[4x14; Down the Rabbit Hole]

"Tell me you're not serious."

"I wish I wasn't," Stefan grumbled into the phone. "When we got back from looking for Jeremy, Shane, Bonnie, and Lucy were gone, too. Shane needs Bonnie to cast a spell on Jeremy's tattoo in order to find the cure and he managed to sneak both of them our from under our noses."

"Well, where does Lucy fit into that?" Caroline asked shakily. "I mean, Shane never mentioned that Lucy had any part in that spell."

"I honestly don't know," Stefan pinched the bridge of his nose. "But we have to find her."

"You will, Stefan," Caroline said soothingly. "You will…Where's Damon in all this?"

"He and Elena had an argument and he stormed away," Stefan glanced at Elena, who was standing with Rebekah a few feet away from him. "We went back to the beach and there were signs of a struggle."

"Do you think Shane took him, too?"

"I doubt it. Damon's too strong for Shane to take down…unless he had someone helping him."

"Or more than one someone," Caroline scoffed in annoyance. "I'm sorry, Stefan. I wish I was there to help."

"It's fine, Care," Stefan assured her. "You and Joel were taking care of Kol's body."

"Yeah, and I got bit by Klaus in the process," she grumbled before changing the subject. "Is there anything Joel and I can do from here?"

Stefan hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe…Shane's looking for the cure and we think we can find him. We have pictures of Jeremy's tattoo but we can't translate anything on the map…"

"Unless you get the hunter's sword from Klaus," Caroline finished knowingly.

"Exactly," Stefan nodded. "Tell Klaus that Shane took Lucy and I can guarantee that he'll tell you where the sword it."

"And if he doesn't?"

"There's not many places you can hide a three-foot piece of metal."

"All right, we'll find it," Caroline agreed. "Just email me the pictures of Jeremy's tattoo. I'll find the sword and I'll call you back."

"Thanks, Caroline," Stefan sighed in relief. "Bye."

Once his phone was tucked safely away in his jacket, he turned to Elena and Rebekah. "Caroline and Joel are getting the sword."

Both of the girls nodded, their expressions serious.

"I don't even get why I'm here," Lucy whined, repeating the question she had asked about five times. "I have nothing to do with this."

A local witch that Shane had hired, a huge man named Massak, tugged on her arm, forcing her to walk. She glared at him and sped up so she was in between Jeremy and Bonnie, not wanting to be anywhere near the strange man or Shane.

She didn't even remember all of the night before. One minute she was doing a location spell on Jeremy and the next, she blinked and she was in a whole different part of the island with Bonnie by her side. She didn't remember how she got there and she sure didn't remember where she had been the whole night.

Bonnie had no idea, either, but she told Lucy that her location spell started a fire trail leading them to Jeremy. To both of their shock, the trail of fire actually did as they thought it would; they caught up with Jeremy, who was gagged with a dark cloth, and Massak and that asshole, Shane, were there waiting for them.

It turned out that Massak was a witch that Shane hired to kidnap Jeremy and use magic to lead Bonnie—and Lucy, surprisingly—away from the others. All three of them had been furious—especially Bonnie, who felt so betrayed by her so-called mentor—but were forced to follow Shane and Massak to the magical well that Shane had spoken about on the first day on the island.

"You don't," Shane finally answered as they approached a large mountain covered in boulders. "but I couldn't have you doing magic and locating Bonnie and Jeremy with a spell."

Lucy grunted in frustration. "Oh, my God, why do you think of everything?"

"Because he's a fucking creep," Jeremy grumbled under his breath, both Lucy and Bonnie hearing him perfectly. Both girls nodded in agreement, much to Shane's chagrin.

"Just keep walking," Shane ordered, leading them and Massak into a cave opening at the bottom of the mountain.

It was pitch black—as one would expect a cave to be—when they entered, the only thing providing them light was the small LED light on Shane's headband. While Lucy, Bonnie, and Jeremy looked around curiously, Massak stopped just inside the entrance.

"This is as far as I go."

Shane looked at him in disbelief. "We're on the brink of a monumental event in human history," he pointed out incredulously. "We're gonna raise the most powerful immortal creature that ever was. Come on, our work's not done yet."

"Mine is," Massak insisted. "You said get the kid, the siphoner, and the witch. I did. I want to get paid now."

Shane pressed his lips together in annoyance and grabbed his backpack, digging Silas' tombstone from within. He carefully passed it over to Massak, who held it protectively to his chest.

