caroline

victoria- since you are not logged in, I cannot shoot you a message so I will tell you here my enormous thanks for your wonderful review on "we say goodbye in the pouring rain". That really means a lot to me and that was really nice to hear that you are a huge Supernatural fan. I have a few other Supernatural stories up if you are interested in checking them out. Also, if you are a fan of the Hunger Games, I have a crossover SPN/THG fic up where all the characters of SPN take the places of the people in the THG, hence Dean is Katniss, Jo is Peeta, Sam is Prim, Lisa is Gale, Bobby is Haymitch, etc. If you are a Dean and Jo fan then you will probably enjoy it.

jess- I know this story is hard because you just don't know what happened to Stefan and you are expecting the worst. I am bringing this story to a close soon, actually, there's only so long I can draw it out before revealing exactly what happened. There's going to be at least seven chapters, maybe eight.

Rye- Damon teaches 12th grade. Thank you!

DvR- I am getting close to the end so just hang in there. I know I have asked this from everyone but I am begging you to just hang in there. After the next chapter (not this one) everything will be explained.

It was Thursday.

A day that he'd like to forget.

"Happy birthday, Daddy!"

Damon accepted the loving hug from his toddler, pulling him tightly against his chest.

"Thanks, buddy," he whispered, gently stroking the wispy hair off of his forehead. "What are you doing up so early?"

Aiden shrugged his tiny shoulders. "I don't know. I just woke up." He then slipped out of his father's arms and padded across the floor to the refrigerator. He pulled on the handle and yanked the door open to retrieve the orange juice. Of course, his tiny arms couldn't lift the juice off the shelf and as they strained, another pair of arms reached around him and scooped up the bottle of juice.

As Damon poured juice for the both of them, he caught Aiden watching him intently. "What is it, little man?"

"How old are you, Daddy?" he asked. His dark eyes, the exact color of oak leaves, were filled with something that Damon couldn't quite put his finger on.

"I am officially thirty two years old," Damon answered, feeling nauseated at the exact number that came out of his mouth. "God, I'm old."

Aiden laughed a beautiful laugh. "Yes, you are!"

Damon couldn't help the smile that crossed his lips at his son's cuteness. He leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on top of his fair hair. He could hear Bonnie and Morgan moving at the top of the stairs and the day was officially beginning.

"Thank you, buddy," he whispered.

"For what?" asked Aiden.

"For this," Damon murmured. "You have given me a wonderful start to my birthday."

Aiden beamed at him. "You're welcome, Daddy." And with that, he picked up his plastic cup of orange juice and dashed out of the kitchen, passing his mother in the process. "Morning, Mommy!"

"Morning, baby," Bonnie called after him. She looked back at Damon. "Thank you for giving him his sippy cup," she chuckled, imagining the mess that was sure to come from that spilt juice.

Damon smirked. "I can still treat him like he's a baby sometimes."

Bonnie crossed the linoleum floor and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. "Happy birthday," she whispered against his lips.

His own arms snaked around her. "Thank you."

His thumb pressed into the remote as the new slide clicked onto the screen. "And so, we have here the very first Picasso-" At that moment, a student named Jack Cummings raised his hand.

"Mr. Salvatore?"

"Yeah, Jack? You have a question about the Picasso?"

Jack shook his head. "Forgive me, sir. This is going to seem forward but a couple of us were wondering why you were here today."

"Excuse me?" Damon's eyes skittered around his students.

"Today's the memorial," Penny spoke. "We thought that you would have been there."

Damon sighed. "Guys, the memorial isn't until this afternoon and besides, I don't need to go. Everything's fine."

"Is your wife going?" asked another student.

"She wasn't there when it happened," he interrupted. "Now, can we get back to Picasso?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Salvatore," said Penny. "I know you think we are a bunch of jerks for saying this but we really think you should go. It is the tenth anniversary."

"You might actually feel better. Come to peace with what happened," said Laura.

Damon crossed his arms before leaning back against his desk. "Am I really that obvious?"

"You always seem so sad," says Penny. "Believe me, all of us, you are our favorite teacher because you try to make this class so much fun. But there's something about you that just-it's not right."

The mid day bell went off at that moment. Damon continued to watch all of his students' faces before lifting himself off of the desk. "Get to your next class. I'll see you all tomorrow."

