Sideline Benediction

Disclaimer: Do not own I just borrow for the purposes of angst and depression.

A/N: This story is set immediately post finale season two of TVD – and spoilers for episode 2:20 with some speculation for the last two episodes.

Ironically Caroline knew Damon had been bitten before he did. At first she didn't realise that she knew, there was a ton of other stuff to worry about, Tyler was wolfing out and Matt was freaking out and…yeah, stuff happened and she didn't really have time to take inventory of all the ways in which the whole world was falling to pieces.

But she still knew, in some secret, hidden corner of her mind that Tyler had bitten Damon - or at least she wasn't surprised to find out about it after the fact. Damon had jumped in Tyler's path, stopped him piling straight into her – so in a way that bite was meant for her. That's what she keeps thinking anyway. She was supposed to die in the sacrifice after all. The whole reason Katherine smothered her while she had Damon's blood in her veins was so she'd be the handy-dandy expendable vampire ready for sacrifice.

It's funny, in a screaming-inside-like-something-has-died-where-her-heart-used-to-be way that in the end Caroline didn't end up dying in the ritual -because she was sort of born to play the role of casualty in someone else's drama.

Another so-not-funny-it-hurts thing – it is all Damon Salvatore's fault she missed her supporting-death casting call. She and Tyler were first choice for the sacrifice until Damon forced Klaus to use his alternates. That's got to be the most ironic thing of all time. The guy who called her useless is the one who made sure Klaus couldn't 'use' her in his ritual.

Caroline is glad she's not dead-dead of course, even if she knows that Elena kind of, sort of, blames both her and Damon for what happened to Jenna. Jenna died because Caroline didn't after all…and Caroline can't help but think that Elena would trade her in for her aunt in a hot second if she could. Caroline accepts this, because Caroline kind of, sort of, blames Elena for a whole lot of things as well.

She hears the news from Bonnie of all people. The sun is shining and Gone with the Wind is playing on a big portable movie screen in the town park and Bonnie comes over to her and says point blank.

"A werewolf bit Damon. Stefan's leaving town. Elena's devastated. She's suffered so much and now Stefan's leaving."

Caroline's not sure really but she feels…something…when she hears Bonnie's words. It's a little like that Aha! moment she gets when she finally figures out an equation for algebra and it's a little like 'oh shit' and a bit like her stomach's just dropped through the floor.

One thing is for sure, it isn't Elena she's worried about.

"Were bites kill vampires." Caroline says, and it's almost conversational, like she's saying 'hey look, that's a pretty cloud'. She feels like something is shaking loose inside her and she thinks again that Damon jumped in front of Tyler when he was headed straight for me.

"I know." Bonnie agrees, oblivious to Caroline's thoughts. "It's pointless. Stefan should just stay with Elena and give up looking for a cure that doesn't exist. Elena needs him now more than ever, especially after Jenna…"

And that's when Caroline stops listening.

Bonnie keeps talking, mostly about Elena. Caroline thinks that is so weird because seriously, Elena is so not the issue right now. Someone they both know is dying and probably going to suffer a whole hell of a lot before he finally croaks, but they don't talk about that. Instead Bonnie talks about Stefan and how he's feeling and Elena and how she feels about Stefan leaving, but she doesn't say: hey you know, sucks for Damon, right? It's like what's happening to Damon – the whole dying thing – is only important in regards to how it affects Stefan and Elena.

Caroline can relate.

"It was Tyler." She finds herself saying, almost blurting the words out and interrupting Bonnie as she's talking – once again – about Elena this and Elena that. "Tyler bit him." She explains, feeling desperate for some reason. "He was changing and confused and Damon jumped in front of him when he went for me. So, you know, it was supposed to be me."

This is an important fact Caroline feels needs to be addressed. She doesn't know why. She just thinks that someone needs to know that she could have died and not been here now to have this conversation with Bonnie about the fact that Damon is dying instead.

"He saved you." Bonnie says, after an appreciable pause, like the words don't make sense, but the thing is, they do.

"Yeah," Caroline agrees but she can't help but think that once again her friend is missing the point. Bonnie proves her right with the next words out of her mouth.

"We knew they'd be casualties," Bonnie says grimly. "He knew the risks. We all did."

Caroline doesn't say anything to that. Because she thinks that she and Bonnie aren't talking the same language right now anyhow. Instead she looks up at a powder blue sky, cloudless and flawless, and thinks that she can't be sorry she's still around to see it. She's not important in the grand scheme of things –she's not Elena after all – but still. Caroline is glad as hell she isn't one of Bonnie's 'casualties'.

It's then that she realises there's something she needs to do. Right now.

"I think I'm going to go over to the boarding house," Caroline announces and she turns and walks away without waiting for Bonnie to reply.

The air is sweet and the sun gentle on her back as she approaches the big, imposing façade of the Salvatores' (or should that be Elena's?) home. The door is unlocked and she lets herself in (she's been re-invited at some point in the blur of death and sorrow that is her everyday life now). She calls a greeting that no one answers. She doesn't know if anyone is home but she walks into the parlour anyway. All the drapes have been pulled back from the windows and sunlight pours in. Dust motes dance in the still, slightly stuffy air and the silence is punctuated by the regular ticking pulse of the grandmother clock against the wall...

...As well as the clink of decanter against tumbler.

"They're not here," Damon circumvents usual greetings because he's a jerk and dying doesn't change that. He is standing by the drinks table, head bowed over the drink he is pouring and his voice is rough but otherwise he seems normal. Caroline stays where she is though, standing on a faded corner of the Persian area rug half way between him and the door, not feeling able to move closer and not at all sure she actually wants to.

"Who's not here?" She asks genuinely confused because she sort of thinks she came here to see him and he is here so, yeah. Non-sequiturs are so not a good way to start a conversation.

