Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognise. There are numerous pop-culture references throughout this fic that I also make no claim on. Everything belongs to its respective owners, and this writing is not for profit. (In fact, considering the toll it takes on the time I should be spending looking for a job, it's probably costing me money).
— two —
Caroline didn't see Klaus again for the rest of his short visit to the States, and she was better for it. Her bimbo gene had climbed to extraordinary new height that day, as became suddenly clear with his departure (and the time to actually think about what her mouth/brain was doing) and even thinking about it brought a weird taste to Caroline mouth and a humiliated curl in her stomach.
Of course, it was too late to go back and make any sort of better impression – and Caroline's tactic in the face of embarrassment?
Avoid, baby, avoid.
And sure, Elena and Elijah were still doing brilliantly by any and all standard (they didn't even fucking fight, and that was weird right?) meaning that the occasions Caroline had to see her now ex-roommate (don't be alarmed, Elena moved in with Elijah a couple of months into their relationship, compromising that Elena would leave the tiny apartment, Elijah would leave his colossal one, and they'd share a medium sized one, with brick face walls and roof pool) were few and far between.
In fact, aside from a few fucking amazing works of her subconscious, the few times when her imagination was up to it and she was to horny to think about humiliation, Caroline hadn't given the younger Mikaelson brother much thought.
It had been almost a year alright. Caroline had taken the dark patch of the day that she'd met him and moved the fuck on.
He was certainly the last thing on her mind that morning, when she rushed into the coffee shop, iPhone in hand and Elena's message still open on the screen.
SOS. Meet me at our cafe – E
And that was mind fuckery at it's best.
In the half hour it took Caroline to get out of work, jump on the subway, get downtown and to their cafe, hundreds of horrific scenarios had run through her mind. While Elena hadn't actually admitted anything (the prude) Caroline could always tell form the blush on Elena's face whenever the subject came up that Elijah lived up to Caroline's first expectations. He was a kinky bastard, for all intents and purposes and while Caroline wasn't aware of the specifics (no matter how much she begged for details, dignity far, far away) it wasn't like kinky sex was the safest sex. What if Elena had been hurt in some sort of weird dominatrix BDSM game, or if it had been taken too far and Elena had accidentally suffocated of strangled Elijah somehow? Caroline approved of their relationship sure, and she'd do anything for Elena if it came down to it – but was she really ready to go to jail?
And the crazy just kept coming from there, a string of questions that whizzed through Caroline's head at a million miles a second.
Holy shit, how long would she have to go to jail? Could she still preview the fall fashion line to Vogue from behind bars? Caroline had moved up in the world of fashion, and was now direct personal assistant to Ms. De Winters herself. Would she get fired for going to jail, or would Eden think that it just gave her more street cred? Eden had insisted on being known by her first name. If that Miranda chick was the devil wearing Prada, then Eden was definitely the angel wearing Prada (or, alternatively, Louis Vuitton). Would she be able to work from a cell? Would she have to share a cell with Elena, because honestly, Caroline would have to make some people her bitches in a place like that, and could she really have time to do that, her job and take care of Elena as well? Because, let's be honest, in a fight, Caroline could totally take Elena—but that would mean other people could too so Caroline would have to look after her and—holy fuck, do jail cells even get wifi?
Understandably so, in light of her frantic panic, Caroline almost wet her pants with fury when she walked inside the cafe to see Elena sitting at their normal table, totally cool and calmly, right beside –
Was that Bonnie?
"Holy fucking Moses, you bitches."
Both Bonnie and Elena looked suitably scandalised at her language and a mother hurried her child out of the shop, looking at Caroline furiously – but Caroline didn't give a shit. She stomped forward and dropped her heels (the heels that she'd pulled off on the subway because she needed to run and she didn't want to ruin them) on the table.
Yup, that's right. Caroline was wearing no shoes.
Bare feet. She'd just run from the nearest subway stop to the cafe, without her shoes on – which is probably one of the stupidest things you can ever do in New York – all for the sake of emergency.
And they're chit-chatting.
"SOS, Elena?" Caroline said furiously, dropping into the chair and glaring at both her friends.
Elena looked at the shoes guiltily, while Bonnie immediately started telling Caroline how bad running around bare feet would have been if there'd been glass or a syringe on the ground.
"Do you have any idea what I've been going through since your text message, Gilbert?" Caroline demanded.
"Sorry." Elena said, still looking guilty, but still smiling. "I should have been clearer."
Caroline was all ready to lay the verbal smack down for this (seriously, she had lied to Eden and said a personal emergency had come up, and she was like fifty percent sure that that skank Tamora was working on moving in on her job, that very moment), when Elena lifted her hand, and reached for the shoes, probably to move them from the table, or some shit.
She didn't get the chance.
Caroline grabbed her hand immediately, a death grip that kepts Elena firmly in place, and forgot all about her hypothetical stint in jail, the angry judgey mother, her stinging feet and Tamora.
