December Moon

Summary: AU universe Caroline and Stefan lead an uneventful, if boring, married life, until Stefan goes missing and she starts to suspect Nicklaus has something to do with it. What other terrible secrets will she learn along the way?

Disclaimer: none of vampire diaries characters are mine.

Chapter 1

They were having the same conversation again. And the tempo was raising an octave with every sentence that passed between them. Caroline didn't care anymore. She was done trying to be understanding, indulgent, and patient. This was the twelfth time she was begging her husband Stefan for a legitimate reason why they could not try for a child with modern medical help.

They had been trying for two years now and things were not moving. The local hospital had offered to do some helpful fertility tests on both her and Stefan to get to the bottom of things. For some reason her husband saw this as the most absurd thing she's suggested yet.

'We haven't been trying long enough Caroline...' he whispered noisily hammering the table with a balled fist. People in the cafe turned around to look at them with faint interest, appetisers forgotten. Caroline just pretended to nibble on a carrot for a few minutes before she felt everyone's interest in them wane. 'There just tests Stefan, I don't understand why you don't want to even try...you are such a baby I swear!'

That got him pissed to hell.

'What I don't understand is why you blame me for everything you can't handle, we have been through this Caroline, we agreed to try for another year and see what happens...you know my freakin job is stressful right now and i don't have time for your stupid personal drama!'

There was a 'crash' as his empty glass fell to the floor and shattered like a dry and empty testament to their animosity.

She didn't even bother to spit an insult out, just grabbed her purse from under the table and slipped out of the booth wordlessly. Her husband did not follow; he knew it was a bad time to try.

Bristol was frigid this time of the year. Icy droplets of rain fell on her forehead and slipped down her cheeks like tears. She wiped at them quickly, self-conscious of strangers looking at her questioningly. Caroline wanted to enjoy her holiday, even if it was a short one, the last of the whole year she would get to have with Stefan. But she couldn't because of his disinterest in the fertility treatment.

She had told herself she not rush him or prod him unnecessarily when he was on edge about something, but ultimately impatience had won out and her push had turned to shove.

She didn't imagine he was embarrassed by it, he wasn't a proud man her husband. They had been married for two years and she knew him well enough to know something was bothering him. Something serious enough that made him grumpy and unyielding to be around. She also knew prying it out of him would only push the problem back in further instead out in the open but she couldn't help poking at the bee hive.

Her mother had always warned her about Stefan and the volatility of his nature. A resolute spinster whose advice she had ignored with a flourish on her wedding day, washing down the woman's gathered pearls of wisdom with a large swig of champagne and saccharine sweet kisses.

'I hope my I told you so, doesn't come to bite you in the ass Caroline...'

Her mother, the killer of all thoughts related to romance. Oh well.

This baby thing was making her crazy. Everyone she knew was reproducing faster than you could say Easter bunny and Caroline was the only one in the gaggle of her friends lacking a pram and a baby bag. Even her friend high school friend Rita, who had vowed never to have children was due any minute this month.

Which reminded her she missed Rita and her home town. She and Stefan had made a mad dash out of the states as soon as Stefan's firm had offered him a promotion abroad. Castleton had been too small for both of them and their ambitions. Well, Stefan's anyway because Caroline had found London to be almost completely different planet from her small town life.

They lived in the city, in an expensive two bedroom with wall to wall windows. It all seemed the very epitome of glamour in the beginning until the rainy days dulled to weeks, and weeks sunk into months, with her husband hardly coherent after his intense working hours and her lonely treks to bars upon bars trying to dissolve the feeling of utter loneliness from her mind. Intimacy and romance had become an afterthought, often only occurring on her irked insistence.

Oh he cared, he felt guilty and talked constantly about moving back near friends and family. But in the end she felt Stefan had outgrown the simple life. It was almost as if he had been born to rule the corporate world, and by world she meant the 'world' because when he wasn't working late at the office, he was travelling Europe for other business prepositions. She would often join him on his trips enthusiastically because he asked for her company but only to be left despondent, ordering room service alone in their luxury hotel rooms, wishing he could give a damn about her general existence.

It wasn't a completely loveless affair; they had romantic dinners every Valentine's Day, her birthday (because he always worked on his birthday) and wedding anniversaries. He bought her lingerie and jewellery habitually every few months as if on auto pilot with the exception of flowers. He rarely ever got her flowers anymore and somehow that bothered her more than she could admit to herself. She could complain and they could start arriving every few months like the other things her husband has set on auto reminder.

But she doesn't because for once she would like for him to dig deep for that kind of initiative. Like the fertility tests she wanted to have done so badly. She knew it was silly to think of them as some kind of reminder of the fact that she was still young and vibrant with life, that they defined her failure as a woman or uncovered some hideous flaw that made her as equally morose and subservient to her unchanging lifestyle, but it was what it was.

As if reading her mind the rain intensified, she could almost imagine a violin screeching in anguish on her behalf somewhere. The curls she had spent an hour on perfecting had become a tangled mess sure to give her a hell of trouble brushing. Her husband tapped her on the shoulder just as she is about to slip on the icy street outside the cafe, his blue eyes beaming with live amusement at her state.

'Not that I don't find all this feisty behaviour a turn on, but I really hope you're not planning to be this moody all week...because it's going to a long week.'

She avoided looking at him, anger still covering her features, her coat hung snugly in his arm. She had an urge to wrap herself in its warmth. 'Bite me Stefan...' came out her embittered reply. It might have been loaded with a bit too much drama even for her, but that was all she could come within the confines of the biting cold weather.

