Author's Notes: Sorry for the long wait. Writer's block is a complete bitch and I had more plot bunnies than I knew what to do with. Thank you for the reviews and the favorites. It definitely makes my day when I get an email saying that I got a new review or that someone followed and/or favorited my story.

Also, thank you, Uppity Bitch (also known as supremeuppityone) and Lynyrd Lionheart (aka lynyrdwrites) and lalainajanes, for listening to me and my rambling on tumblr.

willdawg992003 and Guest: This story is mainly told from Caroline's point of view. So, whatever did happen with the Angel Investigations team and with Spike's soul and the amulet, Caroline doesn't really know and I'm pretty sure that, since she is a stranger who isn't going to stick around with them, they're not going to tell her their whole life story. As for the Spike's soul in the amulet, Wolfram & Hart could always mail the amulet back to Angel just to mess with him.

Standard disclaimers apply. Happy reading!

A Nice Place to Visit

Part I

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The Vampire (I)

"Bonnie, I just got your message. What the hell's going on?" Caroline demanded as the blonde vampire stormed into the Salvatore boarding house. She stopped in her tracks when she spied her dark-haired friend hunched over a cauldron in the middle of the living room with a grimoire laying on a bookstand nearby.

"I found a spell that could help us get rid of the Originals," Bonnie answered as she looked up from the old tome. Her eyes sparkled in excitement.

Caroline's stomach clenched. A sense of foreboding hovered over her. It couldn't be that easy, she thought. "Really?" she asked, trying to sound casual. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure," the witch admitted, "but it roughly translates into a summoning spell."

"Roughly?" Caroline parroted. Her voice rose higher in irritation. "You mean you're not sure? What the hell, Bonnie?!"

Bonnie turned to her. "Well excuse me but I was in a rush!" she said defensively. "Klaus wants to use Elena as a blood bag to make more hybrids and Damon and Stefan keep pressuring me to find a way to save Elena. Now are you going to help me or not?"

Caroline huffed. "What do you need me to do?" she asked, trying (and failing) to keep the disgruntlement out of her tone.

Bonnie handed Caroline a mortar and pestle. "Just crush the herbs and add it to the cauldron."

The vampire grabbed the mortar and pestle and started crushing the ingredients vigorously.

It's just typical that every supernatural crisis is always centered around little-miss-perfect-Elena. Why is everyone willing to fall on their swords for her? Caroline angrily thought. Like, is it worth hundreds, thousands, of lives to die just for one girl?! Nobody even bothered to do everything they could to protect me from the damn Salvadouche! Nobody thought it would be a good idea to keep me in the loop and let me know about vampires! I was the last to know and I had to find out the hard way. I bet Bonnie already told Elena and the Salvatores about her plan to do this spell and didn't bother to tell me until she needed an extra set of hands.

As the vampire finished crushing the dried herbs, she scooped up the now powdered plants. For once, I wish I had friends who actually values me and don't treat me as an afterthought, she thought as she dropped the last ingredient into the cauldron.

The cauldron exploded. Smoke poured out.

"What the hell, Caroline?" Bonnie turned her attention to the blonde vampire, coughing and frantically waving her hands to fan the smoke away.

The brunette stopped short. The living room was deserted.

"Caroline?" Bonnie asked into the empty living room. "Are you still here?"

Silence.

"Caroline?"

The Slayer (I)

There were a couple of things Caroline picked up since she was called as a Slayer. One, Dawn, for one reason or another, would always get kidnapped on a Tuesday. Two, Caroline was a magnet for morally ambiguous supernatural creatures who may or may not be evil. And three, never say the W-word.

It was the last bit that had the blonde Slayer standing in a room she hadn't occupied in over year. With the exception of a few photos that she knew she hadn't taken, her bedroom hadn't changed much since she was seventeen.

"What the hell?" Caroline growled. She automatically grabbed her phone from her jacket pocket and dialed Dawn's number.

"The number you have dialed is not in service," the automated voice said.

