Note for the reviewers:
To Infinity- You are adorable. Thank you so much for reading it and letting me know your thoughts in the reviews everytime I post the new chapter. It always bring a smile on my face that someone is reading something I wrote and are invested in it.
To Dalila3439- I can see you are thrilled for the suspense, most probably because of the last line said by Stefan. That's the climax point of the story and we will be reaching there soon :) until then, hopefully you enjoy this chapter.
"I am not a vampire, Caroline." He said it right there, without thinking. She had the right to know, for the sake of her sanity. "Not anymore."
She stares at him, with wide eyes and open mouth, still processing his words. A nervous laugh leaves from her mouth.
"Vampires! Seriously. What is this? A fairy tale?" Stefan frowns on her reaction, when she starts to shake her head. She is in denial, and as much as it sounded impossible in her head, now it sounds ridiculous after hearing the words from his mouth.
Vampires doesn't exist, and she is not going to give in to the madness.
"Caroline-"
"No, next you will say that there are witches, and werewolves, and hybrids, and magical doppelgangers." She is not ready to hear whatever he is there to tell him. "That don't exist Stefan." She presses on her statement. "So, whatever prank you are trying to pull, just stop that."
"I know there are some things that are bugging you Caroline, things that looks like never happened, but you feel like it did."
"Well, it doesn't mean that we live in a supernatural world."
"You asked me what I am." His question catches her off-guard. "You didn't ask me who am I, you asked what… Am I."
The words are hanging on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't say anything. "Why, Caroline?"
"I… I don't know."
"I think you do Caroline."
"Are you doing some black magic on me?"
Her questions strikes him as a major shock. "What?"
"I have started losing my sanity the moment I met you." Her words are choking him. "Leave. Go, I… don't want to see you, right now."
Stefan couldn't believe his own ears. His eyes are teary, because he knows that there is only last option left, which he doesn't know if will work or not.
"I have something which might help you clearing things out…"
"What is that?"
"I will bring it to you."
He is on her doorstep, but she didn't call him, didn't stop him from leaving.
"Caroline." He looks at her from over his shoulder. "Even if I will do a spell on you, it will be to protect you."
Her eyes are still fixed on the door, at the stop where he was standing a while ago.
The first ray of sunshine entered the window, showering on her porcelain skin. She was glowing. He thought that he would have been used to it now. He was wrong. And god, he was glad about it. Lying on the bed, under one sheet, his eyes were too busy to adore the beauty in front of him. Looking at her little parted lips, he was beaming. He frowned in disappointed, when suddenly she shut them up.
Her eyes still shut, she smiled in her sleep.
"Good morning." She mumbled
"It is already, indeed." She heard him responding. Opening her eyes a little she looked at him in question.
"Because it starts with you." He shifted his head towards her, and she pushed him a little away. "Right now, you are smelling like the morning. So, let me kiss my morning sunshine." She was still giggling when his lips touched her parted lips.
The bell rang twice or thrice before she reaches the doorway.
"Steve!" she was a little shock to see him on the door.
"Hey. How are you?"
"I am good. What brings you here?"
"So, now you won't even call me in?" He joked, making her embarrassed. She is still lost in the conversation she had with Stefan. She lets him in when he continues to talk. "I left some documents at your place. And they are kind of urgent."
Caroline nods at him. "They should be somewhere near here. You can look for it."
"Thanks. So how are things between you and Stefan?"
"Me and Stefan?"
"Come on Caroline, I know why things didn't work out between us."
"It's not like that Steve. We had other issues, and Stefan and me are just complicated right now."
"Okay, hey." Steve comes around her, stroking her arms to calm her down. "I won't ask anything about him okay. Don't get stressed out." Caroline nods at him, trying to forget unbearable dreams coming in front of her.
[***]
Stefan knocks the door, and waits for her to come. Instead, it was Steve who is standing in front of him.
"What are you doing here?" Steve asks him sternly, which Stefan didn't like.
"Where is Caroline?"
"She is not here right now. She had to go somewhere for some work."
"Then what are you doing in her house?" Stefan couldn't stop himself in asking.
"That's none of your business."
Stefan sighs in exhaustion. He has no time in dueling with Steve. "Can you do me a favor, and give this to her whenever she comes?" He extended his hand, with a crimson red leather cover note in his palm. Steve didn't ask anything while taking it from him.
"Please tell her to read this. It might be helpful for her."
