Caroline was tapping the steering wheel irritatingly as she glared at her friends through the rearview mirror and thereafter turned her head to the right to eye Stefan, who seemed lost in his own thoughts. Half an hour had passed since they had left New Orleans and all attempts Caroline had made to start a conversation had failed.
"Let's play a game!" Caroline announced cheerily, suddenly gaining her friends' attention. When she heard a tired groan from Stefan, she reached over and smacked him in the back of his head, making Elena smile involuntarily.
"What kind of game?" Elena asked, doing her best to sound interested as she looked at Caroline from the back seat.
"Let's just call it… twenty questions." Caroline answered thoughtfully and looked at her friends' confused faces. "The rules are that we all have to ask twenty questions before we reach our destination in about… eight hours!"
"Questions about what?" Bonnie asked skeptically as she finally took her eyes from the window through which she had stared in protest ever since they started driving.
"Everything!" Caroline exclaimed enthusiastically and tried to ignore the frown on the others' foreheads.
"And what if nobody wants to answer the question?" Elena asked with a concerned expression on her face that only made Caroline more curious.
"Every question must be answered." Caroline stated and raised a finger, when her friends were about to protest. "But we can all ban one topic if the others agree."
"Caroline, I don't think-" Elena started tiredly, but was quickly interrupted.
"I've been away for almost five years and in that time Bonnie has come back to life, Stefan has moved to live with the almighty hybrid in New Orleans and you turned off your emotions, again. I have no idea what have happened to you to make these things occur and since you won't talk I'm going to force it out of you, one way or another." Caroline told her friends and stared at them one after one.
"You can't keep threatening us with your mindreading." Bonnie reprimanded with an irritated look in her eyes, but Caroline just smiled back at her through the mirror.
"Of course I can. But if you guys start opening up and stop being so dark and gloomy; I won't have to anymore." Caroline chirped and her smile grew wider, when she heard the simultaneously defeated sighs coming from her friends.
"Fine, we'll play your game." Bonnie gave in and Caroline bounced a little in her seat of excitement, making Stefan smile in amusement. "How do we keep score?"
"Make a note on your phone." Elena suggested, but barely earned any recognition from Bonnie, who just took out her phone and started texting something.
"Who wants to go first?" Caroline asked encouragingly and looked at Stefan, who immediately avoided eye contact. A long silence spread in the car and Caroline sighed heavily.
"I can start." Elena finally said and Caroline turned her head to look at the brunette, making Bonnie hit her arm when she thought Caroline's eyes had been off the road for too long.
"Why didn't you say goodbye when you left?" Elena then asked and her eyes met with Caroline's through the rearview mirror. Caroline could see the feeling of betrayal in Elena's eyes and she took a moment to think of a proper response.
"I didn't want anyone to change my mind. I knew that if I said goodbye in person that I wouldn't be able to leave like I so desperately needed to. I think maybe the Immortality Spell had something to do with that. Besides, it wasn't goodbye forever and I did send you postcards." Caroline explained with an apologetic smile on her lips. She couldn't get herself to regret her decision, even though she was sorry for hurting her friends in such a way.
"If you hadn't forgotten all about Silas and Klaus, would you still have left?" Elena continued questioning and Caroline had a feeling that she had to choose her words carefully.
"I don't think so. If I knew that the reason I woke up looking like a zombie was because we had defeated some two thousand year old vampire guy, I wouldn't have left the way I did. But again, the Immortality Spell sort of forced me to leave and get as far away from Klaus as possible. Somehow. I think. Anyway, I would probably have left Mystic Falls eventually." Caroline admitted with a shrug, but became confused when a harder expression settled on Elena's face.
"You would have gone to New Orleans with Klaus." Elena stated and Caroline's eyes widened in surprise of her words and the icy edge her voice had gotten.
"What? Why?" Caroline asked incredulously and stared at Elena through the mirror.
"You told us so yourself. You would go back and help him with that Marcel guy." Elena explained and the tension in the car slowly built as Caroline tried to figure out why she would have said such a thing.
"I don't remember." Caroline replied weakly and looked at Stefan, when she felt his hand squeeze hers comfortingly.
"Will you stop blaming her for something she can't remember?" Bonnie suddenly said as she glared at Elena.
"I'm not blaming her." Elena muttered and crossed her arms in front of her as she pouted.
