A/N: Okay, so it's been a long time. I'm sorry it's been so long. I just haven't been that into TVD lately, so I haven't been able to write it. Mix that with my massive writer's block I've had and that's my reason for not updating. I've got the next chapter almost written, so that should be up *hopefully* in the next week or so. My beta is going through finals right now, so I have to wait for a time where he can beta for me.

As always, please remember to read & review!

Caroline and Damon went out the next night. He took her to the most exclusive restaurant in town, and they had a wonderful dinner. She had scoffed a little at how ridiculously priced some things were, but he assured her that he had the money for it. There were things that Damon wanted to point out to her, like how he loved the fact that she worried about spending too much of his money, but he didn't dare say it. He wanted her to feel more comfortable around him.

The night after that was Sunday, and Caroline and Damon were cuddled up in front of the fireplace in the parlor. Damon loved the feeling of his arms around her; it felt like that was the way it was meant to be. He felt calmer around her. He felt like she was it. He could never have a single date with another person in the entire world and be happy with it.

Without warning, Caroline turned in his arms and looked at him, "Damon, there's something that I need to ask."

Damon nodded, waiting for Caroline to go on.

"What are we? I mean, what am I to you? I know we've only been on two official dates, but I feel…well, I feel some kind of connection with you that I've never felt with anybody else before."

Damon nodded, "Me, too, Caroline. I feel the same way."

"I'm really bad at this whole relationship thing, because I've only been in one real one and that was with Tyler, but Damon – would you be my boyfriend?"

Damon nodded, and Caroline turned all the way around in his lap as Damon's lips met hers. The kiss was soft, almost gentle, and inviting. Caroline reached up to run her fingers through his hair as he slipped his hands around her waist. As the kiss got more intense, Caroline broke it off.

"We should move this upstairs, don't you think?" she asked, and Damon looked at her seriously, "Only if it's what you want," he replied.

Without answering, Caroline leapt into Damon's arms, wrapped her legs around his waist, and kissed him with everything she had. It was an exploration of Damon, she wanted to know every part of him intimately. Damon walked them up to his bedroom as Caroline attacked his mouth with hers. Once they got there, he let her down and Caroline smiled slyly at him. She started towards him, but he shook his head.

"Before we do this, Caroline, know that this will change our relationship," Damon started, watching her closely. "I want to make sure that you want to do this, because you've been pushed into sex before and I don't want to push you. I want you to be as willing as I am."

Caroline nodded, "I haven't wanted something in a long time like I want this."

"You dated Tyler Lockwood, therefore you probably slept with him. Unlike Tyler, if anything makes you uncomfortable, I want you to tell me. I refuse to push you into anything, but I know that Tyler does that with every girl he's with."

Caroline nodded as she reached for Damon's belt. He smacked her hand away.

"What the hell?"

"Because your virginity was stolen from you, and because you were pushed into having sex by Tyler, I'm looking at this as your first time, and I want it to be special for you. You deserve that much." Damon laid Caroline down on the bed, hovered over her, looked in her eyes and kissed her softly. He tongue explored her mouth as they kissed slowly, sensually. When he broke the kiss, she looked at him in the eyes and said, "I've never been kissed that way before."

Damon smirked; this was going to be a night of firsts.

He undressed her slowly, taking his time, kissing the skin as it was exposed. Pretty soon, she was naked on his bed. Damon smirked and looked down at her, "Has anybody ever told you how beautiful you really are, Caroline?"

"Damon, this is making me feel uncomfortable," Caroline said in almost a whisper. "I don't know what to do here."

Damon leaned down, kissed Caroline's neck and then put his attention to her breasts. He bit and sucked lightly on a nipple and then the other. He looked up at her, "Just enjoy it, Caroline. You deserve it."

Damon kissed his way down her body until he got to her hipbone, and then started to spread her legs apart. Caroline's got really wide when she knew what he was going to do, and she snapped her legs closed.

"No," she said, looking at him. "I've never – I mean, nobody's ever – and you really don't have to."

"Nobody's ever gone down on you before?" he asked her. She shook her head, and he said, "Lay back, baby. I want to do this for you. I bet you taste sweet."

Damon kissed his way up her thighs, but then stopped. He saw scars on her thigh, like she had been attacked. "Caroline, what are these?" he asked her.

Caroline started to blush, "Nothing. They're nothing."

"They don't look like nothing. Did somebody hurt you?"

Caroline bolted up and looked at Damon, "I, uh, I've gotta go. Really, I, uh… I'll just…I'll talk to you later, Damon." Throwing on her clothes as fast as she could, she ran out of Damon's room, out of the boarding house, and drove away. She left Damon sitting there, utterly confused at what just happened.

