Chapter Ten: and we don't belong here at all

There is an explosion.

It seems far away, a mile maybe two. But it's just Nik trying to convince himself that. It's two football fields away, American football fields. There is dark smoke and concrete flying through the air and crashing right back down. It is relentless as it falls. It looks like it hurts.

Does she feel pain anymore?

"How…," Rebekah breathes silently a few feet away. Because right there is where the girl whose life she's made a living hell died. Right there is where the girl, headstrong yet so broken, sacrificed her life to save Rebekah and her brother.

"She isn't dead," Nik declares and he believes it. He needs to believe it. It has to be true, because if it isn't, then he doesn't know how he'll get over the guilt.

"We should leave," Rebekah voices, but she's unsure. So unsure and uncertain and sad for a lost life she didn't even like that much. That much.

"We're not going anywhere!"

She stiffens. They aren't going anywhere. Right.

"You still have me," she whispers but he can't hear it. She doesn't think it'd matter if he did anyway.

Caroline hardly has any reaction when she sees the raven-haired man sitting behind the steering wheel. She doesn't know whether to be upset, ecstatic, concerned; she just doesn't know. She just jumps into the backseat and holds on for dear life as he puts the car in reverse and hightails it out of that tunnel just in time. It's like an action movie. How the real epic scenes go considerably slow just so you can see all the detail the special effect guys put into it. Yes. Yes! This will win us an Oscar!

But this is no movie. There are no cameras or special effect guys or deleted scenes of bloopers. No. Just real life, watching an explosion surround her while she's in a car with people she thought was dead.

Damon and Stefan Salvatore.

"This is about the right time for you to get on your knees and kiss my feet for saving your ass, Barbie."

And even after all this time he's still the eternal douchebag.

She's not even complaining.

"How are...where did you come from?" she manages to ask. It's a general question and she figures she needs to know.

Stefan turns around and flashes her a smile, but it's not the normal Stefan smile. It's like…rude. And obnoxious.

"How about you tell us where you came from, huh? I can't picture you booking it all the way to Maryland by yourself."

Wow. Wait a minute. Now there are two douchebag Salvatore brothers? Whoa, whoa, whoa. Now wait just a minute!

"Stefan's trying this thing where he's not nice anymore," Damon explains, shrugging.

"That's where you're wrong, brother," Stefan says. "I never was nice."

Caroline tries to process this whole thing. Damon alive and still being a douche even after an apocalypse, Stefan turning into a douche because there is an apocalypse, them still being alive period, and her sitting in the backseat of their car when she should be zombie food.

"Have you guys been staying in a house?" she ventures.

"We have a place," Damon says, "but it's not exactly a bungalow like you may have been expecting, honey."

"Why are you always such an asshole?"

"I'm only an asshole to people I don't like," he reasons, "and, no offense, but you're not one of my favorite people, Barb."

She scoffs and crosses her arms as she sits back in her seat. "Likewise."

It's not that she hates Damon or anything, but…she hates him. He's literally the scum of the earth, the kind of guy that no one should ever aspire to be. Rude, arrogant, blunt, inappropriate. Just not a nice guy at all. And Caroline would know the best.

"You still didn't answer the question, Blondie," Stefan reminds her.

She thinks back to what it actually even was before Damon made her livid all over again. Douchebag, douchebag, douchebag!

Then she realizes it. She looks out the window, presses her face against it and all she sees is ocean or bay or whatever the hell it is. They're leaving Ridgeview. They're leaving Nik.

"STOP!" she screeches, but it doesn't have the desired effect. She braces for the brakes to jam and to go lunging forward in her seat, but the vehicle just keeps going just as smooth as before.

Damon cuts a glance at her through the rearview mirror. "If I stopped the car every time someone dramatically screams 'stop' then we'd probably still be in Virginia right now."

"My friends are back there!" she yells, hitting the back of his headrest hard. "Turn around! They probably think I'm dead!"

Stefan laughs. "Friends? Nobody has any friends."

"I do!" She reaches forward through the middle console, but just then Damon slams on the brakes. She falls backwards into her seat and he suddenly speeds off down the road.

"You're such a bastard! They're looking for me!"

Stefan cocks an eyebrow. Asshole. "And how do you know?"

Hm. He has a point. She doesn't know. Not really. She's just assuming. Nik wouldn't just give up on her like that. He wouldn't be so…accepting. He's probably trying to find her amongst all that rubble right now. He's probably screaming her name and cursing a god. Maybe he's even crying. Maybe.