"Sure you're not, Blamy McJudgypants." Bonnie mumbled back and Caroline couldn't help the smile that broke out on her face, when she heard the awful nickname. Soon Stefan was smiling too and even Elena couldn't keep up her scowl as they laughed at Bonnie's originality.
"I'm sorry, Care. I didn't mean to-" Elena apologized but Caroline interrupted her with a shake of her head.
"It's fine, really." Caroline told her, sending her a reassuring smile. "My turn to ask a question. Bonnie, how did you get back from the dead?"
"Before I tell you, I have to ask something first. Stefan, are you on vervain?" Bonnie said and then looked at the Salvatore vampire warily.
"Yes." Stefan just sighed and Caroline eyed him curiously.
"You think Klaus would compel Stefan to tell him what we've talked about?" Caroline asked Bonnie, who slowly shook her head.
"I don't think so, no. But better safe than sorry." Bonnie replied with a smile and then glanced shortly at Elena, who was purposely keeping silent.
"Okay then. Before I begin; remember than no member of the Original family knows the truth behind my return from the Other Side, not even Kol. Both Caroline and I could be in danger if they find out." Bonnie warned and Caroline looked at her in confusion, not sure where she fit into the picture.
"After we had defeated Silas, Qetsiyah was very happy with me because I had worked out the most of the plan along with Lucy and that way made sure that Silas was brought to the Other Side as Qetsiyah wished. She told me that I had to do one more thing and then she would make sure I was brought back to my friends.
"Because of what we had done to Caroline, the witches felt obligated to watch over her as soon as she left Mystic Falls. We knew that she didn't remember Silas or Klaus and we wanted to keep it that way. The other witches feared the consequences if Caroline would ever meet Klaus again and I was afraid of how the Immortality Spell could hurt her if she started remembering.
"So I was tasked to keep track of her and report back what I'd seen. I followed her across Europe for four years until I watched her gain a friend in a bar in Greece. And even though Caroline didn't know where it was headed I did and shortly after Qetsiyah upheld her promise and brought me back.
"My job was and still is to do anything in my power to stop Caroline from doing what she came to New Orleans to do. I tried to locate her when I was woken, but my powers aren't strong enough anymore, so I just waited her out and pretended that I stayed because I had nowhere else to go."
The car fell silent as Bonnie finished her story and Caroline could feel all of their stares on her. She knew that she would have to tell Elena and Stefan what Bonnie apparently already knew; why she had come to New Orleans in the first place.
"Kol?" Caroline managed to choke out and had to clear her throat to explain what she meant. "Why did Kol get to return with you?"
"First of all I had to have an excuse to go to New Orleans of all places. No one would believe that I would go to see Stefan as the first person, when I suddenly came back from the dead. So I went with Kol under the pretense that I had nowhere else to go. Second of all; Kol did become my friend, crazy as it sounds. So Qetsiyah granted me another gift and stripped Kol of the Immortality Spell Esther had once put on him, making sure that he couldn't continue his destruction as a vampire."
"But how can Kol not know about all of this?" Elena asked disbelievingly and Caroline couldn't help but think the same.
"It wasn't like I followed Caroline around all the time. And Kol is very… confident. If someone holds eye contact with him more than a few seconds; he thinks that they are suddenly violently in love with him." Bonnie explained and shook her head absentmindedly as she thought of Kol's endless cockiness.
"So you just ran around playing smoochy-smoochy with Kol and then he just believed everything you said? It's worse than I thought." Caroline sighed dramatically and she watched how Bonnie's head perked up, listening with interest.
"What do you mean?" she asked curiously and a teasing smile spread on Caroline's lips.
"With the risk of repeating myself: boy likes girl, girl likes boy… sex." Caroline said and winked at Bonnie through the mirror.
"It is not like that." the Bennett witch exclaimed alarmingly with wide eyes.
"Whatever you say, Bon Bon." Caroline cooed teasingly and even Elena smiled a little.
"Can we please stop talking about Kol and Bonnie having sex?" Stefan asked tiredly, removing the attention from Bonnie's shocked face.
"We are not having sex!" Bonnie yelled and slumped back into her seat as she was ignored.
"Okay then, grumpy face. Your turn." Caroline told him and looked at him from the corner of her eye.
