mark: prom
To sing softly, at less than full voice.

When the snow is finally thawing, the constant drip drip of melting icicles hitting the ground is enough to drive Caroline insane.

She's avoided Vaughan, whose trips to the Roadhouse seem to have dwindled to near-nothingness. When he does appear, he's usually in the company of Gordon, whose presence she doesn't particularly enjoy, so it isn't exactly difficult to leave a wide berth around him. Neither does he approach her, aside from the occasional nod as he accepts his drink from Jo.

The patronage of the Roadhouse drops as the weather begins to slowly shift from winter's last gasp into the warmth of spring; and when she's left alone with her thoughts, it's easy to let them run wild.

She wonders, even if they pull Sam out of the depths of hell, if she'll get back the piece of herself that he took with him. If that is even how any of this works.

She wonders how she'll ever break the news of her impending eternal life to Dean—if he'll hate her, or if, in true John Winchester fashion, he'll write her off.

She wonders if she'll deserve it.

—

Sioux Falls gets one final enormous—freak, Bobby calls it—snowstorm at the end of March; the winds howl outside as Caroline spreads her acceptance letters out on the floor of her tiny room. She chews her lip and stares at them, each of them holding an entire future in between the black and white of the printed font.

She clicks her pen and leans forward, writing cheapest in neat cursive at the top of the VCU letter. After a moment's hesitation, she adds close to home to both VCU and UVA's letters.

"What're you doing?" Dean wants to know from the doorway.

Without looking up, she says, "Figuring out where to go to college."

"Need help?"

The sigh she lets out is heavy enough to rustle the paper in front of her. "Got a spare fifty thousand?"

"In my other pants, maybe," he quips, then she hears heavy footsteps make their way over to her before Dean settles in across from the semi-circle in front of her.

"Walk me through it," he suggests as she scribbles most expensive atop both Georgetown and Yale's letters.

Caroline points to the letters she had just marked. "Yale and Georgetown are fifty-six thousand-ish."

The noise he makes is half strangled, half laugh. "Over four years? Not too bad, between me and Bill, we can figure it out—"

"Dean," she cuts in, looking up for the first time. "Fifty-six per year."

He stares at her and she thinks he loses a tiny bit of color in his face. "You don't have to pay for it," she tells him, spinning the pen in her hand absently. "Seriously. You're not my dad, you're my brother. It's not your job."

Dean snorts. "Yeah okay. Noted, disregarded." He reaches forward for a letter, and as he reads it, goes still.

She can see the Stanford letterhead from where she sits, and slowly, carefully, she says, "What do you think?"

The paper flutters and Caroline watches his face closely, dread welling up within her. "If you want it," he says quietly, "I think you should do it." But then he looks up too, meeting her eyes, and she's suddenly not ready for this conversation. "But do you want it, Care?"

Her mouth opens and he holds a hand up apologetically, cutting her off. "By itself, I mean. Without all the—all the baggage and shit. Is that where you would want to go if…if not for Sam?"

Anyone else would have missed the slight waiver of his voice around Sam's name, but Caroline has known Dean since she was five years old. She hears it, and it flows along the same deep crevasse that sits, fissured, in her heart.

She had waved Adam off, months ago, but it's harder to do the same to Dean, who knows her better than anyone. "It's a good school."

"A non-answer if I ever heard one." Dean stands, handing her the letter. "Look, take some time. You don't have to decide anything right now." He tilts his head, a smile breaking out over his face as he adds, "Just not too long. I gotta apply for a bunch more credit cards if you're gonna need fifty-thousand—"

She throws her pen at him as he leaves, laughing under his breath.

—

On the day that would have been Senior Skip Day, Caroline is pulling macaroons— a tricky pastry with which she's on her third try—out of the oven, Dean pulls a bleeding Vaughan into Bobby's living room, a grimace on his face and an apology in his eyes.

One look at the two of them and Caroline can tell immediately that Vaughan is not in danger of dying—not the way Ellen was, so many months ago. She shelves any thoughts of Klaus's blood, still sitting in her tampon box; he doesn't need it.

"You okay?" she demands from Dean, when he gives a single sharp nod, she returns it and says, "Good, because I have words for you, Winchester."

With a scowl, she yanks him with her into the hallway and begins to hunt for Bobby's heavy duty First Aid kit from the cabinet as Vaughan settles wincingly on the nearby sofa. "You took him on a hunt?" she hisses at him. "Him? Seriously?"

"I didn't take him," Dean retorts, his voice barely raised above a whisper. "It was his hunt, and he asked me to go—what was I supposed to do, Care, say 'oh no sorry, I promised my sister, who by the way has been illegally bartending at the Roadhouse for months, that I'd take her on my next hunt?"

