It's funny how, once it starts, it doesn't seem to stop.
Stefan's hand and hers, held together as if bonded by more than simple touch.
How easy it seems to be for him, just to reach over, to know she's there. Know she'll squeeze back without having to be asked.
Huddled together again, in the corner of some cold empty boxcar, her head on his shoulder and his arm holding her close. The only noise their shared breathing and the rhythmic clack of the rails below. She doesn't have a clue where the train is heading, all they saw was that is was in the opposite direction of the crazy people setting themselves on fire.
Stefan's thumb makes circles on her thigh, probably not aware he's even doing it, but she doesn't mind this new and oddly intimate contact. It's hard to pinpoint just when it started, if she really tries to think, even though the neurotic side of her is screaming to figure out.
Stefan says something into her hair.
"What?"
"Are you cold?" asked with the tone of repetition.
The hard steel beneath them is like ice, and she can see her breath, when she replies.
"No," she says, giving their looped arms a squeeze. "I'm fine."
/\
She must have nodded off, because Stefan is shaking her shoulder, and their eyes catch for a moment when hers open fully.
"The train is slowing down," he says, moving to brush stray hairs from her forehead. A move that causes sudden heat to flush into her cheeks. "We should probably hop off."
"Like bunnies?" she asks, still kind of groggy.
His smirk is a reflex, one she'll take full credit for, because she knows deep down it doesn't come out for just anyone. He shifts to a knee, dusts his hands off on his jeans, and holds one out for her.
"This way cottontail," he teases.
So, slowing down doesn't actually mean slow, the ground passing at a speed she's not entirely keen to leap upon. She looks to him, eyes wide and unsure, and he just takes her hand again.
"Trust me," he says, like all of a sudden she doesn't.
"You've done this before, right?" she asks.
"Lots of times," he assures.
"Recently?"
His hesitation is not at all reassuring.
"Well..."
"In the last year? Last five years?"
"The thirties," he answers flatly, as if the realization of just how long ago that was just dawned on him. "Everyone rode the rails then. There was a depression on, you know."
"We're gonna die," she says looking down. "We got away from the psycho travelers just so you could get us run over by a train."
"Tuck and roll," Stefan says. "One, two-"
He doesn't get to three, but they still jump in synch, as she thought he would pull a trick like that.
Seconds later she's shaking gravel out of her hair, and glaring.
"It could have been worse," he tries.
She flicks a pebble at him.
"First town we find," she says, brushing past. "Breakfast is on you."
/\
Black coffee is all she has the stomach for, sitting across from Stefan at a diner somewhere in Mecklenburg County. She sips while he absently plays the pink packets of artificial sweetener, curious as to how they're going to proceed from this point, and glancing out the window.
One horse town, she muses. There's literally one tied to a post across the highway. Stefan follows her gaze and chuckles softly. Get out of my brain, she wants to say but doesn't. Instead she just grins, counts it as a moment that have been stacking up with continued frequency, and takes another sip.
"Thought about how we're getting home?" She asks, setting the mug down.
"Thought about it," he repeats.
"And?"
"Could just call Damon."
His voice is telling in that's it's not something he actually wants to do. With that line of thinking, she assumes Elena's roadside service is not an option either. Bonnie maybe? Matt?
Stefan winces suddenly, and her hand is on his without a second thought.
"Head still hurt?" she asks.
He nods.
"Guess I needed more than just a few hours to recharge."
A few hours? Was that all it was? All snuggled and cozy in that wreck of a car that was oddly furnished for sleeping? She looks at their hands, wanting to talk it to death. What it meant. What it means. One shared look and she knows there isn't a need.
"Part of me doesn't want to go back," he admits quietly.
Well, that's certainly unexpected.
"I am so over this doppelganger crap," he says firmer. "People frying my brain. People trying to drown me or kill me. Destiny."
His head sinks to the table.
"I'm tired, Caroline."
She squeezes his hand, opens her mouth to say something, anything, to quell the sudden despair in his voice.
"You need to sleep," is all that comes out.
/\
It's a quaint little room.
Surprisingly not disgusting, considering how old the building looks from the outside, Caroline walks in first and sits on the end of the bed.
"Come on," she says patting the spot next to her. "You're exhausted, and we're not in a hurry."
The mattress sinks with his weight, but he doesn't lay down right away, letting their arms brush as they get comfortable with the surroundings. His head turns toward her, but she keeps focused straight ahead, trying desperately to ignore the hairs suddenly standing on her neck.
It's not like she hasn't thought about kissing him before. That girl in the hall wanted nothing more. The girl looking Grace Kelly hot seriously considered it. But this, now, where nothing is stopping them but the question of what happens after.
Turning toward him, she tugs on his sleeve, both shifting to lay facing each other.
His hand cups her cheek, her heart skips a beat, thinking this is it.
"Thank you," he says.
A nervous smile plays at her lips.
"For what?"
His eyes are deadly serious.
"Everything."
Warmth spreads throughout her insides, as she grabs the front of his jacket, but won't make that final move.
"Sleep," she says when he doesn't.
His arms wrap around her.
"Caroline-"
They're both gone before she can count to ten.
/\
It takes two days to get back to Mystic Falls.
Somehow he talks her into hopping another train, but being generally unfamiliar with the routes, they caught one going in the opposite direction. The fact that Stefan doesn't seem all the bothered, distance bringing a brightness to him she hasn't seen since before the safe, quickly subdues any worries she may have had for the people in their lives wondering what the hell happened to them.
The closeness is still something they haven't talked about. Letting the touches happen, the looks, the knowledge that something has changed without either fully realizing.
She keeps track of the moments.
His cheek pressed atop her head as their legs dangle carelessly over the edge of the boxcar, crossing a river in some part of the state she's never been.
Dazing idly with her head in his lap, watching fields of corn as far as she could see, pass by.
A couple shared memories of the non nightmare inducing kind, from his hundred and fifty some odd years of existence.
She smiles constantly when he isn't looking.
From the corner of her eye, she knows he does the same.
/\
The front door is open when they finally arrive at the house, Stefan reaches for Caroline's hand, as they step across the threshold primed for an attack.
Damon comes wondering in with a bag of ice pressed against his left eye, pausing at the sight of them, a knowing smirk at their clasped hands.
"Well, well," he says in that way of his. "Where have you two been?"
"What happened?" Stefan asks, ignoring the taunt.
"The travelers' fearless leader paid a visit," Damon replies. "Nice guy. Thinking of having him over for dinner next week."
"The ritual," Caroline says. "That's what they were up to with all the blood drinking, and setting themselves on fire."
"More doppelganger drama," Damon pipes up. "He wasn't happy that we didn't know where you were."
"Where's Elena?" Stefan asks.
"Upstairs, and fine. I am too, by the way. Thanks for asking."
The girl in question appears, as if hearing her name mentioned, at the top of the stairs. Caroline watches her carefully, seeing a mix of emotion wash over her friend's face in the fraction of a second. Relief that they're alive and well after two days radio silence. Confusion as to why they're holding hands. A flash of something else, she honestly doesn't have a place to feel.
The last one stays in place longer than the rest. Caroline realizing in that moment, that the thought something could actually happen between she and Stefan, is one that never crossed Elena's mind.
For a few horribly awkward seconds no one says a word.
Stefan looks at Caroline, and she at him, ready for whatever happens next.