[Episode 24 - Brave New World]

Kat rubs her eyes once more as she evaluates the number of volunteer conductors for the rides and the game booths. Elena and Bonnie stomp around, moving the heaps of cones and teddy bears and what-nots from one place to another as the older Gilbert stands bossing them around.

"Katherine looked just like you, it was freakish. Don't you think that the name is so freaky?" Bonnie murmurs as Elena nervously looks about, expecting Evil Twin 2.0 to jump out. 

Kat shrugs, paying more attention to the list in her hands. "She is my ancestor. Hey, I told you to move the student booth into the cafeteria?" she catches a passing Matt by the shoulder. He smiles and nods. She sighs in satisfaction and turns to her witch friend and sister.

"Your vampire ancestor" Bonnie stresses in a whisper "-and she didn't just resemble you like a family member would. She was you. At least she and Elena can be told apart..."

Kat hugs her, she was tired of hearing the tale of the mirror girl and she needed to do something normal. Elena speaks up "We don't know, We can't explain it..." 

The other Gilbert nods "It's creepy, that's all we got"

"How do you know she's not still out there pretending to be you?" Bonnie frustratedly points to nowhere in particular and Elena shakes her head honestly "I don't"

"Look" Kat turns to them, dying to get some work done "We could sit here and be tortured by the not-knowing or... You could get these prizes to the ring toss" she drops the bag of said prizes into Elena's hands. 

Elena staggers under the weight but Bonnie rolls her eyes and shares the sagging bag. "Et voila! Chop chop" Kat smirks bossily and all but pushes them off towards the ring toss booth.

The next thing on the list shows 'GFT' aka the Gold Fish Toss aka the responsibility of her little brother who had a big scare of almost being killed by Damon Salvatore. Tyler stalks by, with a table under his hold along with two other boys. He asks one of them to manage his side as he takes a break, talking to Kat.

"So, have any work for me? Other than moving tables" the Lockwood asks. She smirks "Could you get me a chocobar, or five?" she asks, not completely joking. Tyler nudges her with a mock glare "Other than being your personal slave"

She laughs "Just check the carousel settings please, wonder what Tiki's doing there" her face scrunches up in disgust and so does Tyler's. "Okay, on it, Captain..." he starts to walk off but she pulls him back by his shirt, she has to tell someone "We have to make Caroline proud or she-"

"-will kill us. Got it." he jokes. "I don't know how you guys do all of this" he says, walking away. Kat smirks "She's obviously not human"

"Dunno about her, but you're definitely not an angel" he shouts out only to have a duckling chew-toy thrown at the back of his head "Ow!"

"Get to work Lockwood" she orders. She takes out her phone and types out a message to Caroline: Everything's going well. Maybe we can sneak you out tonight, jk ;-)

She goes into the hallway, looking for her brother, only to find him talking with the very Salvatore she wanted to avoid for the day if possible. "-little distraction courtesy of the slave driver Viv-

"Not very kind to say about your girlfriend's sister Stefan" she stresses out the girlfriend's sister part. Maybe if she keeps saying that, she'll soar out of the web of wool she has been stuck in for the past few weeks.

"Hey Viv" Stefan smiles and hugs her. Ignoring her instinct to run away, she plasters a smile as she returns the hug and turns to her brother "Did yo-"

"-set up the gold fish toss? Yes. All three hundered of them" She sighs in relief "Good"

"It's gonna be epic...!" Jeremy smiles sarcastically and leaves with a roll of his eyes, before his older sister can dump anymore carnival work on him.

"He's gonna be alright, he's just been through a little bit of an ordeal..." Stefan tries to assure her as they lean toward the lockers on one shoulder, facing each other.

"Just hoping that this carnival would reel him back into the land of a high school teenager. I mean, he's fifteen!" 

"I have a quick question. Uh, what did you do about Damon?"

"That has been deleted from the list of topics that we can discuss" she tries to escape

"Unfortunately Katherine showing up has been a little bit of an odd place, little off-kilter, kind of dangerous. Who knows what he's up to?"

"Council work" she waves off vaguely and Stefan runs behind me "How do you know that?"