"Obviously not," she snaps lowly, elbowing past him out of the tiny bathroom. "But 'no' was right there."

Vaughan is sitting hunched over Bobby's kitchen table, his fingers red with blood—slowing, she thinks, in its departure from his veins. "Sit up," she orders, and she sounds like a drill sergeant to even her own ears, "and lift your shirt."

He shoots her a wry grin before peeling back the blood-soaked fabric; the gash is deep, though her initial assumption was correct—the bleeding is slowing.

"Not to, uh, question the accreditation of the Bobby Singer School of Medicine," he says casually as she dunks her needle in rubbing alcohol, "but how much experience do you have stitching people up?"

Caroline jerks her head back towards Dean. "Exhibit A," she says dryly as she pops the kit open to examine her options. Bobby's First Aid kit is far superior to their tiny one in Mystic Falls, complete with medical grade thread for stitches and thick gauze. She takes out the thread and hands the gauze to Dean.

Vaughan's eyes dart between them, and for the first time in the short period she's known him, genuine surprise appears on his face. "Wait," he says slowly, "are you two together?"

Caroline mimes gagging just as Dean snorts. "Absolutely fucking not," he says flatly.

Something shifts in Vaughan's expression, something knowing and wistful that wipes away any of the humor she feels at their combined reactions to his question. It's an envy, a sorrow, that reminds her suddenly of the sister he very clearly still mourns. She threads her needle before warning, "This is going to hurt."

"Go easy on me, Nurse Ratched," he says and she glances up to scowl at him.

"Doctor Ratched," she corrects just as she slides the needle into his skin. He grunts, his stomach clenching, but to his credit, he does not flinch away. Caroline keeps her eyes focused on the black thread as it slowly pulls the torn skin back together, occasionally holding her hand out and doling out demands for rubbing alcohol or gauze.

Finally, the needle slides through a final time, and she knots off the thread nimbly. "Done," she announces, standing and making a beeline for the sink to scrub at her hands. "You should probably get, you know, an actual doctor to look at it, though. What was it?"

"Werewolf," Dean says grimly next to her. She jolts, and turns to Dean with narrowing eyes. He shrugs. "I know but dude had killed like, eight hikers already, Care."

"Did he have a pack?" she asks under her breath, turning off the sink and reaching for a towel to wipe off her hands.

"Probably," Vaughan says from behind them. "Something else we gotta be on the lookout for."

Caroline throws the towel down and turns to glare at him. "We? This was your hunt."

He holds his hands up in mock-surrender. "You're right, Doc, this was my hunt."

"So you'll take care of it if the pack comes after Dean." It's not a question.

His smile is grim. "The pack won't be a problem."

His tone makes her spine stiffen. "Good," she says flatly, crossing her arms over her chest. "Keep us out of it."

Vaughan nods once, a sharp cut of his chin in their direction before he says, "Thanks for the stitches, Doc." He gives her a half-hearted mock salute before leaving the kitchen.

"Don't think I like that guy," Dean says as they listen to the sound of the front door opening and shutting. Caroline turns to glare at him.

"Then don't go hunting with him," she snaps. "Seriously, Dean, what if that pack comes after you?"

He is entirely unrepentant. "Then they should've controlled the murderer," he says flatly, and at her disapproving look, he continues, "Don't let your weird friendship with Tyler make you forget that every single werewolf in existence had to have killed someone to trigger their curse. Not everyone had Katherine Pierce pulling their strings, Caroline."

"But you don't know—"

"Care," he interrupts, "I've done this a long time, and I can honestly tell you that Tyler Lockwood is the only werewolf I've ever heard of who was tricked into it."

"Well, joke's on you, then," she retorts, feeling a sudden flash of triumph. "She did the same thing to his uncle Mason." Caroline tilts her head, pretending to concentrate, her brow furrowing. "I think that means I win this conversation."

Behind her, Dean sputters, and it's almost normal.

—

It's a warm day in April when Caroline glances down at her phone and frowns at the date.

She knows that date, had it tucked away and marked important somewhere in the back corners of her mind, but she can't remember why—not finals, those are in May; and it isn't anyone's birthday because she's already missed all of her friends' and her own; and—

It hits her like a lightning strike, jolting through her with a wave of what she can only describe as sadness. Her heart sinks and not even the spring sunshine pouring in through the windows can cushion the fall.

"You okay?" Jo asks from her end of the empty bar. She's been buried in a stack of what look to be particularly ancient books, judging from the mold threatening to crumble off the corners, but her gaze is fully focused on Caroline; and if the tightness around Jo's eyes is any indication, she's worn her emotions on her face again.

