"Previously on "The Vampire Diaries"..." "Alaric's babies..." "they're inside of you." "I know they're not mine." "They're still my responsibility." "The Phoenix stone gives the sword it's power against immortal foes." "When a vampire is stabbed through the heart, the sword acts as a magical conduit, transferring their spirit into this nasty stone, creating your own little personal hell." "Ugh!" "Stefan!" "Stefan!" "Hi there, hero." "You've been out a long time." "The spell's not working." "It pulled Stefan out, no problem." "How come we had no trouble reuniting your soul with your body?" "Because eventually I submitted to the kind of suffering that just breaks you." "We all do anything we can to avoid that kind of pain." "What did you want?" "Stop lying to yourself!" "I wanted..." "My mother." "I got to get her back." "I got to get her back." "Hey, hey, hey, Damon, you're safe." "None of this is real!" "Damon, don't!" "No!" "Donovan, hey, wake up." "You do not get to die." "Donovan, drink." "Bon." "Bonnie, Bonnie." "Oh, I'm so sorry." "I didn't know where I was." "I didn't know I was out..." "Ohh." "Oh, yup." "I saw this coming." "Ababbas Dagoineh..." "Ababbas Dagoineh..." "Melunah..." "Washaset..." "Stefan?" "Stefan?" "Yeah." "Yeah, I heard you." "No Vervain this time?" "No switching up the menu?" "Nah, I just wanted to make sure you had a chance to calm down." "Oh, I'm calm." "No, no, no." "You're gonna say to me... you're gonna say I screwed up so bad," "I nearly killed all of our friends because I thought I was stuck in a fake hell-world." "You don't have to explain." "It wasn't your fault." "Huh?" "It was an honest mistake." "You're getting a pass." "Wait." "You skipped a bunch of stuff." "First I'm supposed to say that I see the error of my ways, and then you tell me that that's not good enough, and then you judge me harder." "And then I say something mean but true that totally throws you off balance." "You came out of the Phoenix Stone, but you thought you were still inside of it." "Everybody understands." "Oh." "That's pretty generous considering I just stabbed your pregnant girlfriend in the chest." "Yeah." "Well..." "The Hellstone does a number on you." "Yeah." "Yeah, it does." "Well, I'm here." "And it's real." "I'm ready for my bro hug." "I'll wait until you've unchained me, brother." "Here's the thing," "Damon, um, hell messes with you." "But post-hell is much worse." "Oh." "You guys got to be kidding me." "This is still my house." "Tyler Lockwoof." "Yeah, Stefan, I thought my allergies were acting up." "I didn't know you were back." "Caroline invited me to her baby Shower, although she failed to mention the part about Mystic Falls going to crap." "What the hell happened out there?" "Oh, you know, we had to evacuate." "Scary heretics, fictional mining fires." "You weren't CC'd on the memo?" "I don't think he's talking about the evacuation, Damon." "So what is he talking about?" "I know you didn't manage to screw the whole town up all over again while I was on my weekend trip to limbo." "That's the thing." "You weren't gone for just the weekend." "You've been gone for weeks." "Ellis, tell your friends to bring something back from their hunt." "We need to stock the bar for happy hour." "Hey!" "No killing dinner." "On my count." "3, 2, 1!" "Go!" " ♪- something in the air... ♪" "♪ Who-o-oa... ♪" "Who's thirsty?" "!" "♪ ain't no good gonna happen after dark ♪" "♪ After dark ♪" "♪ After dark ♪" "♪ Who-o-oa ♪" "What's wrong?" "Damon text-bombing you empty apologies?" "No." "I'm letting Stefan deal with Damon." "Oh, that's smart." "Until Damon manipulates Stefan into thinking he's changed, and then he's our problem again." "I'm trying to be positive, ok?" "Oh, my god." "What?" "Why?" "'Cause it just matched us." "Oh, you wish, Mystic Queen." "Ok, we got to get you a new profile picture." "Is that a gun?" "Yeah, I was in my uniform." "I'm not gonna crop my gun out." "Ok, I'm not trying to be in your business, but maybe showing a softer side will get you more hits." "Femus!" "Matt." "Matt, ok, he's dead." "At least Lily kept her heretics on a leash." "I guess it's safe to say I lost my soft side." "Ok." "Come on." "Let's get these bodies out of here." "You delegated deputy Doolittle to patrol