BEFORE YOU PROCEED, I'VE REWRITTEN CHAPTER 1 A LITTLE BIT. You might want to check that out first. Thank you. R&R.

Disclaimer: me no own TVD


She finally enters the banquet, her brown eyes and olive skin gleaming under the candlelight. Her luscious red dress immediately distinguishes her from the rest and the crowd parts as she makes her way to the center. Lord Niklaus bows before her, offering her his hand, and her long curly locks sways alluringly on her back as they commence with the dance.

Katerina Petrova.

Her coming had been very much anticipated. The whole of the castle had been completely engrossed, waiting to see this mysterious beauty with their own eyes. Finn, however, was by no means interested of the girl while Rebekah only snorted irritably, muttering something like "trouble" and "tramp" under her breath. Kol, on the other hand, wore permanent leer on his face especially around the warm and welcoming Elijah, and suspiciously gracious Klaus.

For Caroline, it just felt splendid to finally put a name to a face she has only seen from his sketches. She doesn't ask him but she knows from the way he lovingly portrays the woman that she is someone special. It's not the same girl, Klaus tells her with the vague detachment as always. And it's been too long ago. He adds. Seriously, he never tells her anything.

All she is certain about is that this girl is his and Caroline is to protect her no matter what. Indeed, when she pledged her life for Klaus, she also pledge her life for her.

"Don't worry, sweetheart. You're still Nik's favorite." says a voice from behind her.

"You're still here?" She raises a brow. "Shouldn't you be already whoring yourself to some desperate matron?"

Kol smirks, tipping his wine glass to her. "You're getting better at this."

"Of course." She grins at him widely. "I've lived five years with you and your endless banter with Rebekah. I picked up a lot."

"And that is why we kept you around, you little spitfire." He says knowingly as she downs his drink and then crosses his arms. "But what's this I hear about the doppelgänger making a fool of you in front of the duke's daughters?"

She only rolls her eyes. Katerina did not make a fool of her. Caroline just chose not to react or, worse, not to snap her neck when she whispered a nasty word about her to the girls.

"Oh how my brothers really spoil her too much." Kol groans frustratedly. "Even before, I never liked her."

"I thought you're into brunettes?"

"Not her, obviously." He mumbles, leaning down to her frame, his eyes scanning her face. "I guess I'm more into... what's the word she used? A 'blonde bimbo'?"

"Oh shush." She tries pushing him back by the shoulder only to have her hand caught in his.

"Dance with me."

Caroline glances unconsciously to the couple dancing in the middle of the room. Really, she has seen him with a handful of women over the years yet this is like a scene out of a romance novel. And somehow, it stings. She doesn't know why but looking at them, she feels... rather lonely.

Snapping her back to reality, she feels a hand on her chin and suddenly she is staring at Kol's brown eyes.

He smiles. "Shall we?"


Parties. Next to power, the original family is much known for the lavish parties they always throw.

She could only wish of extravagance such as this before and now, she is living the dream. At the same time, these are moments she feels being her seventeen year-old self again—young, alive... and human.

Oh, how she could get used to these parties everyday. Especially because of the dresses. The dancing. And the men. She giggles heartily at how they hopelessly attempt to dance with her, earning them a menacing glare from Kol.

She laughs so sweetly and a certain dimpled original cannot help but to smile at the sound.

"Kol dotes on her, doesn't he?"

Klaus turns to the doe-eyed brunette in front of him and nods simply. Too much. He says inwardly.

"Lord Niklaus, I—" Katerina starts, the blood rushing on her cheeks. "I am grateful for this celebration."

Klaus offers her a toothy grin. If only she knew.

From behind them, someone clears his throat. "Lord Elijah?" Katerina addresses the older original.

"Excuse me." Klaus murmurs, hastily leaving Katerina to his brother, and makes his way to the blonde vampire.

"Klaus." Caroline immediately beams at him as she notices his presence.

"May I have this dance?" He says, looking at the girl and to Kol who throws his hand up.

"Yeah, whatever." The younger brother mutters, walking away.

Klaus holds her hand in one of his while the other rests on her back. "Are you having fun, love?"

"Yes." She tells him before dropping her gaze to the ground. "I haven't seen you all day."

