Hello, it's me...

It's better to walk away than to run with fake friends

No use for excuses so bad things come to an end

I'm not spurned and forgotten 'cause I only go for gold

Don't need no fake friends

Might as well shut down

Sigrid, "Fake friends"

45. ABOUT SWITCHING SIDES AND DRAWING LINES

It's not really a surprise to find Elena feeding onto an unaware girl in her own dorm. Caroline compels the girl to forget and tells her to go away, right before pushing Elena to the floor.

"What the hell are you doing?! I've had enough of this, being the nice, supportive friend. You're a wreck, Elena!"

"Yeah, that's a very nice and supportive thing of you to say."

"You have been meeting Luke for weeks! And you knew we were looking for him, that his might be the key to find Damon and Bonnie. Why didn't you tell us?!"

Elena digs her nails into her own arms.

"Because it's useless, Caroline! I asked him about it too. There's no way… there's no way to bring back the dead now."

"And you just believed him?"

"Well, none of your other leads goes anywhere, right? He's the only one who can help me see Damon, I can't risk losing that!"

This time Caroline pins her to the wall and closes her hand around Elena's neck.

"Now, now, this is all a nice play, but we know you're not going to kill her, so I think we're losing time here."

"Stefan?" Elena looks confused at Silas who's entering the room.

"I'm the cool witch version."

"Caroline, you can't trust him."

"No, I can't trust you. You knew how important it is… how much we are trying to find them. And I understood you did not have it in you to help investigate, but how could you?"

"I tried to grieve for him, Caroline. Trust me, I know grief. But every time I let it sink in that I'm never gonna see him again, I feel like I'm gonna die."

"So you decided that keeping the secret and choosing an illusion was better."

"I'm sorry!"

"We're not friends anymore."

Luke and Liv are indeed part of the Gemini coven, that's the reason they've been hiding from the moment word spread that she and Stefan were looking for them.

But Silas also says that Bonnie and Damon aren't really dead, just trapped in a prison world, and they'll be able to break free on their own… eventually.

"The best thing you can do is to let it be."

"Are you going back on your word so soon? You said you would help me solve my problems."

She opens a bottle of bourbon and gulps it down.

"You just don't know how to help now that you no longer have your psychic powers, do you? You were lying last time."

"I still know a spell that can do the trick if you want to. But do you really want to?"

At a moment like this, she should call Stefan because there's no need for them to keep looking so hard anymore, but how can she tell him about what Elena did?

Or is she the only one who takes this as a betrayal?

"I'm already going crazy."

"No, you're not quite there yet."

Caroline stares at him.

Silas has frightened her since their very first encounter. It used to be surprising, how the very same face of the man she loves is able to bring out the opposite feelings.

And yet something is different since they met on the Other Side.

He knows everything about her.

He knows more about her than she does.

It's frightening, but it also brings hope. There's someone who can explain all those things that don't make sense to her.

"I thought if I saved Stefan from dying, that would be it. I dreamed that night when Julian killed him so many times. But recently I understood that was never it. He wouldn't have stayed dead anyway. That's not how I lost him."

She isn't expecting a response. It's just easier for the words to come out when the other person already knows everything.

There are no secrets to be revealed.

"I waited 2,000 years to reunite with Amara, and when I saw her again, she stabbed me."

"Are you comparing our situations right now? Because they are nothing alike."

"Of course not. You only had to wait, what? 20 years?" He scoffs and steals the bottle from her. "But I learned that there's always someone who loves more than the other in a relationship."

"I thought you understood why she'd go crazy after being the anchor for so long."

2,000 years is a very long time, and just look at what it did to Bonnie in just a couple of months.

"I did, that's why I wanted to help her die. It does not change the fact that I'm here and she isn't."

Caroline has been curious about this doppelgänger thing for a while. Katherine and Elena… they are not very different (proof of it was that it was so easy for Katherine to impersonate Elena), but that did not mean all the Petrova doppelgängers were the same, and when they met Amara, she was far too lost already to even make comparisons.

But this man sitting in her living room? Manipulative, ruthless, and cruel. She's seen this side of Silas time after time so it was difficult to understand how Stefan or Tom could be 'shadows' of this person. He didn't even seem capable of empathy. Until now.

"Why are you really here, Silas?"

He smirks. "I told you before, you are my favorite frenemy. Maybe because you and I… we are more alike than you realize."

She frowns.

Not in a million years.

"Do you know what I did during the millenia I spent trapped in that tomb? The first time I saw Amara, what her voice sounded like, but especially how she died. Or how I thought she died. The red. The despair. I remembered it all, and I thought about it over and over again."

He tilts his head and there's a part of his speech that goes without the need for words.

Just like she's been doing all these years.

"I think you should leave."

