LOST IN THE VAMPIRE DIARIES

Summary: Claire - a seventeen-year-old blonde cheerleader - has woken up in the Vampire Diaries' world after making an innocent wish. Strangest thing of all? She has replaced her favorite female character, Caroline Forbes. Inspired by 'Lost in Austen'. Begins in the very first episode of Season1. Damon/OC.

Caroline is not my favorite character. I liked her in season2 very much but now I like her only when she has scenes with Klaus and sometimes with Stefan and Tyler. However, she is the favorite female character of my OC. That is not the same thing. I don't really think that Caroline and Damon would be good together. But my OC thinks so, and that's the reason why she takes over Caroline's life. I hope that's clear.

Another thing, my OC has seen the Vampire Diaries since season3 finale.

Main Pairing: Damon/Claire(slow-moving. It'll start with friendship).

Other Pairings: Matt/Claire(temporarily - pretty much like what happened in the show between Matt and Caroline). Stefan/Elena. Slight Damon/Elena. Mostly one-sided Tyler/Claire, Klaus/Claire and Elijah/Claire(because I just love Elijah).

Disclaimer: I'll say this only once. I don't own 'The Vampire Diaries' (books or TV Show) nor do I make money by writing this story.

I made a video about Damon and Claire - or as I imagined how Claire looks like -. It's on Youtube, it's called 'Damon Salvatore/Claire Forbes - State of Seduction'. I'd really like if you'd checked it out because I spent a lot of time creating it.

Prologue

HEART'S DESIRE

"No other dream could replace

That lonely and cold empty space

And fill my heart with a love

For it's you I'm dreaming of..."

(Heart's Desire by Manhattan Transfer)

Claire was watching an old episode of 'The Vampire Diaries' season 2. She had seen the entire season 3 already but she would never miss an opportunity to see Damon Salvatore on her screen. She sighed a little dreamily when he appeared for the first time in the episode.

She couldn't understand how Elena was still so obsessed with Stefan when there was someone like Damon around. Even after everything that he had done in season 3, she had still chosen Stefan, unbelievable. Damon loved her so much and he would do anything for her, how could Elena treat him so badly?

Yes, Damon had done a lot of bad things but Stefan had too. Why was Stefan so easily forgiven by her but not Damon? It wasn't fair. Especially because Elena loved Damon, it was clear to everybody. Didn't she own it to herself to give the two of them a chance instead of clinging to Stefan just because he was safe and familiar in her mind?

And anyway, how 'safe' Stefan really was? He had threatened to kill her by driving over the bridge where her parents had died, where she had almost died. Oh, but no, that wasn't Stefan, that was the blood that made him not himself. Why was Elena so adamant in lying to herself when it came to Stefan? Was it because he had been the one to save her and she felt like she owned it to him? That was the only explanation that made sense in Claire's mind.

Claire really believed that Elena was just trying to hold on to her relationship with Stefan – even if she didn't love him anymore – because what she felt for Damon scared her to death. Damon was reckless and unpredictable and a relationship with him would be nothing like the puppy love she had with Stefan. Even if Stefan was a vampire, being with him was easy, comfortable. It was nothing like the 'love that consumes you' that Damon had described to Elena when they first met.

Sure, Stefan gave Elena a reason to keep on living when she was depressed after her parents' death but the depression and almost suicidal thoughts remained. That it's obvious during all season2 when Elena, instead of fighting, was perfectly okay with giving up and die, telling herself and everyone else that she was doing it to protect them. That was certainly true but it wasn't only that.

Claire watched Caroline Forbes appearing in the scene after having been turned into a vampire and thought once again how much potential she and Damon had together. Now, of course, there were Tyler and Klaus in her life but seeing those two on screen made her remember why she thought they would be good together.

If only Damon hadn't abused Caroline so badly in the first season... Of course, Caroline was more than a little annoying at the beginning, but maybe if she had been different, even her relationship with Damon would have been better. Caroline was very loyal and passionate and had a big heart. Damon deserved someone like that since he loved with all that he had.

And anyway, it wasn't fair that he always had to compete with his brother for the love of the woman he was in love with. Damon deserved someone who hadn't been in love with his brother first. Of course, she knew that a love story between Damon and Caroline was impossible now. Damon was completely in love with Elena and Caroline was with Tyler.

Claire sighed again. Unfortunately, Caroline had still not acquired the maturity necessary to appeal to a man like Damon. She was starting to grow up just now but it was too late because Damon was already in love with Elena and he was loyal to a fault. And anyway, at that point the two of them despised each other.

