Title: Taro
Category: The Vampire Diaries
Genre: Drama/Angst
Rating: M – for violence
Pairing: Bonkai

Summary: "Believe it or not, I used to babysit you, Bonnie."

Author's Note: You can't tell me the Bennetts had a hand in creating the prison worlds and not expect my mind to wander. You, also, cannot give Kai a line like "you do not want to see me on tequila" and not expect me to want to see such a thing. The latter is not included in this fic but I would very much like to see Kai on tequila. (One-shot)

If a disclaimer falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

It's never just one thing.

It's a panicked friend because the mother of his unborn child was rushed to the emergency room. But also a matriarch throwing a fit because she craves blood, a lot of it, but also her companions and won't take "soon" for an acceptable answer anymore.

It's a phone call at two in the morning. She rolls over, clearing sleep from her eyes with the knuckles of her thumbs. Her voice is husky and she clears her throat after saying "hello?"

"I really hate to do this…"

"Damon, it's two am. You do still know how to read clocks, don't you?"

"Something's come up."

The grudging severity in his words puts her on alert. She sits up, eyeing the empty beds belonging to her roommates. It's not a new thing for them to sleep off-campus, but she has a love/hate relationship with being alone so she's quick to dress as Damon Salvatore explains the situation.

Jo Parker was admitted to the hospital early this evening due to internal hemorrhaging. They think it's a complication with her pregnancy but it's affecting her too, and the doctors can't tell what it's stemming from. Alaric Saltzman showed up at the Salvatore boarding house in hysterics, searching for Jo's twin brother who, strangely, no one's heard from in weeks. Guess the fiancée didn't clue him in on her brother's whereabouts.

Lily Salvatore has been bemoaning for weeks that Damon promised they'd go back for those she claims as family and for weeks he's been putting it off. Tonight she took matters into her own hands, is currently holding Sarah Salvatore hostage somewhere upstairs in the boarding house, and threatens to spill her blood, which would only excite her own ripper nature.

She sits at the foot of her bed, her boots unzipped on her feet.

"Does this mean what I think it means?"

"Bon, if there were any other way…"

It's shivering in the quiet vacuum of her Whitmore dorm room. From one prison to another, out of the frying pan, into the fire.

x

His abdomen contracts, his gag reflex engaged. He retches, his tongue tasting of rust and salt. Try as he might, he can't swallow it back and vomits, blood spurting from between his lips. It dribbles down his chin to the snow below him. His hands on his bent knees, doubled over on the ground, he pants and waits for the nausea to pass.

Kai Parker glares at the vengeful witch wreaking havoc on his internal organs. Even furious, she's a sight. A hurricane in a snow globe. Tempest in a teacup. Gorgeous.

"It's not quite an arrow or a knife in the gut, but a stomach ulcer works pretty well, don't you think?"

He grins with teeth stained red. Whatever energy within him that isn't battling the magical intrusion makes his veins swell with pride. He's always been one to push just to see how hard someone else would push back. This goes beyond her venturing into the 1903 for a second time at the highly probable risk of clashing with him. She's come into the ring swinging and he likes that fight in her.

"Creative."

Bonnie Bennett's eyebrows unfurrow and the pressure in his stomach subsequently relaxes. Even she's impressed with her precision. One look brought him to his knees, the knitting of her brows doubled him over, and a simple mental push disintegrated the lining of his stomach. No Latin to recite and no indication of the attack to alert him into a defensive position. She hardly broke a sweat.

Damon preemptively explained to her that they can't kill Kai without killing his entire coven, including Jo. He didn't have to add the obvious reminder of the pregnancy. All he said was "don't make the same mistake I did". She took the tidbit in stride, but the person before them is worth reconsidering.

She was going to be good, she told herself during her drive from Whitmore to Mystic Falls. Do the spell, avoid the Heretics because, honestly, Lily Salvatore is small time compared to her family, get Kai and not kill him, come back. She had an asterisk to the end of that list. Get the hell out of town, maybe take Matt Donovan with her. Wherever Kai was is exactly where she did not want to be. But she'd play nice all the same.

