Shards of Shattered Glass

Book One of the Shattered Glass Trilogy

A The Vampire Diaries (TV) Fanfiction

By Lilly Gray

Story Synopsis: What if when Jeremy killed Kol, he never made it to The Otherside? What if instead, he stuck around in one form or another to seek vengeance on all those who have wronged him. This is the story of what could have happened if Kol wasn't as dead and gone as everyone had thought. Rated M for violence, bad language, and sexy bits. Part one of a Trilogy.

WARNING: There is Major Character Death in this story… SORT OF, but you won't understand until you get to the end soif the Deaths of Major Characters bothers youthen stop reading this story now and go read one of my other stories instead.

Characters: In random order, Sheila Bennett, Kol Mikaelson, Elijah Mikaelson, Damon Salvatore, Elena Gilbert, Bonnie Bennett, Niklaus Mikaelson, Caroline Forbes, Tyler Lockwood, Jeremy Gilbert, Lucy Bennett

Genre: angst, drama

Rating: MA. This story is Rated MA for bad language, bad behavior, and sexy naughty bits.

Purveyors of Plot Bunnies: Luner Kat and pyrodaemon

Betas/Pre-Readers: laurenj15, brooklyn4, Luner Kat, pyrodaemon

Banners by: Lilly Gray

Words: 33,374

Prompt/inspiration: this story is inspired by the fantastic story 'A Shadow in the Mirror' by Cuinawen ( one-shots/a-shadow-in-the-mirror/), which was written for Bertie Botts' 2014 'Every Flavor Spook Fest' answering the prompt: I woke up to hear knocking on glass. At first, I thought it was the window until I heard it come from the mirror again.

Status: Complete

Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries or any of its characters or locations. They belong to Alloy Entertainment, Ltd., Bonanza Productions Inc., Warner Bros. Television, CBS Television Studios, Kevin Williamson, and Julie Plec, et al. I'm making no money from this story, which I wrote just for fun, and I intend no copyright infringement.

Author's Notes: First things first, I rewrote this story in a single PoV. The narrator is now Sheila Bennett. You'll understand why she's the narrator when you read the second story in the trilogy. Either way, this change should make following along much easier than in the previous version which jumped around from PoV to PoV.

This story is NOT a crossover, and it starts in The Vampire Diaries Season 04, Episode 12, 'A View to a Kill.' I think it'll be obvious where in the episode it is picking up so I won't go into details here. However, I had some trouble figuring out a date for the events in the episode. After making my own up and then getting a better handle on the show's timeline, I changed it several times. Therefore, this story is beginning on Thursday, December 02, 2010, just after 9:00 p.m. I realize that this date is not canon, but I had rearranged and added things before I realized that I still didn't have the proper timeline. I decided not to further change it because several chapters would need to be deleted if I corrected the timeline. I happen to be very fond of the chapters in question, so if you'd be so kind, please suspend disbelief and overlook my screwy timeline. Thank you.

The relationships in this story are mostly Damon/Elena with a very teeny tiny bit of Tyler/Caroline and Klaus/Caroline

Author's Note: I have directly quoted quite a bit of this first chapter from the show… it can't be helped. I do not claim ownership of any of the dialog from the show. Many thanks to the Vampire Diaries Wiki Page for the transcripts to the necessary episodes, which made my life much easier.

Also, if you read Shards of Shattered Glass before October 12, 2018, you should know that there have been several changes made to this first story in the trilogy. One of those changes is that the whole story is now in one PoV. Sheila Bennett is now the sole narrator of the entire trilogy. I hope this will make the stories easier to follow.

Happy reading.

Chapter 001

Not Even Worth the Calories

Sheila Bennett's PoV

Thursday, December 02, 2010, just after 9:00 p.m.

Outside the Gilbert's House

While Niklaus Mikaelson marches up to the Gilbert's house, his brother Kol's scream rips through the otherwise silent night. Rushing to the front door, which looks like someone kicked it in, we both watch helplessly while Elena Gilbert grabs the White Oak Stake out of Kol's inside jacket pocket and tosses it to her brother before she says, "Now Jeremy."

Despite the fact no one here can hear me or even knows I'm watching, I shout, "Kol, watch out!"

