A/N: The epilogue to my five-times prompt! Yay! I originally wrote this after I wrote part one...and had to tie in everything else to fit in with this as best I could. It's badly written, in my opinion, and messy, but if you people are masochists you can read it. (If you're that masochistic you can also review! *happy face*)

Disclaimer: If I owned VD, I would not be posting a five-times story for an old friend on a fan fiction website.

epilogue

She returns to Mystic Falls a year and a half later, struggling with a blood problem. But she's got enough of a handle on it that she can behave normally around regular good old human people. It's only when she's alone with the blood that she goes a bit…well, animal-like.

She has changed. Broken her promise to Damon, and to everybody else.

Stefan finds her first, drinking her fifth bourbon of the night (what can she say, Damon influences everybody's drinking habits, and nearly two years in Chicago just don't change that) in the Grille, and he has a couple of harsh words for her—mostly for leaving him with just a note.

"I thought we were best friends, Caroline."

She chokes slightly on her sip of alcohol, but doesn't let it show as she swallows the burning sensation down with the pleasant buzz. "I did, too." She sighs, and the alcohol's got enough of a grip on her that she'll tell him the truth about her feelings. "I'm sorry. I just—I didn't want you to be disappointed in me anymore."

Biting back a bittersweet smile, he looks down at her, sitting on her barstool, and says, "I'm sorry too. For letting you think that I ever was."

Maybe she's drunk and imagining this whole thing.

But they hug and it sure feels real enough and he sends her to the boardinghouse to talk to Damon because he has date night with Elena in twenty minutes and he doesn't want a "mushy girly reunion" taking up all his romance time. (Perhaps he's been spending too much time with Damon? He's certainly picked up on the moody-bastard vocabulary.)

She obediently finds herself at the boardinghouse, but this time she doesn't wait for an invitation. She just walks right in, and almost immediately finds him in the living room where she last left him (like time stopped, like things never changed, like she doesn't want that blood bag in his hand more than ever), refilling his bourbon while also swallowing down a pint of AB positive.

"Want some blood-and-bourbon ice cream?" he asks her, his back still turned to her (he shouldn't even know she's there, dammit, but it's Damon so of course he knows), blasé and acting unfazed. (He obviously is by her presence, but she doesn't deny him the nonchalance he so desperately needs to pretend to have.)

"What?" she says, mostly shocked. (And somehow not, because, hello, it's Damon. The man who never lets himself feel if he can help it.)

"I've found it helps with the cravings," he says. "And you sure seem to be having a lot of them. I checked up on you in Chicago every so often, you know." He still hasn't faced her yet, as he takes a drink of his newly-refilled bourbon glass. "Damn. You sure didn't keep your promise, Barbie."

"Yeah," she finds herself saying, and it's like an out-of-body experience. She didn't know that seeing him again would be this…strange. There's really no word for it. Like she'd disconnected from her mind and body and vocal cords. And she can't say anything articulate to save her own skin.

Finally, he turns to her, and the next thing she knows, they're eye-to-eye, close enough to kiss if she just barely leaned forward a couple of inches. Damn vampire speed.

"You know, you and I both have a pretty bad track record with promises," he says, looking into her eyes. Not soulfully, not deeply, not sadly or madly or evilly or even hard and angrily. Just passionately. They're both two very passionate people, whether it's in love or hate or even self-hatred. They have a large supply of all three inside of them, and the stock never runs empty no matter what. Except maybe for the third one when they're around each other, when things dissipate and melt and become less important and they forget their reasons to hate themselves. (They have a way of making each other feel better that neither of them understands.)

"Yeah. So?" She tries not to sound like she's holding her breath, like she can't even dare to show her true self to him for fear of rejection or maybe just repeating her mistakes. Letting him use her and abuse her and leave her and maybe even kill her this time after all where he failed the first (and second, and third) times.

(But she's a vampire and she can take care of herself now. So she tells the scared little human who shares the memories inside of her to stop being so frightened. She'll handle this.)

"So let's not make any promises," he says. "Let's…let's make a vow."

"Same thing," she rolls her eyes, and just like that, her nonstop cravings are just…gone.

(Maybe she was just…replacing Damon with blood or something? No, no, even her subconscious couldn't be that cheesy, not to mention stupid.)

"No," he replies, thinking it out loud. "A promise…a promise is easily broken. It isn't meant to be, but it is. People make promises all the time. They promise to make breakfast or show up to a wedding, but it easily gets pushed away and replaced by something else, something we see as more important at the time. New promises replace the old ones so fast that it's like they were never there. A vow is sacred—it's everlasting. Vows don't end, they never just stop. You break a vow and you violate trust. You break a promise and you're the average person.

"So let's make a vow."

"Let's," she agrees, maybe because she's half-drunk and she misses this easiness between her and people in general. (Not that Damon should ever be involved with the words "in general" in the same sentence, ever again.)

