A/N: I just want to let you know that this chapter is just Steroline bonding. None of the other characters are in it but they will be in the next chapter.

Chapter Four

It had been a few hours since they had been given the blood and Stefan was leaning against the wall in his cell thinking. Thinking about the fact that him and his brother had been stupid enough to get caught in this mess. And thinking about the way these vampires handled themselves so well after being exposed to such cruelty for so long. His admiration for these survivors grew throughout the day as he learnt more about each of them.

Although, he was especially intrigued by the blonde vampire in the cell next to him. He glanced over at her and saw her staring into space, quite obviously lost in thought. He took in the golden shade of her hair, making him think of a bright summer's day, which he imagined at one point must have been full of life. Her blue eyes seemed dull and full of anguish, but he had observed how when she was speaking to her friends, or even him for that matter, her sky-blue eyes appeared to lighten into something happier. Her posture was relaxed and tired but she wasn't asleep like all the others, because she wasn't physically tired. No, she was emotionally and mentally drained, possibly had been for a long while.

"Hey", Stefan said grabbing Caroline's attention. "Penny for your thoughts?" Caroline just now realised that Stefan was still awake. This shocked her because it was unusual for anyone to stay awake for as long as she did. Her eyes roamed over his face in confusion and she noticed his concerned attitude, causing her confusion to melt away.

"If you had a penny with you in here, I would take you up on your offer", she replied jokingly. He chuckled at her response.

"Why are you still up anyway?" he inquired softly. Caroline sighed and went back to looking straight ahead.

"I could ask you the same thing", she countered. He just raised his eyebrows in response. "I've always found it hard to fall asleep but in here it's just ten times harder", she confessed meeting his inviting green eyes. "What about you? Why are you still up?"

"Well, one, it's a new place and new places are always hard to fall asleep in", he began. "And, two, I guess you could say I'm not much of a sleeper either."

"Sleeping sucks!", Caroline shouted in a mockingly deep voice surprising Stefan. She looked at his surprised and amused face and immediately started laughing at his expression. Stefan watched as she laughed and her eyes were filled with humor, he grinned at the way she was laughing at her own joked. Stefan's grin eventually morphed into sniggering as Caroline was now gasping for her breath.

They managed to compose themselves after realising they would probably wake the others if they continued on how they were. "Okay, okay, I apologise for my horrendous joke", Caroline muttered while wiping tears from her eyes. Stefan just shook his head in return while wiping his own tears from his face.

A comfortable silence took over the two vampires as they enjoyed each other's presence. After a few minutes Caroline voiced a thought that had been swirling around in her head since earlier today.

"I miss her so much", she uttered sadly. Stefan looked at her with a questioning glance. "Lexi, I mean. How was she when you last saw her?"

Stefan thought for a minute. "She seemed happy, I guess, but I could tell something was bothering her. So, I asked her and that's when she mentioned she had a missing friend and about her Augustine suspicions", he explained.

"Took her long enough to realise I was missing", Caroline scoffed facetiously.

"How did you meet her again?", Stefan asked curiously.

"Oh, I remember the day like it was yesterday. 24th of March 1702", she started confidently like she couldn't forget the day if she tried. "I had just travelled from far away into a new village where I was planning on staying in for a while. Bear in mind I wasn't having great control over my bloodlust at the time, so this was not my proudest moment", she emphasised grimacing, to which Stefan just nodded. "A kind family had decided to show me around. It was a mother, a father, a young girl, and two teenage twins, one a girl and one a boy", she continued with the pain evident on her features.

Stefan noticed this and reached through the bars to rub her arm in a comforting gesture. "It's okay, we all have moments we don't like and that make us feel guilty but what's done is done. There's nothing you can do about it", he assured. She looked at him gratefully and released a shaky breath.

"When the mother went to hug me as an act of welcoming, all I could smell was her blood and I could almost feel the sensation of her warm blood flowing down my throat. And at this point in my life, I had no control, no anchor, so I couldn't resist my urges", she revealed sorrowfully. "I drained all the bodies of their blood, completely, and just sat there shocked at what I had done because I didn't even have my humanity turned off. It was just a matter of self-control. That's what hurts the most about the whole ordeal. Lexi, Lexi found me, distraught surrounded by the dead family. And she helped me learn self-control", Caroline finished wistfully.

