I spent most of the day running through the story that I would be telling Caroline after school. The closer the clock got to dismissal at the end of the day the more nervous I became, and my thoughts started to jumble together. Telling Jenna was one thing; she was family and I knew she would have to understand and support my decision to keep such intense secrets. My best friend was another story. Caroline had always been the type of person to hold a grudge for weeks at at time when I wouldn't tell her simple things like when I was doing poorly in a class or when I kissed a boy on a date. This was by far the most secretive I had been with her since the start of our friendship and I was not sure how she would react. My worst fear was how she would feel about Damon after all was said and done. I knew that she would find a way to blame him for everything I had been going through and for putting a rift in our friendship. If she ever found out what had happened with Damon and I that night at the barn I was sure she would kill him.
Before I knew it I was walking towards my car in the parking lot at the end of the day; I spotted Caroline as soon as I exited the school, leaning against my car on her cell phone. She had undoubtedly either been dismissed early or skipped her last class - my bet was the latter.
"How did you get out here so fast?" I asked as I approached. My plan was to deflect as long as possible; talking about Caroline's favorite subject (herself) was the best way to accomplish this.
Her cheeks turned pink and she looked up at me without lifting her head, giving me her best puppy-dog eyes. "I skipped with Tyler."
"Caroline!" I pushed her shoulder playfully, unable to avoid smiling. I had been so busy with myself and all of my drama that I had not even realized how serious things had become between my best friend and the quarterback.
"What? If you actually still came to cheerleading practice and football games you might not be so surprised," she jabbed.
"I hung out with you guys last week, Care. I knew you were extra flirty but you never told me you were that serious," I reached for the door handle. Caroline took the hint and skipped around to the passenger side, sliding gracefully into the seat next to me.
"Well I know how you feel about him," she continued with a shrug, "Plus you've seemed a little preoccupied lately. Now quit avoiding the elephant in the room and tell me what the hell has been going on with you!" Her whole body was now turned in the seat facing me, waiting almost literally on the edge of her seat for me to spill.
"Can we at least wait until we're able to have a face-to-face conversation to talk about this? Jeez," I glanced sideways at her.
She sighed dramatically and turned back around in her seat, resuming whatever conversation she had been having on her phone.
Caroline rattled off a few insignificant stories about her day during the ride to Scoops. As we were ready to pull into the parking lot she started to bring up the incident in the park again and I was thankful that the conversation ended when I parked the car. We went inside the small ice cream parlor; we were the only customers, seeing as how it was now late fall and the weather was not so conducive to ice cream. Caroline and I had always made it a tradition to visit Scoops when the weather got cold - she loved being eccentric and I loved having the place to ourselves. The owner was not surprised to see us and, as usual, offered us a free scoop and extra toppings. We assembled our ice cream mountains and found our usual table in the corner by the front window. I waited until the owner disappeared into the back of the shop to start telling Caroline my story.
"So," I began, searching for an appropriate starting point, "You have to listen to the whole story before you start getting upset," I figured this would be a good caveat to the conversation; her eyes grew larger and she slowly removed the plastic spoon from her mouth, staring in anticipation. "What I'm about to tell you can't be repeated. To anyone. Including Tyler. Okay?" she nodded her head slowly, her expression rivaling a person who was watching a dramatic movie scene unfold, "Remember what I said about not getting upset until I finish..." I waited for her to nod again, then decided it best to just spit it out, "You know that guy Trey from last summer? I know how he died."
"It was that Klaus guy, wasn't it? His brother?" she was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement, blissfully unaware how off track she was.
"No," I took a deep breath and released, "It was Damon."
The spoon fell from her hand and the plastic clinked against the table before falling to the ground. "Oh my god!" she gasped, then covered her mouth with her hand as she realized how loud she was being.
"Caroline!" I narrowed my eyes at her in a scolding manner.
As expected, the owner emerged from the back room. "You ladies okay?" he asked, eyebrow raised.
"Just need another spoon, please," I responded nervously.
It felt like hours had passed in the time it took for him to deliver the spoon to our table and return to the back.
