Stefan's been gone almost a year now.
Ten months, nineteen days, twelve hours.
Life goes on for all of them, except maybe Caroline. Tyler leaves again after a fight between them (he says she's changed and she doesn't disagree) and she cries, a lot, but doesn't tell anybody but her mother. She figures Elena has too much on her plate and Bonnie was too happy to disrupt and for god's sake why would she ever, ever tell Damon?
Elena used to come over every day, telling her how she was sick of being strong and complaining about how everybody looked at her with pity, and if Stefan hadn't said those things to her, she'd still be looking for him, but he did and now she didn't know what to do.
Caroline didn't know what to do either, because the one person she'd ask is gone and apparently never coming back and she doesn't want to hassle Elena by telling her that maybe Stefan did those things to protect her like he always did.
Didn't bother asking why it was so easy for her friend to abandon her boyfriend.
Damon was his usual self, and even though Caroline hated it- as always because that would never change- she simply couldn't begrudge him his semblance of normalcy, because she could see when he acted like that it was almost like he thought Stefan was there with him.
(She kind of expected him to walk through the door any second too).
Then Elena stops coming over, starts laughing again, starts laughing with Damon and Caroline knows she couldn't begrudge either of them this, even though she really, really wants too.
She wants to scream at them, ask if they even remembered him, because she does, every single day, remembers the man who protected her from everybody, even people she didn't realise she needed protecting from.
She wants to ask why she couldn't seem to move on like they could, wants to ask why everything is suddenly wrong now Stefan is gone, but doesn't want to be like Elena, when Elena can't be like Caroline and comfort her.
But when she's tortured again, this time by some guy who calls himself a hunter, who says he's one of her dads friends (and she figures he's most likely doing all of this on his orders, but doesn't like to dwell on those thoughts because it's hard enough dealing with everything else, she doesn't really want to add 'My dad wants me dead' to the list) and she manages to escape on her own, no Tyler, no Sheriff mother, no Stefan, she kind of knows it's time for her to leave.
She leaves in the middle of the night without a note but with all of Elena and Damon's old detective work and she knows they'll figure out where she went if they looked hard enough.
But it's all too old, too dry, none of the leads are even slightly warm anymore, but Stefan was her best friend, had been her best friend long before he left to protect her other best friend, had been her best friend long before she first tricked Katherine and he'd looked at her so proudly, he'd been her best friend since he helped her after her first kill; had wiped away a dead man's blood from her cheeks and helped her be herself again, and so Caroline was perfectly willing to travel around America for as long as it took to bring him home, kicking and screaming if she had to.
She had a feeling he would be kicking and screaming, had a very, very bad feeling, but what else was she going to do?
Really?
She meets one of them for the first time in Cave Springs, Arkansas and it's nothing special.
He's charming and he's smirking but she looks in his eyes and he looks so freaking haunted that she instantly thinks of Stefan.
He 'saves' her from a vampire and she plays damsel and it's all over very quickly, but now she knows to keep a look out for things other than Vampires and Werewolves.
She sees him again in New York and this time he's with another one of those things. She's gotten good at spotting them lately, even if she's not entirely sure what they are, and all she really knows about them is they really are everywhere.
They're all leather jackets and cigarettes and guns hiding in pockets than a normal person would probably miss, but there's something about them even a 'normal person' couldn't miss, and it makes her wonder what they are, who they are, but she has more important things on her mind so she pushes the curiosity away and focuses, because Stefan needs her, she's so sure of that fact she can taste it.
(She thinks she can, thinks that must be what she's tasting, because blood doesn't leave an aftertaste like this and food hasn't been as appealing since she started her new diet, and this feeling she has, it's so, so different from anything she's ever felt before).
She stays out of their way and they stay out of hers, and she's not sure if it's because they don't know about her or what, but she's not willing to find out.
She's got a handbag full of blood bags she's trying not to drink and she's sitting at the bar, occasionally reaching over to grab the alcohol behind the bar and poor in into her coke when the bartender wasn't looking, when she overhears it; "Ripper is at it again."
Her head snaps up and she stares straight at the duo for a full three seconds before her mind catches up with her body and she turns away, hunching over her drink and trying not to let them know she's listening to everything they're saying. They're talking so softly, and they probably think nobody can hear them, but they're speculating and it's interesting, some of the theories they come up with.
Unbelievable, but so, so interesting.
When they leave she follows even though she hasn't really got even a smidge of a plan.
All she knows is they have information on the man who taught her everything she knew and she needed it more than they did.
She's not the same shallow kiddie pool Caroline that the people of Mystic Falls would remember her being. In fact she finds it hard to believe sometimes that anyone back home would even remember her at all (Bonnie wouldn't, neither would Matt, and she thinks Tyler was totally right, she has changed).
