Stefan was standing in the corner of the room talking to one of the guy in the party. He had no idea how so many people ended up in his party. He didn't even know most of them, apart from five or ten. Maybe free food and booze could bring anybody. His eyes went towards the door where he saw Tyler coming into the apartment, and his first thought was to check on Caroline. She smiled at him and her lips moved to make the words "I am fine", but he knew she was far from fine, or he at least felt like that.

His pocket vibrated and he took out the phone.

"Hey, where are you?" He asked Liv on the phone.

"I will be there in a while, I am so sorry I am late."

"It's fine."

"I am being a bad girlfriend, right?" Stefan chuckled and told her not to worry about it.

When he ended the conversation, and looked at the people surrounding him, he sighed in exhaustion. He shouldn't have let Caroline and Lexi plan the party out, because it looked to him like they invited the whole university.

His eyes spotted the place where Tyler was standing, having an argument with Caroline. He couldn't help himself in intervening between them.

The hurt on her face, the sadness was clearly visible. When she left them, he wanted to follow her, to check if she was fine, but somehow he just stood there. Instead, when Tyler shoved him away and went to the restroom, Stefan followed him.

"What the hell do you want, man?" Tyler asked him when he tried to block his way.

"That was uncalled for… the way you acted with her."

"I was just saying what happened, now get out of my way Stefan." Tyler was crossing him, but in a split second, he was crushed between a wall on his back, and Stefan in front of him. With his knuckles tightened and the fist clutched, the punch was hard on Tyler's face.

"Drunk or not, she doesn't deserve that."

"You don't even know the whole story."

"And I don't want to know it, but if you behaved like this with her again, the punch won't be enough." Stefan never liked to be violent, going out of his way to fight with people. But, at that time nothing mattered.

When he found her outside the apartment, her face gave away exactly how she was feeling. He tried to make her smile, and he was glad that he succeeded. She doesn't deserve to feel bad.

When he introduced her to Ivy, he thought that he saw her face turning into a shade of blue, as if she was breaking every second. But, it was just for a moment of a second, and so he convinced himself that it was just his imagination.

August, 2003

The vacation of two weeks was over, and couldn't wait to meet Caroline. His eyes were fixed on the door. Last time he saw her was when she threw that party for him. Since then, it has been a little busy for her. She was visiting her mom, and so they couldn't contact each other either. When her station came, he made a place for her beside himself. The train started moving forward, but she didn't came.

"Stefan?" He came out of his thoughts when he heard Lexi shouting at him.

"What?"

"You almost destroyed all our hard work of weeks." Stefan followed her eyes, and realized that he was about to add 0.5mL of acid instead of 0.5 microliters.

"I am… I am sorry."

"Where is your head right now?"

"I... don't know." Lexi eyed him, but he didn't look at her, and they have to keep the Petri dish for observation. So, she kept the talk for the lunch time.

And when they finally finished all the set ups, she asked him to grab something to eat. He didn't want to, because he had no mood for food, but she took him anyways.

"So, what's the deal with Ivy?" Lexi asked him casually while chewing her French fries.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you never mentioned her before."

"Yeah, well she is my neighbor, and we talked sometimes. You told me to move on, and since she looked like a decent girl, when she asked me out for dinner, I thought I could give it a try." He was staring at his untouched burger. Lexi shook her head

"What?" he asked her, with one raised brow.

"Nothing. She seems nice... I am glad you are moving on."

"Yeah." His thoughts were occupied somewhere else, and he checked his phone for the hundredth time that day, but there was no sign of a text or a missed call. "I hope she is fine." he mumbled to himself.

"Why what happened to her?"

"I don't know, I am kind of worried about her. It's been more than two weeks since we talked, and she isn't picking up my phone either. First, I thought she was busy with her mom, but I now its look weird to me. She isn't like this. I hope she is still not upset with what happened with Tyler-"

"Tyler? Where did he came from?"

"He said something, which he shouldn't have had."

