Disclaimer: Not mine, except for the fic itself.

AN: I've been thinking about this chapter since I started writing this story so naturally, writing it was really stressful and I'm not sure how much I actually like it. But hopefully, it came out okay.

CONTENT WARNINGS: All the already established warnings apply. This chapter touches especially heavily on Caroline's trauma and uses very frank language about exactly what Damon did to her. Please keep that in mind before deciding to read (there aren't any explicit memories described though).

*o0O0o*
*She's Come Undone and Set Free*
*Chapter 16 - Road Out of Town*
*o0O0o*

In the end, they didn't turn out to need to go off to find Caroline. The young vampire returned on her own some half an hour past Rebekah's conversation with Elena in the library, just as it was starting to turn dark outside.

"I talked with Stefan," Caroline informed them once Elena and Bonnie rushed over, her eyes a bit glassy but a set to her shoulders that carried the returned strength which Rebekah had always respected about her.

"Are you okay?" Elena asked.

Pain flickered over Caroline's face. But then she breathed in deeply, closing her eyes momentarily, and when she opened them again she just nodded with a kind of bitter finality.

Elena and Bonnie seemed to share a silent look and simultaneously - and seemingly without the need for any kind of vocalized prompting - encircled Caroline into a shared hug.

There wasn't much Rebekah could add here.

"I'll go deal with Damon," Rebekah offered. It was an action that didn't really require more than one of them and out of all four it was Rebekah who would be least touched by whatever new vitriol Damon decided to spew with his last few opportunities.

Even Bonnie - who sent her a small grateful smile over Caroline's shoulder, making something heated fizzle over Rebekah's skin as her memory over-imposed it with the grin she'd seen on that same face maybe an hour back, when Rebekah had followed Bonnie into the shower - though not likely to be directly hurt by Damon's barbs, might have been tempted to cut the planned justice short if the chained-up idiot said something particularly brainless.

It turned out to be the correct call because as soon as she closed the basement doors behind her, Damon went full Salvatore, full steam ahead.

It was kind of comical, the way even beaten and bloody, with all his ugly deeds brought to light there wasn't a trace of remorse on him.

"What the fuck did your brother do to Elena to convince her he's some kind of saintly perfect paragon of virtue and vengeance? Like it's not obvious he's been trying to get into her panties since he saw that face."

Rebekah's nose scrunched at the force of the mental image. Her own satisfied mood taking a dive, as the glow from her time with Bonnie got smashed aside by the picture Damon's words conjured.

She let out a brief shudder.

Then Rebekah snorted. Taking a moment to consider him and whether or not now might be a good time to twist the knife a bit. Well, she doubted she'd get another chance. Walking over to him, she pulled the key to his chains out of the pocket of her jeans. "Projecting much?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" He grunted, hissing as she tugged on the metal sharply and reopened the cuts from the injured skin encircling his wrists.

There was a lot Rebekah could do with an opening like that, but ultimately she decided to go with the easy option.

"Please, a blind person can see that you never got over Katherine. Elena was supposed to be your perfect version of who Katherine should have been, right? A Katherine that would choose you, do everything you'd say, defend you, love you, forgive you, make you into a man who deserved a happy fairytale ending. And then she was sired to you and look at that - your perfect woman. A slave." Real disgust roiled through her, the same sense of female comradery that had made her help Elena rearing up within Rebekah again.

She'd met sired vampires before, and it was never an entirely pretty picture - it couldn't be when real consent was subsumed by obedience - but that rabid devotion that had seemed to have erased Elena's personality and transplanted it with subservient putty in Damon's hands... that had been on the very extreme side of uncommon.

Needing to obey the sire's will and orders was always a consequence of the bond. But the complete scrambling of sense of self that Rebekah had gathered having been the case for Elena? That shouldn't have been a part of it.

Even Nik's hybrids had only had their loyalties shifted - otherwise Tyler wouldn't have been able to keep his feelings for Caroline; it's not like her brother had been particularly thrilled that one of his turned wolves was dating the woman he'd been falling for.

She turned the key in the lock, staring impassively as his knees buckled as soon as his hands were freed from their shackles.

"That's not true," Damon ground out past clenched teeth, visibly struggling to get back on his feet but too weak from the blood loss and the recent torture to manage it.

That called for the raising of a pointed eyebrow.

"I'm honestly surprised she didn't start dressing like Katherine while sired to you. But maybe I shouldn't be. Couldn't break that illusion of untouchable innocence you were relying on, could you?" She took a moment to wonder if it would be worth it to point out the way Elena's sense of personal style had changed a little during those months. Not very much, not enough to be obvious, just enough that it looked like certain pieces of clothing might be exactly the kind of things that a man like Damon might have picked out for Elena.

She smiled thinly, leaning over him, and lowered the pitch of her voice.

