Someone is placing a curse on Mystic Falls. Mystic Falls.
It doesn't begin well, and she can't quite say it ends well either.
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There's a murder at 2477 Lakeside Drive. It happens quietly, in paisley-patterned sheets, stark white with soft greens seeming too light a backdrop for so much blood. It happens in a bed, in a bedroom, in a house, in the full vaulted dark of midnight, and the atmosphere seems to bloom and shrink when the last breath leaves their lungs, softer than a petal, not heard by anyone. The window is open and it lets in a fresh gust of summer air, bringing with it the sweet silk smell of jasmine and earth.
Three miles from here, a man-shaped shadow stands outside a home, warm and golden light spilling from one of the windows, and there– just there –a flash of blonde hair, the delicate machinery of a laughing throat, a happy trilling of sound that pushes against the glass of that closed window, wanting to escape into the night.
It is Caroline, a dead girl, and it is Klaus, a dead man– she doesn't know, but it's okay, really it is: he doesn't want her to know, not the extent of it, because most of all it's bloody embarrassing is what it is –but what he does know is that from somewhere down the way magic has set the grass and the sky abuzz and it itches on his skin. It smells strange, earthy.
He shrugs it off and watches still, Caroline's form moving from room to room, with each room she enters lighter than before she entered it, and he wants to curse himself for this but it's been too long, and the years have been too unkind. Her friends are there– the doppelganger, the witch –and he hums to himself as one of the girls says his name and oh, well isn't this interesting, he thinks. Caroline mock-cries, "Ew, Klaus?" in response and laughs with that sweet trill, but it doesn't cover the beautiful flicker of in-drawn breath, the sudden beat of a slow heart. The knowledge of it is thick and heady, and it sets him alight. He can feel it in his fingertips.
He can't see it, he's not aware he's doing it, but his smile is slow-growing like a lunar tide, and in that moment he seems more vulnerable and more a predator than anyone will ever see.
But on this night, a murder-night, a blood-soaked sheet night in a house down the lane, there are girls that continue laughing, and magic that continues humming, and there is a man that calls himself Klaus who continues to wonder how of all places, he finds someone he is curious of, drawn to, in the place he once called home.
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There is a second murder. And a third. Sheriff Forbes is backlit by harsh, flashing reds and blues at the scene and she would kill– relatively speaking –for a goddamn crime that wasn't related to vampires or werewolves or hybrids or whatever the hell else is out there. Caroline, when she gets home, is peppy and smiling and saying things like, "Oh, don't worry, mom!" which is a far cry from when, not too long ago it feels like, she would have come home from the station to a cold shoulder or a snippy, "Whatever."
It's the fourth murder, a child– asleep, in bed, night light sprayed with a fine red mist –another tragedy to put on the collection plate and no evidence, no trace of anything at all, when Liz has decided this is more than she can deal with. The FBI wants to push in on the case, and there is just too much in this town, too much quiet, too much of the unnatural, and it would draw attention to... them. To her, to her daughter.
She can admit when she needs a little assistance.
So she asks Damon, and Damon tries but he needs more help, so he laughs at Stefan, and Stefan doesn't tell Elena, but instead comes to Caroline, sits there in the living room with a face so grave she laughs outright until he says what he came to say: "Caroline, your mom needs our help."
"My mom? Stefan, what are you talking about? Is she– is she okay? What happened?"
Her voice has raised, has vaulted up entire steps until it rings an octave higher, decibels louder, when she realizes she's no longer sitting in the stupid floral living room chair, and it still takes getting used to, the whole supernaturally-fast-thing. She feels like she's been hit by a livewire, like someone's poured electricity down her spine because she can feel it crackling there and she has to do something because oh God her mom–
"No, Caroline, it's fine! She's fine. It's all the murders, you know? Around town?"
A breath. An exhale. A crush of lashes against cheek, a hip check.
"Can I say something first? Yeah, how about you start off with telling me my mom is okay! Jesus, Stefan!"
"Sorry."
"Yeah, you're sorry! Oh my God, I was about to go out and rip someone's head off."
Stefan's Tuesday Look falters– it's slightly amused. Jerk.
Caroline sits, legs crossed, forcing back the clinging rush of adrenaline. She thinks for a second how weird it is that she still feels stuff like that– you know, like really human stuff –and how at first she thought being pulled to the other side of death would numb her or something. God, what a reality check vampirism was, seriously.
"So, there are murders?"
"Apparently."
"Okay, but aren't murders more of like, a human thing? Wait, do we have a serial killer or something? Is that what this is about? That is so creepy."
