Bonnie Bennett (bonniethewitch) wrote in zombieslogs, @ 2013-12-24 21:04:00 |
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Who: Bonnie, Elena, Scott, Stiles, Allison, Lydia, Damon, Cassie, Diana and all of the ghosts
What: Bonnie performs the spell to bring all the ghosts back
Where: The Nemeton
When: Right Now
Warnings: Character death
Notes: I did not write this entire post. It was a collaborative effort among many of the writers in game and I am so extraordinarily pleased with how it turned out. Ghosts may react/thread in comments if you like.
It was the night before Christmas.
Caroline had loved the holiday. Actually, Caroline loved anything that required decorations and party planning. The gifts were just an added bonus. Even when Bonnie felt cold, the warmth of her best friend lead her into the holidays every year with a smile on her face. All of the garlands and snowflakes lining the cellblocks and the cafeteria that had all been hung painstakingly by Penny and Isabel looked cheap and tacky without Caroline around them to give them that extra spark. You could say that the only thing Bonnie wanted for Christmas was Caroline. Maybe that was why she had picked the night before Christmas.
She pulled her grey coat on, the hood over her head. It was cold outside but Bonnie was already cold inside. She didn't bring a book with her as she had memorized the spell thrice over by now but she did have a small dagger in her front coat pocket. She hefted her backpack over one shoulder and went immediately to Elena's cell. She had to see Elena first, that part was imperative.
“Hey,” she said as she lingered in the doorway. “Are you ready?” She walked into Elena's cell and pulled out a glass jar. The blood of the doppelganger was very powerful and it could only help to bring Caroline back to this side with the blood of a friend to tie her back. Elena was going to be a part of this spell even if she wouldn't be there when it happened. She pulled the knife out of her jacket pocket and held out her hand for Elena's.
Elena looked up from her bed and saw Bonnie standing with the knife. She nodded slowly and knew that this was it. Caroline was going to be back and Bonnie was going to bring her back. She took the knife and locked eyes with her friend as she sliced her hand over the glass jar.
“I’m ready.” The cell seemed too quiet as her blood dripped down. “Are you sure everything is set? You have all that you need? You’ll be okay?”
“I have everything, Elena,” Bonnie reassured her friend. “I took every precaution. Cassie and Diana are going to meet me at The Nemeton. Everything is going to be okay. I promise.” Bonnie remembered her other promise to her friend and intended to keep it. If things started to get too dangerous, if Bonnie thought she would lose control, she would stop. That was the pact she had made with her friend.
“Good. If anything happens I’ll be there to make sure that you’re okay with them too.” The blood still drained in the jar and when Bonnie motioned that it was enough, Elena withdrew her hand and gripped her hand into a fist until the bleeding stopped and the cut healed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Elena,” Bonnie said. “I’m going to need all of my concentration for the spell and if you’re there it could be distracting for me or Cassie and Diana. I promise I will message you as soon as the spell is done and you can come meet us but I need you to stay here for now.” The line about Elena being distracting was bullshit. Elena knew how to stand still and be quiet. Her idiot ex boyfriend didn’t on the other hand. Although they had broken up Bonnie would be surprised if Elena didn’t still have feelings for Damon and she didn’t need to see what Bonnie was going to do to him. “Please. Just stay here. I promise I’ll be okay and I’ll reach out to you as soon as it’s done.” She reached out and took Elena’s hand in hers, squeezing it gently. “We’re so close. She’s almost here. I can do this. I have everything I need and you need to stay here.”
Elena stared blankly at her friend. Stay here? After all they’d been through lately and how she’d been helping Bonnie with the spell how could she say this to her. That she would be a distraction. “I would never distract you from what I know you need to do to bring Caroline back.”
She wasn’t quite sure what else to say and as much as she wanted to argue that she wanted to be there, that she needed to be there, she wasn’t sure if Bonnie would budge. No matter what, Elena was going to be there and she would make sure of it no matter if Bonnie knew it or not. She squeezed Bonnie’s hand in response and gave a tight smile. “Okay. But find a way to send me a signal and I’ll be waiting at the gate to come out after you.” That was a lie too. Elena planned to wait until Bonnie left, sneak out, and follow her to the Nemeton. She couldn’t stay behind and wait.
