A.N.: Okay, so, confession, I was curious, and I've been watching Legacies. Except for the glaringly dull Hope, I thought, Okay, possibly I could do something with this. Meaning, I could rewrite the whole thing to make it bearable. There's just the problem of Hope, whom I despise: I was never really a Hayley fan - mostly because of the Haylijah aspect of the show, which was just a distraction - but Hope literally set everything up for her own mother's death. Then had the nerve to blame it on Elijah… There is zero accountability with Hope, and I could see that even in the first couple of episodes of Legacies.

I also can't handle the fact that they wrote stereotypes rather than characters, and Lizzie? They say she's "just like Caroline" but I'm sorry: Caroline had foot-in-mouth and was neurotic and lacked confidence, but she was a devoted friend, and as a vampire she became the most fair-minded, supportive, resourceful and self-confident character on the show. They really got it wrong, not managing to bring Candice King back in as Caroline, whose character would've brought a real earnest warmth and a good dose of truth, perspective and kind but stern reality-checks that all the characters need at some point.

So, I have a question for you: Would anyone be interested in a Legacies story that gave Hope a younger twin-sister who is not on the Hope-wagon like everybody else? Let me know your thoughts.

Like all my stories, it would be plucking out bits I like from some of the characters and some of the background, but tearing up what's already been done and rewriting it completely, with new plots etc.! I did debate whether to keep Elijah alive: I've created a poll, so please vote for your choice. If you have ideas/suggestions/things you'd actually be interested in being a plot-point, please send me a PM.


Resurgam

20

Tell It to the Cicadas


…Caroline was in danger.

When Giulia still hadn't heard anything from Caroline by Thursday afternoon, even with the lure of a mortifying photograph plastered on social-media, she went to the Sheriff.

Even a vampire's predatory instincts had nothing on Liz; not with detective training and a mother's intuition.

Liz tracked Bill's phone-signal to his uncle's cabin in the woods just outside Mystic Falls. Not in coastal Georgia where he was supposed to be sharing Crab Shack feasts with Caroline and wandering the beach for hatching turtle babies.

It was too much to hope that Bill had simply left his cell-phone at the cabin after visiting; his uncle had died three years ago. The property was quiet, charming, insects ticking in the ornamental grasses that whispered in the breeze. Giulia stopped and frowned on the porch steps, bluish lilac catching her eye. She broke off a stem from which the daintiest of five-petalled flowers clustered at the base of spikes.

"What's that?" Liz asked, glancing over her shoulder. Giulia held the plant aloft.

"Verbena hastata," Giulia murmured. Her father had made her memorise every species of annual, perennial and hybrid verbena plant when she was little. She could identify any plant in the genus by sight. Vervain.

It grew in profusion in the flowerbeds surrounding the porch. One simply had to reach out one's hand and be protected from vampires who may attempt to get inside.

Liz caught Giulia's eye and sighed heavily. Bill's uncle had been a Forbes, after all; a Founder. He had been entitled by inheritance to the secret the Founders worked so hard to keep from everyone else. The existence of…magic. Vampires - witches - werewolves. The monsters that went bump in the night.

Liz didn't need to break in; she knew where the hide-a-key was. It hadn't changed in the twenty years she'd been divorced from Bill.

Inside, the cabin was orderly, and the kitchen stocked with the necessities - coffee, milk and steak. Even at noon, even though her senses were strongest at night, and especially on a full moon, Giulia could scent Bill in the cabin.

"Liz…he's been here…not since maybe…early morning," Giulia said, sniffing delicately around the kitchen, lingering by the sink; she peered into the coffee-cup in the sink. The liquid had started to dry out, leaving nothing but a dark shining residue.

"Okay…top to bottom," Liz sighed heavily, her eyes bright with barely-tethered panic. Giulia nodded; and they covered the cabin. Giulia had done enough covert reconnaissance not to leave traces, but the cabin wasn't pokey - the rooms were airy, spacious; there was no cellar, and the attic was full of the kind of junk that got stored in a vacation-home for lack of space and lack of desire to truly throw it out.

It worried Giulia how unconcerned Bill seemed to hide his presence at the cabin: Steak and OJ in the refrigerator, his clothes unpacked in the dresser in the master bedroom, toothbrush and enamel-strengthening toothpaste in the bathroom.

But then, no-one was supposed to be looking for him here, in a cabin in Mystic Falls' woods: For all anyone knew, he was in Georgia enjoying a lazy week at the beach with his only daughter.

To a casual observer, anyone might make the mistake of thinking the cabin stood empty. The yard was a little unkempt, as it would be in midsummer without anyone caring for the plants or the lawn; and no car was parked outside.

Bill had parked his SUV in the double-garage.

Entering the garage through the cabin, the heat and humidity hit her like a wall, instantly claustrophobic and nauseating, combined with smells that punched her in the nose, and triggered instant dread.

Blood.

More verbena. More than the one growing outside; she could name each flower by scent alone, now. Bill had a hidden cache of no fewer than a dozen flowering plants, including two hybrids, dried and ground and turned into vervain-water and even an oil, if Giulia wasn't mistaken.

Liz found the car-keys dangling on the key-rack just inside the door. She unlocked Bill's SUV, and Giulia was struck by the overwhelming scent of vervain combined with burned flesh.

Caroline would have healed, of course; but she had been burned. Vervain was spilled on the carpeting in the front-passenger foot-well. And, Giulia frowned, leaning across to pluck the air-freshener from the vent by the door. The liquid was clear, but pungent.

As soon as Bill turned on the air-conditioning - and it was cranked to the highest setting - the vents would have released the vervain into the closed circulation-system in the SUV.

It would have weakened Caroline, not noticeably to begin with, but it would have been enough to make her sluggish. A little confused, perhaps, and slower…but confused and slow was the difference between life and death when choosing to take on a vampire.

"Giulia…" Liz said, and Giulia frowned, joining Liz at the back of the SUV. Caroline's suitcase was still tucked neatly in the trunk. Liz reached forward, unzipping it, to find everything meticulously organised in pink space-saver pouches, Caroline's short-lived fantasies of being a flight-attendant played out in her luggage. There wasn't a single rumpled outfit, and the seal of the sunscreen hadn't even been peeled off: Caroline was a stickler.

The curling-iron was still coiled in its protective sleeve.

Her favourite summer handbag had been shoved on top of everything, the suitcase zipped back up. Her phone, the battery dead, was exactly where Caroline always tucked it, in the inside-pocket next to her pear-and-pink-magnolia hand-cream, a roll of strong mints and her coveted Fenty gloss.

