Elena was worried about Caroline after everything that happened the day before, so she decided to call her friend and see how she was doing.
When Caroline didn't answer her cell phone or her home phone any of the times that she tried to call them, Elena began to get worried.
"Where are you going?" Damon asked as Elena headed towards the door.
"To go look for Caroline," Elena told him. "She's not answering her phone."
"She's probably fine," Damon comforted her.
"She got three hunters mad at her yesterday and now she isn't answering her phone," Elena pointed out. "Probably isn't good enough."
"I'll come and help then," Damon told her, not wanting Elena going anywhere dangerous on her own.
Caroline forced herself to try and remember everything that had happened. She slowly went backwards through the conversation with Klaus in her head until she reached something strange.
"He's right you know." Klaus had definitely said, "He's right you know" in order to grab her attention.
He had been agreeing with Damon, who couldn't have really been there. Damon had to be a hallucination since he had appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared just as easily. And if Klaus had been responding to a hallucination when he had started saying those horrible things, then that must have been a hallucination too.
"It wasn't real," Caroline muttered to herself. Her voice came out surer as she told herself again, "It wasn't real."
"That's right, Love," Klaus said, feeling relief wash over him at her words.
"It wasn't really you saying that stuff," Caroline reassured herself as she looked up at Klaus.
He felt a pang of pain and guilt as he realized that Caroline hadn't been seeing someone else, but had just been seeing him saying different words.
"You don't want to kill me," Caroline continued.
"I'd rather kill myself, Sweetheart," Klaus told her. "Whatever you heard, you were hallucinating."
"Help me," Caroline begged through her tears.
Klaus cautiously walked over to her, wanting to make sure that she wouldn't get scared and run off again if she began to hallucinate.
Once he reached her, Klaus sat down on the floor next to her and wrapped her up in his arms.
"I'm here and I'm not going to let anything happen to you," Klaus comforted her.
Damon and Elena tried looking at Caroline's house, but had no luck finding her.
They did, however, find her cell phone sitting where she had left it the night before when she had gone home to change before going over to Klaus's place.
"I think something's wrong, Damon," Elena said as they walked back out of Caroline's house.
"Maybe Klaus knows something," Damon responded in an attempt to try to make Elena feel better. "Or at the very least he'll want to know that she's missing so that he can help look."
"She might have gone there," Elena agreed, trying to convince herself that her friend had just gone to Klaus's place and forgot to bring her phone.
Elena desperately tried to convince herself that nothing was wrong as they began to head towards Klaus's mansion.
"You aren't my daughter anymore," Bill Forbes told Caroline as he appeared before her in the room. "You're a filthy monster wearing her face. I shouldn't have been weak enough to try and help you. I should have killed you while I still had the chance to."
"Dad?" Caroline said weakly through her tears.
"Caroline, that isn't your real father," Klaus told her.
"You know that you're going to end up killing someone else, Caroline," Bill told her. "You can't help it. As hard as you try to fight it, the demon inside you will take over again. If there's any part of you that's still my daughter, then you will kill yourself now instead of innocent humans later."
Caroline was staring over at the empty space where she saw her father in an almost hypnotized trance.
"Caroline, look at me." Klaus said sternly, but Caroline didn't seem to hear him. "Look at me, Love!"
As Klaus shouted he grabbed onto the side of Caroline's head and as gently as he could turned her head to force her to look at him.
Caroline tried to turn her head back towards the vacant space, but Klaus put up his other hand to firmly hold her head so that she was facing him.
"That isn't your father," Klaus repeated. "That's just a hallucination. I know that it's hard, but you can't listen to it. Don't let the curse change what you know."
"What you know?" Bill asked, causing Caroline to attempt to turn her head once again. "What you know is that I hate your kind. That I would rather die than become like you."
"Caroline, keep looking at me," Klaus said as he held her head still. "I promise you that there is no one over there."
"I know that my dad hated vampires. I know that he died so that he wouldn't have to become like me," Caroline responded to her hallucination. "But I also know that even though he wouldn't turn, he said that he was still proud of the person that I was."
