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There was in hospitals a disgusting smell that irritatingly clung to everything. Even after smelling it for now a month Caroline hadn't gotten used to the strong smell of bleach and something else she couldn't quite place.
Most of the time, she managed just fine. She only had to find a good enough distraction to forget her surroundings: emailing her friends – habitually when her mother had headaches, which happened more and more regularly lately; reading a book; listening to music, turning up the volume until her ears would throb and tingle – something happy, comforting, distracting, soothing If she was lucky (or was on the brink of exhaustion); anything to make her forget about her mother's ragged breath which seemed to be forced into and out of her airway with sickening, pained, whistles that had frightened Caroline the first time she had spent the night in her mother's bedroom and had made her run to the first nurses she could find to describe them exactly what she had heard and frantically asked if something was wrong with her mother; or knitting because, often, she was getting agitated – bursting with energy she hadn't spent during the day and not knowing what to do with her restless hands, and knitting at least prevented her from scratching her wrists until the delicate skin was taking on an increasingly darker pink tint before becoming red and then finally breaking under Caroline's perfectly manicured nails. She could see from time to time blood encrusted beneath a thin layer of nail polish meticulously applied on her fingernails.
Today, however, she had taken the opportunity to go for a walk that had presented itself when Elena had invited her to have a coffee and Caroline, positively going mad while waiting for her mother to wake up, had agreed. When she came back she had noticed, annoyed, that the smell seemed stronger after spending more than an hour outside those pristine white walls that seemed to be impregnated with detergent. She could almost taste the bitter odor she had come to know as the stench of disease, one that all the detergents in the world could never completely hide.
The the familiar sight of the Christmas tree - a far cry from the one they used to decorate - calmed her nerves a little as she entered her mother's room to see Doctor Fell, standing by a nurse. She aised her head to offer a reassuring smile before dropping it again, looking once again at Liz's chart and scribbling furiously. Her mother lifted her tired eyelids to look at her and immediately Caroline schooled her expression into one of bubbly impatience. Immediately, she fired off questions she had meant to ask all day long.
"How did the surgery go? Do you feel better, Mom? It took you a long time to wake up," a jittery laugh that - for the life of her - she couldn't conceal, "any reasons for that? You know, Katherine sent me an article about a new treatment that you could try. She could, right, Doctor Fell?" Towards the end her voice was somewhat shaking, especially when she noticed the doctor's eyes flickering with pity.
Thankfully, her mother didn't seem to pick up on that and Caroline tried not to think about how this woman who had known her for only some months seemed to notice things her mother never did. Did she know her so little after all?
Caroline averted her mother's gaze shamefully. Now was not the time for her insecurities and self-pity. She stood straighter, alert when Doctor Fell began to answer her questions in a calm but sad voice.
"We managed to reduce the tumor."
She couldn't contain her smile as she jumped off her mother's bed and she would have hugged the doctor if she hadn't been stopped by Doctor Fell's tense shoulder and face. Looking down, Caroline noticed for the first time the cadaveric whiteness of her mother's skin. Her lips were whiter, her eyelids were half-shut, and the smile on her tired face was strained.
Sagging onto Liz's bed, Caroline hung on every word. Until she couldn't. More operations to come, with more risks, drastic treatments... The way the doctor formulated it didn't matter in the end, and Caroline suddenly felt stupid for thinking that maybe she'd get some good news for once. Her stomach clenched painfully, nausea hit her next, then her hands started scratching her wrists on their own accord.
She jumped when Doctor Fell called her name. Caroline numbly realized that she had stopped talking and was now asking her something.
"Huh?"
She'd have been flushing if the blood hadn't drained from her face.
"Do you have any questions?" repeated Doctor Fell.
Caroline choked on her voice first and managed to mumble a simple 'no' only after another try. Doctor Fell kept on talking but she couldn't make out what she was saying and only nodded occasionally, until Doctor Fell excused herself.
The sound of the door closing was strident in the horrified calm that followed their conversation. For a moment Caroline looked at the door without moving a muscle. She felt like the air had become solid around her and that the slightest movement might break something which she was sure wouldn't be wise to damage.
It was finally Liz who had the courage to disrupt the calm that had descended upon them. Swallowing the thickness in her throat, Caroline's head turned so fast that she felt her neck crack.
"Doctor Fell explained everything to me in detail before you got here and I think I have a good chance of recovery with this treatment."
She continued to talk, focusing on pros rather than on cons and Caroline wondered for how long her mother had been such an optimist. Maybe they were not so different after all. Maybe she always had been like that and Caroline just hadn't realized it earlier. Or maybe she was just pretending for her daughter's sake.
