Hi!
Thank you very much for your reviews on the last chapter! I'm not certain, but I think I may have forgotten to thank reviewers last chapter, so, I'm sorry about that, and thank you for all of your reviews on chapters twenty-six and twenty-seven (and chapters one through twenty-five as well, I really appreciate every single review).
Many of you mentioned your excitement for Kol and his bat in your reviews—you all are too funny (:
Also, some of your theories about who dies (in two chapters now, I think?) are wild. I'm not telling you anything more than that.
As far as your questions about the timeline of this story go, since I already told you that I've finished outlining the rest of the story and I don't want the end to feel abrupt, I will tell you now that, unless I need to cut an existing chapter in half because it's too long or I need to add an extra chapter for some reason, this story will have 37 chapters and an epilogue. And since some reviewers have asked, the baby plot is first introduced in chapter 34.
A couple of notes about this chapter:
A reminder for anyone who isn't sure what TVD canon I kept in this story—Damon is human.
Chapters that take place in Mystic Falls are labelled 'Mystic Falls, Virginia' for your convenience.
Time isn't really linear in this chapter, but I hope it all makes sense by the time you reach the end. As always, if there's anything you're confused about, feel free to ask for clarification in a review or message.
There is revenge torture in this chapter, including physical violence and compulsion. Klaus is not taking it easy on Damon because he's human. I tried to keep the descriptions of violence to a minimum, but they are still present. Caroline doesn't want Klaus to kill Damon for the sake of her friend (and we all know that Caroline is a better friend to her friends than they are to her) and because as much as her morals are getting less stringent the more time she spends with the Mikaelsons, I don't think she would ever be completely comfortable with Klaus committing cold-blooded murder in her name, and as Klaus pointed out last chapter, there are fates worse than death…
The title for this chapter comes from a line from Hamlet.
Disclaimer: Save for my DVD and iTunes copies, I don't own Legally Blonde (which I had to include because it's one of my favorite movies, and I have multiple friends who refer to me as Elle Woods because of my characteristic love of pink, dedication to academic success, and organizational skills), nor do I own The Iliad. Well, that disclaimer certainly sets the tone for this chapter /:
Happy reading!
They had been gone for three days.
Three days of waiting, and worrying, and being the sole parent in the house with three girls under the age of ten. That last one was enough to make Caroline want to run away from home herself.
Aunt Bonnie, Aunt Freya, Aunt Katherine, Uncle Elijah, Uncle Finn, and Aunt Davina tried to help, but at the end of the day, they weren't parents. They could help the girls with magic, and read to them, and play with them, but they weren't responsible for disciplining them and making sure they went to bed on time.
The girls missed Klaus, Rebekah, and Kol; and they weren't even being any less cooperative than usual, it was just more difficult to deal with the everyday challenges of caring for a five-year-old and two three-year-olds alone.
The girls didn't understand where they had gone or why, and Caroline didn't feel comfortable telling them, knowing they were too young to understand and they would have questions she couldn't answer.
The first night after they left, it took Caroline almost two hours to get the girls in bed. They wanted Klaus to tell them a story, as he often did, and grew agitated when Caroline tried to explain to them that Klaus wasn't home, and that he hadn't answered his phone when she'd called.
Then Lizzie decided she didn't like her pajamas and wanted to change. After she did, the three girls were no longer matching, so Josie and Hope insisted on changing their pajamas as well.
She'd tucked all of the girls and their stuffed animals into the large bed in Klaus's room, which he rarely used now that he and Caroline shared a room.
After singing them a lullaby, Caroline turned out the lights and shut the door before retreating to her own room.
She had just changed into her own pajamas and sat down on the bed when she heard a knock on the door.
"Come in," Caroline invited.
Freya pushed open the door, wearing pajamas and holding a carton of ice cream and two spoons in one hand and a bottle of wine and two glasses in the other.
"You are my best friend in the whole world," Caroline said.
Freya laughed.
"I thought you could use this, after dealing with my nieces, who have all suddenly decided to become uncontrollable with Klaus gone," she replied.
She held up the ice cream and then the wine, silently asking Caroline to choose which one she wanted.
"I wouldn't say they're uncontrollable," Caroline insisted.
Caroline pointed to the wine.
"Lizzie just cried for twenty minutes over running out of cinnamon-flavored toothpaste and having to use the regular mint kind. Also, what three-year-old likes cinnamon-flavored toothpaste?" Freya wondered, pouring the wine into two glasses and handing one to Caroline.
"My three-year-old," Caroline answered. "She hates mint, and it all costs the same, so I figured that it didn't hurt to indulge her flavor preferences."
"Okay," Freya shook her head.
"And that would have happened even if Klaus was here," Caroline pointed out. "I mean, it isn't like they're on their best behavior for Klaus and give me grief. Klaus is the one who lets them get away with anything, and I have to play bad cop. I imagine Hayley does the same with Hope."
"True," Freya conceded. "You probably didn't see that coming when you came here, right? I don't think anyone ever imagined that Klaus Mikaelson would be such a doting father to not only his own daughter, but to two stepdaughters as well, but he really fell head over heels in love with all three of them; all four of you."
No one had ever referred to the twins as Klaus's stepchildren before, and since Klaus and Caroline weren't married, they technically weren't, but that was the most simple, concise explanation of their relationship.
"Actually, I think I was less surprised than most people were," Caroline replied.
"Well, you know him better than most people," Freya said.
