Christmas, in my family, meant heartbreak. When I was human, my family used to throw lavish Christmas parties and invite all of the founding families, and the majority of the town. It meant Christmas carols, and the smell of honeyed ham and peppermint and pine, sneaked kisses in the hallways between drinks of champagne and dancing. There was once in my lifetime when Christmas meant laughter and happiness, but for the last few years of my life, it meant heartbreak.

   The sound of music and laughter rang in my ears, but I paid no attention to them. What I paid attention to was the man that stood in front of me, the man whose hand's roamed up my lip and pressed himself against me as he kissed me deeply. His kisses tasted like the many glasses of champagne we had drank, his hands felt cold but warmth rose when his fingers traced my skin. I was drunk on Damon Salvatore, on the way he kissed me and the way he made me feel. 

   I pulled away from him and giggled, immediately covering my mouth with the back my hand. "We can't keep doing this," I said between giggles. "We have to get back to the party."

   "Come on, Clara," Damon grinned, pushing a strand of fallen hair behind my ear. He leaned close and kissed the side of my lips, trailing down to my neck. "I can't resist you, and you can't resist me."

   I tried to push him away, but his kisses made me weak. "Damon..." I breathed in a moan, my hand immediately going up to his neck. With my heart beating wildly against my chest, the want of Damon getting stronger, I pulled him back to my lips. The world outside that hallway faded away. I could no longer hear the clinking of glasses, the inconsequential polite conversations, the laughter, the soft music; it had all faded away. The only thing I felt was Damon's lips on mine, his hands on my skin, feel his heartbeat against my chest.

   A giggle made me pull away from Damon, a low laugh escaping my lips. "I told you we should have returned to the party!" I quietly said, trying to sneak a glance at the drunken couple that had also stumbled to the hallway.

   "We should," Damon said, his voice sounding a bit exasperated. "Let's return to the party. I'm positive that my brother wants to have a dance with you."

   "Who are they?" I tried to look over his shoulder, but he kept moving. "Do we know who they are? Is it Ellen Lockwood and Richard Maxwell?"

   "We should return to the party," he insisted, pushing me deeper into the hallway. "I  know my brother wants to share a dance with you. Trust me, he's excited to wrap his arm around your waist and lead the waltz."

   I covered my mouth and laughed, shaking my head. "Come on, Damon! I want to..." I had managed to move by him, but stopped in my tracks. The giggling couple were not Ellen and Richard, but they were someone I knew very well. Jane Barger, a woman that worked in the apothecary with Pearl, was giggling as she kissed Sheriff William Forbes, my father. He had his arms tightly around her, a smile on his lips as he kissed her back. The way he held her was the way he was supposed to hold my mother; the way he kissed her was the way he was supposed to kiss my mother.

   "Clara!" A hand waved in front of my face. I stopped to look at the owner, seeing Caroline stood with her brows furrowed. She took a step back and stared at me for several seconds. "Are you okay? You've been dozing off for a while."

   I gave her a smile and nodded. "I'm fine," I responded. "Just daydreaming."

   "About?"

    "Christmas."

   Caroline slightly pursed her lips, then let out a sigh as she shook her head. "I can't believe we can't go home for Christmas! Last year, we were all home and together and happy. It seemed that nothing could go wrong, but now..." Another sigh escaped her mouth as she wrapped her arm around mine, pulling me along the dorms. She was dragging me to her dorm room, planning to make a bag so she can sleep over in my apartment. "Now, we aren't able to go within the borders of our hometown, there's a psycho on the loose, and everyone has a broken heart. How about we just cancel half of Christmas this year?" She opened the door to her bedroom and immediately stopped.

   Liz stood in the centre of the room, boxes of Christmas decorations all around her. "What happened to Christmas being your favourite time of the year?" she asked, quickly glancing around the room before looking back at us. "Sorry, I heard you through the door. These walls are really thin."

   "What are you doing?" Caroline asked, surprise etched in her voice. "You're supposed to be at the Mystic Falls tree decorating ceremony."

   "I'm playing hookie this year." Liz shrugged her shoulders as she walked closer to us, still smiling. "I figured just because you two can't come home for the holidays doesn't mean the holidays can't come here."

   Caroline had a big grin spreading around her lips as she looked around at the boxes. "You even brought our favourite ornaments—mom!" She picked up a small homemade ornament with a picture of her as a child in the centre. When she laid it down, she went towards her mother and hugged her tight.

