Enjoy!

xx

Sure enough, just as he said, she appeared at his door one day. And while his sister rolled her eyes and his brother smirked, a sly comment at the tip of his tongue as usual, Klaus smiled and stepped aside, graciously welcoming Caroline into his home. But they didn't stay long. He said he would show her the beauty of the world, and he was decades late on that promise.

She loved Paris, of course. The city, the lights. It was busy, and Caroline liked busy. The sights made her swoon, the fashionistas became her muses, and while some of the delicacies left her questionable, she seemed willing to try anything.

They shared a kiss on the Eiffel Tower, Caroline not one to snub clichés.

Rome seemed to shock her. She stared in awe at the marble, hesitant to step foot in the ruins that had, over time, crumbled before Klaus's very eyes. She traced over features of statues with care, as if afraid the stone would shatter like glass, her lips parted, enchanted by the carefully chiseled features.

In the Sistine Chapel, she clasped hands with him, head craned back, gazing at Michelangelo's work. Tears streamed from her eyes, and it occurred to Klaus that he knew not how to comfort this girl, or why she wept in the first place.

It was for beliefs lost, she would tell him. The comfort the idea of a powerful and all-knowing God taken from her with this new life. After all she had learned of this world, how could she possibly believe? He held her as she made realizations he had made long ago.

Tokyo was bright and happy and Caroline seemed almost overwhelmed. The streets were flooded with people, the traffic at a standstill as pedestrians crossed streets at any opportunity they got. Some of the locals gazed at Caroline, with her ocean eyes and hair like straw, with almost as much admiration as Klaus did, who stood by observing her laugh in delight at some of the outrageous fashions of the East or cringe in disgust at some of the food vendors had to offer.

The two snuck to the top of one of the tallest buildings in the metropolis one night and gazed over the city, twinkling like the night sky. Klaus brought a finger to her face, tracing it over her cheek bone and down to her jaw line. Gently, he gripped her chin and looked into those eyes of hers, those eyes that went from gentle to critical in a second, and often did.

He was happy here with her. And he didn't understand it at all. Who was she but some small town girl turned vampire? Why, that night she fed from him, healing the wound he had ordered to be inflicted, did something seem to go off in him? She had looked at him with fear and then something else. Disgust. Loathing.

"You really think that low of me?"

"Yes."

She didn't worship him. Hell, she didn't even respect him. And as infuriating as it was ("I think it's time for you to leave," he said, and he could have ripped her pretty little head off), it was refreshing. Caroline was something completely new to him. Full of light, he said. Caroline saw things so clearly, saw right through him, and wasn't afraid to call him out on anything. She didn't hold her tongue out of fear.

And when they returned to the States, and her bags were packed, ready to leave him again, because Caroline would not be mistaken for easy, and she would never allow Klaus to think she was his, he couldn't stop himself from demanding why she came back to him in the first place. She had this way of injuring him with even the smallest act, the slightest comment. And that fear of being alone kicked in, even when he still had Rebekah and Kol, who pledged to never leave his side, because he found he needed someone, something else, and Caroline was probably the best he'd ever get. And she was turning her back to him again, and this time, certainly this time would be the last, because she had gotten what he had promised her. She had seen the great cities, the art, heard the music, been exposed to genuine beauty that was worthy of her, and she was leaving. How he wanted to grab hold of her and keep her, regardless of what she said, the objections she would surely make, but he couldn't, because if he did that, then he would lose her forever.

And when he asked why, she turned, and smiled softly, mischief gleaming in her eyes. "I fancy you." She answered. "Is that so hard to believe?" Then she opened her car door, climbed in, and drove off, and Klaus was left speechless, left in a way that only Caroline could leave him.

xx

-Reels