Don't Hold This War Inside

Tonight brought a dream of Jasper with it.

He was running with two other people, running like his entire being depended on it. Caroline woke up just as they had stopped running.

She shot up in her bed, taking in deep, unnecessary breaths to steady herself, one hand steadied over her broken heart.

She didn't understand how she could still sleep as a vampire. She assumed that maybe she only went to sleep when she was about to have a dream.

"Are you alright?" a voice asked from the armchair in the corner of the room. Aro's voice.

"Fine, thank you. Another dream." she whispered hoarsely to herself.

Aro nodded.

He got up from his occupied space and came to sit in the bed next to her. "Was it about him?" he asked.

She nodded slowly before turning to Aro.

"I am unsure that I will ever begin to move on from him."

It was a sad truth she faced every single day of her miserable existence.

"You could kill me, you know. I would no longer have to go through this every single day." She whispered, more to myself than anything else.

"I will do no such thing, Caroline. You know, if there was a way to make you forget it all, to take away your pain, I would do it in a heart beat. But the one thing I shall not do is kill you." Aro declared with authority.

In the last twenty years, Aro had become her best friend, whom she confided any and everything with.

Caroline tugged at her lips quietly, not knowing what to say. After all, it wasn't the first time she had suggested this to Aro.

"Perhaps I shall go visit Carlisle. I have been meaning to speak with him for quite some time now." Caroline suggested to herself.

Aro didn't say anything as she got up and left the room.

Jasper, Peter, and Charlotte had done it. They had finally killed Maria. Her sisters had run off to Canada to start their own coven, human-free diet, they had said.

Unfortunately, they'd had to kill all the newborns because they were simply too wild.

They continued running for hours and hours, a blur to the rest of the world.

"Stop." Peter said abruptly.

All three stopped, their feet skidding across the dirt lightly.

"What's the matter?" Jasper asked, adrenaline still flowing through his veins.

"We can settle here." Peter answered, certainty in his voice.

"And where precisely is here?" Charlotte asked, looking at Peter with slight concern.

"Lisbon, Montana. Population: 947 people." Peter stated proudly.

"It will do for now. But this town will be too small and we will have to move on eventually, you know." Jasper piped up.

"I understand, but for now, this seems like a good place." Peter replied.

Charlotte nodded along with him. She and Peter were "together" if you wanted to call it that.

She knew Peter would never do anything to put them in danger and trusted his decision that Lisbon, Montana was the right place for them to be at the moment.

"Fine," Jasper answered. "This will be fine."

Caroline's feet were silent as she padded down the corridor, her feet brushing gently against the age old white marble.

Carlisle's room was at the end of the hallway. she could have been there in seconds, but she didn't feel much like running at the moment.

Her small hands knocked gingerly against the large oak door that led to his room.

"Come in." Carlisle said, his voice slightly muffled behind the door.

Caroline pushed the door open and closed it softly behind her. "Hello." she replied quietly.

Carlisle was sitting at his desk, reading. He put the book down and marked his page. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No. Yes. Possibly."

Carlisle knew then something might have been wrong. He watched her as she crawled under the blankets on his bed.

"Forgive me for not asking to lie here." she mumbled, pulling the blanket sup to her chin.

Carlisle blew out the candle on his desk and crawled next to her on the bed, sitting on top of the blankets to respect her body.

"I don't mind you under the blankets, Carlisle. Ever the gentleman, you are." she said softly, so soft that Carlisle almost hadn't heard her.

Heeding her words, he lifted the blankets and sat underneath them, his back pressed against the headboard.

"What is wrong, Caroline?" he asked.

"I am a fool, you know, to love someone who left me for another, to love someone whom I no longer know whether or not they are dead or alive. A fool indeed." she answered.

Carlisle could hear the cracks in her voice and knew that if she were human, she would be crying right this moment.

"Caroline,---"

"What did I do wrong, Carlisle? What mistake did I make to deserve this? I loved him with every single part of me and now....there is nothing left." she said, cutting him off.

Carlisle could feel his heart breaking for the woman in front of him.

He didn't know what he could have possibly said that would make everything better, because there were no words that could heal a broken heart.

He knew that part of Caroline's sadness was the fact that she could not tell dreams from reality, therefore there was no way for her to tell if Jasper was still alive or not, if he had truly gone to fight in the Civil War or had he just left her for another woman.

But the saddest part of it all was that she had to live with this pain everyday for the rest of her existence.

Somehow, he could only think of one solution, one action that might heal her somewhat.

Carlisle bent down and slowly kissed Caroline's cheek.

She rolled over on her back, staring up at Carlisle with confused yet sad eyes. And that was all it took to make him kiss her again, this time on her lips.

He expected her to throw him off, push her away.

But she didn't. She did not react at all. And just when Carlisle thought he had made a giant mistake, she gave in and kissed him back.

There was no absolution nor certainty in the way they kissed, only heat of the moment with no caution for the consequences or trials of tomorrow.