Author's Note: For latbfan, who needed something cheery after 4x15, and who wanted to know the story behind Stefan's tattoo. If you're itching to know what happened after the cameras went off on 4x15, "Stand By Me," check out her beautifully heart-wrenching version in chapters 17-19 of her fic, "Bourbon for Breakfast."

Setting: This story is set in the universe after my Season 4 re-write "Desperate Love" which means that Jeremy Gilbert and Carol Lockwood are not dead, there's no Silas, the Gilbert house is still standing and Elena's switch is firmly in the upright and locked position. She lives in the boarding house with Damon plus Stefan and Caroline, who are engaged. Also, Desperate Love took off before the episode "We'll Always Have Bourbon Street" so Stefan and Damon never got a chance to talk about 1942.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Vampire Diaries, their characters, or their universe. This fic is rated T for sexual references and adult language.

Tomorrow's Rose

CAROLINE POV

Is it wrong to ogle a boy's butt when he's drinking the blood of woodland creatures?

I mean, a fine-looking behind knows no occasion, right? But I still feel like a little bit of a pervert, so I clasp my hands behind my back and study the play of light through the leaves. It's nice, all green and gold and nature-y. But it's got nothing on Stefan's ass.

My fiancee covers the body of the rabbit with leaves and wipes his mouth before turning back to me, but I still see the grimace on his lips and I wince in sympathy. Animal blood is nastier than fat-free salad dressing.

"The light colored rabbits taste better," he admits. "Something about the breed."

"Racist," I tease.

He takes a threatening step toward me. "Take that back."

I dance back out of his grasp, grinning. "Uh-uh. One of us was a slave owner here and I'm not thinking it was me…"

He growls and lunges and I dodge around a tree and flit away into the woods, grinning to feel the wind lifting my hair. An arm snakes around my waist and he whirls me back against a tree. The speed of the run drew night-colored veins around my eyes, sharpening the whole world around me so the rough bark scraping my back feels as good as the pressure of his chest against my nipples.

He takes my mouth in a kiss so fierce that it presses my head back against the tree, the bark catching in my hair as his tongue rasps against mine. The muscles between my legs clench in eager response.

I vaguely realize that if I don't call a time-out soon, I'll be teaching a little hot yoga in the forest before my afternoon Starbucks date with Elena.

Stefan pulls back, his green eyes glittering with focus and I nearly forget all the reasons why I don't want to have gymnastic sex in public right now. But no way, I don't have time before I have to be back to town and I sure don't have enough time to re-curl my hair.

"Eww, you taste like an animal," I complain, wrinkling my nose playfully.

My voice is a little too breathy to be convincing, but Stefan looks chagrined anyway, pulling back a little as if he's afraid his breath smells bad.

"Sorry. You know you don't have to come hunting with me. There's no reason for you to put up with eating animals when you do so well on blood bags."

"I had to watch football with my ex," I remind him. "This is much better, I promise. Besides, you're supposed to make sacrifices for the ones you love and you do so much better with animal blood to supplement the blood bags."

"Sacrifices, huh?" his lips quirk up into a smile. "Is that how I ended up losing all my Friday nights to watching America's Next Top Model?"

"It only counts as a sacrifice if you don't like it," I remind him.

He can name his favorite contestant from every episode for the last two seasons, and I don't think it has anything to do with his perfect vampire memory. His favorites are never the winners, of course. My man has a thing for the underdog.

"My point exactly. That's why I think you should be trading me sexual favors for watching with you," he says, his fingers tracing a deliberate path up the back of my thigh and creeping under the hem of my skirt.

"What kind of girl do you think I am, trading my body to get what I want?" I ask indignantly, catching his hand before it can get any closer into the danger zone.

He drops his voice until it is that rumbly murmur that makes my nipples draw taut against the suddenly irritating lace of my bra. "You traded your body to me for wartime secrets."