"I like to think so," Caroline added with a chuckle.
"Caroline?" Freya said, then seemed to think the better of it and took a sip of her wine.
"Yes?" Caroline responded.
"Do you know where they are? Or what they're doing?" Freya asked.
"I don't know exactly what they're doing, but I have an idea," Caroline answered. "And I know where they are."
"Where?"
"Mystic Falls, Virginia," Caroline said. "My hometown."
"Why?"
With a shiver, Caroline burst into tears and told Freya everything. All the ways that Damon had abused her, how she'd remembered all of it after she became a vampire, how her friends had known and still forced her to spend time with him, how Klaus had reacted and promised vengeance on her behalf when she'd told him.
"I'm so sorry," Freya whispered. "I don't know what else to say."
"What is there to say?" Caroline asked rhetorically.
Freya wrapped her arms around Caroline, and rested her head on Caroline's shoulder.
"I love you, little sister," Freya said softly.
"I love you, too, Freya."
As they each wiped the tears from their eyes, Freya laughed nervously.
"So, what can I do to try to make you feel better?" Freya asked. "More wine? Ice cream? More snacks? Makeovers? Movie? Do you want to go out? Do you want to be left alone? I know you're closest to Klaus and Rebekah, but they're not here, so you're stuck with me."
"Freya, you're my sister, same as Rebekah. And Bonnie, and Katherine," Caroline insisted. "And to answer your question, let's do popcorn with a movie, and ice cream after?"
"You choose a movie, I'll be right back," Freya ran downstairs to get the popcorn while Caroline perused her DVD collection.
Freya returned a few minutes later with a giant bowl of popcorn and several packages of different types of candy.
"I come bearing snacks!" Freya announced. "What movie are we watching?"
Caroline held up her favorite movie, Legally Blonde.
"Of course you would love this movie," Freya rolled her eyes.
Freya sat down on the bed next to Caroline, placing the bowl of popcorn and the other snacks in between them.
Caroline bounced off the bed and put the movie in the DVD player, then rushed back and took a handful of popcorn from the bowl while Freya reached for a chocolate bar.
Caroline and Freya spent the entire length of the movie giggling, offering their own commentary, and eating snacks.
When the movie ended, Freya collapsed on the bed.
"Tummy ache," she moaned. "No room for ice cream."
"Next time," Caroline proposed.
She switched off the lamp on her nightstand.
"Caroline?"
"Yeah?"
"I really admire how strong you are. I don't know if I could have survived what you went through."
Caroline froze. She'd never thought of herself as strong for surviving Damon's abuse; she'd thought of herself as lucky that Damon got tired of her and moved on before he managed to kill her.
"Thank you."
Caroline smiled when she received a quiet snore in response.
{ }
Mystic Falls, Virginia
Klaus hadn't told his younger siblings anything about why they were going to Mystic Falls. They had interrogated him for the entire length of their flight to Virginia, but all he told them was that they needed to avenge a member of their family. They didn't even know that they were going to Mystic Falls until the plane landed at Richmond's airport.
"We're in Virginia, which means we must be going to Mystic Falls. And since Caroline and Bonnie are in New Orleans, Elena is sleeping, and Stefan is dead, we must be here to torture Damon," Rebekah figured out.
"Well done, sister," Klaus replied as they disembarked.
"It was really bad, wasn't it?" she asked. "What Caroline told you that Damon did to her, it was really bad?"
Klaus wasn't sure what, if anything, Rebekah knew about what Caroline had suffered, but he wanted Caroline to be the one to decide what to tell Rebekah and the others, and when.
"It was really bad," Klaus confirmed.
"Then do we have a plan for what we're going to do to the hideous cockroach?" Rebekah asked.
"Caroline has requested that we not kill him, as she believes that the doppelganger will blame her for Damon's death at my hands," Klaus answered, disdain dripping from his tone.
"Since when do we owe the doppelganger any favors?" Kol asked.
A black SUV was waiting for them on the tarmac. A man in a uniform handed Klaus the keys to the vehicle, then nodded formally and walked away.
Rebekah insisted on sitting in the passenger's seat, while Kol dove into the backseat as soon as Klaus unlocked the car.
"We don't owe the doppelganger any favors, but I don't want Caroline any more upset than she already is," Klaus answered.
"So all of the pain without the mercy of death at the end. Works for me," Kol said.
"He's surely on vervain, so we'll need to bleed it out of him," Rebekah started planning.
"Then compulsion can be our grand finale," Klaus grinned.
"You're planning something particularly dastardly for this one, aren't you?" Rebekah asked.
"He hurt her, Rebekah," Klaus snapped. "Nothing I do can undo that. But I can make him suffer, at least as much as he made her suffer. Do you really know nothing about what he did to her?"
Klaus was surprised that Caroline hadn't confided in Rebekah, as close as they were. And even before they were friends, Rebekah had spent more time with Caroline's friends than he had, since she'd attended high school for a time and joined forces with the group to search for the cure.
"I really don't," Rebekah admitted. "I know that neither of them are the other's biggest fan, and that Damon was frequently rude and dismissive towards Caroline, but I don't know anything about him actually hurting her. Do you know who else knows besides you?"
"I know that Stefan knew, and so did Elena, but both of them are out of the picture. Bonnie knew before I did, but not until after it happened," Klaus answered.
"Leaving Damon as the sole recipient of your ire?" Kol assumed.
