A/N: I have recently been made aware of the fact that my stories and I were nominated for 2011 Awards (because apparently, I've been living under a rock). It's an honor and I am grateful.

I go to the extremes because playing it safe hasn't gotten me too far.

Chapter Twelve

They warn her against it from the moment she disconnects the call. They sit down and they tell her "Don't go. It's a trap. Don't go."

Stefan has decided he will go in her place because Damon is his brother and as long as there is some sibilance of life within him, Damon will always be his responsibility.

Bonnie can't think of the words to tell Stefan, to tell them all, that this is her fault. She is not being a martyr by any means, she doesn't think she is responsible for Klaus' actions. He would have found some way to break into their existence.

However, Klaus believes that what his is doing has one sole purpose. Bonnie won't bury her head in the sand, she won't ignore the lengths to which he has gone through to get to her. She never saw the point in pretending. It is why, as much as she loves Elena, Bonnie will never understand how Elena could ignore the obviousness that was Damon.

So they argue with her because they all envision ways they could bite the bullet for Bonnie and rescue Damon.

"He's my brother," Elijah says, and until that time, he has let everyone voice the reasons they believe counted for confronting Klaus.

"You won't be able to do it," Bonnie responds. "You won't. He'll say something. He'll do something. And you'll remember how hard it is for you to kill him. You'll hesitate because he's your brother."

"And you will able to do it? You'll summon enough courage?" Elijah asks. Real and discernible frustration leaking through; the man who has been so composed and impassive finally peaks behind the self-imposed shutters.

Bonnie will not be the one to tell Elijah that he just doesn't have the heart. He is only capable of brutality when his valor falls short.

"There is no sure way to stop Klaus," Stefan says, as if it just occurred to him.

"I know," Bonnie admits.

They let her go because any other scenario was unacceptable.

Walking into a dangerous situation requires a plan. Regardless of how ill-fated the circumstance, a plan is a safeguard against showing up unprepared. One could say that at least he or she thought about what they were going to do, even if it didn't pan out in their favor.

Bonnie didn't have the luxury of saying that she had a plan. She knew what she wanted to transpire: she wanted to get Damon out of whatever trouble he had managed to get into with Klaus.

Bonnie gets into her car and uses the things she's has committed to memory to get to Klaus' penthouse. She concentrates because the last time she got in her car to help someone, she ended up in a coma.

The whole drive encompasses the struggle not to become hysterical, not to panic like she wants to. Self-talk fills her head, supposed confidence that she has the power of a hundred witches, that she is smart. It does nothing to combat the overwhelming astonishment she feels that this has become her life: one emergency after another.

What separates her from her friends, what makes her experiences these bouts of alienation is the fact that she recognizes that their lives will never be normal. Not ever.

If she had license, she would lie in bed and feel sorry for herself because no one else seems to appreciate the merit in that.

She arrives, and the doorman greets her with the same slightly plastic grin. And the elevator operator offers the same knowing smile, a manufactured easiness that Bonnie ultimately recognizes as compulsion.

She doesn't know why she hadn't recognized it before; the tightness around their mouths as if a smile was connected to strings of a puppeteer, the eyes that pled for help.

The penthouse held none of the romantic atmosphere of the other night, and Bonnie knew that her last image of Klaus would not be of the man who tried to wine and dine her.

The apartment looks more cavernous than before, the space devoid of superfluous furniture, none of the clutter.

Modern design for a modern monster, she supposes.

The smell of cloying, metallic blood hits her nose. It causes a tension-induced itch in the back of her throat.

"You're here," Klaus says, surprised, as if he hadn't been the one to call her. "I thought you would marinate a bit, give me a little more time with our friend. I had such plans," Klaus adds, wistful.

Bonnie didn't see Damon. She saw blood on the floor; a concoction of vervain and water, the damp greenish-brown of the limp plant. No Damon.

Klaus traipses to where Bonnie stands. "I'm going to make you a deal: you and I leave together. Right now. Your little friends will not hear or see a peep from me for the rest of their pathetic lives."

"I can't leave with you," Bonnie replies, hoping that the quake in her voice was indiscernible.

"Why not? There's nothing here for you," Klaus says.

"You said you had a gift for me," Bonnie reasons that allowing the conversation to go down that road would be more than problematic.

"Ah, yes, the gift!" Klaus' grin is a mixture of innocence he has never possessed and omniscience that comes from being truly immortal.

He turned away from her, walking over the mess on the floor to head to a room. Bonnie had no choice but to follow.

He opens the door to the room, it's creaklessness a testament to good architecture.

The first sight of Damon tied to a chair causes relief to flood through her system. He looked horrible. Bonnie buries her shock and revulsion at Klaus' savagery even as bile threatens to rise up from her stomach.

"Damon Salvatore demystified," Klaus announces.

