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put your head between your knees and breathe (1/1)
Fandom: The Vampire Diaries
Characters: Caroline centric, Stefan, Liz (mentions of others)
Rating: PG
Warnings: Post ep/missing scene from 2x02, so spoilers for everything in that episode and before. Also, some definite hero worship developing for Stefan, in case that really bothers you.
Word Count: 2756
Summary: But Stefan had a plan, had promised her it would all be okay, and she trusted him. He was good at this, he had helped her, had took her by the hand and looked her at her horrible disfigured face and hadn’t turned away, hadn’t thought less of her. He had a plan, and Caroline was in desperate need of one. (Or how Caroline got an invitation into her house after she turned, because the show never explained that and it’s always bugged me.)
After leaving the hospital (and the confusion and pain and blood), Caroline had gone home to change her clothes. But she hadn’t known. She didn’t know, no one had explained to her—
She had hit the barrier in the doorway full force, sending her stumbling back onto the porch. And it hurt. It felt like a punch in the stomach only she couldn’t figure out if it was real or imagined pain. And Caroline hadn’t understood, not really. Not until the memory of Damon asking to be invited in came rushing back, almost like he was standing there in front of her again, smiling and staring her in the eyes as he took her choices away.
It took everything in her not to scream when the memory returned, when he appeared, and it all happened again. She knew what came after. She did. And she didn’t want to relive that too.
Her own screams of terror echoed in her mind when the silence got to be too much. Like a nightmare that just wouldn’t go away, only she was awake.
She had cried as she fought the barrier, tried to push her way in, (This was her house, damn it! She lived there. Of course she was invited in! Of course she was, she had to be.) tried to force it to conform to her will. It didn’t work. Some part of her knew it wouldn’t. Eventually calming down, putting on a brave face, and deciding that she had other, bigger things that needed to be dealt with. It was easier to switch back and forth now, to push the things that bothered her further and further back in her mind. She thought there might be something wrong with her, but she pushed that back too. New clothes could be easily acquired now that all she had to do was stare someone in the eye to get what she wanted.
(She had pushed back memories of Damon’s eyes locked on hers, of the things that followed, of the pain and blood and—)
It was easy to get new clothes, easy to choose anything she wanted really, and go to the carnival and for a while it was even easy to pretend nothing bad was happening, that everything was normal, and she was just Caroline and Elena was still Elena her best friend who would never hurt her, and Damon was just a bad boyfriend and not a monster. Monsters weren’t real after all, they were just fairytales told to scare children. And she wasn’t a child.
(No, she was a monster instead. Maybe she always had been, but now she had the fangs and blood red eyes to prove it.)
And then everything went to hell, and it was her fault, she knew that. She thought she could pretend, she thought if she acted like it was normal, it would be. She thought that if she could just get through the night, she would make it to morning and the universe would figure it out. But Damon was there and so were the memories. And Matt hugged her and she could hear his blood pumping through his body and she wanted to taste it so bad. And there was that poor, innocent man, who just wanted to make sure he was okay.
And she killed him.
She didn’t have too, she hadn’t with the nurse at the hospital, but she had killed him, because it felt too fucking good to stop and now there would always be blood on her hands she would never be able to scrub away and Bonnie hated her and Damon said she deserved to die. And all she could think about was that she liked it. The taste, the thrill, the adrenaline of the moment. The way he looked up at her like she was a predator instead of her being the prey.
She had liked it in those moments and she hated herself for that.
(Caroline was going to hell. She knew that now. No getting out of it, no passing go and collecting her money. Just straight to hell, where murders and monsters belonged.)
She wanted to go back to yesterday. She wanted to go back to before that. She wanted to never have gotten in that car with Tyler. Wanted to never have met Damon. Wanted to have moved with her father to another town and have left this whole mess behind.
Caroline wanted her life back. One day of being dead and she was tired of it already, she didn’t know how to spend an eternity like this.
But Stefan had a plan, had promised her it would all be okay, and she trusted him. He was good at this, he had helped her, had took her by the hand and looked her at her horrible disfigured face and hadn’t turned away, hadn’t thought less of her. And he was going to teach her how to be just like him, teach her how to handle this, how to be better at it, and right now, he was all she had, her only hope to get through this. The only person in her life that she didn’t want to dig her fangs into and eat, to destroy.
And he had a plan, and Caroline was in desperate need of one.
