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Caroline was alone inside her room at the hospital. She would have to stay there for only one more day until she would get released. The curtains were drawn except for a small ray of sunlight trickling from the window. The blonde tried to put her hand in the daylight, but withdrew it as her hand burned from it.

"Hey, Care bear. How are you doing?" Alice greeted her friend as she came in the room. Normally Bonnie and Elena would've also come with her but they were organizing the festival and if Caroline found out it failed and they didn't do anything about it, they would be next ones to end up dead.

"I'm fine." Caroline shortly muttered.

"Good. Your mom said you're not eating." Alice said, putting the tray with food on down on the table next to her bed.

"It's gross."

"Of course it's gross. It's hospital food. It's supposed to be disgusting." Alice said as she sat down at the end of Caroline's bed. "Your mom also said you're getting released tomorrow morning."

"Morning? I need to get out tonight."

"No, the carnival is going to happen without you, Caroline, Bonnie and Elena have it. And besides I'm gonna go and help them as well."

"Look, it's not about the carnival okay? It's just that this place is just really depressing."

"I think everyone does, Care." Alice said with a little laugh. "And that's probably even more since you're sitting in the dark. Let some sun in." Alice stood up and walked over to window, where she started to open the curtains so that more light could come in.

"No don't!" Caroline yelled but it was already too late since Alice had opened the curtains. When the Salvatore looked back at the bed, expecting to see Caroline sitting there, the bed was empty and the blonde had pressed herself flat against the wall so that she could avoid the sunlight. "Close it, please?" Caroline asked her.

Alice immediately closed it, looking at the blonde with worry. "Are you okay, Care? You're acting weird."

"Yeah." Caroline quickly nodded. "I just wanna sleep some more. Works better in the dark."

"Okay." Alice said, uncertain. "Well, I'll go check on the carnival now, just so that you can stop worrying and then I'll come back later, okay?" The Salvatore girl asked her, guiding the blonde back to her hospital bed.

"Yes!" Caroline nodded, sitting back into her bed as she watched the Salvatore slowly leaving.

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"I mean, Katherine looked just like you. It was freakish." Bonnie said to Elena as Alice arrived at the High School to help the girl get the carnival for tonight. The one their blonde friend had been so worried about.

"She is my ancestor. Hey, I moved the student booth into the cafeteria." Elena replied."Your vampire ancestor and she didn't just resemble you like a family member would. She was you." Bonnie said to Elena as the three girls moved to another booth.

"I don't know, I can't explain it. It's creepy, that's all I got." Elena answered.

"How do we know she's not still out there pretending to be Elena?" Bonnie asked Alice, since she was not gong to get clear answers from Elena.

"We don't, but Elena could sit here and be tortured by the not-knowing or she could get these prizes to the ring toss." Alice said, giving Elena a playful grin as she handed the doppelgänger the bag with all the prizes.

"Have you talk to Damon since he killed Jeremy or tried to kill Jeremy?" Bonnie asked and Alice turned to her to Elena.

"My brother killed your brother?" Alice asked her

"Yes, and no, Bonnie, I haven't and I won't and I don't want to talk about Damon or anything else that's vampire related okay?"

"Yeez, thank you, Elena." Alice said, pretending to be hurt by Elena's words even though she knew the Gilbert didn't mean it like that.

Elena gave the bag that Alice had given her to Bonnie. "Except for you, Alice." She turned back to Bonnie. "And I'm human. And I have to do human stuff. Otherwise, I'm going to go crazy."

"Okay, I'm sorry, I'll focus. We have to make Caroline proud or she will kill us." Bonnie said, looking down at the prizes in her hands.

"I don't know how she does all of this." Alice said, looking around at the all the stands.

"Well because she's not human, obviously." Elena replied.

"Obviously." Bonnie replied as she and Alice let out a laugh together.

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Before the carnival started, Alice and Stefan decided to pay their older brother a little visit, just to check up on him after his 'breakdown' from yesterday. When they walked into their house, Damon was pouring himself a glass of blood from a blood bag.

"Care for one?"

"No, thank you. I'm not hungry. Just ate." Stefan answered Damon's question, declining the drink.

"I'll take one." Alice said, holding out her hand as she sat down on the chair next to the little table where Damon stood to poor the glasses.

