Chapter Twenty-three: someday i promise i'll be gone
The sun is bright and high in the sky and Elena loves it. She soaks it up and extends her arms out, feeling the heat on her skin even though the air is a bit frisky. Caroline takes her hands and shows a toothy grin and they twirl in circles like when they were little where they got so dizzy they would collapse to the ground in a fit of giggles only to get right back up and do it again and again. But they stop before the dizziness sets in and just lock their hands tightly together and swing—swing, swing all their worries away. Rebekah joins them and they're a tripod, a string of arms and hands spinning around and around in the sunlight.
Nik looks on in exasperation. It's not directed at them, at least not entirely. They can have fun if they want, but how is that even possible when they are stuck out on the road? They don't have a confirmed destination yet they're smiling? He doesn't understand. He helps Elijah get the jacks out from underneath the RV and then the spare tire and wheels it over to the front of the vehicle while Elijah brings over one jack.
"I don't think we should've left Bonnie," Elena says as they continue to spin.
"We didn't," Caroline reasons. "She wanted to stay."
"You think she'll be okay?"
"It's too late to think about that, wouldn't you say?" Rebekah interrupts, breaking away from their circle. "We've all had to say goodbye to someone at one point in all of this. What difference does one more make?"
"Way to be optimistic, Rebekah," Caroline remarks, folding her arms across her chest. "We haven't even made it to Rhode Island yet and you're talking like we're going into the abyss."
"Maybe we are," she replies nonchalatantly. "We won't know until we get there. If we get there."
"What's gotten into you?" Elena snaps. "We're all in this together and there is no need to act like we're dying. We aren't. We won't so stop being a bitch about it."
"How foolish of me!" Rebekah exclaims, throwing her hands up in a fit. "To be realistic in a time like this. What a bitch that makes me out to be!"
"Keep your voices down," Jeremy tells them. "We're on the side of the road and there's no telling what's in the woods over there."
The girls instantly silence.
"Jer, why don't you go see if they need help with the tire," Elena suggests and her brother rolls back his shoulders and trudges away disgruntled.
"Let's not fight, okay," Caroline says. "It's not good for us."
"Or the baby," Elena adds.
"And if we just keep that in mind, then we'll make it through this." Caroline's trying to be the girl she used to be in high school; all smiles with a cheerful and upbeat attitude. It was her signature. She was a cheerleader and cheerleaders didn't go down without a fight. Cheerleaders didn't give up, pregnant or not. It was in her blood and no apocalypse would stop her from raising her child in the best possible way imaginable. And if there were nothing in Rhode Island, then goddammit, she'd make something in Rhode Island. She'll be damned if the Forbes line ends with her.
Neither of them have ever changed a tire on a vehicle so large and the whole process is anything but clear, but with the three of them they manage to get it started. Jeremy positions one of the jacks at right back wheel while Elijah positions the front one. Together they elevate the RV until the wheels are freely spinning and Nik takes a wrench and loosens the lug nuts. They replace the old tire with the new one without much difficulty, yet somehow something always seems to go wrong. However, it's not them; it's the girls.
An ear-piercing shriek rings out through the road, echoing far and wide. The three of them turn around to see a straggler gripping Elena by the hair, trying to pull her from her seated position on the metal highway barrier. Caroline tugs at her arms whilst Rebekah bounds over the barrier, picking up a stray branch and hitting the straggler with it repeatedly, belting out a battle cry that drowns out Elena's pleas for help.
The men flash over to the scene hastily. Nik and Elijah pull out their guns from the waistband of their jeans while Jeremy follows after them with his signed bat, slightly cracked from when his sister hit Damon over the head with it.
"Bekah, move!" Nik barks, readying his aim.
"Don't waste a bullet," she hollers back, finally getting a clear spot and thrusting the end of the branch right into the side of the straggler's head. She yanks it out, the body thuds to the ground, and Elena runs into Jeremy's arms, screaming her head off and shaking madly.