Caroline briefly debates lying. All good, just thinking; but what good would it do, she reasons with herself, to shut out her closest friend for thousands of miles?

So instead, she sighs and sets her rag down gingerly on the bar.

"It's prom tonight," she says quietly, unconsciously crossing her arms over her chest and staring at the scuffed tile in front of her.

Jo wrinkles her nose. "Oh," she offers neutrally. "You wanna talk about it?"

She doesn't, not really. It all sounds so shallow and childish, even inside her brain—it's just a dance, and one she'd attended the last two years anyway. She didn't even get to help plan this one, nor did she have time to buy a dress before the world went to shit.

"Nah," Caroline lies, picking her rag up and scrubbing at a non-existent spot on the counter. "It's dumb." And it should be—the idea of missing a prom she hadn't thought about in months shouldn't be able to make her stomach cramp with longing.

Jo is eying her like she doesn't buy what Caroline is selling, but doesn't press her further before she slips into the back room of the bar. The silence leaves Caroline with just her thoughts to occupy her.

She wonders what Bonnie and Elena are doing right now— Mystic Falls is an hour ahead, and given the waning afternoon, she'd bet they've already done their mani-pedi and hair. In her mind's eye, she can see them: long, flowing dresses that swirl around their feet as they meet their dates in the foyer of Elena's house. She wonders if Bonnie is going with Jeremy, if Elena is going with Stefan, or if they forewent dates this year and chose each other.

It's dark outside by the time she drags herself away from the Roadhouse, and the drive home seems quicker than usual. She makes each turn on autopilot, and when she pulls into Bobby's driveway, she sits in the junker car he had loaned her and lets her eyelids flutter shut. One breath passes, then two, before she sighs and heads inside.

The house is empty, but the faint sound of music drifts in—

Her nose wrinkles; she's almost positive that she's hearing pop.

"Dean?" she calls out suspiciously, slowing her footsteps until she's stepping cautiously across the floorboards. "Hello?"

The music fades out, then switches to Taylor Swift and she knows for a fact that that would only play over Dean Winchester's dead body. Her eyes narrow and she follows the sound to the back patio.

"Surprise!" Dean shouts when she opens the door, his arms spread wide; next to him, Bobby stands from his lawn chair and Adam gives her half-wave from his seat on the porch railing.

The patio is covered in bright twinkling lights, illuminating the house with their warm glow against the dark of the night sky; the music is coming from Dean's phone and she

"Did I miss it?" Jo hollers from down below the raised deck; Caroline blinks back the sudden wetness in her eyes.

"What is this?" she asks softly and Dean shrugs.

"Prom," he says, a little sheepishly. "Kinda."

Jo appears at the top of the deck steps, a bowl of punch that is splashing dangerously close to the edge in her arms. "It's not much—"

"It's perfect," Caroline interrupts, her voice cracking as she accepts a solo cup of punch. "Seriously."

Dean points at her with his cup. "Enjoy your top forty bullshit tonight," he says gravely, "because it is never happening again. Ever."

The grin splits her face unexpectedly and it feels as foreign as it does welcome. "So says you," she parries back cheerfully.

"Driver picks the music," he retorts and before she can reply, Jo grabs his hand and pulls him into a dance.

It's not prom, but she thinks as she watches Dean twirl Jo in an exaggerated spin under the twinkling lights that she'd rather be right here anyway.

Jo laughs at something Dean has said to her and there's a warm, almost happy bubble slowly expanding in her chest—

—crack—

Caroline starts, her drink spilling onto the deck; Adam jumps to his feet, Dean drops Jo's hand, and Bobby rears forward with a sawed off that appeared out of nowhere in one hand.

It's Gabriel, but when his head lifts and his face enters the soft, warm light of the patio, Caroline inhales sharply.

His face is molten, a watercolor of bruises and cuts, and when her eyes dart to one side, she can see in the shadows his wings cast that one is torn, dangling weightlessly by a thin sliver. She steps forward, caution thrown to the wind, and his weight collapses into her.

"What happened?" she demands, and anger momentarily displaces fear. Over the last year, Gabriel has become someone she considers hers, a part of her circle of friends; and while that circle had shrunk in the last year, he had least remained a constant in the whirlwind. "Gabriel?"

He lifts his head slightly and smiles—or, more accurately, tries to smile. "You should see the other guy, babe," he rasps and her grip on him tightens.

"Falls," he says, his voice low and meant only for her ears. "Trinity falls." Gabriel pulls away just enough for her to get a good look at his face and she finds no signs of joking. He coughs, and blood lands on her shirtsleeve. "Don't be a dumbass, kid."

