Chapter 20 : The Witch is Back

"Caroline, you have to wake up. Please come back to me. Come back to us."

Caroline opened her eyes to find everyone gaping at her, and Tyler's arms wrapped around hers.

"Tyler" she whispered, albeit barely audible.

"You scared me." He let go of her only to brush back the hair falling in her eyes.

"We can have this sappy reunion later. Can we kill him now?" Damon persuaded from behind, pacing back and forth across the room.

Instead of responding, Tyler turned to Elena and the latter immediately rushed over to help Caroline to her feet. "I told you he was dangerous, Elena. Now do you believe me? I know that you've always believed in the good in everyone, but he is not one of those people worth saving. Look at what he's done to us yet again. You never know what that bastard has planned." Tyler began explaining. He pointed to the Salvatore brothers who were standing across the room. "He tried to tear them apart, tried to drain you of all your blood, turned me into a hybrid and now look at what he's done to Caroline."

Caroline shook her head in disbelief, as if she was missing something. She couldn't quite remember why she passed out in the first place, but there was a big part of her that was insisting Klaus was not at fault. This temporary amnesia has never happened to her before as a vampire and she was praying it would end already.

"Wait."

Elena turned to her friend, with a serious look plastered all over her face. Caroline looked more confused than ever and so she tried to explain. "Take a deep breath okay, and please don't run out on us again. Let me explain. As far as we know, Rebekah and Klaus tricked us into believing they have changed so that we would trust them. And now that we do, they are finally carrying out their plan to kill us. They wanted the pain to be worse than simple bloodshed- emotional and all."

"How do you know all of this? And if they were trying to kill us, then why are we standing in their own living room?" Caroline asked, still refusing to believe that this was actually happening. As far as she could remember, Klaus had taken her on such an adventure in Europe, and she had enjoyed it, at least, most parts of it.

Stefan walked over to where they stood and Caroline looked to him for the answer to her question.

"Kol. He was extremely mad at Klaus for trying to kill him again. He knew the only way to get back at his brother was to ruin his plans. Klaus revels in always being one step ahead of us, and Kol wanted to hurt his brother by ruining everything" Stefan explained, his arms folded across his chest.

"And as for your second question, do you think we wouldn't look for you and make sure you were okay? We knew it was a risk to come, but we needed to save you. Give us some credit here, we came prepared." He then took out the white oak stake from his back pocket. "Sadly though, we haven't had the chance to use it. They're not here."

Caroline saw a worried look on Stefan's face as the latter fidgeted with the stake in his hands.

Elena left Caroline's side, took the stake from Stefan's hand and wrapped her arms around him, in attempt to calm his nerves.

"Calm down, we're still safe. Everyone can sense your fear in the room, and it isn't helping."

Stefan relaxed as he pulled Elena close. Caroline couldn't help but stare at the two, and the looks of concern and love that passed between them. There was a tinge of jealousy although she was really happy for her friend.

"Oh please, brother, save the romance for later. I know you think that something's wrong, and even though I agree with you, our witchy friend said she had it covered. You've always told me to trust her, so shouldn't you be doing the same? She would have told us if something was wrong." Damon insisted, walking towards the group. "Bonnie has a plan."

Caroline couldn't quite process everything, and only believed her friends half-heartedly. She spaced out for a minute as she tried to concentrate hard and remember what had happened in the past few hours.

"And it looks like Barbie's still not over the fling. Still thinking about his lips pressed on yours? This is not a fairytale sweet…"

Before he could finish his sentence, Tyler left Caroline's side and threw Damon across the room. Damon immediately stood up to retaliate, but before he could even reach Tyler, Elena stood in front of him, blocking his view. "Stop it Damon. This isn't helping anyone. We should just leave and regroup someplace else so everyone isn't on the edge."

He gave Elena a look, before walking past her towards the exit.

Caroline looked over to where Damon was headed and that's when she remembered.

Klaus and Rebekah had been staked right in front of her eyes, right where Damon was walking towards. Caroline had remembered everything - the paint and alcohol, the argument with Klaus, Rebekah taking her down, and then -.

"Stop." Caroline screamed, and Damon turned to face her. Everyone was now waiting for her explanation. "You don't know what you think you do. You're wrong."

She looked from person to person. It could be anyone in the room, pretending to be part of the group, and then they could all be dead in a matter of seconds. She had to play this right before any of her friends got hurt. She was the only one who knew that they couldn't leave the room, and that there might be a traitor among them.

Stefan slowly walked over to her. "Caroline, what are you talking about?" He tried to grab hold of her arm, but she backed away from him. He then looked into her eyes and saw her fear.

Tyler wasn't happy about it. Caroline's expression had turned from utter confusion to fear, and he wanted to be the one to comfort her. He knew they weren't in a good place, but at the same time Caroline had to believe them. She had to know that neither one of them would hurt her and that she was the one who couldn't accept the truth. But before he could make his way towards her, Elena grabbed his arm. He was about to shrug it away when she whispered, "She's afraid Tyler, Stefan has always been good to her. Just let him do this."

Caroline heard what Elena said. Even though she didn't want to trust anyone, she stopped backing away from Stefan. He wouldn't intentionally hurt her right?

He took her in his arms and hugged her. "Shh, Caroline, it's going to be okay. Listen to me, it's Stefan, I know animal instincts when I see them. I know that you're really confused and you don't know what to believe anymore, but believe when I say that I am on your side, and that I won't let anything bad happen to you. Remember my promise to you the moment you turned? I will protect you, no matter what."
Caroline slowly pushed him away. "I know that Stefan. And I believe you. But what did you do to them? Where are Klaus and Rebekah?"

Stefan shook his head. "What are you talking about? We didn't do anything to them. We planned to take them down as soon as we knew you were okay, not the other way around."

"No, no, no Stefan. Rebekah took me down, and then she took Klaus' down, and she was right there.." Caroline began explaining all at once, not making sense to anyone but herself. She pointed across the room to where she had last seen Klaus and Rebekah.

"Barbie, you must have taken a bad fall…" Damon began, but Caroline cut him off with the words that would explain everything.

"The witch is back."

Stefan was the first one to understand what she meant. "It can't be. We destroyed her before, and we thought that when Alaric died, she would have… since…"

"Brother" Damon commanded, turning to Stefan for an explanation.

"Esther."

"Esther as in, the Original witch?" Elena asked, her voice shaking.

"No Elena, Esther as in, the Original bitch" Damon said, "She was supposed to be dead."

Caroline nodded. They all looked as flabbergasted as she was, and afraid -very afraid.

Suddenly, there was an applause coming from behind, interrupting all of their thoughts.

"Looks like you're smarter than I realized, Miss Forbes. But it seems you're a little too late. I'm going to enjoy watching you all perish."

All the hope that they were desperately clinging to was lost. So much for faith and trust and having a plan. It was Bonnie who was standing right in front of them.