Allusions to SA throughout chapter. Proceed with caution.

—

kissed me quite insane. four

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eternity bores me. i never wanted it.

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.

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( She's running, running so far she fears the forest will give way under her feet, pushing her into the open and into the jaws of the wolf. Fires bloom like weeds, smoke clogging up her throat until she can't breathe –

"Oh, beloved," a chilling voice sings in a twisted melody, the sound twining through the labyrinth — the minotaur is closing in, "Come out, come out, wherever you are."

A hand clamps down on her mouth. Her own, she realises, a desperate attempt to muffle the sound of her heavy breathing. Like she could escape. Like she had hope.

She has none. And she's only beginning to realise it.

She's walked into the arms of the monster and there's a reason fairytales exist.

They were never stories.

They were warnings.

And she's failed to heed this one.

A voice in her ear. Nightmares and moons and wild things. "Found you." )

—

Caroline can't remember what demons she fought off in her dreams, but she wakes up with a choked-off scream and skin soaked with sweat.

"Caroline! Baby!" Liz breathes in a mixture of relief and fear as her arms glide around her daughter's shoulders, tugging her into her embrace as Caroline wheezes, clawing for air and peace ( and freedom and life and everything she should've had — ).

" Мајка? " Caroline says on the wind of a shaken breath, murmured and slurred in her mouth. It's quiet, too quiet for Liz to hear over her own racing heart and whirling mind, but Caroline hears it perfectly. Knows it perfectly.

Her mouth goes dry. Her heart goes still. Her mind goes quiet.

How do I know that? How do I know that? Shatters the silence in her skull, the vowels bitten and butchered. Something too much like her own laugh echoes in response.

Caroline merely buries herself in her mother's embrace and allows Liz to rock her back to fitful sleep.

( You'll never be able to outrun me, the acidic voice whispers, I would know. I tried. )

—

"Bonnie, you have to go with me to the Founder's Ball," Elena pleads, hands reaching out to clasp Bonnie's hand as she sits down at the table, Caroline beside her.

"Why?" Bonnie laughs, squeezing Elena's hand, "Isn't the whole school lining up to take you to the dance?"

Elena's nose wrinkles. "No. And if I go by myself, I'm going to see Matt and he's going to give me those sad puppy eyes and then I'm going to have to dance with him — do you see my problem?"

Caroline snickers, "Isn't he over it by now? I mean, it has been a couple months since you two broke up."

Elena's head thunks against the table, barely skimming the sticky patch of alcohol still to be swiped up. "I wish."

"Are you going with Stefan?" Bonnie's question has Elena's head and heart rate raising as her eyes snap to Caroline, the giddy smile twisting at her lips simultaneously agonising and exciting. "Yes. He asked me this morning. But Damon's going to be there too."

Judging by what Elena saw of Damon last night, the scowl that contorts Caroline's face may be well-deserved. Bonnie's nails prick into the skin of Elena's palm, injecting pain and a slice of fear that has Elena loosing a quiet gasp.

Elena has a sickening feeling it's well-deserved. There's just something about Damon Salvatore with his messy hair and too-blue eyes. Something in the way he stands, breathes and smiles that makes you think you're a mouse trapped under the lion's paw.

"Is your mom okay with you bringing Stefan?" Bonnie pries and her eyes are narrowed and hard. A little bit haunted.

( Of something old and wild and dangerous. Dangerous in a way Damon never could be. )

Caroline reins her annoyance in with a bite of the lip. "Of course, why wouldn't she be? It's Stefan."

Yes. Stefan.

Stefan who brought Elena back to life. Stefan who has brightened Caroline's life. Stefan who has crushed Elena's heart into smithereens in the palm of his golden hand.

( Maybe this is the price for surviving the accident. Maybe Elena never really did escape. )

Elena can see the fire brewing between Bonnie and Caroline; the molten steel that will harden into barbs and too-sharp quips. She jumps in with a douse of, "Well, at least it's not Damon. I think he would be seeing the end of a gun if Care brought him."

Caroline shoots Elena a thankful smile. Bonnie's tense shoulders drop, but Elena still remembers the sting of her nails and fear.