I blush and press my legs together. There's no way I'm going to make it to my girl time coffee date if he uses that voice.

"That was different," I hiss. "That was role play."

And once I saw Stefan in his old WWII uniform, I would have sold him any secret in the world. I can still remember the way the coarse wool felt against my inner thighs when he bent me over the desk and kneed my legs apart.

His hand sneaks up my skirt again and this time I don't really want to stop him.

"This can be role play," he offers. "I can be the football player, copping a feel off a cheerleader."

I laugh, my head falling back against the tree as his breath caresses my throat. "That sounds super skeezy."

He sighs and tightens his arm around my waist, tipping us over backward. I squeal as we fall, Stefan landing flat on his back with me on his chest. He grins, unfazed, and catches my earlobe between his teeth.

"You could be an evil succubus, taking advantage of my body."

I roll us so I'm beneath him again. "You're the ex-slaveowner. Maybe I'm an escaped slave and you're my master," I suggest, widening my eyes so I look young and vulnerable.

He chuckles dryly. "Trust me, that one's not as fun when you've been around for the real version."

I wince, abashed. "Sorry."

"Don't be," he reassures me with a soft kiss. "Besides, I'd much rather you grew up now rather than then. It's safer." He pulls my shirt off and tosses it into the trees, his eyes gleaming when he sees the pink and lavender lace of my bra. "Better lingerie now, too."

He reaches behind his head with one hand and grasps the back of his hoodie, but when he tries to pull it off it binds up around his face, blinding him. He tugs harder, unbalancing himself and he tips off of me, the hoodie wrapped completely around his head.

I reach to help, but I'm laughing too hard to do anything but get in the way. I hear material tearing as he finally gets it off, tossing it down and glaring at it.

"Stupid shirt, I was trying to be smooth!" he tells it accusingly.

I shriek with laughter, rolling away from him to clutch my stomach.

He pounces on me and gives me a narrow-eyed look. "Are you laughing at me?"

"You are the world's biggest nerd," I giggle, wiping at my watering eyes with the heel of one hand. "Did I just smear my eyeliner?"

Stefan perks up. "We could play nerd and cheerleader?"

I laugh. "Too close to reality to be fun."

He purses his lips. "Ha ha. Very funny."

I grin, because he's adorable when he's trying to pretend to be mad.

"Look up," he tells me, and I do. He runs a gentle thumb under my eye, then touches the corner of my eye with a knuckle, getting the last traces of smeared eyeliner. "Perfect," he proclaims softly.

I wrap my arms around his neck. "Being charming doesn't make you less of a nerd."

"Being beautiful doesn't make you less mean," he accuses, widening his eyes in the same trick I just used on him.

"I'll show you mean," I threaten, rolling us so he's beneath me and pinning his hands over his head. Hard, so he knows I mean it.

His eyes flare with heat, and I feel him harden through the denim of his jeans. I rock my hips a little bit, enjoying the fact that I decided to wear a skirt today.

"Come down here and do that," he invites huskily, his eyes tracing the curve of my lips with obvious approval.

And I do.

DAMON POV

I'm reading in the upstairs study when I hear the front door slam.

I've taken to avoiding the living room when I want to read ever since Caroline moved in. She always asks me about my day, and then I have to listen to her talk about what color ribbons she's going to put on Stefan's dick after the wedding, or where the best place to buy organically dyed blue birdseed is. Because of course she doesn't want the little birdies to die but regular birdseed is so ugly and it just looks like trash and it ruins her whole design scheme and yeah. No.

Welcome to my life. Its loud and fucking color-coordinated and I'm pretty sure the noise pollution alone is going to make me grow ovaries.

I listen for a second to figure out who just came home. I hear Elena try to stifle a giggle and then soft footsteps that mean she's tiptoeing, but not actually paying enough attention to be really quiet. Which means she's looking for me and she's in a playful mood. I smirk and mark my place in my book with a dark bit of lace, going to stand to the left of the doorway.

