Archive of Our Own

There was a tiny café, tucked in between a souvenir shop and a place called the Cat’s Eye, which supposedly specialized in love potions and lucky charms – the things that the average human would find amusing.  It’s really a front for an actual coven, and the location wasn’t an accident.

Because the café next door?  It was called the Vampire’s Kiss, and in any other city, it would have looked like it was decorated for Halloween.  In New Orleans, just off Bourbon Street, it simple looked like a place with a kitschy theme.  Coffee and tea drinks that all had a spooky theme, and came in oranges and blacks, with the odd red or purple tossed in because the owner liked to mix colors.

The owner was named Caroline Forbes.

Well, that was the name she went by at that time, anyway. 

She had been born with a different name, a thousand years before.  Unlike the others that had lived with her then, whose names were spoken in hushed whispers by people actually in the know, Caroline’s birth name was rarely used, to the point where she didn’t always even remember it.  The last time she had heard it, it was right before she broke her own heart.

That had been over a hundred years previous.  After that, she became a nomad until, in the 1990s, she had finally settled in New Orleans and opened the Vampire’s kiss under the name Elizabeth Forbes.

These days, she was pretending to be “Elizabeth’s” daughter – hence the name Caroline.  It was amazing, the way a bit of contour could change up features just enough to make someone believe that you could be two entirely different people.

The past few decades, the ones since she had opened the café, had passed in relative peace.  Since she (and the coven next door, run by Bonnie Bennet, the latest in a long line of Bennet women that Caroline had befriended) had opened their businesses just off Bourbon Street, they managed to avoid most of the drama that happened around supernatural creatures.  The witches and vampires and werewolves that waged war with each other and the humans in the know were so focused on the threats they could see, that they completely missed the powers that existed just beyond their street, in the small shops that appeared to cater to tourists, but really?

They were who you went to when you needed to disappear.

Caroline, you see, was a vampire.  One of the Originals of the species, in fact.  Like her name, her existence had been lost in time.  She had always avoided the dramatics and powerplays of the others, and her husband, who had so doted on her back then, had allowed her to do so.  He’d been amused, even, by the way she chose to live as if they were normal.  It had been different from Rebekah’s true desire to be human.

Caroline thrived as a vampire, she simply preferred the mundane to politics.

Of course, all of that had worked in her favor, when she had decided to disappear.  She had done it twice – the first time, back when Katerina Petrova had appeared on the scene, and Caroline had decided to remove herself from it.  She would have thought that Niklaus would have learned not to underestimate her then, but perhaps he had simply though he could count on her loyalty.

Well, Caroline was a loyal heart, but she wasn’t insane.  She wouldn’t persist in foolish hopes and committing the same acts over and over, in the hopes of changing the outcome.  So, while she had returned after that first retreat, when she left again, in the early 1900s, she had vanished truly and completely.

Any murmurs of the girl that could make you disappear were so tightly suppressed that they either hadn’t reached her family, or they hadn’t been able to trace those murmurs back to her and the Vampire’s Kiss.

So, the years passed quietly, and Caroline continued to run her café, and help those that found her with Bonnie’s assistance, and life was otherwise mundane. Just as she liked it.

Until the day Davina Claire appeared on her doorstep and everything went heels up.

---

“What do we do with her?”

Bonnie looked at Caroline, who was watching Davina as though she were some particularly interesting insect.

Or perhaps a terrifying one.  Caroline couldn’t quite decide.

“We help her, Care.  That’s what we do, remember?”

“We help adults, Bonnie.  That? That is a whole child! I don’t know what to do with a child!”

“I can hear you!” Davina snapped from where she was sitting at a table in the café, her arms crossed.  Caroline was pretty sure she was pouting.  “And I’m not a child!”

“Are you eighteen?” Caroline replied, and Davina just stared stonily back.  “Well, it’s been a few centuries since I was human, but I’m pretty sure in this century, that’s the cut off.  A child, Bonnie!”

“Shouldn’t that mean that we should help her even more?” Bonnie asked, her voice soft.  Caroline could tell she was trying not to laugh. Bitch. “You weren’t this panicked around me, and I was far younger than Davina when we met.”

“Yes, and your grandmother was always there.  Always. I made sure of it. Do you think she never asked me to babysit?  Well, you’d be right.  Because Shelia knew I would say no!”

“I don’t need a babysitter!”

Caroline shot Davina a glare, her fangs coming out, her eyes going dark.  The girl stiffened, and looked like she might go on the offensive, but Bonnie put a hand on Caroline’s shoulder and gave her a look that made her sigh, putting the monster away as her shoulders fell. 

“We know you don’t need a babysitter, Davina,” Bonnie said, her voice friendly and upbeat.  “But making a teenager disappear isn’t as simple as an adult.  What about your parents?”

“My parents sent me to a magical ceremony to die,” Davina replied, her expression stony.  “Excuse me if I don’t want to go back home to them.”

“The Harvest,” Bonnie murmured after a long beat of silence.  “Well, shit.  She’s the missing Harvest witch.”

“Children?” Caroline demanded, tapping a foot impatiently.  “Are you seriously telling me those morons used children in their human sacrifice?  Why am I the only one that thinks the little gremlins should be treated like little gremlins? I’m a vampire! I’m supposed to be the monster here, Bonnie.”

“Well, I didn’t sacrifice children,” Bonnie replied, her voice dry.  Neither of them mentioned the time she had sacrificed twelve witches to try and raise a God.  She’d been a child herself back then, and Caroline had managed to prevent Bonnie from dying, which would have ultimately brought that God back.

Good times.

“Look, if you can’t help me, then I’ll… figure something out. But I’ve been relying on Marcel up until now, and with Klaus and his siblings showing up here, I don’t think I can rely on him keeping me alive much longer.  So time is kind of running out!”

Silence fell after Davina’s outburst, the child sitting there, still pouting, as though she hadn’t just dropped the news that made the peaceful life Caroline had created for herself shatter down all around her.

Klaus.

In New Orleans.

“Oh, fuck me,” she murmured, low enough that Davina couldn’t hear.  But Bonnie did, and she let out a chuckle that was way more amused than she had any right to be, considering that her life would be in the crossfire Klaus’ presence presented as well.

“I’ll pass.  But your husband might take you up on that.”

God, her friend was the worst.

---

Here was the thing.

Caroline had learned that her sister-in-law and her son had made plans to betray the rest of them.  She hadn’t been happy about that bullshit, because Mikael was, absolutely, The Worst, and even if Klaus was the devil incarnate (which he could be), he didn’t deserve to have that called down upon his head.

But she loved Marcel, and she tolerated Rebekah, and while she firmly disapproved of their “relationship,” she wasn’t going to sell either of them out.  So instead she had tried to convince Klaus that New Orleans was boring her and they should go elsewhere.  She’d always kind of wanted to try her hand at being a seamstress, and London would be a great place to try that out.  Or something.

Basically, she tried to convince her husband to go somewhere that wasn’t New Orleans.

He hadn’t agreed with her.

It had led to a terrible row, and words had been said, on both sides, that were incredibly cruel.  They knew the best and the worst of each other, after all. 

In the end, Caroline had disappeared, for the second time, and decided that if Mikael wanted to kill Klaus, then who cared? Certainly not her.

She had told herself that, like a liar, for six months before she regretted everything and had gone back to New Orleans, only to find Klaus and Rebekah both gone.  Marcel had been there, picking up the pieces, but Caroline hadn’t revealed herself to him.

The boy she had called her son had grown into a man who seemed broken from grief and… everything.  Because that’s what Mikaelsons did – they broke people, even the ones that mattered. 

She had stayed around, in the shadows, only long enough to be assured that Klaus and his siblings still lived.  She had briefly considered hunting them down and un-daggering Finn, her favorite of the siblings, so she wouldn’t be alone.  But that would involve revealing herself to Klaus, and she hadn’t been up for that.

So she had left again. And she hadn’t been anywhere near her husband since.

She had chosen New Orleans because of the ghosts that haunted the streets.  She had thought them enough to keep Klaus away.  Apparently, she had been very, very wrong, and how had she missed that?

“We were in Bali,” Bonnie pointed out, because the two of them had just returned from an extended holiday a week before Davina showed up.  “The girls didn’t want us worrying.  And then they wanted to give us some time to settle.  Maybe this is a good thing?”

“How is this a good thing?” Caroline replied, stony faced. 

“You can ask him for a divorce?” suggested Liv, one of the “girls” that worked for Bonnie at the Cat’s Eye.  Caroline stared at her until she seemed to visibly wilt, and then retreat into the back.

“I’d lecture you on scaring them, but she kind of deserved that one,” Bonnie mused.  “Are you even able to get a divorce? Aren’t you Catholic or something?”

