Author's note: This chapter contains scenes from Vampire Diaries season six episode seventeen. All rights go to their respected owners. Enjoy.

A Portrait for Caroline

Chapter 14

Caroline groaned throwing the bloody rags into the trashcan as she wiped the sweat from her brow. It had taken her forever to get those blood stains out and she was thankful that everyone was gone for spring break or else this would have been a lot more difficult to explain why she had been stuffing a director's body into the furnace. Whatever Stefan was planning she would put a stop to it and soon. There was no way she would let a butt hurt ripper make her lose her control. She was better than that. She would have to be if she was going to keep her control.

Blowing a piece of hair from her forehead, Caroline took a seat in one of the many empty theater seats and put her head in her hands wondering how in the hell she could outsmart Stefan when he had been playing this game for a lot longer than she had. Who could outsmart this ripper? An idea formed in her mind and she took out her cellphone praying that he wasn't too mad at her so he could help her. After all he couldn't particularly resist her. Her last night there had proved that to her.

Sighing Caroline pulled her phone out praying that he would answer despite what had happened between them.

"Hello Caroline, long time no talk." Klaus said finally answering his phone.

Caroline rolled her eyes, she was in no real mood to handle two childish men.

"Listen if you're not going to help me than that's fine, I'll ask someone else for advice, but if you are I would like for you to take this call a bit more seriously."

"I'm sorry, am I supposed to greet you with my generosity when you crawled out of my bed in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye?"

Caroline blew a puff of air through her lips.

"Are we seriously discussing this now? You know that I have better things to deal with right now than your juvenile feelings?"

"Like what? If I may ask without you ripping my head off."

"Well it seems like I didn't really think one of my plans through."

"Well of course whenever you turn your switch off that usually happens, but what have you done this time?"

"I may or may not have forced Stefan to turn off his humanity to save his niece. I mean it was a good idea at the time, but now it's coming back to bite me in the ass."

"That tends to happen."

"Klaus, I'm being serious here,. I could really use your help."

"How am I supposed to help? Stefan is no longer of use to me and you created this mess all by yourself , so it's your job to clean it up. Don't call me expecting me to clean up your mess."

Before Caroline could say anything further, Klaus had hung up the phone making her stuff her phone in her pocket angrily. Bastard. Fine. She would try to solve this on her own.

Exiting the theater, Caroline made her way outside where she stopped dead in her tracks. Stefan's motorcycle stood in the parking lot as Caroline crossed over to it taking apart some nuts and bolts one by one. She knew it was childish of her to do, but she couldn't help it. If Stefan was going to act like a child for her doing him a favor than she was going to return the favor.

Footsteps caught her attention as she raced off into the distance hiding in a nearby place as Stefan walked towards his motorcycle. Depending on how he reacted Caroline may or may not have got a really hilarious reaction.

Stefan grabbed his helmet getting ready to leave when his bike fell apart. Caroline stiffed a laugh as she composed herself enough to go talk to Stefan. No one was going to ruin her plans especially not the person who put her in this situation in the first place. Maybe if he would have cared more she wouldn't be acting this way.

"Oh, shoot, Is your bike okay? Do you need money for the bus?" she said hoping he would take the hint and leave her the hell alone.

"Seriously?" he asked not seeming impressed by the effort she had put into taking his bike apart.

"I just had to stuff the director's body into the furnace. Do you know how hard it was to get an audition during spring break?" she said slightly more pissed about it than she would usually be.

She really had no idea why she was letting Stefan get under her skin so much.

"Oh come on it was easy for you Caroline. All you had to do was shed some tears about your mom's funeral, play the cancer card, and boom precious routine is back on track. Am I wrong?"

He wasn't wrong about that, but she be damned if he let her feel guilty about it.

"This is your only warning. Go. Away."

"Neat. Organized, Caroline. Staying within the lines. Good at control, terrible at revenge."

"I dismantled your bike."

"I tore your director's head off with my teeth. Oh my God Caroline. Did you literally just unbolt this entire thing? I mean it's gonna take me, What, ten minutes to piece this back together. You are an embarrassment to humanity free vampires everywhere."

That was it she had had it with this constant need for attention. She was done trying to play nice. She walked over to his gas tank and punched it in walking away with a smile on her face. Screw Stefan and his useless, petty drama. She was going to live her life and he might as well try to live his.

Heading back to her dorm, Caroline gathered up her books and went to a quit place to study. Just because she was humanity free doesn't mean she still didn't have her goals of being a broadcast journalist in mind. She would do anything to achieve her dream. Shoot. She would even kill for it.

She took out her homework and started to work on it, but a while later she heard something rattling in the distance. What the hell was going on here? There shouldn't be anyone around this week.

"Hello? Anyone there?" she asked feeling incompetent. After all what was she one of those stupid horror movie cliches.

Sighing, she got up to go inspect the noise just like any cliche would and sighed when she saw Stefan by one of the many soda machines in their dormitory. Did he really have nothing better to do with his humanity free life?

"Dammit Stefan, What do you want?"

"I brought you a little peace offering. I figured with all that singing and furnace stuffing you must be parched."

Before she could say anything Stefan threw something at her and she didn't have time to react before it exploded knocking her off her feet. Vervain grenade. That stupid bastard. He was going to pay for that.

The sound of crunching wood caused her to fight through the pain. There was no way she was dying. Not today or any other day. She would show Stefan how a real vampire without humanity acted.

"You see this is how a vampire with no humanity is supposed to act." he said flipping her over.

She had to act scared that's how she would trick him. Caroline would not be the victim in this story. She grunted at him.

