When A Dove Begins To Fly With Crows [Bamon]

Three More Evenings

Sixth Evening

                         Most of the following school day went by in a blur for Bonnie, but this time her absentmindedness wasn't caused by the numbing grief over her grandmother's death. Not noticing Elena's wary looks at her, she dreamily stared out the window, her chin resting on her hand as her thoughts whirled around the kiss that still tingled on her lips and the memory of a pair of arms holding her in a strong embrace. She didn't know if the disturbing feeling she felt could be called hope.

Bonnie counted the minutes on each of the classrooms' clocks until finally she was able to leave for the parking lot and be alone with her thoughts. With her summer dress fluttering around her, she entered her car, not noticing that she was being stared at from the woods by beady black eyes.

Upon making it home, she forced herself to start writing the photosynthesis essay for Biology that really needed to be finished, and so she didn't notice when the sun started to set and the shady half-light of dusk began to veil the world outside.

At that moment a sudden, croaking "Caw!" cut through her concentration.

She shot up from her chair, her eyes wide in shock. There, outside on the windowsill, sat a familiar looking crow, watching her with beady black eyes.

Bonnie rushed toward the window and threw it open. The crow hopped up and flapped its wings, but didn't fly away.

"Where have you been?!"

Blinking its eyes, the black bird backed away from Bonnie's positively livid expression.

"Don't you know how long I've waited for you to come back, and you didn't! I thought I had done something wrong... At one point I even thought you were...dead." She choked out the last word, emotions overcoming her.

It actually had been the ending of a particularly horrible nightmare, waking up covered in sweat, when she'd seen the inanimate body of a crow lying underneath the staircase of an old, stately house.

Staring at her, the crow croaked softly at her words. It almost sounded like an apology. It carefully hopped closer and inclined its little head.

Bonnie looked down on the small creature gazing up at her, and she let out a short laugh. With a shaky smile, she shook her head and a moment later, she sat down on the window seat with a crumbled biscuit in her hands. "Here. You don't deserve it, but you're the only one who eats them, anyway."

She lowered her hands toward the windowsill and the crow immediately hopped into her palms, its nervousness gone.

Bonnie allowed herself a small smile at the sight and leaned her head against the window frame, looking at a point in the distance. "You know, I really missed you. You've been the only one I could talk to about...well, everything. And since you left, a lot of strange things have happened. Do you remember when I told you about Damon Salvatore?"

She looked down on the black bird in her hands, and for a moment it seemed as if the bird stopped picking up crumbs.

"I think you do. Apart from Grams, I fear I've been talking about him the most," she said softly. "And from the moment you disappeared, I kept bumping into him. At first, he just showed up looking like he wanted to talk but he never did. But then I sort of...confronted him and something...happened."

Bonnie lowered her gaze, hesitance flashing across her face. "It seemed like some kind of connection formed between him and me, in which I could see all of his loneliness displayed for me, and without me even wanting it, I reached out."

She didn't notice that the crow had now forgotten about the crumbs and looked up at her with an intense gaze. "I've never really thought about it before, but he protected Emily's entire lineage of witches. Including me. He still wants to protect me, even after Emily's betrayal. And it makes me wonder: what does he know about Emily and the agreement they had? What has he done to keep me safe? And where does that leave us? Have I ever met him, even before Elena met Stefan?"