The scorch marks just wouldn't come off, no matter how hard she tried. She'd been scrubbing for hours now, her hands red and raw, the skin cracking, but no luck. Kol's legacy on this world was going to amount to nothing more than some ruined hardwood, and more than anything Caroline thought that fact was heartbreakingly sad.
Tyler had sent her a text about an hour after Klaus left. He was on the road, and he wasn't going to contact her again, or tell her where he was. She wouldn't hear from him again, she knew. And if she scrubbed long enough at the floor, she could just about keep from falling apart. No, she just had to try something a little stronger on the floor.
Getting up in a flourish, she made her way over to the sink and began to rummage in the cupboard underneath it for something that would clean the floor. Elena and Jeremy would be back eventually and they wouldn't want to look at the burnt out stain on the floor. That's what she needed to concentrate on.
She didn't know how long she'd been scrubbing. It had been shortly after dawn when she'd slipped into her house, drained and numb, in need of a shower and a change of clothes and a bed in which to crawl into for a thousand years. She could only manage two of the three however, and now here she was, no sleep, emotionally drained and trying to repair something that deep down, she knew couldn't be repaired.
When she'd returned to the house after her shower, Kol's body was gone. She wasn't surprised, and despite her own emptiness, she felt her heart fissure just a little at the thought of Klaus coming back to collect the body of his brother. The pain in his eyes as he'd declared that all of his acts of kindness had been for her, added to the ache, and she wondered, briefly before she could stop herself, how much hurt he could take before he became lost to all hope of being saved. She wondered how many hurts he could withstand from her, and still feel the way he did about her.
Against her better judgement she had started to like him. It was the reason, she thought, that she was so angry for Carol and for Tyler – she had let herself believe that he wasn't as terrible as they all thought, and as soon as she had found herself having any kind of affection for him, he had acted so terribly.
And still, on a day when she should be still crying her eyes out about Tyler, she found herself wondering about Klaus. Maybe it was just that her heart couldn't take any more thoughts of Tyler. If she thought about him, she was sure she would break. Klaus, while not a painless thought, was an easier one.
When Stefan and Elena walk though the door, carrying Jeremy, it is all Caroline can do to stop her knees buckling on the spot.
When they bring Jeremy – his body – upstairs, and she's left alone in the kitchen struggling to breathe, all she wants is for someone to hold her in place before she falls. How can this be their lives? How many more people will Elena have to lose? How many more friends are they going to have to bury?
She's on the porch, trying to call Tyler, Stefan comes out and talks to her. Within seconds of him starting to talk, she feels herself falling apart, and so she does what she does best. She sucks it up and she starts planning and fixing things as best she can in a situation that can't be fixed. She starts ranting about cover stories, and telling her mom and she can feel herself getting panicky.
Dammit, everything is falling apart. After the last few days, she can't take this as well. But she has to. She has to because no one else can do it and they need her to take control. She needs to do this.
When Bonnie shows up, half out of her mind and wanting to kill a dozen people, Caroline finally thinks this must be some kind of sick joke. This can't be her life. And she can't do this. How can Bonnie not see how crazy she is? And Elena is in some kind of trance. Matt is on her side at least.
Everyone is crazy and she is fighting her hardest to stem the tide but she is only one person and she doesn't know what to do. How to fix this.
She finds herself sitting alone and more than anything she wishes Tyler was here. She knows its selfish. She knows why he had to leave, and she knows he can't come back. But she needs him, and as she tries calling him again, she knows the voicemail message is coming, and still it breaks her just a little more.
In that moment she hates Klaus more than she ever has. He loves her, and somehow, despite what she is sure were his best intentions towards her, he has managed to destroy so much of her life, and now Tyler is gone and everything is falling apart and she needs him here. And he'll never be here again.
She thinks she has just about got a handle on it all, on this darkness that is threatening to consume her when the worst happens. She watches, aghast, as Elena breaks down, as she looses it completely, and Damon tells her to switch it off. The change is instantaneous, as a strange, detached calm settles over her friend.
Watching it happen, a strange calm settles over her – her heart just can't take any more pain. It's too hard to watch this happen and to feel it. She doesn't turn it off. She never will. She never could. But she just can't take any more. She can't do this. She can't fix this.
