I do not own TVD or The Originals. No copyright infringement intended!
As many of you have learned, I haven't written on for quite some time, but something in Liv's notes caught my attention and inspired me to jump back in. I hope that you'll enjoy it, too.
While there may be some things that are canon, I don't plan on sticking to events exactly as they occurred especially since we know virtually nothing about Marcel and his relationship with Klaus...but that's the beauty of fiction it can go anywhere.
With that said, thanks for reading, reviewing, favoriting and following!
Caroline looked up at Klaus and saw his fangs protrude and his eyes flash yellow as he growled her captors name.
"Marcel."
She tried to escape his grasp as fear cascaded over her, but Klaus quickly shuttered his rage.
"I'm sorry love. I won't hurt you." He crooned as he rested his chin against her head and rubbed his hand carefully over her back.
When Caroline relaxed again, he quietly asked for more information.
"When did he take you? Do you remember where you were?"
"He took me the night Tyler and I broke up. I was upset, so I went for a drive. I parked out near Wickery Bridge and I was going to send you a text...but, then he approached me. When I came to, I was in a dark room, but I could here the sounds of a city around me. It wasn't until later that I learned where I'd been taken."
"He took you right to New Orleans?" Klaus asked as calmly as he could, so as not to alarm her.
"I think so. I don't remember the trip at all." Caroline explained.
"And you've been there for a year?" He asked with the calm in his voice fading.
"What!? No...I was only gone for a few weeks!" She answered as panic started to break the surface again.
"Were you drinking vervain when he took you?"
"Of course. You've met my mother, right?" Caroline said looking as if he'd sprouted a second head.
"And you don't remember anything between the first time you saw Marcel and when you discovered you were in New Orleans?"
"No?" She said, though it came out as more of a question than a statement.
"Oh god! Have I really been gone for a year? What must my mom think? How come no one came looking for me?" She wondered aloud.
Klaus could feel the rage simmering in his gut. He was downright murderous, but he was doing everything he could to tamp it down, in order to keep her calm.
"Caroline, I looked EVERYWHERE for you. Your mother even helped me, and you know she's not my biggest fan. You had just vanished, and every time I thought I was on the right track, every trace would just disappear."
"No. No! Just NO! I would know if I'd been gone for a year!" She said as she pulled her knees into her chest and began to rock back and forth. "I want to see my mom!"
"You need to calm down, love. This isn't good for you, and you need to feed. You can't see your mother until you feed." Klaus reasoned.
In an instant, she went from panic back to the tears...Klaus realized in that moment he preferred the panic to the tears.
"Please, love. Drink this." Klaus said as he picked up the glass that held the intoxicating blood she had smelled earlier.
"What if I don't?" She asked.
Klaus felt his own panic rise again as he considered losing her, just as she was returned to him.
"I could make you." Klaus said softly as he avoided her eyes.
"When I first met you, I might have believed that...but not anymore."
"You'd be surprised, love. I was starting to think I'd never see you again, and then there you were on my doorstep. Right about now, I think I'd do anything to keep you." He whispered.
Klaus knew full well that he would force her to drink, if it became necessary.
"I don't believe you would hurt me, regardless of what I know you are capable of."
Klaus simply nodded. He didn't want to get into a discussion of his past transgressions now. He didn't want to bring more fear when he had been a source of comfort, even if it wasn't meant to last.
"Love, I need you to feed. You are still healing and I'm not prepared to watch you die on me twice in a matter of hours. Please. I won't let you hurt anyone that doesn't deserve hurting. I give you my word." Klaus said as he handed her the glass.
"If you prefer, I'm sure I could get Stefan over here to hunt with you. Though, even he'll tell you that you will have to know what it's like to crave human blood, before you can really commit to an alternative. A very smart blonde once told me that I could take what I needed without killing." Klaus said before he leaned in and whispered in her ear, "She was right you know."
"I remember that!" Caroline practically shouted with pure joy.
It hurt him to know that whatever gaps she had in her memory wouldn't stay forgotten for long. And Klaus knew that there wouldn't be a single memory that brought her joy from the last year.
"Would you like for me to call Stefan, love?"
"You would do that for me?"
"Only for you. I abhor the thought of drinking from an overgrown rodent with long ears...no matter how adorable they are."
Caroline smiled at his disdain and whispered, "Please, I'd like to see him. My mom, too."
Klaus looked slightly dejected, but he picked up the phone to call Stefan and started to walk into the hallway.
"I'll drink it. I don't want to die. Just promise me that you won't let me hurt anyone, Klaus."
"I can't guarantee you'll never hurt anyone, but I will do my best, love."
Caroline wanted to sip at the blood, but the second it bathed her tongue she gulped it down greedily.
Klaus took the glass and said, "I'll call Stefan, then we can call your mother together. Okay, love?"
Caroline nodded as she stood and walked over to the mirror.
He watched her for a minute before he pressed send and headed down to the stairs to give her a few moments to herself.
A second or two later, Stefan answered, "Klaus, I have no idea where Katherine is."
"I don't care where Katherine is. I don't need her anymore. Caroline is here."
"She's what? Where has she been? Is she okay?" Stefan shouted somewhere between astonishment and excitement.
"She turned up on my doorstep an hour ago, but..."
"Does Sheriff Forbes know?" Stefan interrupted.