"I'm here now." He says, his greenish-blue eyes beseeching her blue ones. "But you've been too occupied with Kol, it seems."

"He reminds me of my brother. I've already told you this plenty of times." Caroline smiles thoughtfully. Indeed, she has been too attached with the Mikaelsons and, if she may be allowed to say it, she even thinks of them as her new family.

"And I don't tire of hearing it." He chuckles playfully at the roll of her eyes. "Tell it again. Tell me about them, about your story."

"Really, Klaus?" She questions in disbelief. "Right now?"

"Please?" He pleads, grinning and his dimples showing. Ugh, he knows her weakness and he's using it against her impeccably.

"Okay." She says in a small voice and he pulls her closer, his chin resting on her shoulder. She notices the curious eyes and cruel sneers of some guests and immediately, she feels anxious. To them, she is only Klaus' loyal aide—an orphaned infant vampire whom, for some unknown reason, he decided to make his ward. She never understood how much that really meant until she realized anyone would be willing to kill just to be under the Mikaelsons' good graces.

"Caroline?" He whispers suddenly in her hair as he traces patters on her lower back. He knows this soothes her.

"So," She sighs, feeling his breath against her skin. "When I was a little girl..."


When she was a little girl, she remembers falling off a tree. It had been most traumatizing moment that she never thought she could experience much more physical pain that. Not even in the hands of her then abusive sire, where most of the time she was either drugged or compelled, could she forget the sting of that memory.

And that particular memory replayed in her mind the moment an unbelievable jolt of pain shoot through her entire body. She remembers herself falling, her frail little body hitting the solid ground, little rocks digging behind her back and—

"Oh God, it barely missed." A voice—Rebekah, she thinks—mutters frantically as she feels her hover above her. On the background, she hears a lot of hysterical screaming and... cracking.

And then it all comes back.

It was the night right after the feast.

The attack.

The doppelgänger.

The stake.

Caroline exhales heavily before lifting her hand weakly to feel the wood embedded in her chest. It hurts. It's one thing when she was training with the siblings-she knows they would never hurt her for real-but this...

"We need to get it out!" She hears Kol growl amid Katerina's loud sobbing. She feels him sit beside her, wrap his hands with hers around the stake, and she doesn't miss the guilt swimming in his brown eyes. "This is going to hurt."

And he pulls.

She screams. She screams so much she feels her undead heart will burst. And then she is slipping away. Slowly. Dangerously.

And before he succumbs to the darkness, she sees him—surrounded by dismembered limbs, hands covered in blood. He is furious. Well, Klaus is almost always furious but this is a different kind. Caroline has never seen him like this.

It scares her. She doesn't want her last memory of him to be this monster.


A whole day. She's been out for a whole day, that is as much as Rebekah would tell her when she woke up. Although her tear-streaked face and the way she hisses Klaus' name in disgust says she's not telling Caroline everything.

"Excuse me." Rebekah mumbles, hastily leaving her room when the said brother enters. Caroline doesn't miss the angry look she gives her brother before she walks out of the room. On the other hand, the expression he wears is unreadable and for some reason, Caroline cannot meet his eyes.

"Ho... How is Katerina?" She asks, stuttering, as she fiddles on her nightgown.

"Compelled." He answers curtly.

"Is she unhurt?"

"Yes."

"That's good."

"That's good?" He repeats, his voice mocking. "Aren't you the martyr?"

Her head snaps up to glare at him. "What are you talking about?"

"You just took a stake in the chest." He tells her exasperatedly. "And yet now you speak as if nothing as such happened."

Caroline bites her lip. "I just did what I had to do. I was the closest one to her."

"Nonsense." He mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. Irritated doesn't even cover half of what he is feeling. Inwardly he mocks himself of how this girl—this mere infant—can rouse the most anger in him.

"I swore my life protect her." She says firmly.

In a second, Klaus rises from his chair and lunges toward her. Even with her vampire instincts, she sits frozen in shock as his stern face closes to a breath's distance from hers.

"No." He says grimly. "You swore your life to me. Not to Katerina. Not to anyone... Not to Kol."

"Kol?" She asks. There is something ominous in the way he said his younger brother's name that Caroline cannot just ignore. Instantly, his features soften as he straightens up to turn his back on her. "What happened, Klaus?"

He exhales heavily. "He will be... gone for a while."