The whiskey is not enough, so maybe she drinks a bit too much blood that night, but she is able to stop herself when she remembers she does not intend to follow the same path as Elena.

And then Stefan calls her.

"Hey. How are you doing?"

"Everything is fine. My mom came home early, but I might have drunk a bit too much." She sighs. "I want to see you."

"I want to see you too. That's why I'm at the airport right now… Caroline, what did he want from you?"

Ah, of course he knows about Silas.

"Elena told you, didn't she? Did she tell you about her drug addiction or that she didn't tell us about Luke Parker being in town for God knows how long?"

He sighs.

"She was wrong and she feels guilty, but that's not the point. I'm more concerned about Silas being there."

"He said he's bored and wants to help. According to him, Bonnie and Damon are trapped in a prison world. Have you ever heard about that?"

"No, but that's new information. Caroline, are you really okay?"

She flops into the bed and stares at the ceiling.

"Are you talking about Silas or about Elena? If it's Silas, he pissed me off and I kicked him out. If it's Elena, I still want to break her neck."

She doesn't really know what else to say, so she stays silent hearing him breathing as he probably also tries to think of a way to comfort her. It's hard when they are so far from each other.

"Do you still believe you need his help to know more about those dreams?"

Biting her tongue, she wonders just how much she can say without saying everything.

Because how can she tell him all her nightmares are about him?

'In my dreams, I saw you dying so many times', she confessed this once and he never asked about it again, but he has this tendency to blame himself for everything, so Caroline can't just tell him that sometimes her heart breaks just at the thought of him.

It isn't even for things he's done.

"Yeah. I think I do."

"Just wait for me to get home, okay?"

"Okay. I know."

I love you.

The words that always are unspoken linger at the tip of her tongue.

She's still sleeping when he arrives, and only senses his presence when she feels him getting into bed (too obviously trying not to wake her up).

"Hey," her voice comes out a bit raspy, and she rolls on her side to wrap her arms around his waist. "You're back."

"I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you up."

Her lips curl up in a smile, and she looks into the deep forest green eyes she loves so much. His loving gaze is enough to remind her this is real.

"Come here."

He snuggles next to her, cocooning her into an embrace, and his lips kiss her head before kissing her mouth.

She takes her time unbuttoning his shirt. It's so much easier when he just wears t-shirts.

It takes another good hour before they leave their bedroom, but when they do, it is because her mom has made pancakes.

"What's this? I can't believe you actually cooked!"

"Caroline, if you act so surprised, Stefan will think I've never made breakfast for you before."

Caroline raises an eyebrow and exchanges glances with Stefan. Of course, he knows that the very busy Sheriff Forbes did not have time to do these motherly things in the past, so he just smiles.

She eats with gusto, and it tastes like childhood.

Now her mom doesn't have that many responsibilities, and she allows herself to work normal hours from time to time, and it's nice that they can just sit and eat together in the morning like this.

Wouldn't it be great if it could always be just like that? But her mom leaves to work and when it's just the two of them again, it's finally time to address the never-ending problems that come to their door.

"So…" Stefan starts, "we need a witch's help to learn about this prison world, and Silas seems to know about it. But I still don't understand why he'd want to help us."

Caroline sighs.

"Well, right now I trust him more than I trust Elena." She purses her lips, "but that doesn't mean much, right."

She never meant to force him to take sides. It's not even fair to him... and yet, she stares at him as he shrugs uncomfortably, expectant to hear what he's going to say.

"I think she truly regrets hiding the news about Luke, especially from you. Maybe you two should talk. She says she wants to forget about Damon."

"What do you mean by forgetting about Damon?"

He tells her that Elena became addicted to the herbs Luke was giving her way before she came to stay with them. Now that her actions have started to sink in, and her pain for Damon loss is the whole reason this happened, the only solution is to have Alaric compel her memories about Damon.

So she can live a normal life.

Somehow this made Caroline even angrier. And maybe in a different time, a different her would have tried to shake some sense into Elena. That's what she always tries to do, after all. But not now.

They are not friends anymore.

She's not going back on her word so quickly.

"I don't care. Let her do whatever she wants. I just want to bring Bonnie back."

There's no time to find out if Stefan would try to be the better person this round, because she's saved by the doorbell.

Kind of.

It's Silas again.

"Oh, hello again, my shadow self. Sweet Caroline. Are you up to break into a professor's house?"

Arms crossed, Stefan walks towards the door to stand next to her.

"Does this have anything to do with saving my brother and Bonnie?"

"... who are trapped in a prison world, yes. I have no reason not to keep my word. It'll be fun."

"How does breaking into a professor's house have anything to do with the prison world you mentioned?" Caroline asks, furrowing her eyes.

"Everything. Let's get moving. You don't happen to know Jo Laughlin yet, do you?"