Disclaimer: I would LIKE to have Jesse Eisenberg and/or Andrew Garfield totally in love with me. Unfortunately, that is never going to happen. Instead, I have a laptop and a vivid imagination.
Nb. I AM SO PISSED AT MYSELF. There was this line, that I'd had in my head since the start of this fic specifically for last chapter, and I fucking forgot to put it in. Arrg. I'm going to go back and edit it now but it's not the same because you've already read it all and ahhh, why Sam, why?
Also, to April, the reviewer who was interested in talking to me, I would reply to your question but I need you to PM me, because I won't be replying public forum. Just send me a message and we'll chat :)
Ugh. Whatever. It's been a wild ride folks, and to be honest, the fact that I've made it to the end without you all hating me is fantastic. Hopefully this chapter lives up to expectations.
.:.
"This is the reason for dreaming,"
.:.
Not at all content to be sitting around on her eightieth birthday, Liz Forbes is bustling around in the kitchen when her daughter finds her. The party with most of the people from town had been earlier, and they'd had to excuse Caroline's absence by saying she'd be around later. While that was technically the case, mostly it was because Caroline was holding a second party—this one with an entirely different guest list—to celebrate.
And, also, because she is seventeen—and since it's technically been about forty years since that particular birthday—Caroline's agelessness is bound to cause questions.
The party had technically started only about five minutes ago, but Liz had always been a police officer, who followed the rules, and she's muttering to herself as she looks around for their yet to arrive guests.
Resting a comforting hand on her mother's shoulder, Caroline takes another look around the room and then glances out the window. Rubbing her shoulder she sighs. "They'll be here, mom. They promised."
Liz grumbles something but the noise blends with the sound of an arriving car engine out the front and Caroline sighs in relief. She wasn't really ready to continue to deal with her mother's temper. While the years had been quite kind to Liz Forbes, with age came less self restraint and these days her mother didn't really have any qualms about speaking her mind.
"That'll be them now." Caroline says quickly, patting her mother one last time before heading to the door.
She greets Elena and Damon with a grateful look and wide eyes.
"Thank god, you're here." She says, beckoning them inside.
It will always be a bit weird to see Elena and Damon. Caroline doesn't see them very often these day—they'd settled in Italy in about 2025, in one of the villas that Damon had owned since the end of the nineteenth century, and Caroline was living in an apartment in Prague so they didn't often see each other. But it was weird, because Elena hadn't been turned until she was twenty five in 2019, so the age difference between Damon and Elena was closer, but the difference between her and Caroline always kind of took Caroline by surprise.
But whatever.
It looks like they brought chilli which is always exciting, if not a little predictable.
Elena pulls Caroline in for a hug without hesitation and Caroline squeezed her back tightly. "It's so good to see you, Care." Elena gushes. "Where's your mom?"
"In the kitchen." Caroline says, pulling away. She takes the chilli that Elena has handed to her, and looks to Damon.
There's a moment when he probably thinks she's going to settle for a nod, but she goes for the hug as well. She likes him—it doesn't matter their history. Comparatively, she's only known him for a couple of years of her life—and while she has a long time to keep it up, she hopes that he continue to be a small part of her life.
So she hugs him.
Damon takes a moment but then he goes for it, which is nice. It doesn't last long but he manages to smile at her and look sincere which probably took a lot of effort from him.
When they pull apart, Elena is smiling at him like they've just given her a puppy or something, and Caroline rolls her eyes slightly.
"She's been dying to see you, by the way." Caroline tells them as they both step inside. She's talking mostly to Damon, to be honest (she'd never really understood why, but he'd always had a weird friendship going on with her mom), but Liza has also been looking forward to seeing Elena.
When she leads the two of them into the kitchen, she smiles seeing her mom's face light up.
Funnily enough, Liz also rolls her eyes. "You look as young as you ever did—of course." She laughs sarcastically, before holding out her arms.
Watching Elena hug her mother is a bit weird because when they were young Liz was never really a touchy feely kind of woman. Watching Damon hug her is just kind of funny.
"Has anyone else arrived yet?" Liz looks to her daughter.
Caroline smiles sweetly at her. "I'll go check." She says. Liz is too busy fawning over Elena and Damon to really note her daughter's response and the reaction makes Caroline smile.
She waits at the door for the rest of the guests. Bonnie and Jeremy arrive first, both of them now closer to Liz's age than they are to Caroline's—with two of their kids already graduated and one a senior student. Tyler shows up after that, with Mrs. Lockwood on one of his arms and his long term girlfriend Haley on the other. Matt arrives a little later with his wife and their thirteen year old, Vic—he got married early but they'd been having trouble getting pregnant and the insemination clinic had taken a while. Now they were those old parents that people couldn't tell were parents or grandparents—but they looked so happy no one gave a crap.