"What did you do?" She questions further, panicked, as she stands to grasp his arm. "He's your brother!"

"A brother who has betrayed me!" Klaus growls, facing her, eyes are darkened, "He conspired with Mikael! He almost got my doppelgänger killed... He almost got you killed!"

Caroline looks at him incredulously, her mind drowning in questions. Of course, she has been aware of the their rift with their father. They're all pretty mum about the details. Yet through the years she's been with this family, she always thought the siblings' relationship were unshakable. She cannot believe someone would turn against the other. She cannot believe Kol would be capable of such a thing.

"Our family's predicament is much more complicated than you think it is." Klaus speaks, noticing her confusion. "It needs to be done."

She finds herself nodding at his words as she wraps her arms around her body, hugging herself. She feels the hurt in his voice and she thinks this might be difficult for him too.

"You have to trust me, Caroline." Klaus stands closer to her, tucking a stand of her hair behind her ear. "And please.. Give your life a little more value."

He flashes away before she can respond, leaving her wondering if she is just imagining the lingering kiss she feels on her temple.


Everything crumbles when Katerina escaped.

The sacrifice had been a failure.

Finn was gone.

Kol was gone.

Rebekah was gone.

Elijah was gone.

In the blink of an eye, the famed Mikaelsons, the legend—invincible, unyielding, always and forever—lay ruined.

It didn't actually come as a surprise. The fall-out had been long brewing. Especially after the attack and the betrayal, their ties had been hanging by a thread. Caroline thought it would only be a matter of time before the siblings tried to destroy each other.

And if that ever happened, she thought, she knew who's side she will be, who's side she'll remain.

This is what she tells Rebekah when she asked her to leave with her.

"Why?" The original asks her.

Caroline gives her a sad smile. "If I knew, I'd tell you."

With that, Rebekah hugs Caroline the final time. She is the last to go and Klaus doesn't even see her before she leaves. Caroline hugs her a little longer because of that.

All the while, he is standing quietly by the fountain. Caroline finds him there, straining his ears for the sound of the carriage in the distance. He doesn't turn when she approaches but only murmurs.

"I thought you have left with Rebekah."

"Do you want me to?" She asks warily, afraid of hearing his answer.

He sighs. "You should go."

"Wha—What do you mean?"

He faces her, eyes stern and piercing. "Leave, Caroline."

"But why?" She asks desperately. "I chose to stay with you."

"You aren't indebted to me, love."

"You saved my life."

"And you served me well." He mutters in a cold indifferent voice. "Now, you are free to go."

Freedom. Caroline feels herself becoming even more frustrated. She is alive now because of him. And in all honesty, without him and Rebekah and Kol... she will have nothing. With her human family gone, this is the only life she knows and the only life has. Ever since that day when he offered her the world, she cannot imagine a different one. This freedom he speaks of... is nothing but frightening to her.

A few moments of silence pass before she speaks again, her tone melancholic.

"I swore my life to you, you said so yourself." She tells him. "If I already served my purpose then my life is yours to take." She shakes her head defeatedly. "Nothing matters anymore. I have—"

And then his lips are on hers. His hands cups her face and she finds herself wrapping her arms around his neck. Time seems to slow down around them as they melt in each other's embrace. It lasts long and when she pulls back, she is smiling sweetly until she sees his pupils dilating.

"What the hell are you doing?" She demands, trying to move away but is rendered motionless. "You won't." She whispers. She is crying now and he is still holding her face between his hands. He brushes a tear off her cheek with his thumb.

"It needs to be done."

"Don't you dare tell me that. I will never forgive this." She spits, glaring daggers at him. "I will never forgive you."

Klaus only nods at her and she thinks she sees a tear escape his eye but alas, she'll never be certain. The immense blackness already overtakes her.

.

.

.

.

.


A/N: What can I say? I am also in love Koroline. :)

Anyway, does anything here make sense at all? Unbeta-d and written at, like, 2 o'clock in the morning. I'm sorry.

Anyway 2.0. I decided to wrap up this fic first before going on with Off Limits. I hope to finish this by next week.

Thank you for those who already reviewed this! And really, the overwhelming love I received from my oneshot/drabble series truly inspired me. You guys are beautiful. Please keep 'em coming.