   Liz pulled away and she looked at me. "Don't think I've forgotten about you, Clara." She reached into a box and pulled out something small, then walked over to me and opened her hands. It was a small wooden ornament that I had brought the year before, the year she and Caroline made me decorate the tree with them. A nutcracker. It was a simple and small nutcracker ornament dressed in a red classic wear with gold accents. It wore a glittering jacket, and hung from a golden string. Just an ordinary ornament, cheap, yet so meaningful.

   "You brought this?" The question came with more surprise than I wanted to show. My voice broke, but it wasn't because of the pain, but because of happiness. I had brought the nutcracker because my mother had a similar one that she put on top of the fireplace mantle every year. The fact that Liz kept it and brought it; it made me.

   Liz let out a small laugh and nodded. "Of course I did! You're part of the family, Clara. Why wouldn't I?"

   "Hey," a new voice joined. "I, uh, didn't know which ones to get, so I got both." Stefan stood by the doorway, two different sizes of lights in his hands. His eyes went from Liz, to Caroline, to me.

   It had been days since we last spoke, weeks since we had an honest conversation. The last conversation we had was the night we took Liz to the Whitmore Hospital, the night Tripp Cook died. That night, I told him I hated him. Part of that was certainly true, because part of me did hate him. The other part of me, the one that wanted to control every cell in my body, wanted to forgive him and run to him with open arms. But, if I forgave him so easily, he would leave and come back again, because he knew I would go back to him. 

   "What are you doing here?" Caroline snapped, almost taking a protective stance in front of me. 

   "Your mom needed Christmas lights." Stefan held up the lights, multicoloured and monochrome, big and small. 

   "You have a huge dorm," Liz said with a shrug of her shoulders. "I thought we could use an extra pair of hands."

   Caroline turned and glared at her mother. It lasted for several seconds, because she sighed and turned to Stefan with a half-defeated look. "The little ones, obviously."

   Liz and Caroline moved around the room in perfect sync, laughs echoing from their lips as they hung the decorations. Even if they were in a different room decorating, they knew where the other wanted what. Although there were a few altercations with where the Christmas tree should go, and where would they hang the silver coloured garlands, and would the lights be multi-coloured or white.

   I stood by the corner, the nutcracker ornament in hand as I watched Liz and Caroline move around the room. In a moment, I would see my mother and I decorating, my siblings running around us. Frances, my eldest sister, would help my mother most. As the eldest daughter, she held a stronger relationship to our mother. She would help the most out of all of us, mostly to keep both Thomas and Abraham from breaking another piece of furniture.

   Charlotte would stand by me, giggling quietly as she told me the gossip from the town. She would speak of her friends that were tumbling around with other boys, then she would speak of the older women in town and how they ogled at the younger men or who would be divorcing, and then she would speak about a wedding for Damon and I. It was the wedding that would make her laugh more.

   "Well, you're deep in thought," someone said, bringing me out of my thoughts. 

   I turned my head to see Stefan take a stand besides me, a ball of tangled lights in his hands. A small chuckle escaped my lips as I noticed that he was trying to untangle them. "I'm just thinking," I said, turning back to look at Liz and Caroline. For a moment, I could imagine myself back in my family home, my siblings around me, my mother laughing with the servants as they helped. 

   "About?"

   "The past."

   Stefan took a step closer to me and arched a brow. "Your human past," he said, as if he were stating something. "Christmas, right?"

   I nodded. "Yeah," I breathed, glancing down at the nutcracker in my hands. "It's stupid."

   "It's not," he reassuringly said, taking another step closer to me. Our shoulders were barely touching, just inches apart. "I remember the parties your family used to throw every Christmas: the big dinner, the dancing, the alcohol. If your father wanted to be a politician, I think he would have been mayor instead of Benjamin Lockwood."

   A small laugh fell from my lips as I shook my head and glanced down at the floor. "My father sure knew how to throw a party," I said, the smile sticking to my lips. "But, he had another motive than just a party where everyone got together." My thumb played with the nutcracker, my head reeling in the memory of the night I saw my father with another woman.

   "He was cheating on her," Stefan said, quietly. 

   I turned to him in surprise. "How do you know that?"

   He let out a soft laugh and glanced down at the ball of lights in his hands. "Damon told me," he simply said. "We never mentioned it because it's an obvious reason, Clara."

