#291.1

She sinks to the floor, her spine coming to rest against the steel. She leans her head back, looking at the ceiling, closing her eyes and listening to the ragged sounds of his breath on the other side. She had wanted so many things form this moment, to accuse him, to save him, to fix him the way he had fixed her because she owes him that much, at least. She sighs at how her best laid plans always seem go astray, because now that she’s here she just can’t. Can’t see him like this, starving as she starved, suffering as she suffered. The lines between them are too real, and she knows that if she looks him in the eye she’ll let him go, because they are the same and she has to believe it’s what he’d have done.

She thinks in the quiet, with only his rasping to pace out time. He was once her salvation, and now he simply breathes and it illustrates her deepest fears: if he can’t be saved, what hope is there for her?

She loses track of how long she’s sat there, leaning up against the steel door, the metal as cool as her skin with neither warming the other. She doesn’t doze, doesn’t dream, doesn’t dare to move. And then he speaks.

“Caroline.”

It chills her and suddenly she feels like ice. She stills herself, stops her breath, tries to even stop her heartbeat. She doesn’t want to be here anymore, but she can’t just run away.

“Caroline.”

Her name is soft, melodic, sweet and low. It’s a loving note that hasn’t flowed through her in forever, but it still resonates to her core. She closes her eyes and draws in a shaky breath, shaking her head, telling herself no, no, no.

“Someone kept you in here. Just like this.”

She can feel herself start to tremble again, her eyes pricking in the way that heralds tears. She wishes, for once, to feel the pressure of the change. Her eyes stained with blood would be less painful than having them salted and drained.

“You can't deny it, you’re all over this place. You and charred flesh. You were hurt here. Burned. Weren’t you?”

It’s a question she can’t answer, but she doesn’t have to. The evidence in locked in there with him, and if the ghosts of her cries have left, her blood still stains the stone floor, her skin is still fused to those chains where the vervain they were treated with burned her. She covers her face with her hands.

“You’re ignoring me. You think I don’t remember, because I don’t care, but I do. I remember. I promised I’d never let anything happen to you.”

It hurts to hear him say it again, hurts to be reminded that his promise meant nothing, that he doesn’t care anymore, that he isn’t on her side. Her forehead drops to her knees and she squeezes her eyes shut because the tears are coming now, a gentle, insistent trickle.

“I would have stopped it. I would have come. Even monsters keep their promises.”

It’s not quite the apology she wants, the apology she’s wanted from everyone that didn’t save her, the apology she never gets. He isn’t sorry, he can’t feel sorry, but it feels like this admission is as close as she’ll ever get, so she accepts it, assimilates it. Believes it.

“I don’t deserve this, Caroline, no more than you did. I can’t change what I am. Nobody can fix me, there’s nothing here to fix.”

She’s crying quietly, holding herself tightly to keep form falling apart. He’s saying all the things she once said, and even if she knows he’s playing her, trying to manipulate his way to freedom, every word rings clear and true within her heart.

He doesn’t ask her to release him, he just speaks, his voice calm and even, only the slightest edge betraying his hunger and his pain. She listens and she weeps, for him, for her, for all the space that’s come between them. She weeps until her tears run dry, and then she quiets before fresh tears allow her to weep some more.

“Don’t cry, Caroline. I’m supposed to be the bad guy.”

She turns, damp eyes looking up at the covered window into the cell, remembering the thin light that filtered in through that small slit, the faint hope even such slight illumination brought her. She bites her lip, crawling up the door, pressing her forehead to the closed shutter, pressing her body up against the steel to feel something, anything besides the impact of his words and the resonance of his voice. She thinks if there are bad guys, they are not down here this morning and curls her fingers around the latch to slide the shutter free.

“Caroline?”

She wants to peer through the window into the cell, wants to see his face turned up into the dim light, perhaps straining in the dark to see her. She wants to, but she can’t, can’t hold his gaze with him still bound and her still on this side of his subjugation. She cinches her eyes shut, positions half of one within his sight, presses her palms flat against the door, and breathes. Her eyes snap open for one brief second, just long enough to catch a glimpse of her fallen saviour.

“I’m sorry, Stefan...”

And then she runs: into the sunlight, into the open air, into the freedom she can’t quite enjoy anymore.

a/n : this back catalogue entry was originally written and posted in 2011. We have preserved it's original format, and no additional editing or alterations have been done. many thanks to @aniresrene, @velvourne, @sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth and @middleearthislife for the encouragement, the fics are being released.