Before he left, Massak looked at Lucy, Jeremy, and Bonnie. "I'll say a prayer for your souls."

Was Lucy supposed to say thank you?

Once Massak was gone, she rapidly turned to Shane. "That's what the stupid tombstone is for? To pay off some witch-slash-mercenary? What the hell?"

"The core of that tombstone is made up of Qetsiyah's calcified blood," Shane answered her like it was no big deal that she spent a whole day and witnessed a man chew off his own tongue and kill himself for nothing. What a waste. "In some witch circles, that stone's more valuable than the Hope diamond. So…" he looked between the three of them. "who wants to go down first?"

God, could he get any creepier?

Stefan stared at the water, seeing Rebekah pace back and forth with her phone held in the air out of the corner of his eye. They were still waiting for Caroline or Joel to call them back. It was Rebekah's turn to look for any sign of cell service, which left him alone with Elena.

To say that they were awkward was an understatement. Stefan had no idea how to act around Elena anymore; he wasn't in love with her and they were hardly friends because of how she had been acting lately. She had been treating Lucy like actual shit for so long it was hard to remember when it all first started, and she only thought about herself and Damon.

And she had told him that she still had feelings for him, even after she said she loved Damon. How the hell was he supposed to react to that?

Elena was the one who broke the silence. "And, once again, everyone's life is in danger looking for this cure because poor Elena can't deal with being a vampire."

What did he say? She has a two-track mind and the biggest track is herself.

"Everyone's here because they want to be," Stefan rolled his eyes covertly so she couldn't see him. "Not for you, but for themselves."

Elena hummed and turned her body toward him. "Stefan, why didn't you tell me you wanted the cure for yourself?"

"It wasn't about you," Stefan answered simply, ignoring the hurt look on her face.

"Was it about Lucy?" Elena prodded.

"I've wanted to be human long before Lucy became part of my life," Stefan's voice hardened a little, not liking the fact that Elena was asking him about Lucy. "But, yes, Lucy's a large part of it. I want to be human for her."

"You really love her that much?"

"I do."

It was one of the most basic things about Stefan, like it was part of his DNA. He loved Lucy and he would always love Lucy. Even if their relationship started off as just-friends, they'd been heading this way the whole time. If he thought about it, he couldn't even remember what his life was like before Lucy and he didn't want to imagine what it would be like without her.

His heart started to race again, thinking about the danger she could be in. He abruptly stood from the piece of driftwood he and Elena were sitting on and joined Rebekah by the water, holding his own cellphone into the air. He wandered away from her, though, a hundred feet down the shoreline in order to find service.

It was then when Rebekah's phone rang. "Hello?"

"Hey, it's Joel," her sister's brother—well, that was confusing—greeted her. "We have the translation of the tattoo. We're emailing you pictures of the map and instructions right now."

Her phone beeped; she pulled it away from her ear in order to confirm it was the pictures.

"Got it, thanks."

"Actually, it was me," she heard Klaus' voice on the other line.

Rebekah raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Nik, you helped?"

"You sound so surprised, little sister."

"Shouldn't I be?" she retorted. "I mean, you don't want me to be human. You don't want any of us to be human. Why would you help us find the cure?"

"Maybe I finally realized the longer I stand in the way of what you want, the longer you'll continue to hate me," Klaus confessed. "Perhaps I want my sister to finally know happiness."

Rebekah wasn't going to fall for another one of Klaus' tricks, though. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me a hundred times…"

"No more fooling, no more games. I hope you get to live and die as you wish."

Rebekah pursed her lips, her eyes starting to sting. "So do I."

"Find our sister, Rebekah."

"I will," she promised.

"And one more thing," Klaus added quickly. "There is only one dose of the cure. You need to find it fast and take it. It's the only way you'll—"

The call cut off before Klaus could finish speaking.

"Nik? Nik!"

If what her brother said was true, she had to get to the cure before anyone else did.

Lucy slowly hovered down the rope that led into the cave, her eyes shut the whole time. It was only when she felt her feet like solid rock that she opened them, relieved to see Jeremy and Bonnie in front of her. She quickly unraveled the rope from around her harness and let it fall to the ground so Shane could bring it back up for himself.

Once she was settled and her harness was off, she saw the grimace on Bonnie's face as she held her hand against her chest protectively. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I slipped," Bonnie told her. "Jeremy wrapped it up."

Lucy nodded. "Good."

As Shane called down to them that he was starting to come down, both Jeremy and Lucy turned to Bonnie, serious looks on their faces.

