A/N- Disclaimer I own nothing in relation to the Vampire Diaries or the Originals.
So, I wrote this after watching The Originals 1x19 and its only a few hours worth of work so its not brilliant but it has a semi happy ending.
"How ugly I must seem next to the pure and innocent glow of your precious Camille"
Camille.
That poor woman.
Truly he mourned Father Kieran's death, he had been a good man who had deserved far better than the fate he had suffered, but it wasn't Camille whose memory made Genevieve appear so disgusting by comparison.
It wasn't her image that made Klaus' skin crawl at his adultery.
Caroline.
The light that led him away from the darkness.
The standard by which he was trying to live.
When he wasn't reacting to the attacks on his kingdom, on his child, by his own siblings; he liked to ponder what his Caroline would do and follow her example.
So he suspended Marcel's exile and allowed him to comfort Camille.
He went to Hayley and ensured the child was unharmed.
And he formed yet another alliance with his brother.
But the city was on the verge of war, a path of destruction that had been taken long before he and his siblings had returned home.
And if he wanted any sort of kingdom for his future Queen and his unborn Princess, he needed to turn his gaze away from the light and revel in the darkness for a little longer.
When Caroline first set foot in the French Quarter, her discount faux-designer boots were soaked to the ankle in blood. Looking down at the red river flowing through the gutters of Bourbon Street she inhaled and, sickeningly, sighed with relief when the scent reached her nose,
Werewolf, not human and not vampire.
And it couldn't be Tyler's blood.
Or Elena's, or Stefan's, Jeremy's, Damon's, Matt's or Bonnie's for that matter.
Perhaps Enzo had been in NOLA for what she assumed had been a wholesale slaughter, he had left town prior to the incident in search for his long lost love and she had contacted him afterwards with instructions to find her in the French Quarter.
With her mother's body if he could get it, but if it was too dangerous…that was okay- she would understand.
Although with Damon gone, staying safe or even alive might not be at the top of his agenda anymore.
She's not even sure why she went to so much trouble to survive, why she fought back from the brink and crawled on hands and knees from the wreckage that had been her home.
Perhaps it was just habit by now, to fight like hell to go on living.
Or perhaps because she had seen a light at the end of the tunnel, a sanctuary for her to reach and a place for her to start over.
More importantly, somewhere she could recover and take the time to mourn everything she had lost.
So she paid the oblivious taxi driver with the last of her money and stepped onto the sidewalk, hoisting her duffel bag onto her shoulder- well Matt's duffel bag but he didn't need it anymore- and walked towards the heart of the touristy district.
She's glad that the heels on her boots are worn down because otherwise stepping over the dead bodies and puddles of blood and other bodily fluids would be hard work, as it is she makes it to the aptly named Abattoir with minimum fuss and wanders into a partially renovated courtyard.
She doesn't worry about enemies, traps or bad people who might attack her, most of them appear to be dead on the street outside and honestly-
What could any of them do to her that hadn't already been done?
She raises her head and gazes up at the two storey manor with multiple wings and endless rooms wondering where to start looking when a familiar vampire appears on the balcony and scans the area absentmindedly before catching sight of her.
"Hello" she smiles but he doesn't return her friendly greeting,
"Niklaus!"
Caroline winces at Elijah's frantic shout, her ear drums are still sensitive after repairing and she's having trouble blocking out all the noises that plague newbie vampires.
But at least his damage to her hearing manages to bring his brother out to the balcony. Momentarily they stand side by side, looking down at her with surprise and horror before Klaus is jumping over the wooden railing and taking her small shoulders in his hands,
"Sweetheart," he whispers, "What are you doing here? What happened?"
She doesn't answer, she can't answer, not tonight…probably not ever.
Instead she slides into his embrace, laying her head on his chest and closing her eyes. He stands frozen for a moment before his arms slip around her waist and his chin rests on her blood and dirt streaked, savagely torn scalp.
A single tear trails down her cheek and she pulls away before she completely falls apart, wiping at her still healing face.
"Where's my room?" she asks quietly, slipping Matt's- her- bag from her shoulder, "I…uh…want to put my stuff away please"
Klaus blinks but nods and carefully takes her hand, "Right this way love"
His usual swagger and confidence is gone but any bravado she herself once had was buried with Stefan's eyeball so she follows him up the stairs through a newly plastered hallway, still smelling of pva glue and elbow grease, with well-lit ceiling fans twirling lazily overhead to a small but elegantly furnished bedroom with a stained glass window overlooking Bourbon Street.
"The bathroom is two doors down to your left" Klaus explains as Caroline sets the bag onto the bed and unzips it, "I suppose you'll want to get cleaned up?"
Caroline frowns, "I didn't bring any clothes with me"
He opens his mouth but doesn't speak and she busies herself on unpacking the possessions she painstakingly rescued from the fire.
The scrapbooks she'd made each year since she turned fourteen, her mother's jewellery, Stefan and Elena's last diaries, Damon's favourite book, Matt's collection of mini snowballs from Europe, Bonnie's family necklace and Jeremy's sketchbook.
There's a writing desk under the window and she carefully lays the mementos out one by one, side by side, taking care to make sure Damon and Bonnie's pieces were as far away from each other as possible.
When she is done she lays down on the bed, stares up at the ceiling and doesn't move for a very long while.
Eighteen months later
Unfortunately, life goes on.
