Author's Note: Hello, my loves! I am sorry about the long wait! I do appreciate hearing from all of you and I do hope that you continue to enjoy this story! Millennion and I are working super hard on this so I do hope yall are liking it. Let me know what you think!

Caroline sinks to the ground, her trembling knees unable to hold her up anymore. Caroline isn't a fighter, not in the slightest. She never has taken any self-defense classes - even though her mother had been musing about it for a long time as "just a way to protect yourself, sweetie." - or tried to emulate from movies that she's seen or anything like that. So fighting Mr. Tanner was unlike anything she has ever done, or ever imagined she would do. Caroline herself has never been a violent person, in the slightest. She might be sassy and maybe a bit mean, but she's never raised her hand against anyone before. Ever. And she's never thought about it either.

Never having fought before, Caroline can only imagine the trainwreck she must have looked like. And she was crying. Actually, it's better to say that she was sobbing. Horrible, breathless sobbing. Uncontrollably, she might add. She obeyed the compulsion - not like she really had a choice in the matter - and fought as hard as she could while sobbing the whole time. The only minute bit of comfort that she could get from this situation. Releasing just the tiniest bit of pain built up in her heart.

Stefan, at some point, couldn't take it anymore. Whether it was simply the sight of Caroline and Mr. Tanner fighting one another, or perhaps he felt pity for his part in all of this. Perhaps not an intentional aggressor, like Damon, but for being passive while all of this is going on. Or, perhaps the smallest part of him was sorry that this was happening and wanted to stop it from getting worse. Or maybe he just did it for Elena, as this would be the last thing that she would have ever wanted. Either way, Stefan tries to intervene but Damon stopped him. So while Damon and Stefan wrecked the space between the rows of buses, Caroline and Mr. Tanner had a less impressive version. Caroline could see the panic in his eyes as he's forced to defend himself against Caroline simply because Damon compelled him not to be able to run away.

It all happened so fast. Both the fight and how it ended.

During the fight, Caroline felt every hit, every bit of pain. She has read stories and watched movies about people who claim to blackout when they fight. That their body takes over and they lose themselves for a short time, and when they come back into themselves the battle is over. That didn't happen to Caroline. She was so horribly aware of every action that her body made. She didn't even have the fortune of the compulsion waves dragging her under. They were finally, ironically not present and she was forced to watch as her body attacked her teacher. Damon's compulsion allowed her to cry, but despite that tiny release, it wasn't enough to quiet the screaming in her mind.

But the end was so sudden, it left her numb.

In their fight, the brothers tossing one another around ended up destroying the side of a bus. Where Damon's body created a huge dent in the side of the bus, the metal warped and jagged, when compelled Caroline pushed Mr. Tanner into the sharp edges that only scratched Damon, it cut deeply into Mr. Tanner so cleanly he was forced to stop fighting. There was blood everywhere. All over him. All over her. Some of it is her blood, but most of it is his. Especially now. Now he's bleeding so profusely as he sinks into the floor. His eyes are blown wide in shock, horror, and pain.

And the compulsion released her. Caroline stood frozen, rooted in place for a moment as the reality of what she's done hit her full force. Her knees knock together in both fear, pain, and exhaustion. Slowly, slowly, slowly, Caroline sinks down onto her knees, staring at the face of her teacher. He's so badly hurt. He's going to die. The croaking and groaning and she don't know what exactly has been pierced on Mr, Tanner, but it... it's killing him. And the reality of what she's done hits her in full force.

Caroline can't breathe.

Her eyes, red with tears still streaming down her face, lower down to her hands. The rest of her body was paralyzed, even if for only a moment, while her tears just continue to flow. It takes a moment, but her eyes finally register her hands. They are beaten and bruised and have speckles of blood across them. They don't even look like her hands anymore. The hands of a stranger that beat up a teacher that she hated more than liked, but didn't for a moment think that he deserved to be beaten up but a cheerleader who couldn't control herself in a parking lot under the cover of night and a half dozen busses under the machinations of a madman vampire whose only purpose in life is to cause chaos and sew discord.

The hands of a killer.

And then the final cord snaps like a piano wire plucked too hard and she felt herself crack. It started small, minute, and grew into a complex latticework across every fiber of her being.

Over the sound of her existence breaking down, Caroline can hear someone screaming. This horrible, throat-tearing, agony-filled scream. It sounds like a scream she's heard a million times, but never so utterly clear as this time. And it's a pain so intense, so deep, she could feel t all the way down into her toes. She's not sure how long she sat there, listening to the screaming before Stefan appears in her vision.