"What do you think's gonna happen once you cast a spell on my tattoo and there's nothing in between Shane and Silas?" Jeremy asked her quickly and quietly so Shane wouldn't overhear.

"Do you think he's gonna kill us?" Lucy added on anxiously, biting her lip.

Bonnie paused thoughtfully for only a second before she was turning to Jeremy. "Do you trust me?"

Jeremy nodded. "Yeah, of course."

Bonnie smiled at him before turning to Lucy. "I know I hurt you the other day, Lucy, and I feel terrible about it, but I need you to trust me. Just for today."

It was a no-brainer for Lucy. If they wanted to survive, she had to trust that Bonnie would be able to keep Shane away from her and Jeremy. "We're in the middle of some random cave two hundred miles away from Nova Scotia. I want to survive and if trusting you is the way to do it, I have no choice."

"Okay," Bonnie nodded sharply. "Then you both have to trust me when I promise I won't let Shane raise Silas."

Jeremy glanced above them, where Shane was close to landing. "Just don't do anything stupid. If your expression gets out of hand, Shane is the only one that could help you keep it in control."

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine," Bonnie said seriously. "But if Shane tries to lift a finger on his hand to hurt any one of us, I'll kill him myself."

Lucy snorted in agreement. "I'll join you."

Once Shane was finally on their level, he set to looking around the large cavern of stone they were practically trapped in. It was like he had never been there before—even though they all knew he had been—looking around with wide, amazed eyes.

"It's just amazing, isn't it?" Shane walked back over to Lucy, Bonnie, and Jeremy, a grin on his face. "Once we raise Silas, all of our sacrifices will have been worthwhile—we'll all have what we want."

"Or he'll kill us," Bonnie objected bitterly.

Shane sighed at her, aggravated. "Listen, you're gonna see that I'm right. And, just so you don't get any ideas, remember, if anything happens to me, something a lot worse will happen to Jeremy."

"All right," Jeremy snapped, glaring at Shane. "Where's this stupid magic passage she needs to open?"

"Just look for anything that looks out of place, all right? Anything not occurring in nature, like a drawing or an inscription, or…" Shane paused as he turned, his eyes stuck to a perfect circle carved into the stone floor. "a geometrically perfect circle," he crouched down, pushing away the rocks that had fallen into the circle when they repelled down. "This is it. This is the spot."

Only a minute later, Bonnie and Jeremy were standing together in the circle. Jeremy's shirt was off and Bonnie had to press her hands against the part of his tattoo right over his heart, but neither of them seemed uncomfortable. Bonnie's eyes were closed as she focused on the spell.

"Now you're doing it," Shane encouraged her. "Just breathe, all right? Focus on what you can do. Don't be afraid of what you can't."

Bonnie opened her eyes, glancing unsurely between Shane and Jeremy.

"You can do this," Jeremy stated sincerely. "Remember, just like you taught me. You're in control."

Bonnie nodded slowly and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes once again. She breathed deeply and Lucy felt goosebumps raise all over her body. She could feel the magic in the air.

"That's it," Shane whispered. "It's just like drawing breath. Now, just pull the power into you."

Slowly, the tattoo covering Jeremy's chest started to disappear, the ink slowly disappearing into Bonnie's hand. Jeremy stiffened and the rocks around them started to shift. Lucy shifted nervously on her feet, unsure of what to do. What if they were killed by falling boulders?

The rocks started falling, making the stone ground beneath them shake. Lucy hurriedly wobbled over to Jeremy, hardly able to see through the dust and debris that was coming from the destroyed rocks. There wasn't much she could do with thousands of pounds of rock falling at them but she could be by his side. If they were going to die, it was enough that they'd die side-by-side.

A large boulder fell just to the right of them, sending the three of them flying away from each other. Surprisingly, Lucy went unscathed, only feeling the pain of bumping her knees and elbows into the rocks she landed on. The rock avalanche didn't last for long, either. It was over only a minute or so after it began.

"Bonnie?" Jeremy yelled, coughing slightly. "Lucy?"

"I'm okay," Lucy groaned as she sat up, guessing that her back was probably bruised, too. "Bonnie?"

"I'm fine," Bonnie's voice came from a few inches away from her.

Instead of Lucy ending up by Jeremy, she was practically on top of Bonnie. Go figure. But, at least they were all okay; Jeremy went to them and helped Bonnie to her feet since Lucy had fared a little better than the witch.

"Look," Bonnie nodded to a cavern that opened up. "It worked."

Jeremy grinned at her. "You did it."