“I have my phone. I’ll send you a message as soon as the spell’s over,” Bonnie said. Impulsively, she wrapped her arms around Elena and gave her a tight hug. “We’ll all be together again soon.”
With Elena's blood in a jar tucked safely in her back pack, Bonnie went in search of a bunch of kids not much younger than herself playing cards in an empty cellblock. How thoughtful of them to isolate themselves for her. It only made her job easier as she walked into the cell with purpose. They all looked up but nobody seemed alarmed just yet. It was just Bonnie. Bonnie lived in the prison and she was okay as long as she wasn't playing with magic, magic that killed her best friend.
She pushed the negative thinking away and focused on Lydia, Allison, Scott and Stiles sitting dazed in front of her. She shrugged out of her backpack and pulled out another jar. The bag was unzipped so that everyone in the room could get a good hard look at the blood that was already in there.
“I need your blood,” she explained. It all sounded very rational to her so she pulled out her knife and grabbed Stiles's arm. He was closest to her. Almost immediately she saw Scott and Allison move at the same time. They were in sync as one came at her with claws and the other with a dagger. She sighed heavily and reached both hands out, stopping them in mid lunge. There they hung in the air for a full minute before Bonnie slammed them against opposite walls.
“Give me your blood or I'll wring it out from them.” She curled her hands into fists and Allison and Scott both writhed on the wall in discomfort. She immediately released her grip. She only wanted to make a point.
Once she had Stiles's blood she released her hold on Allison and sliced into her arm. She caught the blood in her jar before she moved onto Scott. He was tough because werewolves healed almost immediately. She had to cut him a few times to get the blood from him.
“You could have just asked,” Allison said, giving Bonnie pause for only a minute. Maybe she could have just asked and maybe they would have given it to her. But Bonnie wasn't really in an asking mood. And if these kids thought she was being tough on them, they didn't know what tough was. They should all ask Damon how he was after this was all over with.
“You,” she said as she stopped in front of Lydia. “Are coming with me. I need you to help me bring Caroline back. You know you have the power and I need to borrow it for a little while.”
She pulled Lydia out of the cell and then pushed her hand out. The cell door slammed shut and the lock clicked leaving Allison, Stiles and Scott stranded inside.
“Let's go,” she said to Lydia.
Nobody in sentry even noticed the two girls signing themselves out. They did it all the time. Well, maybe not Bonnie and Lydia specifically but girls just like them that lived inside the prison. They went to Fangtasia and to visit friends and to take walks. Bonnie and Lydia leaving together would have alerted no one.
Bonnie was trying to revive her friend, and if there was anything Lydia could sympathize with, it was that, but not only was Lydia frustratingly clueless about the source of her power, Lydia couldn’t control her own body. Her legs felt heavy, and her blood ran cold, but Bonnie was making her take one step after another, further away from where she once thought she was safe. It all felt dreadfully familiar, and Lydia was sick with all of the emotion. The familiar sense of dread that crawled up her spine and nestled in her mind, letting the girl know that something very wrong was about to happen. But to who? Was she never going to see her friends again? Was she never going to see Allison or Tony again? What about Krissy and Vik? What about Derek? Was the last time she saw him going to be the very last? Lydia’s heart pounded faster and faster as she fought the urge to scream for help. It would be no use. Bonnie was on a mission, and she made it clear that no one was going to stop her. Lydia wasn’t going to test Bonnie by making Derek rush to her rescue. She couldn’t risk Bonnie deciding to make good on her threat to wring the blood out of someone.
“Are you going to kill me?” Lydia asked quietly, barely concealing the terror in her voice despite her best efforts to control the one thing she could actually use.
“Don’t be stupid,” Bonnie replied bitterly. “I’m not a killer. Caroline was an accident.”
“That’s not what I-” Lydia thought better of finishing that sentence. She tried again. “I don’t know how you expect me to help you. What I did was an accident too.” Or at least she thought so. How else could she explain what happened? “I don’t know how I did it. It just happened.”
“You have no idea what you even are, do you?” Bonnie might have been in dark magic mode but she still had sympathy. Once upon a time she had been a clueless girl with a crazy grandma and nothing made sense until someone told her what she was. She couldn’t take one more second of Lydia staring at her with those watery eyes.
“You’re a banshee.”