   "Hmph." I took a deep breath and stared at him. Stefan always had the power to make me feel better during the worst of times, to completely overturn my mood with a few words and a dazzling smile. It made my chest ache, just to stare at him and let all those memory slowly ruin me into wanting to forgive him.

   "You know what I also remember?" he continued, the smile forming a bit wider on his lips. "Clara, I remember stealing you from Damon and making you dance."

   "That was horrible!" I shook my head, another smile forming on my lips. It was so natural how he made me smile. I hated him more for that. "I wanted to cry my eyes out but you pulled me out to the floor and made me dance."

   He let out a small laugh and shrugged his shoulders. "You wanted to cry, and you did."

   "You were making me laugh by making fun of everyone around us," I said, shaking my head in both amusement and remembrance.

   He pointed at me and nodded. "But, I did make you laugh, so."

   I realised that it was the first time in weeks that we were having a conversation. He spoke, I laughed and allowed him to bring me that small piece of happiness that I had been craving the past few weeks. I was supposed to hate him, but I allowed him to make me happy for a while. After all, it was Christmas.

   Liz walked in at that moment, carrying a tray with cups. "Who wants hot chocolate?" she asked, glancing around the room with a smile. 

   "Ooh, I could go for some hot chocolate," I said with a small smile, glancing at Caroline.

   "Me too," she said, grinning widely. "But, first, I have to hang up these lights!" She turned back to the lights.

   The sound of the cups dropping made me turn back to Liz. She was bracing herself against a chair, looking faint.

   "Mom?" Caroline questioned.

   "Liz, you okay?" I asked, staring at her in confusion.

   "Oh, wow," she said, blinking several times as if she needed to gather focus in her sight. "I just got really..." In a blink of an eye, Stefan was besides her as she collapsed. 

   "Mom!" Caroline yelled, running over to her. "Mom, are you okay?"

   Liz nodded, but she still looked out of it.

   "We should take her to the hospital," I said, staring at Liz strangely. "She doesn't look good."

   "I'm fine," she said, giving us a small and reassuring smile. 

   "You don't look fine," Caroline said, frowning. "Mom, we're taking you to the hospital, and that's final."

   Nothing had changed at the Whitemore Hospital since we had last been there. The only difference was the Christmas decorations in every corner, other than that nothing. There were still nurses and doctors rushing around, patients coming in and out the doors, the strong scent of bleach and blood.

   Liz was put in a private room while she was being examined, a nurse standing besides her and checking her pulse on the wrist. I stood by the window and stared, confusion and worry surging through me. Caroline paced back and forth, arms crossed, worry in her features. 

   "She'll be fine," I tried to reassure her. "M-maybe she forgot to eat, skipped a meal."

   Elena ran in at that moment. "What happened?" Her eyes immediately landed in the room, towards Liz. 

   "I don't know." Caroline stopped pacing and also faced the room. "She just collapsed. Once second, we're decorating, and then the next she's just on the ground. Maybe, Clara's right: she forgot to eat. You know, sometimes, she skips breakfast."

   "And when was the last time you ate?" Elena asked her. "As in, fed?"

   Caroline sighed. "Oh, God, you sound like Clara and Stefan... He just went to find something to take the edge off." She stared at her mother for a few seconds before turning and taking a seat on the bench in front of the room. "They have her sedated. She's going to be asleep for a while. Elena, can you just distract me? How's the search for the Ascendant thingy?"

   Elena took a seat besides her. "Not good. Damon and I spent the night searching."

   I decided to leave them and walk outside. The fresh air was better than the constant inhaling of the scent of blood, the constant reminder that I could kill them at any moment. In the parking lot, I took in a deep breath and composed myself. When I opened my eyes, Stefan was standing in front of a blue car with his arms crossed. 

   "How is she?" he asked as I walked closer. 

   "I don't know," I truthfully answered. "The doctor's haven't checked on her yet. For someone who fainted, I thought they would have already known what's wrong."

   A smile appeared on his face, causing a feeling to appear in my heart. I wanted to hate him so much, to the point where I couldn't stand being in front of him, but I couldn't. It was obvious that I couldn't hate him as much as I wanted to. 

   "What are you drinking?" I asked, eyeing the cup on top of the car. 

   He glanced back at it and grabbed it, pushing it towards me. "Uh, something to ease the tension," he said. "Want some?"