“The last time I prayed to a God, it was Odin.  These days, I’m an Atheist.  Why would you think I’m Catholic?”

“I don’t know.  You’re white and old.  I assume everyone who’s white and old is Catholic.” Bonnie gave a shrug.  “What else am I supposed to think?”

Caroline let out a heavy sigh and buried her face in her hands, mind whirling wildly as she thought about what to do next.  Normally, she’d kill the threat to her safety and keep her head down until the threat passed.  But even if she did kill children, Bonnie would never let her lay a hand on Davina, who she had decided they would be helping.  And Caroline was thinking that maybe she would take up drinking.

Could vampires die of alcohol induced liver failure? She was willing to find out.

“Okay, we need to treat this seriously. Regardless of my personal… issues with Niklaus, if he wants this girl, or has made a deal with the witches so they can have her, then we have a problem.  If he finds out that we helped her hide from him, none of us, right down to little Abi, will be safe from his wrath.”

Bonnie’s expression turned contemplative at that.  Abi was just freshly nineteen, and though she belonged to Bonnie’s coven, she worked the counter at Caroline’s café.  She also made really good vanilla bean scones, and Caroline was considering letting her take over the café someday, while she took a break before returning as yet another daughter. Or granddaughter.

That wouldn’t work if she was dead, thanks to one of Niklaus’ fits.

Because while she had said we, Caroline was approximately 94.6% certain that her husband wouldn’t kill her. Everyone she loved and cherished outside his immediately family? Very much so.  He would even dagger his immediate family, if it meant punishing her – that was what had happened to Finn, after all. 

But actually kill her? No.

Probably not.

She didn’t think he would, at least.

But since she was fond of Abi and of Bonnie, who was rather attached to her coven, they would need to be careful, if they wanted to avoid a massacre.

“So, what do we do?” Bonnie asked, after they’d sat in contemplative silence for several minutes.

“Honestly? We should hand the girl over.  But I don’t trust her not to speak, which would defeat the purpose of handing her over in the first case.  This is a damned if we do and if we don’t situation.  Unless you’d be willing to kill her and make her body disappear?” Bonnie gave her an entirely unimpressed look, and Caroline sighed, because yeah, she probably wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway, even with her friend’s blessing.  The whole problematic child aspect of the situation. “Well, for now you need to maintain the wards that prevent her from being found via scrying.  And I’m going see if I can loop in one of my in laws.  If Kol is here, I might be able to convince him it will be fun to assist us.  Have you heard from Lorenzo lately?”

“Enzo? No, why? Why would I hear from Enzo? You’re the one that turned him, shouldn’t you have heard from Enzo?”

Caroline just looked at Bonnie, who stared back with wide-eyed innocence that wasn’t fooling anybody, even if her rambling hadn’t already given her away.

“You’re sleeping with him again? We haven’t even been back from Bali for that long, Bonnie.  Make the boy work for it.  He gets an ego otherwise.”

But Caroline pulled out her own phone, and messaged the vampire that she had turned shortly after she’d left New Orleans behind.  She’d been lonely, and he had been charming and had nearly gotten caught up with a group of nasty herectics.  So, Caroline had stolen him away and turned him herself, and it had earned her a decades long bestie, as the kids liked to say.

“Okay, well… if I send him in to seduce my brother-in-law are you going to throw a fit?” Caroline asked after a moment, rubbing her temples.  “Honestly, I should probably send you. Kol has a thing for witches.  But you never want to be a honey pot.”

“Oh, please, like you do?”

Caroline just gave Bonnie a dry look, because really?  She’d been alive for a thousand years.  And maybe she’d been married and loyal to her vows for most of those (really, all that she could clearly remember), but that didn’t means she’d never shown a bit of cleavage and flirted to get what she needed.

It was, like, her most reliable method of intelligence gathering.

“Okay, so maybe you’re okay with being a honey pot, but we both know I suck at flirting.  The only reason Enzo and I work is because aneurysms apparently turn him on.”

Caroline eyed her friend for a few minutes, because they’d probably turn Kol on as well.  He seemed like the kind of guy who liked getting his ass kicked by a lover.  It would explain all the witches.

And she shook her head, because the worst thing she could do was put a Bennet witch right in Kol’s path and expect him not to smell that there was a plot afoot.  No, much better to send in Enzo. Let him lure Kol in, and then hit him with the powerful witch in the afterglow.

“Is it a good idea to get this brother involved?” Bonnie asked as they made their way into the café.  She sat at the counter while Caroline started to make their respective drinks of choice.  It was an afternoon tradition, that they have their incredibly strong lattes and sit in a quiet corner of the café to make plans.  Caroline smiled at Abi, who was refreshing the baked goods between customers.  The girl was a clever one, and while she probably would eavesdrop, she’d never let anyone knew what she’d heard.  Caroline often wondered if she’d be interested in becoming a vampire.  Good people were so hard to find, after all. “I mean, shouldn’t we just… avoid them all?”

“Ideally?  Yes.  But it’s a bit too late for that, since the last piece of the Harvest Ceremony is currently sitting in your apartment watching Days of Our Lives.  Eventually, the witches of the Quarter will realize that the reason they can’t find her is because she’s being protected, and eventually they’ll pick at the right pieces of gossip to be led to us.  It’s better if we control the situation, instead of waiting for them to show up.  Abi, you have exams coming up, don’t you?  It might be a good idea to take some time off.”

“My mom already told me that your ex is in the city,” Abi replied, eyes focused on getting the position of scones just right.  She was such a type A when it came to the displays.  Caroline loved her, truly.  “I’m not afraid.”

“Well, that makes exactly one of us.  I’m afraid and would very much like to not be in this situation.”

“And he’s not her ex,” Bonnie added, happily accepting her latte – cinnamon and hazelnut swirl.  “That would involve divorce, and the Catholics don’t believe in that.”

“I told you, I’m not freaking Catholic!”

“Then why are you still married?”

“We got married before marriage licenses were even a thing, Bonnie.  By the standards of today, we probably were never married. The families paid each other, some vows were exchanged, and the rings.  And then we raced to see which family had to serve the other.  There weren’t signatures, or filing of paperwork.  I barely even remember it, Bonnie.”

Abi wrinkled her nose in distaste, but Bonnie’s expression was rather fond.

“Really?  Because it sounds like you remember it pretty well, by your standards.  In case you’ve forgotten, you didn’t even remember your birthday.  We had to make one up for you.”

“Yeah, well, my parents and his watched us climb naked into bed together.  So it was a little memorable,” Caroline replied with rolled eyes, as if she didn’t have both her ring and arm band carefully stored in her bedroom, where she pulled it out from time to time, to trace the burnished edges and just… yearn.

“Wait, your parents watched you have sex?” Abi demanded, her voice choked, yet high pitched. It was an impressive feat, and Caroline gave her back a gentle pat.

“No, they watched us get into bed.  They left us for the actual sex part, thank the Gods.”

“Thank the Gods… yeah, she’s clearly not Catholic,” Abi said with a shake of her head.  Caroline finished her own drink, something iced and delicious, and shoved a straw into it.  She wiggled her fingers at Abi, and then motioned for Bonnie to lead the way over to the quiet corner.  As they went, two regulars entered, giving them a smile and a nod.

“But seriously,” Caroline said, going back to their earlier conversation as if they had never taken a break from it, “getting Enzo to talk to Kol, yay or nay?”

“He and I are hardly monogamous, Caroline.  Ask him,” Bonnie replied, sinking into an overstuffed chair.  Caroline sprawled in the one next to her, legs hanging over the chair arm.  “Are you sure that Klaus is even going to care about Davina, though?  Without her, the witches of the Quarter will be at a disadvantage.  Shouldn’t he want that?”

Caroline let her head hang back, closing her eyes as she tried to remember how the ancestral witches of New Orleans worked.  Maybe she should start doing some of the brain teasers on her iphone, the ones in the apps that Abi kept texting to her.  After all, their foray into New Orleans hadn’t been that long ago, yet she still wasn’t sure if the memories she could recall were from there or that time they spent Prague.

No… wait.  No Marcel.  Must be Prague.

“I remember!” she declared, eyes snapping back open as she clapped her hands.  “The Harvest.  Kol told me about it and… fuck.”

“Fuck?” Bonnie replied, leaning forward.  “What’s fuck?” Caroline all but catapulted out of her chair, striding towards the door that connected their stores.  “Caroline, what’s fuck?”

She didn’t reply as she pounded up the steps, shoving open the door to the apartment that Bonnie kept above her store.  Davina gaped at her around a spoonful of cheerios, soap operas playing on the television.