But then, she figures, probably not. There isn't anything between them besides sexual attraction. So what she knows his past. So what he kind of knows a little of hers. So what?

Though, she likes him. She sort of really, really likes him. And the thought of not ever seeing him again is unbearable.

"You don't understand," she mumbles as her throat gets tight. "I can't just leave."

Damon stops the car in the middle of the road. A forest surrounds them, lush and green and seemingly full of life. But it's all a lie. What hides within those trees are nothing but lies.

He turns around in his seat and catches her eyes. His are so blue, so icy and clear. They're the color they were when she fell for him and he kissed her so perfectly she felt like she would spontaneously combust.

"Whoever you were with, chances are they aren't good people," he tells her. "You can stay with us, where we have shelter and enough food to ride this thing out. Or you can walk back there and stay with your cronies or whatever the hell they are. All I'm saying is that I don't want to go back there and tell Elena and Bonnie that we didn't find you today either."

Her heart sinks to her feet. Elena? Bonnie? As in her Elena and Bonnie? This can't be real life.

"Are you…" But she can't even finish her sentence. Just thinking about them, smiling and happy and hugging her and just breathing is enough to make her burst into tears. Her friends are alive. Her friends are alive and waiting for her. They've been searching for her.

And what has she done? Fight with Rebekah? Nearly have sex with her brother? She certainly hasn't been looking for them? She gave in. She gave up. She quit before she even began.

"Looks like we have an answer," Stefan deduces and Damon starts the engine again.

"Good decision, Barb. Teresa and Christie will be proud to have you back."

She sniffs and smiles. "Why do you know the names?"

Damon does that weird eyebrow wiggle that used to send her straight to the moon. "Stefan's ex-girl Kat, a super bitch even at five, made us play with her. I was always Skipper. Always." He shudders at the memory.

She looks out the window, at the forest slowly disappearing and transforming into a new landscape. Some place far away from where she used to be.

"We'll never find her, Nik," Rebekah says as she watches her disgruntled brother search through rubble.

But he doesn't listen. He won't ever listen. Somewhere, beneath all this mess, Caroline is buried. Somewhere she's unconscious and hurting. Somewhere down there.

Rebekah reaches out to pull him away from the scene, but he brusquely pushes her away and she starts to cry. It shouldn't have ended this way for Caroline. It really shouldn't have.

"I'll help," she breathes and she picks up a chunk of concrete and tosses it to the side.

"Welcome to Casa El Salvabenbert," Damon announce proudly as he pulls into a heavy duty garage. It's like one of those ones where trucks make deliveries to.

Stefan jumps up and pulls down the door and there is so much darkness that Caroline can't see her hand in front of her. Before they pulled into the place, Caroline saw a huge warehouse. It looked worse for wear, but apparently they were holding up just fine.

"We have water," Stefan explained earlier. "Two tanks and a water tower. Barely used. It isn't hot, so you'll have to make due with cold showers."

Showers, she had thought. What did a hot shower feel like anymore?

She follows them through a door that opens to a dimly lit hallway that smells of mildew and mold. The walls are moist and the floor is a little wet, but it isn't unbearable. It reminds her of when her basement used to flood when there was a lot of rain. Simple pains like that she finds she actually really misses.

Damon opens up a large red door and they walk through into a big storage room. They've put mattresses and covers high on the shelves and it smells progressively nicer here. Like it's been sprayed with Lysol or something.

"Home sweet storage facility," Damon sighs wistfully, holding a hand to his heart.

Caroline rolls her eyes as if to say seriously?

"Damon? Stefan?"

"Did you find her?"

It's like an angel's choir. It has to be the sweetest sound she's ever heard in weeks. Months. Years. Doesn't even matter how long it's been, it's the sweetest sound in the world. She wants to scream yes, yes they found me! I'm right here! I'm alive! She wants to crumple to the ground and cry her eyes out because she can't believe that after all this time her best friends are standing right in front of her. She wants to run away because a part of her still believes that this is merely just a dream. Just a terrible nightmare and she'll wake up and still on top of the roof of her house looking at the flames of Mystic Falls. She's afraid she'll wake up and go to Bonnie and Elena's homes and see that they aren't there again. That they either left or they're dead. She's afraid that she's going to be alone again and there is nothing worse than that feeling of solitude. Of complete isolation that you begin to lose your mind.

