Being a vampire was a lot harder than Caroline thought it would be. Bonnie made her a daylight ring while Damon, Elena and Kol left to bury Klaus' sleeping body somewhere safe. Under concrete, at the bottom of the ocean... She didn't even want to know. All she cared about was the fact it was done.

She cared about blood, too, but that she had no control over that. Jeremy brought her two blood bags they kept in a freezer in the basement, and for a while it was enough, but it had been two hours and she wanted more already.

"It's harder at first," Stefan told her. "You'll get used to it later, though. Alcohol helps."

Stefan told her she would be experiencing a lot of mood swings, too. She even joked about it not being so different from PMS, but he didn't laugh at that. It wasn't that funny, she wanted to tell herself, but she couldn't help but feel like he was angry at her. She said she loved him, and he didn't say anything back, so she should be the angry one. But she also locked him in his own living room while she gave away something he would kill to get back- her humanity.

He had told her before how much he missed being human. That was him, though. Human Caroline couldn't do anything but stand back and hide from Klaus. Vampire Caroline put him in a sleeping curse, or whatever, and saved everyone.

At the end, Bonnie was too tired to wait for Damon, Elena and Kol to get back, so she left and Jeremy said he would be heading out too. Bonnie gave her a tight hug before leaving, and Jeremy looked at her for a while.

"What?" She asked.

"You kicked Klaus' ass, that's what. Good job."

She smiled. "Thanks."

He left, then, and she was alone with Stefan again.

She was too afraid to speak, even more afraid than before. He told her she would be experiencing enhanced feelings, too, so there was that. She downed a glass of scotch to help with the itch on her throat.

"How are you feeling?" He asked.

She thought hard about how she would answer that. "I feel human."

He scoffed. "You're not. Not anymore."

"I know. But I feel like nothing has changed. Except the hunger for blood, that really did change. But I feel the same. I feel... I feel like this is who I was meant to be all along. I'm fast, I'm strong, I can defend myself. I finally did something to help you guys like you helped me. I'm feeling perfectly fine."

"For now. Do you think you'll be able to control yourself the next time you see a human? You'll hear the blood pumping in their veins. You'll hear their heartbeat and you'll get so hungry your fangs will be out before you even realize it."

"You'll help me."

"Will I?"

"Don't be mad at me, Stefan."

"I'm not! That's what makes me angry. The fact I can't get angry at you makes me angry, and that's stupid. I want to be angry at you. You threw away your life, your human life. I would kill to get mine back, and you just gave it away, you handed it to Klaus, for what?"

Caroline thought he knew that already. "For you! And Elena, and Damon, and everyone. I got you into this, I had to get you out."

"I said I was going to protect you." There was sadness in his voice, and Caroline hated herself for that.

"And I believed you." She spoke softly. "But I wanted to protect myself. And you."

Stefan sighed. He looked at her, then, and she felt so self-conscious under his stare she thought for a second she was 17 again. "I love you too." He said, so softly she almost missed it. If she still had her human hearing she probably would have, but she was a vampire now, and vampires heard everything loud and clear.

She still wanted to be sure, though. Maybe it was just a vampire hallucination. "What?"

He walked closer to her and cupped her face with his hands. "I love you too."

"You do?" She asked. She didn't know what to do with her hands, she didn't know what to do with anything. All she could hear was her heart beating, and Stefan's, and they were in sync.

"I do. I love you so much, Caroline. Too much. I thought you were dead and I wouldn't get the chance to tell you I love you, but you're here. I don't wanna waste a single minute being angry at you, or worrying about your humanity. All I want to do is tell you I love you, and I will always love you, vampire or human. I love you."

"I love you too, Stefan. More than anything. You were the best thing that ever happened to me." She smiled. "I need you to kiss me now because I'm afraid I'll start crying at any moment and it's not gonna be pretty."

He laughed, and pressed his lips to hers. Everywhere his hands touched her were on fire, and it was everything she ever dreamed of and more. Her hand played with his hair and his taste felt like home. Why did it take her so long to do this? She didn't want to spend time thinking about that, though. She only wanted to kiss him more and more.

Finally, she thought. Finally.

She held Stefan's hand as they walked in their living room the next day. She called everyone so she could thank them all one last time. Judging by the way Rebekah and Kol walked in, they wouldn't all be in the same room any time soon.

"So you two finally realized what we all knew already?" Rebekah said. "Thank God. I was getting tired of the stupidity."

Caroline glanced at their entwined fingers and smiled at Stefan. "Yes, Rebekah, we did. That is not why I called you here though."

"What is it, then?"

"I wanna thank you. Every one of you. I guess it's safe to say I messed up your lives pretty badly. You guys helped me, hid me, protected me. I will never forget that." She thought Rebekah was gonna say something witty and snarky back, but she only looked at her. "You guys became my family. I love you all."

"We love you too, Care." Elena was smiling while she held Damon's hand.

"This is sappy." Damon said, but Caroline could see he was just as happy as she was. She looked at him with her eyebrows raised. "I'm glad you're okay, though, blondie." He said, just as Caroline knew he would.