Giulia shared a solemn look with Liz: They refused to let their anger and their panic overwhelm their common sense.

"Bill's uncle was on the Founders' Council," Giulia muttered, and Liz nodded; without even needing to discuss it, they tore apart the garage, unearthing the dirty secrets every Founder kept hidden. Proof of their macabre double-lives as wannabe vampire-hunters: Giulia had found a cache of weapons in the Gilbert lake-house and removed them, years ago, before John Gilbert had even swaggered back to town antagonising Damon. Bill's uncle, who had lived his entire life alone in this cabin, hadn't needed to hide things the way Dr Gilbert needed to child-proof the lake-house: He hadn't been as subtle about where he kept his weapons. And this was quasi-rural Virginia: Bill's uncle had been a hunter. To the untrained eye it would be difficult to tell the difference; but Liz was the Sheriff and Giulia…had experience.

The garage was full to the rafters - literally - with weapons that could be used to kill, or, if the hunter was particularly unwise, torture any vampire they managed to hunt down. The garage was neat and ordinary, but open up cupboards and tug open drawers, pop the lids off buckets, and they uncovered an arsenal that would have made Van Helsing weep.

Giulia frowned at the space beside Bill's SUV. There was something draped in tarpaulin that kept tickling her nose, and she half-wished Liz wasn't with her, to unveil it.

On the bench full of ordinary mechanic's gear, there was a quad-bike maintenance manual; but there was no quad-bike. Only whatever was under the tarpaulin, whatever had faint traces of blood on it that whispered to Giulia like a bully out of the teacher's earshot.

She gently tugged off the tarpaulin, and she saw Liz's lip quiver ever so delicately at the sight of the livestock trailer. It was built for a quad-bike. And customised for transporting a vampire, with truly medieval-looking metal spikes jutting up, and down, intended to keep the vampire prone, and hidden humidifiers modified to mist liquid vervain over the captive. Someone had cleaned the trailer, but Giulia's senses were not like Liz's: She could smell the droplets of blood Bill had missed. She could scent three strands of Caroline's golden hair glinting on one of the spikes, stuck to a single drop of dried blood.

Giulia was almost panting in the heat and oppression of the garage: She breathed in the scent of Caroline's blood, her pain and confusion…and Bill's hollow grief. There was something almost…detached about it. Clinical.

"Giulia, can you track them?" Liz asked, and Giulia hated to disappoint her when she saw the look on Liz's face. She very rarely saw Liz, the Sheriff, with lips that were bloodless; with her fingers trembling as they rested on instinct on her gun, the safety off.

She inhaled experimentally for a few seconds, drawing the scent of Caroline's blood deep into her. She was no hunter; what she knew of tracking was what she had taught herself through sheer necessity.

And it was nearly one p.m. on a burnt July afternoon in Virginia. Her senses, exponentially stronger than a human's on her worst day, were not at their strongest; and it was a week since the Fourth of July party at the Boarding House. If Bill had acted as quickly as leaving the party to attack Caroline, that was a week for Caroline's scent to be lost…

"No," she admitted, grudgingly; she stood on the back-porch, inhaling deeply, trying to focus all her energy on picking up the faintest hint of Caroline's scent anywhere.

She stood, thinking very quickly: Either she could deliberate and run all the likeliest scenarios for where Bill had taken Caroline, based on proximity and practicality, letting herself down the rabbit-hole thinking about every worst-case situation, the state in which they might find Caroline…

Or, grudgingly, she could admit that there was an expert just a phone-call away, and her personal feelings accounted for nothing when she knew Caroline was in danger.

"Do you have an hour to spare?" she asked, when he answered her call. She heard glass smashing at the other end of the line; a roar of impotent rage was followed by raucous laughter she recognised as Kol's.

"I have two," Willem said, sounding surprised and hopeful. She hadn't spoken to him since he stopped by the house, mentioning Zita. She had called Sasha, of course, and yelled at him, deeply upset, and betrayed… He had made her a promise… But he had told her what she needed to know, even if it wasn't what she wanted to hear, or what he wanted to be able to tell her. "What's up?"

"I need your help finding someone."

"You sound upset. Where are you?" Giulia gave him the address; and when he told her he was at Klaus's house, she gave him directions. Fifteen minutes later, Liam pulled up in front of the cabin in his dusty 1986 Silverado, Chris Stapleton's 'Parachute' playing on the radio and Rebekah riding shotgun. They slipped out of the truck as if they had been poured fully-formed out of a WB television-show, bronzed and blonde and glorious in the sunshine.

Giulia cocked her head to the side, watching: Caroline would be tickled by the idea of a vampire and a werewolf, half-siblings, road-tripping across America. On the Road, with fangs. Those were the kind of TV shows she enjoyed; especially when the main characters were exceptionally good-looking.

It was never more apparent that there was something other in the two: And that, though they were both clearly otherworldly, and definitely related by their looks, they were not alike. They were not the same species. There was an eerie grace, a predatory elegance to Rebekah's movements, which made the simple act of walking seem mesmerising, seamless, as if she did not so much as walk but float, the sun glinting in her golden hair and making her sapphire-blue eyes blaze. Then there was Willem, who was earthy and self-assured, all bronzed muscles, ancient scars and an easy smile, something only subtly niggling at the back of her mind, that there was something that was enigmatic and attractive and dangerous about him but she couldn't put her finger on it; some animal magnetism. He was dominant; but just because he was a predator didn't immediately raise warning alarms the way Rebekah's lethal grace did.

It was the difference between seeing a wolf in the woods; and watching the shadow of a shark glide ever so patiently beneath your paddleboard. One left you breathless, thrilled to be so close to nature; the other made you move your toes back from the edge of the board and make the sign of the cross and call on every deity you had ever heard of for safe passage back to shore.

Giulia's eyes flicked over Rebekah before she focused on Willem. "Liam, this is Sheriff Forbes. Liz, this is a friend of mine, Willem, and his sister Rebekah."

"Very nice to meet you both," Liz said, offering her hand and shaking. "I'm very grateful for your help."

"So, what's going on?" Liam asked, as Rebekah's raised eyebrows caught Giulia's attention; she was looking Liz up and down. Admittedly the brown Sheriff's Department uniform was never going to be the most flattering of outfits, but Liz wore it well; she wore it with a sense of pride, with authority. Perhaps it was because a woman wore a golden star badge on her chest that Rebekah stared.

