Chapter Text
It had switched back on after the first week of their method of turning it back on. Pain apparently was a strong enough emotion to flip the switch back on.
It had felt- well, she didn't feel anything. She had never felt so free. No pesky emotions to weigh her down. All the grief, sadness, fear. It was all gone. It was also an emptiness; something in her chest was missing.
She had told them she wouldn't kill anyone or draw attention to herself. Just a year of not having to deal with those emotions. After everything she had been through, she thought she should be allowed some time. To not worry, to not need to care.
Caroline drew another jagged breath. Her body ached. Her wrists were raw. She had no tears left to cry; she had done that for hours after she had felt the raw wave of emotions crash over her. Sadness, grief, pain. Guilt. It felt horrible.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Were the first words out of her mouth. Before they had gagged her.
She was going to have to apologize so much to Liam when she got out.
Her humanity had been turned on after the first week. It had been half a week since that happened, and she was still in the basement. At least she thinks how many days it has been. There wasn’t really any light in this part of the house coming in from the outside.
“She's probably still faking it, Bon-Bon. She's good at that,” Damon says outside of her cell.
Bonnie casts a glance at Caroline. She knows she probably isn't a pretty sight right now. She could feel the blood caked in her hair; her face and wrists were splotchy from a Vervain gag and ropes. Damon had splashed Vervain on her.
He was taking joy in this, trying to turn her humanity back on. Through the methods he would use.
She felt sick every time he stepped into her cell. That gleeful look in his eye. This felt like a continuation of the torture he had placed on her when she was human.
The blood in her hair was from when she had asked him how long until Elena figured out he hadn't changed at all. He hadn’t reacted well to that.
Caroline could only imagine how hopeless it would be to save her clothes. The blood stuck to her clothes, vervain seeped in.
Sometimes, she would see Stefan looking at her guiltily. He gave no words to her defense.
But even without the sire bond, Elena follows Damon on this, and so that means Stefan and Bonnie would. No one else visited; Caroline didn’t even know if they cared about what they were doing to her.
“You know how easily she can fool other people with the helpless act. We’ve used it to our advantage before. She is just using it right now,” Damon says.
“She’ll be back to her Caroline self soon,” Bonnie says.
Caroline doesn't know if she is trying to reassure herself or if she is reassuring Damon.
“Yup, driving us all up the wall with everything.” Damon agrees.
He leads her out of the basement.
Bonnie gives Caroline one last look before they exit the basement.
Caroline slumps down. She had hoped Bonnie would at least be able to believe her. To tell that her humanity was back on.
Nobody else would.
She closes her eyes and rests her head as much as she can on the back of the cool, wet stone wall. Sometimes it was that, sometimes it was a chair.
She felt tears well in her eyes. How could her friends do this to her? When Elena had turned hers off, they didn't do this. Damon had told her to turn it off. Caroline had only started to get mean when they broke the deal.
She faintly heard the door. Her eyes peek open a crack.
“Oh, gorgeous, what have they done to you?” She hears an accented voice reach her ears.
A sharp intake of breath.
It was Enzo. He had been away traveling for the past month. Seeing if there was anything left of his life in Europe from before. He had sounded happy.
She didn't feel gorgeous.
Now he was standing at her cell door. Her open cell door. She hadn’t even heard it open. His hands were trembling.
He steps forward slowly. Caroline brings her knees up to her chest. The chains rattle at the movement.
He crouches down and grabs something from his pocket.
Damon had used a knife once before he was told by Stefan it was going too far. He still snuck it down twice more. He would grab it from his pockets.
She flinches back, begging through the gag, despite how it burns.
It's a key, he pulled out a key.
He starts with the ones on her legs before moving to the ones on her wrists. She yanks the gag free from her mouth.
“It's on, it's on.” She gasps out.
Her throat was on fire and not in the normal way. Her lips felt chapped and cracked.
“Easy, gorgeous. I know. I'm getting you out of here. I’ll get you somewhere safe.” Enzo says. “Can you walk?”
Caroline tries to get up, but her legs are weak. They give out from under her. She slides down the stone wall.
Enzo wraps an arm under her knees and her back. He lifts her up and flashes them out.
She is suddenly placed into a car and buckled in. Caroline didn’t recognize the car.
“Here,” Enzo says.
She flinches again. Her head hit the headrest. It was a blood bag. Damon liked to torment her by giving her blood laced with vervain. He would force it down her throat.
Enzo takes a sip of it himself, showing her, it wasn't poisoned, and presses it into her hands.
She latched on quickly, feeling her fangs drop. The soothing liquid hits her throat, she can feel her body start to heal somewhat. The burning goes away on her face, and her wrists are looking much better already, still healing, but vervain can slow down the process.
Enzo starts the car and pulls out of the Salvatore's driveway. She was glad to see it in the rearview mirror, this was just another in a long line of bad memories of that house. The good ones could not erase it. He kept driving as she finished two more blood bags.
Once she wipes the blood from her lips, she looks at Enzo. His hands are tight on the wheel. He had sounded happy when they would talk on the phone a good escape from what was going on with her mom. She didn’t know how to tell him.
“What's going on?” She asks.
He takes twists and turns in the road, and they get onto the highway heading south.