He grasps her face, looking into her eyes. He says something but Caroline can't hear over the screaming. He pulls her to his chest and she feels a blast of cold air around her that takes her breath away. The screams peter out into a hoarse rasp as Stefan lowers her to the pavement outside of her home. It felt like a moment, an instant, but then again, just staring into Stefan's eyes feels like a lifetime is passing her by.

His eyes lock with her and he whispers, "You have to stop screaming, Caroline."

The wave of compulsion crashes over her and her jaw snaps shut. There is intense pain there that she doesn't understand. Maybe it was from getting beaten up tonight. Maybe Mr. Tanner got more than a few good hits in that she didn't notice.

"Forget," Stefan says, pupils are dancing. "Forget all of this. Forget tonight. Forget Damon. If you see him, you avoid him. You don't go anywhere near him and you must always find a way to get away from him. Forget about tonight with Mr. Tanner. Forget about it all."

And for the first time, since meeting Damon and getting her first hit of compulsion, Caroline didn't fight it. She wanted to do all of that. She wanted to get away from Damon - and Stefan - and she wanted to forget that this night ever happened. That anything these last few weeks even happened. She wanted all of it to be washed away by the compulsion waves and wiped from her memory in its entirety.

To pretend that this life no longer existed and Caroline Forbes vanished beneath to waves.

Stefan leaves her there on the sidewalk outside of her home while she slips firmly beneath the compulsion waves as the final bits of her sink into the blackness as she starts to pull back into herself. Shaking, and staggering, she makes her way to her door and into her house, locking it behind her for fear of monsters of the night that she doesn't fully remember were out there. She goes to her bedroom and immediately strips from her tattered cheer uniform and dumps them in a pile in a corner of the room, deciding last moment to scoot it under her dresser and pretend the moment never happened.

She steps into her shower and turns it on. The blast of cold makes her shiver and her throat closes up, making it hard to breathe, she quickly turned the water to scalding and bowed her head while it ran over her head, back, neck, and shoulders. After a while of just standing there, she lowers down onto the ground, wrapping her arms around her knees and laying her cheek onto her knee. She closes her eyes and feels the exhaustion of the day finally start to work its way out of her system.

Caroline opens her eyes a bit to catch flecks of red and grains of dirt slowly circling the drain. She stares down the drain, watching as the grime, dirt, and blood flushes down it. The memories of the night start to flicker and blur more and more until Caroline isn't even slightly sure about the events that happened tonight. It took her staring down the drain to realize that's where her memories went.

While quietly sitting under the scalding spray of hot water, Caroline's mind slowly, carefully reconstructed what it could of the night. She remembered the game. She remembered Jeremy and Tyler fighting. She... she remembered walking to the back of the stadium and then -

Nothing.

It's like mentally walking right into a brick wall and a small part of her wanted to push on and see what was on the other side but a gut-wrenching terror stops her. A warning in her own voice. She doesn't want to know what is on the other side. She can't handle it.

Normally, Caroline makes a living off of proving people who tell her that she can't do something that she, in fact, can - or at least try to - but this felt different. It felt different from anger or self-depreciation. It felt like a warning. She was strong enough to break through this wall but she wasn't ready for the sacrifice she would have to make in order to do it. She wouldn't be sacrificing her behind the wall. Maybe later, but not now.

Caroline's mind did the best that it could to piece together what happened tonight, and the last few days - but when she focused too much on the nagging element of something missing, she ran into that wall. And the horrible secrets that lie beyond, calling out like a siren for her to remember. Taunting. Threatening.

Terrified, Caroline backed away.

The beaten and bruised blonde pulls herself up to her feet and turns the spray off. She crawls out of the shower, wrapping up in a towel and heading into her bedroom. She changes into her comfiest pajama pants and a large graphic t-shirt that used to be her dad's before he moved out, trying to absorb any and all comfort that she can from it, before basically falling into bed. Her exhaustion, beyond bone-deep, forces her to sleep before her head even touches the pillow.

Caroline feels like she closed her eyes for only a second before something soothing pulls her into awareness, if only slightly.

"You weren't answering your phone," Liz says softly, running her fingers through Caroline's hair. It's pitch black out still, which makes it hard for Caroline to open her eyes and not slowly slip back to sleep. "I was so scared."