"We... um, talked. Made a deal to tell each other what we're doing for the day..." Again, she jumps by the topic of the kind of 'talk' they had last night and in the morning.

"I'll just, go check on him. 'K?" Stefan asks and she nods "Okay, but after you come back, you're on game podium check duty" he makes a big show of groaning and the Gilbert smiles, for real this time.

Something sparks up in her, hope. That one day, it won't be like this. It'll be freer, easier.

▹▹▹

Kat nibbles on some crackers, giving her some preoccupation from wanting to rip heads off The sun's setting and the carnival is in full-swing already. Elena and Bonnie approach her from opposite directions, with different problems of their own. 

"The ring toss is out of Bart and Homer dolls and Team Jacob T's" Bonnie reports.

"We lost a speaker in the karaoke room" Elena huffs.

"Okay..." Kat crumples the packet and throws it into the nearest bin "Elena will have to grab some dolls from the science club. And Bonnie, let's look around that speaker issue" she rambles and turns around to have the image in her eyes spin, nausea returning. Elena steadies her "Kat?" 

The older Gilbert just shakes her head and puts on a smile "It's alright, I'm, uh, I'm fine. Let's go..."

Bonnie just holds her by the shoulders along with the twin and smiles "Hey...! All good Kat, take a beat, look around. This is a huge success!" She smiles and slumps into the hug 

"So we can do more than get kidnapped and be threatened by vampire ancestors?". Her whispers cause all of them to start laughing.

The Guardian sees a man at one of the nearby stands and calls him over "Hey, Carter? You're with the carnival right?"

"That'll be me" the young man smiles and walks towards the girls.

"Okay, great, you're in my team for the booths. Up for a favour?"

He looks at Bonnie and his lips curve up into a modestly interested smirk "Wow, what do you need beautiful?" the dark-haired girl looks at him with a blush invisible in the evening light as she tries to mutter confidently "What do you know about karaoke speakers?"

"Why don't you show me the problem?"

Motioning encouragingly with her eyes, Elena smiles "Yeah Bonnie, show him the problem" Kat nudges her gently and set them off.

Elena smiles "I'll go to the science club for those dolls, don't stress yourself out too much okay?" she smiles kindly at her twin. She understands that Kat's time hasn't been as easy as she would like for it to be. She just hoped that her twin would get better and recover from these sudden spells of nausea since the past two days. 

Bonnie thinks it's her powers acting up but Kat is just too adamant to accept it.

"Thanks 'Lena. Call me if you need help okay? I'll just inspect the other booths"

▹▹▹

Kat walks around only to end up at the hand-wrestling booth where a certain Lockwood teen defeats all others.

Tyler watches his uncle walk up with a smug look "I bet I can take you" The boy indicates the opposite chair to him and Kat cheers "Go Mase!!" The surfer uncle smiles but his nephew mock-frowns "Lady! You're supposed to be on my side!"

She stalks upto the table with a smile "Yes, and you were dropped on the head when a baby. Get to work Lockwood. Let's see if you can beat Mase" she challenges.

True to his word, Mason Lockwood wins and everyone cheers.

"Okay, he's the champ, who wants to go next?" Tyler eggs the crowd on and somewhere behind me, she hears Damon yell "Kat wants to go"

The Guardian looks behind as the boys of the crowd laugh and boo and the girls shout 'unfair'. She gives the older Salvatore a questioning look. He just raises his eyebrows with a serious face. Damon with eyebrows raised and a smirk, means a challenge. 

Damon with eyebrows raised and lips pursed, means a theory waiting to be proved correct. She jerks her head upward in question at him as Stefan observes the silent conversation confusedly between the two. Damon nods slightly and Kat shrugs.

"Okay! Let's see!" she says and the boos intensify. Stupid biased crowd. She sits down, throwing a bill on the counter. "You know you'll lose right?" Tyler cautiously asks her. Kat Gilbert was never one to take failure well.

She just shrugs, placing her elbow on the table, challenging Mason's icy-blue eyes. He smiles "If things go downhill for you, you buy me a drink"

"If things go downhill for you, you make me barbecue" she smiles. He would have made her spend a jolly evening out at barbecue anyway, so there were no stakes for Mason. Not really. He shrugs in an 'ok' gesture and lock fists. Tyler yells "Go!" and the surprising match begins.