"I told you not to get upset until I finished," I reminded her, but knew that this was an impossible task for Caroline Forbes. Without waiting for another reaction I continued the story, explaining the details of the night that Trey broke into the Salvatore house and how Damon reacted to defend himself and his brother. She eased up slightly but her jaw remained clenched. From there I referred to the night at The Grille when Jeremy first involved himself with Klaus and his gang. I reminded her of Matthew's involvement that night and transitioned into the day that Jeremy left school with him. I told her what I knew now, that Jeremy had been convinced to help get a confession from Damon and that he tried to no avail. I explained that he eventually ran out of time and Klaus took matters into his own hands - and that's where I had been all weekend.
At this point she could not contain herself any longer. "God, Elena! Why didn't you call the cops? Why didn't someone call the cops?!"
"Because of Damon and Stefan, Care. If anyone found out that they were involved-" I tried to explain but knew that Caroline would disagree. She did not have the connection that I did to the brothers and she would not understand.
"Who cares! He killed someone, Elena! He's a murderer. That's what happens when you kill someone - you go to jail," she was whispering but her voice was escalated slightly more than I felt comfortable with.
I glanced at the door to the back to make sure it remained closed and looked back at Caroline. "I'm not expecting you to understand. But please just hear me out," I pleaded, pulling out my own puppy-dog eyes.
She stared at me for a minute then sighed and leaned back against the booth. She picked up her spoon and started to poke around in her halfway melted ice cream bowl. "Okay, so what happened next? What did Klaus want with you?"
"He wanted me to tell him what I knew about Trey's accident," I continued.
"How did he know that they were even involved? If he knew Trey was breaking into their house he didn't really need a confession about how he died, right?" I applauded her ability to remain interested despite how she felt about the situation.
"That's the thing. He obviously didn't know why Trey was in Mystic Falls that night. But he told me the back story... why he suspected Damon and Stefan from the start. Their dad worked for Klaus' dad when he was a mob boss, or whatever he was. Klaus' dad had asked their dad to kill Trey's dad for murdering his ex-wife, Klaus and Trey's mom-"
"God, this sounds like a terrible soap opera," Caroline interrupted, shaking her head.
"So Damon and Stefan's dad couldn't go through with it. He cut his ties with Klaus' dad and went home. A few weeks later Klaus' dad found him and..." I trailed off, a mental image of the incident forming in my head. I left out the part about how Damon was present that day, as I figured nothing would change the way Caroline felt about him at this point.
"Damn... So the rumors about how their dad died were true. I always knew this town was more interesting than everyone makes it out to be," We were both quiet for a minute, then Caroline continued, "So Klaus assumed this was revenge? That Damon and Stefan killed their brother to get back at their family?"
I nodded, taking a spoonful of what was left of my ice cream.
"So what now? Did you tell them the truth?" She asked cautiously.
"No!" For some reason I was very offended by this assumption, but I relaxed quickly and continued, "I mean, no. I didn't. Their sister was able to get a confession before they even really pressured me..." Another unwelcome mental picture formed in my head and I bit my lip, trying to dispel it. Caroline stared at me with her eyebrows raised as if coaxing me to explain. "There are a lot of siblings if you hadn't figured that out yet. Klaus is only their half-brother, but Trey had 3 other siblings - two brothers and a sister. The girl's name is Rebekah. She found Damon's weakness," I could feel heat rising and I took a bite of ice cream to cool myself back off. I hoped Caroline would not pick up on my emotion.
"Gross," she pretended to shiver and rolled her eyes. "So they just let you go?"
"Not exactly," I told Caroline the rest of the story, ending with my confession to Jenna at the lake house yesterday.
When all was said and done Caroline was silent. This was the worst reaction I could have hoped for - Caroline was never silent.
"Well? Say something..." I avoided eye contact, playing with the soupy concoction in front of me.
"I don't know what to say, Lae," her voice was soothing but the disappointment echoed between the lines. "I can't believe you've been keeping all this from me. And I really can't understand how you're still on their side... You should have just told Klaus what happened and let him take care of it."
My blood boiled instantly and I had to stop myself from lashing out. "Are you serious? Is that really how you feel?"
Caroline looked in my eyes and I could tell now that she was just in overprotective best friend mode. She sighed again and said, "No, Elena. I like Stefan, I wouldn't want him to get involved in that mess."
Even though that was not exactly what I wanted to hear I took it at face value and didn't comment again.
