01. I'll Remember

"I dropped out of Whitmore, why would I support their stupid football team?" Caroline asked her best friend through the phone as she walked over to her mother who was setting up their picnic.

"Come on Care, no one is coming, I'm going to be alone, please come, it's the opening game of the season" Kaitlynn pleaded, "Isn't it finally time for you to come home now?".

"I am home" Caroline stated, "I just signed the lease to my new apartment".

"Do you realise how incredibly sad it is that you leased an apartment on the border of a town you aren't allow to go into?" Kaitlynn asked.

"You don't even like football, or college for that matter" Caroline retorted.

"No, but it's better I watch the football game and then think about other things" Kaitlynn said, a sudden sad tone appearing in her voice.

Caroline let out a sigh, before she can say anything, she heard Tyler's voice, "Caroline, you're coming" he said, taking the phone from Kaitlynn.

"Tyler, don't act like you have any ground to stand on, you skipped an entire year" Caroline taunted, as Tyler put Kaitlynn's phone on speaker.

"And you hounded me for an entire year so here I am, now, get your ass back here" Tyler insisted.

"Tyler's right, you need to come back, so be ready by 6pm tomorrow, I'll come pick you" Kaitlynn said, "Don't forget to bring your school spirit, see you".

Once Kaitlynn hanged up on her, Caroline let out an annoyed sigh before turning back to her mother, "Anyway, as I was saying, I haven't exactly found a spell that can undo an anti-magic border per se but this book mentions travelers" she said, taking a seat on the ground and grabbing the current book she was reading, "Which isn't that helpful, but at least it puts us a step in the right direction--".

"Sweetheart" Liz interrupted.

"Yeah?" Caroline asked.

"You should go with them tomorrow" Liz said.

"No, we're gonna go see a movie" Caroline reminded.

"We've spent the entire summer together" Liz retorted.

"Oh god, you're sick of me" Caroline concluded, throwing the book in her hands on to the picnic blanket.

"Caroline, you just lost your soulmate and two of your best friends" Liz said, "It makes sense that you wanna hold on to what's familiar, but Kaitlynn's lost a lot too, and she clearly misses you".

"I know" Caroline whispered, "I miss her too, but it's just hard, you know, I want to help her but I can't because I don't even know how to help myself, it's been months and I can't forget him, mom".

Liz sighed, "And no one is asking you to forget him, I know more then anyone that you can't forget Brayden, the type of love you two shared, it's not something you forget, but you can't stop living Caroline, that's not what he would have wanted for you".

"Well I don't what he would have wanted" Caroline whispered as tears welled in her eyes, "Because he's not here to tell me".

"I know that the last thing Brayden would have wanted is to see tears in your eyes" Liz said.

Caroline let out a small chuckle, "He hated seeing tears in my eyes".

"I know" Liz whispered, giving her daughter a sad smile, knowing losing Brayden caused Caroline to lose a part of herself, suddenly Liz's phone beeping caught the attention of the mother and daughter.

"What?" Caroline asked, "Someone trample over Mr. Davis's flower bed again?".

"Two kids were admitted to the hospital with suspicious wounds on their necks" Liz revealed.

"Vampire attacks?" a shocked Caroline asked, "How? Vampires can't get into Mystic Falls".

"No, but they can lurk around the boarders" Liz reminded, standing up, "I gotta cut lunch short, I gotta take care of this, listen, consider Kaitlynn's offer, okay? Mystic Falls isn't going anywhere".

"Hey, don't forget your basket" Caroline called out, standing up and walking over to her mom to hand over the basket, but while doing so her arm crossed the border of Mystic Falls, causing her to yell in pain and drop the basket to the floor.

***

Caroline met up with Alaric at a diner, she slammed the three books he had let her borrow on to the table and sat infront of the newly alive professor.

"You already read all that?" a slightly shocked Alaric asked the Forbes vampire.

"Cover to cover" Caroline replied, "With no mention on how to undo an anti-magic force field, or on how to bring back dead soulmates, and if I'm going to single handedly take back our town and bring back Brayden I'm gonna need a little more to go on".

"Got it, all right, well, I brought  ancient witchcraft volume two" Alaric said, taking out a book from his bag and showing it to Caroline.

"I read it" Caroline informed.

"Okay" Alaric mumbled, he placed the book on the table before pulling out another book from his bag, "How about the art of hexing, an element of magic?".

