Note: Written for the Klaroline ficathon on LJ
Of Sinners and Saints
She can barely breath when she thinks about it. She and Klaus are the only ones left, everyone else is dead. It isn't surprising that he would survive all this chaos, but in a twist of fate she is the one left to stand by his side.
Everything is ashes and blood and her stomach coils until she tells him to take her away in a barely audible whisper. She is desperate, but so is he.
With his family gone forever, no coffins, no daggers he clings to her, raises her onto a pedestal that isn't hers to stand on. (Beautiful, strong, full of light.)
If Caroline still was who she used to be, she would tell him that he is idealizing her, that he's only filling the void his silbings left by telling himself that only she matters, but alas she is not. In a world were nothing will ever be the same she must adapt.
oOo
She lets him take her to all those places he had promised before – Tokyo, Paris, Rome.
Instead of excitement all she can feel is apathy towards the beauty of the world; it's not enough to keep her demons at bay, her loss and anger still fresh on her mind. That's when she decides it's his burden to bear. She tells him that if he wants her to stay he must endure it. And he does.
There are enough biting remarks and hurtful words to last a lifetime, she finds and in a particularly cruel moment she even goes as far as to wear Rebekah's necklace, letting the ghost of his baby sister haunt him for days on end.
He's the sinner and he must repent; this is the world she creates for him.
oOo
When he whispers the word love against her shoulder she pushes him away. Love is something that is gone forever, something that doesn't have a place in her hollowed out chest anymore. It certainly is not his place to love her, he isn't allowed.
„Don't say that to me again."
oOo
It is all your fault. The words are never spoken, but loom between them anyway. There's truth to it, even he must know it. He is the cause of every horrifying thing that ever happened to her and if he had died over a thousand years ago, like he was supposed to, everyone could have had their happily ever after.
She, Elena and Bonnie would have stayed best friends forever, getting married and having babies; a simple life, but a happy one.
It is naive to still believe in happy endings, Caroline knows this, but it's easier this way, living as the saint, the martyr and the avenging angel in the world she creates for herself.