-x-

"What happened?" Elena asked Caroline the next day. Elena had come to Richmond to check up on Caroline, mainly because Damon told her what happened and how Caroline bolted out of his room the night before. Elena sat at the kitchen table while Caroline did the dishes.

"Nothing happened."

"Damon told me how you went running out of the boarding house. Talk to me, Care. You can tell me anything, you know that."

"He saw them, Elena," Caroline said in almost a whisper. "He saw my scars."

Elena raised an eyebrow and nodded, "You had to have known that he'd see them eventually."

"I forget they're there sometimes. When I'm really into something, I don't even think twice about them. But he saw them, and I wouldn't have bolted out of there, except for the fact that he asked what they were. When he finds out about it, he's going to get rid of me."

"Caroline, Damon knew you were broken from the system. He knew that when he asked you on that first date. He cares about you. People who care about other people, they don't just get rid of them."

"But what about –"

"The Joneses are douchebags. They have hurt countless girls. I mean, who does what he did and pin you against a wall, a hand over your throat, and says, I love you? That's not how you show someone that you love them. Not at all." Elena was talking about Caroline's first foster father. She had screamed at him that nobody loved her, and he had pinned her up against a wall – actually pinned her there, with a hand around her throat, and said that he loved her. Caroline shuddered at the memory – that man had been scary, almost scarier than his son.

"I've got too much baggage," Caroline said, drying her hands on a towel. She was trying to get that memory out of her head. She draped the towel over the open cupboard, "Everybody lets me know."

"Who's everybody?"

"Well, there was Tyler…" her voice faded off. Elena nodded.

"I know what you're going to say," Elena said. "Tyler knew you were broken. He knew you had too much baggage. But you know what? Damon's not like that. He's never dumped a girl because she had too much baggage."

"But I bet he's never dated a girl who was as broken as me, either."

"You are a good girl, Caroline. You're sweet, and honest, and you try to see the best in people. But your best quality is your independence and your fire. You have picked yourself back up off the cement too many times to count. Those scars that you have, they show the person you used to be, and the person you are now. You don't cover them up because they stand for a part of your life that you beat, a part of your life that you survived. You should be proud that you survived all that bullshit. You have been to hell and back and you are still standing. That's got to count for something."

-x-

Caroline paced back and forth in front of the Salvatore boarding house the next day, going up to the door, as to knock, but then getting cold feet and starting to leave. This cycle happened for about twenty minutes when the door flung open and she saw Damon standing there.

"Damon, hi," Caroline said softly. She stood a few feet away from him, body hunched over, the feeling of guilt weighing her down. "We ought to…well, we should talk about the other night –"

"Caroline, I really like you," Damon said, coming closer. However, the more steps he took towards her, the more steps she took backwards. Finally, he stopped and said, "I understand that you have a lot that has happened in your life, and I don't want to push you, but maybe we should have a talk about it. Did I do something?"

Caroline's eyes widened as she shook her head vehemently, "No, absolutely not. It wasn't you."

"Do you want to come in?"

Caroline looked around nervously before nodding her head, "Sure."

She followed Damon into the parlor. He stopped for a moment, "Do you want a drink?"

Caroline shook her head, "No, thanks."

He came over and sat across from her. He wanted to sit next to her, but he noticed how she was shying away from him at the front door, and he didn't want to make her feel uncomfortable. Caroline took a deep breath before watching him intently.

"Look, Damon, before I say anything, I need you to promise me something."

Damon made a face, "What is it?"

"I need you to promise that, when you leave me, you won't tell anybody it's because of this."

Damon reached out to grab her hand, but she withdrew from his touch.

"I'm not going to leave you, Caroline," he said in a firm voice. "I highly doubt that there's anything you could tell me that would make me want to leave you."

Caroline took a deep breath, "Okay. I have a few scars. They're on my upper thighs, like the ones you saw. They're self-inflicted."

Damon nodded silently.

"I used to be a cutter. For a long time, I was numb. I didn't feel anything. I would walk around, like a zombie, because I couldn't feel a damned thing emotionally. I was getting beaten, day in and out, and if I didn't cover up the bruises, I would get beaten some more. I got very good at hiding the bruises. They enjoyed inflicting pain. I was always the punching bag. Whenever Mike wanted to show off for someone, he'd punch me, or push me around. He was twice my size and weighed at least two times as much as I did, and he could push me around easily. He said he was punching me because I needed to learn how to defend myself, but it was so much more than that."