"Trust me, he deserves it. He deserves the most horrifically painful death I can imagine, following weeks of the most horrifically painful torture I can imagine. The things he did to her… he treated her like she was a toy, who existed just for his enjoyment, or a slave who was required to fulfill his every request no matter what it was," Klaus seethed.
"Did he…?" Rebekah asked.
Klaus nodded silently.
"I am going to rip off his—" Rebekah cut herself off with an angry shriek.
"Easy, Bekah," Kol responded.
"No, you're right, I don't want to get close enough to touch him," Rebekah amended primly.
"Did you just say I was right? If only I'd gotten this rare moment of intelligence and clarity from you on tape. Did you hear her say that I was right, Nik?" Kol asked.
"Will both of you stop acting like children?" Klaus scolded. "This isn't about any of us, it's about Caroline. As long as we make Damon pay for what he did to her, I don't really care what you do to make that happen."
The younger siblings sensed that this particular excursion was not the time to test their brother's tolerance, and so the rest of the car ride was spent in silence.
When they finally arrived at the Salvatore boarding house, Klaus haphazardly parked the car on the long driveway, barely waiting long enough to turn the engine off before he was out of his seat and storming up to the front door, Rebekah and Kol hot on his heels.
Bypassing the doorbell, Klaus instead opted to pound on the front door with his fist until Damon opened the door.
"Klaus, Barbie Klaus, Klaus's deranged brother," Damon greeted in his usual arrogantly dismissive manner. "What brings you back to Mystic Falls, and how quickly can I convince you to leave?"
"That's going to be difficult for you, as we're here for vengeance, mate. Against you," Klaus informed him.
"For what?" Damon asked, annoyed.
"Did you really think that I would never find out what you did to her? That she would never tell me?" Klaus asked, leaning forward and getting in Damon's face.
"I don't know who or what you're talking about," Damon denied.
Klaus heard a rhythmic tapping sound as Kol gently swung his baseball bat against the doorframe. Klaus wished that his brother was swinging that bat against Damon's skull, and with much more force.
"You and I both know that there's only one person we both know that I would willingly stomach your presence for," Klaus said. "I know what you did to her. I know that you hurt her, in ways that make me sick to think about, just because you thought you could get away with it. Well, I'm here to tell you, Damon Salvatore, that you didn't get away with it. No one hurts Caroline and gets away with it. And I don't care that you're human now. You will pay."
"This is about…? That was ages ago, Blondie's long over it, plus, between you and me, the girl practically wore a sign around her neck that said 'will do anything for attention' while she was human. I didn't make her do anything she wasn't desperate enough to do if I'd asked her to," Damon almost seemed to boast. How could he have misunderstood Klaus's pronouncement so egregiously?
Klaus used his vampire speed to rush into the house and pin Damon to a wall as he did so. Rebekah sauntered in after him, but Kol remained outside. After a second, Klaus remembered that Kol had never been in the Salvatore's house before, and needed an invitation inside.
"Invite my brother inside," Klaus ordered, tightening his grip on Damon's neck.
"You can come in," Damon gasped.
Rebekah sped out of the room and returned with a chair from the kitchen table in one hand and a set of sharp, expensive knives in the other.
"I thought these might come in handy," Rebekah explained.
"I'm sure we can find a use for them," Klaus acquiesced.
"Now you know the drill, Damon," Klaus said, taking a bite from Damon's wrist. "We have to bleed the vervain out of your system before we get to the fun part."
Rebekah left again and returned seconds later with rope. Together, Klaus and Rebekah tied Damon to the chair. With his average-at-best human strength, he wouldn't be able to get free on his own.
Picking up the largest of the knives, Klaus made deep gashes near Damon's major arteries.
"How does it feel to be a victim of a creature exponentially stronger and more powerful than you are? By the time we're done here, I am going to make sure you feel all of the pain that you inflicted on Caroline, a hundredfold. You mark my words: I am going to make you suffer, Damon Salvatore."
{ }
Mystic Falls, Virginia
After Klaus came storming out of Caroline's room, shouting at Rebekah and Kol that they had to go punish someone for hurting a member of their family, it wasn't hard for Katherine and Bonnie to figure out where they were going and why.
And since they knew the full story, they decided that they weren't going to let the Mikaelsons be the only ones to give Damon a taste of his own medicine.
The morning after Klaus, Rebekah, and Kol left, they managed to pack some clothes and slip out of the house with their suitcases while everyone else was still in the dining room eating breakfast.
It took less than an hour after they left the house for Elijah to call Katherine.
"Katerina, where have you gone? Your suitcase is missing," Elijah asked.
"Right now, I am at the airport," Katherine answered.
"And what is your destination?" Elijah asked impatiently.
"That's going to have to secret for now, we can't have anyone sending out a search party," Katherine said.
"Did you take Bonnie with you?" Elijah asked.
"She's here, too," Katherine replied.
Elijah sighed.
"Well, I know better than to try to stop you when you have your heart set on something. Just be careful, please."
"I will," Katherine promised. "I'll be home soon. I love you."
"I love you."
Katherine hung up and turned to face Bonnie.
"I guess I thought we would have a little longer before we got caught," Katherine commented.
"Do you think he knows where we're going?" Bonnie wondered.
"It doesn't really matter," Katherine shrugged. "You might think of Elijah as uptight and particular, but he isn't controlling, at least not with me. He trusts me, and he knows how much I value my independence, so as long as I come home before too long, he won't pry."