"Mom..?" Caroline rasps, her throat burning but she doesn't remember why. Maybe from cheering so loud?

"Shh, honey," Liz says softly. "You're home and you're safe, that's all I care about. But I am worried about you. You haven't been yourself lately. Stay home from school tomorrow. I'll call the school for you in the morning."

Lacking all the energy to open her eyes let alone fight to go to school, Caroline just hums softly and whispers, "Okay..."

Just then, Liz's radio goes off on her shoulder. It's loud and staticky, but Caroline can barely make out words like, 'hospital' and 'critical condition' before it dies down to silence. Caroline turns slightly toward her mother, barely able to open her eyes. "What..?"

"Sleep," Liz says, kissing her hair. "I have to go back to work. I'll see you in the morning."

Caroline mumbles incoherently before curling around her pillow with the feeling of Liz's loving ministrations being the last thing on her mind as she falls back into peaceful darkness.

Caroline wakes up screaming as this intense, fiery pain courses through her body like being struck by lightning. She sits up in bed, barely able to notice that it's still pitch black out in her room. The pain was sudden and terrifying. So much so that her heart is pounding loudly in her chest.

"M-Mom..?" Caroline calls into the darkness of the house but there is silence. If Liz was home, she would be in Caroline's room in a heartbeat. Despite how tired she was, Liz was always a light sleeper. Liz must still not be home.

Suddenly, Caroline's spine cracks, making her contort as a broken sob rips from her raw throat like a bullet. It feels like her bones are on fire. And for a split second after her spine cracks, Caroline freezes both in pain and terror at the thought that she just broke her own spine. For no apparent reason.

Caroline screams, her spine cracking back in place as her eyes hone in on the face in the full-length mirror stare back at her. The face of some sort of scary monster with glowing golden eyes. Caroline was so utterly terrified that she couldn't even look over her shoulder at the beast hoving over her. She just squeezed her eyes shut, sobbing, waiting for the pain to end. Bones cracking and splintering a bit before crunching back into place.

And then nothing.

Caroline counts two slow, pained breaths as her body thrums in exhaustion and pain before opening her eyes to stare back at the mirror. But what she sees is the golden eyes staring back, before they fade into the darkness of her own face. Her eyes... no, it couldn't have been. Her eyes couldn't have changed color.

Could it?

Tentatively, Caroline reaches up to touch her face before pulling away. Her skin is clammy and feverish at the same time, making her sink back into her bed. As the terror ebbs away to disbelief her mind forcefully shuts down.

It takes Caroline staring at the ceiling of her bedroom for almost four solid minutes before she started to register her life around her. She's in her home. She's in her bedroom. She's tired. Her body hurts but it's more of a soft thumping of her muscles. Of ghost pains from something, she doesn't recall.

Caroline lifts up her hands to look at them, and for a moment, she sees blood and bruises, but she gasps, blinks and it's just her own hands in front of her face. Her knuckles look a little discolored but other than that, they look normal. She presses on them, the knuckles, her fingers, her palms, but aside from soft, phantom pain, her hands feel normal.

She sits up slowly, her body aching but otherwise okay. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and rests her elbows on her knees and lowers her head, feeling this exhaustion that she knows has been perpetually feeling for weeks. It stresses her bones and pulls taught at her muscles. She has absolutely no strength in her body. Every motion feels like she's pushing through concrete. Willpower is the only thing that pushes Caroline to her feet and into her attached bathroom. She turns the light on and looks at herself in the mirror, placing her hands on the sink to hold herself up.

She feels tired and her body only kind of hurts, but she looks ghastly. Her skin is pale and lifeless. There are horrible dark circles around her eyes. Her cheeks are gaunt and her eyes are sunken in. She looks as horrible as she feels. Caroline stares into her bloodshot blue eyes and she hates what she sees. There is this dark, twisted angry little piece of her. She reaches up with a pale, shaking hand and pulls down the collar of her shirt expecting to see... something. But she's not sure what she expected to see.

Caroline doesn't want to go to school. Sure, it's Friday, but she just doesn't want to go. She can't go. She's not the type to typically skip out on things but today... today just doesn't feel like the day. She can't do it today. She doesn't have any strength in her. She needs these three days to really decompress. She's not sure what weight has been hanging over her, but she needs to get away from it.

Then, blissfully, Caroline remembers Liz's words from last night. She can stay home today. Relief washes over Caroline as she pushes away from the sink to head back into her bedroom. She crawls under the covers and closes her eyes, letting the exhaustion take her once more. She curls up on her side, with her back to the window, letting her body relax.

