Hi everyone!

I know, I'm a horrible person, sorry for the long wait. I promise the next chapter will come out soon!

This isn't a very long chapter, but before I go deeper into the story I just wanted to give a clear picture of Caroline and Klaus's state of mind, which will explain a LOT of their behavior later on...

Thanks to everyone that reviewed, followed and favored my story, it means more than you know!

Hope you like it, enjoy!

CHAPTER 1

BEASTS AND PRINCES

…only the shadows remain of that which is gone, but oh, it stings still, the faded memory of that warmth, for love is both a balm and a poison that can reach far…

Caroline couldn't sleep.

Not national news material, especially since it had been years since she had managed to have a long, nightmare-free slumber.

Ever since that first night, when she had woken up in transition, scared and alone, surrounded by the scent of death and blood and medicine, Orpheus seemed to have become an elusive friend.

And to be fair, who could blame her for living in a near constant state of restless agitation and dreams that always ended in bloodshed and tears?

Hello, anyone!? After all the horrible…

A chill ran through her, and she opened her eyes, turning again under the covers, starring at the ceiling, trying to steady her emotions.

NO! She wasn't going there. She swore to herself she would never go there again. Last time had been the LAST time. Like, forever.

She wasn't a silly little cheerleader playing the victim act anymore, thank you very much. She was an ass-kicking, smart-mouthed and quick thinking vampire ready to take the world head on. Yep!

No tears and breakdowns for her, no sir. She was sooooo over THAT Caroline.

So what if she had been tortured? Three times. Once by her own father. For days.

Who cared if she had been brutally, and repeatedly, touched against her will in the worse way any woman could be touched?

Should the world stop turning if she could no longer set foot inside her house, actually, scratch that, her entire home town?

Was it really that big of a deal if every man she ever loved had turned around and chosen anyone and anything over her?

Or that her best friend, one for whom she had killed and done horrible thing for, had desperately tried to cut all and any ties to her and left her behind like she had never existed?

I mean, really now, hadn't Elena been through worse? Or Bonnie, who was still stuck in someone else's personalized hell? Or Enzo, or Alaric, or Matt, or…

Her mind was racing, reciting a long, well memorized, list of excuses and names, but somehow it just didn't seem to be calming her.

Ugh! It was one of THOSE nights.

She had no idea why her method had stopped working.

Because yes, Caroline Forbes being who she was, she had a well studied, clinically approved (not that she had spent hours pouring over psychology books to be able to claim that, nope, not at all…) and orderly method to keep her self pity in check. And it had worked just fine, it really had, until that night a few days ago in her car, after the disaster dinner with Stefan. That was the first time her impeccably studied method had failed her.

Caroline opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, knowing there was no way she would get some much needed beauty sleep. Slowly she got up from bed, careful not to wake Elena. Her eyes fell on the empty bed in the corner. Bonnie's bed…

No Caroline, hold it. — she thought

Sadness and tears would have to wait.

She took off her pajamas and got dressed as stealthy and quickly as she could. She was out the dorm room within minutes.

She made her way through the campus and into the woods. Further and further, walking fast, hoping no one would see her. The deeper she went, the calmer she felt. Finally, after what could have been hours or mere minutes, she reached her destination.

In her whole 19 years of living in Mystic Falls, and she only had discovered this place during the past summer. She had been lost in thought, after having discarded the latest lead on how to undo traveler magic, trying to rack her brain on what to do next, and she had stumbled upon this little corner of the world. I mean literally stumbled. She hadn't been looking where she was walking and her foot got caught in a root that stood out from the ground. Cursing her clumsiness she had massaged her leg and looked around.

It was a small clearing in the woods, nothing special really, but it spoke to her. The trees around her were bare, the leaves almost all gone, fallen to the ground where they lay, like a carpet of gold and red and millions of different shades of warm colors. The sky was darkening, but she didn't even notice. The whole place seemed to shine its own light. A couple of fallen trees and branches created something that looked like a sculpture on one side, intricate and solid and beautiful, directly opposite a strange group of small bowlders, made from a whitish rock she couldn't identify.

For some reason she didn't even want to begin to explain, this little forsaken corner of the world had felt more like home that any other place in the world.

