Disclaimer: Refer to the first chapter please. There's also a deleted scene in this chapter that is not mine, either.

Brave New World

"It's, uh, it's the same as the bracelet Elena gave you," Stefan told Jeremy as he, Claire, and the very much alive Gilbert teenager stood at the lockers inside of Mystic Falls High School. With one hand on his backpack strap, Jeremy reached over to grab the vervain liquid from Stefan.

"So it protects me from compulsion?"

"Ingested, it can protect you from being fed on a vampire, too," Claire added, crossing her arms. "Vervain is a toxic substance…to vampires, at least."

Jeremy looked up at her with knotted eyebrows. "You mean, like poison?"

"Yeah," Stefan answered, stealing the question from Claire. "It's very poisonous. It'll keep them out of your head."

"I mean…why vervain?"

"I don't know. Certain natural…herbs and roots and other elements that are just…harmful to vampires," Stefan explained with a shrug, but he couldn't really answer the bulk of the question. Vampire lineage wasn't something a vampire stumbled across in their eternity, oddly enough.

"Like a stake through the heart?" Jeremy interrogated.

"Yeah…but a wooden stake," Claire agreed and pointed at Jeremy as she tilted her head down and gave him a sharp glance. "Don't try to kill me with a cow. I hate cows. Stefan, on the other hand, loves them. Apparently, they're tasty."

Stefan frowned and turned his head to her. "You had one bad experience with cows in India and all of a sudden…you hate cows?"

"They're evil," Claire whispered ominously, throwing a glance at Jeremy, who was looking back and forth between the two vampires with surprise.

"You two must be pretty confident in yourselves, telling me all the different ways I could kill the both of you," he almost threatened. Other vampires might've taken offense, but Stefan just scoffed, as if the thought was laughable.

"Jeremy, if we thought you wanted to kill us, we'd be having a much different conversation, okay?"

Jeremy sighed. "Yeah, Damon is the one that deserves it."

Stefan peeked at Claire beside him, who let out a deep breath and slipped her hands in her pockets uncomfortably. He'd seen the way Claire looked at his brother last night and he knew that this wasn't going to fix itself. Damon had dug himself into a hole that was so deep, Stefan was afraid they would never be able to get out of it. Eventually, Stefan returned back to Jeremy's original comment and hung his head.

"I want you to forget about Damon, all right? He's a hundred times stronger than you and right now he's not…stable. Gotta try to move forward."

Jeremy looked at his sister's boyfriend with condescending eyes. "I was killed by a vampire and brought back by a magic ring. How do you move forward from there?" He scoffed.

"Easy," Claire retorted and looked around the high school. "You help a bunch of teenagers with a high school carnival as suggested by your best friend's girlfriend. Personally, it seems to be working wonders for me. There's totally nothing weird about being older than everyone else in this school—oh, hey…Elena," Claire said slowly as she felt Elena come up beside of her, a clipboard scraping the surface of Claire's arm.

Elena tried to give a smile, but she looked too swamped to really have listened to what Claire said before. "Hey. Um, do you—"

"Yeah, yeah. I set up the goldfish toss, all 300 goldfish; it's gonna be epic," Jeremy said sarcastically as he slammed his locker door shut and left the trio's side with his backpack slung over one shoulder. Elena took his place so she was facing the two vampires and she groaned out of frustration while leaning against the lockers.

"He's gonna be all right. He's just…been through, ah, a little bit of an ordeal," Stefan assured his girlfriend as he turned back at her.

Elena sighed. "I was just hoping that this carnival would reel him back into the land of high school teenager."

"Oh, is that what we're doing here?" Stefan asked her. Elena nodded.

"Yes. We all are. We're gonna be boring high school students who live in a world where the 'V' word is not uttered."

Claire frowned. "Well, I'm not a boring high school student, so…I think I'll just hit the Grill instead." She turned to leave, but as she did, her husband came up behind her and swung an arm around her waist, pulling her back to Stefan and Elena.

"Ah, ah, ah," Christopher scolded, holding her in place. "No wallowing at the Grill tonight. We may not be teenagers, but Elena has the right idea. We're going to spend an entire night without uttering the…what was it?"

"The 'V' word," Elena pointed at him in agreement. Christopher looked at Claire, who sighed.

"Right. The 'V' word doesn't exist tonight. Okay?"

"I would much rather enjoy a nice glass of bourbon," Claire murmured, displeased that she was being forced to work at a high school carnival. Christopher smiled.