"Is bacon the answer to everything?" Stefan asked philosophically as he stared into nothing, unable to keep a smile from appearing on his lips.
"No." Caroline told him with a glare.
"Then what is?" he asked with feigned frustration.
"'Yes'. As in 'Yes, Caroline, I will ask a serious question before you throw me through the windshield'." Caroline told him sweetly and Stefan turned in his seat so he could better look at her. He had a thoughtful expression on his face and Caroline took a deep breath as to brace herself for whatever he was going to ask.
"Why did you come back to New Orleans?" he asked insistently and Caroline could feel his eyes on her as she continued to stare at the road ahead of them.
"To take down Klaus Mikaelson, the big bad hybrid." Caroline answered calmly and she heard how Elena gasped from the backseat. Stefan on the other hand remained completely expressionless and Caroline glanced at him worriedly. She had just admitted her intentions of destroying his friend.
"Why?" Stefan requested and he suddenly seemed slightly alert. "You had no idea who he was. Why would you want to kill him?"
"First of all, I didn't want to kill him. I've heard about the whole Original bloodline thing and I wouldn't take the risk that I was in his bloodline. By the way, whose bloodline are we in?"
"Klaus'." Stefan told her coolly and Caroline's mouth opened and closed several times, but no sounds left her.
"Right… What happened is that I met this girl in Greece. I knew what she was up to the minute she said hello, but I was lonely and I missed you guys. I needed someone to talk to. So we became friends. And then one day she told me about how she had heard rumors about me and what I could do, and then she asked for my help.
"She told me about this dangerous vampire that had killed the love of her life and how she wanted to make him suffer and blah blah blah. It wasn't until the end of her story that she revealed that the vampire was actually a hybrid and that it was none other than Klaus Mikaelson. At that point all I knew about him was what I had heard or picked up from others and I was slightly terrified. Okay, maybe a lot."
"But you said you would help her anyway?" Elena asked confusedly.
"I was very doubtful at first. I didn't understand why she thought I would ever agree and I wasn't going to. But then she warned me about what was coming for me if I didn't fight back. She had managed to find me, so why wouldn't Klaus be able to do the same? And what would happen when he discovered that there was someone out there, possibly stronger than him?"
"He could never hurt you." Stefan told her confidently as he studied the frowns that had formed on Caroline's face.
"Again." Elena murmured from the backseat, making Stefan turn around to glare at her and Caroline's hands tighten around the steering wheel. When the blonde vampire didn't react further; a frown appeared on Elena's forehead as she wondered what could possibly go through Caroline's head.
"But I didn't know that." Caroline continued, bringing everyone's attention back to her story. "So I agreed to help her and her friends. She has gathered other vampires and few werewolves, who have a vendetta against Klaus. Most of them are from his bloodline through Marcel, so they don't want to kill him. Her lover was one of Marcel's daywalkers, who got killed along with Marcel himself."
"But what now?" Bonnie asked hesitantly and leaned forward in her seat.
"I told her last night that I wasn't going to help her and that she should forget all about her stupid revenge." Caroline revealed and received a relieved smile from Bonnie and Stefan.
"Why?" Elena then asked and Bonnie fell back in her seat, rolling her eyes in the process.
"Because it is pointless. She will get herself and her friends killed. I told her that I wasn't choosing sides and that I wouldn't tell Klaus about her plans if she just let them go. Wanting revenge never did any of us any good. Besides, I didn't really have any reason to help her anymore." Caroline explained patiently.
"So you just ditched your friend because you found out that Klaus didn't want to kill you?" Elena asked indignantly and Caroline bit her tongue in frustration.
"Really, Elena?" Bonnie exclaimed as Caroline took a moment to collect herself.
"No, I saved the lives of several persons. And I made the choice to protect my real friends instead of helping my pretense friend hurting the people I love." Caroline told through gritted teeth as she stared at Elena through the rearview mirror. Both shame and regret were present on Elena's face and Caroline looked away; satisfied with the brunette's reaction.
"What do you mean by 'pretense friend'?" Stefan asked after a few moments of silence.
"I knew what Pheodora – that's her name – wanted the minute she sat down beside me in that bar, but I let her befriend me anyway. And I lived in the illusion that we were friends for some time, because it made me feel safe and chased away the loneliness. But I was always just a tool for her and because I let her underestimate me as much as I did, I think she began feeling ownership over me." Caroline explained tiredly, feeling the anger she had felt the night before reappear.