the streets with his witchy ride-along?" "Are you sure Bonnie put the right soul back in your body?" "I mean, what happened to your hero-hair campaign to protect Mystic Falls?" "Well, I've been busy trying to raise you from the dead." "It's called multitasking." "You have no idea what I have been through." "All right, brother, you have a captive audience." "What'd I miss?" "Thank you." "After Bonnie did the spell to bring me out of the stone, all I wanted to do is get back to normal with Caroline." "Super fancy." "Even my purse has a chair." "Well, we're celebrating, so I figured we'd take it up a notch, right?" "Absolutely." "So what wine are you feeling like?" "I don't care." "Whatever you want." "Well, I'm drinking water." "Right." "Sorry." "Are you sure that you're up for this?" "I know it's the first time you've really been out since you woke up." "I'm..." "I'm fine." "Thank you, though." "Ok." "Good." "Because Bonnie thinks she's close to pulling Damon out." "She said that she felt especially strong today." "And with any luck, we'll be celebrating something else soon." "Hello, lovers." "Miss me?" "How'd you get here?" "Get away from her!" "Stefan, stop." "What are you doing" "I'm sorry." "I'm sorry." "So you got out of hell, you're on the up-and-up, and then you started hallucinating me as a waiter." "I mean, I couldn't be a manager or something?" "I think you're missing the point." "I get the point, Stefan." "I have no desire to kill Caroline." "I mean, other than the last time I tried." "But we can all agree that that was a huge misunderstanding." "I'm not gonna have a psychotic break, brother." "I promise." "Ok." "Here's how this is gonna work." "I'm gonna unchain you." "And you're not gonna leave my side until I'm convinced that you're ok." "I'm 100% ok." "Good." "Then you can prove it to me while I drive you around the new Mystic Falls." "Great." "Damon..." "Peek-a-boo." "Ready?" "Yeah." "All good." "Are you really worried about Damon or is this just a convenient excuse to get out of the baby-food-tasting game?" "Well, if that is what I think it is, then I would rather be sent back to the hellstone." "Honestly," "I don't blame you." "But Alaric needs this." "You know, he doesn't have the necessary accoutrements of a single father-to-be." "Well, don't worry." "I'm gonna still get him that baby Bjorn thing or whatever you made me click on when I was drunk." "Thank you." "Hey, be safe today, ok?" "I finally got you back to reality." "I want to keep you in one piece." "Don't you worry." "I will." "Bye." "Oh, boy." "What?" "Just get inside." "Lovely." "Yeah." "Well, you get used to the smell." "And this is why they should've gotten me out first." "Well, they tried, but apparently, you weren't ready to be pulled out." "What happened to you in there?" "Picture me as a soldier in gray being shot to death over and over and over again while the ghost of mommie dearest floated on her harpy wings, saying," ""I told you so, Damon."" "Sounds pretty miserable if you ask me." "Well, I think that was the point." "I just realized all I had to do was cry some big boy tears and tell mommy I was sorry." "Glad you got some closure." "It did the trick because right after that, I went toward the red light in the sky." "What about you?" "How'd you pass your existential dealio?" "Look who survived." "Look who infested my town because he has nothing better to do with his eternity." "Your brother and I called a truce." "Well, I wouldn't call you taking over my town without my permission a truce exactly." "Well, I suppose it wasn't so much of a takeover as a walk right in and nobody stopping you." "You gonna take that, hmm?" " Ooh." " Hey, hey, hey, hey." "Today's all about proving that you can play well with others, all right?" "There's no need to pout." "I'm not gonna hurt your precious town." "It holds sentimental value for me as well." "This was Lily's home once." "Now it's mine." "Well..." "Anyway..." "I'm making this about myself when here you are, back with the living." "Congratulations, although now's where the real work begins, doesn't it?" "Hey, good luck to you both." "Can I get you another one, soldier?" "Damon..." "Yeah." "Hey, what are you looking at?" "One too many pieces of Vampire Trash." "Are you