Until they found him staggering through the woods, his legs failing to keep him upright and balanced. They'd hurried over, Damon immediately feeding Kai blood to heal, but Bonnie read the situation pretty clearly. The marks on his neck were shallow so a vampire bite didn't create the dire straits in which they found themselves. It was the jagged tear in his coat and hoodie and the leaking wound of his abdomen that brought them here.

Self-inflicted.

Frustrated at getting duped yet again, she let "motis" fall from her lips. Kai was heaved from where he laid across the clearing, sent through the air, and landed face first, brushing snow from his face. That's when Bonnie went to work.

Heaving a deep inhale, Kai spits out whatever blood is left in his mouth. Running the tip of his tongue over his teeth, he debates his next course of action.

He's angry all right. She used his newfound humanity against him. That hurt. Cut deeper than the knife she stuck next to his spine and in the back of his thigh. And the time he's been stuck here, well, it's been festering like an untreated wound. Daily, he picks at it - when he isn't warding off starving vampires, that is. Just as he had in 1994, he kept track of each passing day, only this go 'round his last thought before drifting to sleep was Bonnie.

Slowly, savagely she'd wormed her way into the crevice where his heart should be. What he can't get through his skull is how the essence of all that is Bonnie Bennett had wriggled its way into his every thought. He could blame so much of this on his merge with his younger brother, but he'd be lying to himself and even he isn't that good of a faker.

Of course he isn't. Bonnie sees through all his masks and he's spent every waking moment thinking of ways to repent. Like his life was suddenly a page out of Aesop's fucking Fables.

He remains in a kneeling position, his eyelids heavy, the chill of November 1st, 1903 on repeat ad nauseam sinking into his bones. They're stopped at the edge of the wood line, the Salvatore mansion in sight, and the ripples of the Northern Lights overhead.

Damon and Elena Gilbert watch on, neither sure how to or if they should intervene. The latter invited herself on the mission because she was already at the Salvatore boarding house when all hell broke loose. She was supposed to talk down Mama Salvatore, but her positivity did more to irk the already irritable vampire than it helped. Plus, she's here for Bonnie's benefit. She's been on the bad side of Kai's hands and she wants to protect her best friend. So she said, but now it's more Bonnie protecting her and Damon. They really aren't a match for Kai's wrath. They share one curious thought, though. Why isn't Kai retaliating?

"Did I ever tell you we met before?"

Bonnie blinks slowly. He already got them here, got her here. He's gloating and she refuses to engage but won't remove her eyes from him. The moment she turns her back, a knife is more than likely to end up in it. It'd only be fair after all.

"The Geminis have always been pretty chummy with the Bennetts. It's rare to find more than two or three of them traveling together. They're pretty nomadic for a coven. Of all the families of witches I know of, I envy them the most. They don't lead their children to slaughter like my family or the witches of the French Quarter, so there's that."

He sniffs, his breathing labored. After eighteen years of perfect May weather it's hard to acclimate to constant snow flurries.

"I was twenty one, a month or two before I…snapped. Sheila Bennett, your Grams, was visiting Portland for some professors' conference at a local college, so she stopped by the house. And who else did she have with her but a cherub cheeked baby Bon-Bon."

"Don't call me that." Her voice is low, heavy, her thoughts contemplating a brain aneurysm next or maybe a slipped disc in his spine, paralyzing him from the waist down. Do what her knife didn't.

Instead, her eyes drop to his hands, his palms facedown in the snow. With an arch of her eyebrows, the snow begins to evaporate, steaming and melting into a puddle of water and boiling the skin on his knuckles. He hisses, snatching his hands to his chest, his fingers searing red.

Kai smiles in spite of the pain and continues. "Just as feisty as you were at two years old. Believe it or not, I used to babysit you, Bonnie."

"I don't believe it," Damon mutters. Elena gives an mhm in agreement.

Kai throws an excited smile over his shoulder at the two vampires. He's nothing without an audience. "I did! I wasn't a danger to her then." He turns back to face Bonnie. "Your magic was latent, so.

