[TVD] Leave a Light On 3/?: I Woke Up a Sinner, You Walked Out the Door

[tmbreck]

Title: Leave a Light On: I Woke Up a Sinner, You Walked Out the Door
Author: tmbreck / eclectic_tongue / eclectic / Lilbreck
Beta: velvetwhip
Characters: Bonnie Bennett, Caroline Forbes, Elena Gilbert, Elizabeth Forbes, Sheila Bennett, Stefan Salvatore
Rating: FRT
Word Count: 3,749
A/N: A huge thanks, as always, goes to my wonderful beta velvetwhip. This time more so than others, since she's being forced to read fanfic for a show she has no interest in watching. Though I list Elena, she's only in for a quick scene, and Stefan doesn't really get much in the way of dialog.

Caroline was exhausted, and it wasn't just from lack of sleep. She had been right when she thought that getting Bonnie to believe what was going on wouldn't be easy. It had taken Sheila physically grabbing Bonnie's arm and forcing her to grab hold of her friend to get her to admit that something at least had changed.

The same warmth that had come over her when she was in contact with Sheila once again was there when Bonnie's hand covered her arm. As she looked into Bonnie's eyes, she finally figured out that the warmth was home. It was family.

After retelling her story –or rather, the bare bones of her story—and shedding a few tears over what had been lost, she left Bonnie and Sheila as they started to talk about the basics of magic. That really wasn't her area, and she had some family bonding to get an early start with, as well as some much needed sleep to finally catch up on.

Caroline entered her home and headed straight toward the kitchen, pausing only long enough to throw her purse on her bed after taking out her cell phone. Since the sheriff's squad car hadn't been in the drive when she pulled in, it was a safe bet her mother wasn't home yet, which meant that dinner definitely hadn't been started. Standing in front of the open cupboards, she dialed her mother's number and tried to decide what they should eat.

Later that night, still trying to swallow down the lump in her throat from the surprise and suspicion in her mother's voice and face at the unplanned and rare family night, she got ready for sleep and crawled into bed. Across town, while Caroline was dreaming of time paradoxes and the difference between what had happened and what was yet to happen, Sheila was pulling up in front of the Salvatore boarding house. On the passenger's seat, there was a black medical bag that contained some supplies she had procured from the hospital by less than ethical means.

Time was short and the necessity was high. There were a hand full of very powerful vampires on the way, and what they were doing would save lives and, hopefully, keep them from having to fight said vampires.

Pushing down the memory of her daughter running away from the fallout of such a fight, Sheila brought herself firmly back to the here and now. Grabbing the bag, she got out of the car and strode purposefully to the front door. This was not a time for doubt or fear, she had to make sure this vampire knew better than to cross her or her family. Regardless of how glowing Caroline's praises were, this was a different version of Stefan Salvatore.

With that in mind, Sheila didn't bother with knocking. In a show of power meant to intimidate, she forced the doors to open before she was near them, catching the approaching vampire by surprise. Pulling an air of superiority and condescension around her that she usually reserved for students who thought they could get an easy grade by taking her class, she walked through the doorway and past a very confused Stefan.

As she strode through the hallway and into the front room, she reached out with her senses and could feel him behind her like a cold void. She experienced a small pang at the thought of having Caroline feel like that. She mentally pushed down the thought with the knowledge that it was all for the greater good. She had to trust that, whatever else had happened to Bonnie, she hadn't been so far gone that she would send back someone who couldn't handle being a vampire.

"Let's skip the part where you pretend you don't know what I am."

Sitting down on a couch, she indicated the one across from her with a slight tilt of her head. When he sat down and raised an enquiring eyebrow at her –it could have been projecting, but she chose to believe it was an arrogant and condescending eyebrow raise—she placed the medical bag on the coffee table between them.

"We're also going to skip past the part where you try and pretend you're not a vampire. I'm not here to run you out of town, since I have it on very good authority that any trouble we've been having around here is not your doing. However, you being allowed to stay here and play at being a high-school student comes at a price. Specifically, your blood. It's a onetime transaction, non-negotiable."

With this she pushed the bag closer to Stefan, and he automatically reached for it. Opening it, he pulled out the red topped collection tube, tourniquet, and syringe. Putting the items back in the bag, he looked up at Sheila.

