I just read the reviews for the second chapter and I had this huge grin on my face from reading them :)

Thank you Passions2Write winxgirl1997 Yulia.11.11 and Sissymac for reviewing.


Brave New World

The next morning I woke to Elena shaking me awake.

"Come on, Nicole. Rise and shine." She said, which I replied with a quick no and rolled over covering my head with my blancket once more.

"Come on. I need your help at the carnival." She begged me. I sighed and threw the comferter off me.

"I thought the canival was Care's gig. Where is she anyway, haven't seen her since I made my dramatic enterence with your boyfriends asshole." I said refusing to say the name of my brother's killer. Sure Jeremy's alive but he should have known better.

"Oh, god. I forgot you didn't know. Caroline is in the hospital. She was in a car accident with Matt and Tyler." I was never close to Caroline but I was close with Matt and Tyler.

"I saw Tyler yesterday, he didn't look hurt. Then again he had his clothes on so I couldn't check properly." I joked with Elena who laughed at me as I got up. She laughed and sat on my now vacent bed.

"Tyler wasn't hurt but Matt broke his arm and Care was in surgery but she's supposed to be released tomorrow morning." Elena smiled at me. I grabbed a blue tank and tight black pants and went behind my privacy screen to dress.

"That's good, the trio will be back together again only you'll have a fifth wheel by the sounds of it. Is Matt really dating Caroline?" I asked walking out from behind the screen and grabbed my black knee high boots. Elena shook her head at my clothing, she never understood why I choose the tighter slightly more revieling clothing instead of looser items.

"Yes, he is, and Bonnie isn't a fifth wheel to us. I mean, she's practically family." Elena stood and handed me my black leather jacket. I was only ready after I grabbed my locket. There was a stone in it, lapis lazuli, and I was given to me by someone special. "Here." I looked at Elena like she was crazy when she handed me a plant.

"I don't do drugs and I thought you didn't either." she rolled her eyes.

"It's vervain, it'll protect you from complusion."

"And that's it? Shouldn't we be taking some in our food then?" I asked taking it and putting some in my locket.

"We do, I put it in some of the spices." I raised my eyebrows at that.

"Wow, safest house on the block huh?" I joked. We laughed and walked out the house to drive to where we were going to set up for the carnival. As we drove Elena decided today would be "normal day". No D word and no V word. I just told her good luck.

"Don't jinx it Niccy" she groaned at me.

"I'm not, El, I'm being realistic. Our lives are to complicated for a normal day." I stated the simple fact as my phone went off. I picked it up and looked at the message.

"Bonnie says to hurry, she's going crazy alone." Elena and I laughed and continued talking about random things we were going to do at the carnival. When we arrived Bonnie met us in the parking lot with some stuff. We walked towards the booths talking about what happened yesterday.

"Katherine looked just like you, it was freakish." Bonnie told us.

"She is our ancestor. Hey, I moved the student booth into the cafeteria." Elena told her, still trying to have her normal day.

"Your vampire ancestor and she didn't just resemble you like a family member would. She was you." Bonnie told her, trying to make her see the severity of the situation.

"I don't know, I can't explain it. It's creepy, that's all I got." Elena told us.

"How do you know she's not still out there pretending to be us?" I asked her looking at her strangely.

"I don't but I could sit here and be tortured by the not-knowing or I could get these prizes to the ring toss." I just rolled my eyes at my innocent sister.

"Have either of you talked to Damon since he killed Jeremy or tried to kill Jeremy?" Bonnie asked us.

"No Bonnie, we haven't and we won't and I don't want to talk about Damon or anything else that's vampire related okay?" She gave a bag full of plush to Bonnie. "I'm human. And I have to do human stuff. Otherwise, I'm going to go crazy."

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'll focus. We have to make Caroline proud or she will kill us. I don't know how she does all of this." Bonnie commented holding the kids toys.

"Well because she's not human, obviously." I told them smiling.

"Obviously." we all laughed at the comment. We spent the entire day getting ready for this thing and finally it was time. The sad part was that Elena was still in work mode and almost nothing anyone could say would get her out of it.

"The ring toss is out of Bart and Homer dolls and team Jacob T's." Bonnie told her.

"Okay, I can grab some from the science club. Also we lost a speaker in the karaoke booth." Elena said thinking over her list in her head.

"Hey, all good Elena, take a beat, look around. This is a huge success." I told her trying to massage her shoulders a little.

"You mean we can do more than just freak vampire havoc?" she joked with us.

"Go figure." We laughed at the joke. Elena then looked at a man who was repairing one of the stands.