Caroline doesn't dream, which is good. Something tells her that her dreams would be filled with nightmares. She's not sure why, but there is something in the pit of her gut that is absolutely terrified. So she doesn't want to dream. She wants to sleep, but she doesn't want dreams. Constructs created by the mind to explain the void in the darkness of her mind are scary.

So thankfully, she doesn't dream.

Stunned, Caroline sits in bed, watching the news about last night. About Mr. Tanner. The news anchor, Logan Fell, explains about a vicious attack at last night's football game that left Mr. Tanner beaten and bruised so badly that he was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. He died late in the night. His injuries were too great.

Caroline watches the news in silence. Something... something dark and scary nagging away at the back of her mind but she doesn't chase it. Doesn't look at it beyond the wall. She's too scared to go beyond that wall. So she backs away. She can't face that.

There is a very impressive shot from the night before of Elena and Bonnie, standing side-by-side amongst a crowd of people watching the scene in front of them. Neither of them seems to notice that the camera pointed at them for a moment, but there was something about Bonnie's face as she looked around. She was taking in everything around her and the horror that dances across her face makes Caroline want to slip into the television screen and hug her best friend, tell her that it's alright. That it's all alright.

And tragically beautiful Elena is staring on with this pinched expression, dark eyes even darker in the night as she watches the scene. Caroline recognizes that pain on her face. The death of her parents has been so hard on her. Caroline also wants to hug her. Even though Elena is putting on a brave face, Caroline can tell how much she is hurting.

But she doesn't move. She just sits in bed, staring vacant-eyed at her friends, wondering if she was the only one that noticed if something was missing. She wasn't sure where the train of thought was trying to take her but it was definitely depressing her.

She shakes the feeling away, turning onto her side and curling up in her bed, too exhausted to think.

A knock at the door wakes Caroline up. The blonde immediately hates herself for taking another nap. She feels gross and lethargic. She combs her hands through her hair before giving up and pulling it up into a bun on the top of her head.

She drags herself out of her room and down the hall toward the front door. She opens it to see Matt standing in the doorway. Caroline stares at him, blinking a few times slowly, before tilting her head to the side and mumbling, "Uhh?"

"Hey," Matt says offering a little wave before holding out her gym bag to her. "You just disappeared last night and left your bag. Tiki asked me to bring it back to you."

Caroline looks down at the bag like it was a foreign object, trying to get her mind to remember how she could have left her bag at the school. Her car keys were in it. How could she have gotten home without it?

Pain stabs at the center of Caroline's forehead, making her flinch. Through squinted eyes, Caroline looks over at the driveway to see that it was just her mom's personal vehicle. Both Liz's police cruiser and Caroline's car were gone. Did... someone take her home? Why doesn't she remember how she got home?

"Uh, thanks," Caroline mumbles, rubbing her sore throat before reaching out for her bag. She takes it from him and the weight of it is too much for her jelly arm to be able to handle, so it just falls down to her side. "Thanks, Matt. But you didn't have to bring this back to my house. You could have given it to Bonnie or Elena."

Matt shrugs his shoulders, pretty blu eyes looking between her and the bag, his lips pressing together a bit. "It's okay. I already had it and with how crazy everything was last night..." a worried look flickers across his face. He shakes his head, forcing it away. "Plus we couldn't find you anywhere. We were worried."

"You were?" Caroline asks dumbly, blue eyes wide.

Matt nods. "Yeah, Ty, Tiki, and I were looking for you. We ran into Sheriff Forbes and she said that you had gone home. I completely forgot to just give her your bag, sorry."

"Oh," Caroline says, looking down at the bag. "Don't worry about it, Matt. Thanks for bringing it to me. I appreciate it."

Matt nods and they lapse into silence for three long, painfully awkward seconds before Matt says, "Are you okay, Caroline?"

Caroline gives him a surprised look. They've known each other forever but they weren't exactly friends. They were friendly, but not really friends. But Caroline always liked Matt. She liked how sweet he was. How caring and kind he was. But they just didn't really move beyond friendly acquaintances. Because Matt was all of those things and Caroline wasn't. She was selfish and superficial. Enough people have called her that for her to know it as painfully true.

"I'm okay," Caroline says softly. "Why do you ask?"