"I never said alcohol's off the list entirely." Claire looked up at him to catch his smile, and she just laughed. Elena looked at Stefan with serious eyes.

"And while they're off doing that, you're gonna take me to the Ferris wheel, we're gonna ride to the very top, then you're gonna kiss me, and my heart will flutter like a normal high school girl," Elena demanded. "Do you see a running theme here?"

Stefan nodded. "Yeah. No, I'm seeing it, I'm…I'm…I'm liking it, but I have a quick question." The younger Salvatore turned his head to look around the circle of people at the lockers to ask the most dreaded question. "Um, what do we do about Damon?"

The instant Stefan said it, the two women in the group started to protest like crazy. While Claire groaned furiously, Elena held up a finger at her boyfriend. "Ah! No…'D' word, okay? That has been deleted from the list of topics that we can discuss."

"Unfortunately, Katherine…showing up has him in a little bit of an odd place. A little off-kilter, kind of dangerous. Who knows what he's up to?"

"And who the hell cares?" Claire spat beside Stefan, refusing to accept the fact that they had to look after Damon like he was some sort of puppy dog. "He showed up drunk off his ass and killed Elena's brother. Let him rot if that's what he wants."

"You realize that you do live with the guy, don't you, Claire?" Stefan prompted. Claire shrugged.

"I figure I can go at least three days without running into him. And then, when I do, I can just ignore him and the process can repeat all over again. Trust me, I've worked out the math."

"How about we just…figure this all out later," Christopher suggested, looking around the circle. "Play it by year. Deal with Damon when we have to."

"I don't want to deal with him," Elena muttered, frowning. "I don't want to look at him. He killed my brother."

Stefan sighed, and he knew there was no argument for that. But he had to admit that he was worried—this couldn't be good for Damon's wellbeing. As much as Stefan tried to hate his brother, he couldn't.

So after dropping the conversation, Claire and Christopher went with Elena to help finish setting up for the evening to come, but Stefan decided to take off and go back to the house to feed and check on Damon. After grabbing a few animals to eat, Stefan found his brother in the parlor, pouring the contents of a blood bag into a nice, crystal glass.

"Would you care for one?" Damon almost sung.

"No," Stefan replied. "Thank you. I'm not hungry. Just ate."

Damon straightened with the blood in his hand and narrowed his eyes at his brother. "Aren't you worried that one day, all the forest animals are gonna band together and fight back?" He grinned. "I mean, surely they talk."

Stefan resisted the urge to laugh and redirected the conversation to Damon as the vampire took a sip out of his glass. "I'm just happy that's a, uh…a blood bag and not a sorority girl supplying your dinner."

Damon smirked and leaned on the back of a chair. "I like this. You…walking on eggshells around me because you think I'm gonna explode. It's very suspenseful. Is Claire worried, too?" Damon asked, causing Stefan to smile tightly and say nothing to avoid causing a fight with his brother. "I bet I'm your every conversation."

"I'll tell you what, Damon, she's been angry…but she's never been this angry." Damon's smile dropped and Stefan recognized it immediately. Moving on, he asked, "So, have you heard from Katherine?"

Damon's eyebrows knotted, and instead of answering the question, he made a complete one-eighty. "I think the Lockwoods have a family secret." Stefan tilted his head, amazed at his brother's topic change. "Because the Gilbert device affected them, vervain didn't. So they're not vampires…they're something else."

"Is this your new obsession?"

"Oh, you'd rather some unknown supernatural running rampant in our town, fine. I'll drop it."

Stefan nodded. "We haven't seen the last of Katherine. You do know that, right?" he blurted out, trying to get back to the topic at hand. Damon just smiled tightly. "We have no idea what she's up to."

The raven-haired vampire scoffed. "Sure, we do! She came back to profess her undying, eternal love for you."

"And Claire's sister? Amelia showing up at the same time Katherine can't just be a coincidence."

Damon frowned. "Amelia King is harmless, Stefan. And I'm sure she'd just trying to do the same thing as Katherine is. You're a very popular guy, if you didn't know."

"Damon, have you ever even considered that Katherine may be out to get Claire again? To finish what she started?" Damon and Stefan stayed in silence until Stefan spoke again, adding, "And not to mention the fact that she saw you kissed Claire. If she didn't want to kill her before, I'm sure she does now."

