Bleeding Out

A/N: Trigger warning for discussion of suicide/selfharm.

Bonnie slowly opened her eyes to her surroundings and exhaled an easy breath when they came into focus and she deemed them familiar.

She was in her own bed it seemed and still donned in her dress from the dance, as she looked down at her own body and swallowed hard.

Tonight had really happened.

Or did it?

The last thing she recalled was talking to Elijah on her porch, where he relayed some information so outlandish, she couldn't help but believe that this had just all been a really bad dream.

Or at least she hoped it had been, anyway.

"Have some water," she heard, and Bonnie turned around to see Elijah standing at the edge of her bed, with a glass I hand and a calm but heavy look on his face as he seemingly peered into her soul.

Bonnie didn't say a word in response as she took the drink from him and gulped down the contents in no more than ten seconds flat. She placed the empty glass on the coaster at her night table and inhaled a deep breath.

No; she didn't feel better at all.

"How'd we get up here?" she asked finally, as she sat up against the headboard and rubbed her eyes softly. "The last thing I remember, we were on the porch—we were talking… I saw—"

"Damon," Elijah filled in and her lips shut. "You believed you saw Damon, Bonnie."

Her stomach churned at the wording and she shrugged lightly before running her fingers through her hair.

"I know what I saw, Elijah," she said a bit tight lipped as the Original took a seat the edge of her bed and she sighed. "I did see Damon—he was alive."

Elijah moved in a bit closer and his hand grazed Bonnie's chin as he stared into her eyes; his look never faltering. It made her chest cave a little bit with each passing second but she didn't waver.

Damon was alive; she knew that he was. There had been no way that she had seen his ghost tonight when the vampire had never even died.

"It seems that there are some inconsistencies—some…dark moments—within your memory from tonight, Bonnie," Elijah replied gently as she knitted her brows together. "Can I ask you what you recall?"

Bonnie rubbed both hands over her face and stared into his serious eyes. The look behind them may have actually been more nerve-racking than what she was told she was forgetting.

Bonnie licked her teeth and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Why did she feel so anxious, all of a sudden?

"I remember everything, Elijah," she said confidently, as she sat up straighter and nodded her head. "I did a spell—it stopped Tatia and it trapped her. I watched you stake her, Elijah; I exorcised the demon. And I channeled Ayanna through Rebekah. She fought Esther; she helped us get out—"she stopped, once she noticed the look on his face becoming more and more grave by the moment. "Elijah, please tell me we stopped her. We stopped them, didn't we?"

Elijah shifted uncomfortably as he looked into her eyes and her heart dropped.

What had she done wrong? What was she missing?

Most importantly, why the fuck did Elijah think Damon was dead if she had seen him—even felt him—herself?

What the hell was going on?

"Elijah—"

"Do you remember what Tatia said, Bonnie? About… this not being over? About us being deceived, right after you exonerated her spirit?"

Bonnie blinked softly before nodding her head slowly and exhaling a breath.

"Yeah—I remember. And I came home from the Boarding House because I needed to read my grimoire. I remembered what she said; it stuck with me. Damon walked me home—"

"Tatia possessed him."

Bonnie shook her head furiously at that as she met Elijah's eyes, but his never softened. Her mind warbled and her fingers shook.

No. There was no way any of this was true.

"I killed her," Bonnie said assuredly. I saw her ashes vanish into thin fucking air, Elijah—"

"But it wasn't the end—that was only the start."

Bonnie began to breathe quicker—more anxiously—as Elijah's words fell onto her ears and her eyes began to fill with tears. Her fingers curled against the sheet as he stared into her eyes.

"No—"

"Damon never walked you home, Bonnie," Elijah said as her brows furrowed and tears began to line her eyes. "The three of us never even made it out of that classroom. Don't you remember?"

Bonnie huffed as she shook her head blankly and his hands landed on either side of her face.

She trembled as he held her tighter, and Bonnie tried her best to contain the hysterical cried that were just behind her lips.