Niklaus, on the other hand, can't get his mouth to work at all, and he chokes on a scream when Jeremy stakes Kol who screams again with wide eyes before he bursts into flames.

Kol's cries of pain while he lurches and staggers about the Gilbert's kitchen echo in my ears and the sound will be forever ingrained in my mind. With jerky motions, I wipe at the hot tears pouring down my face.

No one can see me because I'm just a ghost, but when Kol finally drops to the floor dead, Jeremy, the teenage boy Kol once called his friend, looks up and sees Niklaus standing in the doorway. In quick order, Elena follows her brother's line of sight and sees the heavily breathing original too.

Unlike me, who once again wipes at my wet eyes, Niklaus resists the urge to rub at the tears he can feel building in his eyes. Instead, he asks an obvious question, "What did you do?"

Niklaus' looks at Elena and thinks, 'She really is more trouble than she's worth.'

She frowns and says, "We didn't have a choice. He was trying to cut off Jeremy's arm!"

My head shakes while Niklaus' fists clench at his sides. His nostrils flare a moment later before he bares his clenched teeth and tells Elena, "Lies! He never would have gotten inside if you hadn't set a trap for him."

Elena looks sideways at her brother who shrugs slightly, so the selfish girl says, "You said you were going to put him down too."

I know what Niklaus said, but he was clear that he planned to dagger his brother, not murder him, so he breathes heavily while his eyes narrow, and through still clenched teeth he tells her, "I was going to make him suffer on my terms!"

The hybrid tries unsuccessfully to step through the doorway, so instead, he tells them, "I'm going to burn this house to the ground. And then, when you try to flee for your lives, I'll kill you both without blinking."

Jeremy glares at Niklaus while he and his sister walk toward the open door and then with a poor imitation of Niklaus' own sneer Jeremy says, "You kill us, you'll never get to The Cure. You'll never be able to make any more hybrids."

My eyes widen at that proclamation. Does Jeremy really think Niklaus gives a damn about his hybrids when he just watched his baby brother burn to death? One thing I know from my time watching the Mikaelson's and my granddaughter and her friends while on The Otherside is that every single last original loves his or her siblings more than life itself. Not even one of them would allow permanent harm to come to any of them without putting up the fight of their lives in defense of their sibling. The fact that the two Gilbert children just murdered their second original, in cold blood no less, means that Niklaus and his surviving siblings will stop at nothing until Elena and her brother are as dead as Kol is now.

I can clearly hear Niklaus' thoughts so putting those facts aside for a moment there is also the fact that he wants The Cure so it can't be used against him. He couldn't care less about making more hybrids, in fact, he thinks his hybrid making attempts have caused far more trouble than the creatures are worth. Therefore, he wants nothing more right now than to watch the life drain from both Gilbert children's eyes while he kills them.

Niklaus makes his position and opinion clear and tells the two teens, "You really think I care for an instant about my bloody hybrids? I want The Cure so I can destroy it. I would've killed you all the second we dug it up, but now I'm just going to watch you burn instead."

After the last word passes Niklaus' lips searing pain rips through his body causing him to cry out and fall to his knees. His brain is on fire, and his bones feel like someone dipped them in molten lava, or at least that's what it feels like to him. Through blurry eyes he watches my granddaughter walk past him and into the house.

The pain stops when Bonnie's safely inside, but she says to her ex-boyfriend, "Invite him in."

The Gilberts both look at each other with questions written all over their faces. After tossing looks back and forth for a minute, my baby girl orders Jeremy, "Do it!"

Niklaus rises to his feet, and I hope my grandbaby knows what she's doing because a moment later the two siblings shrug at each other and the last living Gilbert says, "Come in."

Niklaus doesn't get a chance to charge in because he's magickally pulled inside and held immobile. Struggling against the invisible bonds he barely manages to move a muscle before Bonnie yells, "Living Room. Go!"

Niklaus and I both watch while the threesome runs through the living room into the kitchen just before his bonds evaporate, so we follow them through the living room and into the kitchen, but something keeps him from being able to enter the kitchen. He punches at the air only to have his downward trajectory stopped by an invisible barrier.