"Katherine never cared about me, Stefan. It was always you," he spat. The younger brother crossed his arms. "She has no reason to hurt Claire."

"It wasn't just about you, Damon. Katherine's jealous of her, not just because of your history but also because of who Claire is. She was always a threat," Stefan argued. Damon sighed and straightened from the back of his chair.

"Well, I'm just gonna let her husband take care of protecting her, then." Stefan hung his head, avoiding Damon's gaze as he realized how petty his brother was being. "Because I've got more important things to do, like…explode. Cheers!"

To Claire's surprise, the carnival was actually a good way to keep her mind off the rest of her tangled life. Thoughts of Damon, of Katherine, of Amelia, and of the possible failure of her marriage slipped out of her mind as she bossed a bunch of teenagers around, telling them what they were doing right and what they were doing wrong when it came to their booths. She walked around inside of the school, going down a mental checklist that Elena had informed her off earlier in the evening when the event started.

But as she was walking through the hallways, she found herself face-to-face with Damon and stepped back, unimpressed at his surprise presence. All of her anger came flooding back within her and only grew as she saw his smug smirk.

"Nice little shindig, huh?"

Trying not to growl or bark or hiss at him, even, Claire ignored Damon and tried to walk around him, but he sidestepped her and kept persisting.

"Oh, that's the way you're gonna play this?" he bellyached, earning a spark to ignite within Claire.

"I'm not playing, Damon. I'm done playing with you. Get out of my way before I make you get out of my way."

"Relax! I saw the ring on Jeremy's hand."

Claire rolled her eyes. "Sure you did." She moved around him, this time without interference, but Damon reached forward and grabbed her arm to spin her back.

"I knew he wasn't gonna really die, I was being dramatic!" he defended himself. Claire yanked her arm out of his hand.

"And you're a filthy liar!"

"Claire…" a reassuring voice appeared behind her, and Damon and Claire looked over her shoulder to see Christopher coming up one side and Stefan coming up the other. As Claire let out a sigh of relief and watched her husband as he walked up to them, Stefan eyed his brother with concern.

"What are you doing here?" Stefan asked Damon. A careless Damon shrugged and threw an arm over Claire's shoulder.

"Stuff," he sung, but Claire slapped his arm off of her shoulder so it fell to his displeasure.

"Go do your 'stuff' somewhere else, Damon, and get out of my sight," Claire snapped. Damon just smirked and walked away willingly, never once losing the bounce in his step. When he was gone, Claire turned around at Stefan and Christopher, who were eyeing her to make sure she was okay. "What? I could've done worse."

"How about we get you that bourbon?" Christopher offered, extending a hand. "We can take a little break."

"If I take a break, I might explode," Claire muttered under her breath, irritated just at the thought of Damon's presence. She sighed eventually and looked up at Christopher. "But the bourbon wouldn't hurt. What is Damon even doing here? He was supposed to be at home with his smug, despicable self away from me."

Stefan exhaled largely. "Oh, he seems to be convinced the Lockwoods have some sort of weird family secret."

Claire thought to herself for a minute, but then she sighed. "Oh, God, I hate to admit this, but he's probably right. I mean, Mayor Lockwood was taken down to the basement where the vampires burned even though the vervain didn't affect him, but the Gilbert device apparently did."

The vampire teenager shrugged. "Well, I'm staying out of it. I'm gonna be a nice, boring teenager."

Claire frowned. "And if Damon hurts someone else while trying to find the truth? He needs a babysitter." She looked back and forth between Christopher and Stefan. "And I'm not doing it."

Christopher and Stefan looked at each other, one of them realizing that they were going to have to decide which one went to go look after Damon. Eventually, Stefan sighed and realized that it was his responsibility, as much as he hated it.

"I'll…I'll go," he promised, passing the football in his hand over to Christopher, who took it without much of a choice. Before he could get one step towards where Damon had headed, Elena appeared beside him.

"Can you take a break?" She sighed at her boyfriend. "I'm in desperate need of a Ferris wheel escape right now."

"Sorry," Stefan apologized to the human, giving her a sad smile. "I have to go deal with…the 'D' word." With a quick kiss, Stefan left Elena's side and walked off to go find Damon. Elena looked after him with a scowl on her face, and she turned to Christopher and Claire for clarification.

"Damon's here?" Claire nodded. "Why?"

"He's suspicious of the Lockwoods," Christopher filled in, tossing the football back and forth in his hand out of habit. "So, naturally, he's on a hunt for answers."

