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Hopes and Dreams

I

She didn't expect it. How could she be so stupid? How could she think like the girl she used to be before she turned? How could she believe one if his words? Still she did and that was now going to cost her life. He said he would never allow Tyler to hurt her, and she believed he would never hurt her. She should have known one thing didn't automatically mean the other, after all the same night he assured her he wouldn't allow her boyfriend to hurt her, he threatened her life. That was the part she should have believed. Control. That was what he wanted. He would control others not to hurt her, but he wouldn't restraint himself from doing it.

Klaus was like Katherine before him. The first doppelganger didn't think twice before killing her to send a message to the Salvatores. Klaus didn't think twice before biting her to send a message to Tyler. Everyone still thought she was nothing, not worthy a damn thing. Except for this one boy that loved her so much and whom she loved back.

As Tyler carried her back to Elena's house, she hoped her boyfriend was right. He had asked her if she trusted him. Of course she did. The only two people she trusted were him and her mother. If she was honest she also trusted Bonnie, Stefan, maybe even Damon, but she knew Elena would always come first to them. Then there was Elena, but she was too focused on her own life to think about anyone else. Not that Caroline could blame her friend. Elena was sired to the man she was in love with, but she had always denied her feelings for him. Caroline was positiveof Elena being in love with Damon for a few months, but she was also sure the baby vampire loved Stefan more. And unlike the words she said when Rebekah compelled the brunette; the blonde baby vampire didn't believe her childhood friend fell out of love with Stefan. She knew for sure Elena not only was still in love with Stefan, but that she loved him more than she loved Damon. Caroline however learned her lesson well when it came to the 'triangle of doom.' She was going to keep herself out of it, even if she wanted to help Stefan. Elena was bound to Damon, through a sire bond and until it was broken, no one would be able to change her mind about Damon and Stefan. But why was Caroline thinking about them in her last moments of life?

This time the effects seemed stronger than the first time. There were no hallucinations, but she felt the life leaving her body steadily. Tyler believed Klaus wouldn't be able to let her die and she hoped her boyfriend was correct because the last thing she wanted was to spend yet another minute in the presence of the monster that destroyed her boyfriend's life.

"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 challenged before walking away.

"Nothing personal love, but if I cure you, that means victory for him," he confirmed her previous thoughts as he approached her. That was it, he was really going to leave her to die and she hated herself for believing he fancied her. She hated herself for thinking he more than fancied her. She had never felt so stupid in her life like now.

"Don't worry, it won't be long now," he offered serenely and she was shocked to see how cold he could be even with her. In that moment realization hit Caroline and she knew for sure she was going to die.

Time went by slowly, although she had so little energy and strength in her, she had been able to move herself to the couch a few hours ago. Now however she could barely breathe. The pain was all consuming and she felt like she was losing control over her mind. She was on verge of dying or hallucinating and she didn't know which would happen first or which she would have preferred. She hallucinated a little bit the first time, before Klaus went to her house. It numbed the pain partially, and it was better than feeling like her body was shutting down constantly, all of it at the same time.

"If you don't feed me your blood I'll die," she murmured, the words barely leaving her lips.

"And if you died, Tyler would have learned his lesson the hard way," he said without looking at her.

"How could you have done this to him? To his mom? To me?" she asked trying to break him from the emotionless demeanor he had while he leaned against the doorframe.

"I'm a thousand years old. Call it boredom,"

"I don't believe you,"

"Fine, then maybe it's because I'm pure evil and I can't help myself," he faced the true – and painful – reality of his existence. Love was a weakness and it proved just as much after they killed his brother. He felt like the life had been taken away from him when he saw his baby brother on fire, gone for good. That was why he forced himself to never feel anything. That was why he was fiery and ruthless. That was why he killed even when he didn't need to. Because that was what kept him uncaring and cold. Killing, torturing, destroying people's lives was what allowed him to be the man he needed to be in order to survive. He couldn't – shouldn't – trust anyone; he couldn't allow himself to have any weakness. Yet still there was a part inside of him that was matter how much he tried to destroy it by the inhuman and unthinkable things he had done in a thousand years, it never went away completely. It was still there reminding him he would never be able to completely get rid of that weakness.

Caroline looked at him briefly and it all made sense. The superficial careless demeanor was just a façade to keep what he really felt under the surface. He was hurt. He killed Carol because he was hurt; he bit her earlier because he was hurt. Losing his hybrids hurt him, and of course, losing his brother devastated him. She could see it in his eyes the moments he stole glances on Kol's now covered body. She could see how his body tensed when he looked briefly at his dead brother. And even though she felt she was less and less lucid she could still capture the torture, the pain, the desperation, the lost look on his face. He controlled all his body reactions, but his eyes… his eyes still showed her what was going on inside, in his soul. He had the most expressive eyes she had ever seen.

