Disclaimer: I do not own The Vampire Diaries - the original books were written by L J Smith and the TV show was developed by Julie Plec and Kevin Williamson. This story is the product of their characters and world and my imagination. Any recognisable lines (even if amended or not in the same scenes as in the actual episodes) from Vampire Diaries episodes belong to the writers, not me.
When Caroline sees the box on her bed she only feels irritation.
"Seriously," she mutters as she opens it, "just give up already."
She expects to find the bracelet she'd tossed back in Klaus' face, and she's in the middle of trying to figure out a way to return it (one that will stop him simply leaving it in her house again when she's out) when she realises that the box doesn't actually hold the bracelet.
Instead, there's a piece of rolled parchment.
She unravels it with more than a little trepidation, and then she can't help but gasp.
It's a lovely drawing, and he's captured her likeness extremely well for someone who barely knows her.
And the horse next to her is admittedly a nice touch, one that shows he was actually listening to what she said about liking horses.
It's stupid to be so irrationally pleased over someone actually paying attention to her, especially when that person is Klaus Mikaelson … but no one's ever given her a gift like this before, and she can't help but like it, despite who the artist is.
She looks at the words at the bottom of the page – Thank you for your honesty.
Her eyes widen. People don't tend to appreciate it when she's blunt with them – she knows it's one of the reasons so many people at school call her a bitch behind her back – even her friends sometimes roll their eyes or brush her off when she tries to give them candid advice. And yet here is Klaus, the supernatural world's nightmare, actually thanking her for arguing with him.
She doesn't understand it at all.
What does it mean, this sketch that Klaus has left for her?
(apart from the fact that she needs to remember he has access to her house).
He doesn't seem like the sort to have just one motivation. In fact he seems like the type to have a dozen or more for every significant action.
Is it an intimidation tactic, a genuine gift, a message of some kind?
Caroline isn't stupid, but the kind of games she imagines that Klaus plays are ten levels above anything she's dealt with in Mystic Falls. She needs more information, more time to figure out exactly what Klaus' reasons are for leaving the drawing.
It's probably a one-off, she thinks, a little charm to throw her off balance.
Klaus can't find her that interesting. She's sure that he'll be back to overlooking her existence soon enough.
She ignores the part of her that's intrigued by him.
It's just a one-off.
The second drawing turns up three nights after the ball and it's a complete contrast to the first.
In this sketch Damon lies prone on the floor with a gaping hole in his chest, his heart sitting in a pool of blood to the side.
It's so lifelike that Caroline actually feels a little sick, despite the fact that she honestly hates Damon.
There are words on this sheet of paper as well – I know you're not a fool, love.
Caroline can't pretend that she doesn't suspect Klaus' meaning.
She remembers only a few hours ago, when Damon had approached her in The Grill and asked (or rather ordered) her to meet him, Stefan, Bonnie and Elena in the woods the next day.
Now that she recalls the incident, she thinks she caught a glimpse of Klaus watching them from across the room.
It can't be a coincidence that the Original Hybrid has now sent her such an image so soon after Damon has arranged a meeting that is surely going to be about attacking Klaus.
If she was unsure as to the meaning of Klaus' first drawing, then she has no doubts about this one.
It's a warning, plain and simple. A warning that is telling her not to become involved with any plans Damon might come up with.
Caroline finds herself torn. She is loyal to her friends and she wants to help them, but she also knows that Damon's plans do not have a high success rate. And she has the feeling that Klaus will not take it well if her friends decide to attack.
She's been doing a bit of reading about the Originals, though in many of the books they often seem to be considered more myths than reality, and she does not want to see what happens when someone seriously angers them.
The texts she's found mention the destruction of entire villages, streets painted red with blood, vicious games that prolong a torturous death for decades.
Caroline doesn't want to die. Being a vampire has changed her whole life plan, but she's determined to live nonetheless.
She wants to see the cities and art and music and culture and beauty that Klaus talked so passionately about.
She looks back at the drawing, trying to reconcile the two sides of Klaus she has seen. There is the terrifying Original Hybrid, a monster who has committed countless atrocities. And then there is the man who whispered to her about everything that was out in the world for her to see and offered to show it to her, the one who told her she was beautiful, strong and full of light, and that he fancied her.
Her friends will expect her at their meeting, and she has no doubt that they (especially Damon) will be confused and annoyed if she does not turn up.