"And why is Stefan going after him?"

Claire scoffed. "Well, Elena, do you really think Damon can handle conducting an investigation on his own? There's no doubt that he'd end up having some sort of collateral damage at the end of the day."

Elena stood quietly, thinking over the idea, and Claire could see that the human knew her vampire superior was right. Eventually, Elena sighed. "Fine. Fine, I guess it'll have to be okay. Can you do me a favor, though? The ring toss is out of the Team Jacob t-shirts and Bart and Homer dolls. Can you grab them from the classroom that has the extra supplies and bring them to Bonnie?"

"Sure," Claire agreed, and Elena thanked her before walking off to continue her circle around for things she could fix.

"You want to start heading over to get the prizes?" Christopher offered after Elena had left them. Claire shook her head.

"No. First, I want that drink I was promised."

After compelling one of the carnival workers to attack Tyler Lockwood and tired of seeing Stefan's judgmental expression, Damon took a moment for himself and walked off to take a breather. He was walking down a desolate hallway when he heard footsteps behind him, and he turned around to see who it was that was following his path. To his surprise, Damon found Caroline standing before him freshly dressed and presentable for the people at school.

"Oh. Hey, Blondie," Damon greeted her, his body half-turned. Caroline said nothing, but a small smile twitched at her lips. He sensed something off about her, but he couldn't put a finger on it. "They let you out?"

With a small smirk, Damon turned on his heel and began to walk again in the opposite direction, but Caroline's voice called him back. "I remember."

Annoyed, Damon entertained his ex-girlfriend by turning around and sighing, "What do you remember?"

"I remember how you…manipulated me," Caroline began, stepping forward. Damon's smile slowly disintegrated as she continued after crossing her arms. "You pushed me around. Abused me. Erased my memories. Fed on me!"

Scoffing, Damon decided that she was being overdramatic. It was impossible; she couldn't remember. "You're crazy."

"Well, the memories have been coming back. In pieces." Tired of the accusation, Damon turned around from trying to walk out of the hallway to set the teenager straight.

"You can't remember." He shrugged. "It's impossible. I mean, unless you were becoming a…" Damon trailed off as he slowly started to piece it together—Claire's blood, Caroline's memories returning…

"I have a message from Katherine," Caroline began as she stepped forward to be face-to-face with Damon. The dark-haired vampire straightened and swallowed at the recognition of how this all happened. It was a game changer. "She said, "Game on'."

Caroline turned to leave, but Damon grabbed her arm. "Wait—"

Before Damon could get a second word out, Caroline took him by surprise and snapped, sending him flying across the hallway so fast that he landed on the cold tile floor with a thud. He propped himself up on his elbows and stared at the feminist newborn vampire in front of him.

"You suck."

Confused, Damon didn't bother getting back at Caroline for her surprise attack. Instead, he just watched as Caroline turned and strutted out of the hallway with high vampire pride. Exhausted, Damon moved over onto his side and hit his head against the tile floor trying to collect his thoughts. As if he didn't have enough problems.

"Well, that's gonna be a problem," another female said, and immediately, Damon rolled up to see Claire and Christopher standing at end of the hallway closest to him, holding a box of t-shirts and dolls.

Damon growled on the floor, "You think?"

"Oh, get up," Claire chastised as Damon pulled himself up from the floor. "You're fine. She's been a vampire for, like, a day."

"She took me by surprise," Damon defended himself as he brushed his all-black ensemble off. Claire rolled her eyes. "We need to get Stefan. And Elena."

"She's not really a fan of yours right now," Christopher protested, scoffing. "None of us are, really."

"Yeah, well, she's gonna have to deal with it," Damon barked as he brushed past the couple. "You two go find her. I'll get Stefan. We're gonna need to sort this out…now."

"Sort this out?" Claire repeated, but Damon was already halfway down the hallway before she could get an answer. Biting down on her cheek, she sighed. "Does he even know how to pronounce the word 'please'?" she asked her husband rhetorically, and he sighed just as frustrated as she was.

The couple found Elena at one of the club tables, making sure their inventory would be good for the rest of the carnival length. She was checking off things on a clipboard as she went, but the second she saw Claire and Christopher, she gave them a small smile. However, seeing the box of prizes being carried by Christopher, she frowned.

"I thought I said to take those to Bonnie…" Elena trailed off, confused. Christopher set the prizes down on the table while Claire sighed.

