Chapter Text
Alaric made his way through the forest to the back of the Salvatore boarding house. He noticed a few people watching the front of the house but no one was watching the back. He followed the tree line as close to the back door as he could get before crouching low and darting the remaining feet to the door. When he didn't hear any commotion behind him he assumed he was clear and he opened the door quickly to get inside. He let out of sigh of relief but was promptly thrown against the nearby wall by Beau. He was held their by his shoulders.
"Where have you been?" Mary-Louise hissed.
"It was hours ago that the Armory stopped your car," Nora added.
"I had to walk back here. It took time," he said glaring at Beau. "Not all of us have super speed."
"Let him down Beau," Lilly ordered. The matriarch of the psycho family finally appeared and she didn't look pleased at all.
Beau reluctantly let him down.
"Where are Bonnie and Damon?" Alaric asked as he stepped away from Beau.
"I was hoping you would know the answer to that question," Lily responded closely surveying his appearance.
"You lost them?" Alaric asked with an arch of his eyebrows.
"The Armory was here. We were unconscious. We do not know what happened," Lily snapped at him and he could tell that she hated not being in control.
"Was anything broken?" Alaric asked nonchalantly.
Lilly's eyes narrowed, "No."
"Then they probably got out. Damon puts up one hell of a fight. They're probably in the woods somewhere waiting till dark to return or they could be looking for me. Actually they are definitely looking for me so they should turn up here soon." He walked away from them towards the kitchen.
"Are you sure the Armory didn't take them?" Lily asked following after him.
"Bonnie I could understand taking. She's a witch. She's useful but Damon?" Alaric scoffed. "He is more trouble than he's worth."
"Such warm friendly feelings for my son," Lily said sarcastically.
"I'm a realist," Alaric said with a shrug. "Damon is, who he is."
Stefan, Malcolm and Oscar were in the middle of a discussion in the kitchen that fell silent as soon as they saw him. What a way to say they trust him.
"We have a problem," Malcolm declared. From the look on his face you would think the world was ending. Alaric wasn't fazed. He'd faced world ending situations before.
"Yeah a big problem," Oscar added with hand gestures.
"You know I really hate when people say they have a problem and then pause for dramatic effect. Just spit it out!" Alaric said opening the fridge.
"We think we found it," Malcolm explained.
Seeing nothing of interest in the fridge Alaric closed the door and turned to Malcolm, "And what is it exactly?"
"Not sure. We only exposed a little bit of it before the werewolves covered it back up and pretended like we found nothing."
Lilly and Beau looked gravely concerned, Mary-Louise and Nora both looked equally horrified. Vampires were the best drama queens.
"I'm assuming the guards didn't notice," Alaric stated in a bored tone.
"No, not yet but it's a matter of time," Malcolm said earnestly.
"We need to get these things off of us today. Stefan as soon as Damon gets back, take Malcolm and go with the hospital outside Mystic Falls," Lily ordered.
Alaric's stomach grumbled, "I'm 's the food? We brought today?"
"Car," Oscar answered.
"Seriously? You accuse me of being gone for hours yet for hours none of you unpacked the car?" Alaric asked disgusted.
"Oscar go and get it. I don't want anyone seeing Alaric here," Lily told the resident stoner.
Oscar growled, "You do realise that the Armory knows they are here. They were looking for them."
"Did they find them?" Lilly asked, "Then they do not know for sure that they are here and I do not want to give them confirmation."
Oscar disappeared and returned with food. He set about making himself a nice sandwich while Lily gathered Beau, Stefan, and Malcolm to continue her plotting. Mary-Louise and Nora settled around the breakfast table, one painting her nails and the other playing on her phone. He ignored them and concentrated on his sandwich. He needed to figure out how to tell Damon what was going on without 1) Damon going homicidal on everyone and 2) The heretics hearing because it didn't' seem like they were ever going to leave the three of them along again.
He was halfway through his sandwich when Stefan and Valerie entered the kitchen. Mary-Louise and Nora turned up their noses at them and then left. They couldn't be any more obvious about the fact that they didn't trust him alone.
"Have you heard from Caroline today?" Stefan asked worriedly.
"No," Alaric replied. "I'm not exactly at the top of her friend list."
Stefan's eyebrow fractionally closed together. It was a sign that something was wrong.
Alaric sighed heavily and knew he was probably going to regret what he was about to ask, "What's wrong?"
