First Steroline fanfic I've ever written. It's funny because I came to know this couple way too late, but I'm a sucker for friend-to-lovers tropes and couples who deserved better.
Here is the premise of this story, previously posted on Fanfiction.net:
It's not okay to dream with your best friend's boyfriend the way she does. Even after Caroline accepts that her dreams aren't just dreams, that this isn't her first time living this life, what's the point? There are certain things she is never able to change, no matter how much she wants to. She keeps trying. (Or, in her second life, Caroline Forbes still loves Stefan Salvatore)
"Seeing you here, I wonder
What life was, what it will be
My life, my life by your side"
Chenoa, Volverte a ver
One. "I promise I will not let anything happen to you"
One moment she sees Elena coming into her hospital room, and the next… she can't breathe. Elena is killing her.
Only it's not Elena, that's what she said… but how can it be? That's the face of her best friend.
Caroline can't breathe, and everything goes dark. So that's how it ends.
At least, it was supposed to be that way.
Instead, she dreams.
In the dream, she sees herself with Matt. They are at the carnival, and when he hugs her, she feels the horrible impulse to kill him.
She walks away before she does it, but she still kills someone else. Later, Bonnie looks at her bloody appearance with shock and horror, which is understandable. She is a monster.
She's become a monster.
But Stefan takes her hand, pulls her away from Damon, who just tried to kill her too, and wipes the blood out of her face. He tells her everything is going to be okay, even though she is dead, well, undead now. He tells her she can do this.
Afterwards, the dream becomes fuzzy. Caroline remembers Matt's tense shoulders, his weak, shaky voice...
"I-I thought that I might be able to get past this whole vampire thing"
"But you can. Matt…"
"I don't know if I can, Caroline"
He is going to break up with her and Caroline feels like crying, because no matter how hard she tries, this is something she can't change. This is what she is now.
A vampire.
When Caroline opens her eyes again, she knows she should be dead but she isn't. And when is overwhelmed by the strong urge to kill the nurse and taste the sweet, sweet blood that she feels pulsating in her veins, it's hard to stop herself.
She drinks from a blood bag she steals from another patient instead. She endures.
"I can't do it again" She doesn't want to be a murderer, she doesn't want to see the fear and rejection in Bonnie's eyes.
She doesn't want to hurt Matt.
She's still thirsty, and she knows she cannot, she will not, stay in that room until morning comes. (Or she will do things that she'll regret later, and there will not be coming back from that).
Caroline remembers her dream, and the unexpected helping hand of Stefan Salvatore.
A friend.
Could he be a friend?
He is Damon's brother, and Damon is a monster. She can see flashes of what she'd forgotten before, all the ways he used and abused her.
But Stefan Salvatore, he is a different kind of person.
No, he isn't. He also let this happen to her. He, and surely Elena, and even Bonnie. All of them knew, and no one ever told her a thing.
Elena, no, Katherine, had told her this was a message to the Salvatore brothers.
The fact that she's become this because of some twisted Elena look-alike who apparently also has history with the brothers makes her feel sick. And thirsty.
***
The belief she can do different from her dream, that she is better than that, is nothing but a fleeting and naive hope.
She still wants Matt's blood when she sees him. She'd thought she could go away, nothing else had to happen. She would not kill anyone that night.
But the man was bleeding, and suddenly the temptation was too much and she could not help herself. Before Caroline could realize it, everything was happening just like in the dream: Damon finding her and trying to kill her, Stefan and Elena stopping him, the loathing in Bonnie's eyes. Stefan takes her to the bathroom and he is saying something to her but she can't listen to him at all. She can't understand.
"I tried to stop." She cries, afraid to look at her own image in the mirror. "I tried… but I still killed him. I'm a murderer. I'm a monster!"
"Look at me, your emotions are heightened right now. It's part of the transformation." He says, still cleaning her face. "it's completely normal. I promise you. Okay?"
How can he say it's normal? Nothing about it it's normal. She sees her reflection in the mirror and sees the veins protruding around her eyes, which have turned black.
"Why does this keep happening to my face?!"
He forces her to look at him, and when she does, his face changes and looks just like hers too. They are the same now. He breathes in deeply, and she focuses on this, imitating him as she tries to stop trembling.
"You see that? When you feel the blood rushing, you tell yourself that you're going to get through it, that you're strong enough."
"Why did Katherine do this to me?"
"I don't know, I wish I did. I promise you I will not let anything happen to you. Come here. Come here."
Damon tried to kill her, but Stefan is there, holding her in an embrace and making a promise that's kind of too big to be true. She believes him.
***
And when Matt comes to see her later that night and tells her he loves her, Caroline so wishes that she could believe him.
This is all she wanted, for Matt to feel for her at least a bit of what he felt for Elena. However, the memory of her dream come back to her, and how everything else happened just exactly in the same way…
She's a vampire now, and as much as she is controlling herself at the moment, what if she hurts him later? Even if she doesn't, he's going to reject her once he finds out the truth.
"Matt…" she calls his name as he holds her in his arms, trying her best to do as Stefan taught her and control her bloodlust. "This… you must know how much I wanted you to love me." She pushes him away as softly as she can with her newfound strength. "But did you listen to yourself? You only say you love me because I almost died, and after Vicky, and everything…"
'You are the same as me, you don't want to be alone. But you don't want me.'
"Caroline, are you serious?" He frowns, clearly upset that his confession met that kind of answer.
If it was any other moment in her life, Caroline's heart would have wavered, her courage would have disappeared. That day, however, she'd found herself as a vampire, having vivid dreams ala Alice Cullen, and killed someone with her own hands - teeth - whatever.
She wasn't sure who she was going to be after this, but she was going to get through this, and no boyfriend who wasn't even in love with her would add to her troubles.
"I am." She said, trying her best to hold his gaze. "I think we need some time apart. Figure out if this is what we really want."
"You're impossible." He scoffs. "I… I'm done with you."