Yellow Ledbetter

Black Hole Sun

It works better than he expected, if he expected it to go south quickly. No he's being harsh on himself, it's a little better than south. The situation is heading in a distinct south-east direction that he can salvage.

The ride up to the supermarket was fun, him cloaked in the backseat listening to Bonnie finally go off with her evidence, listing all the times she could have sworn she felt someone watching her.

'The window, the cave, the amount of creaks I heard all over the house- I knew I could smell ribs! Damon- all of it- It means I was right. You made me feel crazy.'

Finally, Kai rolls his eyes from the backseat. He's getting some recognition. And Damon takes it all in, silent and stoic as he drives them, waiting for her to exhaust herself on the topic. She takes the hint and dies down with the conspiracy run through.

After arguing over who gets to drive the trolley, they end up both driving it, in the most in-efficient way possible, until Bonnie relents. She busies herself with the shopping list- and how cute is it that she wrote a shopping list- adding candles to the items in the trolley and Damon sighs. He's definitely not buying the whole 'someone else here' plot twist. It doesn't matter anyway. According to Kai's plan Damon's involvement collides with a stake to the heart and after that it's exit stage left please.

They argue through the aisles, Damon slowly disseminating Bonnie's well structured argument, chalking it up to her imagination (who sleep-crosswords?). All the while Kai listens and wanders the aisles, further and further away from them, anticipation buzzing under his skin. Grabbing some pork rinds from the shelf, he gets ready to let the pop of the bag be the first indicator that he's here.

His fingers are pressed to pull it open when-

'Pork rinds.' Bonnie says, pausing at the shelf.

She's good.

'Not on the list and ew.'

'No Damon,' she sighs, explaining 'There were pork rinds here on this shelf, There have been pork rinds here on this shelf on every trip we've had for the past four months.'

She's raising her voice trying to get through to Damon and he's turning at last.

Kai listens, leaving the pork rinds on a lawn chair. Opening them now would be too obvious and he wants this to be a spectacular surprise for her so he dashes outside.

Bonnie is the one to hear the merry go round and run out first, conveniently loud when there's no other sound to compete with, after the quarter he places clinks into the slot.

Almost beaming, smug looks so good on her, she says. 'Hear that Damon? That's what hope sounds like.'

This time Damon isn't silent by choice. He's speechless. There's no denying this. But Peter pessimist keeps trying, even cracking open the ride's circuit.

'It's gotta be a short. Faulty wiring or something.'

'Or somebody put a quarter in it and turned it on.'

Atta girl, Kai thinks, watching her swing around the horses, smile dazing her face. She's got it spot on with her explanations. Damon's a little slow so she lays it out for him. With another person in the picture it means they're not in hell. Which means they have a chance of getting out.

Right, right and right again for the Bonster. But Damon keeps pushing it away, refusing to play her game and answer the questions.

What is the first thing he's going to do when he gets out?

Damon doesn't want to entertain the idea of escape, let alone fall in love with the fantasy of what he's going to say to Elena when they get out. Bonnie takes his admonish on the chin, rolling her eyes as he insults her.