"You two have a very strange relationship," Bonnie remarked.
"Thank you," Katherine smiled.
A voice over a loudspeaker announced that their flight was now boarding.
"We're lucky that there was a flight leaving so soon," Bonnie said.
"And that I could compel our way through security," Katherine replied.
"That too."
They handed over their tickets and found their seats. Katherine claimed the window seat, insisting that since she was the one who compelled the tickets, she should get her first choice of seats. Bonnie agreed, not wanting to argue, and hoped that no one had purchased a ticket for the aisle seat next to her.
"So, do we have a plan for what we should do once we get to Mystic Falls?" Bonnie asked.
"I want to make sure I get to punch Damon in the jaw at least once, but other than that, nothing specific," Katherine shrugged. "And Klaus didn't even bring a witch with him, so hopefully your magic will come in handy during the torture process. Not sure what I bring to the team that Klaus doesn't already have, though."
Bonnie looked at Katherine, trying to remember all of the plans in which she'd offered her help before.
Then the perfect plan occurred to her.
"Kat, do you remember what Klaus said about psychological torture, in that video Rebekah took?" Bonnie asked.
"Yeah…" Katherine answered.
"I have a plan, and I know what you bring to the team."
As Bonnie explained her plan, Katherine's eyes grew wider and wider. When she was finished, Katherine grinned.
"That is a delightfully devious plan," she said. "Not very Bonnie Bennett-y."
"It's for Caroline," Bonnie reminded her. "And is it really any worse than anything Klaus would come up with?"
"No," Katherine conceded. "But he clearly didn't think of it or he would have brought me with him."
"Then it's a good thing for him that I thought of it," Bonnie replied.
The two girls spent the rest of the flight fine-tuning and elaborating on their plan until they had the whole operation scheduled down to the minute.
Once the plane landed, they were silent as they moved through the airport. Katherine compelled a rental car for them while Bonnie guarded their luggage.
"What do you think are the odds of this plan working?" Bonnie asked once they were on the highway.
"I would say we have a pretty good chance," Katherine replied. "It's always disoriented him when I've done similar things before. He won't expect it coming from you. The only struggle will be convincing Klaus that you're on his side and not Damon's, but since he knows that you know, and he was there when you called, I think he'll figure out what we're doing pretty quickly. I wouldn't worry about it too much, Bonnie."
"Okay," Bonnie agreed.
They lapsed into silence for the rest of the drive to Mystic Falls.
"That'll be Klaus's car," Katherine commented as they parked behind the black SUV in the Salvatores' driveway.
"Who knows what Klaus will have done to him in the hours that he's been here," Bonnie wondered.
"Bonnie, are you sure you want to do this?" Katherine asked. "This plan that you've come up with, it's pretty cruel. It isn't like you to be deliberately cruel."
"Not for long, though," Bonnie reminded her. "And what Damon did to Caroline was deliberately cruel. And so is whatever Klaus is planning to do to him. For all we know, our plan will be a nice respite from whatever Klaus is doing."
"I suppose that's possible," Katherine agreed. "And Klaus is almost certainly bleeding all of the vervain out of Damon's system in the most painful ways he can think of, so that he can later compel Damon to do things that will hurt him more than whatever physical pain Klaus is inflicting on him."
"Like what?" Bonnie asked. "And how do you know?"
"Experience," Katherine answered. "Are you ready?"
"I'm ready," Bonnie replied.
"Then let's do this," Katherine declared.
They got out of the car and walked quietly up to the front door, not wanting the vampires to hear them approach and accidentally give away their plan.
Bonnie shot Katherine a questioning look, making sure that the vampire was ready to fulfill her part of the plan. Katherine responded with an indignant eye roll, as if she was insulted that Bonnie could doubt her.
"I've got this," Katherine mouthed silently, and Bonnie nodded.
Bonnie tried the door handle, finding that it had been left unlocked.
{ }
The girls were awake before seven in the morning.
Caroline, Bonnie, Katherine, and Elijah sat at the dining room table with them, watching as Hope levitated their pancakes.
"Girls, please eat your food, don't play with it," Caroline instructed.
Hope reluctantly let the pancakes fall back to their plates, only to start the spell again a few minutes later.
"Hope," Caroline sighed with raised eyebrows.
"Sorry," Hope responded.
"Just eat your breakfast, please," Caroline requested.
"Girls, listen to your—" Elijah broke off, shaking his head. "You shouldn't need to be told to eat your breakfast rather than make it fly."
Caroline managed to stifle her laugh, but Katherine didn't even seem to try.
"Sorry, that just sounds so outrageous," she laughed.
By the time the girls stopped playing with their food and started eating it, Katherine and Bonnie had finished eating. They exchanged a knowing look across the table, then both stood up and left the room.
"Do you know what that's all about?" Caroline asked Elijah.
"Katherine and I have found that our relationship works best when we each can retain some of our independence. This appears to be an occasion in which Katherine is asserting her independence by not telling me what she is planning with Bonnie. However, I do not believe it is malicious in any way. I would not be surprised to learn later that their alleged conspiracy is simply that they've finished our supply of your favorite flavor of ice cream and they must get more before you notice."
"You two have a very strange relationship," Caroline remarked.
"Thank you," Elijah smiled.
"Mommy, we're finished," Josie announced.
"Then let's go play outside in the courtyard," Caroline suggested with a smile. "So that Uncle Elijah doesn't lose his patience and dagger the lot of you," she added under her breath.