No matter what happens, no matter who dies and however much one might lose hope, the sun continues to rise and set with each passing day and eventually one has to open their eyes and face the world.
Though that isn't to say that it wasn't a daily, sometimes hourly, struggle to not give in to the darkness.
But days like this helped.
It was a crisp winter morning, with patches of snow scattered across the ground in dirty white clumps, threatening to catch unsuspecting pedestrians and cause injury with slipping and sliding across the icy paths, the sun was shining weakly in the sky however grey clouds were gathering on the horizon and weathermen were warning of a heavy storm late afternoon.
Thankfully everyone would be headed inside by then.
Caroline stood in the courtyard and for the hundredth time wondered if she could possibly have made the manor look more festive and welcoming. Mistletoe was hung over the stone arch entrance and at every doorway, holly garlanded the wooden railings, tied off with ribbon and golden bells. A twelve foot Christmas tree dazzled in the centre of the newly tiled space with brightly wrapped cardboard boxes nestled underneath- the real presents were inside- and decorated with a dozen different strings of fairy lights and baubles sourced from all over the city.
Several fire pits dotted the area with cauldrons of mulled wine, mead, cider and eggnog quietly bubbling away, a giant rotisserie spit was in the corner with several pounds of orange and honey glazed ham slowly roasting and giving off a delicious scent. Two long buffet tables, one with laid with crystal glasses, china plates and silver cutlery, the other with every single traditional holiday meal she could think of, were graced with pristine white table clothes laced with gold edges.
It was a stunningly picturesque tableau but until the very moment the guests began walking through the archway, Caroline would be wondering it could be improved in any way.
She's chewing one perfectly manicured and artfully painted nail when two arms wrap around her waist and pull her close to a firm chest,
"What a wonderful job you have done my Queen" a husky voice whispers in her ear, she ignores him, preferring instead to chew her lip and wonder if she should move the string quartet from the balcony to the ground floor, although if she does will the vampires think they're part of the menu?
A dry kiss is placed to the back of her neck, just above the diamond choker that hides the vicious scarring and hands slip under her white Burberry coat to the purple silk dress and reach for her breasts.
"Would you like me to give you your Christmas present early sweetheart?"
She snorts and rolls her eyes, he can tease all he wants but she knows for a fact that her present is the Hermes Red Crocodile Birkin Bag, already wrapped and hidden in his office behind a wall panel.
It was his fault really, if he'd wanted it to be a surprise he shouldn't have delegated the Christmas shopping to Josh and relied upon twenty-first century stereotypes. Josh knew as much about Hermes as he did about the KT extinction and had nearly purchased the Ginza Tanaka bag before Davina had thankfully stopped him and probably saved his life.
Klaus wouldn't have appreciated forking out two million dollars for a tiny clutch, even if it did come with a detachable diamond necklace.
He also should have known that Caroline would have Davina and Josh help her with her own Christmas shopping, the three of them having so much fun picking out the Sennelier pure pigments to purchase for the Hybrid king that Josh had unthinkingly revealed Klaus' present for her.
It was truly a miracle that such a blabber mouth had survived in the cut-throat kingdom of New Orleans.
"Caroline"
She raised her head and Klaus quickly stopped fondling her breasts, whispered a quick 'I love you' and released her as another miraculous tale of survival stepped into the courtyard.
Camille O'Connell.
That woman had been hunted and threatened and taken hostage so many times that eventually the power players in the Quarter had grown bored with passing her around like a human football and found other people and objects to hold for ransom. Still she had refused to leave the city and even though Marcel had been seriously contemplating turning her into a vampire just so she'd have more luck defending herself, she remained human.
Caroline admired Camille for her courage and resilience.
She smiled and hugged her as Klaus wandered off in search of Elijah and Andrea, then took her hand and led her into the manor, to the ground floor parlour to show her the olive wood nativity scene that St Anne's church had bulk ordered from Bethlehem and sold to raise money for the community. It was supposed to be a sixteen figure set but Klaus and Elijah kept using various characters as substitute chess pieces, paper weights or in truly desperate scenarios- weaponry.
"It's lovely isn't it?" Camille gushed happily, "You know when I made the suggestion to the committee they shot me down but we've raised close to five thousand dollars already"
Which was due entirely to Klaus and Marcel buying nearly every single set and donating them to various charities and orphanages, going out of the way to hide the purchases.
But Caroline didn't say anything about this.
Or about anything else at all.
She couldn't.
She lost her voice the night she arrived in New Orleans and had yet to find it, as it were.
So she'd lived the last two years as a functioning mute and everyone around her learned to cope, to anticipate her wants or needs or to communicate on her behalf.
Once upon a time, when Mystic Falls had been a small town and not a horror story told around supernatural campfires, when she hadn't had to open a photo album if she wanted to see the faces of her friends and family, when being a queen had been a silly fantasy and not a harsh reality, she would have felt guilty for making people go to such effort to accommodate her.
Now, on that crisp winter December day, she released Camille's hand and swept to the hallway mirror to check that her subtle apatite tiara was in place before striding back out to the courtyard and fetching herself two cups of blood.
Enzo would be arriving soon.
A/N- Admittedly I do think the writers are planning to destroy Mystic Falls at some point, even if it is only temporary. Although next season I think that the Mystic Falls gang should just abandon the town and move to Hawaii or somewhere else warm, sunny and severely lacking in evil doers.