This is by far the longest [only] thing I've written in a month. Please don't hate. I feel like the ending needs a lot of work but I really can't think of any other way it could possibly go.
Something different every time, but in the end it all sounds the same.
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Caroline Forbes is a hardworker. She works, then she works, then she works some more, and she does it all because that's how ordinary people get by. Not Elena, no. Elena is not ordinary, Elena does not need to work hard, or work at all, because she's Elena. Elena the damned saint and queen. Queen of the universe.
(Queen of Caroline's universe too, because Caroline can never think of herself without thinking of Elena.)
Why is she thinking of Elena?
Caroline Forbes, she works hard. Every morning she'll spend hours curling her hair, then she'll decide it doesn't match the white of her jacket and straighten it. Caroline will decide her outfit for the rest of the month a week in advance with three contingency outfits for every day, and she'll do it all while planning the next dance at Mystic Falls High.
Why do the hardworkers get the worst of things?
Caroline will see Stefan first, and Caroline will find out everything about him, and Caroline will tell him about the party Elena would probably not have even gone to if she didn't know Stefan was going to, and then Stefan will tell her they're never happening. It's okay. She's been through this before, this thing where everyone picks Elena. Poor darling who just lost her parents. Treat her like a glass doll.
She's not the only one who doesn't have parents.
Is she over-analyzing this? She doesn't want to. She knows it'll get her nowhere.
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Caroline Forbes is breakable. She's a porcelain doll in an iron fist, and he's threatening to crush her. She'll wake up with blood on her neck and what has she ever done to deserve this and she'll tiptoe her way out but won't get there in time. If this was a movie then he would kill her now, after he's had his way with her and sucked her blood, he'll do it again and this time he'll kill her, she knows. His blue eyes sparkle as he acts like there's nothing wrong, and it should have been a warning sign but at the time they were beautiful, his eyes. The pillow she throws at him has bloodstains on it. Her blood. She feels sick.
Then his face turns to veins and red and she can't be sick because she's got to scream bloody murder, it hurts—
he looks into her eyes for a second, and she hates him
—what would look better with her cheerleading uniform, the checkered red and white scarf or the black one?
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Caroline Forbes tells everyone she's fine. She never really is.
The Founders Council is overrated, as are all their parties. Sometimes she wishes she wasn't a Forbes, wasn't Sheriff's daughter just so she didn't have to go to these dull as dishwater affairs. Damon agrees to come with her but makes her wear a blue dress (what's wrong with yellow, she'd like to know) and she braids her hair pretty whereas she'd just have to curl it loosely if she'd been wearing the yellow.
Still, she doesn't have a scarf to match the yellow.
She laughs with Stefan because everything's a secret and he doesn't know she knows, and she tries not to feel hurt when Damon tells her to please not talk. She sips her drink. Across the room someone smiles at her, blue eyes crinkling. She smiles back, doesn't look at Damon, doesn't look at Elena and Stefan dancing. She gets that Damon's older, but why won't he dance? Someone comes to her, taking her hand and asking Damon if he can borrow his date. Damon tells him no.
After Damon leaves her alone because something about Elena and Stefan, she dances with him anyways. He says her name like it's a pretty name. She giggles then, too, and doesn't say anything about it for the rest of the day.
Or ever.
She feels not quite herself as she re-applies her make-up, ruffled. Then Elena enters and asks all sorts of questions about Damon that she can't answer because it's a secret she can't tell. Why would Elena look at a bite mark and think Damon did that, anyways? But she's panicking because it's a dangerous secret.
Damon tells her that he forgives her. She doesn't feel forgiven when he tells her that he's over her. Everything's black, but then someone's there and someone's looking at her and she wonders if he knows. He does. He does because it's his secret, too. His wrist, her mouth, and it's nectar flowing down her throat—
—Elena's hugging her and she's crying (and she's not fine at all, no matter how many times she repeats that she is) and Damon, Damon is toxic.
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Caroline Forbes isn't quite sure which way to look.