Matt shrugs, looking down at his shuffling feet for a moment before looking back up to Caroline's eyes. "I don't know. You just haven't seemed like yourself. I know we aren't close or anything and you certainly don't have to talk to me, but maybe you should talk to someone. I know that things have been weird for all of us this year, but you should try talking to Elena and Bonnie. I'm sure they are worried about you."

Caroline stares at Matt for a long moment, wondering how terrible she must really look for him to be saying all of this before a small, tentative smile works its way across her lips. "Thanks, Matt. I just... haven't been feeling well these last few days. I'm trying to catch up on some rest and hopefully be fully recharged by Monday. So don't worry about me."

Matt looks back down at his feet, a flicker of worry passing over his face while he nods slowly. "I'll... uh, catch you later then, Caroline. Feel better."

"Thanks," Caroline says softly, hefting the bag up over her shoulder. "And thanks for bringing this back." She pats her bag and smiles thinly. She offers him a little wave as he heads back toward his car. She waits for him to get into it before she closes the door to her home and walks back into her bedroom. She drops her bag onto her bed and opens it up, finding all of the stuff she put in there yesterday still in there. Her wallet, car and house keys, clothes from yesterday, spare uniform, shoes, phone, charger, feminine products, deodorant, shampoo, body wash, and towel.

Caroline pulls out her phone, clicking some buttons but the screen isn't turning on. She grabs the charger and plugs it into the wall and attaches her phone to it and laying it down on her bedside table. She goes back into the kitchen and makes herself a bowl of cereal before walking back into her room, crawling into bed, and watches some show she used to watch a few years ago in silence until she was done with her bowl. She brought her bowl back to the kitchen and put it into the sink before heading back to her room. She shut the door and curled up in bed, grabbing at her phone and turning it on.

She waits for it to power up before all of her phone calls and messages started coming through. A lot of phone calls from her mom. One from Bonnie, with a voice mail, the same with Elena, and two from different girls on the team. Then a dozen text messages from a slew of people all wondering where she was and if she was okay. Asking if she knew about what happened with Mr. Tanner.

She takes the time to text everyone back, just letting them all know that she was okay and just wasn't feeling well after the game last night so that she just came straight home. She sends the same message to everyone before calling her mom, laying her head down onto the pillow, and listens to the soft ringing.

After the third ring, Liz answers, "Hey sweetie, how are you feeling?"

"Tired," Caroline admits. "I don't feel great."

"I'm sorry," Liz says honestly, "I'm just about done here. Do you want me to bring you home some food?"

A small smile tugs at the corner of Caroline's lips, thinking back to how easy this once was. How this used to be their lives before her father left. How simple and platonic it all was. She's missed this for a long time. Despite how mean she's been to her mother, Liz's love for her hasn't changed a bit. And Caroline is so deeply grateful. Through all the darkness and the scary things that are hidden behind that wall, Caroline can feel something else. She can feel Liz. She can feel her mother's love for her, like a beacon of light in the dark.

And for the first time in a long time, Caroline is finally starting to somewhat feel better. And it's all because of Liz, who knew?

"I just ate," Caroline says. "I left my bag at the stadium, Matt just brought it back for me."

"Matt Donovan?" Liz asks.

"Yeah."

"Ah," she says, then hums to herself. "He's a good boy. I hope you thanked him."

Caroline scoffs, rolling her eyes. "It may not seem like it, but I do actually have basic manners, thank you very much."

Liz lets out a little, surprised laugh. No doubt not expecting Caroline to banter with her mother, as it feels like a lifetime since that bridge has been crossed between them. Caroline knows how it got here, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't regret it. Caroline and her mother used to be so close. Her father leaving them was probably the worst thing that could have happened to them.

But Caroline is finally ready to stop being mad. There is this exhaustion that has been following her around for so long and this has to be one of those things that have to stop. She has to be nicer because she hates hurting her mother so badly. She wants to be mad and she wants someone to feel her pain - but not right now. Not anymore. She's done sacrificing whatever time she has with her mother destroying the relationship that they have. It's not fair to either of them.

"I was just making sure," Liz says, mirth in her voice. "I'll be home in a little bit, alright?"

"Okay," Caroline says softly. "Bye."

"Bye, sweetie." Click.

Caroline places her phone back onto her bedside table and curls up around her pillow, letting the exhaustion take her once more. She's going to wreck her sleeping schedule, but at least maybe she can break away bits and pieces of the perpetual exhaustion that has been hanging off of her for so long.

In her dreams, she's haunted by ghostly golden eyes following her through the darkness.