A/N: I started writing this before last night's episode (and Caroline being so vehemently anti-Damon), and I'm running with it anyway because it's a spin-off from my AU Trilogy (where Elena doesn't become a vampire and remains with Stefan; Damon keeps his end of their bargain and leaves them alone). While this story goes along with "Always You," "Event Horizon," and "Excerpts from Always," it can be read alone. The story takes place 10 years after everyone flees Mystic Falls. Caroline ended up in Paris. Damon is plotting a dramatic end to Caroline's famous "life" as s fashion designer, and this story is the weeks leading up to the violent and fiery end ('cause what says "Merry Christmas" more than a formal ball with a body count?). Thanks to CreepingMuse, and I hope y'all enjoy.

Twelve Days of Christmas

Partridge in a Pear Tree

"You missed a spot," I say, pointing to a bare section towards the bottom of the tree where Caroline didn't have the branch perfectly twisted with twinkling colored lights.

"I so did not," she argues, continuing her efforts on the ladder.

"There," I say, pointing. "Come over here and look."

Caroline stomps down and huffs over. She stands right in front of me, pushing my feet from the ottoman with her knee as she looks at the tree from my angle. "Dammit. You're right."

"I'm always right." I take another sip from my drink and go back to my book.

"Well, mister smarty pants, you could've said something earlier."

I shrug. "It's a fucking, tree, Caroline. A dead tree that's going to stink up the apartment. Just turn it around."

Caroline swats my arm until I look at her. She purposefully rolls her eyes and flashes back to the tree, where she starts unwinding strands of lights, dropping them without ceremony onto the hard wood floor. "It's standing in front of a mirror for a reason. I want to be able to see the back too. You could help."

"I made you Thanksgiving dinner in a country that doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving. Have you ever eaten a turkey breast so moist and flavorful? I pureed that pumpkin for the pie and whipped the cream by hand."

"Okay, first, you're a vampire. It took less than a minute for the pureeing and whipping. Second, that was like three days ago! How long do you plan on milking it?"

"Longer than three days, that's for damn sure."

"Damon," she starts.

"Caroline," I mock back. She throws her empty coffee mug at me when she thinks I'm not looking, but I catch it right before it hits me in the face.

"You're a jerk."

"Yep," I agree. "Now that we've got that covered, stop harassing me. I'm busy."

"You are so not busy," she says. "You're drinking, in the morning I might add, and reading Call of the Wild, which I have personally witnessed you read at least ten times in the last decade."

"It's the only book I travel with, and I'm not bored enough to stoop into your gossip magazine collection. Yet."

"You love my trashy magazines," Caroline teases. "Oh, you claim you're just looking at the fashion ads, but I know you're all about Taylor Swift's latest man. Besides, ever hear of a Kindle?"

"I travel light, and I like books, okay? I like the feel of the pages. Besides, while I don't consider myself particularly sentimental, this is a signed first edition I won in a bet. I met the man, for fuck's sake. We had drinks. Fuck off and decorate your tree."

She smiles. "What was the bet?"

"We both wanted the same girl, and I bet him a signed copy that I'd get her to fuck me instead of him."

"Compulsion?" She knowingly nods.

I roll my eyes. "No, I didn't compel her. I won this book fair and square. For Christ's sake, where's the fun if you're cheating?"

"Like you don't cheat," she says, raising a single eyebrow as she stares at me.

"Fine," I admit. "Sometimes, I cheat. But not for things like that."

"Can I see the personal inscription?"

"No," I snap.

"But why keep reading the same book? You probably have the whole thing memorized by now. At least, God, I hope you do..."

"'He must master or be mastered...'" I interrupt her, reciting from the book that has always spoken to my soul. I fucking love it. I do, in fact, have the whole damn thing memorized.

"See?" she says. "Why read it if you know it by heart?"

"'... while to show mercy was a weakness," I continue, as if she hasn't spoken. "Mercy did not exist in the primordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of Time, he obeyed.'"

There is silence as she stands unnaturally still, holding the stands of lights in her hand, looking at me with a kind of pity and sadness that makes me want to flee her cheerful little apartment and maybe even Paris, to hell with promises and plans and all the things I have to do in the coming weeks.

"What the fuck?"

"Wow," she finally whispers. "Do you really feel that way?"

"I was reciting, Caroline. It used to be part of one's formal education, before Google. Don't read anything into it, pun intended. Although hell, maybe you should read into it. Or just read, period."

She drops the lights and flashes back to me, perching on the ottoman and once again pushing my feet to the floor as she wraps her hand around my knee. "Is that why you hate Christmas? Because you don't think you deserve mercy? Is it an anti-Christian vampire thing?"

"I don't hate Christmas, and I'm Catholic," I say.

She looks shocked. "Really?"

"Yes. And it wasn't easy being Catholic in Virginia in the mid-19th century, let me tell you."