Someone smiles at her in the nicest way and he has blue eyes that are warm, not ice, and he has skin that's warm, not ice. She finds him studying Elena and Stefan at Sexy Suds, but it's with mild curiosity, not the interested kind of look he gives her when he asks her to wash his car. He smirks at her and calls her a pretty witch right outside the party (it's like he was looking for her, or waiting for her, and she's not sure which one she likes more) and she laughs and asks him what he's dress up as if he had to for Halloween. He gives her a grin and tell her, vampire. She tries not to have her skin prickle, but it's not a bad thing.
She somehow manages to find herself someone's responsibility and gets totally wasted, and she hears him threaten Damon when she's too drunk to remember the next day, and she asks him if he ever feels like there's no one in the world who loves him. He tells her that he does. When she wakes up, he's not there, and she can't imagine how embarrassed she'd be if he were.
She spends the next day feeling awkward and mad at Bonnie in equal measures. It's a freaky night. Witch. He called her a pretty witch. But she doesn't think of that and tries to listen to Bonnie. When doesn't she listen? And her friends are really just weird. They never even talk to her anymore.
She sees him at the Career Fair, after Stefan tells her she doesn't even read the paper. Both Salvatore brothers are a waste of time. She avoids him because he snuck out after he cuddled with her. He goes up to her and smiles, and she doesn't look into his eyes. She doesn't respond. Their conversation goes with her calling what he did a lame guy move and him smirking and telling her that wouldn't have wanted her mother to see him there, would they? and she tries to look mad but she just wants to laugh by the time he's repeating her name in singsong. He tells her he'll see her later when she's leaving, and she hitches a ride with Logan Fell because someone's nowhere in sight, just like Bonnie. Her friends ditch her way too often.
Logan Fell is a creep and he attacked her. Someone carries her home again, she's conscious when he carries her, and right before she sees the Salvabros get there, she thinks she hears him mutter that he'll kill him. She smiles before she faints again.
Someone tells her it's a pretty necklace her friend gave her and tells her he'd like to see her at the dance; pity he can't. He comes with her to Duke's party, though, and he asks her if she's old enough to be drinking that but doesn't stop her. He sits there and laughs with her during the raffle for the Founders Day celebrations, and he intertwines his fingers with hers. Elena asks about him and asks if they would like to double with her and Stefan sometime. He declines politely and she breathes out a sigh of relief. The next night she sees the inside of his small apartment, crying into his chest, so freaked out because Vicki Donovan and she's dead. He stands behind her at the funeral, endlessly polite. He tells her he'll miss her when she goes to her Dad's.
He smiles adorably and tells her he'd love to be her escort to Miss Mystic Falls. He tells her that she'll win because she's the one who deserves to. She practices her speech with him but he never lets him finish, smirking with some kind of pride whenever she gets halfway through and kissing her. He comes to the lessons with her and he's an excellent dancer. When she wins, he whispers in her ear that he'd told her so. She notices that he seems to be getting weird looks from people, but she ignores them. He tells her that whatever she does for the Founders Day parade, it'll be amazing. It's a weird thing, though, preparing for it. Matt's arm almost gets crushed. Then Bonnie's being weird about Elena and saying that she did something she shouldn't have.
Someone takes pictures with her, dressed era-appropriately, even matching her dress. He doesn't see anything wrong with yellow. He tells her something important is up and they need to leave immediately. The parade's over so she agrees, but as they're in the car he starts to be distracted, holding his head in his hands. He stops the car, but it's too fast and it's a jerk that's too hard for her. One second she's hitting the dash and the next he's saying her name and it's black.
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She's Caroline Forbes, and her best friend is a stranger.
A monster wearing the face of Elena Gilbert comes in the middle of the night, presses down on her face, kills her. Caroline is scared, scared, scared. Dead. Caroline is dead.
When she wakes up, she's hungry. Really hungry. There's something killing in her mouth and she just needs to eat something. The night nurse is cruel and keeps telling her to wait until morning. "Your mom left after dinner. Your boyfriend left about an hour ago, and then your friend Elena stepped by," she frowns, thinking of how Elena had said her name was Katherine and then tried to suffocate her. Hadn't that been a dream?
