A/N- I own nothing associated with the Vampire Diaries.
Twelve was such an exciting number!
It was so much cooler than eleven because when you were eleven you were basically still a kid but twelve, twelve meant you were one year away from being a teenager and a teenager was practically an adult!
After all, an eleven year old girl would totally be afraid to walk home by herself this late in the evening even in a town like Mystic Falls, but Caroline was turning twelve tomorrow which meant she was totally twelve already so she wasn't afraid.
Not one bit.
No sir.
She shivered and gripped the handle of her basket tighter, wishing for the hundredth time that she'd had the brains to leave the Quarry earlier so that she didn't have to stumble through the forest which was pretty and adventurous during the day but dark and creepy the second the sun went down.
But it totally wasn't her fault.
She had been waiting for Elena and Bonnie to turn up.
After all it was tradition.
Well, not tradition yet, it had only been one year so far but last year she'd made a picnic and they'd gone to the Quarry for Elena and Bonnie's birthday's and they'd had such fun that Caroline had figured they'd do the same thing again for her.
So she'd made fairy bread sandwiches- her favourite, baked a red velvet cake- packet mix but still tasty and she'd even thrown in a fruit salad because Bonnie was on some vegetarian health kick but vegetables weren't picnic food so this was the best she could do.
She'd drawn up some pretty pink invitations for the three of them, not that she needed reminding of her own birthday but it looked really great on her calendar, and told them that she'd see them after school.
She had raced home and then headed to the Quarry with an old picnic blanket that she'd found in the hallway cupboard, along with some teen magazines that she'd bought with the twenty dollars her grandmother sent her early.
She'd got there just before four and set up, making sure everything looked absolutely perfect.
At four-thirty she'd started reading the magazines, wondering why Elena and Bonnie were walking so slowly. A part of her got excited thinking that maybe they'd bought her a really nice present and had to carry it there.
At five, she'd eaten a couple of the sandwiches because she was hungry.
At five-thirty she'd wiped at her eyes with the picnic blanket, even though she totally wasn't crying, she just had stuff in her eye.
At six, she'd begun packing up which had taken a while because even though everything had fit so neatly into the picnic basket, for some weird reason, with less food it totally didn't.
At six-fifteen she was lugging the heavy basket through the rapidly darkening woods, wishing she had something other than her Barbie digital watch for light, the pink glow did absolutely nothing and her tears were rolling down her face now and she couldn't remember which way she was meant to turn to get back to the road and she wanted more than anything to spin in a circle and try to get her bearings but she couldn't…
Because she could hear the footsteps behind her.
Her hands are sweaty and the wicker basket is slipping out of her fingers, or banging against the side of her leg which really hurts, her back is sore from being so tense and she's trembling with fear.
A twig snaps and she screams.
She drops the basket and sprints, running wildly through the woods, jumping over logs and ducking under low branches, she sees the familiar break in the trees and with a burst of energy makes it onto the asphalt of the road just as a large truck roars past and nearly hits her.
The brakes squeal and rubber burns on the road but the driver doesn't stop and Caroline barely manages to stagger backwards and fall onto the grass.
She skins her hands and sobs loudly because she's an eleven-year-old girl who is alone, frightened and just remembered that her purse and keys are in the basket and her mom is working late tonight, her dad is on a business trip and won't be back until tomorrow morning and she won't be able to get into the house.
She could walk to the police station but if she did then people might know that her friends didn't even turn up to her birthday party and then she'd be a loser and she might get kicked out of the cheer-squad and the dance club and people would make fun of her…
With a sob, she pulled herself up and squared her shoulders. Perhaps she had been imagining things, or maybe Tyler Lockwood had been playing a trick on her, or maybe a branch had just fallen out of a tree?
She takes a huge step back into the forest and determinedly takes large, loud steps back towards the place she thinks she dropped her basket. She even begins singing because if somebody hears her coming maybe they'll be frightened and run off?
She gets to the chorus when she sees her basket lying on its side, knocked open, she looks around but doesn't see anyone…
She is so stupid, she must have imagined the entire thing!
Totally not twelve year old behaviour!
Her face is burning with embarrassment when she bends over to pick it up and she's so busy scolding herself that she doesn't really see it the first time.
In fact, she has to check twice before she realises what is right in front of her.
A wolf.
A really big, really huge wolf.
And so close to her!
She can't breathe, she can't run, she can't move a muscle.
Maybe she's dreaming?
This wolf is the weirdest wolf she has ever seen and she's been to the Richmond Zoo once a year since she was five but she has never seen a wolf that is so big and so completely white.
And its eyes.
When it looks up at her she's stunned by how bright his blue eyes are. They seem to shine in the darkness and she finds herself exhaling as she wishes her eyes were that blue.
But the wolf is looking at her and she remembers all too late that wolves are dangerous predators…
Except this one isn't trying to eat her.
It's trying to eat her fruit salad.