Another crack, then—

Caroline is frozen to the spot, her arms still outstretched as though she's still holding him within their grasp. "What the fuck just happened?" Her voice climbs a pitch. "Did he just—"

She can't say it, and she is so tired of losing people—

"No," Castiel says solemnly. His eyes meet hers over the spans of the deck and the shadows under them could rival her own. "I would know."

Trinity falls. She stares at the spot where Gabriel had just stood.

It's a thread—a thin, frayed thing, but something to tug on nonetheless.

—

There are over fifty-seven million hits on Google for trinity falls.

"Maybe he meant it like a noun and a verb," Dean offers through a bite of cold leftover pizza. "You know, trinity—" he makes a chopping gesture with his hand, "falls. Get it? It fell."

Caroline stares at him incredulously. "Maybe."

"Or," Adam pipes up from his spot across the table, "it's a subdivision in Texas."

Dean snorts. "Don't think we're supposed to go to suburbia, Milligan."

Caroline groans and drops her head into her hands. "He couldn't have been clearer?" she wonders dejectedly. "Like, he couldn't have, you know, elaborated before poofing away?"

"He looked a little worse for the wear," Adam reminds her gently.

She ignores him. "And don't be a dumbass, what the hell is that supposed to mean—"

"It means it's definitely not in Texas," Dean grumbles, and she ignores him too.

"It's a place," she says with more certainty than she feels. "It has to be a place."

There's a soft flutter, then Castiel says from behind her, "There are three hundred and ninety-seven cities, towns, and municipalities in this country with the name Trinity Falls," he announces. "Where would you like to start?"

"Maybe Crowley knows?" Caroline ventures, and Dean shoots her a look that has her holding up her hands. "Okay, it was just a suggestion. Don't flip out."

"This family," Dean says flatly, pinning her and Adam with the same look, "is going to stay away from Crowley. We clear?"

"Crystal," she mutters mutinously, but Adam says, a bit hesitantly, "I think it's a place too."

"Okay, Lewis and Clark," Dean says, "put together a plan." He tosses the crust back into the pizza box. "Let me know when we leave."

—

It takes them a week to stitch together a Frankenstein map of all the likely Trinity Falls that stretch from South Dakota to Virginia, and when they present it to Dean, he looks at Caroline like he can see right through her.

"Missouri, huh?"

She crosses her arms over her chest. "There's eighteen potential locations in Missouri," she says primly.

"Not near Cape Girardeau."

"We have to sleep somewhere, Dean."

He shakes his head but doesn't argue with her, instead taking a long sip of coffee. "Alright. When do you want to leave?"

Caroline hesitates, her foot tapping anxiously. "Day after tomorrow," she says quietly. "If we leave then, we make it back to Mystic Falls by, um, you know. Graduation." She pauses. "I'm salutatorian."

Dean grins at her. "That's definitely from the Winchester side."

She doesn't bother reminding him that that's definitely not how it works. "Dean. It's been nearly a year." Caroline chews her lip. "We can't stay here forever, and I want to go home."

He's quiet, and for a long moment, she thinks he might tell her no. Her backup plan— a loose stirring of an idea that sits quietly in the back of her mind— is to sack up and call Klaus. Extraction.

"Yeah," he says finally, and she doesn't miss the soft, sad timber in his voice. "Yeah, I think you're right. Cas hasn't reported anything new around the house in a while." He sighs. "Bobby's probably ready for us to leave, anyway."

That night, she buys a box of blonde hair dye and watches with no small satisfaction as her reflection becomes hers again. The dye isn't perfect—a little brassy, and if she squints, she can tell it came from a box—but she looks like herself again, like Caroline Forbes. "Goodbye, Caroline Campbell," she whispers triumphantly into the mirror with a tiny smile.

It's how Bobby finds her hours later—newly blonde and making lemon icebox pie, graham cracker crumbs dusting her cheek.

"We gotta stop meeting like this, kid," Bobby says as she carefully measures out lemon zest.

"I have nightmares," she says without looking up from her work. "What's your excuse?"

Bobby's quiet for a long moment then says, his voice creaking with something that sounds like exhaustion, "Sometimes I get 'em too."

That makes her pause. "Sorry, Bobby."

He waves her off. "You don't get to be my age in this job without some baggage," he says, and he settles into the stool across from her. "So. Going home."

The word home makes her stomach lurch, a jumble of nerves, excitement, and anxiety. "Yeah. Going home."

"How you feel 'bout that?"