"Come and see," Giulia said, sighing softly, and she led the way to the garage.

"What is all of this?" Rebekah asked, on a quiet gasp. Liam became still, entering the garage cautiously, almost unconsciously scenting the air. A wolf scenting its way around a trap.

"Our town has a hidden history," Liz told Rebekah. "For generations we've passed down the secret."

"You're vampire-hunters," Rebekah said, picking up one particularly gruesome-looking spiked cudgel. Her smile was sardonic. "Lovely."

"Well, we used to be," Liz said, glancing fondly at Giulia, who had changed everything. "Now, Mystic Falls is home to supernatural creatures; we work together to protect the town from others who'd try to jeopardise what we've built - or take it."

"Better the devils you know," Giulia said, and Rebekah smirked delicately. Her eyes glinted, realisation sparkling.

"Of course; Katerina Petrova's playground, before her rather untimely and entirely fabricated death by immolation," she sighed, clicking her tongue. "Mystic Falls wouldn't be the first little town to leave a legacy drenched in blood and manipulation after Katerina Petrova visited. Stefan was human here, wasn't he?" She shot the question at Giulia, who nodded.

"He and Damon were just two of the many she turned, trying to draw just enough attention to the town that certain people would hear about her death."

"When I was un-daggered in the 1880s, Niklaus was still piqued that a group of ignorant backwaters humans had had the pleasure of annihilating Katerina," Rebekah said, adding thoughtfully, "Americans are such a stubborn, independent breed, I suppose it is no wonder Stefan's contemporaries took up arms to defend themselves. Commendable. Suicidal, but commendable."

"Well, our ancestors had help, though they didn't realise it; a witch named Emily Bennett," Liz said; she had learned the true hidden history of Mystic Falls over the last decade.

"Even I've heard of the Bennett witches," Rebekah sighed, examining a filleting knife with disinterest. She glanced sharply at Liz. "And your family was involved in this…hunting?"

"The knowledge was passed down…I was raised knowing what I'd have to do, if vampires ever returned to Mystic Falls… That was before my daughter became one," Liz said, and Rebekah looked suddenly much brighter, another layer of Liz Forbes peeling back for her to examine.

"Katherine intended for Caroline to be the vampire sacrifice in the ritual," Giulia told Rebekah, who sighed heavily.

"Katerina…" She scowled, and even scowling, she was pretty. Giulia's eyes found Willem, who had squatted down in front of the modified trailer.

"It looks like someone in this house keeps to the old ways," he said heavily, glancing at Liz.

"My ex-husband."

"Could you track them down?" Giulia asked softly.

"Oh, sure," Liam said lightly, shrugging; he scowled at the trailer. Traps, Giulia thought: He doesn't like hunting. Willem was a predator; but he was also compassionate. He did not hunt for pleasure; that was an entirely human phenomenon…and vampire.

Willem and Klaus were the only full-blooded brothers in a brood of siblings: They were both 'WTV'. Werewolf-turned-vampire. Their vampire status overlaid their inherited werewolf biology, they were not true 'hybrids', two separate things combined in harmony with each other. One was natural; one was an abomination of nature. During their decade-long friendship, Giulia had learned that Willem had triggered his curse before they had both been created vampires by some fatal misjudgement of their mother's; Klaus had triggered his after. Giulia imagined that this made all the difference, as much as their personalities did: Willem already knew what it meant to be a werewolf. He remembered; whereas Klaus had only ever decided what it meant to be a vampire, and acted on his desires by claiming them his nature.

Though they were both 'WTVs', Klaus was all vampire; Willem was all werewolf.

And Willem had gentled his wolf; he had told Giulia there was no controlling it. Only learning how to appeal to its nature.

Native American werewolves had taught themselves, over generations, to hunt vampires as their preferred prey, abominations of nature and therefore far more worthy prey than innocent humans; vampires historically hunted werewolves out of spite, and self-preservation, and an ancient grudge passed down from the Originals to their Old World bloodlines in legends, such as the Sun and Moon Curse. A war between species fought for five centuries over a lump of rock, a war that had been triggered by one person's lie - and another person's desire to survive.

The lie had become a legend, the legend had become a curse: the curse had been lifted. Klaus had unleashed his full potential and found it to be the exact opposite of everything he had built it up inside his mind that he would get, and wanted more than he wanted anything else in this world, until he got it.

The only person in the world like Klaus was his only full-blooded brother, and Willem was as different to Klaus as a butterfly was different from a volcanic eruption. They shared blonde hair, and the same parents. They shared the same obscure, unbelievable inheritance: Werewolves, created into the first vampires. Even amongst supernatural species…they were other.

And Willem had learned over a thousand years how to be exactly who he was: To learn how to channel the werewolf, rather than fight it, to compensate for its vulnerabilities and to downplay its strengths - so that no enemy ever saw his true power…until it was too late.

All it took was the scent of Caroline's hair, those three glinting strands stuck to her dried blood on the converted livestock trailer: Willem stepped out of the garage, into the cacophony of nature at the borders of the wood. To Giulia, the air was parched, full of dust and the scent of sun-burnt foliage. She was still learning how to adjust her hypersensitivity, honing her senses, and smell was the most chaotic - but Willem had a thousand years on her and he was a predator, a hunter. A wolf.

And he looked like one, even with his blonde hair and bronzed muscles, there was something so innately wolfish about the way he moved, nimble and soundless over the sun-dried underbrush of the woods. He was uncannily lupine; and with Rebekah sauntering effortlessly behind him, the differences in the way they immersed themselves in and responded to nature were glaringly obvious. It was fascinating, watching the two: The werewolf and the vampire.

Giulia had never heard Willem refer to himself as an Original, or a vampire: He was Willem. All that he was, was encapsulated in that single name. He needed no other.

And Giulia liked that. The lack of any need or desire to define himself beyond his character: Who he was meant far more to him than what he was.

Early on, Giulia had learned they shared a common thought regarding their otherness: He didn't care what he was, only what he did with it.

Giulia's biology was hardly the most awe-inspiring thing about her: Willem's wasn't the most impressive thing about him.

But it was interesting; and never more so than cataloguing the very real differences in biology between half-siblings Willem and Rebekah, respectively the oldest werewolf-turned-vampire and an Original.

And Giulia kept her focus on the two, as Rebekah wandered ahead with Liz, talking quietly and curiously about Liz's chosen career in law-enforcement: Giulia could hear them clearly, and she smiled to herself in spite of the situation. Rebekah was impressed with Liz. A female Sheriff, and a fiercely loyal mother.

