Chapter 10: You and I walk a fragile line

"Can't you just talk to her?" Elena said to an overdramatically crying Bonnie.

"N-no! Sh-she wouldn't l-list-ten!" Bonnie sobbed. "And I-I c-can't take th-this anymo-ore!"

Elena sighed loudly and put her hands to her sides in a very demanding position. "Just do it!

Now you two can bond over how much of a douchebag Tyler is!" She loosend up the angry, demanding act a little and put her arm around her heartbroken friend. "I mean, you can talk to me about it, but I don't think I'll be as understanding and fun to trash talk with as she will."

Bonnie swiped away her tears and put her dark curls out of her face and behind an ear.
"You're right." She tried to make a smile but Elena could see how much courage and strength it took from her just to make such a small gesture.

Elena took two steps to her white desk and picked up the cell lying on a pile of assignments waiting to be finished. She gave it to Bonnie as she sat down on her bed.

"So call her."

Bonnie took the phone with a shaking but certain hand and dialed the number.

"Hello?" The voice said.

"H-hi." Was the only thing Bonnie could get out.

"Bonnie?!" She yelled. "What do you want?! Can't you just leave me alone?! Wasn't it enough for you to steal my boyfriend?! Did you wanna hear my heart break and watch me fall into pieces too?!"

She was mad, real mad, but Elena saw how hard Bonnie was trying to make this work. Her strength in this situation was enormous for someone who just got their heart broken.

"N-no. I…" She started crying again.

"Well good for you then, because you're already too late for that! In fact, you're months too late! But I guess you missed that when you were on your trip with Elena in Europe!"

She was now screaming of anger and emotional pain. "But if you're not calling to see me shatter to pieces, are you calling to rub your triumph in my face?! Or just to see how you could hurt me in more ways than to steal my boyfriend, turn my best friend against me and not caring when I had been kidnapped, tortured and unconscious!?"

They could hear how she swiped away her tears through the phone, but pretended not to.
"No, Caroline! Listen to me! I called because… B-because…"

"Because what?!"

"Because I've finally realized how big of a douchebag Tyler is and what an idiot I've been!" Elena punched her arm hard.

"Ouch! What?!" She gave her a murderous look and Elena pointed at herself and then put up two fingers like a piece sign.

"And Elena too." Bonnie slapped herself on her forehead when she realized what she had just said.

"I mean, Elena has finally realized how big of an idiot she's been too! Not that I've seen how big of an idiot she's been, even though she's been kind of a big idiot and have handled this situation really badly and…"

"Bonnie?!"

"…But I mean I've been super stupid and all, but I do think you have overreacted a little and that we should be kind of even now that you almost killed me and stuff…"

"BONNIE!" Caroline's abrupt yelling surprised Bonnie enough to make her fall out of Elena's bed.

"Sorry! I started rambling, didn't I?" She said while getting up from the floor by putting an arm on the bed. She blew her now much disheveled hair due from her face and got up on the bed again.

"What I meant to say was: we're so very, truly, incredibly sorry for choosing a guy over you and for leaving and not supporting you when you were down. But to my defense I will say that even though Stefan told me about what you did for me I didn't really believe that you wanted me there, so we just…"

"Bonnie, even though we were fighting and I probably would have sent you away, I still would have appreciated that you cared enough to see how I was doing! How could you ever think anything different?" Bonnie started smiling a little, forgetting about Tyler just for a moment and Elena put a supporting hand on her upper arm.

"I know that now."

"So, now that that's over… How exactly did you find out that Tyler is a douche? And I will not accept any lame ass excuse like 'I just finally saw how he had been towards you and blah, blah, blah! Because I know that's not the case! I saw how you were glued to him, that didn't just go away by a 'final realization' so fill me in on the true story."

Bonnie started crying again and Elena had to take the phone from her shaking hand before she dropped it and it got smashed on the floor.

"Just come over here and we'll tell you everything, but I have to warn you! It involves nasty details about Tyler and a skank in a fancy car on the cemetery parking lot and the hideous break-up fight afterwards." Elena said.