Lydia quickly fixed Bonnie with a wide eyed stare of disbelief. All the frustratingly limited research, all the questions, all the secrecy and the skin crawling talks she had to have with Peter Hale, and someone in the prison had an answer, and knew but never breathed a word. Every story she had read in her books came rushing back to her. Bean-nigh. Bean sí. The Wailing Woman. Harbinger of Death. Peter had asked her if she screamed. Oh God, did he tell Bonnie? If she wasn’t being forced to walk, Lydia would have needed to sit down. The confusion, the anger, and especially the fear was nothing short of dizzying. Whatever she was almost didn’t matter to Lydia in that moment. She was being used again.
“You’re wrong,” Her throat had gone bone dry, but she ground the words out regardless, even if she could barely hear herself speak over the rushing of blood in her ears. “I’m not a spirit and I’m not a fairy. All they do is scream. They cry, and they scream when people are about to die. This doesn’t explain anything!”
Bonnie whirled around and gave Lydia a fierce look. "I don't have time to explain everything right now. Maybe later, after Caroline is back. Because right now it doesn't matter what you believe. You are what you are." With that she whirled back around and continued walking, dragging Lydia with her.
There was a light flurry but nothing had really accumulated yet but a fine powder on the snow already covering the ground. A half moon hung high in the sky to help light the way but as they neared the treeline she handed Lydia her flashlight and nodded for her to turn it on. With the light of the flashlight beam bouncing around against the trees the two girls walked towards the brothel. Bonnie knew where Damon was. He was with her.
While it was tempting to stop for a minute and rip Katherine’s head off, Katherine wasn’t her goal tonight. Tonight was about Caroline and Laura and bringing them back by any means necessary. And frankly, she would sacrifice Laura if she had to. That one was just a favor to a creepy werewolf who had pawed through her underwear drawer.
“Damon, get out here.”
Just four words but they held power. It wasn’t just about words. It was about intention. Lydia and Bonnie only had to wait a few minutes before Damon came slinking out of the shadows like darkness personified. Bonnie was not impressed.
“You’re coming with me. We’re bringing Caroline back.”
Maybe he didn’t have a choice, but Damon would do anything to get Caroline back. His past with the blonde was a complicated one, but through everything they had endured together and the people they shared in common, Caroline had worked her way into his heart. He was as much her sire as Katherine and Stefan were, and he’d watched her die. Something he relived in his nightmares more often than he’d admit to anyone. Katherine knew, but Katherine knew most everything when it came to her boys.
“How are you going to bring her back?” The annoyance of not having control over his body was evident in the dark scowl that the older vampire shot the young witch. Glinda was getting too big for her britches and that was part of why Caroline was gone. She was letting the darker part of her powers lead the way, and the young woman had no clue how to properly control the power she wielded.
“You’ll see,” Bonnie said darkly.
Damon had no choice, just like Lydia. The two of them were forced to follow along behind Bonnie as she made her slow steady progression to the Nemeton. She could feel magic, dark magic taking her over slowly. It was the same feeling that had taken her over when she had cast the original spell on Caroline. But she could sense somewhere out in the darkness, Cassie and Bonnie steadying her. Not only did they steady her but they took her power and amplified it with their own.
The tree loomed over them, it’s branches lit eerily by the light of the moon.
“You.” She pointed at Lydia. “Stand next to the tree and don’t move. If you do that, I won’t have to hurt you.”
She turned then to fully face Damon. “You, I’m going to enjoy hurting.”
“Not that I don’t find this venture into being Dominitrix Glinda kind of hot, how about you chill the fuck out for two minutes and explain why you’ve taken Red and me hostage? If this is a virgin sacrifice, I have to tell you you picked the wrong girl. I can smell dog on her.” He shrugged at Lydia. “No offense.”
“Shut up before I shut you up,” Bonnie threatened.
Damon rolled his eyes at the tiny witch. “I’d like to see you try.”
She reached out with one hand and twisted letting him feel that searing mind pain like his head was about to explode. She watched him writhe in agony for one full minute before she released her grip on him.
She was still clinging to the real root of the spell. It was to bring Caroline back to life. She tried to remind herself that was why she was here. But she couldn’t help but let the power take hold of her. The power liked it’s control over Damon and it, mixed with Bonnie’s personal feelings, put Damon in a very bad very dangerous position.