The nurse tells her to go to sleep, but on the way there there's that smell. Like something. She doesn't know what it is but it's strong and it's calling her. The nurse tells her to go back to bed but she can't. That smell. What is it? Looks towards the room next to her, and it's blood. She pockets a blood bag and drinks from it, and it's disgusting. She hates it.
What has she become?
She picks it back up and drains it, and it's disgusting in her mouth and she hates it, but she wants it. Needs it. Her face, it feels weird. What is wrong with her face?
Silently, she stands. She needs another. She really, really needs another. Finding her way out, she looks around for a bit before she finds blood bags. A lot of them, sitting there for her to take. Grabbing two, she runs for her bathroom and tears at it. No one can find her like this. No one. She closes her eyes, drinking from this, this foul blood that she needs and no, God no.
When she looks in the mirror, she's horrified. There are veins all over her face and her eyes are so red and her teeth are fangs, oh God. Her face. What's wrong with her face? Putting the bag down, she presses her hands to her beautiful, marred face, and she can't help it. She's sobbing, and there's blood on her chin from where she accidentally tore one of the bags and she has fangs and no, no, no.
"Caroline?"
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"Caroline?" His voice is unexpected and shocked and when she turns on instinct, he looks horrified. She closes her eyes and looks down, certain he'll break up with her. She's going to lose the only one who really cares about her because a monster with her best fucking friend's face killed her.
"Klaus, I—" He's hugging her, holding her to his chest and pulling the door closed behind her, pressing his lips to the top of her head and just holding her as she sobs. Sobs. Sobs.
"Tell me who did this to you," He whispers and she sniffs, shaking in his arms. He's warm and he's soft but she doesn't, she doesn't want to eat him. Is this okay? Doesn't he hate her? He sounds angry but not with her, never with her. Will he tell her mom? How will she go outside?
"I just, I woke up, and Elena was there—and she was being weird—my face—Klaus, I just—she was saying her name was Katherine but—I need blood." She sobs and he holds her and rubs her back and she's staining his sweater with blood.
"Love," he whispered, pulling away from her and looking at her. Slowly he pulls out a wad of tissues and started cleaning her face, and she presses her lips together. "It's alright. It's okay."
"You don't hate me?" you're not scared of me? you don't want to kill me? you don't think I'm a monster?
She looks into his eyes and she sees something that never happened. Lying on the ground after Damon bit her, and he's offering her his wrist and he's looking in her eyes. Watching him snap Damon's neck in a disoriented blur, but that never happened. And again, his wrist open in front of her mouth the night of the accident.
"Of course not, Caroline. I could never hate you." She swallows, and she doesn't know what to make of it. He's like her? Damon's like her? He snapped Damon's neck, and she remembers Damon biting her and waking up next to her and she remembers Damon trying to kill her, and Damon's a vampire? Damon's a vampire, and she's a vampire, and Klaus is a vampire. But she has to know.
"Are you...?" He nods, and she knows he knows she remembers. How did he make her forget?
"Let's get you at my place and cleaned up, sweetheart. I'll tell you everything, I promise." She nods, feeling sick as he finishes wiping her face. He zooms outside and she frowns, and he comes back in telling her that they're free to leave; she's been discharged. She smiles and wonders if he did the same thing to the nurse, looking in her eyes like that and she doesn't like it.
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"Katerina." He says when she tells him about Elena and killing her. She frowns and he repeats; "Katerina. She's a five hundred year old vampire. I don't know why she'd be here, unless she didn't know I was here too." Caroline frowns, because this doesn't make sense. "She's been running from me for five hundred years." He says, and she only blinks because why would anyone run from him?
"How old are you?" She asks in a small voice. How much does she know about him? She doesn't seem to know much.
"I'm a thousand years old, love." She gasps and he wraps his arms around her and presses her to his chest, almost like he's scared she'll run away. She's never running from him. Ever.
"So, I'm a vampire." She repeats. "And I have to drink blood to survive." He nods. "I'll need one of those ring things, won't I? Like Damon has." He frowns at her and she licks her lips, not sure how to tell him. "He, he did that compelling thing, he made me forget he was a vampire. He was feeding from me when we dated." Klaus clenches his jaw and touches her face.
