AN: So, this is it. The final chapter of Still Doll. Originally, it was split into two shorter chapters, but then I decided to just put it all into one and post it. There is also an epilogue to come.

Fifteen. Timeless

"I want to hold onto all the people I lost, I want to keep them with me, we will never part." ~Timeless, The Airborne Toxic Effect

Rebekah was read to hunt Caroline down and skin her for what she had done to Klaus.

Bonnie was waiting for her to contact her, to tell her it was time, that the end was near.

"How did she even get the jump on you?" Rebekah demanded of Klaus, who was drinking a glassful of blood. Bonnie wasn't sure where he had gotten it from, and decided she didn't really want to.

"He let her," Elena intoned, and everyone in the room turned to look at her. She simply shrugged and flipped another page in the book she was pretending to read. "That's the only way she would have been able to get one up on him… unless she seduced you? I mean, she did it to Silas once, right? Made out with him as a distraction."

"Really?" Katherine asked, and she looked both surprised and impressed. "Well, Caroline Forbes… who knew she could be so diabolical?"

"You would be impressed," Elena snorted. "Everyone knows you haven't met a man you didn't try to screw onto your team… isn't that right Galen?"

"I'm not interested in arguments," Vaughn replied angrily. "I want to know why you would let the traitorous little bitch get away with the one weapon that kill you? Seems rather foolish."

"For once, the Hunter and I agree," Rebekah said. "It's not just you, that your little crush can kill now, Nik. It's Elijah and I as well."

"Thanks to those annoying little bloodlines, it's all of us, Beks," Damon intoned. "Stop trying to act like you're special. We've all been equally screwed over here. You do realize she's not Caroline anymore, right? That you let a girl who couldn't care less about any of us take the one thing that can destroy us all."

"Stop talking," Klaus replied. "All of you. Yes, I am aware of what has happened, Damon."

"Then why let it happen?"

The brewing argument was interrupted by the shrill ringing of Elena's cellphone. Everyone stopped talking to look at her. She frowned and pulled it out of her pocket.

"What?" she snapped into the receiver. Bonnie couldn't hear what was being said, but whatever it was made Elena roll her eyes. "April, you were at Jeremy's funeral, remember? He's dead. What is wrong with you that you can't remember that?"

Bonnie met Jeremy's frown with one of her own, before they both looked to Kol, whose confusion matched theirs.

"I don't care if you're bleeding, that's not going to make Jeremy magically come back to life, and I have more important things to deal with. God!" Elena hit the end button and shoved the phone back in her pocket. "Well, that was weird."

"What is wrong with her?" Rebekah asked, and she sounded almost concerned.

"Don't know, don't care. She was rambling and confused. Said she wanted to talk to Jeremy and that she was bleeding, and who really cares? Is there any alive whose existence is more useless than April Young's?"

"Yes," Rebekah replied silkily. "Yours. I'm going to go find her and make sure she's okay. Elijah, try to make sure our brother doesn't do anything else world-endingly stupid while I'm gone, won't you?"

Rebekah left and everyone seemed at a loss as to what to do with a mad man on the loose and a girl who was, apparently, going insane. Kol grasped Bonnie by the arm and tugged her over to a book. He pointed at something, and Bonnie frowned down at the words. They were about a spell that was supposed to lessen the pain of childbirth, and Bonnie frowned at him. Kol, however, was apparently engrossed, because he began to take notes. Bonnie looked at the paper, curious as to what he could possibly be writing about.

If you're looking for a sign, I think you just got it.

Bonnie frowned or a moment, reading the words as Jeremy joined them. It took her a moment, but then realization dawned.

Caroline said she'd let her know when she was needed.

April Young was on vervain, would have needed to be bled out to be compelled.

A dazed and bleeding April calling Elena for a boy she knew to be dead?

Go, Jeremy mouthed at her, and Bonnie nodded. Bonnie picked up a random book and grabbed up her bag, a bag that had the real book she would need hidden in its depths, should this really be Caroline's signal, and headed for the exit.

