Above All Else

Chapter 10

Caroline pulled into her driveway shutting her car off and leaned her head back against the headrest. Home sweet lonely home, she thought to herself as she seen her mom wasn't there, not that she was too surprised she did get the text saying she wouldn't be. Sighing Caroline reached into the backseat to grab her bag, getting out of the car to head inside. She pushed the front door shut with her shoulder after making it into the house and dropped her keys on the foyer table. Her footsteps echoed through the empty house as she walked up the stairs to her bedroom. Caroline cringed at the sight before her, drawers still hung half open and some hangers sat on the floor from the last time she was here. It seemed odd to her that it was only just over two days ago now when she had vamp sped through her room hurrying to get back to a broken Klaus. She couldn't believe her mom didn't think anything was wrong by the looks of her bedroom, she knew her daughter was a compulsive neat freak. Letting out a despondent sigh, Caroline set her tote bag on her bed to pull her dirt clothes out of it and then grabbed the ones from her hamper to head to the basement to start a load of laundry. By the time she had made it to the basement she weirdly felt out of breath, in a way that was reminiscent of her days as a human running up and down the two flights of stairs in her home. Caroline shrugged it off as she set about separating her clothes and the others her mom had left to be cleaned as well into piles before she picked up the first of three loads placing them in the washing machine. She spun her body to grab the detergent off the shelf next to the washer when her vision suddenly went hazy and her ears began to ring as she stumbled into the shelf knocking the detergent to the floor. Vaguely in the back of her mind she was thankful it didn't spill, she knew from her clumsy human days that laundry soap was hell to clean off the concrete floor. But in the forefront of her mind was, "What the hell?" righting herself she tried to shake off the strange dizzy spell. "I'm under too much freaking stress! Seriously."

She figured with all the extra stress going on she wasn't feeding enough, she walked shakily over to the mini-fridge her mom had her install in the basement for her blood-bags. Caroline grabbed a bag of B positive using the tubing on it as a straw not caring at the moment that it was cold. I understand you drink blood now to survive Caroline, her mom had told her trying to hold back a disgusted look, but you can't keep it in the kitchen, if someone was to come over here and see them it could bring trouble for the both of us. The mini-fridge was a compromise that work well for them both, well for the most part, when she need a pick me up during a late night cram session for a test she hated having to go all the way to the basement to get it.

Leaning back against the wall as she sipped on her blood she thought about her and her mother's relationship, if you counted barely talking and random text messages to check in a relationship. Caroline really didn't understand what was going on anymore. Her mom had always been distant to a point, always placing work ahead of everything else. She knew her dad had turned out to be gay but there were times right after the divorce that Caroline had wondered if things could have been different if they had spent more time together as a family. Her parents had gotten together for a reason in the first place so maybe...Caroline shook her head from the useless thoughts, she knew that wouldn't have changed a thing, her dad would have still been gay. The point she was trying to make in her own convoluted mind was she didn't understand the distance that had grown even wider between her and her mom. Maybe it still was the vampire thing, her mom was raised to hate them, but Caroline had truly believed that her mom had accepted who her daughter was now. Then one day out of the blue it felt like they were back to square one again and Caroline couldn't figure out why. She was still the same Caroline, to an extent anyways and she didn't go around hurting people. Mom's even friends with douche-bag Damon for crying out loud!

Caroline sucked the last of the blood down deciding since she wasn't going to figure out whatever the deal was with her mom at the moment. She tossed the empty bag in the trashcan feeling back to her normal self. "Well, looks like it was stress after all." She said aloud to herself and went back to getting some much needed stress cleaning done.