“I came back a few days ago, and Damon starts going on about how you had turned it off and they were ‘helping’ you,” Enzo says. “I made a plan and got you out.”
His voice was harsh.
“He told me in detail and started laughing about how you've been trying to trick them by telling them it's back on and fake crying.” He continues. “I just didn’t know they were keeping you in the house until yesterday.”
“It is back on.” She says quietly.
“I know.” He says.
“How? How did you know, and they didn't?” She asks.
“Your eyes. You have the most expressive eyes.” Enzo says.
That gave way to a new ache in her chest. He could read her eyes better than they could. They had known each other for less than a year.
Caroline glanced at her clothes; they are wrecked. Splotches of blood.
“I hurt people.” She mutters.
“Yeah, you did. Congrats, you are a vampire and, from what I heard, a very creative one.” Enzo says, then he sighs. “Gorgeous, you feel guilty about it; that makes you different from most people. You are allowed to give in to your instincts sometimes.”
“I don’t want to go home.” She says.
Not back to an empty house where there were scattered reminders of her mother everywhere. Of the things her friends had done. Nor back to the town someone had once told her that she would outgrow.
Would they even believe her?
“We aren’t going back there, not after what they’ve done,” Enzo says.
“Damon is your friend,” Caroline says.
“And he should know how I feel about torturing our friends when there are other ways to get their humanity back on, especially after he knows what I have been through,” Enzo tells her.
The look in his eye was hard. He had been tortured. The moment he had seen her lying in that cell, chained. That look in her eyes.
Caroline had always been the sweet one, the one who could make a person want to be good for them. He had heard bits and pieces of what had happened, her mother’s death. No one had told him.
The car is silent for a moment. Softly playing in the background was the radio. The date showed it had been a week and a half since they had brought her down there. Tricked her into the cell.
The worst part, she had almost flipped the switch before they snapped her neck.
“So, where are we going?” She asks.
The road they were taking was heading south. Caroline wasn’t sure what that meant. She didn’t have her phone; they had taken it from her before they had put her down there.
She didn’t know who she could call, who she could trust.
“Caroline,” Enzo says.
Her head snaps to him.
He never calls her just by her name. It was always gorgeous; he had called her love once before she shut that down. She would never admit it, but anyone but him calling her love felt wrong.
“Stefan, in his drunken ramblings, mentioned that he was glad that none of them had come to see you or checked in because he didn’t know how they would react,” Enzo said. “When I pressed him on who they were, he got quiet. An odd look in his eye.”
Caroline tried to think who would scare them enough. Who would want to be checking in on her that wasn’t in town?
Tyler wouldn’t. They hadn’t talked since he nearly bit her again.
Nor would anyone she could think of.
“I wouldn’t know who he was referring to,” she admits.
“He said something about New Orleans. So, I think that is the safest place for you. They are going to track us down and try to take you back,” Enzo tells her.
A part of it clicks in her head.
“The Mikaelsons are in New Orleans.” She tells him.
Enzo’s head tilts, and a frown graces his lips. His eyes glanced over her.
“The who?” He asks.
“The Originals.” She explains.
Caroline couldn’t remember how much they had told him about before. She doesn’t think they had really talked about that time in their lives. None of them had been back to Mystic Falls since after they had rescued him.
She also doesn’t know how much he is connected to the gossip of the supernatural world.
His frown deepens.
“The first vampires? Caroline, those are dangerous people, from my understanding. Even if your friends are in New Orleans, it might be best to avoid the Originals.” Enzo tells her.
Caroline didn’t know how she felt about going there to see them. To see Klaus. Caroline would like to say that they left on friendly terms. Rebekah and she were actually texting buddies. She hadn’t told her what was going on with her mom. It had always just been on the tip of her tongue to send a text, but it never happened.
She had thought about calling Klaus.
After the incident with Matt, Klaus and Rebekah help them. It had been different. He had looked like he wanted to ask her something, say something to her, but he never did beyond his normal snarky comments and watching her with those oh-so-dark eyes. How could anyone with blue eyes look so dark?
Then, at graduation, with his promises. The way he looked at her. He promised to leave Mystic Falls alone. His door was always open and welcoming to her.
She shakes her head out of those thoughts. He was being kind, that was all.
“It might be our best bet.” She says.
Enzo sighs and nods.
“Let’s drive for a while, then we’ll get you some new clothes and a snack,” Enzo says. “You know, I’ve never actually been to the Big Easy.”
That causes a slight laugh out of Caroline. Despite all the blood, her chest still hurt.
“I think I’ll need a shower, too,” Caroline tells him. “We will need to find a place to do that.”
“Can I join?” Enzo teases lightly.
Caroline rolls her eyes at him. He never meant his flirting.
“We will get to New Orleans and then avoid the Originals and find your friends,” Enzo says.
Caroline doesn’t know why she doesn’t say anything to him.
“Enzo, do you even have a driver’s license?” She asks after she watches him maneuver through the lanes.
He gives her a grin.
“No.” He says.
She feels herself get tired, her eyes heavy. She leans against the door. Her eyes close, and she feels like she can breathe and rest for the first time.
Caroline won’t admit that she dreams of blue eyes ringed with gold and that that gaze makes her feel safe