It had taken her a while to recognize the feeling, and even if a small part of her brain screamed at her that this couldn't be normal, she just couldn't help it. She felt safe and warm and, in some crazy way that would have made Sigmund Freud proud of her, loved.

She basked in that feeling, sitting there, on fallen leaves and broken twigs, smiling like a child on Christmas morning.

It wasn't until sunset that she shook herself out of her happy stupor and returned to Whitmore, with renowned hope and far more optimistic than before.

This is where she headed tonight, and where she had spent more nights than she cared to admit in the past few months.

She sat on one of the fallen logs, hugging her knees tightly, and at last allowed he mind to wander freely.

Here she was just Caroline.

Not Elena's best friend, not Stefan's god knows what now, not Damon's favorite joke, nor Enzo's new project/quest/whatever. She wasn't the Sheriff's shallow and giddy disappointment. She didn't have to be bubbly or cheerful or nice. She didn't have to pretend to be less smart, or less intuitive. There was no need for her to wear her well polished, dumb blonde smile. She didn't have to hide her pain.

It was one of those nights when, try as she might, she just couldn't pretend to be the Caroline others had shaped and moulded.

These were the nights when she allowed herself to cry.

And cry she did.

Hot, salty tears and chocking sobs that left her breathless and exhausted.

Her mind no longer tried to avoid the painful memories and horrifying images that haunted her. She just…let go.

It was a while before the sobs finally subsided and she was able to think clearly once again.

She just couldn't figure out why this was hitting her so hard all of a sudden. If she was going to have a breakdown, it should have happened a long time ago. Her method had worked so far, her list of names and reasons had always kept her on track. Why had her fight with Stefan changed that?

Ok, yes, Stefan was her best friend, emphasis on WAS. And yes, it really hurt that he only saw her with brotherly eyes.

Stefan was everything she had ever wanted, the man of her dreams. Kind and understanding, with a smile that could stop any supermodel on her tracks and a heart as big as they come. His soul, as tortured and maimed as it was, never really gave way. His humanity was still there, challenged but alive and in full force.

He had done terrible things, but he wasn't a terrible person.

And he cared for her, or so she had thought.

He had been the online who had ever stopped and asked her how she felt or bothered to care about what she wanted. Maybe she never had the same priority as Elena had on his to do list, but still…not even Tyler, hell, not even her own MOTHER had ever cared enough to stop and wonder about little old Caroline.

And after Elena had chosen Damon and Stefan had made his peace with it she just…let her hopes up a little too much. She felt like it was the natural course of things, to come after her. To be the one he could project all that epic love on after Elena had thrown it to the wind.

Didn't she deserve at least that?

Caroline had come to the grim, yet realistic, conclusion that she was no princess with a knight in shining armor waiting around the corner for her a long time ago. Epic loves and happily ever afters hadn't been written for her. She was more like one of those characters on the background, ever present in the stories but never at the center.

Elena and Stefan were the main story. One of those tragic Titanic type love stories, that made it into songs and sonnets, that made little girls sigh and men roll their eyes.

Caroline was the one that came after. That girl that would never really be THE one, but came as close to it as the hero could hope for. Like Rose's husband after Jack.

She had hoped to be at least worthy of THIS.

But no. As it seemed, she had fooled herself one again. She hadn't been important enough for him to try, for him not to give up, for him to stay…Just like with Klaus…

Shit.

Caroline took one, deep, calming breath. Then another, and another. She should have known this train of thought would end up here. The sorest bruise of them all.

She would never, ever, dare to say it out loud, but she hadn't wanted him to go.

Caroline had tried to be strong as he walked away, watching with a sense of deep dread every step he had taken away from her. Inside, she had been screaming for him to stop, to come back, to stay, to take her with him. But she didn't say a word. She simply stood there, barefoot in the middle of the forest watching as he disappeared behind the trees, tears silently falling down her cheeks.

She hadn't really meant it, you see. Yes, she had plans, and yes, they didn't include him. She would finish her first year in college and choose a major, then graduate with honors. She would do a bit of traveling then, maybe tour Europe for a few months. Then she would move to some big city, like New York, or Boston perhaps, and find a job. Have a career and a few hobbies to fill the time. It was all planned out.

But what she kept to herself is that she wished they did include him. Because when she looked at him, for the first time since she had first laid her eyes on Damon Salvatore, she had allowed herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, she had a shot at a happy ending.