Without more words, his students rose off of their chairs and slowly assembled out of the room, many giving him backwards glances. Damon watched them go, feeling more old and weary than ever before.

He carefully inserted the straw into his nose and inhaled deeply, taking in as much of the powdery substance as he dared before he almost collapsed. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the telephone ringing.

The high hit him immediately and he felt himself rising up. He felt like he could fly, it was so amazing. He could easily just take flight and soar out of this bathroom and away from all of the shitty crap of his life.

Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door that made him fall back against the toilet. Agony overtook his high and he clutched his head, pain pulsing through each blood vessel so violently that he vomited.

"Damon! Damon, snap out of it!" Stefan's voice barreled through the door. "Damon!"

"Stefan, go the hell away!" He hurled back.

"No, I mean it, man. That was the police. Mom and Dad have been in an accident."

He let out a weary sigh before leaning down over the toilet bowl. Soon, the contents of his stomach were in the basin and more was still coming up.

"I'm so sorry, boys. But they didn't make it."

Hot tears burned his eyes and he let them fall, stinging and so swollen. They slid down his eyelashes and clung there before falling to their splattered death onto the countertop.

The pills were so pretty.

He had never imagined that he would find medication pretty but they were.

He could only think about the high that they would give him.

"Damon Salvatore. Take one every six hours for pain," he murmured to himself, reading the label on the first pill bottle. He had broken his ankle seven months ago and had been laid up for quite some time. He remembered busying himself with drawing in a sketch pad that his mother had given him and liking very much how the pain pills had made him feel.

Pain.

It was an interesting thing to experience.

The utmost of agony that would overwhelm him and then the euphoria of the pills making it dull away into an empty ache.

He wondered if they would help him now.

He vomited again, this time in the sink. It was going to be quite the mess for the janitor to clean up later.

More tears continued to fall from his eyes, landing with soft plinks on the porcelain.

"I'm so sorry, Stefan. Oh, God, I'm so sorry!"

"Damon?! Oh, no, no, no! Damon, you're not going to leave me here alone! No! Damon, god no!"

He could barely feel Stefan's hands on his face, shoulders, and arms, trying to slap the life back into him.

"Damon! Damon, no! Damon!"

His phone rang and he ignored it.

Damn it, this was too much.

But it continued to ring and ring and ring.

Just before he was going to throw it across the linoleum floor, he noticed the number flashing across the screen.

"Hello?" he croaked. "Caroline?"

"What happened? Where is she?"

Tyler's beefy hands caught him in the chest. "Damon, please listen to me. And please stay calm. My daughter's sleeping over there." His head gestured to the array of very uncomfortable hospital chairs and where the tiny blond haired five year old was curled up.

She wasn't supposed to be your daughter.

At the mention of Emily, Damon took a deep breath and calmed just slightly. "Tell me what happened to Caroline."

Tyler took a deep and shaky breath. "She tried to commit suicide. I caught her taking a bunch of pills. She kept saying over and over that she wants it to end. She wants this week just to be over with."

Suicide.

Suicide.

Oh, god.

"Da-mon..."

"Hey, Carebear."

She had always hated that nickname.

Tears immediately filled her blue eyes and trickled down the sides of her face. He slipped down into the seat beside her bed and gently wiped the tears away.

"It's this day, Damon," she choked out. "It's this day. This week. I just-"

"I thought the same thing, Care, but I didn't try to off myself."

She rolled her red rimmed eyes before finally looking at him. "They're keeping me here for a few days on suicide watch. And then I have to go into immediate therapy. Tyler's so freaked out."

"Well, he should be. He's your husband."

"Yeah, he is." Her voice trailed off. "I need you to go that memorial for me. Please, go to it."

"Caroline..."

"Damon, I was going to go and I was going to take Emily. I wanted her to understand now what I had went through. I also wanted her to meet the woman that she was named after and-"

"Caroline, I just can't." A lump formed in Damon's throat. "I can't go."

"Damon, I don't think you ever said goodbye. Goodbye to anybody," she whispered. Exhaustion was weighing on her head and she and Damon could both tell the sedative that they had given her was finally kicking in.

"I did-"

"Liar."

She was right. He was a big fat liar.

"I miss them. I miss everyone who died that day," he breathed.