"My parents thought babysitting would be good for me. Other people's kids, though. They were skittish about me watching my own siblings, for obvious reasons and maybe I proved them right. That's neither here nor there. The point is I never really liked kids, but I never minded baby Bonnie. Always so happy, so innocent."

"And I grew up, you terrorized me and then left me to die."

"But you never fell down the stairs. Not on my watch." He moves to stand, a self-satisfactory tilt to his lips and his hands up in cautious surrender. Bonnie complies.

"I let Jo be the one to take you to the bathroom. I wasn't equipped to handle...that."

"But you have no problem with blood?" Elena quips.

"Said the walking, talking vacuum." Kai cocks his head and angles his body to allow Elena into the conversation without completely disregarding his focus on Bonnie.

"You know, I'm genuinely curious. On the one hand, I keep asking myself why you always tag along and then I get another thought. I wonder if Bonnie being stuck in ninety-four as long as she was could've been avoided. Had Liv just sent Damon over, Bonnie probably would've made it back sooner. I mean, you both had hours to get her. So much time Liv went right back to work, chatting with the bar patrons, running and screaming away from me. So what exactly took you so long?"

"Bonnie was in Indiana after you abandoned her in Oregon."

He compulsively wipes his mouth on his sleeve. "Is your vampire speed faulty or just selective? Logic would reason that you could've met her halfway and raced back to Mystic Falls. Actually, with the spell my sister used you didn't even have to be in Mystic Falls for her to pull you back out. So, what? You just twiddled your thumbs? I think I'd rather deal with the stomach ulcer if you say you sat around and talked about your feelings."

Bonnie's interest is piqued. She drove six hours straight with her foot pressing the gas pedal to the floor. No pee breaks, no stopping for a snack, only to arrive at the realization that she was truly and utterly alone. Elena had mentioned in passing their failed rescue mission but not the logistics of it, never how they failed her.

The tension amongst the four of them builds and Kai tucks his hand behind his ear.

"I'm waiting… Unless all you really did was sit and talk about your relationship because if that's the case, ouch. That's harsh, even by my standards. After everything Bonnie has done for you and your wacky group of friends, that's a pretty low blow. Reduce the chance to save the one person who has always saved everyone else to the opportunity to focus on yourselves?"

"Don't act like you know anything, Kai. It's not that simple."

"Then lay it out for me, Elena. By all means, share with the class."

She scoffs, "You forget you destroyed the nineteen ninety-four ascendant. You said so yourself we couldn't have gone back if we tried."

"And yet you still haven't given me a straight answer about the time you two wasted while you were there."

Elena hesitates and in that moment Bonnie turns on her heels and storms away, deeper into the woods. She's heard enough. Elena and Damon go after her, the former hoping to appeal to her friend.

"Bonnie, where are you going?"

"Home."

"Don't let him get into your head. He's just-"

"He's just what?"

She rounds to face the brunette, her eyes wild. Bonnie may have a disconcerting amount of control over her magic, both her own and Qetsiyah's flowing through her limbs, but she's willing to unleash it on anyone right now. Friend and foe alike.

"He's just confirming what I've been thinking for months? He's just saying out loud what I'd obsessed over in all that time by myself? Did you know I thought I was being punished? Ninety-four was Kai's personal hell and yet I was stuck there while he roamed free. I thought this is what I get for meddling in all of this supernatural business. Grams warned me. Time and again she told me to mind my nose, she told me you-"

She points sharply at Elena.

"Are not my concern. But I didn't listen. And I died resurrecting your brother. And then I came back only to be in constant pain as the anchor. Amara lasted centuries, but I couldn't handle it for more than a few months and when the Other Side collapsed, I went with it. Being in that prison world, that was really hell. And my Grams sent me there. Can you imagine how that feels?"

Bonnie swallows back the thick emotion in the back of her throat. A tear escapes and she deftly wipes it away. "No. You can't."

"Bonnie, I promise we'll talk about this when we get back, but to do that we need your blood. If you leave now, we're stuck. Damon, me, we'll be stuck with Kai and the Heretics."

