"Do you hate what you are?" Caroline asks, her voice hoarse after arguing with Matt, trying to make him understand.
Stefan hates when she asks questions like this. Not because he hates that she's asking, but because he doesn't want to have to think about the answer. "I hate what I know I can become," he answers carefully. "I hate what I once was."
"And now?" she presses, her voice clearing up, although now she has this whiny tone about her, and he knows she's about to cry.
He moves over to where she is on his couch and puts an arm around her shoulder.
"Now I'm just very careful. I have Elena and she is my whole world. I'm grateful I've lived long enough to be with her."
Caroline does cry at that, and Stefan curses himself for saying the exact wrong thing.
Caroline throws herself at him and cries on his shoulder as she incoherently tries to tell him about her problems with Matt and her unwanted feelings for Tyler and how she doesn't know what she wants, but that it hurts and she's scared she's going to do something stupid because she doesn't have someone like he has Elena to keep her from going off the deep end—her words, not his.
He holds her close and strokes the back of her head, his fingers running carefully through her uncharacteristically tangled hair.
"Will it ever get easier?" she mumbles against his chest half an hour later when her sobs have turned to sniffles.
He nods. "Eventually," he tells her sagely, only half believing his own words. He still thinks he got lucky with Elena, but he can't tell Caroline that.
"Will Matt ever accept me…like this?"
He groans internally—he does know what it's like to be frightened of the idea of vampires, after all. "I don't know," he answers, "but if he doesn't, someone else will."
She pulls away from him and looks at him with her tear stained face and brightening eyes. "Are you sure?"
He nods, and watches as she smiles.
He's glad he finally said something right.