"Stefan?" A blonde girl, the one who was watching him earlier in the hallway, calls out to him as he crosses the quad. He can distinctly hear the click clack of her shoes quicken as she tries to keep up with his long strides.
"Stefan Salavtore?" She tries again a little louder this time and he briefly considers ignoring her but then she's saddling up beside him and he can't work out how she caught up to him.
"Yes that's me." He replies coolly. He's got his hands stuffed deep into his pockets and looking around trying desperately to give off an uninterested vibe. But she doesn't seem to get the message. Her blue eyes are sparkling and she's grinning back at him like he's just offered to take her to prom.
"Gosh were you a marathon runner at your old school or something?" She laughs letting out a puffed breath, and rearranges her windblown hair into its perfectly manicured place.
Stefan quirks his eyebrows at her, "uh not that I know of."
He's already been talking to her for longer than he'd like.
"Well you should try out for the track team here; all the hot guys are in track..." She starts rambling and he catches her eyes roaming down his body suggestively.
Stefan runs a hand through hair, and clears his throat feeling a little embarrassed for her.
Caroline's excitement heightens when she notices Stefan's blushing. How cute.
"Did you want something uhh..."
"Caroline. Caroline Forbes." She supplies and smiles again but this time more naturally, with no forced sincerity, and he finds most of his earlier uncomfortableness melt away.
Forbes. He recognises the name immediately. A founding family.
"I thought you had Math with Mr Smith this period?" She asks him like she knows it as a fact but her tone is unsure.
Stefan frowns, because he was so concerned with glamouring the school receptionist he didn't even bother to check his schedule earlier.
"Let me have a look," He replies pulling out his sheet of paper with his lesson plan on it. He skims the page and below History with Mr Tanner which he's already had with her, Elena, he spots it, Math with Mr Smith , "oh yes I do."
"Oh thank god!" Caroline exclaims loudly and the dimples in her cheeks show, "There's like no one else cool in that class... Let's sit together." The perky blonde slides her arm in the crook of his before he can object.
He thinks about brushing her off and ditching the class altogether but she's so excited and he can hear her heart beating faster with every step they take so he decides maybe he could use this opportunity to find out more about the Mystic Fall of 2009.
They walk along the quad toward the Math room. Caroline is spouting off idle bits of gossip about the people they pass and Stefan nods and smiles where appropriate.
He starts to realize that his laughter isn't as awkward as it was before. She was actually really funny in her own quirky way.
"That's Meredith Sulez..." Caroline informs him, pointing to a pretty brunette with coral green eyes, "she's trying to bring back tartan skirts."
"Which," Caroline leans to whisper, "is so 2001 and never going to happen."
Stefan nods, pretending he knows anything about this century's fashion. It's been nearly 200 years and all he's lost the habit of needing to fit in.
Although nothing can compare to the time he was alive, the civil war era when elegant women danced around in fancy dresses and gentlemen in silky tuxedoes bowed and asked for their hands. Like he had once done himself with her, Katherine.
He imagines Caroline would fit in like a glove in that era. Her long blonde locks in ringlets, her pale skin illuminated with blush powder and her slim figure in a sky blue dress, like the colour of her eyes. He could imagine that as if she was wearing it before him right now.
Caroline catches him staring at her as they round the corner and lets out a giggle.
There's something about the way Caroline giggles that distantly reminds him of someone...
A faint vague memory sparks somewhere in the back of his mind but he can't quite place it.
Caroline tosses her blond hair back over her shoulder and motions for him to sit beside her in the back corner of the room.
They sit down and it's as if Caroline silently commands some kind of teenage army because everyone else sits at least three seats away in either direction from them giving them enough privacy to speak.
After a moment of listening to Mr Smith explain quadratic formulae to the class a piece of paper lands on his lap. Written on the front in neat cursive writing is, 'Stefan', and when he opens the note he sees a small paragraph signed at the bottom with 'Caroline xx'.
He looks over at her and he can see a smile in her eyes as she stares ahead and nods thoughtfully when Mr Smith looks over at them.
Mr Smith praises Caroline for her neat workings out when he walks past. Leaving Stefan with no doubt that Caroline Forbes' got this man wrapped around her pinky finger. There's a charm about her that isn't apparent from a first meeting, he sees that now. It's only after a moment with her that you really start to appreciate how hard she tries to impress everyone around her. How hard she works to make people notice her. Make them like her.
He recognises it in her because he has the same flaw in himself.
He looks back down at the note and attempts to answer each question as truthfully as possible.
The first is, 'Why and where did you move here from?'
Well, he can't really answer that honestly so he tries to invent something semi-believable. 'I moved here from New Jersey, but my family moves around a lot. My father and mother work for the army so we would stay on bases every time we moved when I was a kid. But now I'm staying with my uncle at the Salvatore family boarding house for my junior and senior years. '
The second is 'When's your birthday?' He doesn't really see the relevance in that question but doesn't see the harm in answering it either so he scrawls down 'June 19.' He considers writing the year for a moment, just to see her confused expression but decides against it. The amusement would not be worth the explanation.
The next question makes him break out in a big goofy smile because he really doesn't understand why Caroline even wants to know the answer to, 'What's your favourite colour?' he looks across at her and catches her cerulean eyes, he scrawls down 'Blue.'
Stefan scrunches the paper up when his finished, and slides it across the table towards her. Caroline snatches it off the desk with lightening speed and he almost laughs out loud.
She reads his answers and he watches out of the corner of his eye for her reactions, all of which are all degrees of adorable. When she finishes the note she looks up and exclaims quietly while the rest of the class is in discussion, "Blue is my favourite colour too! You know Stefan we really have so much in common." He laughs at her because she has no idea just how different they are and a bubbly smile spreads over her lips in response.
For one thing, she's alive; she's got blood pumping through her veins at this very moment, while his heart is as stone cold as the day he was killed.
Stefan's eyes suddenly are drawn to the pinkness of her lips. His eyes drift to the blush on her cheeks and the perfect curved line of her porcelain neck, he's now acutely aware of just how close they are sitting and he can practically feel the blood pulsating through her entire body. Then her arm brushes up against his when she reaches for her water bottle and the friction set his nerve endings on fire. He jerks his arm away from the desk violently.
Before Caroline can ask him what the matter is the bell goes and Stefan gathers his things quickly, he wants to hunt in the woods near the cemetery before he's craving for anything un-vegetarian gets any stronger.
Stefan's almost out the door when Caroline's hand taps him on the shoulder, "Hey here's my number. Call me if you ever want to hang out at the Mystic Grill after school. There's not a whole else to do in this lame town." She smirks in satisfaction when he takes the piece of paper from her hand.
He smiles back at her and genuinely thinks that handing out with her might not be such a bad thing, after he's had a good deal of animal blood of course.
She wasn't that bad of company and she was good friends with Elena. Maybe they could both use a friend.
Caroline side steps him and turns her head back to send him one last dimpled smile and head tilt as she walks away and it suddenly dawns on him who she reminds him of... Katherine.
Caroline Forbes reminds him of Katherine Pierce. If his heart were beating it would have explode instantly.
Caroline reminds him of Katherine before he knew she was a crazy bitch vampire. When they first met and he was so smitten and she seemed so sure. And despite the fact brown eyed brunette Elena is Katherine's doppelganger its blue eyed blonde Caroline that makes him think of the girl who tore out his heart over a hundred years ago.
The resemblance is enough to leave him shaken. That's why he was so weary around her at first.
He watches Caroline happily sashay away and he can feel the fangs inside his gums ache with desire.
He needs to get the cemetery right now.