He bends down in front of Damon to peer into his face, "I was expecting him to be something special." Klaus turns his attention to Bonnie then, "See. I told you. He's nobody. Now you can stop this ridiculous notion that you and he will live happily ever after. Your last name is not Gilbert."

Bonnie stares, swallowing repeatedly. "Let him go," she says once she finds her voice.

"I'm trying to tell you that he's nothing," Klaus bites out, her petition of Damon's freedom aggravating.

"Okay. You've proved to me that he's nothing. You don't need him anymore. I'm here," Bonnie persuades.

Damon makes a vicious snarl behind his gag. That he doesn't agree with Bonnie being alone with Klaus is clear.

Klaus looks back at Damon, eyes narrowed dangerously.

"Klaus," Bonnie calls to force his attention onto her.

"Tell him that you don't love him anymore," Klaus says suddenly.

Bonnie blinks, startled by Klaus' request.

"Tell him," Klaus repeats. "He's not worthy of you. He doesn't deserve you. Tell him."

Tears form in Bonnie's eyes and she hates it because crying at this moment is utterly useless.

Klaus looks at her like she's just invented the atom bomb. Her crying is a foreign action to him. He's never seen it from her, even throughout their complicated history: his first test of her power while he was wearing Alaric as a meat suit; her attempt to stop him from becoming a hybrid; when he brought her and Stefan into his world; all of it done without shed tears.

It makes him uncomfortable. So much so, he decides that the culprit of her anguish is not he, himself, but Damon.

Damon is upsetting Bonnie.

"You don't have to..." Klaus begins, trailing off when he's unable to articulate an adequate response.

He picks up a stake that was lying next to Damon's feet. Tipping Damon's chair back, Klaus aims directly for his chest. No playing around.

"No!" Bonnie yelled, her face wet with woe.

Klaus doesn't drop the stake, doesn't look back, but he replies, "It is my gift to you. He's death, it's what I am offering you."

"This is about you and me, not him. He's not―he's not important, right? So you can let him go."

"I let him go, and you leave. I'm not stupid," Klaus argues.

"I promise. I won't leave. It will be just you and me. If you care about me like you say you do, you would respect my wishes. Damon never did. He always did what he wanted to. You're not like him, Klaus. You're better," Bonnie chokes on the words, the lies burning her mouth even as she speaks it.

She hams it up because she has to.

Klaus rips his focus from Damon to look at Bonnie, seeming to consider her statement. "You stay here," Klaus says. Not asking her. Telling her.

Bonnie agrees, nodding quickly, "I will stay with you."

Klaus looks at Damon once again, his distain for the other man evident, "Don't you know how to say thank you?"

Damon shifts under his bonds. If he's freed, he is going to take Klaus down no matter the cost to his declined health.

Bonnie notices Damon's intent when she catches his eye. She shakes her head. "Don't," she

mouths.

'Please he me handle this,' Bonnie thinks to herself, wanting for Damon to read her mind somehow.

Begrudgingly, Klaus undoes Damon's bonds. His body falls out of the chair, sliding unto the comfort and safety of the floor. Everything that comes in contact with his ravaged frame makes him buckle in pain.

"Well," Klaus begins, stepping over Damon's prone form, "He's free to go home. If he can make that far," he adds after reviewing the shape Damon's in. Klaus drops Damon's ring on his chest.

Bonnie kneels on the floor beside Damon, slipping the ring onto his finger. She holds her wrist to his mouth.

"No!" Klaus shouts, like muted thunder vibrating off of the walls. Klaus leaves to room momentarily. He returns with the elevator operator, "Remove him," gesturing to Damon.

The other man helps Damon to stand. Damon grabs for Bonnie's hand pulling her along with him. Klaus intervenes, disconnecting their hands as Damon is dragged away.

"Bonnie," Damon calls, malleable and weak. She can still hear him calling for her, even when he's out of the room.

Klaus places his hands on her shoulders, "We must leave this place."

Damon doesn't remember making it to the boardinghouse. He knows that he is forced down by Stefan's strong hands. He knows that blood is forced passed his lips at such large qualities that he retches a little at the taste, the shock of it too much like his own blood smeared across his lips.

He knows that Elena shouts at him about Bonnie, "Where is she?" Where is she indeed. Alaric frowning visage floats past his view. Elijah, also, calculating and inscrutable.

Where is Bonnie?

He remembers getting up, unaware of the time of day except that the sun burns him. His ring is on the dresser beside his bed instead of on his finger.

He makes it to the driveway before Stefan is pulling him back inside.

Stefan disappears for a while. Comes back with a grim look on his face. Damon hears Elena wails through his bedroom walls.

He is stopped, every time. No matter how he tells them that he is strong, that he'll be careful. Every time, they stop him from going after her.