They did not discuss Bill: It was not mentioned that Willem was tracking the scent of Liz's vampire daughter Caroline through the woods to wherever Bill had secreted her away. They all knew what Bill's ties with the Founders' Council and the tools in the garage implied.

Caroline had never managed to pluck up the courage to tell her father what had happened the night she was killed, and rose in transition in the hospital, beguiled by the scent of blood. She had never told Bill that she was in fact dead, and had been since she was seventeen years old.

Somehow, Bill had found out the truth. What truth, Giulia didn't know: If he was old-school, her stomach churned with dread at the thought of what Bill might be doing to his own child. Her mind flitted to Zita, safe at a playdate with a little friend from their aerial silks class…

Her mind went to Spencer…

She could not even tolerate the thought of raising her voice to either of them, let alone…

Mystic Falls had evolved since Bill had last been a part of the Council.

There was no room in their town for the kind of hateful ignorance their ancestors had spewed as righteous vindication to excuse evil acts.

They had evolved; Giulia and Caroline, their friends, they had grown. They had matured. Caroline just hadn't physically aged to match her maturation. But no-one who knew her would ever think she was a vampire; the majority of the time, Giulia forgot that her best-friend was one.

Caroline was Caroline, and that was that.

Like Giulia, like Willem, being a vampire was not the sum total of who Caroline was; it was just the definition of her biology.

"I am not wearing the shoes for this excursion," Rebekah sighed, picking her way over a fallen tree deep into decomposition, chaotic with the sound of thousands of insects stripping it of decaying matter. Life thrummed all around them, frenzied and stubborn.

"Why did you come?" Giulia asked curiously, walking around the log, and glad she had had the forethought to drag her Skechers out of the back of her car. There was no such thing as a high-speed chase in heels.

"I was…what does Stefan call it? - 'hanging out' with Willem," Rebekah said, shrugging lightly. "It has been a very long time since any of us have seen him; I'm loathe to let him out of my sight. And the others are preoccupied. Well, except Gyda, but she had Willem in the Nineteen-Eighties, and I won our little scrap." Giulia raised her eyebrows; up ahead, Willem snorted softly. "Alright, not really; Elijah put an end to it. Our squabbles exhaust him. It can't be helped; we rub each other the wrong way, and always have… This girl we're looking for, she's a friend of yours?"

"Since the cradle," Giulia confirmed. "Caroline, she's…"

"Stefan mentioned her, you know," Rebekah said. "We've had a little while to ourselves in spite of my family's worst intentions; catching up on 'current events'…"

She meant Elena.

Giulia glanced at Rebekah, realising something: "Stefan's…is he staying with you?"

"Yes, well, he says the Boarding House no longer feels like his own home," Rebekah said, with a subtle dig.

"Well, it's not," Giulia said. "And it costs me too much money to let him malinger there alone - or even with company. The house was haemorrhaging money…it was time to refill the coffers."

"Stefan warned me you're very bright," Rebekah said. "One day I'd like to sit down and discuss your university career. Stefan talked of little else; he doesn't seem interested in your daughter." Giulia smiled.

"He wouldn't be; he knows better than to get too near children," she said. "When I was a shade older than Zita, Stefan ate my pet bunnies."

"Your bunnies?"

"Rumball and Daffodil."

"There was a rather majestic bronze statue of two rabbits in the walled garden, near the clematis arbour," Rebekah mused, after a moment's thoughtful silence, and Giulia grinned.

"He commissioned an artist in San Francisco; he lost at mah-jong," Giulia smirked.

Rebekah sighed, eyeing Liz thoughtfully. "Stefan told me about Caroline, a new vampire who helped him more than he helped her…"

"Some people wear the fangs well," Giulia said, and Rebekah smiled, but there was something shadowed in her eyes.

"Yes. There are those who suit the life," she agreed softly. "They are rare…but extraordinary." There was a story there, Giulia thought, the memory of a past life. Rebekah glanced at Giulia thoughtfully. "It's strange to think that you and Stefan are related."

"Distantly. I suppose Damon's descendants could be called the care-takers; we look after the estate, and we look after them," Giulia said quietly.

"Downton Abbey," Rebekah sighed softly, and Giulia glanced at her. She dimpled. "I've been forcing Stefan to watch it with me; you're the Earl of Grantham in this scenario, perhaps. You nurture and promote the interests of the Estate…until the next generation succeeds you. And they say aristocracy is dead… Watching that hideous Mary whimper about inheritance makes me glad the world has - by and large - moved along a bit; you're sole inheritor to all the Salvatore estates?"

"Just me," Giulia said. "I had an uncle, but…he disappeared."

Ten years ago she had set out to discover what happened to Joshua Salvatore.

Fabian had mentioned once that she would find out what happened to him. She was still waiting for the shoe to drop with that one: Fabian was a miser with his knowledge and never dangled visions in front of people without some ominous hidden motive. Her marriage was a testament to her strength of will: She did what Pandora and Bluebeard's wives had never done, and resisted her innate curiosity.

Whatever Fabian had seen, she would learn, sooner or later.

And she was excellent at keeping herself distracted.

"And you never had brothers or sisters, or even cousins?"

"None," Giulia said. "Just Tyler and Caroline; they've become my brother and sister." Rebekah sighed softly to herself. "Whoever said we can't choose our family was never an orphan. Is it very bad, at the house?"

"They're working off their rage and frustration," Rebekah said, with a deep sigh. "Kol and Isak, mostly. Lagertha never missed an opportunity to put us in our places when the situation was warranted; but she is too honourable to be prone to torture. She prefers swift battlefield deaths to political machinations… Niklaus has grown especially big for his boots. A shattered ego will be the death of him: My brothers certainly won't let him off so easily by killing him outright."

"So why are you trudging through the woods with us?" Giulia asked, glancing ahead at Willem.

