"Why is it that the guys I want, never go for me? I try so hard, maybe because I'm inappropriate and I always say the wrong things and Elena always says the right things. I mean, she doesn't even try and he just picks her! "'

The first time someone picks Elena Gilbert over Caroline Forbes, it's sophmore homecoming.

She starts off with her usual ramblings about student council and the like, and she is just about to ask Matt Donovan before he cuts her off.

He's Elena's date to homecoming.

(Which figured, really.)

She talked too much, she was too forward, she just said the wrong things.

Or maybe she was just stupid to think she could interfere with the destiny, or fate, or whatever that was Elena Gilbert and Matt Donovan. Mystic Falls High School's future golden couple, the subject of gossip since the seventh grade when Matt asked Elena to the movies, and she rejected him. Ugh, small town gossip was the worst.

Caroline figures she's just too Caroline, no match for Elena's bikini body, long hair, and the fact Elena's just so freaking nice and impossible to hate.

(She wants to though.)

Caroline wants so much to just hate Elena's guts with her perfect skin, perfect family, perfect grades, perfect everything.

And all she's made of are broken parents and a mouth much too big for anyone to handle.

But at the same time she can't hate the girl who always cheered for her when she made speeches, the girl who offered a place to stay when her parent's were fighting, the girl who held her as she sobbed when the divorce papers were finally signed and planned sleepovers for her and Bonnie every day of the week following so she wouldn't feel alone.

(She even bought a whole box of Caroline's favorite Ben and Jerry's.)

The second time she comes in second, it's junior year and the hot new guy only has eyes for Elena.

(He was just so pretty up close)

She's drunk, and Stefan Salvatore is very much sober, so later that night when she's threading her hands through her hair over a cup of coffee, she deducts it was an unfair advantage on his part anyway.

This time around, Elena should be more broken then she is, so how come she was able to still bring every male in the vicinity to his knees?

(It's unfair to talk about Elena's parents death like that, she knows, but she's too drunk and hurt to care.)

She remembers bringing cookies to the Gilbert house only week prior, knocking on the door after the funeral service hosted by Mayor Lockwood. Mourning the loss of a founding family.

(Elena's cool aunt Jenna answers the door, and she remembers tears stinging her eyes knowing Mrs. Gilbert would never ruffle her hair and ask her how she was.)

Caroline tried so hard to fix Elena like Elena tried to fix her.

But Elena's repeating of "I'm fine" through tears, and Caroline can't think of anything to do but hug her best friend as tightly as possible.

(Her tears ruin her favorite shirt, but she acknowledges later that it was for a good cause.)

But even broken Elena isn't as much of a wreck as Caroline is.

She's still always going to be second place.

Elena has a new boyfriend about a year later, except this time Caroline's not the least bit jealous of her best friend.

Maybe it's because she's a vampire now, and therefore has matured, because she has a boyfriend who has never even thought of going out with her best friend, or that she'd already dated Elena's (most likely last) boyfriend, and trust her, she wasn't interested in revisiting that.

Elena and Damon are making dinner at the boarding house, he's teasing her about burning whatever's on the stove, and Elena's rolling her eyes, but her smile gives away her amusement.

She never pictured the biggest, baddest asshole she'd even known twinkling with such mirth over such a mudane task.

(Then again, she figures, it's probably because he's sticking his tongue down Elena's throat even five minutes with the excuse of "sauce on the corner of her lips". Ewh, he could at least have some respect for the fact that there were other people in this room.)

She also never pictured her history teacher bustling around the house doing laundry and acting as the Gilberts' own personal Papa Bear, or Bonnie and Tyler being so freaking cute together cuddled up on the couch and rolling their eyes every time they heard Damon and Elena flirt from the kitchen, or that Stefan and Katherine were off galavanting on some foreign island.

The fact that she'd fallen in love with her best friend's brother was probably the most surprising to her though.

(Jeremy was actually the sweetest guy on the planet when he got out of that emo phase and stopped being haunted by his ex-girlfriends.)

The seven of them made an odd sort of family, if you asked Caroline. Now that the sacrifice was over and Klaus was dead, they'd all sort of come together in one choatic, supernatural filled mess.

(They'd never been happier, though.)

fin.

Read/Review? Tell me what you think? I just had this drabble in my head and couldn't seem to get it out!

Also, Jeremy/Caroline is totally my OTP for life. How come it's not more popular over here? There's more Alaric/Elena smut!fic over here than there is Jeroline fic!

Not that I know that from experience or anything...