After she leaves her final voicemail for Tyler, when she is back home and completely alone, she can no longer hold in this overwhelming grief at everything she has lost in the past three days. She's alone, and she can't fix any of it and she doesn't know how to even make any of it better. She's alone, and Tyler isn't coming home and Jeremy is never coming back, and Elena is still here but she's not here, not really, Bonnie is crazy, and she can't she just, she can't.
She lays on her bed and she cries. She cries harder than she ever has before. She mourns for everything she has lost. She grieves for her friends, and for her loved ones, she thinks of her father, who chose death over this life. She thinks of this time last year, when she was so depressed at the thought of eternity as a vampire.
She thinks of how that changed. Of Klaus' words just last night, though it seems like a million years ago now. You like being strong, ageless, fearless. She doesn't feel strong or fearless right now. She's never felt weaker, truth be told and she's never felt more afraid. How can they come back from this? How can they keep going? How can she?
Eventually she falls asleep, it's troubled, fitful and she finds herself awake a couple of hours later – feeling no better as she sits up on her bed, and wraps a robe loosely around herself. She runs her fingers through her hair, closes her eyes and just tries to breathe.
She can't help herself when she checks her phone, though she knows she will have no missed calls or texts from Tyler. It doesn't stop the stab of disappointment when she is proven right.
Wandering into the hallway, she notices a flashing light on the answering machine and for a moment her heart leaps into her throat with hope. It quickly shatters when her mothers voice echoes over the speaker into the moonlight hall, telling her about a fire at the Gilbert house. It's completely destroyed, her mother says, and then in a lower tone says she'll take care of it and call her later.
Before she knows what she's doing, Caroline is throwing a coat on and racing out the door and on her way to the Gilbert house. From a distance she watches, horrified as they wheel Jeremy's body out into a waiting ambulance, Meredith Fell overseeing things. Her mother is talking to some of her deputies. She listens in on the conversation and learns that Stefan, Elena and Damon have just left – they played their parts and their stories were believed by those who needed to believe it.
She could go to the boarding house, check in but feeling how she does right now, she's not sure that she can face Elena. Not sure she can face her own inability to do anything. It makes her a horrible person, but she can't be there right now. She has nothing left to give. She will be there in the morning, making lists and plans and doing what she has to do, but tonight, she doesn't have it in her.
Walking away from the burnt out husk of the Gilbert home, Caroline knows she should go back to her own house, but her own house is empty, and she knows now that she cannot be alone tonight. She finds herself walking to the outskirts of town, to a house she never thought she would go to in search of comfort.
She fidgets on the porch as she waits for him to come to the door. Maybe he's not even home. She can't believe she is here of all places. He is the reason she is alone, he is the reason Tyler is gone, and it's him she seeks out for comfort? If she could think more clearly, she would hate herself for coming here, but tonight she doesn't care. She's all alone, and he loves her. He won't turn her away.
It's only as he opens the door before her that she realizes what she must look like. Her robe is on over her jeans, her coat over that. She's been crying, Her face clean of make up. She must look awful.
He seems surprised to see her before him. Her arms are wrapped around herself, holding herself together, and he doesn't speak – waiting to take his cue from her, she knows.
"I didn't know where else to go," she gets out before the tears begin to fall once more.
He exhales loudly, before opening the door wider and pulling her to him, wrapping her in his arms. It occurs to her that for all of their interactions, this is the most contact they have ever had. His arms feel strong around her, like they won't let her fall apart.
She cries into his chest as he makes comforting shushing sounds, holding her tight with one arm as a hand strokes over her hair. He makes no attempt to move her, or to tell her to calm down, or to get them inside out of the doorway. He just holds her in place until the tears subside before finally pushing her slightly back so that he can look at her, still keeping his arms on her.
"Come inside, love," is all he says before leading her into the mansion, and closing the door behind them.
She's staring into the fire, rubbing her hands up and down over her arms, trying to get warm. She hadn't even noticed she was cold until she stepped inside the warm house. She can see Klaus out of the corner of her eye, pouring them both a drink.
He approaches her quietly, places a glass of amber liquid in her hand and softly drapes a soft blanket around her shoulders. He pulls a chair up and sits in front of her, close, but keeping his distance as if she were a cornered animal. The thought that Klaus, the most powerful creature on earth is afraid of an emotional female makes a giggle bubble in her throat.
He looks at her, an eyebrow raised, but she doesn't bother to explain – she's pretty sure it would only make her sound even more insane than she probably looks.
