Hello, my lovely readers. I hope that everyone is having a happy and safe holiday season. Enjoy the Madenzoline friendmance and on with the show…

Chapter 3: Deck the Halls with Snowballs

There was a time that Caroline would have been thrilled to be spending Christmas evening with three hot guys. Not in a creepy foursome type of way. Ew! But to be able to brag to her squad that she had the full attention of what would be perceived as not one, but three eligible bachelors. Unfortunately, she could not enjoy herself because she was too preoccupied with when she would be able to get home to her mom. The minute that they were in the parking lot of the dorms for Duke's undergraduates, Caroline leapt out of the car and hurried toward the building. "What's your hurry, Caroline?" Enzo asked appearing next to her.

"I want to get this over with to be able to get home to my mom," Caroline snapped. Ordinarily she would humor Enzo but now was not that time. All she wanted to do was to get this over with and go.

"Is she that worse for wear?" Enzo inquired quietly.

"Yes," Caroline replied shortly. "She's got cancer. I guess she knew for a little while now and she's not going to make it."

Enzo sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as she felt tears running down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, love. It was hell when my dad passed and I was locked up when my mum…" for a moment a shadow covered Enzo's face. Caroline couldn't believe that she had forgotten that Enzo had parents.

"When did you dad…?" Caroline trailed off, waiting for an answer as they headed toward Sarah's dorm in the lightly pouring snow.

"I was bit of a boy. Think I was about five," Enzo's eyebrows scrunched as he looked thoughtful. "Could have been older. Not sure though. Possibly I was six."

"Is this it?" Matt asked Damon who was staring up at a building with a frown. For a moment they all stood in silence, staring at the quiet building.

"Yeah. Right, Enzo?" Damon called without looking at his friend. His attention was on the building when a group of girls came walking out. Caroline wondered what he was contemplating, 'Was one of them Sarah? The four girls walked away from the building while Caroline's group watched them. Caroline was a little shocked that they didn't seem to be aware of the three vampires and one human male. Not that she wasn't well aware of a time that she, too, acted the exact same way. Trust. The thing she lacked.

"Going in?" Enzo asked the group when Caroline made a decision and headed toward the front doors. Opening them, she found Damon right behind her with Enzo behind him and Matt behind them. They headed upstairs to the room number that Damon had Enzo write down and she had memorized.

Stopping in front of the door, Caroline stared at the three men behind her with her hands on her hips. "Okay, if I were still human no matter how cute the guys were, if they showed up at my door when my dorm was all but abandoned, then I would be freaked out and calling the police."

"Oh, come on, Caroline," Damon scoffed with an eye roll. "We'll just compel her to calm down."

"Yeah. Before she starts screaming bloody murder?" Caroline snapped at him.

Damon shook his head. "You know, Caroline, you could try being a little more bossy. Just a little."

"Sure," Matt added. "I don't think that would be possible."

"Whatever. Just go around the corner until we're sure she's compelled. Please," Caroline moaned, looking from Matt to Enzo. She didn't have to tell Matt twice although Matt had to tug on Enzo's sleeve to get him to budge. Enzo snorted before jerking away from Matt and heading away.

"We'll be back. Perhaps there's a bloody snack machine 'round here," Enzo was muttering.

"You know they don't have blood machines, right?" Matt questioned Enzo.

"Did the doctor drop you on your head when you were born by any chance?" Enzo retorted.

When she could no longer hear the two bickering, Caroline looked at Damon with a reassuring smile. "You'll be fine. If anything gets out of control, I'll take care of it."

"Why are you being nice to me?" Damon asked Caroline who rolled her eyes.

"'Cause it's a Christmas miracle," Caroline replied with a snark that rivaled Damon's. "And because you saved my mom when you could have saved yourself during all that craziness with the Travelers. You gave me more time with her. So, I guess I owe you one."

"Really? Huh," Damon nodded with a smile as he lifted his hand and knocked on the door. After a long pause, Damon waited to find no one answering. Sighing, he twisted the knob, effectively breaking it. Pushing it open, he stepped across the threshold to find no one was at home.

