~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*v*(C~S)*v*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Earlier that morning)

Caroline lay curled on the couch, staring at her cellphone like it had offended her, like it held all the answers but wasn't sharing any. Bonnie still wasn't picking up her phone, and her inbox was full of voicemails. She knew how many Bonnie's inbox could hold and, well, there weren't enough from her end to be filling it up that fast. Only about a quarter of them could have been attributed to Caroline's "Bonnie… it's me. Please call me back (sniffle)," messages. Elena's phone was going straight to voicemail, not even bothering to ring. Matt's, too. She'd even thought to call Jeremy to see if he knew where Bonnie and Elena were. She texted. She hollered at the empty room, "Why isn't anybody answering their damn phone?" She'd just about given up hope when Stefan had called in.

So now she dialed, waited, hung up, cried, and dialed some more in the hopes that Bonnie would finally answer. She needed a friend, somebody to tell her why the world stopped turning. She needed to know how she was going to keep on living when the love of her life was gone forever.

She heard Stefan's footfalls on the walk and flew up to answer the door. The blinds over the window swished as she wrenched it open wide. Stefan walked with his head down, hesitated as he looked up and caught sight of her. She knew she looked a mess; mascara smudged all over, hair in disarray from tugging on it, clothes she wore the night before hanging wrinkled on her body, but did he have to give her such a pitying look? Compassion she could handle. But Pity? She crumpled inward as the tears came rushing back.

Suddenly, he was there, ushering her inside gently and closing the door behind them. She was back on the couch and finally, finally being held and consoled by somebody who cared. The sobs that wracked her threatened to shake her completely apart. Now she felt as though she could fall to pieces properly, because he was there to hold her together. After an age of incoherent sobs punctuated with "Tyler!"s and "Dead!" and enough tears to soak Stefan's collar through, she quieted. He said nothing of consequence the entire time she cried herself out, only made soothing noises and promises that it would be all right, promises she knew there was no way in hell he could keep. After that, he just held her for as long as she wanted it. He made no move to put her away, but let her pull back in her own time.

"Better?" he asked softly, peering with concern into her face as she tried to dry it.

She nodded, sniffling, "A little."

"I'm sorry, Caroline, but I have to ask. Did you get ahold of Bonnie?"

"No. I've left… so many voicemails. She's not answering. Neither is anyone else."

Stefan's brow furrowed. "That's… not good. The last time anyone saw her was Damon, at the storage facility."

"Do you think maybe that Ric did something to her?"

"I don't know. Maybe. The only way we'll know for sure is to talk to Jeremy."

"What would Jeremy have to do with it?"

"He can ask Rick."

"I know that he wanted to make Jeremy his evil apprentice when he failed with Elena and all, but are we sure he won't just kill Jeremy a bunch of times until his dark side comes out? That is, if he's even willing to talk to him after our plan to trick him failed…" she babbled on, her brain going a mile a minute.

"Caroline, stop… just listen. You don't know what happened after Klaus was staked."

"I know that Klaus went up in flames and then, Tyler… well, he…. he died!" She dissolved into crying once again. Stefan shushed her and held her all over again, resigned to settle into a long morning of trying to console her while simultaneously figuring out how best to break more bad news to her.

A little while later, he felt the need to ask, "Should I get a pint of ice cream out of the freezer?"

"No," she hiccuped, shaking her head. "I ate it all."

"Ok, how about a cup of tea?"

"Put some vodka in it," she sniffled, curling down into the couch as he vacated it for the kitchen.

"Vodka. Check."

"Better yet, just bring the vodka and forget the tea," she called after him. She grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it to her middle as she curled up into the fetal position, trying to hold her insides in. She felt like she was dying. She'd done it before, but this seemed somehow worse. With death came oblivion, or at least temporary relief. The pain inside her now just kept gnawing and growing with no release in sight. She hated how much harder heartbreak hurt when she was a vampire. She needed distraction, needed a way out of the hole she was in.

