"Caroline, honey, I'm fine." Liz said as she watched her daughter cover her up with yet another blanket. "It's been weeks – you don't have to do this every time you come visit. They are taking great care of me in here, you know." Caroline continued tucking her mother in, ignoring her insistence, as committed as ever.
"Caroline, stop." Liz said, grabbing her hand, stopping Caroline in her tracks. Caroline looked in her sick mother's eyes as she sat on the side of the bed, defeated.
"I can't help it." Caroline said, meekly with a sad smile. "I just want to make sure you're okay. I hate that you can't come home."
"I know. But, it's just easier to be here while I'm in treatment. You should go home and get some rest. You look like you haven't slept in days."
She hadn't slept in days. More like weeks, actually. She poured over books at the library on treatments and herbal remedies and scoured the internet looking for holistic doctors who claimed to find the cure in new-age medicine. She drank wine out of boxes and blood out of bags and cried on the kitchen floor of her childhood home, alone and in the dark. And she ignored every call and text and email from everyone who cared enough to call and text and email. But she didn't sleep.
"I don't like to leave you here alone, Mom. It's depressing." Caroline said, squeezing her mom's hand.
"It's more depressing to me to see you like this. Go out, eat something good…" Liz's choice of words made Caroline chuckle, causing her to shake her head. "You know what I mean. Call your friends. Call Stefan." Liz felt Caroline stiffen at the mention of Stefan's name. "He's come by a lot to visit. It's kind of him to do."
"Yeah." Caroline replied, looking past her mother and nodding. A nurse interrupted with an announcement that visiting hours were over and it was time for Caroline to leave. She leaned over and gave her mother a kiss on the forehead before she left. "I'll be back tomorrow morning to check in." Liz smiled back as Caroline gathered her things and left.
Caroline sighed heavy as she dropped her bag in the foyer of her Mystic Falls home. She'd been staying there since the veil was lifted, despite the commute to school. Not that she was going to school much these days. It was the last thing on her mind.
She walked upstairs to her room and stood in the doorway for a moment, surveying the chaos. She had brought all of her wardrobe with her from school and her room had suffered the brunt of a girl with too many clothes and not enough time to organize them. She shook her head with anxiety as she stepped over a suitcase to grab some leggings, a tee shirt and a long sweater before hopping into the shower. The old Caroline would have never let it get this bad. The old Caroline would have done a lot of things different, she thought.
She had just gone downstairs to grab a blood bag from the kitchen – O neg, her favorite – when she heard a knock on the door. She put the bag back and checked herself in the mirror as she walked by, her messy bun airing on the side of messy more than bun. She faintly smiled when she saw Stefan at the door.
"Hey." She said, opening the door as Stefan leaned against the frame.
"Hey." He said, smiling back. "I went by the hospital and your mom said I just missed you. Thought you may want some company? I brought reinforcements." He held up a bottle of whiskey and a pizza – one of the few foods she still loved, even though it tasted different as a vampire.
She laughed lightly as she held the door open, gesturing for him to come inside. He smiled at her as he walked past and into the kitchen, opening the pizza box on the center island and grabbing two glasses from above the sink. When he turned around, Caroline was already once slice deep and drinking from the bottle.
"…Maybe I should have gotten two pizzas." He laughed. Caroline gave an annoyed smile and hopped onto the island, her legs dangling down as she passed the bottle to Stefan. He drank and passed it back. "Liz seemed good today. Strong."
Caroline scoffed. "As strong as you can be when cancer is eating your brain, I guess." Stefan looked at her, quiet. "Ugh, I'm sorry. You're being nice and I'm being a bitch."
"No, it's okay." He replied, turning his back to lean on the center island next to her. "I understand."
"It's not okay. You've been so great to my mom and I, I should be nicer to you." She said, running her hands through her messy hair.
"I'll take that as a thank you," he replied, smiling over to her and nudging her slightly with his shoulder. "And you're welcome."
She nodded and smiled back as she grabbed the bottle and took another long drink, neither breaking eye contact as she does.
She'll never understand why vampires still get hangovers. She can survive being stabbed and shot, but too much whiskey and the world spins.
She groaned as she opened her eyes and sat up from the couch she'd been sprawled out on. She did a quick scan of the room, looking for Stefan and buried the pang of disappointment she felt when she didn't find him. She stood up, picking up her sweater that had been thrown off at some point in the night and the pizza crust and empty bottle on the table in front of her. She jumped in the air, startled, when a familiar voice came up behind her.
"Morning." Stefan said, scratching his head and rubbing his face. He was wearing his jeans and socks and his undershirt, his button up thrown over the chair he must have slept in, she thought. "I don't think that was Damon's best bottle. My head kills." He said, walking closer to her and taking some of the trash from her hands to help. "Do you feel okay?"
"I've felt better. I just need to eat." She said, brushing past him to the refrigerator to get two blood bags, one for each of them. Stefan threw out the empty bottle and sat across from her at the kitchen table, tucking into the blood bag Caroline placed down for him.
This had become a pretty regular routine for them. They would spend all night drinking, laughing, crying and the next morning they would share breakfast and he would go home while she went to the hospital to see Liz. Caroline had begun to rely on the consistency of it – it was the only thing she could count on. Even if part of her still resented him for running away, she could count on him now. And she needed him.
"Do you want company at the hospital today?" He asked, draining what was left of his blood bag and getting up to throw it away. He took her empty bag from her.
"Thank you," she said, ignoring the electricity that ran through her when their fingers touched. "But, I can't stay there long today. My mom has a lot of tests so she'll be busy most of the day, and really tired when she's done. I think I make it worse when I'm there on days like that." She said, sadly.
"I don't think you could ever make anyone's day worse, Caroline." Stefan said, pouring a cup of coffee for himself. "Quite the opposite, really." He winked at her as she looked at him.
"You know what I mean. I think it may make it harder for her to have to worry about me all the time. She told me yesterday that I needed to go out and have fun – she basically told me to stop being such a loser." She uncomfortably chuckled as she stood up and stretched. Stefan looked away, trying not to notice her bare midriff as she did.
He had been catching himself a lot more lately – catching himself seeing her differently, thinking of her differently. The more time they spent together, the closer they got, the blurrier the lines got. He remembers the night a few weeks ago when Caroline cried in his arms and drunkenly kissed him, lightly, begging him to distract her from her pain. He wanted her in that moment, but not like that. So he pushed it down, like he's done everyday since.
"I better hop in the shower and go," Caroline said, grabbing her sweater off the counter to take it upstairs with her. She walked over to Stefan and quickly kissed him on the cheek before turning away. "I'll call you later – just lock up when you head out."
His cheek had never felt on fire like that before.