That's the grand total of their party, and it's nice. Stefan was invited but he's hopping the globe with Rebekah and couldn't quite make it. When they got together there were a couple of years when no one was happy with it. Everyone had been surprised when Damon was the first to forgive him, but they're brothers and Caroline knows if she had a sibling and they'd been turned with her, she wouldn't spend too long being angry. Damon and Stefan have gotten past whatever issues held them back for the first hundred years and pursuing a more sibling like relationship these days.
They see everyone as often as they can—usually at Carol or Liz's birthday parties because that's what they need. Caroline has flown in for each of Bonnie's kids graduations, as well as their first few birthdays—but seeing Bonnie get steadily older and older is strange (yeah—because she's immortal and she finds aging weird now) but the only consolation is that she looks happy.
Like, really, really happy.
She notes, with a pang, that Liz watches Bonnie with a fondness that Caroline can't possess yet. Because Bonnie is alive and has kids and has had a proper life. She and Jeremy have had their problems but they've never come remotely close to really ending things (not since he won her back in an extravagant declaration of love that Bonnie had called Caroline about straight afterwards, even though the time difference from Virginia and Rio (where Caroline had been living at the time with a South American couple who'd shown her how to cliff jump).
("Oh, my god, Caroline—he told me he loves me."
It was an enthusiastic phone call, and Bonnie had been practically hyperventilating, which was so out of character for her usually sensible friend that Caroline had known this was big.
"Calm down. Now what exactly did he say?"
"He said that Anna was a mistake. That he'd been happy to die for her—but being with me reminded him that there were some people worth living for and he didn't want to lose. He wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I think I love him, Caroline!")
The thing was, Bonnie had the life that Liz had always wanted for Caroline. Probably with Matt, if Caroline was still alive, but Caroline's pretty sure that wouldn't have worked out either way. Matt still looks at Elena with a glint in his eye—and it's not just because she still looks twenty five.
Damon was always less than two feet from her, though, so it doesn't matter too much, and Matt looked at his wife, Katie, with more devotion than he'd looked at Elena ever. Maybe it was just a lingering first love thing.
"Still single then, ex?" Tyler laughs from across the room, Hayley sitting snugly next to him, his arm around her waist.
Caroline rolls her eyes as she drops into the free seat on the couch opposite them.
"Single and ready to mingle," she says with a wink. They'd taken to the nickname a while ago, and even though they'd tried to calm it down when Hayley had first entered the picture, they'd quickly realised that she didn't care. She and Tyler made an amazing couple and she seemed totally confident in the fact that she had his wrapped around her little finger.
"Seriously, barbie," Damon says, from his spot on the couch. Elena is sitting on the floor, resting her back on the front of the couch between his legs, and leaning slightly on his knee. "When are you going to settle down?"
Caroline shrugs. "When being single loses its appeal," she says simply before taking a quick draw of the alcohol in her hand.
The thing is, though, that it's doing exactly that. She can see all the couples in the room—who look so content to just sit with each other, comforted by each other's company that she can't help being jealous. It's not like she's been looking or anything—no one she's met in forty years seems right at all—but she's getting tired by the constant loneliness of her empty apartment in Prague.
She shrugs off those depressed thoughts. Maybe it's time for another relocation, she thinks. A bit closer to home now that Liz is reaching the end of her years.
"How's Italy?" she changes the subject expertly, taking a smaller sip of her drink.
Elena bursts into an explanation of the vineyards at this time of year and how she should definitely come and visit as soon as possible, and Caroline leans back in her seat. While she does this, Damon's hand drops softly to her shoulder, and stays there. Elena leans into instinctively and Caroline nod.
Yeah, she wouldn't mind having someone like that in her life.
Once Elena's finished talking about Italy, she turns to Caroline. "Did you hear that they've got a game tomorrow for the school?" she asks.
Mystic Falls high is still as embroiled in football culture as it's ever been, and Caroline nods. Of course she's heard—this is still a small town, after all, and a foot ball game is the most excitement they'll get for a while.
"I was thinking we should go," Elena says with a grin. "See how the cheerleading team is doing without your fantastic leadership."
Bonnie laughs. "Jamie hates the cheerleaders," she says, referring to the last of her children at school.
Caroline rolls her eyes. "That's cause Jamie's a dork."
Bonnie fakes offence but they all laugh at Caroline's words, even while Liz tries to look ashamed at her daughter's antics. Caroline just giggles. The upside of staying young forever is that she can continously utilise her god given bitchiness.
Once the laughter has passed, Tyler nods his head. "No—we should totally go. I want to see how bad the football team is without us!" he says enthusiastically, lifting his hand in the air expectantly. Matt doesn't let him down and, with a laugh, lifts his fist to bump against Tyler's. It's a bit of a weird sight, seeing as Tyler is still seventeen and Matt's in his late fifties, but it makes Caroline smile.
"Probably better," she says casually.
The look that Tyler now gives her is deadly and it makes everyone laugh.
Vic, who thus far has spent the evening hiding near her parents, runs over and jumps into the seat next to Caroline. She's a pretty little girl, just like her namesake—only hopefully not as addicted to drugs in her future. She's inherited her mother's dark hair which means that she actually looks a lot like Matt's sister, and it's a bit uncanny. Caroline wonders what she'll look like in a couple of years.