"Here you go, Ali." Damon said, placing the glass in her hand. Her less filled than his, making her glare at him.

"Are you worried that one day, all the forest animals are gonna band together and fight back?" Damon asked his brother. "I mean, surely they talk."

"I'm just happy that's a blood bag and not a sorority girl supplying your dinner." Stefan said and that was true. He was happy that it was a blood bag and that not the entire house was full of drained bodies he and Alice could clean up later.

"I like this. You, walking on eggs shells around me because you think I'm gonna explode. Very suspenseful. Is Elena worried too? I bet I'm your every conversation." Damon said to his brother, leaning down on the chair his little sister was sitting on.

"Have you heard from Katherine?" Stefan asked Damon, fully ignoring what Damon said about Elena.

"I think the Lockwoods have a family secret because the Gilbert device affected them but vervain didn't so they're not vampires, they're something else." Damon said, taking his turn in ignoring something that the other one had said.

"Is this your new obsession?" Alice asked him, sipping on her drink.

"You'd rather some unknown supernatural element running rampant upon our town. Fine, I'll drop it." Damon shrugged, knowing that his sister was gonna help him find out what the Lockwoods were anyway just because she was curious.

"Oh, maybe they're mermaids." Alice joked.

"We haven't seen the last of Katherine, you both do know that right? We have no idea what she's up to." Stefan told the two grinning siblings.

"All I know is that she staked me with a fucking iron stem before leaving like she always does." Alice said.

"And sure we do. She came back to profess her undying eternal love for Alice so I'm gonna let her deal with Katherine because I have more important things to do like explode. Cheers!" Damon raised his glass as he left the room.

"You're seriously going to leave us to deal with her alone?" Alice called after them, getting a smile 'yup' from her brother in reply.

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"The ring toss is out of Bart and Homer dolls and Team Jacob T's." Bonnie said as the three girls were walking around at the carnival later that night.

"Okay, I can grab some from the science club. Also we lost a speaker in the karaoke room." Elena mentioned and Alice grabbed her arm so that she would stop walking just like her and Bonnie.

"Hey, all good Elena, take a beat, look around. This is a huge success." Alice said to her, telling her to look at the many people who had come.

"You mean I can do more than just freak vampire havoc?"

"Go figure." Alice said, winking at her, causing the three of them to start laughing.

Elena looked at one of the men who was repairing one of the lights on one of the many stands.

"Hey, Carter, right? You're with the carnival." She asked.

"That'll be me." Carter said, putting his tools away.

"Okay, great." Elena muttered, looking down on the paper, missing how Carter looked at Bonnie until he spoke.

"Wow, what do you need beautiful?" Bonnie let out a giggle as the two girls turned to her with suspicion.

"What do you know about karaoke speakers?"

"Why don't you show me the problem?" He asked her.

"Yeah Bon, show him the problem." Alice said as Elena was trying to encouraging her friend, motioning with her eyes at Carter.

"Okay, come on." Bonnie said, leading the way towards the stand.

As the two left, Alice and Elena smiled at them.

"Okay, I'm gonna see what Damon is up to. Seeing if he is behaving himself a bit more after yesterday." Alice said, referring to him killing Elena's little brother. "Are you fine with getting the speaker."

"Yes, don't wanna come near Damon anyway." Elena said after she looked down on the list to make sure she didn't miss anything else.

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She found her two brothers inside the high school, looking at Tyler who was in the middle of an arm wrestling competition at the moment.

"You're both lurking." Alice said, stopping with walking and standing next to Stefan.

"I'm observing." Damon told her.

"I'm not. He's more like obsessing." Stefan said to her at the moment Tyler won the competition.

"He's got strength." Damon told them the obvious as if they hadn't seen him winning as well.

"He's a triple letter varsity athlete, of course he has strength. You're reaching." Stefan spoke to him as Mason arrived to arm wrestle his nephew, easily beating the younger Lockwood.

"Okay, he's the champ, who wants to go next?" Tyler asked the crowd, shrugging the loss off.

"Stefan wants to go." Damon volunteered his brother."Yeah, sure, I'll give it a shot." Stefan spoke as he walked over to the table to join Mason.

"Get him, Stef!" Damon yelled, fake supporting his brother.