I stop breathing and wait. She checks the kitchen and living room, then our room. I hear the crinkling of paper for a moment in our room, which is suspicious. Now she's tiptoeing really fast, like she does when she's trying not to laugh and I grin, listening to her approach. I wonder what she's about to spring on me. It must be something good if she's going to this much trouble.

She comes through the door and looks to the right. I'm on her in an instant, pinning her arms to her sides and biting her neck with blunt human teeth and a fierce growl.

She shrieks loudly and tries to elbow me in the stomach. "Oh my God, Damon, what are you doing?"

I nibble on her neck. "Um, biting you?"

She makes a sound halfway between a hum and a purr and relaxes. "Carry on."

I bite her gently, and then trace the marks with my tongue. She makes a low sound in her throat and my dick thickens eagerly in response because I can tell she's in the mood for something a little sharper.

"Give you a real bite if you tell me what's in the bag," I bargain.

She's carrying a silver gift bag stuffed with yellow tissue paper that I recognize from the stack of gift-wrapping supplies she keeps in our closet.

Apparently this is a thing. A thing chicks do. They keep gift wrapping supplies on hand all year in case they need to wrap gifts at a moment's notice, presumably under enemy fire.

She beams. "A present for you."

I press a kiss into her cheek, because she's adorable when she's happy. Though who am I kidding? My girl would be adorable six days into an eight-day flu wearing a hot dog costume with the Sorting Hat.

I peer over her shoulder at the gift bag.

"What kind of present?"

It's not my birthday, or our anniversary. I think for a minute and decide it is also not the anniversary of the first time we met, kissed, or slept together. It could be the anniversary that someone died, but I can't figure why Elena would give me a present for that. We had ridiculously fantastic sex this morning, so maybe that earned me a gift?

She giggles and flushes guiltily. "An I'm-mad-at-Caroline-and-Stefan-for-what-they-did-to-you present?"

I raise an eyebrow. Caroline went after me last week over one of my better pranks. It would have been just another day at the races, but when she tried to kick my ass this time, she was armed and Elena was having none of it. And of course then Stefan got mad because the girls were fighting and what could have been a fantastic catfight degenerated into a lecture from the Fun Police.

It's a vaguely irritating memory, but I'm growing more fond of it now that it has somehow resulted in Elena buying me presents and laughing and tiptoeing around like a mischievous burglar. And honestly, when she looks at me like this it makes it hard to think about anything but how to make her eyes sparkle all over again.

"Stop smiling at me and open your present!" she groans.

"Okay," I tell her agreeably.

I drop onto the couch, pulling her onto my lap and starting to carefully undo the tiny buttons on her plum-colored Henley.

"Wrong present, Damon," she says dryly. "But good try."

"Hey, all my present-identification experience says that the gift is the one with the bow on top."

Elena's brown eyes drop to her outfit, then to the gift bag. "Think we're fresh out of bows here. You might need an updated method."

I smile wickedly and slide a finger under the button of her jeans. She gasps and grabs my wrist, but I don't miss the way she leans subtly backward to make more room for my hand.

I tap my index finger against the tiny bow at the top of her panties and give my eyebrows a bounce.

She glares at me, but I can see the corners of her mouth twitching as she tries to hold back a smile.

"How did you know my underwear had a bow on it?" she challenges.

"The only ones that don't are the red ones, and you wore those yesterday," I say easily, tracing the lace that guards the edge of her panties. Her grip on my wrist loosens.

"If you don't stop that, you're going to ruin your surprise," she protests, her eyes lingering on my lips as if she's wondering how I'll taste.

I lean in and kiss her slow and soft, stroking her belly with my single rogue finger. When I pull back, her eyes are dilated and she's forgotten to breathe.

I smile. "I hate to ruin surprises."