It just came out of nowhere. They were just sitting there and suddenly she was being pulled on, yanked from her spot and tugged closer to those widening jaws. Her life flashed before her eyes and all she could think about was leaving Jeremy behind; how alone he would be without her. He'd already been forced to say goodbye to their parents and Elena couldn't even think about what would happen if he had to say goodbye to her as well.
"Next time don't be a hero," Nik tells Rebekah and she rolls her eyes, placing her hands on her hips.
"Go to Hell." She steps over the barrier and saunters off towards Elijah, her face twisted into fury that shows no signs of ever dissipating. Don't be a hero, he says. She'd rather be a hero than a villain with seemingly no logical reasoning at all. That doesn't make her stupid.
Caroline is still pretty shaken up, the thought that it could've been her scaring the living daylights out of her. Seriously, she was so close. Maybe if her hair had been just a little longer then the straggler would've chose her. And she can't die right now. Not yet at least. She has to carry this baby to full-term and stay with it for at least a few years. Watch it grow up a little and then, god forbid, if something happens, then she'll be ready. She'll have died with her child having the knowledge of knowing what a loving mother was like.
It's pretty morbid to think about it, she figures, but it's only realistic. High hopes, but low expectations. Who is to say that there will ever be a cure for any of this? And even if there is, everyone's who has turned is a goner. They are vicious monsters; they can't be stopped without a bullet to the brain. Once you're dead, you're dead. There is no reverse switch; take a pill and abracadabra, you're cured. Once your heart stops beating, once the white has taken over your irises and each breath is forced and all that can be heard is a raspy grunt; that's the end. It's the terrible and ugly truth and even if there ever will be a cure, nothing will ever be the same. It will take centuries-millennia to repopulate the planet…if there is even a planet left that's worth repopulating.
"Are you all right?"
She turns her head slightly, guided by surprise sincerity echoing in Nik's voice.
"Fine," she answers, short. "You care?"
"You think I don't?" he asks, stepping in front of her. "You really think that low of me?"
She scoffs. "Nowadays, Nik, I don't know what to think. So yes. Yes, maybe I do."
The last thing she wants to do is get into it with him again. It's literally like speaking to a brick wall. Yes, this situation is not ideal and neither of them want to even think about it, but while she's trying to be a woman and step up to the plate, he's still in denial. There's only so much more time before she starts to show, before he can pretend that she isn't when she clearly is; and then what is he going to do?
"Perhaps if I hadn't cared then I would've left you in that abandoned town a long time ago," he retorts.
"Yes, because we all know how big your heart was and how you never put my life in jeopardy or anything."
"You think I wanted this, Caroline?" he says a little too loudly.
She takes a step back. "That's besides the fact, Nik. You're angry with me as if I'm the only one at fault. As if I…as if I planned this out. Why would I want this for us, Nik?"
"I never said you did."
"Then stop acting like it! I'm not the enemy here! Stop looking at me like you can't stand me—like you're disgusted by me!"
Nik swallows. She does not disgust him. She never could…never will. You can't exactly be disgusted with someone you're in love with. It doesn't work like that. But maybe that's the problem. Because this is so new—it's so strange and foreign to him—he doesn't know how to properly handle it. How do you love someone when you don't know how?
"We need to get back on the road," Elijah interrupts, clasping a hand on Nik's shoulder. "With all this noise we've made, stragglers are probably on their way."
Yes. The road. It'll be nice to focus on something else other than Caroline, wouldn't it? It will be nice to look at the road and hit zombies again, wouldn't it? It would be nice to forget about the little problem in the back of the vehicle with blue eyes and a broken smile, wouldn't it? But there he goes making it about him again.
"We'll continue this later," Nik tells her and she purses her lips.
"I don't think there's anything else to discuss here." Because there really isn't. Caroline is tired. She's done with all this tension and madness. She just wants to get to their destination and hopefully the refuge will be big enough so that she never has to see him again. That's what he wants after all, even if he won't say it. And, hey, maybe that's what she wants too. Maybe that's what they need. Separate ways and all that.
