Work Text:
"Why do you care if I date Stefan or not? It's my choice. I'm so tired of everyone around me trying to decide what's good for me. There is no good. I am a vampire. I'm dead. You're dead. Everyone I know has died at least once, everyone I know has killed at least once—"
"At least Stefan didn't compel anyone into a relationship," Caroline says, her voice rising in pitch, her words making Elena stop cold.
She lets out the end of a gasp and kneels in front of Caroline, taking her hands as carefully as she knows how. "God, I'm sorry. You know I'm sorry. But he's trying—"
Caroline bats Elena's hands off and says, "No. No. There is no trying. There are no buts here. He did terrible things to me. He's done so many terrible things and I know we all have but we are trying, we are trying because we know it's what we should do. He's trying because he wants you. If he didn't want you, he'd just stop trying and you deserve better, Elena."
"That's not true," Elena says. She sits back on her heels on the rug, and her thighs startle at the contact with her fingers, her bare skin warmer than her jeans.
Caroline looks down without meeting Elena's eyes, her gaze flickering from the floor to the edge of the couch and back. In one breath, she asks, "Is that not true because you love who you love or is that not true because you think you're not good enough?" She lifts her lids and looks straight at Elena now. It's a raw, hard look, a look Elena's not used to, not from Caroline. Caroline's brash and honest and she wears her feelings on her sleeve, but these aren't feelings Elena's seen before. Elena's never seen Caroline like this.
"I—" Elena shrugs, at a loss for words. She's thought about that a lot, lately. She's tried to stop thinking about just as hard, just as often as the thoughts sparked up. "I don't know."
"Well," Caroline says with a small nod, "maybe you should think about that." Her face smoothes up again, so quickly Elena wants to reach forward and say, no, wait, I didn't figure that one out yet, but—she can ask. Elena can ask if something's wrong, she can ask what is wrong. She hasn't done nearly enough of that lately, not with Caroline, not with Bonnie, not with anyone; there's so much she doesn't know, so much she can't tell right away the way she would have years ago, the way she would have before her senses were enhanced by death—by vampirism, by vampires. By death, actually, even if she's still not sure she wants to think of herself as dead. There has been so much death in the past year, death her own second stint breathing underwater in a car seat can barely hold a candle to.
She goes to push herself off the floor, but her hands are unnecessary, her body standing effortlessly on its own. She wants to sit next to Caroline, but the way Caroline's holding herself makes her think better of it. She thinks Caroline would lean into a hug, she thinks, but she's not sure, and god, that's the change she hates the most. Before her life became—what it became, before she dragged all her friends into it. At one point, her friends would have said—her friends would have had a chance to say—it wasn't Elena's fault.
At one point, Elena would have believed them.
"Caroline, Stefan and I," she starts, because it's the only thing she knows how to argue, "we're not—"
"You're not what?" Caroline asks, shooting her a sharp look, her chin sticking up. "You're not meant to be? You haven't been together for most of a year? Since he came to town just to meet you? She puts you first, she puts your decisions first, and I've been here all along, supporting you and now you're just..." She trails off with a choked laugh, and Elena looks and looks but she doesn't get it. She doesn't know what it means. She doesn't know what Caroline is trying to say, only that it isn't what she's saying.
"I'm just what?" She tries to keep her voice soft, but she can't, and she tries to stay put, but she can't do that either, can't do anything but sit next to Caroline and wrap an arm around her shoulders and curl her fingers around Caroline's wrist. "Caroline, whatever it is, I'm here. I know it doesn't always feel that way, but I am. You can tell me anything. We're friends." That word can mean so many things, so many different things, but she hopes Caroline gets that Elena doesn't just mean someone she knows, someone she cares about just because Elena can't not care about the people she knows. Caroline—Caroline is someone Elena's going to stick with, always, no matter what, and there are only two other people she's certain like that about: only her brother and Bonnie.
Caroline sighs loudly, her head turning toward Elena but stopping before she's facing her. "Look," Caroline says, "you and Stefan have the story. You have the history. I stood by because I thought that was it, I thought you two were just—" She snaps her fingers. "That. But you're not, are you? You're not sure, and—" She faces Elena then, her eyes bright, the lines of her lips full of doubt. "And you're reaching for Damon when I'm still here." Her mouth opens again like she's going to follow that up, but she doesn't, letting her head fall forward instead, her hands on her knees and her hair filling in the dimples on her knuckles.