"Hey, Carter, right? You're with the carnival." she reminded herself out loud pointing to the man.

"That'll be me." he told her putting his tools down.

"Okay, great." Elena was about to speak again when I stopped her looking between him and Bonnie.

"Wow, what do you need beautiful?" he asked Bonnie and she just giggled.

"What do you know about karaoke speakers?"She asked him still smiling.

"Why don't you show me the problem?" he said looking into her eyes.

"Yeah Bonnie, show him the problem." I told her winking at her.

"Okay, come on." she led and he followed her to the problem.

"Lucky bitch." I said as side comment when Elena gave me a look. "What? At least someone might get something tonight." I told her as my phone rang. Hey, I gotta take this.

"Hello?" I asked suspicious. If K had gotten a new number they would have told me.

"Hello, is the Miss Nicole Gilbert?" a mans voice asked me. I recognized if but I just couldn't place it.

"Who's this?"

"This is Dr. Spencer, you came in last week?" he reminded me. I remembered why I had gone in now and the tests he told me he was gong to run.

"Yes, sorry. It's been a long week." I told him politely.

"I just wanted to give you your test results, is this a good time?"

"Yes go ahead." He told me the results and I was in shock. How could this have happened?

"Miss Gilbert?"

"Thank you, Dr. Spencer. It's a relief to know what's going on." I told him, My head spinning with questions.

"Your welcome, Miss Gilbert, and remember if you need anything else just come on in." and with that said we hung up. I immediately made a message to K.

We have a problem.

–N

Before I could see a reply Damon came up to me.

"Nicole." He greeted.

"Good guess, no go away." I started to walk away when he grabbed my arm

"We have a problem, it's Caroline." I turned and walked with him to a classroom that held Elena and Stefan. Damon told us what happened with Caroline just moments before he came to find us.

"How did this happen?" Stefan asked him.

"Well, I fed her blood and Katherine obviously killed her and A plus B equals..." Damon dropped off the end of his sentence, all of us knowing what the end result was.

"But why?" Elena asked. Everyone thought she had been safe in the hospital.

"Because Katherine is a manipulative nasty little slut." Damon told her, speaking from his personal experience.

"And she said "game on"? What is that even mean?" I asked them.

"It means she's playing dirty, she wants us to know." Damon clarified.

"But why Caroline? I mean, if anyone I would think she'd want to either deliver a message through either me or Elena." I told them.

"I don't know. But I'm glad she didn't use the two of you." He said looking sincerely at me.

"Caroline must be completely out of her mind, she doesn't even know what's happening to her." Stefan told us, she wasn't one of the ones in the loop about vampires.

"Oh I think she does. All of my compulsion from the past started wearing off the minute she was in transition." Damon said and I gave him a look.

"What compulsion?" I asked him.

"Talk later. We have to find her." Stefan told me.

"Yep and kill her." My eyes widened at his statement.

"You're not gonna kill Caroline." I told him in slight shock at the suggestion.

"She knows who we are. She's officially a liability, and we've got to get rid of her." Damon told us.

"Damon, absolutely not." His brother told him.

"Need I remind you of a tragic little story of a girl named Vicki Donovan? Caroline, of all people, will not make it as a vampire. Her mother is a vampire hunter. Guys come on, we all know how this story's gonna end, just flip to the last chapter and..." Damon started.

"It's not an option Damon." Elena told him.

"No?" he asked her.

"No." I told him stepping closer to her.

"Your silence is deafening, Stefan. Wait, wasn't there a school carnival the night you staked Vicki? Talk about a town where story repeats herself. You know I'm right." Damon told his brother trying to convince us.

"We're not gonna kill her." Stefan told him.

"It's the only way." Damon said right before they left. We had to find her before he did. I left soon after with Damon behind me.

After some searching I heard someone crying. I followed the sound to see Caroline crying next to a body with blood all over her face.

"Care?" I walked up to her and she freaked out.

"No! Go away!" she backed away from me a little before I remembered that it was Katherine who killed her.

"Care, it's me, Nicole."

"Nikky? Your timing sucks." I laughed a little.

"I know, hunny. What happened?" I asked looking at the body.

"He's dead. I killed him. What's wrong with me?" she cried looking down,

"Nothing is wrong with you, Care. I'll call Elena and get Stefan over here, he can help you." I pulled out my phone only for it to be taken away from me.

"I can help her." I turned to see Damon behind me with a stake in his hand.

"You can?" Care asked him.

"No, Damon can't. Let me get Elena and Stefan over here." I pleaded with her.

