much energy she had left.
Another one of their plans, another attempt at normalcy had been left in tatters. Blankets they had to wrap up, and a movie they couldn’t finish watching.
That was how her life was these days.
She inhaled sharply as she knocked, thrice, before the door opened. Klaus looked like he’d been out, and she spotted blood along the corner of his mouth.
She held up her bag as if in explanation, and sighed. “Your mother tried to kill me.”
He frowned, but moved to let her enter, “she does tend to have habit for being rather a pain.”
The door closed behind her and she turned around to face him again. She’d felt unsafe and had come to him. She wondered what that said about her.
“You asked me to stay with you, and I….I want to.”
He looked pleased at her words and then his hand was warm against her cheek. He kissed her just as he always did, and if she tasted blood on his lips, she didn’t have it in her to question him. To ask him if he’d killed anyone.
In that moment, she just relished in the feeling of being safe again. She was sure this wasn’t the last time she’d be attacked, but as long as she could back to this….to him, she knew she’d be able to survive it.