Chapter 14

The walk into town with their suitcases was quiet and full of tension as the gang had to leave the broken down van behind and hope they could get their hands on a rental car in town. Damon was leading the way and he was displaying quite the shiner from his brother from their fight earlier and Stefan had one to match as well. After the cat was out of the bag about Damon and Elena sleeping together an upset Stefan didn't hold back his anger as he lunged at his brother. Damon although held back in the beginning understood his brother was not happy about the situation and allowed him to get a punch in or two before he fought back and fought back hard.

Elena was standing over them telling them to stop but her pleads were ignored as the two fell to the ground and were rolling around with Stefan on top throwing a punch or two before Damon was pushing him off and slammed him to the ground aggressively with some punches. At this point Kol and Alaric had to step in and break the two brothers apart as both wiped away blood from their mouths.

Now as they walked along the road the two stayed as far away from each other as possible. Damon was ahead looking pissed off at pretty much everything and just want this whole trip to be over with.

Behind Damon were Alaric and Jenna as the two seemed to be the only ones on good terms at the moment. Alaric pulled out his phone to check the time and realized he had a message from Meredith about meeting up. Checking his watch he knew they still had a good three hours before they would get to West Palm Beach so his plans of meeting up with her did not seem like it was going to happen. Letting out a sigh he stuffed his phone into his pocket. "Apparently we are missing quite the party," Alaric told Jenna as they two walked along the road together.

"Yeah, well spring break in my sweats and a tub of ice cream is looking pretty good right about now" Jenna stated as she thought about how she came along to have fun and forget about Logan and was instead having to deal with all this drama.

Alaric gave a chuckle and then wrapped an arm around his friend, "Hey as long as I'm around I'm not letting you near the sweats" he told her and Jenna smiled and gave him a nod.

As they walked along Jenna turned her head to look at Elena who was walking behind them and she was so distraught about the situation. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she was staring down at her feet. Following the fight Damon took off in front and Stefan held back and Elena felt stuck in the middle as she got stares from her friends. As she was kicking at the stones on the ground she could hear the footsteps behind her quickening to come to walk beside her. Without looking up Elena knew who it was and with the way today was going she was not someone she wanted to deal with. Lifting her head up she looked over at Caroline who was walking beside her and seemed to be eying her closely as if there were some clues as to why her and Damon had slept together.

"I'm not in the mood Caroline" Elena said with a sigh and continued to keep on walking but Caroline kept up with her pace.

"Well tough because I want answers" Caroline said as she took her friends arm.

Elena immediately pulled her arm out of Caroline's grasp and stormed forward. "Look this is none of your business and even though you think everything has to do with you this doesn't. You have no place in this situation so do me a favor and drop it. I don't want to hear your epic Elena and Stefan crap and I sure as hell don't want your opinion about Damon" Elena snapped at her friend.

"Elena…" Caroline said a little taken back by her tone.

"I SAID BACK OFF!" Elena yelled and then picked up her pace to get way from the opinionated blonde. Caroline halted in shock and watched as Elena continued on walking to get way from her.

Bonnie and Kol had to walked around a frozen Caroline as they kept on following behind Elena and the others as they headed into town. Bonnie bit her bottom lip as she past Caroline and then looked up at Elena who was both mad and upset at how things were going and Bonnie knew that this was partly her fault. "This is insane" Bonnie said to Kol as they walked along. "Everything is such a mess," she said with a sigh as she stared at the back of Elena's head. She hadn't said anything to her since the huge blow up with everyone and Bonnie wasn't sure Elena would ever forgive her.

"I still can't believe it, Damon and Elena?" Kol said in a whisper not wanting to start another fight. At this point Kol doubted things could get any worse but he didn't' want to test that theory.

"Well let's hope that the rest of this trip is dull and boring because I think we have had enough surprises" Bonnie told him as her hand slowly interlinked with his as they walked along the road.