"The tension in here is about to drive me insane," she announced to everyone in general, though none of them really paid her any attention. "I'm going outside for a while."

She was out of the room and thinking of Caroline in preparation of doing her ghostly thing to go to her blonde friend when her arm was grasped in a strong grip and she found herself flashed out of the house and into the woods.

"What is going on?" Elena demanded, whirling Bonnie around to face her.

"Nothing. I told you – the tension-"

"My humanity is turned off, not my intelligence, Bonnie," Elena replied, crossing her arms and scowling. "April calls and then suddenly you're all chummy with Kol? You have a plan, and April's call was some sort of signal. What is it?"

"I can't tell you, like really can't tell you, Elena. Silas can read your mind."

"This is about Caroline, then," Elena's scowl faded, her expression becoming thoughtful. "Are you going to kill her?"

Bonnie opened her mouth to immediately deny it, but something in Elena's tone caused her to pause. Was that…

"Why do you care?" Bonnie asked instead, looking at her friend closely. "Do you care?"

"No… yes… no… I… I can't turn it on, Bonnie. I can't. Because Jeremy is here, and if I do, then I'll lose him again. And Matt's gone now, and you, and Caroline has lost it and is team Silas. I have nothing left. There will be nothing left."

"You survived your parents' death, and Jenna and Alaric. You're strong Elena, far stronger than Stefan and Damon ever gave you credit for. You can survive this. You just have to turn it back on."

"No… no… just stop talking about it." Elena grasped her head and turned away. "Tell me what you have planned. Am I going to be burying another friend?"

"I – do you trust me, Elena?" Bonnie asked, grabbing Elena's hand and pulling her around so they were facing each other again.

"As much as I trust anyone these days."

"Then believe me, when I say that everything isn't what it appears. Trust me to bring Care back, okay? And then you two will have each other, and you'll both survive this. The two of you and Tyler, because he's lost everything too. So when this is said and done, and Caroline is back, you come back too. Okay?"

"Bonnie, I can't."

"You can. And you will. Because we both know that it's already starting, Elena. Or else you wouldn't have cared about Caroline, or understood why Klaus let her snap his neck. Now, trust me, and I'll be back soon."

"Bonnie-"

But Bonnie didn't hear what she had to say; she had already disappeared.

STILL-DOLL

"Go to the Lockwood cellar and keep yourself hidden until I tell you otherwise," Caroline said the second Bonnie appeared in front of her. April had worked fast; Caroline had just gotten back to the house. "And you'll need to take this with you."

Caroline pressed the cure into the witch's palm, and Bonnie looked torn between surprise at the gesture and worry over what had been done to the sweet little minister's daughter.

"What did you do to April?" Bonnie demanded.

"Nothing her best pal Rebekah won't be able to fix. Rebekah did go to her, right?" at Bonnie's nod, Caroline wiped invisible sweat off her forehead. "Good. I was counting on that. Now, keep that cure close and safe until I demand it back. And leave. Cellar. You. Now. We have a limited amount of time before Silas comes and we're caught out. So, shoo."

Caroline's planned timeline was tight, so she almost breathed a sigh of relief when Bonnie disappeared again. Not five minutes later, Silas appeared in the house, looking downright jovial.

"Ah, Caroline my dear," he said wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her into him, pressing a deep kiss to her mouth. Caroline kissed him back, letting her fingers tangling in his hair, and wishing that she could shove the cure down his throat right then. But she couldn't. Not until all the pieces were in place.

"You're in a weirdly good mood. One step closer to world domination?"

"I have the key to breaking you free of the bloodlines. Soon, we'll be free to make all vampires subservient only to us. Tell me, what should my first act be as a King? To rip out Niklaus' heart and give it to you as a gift? I'll be able to do it as often as you wish."

"Wow, you really know how to appeal to a girl's soft spot," Caroline replied. "I mean, bloody, blackened hearts of vicious hybrids? So much better than diamonds."

"You'll have both. Get the stake and come with me. I'll show you our secret weapon."