"Actually, that sounds really boring. Please don't tell me," Caroline says. "But you and Stefan are Catholic?"

"Italian. Catholic." I don't complicate the conversation I don't even want to be having by trying to explain why I still consider myself Catholic, even after all these years. There are entire decades when I don't do anything, not even think about it, but then, suddenly, there'll be times when I feel the need for the tradition, for the ritual, and my childhood lessons are impossible to ever completely forget or ignore, the prayers in Latin my mother patiently taught me coming to my lips without any thought or consideration. I was the one who taught them to Stefan, and I wonder if he feels the same way. Add that to our depressingly long list of things we don't ask each other.

"Well, yeah," she agrees. "But... really?"

"Yes, Caroline."

"So why don't you like Christmas? Is it some painful reminder of your childhood or something?"

"What is this, Dr. Phil? Not everything is a result of childhood trauma."

"Well," she says. "The formative years are..." her voice trails off.

"Formative?"

"Jerk," she snaps again, leaving me and returning to her now tangled strings of lights. "You're the one who told me I only had so long in any given field. I've been living it up. Becoming quite famous, actually. Maybe I'll be a scholar or a shrink next time."

"Or the time after that?" I tease, knowing full well Caroline will take her time getting around to higher learning. In her defense, the girl is certainly not all beauty and no brains, and she does have forever stretching out before her. "Maybe one day we can matriculate together. Be roommates. Copy each other's papers and cheat off each other's exams..."

She throws a vase at me, which I easily catch again, setting it neatly next to the empty coffee mug on the side-table. She sticks out her tongue at me before going back to her lights. I sigh and set aside my book, leaving the comfortable chair and my drink, to help untwist strands of lights and hand them to her as she carefully makes sure each branch is equally wrapped, from tip to solid trunk, all the wires intricately woven in and virtually invisible. Like everything else she does, Caroline decorates with an intensity and attention to detail I have to admire, even if it's driving me up the fucking wall to be part of the process.

"Christmas in America was just starting to become a thing when I was alive," I finally say. "Your lack of historical reference is embarrassing. Although as Catholics, we always quietly did Christmas anyway. You know Catholics and their love of pagan rituals."

"What are you talking about?" she asks, not looking at me as she once again climbs her ladder to get to the upper portion of the tree. "Christmas isn't pagan. Keep Christ in Christmas and all?"

"Yes, except the Church put him there in the first place, which is why the Puritans hated the holiday and made it illegal for so long."

"Really?"

I roll my eyes and continue to hand her lights.

"I thought maybe your mom died at Christmas, or your dad never gave you what you most wanted, or..." her voice trails off as she shrugs. "Some weird and traumatic thing with Katherine or the war. Something like that."

"My mother died in childbirth," I finally say in what I hope is an off-hand voice. "It wasn't at Christmas, just not uncommon then."

"How old were you?" she quietly asks.

"Six."

"But..." I don't watch her figure it out. "Oh," she abruptly says when she puts it together. "I see."

There's no way our mother didn't know. Even then, I remembered the babies she lost before Stefan, the tiny holes in the ground for even tinier caskets. I was curled in her arms, asleep, when she started bleeding. One of the slaves lifted me from her bed, and I sat vigil outside the closed door, listening. At first she was quiet, which gave way to the occasional moan. For a while she screamed. At the end, as the sun rose and bathed the hallway in morning light, most frightening of all, she was quiet again.

It took me years to realize why Stefan was Father's obvious favorite when he's the one who killed her. But then I realized I don't need a picture to remember what my mother looked like. All I need is a mirror. It was easier for Father to love Stefan because even as a child, Stefan was Father in miniature. He loved Stefan as easily as he loved himself. Obedient, dutiful Stefan, so fucking easy to love.

"There," she says at last, satisfied and stepping down from the ladder. "Go stand over there and tell me what you think."

"It looks great," I immediately reply.

"No. Stand over there." She pushes me across the room. I stand in the tiny space that is her kitchen and dutifully study her tree.

"Seriously, Caroline. Come here." I motion her with my hand and wait for her to slowly back up, scrutinizing the tree from every angle, before reaching me. I put my arm around her shoulders, and she snuggles into my side, her hair sticky with sap and smelling of pine resin. "It's perfect."

She nods. "It really is, isn't it?" We both look at the tree. "I need it to be perfect," she finally whispers.

I pull her closer and kiss the top of her head. "It is. And it will be." We don't mention why I'm here, why this Christmas is different from all the Christmases that came before and the countless ones that will come after. "Trust me."

She nods. "Lord help me, I never thought I'd say this, but I do. I do trust you."

"Good. Now go take a fucking shower. You stink."

She laughs and swats at me again before heading towards the little bathroom we're forced to share for the next few weeks. I'm such a sucker, no pun intended this time, for letting her talk me into staying with her and not getting my own place.