Actually, I'd be content to spend another half an hour enjoying Elena's smile before I unwrap her because I know what's under that Henley trumps any surprise on earth. But she seemed so pleased with what was in the bag that maybe I can do that and then continue on down the to-do list. Win win.

I transfer her to the seat next to me on the couch and open the bag.

Inside there is a neatly folded stack of clothes. At a glance, they don't seem like my normal colors.

Shit. When Stefan and Caroline got together, she got him to switch from gel to mousse (huge improvement, even I'll admit) and wear nicer jeans, though she hasn't made a dent in his hoodie habit. I guess it was only a matter of time before Elena embarked on a Damon makeover. The hell of it is, as much as I love her, I have better taste than Elena does.

I pick up the first article of clothing, trying to figure out a way to not wear any of these without disappointing her. Then I notice with a surge of relief that the shirt is ripped. Not a present then. Something else. I play along, though, just out of sheer curiosity.

"A hoodie?" I scoff. "Elena, I know you're not into fashion, but really? Why would I wear a garment with a flap of fabric that I do not intend to use?"

"You wouldn't?" she blinks at me. "Really?"

Ladies and gentleman, the worst poker face in the state of Virginia. Every muscle in her face is taut, trying to hold back her smile.

I pull a pink and purple bra out of the stack and dangle it by the strap. "Aww, you shouldn't have."

She giggles, her face-cracking grin back in place. "Wanna know where I got them?"

"You mugged a teenybopper on her way to have malts with her boyfriend at the Grill?"

She looks puzzled. "What's a malt? Like malt liquor?"

I sigh heavily. "See, this is what they never tell you about having a mid-life crisis. Your hot younger girlfriend will never get your jokes about Trapper Keepers, pedal cars and the tubes in the TV."

"Tubes?" she's fully distracted now. "There are tubes in the TV and they're called Trapper Keepers?"

"It's a good thing you're cute," I tell her, "because your historical knowledge of cultural references is abysmal."

"Damon!" she says, actually bouncing a little in her frustration, which is both cuter and more distracting than outdated pop culture references. "Don't you want to know where I got the clothes?"

"I assumed that a young transvestite saw you, declared his love on the spot and when he was denied, disrobed to prove his sincerity."

She lifts an eyebrow.

"No?" I shrug. "Well, it was worth a try."

"Sooooo," she says, drawing it out. "Caroline and Stefan went hunting in the woods and I was going to follow them and try to prank them somehow-," she begins.

I try to hold back a smile. Elena is not, shall we say, a masterful pranker and it's too fucking good that she just wandered out in the woods without a plan hoping she'd think of something. I'd tease her, but she wants to get back at Caroline and Stefan, and if my girl wants to stand up for me? I'm not going to argue. I wouldn't mind if there was Jell-O wrestling involved, but it's not an absolute requirement.

"And then they started to have sex," she reports, her lip curling a little.

I wince. "You should have seen that coming. Do you want me to get you an appointment with a good therapist?"

"No, listen," she tells me. "I was really really quiet, and I remembered all the tricks you showed me." She reclines dramatically on the couch next to me and pretends to examine her nails, but her eyes are shining. "And I maybe stole all their clothes."

"You did?" I drawl admiringly. "Well, you naughty little thing."

I give her a wink and sift through the pile with renewed interest. "Everything but the socks and shoes. I'll be damned.

I tug her back into my lap and wrap my arms around her slender waist. "Do you know why I love you?"

"Because I'm the only other person on earth you trust to clean your precious shower?"

"Close," I tell her, sliding her phone out of her back pocket to check the time. I push it back into her pocket nice and slow, watching her cheeks flush pink and her breathing catch as my fingers caress her bottom through her jeans.

"Mostly it's because I'm having a Council meeting here in less than ten minutes," I tell her. "Which means that when Stefan and Caroline come storming back in sans vetements, and furious with me because they'll never suspect you, they can do it with the full complement of witnesses. Including the mayor."

