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One. Our Town
It was cold.
Caroline couldn't remember the last time she had felt so cold. It was probably at some point before she had been turned, back when things such as the change in temperature really affected her. But still she couldn't remember ever feeling so cold, even back then.
"How are you feeling?"
The world seemed cloudy at the edges, as though Caroline were looking at it through some sort of cloud. She didn't answer her mother's question immediately, as Liz walked across the room. She seemed to come more in focus as she got closer, and by the time she sat on the edge of her bed, Caroline finally understood what it was that had been asked.
"I'm okay," she said, trying to smile. But the way Liz's brow furrowed told her she was probably failing at convincing her mother that she was doing anything other than dying. Which she was. So instead of trying to soothe any further, she reached out to squeeze Liz's hand. Her grip was weak, but she managed. "You shouldn't be in here."
"I'm not going to let you die alone," Liz replied, her voice breaking when she said the word die. Caroline felt her throat tighten, because this wasn't how any of this was supposed to happen. Liz shouldn't be outliving her; that shouldn't have happened in general, but particularly not once Caroline became a vampire. Caroline didn't realize she'd begun to squeeze Liz's hand harder until her mom winced, and Caroline recoiled.
"You shouldn't be here," she said again, cradling her hand against her chest, her gaze focused on Liz's hand, her fingers already beginning to bruise. "I'm going to hallucinate. And..."
I don't want to kill you is what she should say, but Caroline can't quite bring herself to say the words. So she rolls onto her side, her back to Liz, and squeezes her eyes shut. She barely keeps from putting her hands over her ears, as if by blocking her sight and her hearing, somehow the whole situation will disappear. She won't have possibly broken her mother's fingers. She won't be dying.
She won't be dying because of her boyfriend.
But she doesn't put her hands over her ears. She can't see, but she does hear Liz leave the room. And she hears when the doorbell rings. Hears the accent and the deal with the devil her mother makes, and when he enters the room, she's manged to roll onto her back once more.
"Are you going to kill me?" she asked him, hating that her voice sounded small. But she felt small. Small and scared, and she was dying.
"On your birthday? You really think that low of me?"
He didn't seem like the devil, standing there. In another life, she would have thought he was attractive, even. But in that moment, he was just the guy that was behind her death, and for a brief second, she forget her fear, long enough to answer with a strength that would leave her immediately after.
"Yes."
She knew that they continued to talk, that there was something in there about how old he was. But the world was beginning to fuzz at the edges, and at times, Caroline thought she might already be dead. But then he leaned in towards her, and the intensity in his eyes... suddenly, everything was crystal clear.
"And I could let you. Die. If that's what you want. If you really believe your existence has no meaning. I've thought about it myself, once or twice over the centuries, truth be told. But I'll let you in on a little secret." He leaned in, just a little bit closer, and when Caroline's breath caught, it wasn't entirely because of the bite burning on her neck. He might be the Devil, but there was something magnetic about him. "There's a whole world out there waiting for you. Great cities and art, and music. Genuine beauty. And you can have all of it. You can have a thousand more birthdays. All you have to do is ask."
She should snap at him. She should spit in the face of his offer. But something about the moment, about the way he looked at her, made it impossible for her to lie. So, for the first time since Tyler had bit her, and she'd been trying to stay positive... she said the words she'd been swallowing back.
"I don't want to die."
When his blood hit her tongue, it tasted sweeter than anything she'd ever had before. And when he stroked her hair... she felt comfort that she shouldn't. That she would never admit to feeling if anyone asked.
But in that moment, she felt comforted.
Two. Into the Wild
She felt betrayed.
Not because Tyler had left her there, with the man that had bit her. The man that had killed her. Maybe she should have felt betrayed by that, that she was being left to save herself... but they weren't idiots. She was her own best chance.
But she wasn't sure she could get out of her own way long enough to take that chance.
Because she felt betrayed.
Klaus was... he was evil. Hadn't everyone said that over and over? So maybe that made Caroline the idiot. The idiot for snapping at him, for egging him on, but part of her had trusted him. Had believed in him enough to think - to hope - that while he might destroy everyone else, he would always draw the line at her.
And now, she was dying. Because her trust had been misplaced.
"If you don't feed me your blood, I'll die." There. That was easy enough to say. It was just blunt truth. Maybe that was all it would take, and she wouldn't have to think about him anymore.
He glared at her from the doorway, arms crossed, his expression tight. It could have been caused by petulance. She liked to believe it might be regret, but she'd already believed in him once.