She doesn't know what to do, though. This isn't a game anymore, it's very real, and the consequences of any missteps are far more hazardous than anything they've faced before.
She'll sleep on it, she thinks, and hopefully the decision she makes in the morning won't lead to disaster.
When Caroline's phone buzzes for the tenth time in five minutes she finally turns it off and tosses to the other end of her bed.
In the last half an hour she's had twenty missed calls (fifteen of them from Damon) and about thirty text messages.
She's ignored all of them.
She doesn't want to get into an argument about why she hasn't shown up to the meeting, nor does she wish to be forced to justify her decision. She won't hesitate to defend her friends from Klaus and his family, but she cannot agree that attempting to work together with Esther to attack him is a good idea.
So, instead of tramping around in the woods trying to prevent Klaus overhearing them, Caroline is getting in some much needed studying – she refuses to let supernatural issues get in the way of her GPA and her chances of getting into a good college far away from the craziness of Mystic Falls.
She's half way through the first draft of her history paper when she hears a knock on her door.
"Come in," she mutters distractedly, expecting her mom to tell her she's off to the station.
"I'm glad to see you took my advice, love."
Caroline looks up sharply to see Klaus lounging against her doorframe, a small smile on his face that emphasises his dimples.
"How did you get in?" she asks tersely.
"Through the front door," he tells her, "the sheriff let me in as she was leaving to go to the station. She wasn't happy about it," he admits, "in fact I think she would rather have liked to shoot me, though it wouldn't have done her any good. But she knows I've got an invitation, of course, and opening the door was less hassle than having me break it."
She scowls at him, "what do you want, Klaus?"
"We had a bit of a spat at the ball, love," he grins at her, "but I'm over it now."
"Well I'm not," she tells him shortly.
"Oh come on, Caroline," he says, flashing over to perch on the end of her bed, "take a chance, talk to me. Come on, get to know me … I dare you."
She can't help but grin a little bit at his playful smirk. She's still a little nervous, though, because it is Klaus.
"Fine," she agrees, unable to help her curiosity to know more about him, "What do you want to talk about?"
"You. Your hopes, your dreams, everything you want in life."
He seems so sincere that it almost scares her. She isn't ready for that kind of deep conversation with Klaus … and yet she finds that she wants him to stay a while.
"How about the French Revolution instead," she suggests, gesturing to her history paper, "I don't imagine you missed out on that carnage."
"I could tell you a few stories," he agrees, "I first met Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette at a ball that Rebekah insisted we attend – she was infatuated with a member of Louis' court at the time, though I've no idea why because the man was an absolute bore."
"You didn't kill him, did you?" she interjects with a frown.
"Actually, I didn't," Klaus tells her, "the blame for his death can be laid squarely at the feet of those bloodthirsty revolutionaries."
"Right, carry on then," she says.
He raises an eyebrow at her slightly imperious tone but he doesn't seem annoyed, only amused.
He continues on with his story, a tale full of romance, sex, royal splendour and (because the Originals are involved) violent bloodshed.
And then, when she doesn't immediately kick him out (she's still not sure if that's a mistake), he tells her a few more stories about his time in France.
When she finally tells him he has to go so she can finish her draft, three hours have passed and she's enjoyed every minute.
He exits through her open window, probably just to be a show off, and Caroline resists the urge to bang her head against the wall.
Klaus is dangerous. Klaus is not to be trusted. Klaus is constantly trying to kill all her friends.
She needs to remember that.
He might be charming, and he might show real interest in what she says, but she can't forget what Klaus is.
Yet that is what she's just done for a few hours, and she knows she actually had a good time.
She's just going to have to steel herself against the temptation Klaus presents. She's sure nothing good can come of a liaison with the deadliest creature in town.
No matter how much the monster under her skin seems to crave his presence.
When she sees the sheet of fancy paper lying on her bed this time, Caroline doesn't feel irritation, only curiosity.
The scene depicted this time is one from real life. It shows Caroline arguing fiercely with Damon, one hand on her hip and the other poking him in the chest. There's only one word written on this sheet – Stunning.
It's showing the argument she had with the elder Salvatore only the day before. Damon had confronted her about refusing to get involved in his plan, and had suggested that the attempt to dagger the other Original siblings had failed solely because of her lack of involvement and not because it was an incredibly stupid plan.