“I just remembered – wait.  Is Marlena possessed by the devil again?” she froze and watched a few minutes of the show, giving enough time for Bonnie to catch up to her, breathing deeply. 

“I need to work on my cardio,” she muttered.

“Umm… is Marlena the older blonde?  Because yeah, apparently she is,” Davina replied, making Bonnie look at her, clearly confused, while Caroline let herself be distracted another minute, before shaking her head.

“Okay, never mind that.  I’ll catch up when things slow down.  But you… you said you were supposed to be a Harvest Sacrifice, right?  Like, as in THE Harvest Sacrifice?  There wouldn’t happen to be, like, multiple sacrifices, would there? Because we really need it to not be the sacrifice I’m thinking of.”

“I…” Davina let the spoon drop into her bowl, setting it down on the table in front of her, so she could lean back with crossed arms and a pout – and fuck, Caroline hated teenagers.  Except Abi, but she was legally an adult, so didn’t count as a teenager. Or something.  “There’s only one Harvest. I don’t get why it matters, though.  Do you need my whole life story to help me or something?”

“You know, I think I might be understanding why they chose to make you a sacrifice,” Caroline drawled, not reacting when Bonnie dug her elbow into her ribs, even though it did hurt.  Bonnie’s elbows were surprisingly sharp.  “Look, the Harvest is about keeping up the magic of your ancestors, or whatever.  Kol explained it once, and since I never liked the ancestral witches in New Orleans, I didn’t pay that much attention.  But I do remember the results if it wasn’t completed – magic would go kaput.  And not just your magic.  All the magic in New Orleans.  And since I am in New Orleans and require magic to survive… yes, I need your whole life story.”

“You’re going to hand me back over,” Davina said, actually climbing over the back of the couch, as if putting the thing between her and Caroline would stop the vampire from ripping out her throat if that’s what she wanted to do.  It was cute, if misguided.  “I won’t let you.  I’ve taken out an Original vampire before, I can take you out with ease.”

“I am an Original vampire,” Caroline replied, entirely unimpressed.  Was she this much of a brat at fifteen?  She didn’t think she’d been, but she also didn’t really remember a whole lot about that time.  Except, apparently, her wedding.  Not that she was going to think super hard about that and what it meant.  “And which one did you take out?  Let me guess… Elijah.  Sweetheart, I hate to be the bearer of bad news – but my brother-in-law has a bit of a white knight complex.  Anyone can take him out if they have boobs and can make themselves look sad enough.  You aren’t special.”

“Your in-laws sound delightful,” Bonnie said dryly.  “This one sounds positively sexist!”

“He is,” Caroline agreed with a pleasant smile.  “Major Madonna and whore mindset.  He liked me up until I actually liked being a vampire. Then I was something that needed to be put down.”

He had managed to get a dagger into her, exactly once.  Luckily, she and Klaus had been on good terms at the time, and it hadn’t lasted very long.  Elijah had never tried it again, once she was done with him.  After that, she’d become much closer to Kol, who didn’t seem to care that she was no longer the same girl who’d made flower crowns and thrived in sunlight.

“But we’re not going to hand you over, Davina,” Bonnie continued, as if Caroline hadn’t interrupted her.  “We said we’d help you, and we will.  But we do need the details, so we can figure out how to help you.”

“Except she doesn’t really need our help.  We hand her over, they finish the Harvest, she comes back to life. Wham, bam, thank-you, ma’am.”

“That’s how kids develop trauma, Caroline!” Bonnie snapped back. 

“Oh, please.  Dying and coming back to life is not nearly as bad as you seem to think it is.  Source: I am a fucking vampire.  They’ll probably make hers relatively painless.  I got impaled by the father-in-law that I’ve always kind of hated.  He never really liked me, either.  I think he enjoyed stabbing me.”

Okay, so maybe she remembered more of that time than she’d realized. Or at least, maybe she remembered the traumatic bits.

Caroline realized that she’d been lost in her thoughts a bit too long when Bonnie cleared her throat, getting her attention and giving her a knowing look.  Because of course Bonnie knew what she was thinking about.

“Fuck,” Caroline muttered, and she didn’t usually swear this much.  But the whole situation deserved all the fucks.  “Fine, you’re right. It’s traumatic. Can’t you” – Caroline wiggled her fingers in the air – “like, woo the situation so it’s not?”

“Woo the situation?” Davina demanded.  “Are you asking her if she can woo me to death?!”

“And back again!” Caroline replied, throwing her hands up in frustration.  “She probably knows a way to make it not traumatic.  Like… as if you just had a really good nap.”

Davina looked ready to argue some more, but Bonnie held her hand up, looking thoughtful.

“I mean, we may need your brother-in-law’s help after all.  The not-sexist one. Because I’ll need to know how the Harvest works.  But, she might be right, Davina.  And if we can finish the Harvest, keep magic going, then you don’t need to run, and we don’t need to deal with Klaus. Talk to Enzo, Care. If the Harvest does what you say it does, then we want to get this done before things get weird.”

“You’re my best, most brilliant friend, Bon!” Caroline declared, hugging her friend and rubbing their cheeks together.  “This will be perfect! We can help the kid, and I won’t need to deal with my husband, because I need, like, another five decades before I’m emotionally ready for that.  It’s gonna work out!”

After a thousand years, you’d really think Caroline would know how to recognize famous last words.

---

Lorenzo St. John was a charming man.

Over the centuries, Kol had enjoyed the company of many charming men, and many charming women.  He was a charming man himself.

And still, he might say that Lorenzo was among the top 10.

So, of course, he was incredibly suspicious.

See, charming people were rarely so just for the sake of being charming.  They wanted something.  And while the sex had been good – very good – Kol doubted that Lorenzo had set out to seduce him just for some debauchery.

Only the very stupid and the very suicidal went looking for a Mikaelson just for sex. Kol didn’t get the sense that Lorenzo was either.

So, when Enzo invited him for some afternoon fun, Kol was half hoping that he meant some afternoon delight, but wasn’t truly that surprised when they ended up at a quaint café next to a tourist trap that smelled of magic far more powerful than that practiced by the witches of the Quarter.

He was slightly more surprised when he recognized the blonde behind the counter, however.

“Signe,” he said, coming to a halt several feet away.  There was a dark skinned woman sitting on an overstuffed chair in the corner, watching him with quiet eyes that spoke of a quiet, terrifying power.  And then another dark skinned woman, this one little more than a girl, behind the counter with his sister-in-law, who gave her a sharp nod, sending her scurrying away.

“Signe?” asked the quiet woman, taking a sip from the paper cup in her hand.  She spoke to the blonde, but kept her eyes on Kol.

“My birth name.  Huh… I’d kind of forgotten that.  I go by Caroline now.  You should probably use it, or I might not answer.” Signe – no, Caroline – wrinkled her nose as she spoke.  Kol felt his lips quirk up.  He had missed this woman, who was his sister in every way that mattered.  She’d always had this habit; changing her name as the times changed, seemingly forgetting the one she’d gone by before in favor of the one she’d moved onto. 

Of them all, it was her, Caroline, who had thrived as a vampire.  She never seemed to look back at any of what they’d given up and regretted it.  No, she just lived in the moment, always looking forward for the next adventure.  Nik had become quite the bore without her, mired in misery and anger.

Caroline gave a surprised huff when Kol was suddenly next to her, lifting her into a tight hug.  Her laughter was bright music in his ears, and he gave her a spin, just to hear it more.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, Darling,” he said as he set her down, framing her face between his hands.  His siblings had all seemed to have changed so much; Elijah even more stuck up than usual. Bekah was forever sad, desperate for a humanity she’d never regain. And Nik?  Nik was the very worst version of himself.  Only Finn remained mostly unchanged, and he’d always been the bore.  But Caroline?  Oh, there was a wisdom in her eyes she’d lacked when they were still human, but there was still a life in her that the rest of them hadn’t been able to retain.  He glanced over, to see that Enzo had joined the woman at the chairs, and he raised a brow at Caroline.  “Do I have you to thank for my charming companion?”

“In multiple ways.  I turned him,” Caroline replied, giving one of his hands a squeeze before pulling away.  She started to mix together espresso and so many syrups that Kol had no idea what she was creating.  “And I asked him to get you here.  I know entirely more about your sex life than I ever needed to – thanks for that.”

“What can I say?” Kol leaned back, watching her moving around.  “If I’d slept with me, I’d be bragging, too.”

“Anyone that says that about themselves is overcompensating!” called the dark skinned woman – and she had to be a witch from a powerful blood line, for Kol to feel the power all but humming around her.  It was similar to the power from the shop next door; she was most likely the owner.