   "Don't mind if I do." I grabbed the cup, our fingers brushing against each others, but I quickly pulled away. That simple touch made my head spin, made me want to grin like a fool at him—forgive him. I took a sip of the cup, tasting more alcohol than coffee. 

   "Clara, when will you forgive me?" he suddenly asked. "I know I screwed up, but..." He pushed himself away from the car and stood inches away from me. "How can I make this up to you?"

   "Four months," I softly said, shaking my head. "You had four months to make it up to me, Stefan. In those four months, the only thing you needed to do was call me, or text me, or just appear in front me and I would have been yours. But, you didn't. Not only were you a bad boyfriend, but you were a terrible friend. Caroline needed you. Elena needed you. I needed you, but you just wanted to forget all of us..."

   "I know." He nodded, eyes, staring down. "I tortured myself by thinking that you would be better off without me, Clara, because all I've done was brought you pain. And, I know I can't make it better by calling you so you would be the next person to see that Damon was alive, or confessing that I would have come back for you, but..." He trailed off and stared at me, mouth slightly open. "Do you remember the night of the Mikaelson ball?"

   I shrugged my shoulders. "A bit. Why?"

   "That night, I went to you room to thank you for being there for me." He spoke slowly, as if he needed me to hear his words. "You tried to make the situation light by joking, by saying that I was confessing my love to you. I said that if I ever confessed my love, it would in no way be like that."

   I nodded. "I remember, but why are you bringing this up?"

   "Because I love you," he simply said. "Clara, I love you and I just want us to be like we were."

   Stefan tugged at my heartstrings as if he were playing a musical instrument. He made me want to grin and cry, to laugh and scream. 

   I swallowed hard and looked down, shaking my head. "The thing is we can never be like we were before," I said, my voice breaking. "You know that, too."

   We ended up walking back inside the hospital quietly. He held the cup of more alcohol than coffee tight in his hands, and I walked besides him with my arms wrapped around myself for comfort. I stopped when we were in front of Liz's room. There was a doctor with a clipboard in her hands, two nurses looking over Liz. I was too focused on Liz that I barely heard what they were saying.

   Elena arrived at that moment, taking a stand on Stefan's other side. "Caroline could really use whatever's in that cup," she joked, giving him a small smile. "Is it just me, or does that look really bad for someone who just fainted?"

   "That doctor just came over from radiology," Stefan said. I was standing next to him, but I wondered how the hell did he pick that up when I didn't. "I overheard her say glioblastoma."

   "Glioblastoma?" I repeated, quickly looking at him. "That can't be..."

   "That's..." Elena trailed off, shaking her head. "No, no, no!"

   "We brought her in a couple of weeks ago after Tripp's guys grabbed her," Stefan told her. "Doctor's ran some test, and apparently they found something suspicious."

   "No, but that doesn't make sense. Caroline would have said something."

   "I don't think she knows," I muttered, staring at Liz. "She hasn't told her yet..." I wanted to move, but my feet kept me grounded. 

   Elena sped to the doctor and stood in front of her. "What's going on with Liz Forbes?" By the sound of her voice, she was compelling the doctor.

   "Her recent MRI showed a lesion on her brainstem," the doctor said. "We think it's metastasised to her spine."

   "Can you operate?"

   "If the tumour's already spread, it would be impossible."

   "But, that would mean... Does she know?"

   "For a few weeks now," the doctor said, "but news like this takes time to digest."

   My fingers trembled on my arms, my vision was blurry, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I took a step back and took a seat on the bench inside of the room, staring at the white bleached floors. Shock racked through me like a shiver, starting at the end of my spine and rising to my mouth. I covered my mouth and shook my head, the words echoing inside of my head. 

   Glioblastoma.

   "This can't be happening," I said, voice breaking. "Liz can't... If Caroline loses her mom, it'll destroy her."

   "I know," Elena said, standing in front of me with her arms crossed. She was shocked, surprised, hurting.

   "She doesn't deserve this," I said through my tears. The many memories of Caroline passed through my head: all of the times she made me laugh, the times she pulled me out of my misery, the times she was just there for me. "She's a good person; happy and kind."

   "I know," Elena repeated, taking a seat besides me. "I should tell her. It's only a matter of time before she compels a doctor, and I don't want her finding out from a stranger."

   "Let me do it," Stefan said, standing in front of us with a solemn look on his face, arms crossed. "I should tell Caroline. I wasn't there for her when she needed me. Instead, I ran away. So, yeah, I have to do it." He took a deep breath and walked away. 

