Did I say the angst was over? Sorry, there's still some left.

The bed's getting cold and you're not here

The future that we hold is so unclear

But I'm not alive until you call

And I'll bet the odds against it all

Selena Gomez, "The Heart Wants What It Wants"

11. BUT THE HEART WANTS WHAT IT WANTS

One moment she is installing pranks in a classroom and catching up with Tyler about their respective summers (and, once more, he surprises her being the only one in the group of friends who asks her how she's coping with her dad's death). The next, she opens her eyes and he is dead next to her (in transition, the new bitchy girl tells her), and if Bonnie doesn't find a way to make the transition a success this time around, then both Tyler and Elena will be dead.

If Klaus is around, then Stefan is also around.

'Think, Caroline, think.'

What is she going to do? Leave Tyler on his own? Klaus already killed him, but now he wants him to leave and make him a hybrid.

In the end, it's her heart that decides for her.

Caroline finds him in the gym, and before entering the place she hears a horrified Elena begging him to try and fight Klaus' compulsion.

She clenches her fists. The Stefan who is feeding on human blood is stronger than her. She doesn't have much of a chance. But still… if he hurts the person he loves, he's going to regret it his whole life.

So Caroline makes her choice, breaks the leg of a chair, and stakes him in the stomach.

"No! What are you doing?!" Elena yells.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She doesn't want to hurt Stefan, but this is in his best interest. He also seems to understand this for a fraction of a second, until his instincts quick in and he takes the stake out, pushing her against the floor so hard that she sees black.

"Stefan, Elena is right, you can do this."

"Now, who invited you to this party?" Klaus walks in, dragging Elena back behind him. "The original witch says the doppelgänger must be dead. Don't interfere in my business."

His hands close around Caroline's neck, but she still has time for too many thoughts to cross her mind.

She already knew that maybe having a doppelgänger would bring trouble to Stefan one day. Maybe the doppelgänger Klaus needs doesn't have to be a Petrova, it doesn't have to be Elena, and Caroline can save her friends (Elena, Tyler, Stefan, all of them) if she only opens her mouth and tells this man about Tom.

But she can't.

How can she decide her childhood friends' lives have more value than Tom's?

Oh, she could have, if only she had not spent almost a whole month in his company, getting to know him, becoming his friend.

Now she cannot bring herself to out him even if it might save her life.

Klaus breaks her neck.

The beginning of her senior year at high school sucks. Tyler won't speak to her because she left him alone with Rebekah when she went to find Stefan. Rebekah is at school trying to steal the limelight. The two of them appear to be in a weird relationship and that girl is not a good influence on vampire Tyler at all.

And Stefan, well, Klaus forced him to turn off his humanity, and if she thought that having him act as Klaus' dog in the past was bad, this is way worse.

On the bright side, she is still alive.

"How do we kill an original again?"

"That's kind of hard to do, I doubt you have it in you."

She turns her head to see Stefan, who comes to sit next to her. Great, just what she needed to end this party on the right note.

"What, did you get tired of stalking Elena now?"

"I'm just letting her have her private moment with my brother for a little bit. It seems safe. He is not going to kill her, considering he wants to sleep with her."

Caroline can't believe it. He really says it as if he doesn't care at all.

"Why are you talking to me, Stefan?"

He shrugs. "Killing time. And I'm quite hungry, but I'm not sure about who I'll have for dinner tonight. There are so many options on the menu here."

It's sickening to hear him speak like this. The Stefan she used to know would hate himself, too.

"If they were hurting I felt their pain and I felt guilty if I was the one who caused it."

Stefan hates himself. That's why he was frowning all the time. She thinks of Tom, who's kind and warm and caring, and wonders if Stefan used to be like that when he was human, before becoming a vampire brought up not only his best but also his worst traits. Now he spends his immortal life doing horrible things and then hating himself for his actions when he manages to recover control.

So she remembers he's supposed to be following Elena so they can vervain him and lock him up. It's for his own good.

"Well, I see Elena is alone now, and she is quite drunk. Maybe you should look after her."

She watches him walk away. The sight of his back as he leaves seems to be too familiar by now, more than it should be.

Just when she is about to sink in her loneliness again, Matt comes to sit by her side, bringing a can of beer for her.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Sure, all things considered." She smiles at him. "What about you?"

These months, he's been struggling a lot to accept that practically none of his friends are human now.

"Fine, I guess. Every day I wake up and I'm still alive and human, I count myself as a lucky guy."

She fidgets with the glass in her hands and looks down.

"We haven't had much time to talk since you came back from your trip, Care, but… I want you to know I'm sorry. For distancing myself after I learned the truth, when I already knew that you were… just you."

He smiles, his hand reaches hers, and their fingers interlock. For a moment she sees him as the sweet boy she dreamed with when things were simpler, easier. God, she really wants to go back to those times.

"It's alright. I understand, Matt. I really do." She drinks her beer in one go and stands up. "What do you say if we go dance for a bit? With all that's going on, we deserve to celebrate that we made it to senior year."

Later, when she is drunk and happy enough, she kisses him and he kisses her back.

In the dream, it's raining, and they are driving on a deserted road.

"You can't keep putting these decisions off."

She hates him. She hates the fact that she doesn't hate him.

"Fine. Uh, from Maine, we will take the ferry to Nova Scotia. Happy? If not, feel free to swim."

"I wasn't talking about that decision. Do you love him?"

"I don't know. Can you love someone and leave them behind right when you need each other the most?"

She makes a pause, looking into his eyes, but of course, he can't answer. He shouldn't even be asking this now.

Do you love him?

What a stupid question.

Sometimes, she looks back to all her past relationships, to all the men she's cared about, and she feels there's only one man she has truly, completely loved her whole life.