"There's a new person living in our building." Vic informs her excitably, wide eyes waiting for Caroline's response.
"Is there?" Caroline asks with a smile. Her gaze slips to Matt, who's chuckling to himself and shrugging at Caroline's inquisitive gaze before she looks back to his daughter. "What are they like?"
Vic looks excited to be included in conversation and immediately bursts into an explanation of the man who's now living in the flat above them. Matt and Katie bought one of the first apartment complex's in Mystic Falls—which isn't saying much since there's only the two on each side of town. It's more of an apartment village, if you think about it, a long row of white two story buildings—two flats in each. But the one above them has been vacant for a while now, so it serves that Vic's excited.
"He's tall and he talks funny." Vic says. "Mum and Dad didn't meet him—but he said hello from his veranda this morning."
Caroline grins. "Well that's very nice of him. Did he introduce himself?"
Caroline knows it's probably a bit alarming that Vic, a ridiculously innocent thirteen year old, has met this unfamiliar man by herself—but Matt doesn't look tense at all so Caroline thinks he's not too worried.
Vic grins enthusiastically.
"He did," she nods her head. "His name's Nick."
.
The next day, Caroline makes her way to the Mystic grill and slips into one of the wall booths. It's been long enough that the teenagers that hang out here these days don't recognise her—but she knows that she'll only be able to come out like this for a couple of years until people begin to question her unchanging face.
Still, a couple of years is better than nothing.
She doesn't order anything for the moment, not at all sure what she feels like drinking, and instead stares blankly at the menu—her mind far away and on other things.
Moving from Prague shouldn't be an issue. Her time there should be up soon anyway—again, she needs to move before her face starts to rouse suspicion. They still haven't quite True Blood-ed it and come out of the coffin (god she loved that show. Whenever it's on reruns, she curls up on her couch and with a blood bag) so she doesn't want to get too much unnecessary attention.
She has options from now, obviously. She has already done the Australia route—but it's been a long enough time that she could head back. She visited Paris and Rome and Tokyo, but something about those countries gave her a weird feeling in her stomach and a headache so she left them pretty quickly.
Maybe Asia, she thinks for a bit. She could spend some time in Singapore or Indonesia. Ooh, she hasn't done India yet.
There's a bell from behind her, indicating that someone's just come in, and the hairs on Caroline's neck stand up—but she pays them no mind. She's a vampire. She can handle any threat.
Her phone vibrates and Caroline smiles fondly when she reads the message.
We're leaving now, but we'll see you soon, Elena has texted sweetly. Damon says that you should find a man soon—so you can prove to your mother that you won't be an eternal spinster.
Caroline shakes her head at that. Most of Damon's snarky comments had lost their effect now—mostly because it was amusing to see how much of a whipping boy he was when Elena laid down the law. She would go visit them soon, Caroline decides. After all—vineyards.
Caroline refocuses her attention on the menu and pauses, having just decided what drink she wants to get when a hand reaches out in front of her and pushes a strawberry milkshake to her.
There is a moment, a heartbeat (if she had one) and then it's all coming back.
As the memories all come rushing back to her in a blinding haze, Caroline feels her emotions overwhelm her. She feels everything that she felt in those months, just in her memory and on top of it all she feels a complete, unadulterated happiness because she can remember and that means she ready to be with him. She clenches her hands around the corners of the table and her fingers make indents as she struggles to stay grounded in this moment.
Once it's passed, and Caroline can lift her head again her body is still in overdrive and she feels like her heart should be thundering. But she manages to overcome it and lifts her head to look across the table and see the face of the person offering her the drink.
"You look like you needed it, love."
His smirk is the same. It's been forty years—which probably feels like a blink of the eye to him, but feels much longer to her—and he still has the same fashion sense, the same wise eyes and the same confidence that makes him so utterly attractive.
"You asshole."
And then she's kissing him.
.:.
A/N: Well? I'm not really sure what to say now that this fic has finished. It's been a blast and I've loved every second of it—even though I wouldn't wish that kind of writers block on anyone ever. I'm glad that everyone who read it was so interested and I love that I've managed to make you all so happy—I never in a million years thought that I would write something that would garner this much attention, so thank you so, so much.
Acknowledgements to the Broadway musical: 'The Spring Awakening', which is just so fantastic that it hurts a little, and the song 'The Guilty Ones' which I've played more than a thousand times as I write this. Look it up on youtube guys .The OBC Lea Michelle/Jonathan Groff version is fantastic.
Thanks for sticking with me. And now, I want EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO IS READING THIS TO LEAVE ME A REVIEW. A fond adieu, if you will.
Kisses and hugs to all of you a squillion times over, and keep an eye out for some other Klaroline fics from me, because I've been struck by inspiration :P
PS. In regards to a sequel, I'm not sure if I'll write another multichapter fic, but there may well be some oneshots chronicling their future. Let me know if' you'd be interested.