"And the sheriff," Elena finishes in a horrified whisper, her hand covering her mouth and eyes wide. "Oops."

I tug her hand away from her mouth and kiss her fingers, not bothering to hide my proud smile. "You, Elena Gilbert, give the best presents ever."

CAROLINE POV

I do a lot of things to look beautiful: I wax, shave, pluck, exfoliate, moisturize, buff, smooth, polish, powder, outline, highlight and curl, all in the course of the average lazy Sunday. I know how to pick exactly the right cut of any outfit for any body type, and I can accessorize shoes that could make a burkha shine like a Caroline Herrera.

Don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely a feminist. I organized the Maids of Mystic Falls Campaign to bring awareness to the continued gender inequality of household chores, and we got 35 guys to fill out our survey about what household chores were their responsibility and pledge to take on a larger share in the future. Which was about 35 more guys than wanted to fill out our survey, so I consider it a 350% success.

And it's not like I think that being a woman is all about looking good. Every self help book I've ever read- and I've read plenty, though you'd better believe I keep them where Damon will never find them- agrees that confidence is the key to success and I feel most confident when I know I look smokin' hot.

But some days, I'm not sure why I bother. Because Stefan can make me feel more beautiful with a single touch than I would after a dozen makeovers.

I'm draped across his chest, smudged with dirt and crushed leaves, and his fingers trace my spine like I'm the only thing he ever wants to touch.

I wish I knew how he did that, so I could do it back to him.

I relax under his touch and sigh, idly tracing the lines of the rose tattoo that sits on the high, firm muscle of his shoulder.

"You know every time you do that, I wish I would have tattooed a labyrinth across my whole body."

I snort. "Like I wanted to date a tatted up biker guy."

"Mmm." He smooths my hair away from my face. "I would have covered up, then, until I convinced you to go out with me."

"What fun would that be?" I tease.

Stefan really does have the most breathtaking body. I'm a great appreciator of male beauty: anything from the Zac Efron cute boy look to the rugged masculinity of Hugh Jackman. Stefan's the perfect blend of all of them; hitting just the right balance of bulky and sleek muscle, he makes me wish sometimes that I could draw just so I could really appreciate every line of him.

Or I guess I could just put him on a bearskin rug and get out my iPhone. I smile against his neck. My phone has a zoom function that would do a pretty good job of appreciating his male beauty, and it would really dress up his incoming calls, too.

Though if Damon got his hands on it, that could be bad. Last time I left my phone laying around the house, Stefan's ringtone got changed to "I Feel Like a Natural Woman," which wasn't nearly as alarming as going to answer it and finding a picture of a penis staring back at me. Not, I might add, Stefan's penis.

Way over the line.

Of course, it is Damon. He's not aware that there is a line.

"What are you thinking about?" Stefan asks.

Your brother's penis, and his personality disorder.

"Just wondering when you got your tattoo," I tell him instead.

"Really?" he asks skeptically and I fight back a wince.

I don't know what glitch in my genetic makeup makes my voice go up an octave every time I try to lie, but I could live without the auditory version of Pinocchio's nose, thank you very much.

"I've always wondered about it," I tell him truthfully. "You don't really seem like the tattoo type, and if you got anything, I'd think it would be some kind of life motto or something. Or a picture to remind you of someone."

Lexi, maybe. She's only been gone a year and to Stefan, that must feel like no time at all.

"It is to remind me," he says, his fingers gently untangling my hair, picking bits of leaves from the strands and putting them aside.

"Of what?" I ask, and then realize that's really rude. "Sorry. I guess it's not really my business, you know, unless you feel like telling me."

He's quiet for a long moment and I wonder if it's about a woman or something. I mean, we all know Damon was celibate for fifty years and then slept his way up and down every coast that abuts the ocean, but other than Rebekah, I don't know if Stefan was with anyone in the space between the Katherine and the Elena years.