"Tyler and Ivy knows each other?"

"Ivy?"

"Who were you talking about?" she had already guessed the answer and when he took Caroline's name she had a smug on her face.

"Why are you looking at me like this?"

"Nothing, what's with Caroline then?"

He took a deep breath. "I don't know." Lexi kept her hand on his hand resting on the table.

"Try to call her again, or you can try Bonnie. I am sure, she will be fine. Maybe she is busy."

"Yeah, I will do that. But, before that, I am going to break Tyler's nose." Lexi laughed at him, and his ignorant brain. He still couldn't see what was going on.

"Didn't you already punched him?"

"How do you know that?"

"Stefan, his face was swollen like the water melon. Who else would have done that?"

Stefan smiled a little, but his worries were taken all of his mind.

After trying for endless time, she finally picked up the call.

"Hey."

"Hey, Stefan! How are you?" she sounded fine to him.

"How are you? I have been trying to reach you, but couldn't."

"Yeah, I was kind of busy."

"You don't take the train anymore."

"Yeah, actually they transferred me into another branch, and that one comes in the opposite direction."

"Caroline-"he could hear her taking a deep breath when he called her by her name. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah…" she said after a second of pause. "Yeah, I am fine. We should meet sometime. It's been a while."

Stefan smiled on the phone. "Yeah, whenever you want to."

"Cool, I will fix someday."

"So, everything going fine?" Lexi asked him when he took the seat in the class beside her.

"Yeah… I guess."

"How is Ivy?"

"Fine, I think."

Lexi looked at him with a confusion. "What do you mean by you think?"

"I mean, I was a little busy, and plus I think she was busy with her semester."

"And what about Caroline?"

"We talked. But, I don't know something felt off."

"What's off?" He looked at her, but didn't know what to answer her. "Anyways, I think she left this at my apartment during that party." Lexi handed him the floral scarf.

"It's Caroline's." there was a little smile on his face when she took her name.

"I will give it to her." He couldn't wait to meet her, and so he decided to visit her himself.

Her apartment came in the middle of his way back to his apartment. He took off the train, and went straight towards her home.

The smile was constant on his face just by thinking that he was going to see her after a month. She said that they will fix a day to meet, but somehow their schedule crashed every time they tried to plan it. And he thought it could be a good idea to surprise her.

He knocked her door once or twice, and chuckled when he heard her shouting "Can you not even wait for a second?"

She opened the door, and when she did there was a shock on her face.

"Hey." He replied her with a 'hey' as well.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him in a surprise.

"I thought that I should give it back to you." He pulled out the scarf from his bag hanging on his shoulder and gave it to her.

"Oh." She took it from him, and gave him a smile. "I thought I lost it." Stefan's grin widened at her. "But, you didn't have to come here so far just to return me this scarf."

"That's fine, it wasn't a big deal."

She looked at him with a gentle smile. "Thank you." She said softly and invited him into her house.

"Um, were you going somewhere?" he asked her when he realized that she was dressed up which looked like it was for some particular occasion.

"Yeah, if you would have been late even by five minutes you would have had missed me."

"Lucky me." She laughed at him, while picking her purse.

He was about to open his mouth when he heard another knock on the door.

"I will come in a second." She told him and went to open the door.

Stefan saw a guy on the door, who was tall, dark and handsome. Maybe her college friend or a neighbor.

But, when he gave her a small peck on her lips, Stefan's smile disappeared all at once.

"Stefan, this Jesse." She introduced them both, and Stefan shook his hand with him.

"You were going on a date."

"No, it's not like a date. We were actually going for a movie and then for dinner. Just a casual day. You should join us." Caroline looked at Jesse, to check if he was fine with it.

"Yeah, you should join us. It will be fun."

"No. I mean, not today. You guys should go."

Caroline smiled at him, once again. "Thanks, for the scarf Stefan."

He smiled at her too. But, there was a weird sensation building in his guts, which he wasn't able to recognize.