Elijah chuckled.
"I will be in my study, away from the girls, and the daggers," he joked pointedly.
"See you later," Caroline said, following Hope and the twins outside.
The girls elected to play a simple game of tag, which Caroline was glad they had chosen. With any luck, they would burn off some excess energy and sleep soundly that night.
Hope was 'it,' and she immediately starting chasing the twins around the courtyard.
After a few minutes, Hope tagged Josie, who tagged Lizzie, who tagged Hope.
Though playing tag with only three people seemed boring to Caroline, the girls seemed entertained.
Hope had nearly caught up to Lizzie when she tripped and scraped her knee.
Caroline ran over to her in an instant, taking care to look away so that Hope wouldn't see her reaction to the sight of her blood. Seeing her fangs and the veins spreading under her eyes wouldn't exactly keep Hope calm, even though Caroline had more than enough control to restrain herself from actually drinking Hope's blood.
Elijah was busy working, Finn was in his room, Freya, Davina, and Bonnie—if she was home—didn't have supernatural hearing abilities…
"Katherine!" Caroline called out. "Please be home."
No one answered.
"Kat, where are you? I need a little help here!" Caroline tried again.
It was Elijah who appeared in the courtyard a moment later.
"Katherine is not home," he said. "She and Bonnie have not yet returned from wherever they went after breakfast this morning. Is there anything that I can assist you with?"
"Can you please supervise the twins for a few minutes while I administer first aid to Hope's sports injury?" Caroline asked. Seeing the concerned look on Elijah's face, she added, "She's fine. She just scraped her knee."
Elijah nodded in agreement.
Caroline picked Hope up and brought her into the closest bathroom.
Once she'd cleaned the wound, Caroline finally looked at Hope, confident that her vampire urges were under control.
Hope's face was stoic, even as she fought back tears. Her blue eyes were watery, but her mouth was determinedly set in a thin line.
"Are you okay?" Caroline asked.
Hope nodded stubbornly.
"Because it's okay to admit if you're in pain, or you're upset that you got hurt," Caroline told her.
"I have to be strong," Hope insisted.
Hayley had trained her daughter well. If only she'd taught her to do something that was less destructive and counter-productive.
"Not for me, you don't," Caroline said. "I know your mom taught you to always be strong, and that showing emotion made you weak, but you don't have to hide from me. I don't think you're weak for having feelings, and even if I did, there's no need for you to be scared of looking weak in front of me. I'm the twins' mom, and your dad's girlfriend, and at the very least, your friend. You don't have to act strong all the time, least of all in front of me, okay?"
Hope nodded.
"Thanks, Caroline."
"You're welcome, my little mermaid," Caroline replied.
With their game of tag brought to an end, when Hope rejoined the twins, Caroline set them up with coloring books at the dining room table.
Between their coloring, the board game they played all afternoon, and the movie they watched after dinner, the rest of the day went much more calmly.
Katherine and Bonnie returned that evening, giving no indication of where they had been or what they had done, but they both carried an air of satisfaction, so Caroline could only hope that their errand had gone well. They both joined the girls in watching their movie as if they hadn't been gone the entire day without explanation.
And as Caroline had predicted, all three girls fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows.
{ }
Mystic Falls, Virginia
Klaus was slicing open Damon's wrists so that the vervain in his system would bleed out as fast as possible when he heard the front door open.
The sound of heels clicking on the hardwood floor immediately told him that their unforeseen visitor was a woman.
A sudden gust of wind blew the door shut behind her.
Klaus glanced at Rebekah and Kol to see if they knew who had arrived, but they looked just as surprised as he felt.
As she descended the steps, Klaus turned to see Bonnie Bennett of all people standing in the Salvatores' living room.
"Bonnie!" Damon exclaimed. "Help me, please!"
"Isn't that what you asked me to do?" Bonnie asked. "You wanted me to come wake up Elena for you, and that's what I'm here to do."
"But you said you weren't coming," Damon replied. "I told Esther you weren't coming so she left. I have to call her and tell her that you changed your mind! I knew you would realize that you were wrong before."
Bonnie took another step forward.
"There's nothing that Esther knows about this spell that I don't. I'll get started while you try to convince your tormentors to let you use your phone," Bonnie said.
Bonnie disappeared into another room, presumably the room where she knew Elena was kept.
Once she was gone, the Mikaelsons resumed their torture. Rebekah was setting up a makeshift IV with a blood bag, hoping to make up for Damon's blood loss with blood that they knew didn't have vervain in it.
"Aren't you going to try to stop Bonnie?" Damon taunted. "I just have to withstand whatever it is you do to me, and then I get Elena back, and you'll go home to New Orleans, having accomplished nothing."
"I'm not too worried about Bonnie switching sides on us, mate," Klaus replied. "And I wouldn't sound so cocky about the ease with which you think you'll withstand what we are going to do to you."
Damon had been tied to that chair for almost eighteen hours. Klaus was determined to drag out Damon's punishment for as long as he could, so he hadn't started right away, wanting to build Damon's anxiety and fear of what Klaus would do to him.
Klaus, Rebekah, and Kol had spent several hours ransacking the house, stealing anything they thought might be useful or valuable and destroying everything else, while Damon was restrained and unable to stop them.
Klaus was certain that it had broken Damon's heart to watch them drink all of his bourbon, starting with the most expensive stuff, right in front of him.