certain you're still suited to be his wing man?" "I expect you're still adjusting yourself." "I think I'm handling it." "Thanks." "Yes." "When I first got out, I thought I was..." "Handling it, too." "Ahh." "And go!" "This is a nightmare." "Look at him." "Are you kidding me?" "This is the best blackmail material ever." "In t-minus a few short weeks, these babies are popping out of me and being handed over to him, their only parent... a man who's hardly inspiring any confidence." "Yes!" " Time!" " Hmm." "Huh." "That's terrifying." "You're never baby-sitting." "Neither of you..." "Ever." "I made a helmet." "Hey." "How did you do that?" "Well, it's a diaper, not a bomb, though I could dismantle a bomb blindfolded if I needed to." "Ha ha." "There's nothing funnier than newborns and C4." "So I shouldn't store my explosives in the nursery?" "I think I read that in one of the 20 parenting magazines you left in my office." "Ok, ok!" "I get it." "I'm the overprotective, no-fun surrogate." "No." "No." "Actually, you are an incredibly generous friend, who I will forever be indebted to." "Well, it's not about debt." "As long as you understand once these babies are born," "I will not be on call 24/7 to burp and bathe and feed and diaper and..." "I get it, Caroline." "I..." "I don't expect that to be your problem." "Well, it's not a problem." "It's just that there's..." "Oof." "Baby a just kicked." "Oh, she did?" "Really?" "Mm-hmm." "Ha ha!" "Oh, damn!" "My daughter's a ninja." "Oh, yeah." "There goes baby B." "Oh, you can tell 'em apart?" "Of course." "Ahh." "And I almost had my manhood back." "Yeah, "almost" being the operative word." "You just suffocated a doll with a diaper," "Donovan." "Drink up." "I can't." "I'm on duty." "I don't know why you even bother." "The bad guys aren't going anywhere, man." "I mean, if anything, they're multiplying." "So that's it, huh?" "You're just gonna give up?" "We grew up there, Ty." "That is your town." "Was my town." "Now it's a cesspool that's not worth getting killed over." "Getting out was the best thing that ever happened to me." "Who's that?" "Someone who wasn't invited." "Hey." "Wasn't sure you'd make it." "Well, anything to postpone studying for midterms." "Did you buy off the registry?" "You mean that list of demands." "No." "See, I refuse to purchase anything called a milk warmer." "So instead I bought these tiny, little socks that for some reason look like laced-up sneakers." "Socks count as practical." "Good." "That's how we'll sell it to Caroline." "Come on." "I'll get you a drink, although, fair warning, they're in baby bottles." "Ah." "Infants drinking." "What a lovely image." "Can't say I'm surprised." "Are you just going to surrender your town to the enemy?" "I get it." "You're a hell-world hangover." "But I already passed the test, Henry." "I already admitted my fault." "You can leave me alone." "You passed the test, yes, but you haven't completed your liberation." "Oh, yeah." "Liberate this." "Very realistic head trip." "We should probably skip the check." "So you want to tell me what the heretic's doing here?" "Probably 'cause I invited her." "Oh." "So we spend all morning killing" "Julian's vampires, then you invite one to Caroline's shower?" "First of all, she's not Julian's." "And second of all, she helped us get Stefan out of that stone." "After she put him in, after she killed my graduating class, kidnapped Caroline, and then murdered every human at her anniversary party." "I see her studying by herself every day." "And, honestly, I felt bad." "So I invited her." "It's better to have a powerful heretic as a friend than an enemy." "And I'm quite good at gifts." "Don't forget that." "Perhaps it's time for me to leave." "Yeah, perhaps you should." "No, I invited you." "You should stay." "I would, but I'm afraid your friend here may say something inappropriate to me and then find himself never able to speak again." "Did you just threaten me?" "Oh, I didn't, actually." "That would have looked like this." "Take another step toward me and I'll pluck your vocal cords from your throat and use them to play a rather sporting game of pin the tail on the deputy." "Stop..." "Please." "The party was lovely." "Thank you." "When were you going to tell me that you lost