“Not this time, Bonnie my sweet,” Enzo admitted, grabbing her cup and taking a large gulp.  Bonnie scowled at him, and Enzo hastily handed the drink back, getting to his feet to saunter to the counter.  “Gorgeous, I don’t suppose you – ah, you’re wonderful.”

Enzo picked up the cup Caroline  had put in front of him, and Kol found the same thing being pressed into his hands.  He didn’t normally play pretend at eating and drinking – not even the alcohol that his brothers seemed to love.  Kol just didn’t much see the point in pretending to be human.  But Caroline had always loved eating and drinking. She had said it had curbed her hunger, because while she might thrive as a vampire, she’d never been fond of reckless murder.  It was somewhat of a relief, to see that so little about her had changed.

So, Kol took a drink, only to almost spit it back out.  It was ridiculously sweet and heavy, made of chocolate and cinnamon and a hint of vanilla.

“What the hell?” he asked, and Caroline snickered at him, only to take the cup back, and replace it with plain black coffee.

Kol accepted it, and while he wasn’t the biggest fan of such things, the coffee was better than the sugary monstrosity that Caroline now sipped, leaning next to Enzo, both of them smirking at him.

Now that the initially delight in her company had passed, Kol found himself feeling somewhat suspicious.  That was increased, when Bonnie joined them, giving her hand a flick to change the café’s store sign to closed, as she perched on a stool at the counter.

“Sig – Caroline.  My darling sister. Why am I here?”

Caroline exchanged looks with Bonnie and Enzo.  The latter held up his hands and shook his head.

“I’m not really involved, Gorgeous.  I was just in it for the seduction.  The witchy stuff isn’t my purview.”

“You say that like it’s mine,” Caroline muttered.  “I’m not a freaking witch.”

They both looked at Bonnie, who was taking another drink.  She set it down and sighed, turning her eyes to Kol.  They were lovely eyes, and seemed familiar.  He had to have met one of her ancestors.

“Davina Claire,” Bonnie said after a moment, as if a name alone were enough of an explanation.

Normally, that would not be the case.  But in this situation, that single name said a thousand words.  Klaus and the brat Marcellus were looking for the girl who had gone missing.  Marcel had been protecting her, but now Klaus wanted to make a deal with the witches.

He couldn’t do that without the only piece of leverage.

And that leverage was the girl.

“You’ve never been the type to get involved in the intricacies of witch and vampire politics,” Kol said, speaking to Caroline instead of her companions.  “I advise you not change that, Caroline.”

“I don’t,” she muttered, her expression rather petulant.  “But I may have started a bit of a side business… you may have noticed, I’m pretty good at disappearing.  And Bonnie is great at assisting with disappearing.  I think you can probably fill in some of the blanks.”

There had been murmurs, of course.  They had been among the more newly turned, and the witches who lacked power, who were on the bottom of the coven’s structure.  So, of course, Nik hadn’t heard any of them.  But Kol had a way of making friends wherever he needed, and hearing everything.  So he had heard of the rumors of a pair of shops, where you could go if you needed to simply… not exist anymore.

He hadn’t traced them to their source, but it seemed that source had come to him instead. How delightful.

Except he couldn’t tease Nik with this, and use it for his own purposes.  If it were just the witch, he’d do so without hesitation.  But Caroline?

Well, Kol was inordinately fond of her. And he wouldn’t simply hand her over to his brother, no matter how angry Nik would be, should he learn that Kol kept her secret.

But…

Well, Signe or Caroline or any other name she used over the centuries, she was still that girl he’d known as a human.  And that girl had one very large flaw that had become somewhat worse after they’d become vampires.

Caroline was a jealous woman.

“You know,” he started conversationally, in a way that he could tell put Caroline on guard immediately.  “Elijah has been trying his hand at matchmaker.”

“Don’t ask him!” Bonnie said immediately, while Enzo let out a low whistle.  Caroline, on the other hand, had gone stiff.  Her eyes flickered towards black, the veins beneath them becoming darker for a moment, before paling once more.  The monster just beneath her skin.

“Really?  I never took Elijah for a romantic.”

“We both know that’s a lie.  He’s even more of a romantic than Rebekah.  His concept of it is just terrible.” Kol looked down into his coffee, feeling a smirk dance at the corner of his lips.

“You look like Niklaus when you do that,” she muttered, and he could see that her fingers were clutching at the counter, could even see a bit of a crack forming.

“Well, he is my brother.  The brother that Elijah is attempting to matchmake.  She’s a blonde. Looks a bit like you.  Even dresses somewhat similar.” Kol eyed the sundress Caroline was wearing – flirty and light and covered in flowers.  “Although I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Camille wear something so bright.  She pales in comparison, Darling.”

“We’re estranged,” Caroline said after a moment.  She had turned her back to the three of them, was cleaning the counters, which were already spotless. 

So, she still stress-cleaned.

“She’s a psychology student.  He has her writing his memoirs.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Caroline spun around, the monster in her eyes as fangs flared.  Kol could feel his smirk turning into a smile of mirth, and she snarled, turning away again.  “Nevermind. I don’t care.”

“Your aggressive cleaning says otherwise,” Bonnie muttered, shaking her head.  “That counter didn’t do anything to you, Caroline.  Stop trying to strip it of its dignity.”

“I’m not jealous!” she said, her voice somewhat high pitched, enough to make Kol and Enzo wince, while Bonnie shook her head again.

“I never said you were, but even if I had, that wouldn’t have convinced me otherwise.” She turned her gaze to Kol, who gave her a charming smile that made her scoff.  “You’re trouble. But I’ll introduce you to Davina, and you can tell me all about the Harvest and how we can complete it without making that poor girl remember her death every time she tries to sleep.”

Kol gave Enzo a wink, and chuckled at the way Caroline continued to aggressively clean the counter, before he followed Bonnie, leaving just enough space to appreciate the view.

Ah, Caroline did always liven things up.

---

Getting Kol to help them had been incredibly easy.  It probably helped that Bonnie was powerful, and that made her exactly his type, so he was using explaining the Harvest as an excuse to aggressively flirt.

He was also a total shit disturber.  She knew he mentioned the blonde bartender just to get her jealous, like a kid trying to get his split parents to interact again.  She knew it.

And it had totally worked.

“Gorgeous, I thought you were actively avoiding your husband,” Enzo murmured into her ear.  They were both dressed like tourists, including Caroline foisting a fanny pack and an overly large camera onto Enzo.  She was wearing shorts and a tanktop that made her look like a suburban mom – something no one had ever accused Caroline Forbes, using any name, of being.

Really, they fit in perfectly in the Quarter at the height of tourism season.

And with a mousy brown wig cut into a bob over her blonde curls, no one should recognize her, either.

“I am,” she muttered in return.  “Which is why we’re dressed like this.  But just because I’m avoiding him, doesn’t mean he gets to fuck a bartender.  We made vows, Lorenzo! And raced to see who would pour the ale! My family won, and he never gets to forget that. Which means he never gets to forget that he’s married. To me!”

When Enzo looked down at her with raised brows, Caroline released a frustrated hiss.

“No one made you come with me, you know.  You could be off with Kol, working to convince that a threesome would somehow help with the Davina issue.  No, you chose to be here. And people who chose to be here don’t get to pass judgement.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Enzo muttered, his lips pursed in a dramatic pout.  “You tag along with me when I’m doing foolish things just so you can judge me all the time.  You’re being a hypocrite.”

“Yeah, well.  Do as I say, not as I do,” Caroline replied.  “Now hush.  This is the place, and the walls could be listening.”

Caroline twined her arm through Enzo’s, and tumbled them through the door of the pub, giggling like she was a young girl again.  No one gave them a second look, as they found seats at a table tucked in the corner.  Quiet and out of the way, but with an uninhibited view of the bar.

There was a blonde working, and Caroline heard someone call her ‘Cami.’ Bingo.

“She’s like your more bland, more human twin,” Enzo muttered, voice pitched low enough that even if there were other vampires, only Caroline would be close enough to hear.

“You can’t know she’s bland,” Caroline replied, trying not to stare at the girl with what she knew would be a sour expression.  Camille had a bright smile, and she was pretty.  Gave off that air of sweetness that Elijah would find intoxicating.  It was a wonder he wasn’t sniffing at her himself.  Maybe he’d moved on from white knighting every woman in his life to trying to get Niklaus to do it instead. Trying to save his brother’s soul via romance… that seemed like an Elijah thing to do.  “She could be super exciting.  Maybe she goes bungee jumping in her spare time.”

“Bungee jumping is bland, Gorgeous.  The last time you decided you wanted some excitement, you got a photography degree and headed into a war zone.”