"She called me earlier but the call dropped as soon as I answered," he explained.
Valerie reached for his hand and squeezed it in comfort.
"Maybe she was in an area with poor cell coverage," Alaric suggested glancing down to see Valerie was still holding Stefan's hand and Stefan had yet to pull away.
"Maybe but she would move and then call me again. It's been two hours."
"Give her more time. If she doesn't answer try calling Hayley. It's not like you know where she is so you can run in and rescue her if things went wrong," Alaric pointed out.
"If that was supposed to make me feel better, then I have to inform you that you've picked up Damon's brand of comfort," Stefan said wryly.
Valerie snorted and Stefan glared at her.
"What? Alaric had a point. There is nothing you can do about it right now," she said.
"I could ask you to do a locator spell," he suggested.
"You could," she responded teasingly.
Alaric looked between Stefan and Valerie. Both were focused intently on each other. He wondered what Caroline thought of this particular friendship. Alaric was certainly sensing something. He picked up his sandwich and left the kitchen. He wondered how far he would get before he had a new watcher.
The walk to Lockwood manor had been uneventful. There had been no sight of anyone around and they were able to walk right up to the front door and knock. This was certainly contrary to the story Stefan painted when the werewolves first came to town. He claimed they couldn't get within two miles of the place. As a result, Bonnie was on edge, her eyes constantly scanning the grounds behind them for foes.
There was no answer to the first knock, so Damon knocked again.
"Seems like no one's home," Damon quipped. "You would think Tyler would have the courtesy to answer the door quickly."
Suddenly the door swung open and Mave appeared.
"What do you want Vampire? Your kind is not invited here," she said acidly.
"We're here for Alaric," Bonnie said.
"He's not here." Mave started to close the door shut and Bonnie held it open. Damon may not be able to cross the threshold but she certainly could.
"That's bullshit!" Damon said angrily itching to close his hands around her throat and squeeze the correct answer out of her.
"Look, he was here and he left. He probably went back to the Boarding House,"Mave explained.
"Why was he here in the first place?" Damon demanded pointing a finger at the ground.
"To tell him the truth," the werewolf replied.
"Well since we're here as well," Damon indicating to him and Bonnie with his hand, "Care to enlighten us?"
Mave huffed, "I swear Vampires are always so demanding. It must be a side effect of being turned. If you must know the Armory has Elena not your mother."
"What!" Bonnie exclaimed.
Damon broke out in sadistic laughter, "I'm going to kill her!"
"Great now get off our property," Mave said sternly slamming the door in their faces.
Bonnie's hand encircled Damon's bicep, "Let's go." Under her breath she placed a calming spell on Damon. She didn't need him starting war with the Heretics yet. The priority was locating Elena. After that then she could let him cause as much damage as he wanted.
"I'm going to rip her heart out," Damon said agitated.
"You'll have time for that later," she assured him tugging him in the direction of Mrs. Kruger first. She wanted to get Caroline before they went back to the boarding house.
Damon stopped her when they were about to break through the forest at the back of Mrs. Kruger's house.
"It's under surveillance," he said his hand on her wrist. "They knew we were here."
"But how?" Donnie asked studying the house intently.
"I don't know but we have to go," he said turning around and pulling her with him.
"We have to get Caroline," Bonnie said trying to resist his tug.
"She's probably with The Armory and murdering Lily is more important right now," Damon said tugging her along.
"No!" Bonnie said. "We are going to go back to the boarding house and pretend like we do not know anything else, understand? We play along until we come up with a good plan to rescue both Elena and Caroline."
Damon scowled.
"I said do you understand?" Bonnie asked more firmly.
"Yes," Damon reluctantly agreed.
"It's as Alaric told you. Bonnie always knows best," she boasted falling into step next to him.
"That was one time," Damon protested.
When they arrived at the board house the sun had set and they entered through the back entrance. Enzo was waiting for him with Stefan and Malcolm.
"Where have you been?" Enzo asked first.
"We went for a walk," Damon replied rudely.
Stefan rolled his eyes, "We've been waiting for you. We need to leave for the hospital tonight."
"Why the sudden rush brother?" Damon spat at him.
Stefan was momentarily taken back by the tone and Bonnie stepped in before things got out of hand.
"Damon go. I'll be fine here. I assume Alaric is here?" she asked.