"You live in a town with vampires, werewolves, witches, and a hybrid who's been around for literally a thousand years, and serial killers are somehow the creepiest thing."
"What? They are."
Stefan sighs, hangs his head for a moment. The air feels relaxed, casual, and it's nice. She feels good around Stefan, feels a sort of warm camaraderie that's different than what she has with Bonnie, or Elena.
But right now Stefan is totally judging her and that needs to stop.
"Can we get back to the part where my mom needs our help? And why you're the one telling me this and not her?"
"Well, there's no evidence. Anywhere. Damon and I–"
"I'm sorry, are you saying that you and Damon knew about this before I did?"
"–went to the crime scenes, and there's nothing there. No scents, not so much as a speck of dust that can tell us what happened. Just a lot of blood."
"Oh," Caroline breathes. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he says, but she can see a tightening in the corners of his mouth and makes a note to confront him about this later. He needs to talk this kind of thing out, not bottle it up for another hundred and twenty years. He steers carefully past her concern.
"It feels different there, too. I'm not sure what it is. Magic, maybe? But I've never seen anything like it."
"So, this is a Bonnie question, is what you're saying."
"I don't know," he begins, but Caroline can see a map shining in her mind's eye: points of connection to be made before things can start to happen. She was Miss Mystic Falls for a reason.
People sometimes forget this.
"Hold that thought," she says, and slips her phone from her pocket.
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"Wait, what are you saying?"
"It's old magic, Caroline," Bonnie says, and there's a dark look in her eyes. "I can't even go in the house."
"Ward?" Stefan posits, and Bonnie shrugs.
They're standing in the yard of the latest victim's house, and it feels almost perverse. It's bright out, and quiet: the world seems to glow, reverberate, though there is no movement, no bird call or rustle of leaves, and it's putting Caroline's teeth on edge. She's not sure how this could have been happening around her, this humming zip in the air that prickles on the back of her neck, and have ignored it for so long. She feels uneasy, feels like her bones are clacking together like loose change inside her skin. A wicked crack of electricity runs through her if she concentrates too hard on where the feeling is coming from.
"Whatever kind of magic it is, it's giving me the heebie-jeebies."
"A very succinct observation, I must admit," says a voice from behind her, and her heart skips. Because she's startled, he has a habit of showing up out of nowhere and startling people, okay?
"Klaus," Stefan says. It sounds light but there's steel under that voice. His face is carefully composed.
She tells herself not to, but: she looks. Klaus in the sun is almost blinding, his hair shining and his skin almost flushed, lips a dark rose that open to pearly whites. God, even his dimples are annoying.
"What do you want, Klaus?" she says, and it's part exasperation and part genuine curiosity.
"Hello to you too, Caroline," he says. His eyes are piercing, so near a replica of the sky that it unsettles her.
He turns his attention to Stefan and Bonnie. "I was wondering, actually, when the gang would get together for this one. You'd think it would only have taken the one murder to get your attention, but that's neither here nor there."
"Are you saying you have something to do with this?" Stefan says.
"Oh, Stefan. Always the accusations. Where's the trust?"
"I don't think there was any to begin with. Now answer the question."
"This? No, not me. I know better than to deal with blood magic like this– can you say the same for your bonnie little witch?"
"Bonnie? Seriously? That's your play here?"
"No play involved at all, sweetheart, just calling it as I see it."
"I am not. Your sweetheart."
There's something curling in Caroline's fingers, in the backs of her knees– an anger, unbidden, clenching in her muscles. But she looks, really looks, at the lines of Klaus' face, sees the marginal drop of his sunlit eyelashes, the self-sure smirk lifting the corner of his mouth and she can't make out what it means. It's infuriating.
"Blood magic," Bonnie says, like acid on her tongue. If looks could kill Originals, Klaus would already be on fire.
"Good to see you're catching on, witch," he drawls. His fingers wind through a hedge, they pick a leaf from a branch and he watches as it drifts to the ground.
"Bad business, using blood magic. You've either got a witch bent on revenge, or someone gearing up for a very naughty spell. You can understand my thinking here, then, with this one," Klaus says with a nod to Bonnie. "She's got more burning for revenge than anyone in this town."
"Then think again, because this isn't me. I would never kill innocent people to power anything."
"So you'd kill guilty ones?"
"I know who I would start with," Bonnie says, sharp as knives.
Klaus hums a little in amusement, holds his hands behind his back and rocks on his heels, as if this were a casual afternoon stroll through the park and not the backyard of a murdered kid.