"You can do it, Steffy." Alice said after her brother, embarrassing the youngest Salvatore even more.

"My brother and sister over there think I can beat you." Stefan said to Mason, after throwing them a glare.

"Your siblings are wrong." Mason replied before the two started wrestling, both putting in hard pressure but Mason beat him, surprising Alice from the side and making Damon angry.

"You didn't put in any effort at all." Damon said to him as Stefan walked back over to them.

"Yeah, actually I did."

"Come with me." Damon said surprised, dragging both his sister and brother with him.

"Is he-?" Damon started to ask Stefan as they were in a different hallway.

"No, it wasn't that kind of strength but it was more than human, if that makes any sense." Stefan cut him off.

"What is up with that family? They're not vampires, what the hell are they?" Damon asked himself more than Stefan or Alice.

"Oh, maybe they're ninja turtles." Stefan said as a joke."You're not funny." Damon rolled his eyes at his brother.

"Or no, zombies." Stefan continued and Alice joined him.

"Or, werewolves." Alice suggested

"No comedic timing at all." Damon told them as he turned his head, seeing Carter repairing something from behind him.

"What? What are you up to?" Alice asked him as he kept turning around to look at the boy.

"Since this is reality and there's no such thing as werewolves or combat turtles.""I said 'ninja' turtles, actually."

"Hey you!" Damon said, greeting Carter as he walked over.

Carter scoffed at him. "I have a name."

"Yeah I don't care." Damon replied before he caught Carter's shoulders to compel him. "I need you to pick a fight with someone, a kid named Tyler Lockwood."

"Damon, don't do this." Stefan and Alice said at the same time but Damon didn't listen to them as he shushed them.

"It's just an experiment. Get him mad, don't back down no matter what he does, okay?"

"I won't back down." Carter repeated in an emotionless tone.

"I know you won't." Damon said as if he hadn't just compelled the boy to do what he said. Damon released him and patted him on the back as Carter turned to leave.

"Do you realize someone is going to get hurt, right?" Stefan asked him, taking the place where Carter had just been in.

"No, someone is gonna get mad, as in rage."

"What's that going to accomplish?" Alice asked her big brother.

"That Tyler kid is incapable of walking away from a fight. Let's see who intervenes. Maybe it's the ambiguous, supernatural mystery uncle." Damon said to them before walking away alone in an empty hallway.

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Elena, Stefan, Alice and Damon were in Alaric's classroom talking about what Damon had just discovered about Caroline's transition.

"How did this happen?" Elena asked as she paced through the room. She should've never allowed Damon to feed Caroline his blood.

"Well, I fed her blood and Katherine obviously killed her and A plus B equals." Damon replied.

"But why?" Elena asked, not understanding why Katherine would need Caroline to be a vampire.

"Because Katherine is a manipulative, nasty, little slut." Damon replied.

"And she said "game on"? I mean, what does that even mean?" Stefan asked the others about what Katherine had said to them through Caroline.

"It means she's playing dirty." Damon explained.

"And she wants us to know." Alice continued, sitting down on the desk next to Damon.

"But why Caroline?" Elena asked again, still not seeing why Katherine needed Caroline.

"I don't know." Damon admitted.

"Poor Care. She has no idea what the hell is happening right now." Alice said."Oh I think she does. All of my compulsion from the past started wearing off the minute she was in transition."

"Karma for what you did to Caroline is finally coming back to you, huh brother."

"We have to find her." Stefan said.

"You think, Stefan?" Alice asked, faceplaming herself.

"Yep, and kill her."

"That's not happening, Damon." Alice said."She knows who we are. She's officially a liability, and we've got to get rid of her."

"A liability to you maybe." Alice rolled her eyes. He was worried. If he hadn't just used Caroline in the way he had, there wouldn't be such a big problem for him right now.

"Damon, absolutely not." The youngest Salvatore said.

"Need I remind you of a tragic little story of a girl named Vicki Donovan? Caroline, of all people, will not make it as a vampire. Her mother is a vampire hunter. Guys come on, we all know how this story's gonna end, just flip to the last chapter and-"

"It's not an option, Damon." Elena cut him off.

"No? Your silence is deafening, Stefan." Damon said to his brother. "Wait, wasn't there a school carnival the night you staked Vicki? I never had a town where history repeats itself. You know I'm right."