your grip on reality?" "I just did." "I like to use visual aids." "You need to tell me what you're going through because it only gets worse from here." "Worse than you envisioning me as a waiter?" "Who was I next?" "A busboy?" "A valet?" "You were everywhere." "I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't get you out of my head." "The only constant I had was Caroline." "Another nightmare?" "Yeah, the same one." "I was in the quarry." "I was..." "I was drowning." "And Damon was there." "Damon was there?" "Then what?" "Doesn't matter." "It's over." "Clearly it's not." "Whatever you experienced in that rock is still torturing you somehow." "You're lucky you have her to hold on to, brother." "You're not here." "Who are you talking to?" "Get out of here, Caroline." "Yeah." "Get out of here, Caroline, before I rip those babies right out of your belly." "Enough!" "Stop!" "It's not real." "It's not real." "But then I pushed her away, too." "I lost sight of everything." "I barely even noticed when Julian took over our town." "All I could see was you." "Where's mom when you need her?" "'Cause fat chance you're winning this showdown." "Why are you still here?" "I'm a piece of the stone Puzzle." "If you figure it out, I'll leave you alone." "Until then..." "I couldn't get rid of you." "I couldn't stop seeing you." "I couldn't stop hearing you." "Nothing else mattered." "Not our town, not Julian, not even Caroline." "All I cared about was making you go away." "So?" "Pins and needles over here, brother." "What did you do?" "I got a can of gasoline." "I was convinced that the only solution was to burn your actual body." "I had to stop you from haunting me." "I had to get rid of any reminder of what I went through in the hellstone." "What are you doing?" "I don't want him to come back ever." "I have to get rid of him." "This isn't who you are, Stefan." "You love your brother." "And I know that you would rather die than let him go." "Caroline found me just in time." "Without her, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself." "I would have set your body on fire to end my own suffering." "Well, that explains why I smelled like gas when I woke up." "You ok?" "I'm not the one you should be worried about." "Huh?" "You should have left me at the grill, Stefan, let me deal with the consequences of my own actions, but, no." "Saint Stefan to the rescue." "Always there to clean up his big brother's messes." "What are you talking about?" "Quit trying to save me, brother." "This is what your brother did to Ellis." "He didn't know what he was doing." "Really?" "He was just fishing around for his liver and came across his heart?" "I promise I will get him under control." "Well, I strongly recommend you find him first." "What?" "He was just here." "Hmm, no, I assure you he was not." "You were alone when I arrived." "You were talking to yourself." "Perhaps that stone isn't finished with you after all." "In the meantime, if either you or your brother harm one of my men again," "I will gut the one of you and feed the other the entrails." "Thanks for stepping away from babyland." "Anything to avoid a guessing game about how big Caroline's belly is." "Yeah." "What do you want?" "I need to see Elena." "That's not an option." "Whoa." "Whoa." "Whoa." "Wait." "I just want to see her face for a minute." "A little reminder that everything's gonna be ok, you know?" "When you gave me her coffin, you made me swear to not let anybody see her, especially you." "I was feeling a little sentimental." "You told me that's what you would say." "You figured at some point, you'd get impatient or lose your nerve or have a really bad day." "You said under no circumstance am I allowed to give her to you." "I changed my mind." "I know what happened the other night." "I know you're sick." "Where is Stefan anyway?" "Listen to me, we can walk upstairs right now and turn that baby shower into a bloodbath or you can take me to see my girl." "No muss, no fuss." "Just..." "Just a little visit, ok?" "Oh, yeah." "Damn it." "Oh, man." "Grove Hill P.D." "License and registration, please." "Officer, look, I am a cop, too." "If you let me just show you my badge." "Mr. Donovan." "The good news is you actually have a valid license, which means