... REDO

5

Bonnie made her way home from Elena's after lunch and pulled out her computer. She would do some token searching for Stefan in the midst of finding legit occult shops that were open in this time period where she could sell her spells and put the word out. Once she had a good list and two potential locations on Stefan that were forwarded to both Elena and Damon, she turned her attention towards organizing the spells from her grimoires. Some were too dangerous to fall into just anyone's hands and those she would hold back, but the rest were fair game. She spent much of the next six weeks that way, though did manage to run into Damon a few times as well. It was hard coming up with excuses to just go by and see him. Especially since she was human now and had pretty much nothing to offer. So, yes. She was moping a bit too.

She didn't realize until Elena's birthday party how close she and Damon were getting and she realized that she needed to step up her game. She needed to push her way in and find a way past Damon's walls before it was too late. And she could start with the party. She noticed Damon alone at one point and walked over to talk to him. "Nice party."

"I do have something of a gift for these sorts of things," Damon smirked.

"I think it's just what Elena needs to cheer her up," Bonnie tried to do some digging to find out where his head was.

"I hope so," Damon sighed. "You know she's been learning to fight from Ric and I?"

"Why wouldn't she tell me that?" Bonnie frowned.

"Maybe didn't want you to feel bad with your whole magic situation," Damon shrugged.

"It's not a bad idea though. Maybe you could teach me to fight too?" Bonnie asked, seeing an in and taking it. "You did mention how Bennett enemies would be after me at some point."

"I suppose I could be bothered," Damon agreed. "We'll need to catch you up to Elena before we can teach you together though, so if you want to be here around nine am we can get started. The day after tomorrow since you'll probably be hung over tomorrow. Even I'm not that cruel," Damon chuckled.

"Okay yeah. That works. But making me get up that early during the summer is pretty cruel too," she joked.

"What do you expect from an evil vampire," Damon smirked.

"Vampire yes. Evil no," Bonnie replied.

"You won't be saying that by nine thirty on Monday," Damon grinned.

"If it'll be a whole half-hour before I'm cursing you, then you're going soft," she laughed.

"Don't tempt me witchy," Damon said smugly and then noticed Bonnie's wince at the name. "Yeah, I need to think of a new nickname for you."

"Because my /actual/ name isn't good enough?" Bonnie asked amusedly.

"We'll see," Damon shrugged. Actual names were for friends. People he really cared about. He wasn't sure if he was ready to throw her in that category yet. That didn't mean they couldn't have fun. "C'mon. Let's dance."

"Sounds good to me," Bonnie grinned and let him drag her to the dance floor where he'd spent most of the party in between checking on Elena. She danced sort of with him, but overall with a group for quite a while before she needed a break and went to grab another drink. Just being that close to him and seeing him laughing and having fun was like a balm to her soul. It was so much easier to cope with not having her magic when he was around and she could see the reminders of why she'd done it. For that alone she would enjoy Damon teaching her to fight. It was something that she'd never really bothered learning in the future either, always having magic to fall back on. She chatted with Elena to see how she was holding up during her break and then dragged her back to the dance floor with her, finding their way near Damon again, who wasn't complaining at all about his new dance partners. Either of them. Though Elena did get quite a bit more attention than Bonnie did, but Bonnie expected that. She would work her way in there soon enough now that she had a plan.