"What exactly will you be using this for?"

With her own raised eyebrow and a quirk of her lips she answered honestly, if a bit dryly, "Avoiding a small war, preventing a supernatural meltdown, and saving lives."

Stefan gave a small laugh and nodded his head as if to say that he didn't believe her but would play along.

"All of that with one dose of blood?"

Sheila tilted her head to acknowledge the absurdity of her answer before leaning forward a bit.

"The blood is just the first step, the rest you don't need to worry about." Gesturing toward the bag, she continued, "Now, can you do that yourself, or do you need some help?"

It turned out that Stefan was perfectly able to draw his own blood. When he was done, Sheila took the filled tube from him, placing it back in the bag while leaving the remainder of what she had brought for him to dispose of. Standing up, she held out her hand to shake, just to get her own feel for him. As his hand closed over hers, she felt a bone-deep chill that still lacked any malice.

"I'll trust you not to harm anyone in this town. However, if the vampire who is currently wasting away in your basement manages to get out and hurt Caroline, or anyone, again, you and he will have one pissed off witch to answer to.

"Also, you might want to convince Zach, who I know damn well is listening in, to take a vacation. Things are about to get very dangerous around here, especially for the family of anyone supernatural."

She turned toward the front hallway, where Zach was just coming around the corner with a sheepish look on his face.

"I'm going to need your number, though, in case I need you to invite anyone in." She interrupted his protest, "If I call you, Salvatore, follow my instructions to the letter, because it will be a life or death matter."

Knowing that she had said all she had come to say, she headed for the front door. However, she couldn't resist the urge to keep Stefan on his toes. Turning back with a completely deadpan expression, she fired one last parting shot.

"And those couches are absolutely hideous. You should really look into replacing them."

The entire car ride home Sheila wrestled with the thought of helping Caroline turn. It wasn't even her becoming a vampire that truly weighed on the witch's conscious, it was the thought of all the responsibility the teenager was taking on. She was just a baby; she should be thinking about boys, and clothes, and school, not breaking curses, saving lives, and preventing a supernatural shit storm from raining down on the world.

Staring at her own face in the mirror as she brushed her teeth, she had to question if she was really doing what was best, or if she was just being selfish. Was she only going along with this and letting Caroline take on this load so that she and her granddaughter would live? There was no way that she would be able to answer that question herself. As she slipped underneath her covers, she decided to have a long talk with the girl and see if there wasn't another way to do this.

Morning found Sheila still unsure about how right it was to let Caroline do all the heavy lifting. However, the girl in question was as far from unsure as anyone could get. Having been woken up by a phone call from Bonnie in which she was promised that her best friend would not leave her side during the upcoming car wash, she was no longer afraid of the looming specter of Damon Salvatore.

She even had a decent plan to snag the Gilbert watch from Elena's house. Granted, she would be using a combination of steamrolling over any objections to having girl's day and playing the sympathy card, but it was all for a good cause. All she needed to do was convince Elena to make a quick run for some random thing while Caroline stayed back to get everything ready for their female bonding.

Caroline hadn't counted on the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as Elena gave her pitying looks and kept eyeing the places that she knew had bruises and bites. It was because of that feeling that she really didn't have to fake the quaver in her voice or the water in her eyes. When it became too much, she told Elena that she needed a minute to herself and asked if Elena could make a run for the dip that she forgot.

Hearing the front door close behind her friend, Caroline took a deep breath and headed to Jeremy's room. Ignoring the overwhelming smell of teenage boy and sweaty clothes –was it an unwritten law that boys were not allowed to actually remove dirty laundry from their rooms?—Caroline searched as quickly as she could. After what seemed like forever, but was probably only ten minutes, she found it pretty much out in the open. Seriously?

By the time Elena got back, Caroline was camped out on the living room couch with everything set up –save the dip of course. The day went pretty smoothly after that, disregarding the looks Elena would constantly give her. By the time she left for home, she had remembered why she and Elena were friends, even if they were not best friends.

The fun night was interrupted when she got a call from Sheila letting her know that she had the vampire blood they needed and a plan for how to turn her without anyone being the wiser. Caroline would be lying if she said that she wasn't relieved to have someone else helping her plan everything out. Especially considering that her plan had been to use the Gilbert watch to find a vampire to capture and drain. Not the most brilliant plan, but she was working with what she had while trying not to involve Stefan any sooner than necessary.