He said once that he didn't have time for much of a life in between trying to control his cravings for blood but yeah, I'm sorry. Since I'm a vampire, I could squeeze being horny into the space between two seconds.

"I don't know if I can make it make sense to you," he says finally, his hands gone still on my back. "But it's a simple enough story. You know I was in the second World War, as an ambulance driver."

I nod against his chest. I know it was during one of his long struggles to stay on animal blood and I've always thought it was really dumb of Lexi to send him to be around so many wounded humans at a time like that.

"I was stationed in North Africa, but when I shipped back home, we were stuck for weeks in London before the weather allowed us to sail for home. I had-," he pauses. "War is-," he stops again, looking at me like there are too many words caught behind his teeth to let them all out at once.

"Bad," he finally says, stroking my hair. The birds have gotten used to our presence and there's one with a very distinctive three-note song. I listen to it over and over again in the silence.

"Damon was supposed to be there with me. He said he was coming and then he just never showed up. It would have been so much easier with him there, knowing that someone could hold me back if I needed them to. And because he knew about war, knew what I was getting into and he didn't-," he cuts himself off, his fingers twitching once against the back of my neck before he continues in a quieter voice.

"The smell of blood saturated the whole world. Every uniform and car and gun had traces of it; I could smell it waking or sleeping. I worked as many hours a day as I could without raising suspicion because I was afraid if I let go of the steering wheel, I'd find a soldier under my hands instead and I'd never be able to go home."

I squeeze him tightly, hiding my glare against his chest. Stupid Lexi. There are easier ways of getting used to the smell of blood. She's lucky he didn't go on a binge that never ended. I'd never have met him and he'd still be in Egypt, picking off oil pipeline workers. He'd be the freaking Ripper of Exxon Mobile.

"That's ridiculous," I burst out, pulling back so I can look at him. "It was war and all crazy and you shouldn't have even been there in the first place! I mean, when I transitioned you didn't take me to freaking Afghanistan," I remind him.

"No, Lexi was right, Care. Penance is supposed to be difficult." He pauses, toying with my hair. "Anyway, that's not the point. It got easier, or I got used to it being hard. And then one day it was just over. They put me on a train and then a ship and then we were in England waiting for our next ship.

"We were all stationed at a big estate, sleeping on the floor of the ballroom with blankets nailed over the windows. And it wasn't until I was there, sleeping in a big room full of human heartbeats, that I realized I was free. For the first time since 1864, I could resist the blood. I could have a life if I wanted to: friends, a home."

I nuzzle my face into his neck to combat the sharp pang that goes through my chest. My mom's never around, but I've never been on my own. Certainly not for nearly a century. I try to picture myself in some big English mansion like in Pride and Prejudice, on my way back from war to make a fresh start, but the image is fuzzy in my mind. I can't imagine being so alone.

"Before I left, Lexi insisted that I make peace with Damon. I know he has his moments so it's hard to understand, but it was-," his muscles tighten against my belly and then relax as he shifts his legs. "It was important to me. But I never heard from him during the entire time I was overseas and I knew that whatever life I built, he wasn't going to be a part of it."

Stupid Damon. I can't believe he bailed on a whole war. He probably decided it wouldn't be that fun and went dancing instead, the jerk. I make a mental note to light into him when I get home.

I've been meaning to come up with a prank for his bathtub, anyway. I've been on these art department websites for movies sets and stuff and they have this kind of weird Styrofoam that looks like ceramic but comes apart in water and if I could figure out how to take his bathtub out, I could replace it with the Styrofoam stuff and wait for the next time he runs a bath and goes all mental because his freaking tub dissolved.

But somehow a disappearing tub doesn't seem like enough revenge for missing a war. And to be honest, I don't get it. Even when he was Damon, Super Dickhead, he still looked out for his brother. I don't believe that he just wouldn't show up when Stefan needed him.

"Do you want to hear something strange?"

