A/N : This is the end of this fiction, folks ! It was supposed to be just a One Shot and now it's more than 10k words ! I'm sorry it took so long for me to publish it, and I'm also sorry that it didn't turn out the way I wanted. Hope you still enjoy it, though. Look out for my next publication: moving on to another pairing, Bamon ! - Love, M.

It was the middle of the night when Damon's phone buzzed. He suppressed a groan and contemplated just ignoring it. It was certainly from Caroline, and she was probably giving him the same crap: everything's okay, we'll be back soon, don't worry about me, tell my mom I'm fine.

But what if she had something else to say, just this once?

He rolled over and grabbed his cellphone, rubbing his sleepy eyes with one hand. The crude light of the tactile screen assaulted his sensitive sight, and he blinked several times before he was actually able to read the words. His eyes widened while he read, and for a second, he thought he was dreaming.

It's over.

He sat up. An emotion that he could not quite identify made his undead heart beat faster and he felt completely awake. He had to hear it from her. Hear that they were finally done with Klaus, done with the fear of retaliation, done with the constant impression of being watched.

Klaus dead?

Not quite. Fourth coffin finally opened two days ago. The witches lifted the shield so Klaus could come find us. He did, and the witches trapped him.

He dialed her number, and changed his mind. Something was missing from that text.

Her emails and text messages had gotten shorter, and vaguer. Damon was forced to read between the lines – because through this epistolary friendship of sorts, he had learnt to know her. When she started justifying her kills, he knew he'd lost her. It didn't bother her anymore that Stefan looked at people like mere blood banks. She killed people and partly enjoyed it. She let his brother have her body – he didn't want to believe that she willingly gave it to him –, and party enjoyed that as well. When he expressed the slightest concern about her, she dismissed him: When Klaus is in that coffin, it'll be over. He never replied to that, because he simply didn't know how to tell her that she was falling in love with a monster, and becoming one herself. But eh, Klaus was in the coffin, now.

Coming home?

He asked simply for good measure, and even before she replied, he knew what she'd say. What he didn't know yet was if he would act on impulse about it.

Not just yet.

He sighed. Yes, he would act on impulse, because it was the right thing to do. She had tried to bring his brother back, but all she had done was lose herself. He couldn't allow that any longer – he had for much too long already.

This uncharacteristic brooding led him to the porch of a house he seldom visited. Damon smirked when he found himself faced with messy hair and half-closed eyes. Even in a moment like this, he rejoiced in disturbing (upsetting, annoying, exasperating) her. Even at four in the morning.

"Seriously, Damon," she grunted as she opened the door. "It's the middle of the night."

"I am well aware, Witchy," he quipped.

"What do you want?" she whined.

"I need you to locate Caroline for me."

"We should go on vacation, somewhere," Caroline said and Stefan's eyebrows rose in surprise.

Klaus had been an issue of the past only for two hours, but it was very perceptible that a weight had been lifted off Stefan's shoulders. An outside observer would have described them as the promo poster for "the happy couple"; they were laughing and eyeing each other with great complicity, walking down the streets of Bucharest.

Stefan was well aware of this, and though it did bother him that Caroline had managed to get under his skin, in this moment, he didn't care. Klaus had been this close to killing her, and it had taken half a second for Stefan to realize that it would make him suffer to lose her. So now, the only thing that mattered to him was to enjoy her in every way possible.

His emotions were not back on, so he couldn't blame his new attitude on his human side. Actually, he was softening towards her precisely because he wasn't feeling as a human would. He was still the Ripper, and the Ripper didn't feel. He obsessed over things and people. First it was blood, and then it was destroying Klaus. Now, it was Caroline.

She didn't know, since he did his best to conceal it – he wouldn't let her have so much power over him – but most nights, when his sleep got troubled with dreams of his past life in Mystic Falls, he would stay up, propped on his elbow and watch her sleep, caressing the curves of her face with his eyes in the darkness. Her peaceful breathing was enough to slow down his frantic heartbeat and the slightest brush of skins sometimes sent in brain into frenzy. She did act like a drug on him. He was addicted to her. He wanted to please her, because when she was upset, she refused him in every way that she could; he didn't like it.

"Where'd you wanna go?" he finally asked.

She clapped her hands in delight and went deep in thought, muttering names of exotic locations to herself.

"Choose carefully, my little bad girl," he teased.

"Anywhere you won't be a jackass?" she snapped because of her aversion to the nickname.