Nik and Elijah switch between driving shifts. Twice they've had to pull over and map out a different route because of roadblocks and the pavement being too destroyed to drive on. Three times they've had to stop, get out, and clear through a tiny group of stragglers because risking the safety of the RV with that many zombies wasn't a risk they were willing to take.
It is five times that Caroline misses a shot.
It is five times that Nik loses his temper until he finally snatches the gun away from her, demanding why she's even outside to begin with.
It is five times that she controls her hand and doesn't smack the jackass out of him.
It is five times that Elijah has to pull his brother away and tell him in a hushed voice that if he doesn't stop acting like an "erroneous imbecile" then he will leave him on the side of the road and not think twice about it.
It is three times Caroline excuses herself and pukes in the toilet and cries because everything is falling apart and she has absolutely no control over anything anymore and she knows she said that she wouldn't blame herself any longer and she would try so hard for this baby, but it's close to impossible when she feels like she has no one and it's actually true because no one, and she means no one understands. Elena tries, she really tries to offer some comfort, but between still moping around about Damon and Bonnie and possibly regretting her actions concerning Stefan, she is no help. And Rebekah is too angry with her brother to do anything, so Caroline deals with it by herself like she's always been doing.
It is four times that when she reclaims her seat beside Elena, Nik looks back and makes eye contact with her only to look almost immediately away. And Caroline does too because it's really not even worth it anymore, if it ever was.
Numbers. They are just digits that Caroline has counted off in her head, on her fingers. At the end, she'll tally them all up and see just how many times her and Nik drifted further and further away from each other until there was nowhere else to drift.
"Eat." Rebekah shoves a half eaten can of peaches and a fork into Caroline's hands. "You need to keep up your strength and afterwards you should go lie down."
Caroline sighs, stabbing a slice of peach with the fork. "I'm fine. Elijah said we're almost to the border now anyway. I can stay up until then."
Rebekah sits down across from her at the table, blocking her view from trying to stare at the front of the vehicle. "Sitting here and thinking over my brother does nothing but put stress on the baby."
Caroline jabs the peach into her mouth and chews angrily. Baby this. Baby that. What about her? Oh that's selfish of her, isn't it?
"Speaking of which," Rebekah continues, tapping her fingers on the table, "have you thought about names?"
"It's been less than a day," Caroline deadpans.
"I know!" Rebekah defends, raising her hands. "I thought that perhaps it would soothe you a little bit. Bounce ideas back and forth, yeah?"
"We don't even know what it's going to be," Caroline replies, shaking her head. They don't even know if it's even going to make it to full-term.
"Either way, it's always a fun activity, don't you think? Baby names." Rebekah's eyes glance towards the ceiling as she thinks back to secondary school. She'd gotten her first boyfriend and fallen madly in love with him after about a few hours. Oh, yes. When Alexander Harvey asked her to the cinema on a Friday night and kissed her right long and hard and sloppily on her front steps (only to have her moment cut short since Kol thought it was funny to open the door up and snap a picture of their lip lock...it still haunts her to this day), she was smitten. And the thing was, it seemed that Alexander was smitten with her as well. They did everything together; began to plan out their future, where they would get married and how many children they would have and their names, what careers they would have and where they'd live. Rebekah had cheated herself into this fantasy world where she would run away with the love of her life and leave her dark past behind her, the same past that she'd never told Alexander about.
He began to grow suspicious when she never invited him inside her house. She had nothing to hide and that was why she couldn't let him inside. She wasn't embarrassed of her parents because she had no parents to be embarrassed of. They were dead, her older brother by two years didn't take anything seriously, her other older brother had been in prison for the past four years, and her eldest brother helped pay the rent for their flat even though he was in uni still.
She called it off once Alex began asking too many questions that she couldn't answer. Not many people knew about the Mikaelson family, and what they did know, it wasn't exactly anything to write home about. Abusive father? Happens all the time, nothing new here. Psychotic mother? Who honestly cares?