Damon couldn't be dead. There was no way Damon was dead.

"She warned us, Bonnie; that this wasn't over. That we were being deceived."

Bonnie blinked as she remembered what she believed to have been Tatia's final words, and she exhaled. She'd warned them about what? How had they been deceived? What exactly went wrong?

"When Tatia died, Bonnie," Elijah began, as his thumb stroked her cheek, "Her ashes—they created something; somewhat of a hallucinogenic… They never merely vanished into thin air… You, Damon, and I—we inhaled equal parts of her demon… it made us see things that weren't entirely true."

Bonnie's breath quickened as she nervously followed his eyes; her anxiety now barreling down on her, more than ever, as she tried to comprehend just what he was saying. Because all she felt was pain.

Sharp shooting, irrevocable pain searing her in the sides and in the heart.

There was no way Damon was dead.

"I don't understand," she muttered, as she blinked back more tears. "I saw him, Elijah. I know I did. I felt him—"

"That was Damon's spirit, Bonnie; trying to desperately give you the ending to the night that you deserved… I know, because I believed that I saw Niklaus and Kol—I believed I'd seen them one more time; that I got to relay my final words."

Bonnie breathed with disbelief as she swallowed hard; Elijah's gaze growing sullen by the second as he looked into hers. So, Damon's spirit had come to her to wish her goodbye—to tell her to be happy with Elijah—but why?

How had Damon died in the first place?

"How did the night really end?" Bonnie asked fretfully—afraid to even know what she'd really done, or what actually occurred. "What was he protecting me from?"

Elijah's hand stroked her cheek again, and his eyes grew softer as she watched him struggle to find the words to say. If she had a dollar for every time Elijah actually seemed to be in pain with each reveal of this story, she'd be a millionaire, already.

She'd be a billionaire.

"Damon was… saving you from you," Elijah said, and Bonnie's forehead wrinkled as confusion marred her face. "Bonnie, he—Damon stopped you from hurting yourself. Damon stopped you from killing yourself though the hallucinations were urging you to and when he did, you…"

"I did what, Elijah?" she asked nervously. "Just tell me—"

"You killed him," Elijah said, as her heart leapt out of her chest. "You killed Damon Salvatore, Bonnie."

Bonnie's mouth instantly went dry and her throat became coarse, as she rendered her vocal cords completely useless. She shivered—shook, with actual fever—as she held a hand to her chest and tried to capture her thoughts.

But it was useless. Everything was, she realized, as she found her ability to do anything completely lost.

She could literally do nothing but sit there, within the midst of her own shock as she tried to comprehend it; miserably coming up short each and every time.

She killed Damon. She killed Damon.

She was the reason Damon was dead.

"Bonnie—"she heard Elijah start, and she instantly leapt out of her bed and stormed out of her room. "Bonnie, wait—"

Bonnie hyperventilated as she stalked out of her bedroom and down the hall—towards her bathroom, with conflicting heat in her veins and numbness, all at once.

She heard Elijah call her again, but she ignored it—she tuned everything out, except for the last image she'd seen of Damon's face, before he said his goodbye.

No. He wasn't gone. And she hadn't killed him. She loved him. She was in love with him. Damon Salvatore's blood was not on her hands.

Bonnie roughly turned on the faucet to the sink and immediately placed her hands beneath it; feeling the cool rush of the waters against her fingers, before she splashed it against her face.

This was just a bad dream; a horrific nightmare. If she just cooled down from it all, she would wake up. She could end this if she just woke up.

"Bonnie," Elijah said again, as his hand landed on her shoulder.

She furiously continued to splash her face—the water never quite calming or soothing her, as she hoped that it could.

"He's not dead," Bonnie repeated, almost robotically, as his hand continued to rub her shoulder. "I didn't kill him. I know I didn't."

"You did, Bonnie," Elijah said weakly as she continued to rub her face. "I watched it."