"Well, it is true that I haven't seen Willem in centuries…we are strangers now," Rebekah said, licking her lips thoughtfully as she gazed at Willem's broad back, sighing sadly. "We don't know each other… It is a breath of fresh air to be with Willem; he has had no part in our…dysfunction. Already I know he will not tolerate how we treat each other; it makes me ashamed to behave the way we have in front of him. What has become every-day for us is suddenly shameful, just by Willem giving us a look…Elijah gets that look sometimes; we've taught ourselves to ignore it, and the feeling in the pit of our stomachs… Trying to bury the knowledge that Elijah is ashamed of us," Rebekah sighed heavily, looking miserable for a long moment. "And in spite of everything, Niklaus has trained me well over the centuries; I cannot abide seeing him attacked. Before Mother… Before I learned what he had done, I would have ripped their heads off for giving him a sour look. Especially Gyda or Lagertha; I despised them…because I was jealous of them… I helped Niklaus dagger them, and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being useful to him… I've always been the most useful to Niklaus… Kol tells me you delight him; you are friends. The only reason Kol isn't desiccated, has enjoyed the last century without us - Elijah was kind enough to release Kol when Father descended upon New Orleans… I know he told you of Mikael. He told us, the other night, after you mentioned Father's name to Niklaus. We have taken pains not to let that name be associated with us, for a very long time."

"Elijah didn't mean to spill the family secrets," Giulia told her.

"I know; he told us about the werewolf bite," Rebekah said, giving Giulia a thoughtful smile. "Quite some adventures you've had, even in this tiny little sleepy town."

"Vampires and werewolves and doppelgängers -"

"Oh my…" They heard the click, the swish - and Rebekah became a shimmering blur, her laugh still tinkling on the sluggish air as she reappeared in front of Liz, taking the arrow aimed at Liz's heart.

"Ow," Rebekah moaned, slumping on the brittle undergrowth as Liz tried valiantly to hold her upright; Rebekah was already starting to desiccate. Willem had frozen; Giulia went on alert, scenting the air, her ears twitching…

But now she had her bearings: She knew where they were headed.

And she knew the best places to defend it from.

"Liam," she said softly, and he glanced over his shoulder, frowning. "I know where we're going."

"Giulia - the arrow…it's pierced her heart - she's…"

"She's alright," Willem said, sighing heavily, and gave the arrow piercing Rebekah's heart a resigned yank, scenting it before snapping it into three pieces and tossing them aside; Giulia could scent the vervain it had been soaked in before being set up in a booby-trap - an illegal one.

"Shouldn't it have killed her?" Liz asked, staring at Rebekah's face as the desiccation reversed, vitality returning to the pallid, vein-streaked face.

"Rebekah's an Original," Willem said grimly. "Quite simply, we can't be killed. Mother designed us so."

"Designed?" Liz glanced at Giulia.

"Don't I look like I could have been designed?" Willem teased; if it had come from anyone else, it would have sounded arrogant: Willem just gave a handsome grin and a wink. He pulled it off with a self-deprecating shrug, wiping Rebekah's blood off his hand on some dried grass, rather than his jeans. The Original men…through observation Giulia had learned that the majority - Finn, Elijah, even Kol, and Willem - were fastidious about their clothing, some memory of extreme poverty - or at least the lack of abundance of resources - haunting them: They took care of their possessions.

And they had never coddled the women in their family, haunted by the fate of their aunt, Dagmaer; Rebekah coughed delicately, and Willem had already turned back to the hunt as Liz helped Rebekah sit up.

"Are you alright?" Liz asked considerately.

"A lot better than you might have been," Rebekah muttered.

Liz gave her a grateful smile. "Thank you, Rebekah."

"You're welcome," Rebekah said haltingly, as if she was surprised to be thanked. She gazed down at her ruined top. "This is the third outfit that's been ruined!"

"Come on," Giulia said, offering Rebekah her hand; Giulia pulled her off the ground. "Liam's gone off ahead. Liz…they're in the Lockwood cellar." Liz held her gaze, then closed her eyes, shaking her head; she was reconciling the fact that her ex-husband had taken their daughter to what was effectively a magically-reinforced torture-chamber. It had been torture for Mason and Tyler and Hayley to transform there, before Giulia had commissioned Sheila to create their hecatolite rings.

Willem had sniffed out the traps, and disarmed them. Every single one of the twenty-five booby-traps rigged around the entrance to the Lockwood cellar: Bill anticipated someone might come after Caroline. And that someone would have fangs.

He didn't anticipate his ex-wife would arrive leading the cavalry.

Giulia focused, and slowly eased her blocks off; the cicada-song swelled, insects ticking in the underbrush, millions of them, an unseen army. Birds chirped and sang and she heard the gentle whirr of the wind over their feathers as they swooped and whorled in mid-air, landing lightly on branches high above, rustling sun-warmed foliage, sending a cascade of near-invisible pollen over them. A falling acorn was thunderous to her ears. And she focused, just listening…

She grimaced at the sound of a small generator, but dialled down the noise and siphoned through the distractions until she heard Bill Forbes' familiar voice, clear as if he stood beside her: "…I want you to know, when I found out about you…I sat down and cried…"

Found him. She scowled, stalking ahead, heedless of any other booby-traps Willem may have missed. Conscious of the fact she had to pick up Zita from a playdate, she resolved not to cause a mess.

"Dad, I'm okay. I've learned to adapt. I don't need to be fixed," whispered Caroline, sounding exhausted, pained, but resolute. "I can't be fixed."

"I've always taught you to try your best. I need you to try your best now. There, see, you're doing it -"

"I can't - Daddy, I'm starving," Caroline whimpered.

"I know you are, Car. Fight the urge."

"Why, you know that this isn't going to work," Caroline wept.

"It has to work, it's the only option," Bill said, a desperate note to his voice.

"Why are you trying to fix me?"

"So I don't have to kill you!"

"I'm sorry, Daddy - aaarrgh!" Caroline's screams hit her, spurred her on, as the sound of unnatural humming from lightbulbs droned in her ears. She left Liz behind, and Rebekah was a blur of gold in front of her. She could hear the sizzle of burning flesh. "Daddy!"

"I've told you before, Caroline," Bill said grimly.

They burst through the cellar's defences - in place against werewolves getting out, not people getting in - like water through a cracked dam, spilling into the chamber, dank and smelling of rust - and blood. Not just Caroline's - the memory of Mason, Hayley and Tyler's transformations a decade ago remained, claw-marks gored into the stone, blood dried and metal bonds rusted.

Caroline sat in a steel-reinforced chair, locked wrist and ankle, pegs through her thighs and her upper-arms keeping her bound and pinned to the chair, as UV light drenched her, blistering and burning her skin, which was smoking and charred black in places, the tiniest of flames flickering across her shoulders, catching her lank curls alight. Veins flickered under her dark eyes, her lips were chapped, and tears had streaked through what little remained of her makeup; she still wore her Fourth of July party-dress.