“I had to pretend to be a dude,” Caroline recalled with fond remembrance.  She’d mastered the art of contour before it was cool, and it had taken her hours every morning to make her features look passingly masculine.  She’d barely slept for a full decade. “Remember that KGB agent that found me out?”

“I quite liked her,” Enzo muttered darkly.  “And you ate her.”

“Good times.”

There was another shout for Cami, drawing Caroline back to the presence, and reminding her that she was there for a reason.

To figure out if her husband was a dirty two-timing liar who lies.

“Danger just walked in the door,” Enzo muttered, but Caroline didn’t need him to tell her that.  The second the door opened, she had known it was Niklaus. Even after nearly a century apart, she could feel his presence as if he were right next to her, running his fingers over her skin.  Just being in the same room with him made goosebumps form on her skin.

And looking at him?  God, it was like drinking water for the first time after crossing a desert.  She knew that she shouldn’t gorge herself, but she couldn’t look away, eyes drinking in the familiar sharp features, the blue eyes that had burned into hers a hundred times as they had made love.  He’d even embraced the more modern fashion of letting his scruff grow.

Gods, the bastard knew how much she loved him unshaved.  Unshaved and wild, with challenge sparking in his eyes as he dared her to do something insane.  And she had been helpless to deny him.

“Down cowgirl,” Enzo murmured, pitching his voice even lower, so it was hard for even Caroline to hear.  “If you get any more worked up, he’ll hear your breathing from over there and wonder why some tourist is staring at him like a roast beef.”

“I never liked roast beef,” Caroline muttered in return, finding that she couldn’t look away from him, even though Enzo was right, she was being far too obvious.

But… Fuck.

“I am so in love with him,” she muttered miserably, finally looking at Enzo when he squeezed her hand hard enough that her bones actually ached a little.  “Shit. It’s pathetic, that I’m still so in love with him. A century should be long enough to get over someone.”

“Ah, yes.  A single century to outweigh the nine that came before that.  You’re absolutely right.” Enzo gave a wise nod, that clearly wasn’t wise at all, unless you counted being a wise ass as actual wisdom.  “Ten percent should always trump ninety percent.  Basic math.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she replied, watching Klaus again.  But this time, she refused to let herself get distracted by just looking at him.  Instead, she focused on what he was saying, because he’d taken a seat at the bar, directly in front of the bar tender.

And he was smiling at her. Motherfucker.

“I’m still in love with him,” she muttered, her voice a dangerous hiss now.  “And because of that, I’m going to kill him.  Very dead. Painfully dead.  As soon as I find the weapon that shall not be named.”

Enzo rolled his eyes, because he had figured out that the white oak stake was deleterious to her health ages ago, but she still refused to actually say the words in front of him.  It was a matter of pride and paranoia.

Caroline was full of both.

There was probably meant to be a smartass follow up, except that Niklaus, very suddenly, stopped speaking to Camille.  For a moment, he sat preternaturally still.

Then his head snapped around, and he looked directly at her.

“Did he just – fuck.”

Enzo didn’t try to make the last word too quiet to hear, because her husband was already on his feet.  So they got to theirs as well, darting for the door. 

Enzo was out, Caroline close behind, when an arm wrapped firmly around her waist, pulling her back into a hard chest. Enzo paused for a moment, then looked over her shoulder, and whatever he saw on Klaus’ face clearly made him decide not to stick around.

“I’ll pray for you, Darling!” he shouted, before he disappeared.

“That’s Kol’s petname, you bastard!” she called, even though she knew he was far gone.  She wondered if he would even stay in the city, or if they’d receive a postcard with an “I’m sorry. Wish you were here!” sent from, like, an Australian cattle farm or something.

It had happened before.  Much like Caroline, Enzo was very good at running and hiding. It was enough to make a vampire mother proud – except that the little bastard had abandoned her to her husband.

And speaking of her husband.

“Hello, Love,” his breath was warm against her ear as he spoke, his voice pitched low, his lips – those gorgeous, kissable lips – grazing against the delicate skin beneath her ear. “I have missed you.”

---

Klaus knew that Elijah was attempting to shove him into the rather willing arms of Camille O’Connell.  He didn’t traditionally find himself attracted to stupid women – and the girl had to be stupid, to actively seek him out – but if it meant avoiding his brother’s sanctimonious lectures, then Klaus would spend some time with her, have a few drinks, and pretend that he was actually looking, when he hadn’t cared to acknowledge anyone romantically in…

Well, in a hundred years.

So he had gone to the pub, and intended to put in his time.  But as if just the thought of her had been a summoning, he’d felt that thrill down his spine.  Rather foolishly, he thought that if he closed his eyes, he could smell her perfume.

He hadn’t, because she had changed it.  But for his wife, Klaus had always been somewhat of a romantic, and despite her wig and terrible outfit, the second Klaus’s eyes had met hers, he had known.

She could disguise herself in a million different ways, Klaus would always recognize her, just by the way he felt when she looked at him.

“Not going to struggle?” He asked, sidestepping them into the shadows of the alley next to the pub.  In New Orleans, it took a lot to attract attention.  He could probably ravish her in the middle of Bourbon Street and not gain much attention.  But Klaus loathed the thought of all those eyes on them during their reunion, and the simple side step meant no one would notice them at all.

“If I did, would you let me go?” she replied.  She was clutching at his arms, but not trying to push them away.  Instead, she almost seemed to be holding them around her tighter.  Klaus closed his eyes and breathed her in.  A different perfume, one for the modern time.  But beneath that was still the scent of her.

“If you tried to run, I would bite you.  It wouldn’t kill you, as it will that foolish companion of yours when I find him, but it will be very uncomfortable.” Klaus tugged at the pins that held her wig in place, until he could pull it away, and then release that blonde hair of hers, the glorious curls tumbling around her shoulders.  He buried his nose into it, closed his eyes as he pulled her even closer with one arm, the other coming up, so he could bracket her neck with a hand.  “Who is it that I’m married to this decade?”

It had been a charming little quirk of hers, the way she had changed her name, her whole identity, to suit her surroundings.  In the beginning, he had continued to call her by her birth name.  But as time went on, it became clear that Signe had begun to suit her less, and each name she chose to surround herself with had become her real identity.

“Caroline,” she said after a minute, her breath catching.  “And you can’t hurt Enzo.”

“Caroline,” he dragged the name out slowly, his tongue rolling over each of the syllables.  It suited her; a more traditional name, but one that fit this time and place, in the same way he was sure she did.  His little chameleon.  “Do you really want to speak of other men right now, Caroline?  After I just observed this one touching you?”

“He’s fucking your brother,” Caroline replied bluntly, causing Klaus to be rather taken aback.  For a moment, he wondered when Elijah had started to sleep with men; he was so aggressively heterosexual, at least in public.  Then he remembered that he had more than one brother, and Kol was attracted to chaos and power, and had found himself a companion filled with the former to distract him in the past weeks.  Klaus hadn’t met him, but had heard his name.  “Ah.  Lorenzo.  Should I be worried that you sent him after Kol?”

“I didn’t make either of them do anything they didn’t want to.” Caroline replied, one of her hands coming up to rest over the hand over her throat.  For a moment, she just cradled it.  Then she violently grabbed his index finger, and snapped it back, the bone audibly breaking and making Klaus hiss angrily as she danced out of his grip.  “Or anyone.  Why don’t you tell me about the bartender, Niklaus.” Her smile was vicious and sharp.  “Camille, was it?  I don’t need a venomous bite to kill your human.”

For a moment, there was silence between them.  It was cold and heavy, filled with dangerous tension.  Then, Klaus threw his head back and laughed, and he had Caroline gathered up in his arms, her back pressed into the pub’s wall as he sealed his lips over hers.

“You’re supposed to be angry,” she muttered between kisses.  “And all rah rah, I’ll dagger you for your betrayal, grr! And wait” – Klaus sighed heavily, as her hands were planted on his chest, and she forced some space between them – “you don’t have a venomous bite. How would biting him kill Enzo? Not that you’re going to, but… oh.” Her eyes widened, and she was cupping his cheeks, wonder in her eyes, an elated smile on her lips.  “You broke it?  You actually managed to break the curse? But how? Katerina is very much alive. And in… somewhere. She’s somewhere. I haven’t an idea where.”

Klaus sighed and rolled his eyes, pressing his hands over hers.  Had it been anyone else, any of his siblings, or Marcellus… Klaus would be ranting.  He would loathe them for such a betrayal, as keeping Katerina’s location hidden from him.  But Caroline?

His wife had always been different.  She had been the one person who could run from him, who could even plot against him, and whom he would still trust at the end of it all.  Even after a century of being separated.