"You don't know what you saw," she said angrily, as she finally shut off the faucet and met his eyes in the mirror. "Because he's alive. I know he is. Damon isn't dead—I didn't kill him."

"Bonnie—"

"I need to cool down," she interrupted, as she mindlessly ripped herself away from Elijah and bean to unzip her dress. "My skin; it feels like it's on fire."

Elijah didn't respond as she watched Bonnie step out of her gown and leave it on the tiled floor, as she stood in only her strapless bra and underwear. She felt his eyes follow her frame as she neared the shower and opened the door. He attempted to stop her at the hand and Bonnie pulled away from him before she climbed in and turned on the water.

Elijah remained silent as Bonnie stood beneath the showerhead; the liquid blasting down on her as she shut her eyes and continued to mutter beneath her breath.

She hadn't even bothered to shut the curtain between them, and she didn't seem to care as the throw rug began to get wet.

She just needed relief; Bonnie needed to feel something other than the pain that was crushing her soul, or the denial that was masking her thoughts.

She just needed to cool down. She just wanted to be able to breathe.

Bonnie sharply reopened her eyes as the water matted her hair to her neck and her last shred of clothing to her skin. She swallowed hard when another image of Damon flashed through her mind, but not the one that she had seen before of him smiling.

No.

This one was Damon Salvatore, bruised and bloody as she stood before him with a tragic gleam in her eyes and a curled fist at her side. He was just a few inches away from her, but it felt like an entire world, each time she dipped into her thoughts and quietly became captivated by them. Elijah was trapped—seemingly—behind an invisible barricade that he was trying to break through, but no avail.

It was just she and Damon now—just as it always had been. And she was killing him. She was stealing his very last breaths each moment that his fingers remained against her skin.

His glare met hers as she silently stood before him—Bonnie sunk into the porcelain of the shower as her mind reenacted her sheltered thoughts—and she met his cheek with her fingers as she watched him continue to bleed out, against his own hand.

He was bleeding out for her. She had done this to him whilst trying to do it to herself.

Bonnie suddenly gasped as she shot out of her thoughts and her eyes met Elijah's as he continuously watched her shaking in the tub. Her eyes instantly filled with tears, as they expertly blending with the water from the shower head—and she began to cry hysterically.

Elijah sprinted over towards the faucet and turned it off as Bonnie continued to scream—pushing her fists against the wall as he pulled her out, and violently swinging as he tried to cradle her into his arms.

"Bonnie," she heard him say soothingly into her ear, though it did nothing to help her at all. "Don't—"

"I killed him," she shrieked as her eyes flooded with tears and her vision became so blurry, she couldn't even see her own bloody knuckles before her. "I did it—I killed Damon! Why did I kill Damon?"

"Because your magic got the better of you, Bonnie," he explained. "When you channeled all of that energy to kill Tatia—it did something to you. You couldn't stop afterwards. You said that you needed to go over to The Other Side to complete their work," he said as she shook her head feverishly with disbelief. "You were channeling so much power it threatened to kill you. You trapped me behind a wall and Damon—he was just trying to stop you by absorbing some of it."

"No," she shook her head again.

"But it became too much," Elijah continued, as Bonnie continued to cry against his chest while he held her tightly. "He couldn't handle it, Bonnie… But he tried. He tried to, for you."

Bonnie placed her hand against her head as the lasting image of Damon falling to the ground after quite literally being burnt up from the inside out consumed her thoughts and she cried even harder.

What the hell had gotten into her, to make her want to die? To make her want to visit the Other Side? And why didn't he just let her? Why did he have to save her?

"Does Stefan know?" she asked immediately, as she glanced at Elijah with blood-red eyes. "I have to tell Stefan—"she started out and he stopped her by the wrist.

Bonnie looked into his hypnotic, chestnut brown eyes and Elijah shook his head while his fingers formed along her skin.

"Nobody knows, Bonnie. After Ayanna lifted Esther's spell and they all fled, you and Damon never joined them. I… gave his brother a phone call—told him you were both okay, just recuperating."