at some point you did learn how to drive." "The bad news is that can only mean you're swerving between lanes because you're drunk." "I'm not drunk." "I had a couple drinks at a party..." "Step out of the car, please, now." "Are you kidding me?" "Nice security, he said with contempt." "You told me to keep her safe, and I did." "You don't need to secure someone if no one knows where they are." "Me again." "No, no, no." "No." "Hey." "Excuse me for one second." "Hey." "Why didn't you answer your phone?" "I'm sorry." "I was using it for the playlist." "Are... are you all right?" "Has Damon been here?" "No." "Why would he be?" "I don't know where he is." "I thought he was with me, and then he wasn't." "And..." "Ok, ok, Stefan, just calm down." "Focus." "Hey, wha... what's going on?" "It's happening again." "Look, I was talking to Damon, and I think he was there, but now I don't know when he left." "It's ok." "You're ok." "No, I'm not." "And neither is he." "Can't you find someone else to haunt?" "I can't leave until you find liberation." "You're still denying your nature." "You haven't let go of what's holding you back." "What does that Hellstone have to do with my true nature?" "A Phoenix Stone." "It doesn't trap you." "It frees you..." "To be reborn as your true self." "You want to see my true self?" "I need to go find Damon." "No, you don't." "You know what?" "We are going to take care of you first." "How are you gonna take care of me?" "My soul was literally trapped in a rock." "Yeah, until you passed some kind of test." "You never told me how you earned your freedom." "Bonnie pulled me out with a spell." "You know that." "No." "Something else happened in that hell-world, something that you won't admit." "You can't keep hiding like this, Stefan." "You can't." "Just, please, let me help you." "There's nothing we can do about it now, ok?" "Ah, you have to tell me." "It's the only way that we're gonna get through it." "You have to try." "Just..." "God." "You can't go on like this." "I was living in a repeating loop of misery." "Every loop ended with Damon dragging me into the quarry." "The water was black and freezing." "We were drowning together." "Every time I tried to swim to the surface, he dragged me back down." "Every time I tried to save him," "I died, too." "I finally realized that there was only way to escape." "If I wanted to survive," "I had to go on without him." "So I let him go." "I abandoned him." "I let my brother drown so I could save myself." "So that's why you're hallucinating him?" "Because some faux version of your brother is upset with something that you did in a fake reality?" "The hellstone is trying to tell me something." "It's trying to prove a point." "I will never be happy until Damon is out of my life for good." "Do you really believe that?" "You took my words to heart, did you?" "Shut up." "I'm not doing this with you anymore." "I told you to leave me alone." "Now I'm gonna end this." "You're right." "You're not doing it with my anymore." "Henry?" "I promised you liberation." "No." "Elena!" "This was necessary, Damon." "She held you back from being the monster you really are." "No." "Elena!" "Oh, my god." "No." "Elena!" "No!" "No, Elena!" "Oh, god." "Elena." "In case it wasn't obvious, today was supposed to be a fresh start." "Oh, spare me the lecture." "What the hell is your problem?" "I was trying to be nice to you." "After I left your wretched party," "I found this in my mail." "Is this your idea of a joke?" "Postcard?" "You have a pen pal." "If you sent this, you'd best admit it now before I squeeze the truth from your trachea." "Why would I send this to you?" "And even if I did, what's so scary about the alphabet?" "It's a warning..." "From the huntress." "You're saying that like I should know who that is." "You certainly know her weapon." "A sword." "Yes." "Custom-made for her." "She used it to put Julian in the stone along with thousands of other vampires." "She's ruthless." "Once you've been marked by her sword, she never stops hunting you." "That's how Beau got his scar." "She'll come to him now." "She'll come for all of us." "Then how do we stop her?" "There's no stopping her ever." "And there's no "we" involved." "Besides, she's not after you, so it's really not