The Vampire Diaries: Dark Reunion Chapter Sixteen

Bonnie never could quite remember how the next few seconds went. She heard Stefans cry that just ab disclose settlemed to shake the earth beneath her. She saw Damon start toward him. And then she saw the flash.A flash give care Klauss lightning, scarce not blue-white. This one was gold.And so beadlike Bonnie felt that the sun had exploded in front of her eyes. All she could make out for several seconds were whirling colors. And then she saw something in the oculus of the clearing, near the chimney stack. Something white, shaped like the ghosts, only more fast(a) looking. Something small and huddled that had to be anything simply what her eyes were telling her it looked like.Because it looked like a slender naked miss trembling on the forest floor. A girl with golden hair.It looked like Elena.Not the glowing, candle-lit Elena of the spirit world and not the pale, inhumanly splendid girl who had been Elena the vampire. This was an Elena whose creamy skin was blotching pink an d showing gooseflesh under the spatter of the rain. An Elena who looked bewildered as she slowly raised her head and gazed around her, as if all the familiar things in the clearing were unfamiliar to her.Its an illusion. Either that or they gave her a few minutes to say good-bye. Bonnie unbroken telling herself that, but she couldnt make herself believe it.Bonnie? said a voice uncertainly. A voice that wasnt like wind chimes at all. The voice of a frightened puppyish girl.Bonnies knees gave out. A wild feeling was growing wrong her. She tried to push it away, not daring to even examine it yet. She just watched Elena.Elena touched the grass in front of her. Hesitantly at first, then more and more firmly, quicker and quicker. She picked up a leaf in fingers that seemed clumsy, put it d confess, patted the ground. Snatched it up again. She grabbed a self-coloured handful of wet leaves, held them to her, smelled them. She looked up at Bonnie, the leaves scattering away.For a moment, they just knelt and stared at each other from the distance of a few feet. Then, tremulously, Bonnie stretched out her hand. She couldnt breathe. The feeling was growing and growing.Elenas hand came up in turn. Reached toward Bonnies. Their fingers touched.Real fingers. In the real world. Where they both were.Bonnie gave a kind of scream and threw herself on Elena.In a minute she was patting her everywhere in a frenzy, with wild, disbelieving delight. And Elena was solid. She was wet from the rain and she was shivering and Bonnies hands didnt go through her. Bits of damp leaf and crumbs of stain were clinging to Elenas hair.Elena gasped stern, I can touch you Im here She grabbed the leaves again. I can touch the groundI can see you touching it They might have kept this up indefinitely, but Meredith interrupted. She was standing a few steps away, sodding(a), her dark eyes enormous, her face white. She made a choking sound.Meredith Elena turned to her and held out handfuls of leaves . She undecided her arms.Meredith, who had been able to cope when Elenas body was found in the river, when Elena had appeared at her window as a vampire, when Elena had materialized in the clearing like an angel, just stood on that point, shaking. She looked closely to faint.Meredith, shes solid You can touch her See? Bonnie pummeled Elena again joyfully.Meredith didnt move. She whispered, Its impossible-Its true See? Its true Bonnie was getting hysterical. She knew she was, and she didnt care. If anyone had a right to get hysterical, it was her. Its true, its true, she caroled. Meredith, come see.Meredith, who had been staring at Elena all this while, made another choked sound. Then, with one motion, she flung herself down on Elena. She touched her, found that her hand met the resistance of flesh. She looked into Elenas face. And then she burst into ungovernable tears.She cried and cried, her head on Elenas naked shoulder.Bonnie gleefully patted both of them.Dont you think shed better put something on? said a voice, and Bonnie looked up to see Caroline taking off her dress. Caroline did it rather calmly, standing in her beige polyester slip afterward as if she did this sort of thing all the time. No imagination, Bonnie thought again, but without malice. Clearly there were times when no imagination was an advantage.Meredith and Bonnie pulled the dress over Elenas head. She looked small inside it, wet and in some manner unnatural, as if she wasnt used to clothing anymore. But it was some protection from the elements, anyway.Then Elena whispered, Stefan.She turned. He was standing there, with Damon and Matt, a minuscule apart from the girls. He was just ceremonial occasion her. As if not only his breath, but his life was held, waiting.Elena got up and took a tottery step to him, and then another and another. Slim and newly fragile inside her borrowed dress, she wavered as she moved toward him. Like the little mermaid learning how to use her legs, Bonnie t hought.He let her get almost all the way there, just staring, originally he stumbled toward her. They ended in a rush and then fell to the ground together, arms locked around each other, each holding on as tightly as possible. Neither of them said a word.Bonnie watched unabashedly, feeling some