"We're not gonna kill her." Stefan said as he started to leave, the two girls following behind him.

"We just need to find Caroline before Damon does." Alice said to the couple. "He will kill her if we don't find her first.

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"You agree with Damon, don't you?" Elena asked as the three as they were walking around the carnival for any sign of the blonde vampire. "Stefan?" Elena asked again and this time instead of silence as a response, Stefan punched the side of a food trailer.

"Damon's right, not about what we should do but about what's gonna happen. Katherine already signed Caroline's death sentence."

"Well we can't let it end that way. She's doing this to me, isn't she?" Elena asked.

"Actually, she's doing it to Alice." Stefan responded and Elena immediately looked over to Alice, who ignored what her brother said and continued to look for the blonde. Which didn't take her long.

"Do you smell that?" She asked Stefan.

"Blood." Stefan said and they started running with Elena in the direction where the blood came from. Arriving just in time, Alice vamped over to Caroline and twisted Damon's hand around, making the Salvatore drop the stake he had in his hand, knowing that he was gonna stab the stake into Caroline's heart any second.

"Alice!" Damon scolded her, meanwhile Caroline was pushing Elena away, thinking that the Gilbert was the vampire who killed her last night.

"No, you killed me!"

"Caroline, that wasn't me. That was Katherine."

"No! Then why did she look like you? And why, why did she do this to me?" Caroline screamed her questions back at the girl.

"We've got to get her inside." Elena said to the two younger Salvatores.

"It's alright, Care Bear." Alice said, trying to reassure the blonde as she walked closer to her.

"She will die, it's only a matter of time." Damon said to them.

"Yeah, maybe so, but it's not gonna happen tonight." Stefan replied.

"Oh, yeah, it is." Damon said, picking up the stake from the ground, and rushed over to them, but Elena placed herself in front of Caroline.

"Damon, she is my friend."

It was clear that Damon hesitated, but as he saw that Elena was not going to move, he dropped his arm, also dropping the stake as he did so.

"Whatever happens, it's on you." Damon said before rushing away, leaving Alice to take Caroline inside, as far away from Carter's body and from what she had done to him.
Walking into the bathroom, Alice took some tissues and started to wipe the blood of Caroline's face, holding her hair back as the Forbes leaned on the sink in distress. "She hates me! Bonnie hates me!" Caroline cried.

"No, Caroline. She could never hate you. She's just in shock." Alice quickly responded, wiping away some more blood.

"And what about Matt?"

"Caroline. One thing at a time. At first we need to get the blood of your face." Alice said, hoping that if the blood was off, Caroline would be able to calm down at least a little. She threw the tissues, now filled up with blood, in the bin.

"I'm a murderer. I'm a monster." Caroline muttered, wiping some blood of her hands with another tissue.

"Caroline, hey, look at me, the emotions you are feeling right now are heightened. It's part of the transformation to become a vampire. It's completely normal. I promise you. Okay?" Alice asked but the girl started to freak out again when she saw her face changing in the mirror. The veins visible under her eyes.

"Why does this keep happening to my face?" She yelled out as she turned around, not wanting to look at the visible lines, hiding her face in her hands. "I'm hideous."

Alice grabbed a hold of Caroline's hand and pushed them out of the girl's face. "Caroline, look." She said as her face started to change in the same way as Caroline's had done. "It happens when you feel the blood rushing. You will tell yourself that you're going to get through it, that you're strong enough." Caroline shook her head. "Yes. No matter how good it feels to give yourself over to it, you fight it off, you bury it. Watch me." The Salvatore changed her face back to normal. "It's the only way you're gonna survive this thing. Try."
Caroline took a few breaths of air, trying to return her face back to normal.

"That's good." Alice gave her a little smile.

"Why did Katherine do this to me?" Caroline asked her."I don't know, I wish I did. Hey, hey, I promise you I will not let anything happen to you. Come here." Alice said, opening her arms for the girl.

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I don't know if this was clear yet, but I don't think I mention it before in chapter 1, but Alice is the middle sibling, who's one year older than Stefan!

Words: 3282

Published: July 15, 2024

Thank you for reading and be sure to comment and vote. They are a big help for motivation.

x Kat