Behind them Caroline was now walking beside Stefan who had a matching black eye and pissed off look as his brother who was leading the way into town. Caroline would glance over Stefan and tried to think of what she should say to him since he hadn't said a word since the fight and she was really worried about what was going though his mind.

Caroline had never seen Stefan this way before and she wanted to help him anyway she could. Things between him and Elena had gone from bad to worse in a matter of a day and although she wanted to remain positive that the two of them could make it through this rough patch she wasn't sure if that would happen anytime soon. When Bonnie had revealed a shocking piece of information about the changing relationship between Damon and Elena, Caroline didn't wanted to believe it and thought maybe Bonnie had been mistaken. Yet her hopes had been crushed when neither Damon nor Elena denied the slip of the tongue.

"Give it time Stefan, soon Elena will realize she has made a horrible mistake and you two can work things out" Caroline assured him as the two of them walked side by side.

A brooding Stefan didn't even bother to look up at Caroline and let out an annoyed sigh. He didn't want to deal with anyone at the moment but unfortunately was stuck in a situation where he was forced to stick with the group. He wanted nothing more then to take off and go out on his own but being in the middle of nowhere it wasn't a smart idea. So instead he was stuck following his brother and Elena who he couldn't even stand to look at right now but had no choice. He had also had enough of Caroline talking in his ear about how things would get better and how he would get Elena back. "Just drop it Caroline!" Stefan snapped at her in anger.

"But…"

"Leave it Caroline!" he ordered her and then picked up his pace to make it clear to the nosey blonde that he didn't want to talk right now, especially anything pertaining to Damon and Elena.

Caroline stopped in her tracks for a moment as Stefan continued on walking and not even bothering to look back at her. She shook her head at the mess this trip had become on what should of been a fun spring break getaway. Instead the group was distant from each other everyone mad or avoiding everyone else. She hated it and didn't know what to do to make things go back to the way they were. Before this trip was even suggested, her, Bonnie and Elena were best friends who had no secrets. Stefan and Elena were together and Damon wasn't an obstacle for the couple. Now over just one weekend things were so different that she hardly recognized the group. She just hoped that when they finally did make it to West Palm Beach that things would calm down and everyone would get back to normal before this whole trip was ruined.

No one talked for the remainder of the walk into Port Orange and the gaps between them as they walked got larger and larger. It was getting dark so as Damon lead the way he brought them to a car rental to get the group another car. This left everyone else to awkwardly stand together in the middle of the parking lot and had them all standing beside each other for the first time in 20 minutes since the fight had broken up. Elena stared at the ground and dug her heels into the dirt not daring to look up at anyone. Bonnie had tired to stand beside her best friend but without a word Elena quickly moved away so that she was now standing beside Jenna.

Bonnie bit her lip as she sadly accepted that Elena wasn't ready to talk to her so moved back to standing beside Kol who was scratching his head and watching as Damon negotiated with the employee.

Stefan stayed furthest way from the group and had his back to them wanting nothing more then to be away from all of them. He kicked at the ground in silence and had to give Caroline another warning to leave him alone.

Sensing that the tension in the group wasn't getting any better Ric figured that if something wasn't done then they weren't' all going to make it to West Palm Beach alive. Everyone was pissed off at some other person and this long trip could get even longer if things continued this way. Leaving the awkward group Ric walked over to Damon who was going over the final details of renting a vehicle.

"Almost set" Damon told him when he saw Alaric walking up to him.

Alaric let out a sigh as he stuffed his hands into his jean pockets and looked back over at the group one last time. "Listen Damon, there has been a lot of tension between everyone maybe stuffing us all in one vehicle isn't such a good idea" Alaric suggested.

Damon turned back to look at the group as Stefan was off to the side, Elena, Caroline and Bonnie with their back to each other. Jenna was doing her best to make small talk with Elena but wasn't having much luck. Kol was standing with Bonnie but would every so often glance over at Damon as they waited.

