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In hindsight, Klaus probably should’ve let Camille make her own decisions about whether she should complete her transition or not. But he wasn’t exactly in the company of many friends these days, what with his constant pushing of Stefan, and his relationship with the rest of his siblings was at best tentative. So if he urged Camille to drink some human blood, to complete her transition and to finally become a vampire so that he wouldn’t lose a friend, who could really hold that against him?
Wrong.
Klaus should’ve just respected her decision to die as a human. For starters, her transition has been absolutely dreadful and borderline irritating, with the constant lashing out and her very heightened, very extreme emotions. He was kind of surprised because he assumed that her bubbly, light personality as a human would have greatly helped with her transition but he was sorely mistaken. And possibly thinking of another blonde with a bubbly, lighter than the sun personality. His mistake for thinking anyone could ever be the same as her.
Between Camille’s constant moaning about how she didn’t want to be a vampire, Rebekah and Kol’s arguments over who got to kill her and Elijah’s silent, but judgemental stare, Klaus was nursing a massive headache. And he was pretty sure he couldn't actually get headaches.
“Why should you get to kill her? Just because you’re the only girl of the family doesn’t mean you get any more killing privileges than I do, Rebekah. Plus, you weren’t the one who literally died and came back.”
Rebekah didn’t take the bait. She missed her brother when he died but she’s also been waiting for an opportunity to rip Camille’s heart out. "You should be thankful that you were dead, Kol. I had to spend more time with her, just because Nik was feeling lonely. She spent more time bothering me so I should get to kill her.”
“She is literally sitting right here. In front of you guys. While you discuss who gets to kill me. Which by the way, I already decided to become a vampire so it’s not like you can stake me,” replied Camille. Kol and Rebekah rolled their eyes.
“Don’t underestimate me, darling," snarked Kol.
Klaus wanted to sink further into his seat. He loved his baby siblings but if they didn’t shut up soon, he would have to temporarily silence them, anger and betrayal be damned.
He would have to locate those daggers first, though. Elijah hid them after the last time.
Camille turned to Klaus, pleading with him to control his siblings. “Please, Klaus? I’m already having a hard enough time as it is with this whole dead undead thing. I don’t want to have to worry about Kol staking me just because he got bored too.”
“I really can’t. They don’t know how to behave, they never have and they probably never will,” replied Klaus. He wanted to laugh. If he was able to control his siblings then they never would’ve been in the coffins in the first place.
Rebekah and Kol protested in unison. “Hey!”
Already exasperated, Elijah finally intervened, “He’s right. You two like to cause chaos wherever you go. If you didn’t, he never would’ve carted you around in those coffins.” Which was eerily close to what Klaus was thinking, damn Elijah.
Before Klaus could say anything, he caught a very familiar scent—one he hadn’t smelled in a while, but would never forget. Was he hallucinating? Did his siblings (and Camille) finally drive him to madness? But he knows honey and lavender. He knows its her scent. He just didn't think he would ever encounter it here in New Orleans.
As if answering his prayers, Caroline Forbes stepped into the Mikaelson family home, Stefan Salvatore right behind her, a vision in her white summer dress and long, blonde waves cascading down her bacl. The entire room fell silent, and as Klaus got up from his seat to greet her, something horrible happened.
Klaus watched, dumbfounded, as Caroline let out one of her happy shrieks and jumped—no, launched— into Kol’s arms.
Of course, Kol caught Caroline with ease and tightly hugged her back as she wrapped her arms (and legs) around him like a koala. “Hello, darling,” he said, with none of the usual bite and an unusually soft smile on his face.
“Why did you not tell me that you were alive? Friends don’t do that to each other, Kol!” exclaimed Caroline. She sounded genuinely offended that Kol didn’t reach out to her as soon as he came back.
All Klaus could do was stare in bewilderment and slight jealousy. When did they become friends? Where was he? Caroline had certainly never greeted him like that before.
“I’m sorry, darling. But now you’re here and I can show you what New Orleans has to offer,” replied Kol, with a sheepish smile on his face.
Klaus felt an unreasonable anger rise up in him. The worst part was that Kol was being genuine and not at all mocking or teasing, like he did in the bar a while back when he called her a “tasty little thing.”
Somehow, sincere Kol was worse than dick Kol.
But before he could protest, saying he already offered to show Caroline New Orleans, she gave Kol a small smile and finally glanced at Klaus, before replying, “Thank you for the offer but I already have a tour guide in mind.”
Caroline took a step towards Klaus. “Hi, Klaus.”
“Hello, love,” replied Klaus, softly. He knew he had too big of a smile on his face, something that his siblings will definitely be making fun of him for later, but he couldn’t help it. She listened to his voicemail. She still wanted him to show her New Orleans.
Not that he was jealous of his baby brother, but ha. Take that, Kol.
Klaus and Caroline stared at each other for a few more beats before Caroline shook herself out of that trance and went to go greet his other siblings. He watched in amusement as she approached Rebekah, knowing the two of them hadn’t gotten along when they were in Mystic Falls.
“Caroline.”
“Rebekah.”
Klaus watched as the two girls assessed each other, before Caroline broke into a smile and hugged Rebekah. He noted that Rebekah looked pleased, before Caroline moved onto Elijah.
As far as he knew, Caroline and Elijah never really met, since he mostly communicated with Elena. But then again, he also didn’t know that Caroline was friends with Kol, of all people.
Elijah watched as Caroline stopped in front of him.