Good, Bonnie thought. Give him a taste of his own medicine.
She was distracted as she felt a shift in the air. After a minute she noticed a familiar blonde and brunette appear next to the tree as well holding a container of what Bonnie knew was the bezoar eggs. Her eyes met each of theirs with a small smile as she took the container from Cassie.
Diana felt the power of the spell already warming her blood. It didn’t matter that it was seven degrees outside and she should have been freezing. The magic was keeping her warm and like a spark it jumped between her and Cassie and then finally to their older sister Bonnie. This spell would bring all three of them closer, she knew that it would.
It might bring the three sisters closer, but it was starting to make Damon uncomfortable. Was she wanting to trade him for Caroline? Was Damon okay with an exchange like that? Um, that would be a no. A probable no. He thought about the pain that was consuming his brother and Elena with Caroline’s loss. He thought about the nightmares and of the last exchange he and Caroline had. All that pain she was still carrying that he’d thought they had moved past. Didn’t he owe them an exchange if one could be made?
Probably, but Damon wasn’t sure he was prepared to offer it. Not that the girls seemed apt to giving him a vote. Fucking Witches.
Bonnie opened her backpacks and began to mutter an incantation in Latin as she poured Elena’s and then Scott’s, Stiles’s and Allison’s blood over the spooky tree. She tossed the empty bottles aside, hearing them clink as they rolled together in the snow.
She opened the container that contained the frozen eggs. Bonnie closed her eyes and took in a deep breath, feeling Diana and Cassie doing the same thing. The eggs suddenly began to move under Bonnie’s hand. She picked up one egg and smashed it against the tree bark, watching as mucus and fluids run down the side of the tree. She repeated this motion with the second one but the third one had a purpose.
“Come on,” Bonnie encouraged gently. The egg shifted again and cracked open before the little crab like prehistoric creature scuttled away from Bonnie and went right for Lydia. The creature crawled up her pant leg and Lydia let out a bloodcurdling banshee scream. Bonnie looked up into the air as Lydia’s scream echoed throughout the entire city. Caroline and Laura would hear it and they would come. Lydia’s furious brushing flung the creature back towards the tree where it bounced off and hit the ground. Then it began to burrow itself into the ground, underneath the tree to feed it’s power.
Yes, Caroline had heard it. It was a scream that could wake the dead, and Caroline was drawn to it despite herself. When she arrived, she quickly took in the scene in front of her. Lydia was screaming in terror or pain, and Damon seemed to be suffering as well. Her light blue eyes were immediately drawn to her best friend and gasped as she raised a hand to her mouth. Oh, Bonnie.
“What is going on? Bonnie, stop. Please, stop.”
“I can’t stop,” Bonnie explained, exasperated. “You didn’t deserve to die like that and now I’m going to fix it.”
“It was an accident.No one blames you. I don’t blame you.” Caroline was exasperated as well. This was too much like last time. She’d watched Bonnie walk too close to the edge with her magic too many times now not to know it was only a matter of time before the darkness took over completely.
“I blame me,” Bonnie whispered.
Diana whispered some words to her empty palms and suddenly they weren’t so empty anymore. She pulled the black cloth off of the crystal skull. It was supposed to be the most powerful weapon of destruction on the planet but it was also filled with power, dark power. Power that Bonnie and her sisters could harness and use not for destruction but for resurrection.
Diana held the crystal skull up, it’s blank unseeing eyes staring straight through the stunned onlookers.
Bonnie pulled the knife out of her jacket pocket and locked eyes with Damon. “Now it’s your turn.”
As Bonnie pulled the blade sharply across Damon’s throat deeply she became vaguely aware of the presence of others. She looked up briefly and saw not only Caroline and Laura but several other ghosts all circling The Nemeton. Maybe she had underestimated how powerful this spell would be but she still only had the intention of bringing Caroline and Laura back. The rest of them could watch.
Bonnie rolled her neck, magic crackling in the air between her and Cassie and Diana. All of them were alive with it but like Diana had said, dark magic could be a tricky thing to master. You control it or it controls you.
Damon was gurgling something unintelligible and Bonnie just thrust his head against the tree. “I’m going to need basically every last drop of your blood so get comfortable.” She banged his head against the tree and left him there.