And he'd chosen to kill her.
"Then you'll die, and Tyler will have learned his lesson the hard way." He spoke, but he didn't look at her, staring instead across the room from him. She stared at him, silently willing him to turn his head. If she was going to die because of him, he could at least give her the dignity of acknowledging what he had done.
He could at least watch the results of his action.
"How could you do this to him? To his mom? To me?" And it was the last one that she meant the most. If she were truthful, the fact that he'd hurt Tyler? Even that he'd killed Carol? Not all that surprising in the long run. Klaus took betrayal poorly, and he viewed what Tyler had done as betrayal because he had such a crappy, messed up version of what loyalty was, and who deserved it. But... maybe she did, too.
After all, she'd been dumb enough to think he cared, hadn't she?
"I'm a thousand years old. Call it boredom." And still he refused to look at her, though somehow his jaw seemed to, impossibly tighten even more. Not petulance. Caroline felt she understood his character well enough to know this.
It was regret.
"I don't believe you." Her voice was soft, and it was said as a challenge. She meant it as a challenge.
"Fine. Then maybe it's because I'm pure evil and I can't help myself," he replied, still in that voice that seemed somewhat disengaged, even as he continued to refuse to look at her, as if he couldn't bear the sight.
And was she still stupid, that she hoped that meant he couldn't stand to see what he had done, because he regretted hurting her? And oh God, was she really going to be that kind of idiot?
She needed to just get him to save her. Savehersavehersaveher. Maybe if she repeated it like a mantra, she could convince herself that's all this was. Manipulating him into her helping her. That the only reason she felt pain was because of the bite, and not because he had been the one that bit her.
"No. It's because you're hurt. Which means there is a part of you that is human."
Saying that made her think of the Miss Mystic pageant, and his story about the hummingbird. She'd looked at him and seen to the heart of who he was. She was sure of it. That man that had teased her with her Miss Mystic application and the man that still couldn't look at her... they were still the same man, and that man was more than just a monster.
Savehersavehersaveher... that was it. She didn't need to think flowery thoughts of redemption. She just needed to be saved, and then she needed to be out.
"How could you possibly think that?" Finally, he looked at her. Took steps towards her. He wasn't all the way there, but their eyes finally met, and she could see the emotion in his, and she knew she'd been right. That was regret.
Well, they both regretted a lot then, didn't they?
"Because I've seen it. Because I've caught myself wishing that I could forget all the horrible things that you've done." She hadn't meant to say it, that last part - she'd meant to leave it at having seen it. But Klaus seemed to wrench the truth from her in ways no one else could, and the world was blurring and turning dark at the edges. So the words came out before she could stop them, and hung in the air.
"But you can't, can you?"
Distance again, but Caroline had already started to put the truth out there, right? So she might as well throw all her cards on the table and see where they would lie, and then deal with the aftermath.
Or not deal with it, if she was dead.
God, she might still end up dead.
"I know that you're in love with me. And anybody capable of love, is capable of being saved."
Silence fell heavy between them, and Caroline felt her eyes begin to drift shut. Was that her dad in the corner? It sort of looked like him. Maybe he was here to take her, wherever they went after death. Except he hadn't chosen to become a vampire, had he?
She wouldn't get to see her parents again. That wasn't something she'd thought about before, but it hit her now. Vampires didn't go to the same place humans did. She'd never get to say anything to him again.
"You're hallucinating." She managed to open her eyes and look at Klaus for a moment. Had she forgotten he was there? That seemed like an odd thing to forget. But she could barely keep her eyes open anymore, and her dad... she thought he'd moved a bit closer. But still, she needed to look at Klaus for just this one last moment. She was sad and pathetic, but she wanted to remember his expression.
Maybe it would give her comfort, once she was dead. To know that he was suffering too.
"I guess I'll never know..."
She didn't know what she'd never know, but that's what came out, and then she just... drifted.
She felt as if she were floating. Was this the afterworld? Just floating in nothingness, something sweet and familiar coating her tongue and throat. It could be okay. Even the pain was going away now.
And somewhere through the fog, she heard him say her voice, and yeah... maybe this would be okay.
3. Graduation
Klaus had just turned his phone back on when it began to beep incessantly. He raised a brow, seeing the various missed calls and texts from Caroline. As much as he would like to believe she'd been reaching out to say she'd missed him, he wasn't quite so caught up in his own charms as to be that foolish. She still needed time, preferably away from this small town and her foolish friends, before she would make a decision in his favor.