She's almost unrecognisable now.
She's not the same naive baby-vamp that Damon would bite and fuck and mind-wipe like it was nothing, or the stupid Barbie blonde that Katherine would delight in pushing around and threatening.
She can take care of herself.
She's realised that since the last torture session (the last time somebody shot wooden bullets though her skull or injected vervain into her body or used sunlight on her), realised she would have to take care of herself, because there was nobody around anymore who would help her no questions asked. Not since Stefan left.
She left home almost a year ago
Nine months, twelve days, three hours.
Stefan's been gone over eighteen months now.
She wants to stop counting; wants to stop so, so badly, because sometimes it physically pains her thinking about it. But she counts every single day and because of her damn good recollection- thankyou Damon- she's forced to memorize it.
Each day away from home and her friends is nothing, because each day she's doing something, which is more than she can say for anyone else.
She's the only one looking anymore.
And each day she's gone is just a day closer to Stefan. And she's trying to pretend the more she tells herself that, it still matters.
She now knows a little about a lot of things, enough to wonder every so often why nobody ever told her about this stuff, but then she realises Damon would get a giant kick out of her running into one of these things that go bump in the night and figures Stefan was probably going to tell her if she ever thought about leaving home, only didn't have the time.
She finds as mad as her inexperience makes her, she can't blame either of them.
The night she left, she didn't pack any dresses or heels, only jeans and boots and other practical items. She hasn't worn dresses in a while, hasn't been that girl since she was a real girl. She isn't any closer, (not nearly close enough and every now and then she understands why everybody else gave up) though she's a hell of a lot wiser.
She cut off her manicured nails, tired of washing blood from under them, and while she carried a gun for a while like she's seen others do, it only got in her way. The only things she carries now are some clothes, her maps and her blood, which she replenishes whenever she gets the chance, which admittedly isn't often enough.
She hasn't been called a baby-vamp in months.
(She pretends she wouldn't give an arm or a leg to hear it from somebody, anybody just once).
She loses them after a few hours and she's pretty pissed. They're the best lead she's had in weeks, which doesn't say much considering they only mentioned the name 'Ripper' and really that could be anybody.
Maybe.
She thinks briefly it must be a possibility that there's another out there going by that name, even though she knows the odds are against her (when aren't they?) and that yes, her only scrap of a lead is gone. And suddenly it's like she's baby-Barbie-vamp Caroline all over again, but not in the comforting way she's starting to think it as being, but in the kind of way that makes her remember how much she needs help.
Suddenly it's like she hasn't been strongandall alone, these past few months. Suddenly it's like she's being stepped on by Katherine or being mind-fucked and actually-fucked by Damon. In seconds, it's like she's back in that cage being shot over and over, or strapped to the chair, and she feels so fucking weak.
Damon wouldn't have lost them.
If anybody but her was here, things probably would have been different.
So she's pissed and hungry and she feels like crying because it's been days since she's eaten because she wanted to conserve and months since she's heard anything from anybody (even though she's kept her phone with her and fully charged at all times and fully expected at least Elena or Bonnie or her mother to call) and everything is so much different than what she thought it would be. Granted, she never imagined she'd be away from Mystic Falls looking for a crazy Stefan, didn't think she'd ever leave Mystic falls at all.
She's dropped her bag and dropped to her knees and pulling out her phone before she can think too much about what she's doing. Months of calling every week, without fail have taught her he listens to these messages (otherwise there wouldn't be any more room on the phone, she knows from past experience), and even if he doesn't reply, or acknowledge her in the slightest, she needs to believe he's still listening to her.
She needs to believe he remembers her.
The call goes straight to voicemail (as it always does) and she listens to his calming voice on the other side telling her to leave a message (like he's still at home and she's calling to invite him and Elena out on a double date) and then she's crying, no she's sobbing, and begging because she needs him back.
She last saw one of them one month ago.
One month, two days, seven hours.
Stefan's been gone nearly two years now.
She's abandoned the maps but found their trail and realised a while ago it's not too hard to keep track of if you know what you're looking for. There are dead bodies from Chicago to Cape Town, some ripped apart some not, and those maps she lost a while back were only holding her back and leading her around in circles.
She smirks whenever she thinks about it because Damon isn't as smart as he thinks he is. She briefly thinks of calling him up to gloat but realises he might not care anymore and it hurts more than it should so she tries to forget the thought.
The first time she found one of his bodies she wants to vomit but discovers for the first time since she became a vampire that she couldn't. She's staring blankly at the jigsaw puzzle of a person she's never met before and wonders if Stefan was ever going to tell her that too.