   I stared at the window that led to Liz's room, tears falling down my cheeks. I swallowed hard and shook my head. "This is going to break her," I said. "She can't die, Elena!"

   "Clara, calm down," she said, laying a hand on my shoulder. "Take deep breaths, okay?" She stared at me for a couple of seconds. "I... I didn't know you would take this so hard."

   I sniffed and leaned back on the bench as I wiped away the tears. "Liz reminds me a lot of my mom," I quietly and slowly said. "She reminds me of everything that my mom was: nice, caring, protective, would do anything and everything for us." I turned to look at Elena, seeing how she stared at me with pity.

   "You told me about your mother a long time ago," she softly said, laying a hand on my shoulder. "It was that time when Jeremy found me in a pool of my own blood and he took me to the hospital. You told me your mother died of pneumonia a few years after you did..."

   "She did," I nodded, staring back at the window that led to Liz's room. "When I was thirteen, my mother had a stillbirth, and it ruined her for a while. When I asked her why was she so sad, she said that it was because parents weren't supposed to live longer than their children. Liz once said the same thing to Caroline, and ever since then she has reminded me a lot of my mother. I think that I subconsciously been thinking of her as a surrogate mom, in a way."

   "I get it," Elena said, giving my shoulder a tight squeeze. "I think of her like that too."

   "You should call Damon," I said, forcing a small smile. "He should know..."

   "I called him earlier today," she sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Reception was horrible. You should call him, Clara. I think you need someone to talk to, and that's obviously not Stefan." She gave me a genuine tight-lipped smile. "I honestly don't know what to make you feel better, but I do know that Damon does. I may not remember loving him, but I remember that he cared a lot about you." She tapped my knee several times and stood. "I'm going to go check on Stefan and Caroline."

   I watched her walk away until she turned through a hallway, then turned to look at the window. With a sigh, I pulled my phone from my pocket. As I searched through the contacts, my phone began to buzz, Damon's number flashing on the top half of the screen. I pressed the green button and put the phone to my ear. "What's up?" I pushed away the sadness, not wanting him to hear it. 

   "Guess what?"

   I glanced down at my fingers and shrugged my shoulders. "What?"

   "It's a Christmas miracle, Clara," he breathed. I heard a door opening and closing. "We can go home?"

   I stopped moving at his words, allowing them to sink in. "Home?" I repeated. "W-what?"

   "Home," he repeated. "Mystic Falls. The boarding house. We can go home."

   "H-how?" I asked, standing.

   "Well, the psychotic witch sucked in the magic from the barrier," he explained. I could hear his steps from the other side of the phone, soft. "I just walked in through the front door, which I should start locking now that Kai's supercharged and on the prowl."

   "So, are we celebrating Christmas or not?" I asked, a genuine smile forming on my lips. "I hope you bought a tree and decorated the house."

   "I just walked in, Clara," he said. I could imagine him pursing his lips and extending his arms, both annoyed and amused.

   I played with my fingers again as I realised that I had to tell him about Liz. They were friends, and he needed to know. "Hey, I have something to tell you."

   "You too?" He sounded confused. "Elena sent me a text saying the same thing. Are you two planning on doing something?"

   I chuckled and shook my head. "No, we're not... How about I'll tell you after I get home?"

   "Home," he repeated. "Now, that's a word that sounds strange coming from you."

   Caroline had sobbed on Stefan's arms for half of the night. When I asked her if she wanted me to stay, she shook her head and insisted that she wanted to be alone. Reluctantly, I left her in the hospital. As I walked away, I kept stopping every few steps and glanced back at her. I wanted to turn, to wrap my arms around her and tell her that I would be there for her. But, she was already inside Liz's room. 

   "I should stay," I said, stopping when I was outside of the hospital. "Caroline needs me and..."

   "When Caroline wants to be alone, she won't talk to anyone," Stefan said with a sigh. "Trust me, I learned that the hard way. For now, let's go back home for a while and then we'll come back in the morning." His fingers brushed against my hand, almost as if her were going to hold my hand. He pulled away and pushed his hands into his pockets. "Come on, Clara. Let's see how the boarding house is after Matt and Jeremy have been living there."

   The moment I got in the car, I realised why it felt so familiar. "Stefan, is this Damon's car?" I asked, glancing around. "How? He blew it up!"