"Okay enough! Klaus, just– stop. With everything. Bonnie, only set him on fire if he can't help us."
"Fair enough," Klaus says as Bonnie smiles.
"If some witch is killing everyone in Mystic Falls then anyone could be next. Including my mom. So this is what we're going to do: Stefan you're going to go with Bonnie and dig up whatever books you can on this. Klaus, you're going to tell us everything you know about blood magic and maybe show your scary face at whoever it is and send the asshole running from our town. Got it? Great! Let's go."
And Caroline thinks that's the end of that, but she should have known.
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Bonnie and Stefan figure it out, with a few drawling remarks from Klaus, and being so close to him for so long is fraying Caroline's control. They're on neutral ground: the Salvatores' living room. Or one of them at least. Evening is dimming beyond the windows and if none of them were creatures of the night or magic-casters, or you know, trying to destroy each other at any given point, it would be cozy. But Klaus' eyes keep drifting to her and Caroline can feel it burning on her skin.
"It's a curse," Bonnie says.
"Ugh, God, another one? What is it with witches and their curses? No offense."
Bonnie ignores this.
"It uses the blood of 'those that are pure,' whatever that means– and it creates a barrier where 'no unholy soul may rest.'"
"That doesn't sound so bad, right?"
"Let her keep reading, Caroline. Personally, I'm riveted. I haven't been called an unholy soul in a few centuries, at least."
"Yeah, well, stick around for much longer and that's not the only thing you'll be called."
"Is that an invitation?"
"Guys, this is important," Bonnie cuts.
"What else does it say, Bonnie?" Stefan says, ever the diplomat.
"It doesn't just cut off the supernatural from Mystic Falls, it keeps the whole town in a kind of magical stasis. No one could cross the borders without dying. And it looks like– oh God. It wouldn't be a safe place, it would be a holding cell." Bonnie's knuckles tighten, and she hisses a soft breath between her teeth. "It would be a holding cell for every person in Mystic Falls so this witch could use us as a sacrifice to gain more power. It's the first step in what looks like something a lot bigger. I haven't been able to figure out too much more than this."
"Wow. That sounds like something we should stop," Stefan says.
"You think?" Caroline says. She's standing again, without being aware of the movement. Klaus is using Damon's bourbon to pour himself a glass, light and smooth in his hands.
"Wait, I think–" Bonnie smiles at the tome in her hands, pages brittle and stained with age, and containing words which are plucking Bonnie's joy like ribbons from her chest and casting them into the warm air. Bonnie has always had that kind of magic; the empathy, the easy spread of happiness, or hope, or tragedy. It's been woven into her for a long time.
She laughs. "I can stop the curse. It's not complete yet, they need nine sacrifices. With each one it would be harder for any supernatural being to stay here, and eventually the pain would push you out, but since it's not done– wow. I can do this. I need to figure out what the spell needs, but yeah. I can do this. I can stop it."
"Well, isn't that just lovely. Bonnie Bennett saves the day. I'll be off then, shall I?"
"I'm surprised you stayed this long. I didn't think breaking curses was something you cared about."
"Au contraire, Stefan. Never let it be said I stood by and let Mystic Falls burn. It's a nice place. Good, healthy seasons."
"Whatever," Caroline sighs. "Bye, Klaus, thanks for being even more annoying than usual."
"Always a pleasure," he says, and he leaves. The room changes after he's gone– a drop or gain in pressure, a lightening or darkening of ambience, a swell or shrink of the very walls, she isn't sure. But Caroline sits back down, beside Stefan, and sighs long and loud.
"We didn't even need to get Elena or Matt involved to fix this. That's new," she says eventually.
"I like it," says Stefan.
"Me too," she says.
Bonnie sits quietly in her soft chair, finger drawing a line across the pages as she reads.
It's good. It's great, actually. Bonnie will do her witchy thing, and everything will go back to normal. No Mystic Falls people keeper. There's nothing more she has to do.
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"I have to what? Because for a second I thought I heard you say I have to–"
"Kiss Klaus. Yeah."
A pause, a strange dark feeling blooming inside her ribcage. This is not what she wanted to hear. Bonnie's voice sounds hollow on the other end of the phone line, and Caroline's fingers are wrapped tightly around her cell, a breeze inviting cornflower silk strands of her hair to stick to her lips. She pulls them from her face, swallows tight around a knot in her throat.
"Um, Bonnie. No. No."
"I know, Care. I know, but there's no other way."