'Oh come on Caroline, can we not do this now, we're on holiday... this was your idea remember?' he was already bored; she had become a predictable blonde bitch of a wife he had to drag around sullenly. Breath of practiced patience replaced the wave of discontentment, and she took her husband's proffered arm to get under an umbrella.

She thought of the several miscalls from her mother and decided to leave them unanswered for a little while longer.

It was date night and Stefan had come home after nine, in tow with his friend Nicklaus. Nicklaus who Stefan affectionately referred to as Nick and she disdainfully referred to as Klaus. There was a story behind the intermittent divide of the name and what the two halves represented, but she hadn't always paid enough attention to his stories because his lilting accent and perpetual grin always irked her.

Caroline took a large sip of the red wine Klaus White Mikaelson had brought them; she tried to keep up with the conversation which had moved from work to more work. None of their pretentious blathering about crashing stock markets and inflating prices made sense to her. She tuned out most of it thinking about the simple lasagne she had made not anticipating Klaus's visit, how it needed more cheese and whether either of the men noticed.

Like most of Klaus's visits this one was sudden and uninformed.

He was an investment banker who made friends with Stefan at a fund raiser party, enthralling him with his vast legions of one night stands and short term girlfriends.

Caroline came home from an icy trek to the shops to them chatting about his new girlfriend, back up dancer Sierra or something. Last time it was school teacher Trudy.

She wondered what happened to all these 'girlfriends'? Did they find him un-engaging outside the ultra-showman exterior, or was he too busy to notice if they up and left without a goodbye note?

Many times she thought of asking these questions and suffered bouts of shyness in his presence because he was charming with a side of shady, smarmy in his self-indulgent image of grandeur and flamboyance. It was hard to find the right line to communicate with someone like him, unless she talked stock markets and hot singletons they would be on very different wave lengths from each other.

'You know Stefan, if you're interested in investing now, the interest rates are going down ...i can get you a good deal' he asked wiping at his mouth. Her husband grasped his wine glass with eagerness of a school boy being told he can have all the candy he wanted for free, nodded happily at the notion.

Which was about when Caroline let out a Derisive snort; both men turned to look at her expressions blanking. They were waiting for her to elaborate on her intrusion she did, in a rather childish way, 'You know you guys have got so much in common you should have gotten married.' It sounded moronic even to her own ears, but as the drink had muddled her introvert skills tonight, she couldn't stop the words from escaping her mouth. Stefan watched her with the sort of disgust a man would who was ashamed of his wife of years and years. His friend, Klaus's smile was something else all together. It was surprisingly soft.

It was slightly unnerving; she locked her eyes with him momentarily, only until Stefan broke the uncomfortable silence by getting up and picking up the bottle of wine from the table with purpose.

'I think that's more than enough wine for you...' the tone tired and disappointed, she only managed a purse of her lips and got up to retrieve the bottle from him. She was fully capable of holding her drink; she would not become one of those alcoholic wives that needed early banishment to their bedrooms because of their scandalous behaviour.

Later, when it was dark in their home and Klaus had left, her husband started changing out of his clothes without looking at her directly. Stefan was rarely ever angry with her, it was almost always her that got angry and gave any silent treatment.

It felt a bit odd to be at the receiving end of it tonight. Maybe he thought she had fallen asleep because of the wine. She was relatively awake and aware of a stroppy husband with his back to her as if he were deliberating on what to say to her. Caroline suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to burst into tears, maybe it was in her head, but she felt like she was being treated like an invalid.

When he still didn't speak she took to a lighter note with him, unsure what to treat his silence as a sign of, 'He's got a new girlfriend you know?'

He turned, if only a little to look back at her with a slight smile on his lips, 'Nick? Yeah, he's a regular Rob Roy character.' There was a clear sign of admiration in his voice, she took this as an encouragement to continue, 'He gets around a lot, doesn't he? if he were a woman you'd call him a slut'

Stefan sat down at the edge of the bed, still with his back to her and she found her throat tightening at his indifference to her obvious desperation. She was trying to communicate with him in her own way, trying to find out what was so wrong he couldn't share with her. And she was talking about Klaus's sluttiness, maybe she was drunk because she expected him to respond meaningfully to her ridiculous ramblings about his friend.

'Actually sweetheart, you would call a woman like that a slut, I completely respect two consenting adults having intercourse if they feel the need, I mean, come on, i remember you being really horny before we got engaged. What about Tyler, Ben, Jeremy… ' He turned now, feigning counting her past boyfriends before him on his fingers; a devilish smile on his face, whatever trace of unhappiness seemed to leave his face. Caroline threw a heavy feather pillow at him and missed, 'You're rude.'

This he seemed to agree with because he sighed dramatically lying down next to her, 'I know, that's why you married me.'

She felt him switch off the side lamps and turned on her side facing him, 'I don't think I've ever seen you annoyed with me before, I... just miss you.'

For a few minutes he didn't say anything and she thought he might of have gone to sleep, but then she felt his fingers trace the outline of her face tenderly, 'Klaus's my oldest friend, and you embarrassed me in front of him today.'

She felt a stab of jealousy at his mention of Klaus, 'I did no such thing, and you have other friends.' Mistake, she felt his fingers leave her, he drew himself back into his shell and turned away from her.

'No Caroline, not really, I don't.'

She turned away from him and didn't realize there were tears on her cheeks until she wiped at them.