"Oh. My. God."
Those are the only words that Bonnie's mouth can form when she peeks open the front door of the Salvatore Boarding House and sees the large RV rolling slowly up the driveway.
"He's kidding, right?"
"Never thought that was a sight that I would see."
The comments come from Matt and Ric respectively as they join her in the doorway.
Matt lowers his crossbow, as Ric lowers his stake shooting wrist as well. "He doesn't really think we're going to travel in that thing?"
"I'm pretty sure he does." Ric slaps Matt on the shoulder and steps outside. He pauses just beyond the doorway, his head automatically turning as he scans the yard and surrounding area. Bonnie reflects briefly that there was a time when going outside didn't involve doing a quick search for roaming packs of flesh eating walking dead.
"I'll stick to my truck, thanks," Matt says.
Ric glances back at the younger man. "You mean the one that's still parked in your driveway in the more zombie infested area of town?" It's gently chastising, and not meant to be cruel, because Bonnie doesn't think that Ric can actually be intentionally cruel, but the words do sober Matt. Ric nods with a half-sympathetic smile. "I think I know where Damon is going with this and it's not a bad idea."
The vampire in question brings the RV to a halt as close to the front door as possible, where he and Caroline disembark.
"You're driving this?" Ric calls out in greeting. "I have to say, I really never thought I'd see that day that Damon Salvatore went RV-ing."
"I'm not driving it." Damon flashes Ric a grin that somehow manages to be filled with a boyish innocence that Bonnie doubts Damon has possessed since he was a young boy. He flicks his wrist and the sunlight catches on a spark and flash of an object as it soars through the air right before Ric reaches up and plucks them out. As Ric opens his hand and blinks at the key, Damon continues, "You are. I'm driving the Hummer."
Ric frowns at him. "We don't have a Hummer."
"No, but Gary Emerson did." Damon dangles the keys. "I'll be going back to pick it up after the incoming wave of Shamblers passes us by."
Caroline throws her arms up. "I told him that he doesn't have to steal everything that's not nailed down just because he can."
"It's not exactly stealing, Caro." That it's Matt that answers surprises Bonnie. "It's pretty much open season on whatever is left."
"See? Even the jock understands the new system of possession," Damon smirks.
###
"I want to stop and check on my Dad." Caroline launches in without preface or preamble. Lead in on this topic isn't required. The young vampire knows her audience and knows that the quickest way to cut to the quick - and get past the arguments and eye-rolling - is to simply lay it out there.
Not that she isn't prepared for arguments; her counter-arguments are lined up. Caroline is ready for the snark, the pity, the hopelessness, all of it. Those reactions don't - and won't - matter because she's not going to back down in this, no matter how stubborn and controlling she has to be.
Everyone knows how much of a control freak Caroline Forbes is.
"Your who?" Damon asks. He's standing in the open door of the Hummer, leaning over the top of the vehicle while he and Ric strap a traveling compartment to the top of it. Her half-creator - because Caroline still hasn't decided if Damon's blood makes her his creation, or if Katherine's murdering hands make her Katherine's creation, and until then they both get to share that twisted responsibility - hasn't looked back at her.
"My Dad," Caroline repeats. She easily slings a case of water in the back of the Hummer, as though it weighs nothing. "I don't know what happened to him. Whether he's dead or alive, and I'd like to know."
She watches the muscles in Damon's back flex beneath his dark t-shirt, and her eyes are - unwillingly - drawn to the way they cord and ripple in his arms as he pulls and tightens the cable holding the box to the top of the Hummer. Good looks and a body like that should not have been wasted on such an asshole.
"He's probably dead," Damon says. Simply, easily. Without a glance in her direction, without a single bit of feeling. He could just as easily be discussing the weather or asking Ric to pass him a beer. "Zombie food, or if you're very lucky, he's a zombie."
The words hit her like a stinging slap. Caroline draws in a sharp breath and hisses it out. Heat burns inside of her and there's no recollection of making the decision to move. But move she did, because suddenly, Damon is on the ground and Caroline is bent over him and she can feel the veins pulsing around her eyes and the fangs pushing through and down. "We're going to check on my Dad, you asshole."
"Are we going to fight for it?" Damon smirks.
Caroline really wants to wipe that shit-eating smirk right off his face. She wants to punch him and see something else in those crystalline blue eyes other than smug satisfaction. "If I have to."
This was not how it was supposed to go down. Arguments and teasing, yes. Reasonable debate, certainly. Damon's complete and utter selfishness and cruelty -
I should have expected it from him.
Caroline knows first hand how malicious and cold Damon can be when it suits him. Or when it's just too much work and effort to be anything else. She jerks him up and slams his head against the gravel for emphasis and both hates herself for doing it and enjoys the satisfying sound his skull makes in the late afternoon air.
She hates that he can push her buttons so easily.
"You don't want to start this fight with me, Cheerleader Barbie." The world spins and shifts, and there's barely the blink of an eye, the skip of a heart to brace herself before she's winded by the force of being lifted up and slammed back into the Hummer. Pinned by the neck, she gasps for air, fingers tugging at Damon's even though some distant part of Caroline registers that she doesn't need to breathe.
But she's young and her body still has expectations and she can't quite focus on turning them off as she scratches at Damon's hand and pushes her feet against his abdomen.
"I. Will. Win," Damon grounds out, his face mere inches from hers.