Bonnie's laugh comes out bitter and barking.

"You need my blood. You need my magic. You need my help. It is always something, isn't it? I was trapped for months. It's not like I was in a place where I just didn't know anyone. I was alone!

"And the first thing that happens when I come home is I'm thrown right back into helping everyone else. Let's trail Caroline and make sure she doesn't massacre the town. Let's ignore how completely callous she's being to her best friend who just returned from purgatory. Let's try and rescue Damon's mom. Let's forget that she's a ripper and that also requires Bonnie to be in close contact with the person who stabbed her repeatedly, and choked her, and is the reason she was stranded in that prison world."

Her attention cuts to Damon, but she doesn't soften.

"Let's lie about the security of the ascendant, give it to Lily even though he promised this prison world was a thing of the past, and then wake up Bonnie at two in the goddamn morning so she can haul her ass out of bed to do a spell that could destroy the place she calls home."

"Hey hey hey..." Damon steps forward, his face clenched. He brought her back here, he can talk her down. "I get it. He bested us. Again. Stabbed himself to make us save him. We fell for it. I fell for it and I dragged you here. For that, I'm sorry. I am, but Bonnie – "

"No, Damon! No one cares about Bonnie. That's damn sure been proven over and over again. Have fun trekking to Nova Scotia. If you're lucky, Qetsiyah's blood on the headstone might do you some good. Maybe. I don't care. I'm done."

She continues on, back to the spot from where they portal jumped. Kai appears in front her, a mischievous smirk on his lips.

"Forgetting something?"

He holds the ascendant like a novelty, a boy showing off his shiny new yo-yo. His eyes watch over Bonnie's deliberating features as she examines his. Vampires have a different sense of smell but Kai's attuned to her frequency. She's crackling with rage and magic. To him, it's like cotton candy at the county fair. Irresistible.

She can't trust him. She took advantage of him in a vulnerable moment and because he's smart, he won't be so quick to trust her again. It'd be smart for her to do likewise. So she doesn't reach for it, instead paying close attention to the footsteps behind her and Kai's gaze tracking the approaching pair of vampires.

"Back to my story, then? Oh yeah, so I babysat you for that long weekend. Played peek-a-boo and patty-cake. Let you listen to Hole on vinyl. I read to you. You always like the stories with dragons. Something about fire, I think. I tried the whole 'I got your nose!' bit, but you were whip smart for a two year old. I'll tell you one thing you did not like when you were little. I would hide Ms. Cuddles or hold her out of your reach and you would cry. Full on temper tantrum, I mean. It was kind of cute but then again your screams were piercing so I kind of wanted to smother you.

"And then you and Damon got stuck in my nineteen ninety-four backyard and I realized something. You hate when someone takes something you love."

Kai's hand shoots out and Bonnie immediately goes rigid, a counter spell at the ready, but he's not aiming at her. Beyond them, his attack hits Damon and Elena. Twin stomach wounds, blood seeping and staining their winter coats. Groaning, they keel over and lose their balance.

Bonnie, full of hurt pride and fierce determination, refuses to turn around. She glares up at Kai, whose smile only widens. He tucks the device into his pocket and continues.

"See, I'm much more of a fan of puncture wounds. But I've been practicing, too. Listen."

There's a chipping sound. It's soft at first, drifting along the wind, like branches breaking under the weight of the snow. It quickly grows louder and sharper accompanied by Elena's yelps and Damon's moans as he bites against the pain.

Kai is snapping their bones, but the small ones. Segments of their fingers and toes. Knuckles. Wrists and ankles. A shattered kneecap for one and a broken nose for the other. He gives them a little reprieve in between, allows them to reset their bones and their bodies to start healing before moving to the next part of their skeletons. Cracked pelvises and slipped vertebrates. Fissures in their ribs and the bones of their ear canals.

Bonnie cringes with each snap but still won't turn to watch. If she watches, she'll help. If she helps, she'll hate herself.

"I could kill you. A nick of your femoral artery. One good aneurysm." Her eyes drop to his chest. "A stress induced heart attack."

