It feels as if she can set a watch by his appearances.
Monday, 1:30. Tuesday and Wednesday 2:30. Thursday, 12:30.
Always at half past, some invisible time card he's constantly punching, the only variance on the hour but never the minute. He sits in her section and one else's, orders coffee and not much else, sometimes surprising her with a switch of black to latte, cappuccino, and back around again.
He's not terrible to look at, all chiseled jaw and brooding eyes. An aura of seriousness far too weighted for a face as young as her own. Are you sad? She wants to ask. Lonely? Do you fingers burn with that torch you carry? Does your heart echo inside your chest?
It's a month down the line and she doesn't know his name. It never coming up in the few words they exchange daily, and now her being too embarrassed after so much time to actually ask. He knows hers by name tag only, recognition and pleasantries awash on his features whenever she says coming right up, but never really says it aloud.
It's strange thing. She's not shy. Doesn't feel as if she's ever been. But with him she let's such a detail well enough alone.
She has nicknames on her mind, but never passed the lips.
Doe eyes. Sugarless. Romeo.
He's scribbling in a journal again, one of the fancy leather bound kind. Going to fill up a library by the end of summer? A joke she actually makes out loud and low and behold, gets a smile for the effort.
/\
They live in the same building.
That's weird right? No outside contact besides work. Not even in passing. He's literally across the hall and all she ever sees of him here is a silhouette through the peephole behind the safety of her door. He keeps odd hours, not that it's the least bit surprising, coming and going as he pleases.
Oh god.
She's totally a stalker.
/\
It's raining when the keys slip out of her hand, trying to recover them as quick as can be, because it was supposed to be clear skies all week and she was stupid enough to trust the weatherman. A rare night shift, covering for Meredith who had the utmost emergency of date night with her husband, payback coming in the form of five unquestioned favors in the future.
The rain must be messing with her ears, because she doesn't hear him, but the gun barrel pressed into the small of her back is a sensation that doesn't seem unfamiliar.
"Cash, jewelry, plastic," gritted into her ear. "Doesn't have to be in order."
The reflection in the window is blurred by water and darkness, not the she cares to see his face anyway, it also means he can't see hers. Spinning quicker than he can register any kind of movement at all, she grabs the wrist just below the hand holding the gun, bones popping with a strength she shouldn't possibly possess. The man cries out, falling to his knees, you bitch a repeated mantra when she doesn't let go.
Something stirs inside, a cold ravenous hunger, demanding to be sated.
This isn't right, she thinks. Isn't real.
His blood is heaven in her mouth.
The body hits the wet pavement with a thump, but she can't hear anything but the rain.
/\
Of course they cross paths, tonight of all nights, in the hallway as she makes a beeline for her door. At that moment she's grateful the landlord is both lazy and cheap, never fixing the broken light that would illuminate their facing doors.
Move along, she thinks. Nothing to see here.
Maybe it's something in her step, the tilt of her head, or karma really is just a bitch because this is the last thing she needs right now. He looks right at her, somehow finding her eyes in the dim light, and she looks away quickly knowing her lips and chin are stained crimson.
"Hey," he says casually.
"Hi," she replies, voice cracked and straining to sound polite, hand reaching for the doorknob.
Oh, crap. Where are her keys?
"Are you alright?"
Peachy keen, she doesn't say patting her pockets. Just your everyday monster murdering scumbag muggers with shocking amounts of ecstasy. Searching the purse, where the hell are they?
"Fine," she assures, failing to add a carefree tone to the reply. "Just having some key issues, here."
Her back is to him, but she can feel him standing there, unmoving.
"Caroline."
Something about the way he says her name. Like he knows it beyond the name tag pinned to her chest. Like he knows her beyond the girl who brings him coffee. Like she's the one he fills all those journals about.
He takes a step.
"Don't," she warns. "Come any closer."
"You won't hurt me."
She won't. But he can't possibly know that.
"Caroline."
There it is again. That familiarity. As if he's said it a thousand times before.
"Don't worry," he says, voice closer than it should be. "He deserved it."
"How-"
"You're not the only one with secrets."
/\
His apartment is spare.
Nothing but piles of books everywhere and a mattress tucked away in a far corner. She doesn't know why she's here. What his intentions are. Just that she took his hand when offered, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
He leads her to the bathroom, gently nudging her toward the sink, which he reaches around to turn on and grabs the lone towel from the rack. She doesn't move as he dampens it, keeps completely still as he reaches up to wash the blood away from her face.
Watching him in the mirror, there's no judgment on his face, completely focused on the task at hand. It feels as if she's been here before. Another time, maybe. Another life.
He dips and scrubs, repeats, until she looks somewhat normal.
"There," he says gently. "All new."
She tries to smile and fails. Doesn't bother with another attempt.
"Thank you," she replies with an awkward gap, his name still unknown.
She doesn't ask. Just like she doesn't ask why he's not freaking out at washing blood off of a girl's face. A girl he hardly knows. A girl who just wants to disappear.
"Stefan," he offers, filling the gap.
Something must show on her face, because he smirks with a kind of self aware, self depreciating ease.
"Not what you thought?"
"Well, you don't look like a Jeff."
He chuckles and it doesn't feel inappropriate.
"I called you something else."
"Oh?"
She doesn't turn around.
Romeo.
/\
He's at his table the next day, 1:30 sharp, black coffee and words on a page. They don't talk about the night before. Don't talk about anything but his order and the small pleasantries that go along with it. Everything is as it was. Everything is normal.
Neither quite believe that, but it feels as if she's always been good at pretending.
/\
It's a little after six when she trudges tiredly up the stairs, Stefan's journal in hand, left on the empty seat next to usual spot. Though curiosity tempts an illicit peek, she owes him and knows it, leaving his private thoughts just that. A quick knock on his door, but no answer. She tries again and still nothing. Whatever. She's tired and takes three easy steps to her her apartment.