Luckily for them both, he had nothing but time to give to her. Until she made that final step towards him, he would amuse himself in New Orleans with Marcellus and let her lead her life.
He hoped she would appreciate the graduation gift he was prepared to give her, even though it made him want to seethe with jealousy. But part of living her life meant growing out of her relationship with Lockwood. It had already begun to happen, but without time with the boy she would turn him into a martyr in her mind.
He lifted the phone to his ear, to listen to the message she had left him, and felt himself grin, even as he sighed.
Of course Damon Salvatore would get himself bit by a werewolf and need his assistance.
Well, Caroline could consider it another gift.
But if the veil really had opened between their world and the next, he wasn't going to spend his time playing errand boy. He had plenty of enemies that might view Caroline as a weakness - and they would rue the day they failed to realize that having such a weakness made him infinitely more dangerous - so he would find her first, and Damon could be saved later.
He had never thought himself the knight in shining armor type, but he did have to admit... the look on her face when he appeared to save them all from some very angry witches who should be dead - it was almost enough to make him contemplate taking up do-gooder status.
Sadly, that didn't last all that long.
"We need-"
"My blood," Klaus cut her off before he could finish, already looking around for something to use as a container. For Caroline, he would give a donation. But not even for her would he allow Damon Salvatore's mouth anywhere near his body. It was the Doppelganger, who held out a water bottle, and the Quarterback of all people, that offered him a knife. "Well, look at that. I'm sure this makes you very prepared for your inevitably horrifying and bloody death."
"Klaus," Caroline hissed, smile replaced by a narrow-eyed glare. But Klaus just smirked at her, because he knew her well enough now, to know when she was truly angry. And in this case, the anger was all for show.
"For you," he said, offering her the bottle once he'd poured some of his blood into her. For a second, she hesitated. He wondered if she was thinking about the other times he had given her his blood. If she recalled that this was the first time it came without pain to her. Perhaps he might be capable of feeling just the slightest inklings of guilt. But only for her.
The bottle had barely passed from his hand to hers, before Stefan had it away from her and had taken off, Elena at his heels.
"Thank-you," Caroline said, and it might have been a moment, if not for the fact that she was called away to take care of something. Because of course Caroline was the one in charge of the entire day.
So they didn't get that moment, not until later, when he found her cleaning up, and the ghosts had been returned to his other side. Including Kol, though Klaus had plans to reverse that in the near future. He wouldn't tell Caroline of them yet, however.
Instead, he offered her Tyler Lockwood's freedom and kissed her cheek with a promise of eternity. And never in his thousand years of life had he ever found anything so hard as walking away from her, with no return promise that she wanted to spend her eternity with him.
+ One. Where We Say Fuck Canon
New Orleans was both exactly and nothing at all like Caroline had expected.
It had the energy she thought it would, the atmosphere. She swore she could feel eyes watching her from empty windows, and wondered if the buildings she passed really were haunted, or if it was just her imagination running away with her. During her college years, when she'd found herself regretting some of her choices and wondering about the world outside her little group of friends she could never bear to leave... she'd read about the city and it's ghosts and she had imagined she would feel just like this.
It was nothing like she'd expected, because in all her imaginations, she'd never been here alone. Even after she'd made him promise to never return to her, she'd always imagined that, someday, she might return to him instead. Show up in this city and play his voicemail and demand a tour.
In all those dreams she'd had of this place, she had never been alone.
It was odd, to stand on Bourbon Street and have no one at her side. Even when she'd been a teenager thinking that no one loved her, she had never been alone in this way. Most of the ones she'd left behind in Mystic Falls had no idea where she was. Only Bonnie and Enzo, who had both offered to accompany her... but this was something Caroline needed to do herself.
It was the first step towards her eternity, and she would never embrace it fully if she was still dragging her past right behind her.
So now, here she was, apparently five years later than she should be - but she'd just gotten a text from Rebekah of all people a week ago, so she hadn't realized there was an issue going back five years.
Nik's been trapped under New Orleans half a decade. Do something about it, won't you?
For the first time ever, Caroline had been able to respond with "new phone, who 'dis?" only for Rebekah to call her and rant at her for almost an hour, asking how she dare forget about her. Caroline hadn't, of course, but she had forgotten Rebekah's number as soon as she'd been able too. After all, she hadn't been the one with the poison healing blood and promises of forever. Caroline hadn't really expected to ever need the other woman's phone number again, like, ever.