Jeremy leans down and pulls the White Oak Stake out of Kol's burnt body. Is he going to try to kill Niklaus too? Apparently not, because he and the doppelgänger run to the door, so Niklaus pounds on the barrier again before telling my smirking grandbaby, "Witch, you can't do this to me."

Bonnie's smirk deepens before she looks him right in the eyes and tells him, "You have no idea what I can do now."

Then she turns and leaves while the original yells, "I will hunt all of you to your end! Do you hear me? Do you!?"

No one replies because they're already gone, so the hybrid bangs on the barrier for a minute or two then he looks around and upturns the coffee table in a fit of rage before sighing and sitting down on one of the couches. He studiously avoids looking at Kol's still smoldering body.

Niklaus is determined to get them all for this. 'Just wait until I get my hands around their bloody necks. First, they killed Finn in cold blood. We let that slide because he was trying to kill us, but now they've murdered our baby brother in cold blood too. I'll tear their heads clear from their shoulders. I'll destroy every single last one of that bloody group.'

A few minutes later, a tapping noise distracts us both, so we get up, and Niklaus looks around to make sure he's as alone as he thinks he is. He finds no one but discovers that his prison includes the hallway though he still can't get into the kitchen or reach his brother's body.

Satisfied that he really is alone, the weary Niklaus sits back down on the couch placing his elbows on his bent knees and waits to find out when they'll release him and what they plan to try to do to him before they release him.

That tapping noise reaches our ears again, so the hybrid quirks an eyebrow and gets up walking into the hallway where we're both confident the sound is coming from. Standing there at the mouth of the hall he just listens for a minute when the tapping happens again. We follow it to the mirror on the wall, and when we gaze into it, we both gasp because Kol is staring back at us. Niklaus turns to look behind himself, but no one is there, so he looks back at the glass and reaches out to touch it while he asks, "Kol, what—"

That's all he gets out because when he touches the glass, his baby brother pushes with all his might forcing himself into his sibling's body.

Don't ask me what made Kol try it because he had no clue if it would work. He just knew he had to try. It does work though, so the recently deceased vampire finds himself looking into the mirror at his older brother glaring back at him, so Kol smiles and tells Niklaus, "Ah, that's much better. Because you were willing to kill them all on my behalf, I'm willing to overlook our differences enough that I won't end you, but I am going to use your body to wreak havoc on all of them and their little friends. I hope you don't mind."

The hybrid's shoulders sag, so Kol walks into the living room and tests the bounds of his prison before sitting on the couch and waiting to see what happens next.

Kol doesn't sit for long before he stands back up and begins pacing. He's never been particularly good with boredom, and right now he's incredibly bored. He wants to wreak havoc and mess with some heads, 'maybe kill a number of the bumbling idiots,' and he hopes to do it before Elena and her friends manage to raise Silas and destroy the world.

He was deadly serious when he said he likes the world the way it is, and he thinks, 'Those idiots are risking everything just to turn poor little Elena Gilbert back into a weak human.'

Kol has been standing in the Gilbert's living room pacing for hours and staring at his own corpse. Talk about disturbing looking at his own dead body from the body of his older brother while the sun rises over the horizon. He's dead and not vampire dead, but some sort of body-snatching dead. He thinks, 'Oh, well, it should serve my purposes, and I might be able to finagle a way to come back permanently when this is all over.'

Just then Tyler shows up and enters the premises. Kol wonders, 'What is his name again, Tanner? Taylor? No that's not right. Oh right, Tyler.'

Tyler sneers and says, "Morning, Sunshine. You look pathetic."

Kol thinks, 'Well, excuse me, but I just spent all night staring at my burnt corpse.' Still, he has a part to play, and if he's going to pull his plans off properly he needs to play it right, so he tells Tyler, "Only until Bonnie's spell locking me in here wears off." The original pauses and then smirks while he says, "Then I'll look different. Angrier, perhaps. Or I won't look like anything because I'll have gouged your eyeballs from their sockets."

I can't help it. I laugh at that last part. It's so like Kol and Niklaus both to say something like that.

Tyler leans against the wall and frowns but then says, "My friends will be back with The Cure by then, so I could shove it down your throat and make you mortal."