"But you won't. Because then you'll be killing scores of Gemini witches, warlocks, and the little Parker-Saltzman in the process. Could you really sleep at night with that much blood on your hands?"

She shrugs. "Maybe. But those are fast deaths. You don't deserve a quick end."

He pauses, swallowing the insult. He sniffs and tips his head to the side. "Either way, I'd make sure to take you with me."

Through clenched teeth, she manages, "What do you want?"

"What I wanted before - a fresh slate. I wanted to try, Bon-Bon. I had some work to do, a long road ahead, and I thought you of all people would've had it in your heart to guide me. I had changed. I hadn't killed anyone since the merge. I could've. I wanted to. I really wanted to, but I didn't. And I wanted you to see that. Out of everyone, Josette, my father, my coven, I wanted you to be the one to truly forgive me. I felt like I hurt you the most, undeservedly, so I was willing to work for it."

"Was?"

He rests his elbows where her collarbones meet her shoulders, one hand still extended to the writhing vampires while the other finds the top of her head and smooths down flyaways and flicks at snow flakes. If his hands went for her throat, she'd counter with a knee to his groin. If he tried some witchy mind manipulation, she'd see how he liked life without a spleen.

But she'll hear him out.

"That was then. You hurt me. I deserved it, I'll take responsibility for all of that, but you left me wounded. Literally. Metaphorically. And for a while I just couldn't see why. I racked my brain over it. I mean, I've met your friends and they leave much to be desired. I've met the ex too. Jer-Bear. I thought you had better taste. But you've sacrificed yourself for them. For him. Even for Damon. Was I not worthy of the benefit of the doubt?"

His tongue flicks out to lick his bottom lip, the residue of blood sticky. He frowns.

"We really are quite a pair, Bon. An eye for an eye. Tit for tat. Before emotions made everything messy, I would've been pissed because you beat me at my own game. But things are messy and I've developed these feelings," he cringes. "Feelings for you, so now I'm just confused and angry."

"Bonnie..." Elena heaves. Kai rolls his eyes and with a flip of his wrist, her neck turns at a sharp angle and she collapses into the snow. Bonnie flinches at the noise but keeps her resolve.

"So I'm going to ask again and hopefully you'll really hear me this time. Will you give me a second chance?"

She looks into his cold eyes, searches for some semblance of sanity. "A second chance. And you ask as you torture the people I love?"

His face crumples. She doesn't get it. How can she still not get it?

With his free hand, he grips her shoulder and spins her around. She sees Elena inert, her body bent at old angles, face sunken in a pile of snow. Damon continues to squirm albeit silently. He won't give Kai the satisfaction.

"Love? These people? These two who squandered the chance to bring you home?"

Kai's hand does a swirling motion, lifting Damon's tense form up like a marionette. Blood drains from his nose but at least the bone breaking has ceased. Through the flurries and the blur of pain, Damon can make out the two witches. Bonnie's stoic visage in spite of being faced with the grisly scene. Kai with his lips to Bonnie's ear, one arm over her shoulder with its fingers releasing a new slew of energy. He watches as Kai's other hand find its resting spot on Bonnie's abdomen, where, under layers of sweaters and a winter coat, her puckered scars lie.

He goes to open his mouth, to make some feeble protest, but then a fire is ignited in his brain, an electrical overload, and the world goes funny.

"It'd make sense if you were in love with each other. You and Damon, that I would get. That'd be pretty damn noble, you sparing him the constant fear and agony that comes for you. That I could admire, Bon." Kai sighs into the warmth of her body against his. She remains stiff, her fingertips toeing the handle of her hunting knife.

"But…?"

"But he's in love with another girl! You've risked your life on the regular for a guy who isn't even into you. Or at least he won't admit it to himself. I honestly don't see the fuss over Princess Toadstool. I grew up around plenty of Sweet Valley High wannabes."

Elena would've never found the chink in Kai's chainmail. She's been too sheltered, too coddled. Doting adoptive parents, attentive aunt named guardian, brother-cousin who would've gladly taken any bullet aimed at her pretty little head. Even her real parents whose last moments were sacrifices at her altar.

