What Lies Beneath

Chapter 65: Stay

Some people believed in fate and destiny when it came to making decisions about their life. They figured everything was pre-ordained anyway so attempting to deviate from that path would just be a waste of time. If that was true then Bonnie Bennett wanted a do over when it came to her family and friends. Not one of them had gotten out of their situations without scars that would never fully heal. There was so much death and sadness that sometimes she wondered if they would ever be happy again. She wondered if she'd ever be able to have a quiet moment without reliving all of the horrors she'd seen. Would she ever get a good night's sleep again?

Yet there was always a light at the end of the tunnel if you believed hard enough. It just wasn't always in the form you thought it would be. She'd never in a million years thought her light would arrive in the form of Katherine Pierce.

Katherine was selfish and bratty and only out for herself, though for some reason Bonnie believed her when she lamented the loss of Stefan. She knew all about bravado thanks to Damon, and it was obvious Katherine had that going on in spades. It was a defense mechanism and well if it had worked for her for over five hundred years she was entitled to it. With all of that aside one thing Katherine understood was self preservation so that is how Bonnie had ensured her help in getting the tombstone. Well that and a spell linking them together but that had been more for insurance just in case Katherine tried to super speed away.

Going up against Silas wasn't something Bonnie wanted but she had known no one else could do it. Certainty not Elena or the Salvatore brothers. They were powerful in their own rights but she was the one with it coursing through her veins. She was the one willing to die to finally be rid of him, not just for Mystic Falls but for herself as well. It was crystal clear she'd never get a normal life until he was dead and gone.

I just wish it had been easier.

Her head was still aching from the amount of power she'd used to defeat Silas—to turn him into stone deep within the caverns underneath the town—even though two weeks had passed. She felt weak and out of sorts, which basically meant Damon was holding her hostage in the manor until she was one hundred percent again. She didn't have the heart to tell him she wasn't sure that would actually happen. It had taken all of her Expression magic to get rid of Silas, bring Jeremy back from the dead and lift the veil back into place. While the witches on the other side were happy and proud of her, they were also holding back their harnessed collective power that she'd summoned back when Klaus was the only threat. So she was basically back where she'd started magic wise—aka the beginning.

It wasn't bad however, just different. Slower. Like she could float feathers but she couldn't conjure up wind storms or stop someone's beating heart. Bringing Jeremy back was what did it. But really no longer being able to control the elements was such a small price to pay to save a life, especially Jeremy's life. His miraculous reanimation would be weird to explain to a town that thought him dead, but they'd deal with that when the time came. Right now everyone was still trying to come down from their near death experiences. She was still trying to get over seeing her Grams again and desperately wanting to resurrect her as well.

There had been a moment when Bonnie was pushing life back into Jeremy that she'd nearly died. The strain on her heart had almost been too much for her, and it was bad to say but she could have given up. Almost wanted to just so that she could be with her Grams again forever and perhaps get some much needed rest. But then she'd thought about all of the people she'd leave behind—people that would miss her terribly and probably blame themselves for her death.

In the end the choice had been easy.

Perched in the window seat of the Salvatore mansion, she pulled her legs up to her chest so that she could rest her chin to them. Sleepily she gazed out at the world and tried to decide on her next move. Graduation had come and gone with the usual murder and mayhem but things were quiet now. Stefan had left town to dump Silas' desiccated body into some never ending ravine, Caroline was making up for lost time with Tyler now that he was free of Klaus and Elena was spending time with Jeremy while Matt toured the world with Rebecca.