Caroline refuses to let Damon, of all people, make her feel guilty about her choice, though. She doesn't think anyone should be judging her for keeping away from plotting that might get her killed, especially when Klaus hasn't actually been trying to murder them recently.
She sits down on her bed and studies the paper. The amount of detail in this drawing, as in the other two, amazes her.
Perhaps it should be creepy, the way Klaus seems to capture everything so perfectly. But she somehow knows he doesn't mean any harm, not in this at least – she thinks it's his way of sharing part of himself with her.
She wonders what she's going to do. Esther is still at large, determined to kill her children, and with Caroline's friends making deals with the Original Witch she can't help but feel that eventually she is going to have to make a hard decision.
It should be easy, to choose her friends over Klaus. And yet in some ways she doesn't feel like her friends are in the right here, and though her loyalty to them means she does not want them to be hurt, she also finds that she doesn't want Klaus gone either.
It's a dilemma, one she doesn't think she'll be able to find a good solution for anytime soon.
She sighs and then heads over to her dresser to put the sheet in a folder with the other two she has received from Klaus. It seems ridiculous to keep such beautiful things hidden away, but she can't display them, not when her mom and her friends might see.
She looks at them, though, almost every night. And she wonders …
… she wonders if the day will come when she'll allow herself to explore this dangerous attraction to Klaus despite all the horrible things he's done.
Sometimes she thinks she's half-way there already.
Caroline comes across Klaus on her way home from school one day.
He's sitting on a bench, a look of deep concentration on his face as he sketches.
He still notices her approach, of course, but though he tilts the page away from her view, she catches a brief glimpse of a half-finished drawing of her own face.
"You are a most inspiring muse, sweetheart," he tells her unrepentantly when she narrows her eyes at him.
She says nothing, but as she walks off her mouth curves into a smile.
"Klaus drew this for you?"
"Huh," Caroline answers distractedly as she sets out pillows and blankets for Tyler.
She can't quite believe that he's back. And she doesn't want to admit that it doesn't feel like it should, like she dreamed it would.
Something is different. She has a horrible feeling that it's Klaus' fault.
"That's … pretty creepy."
Caroline turns quickly to see that Tyler has one of Klaus' drawings in his hand, the very first one he had left for her after the ball. She looks frantically around and is relieved to see that neither of the other two sheets are out, because god knows what Tyler's reaction might have been like if he'd seen all three.
She feels like an idiot for leaving the paper out, but she'd been distracted by Tyler's arrival and hadn't thought to put it away.
"It's just a drawing," she says to him as casually as she can.
She feels bad for lying. It hasn't ever been just a drawing to her, even if her mixed up emotions can't quite decide how to feel about it.
"From Klaus," Tyler emphasises the name angrily, "I mean what the hell happened when I was away, Care?"
"Nothing," Caroline insists, "Tyler, nothing's happened, I swear."
"Then why have you kept this?" he asks, "why haven't you just shredded it?"
"I don't know," Caroline says defensively, her sudden panic at the idea of the drawing being destroyed making her sound angrier than she means to be.
Tyler scowls at her, "I don't think this is going to work out, Care. I'll stop with Matt for now."
"Tyler, please," she protests, "you don't have to leave."
"I think I do," he says, sounding only tired now rather than annoyed, "I'll see you around, Care."
Caroline lets him go, even though it hurts. Then she goes to bed and allows herself to mourn the loss of the first guy she truly loved.
Because while they haven't actually said it, she knows it's over between them.
Caroline and Tyler have an actual discussion about their relationship two days after his return to town. He admits to meeting someone else, another wolf, while he was off trying to break his sire bond, and says he thinks that he and Caroline aren't going to work out.
She's more than a little irritated about the fact that he's been hooking up with another girl while they were still together, but she can't deny that the time they've spent apart hasn't hurt like she thinks it would if they truly belonged together.
In the end they decide to try and stay friends, although Caroline has her doubts about whether that will work – after all, it's eventually bound to get out to her friends that she's been spending time with Klaus and she doesn't want to think about what their reaction will be.
She's having enough trouble dealing with her own feelings in relation to the Original Hybrid and she doesn't need the added stress of what her friends will say.
Caroline decides that the best way to cheer herself up is to drive to the next town and dance the stress away.
No alcohol, she decides, knowing that once the initial rush is over she'll probably just get maudlin, and that is not what she needs right now.