Mason has strength. That isn't surprising. But Kat has more then enough strength to defeat him, that isn't surprising either. But what is, is the colour of the Lockwood's pupils start changing into golden as he held the Guardian's fist. Under all the light and focus on the sparring fists, there might not be anyone observing his eyes. But Kat did notice.

Mason's fist thumps forcefully onto the tabletop and everyone cheers in surprise. Kat Gilbert, won against Mason Lockwood.

Mason looks in surprise at the girl he almost brought up till she was 10 years old. It couldn't be Katherine. 

"Katherine?" he furrows his brows. The Gilbert frowns almost knowingly as she shakes her head, widening her eyes at the new twist "No Mase..." she says, her words almost drowned by the surrounding crowd "It's me, Letty". 

He gets up with a start, realising what he vaguely gave away. 

After bypassing the surprised crowd, the girl approaches the Salvatore brothers "What was that about?"

"He's surely supernatural?" Stefan shoots off the question. Kat hesitates and the older vampire takes the opportunity to blame "He just let you win!"

The girl frowns "No, he tried harder..." she reasons.

Damon pulls both the 'teens' aside, Stefan frowning at the surprisingly close hold his brother had on Kat "Is he...?"

"No, no, it was more than human, definitely. He isn't Edward Cullen" Kat tries to hint and Damon rolls his eyes "What is up with that family? They're not vampires, what the hell are they?"

"Ooh, ah, maybe they're, um, ninja turtles!" Stefan sarcastically widens his eyes.

"You're not funny" Damon glares.

"Or no, zombies-" Stefan goes on, only to be interrupted by the Guardian "-werewolves?"

"You're not funny either..." Damon glares and Kat huffs, walking away "I'm realistic, which in our world, means we have to consider everything Smoldy"

▹▹▹

Kat ignores Damon's second call as she walks into the parking lot, where was that box of pringles she needs? As she approaches her sister's car, she hears sniffling and looks about.

"Hello?" she strains her ears and the sobs intensify. Kat abandons the purpose she came out for and walks towards the trailer parked on the other side of the parking lot. On the other side, she sees a fallen body, a pool of blood shining black all around him. 

"O my God!" she runs, only to see a distraught blonde. Blood was all over her face and she was trying to grip onto the smooth surface of the trailer in shock and sobs.

"Oh my God Caroline!" she rushes towards the girl but she just cowers as she shouts "Get away! You did this to me!"

"What? Caroline! It's me, Kat.... I didn't do anythin-" realisation dawns on her and she curses the doppelganger's fate. 

"That was Katherine, I'm not her Care! It's me, Kat....!" she gently approaches the blonde and relaxes as her shivering and sobbing lowers down a notch. 

The newly turned vampire hugs her friend with feared force as she cries into the crook of her neck "He's dead. I killed him. What's wrong with me?!"

She hugs Caroline back "Hey, hey it's okay. I can help you.... I'm here, you're gonna be okay...." she coos and there's a whoosh near the girls, to present Damon and Stefan and Elena.

"Caroline?" Elena rushes forward into the hug and runs a soothing, shaking palm over the blonde friend's hair and back. Suddenly, the girl growls and pushes them back, eyes red and the veins under them, black. 

"Oh My God! What's happening to me. H-help me please!" she looks to me with wet vampire eyes and Kat takes in a breath, pushing away the vampire-hunter thoughts in her. She stalks slowly towards Caroline "I'll help you.... Okay? Everything's going to be okay. I'm here. You're gonna be alright.... Shhh" she murmurs, finally getting to her again.

"Caroline?" they hear an aghast voice from beside them. Bonnie looks to her childhood best friend and to the blood-smeared clothes of the Gilbert. Then her eyes widen as she takes in the fallen form of the man "O god...!"

"Bonnie...." Caroline sniffles, trying to take a step towards her but the witch steps back, shaking with shock, anger and pain.

Kat gently leads Caroline to the nearest restroom and Stefan follows. As if working on an unspoken conversation, both the realised supernaturals take tissues and start wiping off the blood all over the blonde's face as she too, tries to wash it off.