"No… it's because you're hurt," she offered among breaths ragged by the consuming pain she felt, and although it wasn't her goal to make him look at her, it still did.

"Which means there's a part of you that is human," she concluded, much to her shock. It was the first time she thought about it and she knew she was right. She could finally see the tip of humanity within him. She had suspected of it before. That was why she asked him if he ever wanted to be human when they were spending time in the pageant. She had seen him show humanity towards his art – and art in general – for it was one of his passions. She knew he cared for his siblings – even if many of his actions contradicted it. She had seen a carefree – almost boyish – side of him when he made fun of her Miss Mystic Falls application. But somewhere along the way – probably as a consequence of all the pain he caused to everyone she loved – she could only see him as someone heartless, as someone who couldn't feel. How wrong and silly she had been. Of course he had feelings; he just chose to deny them with everything he had. But now his brother was dead, and she supposed it was harder for him to keep the constant indifferent façade on.

Klaus – on his side – was also shocked by her words, not only because he had never expected anyone to ever see through him, but also by how accurate she was. How could she read him like that? How could she know that? Hadn't his acts proved there was nothing human about him? Hadn't he put all his efforts to prove it to the world he had no weakness at all? He worked so hard on getting rid of any trace of humanity that most time he believed his lies and pretenses.

"How could you possibly think that?" he sat in front of her.

She could see that he wanted to convince her that it was impossible for someone like him to feel something like hurt or anything for that matter. He wanted her to see how her words made no sense at all. But Caroline knew better than that.

"Because I've seen it. Because I've caught myself wishing that I could forget all the horrible things that you've done," her eyes running through his face, fixing on his eyes, recognizing the man she had seen only glimpses before. Still those small pieces of him had been enough to prove her that there was a part of him nobody knew, a part of him he made sure to keep well hidden. A part of him he involuntarily showed her before. More than once. She asked herself if he was even aware he let it show or if he made it on purpose as his own trick to manipulate her into believing something that was not real. She doubted it. She didn't know much about the man sitting in front of her, but she knew he didn't like to show any weakness and it was clear that emotions were weaknesses in Niklaus Mikaelson's book.

"But you can't, can you?" he stated more than asked. She thought he would be hopeful, but he seemed just convinced that it was impossible. And because she didn't know what would be the true answer to his question she decided to ignore it, even if it would lead him to believe she couldn't. She wouldn't confess to him that sometimes – when they were together – even if only for a few seconds, she forgot all the bad he had done. But maybe he had done more than she could really forget. How could she ever let him get away with killing her boyfriend's mother? No matter how drawn she was to the Original, she still loved Tyler more than anyone else in her life and her loyalties would always stand with her boyfriend.

"I know that you're in love with me," she daredto say, and she could see the emotions – he tried so hard to suppress and deny – flashing on his eyes; she could see the way his jaw tensed, as he tried to keep his composure, his wrists closed.

"And anybody capable of love is capable of being saved," she completed, and she watched almost in awe as he nearly cried in front of her. She could see the fight; she could see the moment his façade was winning and the moment when he started losing it. She could see the hope daring to emerge and how fiercely he fought it. Trying to keep it at bay, trying to vanish it because if he dared hope, he was damned.

"You're hallucinating," she watched as he said, and in that moment he seemed to try to find strength to form words more than she did. She didn't know if he was trying to convince himself or her. It didn't matter because she could already feel the unavoidable and final pull from death, she could feel the remaining of life leaving her body, but at least she knew she would have said those words to him before she died. She would have tried to show him that there was hope even for him, that he could indeed be saved… and loved.

"I guess I'll never know," she said, although those weren't the words she planned to say and maybe he was right and she was hallucinating after before she could try to find in her mind what she really wanted to say she felt a different pain taking over her body, and she couldn't stop her body from shaking. She thought she heard him say her name, but she wasn't sure.

Klaus felt his heart beating in a speed he didn't even think possible anymore. Not even when his brother died in front of him the night before he felt his nearly undead heart beating so fast, so erratically.

"Caroline," desperation hit him as he called her name a second time and still she didn't answer.

He knew she would die and he knew he didn't have much time to make a decision. He should let her die, he had to keep his word, he had to show those people –Tyler especially – that he was as ruthless as ever. He had showed too much mercy towards the people in this town. He should have killed them all – but her – a long time ago, after they tried to kill him the first time. He knew allowing her to live not only gave Tyler victory, but also showed everyone who wanted to see it that he had a weakness, that there was something stronger than his will to feel nothing.

As an almost silent moan left her lips and her body seemed to relax he made a decision, hoping it wasn't already too late. He moved to the couch, raising her body and bringing her head to rest on his chest, as he bit his own wrist and offered it to her mouth, hoping she would suck it. Praying she would drink from him.