She got home that night just in time to find her mom cooking dinner. When Liz nervously explained that she was cooking for two just in case Caroline got back in time, Caroline could feel the guilt curling in her stomach. Yes, at times she had been a crappy daughter, she could freely admit that. However, things were going to change a lot sooner this time around. Beginning with more time spent alone together without arguing.

"Since you're not working tomorrow, I figured we could do a picnic in the park for lunch, just you and me."

Her mother was a lot of things, but oblivious was never one of them. She set down her fork and she finished chewing the heavily lemon flavored chicken –which Caroline had managed not to point out because she was committed to being a better daughter—and raised a very suspicious eyebrow at Caroline.

"Now, either you're a pod person, or something is very wrong. I know we haven't been close, but I'd like you to tell me if there is something bad enough that you feel the need to work this hard at being a family."

And there was the guilt again. She couldn't share everything with her mom –at least not yet—but she could do her best not to lie. However, she found herself unable to meet her mother's eyes as she began to explain.

"Recently, I've been through a very rough patch. Some very bad things have gone down that I will explain to you one day. Soon. Just… coming through the other side of it, I realized that there were a lot of things that I didn't like about myself."

At this point, though she knew it would probably lead to her crying, Caroline looked up at her mother to make sure that she knew this was a real thing, not just a passing phase.

"One of those things that I didn't like was how hard I made it for you to be my mom. I decided that I needed to change that."

When the tears started, Liz was up and around the table, throwing her arms around her daughter without hesitation. Caroline wrapped her arms around her mother in return prayed that she could keep this and not lose it after she turned and her mom found out. Pulling back and gently wiping under her eyes, she changed the subject with a slight laugh.

"Next weekend I won't be able to do this. Bonnie and I are doing a bonding weekend at her grams' house. I'm trying to be a better friend as well."

After the emotional interruption, dinner –and the rest of the evening—went on without incident. The next night, however, Caroline received an unwanted visitor.

She was talking on the phone with Tiki and doing a pretty good job of ignoring the fact that this was a conversation she had already been through when she heard a familiar, if roughened voice. Looking up into the mirror, she saw the shadow of a man. When she turned around and no one was there, she remembered all too well what was happening. Quickly getting off the phone, she made her way over to her bed and waited with the large throw she had placed there earlier and the cage she had bought for the occasion.

It didn't take long before Damon's pet crow showed up. Caroline didn't respond when it cawed at her, she only stared at it. When it got frustrated that she wasn't following, it flew over to land on her bed. She quickly threw the blanket over the bird and wrestled with it until she was sure there would be no escape. She then maneuvered the crow –blanket and all—into the cage at her feet. The entire time Caroline was attempting all of this, the crow never stopped cawing. The noise, of course, caught her mother's attention.

Thank goodness she was good at planning ahead. Her mother seemed a bit off-put by her daughter's story about a stalker crow and having plans to take it to the vet –because who knew if it was someone's pet—but she didn't seem suspicious.

One day, she wouldn't have to lie to her mom.

The following day at the car wash, just as Caroline had feared, Damon did try and call her. However, though she felt it, she was more than able to resist the pull. She and Bonnie both decided it had to be because of the part of Bonnie –the other Bonnie… future Bonnie… they really hadn't decided what to call her—had sent back with Caroline to protect her. They both also decided it would still be best to run their theory past Sheila.

"I do need to head over there, though, to make sure Zack doesn't go down to the basement and accidently free Damon."

At this, Bonnie shook her head and reassured Caroline, "No need. Grams convinced Zach that he needed to take a vacation. Though she did tell him that he needed to stay in touch for invite purposes. He drove out of town this morning."

Caroline didn't even bother to try to hide her impressed grin.

"Your grams is a bit of a badass, you know that."

Bonnie nodded solemnly, though the effect was spoiled by the grin trying to break through her serious facade.

"It's a Bennett trait."

There was a small moment of panic later on when Bonnie first drenched Tiki and then set fire to water and torched a car. Okay, maybe a bit more than a small moment. More like a panicked fleeing quietly from the scene which Caroline covered for. Later that night, when Caroline dropped Damon’s crow off at Sheila’s, Bonnie was there. Bonnie let her know that she was fine and was now focusing on controlling her emotions in regards to her magic.