"We did it," she corrected him. "Come on."

Jeremy shrugged on his shirt and the three of them started walking, heading straight to the cavern.

And then they heard Shane. "Hey, guys, I need a hand!" he called to them. "My leg's broken."

Bonnie paused and glared over at him. "Best to stay off it, then," she looked back at Lucy and Jeremy. "Let's go."

And, yeah, Lucy was mad at Bonnie, but that was such a badass thing to say.

Lucy was very grateful that Jeremy had a flashlight in his jacket when he was snatched by Massak. She and Bonnie didn't have the same privilege and without the light, they would be walking around numerous tunnels in the pitch dark. Despite the darkness, it wasn't too bad. There were no bats and she hadn't seen any rats or anything creepy like that. It was pretty tame for a remote island.

"Look at us," Bonnie scoffed lightly. "A newbie hunter, a siphoner, and a witch who needs adult supervision."

"Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke," Lucy snickered. "How were we the ones that made it this far?"

Jeremy stopped walking, causing both Lucy and Bonnie to stop too, and looking at Bonnie earnestly. "I'm glad we're here together."

Feeling like a third wheel, Lucy wandered around the little cavern they stopped in, looking through the start of the tunnels that would lead them into a different part of the cave. There were two tunnels to choose from, left or right. Her head felt foggy when she spotted someone in the right tunnel. He was tall and looked the same as the night she said goodbye to him.

"Dad," she breathed, stepping toward Alaric while eagerly soaking in his smile. "What are you doing here?"

"I guess this place lets dead people talk to people who are, you know, alive," Alaric smiled, shrugging casually.

Lucy smiled, tears stinging her eyes. "You're there, aren't you? On the Other Side?"

"Yeah," Alaric nodded. "but listen, Luce. You can bring me back."

"Lucy, what's going on?"

"Lucy?"

"I can?" Lucy persisted, hardly registering the fact that Jeremy and Bonnie were utterly confused about what was going on with her. "How? How do I bring you back?"

"Silas can do it," Alaric informed her. "All you have to do is get to him and give him blood. Everything will go back to the way it was."

That'd be nice. She didn't really have a normal life by the time she met Alaric but if they did raise Silas, maybe she could experience that. He'd be there for her graduation, he'd be able to walk her down the aisle when she got married.

There was pressure on her shoulder, casting her out of her fantasy.

"Lucy, stop," Jeremy urged, eyes wide with fright.

"But, Ric—"

"You're not seeing Alaric," Jeremy insisted. "If she were here, I'd be able to see him and I can't. It's not him. It's a hallucination."

Lucy's lips wobbled as she looked back at Alaric; he seemed real to her.

"It's not real, Lucy. But I'm real and I'm here, see?" he grabbed her shoulders, turning her back to him with a sad smile. "Come on, Luce."

Her head cleared and she inhaled deeply, shaking it slightly. "Jere," she looked back where Alaric had been standing to find no one there. "What just happened?"

"Silas was in your head," Bonnie explained, giving her a sympathetic smile. "He was trying to control you. I think the same thing happened with Shane—he had illusions of his wife, remember?"

"So, that's how Silas controls him," Lucy assumed, mentally scolding herself. She couldn't believe that she wasn't strong enough to keep Silas out of her head.

Jeremy nodded. "You need to block him out of your mind," he took his hands off of her shoulder and held out one, offering to hold her hand. "Close your eyes and Bonnie and I will get us there."

Lucy nodded and took his hand, squeezing it tightly. "Thanks, Jerebear."

Jeremy grinned. "You haven't called me that in a long time."

Lucy exhaled out of her nose, feeling amused and nostalgic. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

The two of them shared a genuine smile together before they had to start walking again. Lucy closed her eyes and allowed Jeremy and Bonnie to guide her, trying her hardest to keep her mind focused so Silas couldn't manipulate her.

Eventually the tunnel they were walking through widened, turning into a larger room, if you could call it that. Lucy opened her eyes and took everything in. There wasn't much to see; just a few boulders scattered around and then, by the far wall, was a tomb. Silas was frozen solid from years without blood, covered in a stone mask dating back to ancient times, and wrapped in vines that grew through the years.

Clenched in his hands was a small wooden box. The cure.

Lucy's heard dropped when she saw the size of the box that held the cure. There was no way there was enough to cure all vampires, let alone more than one of their friends. Knowing Elena, she'd be the one who would get it. Not Rebekah and certainly not Stefan. The thought made her heart ache. Stefan had that human life so much and now his hopes were going to be crushed.