"Hmm?" I encourage, glad to get him off a sad topic. He still hasn't explained the tattoo but if has to do with war and stuff, maybe I don't really want to know.

"I thought I saw him, sometimes. When I was driving the ambulance. I worked at night, and the bombing made for weird light, so I could never be sure." Stefan clears his throat.

"Anyway, that's not the story. When I got the tattoo, I was stuck waiting to go home but I didn't truly have a home to go to. Nearly everything I'd ever wanted was within my grasp. But I didn't feel anything. Anything at all."

"I didn't want to speak to anyone, so I spent most of my time walking the gardens over and over again in the rain and the wind and the sleet. Until one day I was sitting there in the rose garden, soaked to the skin, and I just started to laugh. Because of that old saying, you know? Stop and smell the roses," Stefan says with one breath of a chuckle that dies before it even starts.

"I got up and I looked at them and before I even thought about what I was doing, I was ripping them out by the roots, destroying them. I tore out dozens of bushes, red and pink and yellow, and when I was sitting in the middle of the whole mess, I was still laughing. Because I could smell them. I could smell my blood from where the thorns had torn my skin and underneath that I could smell the flowers."

I tilt my head so I can see his face, my lips tightening with concern, but he's staring up at the trees above us. I wish I would have known it was this kind of story. The sad kind. I would have asked at a different time, or maybe not at all.

"The woods near there had plenty of game and I finally had the time to hunt properly so that I was well-fed and I could smell everything and I could see them, so much more even than whatever human wrote that line to begin with.

"I could see the grain of the petals, the way they're soft but not really smooth, the edges rounded but irregular. I could smell not just the petals and not just the pollen but the chlorophyll of the stems. The water inside the cells."

He shrugs, his shoulders pushing against my chest. "And I didn't care. They were beautiful. I could see that, even then, and I marveled that a world that could tear itself apart with bombs and guns and blades could ever host such a delicate little thing. That it could ever live here. But it didn't make me want to live."

"So why did you get the tattoo?" I ask him, curious again despite myself. "If it didn't help?"

Stefan tips his face down to me and I can see the shadows in his eyes and the faint quirk of his lips as he says, "Because I still wanted it to. And I thought with everything I'd seen and been and felt, that if I could still want it to make a difference to me, then maybe-," he pauses for long enough that I can hear that same bird trill its little three-note song. "Then maybe that would be enough. So I walked straight from there to the tattoo parlor, and I made them draw a rose on me, because I thought if I took nothing else with me all the days of my life, I should take hope."

I know I should say something, but I have to swallow to loosen my throat. Because that would be a great story, except that I know it took place in 1945. Which means he didn't find a life and a family. He came back and he stayed away from people until all the practice from the war was lost and he was sensitive to the smell of blood all over again. He didn't go after what he wanted. Instead, he lived alone for over sixty years before he finally found the courage to go home again. Somehow, that's the saddest part of the whole story, worse than the war or Damon's betrayal.

I can't imagine waiting sixty years for anything. I couldn't even wait for the Twilight books to come out in paperback. And I can't help but think it's funny that when he came back to Mystic Falls, it was the exact moment Damon chose to come back, too.

Stefan kisses the top of my head as if he can sense my melancholy thoughts. "It did help," he reassures me. "Some days more than others. But all the days were worth it, I think, in the end." I can hear the smile creep back into his voice. "Anyway, it's better than a flaming skull, right?"

"It is pretty," I agree, remembering my theory about the tattoo. "I had thought maybe you got it because of your mother's roses."

"My mother's roses?"

"Her garden," I prompt.

"We didn't have a rose garden," he corrects me. "We had the maze, and a formal garden, but it didn't have roses."

I roll off his chest, propping myself up on an elbow and frowning at him. "Damon said you did. Why would he lie about roses, of all things?"

"Since when do you and Damon talk about flowers together?" Stefan says with a skeptical lift to his eyebrows.