“How many times had she thought about making Damon suffer? She’d wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt her, but this wasn’t what she was prepared for. Love him or hate him, Damon was apart of her family line. Vampire family, but still her family.
“BONNIE, PLEASE.” She was desperately trying to reach her friend. Damon wasn’t moving now. The blood was flowing freely, and he wasn’t moving. “This isn’t you. Stop. Help him, stop and help yourself.” She turned to Diana and Cassie and tried to reach them. “STOP HER.”
There was so much blood. Bonnie could smell it in the air. So much blood, blood everywhere she looked. When Bonnie’s eyes turned up to the moon they were pitch black. She hadn’t been possessed by a demon but she had lost herself in the magic. Her nose was bleeding and maybe that was why she smelled blood but she didn’t move to wipe it away. She couldn’t be stopped. She was a force beyond reckoning. Not even her friends or her sisters could reach her now.
Diana was holding the skull up above her head and Cassie was chanting and Bonnie just felt filled with the most delicious and addictive power she had ever felt. She was a junkie taking her first hit and the head rush was incredible. It didn’t break her focus though. Her focus was to save Caroline. Caroline. Save Caroline. Her eyes were glued to Caroline.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s all going to be okay. Come on.” She waved Caroline towards her.
Bonnie closed her black eyes and when she opened them they were their usual brown once again.
“Mea fiet!”
This was too familiar. Too much like when Bonnie had accidentally killed her. When Caroline moved closer to Bonnie it was to try and stop her, but something else happened. It wasn’t a light, exactly, but it was something powerful and it flooded the area around the Nemeton with more magic. Magic that was drawing the ghosts in.
That’s when she felt Caroline pass through her. Bonnie staggered back in surprise for a minute but then her eyes filled with tears. It was a mix of pain and joy. It was painful to have someone else’s essence pass through you but it was Caroline’s and she could feel all that golden energy filling her up and fueling her.
“Oh my God, I’m alive,” Caroline said tearfully, staring at Bonnie in disbelief and awe.
Bonnie reached out unsteadily and took Caroline’s hands for only a split second, their eyes meeting. But that second was all she needed, it made the rest of it worth it.
Laura came next and the feisty spirit of a young werewolf nearly tore Bonnie in half but she didn’t scream. She laughed as Laura came out on the other side. She had done it. Screw the naysayers. She could do this. She had done this. She and her sisters were the most powerful beings in the world. They could do anything.
Her triumph was short lived as another precocious spirit passed through Bonnie. A very young troubled girl with a mind like a mountain and a mouth like a truck driver. “Stop,” Bonnie said quietly. “Stop!”
But they didn’t stop. The spell was too powerful and Lydia’s screams had drawn every ghost in town.
A slayer darkened by the beast inside that had transformed her came next. Buffy. Bonnie remembered her briefly from their stint with Glory. Four more younger slayers, untainted, followed their fearless leader through Bonnie and she felt it, every part of them mingling with Bonnie’s essence as she absorbed their deaths. A pushy brunette with a sharp tongue and keen sight pushed her way through after, clearly annoyed at having to wait to go after Buffy. When the petite blonde vampire who had sacrificed herself for a son pushed through, Bonnie stopped fighting the spell. Tears filled her eyes as she felt them all pass through her. A skinny scientist whose body had been stolen by an ancient god came next and after her the researcher that had loved her. Lie to me, his soul told Bonnie. A young witch tentatively came through next as though she inherently felt Bonnie’s power and knew how much this hurt her. Bonnie could feel Tara’s sympathy as she passed through her body.
After that three more witches passed through her body, these ones older and with more experience. An old man who would likely complain about the snow and how it bugged his bum knee came through next and Bonnie was blinded by flashes of a war she wasn’t even old enough to remember. A cocky billionaire whose name seemed vaguely familiar to Bonnie passed through next. It was getting harder to hold on with every ghost that used her body as a passage way back into the physical realm.
A sassy fifteen year old girl with bouncing blonde curls and a bite as mean as any snake’s came hurdling through next. Bonnie collapsed partly and had to use the tree to hold herself up. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could last.
