An Untold Romance: Steroline

The Beginning

Stefan Salvatore had faced an uncountable amount of issues over his 150 years of being an immortal vampire. He never thought that one that would make him so utterly nervous was simply a shopping trip with his best friend, or rather his best friend who he had just happened to have sexual relations with 2 weeks beforehand. Since then, he and Caroline Forbes had pretended as if it hadn't happened but there was still an underlying tension between them.

"Please Stefan!" Caroline pleaded as she followed him into the Gilbert's kitchen. They, along with Bonnie, Damon and Matt, had been invited by Jeremy and Elena to a meal and a movie on a Friday night. "It'll be just for the afternoon, maybe the day." Caroline needed a shopping buddy for that Saturday and she definitely preferred Stefan over her ex-boyfriend Matt, or worse, Klaus. "Elena is busy with Damon and Bonnie is going somewhere with Jeremy." She placed the dirty dishes on the sink and began clearing the food scraps from each of them. "Can you imagine how awkward it would be if Matt had to come? And if he can't, Klaus will insist that he takes me to Italy or something.." She scrunched her face as she put her finger in an unknown substance on a plate.

Stefan sighed, opening the dishwasher, thinking about the fact that he would be alone with her the entire day. Although this was a good thing, as he felt totally comfortable around her, he also had certain feelings towards her, especially after their night of passion. He just wasn't sure that he could go a whole day of watching Caroline try on clothes without doing something he may regret; his attraction to her was unbelievably overpowering and he had purposefully avoided as much alone confrontation with her as possible. On the other hand, he couldn't bare seeing her go with Matt or Klaus over him; he couldn't find a decent excuse on the spot anyway.

"Alright," he gave in as he began stacking dishes into the machine. "Where were you planning to go exactly?" As the words left his lips, Stefan noticed Caroline bite her lip and look away, drying her hands on the hand towel. "Caroline.." He could tell that she thought he wasn't going to be impressed by her particular location choice. "Well," she began, turning to the island bench and leaning her palms against it, "I was thinking New Orleans." Before Stefan had the chance to interrupt, she continued talking: "there are like at least 10 different shops I really wanna check out and apparently Klaus has gone up state anyway, so he can't bother us!"

Stefan thudded the dishwasher shut before turning around as he wiped his hands on the back of his jeans. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean that his little quarter won't bother us, or his siblings, OR worse.. he could just make his way on back." Stefan did have a point, Caroline thought, but she had seen a really cute dress that she needed to have. She turned to him with her typical 'puppy dog' eyes as she pleaded again: "please Stef!" That took him by surprise. The last time she had called him 'Stef' was during their particularly romantic night. He awkwardly cleared his throat and nodded but before he could open his mouth to speak, they were interrupted by Elena.

She skipped in and realized straight away that she had probably walked in on something. She was unaware of her friends' previous rendezvous - it wasn't as if Stefan wanted his ex-girlfriend to know he had sex with her best friend. Caroline didn't exactly want her knowing either. "Um, just wondering what's taking you guys so long," Elena slightly laughed, "we're about to start the movie and we want drinks!" She said, pointing to the fridge and walking over to it. Stefan and Caroline shared a glimpse of eye contact before quickly going their separate ways around the island bench. "Here, I'll help," Caroline insisted to Elena as Stefan went back and joined Jeremy, Damon, Bonnie and Matt in the lounge room.

"What took you so long?" Damon questioned his brother as he entered the room and sat alone on a couch. "We packed the dishwasher, that's all." Stefan replied as casually as possible; he was telling the truth, after all. Jeremy looked over to him, his arm around Bonnie as they sat on a couch with Matt. "Well we're about to watch 'The Amazing Spider-Man'. I love Emma Stone in this," he said, emphasizing 'love' cheekily before Bonnie elbowed him in the ribs as a joke.

Back in the kitchen, Caroline and Elena were helping themselves to the stash of alcohol that Damon so kindly donated from his collection. "Is everything okay Care? I mean, with you and Stefan." Elena asked as she collected numerous glasses from the top cupboard. "Well yeah, why wouldn't we be? We're good- well great actually. Yeah, great-" Caroline was not exactly the best at keeping secrets. Well, it wasn't the fact that she wasn't good at it in general, it was just that she was never able to keep a secret from Elena for very long. They had been best friends for as long as they could remember and that meant that they usually told each other everything.

"What's going on?" Elena questioned slowly, raising an eyebrow at Caroline. The blonde remembered that their conversation was most likely being invaded by the particular vampire that they had been discussing. "Nothing, seriously." She said casually before mouthing silently, 'talk later,' and pointing to the lounge room. Elena understood completely and nodded before Caroline grabbed a bottle of wine and a bottle of unknown liquor. "C'mon, I bet Jeremy is close to starting the movie without us," she laughed as they both exited the room to join their friends.