And when Rebekah realized how broken and irreparable her family was, she realized how unfit she was for Alex. He came from a loving home. His mother always made her favorite meals when Rebekah came over; his father always let her watch whatever she wanted on the television during her visits. He had several younger sisters and an older brother who was opening up his own business. See, they were complete. They were happy. She wasn't. She was the piece of the puzzle that was put in the wrong jigsaw box. It was more disappointing that she hadn't figured it out sooner.
"What did you have in mind?" Caroline asks.
"Adriana," Rebekah spouts off instantly. "My best friend in primary school was named that. She gave me a Barbie for my birthday one year and my father thought I stole it."
"What'd he do?"
"Threw it away and said I couldn't be friends with her anymore."
"Why?"
"My father didn't need logical reasons for doing what he did." Rebekah smiles sadly, almost distantly. Mikael was an illogical person altogether. There was nothing she could do about it. "Anyway, for a boy, what about Andrew? Or Alexander? Oh, or how about Adam?"
"What's with the A names?" Caroline questions.
"They have a nice ring to them, don't you think?" Rebekah winks. "Now finish eating and go take a nap, please?"
Caroline rolls her eyes and stuffs another peach in her mouth. "Remember when we were mortal enemies?"
Rebekah slides out of the booth and turns on her heels. "The best stories always start out with hatred."
The dream she had at the motel didn't prepare her for this one.
Caroline wakes up in her own bed. It's so dark in her room that she can't even see her hand in front of her. It's so dark that she wonders how she's so sure that it's her room when she can't see anything, but she just knows.
She swings her feet over the edge of the bed and her toes touch down on the cold hardwood floor. Her heart pounds in her chest for a reason she doesn't know, and when she stands completely up, she hears crying. Crying like a baby or a small child.
She blinks and places a hand to her heart in an effort to calm it. Everything's okay. This is just a dream, Care. You just have to find a way to wake up.
It's a slow task to find her way over to the door, but when Caroline does, she opens it slowly. The crying becomes louder as it travels through the tiny crack in the door and it soon is the only thing that fills her eardrums. At the end of the hallway, there's a bright yellow light from a room, but it's not her mother's room. She doesn't recognize it at all really. The closer she gets to it, the better she can make it out. It's a bedroom, but not one she's ever seen before. There's a double bed with a green comforter and what look like flat as paper pillows.
And there's someone in it. Under the covers she can just make out a person's frame, but something is telling her not to look. Maybe it's the fact that the closer she gets to it, the louder the crying gets. It's so loud she can't even think clearly. There's no source of it either. There is nothing else in this room aside from her and this bed.
"Don't look."
Caroline's breath catches in her throat as she jumps, startled by the sudden intruder. She doesn't even need to look to know who it is.
"Mom?" She turns around slowly and sure enough, there stands Sheriff Forbes in the doorway sporting her uniform. Caroline's eyes begin to water and her whole being begins to shake. Her mom, right here, alive and breathing and even if it's only a dream she'll take it. She bounds towards her, eyes clouded with tears, and just when she's about to throw her arms around Liz, she disappears.
"Mom?" she calls out bewildered.
"Don't look."
Caroline spins around and Liz is beside the bed now, and it's only then when Caroline noticed the dead look in her eyes. It's a blank stare as if Liz is programmed to repeat the same phrase over and over again. And it's weird because her voice drowns out the constant crying. The wailing that seems to hit Caroline right where it hurts.
"Don't look," she says again. "Don't look."
Caroline's fists ball up at her sides and she dashes over to the Liz apparition only to have her vanish again. Liz reappears on the other side of the room, in the corner this time, and she's not wearing the uniform. No, she has her nightclothes on from the night she died.
"Don't look," she repeats.
Don't look at what? What can't Caroline look at? Can she not look at her mom? Is that it? Or…
"Why can't I see?" Caroline asks slowly, taking a step towards the bed. "Who's under here?"
"Don't look."
"Tell me who it is!" Caroline demands, stomping down her foot.
"Don't look. Don't look."
"Is it Rebekah? Is it Elena? Who is it?"
Liz spasms, like a hologram that's been touched. She fades in and out, her orders of not to look sounding robotic. Why can't Caroline look? Who is it? Why can't she just know? She doesn't want to see so just tell her!