—

Caroline finds herself speaking in old tongues. Languages turned to dust by the savage winds of time. She is haunted by ghosts she never knew.

But I did, that acidic voice hisses, I knew them and I loved them.

Caroline flinches.

"Care?" Bonnie asks, eyes locked on Elena's bathroom mirror as she applies her mascara, "You okay?"

"Yeah," Caroline responds, clearing her throat, dislodging the past that coats it like glue, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just my eyes playing tricks on me."

Elena whips past the doorway, her face stormy and footsteps loud as she marches towards Jeremy's room and Caroline can already hear the argument, can already taste the cloudy scent of pot. Caroline sighs and returns to applying her eyeshadow.

Run away, little bird.

Before it's too late.

—

The night is black and dark out the windows of Lockwood Mansion. Elena can't help but feel trapped in a gothic novel, shrouded in mystery and death that is written in the silver wedding bands of her parents, encased behind glass and misery.

"I assume those belonged to your parents?"

Elena jolts as she notices Damon beside her, seemingly appearing from nothingness. She writes it off as her own absent-mindedness.

"Yeah, they did," Elena responds, intending to come out warm and friendly because that's what Elena Gilbert is was, but it sounds stilted in the air of the Founders Ball, "There's, uh, a lot of history here."

Something glitters in Damon's ice-cold eyes. "Apt. Should I show you some more history?"

Damon's hand moves at his side, almost like he intended to take Elena's hand with his own, but discards the idea. Elena can't say she's upset. Something about him makes her skin crawl — God knows what skin-on-skin contact would do.

Still, Elena can't quite deny Damon's beckon as he guides her through the crowd, treading across the hardwood floors of the Mansion like he owns it, like he's stepped down these hallways before. They slip into a small room, a large, aged sheet of paper nailed to the wall, the stained marks splashed across it like the blood of history.

Elena is instantly enamoured. She's always liked the old things, the ancient things with rust on its bones. It makes her feel powerful — makes her feel like she clutches time itself in the palm of her hand, fiddles with the story of mankind between her fingers.

"The founding families of Mystic Falls welcomes you to the inaugural Founder's Council Celebration," Elena recites, tapering off into a chuckle, "Wow, look, it's the original guest registry. Look at all these familiar names: Sheriff William Forbes, Mayor Benjamin Lockwood . . . is that Damon Salvatore?"

Elena's gaze shoots to Damon and there's an arrogant smile hidden by the lip of the drink he'd snatched on the journey.

Secrets peek over Elena's shoulder.

Her eyes return to the paper, spying the name written in delicate script just above Damon Salvatore. Stefan Salvatore.

"The original Salvatore brothers," Damon explains, "Our ancestors. Tragic story, actually."

"I don't think you need to bore Elena with stories of the past, brother. "

The second namesake strides into the room, Caroline hanging from his arm. There's something fierce in Stefan's glare and there's a war fought between the brothers' gazes. Caroline slips free of Stefan, walking up to Elena and hooking her arm through hers as the blonde leans forward and spies exactly what Elena had just moments before.

"Come on, brother," Damon scoffs.

"Yes, Stefan," Caroline says and there's cutting in her tone, "This isn't boring. I want to hear it. So does Elena, right?"

Elena nods, however hesitantly. She feels like she's caught and the lion's maw is cracking wide open, ready to gobble her up whole.

"Don't you want to dance, Caroline?" Stefan asks abruptly, a certain tightness to his jaw and mouth and eyes that belies the fear Elena has come to know so well.

"No, Stefan," Caroline snips and Elena squeezes Caroline's hand in an attempt to calm her down. Ever since the dinner, Caroline has been on edge. Not even Stefan's gift of a family heirloom — a gorgeous heirloom that sits at her collarbone — has been able to dull her knives.

Elena knows these are old instincts, old insecurities coming to play from being Elena Gilbert's best friend ( and once you've been to war, it's hard to shake the trauma ). Ever since Dorothy had been mentioned, it'd been like a live grenade and the pin was shuddering and shaking.

