3X21. Post Klaus saving Caroline from the school. They desiccate his body. The trade with Elijah and Rebekah works out. They took Klaus and scattered across the country, Ric has followed them. The gang of Mystic Falls has Celebrated, this is taking place the day after.

July 2015 Update/Rewrite

Today is for her.

Today is about her. She has done her time. She's played the distraction for the big bad hybrid. She's been abused and tortured more times than anyone should. She's watched as her friends went through hell and back to save Elena. Which is totally fine, Elena is her best friend too. But how much more can she give with out loosing it all?

Which brings us to today. It's a drama free, vampire free, boy free day. She was going to enjoy a day to herself. She was going to wallow in self petty about her problems and issues. Then when the night is over, she is going to pick her self off the floor and return home as Caroline Forbes- the queen bee who has her shit together. Yes, today is for her.

If only fate would be so kind...

"I remember you" an all too familiar British voice rang out in her ear. She didn't bother looking at man who has taken up residence in the barstool next to her. "You're the girl my brother is so taken with. Honestly I don't get it. But to each their own"

"Yeah, Kevin, was it?" She couldn't keep quiet after a remark like that.

"Kol, actually. So what is a good girl like you doing in a place like this?" True, it's not a place many people would think she'd be caught dead in, but that was kind of the point. She just wanted a break from real life.

"I'm wallowing. Be a gentlemen and get lost" She continues to drink her ordered whiskey even though she became numb to the burn a while ago.

"Nonsense. What kind of friend would I be if I let you wallow alone?"

She scoffs, "Who says we are friends?"

"I do, of course" He flags down the bartender for a glass of whiskey for himself. "So, what are we wallowing about?"

"We aren't friends, and I am so not talking about it with you"

He stares at her for a moment. Someone who cared probably would have squirmed under the intensity but she didn't even bother to turn her head towards him. "You are right. You don't need a friend right now. No, you need an uninvolved third party who doesn't care and is planning on drinking enough to where he wont even remember this conversation in the morning. But love, you do need someone"

"That's the thing. I don't want someone. I'm so done with needing someone. That's what started all of this in the first place" She takes another gulp of her drink in attempt to blockade the memories. It doesn't work. It never does.

"What do you mean?" He asked as if he was enquiring about the weather.

"I mean that night started it all. If I weren't so pathetically weak none of it would have happened. If I didn't need attention like vampires need blood I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have been involved in any of the supernatural drama. If I had just ignored the dark mystery guy at the bar. If I hadn't been so desperate, I wouldn't be dead right now"

"Well, you do make a wonderful dead person" Kol deadpans.

"Thanks" She mumbles before jumping back into her rant. "I just wish I hadn't had to go through hell to get here. The worst about it was that she knew. She's my best friend and she watched it all play out between him and me, yet she still got caught up in this love triangle between 'her epic love' and my abuser"

Kol POV

This confession of hers makes him physically balk. She had been abused?

He knows very well what his brother sees in the girl, because he sees it too. She is full of light and laughter. She smells like fresh bloomed flowers on a cool spring day. She is the epitome of everything good and happy in the world. For him to hear that someone has not just hurt her, but taken advantage of her innocent nature is galling to him. He's done awful things in his life, with no respect to others but he doesn't abuse the innocent. It had always reminded him too much of his sister. The blood he spilt and the deaths he handed out have always been to the twisted and deserving. He loved to have fun but it had always been at the cost of those in power.

"What did she know?" He hoped that if he kept her on this topic she would give him a name. He was almost desperate for it. In his defense, it had been a while since he took his time in killing someone.

"She saw the bites! I mean she saw them before she knew they were vampire bites but honestly. Two and two equals four or something. She learned about vampires not long after that. She knew what happened and didn't bother trying to help me. She just let him do his mind games with me over and over. One time she even had the nerve to get mad at me for, and I kid you not, falling for him again. She didn't care that I was caught in the middle of his twisted games. At least Bonnie understood enough of what was going on to threaten him to stay away from me. It was a sweet thing until it was ruined when I got caught in the middle of their battle for the damn crystal thing. She had it, he wanted it, and I was the selfish little girl who had the nerve to want him to go away. How dare I try to give him the crystal so he would leave me alone?"

"Mhmm" He nodded along, apparently giving Caroline enough confidence to keep ranting.