"Why didn't you come home, Caroline?" Stefan asked softly and Caroline sent him a sad smile. "If you felt lonely and unsafe, you should have come home."
"And bring all my trouble back to you guys? Hell no. You've all been through too much already. I can take better care of myself than anyone of you." Caroline laughed, ignoring the worried glances she received from her friends.
"What do you mean with 'trouble'?" Elena asked warily; afraid to ask the wrong questions again.
Caroline's eyes met with Bonnie's through the mirror and it was clear that her friend knew about some of the things that had happened to Caroline while she had been away.
"Imagine having been raised on the idea that vampires are abominations. That they deserve to suffer and die for what they are and you because of that have spent most of your life killing them. And then imagine hearing rumors going around about a vampire with freaky abilities like mind reading and transformation. You might even hear someone said they've seen this vampire change into a fire-breathing dragon or whatever an adlet is. Then you get the word that this vampire might be nearby. What do you do?" Caroline narrated calmly and a heavy silence filled the car.
"Hunt it down." Elena whispered and the horror she felt was apparent in her eyes.
"Almost, because first you gather all of your hunter friends and then you hunt it down." Caroline said; her voice hard and her eyes vacant.
"Caroline." Stefan spoke carefully as if she was made of glass and could break any moment. Stefan's voice managed to bring her out of her dark thoughts, but when Caroline opened her mouth to speak; her throat tightened and she fought hard to hold herself together.
"I don't wanna talk about this!" Bonnie suddenly exclaimed, breaking the crushing silence and saving Caroline from herself.
"Me neither." Elena quickly agreed as she caught up on what Bonnie was doing.
"I'm sorry, Care, but none of us want to talk about it and we gotta follow the rules." Stefan said with a shrug and Caroline smiled gratefully at all of them.
"I can tell you one thing, though." Caroline said casually after several minutes of silence, making her friends' heads perk up in interest. "We need gas."
"So I have a question." Caroline said as she stood leaning against the car, watching Stefan refueling it. He lifted his eyes from the ground and looked at her expectantly.
"How are you and Elena?" Caroline asked and glanced into the small store, where Elena and Bonnie were buying snacks and paying for the gas. She returned her attention to Stefan, who came to stand beside her as he finished what he was doing.
"I don't know." Stefan shrugged honestly and looked at Elena through the store windows. "She didn't say much after she came up from the cellar. I offered her some blood and a shower and then I left her alone. She went to find you after that."
"I think that she thinks you are mad at her because of the things she said when her emotions were off." Caroline told him and Stefan frowned in confusion.
"I thought she was mad at me." Stefan said and Caroline noticed the sad look in his eyes.
"Why?" she asked gently, when she saw the shameful look in her friend's eyes.
"Because of Damon." Stefan explained and looked to the ground. "I couldn't stop Klaus from compelling her or stop what he did to Damon. And now I'm friends with him. I didn't think she would understand."
"Not that I'm judging you or anything, but why are you friends with Klaus?" Caroline asked and looked at him with wondering eyes.
She got that Stefan had history with Klaus that went beyond what had happened in Mystic Falls. But Klaus had driven Damon away to live the rest of his days alone while Stefan ran around playing hide and seek with Klaus' son and it confused Caroline to no end.
Not that she couldn't relate. Whatever attraction to Klaus that she had now couldn't be something new, but for some reason she hadn't acted on it in the past, even after she was no longer with Tyler. And with the way Klaus kept looking at her; it felt like quite of an accomplishment.
"We met the first time in the nineteen twenties in Chicago and I was the ripper. I fell in love with Rebekah and Klaus became like a brother to me. When their father came after them, Klaus thought I would be a reliability and compelled me to forget all about him and Rebekah.
"He later compelled me to remember, but by then I already hated him for what he had made me do and I think I also blamed him for what happened between Damon and Elena. A lot of bad things happened, Care. My humanity was turned off at the time you left, but for some reason Klaus helped me get it back. It took me some time to understand why, but I think I get it now.
"After he found out about Damon, I tried to help my brother and even though all my plans failed, Klaus didn't kill me. And once again I didn't really get why until now. When Klaus' rage finally had subsided enough to not make him destroy everything within reach; he returned to New Orleans and I set out to find you.