"We know. But we really need you to come with us right now," Christopher told her seriously.

Elena arched an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

Claire shook her head. "Not here, Elena."

Curious and partially frightened by Claire's urgency, Elena dropped her things and complied. Minutes later, Stefan, Damon, Claire, Christopher, and Elena were all standing in Alaric's classroom. Elena was standing at the window ceil, reeling over the information she'd just been told about her best friend, Stefan was pacing between Damon and Elena, Damon was leaning against Alaric's desk, Claire was sitting on one of the desks, and Christopher was beside her.

"How did this happen, hmm?" Stefan asked openly as he paced.

"Well, Claire fed her blood and Katherine obviously killed her," Damon shot. "And 'A' plus 'B' equals…"

"But why?" Elena pressured him, her voice broken. Damon's eyes cut to hers.

"Because Katherine is a manipulative, nasty little slut," Damon snapped. It surprised Claire, honestly, that Damon was talking so vilely about the woman he spent 145 years infatuated with. Stefan was right; Katherine had completely ruined Damon.

"And she said 'Game on'?" Stefan vented aloud. "I mean, what does that even mean?"

"It means she's playing dirty. She wants us to know."

"Do you think my sister could be a part of it?" Claire asked, her eyes sweeping across the room to everyone inside. "I mean…it's no coincidence they just show up at the same time."

"Claire," Christopher muttered beside her, and she looked over at her husband to see him thinking hard, all the wheels turning in his head. His eyebrows nodded as he looked up at everyone else. "What if it was Katherine who turned Amelia?"

Damon scoffed. "That would mean Katherine would've had to turn her in 1865, but she was in Mystic Falls at that time."

Claire shook her head and the wheels began to turn inside of her head. "No…No, Amelia's birthday is in May. Katherine would've had at least three months after the church burned down to turn her." Silence enveloped the room before Claire gasped. "Do you think she turned her…because of me?"

Damon shrugged. "It's a definite possibility. She hates you."

"Oh, my God," Elena whispered, turning herself as she began to work out the logic in her head. "It was…it was Claire's blood that turned Caroline. Is that why Katherine killed her? To get revenge on Claire?"

Claire shook her head. "It's all just one big game to…prove she's just the Queen Bitch." She looked at everyone in the room. "Caroline must be…losing her mind right now. We have to help her. She has no idea what's happening."

"Oh, I think she does," Damon retorted, scoffing. "All of my compulsion from the past started wearing off the minute she was in transition."

"We have to find her," Stefan insisted.

"Yep," Damon agreed, sighing. "And kill her."

Elena looked at Damon with disgust immediately. "You're not gonna kill Caroline!"

"She knows who we are! She's officially a liability. We gotta get rid of her," Damon reasoned, but Elena didn't listen to him. Instead, she went over to Stefan to get him to back her up on it.

"Damon, absolutely not," Stefan argued.

"Need I remind you of a tragic little story of a girl named Vicki Donovan?" Damon recalled. Stefan and Elena fell silent. "Yeah. Caroline, of all people, will not make it as a vampire. Her mother's a vampire hunter! Guys, come on! We all know how this story ends, so let's just flip to the last chapter and—"

"Damon!" Claire snapped as she jumped off of the desk and landed on her feet. "We're not killing her. My blood made her. It's not an option."

"No?" Damon retorted and glanced over at his brother, who was hanging his head in thought. When Stefan said nothing, Damon accused, "Your silence is deafening, Stefan. Wait, wasn't there a school carnival the night you staked Vicki?" He scoffed. "Talk about a town where history repeats itself. You know I'm right."

An angry Stefan rocked back and forth before he got up from the window ceil and walked over to his brother. Pointing a finger in his face, he said sternly, "We're not gonna kill her."

When he left, Elena left, and Damon shrugged at the human who ducked and practically ran past him. As Claire and Christopher went after them, Damon tried one last time. "It's the only way…"

But they were long gone, and Damon sighed to himself seeing that no one was on his side. Instead of dwelling on his loneliness, Damon walked outside to hunt for the blonde vampire before Claire, Christopher, Stefan, and Elena could get to her. The high school teenagers on the property of the school were laughing and screaming, having fun with their pathetic human lives, but Damon paid no attention to it. He listened in for Caroline, and as he did, he saw a wooden stake out of the corner of his eye holding down part of a tent. Carelessly, he walked over to it and pulled the stake out of the ground, ready to use it as a weapon.

