"Beach sand, perfect tans. Day walks, night talks. Sleepless nights, pillow fights, and spending every day with those who matter most."
- Unknown
"Where's Elena Gilbert?" Carol Lockwood, head of the Founder's Day Committee, asked.
"Oh, she won't be attending the pageant, Mrs. Lockwood." Caroline informed, looking at the brunette sheepishly. Caroline considered blurting out something extremely inappropriate but decided against it. In the past month she'd managed to withhold certain urges she would have easily given into. Caroline Forbes learned the virtue patience. She leaned against the arm of her chair.
"Oh?" Carol muttered.
"Yes, you see, she's out of town, and she's gone to great lengths to allow no further contact. I assure you Elena wanted to be here, but she's doing some self-therapy rehabilitation thing and she wont be back in town until school starts in the fall." Caroline said looking around at the other familiar faces in the room. To her right were the Fell twins and their dates, and to her left was Heather May, some unknown non-founder-family girl with her date. And behind her was Stefan Salvatore, Caroline's date. At first Caroline was slightly apprehensive about asking the youngest Salvatore to escort her to the gala, but she managed to talk herself into it. Stefan was the most perfect gentlemen and she knew once word had travelled all the way to the Gilbert Lake House, Elena would speak up on the issue.
"Um, alright then, I guess we'll have to take her name off this list." Carol did so, erasing Elena's name on the Mystic Falls Pageant sign up sheet. Caroline knew Elena only put her name in because her mom had convinced her to. Miranda Gilbert was Miss Mystic Falls when she was a teenager, and she'd told her daughter it would only be right for her to be too. Guess that idea went down the drain. "So, I want you to grab your dates and head to the ballroom for the rehearsal. I'll be a there in a few minutes, I just have to make a couple calls." She assured, scurrying off in the opposite direction.
"Miss. Forbes?" Stefan held his arm out with a polite smile. Caroline took it, returning a smirk and the four couples made their way to the ballroom.
"Does this town have anything a tad bit fun to do? Geez it's worse than Mystic Falls here." Damon complained, walking beside Elena on the large sidewalks downtown.
"It's Virginia not Vegas, Damon." Elena muttered, cutting Damon off when she turned into the antique shop. She admired the place with the utmost curious look Damon had ever seen.
"Number twenty-five. I love antiques. My mom used to take me to that little store in town square every weekend. We'd by cool vases or old clocks that didn't work. Sometimes we wouldn't even buy anything." She said with a light smile on her face. "Hello." She greeted the old shopkeeper as soon as his head flew up. He gave a smile, and she continued to walk down the aisle of the small store. Damon trailed behind her, his face softening at her fond memories.
"Do you still miss them? Your parents?" He asked, and she stopped walking and turned to look at him.
"Everyday." She whispered, then continued walking. "Jeremy and I used to run around the house after school until my Dad came home. We were so exhausted when he finally arrived that we'd hug him and go straight to bed." Elena cracked a smile at the memory. Damon didn't say a word, just followed and listened quietly. "You know, being back at the lake house hurts more than I thought it would. All of their stuff is still there; I guess Jenna hadn't had time to box it all. I haven't been back since…"
"Since they died." Damon finished. Elena nodded as well, but once her eyes caught the old style telephone on the shelf, her eyes lit up in excitement.
"Number twenty-six. I love these phones." She smiled, her nails scraping against the dial, the pads of her fingers touching the silver metal of the phone.
"Let me buy it for you." Damon said, and she looked back at him with an eyebrow raised. "Well, I will anyways, so." Damon nudged her out of the way and grabbed the phone, immediately taking it to the cashier. He ringed it out, and put it in a bag for them. As they walked out to the street again, Elena's hand connected with his and she laced her fingers through his.
"You didn't have to do that." She said, swinging their hands at the same slow pace they were walking in. Damon smiled down at her.
"I wanted to."
Jeremy studied his girlfriend's face curiously.
"You know I don't want to do this right?" She asked. "I love Elena, no matter what, but if I don't help Caroline, God knows what she'll do." Bonnie sighed, looking in the mirror at her maroon dress. "Maybe going today is a mistake. Maybe we should skip it and just call Elena and Damon and tell them what's going on."
"Even I know that's a bad idea." Jeremy admitted, brushing back a lock of Bonnie's curly hair. "Let's just get through this and take Caroline to the lake house. From there, all we can do is help Elena as much as we can. Let Caroline take Damon."
Bonnie turned to look at him, fixing his tie slightly, and patting down the lapels of his suit jacket. "Are we bad? Am I a bad friend? Are you a bad brother?" Bonnie finally asked after a moment of silence, but they young boy shook his head.
