Hello again! I promised chapters in December, so here I am.
I'd like to hear your thoughts in this story so far, because it is so entangled with my previous fic (I noticed it made a lot of people confused, and many references such as Caroline and Stefan's children, or the Tom/Rebecca pairing come from In Another Life).
I am also seriously considering to have my Steroline stories moved to another site, which I have been doing with the fics that are close to my heart.
If you got to this point, enjoy the reading!
All that bloodshed, crimson clover
Uh-huh, sweet dream was over
My hand was the one you reached for
All throughout the Great War
33. IT'S THE PAST THAT'S TALKING.
He sees his dreams for what they are now. Memories of a stolen time, he wishes they could go back to those blissful days.
"Today I saw mom's photo, from when she was Miss Mystic Falls. I decided I want to be Miss Mystic Falls too." Beth declares with enthusiasm while they are having dinner.
"I saw that photo too. Why did mom go with Mayor Donovan?"
"They were dating back then." Stefan tells them.
"Ugh. That's weird. Where were you, dad?"
After all this time, he has to agree.
"He was dating Aunt Elena."
"That's even more gross. Forget I asked." Thankfully, Dante is also a genius at coming with ways to change the direction of any conversation. "You know what else is gross? How bacteria sticks to us. We had an experiment with glitter today in Science class, and I still cannot wash it off. Look!"
Theirs is a happy life. It has taken Stefan years to live with it, this happiness he does not deserve, after all the death and tears he caused to others in his long existence. Years he spends saving lives as a doctor, hoping one day he might make up for those he has taken.
Years he spends holding Caroline's hand, raising their children and watching them grow up. In truth, nothing he has ever done erased his guilt like looking at Beth and Dante smile.
This home they built together makes everything worthwhile. The fact that he's lived for so long gained a new meaning after he finally got to be human again by Caroline's side, the love he feels for her, for their family, redeeming him to some extent.
And it feels like he was right all along. His problem was vampirism, and all the trouble that came attached to it. During the first years, he and Caroline both worried that some of their actions as vampires could come back at them to haunt them, that they might even put the kids in danger.
It never happened, not even after they moved back from New York to Mystic Falls. Why would it, when they had their friends and family watching their backs?
Then Damon and Elena break up, and their peaceful existence is no longer.
It should have not gone like that (even if no one except Caroline really expected Elena to want her human life back). Bonnie and Enzo faced the same hurdle, and there were no murders involved.
But Damon is Damon. Perhaps it is to be expected. This is the story of their lives, isn't it?
One of them fucks up, or loses his humanity, then the other will clean up the mess and do whatever needs to be done to bring their brother back.
At least, it used to be like that (when both of them were vampires, when Stefan was driven by his guilt in the part he played in turning Damon all those years ago). The thing is, when the inevitable happens again, Stefan is no longer a vampire, and Damon is not the only family he has to protect.
One day he gets a call from Beth, who is crying from the other side of the phone, and urges him to come home.
When he arrives, the children are still inside the closet, Caroline has not even tried to take them out from their hiding spot. No, she is being Caroline and trying (very unsuccessfully) to put in order the mess of the living room.
And there is Tom, lying desiccated on their carpet.
"I… Damon came, and he was… Tom also arrived a bit earlier and he…" She throws herself at him, and starts sobbing again, "he was only trying to protect us, but it all went wrong."
Tom was only a young vampire and his strength was nothing compared to Damon.
He checks on her from head to toe, and there is a bruise on her throat, but Stefan can only thank God she is alive.
"Are the children safe?"
She nods.
"Where is my brother?"
"Gone. After he… he left after he took Tom's heart. Oh, god!" She keeps crying. "I have to tell Rebecca."
Tom and Rebecca had been together for almost two decades. Damon is as good as dead.
When they reach the closet in the master bedroom, and he sees Dante still hugging his sister, the kids' looks of fear mixed with relief upon seeing them, Stefan is not sure he wants to save his brother from himself anymore.
He realizes Caroline is right.
Damon will do this again, eventually, and they cannot risk it.
Perhaps the world would not condemn him for protecting his children at all costs, but long after his brother is dead, Stefan blames himself. Back to the old cycle of guilt.
In another life, Caroline told him many times, it was Damon who took the cure, Damon who survived and got a family with Elena and probably died of old age. His brother would have been a better man as human, just like Stefan was. But he stole that chance from Damon, being selfish to want that for Caroline and himself.
Caroline deserves everything, of course. It is him who is lacking.
"How long are you going to punish you like this?" She asks him.
It is as if she sees him and knows he wished he had taken his brother's place. And Caroline, who has lived another life before this one, a life where he failed her for doing exactly that, can't forgive him for even thinking about it.
When Stefan wakes up, his heart aches. He can barely breathe.
Caroline is sitting by the bedside, and jolts towards him when he opens his eyes.
"Stefan, are you alright?"
He's been sleeping for a whole day. Dreaming. Remembering.
The images in his head, the feelings piled up in his heart so overwhelming he cannot formulate any words.
Is this how Caroline felt before?
It is not his anger or his guilt towards his brother that bothered him in those memories which weigh on him. It is the absence of Beth and Dante.
He could have not possibly understood her before.
It was a happy life. The kids grew up well.
She had said those words, and they were true. They lived enough to see Beth and Dante become adults and live a good life on their own, but…
There is no point. We would only be unhappy thinking about them.
They did no longer exist, and even if he and Caroline made all the choices that led back to them… Beth and Dante would only be lost to them again, in this damned curse that had them living on constant repeat.
Most times, the circle only took them back to the same mistakes he always made when he had no memories of them.
Once he'd remembered too early, and erroneously took his own life right after turning into a vampire (What had been of Caroline's afterward, if they never even met?).
Becoming human, having a family, that was the closest they have ever been to complete happiness.
And it is all gone.
"Stefan?"
Caroline's green blue eyes stare at him in confusion.
"I am sorry." he is choking in his own tears. "I am so sorry."