Caroline tried to act surprised when, twenty minutes later, she entered the same cell she'd once been kept in. It was still so familiar, Matt's blood still a faint stain on the ground. It still held the chair in which she'd been tormented. The only thing unfamiliar was the woman sitting in that chair.

"Is this your Amara replacement?" the dark eyed woman asked, sneering at Caroline. "I can't say your taste has improved."

"Ouch," Caroline replied with mock hurt. "She bites. Is this who I think it is?"

"Qetsiyah, the traitorous little witch that cursed me. And now, she'll help break you free of yours. It's a fitting punishment… the woman who was so desperate to have me as hers, loses me to another with her very own magic."

"Bastard!" Qetsiyah growled at him.

"Hush now, my dear, your king and queen are busy. I believe you know the lovely couple I've tasked with watching her."

Silas waved his hand at a pair of vampires Caroline hadn't paid attention to upon her entrance, too focused on Qetsiyah and how close the end was. Now, she took the time to look at them and almost choked on air.

Finn and Sage. Sage and Finn.

Klaus' eldest brother and the woman he'd loved for nine hundred years.

"Well, shit. You don't go small when it comes to minions, do you?" Caroline asked, and began to recalculate her plans. She hadn't expected two of the oldest vampires in existence to be babysitter here.

"Of course not. Now, Qetsiyah is being rather stubborn. You see, she's claiming that she doesn't know how to break the bloodlines. Now, I could simply order her too, but where is the fun in that? I wish her to suffer, so" – Silas held a long blade out to Caroline – "shall we?"

"You want me to torture her?" Caroline stared down at the blade blankly. "Seriously? I don't do bloody hands, Silas. Not if given a choice. Blood isn't my color."

"I would disagree. I've seen you in it before, and it was glorious. You wish for my trust, Caroline?" Silas held the knife out a little further, his gaze calculating and focused on Caroline's face. "Then earn it."

"You're making me jump through hoops to earn that freaking trust," Caroline muttered, snatching the knife out of his hand and looking down at it with distaste. Oh, in the past weeks she had stabbed stomachs and snapped necks, but deliberate torture?

The was one sin she had yet to commit. It was a short list, these days.

"Indeed I am," Silas agreed, running a hand down Caroline's cheek. "Can you blame me? So beautiful… so traitorous."

Silas' hand gripped her throat with preternatural strength, and he lifted her off the ground, so her feet dangled uselessly beneath her.

"Did you really think I wouldn't find out?" he hissed angrily, his eyes glinting with anger and insanity. "I had hopes for you, Caroline. When you killed Galen, I thought you might even have actually chosen to join me… but it was all a ruse, wasn't it? A clever, vicious ruse, and here comes your partner in crime, even now."

Caroline's eyes darted to the side. Bonnie was being dragged into the cell by a girl Caroline recognized as Kim, the hybrid who had once tried to torture her.

The bitch.

Bonnie struggled against her grip, but Kim was stronger, and she tossed her to the ground in front of Silas.

"I had hoped you would join me of your own free will, my beauty. But alas, that's not meant to be."

He dropped Caroline to the ground, and she fell to her knees clutching her throat as it healed from his crushing grip.

"How did you find out?" she gasped, her eyes narrowed on Silas' back, as he turned to scrutinize the tools he had laid out to use on Qetsiyah.

"Do you expect me to monologue, Caroline?" he drawled out, not turning back to her. Caroline met Bonnie's wide, frightened eyes and she felt the slightest pang in her chest. She closed her eyes tightly, fighting against the feeling. There was guilt, because she had planned so meticulously, and still Bonnie was going to get hurt. And fear, because this was going to be the end for her, and only now that she was facing death, did Caroline realize she wanted to live. She wanted to fight and survive, because anything less was an insult to her mother and to Matt, and now she wouldn't get the chance.

Emotions she had shut away and locked tightly were raising in her throat, and Caroline felt herself choking on them.

"I failed," she managed to get out through gritted teeth. "I think I deserve to know why."