He had dropped Barbie, Blondie and the likes as soon as he found the best way to describe their relationship. When she asked why he called her that, he was honest. While the old Caroline was the epitome of pure and kind, the woman he had on his arm now was like, the feminine version of the Ripper: she was fierce and fearless. What she wanted, she took – may it be a fancy dress that she couldn't afford, the neck of a teenager, or his lips in the middle of the night. She was his little bad girl; she was what he had made of her. She didn't like this explanation; it was a little too close to the truth.

Stefan stopped walking and faced her. That is how it always was: he pulled, she pushed. She pushed, he pulled. They spent their entire time arguing over the most trivial matters, fighting about serious things. She had awakened him to the virtues of make-up sex.

Caroline spontaneously lowered her eyes, afraid that she had overstepped. Maybe she had overestimated his good dispositions, after all. He had been so moody over the last weeks that she never knew how to act around him.

Stefan smiled at her shyness.

"How about somewhere sunny where nobody can ever find us?" he said.

Her head shot up and he couldn't help another short laugh at her flabbergasted face.

"Really?" she said childishly.

"I'll tell you what," he said. "I deal with the flights, you have a shower and then we pick the most expensive restaurant in town for dinner."

"Sounds perfect!"

Later on, when they were back to their hotel, Stefan kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed – he grabbed Caroline's laptop that was half-closed on the bed. She had not given him any precise location, so he would just browse through the Internet and book whichever flight took off first thing the following day to the sunniest place possible. Money was obviously not an issue, so he'd book a fancy hotel, too. Yes, Caroline would love that.

"Hey," she called from the bathroom. "Maybe we could skip dinner."

"I thought you wanted to celebrate," he observed distractedly.

Actually, her mood was down, now. She was upset that Damon hadn't returned her last text message, and she wanted to stop thinking about it. She could visualize him frowning, with his judgmental eyes. He'd remind her that she promised to come home once Klaus would be have been dealt with, and ask her why she was breaking that promise. She wanted to forget about everything that was related to Damon, to Mystic Falls, to who she was becoming and why she was staying with Stefan. There was only one way to achieve that goal.

"I can think of better ways to celebrate," she said with purposeful innuendo.

"Is that so?" he said, his smile audible. "Enlighten me."

While she was telling him with all the wicked things she would do to him, Stefan had all the trouble in the world to focus on his research. She just knew how to get to him. Her words awakened memories from their steamy encounters and he found himself wondering how he'd lived without her for so long.

Just when he was about to toss the computer away and join her in the bathroom, something caught his attention. He was not exactly the nosy type, but the possessiveness he was feeling towards her drove him to check it out. Looking for what, he wasn't sure.

"I'm ready," she sang from the bathroom. "Are you?"

Caroline frowned when she heard no response.

"Stefan," she purred.

Her heels clicked on the floor as she very theatrically pushed the bathroom door open. She knew the sight would content him: he absolutely loved those stilettos and he had bought this matching pair of black lace underwear for her. However, the flirtatious look on her face shifted to surprise when she found the bedroom empty. The French door had been left open and she wondered what could have possessed Stefan to leave so abruptly.

"How rude," she yelled teasingly, just in case he was still in a surrounding area.

She gasped in horror when she found her laptop open on the bed.

"Stefan," she called again, loud enough to be heard from far away. "Stefan!"

She neared the computer and anxiously checked the page. "Sent Messages".

Stefan was sitting alone in the dark, where he belonged.

So his first intuition was right, after all. Caroline had been pretending with him, from the very beginning. Browsing through the history of conversation between her and Damon, he had trouble believing his eyes. This had been going on for months, from the very beginning.

Despite the anger this situation provoked in him, he couldn't help but admire her acting skills – she had royally fooled him. That fixed him for underestimating her. He hadn't seen it coming: she fed willingly, she leaned into the touch when he stroked her cheek, she snapped and killed people. He thought she was becoming more like him, while this had just been proof that she was being more "Caroline Forbes from Mystic Falls" than ever.

None of this made sense to him. Why did she bother? They used to be friends, yes, but they were not that close. Their friendship wasn't worth tearing her soul apart – he wasn't worth it. So why did she do it? As he carefully read all of the messages, he got his answer. She loved him. She never wrote the words, but he felt it in the way she talked about him, in the way Damon warned her not to get attached.

Stefan sighed. He had turned her into a monster and she loved him. How Caroline of her.

Two days passed before he could make a decision in regard to what attitude he should adopt towards Caroline.

Another thing that surprised him was the way Damon and Caroline interacted. She told his brother everything, and the two had developed a surprisingly close friendship as they struggled to bring him back from the edge. It was Damon who told Caroline how to handle his bad moods, how to deal with his thirst and obsession for revenge. It was Damon who made her feel better about herself when he did his best to break her. In Rio, in Barcelona, every time she killed, every time they kissed.