"I am inflicting actual pain." he said squeezing her wrist as tightly as possible.

"Leave me alone." she cried out.

"Why? Humanity getting back in? Breaking code?" he asked.

No, she wouldn't let it back in. She couldn't feel that kind of pain. She wasn't ready for it.

"Stefan. Stop."

"Oh, come on Caroline just let go, I promise it'll feel good."

So that was his game, well she wasn't about to play it.

"I'm not going to let you ruin my life." she said confidently.

"Okay. Than I'll end it." he said trying to slam the stake in her chest.

She grabbed his wrist midway, biting it slightly before flipping them over and shoving it in near his sternum. A small mercy. One he probably didn't deserve, but nonetheless she wasn't about to have his blood on her hands. She wouldn't be like Elena or Stefan or Damon. She would exhibit how a vampire without humanity should be acting.

After a while Stefan stopped struggling and passed out on her from the pain. Great. Another mess she would have to clean up. Sighing she sat up grabbing his hand and started dragging his body to her dorm where she would tie him up and call Damon so he could deal with his brother himself.

"What are you doing?" an unknown voice asked from behind her.

Shit. She was still exhausted from having to deal with the director and the furnace earlier. Now she would have to deal with one of the many college students. Stefan had caused her a lot of grief and it wasn't even mid afternoon yet.

She spun around and faced the woman ready to say or do anything to get her out of this. Stefan would be waking up soon and she did not want to deal with the consequences of her actions yet.

"What are you doing? It's called spring break."

"It's called practice. Is he okay?"

Dammit Stefan.

"He's fine." she said going towards the girl to compel her to go away.

She had a job to do and she couldn't accomplish it with people standing in the way, but before she could make it over to the girl a loud sound whooshed past her ear and into the girls stomach causing her to cry out in pain. Great. Stefan had hit the wrong target. Now she would have to deal with healing this girl too.

"Nice going, You jackass." she said prying the piece of wood from the girls stomach and biting into her wrist to heal her.

"Second rule in losing control: No saving strangers."

Caroline fed the girl her blood as Stefan tried to attack both of them. Ugh. Grabbing the thing Stefan had used to pierce her, Caroline whacked him in the face with it so hard that he would lose consciousness for half a second so she could tell the girl to run. This wasn't a situation that she needed to be apart of.

"Go hide in your room. I'll deal with you later." she said compelling the girl.

The girl went to her room without argument as she turned to Stefan. Would he ever just give up?

"So to summarize, letting go means being an idiot, increasing your chances of getting caught, and worst of all actively making choices-"

Before she could get another word out Stefan threw her into a nearby wall clamping his hand over his mouth as he made a shushing motion with his finger. Now what was he going on about? Wasn't he trying to kill her just a moment ago?

Footsteps sounded downstairs as Stefan grabbed another grenade and threw it down the stairs causing a loud explosion.

"Are you serious right now?" she asked shoving him away from her to make sure whoever he had hurt was okay.

Alaric and Enzo laid together in a heap downstairs as Caroline went to them to check their breathing. They were both still alive. Thank God, but what the hell were they doing there in the first place?

"At least they're still breathing " she told him as he joined her downstairs.

"Damon must be up to something good if he sent the B-Team. What do you say we send him a little message?" he asked picking up a piece of wood.

She picked up the gun Alaric had been carrying and pointed it towards Stefan. She really wasn't in the mood for his stupid games.

"What are you doing?"

"Stopping you from leaving two dead bodies. Not to mention killing Elena's former guardian and your brother's best friend Did you like being locked up and tortured to get your humanity back? "

"It must be so exhausting overthinking everything. Denying your own urge to kill and just be done with them. "

"Back away." she said preparing the gun to use it if she had to.

"Fine. If that's what you want. " he said leaving her to go back to the room where they left.

"Hey! Where are you going?" she asked following him into the room where the girl still sat. Her blood pouring from her open wound.

It took all of Caroline's strength not to rip her throat open and feed off of her, but she wasn't going down. Not this way.

He grabbed the girl moving her in front of him.

"You don't think I know everything about you? I taught you how to control your bloodlust, remember? "

He turned the girl towards him.

"Stand still and don't scream."

"What are you doing?" Caroline asked feeling her control slip. No. She wouldn't let it.

"The thing that you keep resisting." he said biting into the girls neck.

The scent of blood washed over her smelling ten times as potent as it ever had before. She wanted that blood. No not wanted. Needed.

"If you're trying to tempt me. It's not working." she said sounding braver than she felt.

"I don't have to try. Deep down you and I are exactly the same, Caroline. Come on you can break routine for a second, right? " he said turning her over. " She has a really pretty neck.

That's when the perfect control she had tried to maintain broke and she rushed over to where Stefan was now feeding on the girl once more. She bit into the girls neck as Stefan stepped aside to let her take as much blood as she required.

Once she had got as much as she desired she tossed the girl's body aside leaving very little remorse behind if she was dead or not as she was consumed by a different feeling entirely. Lust. Lust for blood, lust for the kill, and most importantly lust for another body pressed against hers.

She raced over to Stefan as his lips met hers. His own desire matching hers as he shoved her into the soda machine and made no attempt to stop it. It looked like he needed this as much as she did.

She was about to start removing Stefan's clothes when another voice spoke from the entry way.

"Sorry to interrupt old friend, but I can't let you do that."

A piece of wood lashed out at Stefan's head rendering him unconscious as Caroline stared into the eyes of someone she thought she would never see again.

"Klaus?"

"Hello, Love."