But they run to her. They wrap her up in their lovely arms, so warm and so small and so tight. So unyielding. She is saving breath that keeps them alive for just one more second. She is the light at the end of the tunnel. She is Caroline Forbes, and she is the only one in the world who can survive this thing with a smile on her face. This unrelenting, fearless girl with a head full of yellow hair. Who would've thought?

Bonnie cries, Elena cries, and Caroline sobs. Her heart literally aches and she figures that can't be a good thing. She's probably going to have a heart attack at some point in the near future, but it doesn't even matter. She has Elena and Bonnie and they have her. Maybe the sand in the hourglass is slipping through the crack swiftly. Maybe their time is almost up, but right now, she's going to keep them right here. Right now.

Nik is frustrated.

He isn't sad. He isn't angry. He is just frustrated.

Through the rubble, she isn't there. He thought he saw the top of her head, those familiar golden curls, but it turned out to just be a straggler. Cold and lifeless. No light in those bright white eyes.

"We need to leave," Rebekah tells him, and he hates the fact that he agrees with her.

He doesn't want to leave Caroline here, because she is here. Somewhere under all this. She is dead. Her heart isn't beating. She isn't smiling, yet she isn't feeling any pain. She just doesn't exist.

Nik doesn't want to think about what must've been going through her mind when she ran away. When she lured them with herself. When she literally became the bait he told her to be.

He will never forgive himself.

So he doesn't think about it as he drives. He keeps going and going and blinking and blinking. He breathes in and out, he pretends that there never was a Caroline and he didn't kiss her or tell her anything about his life. He pretends that she was just make believe, a figment his imagination fathomed up so he could be entertained.

But he can't do that. The pavement on the road ahead is mundane and repetitive and when he looks over at Rebekah he just wants her to look like Caroline. Please be Caroline. But she isn't. She never will be.

"Always and forever, Nik," she says, but he tunes her out.

Not always and forever. More like never and…well, never.

"How did you survive?" Elena asks her excitedly, her eyes wide and brilliant like they've always been. "I mean, were you with someone?"

Caroline nods, biting her bottom lip. She isn't sure what she should do. She's happy she's with her friends again after so long, but what about Nik? Should she tell them? They won't trust him automatically. Especially Damon.

"I was with two people," she tells her and Bonnie as they listen eagerly. "One of them found me in Mystic Falls and I've just been with them ever since."

Bonnie closes her eyes and inhales. "Thank god. I was so afraid. We rode by your house, but it was so dark and just…I'm so sorry, Care."

There's too much crying for Caroline. Too much sadness. "Guys, stop with the tears." She smiles. "I'm here, right? We're all together?"

They both nod and hug her again. This is what happiness feels like.

The rubber burns on the tires as Nik hauls ass down that road. He doesn't know where he's going, but he has this feeling. This weird fucking feeling in the pit of his stomach and the air whips past the window and the tress are just green blurs and the sky doesn't exist and…

"NIK!"

White.

"So where's Jeremy?"

Elena rolls her eyes. "He's locked himself in the bathroom. Does he think we don't know what he's doing?" she leans in and whispers.

Caroline smiles despite herself. "He's sixteen." She shrugs.

"It's still gross."

Well, if you knew what happened on that park bench…

Bonnie clasps her hands together. "Food! You must be hungry, right? Let's get you something to eat, Care."

Caroline grins. Dinner with her friends. All that's missing is Bridget Jones's Diary.

This feeling of vertigo is new. This dull pain in his back and abdomen make him want to puke. The world won't stop spinning, everything is blurry and unclear like a thick fog. But it's darkness. Total darkness.

"Bekah," he manages to say as he tries to reach over, but she isn't there.

That's what he realizes that the world is literally upside down. He's hanging upside down in the SUV, the steering wheel turning and turning. The faint smell of gasoline wafts through the air, but that's the least of his concerns. Where is Rebekah? Where is she?

"Rebekah," he tries to yell, but his voice is hoarse and nothing more but a faint whisper. He struggles in his seatbelt, trying to break free from the jammed thing, but the more he moves the tighter it gets.

"Rebekah," Nik says again more clear. "Come out, come out wherever you are. Rebekah!"

Silence has never been so loud.

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A/N: Don't I make you want to just hit me across the face with an axe?