"This is magic! Do something magic! Why do I have to be a part of it at all? Why does Klaus?"
A rustling of papers carried across town, a sigh.
"There are certain requirements that need to be met for the spell, and you're the only two that actually fill them enough for this to work."
"What? Seriously? Bonnie, what does that mean?"
"Caroline, you just have to put a drop of blood in a bowl and then once I'm done with the incantation, kiss him. It can be for like, not even a second, but it seals the spell. The curse can't be completed."
"Since when have spells needed a kiss? This isn't freakin' Sleeping Beauty!"
"I'm sorry," she says, and yeah, Caroline doesn't want the whole town to die but for God's sake.
"Ugh," Caroline says. She tilts her head up, feels the night surrounding her, hears creatures waking from their day slumber and joining the world. Somewhere, a chorus of crickets chirp.
"Fine," she says. "But this better work. And you owe me. This is Klaus we're talking about, remember?"
"I know. And I'm sorry. But as far as I can see, this is the only way to do it. I'll get everything together, we can do it tomorrow night."
"Okay, great. Fine."
"I'll call you tom–"
"Wait, who's telling Klaus?"
"Stefan. I'll call you tomorrow, Care."
The line drops. Caroline sits on a bench outside of the Grill and can't make sense of the buzz prickling along her skin, or the tightness of her lungs.
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When all is said and done, it's not much of a spell.
Bonnie has, you know, magic herbs and stuff, and they're standing in a room of the dead witch house. How they even managed to get Klaus in is a mystery. Probably Bonnie convinced them she'd just kill him after they broke this curse first.
It's full night, close to midnight, and a new moon has risen. The room is warm, almost unbearably, from the candles Bonnie has set up. There must be fifty of them, white and dripping wax onto centuries-old wood, smoke slowly rising until Caroline's view becomes hazy at the edges, soft and cotton-wooled.
There's a circle with symbols painted on the floor, and Caroline can feel it, the magic there.
Klaus is standing across the room from her, his face half in shadow with the rest of him gilded from the candles' warm glow, and he looks young in that moment– looks young and out of his own era, plucked by Time's earthy fingers and transplanted here to watch with electric eyes and smiling mouth.
She's been having a few thoughts about his mouth today and it's kind of weirding her out.
Bonnie pricks their fingers, squeezes a full red bead of blood from them and into a wooden bowl. Klaus presses his pricked finger to his mouth, and meets her eyes. It sends an abrupt shock through her, a spike of adrenaline or fear or, fuck it all, lust, so Caroline deflects: she rolls her eyes, heaves a put-upon sigh.
And then, suddenly, she's not sure how– it's time. He moves to her with sure steps, pulls her toward him until they stand on a marking that means something beyond time or reason. He's so close, close enough to breathe in, and she does: he smells clean and bright like pine and whatever spiced cologne he wears, and she feels overwhelmed by him, by his smell and his stance and his body, so thoroughly invading her space.
"Now," says Bonnie, and Caroline finds a sigh and pulls it from her lungs.
"Let's get this over with," she says, but Klaus' hand finds her face, the soft pads of his fingers brush over her cheekbone, and with only a slight pressure tilts her head to the left. She feels electric.
Before she can breathe, before she can process anything, his lips press against hers, soft and perfect, and a pressure builds in her blood. Her eyes are closed and his lips are steady, and she tries to think of it clinically, tries to think of the feel of them as nothing more than a warm press and his hand cradling her jaw as some invisible support, but then his mouth opens, just enough. Her body reacts: his bottom lip is full and succulent as ripe fruit between hers and she meets his easy pressure, breathes him in, the fresh pine and the spice and the sweet taste of some dark liquor on the tip of her tongue, flooding her senses. A wave of energy surges from them like a clap of thunder, shaking the world, shaking Caroline down to her bones.
He pulls back, presses his forehead against hers, gives her this moment to breathe, to pull air back into her dead lungs and then he's no longer in her space– he is standing a step away from her and staring with an intensity she isn't sure how to place.
There's a buzzing in her ears, and all Caroline can feel is the tingling mark of his lips on hers, the memory of a tremble rocking through her body and outwards, and she realizes belatedly the buzzing is not a buzz at all, it's Bonnie telling them that the spell is done.
The spell is done and Caroline kissed Klaus– Klaus –and they saved the day and she should be relieved, she should be full of a great and beautiful happiness that they finally got ahead of something just this once, but all she really feels is a twisting burst of warmth in her chest and a sweet dark taste in her mouth.
