A/N – So this is what happens when I'm standing at the bus stop dreaming of going somewhere other than work.

Drabblish, Crackish, Daroline fluff? Sure….

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LA Bound

She's standing at the bus depot, dressed in a white cotton sun dress with a stone washed denim jacket and brown cowboy boots headed for LA. It'd be faster to fly but she has eternity and decides there's no need to rush through life when you're never going to die. Besides, she always thought there was something poetic about riding a Greyhound cross country with a guitar (that she doesn't know how to play yet but has plenty of time to learn) and a dream. A bus pulls up that's headed for New York and Caroline checks her watch, not noticing at first when the door opens and the bus driver looks at her expectantly.

"Route 10 to New York Miss." Caroline looks around her, noticing no one else, then to the driver.

"Oh, I'm not going to New York."

"I was told you were." Caroline bites her bottom lip confused.

"Who told you that?"

"Can't say. I was just told that you need to get on this bus." Caroline rolls her eyes. Clearly the driver's been compelled. The bus continues to idle while Caroline refuses to move. Who would want her to go to New York? Klaus? Stefan? Tyler? Damon? A few years ago she would have though this stunt a romantic gesture and would have hopped on the bus and never looked back. But things have changed and she's ready to go on her own journey, blaze her own path. She had her heart set on LA and wasn't about to let an Original Hybrid, or her best friend, or ex-boyfriend, or Damon (he doesn't get a label, their relationship too complicated to be categorized) stop her. From her peripheral she spots another bus pull up, this one headed west to LA.

"Well whoever it is, you can go back and tell them that I'm not going to New York. I'm going to LA." She picks up her bag and hops on the bus for California, pausing for a moment she watches the bus for NY pull away.

Two months later she's sitting in a café perched on the window seat strumming on her guitar (she hasn't exactly learned, but she does know a few cords so she repeats them endlessly until it almost sounds like a song) when she notices the warm sun that was beating against her back is blocked by a tall shadow. She stops her strumming but doesn't turn around to see who is standing on the other side of the paned glass. When she feels the warmth of the sun return on her back her eyes shift to the entrance of the café as she holds her wasted breath expectantly. And she must have blinked because suddenly he's there. His hair is a little longer, a little shaggier, but he still has his leather jacket, slung over his shoulder with the crook of his finger. He moves toward her, his eyes fixated on hers and she's scared to blink, afraid that if she does he'll be gone.

"I hate LA," he says standing over her, looking down at her with a smirk. And before she realizes what she's doing, she's standing, her guitar falling to the floor as her arms wrap around his neck, standing on her tip-toes, her lips molding perfectly with his.