of the heady joy spill over into tears. Her throat ached, but these were gratifying tears, not the salt tears of pain, and she was still smiling. She was filthy, she was soaking wet, she had never been so happy in her life. She felt as if she wanted to dance and sing and do all sorts of crazy things.Some time later Elena looked up from Stefan to all of them, her face almost as bright as when shed floated in the clearing like an angel. Shining like starlight. No one will ever call her Ice Princess again, Bonnie thought.My friends, Elena said. It was all she said, but it was enough, that and the queer little sob she gave as she held out a hand to them. They were around her in a second, swarmi ng her, all trying to embrace at once. Even Caroline.Elena, Caroline said, Im sorryIts all forget now, Elena said, and hugged her as freely as anyone else. Then she grasped a sturdy brown hand and held it briefly to her cheek. Matt, she said, and he smiled at her, blue eyes swimming. But not with misery at seeing her in Stefans arms, Bonnie thought. Just now Matts face expressed only happiness.A shadow fell over the little group, coming between them and the moonlight. Elena looked up, and held out her hand again.Damon, she said.The clear light and shining love in her face was irresistible. Or it should have been irresistible, Bonnie thought. But Damon stepped frontward unsmiling, his black eyes as bottomless and unfathomable as ever. None of the starlight that shone from Elena was reflected backbone from them.Stefan looked up at him fearlessly, as hed looked into the painful brilliance of Elenas golden brightness. Then, never looking away, he held out his hand as well.Damon stood gazing down at them, the two open, fearless faces, the mute offer of their hands. The offer of connection, warmth, humanity. Nothing showed in his own face, and he was utterly motionless himself.Come on, Damon, Matt said softly. Bonnie looked at him quickly, and saw that the blue eyes were intent now as they looked at the shadowed hunters face.Damon spoke without moving. Im not like you.Youre not as different from us as you want to think, Matt said. Look, he added, an odd note of take exception in his voice, I know you killed Mr. Tanner in self-defense, because you told me. And I know you didnt come here to Fells Church because Bonnies spell dragged you here, because I sorted the hair and I didnt make any mistakes. Youre more like us than you admit, Damon. The only thing I dont know is why you didnt go into Vickies house to help her.Memory sweep over Bonnie. Herself standing outside Vickies house, Damon standing beside her. Stefans voice Vickie, invite me in. But no one had invit ed Damon.But how did Klaus get in, then-? she began, following her own thoughts.That was Tylers job, Im sure, Damon said tersely. What Tyler did for Klaus in return for learning how to reclaim his heritage. And he must have invited Klaus in before we ever started guarding the house-probably before Stefan and I came to Fells Church. Klaus was well prepared. That night he was in the house and the girl was dead before I knew what was happening.Why didnt you call for Stefan? Matt said. There was no accusation in his voice. It was a simple question.Because there was nothing he could have done I knew what you were dealing with as soon as I saw it. An Old One. Stefan would only have gotten himself killed- and the girl was past caring, anyway.Bonnie heard the thread of coldness in his voice, and when Damon turned back to Stefan and Elena, his face had hardened. It was as if some decision had been made.You see, Im not like you, he said.It doesnt matter. Stefan had still not withdrawn his han d. Neither had Elena.And sometimes the good guys do win, Matt said quietly, encouragingly.Damon- Bonnie began. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he turned toward her. She was thinking about that moment when they had been kneeling over Stefan and he had looked so young. When they had been just Damon and Bonnie at the edge of the world.She thought, for just one instant, that she saw stars in those black eyes. And she could ace in him something-some ferment of feelings like longing and confusion and fear and anger all mixed. But then it was all smoothed over again and his shields were back up and Bonnies psychic senses told her nothing. And those black eyes were simply opaque.He turned back to the couple on the ground. Then he removed his peak and stepped skunk Elena. He draped it over her shoulders without touching her.Its a cold night, he said. His eyes held Stefans a moment as he settled the black jacket around her.And then he turned to walk into the darkness between the oak trees. In an instant Bonnie heard the rush of wings.Stefan and Elena wordlessly joined hands again, and Elenas golden head dropped to Stefans shoulder. Over her hair Stefans green eyes were turned toward the patch of night where his brother had disappeared.You wanted us all back together again Bonnie shouted at Caroline, and pulled the scandalized girl into the dance. Meredith, her dignity forgotten, joined them too.And for a long time in the clearing there was only rejoicing.June 21, 730 a.m.The Summer SolsticeDear Diary,Oh, its all too much to explain and you wouldnt believe it anyway. Im going to bed.Bonnie