Unable to process what she saw before her, Caroline couldn't manage to will herself to action. Silas' arm, which had just moments before been holding her so tightly she couldn't move at all, was now draped loosely across her chest. She could break free. She could run to safety.

But this woman – this woman who was and wasn't her – seemed to have dislodged something, some bolt, now stuck irrevocably in the gears of Caroline's mind. The impossibility of it froze her in place. So she stood still and dumbfounded as Silas behind her.

The woman walked forward, and Caroline heard Silas' breath catch in his throat. The music had stopped, but it seemed there was a different musicality to be heard in the quiet, an eerie melody made of the wind rushing through the leaves and the chirping of crickets and the woman's slow footsteps on the damp grass.

The woman opened her mouth and spoke a single word.

"Silas," she said.

Caroline finally managed to react.

"What the f – "

Shhh, said Silas.

No, not Silas. Silas was standing right behind her, his mouth inches from her ear. The voice came from somewhere else. From inside her own head it seemed. Not Silas's voice. Stefan's? She looked around the lawn, expecting to see him in the darkness. Where are you? she thought desperately.

So quickly she almost missed it, the woman's eyes darted briefly over Caroline's face. That flash of contact was enough for Caroline to understand. Stafan was her, the woman who looked just like Caroline. The woman who stunned Silas into limp awe. The woman he called Yla.

Bite, Stefan said, his voice echoing inside her head.

Caroline understood. She lifted the arm around her and sunk her teeth into its flesh. Her mouth welled with warm blood. Her teeth sawed into bone, and she clamped her jaw tighter. Silas sounded a howl of pain and threw Caroline from him reflexively as swatting a mosquito. She smashed into the oak face-first, sure she'd broken her nose. The branches overhead moaned at the force and discarded a flurry of fluttering leaves. She wiped her mouth and spat again and again until she couldn't taste Silas' blood on her tongue anymore.

Caroline swung around to see a blur of action so fast she could swear it was all over in a second. Only in remembering would she be able to arrange the chain of events somehow compacted in an instant.

This is how it happened.

Stefan rushed Silas as soon as Caroline was out of the way. He somersaulted forward as Yla but rose as himself, the fallen plank now held firmly in his right hand.

Silas' face was all rage as he understood the trick that had been played, the weakness that had been used against him. He caught Stefan's arm in hand before the stake could be thrust into his heart. Silas brought his head crashing down on Stefan's chest. It landed with a resounding thud, the whooshing expulsion of air from Stefan's lungs, and the cracking of three ribs broken in unison.

As Stefan stumbled backwards, Silas took hold of the stake and without hesitation, plunged it into Stefan's chest.

Stefan's face seemed to break apart with the searing pain of the wood piercing his heart. And for a moment, Silas grinned victory. Veins began to blacken and protrude from Stefan's neck and the edges of his face. All his color faded, and his skin took on a stony shade of grey.

But he did not fall.

His blackened veins began to pulse. The black receded, giving way to a bright coursing red. His color returned, more vivid, as if his skin were giving off its own light in the dark. The whites of Stefan's eyes filled with blood.

Silas' expression fell, and he began to step back, but in a flash Stefan's arm shot forth, taking hold of Silas' wrist to keep him in place. Then, Stefan pulled Silas close. From the outside, it looked almost like a brotherly embrace.

But between them, the other end of the wooden plank still embedded in Stefan began to break the flesh of Silas' chest. Stefan pulled Silas tighter. He wrapped his arms around Silas, and the splintered, jagged wood pierced deeper, until it lodged itself in Silas' heart.

Silas' face altered. It journeyed through a series of expressions. Shock, then pain. And finally, understanding. As Silas felt the darkness opening to swallow him, he saw the meaning of the minds blocked from his, of the houses he could no longer enter. Of Yla, who was never really there, and of Stefan's power to take on her visage. He did not see his life flash before his eyes. He saw only glimpses of his mistakes, missteps and miscalculations made of his own hubris.

The last words he heard were Stefan's, and Silas heard them not with his ears, but in his head.

My shadow self, Stefan said. He pulled the stake from his chest and let it fall with Silas' body to the ground.

Stefan watched the life drip from Silas until his form was soulless and still as a statue. He felt relief, but beneath it lie a sadness that seemed to hum softly in his bones. He could still picture the look on Silas' face when he saw Stefan as Yla emerge from the shadows. The sorrow and hope that overtook him was a tragic, private thing exposed. And ultimately it was used to kill him. Silas had been broken long before he came into their lives. He'd held himself together with cruelty and revenge for so long. And now he was gone.

And Stefan knew where he was going. A place where he'd never escape the ever-present shrine. His lover's lifeless body on an altar of rot and decay. Stefan felt relief, yes. And pity.

When he looked up, he saw faces staring back at him. Watching, waiting.

The red of his eyes gave way to white, and his veins sank below the surface of his skin. He looked himself again.

