Vivianna was as red as a tomato.

"Damn," said Damon as he came over with the stack of pancakes. "You're telling me a fucking Traveler figured that out and neither of you could?" He used the spatula to point between Bonnie and Kai.

"I only just learned that Kai didn't know the spell," said Bonnie indignantly. "Don't rope me into this."

"Oh, I'm roping you into it," said Damon, making a face as Kai pulled some of the pancakes off the stack and started biting into them without bothering to get a plate.

"It's settled, then," said Vivianna more firmly, fanning her face a bit. Everyone was still looking at her. Especially Kai, who was eating the pancakes maddeningly slow. "We're getting out tomorrow. We have everything we need other than the location. As soon as we get to it, we're getting out."

Bonnie didn't look too chuffed about this, but it was three against one. She gave a gruff sigh before grabbing a pancake and leaving.

"She doesn't like me very much," said Kai as if this was news to him.

"I had no idea," said Vivianna sarcastically. "I'm going to sleep."

To no one's surprise, Kai followed her.

"Damon said the showers are really awesome here," said Kai, trotting behind her. "Maybe you wanna do a test run together?"

Vivianna started walking faster. "How many times do I have to say 'no, not interested' before it gets through your thick skull?"

"Well, to be fair, you've never said those exact words."

"I'm saying them now. Let me test my shower in peace."

"I wanna see it. The shower. To know if it's better than the one in my room."

"They're the same!"

"No they're not, I looked in other rooms and they're different."

"It doesn't matter, Kai, we're only gonna be here for one more night. The showers the modern day Salvatore House has must be way better. Maybe Damon will feel pity for you and let you live there."

"I did want to ask you about that," said Kai, putting his arm through the doorway when she tried to slam it shut in his face. "Where are you gonna go after this?"

"I don't know," she said. "There aren't any more Travelers so I don't have to worry about mass gatherings, but... I also don't know if I can stay in any one place for too long."

"How do you know when it's time to move?"

"You start feeling this... itch. This paranoia and the sensation of throwing up. Starts a few days before you really have to get out of there, 'cause otherwise, you practically become a beacon calling the witches forth. My family always moved before that got too intense. I might have to passenger myself into someone again. Or maybe it'll all be fine. I don't know. I'll find out four months from now. If, when in my real body, I have no issues after that, I'll know the curse is partially broken just from the mass deaths."

"You don't know much about Spirit and Traditional Magic. Just what you've managed to hear in the past. How did you figure out the spell?"

She sighed in exasperation. "I used the damn dictionary and the spell-reversal process that was taught to me, I thought I made that clear already. I don't need to be well-versed in Spirit Magic to do that once I have a main spell to work off of. I didn't even know if it would work, but it did. So can we just drop it?"

"You think things in a good way."

She blinked. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

He looked almost flustered. "Just... good thinking."

A playful smirk rose onto her face. "You can say I'm smart, you know. I'm glad you're finally accepting that I'm better than you, Malachai."

"You're not smart," he scoffed, turning away and looking down the hallway. "That's a compliment."

"And 'good thinking' isn't?"

"Shut up, Vivi. I'm smarter than you."

"Maybe when it comes to physics and math and planning routes. But you couldn't figure this out. I could."

"Whatever," he said, shrugging.

It shouldn't have been so hard to tell her that she'd done something right, and he was impressed. But he felt like it went against his very nature to say a single nice thing about her. To acknowledge that in some aspects, she was better than him. His whole life he'd been made to feel weak. He just had to prove everyone otherwise. And how could he do that when he'd just been defeated?

Still, he wanted to make her feel something more positive. He imagined he would have liked a compliment if he'd been the one to figure it out. She was, after all, the reason they were going to be free. Gratitude was difficult, but he could fake it. Fake it over and over again until maybe it started to feel real.

He wished it could be real. He'd hardly cared to have emotions in the past. It was pleasant, lacking the significant burdens that regular people had on a day-to-day basis. Kai could focus on himself without feeling like he had to be a good samaritan.

But he'd seen Vivianna's kindness to him before. She could be ruthless if she wanted to be, and the girl's temper never fully died down, but there seemed to be a switch she could flip. A more gentle tone would emerge, and suddenly, she could make others feel better. It didn't quite make her lose the parts of herself that were more fierce.

He wanted that. But to have that, he needed even some slight empathy. That was virtually impossible. He couldn't manage that, not in a sociopathic mind. He would simply have to keep pretending.

