I was halfway through the next update of "The Other Side," and then Thursday happened and messed up my brain. This will probably be about 8-10 chapters. Thanks for sticking with me. I promise to update "The Other Side" shortly, but this had to come out.

Bonnie awoke on the cold hard ground in the cave, her nose and mouth full of dust and dirt. She couched harshly and then screamed in agony at the sharp pain in her stomach. She grabbed her midsection and looked down in horror at her blood-filled hands. Her vision blurred as she tried to sit up and every bone in her body ached. She managed to roll herself from her side to her knees, and even that small action took every bit of her energy.

"Damon," she called out weakly. When the only response was the echo of her own voice, she called again, as loudly as her weak body would allow. "Damon!"

He didn't answer and Bonnie felt empty. The space behind her eyes throbbed and she could barely make out anything other than the bright sunlight beaming down from the opening in the cave. A cough escaped her throat and she nearly keeled over from the pain in her stomach. She took several excruciating breaths before closing her eyes and counting to ten.

She couldn't freak out. Now was not the time. Panic only made everything worse.

When she opened her eyes again, her vision was still blurry but she fought through it and made herself focus. Her eyes fell on a shiny piece of metal and it was only after she crawled towards it that she realized what it was.

It was the ascendant, shattered in several pieces on the cave ground. Suddenly, the memories returned in a violent jolt. Kai had shot her. Damon tried to help. Bonnie sent him home, without her. She could vividly picture his face as he was sucked into the white light. Tears sprang to her eyes not only because he was gone, but because she was left alone with a psycho that had murdered his own family. There was no reason to think he wouldn't do the same to her.

Bonnie's head lowered until her forehead was on the ground and the cries racked her small body. Damon was really gone. The pain of his absence hurt her more than she ever imagined it could. The guy that she had sworn would be her lifelong enemy had become the most important person in her world. The thought of trying to survive without him was almost too much to bear. She let her sadness overcome her and when the tears had drained what little energy she had had left, she curled into the fetal position.

For several minutes, she lay there, feeling sorry for herself. She thought about giving up and allowing death to finally take her. She had eluded it so many times that it just didn't seem natural or right to come back yet again. Maybe this was her time. Maybe she had finally worn out her welcome in life.

But then she pictured Damon. She could see his unimpressed face and hear him lecturing her about being a quitter. Unlike most people who would grieve a friend's death, he would only be mad with her. They couldn't end like this, she knew. Not after everything they had been through. Their relationship couldn't end with her dead in a cave in a loop of 1994.

He at least owed her a hug for sacrificing her life for his. And she couldn't die until she got it.

So with that in mind, Bonnie pulled her injured body off the ground, inch by torturous inch. She wavered when she got to her feet and had to hold onto the nearest wall to keep her body upright. She held out a shaky hand and muttered "vereor." When nothing happened, she gathered herself again and said with all her energy, "vereor!"

The ground began to shake and slowly, Bonnie was lifted up and carried to the middle of the cave. She continued to chant and slowly but surely she was lifted out of the cave. When she got outside, she dropped her hand and fell hard into the ground. The wind was knocked out of her for a second, but she didn't stay down. She couldn't.

She grabbed her stomach and held her hand closely to the wound while she moved as fast as she could out of the forest and towards the hospital. She had to stop a few times to get her bearings and control the spinning in her head. When she finally made it to the hospital, she rushed to the nearest first aid kit and cleaned and bandaged her midsection. She wrapped some gauze all the way around her stomach and then stumbled into the kitchen. She found some pre-packaged sandwiches in the fridge and ripped open the first one she got her hands on. It had one slice of ham, a slice of American cheese and white bread that tasted old. It was nasty, but it was food.

After she wolfed down the sandwich, she took a minute to gain some strength and then she got to her feet and found some pain pills. S he stuffed a few bottles in her pockets and then started the long trek home.

She tried to think positive thoughts so that the loneliness of her situation didn't creep her out. But once the Salvatore mansion came into sight, fear gripped her bones. It was a big house to be in all alone and there was no telling where Kai was. She was hesitant as she stepped onto the lawn and she briefly wondered if she should set up camp somewhere else, somewhere that didn't make her feel so exposed.

She supposed she could have gone to her own house, or Grams's or even Elena's. But they didn't feel right. After so much time at the boarding house, she couldn't imagine staying somewhere else. So she lowered her head and walked in like she was going to battle.