But after the lecture, she'd managed to get the entire story out of Rebekah. The story of how her brother had sacrificed his own life - which, what? - so that his siblings could get away from Rebekah's ex, who also happened to be Klaus' adopted son, who was now even more powerful than the Original Hybrid himself thanks to some witchy woo-woo.
Yeah, it was a whole thing. And apparently the Mikaelson family's relationships with each other were even more messed up than Caroline had ever realized.
So, Caroline had decided to ride into New Orleans and play the role of super heroine, while leaving Elena and her Salvatore brothers in the dark. It's not like they were expecting to hear from her after all, since that whole awkward her and Stefan almost being a thing, thing. It had been a time in her life when she made multiple poor decisions. She regretted basically all of them and would like to forget about everyone they involved except Enzo and Bonnie, thank-you very much.
And it was stupid, really, that even here, in a city she had never been before, the past constantly hounded her steps.
She didn't want the past anymore. She wanted the future. She wanted the future Klaus Mikaelson had promised her under the stars on the night of her graduation, sealed with a kiss on her cheek that she'd never been able to forget. Even more than their one afternoon in the woods outside her hometown, it was that kiss that she remembered.
The sex had been a good-bye.
But that kiss... that kiss, placed so softly against her cheek. That kiss that still burned her skin, left her able to feel his lips as clearly as if it had happened just yesterday - that kiss had been an oath that they would someday have forever together.
And she still wasn't sure if she was entirely ready to cash in on that oath, but it would never happen if he remained buried in the basement of some dusty old building because he hadn't been able to get out of his own way long enough to make peace with a boy he had, apparently, raised.
That had been a surprise. And, okay, Rebekah hadn't exactly said the whole thing was Klaus' fault. She'd actually painted him out to be rather heroic, all things considered. But she'd left him there for five years, and Caroline felt she was familiar enough with Klaus' worst habits that she could safely assume it was, somehow, all his fault. That he had actually taken one for Team Mikaelson so his family could get away?
That showed some growth. And after a thousand years, growth was actually kind of impressive.
Caroline shook her head, because being distracted right now wasn't a thing she should be. The amulet around her neck that made her invisible to the supernatural had a time limit, and she had activated it once she'd figured out exactly what address she needed to get to. One hour. That's how long she had, according to Bonnie. Rebekah had warned her that Klaus' enemies included some witches that were pretty powerful in their own right, but a follow up call from Kol, remarkably alive, had assured her that those witches had nothing on a Bennett Witch.
Hopefully he wasn't being bitter and spiteful, because if it turned out that Bonnie's spell wasn't good enough... well, dead wasn't a look that would suit Caroline, so she just wouldn't consider the possibility.
It was weird, to walk right by vampires and have them look right through her. It would have been the worst nightmare of seventeen year old Caroline, who had felt invisible without it being literal. Now she was just kind of glad. There were a lot of vampires, and while Caroline had taken on some stupid odds in her life, she'd always done it under duress and never alone.
She had to wait a little longer than she wanted, for someone to let her into the house, and she got slightly turned around at one point before finding the entrance. The dungeon below the Abattoir.
It was dark and gross and very much looked like it belonged in a scene from Nosferatu. But no one seemed to notice that she had entered. The whole place was eerily silent until Caroline finally found Klaus, shackled to the wall and looking completely terrible.
"Well, you've seen better days."
Klaus' head shot up, and he looked around with wild eyes, his fangs bared.
"Caroline?" he asked the air. "Come to haunt me again? I thought I told you to sod off."
Caroline found herself blinking in surprise, and she quirked her head. Her fingers hovered over the ring she wore on her pinky, the one that Bonnie had spelled. She knew she had limited time; only about twenty minutes before the spell faded. But she had to take the moment, to just look at him.
Wild, she thought again. That really was the best way to describe him. His hair, his eyes, his expression. Everything about him was wild, and for a moment fear clutched her throat, and she thought about turning around. Just walking out, not endangering everyone. Because he was dangerous. He was more than dangerous. Klaus was dangerous when he was sane; without the sanity? Caroline wasn't sure he would leave anyone alive, including her.
"I lied," he murmured, before she made any decisions, clutching his head. "Speak to me again, Love."
She pulled off the ring and let it drop to the ground. When Klaus' head snapped up again, those wild eyes landing on her, she didn't feel endangered anymore. Klaus wasn't looking at her like he wanted her dead.
He was looking at her like a parched man seeing water.