She'd have loved to have her mother keep talking forever, not because she believed one single word of what she said – she doubted her mother did, either – but because once Liz would stop she would have to pretend to believe it, and, unwillingly, she would eventually convince herself that her lies were actually truths and that she had simply not realized sooner. Verbalizing her hopes would suddenly make them much more feasible, pretending to believe them down to her bones would only reinforce this feeling.
.
.
.
When Caroline returned to her hometown - confused, anxious, resentful because her mother had not told her about her illness the last time they had spoken to each other and full of remorse because she could not remember the last time she'd called her mother but could only assume it was half a year back - she'd had people to support her.
Elena and Bonnie had come with cushions and blankets the night she had to go the place that she once called 'home' because they knew her well enough to know that the last thing she wanted after having spent the day with her newly hospitalized mother was sleeping in an empty, lifeless home wondering if her mother would ever see these walls again and under what circumstances that would be.
Matt had stopped by her place, brought food, struck up a conversation on the way to the hospital, and had told her to call him if she needed anything.
April Young who volunteered at the hospital had accompanied her up to her mother's floor although Caroline had only asked her where to go.
Katherine had called every day of the first week Caroline had spent in Mystic Falls and had distracted her with stories about some obnoxious new journalist who had been hired and did a very bad job, positively enraging their boss.
She had received phone calls from her former classmates who had called once they had learned about her mother and wanted to know how she was doing. Of course, Caroline knew better than to think that many of them were sincere, most of them had called out of a sense of obligation, out of pity, or in the interest of appearing polite, or simply because they were thirsty for some juicy gossip - the sheriff of the town who had cancer and her daughter who came back after years had to be the most interesting topic of conversation they'd had since a long time.
Nevertheless, burying her head in the sand was something Caroline had been accustomed to, and so ignoring the doubtful motives of people such as Tiky didn't bother her very much.
The man Caroline was watching, on the other hand, seemed to be quite alone. He also looked like hell, slumped in his chair and staring down at the stained gray table with his head drooping to the side. He seemed to be about to collapse after not having slept for days. She could only assume that was the case. April had told her about his brother, the young Henrik, who had arrived in the middle of the night a few days earlier after an accident while he was drunk. Thankfully for them, his girlfriend had had the good sense to buckle up and called an ambulance as soon as she woke up. "Poor boy, he literally went through the windscreen," April had told her. She herself had learned that from her cousin who was a nurse and had been there the night he was taken to the emergency room.
It was going to be the talk of the town.
She didn't know what got into her next; one moment she was clutching two hot coffee and the next she had crossed the cafeteria in a few strides and had stopped right before his table.
He straightened up, jerking back, as the noise of a chair scraping the floor brought him back to reality. His incredulous gaze was still fixed on her after she settled down into the uncomfortable chair and slid the steaming coffee down to him.
"What-"
"You look like you could use a pick-me-up," she felt the words leap up in her throat at the same time as she felt her cheeks burning painfully. Suddenly the idea of giving him a helping hand didn't look so good anymore. The worst not being that in a surge of generosity she had forgotten how much people needed to be alone sometimes, especially when their relatives were caught between life and death – inwardly, Caroline laughed hysterically; Jesus, this was definitely a bad idea – but above all that Caroline was pretty sure that the man sitting before her thought she was a crazy person or something.
He did look like he could use a pick-me-up, though. Now that she saw him up close she noticed his bloodshot eyes, the dark circles under his eyes, the pallor of his skin, which was almost grayish under the dull neon lights in the cafeteria.
"Thank you," he said, almost disbelievingly, before he lifted the paper cup to his lips.
"You're welcome," she said, smiling enthusiastically in an attempt to définitively get rid of any awkwardness.
A smile tentatively curled the edges of his mouth. "So... have we met before?"
"Nope," she answered, and hoped she had successfully concealed the color she felt rushing into her cheeks. "But I know your sister." Kind of. Rebekah's family had come at the same time Caroline had left town to live with her father and Steven, in the meantime they'd had enough time to make cutting remarks to each other.
"I'm sure she left quite the good impression," he said sardonically, a smile - albeit thin - dancing on his lips. "She can be quite mean."
Caroline squinted her eyes and was about to tell him that she gave his sister a run for her money when she remembered why she sat down at this table in the first place. "She'll be here tomorrow," he added suddenly, his voice carefully devoid of the emotions she saw blazing in his eyes. His grip jerkily tightened on the paper cup. Any trace of the thin smile that had dimly brightened his face had disappeared, his features now twisted into a grimace. "With my mother and father," he said, manifestly more to himself than to her, his shoulders tensing.