Stefan returned with the half-empty bottle and held it out to her. She sat up, unscrewed the cap, and tossed it off into a shadowy recess before raising the bottle to her lips. Several gulps helped to quench the tears that still threatened to fall from her eyes. She kept waiting for the ducts to dry out, but they never did.

"I need to tell you something. You might not like it, so I need you to promise me that you'll hear me out before you say or do anything else," he prefaced, slowly sitting on the coffee table and settling his forearms across his knees. He clasped his hands together in silent supplication.

"Can I keep drinking while you tell me?" she asked hesitantly over the rim of the bottle, which hovered in her grasp, never far from her mouth.

"Of course," he replied, confused that she felt the need to ask.

"Okay." She gave a long pull on the bottle, hunting up fortification in the clear liquid, gasped as it burned, and leveled a hard stare at him. "So tell me."

He hesitated, searching for words. "Alaric is dead. Finally and totally dead." He let that sink in.

"Good," she spat out bitterly. "He was an asshole." She took another swig.

He waited for her to put the pieces together.

"But if he's dead, that means… Elena… oh, God, Stefan!" Suddenly, it was she who gave the look of compassion and pity. She reached out to him, touching his arm with her free hand.

"She… was in the truck with Matt, coming back to say goodbye to all of us, when we thought Klaus was the sire of our bloodline. Rebeckah ambushed them on the bridge. She called me, to I don't know, gloat or something right before the truck got there. She figured she couldn't kill Ric, but Elena was human, and therefore… Well, Matt swerved and they went over the rail. I got there as fast as I could. The truck was already fully submerged, filled up with water. Matt was unconscious in the driver's seat. Elena was still awake and aware enough to insist that I save Matt, first. I didn't want to, but I listened. I got Matt out first. As soon as I had him out of the water and up on the bank, I went back in after her. She was already dead."

Silent tears streaked Caroline's face as he spun out his tale. She pulled back her hand and let it fall uselessly to her lap. True to her word, she said nothing, but kept taking pulls off the bottle. Inside, her heart broke for him, and for the loss of her friend.

"The ambulance rushed them both to the hospital. The paramedics tried but were unable to resuscitate her. Matt regained consciousness briefly. He's all right, but Elena… well, when she'd hit her head trying to get away from Klaus, she'd been much worse off than Dr. Fell let on. Meredith had given her blood. Vampire blood."

"You mean… she's a… a…"

"She completed the transition right before the sun came up this morning."

"But she's okay! She's not dead!"

"No, she's not okay. But she will be. Eventually."

"You bastard!" Caroline yelled, whacking him across the arm with her throw pillow. "You should have told me that, first! Where is she?"

"She's at the boarding house. She can't leave until dark."

"Oh yeah," she muttered. "The sun."

"That's why we need to find Bonnie. She's the only way I know of to get Elena a day-walking ring."

She frowned, thinking hard. "I hate to be the one to say so, but maybe it's better that she's stuck there until she learns to control herself."

Stefan shook his head. "The council knows too much about all of us. She's not safe there, trapped inside where they can burn the house down around her. They don't know what she is, yet, but that won't stop her from dying if they decide to try it as a means of getting Damon or me."

"Ok, so we need to find Bonnie. And then we all need to get the hell out of this town before somebody else dies."

"Agreed," he said, standing. She remained seated, unwilling to jump up and head off on another adventure just yet. "Are you going to be ok?"

"No." She sighed heavily. "But I'll handle it. Just like I've handled every other stupid thing this stupid world has thrown my way."

"You know, if you need to talk, or a shoulder to cry on, all you need to do is ask."

"I know. Thanks, Stefan."

"Don't mention it. What are friends for?" He held out his hand. She glanced at it, then up at him, and then back to his hand. Finally, she rolled her eyes and put her own hand in his. He hauled her up and off the couch. She looked to the vodka, still held by the neck in her grasp, and raised it up to her lips once more.