Because there was a huge (mother fucking giganemous) fucking diamond.
And it was sitting on Elena's finger.
Her ring finger, to be exact.
\\
Obviously, what followed was a series of screams that managed to sufficiently piss of every other patron in the small cafe, as well as probably the owner – and even a little claps just to emphasise how fucking great this was. By the time Elena and Bonnie got her to shut up, Caroline had well and truly forgotten all her other issues.
(Well, except for Tamora. But that was a whole other thing).
Elena was getting married.
Elena was getting married to Prince Charming – Prince genetically enhanced, Prince totally fucking loaded, Prince polite, Prince fantastic fashion sense, and oh Caroline could go on.
And there were things to discuss.
"How did he do it?" Caroline asked immediately. "And when?"
Elena smiled down at the ring (seriously, that thing might eventually pull Elena's finger off with the gravitational pull it should have had), one of those simple smiles like everything was suddenly right in her life.
"Last night. We went for a walk in Central Park." Elena says. "He knows I don't like anything too fancy, so we had a picnic."
(Last night, here, obviously meant the late afternoon. No one was stupid enough to just hang out in the park with jewellery like that after dark. But it's cool. Caroline knew what she meant).
"He just proposed – no fuss. Pulled the ring out of his pocket and said he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me."
Not going to lie, Caroline kind of wants to kill Elena at his point.
Because that sounds like she's well and truly caught the perfect man and how is that fair on the rest of them? Luckily for Caroline, the bigger part of her is so fucking happy that she kind of wants to just keep screaming and let the whole city know that Elena Gilbert was officially going to be happy forever. (No more Salvatore bullshit, this was her fucking fairytale).
"So," Elena says, once they've calmed Caroline down a little bit. "We've already made a couple of the main decisions – but the details all need to be sorted."
Caroline pushed the shoes away from the table now (she'd put them back on later), put her bag down by them and then flattened her hands out on the table. She looked at Elena very seriously.
"Hit me." She said, ready to hear the ground rules before she could start her maid of honour-ly duties. (Also, this is totally why she should just carry around her wedding book at all times. She wasn't prepared and now she can't take notes).
(She was definitely the maid of honour, even if they hadn't yet had that conversation. Ever since the three of them had learnt that maid of honours were a thing – at the young age of eleven, when Elena's Aunt Jenna married their history high school teacher – they'd known they would encounter this problem. Three was easily divisible by two, as it was, so the plan had been made back then. Elena would be Bonnie's, Bonnie would be Caroline's and Caroline would be Elena's.
Smooth, simple as fuck and quite helpful in what could have been a potentially awkward situation).
"We're going to get married in England." Elena said quickly. "It's where his family is, and he has a lot of friends there – it's easier for me to ask you guys to fly over there. Plus, you know – his family has a castle and why would we pay for a venue when –?"
" – hold the fuck up," Caroline interrupted immediately. "Did you just say castle?"
Bonnie laughed. "Well, looks like Caroline endorses the idea." And Caroline nods enthusiastically because sure a fuck fire she does. "When do you think you'll have the wedding?"
"Well, we were thinking the summer? Are you sure you're okay with this Bonnie? I'm not like, stealing your thunder?"
Bonnie scoffed.
"Please, Elena." She laughed. "Jeremy and I have been married for four months now. The honey moon was ages ago. There's no thunder to steal."
Elena smiled warmly and Caroline grinned. Bonnie and Jeremy had their own simple ceremony in Mystic Falls in October. It had been getting cold, but the autumn had made sure the wedding photos looked fucking fantastic. Eden had let Caroline wear some of her own creations to the event, and Caroline had ended up stressing out about the dress for the two hours Elena was supposed to be using stopping Bonnie from getting cold feet.
Well, Caroline reasoned, she had to use the pep talk on someone, since both Bonnie and Jeremy's feet were toasty warm.
The wedding had gone brilliantly, more than just the lovely service and the two freaking perfect wedding album. Caroline may have had to endure the awkward walk down the aisle with Matt Donovan, who was still making mooneyes at Elena – who had brought Elijah as her plus one, pretty much ensuring that every and all males present didn't get within three feet of her unless they absolutely had to), but it only meant that she got to talking with him more closely.
And Matt had mentioned how their mutual friend from high school, Tyler Lockwood, was also living in New York at the time.
Now, Caroline may have been the only woman sitting at the table without a ring to show for it, but with almost four months under their belt, she and Tyler were doing fairly well. Their initial reunion had been awkward (Matt had set it up sort of like an ambush, without notifying either of them) but it had worked out for the best in the end.
(If only Matt were as good at finding dates for himself, as he was finding them for other people. Maybe then he would get the fuck over Elena. (They hadn't dated since eighth grade, man. Fucking buy a clue if you have to).