"Yeah, I have to." Damon ignored me.

"What are you gonna do?" Care asked him after looking at me.

"The only thing I can do. I'm gonna kill you." I looked back to Damon angrily.

"Damon, no! We decided to help her with her change, not kill her!" I reminded him.

"Please don't! I don't want to die!" Caroline begged jumping off the back of the truck to stand behind me.

"Yeah, but you are already dead." Damon told her.

"No! I'm not. Don't say that, okay? Just help me!" Caroline continued to beg him as she hid behind me.

"Okay." Damon told her.

"Okay? Just help her please!" I asked him as she kept repeating pleases behind me.

"Okay, okay." I turned and hugged her closely only moving with Stefan arrived and I felt a cool wind on my back.

"Stefan!" Damon complained as he dropped the stake.

"Get away from me! You killed me!" I turned to see Elena standing close to both Caroline and I.

"No, no, no, no Caroline! That wasn't me. You know that! That was Katherine." Elena tried explaining to her.

"No! Then why did she look like you?! And why, why did she do this to me?" Caroline cried again.

"Stefan, we've got to get her inside." Elena looked to Stefan as I hugged Caro again.

"It's okay Caroline, come with me." Stefan said as he walked over to us.

"She'll die, it's only a matter of time." Damon said as I moved so Stefan could take her to clean her up.

"Yeah, maybe so, but it's not gonna happen tonight." Stefan told him.

"Oh yeah it is." Damon picked up the stake and rushed over but I put myself in between him and Caroline.

"Nicole!" Elena called out, I was hoping he would just stop and put down the stake. But as we stood there for a while it looked like he would need to be convinced to not kill her.

"Damon, she's my friend." I told him. He looked in my eyes and then dropped his arm

"Whatever happens, it's on you." He said pointing at me.

"Thank you." I smiled at him.

"Caroline?" I looked behind me to see Bonnie staring at Care.

"It's okay, come on." Stefan gently pulled Caroline with him.

"No, you're not; you can't be." She touched Care and was horrified by what she saw.

"Bonnie?" Care said looking at her face. Bonnie looked past her to the body.

"Oh god!" Bonnie was horrified.

"Bonnie..." She started but Stefan pulled her away and Elena walked up to her. "I can't believe this is happening." Damon came up to me with a shovel in his hand.

"Come on, don't pout about it, I've got a body to bury." I just looked at him. "I thought you were calling the shots, no? It sucks to be you, buddy." He said turning to the body. I walked behind him as he went to get into the truck to take him away.

He then fell over and took his head between his head and fell to the floor.

"Damon!" I fell to his side to help him if I could.

"I told you what would happen if anyone else got hurt." I looked at Bonnie as she stared at him.

"I didn't do this." Damon told her.

"Bonnie, it wasn't his fault." I told her, holding Damon as he suffered.

"Everything that happens is his fault Nicole. You weren't here when he first arrived, you don't know what happened back then."

"Bonnie, what are you doing?" Elena asked her. I looked up to see a fire coming towards us.

"Bonnie?" I asked as the fire came closer to us.

"Bonnie stop it!" The fire hit Damon and spread over to me. I started screaming at the pain coming from my arms.

"Bonnie, Bonnie, stop it! You're going to kill them!" I tried rolling around on the ground but it didn't work.

"Bonnie!"

The fire stopped and I looked to see Bonnie looking at Elena angrily.

"Why did you stop me?!" Bonnie asked her.

"Because this isn't us. Bonnie, this can't be us." they looked at us, hugging, then left.

"You okay?" Damon asked me as I cried from the pain. The fire may have stopped but my arms were still burnt.

"Do I look okay?!" I yelled at him. He bit his wrist and held it to my mouth. I moved my head away from him, but he held my head and forced me to drink the blood.

"It's okay. You'll heal, I promise." I ended up drinking a quite a bit before passing out.

When I woke up I was in my bed and completely healed and a note was next to my bed.

Text me if you want, I'm sorry.

Damon

I checked my phone to see a few texts from K.

What's wrong?

-K

Nicole? Are you there?

-K

What's the problem? Is it going to mess with anything?

-K

Nicole?

-K

Answer me.

-K

I'm beginning to get worried about you, where are you?

-K

I'm sorry about not replying. Bonnie decided to burn us. Caroline's a vampire and killed a man. Bonnie blamed Damon and I got in the way.

-N

Are you safe? You told me something was wrong yesterday?

-K

I told K what the doctor told me.

Will that change anything about what we're doing?

-K

No, the plan will still move forward. This changes nothing.

-N