Thank you guys for all the support! It really motivates me to continue this story :)
It will be a while until you get another chapter with Caroline's P.O.V after this., so, as always, I'll be waiting to hear what you think about it.
'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night
We're dancing 'round the kitchen in the refrigerator light
Down the stairs, I was there
I remember it all too well.
Taylor Swift, "All too well"
16. A continuation of dreams from past lives.
Now that she looks at her past with this new perspective of living again (for the third? fourth? or fifth time?)... now she can't help but wonder if the strong pull that she felt toward Stefan from the first moment was just the result of his perfectly handsome face, or the result of the feelings she couldn't even remember but must have always been there. Now he's become her beginning and her end.
And it's strange because the memories keep flooding back to a degree that would make anyone go mad. Caroline thinks she has enough reasons to go mad as it is right now.
However, in between the realization of how tragic she and Stefan are, there's no feeling of despair. There's no despair, but resignation. She yearns for things that are long gone, and at the same time are just within her reach.
Stefan. Stefan is just like her, remembering every single thing they went through the first time, and just like her, he still loves her and wants to change their fate. But she can't even tell if it's good or bad that he's part of this loop now.
He loved her but left her without even telling her what he was planning to do. How many years had she spent mourning and grieving for him? But then again, she'd been happy with him, and at the same time, it wasn't him. He can't know, he could never understand what it is like to experience the most perfect happiness and how there's suddenly nothing left of it but this inefable yearning.
"Tell me more," he asks, earnest as he's always been.
"There's no point. We would only be unhappy thinking about them."
Because Caroline knows she was happy. There are flashes, not much at all, but still so powerful, when she sees him as human, playing with the two perfect kids that call them 'mom' and 'dad'. And she also thinks of the twins, that might never be born, or will never be hers again. Even if she goes through everything right until the end, enduring the hardship so she can have a happy ending, there's no happy ending for her, is there?
Maybe it was real, but it'll be easier to think about everything as a dream. Eventually, it's just going to start all over again, and she's going to do it all over again because, compared to her feelings two lifetimes ago, her love now cannot even be measured.
This must be her never-ending torture. She can't let him go.
She ignores Bonnie when her friend tries to take her to school. Today she's woken up feeling pointless, and she's just not feeling like it.
As long as they cover for her with her mom, it's going to be okay.
So she stays in bed, doing little else than staring at the ceiling until noon and drinking stolen blood bags although she isn't thirsty, when the door opens and Stefan's concerned face makes an appearance into the bedroom. He doesn't even have to say a word before she answers.
"I'm fine."
"It doesn't look like it."
She frowns.
"I'm not in the best mood to pretend high school is new to me, and I don't want to kill anyone."
He raises an eyebrow.
"I doubt that your subjects at school are really occupying much of your memory." He sits in the bed, right in front of her. "But maybe we could go out of town for a bit."
"But we have school, and I'm planning for the decade dance." It slips out of her tongue almost as a reflex, and he dares to laugh at her.
Old habits really do die hard.
"Shut up."
"It's Friday. We can at least have the weekend."
"My mom is going to go nuts. And you'll be in her black book."
Honestly it doesn't sound that serious, all things considered, and Stefan is also past all that, judging by the smug look on his face, or the hand he's offering her. She takes it and smiles at him.
"Fine. Where do we go, then?"
This is probably the most adventurous she's been at seventeen. About time, since she has been seventeen for ages, apparently.
Caroline looks at Stefan, his silhouette barely a shadow against the sunset lights, and has to hold back from laughing at his conversation with Damon. Now that she remembers, of course, she understands his behavior, but it must be super confusing to his brother and everyone else.
The cabin they have rented is small but cozy, and the peace and quiet that surrounds them is just what she was needing all along.
So she closes her eyes, and pretends the rest of her life will consist only of this, an imaginary afterlife she will never have.
"I wonder what it is like."
"What?" Stefan asks, having come back to her side.
"Death. And what comes after." She regrets saying this when she sees the look on his face. Same stupid guilt as always.
"There's calm. Easiness. You watch over the people you care about as if you were still there, but invisible to their eyes. Time passes differently. Faster." He pauses and frowns. "It made me think the wait would be short, and then I'd get to see you again."
Was he ever looking over her all those times she cried for him? There were countless nights when she would sleep hugging his clothes, pathetic as she was, during the first years after his death.
"Well, nothing ever goes the way we expect." She whispers, then adds. "You broke my heart."
He winces. "I know that there's nothing I can do or say to make it up for that. At the time I… I thought it was the best for everyone. Damon could be human. Bonnie wouldn't have to see the face of the person who killed the man she loved. The town would be safe."
"And me?" She stares at him, her vision blurred by her own tears.
What about her?
"You were supposed to be happier without me holding you back. You were always the strongest one. I was going to die sooner and it would have hurt you the same, but at least… At least I could do the right thing. I know what it sounds like. I started to regret it every time I saw you, being unable to talk to you, to touch you."
"We could have been happy."
His thumb traces the path of her tears, but Caroline notices he is holding back his, the fool. "I know. I was an idiot."
She bites her tongue.
"You were."
And yet she loved him like that. He's different now, willing to compromise even in aspects that she would have never dared, having lived all of this multiple times. But it's still Stefan Salvatore, and they have entangled themselves in such a way that it's impossible to tell where is their beginning or their end.
"I don't deserve another chance, but I can't do without you Caroline. Will you be able to forgive me one day?"
So the simplest answer is: there's no end.
"Will you stay?" She knows the answer because he's come to find her in this impossible circumstance, but she needs to ask anyway.
"I'm staying with you no matter what comes our way this time. And we'll find a way to break that curse, so we can have that life we should have gotten a long time ago."
Caroline recognizes the song because it is one they played at her prom, back to a time when she had no idea that Stefan was meant to be the love of her life. He is thinking about it, too, when he offers his hand, the silent question hanging in the air.
She rests her chin on his shoulder, drunk with the smell of him. Even since the memories started coming back, her emotions have been so overwhelming she was afraid of herself. How should she act with Stefan now? From two people starting a relationship, they've gone straight to married and widowed and back to life in just a few days.
But he looks at her like she's the world, and what can she do but to give in to his kiss? She wants to kiss him just as much.
Stefan is careful at first, perhaps sensing how delicate their bond has become, but it's not days of waiting, it's lifetimes. She wraps her hands around him and demands more.