Narrowing his eyes, Kol asks him, "I'm an original. What makes you think my entire vampire bloodline won't be cured along with me? I.e., you."

Pushing off the wall, Tyler smiles pleased with himself before he says, "You know what I think? I think that's impossible. I think the moment you stop being a vampire, our whole blood connection to you is broken, and your sire-line ceases to exist. So, whatever happens to you, happens only to you, which means I can kill your ass and no one else has to die. Although I am still debating just how to do it."

Kol vamps towards the teen but pulls up short when he runs into the barrier, so the original smirks and uses the bit of information he got from his older brother and tells Tyler, "I recommend drowning. There's nothing quite like the feeling of someone fighting for something as basic as human breath. And let me tell you, despite the enormous amount of alcohol running through her veins your mother was a fighter."

Tyler glares at him while Kol rocks back on his heels with a pleased smile knowing he hit his intended mark.

Several Hours Later

Tyler has been just standing staring at Kol inside Niklaus' body for hours when the original hears his brother's 'pretty little thing' flit in through the back door, but she obviously pulls up short when she sees Tyler. The frown in Caroline's voice is obvious when she asks, "You're still here? What are you doing?"

Tyler takes a glass out of one of the kitchen cabinets and grins before he says, "Gloating."

He pours himself a drink while Kol emerges from the living room. Smiling in what he hopes is a good approximation of how his brother smiles at her he says, "Hello, Caroline."

Looking over her shoulder at him for a good ten seconds she glares and then looks back at Tyler before walking and placing her hands on the counter, telling her boyfriend, "Come home. Don't stoop to his level."

Tyler frowns and sighs, "He destroyed my life."

Kol thinks, 'I haven't even begun to destroy his life, but when I'm done the life he knew will be but a distant memory he will only be able to wish he could return to.'

Tyler lifts his glass as though he's toasting Kol and says, "I plan on being present for every second of his misery until I can kill him myself."

The only way they might best Kol while he's in his brother's body is with my granddaughter's help. None of them are strong enough to overpower the hybrid and force The Cure on him. So even if he is correct, Tyler won't be doing much killing.

Caroline frowns back and then looks at Kol over her shoulder again before she says, "Fine. You can gloat and multitask. This place is a disaster. Starting with a horrific burnt corpse."

She heads to a cabinet to the right of the kitchen and bends down taking out a tablecloth. She hands one end to Tyler, and they use it to cover Kol's corpse. On the one hand, not having to look at his burnt body is a blessing. On the other hand, Kol wants to see it to keep his anger at his brother fresh because while he was honest when he told Niklaus that he won't end him, he does plan to cause his brother pain as payment for his role in Kol's demise.

The original frowns and tells the cheerleader, "Tyler's mother is dead, so am—is my brother. We're even." Neither of the teens seems to notice his little slip before Tyler rolls his eyes and sighs and when Caroline looks at Kol with a frown on her face, Kol tells her, "Call Bonnie. Get her to let me out of here."

Caroline shakes her head with her hands on her hips before she says, "I will never, ever, help you."

Again, using his knowledge gleaned from conversations with his brother Kol tells her, "How quickly you forget the part where I saved Tyler from the misery of being a werewolf. Or the night your mother invited me into her home to save the life of her precious daughter."

Caroline crosses her arms and frowns before she tells the original, "How delusional are you? You killed his mother. And let's not forget that we're standing in a house where Elena's aunt Jenna used to live."

She begins walking closer to the revenge-hungry Kol. Despite no one being able to see or hear me I want to shout a warning to the girl that was like another granddaughter to me while Kol thinks, 'Am I actually going to get my chance to make my first down payment to pay back Nik and the Gilberts all in one go?' The clueless Caroline stops right in front of Kol a mere foot or so away from him with only an invisible barrier separating them before she asks, "Or did you think that your charm would make us forget how you killed her, too?" Bringing her clasped hands to her mouth, she shakes her head and tells him, "You know what? No. I am not going to engage in this. You are not even worth the calories I burn talking to you."

Kol vamp speeds over to the lamp to his right and breaks it from its base before quickly using it to skewer Caroline with it.