"Why is she doing this to me?" Claire grumbled as she and Christopher scowered the high school campus for any sign of the blonde vampire. They had split from Elena and Stefan so they could cover more ground, and though Claire knew that Damon was wrong about what they should do, he was right about what was going to happen. It was one of the reasons she'd never made a vampire. "It's been 145 years! And she's had plenty of chances to come after me, but she hasn't! Why now?"

"Because you have something that she doesn't, Claire," Christopher said to her as he looked around the crowd of people to search for Caroline. Claire did the same. "You have people that you can count on and a place to call home. Katherine's never had that; she's jealous of you."

"There's nothing to be jealous of!" Claire practically scoffed as she desperately listened into the crowd to find Caroline. "She's the one that everyone falls in love with. She's the one who everyone would do everything for! She has everyone fawning all over her like she's some sort of...siren or something—"

"Claire." Christopher pulled her to a stop and tightened his grip around her shoulders. She exhaled to relax as he stared at her with a small smile. "You're better than her, and for that, she hates you. You're everything she is and more."

Claire was silent for a while, but she shook her head. "Yeah, well…I don't really feel like that's a good thing right now." She looked around and Christopher removed his arms from her shoulders and straightened, and they both listened to try to find the blonde newborn they were looking for. Eventually, the scent of blood overwhelmed their senses, and the two vampires looked at each other knowingly and took off in the direction of the scent.

Caroline sat beside the dead body she'd drained, sobbing. She had no idea what was happening to her or how she was going to stop it. Blood coated her entire mouth, nose, and chin, and her makeup was running big time. She had no will to move, but she hard the person approach her from the side and didn't even care enough to make a scene when she saw it was Damon. Without lifting her eyes, she sniffed.

"He's dead," she informed Damon, her voice bland. "I killed him." Damon nodded beside her in understanding, and he knew he had been right about her. She wouldn't be able to last. Caroline sobbed harder. "What's wrong with me?"

"Hey…hey, it's okay," Damon soothed her, rubbing her back for comfort while Caroline sobbed more. "I can help you."

"You can?"

"Yeah, of course." Truth be told, Claire should be the one helping her. She was Caroline's sire, after all. But she had the wrong idea—she wanted to keep Caroline, to train her. Damon knew that was a lost cause.

"What are you going to do?" Caroline asked tentatively.

"The only thing I can do." Damon nodded at her reassuringly as he brushed a piece of sticky blonde hair out of Caroline's face. "I'm gonna kill you." His thumb brushed over the wooden stake in his hand and his fingers traced the strands of hair on Caroline's forehead.

"What?" Caroline hopped off of the back of the truck where the dead body lay and she came face-to-face with Damon, sobbing. "Please…please don't. I don't want to die!"

"Yeah, but you're already dead," Damon reasoned.

"No, I'm not!" Caroline snapped. "Don't say that! Okay? Just help me."

Damon saw no point in arguing—no sane vampire would accept their death. "Okay."

"Okay? Just…help me, please…please, please, please," Caroline said desperately as Damon kept agreeing for her sake. Damon just reached forward and pulled the blonde newborn into a hug and rubbed circles into her back, trying to soothe her with hushes and notes that it would be fine.

"It's the only way," Damon whispered as he rose the stake up high to kill her, but before he could move, he felt someone knock him back. Stefan stood in front of Damon while the wooden stake fell to the concrete beside Damon's feet. "Stefan!" Damon groaned.

Elena immediately went to Caroline to try to help her, but Caroline pushed Elena back with angst. "Get away from me! You killed me!" she cried.

"No, no, no, no, Caroline! That wasn't me," Elena rushed out. "You know that. That was Katherine."

"No! Then why does she look like you? Why—why did she do this to me?" Caroline sobbed. From the other side of her, Claire and Christopher appeared. While Christopher went to help Stefan handle Damon, Claire gripped Caroline by her shoulders softly.

"Caroline? Caroline, do you remember me?" Claire asked softly, looking into Caroline's crazed vampire eyes. Caroline nodded.

"C-Claire? You were the one that healed me. At the hospital. You…you gave me your blood."

Claire nodded, and she swallowed down something thick. "I know. I know, Caroline, and I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry that this happened to you." Caroline sobbed more, and Claire looked over at the trio of males facing each other head-on. "Stefan! Christopher! We need to get her inside. Get her cleaned up."