Caroline stopped herself from mentioning how much alike it was for new witches and new vampires when it came to that.

The rest of the week passed uneventfully. Caroline found herself relieved when she saw Vicki roaming the halls at school. When Bonnie noticed, she had to explain about what had happened to the other girl. She was quick to reassure her that there would be none of that this weekend.

"Vicki only had her instincts and a monster to guide her when she woke up not knowing what she was. I have experience with this, and I know exactly what I'm getting into. Plus, I have you and your grams there to help me!"

Though Caroline did her best to reassure Bonnie, she was haunted by the memory of how her friend had abandoned her before. She knew that it wasn't done maliciously, but it still hurt. She could only hope that the lack of killing would stop that from happening this time.

Wednesday found Sheila on her front porch wearing a lovely purple top and a very serious expression. After coffee was poured –the Forbes household did not run on tea—Sheila cut right to the chase. Apparently, Jeremy was right when he had said that this wasn't Sunnydale –adults didn't just casually hand over responsibility for saving the world to teenagers. When she began talking about how she didn't feel right leaving a teenager to do so much alone, Caroline had to stop her.

"The thing is, I'm not doing this alone. When I first turned, no one was there to teach me how to control myself. No one was even there to tell me what I was. But this time around, I know what is going on."

Reaching across the table for Sheila's hands, Caroline continued, "I may be the one who was sent back with all this information, but I have you and Bonnie to help me figure out how to get this all to work. This is not a one woman show, so I need you to understand that you're not pushing off anything on me. We're in this together, you've made sure of that."

Sheila stayed a bit longer after that to explain the plan for the weekend. Apparently, the cover story was that Sheila was taking Bonnie to the college so she could see exactly what her grams did, and Caroline was there for moral support and to make sure that the two got enough shopping time in. The former was Sheila's idea, the later was Caroline's.

Early Friday evening, as she was downing a tube of Stefan's blood and watching Sheila prepare some vile concoction she promised would put Caroline to sleep and kill her before the blood could heal her, she found herself once again worried that Bonnie would not handle her turning very well. She quickly gulped down the fatal brew, handed the glass back to Sheila, and laid down. Holding out her hand to Bonnie and smiling when her friend squeezed tightly, she drifted off to sleep.

As Caroline's body died and the vampire blood went to work changing her, Sheila and Bonnie took turns watching over their friend. Someone had to be awake when she came to in order to ensure she drank from the blood bags they had been filling with their blood all this week. Bonnie hadn't felt right stealing the bags from the hospital, so they had compromised. In the early hours of the morning, Bonnie woke her grams up for their shift change and drifted off to sleep facing Caroline's sleeping –don't think dead, never think dead—body on the other bed.

When the dream came, it was vivid and awful. Bonnie made her way through a large and unfamiliar house. It felt like one of the ostentatious homes that the richer founding families would live in. Coming to a door at the end of a long corridor, she felt dread settle in. She knew that she didn't want to open the door, but she also knew that she had to face what was on the other side.

Quickly yanking open the door, Bonnie felt a scream catch in her throat. In the middle of the floor lay a black man who looked to be in his thirties. However, it was very hard to tell because of the blonde-haired woman crouched over him with her face buried in his neck as she growled. Bonnie tried to back out, but she must have made some noise, because the woman looked up.

It was Caroline.

It was Caroline, but it wasn't. It was a beast who may have once looked like Caroline, but no longer. Her eyes were somewhere between black and red and she had fangs. The worst part, though, was that her entire lower face was covered in blood. This wasn't Caroline, this was some demon impersonator, and she had helped it kill!

Bonnie's heart was pounding in her chest when she woke up. Blinking open her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of her grams handing a blood bag to Caroline. However, when Caroline turned, it wasn't the concerned face of a friend she saw. The only thing she could see was Caroline's face covered in blood as she crouched over her victim.

Scrambling off side of the bed farthest from her best friend, Bonnie stood for a moment, frozen and torn.

"I'm sorry. I just… I can't…"

Unable to finish, she raced to the door, grabbing her grams' car keys on the way. She wanted to support her friend, but she couldn't with that nightmare fresh in her head.