Elena's not much better, frozen silent like she is, her grip gone loose on Caroline, not gone but wondering. And there's a lot to wonder about, like how she always thought Caroline wanted someone to love her like Stefan loved Elena, like Stefan loves Elena, and Damon, and like Matt used to; she thought Caroline had that now, she thought Caroline was happy, as happy as it got for them these days, and that she was pulling for Elena to be with Stefan only because Caroline valued the way Stefan loved Elena. Loves her. God, Elena doesn't even know how Stefan loves her anymore. She doesn't know how Damon does, or how love even works for Damon, whether it's a way that could ever meet the way Elena's love works halfway. It's not a dealbreaker, not when there's passion, but she never thought there was another way. She thought—she thought maybe she wouldn't have to choose, that maybe one day Stefan and Damon would realize not only someone like Katherine could ever want to have them both; she thought maybe she wouldn't choose at all, choose herself instead, choose her family, take off.
But she couldn't leave, and she couldn't leave them. She couldn't—she can't. It's not fair and—
"Okay, look," Caroline says, pulling away and standing. She bites her lip before she goes on. "I'm sorry I pushed you. You should do whatever you want. That's what really matters, right? You do what you want. And then no one can tell you you were wrong because it wasn't about doing what was right. It was about—it was about you. And not what anyone else thought."
Elena presses her lips together, tries to process it all. She still hasn't said a word, but she can't do anything other than listen and stare and look what she hopes is confused and not shocked, not negative. Because the truth is—the truth is she'd pick Caroline, no matter what. If she chose herself, if she chose nobody, she'd still have Caroline. Caroline and Bonnie and her brother. Those are the people she'd take along—the people she wouldn't have second thoughts about leaving behind because she just wouldn't.
But she doesn't know if that's enough for Caroline. She barely even knows how to put what she feels into words, or into something that will make sense to Caroline.
"I didn't know you felt that way," she finally says.
Caroline snorts. "Yeah, well. Now you do." She crosses her arms over her stomach and looks around the room just for something to do that isn't facing Elena. At least that's what it looks like from where Elena's sitting.
"I don't know what to say, Caroline," Elena says. It's such a poor excuse, even to her ears, but what do you say when your best friend tells you she's in love with you? "I'm sorry I didn't notice. I'm sorry I haven't been the best of friends lately. But you are my best friend, and I do love you."
Caroline looks down with narrowed eyes and says, "I thought Bonnie was your best friend." It sounds sweet, not accusatory, and a lot more like the Caroline Elena's used to. But Elena's not sure that's the best approach to this, going back to being silly together like Caroline didn't just put her heart on the line.
"She is," Elena says. "You both are. But she's like a sister, and you're like..." This is a terrible moment for an epiphany, Elena tells herself. This is a moment to pull back and think about this rationally, figure out how she really feels about Caroline without the pressure to make Caroline happy, or at least not make her sad, weighing down on Elena.
But the truth is, Caroline's never been the kind of friend Bonnie was. Caroline's never been the kind of friend Elena could tell everything to, wanted to tell everything to or know everything about. And Elena knows that's not because she loved Caroline any less than she loved Bonnie. It was different, it was that small distance that meant she'd never have called Caroline a sister, not even now that they're both vampires, neither having chosen it, both with a body count on their record, however small.
This is beautiful, gorgeous Caroline who always wanted Elena and Elena had no clue. Not until now.
Before she can change her mind, Elena stands, vampire reflexes and speed a work, and grasps at Caroline's elbows. They're standing in front of each other, close enough that Elena can see every speck of color in Caroline's eyes, every wrinkle of worry in her forehead.
And then Elena's shifting closer and their mouths are touching, soft and slow, because Elena's uncertain and because Caroline deserves a chance to pull away, to say don't play with me, to say don't kiss me if you don't mean it.
But Caroline sighs into the kiss, instead, and Elena's no longer in control because Caroline takes, she takes with her lips, with her tongue, with her hands on Elena's neck and her fingers curling into Elena's hair and tilting Elena's head back.
Elena gasps at the nails on her scalp, and moans when the back of her knees hit the couch and what feels like Caroline's entire body lines up against hers. Her stomach feels like it's on fire, her breasts alert and wanting, the fabric of her clothes alive. One of Caroline's hands leaves Elena's neck and works itself between their ribcages, thumb poking the wire of Elena's bra before her fingers come up to cup Elena's breast through her shirt, needy and graceless.
Elena wanted it, but she didn't expect it, and she falls back onto the couch in surprise, leaving Caroline standing in the middle of the room, biting her lip and looking for all the world like she just needs a cue to flee the scene.
Elena keeps eye contact to keep Caroline where she is. She lifts her fingers to her lips, and smiles before she realizes she's going to, shy and giddy and full of something she can't describe. Something that feels new, new and light like nothing she's felt before.
After a few seconds, Caroline returns the smile.
"Wow," Elena says, and Caroline grins wider as she sits next to Elena and pokes her in the thigh.
"See, I'm always right," Caroline says.
Honestly, it's really, really not true, but in light of the current situation, Elena will let her have this one.