He didn't want Damon to make her feel better about herself. And with this oh-so-realization, something snapped inside of him, and he knew what he had to do.

There was a bar in town where they had a drink once, and she literally fell in love with it. Since she had checked out of the hotel, Stefan figured it was his best shot to find her. Maybe someone had seen her – such a cute blonde, she wouldn't have gone unnoticed. He tried her cellphone several times, but the number had been disconnected. She had vanished, and he wondered if she was looking for him, too.

His doubts were eased when he glimpsed her sitting alone at the bar. He sighed in relief, and the way it made him feel to be close to her again comforted him in the decision he had made.

Just when he was about to enter the bar and go to her, he saw a familiar figure nearing her.

Damon. It shouldn't surprise him. With their magical protection off, it was a wonder his brother hadn't found them yet.

Stefan decided to wait and listen. Maybe she didn't want to find him – maybe she was glad to be rid of him, in which case he would let her go home with his brother, where it'd take months to heal the wounds he had inflicted to her.

"You look terrible," Damon teased as he sat on the bar stool next to her.

Caroline jumped a little and her eyes widened when she saw him. She quickly turned around to make sure Damon was alone, and Stefan had to speed into the darkness to remain hidden. When she heaved a sigh of relief, he looked through the window again.

"I assume you asked Bonnie to find me," she said dully.

"You didn't exactly give me a choice," Damon fired back. "Where's Stefan?"

"Gone," she sighed.

Stefan couldn't tell if she was upset or relieved.

"He found our emails."

"Oh."

There was silence for a moment and Stefan noticed with annoyance that Damon didn't seem the least bothered about him having found out the truth. It shouldn't surprise him – his brother had a history of breaking his trust.

"So, he didn't kill you," Damon said. "Clearly, there's progress. The Ripper I know would have ripped your heart out."

"Doesn't help," Caroline snapped.

"I'm not here to comfort you, this time."

"What, then?"

"I'm bringing you home," Damon said. "You have no reason to stay here."

"Yes, I have," Caroline countered. "He's done with Klaus, now he –,"

"He'll realize he's been a psycho son-of-a-bitch and come home? Not gonna happen, Blondie."

"You don't know that. He has changed."

There was silence again. Caroline was avoiding making eye contact with Damon, and her shoulders were tense.

"You're in love with him," Damon said after a while. "You can't deny that."

She didn't deny it. She stayed silent and fixed her eyes on her drink. Stefan could tell she was annoyed, because Damon was right. This assumption made him feel just a little better.

"Caroline, look at me," Damon said. "Look at me."

She stayed still. Stefan watched as his brother extended his hand to her shoulder, but she moved away.

"Don't touch me," she said. "He'll smell you."

"He is gone," Damon countered. "You said so yourself."

"He'll come back," she said fiercely. "He'll come back and I'll fix him."

"Caroline, that's enough. You need to come home, now."

"Who do you think you are, showing up here and making decisions for me?" she snapped.

"I am your friend," he said shortly. "The guy who told you that you were strong when you let Stefan have your body for no reason at all, the one who said it was for the greater good if you killed people, the one who held your mother in his arms when she cried because you didn't even say goodbye to her."

She said nothing. Stefan felt a pang of guilt at the evocation of his misdeeds. Out of nowhere, the nickname "little bad girl" crossed his mind, and he gritted his teeth – he had indeed shaken her world. He had thought it wouldn't be so wrong, getting her on the wild side. But now that he had spent two days away from her, he could see what he had done: her hair was dull, her voice sounded wary. Her spark was gone.

"That's who I am, Caroline," Damon breathed. "I'm your friend. And, as your friend, I came to tell you that you need to come home, because this is over."

It was the moment Stefan chose to make his presence known.

"It is," he said, causing Caroline and Damon to turn around.

"Brother," Damon greeted; he moved an inch closer to Caroline, who had to bury the urge to roll her eyes. "Long time, no see."

"Relax, Damon," Stefan said peacefully. "I agree with you, this is over."

He looked at Caroline, who looked scared to death. He took a deep breath, and took a step towards her.

"We're going home."

In Chicago, he tried to scare her away, and she fooled him. In Rio, he reconnected her with her inner monster, and she let him. In Barcelona, he did his best to expose her, and she surprised him. In Bucharest, she made him feel. In Mystic Falls, they were both broken and dead inside, but they tried to love each other, and heal each other.

Everywhere I'm looking now

I'm surrounded by your embrace

Baby I can feel your halo

You know you're my saving grace.

Beyoncé - Halo