"So what does this mean about the brother they found in the park? That wasn't...?" she could tell that I was becoming very defensive and I knew she didn't mean any harm by her question, but I found it very difficult to contain my emotion about her accusations.
I took a deep breath and responded, "No. It wasn't." Even though at this point I truly didn't even know if that was the correct answer. In my heart I knew that Damon had not been involved in that incident, but the idea that Klaus had found another enemy in such a short time in Mystic Falls was not very promising. I wanted so badly to talk to Damon about it during our text conversation this morning but when he didn't bring it up I thought it best to just avoid the subject. Best case scenario would be that the gang did have another trail to sniff now and they would leave the Salvatore brothers alone. "We should get home, Care. I have... a lot of homework tonight," I lied, seeing that it was getting close to 5:00.
Caroline agreed readily and we got back in the car, completely silent on the drive back to the school. I pulled up next to her car in the parking lot and put the car in park. She sat there for another couple of minutes before turning to me. She put her hand on my leg and squeezed my thigh.
"I love you, Lae. No matter what. You can talk to me about anything. I'm sorry if I made you mad. But I just worry about you being involved with someone like him. You and Jeremy are going to stop hanging out with them now, right?" She started to nod her head as if doing so would cause me to mimic her response.
I forced a smile and said, "You don't have to worry about me. I'm going to stay out of trouble."
She did not appear to be completely satisfied with my response but she hugged me nonetheless. "Call me later," she said and exited the car.
I remained in the parking lot after she drove away. My head rolled back into the headrest and I closed my eyes, letting the emotions of my confession wash over me. I thought that talking about everything would make me feel better - instead I felt a hundred times worse. I hated questioning my decision to remain in Damon's life and I wanted to get back to the way I felt this morning when I saw his text. I pulled my phone out of my bag; one text from Jeremy telling me he found a ride home, one from Jenna asking where I was, but no other messages. I scrolled through my message screen to find Damon's name and re-read our conversation. Seeing the words on the screen made it all start to feel real again and the smile had returned to my face by the time I pulled out of the school. I had a date tonight and I was not going to let any details (no matter how significant they may be) interfere with that.
...
It had been quite a few weeks since Damon had been to The Grille. Being here reminded him of a time when things were much less complicated - before the nights he spent falling for a girl at the wrong time and complicating everything by sharing his secret with her; before he had involved her in his drama and put her life in danger; before he had to make so many decisions about right and wrong because now his actions did not just impact himself. He resumed his usual seat at the bar and was comforted by the fact that his almost-one-night-stand bartender friend was working.
"Well, look what the cat dragged in," she acted angry but Damon could see the excitement in her eyes.
He flashed his seductive smile at her and she placed a drink in front of him. "I've been meaning to apologize about the way things ended that night," he fibbed, "Certainly wasn't how I imagined it."
"Me either," she shot him a look that made him feel guilty for an instant, then she turned her back to him abruptly and walked to the other end of the bar where a middle-aged man sat in anticipation of her return.
He watched as she rested her elbows on the bar in front of the man as she had done with him so many nights before and he raised his glass in their direction in a mock toast. "Here's to no second chances," he whispered to himself.
Several hours passed but Damon paced himself; the last thing he wanted was for Elena to know that on top of everything else she had to look past about him, he also was a daytime drinker and he could barely function without a buzz. Elena had suggested that they meet at 7:30; it was now close to 4:30 and he decided to order one last drink. During the few hours he had spent here he had indulged himself in the pointless gossip of the women of the PTA at a booth behind him, the sordid confessions of infidelity from one man to another two stools down, and of course the ever present chatter about the incident at the park yesterday. Although he did not want to think about Klaus and his family any more, he could not help but be intrigued by the new development. It appeared from the bag exchange at the hospital that Klaus' siblings might be leaving town, but until he knew for sure that Klaus planned on doing the same he would not rest easy.
He raised his glass to his mouth for what might have been his final sip but lowered it instantly when he heard a man's voice behind him.
"Well, fancy finding you here. You certainly don't make things difficult for me, do you mate?"
Damon could hardly believe that the voice was directed at him at first, but he quickly picked up on the innuendo and turned around slowly in his seat. He came face to face with the man he recognized as Klaus for the first time and he immediately squared his shoulders and dug his feet into the ground, ready to defend himself.
