A/N: This story is a Caroline/Damon one-shot. It is pretty AU as far as canon events go. I am normally a Delena and Forwood shipper, but my brain is on crack lately from sleep deprivation. Please enjoy, since it most likely will not happen ever again; unless I for some reason decide to add more chapters to this. Please let me know what you think in a review!
In Another Life
Damon Salvatore ran twice as fast, losing his breath and trying to catch up. She was spinning as she sprinted forward, so it shouldn't have been that difficult. But seeing her in that beautiful white dress, her long golden hair swaying loose was enough to make him far more breathless than running ever would. Sometimes he wondered what life would have been like for him had her family not moved to town the year he turned twelve years old; that horrible year after his mother died. Giuseppe had begun to ignore his children in his grief. Anytime they were remembered by his fading spirit, it was for harsh criticism.
Damon knew that he blamed them for her death. Violet had never been very strong but the birth of the children had drained her of what little God-given strength she may have possessed. First came Damon and then were two miscarriages. For awhile afterwards she had been bedridden, unable to make her way down the staircase on her own. Then she had regained herself once more. That had again been compromised when Stefan was born three years after Damon. After Stefan a stillborn girl was birthed and yet another miscarriage happened, which had at last been the death of their fragile mother. So with no one that was really to blame for it other than himself, Giuseppe turned his cold hatred upon his sons. Damon bore most of it to shield his younger brother from the pain of it.
Then Caroline Forbes had moved to town with her parents and siblings. Her Uncle Allen was already there, one of the founders of the town. So her family had decided to move to Mystic Falls, Virginia from Charleston, South Carolina so her mother Elizabeth could be closer her only relative alive, her brother. Immediately it had been clear to Damon that she was different from the other girls in this judgmental place. At the annual picnic the Lockwood family held, she had played tag with the boys instead of tea-party with her sisters Elena and Meredith. When Jonathan Gilbert's son pushed her down, she didn't even cry. Caroline got up with a determined set to her perfect mouth and punched him in the face. His blackened eye was quite impressive. Later, the other boys began to make fun of Damon's new shoes. Caroline had defended him fiercely and led him away to start their own 'far more fun' game. She had saved him.
So now, with the humidity flushing his skin as Damon flew across the meadow after her, he was happy. Caroline was the only thing in his life other than Stefan to ever make him feel this way since their Mother had died. At sixteen he could see the evidence of war brewing between the Northern and Southern states. The Union was cracking apart, with some states already rumbling with thoughts of secession. Damon hoped that war never touched them. All he wanted from life was to marry the girl he loves (even though he has not told her so – yet) and watch their children capture fireflies and dance through the thick southern air like their beautiful mother.
As she runs spinning madly, her beautiful hair trailing behind her, he imagines this future for them. Damon wishes it could be so, but he knows what is like as not going to happen in reality – he will go off to fight for something he doesn't believe and die for it. She will marry someone else (most definitely Ezra Gilbert or Samuel Lockwood) and have those back porch moments of perfectness without him to share them with. But for now he refuses to dwell on the more likely truths of their future together that will never be. Instead, he chases after his dreams in the dying sunlight of one of the best days of his young life. Desperately clinging to the red ribbon she had slipped from her hair, he finally catches up to her. They both stop for a moment and look into one another's eyes. His are clear, with obvious delight. Caroline's eyes are dark with mischief. Sparks connect them as he gently spins her around, so her back is facing him.
Damon reaches up, threading his fingers into her hair, trying to tame the wildness of it. He braids it slowly, savoring how close he feels to her in the fleeting space of time. Tying the violently hued ribbon upon the end of her braid, Damon moves forward to her side. His thin fingers entwine with Caroline's delicate ones, and holding onto each other they move forth into an uncertain destiny. No matter what happens in this life they will always have this day with one another, even if it belongs in another life when all is said and done.