"Since I was saying the driveway would look beautiful lined with rose hedges and he was saying that it was too much work and he wasn't going to hire a gardener to take care of glorified parking bumpers because he knew I wouldn't keep up with it and I was saying like he even knew how much work it was because he'd never gardened a day in his life and he said that his mother did." I pause at the look on Stefan's face, but he nods for me to continue.

"He said it was her hobby, that she spent hours every day pruning and fertilizing and testing different imported soils and hybridizing her own varietals. He said she loved it," I smile. "He said nobody would be stupid enough to do all that crap unless they loved it."

"I didn't know that," Stefan whispers, glancing away. "I was so young, and my father…he must have torn out the roses after she died. He never would have wasted the money on a new slave to keep it all going unless he thought it would gain him some social standing. He only kept the maze up because he was so proud that it was the only one in the county."

I lay my head back on his shoulder, my hand over the ink-darkened skin.

"I wish-," he says, and then hesitates. "I wish I would have known that."

"Maybe you did," I tell him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder, to his symbol of what is worth living for. And mine, beneath it.

I sit up and the torn up ground of the clearing catches my eye. I can't hold back a smile at the mess we made.

"What?" Stefan asks.

"I think I like hunting."

"Trust me," Stefan says, propping his head up and watching me without bothering to get up. "It's a lot more fun with you around. You have strange taste in ah, post-hunting conversation, though."

"I didn't know it was a war tattoo," I protest. "I thought those were all naked girls or Don't Stomp On Me or whatever."

His lips twitch. "Something like that."

"Are you laughing at me?"

"I wouldn't dare," he promises solemnly, his eyes gleaming.

"You better not. I've got my eye on you, Stefan Salvatore," I warn, hands on hips, a gesture that probably loses some of it's threatening punch since I'm wearing nothing but a single stray sock. Still, Stefan knows better than to risk my wrath, single-socked status aside.

"And what did you do with our clothes?" I demand. "You always throw them way too far. I swear, if I had a nickel for every time I've asked where my panties were, I could fund the whole Ronald McDonald House for a year."

Stefan chuckles. "Did you look in the trees?"

"Very funny," I tell him, expanding my search area. After five minutes, all I've found is three of our four shoes and I'm starting to get suspicious. I glance over at Stefan, who is frowning at the ground on the other side of the clearing.

"You don't think-," I ask him, trailing off, and then my eyes snap to his as we both realize exactly what happened to our clothes.

"Damon!"

Author's Note: If you'd like more stories like this, with happy Delena and Steroline, and installments in the ongoing prank war between Damon and Caroline (who are really much better at it than Elena), push the follow-author button. I have a new fic coming out soon called "Happily Ever After, Salvatore Style." All romance and humor, no angst. And in my world, Jeremy and ghost Ric are still very much a part of the Mystic Falls family.

If you'd like to see how Stefan and Caroline got together, check out my full length Season 4 rewrite, "Desperate Love." A whole different version of Season 4! One overarching plotline with many mini climaxes along the way and an explosive, game-changing finale. A meditation on the nature of love, free will and morality in an imperfect world, through: suspense, romance, steam, angst, and friendship. Tons of Delena as well as Stefan/Caroline/Klaus, The whole Mystic Falls family with Jeremy and Ric, too, plus original characters. No sire bond, no Silas, and very little Professor Shane.

And if you'd like something a little more recent, I have a one-shot set after episode 4x15, "Stand By Me." It is called "Pain Like A River" - In the aftermath of 4x15 "Stand By Me," Elena turns to Damon for the only kind of comfort she can accept now that her humanity is lost, and it's almost more than he can bear. But even with all they've lost, they're not alone. Angst and love, Delena, Defan

Thanks to arabean for another gorgeous story cover shot icon and to PeeNiss0314, the best fanfic research assistant in 14 countries and the US Virgin Islands.