Stefan nodded and backed away with his eyes still locked on Damon. "Okay. Caroline, it's gonna be all right. Just stay close to Claire."

"She will die," Damon said coldly to the vampires eyeing him. "It's only a matter of time."

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

"Oh, yeah it is." Quickly, Damon flashed down and grabbed the wooden stake in his hand and moved over to Caroline in the blink of an eye, ready to kill. Instead, Claire stood between him and the newborn, her body shielding Caroline from any harm. The wooden stake was pointed just over her shoulder, and she could feel the heat from Damon's body on hers. Claire didn't flinch once and her eyes held Damon's sternly.

"Go ahead, Damon, kill her. But the only way you're getting to her is if you get through me first," Claire snapped, absolutely positive that he wouldn't drive that stake through her. Damon wavered, but he then flipped the stake around so it was nestled in his clenched hand and he pointed at her accusingly.

"Whatever happens, it's on you," he reminded her, and Claire just stood strong as he backed away and left. The second he was gone, Claire turned around to Stefan and Caroline.

"Let's go. We need a bathroom or something to get all the blood off." She turned around to her husband and the human who were standing beside the truck. "Can you two take care of the body?"

"Yeah. I've got it," Christopher told her with a reassuring nod, but before anything could continue, they all heard a whisper behind them. Stefan was trying to tug Caroline into the school at that time, but he was stopped short.

"Caroline?" Claire, Elena, and Christopher all turned to see Bonnie standing a few feet away from Caroline, looking at her in disbelief. Caroline bowed her head in shame, but the picture was damning. Caroline had blood all over her. "No. You're not…you can't be."

Bonnie rushed up to her friend and grasped her arm tightly, and a look of realization and fright crossed the witch's face.

"Bonnie?" Caroline whispered, confused as she watched Bonnie's eyes flood with disappointment. "I…I…"

"Oh, God!" Bonnie exclaimed, rushing over to the dead body on the back of the truck.

"Bonnie," Caroline whined, turning around. Claire shook her head at the newborn.

"Come on, Caroline. Come on." She pushed her in the other direction, and Claire and Stefan took the sobbing Caroline into the bathroom outhouses on the school campus. Immediately upon entering the bathroom, Stefan grabbed as many paper towels as he could and Claire hit the water to get it running and brushed Caroline's stringy hair off her shoulders. Caroline leaned over the sink and sobbed, avoiding her appearance in the mirror. Stefan turned around and Claire wet the paper towels while she worked upon getting the blood off of Caroline's mouth. Caroline rocked back and forth, though, making it hard for Claire. "It's okay, Caroline. Shh…it's gonna be okay."

"She hates me," Caroline whimpered, crying. "Bonnie hates me."

"No, no, no. She's just in shock. We all are, okay?" Stefan tried, helping Claire with the blood cleanup.

Caroline's breathing was ragged. "And what about Matt? What—what am I gonna do about Matt…"

"One thing at a time, Caroline. One thing at a time," Claire urged as she and Stefan gathered more paper towels to get the rich substance off of the newborn's face. "Right now, we just need to get this blood off of you. Come on."

Stefan threw away the paper towels that were dirty and Claire gave Caroline more wet ones that the blonde could use to clean herself. Caroline dabbed at her hands to get the vital liquid off of her and, while she did so, she breathed out, "I'm a…I'm a murderer. I'm a monster."

"You're not a monster, Caroline. This has happened to all of us. You'll learn how to get better at it," Claire assured her, dabbing at some dry blood on the ends of Caroline's hair.

"Your emotions are heightened right now. It's part of the transformation," Stefan informed Caroline as he cleaned her mouth. "It's completely normal, I promise you. All right?"

But Caroline was breathing so heavily and thinking so hard about the fact that she was a monster that her veins started to appear and her eyes went bloodshot. Frustrated, the teenager turned around to avoid her reflection and she groaned. "Why does this keep happening to my face? I'm—I'm hideous!" she wept.

"Caroline, look up here. Look at me. Look. Look," Claire said desperately, shaking the newborn's shoulders. Caroline removed her bloody hands from her face and looked up at Claire through raccoon eyes that were full of tears. "Look at my face. It's not just you, I promise."

Claire let her eyes turn, and she felt the hungry veins slither beneath her eyes. The rims of her eyes went bloodshot, and Caroline's weeping stopped as she saw that she wasn't the only one that had that problem. Caroline sniffed, and Claire let the face stay on longer than it's ever been when she wasn't feeding on someone.

