Valerie and Elena drape a white cover over an armchair. Jeremy and them pour paint into a paint trough and begin to paint the room. Stefan walks in. "Going darker, huh?" Elena looks around. "It's the only color we had."

"That's what happens when you decide to paint your dead guardian's room in the middle of the night." Stefan chuckled "I don't suppose anyone tried to talk you guys out of doing this so soon." Valerie sighed "We have to keep moving. Otherwise we'll start thinking and we don't want to think."

Stefan nodded "Want a hand?" Jeremy looked between Elena and Stefan "So, are you two like back together or something?"

Elena glared at him "What? No, Jer, we're just..." Stefan continued "I - I was just checking up on you guys. Seeing how you were doing, after everything."

"We're fine. But, if you are trying to be the good guy again, why don't you do the right thing and give us one day. Just one day without any vampires in it." Jeremy leaves the room. Elena drops her paint roller in a trough and walks towards Stefan. "He didn't mean that."

Stefan nodded "Yeah, yeah he did." The doorbell rings. Valerie sends Stefan an apologetic smile. "I'll get that." Stefan goes downstairs and answers the door. Damon is holding Bonnie by the arm. She has a bite mark on her neck which is still dripping blood. "We have a problem."

Meanwhile, as Valerie and Elena are still painting the walls, Elena receives a call. She checks her phone and it says it's from Alaric. Her breath caught in her throat as she showed Valerie her phone. Valerie snatched the phone and answered it "Whoever this is, it's not funny." The person on the other end replied "Valerie, who else would it be?"

She froze and passed the phone to Elena "Rick?" Her eyes widened. "Listen carefully, I'm at the school, I have Caroline, and if you wanna keep her alive, I need you to get into your car and come down here right away, if you tell anyone where you're going, I will kill her. Oh and bring Valerie." Elena picked up her bag immediately. "Valerie we need to go." Valerie turned to her "what's going on?"

Elena sighed "I'll explain in the car."

---

Elena and Valerie walked into the school. They heard a whimper from one of the classrooms and ran towards it. They stopped at the doorway seeing Alaric sat in a car and Caroline tied up with a pencil staked in each hand.

"Caroline!" Valerie glared at Alaric "Let her go now, Alaric!" Alaric points to Caroline "Free her yourself." Valerie and Alaric stare at each other.

Then, Elena cautiously walks over to Caroline. She gets down and strokes Caroline's arm soothingly. She starts to gently pull the pencil out of one of Caroline's hands, but Alaric comes up and slams the pencil back down into her hand. Caroline screams and Elena gets up.

"You said that you would let her go!" Valerie yelled out "How many times do I have to tell you, Stop trusting vampires!"

Alaric then took off the piece of fabric tied around Caroline's mouth and dipped it in more Vervain. He walked over to her, "No, no more, please, no more!" She groaned.

Valerie stands up "Alaric stop!" Alaric pushes her back into a seat.

"Sit down! This keeps the vervain in her system. It's like inhaling razorblades with every breath." Alaric puts the cloth back in Caroline's mouth. Her skin begins to smoke and burn. She cries and screams in pain. Elena touches her arm "Why are you doing this?"

Alaric picks up a stake "To make it easier on you when you put her out of her misery." Alaric then walks towards Elena. "What?! No!" Alaric furrowed his brows "Isn't this what you wanted, Elena? For me to teach you how to kill a vampire?"

Alaric holds out the white oak stake towards her. "Well, here's a vampire, Elena. Kill her."

Elena shook her head "This isn't what I want." Alaric turned serious "Of course it is. All those hours you spent training, getting stronger, you could be a hunter, Elena. But you've never actually staked a vampire through the heart."

He persistently holds out the stake. Elena stares at it. "Alaric, you don't have to do this" Valerie tried but Alaric fired back "of course I do."

Stefan and Klaus pulled up at the school "Abby just turned up." Stefan told Klaus "good, perhaps this plan won't be an epic failure after all." Klaus nodded his head towards Stefan "you know if this does go off and we drop the history teacher in the Atlantic I'm still leaving with Elena."

Stefan jutted his chin out and turned to face him "I'll go with you" Klaus smiles "really? What's the catch?" Stefan was now fully turned towards him "there's no catch, I turned my back on everything here to make sure Elena stays safe."

Klaus nods "and that's what makes you the better option, it's a shame it's not easier for Elena to see that, I mean personally I think she's wasting her time with Damon." Stefan laughs in recognition "you know all this time you've spent trying to get me and my brother to hate each other, it's actually had the opposite effect."

Klaus laughs and stands up from the car "has it? Has it really? Well than perhaps I should get Elena to decide which Salvatore joins us, seeing as you and Damon are so close." Stefan shook his head "ah, go for it, Damon and I have been through hell of a lot worse than you."

Elena and Valerie were still in the classroom with Alaric. "Why are you doing this?" He faced her "because you need me, because you're both 18 year old girls without parents or guidance or any sense of right and wrong anymore." Valerie spoke up "look at you, how is this right?"

Alaric pointed the stake towards Caroline "she's a murderer, she told me she killed someone and liked it. Now how is that right? Listen Elena and Valerie, you're parents lead the council, it was their lives mission to keep this town safe. They were dead six months before you undid it all."

"You don't know anything about them." Valerie hissed at him. "Why, am I wrong? Do you actually think that they'd be proud of you?" Alaric kneels down in front of her. "If you don't side with the humans, you're just as bad as them. Now kill her."

Alaric hands her the stake. "Or I'll do it for you and I'll make it hurt. Get up!" Alaric grabs Valerie's arm and drags her to infront of Caroline. He makes her take the stake. She states at the stake and tries to stake Alaric instead. Alaric catches it. "I thought I taught you better than that."

Elena had snuck behind him. "You did." He snapped his face over to her as she smashed a vervain bottle on his face. Whilst he Knelt down and held his face in pain, Valerie and Elena untied Caroline. "Go get help." They made a run for it but Elena got trapped by Alaric.

Caroline flashed out of the school as Valerie ran as fast as she could. As she ran she was held and flashed out of the school. Thinking it was Alaric she kicked him in the shine and tried to escape. "Shhh. It's okay, it's okay. It's me." He takes his hand off of her mouth. Realising it was Klaus she calmed down.

"It's okay, you're safe. We'll save Elena. You go straight home. You stay inside, do you understand?" He turns Valerie around so that she is facing him. "Do you understand me?" Valerie nods "Thank you." She then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and ran off.

He stood stunned for a minute then ran off.

---

Valerie was currently waiting by her phone for an update from Stefan or Damon about Elena. Her phone vibrated on the table and she rushed to pick it up. "Hello have you got her? Where is she? Is she safe?" She was cut off "Klaus has her. We're about to go and save her."

She nodded. "wait why does he have her?" She rushed. "Guessing he's leaving town." She nodded again and went to pick up her bag. Damon hearing this immediately exclaimed "no don't you dare. You stay about home." Valerie fumed "I'm not a dog Damon."

She had arrived at Klaus' mansion and ran inside the room where she had heard Damon. She saw Klaus being held against the wall by Stefan and Elena crouched on the floor. She raced over to her "are you okay?" Elena nodded.

She looked over to Klaus to realise he was being dessicated. She felt sadness erupt in her but ignored it, remembering what he had just done to her sister.