Stefan had watched the blonde intently as she had told him the tale of how she met Lexi, his hand not leaving her arm where he was attempting to comfort her. His heart ached at the sight of her breaking down throughout the story, her eyes were brimming with tears and her cheeks were splotchy and red. He knew for sure they knew the same Lexi when he heard that she had helped her through such a hardship, because Lexi did the same thing for him.

"The funny thing is, when I met Lexi, I actually tried to feed on her", he began with a small smile on his face. Caroline gave a light laugh, wiping at her slightly teary eyes at the same time.

"I'm sure that went down great with her."

"Well, she does always bring it up to tease me", he mused. "See the thing is, it was just after I had turned in 1864 and you could say I had fallen off the bandwagon. I had no humanity and I was a ripper at the time."

"The ripper of Monterey", Caroline whispered with wide eyes. Stefan ran a hand through his caramel hair anxiously.

"Yep, that was me", he muttered, his face twisted with guilt.

Caroline put her hand on his hand, which had previously been on her arm. He met her eyes and all she saw was agony. This pained her as she knew that guy he becomes without his humanity is not him, no one is themselves without their humanity.

"No, it wasn't", Caroline objected positively. "People are not themselves with their humanity off, and I may not know you that well but I can already tell you are not that ripper inside of you. Yes, it's a part of you but don't let it control you."

Stefan was stunned by the blonde's words and amazed by the familiarity she had to Lexi. No wonder they got on like sisters, he thought.

"That is almost exactly what Lexi said", he responded. "I mean first she laughed at me trying to feed on her, but then after that she helped me find myself again."

Stefan and Caroline sat for a while smiling at each other with peaceful looks on their faces, their fingers still intertwined. Lexi brought back joyful memories for both of them, that they were glad they could share with each other, without even having to utter a word.

Stefan's gaze eventually focused on Caroline. He could see why Lexi treated the blonde with such love and respect, because she seemed pretty amazing to him. She was quick to stand up for her friends, she was warm and welcoming considering the situation they were in, and her complexities just made Stefan even more curious about her.

When Caroline took in Stefan's look of amazement on his face and they're intertwined hands she panicked. While coughing slightly to hide her sudden blush, she untangled her hand from his and used it to tuck a blonde curl behind her ear.

Stefan was deeply entertained by the panic stricken look on Caroline's face as she rearranged herself and turned to face him with her hands crossed on her lap.

"Just so you know, I have complete trust in Lexi and that she will do anything to get us out of here", Stefan assured calmly.

"Yeah, and I do too", she agreed. "But I don't want her to get herself caught up in this mess when she's trying to save us. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to her because she was trying to save me." Caroline looked up at the ceiling while wringing her hands together out of pure anxiety for her friend.

"Same", Stefan said nodding. "But Lexi's smart and she has connections and friends that she'll use to her advantage."

"One of the smartest people I know", Caroline muttered. "She also has a tendency to throw herself into situations head first. I remember once she asked me to help her save this family that she thought was in danger", she began telling her memory of Lexi, her hands immediately stopping wringing together. "We jumped the people when they were walking up to the house. Turns out they were delivering them furniture and we had to feed them our blood and compel them. The whole thing is just hilarious when I think back to it now."

Stefan laughed, picturing Caroline and Lexi, two blonde impulsive vampires jumping people to find out they were delivering furniture. Caroline shook her head mockingly as she saw Stefan's reaction.

"Hey, it's not funny. You should've seen the look on their faces", Caroline argued feigning anger. This just made Stefan laugh even more as he attempted to pull himself together. He put his hands up like one would if the police caught them.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry", he grumbled with his smirk still intact.

"So you should be", she replied with her eyebrows raised.

After a few minutes of them sitting in silence, both thinking of Lexi respectively, Stefan looked over to see Caroline yawning. Her eyes watering as she did so and then her bringing her hands up to rub the tiredness out of her eyes. He too yawned right after, his eyes also watering just as hers had. She looked over at the sound of him yawning and saw the exhaustion that was present in his posture.

"We should probably at least try to get some sleep", she mumbled.

"Probably for the best", he agreed, lying down on the cold floor to get some assemblance of comfort. He observed as the blonde lay down on the hard ground, looking like she was used to how uncomfortable it was. He began to feel himself drift off into his sleep, his mind plagued with happy memories of Lexi.

He heard a whisper just before he fell asleep that he wouldn't have heard if he didn't have vampire hearing. "She'll pull through for us."