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3x20: Do Not Go Gentle

Chapter 1: Caroline

"You do something to me. Something that simply mystifies me. Tell me, why should it be you have the power to hypnotize me?

The feel of Tyler's body. The look in his dark eyes that speaks more than words. The way his hands hold her so gently. The feel of his hair under her hand. The music, its jazzy, seductive rhythm. The singer's raw voice.

It's all that matters at this moment, this perfect, slow moment.

It's intimate moments like these that Caroline always gets lost in. She likes the silence between them. It makes engraving everything into her memory so that it lasts a life time so much easier. After all, no one is safe in Mystic Falls anymore. If anything should go wrong, it's these moments that Caroline wants to take with her forever.

And things are about to go very wrong, indeed.

Tyler's attention turns to something, someone, standing not to far away. Fear flickers through his orbs as he stares.

"What is it?" Caroline asks, as they stop their swaying and her hands drop before turning to greet the interloper.

"Where've you been, mate?" he asks, his tone wary but gentle, if such a thing were possible. They watch as Klaus approaches them, dressed in white, looking as if Jay Gatsby himself walked right out of a page in the classic novel, his question still hanging in the air.

She moved her hands to rest on Tyler's shoulder as he replies, his arm still curved around her waist, clutching her to him.

"I just got back in town," Tyler responds, casually but just as wary as Klaus. Caroline was sure that if his heart still beat, it would be pumping a thousand miles a minute.

"That's funny," Klaus says, his face hardening as he studies them both intently, trying to figure out how Tyler had snuck away under his nose. "I don't recall giving you permission to leave in the first place."

Tyler doesn't respond. He's nervous, that much Caroline can tell and she doesn't blame him. One wrong word and Klaus will figure it out. One wrong sentence and Caroline feels sure that there would be a blood bath right here, in the middle of the dance floor. She studies Tyler's face anxiously, her own void of all emotion.

"You don't mind if I cut in, do you?" Klaus continues when Tyler doesn't answer, striding confidently towards them, arrogance radiating off of him. He's so close that Caroline could reach out and smack him right across the face, but she doesn't.

So she uses her words instead. "Yes, actually. We do," she replies sharply, her eyes leaving Tyler's poker face to glare at the Original. She curses herself as soon as she does, but she doesn't let the effect his kind, angelic features have on her show. For a split second, Klaus looks defeated, but Caroline should know better than to feel proud of herself.

Klaus looks down at the floor before staring up at Tyler under his eyelashes, giving him a pointed look. His eyebrows raise quickly.

Tyler lets out a breath and Caroline feels it against her face. "No," he replies slowly and Caroline looks at him, trying to mask her surprise. She knew as soon as they saw Klaus that this moment would come, Caroline just wishes that she had been better prepared for it. Tyler looks back at her before turning so Klaus can hear him, not meeting the Original hybrid's gaze. "It's fine."

He then backs away and Caroline reluctantly turns to face the devil. "Why do you always have to prove you're the alpha male?" she asks, truly angry that Klaus always has to show his power over others.

"I don't have to prove anything, love," he says quickly, trying to recover from his dented pride. "I am the alpha male."

Caroline rolls her eyes, scoffs, and crosses her arms. This man aggravates her to the extreme. His suffocating arrogance, his intoxicating good looks, the fact that he is a psychopathic murder.

But all of this makes Caroline's glare relax as he smirks.

"Come on," he says, almost pleadingly. "One dance," he holds out his hand. She hesitates. "I won't bite," he says, smirking, again, at his obvious jib at Tyler. The look stays on his face as Caroline turns to look at Tyler. Her boyfriend's face is a mask. So, with a pout, she turns back to Klaus and heavily lays her hand in his own.

And he smiles, genuinely smiles, if only for a second, as he leads Caroline slowly out to the dance floor, his hand softly gripping her own. But his face quickly becomes a soft mask again as his blue eyes study her intently, as if she's some puzzle he's trying to put together.

And its all of this that begins to melt Caroline's dead heart.

It doesn't help when she twirls awkwardly under his arm and he catches her on the other side, his hand comfortably resting on the small of her back, his other, much larger hand gripping her small on with a gentle firmness that only Klaus could pull off.

The touch feels kind, almost natural. But Caroline knows that it should be completely, totally, one hundred percent wrong.

But it doesn't stop her from casually resting her hand on his broad shoulder. There's nothing wrong with that, right? They are dancingafter all.

At least she makes a point of looking anywhere but his blue eyes. Caroline knows that if she gives him that luxury, it will be all over, she'd get lost in all his talk ofgenuine beauty, or whatever it was he called it.