"The worst part of it all, the part that I still can't wrap my head around, is that they had him heal me. I was in a car wreck, which was the result of supernatural drama, and they had him use his blood to heal me"

"Why does that matter? You were healed in the end" Kol points outs.

"Because I ended up dying, with his blood in my system. His blood turned me!" She practically yelled. So her sire is her abuser? Surely that won't be hard to find out.

Caroline's POV

Both vampires pause their conversation to take a quick look around to see if anyone was listening. Everyone in this backwoods bar was minding their own, so the two went back to talking.

"How did you end up dying?"

"Katherine Pierce killed me" She had long gotten over her own death because it was true, she made a wonderful vampire.

"Ahh Katherine Pierce, she's always good at fucking things up, or so I hear. I don't involve myself with doppelgangers. I take them as a bad omen"

"I believe that. I mean, I love Elena, I really do. But sometimes I don't want any part in the schemes the brother's cook up to "save the day""

"Oh you mean like the one that almost killed me? You are a fantastic actress, by the way"

"No I'm not" She murmurs. Not actually meaning to say it out loud but he hears her anyways.

"So it was real?" He gave her a quick once over. But the look in his eye was much more 'I'm scheming' and much less 'I'm checking you out'.

"What was real?"

"The thing you have with my brother. He is currently not on my good side but he is my brother all the same. I saw the way he lit up in the bar when you walked in. He was like a dog with a bone as soon as he had your attention"

"I never understood it"

"Which part, love?" That was what Klaus always called her. Hearing it again made her heart feel heavy. She missed Klaus.

"Him 'fancying' me, I mean, I'm this girl from this small town. I don't know anything. I've never been anywhere. I'm not interesting. Hell, I'm not even worth it" The alcohol has long since did away with her filters but this was a new vulnerable for her. She's showing him her scares and chinked armor. She doesn't even know why but some how she knew this old vampire next to her wouldn't judge her. They were kindred spirits. Long forgot by those that claimed to love them.

"What the hell do you even mean you're not even worth it?" He asked honestly appalled.

"I'm never the one. It's always Elena. He needed a distraction and a way to get to Elena. Matt was always in love with Elena. I'm Bonnie's Elena stand in. I mean, I even have to stand in harms way to appease Damon's Machiavellian tendency when it comes to saving Elena. And then there was Tyler… Tyler and I were good. We were great even. But I'm not the one for him. I'll never come first to him. He's a born leader who cares about his people, that makes him a great guy. But don't I get to be selfish when it comes to the love of my life? I mean I put him first, is it that awful for me to ask the same?"

"What about you and my brother?" His question takes her by surprise.

"What about me and him?" He gives her a knowing look to which she huffs out the answer. "He scares me"

"He scares you? Really the big bad hybrid makes you afraid of the dark?"

"Not like that" She lightly shoves his shoulders with her own, "He scares me because he sees right through me. He met me when I was dying from a werewolf bite. Our first conversation and he understood me better than my closest friends did. He told me there was a world out there waiting for me. That one line, that one stupidly simple line made me want to live. He scares me because I could see myself being happy with him. I could see him showing me cities and cultures I never had the chance to read about. But I can't. He's the big bad. He's the enemy that my friends have practically been at war with. On top of all of that he is currently hidden away in a coffin somewhere so it doesn't even matter anyways"

"So that's your deep dark secret?" There is a grin forming on his face that is most likely as equally cunning to the idea forming in his head.

"What is?"

"That you are in love with my brother" She starts to deny it but he talks over her. "Don't bother denying it. You light up the same way that he does when we talk about you"

"You two talk about me?" A smile ghost her lips before she decides she doesn't actually want to know, "Never mind. It doesn't matter"

"Of course it matters. True love and all of that" He pulls her by the hand off of the stool and out of the bar. True love?

"Hey! Where are you taking me?"

"I'm taking you to do what you really want to do. To do what your heart wanted to do at the beginning of that boring conversation"

"What are you talking about?" She pulls her hand out of his grasp to stand her ground. They are now outside by his car. She doesn't pay much attention to cars but she knows it's expensive. She knows this is probably a bad idea but in her drunken state her curiosity is slowly getting the better of her. "Where are we going?"

"To see my brother. You don't want to need someone? Good. You can play your own white knight in this fairytale. You can be the creator of your own happy ending" He tells her as he opens the car door with a sly smile."So what's it going to be, love? Is it your turn to be happy?"

She gets in with a small prayer to who ever is listening that she doesn't come to regret this.