   "I rebuilt it," he said with a small smile forming on his lips. "I'm going to give it to him as an early Christmas present, maybe a welcome back to life present."

   The rumble of the engine was soft and comfortable, taking me back to every moment I had been in the car. It was so familiar, like a house, and it made me have a genuine smile. 

   When we were crossing the Mystic Falls border, I braced myself to feel Katherine's teeth on my neck. Nothing came. I opened my eyes and realised that the psychopathic witch had actually sucked up the anti-magic barrier, allowing us to return back home. For that single moment, and for that only thing, I was grateful to that bastard. Other than that, I hated him. Of course, I hadn't met the guy, but from what I've heard, he was a terrible man. 

   The rumble of the car must have surprised Damon, because he marched out of the house with a hint excitement in his face. "What?" he asked as Stefan turned off the car. "This was gone. I blew it up."

   Stefan took a deep breath and got out of the car. "Yeah, well, you weren't around to annoy for the last four months, so I had a bit of extra time on my hands. Think of it as an early Christmas present slash late welcome back life present." He handed the keys to his brother, and smiled. 

   Damon grabbed the keys and stared at them for a couple of seconds. He laughed and pulled his brother in for a hug. "Thank you."

   "Hey, just, uh, do us a favour." Stefan began to walk backwards inside the house. "Especially for me. Don't die again. Those fenders were a real bitch to find."

   "Deal."

   "Enough standing out here," I said as I walked past them. "We're home!"

   There was nothing different about the boarding house. The chairs were in the same place I saw them last, the tables hadn't moved, and there was a warm fire in the fireplace. It was as if the past four months hadn't happen, as if Damon never died and Stefan never left. I stopped in the centre of the room and stared at my surroundings, that small feeling of excitement passing through me. I was home. 

   "You sticking around?" Damon asked his brother. 

   Stefan had his hands on his waist, eyes showing more emotion than the rest of his eyes. "That depends," he breathed. "Might have to kill Jeremy if I find out that he slept in my bed." He tapped his brother on the chest, then walked upstairs.

   "Sorry that I couldn't get that Christmas tree," Damon said, closing the distance between us. "Last minute trees weren't that pretty."

   "Right now, I could care less about the tree," I said, still glancing around. There was a genuine smile on my lips, eating me alive as if happiness was some kind of decease. "I'm just glad that I'm... I'm glad I'm home." I knew that I shouldn't have been so happy, but I had missed that damned house.

   "Still strange to hear you say that word after hating it so much," Damon said. He laid his hands on my cheeks and kissed my forehead. "Merry Christmas, Clara. Your present is in your bedroom." He pulled away and gave me a smile. "I, on the other hand, have to get dinner ready. Elena's coming over."

   I brushed my hand through the banister as I walked upstairs, almost as if I were trying to memorise everything about it. A few of the steps were still creaky, the lights were still dim, and the smell of the wood was still strong. It felt good to realise that this had not changed, that this house was still the same and would hopefully always be the same. 

   I opened the door to my bedroom and stopped. "W-what is this?" 

   Stefan stood in front of my bed, a bouquet of flowers in his hands and small smile on his lips. "It's your Christmas present." He walked over to me and handed me the flowers. "Every Christmas, Damon and I would get you a bouquet of flowers—tulips and dahlias. Why would we break something that we did every year, huh?"

   I let out a soft chuckle and shook my head. "How long have you been waiting here?" I pulled the flowers up to my nose and inhaled. It was the subtle fruity scent of the tulips, the nothingness from the dahlias. The tips of the petals felt soft against my cheeks, making me smile to myself. It reminded me so much of his touch, of when he laid his hand on my cheek. 

   Stefan scratched the back of his head and let out a soft chuckle. "Not that long," he nodded. "I actually bought the flowers this morning, which is why they're a bit wilted."

   "Thank you." There was a genuine smile on my lips, one that only appeared when we arrived at the boarding house. My chest felt warm, so did my cheeks, and I wanted nothing more but to pull him to me and kiss him.

   Stefan nodded and took a deep breath. "Merry Christmas, Clara." He stood in front of me for several seconds, just staring. For a moment, I hoped he would lean in and kiss me. Instead, he smiled at me, then walked away. Christmas, for my family, meant heartbreak.

a/n: so far, y'all been voting for everyone and that's not really helping bc there's damon and stefan and klaus and alaric???? i mean, alaric???