In the end there's not a choice. There's not a debated decision. It's instinctual as waking up in the morning and multitasking curling her hair and drinking coffee that warms her naturally (dead) cold hands.
If she hears a boy scream she's going to go help even though it's the full moon, the recently rained woods (She knows it's recently rained because her clothes, which - Seriously!- include one of her favorite blouses that now reeks along with being damp from waking up lying on said grass.) smell of wet dog which in this case will be wet werewolf because this is Mystic Falls. And Mystic Falls, Caroline swears, has a freaking Hellmouth beneath it like Sunnydale does.
Point being: werewolves, vampires, witches, doppelgängers, ghosts, Silas, and the Originals (that are original pains in Caroline's ass despite how one of them has kicked puppy look and dimples that - no, absolutely do not make Caroline just a little bit weak in the knees because said dimple flasher is a worse than a serial killer even though he still owes her a mini-fridge because Tyler having permission to return home had worked out jack with a side of squat for her).
It doesn't occur to her to try to figure out why or even how she awoke up in middle of the woods either. But as stated earlier she could hear a boy screaming not that far off from her.
All these things lead to where she is now. Her bitten on multiple places and a young teenager boy dressed like he was a Viking which is not of the norm since it isn't Halloween and Mystic Falls has never done a play where there were Viking costumes.
Caroline knows this because when she was kid she was in every single play that was produced in Mystic Falls so it really shouldn't have surprised people she choose drama as her major in college.
"Are you okay?" She asks the boy instead of asking the burning (because she was a nosy and admittedly a mean girl when she was human and that only got amplified as a vampire) question of why the hell is he dressed like that and wow he's clothes are authentic.
The boy just tilted his head in confusion. He asked her something that might as well be Greek because she can't understand a single word he's saying. Hell, whatever language he's speaking doesn't even sound like any language she's heard.
Her life becomes even weirder when she walks over to the person that had been knocked unconscious by a werewolf barreling through him to get away from her turns out to be familiar face.
A face she hasn't seen since her confession and their deal that no Caroline doesn't regret. She can't regret it. Because what person would she be to wish Klaus to just break that damn promise (cause that's what promises are for a morbid part of her reminds her, as she thinks back on how her father had promised her when she was six that he would never leave and that's exactly what he did. First for Steven then he had chosen to die than become what he hated - what she was) and come back to Mystic Falls so she wasn't alone? That she wasn't forgotten, choose second, or hated for what she was; how she liked being strong, ageless, fearless.
A terrible person. A terrible friend Caroline thought morosely as she noted how Klaus was still unconscious and was bleeding a little.
Oh and his hair was long. Like girl long. (Well least he wasn't wearing it in a freaking ponytail which even Klaus would not be able to pull off.)
Seriously what was going on? Seeing Klaus with blood on him was one thing but Klaus bleeding? Then the long hair, the clothes...
Oh God.
Oh fucking God.
Yes, the former reigning Miss Mystic Falls just used a the "f" word at the realization that she prayed was wrong. That she had jumped to the wrong conclusion but this was Mystic Falls.
Caroline would have her hands in her mess of a hair if she wasn't hastily biting into a wrist and putting it in Klaus' mouth.
Klaus who, now that Caroline was actually focusing on him, had a beating heart. He wasn't dead. He wasn't a vampire or even the "Original Hybrid."
She was going to die, Caroline realized numbly. Klaus' blood was the cure to werewolf bites. She had been bitten, not once but multiple times, and she was in the past. Thousands of years before Klaus' blood was the cure.
Caroline felt a hand on her shoulder. Caroline was shaken out of her second (and probably last) scary realization of the day and looked back to see the boy that she had saved earlier.
"Valkyrja fylgja ég," the boy told her before walking away.
"I still don't understand what you're saying," she said more to herself than to him.
She was going to die. That was nothing she could do about it but she could help a very human Klaus, who had done nothing to her or her friends, that needed someone to help him. She could be that someone. She was a fixer along with a stress cleaner after all.
Caroline removed her wrist from Klaus mouth before checking his minor wound. All healed up thankfully. Carefully Caroline picked Klaus up with such fragility one might think he was a baby.
She followed Klaus' young companion because that was what she could do for now.
A/N: Disclaimer, I own nothing. This story is also on archiveofourown.
Valkyrja fylgja ég means Valkyrie follow me.