your concern." "If my friends' lives are in danger," "I'm not gonna stand by and do nothing." "Then what do you propose we do?" "All right, officer Donovan, you're clear to go." "But I can't let you drive yourself home." "I think I'll wait it out." "Sure you don't want to call a friend?" "That girl who does our turndown service just left." "I'm a little light in the friend department right now." "I heard about your graduation... the whole freak mining fire thing." "I can't imagine what it'd be like to lose half my class." "Sorry you had to go through that." "Thanks." "It's weird town officials didn't get FEMA involved or at least increase emergency response." "It's almost like everyone's resigned to letting the fires burn out on their own." "Yeah." "That's the way it seems." "Except if everyone sits around doing nothing, there's not gonna be a town left." "Anyway, good night." "Oh, and, uh, one last thing." "What the hell did we find in your truck?" "Um, I think that I should wash these onesies with the hypoallergenic detergent first." "Where are the keys to the laundry room?" "It's midnight, Caroline." "I mean, we've got plenty of time to take care of all this stuff." "Yeah, I know." "I know." "We should also really get a head start on those car seats because I read somewhere that first-time parents are just always messing those up." "And did you happen to notice if the monitor came with little batteries?" "You don't have any around here." "And the last thing that you need are just these screaming, crying babies in the middle of the night, and you can't even hear them." "Hey, what's going on with you?" "You ok?" "When were you gonna tell me that you're leaving?" "When I officially got the job." "And what's wrong with the job that you have now?" "There's nothing wrong with the job." "It's the place." "Faculty day care." "Hello!" "And you have preschool right here on the campus." "Caroline, I am not raising my kids anywhere near Mystic Falls or Whitmore college or..." "Vampires." "That's right." "Look, I'm sorry." "I thought all this baby stuff bonanza, you know, all this single parent on their own..." "Yeah." "No, it was." "Caroline, I was under the impression, you know, that once the babies were born..." "That you weren't gonna be involved." "Uh, no." "I won't, because they're not mine." "They're yours and Jo's." "Anyway, I actually think it's really smart." "You know, safety first." "You and your babies should get as far away from here as you can." "Where were you?" "Out." "I had to clear my head." "I let you go." "In my virtual hell, we were drowning together." "And the only way for me to escape was to turn my back on you." "And everything I've been hallucinating since was to drive that point home." "Of course it was." "The only way for you to be the hero and have a happy ending is to leave me in your wake." "How do you figure?" "Because my true self is dark, brother." "And all that light just keeps getting in the way..." "Keeping me from being who I really am." "Which is what?" "Reckless?" "Manipulative?" "Selfish?" "Sounds about right." "Yeah." "It is." "But you're also my brother." "I'm not gonna give up on you." "Not now, not ever." "You're stuck with me, Damon." "I need you to know that." "Stefan, I, uh..." "I..." "What is it?" "I, um..." "Whatever it is, you can tell me." "We're out of bourbon." "Is that it?" "That's it." "Here's to drowning together." "We apologize for the interruption to your current program." "My name is Caroline." "Please listen carefully." "I have an urgent message for Stefan Salvatore." "We apologize for the interruption..." "What are you doing here?" "I thought you were in Mystic Falls." "I had to stop by and visit some buddies at Dallas pd and convince them that this hostage thing was a hoax." "Get up." "You can put the gun down." "Get up." "Thank you." "You can go now." "That's it?" "You already did what we needed." "We?" "You're helping her?" "You're the easiest way to get to Stefan." "Don't take it personally." ""Don't take it personally"?" "I have a family, Matt." "So did I, and a girlfriend and a life." "And now I don't." "So your problems don't mean anything to me anymore." "Now, go." "Get out of sight and stay out of sight until huntress gets what you want."