(Usually it was Caroline with the plan, plans A through Z if necessary. But nothing in her life had prepared her for this, nothing about her told her what to do. Only taught her hard life lessons about what not to do.)
“Okay, you ready for this?” Stefan asked.
“Don’t I spend the whole time pretending to be passed out?”
“Asleep.” Stefan emphasized, “But still, this will be the first time you’ll being seeing your mother since everything happened. The urge to blurt out everything that happened, to tell her, it’s going to be very strong, but you can’t. You understand that right?”
“I know, but I think your seriously underestimating the depths of our screwed up mother daughter dynamic. We don’t talk about the bad things, we don’t even talk about the good things.” Caroline said.
And there it was again, that overwhelming sense of sadness and anger fighting its way to the surface, wanting to release itself, wanting to draw blood from whoever was nearest.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, willing it away. A moment later, she felt Stefan’s hand on hers. “Caroline, you can do this. I promise.”
“And you’ll be here to help, right?” Caroline asked, her voice annoyingly small even to her own ears.
She had always had a problem with the men in her life leaving even after they promised not to. (Especially when they promised not to.) She fell into patterns, the same type of guys always promising her things and never living up to them, the same type of guys who only took and never gave. She couldn’t do that again.
After everything that happened she didn’t think she could handle it.
“I will.” He said, and she thought she might believe him. “Now come on, let’s get you inside. Everything will seem a little easier after a good night’s sleep.”
It seemed like a lie, a platitude that people say when they want to make you feel better but know the situation is bad enough that nothing really will. But Stefan said it like he had faith in it, like he believed it, and she wanted to believe it too.
(She couldn’t get yesterday back, or any of the days before it, but Stefan had helped her keep tomorrow. Had saved her from losing that too.)
Stefan opened his door and climbed out of the car, moving at human speed, slower to her eyes now that everything that had changed. Caroline took the moment it allowed her to steel herself for what they were going to do, knowing there was a chance it could all go wrong.
Stefan came around to her door, opening it, already in the act in case somebody was watching. “Alright, time to fall asleep.” He told her and she nodded, letting him lift her out of the car and begin to carry her towards the house.
(There was something familiar about it, a scene she could see playing out on the back of her eyelids. Stefan’s strong arms around her and an aching in her head, dried blood on her hair, and his voice whispering in her ear, “Caroline, please I need you to invite me in. Please, you’re not safe out here.”
She wondered if it was real, another memory come to life, or if her mind was just collapsing under the weight of everything that had happened, trying to remember something good when she was faced with nothing bad.)
Caroline felt Stefan climb the steps to her porch, shifting so he could reach the doorbell. It seemed so loud now, when before she could sleep through it easily. “Showtime” He whispered.
She heard footsteps nearing the door, footsteps she shouldn’t be able to hear and a heartbeat to match, and she buried her face in Stefan’s neck (he smelled like soap and whiskey and it was somehow comforting), suddenly worried that she would reveal everything if her mother could see her face. She had never been a good liar. She stumbled with her words and couldn’t come up with excuses fast enough and she was pretty sure her eyebrows did a thing too. And maybe her mother didn’t care about her life all the time, most of the time really, but she was still always able to tell when Caroline was lying to her directly.
The door opened and she could feel her mother’s eyes on her, “Is she—”
“She’s fine.” Stefan interrupted her, “She just did too much too soon. She practically went straight to the carnival from the hospital.”
“She didn’t drink anything did she?” Liz asked and Caroline fought down the urge to scoff, because really? She had almost died. Actually, she did die, and her mother was still blaming her for the situation. Not like her life wasn’t horrible, or anything? It wasn’t like anything that had happened had been her choice.
“No, no, she…She just did too much when she shouldn’t have.” Stefan said shaking his head, and Caroline let out a small groan as the movement jostled her. It wasn’t exactly planned, but she thought it fit her part well.
“Is it okay if I bring her inside?” He asked.
And this was it. Caroline held her breath, briefly worried her mother would realize she wasn’t breathing at all (because she no longer had to) and waited. Stefan had an invitation, he could get into her house no problem. But Caroline…Caroline would be expelled forcefully if he tried to carry her over the threshold without an invitation of her own. And then her secret would be out and there would be no denying it. And Caroline really had had an incredibly horrible day already, she didn’t need her mom hating her, being horrified by her on top of all of that as well.