She dropped it, letting it bounce, empty, on the cushions of the sofa. "I'm going to get cleaned up."

An hour later, she emerged from the bathroom. Brushing her hair and putting on clothes and makeup seemed to restore her to proper Caroline form, but a weary sadness still lurked in every move she made. "So," she said with mock-brightness. "Where to first?"

"Well, if it were anyone else but Bonnie who'd gone missing, I'd just have her do a locater spell."

"And we're fresh out of witches, unless you know of any stashed away somewhere. Any other bright ideas?"

"We could go to the storage facility, try to pick up her scent and track her from there."

"Hmm, no. Too time-consuming and far away in case of an emergency."

"All right. Maybe you'd like to suggest something?"

Caroline was silent for a moment, lost in thought. All of her scheming mean-girl brainpower was put to the task of coming up with a viable solution. Stefan felt, if not for the first time, rather intimidated by the dizzying calculations that seemed to be going on behind her deceptively pretty face. "Well, it would seem to me that Bonnie has a lot of interested parties watching her on the other side. Jeremy might be able to contact one of them. Maybe her Gran would know where to look for her."

He couldn't find fault with the logic of it. Her plan was simple, elegant, and had the smallest margin of error between any of the options available to them. "Give me your keys. I'll drive."

"Fine, Geeves. Have it your way." She swayed a little in her heels. "Probably for the best," she admitted as she got her keys out of her purse and held them out to him, jingling.

Caroline was uncharacteristically silent through most of the drive. She wasn't the type to brood, Stefan thought. Grief did things to people, made them harder. More cynical. He would give anything in that moment to restore her to the carefree girl she'd been when they first met, even put up with her clumsy attempts at flirting with him. He hated to see her brought so low. She's been all sunshine and life, a bright spot in a continuously darkening world. Another light dimmed by tragedy.

Days like these, he hated what he was, that things like him existed to go bump in the night, snuffing out all the lights, one innocent girl at a time.

They arrived at the Gilbert house to find it empty. Deserted.

Caroline tried Jeremy's phone again. No luck.

As they paced on the front porch, Caroline threw up her hands in aggravation. "Okay, so maybe he's at the Grill." She caught his dry stare. "What? He works there, now. Just because our lives grind to a halt every week or so doesn't mean that the normal people stop going to work and making dinner and stuff. Life goes on."

"You're absolutely right. Maybe Jeremy's disappearance has nothing to do with the fact that he's a Gilbert, his sister's a vampire, and he has a ring that lets him cheat death-twin to the one which drove Rick, along with a Gilbert ancestor or two insane-not to mention the fact that he talks to ghosts or was the boyfriend of a witch, who is also missing. I'll bet it's entirely unrelated."

"Sarcasm looks terrible on you," Caroline pouted. "Even when you were evil, at least you were honest about it."

"Let's just… find him. Ok?" Stefan ran a hand reflexively through his hair, mussing it in his aggravation.

"We'll check the Grill. Then, if we don't find him, we'll panic. All right?"

"Right," he sighed. "Good plan."

They trudged back to the car and Stefan got it pointed in the direction of the Grill. Driving there was mechanical, by that point. Auto-pilot.

"When was the last time you've eaten? You look… pinchy," Caroline mentioned out of the blue.

"This morning," he replied with a wry tone, "Right before I called you."

"Animals?"

"Yep."

"Well, then. I guess that means you're back off the human stuff."

"Not… entirely, just for now while Elena is so unstable. I don't want to set a bad example."

Caroline fell silent once again. He could hear her thoughts whirling and grinding like gears. She took a breath now and again, as if to speak, but she'd frown and think better of it, and close her mouth to think some more. Finally, she let the words go, before she lost her nerve. "You already are and you just don't know it. How will being so on edge help her? Just… take care of yourself and let Damon look after Elena for a little while. As much of a monster as he can be and as much as he's done to me, personally, he's always maintained some form of cool or control, even when he was at his worst."