Somehow it dragged the Tupperware bowl from her picnic basket and is trying to pull the lid off with its teeth, although it's definitely not succeeding and seems to be chewing the plastic more than anything.
And plastic is really bad for animals.
And Caroline was the leading Girl Scout in the troop for information on Animal Welfare…
Cautiously, she approaches the creature freezing when it lifts its head but otherwise takes no notice of her, it paws the bowl and her dad had just bought container and he'll be angry if it's ruined so she crouches down a few feet from him and reaches for the Tupperware.
The wolf growls a warning and she shakes, "It's okay" she tells the creature, "I'm…helping you"
It huffs and allows her to drag the bowl close enough so that she can pull off the lid.
She'd gone to a lot of effort to make that fruit salad, she'd even sliced some pineapple and mangoes and taken some peaches from the kitchen even though they were her mom's.
But the fruit had gone brown now and if Bonnie wasn't going to eat it…
"Here."
She pushes the bowl back towards the wolf and it sticks its nose in eagerly, snorting and snuffling as it gobbles the fruit down and licks the Tupperware clean.
It reminds her of a regular dog, not a scary wolf at all.
When the bowl has been licked of any fruit or juice the wolf raises its head and sniffs in the direction of the basket.
Well…she can't take the food home, not unless she wants her parents asking questions and she can't eat it all herself because then she'll feel sick and gain weight and Aimee Bradley had already told her that if she got fat she'd have her thrown out of the dance club because she didn't want a club of fatties.
So she opens the basket and pulls out the sandwiches and unwraps them, sticking the plastic in the back pocket of her shorts, and the cake which got squashed when she dropped the picnic basket.
She holds out the sandwiches and the wolf sniffs them curiously, licking the bread and pulling back as if it had poisoned it with a confused yelp, she chuckles at its reaction,
"It's okay," she told it, "It's fairy bread, hundreds and thousands on white, crust less, no grain."
It looks across into her eyes, at this level it's taller than her, it stares at her as if it can understand her and then bends its head and trying to eat the bread out of her hand.
She hisses as its teeth scrape her hand and pulls it back, staring at the red mark across her palm.
What if the wolf gets a taste for her blood?
The wolf whimpers and swallows the bread with a big gulp before nuzzling its nose on the fading mark.
"It's okay." she repeats, feeling the strangest urge to comfort the creature even though she is the one who is totally in pain, well not in pain because the mark is already fading, she just got a shock is all.
The wolf huffs and sits back, this time it opens its mouth and shows her really white teeth, waiting patiently with an open jaw as she carefully places a sandwich inside. It munches happily and Caroline feels bolder, reaching over slowly and patting its shoulder once before snapping her hand back just in case.
The cake is difficult for both of them.
Caroline cuts herself a weird shaped portion with one of the plastic knives but the icing has squished into the cake and gone everywhere, so she eats with her hands and leaves the rest on the paper plate for the wolf to gobble up.
She laughs when the wolf licks the plate so enthusiastically that the paper gets stuck to its tongue and it lifts its head to find the plate covering its face.
"I hope I haven't given you a sugar rush." she jokes as she eases the plate away and tosses it back into the basket before catching a glimpse of her watch.
Seven-thirty.
Crap!
Her mom was supposed to be home at eight and if Caroline wasn't home she would freak out and have half the squad looking for her and then everyone would know.
"I have to go," she tells the wolf, grabbing the now-totally lighter basket, "I have to get home."
The wolf whined at the word and she wondered if wolves had homes, or favourite caves or something, clearly they were smart animals because this one seemed to understand what she was saying.
She hopped from one foot to the other and gave it an awkward wave,
"Okay, so bye wolf…thanks for coming to my birthday party."
Caroline rolled her eyes at her own stupidity a moment later.
"God I am such an idiot." she muttered out load before treading up back up to the road to head home.
At seven-fifty five she made it through her front door and raced to her room, slipping on the runner in the hallway and smacking her not-really-injured but still sore hand on the wall, she hissed but threw herself onto her bed and grabbed the first book on her nightstand, opening it to a random page and pretending to be reading when five minutes later her mom strode through the door with case files in one hand and take-out in the other.
"Hey baby." she called and Caroline did her best to sound casual when she responded,
"Hey mom."
"How was the eve of your special day?" Elizabeth asked absently as she hung up her weapon, belt and badge, not noticing the faraway look on Caroline's face,
"It was good," she said, shrugging casually, "I think I made a new friend."
A few hours later when Caroline was getting ready for bed, something outside the window caught her attention. Switching off the bedroom light she climbed onto her window seat and saw the shining white wolf standing in the middle of the road.
She gasped and freaked out, hoping like hell nobody would notice and call the police or animal control to have it put down, also how the hell did it follow her here?
The wolf didn't seem too worried, it lifted its head and sniffed the air before padding over to her house, she saw it circle her mom's patrol car and the mail box, sitting back and staring at the gold cursive letters she'd painted on last month before nodding to itself and disappearing into the night.
She shook her head.
She really needed to read up on wolves.