The crying is a deafening mixture with Liz's warnings and Caroline thinks to shrink into a ball or bang her head against a wall. Why can't she wake up? This is overdue. Just let her wake up. She takes it back. She doesn't want to know who it is under those covers. She doesn't want to see because it's probably not Rebekah nor Elena. It's neither and it's neither Jeremy nor Elijah and that only leaves one more person and she doesn't want to see it!
But maybe she has to. This is the only way she'll be able to wake up. Just because it's a dream doesn't make it a reality, right? She reaches for the top of the covers, her fingers gripping the comforter tight as her hand trembles violently.
"Don't look," Liz says again, her voice nothing more than a high-pitched screech.
"Mom, I'm so sorry I left you," she sobs. If this is the last time she'll ever say it, then why wouldn't she? It doesn't matter if it's technically not her mom, because she never got to say it. She never got to tell her how sorry she was and never got to say goodbye and now she's sorry for this because even when Liz is dead and gone and nothing more than a vision, she still wants to protect her daughter from the worst part of her life. "I'm so sorry."
Caroline throws back the covers, her face covered in tears and her thoughts already in a set state of mind, but she was wrong. It was supposed to be Nik under these covers, not her.
Caroline jolts awake, heart pounding in her ear and sheet of sweat covering her skin. She bolts upright, taking in the small bedroom in the RV that isn't even a room at all. She buries her face in her hands, attempting to calm herself down and determined not to have a mental breakdown even though it's most likely going to happen. What did that mean? Why did it even happen? How could she even see herself…dead? And her mother? And the crying? How does she even begin to make any sense out of it?
She doesn't.
She'll just ignore it like she did the first time. Caroline will pretend that it never happened and that it means nothing and move on with her life and oh. They aren't moving anymore. They've stopped.
She rushes out of the bedroom and into the main part of the RV only to see that no one is here. She bounds down the few steps and out into the outside world where it smells like smoke and fire and brimstone and whatever else Hell must smell like because surely this is where they've chosen to park.
"Flee for rural," Jeremy reads the spray-painted words on a wooden sign at what they believe to be the entrance to the refuge.
Everything is burned to the ground. Everything. The metal skeletons of tents stand limply; shells of buildings are covered in ash, broken and barely recognizable; trailers are turned over or torn into pieces as if ripped apart by some divine intervention. The only sign of them knowing that this is the place because every sign leading up to it said this is it exactly.
They've driven past it, looking for someplace else because this can't be it. The signs had to be wrong. There's supposed to be a refuge, a place for them to live safely at least for a little while. There was supposed to be food and shelter and other survivors, but instead they get this: a wasteland. They get their own valley of death.
"This is wrong," Caroline deduces. "You guys made a wrong turn or something. Let's go."
"There is no wrong turn," Elijah states calmly. "This is it."
"Well, you're wrong," Caroline protests. "Let's just get back in and drive around some more."
"Rhode Island is but so big, Caroline," Nik snaps. "Where else do you think it's going to be? The signs said Providence. We're in Providence."
Elena goes over to her and wraps her arms around her shoulders tightly, nudging her to rest her head on her shoulder. "It'll be okay," Elena says. "We'll be okay."
Caroline pushes her away, shaking her head. "Y-you're wrong! There's somewhere else! W-why would it just be gone? You're all wrong!"
"Overrun? An outbreak? The reasons could be endless," Rebekah says.
"Stop talking like this is the place!" Caroline yells. This isn't the place! This isn't what they've been dreaming about. This is not the refuge where she was going to raise her child and maybe get cured and no no no! This is not happening to them. This is not happening to her! Not after all this time!
"This is not the place," she says one last time and turns back around to go back to the RV. "We're wasting time just standing here! Come on!"
Once she's gone, the rest of them continue to gaze at the decrepit location they're standing in. There's no place else and they all know it. There is no more hope, if they ever even had it. They'll die out here, on the road, maybe by a bite or from starvation. Either way, they won't make it. They won't make it and nothing has ever seemed more hopeless than this.