Damon lifts his head to throw his drink down his throat and the sunlight limns his profile in sharp relief and burnished gold; painting hollows and ragged edges over chin and cheek and jaw. He coughs a little as he pulls the glass from his lips and fumbles to pour more whiskey into his glass. His movements aren't as fluid as they should be and Caroline wonders if he's already in pain. He seems to be favouring one arm over the other as well, but that at least makes sense.

"Stefan and Elena," He continues, slowly turning his head so he can look at her and Caroline can see it now; the shimmer of sweat dampening his hair at temple and brow and the sunken bruised discoloration around his eyes. He doesn't exactly look like he's dying –even though he is – instead he just looks tired.

Then Caroline realises the significance of what Damon is telling her and she blinks in surprise. "Wait. You're saying Stefan and Elena aren't here with you?"

"Mmhmm, they're saying their tearful farewells in town, someplace suitably epic." He makes finger quotation marks, mouth twisting in a sneer. "Apparently Saint Stefan won't take my word for it that wolf-bites can't be cured. So he's off to turn my death into his own pet vanity project." Damon sloshes his full glass in her direction; a bitter salute. "Just think of the opportunity for brow furrowing and navel gazing Blondie. Stefan will be in full blown angst-gasm by now."

"They left you alone?" Caroline realises this is a stupid question because Damon was definitely all alone with his whiskey when she arrived…but still. It's just like trigonometry assignments. The equations don't make sense and no amount of twisting the facts around can make any of this any more explicable to Caroline.

"There's nothing my brother likes better than making a drama out of shit that has nothing do to with him." Damon sighs and holds the tumbler to his lips without actually drinking. Instead he looks down into the liquid depths for a moment. "I told him not to bother- but when does he ever listen to me?"

"But you're dying." Caroline feels this fact needs to be verbalised. It seems important to her anyway.

"Not yet." Damon bites out, smile rapier sharp and hollow as broken glass. Once more he downs his drink in one swallow. "I've got a couple of hours before the dementia sets in and my skin starts falling off. I don't need a babysitter." Pale eyes fix on her like icy lasers. "And I don't need pity."

Caroline nods, her head bouncing on the stalk of her neck. She could have figured that out herself. Still she doesn't see why Stefan and Elena couldn't have said goodbye here in the house…or better yet, said goodbye to Damon. He's the one dying after all. He's the one who might not be around later when they realise how stupid they've been and what they've lost because of it. But she's not Stefan – and god knows she's never been a match for Elena – so what does she know?

"What are you going to do?" She asks him instead and she wonders if she's the first person to ask Damon this because for a moment he looks at her, really looks, and there's something in his face, just for a second, that isn't even a little bit indifferent. But before Caroline can decide what that something is it is gone and Damon's back to acting like he doesn't care about anything.

"There's nothing I can do." He points out bluntly. "Wolf-bite equals death. End of story."

He shrugs, a lazy movement of his shoulders, as if the advent of his own death isn't worth his time…and Caroline thinks that's true, because Caroline thinks that Damon doesn't care about his own life, or unlife, or whatever. He cares about Elena. He cares about Stefan. He even, maybe for a micro-second, cared about Caroline too because he's dying of a wolf-bite when it should be her, but he doesn't care about himself. He's not important in the grand scheme of things – not like Stefan – so why should he care?

"Ric and Judgy will be here soon." Damon tells her and Caroline wonders if he notices that he's talking to her way more than he would normally. "They'll lock me in the basement so I can't go on a demented rampage through town." Another shrug, another bitter smirk, "Then I'll sit in that dank hole and lose my mind, and vomit blood, and fucking rot until Stefan gets bored of playing white knight." Calm blue eyes look straight through Caroline to a future that is pain filled and hopeless and completely out of his control. "Then the rest of you can draw lots on which one stakes whatever's left of me."

Caroline nods again, head bobbing up and down like it might fall off. She feels like she should say sorry, because he's dying and maybe it should be her instead, but she isn't sorry to be alive. She wants to thank him but she knows he doesn't want that. He's not interested in her gratitude. He's not interested in her. He might have saved her in that moment but if it had been a choice between watching her die and saving Elena…well, Caroline knows that's not even a choice in Damon's mind. She's not offended though because he did save her and that's what counts.

"You know what?" She asks him when the silence threatens to drown them both, and he looks up at her blankly.

"What?"

"I'm not sorry." Caroline says and for just an instant something hard and flinty flickers to life in Damon's pale, sallow face but Caroline smiles through that moment because she finally knows what she came here to say. "I'm not sorry I met you Damon." She tells him simply. "I'm not important and I'm not the one you wanted to save, but I won't ever forget that you saved me anyway." Her smile is wavering but sincere. "Maybe we don't matter in the grand scheme of things. But what you did for me…all of it...I'll remember. I'll remember you."

Damon looks at her then, long and searching, and Caroline thinks she's the first person, maybe the only person, to say anything like this to him. She thinks that is probably the saddest thing she's ever thought and she hates the fact that in the grand scheme of things it shouldn't be her saying any of this. But she's all he's got, just like on the night of the full moon he was the only one she'd had to save her.

He tells her: "Save it for the eulogy, Blondie." But she hears something quite different and when he raises his glass to her in one final silent toast she smiles and nods and accepts her due in good grace.

"Goodbye Damon."

Caroline sweeps out of the parlour in a blur because he doesn't want pity and staying would only be pity now. All the same she hears his response even as she runs across the lush, luminous green lawn under the gentle benediction of the sun.

"Goodbye Caroline. Have a good life."

Caroline thinks that she will. She thinks maybe in the grand scheme of things that's all that really matters anyway.