"We had a lot of contact while I was away and suddenly I began coming to New Orleans every time I returned from Europe or whatever other continent I thought you were on. I've been telling myself for a long time that it's because I can help Damon this way. Maybe Klaus will listen to me and let my brother actually live his life."
When Stefan finished his story; Caroline was speechless. She had several questions to ask, but didn't know where to start. When Elena and Bonnie came walking out of the store, Stefan moved from his spot and went around the car before he placed himself in the backseats.
"Here." Caroline called and tossed the car keys at Elena, who almost froze on the spot when she suddenly stood with Klaus' keys in her hands.
"You want me to drive?" she asked incredulously and stared at Caroline with wide eyes.
"Sure, why not?" Caroline shrugged and then followed Stefan into the backseat. Soon they were back on the road and Caroline heard Elena mumble about how weird it was for her to drive Klaus' car.
"Stefan." Caroline said silently, earning his attention as he turned his head to look at her. "What it is you understand now? You said you understand now why Klaus helped you and why he didn't kill you for trying to help Damon."
"It didn't really hit me until yesterday. The way he looks at you. You won't actually believe it until you see it for yourself and I always just thought that he had some weird crush or obsession with you; we all did." Stefan told her slowly and his eyes were fixed on her as she tried to understand what he was saying.
"What are you saying?" Caroline asked with a small voice and she felt a blush creep to her cheeks.
"That he helped me because of you. And that the main reason he continued to let me live was because of you. It was all for you, Caroline." Stefan informed her with a small smile on his lips and he watched Caroline gulp nervously. "He did it because he feared that you would never forgive him otherwise."
"Well, he was right." Caroline laughed shakingly and Stefan noticed the insecurity in her eyes. She clearly had trouble believing that someone would do such thing for her and especially when that someone was Klaus Mikaelson; the villain in the stories she had forgotten.
"You turned off your humanity again." Caroline then continued questioningly and it was now Stefan's turn to look nervous.
"I never went out of town after graduation." Stefan told her calmly and Caroline blinked in surprise.
"Silas actually did to me what I was about to do to him. He put me in a safe and threw me out over a cliff, where I landed at the bottom of a lake. I drowned over and over again for six months until you killed Silas and Lucy managed to locate me. But the pain and hopelessness had become too much. I don't know how much time had gone by when I turned them off. Maybe several months or maybe only a couple of days.
"You were still in a coma, when they pulled me up and I almost escaped. I killed a man who was out jogging before Klaus found me and brought me to his old mansion. I had a couple of unpleasant days with both him and Rebekah, but nothing they did made me turn back on my emotions. They had to go back to New Orleans to deal with Marcel, but when Klaus returned; you were gone.
"When he finally got to his senses Klaus informed me about what had happened and how Damon had just let you leave. Then I told him what else Damon had done to you and I've never seen such rage before. The realization of what he would do to Damon and how much he really cared for you literally shocked me to turn my emotions back on."
Silence had filled the car as all the girls listened to Stefan's story, even though it was only new to Caroline. She couldn't get herself to look at Stefan because of the guilt that overwhelmed her and her voice was thin when she finally spoke.
"I'm sorry, Stefan." Caroline said and looked at her hands that were placed in her lap.
"This is not your fault, Caroline." Stefan told her with a firm voice and Caroline's eyes met his.
"I should have been there. I promised that I would help you never lose control. But instead I just left. I left all of you for my own selfish reasons and all I left was a freaking note! What is wrong with me?" Caroline said and she barely noticed how the volume of her voice rose until she was practically yelling. Her fingers were tangled in her own hair and she tugged her blonde curls in frustration.
"Caroline. Listen to me." Stefan calmly demanded as he moved closer to her and removed her hands from her hair, taking them between his own. "There is nothing wrong with you. You did what any of us would have done. You did what I was going to do. What all of us should have done years ago; you left Mystic Falls and you didn't look back. I admit that I could have used your help getting over the whole drowning-for-six –months-thing, but Rebekah was there and she was very… persistent."
"Rebekah helped you?" Caroline asked curiously and remembered the look Stefan had shared with her fellow-blonde in the kitchen earlier.
"Rebekah can be nice and helpful. She's just a little misunderstood and untrusting." Stefan explained with a small shrug and Caroline's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, when she heard Elena scoff at Stefan's words.