And oh…. A wicked smirk cuved his lips, because Elijah was going to hate this.  Once, he’d been incredibly fond of Caroline, but when she hadn’t moulded herself to his expectations, instead being whoever she wished to be at any given time, their relationship had turned sour, and she’d favored Kol instead.

And Finn, of course.  Because Finn had always been Caroline’s favorite, though he’d never understood it.  The rare times when the eldest of them had been undaggered, it had always been because of Caroline.  Klaus wondered if she knew that he was free in the world now.  Last he’d heard, he was in Europe somewhere, adjusting to the modern world and grieving for Sage.  Perhaps he’d keep that quiet.  After all, he’d just managed to get her back in his arms; the last thing he wanted to do was have her take off to find her favorite brother.

He’d have to dagger the bastard again if that happened.

“Why are you smiling?” Caroline asked, her eyes narrowing as she searched his features.  “Are you plotting?”

“There was another doppelganger. And before you throw a fit, she still lives.  Back in Mystic Falls. You’d find her boring.  And of course I’m plotting, Love.  I’m always plotting, particularly when I’m in a city full of plots against me.  Speaking of which… what meddling should I expect from you.”

“Me?” she looked at him with wide-eyed innocence.  “I don’t meddle.  I just run a ca – a shop.  It’s a cute little shop, and look at the time! I need to get back to it.  I super love you.  We’ll do dinner sometime.  Tell Elijah if he keeps throwing the bartender at you, I’ll murder her and bathe in her blood.  It’ll be a whole Delphine LaLaurie re-enactment, and then I’ll gift him her head Godfather style.”

Klaus tried to clutch onto her, but Caroline had always been good at riding and hiding, and truthfully? Klaus suspected that the reason he’d gotten his hands on her at all was because she’d wanted him to, even if she didn’t realize it herself.

“Caroline!” he growled, hoping that maybe, for once, she would listen to him.

But fast as he was, she was slippery, and every bit the Original he was. 

So of course, she was gone, before he could even really see which way she had headed.  He glared up and down the street, as the door to the bar opened, and Camille frowned at him.

“Are you okay?  Who was that woman? A witch?”

“My wife. And if she thinks I’m doing this for another century, then she’s forgotten the time I burned down Lisbon because she was taking too long, playing with a nasty coven of witches.”

Camille had questions.  She probably even asked them.  But while Klaus may have given her attention for Elijah’s sake once, he was over that. His wife was back, after all.

He had much better things to pay attention to.

---

“You’re still here,” Caroline said, when she swept into Bonnie’s apartment to find Enzo sitting next to Davina, watching the day’s episode of Days.  “I thought you’d already be on your way to Australia.”

“I’m not allowed back since that incident in 1993.  Which is too bad. I think it would be fun to drive a combine.”

“What the hell is a combine?” Davina asked.

“Language, Sweetheart,” Enzo drawled.  “And it’s used for harvesting grain.  Very large.  There are blades involved.  It would be an excellent weapon in the zombie apocalypse.”

“Which incident in 1993?” Caroline asked with a frown, perching on the arm of the couch.  She watched the show just long enough to realize that they had brought back the EJ/Sami/Lucas love triangle, and shook her head.  “I thought that was in Berlin?”

“No, that was in 1997.  The ’93 incident was Perth.”

“How many incidents have the two of you had?” Davina asked, looking between them as she ate her cheerios.  Caroline wondered if the whole cereal-soap opera combination was some sort of cry for help.  Should they be getting Davina a psychiatrist?  Did psychiatrists see children?

“A lot,” she said after a minute, deciding that the witch wasn’t her child, so her cries of help weren’t hers to answer. Right?

She really hoped so.  Bonnie was better at that sort of thing.  And they had the witchy stuff in common, so…

“I thought that you would be locked up in whatever dungeon your husband has going on beneath the city,” Enzo mused, and he hadn’t even bothered with a bowl or milk, instead eating the cheerios right out of the box. 

Was that a cry for help?

“Wait.” Caroline scowled at him.  “You figured Niklaus would lock me up, so you came here to watch tv and eat cheerios? What the hell, Enzo?”

“Well, I actually came here to tell Kol that you might be locked up.  But he and Bonnie are busy with spell stuff that I didn’t understand, and they kicked me out because I didn’t understand it, but found their spell talk really attractive.  So, since I could hardly take on your husband, and this lass appears to be possessed by the devil, I decided to let Davina explain the plot to me.”

“I just told him there is no plot, and that there’s no point in getting angry when someone cheats, because that’s probably the least of their relationship problems” – Davina gave a shrug – “honestly, I don’t usually watch these, but they’re kind of like crack for my eyes.”

Caroline eyed the television, where two of the characters were clearly about to get naked together.

“This probably isn’t age appropriate,” she mused, and Davina scoffed.

“Oh my God, you really don’t have a concept of age at all, do you?  I’m fifteen.  Trust me, the only reason I’m not out there doing that myself is because I’m too busy avoiding the coven that wants me dead.  And your husband, who wants me dead.  I’m… a young adult at this point.”

Caroline was sure that she could pick apart the logic in that, but Davina wasn’t wrong.  With all the people out to kill her, treating her like a toddler probably wasn’t appropriate.  So instead, she shrugged, grabbed a handful of cheerios from the box in Enzo’s lap, and headed for the small room Bonnie used for spells and research beyond her even smaller kitchen.

“The world is ending, and I sold you out to your brother.  I will not be accepting any criticism on that decision.  It was for a really good reason.”

Bonnie almost dropped some sort of red liquid that she and Kol were staring at when Caroline made her announcement.  Caroline wrinkled her nose, and hoped it wasn’t blood. It was one thing to drink it – that was survival.  But using it in spells was just tacky.

Bonnie would probably disagree – but that was a long term argument of theirs.

“Oh, and will you tell me your very good reason now, or wait to tell it to my daggered corpse?” Kol snapped in reply, and Caroline couldn’t entirely blame him for being pissed off.  She recalled from the one time she’d been daggered (and seriously – fuck Elijah) that the process of both being daggered and having it removed was painful.  And Klaus shoved those things into his siblings’ hearts with the glee of a five year old playing whack-a-mole for the first time.

“I will tell you.  Your brother saw me, and kissed me, and thoughts went poof, so I blabbed.  But just about you.” She looked at Bonnie who looked slightly alarmed, quick to reassure her.  “I didn’t mention anything about you. And really, I didn’t even mention anything about all of this” – she waved her hand around the room – “but he was talking about killing Enzo, so it just came out that hey! He’s sleeping with you, not me.  So he knows that we’re spending time together, and like the smart boy my husband is, he figures that probably means he’s about to get pissed off.  You’re a terrible influence on me, Kol.”

“I’m the terrible influence?” Kol demanded, looking quite outraged.  “None of this was my idea.”

“Oh, my apologies,” Caroline replied drolly, rolling her eyes and inspecting her nails.  “I’m the terrible influence, and you’ve never done a single thing wrong, ever, because you’re a good two shoes.”

Kol narrowed his eyes, because he took pride in nothing, if not being an agent of chaos. Which meant there was no way for him to get what he wanted out of their argument; either he was the chaotic one, and Caroline won, or she was the chaotic one, and she would never let him forget it. Ever.

She’d write it in her diary, just to make sure that she never forgot about it.  And then make sure that she didn’t lose that diary.

“Oh, bloody hell.  Not doing this,” Kol muttered, turning back to whatever it was they’d been doing, and snatching the vial of red liquid that Caroline refused to believe was blood (it was blood) from Bonnie to start mixing up some sort of paste with an aggressiveness it probably didn’t require.

“How are things going?” Caroline asked, using Bonnie’s shoulders for support as she peered at what they were doing, and just felt flabbergasted, because whatever they were reading wasn’t written in any of the languages she knew how to read.

It was probably Latin.  She should have learned it, but Klaus had been so pretentious about it, and so she’d stubbornly proceeded to learn pretty much every European language except Latin, just to be difficult.

That decision had started to bite her in the ass as soon as she’d started spending time with the Bennets.

“Uh… are we winning team?” she asked, resting her chin on Bonnie’s shoulder.

“What the hell would we be winning?” Kol asked, clearly not up to date on any memes.  Bonnie, who was part of the group chat that Enzo and Caroline spammed with every single one they found amusing just sighed the sigh of someone that was too tired to complain anymore.

“I think we’re starting to pull ahead,” she said, planting a hand on Caroline’s cheek to push her away.  “This should stop Davina’s heart painlessly” – she pointed at a vial that held something that didn’t look like blood, then at another – “and this should start it up again.  It’s all natural stuff.”

“Then what’s with that stuff Kol has that is totally not blood?”