"Naturally," she said under her breath, her mind already racing to her mother's call.
Liz barely had time to explain everything to her - and God, she'd had a lot to explain! - before Caroline, in a crying fit, had hiccoughed that she would take the first flight to Mystic Falls. That it took them so long was rather strange, in her opinion.
"News travels fast here," he said dryly, noticing her lack of questions and apparently already drawing conclusions.
She shrugged. "It's Mystic Falls."
She rolled her shoulders and stretched her legs, trying to find a more comfortable position. She took a sip of her own coffee. Hopefully, she wouldn't feel so drowsy once caffeine would start to kick in.
"He took my car," he said suddenly. Immediately, she was snapped out of her sleepiness. He took a deep breath, leaning back, his eyes shut tightly. When he opened them again she was taken aback by the guilt that burned in them.
"It's not your fault," she replied immediately, impulsively. "A lot of kids do that kind of thing - hell, I know I've done it more than once - you shouldn't reproach yourself."
.
.
.
The words were nothing he hadn't expected from anybody who'd hear his sad story, words that anyone would parrot. However, her sincerity and her genuine desire to comfort him made him feel more like a fraud.
Every kids did stupid things, Klaus had certainly done his fair share of stupid things, and being raised by a man who got off on controlling his family by whatever means necessary, these things were bound to happen. Nevertheless, even Klaus couldn't put it on Mikael this time.
When Henrik had invited him to come during the week their parents were to go visit Rebekah in England, Klaus had agreed, too happy to see his brother again and too thrilled at the prospect of making himself comfortable in the house Mikael had sworn that he would never set foot again. He hadn't thought twice when he 'd given his keys to his little brother who had no license with a simple, "Be careful on the road," without taking his eyes off his painting to see him leave with his friends.
You are impulsive, boy, and one day...
Mikael had been right. No matter how much he hated it and would never admit it, even now - especially now - he was the only one to blame for his fifteen-year-old brother's car crash. He had been too caught up in his excitement after seeing his brother again, too enthusiastic at the possibility that after his sixteenth birthday Henrik would come to live with him, too keen to show him how better life with him would be then that he had forgotten that Henrik was still a kid and one whom Klaus was supposed to take care of in the first place.
You are impulsive, boy, and one day...
The comforting sensation of a warm hand made its way through the cold that Mikael's contemptuous words always brought with them. Something clenched painfully in his chest and as soon as the feeling came it was accompanied by an almost stifling heat he could feel from his tingling fingertips to the roots of his hair. Comfort, he thought (rationalized). A strange sensation (new, exciting, soothing) caused by the unexpected kindness of a stranger who was too kind for her own good.
He raised his eyes to meet a pair of blue orbs that reflected the same surprise he felt, and that the woman had interpreted differently since she hastily pulled her hand back. Unconsciously, his fingers curled slightly around her wrist, touching it so lightly that she hardly noticed.
She cleared her throat, her eyes averting him. "As I said, you have nothing to reproach yourself with," she continued as if there had been no interruption, displaying a confidence she was wrong to have - or was only simulating.
The warmness he had felt quickly plummeted down into an abyss - guilt and uncertainty, anger and resentment, shame and anguish - he had become so accustomed to.
His lips parted with a confession wishing to make its way out, but he said nothing about his concerns, or about the guilt that gnawed at him to the marrow. Let her think what she wants, he suddenly decided. He owed her nothing anyway.
Later, he would understand that he had said nothing only because he didn't want to see her stop looking at him like that, like he was not to blame, like he deserved her solicitude, because he didn't wish see the light in her eyes dim as he would tell her how he had foolishly let his younger brother go on his merry way without thinking about his safety, because he disliked the idea of seeing a frown instead of the hopeful face that beamed up at him, because he needed something to cling to and he felt like her comforting touch was the only thing truly anchoring him.
Later, he would have spent a lot of evenings like this one with her, exchanging stories, the good as the bad ones; he would have heard her laugh a hundred times, she would have relied on him as many times as he would, she would tell him secrets under her breath at night, her head buried in his chest as he would caress her mass of golden hair, winding his fingers in her locks, later he would have painted her and would have never stopped regarding those paintings as his best, the ones that he would never exhibit because they were his.
Love had a way of altering memories, and his recollection might not be the most reliable, but that would be the way he would remember that night, anyway.