"Did you and Caroline…?" Elena asks awkwardly.
"Do it? Yup." Damon says, playing with the 'P', clearly beyond amused with the situation.
Stefan licks his lips nervously and looks away.
He didn't think it through yet. He'd just turned it back on few hours ago, and he was already on a mission.
He continues with the plan and completely ignores his brother.
... ...
She walks into her new apartment. That one that she rented last night, not that she paid anything, anyway.
She walks to the table and puts her keys down. She takes a moment before she turns around and throws a knife into his direction.
He holds it without much effort. His face painted with that smirk that he isn't used to.
"Ouch." He says.
"What are you doing here?" she says as she wanders around him.
"No one told me that our game was over." He says, "Or do you really think that they would take me down that easy?" He asks, raising his eyebrows.
She narrows her eyes at him, "You're still him?" she asks.
He tries not to think about it right now, how she says 'him' as if they're completely different people.
"You mean the so hot slash dashing slash ripper slash me? Totally." He says as he takes a step closer.
And damn the fact that his legs are close to shaking and he can't move any closer to her, so he settles for two steps only.
But being around her was hard, it's like he's in front of her but not her. She has the same face, same hair, same eyes, but she's not her.
But she is her, she is all of the memories that he had.
She's his sober sponsor, and the one who made him turn it off.
She's girl who kissed him on the porch, and the girl who stabbed him in the back.
She's all of them. And even more.
She looks him up down, and he tries not to swallow right now. He tries to keep that cold look rather than smiling at her and softening his face.
He tries.
And when she smirks at him and takes a step closer and says, "Well that's so bad for him." He feels like someone set him free.
... ...
It's now when he realizes how stupid he is, thinking that he can fool her so easily.
Perhaps it would've been easy to be cold and conceal his feelings if her chain wasn't resting on his shoulder. If her arms weren't hugging his waist, making his stomach turning upside down with her touch.
He looks back at her as he pours them some shots.
His smile is so close to fall before he fixes it quickly.
His mind is racing. He's trying to remember the plan, to remember that this isn't her, it might be the same body but not the same person.
He tries to fight that feeling that pushes him to just kiss her, to enjoy it, because he wants nothing more than to hold her in his arms and play with her hair slowly, to kiss her over and over again.
He doesn't know how did it happen, that he no longer can stay away for the girl who once before was just a friend.
He finally shuts them all down, ignores all the voices in his head and focus. He has to wait till she's back and then he would enjoy everything with her.
He turns around to face her, and they're so close.
He thinks about how her cheeks would've blushed right now, how she would take a step back and look away.
"To us." She says as she lifts her shot and gulps it down quickly.
He does the same, as the word 'us' echoes in his head. Funny, because what she means with it, is completely different from how it sounds in his mind.
... ...
"So if your mother isn't enough to bring him back, then how will they ever take you down?" she asks while smirking.
"What does it matter? As long as it just us, without that broody head." He says, smirking. Thou his lips hurt him; he kind of misses his frown and broody eyebrows.
"True, we should probably stop talking about him; he was never more than a disappointment anyway." She says in a deep voice as she walks towards him, with the same smirk.
He clinches his jaw and swallows hard.
It's true that in his mind they were completely different people, but after all, this was still Caroline. And whatever she says right now, it is what she had been holding inside her mind for a long time.
"You on the other hand," she says in a lower voice as she stands in front of him, her arms resting on his shoulder, "are anything but disappointment."
She bites her lower lip, her hand going up and down over his chest and shoulder, sending electricity through his veins.
He manages to keep the cold smirk as he stands still with his hands on his hips. But his mind? Oh his mind isn't here anymore. The longer she plays with her fingers on his chest, the more he hates himself, as the guilt eat him more and more.
He has reached a point where he would take off his daylight ring and burn in the sun, her touch makes him go back to that vending machine, where he hit her hard against it and buried his fingers in her hair.
It was all him, he knows. Because the need to play with her hair was always him. The need to kiss her was him. The need to make her understand those feelings inside of him which he couldn't describe in words so he put it into kisses was him. He knows how much he enjoyed it, he also knows that right now he wants to give in and taste her once more.
But he can't.
He owes it to her, to them.
But yet, he doesn't know what to do when she get on her tiptoes to reach him, when her lips are only inches away from his and clearly has no intention to back away.
She's so slow, taking a long while looking into his eyes; it felt as if her eyes burned his own. But she does it anyway; she closes the gap between them and kisses him. It's not hard or forced as those they had when he was off.
It's slow, gentle and tender. Her hands come up to his cheek and rest right there.
He tries to react, to response. He knows that the ripper would've done lots of things by now.
But he can't even breathe normal; his mind is frozen in its place.
But he finally reacts, and it's nothing that the ripper would've done, it's slow and passionate. It feels like melting.
She pulls back and rests her forehead against his.
He doesn't open his eyes; he just needs a moment to memorize this.
But time isn't really on his side.
He feels her sigh against him.
"I gotta say," She whispers, "I didn't know you were that weak, Stefan." She says.
He opens his eyes and he suddenly feels her hand in his stomach. He winces as she pulls her hand and throws him to the other side of the room.