Klaus began to smile.
"That's right, Love," Klaus told her. "Your father loved you. Whatever you're hearing isn't him."
"Key word 'was'," Bill pointed out. "That was before you fell in love with this guy and before you killed a hunter."
"If I didn't kill the hunter, he would have killed me," Caroline argued. "And I fell in love with Klaus because he changed. He's better now."
Klaus was shocked by what he had just heard. He was sure that he hadn't been supposed to know yet that Caroline was in love with him.
"He's a monster just like you!" Bill shouted, causing Caroline to flinch. "And you should have let that hunter kill you!"
Klaus saw Caroline flinch and knew that she wasn't quite as sure of herself as he had thought that she had been when she was arguing with her hallucination.
"Ignore him, Love." Klaus demanded sternly. "Listen to me."
Caroline's eyes focussed back on him as she gave him a slight nod to show that she was listening.
"I'm in love with you Caroline," Klaus told her. "And you're right, I'm better now. That's because of you. If you die then I'm not going to be able to handle that. The world needs you here to keep me in check, okay?"
Caroline nodded as her tears began to slow a little.
"You can't die," Klaus said sternly. "Just think about how many lives you'll be saving by keeping me on the good side."
"What happened to being the bad guy?" Caroline asked him as she moved to wipe the half dried tears from her face.
"You happened," Klaus told her.
"Klaus!" Elena called out as she walked through the front door. "…Damon, why does it smell like blood in here?"
It didn't smell like the blood was all that fresh, but it was definitely a lot of blood and from that morning at the earliest.
"I don't know," Damon said with a frown. "I'm going to go look."
As Damon disappeared out of the room, Elena headed towards the stairs in the hopes of finding Caroline or at least Klaus.
Elena was about to shout out for him again when she turned a corner and saw them through an open bedroom door.
"Oh my god," Elena said as she looked into the room.
Klaus was on the floor holding Caroline whose face was stained and puffy from crying. That wasn't the really shocking part though. The worst part was the dried blood that covered both of their clothing, especially Caroline's.
"Now's not really a good time," Klaus told her.
"What happened?" Elena asked without taking her eyes off of her friend.
"One of the hunters stayed back to come looking for her," Klaus said in a much quieter tone than usual. "I was asleep still, I couldn't stop it."
Elena's eyes widened as the meaning of the words registered.
Damon walked into the room after finding the dead body and stray stake in the kitchen.
Caroline instantly flinched back at the sight of Damon. She buried her head in Klaus's neck and moved as far away from Damon as she could manage in Klaus's grip.
"So I'm going to take a wild guess and say that she's the one who killed the hunter in the kitchen," Damon said with a frown.
"Caroline, it's just Damon," Elena told her.
"I bet that you wish that you killed the hunters now," Damon told Klaus.
Elena went to go open her mouth to yell at Damon, but someone else took the opportunity first.
"No." Caroline argued determinedly.
"Why?" Damon asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Because you're enjoying the curse so much?"
"Because I'm not," Caroline responded before removing her head from Klaus's neck and forcing herself to stare Damon down even though she was scared. "Besides, you need him. You don't need me. I'm just stupid, useless, and shallow. Right?"
"I never said that," Damon defended himself.
"Damon, leave her alone," Elena told him. "She's been hallucinating."
"Maybe the time today was a hallucination, but not the other time," Caroline responded. "Do you really not remember, Damon? I sure do no matter how hard I try to forget."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Damon told her.
"Maybe you should leave, Damon," Elena suggested.
"I didn't do anything," Damon defended himself.
"You're making it worse," Klaus told him. "I had her calmed down before you two showed up."
"Does Stefan's birthday ring any bells for you?" Caroline asked Damon.
There was a sinking feeling in Damon's chest as he remembered the night that Caroline had been talking about. The night that he had been at his absolute worst when it came to the way that he had treated Caroline.