"Is that emotion I hear in your voice?" Silas asked with an amused smirk, turning back around. He passed a stake back and forth between his fingers and eyed her thoughtfully. "You fought so valiantly, but you weren't made to lack emotion, were you? It's not in your nature. But even without emotion, you weren't as good an actress as you thought. I know when someone actually yearns for my touch, and when they are just pretending, Caroline. You gave yourself away. And now, I'm afraid you will have to die."

He walked over to Bonnie, kneeling at the witch's side and brushing her hair out of her face.

"The Bennet line, always so very doomed, aren't you, Bonnie? Each and every one of you."

"Go to hell!" Bonnie spat.

"Oh, but I plan on bringing it here, my dear." He dropped the stake next to her and stood up once more. "Kill her."

Bonnie's fingers instinctually clamped around the stake, her body obeying Silas' orders before she had time to mentally accept them. When she did, she froze, staring at Caroline in horror. For her part, Caroline was feeling a new emotion.

Resignation.

She had gambled, she had put all of her eggs into one basket – convincing Silas that she was genuine, and then betraying him – and those eggs had fallen and shattered on the ground. Now, she faced death at her best friend's hands, followed by an eternity of… whatever Silas wanted.

"No," Bonnie gasped, even as she unwillingly rose to her feet. "No. I won't do this."

"But you don't have a choice, Bonnie," Silas replied. "Sage, Finn, hold Caroline. Make sure she doesn't make a last attempt at survival." The two vampires obeyed, their eyes blank as they followed their orders. "Now, Bonnie, kill her."

Bonnie took a slow step towards Caroline, obviously trying to fight against the order, but Silas owned the ghost plane now, and there was no way she could stop herself. She came to a halt in front of Caroline.

"I'm so sorry, Care," she whispered.

"Me too," Caroline replied, and the barrage of emotions that had hit her was fading now, leaving her feeling dumb, almost as if she were in a dream – because how had it turned out this way? How was it, that after all the pain and suffering, after Caroline had turned off her emotions and done things that she would never be able to forget, it had come to this – to Silas winning? "I love you, Bon."

"I love you, too, Care," Bonnie said.

Then she brought the stake down. Caroline closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to come.

It never did.

There was nothing but silence in the cell, and then Caroline felt Sage's grip on her loosen. Her eyes opened in time to watch the red head fall to the ground, Bonnie's stake shoved through her heart. It took her a second to compute what she was saying, to remember Silas' orders – kill her – and appreciate Bonnie's cleverness, because he hadn't specified the her, had he? In that second, Bonnie had spun around and brought Kim, who had started for her, to her knees with an aneurysm.

Caroline unfroze, using her now free arm to grab Finn, too far under Silas' control to react as quickly as he once would have, and snap his neck. His body dropped like dead weight to the ground, and Caroline turned back to Silas, just in time to for him to barrel into her, sending both of them flying across the cell. She landed on her back, hard, with him on top of her.

"You don't get to win!" he growled. "You are mine. Mine to break, mine to make, mine to do with as I please! And you will die!"

He raised his hand, aiming it for her chest, and Caroline felt her body stiffen in preparation for the heart taking blow.

Instead, Silas' hand fell to his side as he stared down at his chest incredulously, as though he couldn't quite understand what he was seeing. At first, Caroline didn't understand it either. Because one minute he'd been going for her heart, and the next there was a long, vicious knife protruding from his chest, dripping blood. Caroline was still staring in confusion when a pair of hands gripped Silas' head and gave it a vicious twist, before tossing his body aside like toy.

And there stood her knight in shining skinny jeans.

Rebekah.

"Don't just lie there," the blonde Original said in a scathing voice and a toss of her hair. "I imagine you had some sort of plan, even if it did go to hell."

Caroline clambered to her feet, her eyes immediately going to Bonnie. The witch stood over Kim's body, her neck as broken as Silas'. To Caroline's surprise, Elena stood there as well, obviously responsible for having snapped the hybrid's neck.

"I… don't understand," Caroline said slowly, looking between the two. "What are you doing here?"