"You know, I kind of always hoped you might do something decent," she said, kneeling at his side. When he just continued to stare at her, she lifted her hand. After another moment of hesitation, she stroked his cheek, and then ran her fingers up to his hair, pushing the strands out of his hair. "Of course, sacrificing your freedom for an indefinite period of time wasn't what I really was thinking of. Maybe just letting your sister date someone without trying to kill them would have been a good step."
"Caroline?" he whispered, raising his hand to grasp at her wrist. It came up just short, however, the chain not quite letting him reach her. "You... you can't be here. You're a hallucination. You love to haunt me."
"Really?" she asked, hand cradling his jaw. "I come all this way and you accuse me of being a hallucination. Rude."
He stared at her, and slowly the beast faded from his eyes, until they were blue and normal and staring at her with shock.
"You can't be here, Love. He'll kill you, and I can't save you."
"By him do you mean your adopted son? Because really, Klaus, your family? Makes mine look normal, and my father literally tried to torture the vampire out of me." She moved away from him a bit to test the chains that held him. They were spelled not to break against supernatural strength, of course. Normal chains would never hold Klaus Mikaelson in place.
But Caroline had learned a thing or two over the years, and she pulled a bobbie pin out of her hair, carefully bending it in the exact ways she and Enzo had learned, when she had sat down with him and googled directions for picking locks, so that he'd have a way to escape a cage besides brute strength.
The chains might be protected against being broken... but they were still susceptible to good old fashioned lock picking. Enzo had picked it up easier, but Caroline's competitive nature meant she hadn't been able to give up until she was damn good at it herself, and in just a few minutes, the chains fell from him.
"Can you stand?" she asked him, as he shook his limbs, staring at the way he was suddenly free.
"You can't be here," he said again. "Leave. I'll tear my way out if I must."
Caroline checked her watch. Ten minutes left, and the ring wouldn't protect them both. She let out a slow breath and contemplated the area. There wasn't anything that screamed "I'll help you escape!"
"Well, we're doing this," she muttered, and before she could think twice, she bit into her wrist, in the way Klaus had so many years ago, and then cradled his back, pressing the bloody cut to his lips.
She thought he might refuse at first, but for once she was stronger than him, and way more stubborn. So in just a few seconds, he was pulling blood from the wound, making Caroline wince. But she still stroked his hair, the same way she remembered him doing. Not that she remembered much about the second time... but she could make some assumptions.
"Why are you here?" he asked, after letting her wrist go and pulling back from her. His color was already better, and Caroline cleaned her already healing wrist on her jeans, wrinkling her nose at the fact that the whole thing wasn't sanitary at all.
"Really? Not a thank-you, or a hello? Or a solid plan for getting out of here, because I honestly don't really have one, and being killed by the Uber You is not a thing I want."
Caroline was already moving away, looking for an escape, when Klaus grabbed her hand and spun her around. She found herself pulled into a sudden hug that had her freezing for a moment, before slowly wrapping her arms around him. He... was a surprisingly good hugger. And was already warm again, even though he'd been cold and clammy before she'd fed him her blood.
"Thank-you, Caroline," he murmured, his voice and breath warm against her ear.
"I... your welcome."
"And there's another way out this way."
Still holding her hand, he turned and led her in the opposite direction she had been going. Their fingers twined together, and the whole thing felt right, made her feel almost giddy.
"You're okay with this?" she asked him. "Just leaving?"
"I can return to murder Marcel and everyone he ever cared about." She should probably be disturbed by that, but instead it just soothed the worry she hadn't even realized she'd been feeling. Klaus was still in there. Her Klaus. And that felt right, too. "But I promised you the world once. I'd like to begin to keep that promise, before you remember I'm the devil and run away."
"I might do that anyway," Caroline admitted, although it felt less likely than it had before, now that he was holding her hand in his. "I'm not the best bet, Klaus. I might have some issues."
"Don't we all?" he replied carelessly, before he stopped, turning to look at her once again. "You're hardly a worse bet than I, Caroline. Yet here you are."
"Yeah," she agreed, softly. "Here I am."
"And here I am as well."
And then he was kissing her. It wasn't the chaste kiss on the cheek at her graduation, or the wild passion in the forest. It was...
It was sweet, but promising. The type of promising that made her believe that maybe they weren't such bad bets after all.
"Let's get out here," he said, pulling back, and Caroline felt her lips slowly curve into a smile, remembering the last time he'd said those words.
"Before twelve angry hybrids decide to pick a fight?"
"Or several dozen very angry vampires."
And still clutching her hand, he took off. And it didn't feel like running away from several very angry vampires, even though that's very much what they were doing.
Instead, it felt like running towards forever. Finally.