He smells like alcohol and fresh blood. The sour sweet burn of it tickles her nose when he leans forward, closing the distance between them. His body presses against hers, warm and strangely familiar. Hands twine through her hair, uncharacteristically gentle. He whispers her name, a gentle caress.
His touch brings back a flood of emotions she hasn't felt in decades. A guttural sound builds in her throat, vibrates in her chest and burns on her tongue. Her lips curl back. She's angry and hurt- not by him, this strangely gentle monster who cares for her so deeply- but the others. Elena, who had been the best friend she'd ever had, turned bitter against the relentless passage of time. Damon, wasting his life away with drinks and kills. Stefan, sweet Stefan, off hiding somewhere. She hasn't seen him in decades. Tyler, dead before his time...
"Caroline?" Klaus pulls away from her, worried by her snarl. He doesn't quite look older, she notices, but more haggard, as if the years had aged him in some way. She can still see blood at the corner of his mouth. Fang teeth ache in her gums.
She shakes her head, angry at her bodies automatic reaction. She hasn't fed in too long, but that doesn't mean she can't be civilized. "How did you find me?" She makes the question soft, polite. Tries to find the Caroline this strange thousand year old monster had fallen in love with all those years ago.
He smiles a little, and reaches up to twirl a stray wisp of hair around his finger. She watches him, doesn't move. Some part of her wants to slap his hand away. Another wants to let him touch her-she hasn't felt loved in too many years.
"You're easy to find, love," He says. "I know your patterns."
She quirks an eyebrow. "My patterns?"
"No blood at the Red Cross, empty hospitals...you're getting desperate aren't you?"
"No." Again, that feral stir within her, fluttering somewhere around her navel. She's so hungry. She wants to wrap her arms around his neck, snap his skin and bone back, kill him-
At the last thought she stumbles back. No. No. No.
She can't kill anyone, she has more self control than that, she can push it away-
"Oh, my sweet young vampire," Klaus croons, and for some reason she doesn't care if he's calling her young, even if she is a century old, "You've forgotten so much haven't you?"
"I haven't forgotten anything," she intends the words to be firm, but they come out between her teeth-a bitter growl.
His eyes flash wide. "Prove it."
At the challenge her teeth burn. She tastes old blood at the back of her throat. "what?"
He drops into a crouch. Smiles, baring pointed fangs. "Caroline. Prove it."
Finally, wonderfully, her fang-teeth slide free. Venom sizzles and burns against her tongue. She's angry, she's hurting, and she's hungry. She wants to strike back at the world for all it's torn from her, for all the night it mocked her tears and laughed at her mistakes. She wants to strike Elena, but Elena is far out of reach. She wants to find Damon and Stefan Salvatore and kill them, because they started this whole screwed up reality she's forced to live.
And here is Klaus, asking her to.
She doesn't think. She moves-
Throws herself forward and latches on to him, wraps her legs around his waist and drags them both to the ground.
He's growling-a low rumble that makes his body vibrate under her hands. She tears at him, shrieking in response.
She can smell blood on him-human blood-and wonders how many people he's killed since they last met. She doesn't really want to know, but even the thought of it makes her angry.
Curling her knees up, she digs the heels of her boots into his abdomen, leaning low over his chest.
Hands clamp down on her arms, restraining her. "Easy, love."
But she's so angry, still so hurt, and this fight feels good. Her hands find his shoulders, his neck. She drags her nails across his cheek. He winces, and she bares her teeth.
"Caroline..."
Leaning into him, she digs her heels in hard, smelling blood on her boots. He snarls in her ear. She doesn't stop. She claws and screams wordless accusations, presses herself to him and wills the anger to go away. It doesn't.
When, in an insane urge she opens her mouth to bite, Klaus effortlessly flips upright, prying her away from him.
She stands, panting, shaking, across from him. Her clothes are torn and ruined with mud. Her hands ache with the need to claw again. Her throat is on fire.
"Caroline..." Klaus approaches her like she's a wild animal-slow, soothing. "You with me? Caroline?"
He says her name, over and over, and eventually it registers in her ears, the gentle caress of the syllables, the rise and fall at the end, the lilt in his voice: Caroline.
Her wild rage leaves as she breathes in the cold night air and the scent of him, cools her feral urges and leaves her feeling empty. She stares at her hands. Tears burn like venom in her eyes.
Ever so gently, he closes his fingers about hers. "There you are," He says, bending his head until their forehead's touch, "Caroline Forbes."
She blinks, and the tears fall. Klaus catches one with a finger. "You haven't had a good fight in a long while, have you?"
A laugh escapes her-broken and shaky. "Sorry,"
"At least you didn't kill me," Is he teasing? His voice lifts, light and sweet to her ears. "Such a wild thing, you are, love."
She closes her eyes. It's so odd, hearing these endearments from him, hearing any love come from anyone. For the past fifty years she's only heard Damon's ugly snarls and Elena's feral screams. Other humans whisper nice, petty things, but nothing like this. Klaus looks at her like she matters.
She doesn't realize that she's sobbing until Klaus pulls her closer, cradling her like a child in his arms. He rests his chin on top of her head and strokes her heaving shoulders. "Shh..."
She can't catch her breath. Each inhale is an effort, each exhale a strangled gasp. The same wild emotions grip her, but she doesn't want to claw or tear or bite. She wants to sink into the ground and let it swallow her up. She wants to drown in the ocean, she wants to scream her losses at the sky.
But she can't. So she cries-loudly and stormily, and Klaus holds her.
His hands are gentle, running through her hair like her Mom used too, whispering sweet things in her ears, a pillar of strength contrasting her collapse.
"Everything's different now," She whispers, burying her face in his chest and catching his scent again-sour alcohol, blood, and woodsmoke. She inhales it, memorizes it, anchors herself to it.
When her breathing evens out, Klaus tilts her chin up so they are eye to eye. He looks like he's struggling with himself, as if he wants to say something. She watches the internal struggle play out in the faint wrinkle of his lip and the creases at his eyes, but he only says, "Yes it is," and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. "It is."
She hears what he almost said, and leans into his touch. "Thank you," she whispers, and knows he hears her unspoken words too: Thank you for loving me.
His soft smile and light laughs answers, You're welcome.