Without conferring with each other, without a plan of attack, Giulia, Willem and Rebekah moved as one: Giulia went to the generator, smashing it to pieces - and the UV lights rigged up to it, surrounding Caroline, burning her - while Willem covered Caroline with his huge body, simultaneously yanking out the pegs through her thighs.

Rebekah pinned Bill to the wall, feet dangling a foot above the ground, Rebekah's true nature revealed in her anger, fangs lethal, eyes enraged.

"Don't hurt him." Caroline's voice was soft, but stern. She winced as Giulia smashed more of the lights, and Willem yanked the pegs from her arms, snapping the bindings around her wrists, before slicing through the ones around her ankles with a claw-tipped forefinger.

"Rebekah."

The softest disturbance in the air was all that announced Elijah's arrival, but his voice cut through the noise like a katana-blade, a lethal whisper. Rebekah glanced over her shoulder, Bill's blood dripping from her fangs, hissing softly. In an instant, the veins disappeared beneath her eyes, which were sapphire-blue again. Her fangs retracted, showing pouting lips painted crimson with blood. She didn't waste a drop, her tongue poking out delicately to catch the last drops caught at the corners of her lips.

Elijah appeared, quiet and unnerving as a shadow, his eyes fixed on Rebekah and Bill. The look he gave her was the one Rebekah had told Giulia she had trained herself not to notice; a father's 'I'm-not-mad-I'm-just-disappointed' look. Giulia's stomach hurt, remembering the look on her own father's face.

"He ruined my blouse," Rebekah said, indicating the bloodstain on the pretty top she wore, where an arrow had pierced her chest. Caroline rose from her chair like an empress, veins flickering beneath her eyes - not just in her anger, but in her hunger: Bill's neck was bleeding profusely, and Giulia saw it, for the barest second. Bill realised he was out of his depth.

He had starved a vampire for days; and now she was free. And he was bleeding, and vulnerable. She pounced on Rebekah, taking her by surprise with a hit that would have felled any other immortal but an Original; Bill crumpled to the ground, landing heavily. The two vampires grappled, Caroline having the element of surprise but quickly realising she had nothing on Rebekah's strength. Giulia picked Bill up roughly, taking care to grip him by the shoulder close enough to his neck that a little pressure there was agony; she squeezed.

"You're attacking me?" Rebekah shrieked indignantly. "He's been torturing you for days."

"Girls!" Elijah's voice was a trap, snapping, and Rebekah glanced over at her eldest brother. Elijah caught her eye, and told her, "Enough."

With a petulant sigh, Rebekah released Caroline, whom she had pinned by the throat; Caroline had been clawing deep bloody furrows into Rebekah's arm. She panted, coiled to spring again, eyeing Rebekah warily, but Caroline glanced at Giulia.

"Giulia… Let him go," she said softly. Giulia pulled a face, glared at Bill, but let him go; she sent him sprawling into the chair he had strapped and pinioned his daughter to. She was tempted to strap him up and hammer stakes through his limbs and leave him to starve…but she wouldn't; he deserved it, but she didn't have to live with doing that to her best-friend's father.

Liz had arrived, some time between Elijah's appearance and Caroline sparring with Rebekah through the debris of the UV lights and the generator and the rusted detritus left by three werewolves transitioning once a month in this dank, horrible place. Giulia glanced quickly at Elijah: It was here he had been nipped by Tyler, during Tyler's first transformation into a werewolf. He had never left Tyler's side, even when he forced Caroline and Giulia to leave, to protect themselves.

"She's our daughter, Bill," Liz said calmly. And it showed that she was the Sheriff, with nearly thirty years' service in the Department under her heavy belt. Her gun was raised, but her hands were steady: There was only the slightest quaver in her voice when she asked, "How dare you?"

"I had to, Liz. She needs my help," Bill said, sagging in the chair but defiant. "Not because she's a monster. But because I love her."

"If anyone doesn't need help, it's Caroline," Giulia said coldly. Any respect for Bill Forbes, built up over a lifetime - her lifetime - had been irreparably shattered.

"What makes you think you can alter the basic biology of a vampire?" Rebekah asked, scoffing.

"The mind's a powerful tool. It can be trained, and retrained," Bill panted. "You just have to be strong enough."

"Oh, darling, it must chafe, to know you are not the apex predator you've always believed yourself to be. It's always been the adult male who finds that fact difficult to swallow - a lion can only be restricted from hunting; the instinct will always remain. The biological urge to survive…it drives us all…" Rebekah smirked, enjoying herself. She stilled, and Giulia noticed when she caught Elijah's eye: He moved forward soundlessly, elegantly - a honed and patient predator.

None of the Originals were as terrifying as their eldest brother. Elijah was patient and polite where the others were volatile and predictable in their rage. He was always harder to predict, but the flicker of recognition and concern that darted across his face, furrowing his brow and making him blink those fathomless molasses-brown eyes quickly was familiar to her.

Elijah, who had lived a millennium and seen it all, could still be surprised.

Bill's shirt had ripped where Rebekah had grabbed and fed off him: Something had been burned into his skin, just below his collar-bone.

"He's one of them," Rebekah said urgently, her eyes widening, staring at her eldest brother. Willem peered over at Bill curiously. "He is of the Order. Here, in this armpit of civilisation?! I thought we left them behind in the Old World."

And she attacked again: Elijah had to grab her before she could tear Bill's throat out with her fangs.

"Rebekah."

"We can't compel him; they train to resist it!" Rebekah said, a note of hysteria in her voice.

"Is murder always the first thing that springs to your minds?" Giulia asked offhandedly, wondering.

"You won't kill my dad." Caroline placed herself, stubbornly, between Rebekah, a thousand year old Original vampire, and the father who had spent the better part of the week torturing her.

Rebekah's pretty eyes flicked from Caroline, mildly surprised, to Bill; they darkened, but something passed unspoken between her and Elijah, Giulia felt it in the air. A warning. Rebekah sighed huffily.

"Fine."

In an instant, she had snatched up one of Bill's weapons, a crossbow, and buried an arrow deep into his thigh; the neon fletching quivered as his scream of agony echoed in the dreary cellar. Elijah sighed under his breath, shaking his head resignedly, as Willem snatched the crossbow from her hands, shattering it to splinters in his bare hands. Rebekah smirked.

"You said nothing of hurting him. Consider that a warning. You will not get a second chance to abuse your daughter, I will ensure it," Rebekah said delicately, her smile ever-so-terrifying as she leaned down to Bill's eye-level. "The next time I get so much as a whiff of you, I will show you what real torture looks like. And I learned from my father."