"No. I haven't called her yet. I really need you to see her before we call."
"Okay...can I ask why?" Stefan asked.
"She needs help, the kind of help I'm afraid only you can offer."
"What could I possibly do for….she's been turned, hasn't she?" Stefan said as he finally understood why Klaus would even bother to call him.
"I never intended for that to happen…."
"You turned her!" Stefan roared.
"Stefan, I had little choice. She was right here, and her injuries were so severe. I thought I could help her, heal her...but it wasn't enough. I fed her my blood before I saw the worst of her wounds. I watched it recede as she fed, but the moment she stopped I watched every mark begin to return. Without my blood, we would be calling her mother to plan her funeral. Now, I know Sheriff Forbes isn't a fan of our kind, or my family, but I'd like to believe Caroline in any "living" form is better than the hollow shell of a girl that ended up on my doorstep dying, just an hour ago!"
"Sheriff Forbes is far more accepting of vampires since you took it upon yourself to find her daughter." Stefan said into the phone moments before Klaus swung the front door open for him.
"She might not feel that way when I tell her that Caroline might have been taken because of me."
"How do you figure?"
"She was taken by a vampire. He told her he was the King of New Orleans. He told her to tell ME that he was the King of New Orleans."
"And this means something to you?" Stefan asked.
"It means that one of the vampires I sired so many years ago has decided to stage a coup. This was a message for me. He hurt her, tortured her and branded her with his bite and it was all to get to me."
"He knows you can't be killed...does he know that you are also a hybrid?"
"I'm not certain, but I'll be sure to ask him as I remove every bone in his body before I RIP his heart from his chest!" Klaus growled.
"Caroline is going to need to feed. So, let's put the vengeance on a shelf for the time being. She needs you more than you need to end this….does this King of New Orleans have a name?" Stefan asked.
"His name is Marcel."
Stefan nodded as he handed Klaus a cooler.
"What's this?"
"I know you don't keep much blood on hand for such an occasion, since you prefer to drink from something with a pulse. So, I brought you a few dozen blood bags."
"I thought maybe she'd prefer to hunt with you."
"As much as I'd like to get her on an animal diet, you and I both know she needs to get her cravings under control before she can see her mother. This is the best way."
Klaus nodded as he led the way up to his room with Stefan following behind. They paused outside of his door as Stefan said, "What does she remember?"
"Nothing so far. She remembers the fear, but nothing else...not even how she ended up on my door step."
"She was compelled?"
Klaus nodded as he said, "She thought she'd been gone a few days, Stefan."
"You know it's all going to come flooding back once she makes it through the transition." Stefan said solemnly.
Klaus nodded again, knowing whatever she remembered was going to be painful for her and for everyone who cared about her.
His fingers closed over the door knob just as he heard a blood curdling scream.
"Klaus!" Caroline wailed.
He and Stefan flew into the room and saw Caroline curled up in front of the now broken mirror in his bathroom. Blood covered her hands and splattered against her pale skin. For the first time that Klaus could recall he wanted to cry as he witnessed the only woman he'd give anything to protect shatter before his very eyes.
He fell to his knees beside her and lifted her shaking frame into his arms. Her eyes were haunted as fat tears clung to her lashes and spilled down her cheeks while she gasped for a breath that she didn't require any longer.
In that moment, he was certain that Marcel had managed to pull his heart from his chest without ever laying a finger on him. He watched in horror as this precious creature lay crying in his arms, reliving each and every bite. Klaus knew it was possible that her wounds were far worse than those which had prominently marked her skin. She had survived, but he could see the pain flash over her as she watched the memories like a bad horror movie.
After what seemed an eternity, her features relaxed as her body went still. He knew she'd endured all she could, and now they would have to wait and see how she came out of it.
He gently lifted her from the floor and carried her to his bed where Stefan helped wiped the remnants of blood from her hands, which had already begun to heal. Once that was done, Stefan pulled a blood bag from the cooler and held it to her lips watching as she hungrily gulped down its contents.
Stefan discarded the empty bag as Caroline curled in on herself. Klaus looked almost as broken as Caroline, it was a sight that he'd never expected to see from the hybrid he'd always known as selfish and cold as ice.
As the pair moved towards the door, they heard Caroline stir. Her voice was so soft, they would never have heard it if they'd been human.
"I want my mom."
"Anything, love." Klaus answered as he left Stefan standing in the doorway and disappeared into the night.
Not ten minutes later, Stefan heard a car pull into the drive.
Stefan watched as Klaus walked through the door with Sheriff Forbes in tow. The woman had always been brave beyond what was reasonable for someone in her position in a town full of supernatural beings, but in this moment he saw her in a whole new light.
"Caroline?" She whispered as she walked slowly towards her daughter.
Her hands shook as she reached out for her and tears fell freely from her cheeks the second she touched her daughter.
"Mom?" Caroline cried as she turned around and flung her arms around her neck.
"I'm so sorry, mom." Caroline whispered.
"It's okay Caroline. I'm here."
In an instant, Caroline's eyes turned as black as an oil slick, black veins crept over her cheeks and her fangs erupted from her gums.
Yes, this was mean...I know. I promise the pay off will be worth it :)
Hope you like where it's going so far! And thank you to everyone who has read and especially those who have taken the time to review. Love you guys :)
Erin