Caroline followed Damon into the room. Looking around, she found that it was a typical dorm room. Nothing unusual. It reminded her of her own dorm room. Picking up a framed photograph, she looked at the girl who was standing in between two other girls of the same age. There was something that reminded her of Zach Salvatore who she had not known that well. Each of the girls looked happy. "Which one do you think is Sarah?"

"That one," Damon said, picking the same girl that Caroline had thought was the relative of Damon and Stefan. He took the photo, sitting down, heavily, on the bed. "She looks happy."

"She does," Caroline agreed.

"Who looks happy?" Enzo inquired as he appeared with Matt in the doorway. "Is it safe to enter or should we continue to haunt the halls?"

"Come in," Caroline called, waving for them to enter.

Enzo entered first with Matt behind him. He did not find the room that interesting. Looked like the room of most of the girls between eighteen and twenty today. Nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps it was too picture perfect. Maybe she had a few body parts under the bed. Wouldn't be the first time that he had seen such a thing since he came out of the bloody cell. "This is a complete waste of time. Let's be off."

"No," Damon said as he continued to stare at the photograph.

Enzo had seen the look of despair and guilt on his friend's face before. It was a harbinger of unnecessary feelings of depression. Who needed to feel that down when they had forever to make up for misdeeds? You have a bad week. You spend a decade making up for it. Sitting down beside Damon, Enzo pulled the picture frame out of the other vampire's grip. "See this lovely girl has a lovely room with lovely friends and I bet that she has a lovely house with lovely parents who have given her a lovely life. Nothing for you to trouble yourself with. Yes?" And here he had been thinking that this would be fun.

"I guess," Damon replied dully but he had that look like he had no idea what the hell Enzo had said to him.

"Got you a snack," Enzo announced. Caroline gave Enzo a long look as he removed a package from his pocket. Grinning, he handed it to Damon. Enzo could tell that Caroline had been expecting him to pull out a human heart, or some sort of nonsense like that.

Examining the package, Damon smirked. "A package of Snowballs?" he began to laugh to the point that Enzo feared he was half hysterical. "Where did you find these?"

"In the vending machine down the hall," Enzo told him. "Want to go check out what other wonders we might find in there?"

"Sure," Damon said, getting to his feet. Matt had opened a package of pork rinds that Damon yanked out of his hand on his way past and tossed in the garbage can.

"Hey," Matt protested. "I haven't eaten in hours. Well, I had some marshmallows, but still."

"Have some peanut crackers," Damon snapped as they headed toward the vending machine.

"Hot chocolate," Caroline squealed happily as Enzo smiled at her. She was made happy by the simplest of things. One of the things that he enjoyed about her. This was the kind of girl that liked the better things in life but would settle for some cocoa and packaged sugar cakes wrapped in more marshmallows.

"Looks like most of the kids ate most of the crap in here," Damon announced. "Let's see. Matt, you want more marshmallows or some potato chips that might be older than Caroline?"

"Hey," Caroline yelled.

Damon rolled his eyes. "How is that an insult?"

Caroline bit her lower lip before letting out a loud giggle, "I don't know."

Damon started to laugh. Looking at Matt, the human smiled before he began to chuckle and soon they were all laughing. It must have been some kind of gas that was leaking through the ventilation system because there was nothing that was that funny.

"Oh, damn," Caroline said, noticing that her wallet was empty. Enzo opened his and handed her more money to purchase four hot chocolates. "Thanks, Enzo," Caroline grinned happily as she handed him his drink. They headed down the hall with their arms loaded with the remains of the overpriced junk food. "What do we do now?" Caroline asked as she plopped down on one of the three beds.

"We could tell Christmas stories," Matt suggested with a tentative smile.