Caroline disconnected the call with a hard press of her thumb. "Great, just great," she muttered. She inwardly cursed as she remembered what brought her to the room she didn't think she would set foot in ever again, not since she discovered that her mother and her friends knew about vampires and never bothered to tell her.

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"It's quiet out here," Caroline said as she and Dawn were patrolling the cemetery near Devon. Night had fallen on the English countryside and the duo were armed with flashlights, stakes, and a sword as they did their nightly sentry. She turned to her friend. "Where's Wes?"

"With Katherine and Enzo," Dawn answered. The brunette junior Watcher looked at her phone, checking the group text. "Enzo's complaining that there isn't any action. Katherine is whining about Wes lecturing them. And Wes is complaining that, for immortals who are centuries older than him, they're acting like a bunch of children."

"So, it's quiet," Caroline summarized.

"It's quiet," Dawn agreed.

If someone had told a seventeen-year-old Caroline that monsters existed and that she was destined to fight the forces of evil, she would've had that person checked into a mental hospital. But everything changed when she woke up in the hospital and found Katherine hovering over her hospital bed and trying to suffocate her with a pillow. Caroline's quick reflexes and superhuman strength kept the Petrova doppelganger from killing her.

After that incident, the curtains surrounding Caroline's life unraveled. Vampires were real and her so-called friends and her mother knew but never bothered to tell her. Angry, hurt, and betrayed, she left.

A year had passed since she ran away to Los Angeles and met Wesley and Dawn and Xander who told her that she was a Slayer, a year since she left her small town life to go with them to England to learn more about what being a Slayer meant. Since then, Wesley had become Caroline's Watcher, guiding her and ensuring that she survived the never-ending battle between good and evil. Since then, Caroline rescued and befriended a vampire man-child with an affinity for strong, warrior-women and a huge allergy to big boy underwear. And, for some odd reason, she was friends with her attempted murderer—it probably helped that Katherine was no longer a vampire, just an immortal something.

"So, what are your plans?" Dawn's voice interrupted the Slayer's thoughts.

"For what?" Caroline asked, puzzled.

"College? It's almost that time to start applying and you haven't even told me about which schools you were planning on applying. And I know you. You would've been preparing for this since we've set foot on English soil," Dawn explained.

The blonde shrugged. "I do have a list of schools made. My top choices are UCLA and Tulane."

Dawn frowned. "Why Tulane?"

"Giles mentioned there was a hellmouth there."

They stopped in front of a statue of an angel. "Okay, but where do you want to go?" Dawn asked.

"I don't know," Caroline answered. She started pacing. "Like, before everything happened, I had all these plans. I wanted to get out of Mystic Falls, see the world, and maybe fall in love. I wanted to make a mark on the world! And then I got Called and I don't even know if I can do any of those things!"

Dawn smiled in sympathy. "Do you miss Mystic Falls?"

Caroline paused in her pacing. Did she? "Sometimes," she admitted, after a silence, "when I'm patrolling and I would think about my mom. If she could see me now, what would she think?"

"Are you considering applying to Whitmore College?" her friend asked. "It's close to Mystic Falls."

"Oh, god, no." Caroline made a face. "Even before I was Called, I didn't want to stay in Mystic Falls. I was an insecure, neurotic control freak and, no matter how hard I tried or how hard I worked, everyone always wanted Elena."

Dawn hummed in commiseration. "Yeah, I remember you telling me about her. I still don't get what makes her so special."

Caroline gestured. "I know, right?!" She continued to pace. Like, I'm still a neurotic control freak now. But I can take care of myself. I don't need everyone falling all over themselves trying to save me! I'm not some damsel in distress and I just wish they could see that I'm not just some freaking Barbie doll who's just a pretty face."

Before she realized it, her surroundings blurred. She vaguely heard Dawn's panicked cry. When her vision cleared, the eighteen-year-old Slayer found herself standing in the room she hadn't occupied in over a year.

"What the hell?"