“Ms. Forbes,” greeted Elijah, slightly tipping his head in a bow.
Caroline, always one for the dramatics, curtsied. “Mr. Mikaelson.”
Klaus noticed that the corners of Elijah’s lips ticked up, almost as if he was trying to hide a smile. Trust Caroline to bring out the best mood in everyone.
In his excitement to finally see Caroline again, he completely forgot about the transitioning vampire in the room with the rest of them. At least Camille didn’t lash out at Caroline in a fit of rage or possessiveness, not that she would be able to lay a single finger on a single strand of hair. However, with Caroline and Camille both here, he could ask Caroline some questions about her own transition and hopefully, she would be able to provide some tips for Camille.
“Caroline, love? When you first became a vampire, how did you manage to transition so that you kept all of your … Carolineness?,” asked Klaus. He heard Stefan stifle a laugh at that, he’d get him back for it later.
The question made Caroline pause. “Well, as a human I was an insecure, neurotic control freak. So when I became a vampire, I just became an insecure, neurotic control freak on crack, as Stefan so eloquently put it.”
“Wait, no. I did not call you that, you called yourself that.”
“Yeah but you didn’t disagree.” Stefan conceded and put his hands up as a sign of truce.
Caroline continued, “Anyways, I was completely unaware of the supernatural world before I was turned. Katherine literally smothered me with a pillow in my hospital room so that she could deliver a message to Stefan and Damon, I mean, seriously?” she paused and glanced at Stefan, who at least had the decency to look apologetic, and continued, “and when I woke up, I was incredibly thirsty. And being in a hospital? I felt like I was going insane. I stole a blood bag and drank that and then accidentally fed on my nurse, which I felt really bad about after because she was really nice to me and gave me little jello cups whenever I asked for them so I helped bandaged her neck and compelled her to forget that I did that and that she just has a kinky husband which, if I do say so myself, was really good thinking on my part. So I discharged myself from the hospital, because hello, quick healing, and headed towards the carnival which I was so sure would be a disaster since I wasn’t there to see it. And then long story short, I got sidetracked, saw Damon, kicked his ass for being an ass to me when I was human, went to the carnival, saw a bleeding man, accidentally killed him, Damon tried to stake me, Stefan saved me, cleaned the blood off my face and helped me calm down. After that, he taught me how to control the bloodlust and to hunt bunnies instead, but eventually I turned to blood bags. Also my control over my bloodlust, while some credit is due to Stefan, really just happens to be because I was a control freak. The obsessive part of me wouldn’t allow myself to spiral out of control.”
At that, Caroline stopped her ramble and then smiled at Stefan, not noticing that all of the Mikaelsons and Camille were just staring at her, minus Klaus, who knew how much she suited vampirism. After some time, Elijah broke the silence.
“So you were a brand new baby vampire, with no prior knowledge of the supernatural world, and you managed to feed without killing the person and learned how to use compulsion? All on your first night as a vampire?” He had a touch of wonder in his voice.
Klaus was completely unsurprised that Caroline managed a near-perfect transition. After all, he did tell her that he knew how much she loved being a vampire. Vampirism made Caroline absolutely beautiful.
“Well, I did kill someone by accident,” said Caroline sheepishly. She still felt guilty about it from time to time, moreso after Alaric tortured her for it.
“Darling, as a baby vampire with no one watching over you, you should’ve committed a small massacre. You’re incredible, Caroline. God knows how many people this one here killed on her first night,” replied Kol, gesturing to Camille, who looked down in shame.
“Kol! Don’t be so rude,” scolded Caroline.
“He’s right, actually.” Everyone turned to look at Camille, who had been silent during this entire exchange. “On my first night as a vampire, I ran around New Orleans and fed on as many people as I could, draining them to the point of death because I didn’t know how to stop. I felt myself turning into someone I wasn’t, someone much darker.”
Caroline hesitated. “Being a vampire doesn’t change a person, it just amplifies who you were when you were human.” She snuck a glance at Klaus, who was already smiling, remembering their time together at the pageant. “Stefan was compassionate as a human and became even more compassionate as a vampire, even as a ripper. Don’t even start, Klaus.”
Klaus put his hands up in surrender. “I wasn’t going to say anything!”
He tried desperately hard not to start laughing, even though he was thoroughly amused.
Eyeing him warily, Caroline continued, “As I already said, I was a control freak before and I was an even bigger one after, which allowed me to keep a hold on myself and my identity. I’m not going to start analyzing you because I don’t know you, but maybe you had those instincts inside you all along and you were just repressing them.”
She was right. Klaus knew that she was right. He had been hoping that Camille was like Caroline, that she had that light to her, but she didn’t. He missed Caroline so much that he began projecting her onto other people, but he should’ve known that there was no one else like her.
At the uneasy silence, Caroline clapped her hands together. “So … this has been great. I promise to come back and help her with her transition if I can but I wanna see New Orleans now. I’m only staying for a couple days, after all. ”
She turned to Klaus and tilted her head, “That tour you promised?”
“Your kingdom awaits,” replied Klaus, holding out his hand.
Caroline grabbed Klaus’ hand, but as they were about to leave, she heard a protest from Kol.
“Darling, you can’t possibly think of leaving me here after I died?”
“Don’t be such a baby, Kol. I’ll spend the day with you tomorrow.”
Caroline blew him a kiss and left the house with Klaus, finally ready to experience the music, food, art and culture that was promised to her so long ago.