She just wants some good music, a group of strangers who aren't going to judge her for her life choices and a few drama-free hours.
And it works. It's so good to feel the music and move as an anonymous member of the crowd.
There are boys and men who try to get a little too close, as always, but she's long since perfected the cold glare that has them backing off in search of a more willing dance partner.
Normally she might flirt a little, but she's not in the mood for that, not with her feelings over her breakup being so raw.
She's been at the bar for about two hours when she feels a warm pair of hands settle onto her waist.
She spins around, ready to deliver a scathing comment, but then startles when she realises who she is looking at.
Klaus grins, his dimples more pronounced than usual and his eyes dark with lust.
She scowls at him, even as she feels the heat rise in her cheeks at their close proximity, "what are you doing here?" she asks, "if you followed me then so help me, Klaus, I will hurt you."
He laughs, "such violent thoughts, sweetheart. But I assure you that our meeting is simply a happy coincidence."
She isn't sure she believes him. She can't prove anything, though, so she decides to take his word for it.
"I'm not in the mood for your games tonight," she tells him, even as one of his hands tangles with hers and the other grips her waist a little tighter.
"It's only dancing, love," he says as they begin to sway together.
Her free hand grips onto his upper arm as he twirls them around quickly, but she still glowers at him suspiciously, "it's never just one reason for you, Klaus – I know how you are with your multiple motives."
Klaus only shrugs and tugs her closer. She can feel the warmth of his skin and she finds herself shivering slightly at their close proximity. She sees him smirk out of the corner of her eye, but his expression is warm too and she decides to let it go.
She's just not up for a prolonged argument with Klaus, not right now.
They spin around the room in silence, but it doesn't feel as awkward as it probably should.
Klaus is an excellent dancer, so at least he doesn't step on her toes. And he does her the courtesy of not blatantly ogling her while they dance, which puts him above about eighty percent of the dance partners she's had since she turned fifteen.
After about twenty minutes of fast-paced dancing, Caroline tugs herself free of Klaus' hold and heads off the dancefloor to get herself a drink. Klaus follows, settling into the seat next to her.
"I hear you and my hybrid broke up."
Caroline rolls her eyes, "good news travels fast," she says, "or were you just spying again?"
"I have my sources," he tells her, "and if you'd ever like the heart of a certain wolf girl then you know you need only ask."
"Eww," she shudders, "no thanks. I'm not into organs."
She can't help but appreciate the sentiment, though, however gross it is. She supposes that offering the heart of an enemy could well be considered high romance in Klaus' mind, but Caroline prefers to stick to blood.
Klaus shrugs, as if he can't quite understand Caroline's distaste but accepts it, "well the offer stands, if you change your mind."
They chat for a while as Caroline finishes her drink. They talk about the history essay he'd helped her with, and she asks him a bit more about France.
He sits close to her and it's certainly a little distracting, but the conversation is more straightforward than his usual layers of meaning and innuendos so it feels rather relaxed.
He pulls her up for one last dance, his hands skirting the lines of propriety but never quite crossing them.
Then, when she tells him that she's heading home, he only kisses her cheek softly and vanishes into the night.
No persuasion and no pressure. No trying to charm her into more than she is ready to give.
That night her dreams are all of Klaus.
And when she gets home from a shopping trip the next day, another drawing is waiting for her.
It is of her, dancing with a relaxed, wide smile. The girl in the picture looks free and happy, on a temporary escape from the drama of real life.
She doesn't scoff or roll her eyes or frown at the fact that he's continuing to break into her house to leave the drawings.
Instead, she just finds herself admiring the drawing and wondering when Klaus started to understand her better than most of her friends.
She goes alone to the Decade Dance, and she worries that things will be awkward with Tyler.
They are, she can't deny it, but it isn't quite as bad as she thinks it could have been.
He even asks her to dance at one point and, though they sway rather stiffly and neither really speaks much, she hopes that eventually they'll be able to salvage something of a friendship.
And then, as the song nears its end, Caroline watches as Tyler's expression suddenly becomes a mix of angry and nervous.
"May I cut in?"
She turns sharply at the sound of Klaus' voice, noting that even if he is crashing the dance he has at least had the decency to do so wearing a suit from the right decade. She looks back at Tyler, whose eyes have darkened and who seems to be considering whether he can get away with attacking Klaus in the middle of the gym.
