Thank you for the support and reviews. Most are guests so I can't reply but know that I'm glad you're here reading this and I get to share a bit of my imagination with you.

It was a very productive week for me, and it's Sunday so I managed to write a bit yesterday. I hope you enjoy it :)

One look and I can't catch my breath

Two souls into one flesh

When you're not next to me

I'm incomplete

'Cause I'm on fire like a thousand suns

I couldn't put it out even if I wanted to

These flames tonight

Look into my eyes and say you want me, too

Like I want you

Ross Copperman, "Hunger"

38. Every breath, every hour (has come to this)

He's lost count of how many times he wished Damon was out of his life, how many times they were at odds, hurting each other. Lately, the times they risked their lives to save each other outnumbered them all.

Then there was Lexi, who decided to be his friend and help him when she had no reasons to. All their lives, it was always her saving him, and now Stefan will never be able to pay her back.

So what does he do now that the people who've been with him for most of his immortal life are suddenly gone?

The only reason he manages to wake up and start a new day is Caroline. When she says they'll bring everyone back, he believes she starts to ramble about finding a new house, at least temporarily because they are definitely breaking the traveler's spell soon, he also believes her.

Maybe none of that is actually possible, but her conviction and the hope in her eyes is something he has to protect. It's all he has now, his life gravitates around her, and he doesn't mind one bit.

They don't talk about their kiss.

Even before all of this happened, Stefan already knew that their relationship had been slowly changing into something different, something more. And he needs her more than ever, and he knows she needs him too, but it feels wrong to bring up his feelings when he's already taking so much from her.

It's enough that she's the first face he sees every day when he wakes up. It's enough that he can hold her in his arms, real and warm and everything that's good and right in this world.

This is exactly the reason why, when she insists on being directly involved in their search for ways to break the traveler's spell or bring Bonnie and Damon back from the dead, even if it means looking for Silas again, Stefan cannot remain silent anymore.

"I won't let anything happen to you."

He's failed too many times at keeping this promise.

But she speaks of things she has always kept to herself. "In my dreams, I saw you dying so many times. I couldn't bear to see it happen again."

Stefan suspected it before, now he knows. She dreams about Klaus, and she dreams about Tom, and she probably dreams about many other familiar faces, but he's the reason she has nightmares.

"Because of those dreams, I knew things I shouldn't know. I knew that Bonnie was going to die. But I also think there's a way for her to come back, I saw a future where she's still with us. So I have to try."

He needs to ask, even if he already knows the answer. "Did you feel obligated to do something because of the dreams?"

Caroline looks at him as if she knows what's in his heart, and she shakes her head. "You would have done the same for me, wouldn't you? I remember… I remember when I woke up as a vampire, you told me I would get through it, and I did, because you were there for me."

Such a small thing, it was the least he could do for her…

"I used to think I was some terrible person, but you were still giving me a chance, and it made me feel I wasn't hopeless. It made me want to be the best version of myself. And I… I-"

Whatever she wants to say, she stops there, her eyes looking everywhere except his face. But Stefan knows.

No, he doesn't know how to explain what he feels. All his life, he's experienced love as a strong rush that overpowers him, intoxicating, taking him to unknown heights right before crumbling and falling down. But he knows this is different and, somehow, better than all that. She's gotten under his skin so slowly, so quietly, that now he can't tell when it started.

"I'm sorry for not seeing it before." He cups her face in his hands. "You told me once I would move on without even realizing it. And that's what happened. I don't know when it started, when this became more than friendship, but it did."

To the point that the idea of a world without Caroline in it was unbearable.

"And when I thought I lost you, it was the worst thing that ever happened to me."

She finally looks at him, and he meets her for a kiss (because no, holding her in his arms is not enough if he could be doing much more).

There's not much talking after that.

He kisses her until her lips are red and swollen, and they're both out of air. At some point in the middle of that they make it from the living room to the door of her bedroom.

Caroline's skin is smooth and soft, and a bit like silk. In the past couple of weeks, he's fantasized about touching her more times than he can count (more than just wrapping his arms around her waist at night, holding her hand, or caressing her cheeks like he's done a couple of times), but none of those fantasies could hold a candle to the real thing. She's all that, pretty and lovable and just so Caroline, but she's also fire.

She's always been, he realizes, this creeping fire that gave him no warning, and now it's grown into a wildfire he cannot control.

Their bodies rocking against each other, she moans his name, barely a whisper close to his ear, but it's the final string and he comes undone. All he knows is that he wants her.

His mouth wanders from her lips to her jaw to her neck, and he remembers the taste of her blood.

"It's okay" She says under her breath.

He buries his fangs in her neck, and she digs her nails into his back. It's okay because it's Caroline, and when he's with her he knows they are not monsters, they are just themselves.

His hands are fast to pull off her dress, but she doesn't lose to him and rips out his shirt.

There's a misty look in her eyes when his gaze falls on her, right before he kisses her again and she wraps her legs around his waist.

Finally.

If someone had asked him a year ago what were his thoughts about making love to his best friend, Stefan would have found the notion impossible, unthinkable. Now, he knows this is what they should have been doing all along.

He's in love with her.

He knows it when all he needs is to hear her heartbeat and her breathing to feel that, despite everything that's wrong around them, there's happiness for him here, with her. A kind of soothing happiness that maybe he does not deserve, but he wants to hold onto for as long as she lets him.

So where do they go from here?

Stefan knows she's dying to get up or just do something, even if she's cuddled up next to him. He keeps his hand firmly on her back just so she stays a bit longer.

"I can hear you thinking, Caroline."

"I'm not… I just… I'm going to get some blood downstairs." She hesitates for a second, then smiles at him and wraps herself into a blanket. "Do you want to come with me?"

He smiles back at her. "'ll follow you soon."

Stefan fixes his eyes on the ceiling, contemplating what all of this means for them. This isn't like anything he's experienced before, so he doesn't know what to expect now that all the preexistent lines have been crossed.

Caroline's high-pitched scream calls him out of these thoughts.

"What the hell are you doing in my kitchen?!"

"Well, of course I came here as soon as I got news, like you told me to do. I did not expect to be welcomed with this view."

Stefan frowns when he sees Enzo smirking, clearly amused with the situation.

"Didn't you learn how to knock?" He asks, Caroline has already vamped upstairs, probably to get dressed.

"I will next time. Anyway, while you were here playing house with Gorgeous, I found a new lead. Have you ever heard about the Gemini coven?"