"He used you as a chew-toy, and you're advising me to let him look after the girl I love?"

She frowned again. Stefan was beginning to think of that look as her 'contemplative' expression. When she replied, her tone was soft and low. "He loves her, too. You know that he'd never do anything to hurt her."

"I know."

"That includes letting her hurt anybody else that she cares about, and Elena cares about everyone."

"Might be that she did. I'm not so sure if that's true any more. You didn't see her this morning."

"Would you… like to tell me about it?"

Stefan gave a heavy sigh. "Her instincts are too raw, too strong and new right now. She hasn't learned how to fight them. When I left, she was ripping into a blood bag. She'd knocked Damon down to get at it."

"And you think that means that she's shut it all off."

"Don't you?"

"I've seen that girl devour an entire chocolate cake. Episodes of Dawson's Creek have outlasted pints of ice cream that have fallen into her it comes to food, Elena doesn't mess around. If it weren't for the fact that she exercises so much, she'd be at least four dress sizes bigger right now. So, no. I don't think that means she's shut it all off. She's just being Elena on one of her binges."

"I guess I never thought of it that way."

"Elena likes to eat." Caroline shrugged. "Now that she's a vampire, her gluttonous side has gotten a bit of a boost, along with the rest of her. She's still Elena, just… more Elena than you've probably ever seen at once. You know her pretty well, but you've only been around since the accident. I've known her a lot longer. She was different before her parents died. Who's to say that some of that person isn't still in there, just beneath the surface? You may not know her as well as you think you do."

"That's… oddly reassuring, Caroline. Thank you."

"Glad to help. Now come on, let's go find our missing ghost whisperer."

Stefan parked Caroline's SUV behind the Grill. Before they could get out to go check inside, Jeremy was there, sliding into the backseat smelling of fried food and dish soap.

"I can't stay long. I'm only on a five-minute break. Bonnie's Grams told me to tell you that she's fine and she doesn't want to be found, so not to worry. She got your messages, Caroline, and Damon's too. I think she'll be back to help Elena whenever she's done with what she's up to that she doesn't want us to know about. Grams wouldn't say."

"So we just wait?" Stefan asked, his tone rife with incredulity. Didn't Bonnie know the kind of danger Elena was in?

"We wait," Jeremy shrugged. "With Rick out of the way and the Mayor and Sherif deposed, the council is scrambling for leadership. I don't think they'll be acting any time soon. Just to be on the safe side, I think you all should find a new base of operations before they figure out who's in charge and start taking action. I'll meet you all at the lake house when my shift is over. It's technically mine now, so you'll need me to invite you in. Gotta go."

Jeremy went sliding out again, leaving a car with two stunned vampires inside.

"When did he go and get so…." Caroline trailed off, hands fluttering wildly as her thoughts.

"Grown-up?" Stefan finished for her.

"Yeah, that."

"Somewhere between losing every family member he'd ever had and then having the benefit of all the helpful ghostly advice he could handle would be my guess."

"Right." She blew out a puff of air to toss her bangs back as she sat back in her seat, the definition of nonplussed. "So we have some waiting to do."

"What do you want to do now?"

"Check on Matt?" She paused, then suddenly shot up in her seat, "Unless you want to go check in on Elena, to make sure she's not freaking out or anything."

"No, no. You were right. I'm the liability to her now. I trust Damon to take care of her."

"Matt it is, then. To the hospital, Geeves."

_(TBC)_

A/N

I know, I know. I left Elena and Damon off at a bit of a cliff-hanger in the last chapter, but I thought it was important to get a little perspective to what else was going on.

Are you mad at me?

Review and tell me so! (Also, I have a general idea of where I'm going with this, but the specifics are all fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants. So, I'm open to suggestions. *Wink wink*)