Enzo's eyebrows rose as he looked at Damon and Caroline. Caroline had her mouth full of one of the Snowballs that Damon had handed her. Damon looked thoughtful as he tore open a sack of Doritos. "We could do that. I'll start. There was this one time that Stefan got really drunk. This was during one of the times that we were getting along, when he wasn't the Ripper. So, Stef is so drunk that I tell him that I don't believe that anyone could fit through a chimney. Well, before I can say anything else Stef disappears. I go to look for him and after a while I go back to the great room to wait for him to come back. Then I hear someone yelling. It's coming from the chimney. Stef had lodged himself in there. Had to stay there till I put out the fire and then went up on the roof with one of those chimney cleaning brooms that I shoved him on through with. Last time he tried to play Santa. Okay, who's next?"

"Me," Caroline volunteered. "There was this one Christmas after my dad moved out and I was too depressed to go out so Bonnie and Elena came over. They had all these twinkly lights, hot chocolate and made these picture frames with pictures of the three of us growing up. So, my mom brought the TV into my room and we watched all these silly Christmas cartoons that we used to watch when we were kids. It was a really great Christmas." Smiling, Caroline wrapped her hands around her cup of hot chocolate. "When Bonnie comes home I think that we're well overdue for another movie night. I think she'd like that."

"I think so, too," Damon told her and for a moment they seemed to be have a moment of understanding that made Enzo feel left out.

"My turn," Enzo announced. "When I was a wee lad my dad would take me out to pick out a tree for Christmas. We didn't have a lot in the way of money and material objects. But we did have these lovely evergreen trees that smelled wonderful. My dad would cut down the one that I picked out and carry it back into the house where he and my mum would decorate it. Those are my best Christmas memories." Turning to Matt, Enzo nodded at him. "You're up, mate."

"When I was growing up my dad wasn't really in the picture and my mom wasn't either, and Vik was Vik. She tended to find other things to do. This one year I was just sitting out on the front lawn because it wasn't snowing and everyone else were with their families. All I had wanted for Christmas was some snow to go sledding in. I could go by myself. I did it all the time. Not a big deal. But with no snow, there was no sledding. Around noon I was about to head inside with my sled when there was this big flake that floated down. Then there were tons of them. By the time that I made it to the hill that we used to go sledding down there were a ton of kids and parents already out there. I ended up sledding with Ty and his mom. That was one of my favorite days," Matt told them.

"Congratulations, Tiny Tim, you're a soppy, sentimental bloke more than the rest of us combined," Enzo announced and Matt sneered at him. "Let's find something else to do, shall we?"

"Like what?" Caroline asked around a mouthful of Snowball.

Damon began to laugh. "Take a picture," he said before hitting a button on his phone of a startled Caroline. "Sent to Elena and Stefan with the caption, 'Love and Christmas joy, Caroline.' Done. And done."

"Asshole," Caroline muttered.

"Language!" Matt shouted and Caroline giggled.

"Food fight," Damon shouted. Taking a Snowball, he aimed for Enzo who shot into the hallway with Damon in hot pursuit. Caroline and Matt ran after them. Soon they had split the hall into two. Caroline and Damon took one side while Enzo and his hostage/new friend, took the other. "Aim. Fire," Damon yelled.

Enzo sent a Snowball sailing that Caroline swatted against a wall, covering it in pink coconut, marshmallow and chocolate cake goodness. Caroline laughed loudly when Damon hit Enzo on the shoulder with a Snowball and then smashed Matt's attempt to hit him into a wall. That was going to be one hell of a clean up, but they didn't have to worry about it.

"We need more ammunition," Damon yelled but Enzo was not listening when he launched his next assault. He could not remember the last time he had had this nice a Christmas memory to hold onto. He was just grateful that he had friends to be with this time 'round. "You're both going down."

Thank you to everyone who has faved, followed, read and or reviewed this story.

Answers to review questions:

Somebody knows: Thank you. This is strictly friendship between the four characters since they're all having a pretty rough year for different reasons. I love the Carenzo friendship. It makes me happy that they've given Caroline such a loyal friend because Stefan has kind of messed up big time and I used to love their friendship. There are some allusions toward romantic interests more so in the final chapter that will be posted tomorrow but you won't see any actual romance in this fic.

Guest: Thank you. I loved writing it. The last chapter will be up tomorrow.

Peace,

Jessica