He can't forget her cast of friends. The sappy ex-boyfriend, still pining and willing after all these years if only given the chance. The blonde frenemy. The warring brothers, ever vigilant at the slightest threat to her.

And then there's Bonnie. She's feigned martyr so often and so well one could say it was a role she was born to play. And a lot of good it did her. A heritage of spirits who turned their backs on her. Friends who never matched the lengths she would go to rescue them. A death for a philandering boyfriend and a less than appreciative best friend. What was meant to be a true death, though she saved a lot of lives in the process, but instead turned out to be an imprisonment with two narcissists. Like she had to choose between the lesser of two evils. One killed slews of people, including a pregnant woman, but the other murdered the majority of his immediate family.

On paper, one girl had been through hell and back on multiple occasions while the other let everyone else take the trip for her.

"If there's a point, you should get to it."

"My point is I happen to like the cynicism of twenty-first century women and you protect a man who doesn't go for you. You and me, though? A Parker and Bennett? If we combined our covens and our power, we'd be unstoppable. You wouldn't have to die for anyone else. People would die for you. You'd be a leader, Bonnie."

She purses her lips. "Until you get mad, you lash out, and I'm the one who ends up with the scars."

Kai lets go. He unwraps his arm from her middle, steps back a few paces, and unleashes Damon from his puppet strings. He waits until she peers over at him to respond. It takes a minute but with her arms folded across her chest, her head ducked, she does, her gaze leaving Damon's convulsing body to find Kai.

"A good leader knows control, calculates his risks, doesn't go into battle with pyrrhic intentions. 'Lure with bait, strike with chaos', that whole Art Of War shtick. You think I wanted to lead my coven only to decimate it?"

"If you thought your plans through more, the collateral damage wouldn't be so high."

"Because eighteen years alone was a vacation? All I did was think. Now with emotions and being here… I've thought a lot. About you. About what I did to you and what you did in retaliation. Sometimes I thought about how much I wanted to disembowel you, but that's so unoriginal. No, Bonnie, I want us to be allies. You and me against these leeches, against the Heretics, who are terrifying compared to me. Trust me."

"It's always about power and control with you."

"What else is there? Love that's never requited? Guilt you can't escape? The disappointment of hundreds of ancestors who did more harm than good?"

"Bravery. That's sticking around to fight your battles to the bitter end." She steps toward him, purposefully. "Loyalty. That's not making nice with someone and then deserting them."

She stops, her face breaths from his own. She's not bowing down. "Patience. That's hoping, at the end of the day, there's some gain, some appreciation shown. Not just deficit after deficit. And even if today there is no gain, there's always tomorrow."

She jabs her pointer finger into his chest. His nostrils flare but he doesn't feel threatened.

"Then again you have to stick around to found out. And you don't turn on the people who help you. Or manipulate them to get your way." She pushes him, her palms firm against his chest. "Like some twisted Geppetto. Because, yeah, you might be the last one standing if you do but you'll only end up alone. Again. And you know better than anyone how that feels."

He sniffs, steadying himself. "Duly noted."

"And if you ever touch me without my permission, I will bring you to your knees so fast you'll wish you were praying. Now, you leave my friends alone. If I have a problem with them, I'll handle it, got it?"

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. You were a better flirt before you had emotions. You have nice palms? Please."

"Ouch. That hurts me, Bonnie Bennett."

She scoffs, not in the mood for his brand of humor. At the sound of Damon struggling to his feet and Elena rustling into consciousness, they turn towards them. Damon wears a snarl, ready to go on the defensive, but he notes the diffused tension in the air and goes to help Elena instead. Limping and wary, the two approach the witches.

"Are we all friends now?" Damon wonders, his arm around Elena's waist, his gaze on Bonnie.

Kai's eyebrows rise while Bonnie only rolls her eyes.

"Fine. We'll discuss what's water under the bridge later. You're the all-knowing, all-powerful leader of the Gemini Coven. Exactly how scared of these Heretics should we be?"

He smirks. "Very."