"Upstairs," Enzo said. "I can take you up to him." Bonnie nodded and followed after the old vampire. She stopped at the doorway and turned back to Damon. 'Play nice," she mouthed to him before continuing on her way.
The emergency room of the hospital was fairly deserted. Damon assumed it was because one of the main catchments of patients for the hospital, Mystic Falls was devoid of human activity. While Stefan went off in search of his X-Ray tech Damon wandered around. He found the blood bank and picked up a quick snack followed by some rather interesting things in the pharmacy. By the time he returned, Malcolm was seated patiently in the waiting area and his brother was chatting up a nurse asking for the X-ray Tech and Damon saw a man with a stethoscope around his neck. Damon grabbed hold of his arm as he passed.
"Are you a doctor?" he asked.
The doctor tried to pull away from him and Damon looked him the eye, "Answer the question," he compelled.
"Yes," the man answered tonelessly.
"Great I have a patient you're going to see now," with a smile Damon turned to the Heretic, "Malcolm, I found a doctor." He waved his hand for Malcolm to follow them to a secluded examination room.
"We should wait for Stefan," Malcolm said glancing over at Stefan.
Damon looked passed Malcolm to the counter where Stefan was engaged in a conversation with a nurse.
"Nah, he can work his angle. We'll work ours. Besides doesn't a Doctor trump a Technician?" Damon quipped.
When Malcolm didn't answer he continued along with the Doctor. He figured Malcolm would be curious about what he was up to and he had to suppress the smirk when the Heretic got up from his seat and followed them down the corridor. This was going to be fun.
"Take off your shirt and show the good doctor your problem," Damon instructed when all three of them were in the room.
Soon the metal device was on display for all to see.
"What the hell is this? How are you still alive? What the hell are you?" the Doctor exclaimed panicking. Damon compelled him to focus on the task at hand and examine the device.
"It looks like the skin healed around it. I have no idea how it's on there. An X-ray should give us more information about the device."
Malcolm looked at Damon, "We're right back to an X-ray," he said smugly.
"Are we really," Damon said jamming the sedative he had stolen earlier into Malcolm's neck. The vampire passed out. "I think we can examine the device itself."
Damon yanked the device from Malcolm's chest, even in the deep sleep the pain of the removal caused a yelp and body spasm. A massive hole in Malcolm's chest right above his heart was left. The doctor stood there with his eyes wide in shock.
"He he sssshhhould be dddead," he stuttered looking at the massive tissue damage to his chest.
Damon looked at Malcolm. His heart was still beating but the wound was not healing. Having been bitten by a werewolf he knew the symptoms first hand. Malcolm's whole body started to shake and Damon watched as his heart started to beat faster. That was quite a concentrated dose. His heart stopped beating and his body went still. He looked closer at the device and saw what looked to be the tip of needles in between chucks on Malcolm's flesh attached at the bottom of the device. He handed the device to the doctor.
"Clean this up," he ordered. Damon was not risking getting cut by any needle that had werewolf venom on it.
By the time the doctor was finished cleaning the device Damon counted seven needles that would have been directly above Malcolm's heart. The way the device was designed, the action of pulling the device out caused the needles to be sent down into the heart and release the venom. That way the venom spread through the body much quicker.
The door opened and Stefan's head appeared. "There you are," he said coming into the room before pausing to look at Malcolm. "Damon! What did you do?"
"I did what I always do brother?" Damon responded.
"Lily is going to be very angry you killed a member of the family," Stefan said.
"Oh but I didn't kill him, at least not directly, the device did it," Damon said pointing at the metal thing on the counter.
"You did that purposely," Stefan accused.
"Of course. You and Lily did lie to me about Elena's coffin," Damon said. "Plus there was that incident the night before with Malcolm so consider this the first part of my revenge."
"Technically it was Lily that lied to you."
"You allowed Lily to manipulate us!" Damon screamed. He sent a tray of surgical equipment across the room in anger and then ordered the doctor to pick it up.
"I didn't. It was my idea for Mave to tell Alaric the truth. I was there. That was why I wasn't at the house when The Armory came," Stefan tried to explain to him.
"Ok brother. We have a way to remove the device but first we need to sedate you," Damon revealed.
"I can take the pain," Stefan responded.
"The removal process requires surgical precision. If you flinch at any point you could set off the device, you need to be unconscious. So I guess the question is do you trust me brother?" Damon said with a wicked smile.