"Oh… And: Hi Elena." A door slammed on the other side of the line. "And I'll be there in a minute or two! I would love to hear your theories on who the nasty skank is!" Caroline sounded so happy that Elena started to get suspicious. You're not that mad and then turn to happy overdrive in a minute. Something was up.

"Carr…" She tired gently.

"Yeah?"

"How come you've forgiven us so fast? Not that I'm complaining or anything, just that I'm curious how someone who often walks around for days deciding whether or not to forgive us, suddenly did it in a second."

She tried not to sound too judgy, but she had a hard time covering it up. Bonnie had finally stopped crying again and hit her arm as hard as she could.

"Ouch!" She covered the phone's microphone with her palm and turned to Bonnie. "What did you do that for?!"

"What do you think! You can't just go around and say stuff like that to her when she's almost forgiven us!"

"I'm sorry! Okay?! But doesn't it seem even a little suspicious to you that she's adapted so quickly?"

"Of course it does! But I'm not walking around accusing her of never being sad at all!" She yelled.

"I wasn't…" Elena tried to say.

"No?" Bonnie interrupted. "What do you think she will think?"

"I made a mistake! It's done! I just wanted to know if she was mad at us at all for the Tyler thing or if she just needed an excuse to hook up with Klaus!" Elena finally confessed.

"Shut. Up!" Bonnie hissed. "She might hear you!"

Elena lifted her palm from the mike and waved her other hand in Bonnie's face to shut her up.

"Sorry, Carr… I didn't mean to sound so…"

"Mean? Judging? Despiteful?" Bonnie whispered. Elena stared at her until she shut up.

"Just come over here. Okay?"

"Fine! I'll be there in a sec. And I have some news on my own that I would like to share, I that's okay with you, Princess Elena?" Her voice was filled with irritation and despite.

"Okay, I deserved that."

"You think?" Caroline said from Elena's bedroom's door.

Alex opened the mansions door and got immediately jumped by a crying Dana.

"Oh! My! God! Alex! Are you okay?!" Dana screamed in her ear without letting go of the very suffocating hug she held her body in.

"Dana? What are you doing here?" Alex said. "And yes, I'm fine." She added when Dana's brown puppy dog eyes started looking for bruises and injuries on her body.

"What do you mean 'What are you doing here'?" She finally let go of Alex's body so that she could get an extra good look and do some major hand gestures as she spoke. "I heard about the robbery of course! Are you sure you are okay?"

"Yes. I'm Fine!" Alex laughed. "Can you please stop looking on me like I might faint? I was barely even here when it happened! I had just come home from the cemetery when I heard a loud noise from the upstairs bedroom and I rushed in to see what was happening and I saw this guy standing on a chair trying to steal my TV from the wall, but he lost his balance and both he and the chair fell through the window. So I'm fine! Really!"

She put on her best fake smile and tried at the same time to look like she was about to fall into pieces any second. "Unlike the burglar over there."

"Mhm. Well okay then." Dana said and looked very mom-like. "Then I just have two questions for you." She smiled very strictly and walked into the mansion.

"One. Why the HELL would you run inside when you heard a strange noise?! And two. HOW CAN YOU BE FINE WHEN YOU JUST WITNESSED A MANS DEATH?! WHAT ARE YOU?! SOME KIND OF PSYCHO-KILLER?!"

Dana yelled and drew the attention of two of the handsome male cops standing guard so that no one would interfere with the crime scene and the investigation. Where the hell were they when Dana came stumbling around?

"Is everything okay here Miss?" The taller one asked.

"Is this young lady bothering you Miss?" The British one asked.

Neither one of them could keep their eyes of her and followed her every movement with their hungry, horny eyes.

"No, I mean yes, I mean no." Alex sighed and pulled her hand through her brown waves. "I mean yes, everything is okay and no, she's not bothering me."

"And her name is Alex! Not Miss!" Dana said.

