ELEANOR WAS HALF ASLEEP WHILE CARINA BRAIDED HER HAIR. They were in the Chetwood girl's bed, and they had been hanging out a lot over the past couple of days, despite the fact that Eleanor thought that she was never going to see her again. Carina was nice and understanding and so far away from everything supernatural. It was refreshing.

"You talked to your brother?" the Natali woman questioned as she finished the braid.

The vampire hummed, stretching her arms out in front of her to wake herself up a little bit and then turning over in bed to look at Carina. She sighed, remembering the unpleasant encounter. "Yes. It did not go well."

"I'm sorry," Carina replied with a frown, leaning over and kissing Eleanor on the forehead.

Eleanor shrugged. She honestly had no clue what she was going to do about Laurence. So, instead of that, she decided to try and focus on everything else. "Have you told anyone about me?"

"No, against my better judgment," Carina answered, and the vampire honestly had no clue why she hadn't yet. But she wasn't going to complain when there was a beautiful woman in her bed that also wanted to talk about her problems.

She smirked up at the woman and raised her eyebrows jokingly. "So, I could kill you, and no one could trace it back to me?"

"Interesting way to put it, but you're hot so I will let it slide," Carina responded, and Eleanor grinned at the sexy Italian accent. "And you haven't compelled me yet, at least not that I remember."

"I don't believe in compelling people I sleep with," the Chetwood girl told her. It felt like taking advantage, which it really was. She had hated the idea for centuries, and between Katherine and Damon, she knew that it never ended well either.

The Natali woman smiled and reached forward to brush a strand of hair that escaped the braid out of her face. "She's beautiful, and she has a good conscience? You're perfect." She leaned down and pressed a kiss to Eleanor's lips, causing the Chetwood to smile.

"I'm going to go take a shower," Eleanor told her, rolling out of bed and trudging toward the bathroom.

Carina nodded before climbing off the mattress as well. She began to make the bed back up after pulling her long, brown hair back into a bun. "I'll make us some breakfast."

"She's beautiful, and she can cook? You're perfect," Eleanor said sticking her head back into the bedroom to blow the woman a kiss before ducking back into the bathroom.

While Eleanor was in the shower, there was a knock on the door. Carina headed over and opened the door to see a blonde girl standing there with a confused expression on her face. She questioned, "Do I know you?"

"I'm a friend of Alienor's," Carina answered with a smile.

"Alienor?" Caroline muttered, very confused. The only person she had ever heard call Eleanor by her French name was Elijah, and he was really old-fashioned. "Are you...an old friend?"

She was trying to ask if she was a vampire without revealing what she was asking just in case, but Carina caught on quickly, shaking her head. "If you mean vampire, I'm not. I met her three days ago."

"Okay, um, I'm Caroline," the blonde girl informed her, very confused. Why would Eleanor tell this random woman about vampires? She had always been fairly careful about hiding her identity. And after everything with Damon, there was no way that she was compelling her. "I was just coming to check on her."

"Ah, so you're Caroline. She's told me so much about you," Carina said, and Caroline smiled at that. The human woman then stepped to the side, allowing the Forbes girl some room to step in. "I'm Carina. Would you like to come in? I'm making french toast."

"Yeah, sure," Caroline replied, still a little weirded out but excited at the smell of breakfast.

The two sat in semi-comfortable silence while they waited for Eleanor to join them. Caroline watched the woman carefully, as if waiting for her to put vervain in their food, or something. She turned around when she heard a familiar voice. "Hey, Care."

The Chetwood girl walked into to the kitchen, drying her hair with a towel. "Hi, I see you've been making friends instead of talking to your brother, who you just found out was alive," the blonde girl pointed out, and her eyebrows raised in shock when her friend walked right over to Carina and kissed her deeply.

"I talked to him," Eleanor reminded her, pulling away and moving to sit beside her. She shrugged like her brother was a quiz that she hadn't done great on. "He hates me. C'est la vie."

"Are you sure you're okay?" Caroline questioned in a low voice, checking on her best friend.

The older vampire plucked an apple from the bowl on the table and took a bite out of it. "What's there to not be okay about?"