She almost expected Kai to be waiting for her, but the house was empty as far as she could tell. Nothing was out of place and it felt the same as it always did. Bonnie crept around slowly, her hand out and ready to throw some magic even though she knew she was dangerously low on power. When she encountered nothing after a thorough sweep, she went to her room and nearly fell apart when she saw Miss Cuddles perched on the bed, exactly where she'd left her.

Bonnie had to fight back tears when she picked up the teddy bear and held her tightly. She kissed the bear's soft fur and allowed herself that moment before she stepped into the bathroom and eyed the shower. She really wanted to bathe but something about being naked and wet made her feel like she would be too vulnerable. There was no telling when or how Kai would make his presence known again and being caught in the shower wasn't the way to go.

So she decided to skip the shower and settled for a change of clothes. She stripped out of her dirty, bloody attire and pulled on some sweat pants and a t-shirt. She lay on her bed, snuggled with Miss Cuddles, but something didn't feel right. Something was missing and it didn't take much thought to realize that it was Damon.

Bonnie crawled off the bed and slowly walked to Damon's room. In all of their time together, she had never been in his room and she was a little intimidated by it even though he wasn't there to yell at her for snooping. With Miss Cuddles in her right hand, she opened the bedroom door with her left hand and stepped inside. Immediately, she was greeted by the smell of him: his soap, shampoo and clothes. He always smelled so fresh and manly and it was kind of hard to pinpoint it exactly, other than that his scent had probably become her favorite smell.

She pulled open one of his drawers and took out a flannel shirt. She brought it up to her nose and inhaled deeply, then put it on over her own shirt. She hugged herself and then climbed underneath the covers. His bed was so big and soft and warm and despite wanting to stay awake to keep guard, she was too comfortable. She held Miss Cuddles and sleep claimed her.

She didn't even know Kai was there until it was too late.

...

Damon was drunk, even by his standards. He had been through all the liquor in Ric's shitty little campus apartment and even after three whole bottles (one of bourbon, one of scotch and one of whiskey) in one hour, he still wasn't drunk enough.

Everything was fucked up. He couldn't sleep in his own bed because of the anti-magic barrier in Mystic Falls. Elena had erased their relationship from her memory. There was a vampire hunter on the loose, making life difficult for everyone.

And to top it all off, Bonnie was stuck in hell with that psychopath, Kai. Damon had played the moment of their separation over and over in his head, dissecting it and knowing that he should have reacted differently. He should have snapped Kai's neck, picked Bonnie up and beamed both of them home. Or he should have thrown down that damn ascendant when she threw it in his hands. But he was stuck there, frozen in shock, as Bonnie sacrificed herself for him. For him. He was used to her giving up her life and limb for others, but not for him. And he'd failed her. She was either dead or at the mercy of Kai, and death was probably better than that.

He ripped open the top of a bottle of vodka, which was not going to go down as well but what the hell. He just wanted to pass out so he could get Bonnie out of his head. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw that little smile when she said she didn't want to be with anyone else but him. He saw the tears streaking down her face when he left her.

The guilt was crushing him, and it was a burden he carried on his own. Of course after his return, everyone wanted to know about Bonnie. He'd only said "she didn't make it," which wasn't false. He didn't want to tell them that she was dead, but he couldn't very well tell them that she was alive either. He didn't know what to do and he didn't see the point of bringing anyone else into his bullshit.

He threw back a double shot of vodka and nearly gagged. The room was spinning but he kept drinking. He stumbled across the small kitchen and landed face first on the couch. He groaned and out of pure frustration, he kicked his feet back and knocked over the cheap coffee table. Papers flew around the room and he didn't even care. He fell asleep on the couch, with his body halfway on the floor and his mind flooded with images of Bonnie.

"Hey asshole."

Damon jumped awake and saw an irritated Ric standing over him.

"Why the hell are all my papers on the floor?"

Damon blinked a few times, and then he rested his head on the couch again and and shrugged.

"I'm drunk," he mumbled.

"Yeah I kinda gathered that from all the empty liquor bottles."

"Sorry," he said without any feeling or sincerity.

"Yeah right."

Damon felt a slice of guilt when he watched Alaric get on the floor to pick up the papers. He grumbled about students' exams and other teacher crap that Damon could not have given less of a shit about, but he dragged his body off the couch and got down to help. He stacked loose pieces of paper on top of each other in no particular order but he stopped when he saw a handwritten note with the words "Gemini coven" underlined.

His mind immediately went to Kai and he held up the paper and turned to Ric.

"What is this?" he asked.

Ric barely glanced at it and shrugged.