She puts a restraining hand on his arm. No matter how amiable Klaus has been with her recently, she knows he won't allow Tyler to attack him without putting up a fight.
And in a showdown between Tyler and Klaus, Caroline knows exactly who will end up hurt.
Tyler glares at Klaus but does not move to attack, instead stepping away and heading over to the other side of the room.
Klaus offers his hand to her and Caroline takes it with only a moment's hesitation.
"You would have loved the 1920s, Caroline," he murmurs a minute or two into their dance, "the girls were reckless, sexy, fun – they literally used to dance until they dropped."
"Are you sure that wasn't because of the blood loss?" she asks tartly.
He isn't offended, and only chuckles a little. Her comment is meant to be a reminder of the bloodthirsty monster he is … yet she can't help but smile a bit at the sound of his easy laughter.
Caroline enjoys the dance, but she finds it isn't the same as it had been when they'd swayed together at the bar one town over, where no one knew who they were.
Here there are judgy eyes to watch out for, unforgiving friends and suspicious townspeople.
And she loves her friends. She doesn't want to lose them.
Whatever this thing is between her and Klaus, it is so new and … and he's seen and done so much more than she has. No matter how intrigued she is by him, she can't choose him over everything, not yet.
He seems to understand and he doesn't push when she moves away after their single dance. But he doesn't look defeated or annoyed, only quietly confident. His arrogant assurance that things will eventually turn out how he wishes should probably annoy her. It doesn't, though – she rather likes the idea that someone sees a future with her.
The fifth drawing turns up the morning after the decade dance.
Caroline has woken up early to go to the school and help with the clean-up. She almost misses the sheet in her hurry (she's overslept, dreams of Klaus leaving her whole body feeling too hot and her skin tingling) and only spots it a few seconds before she's about to leave her room.
It's on her dresser rather than her bed, and she knows it wasn't there the night before. Clearly Klaus has been in her room when she's been sleeping, and even though she's more okay with that than she probably would be, she's definitely going to be having words with him about boundaries.
Not that she thinks it will work. Klaus is a law unto himself.
This sketch is of Caroline in her decade dance dress, but the background is not the school gym and instead what she imagines must be a 1920s club. As with all of Klaus' drawings, it's amazingly detailed, showing her mid laugh as she twirls around the dance floor.
There are just a few words written on the corner of the sheet of paper – Until our next dance.
She sticks the drawing to the top of her mirror. She wouldn't usually be reckless enough to leave something from Klaus out in the open, but perhaps she's feeling just a little daring.
She heads over to the school as soon as she's dressed, ready to help with the clean-up following the dance.
It's not something she's particularly looking forward to, especially considering Rebekah's likely presence, but she still never expects it to denigrate into something out of her nightmares.
It turns out she has only a brief few minutes to enjoy the little bit of camaraderie she and Rebekah manage to build between them as they clean up before everything goes completely wrong.
Vampire Alaric. Pencils through her hands. A vervain-soaked gag.
She can scarcely concentrate on what Alaric is saying to Elena, her mind stuck in flashbacks to her father's attempts to 'fix' her and Brady's torture.
When Elena distracts Alaric by tossing vervain at his face, and then frees her, Caroline doesn't even think before she runs, just follows her body's automatic response in an attempt to get out of danger.
She shrieks when she runs into someone as she is heading for the parking lot, struggling against the arm that goes around her waist and the hand covering her mouth, but then she hears a familiar voice murmur in her ear.
"Shhh, it's ok, it's ok, it's me. It's ok, you're safe."
Caroline refuses to contemplate how much her whole body relaxes when she realises Klaus is there. Instead, she turns to look at him, just to remind herself that this is not crazy-Alaric, and that she does not need to tense in readiness for another bout of pain.
"We'll save Elena. You go straight home. Stay inside, do you understand? … Do you understand me?"
She nods, still a little bit in shock, "thank you," she whispers, trying to convey as much meaning as possible into those two words.
Thank you for coming to look for me. Thank you for caring. Thank you for not being my nightmare.
Thank you for looking at me and seeing all the things you like rather than everything you want to change.
A part of her wants to stay, but Caroline is no fool. She knows when a strategic retreat is best, and she trusts Klaus to handle Alaric.
Trusts Klaus.
She can't quite figure out when that started, but she finds she truly means it.