Stefan follows a lead, something about a witch matching Bonnie's description. Damon follows, breaking through the barriers of their hands.

In Brazil, a girl is young and truly dead. To identify the body, Damon lies, "I'm her husband." No raised eyebrows. No 'how could you let your woman stray so far away?'

A polícia says it was some kind of ritual, the girl burnt at the stake, like a witch, like uma bruxa. The police smirk because they do not believe.

Damon claws at the table with the charred remains. Cries at it. Screams at it.

Damon can't remember what they tell Mr. Bennett. He can't remember the missing person signs changing into memorials. It makes local news because Bonnie was bright and beautiful.

The funeral compacts Damon into this mild-mannered, polite citizen. He let's Caroline and Elena alternate shifts on his shoulder.

Stefan doesn't talk of leaving. He watches Damon like a hawk and whatever personal demons he has to fight, he does it while making sure Damon doesn't teeter off an edge.

Every other day, Damon dreams up a way in which he could have died instead. Alcohol provides a special salve that allows Damon not to think for too long. He buries himself in countless women because it's easy.

He can't remember the last time he slept. Eons ago, maybe.

By Three a.m. he's too buzzed to think about sleeping. He thanks God that he's stuck in this form forever. No bags under his eyes, forever.

He can't move on even when he tries.

He plays the blame game, for a while. He makes Elena, Caroline, Jeremy and the rest feel like shit, bring them down to his level because they let Bonnie slip through their fingers as well.

He wasn't the only one to fail her.

It's a Sunday that Stefan decides to take a break from Damon's metaphorical suicide watch. Stefan takes Elena somewhere for some peace and quiet.

Damon plays loud music and consumes alcohol so straight it passes his throat and heads straight to his stomach.

His company is a young woman who looks on wide-eyed, his energy and stamina is something to behold.

Damon twirls the girl around, dances with her, gazes at her while she babbles on about her broken home life.

Its déjà vu except he tells her his own story about love and loss. In her eyes, he loses cool points because he's too damned sad and pitiful.

He turns her into a lovely snack, the copper chasing through Bourbon. He kicks the girl out without defiling her.

When he is alone, he cracks open Genet's Notre Dame des Fleurs to get lost in the campiness, reads a few pages then puts it down. Rubs at his eyes, tries not to think about her.

He roams the house.

Four a.m. looks like morning wants to hurry up, looks like morning wants to bang his head against the wall. He wishes he could die of a heart attack. Attack of the heart.

Baby. He never called her baby, he doesn't think. He called her darling. Honey. A bitch (when he hated her because she hated him). He wanted to take her to Paris, to Munich, to Italy, to New York. Yeah, New York, she would have loved it.

He remembers that fresh, sweet taste of her (under the lip-gloss).

Right before it's Five O'clock, the room shifts around him and he feels, absolutely knows that he's no longer alone.

Quick, flashing like a vampire, flashing like he used to when the weight of grief didn't hold him down.

"Fuck," he murmurs because Elena dying and coming back to life (even for just a moment) really screwed with the chemistry of the house. The boardinghouse is an open banquet once more where anyone can come in.

He doesn't want to deal with newbies or wannabes or vampires who don't know a thing about living forever while the one's you love die.

"I'm not in the mood," Damon announces out loud.

The television comes on in his room. He hears the drone of late night/early morning television. He takes his time going to his bedroom, giving the intruder ample time to save themselves.

He stops in the hall before rounding the corner to his room, the prickly hesitation abnormal.

His eyes are on the television first, the paid program selling a blender that chops, mashes, and turns into a mini-vacuum.

Ingenious.

He looks at his bed and decides that he has drunk way too much. It's kicking his ass, finally.

Damon opens and closes his mouth, no sound emitting.

He tries again, "Bonnie."

END

This effectively ends the series. I originally had no intention of turning it into a three-part ordeal but I was encouraged by the people who reviewed my stories and requested, in so many words, that they wanted "More!"

I know that I wimped out by not detailing how Klaus was killed (if he actually was!) but that is because:

a) Why not leave it open? Nice and tidy endings take the suspense out or stories.

b) I have yet to figure out how to kill off a character that can't be killed. (See me after season 3 of TVD).

Before posting any piece of fan fiction, my worse fear was that next to the talented writers that I have read, and next to the stories that are on their way to becoming legendary (10 years from now, someone will ask "remember that TVD fic, the one where Bonnie and Damon..."), I would pale in comparison. I'm still self-deprecating as hell, but I have realized that there are those of you who like my writing (not just a friend that nods and smiles and tells you is it good even though they are secretly wondering why the hell you are writing fan fiction about characters on TV).

For those of you who just want the characters to do what you say (at least most of the time if your muse permits), this Bud's for you! (or Heineken...or Coors...or water, if you don't drink. Water is lovely).

Thanks,

N6IB