"And those who didn't," Caroline murmured. Her eyelids were starting to droop. "Please go to the memorial, Damon. Please."

She was out.

Damon sat back in the chair, his eyes on the heart monitor, emitting it's steady beeping rhythm. He then leaned over, gently brushing lips across her forehead, stroking the blond wisps away. From his pocket, he produced a small card with a painted picture of a house on it. The card was already starting to yellow with age but it was still a beautiful little piece.

He placed the card on her nightstand, securing the corner with the edge of the lamp so it wouldn't accidentally topple to the floor. With another shaky breath, he slowly left the room.

The first sight to greet him when he walked into the empty house was a bouquet of dark purple gladioli, arranged just right in a tall crystal vase. They were set on the coffee table, along with a card in an envelope.

Damon couldn't help the weak smile that crossed his lips at the sight of the flowers. He leaned down and scooped the card off the table, running a finger over the slit and sliding the card out.

It was two cards, actually. The first one had a picture of a dancing bear on the front and emblazoned in large red letters the words, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! Inside had a goofy little joke and Morgan and Aiden's signatures. Well, Morgan had neatly printed his name while Aiden had scrawled something that looked like just a large A.

Bonnie's card was Thomas Kincaide original, a beautiful painting of a house laying in the corner of the woods with a rush of orange and golden leaves swirling around. He flipped it open and he found two words.

Look down.

He did.

At his feet was a yellow sign with Morgan's handwriting on it.

Keep going strait.

"Tell me, what's with you and gladioli? Has it something to do with Caroline?"

He chuckled at the dark red flush that spread across his brother's cheeks.

"Oh, shut up, Damon."

"Come on, I know purple is Stefan's-I mean Caroline's favorite color. Are you going to present her with a huge bouquet of them? Or are you going to get kinky and-"

"Another word out of your mouth and I swear to God, you will lose your front teeth!" Stefan threw a pillow at his head to which he easily caught.

Damon just laughed evilly before setting the couch pillow back in it's place. "Sorry, Stef. Just sometimes, you are so easy."

"Just sometimes, you are a big jerk," Stefan shot back.

"Ouch."

Stefan rolled his eyes before giving in. "Caroline likes purple and today's her birthday. And I like gladili so I just...why are you laughing?!"

Damon managed to swallow his chuckles. "Just sometimes, little bro," he began again. "You are such a romantic."

Damon began to walk ahead. His feet ran into another piece of paper.

Just a little more.

He wound up in the kitchen and he saw one final piece of paper.

STOP

LOOK UP

He looked up.

Laying on the table was a bouquet of long stemmed deep gold roses with another piece of paper. He slowly approached the table and picked up the paper, his eyes still on the roses.

We found out about Caroline this morning.

That was all it said.

Damon's eyes rested on the gold roses again before he reached over and picked them up in both hands. He took a deep breath and checked his watch. It was almost four o'clock. He still had enough time to get the second half of the memorial.

Damon eased the roses into one hand as he headed for the door.

The sunlight danced off the lawn, warming the gatherers in such a sweet and gentle light. People were standing around, talking, laughing, or reminiscing. As Damon walked carefully across the lawn, he glimpsed a few familiar faces and a few unfamiliar. Family members of ones that had been there at the shooting, people that were there honoring the victims.

There were pictures all around of the victims. Some were full length portraits, some were paintings, some posters. He recognized one of a beautiful young woman with long blond hair and a beaming smile. Emily Alexia Lockwood's namesake.

Damon held the roses in one hand and continued to walk past the mourners. A young man that was signing in people spotted him.

"Excuse me, sir? Are you one of the survivors?" he asked, clipboard resting on the inside of an elbow.

Damon just cast him a gentle smile and kept walking, walking past every single person there, past the young man, and past the memorial. He walked up to the front door of the school and his hand rested on the heavy doorknob before he gave it a gentle push and stepped through.

Okay, slight cliffhanger. You will find out what happened to Stefan next chapter.

I never wanted to draw this story out too long. The idea just cast itself into my pointed little head and I wasn't able to get rid of it. I just to get it out. That's why I threw out my original idea and I'm hoping that all of you will understand after I draw this story to a close why I did it and I am hoping that you will like it.

Thank you all so much for the wonderful reviews. We're just about through here. Have a great night everyone and be safe.