Tyler shouts, "No," while Kol uses his makeshift stake to pull the stunned Caroline past the barrier and then he uses the fact that he's in his brother's hybrid body to his advantage by biting poor little Caroline and then dropping her carelessly to the floor at his feet.

Looking up into Tyler's shocked and, yes, scared eyes Kol smiles and tells him, "Now, that was definitely worth the calories."

Kol continues to smile while he watches Caroline crawl towards her boyfriend from the corner of his eye. 'I'll allow her to join the annoying hybrid on the other side of the barrier because the only way to save her is Niklaus', well, now my, blood.'

She'll have to cross the barrier again if they can convince the usually vindictive Kol to cure her, which for the record he has no intention of healing her. Niklaus genuinely cares for Caroline, so Kol considers this payback to his brother for all the times the older man daggered him, or if that's not enough of a reason, it could also be payback for planning to dagger Kol again just to get The Cure.

Caroline is crying and repeating, "Oh my God, Oh my God," over and over. When she reaches Tyler, he helps her stand and then leads her to another couch.

Tyler looks at her and tells her, "Hey, hey. Look at me. Look at me." When she does, he emphatically states, "I can fix this."

With tears in her eyes, she shakes her head causing her blonde curls to bounce around her tear-streaked face while she asks the obvious question, "How? The only thing that can heal me is his blood! Oh my god..."

The usually hot-headed Tyler continues to look her in the eye while he says, "I know. I'll fix it."

She just nods so he stands and turns to face Kol before telling him what we all already know, what the original is counting on, "She'll die if you don't heal her."

Nodding Kol tells him, "Okay," before he bites into his wrist and holds his arms up and out towards them palms up and tells him, "Beg me to save her life."

Tyler frowns and takes a step closer before he asks, "Is this what you want? To remind me that I'm powerless against you?" Kol smiles because so far as he's concerned, it's a good start. His smile widens when Tyler continues the thought, "Fine. You win. I'm nothing. Now save her. Please."

Kol smirks and leans towards the teen with his hand to his ear before he tells Tyler, "I'm sorry, Mate, I didn't quite catch that."

He sighs but takes another step closer to Kol and says, "Please."

Kol's smirk turns into a smile while he leads Tyler, "Please…"

Frowning he tells the original what he knows he wants to hear, "Please save her life."

Kol's borrowed smile fades a little before he tells Tyler, "See, now I think you're just telling me what I want to hear." He smiles a not nice smile and continues, "I mean, you did call me pathetic earlier, and wouldn't it be more pathetic of me to help now, knowing that hours ago, you announced your plan to kill me in a manner in which you're still debating because you want it to have a certain amount of flair?" When Kol sees him frown, he tells Tyler, "I'm just asking."

Tyler sighs yet again but tells Kol, "I'll be your slave again. I'll do whatever you want. Just help her."

If he were his older brother that might sway him, but Kol is not Niklaus and although the two younger teens don't and can't know that Kol decides to stick to his course and tells Tyler with some satisfaction creeping into his voice, "No."

Tyler's face falls in a manner that is wholly pleasing to Kol, but then in a flat voice with moist, glassy eyes Caroline says, "Get me out of here. I can't even look at him."

Kol watches dispassionately when Tyler immediately turns and helps his girlfriend up and together, with Caroline leaning heavily against him, they walk through the door and out of the house.

Once again Kol is all alone with his burnt body as his only company. Although at least this time it's covered up, so he doesn't have to stare at his own charred remains all day long.

I have no idea how many hours pass while I just sit and watch the ever impatient Kol, whom I used to call my friend, pace back and forth within the confines of his prison, but the sun has risen twice and set once and is now once again making its way towards the Western Horizon. Thankfully the original sat down recently on one of the couches in the Gilbert's living room after having finally given up on wearing a rut into the wood floor. He rubs the back of his neck while his eyes bounce around the room. His immense and continuously increasing boredom is quickly turning into agitation, so I send up a prayer, "Please, God, end Kol's boredom soon, before he decides to get up and tear apart every inch of the house he can reach just for something to do."

As soon as the last word crosses my lips I hear someone approaching and send up a second prayer, "Please, Lord, don't let anyone die."