"You're one of them," Bill panted, sweat beading his face as blood dripped from his thigh; Caroline's hand clamped painfully around Giulia's wrist as the veins beneath her eyes flickered. She was starving; and she was holding herself back. "The Originals."

"Charmed," Rebekah smirked, as Bill started to shake in his chair.

"You're the reason I'm here."

"I'm the reason you're here, torturing your own daughter? Uncanny. And yet I am quite certain you were born long after I was put into a desiccating slumber the last time. Let's not divest ourselves of personal autonomy: People have fought a long and bloody battle for the freedom of their own choices," Rebekah said, so cold a White Walker would have turned tail and thought better of invading. "Zealots. Do not disgrace those who died to give you the privilege of freedom by blaming some divine purpose for your choices. You will leave Mystic Falls for good. You will never think of harming your daughter ever again."

"As you said, I've trained myself to resist compulsion." Bill's triumph was fleeting.

"Oh, that wasn't me compelling you," Rebekah said sweetly. "That was me warning you. I'd get that leg looked at. I do hope you have health insurance."

"Liz…" Bill glanced at his ex-wife. She holstered her gun, the safety on once more: She reached instead for her cuffs.

"You're under arrest." Bill blinked, for the first time looking shocked.

"For kidnapping a vampire?" He half-laughed, stunned.

"For turning the woods into a landmine of illegal booby-traps," Liz said. "It's summer, Bill; the creek is swarming with kids..."

"I wouldn't waste your breath, Sheriff Forbes; the Order is comprised of brainwashed fanatics," Elijah said quietly. "Caroline lost her father the moment she became a vampire; he'll never be able to see past the fangs to the extraordinary person has always been - and always will be." Carefully, Elijah made a makeshift tourniquet of his tie for Bill's leg, not removing the arrow; he had medical training, Giulia remembered, had been an obstetrician for a little while.

"The V-Squad is on its way," Liz said sternly. "Giulia, you take Caroline home." Giulia nodded, gathering up Caroline, who wouldn't move, her eyes on Rebekah. Elijah caught the look on her face, knew what she was waiting for: Elijah gently guided Rebekah out of the cellar, a hand on her lower-back, his disapproval emanating from him in waves. He caught Giulia's eye over his shoulder as they left the cellar, and Giulia wanted to go after him - to talk to him…about personal autonomy.

It was interesting Rebekah's mind went straight to that, when confronted with a member of the Order.

"I think this is yours," Willem said gruffly, striding over to Caroline; something glinted in his hand, and he gave Caroline a sad smile, tenderly taking her wrist to thread a delicate ring on her finger. He put it on her ring-finger; she always wore it on her forefinger, but he wasn't to know that. The important thing was, she had it back: Giulia was surprised Caroline wasn't wearing her backups.

Elijah returned, alone; but not for long. He caught Giulia's eye, and addressed Caroline apologetically, "All that had more to do with Rebekah and our brother, than you and your father… I apologise for the pain caused to your father."

Caroline, perhaps remembering the immaculate, polite, terrifying Elijah of ten years ago, nodded ever so slightly; it was all he needed, to acknowledge the apology made on behalf of yet another of his siblings.

Giulia had hoped it wouldn't be this soon that he started apologising for his family's behaviour: She wanted them to stop and think about their choices, rather than apologise for making them.

They were due a talk; whether she could get Elijah to listen was another matter. What was a few months, compared to a millennium: Her bond with him was nothing, if he decided it was.

Elijah caught her eye, just once, before disappearing from the cellar, leaving her heart thudding: His expression had promised the talk she wanted. Gone as suddenly as he had appeared: Giulia wondered…why he hadn't lingered to talk with her.

"What is this place?" Willem asked.

"It used to be the cellar for the antebellum plantation-house built by the Lockwoods in the early 1800s," Giulia said softly, looking miserably around the chamber.

"Ah…the Lockwoods," Willem said, lifting his nose, to openly scent the place. "They've not been here in a little while."

"They don't need to," Caroline said softly, and Giulia laid a hand on her arm, giving her a warning look. She glanced over her shoulder at Bill, and nodded toward the exit: They couldn't risk him overhearing anything that would incriminate their friends.

"What's the Order?" Caroline asked softly. Giulia sighed.

"A secret society founded centuries ago: Fanatical witches and humans who take it upon themselves to maintain what they believe is 'the natural order'," Giulia told her friend. "They hunt werewolves who butcher innocents; burn witches who turn on their own, give aid to the other supernatural species or dabble in Dark magic; and kill on sight any vampire who crosses their path. Xenophobes, empowered by righteous indignation and a good amount of magic… A supernatural cult."

"And my dad is one of them?" Caroline's voice was so small: She almost looked like a frightened eight-year-old suddenly realising her father wasn't Superman, as she had thought.

"He bears their mark. They burn it into their skin upon initiation, using magic and a red-hot brand," Giulia said quietly. She sighed heavily. "And once you're in, you're in for life… My uncle was part of it. He disappeared decades ago."

"That's the thing…the Order can boast that no-one has ever defected from their cause. Any who ever had misgivings simply vanished. Very distressing for the Order, of course," Willem said, dark irony making his eyes glint dangerously: The subtle quirk of his lips, which might have been a smile, was as menacing as a wolf baring its fangs. "Doubt. In the eternal struggle, doubt, moral courage, curiosity, hope…they are the greatest weapons of all. The Order has honed its technique in drilling blind obedience and belief into its members."

Caroline was quiet for a long while, sitting in the sunlight, decompressing in the woods before they wandered off to join the real world again. "Did he join the Order because of me?"

"No…Caroline, this…he would've been part of the Order long before you came along," Giulia reassured her friend. "I think he probably joined the same time Joshua did." Willem glanced sharply at Giulia; she didn't miss the look on his face.

"Your uncle? He disappeared…" Caroline said softly. Suddenly, grief and pain flooded her face, overwhelmed with emotion. She cried, "Maybe my dad's the one who made him disappear."

"Maybe," Giulia said; there was no point trying to convince either of them that Caroline's guess was probably as accurate as any other. She sighed heavily, as Caroline wiped her face on her bloody forearm, and made it worse. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner."

"I'm okay," Caroline murmured wearily.

"I know," Giulia said, because she did: It had been a long time since anything like this had happened to Caroline. The last time, Giulia had led the attack on a pack of werewolves; she had ended up with a broken hand and the surviving werewolves hell-bent on revenge, breaking into the Boarding House and torturing her for hours before Elijah had…stopped them. Another display of Giulia's personal growth: She hadn't gone in for the kill. There were so many other, more useful, more creative ways to settle disputes. She reached out for Caroline and pulled her friend into a fierce hug. "I'm just sorry."

