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He said, "Let's get out of this town

Drive out of the city, away from the crowds"

I thought 'heaven can't help me now'

Nothing lasts forever

But this is gonna take me down

Taylor Swift, "Wildest Dreams"

40. 'NO ONE HAS TO KNOW'

It's been a while since she's had one of those dreams.

Her girls are in danger.

"No, stop. You're not coming."

In any other situation, she would trust Stefan with her life, but she can't risk her kids.

"Damon is with them."

"Right. Which is exactly why I should come with you."

"Let me be perfectly clear, Stefan. If Damon gets in between me and my girls, I am going to kill him."

It pains her, but this is the best she can do at the moment. If it comes to the point of choosing between the twins and his brother… Stefan has never given up on Damon before, and she's not going to force him to make that choice either.

So she takes off her ring and gives it back to him.

Caroline turns her back on Stefan, and Alaric turns his back on her.

"My kids should have never been involved with this."

"Our kids!"

"They're mine, Caroline. Mine and Jo's…"

Despair fills her heart. She has given birth to those girls, even if it almost cost her life, and watched them grow from day one. Not her kids?

And isn't all of this happening because they are witches? That's not her fault.

But it doesn't matter because Stefan chooses to save everyone at the cost of himself. It is the beginning of the end, and Caroline doesn't know it yet.

"I surrendered my immortal soul to Cade."

"No. No, there has to be... a way out of this. You promised me a June wedding."

"Our day is tomorrow. It's my last day."

He also wakes up when she starts tossing and turning in bed. "Another nightmare?"

She shakes her head.

"My girls. Someone kidnapped them, and then we broke up, and Alaric wanted to take my daughters away from me…"

Despair is eating her inside again, and she finds it hard to breathe.

"Caroline, you don't have any daughters."

That's true. She doesn't have any daughters. It's not real. Or at least, not yet.

Only when he wipes out her tears does she realize she's been crying.

"I sacrificed everything for them. How can they not be my daughters?"

Stefan puts his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to face him. "Caroline, listen to me. It was just a dream."

She makes an effort to breathe in and out in order to calm herself down.

"You don't understand. It feels so real."

He holds her tightly, cocooning her into his arms, and it has an instant effect.

'I'm going to lose them, and I'm going to lose you', that's what she wants to say.

One day later Stefan comes back from Alaric's place proposing a new trip to look for a coven of witches that might know about limbos and the place beyond the Other Side, in Bulgaria.

Caroline is glad there is reason to keep hoping, to keep looking for the people they've lost, but she also knows that Stefan would have done all this by himself, or told Enzo about it instead of extending the invitation to her. It's just that he wants to distract her from the images that are plaguing her mind, so she smiles and tells him that he should go on his own.

"I realized Elena has become a blood addict now. I can't leave her unsupervised for too long, or who knows what she'll do."

"You think she's going to switch it off again?" Stefan frowns. "Last time she wasn't the one to make that decision."

"No, it was Damon," Caroline thinks there isn't even a need to point this out, "who is exactly the reason why she might snap one of these days. But you should totally go to Romania. Do you think you can use Enzo's help, or are you going to kill him next time?"

"Let's not take the risk."

It isn't really surprising when he doesn't pack up his things and goes on his own (as he ought to do). She knows that Stefan is reluctant to leave her alone, and, frankly, she isn't ready to be left alone with the mess of their new reality, not yet. The only reason they have made it this far keeping their sanity (instead of spiraling down like Jeremy and Elena are doing) is that they have each other.

They cannot stay glued forever, so Caroline makes good use of the time they have, and memorizes her with every glance, every kiss, every touch.

She's making coffee early in the morning when it just occurs to her that their lead to the Gemini coven might be closer than they think.

"Of course. Twins."

"What?"

"Twins. My gir-... I mean, the girls are witches. Twin witches. I never connected the dots before, but with a name like Gemini, that coven must be related. And think about it, don't we have twin witches at Whitmore right now?"

"You mean Liv and Luke?"

"We don't know about their coven, and they are very secretive about it. There must be a reason for that."