Then they'd started the process of bleeding the vervain out of his system. To add to Damon's paranoia, they'd left after cutting small gashes into Damon's veins, stopping by their own mansion in town to ensure the grounds were being kept up. Rebekah even found a favorite dress hanging in her closet, left behind in the haste with which she left Mystic Falls.
When they'd returned in the morning, they found Damon unconscious in his chair. They'd managed to revive him with a bucket of cold water. He'd fainted from blood loss, but sometime later, his blood had clotted, sealing the rest of his blood—and the vervain—inside his veins.
Bonnie's appearance had interrupted Klaus's second attempt to flush out what was left of the vervain in Damon's bloodstream.
Klaus pushed the knife he was holding into Damon's side, causing him to double over in pain, a bright red stain quickly growing across his shirt.
Kol stepped forward and bashed in both of Damon's knees with his baseball bat.
Rebekah jammed the needle of the IV into the crook of Damon's arm.
By mid-afternoon, the vervain was out of Damon's system. Klaus had made sure by compelling Damon to remain silent at all times—which he did, even when Kol hit him with his baseball bat again.
But as Klaus had told his siblings the day before, he wanted his compulsion to be the grand finale of his revenge scheme.
Less than an hour later, Bonnie returned.
"It took me most of the day, but I think I was able to undo the spell," she announced.
Damon struggled to speak, but was unable to fight off Klaus's compulsion.
"How?" Kol asked.
"I managed to severe the link between Elena and me," Bonnie explained. "She should wake up any minute now."
Klaus had no clue what Bonnie was getting at or why she had changed her mind about helping Damon, but there was something in the glint in her eye and her posture that told him to trust her.
Kol asked Bonnie a few more questions about how she'd managed to break the curse on Elena, while Rebekah joked that the twins would love that a friend of their mother's had been under a real-life Sleeping Beauty curse.
Bonnie had heard Rebekah's remark and was theorizing what would have happened if the twins had tried to siphon off the spell, when the vampires heard a set of light footsteps coming from the room Bonnie had been working in.
Standing in the doorway was Elena Gilbert, wearing a blue dress, her straight brown hair hanging loose over her shoulders. For someone who had spent over three years in a magically-induced coma, Elena looked remarkably stable as she walked towards them, her flat shoes tapping rhythmically on the wood flooring. The expression on her face was one of genuine wonder, until it gave way to confusion, which was then eclipsed by horror when she saw Damon, bloody and tied up.
"Turn around," Klaus ordered.
Though Damon had not been compelled to follow all of Klaus's orders, he did as he was told.
"Damon?" Elena gasped.
"You may answer her," Klaus allowed. "And honestly, torturing you won't be much fun if I can't hear you scream, so you may speak now, unless I tell you otherwise."
"Elena," Damon breathed, a genuine smile spreading across his bloodstained face.
{ }
On the third day of Klaus's absence, Caroline already had a headache the moment she woke up.
The girls had, once again, woken up uncharacteristically early, and were already demanding to be fed and entertained.
As soon as Klaus got back, Caroline was going to spend the day shopping, or at a spa, and he could stay home playing Disney princess board games and try frantically to remember which twin liked orange juice and which one didn't.
"Mommy," the twins whined through the door.
Lizzie liked orange juice. Josie preferred grape.
Caroline pulled herself out of bed.
She led the girls downstairs to the dining room, served them some breakfast, and buried her head in her arms.
"Are you okay?" a quiet voice asked.
Caroline looked up to see Davina, wearing a plain white nightgown, leaning over her.
She was fairly certain that this was the first time Davina had said something to her that didn't involve the twins somehow. Caroline was more trusting of Davina than most of the rest of the family, since she didn't think Davina would be there, in the Mikaelsons' house, if she want to be there. But Davina was quiet, and she spent almost all of her time with Kol, and other than offering to help the girls with their magic, she hadn't really made any attempts to reach out to the rest of them.
"I think I have a tension headache," Caroline said. "I didn't even think vampires could get tension headaches."
"I don't think so either," Davina replied.
Caroline groaned. Turning her head, she saw a piece of paper at the other end of the table. She scanned the note quickly, then summarized it for everyone at the table.
"Elijah has gone to inform Marcel and Vincent of Klaus's absence, since no one anticipated him being gone this long," Caroline informed them.
"When is he coming back?" Hope asked.
"I'm not sure, ladybug," Caroline answered truthfully.
Hope pouted, but otherwise seemed to accept that Caroline didn't know anything about Klaus's return that she didn't.
"So, Uncle Elijah is out; Aunt Katherine, Aunt Bonnie, and Aunt Freya are still asleep; and Uncle Finn is in his room, doing whatever it is he does. I like to think that he is engaged in a lofty academic pursuit, such as translating The Iliad from its original Greek, or comparing folios and quartos looking for evidence that Shakespeare did not actually write his plays," Caroline mused. "What do you want to do this morning, girls?"
"Can we go outside?" Josie asked.
"You played in the courtyard yesterday morning, but if you want to do that again, it's fine with me," Caroline agreed.
"No, I mean outside, outside," Josie whined. "Can we go to the playground, please?"
"I'm afraid we can't do that, honey," Caroline replied apologetically.
"Why not?" Hope challenged.
"Because your dad asked us not to go out without him," Caroline told her. "He just wants us to be safe."
Hope sighed and stomped out of the room, the twins following on her heels.
