What Goes Around Comes Around (Luke and Caroline FanFic)

Back To Reality

**Thanks for being patient! Please read and review! And, some of the life events have been altered a bit. Thanks!!! :-)**

The next couple weeks had been incredibly busy for Luke. He barely had time to himself, he was getting a lot of small gigs and he was working with a few artists on writing songs for their albums and whenever you work with an artist, you never know what time they're going to want to do it or how they'll feel they work best. For one artist, they partied 3 days straight. Another artist had set times of the day and would not write at any other time. It all just depended.

Unfortunately, when his professional life picked up, his personal life suffered. Luke was working awkward hours and they weren't fitting into Caroline's hours very well, so they spent a lot of time leaving voicemails for each others and long emails. She also began to start sleeping with the phone next to her so he could call her when he'd get home from the gig or wherever, no matter what time it is. She'd wake up, talk to him, then she'd go back to bed.

They had started to make plans to spend Thanksgiving together, and make the rounds to all of the families together, but he wound up getting a nice offer to open for a band and the money was needed so he had to say yes.

Caroline hated that he was struggling financially. It seemed like over time he started to make decent money, something major would happen and take most of his savings. His truck broke down , the water heater went out, the basement flooded, it just seemed to be too much. Unfortunately, his small house AND his truck were becoming money pits.

Luke tried to keep his money problems secret from her. He also went and got a part time job to help build up his savings again, but was trying to not tell her. He didn't want her to worry about him. And he didn't want to disappoint her. His step-mom Kaye would send him $200 from time-to-time without telling his dad, and that helped a lot, but nothing seemed to be helping. He was beginning to doubt if he was doing the right thing. Maybe this wasn't going to happen for him?

It was a week or so before Christmas, and Caroline had been driving down on weekends to see him, even if there wasn't a lot of together time, at least it was something. She was packing to leave for Nashville again, when her phone rang, she smiled when she saw it was Luke. "Hi honey!"

Luke sniffled, "Caroline, I'm SO done." He was trying hard not to cry.

"Baby, what's wrong? Talk to me Luke." She said concerned.

Luke let everything off of his chest. The working so much, the only sleeping a couple hours a day, if that. He admitted that he LOVED working hard for his dream, and he knew he had only been at it a few years, but was he going to keep his head above water doing so? He missed Chris and he missed her and he had been trying to keep it all quiet so she wouldn't get scared and leave him.

"Luke, I want you to listen to me. I know you want this. And I know that you can do it. I know that you can do anything you put your head to. And yeah it's going to suck and it's going to be hard, but I want you to ALWAYS be honest with me. Luke I love you. And I'm not going anywhere. It's going to take a lot more than some tough times to scare me away. What does scare me is that you felt you couldn't be honest with me. I might not know a lot about music or the music business, but I know it takes a helluva lot of hard work and struggle and broke times before you could be noticed. You are an incredible songwriter, a great musician and you have a heart of gold. Once the right person realizes just how talented you are, things will happen! I know it."

He sniffled again, "Caroline, I'm sorry. I just...I get to thinking about things and I over think and I'm kinda exhausted and I think hiding it from you was the biggest problem. I promise you, from here on out, I will tell you the truth. NO more lies, NO more keeping things secret, just the honest truth."

"Thank you. Communication is going to keep us together through anything Luke. Don't be afraid to tell me the truth."

"I won't. I promise you I will always be honest with you. I love you Caroline."

"I'm going to get on the road and I'll be there in 6 hours. I'll see you soon honey ok?" She reminded him.

"Ok, drive safe sweetheart."

"I will. Bye love." And she hung up. Why wouldn't he tell her the truth? He didn't need to hide that it was a hard road to travel. She would be proud of him just for trying to achieve his dreams. And she wanted him to know that she meant it, she would be more than happy to stand by his side and support him, no matter what. She had fallen head over heels for this crazy, silly, wonderful man and she wanted him to have it all. No matter what it took.

**Please read and review!! How will things be when she gets to Nashville? Will there be a Christmas miracle? Tell me your thoughts!!**