Instead of answering, she pours the condensed milk into the crust. "Come with us," she suggests, and is surprised at how pleading her tone is.

"Can't do that, kid." He gives her a crooked half-smile. "Where would I sleep?"

She opens her mouth, then shuts it. He's right—she won't give up Sam's room, nor her mom's, and the couch is only comfortable for so long.

"Besides," Bobby continues, leaning back in his seat, "someone's gotta hold the fort down." He clears his throat then adds, almost hesitantly, "You know you can always come back. If you want."

Caroline almost tells him the truth—that the idea of coming back here fills her with anxiety, with pure panic that sets her heart racing; that she will always associate this house and this town with grief and despair. But she bites the words back and says instead, "You know, I never thanked you. For letting us stay here."

He shifts uncomfortably and waves her off. "Not necessary."

She shrugs and looks down at the pie. "It is though," she says quietly, fingernail picking at a loose crumb of graham cracker. "Bobby, I was—it felt like I was drowning when I got here, like I was up to my neck in just, like—" she gestures wildly, "—shit. And it was only getting higher, and there were times that I really thought—" she trails off and rubs the side of her neck as she tries and fails to find the right words. "I dunno," she finishes lamely. "I was drowning and this place was driftwood and I've clung to it for a year, but I have to try to swim for shore."

He gives her a tired half-smile. "Well," he says slowly as he moves to his feet and heads to the door, "my door's always open when you need to take a break. You know, from all that swimming."

—

Leaving Bobby's turns out to be the hardest part of all.

Her room looks somehow even tinier than when she first arrived, despite the lack of clothes and books strewn across every surface; and even though she'll be glad to see the back of the cramped space, Caroline has to fight back a wave of sadness. This place saw her through the darkness, she thinks, a swell of affection rising in her chest. Outside her window, the sunlight dances across rolling hills and Caroline leans her head against the doorframe to admire the view.

Surprisingly, it's Ellen fighting back emotion as she hugs them goodbye; when she lets go of Caroline, she holds her at arm's length and says fiercely, "You call me if you need me, you hear?" She shoots a disgruntled look over at where Dean is talking in low tones to Bobby. "If he gets squirrely, you call me."

Caroline nods. "I will," she promises, and she means it.

Jo doesn't let go of her for a long beat. "I'm gonna come see you," she says, "at some point, and I'm staying with you."

"Jo," Caroline says sincerely, "I would kill you if you didn't." Leaning forward, she whispers, "Keep an eye on Vaughan for me, will you? He—"

"I got you," Jo promises fiercely, and when Caroline pulls back, her eyes are hard. "I don't trust him either."

When she gets to Bobby, he's looking down at the ground, his baseball cap twisting in his hands. "Don't be a stranger, kid," he says gruffly and Caroline blinks back a sudden well of tears.

"You should just move to Virginia," she tells him again, her voice wavering as she fights to keep it steady. "Plenty of junkyards needing seasoned leadership."

"You callin' me old?"

"I said seasoned," she protests with a watery smile that Bobby returns.

"Maybe," he says, and she clings to it, the idea that maybe, maybe, maybe someday all of her people will be in one place where she can curl into their presence and bask like a housecat in the sun.

Dean makes Adam sit in the back, despite Caroline's protests that it's unfair. Adam, to his credit, pretzels his long legs and waves his hand. "It's fine," he says gamely as Caroline tries to pull her seat further up. "Gotta pay my dues, right?"

Caroline shoots Dean a glare. "That's not dues-paying," she says disapprovingly, "it's hazing."

Dean rolls his eyes before popping on his sunglasses. "He said he didn't mind."

She snorts. "He's a liar." She twists in her seat to face Adam. "No offense."

"None taken," Adam says cheerfully as he settles in.

Clapping his hands, Dean shushes them and slides in an old, faded cassette tape; an opening guitar riff thumps through the Impala. "Where to first, Navigation?"

Caroline pulls her phone out with a dramatic flourish. "Minnesota," she announces, and they peel out of the junkyard's driveway.

But she watches in the rearview mirror until the robin's egg blue fades from sight.

—

Somewhere outside of Minneapolis, with the sun setting and casting an orange glow throughout the Impala, she sneaks her phone out and chews on her lip as she considers Klaus's name.

Do it or don't, Forbes.

Taking a deep breath, she types out, We're coming home and before she can overthink it, before she can tell herself all the reasons it's a bad idea, she hits send.

—

tbc.

A/N: I know I said this would be the last chapter, but I've had to add one more to get everyone back to Mystic Falls!

As always, you can come yell at me on Twitter (sunnydaisy6) or Tumblr (little-miss-sunny-daisy)!