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“Hold on I still want you.
Come back I still need you.”
~~~
“Do you think I want this? I just got married. My wife is out there waiting for me to come home to her!”
“I need you to know that I understand. I love you. I will love you forever.”
“One day when you wake up, tell Caroline I heard her, and I will love her forever too.”
Soft wind and warm sunshine falls onto Caroline Forbes-Salvatore’s face as she looks up from her mother’s bench. Wistfully looking at the sky with no clouds in sight, her heart aches with pain and longing. Already feeling the tears sliding down her face, she quickly wipes them off and plasters a smile in case anyone sees her out in the park.
She sits there for a few more moments trying to collect herself, before pushing off the bench with a sigh and walking towards the Salvatore Boarding School. Her mind was plagued by memories, so much so that she forgot where she was until a car honked at her, the angry driver shooting her daggers and telling her to “be more careful next time!” Caroline shakes herself out of her stupor and picks up the pace, spotting students from her school as she was on her way to her office, smiling and waving as if she weren’t drowning in her grief a few moments ago.
Finally reaching her office, she opens the door and smells the lingering scent of her dead husband. She had kept his stuff with her so that she would be reminded of him everyday, even if it pained her to do so. Fresh tears spring to her eyes and as she closes the door behind her, she sinks to the floor with her hands on her face trying to stifle her sobs. Stefan Salvatore–her best friend and husband, gone. It’s been five years and she still couldn’t get over him, and she never would. Not until her very last breath and she reunites with him in the afterlife.
Her stuttering breaths and hiccups echo throughout the office until what’s left is the utter silence.
Hours pass and she still hasn’t moved an inch from her place on the floor, with her arms hugging her body, her tear-streaked face highlighted by the moonlight shining from a window. She would’ve continued to stay in that state for days if not for a knock on her door that shook her awake.
Clearing her throat, Caroline stands up and answers tiredly “Yes?”
Silence.
Caroline’s eyes furrow and her mouth is pulled into a straight line. Her patience and self-control is very unstable today and she wasn’t in the mood for silly pranks or anything else really. Steeling herself, she takes a deep breath and swings the door wide open, expecting to either just see air or a student that’s standing there awkwardly. Instead, she’s met with a ghost.
Stefan Salvatore, with his right hand outstretched looking like he was about to knock on her door; with an expression of both anguish and relief as forest green eyes meet blue-green eyes and all the breath in her body gets sucked out instantly.
Lips quivering and tears filling her eyes, she reaches out to touch his face, to see if he was real or just another of her hallucinations. Just as her fingers were about to touch his face, she stopped herself. Stopped herself in fear of it all being in her head, that he wasn’t here, that she was so far gone that she imagined her dead husband to be alive.
Letting her hand fall to her side, she shook her head and laughed. Bitterness clawed inside of her and she let her eyes fall to the ground, her vision being blurred by her tears.
While she let herself cry, she didn’t notice a figure coming closer and closer until she heard the creak of the floorboards and a hand taking a hold of her chin and tilting her face upwards.
“Caroline. Look at me, please” Stefan says, his voice shaking.
Her eyes lift up to his and they look at each other as if no time has passed. A watery smile spreads on Stefan’s face and Caroline begins to feel the warmth of his hand on her face, his pulse beating rapidly, and the puff of his breath on her hair.
She lifts her hands and begins to feel his face, his arms, his hair, confirming that this was real–that he was real. She feels him doing the same; relishing in the feeling of his hands in her hair, them sliding down her arms and engulfing her with his strong arms and face being pressed into his warm, solid chest.
“Is this really happening Stefan? Are you really here?” Caroline asks with a shaky voice, tears streaming down her face.
“Yes it is Care, or should I say wife?” Stefan says, letting a small laugh out while tightening his hold around her, refusing to ever let go.
They stood there for what felt like ages, until they separated to take a good look at one another.
“Are those wrinkles I see miss Caroline Forbes-Salvatore?” Stefan says teasingly as he traces her face with his fingers.
“Is this what you should be saying to me after all these years, Stefan Salvatore?” Caroline says with mock hurt and a dramatic roll of her eyes.
A moment passes and there is silence. Caroline looks at Stefan with concern, “I’m sorry I was just joking, you know how I get when I–”
Before she could continue rambling, Stefan cuts her off with a kiss that takes her breath away. She kisses back with an equal amount of fervor, and when they break apart their warm breaths mingle, faces flushed and their heads touching. Stefan’s hands cups her face, and he lets out a breath that seemed like he was holding on to for an eternity.
“I missed you Caroline, more than anything. I love you so much” Stefan says, before his emotions overtook him and he burrowed his face into Caroline’s neck, his tears soaking her cardigan. Caroline’s own tears soaked his jean jacket as she cried into his shoulder, “I missed you so much Stefan, it felt like I was dying inside everyday. I love you too.”
“I will never leave you again, never again.”
“I know.”
“Forever right?” Caroline says, as her hands find his and they become interlocked.
“Forever. You’ll be stuck with me for an eternity, for better or for worse” Stefan says, his mouth widening into a bright smile, matching the one on Caroline’s beaming face.
“I like the sound of that.”
50 years later, a story circling around Mystic Falls for generations falls unto curious ears. A story about a man and a woman who never seemed to age, appearing in front of the Salvatore Boarding School every decade or so, hand in hand, rings on their fingers that glistened, who looked at each other with inexplicable love, as if they were the only two people in the world.