Caroline's lip quivered; tears filled her eyes, for the first time. "My dad is a supernatural Nazi… I'm sorry. D'you think - you don't think he'd - jeopardise the Council, would he? We've worked so hard, and we've built something amazing -"

"We won't let him jeopardise it," Giulia told her softly.

"That Rebekah girl threatened him," Caroline hiccoughed. "Do you think he'll leave?"

"No. He believes he's doing the right thing, no matter how many innocent people might get hurt," Willem said quietly, and Caroline sniffled as she squinted at him in the sun. "That's how he could torture you and not feel a damn thing."

"I thought only vampires could turn off their emotions."

"No matter what Zita ever becomes, I could never…" Giulia flinched, feeling like her body had been scalded in acid just at the very idea of… She swallowed, with difficulty, and counted… She saw Willem, watching her carefully, and raised her chin. Her phone-call with Sasha - her shouting/crying "scrying" at Sasha - was scalded into her memory: She hadn't forgiven him yet. She understood; but she didn't forgive.

"He hates me," Caroline said, and burst into tears. Giulia hugged her fiercely, trying to put all the love and ferocity she felt for her into it. "My dad hates me!"

"Then he does not deserve your tears," said Willem quietly. Sniffling, Caroline squirmed out of Giulia's arms, wiping her eyes, embarrassed to have a meltdown in front of a stranger.

"Caroline…I couldn't get hold of Jesse," Giulia said carefully, gauging her friend's reaction. She and Liz had both tried; their home had been empty.

Caroline's lips trembled again, and tears spilled down her face.

"Daddy killed him." Giulia closed her eyes, shocked. "He told me. Jesse didn't even fight - he wouldn't hurt my dad!" Giulia felt her eyes burning, her nose; she felt the tug of her lips, and enveloped Caroline in another hug. Caroline cried into her shoulder, shivering as she held on.

Jesse was dead. Caroline had been tortured. And Bill Forbes was responsible.

"I'll stick around, make sure the Sheriff's Deputies arrive," Willem said, leaning casually against a tree, hands in his pockets. He looked Caroline up and down, then glanced at Giulia. "She needs you more than Liz does, by the sound of things." Even without supernatural hearing, Giulia would have been able to hear the argument going on in the cellar. A bit like Giulia's phone-call with Sasha; Liz was yelling.

"Thank you," Giulia told Willem. She was unnerved that he was in on her secret, without her consent, but she did appreciate his help. He gave her a grim smile, reached out to give her a one-armed hug and kiss her cheek, and canted his head to the side, listening to Deputies approaching on quadbikes.

Giulia took Caroline's hand, and they sped through the woods, back to the cabin, to Giulia's Audi parked out front beside Willem's old, pristine truck. She popped open the trunk, and the small icebox always stocked with a half-dozen fresh blood-bags.

Caroline sipped her fourth blood-bag contemplatively, her eyes slightly glazed; she looked a mess, but she refused to go inside the cabin. Giulia had carried out her suitcase from Bill's SUV. She was tempted to light a match and leave it to decimate the garage and its contents - if it wasn't mid-July in Virginia and the indolent, relentless sunlight hadn't parched everything in sight. The Fourth of July fireworks had been controlled; but a single spark and they'd have a California-scale wildfire on their hands. Giulia wouldn't be responsible. Liz was right; the woods were crawling with kids enjoying the creek, just as she and Caroline had during their own adolescence.

As they climbed into the car, it felt like a very long time since they had been carefree teenagers, when they had respected and idolised their fathers, and known their dads would die for them.

Giulia's had died trying to protect her; Caroline's would live, despite having tortured her.

And that was Caroline's choice.

No matter what he had done to her, Bill was still her father: And Caroline was better than him.

She chose how she responded to what was done to her.

They both did.

They had both decided early on that they were utterly responsible for how they reacted to whatever life threw at them. Sometimes it was a magical snowfall, gentle and mesmerising; sometimes it was a horrific landslide.

Either way, they had to live with their choices.

If Bill felt even the tiniest glimmer of self-loathing at the unconscionable things he had done to his daughter, perhaps there was hope…and hope was the death of order.

It was the death-knell of the Order.

"Do you have my phone?" Caroline asked, tired. "I'll bet I have a tonne of messages…"

This was Caroline: She bounced back like a racquet-ball. And her first priority when channelling trauma was to make lists. Giulia wouldn't have to lift a finger for weeks, if she didn't want to: Caroline would have it covered.

"Yeah…uh, about that…" Giulia grimaced guiltily, and confessed. She showed Caroline Enzo's feed, bracing for impact.

"I'm going to slaughter Enzo!"

"I asked him to post it, and he was pissed he was losing his leverage -"

"Fine - you know what - I'm gonna feed Zita so much candy and let her run around all day and give her back just before she has an epic meltdown! And I'm gonna force her to watch Sleeping Beauty."

"You monster! It was desperate times, Car! You didn't Love my photos of Zita. I knew something was up, I could feel it in my marrow!"

Caroline laughed. Surprise, delight, sparkled from her laugh; her eyes glowed.

She sniffed. "You knew something was wrong…because I didn't react on social media?"

"If it had just been that you didn't comment on the Fourth of July photos, I might've chalked it up to you having a great time at the beach… But Enzo's pic? You'd have ended your vacation early to unleash the wrath of Forbes…"

"Enzo used up his leverage because you were worried about me?"

Giulia's smirk glittered as she glanced at her friend, teasing, "He's not nearly as monstrous as you like to think he is."

"He told you about that?"

"He told me about that." Giulia glanced at her best-friend. "You're the best person we know, Caroline: Your opinion of us matters." Caroline's lip quivered again, tears splashing down her cheeks. "Enzo adores you. We love you."


A.N.: Caroline Forever. I don't need to ship her with anyone except her curling-iron: Caroline is Life. She is all that is good and holy in the TVD world. And I hate tormenting her.

Ooh, also, in TVD the only reason she ever met Klaus was because he used his sire-bond with Tyler to get Tyler to bite Caroline on her birthday, just to be spiteful and make a point to Stefan. So the entire foundation of whatever happened later is built on Klaus going out of his way to manipulate others to hurt Caroline. And that doesn't sit with me.

Please let know what you think of the chapter/the Legacies idea.