Liaison [Sequel to Captured Hearts]

I

     The breeze felt cold, despite the hot evening weather. The roads were damp and smelt of wet tar, and the city of New Orleans was bursting with life and lights. Candle wax had formed in a large cluster on the grass, and the old brick floor looked decayed and rotten in the night. The old light post flickered, and eventually spluttered off, and left the courtyard to be engrossed in darkness.
  Bonnie Bennett's dark hair blew into her heart shaped face, and her eerie little smile never left her too-pale lips. She looked down at her bloodstained clothes, and for a moment, her hazel eyes went wide with shock. Her hands trembled as she pressed them to her shirt, and then her arms dropped down to her side, and she looked up; face straight as if nothing had happened. 
  "Hi, Kol." 
  The youngest original turned around, and Bonnie watched with slight glee as his shoulders went stiff. His eyes widened, and his mouth parted, and she couldn't help but feel a sense of pleasure of getting Kol to the point where he was speechless. 
  "Bonnie?" his voice trailed off. 
  She gave him a smile in return, and this time it was sweet, and genuine. It was the Bonnie Bennett that Kol had grown to love. 
  "How are you here?" 
  "Because of you, Kol," Bonnie said. She started walking towards him, taking small and delicate steps at a time as if the world would shift beneath her and she would fall into a dark pit for eternity. "You brought me back."
  "The witches -"
  She put a finger to his soft lips, and he tried to force back a shiver. Her slim and long fingers were almost the same temperature as ice, but ever so slowly, they started to warm back to the heat that they were supposed to be at. 
  "I hated it on the other side," she told him quietly. "It was lonely, Kol. I tried to talk to you. I tried to talk to Elena, Matt, and Caroline."
  "The hunter boy is a medium." 
  "If Jeremy so much as brushed against my shoulder, he wouldn't be able to feel my body. It would have gone downhill from that point on." 
  Kol narrowed his eyes at her, and he took a small step towards her. He reached out, and he took a firm grasp around Bonnie's slender wrist. 
  "I would have been able to tell if you were there," he told her. He couldn't hide the sorrow in his voice. Kol should have been happy; he got what he wanted after all. 
  "You didn't," she said drly, and Bonnie was gone. She was replaced with someone else in a matter of a few seconds, and she pulled her hand out of Kol's firm hold. "I didn't want to see Jeremy, or Caroline, Elena and Matt. I followed you the whole time, and you never knew that I was there."
  Bonnie didn't know how he would respond to that. Maybe she was expecting him to swoop her into his big, strong arms and carry her off into the bright night. He didn't though, because that wasn't something Kol would do. 
  He stared at her, with bead-like eyes and didn't blink once. It was like he had turned to stone, and she felt anxiety prickling inside her chest. Did he not want her anymore? Bonnie swallowed back a heavy lump in her throat, and her mouth felt as dry as cotton. 
  She felt her emotions slam into her mind all at once, and she had to resist the urge to double over from the sudden impact of it all. It hurt. Bonnie was sure that he wasn't going to answer her. Why would he? He was Kol. She couldn't believe that she had convinced herself that he actually cared about her. 
  And then a scream bubbled in her throat, and she could feel the blood from her shirt sticking to her stomach, but despite the stickiness, it was nice and warm. Kol's arms went around her, and he clung on to her like she was the only thing keeping him bound to the Earth. Her own arms were stuck in front of her chest, and even when she tried to push them out, she couldn't. Kol's warm breath blew against her neck, and she almost purred at the feeling of his hands brushing through her hair. 
  This is what Bonnie wanted; this is what she would always want.
  "I thought I had lost you," Kol murmured into her neck, and Bonnie let out a shiver of delight. 
  "I'm here now," Bonnie rubbed his back softly, and she swore that she felt his shoulders shake. But when she pulled away, Kol's eyes were dry.
 He hadn't been crying, after all.