"We brought them, Care," said Jeremy, entering the cell with Kol a step behind. "Elena. Well, she was pretty determined to know the plan, and she managed to be convincing, so…"

"No time for stories, little Gilbert," Kol interrupted. "We have a job to finish."

"I. Yeah, that's right. Of course." Caroline nodded numbly, still not quite believing what had just happened, and flashed to Qetsiyah's side. She eyed the manacles that held the witch's wrists down, before grabbing a knife and using it to simply rip the manacles off the chair.

"What are you doing?" Qetsiyah asked, looking as confused as Caroline.

"Releasing you," Bonnie replied, joining Caroline. "We need you to help me with a spell. Kol, Jer, you guys need to get Finn, Sage, and Kim out of here – put them somewhere they can't interfere. Wherever you put the other ghosts you took care of. And you" – she turned to Caroline and held out the cure – "it's time to finish this."

"He'll have to be awake before he can swallow it," Qetsiyah said, immediately shifting from confusion into witch mode in a way only someone with centuries of experience could. "Don't let him get his bearings; he wakes, you feed that to him."

"I will," Caroline replied, her fist tightening around the cure. "You two just be ready to perform the spell. Where is everyone else?" she asked, turning to Rebekah.

"Still back at the manor, I imagine. Although it won't be long before they get suspicious. Too many of us are missing now," Rebekah explained, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully on Caroline. "How are you?"

"Holding on by a very thing thread," Caroline replied. "But I'll finish this. Then… then we'll see."

"You turned it back on. I thought so."

"I don't think I ever turned it off. I don't think you can turn it off," Caroline replied, feeling so very tired. Her eyes turned to Elena, who was helping Bonnie and Qetsiyah set up for the spell. She had turned it off too, yet here she was, fighting with them, saving them. She looked up, brown eyes meeting blue, and Caroline could see the recognition in them. That they were at the end of it, being able to pretend that they felt nothing. Because they did – they felt everything, and shoving it into a corner, claiming they had turned off a switch? It hadn't done anything but leave the wounds wide open to be infected until the pain of it was unbearable. "It's just a pretty illusion."

"It is… but sometimes we need the illusion to make our actions bearable," Rebekah replied, and Caroline thought it was probably the nicest the other blonde had ever been to her.

Caroline simply nodded, not able to handle Rebekah being nice, not when everything wanted to come rushing up and bring her to her knees. So she took a seat at Silas' head, pulling it into her lap. It was intimate, something she had done with Tyler and Matt when she had dated them, but the emotion behind it was far different.

With them, it had been an act of affection, a way to allow her to stroke their hair and be close to them. For Silas, it was simply because Caroline wanted to be able to look into his eyes when she shoved the cure down his throat.

It didn't take long. Another five minutes, and his eyelashes began to flutter. She waited until they opened, until she saw awareness enter those oddly light eyes.

Then, with her best Miss Mystic Falls smile, she shoved the cure into his mouth and forced his jaw shut over the red vial.

It would have been almost comedic, the way his eyes widened. But in this situation, with the knowledge of what was to come, it just felt sweet… victorious. He pushed away from her, and Caroline let him, watching as he tried to spit the cure out, but it was too late, he had already swallowed enough to make the magic work. He collapsed, his hands grasping at his throat, and Caroline watched as his lungs took in oxygen – the first he had actually needed in two millennia – and his body seemed to collapse as he realized he was human.

"This is the end, Silas," she stated, walking to him slowly, so she stood above his shaking body. "You're dead."

She heard Bonnie and Qetsiyah begin to chant behind her. She didn't understand the words, of course, but she stood and watched as whatever they did made Silas' body seem to age in front of her. She kneeled next to him, watching as the youth left his body, turning wrinkled and dry with age. As his dark hair turned grey, he reached out and grasped Caroline's shirt, and Caroline let him pull her in.

"I'm dead, but you lose," he murmured, his voice rattling against her ear. "You're broken. You're beaten. I win."