Stefan turns around to leave, in a hope that she will read his journal, and it might give some peace to her brain that she isn't hallucinating things, and they didn't met on the streets for the first time, but in the hallway of the high school in a town called Mystic Falls.
"So, I am Caroline Forbes, by the way." He heard the girl talking to him for over a minute now. The second period was over for him, and they were heading towards their next class.
"Stefan…. Stefan Salvatore."
"Italian roots, huh." The perky voice was echoing in his ears, when he nodded at her. " Salvatores were one of the founding families of Mystic Falls."
"Yeah, they were my ancestors." a shy smile was on his face, but his eyes were drifting far away from her, trying to look for Elena, the girl he came for, the girl he wanted to know more about, the one who is somehow becoming his gravitational pull.
"So how come, you never came here until now?" She pushed for more information, when he was about to leave.
"Army family. And because of that we had to move to different places."
"Sounds like fun, visiting places." He can visibly see her curls bouncing on her shoulder, when she almost jumped excitedly.
"Yeah, sure."
"So, what's your favorite color?"
Stefan's brows furrowed on the trivial question. "Uh, Blue." she was wearing blue, and randomly he picked the color in front of him.
"Nice color."
The pursed smile was the only thing he could give her at that time. The bell rang and he thanked the god for it, otherwise she might have asked more questions.
The night they met again, in the bonfire. He could smell from far away the amount of alcohol she had consumed. He didn't want to be rude, but when she took his hand to take him towards the drinks, he didn't know how to say a no to her.
He wanted to walk towards Elena, when she came once again in front of him.
"Caroline, you are drunk." with a little smile, he tried to explain the obvious.
"Well of course I am." Her head did the same bounce as it did in the morning.
"Caroline, you and I… It's not gonna happen. I am sorry." The words were already out when he saw her face getting smaller. He walked passed her, towards the person his stay in town became longer. He could feel her eyes boring in his back, but he didn't turn back to look at her.
[***]
They met once again, this time it was Elena's house, where she came with Damon, his brother. The worry was clear on his face. Damon wasn't someone who roamed with a girl without using them for his own pleasure of blood. After all, that's what vampires do, that's what all vampires should do as a predator species. But, Stefan wasn't any vampire. He runs from that part of his life, the one with nothing but darkness.
"I hope you don't feel awkward around Matt." she started the conversation as usual, when they were sitting alone in the living room, while Elena was in the kitchen.
"Why do you think that I would feel awkward around him?"
"I don't know, being the ex and all. But Matt tries, you know. He is just having a really hard time. You have to understand that they were each other's first you know, like straight from the sand box."
He knew what Damon was doing with her, and he didn't want Caroline to end up like one of Damon's puppets.
Their meetings weren't that frequent, but they met in the Lockwood mansion, where she stubbornly asked him to dance and told him that "She doesn't take a no for an answer.", he reluctantly took her hand and walked with her.
"Damon asked you to dance with me, didn't he?"
"And why would he do that?" The answer wasn't a straight yes or a no, which baffled him for a second. Whether she asked him for a dance all by herself, or it was the effect of the compulsion, he would never know.
[***]
"Looking for Elena?" Caroline called him from behind. A shy smile was usually on his face, and that was what he gave her.
"Yeah, she was about to come to the game." His eyes were still searching for his girlfriend.
"She will be here soon-ish. I mean, it's not like she is going to abandon the game day. Especially when her boyfriend is playing." Stefan chuckled at her comment.
"So, what I wanna say is, keep your head in the game. She will come." The command in her voice wasn't ignored and he reciprocated his answer with licking his lips, and with a nod, she went back to her cheer-leading squad. Stefan shook his head at the girl in front of her, how oblivious she is with her surroundings. A thought came in his mind, whether they will accept him if they knew the truth about him.
She cheered for them loud and sound. Jumping and finishing all the sequences. He was glad that the smile was still intact on her face, and she was away from Damon.
[***]
Caroline felt as if her head was cushioned with warmth and the scent was making her throat dry. She slowly opened her eyes, and started to register the surrounding around her. She was moving forward, but her legs were static. It took her about a minute to realize, that she was in his arms, and he was the one who was doing the walking and moving.
"Hey." her voice was weak, and when her senses started to sink in, she realized that her head was bursting and cracking, giving her a severe pain.
"Hey." He replied back. She saw her fingers clutching on her collar, while his arms were securely wrapped around her. "How are you feeling now?"
"I think I can walk now." She could feel the shiver in her voice.