Kol smiles when Tyler returns. He stands and turns to face Tyler while the baby hybrid lays Caroline down on the floor just inside the barrier and then quickly moves back outside of it before he tells Kol, "You want to be in control, Klaus? Here, now you get to be in control of her life. If you want her to die, fine, but then you can sit here and watch her die yourself."

Tyler promptly leaves probably figuring that The Original Hybrid's soft spot for young Caroline will allow her to convince him to save her. Too bad for them he's not Niklaus. I sigh because my second prayer is about to go unfulfilled.

Kol approaches the sweating and uncharacteristically disheveled Caroline and squats down beside her eying her angry looking bite before telling her, "Nothing personal, Darling. If I cure you, that means victory for young Tyler. Don't worry, it won't be long now."

He isn't completely heartless, so Kol decides to at least give Caroline a little comfort, so he picks her up and deposits her on the couch then he moves to lean against the wall to watch her die. She lays there gasping for breath. While her gasps grow more pronounced, she tells him, "If you don't feed me your blood, I'll die."

Without looking at her, Kol nods just slightly and tells her, "Then you'll die, and Tyler will have learned his lesson the hard way."

Caroline, whose vision is slightly blurry due to the poison making its way through her system, frowns before she gasps again then asks, "How could you do this to him? To his mom? To me?"

Kol smiles that not nice smile again and tells her, "I'm a thousand years old. Call it boredom."

Still frowning and gasping for air she really doesn't need she says, "I don't believe you."

The original smiles wider and finally looks at her before telling her, "Fine, then maybe it's because I'm pure evil, and I can't help myself."

The usually perky Caroline shakes her head slightly and tells him, "It's because you were hurt, which means that there is a part of you that is human."

Kol thinks, 'I was hurt? So far as she knows her friends killed two of my brothers and she says I was hurt as though they hurt my feelings by not inviting me to a party everyone else was invited to.' He continues the thought, 'I have to hand it to her though, she is far more manipulative than I gave her credit for.' Still because he's trapped here and bored he asks her, "How could you possibly think that?"

Frowning she tells him, "Because I've seen it. Because... I've caught myself wishing that I could forget all the horrible things that you've done."

Her thoughts clearly show me that she's genuine and sincere, but Kol frowns because he's impressed by the lengths he thinks she would go to in order to save herself, yet he asks, "But you can't, can you, Darling?"

Caroline narrows her eyes, and her frown deepens while she obviously thinks something over then she says, "That's the second time today that you've called me Darling. In all the months I've known you, you've called me Luv a million times, but you've never called me Darling."

Kol smiles while he watches the realization blossom in her eyes, "But Elena said Kol uses that word the same way Klaus uses Luv. You're not Klaus. You're Kol. How?" She tries to sit up and bites out a sharp, "What have you done to Klaus?"

While she falls back to a lying down position due to her body's weakened state Kol chuckles and tells her, "Darling, don't act as though you actually care what happens to my dear ole brother. You only act as though you care when it serves your purposes like just now you admitting to wishing you could forget the things he's done implying that you have feelings for him that you also wish you could forget. All just so he would give you his blood and save you from certain death. Well, the joke is on you, Darling, because I'm not Nik and despite your obvious non-feelings for him he genuinely cares for you, so I know your death will cause him pain. Consider it my way of paying him back for all the times he daggered me or even just for the fact that he planned to dagger me yet again. Never mind that I was merely trying to stop the world from going to Hell."

Kol walks into the hallway and grabs the mirror off the wall being sure not to touch his skin to the glass before bringing it into the living room. After righting the coffee table, he props the mirror up against the table and then he tells Caroline, "In fact, I think he should watch while you take your dying breath."

Kol smiles while he watches her look in the mirror and do a double take when she realizes Niklaus is staring back at her. She looks at Kol in Niklaus' body and then at the mirror before she asks, "How?"

The only brother capable of answering frowns and tells her, "I burned up, and then the world went black, and when my consciousness returned I was trapped in the mirror. I managed to lure Nik to it and then forced myself into his body."