It's the goriest, most terrifying thing she's ever seen in her life and she wants to cry and mourn for them but if she lingers the trail might go cold so she just sets the house on fire and leaves.
After the nineteenth body found, she realises seeing them gets better with time. She wonders if it's because she's acclimatising or something or if it's because she's losing her soul. She doesn't know these people, hopes they're bad guys so Stefan can still be the hero in her eyes, but forces herself not to dwell on it.
She always imagined she'd bring Stefan kicking and screaming, but she figured it was because he wouldn't want to put them in danger. She can't imagine what would happen if he didn't want to come back because he liked it.
As she sets house fires after house fires, she realises she's leaving a trail they could follow. Realises she's letting everybody know what she's doing, and that Klaus could easily figure it out, but she can't seem to stop. She doesn't know if she's desperately trying to respect the dead by cremating them or desperately trying to cover up for Stefan. She doesn't really know what she's doing anymore.
She admits it over and over, like if she admits it enough the answer will come to her. But it doesn't so she continues with what she was doing because after a while it's the only thing she knows how to do.
She's found his trail but she kind of wants to go back to having no clue.
She imagines the bodies were terrible people, filled with terrible thoughts and that somehow Stefan was protecting everyone, protecting her like he always did, by killing them. When she sees the body of a girl younger than her a little part of her cracks.
When she walks in on them waiting for her, sitting next to an entire family of jigsaw people she kind of shatters.
He's drenched, dripping, with the blood of somebody she'll never know, and his eyes are cold and hard and they remind her of Katherine (no, they're worse, because while Katherine's face was the exact same as her childhood friend, she could recognise the differences now. This, this was Stefan, not some look-a-like).
She can't even find it in herself to cry.
When she was taken that first time, she was so, so scared. She didn't know what was happening, didn't understand why anybody would hurt her, of all the people in Mystic Falls she'd never hurt anybody (besides that one guy that one time), and she'd begged and pleaded and asked over and over "Why are you doing this to me?"
She couldn't comprehend why it was happening to her.
The second time she was kidnapped and her father had told her he was trying to fix her, she had spent the entire time trying to just, explain to him, just make him see that it wasn't going to work. She couldn't be fixed, didn't need to be fixed. She was still Caroline. She asked once, as he was walking out the door, "Why are you doing this to me?"
Caroline didn't understand what he was trying to do, when she could see so clearly that nothing could, should be done. She didn't understand why he couldn't just accept it like her mother.
This time was no different. She didn't understand why it was happening to her, or even why it was happening, but all she could think was, "Why are you doing this to me?"
She'd seen the bodies. The families who would be missing siblings and parents and daughters and sons, had cleaned up after his mess time and time again, telling herself it wasn't what she thought, because this, this couldn't be Stefan.
Stefan had saved her so, so many times. This time he was letting Klaus do whatever he wanted.
She just didn't understand.
He tries cajoling her. Tells her to either leave them be or join them.
After she tells them flat out, she won't join them, won't be happy until Stefan is back home, he doesn't say anything more to her, just sits on the other side of the room staring as Klaus cuts into her. She's got knives through her hands and she's sobbing and he's just sitting there.
(She's reminded of that time Tyler almost didn't help her and she told him he should have helped his friend like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She thinks over how she managed to forgive him, managed to be in a relationship with him and wonders if she could ever forgive Stefan).
Very briefly he walks over to her and runs his hand through her hair and as she closes her eyes she sees her old Stefan back (he's teaching her to eat bunnies and they're planning to take out Katherine and she feels part of something). But then it's over and he's gone and she's alone with Klaus, and she doesn't know if it's better or worse. Because he's not there anymore, he left her, and she's so alone now, but it must be better than watching him watch her, right?
She wonders if he ever got the messages she left on his phone, hopes he didn't because then she'd look stupid.
It's been three days since she found Stefan.
Three days, four hours, nineteen minutes.
She wishes she'd stopped looking a long, long time ago.
As she's screaming loud enough to normally rip her vocal cords, she wishes it was Damon or Elena that was still looking.
Wishes she felt bad about that.
Stefan shows her mercy and unties her hands while Klaus is gone, but by that time it doesn't feel like mercy at all. Two years, over seven hundred and thirty days. She stares at him as she sees him walk over to her, tries putting all her anger and disgust and agony into one final look, but all she can think is why?
She tells herself that her Stefan is gone, and this is his Katherine.
And then she can't breathe, can't think, can't move because she thinks maybe he's going to kill her and then it's nothing.
Because he's handing her a blood bag and untying her hands and pushing her outside and she runs.
She realises when she's two states over that she couldn't do this.
Not anymore.
She shouldn't have done this.
She should have chucked an Elena and a Damon and given up months ago.
And when a little girl with white eyes appear next to her in her hotel room and offers her up a deal, she takes it because this is her out.
