AN: So this is my first Vampire Diaries Fan fiction. Any and all feedback is welcome.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Dairies or the characters. Just this plot.
Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh, take me back to the start
The Scientist - Coldplay
The window seat in the corner of her bedroom has always been Caroline's favourite thing about her house. It's witnessed a thousand important moments in her life. It held her night after night as she watched and waited for her father to come back, to realise leaving Caroline and her mother was a mistake all those years ago. It was where she had her first kiss with Kyle Roberts in 7th grade. It was where she spent countless nights looking up at the stars, feeling incredibly small and humble in there dim light.
And now it was where Tyler sat, his shoulders hunched hands in on his knees as he said all the usual things. It's not you it's me. I hope we can still be friends. I really did love you. I'm sorry. Her body feels number than usual as she whispers for him to "Go, just go." Everything she'd ever done for him. Ever felt for him. Gone. Wasted.
She waits until she hears the gate close quietly before she collapses onto it, her body shaking in huge, uncontrollable sobs. It's where Elena finds her, hours later. She's no longer crying. She's sitting up and watching the stars, her face emotionless.
"Caroline," she says quietly. "I'm so sorry. I know how much you loved him."
Caroline remains quiet for a moment before she turns to Elena with a sad smile, not believing the words that come tumbling out of her mouth as a way of appeasing her worried friend. "It's ok, 'Lena. Everything happens for a reason."
She doesn't sleep much that night so she's tired as she packs her book bag for her first day of community college. Community college. It sounds ridiculous, even to her. The fact that Caroline Forbes, straight A student, head cheerleader and Miss Mystic falls, was headed to community college a block away from her high school was the talk of the town.
After graduation though, her, Bonnie and Elena had sat down and decided together that staying in Mystic Falls for the time being was what was best for the town. Klaus and Rebekah were still living in the Mikaelson mansion and although summer had passed with only a few incidents, they'd decided to stick around for a while longer, just to make sure. So here she was, giving up yet another of her dreams for the sake of the town.
Her mother was both grateful as the Sheriff for ensuring the town was protected for another year and disappointed as a mother that Caroline's dreams of an Ivy League tertiary education hadn't come to fruition.
After her bag is packed and she dresses she descends the stairs into the quiet emptiness of her house. Another first her mother isn't here for, she thinks bitterly for a second before she shakes her head and grabs her keys, slamming the door behind her.
The drive to Mystic Falls Community College takes all of ten minutes and before she knows it Caroline has parked, pulled out her schedule and by some miracle found her first class. She was an undecided major, taking a handful of different classes to see which ones she liked the best. She figured she had an eternity to figure out what she wanted to study anyway.
Walking into the lecture hall she found a seat in the middle of the room, pulled out her notebook and her pen and was looking around at the other students in the room. All of them looked just about as tired as she felt as they shuffled into seats at the back of the hall. She could hear a dozen conversations at once, her mind buzzing as she tried to block out the noise like Stefan had taught her back when she first turned.
Suddenly the lights flickered, dimming just enough to capture everyone's attention as the lecturer stepped up to the podium at the front of the room.
"Welcome, everyone," he began. "I am Professor Richard Hoffman and I'd like to thank you for choosing to study Ancient History with me this semester. Now, as I'm sure you all would of read in the syllabus you were provided at orientation last week I will run this class with a co-professor who will run half of these lectures and we'll split the class in half for the workshops."
Caroline felt her mind drifting already, the professors dreary accent making the fog clouding her brain deepen. She barely heard anything else the man said until he ended his little speech with "so please welcome Professor Niklaus Mikaelson."
What. The. Hell.
"I'm serious Elena! He's here! He's a professor! My professor!" Caroline is screeching into her cell phone ten minutes later.
"Alright, calm down Caroline," Elena says. "I'll call Stefan and Damon and see if they know anything about this. Just go back in there and act like everything's fine. Don't let him see you're riled up. It's what he wants."
"But-"Caroline starts to protest before she hears the dial tone. With a sigh she shoves her phone back into her jean pocket. Great. Now's she's stuck in a class with the oldest vampire in history as her Professor. That shouldn't present any problems now should it?
Slinking back into the lecture hall she wishes she'd chosen a seat up the back like most of the class, feeling several pairs of eyes on her as she makes her way down the aisle. She keeps her eyes trained on a point above Klaus' head, refusing to look at him as she sits back down in her seat.
After what seems like an eternity, the class is over and Caroline shoves her papers haphazardly into her bag resisting the urge to use her vampire speed to exit the hall. The sunlight hits her eyes and she sighs, looking at her schedule for the rest of the day. A two hour break now, followed by two back to back classes afterwards. She considers going home and sleeping but her mind wanders to the papers in her bag and she sighs again. No point in getting behind on her first day.
The library is almost empty so it's easy to find a table hidden in the shelves. Quietly she gets out her papers and sorts them into the correct order, smoothing them down and returning them to her folder neatly before starting to copy down notes from the lecture slides she's printed off last night.
She gets halfway through the lecture before she hears him coming. Caroline tenses and rereads one sentence about a hundred times before he sits down at the table across from her.
"Hello, Caroline," his voice is like velvet and like always, no matter how many times she reminds herself of all the evil he's down to her and her friends, she feels herself repress the shiver that threatens to run up her spine.
She can almost feel him smirk as she refuses to acknowledge him. Her grip so tight on her pen that she feels the plastic buckle, a shard of it digging into her finger.
"Ouch," she mummers unintentionally, releasing the pen and surveying the damage. A few drops of blood are trickling down her thumb, the plastic wedged in there somewhat painfully. Before she can make a move to get it out herself her hand is in his and he gently pulls the plastic out, swiping the blood away with his own thumb.
The wound heals before her eyes and she finally looks up at him, pulling her hand from his. "Thank you," she says tightly, picking up the broken pen and looking around for a bin to discard it in.
"You're welcome," he replies nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders.
She finds a bin, hops up and prays to God that when she gets back to her seat he will have given up.
He hasn't, of course. He's lounging in the seat across from hers, wearing that infuriating smirk of his. "Come now, Caroline," he says quietly. "Is this how you treat all of your professors?"
She tries to bite back a rude retort, but she's tired and crabby and he's just so goddamn persistent that she snaps "Not all my professors are homicidal maniacs that just happen to be thousand year old Original Vampires that take more effort than they're worth to kill."
A flicker of something passes over his face so quickly that if she wasn't a vampire herself she probably wouldn't have caught it. "Don't hold back love, tell me how you really feel," he mummers sarcastically before looking up at her, his face scarily blankly. "See you in class, Caroline."