Stefan held out his hand for the injection and Damon jammed it into his arm. Stefan didn't even flinch. Damon watched satisfied as Stefan swayed on his feet. He threw Malcolm off the table onto the ground and put Stefan on the table. Just before Stefan's eyes closed he leaned over, "Oh and The Armory kidnapped Caroline. Guess we have something in common now."
Matt's alarm clock rang loudly. His hand came down hard on the poor object and it stopped its offensive noise. He opened his eyes to see the bright red numbers mocking him. It was 4:00am in the morning. He hated the five – one shift. He forced himself up. After a shower, he dressed and exited his apartment. The door opposite his opened and a young woman of average height with black hair stepped out.
"You got the early shift too Penny?" he asked crankily as he locked his door.
She yawned, "Yeah." She closed her door but never locked it. He didn't tell her anything about that. They had that argument before and she believed there was no reason to lock the door. He followed her out of the building and onto the street. The air was cold and Penny pulled her coat around her a bit tighter. They needed to walk one block towards his old high school.
The high school was the base of operations for The Armory in Mystic Falls. The security staff was put up in the apartments around the high school. Matt liked to think of it as the human side of town. He longed for the day when all the stores on the main street and the grill reopened. The high school cafeteria provided them with food. Anything else they needed they could go to the surrounding towns.
The Armory appeared three months ago. Matt had been the lone human in Mystic Falls that had the responsibility to keep other humans out of the town. The official cover was a gas leak. He mostly dealt with travelers passing through and college students from the nearby colleges. The college kids believed the town was haunted. Quite a few fraternities had initiation challenges that involved going into Mystic Falls. The beginning of the fall semester was always the busiest time for Matt.
His first encounter with the Armory, he naively tried to get them to leave town. That was when they offered him the deal of cleaning up Mystic Falls if he came to work with them. The thought of getting his town back to what it was, was too good to pass up. He started off as a regular security guard on shifts like the one he had to do in half an hour. He then worked his way up to doing special tasks and was assigned Lucy as a partner. Lucy lived in the witch section, which was really a bunch of cabins on the edge of town that The Armory's coven lived in.
"Hey Matt," Penny said as they walked. "Did you notice anything strange in the cave yesterday?"
"I wasn't assigned to the cave yesterday," he replied. "Why?"
"Well you know how usually there's a lot of banter between the werewolves and the vampires?" she asked.
"You mean the usual, I'll kill you, No I'll kill you, argument?" he responded dryly.
"Yeah that one. It was like that at first but then I noticed that it stopped. They were strangely silent yesterday. It was as if they suddenly agreed to shut up and do their work," Penny explained.
"What part of the cave was this?" Matt asked.
"I'll show you when we go down," Penny explained.
They ate breakfast quickly and entered the cave. The first shift of werewolves and one Heretic, Beau, were using pitch forks to break into the rocks. Penny took him passed them to an area about 100 feet away. He noticed that the werewolves and Beau were watching him with rapt interest.
"It happened around here," Penny said.
Matt nodded. He trusted Penny. Like him she had been in law enforcement. She had good instincts and if she thought something was wrong, then something was wrong. Matt looked around and spotted an area of loose rubble. They were supposed to move away the rocks as they worked. Besides what they were looking for, The Armory made money off of selling the rocks as backfill. No rocks were to be left behind. Matt bent down to pick them up and throw them at the werewolves and perhaps give them a little buzz for not following instructions when the gleam of smooth surface caught this attention. They had found what they were looking for.
Caroline had no idea how long she had been there. There was no sign of day or night. No food delivery to tell time by and as a result she was really hungry. She knew she drifted off to sleep; dreaming of Stefan rescuing her but it was hard to tell how long she had been asleep for. While the idea of being rescued was a nice hope, she knew Stefan didn't know she was in Mystic Falls. He didn't know she had come back because she wanted to surprise him. How could she expect a rescue if no one knew she had been taken? She, herself, had no idea where she was. She could be in Europe since she had no idea how long she was sedated for either.
The door opened and the Doctor from the before returned with a nurse this time. The nurse was rolling a tray in front of her. The top of the tray carried a range of surgical items and the second tray was full of blood bags. She jumped out of bed and rushed to the blood bags but a jolt of electricity rang through her. She fell on the ground in pain.
"Subject 32, please remain on the bed when we enter," the doctor said. She noticed the cattle prod in his arm for the first time. "Now please return to the bed. You will get your dinner soon."
