She follows him because she has nowhere else to go; it is as simple as that, and she tells him so. Her voice shakes as she speaks, but she holds her head high.
"You'll learn to like me," Klaus insists with absolute sincerity, even as the blood is drying on her clothes and the bodies on the floor surround her.
She tries to force a smile, but the attempt is weak and she just bursts into tears.
Klaus holds out his hand and after just a moment of hesitation, Caroline wipes at her eyes the grabs for his hand and squeezes it tightly, as if it is all that is keeping her alive.
As they walk away from the gruesome scene, Caroline wonders if she's making the right decision. She turns back and glances at the mutilated bodies of the people she called friends—they would hate her for this, she knows—but when he tugs pointedly on her arm, she faces forward and continues walking.
-x-
As she feels the warm ocean sand beneath her toes, Caroline closes her eyes and savors the feeling of freedom. The wind blows her hair in her face and she smells the ocean and the campfires and the cookouts on the beach and for a while, she convinces herself she is just a normal girl.
Then there are hands covering her eyes and she jumps at the loss of one of her senses. In that moment of darkness, she remembers the fighting and the screaming and the blood. She trembles.
"Relax," he whispers low in her ear. "It's just me."
He pulls his hands away and gracious her with her sight. He's grinning playfully at her and she tries to smile back, but this time her attempt is tinged with the dark memories of the ghosts of her past.
-x-
Klaus gives her a red velvet cake on her birthday, so she returns the favor a few months later with three pans of brownies. When she shows it to him, he notices all the holes in it.
"Are you angry with me?" he asks, concern evident in his voice.
Caroline shakes her head. "I was trying to put all the candles on it…but it wasn't working."
He takes notice of the three unlit number candles—one in each pan—adorning the dessert. He laughs as he takes a knife and cuts into the first pan, skipping the lighting tradition.
He hands her a piece, but she shakes her head. She's not in the mood for celebrating.
-x-
Caroline finds it disconcerting, how easy it is for him to play at being a happy family unit. She plays along because she has no one else and nowhere to go, but she is not happy.
"Do you really want me to like you?" she whispers, late one night as he plays with her hair.
Klaus shrugs. "It wouldn't hurt," he answers candidly.
She turns to him, leans in and brushes her lips against his, but when he moves to deepen it, she pulls back. "I can't forget what you did to them, you know that," she says after a full minuet of staring at him. "I don't think I can forgive you for it either."
She doesn't tell him that being here hurts her because she cannot bear to put that out in the open.
-x-
"You could leave, Caroline," he says the next morning. "I wouldn't hold it against you."
She wants so badly to just pack up and go, but there's a tone of sadness in the way he said the words that makes her shake her head.
"No, I can't leave you…just as you can't leave me."
She swallows the pain, convinces herself it will fade—thinks it may have started to already—and once again places her hand in his.