"We are almost home." He told her, but for some reason he didn't let her go from his arms.
"What… what happened?"
"What do you remember?"
"Logan Fell was giving me a ride, and…" suddenly the memory started to come in front of her which made her heart beat faster. He could literally feel her heart pumping the blood in the veins. "And, he pushed me, and I hit the window."
"Caroline, everything is fine now. You are fine." Stefan tried to calm her down when they reached the porch of her house.
Her eyes fell on the front of his shirt. "Your shirt got blood stain. I am so sorry." Stefan looked down to see the red blob on his chest.
"Caroline it's okay as long as you are feeling fine."
"Yeah." her hand went towards the bump on her head. "I am fine. I ruined your shirt though."
"Caroline, you hit your head, and you are getting worried about my shirt." he couldn't stop the smile that flickered on his lips. And he was even more astonished at himself being in control with the blood scent filling his nose, and yet being so calm like the still water. "I have called your mom, she is on her way."
She nodded once and turned around to unlock her door.
"Caroline?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you sure you are fine?"
"Yeah, it's just a small bump. I am fine."
"And Logan?"
"What about him?"
"Sometimes, mental pain is more important than physical one." Caroline stared at him for a second, as if the meaning was intended for some other intention. She could feel her heart going on a normal pace, and he could feel that too.
"Take care." He told her when she went inside.
He didn't leave though. He waited until Liz was home, and he was sure that Caroline was safe.
[***]
The double date wasn't going the way she planned it to go like, and Stefan figured it out in a second. He was amazed at how her face gave in to million emotions she was feeling a fraction of second. The vibrant laugh on her face was impossible to get unnoticed, and the brightness in her eyes made him grin as well. However, when her face fell a little, as if she was about to break into tears, the smile on his face started to fade as well. He looked at Matt and Elena from the corner of his eyes, who were lost reminiscing their memories. He couldn't help the thought that crossed his mind, when the people around her couldn't notice the insecurities she was feeling, but he caught it in tiny time frame.
When he sent them in his car for the ride, the concern was on his face. Caroline was Elena's friend, and he wanted to do something for making it up to her. Because he still was feeling guilty for letting Damon get closed to Caroline. Matt looked like a good person, and Caroline deserves someone good and better than what she had.
When Caroline brought Bonnie for the dance rehearsal for Matt's filler, Stefan ended up being the filler for Caroline. Bonnie and Elena needed to talk, and since they both were left with no partners, it was obvious that they danced in the rehearsal together.
"And here I thought someone don't dance!"
"Yeah, well I don't like to dance." they circled around each other, finishing the sequence.
"You should, because you are good at It." a light chuckle left their mouth at the same time.
"I don't know if I can ever be able to like dancing."
"Why? Let yourself lose Stefan, it's good for health." she teased him and called him indirectly being the uptight one.
"Is it?"
"Yuppp." He shook his head, and continued the dance with her, without arguing much on his dance likings.
[***]
When she woke up as a vampire, he protected her from getting killed by Damon, and the promise was made by him… the one he could never forget.
"Caroline!" He rubbed his hands over his face, when they started to argue on trivial stuff. It was one of their usual hunts together.
"What? I am bored of bunnies. Plus they are cute, I don't want to kill cute things. It haunts me."
"So you wanna hunt the lions."
"No way. They are on the verge of extinct and I don't want to be the reason of vanishing them."
"Caroline, then what do you want?"
"Can I just go with the blood bags? In that way I don't have to kill anyone"
"Human blood is always stronger. And you should do it once you are sure that you can handle yourself around people."
"You mean Matt?"
"No, I mean all people." He looked at her for a second and continued. "Caroline, don't be hard on yourself for what happened before. Things went out of control, but you are stronger. And I know you can do it."
"Yeah, well at least my control freakiness will pay off well." Stefan chuckled at her statement and Caroline grinned at him widely. "Fine, let's compete in the chase." she vamp sped him, but he was right behind her, grinning widely as well on her perky nature.
[***]
He never trusted Tyler, because of his aggressive behavior. But, Caroline had so much faith that he let his worries slip away. He cursed himself for doing that. Because, if it wasn't for Tyler, maybe she wouldn't have been tortured by the bunch of werewolves.
"I am not a girly little Caroline anymore." when she said those words, he felt like seeing her in the light for the first time. He couldn't get his eyes off of her, the girl in front of him, the one who was turning into such a strong woman. Her strength getting magnified with the vampire genes.