"So," he said, seeing Vivianna was now getting her clothes ready to shower. "Since I'm implying that you have nice brains and whatnot... what do you say you let me fuck them out of you?"

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Let me fuck your brains out."

She looked mildly confused despite also being flustered, and he continued, "If you don't know what that means, it basically entails me giving you the fucking time of your life over and over again until you can't walk or talk or anything. You'd literally be snoozing right afterward to replenish."

"Can you just wait til tomorrow?" she said, shaking her head, trying to feign a lack of curiosity in the matter. "You'll be in the real world, you can do whatever the fuck you want. I'm sure someone will be desperate enough to sleep with you."

"Wow, you want me to fuck someone else? What happened to jealous Vivi who didn't want me thinking about Bonnie that way?"

She grumbled. "I don't care who you think about in that way, it doesn't fucking matter. Just— stop it. Stop bothering me."

"I'd rather fuck you than anyone out there."

"Too bad." She grabbed onto her necklace and swept up her hand, slamming the door shut.

"Vivi don't be like that," said Kai, patting the door. "Come on."

He heard the shower running, and knew she wasn't going to hear him anymore.

They had a pancake breakfast the next morning, where Kai was once again eating and staring at Vivianna to see how she'd react. She managed to ignore him.

At eleven-fifty, they went out into the woods, with Kai walking ahead and looking through the Ascendant.

"You're in a good mood for the first time this decade," said Bonnie when she saw how chipper Damon looked. He poked her with a stick, and she frowned. "Stop that."

"Because I have a hot date with my girl tonight," he said. "Thanks to Miss Traveler here, we're gonna go home."

"Assuming the spell works," said Bonnie.

"It will work," said Vivianna. "Kai already proved it. There can only be one spell to open the Ascendant and that was it. The only thanks I need is returning and hopefully finding your pals waiting for me with a huge jar of Traveler ashes."

"I'm thinking dinner and a movie," said Damon, ignoring everything she just said. "You know what? Screw the dinner and a movie. Skip straight to the good part."

"You're gross," said Vivianna, rolling her eyes.

"You're just inexperienced. Trust me. The chemistry between me and my girl... phew. It's like fireworks when it finally happens. You two need to lighten up."

"Look," said the Bennett witch, "I want to go home more than anything but Kai's a sociopath, who's to say he won't screw us over?"

Vivianna sighed. "We already have everything we need. Kai doesn't have room to screw us over anymore. I know it. I don't fully trust the guy, but he wants to get out of here. He's wanted to get out of here for eighteen years. He wouldn't screw up his one chance at freedom."

"I'll kill Kai and anyone who comes in the way of me going home," said Damon. "You can count on that."

"I heard my name," said Kai, suddenly appearing from behind a tree. "All good I hope." He held up the Ascendant. "The eclipse will happen directly overhead. In perfect alignment with the Gemini constellation." He handed a pickaxe to Damon. "You need to dig into the tunnels below us. Vivi was right about us needing a circle of light. Start digging."

"And then what?" demanded Bonnie.

Kai gasped playfully. "Have you never portal-jumped through an eclipse before?" Noticing their lack of amusement, he said, "Okay look, the light of the eclipse will shine down and activate the Ascendant, you spout a little witchy woo and then poof! Anyone standing in the circle of light holding the Ascendant goes home."

"So we're gonna need to be all holding onto each other," said Vivianna.

"Correct," said Kai. "I think it should go this way. Bonnie with the Ascendant on her hand, then me with my hand under hers, then Vivi's hand under mine, then Damon's under Vivi. That way, my hand is sandwiched between the hold of the two women who refuse to admit they wanna have sex with me—"

"You can't assume everyone wants to have sex with you, holy fuck," said Vivianna. "You're sounding way too arrogant."

Kai just smirked, and started to walk away. "Where are you going?" demanded Damon.

"Into town," said the siphoner. "I need to... gather some important supplies. Vivi, come with."

"Go with him," suggested Damon. "I have to dig and you need to make sure he doesn't stab us in the back."

Vivianna sighed, and started to follow after Kai. "What's so important, huh?" she asked. "What do you really need?"

"I realized I want some more stuff to take with me." He held up his backpack. "There are just some important items I really gotta have in the real world. More Zima, for one. You mentioned they don't make those as often."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, of course, the most essential item you could possibly bring."

"Do you think I should take some 1994 condoms too or will the ones in the real world be better?"