“Oh my God, Care.  We’ve been over this.  Using blood in spells isn’t tacky, it’s completely normal,” Bonnie threw her hands in the air in frustration.  “And that stuff is what we need to complete the Harvest ceremony, since I’m not a blooded New Orleans witch and have no desire to be a blooded New Orleans witch.”

“I cant hear you on the blood thing, because you’re wrong and I ignore people who are wrong.  But good work on getting this figured out.  Once you’re done, I’m probably going to run off to Texas for a bit. Just until Niklaus gets bored with New Orleans.”

“Crazy idea, Darling – you could make up with him.  It’s been a century.  I think it’s time.”

“I could,” Caroline replied, glowering sourly at Kol.  “Or, and this is the option I prefer, I could not.  Because he had me in his presence for, like, a whole fifteen minutes today, and not once did he apologize.  So he can take his stupid attractive lips, and use them on the ass he won’t get to see until he does.”

Kol sighed heavily, and Bonnie looked between them. 

“If it helps, we all know you were right.  There’s a distinct lack of Bekah in the city, isn’t there?  Well, the truth came out, and Nik essentially banished her.  I’m still surprised that Marcellus is alive.”

“Do you really think that he would kill my son? Even if he’s a stupid boy that I obviously didn’t spank enough?”

“Didn’t you spend a good ten minutes complaining about how Davina was a child and you refuse to have anything to do with children unsupervised?” Bonnie asked, completing whatever mixture they were making as Caroline and Kol stared each other down from either side of her.  “How were you a mother?”

“Well, poorly, obviously,” Caroline replied, rolling her eyes.  “Marcellus decided to rain down the wrath of my father-in-law on our heads.  And he slept with his aunt.  He was a clear sign that I screw children up, and I learn from my mistakes, thank-you very much.”

“Ouch,” Bonnie muttered.  “I feel sorry for the kid.”

“He’s hardly a child anymore, and I never said he was the mistake.  My parenting was.  Pay attention, BonBon. But, back to the point of everything! We need to get this done, and then I need to skedaddle or else I will end up sleeping with him.”

“You’re married to him.  I don’t think that’s a problem, Caroline.”

“It is if I want him to learn how to apologize, Kol.  Gods – I don’t comment on your love life and how your type is chaotic gremlin or witch that could nuke me.  You don’t comment on my marriage.”

There were several beats of silence, and then Kol began to snicker.  Then it became laughter, until he had to actually sit on the floor, clutching his stomach. 

“Darling, this is why you need to make up with Nik.  We’re so very dour without you around.  We all take ourselves too seriously.  It’s been a miserable century.”

“You weren’t even awake for most of it.”

“Perhaps not, but that meant that Nik was alone with Elijah.  You can imagine how terrible he was when I was allowed to waken.  I’m honestly surprised they didn’t have matching suits.”

The thought was enough to give Caroline a full body shudder, and she didn’t even shove Kol away, when he pressed a kiss to her cheek.

“I’ve done all I can here.  It’s up to Bonnie and her coven to finish it.  I’ll go and convince Nik that he shouldn’t murder my new toy.  If he daggers me, you’ll release me, won’t you?”

Caroline scowled at him, but they both knew that she would.  It was one thing, if he was daggered for being a wreck. But this time it would have been, at least partially, Caroline’s fault.  And she didn’t let her siblings stay daggered because of her.

“You know,” Bonnie remarked as they watched him leave, her voice thoughtful.  “Instead of fleeing to Texas, you could just try to screw him out of your system.  Kol seems to think it would mellow him out.  The city would probably put up a statue in your honour.”

“Even if I’m screwing Klaus, he’s my husband and that’s okay, so it won’t keep me from mocking you until you die for having a threesome with Kol and Enzo.  I’ll never let you forget it, that your taste in men is even worse than mine.  After all, I only have one of them that I sleep with.”

“If you don’t leave, I’ll pour the blood I don’t use over your head, and we’ll see if you can deny that’s what it is then. Bitch.”

Caroline knew Bonnie meant it as a term of affection, so she let the insult go.

---

Elijah knew something was going on as soon as he entered the townhouse that Niklaus had reclaimed from Marcellus. 

For one, Kol was standing in the small courtyard, looking as though he were contemplating turning right around and leaving again.  For another, he could actually hear Niklaus… whistling?

“He seems happy,” Elijah observed, cocking his head, before looking at Kol who looked less than pleased.  “He said he was going to see Camille today.  I do believe this is progress.”

“Do you really a watered down version of a human Caroline is the reason that Nik is whistling, Eli?” Kol asked, looking almost pityingly at him.  It made Elijah bristle, since he was by far the most well-adjusted in a family of admittedly poorly adjusted vampires.

“Caroline?” Elijah asked, raising a brow.  Kol made a face.

“Signe.  She goes by Caroline now.”

“And she is here in New Orleans!” It was Klaus that said the last, his voice jovial as he appeared on the balcony, slowly sauntering down to join them.  There was some paint smeared on one of his hands, and he was smiling so brightly that his dimples showed.

In the hand without paint, he held a dagger.

“Oh, fuck,” Kol muttered, and he moved so that there were several chairs between himself and their brother.  “You know, Nik, if you shove that into me, Caroline won’t be pleased.  She’ll take all the blame on herself, and you know that she never lets it stand when you try to do murderous deeds in her name.”

“Signe…” Elijah felt his teeth grind together after he said the words.  Admittedly, he had pushed Niklaus towards Camille because of her similarities to the human girl he had fallen in love with and married.  That girl had later become as big a monster as any of them, but before that, before the ceremony that had changed them all, she had been good for his brother.  She had calmed is wild temper, had bult bridges between him and all the siblings. “Why is she here?”

“Excellent question, Elijah.  Our dear brother is going to give us the answer.”

“Look, she’s been here for two or so decades, Nik.  I don’t really know the details of exactly how it happened.  I’m really just here to make peace.  I’m quite fond of Lorenzo and all of his body parts.  I’d like him to keep them.”

Klaus held up the dagger, looking at it contemplatively, before looking down its length at Kol, who looked ready to bolt at any moment. Elijah adjusted his position, prepared to cut him off before he could flee.  Recognizing the movement, Kol shot him an indignant, betrayed look.  It possibly made him feel some guilt, but he had been causing some trouble, with his meddling with witches, and his rivalry with Marcel.  Perhaps putting him back in a box for a decade or so would be good for the family.

But to Elijah’s surprise, Niklaus finally just sighed, and tucked the dagger into one of his belt loops.

“Where is she?” he demanded.  “Tell me, and I won’t removed Lorenzo’s arm and make you eat it.”

Kol cocked his head thoughtfully, eyes narrowed.

“He’s talented enough that he only needs one arm, truthfully.  And I rather like it, the way she leads you on a merry chase so easily, Nik.”

“Have you developed an attachment to the dagger, Kol? Is that what this is about? Or perhaps I need to hand deliver you the boy’s heart?”

“Try it,” Kol leaned against one of the chairs, grinning at Klaus.  “She turned him, you know.  Shortly after she left you – for the second time.  When was the last time she turned anyone, can you recall Nik?  I don’t know that I’d need all my fingers, to count those that she’s directly turned.  She’s incredibly picky about it – but she turned Lorenzo. Deliver me his heart, and I think you might actually destroy your marriage.” Kol gave a careless shrug.  “But that’s just my opinion.  And that’s all I really came here to say.  Now, I’m going to pack.”

“Pack?” Elijah demanded.  “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Why do you care, Eli?  You were so willing to see me daggered.  You should be happy I plan to make myself scarce.” Kol’s hands were in his pockets as he strolled towards the entrance.  He paused, just before the door to smirk back at him.  “Were I you, I’d make plans to be gone as well, brother.  Do you really want to be here for Nik’s grand reunion with his wife?  I recall the last one.  It was loud.  I’m pretty sure they fucked in your bed.”

On that note, he disappeared into the house, leaving Elijah to glare at Klaus.  And perhaps he should have written Kol’s off as him being a brat trying to cause tension.  But Niklaus wasn’t looking at him.  He’d instead pulled out the dagger once more, was looking at it with a focus it didn’t at all deserve.

“She’s a wild and dangerous thing,” Elijah said at last, choosing not to address the thought of what they might have done. In his bed. “Camille has all of the traits that made you fall in with Signe in the first place. She’d be better for you.”

“You live in the past, Eli.” Elijah startled at Klaus using the nickname.  It had been Caroline, who had used it first, and Kol had been quick to latch on.  But Niklaus and Rebekah never had.  “You spend so much time remembering who Caroline used to be, focusing on who I used to be, that you miss that I’ve outgrown the girl she once was.  Camille would be a charming amusement that would bore me to tears within a year. As it is, I much prefer my little chameleon. I’ve missed the unpredictability of her.”