A loud thud outside the door shakes her awake, head lifting from couch cushion where she apparently nodded off, the TV still blaring. Quick to the peephole, she sees Stefan's shape leaning on the wall, his movements heavy and sluggish.
Opening the door, the smell almost makes her shift, there's so much blood. Not all of it, his.
"Stefan!" escapes her mouth in an odd whisper scream, his name from her mouth feeling as natural as him saying hers.
His head turns to her, slow and pained, right hand never moving from his stomach.
"What the hell happened to you?"
A stupid, delirious smile, pulls at his mouth.
"Caroline," he coughs. "Hey."
"You need to get to a hospital," she insists, moving to help brace him. "Like, right freaking now."
"No hospitals," he says. "Just need rest. Food. I'll heal."
"Are you insane?"
His face is so close to hers, and despite the circumstance of space, for a fleeting second she thinks he might actually lean in and...
"No," he says softly. "Just..."
The veins spread outward from his eyes in a pattern she knows all too well.
"Like you," he finishes.
Well, that certainly makes things a little more interesting.
/\
Two days pass before she remembers to give him the journal back, radiating foul waves of temptation from its perch on the corner of her coffee table, he looks at it as if he hadn't realized it was missing.
"I didn't read it," comes out far too fast to be believable, even if it is the truth.
He laughs softly.
"Not a big deal if you did," he assures with a shrug.
"But I really didn't," she insists.
"Of course not."
A brief but awkward pause in his doorway, polite smiles, and she tucking her hair behind the ears.
"Would you like to come in?" he asks.
"You don't have any furniture."
"That is true."
"My place then," she says, tilting in her head in invitation.
He follows obediently.
She almost offers coffee before thinking better, as they sit side by side, each seemingly waiting for the other to initiate conversation. The first thing that pops into her head is: hey, so we kill people and drink their blood, how crazy is that? But somehow keeps herself from blurting it out.
"So, weird and possibly invasive question," she starts instead. "But what's with that old fashioned ring of yours?"
His hand lifts automatically at the mention, oval and opulent, on his middle finger.
"It's a daylight ring," he answers. "It keeps me from bursting into flames during sunshine hours."
"Sounds handy."
"Yours is definitely more convenient," he offers.
"Mine?" she asks, looking down at her hands, the simple band and diamond never given a second thought to.
"Did you not know what it was?"
"No," she says. "I didn't think-"
"Weird and possibly invasive question," Stefan interrupts. "But how far back can you remember?"
Memory is not something she overly concerns herself with. Mainly because anything before she came here is a literal blur. And so what if she doesn't remember? She's a vampire, right? Destined to walk the Earth for all eternity? Creatures such as them must reinvent themselves a thousand times over. She looks at him, concern all over that handsome face, the unexplained familiarity felt deep into bone.
"Do you know me?"
"No," he replies solemnly. "But I know who you were."
She doesn't like that answer. This feeling. Like a wild animal backed into a corner, the reality of a situation she'd rather attack than deal with.
"What is this?" She asks, suddenly furious. "What sick game are you playing?"
He's taken aback, confused. That brooding brow furrowed with concern.
"Caroline-"
"Stop saying my name like that!" she hisses. "Like we're the best of friends. Like we're something more. I don't want whatever baggage you brought with you Stefan Salvatore, and I think it's time for you to go."
Even though she's yelling at him, something she said lights him up like a damn Christmas tree.
"I never told you my last name," he says, voice oddly hopeful.
Her mouth hangs open slightly. No, he didn't.
"Please go," she states flatly, the fight in her gone as suddenly as it appeared.
He does so only after an achingly long pause, waiting for her to say something more, with a quick nod he's out the door.
Tears stream down her cheeks, and she marches straight into her bedroom hoping he won't hear her cry.
/\
In the morning, there's a stack of four journals at her door when she leaves for work, with a note perched atop them asking her to read them if she wants. Throwing them away is an option too, whatever the decision, it's hers to make.
Not in a particularly decision making mood, she leaves them and goes to work.
Still there when her shift ends, she seriously considers kicking them across the hall, but her feet stay put. If only they could burst into flames under her stare. If only they would disintegrate from a touch. Neither one happens, sighing with self disgust as she picks them up and walks inside.
/\
They're not terribly written.
He's heavy on waxing poetic, and maybe a bit too morose with prose for her liking, guilt and shame not so subtly underlying everything. But the words tinge with truth she can feel rather than realize on a conscious level. The first notebook is filled from front to back with her story, the second with his, the last two with theirs. What she takes away at first are only statements he declares as fact.
Her name is Caroline Forbes. She's from Mystic Falls, Virginia. A Capricorn and her favorite color is yellow. She was turned by someone named Katherine for no reason that involved herself directly. They've been best friends for years, and something else for nearly as long. Her memories were taken by people who called themselves travelers. Because they tried to take them from Stefan. Because she wouldn't have that.
There's more. So much more. Horror stories of monsters and mayhem. Bloodshed. Witches, hybrids, and doppelgangers oh my. All pretty little casualties and temporary tragedies.
Honestly, it's no wonder she ran away and never looked back.
But with the way Stefan writes about her, it's no wonder he came running after.
/\
Stefan answers the door before she can get a second knock, anticipation and expectation written all over his face, though he tries to play it cool.
"Hey," he says with feigned nonchalance.
She shoves the journal into his chest, fighting a laugh at the sight of him standing there with them bunched in his arms.
"Did you-?"
"Yes."
"And?"
"Everything about you is tragic."
She places a hand upon his cheek.
"Everything but me."