"But speaking of my brother, you're right about one thing, Elijah's been pretty much in love with Elena since before I first woke up in this town." She smiled cruelly as Damon visibly tried to fight off a reaction. There wasn't any disbelief though, not that this surprised Rebekah, Elijah really hadn't done a very good job hiding it. Not from Rebekah who had known as soon as he'd placed himself between them, slamming the then freshly vengeful Rebekah against that car when she'd first tried to kill Elena; and likely, not from most anyone. The only ones who hadn't seen it were Elena, - probably because as far as she could be expected to know, cartoon hearts in Elijah's eyes were just his normal eyes, what with those being the only kind she ever saw; and Klaus, who didn't count due to his natural state of self-absorption. "So let me give you a bit of advice, I'd worry less about what he wants to do with Elena and more about what he wants to do to you now that he knows everything you've done to Elena."

"I've beat Elijah before, I can do it again," he said, with hatred and that cocky overconfidence that made Rebekah roll her eyes.

It's like the Salvatores forgot who they were dealing with as soon as there was more than a minute since their last near-death experience. They really did have the shared mental capacity of a goldfish.

"No, Damon," she laughed "the way I've heard it Elena beat him, you only ever yapped by his heels like a dog with a bone that didn't get kicked only because you had the protection of one of their negotiated deals, and the fact that Elena cared about you. At the time. But you're not an irritation anymore, you're the man who hurt the first woman I've seen him place on the same level of importance as he holds our family. The only chance you have is to do as you're bid and run."

It wasn't really any chance at all.

She gave him a decade or two at most. And that - only because Elijah would likely want Damon to feel properly hunted and cornered.

"You're just loving this, aren't you?" Damon glared at her through narrowed eyes. "What are you planning? Going to pretend to be best friends with Elena until you can murder her again? Wait until your brother gets bored of playing knight in shining armor and leaves Elena to fend for herself?"

Amusement bubbled through her in a wave of barely suppressed mirth and Rebekah opened her mouth, planning to point out that Elena wasn't exactly a damsel in distress anymore. A human doppelgänger might have needed all the protection she could get. But now that Elena's blood had no more power than that of any other common vampire... well, there was quite a lot Rebekah could tell Damon about his egotistical conviction that he, and he alone could protect Elena from mortal danger when in truth the difference in strength between a fledge and someone who had been turned only a century and a half back wasn't in actuality as great as he probably thought - though considering the way he'd come here in the trunk of his own car he might have finally been forced to learn that particular lesson already.

She could tell him that she'd spent enough time around Elena by this point to realize that every nine out of ten times Elena could pretty much protect herself. And that in the unlikely event that her brother magically stopped looking at Elena with frankly gross amounts of adoration, it's not like Elena would be left swinging in the wind without friends.

But what was the point really? Damon would hear what he wanted to hear.

She laughed under her breath, shaking her head.

Anyway, she'd come down here with a purpose. Not giving him much more time than a single barely perceptible flinch she caught his chin in her hold and made him look at her.

"You don't want to escape, you're going to shut up, get on your feet and follow us until we get to the edge of Mystic Falls without doing anything except what we tell you to do. Okay, Damon?"

She watched as the compulsion took hold.

The car stood parked by the side of the road right at the edge of town. The moon shone its pale light over the tips of the trees, casting cool shadows over the dark asphalt.

Caroline opened up the trunk of the car and looked down over the sad picture Damon made now. Covered in blood and torn clothing it was almost hard to recognize him as the same person who'd once made her curl in on herself, simultaneously desperately hoping he'd finally get bored of her and terrified of what he'd do once he finally was.

She'd heard that revenge was bitter and that the only way to move forward was to forgive. She'd heard a hundred tripe sayings that spoke of how forgiveness wasn't about 'deserve', how forgiveness was actually for the good of the one who'd been hurt, how one couldn't fully recover without granting that grace.

Caroline didn't believe that.

She didn't think she needed to forgive him to heal. And she didn't think that making herself forgive him would do anything except let Damon steal yet another piece of Caroline.

If she needed to forgive anyone it was that seventeen-year-old girl who'd noticed his eyes running over her and had felt thrilled for being seen; to forgive her for not being able to escape a monster that was stronger, and faster than a human girl who wasn't even aware that vampires existed.

There had been nothing that girl could have done. It's true that Damon had seduced her before he started compelling her, but even if she'd been more careful, he'd have simply compelled her a bit sooner.

That girl she'd once been deserved Caroline's forgiveness. Damon deserved nothing.

"Get out," she told him and stepped back as he followed the instruction, letting herself be enveloped back into the warmth offered by the shoulders of her two best friends who were standing on either side of her, and even Rebekah who stood only a little further than that, at the side of Bonnie, and somehow made Caroline feel as if she belonged there too - a little, throwaway corner of her mind wondered if Rebekah might not be exactly who they'd always needed. Caroline had often felt a bit like a third wheel in Elena and Bonnie's friendship, maybe the answer to that had always been to get a fourth wheel for proper balance.