"Why would you do that?" she pushed against his skin angrily, as she wiped her eyes. "Stefan deserves to know! They all deserve to know what I did—"

"Not if it can be reversed," Elijah said, and Bonnie's eyes widened as she watched the genuine hope in his eyes building before he took her face into his hand and brushed her cheek. "I didn't tell anyone about what happened because I am confident that you can bring him back. You can bring Damon Salvatore back, Bonnie."

Bonnie sniffled softly as he continued to hold her cheek and he wiped away a tear.

Was there a way to bring Damon back? If so, how? And why hadn't she known it before?

"How?" Bonnie asked softly. "I—I have to, Elijah. I can't—I won't be able to imagine a world without him."

"Then you will listen to me and you will do as I say," Elijah instructed, as Bonnie nodded, and he quietly offered her a reassuring smile. "You're going to do this, Bonnie. I believe in you."

"I believe in me," she repeated and he nodded.

"You're going to bring Damon Salvatore back to life, Bonnie."

"I'm going to bring Damon Salvatore back to life," she stated.

"And all you have to do drop the veil to The Other Side."

XXXXX

"Goddamn't, Bonnie," Damon muttered from beneath his breath as he punched the girl's bedroom wall in tired frustration, as he watched her gathering her grimoire, a few herbs and tossing them into a bag.

He hoped that by some freak miracle of nature she'd actually be able to hear it or see him, but she couldn't. Because he was trapped in the hell hole called supernatural purgatory, while she was about to commit the biggest mistake of her life just to have him back.

Why? Why was she doing this? Especially after his last words to her—about letting him go?

Why was still willing to unleash hell on earth, just to see his face again? How could he have mattered so much to her?

"Because she loves you," Damon heard before he turned around to see the Original in the suit with hands tucked into his pockets and an observant look on his face as he watched Bonnie, too, from the other side of the veil. "And she's stubborn; as stubborn as a bull."

Damon sighed at that as he sat on Bonnie's bed—he and Elijah both looking on as the girl continued to move frantically, and mechanically—as if there were nothing and no one that could stand in her way.

Damon shook his head as he watched her walk out and he turned to Elijah again. The man's chestnut eyes flashed to his for a moment before he finally spoke. His voice much calmer and smoother than it should have been, considering what was about to happen to them all.

"Seems like we all were fooled this time. Me, by enduring a dagger to my heart by my very mother Esther, who's now in my body pretending to be me on the side of the living, as Bonnie does her bidding… Bonnie, by actually believing a word that she's said about anything, and you—by thinking you could make Bonnie's decision for her, when we both know damn well who she would have chosen had she been given the rightful chance."

Damon swallowed hard at that as he remembered his last talk with the girl, before his spirit finally locked to The Other Side and she couldn't see or hear him anymore; the one where he convinced her that Elijah was the right and only choice for her despite the fact that he knew it had been him and it always would be.

It was the only thing he had ever been sure about in his life; the fact that Bonnie Bennett actually loved him.

Damon shifted against her mattress as he shook his head.

Bonnie may have loved Elijah too, but she was in love with him—he knew it. And it would be his fate that he would die before she had the chance to tell him the words he already knew; the words he recognized as true.

"Yeah, well, maybe I would have rethought my finals words if I knew you were gonna go and get yourself daggered by Mama Original the second I died… Maybe I would have warned Bonnie about that, instead. I can't believe any of this is happening right now."

"Believe it," Elijah said as he leaned against the wall and Damon tugged at his lips—frustrated at the fact that he was quite literally a ghost and could do nothing to stop what Esther was about to make Bonnie do right now. "My mother is as evil and calculating as it gets; especially when she thinks she's doing the right thing."

"Newsflash: she's wrong. And once Bonnie drops that veil and the millions of supernatural creatures with vendettas are able to come back after spending their days trapped in this bubble—I don't think they're going to be happy."

