Chapter 1

The war has ended. One year ago today, all the bad people died by the hands of the good and these good people, many of them died along with the bad. But nowadays, who can tell the difference? What qualifies someone as good and another as bad? Why do both good and bad people do bad things? Who was good: the humans, vampires, or werewolves? It had been so long; so much suffering, misery, and death without any sign of hope. You just kept on fighting, pushing forward, knowing in your gut that someday, it will all be over. The only people you trusted were the people who were beside you since to beginning. For Caroline Forbes, those people were Stephan, Elena, Bonnie, Damon, Jeremy, Matt, Alaric, Tyler and Enzo. They fought for the right side and made it out of the war alive.

In the end, millions of supernatural creatures were wiped out. The death rate was so high that it didn't go unnoticed by oblivious humans. So it was agreed upon by the High Council of Witches to combine all of their ancestors' stored magic along with their own to force the humans to forget this war had ever happened or that supernatural beings even existed.

Sometimes it was easy to push the memories aside, because when you step through your front door and onto your porch, the neighborhood looks the same. The same children ride their bikes up and down the block, the same old lady next door bakes her oatmeal cookies on Sunday mornings, and the same dog barks at the same mailman putting envelops in his owner's mailbox. It's almost like the war never happened. That is, until you see a familiar face. This is the worst part for Caroline: when she looks at Matt. Elena, Bonnie, Stephan, Jeremy, Tyler, and Enzo's eyes don't shine as bright as they used to. Although their bodies remain youthful, their souls are aged with grief. When she sees her friends, the memories come rushing in and she's violently sucked back into reality and they are right there with her. But with Matt, when Caroline reaches out to hug him, he's a chipper as ever. He doesn't remember the pain and the years of seeing the world ripped to pieces. He never had to kill a first time, then a second, then a third, then a hundredth. He never had to grab a handful of a little girl's intestines to get a point across to her mother. He never sped through an entire mansion full of vampires and tore their heads off their bodies one by one just to see each roll to a stop on the rusty, wooden floor. He never-

"Good morning, beautiful," Enzo steps into the living room and kisses a startled Caroline on the head. "It's nice out there today."

Caroline smiles, "Since when did you become so predictable?"

"Maybe we've been together too long," he teased.

"Well, I guess this is it. I'm packing my bags." Caroline pretends to lift herself from the leather sofa.

Enzo raises his eyebrows in amusement and tackles Caroline back down saying, "You're not going anywhere, Blondie," as he nuzzles her long neck with his prickly chin.

Giggling, Caroline tries to push Enzo off of her. "You're suffocating me!"

"You're a vampire, a little air shortage won't kill you."

One minute she's laughing along, but the next she feels his weight sink heavier on top of her, his arms tightening around her even though he's not doing any of that. Balling up her hands, her throat begins to close in making it hard to breath. She tried to relax, knowing in her mind that all of these sensations are not real, but still nothing helped. The only thing she knew how to do was use all of her strength to kick Enzo off of her in time to inhale a huge gulp of air and calm herself down. Caroline looks over to where Enzo landed. The television broke his fall, but the screen split in half.

She rushes to help him up. Instead, he forcefully lifts himself off of the television, "I'm really sorry, Enzo. I got overwhelmed. "
"I got overwhelmed..." he echos to himself as he angrily walks up the stairs to the bedroom.
"Please hear me out-" Caroline pleads but he raised his left hand up to silence her as he continued up the steps.

Four years. That's how long they've been together. When Damon and Bonnie died on the other side, everyone scattered. All of her friends were dealing with this immense loss in their own way, their own time. The only person that remained irritatingly constant was Enzo. He would not leave her be. He admired that she wanted to single-handedly lift the curse on Mystic Falls when her friends have long since lost hope. In fact, he came in quite useful with his accent, good looks, charm, courage, and death threats. Somewhere along the way, having spent so much time together, he realized he wanted to be with her and only her. She was different from the bar pick-ups and wives he seduced to bed. With Caroline, it was genuine happiness, excitement, and meaningfulness. He didn't have to be anything other than himself because she was always herself. As he got accustomed to giving her little parts of himself, he grew on her. This cold-hearted beast who thought murder was humorous is broken. She has long since given up trying to fix what cannot be mended, but instead, learned to accept all of his imperfections. Their eye contact transitioned from quick gazes to deep, longing, stares. It was unspoken but they both knew that this game had bloomed into something more. No longer was he her sidekick but an equal partner that she relied on. Her friends could clearly see that they worked well together and they approved because, honestly, stranger unities have formed (such as with her and the original vampire).

However, years have past and they've gotten comfortable. Instead of wondering if he or she is who they wanted to spend eternity with, they simply stopped. It was just as it was meant to be. But just because their love was perfect didn't mean that the raging war had ended. As time passed, the body count shot up and the sight of evil hardened Caroline. She still beamed with hope but she was so scared. That fear turned into panic attacks. Every time Enzo tries to show her affection, these terrifying memories flash through her head. All this love will eventually vanish like so many of her friends and loved ones. Caroline knows that all this is doing is putting strain on their relationship but it's something she must work through and he isn't helping her. At first, he tried his best to comfort her and understand but each time she rejects his affection, he takes it to heart. Now, he just walks away and leaves her to deal with her own problems because there's nothing more he can think of to do.

I love Mystic Falls. I love Enzo. I love my friends. I love my life. Everything is back to normal and I helped get it this way. Everyone is safe. All our problems are small again like when we were children. I like it this way. I will get better with time and I just hope he's still beside me when that time comes.

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading! This is one of my first fanfics. I haven't written anything in a long while. Hope you like it. I'll try to update once or twice a week but be warned, I am a music major at a university. Things pop up.

I love Klaroline and the fact that Klaus is on the Originals and this whole Stephan thing is happening makes me childishly angry :P This fanfic is just for me to channel my 14 year-old girl fantasies. In the future, there will be steamy, hot and heavy parts so be ready!