"Some wild goose chase that Stefan sent me on when we were trying to get you and Bonnie back. Or at least I thought he was trying to get you back. Turns out he was just blowing smoke up my ass and starting a new life."

Damon didn't miss the annoyance in Ric's voice, but he didn't care about his drama with Stefan at the moment.

"What do you know about the coven?" he asked.

"Not much. Some dead witches that turned into a dead end."

Damon thought for a second and then pulled out his phone and called Stefan, who answered on the second ring.

"Hey," Stefan said.

"Where are you?"

"The diner near campus. I was about to leave..."

"Stay there. I'll be there a minute."

"What...?"

Damon hung up before Stefan could finish his question and then he sped out of the apartment. He ran quickly to the corner near the diner, then used regular speed to walk inside. He spotted his brother at a two-person table and he took the seat across from him.

"What's with the urgency?" Stefan asked.

"What do you know about the Gemini Coven?"

Stefan frowned and hesitated in his answer. "I know that it was a coven of witches who may have been useful in getting you and Bonnie back. But they're all dead. Why are you asking?"

"They're not all dead," Damon said, his mind beginning to race with the possibilities.

"How do you know that?"

"Because Bonnie and I were stuck in hell with the witch who killed them all."

Stefan's eyebrows shot off his head and he froze midway to taking a sip of his coffee.

"What?"

"This douchebag named Kai. Long story short, he killed his whole coven, except for one sister, and they punished him by sending him to this dimension where we repeated the same day over and over. He couldn't kill himself, so it was like a living version of hell. He showed up about four months after Bonnie and I had been there, and he's the reason she didn't make it out."

"Wow, that's...that's kind of insane. You say one of them is still alive?"

"His sister. He let her live and I bet we could find her."

"I'm not trying to be a a party pooper or anything, but what good would it do if we found her? You're back and Bonnie's dead."

"We don't know if she's dead," Damon said through gritted teeth.

"I thought you said she didn't make it."

"Right. She didn't make it out with me. I never said she was dead. If she's not, we need to find her and bring her back. And even if she is, I'm going to bring her back so she can be buried at home, with people who care about her, and not some psycho. She saved my life and I'm not just gonna leave her there like a bag of trash."

Damon hadn't realized he was raising his voice until a couple of people looked his way. He tried to relax his shoulders a bit and Stefan looked at him with a surprised expression.

"Uh, okay, yeah, I agree," Stefan said. "How can I help?"

Damon took a deep breath and took a few seconds to think.

"We need to find Kai's sister. And we need a Bennett witch. It took a Bennett witch to send him there, a Bennett witch to get me out, and it'll probably take one for me to get Bonnie back. Are there any of them left?"

"Bonnie's cousin, Lucy. Bonnie talked about her a couple of times."

"You have her number?"

"No, but Elena might."

Damon whipped out his phone and called Elena.

"Damon. Hi," she said awkwardly. He almost rolled his eyes. He knew they still had some things to talk about but now wasn't the time for that.

"I need Lucy Bennett's phone number," he said.

"What? Why?"

"The time I spend explaining it to you is time I don't have. Do you have the number or not?"

He could tell from her silence that she was shocked by his response, but then she told him to hold on. A moment later, she repeated a number back to him.

"Hold on, hold on."

Damon waved for a waitress to come over and he took the pen right out of her hand. He grabbed Stefan's palm and wrote down the number.

"Hey!" Stefan said.

"Oh, shut up, you baby," Damon said. He read the number back to Elena to confirm that it was correct.

"Yeah, that's right."

"Thanks."

He almost hung up, but Elena spoke again.

"Look, are we going to talk at some point?"

"At some point? Yes. Right now? No. Thanks for the number."

Damon hung up on her and then called the number on Stefan's palm.

"Who is this?" Lucy answered. Such a Bennett greeting.

"Damon Salvatore," he said. "Remember me?"

"Oh yeah, Katherine's cute little lap dog."

"Funny. I need your help."

"And why would I help you?"

"Because your cousin's life depends on it. Where are you and how soon can you be here?"

"Wait a minute, something happened with Bonnie? What? Where is she?"

"In hell, with a guy who is probably torturing her as we speak. Now are you going to ask me twenty more questions or are you going to help?"

She only hesitated for a second. "I'm in Atlanta. I can be there in the morning."

"Do that."

He hit the "end" button on his phone and for the first time since returning home, he felt a little bit of hope. He was going get Bonnie back, dead or alive, if it was the last thing he did.