Alex sighed yet another time and turned to Dana who was death staring the two cops, but they didn't notice since they were too busy undressing Alex.

"Dana, why don't you go home? I'm fine, I promise! And I'll see you tomorrow!"

"Fine… I'm on my way!" She said and looked a little hurt.

"I'm so sorry for reacting the way I did earlier in the car, I didn't mean at least 20% of what I said! And I'm so, so, so terribly sorry for ditching you before and stuff."

She said with a fake sad smile. Dana answered her fake smile with a forgiving one, making it clear to Alex just how big a grip she had around this airheaded cheerleader who clearly wouldn't notice the difference lying and acting.

Before she leaves, Dana leans in and whispers in her ear. "Try not to go on all night with them, okay? If they're both exhausted in your bed, who's gonna keep guard?"

Alex gave her back a surprised look as she walked to her car and drove away. Maybe Dana wasn't as stupid as she thought, after all.

"C'mon boys," she said to the cops still eyeing her body very pervert and penetrating. "We can use the guest bedroom down here." She walked inside the mansion with the two cops following her like moths to a flame. Oh, how she would burn them, she would burn them hard.

The phone rang loudly through the empty Salvatore mansion. Stefan was there to pick it up in a second. "Damon," He sighed relieved and answered.

"Hey brother, where are you?"

"I'm in D.C." He sounded a little weird and Stefan immediately got suspicious.

"Damon, what the hell are you doing in D.C.?!"

"I found something…" That weird sound in his voice, it was stress. And something else; nervousness? Fear? Both? "I'll be back in two and a half. I'll text you when and where to meet me when I've reached Charlottesville. See you then, brother."

He hung up on a very confused Stefan; secrecy and withholding was not Damon's usual style to handle things.

He started walking around the mansion trying to figure out the reason why Damon had left so abruptly and what was so secret he couldn't even take it to the mansion.

While phasing through each and every room, one thought particularly had a hard time leaving his mind; how many people would Damon hurt in the process to get back the 3.5 hour long drive a whole hour faster.

The screen on Stefan's Blackberry lit up two hours later; the message from Damon.

In Charlottesville. Be there in 15. Meet me in the woods by the old Lockwood cellar. Don't tell ANYONE! Especially not Blondie

The message was so short and kind of cryptic. This was really not his brother's usual style. What had happened that would make Damon a whole other person?

Stefan grabbed his jacket and helmet on his way out to get his motorcycle. Why not have some fun when you're already miserable and your brother is acting suspicious?

He reached the woods behind the Lockwood mansion right on time and ran the last mile to the cellar.

Damon was already there, leaning over a dead body. He could smell the stink from body and he took a step back to get some distance. By the looks and the smell of it, the body had only been dead a couple of hours, but had been drained of all its blood and filled up with gasoline to run through the veins instead.

Stefan could still not see the face of the man, he was now sure it was a man after watching the body type a little closer, but he knew that whoever he was, he did not deserve such a painful and slow death. Who would do such a horrible thing?

"Who is he?" Stefan asked quietly. Damon jumped and quickly hid his scared face.

"It's Phil," he answered, trying to keep his voice monotone and steady so that he wouldn't sound like a teenage boy, from the scare.

"Phil? Phil wh..." Damon carefully turned the body around so that Stefan finally could see its face. He was speechless.

"Yeah," Damon breathed. "The Major. Someone killed Phil Cripkey."

"So what was it that you wanted to tell us, Carr?"

Elena and Bonnie had just finished their rant about what they did and didn't see in the cemetery's parking lot.

Caroline had known he would do this at the moment she understood what a pig Tyler was, but she couldn't really tell her best friends that.

Even though Klaus was a great listener, a fair friend and a sweet boyfriend, you can only go so many days without a girltalk with your best friends. And Stefan didn't really cut it either, so she didn't really want to lose them.

"Well… You know how I've been spending a lot of time at Klaus'?" She began.

"Yeah, Carr, pretty much the whole town knows that you're living with the new sheriff," Elena said, sounding like the gossiping idiot she was.