Caroline's blue eyes are wide, but then they narrow in pain before she gasps for more breath and coughs up a bit of blood. She tries one last time to sway the only person who can save her, "Please…"

Kol smiles his not nice smile again and tells her, "And spoil all my fun? No, I don't think so. Enjoy eternity wandering through The Otherside."

A tear slips out of her cerulean eyes. She gasps one final time and then exhales for the last time before turning grey and desiccating.

Smiling, Kol walks in front of the mirror, and after burning his brother's crestfallen face into his memory for all time, he tells Niklaus, "There, now we're even."

He has a plan to execute, but he doesn't want his brother to know how this all works, so he picks the mirror back up and returns it to its spot on the wall before striding back to the living room and sitting beside Caroline's corpse. Touching her bare arm, Kol forces himself inside her body, which takes considerably less effort than it did when he took over Niklaus' body, probably because her essence is no longer inside her body. Apparently, Kol's status as a body snatcher allows him to still be able to see despite his host body's closed blue eyes, so he sees when his brother returns to his body and looks around warily before the hybrid asks, "Kol?"

He doesn't answer, so Niklaus' focus shifts to his dead love lying beside him. He brushes his hand against her face pushing an errant blonde curl away from her eyes before he says in a low, pained voice, "Oh Luv, I'm sorry. I never wanted this for you. If I could have, I would have saved you. And there's the rub. The first time in almost 900 years that I allowed myself to care and my feelings for you got you killed by my own venom. I wish—"

He doesn't finish his wish out loud, but he thinks, 'I wish I could have saved both you and my brother.'

After he silently finishes his wish Niklaus then just sits staring at his dead love, and Kol waits for the Gilberts to return home so he can jump into his next victim.

This time I make sure to look at the clock, so I know that just over 18 hours later the now deceased Caroline's phone rings in her jean pocket so Niklaus fishes it out of her pocket and looks at the caller ID. He frowns then takes a deep breath schooling his features before pushing the send button and putting the phone to his ear. Despite being very tired, Niklaus says in a sing-song voice, "Caroline's phone. She's currently unavailable. May I take a message."

Even though the body Kol's possessing is dead he can hear Elena's slightly panicked voice when she says, "Klaus, what have you done to Caroline?"

The hybrid frowns and tells her, "I didn't do a bloody thing to her, Kol, on the other hand, possessed me and bit her before forcing me to watch while she died."

I want to laugh when Elena says with some force, "Bullshit, we all watched my brother kill Kol, so if my best friend is dead from your bite then it was you who did it, so don't try to pass the blame." She pauses and then asks, "Did you really kill her? Is she really dead?"

He can't bring himself to repeat it, so he doesn't answer. A moment later the doppelgänger says under her breath, "I can't believe I lost two friends in as many hours."

Kol would sit up straight at that if he could, and he smiles to himself when his brother does, in fact, sit up straighter before Niklaus asks, "What other friend did you lose?"

Elena sighs and then admits, "Another member of the Five showed up and fed Bonnie to Silas before feeding him The Cure and killing him."

Wait, what? My baby girl is dead? My heart drops, and despite being a spirit, I find it difficult to draw in the breaths I don't really need even while Niklaus stands and he asks, "So Silas and The Cure are no more?"

I can hear the frown in Elena's voice when she says, "Yes to both."

Niklaus smiles a somewhat sad smile but asks with noticeable hope in his voice, "And Bonnie is also no more?" He doesn't need to sound so happy about that.

My granddaughter's other best friend sounds exceedingly small when she says, "Yes."

The hybrid walks to where the barrier was and waves his hand smiling wider when his hand moves beyond the barrier unhindered. Smirking he tells his annoying doppelgänger, "Then it's been fun chatting, but I need to go. People to see, murders to plan, you understand I'm sure."

Then he hangs up on her and drops Caroline's phone onto the coffee table before leaning down and brushing a soft kiss across his dead love's forehead. He stands up and looks at her for a moment clearly trying to memorize every curve of her desiccated face to make sure he remembers in great clarity the pain that comes with caring. Then he pulls his eyes away from her prone form, wipes a lone tear from his cheek and then strides purposefully out of the Gilbert's house leaving Kol and me to wait for the cavalry to arrive and discover their friend's body.