Pathetic right? Hoping that your prince charming is a millennium old monster, who had probably been the source of inspiration for every horror story ever told.

Still, somewhere along the way she had started to believe him, to think that it was more than just a game to get into her pants.

She had fallen for it. All the charming words and beautiful promises, the lavish presents and stolen glances. No matter how guarded she kept her fragile, bandaged heart, he always found that one little crack to wiggle in. In the end, she had given in, hoping he would pass that unspoken test she had presented him.

He failed. He left.

All that was left for her to do was dust the pieces of her, once again, broken soul and gulp them back down, where she wouldn't see, where she didn't have to face the fact that he was gone.

That was when her emotions had caught up with what her rational mind had been telling her all along. She finally realized that happy endings just didn't happen to people like her.

Because, in real life, beasts don't turn into princes.

They look you in the eye and lie. They make you feel special, like they are showing you a part of themselves that no one has ever seen. Glimpses of emotions, hints of sincerity, grand gestures of love and pretty words that take hold on that hidden part of you that still believes in "once upon a time" stories. You turn into putty in their experienced hands (and oh my, were his experienced…), and all it takes is for them to catch you in a vulnerable moment, when you are desperate for something good to hold on to in the dark, and you fall.

And it felt good, oh, so good, to fall on him. The way he looked at her. The butterflies in her stomach and how his muscles seemed to contract under her slightest touch.

The taste of his lips, his strong, calloused hands mapping her body, touching her with featherlight roughness, as if he feared if he held her too close she would crumble in his hands. The look in his eyes when he filled her for the first time, shocked and lost and full of unconditional love…Like a scene from a romantic comedy, she swore she even heard music. The magic of love and all that. A dream come true.

But now it was a nightmare. It had all been a lie, she only saw what she wanted to see…what he had wanted her to see.

During those rare nights that she actually managed to sleep, there he was. His strong hands, the taste of his skin, that beautiful expression after their first round, when neither spoken, eyes locked in each other's gaze, as if he was staring at the most precious thing in the world. She had felt so complete, so content. She didn't even imagine, in her wildest dreams, that these sensations even existed. Then he was gone, and she felt more empty than ever.

She tried to pick herself up and forget.

She destroyed the drawing to prove to her friends that it had meant nothing.

She sold the magnificent blue dress to prove to her mother that she was over it.

She fed like a starving animal her crush for Stefan, to prove to herself that she could still find someone else.

Nothing worked.

She regretted the drawing, and retrieved as many shards of it as she could.

She secretly bought the dress back and hid it under a floor board in her old room.

She allowed herself to have feelings for someone who was a better person, with an actual functioning humanity, and felt worse than before.

And that had broken her. Because if even someone like Stefan, with his big mushy heart, couldn't stand to be around he…It was proof of her most dreaded fear.

Her father, Matt, Damon, Tyler, Stefan…Klaus…they weren't the problem. SHE was.

And they were right, weren't they? Just look at her now. Alone, sitting in on a fallen branch in the middle of nowhere, crying over herself like a stupid child.

Wasn't she never this side of herself? Hadn't she learned to keep her damn emotions in check? Nope. She was still the insecure loser that she had been as a human.

No. No more.

Caroline stood up abruptly.

This was pathetic. She had to stop thinking about the past, look forward and keep her head on the problems at hand: bring Bonnie back, then undo the Traveler's curse.

Yes, that is what she needed. Just like she did with her hunger, if she managed to keep her mind from thinking about it, the pain would go away. All she had to do was keep busy until she forgot about it. She had a system, if she didn't stray from it like tonight, she would be fine.

She looked up only to see the horizon starting to lighten. She smiled to herself, drying the remaining tars that still lingered on her face. A new day awaited her, no more time for tears.

She had work to do.

She took stock of herself, dusted her clothes and pushed her hair out of her face. To hell with pain. She would shove it back where it came from and be happy, period. End of discussion.

Her smile widened. With her conviction more resilient with every step, she headed back to her dorm room, feeling much better with herself, and wondering if she would still have time to take a nap before Elena woke her up…

What she didn't notice were the pair of wide eyes that followed her as she made her way back, or the fact that the clearing was just behind that imaginary line traced by the Traveler's curse, right at the edge of Mystic Falls.

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