"Yeah you're probably right" Damon said and then turned back to the employee and asked for a second car. Maybe a little space between the group would do them all some good. It was getting dark and everyone was tired from the long day and if they continued the way they were it was only a matter of time before their was another fight between them.

When Damon was handed two keys he and Alaric walked back over to the gang where they were waiting. "Okay, so we have two cars and we will be separate into two cars for the final three hour drive to West Palm Beach" he announced and then handed keys to Alaric.

"I'm with Ric" Stefan called out as he had no intention of being in the same car as Damon.

"Whatever; Stefan, Caroline and Jenna in one car…"

"I'm not going in the same car as Bonnie!" Elena spoke up and watched as the hurt grew on her friend's face.

"Well our car is full" Stefan told her in an angry tone that made Elena look over at him in shock because he had never used such a hatred tone with her before.

"Look Elena you can sit in the front and Bonnie in the back, but we have to get going as it is 9:30pm and we still have a three hour drive ahead of us" Damon told her as they all made their ways over to the cars Damon had rented. Without another word Alaric hopped into the driver seat of the one car with Jenna taking shotgun and Stefan and Caroline sitting in the back. In Damon's car Elena took shotgun while a sad Bonnie sat behind her friend in the backseat with Kol and wondered if Elena would ever forgive her.

As the set off Damon lead the way with Alaric following in the car behind in hopes that they would all make it to West Palm Beach without another obstacle.

As a night storm was moving in at about 12:30 am the cars pulled up to the front of a West Palm Beach house that backed on to the beach and the North Atlantic Ocean. It had been a quiet car ride in both cars as no one dared to be the first to speak. They had finally made it to their destination but by the expressions on their faces you never would of thought any of them wanted to be here just days ago.

The house was a beige Spanish style ranch with an attached double garage on the right side. The front had three large windows with two on the left side of the door and another in between the white front door and white double car garage on the right. Well-kept gardens with red and yellow flowers were under the large windows and also had five palm trees about 20 ft. tall with three on the left and on the right side of the lawn.

Parking the cars on the concrete driveway Damon sat back in his seat and let out a tired sigh. They had finally made it but this was no doubt going to be a very different spring break then they had all expected. The the sound of the engine went dead after Damon turned it off and the droplets of the rain falling on the car was the only thing that interrupted the silence in the car. As they all got out of the car no words were exchanged between any of them, instead they got their suitcases in silence and made their way up to the house to get out of the rain. With the key in his hand Damon lead the way and unlocked the front door so that everyone could scurry in.

Not much had changed over the years since Damon and Stefan were kids as the open family room and kitchen had a large window the length of the room at the back looking out to a beautiful ocean view even if it was raining at this time. Over the year the house had been taken care of by a local friend of the family and it was rented out since the Salvatore family didn't come down that often after Damon and Stefan's parents died.

"There are three bedrooms down the hall," Damon announced as he pointed towards the hallway on the left side of the family room.

No one answered him they just took their suitcases and headed in the direction of the rooms. Stefan lead the way and when he came to the first door her opened it up and shut it behind him so that no one could enter behind him. It was a loud slam of the door and Elena couldn't help but feel bad knowing she was partly to blame for his anger.

Kol, Alaric; although not on speaking terms at the moment took the first door on the right across from the room Stefan claimed. Damon followed in behind them so that he could claim one of the beds and go to sleep so that this terrible day would finally be over. The door at the end of the hallway was left for the girls and as Jenna and Caroline entered the room Bonnie glanced back at Elena who was still standing in the middle of the family room.

"Elena" Bonnie said in a sad tone.

"I'm taking the couch" Elena snapped at her and then set her suitcase by the sofa. As she lay down on the sofa she turned her back to her friend to make it clear she didn't want to talk to her. Giving a sad nod Bonnie picked up her suitcase at her feet and made her way in to the bedroom and shut the door behind her. Nothing more was said between the group and the only thing that could be heard was the rain tapping in the windows. Spring break may have only begun but to some it already felt like an eternity.

Thanks for reading!