"There it is," Caroline said as she saw the look on Damon's face. "This is all your fault. If it weren't for you I'd still be human. I wouldn't have had such a shitty day yesterday and I wouldn't have the hunter's curse now."
"Maybe not," Damon told her. "But you also might not even be alive. And you'd still be as pathetic as you were as a human."
"Damon!" Elena shouted angrily. "Leave her alone!"
"No," Damon told Elena before turning back to Caroline.
"Katherine changed you to get to Stefan. You'd still be a vampire," Damon told her. "Only difference is that Klaus wouldn't be trying to help you right now because he would have already killed you instead of Jenna. Maybe I was a dick and tried to kill you before, but it's not like he didn't try too."
Klaus appeared to be about two seconds from murdering Damon. The only thing that was stopping him was the fact that he was too busy holding Caroline, both to comfort her and keep her from running off.
"You being mad at me because you're a vampire is like me being mad at Katherine for turning me," Damon told her. "You like being a vampire and you wouldn't go back to the self-obsessed attention craving girl that you were when we met even if you had the option."
"Leave now." Klaus said through gritted teeth.
Caroline knew that what Damon was saying was true. That she liked who she was now a lot more than whom she used to be and that she didn't want to go back. But then why was she so convinced that there was something wrong with her and that she was a monster right now?
"Fine," Damon said, raising his hands in a sign of innocence as he turned to head for the door.
"Wait," Caroline said, surprising even herself. "He's right. And it makes no sense."
Damon stopped and turned around, seeming a little confused.
Suddenly something seemed to click in his brain as a slight smirk formed on his lips.
"You like being a vampire, you don't want to be human," Damon repeated proudly. "So then why are you being guilted for what you are right now?"
"Because you're a murderer," The hunter told her. "A serial killer at that."
Caroline turned and stared at him, but by the time that she had blinked it was Elena standing there again.
"It's because you've killed," Damon continued.
Elena glared at him, trying to will him into shutting up. She didn't say anything though, since she wondered where he was going with this.
"Stefan's killed. Is he a monster, Caroline?" Damon asked. "Does Stefan deserve to die?"
"What?" Caroline asked, genuinely confused by the question. "Why would he-"
"Exactly," Damon said, looking quite proud of himself. "You don't think that Stefan deserves to die. He's killed a lot more people than you have. You don't deserve to die either. Keep that in mind when the hallucinations are telling you otherwise, Blondie."
A/N: Please read and review! And keep the criticism constructive! Thanks to all of the amazing people who sent me all the nice reviews and messages after last chapter :) Sorry that this chapter is a day late, I was driving almost all day yesterday on a family road trip. Thanks for reading and I hope that you guys liked the chapter! Look, it's even longer than usual :D
Another great big extra special thanks goes out to all of the fantastic reviewers of the last chapter: jessnicole, Carroline, starlightsps, vamptragic, SittingOnTheEdgeOfTheUniverse, arielmermaid, HotHybridSex, Entirely Torn, Aishani108, helfabulousgirl, DrawingMyHeartOut, The Hunger Games - My Life, WeasleysGroupie, justine, LitLover 101, April420, VAlover21, and Heidiionaanita :)
REVIEW ANSWERS:
jessnicole: Thanks! :D
Carroline: Aww thanks. And look, this chapter's longer! :D
starlightsps: Thanks so much! :)
vamptragic: That means a lot! :)
SittingOnTheEdgeOfTheUniverse: Thanks for reading the A/N and the response. :)
Entirely Torn: I didn't want it to be just hallucinating people that weren't there without having her see people as someone or something else just because that would be convenient for Klaroline. This is the hunter's curse, it doesn't care about their feelings. If anything it wants to exploit Caroline's. And look, I made a longer chapter :D
Aishani108: Sorry about the confusion, that was just Caroline hallucinating when Klaus was saying all of that mean stuff at the end of the last chapter.
DrawingMyHeartOut: Thanks :) I don't think I need you going to cut anyone, but I'll let you know if I ever do. :P
LitLover 101: Thanks and I totally agree. :)