Caroline was starting to zone out, but she continued talking, "Damon, I was miserable. But when I started to cut, it felt so good, emotionally, because I was feeling something. I put it in places that people wouldn't think to look, because when you're in foster care, people keep an eye on the visible skin, just to make sure you're not self-mutilating. They would've sent me to a psychiatric hospital in no time, and, at that point I was afraid of them. You see so much shit about them in movies, it just scared me. But then, I had had enough of them beating me and so I tried to end my own life. I slit my wrists here –" she showed him the scars on the underside of her wrists " –and they found me and sent me to the psychiatric hospital. After that, I went to some rehab for cutting. I was in rehabilitation, I stayed there for four months, and they showed me other ways to vent frustration, other ways to feel. After my time at St. V's – it's called St. Vincent's Home for Children, they help minors who aren't stable – the Joneses decided that they didn't want me around anymore. And then, when the Mike thing happened, and me cutting myself, they couldn't handle me. I was too much of a handful. Me!" The tears were there, she couldn't stop them, and they started to roll down her cheeks. Caroline sighed before saying, "St. V's was the very best thing that could've ever happened to me, because after I left there, I met the Mikaelsons."

Finding his voice, Damon said, "I'm so sorry you had to go through that, Caroline."

"Look," Caroline said, tears still spilling from her eyes, "I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I despise it when people feel sorry for me. I survived, didn't I?" she asked, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand. "I'm a survivor."

Damon moved over to he was sitting next to her and he leaned her so that she was putting her head on his shoulder, "Caroline I'm not going to leave you. That stuff you went through, it makes me angry. They got away with it, and that pisses me off. The state pays them to take in children who have no one else, and this is what they do with it?"

"Look, Damon," Caroline said, tears threatening to spill once more, "I'm not sorry I went through all that. At all. I'm a stronger person now because of it. If they hadn't inflicted me with so much pain, I wouldn't be the strong, independent, fierce woman that everybody knows. It's made me a stronger person. I feel like I could do absolutely anything, like I could get through any kind of situation."

"Did you ever try running away?" Damon asked suddenly. Caroline nodded.

"Yes. Every fucking time I could. They always sent Mike out after me."

"Little Caroline!" Caroline heard Mike's deep voice as she was ducking through the woods, trying to get away. She ran faster than he did, but he wasn't afraid of anything. No matter where she went, he could always find her. They were literally in the middle of nowhere. The closest place was a motel – a small, family owned one – and she knew the kids of the family. She would go over there and they would give her something warm to eat and some fresh clothes to put on. But today, things were not going as planned. As Caroline ran through the words, she tripped over a tree branch and fell flat on her face. She was mere minutes away from being caught, so she decided to double time it and ran faster than she could. Out of nowhere, she tripped again, and that's when she heard his voice, "Boo."

"Mike, just let me go," Caroline pleaded as he grabbed her arm. "Please. I can go away and your family has nothing to do with me, ever again. Just please, let me go." She was desperate, and begging, which she knew he liked, but he just shook his head.

He added pressure and twisted her arm behind her back, "I can't do that, LC," he said, twisting with even more force than necessary. "My family will lose a lot if you ran away."

"Let go of me, please?" Caroline cried, tears springing to her eyes, but he kept twisting until she heard a sickening crack, followed by blinding pain. Her arm was broke. He had a sadistic smile on his face as he said, "With a broken arm, my parents are going to want to know where you are every minute of every fucking day."

"Who's LC?" Damon asked, after hearing Caroline's story.

"I am. It stood for Little Caroline. I was eleven when they took me in, and Mike took to calling me Little Caroline. As I got older, he shortened it to LC."

"He broke your arm? On purpose?"

Caroline nodded, "Yes, he did. He kind of lost control that time. All that he had usually done was leave bruises, but that time, he just couldn't help himself…" her voice faded off. She shook the thoughts out of her head.

"Why didn't you tell anybody?"

Caroline shrugged, "I did, at first. I only made that mistake once. My case worker launched an investigation, but my foster parents had excellent poker faces. Whenever Janette would come around, they would act like loving parents, and Mike would act like the concerned brother. But, in reality, Mike was a sadistic bastard, only concerned with getting his rocks off. That's all I was good for."

"But what about the bruises? Nobody noticed them?"

Caroline sighed, "I told them that I was clumsy. I was clumsy, fell down stairs, ran into doors, slipped and fell on the kitchen floor…" Caroline sighed again. "You know, people will believe damn near anything."

Damon tilted Caroline's chin up so that she was looking into his eyes, and he said, "Caroline you are so much better than what they've made you out to be. You're smart, beautiful, independent, very successful." Damon brushes a strand of her golden hair away from her face, "You're so much better than those people. You've made a name for yourself, and you have so much more than you ever did. And let me tell you something right now, Caroline Forbes. You are a strong woman and I'm glad to call you my girlfriend. I'm proud of you, for defeating everything you've ever been through and continuing to live with your life. And you are better for way more than just sex."

"We haven't even made it that far," Caroline commented.

Damon nodded, "But don't underestimate my patience. Believe me, I can wait."