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Darling you were always on my mind
Five years such a good start to a lifetime

Been good been bad
Been hard to break
With you I feel myself soften and shake
So please be good to me
And I'll be good to you

Olivia Broadfield, "Soften and Shake"

68. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL (TO END UP WITH YOU)

He's always thought himself so powerful, in spite of being mortal and having died once already, that seeing his lifeless body in front of her is strange. Caroline is disgusted thinking that he was pretending to be Stefan the whole day, even sleeping in the same bed and touching her as if he was really Stefan, and she didn't realize it. How long would this have gone on if Stefan and Tom hadn't arrived? Weeks? Months even?

Looking back, she still can't see when or how he became so obsessed with her. Perhaps Silas was just desperate for some form of connection, and this was difficult for someone like him to find people with shared life experiences. The same could be said of her, but Caroline was always lucky to have Stefan and all her friends.

So she would have felt some pity if her loved ones weren't victims of his twisted games. While Enzo and Damon get rid of the body, Jo is checking on Stefan and Elena offers to fetch some blood bags for Tom, Caroline stares blankly at the picture in front of her.

This is all her fault.

"Care, are you okay?" Bonnie asks, putting a hand on her shoulder that Caroline seeks for support.

"Yeah…" She whispers, but it sounds so false even to her ears, so she chooses to reprimand herself instead. "How is it that I didn't notice right away?"

"He's good at acting. None of us noticed."

But the others aren't marrying the man who has been kidnapped and replaced by the evil look-alike.

"Could you give us a moment?" Stefan asks, and Jo and Bonnie go away a bit too quickly.

She sits by his side on the large couch near the fireplace. Countless times in both her past life and this one they have found themselves here to comfort each other.

He holds her hand, and she notices the scrapes and cuts in his wrists.

"You need a tetanus shot asap."

"I know. Jo already reminded me of that too."

"I'm so sorry."

"Caroline, look at me."

She's a horrible person.

"Caroline." He repeats, his hand grabs hers. "It was only one day, and you have been pretty busy with planning the wedding."

Like that excuses her.

"In only one day, but what if it lasted longer. Besides, in one day, Tom is already… oh, god."

"I'm just glad he didn't hurt you."

She rests her head on his shoulder and sighs.

"Stop being so understanding. That's why people take advantage of you."

"I'm not that understanding. It's only because I love you."

At last she smiles.

"Why don't we go to sleep? We have a ceremony to attend tomorrow."

Elena is, as expected, nowhere to be seen, and Bonnie has just gone to talk to the musicians.

Caroline looks at her reflection in the mirror and prays that, for once, nothing goes wrong and Silas' sickening plan was the last hurdle to overcome.

"Wow, you look like an angel."

It's a compliment that she doesn't feel like she deserves, at least not from Tom, but she still turns to face him with a smile.

"Are you ready?"

"I've been ready for this my whole life. It doesn't mean I'm any less nervous. Are you… okay? With all those people outside?"

"I'll endure it. I have to learn how to live with it sooner or later."

"I already told you, but… I'm so sorry. Are you sure you don't want the cure?"

She isn't one hundred years old, so it wouldn't kill her. She'd offered Elena too, but her friend wouldn't take it without Damon. Tom is different.

"No offense, but that's like putting a target on my back. I'm already a doppelgänger, so let's not add to it."

"Okay. Then, there's something I have to tell you. I'm human now, my blood doesn't have the magic of vampirism anymore."

"I know that."

"What I mean is… the blood I gave you, it wasn't mine. There was another insufferable blonde vampire that came to see me once, asking me to either keep you out of our supernatural world or give you a chance to survive if something happened."

"Rebekkah?"

"So I'm not sure what exactly happened between you two, as you are kind of mysterious about it, but… I think you should know."

"I don't know what to make of that, but thanks for telling me the truth."

"I should have told you before. She asked me not to. Guess I'm not that much of a good friend."

He smiles.

"You, Caroline Forbes, are one of the best people I've ever known. Stefan is a lucky guy."

Outside, the music starts playing.

"I think it's time." He offers his arm. "Shall we?"

"Don't be so nervous, little brother. You two were practically married for the past couple of years anyway."

"I'm not nervous."

"I'm still a vampire. I can hear your pulse, you know that."

"I was just worried because you took too long to show up. Then Caroline would murder me for agreeing to have you be the officiant for our wedding."

"Shhh, there she is."

He turns to look at her. She looks like a miracle.

So here's the thing: as much as he hates Silas and would kill him one hundred times again if given the chance, he understands how someone like that could go to such extremes for the promise of Caroline's light. He wonders if he was at his worst, would he have done the same? But he hasn't been at his worst in a very long time, not since he acknowledged his feelings for her and decided to become worthy of her.

She is his savior.

And Stefan can't take his eyes off her the moment he sees her walking down the aisle, and God, he feels like the luckiest man in the world because, in spite of everything (enemies right and left, and the whole bloody past behind him), he gets to have this.

It's funny. He was born and raised in Mystic Falls, but he also died here. Then life just became an eternal penitence for his sins, but now it all makes sense, when he's back at his hometown, finding the love of his life, making her his wife.

Knowing that things could have turned out very differently, that if there's something such as fate then theirs could have gone wrong in a day just like this, he feels even more grateful for the chance to live a human life by her side.

He looks so dashing that even if she wasn't madly in love with him already, she would fall at first sight all over again.

"Caroline, you've been my friend, my consciousness, my sounding board, my sunlight when all I saw was darkness." Stefan says, and she is crying but these are tears of happiness. Good thing her makeup is waterproof. "I never knew someone who could be as wise and optimistic as you are. You told me once that I would fall in love without even realizing it and that's what happened. Day by day, bit by bit, year by year, with you. I hope you can rely on me as much as I rely on you, until we're old and gray."

"I remember saying that to you. I remember a bit too much, as you know. I remember you offered your friendship when I needed it the most, and you were the first to accept the things about myself even I found bothersome, and I think I already started to fall for you back then. You've stood by my side when I could no longer see the bright side of the world, and when I was at my lowest, you've stayed with me through it all. You became my home. I will always treasure every new memory we make in this life we build together."

When he kisses her it's the stuff of fairytales, and she wants to tell her seventeen-year-old self that she wasn't wrong after all.

Five years ago she met him in the school corridors, and it was just a silly fantasy back then, but today it becomes true.