They knew Caroline. They were her friends. They knew her. But now… They knew they only thought they did. They watched her go from sweet and full of light, wouldn't even harm a fly, to what she was now. Deadly.

"I told you Klaus was a bad influence on her." Damon would say to no one in particular. Stefan didn't know what to make of the changes in Caroline's behavior. Bonnie still struggled to believe that their Caroline was gone, she saw what happened from behind the veil, she saw Caroline lose her warmth, she knew it wasn't Klaus who had done this to their friend.

And Elena…

Elena realized that trying to confront Caroline was maybe not the best option. Three times she tried to find out what was wrong with her friend, every time she woke up where she had last been standing, Caroline nowhere in sight, and a dull ache in her neck.

They came to understand that their Caroline was gone, she'd said so herself when they found her draining the life out of some poor unsuspecting victim in an alley behind the grill. They even tried getting her mother to help, and she tried. She tried harder than the others. She tried getting through to Caroline. It didn't work.

And Caroline disappeared.

They all tried finding her. No one told Klaus about the change, and every time he asked, they pretended she was fine. When asked about her whereabouts, they simply replied with a non-committal shrug, as if it didn't matter. But it did matter. It mattered a lot.

Klaus tore through the town in his search for the blond vampire, and couldn't find her anywhere. He tried the forest, the results were the same. After another long day of trying to find her, Klaus returned home. The others gave up, believing she was either dead, or gone for good. But he couldn't, wouldn't accept that. He could feel her in the air, he knew she was still in Mystic falls. He refused to stop looking.

"After everything you put her through with your selfish quests to help Elena, and you give up on her, after only a week? You should be ashamed to call yourselves her friends."

He said that to them the last time he saw them. They looked ashamed, but he knew it wouldn't last long. Eventually they'd forget about Caroline. But he wouldn't. He had been waiting long enough to find someone to love, and who loved him as he was, flaws and all. He wouldn't just give up on her because she'd vanished into thin air.

He resented them.

He paused at the steps leading to his front door. All the air in his lungs was knocked out at the sight before him. He took the stairs two at a time as he tried to get closer to her. He needed to be near her, to hold her, feel her against his chest, hear her soft breathing as her hands fisted in his jacket as she held onto him as if her life depended on it.

She turned.

He stopped.

Her blood-painted lips lifted at the corner as he stared at her.

"Hello Klaus."