"What is it with that family?" Caroline asked warily, not sure she even wanted to know the mess that seemed to be the Mikaelsons. "They seem…"
"Evil?" Elena suggested as Bonnie muttered "crazy" and a crooked smile appeared on Stefan's lips.
"Dysfunctional." Caroline finished pointedly and looked at Stefan who nodded slowly.
"Well, Klaus has been daggering his siblings and keeping them in coffins for years at a time during the last millennium. Finn was daggered for nine hundred years or something." Elena explained with feigned casualness and Caroline felt her jaw drop as she turned to look at Stefan for confirmation.
"They all have some… issues and most of them do revolve Klaus being an insecure control freak, but life hasn't exactly been easy on him either." Stefan told her calmly and a thoughtful expression settled on Caroline's face as she wondered what or who could possibly make Klaus the way he was.
"Really? That's your excuse for everything he has done?" Elena asked disbelievingly as she stared at Stefan through the rearview mirror.
"I'm not excusing anything." Stefan sighed tiredly and the scowl on Elena's face slowly disappeared. "I'm just saying that Klaus wasn't born this way. And he actually hasn't daggered anyone of his siblings the last five years."
"Okay, Broody, we get it." Elena mumbled and Caroline couldn't stop herself from smiling when she heard Bonnie laugh silently. The two of them were finally beginning to ease up to each other again and Caroline felt her smile turn into a triumphant grin.
"So Klaus has a strained relationship with his siblings." Caroline concluded, knowing that it was probably the understatement of the century. "But he seems to be doing well with Henrik?"
"Surprisingly, he is. Somehow he actually controls his temper when Henrik is around. Of course, we have to take Henrik away sometimes if things get a little out of hand, but that is mostly if someone threatens Henrik and then it's not just Klaus you have to be afraid of. Elijah can be pretty scary when it comes to threats against his nephew." Stefan told and he almost sounded proud of his friend's father capabilities.
"Elijah, he's the oldest one, right?" Caroline asked for conformation and Stefan nodded. "But what about Henrik's mother? What happened to her?"
Caroline could feel the awkward tension in the car immediately and her friends quickly glanced at each other with an uncomfortable look in their eyes, making Caroline doubt that she even wanted to know the woman's faith.
"Marcel found out about Henrik, while Klaus was in Mystic Falls and discovered his plans to take back New Orleans with help from the witches. When Marcel took Henrik; his mother fought back but she wasn't strong enough and Marcel killed her. Elijah had almost torn everything apart singlehandedly when Klaus and Rebekah returned. Rebekah told me that Klaus never intended to kill Marcel, but he ripped Marcel's heart from his chest as soon as they found him." Stefan narrated gloomily and Caroline wondered if that was what their shared looks had been about.
"Who was Henrik's mother?" Caroline asked and the immediate rebuild in tension made her realize that it wasn't her death that made them uncomfortable, but her name.
"Should we stop the car?" Bonnie asked warily as she turned around to look at Stefan, who was eyeing Caroline with worry.
"Seriously? Are you really expecting me to throw some jealousy fit?" Caroline exclaimed with indignation and crossed her arms in front of her in offense.
"Henrik's mother was Hayley." Stefan said calmly and Caroline looked at him with confused eyes.
"I don't kno-" Caroline started, but her eyes grew wide when she realized who Stefan was talking about and she quickly interrupted herself. "NO. WAY. You mean that he slept with the were-slut?"
"Wow, Care. Isn't that a little harsh?" Bonnie asked carefully and recoiled, when she saw the anger in the blonde vampire's eyes.
"She slept with my boyfriend, Bonnie! I think I have the right to call her whatever I like." Caroline snapped back and a confused expression settled on her friends' faces.
"Who exactly do you mean when you say 'boyfriend'?" Stefan asked slowly and Caroline's forehead creased as she tried to understand Stefan' thoughts.
"Oh my God!" Caroline exclaimed when she realized what Stefan was referring to. "You guys are unbelievable! I'm talking about Tyler! She slept with Tyler while he was in the mountains doing God knows what."
"He was breaking his sire bond to Klaus." Elena informed her after a long moment of silence and Caroline felt the wheels in her head spin out of control as she tried to process all the new information she had received.
"What?" Caroline asked confusedly and ignored the starting pain in the front of her head.
