Disclaimer: I do not own TVD

Notes: so...new OTP? For me, kind of. And I know I said I wouldn't desert Caroline/Elijah, but..I seem to be the only one writing Finn/Caroline...so yeah.

Also, a slightly different continuity from my other one-shot.

It's not the Time We share but the Happiness

Finn does not take well the discovery that his least favorite brother is stalking his -admittedly and somewhat pathetically- best friend. He has that tranquil-fury face for a while, then begins to talk very slowly, then starts getting sarcastic (which is different from when he's being dryly witty- his sarcasm always has a very biting edge), and then he tells Caroline that he has something to take care of.

Caroline is kind of happy.

Because the only person Finn has ever gotten this pissed about is Sage, who betrayed him after he spent a century dreaming of her.

So Caroline feels like, even though she's barley known him two months, she's already been upgraded to century-status. So that makes her happy.

He comes back that night with a bloody lip but all of his limbs. He dismisses Caroline and her fretting, but stalks up to Stephan and assured him, in a serene voice;

"Klaus is no longer your problem. He will be asleep for quiet a while,"

He never says more about how he decimated Klaus, except for the occasional allusion to stored power and dreams from the other side.

(But needless to say, he becomes very popular at Casa de la Salvatore. Secretly, Caroline takes credit.)

But he does, on one night about six months later, tell her simply;

"I would find a way to decimate anyone who scared you"

Yep, Caroline is definitely at century status.