A/N: In case you've given up on the show and just read Bonnie/Beremy fanfiction, like I mostly have and do, Thursday's episode had the nerve to put it out there that Liv is a more powerful witch than Bonnie, and they had Bonnie herself say it. !. Liv also told Bonnie that she learned everything Bon's been teaching her way back in first grade. Well good for you, Liv!

We're going to ignore that Bonnie's the one who said Liv is more powerful than her, and just work with what Liv said.

Enjoy the fic! And yes, an update of Klaus' New Year's Eve Bash is coming, but it's a long update so it's taking some time.

Pillow Talk

Bonnie lifted onto her elbow and picked up her phone from the nightstand to check the time: 11:50am. She's officially been awake for two hours. She turned her neck to check on Jeremy and found him staring down.

"Oh."

He looked up at her and smiled, and she smiled back.

"I didn't realize you were awake," she said as she turned to face him. He backed up to give her space to move. She tucked the lower half of her face into the crook of her elbow to protect him from her morning breath.

Jeremy turned onto his back and cleaned his eyes, and then he returned on his side and mirrored her pose.

"What?" Bonnie asked when he kept looking at her.

"Nothing."

"It's something."

"Hmm. That's exactly what I'm thinking about you."

Bonnie rolled her eyes good-naturedly.

"Did you really think I wouldn't notice that something was wrong? You were really quiet when we met up last night. I did most of the talking, and then you just rolled over and went to sleep. So now that we've gotten it out of the way that it's something, do you want to tell me about it?"

Bonnie buried all of her face into her elbow and then revealed the upper half again. "I had a talk with Liv yesterday. Well….if you can call it a talk. She was her usual abrasive, and I was trying to….reason….I guess. I was trying to be there for her because….I don't know. For some stupid reason I still kind of feel like she needs me? Or I felt that way. She told me that everything I've been teaching her she learned in first grade, and she said it like she was throwing it in my face? Like she was better than me. She was sneering and everything, and….it just…..She said it like I was wasting my time. It made me feel like I was wasting my time. Here I thought I was showing her this world, and she knew it all along. I'm the one who didn't know. And in that moment I felt….I still feel….like an idiot." She chuckled.

"You were trying to help," Jeremy said.

"Yeah, unnecessarily," she said and her nose prickled like a sneeze was coming, so she rubbed it with her palm. "Everything I knew, she already knew. Probably more. And I'm not even a witch anymore, so….." She shrugged. "She doesn't need my help, and she never did."

"Bonnie." He lifted up and laid a long kiss on her cheek and then returned to his position.

"I'm okay," Bonnie assured him. "I'm just feeling a little….blah."

"She lied to you. You're not an idiot, and what she said means nothing. I'm serious," he said when she gave him a sad smile. "She doesn't know you or what you've been through. She has no idea what she's talking about. You didn't learn this when you were in first grade, but so what? You did the best you could with what you had."

"Did I?"

Jeremy frowned.

"I just feel like….I'm thinking over all I did, and all I can remember is that I had no idea what I was doing. I was playing everything by ear. I was lucky."

"You were good," Jeremy countered immediately. "You were amazing. We were all dealt a shitty hand, Bon. None of us asked for this. But you out of all of us made the most of it. You kept all of us alive. You turned Silas into stone; you desiccated Klaus; you made the ring that helps Elena walk in the sun. Not to mention Caroline. You saved Tyler; you've saved Matt. You saved me. Countless times."

"And I lost my father, and I couldn't save my mother, and I keep losing you."

"Bonnie—-"

"Maybe if I had learned all of this stuff in first grade, I would've known what to do sooner. Maybe so many people wouldn't have died. I get out of binds—-"

"Because you work hard," Jeremy emphasized, and he was through laying down. He got up on his left elbow as he continued to talk. "Bonnie, you're amazing, but you're not Super Woman. Or Wonder Woman. Regardless of how much sooner you'd learned all of this, people were going to die. Cops lose people; firemen lose people. Doctors lose people. Lawyers fail their clients. When you're handling lives or fates, you lose people. You lose. You can't save everyone, and you never would've been able to. Liv doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. She doesn't know a damn thing about what you've done or what you've lost while doing it. I've watched you; I've been with you while you studied and worked on this stuff. It's not nothing."

For the first time since they started talking Bonnie's smile was genuine. She's never seen this side of Jeremy: pissed off because someone made her feel bad. Where she was feeling sad and insecure in the wake of what Liv said, he was offended and angry on her behalf.

"I miss being a witch," she admitted. "This Anchor thing sucks, and it's painful, and it's not familiar, and I have no control over it. I miss my powers; I miss being part of something big. I miss having a lineage. I know I still have one, but without my powers it's like I'm not connected to anything. My dad's dead, and my mom's still mostly a stranger. Suddenly it just feels like I'm this person with no past. I don't feel anchored down. I don't miss using my powers. Not like that. I don't miss the stress. But I miss having them and what they meant and what they could mean again some day. Sometimes I still feel like a witch until I realize I'm not. I think that's why I still felt like Liv needed my help. It was a way for me to be close to magic, to power. She's as close as I can get to it anymore."

"I still think of you as a witch," Jeremy said. "I think I always will. I mean technically we're right: you were born a witch." He laid a second long kiss on her cheek and murmured, "I miss your powers, too."

Bonnie smiled her second genuine smile.

"Liv couldn't do what you did. Not even with a second grade education."

Bonnie folded her lips to hold in her smile.

"You know we've been working on this Markos thing for two weeks now, and all she's come up with is that Matt and Tyler have to keep stabbing themselves so that she knows they're not possessed?"

"What?"

"That's all she's come up with."

Bonnie smiled and bit her lip. She then grimaced and decided, "That's not acceptable."

"No, it's not," Jeremy said, eyebrows raised and bewildered, and Bonnie chuckled. "I don't even know if she has a plan. You would've come up with more by now. She did the safe thing by partnering with me. I can't be possessed. She's saddled herself with Matt, who knows nothing about magic, Tyler, who knows nothing about magic, and me, who knows some things about magic, thanks to you, but I don't know what the hell is going on with the Travelers. She does, and I'm pretty sure if I helped write a spell, it'd end with all of us on fire."

Bonnie's laughter was loud and sharp.

Jeremy smiled. "She did the safe thing by partnering with someone who can't be possessed. The smart thing would've been to partner with you. You have experience. You could've told her how to solve this by now."

Bonnie scrunched her nose and then said, "Yeah, I probably could have. I totally could have."

"That's right. Her first grade education didn't help her with that decision, did it?"

Bonnie laughed. "You have to stop saying she has elementary-level education."

"Hey, she started it, not me. She doesn't know what she's doing. Learning about it, reading about it, heck even practicing won't do much if you've never done it. Liv doesn't strike me as someone who's ever dealt with something on this level. She wants to stop Markos, but she doesn't have the first idea how, otherwise we would be farther along than we are. I've heard her talk about being part of a coven. Where is it? I've never even seen her talk to her brother about this. I don't….actually….know….what….we're working on."

Bonnie burst into laughter because he legitimately looked like he was realizing for the first time that his super secret team up that Liv had mandated he lie to her about was actually quite flimsy. She laughed for a long time, pushing her face into the pillow and letting it absorb all the sadness and insecurity she'd felt since yesterday afternoon.

When she stopped laughing, she looked up, and Jeremy was looking at her tenderly. "I love you," she said.

"I love you, too."

"And I think I hate Liv."

"I think I hate her, too."

"But I definitely love you."

"I definitely love you, too."

He moved toward her, and she turned onto her back so she could wrap her arms around his neck, and they shared their first kiss of the day.

The End