"Now I'm the strict, no fun parent. See, this is usually where they go to Klaus, who gives them whatever they want. But since he's not here, they're just mad. Good cop-bad cop only works when you have two cops!" Caroline exclaimed.
"You're just trying to keep them safe," Davina pointed out.
"They don't see it that way," Caroline sighed.
"You know, if you really need some time to yourself, you could always call Hayley and have her take the girls to the bayou. It would at least be a change of scenery for them," Davina suggested.
"Oh, no. I'm not doing that," Caroline insisted immediately.
Davina looked taken aback by Caroline's vehemence.
"Sorry, I didn't know you would feel so strongly," she said. "I mean, she is Hope's mom."
"And I'm the twins' mom," Caroline said. "I am not going to call up Hayley and tell her that I can't handle taking care of the girls without Klaus's help and would she please rescue me? In her world, showing emotion and asking for help are weaknesses. If I asked her for help, she would crown herself the superior mother and taunt me with it for the rest of our lives. I will persevere. And there are a lot of single mothers out there, who care for their children all on their own, all the time, so I have nothing to complain about."
"I guess I don't really know either of you very well yet," Davina concluded, sounding a little sad and a little guilty.
"Well, the great thing about friendship is that you can start any time," Caroline smiled, offering her hand to Davina. "I'll answer whatever questions you have about me, and you can tell me all about yourself—as long as you come with me to find my very annoyed and very capable-of-burning-the-house-down children."
Davina smiled in return, taking Caroline's hand.
"Sounds good to me."
They found the girls in Klaus's room, where they had been sleeping since he left. All three of them had managed to tire themselves out and were lying haphazardly across the bed, fast asleep.
"They've been getting up so early; their little tantrum this morning was probably just a result of them being overtired," Caroline whispered.
"Should we go and let them sleep?" Davina asked.
Caroline glanced back at the bed. Lizzie's long blonde hair was spread out over Josie's face. Josie was curled up in a ball, facing the foot of the bed. Hope's sea foam green nightgown had ridden up as the girl sprawled across the bed like a starfish.
Caroline instinctively reached forward to pull it back down into place. Then she brushed Lizzie's hair off of Josie's face.
"I'll be able to hear them from anywhere, so let's go to my room," Caroline said.
Caroline and Davina were able to enjoy a few hours of conversation before the girls woke up. Caroline wouldn't consider Davina a sister like she did Rebekah, Freya, Bonnie, and Katherine just yet, but they did have a greater understanding of the other's experiences and perspectives, and they were on their way to becoming good friends.
Once they woke up, the girls were in a calmer and more cooperative mood. They were content to play princesses, changing into their costumes to match their dolls.
Of course, the most fun part of the day was when the girls tried to convince Elijah to play the role of their prince. Needless to say, Elijah politely refused, but his expression when he was asked sent Caroline and Davina into an uncontrollable fit of giggles.
{ }
Mystic Falls, Virginia
Elena ran towards Damon, embracing him as well as she could in his current state.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her head in his shoulder…
…And then, very carefully, she bit into his carotid artery.
With vampire fangs.
In one quick, smooth motion, Katherine stood up and spat the blood she hadn't been able to avoid spilling into her mouth on Damon's lap.
"I need to rinse my mouth out; I cannot ingest any cure-infected blood. I refuse to go through that ordeal again," Katherine announced.
"Here," Kol offered, handing her a bottle of the Salvatores' bourbon.
Damon whined in protest.
"Be quiet," Klaus ordered.
"When did you get here?" Rebekah asked Katherine.
"Well, Bonnie and I figured out where you were going pretty quickly and we wanted to do our part, so we snuck out after breakfast this morning, and we got here, I don't know, around eleven, maybe?" Katherine answered.
"And you've been in the house this whole time?" Kol asked.
"Yep!" Katherine confirmed. "Mostly hiding inside that little room with Elena's coffin, but I did run upstairs to get some clothes to change her into so I could wear this," she gestured to the dress she was wearing. "Speaking of this dress, now that I'm finished playing my part, I'm going to change back into some real clothes, because I feel like Mary Sue Barbie."
Katherine returned a few minutes later wearing skinny black jeans, tall black leather boots, and a black leather jacket over a deep red silk camisole trimmed with black lace. Her hair had been swept up into a sleek bun, hiding its straightened texture.
"I am me again," Katherine cheered.
"I don't know how you do it," Rebekah shook her head. "Elena had such a hard time pretending to be you, remember, but you don't have any trouble playing her."
"And they all fall for it every time," Katherine smirked.
"Now, please don't mistake this for caring about the youngest doppelganger, but Elena is still lying in a coffin under the effects of a sleeping spell, correct?" Klaus asked Bonnie.
"Nothing has changed for Elena except the dress she's wearing," Katherine confirmed.
"Then you went to all that trouble just to hoodwink Damon into thinking you were Elena for a minute? That was brilliant!" Kol praised.
"It wasn't my idea," Katherine corrected.
Kol turned to Bonnie, visibly shocked.
"This was your idea?" Kol asked.
"I just remembered all of the other times Katherine has participated in a scheme, and usually it was because we needed her to pretend to be Elena, so that Elena could be both bait, and safe and sound at home," Bonnie explained. "Combined with what I remembered Klaus telling Hayley about his opinions regarding physical versus psychological torture, this seemed like the best way to contribute my magic and Katherine's talent for imitation."
"You are my hero, little witch," Kol beamed.