Caroline was contemplating snapping both of their necks when the intercom switched on and the voice from before reminded her that Stefan would pay if she was defiant. Caroline reluctantly picked herself off the ground and sat on the bed. The nurse started restraining her to the bed.
"What is this for? I did what you asked?" she said pulling against the restraints
"It is necessary for the procedure," the doctor said looking at his chart. "How are you feeling today?"
"Like you care?" she spat at him. She pulled at the hand restraints again and they didn't even budge an inch. She wondered what they were made of. The ones around her feet didn't give way either.
"I do care. My experiments will fail if you're in poor health," he commented.
"Well you can take your experiments and shove them where the sun don't shine," Caroline said angrily.
"I'm afraid examining your rectum is not a part of this experiment. Today we will be checking on the health of your ovaries."
"What do you want with my ovaries?" she asked horrified.
"Many things. The nurse is going to give you an injection so won't feel any pain during the procedure," he said turning to study the tray the nurse had brought in.
"Like I have an option!" Caroline spat.
"You could go without the painkiller but I've found that pain causes flinching which affects my work. I do not want to accidentally cut into your ovary."
The nurse loosened the restraint on her hand enough so that she could turn her on to her side to inject spine. Everything went numb.
"Let's get started," the doctor said pleased,
She watched as he picked up a scalpel and sliced quickly across her abdomen. She gasped in horror.
"Would you like to see?" he asked her with glee.
"No!"
"Oh some subjects are curious. Being a vampire gives you the unique advantage of seeing your internal organs without the threat of dying." He sounded absolutely fascinated with that fact.
"That is not something I've ever been interested in doing," she said looking up at the ceiling.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him pick up a measuring tape. He measured something in her and read the results to the nurse who recorded it on her chart.
"They are quite healthy. The perfect specimen for this experiment." He was excited and Caroline was trying to figure out what type of psycho he was.
He pulled his hands out her, "Give her the blood so she can start to heal. We will start her on the hormone therapy immediately."
He picked up a syringe while the nurse inserted a straw into the blood bag for Caroline to drink from.
"What are you doing with that syringe?" Caroline asked.
"The first step is to jumpstart your reproductive system. While vampires have advanced cellular regeneration it comes at a cost to your endocrine and digestive systems."
"The what system? I only crammed enough biology to pass."
"The first system controls your hormones and the second, the enzymes in your digestive tract. Hormones control growth, temperature regulation and the reproductive system. The enzymes are what digests food. That's why you feed on blood. You need the digested nourishment in other's blood to survive. Vampirism greatly reduces the efficiency with which those systems work."
"So you're experimenting to see if a vampire can reproduce? That's impossible."
"No, I've had a few successful trials. First, I inseminated a female vampire with a normal embryo to see if it was possible for her to carry a child to term. After that was successful, I fertilized the egg of a vampire with the sperm of a normal man."
Caroline's eyes opened up wide. "Why would you do such a thing?"
"To see what the offspring is like? To determine what traits of vampirism could be passed on. If the healing is passed on it could be isolated and applied to the rest of humanity. The application for some of you positive traits are numerous," he explained as if there was nothing wrong with what he was doing.
"Its magic that gives us our abilities not science," Caroline informed him.
"It might be magic now but in a few years it could be science," was his response.
"Since you have your answer already, I don't see how you need me," Caroline said.
"These children haven't been born yet to analyze. I'm moving on to the next phase of my experiments," he said placing the syringe back on the tray.
"Which is what exactly?"
"Fertilizing a female vampire's egg with a male vampire's sperm. I can implant in you or I could give you the option of the old fashioned way to conceive a child."
"Stefan would never agree to that," Caroline replied.
"Who said anything about Stefan Salvatore," he responded.
"No other man is coming near me," Caroline said in a threatening tone.
"Invitro it is then," he said nodding to the nurse who made a note on her chart.
"This is disturbing and very, very, wrong."
"I think I will invite Leslie and Jade to talk to you about the honour you're being given. You might change your mind once you hear their experiences," he said. He looked down at her abdomen, "You're beginning to heal. In a few hours you'll be completely fine." He looked at the nurse. "You can release her in an hour. Make sure she consumes all of those blood bags." He turned his gaze back to Caroline, "I'll see you soon Subject 32." He had the gall to pay her hand sympathetically.
"I hope not," Caroline seriously.