Caroline shoved away from him, and he began to laugh. It was insane and cold, and his body shriveled and age it turned to hacking coughs, but his eyes never left hers, and there was a mad, dark glint of victory in the depths of those eyes, even as they rotted away and his bones began to turn to dust.

When the chanting finished, there was nothing left of Silas but a skeleton that was crumbling and a memory in Caroline's mind of that insane laughter and the haunting echo of his final words.

"Care?" Elena asked cautiously, and Caroline looked towards her, where she stood with Bonnie.

Only Bonnie was gone. And Qetsiyah, and Kol, and Jeremy. It was just Caroline, Elena and Rebekah… and Silas' useless bones.

"Elena…" Caroline choked out, but she couldn't get out any more than the name.

And then she began to sob.

STILL-DOLL

Alaric and Stefan's friend Lexie had vanished without a word when they were halfway to the cellars.

After Bonnie and Rebekah had left, it hadn't taken long for Elena, Kol, and Jeremy to disappear as well. At first, Klaus had thought nothing of it, too caught up in his conversation with Caroline and still bitter that he'd been unable to kill her, that she made him that weak. Still, he couldn't do it. Because she was in there somewhere, that light filled girl who had so enchanted him, and Klaus hadn't been able to give up on her, not even when faced with the full darkness of what Silas was making her.

He had been contemplating how best to save her, from Silas and herself, when Elijah had come to him with his worries. The five had never reappeared, and after an hour those remaining in the manor had finally realized how odd the minister's daughter's call had been. It had been Stefan who had suggested the cellars, because hadn't everything bad that Silas had done since taking Caroline occurred there? His suspicions had been proven right, when they had arrived to both Elena and Rebekah's vehicles parked at the Lockwood house.

Now, the ghosts remaining with them had vanished and their sense of urgency grew, their pace picking up.

Klaus could live a thousand more years, and he would never forget the site that greeted them at the cellars.

Rebekah and Elena were exiting, moving at an incredibly slow pace, each leaning toward the other. It took Klaus a moment to realize that their slow motion, their odd position, was because they supported Caroline between them. He froze, his eyes darting all over her, looking for injuries from a distance, but there was no blood, no broken appendages. Instead, her eyes looked dull, but not as they had before. This time, it was caused by grief. She had been crying, was still crying, even as she let Rebekah and Elena support her weight.

He wanted to go to her, but Tyler beat him, striding away from the group to join the trio. Rebekah's eyes met Klaus' as she stepped back, letting Tyler take her position at Caroline's side. Klaus was almost ashamed when he felt jealousy when Caroline buried her face in Tyler's neck, her tears soaking his shirt. He shouldn't feel like that, not when it was obvious that Caroline was feeling again, at that the feeling had left her utterly broken.

"Take me home," he heard her whimper.

"Elena," Damon began, taking a step toward the brunette, but Elena gave a resolute shake of her head. It was then that Klaus realized her eyes were red-rimmed, and that she had been crying as well.

"Not now," was all she said. "We need to leave here. Come on, Care. My car is at Tyler's place. We just need to get there, okay?" Caroline didn't respond at first, and Elena's voice turned pleading. "Please, Care."

The words, or perhaps the tone, seemed to reach Caroline, and Klaus watched as her spine stiffened. She turned those dull eyes on Elena, and then her throat began to work rapidly, but she gave a nod and her legs seemed to gain strength as she took shaking steps and lowered her arms from Tyler and Elena's shoulders.

"We need to go home," she said again, but her voice was stronger this time, and she grasped Elena and Tyler's hands tightly in her own. None of them specified where home was, because none of them had one anymore. Not really.

But still, she held her head high and didn't look at anyone as she began to walk away from the cellar, her eyes still sparkling with tears, but not falling anymore. Her grip on Tyler and Elena's hands didn't loosen, and the trio walked through the group of Originals and Salvatores, not saying a word to any of them.

They disappeared through the trees, leaving silence in their wake.

AN: So, there it is. I'm also posting the epilogue, so continue onto that.