When he met Caroline's eyes, he felt the pull of an undeniable force. He couldn't remember crossing the lawn, but in the next instant she was in his arms. He kissed her on the mouth, hard. And he felt her arms strong around him, pulling him closer.

A few feet away, Elena closed her mouth, which had somehow fallen open. She looked away from the kiss, out of politeness and something else she couldn't bring herself to name. She'd taken a step to meet him when he rushed forward. And she felt a pinch along the nerves of her spine when she realized he hadn't seen her at all, a painful punctuation of their end and an odd alienating reminder of the place she no longer held. She pushed it down and walked to Damon, kissing his cheek and letting her head fall heavy on his shoulder. His arms weren't so familiar as Stefan's, but she felt better.

Stefan didn't look away from Caroline, but he called to his brother. "Damon - "

"I'll take care of the body," Damon said, giving a dismissive wave of understanding.

Stefan took Caroline's hand in his and pulled her along. She held his arm to keep his pace. Her eyes didn't leave his face as they walked, so it wasn't until they arrived that she realized their destination. They were at her front porch when he released her. He glanced from her eyes to the front door and took a step back, away from her.

His message was clear. He'd made the first move. He chased after her when she ran away, laid his heart bare while she was too afraid to do the same. Whatever came next, it was her choice.

Caroline felt such an odd mixture of fear and joy rush through her, giving her a buzzing, heady sensation. She felt untethered, like she might float off in the night.

Too quickly, too shakily, she held out her hand. But when he took it, she felt her muscles steady, felt the solidity of her feet on the ground.

He followed as she led him up the porch steps. Halfway up, he yanked her hand, and she fell into his body. He lifted his fingers to her face, brushing them across her cheek and through her hair. He kissed her, slowly and deeply.

He felt the fit of her mouth on his, the pressure of her body, the frantic pulse beneath her skin. He parted her lips with his tongue and discovered she tasted sweet and rich. She whispered his name, and his whole body seemed to feel her voice. He couldn't understand it. He felt so painfully, blissfully human.

He couldn't remember how they found Caroline's bed, who threw who against the mattress. And he wanted to remember. He wanted to remember everything.

"Slow," he said, and it sounded like a plea. "Slow."

Slow enough to feel every jumping heartbeat, every kiss, every whisper of fingertips over skin.

They go slow.

The morning sun washed the room in pale, clear light. Caroline brought her hands overhead and stretched herself in a long straight line. Stefan roused and rolled toward her.

"You okay?" he asked.

She exhaled in a dramatic whoosh of air through puckered lips.

"Am I okay?" She repeated. "Are you kidding me?" The corners of her mouth pulled up involuntarily.

"It's like - I don't know if you remember from when you were human – "

"Cause I'm so very, very old?" he teased.

She swatted his arm and continued. "Do you remember what it felt like to walk out into sunlight?"

He smiled. "We're in the sun now," he remarked, indicating the open window with a tilt of his head.

"No," she said. "Not like being in the sun with the rings. They let us be in the sun by not feeling it. I'm talking about feeling it, when you first walk outside, how it's like walking into this bright warmth. Feeling it on you, then feeling like it's getting in you, through your skin."

He grinned. "So, that was like walking into sunlight?"

She laughed and rolled over, straddling him. "No," she said. "That was like being on the freaking surface of the sun."

He laid back and looked up at her and brushed a hand through her hair. She took it and brought it to her lips.

"What do you think it means?" she asked. "That she looked like me?" They'd talked a good deal throughout the night, between long stretches of not talking at all. He told her about the shrine, about the woman that lie atop it.

"I don't think it means anything," he said. "I'm not living through doppelgangers and past lives anymore." He took her hands in his, and interlaced their fingers. "I'd much rather live in this one."

She smiled and looked down on him, and Stefan was sure he had somehow found a perfect moment in time.

"I was going to go away," he said. "Before Silas put me in the lake. I was leaving town."

Her instinct at his confession was to be hurt that he would leave her all alone, leave her without saying goodbye. But she found she couldn't hold the anger looking into his eyes.

"Why?" she asked.

He sighed. "I felt... in the way, I guess. Of everyone."

"You weren't ever in my way," she said quietly.

"I think I still want to go," he said. "But I want you to come with me."

She smiled, but shook her head at the suggestion. "Just leave town? And go where?"

"Anywhere," he answered. "I know that you have college, and you should go. Really, I want you to go. But maybe you could put it off. You have time, and we have time. And it's possible that no one's gonna try to kill us, at least for a little while. Maybe we should enjoy it. Together."

She buried her smile in her shoulder. She intended to say 'maybe'. She intended to tell him she'd think about it, and maybe work her schedule around a quick getaway. Instead, she found herself saying simply, "Okay."

"Okay?" he grinned widely."

"Okay!" she explained with a wide grin.

"And, in the meantime, do you want to go back?" he asked.

"Back where?" she said.

He placed an arm around her back and sat with her legs around his waist so their faces met. Stefan smiled slyly.

"The surface of the sun," he said.