"She hates me! Bonnie hates me!"

"No, no, she's just in shock, we all are" Stefan tries to assure but she jumps to another bullet "And what about Matt?" she starts crying again, scared at the idea that she might want to hurt him.

"Shh...." Kat coos, "One thing at one time, let's get this blood off, come on..." she encourages.

"I'm a murderer. I'm a monster!" she looks at herself in the mirror and breaks down once again.

The Guardian takes her friend's breaking face into her palms and feels the burning inferno of guilt and fear shared to her. She watches as the girl calms down "Your emotions are heightened right now. It's part of the transformation. It's completely normal. I promise you. Okay?" 

She takes in a breath but feels her veins running black and freaks out "Why does this keeping happening to my face?!" she turns around and takes in panicked breaths. 

Stefan steps forward "Look at me, look at me, look at me!" he urges her but she covers her face with her hands, sobbing into them "Caroline, Caroline! Look at me! Look at my face!" he takes her hands off her eyes and Kat gently nudges her chin up to meet Stefan's face. 

Caroline watches the Salvatore's face transform and veins run up to his red eyes. "You see that? When you feel the blood rushing, you tell yourself that you're going to get through it, that you're strong enough" he holds her by the shoulders, she continues to look at those eyes hopefully. She might survive. She can live without hurting anyone.

"But-"

"Yes, yes, no matter how good it feels to give yourself over to it, you fight it off, you bury it. Watch me, watch me...." he stresses and the girls see the redness in his go back into the greeny depths of his pupils and the black veins no longer displaying the inner struggle. 

"It's the only way you're gonna survive this thing. Try...." Kat whispers gently.

Caroline gulps slowly and takes a few deep breaths and her face returns to normal. She turns back to the mirror, relieved that she might not be a monster if she knew how to control herself.

"That's good...." Stefan gently whispers.

"Why did Katherine do this to me?" Caroline cries out.

"I don't know, I wish I did" the Guardian says and hugs her friend with tears in her eyes. Caroline lets out a small sob as she buries her head in her best friend's shoulder. Stefan watches Kat's face break because Caroline isn't looking and he coos to the distraught girls 

"Hey, hey" they turn to him and tears continue pouring down the vampire's cheeks "I promise you I will not let anything happen to you. Come here. Come here" he gently steps forward and embraces the girls.

Caroline was going to be alright.

▹▹▹

Kat looks out the window to see Stefan standing at the porch like she asked him to. Sighing, she palms the metal in her hand and tip-toes outside.

"How's Caroline now?"

"She's fine, she could control it with her mom and Matt came by. Soo... I came home"

He nods and awkwardly shoves his hands into his pockets "Soooo...?"

The girl chuckles. 

She was a Gilbert by blood, a Flemming by abandonment, a twin by fate and a Guardian for a purpose. 

But right now, in front of Stefan Salvatore, she was merely a girl making an effort to give up what she didn't want to give up. Yes, it's true that she liked him. Stefan helped her embrace the part of her heart that she feared to do so. The part that let people in. They both fought for control of themselves and they did not always win. 

Stefan needed Kat to make him feel human. 

Kat needed Stefan to make her feel home.

But he was already Elena's home, her rock. Her light and her dark. Their love never dies. And Kat was never going to let it. Even if she couldn't tell the Salvatore how she felt about him, she wasn't letting him be unhappy, ever. 

And not many of the universe have the power to do so. That wasn't going to stop the girl.

Smiling sadly in the darkness of the moonlit night, she takes his right hand and closes his fist over the keys.

"What are these?"

"Keys to the carnival grounds"

"Bu-"

"They're yours for the night...."

Stefan shakes his head, unaware of what she meant. "What am I going to do with them?"

Kat steps forward and wraps her arms around the boy in a hug, as she whispers in his ears "You're going to the carnival. You're going to watch the night sky. Take your girl to the top of the Ferris wheel and tell her how much she means to you... You're going to be happy and in love". She steps onto the balls of her feet and turns around but halts when her hand is gently yanked back.

"Viv?" he murmurs. 

She turns behind and Stefan embraces her "Thank you".

She licks the tears on her lips, not daring to make a sniffle as she mutters into his hair "Always"