"But I thought the whole Tyler-cheating-thing was all just a ruse." Bonnie then said and Caroline had to concentrate to hear her friend's words as the sound of blood pumping through her veins suddenly filled the car.
"We broke up, remember?" Caroline reminded her and she could feel Stefan's worried eyes on her as her jaw clenched from the pain in her head.
"No, you wanted Klaus to think that you broke up." Bonnie told her and Caroline's hands suddenly wrapped around her head when the picture of Tyler and Hayley walking together hand in hand suddenly appeared in her mind.
"They didn't waste any time, did they?" Klaus asked as the smile he wore dropped from his face and Caroline turned around to follow his gaze. Her heart clenched with jealousy as she looked at Tyler and Hayley and she could feel Klaus' eyes on her. She turned her head to look at him shortly and was surprised by the anger in his eyes.
"Let's just get today over with." she quickly said, moving past him and away from the sight of Tyler and Hayley.
"Caroline? Caroline! Open your eyes, Caroline! Look at me!" Stefan yelled as he grabbed her hands and shook her back to reality; away from the paralyzing pain in her head. Caroline's eyes shot open at the relief of pain and she looked around in confusion, not quite sure where she was.
Elena had stopped the car by the side of the road and they were all looking at her with both terror and worry in their eyes. Somehow Caroline had managed to glide to the floor of the car and she was slowly pulled back to her seat by Stefan, who received a paper towel from Bonnie and started wiping off something near Caroline's ear.
"What happened?" Bonnie asked with a low voice and Caroline took a moment to gather her thoughts before she answered.
"It was a memory. I saw Tyler and Hayley together and then Klaus was there beside me. I think it was at the Miss Mystic Falls pageant." Caroline told them slowly and her throat felt dry as she spoke. The next moment Caroline had a bottle of water in her hand and she smiled gratefully at Elena.
"The Immortality Spell did this to you." Bonnie stated regretfully and fell back into her seat with a guilty look on her face.
"What are you doing?" Caroline then asked Stefan, when he wetted the paper towel by using her water bottle and proceeded to dry off her ear with it.
"You were bleeding." Stefan told her worriedly and showed her the blood he had dried off.
"That didn't happen the last time." Caroline said as she looked at the red paper in the Stefan's hand.
"The last time?" Bonnie asked as she turned around to look at Caroline again.
"Last night, when Klaus was showing me his studio, it kind of happened too. But that was more like quick images and it didn't feel like it was my own memories. It hurt like hell, but I didn't bleed out of my ear, which is really gross by the way." Caroline told them and a small smile appeared on her friends' lips as Caroline seemed to return to herself again. "This felt more real. Like I was there that moment. I mean, I actually was at some point, but this didn't feel like some out of body experience."
"I have to find a way to stop this." Bonnie said with a shake of her head.
"No. I need to remember these things. I can handle a little pain." Caroline said determinedly and once again received worried glances from her friends. "Let's get back on the road."
"Maybe we should talk about something else than Klaus for some time?" Elena suggested as she drove back into the traffic and Caroline was unsure whether it was for her sake or because Elena simply didn't want to talk about the hybrid anymore. They all silently agreed and Caroline fell back into her seat with a tired sigh.
"We really need to stop in the next city." Caroline told the others after some moments of silence, when she was suddenly reminded that she was still wearing the blouse that Rebekah had destroyed earlier. She refused to walk around in public with a holed shirt and she had an icky feeling that she had blood in her hair as well.
Her friends nodded absentmindedly and Caroline closed her eyes as she leaned her head against the cold surface of the window; thinking about everything she had learned within the last hours. She was surprised when she suddenly felt Stefan's hand on her arm, shaking her awake gently and Caroline saw that they had parked in front of a small boutique in a town she didn't know the name of.
After twenty minutes of shopping Caroline had found a new shirt and washed the small amount of blood from her hair. In the meantime Stefan had managed to steal some blood bags from a nearby hospital and soon they were on their way to Orlando once more with Stefan behind the wheel.
"I have a question." Elena piped up from beside Caroline on the backseat and they all looked at her expectantly as she turned to Caroline. "What did you do for five years?"
"That's a big question." Caroline laughed and she took a moment to remember all the things she had actually had done in her years abroad. Time had become a different concept for her during her time alone and some months seemed to blend together in her memories.