So while Bonnie and Jeremy had been holidaying in Thailand, riding elephants (and doing a fair share of their own kind of riding, if you know what I mean), and Elena and Elijah had been enjoying their new shared apartment – Caroline had been doing the awkward dance around with Tyler.
But at this very moment, Caroline had more important things to worry about than figuring out whether or not she'd moved too fast moving in with Tyler.
"Go back to the bit about the castle." Caroline ordered.
Caroline was definitely a bit offended when they laughed at this, and instead moved on.
"So I was thinking maybe July? Elijah says that the weather in Europe has a tendency to be a bit unpredictable, and I want out chances to be as good as possible. And the summers over there don't ever get past about eighty degrees, so it won't be too hot." Elena said.
Caroline took a deep breath, and fanned herself a little bit. "Jesus Christ," she sighed. "You're have a European wedding in a castle. This is the greatest thing I've ever heard – oh, god, I need a drink."
Since it was only about eleven o'clock in the middle of a Wednesday morning, Caroline elected to stay away from the alcohol and instead order a coffee to sooth her excitement (which, you know, was stupid, since caffeine was an upper, not a downer, so if anything, it would only make her more excited). Whatever, Caroline just wanted something to do with her hands, so that she wouldn't start writing notes on the napkins.
Or, fuck that, Caroline thought, as she whipped out a napkin from under Bonnie's drink. She pulled out a pen from her pocket (she is an assistant, you guys, having a pen on her person at all times is a job requirement) and ordered from the bored-looking waitress (who had the fucking audacity to fucking stroll over to the table and then look annoyed when Caroline ordered her mocha latte with extra sugar and cinnamon, even though it was barely even lunch time, and the skanky bitch couldn't have been working more than an hour) and began to write her bullet points.
"What have you got so far?" Elena asked.
"A shitload of fucking sass from that bitch of a blonde waitress over there." Caroline said evenly, smirking as she caught her friend's eye. "And a bit of a headache."
Elena laughed, and Caroline leant back, considering her.
"Do you have idea for a dress?"
It was a stupid question. Every woman in the entire world had an idea of a wedding dress. Even if they were inherently against marriage as an institution, bet was that they'd imagined a potential dress just once in their lives. But Caroline was glad to see a small smile creep only Elena's face—the shy smile of a woman who knows exactly the type of dress they want to get married in.
"Tell me," Caroline ordered immediately.
Elena smiled widely, and even leant forward a little in her chair. "There is this dress by Elie Saab that I love but I think its way out of my price range."
Caroline considered her dryly. "You're hitching your wagon to an aristocrat, Elena. You've got the budget."
Elena shook her head. "No. I want to pay for my own wedding dress. It's my wedding dress, you know?" she then paused, "and he's not aristocracy."
"I heard their family has a title," Bonnie said dryly.
Elena frowned. "From who?"
Bonnie looked pointedly across the table, and Elena turned her exasperated gaze to Caroline, who immediately threw her hands up in defence. "So I elaborated a little—sue me—they could be royalty one day, Elena. It really wasn't that much of a stretch."
"Half of England would have to die for that to happen, Care!"
Caroline shrugged. "That could easily happen."
Elena rolled her eyes.
Bonnie laughed for another moment before refocusing all of their attention. "Tell us more about this dress." Bonnie said.
And Elena did. Elie Saab was a Lebanese fashion designer, who's dresses were slowly becoming more and more popular. While they could have initially been bought for next to nothing, they now went for thousands of dollars all around the world. Hundreds of people fought tooth and nail for a dress by him, and shitloads got nothing for all the effort.
But Caroline had connections, and those hundreds of people didn't have maid of honours who worked side by side with Eden de Winters. Caroline was sure she could pull some strings from now and get this dress for Elena. She'd have to get a photo, of course, but she could totally take care of that. Caroline decided not to tell Elena though, just in case it fell through. Instead, she smiled lightly at her glowing friend. "We'll get you that dress, or something better, Elena."
Bonnie nodded her head vehemently.
Elena smiled. "You're both such good friends, you guys. I miss seeing you every day—it's been weird since I moved out, Caroline." She said, before turning to Bonnie. "And it's been weird ever since we moved away."
Bonnie smiled brightly. "We're growing up, you guys. And that's a really good thing." She let her hand rest on Elena's—and her smile grew. "I am so happy for you Elena."
Caroline rested her hand on Elena's other hand—feeling the distinct diamond beneath her palm. "We both are, Elena. We're going to make this wedding perfect."
Elena's smile morphed into a bright grin and she sat up straighter. "That reminds me. I should make it official. Caroline Forbes, will you be my Maid of Honour?"
Caroline nodded her head firmly. "Hells yes, I will." She said loudly. "I will be the more organised, greatest maid of honour in the history of honourable maids." There was a short pause. "Now, where the hell is that skank with my latte?"
\\
A/N: reworked and finished with this chapter. There was less to look at this time, but a few new plot points that I had to slip in there, and a shit load of grammar problems to edit. :/