"But now that we've accomplished what we set out to, we should back before Caroline has Freya put a sleeping spell like Elena's on all three girls," Katherine proposed.
"What's wrong with Caroline and the girls?" Klaus demanded.
"Nothing's wrong, per se," Bonnie stalled. "They've just gotten used to you being around, and the girls miss you three and aren't exactly being calm and cooperative in your absence."
"But why? They know we'll be back in a few days," Klaus said.
"Do they?" Bonnie challenged. "All they know is that their dad, or the father-like figure they live with, just took off without telling them where he was going, why he was going there, or when he would be back. Plus, he took one of their favorite aunts with him without an explanation. They're little kids. They wouldn't understand what you're doing here even if they knew. All they know is you're not with them."
Klaus felt like Bonnie had hit him. He hadn't meant to neglect the children in favor of getting revenge for Caroline, but it seemed that that was exactly what he had done. Leaving with hardly a word to anyone was impulsive, he admitted, but he was just so angry that someone had hurt his love that he hadn't been thinking straight. He had assumed the girls would be fine without him for a few days, but clearly he had been wrong, and if Bonnie was this upset with him, Caroline would be even more so.
"Katherine, there was something you wanted to do before we left?" Bonnie prompted.
Katherine thought for a second before her face lit up in recognition.
Then she punched Damon in the jaw so hard his head collided with the back of the chair he was tied to.
"All right, now I'm ready to go," Katherine declared.
"We'll see you at home, hopefully soon," Bonnie said.
Once they were out the door, Klaus turned his attention back to Damon, and started to take all of his frustration out on him. If Damon hadn't hurt Caroline, Klaus wouldn't be here getting revenge, away from his children, and for that, Damon had to pay.
From there, he lost track of time.
He kept hitting Damon, while his siblings looked on; Rebekah looking more and more disturbed as he continued.
Once Damon looked like he couldn't take another hit—long after the sun set and Rebekah had fallen asleep on the couch—Klaus changed tactics, giving Damon visions of horrible, painful scenarios: Elena telling him that she hated him and never wanted to see him again, Elena dying, Elena killing Damon, Stefan killing Damon, Stefan telling Damon what a horrible brother he was and that he deserved to have died in Stefan's place.
He forced Damon to watch them all on repeat all night, until the sun was high in the sky.
"Nik, Bonnie's right, we should go home. I don't think there's anything you could do to him that you haven't done already," Rebekah said.
"Fine, I just have to compel him and then we can go," Klaus conceded.
"Wait," Kol interrupted, stepping forward to hit Damon with his baseball bat once again in each knee and on either side of his ribs. "Okay, now I'm done."
Klaus gripped Damon's jaw, forcing him to look him in the eye, and started his compulsion.
"You will leave Mystic Falls and never return. You will not come to New Orleans. You will never again trouble your dear friends Caroline and Bonnie, both of whom you admire and respect greatly, with your presence, nor will you initiate contact with either of them, because they deserve much better than a horrible friend and horrible person like you. You will never make any attempt to break Elena's curse, nor will you ask anyone else to do so on your behalf. If Elena ever finds you, you will tell her that as a self-imposed punishment for all of the terrible things that you did over the course of your life, you cannot be with her. You will forget everything that has happened for the last three days, and though you will remember and abide by every word of my compulsion, you will forget that you have been compelled and who compelled you," Klaus instructed, then blinked to release Damon from his compulsion.
Before Damon could blink, all three Originals were gone.
{ }
Caroline had just tucked the girls into bed when she heard a commotion in the courtyard.
She went downstairs to see Klaus, Rebekah, and Kol returning home.
As soon as Klaus caught sight of her, he swiftly swept her up in his arms.
"No one will ever hurt you again, not once they see that fate that awaits anyone who even thinks of disrespecting my queen," Klaus vowed. "Which is good, since I missed you while I was getting vengeance on your behalf."
"I missed you, too," Caroline replied. She really had missed him, even as annoyed as she had been that he had left without warning, leaving her with the girls.
The girls must have heard Klaus's voice, because after only a moment, there was a stampede of little footsteps on the stairs as they came running.
Caroline stepped out of the way so that Klaus could hug the girls, who immediately started chattering to him about what they'd done while he was gone.
"Were you girls good for your mother while I was gone?" Klaus asked them.
All three girls nodded their heads emphatically.
Caroline wasn't sure what surprised her more: that Klaus referred to her as all three girls' mother, or that Hope accepted it without question.
"Now, it's past your bedtime, so let's get you in bed now, and you can tell me everything I've missed in the morning, all right?" Klaus proposed.
The girls scampered back up the stairs, followed by Rebekah, who had offered to tuck them in.
"Three days of them fighting me over everything, and you tell them to go to bed and they do without complaint," Caroline sighed.
"If it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure it's a fluke," Klaus offered.
"It does actually," Caroline admitted. "And since all three of you arrived home in one piece, I'm assuming you managed to avoid Esther while you were in Mystic Falls?"
"Esther isn't in Mystic Falls," Klaus informed her.
"Then where is she?"
Where is Esther? Any guesses?
Also, please be honest: did I fool any of you, even for a minute, into thinking Elena was really awake? Or did you know right away what Bonnie and Katherine's plan was?
As always, I would love to know what you thought of this chapter and/or the story as a whole, so please leave me a review; I love reading them!
Thank you very much for reading!
love,
charlotte