It took her a second – or two – but he could finally feel her fangs entering his ripped flesh and her lips embracing his skin. His heart – that had stopped for a moment –resumedits slow pace, and as she moved her hand to hold his arm, he stroked her hair, feeling the ecstasy of sharing blood with her even more intensely than he felt the first time. He could hear her soft moans from pain – but also from pleasure, he knew. Then he felt her free hand reaching for his own. The moment her cold fingers touched his he almost lost it, for her touch was much tenderer and produced much more joy than he had expected.

He continued to brush her hair, feeling her taking his life away as she sucked him in, in more ways than just physically. She was still weak and he knew he had indeed been seconds away from losing her forever. She took her time drinking from him, not being able to drink faster, but he didn't mind. He was holding her and she wasn't objecting and for a moment it almost felt like she was caressing his hand the same way he was caressing her hair.

She didn't know if it was the exhaustion or the soft and soothing touch of his hand, but her eyelids were too heavy for her to keep them open, and her body didn't seem to have energy to keep sucking from him and consciousness slowly left her.

He realized the exactly moment she fell asleep, the moment she stopped drinking from him, even if her fangs took a few seconds longer to retract. But he couldn't move himself from behind her. He couldn't let her go as the words she said kept coming back to him.

He couldn't believe them; she was probably hallucinating, or worse, manipulating him like she had done so many times before. Either way she didn't mean those words and, therefore, they couldn't be true. There was no hope of salvation for him, not after so many years, not after so many crimes, so many sins. He was hopeless because otherwise he would be fooling himself. There was nothing left for him now that he lost his hybrids and the doppelganger bloodline died with Elena. He couldn't risk to make Elena become human again, and between his hybrids – that proved to be easily un-sired, and his sister last attempt on happiness, he chose Rebekah. It was the least he could do for her after everything he did to her. She had been with him through everything, never leaving his side, he owed her as much.

It didn't go unnoticed by him that such thoughts wouldn't have crossed his mind a year ago. He had always loved all his siblings – Rebekah especially – and he would always continue to do so, but he would always put himself first for he knew nobody else would. But somewhere in the past few months he found himself feeling guilty for all the times he betrayed Rebekah – and recently he'd been thinking about Elijah as well. It was a foreign experience that could have been a result of learning that not even his sired hybrids could be the ever loyal family he needed, but he knew better than that. The main reason of that change of heart was now lying against his dark cold broken heart.

Caroline could be aware of his feelings – that he had never acknowledged even to himself – but she didn't have a clue about her impact in his life. It wasn't her actions, it wasn't her doing. It was simply a consequence of him falling in love with her. And it scared him. He had no control over his emotions towards this one girl, and now he felt like everything he had suppressed for a thousand years hit him like a tidal wave. The danger wasn't in finally loving someone; it in the power it seemed to have. He knew deep down that Caroline was about to open a gate that had been closed for a longer than a millennium. A gate that prevented any sort of emotion to ever come to the surface. And as each year passed, he added more suppressed and contained emotions inside this place in his heart. With every life he took, with every plea he ignored, with every disappointment, betrayal and hatred action towards him, he buried every human reaction in that little room. The only problem was that it wasn't just a little room anymore, not after a thousand years of bottled up emotions.

As he held a sleeping Caroline he wondered if she had only been the last straw, the one that he couldn't hold back because the once small place inside himself where he hid his every emotion was now the biggest part of himself. He had committed too many sins to cover the sneaking emotions, and those sins caused even more emotions. Regret, pain, angst, suffering. It should all feel natural to him – as everyone expected – but it wasn't. He wondered if his werewolf side made him more human than his siblings because he wasn't completely vampire, completely monster, completely aberration as he wanted to be.

And now he could feel the lock giving up, he could feel the walls succumbing, he could feel everything he ever felt, but rejected, coming back to him and he didn't need to be as wise as he was to know he was closing in dangerous territory. Unknown territory. After living for so long Klaus wasn't familiar with the unknown anymore. He'd seen it all, but he hadn't seen a man recover from a tsunami of feelings that he bottled up for so long. None of his siblings did it. Even Kol showed emotion from time to time, but he had kept it all in. Until Caroline, until now. And feeling his emotions about to take over he feared for his survival. He had barely survived those fifty two years of hallucinations, but he was positive what he was about to enter was much worse. And even if he had killed Caroline that night – as he had truly intended to – it would have been too late. It would have been too much. He was indeed absolutely, unquestionably, undeniably in love with her and if he lost her now, he would lose himself along with her. He would die along with her. But she was very much alive in his arms and he had to find a way to deal with it before his love for her became the end of him, and not because it was a weakness, as he had always thought. No, the love about to take over and destroy him wasn't about weakness, but about a strength he had no control over. Something that was stronger than him.

Here is my new canon. I want to thank Elena - my new beta - for being amazing.

Read and review, and I'll be happy ;)

xx

DISCLAIMER: I don't own The Vampire Diaries or The Originals or any of their characters.