"I saw him trying to kill you once, but I'd thought it was only the one time." She shakes her head, trying not to let tears pool in her eyes as she remembers, but she can't quite get there. "Caroline, love," he whispers as he notices. He wipes her tears and holds her closer. "It's alright. You're with me, you're safe. He'll never hurt you again."
"Tell me more about you," she whispers. So he does.
He is one thousand years old, one of the oldest vampires there are. He says his mother was the one who created vampires, of him and his siblings. She asks him where they are and he says they're somewhere no one can hurt them, in a safe place until they can all be a family again. He tells her that his father has been hunting him from when they all becamse vampires because he thinks they're an abomination. His own children. She snuggles closer to him, because he needs more warmth and he needs comfort and she wants to give it. She can't imagine her own daddy would do any such thing.
He tells her that he's not just a vampire, but he's a hybrid. He says it like he's proud of it. He tells her he's got werewolf blood in him because his father's not really his father, and he tells her him mother cursed him just so he couldn't be more powerful than the rest of them. She asks him what he needs to break the curse, and he tells her he needs to sacrifice doppelganger; Katerina, she figures; a vampire and a werewolf for it, and he needs this thing called a moonstone and a witch. She suggests using Damon as the vampire sacrifice. He laughs and agrees.
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She goes to the carnival anyways with him, and she kicks Damon's ass. When she's done throwing him around, someone snaps his neck and she smiles. When they're outside, she's holding him tightly and he's holding her and there's blood, blood everywhere. Elena asks her about them letting her out early and she smiles and nods and steps away, because she smells human and Caroline wants to eat her.
Caroline wants to not look at her and be terrified out of her mind because this is the face of the bitch that killed her.
She wonders how Stefan does it, how Damon does it. She saw them together at Miss Mystic Falls and she has a feeling Damon isn't drinking Elena's blood. She wonders why Elena gave her that necklace. Klaus told her about all the vampires she's seen in this town; Stefan, Damon, that girl Anna she remembers from Miss Mystic Falls, that woman Isobel that she'd met one day, a couple other people she'd seen about for a few days.
He puts his hand around her and leads her behind a pair of trash cans. He finds her a victim and he stops her from killing the man, compels him to leave and forget about it. She looks away and says that he must be disgusted and he responds that she's the most beautiful vampire he's seen. (She thinks of how he's a thousand years old).
He snaps Damon's neck again when he appears, holding a stake, and Stefan holds Damon back and looks at Caroline and Klaus with some kind of horror, like he's not one of them too.
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She's Caroline Forbes and she doesn't have friends.
Bonnie looks at her like she's a monster, but she doesn't look at Stefan the same way. Elena treats her like a fragile being, or something that's going to eat her, but Caroline won't do that. Klaus has taught her to be careful and she'll be careful. She'll also avoid Stefan and Elena and Bonnie and she'll talk to her mom less than she already does and she'll spend all her time with him. He loves her. She knows that.
He gives her a ring so she can walk in the sun; she hears Bonnie whispering to Elena that it's easier for her to kill innocent people this way, but she won't. Caroline's got self-control and she won't disappoint Klaus. She won't. He tells her to be free with his victims but to be careful, and to control herself or she'll go wild, like Stefan did (Stefan's so old, not nearly as old as Klaus is, but he's so old). She mocks Stefan when he finds her looking thirstily at Riley Johann, and he looks offended and asks her how she knows that.
She only smirks.
She finds herself being distanced from her friends, but it's not because she doesn't like them anymore, it's because they don't like her. She hears them looking into some kind of research about werewolves and she tells Klaus. They're barely there and her mother's been thinking she's acting strange.
Then there's Klaus, and he talks to Stefan and talks to Elena and convinces them all he's on their side when it comes to Katherine, and he tells them he's a thousand years old and he can find her. (He tells her that when he finds her, he'll kill her.)
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Caroline Forbes, she's a vampire. But don't tell anyone.
Tyler Lockwood is a werewolf. So is his uncle. Katherine apparently hates Elena just about as much as Caroline hates Katherine, and Elena and Stefan break up.