"Now what?" Damon asked acidly.

"Now we wait for Elijah to bring Stefan," Caroline told him and for the first time had the satisfaction of being the one who inspired his fear instead of fighting back the memory of her own.

Damon, now even paler than he'd been a second ago, had time only to part his lips before - as if summoned - Elijah Mikaelson crossed the border of the trees, pushing Stefan ahead by holding her former friend by the back of his neck. "Am I late? I do apologize, Miss Forbes, me and the young Mr. Salvatore had one last conversation to finish."

He pushed Stefan forward and let him fall at his brother's feet.

Which was exactly where Stefan remained for now. Conscious but weakened, he didn't immediately seem able to get back on his feet. He might even be weaker than Damon was right now, and Damon was visibly leaning against the hood of his car to remain standing.

She felt Stefan's eyes but refused to return them. Knew that there would be regret there - regret, an apology, and a plea. And every slice of it coming far too little, too late.

In avoiding Stefan though Caroline's gaze fell on Elijah.

His eyes, Caroline noticed, stayed pinned on Damon.

They were frozen flints of steel. And here Caroline saw why Elena knew that this was the best way to make sure Damon would never again be able to touch either one of their lives. Elijah hungered to tear Damon apart.

Despite herself, it caused a brief shiver of disquiet, but only for a moment, the feeling rapidly replaced by a strange sense of solace. She'd never have to see Damon again.

Damon himself looked mulish and arrogant. And jealous - his eyes kept swinging between the older Mikaelson and the body on Caroline's right. It didn't take a genius to see that Elijah didn't scare Damon the way the eldest living Original should scare him - and that was undoubtedly a foolish, deadly mistake on his part, - but Caroline didn't want Damon to be blindsided by his end, she wanted him to fear it, she wanted him to dread going to sleep, she wanted him to look over his shoulder every second of every day. And that... that as she'd known for a while now, was actually within Caroline's power.

A sense of sudden serenity landed over Caroline's heart. Not peace exactly, but something that would do as a substitute for it.

Decision made, Caroline walked back over to Damon, stopping in front of him so that he'd have no choice but to look at her.

"I'm going to tell Klaus what you did to me Damon, I'll tell him how you compelled me, how you fed on me, how you raped me. It might be tomorrow, or in a week, or a year, or ten. But I will tell him one day. And maybe, if you're very lucky you'll already be dead by that point."

He tried to hide it but there was horror rising behind the horizon of his gaze, she could see it in the whites of Damon's eyes.

Caroline smiled.

"And what? You're just not going to say anything, Elena?" Damon asked her once Caroline had turned her back to him for what would prove to be the last time, and walked back over to stand beside Elena, Bonnie, and Rebekah.

"I think we've covered everything we needed to, I want you to never again step a toe inside Mystic Falls, I don't want to see you, or hear you, or think about you. You've taken enough from us Damon, I'm not giving you any more."

She turned her face away from Damon and looked at Elijah. It's as if he'd been waiting for just that because at once the frozen tundra he'd directed at Damon seemed to melt into something careful and soft as he looked at her and Elena's chest warmed.

"Give him three days," she said.

Long enough to start running. Long enough to give Damon a chance.

Or the illusion of chance anyway. Elena wouldn't lie to herself. She knew what she was writing into stone. And she knew that this would put Damon's blood on her hands too.

She was dealing out judgment, and signing the punishment, and at the end of the day, Elena was the furthest thing from impartial that one could be. But she didn't live in the world of human law anymore, for better or worse this was the world of monsters and in their world, if Elena wanted Damon to pay for every tear Caroline had shed and hidden, she had to play by older rules.

"And his brother?" Elijah asked.

Here Elena hesitated. Then she looked at Caroline and waited for her friend's judgment.

Caroline's face was blank for a moment, then her eyes briefly passed over Stefan and landed on Elijah.

"Just Damon," but it wasn't amnesty, Elena knew as soon as Caroline looked at Stefan that this was to be his punishment. "As long as I never have to see you again, you can go wherever you want. But if you go with Damon..." She let the sentence trail off and they all understood how it ended.

Elijah was only to track Damon. But if by the time Elijah caught up with him Stefan was with his brother - still protecting Damon the way he'd chosen to protect him instead of Caroline. Or Andie. Or Lexi. Or a hundred other women Elena would never know the names of, - then his fate would be in Elijah's hands.

Or Klaus's. If Caroline had by that point revealed to Elijah's brother the truth of what Damon had done to her before Klaus had ever stepped foot inside their town.

*o0O0o*

AN2: I have very strong feelings about the narrative that forgiveness is a vital part of recovery. ESPECIALLY in the cases of abuse, I don't think the person who's been hurt is at all required to put in that kind of emotional labor, and it's frankly fucked up that it's such a widely spoken belief.

Asking a rape survivor to forgive their rapist and telling them they won't ever recover if they don't is frankly wrong on every level I can think of.

So. Yeah.