"Fine, thank you" Caroline said, taking the book from Alaric's hand.

"Caroline, that book might have something about the anti magic border but you know it's highly unlikely it will have something about bringing back someone's soulmate, right?" Alaric said, not wanting Caroline to build her hopes up.

Caroline looked at Alaric, "If not this book, then some book out there will have the answers, I'm not giving up on him, if he was in my situation, I know for a fact that he would have never done given up on me, so I can't either".

Alaric sighed, "Just be careful" he warned.

"So, how's Stefan?" Caroline asked, changing the topic, she didn't want to hear people when they told her trying to bring back Brayden was a lost cause.

"He's okay" Alaric replied.

"How often do you talk to him?" a curious Caroline asked, having heard Alaric on the phone with Stefan right before she sat infront of him.

Alaric shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, couple times a week".

"Oh, huh" Caroline said.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb here, Caroline" Alaric said, leaning forward in his chair, "Is something bothering you?".

"He didn't say goodbye" Caroline informed, "Brayden, Damon and Fae died, and he just left, no phone calls, no e-mails, just disappeared into thin air, and neither me or Kaitlynn have heard from him in months, it's just it seems like we lost all three Salvatores  in one day, you know I actually convinced myself that he was in some remote mountain region and couldn't accept my calls".

"Or maybe he just doesn't wanna bother you with every half lead that goes nowhere" Alaric suggested.

"Yeah, or maybe I just need to get over it and just focus on bringing Brayden back, thanks for the books" Caroline said, before standing up and walking out the diner.

***

"Oh my god!" a shocked Caroline said.

Next day, Caroline was making her way over to the football game at Whitmore when suddenly she heard a scream, immediately a concerned Caroline rushed over to where she heard that scream coming from, where to her shock she saw Kaitlynn feeding off of a girl, "What are you--?".

Hearing her best friend's voice, immediately caused Kaitlynn to let go of the girl and turn to the Forbes girl with a guilty look on her face, "Caroline, it's not what--".

"Kait, the girl!" Caroline called out, the panicked girl using Kaitlynn's distraction to her advantage to rush towards the borders of Mystic Falls.

"Dammit" Kaitlynn mumbled, before rushing after the girl, but it was too late, as the injured girl had already crossed the border to Mystic Falls, a town neither Kaitlynn or Caroline could enter.

***

"What did you do?!" an angry Caroline asked her best friend, "Why the hell are you feeding on people?".

"Save the lecture Caroline, I haven't killed anyone, she's the only one that got away, the rest I compelled" Kaitlynn defended.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on" a shocked Caroline said, "So you're the border lurker?".

"I'm the what now?" a confused Kaitlynn asked.

"Yeah, did you know my mom's been out looking for a vampire prowler?" Caroline replied.

Kaitlynn let out a defeated sigh, "If I concentrate on my hunger then I don't have to remember anything else" she whispered.

"What?" a confused Caroline asked.

"If I focus on my hunger and all I think about is blood, I have no time to think about Damon" Kaitlynn informed.

"God, is this what you've been doing this whole time?" a shocked Caroline asked, "Instead of grieving for Damon you've been pushing your feelings aside and focusing on the hunger?".

"I tried to grieve him" Kaitlynn snapped, "But everytime he crosses my mind,  I feel like I'm gonna die, I can't forget him, I don't know how to grieve him so I'm doing the next best thing".

Caroline sighed, "Look, I get it, okay? Trust me, no one better then me gets what you're feeing right now" she said, taking a step closer to her friend and placing her hands on her shoulder, "But there are better ways to get through this".

"Name one" Kaitlynn challenged, "Like what you did, to drop out of school and focus my full energy on false of hope of bringing back the dead? Or should I do what Stefan is doing currently doing, just go from country to country doing god knows what, we all have our own ways of getting through Fae, Damon and Brayden's death, and this is my way, and no one has a right to judge, not even you Caroline".

"I'm not judging you Kaitlynn, I would never do that" Caroline defended, "It's just that you're not getting through it, you're just pressing pause", Caroline let out a sigh, "Look, I'll call my mom and she can fix all this, but you need to get out of here, go hide, okay? So just go".

Kaitlynn nodded her head and got into her car, while Caroline walked away to fix the mess the Pierce vampire created.