"I'm worried about you, Ellie," the Forbes girl sighed. She hadn't seen very much of her since the ball, even though it was not that long ago. Anyone would be upset if they were in her situation, yet Eleanor seemed completely fine.

"Don't be. I'm perfect," Eleanor assured her, although she was trying to convince herself of that as well. She gestured to Carina, who had her back turned to them as she hummed and cooked. "I've got a hot Italian girl making French toast for me."

"Are you sure this is the best way to cope?" Caroline asked her.

"I'm not coping because I'm completely fine, Care," Eleanor responded, shaking her head. Laurence didn't want to talk to her, and she respected his wishes. She had lived without him for so long. She could handle it. "Promise."

Caroline sighed, but she let it go. Then, she quizzed about the other thing that she was a bit concerned about. She nodded toward Carina. "Is she being compelled?"

"Nope," Eleanor assured.

But that did not seem to ease Caroline's nerves. The blonde girl's eyes widened because that meant that Eleanor just revealed her secret to this random woman that she met three days ago. "So you just told her?"

"Yep."

《❂》

ELEANOR WAS FAST ASLEEP WHEN SHE FELT HER BED DIP. She furrowed her eyebrows and opened her eyes tiredly because Carina had gone home that morning. She rolled over in the bed, and she groaned out loud when she saw Tyler sitting beside her. "Ẅhat the hell are you doing here?"

"I thought you would be more excited to see me," he replied because he had been gone for a while. There was a smile on his face, but it seemed like something was bothering him.

"I'll leap for joy tomorrow," she told him. It was literally the middle of the night, and she wanted to sleep. "How did you even get in here?"

He shrugged. "I had a key made ages ago."

"Why are you here?" Eleanor questioned, not even bothering to react to the fact that he stole her key, made a copy, and returned it to her without her noticing. "In my bed, at 2 AM?"

"Caroline told me about what Damon did to her," he blurted out nervously, and that woke her up.

She sat up and moved so that she could lean against the headboard with him. She raised her eyebrows, unsure of what to say. "Yeah?"

"And it made me so incredibly mad that I wanted to rip his head off, and then I remembered what I did to Vicki, that night at the bonfire," he explained, and Eleanor recalled that night. It was the first time they met, and she had hated him.

Now, she didn't hate him, but she was glad to know that he was thinking about his mistakes. He was feeling sorry, and that was important. She breathed out, "Tyler..."

"And I almost threw up. I feel sick. The fact that I could do that to someone..." he trailed off, and his head fell back and hit the wall behind him. Eleanor sighed, and she grabbed his hand, making him look her in the eye.

"Tyler, when I first met you, you were a dick. I genuinely despised you for a good little bit there. However, since then, I have watched you grow into a completely different person. I will never forgive you for what you did to Vicki, but that doesn't mean I don't love you. You can't fix what you did, but you can recognize that it was horrible. And you can make sure that it never happens again. And don't you ever stop feeling sorry for it. I'm not going to tell you that it's all fine because it's not, and feeling sick about it is exactly how you should feel."

He nodded slowly, taking in what she said and unsure of whether or not she was disappointed in him. "Okay."

"But there are so many men who take advantage of women, and they don't feel the slightest bit of remorse," she pointed out. She had seen so many woman completely destroyed by a man who just didn't care. "So, you feeling sorry for it is a huge step in the right direction."

"Got it," he replied.

She then squeezed his hand so hard that she knew it would be a bit painful, and she pulled his face close to hers because she needed him to hear her. "And know that if something like that ever happens again, especially with Caroline, I will rip your head off."

"Yes ma'am," he responded with a nod and a scared expression on his face. She was not playing when it came to Caroline. There was no one in the world that she would forgive if something happened to her.

She pulled away, and her threatening frown was replaced with a smile. She swung her legs off the side of the bed and stood up, raising her eyebrows at him. "Do you want some pasta?"

"Ooh, yes," he answered excitedly, and he followed her into the kitchen where she heated them up some pasta and sauce. They sat at the counter, and he moaned when he took the first bite. "This is amazing. Where did you get this?"

"A very very beautiful Italian woman made it while dancing in her underwear in my kitchen, and I didn't even compel her," Eleanor responded with a grin.

Tyler held up his fist, and she chuckled as she bumped it. "That's what I'm talking about."