He had become bored of challenges. After one thousand years, Klaus preferred merely to take what he wanted quickly and without too much trouble. Hospitals served as playgrounds for the hybrid, where he exercised his bloodlust on the weak. His brother, noble Elijah, chastised his cruel habits. But he was no better. It was in Klaus's nature to destroy, maim, and kill. He was the hybrid; he could not love. He could not feel, forgive, or sympathize. He refused to stop. He refused to be redeemed.
He had never intended to care.
She was too far gone. Barring the limits of her parent's budget, Liz and Bill had done everything in their power to get her the treatment she needed to survive. Chemotherapy was far too expensive. They would have had to sacrifice hot water, electricity, and other basic luxuries to afford it, and Caroline couldn't have lived with herself if they had. Not for her. Not for their selfish, ungrateful daughter, whom they loved far more than she deserved.
Caroline was going to die in four months. There was nothing more they could do for her.
She had had plans for senior year, big plans. She had signed up to be head of every committee, planned on campaigning for prom queen (and winning), and had duties as reigning Miss Mystic Falls. It was supposed to be her best year yet, and within a single day, a single fleeting moment, it had become a nightmare.
The day before the school year was set to start, Caroline woke to a building pressure in her chest and head, feeling more exhausted than she had before going to bed the prior night. Coming downstairs to make herself breakfast, it only worsened.
Liz had already left for work, leaving Caroline alone. When the meager spoonfuls of cereal she had swallowed down came back up, and blotches of black danced across her field of vision, she slipped into her car and drove herself to the hospital.
She hadn't enjoyed a full night's sleep in almost a month, not since being inducted into the hospital. In her ward after dark, time oozed by lazily. Everyone who passed by, she bore witness to during those sleepless nights.
When he came, that night, the girl in the room next to hers bled out from the neck. The following night, the boy adjacent to her met the same fate. The next five nights, more patients died the same way, and each evening, he disappeared down the hall. The staff didn't seem concerned that their patients were being picked off one by one, but she feared she was next.
Three nights and thee patients later, she woke from a brief and blissful respite to find him waiting for her, her case file splayed open over his palms. When she stirred, he glanced up, and a smile stretched across his lips.
"Hello, Caroline."
Her breath hitched, almost imperceptibly. "Are you here to do to me what you did to the others?" She looked him in the eye, refusing to show the fear blossoming in the pit of her stomach. Caroline Forbes didn't want to die, not here, and certainly not now.
It may have been just a trick of the dark, but for one fleeting moment, she thought she had seen a flicker of astonishment in his eyes. Just as quickly as it had appeared, however, it was replaced by a dangerous smile. He closed in on her, slowly. She stopped breathing as his fingers wound in the curls just above her ear. He tilted her head back, bringing their faces so closely together that their breath mixed in the small space between them. Her eyes shifted from the stubble that, in the close proximity, she could see on his chin, to his lips, then finally, to his eyes—a mistake. She was held there, watching his pupils dilate.
"Why are you here?" He murmured, barely above a breath.
"Cancer." She didn't want to tell him this, but her mouth moved, not of her own volition. She didn't want him to know anything about her.
"Do you have much longer to live?"
"No."
His fingers tightened in her hair. "Why aren't you being treated?"
He wasn't supposed to know that. He wasn't supposed to know her name, or anything else about her.
"My parents can't afford it."
His gaze flickered elsewhere, releasing her from his hold.
"What's your name?" She whispered.
He only smiled.
She felt his lips on her neck before she saw him move. He smelled like aftershave, and something strong and unfamiliar.
Caroline swallowed, strengthening her resolve. "Why haven't you killed me yet?"
His lips parted against the supple flesh of her throat. His warm breath ghosted over her collarbone. In her peripheral vision, she saw his fist tighten around the rail of her hospital bed.
Black tinged the edges of her vision, and then it consumed her world.
When she woke, he was gone.
He returned the following night. "Klaus," He said, looming over her bed. "My name is Klaus."
She had woken from a brief and rare slumber, after a long grueling day. Her head lolled to the side, and gently, she probed her neck, remembering his lips on her throat. She found no marks, and no pain.
"Klaus." She tested his name on her tongue. "Why didn't you kill me?"
He smiled, drumming his slender fingers on the bedside table.
"Perhaps I prefer you alive."
Every night after that, Klaus visited her. Sometimes, he would bring her food, which she was at first wary of, but then grew to appreciate. Other nights, he brought her books—favorites of his, he said—to read.
All the while her condition was worsening.
"I could heal you, you know," He told her one night.
"Why?" She smiled weakly. "I'm going to survive."
Most nights, they talked about her—her hopes, her dreams, her aspirations. He steered the conversation away from himself. She knew he had five siblings; she didn't know two of them were dead, one of which was his fault. She didn't know the other three despised him. There really wasn't anything more she needed to know, nor anything more he wanted her to know.
Steadily, she had grown more comfortable in his presence. One night, when he came for her, though, she seemed distant and exhausted. After only a few minutes, she stopped speaking. Her eyes moved to the ceiling and stayed there, her breaths too quick, and her skin too pale.
When the heart monitor flat lined, he didn't think. He just acted.
The incessant buzzing filled his ears as he pressed the torn flesh of his wrist to her lips, his free hand grasping at the curve of her neck. He hadn't remembered biting into his wrist, nor did he remember killing the nurse lying in a pool of her own blood on the floor. All he knew was the limp body of the girl in his arms.
Still barely conscious though, Caroline wanted to scream. It was as if her throat had been stuffed with cotton. Air didn't rise from her lungs, and all sound was absorbed by the wispy substance. He was finally going to do it; he was going to kill her. At seventeen, she was going to drift off into the sunset, and no one would remember the tragic girl who died too young.
A/N — After several months, finally, finally, I actually got around to typing this up. Lesson learned—don't bother with a pen and paper. Plus, I couldn't decided on how I wanted to organize the first chapter. Anyway, I always wanted to write something like this, after someone asked me about this graphic I made based on the first chapter of L.J. Smith's Secret Vampire. Hopefully, though, this will stand completely as something of its own, and I hope the way I formatted everything doesn't come across as too confusing. I edit all my own work, so it's hard to view it from a different perspective, but I try. Anyway, I'm rambling. I really, truly hope you like reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. (Also, Chapter 2 should be up sometime next week. I want to keep a good consistency with this one.)