"Are you stupid? Of course the ones in the real world will be better, it's 2012 out there. Eighteen years worth of development. You feel the need to turn everything sexual, and it's annoying."

"I don't know, Vivi, maybe it's because it clearly affects you. I like bothering you."

"Feel free to bother literally anyone else once we're out of here. I'll be glad if I never see you again."

"That's the thing though, isn't it?" he said. "We still don't know how this connection we have is going to work in the real world. Maybe we won't be able to stay away from each other."

"I know how the connection works. We can be away from each other and still augment the other's power."

"How do you break the connection?"

"One of us has to die."

"Does the other absorb the power?"

"No, this isn't like the fucking Merge. It's the end of the line. The power drops immediately. Any augmentation can only last as long as the connection. So if you were to die, I'd be reduced to the weak magical signature I had when I first arrived here. And if I die... well, I don't know how much it'll affect you, but you won't have a constant source to siphon anymore."

Kai just pursed his lips. "So if I get drunk, do you get drunk?"

"I don't think it works that way."

"How does Connective Magic transfer over when having—"

"Oh my god, shut up!" she said, covering her ears. "I don't know how it works and I don't want to know how it works— ew!"

"What?" he said innocently. "I just want to know if it means that we climax at the same time."

"Shut up," she repeated with a grunt.

Kai was incredibly amused as he moved around different stores around the main park of Mystic Falls. Vivianna looked like she hated being there with him, and he found that quite fun. Though, he was disappointed that his advances yielded nothing. He was so certain she liked him, at least a little bit.

"Looks like we got back just in time," said Kai when they found Damon had managed to break open a hole into the cavern below. He set down the backpack of supplies, and Damon sped forward, snatching the pack and tearing it open to check its contents.

"Zima, grunge, every Alex Rodriguez rookie card known to man, and a pager?" asked Damon in disbelief.

Kai beamed. "555-Hiya-Kai, no way I'm giving those digits up."

"Pagers aren't even a thing anymore," said Bonnie under her breath.

"These are the important supplies you needed to get?" asked Damon loudly. He looked up at the sky, where the eclipse would be happening soon. "You left me digging here for twenty-five minutes just so you could get this crap?"

"Look," said Kai calmly, "the future sounds great, all right? I'm super excited about the Internet, but 1994 has been my home for most of my life. I'd hate to get homesick. So why don't you finish making this a perfect circle so we can get down there?"

Damon growled. "You didn't dig at all, don't tell me how perfect it needs to be."

"It has to be a circle," said Vivianna awkwardly. "Not entirely perfect but as good as you can get it."

Suddenly, Bonnie cried out, "Motus!"

The pickaxe flew through the air, lodging itself in Kai's chest. "NO!" yelled Damon. "No— Bonnie!"

"We don't need him," said Bonnie as Kai fell, dead.

"I have some bad news for you," said Vivianna, pursing her lips. "He can't die."

"What?" shrieked Bonnie.

"You didn't think to mention that earlier?" demanded Damon.

"I didn't think I had to!" she said. "I didn't think you'd try to murder him!"

"Well, how long does it take him to come back?"

"Around fifteen minutes! He comes back faster and faster each time!"

"Oh, shit," said Bonnie, checking the time and seeing it was 12:16 already. "There's only twelve minutes until the eclipse."

Damon started to dig more frantically, as if that would change anything. He managed to make a more perfect circle before jumping down into the cavern. "There should be an entrance if you guys walk further into the forest," he said.

Bonnie seemed to know where it was, and she started to lead the way. Vivianna was tempted to pick Kai up and bring her with them.

But she had a feeling he'd be waking up before the eclipse could happen.

Was it bad that she hoped he would?

"It's almost time," said Bonnie when her watch marked 12:26. "Come on..." she used the Ascendant to slice into her wrist, then dripped the blood onto it.

"Alright," said Damon as Bonnie held the Ascendant up. "Let's get awkward."

He put his hand under Bonnie's, and Vivi hesitantly placed hers beneath Damon's. "I won't be able to chant the spell," she said. "But this connection should be enough for you to channel me." She pursed her lips. "Are you sure we can't... just have Kai tag along?"

"Oh, yes, brilliant idea," said Damon. "Let's bring a dead body with us to the real world. He'll probably stay dead."

Suddenly, an arrow whizzed out, and the three leapt apart as Bonnie was thrown back, and arrow lodged in her side. The Ascendant had slipped out of her hands, just short of her reach.