And then her mom finds out. Caroline hugs her and tells her that she's still her and she's still her daughter and her mom tells her that she's dead to her. It takes three days but her mom's okay and she cries when she compels her to forget, and she cries into Klaus' arms when her mom tells her she really enjoyed bonding with Caroline when she had the flu.
And then there's the Masquerade at the Lockwood home, and a girl dies, and they catch Katherine and Klaus smirks all night long. Caroline tells Elena not to but she goes to Katherine, talks to her from outside the cave they put her in. Klaus is talking to Tyler when she goes to tell him, and he tells her not to worry; he'll handle it.
Elena tells Caroline that Klaus is dangerous. Caroline tells Elena she already knows.
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"One vampire, one werewolf, the doppelganger, a witch and the moonstone." He shows her the moonstone, then leans his head against hers. "There's a werewolf pack in town; I'll use any one of them. There's no shortage of vampires in Mystic Falls for me to sacrifice. My witch will be here as soon as I'm ready and the doppelganger is, well. She's mine for the taking." She smiles at him. He deserves to break the curse his mother put on him. He deserves how happy he looks just talking about breaking it.
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"I thought you meant Katherine! Elena is my friend!"
"Caroline, the doppelganger has to be human. I need to drink her blood."
"Klaus, Elena's my best friend. I can't let you kill her." Klaus looks sadly at her, like he doesn't want to hurt her. She's trying not to cry but how does she do that when all he wants is to break this curse, and that involves him killing her best friend? She shakes her head and he shakes his.
"This is all I've wanted for a thousand years. I need this. I need to be a hybrid."
"I get it, Klaus, but can't you sacrifice Katherine?""She can be the vampire sacrifice, love. Not the doppelganger."
They're arguing but he hugs her when she cries, and he whispers in her ear that there may be a solution.
His name is Elijah, he has the funniest hair, and he's Klaus' brother. He tries to kill Klaus, and Klaus says Elijah, brother. I can re-unite you with our family, and Elijah gives Klaus a potion. This will keep the doppelganger alive after the sacrifice, he tells Klaus. She stand behind Klaus and holds his arm and smiles when she realizes Elena won't die.
Elena refuses to meet her or see Klaus and he shakes his head and tells her it's Elena's loss. She nods but she's lonely, so she goes to the Grille for some fries and a drink. On her way home, there's some werewolf bitch, then everything hurts as she sprays her and—
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She wakes up in a cage, and she's surrounded by werewolves.
They shoot her. The bullets are wooden and she doesn't heal. It hurts, it hurts and they play with her like it's a sick game. They shoot her with wooden bullets and throw wooden sticks at her neck and squirt vervain on her. It burns, it heals, they play with her until she's destroyed. She's screaming for mercy but they're enjoying themselves.
She's done nothing to deserve this.
Tyler Lockwood, who she's known all her life, won't let her out. He's standing outside the door and looking like he'd like to open the door, but before he can move Klaus is there and he's pulling her out, and she's at her home before anyone knows what's going on.
"You're safe," he whispers in her ear. "You're with me, you're safe. They can't hurt you." She cries into his arm, she bleeds, she cries, and it hurts but he's there. He takes care of her and he calls Elena to come visit because Bonnie won't talk to her at all, and he kisses her better and she loves him.
She loves him.
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The next full moon comes and Caroline's sitting on the sidelines, only halfway sure she wants to watch. Elena has drunk the potion Klaus gave her (for Caroline, for her, because she asked him to) and Jules is the werewolf sacrifice and Katherine somehow managed to replace what was to be her with a vampire no one recognizes. Caroline looks away during the Sacrifice, and Stefan and Damon try to kill him but it's dumb because they couldn't. She manages to take Stefan down on her own. Damon can't touch Klaus.
He's a werewolf and it's fantastic. He's in control of himself, though, and she stays with him all night because he won't bite her, and in the morning when he wakes up they have sex in the forest. That night, he asks her if she'd like to go with him, leave town for the summer. She asks her mother and her mother is okay with it, and she tells her to be careful as she packs her things, and tells her to remember that if she ever needs to, she can come right back.
She knows they'll never return, but she's Caroline Forbes and Mystic Falls isn't the place for her.