"Is this it? This is the cure?" Jeremy asked, not catching up to the fact that there was only one dose of the cure. "How the hell is that supposed to cure every vampire in the world?"

Bonnie shook her head slightly, knowing the same as Lucy did. "I don't think it is, Jere."

Lucy crossed her arms over her uneasy stomach as Jeremy reached for the cure. Since it had been long since Silas had probably moved a single inch, he was having trouble prying the cure from his stone-like hands. For what it was worth, though, Jeremy tried his best.

"It's stuck," he grunted, finally giving into the fact that he couldn't move it. "Help me move it."

Lucy and Bonnie moved in sync, coming up on both sides of Jeremy. All three of them grabbed the box and pulled with all of their strength but it still wouldn't budge."

"It's like fossilized in place," Bonnie gasped, letting go of the box. "It's like trying to bend stone."

Lucy twisted her lips, thinking back to what popped in her mind when she saw Silas at first. "He's desiccated for two thousand years," she told them quietly, her stomach twisting nervously. "There's only one way we're going to be able to get the cure."

Bonnie's face dropped in realization while Jeremy looked at her, confused. "How's that?"

"Jeremy," Bonnie spoke up, taking over for Lucy. "we have to feed him our blood. We have to wake him up."

Despite being the one to think of it, Lucy immediately protested. "Forget about the cure, then," she shook her head vehemently. "We can't raise Silas."

Bonnie seemed to agree with her but Jeremy was pretty insistent. "We need the cure, Lucy. Come on."

"There's only one dose anyway," Lucy reminded him. "Silas is supposed to be powerful. More powerful than any of us can imagine. Kol—"

"Kol was scared."

"Yeah, he was scared!" Lucy exclaimed, her eyes stinging. "And he was killed because of it, Jeremy!"

Jeremy's indigence disappeared, his body deflating. "You're right," he admitted. "And you know what? Kol was probably right, too."

If that was the closest she'd get to an apology for killing her brother, she'd take it for now. Once they were off the island, however, he'd have to give her a better one.

"Yeah," her voice trembled as she turned to Bonnie. "Maybe there's a way to get the cure without raising him."

"Maybe," Bonnie nodded in agreement. "We can—"

Bonnie spluttered, gasping loudly as a man appeared behind her, piercing her back with a sharp knife. Jeremy and Lucy screamed and gasped, respectively, both of them shocked by the man and the way he brutally injured Bonnie.

"Bonnie!" Jeremy stared desperately as her as she fell limply to the ground.

Lucy siphoned from her necklace but it was no use; the man lunged at her, easily throwing off Jeremy in order to throw her into the stone wall. Her head flared with pain at the impact and as she fell to the floor, her eyesight went blurry. She could hear a struggle, Jeremy grunted with effort while the man—who had a Scottish accent—cheered each time he got a good hit in.

"What did you do?"

"What you should have done already," the man told Jeremy. "I'm gonna raise Silas and then I'm gonna kill him."

There was more fighting; Lucy blinked rapidly, trying to get her eyes to start working again.

"You're a bit confused, Mr. Gilbert—" how the hell did this random guy know Jeremy's name? "—we're on the same team here."

The man grunted in pain—Lucy hoped that Jeremy got a good hit in.

"You hurt my sister and stabbed my friend!"

"I don't mess around with witches, or siphons."

There was a crack and Jeremy screamed in pain. Lucy shouted for her brother as he hit the floor. She scrambled to her hands and knees and followed the sound of the man's boots against the stone floor. She concentrated as best as she could and when she heard him cry out in pain, she smirked.

The smirk didn't last very long; she wasn't able to hold the pain-inflicting spell for more than a couple of seconds. The man regained his footing and barreled over to her, forcefully kicking her in the ribs. Lucy wheezed and struggled with the pain coursing through her body, trying to crawl away but Mr. Scotland was still there, grabbing the back of her head and flinging her back at the wall.

"Lucy!"

Lucy couldn't have been unconscious for long. The thin blood running down the back of her neck told her that, since it hadn't started to clot yet. She blinked quickly, her eyes finally cooperating with her and when the blur cleared, she sighed in relief when she saw that Stefan was crouched in front of her.

"Stefan," she breathed. "Thank—"

"Shh," he cupped her cheeks, stroking his thumbs across her soft skin. "We'll be together soon, Lucilla."

Lucy blinked at him, confused, but before she had time to ask him what he was talking about, his hands sped to her neck and twisted sharply. She didn't feel any pain as her vision went black.