He stands up quickly and looks at her.
"The fact that you came here to get some feelings into me, but you ended up giving in to me, letting the feelings take over you, is just pathetic" She says as she walks in front of him.
"That's the thing about feelings; they make you weak and fragile." She shakes her head at him, "And that's why I won't turn it back on ever." She says.
"But nice try." She says as she speeds to the door.
She opens it to find no one but those blue eyes with dark hair, holding a gun in his hands.
She feels the bullets in her stomach quickly, burning.
She falls to the ground, and her sight gets blur.
She doesn't faint before she sees his face, and thou it's upside down. She can see those broody eyebrows and that sad look on his face, always drowning in the guilt.
... ...
"We'll slumber." Elena said as she got into the house.
A littler laugh escaped through her tears.
"We haven't done it in ages." Bonnie said with a smile as she got in too.
"Alright." She said, laughing and crying at the same time.
The three of them got into a hug, and she cried while they held her closer.
Her eyelashes start to open slowly. Her head feels dizzy, and she can smell vervain.
It takes her a few seconds to open her eyes fully and sit down straight.
She's sitting on the couch, Stefan is in front of her while Damon is sitting on the other couch and Elena is behind him.
"What are you doing?" She asks. Her voice is tired and exhausted.
"Trying to get some emotions into you, blonde." Damon says.
She tries to untie her hands from the ropes, but it only burns her skin even more.
"Don't, they'll only hurt." Stefan says with furrowed eyebrows. She raises her eyebrows and smirks at him.
"So let me get this," She says, getting more comfortable, "You're trying to make me feel again, and the first thing you put into my head is Elena Gilbert and Bonnie? Seriously?" she asks in a mocking tone.
"Why don't you remind me of the times I was a three wheel as well?" she laughs, thou her voice is still hurt from vervain.
"I mean who came up with this? You, right?" she looks at Elena chuckling, while Elena just opens her mouth slightly and looks at Damon.
"I told ya brother, just get into the shooting scene." Damon says while Stefan just looks at his feet.
He walks to her and sits in front of her.
"Oh come on, Stefan. Just let me go and forget about it." She says.
"Can't do that, sorry." He says.
She furrows her eyebrows before he injects her with more vervain, then she falls asleep.
... ...
"Do you think he can make it?" Elena asks in a low voice as she sits on the chair.
He smiles while looking at the sky.
"He can do it, he just has to be strong to relive all those moments with her again."
... ...
Her laugh echoes in his head, her eyes tired but still cold, she shakes her head as she laughs at him.
"Is that all what you've got?" She asks, "You get into my head to make me see Tyler? Wow!" she says, making fun of his failure.
He's not really surprised that it didn't work. Perhaps he did it because he was afraid it would work. He knows what he has to do; he knows that all those memories of Elena, Tyler and Matt, even Bonnie, aren't enough to make her feel again.
"I don't get why you want me to feel again. Do I need to tell you that when my feelings are back, I'll break down? You'll be nothing but that guy who made me lose control and made me become this version of me." She says, "And who knows? Maybe I'll be disgusted to look at you, after I met the ripper." She teases
He sighs, tries not to think about her words, this isn't about him, this is about her, "Why don't we try something else? Like letting you choose the memory?" he says.
"What?" her eyebrows get furrowed, "I won't choose a memory for you to get into."
"Oh you won't." He says, clearly amused with his plan.
"You and I, will go into a trip into your mind." He says as he leans closer and holds her hand.
She looks at him, confused before he whispers, "Hold on."
And then he closes his eyes.
... ...
She opens her eyes and finds herself next to some tree, she can smell something burning. She knows this place.
"Hello?" She says as she walks out from the trees. She freezes in her place suddenly; her mouth opens slightly in shock.
She sees them standing in front of the fire as it eats the place.
She sees him smiling shyly at… her.
"How…?" she whispers to herself, only to be answered by him.
"You tell me." He says, "Why this memory, Caroline?" he asks as he turns to face her.
Her eyes still on the girl and the boy, standing in front of the fire.
"And maybe I didn't want you to know that I killed Enzo." He says.
"Why?" she asks.
"Because I know you, and I know you guys had that little weird chemistry." He says.
"You're delusional." She says and laughs.
He looks down at his feet and smiles shyly before he continues.
While the other Stefan is standing next to the other Caroline, he looks at the picture of him and frowns, he knows what's coming but he never thought about it.
"I didn't want you to think any less of me." He says with the same smile, and Stefan swallows hard.
While Caroline shakes her head as she watches them too.
Stefan leaves the blonde in front of the fire.
While they both are watching, they see how Caroline looks at him as he walks away, how she looks down at her feet.
Caroline swallows hard when she sees herself in that moment, while Stefan looks at her, searching for an explanation, for any sign of emotion.
She doesn't look at him, her face is stone.
But he feels that he's getting through.
The air around them is suddenly windy and full of dust. He stands still while she protects her face from the wind.
"What's happening?" she shouts through the noise.
Suddenly the wind calms down, everything is clear once more. But it's not the same place.
It takes her few seconds to recognize the street, the orange lights, the lamps in the street, that late hour, the silent, the way the breeze is playing with her hair, it should be a nice weather, but it makes her breath stop.