For a moment she is sure he's going to think she's crazy. He was not convinced before when she told her about the weird connection between her dream-daughters, Alaric and herself. But Stefan considers her reasoning and nods.

"It's worth looking into it. Do you have any other plans for this morning?"

The siblings are mysteriously absent from campus and the city, which is, again, frustrating.

"Maybe we should make that trip to New Orleans after all."

She furrows her eyes. "Are you just trying to distract me from the Gemini Coven issue?"

"No," he wraps his arms around her, his lips barely grazing her earlobe "this is me trying to distract you."

Caroline would like to take his word for this, but there's not much of a chance the doorbell rings.

It's Elena.

"You two are always telling me there's an extra room, so here I am." The brunette smiles at them and her eyes wander around the living room area. "Nice place."

She exchanges glances with Stefan. That's right, both of them have been worried about Elena, but that invitation was made way before their relationship took this new turn.

"Actually, I don't th-"

"That's great!" Caroline practically shouts over Stefan's voice, who gives her a questioning look.

She glares at him. It's definitely not time to tell Elena yet. Or she isn't ready. Same thing.

"I'll show you around."

Stefan sighs and smiles. "I'll put another plate on the table."

"Come on. I started decorating the room for my mom, but I think she's not going to stay over very often, so we can start all over again for you." She leads her friend towards the stairs. "It's going to look awesome."

"That's not really necessary, but thanks."

Living with her boyfriend and her best friend, who also happens to be his ex-girlfriend… What could possibly go wrong?

"I didn't even know drive-in cinemas were still a thing."

"This is the only one in the city, actually." She points out, grabbing another handful of popcorn.

"Remind me again, why are we here?"

"It's obvious, we're having a date."

"And we're totally not avoiding Elena."

She focuses her attention on the movie, so what if Stefan has zero interest in watching a sappy romantic drama? She's here for it.

"Now that I'm looking at him again, I do think that guy who was hitting on me in L.A. was Zac Efron."

"Caroline…"

"I didn't realize it, but he's ripped now… When we were younger, Elena, Bonnie and I knew all the High School Musical songs by heart. We came up with new choreographies though."

He takes the popcorn bucket out of her hands. "While I think that's cute and I'm sure you sounded great back then too, can you stop changing the subject?"

"What do you want us to say? She's been keeping me at arm's length for weeks, and now she finally accepts that she needs help. I can't just tell her I'm… we're together."

"If she's going to stay, there's no way we can go on without telling her."

"What do you want me to do, then? I would prefer it if we did not have to babysit again. But the way things are right now, she'll hate me if we tell her. I know."

"Why would you think that?"

She sighs and gives him a side glance.

"Let's be honest. Every time something happened with Damon in the past, her first reaction would be to go to you. It's not going to be different this time."

"Elena and I ended things ages ago. We're good friends now."

It's not that she doesn't believe that's how he feels, but Caroline has seen these things play out in front of her eyes too many times to ignore.

"Remember when Elena turned off her humanity? She didn't care about anyone, but she still cared enough about us being friends that she lashed out trying to kill my mom, and me." He opens his mouth to argue but she continues, "then, when she and Damon broke up for the second time a few months ago? She turned to you to be study buddies, didn't she? This time, she's been pretending Damon does not exist for weeks, and suddenly she's accepting an offer I made hundreds of times before. It's not because of me."

He raises an eyebrow. "If I didn't know you any better, I'd think you're jealous."

"I'm not jealous, I'm just saying those are enough clues for us to know it's not a good time to tell her we're together." She avoids looking at him and diverts to watching the movie. "He said his name was Luke, but that was totally Zac Efron at that party… What a wasted chance. I should have not let you compel him."

"You remember the name of a stranger you spoke to one time a year ago?"

A smile appears on her face as she mimics the expression he had seconds ago. "What? If I didn't know you any better, I'd think you're jealous…"

Caroline wants to keep teasing him, the only reason she doesn't is because Stefan kisses her, and every thought that isn't related to having her hands on him abandons her right then.