Claire shook her head a little deprecatingly. She had become a little too obsessed with this show. It wasn't healthy. She was not Caroline and Damon Salvatore did not exist, to her great chagrin.

Of course, she and Caroline had a lot in common. They were both blue-eyed blonde and captain of their respective cheerleading squad, always invested in whatever extracurricular activity possible, like planning school dances or parties for the football team. And they were the Queen Bees of their schools. Beautiful, popular, and mean and shallow too - at least at first sight -. Even their names were kind of similar.

She kept watching the episode – "Brave New World" - and winced when Damon tried to stake Caroline. Poor Caroline, first killed by Katherine and now almost killed – again – by Damon. Damon was really a dick towards Caroline. If only things had been different. Maybe at this point in time Damon would have tried to help her with her transformation instead of trying to kill her.

Then she became angry when Bonnie tried to barbeque Damon. It wasn't his fault that Caroline was now a vampire dammit. It was Katherine's.

Bonnie was such a bitch in the second half of season 1 and in season 2. It was not like everything bad that happened in Mystic Falls was Damon's fault now. Fortunately, Elena jumped across the fire to stop Bonnie from killing Damon. Good one Elena! But, of course, soon after that she left with Bonnie, leaving Damon lying there alone on the ground. Poor Damon.

Of course, Elena had every right to hate Damon in that moment since he had killed Jeremy and all, but Elena didn't know what both she and Katherine had done to Damon. They had completely broken his heart. Not that it justified what Damon had done but it would certainly help Elena understand Damon more.

Was that the real problem? The fact that Elena didn't really understand Damon. Or at least, not completely. Certainly, some of that was Damon's own fault. How many times had Damon done something completely selfless that Elena had no idea about? Like turning Bonnie's mother to stop Stefan from doing the same? Sure, he was trying to save Elena (again) but he was also trying to save Stefan too from going off the deep end – even more than Stefan had already done. Did Stefan tell Elena what Damon had done? No, of course not. Why would he? To push Elena into Damon's arms?

Claire shook her head. What was so special about Stefan anyway that both Katherine and Elena were so in love with him?

The TV show tried to make it look like Damon was the selfish one and Stefan the selfless one but for Claire it was exactly the opposite. Moreover, Stefan was also arrogant and manipulative and he had lied so many times – most of the times by omission – that Claire was beginning to think that Stefan himself believed his own lies.

He was also spoiled and used to being chosen over his own brother. First by their father, then by Katherine, and now by Elena. Claire thought that, since it had happened so many times, Stefan had started to think that he was somehow entitled to it, that he deserved to be chosen over his own brother. In his own mind, he was the good brother and Damon was the bad one and to keep perpetrating this lie that he told himself, he needed to make others believe it as well. And with Elena, he did a really good job.

And people wondered why Claire considered Stefan manipulative. Wasn't it obvious?

Stefan was all talk. He talked about the fact that he felt guilty, he talked about the fact that he was compassionate and empathetic and that was why it was so difficult for him to be a vampire and blah, blah, blah. Damon, in the meantime, acted, without telling anybody anything, without bragging about how good he was. He saved people by making the difficult choices and was willingly to be the 'bad guy' for it, all without expecting praise or reward. If only someone would really try to get to know the real Damon, the loyal man who would do anything for the people he loved, instead of the monster he wanted to pass for.

Stefan, on the other hand, saw Elena herself as his reward. All he did was in relation to Elena's love for him. The moment he thinks he's starting to lose her love is the moment he stops trying to be the good guy.

Thinking that she had liked Stefan at the very beginning of the series. But when she had found out that he had stalked Elena for three months after her parents' death, the epic love story that they wanted to portray had suddenly appeared cheap and fake. And of course, the more the audience found out about Stefan and Damon's past, the more it became evident who the real hero of the story was.

Looking a little bit in disgust at the cheesy scene between Elena and Stefan on the Ferris wheel, she yawned. Not too long until the end of the episode and then she would be free to dream about Damon Salvatore all she wanted. She grinned. She was such an idiot. As if Damon would ever be interested in her if he really existed, or if she was in his world.

Her last thought before finally falling asleep was that if she had been in Caroline's place, she would have tried in any way she could to make Damon realize that Katherine and Elena were not the only girls that existed in the world and that neither of them really deserved his unconditional and all-consuming love. She really wished she had Caroline's life. She could change so many things about Caroline's own life, about Damon's... Damon would finally have someone who loved him completely, someone who wasn't the least interested in his brother. And Claire would have Damon of course. And that was everything she could ask for.