When she gets home, Caroline curls under the covers of her bed, closes her eyes and tries to breathe calmly.
She mutes her phone and throws it across the room. It's probably not the best time to be out of contact with her friends, but she just needs a little bit of time to herself, a few hours to centre herself after what has just happened.
She's never been particularly close to Alaric, not like Elena, but he had been an ally of sorts. Now she's sure she won't ever be able to think about him without remembering the sting of vervain, just as Damon's face inevitably conjures up memories of feeling an all-encompassing terror and sense of hopelessness (Damon is more irritating than scary now, but she won't forgot what he did, not ever).
Things have been different for Caroline ever since the Salvatores came to town, and especially following her transition. And she copes, she deals with it the best she can. Sometimes, though, sometimes she just needs to forget about the world for a while.
She doesn't sleep. She doesn't move. She only hides away like she used to do when she was a child and her parents were shouting at each other downstairs.
(Damon would call her a coward, but she doesn't give a damn what Damon thinks).
She doesn't know how much time passes, hours probably.
And then she hears it, the faintest rustling, a sound inaudible to a human and almost undetectable even to supernatural ears.
"Your foolish friends need to be more careful, sweetheart."
Caroline pokes her head out of her pile of blankets at the sound of Klaus' voice.
He sounds furious, but as if he's carefully tempering his rage. She isn't, however, stupid enough to think that makes him any less deadly, and she watches him with wary eyes.
He's lounging against her dressing table, her open window showing his point of entry. She can see the blood streaks on his hands and face, and the smell is strong enough that she imagines it is soaked into his clothes too.
"What happened?" she asks, "is Alaric …?"
"Dead," Klaus says with a vicious little smile, "hopefully for good, though my mother may have another nasty trick or two left. Of course your friends showed their gratitude by attempting to desiccate me – I believe their plan was to drop me in the middle of the ocean."
Caroline's eyes widen. An ambitious plan, but surely they must have known how unlikely it would be to work.
"They're not …?"
She doesn't want to say it, to give voice to the fear that Klaus' anger has left a hefty body count.
"Not yet," Klaus replies coolly, "I'll extend some mercy, love, for your sake."
"You've tried to kill them before," she reminds him, "surely you can't fault them for a pre-emptive strike back?"
Klaus shrugs carelessly, "I've not survived a thousand years by playing fair, Caroline. And I'm not going to change."
It's not exactly a threat, more a warning, a reminder that he might bend for her, might care about her in a way he does for no others but his siblings, but he is still a king of monsters and always will be.
There is a long silence between them as they assess each other.
Caroline senses that there is a choice here, a decision to be made.
Something has been building between her and Klaus ever since he healed her from Tyler's bite on her birthday, and especially since the ball and that first drawing that she so often takes out to look at.
However, this isn't casual flirting and half-hearted plots anymore. This is serious.
This is dangerous.
She doesn't quite know what to say. So instead, she simply asks a question.
"Why are you still here, Klaus? Why not take what you want and go?"
He gives her a dimpled smile, "perhaps I'm waiting until you'll agree to leave with me."
She wants to scoff, especially at the idea that Klaus' continued presence in Mystic Falls could ever be for one reason only, but there's something about the tone of his voice that stops her from being flippant.
"I can't …"
Can't leave. Can't leave with you. Can't abandon my friends. Not yet.
"You mark my words," he says almost softly, "a small town life, it won't be enough for you, Caroline, not for long."
She doesn't say anything. She doesn't have to. He knows he's right.
So does she.
The next few days are uneasy and tense, as everyone waits for the retribution they expect from Klaus.
It isn't as messy and bloody as they fear, and yet in some ways it is even more insidious than the torture or murder Klaus is so fond of.
Compulsion is a tricky thing. Caroline doesn't like to think about it much, her whole experience with Damon having put her off it for the most part, but Klaus is a thousand years old and he's had centuries to master exactly what can be accomplished with the correct use of compulsion.
Caroline never learns the exact details of what he does to her friends. She isn't sure she wants to.
Matt and Tyler and Jeremy seem to escape relatively unscathed. But Tyler leaves town quickly, without even a goodbye (she's mostly just relieved that Klaus let him go without showing any desire to chase after him), and Matt stays away from all of them, constantly wearing a sort of shell-shocked look that makes her think he's finally done with everything supernatural.