As if the mean girls traveled in packs another one, this one older and brunette came through. Her thoughts were a dangerous mix of deviance and destruction. Bonnie felt hellhounds slashing her to pieces as Bela came through. Then there was the angel. Bonnie thought for sure that an angel wouldn’t hurt but it hurt all the worse for the millennia that Anna had existed. Bonnie felt every second of it, all that pain and agony and the joy. She felt it.
Kate Argent pushed her way through next and if Bonnie could regret any of this, it would be her spirit. Kate was sick and not the kind you could fix with pills. Bonnie could feel it as she passed through. This one was going to be a problem. She would have to warn Faith and the others once the spell was complete. The matriarch of the Hale family came next and that only intensified the pain that Bonnie felt. Because she felt the fire, flames licking her skin and knew exactly who was responsible for it.
Bonnie smiled as Lexi and then Alaric both came through even though the pain was utter agony at this point and she could barely stand. Stefan and Elena and Jeremy needed them. She wasn’t so sorry about bringing them back even if it had been accidental. Rose followed on their heels and Bonnie relived the lunacy of being poisoned by a werewolf bite. Annabelle was more hesitant but Bonnie had come this far, too far to let some stupid jealousy get in the way of helping someone who was important to Jeremy. Keep him safe, Bonnie whispered internally as Annabelle passed through into the physical world.
That left only two souls standing in front of Bonnie. She recognized neither one of them. One was a young male, maybe sixteen or so and baby faced. His body was covered in strange tattoo markings that she couldn’t read. Next to him stood a brunette female who also looked like she was in her teens but maybe a bit older than he was.
“You’re dying,” Laurel pointed out. “I’ve been a ghost for a long time, Bonnie. I’ve made my peace with it. You don’t have to do this.”
“It’s too late,” Bonnie barely managed to say. “I’ve come this far. Please…I’m so close.”
Caroline was stumbling like Bambi on the ice as she tried to adjust to becoming corporeal again. She’d managed to check on Damon and while he was unconscious and badly in need of help, he was still alive. Her enhanced senses picked up with Laurel said and like lightening she was at her friend’s side. “No, please don’t leave me. I love you, Bonnie. Fight to stay with me.” She wished with everything inside her that she could take some of her friend’s pain away, all of her pain away even, because she couldn’t stand to watch her suffer. Just as Bonnie hadn’t been able to stand watching her suffer.
“It’s just two more. It’s only two,” Bonnie protested weakly. “It’s only two. I have to finish it. Come on!” She beckoned the two remaining ghosts.
Laurel swapped a sad look with Godric, realizing that Bonnie was probably right. It was too late and she might as well take advantage of the doorway while it was still alive. Otherwise they were going to be the ghost version of the three amigos. Laurel passed through as quickly as she could manage it but Bonnie still felt the pain and heartbreak of a daughter murdered by her own father.
Godric was last and Bonnie met his eyes and nodded slightly.
Wearily, Godric stepped forward. There was a mixture of wonder and remorse in his eyes, but he didn’t break Bonnie’s gaze. Knowing that the longer he hesitated, the longer Bonnie suffered, Godric offered a knowing but sad smile. It would be wrong to thank her, he thought. He had already made what was meant to be his final choice. The remarkable woman before him deserved so much more than that. No, this was a debt he would never have the chance to repay.
“Och urisí ti tanch.” May you find peace.
He stepped through her and just like with the angel, Bonnie felt hundreds of lifetimes built up in that small body. His appearance had been deceiving. All of that guilt and pain and destruction nearly tore Bonnie apart at the seams.
When finally the last spirit had crossed over Bonnie fell heavily to the ground. She blinked a few times, her eyes taking in the mix of emotions. The joyous reunions with the ghosts was incredible. It made it easier for her to ignore Cassie, Diana and Caroline’s worried faces hovering over her. She shut her eyes.
There was a new scream filling the air of Everett. Caroline’s wail was not one of a Banshee, but it was powerful and full of despair. It was full of grief and desperation. “Don’t take her. Please don’t take her. Bonnie, don’t leave me. Please.”
Bonnie just smiled. Caroline was back and even though her beautiful face was distorted with anguish she was alive to feel that pain. Bonnie had fixed it.
Now Bonnie knew why she had picked Christmas Eve.
It was when miracles happened.
Her heart stopped beating.