"I can make it all go away. I'll make sure he goes back home, and you won't have to give me anything for a whole year."
The girl forces her tongue into her mouth when Caroline mutters a shaky "Okay" and then she's gone and she thinks maybe she imagined it.
She made a deal with a little girl a year ago.
Eleven months, twenty nine days, eleven hours.
The Hellhounds come for her and it hurts.
It doesn't ache or sting, it burns and she bleeds.
She'll probably never wear dresses again, or do her hair in intricate braids. She'll never wear ribbons or be forced to wear scarves by stupid vampires. She'll never again fall asleep with Tyler or be naively jealous of Elena and Matt's friendship. She'll never hand her Miss Mystic Falls crown to next year's winner or organise another parade or school dance.
She'll never be able to say goodbye to her mother or properly explain to her father why she didn't need to be fixed because she wasn't broken.
There are so many things she'll never, ever do again. She's only seventeen, and she didn't deserve this, didn't understand any of it. But she knew Miss Mystic Falls was dead, had died a very bloody death (after already dying a not so bloody one). She'd set out two years ago to find her best friend, and she'd done it, albeit it wasn't at all like what she thought it would be (so, so many things were unlike what she's imagined).
But it's over. She found him. Set him free. She's done what she needed to do.
So she doesn't fight them, even though she really, really wanted to, because she made a deal and set him free.
And it's more than anybody else did.
And he probably, maybe would have done the same for her.
She meets him on the table next to her and as she looks at him she wonders how it's even possible for her to open her eyes. Her liver is gone, and possibly one of her lungs too, and she thinks that realistically she should be dead by now, but this was Hell and she was already dead (granted she'd been dead long before Hell even entered her mind), so that means it just goes on and on.
He's absolutely beautiful, all green eyes and dirty blonde hair covered in blood and Alistair introduces him as Dean and smiles as he tells them the two of them are going to get very, very close soon.
She cries because she knows what that means and Dean looks at her with panic filled eyes and she figures he knows what it means too.
She wonders how long he's been here.
The demon leaves them alone and she sobs, wishing she wasn't chained down because she just wants to curl into a ball because the look in his eyes, the boy who's older than her, the boy named Dean, reminds her so much of Stefan. All haunted.
And she doesn't really want him to see hers either because she bets hers look worse.
"I had a brother."
Her head snaps up and their eyes connect and he's smiling (which is really fucking odd, isn't it? To be smiling in Hell) and she can't bring herself to smile back but she still gives him her full attention.
"His name was Sammy and he died and I brought him back." He looks pained, and yet . . . proud.
He looks proud because he's not in Hell for money or fame; he's in Hell for saving somebody
So she smiles back.
And when he comes back Alistair makes good on his promise and forces them to have sex, more than once, over and over and she's forced to look him in the eyes, she thinks that's the worst part.
Because Dean thinks he's raping her (his eyes are tortured and frantic and it has nothing to do with lust) and all Caroline sees is Stefan (grunting, crazy, bloodied Stefan) when she really wants to see Dean (the beautiful, beautiful boy who sold his soul to save his baby brother).
And it is rape, but she thinks if she could see Dean instead of him it probably wouldn't be.
She made a deal with a little girl over thirty years ago.
Three hundred and sixty months, six days, twelve hours.
Stefan's been free over twenty eight years now.
All she knows is pain, agonising pain and hooks through everything.
She thinks her mind plays tricks on her, because she sees her friends die over and over, and she has no soul to offer for them.
She often hears Damon call her shallow and weak and there's no alcohol to steal to numb the pain and no Matt to take her home afterwards.
She gets fucked every hour and she's all cried out.
Somewhere along the line Dean's eyes started to fade, his hands stopped shaking as they gripped her hips, and he stopped looking as frantic every time Alistair forced them together.
She watches as the demon comes in each day and asks him a question, watches as each day he looks at her and says "No."
And he still looks so defiant at those times, no matter how blank he looks every other hour of this nightmare.
He's often over her, under her, never behind her because then she wouldn't be able to look him in the eyes and that would mean less amusement for Alistair, and while his eyes look dead he always gives the same answer.
"No."
"No."
"No."
She's under him and staring into his eyes when she's see's it. A little less of Stefan and a little more of Dean. She grasps at it with needy hands, the image of the beautiful boy who hurts himself for her, lets people hurt him, and then blinks in confusion when she sees her hands are actually grasping his face.
She didn't remember doing that.
"Say yes."
The look in his eyes is a little less blank when he kisses her hard.
And she wishes she had it in her to smile because this is their first kiss.
And it was glorious.
Because she was saving him.
(She thinks that's what she was doing, that must be the taste in her mouth).