"Tyler is a dick, you know that right?" Stefan told her once he saw her in the school. And she laughed lightly.
"You are saying it to cheer me up?"
"No, I am saying it because it's the truth."
"He is gone."
Stefan frowned at her.
"Tyler, I mean… he is gone. But, all is good. These guys were making my brain confusing. Ugh."
"Tyler and Matt?"
"Yeah… I just wanted a clear head."
"Caroline, you deserve better than both of them." He wanted to say that but, the words were tight in his throat.
[***]
For the first time, she met the ripper in her life. And she could tell why Stefan used to resist, and had so much guilt inside him. She bumped into him in the hallway, where he smiled at her, there was something different in the smile, yet somehow she felt that it did belonged to Stefan.
She took a step on the right, and he mirrored, she took the step left, and he followed her move. The result being them ending up in front of each other, however hard they tried to cross and go in their way.
"Are you doing this on purpose?" He asked her
"What?"
"Block me."
"Why would I block you?"
"I don't know? Maybe you are trying to talk to me, so that you can bring back your best friend?"
Caroline could practically see him smiling devilishly, taking steps forwards towards her, and she reciprocated with taking her steps backwards. His fingers moved towards her hair, moving that one strand of hair which was falling on her cheek, and keeping it behind her ear.
"Your best friend is a fool by the way." When he whispered the words leaning on her ear, and she shivered in that moment. A smug was pasted on his face, and she wanted to smack it out of there.
"Don't talk as if that part of you is some kind of stranger."
"Oh, but he is a fool. This is what I am. The guy you met is someone who tries to shove me in a deep hole, but even he knew one day or another, I will resurface." His eyes moved towards the spot where Elena was standing with some other cheerleaders, far enough to not in a hearing zone.
"You are wrong." Her mumbles caught his attention, and his eyes were back on her. "The Stefan I know will fight the urges, because you are so in love with Elena that you will come back for her."
He stared at her with his eyes boring deep, as if trying to pierce into her soul. "Make some space for reality Caroline, apart from rainbows and unicorns in your fairy-tale type world. Stop talking like Elena. The Stefan you met isn't coming back." He went passed her without waiting for her answer.
"You will… because ripper is the part of you Stefan. And you are going to accept that part, and you will empower it." she thought to herself.
[***]
"Still on the revenge road?" Caroline asked him when she saw him standing near the waterfall, all by himself.
"I don't have anything left other than that."
"You have got us, Stefan."
"How is Tyler." as if trying to change the subject, he asked the question pointing at her.
"I don't know. Haven't talked to him yet. I just want this Klaus issue to be solved."
"He has been quite flirty with you lately."
"Ugh…Don't remind me." she sighed and slowly sat on the wooden log on the ground. He followed her and sat beside her.
"Everything that is happening right now, it's all because of him. People died because of him, Tyler is not here because he is finding a way to break the sire bond, and you…. you had to go through the ripper phase all over again."
"I just want him dead."
"Things happened, but you don't need to think that we aren't here for you. At least you can rely on me."
The silence was painted all around them, with the moonlight glistening above them.
"I have lost her." The words felt empty in his throat. Caroline turned her head to look at him, his face was hidden in the shadow of the tree above them, but she could see every pain behind his words, as if she was looking directly inside his heart.
"I have done things, I went too far, I have… I have ruined everything." There was no trace of a tear, but she knew he was crying from the inside.
"You haven't." She said before he could continue. He turned his head on his left, to look straight at her, who was staring at his side already. "You haven't ruined everything Stefan. What you and Elena have, it won't go just like that." Her hand slipped towards him in the darkness of the night, finding his hands, and holding firmly under her grip.
"She will come along. The epic loves doesn't fail like that, right?" she gave his hand a soft squeeze, and after a long time he felt like smiling.
"Tyler will come back to you." He told her back, and she turned her head back towards the fall. He mirrored her moves, and looked far corner of the falling water.
"Falls are really cool at night." He commented with a hint of a smile.
"I told you so." she chuckled but she didn't let his hand go, and neither did he took it back.
[***]
"Are you sure about it?" Stefan asked her for the fifth time.
"Yes, Stefan I am sure. Now two blood bags won't make the difference. I have calculated your hit point. And two is under that count."
"My hit point?" He was amused at word she chose.