"What's the matter? Seems like you already know who I am. And here I had an introduction speech prepared," he strolled casually to the barstool beside Damon and sat down, raising his hand at the bartender to signal her attention. "Vodka water please, sweetheart," he smiled warmly at her and she blushed instantly.
"Who's your friend, Damon?" she winked at Klaus and turned around to make his drink.
"Well I suppose we are like old friends. After all, you did take it upon yourself to join the family history book when you killed my brother," Klaus' voice was lowered just enough for Damon to hear every word, but the complacent smile on his face when the bartender placed his drink in front of him made it appear as though he was merely referring to the weather.
"You don't know what you're talking about," Damon didn't know what else to say; he certainly hadn't been prepared for this conversation.
"Oh, cut the bullshit. We both know what you did. You really must work on developing a defense mechanism against women," he took a short sip of his drink and looked over at Damon, "Anyone can spot your weakness from a mile away."
"Fuck you," Damon started to stand up but Klaus put his hand on his arm and forcefully shoved him back into his seat.
"It's rude to leave in the middle of a conversation," he said calmly.
"I have nothing to say to you," Damon remained seated nevertheless; he certainly did not want to cause a scene and draw attention to their conversation.
"Nothing at all? There's nothing you want to say to me about kidnapping your little girlfriend?" his eyes moved from the bartender at the other end of the bar to Damon's face briefly, judging his reaction.
Damon knew not to let his emotions read and he remained calm and straight-faced. "Well that didn't turn out as you planned. I guess your sister is your weakness too," he smiled and Klaus' face tightened.
"Does little Elena know what a sex addicted, alcoholic train wreck you are? If you really care for the girl the best thing you could do for her is stay far away. You're a grown man - a pathetic criminal at that. You're no good for her and you know it," Klaus shot back immediately.
The smile fell from Damon's face and he became aware that he was allowing Klaus to see that he had gotten to him. He clenched his fists together, using all of his willpower not to rear back and punch the smirk off of his face. "This coming from such an upstanding model citizen like yourself. You know if you weren't such a psychotic control freak you might stop losing all your family members."
This was too much for Klaus; he pushed the bar stool back and grabbed Damon by his shirt collar, lifting him out of his chair. "Do you know what I could do to you, you worthless little shit?" he spoke through gritted teeth.
Damon remained unphased and said calmly, "So do it then, dick."
In the background the manager's voice resounded across the bar, "Hey! Stop, that's enough!"
Klaus stood completely still for several seconds before releasing his grasp of Damon's shirt. Damon stumbled backwards slightly but kept his composure and never broke eye contact. The manager was standing next to the men now, ready to intervene if necessary.
"Anyway, I just wanted to say goodbye," Klaus' smirk had returned and he smoothed out the wrinkles on the sides of his brown jacket, adjusting the sleeves as if the entire restaurant full of people were not staring directly at him. "Leaving town for a while. I have some more important business to take care of. But don't worry, we'll meet again, friend." he put a hand on the side of Damon's bicep and squeezed tightly, almost threateningly.
Damon had no words; he had no idea what was happening and he could not believe he was about to let this man walk away after what he had done to Elena. Klaus flashed one more smile at everyone in the bar before announcing loudly, "Carry on!" and exiting through the front door.
"You okay, man?" The manager gave Damon a swift pat on the back and Damon flinched away.
"I'm fine," he muttered, teeth clenched.
He stood staring out the front window, watching Klaus get into his truck and drive out of the parking lot. After he was able to regain his composure and people had started to look away to whisper quietly among themselves he threw some cash onto the bar and walked out as calmly as he could. He stood outside for a minute and took a deep breath with his eyes closed. The cold air filled his lungs and reminded him that he was now completely sober. The recurring thought in his head was to get in his car and hunt Klaus down, run him off of the road and leave town for good. The worst thing about all of the emotions he felt now was that he knew Klaus had been right - he was all of the things that Klaus said he was, and on top of everything else he was selfish for letting Elena get sucked into his life. If he left town now Stefan and Elena would find a way to make things work between them; they would take care of each other and Damon knew that he would never have to worry about their safety again. Now that Klaus was on hiatus it would be the perfect time to make a getaway. He ran through all of this in his head, vivid flashing backs occurring between thoughts of the night he had spent with Elena at the barn. By the time he got into his car and started the engine he had made up his mind.