"No." She says through her teeth.
He stands behind her and his eyebrows furrow, he didn't think about that memory. He's surprised that her mind chose it, thou he shouldn't.
It's normal that such a memory would stick to her mind, you don't hold your friend's dead body every day, even in Mystic Falls.
She takes a step back, but he notices quickly. So he controls them to stand right in front of the car, where he watches his heart being ripped out of his heart.
She watches herself as she covers her mouth and as Tyler walks away.
They both freeze in their place, seeing his body falling on the ground made him feel weird, lost.
But not more than her.
She takes a step back while he takes a step closer, she looks at him confused.
He's no longer thinking about the plan, he can only think about Caroline holding his head on her lap and crying.
Everything seems to be silent, except her voice, echoing in the space. He kneels next to her, his eyes open wide in surprise. When he died he was pulled to Bonnie, and he didn't get to see what happened after that.
"No, no, no, no…" She says as she covers her forehead with her hands
His hands rest on her shoulders, nothing he controlled. She doesn't feel him of course but he just felt the need to touch her, as if he could take her pain away.
A tear falls down his cheek as he looks at her, and she sees him from where she stands, she sees how he looks at that broken version of her, she suddenly feels her eyes watering when she hears him whisper something that isn't for her, but for the girl crying next to him, "I miss you."
She takes a step back, and then she's running.
It doesn't take so long before everything around her changes again. Different street, different lights.
She stands at her place and looks around.
Then she hears a car stopping behind her, she looks around, and she sees her.
... ...
"You're not real, you can't be real." She says, looking away from her and shaking her head.
This seems as a maze that full of memories and people that she couldn't stand, a maze that would never end until she breaks.
"Caroline, look at me." She says, her voice gentle as always. Here hands rest on her back as she tries to make her look around.
"Sweetie, don't you miss your mum?" She asks.
"You're not real." She says again, more firmly.
"But I can be, if you keep me in your mind." She says, and her daughter shakes her head.
"Just because I died doesn't mean that I'm gone, Caroline. I'm always here, always with you."
She opens her eyes and shakes he head slower, giving up slowly, but surly.
"You know what my biggest fear was before I died? This. I was afraid that you'll lose yourself, because if there is anything that I didn't want for my daughter, is for her to become something she hates." She says slowly, her voice breaking through her heart, fixing all the broken pieces.
"You don't know how hard it is." She says, her voice low and tired.
"I know sweetie, but when was life ever easy on Caroline Forbes?" she asks with smile, still talking to her without seeing her face, "You forgot how strong you're Caroline, you forgot the terrible things that you've been through. I know that life seems unbearable sometimes, that you just… want to give up, break down and stop fighting."
"You get tired of pain, of losing people and watching them walk away, you're afraid of being alone, of being left behind, so you leave people behind, but either way, you'll end up alone."
She sighs heavily than starts to turn around, slowly, her eyes avoiding her as she looks at the ground.
"I can't fight anymore." She says as a tear falls down her cheek.
"I know, I know, but you have to, you have to keep fighting till your last breath." Liz says through tears, trying to be strong and still.
"You'll fight, not for anyone, but you." She says.
"That what my daughter would do."
She looks up at her and the tears fall freely from her eyes.
"I'm sorry." She says through her subs.
She pulls her daughter for a hug, she holds her so tight, and Caroline holds her tighter than anything in the world, she feels like if she leaves her she would lose her in any moment, and she didn't want that.
"It's okay, sweetie." She says through her tears too.
"I miss you so much." She says.
"I miss you too. Caroline, honey, I need you to remember who you're, I need to fight for the person that you became, never change, whatever happens, don't you ever change." She says, her lips pulling into a smile as she feels her daughter arms around her, "you stay you, and I'll always be with you." She says.
Her tears seem to never end, and yet she feels like some heavy stone was taken away from her chest.
... ...
Damon and Elena stand next to each other as they watch Stefan holding Caroline's hand, both of them with closed eyes.
Elena gasps as she notices some tear falling on Caroline's cheek.
"Damon." She says, covering her mouth as she smiles in surprise.
Damon notices Stefan's fingers moving back and forth on her hand, he lets out a breath that he didn't know he was holding.
They both open their eyes together, slowly. His eyes find her as soon as he opens them. She takes a second looking around, gasping for air as if she was drowning.
He holds her hand tighter.
"Caroline." Elena exclaims happily.
The blond laughs shortly through her tears, at first she's just laughing, and then she's crying so hard, her face screams with horror as she remembers everything.
She says many words that fail to make a sentence, and then he can no longer fight the need to hug her, he takes away the ropes from her hands, and he doesn't even care about his skin burning as he just pulls her into his arms.
Damon and Elena feel that they're interrupting something, so they leave quietly.
They say nothing, they just cry and cry till there's no more tears to shed. He remains silent as he listens to her sobs while he allows the tears to fall.
Now he can have a night, a night to blame himself, a night which he also shares with her.
Because she's her again, she is the girl that he missed so much, his sober sponsor, his best friend.
The girl that got under his skin, without even realizing it.