"You see that, Caroline?" The blonde nodded. "It happens to me, too. All you have to do is breathe. You can't let it control you. You have to relax, keep yourself in check. Watch me." She let her vampire face fade and then she made it reappear again and fade once more. At this point, Caroline had stopped crying, and Claire's voice had dropped to a whisper. "You see that? Now try it yourself. Just breathe…in and out."

Caroline took a deep breath in, a deep breath out, and Claire did the same to help the newborn get accustomed to it. Eventually, Caroline's face disappeared, and her eyes fluttered closed as she relaxed. When Caroline's eyes opened, she found herself staring at Claire, who had let a smile onto her face.

"That's it, Caroline. There you go." she said proudly.

Caroline sighed and, after a while, she spoke. "Why did Katherine do this to me?"

Claire's eyes drifted up to Stefan, who was observing his friend helping another vampire besides him, for once. When Claire's eyes flickered down to Caroline, she swallowed. "Caroline, there are a lot of reasons that I'm sure would make a lot of sense. The truth of the matter is that we don't really know." Caroline's gaze dropped. "But I promise you that no harm will come to you. Stefan and I will help you. Okay?"

"Okay," Caroline said, on the verge of tears again. Claire pulled her closer and Caroline wrapped her hands around the other blonde female and buried her head into the comforting shoulder. Claire sighed against Caroline and looked up at Stefan, who was nodding reassuringly, but Claire wasn't so reassured. She'd never made vampires before and the only person she'd ever tried to help was Stefan.

She just hoped she could, somehow, pull it all off.

After taking care of Caroline and making sure that she was going to be okay, Christopher found a sulking Claire with a bottle of bourbon in her hand sitting on top of the BMW they had acquired together when realizing that they needed a car for themselves. He sighed as he approached her, and she put the bourbon bottle down in her lap.

"Is the body taken care of?"

"Yep." Christopher climbed onto the car's hood with her, careful of his shoes. Claire passed him the bourbon bottle. "Stefan and I buried it in the woods behind the school." He took a swig of the alcohol.

Claire sighed. "I promised Caroline I'd drive her home, but she's just taking a moment to herself. She should be out any minute now."

"Okay." Christopher passed the alcohol back to her. "Do you want me to follow you so you can have a ride home?"

Claire shook her head. "No. I'll be fine; I'll just walk or something. I need some fresh air." She sighed again and took a swig of alcohol from the bottle. After wiping drops that had managed to escape her mouth, Claire continued, "I've…never turned another vampire before, you know. Damon's done it…countless times. I think Stefan's done it once or twice over the years, but I never really wanted to do it. It seemed like too much work."

"Well, Stefan said you did a great job with Caroline," Christopher praised her. Claire scoffed. "Seriously. Claire, you'll be fine. If she turns out to be even a quarter of what you are..." Christopher smiled, and Claire just rolled her eyes at him in amusement. He admired her and watched as she took a swig from the alcohol. "Trust me, Caroline is in great hands."

"He's right." Claire and Christopher turned their heads to see Damon walking down to the parking lot to get ready to go home. They were both silent, but Damon came to a stop a few feet from their car. "If anyone's gonna be able to get her under control, it'll be you. But I'm still not convinced she'll work out."

No one said a thing—not Claire, not Christopher, not Damon. Claire just slid off of the car hood and walked over to Damon, who was watching her with suspicion and confusion. He expected her to tell him to leave…to yell at him some more or something harmless like that, but what she did wasn't harmless.

She drew her hand back and slapped so hard that Damon nearly stumbled as his cheek turned, but he kept himself stationary with a tremendous amount of effort. Things were drop-dead silent after the sharp stinging sound of the slap, but Claire didn't clarify the reason for the slap this time. Instead, Damon could see it in her eyes. She had a cold trace to them, something that was unforgettable. He knew, somehow, that he would have some sort of nightmare about it. It cut through his skin like a blade, and her silence was even worse.

Claire was a vocal person, so when her voice wasn't used, it was serious.

With a menacing glare, she bumped Damon's shoulder and walked off towards the high school to get Caroline so they could leave, and Damon was left with a stinging sensation reeling in his cheek. Christopher said nothing to Damon, either, but merely slid off the car, climbed inside, and took off for the boarding house, leaving Damon in an empty parking space.

Thanks for reading! Review, please! A little note: This will not be updated next week. I'm taking a one-week break :)