"Hey! Hey!" Caroline doesn't know if it's Matt or Ric who's calling out for interference, but she doesn't need them in the middle of it. She finds leverage and kicks Damon away. Caroline pays no attention to how far he goes or where he lands, instead taking long draughts of air that she doesn't need. Her hands go immediately to her already healing bruised throat.
"Asshole," Caroline repeats.
"Tell me something I don't know." Damon picks himself up off the ground and dusts off his hands. Barely ruffled or mussed up by her attack and it makes Caroline want to launch herself at him again.
She feels a hand on her arm, and looks over to see Ric. Their former history teacher gives her a soft shake of his head. There's a warm, paternal squeeze to her arm. He's talking to her when he speaks, but his gaze is focused on Damon. "Where does your father live?"
"In Finn's Wake," Caroline forces her hand away from her throat. She shrugs her shoulders around, letting the muscles settle and bruises fade away. "It's on the way to Atlanta."
"Then we'll go and check on your father," Ric says quietly. He holds her gaze for a moment, and then gives her a soft, sympathetic smile. "I want to be optimistic, Caroline, but we have to ask that you not get your hopes up."
Caroline nods her head. Her head still aches a little behind the eyes, but even as she realizes it, she also recognizes how quickly the Damon induced headache is fading. Well, the physical Damon induced headache. "I won't. But I need to know. I need closure."
"I understand," Ric says, and with all he's been through and all he's lost, Caroline understands that he means what he says.
"Who died and made you leader?" Damon is snarky as ever, returning to the Hummer and resuming his work as though there had never been interruption.
Ric glares at him. "The whole damn world and practically everyone we cared about, you dick."
Caroline thinks that she might have imagined it, but she thinks that maybe, just maybe, for a split second, Damon Salvatore's face wore a look of surprised hurt.
"Whatever, as long as we don't take too long." Then he's shrugging his shoulders, that mask of bored indifference in place, and Caroline wonders why she gave him the benefit of the doubt of having any feelings at all.
###
Leaving the boarding house and Mystic Falls behind is a bittersweet moment. For Ric, it's only been his home for a little more than a year, but it has been his home. For the others, this is the only home that they've ever known, and he imagines it can't be easy to turn away from it all and walk into the big unknown.
Caroline and Matt are holding hands, as they take one last look around the yard, and Ric gives them their moment of solitude and reflection. Matt is still sitting the fence on accepting the vampires, and on accepting what Caroline is, but he is trying. Trying, Ric figures, is the best they can ask for at the moment.
Circling around to the front of the RV, he stops and gives a half-smile at the sight of Bonnie taking a picture of the boarding house with a Polaroid camera she found somewhere in Stefan's things.
"It still works," the young witch grins as the camera spits out the polaroid film.
"Of course it does," Damon drawls from where he leans against the Hummer with his arms folded across his chest. "Stefan isn't only a hoarder but he's sickeningly nostalgic as well."
For once, Bonnie seems not to be annoyed or rattled by Damon's prattle. She gently shakes the developing picture, bringing back even older memories - happier memories that are older than the girl with the camera, of a time and world gone, and possibly verging on being forgotten forever. It's not a happy thought and Ric gives himself a mental shake to clear away those thoughts.
"It's good he is," Ric says. "You might want to remember this someday."
"I think we'll have plenty of nightmares and zombie corpses to remind us for years to come," Damon replies in his typical bored fashion.
"Are you sure you want to ride with him?" Ric asks Bonnie. "It's not too late to swap out."
Bonnie's smile is faint, but it is a smile. "With who? Matt's your next best option for driving the RV, and Caroline and Damon might kill each other." Not to mention that Matt made it clear that he doesn't trust Damon, doesn't like him and doesn't want to be alone with him.
"I'm surprised you're not on board for Blondie killing me, little witch." Damon plucks the camera from her hand, ignoring her protest, steps back and aims it at Bonnie and Ric where they stand talking. There's a click and the camera spits out another film for developing.
Damon extends the camera to Bonnie and she takes it as though expecting him to extend his fangs and sink them into her throat. "I'm not stupid," Bonnie says after a moment, her gaze searching his, "We need you." She slips the camera strap over her shoulder. "And you need us."
"I need you and your magic," Damon agrees. His pale eyes flicker to Ric and he smirks. "I like Ric. But," Those eyes shift from Ric and Bonnie to Caroline and Matt and back again, "As far as I'm concerned Barbie and Ken are just along for the ride and they're not my problem."
The facade of civility between the vampire and the witch is more telling than anything else of just how much of a game changer leaving really is.
Shaking her head, Bonnie gives Ric an exasperated look that's too old and too knowing to be on such a young face. "See what I mean? Who else is going to ride with him? And we can't leave him on his own."
"No," Ric laughs. "We can't."
Damon snorts and glares. "He is standing right here." He pushes off the Hummer and walks around to the passenger door, calling out as he goes, "Time to go, anyone who doesn't want to be zombie food needs to get their ass moving now."
Ric folds his hands in prayer style and implores Bonnie, "Try not to kill him. Like you said, we do need him."
"No promises, Ric."
It's not long before they're loaded up, and Ric is edging the RV down onto the road behind the Hummer. He takes a look in the side view mirror, imprinting the memory of the boarding house in his mind, and then, he doesn't look back again.
###