"What are you gonna do now?" Bonnie asked.

Caroline looked at Stefan and then back at Bonnie. "I have no idea," she started. "I honestly don't. All I know is that this is where I belong now. And if you'll have me... I'd like to stay around."

She felt Stefan squeezing her fingers and couldn't help but squeeze it back.

Matt and April and her mom and her apartment back at New York seemed like a whole different life to her. She realized how out-of-place she had felt before, even when she thought she was happy. It seemed stupid to say so, but she felt as if all her life she had been waiting for this moment, right here. Being a vampire was hard, she couldn't lie. It wasn't all super speed and super hearing and super healing, it was hard and she would have to work at it every day, but she felt like she was finally happy with who and where she was.

Later, when the house went back to just Damon, Elena, Stefan and Caroline, she was about to open a third blood bag when Stefan walked in on her.

"Easy there." He warned her.

She tried, she really did, but sometimes it was stronger than her. She wanted to show Stefan she could do it though, she wanted to show him she was still the same person, so she forced herself to put the bag down. It wasn't only for Stefan, though. She did it for herself. She didn't want to lose who she was completely.

"Sorry." She murmured.

"It's alright." He put the blood bag out of her reach and sat himself next to her. "I can help you hunt, if you want. Animal blood. It's not the same as human blood, we all can feel the difference, but at least if you drink both you won't get addicted to neither."

"I'm a vampire now, Stefan." The words felt strange in her tongue, even now. "I guess you can't really fight off blood addiction."

"Humans need food, but they're not addicted to it. Of course we feel a different kind of hunger, but you can learn to control it. One day, you won't need to drink three blood bags one after the other."

Caroline nodded. "We can do this." She said.

He looked at her and smiled. Caroline felt a warmth going through her body. "We can do this." He agreed.

They kissed and kissed and kissed until Caroline's lips were red and her cheeks were flushed. She would never get enough of him, ever, she knew that. The way he stroked her cheek and played with her hair, the way his lips touched hers and his tongue searched her mouth. She loved him more than she had ever loved Matt, more than she had ever loved anyone else in the world.

He gave her something to live for, even after she gave her life for him.

A week later, Elena, Damon, Stefan and Caroline sat together, blood bags and alcohol in their hands, the fire crackling in the fireplace.

"You've been a vampire for a week now, Care," Elena paused to take a sip of her whiskey. "How's it going?"

Caroline leaned back on the couch, her blonde curls falling freely over her shoulders. "It's going great. I'm not a big fan of bunny blood, though, but I don't really want to go around killing people, so it's gonna have to do."

Damon laughed. "Bunny blood. I take it you got that one from Stefan."

"Don't start." Stefan warned his brother.

"Have you called your mom?" Elena asked.

Caroline hadn't thought about her mom for so long she suddenly felt guilty. "Not yet. I don't know what I'm supposed to tell her."

"Tell her you ditched her to live with vampires and got turned into one and that now you'll live forever while she keeps getting older and older and eventually dies." Damon cocked his eyebrow.

"That's a great plan," Caroline said ironically. "I suppose I should also tell her I kill bunnies now."

"Yes, absolutely. That's the most important part." Damon smiled.

"No, but seriously," Elena spoke up. "She must be worried."

Once upon a time, a lifetime ago, Caroline was as close to her mother as a daughter could be. Things changed, though, and now they would change even further. "Last time she called me, which was, like, a month ago, I told her I was out living my life and mending my broken heart. She won't expect a call from me for the next... two years, or something." That may have been an exaggeration, but things were too good right now for her to think about the lies she'd have to tell to the people she once loved so dearly.

Caroline wouldn't stop loving her mom, she knew that. She would always remember Matt, and April, and all the other people that were in her life during her first 24 years of living. But now she had other people, people that she loved even more than she first expected to. And she had Stefan. He left everything behind to save her, and now she was leaving everything behind to be with him.

Klaus was gone. He would never, ever come back, and they were all safe. Rebekah turned Caleb into a vampire and Jeremy was in the process of convincing Elena to let him become one, too. Elena wouldn't hear any of it, but Caroline knew she also hated the idea of watching her brother grow old and eventually die. It was one thing to want your own humanity back, but it was just too hard to think that one day time would catch up to a loved one and they wouldn't be there anymore, especially when you have the power to change that.

She had everything she ever wanted. She was immortal, she could do anything, go anywhere. She had Stefan, she had friends, and now it was time to dare.

"I wanna go travelling." She said when she was in Stefan's bed, months later, with her head resting on his chest. "All around the world. I wanna see everything there is to be seen, I wanna do everything there is to be done."

"We can do that." Stefan stroked her hair.

"Let's do it, then. Let's run away together." She looked up at him and smiled.

Stefan's smile was just as bright as hers. "Let's do it."

She was on top of him then, kissing and touching him with all her love. He smiled and chuckled and sighed, and she felt like she was in Heaven.

He told her he loved her again, and again, and again, and each time Caroline said it back and she never got tired of that. She had a feeling she never, ever would.

Well, that took longer than I expected. Sorry! Review?