Bonnie remains as scornful as ever of Klaus, and also of Kol, who seems to have decided that the Bennett witch is his new project. And yet while she still seems perfectly happy to toss spells at the Originals when they anger or irritate her, Caroline notices that Bonnie is always careful to never put too much power behind those spells. She won't ever share with Caroline exactly what Klaus said or did to her, but it is enough to curtail her previous attempts to desiccate or kill the Original Hybrid.
And then Elena comes to her, four days after Alaric's death, with tears in her eyes and a plea for Caroline to intervene with Klaus on Stefan and Damon's behalf.
It appears that Klaus has compelled the Salvatores to stake themselves if they ever see Elena again. A cruel punishment to forever separate the doppelganger from both of the men she loves.
There is more, Caroline thinks. She imagines Klaus will have layered countless compulsions to ensure the brothers cannot get around his punishment, or seek help from those who might be able to assist.
Later, much later, Klaus will admit that one of the compulsions included an inability to feed on human blood, forcing Stefan and Damon to survive solely on a diet of animal blood. When she thinks of this, and Damon's sneering distaste for animal blood, Caroline can't help but smile.
Elena doesn't seem to even try to understand Caroline's refusal to help. She doesn't realise that there is simply nothing at all that Caroline can do. Klaus offered some mercy, and she knows even without asking that this extends simply to leaving her friends alive, and nothing more. Once, Caroline might have agreed to go to Klaus and plead on her friends' behalf, but she knows better now, understands more about what he will and will not tolerate.
She does feel bad for Stefan, and for Elena. Not for Damon, though, never for Damon.
And so the Salvatore brothers leave Mystic Falls, with little hope of ever returning.
Elena never forgives Caroline.
Caroline can't find it in herself to care much.
Three weeks after Alaric's death, and with things in Mystic Falls feeling a little more normal (despite the absence of Alaric and the Salvatores), Klaus turns up once again in Caroline's room.
It all escalates very quickly from there.
"This doesn't mean forever," Caroline pants out, back pressed up against her bedroom wall as Klaus nips lightly at her neck.
"We're immortal, love," Klaus murmurs as he rips her tank top straight down the middle with barely a tug of his hands, "I don't mind waiting a while."
"It's just sex," she continues, slipping her hands under his henley and pressing her palms against his warm, muscled chest, "I am not ready to deal with all your supernatural shenanigans."
"You've made yourself quite clear, Caroline," he murmurs.
His tone isn't cold or angry, and she knows he understands what she's trying to say. It isn't that she doesn't like him – she likes him far more than she probably should – but she's only eighteen and she truly believes she needs to see more of the world by herself before she even considers the idea of an eternity with Klaus.
She doesn't think about any of that, though, not right now. Not when Klaus' hands are wandering and she's discovering all the delights of kissing someone with a thousand years of experience.
"Bed … now," she says hoarsely.
"So eager, love," Klaus gives her a dimpled grin as he flashes them over to her bed and she pulls his henley over his head.
She has plans, so many plans. And she wants to accomplish at least some of them without a distracting, lurking, charming Original Hybrid hovering around.
So this isn't forever. Not yet.
But it will be a damn good memory until she's ready for the future he's offered to her.
Caroline wakes up alone, and she thinks that's for the best, at least this time.
When she finally drags herself, deliciously sore all over, out of bed, she feels fairly content.
She meets up with Bonnie later and her friend wisely doesn't ask why she's got a ridiculous little grin on her face the whole time.
She should probably feel like a horrible person considering all that Klaus has done, but most of them have done terrible things and the Originals, well they've just had longer to get good at it. The rules of the supernatural world are different to those of her old, human life, and she's finally starting to see that.
When she gets home that evening, she isn't really surprised to see the sheet of paper on her bed.
The sketch is … well she can't quite think of any other word to use than perfect.
It's of Caroline asleep, her hair mussed and fanned out behind her on the pillow, her eyes closed and her expression sated and peaceful.
Though he has drawn her with a thin sheet covering her, Caroline can see every line of her body hinted at. It is still surprisingly tasteful, though, with only the slightest hint of cleavage visible.
It seems like he's captured every detail, from the freckles on her arms to the faint scar on her forehead. She wonders how often he must have watched her (and actually paid attention) to have gotten it all so accurate.
Until next time is written on the bottom right hand corner of the page, followed by however long it takes.
Caroline smiles.
Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.