***

The girl Kaitlynn attacked, ended up running right into Matt, who after getting her the medical attention she needed, drove her to the border of Mystic Falls so Caroline could compel her to forget Kaitlynn and what she did to her.

"We're meeting my friend here, everything will be fine" Matt assured the injured girl, but the moment he parked the car, the girl opened the passenger door and rushed out the car, "Sarah, stop, please" Matt called out, getting out of the driver's seat and running after the girl, "Get back in the car, stop, Sarah!", Matt quickly caught up to the girl and grabbed her before she could run away, "Hey, I'm not gonna hurt you".

"You kidnapped me" Sarah snapped.

"Look, I know you're scared" Matt said, "And I'm sorry that this happened, but all I can do is promise that it won't happen again".

"Why the hell should I trust you?" a conflicted Sarah asked.

"Because I've been attacked like that more times than I can count" Matt revealed, "I've had my throat ripped open, my neck snapped, my hand smashed, I've drowned, I've died and come back to life, and I've lost what little family I had, and I refuse to lose anyone else, I wanna protect people like you, like us".

"That's, uh, quite a story but, um, the thing is, I don't trust anyone, ever" Sarah stated, turning to run away from Matt but she couldn't as the moment she turned her path was blocked by Caroline, causing Sarah to let out a shocked gasp.

"That's probably wise" Caroline told Sarah.

***

Caroline sat at the diner bar, on her phone, leaving someone a voicemail.

"Hey, it's Brayden, leave a message".

"Hey Brayden, it's me" an upset Caroline whispered, "Calling your cellphone once again to hear your voice, leaving you another message about how today was not a good day, everyone drifted apart, it's like everyone's pretending they can get through this alone, Stefan's gone god knows where, Kaitlynn's struggling, I think she's so scared to accept what happened that she's become a completely different person, and if you ask me, Tyler's just hiding at Whitmore pretending everything's fine as if he can outrun his werewolf gene or something, Matt and Jeremy never leave Mystic Falls anymore, there's an invisible wall standing between us and them and nobody is doing anything about it, part of me wonders if they hope we never find a way back in, then there's me, just sitting in a diner, on the border of town, listening to your old voice messages over and over again while looking for a way to get our home and you back, I can't accept that the last time I saw you was the end of our story Brayden, I need you, we need to be together, or pretty soon I'm gonna end up losing my mind, I don't know how much longer I can pretend that I'm fine, you promised me forever Brayden, and that is why I am not giving up on you, I will not stop trying till you're back with me, I will not let death tear us apart, we're stronger then that, much stronger then that, so see you soon Brayden, I love you, it's us against the whole world".

After leaving her dead boyfriend a voicemail she knew he was never going to listen to, Caroline placed her phone on the bar she was sitting at and wiped the tears that had fallen from her eyes without her even realising it.

***

Prison World

Damon Salvatore stood in the Salvatore's kitchen, humming to the music that was playing the background while making pancakes, Fae Bennett stood at the dining table pouring three cups of coffee, while a grumpy, sleepy and shirtless Brayden Salvatore walked into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and letting out a yawn, his messy hair telling both Damon and Fae that he had just gotten out of bed.

"Morning sunshine" Damon teased, placing a plate of pancakes infront of Brayden.

"Don't talk to me" Brayden warned, placing his head on the table.

Fae let out a chuckle, "Here, have this" she said, placing a cup of coffee infront of Brayden and ruffling his already messy hair.

"No" Brayden complained, slapping Fae's hand away from his hair, "Don't mess up my hair".

"I'm not sure there's anything left to mess up" Fae teased, taking a seat next to Brayden, she then looked at the pancakes Damon made, pancakes that had a face made out of blueberries with whipped cream fangs, "When are you gonna learn new art?".

"Never" Damon stated.

Brayden lifted his head up from the table and let out an annoyed groan seeing the pancake, "Every single day I tell you that I hate your stupid pancake art".

"And every day I do it anyway" Damon teased, "Bon appetite".

"You ruin my every single morning in this horrible place" Brayden complained, taking a sip of his coffee, while Damon and Fae started eating their pancakes and at the same time reading the newspaper, something Brayden refused to even touch.

***

Presenting 6x01 of They Don't Know About Us!

How was the chapter?

Thoughts on Liz and Caroline's talk about Brayden?

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Thoughts on Caroline finding Kaitlynn feeding on people to not focus on her heartbreak regarding Damon?

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