They're too close for Klaus to gaze at her continually but she feels his eyes wander over her face a couple times, trying to break through her carefully constructed wall.

"You would have loved the nineteen twenties, Caroline," Caroline still doesn't look at him, but the way he says her name…no one has ever said her name like that before, so tender, as if the word itself might break if said too forcefully. He continues and she can hear the smile in his accented voice. "Girls were reckless. Sexy," he whispers the scandalous word, the air tickling her cheek as he tilts his head to watch her. Caroline dangerously lets her eyes wander over his face. "Fun," she can hear the beginning of a smile in his enchanting voice, his intense blue orbs lingering on her face. "They literally used to dance until they dropped."

She would be lying if she said that his quick twirl didn't catch her breath. She would be lying if she said his pure, dimpled smile didn't send butterflies flying around in her stomach. She would be lying if she said that she didn't like the proximity of their bodies, the feel of his muscle against her, the smell of him. It was all too intoxicating.

Disgusted with herself, Caroline pushed those thoughts out of her mind, ignored the lyrics of the song that was playing, and lied to herself.

She let out a short, humorless laugh. "I don't suppose that ever happened to their dance partners," she replies with a bite, letting her eyes regard him coldly before looking away to study anything but his face.

"You should be nicer to me," he whispers again, his voice husky, glancing at her sideways. "I'm leaving town tomorrow."

This time, Caroline can't stop herself from pulling back to look at his face. Her breathing quickens and she curses herself because she knows he can feel it. But she can't help but feel as if her heart's been yanked out of her chest as the lyrics of the song break through her carefully constructed defenses. She looks at him with wide, unbelieving eyes, not wanting to hear a word he says. The thought of him leaving truly scares her. The thought of not seeing his pretty blue eyes, dirty blonde curls, and dimples...

The thought of someone else leaving her is too much to think about.

So, she pushes those feelings away and tells herself she is just surprised because she didn't expect him to be gone so suddenly, so quietly. Caroline tells herself that she is just surprised he, finally, leaving them all alone.

"I'd invite you to come with me," he continues, her eyes still wide, studying his face. "But we both know that you're not ready to accept my offer."

Caroline feels relieved when he breaks the eye contact. She goes back to staring over his shoulder. She finds Tyler standing patiently, waiting for her to return to him. She begins control her breathing.

"Perhaps, one day," he muses. "In a year, or even in a century, you'll turn up at my door and let me show you what the world has to offer," he says and the emotion that bleeds through his voice his genuine and she is nearly convinced go with him. But, thankfully, she finds Tyler in the crowd once again and Klaus stops their rhythmic, intimate, sexy, swaying.

How could she leave this life without a backward glance? She couldn't, not now, maybe not ever, no matter how romantic and enticing Klaus made it sound. And with that, Caroline finds her resolve again. She scoffs, breaking their intense, butterfly-causing eye contact, and slightly shakes her head at him, forcing herself to believe that he's being ridiculous. They let go of each other, disentangling their bodies.

She almost regrets it when he dejectedly looks down at the floor. Almost.

"You mark my words," he says, his eyes, now a dark blue, finding their way back to her face. "A small town boy…a small town life. It won't be enough for you."

And then he's gone. Caroline watches him walk away, her heart feeling heavy in her chest as her hopes and dreams vanish. Her brow is still creased as she finds her way back to Tyler.

And at the very end of the night, after everything is said and done, when she leaves the old cemetery, Caroline lets herself think. Her heart hurts, not only because of Alaric, but because of Klaus. No one had ever been able to see her so clearly, no one has ever looked at her the way he does, not even Tyler. But she also wished Klaus could see that she was scared, not just that she was beautiful, strong, and full of light, as he had so eloquently put it a few weeks ago.

As much as she wanted to pack up and leave, escape, she couldn't. Caroline was too scared. Mystic Falls was all she had ever known and the world was a very, very big place.

Caroline let a few tears escape as she curled up in her bed and thought of how her hand had rested comfortably on his chest. She thinks about how his hand felt as it caressed the small of her back protectively, how his arm was draped casually around her waist, how she liked the feeling of her small hand in his much larger one, reminding her how small she was in the grand scheme of things compared to how big he was. She believed that he would protect her from all harm, deep down she knows he would.

Caroline thinks of all these thing futilely. As much as she would like to run to him now, she can't. He was right, she isn't ready. She's too scared, so she hides under the safety of her blankets and dreams of everything he could give her.