She was still holding onto the memory of her mother in the hospital, holding her hand, so happy when she opened her eyes. She hadn’t say much, but she had smiled at Caroline in a way she never had before.
Caroline didn’t want that memory to be replaced with a new one so soon.
“Oh, of course.” Liz said, and Caroline could hear her step to the side, “Bring her into her room, no need to wake her up. She shouldn’t have checked out of the hospital on her own in the first place.”
There was reproach in her tone but something else too, something Caroline thought might have been worry, but she wasn’t sure.
Stefan stepped over the threshold, following her mother into the house, and Caroline felt him let out a sigh of relief. That in itself did not reassure her (he had seemed so sure his plan would work before), but she was in her own house, she was safe, she would be able to sleep in her own bed where Katherine and Damon couldn’t get to her, not tonight, and that all seemed more important.
“This is her room.” She could hear her mother say, “Just lay her down in here.”
She felt her comforter underneath her as he laid her down gently, took in the smell of the fabric softener she liked so much, and she wasn’t faking it when she buried her head in her pillow, trying to gain the comfort of being in her own bed.
“You’re sure she’s okay?” Her mother asked and she felt someone beginning to take off her shoes.
“She’s fine. There were some…problems at the carnival and Caroline kind of had to take over, fix them. And I think it just wore her out. She fell asleep when I was driving Elena home.”
“It was nice of you to bring her back here.”
“Caroline’s always been nice to me, I’m just returning the favor.” Stefan said and Caroline could practically see him shrugging the praise away. It was what he did.
He was so different from his brother, so very different, and with all the memories of Damon she had racing through her brain, it was hard for her to imagine them as brothers. Hard to imagine them as anything alike.
The memories were still coming back, and she fought them when they tried to reappear. Because maybe ignorance really was bliss. But all she really knew was that that night, one brother had tried to shove a stake through her heart and the other had thrown the stake away from her, had put himself between her and the danger.
She knew where her loyalty fell, where it would always fall.
“Still, I appreciate it. And whether she said it or not, Caroline does too.”
“She did say it.” Stefan said, “Sheriff…You have a very strong daughter. I hope you know that.”
There was a silence in the room, like Liz didn’t know what to say to that, didn’t expect it. And Caroline wasn’t surprised, she knew that wasn’t how her mother saw her. Maybe her father, on their good days when she told him about her good grades or accomplishments, thought differently, but never her mother.
Vampirism wouldn’t be the end of their good relationship. It would be another of many obstacles that kept them from having one.
“Thank you.” Liz said finally.
“I should go,” Stefan said, “But if it’s okay, I’ll probably come by tomorrow to check on her. Elena too.”
“I’m sure she would appreciate that.” Liz said.
“Goodnight,” Stefan said and she could hear his footsteps as he left. Some part of her wanted to call him back, wanted to ask him to stay the night. Elena might take issue, but she didn’t want him like that, she just didn’t want to be alone. And she still had so many questions, and Stefan seemed to have the answers. And she just…She didn’t want to be alone with all of this. She wanted someone there, with her.
(She was tired of being alone and out of the loop. She was tired of being alone and unprepared for what was coming. She was so very tired.)
Caroline felt the bed dip and inhaled the scent of hand sanitizer and leather, as her mother let out a little sigh. “Goodnight, Caroline.” She whispered, pulling one of her throw blankets over her, and then she stood up and left the room too.
She wanted to reach out for her hand, wanted to feel the familiar warmth, wanted her mother to sit by her side until she fell asleep like she did when Caroline was little and was sure there was a monster in her closet just waiting to eat her. (The irony was not lost on her now.) But she let her mother’s hand slip away, let her walk out of the room, knowing it was for the best.
Stefan had warned her about being alone with a human too long, even the ones she cared about, the ones she loved. (Loving someone, knowing them; none of that would make the bloodlust go away, not so early, no so easily, no ever really.)
But still, Caroline wished someone had stayed.
The last time she had been alone in bed, Katherine had appeared and everything had changed.
She wasn’t ready for that to happen again.
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Caroline's pain and confusion and just everything is so right, so real, and very in character. The Damon flashbacks are dark and so sad.
And you know what? It bothered me too. How did she get back in? You realise I'm adopting this as part of my head-cannon, right?
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And I got all rambly, sorry. But thank you so much for commenting, I'm glad that you liked the story. XD
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