"Hello?" Caroline answered cheerfully.
"Caroline." It was Angela. She was crying. Caroline's heart plunged into her stomach as she just knew what was coming next. She sat down in the empty chair at her kitchen table. She had just set Stefan's plate of breakfast down in front of him and was on her way out the door when her phone had rang. At the sound of Angela's despair all thoughts of work left Caroline's mind and her knees grew weak.
"Angela?" Caroline threw a knowing, warning look at Stefan who was eyeing her curiously now. At the look at Caroline's face Stefan immediately sat forward and took his fiance's hand. It was happening.
"She didn't wake up Caroline. My mom didn't wake up." Angela was full on sobbing but it wasn't hard to decipher what she was saying. This was it. Bonnie had died, and Elena was going to wake up, and Damon was still MIA. Things were about to get difficult.
"We're on our way." Caroline said all business. Then she ended the phone call and turned her confused eyes on Stefan and was met with a similar expression on his face. Their hearts were breaking for the loss of Bonnie. The pain her family was feeling coupled with the stress and fear of the missing Damon was enough to make any one person break under pressure. On the other hand though, they all knew what this would mean. They were going to see Elena again. Hold her, talk to her, hear her laugh, and for Stefan this could very well be his last chance to get his brother back. They got up from the table, Stefan leaving his food untouched, and Caroline leaving her job behind without a second thought. Within the hour bags were packed, and they were in Caroline's SUV on the road towards Mystic Falls.
Stefan dropped Caroline off at Bonnie's house, leaving her to deal with her distraught kids and funeral plans. Caroline was good at stuff like that, it's what she did. Stefan on the other hand would just be more uncomfortable than anything, besides, Damon was the vampire they wanted to see, not him. So he gracefully bowed out by telling Caroline someone had to go to the Salvatore crypt and sit with Elena. For all they knew she could already be awake, or she wouldn't wake up for weeks. Either way, someone had to go get her out of that coffin. Caroline agreed and with a quick kiss and a firm hug she exited the SUV and made her way slowly up to Bonnie's front door.
Stefan didn't stick around to watch the door open, he took off immediately. As the tree whirred by him fear grew in his stomach. What if she had woken up the minute Bonnie had passed? What if she had been awake, suffocating in that coffin, all alone? He had to get to her. Within minutes he was screeching to a stop at the graveyard where he had first met Elena. He bound out of the car and up the familiar path towards his family's crypt. Now that Bonnie was passed the spell she had put on it would be broken and he easily ripped the giant padlock off the doors. "Elena." He called as he stepped inside but stopped short. It was dark inside the crypt but it did little to hinder his sight. There were cobwebs in the corner and the place smelled heavily of dust mites and mice. That wasn't what stopped him short though, what took his breath away was the coffin was open, and even worse than that, it was empty. He blurred up to the side of the coffin and could see the indention in the cushion where her body had laid all this time but other than that there was no evidence anyone had been here. He looked around the tiny crypt again frantically trying to understand how any of this could have happened. Even with the spell gone it had been padlocked. If someone had broken in the lock would have been broken. Stefan had broken the still fully intact lock when he got there so there's no way that happened. Then he saw it. The small window in the side of the crypt was completely devoid of glass, that was shattered all over the floor beneath it. The window was big enough for Elena's small frame to fit through, but Stefan doubted anyone bigger than that could have gotten in that way. Where the hell was she?
Stefan blurred out of the crypt and was back in the SUV in a matter of seconds. As the tires squealed in protest he floored it down the road back towards Bonnie's house. Caroline was not going to be happy about this.
"What do you mean she's gone?! How can she be gone?! She was spelled inside the crypt!" Caroline was shouting. Like really shouting. The little veins danced under her eyes as her anger began to push her over the edge of control.
"When Bonnie passed her spell dissipated. She was only held in there by lock, and a very flimsy glass window." Stefan explained, trying desperately to calm the blond down. Bonnie's children were watching with tear stained, wide eyed, horror as sweet little Caroline battled with her inner monster. Stefan knew they didn't need the fear on top of everything right now and Angela's son certainly didn't need to see this. He spoke in a gentle, soft tone as he approached his fiance. "We will find her Caroline, Jeremy is already on his way here. We can use his blood and Angela has already agreed to try a locator spell." He grabbed the top of her arms and tried to give them a reassuring squeeze. "She tried a locator spell with Damon and it didn't work, what makes you think it'll work for Elena?"
"Because I doubt Elena would know anyone after 70 years who would be willing to hide her location for her Caroline." He said this a bit more firmly as he looked deeply into her crystal blue eyes. He willed her to calm down and give them a chance. This seemed to work cause she un-puffed her chest and her shoulders relaxed. Then she sighed and dropped her face in her hands and began to cry. Stefan pulled her into him, holding her tightly. He knew this was a lot for her. Bonnie's death was already hard, seeing Elena again was what was going to make it bearable, now Elena was gone and things didn't seem quite so bearable anymore.