Caroline had always had a clear plan for her future ever since she was young and even becoming a vampire hadn't stopped her, even though it had altered her plans in some aspects. But at some point she had realized that as an immortal; planning was pointless. As the perfectionist she was she would still plan weeks or a couple of months ahead, but when the timeline was forever; it didn't really seem to matter anymore.
"Well, I visited most of Europe, spent some months in Asia and South America. I was in Australia for a couple of months and I even returned to the States a couple of times. I've seen the seven wonders of the world, raced against a cheetah and I broke into the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa without all those tourists. That painting is really small, you know." Caroline listed of casually and jumped in surprise when her friends all spoke at once.
"You broke into the Louvre too?!"
"You came back?"
"You raced a cheetah?!"
"Yes, I broke into the Louvre; no reason to have a cow about it, Bonnie. I had to help a couple of friends with something back here and I checked up on Matt once or twice. I had no idea where you guys were, because I didn't see you in Mystic Falls when I visited my mother's grave. And yes, I raced a cheetah and won. It was awesome. Go to Africa sometime; it's beautiful." Caroline told them patiently and waited for them to recover from the shock of what she had told them.
"I also took a university course here and there, so I'm only like a year away from getting my degree in communications." Caroline added excitedly and surprise overtook her friends' faces once more.
"Sounds like you've had some busy years." Stefan said with a smile as he suddenly understood why finding Caroline had been so difficult.
"What did you guys think I was doing all these years?" Caroline then asked curiously, wondering what her friends thought of her time away.
"We didn't really know actually. When Damon finally could talk properly, he told us that someone looking like me had compelled him and you were gone after that. We thought you had been kidnapped at first and then Klaus came back from New Orleans and everything just went to hell.
"When I got your first postcard I managed to find Stefan and tell him about it. I moved away from Mystic Falls after that and lived with Jeremy until he finished high school. I had your postcards redirected at my new address and called Stefan every time you sent a new one.
"But one day they just stopped coming and I thought something awful had happened to you." Elena told her, the tone of her voice sad as she recalled the days and nights that she had spent worrying over her friend.
"I'm sorry, Lena." Caroline said with a voice full of emotion as she pulled her friend into a hug. "I didn't want to risk anyone finding you and using you to get to me in any way, so I had to stop."
"I understand, Care." Elena whispered into her ear before she slowly pulled away with a small smile on her lips. They were all still curious to know what those hunters had done to Caroline, but it didn't seem like the blonde was in any way ready to speak about it yet.
"So how strong are you exactly?" Stefan then asked, pulling the girls out of their gloomy thoughts.
"Well, that's relative I suppose. But I'm pretty sure I could beat all of you with my eyes closed." Caroline told them teasingly and received an eye-roll from Stefan.
"You're worse than Nik." Stefan said with a smile, but he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to the others. It took a moment for Caroline to realize who Nik was and a scowl set on her face as she did, making Stefan's smile brighter.
"So are you like stronger than the Originals?" Elena asked cheerily and Stefan's eyes narrowed at her tone of voice.
"Not all of them at once. But the spell on me is like two thousand years old, so technically I got a millennium on them. Klaus is apparently faster than me, though, but that probably comes with being half werewolf." Caroline shrugged and ignored the unsatisfied sigh that came from Elena.
"Can you crush a tree?" Bonnie asked curiously and Caroline had to hold back a laugh because of the strange question.
"I never really tried." Caroline admitted and a small frown appeared on Bonnie's forehead as she stared at her friend.
"So you raced a cheetah, but you never thought to test out your strength on a tree or something like that?" Bonnie asked disbelievingly and Caroline shrugged again; not sure why she should have done that.
"I did punch through a tree once. But my hand got stuck, so that was embarrassing." Caroline revealed meekly and kicked the back of Stefan's seat, when she heard him laugh.
"How long till we are at this secret destination?" Stefan then asked, clearly still irritated by the fact that he didn't know where they were going and just had to follow Caroline's instructions.
"About two hours." Caroline replied as she looked at the clock. "Why?"
"Because then we need to refuel."
A/N: So that was a long one with lots of explanations. Hope everything made somewhat sense. We'll hear more about Caroline's time away later in the story. I'm not sure when... Anyway, tell me what you think! I love all of your awesome reviews!:D