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It was silly, really. Absolutely absurd that, after every single thing she’d been through, it was a voicemail from a man she should have despised that haunted Caroline Forbes the most. Not the future she had lost when she had transitioned into a vampire. Not every single person that seemed to get caught up in the death sentence that was staying in Mystic Falls. No, it was the Big Bad Wolf himself telling her with such fondness that he wanted to show her his favourite place in the world.
Klaus Mikaelson had once told her that he may not be her first love, but he intended to be her last. And how the hell do you forget when one of the world’s oldest vampires tells you that with such certainty? The obvious answer was; you don’t. You try to push the words into the back of your mind and move on with your life; love someone else; want to be with anyone else . Unfortunately, it seemed as if Caroline Forbes had found one of the few things she couldn’t consider herself good at; forgetting the Original Hybrid.
It was pitiful - beyond pitiful, actually. Out of every relationship she’d had, it shouldn’t have been the concept of a relationship with Klaus that felt the most real. Matt had been sweet and wonderful…and terrified once he learnt what she was. Tyler loved her and she loved him, but never enough for him to stay. There was always an excuse for him to leave; a reason he couldn’t stay with Caroline. Damon. It was hard to think about how things had been with Damon without her skin crawling. But Klaus Mikaelson was not any of them. He was cruel and brutal and dangerous and… and he saw her in a way no one else seemed willing to. He wasn’t scared of, he didn’t hid behind excuses, and he would never steal her romantic autonomy.
In all honesty, he seemed to treat her better than her friends and Caroline really didn’t know how to feel about that.
Her friends cared about her - she knew that! Elena and Bonnie had always been her best friends! Or at least, she thought they were. It wasn’t as if they had kept the existence of vampires from her! Or it wasn’t as if Bonnie had tried to kill her after she transitioned! It wasn’t as if everything revolved around Elena and Caroline had just had to endure it! It wasn’t as if her best friend was in love with the man that had forced himself on her! But she was Caroline Forbes. It wasn’t her job to wallow or deal with her own trauma. She was the fun friend! The one who planned events and made sure to stay upbeat.
Caroline Forbes was actually the exhausted friend who was starting to doubt if she had friends in the first place.
That was the realisation that finally pushed her to her breaking point. She was immortal. She had all the time in the world to go to college in as many countries as she could name and as far from Mystic Falls as she could get. But for now… For now New Orleans would be far enough. It had to be.
Maybe leaving a note simply reading ‘ I’m done. ’ was more than a little bit dramatic, but at this point they deserved nothing else from her - least of all an explanation. She didn’t need to say where she was going or justify why she had to leave! Her mom got a text assure her that Caroline would (hopefully) be safe but she refused to share where she was going.
Caroline would be lying if she said she hadn’t wanted some form of outrage or upset that she was gone. And there was! Just not in the way she had hoped - even if it was the exact way she had expected. No one cared as to why she left. Instead the texts seemed to be imperfect replicas of each other. ‘ How could you do this to Elena, Caroline?’ or ‘ I need you, Care. Please don’t do this to me!’ Because apparently seeing the world outside of the lens of keeping Elena Gilbert happy was impossible for them!
There were the calls too, obviously but she didn’t dare pick up any of them. Well, most of them are least. There was one she couldn’t refuse.
“Hello, love. It seems you’ve caused quite the uproar.” The amusement in Klaus’s voice was almost soothing. No anger or indignation, just… amusement.
She let out a quiet laugh. “What can I say? Who am I if not the epitome of dramatic?” Because that was Caroline! The over-the-top friend that always blew things out of proportion. “Besides, wasn’t too sure I’d get very far if I tried to leave any other way.”
Klaus’s tone seemed to change at that. “You make yourself sound like some form of prisoner, and Stefan certainly didn’t sound like a jailor.” At the very least, one of them had an idea as to where she was going; the one place they couldn’t drag her back from. That, or Stefan believed she didn’t have any agency and Klaus had simply…whisked her away. It wasn’t as the Original Hybrid had ever hid his fondness for her.
Caroline snorted. “Oh, I know. Damon’s definitely the bigger jailor out of the two.” And God, weren’t they memories she could never quite free herself from? “…I don’t even know if he’s worried about my safety or just keeping Elena happy.”
“Doppelgängers do so often find themselves the cause of problems, don’t they? An inherited selfishness.” Part of Caroline wanted to defend Elena; to try and insist she was selfless! But the other part of her knew Klaus wasn’t lying. He was reciting a truth he’d seen play out before. “Katerina at least had the decency to have some charm. Not that she holds so much as a flame to you, sweet Caroline.”
“Do you have to turn every situation into a chance to charm me?”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“I wouldn’t have picked up if I did.” In her opinion, his laugh sounded far too smug at that. “That, and it’s boring driving in silence.”
That seemed to grab his attention. “Now, love, where could you possibly be driving alone? Not running away too far, I hope?” It was nice to have someone so genuinely invested in her rather than the role she played in someone else’s life - even if that person was the Original Hybrid himself.
“You could argue I’m running towards something.” She swallowed harshly. “They don’t care. They don’t care that Damon compelled me to be his girlfriend and personal blood bag, or that Bonnie tried to kill me, or anything that doesn’t affect them.”
“…What have they done to you?”
Caroline wanted to scream and sob and let out every pent up emotion she’d tried to smother, but whilst driving probably wasn’t the best place for that. “I think I’d need a few drinks for that conversation.” She paused. “Though, I’ve heard there’s more than a few good bars in New Orleans. Someone practically waxed poetry about the city to me!”
“Oh! That was hardly poetry!” She couldn’t stop herself from letting out a shaky laugh at his indignation. “But I assume this means I’m about to have some rather beautiful company?” Caroline wished she was in New Orleans already just so he could see her roll her eyes.
“As tragic as it is, I think you might be one of the only people that likes the concept of Caroline Forbes as anything other than a footnote.” God, could she have made herself sound any more tragic? “So yes, Klaus. You’re going to be stuck with my company and you’re going to enjoy it!”
“You say that as if it’s some Herculean task, love.” She hated that it felt as if it should be. “You’ll have a queen’s welcome, just as a former Miss Mystic Falls deserves.”
“Good.” She huffed prissily. “I deserve nothing less.”
Caroline Forbes had always dreamt of living her life like a fairytale. She didn’t expect the part where she ran into the arms of the Big Bad Wolf, or that he would feel so much like home.