( Caroline is used to being second-best. It doesn't mean she likes it. )

Damon's smirk widens, laced with a certain intolerable arrogance as he sets his drink down on the side table, empty and bereft. "The Salvatore name was practically royalty in this town until the war. There was a battle here —"

"The Battle of Willow Creek," Elena cuts in.

"Right."

"We know," Elena responds, "We talked about in class. Confederate soldiers fired on a church with civilians inside."

"What the history books left out was the people that were killed, they weren't there by accident. They were believed to be union sympathisers, so some of the founders on the confederacy side back then wanted them rounded up and burned alive. Stefan had someone he loved very much in that church. When he went to rescue them, his brother, Damon, went with him out of loyalty, but they were shot. Murdered in cold blood."

"Who was in the church that they wanted to save?" Caroline asks.

"A woman, I guess," Damon responds ( the difference between life and death ) and Stefan tenses, ducking his head to the side to hide something, a secret, maybe. "Doesn't it always come down to the love of a woman?"

And his eyes drift to Caroline, like her golden curls and blue eyes and red lips are something to be revered ( or maybe feared ).

—

"What happened between you and Dorothy?"

The question has Damon freezing in place, ready to follow a tense Caroline and Stefan out, but the gazelle-soft voice of Elena Gilbert stops him.

He turns, tilts his head. The gazelle tenses, subconsciously aware of the danger she's in, but she doesn't run. Stares him head on. Brave, but ultimately foolish.

"Nothing happened between me and D-Dorothy." He stumbles over her name like she touched him just yesterday and it hasn't been centuries since he's been free of her lilac gloves and violent kiss. But, like death, she chases him wherever he steps, what action he takes.

Damon's not sure why he approached Elena tonight. It's Caroline who's Stefan's weakness, it's Caroline who will hurt Stefan more than Damon could ever hope to achieve on his own. But it's Elena who had him coughing up blood like a disease.

( Maybe it's her innocence; maybe he just wants to remember who he used to be before he was . . . this. )

"She hurt you." Elena doesn't frame it like a question, she frames it like a statement. "Does Stefan know?"

There's a pause. "No."

Another pause, another heartbeat, another lifetime. Elena doesn't say a word as she walks out of the room, leaving Damon alone and surrounded by a past that was once his present and future.

He wipes the silver from his eyes.

—

"Tell me a secret."

Stefan shifts in Caroline's arms, surprised, and Caroline clings tighter to his neck.

"Anything. Just a secret. Something you've never told anyone."

Stefan moves, pressing his forehead against Caroline's and staring deep into her eyes. Butterflies bloom. There's a silence shared between them, a world building around them bodies as they dance.

Stefan leans in close, his lips grazing against Caroline's. Whispers his dreaded secret into their gentle kiss, "I'm falling in love with you."

And it's enough. For now.

—

There's a crystal and it's yellow.

He remembers why he used to love it. And it's because it was yellow and her hair was yellow like sunshine and happiness and love ( — or what he thought was love but was really lies and eyes ) but now it sickens him.

There's a crystal and it's yellow.

He shuts the box.

—

hi. so it's been a while.

honestly, i didnt mean for this to take almost an entire month to finish, but schools started and it been so tiring with the amount of work i have. i also have a job which isn't fun and i got covid a week after i published the last chapter and i was out for the count for about hree day before i finally felt something more than just dead. its all just added up to the worst writers block ive ever had. i couldnt write at all. not for any of my fandoms or even my own original works. i just stared at my laptop screen and i couldnt write a single word.

im only just starting to get back to writing again and even now, chapters wont be often. unfortunately, ive lost my hyperfixation with tvd so im not as inspired to write as i was when i first started. :( very sorry.

but onto the happier stuff. i hope you enjoyed this chapter. its not my best work but i did like some bits. btw, delena will NOT happen in this story. the most theyll have is a good friendship. also care's starting to uncover her doppelganger heritage! i had a lot of fun writing that. and her relationship with stefan was also a lot of fun to write in this episode. we all know care's insecure so i wondered how that would play into an one that got away ex :)

all the favs, follows and reviews mean so much to me and i cant thank you enough for it.

bye :)