"Yeah I mean the limit, the saturation point, whatever you can call it. I have done some calculations and based on that, the number for daily dose is two." He stared at her for a second, but when he didn't reply her back, she sighed dramatically. "I have used a calculator, okay."
"I wasn't silent because I was judging your mathematics skills."
"Then what?"
"I just don't trust myself."
"Then trust me, if you can." The sincerity in her voice moved him, but it wasn't something new to him. With one look he took the dose as she asked him to do.
[***]
"Where the hell were you?" Caroline shrieked once he picked up the phone after so many calls he missed.
"I was trying to resist myself from ripping the artery out of the guy in front of me."
"Well that's good that you are resisting it."
Stefan turned around when he heard her voice from his behind and not on the phone itself. "What are you doing here?"
"Well that's not important." she looked between him and the guy, whom he was about to compel. He let him go once he erased the memory.
"What are you doing here?" Stefan asked her.
"I was across the street when I was calling you, and then I saw you here." She saw the duffel bag in his hand, and her brows furrowed. "Why do you have you a bag in your hand? Where were you going?"
"I was going to look for a motel…. Elena and I broke up. And I don't want to stay in that house until things settle down, and Elena can move back to her own house." He could see her eyes widening, shock surfacing on her face, and then concern filling her eyes up.
After a beat, she took his hand and without explaining anything, started to walk.
"Where are we going?"
"To my house. Stefan, I can't let you stay in a motel."
He took the hand out of her grasp. "Caroline, its fine. I don't want to bug you."
"And you are not. Stefan…. when I said that you can come to me whenever you want, it just wasn't for the sake of saying. You can stay at my place as long as you want." Stefan was glued at the place for a second. He couldn't understand what good he has done to deserve a friend like her. And even when he felt like his everything was snatched away from him, she was bringing hope in his life. It was unbelievable that he had a friend like her.
"I am sorry, I don't have a spare room here. But you can take this couch. I really want to make it comfortable for you and…"
"Caroline." He took her name, cutting her in mid-sentence. "It's more than I asked for."
The warm smile came on her face.
"Thanks." was all he could say at that very moment.
"Stefan?" her soft voice caught his attention, and he raised his brow, encouraging her to continue.
"If you ever tried not to pick up my call again, I will kill you." The death threat felt cute to him and made him laugh, even though he was broken, she made him laugh, even if stayed for a second.
She wanted to stay up with him, but he pushed her to her room. She was exhausted and he didn't want to put another load of his own misery on her.
"Stefan, did you just cooked breakfast?" Caroline yawned when she came out of her room.
"I was getting bored, and I just wanted to do something."
"You know that you don't have to do all this, right?"
"Yup." he put the plate in front of her. When she had one bite of her egg-benedict, her eyes became wide.
"Is there something wrong?" he was scared for a while.
"Oh my god, this is best food I have ever had in my life." Stefan chuckled once again at her.
"Stefan Salvatore, you are going to become my best cook from today, from this very second."
"At your service Ms. Forbes."
With every bite she savored it, and her expressions made Stefan smile forgetting about the worries for a second.
"If she chose Damon, I will leave this place." He informed Caroline.
"Where will you go?"
"I don't know, but you are always invited though." he looked at her, who was staring at her phone.
"Is he still not picking the phone?"
"Tyler is on the run. Maybe there is no signal in the place he is." Stefan looked at how she was trying convince herself about the reason he was ignoring her. "Why did you tell me that you are leaving?" She asked changing the subject.
"I don't know. Maybe because I wanted you to know."
"What if she chose you?" The question struck his mind. He didn't know the answer to that, as if deep down he knew what Elena's answer was going to be.
Stefan checks his phone for the infinite time that she might call him. It's been a while now since he left his journal at her place. His heart was racing with the thought that what if she didn't chose him. He was confused once, dreading to hear Elena's answer. Elena was far gone away from his life, even way before he realized it. And it all happened because no one but Caroline. He has lost and found Caroline so many times that the hope always crawls back in his head. But, now it seems close to impossible… now his heartbeat was going insane with just by the thought of losing Caroline once again.
A/N: until this chapter I had already posted them on my tumblr account. But, now that we have caught up to the chapters I have published so far, I would like to announce that the next chapter should be the last chapter in this story. I have already started working on it, and over 3000 words. The flashback isn't finished, and will be continued in the upcoming finale. And going by the stuff I have written so far, it is going to be a long chapter. Hopefully it won't exceed word limits. Anyhow I hope the readers are excited for the final chapter.