"And somehow, I believe Esther doesn't really care," Elijah said as Damon narrowed his eyes. "I—am daggered—technically not dead, though she runs amok in my body right now—and I have the unfortunate yet useful ability to feel what's going on in her head… I've been listening to her thoughts for the past half hour."

Damon's eyes widened at that as he rose to his feet and neared The Original; the man licked his teeth as Damon looked into his eyes.

"What does she wanna do?"

Elijah sighed as he cracked his knuckles and Damon prepared himself for the worst. Because why would anything be easy?

Why would anything get better?

"When Bonnie drops the veil, she won't be releasing supernatural beings back into planet—she'll be letting loose a hoard of mortals."

Damon's brow rose at that as he digested Elijah's words and he frowned.

"What?"

"Behind the veil, we are supernatural beings who still get to retain most of our powers… if she drops it, we don't. We…"

"Become human," Damon said as he finally caught on and Elijah nodded towards him slightly. "But what does Esther want with a bunch of humans? I mean—if the goal is to kill all vampires, why didn't she just kill you and Rebekah and get it over with?"

"Because the vampires aren't the only ones that she wants dead… The ghosts, the demons, the werewolves, hybrids, and witches—by dropping the veil, everyone will become human. And once we do… all she'll have to do is slaughter us all, because killing every single thing that inhabits this planet will make her stronger. Esther will absorb the power of every life she takes and with that, she'll be able to start a new world. One with balance—where she can be god."

Damon stood quietly—and stunned—at that, before he vehemently shook his head and tried to process this information.

"No-we can't let her do that. We can't just let her start The End of Days!"

"I'm afraid it's already begun," Elijah answered and Damon scoffed lightly while he felt his heart dropped. "And when she's done, there will be nothing. No heaven, no hell, no Other Side—"

"And no Bonnie," Damon replied. "No Stefan, no Rebekah, no me, no you, and no Bonnie."

Elijah licked his teeth at that as he watched Damon began to walk out of the room and he stopped his roughly by the shoulder. The younger felt his skin boiling and his blue eyes widening as his mind spun uncontrollably at the mind-numbing revelation.

He couldn't be the reason Bonnie helped Esther begin the end of days.

He couldn't be the reason none of them ever existed anymore.

"Where are you going?"

"I have to find a way to stop her—before it's too late. Before your mother succeeds in planning the bringing forth of the fucking apocalypse."

"There isn't time—"Elijah replied as Damon stopped again and furrowed his brows. "And she can't see you—she can't see me either."

"No, she can't," Damon answered as he pinched the bridge of his nose for a second, before finally, his thoughts allowed themselves to come through. "But I know who can. Follow me."

Elijah's eyes narrowed at that, but without another word, he was off to follow Damon's lead into the night, while he tried desperately to keep his cool and the younger kept on a brave face as well.

"Where are we going?"

"We're finding a ghost whisperer," Damon answered. "I happen to know one or two."

XXXXX

A/N: Whoa, look who decided to update after all this time? LOL I apologize first off, for taking SO long, but also to any of you who read this on Tumblr already and think there's more but there is not. YET. I haven't updated in MONTHS (slaps my own hand) and I after much debate I decided to post this part for anyone else who may have been waiting because I didn't want the "last" chapter to be TOO full/packed with info. I know this is an interesting (and perhaps) controversial turn of events but it's been the plan for a few chapters now—I just didn't know how to convey it. What did you all think, in either case? This story has been such a pull and push with the triangle between the three but given all of the buildup between Bonnie and Damon and Bonnie and Elijah, who do you think was her more logical choice? Does either one make more sense than the other? Is Elijah right that Bonnie would have chosen Damon, had he not told her Elijah was the one she needed? What do you think will happen when Bonnie finds out? IF she finds out? R&R and let me know! Depending on how much feedback you guys give me, perhaps the next one will be up in a week or two? Only time will tell. As always, THANK you for reading, putting up with me, and never letting go even though I am a horrid writer/updater person. I am so sorry! Can we hug it out? Until next time, xoxo.