"Caroline thinks the only way to hurt Elena is to take Damon back and prance him around like a prize winning puppy. We're lucky she hasn't thought of something worse to do to Elena. If she's not physically hurt, then I say fine. Pay back's a bitch but she had it coming for her." Jeremy shrugged.
"Let's go before I change my mind." Bonnie said, leading Jeremy out of the house.
Caroline stood in her long purple dress at the top of the stairwell in the Lockwood house. The rooms were brightly lit with the four o'clock sun. Light reflected off the white walls, contrasting with the dark of Caroline's dress and the paleness of her skin. Heather smiled at her nervously.
"Ready?" She asked, and Caroline nodded with a mischievous smirk.
"Ready to win." She muttered under her breath.
The Fell sisters had made their way down the stairs and the loud clapping of the audience made Heather jump slightly. It was obvious this girl wasn't used to being in things such as these. Her ancestors weren't founders so she had no use being in the Founder's Pageant. Elena was supposed to be here.
"Next we have Caroline Forbes and her escort Stefan Salvatore." There was hushed gasp from the crowd, but then she heard the similar, yet louder clapping and she made her way down the white steps. As soon as her eyes hit the crowd, she found Jeremy and Bonnie who looked slightly uncomfortable, staring back at her. There was not one person there that wasn't clapping. She took Stefan's hand and they made their way to the dance floor, where they waited for Heather and her date to arrive. As soon as the slow music started, Caroline's gaze fell on Stefan. She had to admit, he looked dashing in a tux. Not as dashing as his brother did, but he still had that Salvatore charm and appeal. Carol had been over the no-touch part of the dance many times. It was some kind of thing they used to do back when Mystic Falls was founded. She moved with grace, and as soon as the music lifted dramatically, Caroline's body and hands met Stefan in a tight embrace of dancing.
It was around eleven o'clock and Caroline looked to her mother annoyingly.
"So, mom, I'm going to sleep over at Bonnie's house tonight, so I won't be around for all of tomorrow. She's taking me out for a congratulatory lunch." Caroline smiled charmingly.
"Of course Miss. Mystic Falls." Sheriff Forbes smiled at her daughter, then watched the blonde teenager leave jumpily. Bonnie and Jeremy were already waiting in the car when she got there. Jeremy had offered to drive because he knew where the place was, and Bonnie sat beside him so that he wouldn't have to listen to the excited chatter of Caroline Forbes for four hours.
"Maybe this isn't such a good idea." Bonnie suggested, offering Caroline an out.
"No. I know it is. Let's go, Gilbert." She said, tapping Jeremy's shoulder from the back seat of her own car.
"I lost my parents too." Damon stated. "When I was sixteen."
"I'm sorry." Elena said, lying next to Damon in her bed. She felt the bed move when he shrugged.
"I had to do everything. We lived with my grandfather, but he was getting older and older. So I raised Stefan and cooked and cleaned. I didn't have to work because money had never been a problem in my family. But it was hard. I missed them. As soon as I was legal, I found comfort in drinking. I had always had sex, but now I had more and more. Stefan was worried."
Elena looked over at him, and he looked back at her.
"Then I met Katherine. She made me feel like the most important thing in the world. I loved her so much. Then I found out she was also banging my brother behind my back. When she died, I just felt empty. Caroline was a distraction, I never meant for it to get as serious as it did. When you asked me before, if I was in love with her, I don't think I was. If this is what love feels like, then no, I wasn't."
"You keep saying that Damon, but you can't expect me to just give my heart back to you. Because I don't love you. But I like you, a lot. Once we work through all the kinks, maybe I can love you. But it's not going to be this week or the next one. We need more time."
"We're young, we still have a whole lot of time left."
"Jeremy, it's getting kind of late, do you think we should grab a hotel and start back up in the morning?" Bonnie asked.
"No. We're almost there." Caroline shouted from the backseat.
"Caroline is this really such a good idea? Can't we think of other ways to get Damon back?" Jeremy asked, looking back at her.
"No, Jeremy. Now shut up and drive!" Caroline roared, getting impatient.
"Caroline…" Bonnie warned. Then, an insane amount of screaming came from Caroline's mouth and when Jeremy looked back to the street, the car connected hard with a large SUV. It flipped multiple times before it finally rolled to a stop. Upside down.
cliffhanger. so i'm trying to incorporate Caroline in a little more, and she's being a little bad back in Mystic Falls. Be prepared for more drama, and more lovin' and lots more Damon and Elena. hope you enjoyed this chapter, please review !