Elijah wanted to argue… but Klaus’ gaze said he had already moved away from their conversation.  In his mind, he was trying to figure out where his wife was, and there was nothing that Elijah could say, that would turn him back onto the path he believed best.

It was enough, to make Elijah look at the dagger and consider.

He really should have known better.  Because that look was all it took, for the dagger to wind up in his heart instead.

“I’ll let my wife decide when to wake you, dear brother,” Klaus said, helping Elijah fall to the ground.  “You should thank me.  She’s far more merciful than I am.”

---

The Harvest Sacrifices awoke less than a week after Klaus had last seen Caroline. 

Davina Claire reappeared a day after them.

“I don’t understand why they’re making me talk to you,” she told him, with the scowling petulance that only a teenager could summon.  “I don’t get why they’re acting like I did something wrong.  The Harvest Ceremony was a success! I just didn’t need to be stabbed by my own mother or something.”

“Is your mother still alive?” Klaus mused thoughtfully.  “She must be quite awful.  My sympathies – I know a thing or two about awful mothers.  As it is, you’re not being punished.  I just asked to be allowed a word.  Where is Caroline, Davina?”

“Caroline?” asked Marcellus, hovering behind her like a concerned father.  “Who the hell is Caroline?”

“Don’t you know your own mom’s name?” Davina shot back at him, clearly not entirely happy that her supposed saviour hadn’t supported her in avoiding seeing Klaus.  “That’s cold.”

“My… wait, Mom is in New Orleans?”

Klaus supposed it said something about their respective relationships with the boy, that he called him Klaus, but still called Caroline ‘Mom.’  She’d always been the better parent, trying to enforce rules and limits and yelling at Rebekah for developing a romantic relationship with him.

Klaus had just thought they could have expected it.  After all, the Mikaelsons had never encountered a relationship they couldn’t turn dysfunctional.  It only made sense that Marcellus would be the same.

“For at least two decades, according to Kol.  I would have asked him more, but she must have given him her assistance in hiding from me.”

“He went to Las Vegas with Enzo and Bonnie, like, three days ago,” Davina grumbled, still glowering.  “I had to spend the last three days with Caroline, and she can’t watch Days of Our Lives without a running commentary.  It’s super annoying.”

“Careful, Davina.  I am not my wife to feel pity for someone just because of an arbitrary age limit.  Where is she?”

“Maybe she went to Vegas, too,” Davina muttered.  Marcel gave her a sharp look that made her sigh, as though the whole weight of the world were on her shoulders.  It was rather dramatic. She pulled out a piece of paper, and shoved it at Klaus, who raised a brow and took it.

‘Stop the inquisition and just learn to use a cellphone.’

Written below the words was a series of numbers – a phone number. 

“Well, that’s all then,” Klaus said, already inputting the number into the cellphone he’d gotten during his Mystic Falls adventure. 

“Wait, you can’t just tell me that Mom is here and not give me more!”

“Call her, then,” Klaus replied, shoving the paper in Marcel’s direction.  “But not now.  Or for a few weeks.  She and I need to have a conversation first.”

“If you’re going to dagger her-”

“Hell, Marcellus.  Your estrange parents are going to reunite.  That should make you happy.”

“Do you really want to be a part of that mess?” Davina asked him, her nose wrinkled in distaste.  “They’re weird. So freaking weird.”

Had she said that to him even two weeks ago, he would have threatened to kill her.  He likely would have even had her neck wrapped in his hands.  But the future was looking far more bright, and the lights of New Orleans looking far less appealing, now that he had that number in his phone.

So, for once he granted mercy… or rather, he just ignored the peanut gallery, so he could call the number, wandering away from the duo that could no longer hold his attention.

“Hello, Love,” he said when the phone connected.

“You know, that still isn’t an I’m sorry. Kol told me that Finn is undaggered.  I can be with him real easy, Niklaus.”

“Really, Caroline?  Our little spat? I’m already over it.”

“It lasted a century, Klaus! I’m not.”

And it was something out of a cheesy romance movie, the ones that Bekah had made him watch, that he had known Caroline would love, the way that he turned a corner, phone to his ear, to see her there waiting for him.  She raised her brows at him, as she hit the end button on the call.

“You know, when Davina showed up on my doorstep, I kind of figured that the world was going to end.  This whole thing is sort of anti-climatic, especially for us.”

“What did you expect, Love?” Klaus replied, wrapping an arm around her waist, tugging her against his chest. “I daggered Elijah.  Does that add enough drama?”

Caroline rolled her eyes, and grabbed the necklace he wore, tugging him down so that she could press her lips to his.  Klaus let himself get lost in the kiss, until he felt her grin against his mouth, and they separated, foreheads resting against each other.

“You’re being way more laid back about this than I expected.  I thought there would be more anger.”

“Well, you were Rose back then, when you left.  I can hardly be angry at Caroline for what she did, can I?”

“I’m not a different person,” she muttered.  “I just don’t think names are all that important.”

“Love, I forgave you after the first decade.  By that point you’d disappeared so thoroughly that I was in Rio before I realized that you had sent me after some poor little scapegoat that didn’t even know vampires existed.  Someday, you will have to teach me your tricks.”

“Hmmm… but I already told Kol I’d teach them to him.  Only one lesson per family, sorry.” She hugged her arms around him, letting her head rest against his shoulder.  “I missed you.  Isn’t that the worst?”

“I would think missing your husband would be good.  A sign of a strong marriage.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to be stubborn.  You know, show up all I don’t need you anymore, and if you want me you’ll have to beg.  I wanted to make you beg, Klaus.  Instead I let you have two kisses and I’m gonna settle for not even getting a proper apology.  That’s so lame of me.” She pulled back from him, and it was all so very dramatic.  Elijah was wrong, when he acted as though she was no longer that girl Klaus had fallen in love with.  The dramatics had been a talent of hers since they were children and she was lecturing him on proper decoration methods for her cousin’s wedding.

She was older, and wiser, but she’d always been bossy and adaptable.  Really no different at all.

“We should probably do couple’s counselling, you know.  I’m pretty sure there’s supposed to be angst when you’ve been separated for a century.”

“Have you heard of many couples that have been together as long as us, Love?  I certainly don’t.  And I’m rather tired of being separated from you.  I’ve decided to be magnanimous, and not drag it out with dramatics. This time.  Next time, there will be dramatics.”

“Are you seriously already planning on pissing me off like this again?  Really, Klaus?” She sighed and shook her head.  “I should have made you grovel.  You’re going to be so infuriating for at least fifty years now.” She sighed again, rubbing her temples with one of her hands.  “You need to wake Eli up, you know.  I mean, I assume that he was probably a jerk about me, and you know my rule on daggering.”

“Couldn’t you make an exception?”

“And start a terrible standard? Klaus, we’ve been married way too long for that.  I’m going to have to stop and visit Marcel, as well. I’m so not getting a mother’s day card this year.”

They were walking down the street, hand-in-hand, Klaus realized.  They had never really done that before.  Yet no one paid them any mind; they were hardly the only young (appearing) couple to be doing so, after all.

And for the first time since he had reunited with Marcel in a pub, the thought of staying in that city, of being caught in a constant battle of wills between factions… it no longer appealed.

Just the thought of being a King in a time when Kings no longer ruled supreme, it was laughable.

“How do you feel about being married to the bogeyman again?” he asked, and Caroline grinned at him, her grip on his hand tightening.

“I heard about this pack of wolves in Siberia that likes to hunt young girls.  They’re super scary supposedly.  Wanna decimate them with me?” she asked, all but bouncing on her tiptoes at the mere thought.

Siberia was freezing and miserable.  Caroline hated the cold, even though it wasn’t supposed to affect them.  She’d certainly take the opportunity to share “body warmth.”

It sounded perfect.

“We’ll wake Eli up when we get back!” she added. “And maybe after we’ve visited Finn. But we’ll have to do it before we see Rebekah again, or she’ll throw a fit, and that will totally put the brakes on our not-dramatic reunion.”

Within the year, the supernatural would murmur Klaus’ name in hushed voices again, as if worried he might be able to hear them, even when he was miles away.

Within the year, the entirety of the Mikaelson family, Lorenzo, and a Bennet Witch of all things would converge on Finn in Europe.

Within the year, Klaus and Caroline would have had at least two rows that ended with broken buildings and them falling into bed.  Klaus would never officially apologize of course, but Caroline would make him beg, at least once.

But before all that could happen, they first needed to face the next moments.  Where Klaus, who refused to apologize, still managed to fix the mistake he had made approximately a century previous.

He took his wife’s hand, and he walked away from New Orleans.