Jeremy arrived late that night. Angela had put her son down about an hour before Jeremy's feeble hand knocked on the door. Delanie had jumped up to answer and he was helping him into the house and towards the couch when Stefan walked into the room.
"Jeremy." Stefan wrapped him in a quick hug which the older man returned immediately. "How're you doing?" He asked in a sympathetic tone. Jeremy's face had been affected by time. His still thick hair was almost all grey and his face sagged and dipped into wrinkles that seemed to map out all the many stresses he dealt with throughout his life. His eyes however were still that of the 15 year old boy Stefan had met. Full of life and spunk that not even time could steal from him. His body was in good shape for a man his age but his joints bothered him quite a bit, all the instant growth of becoming a hunter had taken its toll in the later years of his life. He sighed deeply and turned his young eyes on Stefan. "I've been better Stef." he said matter-of-factly. Stefan nodded knowingly, it was hard not to feel desperate. Angela came into the room then and gave Jeremy a sweet smile "Hey uncle Jeremy." She hugged him gently then leveled her eyes at him. This was the most composed she's seemed since she had called Caroline earlier that morning. Stefan wondered if she had been trying to center herself for the spell. He hugged her earnestly and kept a hold of hr mocha hand as she sat next to him on the couch. "Hi dear"
"Uncle Jeremy are you sure you want to do this?" Delanie asked wearily. He didn't like that they would have to cut him to get his blood.
"I have to do this Delanie. Don't worry about me . I've done worse than a cut on my hand kid." He chuckled and it lit his already too young eyes up like fireworks. Stefan knew he was thinking of the many different things that had happened to him since the Salvatores walked into his sister's life. Unfortunately Jeremy had caught the brunt of a lot of the physical and emotional injuries throughout the years. He seemed good natured about it though, which was good. Delanie looked at him skeptically but didn't protest again.
"Well we should get started." Angela sighed and pulled herself up off the couch. Just then Caroline breezed in with a huge map and a very sharp looking knife. Angela looked at Caroline for a second, then settled back down on the couch. Caroline laid the map flat on the wooden coffee table in front of Jeremy and Angela and then silently handed the knife to Angela.
"Hey jeremy." Caroline squeaked.
"We will find her Caroline, don't worry so much." Jeremy assured the obviously stressed caroline. Caroline just looked away and plopped herself in Stefan's lap, who was sat in an arm chair across from the couch.
"DO you have her personal item?" Angela asked Jeremy.
"Yeah." Jeremy pulled out Elena's old teddy bear that used to sit atop her bed. His eyes grew sad as he looked down at the beat up thing. Then he seemed to come back to reality and he looked steadily towards Angela.
"OKay let's start." Angela carefully took Jeremy's hand in hers and before any of us could think she slashed a quick line through his palm. Jeremy did a little more than wince but otherwise remained still as his blood trickled onto the laid out map. Then she was chanting familiar sounding foreign words. Everyone in the room held their breath as at first nothing happened. Stefan could feel Caroline's body growing rigid as the seconds ticked by. Just as Stefan began to fear that Caroline would jump out of her seat on Stefan's lap, Jeremy's blood pooled to the middle of the map, then streamlined to the right. Collectively as a group everyone let out a relieved breath and waited for the blood to settle.
"There, she's there." Angela said. Stefan shook his head and laughed humorlessly. Angela looked at him curiously.
"That's the boarding house. She went to the boarding house." Caroline smacked herself in the forehead as she laughed out loud. "Why didn't we just check there?"
"No one's been there in such a long time, I hadn't even thought about it." Stefan said. Delanie and Angela were still looking confused as the two talked amongst themselves. Jeremy was the one to notice so he chimed in, speaking to Bonnie's children.
"The boarding house is Stefan and Damon's house. It's where they were living the last time Elena was awake."
"But Damon has practically raised us and we have never even heard of it." Angela retorted.
"What's even funnier is, as far as I know, that's where he'd been staying all the way up until.." Stefan had been smiling until he trailed off, letting his smile slip away with the sentence. Everyone knew what he couldn't say. Until Damon flipped his switch and disappeared. The room fell into a pregnant silence for a second until Delanie piped up.
"How come we never knew of it."
"He had told me once that the boarding house was the only place he still felt Elena. I'd bet he didn't want to mix you guys into it because it would make the last part of his past with Elena feel like it's gone." Caroline said. Stefan looked at her questioningly.
"I didn't know he ever confided in you." He said, sounding every bit the bratty little brother.
"Yeah well, I don't exactly put my care for Damon on display. It was a personal moment." Caroline sounded more angry and embarrassed than guilty of anything and that seemed to placate Stefan's growing tantrum. Caroline rolled her eyes at him.
"Are you two going to go get my sister, or bicker all night. I've waited way too many years to see her, i'd like to get to." Jeremy grumbled like the old man he was. This snapped Caroline and Stefan out of their little squabble and made the two younger people in the room giggle.