Author's Note: This was a short little fic I wrote a while back. It's been lingering on Tumblr and I finally decided I might as well move it over.
I'll clarify something at the end because I believe it could be somewhat confusing. I won't mention it now because it'll spoil how this entire oneshot plays out.
Please leave a review letting me know what you think!
Disclaimer: I do not own and am in no way affiliated with The Vampire Diaries.
He never meant to grow so attached. That was never his intention. She had been a play thing, something he kept around for amusement.
She had been the result of an experiment that proved to evolve more quickly, and much easier than his previous attempt to sire more hybrids. Even now he never tried to understand the simplicity of the transition. Just a little blood, both from himself and from his doppelganger after inflicting a bite, a snap of the neck, a quick spell. That was all it took. That was all it took to unravel her friends and his enemies. Enough to make them believe she was lost to them forever. Enough to make that silly little Elena fall to the ground, gripping her witchy friend, and enough to make Damon charge at him with a stake aimed at his heart.
Sometimes he wondered why he embedded it in the younger vampire's stomach rather than his chest.
He wondered why they never demanded to see the body. He could have been lying about her death. They had only witnessed the bite, not the rest.
At least when she woke up he didn't have to lie when he told her the friends she had didn't care enough to see her.
She fought with him at first, and he was pleased to see her strength had improved. It wasn't enough to fight him off, but she was no longer the vulnerable baby vampire he had come to see her as.
The effect of being sired took longer to settle, and he still could not find the answer to that issue. But it came, thankfully enough, one evening when the moon was full. She told him about Tyler and the way she used to look after him, she said it all as if she actually believed he cared. She told him she understood the sire thing now, that she hadn't been so hard on him. And he had stared at her with masked curiosity because it was the first word he had heard of such things from her. She had smiled, a tentative little gesture and it was accompanied with a shrug. She had pointedly reminded him that she never tried to run.
And he reminded her that he never told her to stay.
She spent her time pouting after that because she couldn't force herself to go home. She talked more than he cared to listen and from their time together he was able to gather that she was a very insecure being. She had friends who she hardly believed cared for her, one too many ex-boyfriends in a town that probably wanted her dead at one point. She had laughed there at the irony. But he discovered they had a mutual point when it came to Stefan.
Stefan had abandoned her when he took off with him, she had sighed. She told him of her avoidance of the younger Salvatore, told him she was hurt and couldn't push that aside to help him. He had chuckled and poured himself a glass of alcohol while pointing out that finding Stefan was their set goal.
"Yeah, yeah, he has your family, I got it," she had replied with a roll of her eyes.
Her mockery was infuriating most of the time. He found it endearing in others, not that he would ever give her the satisfaction of knowing.
"I need to go back," she told him after a shaky breath. "Just once."
"No," he had snarled and she had flinched away from the sound, bowing her head in apology because she could hardly fight against that sort of decision.
"Tyler left you a message," she had admitted instead and her eyes never left the floor. "Stefan is back in town."
"Well that changes things."
His celebration took the form of siring more hybrids now that he was sure his experiment had been successful. She celebrated by locking herself in her room and snatching his best alcohol. She was sulking and he was able to recognize that. He just found that he couldn't care. He knew what it was all about. She no longer felt unique. She was no longer his only successful hybrid of vampire origins. She didn't speak with him unless spoken to, and after some time he grew to dislike the silence he once craved. So when he knocked on her door to announce their departure for Mystic Falls, no one was more astonished than him.
She didn't need to vocalize her surprise. He already knew. She had expected him to bring along another minion, one that didn't have emotional attachments to the town and the target.
"You're still the first," he told her though he couldn't pinpoint the reasoning. She had grinned at him, actually beamed and followed him out the door, promising not to screw anything up.
He suspected she just wanted to belong somewhere. She wanted to be important to someone.
He never would have guessed that someone would end up being him.
"I won't disappoint you," she told him during the car ride there, eyes wide with sincerity.
"Don't make promises you can't keep, love," he had hissed in response and she never replied, seemingly overthinking and dissecting every word he said to her the entire way there.
"Look who's back," Damon greeted coolly, knocking a bewildered Elena behind him for her own protection. "Looking for more baby vampires to kill?"
He had chuckled, both amused and annoyed with this vampire's arrogance. He didn't even need to summon her; she knew exactly when she was needed. And she was successful in startling them. She walked up behind him, pausing only when she stood just a foot away. He could feel her gaze there, heavy; until she looked away and focused on the people she had once called friends. He spared a glance over his shoulder, smirked, and gestured her forward.
"Come on now, love, don't be shy about it" he instructed and she smiled again. He watched with curious fascination and pride as her eyes flickered to that hue of golden amber. He hardly even noticed the doppelganger's shriek of horror.
"What has he done to you?" The brunette cried out, moving forward only to be restrained by Damon.
"He turned her."
They all turned to see Stefan entering the room. If he wasn't so focused on killing his old friend he might have rolled his eyes for stating the obvious. But he took some satisfaction at the tone. Stefan still seemed detached, not quite to the same extent, but it was clear his humanity was not entirely intact.
"And she has been very well behaved," he smirked and she turned to glance at him, the excitement filling her features at his praise.
"Compulsion," Elena screeched, so eager to defend a friend she believed was dead.
"Of course not," she scoffed from his side, giggling as if the thought of compulsion seemed unbelievable.
"There's no need for that," Damon snarled, ignoring the glare Elena shot his way. "She's been sired, haven't you, Blondie?"
"Where are they, Stefan?" she asked instead and for a moment Klaus considered sitting back and letting her have all the fun.
He didn't reply. His green eyes were flickering about between them, calculating, measuring the threat. Where Damon was rash, Stefan was careful. All eyes were focused on him now but his expression never changed, his gaze never wavered. Then he smiled and leaned back against the wall.
"Hello, Nik," and that was warning enough for him to spin around and catch his sister's wrist and keep the dagger she held from piercing his heart.
"That won't kill me."
"I was hoping it would hurt a little," his sister hissed and if it was a different situation he might have laughed at the similar banter. But she was already there with a flash of blonde curls, peeling his sister away from him and snatching the dagger out of her hands.
Damon was there, pulling her back and she reared, jaws snapping.
And though she knew it would not kill him, she sprang forward when Elijah stepped up behind him, his own dagger raised. She charged, pushing him out of the way and taking it her heart instead. It was only then that she noticed it was wood rather than metal and she gasped, eyes flickering toward his face as she felt everything she was drain out of her. She fell to the floor and he was there, kneeling beside her, ignoring Elena's howls of grief.
"Did I do okay?" she gasped out, eyes fluttering.
"You were brilliant," he replied even when he realized he didn't owe her that.
"I told you I wouldn't disappoint you," she pointed out with one last smile.
"Caroline, love, you certainly did not."
It was a lie, a lie that came out automatically but she believed him. Her skin faded to that purple hue and the veins became prominent as she slipped from his arms.
He never meant to grow so attached.
Author's Note: I know in the show Tyler mentioned that the only way to kill a hybrid would be to rip out their heart or decapitate them. However if you didn't catch on, the dagger made of wood was a special weapon able to kill Klaus. Therefore, in my head at least, if a weapon is meant to kill Klaus I feel like it would be completely capable of ending any hybrid's life.
So there you go.
Again, please let me know what you think!