"And there are kind of rumors floating around…" Bonnie filled in; making Caroline well aware that she could have chosen better best friends.

"I know what they are saying about me, you don't have to tell me." Caroline stared into their eyes for a couple of seconds each, putting an unspoken threat to the sentence.

"So…" She continued, lightening up the mood a little again. "What I wanted to tell you… Is that I'm in a relationship with Klaus now." She saw their shocked faces and how they both desperately tried to hide their disguise.

"We love each other and nothing will ever change that!" Hurt, she ran out of the room, the house and left them there, slowly realizing what they had done.

They ran after her. Or correction: Elena ran after her since she was the only one able to keep up with the vampire speed.

"Go away Elena," Caroline said as they reached hers and Klaus' mansion.

"No, I'm not going anywhere." Elena crossed her arms in front of her and looked very stubborn. "Look, I'm sorry for my reaction when you told us, we just weren't prepared on you moving on so fast and we haven't really seen Klaus' soft sides like you have."

Caroline walked into the mansion and picked up two bloodbags. She gave one of them to Elena, who had followed her inside, and they sat down on the taupe colored couch.

"So," she said. "Are you ready to listen now?"

"Yeah," Elena answered. "Tell your story Carr."

Caroline watched Elena's face change from excited and interested to horrified and scared and then back to excited but also happy, as the story evolved from how she went to look in the mansion her mom died in to get some closer to the torture, her escape, Klaus saving her, how he took care of her and fixed a new daylight ring for her and ended with the kiss outside of the school and him telling her that he loved her.

"Wow," she breathed amazed. "He relly told you that he loved you?"

"Yeah," she breathed back. "And I said it too."

"Really?"

Caroline nodded as an answer, she was smiling too big to be able to get anything remotely close to a sound out of her.

"Oh my God! I'm so happy for you, Carr!" She gave her a huge hug and Caroline could see that she was actually genuinely happy for her.

"So where is he now?" She asked. "I mean, shouldn't you two be kind of glued to each other now? I know I would if Stefan came to his senses again."

"He had to do some business in D.C." She took their finished bloodbags and walked to the closest trashcan to throw them out. "But he'll be back tomorrow."

"Well then." Elena stood up too and happily hugged her again. "Would you care to tell your other best friend this story too?"

"Of course." She said and together they ran back to Elena's house.

"We should call Klaus." Stefan said as another idea to what they should do with Major Cripkey. "I mean, he is the Sheriff."

"No, Stefan. We are not telling that psychopath where we have stashed the body!"

"Where we have stashed the… What?!" Stefan ran and pushed his brother up the cellar's wall with his hand around his throat.

"I'm pretty sure I saw Mr. Googly eyes walk out from Phil's hotel when I got there."

"Are you saying what I think you're saying?" Stefan looked shocked and loosened his grip enough for Damon not to sound like a dying cat scratching a blackboard.

"Yes, Stefan. I believe that Klaus killed the Major. If you don't believe me, call Blondie and ask her about his whereabouts!" Damon grabbed the hand holding him up on the wall and pushed Stefan off of him.

"I'll do that then," Stefan murmured and went out of the dark cellar and dieled caroline's number.

"Hi Stefan!" Caroline sounded so happy when she answered that he almost hung up.

"Helloooo? Stefan?"

He decided to cut to the chase and just get it out of him, like pulling of a bandage.

"Where's Klaus?" He sounded harcher than he ment to, but he just wanted to know if it was true.

"Oh well, hi Mr. Grumpy! I thought it was Stefan calling, sorry." She said sarcastically.

"Caroline…" he murmured angrily.

"Well, Mr. Grumpy, boyfriend is in D.C. Why?" She snapped.

All the blood ran off Stefan's face and he got quiet.

"Seriously Stefan! This whole 'not talking to be mysterious' thing you have going here doesn't really work over the phone!"

"Oh God." He got out.

"Stefan, what is it? You're worrying me!"

"Come to the old Lockwood cellar, NOW."