"Forgetting someone?" said Kai from the entrance to the tunnels, holding a crossbow. "Did you really think I hadn't tried to kill myself before? Because I had. Lots of times, lots of ways." He noticed Damon eyeing the Ascendant as he reloaded his crossbow. "Grab that, and the next arrow goes in her heart. Your choice."

Instead, Damon sped to Bonnie, ripping out the arrow. He was just about to feed her his blood when—

"DAMON, NO!" yelled Bonnie, seeing Kai making a beeline to the Ascendant.

Damon sped to Kai, slamming him into the nearest wall. This time, it was Vivianna that tried to grab the Ascendant, but Bonnie held up her hand.

"We're not taking him with us!" said Bonnie, causing Vivianna to fall into the circle of light. "Motus!"

Damon suddenly flew into the circle, and seconds later, the Ascendant zoomed into his hand.

"NO!" he yelled, realizing what she'd done.

Vivianna shielded her eyes immediately as a flash of light burst throughout the whole room. Suddenly Damon was gone, and the Ascendant fell to the ground, shattering upon impact.

Kai let out a furious yell as Vivianna scrambled forward, starting to gather all the pieces of the Ascendant. Off to the side, Bonnie was now unconscious.

"I'm gonna fucking kill her," said Kai venomously as he stormed over, grabbing some pieces himself.

"Talking like that is exactly why she's adamant about leaving you in here!" said Vivianna irritably. "I'm not happy about this either. You shot her with a damn arrow, how was she supposed to feel?" She grabbed at his collar when he started to spout out curses. "Hey! Listen to me! You're gonna go and pick her up, and you're gonna carry her back to the house. I'm gonna get the pieces of the Ascendant and meet you there. I'll heal her, and when she wakes up, you're gonna apologize for shooting her— I don't care if you don't mean it. You're not gonna hurt her again, do you understand me?"

He swiped his hand out, wrapping it around her throat and pushing her to the ground, so that he was hovering on top of her.

"Don't boss me around, Vivi," he said lowly. "No one gets to tell me what to do."

"Clearly someone should," she said, struggling to breathe. "You... don't think..."

He started to press more on the sides of her neck instead of slamming his hand over her trachea. Her gasps changed to groans of mild discomfort, which he took a different way.

"As nice as it is," he whispered, "to see you being choked under me... I don't want you giving me orders, got it? You're not the one in charge here. I am."

She patted his arm weakly, trying to get him to stop. He squeezed a bit harder, and she whimpered, not sure why this wasn't bringing her pain. As lightheaded as she was, it wasn't the kind that made her want to throw up. She felt like she was floating. Clearly, whatever face she was making was pleasing to him, because he smirked suddenly, and let go.

"You took that like a champ," he said, his face still inches away from her. "And you enjoyed it."

"Not when you were crushing my windpipe," she said, massaging her neck as she shoved him back. "Fucking weirdo."

"Am I the weirdo? You're the one who just learned you like being choked."

"I don't like being choked."

"You sure do. Maybe you like having your hair pulled, too."

"No I—"

She'd turned around to bring herself up to her feet, and he'd seized her hair, burying his fingers up against her scalp before pulling her toward him, so that her back was against his chest, and his mouth beside her ear. She'd let out a slight yelp of surprise, which Kai obviously liked.

"Tell me the truth now, Vivi," he purred, "don't be a little liar. Do you like it?"

He tugged at her hair, and she expected it to hurt, but all she could really think about was the way his hips were pressed into hers. It felt forbidden. And yet, she was enjoying it. Being this close to him. She pushed her hips back, causing him to seize her waist with his other hand, squeezing it lightly.

"We're clearly going to spend one more night in here," he said in her ear. "Why don't we make the most of it?"

"I don't want to regret it," she said quietly. "I can't handle that, Malachai."

"Why would you regret it?"

"Be honest. Is this going to become anything more or are you just gonna fuck me and leave?"

He didn't answer, and she tore away from him.

"Then it doesn't really matter what I want, does it?" she said, looking hurt. "Because you're gonna do it your way anyway. This whole time, you've wanted things done your way. I tried to make things better for you, and you just couldn't help but open your mouth and make them think horrible things about you. Bonnie's never gonna let us out of here, Kai. Because you're making her see all the bad parts of you. And that girl— she's made every effort to be a good person. So if you don't show her any good that she can relate to, she's never gonna think that you're worthy of freedom."