"I'm sorry for showing up like this."
He moves as if he wants to reach out to her, but catches himself and takes a drink instead.
"I confess I am surprised but you don't ever have to apologize for coming here, Caroline."
She takes a sip of her own drink, a warm feeling instantly flowing down her throat and into her chest. Taking a breath, she figures that he at least deserves an explanation.
"Everything has fallen apart, and I can't fix it. Jeremy is dead, Tyler is gone, Bonnie is crazy, Elena has turned off her humanity, and I just don't know what to do."
"And while you are worrying about your friends, who is looking after you?"
She looks up. At the heart of it, she thinks this is what scares her most about Klaus and this thing between them, whatever it is. He somehow can read her and see through her unlike anyone she has ever known.
"I don't-" she begins, but he interrupts her.
"Caroline, I will not apologize for my decision about Tyler. I've shown him more leniency than I have anyone else in a thousand years. You know why. But I am not blind to the fact that you have lost someone you loved as a result. And now Jeremy and your other friends. It's not your job to fix this. You are hurting too and I imagine no one, all day, has even acknowledged that fact."
"They have their own things going on," she defends her friends, sniffling as she does so, and staring into her glass. Into the fire. Pulling at the blanket around her shoulders. Anything to avoid looking at him.
She can feel the intensity of his gaze and she thinks if she looks at him right now, knowing how he feels about her, knowing that he would, to the best of his ability, look after her, she'll burst into tears all over again. She's already humiliated herself in front of him enough for tonight, though she knows too that he'll never hold it against her.
He's told her repeatedly how strong she is. She wants him to be right. She doesn't want him to change his opinion of her when he sees how she is hanging on by a thread. What the hell is she even doing here? He's part of the problem and she's worried about his opinion of her?
"It seems to me they always have more important things going on, love."
She immediately goes on the defensive. Having some of her own darkest and ugliest thoughts spoken to her hits a little too close to home.
"I didn't come here to listen to you criticize my friends," she snaps.
He grins, ruefully.
"No, I guess not. But that begs the question, why have you come?"
"I told you -"
"You told me what happened, you haven't told me why you've come to me."
The million dollar question, she thinks dejectedly. If she had an answer for it, she probably wouldn't be here.
"Do we have to analyze it?" she asks, frustrated.
Conceding the point, Klaus holds his hands up in surrender and finishes his drink.
"You're still cold," he remarks. "You're exhausted."
"I tried to sleep," she confesses and looks down at her robe, more than embarrassed, "but every time I closed my eyes, it was like instant playback for every crappy thing that has happened. I'm so tired, and I'm just spent. I have nothing left but I don't know what to do. I just want it to stop. All of it. All the fighting, all of the death, all of the pain, and I can't – I don't know how to make it stop."
She could feel herself getting more and more hysterical with every word and yet she could not stop herself. She hadn't slept in days, she'd been crying for what felt like forever. It felt good to just rant, it felt good to not be strong, for once.
The first she noticed that Klaus had moved was when the couch dipped beside her and his arms wrapped around her. She went willingly, resting her head against his chest and taking the comfort she so desperately craved.
He soothed her there, without complaint, or any attempt to move, for what felt like hours. Eventually she felt her eyelids grow heavy, the beating of his heart lulling her into a deep, relaxed exhaustion. She had stopped shivering, and was seconds away from sleep when she felt him move. She was about to protest when his arm slipped under her legs, the other around her back and she was lifted into the air.
"Ssshh, love," he whispered, "let's get you into a bed."
He was so gentle with her that she didn't even feel like they were moving. His gentleness didn't surprise her, he had always displayed that trait when with her. It did surprise her because despite everything, it still always took her by surprise that he could be gentle at all.
He laid her down on a bed, the sheets cool and soft. If she did live forever, she would never know what caused her to stop him as he stepped away having covered her with a blanket. All she knew was that she didn't want him to leave. She reached out and took his hand.
"Stay?" she asked.
"Caroline -" his voice was soft, pleading almost, though what he was asking, she didn't know.
"I don't want to be alone. Stay. Please."
"Okay."
Instead of climbing into the bed beside her as she expected, he took a seat in a chair placed in the corner of the room, illuminated by a sliver of moonlight. Before she could stop it, the disappointment swelled inside her chest. She didn't say anything, however, she had already asked too much tonight – allowed him too close.
"Sleep, love."