He pauses, takes a deep breath. Looks a little scared, which she's never seen on his face before. It's a new look, and it's almost nice to know that there are parts of him that he'll show to her that other people have never seen, and will never see, either.

"I vow to not let you break quite so many promises in exchange that you make me do the same. I vow to take you shopping once a month until you kill my wallet, and once a year until you drop. I vow to let you listen to stupid bands on the radio and only hiss if they really suck, if you vow to let me listen on weekends to my music. I vow to write you songs on important dates, depending on what we both view as important dates, as long as you don't tell anybody else, ever, and believe me, I will know if you do tell. I vow not to let Elena or anyone else's opinion get to me, concerning you. And I vow to maybe one day go to the next level."

His voice is soft and quiet and unlike anything she's ever expected from him. He's never been quite so gentle and raw with her—even when she was human and he must have thought he could just compel those moments of softness away, he didn't show her this vulnerability—and she likes this about him. So she decides to go while it's her turn, before he stops it and pretends it was just some drunken rant (and not really defenseless exposure) and makes her swear to forget about all of this. (Another promise she'd have to break, because it's nearly impossible to forget Damon Salvatore unless you're human and stupid, especially when he's being all adorably vulnerable like this—and when she did start calling Damon adorable and fucking shit like that?)

"I vow to keep you from breaking the really important promises if you'll do the same for me," she flashes a grin at him. "I vow to not steal your bourbon anymore, unless you let me with your permission." He raises an eyebrow at this, slightly disturbed by the anymore, but says nothing. "I vow to let you listen to your super depressing music on the weekends if you'll read Gone with the Wind to me during it. Maybe a chapter a night or something, I don't know. Anyway. I vow to make you breakfast on important dates, depending on what we both view as important dates. I vow to not get jealous when some hot woman drapes herself all over you, unless you start responding and I, like, totally have the right. And I vow to maybe one day go to the next level with you, too."

(God, she sounds like she's seventeen again, and maybe he likes that, because she can see that he's fighting that irresistible half-smile that all of her crushes have always seemed to have—and him most especially. And damn if that doesn't make her melt a little bit inside.)

"We need a witness," he says, and she could swear that his eyes have gone impossibly soft with every word that she's said. Oh my God. It almost looks like he's showing his feelings. Oh, sweet Jesus, this may be a smaller sign of the upcoming apocalypse. He takes a sip of his bourbon, his eyes never leaving hers.

She presses herself up against him and tastes the bourbon on his lips. Then she licks the spot above his upper lip, catching the last remaining sensation of the feeling of cold ice and the rim of a glass. "Let's be each other's witnesses, okay? I don't have the energy to find someone, bring them here, repeat everything, and then kick them out so that we can have mad wild animal sex."

"Mad wild vampire sex," he corrects. "It's ten times as fun, and fifty times as satisfying. And you were great when you were human, I can't even think about now…" His eyes go down her body, her waist, her legs, and then they come back up, unbearably and wonderfully slowly, checking her out like it's the first time all over again. It's been the longest time since someone's looked at her like that—someone that she really trusts, anyway, that wasn't compelled. (And oh God, she trusts Damon now? When did that come about?) "Oh, how I joyfully anticipate." He grins. "You're right, let's not wait. I can't. I am a willing witness."

"Me, too," she breathes.

And he crushes his lips to hers, lifts her up until she wraps her legs around his waist, and he wanders over to the couch until they both collapse onto it. Every bit of it she tries to memorize.

She's not going to break this vow.

A/N: So, I ended it all sappy. Didn't mean to. Certainly wanted to, but I didn't mean to. Mostly because my friend likes angsty fics. Oh well. Anyway, you guys got 11,000 words out of this, total, so at least someone may have sort of profited (my sleeping habits did not).

Um. So, I have like fifteen projects (some fic-wise and some not) that are all completely unrelated to this and why do I keep starting these new things?

Oh, well, at least this one's just a one-shot. An incredibly seriously long one-shot. Seriously. What is wrong with me?

Like I said, this was a pretty terrible one, but I'd love to hear your constructive criticism and, dare I hope for it, the things you actually liked about it.

BTW, I'm tentatively...extremely hesitant here, I'm telling you...thinking about venturing into the realm of the Avengers. Mostly because I love Ironman and Captain America. And pretty much every single character. As usual, it would prob be a romance - because let's face it, Maria Hill and the Cap had some serious eye sex going on in the last movie. Let's all just admit it. Feedback? Encouragement, a resounding no, what?

OH. OH YES. I ALMOST FORGOT. I am writing a steamy White Collar fic right now. I'm not really sure if I dare to post it on here or not when (if?) I'm finished with it. (I don't know if I can finish anything anymore, which deeply scares me.) It's, um, pretty much the M-est thing I've ever even considered writing. Honestly. I'm ashamed. I'm blushing here at some of the things I'm thinking about. I'll probably cut out half of it and end up just posting the T parts, if I can help it. Anyway. Thoughts on this?

Review? Criticize, comment, question, advise, tell me your favorite parts, anything! I love you all!